On several strange statements in 'The Critique of Pure Reason'

Abstract

The author explores several insufficiently clarified places in Kant's first Critique. One such place is a passage that deals with the problem of synthesis. It is known that in order to obtain the object of knowledge, one must unite all sensations. Synthesis is responsible for this. However, on closer inspection, it turns out that synthesis is nothing more than a productive force of imagination. The author argues that the idea of this force represents Kant’s understanding of the thought experiment, which was formed in science in the middle of the 17th century. A further consideration shows that the productive imagination is essentially reduced to the mental construction of an object; this mental construction is the only reason why we understand the object. However, in order to build an object, one needs to know it, and in order to know it, one needs to build it. This logical circle was not resolved by Kant. Further, the impact of the productive imagination is seen in the construction of an object of pure sensory contemplation. The author argues that this object is nothing but the "universal object", that is, a model for all individual sensory samples. The mental construction of such an object is a scheme, i.e. a construction of an object along the most essential lines of its existence. The universal object reveals the essence of the mental object as an object of cognition. Finally, the relation between a priori and a particular sensation as an intense magnitude is argued to be associated with Kant's desire to present the object of cognition as an object within thought, which is not identified with the thought. However, for Kant only the opposite approach is acceptable, according to which the mental object appears only as an impression of a thing acting from the outside, that is, as a phenomenon. Yet Kant also outlines another solution proposed by a number of thinkers of his time. Kant does not develop it, because he is completely satisfied with his own idea, during which the mental space is completely filled with all mental elements - the pure sense object, concepts, and the categories. He merely identifies it. Kant, thus, provides a completely original approach to the process of cognition. The author shows that Kant's influence can also be seen in our time. In order to appreciate this influence one must clarify the notion of the mental object and identify the characteristics of the thing that acts from the outside.