Feldman, S., Y. A.

Kang, Schema and Symbol: A Study in Kant's Doctrine of

Schematism (Book Review) , Kant-Studien, 79:2 (1988) p.239

Buchbesprechungen 239

Erkenntnis beleuchten (162) und schlieBlich die Freiheit der praktischen Vernunft, die
Urteilskraft im asthetischen Urteil den Hiatus zwischen Sensibilitat und Intelligibilitat
iiberbriicken lassen (165). Da Sallis das ,Spiel der Einbildungskraft' retten mochte,
kann er seinen tiefgriindigen Band mit einem Platonhinweis beschlieBen: ,Der Mensch
ist zu einem Spielzeug Gottes geschaffen, und das ist in Wahrheit das beste an ihm.' Es
geschieht in einer Lebensfiihrung, die opfernd, tanzend und singend der Gotter Huld
erlangt und sich zugleich im siegreichen Kampfe seiner Feinde erwehrt.
Wolfram Steinbeck, Hagen

Y.A. Kang: Schema and Symbol: A Study in Kant's Doctrine of Schematism.

Amsterdam: Free University Press, 1985, 198 pp.
In Schema and Symbol, Y. A. Kang focuses on Kant's doctrine of the schematism as a
way to delve into the core of Kant's Copernicanism, characterized by Kang as the view
that human cognition constructs its own reality and systems. He sees in the theory of
schematism a central clue to Kant's theory of judgment and meaning, recalling Kant's
letter to Reinhold where Kant says that all synthetic judgments rest on schematism: the
relation of a given concept to an intuition.
Schema and Symbol is Kang's doctoral thesis for the Free University of Amsterdam,
prepared under C. A. van Peursen. It is written in English, with an appended abstract
in Dutch. The book consists of four chapters. The first sets the stage by examining
Kant's theory of metaphysics and transcendental philosophy. The second chapter deals
with mathematical construction and its dependence on schematism. The third focuses
on the Schematism chapter proper in the Critique of Pure Reason and rereads the
Transcendental Deduction and the problem of the ego in light of the schematism
section. Finally, the fourth chapter deals with 'schematism of reason' and its role in
providing some meaning to the iddeas of reason.
Kang characterizes mathematical (and by extension, although he never treats them
separately, empirical) schemata as a methodic representation of, or a rule for, how to
construct a sensible image (53). Transcendental schemata, by contrast, do not aim at
images; rather they are semantic rules by which the pure concepts of the understanding
are applied and restricted to phenomena and thus are the condition under which objects
corresponding to these concepts can be given (69). All schemata are rules for applying
concepts to objects, so that the concepts may be fully meaningful. They work by
governing the constructive activity of the imagination, be it in the construction of
mathematical objects or the empirical ego (82-3). This last claim, the role of schematism
in the construction of the empirical ego in terms of time determinations, is found in an
illuminating discussion of paragraph 24 in the B Transcendental Deduction. Of note in
Kang's treatment is his careful attention to the process of construction of time itself.
For Kang, schematism involves more than mere relation of concept to its object;
schemata govern the creation of the object as an object for us.
Schematism lies at the core of Kant's theory of knowledge. Kang provides an
illuminating discussion of Kant's biological metaphors at B 166-7, examining Kant's
views on the three main theories of the generation of organisms of his day and relating
them to Kant's views concerning the categories and human knowledge. Epigenesis, the
view Kant supports, maintains that the germ of an organism contains the pOWf:r to form

Copyright (c) 2005 ProQuest Information and Learning Company

Copyright (c) Walter de Gruyter GmbH & Co. KG
 240 Buchbesprechungen

itself into a developed organism given the proper materials. This contrasts with
preformation (the germ contains the organism in miniature) and generatio aequivoca
(spontaneous generation of organisms from unliving matter). In terms of theories of
knowledge, the last is reminiscent of empiricist views and the former with the
Leibnizian view. Epigenesis, in Kant's epistemology, thus insists that while the
categories, like germ plasm, have the potential to "grow" human experience, this
potential requires the contributions of human sensibility (the matter) in order to be
realized. Schemata are required to link the two.
But is this linkage necessary? Kang treats the objection, found in Warnock and
Bennett, that the schematism adresses a pseudo-problem. There is no problem of
connecting concepts to their cases, because a condition for being said to possess a
concept is the ability to apply it to paradigm cases. In response, Kang distinguishes
possessing a concept from possessing a tool- the former is not a thing at hand that we
can use. Concepts or rules may be in one's possession but bereft of interpretation
relative to particular situations. Kang distinguishes between possession of syntactical
rules and semantical rules; only the latter, conjoined with the former, yield genuine
knowledge (88). Hence schematism is not a pseudo-problem since the syntactical
elements of concepts can be distinguished from the seman tical elements. Only when the
two are integrated can knowledge ensue. However, Kang does not address the core of
the objection: a concept, unlike a tool, requires that one be able to use it appropriately
if one is in genuine possession of it, and thus the separation of the semantical elements
from the syntactic is specious. This is not to say that an argument cannot be made to
defend the genuineness of the schematism problem; however, Kang does not make it.
Kang argues that the schematism is a vital part of Kant's work in the Transcendental
Deduction. The problem of demonstrating the objective validity and the objective
reality of the pure concepts is taken up by the schematism section: "the objective reality
and validity of the pure concepts can be guaranteed if and only if the possibility of their
application to appearances is demonstrated" (87). Thus not only is Kant not responding
to a pseudo-problem of application, by demonstrating how application of the pure
concepts occurs, he provides an answer to the question of the objective reality of the
categories.
As noted earlier, transcendental schemata, like all others, function as semantical
rules, linking the pure concepts to a priori temporal determinations, defining forms of
objects. Kang characterizes these rules as intentional semantical rules, since, he claims,
the concepts need not be related to an actual object, but rather, just the presentation of
an object (92-3). Thus, by extension, Kang stands in agreement with c.1. Lewis and
his recognition that schemata were like his own" sense meanings": intensions as criteria
in mind, through which one can apply, or refuse to apply, the concept in question to a
real or imagined case. (Since he never pursued the implications of his characterization, I
was led to wonder whether Kang should have characterized schemata as "intensional"
rather than "intentional" semantical rules.)
From this, Kang determines that Kant holds the view that meaning is constructed.
Mathematical concepts or judgments of course receive their meaning through pure
sensible construction. For the empirical sciences, meaning of their concepts is transcen-
dentally grounded in the schematisms of the categories as well as the structuring of
empirical intuitions in pure intuitions. However, sensible intuition cannot provide
examples for transcendent concepts of metaphysics.

Copyright (c) 2005 ProQuest Information and Learning Company

Copyright (c) Walter de Gruyter GmbH & Co. KG
 Buchbesprechungen 241

Of course, Kant does not deny some meaningfulness to the categories when they are
applied without the restrictions of their schemata and it is to Kant's schema analogues
that Kang turns in his last chapter. Kang notes that Kant does not intend to play the
Pruss ian Hume with respect to metaphysics. While he denies full blooded meaning to
metaphysics, he sees that the constructive mind which provides meaning to mathemat-
ical and empirical concepts as well as to the categories, builds analogies or symbolic
presentations of the Ideas of Reason. The intuitions provided are not cases of the idea in
,question but symbols of it. Kang thus quotes the Anthropologie where Kant calls
symbols indirect means, working by analogy, by which the understanding gives
meaning by exhibiting an object. Here again for Kant, meaning rules, the schemata,
construct appropriate objects for concepts, or conditions for the application of con-
cepts.
For Kant concepts can be meaningful even when they have no actual existing
referent. They can be meaningful even when they have no possible extension (a two
sided closed plane figure) or even when they have no adequate sensible extension
(transcendent concepts). In all cases, and to different degrees, the meaning of concepts
rests on imaginative procedures for making appropriate examples. When such examples
can never be made, the procedure still exists and shows us (in the case of the two sided
closed plane figure) that any construction will be fruitless. When instances lie beyond
the bounds of our experience, symbols or analogies serve to exemplify concepts.
Hence, for Kant we can think about far more than we can ever actually confront and
know.
Kang writes a thorough and competent account of the roles and uses of schematism.
Although his English is slightly rough and some passages are opaque to this reader, his
main arguments and themes are clear enough. The main contribution of this book, and
not an inconsiderable one, is Kang's relation of schematism to concept meaning and
cognitive construction. While Kang acknowledges Nolan's claim that Kant had no
explicit theory of meaning, he is overly cautious when he says merely that the
schematism would have some relevance to such a theory (86). Kang has clearly shown
that the account of schematism is central to any Kantian theory of meaning.
Susan Feldman, Carlisle/Pennsylvania

Julia Valentina I rib a r n e: La libertad en Kant. Alcances eticos y connotaciones

metafisicas. Mit einem Vorwort von Eugenio Pucciarelli. Buenos Aires, Verlag
Carlos Lohle, 1981,96 Seiten.
Julia V.lribarne stellt die Kantische Lehre von der Freiheit dar, wobei sie clamit
zusammenhangende Problemkreise einbezieht, ohne jedoch in eine ausfiihrliche Dis-
kussion cler einzelnen Fragen einzutreten. Als Textbasis dienen franzosische und
spanische Obersetzungen.
In der Absicht, den Begriff der Freiheit und die eigens ihm anhaftende Problematik
zur Geltung kommen zu lassen, geht Julia V.Iribarne in der Einleitung (11-20) die
Bestimmungen der Freiheit durch, wie sie uns in der griechischen Philosophie, bei
Augustin und besonders bei Max Scheler und Jean Paul Sartre begegnen. Fur die
Kantische Philosophie stellt der Begriff der Freiheit den tragenden Grund dar. Die
Frage nach der Moglichkeit einer aus unserem heutigen Standpunkt her zu unterneh-

Copyright (c) 2005 ProQuest Information and Learning Company

Copyright (c) Walter de Gruyter GmbH & Co. KG