Heidegger: Kant and the Problem of Metaphysics
What do we know about Heidegger thus far in our journeys? It can be difficult to say, thanks in no small part to Heidegger. He seems to want to take the millennia of work spent creating a refined philosophical language and throw it out the window in favor of some fancy metaphysics about Being-in-the-world and some such. He only gets worse with time; by the time the second half of the twentieth century begins, he had left “philosophy” behind all together, and many philosophers were just as glad to be rid of him.
However, the confusion he created and the strange nature of his concepts should not lead us to think that his views are nonsense, at least not out of hand. Heidegger was not speaking from out of nowhere, nor was he a weirdo with no idea what “philosophy” is. He is not without precedent (though he no doubt represents quite a leap), nor without predecessors (though they may be difficult to see at first). More importantly, Heidegger is aware of both of these facts. They are elaborated in his first work post-Being and Time, which is Kant and the Problem of Metaphysics (I am using the Churchill translation, which I am telling you now never to use should you have the choice. In fact, I felt forced to alter an extremely important technical term that the translation uses: essent. I have replaced it with either being or Being, depending upon the context). Kant and the Problem of Metaphysics was not meant by Heidegger to be a completely independent work, but rather became one “in the course of the elaboration of the second part of Sein und Zeit,” (xiii) which was supposed to constitute a destruction of the history of ontology (and which was never finished by Heidegger, so far as is known).
Heidegger calls Kant and the Problem of Metaphysics an “interpretation” of the Critique of Pure Reason, and its arguments throughout focus on the Critique. However, like other of Heidegger’s “interpretations,” scholars have found much to disagree with. Again, Heidegger was not unaware of this.
It becomes obvious that we must expect something more than “just a commentary.” Accordingly, we will add to our objectives that of understanding what Heidegger means by “interpretation” and “a dialogue between thinkers.” Our goals here are threefold: understand Heidegger’s method of “interpretation,” understand how Heidegger saw Kant in his Critique as a predecessor to himself, and, of course, understand what Heidegger’s interpretation of the Critique actually amounts to.
I
Fortunately, we can start with a preliminary answer to all of our questions right from the start: “The task of the following investigation is to explicate Kant’s Critique of Pure Reason as the laying of the foundation of metaphysics in order thus to present the problem of metaphysics as the problem of fundamental ontology.” (3) Thus, Heidegger is looking at the Critique through a specifically “Heideggerian” perspective, one that looks towards a “fundamental ontology” as it is understood in Being and Time. For Heidegger, the Critique was attempting to accomplish a goal similar to his own; the establishment of the most primordial ground for ontology, to put it in Heidegger’s terms. Like Heidegger, Kant is supposedly attempting to find a place before even metaphysics upon which he can build a philosophical foundation for all philosophy thereafter.
The goal, then, of these two thinkers is what Heidegger calls Being. As we know, Heidegger himself attempted to engage Being through an analytic of Dasein. Unfortunately for Kant, Being and Time wasn’t around then, so he had to find his own way onto the path to Being. To Heidegger, Kant is a continuation of the millennia-old understanding of metaphysics that began with Aristotle. The tradition that ultimately developed from Aristotle and his Metaphysics came to understand Being in two senses: “knowledge of the being qua being as well as knowledge of the highest sphere of beings through which Being in totality is defined.” (12) The former involves the most general study of Being, that which Heidegger calls ontology. In Kant and the Problem of Metaphysics it is referred to as metaphysica generalis, the most general of metaphysical subjects. The latter is the study of the essence of particular beings in their utmost generality, but not Being itself. This is typical metaphysics, or metaphysica specialis.
If one has knowledge of the world, it is, of course, knowledge of things. Those things in their essence are the subject of metaphysica specialis. According to Heidegger, it is this area of interest that Kant thinks to be of real importance. However, should one attempt to study the essence of beings, the question immediately arises: What does one mean by “essence?” What exactly are we looking for? It is certainly not just individual objects, for essence is more inclusive than that. Thus, if one is to establish a metaphysics of anything, the question of the nature of the essence of beings itself presents itself. In other words, “The question of the projection of metaphysica specialis has been led back beyond the question of the possibility of ontic knowledge to the question of that which makes this ontic knowledge possible . . . . The attempt to provide a foundation for metaphysics is thus centered in the question of the essence of metaphysica generalis.” (16) If one is to uncover beings, one must first uncover Being.
Unfortunately, we have not solved our problem by simply pointing to a more general idea of Being in order to explain the beings. One can still ask what is meant by “Being.” Yet what is interesting for Heidegger here is that Kant was the first one to genuinely ask this question. Descartes never asked about the essence of essences, nor did Aquinas. They were just interested in the nature of things, in metaphysica specialis. With Kant, “for the first time, ontology becomes a problem.” (16) If this perhaps sounds a bit familiar, it should. “[A] dogma has been developed which not only declares the question about the meaning of Being to be superfluous, but sanctions its complete neglect.” (Being and Time, trans. John Macquarrie and Edward Robinson, 21) Before Kant, Being was always just assumed to be understood. It wasn’t even a problem. Kant, however, sees that there is a very real problem here. (It is very important to note here that, as Heidegger wrote those words in Being and Time, the Critique had been available for over 140 years. Why did Kant not succeed in bringing the problem to light? Why was Being still neglected? There is a reason for this, which we shall discuss later.)
So, where must Kant start? It seems rather difficult to know where your footholds are when you’re in a place no one has ever thought to venture. Kant does what he must, starting with the understanding of philosophy present at his time. As taught in history of philosophy courses today (though not so simple), the Enlightenment of Kant’s time was a battle between two great forces: empiricism, represented by the empirical, a posteriori method, and rationalism, represented by reason and the a priori. In this sense, knowledge of Being undoubtedly does not come from a posteriori knowledge, so we cannot seek fundamental ontology there. Yet for Kant, “[t]hat all knowledge begins with experience there can be no doubt.” (Critique of Pure Reason, trans. By J. M. D. Meiklejohn (another translation in need of improvement) 1) Reason alone is only able to understand logical, analytic truths, what Hume called “relations of ideas,” and not new facts. That reason on its own could uncover knowledge of Being was a great mystery. But without that basic knowledge of Being in some form, experience would not exist (for raw intuition (sense data) is incoherent on its own). Thus, there must exist synthetic judgments (judgments that lead to new knowledge) that exist through reason alone. “[T]he question of the possibility of ontological knowledge turns out to be the problem of the essence of synthetic judgments a priori.” (18) And since these judgments must be centered in reason, “the revelation of the possibility of ontological knowledge must become an elucidation of the essence of pure reason.” (19) Thus, we need an analysis of reason and an elucidation of its powers; in other words, a Critique of Pure Reason.
II
“The objective is the determination of the essence of ontological knowledge through the elucidation of its origin in the sources which make it possible.” (26) In other words, Kant’s goal is to determine the nature of Being through that which makes Being manifest; namely, pure reason. Implicit in this statement is a most interesting assumption; we must understand “the essence of ontological knowledge” through an elucidation not of a super-abstract metaphysics, one more general than any before, but through “the sources which make it possible.” The sources that make ontological knowledge (synthetic a priori judgments) possible are located in pure reason. What has pure reason? Only one thing: man. Or, to use a more neutral German term, Dasein. This is not a casual connection, but a necessary one, as Heidegger will point out much later: “Kant was fully and immediately conscious of the problems inherent in metaphysics as such. In a laying of the foundation of metaphysics, therefore, the problem is the ‘specific’ finitude of human subjectivity.” (177) Human reason alone is that through which we can come to understand ontological knowledge, i.e. synthetic a priori judgments, i.e. Being.
So let us talk now about human nature, and thus about the Critique itself. “In order to gain an understanding of the Critique of Pure Reason, the following must, as it were, be hammered in: Cognition is primarily intuition.” (28) Intuition is the means by which one “takes in” that which is experienced, for example, sense data. Heidegger calls this intuition finite. Finite intuition is most easily explained by a comparison with infinite tuition, which is that tuition which belongs (or would belong) to God. God, in the Judeo-Christian conception and in Medieval philosophy, is all-powerful. This includes the sense of creativity. God creates something just by thinking of it; he made the world ex nihilo, after all. Further, no created thing can impose itself on God. Humans, on the other hand, are the exact opposite: they lack all creative power, and things not created by them always impose themselves into the field of human perception. Thus, our finitude is the same as the fact of our intuition and our ability to sense things. God just knows; we, on the other hand, must discover, and this requires sensibility. “Finite intuition . . . is not able by itself to give itself an object . . . . Hence, the finitude of intuition lies in its receptivity.” (31) Humans, in their finitude, are essentially receptive beings. Things simply “present themselves” to us. As Heidegger himself put it, “Being-in is thus the formal existential expression for the Being of Dasein, which has Being-in-the-World as its essential state.” (Being and Time, 80)
Finitude receptivity is insufficient to constitute knowledge, however. “[I]f finite intuition is to be knowledge, it must be able to make the being itself, insofar as it is manifest, accessible with respect to how and what it is to everyone and at any time.” (32) In other words, in order for raw intuition to be knowledge, it must be in some sense “determined” as something which can be known. To use Heidegger’s example, one does not know “chalk,” one knows that something is chalk. This requires something beyond intuition, which for Kant is the understanding. (Let us note that the understanding, being itself dependent on intuition, is also finite.) The understanding takes what was absorbed “raw” in intuition and defines it, makes it stands out. The intuited becomes that which projects, an “ob-ject.” In this process that raw percept is necessarily lost in its true form; “finite knowledge as finite necessarily conceals . . . .” (38) “[A] phenomenon can be buried over . . . . This covering up as a ‘disguising’ is both the most frequent and the most dangerous, for here the possibilities of deceiving and misleading are especially stubborn.” (Being and Time, 60) Heidegger, as you can see, put it in darker terms. What is significant here for Kant is that something seems to be on the other end of our intuition. Something is there which becomes an object in the understanding. This something is our mythical “thing in itself.” However, one must remember that in Heidegger’s interpretation, things in themselves are not Kant’s actual goal. His goal in the Critique is not metaphysica specialis, but rather that which undergirds it, metaphysica generalis. In this light our observation on the existence of the not-yet-objectified presents us with a clue: “If finite knowledge is to be possible, it must be based on a comprehension of the Being of the [particular] being that precedes every receptive act.” (42) For any experience this is necessary; on those grounds Heidegger can conclude that “[u]nderstanding of Being is itself a definite characteristic of Dasein’s Being.” (Being and Time, 32)
Let us review. Man, being finite, is dependent upon other things, other beings for knowledge. These other beings are perceived through intuition. Intuition occurs through sensory perception, but not through perception alone. Understanding must determine that which is perceived in order for it to be knowledge, that is, to be communicable (“In language, as a way things have been expressed or spoken out, there is hidden a way in which the understanding of Dasein has been interpreted . . . .” (Being and Time, 211).) But behind that we must have some way in which we connect with that which is objectified before it is objectified. We must have some knowledge of that which is outside, which is novel to us, but which still precedes experience.
Let us explore the synthetic a priori in greater depth.
III
In order to come into a new intuition of something, it appears we must have something in the “pure mind” which provides the possibility for such intuition. For Kant this is the role of pure intuition. Kant gives us two forms of pure intuition: space and time. Space and time, of course, are not “seen;” instead, they function as the background for what is seen. Without space and time, there would be no objects. Without much consideration we could easily enough say that without them there would be no place for an object to be and no time in which it could exist. Thus space and time, the two things which are present before any particular things are intuited, are “pure representation, i.e. that which is necessarily represented in advance in finite human cognition.” (49) They create the space (is there, after all, really a better term?) in which beings are intuited.
What is emphasized by Heidegger at this point is not merely the necessity of space and time, but rather their place in pure reason: they act as unifying agents through which one goes from mere intuition to knowledge, a process which necessarily involves a synthesis (a vital word throughout Heidegger’s analysis): “The finitude of knowledge manifests an original and intrinsic dependence of thought on intuition or, conversely, a need for the latter to be determined by the former.” (61) Intuition alone is nothing. Combined with understanding it creates knowledge. Knowledge is absolutely dependent upon this synthesis for its existence, as intuition and understanding are absolutely dependent upon each other in order to be understood. At this point a new question arises: it may be admitted that intuition and understanding must synthesize in order to form knowledge. However, knowledge isn’t a “place” where this synthesis occurs. So, where does the synthesis happen? More precisely, upon what grounds do intuition and thought synthesize?
“[E]verything in the essence of pure knowledge that has a synthetic structure is brought about by the imagination,” (66) Heidegger tells us, quoting from Kant: “Synthesis in general . . . is the mere result of the power of the imagination, a blind but indispensable function of the soul, without which we should have no knowledge whatsoever . . . .” (Critique of Pure Reason, 112 in the Norman Kemp Smith translation (which is that edition referenced by the translator of Kant and the Problem of Metaphysics) The very important role of the imagination we will discuss later.
At this point we must also take note of something else I have so far ignored: the role of the infamous categories. For Heidegger, the particular categories themselves are worth much discussion: “we must remain uncertain as to the character of this table of judgments [categories]. Kant himself seemed unsure of the nature of this table . . . .” (59) Rather, we must look at the categories in general, in other words, at what role they have in pure reason and the purpose they serve. A category, in the general sense, is the means by which something is asserted of something. It offers up predicates for objects through which the object is determined. Thus, categories serve as essential functions of knowledge and, more importantly, of the unity of objects. They are unifiers in the pure sense, as they are understood prior to any particular objects (which, by definition, are subject to categories). Thus these categories are ontological, not ontic; they are the system of ontological predicates. A category, then, “must not function merely as an ‘element’ of pure knowledge; on the contrary, in it must lie the knowledge of the Being of a being.” (69) Because the prior knowledge of beings, the synthetic a priori, is knowledge of the essence of Being, the categories function as part of the knowledge of Being located in the understanding, though we cannot say more about them yet.
Let us return to the imagination, for now its full role can be revealed. We must summarize our developments thus far: the categories, as well as the pure intuitions of space and time, generate knowledge from finite intuition. This same move requires pre-ontic, that is, ontological knowledge, which is “is the condition of the possibility that a being as such can, in general, become an ob-ject for a finite being” (74) That is, the synthetic a priori, time, space and the categories, that which allows an object to become object through synthesis, are where ontological knowledge lies. Given Kant’s statement that imagination is that place where the synthesis in general is located, we can conclude that our knowledge of Being, that from which we can open up the doors to metaphysica specialis, the foundation of all knowledge, is the imagination. Q.E.D.
IV
“The intrinsic possibility of ontological knowledge is revealed through the specific totality of the constitution of transcendence. Its binding medium is the pure imagination.” (93) Through the imagination the synthesis which creates knowledge takes place. The name which is given by Kant to this process of synthesis (in all its forms) is transcendence. In this manner Kant can call his establishment of the foundation of metaphysics “transcendental philosophy,” which is to say, philosophy which comprehends the transcendental synthesis necessary for knowledge and thus metaphysics (at this point we can also label the imagination transcendental imagination, something which Heidegger and Kant began doing earlier in the process). Transcendence is synthesis, which is brought about by means of the pure concepts. “[B]eyond the representation of this regulative unity the concept is nothing.” (103) Space, time, and the categories stand essentially as rules, and “[t]he representation of the rule is the schema.” (103) Thus we have defined synthesis in somewhat greater detail: in order to make intuition knowledge, that which is received through pure intuition (space and time) is made subject to the understanding. The understanding applies categories, that is, rules, to intuition; in other words, intuition is schematized. The possibility for this must necessarily exist before any and all experience, because “experience” itself depends upon it. Thus, in order to find ontological knowledge, that knowledge of Being which makes knowledge of beings possible, one must go to the schematism. And this is exactly what Heidegger does: “these eleven pages of the Critique of Pure Reason form the heart of the whole work.” (94)
“The formation of schemata is the sensibilization of concepts.” (102) The schemata make raw intuition determined and thus sensible. Before the understanding, raw intuition must be made perceptible. “It follows . . . that the pure understanding must be based upon a pure intuition that sustains and guides it.” (95) In other words, pure understanding must wait upon the two pure intuitions, space and time. According to Kant, space is only the external form of pure intuition, while time is the internal and thus more important form. Space is the external condition of intuition, time the internal condition, which must support both ends: thus, time is primordial pure intuition. As primordial, pure intuition, time creates the space in which beings can be encountered and thus become objects. This space Heidegger calls the horizon, in which beings “come out of this (openness of the horizon) to meet us.” (Heidegger, Discourse on Thinking 64) Time is ultimately that through which beings intuited can be acted upon by understanding and thereby known. “The use of pure concepts as transcendental determinations of time a priori, i.e., the achievement of pure knowledge, is what takes place in schematism.” (114) Time is the pure intuition, categories the pure understanding, and together they synthesize knowledge in the pure schematism of the imagination. All three are equally necessary, though of all things the imagination, as source of general synthesis and thus the support of the other two, takes prominence of place. And, if we recall, all of this comes from an initial problem, that man is not God and thus requires intuition of things not of his creation; that man is finite. To put it all together, “the ‘possibility of experience’ denotes primarily the unified totality of that which makes finite knowledge essentially possible . . . the possibility of experience is identical with transcendence. To delimit the latter in its full essence means to determine ‘the conditions of the possibility of experience.’” (122)
With the schematism we have arrived at ontological knowledge. Let us take a moment to survey the consequences of this. “What is known in ontological knowledge?” (125) Heidegger asks? What, in other words, are space, time, categories, etc.? “A Nothing.” Thus “if by ‘knowledge’ we mean the apprehension of a being, ontological knowledge is not knowledge.” (128) Those pure “powers” we have just described are not themselves known in the sense of things known, because they are the preliminaries to any such things. The ingredients of facts, by definition, cannot themselves be facts; an uncomfortable paradox. Ontological knowledge, the Nothing, is by definition “the complete negation of the totality of beings.” (Heidegger, “What is Metaphysics?” in Martin Heidegger: Basic Writings 98) If this is the case, if ontological knowledge is really what we have just claimed it to be, and if the processes which constitute knowledge are nothing more than schematism, then it is true that “the proud name of an Ontology . . . must give place to the modest title of an analytic of the pure understanding.” (Critique of Pure Reason 161) The problem first detected by Kant is revealed in all its grandeur: “By this transformation of metaphysica generalis, the foundation of traditional metaphysics is shaken and the edifice of metaphysica specialis begins to totter.” (129) The old metaphysics is thrown out, and ontology can now be born anew.
V
Kant published the Critique of Pure Reason in the year 1781, and in it he spelled the doom of conventional metaphysics. No doubt metaphysics suffered a mortal blow, and philosophers focused their studies on the activity of pure reason, yes?
Well actually, instead of the end of metaphysics, what did we really get? We got German Idealism. German Idealism! Hegel! How in the hell did that happen? How does one go from Kant to Hegel? It makes no sense at all.
Or it should not. Had Kant settled matters at this point, there would be no more to say. But the situation is, unsurprisingly, more complex than it appears. In order to understand this we must return again to the role of the imagination, and where Kant places it in his system.
“The transcendental imagination is . . . the foundation on which the intrinsic possibility of ontological knowledge, and hence of metaphysica generalis as well, is constructed.” (134) Our discovery of the schematism has placed ontological knowledge squarely in the hands of the transcendental imagination. It is there that that which is received through pure intuition is determined by the understanding and thus “[i]t is pure productive imagination . . . which first renders experience possible.” (140) Imagination, it must be emphasized, is not one aspect among others, although all three (intuition through time, understanding through concepts, and imagination through the schematic synthesis) are necessary, as was said before. “[T]he transcendental imagination is not merely an external bond which fastens two extremities together. It is originally unifying . . . .” (144, italics mine) Here imagination is not simply a matter of making things up in your head, or picturing things that are not there. Imagination is the core of knowledge.
We can go even further, since imagination has yet to be clearly defined. “‘Imagining’ . . . denotes all non-perceptive representation in the broadest sense of the term . . . .” (136) The imagination has the power to form images; that is, as the place of schematism, the imagination has “the ability to intuit without a concrete presence.” (138) In a certain sense, then, it is creative, with all the pregnant meaning that the discussion of finitude implies. A consequence of this is that pure understanding and pure intuition themselves are not merely parts that cooperate in the transcendental imagination. Imagination is their root. “[T]ranscendence (the function of the transcendental imagination) . . . is not merely the simple sum of pure intuition and pure thought but constitutes a unique and primordial unity within which intuition and thought function only as elements.” (143) What, for example, provides the foundation for pure intuition? What is the source of the primordial generation of horizons? “[I]f, in the modality of its act, pure intuition manifests the specific essence of the transcendental imagination, is it not then true that what is pre-formed therein must also be imaginative, since it is formed by the imagination?” (150) Pure intuition is thus imaginative in character. And understanding? “The apparently independent act of the understanding in thinking the unities is, as a spontaneously formative act of representation, a fundamental act of the transcendental imagination.” (158) The imagination, in its formative power, is that primordial unifying power which allows pure understanding to define unities (i.e. categories) of its own. Thus, both intuition and understanding, and with them synthetic a priori knowledge itself, operate within the transcendental imagination.
What is one to think of this? Surely our deduction before, and our further elaborations, led squarely to this conclusion. But what does it mean, that the imagination of all things is the center of pure reason? “[T]he transcendental imagination manifests itself more and more . . . as that which makes transcendence as the essence of the finite self possible.” (162) Perhaps we are just being scared by terminology. We call it “imagination,” but we cannot think of it simply in those terms. “What is formed by the transcendental imagination can never be ‘merely imaginary’ in the usual sense of that term. On the contrary, it is the horizon of objectivity formed by the transcendental imagination – the comprehension of Being – which makes possible all distinction between ontic truth and ontic appearance (the ‘merely imaginary’ – Heidegger’s note).” (145) But nevertheless, we must think from Kant’s perspective, one which stands at the apex of Enlightenment. Reason, after all, is that which has brought us this far. Reason will reveal truths not only of metaphysics, but of ethics (Critique of Practical Reason) and aesthetics (Critique of Judgment). And what is reason now? What is the answer to all of our philosophical questions? “By his radical interrogation, Kant brought the ‘possibility’ of metaphysics before this abyss. He saw the unknown; he had to draw back.” (173)
Who wouldn’t do what Kant did? The idea that our understanding is not the center of our knowledge, that in fact, knowledge itself is centered, as is the understanding, in the imagination, is the death of Enlightenment. That the unifying power of our mind is imaginary in character, that understanding is submissive to it, is simply too much to bear. Yet by force of argument Kant was drawn to this point. He was drawn there, but there he did not remain. “In the second edition of the Critique of Pure Reason the transcendental imagination, as it was described in the vigorous language of the first edition, is thrust aside and transformed – to the benefit of the understanding.” (167) In the second edition drastic changes are made. The essential role of synthesis is given to understanding; “[i]magination is now only the name of the empirical synthesis, i.e., the synthesis as relative to intuition.” (170) Imagination returns to its typical role as a basically sensory faculty; it is that thing that makes up goofy animals and sees things that aren’t really there, just like everyone likes to believe. It is separated from reason, whose center under which knowledge is generated is now the understanding. Otherwise, “[w]hat is to happen to the honorable tradition according to which, in the long history of metaphysics, ratio and the logos have laid claim to the central role? Can the primacy of logic disappear?” (173) Apparently not. And so, Kant, after going to places no philosopher had gone before, steps away from the truth and settles back into the tradition which had nurtured him.
VI
There are several questions I have not even begun to answer, and several issues in the text I have not discussed. The relation of time to the transcendental imagination and transcendence itself has been completely bypassed, and Heidegger’s “repetition” is not being discussed either.
However, now we have enough information to meet the three goals posed at the beginning of our investigation. Our first was the question, what does Heidegger mean by an “interpretation?” Had Heidegger meant “interpretation” in the sense of a simple repeating of Kant’s work with a clarification and a thesis about its objective, there would have been no need to distinguish between the first and second edition, besides perhaps to remark that the position of the transcendental imagination had changed drastically. No, what “interpretation” became was not simply a discussion of the Critique, but a discussion that placed Kant within the history of metaphysical thought. “[A] specific laying of the foundation of metaphysics never arises out of nothing but out of the strength and weakness of a tradition which designates in advance its possible points of departure.” (5) Kant is significant because he marks the point where the tradition that had defined philosophy for two thousand years looked back upon itself and questioned its most basic of foundations. Thus, Heidegger’s interpretation does not simply look at what Kant said in the Critique, but also at the “environment” of the Critique. Kant is seen in a position in history, at the forefront of a tradition, and how he both exemplifies and resists that tradition are what interest Heidegger. “[A]n interpretation limited to a recapitulation of what Kant explicitly said can never be a real explication, if the business of the latter is to bring to light what Kant . . . uncovered in the course of his laying of the foundation . . . . [W]hat is essential in philosophical discourse is not found in the specific propositions of which it is composed but in that which, although unstated as such, is made evident through these propositions.” (206) The history, the tradition, and the thoughts hidden in the arguments and behind them must be brought to the surface (the “margins” must be read, if you will). A work is not simply words on paper: it is mission, it is conflict, it is a statement of history, and must be read as such.
It in this “living” mode of interpretation that Heidegger sees a predecessor to himself in Kant. As we said in the beginning, “for the first time, ontology becomes a problem” with Kant. For 2,000 years after Aristotle philosophy operated in the same vein, which is to say, incorrectly: “Post-Aristotelian metaphysics owes its development not to the adoption and elaboration of an allegedly pre-existent Aristotelian system but to the failure to understand the doubtful and unsettled state in which Plato and Aristotle left the central problems.” (12) Assuming one can even make well-defined theories based on Aristotle’s written notes and Plato’s dialogues, a metaphysics whose parameters is set by their systems would remain based off of uncertain readings by uncertain men in an increasing unfamiliar language. And, by and large, “Kant remained faithful to the purpose of this metaphysics.” (13) But that is not what is interesting. What is interesting is that Kant had the perceptive power to reach towards the very limits of the “Aristotelian” system, and to find a place where few (if any) had treaded. He located a problem where there had been assumed to be none; indeed, where no one knew even to ask a question. “[W]e have made plain not only that the question of Being lacks an answer, but that the question itself is obscure and without direction.” (Being and Time 24) Kant was the first who tried to ask the question. He made the problem real. Without Kant there could have been no Heidegger.
The third question, that of what Heidegger’s interpretation of the Critique really amounts to, stands as an interpretation of the Critique as the potential beginning of something truly new in metaphysics. “We have undertaken the present interpretation of the Critique of Pure Reason in order to bring to light the necessity, insofar as a laying of the foundation of metaphysics is concerned, of posing the fundamental problem of the finitude in man.” (226) Heidegger places Kant’s arguments in his own terms in order to demonstrate the problematic at work underneath the old terms and the old arguments. Having come from a tradition 2,000 years old, and himself no minor philosopher by the time of writing the Critique, Kant sought to find the real foundation of metaphysics where others had stopped. He did so through seeking that source in which our knowledge of anything, including the metaphysical, arises (just as Heidegger does in Being and Time). He looks to the conditions under which experience arises, and sees that, in order to have experience at all, we must have preliminary knowledge of something not experienced. With this, the synthetic a priori as his guide, he follows the synthesis of knowledge all the way to its source, the transcendental imagination. Ontology was thus found within the subject. But then, “with the revelation of the subjectivity of the subject (imagination), Kant recoiled from the ground which he himself had established.” (221) In the second edition of the Critique he ran from the truths he had uncovered in the name of Reason and the Enlightenment. In the end, all he had accomplished was lost in the wave of “metaphysical lunacy” we call German Idealism. Yet even in the second edition, the truths he unearthed were still there, dormant. Heidegger rediscovered them, and, with phenomenological training from the best and a determination to reach the core of Being despite the cost, he began his work.
However, the confusion he created and the strange nature of his concepts should not lead us to think that his views are nonsense, at least not out of hand. Heidegger was not speaking from out of nowhere, nor was he a weirdo with no idea what “philosophy” is. He is not without precedent (though he no doubt represents quite a leap), nor without predecessors (though they may be difficult to see at first). More importantly, Heidegger is aware of both of these facts. They are elaborated in his first work post-Being and Time, which is Kant and the Problem of Metaphysics (I am using the Churchill translation, which I am telling you now never to use should you have the choice. In fact, I felt forced to alter an extremely important technical term that the translation uses: essent. I have replaced it with either being or Being, depending upon the context). Kant and the Problem of Metaphysics was not meant by Heidegger to be a completely independent work, but rather became one “in the course of the elaboration of the second part of Sein und Zeit,” (xiii) which was supposed to constitute a destruction of the history of ontology (and which was never finished by Heidegger, so far as is known).
Heidegger calls Kant and the Problem of Metaphysics an “interpretation” of the Critique of Pure Reason, and its arguments throughout focus on the Critique. However, like other of Heidegger’s “interpretations,” scholars have found much to disagree with. Again, Heidegger was not unaware of this.
My critics have constantly reproached me for the violence of my interpretations, and the grounds for this reproach can easily be found in this work. From the point of view of an inquiry which is both historical and philosophical, this reproach is always justified when directed against attempts to set in motion a thoughtful dialogue between thinkers. In contrast to the methods of historical philology, which has its own problems, a dialogue between thinkers is bound by other laws. (xxv)
It becomes obvious that we must expect something more than “just a commentary.” Accordingly, we will add to our objectives that of understanding what Heidegger means by “interpretation” and “a dialogue between thinkers.” Our goals here are threefold: understand Heidegger’s method of “interpretation,” understand how Heidegger saw Kant in his Critique as a predecessor to himself, and, of course, understand what Heidegger’s interpretation of the Critique actually amounts to.
I
Fortunately, we can start with a preliminary answer to all of our questions right from the start: “The task of the following investigation is to explicate Kant’s Critique of Pure Reason as the laying of the foundation of metaphysics in order thus to present the problem of metaphysics as the problem of fundamental ontology.” (3) Thus, Heidegger is looking at the Critique through a specifically “Heideggerian” perspective, one that looks towards a “fundamental ontology” as it is understood in Being and Time. For Heidegger, the Critique was attempting to accomplish a goal similar to his own; the establishment of the most primordial ground for ontology, to put it in Heidegger’s terms. Like Heidegger, Kant is supposedly attempting to find a place before even metaphysics upon which he can build a philosophical foundation for all philosophy thereafter.
The goal, then, of these two thinkers is what Heidegger calls Being. As we know, Heidegger himself attempted to engage Being through an analytic of Dasein. Unfortunately for Kant, Being and Time wasn’t around then, so he had to find his own way onto the path to Being. To Heidegger, Kant is a continuation of the millennia-old understanding of metaphysics that began with Aristotle. The tradition that ultimately developed from Aristotle and his Metaphysics came to understand Being in two senses: “knowledge of the being qua being as well as knowledge of the highest sphere of beings through which Being in totality is defined.” (12) The former involves the most general study of Being, that which Heidegger calls ontology. In Kant and the Problem of Metaphysics it is referred to as metaphysica generalis, the most general of metaphysical subjects. The latter is the study of the essence of particular beings in their utmost generality, but not Being itself. This is typical metaphysics, or metaphysica specialis.
If one has knowledge of the world, it is, of course, knowledge of things. Those things in their essence are the subject of metaphysica specialis. According to Heidegger, it is this area of interest that Kant thinks to be of real importance. However, should one attempt to study the essence of beings, the question immediately arises: What does one mean by “essence?” What exactly are we looking for? It is certainly not just individual objects, for essence is more inclusive than that. Thus, if one is to establish a metaphysics of anything, the question of the nature of the essence of beings itself presents itself. In other words, “The question of the projection of metaphysica specialis has been led back beyond the question of the possibility of ontic knowledge to the question of that which makes this ontic knowledge possible . . . . The attempt to provide a foundation for metaphysics is thus centered in the question of the essence of metaphysica generalis.” (16) If one is to uncover beings, one must first uncover Being.
Unfortunately, we have not solved our problem by simply pointing to a more general idea of Being in order to explain the beings. One can still ask what is meant by “Being.” Yet what is interesting for Heidegger here is that Kant was the first one to genuinely ask this question. Descartes never asked about the essence of essences, nor did Aquinas. They were just interested in the nature of things, in metaphysica specialis. With Kant, “for the first time, ontology becomes a problem.” (16) If this perhaps sounds a bit familiar, it should. “[A] dogma has been developed which not only declares the question about the meaning of Being to be superfluous, but sanctions its complete neglect.” (Being and Time, trans. John Macquarrie and Edward Robinson, 21) Before Kant, Being was always just assumed to be understood. It wasn’t even a problem. Kant, however, sees that there is a very real problem here. (It is very important to note here that, as Heidegger wrote those words in Being and Time, the Critique had been available for over 140 years. Why did Kant not succeed in bringing the problem to light? Why was Being still neglected? There is a reason for this, which we shall discuss later.)
So, where must Kant start? It seems rather difficult to know where your footholds are when you’re in a place no one has ever thought to venture. Kant does what he must, starting with the understanding of philosophy present at his time. As taught in history of philosophy courses today (though not so simple), the Enlightenment of Kant’s time was a battle between two great forces: empiricism, represented by the empirical, a posteriori method, and rationalism, represented by reason and the a priori. In this sense, knowledge of Being undoubtedly does not come from a posteriori knowledge, so we cannot seek fundamental ontology there. Yet for Kant, “[t]hat all knowledge begins with experience there can be no doubt.” (Critique of Pure Reason, trans. By J. M. D. Meiklejohn (another translation in need of improvement) 1) Reason alone is only able to understand logical, analytic truths, what Hume called “relations of ideas,” and not new facts. That reason on its own could uncover knowledge of Being was a great mystery. But without that basic knowledge of Being in some form, experience would not exist (for raw intuition (sense data) is incoherent on its own). Thus, there must exist synthetic judgments (judgments that lead to new knowledge) that exist through reason alone. “[T]he question of the possibility of ontological knowledge turns out to be the problem of the essence of synthetic judgments a priori.” (18) And since these judgments must be centered in reason, “the revelation of the possibility of ontological knowledge must become an elucidation of the essence of pure reason.” (19) Thus, we need an analysis of reason and an elucidation of its powers; in other words, a Critique of Pure Reason.
II
“The objective is the determination of the essence of ontological knowledge through the elucidation of its origin in the sources which make it possible.” (26) In other words, Kant’s goal is to determine the nature of Being through that which makes Being manifest; namely, pure reason. Implicit in this statement is a most interesting assumption; we must understand “the essence of ontological knowledge” through an elucidation not of a super-abstract metaphysics, one more general than any before, but through “the sources which make it possible.” The sources that make ontological knowledge (synthetic a priori judgments) possible are located in pure reason. What has pure reason? Only one thing: man. Or, to use a more neutral German term, Dasein. This is not a casual connection, but a necessary one, as Heidegger will point out much later: “Kant was fully and immediately conscious of the problems inherent in metaphysics as such. In a laying of the foundation of metaphysics, therefore, the problem is the ‘specific’ finitude of human subjectivity.” (177) Human reason alone is that through which we can come to understand ontological knowledge, i.e. synthetic a priori judgments, i.e. Being.
So let us talk now about human nature, and thus about the Critique itself. “In order to gain an understanding of the Critique of Pure Reason, the following must, as it were, be hammered in: Cognition is primarily intuition.” (28) Intuition is the means by which one “takes in” that which is experienced, for example, sense data. Heidegger calls this intuition finite. Finite intuition is most easily explained by a comparison with infinite tuition, which is that tuition which belongs (or would belong) to God. God, in the Judeo-Christian conception and in Medieval philosophy, is all-powerful. This includes the sense of creativity. God creates something just by thinking of it; he made the world ex nihilo, after all. Further, no created thing can impose itself on God. Humans, on the other hand, are the exact opposite: they lack all creative power, and things not created by them always impose themselves into the field of human perception. Thus, our finitude is the same as the fact of our intuition and our ability to sense things. God just knows; we, on the other hand, must discover, and this requires sensibility. “Finite intuition . . . is not able by itself to give itself an object . . . . Hence, the finitude of intuition lies in its receptivity.” (31) Humans, in their finitude, are essentially receptive beings. Things simply “present themselves” to us. As Heidegger himself put it, “Being-in is thus the formal existential expression for the Being of Dasein, which has Being-in-the-World as its essential state.” (Being and Time, 80)
Finitude receptivity is insufficient to constitute knowledge, however. “[I]f finite intuition is to be knowledge, it must be able to make the being itself, insofar as it is manifest, accessible with respect to how and what it is to everyone and at any time.” (32) In other words, in order for raw intuition to be knowledge, it must be in some sense “determined” as something which can be known. To use Heidegger’s example, one does not know “chalk,” one knows that something is chalk. This requires something beyond intuition, which for Kant is the understanding. (Let us note that the understanding, being itself dependent on intuition, is also finite.) The understanding takes what was absorbed “raw” in intuition and defines it, makes it stands out. The intuited becomes that which projects, an “ob-ject.” In this process that raw percept is necessarily lost in its true form; “finite knowledge as finite necessarily conceals . . . .” (38) “[A] phenomenon can be buried over . . . . This covering up as a ‘disguising’ is both the most frequent and the most dangerous, for here the possibilities of deceiving and misleading are especially stubborn.” (Being and Time, 60) Heidegger, as you can see, put it in darker terms. What is significant here for Kant is that something seems to be on the other end of our intuition. Something is there which becomes an object in the understanding. This something is our mythical “thing in itself.” However, one must remember that in Heidegger’s interpretation, things in themselves are not Kant’s actual goal. His goal in the Critique is not metaphysica specialis, but rather that which undergirds it, metaphysica generalis. In this light our observation on the existence of the not-yet-objectified presents us with a clue: “If finite knowledge is to be possible, it must be based on a comprehension of the Being of the [particular] being that precedes every receptive act.” (42) For any experience this is necessary; on those grounds Heidegger can conclude that “[u]nderstanding of Being is itself a definite characteristic of Dasein’s Being.” (Being and Time, 32)
Let us review. Man, being finite, is dependent upon other things, other beings for knowledge. These other beings are perceived through intuition. Intuition occurs through sensory perception, but not through perception alone. Understanding must determine that which is perceived in order for it to be knowledge, that is, to be communicable (“In language, as a way things have been expressed or spoken out, there is hidden a way in which the understanding of Dasein has been interpreted . . . .” (Being and Time, 211).) But behind that we must have some way in which we connect with that which is objectified before it is objectified. We must have some knowledge of that which is outside, which is novel to us, but which still precedes experience.
Thus, the question as to the possibility of the a priori synthesis narrows down to this: how can a finite being which as such is delivered up to a being and dependent on its reception have knowledge of, i.e. intuit, the being before it is given without being its creator . . . ? [W]ithout the aid of experience, it is able to bring forth the ontological structure of a being . . . . (43)
Let us explore the synthetic a priori in greater depth.
III
In order to come into a new intuition of something, it appears we must have something in the “pure mind” which provides the possibility for such intuition. For Kant this is the role of pure intuition. Kant gives us two forms of pure intuition: space and time. Space and time, of course, are not “seen;” instead, they function as the background for what is seen. Without space and time, there would be no objects. Without much consideration we could easily enough say that without them there would be no place for an object to be and no time in which it could exist. Thus space and time, the two things which are present before any particular things are intuited, are “pure representation, i.e. that which is necessarily represented in advance in finite human cognition.” (49) They create the space (is there, after all, really a better term?) in which beings are intuited.
What is emphasized by Heidegger at this point is not merely the necessity of space and time, but rather their place in pure reason: they act as unifying agents through which one goes from mere intuition to knowledge, a process which necessarily involves a synthesis (a vital word throughout Heidegger’s analysis): “The finitude of knowledge manifests an original and intrinsic dependence of thought on intuition or, conversely, a need for the latter to be determined by the former.” (61) Intuition alone is nothing. Combined with understanding it creates knowledge. Knowledge is absolutely dependent upon this synthesis for its existence, as intuition and understanding are absolutely dependent upon each other in order to be understood. At this point a new question arises: it may be admitted that intuition and understanding must synthesize in order to form knowledge. However, knowledge isn’t a “place” where this synthesis occurs. So, where does the synthesis happen? More precisely, upon what grounds do intuition and thought synthesize?
“[E]verything in the essence of pure knowledge that has a synthetic structure is brought about by the imagination,” (66) Heidegger tells us, quoting from Kant: “Synthesis in general . . . is the mere result of the power of the imagination, a blind but indispensable function of the soul, without which we should have no knowledge whatsoever . . . .” (Critique of Pure Reason, 112 in the Norman Kemp Smith translation (which is that edition referenced by the translator of Kant and the Problem of Metaphysics) The very important role of the imagination we will discuss later.
At this point we must also take note of something else I have so far ignored: the role of the infamous categories. For Heidegger, the particular categories themselves are worth much discussion: “we must remain uncertain as to the character of this table of judgments [categories]. Kant himself seemed unsure of the nature of this table . . . .” (59) Rather, we must look at the categories in general, in other words, at what role they have in pure reason and the purpose they serve. A category, in the general sense, is the means by which something is asserted of something. It offers up predicates for objects through which the object is determined. Thus, categories serve as essential functions of knowledge and, more importantly, of the unity of objects. They are unifiers in the pure sense, as they are understood prior to any particular objects (which, by definition, are subject to categories). Thus these categories are ontological, not ontic; they are the system of ontological predicates. A category, then, “must not function merely as an ‘element’ of pure knowledge; on the contrary, in it must lie the knowledge of the Being of a being.” (69) Because the prior knowledge of beings, the synthetic a priori, is knowledge of the essence of Being, the categories function as part of the knowledge of Being located in the understanding, though we cannot say more about them yet.
Let us return to the imagination, for now its full role can be revealed. We must summarize our developments thus far: the categories, as well as the pure intuitions of space and time, generate knowledge from finite intuition. This same move requires pre-ontic, that is, ontological knowledge, which is “is the condition of the possibility that a being as such can, in general, become an ob-ject for a finite being” (74) That is, the synthetic a priori, time, space and the categories, that which allows an object to become object through synthesis, are where ontological knowledge lies. Given Kant’s statement that imagination is that place where the synthesis in general is located, we can conclude that our knowledge of Being, that from which we can open up the doors to metaphysica specialis, the foundation of all knowledge, is the imagination. Q.E.D.
IV
“The intrinsic possibility of ontological knowledge is revealed through the specific totality of the constitution of transcendence. Its binding medium is the pure imagination.” (93) Through the imagination the synthesis which creates knowledge takes place. The name which is given by Kant to this process of synthesis (in all its forms) is transcendence. In this manner Kant can call his establishment of the foundation of metaphysics “transcendental philosophy,” which is to say, philosophy which comprehends the transcendental synthesis necessary for knowledge and thus metaphysics (at this point we can also label the imagination transcendental imagination, something which Heidegger and Kant began doing earlier in the process). Transcendence is synthesis, which is brought about by means of the pure concepts. “[B]eyond the representation of this regulative unity the concept is nothing.” (103) Space, time, and the categories stand essentially as rules, and “[t]he representation of the rule is the schema.” (103) Thus we have defined synthesis in somewhat greater detail: in order to make intuition knowledge, that which is received through pure intuition (space and time) is made subject to the understanding. The understanding applies categories, that is, rules, to intuition; in other words, intuition is schematized. The possibility for this must necessarily exist before any and all experience, because “experience” itself depends upon it. Thus, in order to find ontological knowledge, that knowledge of Being which makes knowledge of beings possible, one must go to the schematism. And this is exactly what Heidegger does: “these eleven pages of the Critique of Pure Reason form the heart of the whole work.” (94)
“The formation of schemata is the sensibilization of concepts.” (102) The schemata make raw intuition determined and thus sensible. Before the understanding, raw intuition must be made perceptible. “It follows . . . that the pure understanding must be based upon a pure intuition that sustains and guides it.” (95) In other words, pure understanding must wait upon the two pure intuitions, space and time. According to Kant, space is only the external form of pure intuition, while time is the internal and thus more important form. Space is the external condition of intuition, time the internal condition, which must support both ends: thus, time is primordial pure intuition. As primordial, pure intuition, time creates the space in which beings can be encountered and thus become objects. This space Heidegger calls the horizon, in which beings “come out of this (openness of the horizon) to meet us.” (Heidegger, Discourse on Thinking 64) Time is ultimately that through which beings intuited can be acted upon by understanding and thereby known. “The use of pure concepts as transcendental determinations of time a priori, i.e., the achievement of pure knowledge, is what takes place in schematism.” (114) Time is the pure intuition, categories the pure understanding, and together they synthesize knowledge in the pure schematism of the imagination. All three are equally necessary, though of all things the imagination, as source of general synthesis and thus the support of the other two, takes prominence of place. And, if we recall, all of this comes from an initial problem, that man is not God and thus requires intuition of things not of his creation; that man is finite. To put it all together, “the ‘possibility of experience’ denotes primarily the unified totality of that which makes finite knowledge essentially possible . . . the possibility of experience is identical with transcendence. To delimit the latter in its full essence means to determine ‘the conditions of the possibility of experience.’” (122)
With the schematism we have arrived at ontological knowledge. Let us take a moment to survey the consequences of this. “What is known in ontological knowledge?” (125) Heidegger asks? What, in other words, are space, time, categories, etc.? “A Nothing.” Thus “if by ‘knowledge’ we mean the apprehension of a being, ontological knowledge is not knowledge.” (128) Those pure “powers” we have just described are not themselves known in the sense of things known, because they are the preliminaries to any such things. The ingredients of facts, by definition, cannot themselves be facts; an uncomfortable paradox. Ontological knowledge, the Nothing, is by definition “the complete negation of the totality of beings.” (Heidegger, “What is Metaphysics?” in Martin Heidegger: Basic Writings 98) If this is the case, if ontological knowledge is really what we have just claimed it to be, and if the processes which constitute knowledge are nothing more than schematism, then it is true that “the proud name of an Ontology . . . must give place to the modest title of an analytic of the pure understanding.” (Critique of Pure Reason 161) The problem first detected by Kant is revealed in all its grandeur: “By this transformation of metaphysica generalis, the foundation of traditional metaphysics is shaken and the edifice of metaphysica specialis begins to totter.” (129) The old metaphysics is thrown out, and ontology can now be born anew.
V
Kant published the Critique of Pure Reason in the year 1781, and in it he spelled the doom of conventional metaphysics. No doubt metaphysics suffered a mortal blow, and philosophers focused their studies on the activity of pure reason, yes?
Well actually, instead of the end of metaphysics, what did we really get? We got German Idealism. German Idealism! Hegel! How in the hell did that happen? How does one go from Kant to Hegel? It makes no sense at all.
Or it should not. Had Kant settled matters at this point, there would be no more to say. But the situation is, unsurprisingly, more complex than it appears. In order to understand this we must return again to the role of the imagination, and where Kant places it in his system.
“The transcendental imagination is . . . the foundation on which the intrinsic possibility of ontological knowledge, and hence of metaphysica generalis as well, is constructed.” (134) Our discovery of the schematism has placed ontological knowledge squarely in the hands of the transcendental imagination. It is there that that which is received through pure intuition is determined by the understanding and thus “[i]t is pure productive imagination . . . which first renders experience possible.” (140) Imagination, it must be emphasized, is not one aspect among others, although all three (intuition through time, understanding through concepts, and imagination through the schematic synthesis) are necessary, as was said before. “[T]he transcendental imagination is not merely an external bond which fastens two extremities together. It is originally unifying . . . .” (144, italics mine) Here imagination is not simply a matter of making things up in your head, or picturing things that are not there. Imagination is the core of knowledge.
We can go even further, since imagination has yet to be clearly defined. “‘Imagining’ . . . denotes all non-perceptive representation in the broadest sense of the term . . . .” (136) The imagination has the power to form images; that is, as the place of schematism, the imagination has “the ability to intuit without a concrete presence.” (138) In a certain sense, then, it is creative, with all the pregnant meaning that the discussion of finitude implies. A consequence of this is that pure understanding and pure intuition themselves are not merely parts that cooperate in the transcendental imagination. Imagination is their root. “[T]ranscendence (the function of the transcendental imagination) . . . is not merely the simple sum of pure intuition and pure thought but constitutes a unique and primordial unity within which intuition and thought function only as elements.” (143) What, for example, provides the foundation for pure intuition? What is the source of the primordial generation of horizons? “[I]f, in the modality of its act, pure intuition manifests the specific essence of the transcendental imagination, is it not then true that what is pre-formed therein must also be imaginative, since it is formed by the imagination?” (150) Pure intuition is thus imaginative in character. And understanding? “The apparently independent act of the understanding in thinking the unities is, as a spontaneously formative act of representation, a fundamental act of the transcendental imagination.” (158) The imagination, in its formative power, is that primordial unifying power which allows pure understanding to define unities (i.e. categories) of its own. Thus, both intuition and understanding, and with them synthetic a priori knowledge itself, operate within the transcendental imagination.
What is one to think of this? Surely our deduction before, and our further elaborations, led squarely to this conclusion. But what does it mean, that the imagination of all things is the center of pure reason? “[T]he transcendental imagination manifests itself more and more . . . as that which makes transcendence as the essence of the finite self possible.” (162) Perhaps we are just being scared by terminology. We call it “imagination,” but we cannot think of it simply in those terms. “What is formed by the transcendental imagination can never be ‘merely imaginary’ in the usual sense of that term. On the contrary, it is the horizon of objectivity formed by the transcendental imagination – the comprehension of Being – which makes possible all distinction between ontic truth and ontic appearance (the ‘merely imaginary’ – Heidegger’s note).” (145) But nevertheless, we must think from Kant’s perspective, one which stands at the apex of Enlightenment. Reason, after all, is that which has brought us this far. Reason will reveal truths not only of metaphysics, but of ethics (Critique of Practical Reason) and aesthetics (Critique of Judgment). And what is reason now? What is the answer to all of our philosophical questions? “By his radical interrogation, Kant brought the ‘possibility’ of metaphysics before this abyss. He saw the unknown; he had to draw back.” (173)
Who wouldn’t do what Kant did? The idea that our understanding is not the center of our knowledge, that in fact, knowledge itself is centered, as is the understanding, in the imagination, is the death of Enlightenment. That the unifying power of our mind is imaginary in character, that understanding is submissive to it, is simply too much to bear. Yet by force of argument Kant was drawn to this point. He was drawn there, but there he did not remain. “In the second edition of the Critique of Pure Reason the transcendental imagination, as it was described in the vigorous language of the first edition, is thrust aside and transformed – to the benefit of the understanding.” (167) In the second edition drastic changes are made. The essential role of synthesis is given to understanding; “[i]magination is now only the name of the empirical synthesis, i.e., the synthesis as relative to intuition.” (170) Imagination returns to its typical role as a basically sensory faculty; it is that thing that makes up goofy animals and sees things that aren’t really there, just like everyone likes to believe. It is separated from reason, whose center under which knowledge is generated is now the understanding. Otherwise, “[w]hat is to happen to the honorable tradition according to which, in the long history of metaphysics, ratio and the logos have laid claim to the central role? Can the primacy of logic disappear?” (173) Apparently not. And so, Kant, after going to places no philosopher had gone before, steps away from the truth and settles back into the tradition which had nurtured him.
VI
There are several questions I have not even begun to answer, and several issues in the text I have not discussed. The relation of time to the transcendental imagination and transcendence itself has been completely bypassed, and Heidegger’s “repetition” is not being discussed either.
However, now we have enough information to meet the three goals posed at the beginning of our investigation. Our first was the question, what does Heidegger mean by an “interpretation?” Had Heidegger meant “interpretation” in the sense of a simple repeating of Kant’s work with a clarification and a thesis about its objective, there would have been no need to distinguish between the first and second edition, besides perhaps to remark that the position of the transcendental imagination had changed drastically. No, what “interpretation” became was not simply a discussion of the Critique, but a discussion that placed Kant within the history of metaphysical thought. “[A] specific laying of the foundation of metaphysics never arises out of nothing but out of the strength and weakness of a tradition which designates in advance its possible points of departure.” (5) Kant is significant because he marks the point where the tradition that had defined philosophy for two thousand years looked back upon itself and questioned its most basic of foundations. Thus, Heidegger’s interpretation does not simply look at what Kant said in the Critique, but also at the “environment” of the Critique. Kant is seen in a position in history, at the forefront of a tradition, and how he both exemplifies and resists that tradition are what interest Heidegger. “[A]n interpretation limited to a recapitulation of what Kant explicitly said can never be a real explication, if the business of the latter is to bring to light what Kant . . . uncovered in the course of his laying of the foundation . . . . [W]hat is essential in philosophical discourse is not found in the specific propositions of which it is composed but in that which, although unstated as such, is made evident through these propositions.” (206) The history, the tradition, and the thoughts hidden in the arguments and behind them must be brought to the surface (the “margins” must be read, if you will). A work is not simply words on paper: it is mission, it is conflict, it is a statement of history, and must be read as such.
It in this “living” mode of interpretation that Heidegger sees a predecessor to himself in Kant. As we said in the beginning, “for the first time, ontology becomes a problem” with Kant. For 2,000 years after Aristotle philosophy operated in the same vein, which is to say, incorrectly: “Post-Aristotelian metaphysics owes its development not to the adoption and elaboration of an allegedly pre-existent Aristotelian system but to the failure to understand the doubtful and unsettled state in which Plato and Aristotle left the central problems.” (12) Assuming one can even make well-defined theories based on Aristotle’s written notes and Plato’s dialogues, a metaphysics whose parameters is set by their systems would remain based off of uncertain readings by uncertain men in an increasing unfamiliar language. And, by and large, “Kant remained faithful to the purpose of this metaphysics.” (13) But that is not what is interesting. What is interesting is that Kant had the perceptive power to reach towards the very limits of the “Aristotelian” system, and to find a place where few (if any) had treaded. He located a problem where there had been assumed to be none; indeed, where no one knew even to ask a question. “[W]e have made plain not only that the question of Being lacks an answer, but that the question itself is obscure and without direction.” (Being and Time 24) Kant was the first who tried to ask the question. He made the problem real. Without Kant there could have been no Heidegger.
The third question, that of what Heidegger’s interpretation of the Critique really amounts to, stands as an interpretation of the Critique as the potential beginning of something truly new in metaphysics. “We have undertaken the present interpretation of the Critique of Pure Reason in order to bring to light the necessity, insofar as a laying of the foundation of metaphysics is concerned, of posing the fundamental problem of the finitude in man.” (226) Heidegger places Kant’s arguments in his own terms in order to demonstrate the problematic at work underneath the old terms and the old arguments. Having come from a tradition 2,000 years old, and himself no minor philosopher by the time of writing the Critique, Kant sought to find the real foundation of metaphysics where others had stopped. He did so through seeking that source in which our knowledge of anything, including the metaphysical, arises (just as Heidegger does in Being and Time). He looks to the conditions under which experience arises, and sees that, in order to have experience at all, we must have preliminary knowledge of something not experienced. With this, the synthetic a priori as his guide, he follows the synthesis of knowledge all the way to its source, the transcendental imagination. Ontology was thus found within the subject. But then, “with the revelation of the subjectivity of the subject (imagination), Kant recoiled from the ground which he himself had established.” (221) In the second edition of the Critique he ran from the truths he had uncovered in the name of Reason and the Enlightenment. In the end, all he had accomplished was lost in the wave of “metaphysical lunacy” we call German Idealism. Yet even in the second edition, the truths he unearthed were still there, dormant. Heidegger rediscovered them, and, with phenomenological training from the best and a determination to reach the core of Being despite the cost, he began his work.
posted by Derek at 1:05 AM
1 Comments:
Great text! It helped me a lot in my research. And I could understand about Heidegger in English even tho I'm not native speaker, that means it's simply explained, and that's always bonus. Kudos!
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