Seminar “Kant: Critique of the Power of Judgment” University of Iceland Session 3 20/9/2007 Text: Introduction (III-IX) Claus Beisbart The Power of Judgment

What the power of judgment is Translation: Guyer/Matthews 66 f. “The power of judgment in general is the faculty for thinking the particular under the universal.” - “the rule, the principle, the law” - a concept NB. R. Brandom: Kant’s insight: concepts as rules.

Remark 1 Under this definition, the power of judgment is important for both practical and theoretical philosophy (or theoretical knowledge and practical reasoning). Theoretical knowledge: think of a wale as a mammal Practical reasoning: think of a certain action as a lie

Remark 2 What is sometimes been taken as a matter of judgment: Application of concepts to particular cases: sometimes borderline cases, but, ultimately, there is an answer:  “this is a matter of judgment” Cf. Wittgenstein’s rule following problem: What makes it the case that a certain instance counts as a correct application of a rule? (Philosophical investigations)

Two kinds of power of judgment Translation: Guyer/Matthews Power of judgment determiningreflecting Universal rule/concept given particular ?

The determining power of judgment Doesn’t have its own rule Otherwise: regress problem (this isn’t Kant’s argument in Intro- duction II, but he has a similar argument in the Preface, p. 57) Rule R1 Does this particular thing match the rule R1? Rule R2 (as a different rule characteristic of poj) But: Does this particular problem match the rule R2? (if it doesn’t, we can’t apply the rule R2!) We need another rule R3, and so on.

The determining power of judgment Conclusion of the regress argument: The decision whether a certain rule applies to a particular case shouldn’t be modeled as guided by another rule, because then the questions arises: Is it okay to apply the other rule? If we need another rule to answer this question, we are left with a regress problem. If you find the regress argument difficult, you could just say that, whenever the determining power of judgment is at work, a rule (a concept etc.) is already given, and this is enough (cf. p. 67).

The reflecting power of judgment Warning: “reflection” is a technical term for Kant. It doesn’t just mean “thought” etc. Two kinds of reflection (this distinction is not in Kant) 1. The universal rule is in principle known to you, but at the moment you don’t think of it. 2. The universal rule is not yet known to you at all.

A principle for the reflecting poj (I) Natural laws General laws derive from the categories of the understanding Necessary conditions on nature/experience Known a priori Particular laws e.g. masses attract each other (Newton’s law of gravitation) Known a posteriori

A principle for the reflecting poj (II) Particular natural laws - are contingent for us (empiric research needed) - are necessary as laws. Unity of special laws required before experience  A new a priori principle

A principle for the reflecting poj (III) Analogy General laws derive from our understanding (they enfold our conceptual scheme) Idea: Also the particular laws derive from an understanding (which is not ours) Principle: Try to find very general rules by assuming that an understanding has created a unity of particular laws “for the sake of our faculty of cognition, in order to make possible a system of experience in accordance with particular laws of nature” Translation: Guyer/Matthews, 67 f.

A principle for the reflecting poj (IV) “for the sake of”  purpose  principle of purposiveness of Nature Status of the Principle: - as if-mode: The principle entitles a kind of “as-if” thin- king, but the purposiveness of Nature is not supposed to be a substantive result a scientist could come up with. - the reflecting poj gives a law to itself, not to nature - regulative principle

A principle for the reflecting poj (V) “But since such a unity [of particular laws] must still necessarily be presupposed and assumed, for otherwise no thoroughgoing interconnection of empirical cognitions into a whole of experience would take place, because the universal laws of nature yield such an interconnection among things with respect to their genera, as things of nature in general, but not specifically, as such and such particular beings in nature, the power of judgment must thus assume it as an a priori principle and for its own use that what is contingent for human insight in the particular (empirical) laws of nature nevertheless contains a lawful unity, not fathomable by us but still thinkable, in the combination of its manifold into one experience possible in itself.” Translation: Guyer/Matthews, 70

The principle of purposiveness at work “Nature takes the shortest way […]” Translation: Guyer/Matthews, 69 “it makes no leaps […]” (cf. Natura non facit saltus) “the great multiplicity of its empirical laws is nevertheless unity under a few principles” More concrete maxims of the power of judgment

A modern example: J. C. Maxwell Before Maxwell (a nineteenth century physicist): various phenomena with electric currents and magnets were known (“phenomenological laws”). Maxwell’s equations describe these phenomena in a unified and condensed way Maxwell’s equations exemplify a unification program in physics. Unification as a task for science. M. Friedman: Science has to explains things, and to explain things means to account for a variety of phenomena in a unified way.

The power of judgment and pleasure If we find unity in the particular laws, then this can be thought of as the realization of a goal. Quite generally, the realization of a goal gives us pleasure The power of judgment has a legislation for our feeling of pleasure. See Guyer/Matthews, 73 The related pleasure is in some sense aprioristic. The exercise of the reflecting power of judgment goes along with pleasure

The mediating role of the poj. (I) “The effect in accordance with the concept of freedom is the final end, which (or its appearance in the sensible world) should exist, for which the condition of its possibility in nature (in the nature of the subject as a sensible being, that is as a human being) is presupposed. That which presupposes this a priori and without regard to the practical, namely, the power of judgment, provides the mediating concept between the concepts of nature and the concept of freedom, which makes possible the transition from the purely theoretical to the purely practical, from lawfulness in accordance with the former to the final end in accordance with the latter, in the concept of a purposiveness of nature […]” Translation: Guyer/Matthews, 81 f.

The mediating role of the poj. (II) “Through the possibility of its a priori laws for nature the understanding gives a proof that nature is cognized by us only as appearance, and hence at the same time an indication of its supersensible substratum; but it leaves this entirely under- determined. The power of judgment, through its a priori principle for judging nature in accordance with possible particular laws for it, provides for its supersensible substratum (in us as well as outside us) determinability through the intellectual faculty. But reason provides determination for the same substratum through its practical law a priori.” Translation: Guyer/Matthews, 82.

The structure of the third Critique (I) See Guyer/Matthews, 75 purely aesthetic representation logical representation Where does the distinction come from? representation (perception in a broad sense, idea in the Lockean sense) aesthetic properties relate to subject logical validity relates to object, objective knowledge Purposiveness of nature

The structure of the third Critique (II) See Guyer/Matthews, 79 Critique of the aesthetic power of judgment Subjective purposiveness Critique of the teleological power of judgment Real/objective purposiveness Critique of the Power of Judgment