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Philosophy and Phenomenological Research

Vol. LXXVII No. 2, September 2008


 2008 International Phenomenological Society

Cassam and Kant on How


Possible Questions and
Categorial Thinking
beatrice longuenesse
New York University

Kant, according to Cassam, had a greater role than any other philoso-
pher in bringing how-possible questions to the foreground of philoso-
phical investigation. Moreover, in addressing the how-possible question
he most prominently asked (How are synthetic a priori judgments
possible?), Kant had the merit of developing the kind of three level
answer Cassam himself recommends. However, Cassam contends,
Kants version of this answer is inadequate, especially with respect to
its third level, the level at which what is under investigation are
background enabling conditions for knowledge.
In this essay I shall rst discuss Cassams claim to the superiority of
the three level response, both in his own and in Kants version, over
responses relying on so-called transcendental arguments. I shall then
discuss the second of the two main background enabling conditions
for perceptual knowledge Cassam identies, avowing his debt to Kant:
categorial thinking.

1. How Possible Questions and Transcendental Arguments


According to Cassam, so-called transcendental arguments cannot yield
adequate answers to how-possible questions concerning knowledge.
For the ambition of such arguments is to identify necessary conditions
for knowledge, and such conditions can at most be identied with what
Cassam calls background enabling conditions. But the latter, he
claims, on their own are far from adequate answers to the question:
how is knowledge possible? or to the more specic question: how is
empirical knowledge possible? or again to the question: how is per-
ceptual knowledge possible? A complete answer to such questions,

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says Cassam, calls for (i) identifying means to achieve the knowledge
under consideration, (ii) acknowledging possible obstacles to imple-
menting those means and explaining how these obstacles might be
overcome; and (iii) only as a third step, identifying background enabling
conditions for the kind of knowledge under investigation.
Here one might object that there are different ways, or different
tones of voice, in which one may ask: how is X possible? Its one
thing to go to the teller in the train station and ask: how can I get
from London to Paris in less than three hours? Its quite another
thing, if told: well actually, theres a ying saucer taking off in two
minutes and that will get you there in less than three hours, to ask:
how is that possible? (which is as good as to say: thats impossi-
ble!) Now the kind of how-possible question in which Kant is inter-
ested is more of the second than of the rst kind. It presupposes that
some means have been identied to obtain a given result, and proceeds
directly to put into question the very possibility of such means. Ive just
been told that the best way to get from London to Paris in less than
three hours, is the ying saucer taking o in two minutes. But how is
that possible? (= Thats impossible!) Similarly for Kant: Ive just
shown that the kind of knowledge by means of which mathematical
truths or natural causal laws can be discovered is synthetic a priori
knowledge. But how is that possible? Meaning: thats impossible! Its
contrary to everything we know about available justications for
knowledge! Either knowledge is synthetic and then its justication is
experience. Or it is a priori and then its justication is the analysis of
concepts. Its just impossible that a ying saucer be a currently avail-
able means of transportation between London and Paris. Its just
impossible that there be knowledge falling outside the scope of the only
two available kinds of justication: experience, and conceptual analysis.
Of course, Cassam is the rst to point out that the very motivation
for Kants how-possible questions is that there are seemingly insupera-
ble obstacles to some particular knowledge supposedly on oer. But
what I am claiming is that Kants how-possible question is addressed
directly at the obstacle, or at what, in the knowledge under consider-
ation, makes it seem impossible. Thats precisely why the generic ques-
tion of the Critique is: how is synthetic a priori knowledge possible?
The very formulation of the question is the formulation of an obstacle:
synthetic a priori knowledge is supposed to be impossible. When Kant
goes on to examine the nature of empirical knowledge (e.g., in the
exposition of the threefold synthesis, in the Transcendental Deduction
of the Categories), its not so much to answer the question: how is
empirical knowledge possible? (this is a question which, on its own,
he wouldnt nd reason to ask, its not, for him, a problem at all) as to

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show that this very knowledge, whose possibility is not in question,
oers, upon examination, the answer to the question it does make
sense to ask: how is synthetic a priori knowledge possible?
Now this takes us to the nature of transcendental arguments. I agree
with Cassam that Kants version of a transcendental argument, at least
as exemplied in the Transcendental Deduction of the Categories, is
not an anti-skeptical argument, where one would move from a premise
any skeptic would have to accept as true, to precisely the truth the
skeptic was putting into question, a truth that is now argued to be a
necessary condition of the premise the skeptic did accept as true.
Rather, says Cassam (drawing on Karl Ameriks analysis of the Tran-
scendental Deduction), the Transcendental Deduction is a regressive
argument, where one assumes the existence of knowledge of indepen-
dently existing objects (denitely not a premise a skeptic would accept)1
and argues ones way back to the necessary conditions of such
knowledge, which are shown to include the objective validity of the
categories.
Cassam thinks this reading of Kants argument in the Transcenden-
tal Deduction is correct. But he thinks that Kant is unable to provide a
clear statement of the motivation for undertaking such an argument.
As a result, the argument itself is defective.
The purpose or motivation of the Deduction, says Cassam, is valida-
tory: it aims at validating the categories, i.e., showing that they have
objective validity, that is to say, showing that independently existing
objects of experience do fall under them, or that categories are applica-
ble to independently existing objects. But, Cassam continues, the argu-
ment is also, in its method, revelatory: it argues for the objective
validity of the categories by showing that categorial thinking is an
indispensable component in perceptual knowledge of objects. However,
Cassam claims, the Deduction is defective both as to its validatory and
as to its revelatory aspect. For Kant is neither able to explain why the
categories need justication in the rst place, nor to explain why their
being shown to be indispensable components in perceptual knowledge
amounts to a justication of their objectivity. Cassam thinks there is a
connection between these two defects: because Kant is unable to pro-
vide a satisfactory statement of the motivation of the Deduction, he is

1
One might, however, argue that the premise of the Deduction is actually weaker
than the one just stated for regressive transcendental arguments. The premise
might be read as: we have experience we take to be of independently existing
objects. This is perhaps still not a premise every skeptic would accept, but closer
to it. What interests me in what follows, however, is not how close to an anti-skepti-
cal argument the Deduction turns out to be, but Cassams discussion of the motiva-
tion for the Deduction and the relation between the three aspects of the purported
regressive argument.

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also unable to provide a satisfactory argument for a justication whose
need he has not clearly explained in the rst place.
What is the unclarity in the statement of motivation? According to
Cassam, its the following: Kant claims that the categories are in need
of a Deduction (a justication of the claim that they have objective
validity or applicability to objects of experience) because unlike empiri-
cal concepts, instances of them cannot be found in experience. But
Kant also claims, says Cassam, that unlike ideas of reason, categories
have objective validity, namely they can be instantiated in experience.
So presumably there is a sense in which categories can, and one in
which they cannot, be instantiated in experience.
But actually, I think there is no doubt Kants view is that experience
does contain instances of the categories (e.g., instances of causal rela-
tion, interaction, necessity, and so on). What experience does not do is
present us with images of the categories in the way it presents us with
images of tables, cups, chipped cups, and so on. And because it does
not and cannot present us with images of the categories, we cannot
know that some thing or state of thing presents us with an instance of
this or that category just by seeing that we are presented with such an
instance (in the way we can know that the cup is chipped just by seeing
that it is chipped, or know that this thing is a cup just by seeing it).
Nevertheless, the Transcendental Deduction is an argument to the
eect that the categories are instantiated in experience (necessarily, all
objects of experience fall under the categories). But because we have no
image of them, a special chapter of the Critique is devoted to explain-
ing how we can nevertheless come to know that an object falls under a
particular category, i.e., according to what rules we can legitimately
make use of the categories in our knowledge of objects of experience.
Thus its not that Kant says both that the categories are, and that they
are not, instantiated in experience. Its that they are instantiated (as
argued by the Transcendental Deduction) but we have no ordinary
empirical way of knowing that they are thus instantiated: therefore the
need for on the one hand a Transcendental Deduction to prove that
and how they are instantiated, and on the other hand a Doctrine of the
Schematism of Pure Concepts of the Understanding to explain how we
can know that this or that category is instantiated, in any particular
case.
Kants proof that categories are instantiated consists in showing that
no object of experience at all would be presented to us unless categorial
thinking were at work in the very perception of objects. Kants Deduc-
tion thus combines all three strategies Cassam presents as possible
alternative strategies for a Transcendental Deduction: it is validatory
(it aims at justifying the objective validity of the categories). It is

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revelatory (it provides that justication by revealing the indispensability
of categorial thinking to perception of objects). It is explanatory (it
explains which operations of the mind are involved in the coming
about of perceptual knowledge). But this is precisely where, according
to Cassam, the second defect of the Deduction comes into view. The
rst was that because of his contradictory statements concerning the
instantiation of the categories, Kant failed to provide a clear account
of the motivation for the Deduction. Now the second is that Kant fails
to show how the presence of categorial thinking within perceptual
experience sufces to justify the objective validity (the instantiation in
experience) of the categories.
Now I want to suggest that just as Cassam thinks there is a connec-
tion between the two main failures of Kants Deduction, there may well
be a connection between what I take to be Cassams imperfect under-
standing of the motivation of the Deduction and his perplexity with
respect to the connection between the issue of legitimacy and that of
indispensability of the categories. To put this hypothesis to the test, let
me now consider the second kind of background enabling conditions
Cassam identies for perceptual knowledge: categorial thinking.
A more complete discussion of his view would call for examination of
the rst background condition as well: spatial representation. But I
have to leave this out to keep this essay within its assigned limits.

2. Level 3 and Categorical Thinking


Cassam defends what he describes as a moderate version of the view
that categorial concepts are a background enabling condition for per-
ceptual knowledge. Once again a fair amount of his discussion is
organized around a discussion of Kants view, and more particularly
of the role Kant assigns to categories in what he calls the transcen-
dental synthesis of imagination that is involved in perceptual repre-
sentation of objects. Pace Kant, Cassam defends a synthesis-free
argument for the claim that categorial thinking is a background
enabling condition for perceptual knowledge. He oers two main
arguments for freeing Kants doctrine of the categories from its pur-
ported link to the doctrine of synthesis. The rst is that the doctrine
of synthesis threatens innite regress in the search for background
enabling conditions. The second is that fortunately, the doctrine of
synthesis is not needed at all to establish the role of categories as
background enabling conditions of perceptual knowledge. Let me con-
sider each argument in turn.
According to Cassam, Kants argument for the role of categories as
background enabling conditions goes something like this: perceptual

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knowledge is based on epistemic seeinge.g., seeing that the cup is
chipped, that this is a tree, that the ower is in bloom, and so on. Episte-
mic seeing depends on possessing empirical concepts. Now empirical
concepts, according to Kant, are acquired by the three operations of
comparison (of individual intuitions of objects), reexion (keeping the
various intuitions together in one consciousness), abstraction (abstract-
ing from the features by which they dier, selecting the characters they
have in common). All three operations taken together are called by
Kant analysis. We form empirical concepts by analyzing the con-
tents of our intuitions. But in order for this analysis to be possible, the
intuitions must be prepared for analysis. This is the work of synthesis.
Now the categories are conceptual representations of the dierent
forms of pure synthesis that make it possible to acquire concepts by
comparison, reection, and abstraction (p. 143). So via synthesis, the
categories appear to be background enabling conditions for analysis,
thus for acquiring empirical concepts, thus for epistemic seeing, thus
for perceptual knowledge. Summarized by Cassam, the argument
becomes: Without the categories there would be no synthesis, without
synthesis there would be no analysis, without analysis there would be
no concepts like tree and cup, and without concepts like tree and cup
there would be no epistemic seeing (p. 143). But, says Cassam, if
synthesis is necessary to prepare the ground for analysis, dont we need
an account of what prepares the ground for synthesis? And
then an account of what prepares the ground for whatever that
proto-synthesis might be? And so on.
The objection is ill founded. Kants point in stressing the condition-
ing of analysis by synthesis is actually a very simple one. In order for
the intuitions to be compared, in order for their differing features to be
abstracted from, these intuitions and their features need to be brought
together and kept in view together. There is nothing more than this to
the notion of synthesis. Indeed there is strictly speaking no regress
from analysis to synthesis. Together they constitute two aspects of one
and the same operation of the mind, that of ordering different repre-
sentations under a common one (Critique of Pure Reason, B93). Still,
Cassam might reply: if something needs to be done to make analysis
possible, why is there not something more to do to make synthesis itself
possible? Well, certainly something needs to be available for synthesis.
This is taken care of by the fact that objects aect us in various ways,
and that the results of aection (sensations) are ordered according to
forms of intuition: space and time. So, yes, the manifold or multi-
plicity of what is presented does need to be such that it can be synthe-
sized, brought together. But the buck has to stop somewhere, and it
does. Once a content is provided for judgment, and once that content

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is ordered in such a way that it can be judged, nothing more needs to
be accounted for.
This takes us to Cassams second objection. Fortunately he says, we
dont need the doctrine of synthesis to explain the role of categorial
thinking as background enabling condition for perceptual knowledge.
For we see, e.g., in the case of the empirical concept of tree, how
acquiring such a concept depends on the ability to pick out characters
of trees that depend on added conditions expressed in hypothetical
judgments such as: If the weather gets cold, trees lose their leaves,
if a tree gets no water, it perishes, and so on (p. 145). Now these are
examples of causal thinking, which is an instance of categorial think-
ing. So, the mere consideration of the role of analysis (extracting
relevant characters from the material of intuition) in acquiring
empirical concepts sufces to support the claim that categorial thinking
is a background enabling condition of perceptual knowledge, without
any appeal at all to the doctrine of synthesis.
But this is a strangely impoverished understanding of what analysis
(of intuitions) consists in and how it can accomplish what it accom-
plishes. How do I even notice the if then connection between cool-
ing o of the weather and the loss of leaves? Dont I need to keep in
view one and the same object (the tree) and its changes of states (among
which, sometimes, with some regularity, the loss of its leaves)? Dont I
need to notice that a particular change of states (the loss of leaves) is
regularly concomitant with the cooling o of the weather? Moreover: is
the conjunction of cooling o with loss of leaves the same kind of con-
junction as that of drying out (no water) with withering of the plant?
Answering all of these questions depends on keeping in view dierent
objects and their various features, and keeping them in view according
to various rules of combinations. These rules of combination are pro-
vided by the capacity to judge and its logical forms, which are forms of
analysis: I myself argue, (in Longuenesse (1998), cited by Cassam), that
it is by looking at forms of analysis that one will understand the corre-
sponding forms of synthesis. And I put strong emphasis on Kants point
that without their schemata (sensible rules for their application in intui-
tion), categories are nothing but logical forms of judgment, which are
forms of analysis. Cassam and I agree on this point. But I suspect when
Cassam goes on to maintain that considering the role of analysis is by
itself sucient to account for the nature and role of the categories, he
cannot avoid implicitly smuggling into what he calls analysis just
those activities of combination without which no judging would take
place at all. Judging is synthesizing (intuitions) for analysis into con-
cepts, as well as synthesizing or combining into judgments the concepts
one has analyzed out of what is presented in sensible intuition.

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This takes me back to what I was suggesting earlier: there is a link
between the inconsistencies Cassam sees in Kants statement of the
motivation of the Deduction, and Cassams doubts about the connec-
tion between indispensability and legitimacy. The categories, according
to Kant, are not indispensable only as forms of thought (forms of anal-
ysis). They are, moreover, indispensable as forms of the presentation of
what is to be thought (was is presented in intuition). Now of course no
amount of synthesis can arbitrarily make it the case that a presented
content is such as to be analyzable according to this or that form of
judgment, or thought under this or that empirical concept. The mat-
ter of intuition, i.e., the result of aectionsensationis what deter-
mines which kind of synthesis is appropriate and which empirical
concept will be analyzed out of what is thus presented. Kants view, in
this respect, is entirely compatible with Cassams externalism about
concepts. Still, the argument is supposed to have shown that necessar-
ily, the categories are instantiated in experience i.e., in the objects of
experience, since their being in use is a condition for the presentation
of these objects. So as I argued earlier, pace Cassam, the issue of
instantiation is suciently (if not always as conspicuously as one would
wish) dened by Kant, and correspondingly, the indispensable role
of the categories for the very presentation of the object is the solution
to the question of instantiation, and thus of legitimacy.
Obviously Cassams book is not limited to a discussion of Kants
views, nor, within its discussion of Kants views, is it limited to the role
of categorial thinking in perceptual knowledge. Cassam offers countless
insights into the nature of knowledge, and more specically, a priori
knowledge, which would call for many more discussion essays.

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