| 21759 | Kant deduced the categories from our judgements, and then as preconditions of experience [Kant, by Houlgate] |
| Full Idea: Kant provided a 'metaphysical deduction' of the categories by deriving them from the fundamental forms of judgement. He also gave a 'transcendental deduction' of the categories ...as the indispensable conditions of our knowledge and experience of objects | |
| From: report of Immanuel Kant (Critique of Pure Reason [1781]) by Stephen Houlgate - An Introduction to Hegel 02 'From indeterminate' | |
| A reaction: I'm suspicious of the second method, because it seems that all you can do is make up an explanation of experience, with very little to go on, because it is hidden. Analysing the way we make judgements is more interesting. |
| 19655 | Kant says we can describe the categories of thought, but Hegel claims to deduce them [Kant, by Meillassoux] |
| Full Idea: Kant maintains that we can only describe the a priori forms of knowledge (space and time, and the twelve categories), whereas Hegel insists that it is possible to deduce them. | |
| From: report of Immanuel Kant (Critique of Pure Reason [1781]) by Quentin Meillassoux - After Finitude; the necessity of contingency 2 | |
| A reaction: I've some sympathy with Kant here. There is a sort of introspective philosophical psychology which seems to be possible, independently from empirical psychology. |
| 5544 | Four groups of categories of concept: Quantity, Quality, Relation and Modality [Kant] |
| Full Idea: Four groups of categories: Quantity (unity,plurality,totality), Quality (reality,negation,limitation), Relation (inherence/subsistence, causality/dependence,community), and Modality (possible/impossible,exist/non-exist,necessary/contingent). | |
| From: Immanuel Kant (Critique of Pure Reason [1781], B106/A80) | |
| A reaction: I can't challenge this claim, but Kant himself invites us to compare his scheme with that of Aristotle. See Idea 3311 for a summary. I prefer the way Aristotelian categories 'peter out', rather than being clear and determinate. Hegel had a shot too. |
| 5547 | The categories are objectively valid, because they make experience possible [Kant] |
| Full Idea: The objective validity of the categories, as a priori concepts, rests on the fact that through them alone is experience possible. | |
| From: Immanuel Kant (Critique of Pure Reason [1781], B126/A93) | |
| A reaction: The human mind is clearly a sort of database, with a flexible structure, but the grounding of it has to be innate, and a priori additions are made at an early stage. I take the categories to be the basic folders of the database, but they may be cultural. |
| 5552 | Categories are concepts that prescribe laws a priori to appearances [Kant] |
| Full Idea: Categories are concepts that prescribe laws a priori to appearances. | |
| From: Immanuel Kant (Critique of Pure Reason [1781], B163) | |
| A reaction: The intriguing word here is 'laws'. Might it be possible to create a new category of the understanding, by taking drugs, or by spectacularly imaginative thought? It all sounds a bit conservative (as Nietzsche suggested - Idea 2859). |
| 21986 | Hegel's system has a vast number of basic concepts [Hegel, by Moore,AW] |
| Full Idea: For Hegel the full system of concepts ...contains many more than Kant's twelve. | |
| From: report of Georg W.F.Hegel (Logic (Encyclopedia I) [1817], I §60Z) by A.W. Moore - The Evolution of Modern Metaphysics 07.7 | |
| A reaction: This offers some sort of conceptual scheme, but not the structured one that Kant proposes. The sequence of dialectical mediation imposes some sort of shape on the concepts. |