The Concept of a Thing

An important preliminary clarification is to highlight the role of the “con- cept of a thing”. Kant makes it fairly clear that these modal concepts are

intended to concern things or objects. However, much of their explication makes use of “the concept of a thing”.

The categories of modality have the peculiarity that, in deter- mining an object, they do not in the least enlarge the concept to which they are attached as predicates. They only express the relation of the concept to the faculty of cognition. Even when the concept of a thing is quite complete, I can still en- quire whether this object is merely possible or is also actual, or if actual, whether it is not also necessary. No additional deter- minations are thereby thought in the object itself; the question is only how the object, together with all its determinations, is related to understanding and its empirical employment, to em- pirical judgment, and to reason in its application to experience. (A219/B266–7, my emphasis)

Kant is clearly concerned with the modality of objects/things, however, this concept of a thing appears to play an intermediary role. One might read Kant as claiming that it is the concept of an object which is compatible with or determined by conditions on experience, rather than the object or thing itself, and hence that an object is possible just when the concept of it is in agreement with the formal conditions on experience. On this reading, the modal status of an object will depend upon a relation between the concept of that object and conditions on experience.

By “modal status” I mean whether the object is possible, actual or necessary—Kant tends to use modal adjectives in this way. But what does it mean for an object to be possible, actual or necessary? The most straightfor- ward sense is to take these modal adjectives to mean possibly exists, actually exists or necessarily exists. In what other sense could an object be possible? I suppose an entity might not be an object, and yet be a possible object, in the same way that an unused hunk of clay might be called a possible statue. But the notion of a thing which is a potential object but not yet an object seems too strange.

Why does Kant go via the concept of a thing? A plausible rationale might go something like this. The modal categories are supposed to concern certain compatibility and determination relations between conditions on experience and objects. But what about a possible object? There is no object to be related to, or assessed against, the relevant conditions. If we want to ask if there could be a talking donkey, even though there actually isn’t, we don’t assess a talking donkey against the conditions on experience—there is no talking donkey available. But what we can do is use our concept of a talking donkey, and consider how that is related to conditions on experience. So when considering modal matters, it makes better sense to make use of our concepts of things to find out about their modal properties.

What if there were no concepts? Then one relatum of the relation which determines modality would be missing, and so the object would have no modal status. It would seem that any modal status for objects will depend upon the existence of concepts of those objects. But fair enough. If, in the most general terms, concepts are required for human-like experience, i.e. some kind of categorizing capacities are required in addition to some kind of sensory or receptive capacities, then in cases where there is human-like experience, there will be concepts. What about cases where there is no human-like experience—will there be concepts? We don’t need to answer this question, because the other relatum of the relation determining modal status is conditions on human-like experience. So the absence of this kind of experience would also appear to rule out any determination of modality, apart from whether or not there are concepts. Of course, the claim that the kind of modality which applies to things is restricted to the realm of experience of creatures similar to us is a substantial thesis, to be considered in its own right.

Given this important role for concepts in the account, it is important to get clear on Kant’s notion of the concept of a thing. First, this is not an individual concept, i.e. a concept which by its nature picks out only one thing, such as the concept of being identical to Bertrand Russell. For Kant, a concept is by its nature a general (re)presentation. A particular presentation is an intuition. Taken alone, a concept cannot be expected to pick out an individual, because then it would fail to be general, although of course it may turn out that only one object in fact falls under a concept. In order to guarantee picking out an individual object, intuitions as well as concepts are required. Combining concepts with intuitions gives us cognition of objects and states of affairs.

All cognitions, that is, all presentations consciously referred to an object, are either intuitions or concepts. Intuition is a singular presentation (repraesentatio singularis), the concept is a general (repraesentatio per notas communes) or reflected presentation (repraesentatio discursiva). Cognition through concepts is called thinking. (Kant, 1800, p. 96)

Although concepts cannot be expected to be necessarily such that they pick out one thing, it is perhaps reasonable to suppose that some concepts can be maximally specified, so that in practice only one thing falls under the concept.

Indeed, Kant contrasts two different principles of determination. Kant claims that every concept is subject to the principle of determinability: for each pair of contradictorily opposed predicates, only one of the pair can belong to a concept.

Every concept is, in respect of what is not contained in it, un- determined, and is subject to the principle of determinability.

According to this principle, of every two contradictorily opposed predicates only one can belong to a concept. This principle is based on the law of contradiction, and is therefore a purely log- ical principle. (A571/B599)

This is taken to be a purely formal or logical constraint on a concept: for any concept, it should not include both being F and being non-F for some predicate F .

The second principle is more useful when considering how one might fully specify an object through a concept. The principle of complete deter- mination states that, for every pair of contradictorily opposed predicates, every thing (note, not concept) has one or other of the pair of predicates as belonging to it. I.e., for every predicate F , and every thing x, either x is F or x is non-F .

But every thing, as regards its possibility, is . . . subject to the principle of complete determination, according to which if all the possible predicates of things be taken together with their contradictory opposites, then one of each pair of contradictory opposites must belong to it. (A571–2/B599–600)

This is a principle primarily and ostensibly concerning things, however, Kant also writes

It is the principle of the synthesis of all predicates which are intended to constitute the complete concept of a thing, and not simply a principle of analytic representation in reference merely to one of two contradictory predicates. (A572/B600)

In contrast to the principle of determinability, which places a constraint on any pair of contradictory predicates which might be considered, this principle concerns every such pair, and demands that a complete concept of a thing determine the thing with respect to every pair of contradictorily opposed possible predicates. It seems, then, that the closest we can get to a concept that can pick out an individual object will be the most determinate kind of concept: the complete concept of a thing.

However, things are not quite so simple. First, Kant’s discussion of the principle of complete determination occurs in the Transcendental Dialectic, in his discussion of our idea of God, and problems concerning rational the- ological arguments for the existence of God. He argues that this principle presupposes a transcendental idea, namely, “the sum-total of all possibili- ties”.

This principle does not rest merely on the law of contradiction; for, besides considering each thing in its relation to the two con- tradictory predicates, it also considers it in its relation to the sum

total of all possibilities, that is, to the sum-total of all predicates of things. (A572/B600)

Kant argues that this sum-total of all predicates of things is a necessary pre- supposition of reason, but also that it necessarily leads to the transcendental error of thinking that there exists a necessary being which is the ground of all reality, i.e. God. To go into detail here would involve too great a digres- sion.8 The important point for present purposes is whether we need to be worried that fully determining a concept appears to involve some kind of transcendental error.

The short answer is, no we don’t. The danger of the transcendental idea is when we mistake it for something that is applicable to the empirical world, i.e. we take it to refer to an objectively-real being. Understood properly as a mere regulative principle of reason, there is no problem. The idea of this sum-total should not be understood as referring to something real in the world, but rather as an idea which guides good functioning of reason and the understanding. Put very simply, in determining a complete concept of a thing, we should not think of the totality of all possible predicates as a given, from which we carve out the concept. Rather, it can be thought of as a goal, i.e. we should strive towards taking into account every possible predicate, even though we cannot encounter them all together as a totality in the world. Longuenesse (2005) puts it nicely:9

. . . the representation of a totum realitatis as the complete whole of . . . determinations of things can only be a goal which reason sets to the understanding for the improvement of its knowledge, not an actually given whole. The illusion of rational metaphysics is precisely to think that such a whole is actually given in pure intellect alone, rather than having to be generated by the sensibly conditioned understanding. (2005, p. 220)

In short, there is no reason to think that we cannot form a completely determinate concept of a thing, although Kant would remind us that doing so makes a certain presupposition, which may lead us into error if we are not careful.

Even if we can form the complete concept of a thing, this may not be sufficient to guarantee picking out an individual object. The complete con- cept of a thing is a concept composed of, for every possible predicate, either it or its negation. Such a concept could hardly be more specific, but it is still a concept given that it is general in form. Conceivably two different

8

See Grier (2001) Chapter 7, for a detailed reconstruction and interpretation. 9_{Grier and Longuenesse disagree vehemently over how Kant’s arguments in the Tran-} scendental Ideal are to be understood. See e.g. Grier (2001, pp. 237–243) for Grier’s critique of Longuenesse. For present purposes, I do not need to defend one interpretation over the other (although I am writing under the assumption that Grier wins).

individual objects could fall under the same complete concept. Indeed, this is at the heart of Kant’s rejection of the principle of the identity of indis- cernibles. Even if two objects are indistinguishable as regards the concept of them, they may still be distinct given that distinct intuitions may be in- volved. (See A281/B337-8). Two distinct particular presentations may fall under the same complex complete concept. Note that this is only a problem if we are concerned with the possible existence of a particular individual. But such cases are rather rare. E.g., suppose I want to know if Sherlock Holmes could have existed. Suppose further that I flesh-out my concept of Holmes to include for every pair of contradictorily opposed predicates one or other predicate. If this concept is non-contradictory and compatible with the conditions on possible experience, surely this is enough to ensure that Sherlock Holmes is possible. It is not as though there is a particular non- actual individual object, and I care about whether that thing is possible.10

In short, where Kant writes of the concept of a thing, I will not take this to be an individual concept, but rather a concept sufficiently specified to happen to pick out, in most cases, individual objects.