KANTS’ NOTION OF CATEGORY

UNIVERSITY OF NIGERIA, NSUKKA

FACULTY OF SOCIAL SCIENCE

DEPARTMENT OF PHILOSOPHY 

TOPIC:

KANTS’ NOTION OF CATEGORY

AN ASSIGNMENT

SUBMITTED IN PARTIAL FULFILMENT OF THE REQUIREMENTS FOR THE COURSE: PHIL 211

(METAPHYSIC)

BY

UGWANYI IMELDA. A.                                2013/187178

UGWU OLUCHUKWU MARY                    2013/190802

ORAKWE CHIOMA ANASTASIA             2013/187166

ODO SOLOMON ANETOCHUKWU          2013/188496

LECTURER: REV. FR. DR. INNOCENT ENWEH

JANUARY, 2015.

KANTS’ NOTION OF CATEGORY

            Brief history of Emmanuel Kant

            He was born in Konigsberg; East of Prussia in 1724. His father was a Saddle-Maker. He did his philosophical studies between 1740 to 1946 after that he tutored till his retirement in 1796. He died in 1804.

            Before his death, he published books in various areas of study like philosophy, political theory, natural science, law, history etc. Some of his books include critique of pure Reason (1796), Critique of practical Reason (1788), Religion within the Bounds of Reason Alone (1792), Metaphysic of Morals (1797) and so on.

Brief Introduction to the Word Category

            The word came from Greek word ‘Kategoria’ meaning that which can be said, predicted or publicly declared and asserted about something. A category is attribute property, quality or characteristics that can be predicted of a thing.

            The category theory has been a respectable theory in Western Metaphysics from Aristotle to strawson. It states that objects of knowledge can metaphysically be divided into a fixed number of categories. There appears to be four main theories of categories, first, Aristotle’s Metaphysical theory of Categories, Second, Kant’s epistemological theory of categories, third, Russell’s Logical theory of types of categories and fourth, Strawson’s descriptive theory of categories.

            In his critique of pure reason, Kant intends to provide a principle to identify the most fundamental concepts of thought, the categories of the understanding, and then to show that our knowledge of any object always involves these categories. Categories are fundamental concepts that have a function, namely to unify and order the manifold.

            Common Belief in Philosophy Before Kant

            Prior to Kant, the common belief among philosophers was that in the process of acquiring knowledge, objects imposed themselves on the human mind which passively received them. The mind was seen as playing a passive role, simply receiving impressions imposed on it by the objects of sense-perception. The implication of this is that synthentic a priori knowledge would be impossible. All knowledge would then derive from sense-perception. Kant reversed the view, and argued that it is not objects that imposed themselves on the mind, on the contrary it is the mind that imposed itself, its own structure, on objects, and makes them conform to it. It makes objects appear to us according to this structure. The result is that we do not perceive objects the way they are in themselves (noumena) but the way they appear to us (phenomena). i.e. according to its structure which it imposes on them. Thus the mind restructures objects to conform to its own structure, and the only way we can ever know them. The structure of the mind is seen in the categories of human understanding (12 in number), and it is by means of these categories that the mind plays a very positive role in acquisition of knowledge.

                        Time and space as mind’s necessary categories of perception.

Kant believes that we human have more categories of perception than the binary computers have, but that we still perceive everything in terms of our particular categroeis because our minds can register only what our mind are capable of registering.

            Kant believes that time and space shape all our perceptious, just as ones and zeroes shape the perceptions of binary computers. The categories of time include such notions as now and then, earlier and later, before and after, fast and slow, duration and so on; space includes notions such as here and there, large and small, near and far, up and down, high and low around, proximity and so forth. Time and space shape all our perceptions because our minds are simply incapable of having any perception except those that are conditioned by time and space. The fact alone, that every single actual experience we have ever had, without exception, has occurred in time and space, ought to make us suspicious that time and space are human construct, things our minds must add to experience in order for the experience to register with us. Our minds are incapable of even imagining what a timeless or space-less experience would be like. The fact that we cannot even imagine a non-time and non-space condition perception ought to make us know that time and space perception ought to make us know that time and space are the mind’s necessary categories of perception.

            Kant considers space and time to be the two primary conditioners of all our experience, the two transcendental forms of perception. But in addition to them, twelve other categories also condition our experience.

Kant’s Table of Categories

S/N	Of Quantity	Of Quality	Of Relation	Of Modality
1.	Unity	Reality	Inherence and Subsistence	Possibility-Impossibility
2.	Plurality	Negation	Causality and dependence	Existence-Non-existence
3.	Totality	Limitation	Community (reciprocity between agents and patient)	Necessity-Contingence

            This table of categories systematically represents and orders all the categories applicable to a particular domain. It possesses a distinctive structure insofar as they consist of four headings, with three categories falling under each. According to Kant, we have this structure because the a priori division of a process of synthesis is tetrachotomous while that of a synthetic concept is trichotomous. The headings correspond to sub-functions of the process of synthesis of the manifold. The categories represent ways in which the manifold can be synthesized, whereby each heading represents one feature with respect to which synthesis can take place i.e. the synthesis corresponding to each feature can be understood as a sub-function and is represented by a way that we have progression, whereby each sub-function presupposes the previous ones, starting with quantity, which is the most basic one, followed by quality, relation and modality.

            We can divide the categories falling under the titles into two classes, namely the mathematical and dynamical categories. The former are the categories of quantity and quality and are concerned with the practical rule or experience considered in itself independently of any relation in which it stands. The latter are the categories of relation and modality and they focus on connections to other objects, practical rules or experiences.

            The categories falling under each title form a three-fold synthetic unity, whereby the first two produce the third when jointly combined, without the third category having a derivative status since it is based on a distinct function of synthesis. The third category always arises from the combination of the second with the first in its class. These three categories constitute an exhaustive account of fundamental principle of synthesis falling within each sub-function. There are precisely three of them because a synthetic unity requires.

i.                    A condition         (ii) a conditioned      (iii) the concept which arises out of combination of the conditioned with its condition.

Summary of the individual categories

1.      Quantity

It is concerned with the extension or domain of practical rule. It determines the domain of applicability for whom this rule holds. There are:

-          Subjective rules or maxims that hold for the agent (unity)

-          Objective rules or precepts that hold for everyone with the same indinations (Plurality)

-          Laws that hold for everyone unconditionally and absolutely (totality)

2.      Quality

It determines what the rules says – it is required for making a command in the same way that quality is required in judgements for making a claim. It does not specify the nature of the action but determines wether a particular action is to be performed or omitted or whether an exception is to be made. There are:

-          Rules that tell us to do x i.e. to commit (reality)

-          Rules that tell us to not do x i.e. to omit (Negation)

-          Rules that tell us to do x even though there is a rule to not do x, or not to do x even though there is rule to do x i.e. exceptions (Limitation)

3.         Relation

They are concerned with the relations in which practical rules stand. It is not concerned with the moral evaluation of rules. The categories concern:

-          Practical rules as inhering in a subject and resulting from the freedom of that subject (inherence and subsistence)

-          Practical rules that have effects on persons (cause and effect)

-          Practical rules that imply a reciprocal relation between agent and patient (community)

N.b: The first two are always, sub-ordination relation while the third is co-ordination relation. Kant calls them heteronomic and homonomic relations respectively.

4.      Modality

It concerns the relation between the rule in question and other rules. It is concerned with the relational features of practical rules not metaphysical, but logical relations. It is concerned with how the rule is to be asserted or assessed – as Kant says with respect to the table of judgement, modality “concerns only the value of the copula”.

There are practical rules that necessitate:

-          Problematically (possible-impossible)

-          Assertorically (Existence- Non existence)

-          Apodictically (necessary-contingent)

Conclusion

            We would like to conclude by stating that any interpretation or reconstruction of Kants’ category must meet the following two general criteria, namely that it must give an account of the categories such that;

i.                    The third category under each heading can be derived from the combination of the previous two and

ii.                 The first two categories must be sensibly conditioned (leads to satisfaction of a possible end) and morally undetermined, while the third one is sensibly unconditioned and morally determined (free choice that does not lead to satisfaction of an end, but rather because it is in itself necessary).

REFERENCES

Barder, R.M. (2009). Kant and the Categories of Freedom Retrieved on December 12, 2014,        from British Journal for the history of philosophy.             Website:http://users.ox.ac.uk/2SFOPO426/Categories%20of%20freedom%20C         R%20Bader)pdf press

Immanuel Kant. Retrieved on December, 12, 2014, Online Journal. Website: http://pdf             crowd.com/genpdf/f21dgeOad/b99436bc/d9eOa6c6a/5.pdf.?name=www-text etc.com -   theory –Kant-html.pdf.

Iroegbu, Pantaleon. (1995). Metaphysics: The Kpim of Philosophy. Owerri: International University Press Ltd.

Omoregbe, J. I. (1996). Metaphysis: without tears a systematic and historical study. Lagos:           Joja press Limited.

Omoregbe, J. I. (1998). Epistemology. (Theory of Knowledge): A systematic and historical          Study. Lagos: Joja Press Limited

Some reflections on Kant’s Category theory. Retrieved on December 12, 2014, from  Indian        Philosophical quarterly. Website: http//unipune.ac.in/snc/csshlipq/English/IPQ/11-            15%20Volumes/13%2005%20&%2004/PDF/13-3&4-8.pdf