Categories versus Schemata: Kant’s Two-Aspect Theory of Pure Concepts and his Critique of Wolffian Metaphysics

Abstract

This article contends that Kant's account of the schemata of pure concepts is pivotal to his critique of Wolffian metaphysics and, hence, to the Critique of Pure Reason as a whole. Opposing the common view that categories are prior to schemata, I argue that Kant considers a priori schematization to occur wherever the human mind unifies a given manifold, except in the purported a priori cognition to which Wolffian metaphysics aspired. I take Kant to hold, accordingly, that transcendental schemata and categories represent different guises of the a priori rules that allow the mind to unify a manifold. Since transcendental schemata present these rules as ways of unifying successive representations, they can be said to constitute the sensible condition of any a priori cognition of objects. As Kant argues, the categories that underly Wolffian metaphysics abstract from this condition, which entails that the a priori rules at stake do not extend to the soul, the world as such and God, but can only be used with regard to possible objects of experience.

Kant's Schematism of the categories: An interpretation and defence

“…14 14 For further discussion of these two different uses of “subsumption,” see Longuenesse (1998, pp. 92–97) and de Boer (2016, p. 451). …”

“…This has the effect of restricting the categories, insofar as they figure in the Principles, to appearances. De Boer (2016) argues that “pure concepts of the understanding” already contain their own schemata (are already “schematized”), while “categories” are these pure concepts, abstracted from their schemata. I have my doubts about whether this is faithful to Kant's use of these terms – de Boer's reading is hard to square with Kant's use of “category” at B128, A146/B185, A161/B201–202, A184/B227, A219/B266, A222/B269, and many other passages – but even if de Boer is correct, my view can easily be translated into her terms as follows: where I say “unschematized category” substitute “category” simpliciter .…”

Kantian Schemata: A Critique Consistent with the Critique

“…It has even been said that “[t]he chapter on Schematism probably presents more difficulty to the uncommitted but sympathetic reader than any other part of the Critique of Pure Reason ” (Walsh , p. 95). Indeed, “it is the only chapter of the Critique of Pure Reason that is not treated separately in the Cambridge Companion to the Critique of Pure Reason” (De Boer , p. 441fn2).…”

“…The only possible answer to such a question is: that is just the way things are. Most of the time, Kant stays true to this, as evidenced by the fact that the section on schemata can be excised from the Critique without much loss (see De Boer , p. 441fn2). Yet, given that the urge to analyse primitives can be catered to only at the cost of engendering a regress, schemata might have a place in that book, albeit in the section on paralogisms.…”