Kant's Notion of a Transcendental Schema

After her master’s studies in Milan, Lara Scaglia completed her PhD at the Universitat Autònoma de Barcelona (UAB), Spain, under the supervision of professor Thomas Sturm. She collaborated with the Centre d‘Història de la Ciència (CEHIC) and was a visiting fellow at the Collaborative Research Centre SFB 991 ‚The Structure of Representations in Language, Cognition, and Science‘ at Heinrich-Heine-Universität Düsseldorf, Germany, and a postdoc DAAD fellow at the Goethe University Frankfurt, Germany.

• Introduction .............................................................................................................. 15Main objectives of the study ................................................................................... 15Method ...................................................................................................................... 17State of the art ........................................................................................................... 18Structure .................................................................................................................... 20Part I: Kant’s theory of schematism and its context ....................................... 211. The notion of schema before Kant .................................................................... 231.1 Ancient times ................................................................................................ 241.2 Middle Ages .................................................................................................. 261.3 Modern Ages ................................................................................................ 281.3.1 Tetens’s conception of schema ............................................................ 341.4 Conclusion .................................................................................................... 402. Kant’s pre-critical notion of schema ................................................................. 412.1 The metaphysical notion of schema in the Nova Dilucidatio ................. 452.2 The new significance of schema in the Dissertation from 1770.A first reference to the problem of objectivity ......................................... 462.2.1 Schema and the forms of the worlds ................................................. 472.2.2 The novelty of the account of space and time as schemata inthe Dissertation: Comparison with Newton and Leibniz ............... 522.2.3 The limitations of Kant’s Dissertation and the need of afurther solution to the question of objectivity .................................. 543. The introduction of the transcendental forms in the Critique of PureReason ................................................................................................................... 573.1 The doctrine of sensibility .......................................................................... 583.2 The doctrine of the understanding ............................................................ 634. Analysis of the schematism chapter ................................................................. 734.1 The Transcendental Doctrine of Judgement ............................................ 744.2 Time-mediation ........................................................................................... 784.3 Schemata and their faculty ......................................................................... 804.4 Schemata: images or concepts? .................................................................. 824.5 The table of schemata .................................................................................. 844.6 Schemata as conditions of the significance of the pure concepts .......... 895. Debates over the schematism chapter in Kantian scholarship ...................... 955.1 Main criticisms of the schematism chapter .............................................. 965.1.1 A redundant addition within the Critique of Pure Reason ............. 96a) Zschocke’s focus on the Transcendental Aesthetic ..................... 96b) Curtius: the schematism chapter and § 24 .................................. 985.1.2 Schematism’s obscure terminology .................................................. 100a) Curtius: difficulties concerning the notion ofsubsumption .................................................................................. 100b) Walsh: schemata and concepts .................................................... 103c) Guyer: incongruences in the relation between categoriesand schemata ......................................................................... 104d) Allison: difficulties concerning the distinctions amongfaculties and the variety of schemata’s definitions ............ 1065.1.3 The priority ascribed to time over space ......................................... 109a) Zschocke’s criticism of time as being the only mediatingfunction .................................................................................. 109b) Walsh’s introduction of “organic” schemata .............................. 109c) Guyer: Schemata and temporality .............................................. 1105.2 In response to the criticisms of the schematism chapter ...................... 1135.2.1 The necessity of schematism in the Critique of Pure Reason ........ 113a) The distinction between the function of theTranscendental Deduction and the task of theschematism chapter .............................................................. 113b) “Knowing that and knowing how” ............................................. 116 5.2.2 The obscurity of the chapter ............................................................. 122a) Subsumption .................................................................................. 122b) “To be” and “to do”: defining schemata ..................................... 125c) The distinction between categories and forms of intuition ..... 128d) Categories and schemata ............................................................. 130e) Schemata and principles .............................................................. 132f) Schemata and ideas ....................................................................... 134g) Judgement and its role between reason and understanding ... 1385.2.3 Space and time .................................................................................... 141a) Time, at least .................................................................................. 141b) Dynamic schemata ....................................................................... 142c) Difficulties within Kant’s text ...................................................... 142Part II: After Kant ................................................................................................ 1471. The philosophical reception and criticism of the schematism chapter ..... 1491.1 The earliest receptions of Kant’s schematism chapter ........................... 1501.2 Idealism and post-Kantianism ................................................................. 1521.3 From the late nineteenth to the early twentieth century ...................... 1592. Kant’s distinction between philosophy and psychology .............................. 1772.1 Philosophy as a system of concepts ......................................................... 1782.2 Psychology: a doctrine of the inner sense .............................................. 1862.3 Is Kant a transcendental psychologist? ................................................... 1943. Kant’s notion of a schema in twentieth-century psychology ...................... 2013.1 Schema theories ......................................................................................... 2013.2 Frederic Bartlett ......................................................................................... 2063.2.1 A pioneer of applied psychology ...................................................... 2073.2.2 Experimental method ........................................................................ 2083.2.3 The topics of experiments ................................................................. 2093.2.4 Remembering ..................................................................................... 2103.2.5 Schematic settings .............................................................................. 2103.2.6 Meaning ............................................................................................... 2143.2.7 Conclusion .......................................................................................... 2173.3 Jean Piaget’s interpretation of Kant’s notion of a schema ..................... 2193.3.1 An interest in both theoretical and empirical studies ................... 2203.3.2 A “philosophical shock” .................................................................... 2223.3.3 Piaget’s notion of schemata ............................................................... 2243.3.4 An example of a schema: the object ................................................ 2263.3.5 Experience as an organisation through schemata. Piaget’sperspective between empiricism and apriorism ............................. 2323.3.6 Piaget’s novelty and difference from Kant’s view ........................... 2343.4 Lawrence Barsalou’s reception of Kant’stranscendental schematism ...................................................................... 2383.4.1 Cognitive psychology ........................................................................ 2393.4.2 Categorisation ..................................................................................... 2403.4.3 Modal theory versus amodal theory ................................................ 2413.4.4 Properties ............................................................................................ 244a) Neural representations ................................................................. 244b) Schematic perceptual symbols .................................................... 244c) Multimodal symbols ..................................................................... 245d) Simulators ...................................................................................... 245e) Frames ............................................................................................ 247f) Linguistic indexing and control .................................................. 2483.4.5 Barsalou and Kant .............................................................................. 2493.4.6 Psychology and philosophy .............................................................. 250Conclusion .............................................................................................................. 253Schema: the history of an idea ......................................................................... 253The function of schematism ............................................................................. 255Schematisms’s legacy between philosophy and psychology ........................ 258New perspectives ............................................................................................... 264Bibliography ............................................................................................................ 267Lists of abbreviations for classical works ........................................................ 267Primary literature .............................................................................................. 267Secondary literature .......................................................................................... 273Online resources ................................................................................................ 283List of figures ........................................................................................................... 285List of tables ............................................................................................................ 287Index ........................................................................................................................ 289