Transcendental Logic and Method in the First Critique: A Phenomenological Approach

<strong>Centre for Philosophy School of Social Sciences</strong> Talk on <strong>Transcendental Logic and Method in the First Critique: A Phenomenological Approach</strong> by <strong>Nishad Patnaik</strong> (Visiting faculty, Department of Humanities and Social Sciences, IIT-Delhi) Date: <strong>Wednesday, February 11, 2015</strong> <strong>Abstract : </strong>This paper examines Kant's conception of transcendental logic; initially, through the problem that arises almost as soon as he articulates it in a set of categories, following the "guiding thread' of the judgment forms—the problem of the "completeness" of these judgment forms, and thus, of the categories. I claim that the apparent reconfiguration of the analytic-synthetic divide in Kant's own methodological procedure that the problem of 'completeness' seems to imply, is indicative of the tendency towards the hypostatization of finite thought, owing to its spatio-temporal discursivity. I argue that it is the explicit reflective enactment of our spatio-temporal finitude that uncovers, in a transcendental logic, the implicit synthetic a-priori "content" of the judgment forms, hence, the possibility and modes of synthetic a-priori knowledge in the categories as functions of space-time. This clarifies Kant's point of departure, and opens an approach to the Transcendental Deduction that reveals a pre- conceptual and pre-thematic mode of self-awareness, as productive of the a-priori forms of possible experience.