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| ABC Dooyeweerd 5: Kant's Starting-point "Portrait of Immanuel Kant" (1724-1804) German School (Wiki) "The Conjurer" (Estimated 1475-1505) Hieronymus Bosch: (Wiki) |
CONTEXT of QUOTE:
Kant…held to the dogma of the autonomy of theoretical thought. Therefore he was obliged
to seek the central reference point of the theoretical synthesis in the logical aspect of thought, which he calls understanding.
The notion, "I think," so he says, must necessarily accompany all my representations if they are to be altogether my representations. But this “I think" is according to him only that subjective logical pole of thought which can never become the object of my thinking
since it is the logical center from which every act of thinking must start. Kant calls this supposed logical center of theoretical thought the "transcendental
logicial unity of apperception," or also the transcendental logical subject, or “ego”. He assumes that it is a subjective logical unity of an absolutely simple character, so that it is indeed a central unity without a single multiplicity or diversity of components. This
transcendental-logical I is, according
to Kant, to be distinguished sharply from the empirical ego, the psycho-physical human person, which we can perceive
in time and space. It does not belong to empirical reality. It is much rather the general condition of any possible act of thought; and as such it has no individuality of any kind. It is the theoretical-logical subject to which all empirical reality can be opposed as its object
counter-pole, its object of knowledge
and experience.
Kant emphasizes that from this transcendental logical notion, “I think”, not an iota of self-knowledge is to be gained, since our knowledge is restricted to the sensorily perceptible phenomena in time and space, which are the very object of the logical I. But has Kant succeedcd in showing a real starting-point of the theoretical synthesis within the logical aspect of thought itself? The answer must be
negative. We have seen that the reference point of the theoretical synthesis
cannot be found within the theoretical antithesis
between the logical aspect and the non-logical aspects of experience, which are made into the problem of analytical
inquiry. But Kant's transcendental-logical subject is exactly conceived of as the subjective-logical pole of this antithesis. As such it can never be the central reference point of our experience
in the temporal order with its diversity of modal aspects.
The "cogito" from which Kant
starts cannot be a merely
logical unity. It implies the fundamental relation between the ego and its acts of thought, which can by no means be identical. A logical unity, on the other hand, can never be an absolute unity without multiplicity.
This contradicts the modal nature of the logical aspect. Thus Kant's view of the transcendental ego lands in pure mythology. It implies an intrinsically contradictory identification of the central "I" with its
subjective logical function.
To
maintain
the dogma of the autonomy of theoretical thought, Kant has allowed the real starting-point of his critique of theoretical reason to remain in the dark. It is the task of our radical critique to uncover it.
(Herman Dooyeweerd, In the Twilight of Western Thought: Studies
in the Pretended Autonomy of Theoretical Thought, General Editor D.F.M. Strauss,
Paideia Press, 2012)
