Relation to an Object

Abstract The aim of this chapter is to address one part of Kant’s argument in the Transcendental Deduction of the categories: why he thinks that the application of the categories is necessary for thought to have “relation to an object.” At the center of the Deduction is the idea that having a unified self-consciousness that one can be aware of as such requires having thoughts about a world of objective particulars. I take this to be an answer to Humean/empiricist skepticism about a priori concepts. Kant thinks that in representing something as objective we represent it as constraining our representations of it; but also that the spontaneity of combination means that combination is not given. Kant takes this to create a problem with how we could manage to represent objects as that which is opposed to our cognitions being determined at pleasure or arbitrarily. His solution is the transcendental concept of an object in general: representing objects’ properties as having necessary connections with each other enables us to represent objects as constraining our cognition. This addresses a problem about concept application faced even by the realist empiricist who takes us to be presented with empirical particulars and accepts Kant’s account of the spontaneity and generality of conceptual thought. Thinking that there are objects which, independently of us, are spatiotemporal causal unities is not enough to explain what it takes for us to have successful concept application in which we think of objects as such.