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Is there a Gap in Kant’s B

Deduction?
a
Stefanie Grüne
a
Universität Potsdam , Germany
Published online: 07 Sep 2011.

To cite this article: Stefanie Grüne (2011) Is there a Gap in Kant’s B

Deduction? , International Journal of Philosophical Studies, 19:3, 465-490, DOI:
10.1080/09672559.2011.595196

To link to this article: http://dx.doi.org/10.1080/09672559.2011.595196

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 International Journal of Philosophical Studies Vol. 19(3), 465–490

Is there a Gap in Kant’s B

Deduction?
Stefanie Gr€une
Abstract
In ‘Beyond the Myth of the Myth: A Kantian Theory of Non-Conceptual
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Content’, Robert Hanna argues for a very strong kind of non-conceptual-

ism, and claims that this kind of non-conceptualism originally has been
developed by Kant. But according to ‘Kant’s Non-Conceptualism, Rogue
Objects and the Gap in the B Deduction’, Kant’s non-conceptualism poses
a serious problem for his argument for the objective validity of the catego-
ries, namely the problem that there is a gap in the B Deduction. This gap
is that the B Deduction goes through only if conceptualism is true, but
Kant is a non-conceptualist. In this paper, I will argue, contrary to what
Hanna claims, that there is not a gap in the B Deduction.
Keywords: Kant; concepts; non-conceptualism; intuition; synthesis

In ‘Beyond the Myth of the Myth: A Kantian Theory of Non-Conceptual

Content’, Robert Hanna argues for a very strong kind of non-conceptu-
alism, and claims that this kind of non-conceptualism originally has been
developed by Kant. Even though Hanna congratulates Kant for being
the founding father of non-conceptualism, in ‘Kant’s Non-Conceptual-
ism, Rogue Objects, and the Gap in the B Deduction’ he also asserts
that Kant’s non-conceptualism poses a serious problem for Kant’s most
famous argument, namely the argument for the objective validity of the
categories.1 To prove the objective validity of the categories, i.e. to
prove that we are justified in applying the categories to objects of experi-
ence, is the aim of the Transcendental Deduction of the Categories in
the Critique of Pure Reason. According to Hanna, there is a gap in the
second version of the Transcendental Deduction, the so-called B Deduc-
tion. This gap is that the B Deduction goes through only if conceptual-
ism is true, but Kant is a non-conceptualist.2
On the one hand, as I have argued elsewhere, I am very sympathetic
to characterising Kant as a non-conceptualist.3 On the other hand, I
think it is highly unlikely that Kant did not realize that his argument for
the objective reality of the categories is not compatible with his non-con-
ceptualism. Perhaps Kant’s argument in the Transcendental Deduction

International Journal of Philosophical Studies

ISSN 0967–2559 print 1466–4542 online Ó 2011 Taylor & Francis
http://www.informaworld.com
DOI: 10.1080/09672559.2011.595196
 INTERNATIONAL JOURNAL OF PHILOSOPHICAL STUDIES

does not go through, but I cannot believe that it does not go through
because of such an obvious mistake. Therefore in this paper, I will argue,
contrary to what Hanna claims, that there is not a gap in the B Deduc-
tion. I will proceed in four steps. In the first part of my paper, I will try
to state more precisely what exactly this gap consists in. As will turn out,
Hanna’s description of the gap can be interpreted in two different ways.
Since to me at least it is unclear which of these two interpretations is the
one intended by Hanna, in parts three and four of my paper I will argue
that neither according to the first, nor according to the second interpre-
tation is there a gap in the B Deduction. Whether the Deduction suffers
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from a gap depends amongst other things on what kind of non-conceptu-

alist Kant is. Therefore, in the second part of my paper, I will distinguish
between different kinds of non-conceptualism.

1. The Gap in the B Deduction

According to Hanna, the main thesis of the B-Deduction is the follow-
ing:

TD1: The Categories are necessary a priori conditions of the possi-

bility of all objects of experience.4

Since TD1 depends on the truth of Transcendental Idealism,5 but Hanna

believes that unqualified Transcendental Idealism is wrong, he proposes
to weaken the main thesis of the B Deduction in the following way:

TD2: The Categories are necessary a priori conditions of the possi-

bility of the experience of all objects.6

Later on Hanna writes:

Conceptualism is arguably false and Kant himself is a non-conceptu-

alist. If Kant is a non-conceptualist and Kant’s Non-Conceptualism is
true, then there are actual or possible ‘rogue objects’ of human expe-
rience . . . that either contingently or necessarily do not fall under any
concepts whatsoever, including the Categories. So if Kant’s Non-
Conceptualism is true, then both TD1 and TD2 are false.7

As I see it, this passage may be understood in two different ways: (i) That
an object x falls under a concept F usually means that x belongs to the
extension of F or that x has the property which is represented by F.
According to this interpretation, the second sentence of the passage just
quoted has to be read in the following way: if Kant is a non-conceptualist

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 IS THERE A GAP IN KANT’S B DEDUCTION?

and Kant’s Non-Conceptualism is true, then there are actual or possible

‘rogue objects’ of human experience that either contingently or necessar-
ily do not belong to the extension of any concepts whatsoever, including
the categories. Obviously, if there were any such rogue objects, the Tran-
scendental Deduction would not go through. The aim of the Deduction is
to show that we are justified in applying the categories to all actual and
possible objects of experience. But clearly we are not justified in applying
the categories to objects which do not belong to the extension of any con-
cepts. So, if Kant’s Non-Conceptualism implied that there are objects
which do not belong to the extension of any objects, Hanna would be
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right in claiming that the B Deduction doesn’t go through. Furthermore,

in this case not only the B, but also the A Deduction would fail, since
both deductions have the same aim, and this aim cannot be reached, if
there are objects which do not belong to the extension of any concepts,
including the categories.
(ii) Perhaps Hanna uses the phrase ‘object x falls under concept F’
not in its usual meaning, but in the same sense as ‘object x is an object
to which F is applied’. In this case, the difference between objects that
necessarily and objects that contingently do not fall under any concepts
is the difference between objects to which necessarily no concepts are
applied to and objects to which contingently no concepts are applied to.
This is the difference between objects to which concepts are not applica-
ble and objects to which concepts are applicable, but in fact not applied.
This second interpretation is weaker than the first one and it might seem
unclear why the fact that there are objects of experience to which con-
cepts either are not applicable or not applied should pose a problem for
the Transcendental Deduction. Objects to which no concepts are applica-
ble are objects which do not belong to the extension of any concepts. As
I have said above, it is obvious that the Deduction does not go through
if there are such objects of experience. But according to the second
interpretation, Kant’s Non-Conceptualism does not have the implication
that such objects exist. Rather, it has the weaker implication that either
there are such objects or there are objects which belong to the extension
of concepts but to which no concepts are applied.
Now the question is, why the fact that there are objects of experience
to which no concepts are applied should prevent the success of the Tran-
scendental Deduction. Clearly, the fact that hidden in a forest there is a
tree to which nobody ever has applied and never will apply the concept
of a tree, does not show that we are not justified in applying the concept
of a tree to this object. In the same way, the fact that there are some
objects of experience to which the categories are not applied, does not
show that we are not justified in applying the categories to these objects.
Therefore, the fact that there are objects of experience, to which the cat-
egories are not applied, might seem to be irrelevant for the question of

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whether the Transcendental Deduction does go through. And if this

were the case, then according to the second interpretation Kant’s non-
conceptualism does not pose a problem for the Deduction. So, why have
I suggested this second interpretation after all?
Let me explain. Even though the fact that there are objects of experi-
ence to which the categories are not applied does not have the direct
consequence that we are not justified in applying them to such objects, it
still can be shown that this fact prevents the Deduction from being suc-
cessful, if one makes two further assumptions which Hanna both makes.
The first assumption is that the argument for the objective validity of the
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categories has the following structure:

P1: The categories are necessary a priori conditions of the possibil-

ity of the experience of all objects. (= TD2)
P2: If a concept F is a necessary a priori condition of the possibility
of the experience of all objects, we are justified in applying F to all
objects of experience.
C1: We are justified in applying the categories to all objects of
experience.

The first premise of this argument is the same as what Hanna calls the
weakened version of the main thesis of the Transcendental Deduction
(TD2). So, it is highly likely that he would accept this reconstruction of the
argument of the Deduction. The second assumption concerns the question
of the way in which a category could be a necessary condition for the possi-
bility of the experience of objects. It says that the only way for a category
to be a necessary a priori condition of the possibility of the experience of
an object is by being applied to this object in a judgement.8 If we combine
this assumption with the claim that we can have experiences of objects to
which no concepts are applied, we get the following argument:

PI: The only way for a category to be a necessary a priori condition

of the possibility of the experience of an object is by being applied
to this object in a judgement.
PII: It is possible to have an experience of an object to which no
category is applied.
CI: It is not the case that the categories are necessary a priori con-
ditions of the possibility of the experience of all objects.

CI is the negation of P1. So, if it is possible to have an experience of an

object without applying a category to the object and if the only way for

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 IS THERE A GAP IN KANT’S B DEDUCTION?

a category to be a necessary condition for the possibility of the

experience of objects is by being applied to objects in a judgement, then
Kant cannot prove that we are justified in applying the categories to all
objects of experience, because the first premise of the argument for the
objective validity of the categories turns out to be wrong. Rather, if Kant
accepts PI, he can only show that the categories are applicable to all
objects of experience, if whenever we have an intuition of an object, we
judge that the object is a substance that causally interacts with other sub-
stances and has some extensive and intensive magnitude. By now, it
should be clear why I have proposed to understand the passage quoted at
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the beginning of this section in a second way. According to the second

interpretation, Kant’s non-conceptualism implies that it is possible to have
experiences of objects to which either no concepts are applicable or to
which no concepts are applied. As I have already said above, it is obvious
that the Deduction does not go through if it is possible to have experiences
of objects to which no concepts are applicable. Now it has turned out that
it also does not go through if it is possible to have experiences of objects to
which no concepts are applied and if the two assumptions mentioned
above are true. Therefore, not only according to the first, but also accord-
ing to the second interpretation Kant’s Non-Conceptualism implies that
the Transcendental Deduction is not successful.
To me, it is rather unclear which of the two interpretations is the one
intended by Hanna. As will turn out in the third part of the paper, the
first interpretation has the disadvantage that it is somewhat misleading
to describe the reason which according to the first interpretation is
responsible for the failure of the Transcendental Deduction as a gap
between Kant’s Non-Conceptualism and the Conceptualism of the B
Deduction.9 The second interpretation has the disadvantage that the
phrase ‘x falls under concept F’ is not used in its usual meaning.10 Fur-
thermore, the other passages in which Hanna discusses the gap in the B
Deduction do not help to determine which of the two interpretations he
has in mind. Some pages after the passage which I have discussed so far,
he writes that if Kant’s Non-Conceptualism is true, then

there might be some “rogue objects” of human intuitional experi-

ence11 that are not or cannot12 also be objects of human conceptual
and judgemental experience, in the metaphysically robust sense that
all those objects of human intuitional experience turn out to be
causally deviant and nomologically ill-behaved, thereby falling out-
side the Categories.13

Let us assume that the difference between objects that are not or cannot
also be objects of human conceptual and judgemental experience is the

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same as the difference between objects that either contingently or

necessarily do not fall under any concepts. Objects that are not objects
of conceptual experience are objects to which no concepts are applied.
Objects that cannot be objects of conceptual experience are objects to
which no concepts are applicable. This speaks in favour of the second
and against the first interpretation. Still, in the passage just quoted
Hanna also claims that both kinds of rogue objects (i.e. objects that are
not and objects that cannot be objects of conceptual experience) are
causally deviant and nomologically ill-behaved, that is both kinds of
objects do not belong to the extension of the (dynamical) categories.
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This speaks in favour of the first, and against the second interpretation.
Why Hanna claims that not only objects that cannot, but also objects
that are not objects of conceptual experience are causally deviant is
unclear to me. That the concept of a cause is not applied to an object
clearly does not imply that the object is not the cause of anything.
Since it is unclear which of the two interpretations Hanna has in
mind, I will argue that according to both interpretations Hanna is wrong
to claim that there is a gap in the B Deduction. I will call the gap that is
stated by the first interpretation gap1 and the gap that is stated by the
second interpretation gap2. But before I will discuss these two gaps, in
the next section I will give an overview over the different kinds of Non-
Conceptualism.

2. Versions of Non-Conceptualism
In the contemporary debate about non-conceptual content people under-
stand the thesis of Non-Conceptualism in very different ways. The basic
distinction is the distinction between state and content Non-Conceptual-
ism.14 State Non-Conceptualism says that a mental state has non-concep-
tual content if and only if it is possible to be in the state without
possessing or applying any of the concepts that characterize the con-
tent.15 State Conceptualism by contrast claims that a mental state has
conceptual content if and only if in order to be in the state the subject
of the state at least has to possess or to apply one of the concepts that
characterize the content. According to a state non-conceptualist, it is
possible to perceive a tomato without possessing the concept of a solana-
ceous herb, of a tomato, of a vegetable, of redness, of a substance that is
causally interacting with other substances, or any other concept that
characterizes the perception’s content. State Non-Conceptualism is not a
thesis about the kind or structure of the content of a mental state.
Rather, it is a thesis about the conditions under which a subject can be
in a mental state with objective representational content.
Content Non-Conceptualism, by contrast, says that a mental state has
non-conceptual content if and only if that mental state has a different

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 IS THERE A GAP IN KANT’S B DEDUCTION?

kind of content than do beliefs and thoughts, where the content of

beliefs and thoughts usually16 is understood as consisting of concepts or
rather Fregean senses.17 Since Kant didn’t know anything about Fregean
senses, I will just assume that the content of beliefs and thoughts consists
of concepts and will leave open what exactly concepts are. Content Con-
ceptualism says that a mental state has conceptual content if and only if
that mental state has the same kind of content as do beliefs and
thoughts, that is if it consists of concepts.
Hanna distinguishes between two different versions of content Non-
Conceptualism, namely weak and strong content Non-Conceptualism.18
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According to Weak content Non-Conceptualism a mental state has non-

conceptual content if and only if that mental state has a contingently
different content than do beliefs and thoughts. Strong content Non-
Conceptualism says that a mental state has non-conceptual content if
and only if that mental state has an essentially different content than
do beliefs and thoughts. The difference between these two types of
content Non-Conceptualism is the following: weak content Non-Con-
ceptualism does not deny that non-conceptual content might be concep-
tually specified or conceptually presented. The fact that a subject has a
perceptual state with contingently non-conceptual content does not
exclude the possibility that later on she is in a perceptual state with
the same content and in this situation applies concepts to the object of
the perceptual state so that the content of the state is conceptually pre-
sented. In this case, the non-conceptual content of the perceptual state
would be a part of the content of a whole mental state that also con-
tains concepts, which specify the content of the perceptual state. By
contrast, according to strong content Non-Conceptualism it is impossi-
ble to give a conceptual specification of a non-conceptual content.
Therefore, insofar as a mental state contains essentially non-conceptual
content, one cannot make any judgements about the object of the state.
(In the published version of ‘Beyond the Myth of the Myth’, Hanna
distinguishes between a sense in which essentially non-conceptual con-
tents cannot be conceptually specified and a sense in which they can
be conceptually specified. In the version my commentary is based on,
he does not make this distinction.)
Strong content Non-Conceptualism can come in two forms. A
strong content non-conceptualist might either claim that (i) perceptual
states contain essentially non-conceptual content amongst other things
or that (ii) perceptual states contain nothing but essentially non-concep-
tual content.19 Whereas according to the second option perceptual
states have only non-conceptual content, according to the first option,
they have essentially non-conceptual content and also other kinds of
content, namely either contingently non-conceptual content or concep-
tual content.

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Hanna himself believes that strong content Non-Conceptualism is

true. More specifically, he claims that all perceptual states contain
essentially non-conceptual content amongst other things20 and that there
are at least some perceptual states which contain nothing but essentially
non-conceptual content.21

3. The B Deduction and Gap1

As I have said in the first part of my paper, Hanna claims that Kant’s
Non-Conceptualism implies the existence of actual or possible rogue
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objects. According to the first interpretation, rogue objects are objects of

experience that do not belong to the extension of any concepts, includ-
ing the categories. Obviously, if there were any such objects, the Deduc-
tion wouldn’t go through, because the aim of the Deduction is to show
that we are justified in applying the categories to all objects of experi-
ence, but we would not be justified in doing this, if there were objects of
experience that do not belong to the extension of the categories.
Now, the question is, which kind of Non-Conceptualism implies that
there are objects of experience that do not belong to the extension of
any concepts. State Non-Conceptualism doesn’t have this implication.
That we can have experiences of objects without possessing any of the
concepts (if there are any) that characterize the experience’s content
clearly does not imply that the object of the experience does not belong
to the extension of any concepts. That I can perceive a tomato without
possessing the concept of a vegetable for example does not show that
the tomato does not belong to the extension of the concept of a vegeta-
ble. Neither has weak content Non-Conceptualism the required implica-
tion. Weak Non-Conceptualism denies that the content of a perceptual
state consist of concepts, but it does not deny that this content can be
conceptualised. It allows for the possibility that the object of such a state
belongs to the extension of one or several concepts. Not even every form
of strong Non-Conceptualism implies that there are objects of experi-
ence that do not belong to the extension of any concepts. A strong con-
tent non-conceptualist who believes that perceptual states contain not
only essentially non-conceptual content, but also contingently non-con-
ceptual or conceptual content, does not deny that concepts are applica-
ble to objects of such states. Only a strong content non-conceptualist
according to whom a perceptual state contains nothing but essentially
non-conceptual content claims that there are objects of perceptual states
that do not belong to the extension of any concepts. So, Hanna is only
justified in claiming that there is a gap1, if Kant is a strong content non-
conceptualist, who believes that there are at least some perceptual states
which contain nothing but essentially non-conceptual content.22 For this
reason, it is somewhat misleading to characterize gap1 as a gap between

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 IS THERE A GAP IN KANT’S B DEDUCTION?

Kant’s Non-Conceptualism and the Conceptualism that according to

Hanna is presupposed by the B Deduction. It is misleading, because if
Kant were a strong content non-conceptualist, this would undermine the
B Deduction irrespective of whether it implies Conceptualism. If Kant
believed that some intuitions contain nothing but essentially non-concep-
tual content, the B Deduction would not go through even if it presup-
posed weak content Non-Conceptualism or state Non-Conceptualism.
Therefore, if Hanna were right in claiming that Kant is a strong content
non-conceptualist, the question of whether the B Deduction implies
Conceptualism would be irrelevant for diagnosing its failure.23
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In ‘Kant’s Non-Conceptualism, Rogue Objects and the Gap in the B

Deduction’, Hanna distinguishes between different kinds of non-conceptu-
alism only after having discussed the gap in the B Deduction. He begins
this paper by arguing that Kant is a non-conceptualist without specifying
what kind of non-conceptualist Kant is. Likewise, he claims that because
of Kant’s non-conceptualism there is a gap in the B Deduction, but does
not indicate what kind of non-conceptualism it is that threatens the B
Deduction. Let us now see whether anything of what Hanna says in his
paper shows that Kant is a strong content non-conceptualist. Two passages
are relevant here: in the third part of his paper, Hanna argues that Kant is
a non-conceptualist, in the fifth part he tries to show that insofar as we are
spontaneous beings, we are rogue objects to which no concepts are appli-
cable.24 I will discuss these two passages in turn. In order to show that
Kant is a non-conceptualist, Hanna examines Kant’s famous slogan that
intuitions without concepts are blind. At the beginning of the Transcen-
dental Analytic from the Critique of Pure Reason Kant writes:

Thoughts without content (Inhalt) are empty (leer), intuitions with-

out concepts are blind (blind). It is, therefore, just as necessary to
make the mind’s concepts sensible – that is, to add an object to
them in intuition – as to make our intuitions understandable – that
is, to bring them under concepts. These two powers, or capacities,
cannot exchange their functions. The understanding can intuit noth-
ing, the senses can think nothing. Only from their unification can
cognition arise. (CPR A 50f. / B 74ff.)

This passage is usually interpreted as showing that Kant is a conceptual-

ist.25 Hanna by contrasts believes that it is perfectly consistent with charac-
terising Kant as a non-conceptualist. According to him, in the second
sentence, Kant uses ‘cognition’ not in a broad sense, in which it means the
same as ‘objective conscious representation’, but in a narrower sense, in
which ‘cognition’ means ‘objectively valid judgement’. Therefore, when
Kant says that intuitions have to be combined with concepts in order to
constitute cognitions, he just means that intuitions have to be combined

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with concepts in order to constitute objectively valid judgements. He does

not mean that intuitions have to be combined with concepts in order to
constitute mental states with objective representational content. Blind
intuitions are mental states that represent the world even though they are
not combined with concepts. That they are blind just means that they do
not generate objectively valid judgements, it does not mean that they are
no objective representations.26
I completely agree with this interpretation. Hanna is right in claiming
that Kant uses ‘cognition’ in a broad and in a narrow sense and he is
also right in saying that in the passage just quoted ‘cognition’ is under-
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stood in the narrow sense.27 But I am not so sure whether I agree with
one conclusion Hanna draws from these considerations. He writes:

[T]o the extent that intuitions are cognitively and semantically

independent of concepts, and also objectively valid, they contain
non-conceptual objective representational mental contents.28

According to A 50f/B 74ff., a blind intuition is an intuition that is not

brought under a concept. To bring an intuition under a concept means
to apply a concept to the intuition’s object. So, what Kant says is that
we can have intuitions or intuitional experience without applying any
concepts to the objects of those states. This shows that he is a state non-
conceptualist. By contrast, Kant’s remarks leave open whether he is also
a content non-conceptualist. That one can have an intuition without
applying any concepts to the object of the intuition, does not have any
implications for the question what kind of content the intuition has.29
The content could be composed of concepts, it could not be composed
of concepts, but be conceptualizable or it could be unconceptualizable.
In other words: Kant’s remarks on blind intuitions are consistent with
content conceptualism, weak content non-conceptualism and strong con-
tent non-conceptualism. Therefore, if in the passage quoted above
Hanna wants to say that Kant is a content non-conceptualist, this conclu-
sion is not warranted. If instead he just wants to say that Kant is a state
non-conceptualist, then he is completely right. Since Kant’s remarks on
blind intuitions do not show that Kant is a content non-conceptualist of
any kind, they a fortiori do not show that he is a strong content non-con-
ceptualist. Therefore the passage on blind intuitions cannot be used to
show that the B Deduction is undermined by gap1.
In order to show that one should not understand the passage on blind
intuitions as implying that Kant is a conceptualist, Hanna presents sev-
eral quotations from Kant’s work which according to him prove that
Kant is a non-conceptualist. Let us see whether any of them speak in
favour of Kant being a strong content non-conceptualist. Hanna cites the
following passages:

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 IS THERE A GAP IN KANT’S B DEDUCTION?

Objects can indeed appear to us without necessarily having to be

related to functions of the understanding. (CPR A89/B122, emphasis
added by Hanna)
Appearances can certainly be given in intuition without functions
of the understanding. (CPR A90/B122, emphasis added by Hanna)
Appearances might very well be so constituted that the understand-
ing would not find them in accordance with the conditions of its
unity. . . [and] in the series of appearances nothing would present
itself that would yield a rule of synthesis and so correspond to the
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concept of cause and effect, so that this concept would be entirely

empty, null, and meaningless. Appearances would none the less
present objects to our intuition, since intuition by no means requires
the functions of thought. (CPR A90-91/B122f., emphasis added by
Hanna)
That representation which can be given prior to all thinking is
called intuition. (CPR B132)
The manifold for intuition must already be given prior to the syn-
thesis of the understanding and independently from it. (CPR B145,
emphasis added by Hanna)
Concept differs from intuition by virtue of the fact that all intuition
is singular. He who sees his first tree does not know what it is that
he sees. (VL 24: 905)

I would like to say several things about these texts. As I see it, the first
three do not express Kant’s own opinion, but rather have only a didactic
function. They are to be found at the very beginning of the Transcen-
dental Deduction, where Kant tries to motivate why there is a need for
a Transcendental Deduction of the categories, but no need for a Tran-
scendental Deduction of the pure intuitions of space and time. Kant’s
idea very roughly is the following: space and time are forms of our sensi-
bility. Whenever sensibility is affected by objects (which are neither spa-
tially nor temporally structured), it delivers representations of spatio-
temporally structured objects. The fact that space and time are forms of
sensibility therefore guaranties that every object of intuition and
a fortiori every object of experience is spatio-temporally structured. So,
the objective validity of space and time is shown by proving that space
and time are forms of sensibility. The categories, by contrast, are not
forms of sensibility, but concepts of the understanding. And the function
of understanding is not to deliver intuitions, but to think or to make
judgements. Furthermore, the categories are a priori concepts, that is

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concepts which we possess, but which we have not acquired by compar-

ing objects of experience. Since the understanding does not play any role
in the formation of intuitions, it might very well be the case that the
objects of our intuitions do not fall under the understanding’s a priori
concepts, namely the categories. Because of this possibility, there has to
be a Transcendental Deduction of the categories, which proves that we
are justified in applying the categories to all objects of experience.
Now, in the A Deduction as well as in the B Deduction Kant proves
the objective validity of the categories by showing that contrary to what
one first might think it is not the case that the understanding does not
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play any role in the formation of an intuition. In both deductions Kant

states two things: (i) sensible representations have to be processed or
rather synthesized in order for intuitions to be formed,30 (ii) the synthe-
sis of sensible representations only results in the formation of intuitions
if concepts function as rules for synthesis.31 That is, once one has read
the deductions and bears in mind that concepts are representations of
the understanding, it turns out that contrary to what he writes in A 89ff./
B 122ff., Kant believes that objects cannot ‘appear to us without neces-
sarily having to be related to functions of the understanding’, appear-
ances cannot ‘be given in intuition without functions of the
understanding’ and intuition requires ‘the functions of thought’. The rea-
son why at the beginning of the Transcendental Deduction he states the
opposite is just that he wants to motivate why there has to be a deduc-
tion of the categories. So, the first three quotations are not of any help
for showing that Kant is a non-conceptualist.
The same is true – but for other reasons – of the fifth quotation,
which says that the manifold for intuition must be given prior to the syn-
thesis of the understanding. According to Kant the manifold for an intui-
tion is not the same as an intuition. An intuition is an objective
conscious representation.32 As I have said above, an intuition is not
directly delivered by sensibility, but is the outcome of an activity of men-
tal processing which Kant calls synthesis of the understanding. The mani-
fold for intuition by contrast is the material that is delivered by
sensibility and is not yet synthesized or processed by the understanding.
This manifold, as long as it is not synthesized, is neither object-directed
nor conscious. Therefore, what Kant says in B 145 is that in order for
the understanding to synthesize representations, these representations
have to be given to it by sensibility. As Kant points out in B 145, in this
respect our understanding is different from a divine understanding,
which does not have to combine representations, which are given to it
elsewhere, but can produce representations itself. Since the quoted sen-
tence from B 145 does not say that intuitions must be given prior to the
synthesis of the understanding, but only says that the manifold for intui-
tion must be given in such a way, it shows neither that Kant is a state,

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 IS THERE A GAP IN KANT’S B DEDUCTION?

nor that he is a content non-conceptualist. A state non-conceptualist

claims that it is possible to be in a perceptual state without possessing
concepts. A content non-conceptualist says that the content of perceptual
states is different than the content of beliefs and thoughts. Perceptual
states are objective and conscious mental states. But in B 145 Kant does
not say that we can have objective and conscious mental states prior to
the synthesis of the understanding. Instead he just talks about subjective,
subconscious mental states. Therefore, this passage is irrelevant for the
question of whether Kant is a non-conceptualist of any kind.
What about the fourth and the sixth quotations? In the fourth, Kant
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says that intuitions can be given prior to thinking. According to the

sixth, it is possible to have an intuition of an object without knowing
what kind of object it is. Since in both texts Kant claims that it is possi-
ble to have intuitions (i.e. objective conscious mental states) without
applying or possessing concepts, they show that Kant is a state non-con-
ceptualist. As I have already said above, the fact that one can have an
intuition without possessing concepts does not have any implications for
the question what kind of content the intuition has. Therefore, the
fourth and the fifth quotation do not show that Kant is a content non-
conceptualist. In particular, they do not show that according to Kant,
there are some intuitions which contain nothing but essentially non-con-
ceptual content.
After having discussed the passage on blind intuitions and the five
quotations cited on p. 474f. Hanna declares that Kant is a non-conceptu-
alist and that there is a gap in the B Deduction. But since neither the
passage on blind intuitions nor the five quotations imply that Kant is a
strong content non-conceptualist, Hanna has not shown that there is a
gap, if the gap he has in mind is gap1.
Still, after having discussed the gap in the B Deduction, Hanna
claims that we ourselves, insofar as we are spontaneous beings, are rogue
objects of experience, which do not belong to the extension of any con-
cepts. According to Hanna, we have intuitions of ourselves as transcen-
dentally free beings. To be transcendentally free means to be able to act
without being caused by anything. Therefore, a transcendentally free
action does fall under the schematized category of (cause and) effect.
Furthermore, because the categories belong to the content of all empiri-
cal concepts, transcendentally free actions neither fall under any empiri-
cal concepts. So, if we could have intuitions or perceptual states of
ourselves as transcendentally free beings, Kant would be a strong con-
tent non-conceptualist who accepts at least one kind of perceptual states
or intuitions that contain nothing but essentially non-conceptual content,
namely the intuitions of ourselves, insofar as we are spontaneous
beings.33 In this case Hanna would be right in claiming that the B
Deduction suffers from gap1.

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Why does Hanna think that we can have intuitions of our transcen-
dental freedom? His main reason is a passage from the Transcendental
Doctrine of Method of the Critique of Pure Reason, where Kant writes:

Practical freedom can be proved through experience. . . . We thus

cognise practical freedom through experience, as one of the natural
causes. (CPR A 802f./B 830f.)

Still, if one reads the passage left out, it turns out that Kant’s claim that
we ‘cognize practical freedom through experience’ does not show that
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we have intuitions of ourselves as beings that do not fall under the cate-
gories:

Practical freedom can be proved through experience. We thus cognise

practical freedom through experience, as one of the natural causes.
Since . . . we have a capacity to overcome impressions on our sensory
faculty of desire by representations of that which is useful or injurious
even in a more remote way; but these considerations about that which
in regard to our whole condition is desirable, i.e., good and useful,
depend on reason. Hence this also yields laws that are imperatives, i.
e., objective laws of freedom . . . But whether in these actions, through
which it prescribes laws, reason is not itself determined by further
influences, and whether that which with respect to sensory impulses is
called freedom might not in turn with regard to higher and more
remote efficient causes be nature – in the practical sphere this does
not concern us, since in the first instance we ask of reason only a
precept for conduct; it is rather as merely speculative question, which
we can set aside as long as our aim is directed to our action or omis-
sion. We thus cognise practical freedom through experience, as one of
the natural causes, namely a causality of reason in the determination
of the will, whereas transcendental freedom requires an independence
of this reason itself (with regard to its causality for initiating a series
of appearances) from all determining causes of the world of the
senses, and to this extent seems to be contrary to the law of nature,
and so remains a problem. (CPR A 802f./ B 830f.)

In this passage, Kant distinguishes between transcendental and practical

freedom and only claims that we have experience of our practical, but
does not claim that we have experience of our transcendental freedom.
Furthermore, he says that the fact that an action is practically free does
not rule out that it is caused by something else. Since practical freedom
does not imply transcendental freedom, Hanna’s thesis that we have
intuitional experience of ourselves as transcendentally free and abso-

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 IS THERE A GAP IN KANT’S B DEDUCTION?

lutely spontaneous beings cannot be proven by Kant’s claim that we cog-

nise practical freedom through experience.
Whereas in the passage quoted above Kant only says that transcen-
dental freedom seems to be contrary to all possible experience,
elsewhere he makes the stronger claim that even though we can think of
ourselves as transcendentally free beings, we cannot intuit our transcen-
dental freedom. According to Kant, one can show that the causal deter-
mination of all events and the possibility of free actions are compatible
with each other if one distinguishes between appearances and things in
themselves. Whereas considered as things in themselves we are transcen-
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dentally free, as appearances, that is insofar as we have intuitions of our-

selves, we have to regard ourselves as causally determined. In the
Critique of Practical Reason Kant writes:

[The]conflict between freedom and natural necessity . . . is no real

contradiction . . . since one and the same acting being, as an
appearance (even to his own inner sense), has a causality in the
world of sense that always conforms to the mechanism of nature,
but with respect to the same events, so far as the acting person
regards himself at the same time as a noumenon (as pure intelli-
gence in an existence not dependent on the condition of time), he
can contain a principle by which that causality acting according to
laws of nature is determined, but which is itself free from all laws
of nature. (AA V 114)

According to this quotation, we can think of ourselves as free beings only

if we regard ourselves as noumena, that is as objects, insofar as they are
not objects of sensible intuition. By contrast, insofar as we have intuitions
of ourselves we conform to the mechanisms of nature. We do not have
intuitional experience of ourselves as transcendentally free beings but as
beings that fall under the categories.34 Therefore, we ourselves, insofar as
we are spontaneous beings, are not rogue objects of experience.
To recapitulate, neither the passage on blind intuitions nor the quota-
tions cited on p. 474f. Kant’s remarks on transcendental freedom imply
that Kant is a strong content non-conceptualist and that there is a gap1
in the B Deduction. Let us now see whether the B Deduction instead
suffers from gap2.

4. The B Deduction and Gap2

Gap2 can be characterized as follows: in the B Deduction, Kant aims to
prove that we are justified in applying the categories to all objects of
experience by showing that the categories are necessary conditions of

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the experience of objects. The only way in which categories can be such
necessary conditions is by being applied in judgements to objects. There-
fore, the B Deduction implies that it is not possible to have an experi-
ence of an object without applying the categories to it. But as I have
pointed out in the second part of this paper, Kant’s remarks on blind
intuitions show that we can have (intuitional) experience of objects with-
out applying any concepts to those objects. That is, whereas the B
Deduction implies state conceptualism,35 the passage on blind intuitions
implies state Non-Conceptualism.
Even though I agree with Hanna that Kant is a (state) non-conceptu-
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alist,36 I do not think that the B Deduction suffers from gap2. This is
because contrary to what Hanna says, the B Deduction does not imply
(state) Conceptualism.37 I agree with Hanna that Kant tries to prove the
objective validity of the categories by showing that they are necessary
conditions for the experience of objects. But I do not think that the only
way for the categories to be necessary conditions for experience of
objects is by being applied to such objects in judgements. This is what I
want to show in this section. I will start by explaining why Kant believes
that the categories are necessary conditions of experience at all. As I
have already pointed out in the third part of this paper, when our sensi-
bility is affected by objects, this does not directly lead to the formation
of intuitions or intuitional experience. Rather, sensibility only yields
mental states that are neither conscious nor objective. In order for these
mental states to be transformed into conscious and objective states, that
is into intuitions, they have to be processed or synthesized by the under-
standing. As Kant points out most prominently in the A Deduction, the
synthesis of sensible representations into intuitions only takes place if
concepts, especially the categories, function as rules for this synthesis.
Since no intuitions are formed without the categories functioning as rules
for synthesis, Kant is justified in characterizing the categories as neces-
sary conditions of the possibility of intuitions or intuitional experience.38
Now we should be in a better position to evaluate the claim that the
categories are necessary conditions of experience by being applied in
judgements. If this claim were true, to function as a rule for synthesis
would be the same as being applied in a judgement and to synthesize
sensible representations into intuitions would involve making judge-
ments.39 Still, there are many passages which show that according to
Kant synthesizing does not imply judging.40 I will not discuss these pas-
sages here, because I assume that Hanna would wholeheartedly agree
with me in this respect. Hanna and I agree that in many passages Kant
denies that the formation of an intuition involves making judgements.
We only differ when it comes to the B Deduction. Whereas Hanna
believes that the B Deduction presupposes conceptualism, I think it is

480
 IS THERE A GAP IN KANT’S B DEDUCTION?

highly unlikely that Kant would have built the Deduction on a doctrine
that he rejects in so many places.
What are the reasons for assuming that the B Deduction implies
Conceptualism? In x19 of the B Deduction Kant writes:

[A] judgment is nothing other than the way to bring given cogni-
tions to the objective unity of apperception. (CPR B 141)

As Kant points out in x16 and x17, representations are brought to the
unity of apperception by being combined or synthesized. In x18 he
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characterizes the unity of apperception, insofar as it is the outcome of

a pure synthesis, as an objective unity. But if Kant on the one hand
says that representations are brought to the objective unity of apper-
ception by being synthesized, and on the other hand describes judge-
ment as the way to bring cognitions to the objective unity of
apperception, it seems to be obvious that according to the B Deduction
to synthesize is nothing else than to judge. Therefore, Hanna seems to
be absolutely right in claiming that the B Deduction presupposes
(state) Conceptualism.
In order to show that contrary to the first impression, the B Deduc-
tion does not imply state Conceptualism, I will proceed in two steps.
First, I will argue that in the B Deduction itself there are many passages
which entail that synthesizing neither is a kind of judging nor involves
making judgements. Therefore, if the argumentation of the B Deduction
presupposed state conceptualism there would not be only a gap between
the B Deduction and those passages which show that Kant is a state
non-conceptualist, but there would also be a gap in the B Deduction
itself. Secondly, I will argue that Kant’s definition of ‘judgement’ in x19
does not imply state Conceptualism.
The first of the passages from the B Deduction, which show that syn-
thesizing is not a form of judging, is a passage from x15:

All combination, whether we are conscious of it or not, whether

it is the combination of the manifold of intuition or of several
concepts . . . is an action of the understanding, which we would
designate with the general title synthesis ... One can here easily
see that this action [synthesis] must originally be unitary and
equally valid for all combination, and that the dissolution (analy-
sis) that seems to be its opposite, in fact always presupposes it;
for where the understanding has not previously combined any-
thing, neither can it dissolve anything, for only through it can
something be given to the power of representation as combined.
(CPR B 130)

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This quotation is interesting for two reasons. (1) In the first sentence
Kant distinguishes between two kinds of combination or synthesis,
namely between synthesis of ‘the manifold of intuition’ and synthesis of
‘several concepts’. Synthesizing several concepts is nothing else than
judging. Now, if Kant believed that synthesizing the manifold of intuition
is a kind of judging, he would not distinguish between synthesis of the
manifold of intuition and synthesis of concepts. (2) In the last sentence
of the quotation Kant claims that there is a genetic primacy of synthesis
vis-à-vis analysis or concept formation. Only if the understanding previ-
ously has combined sensible representations and thereby has formed
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intuitions, is it capable to analyse these intuitions and thereby to form

concepts. But if the formation of concepts is genetically posterior to the
generation of intuitions, then synthesis of sensible representations can
neither be nor involve making a judgement.
Furthermore, at the beginning of x16, Kant writes:

That representation which can be given prior to all thinking is

called intuition. (CPR B132)

Since Kant usually does not distinguish between thinking and judging,41
this passage implies that we can have intuitions without and prior to
making judgements. Interestingly, it is one of the passages Hanna him-
self quotes in order to show that Kant is a non-conceptualist.42 So,
Hanna at least has to admit that the B Deduction hovers between pre-
supposing state conceptualism and presupposing state non-conceptual-
ism.

The last passage I want to discuss also stems from x 16:

Synthetic unity of the manifold of intuitions, as given a priori, is
thus the ground of the identity of apperception itself, which pre-
cedes a priori all my determinate thinking. (CPR B 134f.)

In this quotation Kant describes two dependency relations: (1) The unity
that is the outcome of a synthesis of sensible representations is the
ground of the identity of apperception. From what Kant has written in
the first two paragraphs of x16 it is evident that he uses ‘ground’ in the
sense of ‘necessary condition’. So in B 134f. he claims that the capacity
to synthesize sensible representations is a necessary condition for the
capacity to conceive of oneself as an identical subject of these represen-
tations. (2) The capacity to conceive of oneself as an identical subject of
different representations precedes all determinate thinking. As I have
said above, thinking or determinate thinking is the same as judging. I
suggest to understand the phrase ‘x precedes y’ as meaning ‘x is a

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 IS THERE A GAP IN KANT’S B DEDUCTION?

necessary condition of y, but y is not a necessary condition of x’. So, the

second dependency relation is the following: The capacity to conceive of
oneself as an identical subject of different representations is a necessary
condition for the capacity to judge, but the capacity to judge is no
necessary condition for the capacity to conceive of oneself as an identi-
cal subject of representations. If we combine these two dependency rela-
tions, we get the following result: the capacity to synthesize sensible
representations is a necessary condition for the capacity to judge, but
the capacity to judge is not a necessary condition for the capacity to syn-
thesize sensible representations. Therefore, synthesizing sensible repre-
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sentations can neither be the same as nor involve judging.

Since there are at least three passages in the B Deduction which
imply that synthesizing is something else than judging, in x19 Kant
should not claim the opposite. So, why does he write that ‘a judgment is
nothing other than the way to bring given cognitions to the objective
unity of apperception’? Here one has to note that Kant characterizes
judgement as the way to bring given cognitions to the unity of appercep-
tion not as the way to bring given representations to the unity of apper-
ception. As I have mentioned above, cognitions in the broad sense are
objective conscious representations. Intuitions and concepts are such
cognitions. But sensible representations that are not yet synthesized are
not cognitions in the broad sense. Therefore, in x19 Kant does not claim
that the activity of synthesis of sensible representations that results in
the formation of an intuition is a form of judging. That a judgement is
the way to bring cognitions to the unity of apperception, is compatible
with the fact that unsynthesized sensible representations are brought to
the unity of apperception in another way. Furthermore, Kant apparently
does not even believe that every synthesis of cognitions consists in or
involves judging. x19 has the following title:

The logical form of all judgments consists in the objective unity of

apperception of the concepts contained therein. (CPR B 140)

According to this title, a judgement is only the way to bring given

concepts to the objective unity of apperception. But if Kant’s defini-
tion of a judgement in x19 does not imply that the synthesis of sen-
sible representations which results in the formation of an intuition
consists in judging, it is compatible with Kant being a state non-
conceptualist.
To substantiate my claim that Kant’s definition of a judgement does
not imply state conceptualism, I will conclude this section by examining
a further passage from x19:

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[T]his word [the copula “is”] designates the relation of the repre-
sentations to the original apperception and its necessary unity,
even if the judgment itself is empirical, hence contingent, e.g.,
“Bodies are heavy.” By that, to be sure, I do not mean to say
that these representations necessarily belong to one another in
the empirical intuition, but rather that they belong to one another
in virtue of the necessary unity of the apperception in the synthe-
sis of intuitions, i.e. in accordance with principles of the objective
determination of all representations . . . Only in this way does
there arise from this relation a judgment, i.e. a relation that is
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objectively valid, and that is sufficiently distinguished from the

relation of these same representations in which there would be
only subjective validity, i.e., in accordance with laws of associa-
tion.. In accordance with the latter I could only say “If I carry a
body, I feel a pressure of weight,” but not “It, the body, is heavy
. . .” (CPR B 142)

According to the second sentence of this quotation, when I judge that

bodies are heavy I thereby say that the sensible representations of a
body and of heaviness belong together, because they are synthesized in
such a way that they belong to the necessary unity of apperception. In
the third sentence Kant claims that only because the sensible represen-
tations of a body and of heaviness are synthesized in such a way, can
the relation of these representations be transformed into a judgement.
If the sensible representations of a body and of heaviness were not syn-
thesized or brought to the unity of apperception, I would not be justi-
fied in combining the concepts of a body and of heaviness in the
categorical judgement ‘Bodies are heavy’. But if the reason why I am
justified in making a judgement about an object x is that I bring the
sensible representations of x to the necessary or objective unity of
apperception, it cannot be also the case that the way in which I bring
the sensible representations of x to the necessary or objective unity of
apperception is by making a (justified) judgement. So, the passage just
quoted speaks against understanding Kant’s definition of a judgement
at the beginning of x19 as implying that sensible representations are
brought to the objective unity of apperception by judging. Therefore, it
shows that the B Deduction does not imply Conceptualism. Since the
B Deduction neither suffers from gap1 nor from gap2, the good news
for all non-conceptualists is that characterizing Kant as the founder of
Non-Conceptualism is not incompatible with believing in the success of
the Transcendental Deduction.

Universit€at Potsdam, Germany

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 IS THERE A GAP IN KANT’S B DEDUCTION?

Notes
1 Hanna, 2011b: pp. 400 and 402.
2 See also Hanna, 2004, section 4.1.
3 See Gr€une, 2009: pp. 251–4. As will turn out in the second part of this paper,
there are different kinds of Non-Conceptualism. In Gr€une, 2009 I only argue
that Kant is a state non-conceptualist, but don’t say anything concerning the
question of whether Kant is also a content non-conceptualist.
4 Hanna, 2011b: p. 401.
5 Hanna, 2011b: p. 401f.
6 Hanna, 2011b: p. 402.
7 Hanna, 2011b: p. 402.
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8 That Hanna accepts the second assumption follows from his claim that concepts
can only be used by being taken up in judgements. See Hanna, 2001: p. 59.
9 See p. 472f.
10 For a second disadvantage see the end of fn. 22.
11 Kant characterizes experience as empirical cognition. Therefore, correspond-
ing to the distinction between a broad and a narrow concept of cognition (see
p. 473f.), Kant also distinguishes between experience in a broad and experi-
ence in a narrow sense. Experiences in the narrow sense are objectively valid
empirical judgements, experiences in the broad sense are empirical represen-
tations that are objective and conscious. Whereas all empirical concepts and
all empirical intuitions are experiences in the broad sense, in order for there
to be experiences in the narrow sense, empirical concepts and empirical intu-
itions have to be combined. When Hanna talks of ‘intuitional experience’ he
uses the term ‘experience’ in the broad sense.
12 Bold emphasis added.
13 Hanna, 2011b: pp. 407.
14 See Byrne 2004 and Speaks 2005. Speaks does not distinguish between
state and content Non-Conceptualism, but between relative and absolute
Non-Conceptualism. Still, these two distinctions roughly amount to the same.
15 There are many slightly different characterizations of state Non-Conceptualism.
According to Byrne, ‘[m]ental state M has non-conceptual content p iff it is
possible to be in M without possessing all the concepts that characterize p’
(Byrne, 2004: p. 233. This characterization is weaker than the one I have
chosen. Hanna writes: ‘What is nowadays called “state” Non-Conceptualism
says that the representational content of a given mental state is non-concep-
tual if and only if the subject of that state does not possess concepts for the
specification of that state’ (Hanna, 2011a: p. 328.). Speaks characterizes
relatively non-conceptual content in the following way: ‘A mental state of an
agent A (at a time t) has relatively non-conceptual content if and only if the
content of that mental state includes contents not grasped (possessed) by A
at t’ (Speaks, 2005: p. 360). Whereas according to Byrne’s and my character-
ization a mental state that has non-conceptual content always will have non-
conceptual content, according to Speaks and Hanna, a mental state stops
having non-conceptual content when the subject of the state acquires
concepts that characterize the state’s content.
16 One exemption is Stalnaker, who believes that the contents of beliefs and
thoughts are unstructured propositions or sets of possible worlds. If one
understands the content of beliefs and thoughts in this way, then having the
same content as a belief or a thought does not imply consisting of concepts

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or Fregean senses and having a different content than a belief or a thought

does not imply not consisting of concepts. See Stalnaker 1998.
17 Hanna does not believe that concepts are Fregean senses. Instead he defends
a theory of concepts which he calls Logical Cognitivist Theory of Concepts.
See Hanna, 2011a: pp. 345–8.
18 Since Hanna uses different terminology in different papers, I have modified
his terminology slightly. In Hanna, 2008 he uses the term ‘relativist Non-
Conceptualism’ instead of ‘state Conceptualism’ and ‘absolutist Non-
Conceptualism’ instead of ‘content Non-Conceptualism’. Accordingly, he does
not distinguish between weak and strong content Non-Conceptualism, but
between weak and strong absolutist Non-Conceptualism. What I call ‘strong
content Non-Conceptualism’ Hanna in Hanna, 2011a calls ‘essentialist content
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Non-Conceptualism’ (Hanna, 2011a: p. 331f.). In earlier papers and books he

gives a different classification of kinds of Non-Conceptualism than in Hanna
2008 and Hanna 2011a. See Hanna 2005 and Hanna 2006 ch. 2.
19 The same is true of weak content Non-Conceptualism. A weak content Non-
Conceptualist might either claim that perceptual states contain contingently
non-conceptual content amongst other things or that perceptual states contain
nothing but contingently non-conceptual content. For the purpose of my
paper this distinction is not relevant.
20 See Hanna, 2008: p. 40 and Hanna, 2011a: p. 332.
21 See Hanna, 2008: p. 40 and Hanna, 2011a: p. 331f.
22 I am not sure whether Hanna would agree with me in this respect. In a pas-
sage that I have already quoted in part, he writes:
[A]ccording to Kant the spatiotemporal intuitional unity of the content
of our conscious perceptual representations is necessarily also a fully
logico-conceptual unity. If this claim were not true, then the unity of
conscious perceptions of objects in space and time might be distinct
from the unity of judgments, and, . . . there might then still be some spa-
tiotemporal objects of conscious perception to which the categories
either do not necessarily apply or necessarily do not apply: that is, there
might be some “rogue objects” of human intuitional experience that are
not or cannot also be objects of human conceptual and judgemental
experience, in the metaphysically robust sense that all those objects of
human intuitional experience turn out to be causally deviant and nomo-
logically ill-behaved, thereby falling outside the Categories. . . . This last
point about rogue or elusive objects fully reveals the Gap in the B
Deduction (Hanna, 2011b: p. 407f.).
Let us assume that to say that the intuitional unity of the content of percep-
tual representations is necessarily also a logico-conceptual unity means the
same as to say that the content of perceptual representations necessarily is a
logico-conceptual content. In this case, Hanna would claim that in the B
Deduction Kant is a content conceptualist and that the B Deduction would
not go through, if content Conceptualism were false. The reasoning for the
last claim seems to be the following:

P1: If the content of perceptual representations is not necessarily a conceptual

content, there might be rogue objects of experience to which the categories
are not applicable.
P2: If there might be rogue objects to which the categories are not applicable,
the Transcendental Deduction does not go through.

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C: If the content of perceptual representations is not necessarily a conceptual

content, the Transcendental Deduction does not go through.

According to this reasoning, both kinds of content Non-Conceptualism imply

that there might be objects to which the categories are not applicable. There-
fore, according to this reasoning, also weak, not only strong content Non-
Conceptualism lead to gap1. So, what is wrong with this argument? The
problem with the argument is that whereas the term ‘might’ in the first
premise expresses an epistemic possibility, the ‘might’ in the second premise
expresses a metaphysical possibility. Given that we know of the contents of
perceptual representations only that they are not conceptual contents, it is
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not ruled out that there are objects of experience to which the categories are
not applicable. This is what the first premise says. According to the anteced-
ent of second premise, it is true in some metaphysically possible world that
there are objects of experience to which the categories are not applicable.
But the fact that given our knowledge about the contents of perceptual repre-
sentations, it is not ruled out that there are rogue objects, is compatible with
the fact that there is not a metaphysically possible world in which there are
such objects. Let us assume that the contents of perceptual representations
are contingently non-conceptual contents and that the categories belong to
the concepts which are applicable to the objects of such representations. In
this case it is not metaphysically possible that there are rogue objects. Still, it
could very well be true that we know of the contents of perceptual represen-
tations only that they are not conceptual contents.

One further remark: the passage that I have quoted in this footnote speaks in
favour of my first and against my second interpretation of Hanna’s claim that
there is a gap in the B Deduction. In this passage, Hanna says that if Kant
were a content non-conceptualist, there might be rogue objects of experience.
According to the first interpretation, rogue objects are objects to which no
concepts are applicable. According to the second interpretation, rogue objects
are objects to which either no concepts are applicable or no concepts are
applied. Now, it is somewhat misleading to say that if Kant were a content
non-conceptualist, there might be objects to which either no concepts are
applicable or no concepts are applied. It is misleading because if Kant is a
content non-conceptualist, then there are objects to which either no concepts
are applicable or no concepts are applied. By contrast, it is correct to say that
if Kant were a content non-conceptualist, then there might be objects to
which no concepts are applicable. (It is correct, if ‘there might be’ is used in
the sense of ‘it is epistemically possible’).
23 By contrast, the Transcendental Deduction suffers from gap2 only if it presup-
poses Conceptualism. If the gap Hanna has in mind is gap2, this could be an
explanation for why he only claims that there is a gap in the B Deduction,
but doesn’t say anything about the A Deduction. Whereas Kant’s character-
ization of a judgement in x19 of the B Deduction as ‘the way to bring given
cognitions to the objective unity of apperception’ (CPR B 141) is usually
understood as implying Conceptualism, it is much more controversial whether
the A Deduction presupposes Conceptualism. I myself believe that neither
the B nor the A Deduction entails Conceptualism.
24 See Hanna, 2011b: pp. 403ff. and 408–13.

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25 See for example Gunther 2003: p. 1; McDowell 1994: pp. 3–10; and Strawson
1966: p. 20.
26 See Hanna 2001: pp. 45–54 and 198–203 Hanna 2005: pp. 253–7, and Hanna
2011b: pp. 403ff.
27 Still, I think that things are a little more complicated. Firstly, Hanna only
claims that in the passage on blind intuitions Kant uses ‘cognition’ in the
broad sense, but he doesn’t argue for this claim. For an argumentation for
this claim see Gr€une 2009: pp. 27–33. Secondly, even though in the passage
on blind intuitions, Kant doesn’t say that intuitions have to be combined with
concepts in order to constitute objective conscious representations, it follows
from the B and especially from the A Deduction that this is exactly what
Kant thinks. In both versions of the Transcendental Deduction, Kant claims
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that in order for sensible representations to be synthesized in such a way that

intuitions are formed, concepts have to function as rules for synthesis. In
Gr€une 2009 I argue that even though Kant believes that intuitions are formed
only if concepts function as rules for synthesis, he should be regarded not as
the founder of Conceptualism, but as the founder of Non-Conceptualism.
28 Hanna, 2011b: p. 405.
29 Byrne and Speaks both point out that state Non-Conceptualism doesn’t imply
content Non-Conceptualism. See Byrne 2004: p. 235 and Speaks 2005: p. 361.
30 See CPR A 77ff. / B 104f., CPR A 97–110, CPR B 129f., CPR B 134f., and
CPR B 144.
31 See CPR A 77ff. / B 104f., CPR A 103–110, and CPR B 144.
32 See CPR A 320 / B376f.
33 This is not completely true, because it could be the case that transcendentally
free actions fall under the remaining categories.
34 Similarly, Kant writes: ‘The consciousness of myself in the representation I is
no intuition at all, but a merely intellectual representation of the self-activity
of a thinking subject’ (CPR B 278).
35 Since state Conceptualism implies content Conceptualism, the B Deduction
also presupposes content Conceptualism. Concerning the relation between
state and content Conceptualism see Byrne, 2004: pp. 234f.
36 As I have said above, in the first part of his paper Hanna only claims that Kant
is a non-conceptualist without specifying what kind of Non-Conceptualism he
has in mind. But since the only two versions of Non-Conceptualism are state
and content Non-Conceptualism and since content Non-Conceptualism implies
state Non-Conceptualism, I assume that Hanna would not object to character-
izing Kant as a state non-conceptualist.
37 Hanna only claims that the B Deduction presupposes Conceptualism, but does
not specify which kind of Conceptualism he has in mind. The passage in his
paper which I have discussed in footnote ⁄⁄⁄ (20) shows that according to
Hanna, the B Deduction entails content Conceptualism. I assume that Hanna
believes that the B Deduction presupposes both state and content Conceptu-
alism.
38 Hanna would not accept this account. At least concerning the A Deduction
he denies that concepts play any role in the formation of intuitions. In the A
Deduction, Kant claims that the synthesis of sensible representations that
leads to the formation of intuitions consists of three different elements, which
he calls synthesis of apprehension, synthesis of reproduction and synthesis of
recognition. He states that the synthesis of recognition only takes place if
concepts function as rules for synthesis. Synthesis of apprehension and
synthesis of reproduction by contrast do not involve the use of concepts. As I

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see it, all three elements have to take place in order for intuitions to be
formed. Hanna by contrast believes that synthesis of apprehension and syn-
thesis of reproduction are sufficient for the formation of intuitions (see Hanna
2001: pp. 31–54). I think there are two difficulties with this interpretation:
(i) Kant states that the synthesis of apprehension is ‘inseparably combined
with the synthesis of reproduction’ (CPR A 102) and that ‘all reproduction in
the series of representations would be in vain’ (CPR A 103), if the synthesis
of recognition would not take place (see Gr€une 2009 ch. 3). (ii) Kant cannot
show that the categories are necessary a priori conditions of the possibility of
the experience of all objects (=TD1) if they do not play any role in the for-
mation of intuitions or intuitional experience.
39 This position is held for example by Abela 2002; Carl 1992; Ginsborg 1997;
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Ginsborg 2006; Pippin 1982; and Strawson 1982. I, by contrast, believe that
according to Kant there are two different kinds of concepts, which are used
in different ways. ‘Clear’ concepts are applied in judgements. ‘Dark’ concepts
function as rules for synthesis. Since there are these two different kinds of
concepts, Kant can deny that the synthesis of sensible representations
involves making judgements, but nevertheless affirm that concepts play a role
in the formation of intuitions (see Gr€une 2009). For a similar interpretation
of Kant see Longuenesse 1998. According to Longuenesse, the relevant dis-
tinction between two kinds of concepts is not the distinction between dark
and clear concepts, but between concepts as schemata and clear or reflected
concepts.
40 See for example CPR A 293f. / B 350, Anthropology AA VII 142, Eberhard-
Controversy AA VIII 217, CJ AA XX 227 and PC AA XI 311.
41 See for example CPR A 126.
42 See Hanna, 2011b: p. 405 and p. 475 of this paper.

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