Schema (Kant) - Criticism

Criticism

Obscurity of the concept "Schema"

Kant introduced the concept of the transcendental schema in his chapter entitled "Of the Schematism of the Pure Concepts of the Understanding." It is considered to be one of Kant's more difficult chapters. Even though he knew that he was not writing for a popular readership, Kant twice tried to apologize for this chapter by calling it "very dry" and "dry and tedious." Kant entered into his 1797 notebook: "In general, the schematism is one of the most difficult points. – Even Herr Beck cannot find his way about in it." Professor W.H. Walsh, of the University of Edinburgh, wrote: "The chapter on Schematism probably presents more difficulties to the uncommitted but sympathetic reader than any other part of the Critique of Pure Reason. Not only are the details of the argument highly obscure (that, after all, is a common enough experience in reading Kant, though one is not often so baffled as one is here): it is hard to say in plain terms what general point or points Kant is seeking to establish." Schopenhauer referred to it as "…the strange 'Chapter on the Schematism of the Pure Concepts of the Understanding,' which is well known for its great obscurity, since no one has ever been able to make anything out of it." Schopenhauer's notebooks contained entries that described Kant's chapter on schemata as "an audacious piece of nonsense" and the schema as "an absurdity whose non–existence is plain." In Schopenhauer's criticism of Kant's schemata, he attempted to clear up the obscurity by attributing Kant's concept of schemata simply to a psychological need for architectonic symmetry in his writings. Empirical concepts are based on empirical perceptions. Kant, however, tried to claim that, analogously, pure concepts (Categories) also have a basis. But this contradicts his previous assertion that pure concepts simply exist in the human mind and are not based on pure, schematic perceptions. Schopenhauer also alleged that schemata were introduced merely to give plausibility to Kant's description of the categories or pure concepts of the understanding. The article on Kant in the Encyclopedia of Philosophy calls Kant's schematism a "baffling doctrine " with "cryptic sentences." Josiah Royce referred to "the perplexing doctrine of the Schema." The Scottish philosopher Robert Adamson wrote: "Kant's manner of explaining the functions of schematism is extremely apt to be misunderstood, and to mislead." Kant's early critics (1782 –1789) did not discuss schematism because they couldn't follow Kant's explanation. Heidegger wrote of "the dryness and tediousness of this analysis…." After more than two centuries, Kant's explanation of schema still seems to be unclear to many readers. In their book on Parallel distributed processing, the PDP Research Group discussed Kant's schemata when they appropriated that word to designate their concept of image schemata. "The schema," they wrote, "throughout history, has been a concept shrouded in mystery. Kant's … use of the term has been provocative but difficult to understand." After this sentence, no further attempt was made to discuss Kant's term and the concept that it designates. In 2004, Professor Georges Dicker of SUNY Brockport stated: "I find the Schematism especially opaque…."

Discrepancies

According to Professor W. H. Walsh, there is an apparent discrepancy in Kant's central arguments about schematism. Kant, according to Professor Walsh, first claimed that empirical concepts do not require schemata. Only pure concepts need schemata in order to be realized. This is because pure concepts are totally different from intuitions, whereas, empirical concepts are abstracted from intuitions and are therefore homogeneous with them. But in another part of his chapter, Kant states that mathematical concepts have schemata. "In fact," he wrote, "it is schemata, not images of objects, that lie at the basis of our pure sensible (i.e., geometrical) concepts." In discussing schematism as the method of representing in one image a certain mathematical quantity according to a certain concept, he wrote: "This representation of a general procedure of the imagination by which a concept receives its image, I call the schema of such concept." With regard to pure concepts, Kant then declares, "The schema of a pure concept of the understanding, on the contrary, is something which can never be made into an image … ."

Kant, according to Professor Walsh, has two distinct ways of describing schemata. "Sometimes, as at the beginning of his discussion, he speaks as if a schema were a feature of things which could be pointed to … . In another place, Kant " … speaks as if schematism were a procedure … ."

Problematic mediation

According to Kant, a transcendental schema is a mediating nexus, a third thing (tertium quid), between a pure concept and a phenomenon. This mediation was never satisfactorily explained by Kant, and Charles Sanders Peirce declared that it is a major part of Kant's system. Kant's "doctrine of the schemata can only have been an afterthought…," Peirce wrote. The theory of mediating schemata was "an addition to his system after it was substantially complete." The enormous importance of the concept of the transcendental schema was emphasized by Peirce when he wrote that "if the schemata had been considered early enough, they would have overgrown his whole work."