Human understanding is a result of a synthesis of manifolds of concepts (or categories) that exists a pirori. These manifolds of categories are better known as the “concepts of pure understanding.” It is in these concepts that the answer to the question of “Quid Juris” resides. And without these underlying manifolds of categories, humans are incapable (for categories are the underlying rules through which many other “a priori” and essential processes can be reached) of justifying any judgments or concepts they use on daily bases or in special circumstances such as the one that involves the Jurists.
Kant takes human cognition or process of cognizing to another stage in which more transcendental ideals appear. The table of categories (described on page 113 of the book) is a priori and underlying all our experiences. The empirical experiences, therefore, fall out of the possibility of ever being understood through empirical knowledge. The knowledge of categories is transcendental in a sense that humans relay on them for any kind of knowledge or understanding and it is only through transcendental deduction of these categories that the origin of all empirical and non-empirical experiences can be understood. In simpler words, just as space and time are responsible for the formation of objects, the “concepts of pure understanding” are responsible for human understanding and knowledge of any and all objective representations. Kant claims that it is the a priori categories that legitimize our use of empirical concepts but these pure concepts, nonetheless, must interact with other a priori procedures to actually reach a state of knowledge that is an absolutely necessary condition for an interactive society.
The process of acquiring empirical concepts begins with the “Representation” of an object in space. That representation then goes through a process of “synthesis” of the underlying a priori categories. Finally the object transforms itself in a manner that is sufficient for humans to conceptualize or understand any object. This, however, does not guarantee a formation of Knowledge. Knowledge, as explained by Kant is a “whole in which representations stand compared and connected.”(Pg 130) Consciousness of all things as Knowledge is why humans are able to recognize or correlate different objects in the shape of experience. However, it is important to realize that without the process of conceptualizing or understanding objects, memory or the ability to associate objects with each other does not exist. At the same time, a mere understanding of an object becomes useless if the ability to modify it into knowledge is not available. Thus, both the ability to conceptualize pure concepts and modify them as knowledge (memory) is necessary for the legitimization of the use of empirical concepts.
The constant recognition of objects is also crucial for the knowledge would not exist without the ability of our imagination to hold objects in such a way that they easily become associated with each other. Such association or reproduction of objects is only possible through a priori and non-empirical categories because it is “only by means of these fundamental concepts can appearances belong to knowledge or even to our consciousness, and so to ourselves.” (Pg 147 Smith) Thus, the evaluation of our inner faculties is as necessary as the evaluation of pure concepts of understanding.
It is clear not that the a priori understanding of the objects is responsible for our habit of using empirical concepts as something given or granted. When pondered upon, a person understands that the understanding of objects outside of us does not have its origin in a posteriori experiences. In fact, all experiences are only possible through our understanding that perceives objects not as objects of intuition but as representations of pure concepts of understanding:
The objective validity of the categories as a priori
concepts rests, therefore, on the fact that, so far
as the form of thought is concerned, through them
alone does experience become possible. They relate
of necessity and a priori to objects of experience,
for the reason that only by means of them can anything
whatsoever of experience be thought. (Pg 126 smith)
This is the core of the argument “quid juris” that requires that humans legitimize or justify the use of empirical concepts. This passage helps in understanding the role of the “pure concepts of understanding” that underlie all our experienced concepts. Thought is just another word given to human understanding the existence of which in relation to the object is necessary before the formation of any type of experience.
Before we can be sure about knowledge being acquired through pure concepts, few a priori “subjective sources” that are essential for the formation of knowledge through pure concepts must be understood. As stated in the previous paragraphs, pure concepts remain (permanently) in an object of representation but their presence does not guarantee the formation of knowledge. Time plays an unavoidable role in the formation and execution of experience. Without timed intervals, experience lacks grounds on which it can display it self. Time indeed is a “formal condition of inner sense” without which knowledge would not be born. Kant calls this process a “synthesis of apprehension” during which the inner sense receive representations in unity of the pure concepts and synthesizes it to form knowledge of the object. This, though, is not enough to guarantee an interactive world where all concepts or things are well associated with each other.
The recognition of a concept that one has already experienced in another concept is a priori. The empirical experiences require that humans are able to recognize things that have not only passed but things that are yet to come our way. In simpler words, without the ability to associate things with each other, knowledge and understanding of objects is useless. Thus, the synthesis of appearances is transcendently a prior. It takes place through our inner senses that recognizes the need of an ability to unite the pure concepts of the understanding in an object. The consciousness to recognize objects even when they have passed our inner sense is the key to recognition. The example Kant gives in the section labeled “The synthesis of Recognition in a Concept” is worth understanding:
If in counting, I forget that the units,
which now hover before me, have been added
to one another in succession, I should never
know that a total is being produced through
this successive addition of unit to unit, and
so would remain ignorant of the number. (Pg 134 smith)
The concept of counting or any concept requires that we are conscious of the successive change in things because without such consciousness, humans will suffer a permanent state of naivety without the transcendental ideal of Time.
Another feature that makes these pure concepts transcendental is their ability to go beyond experience. Humans require these a priori concepts to understand and experience objects but these concepts are independent in a sense that they can conceptualize objects that are not necessarily the product of any empirical experience. The concept of God is a good example of all such understood but never experienced types of thoughts.
Thus, from the argument presented, it is clear that humans use empirical or non-empirical knowledge to justify our factual statements because these experiences come to us through a priori concepts of pure understanding. Knowledge is formed when knowledge and apperception work together in inner sense of Time in such a way that they make possible the unification of the underlying pure concepts of all objects. Indeed, it is the notion of pure a priori understanding and our vulnerability to such understanding that legitimizes the usage of empirical concepts.
