Freedom qua Spontaneity:
The Lacanian Subject in the Critique of Pure Reason
WILLIAM J. URBAN
Heidegger and the ‘root of the root’
This is not a simple summary of the A-Deduction, but rather one with the specific aim in revealing the inner temporal character of the transcendental power of imagination which will provide the ‘ultimate, decisive proof for the fact that the interpretation of [it] as the root of both stems [of sensibility and understanding] is not only possible, but also necessary.’ (124–5) He begins by reminding us that this power of imagination is the origin of pure, sensible intuition, which is time itself, and continues with an interpretation that is quite suggestive of Allison’s above. Heidegger of course uses different terminology to express similar notions. For instance, instead of saying the imagination determines an extent of time within a single, infinite, all-inclusive time, Heidegger would say that ‘in the mere taking-in-stride of a “present moment,” it is not possible to intuit a single now insofar as it has an essentially continuous extension in its having-just-arrived and its coming-at-any-minute,’ so any ‘look of the now’ must ‘look ahead’ as well as ‘look back.’ (122) What is important to note here is that there is not only the notion that a forming of the imagination is in itself relative to time, but it is so in three senses, corresponding to the present (likeness-forming), past (reproduction), and future (prefiguring). And this corresponds to the general tripartite division of the A-Deduction: the Synthesis of Apprehension in Intuition, the Synthesis of Reproduction in Imagination and the Synthesis of Recognition in Concepts. What should strike the eye is the further correspondence with the three elements of pure cognition, namely, pure intuition, pure power of imagination and pure thinking.
But does not Kant here simply list the imagination as just one of three syntheses? Heidegger’s wager is that the A-Deduction ultimately shows that the power of imagination plays a double duty, acting as their mediating center as well as one of three elements, and it does so because of and through the inner time-character of this power. (124) He mentions four points to help us better understand this. First, ‘of’ is to be read as ‘in the mode of,’ so a synthesis can be in the mode of apprehension (or of reproduction or of recognition). Second, in each case of the three (pure intuition, pure imagination and pure thinking), there is already a corresponding pure apprehending, pure reproducing and pure recognizing synthesis which is also constitutive. Third, the proper goal of the interpretation of the three modes of synthesis is to demonstrate their ‘intrinsic and essential belonging-together in the essence of pure synthesis as such.’ And fourth, if all representations are subject to time and if all intuiting, imagining and thinking representing are presided over by the threefold synthesis, then it is the time-character of this synthesis and hence the transcendental power of imagination that ‘makes everything uniformly submissive in advance.’ (125) Again, Heidegger’s immediate goal here is to reveal that it is the inner temporal character of the transcendental power of imagination that makes possible its faculty of pure synthesis, which produces the unity of these three elements, ‘in the unity of which transcendence is formed.’ (137)
In each of his examinations of the three modes of synthesis, Heidegger notes that Kant begins with a description of the manner in which they function in empirical intuition, empirical imagining and empirical thinking and in this way intends to show that the corresponding three modes of pure synthesis constitute the condition for the possibility of empirical synthesis. Thus, in the first case, empirical intuition is directly concerned with a being (ie, a given manifold) which is present in the now. The pure apprehending synthesis, however, constitutes its condition and is concerned with just the now or the ‘present in general’ without the given manifold; it is time-forming. Because of this temporal character, it is to be spoken of as a mode of the transcendental power of imagination. (125–6) A homologous analytic approach is used on the second case of pure synthesis of reproduction with similar results. At the empirical level, the manifold that was previously perceived is reproduced in the now. But that which is experienced as in the past can only do so if a differentiation of time is possible. The pure reproductive synthesis is precisely the time-forming condition of this empirical reproduction, forming a ‘having-been-ness.’ Again, there is a temporal character which is to be linked with the act of the transcendental power of imagination. (127–8) Moreover, just as the synthesis of empirical reproduction needs the initial synthesis of empirical apprehension of the given manifold, likewise at the time-forming level of pure synthesis: original time is a unity of present and having-been-ness. (128) Nevertheless, there is also the future to consider. Pure synthesis must ‘form’ the future as well. Heidegger discusses this in his much more extensive analysis of the third mode of pure synthesis as pure recognition. While still largely following the approach taken in the first two cases, there is a crucial conceptual twist.
What does recognition have to do with the future? Apparently nothing, as Kant makes no mention of such a relation in his text. Moreover, he actually ‘opposes in the sharpest terms’ the ‘I think’ of the subject of pure apperception and reason in general to all time-relations. (128) Nevertheless, Heidegger begins his argument at the empirical level, stating the obvious fact that what we, in the past, apprehended of the manifold and what we reproduce of it in the present must somehow combine together in some ‘place.’ The synthesis of recognition provides this place of unification of the unities of apprehending intuition and reproducing imagination, directing or orienting or ‘watch[ing] out for’ that which must be held before us in advance as the same (in order to thereby lend itself to an overall unification). (129–30) From this, we can see how the notion of a ‘concept’ would fulfill this role of a future-oriented unity or sameness. As conceptual, such a role is characterized by generality and a relation of things through commonality, applying a sameness to many. So at the empirical level, the third mode of synthesis – ‘prefiguration’ – is actually the first. It is the necessary presupposition of the unity of the first two of ‘taking a likeness’ and a ‘reproduction.’ Likewise on its constitutive level: the pure recognition is a pure preparation, a time-forming future horizon of ‘being-able-to-hold-something-before-us’ and is, as such, an act of the pure power of the imagination. (130) Hence, despite Kant’s statements to the contrary, even the inner formation of pure concepts is essentially determined by time. As well, the inner time-character of the transcendental power of imagination is proved as an allowing of ‘time to spring forth.’ This power is original time. (131)
What is critical for our purposes is that, if time (pure sensibility) has this universal character, this means that the transcendental power of imagination supports and forms the original unity and wholeness of the finitude of the human subject (which is a pure, sensible reason). A significant implication here is that the very thing that limits the subject is also the very thing that allows us to characterize it as spontaneous. He ultimately shows this through a demonstration that ‘time is a pure self-affection’ and that the self ultimately has a temporal character. The latter he actually shows by way of a demonstration of the ‘subjective character of time’ or rather, that time as such has the character of selfhood. (131–6) Provided Heidegger is correct, we can conclude from this a logical explanation as to why the self can never grasp itself in its innermost essence: if this pure self-affection is the essential temporal character of the self, its innermost essence and that which forms the transcendental horizon of the subject, it would be logically impossible that the I could ever grasp itself within time. Its innermost (temporal) essence, original time itself, would forever be out of reach.
To provide a summary of our discussion of Heidegger: he first ‘externally’ opposes the transcendental power of imagination to the ‘neat’ dichotomy of the two basic sources of cognition (sensibility and understanding) and to the way they are presented in accordance with the structural layout of the Critique. In agreement with the overt position taken in the A-Deduction, this power is maintained as its own (intermediating) faculty. Further interpretation finds this intermediating faculty more than just an original, unifying center, establishing it as the original ground, or what Heidegger calls the ‘root of the two stems’ of sensibility and understanding. His most intricate and subtle analysis leads Heidegger to trace how this root, as the pure synthesis, not only allows both stems to originally grow forth from it, maintaining them in the process, but how it eventually leads back from itself to the very ‘root of this root:’22 original time. This original time makes possible the faculty of pure synthesis because of its threefold-unifying forming of past, present and future. This pure synthesis unifies the three elements of pure cognition (pure intuition, pure power of imagination and pure thinking) and Heidegger shows this unification via the demonstration of how the three modes of pure synthesis (pure apprehension, pure reproduction and pure recognition) are originally unified in themselves via the threefold-unifying forming of time. So what at first appears to be merely an intermediate faculty, it is something ‘of which we are seldom even conscious’ for good reason: the transcendental power of imagination is actually original time, what which is forever out of the reach of the subject since the subject’s ultimate rootedness in time is also the root of its transcendental horizon.23 (137)
This result means that if the transcendental power of imagination is thought merely to nominally differ from the general synthetic activity of the understanding, as it seems to be argued in the B-Deduction, there is no way to conceive of human subjectivity as finite and simultaneously as containing within it a unity of pure sensibility (spontaneous receptivity) and pure thinking (receptive spontaneity). In a word, if the transcendental power of imagination is no longer its own faculty, the temporal character of the subject is eliminated, along with the subject’s capacity for spontaneity. Hence, to preserve this paradoxical notion of subjectivity, Heidegger clearly favors the A-Deduction where he ultimately grounds the subject’s capacity for (transcendentally) free and spontaneous activity with the pure, time-forming faculty of the transcendental power of imagination.
Lacanian-themed puzzles
