Kant’s Deduction From Apperception: An Essay on the Transcendental Deduction of the Categories

by Dennis Schulting

In focusing on the systematic deduction of the categories from a principle, Schulting takes up anew the controversial project of the eminent German Kant scholar Klaus Reich, whose monograph "The Completeness of Kant's Table of Judgments" made the case that the logical functions of judgement can all be derived from the objective unity of apperception and can be shown to link up with one another systematically. Common opinion among Kantians today has it that Kant did not mean to derive the functions of judgement, and accordingly the categories, from the principle of apperception. Schulting challenges this standard view and aims to resuscitate the main motivation behind Reich's project. He argues, in agreement with Reich's main thesis about the derivability of the functions of judgement, that Kant indeed does mean to derive, in full a priori fashion, the categories from the principle of apperception. Schulting also shows that, given the general assumptions of the Critical philosophy, Kant's derivation is successful and that absent an account of the derivation of the categories from apperception, the B-Deduction cannot really be understood. New edition. First published 2012 as „Kant's Deduction and Apperception. Explaining the Categories" (Palgrave Macmillan)

372 pages, Paperback

Published July 6, 2020

Reviews

[Emre Sevinç · Rating 4 out of 5]

A pretty technical book with a profound ending, if I may say so. That is, if you've already attempted at engaging with Kant: Critique of Pure Reason seriously and had enough motivation left to continue questioning with an insatiable curiosity.

I think I scratched the surface of this book and now have an overall idea about what the author is trying to achieve. Nevertheless, I'm still far from having a strong opinion whether the author had managed to convincingly demonstrate that all those categories can be derived from a single idea/principle of transcendental unity of apperception. I must also admit that some sections felt a bit convoluted and difficult to follow. This might of course stem from the original difficulty of the task and question at hand as well as the type of derivation the author is dealing with (that is, not a step by step logical deduction or a mathematical theorem proof, the things I'm more used to).

For me, the book also revealed the tensions among different Kant interpretations by famous, and mostly English-speaking, scholars; I believe this will be useful as I continue studying Kant.

I particularly enjoyed author's detailed discussion on consciousness because it made me revisit parts of Kant: Critique of Pure Reason and also re-evaluate my former readings on this topic, mostly by cognitive scientists and philosophers of mind.

I can recommend this book only to Kant scholars, serious students of Kant, or people with a genuine curiosity because it's a dense, scholarly text demanding a lot of concentration and comfort with technical terminology.