APPENDIX I
Notes on the Kantbook

1. On the Kantbook

It was taken (1) as a one-sided interpretation of Kant, (2) as a forerunner for “Being and Time”  — both were confused ways of thinking.

Discovering “Kant in himself” is to be left to Kant philology. Even if it should emerge that it has actually learned something from the violent Heideggerian interpretation.

But the question is: the Problem of Metaphysics, and that means — the Question of Being.

To be sure, by itself as ” ‘historical‘ [‘geschichtliche‘] introduction” to “Being and Time” in a more limited sense — not “historiological” [“historisch“], rather — “questioning debate” [“Auseinandersetzung”].

2. Kantbook

an attempt to question what has not been said, instead of writing in a fixed way about what Kant said. What has been said is insufficient, what has not been said is filled with riches.

3.

The distinction between analytic and synthetic judgments and these ways of judging always exhibited for themselves as characteristics of finitude.
Finite thinking is a tautology, after the fashion of a round circle. What does it mean: that thinking is finite?

4. Critique of Judgment
Aesthetics

Only considered far enough to be able to see that it is not contradicted.
But now the highest corroboration of the interpretation; see §59, p. 258 [Bernard translation, p. 198 — tr.]!!, likewise p. 238 [Bernard translation, p. 186 — tr.]; the intelligible! whererupon taste (reflection — imagination) looks out (into itself).

5.

See Kant’s sketch of a “Science of Ontology as Immanent Thinking.” Letter to Sig. Beck. 20.1.92 (WW [Cassirer] X, p. 115 ff.).

7.

The fourth section is translated into French in Qu’est-ce que la métaphysique? by H. Corbin, 1938 [What is Metaphysics? tr. D. Krell. In: Martin Heidegger: Basic Writings (New York: Harper & Row, 1977), pp. 95-112 — tr.].

 Effect on Sartre is crucial; from there “Being and Time” is first to be understood. see my French Forward to this translation.

5 Oct. 45

8. Concepts of Reflection

See B316ff. Disputation with Leibniz — Iogical dogmatism!

See Concept in general, empirical Concept, pure concept of the understanding (Category), pure concept of reason (Idea).

“under which subjective conditions . . . can we arrive at concepts”? B316<1>Heidegger has paraphrased Kant’s words slightly..

If we ask in this way, we stand in the reflexio (re-flection [Über–legung]), not in the “simple” apprehending (exposition) of objects, in order to obtain Concepts from them (setting forth the fundamental difference between sensibility and understanding, see B327).

Reflecting, we pay attention to the relationship of given representations, i.e., Concepts in this case, “to our various sources of knowledge” (see Modality!) (Sensibility and Understanding B316 (Imagination? Reason?)).

Only by means of these reflective glances back to the powers of knowledge “can the relationship of the representations under one another be determined correctly” (relationship of the Concepts, i.e., judgment and its truth (B317)), i.e., only so as to make out in which powers they belong together! to which [powers] they owe their specific unity (what kind of synthesis).

The reflexio — consequently: question concerning the unity of the manifold of given representations (concepts), more precisely: according to the forum before which they would be “compared,” would be “combined” — discursus! and that means at the same time according to the a priori unifying instance!

To which power of the understanding does a given concept belong?

The comparison of representations in general will always be employed in a power of the Understanding. I can only “hold together” this comparison with the power of Knowledge, and discern, distinguish, whether by means of this comparison the representations were thought as belonging to pure Understanding or to Sensuousness — “Transcendental Reflection”  — how in the comparison, the comparing in general is thought — whether ontic — or ontological; whether belonging to Sensuousness or to the pure Understanding, B324, through which what is represented in it, “its object” B325, i.e., the determination of the “transcendental place [Ortes]” (ibid). Therefore B319 (see 318): “Transcendental Reflection” “bears on the objects themselves” (is not merely logical comparison [Komparation], i.e., straight comparing [vergleichen] of the representations as such), rather, as transcendental reflection it is “the Ground for the possibility of objective comparison [objektiven Komparation]” B319<2>In his English translation of CPR, Kemp Smith ignores the distinction between Vergleichung and Komparation (he translates both as “comparison”). Kant in fact does distinguish between the two terms, and it is this distinction that Heidegger emphasizes here.

Answer to the question: for which power of Knowledge shall the represented object be? Without this transcendental reflection, “amphiboly” creeps in: “confusing the object of pure understanding with appearance” B326.

By means of Categories, “what constitutes the concept of an object” (B325), what belongs to an object as such, is “presented.”

By means of the “four titles” for the concepts of reflection, only “the comparison [Vergleichung] of the representations, which precede the concepts of things” have been presented.

More precisely — the formal ontological (!) possibilities for the comparing [Vergleichens] are in general not important to the transcendental place of the representations.

This problem is important for Kant because the dogmatic metaphysics of formal logic in the widest sense has been surrendered up (see B326 concerning Leibniz!); i.e., the manner of thinking which a priori would judge things, see B319.

9. Matter — Form (see B322ff.)

1) taken as purely formalized — and from the Concept of what is understood — as what is determinative, determinans — i.e., as what affirms or negates, created predicatively (Baumgarten) and at the same time transcendentally, i.e., in connection with the possibility of the knowledge of objects in general. Expressed here as: the determinative — the determinable.

But this is only possible on the grounds of the intentionality-transcendence of existence [Daseins]. It is here that the condition for the possibility and formal necessity of this correlation is found.

I may not, however, formally and universally create this out of thin air.

For Kant the answer can already be found here, because Formal Logic — which is not grounded in fundamental ontology, but is only in itself — is the most certain.

See B345: “apperception, and with it thought, precedes all possible determinative ordering of representations.” Here the presupposition, which Kant along with Descartes and Leibniz adhered to — the most original a priori is for them the “I think,” and it is in this that the priority of Logic is grounded!

That Descartes’s presupposition is still active in this way for Kant in a completely different problematic prevents for the most part its original embedding, and therefore one can at the least overlook this presupposition, or simply strike it out.

It is synonymous with the misunderstanding of the problem of transcendence. 

2) but at the same time, the predominance of this separation must be destroyed, and it must lead back to the ontic-ontological correlate.

This is motivated by the ancient ontological difference ὕλη–εἶδος, and from this the productive horizon [Herstellungshorizont] comes forth, i.e., from the completely determined absolutizing of the concept of Being. Beings as what is at hand, and knowledge = determinative perception of these [beings].

3) The dominance of the formalization must be broken by means of the evidence that while everything is indeed interpretable, at the same time everything is also constrained by a Schema, which diverts it from the ontological problematic, derived from the original, as well as from the logical problematic.

The pure, taken logico-transcendentally, is material to what is primary. Determining presupposes what is determinable. Thus it appears remarkable: with Space and Time, to set the Form as what is primary ahead of the Matter, which makes these determinable, i.e., lets them be encountered, in the first place, B324. But one may not judge here in a purely intellectual manner according to mere concepts of things themselves. Rather, from appearances one can see that Space and Time precede all data. See B322-23 concerning the use of concepts of matter.

Matter — metaphysically explained — purely accessible, not through predicates that approach it as Object [Objekt], = “object” [“Gegenstand”] in another sense, object of perception [Gegenstand der Empfindung], “the authentically empirical in sensuous intuition,” Metaphysical Principles of Natural Science, Erklärung I, Anmerkung 2.

APPENDIX II

Ernst Cassirer: Philosophy of Symbolic Forms.
Part Two: Mythical Thought. Berlin, 1925

This second volume of Cassirer’s major work is dedicated to the memory of Paul Natorp. The title, “Mythical Thought,” could be misleading, however, in suggesting that the dominant theme of the investigation is to be found in a separation of the mythical thought process from the purely logical. Instead, precisely the insufficiency of mythical “thinking” as a “process of understanding” is to be brought to light by demonstrating that it is grounded in a specific “form of life” in unity with an accompanying “form of intuition.” “Thought” here means nothing less than an “attending and intending” [“Sinnen und Trachten“] which, however, is still its own “form of thought” (its own way of interpreting and determining). The intent of the investigation is accordingly to pursue the uncovering of “myth” as an original possibility of human Dasein, which has its own proper truth. With this way of posing the question, Cassirer explicitly takes up Schelling’s insight, that “namely everything in it (in ‘mythology’) is to be understood in the way that it is said, and not as if something else is being thought, or something else is being said” (Einleitung in die Philosophie der Mythologie. S. W. 2. Abt. I, 195). Myth, the “destiny of a people” (Schelling), is an “Objective process,” to which Dasein itself remains subordinated, and in opposition to which it can become free, but never in such a way that it rejects this process. If Cassirer does indeed hold to this basic insight of Schelling, and sees in myth “not a weakness of spirit,” not a mere appearance, but rather a proper “formative force,” he nevertheless grasps the task of a philosophy of myth in a way that differs from Schelling’s speculative metaphysics. An empirical psychological “explanation” of myth is certainly never capable of attaining a philosophical understanding. Accordingly, in holding to the “Objectivity” of myth and in rejecting the psychological interpretation, Cassirer attempts a “phenomenology of mythical consciousness.” This presents itself as an extension of the transcendental problematic in the neo-Kantian sense: to conceive of the unity of “culture,” and not only “nature,” as the lawfulness of spirit. The “Objectivity” of myth lies in its properly understood “subjectivity”; myth is its own spiritual “creative principle of world formation” (p. 19) [The Philosophy of Symbolic Forms, Part 2: Mythical Thought, tr. R. Mannheim (New Haven: Yale University Press, 1955), p. 14. Hereafter cited as Symbolic Forms — tr.].

In accord with this starting point that is outlined in the Introduction (pp. 1-36) [Symbolic Forms, pp. 1-26], Cassirer interprets myth as a “form of thought” (Section I, pp. 39-91) [Symbolic Forms, pp. 27-70], as a “form of intuition” (Section II, pp. 95-188) [Symbolic Forms, pp. 71-151], as a “form of life” (Section Ill, pp. 191-285) [Symbolic Forms, pp. 153-231]. He brings everything to a close by offering an account of the “dialectic of mythical consciousness” (Section IV, pp. 289-320) [Symbolic Forms, pp. 233-261].

The analysis of the mythical form of thought begins with a general characterization of the manner in which objects come to stand in opposition to mythical consciousness. The consciousness of the objects of mathematical physics as it is conceived in Cohen’s Kant interpretation serves to guide this characterization: the active formation of a passively given “chaos of sensations” into a “cosmos.” A basic feature of the mythical consciousness of Objects lies in the fact that a demarcated boundary is lacking between what is dreamt of and what is experienced while awake, between what is merely imagined and what is perceived, between image and the object that is formed in the image, between word (meaning) and thing, between what is merely wished for and what is actually possessed, and between what is living and what is dead. Everything remains in one uniform level of Being that is immediately present, by which mythical Dasein is dazed. This consciousness of objects is entitled to its own peculiar and sufficient “explanation” and “understanding.” The co-presence of something with something else “gives” the explanation: the swallow produces the summer. This bringing-with-itself [Mitsichbringen] has the character of magical power (see below). What functions here as producer [Mitbringer] is not simply random, it is determined from out of the basic connectedness that orients the magical experience. As arbitrary as these magical “actual connections” may appear, for example, to a theoretical consideration of nature, they nevertheless have their own truth. Mythical thought does not know the analytical division of the actual into causal sequences. The interweaving of the magically real becomes clearly evident in the conception of the relationship between whole and part. The part “is” the whole itself, which means it has the undiminished magical power of the whole. Each “thing” bears in itself its belonging to other things within the whole of magical forces. In mythical thinking what holds is “the law of the concrescence and coincidence of the relational parts” (p. 83) [Symbolic Forms, p. 64].

In the second section Cassirer shows the effect this form of thought has on the understanding of space, time and number. A chapter precedes this “mythical doctrine of forms” that is entitled: “The Basic Opposition” [Grundgegensatz] (pp. 95-106) [Symbolic Forms, pp. 73-82]. The characterization of the mythical consciousness of objects already showed how mythical Dasein is captivated by what is present, dazed and overwhelmed. Presence means the overpowering. Herein lies the character of what is extraordinary, incomparable, over and against the everyday. But this is not a nihil negativum. It has indeed its own character of Being, namely that of the “common,” within the horizon of the overwhelmingly uncommon. This “basic division” between the sacred and the profane is the basic articulation of the actual, to which mythical Dasein “comports” itself, whatever that being in its constitution may be. This character of the Being of the mythical “world” and mythical Dasein itself is the meaning of the mana-representation which has continued over the last few centuries to stand out more clearly in mythological research as one, if not even the basic category of mythical “thinking.” Mana does not designate a determinate circle of Objects. It also cannot be attributed to certain “spiritual” powers. The mana is the most general character of Being, the “how” whereby what is actual suddenly comes over the entirety of human Dasein. The expressions “mana,” “wakanda,” “orenda,” “manitu” are interjections within the immediacy of being overtaken by threatening by beings (p. 98ff., 195f., 228) [Symbolic Forms, p. 76ff., 158f., 185] [See also E. Cassirer, Sprache und Mythos. Studien der Bibliothek Warburg, 1925, p. 52ff. [Language and Myth, tr. Susanne Langer (New York: Dover & Harper, 1946)]. Here there is a still more transparent interpretation of the mana-representation in the context of the problem of language.]

In the original being dazed by what is actual as the mana, mythical Dasein carries out the articulation of the dimensions in which Dasein as such always already moves: the interpretation and “determination” of space, time, and number. The specifically mythical modalization of these “representations” is also characterized by the author in constant contrast to the conceptual interpretation that these phenomena have undergone in modern mathematical-physical knowledge.