Kant, Critique and Politics

Kimberly Hutchings

• Publisher: Routledge
• Year: 2013
• eBook ISBN: 9781134846962
• Topic: Philosophy
• Subtopic: Philosophy History & Theory

Why does the ghost of Kant continue to haunt contemporary critical theory? Kant, Critique and Politics examines the influence of Kantian critique on the work of such major and diverse theorists as Habermas, Arendt, Foucault and Lyotard. It offers an entirely new reading of Kant, challenging the orthodox distinctions between modernist and postmodernist theorizing, by illuminating how Kant's influence continues to structure critical debate.
This is the first book to offer both a systematic reading of Kant and to contextualise his work in the light of the continental tradition. It will be central to political philosophers and students of international relations and feminist theory.

1
PHILOSOPHY AS CRITIQUE

INTRODUCTION

The object of this book is to explore a series of attempts to articulate critical social and political theory and to understand the dangers and difficulties inherent in these attempts. Central to the argument of this book is the claim that the critical dimension of the work of Habermas's critical theorist, Arendt's political judge, Foucault's specific intellectual and Lyotard's critical nightwatchman is in each case shaped by an inheritance from the original philosophical critic, Kant. All of these thinkers explicitly draw on aspects of Kant's critical philosophy in their work. All of them also repudiate, ignore or denigrate other aspects of Kantian critique. It is as if Kant's critique offers a range of political possibilities from which a selection can be made by contemporary critics. This range of political possibilities is not confined to Kant's explicit pronouncements on politics but is also implicit in his overtly non-political work on theoretical reason, practical reason and judgement. In this chapter my aim is to offer a reading of Kant's critical philosophy focusing on the politics implicit in the practice of critique in the three major critical texts. In the following chapter the ways in which the implicit politics of critique cash out in the explicit critique of politics in Kant's writings on right and history will be examined. These two chapters are designed to clarify the nature of the resources of Kantian critique on which the later theorists are drawing.

It is obviously impossible to do full justice to Kant's principal critical writings in the course of a single chapter. What is offered in the first two sections of this chapter is the tracing of aspects of Kant's arguments in the Critique of Pure Reason, Critique of Practical Reason, and the Critique of Judgment which demonstrate the political logic of the critical philosophy. I will argue that this philosophy is characterized by a pattern in which the presuppositions of critique continually frustrate and complicate attempts both to deduce the legitimacy of cognitive, moral and aesthetic claims and to realize those claims within the world. The practice of critique thus comes to veer between the political options of rigid order or absolute anarchy, with the critical philosopher embracing in turn the roles of legislator and warmonger in a never-ending, but always unavailing, effort to achieve a peaceful resolution to the conflicts of reason. In the final part of this chapter, I go on to orient my own elucidation of critique in relation to two contemporary readings of the politics of Kantian critique in the work of Onora O'Neill and Howard Caygill respectively. In conclusion, following on from the discussion of O'Neill and Caygill, I suggest that Kant's conception of critique leaves us with a highly politicized philosophical practice which is both volatile and paradoxical. At the same time as opening up the questions of what we may know, what we ought to do and what we may hope for, the Kantian critic is also rendering those questions unanswerable. The practice of critique is not safe; it swings between the ideal and the real, between liberal and authoritarian moments, between limitation and legislation and between subversion and submission.

LIMITATION AND LEGISLATION

The critique of reason is Kant's response to the twin dangers which, he argues in the Prefaces to the first and second editions of the Critique of Pure Reason, confronted the metaphysics of his time. These are the dangers of unfounded dogmatism on the one hand and rampant scepticism on the other. According to Kant, the philosophy of his time offered two equally unacceptable alternatives. The rationalism of thinkers such as Leibniz and Wolff made speculative claims about knowledge which could not be substantiated. The empiricism of thinkers such as Hume seemed to undermine any claims to knowledge at all. Scandalously, the history of reason has brought the Queen of the Sciences into disrepute, and reason itself must therefore, as it were, bring itself into question (A:viii–ix).¹ This is something that has never been done before and the method and tools of critique are unfamiliar, taking the form of a tribunal of pure reason in which pure reason is both on trial and judging. Two things, however, are clear from the beginning of the Critique of Pure Reason: first, pure reason in human beings is limited and the process of critique will establish its boundaries; second, if metaphysics is to be put on the road to science, it must follow the model of mathematics and physics and dictate to nature rather than have nature dictate to it (B:xii–xiv). The critical project therefore combines moments of both limitation and legislation. In establishing what pure reason cannot accomplish, its legitimate possessions are identified and protected.

In the ‘Introduction’ to the Critique of Pure Reason, Kant separates the cognitive judgements of the understanding into two kinds: analytic and synthetic (A:6; B:10). Analytic judgements are those founded on the identity of subject and predicate, their explication yields no new knowledge. Synthetic judgements are founded on difference, the predicate is not already included within the subject, and therefore they yield knowledge. Kant explains the distinction using the example of a body. The claim that a body is extended, i.e. occupies space, is an analytic claim according to Kant, because it is part of the concept of bodies that they are entities in space. The claim that a body is heavy, in contrast, is a synthetic claim, since there is nothing in the concept of body that indicates specific weight. A priori knowledge is knowledge that is necessary and universal, entirely independent of experience. Kant claims that the model sciences of mathematics and physics are both distinguished by the possession of synthetic judgements a priori as principles, and argues that, if metaphysics is to be a science, it must also involve such principles. The critique of pure reason is launched as the quest to deduce the possibility of judgements of reason which combine the synthetic and the a priori (B:19). In order to answer the question of the possiblity of synthetic judgements a priori, Kant differentiates three human faculties: intuition (the faculty of sense); understanding (the faculty of concepts); and reason (the faculty of the unconditioned). These are examined in the ‘Transcendental Aesthetic’, ‘Transcendental Analytic’ and ‘Transcendental Dialectic’ respectively.

The arguments of the transcendental aesthetic and analytic are well known and it is unnecessary to rehearse them in detail here.² However, there are some aspects of the argument that are crucial for a grasp of the nature of Kantian critique in general to which I would like to draw attention. One such aspect is the famous distinction between phenomena and noumena that emerges from the argument in the ‘Transcendental Aesthetic’. Kant argues that intuition of objects of sense perception is only possible under the forms of space and time, the pure a priori forms of intuition. Appearances always obey the conditions of space and time and are not things-in-themselves (A:41–49; B:59–73). This argument supports the twin assumptions of critique, that reason is limited (in the sense that it cannot know things as they are in themselves), but that metaphysical science is still possible (in the sense that reason can become aware of the nature of its limits). In parallel with the distinction between appearances and things-in-themselves Kant draws a distinction between two kinds of cognition: finite cognition, which only knows things as appearances; and infinite, divine intellection, which knows things not just as they appear but as they are (B:71–72). The nature of Kant's distinction between phenomena and noumena is never wholly clear; at times it seems that the idea of the thing-in-itself is a hypothetical limiting concept; at other points the thing-in-itself is referred to as if it were a concrete entity forever beyond our grasp. However, the importance of the phenomena/noumena distinction lies in the way in which it testifies to the dependence of critique on both limitation and transcendence. The thing-in-itself confirms both the power and the weakness of pure reason. Reason's power can be seen in the way in which appearance is regulated by the understanding. Reason's weakness can be seen in the way in which the thing-in-itself remains forever beyond the reach of cognition; we cannot know whether it exists or not.

The establishment of the two forms of intuition a priori gives Kant one of the two factors he requires for the solution of the general problem of transcendental philosophy; that is, an a priori predicate with which a concept may be combined without reference to actual experience. In addition to this, however, he needs to establish pure concepts of the understanding which apply to the objects in intuition synthetically a priori. These concepts have to be more than simply identified and tabulated, they have to be deduced, i.e. their right to apply to intuition and thus to become lawgivers of nature has to be established (A:84–86; B:116–118). These pure concepts of the understanding are termed ‘categories’. Kant offers two different deductions of the categories in the first and second editions of the Critique of Pure Reason; they differ in significant respects, but their purpose is the same. In both of the deductions Kant is explicating the unifying and legislative force of the understanding in cognizing the phenomenal world. In the first deduction (A:95–130) Kant begins by outlining three subjective sources involved in the foundation of possible experience: ‘apprehension of representations in intuition’; ‘reproduction of representations in imagination’; and ‘recognition of representations in concepts’. This third source, grounded in a pure productive synthesis of imagination, assumes a key importance as the necessary unity of apperception.

Appearances in experience must stand under the conditions of the necessary unity of apperception, just as in mere intuition they must be subject to the formal conditions of space and time. Only thus can knowledge be possible at all.

(A:110)

The second deduction (B:129–169) concentrates from the start on the unity of apperception, which is defined as a kind of originative unifying synthesis underlying all other unities (B:131). The transcendental unity of apperception is the moment of the ‘I think’, not the self-knowledge of ‘I’ as phenomenon, but the original, unified, abstract being of the understanding (B:155–156). A parallel is drawn between the role of space and time in intuition, and that of the unity of apperception in cognition. As with time and space, the work of the unity of apperception is said to be necessitated by the finite nature of human thought (B:138–139). Thus the unity of apperception is defined as the condition of the possibility of all coherent experience. At the completion of this second deduction, Kant has clarified the nature and ground of the second factor which makes synthetic judgement a priori possible. The transcendental unity of apperception is the form of the understanding in its relation to the original a priori forms of intuition, space and time; together they enable the synthetic a priori cognition of appearances. Moreover, each factor is powerless without the other (B:147–148).

After the deduction of the categories Kant goes on to explain further the process of cognitive judgement and how the rules of the understanding are bound to experience through the schemata and the table of the principles of judgement, determinate and regulative (A:130–292; B:169–349). The table of the principles of judgement valid only in relation to possible experience is divided into the mathematical ‘axioms of intuition’ and ‘anticipations of perception’, and the dynamical ‘analogies of experience’ and ‘postulates of empirical thought’ (A:161; B:200). The mathematical principles involve the necessary determinations of pure and empirical intuition in terms of quantity and quality. The analogies of experience and postulates of empirical thought, which deal with the necessary connection of perceptions and with their modal status are, however, regulative as opposed to constitutive principles, which do not determine the object of experience, but merely assist in the experience of it (A:179; B:221–222).

Throughout the critical philosophy, critique has a dual task, both to deduce the legitimacy of the claims of reason and to apply those claims in the appropriate realm. In the context of theoretical reason, the deduction of the categories and the examination of the principles of judgement appears to complete the task of critique. Having concluded his survey of the principles of judgement, Kant claims that the ‘land of truth’ has been fully explored and the entitlements of pure reason have been fully established (A:235–236; B:294–295). The critique, however, does not come to an end with the confirmation of its realm of operation in the cognition of phenomena. Instead, reason continues to push beyond the ground of the principles of judgement through the dynamic of two of those sets of principles themselves, that is, the analogies of experience and postulates of empirical thought. The problem raised for reason by these principles is that they appear to imply concepts which are themselves unintelligible in relation to experience. For example, the second analogy of experience is the rule of causal succession. In the case of causal succession, the series of conditioned moments becomes caught in an infinite regression, which can only find its origin in the unconditioned, a concept without application to the realm of sensible intuition. It appears that there is a higher unity above and beyond that of the understanding and towards which the understanding is oriented.

Just as the understanding unifies the manifold in the object by means of concepts, so reason unifies the manifold of concepts by means of ideas, positing a certain collective unity as the goal of the activities of the understanding, which otherwise are concerned so olely with distributive unity.

(A:644; B:672)

Just as the ‘Transcendental Aesthetic’ introduces the notion of the thing-in-itself, which is both necessary for the possibility of meta-physics and unknowable within it, so the ‘Transcendental Dialectic’ introduces ideas of reason which are either necessary for cognition or implied by it and yet are unknowable within it. In both cases reason's ambition is to know the grounds of its own legislation. However, in seeking to know this Kant demonstrates that reason tries to cross the boundary between finite and infinite and, as a consequence, falls into antinomy. Contradictory claims seem to be implied by the principles of judgement. Returning to the example of causal succession given above, equally good arguments can be given to support the idea of infinite regression lying behind each causal claim and to support the idea of a first cause as the originating point for every causal chain. The understanding is forced to be content with accepting the regulative necessity of the ideas of reason, whilst being wholly unable to establish their truth.

Here the contention is not that its own assertions may not, perhaps, be false, but only that no one can assert the opposite with apodeictic certainty, or even, indeed, with a greater degree of likelihood. We do not here hold our possessions upon sufferance; for although our title to them may not be satisfactory, it is quite certain that no one can ever be in a position to prove the illegality of the title.

(A:740; B:768)

Ideas of reason are concepts which transcend the possibility of experience themselves, whilst at the same time helping to make experience possible. Ideas provide the rules which are implicit in the process of cognition, but as they cannot be known they must always be treated hypothetically ‘as if they could be known. If ideas are treated as principles of judgement, the result is a series of sophistications and illusions which Kant discusses in the paralogisms and antinomies of reason (A:341–567; B:406–595). Ideas provide rules to regulate the understanding, but they also imply ideals or rational archetypes which are the goals towards which cognition is necessarily oriented, the ideals of God, freedom and immortality. These ideals do not themselves condition theoretical reason, but are nevertheless implied by it. Like the concept of the thing-in-itself, the ideals of reason mark the boundaries of the legislation of pure theoretical reason and therefore testify both to its power and to its limitation.

The Critique of Pure Reason ends with a section led the ‘Transcendental Doctrine of Method’. In this section Kant eviews, on the basis of the arguments of the previous three sections, what reason can and cannot do, returning to the dilemmas of metaphysics with which he began. It is in this section of the text that Kant has most to say about what the critique of reason means, in contrast to either dogmatic or sceptical assertions of reason. In relation to theoretical reason, critique is claimed to involve a process of constant self–criticism and openness to debate (A:738–739; B:766–767); as well as a shift from a state of war in metaphysics to a legal order (A:751–752; B:779–780). Kant explicitly compares the latter to the necessary move from a Hobbesian state of nature to a political state. Thus critique legitimates and encourages freedom of speech, while arguing that only certain speech is legitimate. Dogmatic and sceptical philosophers are speaking illegitimately of what cannot be known.

The critique on the other hand, arriving at all its decisions in the light of fundamental principles of its own institution, the authority of which no one can question, secures to us the peace ...

Table of contents

• Cover
• Half Title
• Full Title
• Copyright
• Dedication
• CONTENTS
• Preface and acknowledgements
• INTRODUCTION
• 1 PHILOSOPHY AS CRITIQUE
• 2 KANT'S CRITICAL POLITICS
• 3 HABERMAS AND THE POSSIBILITY OF CRITICAL THEORY
• 4 ARENDT AND THE POLITICAL PHILOSOPHY OF JUDGEMENT
• 5 FOUCAULT'S CRITICAL ATTITUDE
• 6 LYOTARD: PHRASING THE POLITICAL
• 7 THE CRITIQUE OF INTERNATIONAL POLITICS
• 8 FEMINIST CRITICAL THEORY
• CONCLUSION
• Notes
• Select bibliography
• Index