Imagination as Indistinction — Kant, Heidegger, and Agamben
On April 22 1724, exactly three hundred years ago today, Immanuel Kant was born in Konigsberg, Prussia. He was the fourth of nine children, only six of whom reached adulthood. Anecdotally, it seems Kant’s name leaves a sour taste in the mouth. Many scoff at his deontological ethical system, and even balk at his discussion of infanticide. Unfortunately, I think, this the only exposure to Kant people seem to have. Resultantly, the philosopher, and the hackneyed presentation of his ethics, is readily dismissed.
His ethics is not the extent of his contribution, however. Rather, Kant’s Critique of Pure Reason reveals the full capabilities of this genius philosopher. Positioned between the work of Leibniz, and the empiricism of Locke and Hume, Kant reimagines entirely the limits of our reason and the possibility of human knowledge. Put simply (and far more crudely) our knowledge and the extent of our reason is limited to what we can obtain from the empirical. Conditioned by a priori faculties, we produce knowledge through a complex process of judgment, where images are recreated in the imagination, and concepts are applied to them. In this manner, Kant’s contribution represents a challenge to both the rationalists and empiricists, altering the direction of philosophy.
In celebration of Kant’s three hundredth birthday, I publish here an essay which showcases the enduring impact of Kant’s work, how it was still written about centuries later, and how even contemporary philosophy can be used to explicate Kant in a new manner.
Heidegger’s reading of Kant’s two transcendental deductions has generated considerable debate since its publication. Of significant controversy are Heidegger’s assertions that transcendental imagination forms the ‘common root’ of sense and understanding, and that Kant ascribes separate functions to the imagination in his two deductions. Through my own reading of Kant’s transcendental deductions, however, I challenge Heidegger’s assertions, instead suggesting the imagination can be conceived as a zone of indistinction, overlapping both sense and understanding. I attempt to collapse Heidegger’s claim that deduction B ascribes a lesser role to the imagination, instead showing both deductions present imagination as simultaneously belonging to sense and understanding. Through this analysis, I also challenge Heidegger’s claim that imagination must exist as a ‘common root,’ showing it instead to be a domain which straddles both faculties.
While Kant discusses the role of imagination outside his Critique of Pure Reason, I focus exclusively on the two transcendental deductions to explicate my thesis. Similarly, I am aware of other replies to Heidegger’s reading, however, I consider Heidegger’s analysis in isolation, advancing my own reading in response. My reading of Kant is brief, and only a sketch of this zone of indistinction can be obtained. However, prima facie, I suggest my reading is able to collapse Heidegger’s arguments. I thus conclude Kant’s two transcendental deductions can be read so the role of imagination is consistent. The question of which deduction is superior, therefore, I leave to the reader.
Heidegger and Kant’s Imagination
I think it beneficial to consider Heidegger’s reading of Kant, before moving onto my analysis. I summarise Heidegger’s analysis into two theses (1) that a different role is ascribed to the imagination in the A and B deductions, (2) and that imagination can be considered the ‘common root’ of both sense and understanding. Heidegger defends his theses by considering the contradiction present in the A deduction; Kant proposes three “fundamental faculties” — apprehension, imagination, and recognition — yet also offers only two faculties, sense and understanding. Through his attempt to collapse these three faculties into two, Heidegger proposes imagination as a common root, a discovery from which Kant recoils in the B deduction. In Heidegger’s reading, Kant strikes out several passages in the B deduction, pivoting from a fulsome ‘imagination’ towards a more powerful ‘understanding.’ Thus, Heidegger claims Kant presents two different understandings of the imagination in the two deductions.
The Zone of Indistinction
In his analysis of sovereign power, Giorgio Agamben presents sovereignty not as being within or outside the law, but rather, existing within the state of exception. In this sense, the sovereign is neither within nor without the juridical order, but occupies a zone of indistinction between the two. Agamben writes:
The situation created in the exception has the peculiar characteristic that it cannot be defined either as a situation of fact or as a situation of right, but instead institutes a paradoxical threshold of indistinction between the two.
I suggest this paradoxical threshold can be used to elucidate Kant’s understanding of imagination in relation to sense and understanding. Imagination exists neither in itself, nor does it belong to sense or understanding in toto. Rather, imagination designates a domain wherein which transcendental synthesis can occur, allowing the unification of sense and understanding. By presenting imagination as this zone of indistinction, I attempt to explicate Kant’s seemingly paradoxical claim that imagination is both sense and understanding. It is through this rereading of Kant that Heidegger’s critique can be collapsed, as in both the A and B deductions the imagination occupies this indistinct position.
Transcendental Deduction A
In his first transcendental deduction, Kant establishes three foundational functions of the human mind, namely apprehension, imagination, and recognition. As I have already considered, Heidegger claims this manoeuvre is contradictory as Kant also characterises the human mind with reference to only two functions, sense and understanding. How then, can these three foundational functions be reduced to the two which Kant initially proposes at the opening of the Critique?
Contra Heidegger’s claim that imagination exists, for Kant, as the common root from which sense and understanding stem, I suggest imagination can instead be recognised as a zone of indistinction between sense and understanding. In this way, imagination exists both as sense, and as understanding, evident when considering the overlap between these faculties.
When receiving sensory information, Kant claims a manifold of intuition is perceived simultaneously. However, for knowledge to be obtained, each impression must be arranged in time, that is in the inner sense, so the mind can distinguish one from another. The synthesis of apprehension, therefore, is the process by which the mind can consider each impression within the manifold in isolation, before holding all impressions in a unitary object.
For this process to be achieved, Kant argues the imagination is required. Within the reproductive component of the imagination, objects can be re-presented internally through time as the form of inner sense. The ability to reproduce an object in the imagination is necessary to make meaningful the functioning of our sensory intuitions, time and space, as otherwise a complete representation could never be obtained. It is necessary to recall each past impression, as the mind successively perceives them, for an object to be formed. Thus, our sensory intuitions rely on the overlap between apprehension and imagination to function, forming an indistinction between the two faculties which can be called ‘sense.’
On the other hand, Kant outlines the function of recognition as the process of conceptualisation; the subject recognises the object of our inner representation as belonging to a concept as its “elements… agree with each other.” Kant reasons this process of conceptualisation, and the continual unification of sensory objects with corresponding concepts, enables the continuity of subjective experience. Crucially, this conceptualisation can only occur with a unity of consciousness, or transcendental unity of apperception, “that unity through which all of the manifold given in an intuition is united in a concept of the object.” Thus, the unity of the consciousness with respect to the knowledge of an object enables the production of meaningful knowledge.
We can now conceive the overlap between recognition and imagination. Recognition relies on the imagination as in the imagination representations are formed into images which can be conceptualised. This enables the synthetic faculty of the imagination. Kant thus defines the understanding as “the unity of apperception with reference to the synthesis of imagination.” Therefore, it is only when a unitary image is produced in the imagination that it can be correlated to a unitary concept. This overlapping of imagination and recognition occurs within the understanding.
Kant himself presents imagination as a zone of indistinction when he describes imagination as a “fundamental faculty of the human soul.” It is in the imagination that “we bring the manifold of intuition … into connection with the condition of the necessary unity of pure apperception.” This does not, as Heidegger suggests, require imagination to exist alongside sense and understanding as a third faculty. Rather, imagination is both sense and understanding, and thus can be labelled a “fundamental faculty,” a basic cognitive capacity. Heidegger’s challenge can now be collapsed; the combination of imagination and recognition is the understanding, while the combination of imagination and apprehension is sense. These three faculties can be reduced to two when imagination is conceived as a zone of indistinction.
Transcendental Deduction B
In his B deduction, Kant prima facie ascribes the role initially designated to the imagination, the synthesis of sensory intuitions into one conceptualisable image, now to the understanding:
… we must call this power understanding … whether it is a combination of the manifold of intuition or of several concepts; and again, whether it is a combination of sensible or non-sensible intuition.
It is this apparent distinction between the two deductions which enables Heidegger to argue the B deduction is inferior to the A, as imagination is now subsumed within the understanding. That is, the task of imagination in the A deduction, the synthesis of manifold representation with concepts, now appears to occur within the understanding. A closer reading of the B deduction, however, suggests imagination is not subsumed into the understanding, but rather occupies a zone of indistinction between sense and the understanding, in the same manner in which Kant perceives imagination in the A deduction.
This indistinct overlap between imagination and the understanding is clear, when later in the deduction, Kant presents the transcendental synthesis of the imagination as an act performed on the passive subject. According to Kant, this is a function of the understanding, given the name transcendental synthesis of imagination. It is the active quality of the transcendental synthesis of the imagination which reveals its overlapping relationship with the deterministic judgements made in the understanding. The imagination, therefore, has not been reduced to an element of the understanding, but rather, acts as the understanding, albeit with a different name. Here we can make out one overlapping area which characterises imagination as paradox. The understanding is the imagination.
Simultaneously, the imagination is also sense. Kant understands imagination as the “representing of an object in intuition even without its presence.” Yet, as all intuition is sense, the imagination must necessarily belong to sense, as it is only in the imagination within which these senses can be conceptualised, in accordance with categorical rules. Kant only briefly delineates imagination as sense in the B deduction, yet his commentary is unequivocable. Thus, we can perceive the second overlap, the indistinction between imagination and sense.
This overlap is ultimately made clear by Kant himself, who writes of the imagination that it “depends on the understanding with respect to the unity of its intellectual synthesis, and on sensibility with respect to the manifoldness of apprehension.” Such an overlap is evident also in the unique quality of imagination whereby it is sense, and therefore receptive, but also acts spontaneously and determinatively. Thus, imagination possesses the qualities of sense and understanding, occupying a zone of indistinction between the two faculties. This reading is not to suggest imagination is somehow a posteriori, and obtained empirically. Rather, imagination is sense to the extent that it overlaps with time and space as intuitions. Transcendentally, this must be, as without such an overlap, the application of concepts to sensory images could not be achieved.
Conclusion
Comparing these readings of Kant’s two deductions, the topology of the relationship between sense, imagination, and understanding can be better appreciated. As I have demonstrated, in both deductions, Kant claims imagination is sense and understanding, overlapping indistinctly with these two fundamental faculties. Thus, a new resolution to Heidegger’s challenge can be attained; the role of imagination does not change between deductions, but rather, exists in both as a zone of indistinction between sense and understanding. Simultaneously, it is clear imagination is the not the ‘common root’ of sense and understanding, but rather exists as the space within which these faculties meet. To borrow Agamben’s metaphor, imagination is like the mobius strip, where the external and internal, sense and understanding, become one and the same in a zone of indistinction.
I suggest it is with this reading that Kant’s two transcendental deductions can be reconciled, and Heidegger’s thesis that the A and B deductions ascribe different roles to the imagination can be deflated. My reading enables contradictions with each deduction to be resolved also. When imagination is perceived as a zone of indistinction which belongs to both sense and understanding, it becomes clear how the imagination can be both passive and active, possessing receptive and active qualities.
Prima facie, this collapses Heidegger’s argument that one deduction is superior to another. Both deductions present the role of imagination similarly, and thus superiority simply becomes a matter of individual preference, and cannot be ascribed to a differing conception of the imagination. Further analysis is required, including a broader examination of Kant’s understanding of the imagination, for this thesis to be fully developed and defended. However, this initial sketch, I think, makes progress towards resolving Heidegger’s challenge.
References:
Agamben, Giorgio. Homo Sacer: Sovereign Power and Bare Life. Stanford: Stanford University Press, 1998.
Cassirer, Ernst. “Kant and the Problem of Metaphysics: Remarks on Martin Heidegger’s Interpretation of Kant.” In Kant: Disputed Questions, edited by Moltke S. Gram, 167–193. Atascadero: Ridgeview Publishing Company, 1984.
Dahlstrom, Daniel. “The Critique of Pure Reason and Continental Philosophy: Heidegger’s Interpretation of Transcendental Imagination.” In The Cambridge Companion to Kant’s Critique of Pure Reason, edited by Paul Guyer, 380–400. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 2010.
Heidegger, Martin. Kant and the Problem of Metaphysics. Bloomington: Indiana University Press, 1965.
Henrich, Dieter. The Unity of Reason: Essays on Kant’s Philosophy. London: Harvard University Press, 1994.
Kant, Immanuel. Critique of Judgment. New York: Oxford University Press, 2007.
Kant, Immanuel. Critique of Pure Reason. London: Penguin Group, 2007.
Thanks to Harry Shakespeare-Davies, fellow Kant apologist, and Luca Bisogni (opinions of Kant unclear) for editing this piece.
Thanks to Immanuel Kant for his indelible contribution to philosophy.
