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Four: Dialectic of Pure Practical Reason in General and Imagination
- Indiana University Press
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f o u r Dialectic of Pure Practical Reason in General and Imagination A Dialectic of Pure Practical Reason in General The short chapter with this particular title structures all that will follow . Its peculiar title signals its content: the phrase “a dialectic in general ” refers to an unavoidable illusion that occurs when the bonds to the sensible condition to which we human beings are given over are transgressed, and reason strives to reach the unconditioned basis of all conditions. “A Dialectic of Pure Practical Reason” refers to that transgression insofar as it occurs in the pursuit of the good, just as a dialectic of pure (speculative, theoretical) reason refers to the transgression insofar as it occurs in the pursuit of the true. Just as the theoretical dialectic departs from the bond to intuition, attempting to transcend this bond in order to achieve knowledge of the soul, the world, and God as they are in themselves, the practical dialectic takes its departure from “the practically conditioned (which rests upon inclinations and natural need)” (V, 108). The “thing in itself ” to which our practical condition extends in the dialectic is the highest good. The analogy to the extension in the dialectic of theoretical reason is clear. In theoretical reason, our fragmented intuitions are brought to the unity of the pure concepts of understanding by means of the synthesis of imagination. In practical reason, our inclinations and natural needs are brought to unity under the categories governed by the moral law as an “ought,” with imagination effecting the mediation between the pure moral law and its application in concreto (as shown in the section on the Typic above). And just as the extension of the pure concepts of the understanding by imagination beyond the bond to intuition that gives them sense and signi¤cance yields the illusory knowledge of the soul, the world, and God—supposedly the highest source(s) of truth—the extension of the moral law beyond its bond to human needfulness to its object, the highest good, yields the illusion that one has found the unconditional determining ground of the pure will. The key passage in this section is the parenthetical one noted above: “the practically conditioned (which rests upon inclinations and natural needs).” That is to say, human ¤nitude provides both the forgotten ground that allows for the Dialectic of Pure Practical Reason to develop, and the recollected basis for its solution. The Dialectic of Pure Reason in De¤ning the Highest Good The bond of the concept of the highest good to human ¤nitude is established in the opening paragraph of this section. While virtue as worthiness to be happy is the highest good insofar as it is the supreme good (das Oberste), it is “not by itself the entire or complete good (das ganze or vollendete Gut)” (V, 110). Kant explains that the faculty of desire in a ¤nite rational being requires the addition of happiness to virtue—in proportion to one’s worthiness. Disputing the view of the ancients (as he interprets it) that morality and happiness are two aspects of the highest good and therefore are its (logically analytic) predicates, Kant insists on the heterogeneity of these two components. He notes instead that far from being component “predicates” of the highest good, morality and happiness “strongly limit and check each other in the same subject” (V, 112). Hence, the highest good contains a synthesis of concepts. He maintains that this synthesis is cognized a priori, and so requires a transcendental deduction. As has been often noted, synthesis is the work 96 Dialectic and Methodology of Pure Practical Reason [54.224.52.210] Project MUSE (2024-03-19 13:43 GMT) of imagination, which also fashions images in its act of synthesis. The question is now: How can such a deduction occur in the case of the highest good? A transcendental (objective) deduction is “[t]he explanation of the manner in which concepts can thus relate a priori to objects” (A85, B117). The highest good is the “entire object of a pure practical reason” (V, 109). Thus, its possibility must be deduced from its component heterogeneous concepts. Nowhere does Kant mention imagination in this deduction. In fact, he does not mention the word “deduction ” after announcing that one is required! Yet imagination is fully at work within the promised and enacted but unmentioned deduction . How can two determinations that check and limit one another such as morality and happiness be deduced in such a way...