UNRAVELING THE ANTHROPOLOGICAL-EXISTENTIAL SIGNIFICANCE OF TRANSCENDENTAL PROPOSITIONS

: Kant labels his transcendental propositions as “ principles ” instead of mathematical “ theorems ” because they have the quite peculiar property of “ making possible their ground of proof ( Beweisgrund ), namely experience ” . The paper introduces an original reading. Importantly, this reading does not conflict with established interpretations, as it does not touch on the core focus of Kant's first Critique — examining the possibility of cognition ( Erkenntnis ). The emphasis is on the anthropological sense of Kant's key question: “ What is man? ” The proposal suggests that “ possible experience ” can be anthropologically understood as the possibility of understanding ourselves as human beings. Our understanding of ourselves dispenses with concepts made a priori, such as mathematical and formal ones. In contrast, without categories (and thus without transcendental propositions), we cannot comprehend ourselves as inhabitants of a world of persistent objects and events that interact causally in space and time. According to this interpretation, a “ synthetic a priori proposition ” , in Kant's view, is one whose truth depends on the world, not conceptual relations. Nonetheless, it is a priori in a quite specific sense — it is essential for our understanding as human beings.

Kant e-prints, Campinas, v. 18, pp.[50][51][52][53][54][55][56][57][58][59][60][61][62][63]2023 between the dogmatic and mathematical uses of pure reason.Additionally, he identifies two categories of synthetic a priori propositions: mathematical and metaphysical.While the synthetic a priori propositions of mathematics are "theorems" (Lehrsätze) whose proof is based on a priori or pure intuitions, the synthetic a priori propositions of metaphysics are called "principles" (Grundsätze) because they have the special property of making their ground of proof (Beweisgrund), namely experience, first possible and must always be presupposed in this" (see KrV, A737/B765). 1   Kant argues that in "dogmatic" metaphysics, metaphysical propositions are misunderstood because they are equated with mathematical theorems (Lehrsätze) that can be derived from axioms by a priori intuitions.In contrast, in his critical philosophy, metaphysical propositions are referred to as "principles" (Grundsätze), i.e., propositions with a unique proof method, namely the proof that such principles are necessary for possible experience.Regarding this, "transcendental" does not refer to any a priori or pure propositions whose truth is independent of experience but only to a priori propositions that make experience possible in the first place.
The idea of a special method of transcendental proof gave rise to decades of debate about the nature of so-called "transcendental arguments".It begins with a single mention in Strawson's (1959) book and Stroud's (1968) renowned refutation.Since then, the argument has continued to be heated. 2The discussion centers on multiple axes.The first question is whether the transcendental argument is a Kantian refutation of global skepticism.If this was Kant's intent, the second question is what form of global skepticism he would have aimed for with his arguments if he had achieved his goal.If the alleged transcendental argument is indeed anti-skeptical, the new question is whether or not it is effective.In the nineties of the previous century, a consensus arose regarding the following thesis: "world-directed" or 1 The same idea appears in several passages of the Critique.For example, Kant claims that without a priori concepts (of transcendental propositions), "nothing is possible as an object of experience.The objective validity of the categories as a priori concepts rests on the fact that through them alone is experience possible" (KrV, A93/B126, emphasis in original)."The possibility of experience is, therefore, what gives us all our cognitions a priori objective reality" (KrV, A156/B185, emphasis in original)."The conditions of the possibility of experience, in general, are at the same time the conditions of the possibility of the objects of experience, and on this account have objective reality in synthetic judgment a priori" (KrV, A158/B197, emphasis in original)."Through concepts of the understanding, however, it certainly erects secure principles, not directly from concepts, rather always indirectly through the relation of these concepts to something contingent, namely possible experience" (KrV, A737/B765, emphasis in original). 2Considering what was published in the twenty-first century, the literature is enormous.See Bardon 2005Bardon , 2006;;Bell, 1999;Callanan, 2006Callanan, , 2011;;Caranti, 2017;Cassam, 2007;Chang, 2008;Dicker, 2008;D'Oro, 2019;Finnis, 2011;Franks, 2005;Giladi, 2016;Glock, 2003;Grundmann and Misselhorn, 2003;Houlgate, 2015;Lockie, 2018;McDowell, 2006;Mizrahi, 2012;Rähme, 2017;Rockmore & Breazeale, 2014;Russell & Reynolds, 2011;Stapleford, 2008;Stern, 2007;Vahid, 2011;Wang, 2012;Westphal, 2004."truth-directed" transcendental arguments are doomed to fail (see Peacocke, 1989, p. 4;and Cassam, 1999, p. 83).3At most, transcendental arguments could establish the essential connections between our conceptual scheme's primary concepts (see Strawson, 1984;Stroud, 1999;Stern, 2007).However, a minority still believes in the viability of world-directed transcendental proofs.
Indeed, there are connections between Kant's special transcendental methods of proof and the transcendental proposition, as in several cases, we characterize a proposition by its method of proof, and as we shall see below, several readings of transcendental propositions rely on a prior understanding of "possible experience" as forms of transcendental argument.In any case, the present article is only concerned with such a "peculiar method" of proof to the extent that it facilitates comprehension of the transcendental proposition, which is the main topic.The multi-decade debate over the nature and efficacy of transcendental arguments is none of our business.We are interested in what Kant calls "transcendental propositions".Kant referred to these propositions as synthetic a priori transcendental propositions.What are they exactly?
There are several well-established interpretations of this.The paper introduces a completely original reading.Importantly, this reading does not conflict with established interpretations, as it does not touch on the core focus of Kant's first Critique-examining the possibility of cognition (Erkenntnis).The emphasis is on the anthropological sense of Kant's key question: "What is man?" (Log, 9: 25).The proposal suggests that "possible experience" can be anthropologically understood as the possibility of understanding ourselves as human beings.Our understanding of ourselves dispenses with concepts made a priori, such as mathematical and formal ones.In contrast, without categories (and thus without transcendental propositions), we cannot comprehend ourselves as inhabitants of a world of persistent objects and events that interact causally in space and time.According to this interpretation, a "synthetic a priori proposition", in Kant's view, is one whose truth depends on the world, not conceptual relations.Nonetheless, it is a priori in a quite specific sense-it is essential for our understanding as human beings.
This paper is organized as follows: In the section following this brief introduction, we will appreciate Kant's view on the tertium connecting the concept predicate with the conceptual subject in the case of synthetic a priori propositions, especially transcendental ones.After discarding several possible readings, we reach an aporetic conclusion: what Kant calls a tertium cries out for interpretation.
In the third section, we appreciate the mainstream reading of "possible experience" as the possibility of objectively representing objects.We argue that this reading finds no support in Kant's writings and is at odds with what makes transcendental deduction inevitable for Kant, namely, the metaphysical fact that we can already represent objects without categories or transcendental propositions through our senses alone.The reading that best fits Kant's transcendental deduction is to assume that "possible experience" means the possibility of recognizing that what we represent through our senses exists objectively as a precondition for Newtonian mechanics.
In the fourth and final section, we present our alternative existential reading.This reading is not meant to exclude any other.It is compatible with the two interpretations considered last.It is based on Kant's distinction between concepts made a priori and concepts given a priori.The claim is that transcendental propositions are indispensable for understanding ourselves as human beings, i.e., as inhabitants of a world of persistent objects and events that interact causally in space and time.

On the supreme principle of all synthetic judgments
Given that for Kant, all propositions have a categorical form, namely, a predicate concept is predicated of whatever a subject concept represents, then all synthetic propositions require a tertium that connects the two main concepts of a synthetic proposition.
What is this tertium in the particular case of transcendental propositions?We can rule out a priori three possible readings without much thinking.The first considers this tertium as an empirical or a posteriori sensory intuition representing something particular.A particular empirical intuition cannot be the required tertium because Kant talks about a priori and not a posteriori propositions.Empirical intuitions are the basis for justifying a posteriori proposition.
Empirical intuitions are excluded a priori.
For equally obvious reasons, the tertium cannot be an a priori or a pure intuition, for as we have seen, a transcendental proposition is not an a priori mathematical theorem whose proof rests on axioms, which in turn rest on a priori intuitions (construction of concepts).
They are principles (which first make experience possible).Let us now take stock and consider what Kant says in the section entitled "On the supreme principle of all synthetic judgments" (KrV, A114/B193).Kant names three candidates for the conditions of "possible experience:" If it is thus conceded that [in the case of synthetic a priori propositions] one must go beyond a given concept in order to compare it synthetically with another, a third thing is necessary in which alone the synthesis of two concepts can originate.But now, what is this third thing, as the medium of all synthetic judgments?There is only one totality in which all of our representations are contained, namely inner sense and its a priori form, time.The synthesis of representations rests on the imagination, but their synthetic unity (which is a requisite of the judgment) on the unity of apperception.(KrV, A155/B194, emphasis added) When the synthetic proposition is a posteriori, the tertium becomes an empirical sensory intuition of an object.But when the synthetic proposition is a priori mathematical, the tertium takes the form of "pure intuition".When, however, the synthetic proposition is a priori but transcendental, this tertium finally takes the enigmatic form of a "possible experience."Kant calls this the inner sense, the synthesis of the imagination, and the unity of apperception (a possible experience).Nonetheless, instead of clarifying the expression "possible experience," Kant's list cries out for interpretation.
Let us now consider a third untenable reading.For those who think that the idea of an "a priori synthetic proposition" is an oxymoron, there is no tertium.The entire Critique is a complex conceptual analysis of the central concept of "possible experience".Kant calls the inner sense, the synthesis of the imagination, and the unity of apperception only "partial concepts" (Merkmale) of the concept of possible experience.However, one may wonder why Kant speaks of an "a priori synthetic proposition" and not an analytic proposition.The usual answer is that Kant had a somewhat restrictive conception of analyticity, namely one whose negation reveals a self-contradiction or whose predicate concept is already contained in the subject concept (see Bennett, 1966).Suppose, however, that one can free oneself from Kant's restrictive understanding of analyticity.In that case, it is easy to see that what he calls synthetic a priori are just highly complex analytic propositions.However, we need not waste our time refuting this possible reading of Kant's transcendental proposition since it finds no textual support in Kant's writings.
In the literature, there are different interpretations of the three conditions.I will discuss only the three most plausible interpretations.The first considers possible experience as "possible perception", where "perception" is understood as conscious intuition.In this interpretation, the truth of the transcendental proposition rests on the fact that they allow Kant e-prints, Campinas, v. 18, pp.50-63, 2023 introspection of our mental states in the inner sense, the synthesis of the imagination, and the unity of perception.This reading is closely related to the idea of a transcendental argument that seeks to show that perception presupposes transcendental propositions.I will explain and reject this reading in the remainder of this section.
In his Prolegomena, Kant gives two exclusionary meanings for experience in the same paragraph: "When I claim that experience teaches us something, I am thinking only of the perception it contains.On the contrary, experience is produced by the attribution of an intellectual concept to perception" (Prol,4: 305).According to the first meaning, "experience" is nothing other than "perception," namely, something essentially subjective, the consciousness of my sensory state.We find this to be the result of apprehension in the A-deduction.As a perception, experience requires only "running through [this manifold] and then taking it together" (KrV, A99).
The problem is how it is possible, by starting from perception as a subjective synthesis of apprehension, to justify transcendental objective propositions such as Newtonian mechanics (conservation of mass, inertia, and equality of action and reaction).
The original gap between sensible intuition and transcendental propositions remains.Worse, the scholar faces the following dilemma: On the one hand, the more you side with "possible experience," the more you make the synthetic proposition "quasi-analytic".On the other hand, the less you side with "possible experience", the more you widen the gap between "possible experience" and the transcendental propositions.

The mainstream reading
A third interpretation aligns with the mainstream viewpoint.This interpretation explains "possible experience" as the ability to create a representation of an object based on one's sensory input.Essentially, our sensory perception initially presents us with a disorganized sensory experience.But by using a priori concepts of synthesis called categories, we can construct a clear representation of an object from this chaotic sensory variety.
Transcendental propositions play a crucial role in making this possible.They involve the inner sense, the synthesis of the imagination, and the unity of perception.This interpretation is closely related to Strawson's idea of a transcendental argument against the skepticism of sense data (Strawson, 1966).To assess this mainstream interpretation, examining these passages in §13 is essential: Objects can indeed appear to us without necessarily having to be related to functions of the understanding.(KrV, A89/B122.Emphasis added) Appearances would nonetheless offer objects to our intuition, for intuition by no means requires the function of thinking.(KrV, A90-1/B122-3.Emphasis added) According to the prevailing reading, the term "possible experience" in Kant's work refers to the ability to represent an object through the senses.Based on this interpretation, the quoted passage suggests that Kant is considering "skeptical scenarios".These scenarios challenge the idea that objects can only be represented through categories.Kant's deduction aims to refute this skeptical challenge by proving that objects can only appear through categories.Therefore, the skeptical hypotheses are flawed.
Following Strawson (1966) and Henrich (1969), Allison suggests that Kant entertains a radical skeptical scenario in A89/B122 and A90-1/B122-3 that is to be refuted at the end of the deduction (Allison, 2015, p. 54).His primary assumption is that our experience would be utterly disordered and haphazard without the categories.Allison believes that our understanding plays a vital role in synthesizing and organizing the sensory information our senses receive into coherent objects of perception.Understanding not only serves to comprehend what we represent by our senses, but it is also a creative force that structures the sensory input, resulting in our representations of objects.
Within the deduction, there are only a limited number of passages that, if misinterpreted, could imply the skeptical scenario proposed by Allison.One such passage is Kant's assertion in Critique that inner perception is empirical and eternally variable (see KrV, A107).However, this statement does not imply that our self-knowledge derived from introspection is a disordered hodgepodge of sense impressions without apperception and categories.Nonetheless, the most misleading and misinterpreted passage is found in A-Deduction.There Kant claims that without a transcendental ground of unity, "a swarm of appearance" could fill up our souls, suggesting that without categories, our sense experience would be senseless (see KrV, A111).
Upon careful examination, Kant's concept of a "swarm of appearances" is not synonymous with disordered, meaningless, manifest sensory experiences.To be sure, Kant assumes that a multitude of appearances can populate our consciousness, suggesting that objects can reveal themselves to our senses independently of experience or cognition.
However, the mainstream mistakenly treats experience and cognition as mere representations of objects.Instead, experience and cognition should be understood as technical terms.They do not mean the representation of objects or the representation of objective particulars.existence of objects rather than as prerequisites for representing objects' existence objectively.

Our understanding as human beings
The epistemic grounding or justification for Kant's transcendental proposition regarding "possible experience" is rooted primarily in cognition (Erkenntnis).In particular, it relates to our cognitive awareness that what we represent as existing objectively in space and time exists objectively.This cognition serves as the basis for validating the transcendental proposition.Kant's transcendental propositions encompass several aspects, including the "Analogies of Experience" and the "Postulates of Empirical Thinking", to name a few.However, in exploring the meaning of "the "possibility of experience", it is essential to go beyond the experience or cognition of what is represented as an object.It is insufficient to limit understanding to cognitive recognition.
Instead, there is an ontological (in the phenomenological sense of "ontological") or existential meaning that has been overlooked.This dimension extends the meaning of "the possibility of experience" beyond cognitive cognition.When we acknowledge this ontological meaning, we gain a fuller understanding of Kant's notion of the "possibility of experience" and its meaning within his transcendental framework.In Kant's "Transcendental Doctrine of Method" and his books of Logic, he distinguishes between "given concepts" and "made concepts," highlighting that a priori given concepts cannot be defined (KrV, A728/B756).On the other hand, "made concepts" include a priori concepts of mathematics or Logic that are not acquired through experience (a posteriori intuitions), as well as concepts that refer to artifacts (Sache der Kunst) (Refl,16: 581).The crucial feature of made concepts is that they can be defined either by an a priori intuition of their subject matter in the case of mathematics or by a functional analysis of their meaning in the case of artifacts.For instance, when considering the concept of a triangle, it can be defined as a polygon whose angles add up to 180 degrees.This definition provides a clear understanding of the nature of a triangle.Similarly, the concept of a shovel can be defined as an artifact created with the purpose of digging.This definition provides a functional analysis of the meaning of shovel meaning, elucidating its intended use.By contrasting given and created concepts, Kant emphasizes the distinction between concepts that cannot be defined and concepts that are constructed or associated with particular objects or functions, which provides clear definitions and analysis.categories to what appears to us-are an indispensable condition for us to understand ourselves as inhabitants of an objective world.But Kant's refutation of idealism provides additional support.As we have seen, transcendental propositions are those whose truth is the condition for our ability to recognize what we represent with our senses as objects, that is, as something that exists objectively.In his refutation of idealism, Kant provides evidence that the empirically determined consciousness of my existence in time entails the consciousness of something that exists objectively in as something persistent.Now, whether we consider Kant's refutation successful or not (that is beyond the scope of this paper), if the consciousness of something existing objectively in space is, according to all of Kant's accounts, a transcendental proposition-the First Analogy of Experience-that is an a priori proposition that enables us to be conscious of our existence as inhabitants of an objective, the spatiotemporal world of objects and events in causal interaction.