Kant´s Notion of a Transcendental Schema. Lara Scaglia

in Kant’s views on psychology has grown (e.g. Satura 1971; Hatfield 1992; Sturm 2001, 2009), more profound studies on the legacy of Kant’s schematism in psychology are scarce (Marshall 1995; Brook 2003; Wagoner 2013). I shall therefore look closely at the psychological studies that established the interest in schema ←19 | 20→theories and that were, directly or indirectly, influenced by Kant: namely those of Piaget, Bartlett and Barsalou. I will evaluate them against the background of my interpretation of the schematism chapter.

Structure

      This dissertation is divided into two main parts. In the first part, the opening chapter focuses on the meanings of the notion of schema before Kant, while the second is devoted to the pre-critical meaning of the notion of schema in the Nova Dilucidatio and in the Dissertation from 1770. The third chapter aims at providing a broad overview of the preliminaries chapters to the schematism chapter in the Critique of Pure Reason, namely the Transcendental Aesthetic and the Transcendental Deduction; the fourth consists in an analysis of the chapter about schematism, while the fifth aims at considering the interpretations of Zschocke, Curtius, Walsh, Dahlstrom, Guyer and Allison, in order to determine the function of this controversial chapter.

      The opening chapter of the second part provides a short overview of the philosophical legacy of Kant’s schematism, by considering the receptions of Kant’s doctrine among idealists, post-Kantians and philosophers of the late nineteenth and early twentieth centuries such as Bergson, Husserl, Heidegger, Whitehead and Wittgenstein. The second chapter focuses on Kant’s distinction between philosophy (in which the notion of schema assumes a fundamental role) and psychology and on Kitcher’s interpretation of Kant’s doctrine as a transcendental psychology, while the third concerns the psychological legacy of Kant’s schematism, focusing on the schema theories and the thoughts of Piaget, Bartlett and Barsalou.←20 | 21→

Part I: Kant’s theory of schematism and its context

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1.The notion of schema before Kant

      Before considering in detail the reasons for why the notion of schema is problematic both in the work of Kant and also in more recent thinkers, an overview of the meanings in which this term was used before Kant has to be introduced.

      The literature on the meanings of the notion of schema before Kant and their possible influences on him is very scarce. In the Historisches Wörterbuch der Philosophie a precise and detailed overview of the uses of the term is presented by Werner Steigmeier, although not aiming to stress the relations and influences between the authors, but rather to expose and list the variety of significances of the notion of schema throughout the history of philosophy. Although the overview provides a large contribution, it is not complete and important authors are omitted (for instance: Joachim Georg Darjes, Christian Thomasius, Johannes Nikolaus Tetens). Some relevant points are made by Thiel (2018), Psilojannopoulos (2013), Semplici (2011), who deal with Thomasius’ and Tetens’s conceptions of cognition and its relation to sensibility.

      However, they do not investigate the relation of their doctrines with Kant’s schematism.

      Given the absence of detailed researches on the notion of schema before Kant, I have decided to devote the first chapter to this task. More specifically, the chapter is divided into three sections, following the chronological order (ancient times, middle ages and modernity), in which ‘schema’ is found in philosophical literature. The variety of the connotations of this notion underlines that it does not possess a definite and specific meaning, although its use is relatively widespread and particularly in modern thinkers it is often referred to as addressing a mediating function between the activity of the understanding and the passivity of sensibility. I have devoted more attention to presenting the uses of the term ‘schema’ in Darjes, Thomasius and Tetens because of their influence on Kant with regard to various philosophical questions - although it is difficult (if not impossible) to prove that they specifically influenced his account of schematism -.

      The concept of a schema has a long and complex history. It is a philosophical concept whose meaning has been shaped by its history; we would do well in making ourselves acquainted with that history in order to prepare ourselves for the discussion.←23 | 24→

1.1 Ancient times

In ancient times, ‘schema’⁴ possessed the meanings of form, appearance, shape and it was used in philosophical literature with different connotations: rhetorical (Plato, Aristotle), moral (Plato), geometrical (Plato), logical (Aristotle), ontological (Leucippus, Democritus, Theophrastus, Aristotle), epistemological (Proclus), and physical (Philo of Alexandria). In the 5th century BC we find the first uses of the term in Leucippus and Democritus with an ontological connotation: it indicates the atom’s form and surface (Aristotle, De Democrito Frg, 208; Rose=Vs 68, A37), which are features of the atoms that are held together with movement, position in space and time and colour, whose possibility of variety has no limitations (Aristotle, De gen. et corr. I, 1, 315 b6; Rose=VS 67, A9). In a different, namely rhetorical sense, Plato refers to ‘schemata’ as figures of speech:

“[…] for not by art or knowledge about Homer do you say what you say, but by divine inspiration and by possession; just as the Corybantian revelers too have a quick perception of that strain only which is appropriated to the God by whom they are possessed, and have plenty of dances (σχηµάτων) and words for that, but take no heed of any other.” (Plato, Ion. 536 c, transl. W.R.M. Lamb.)⁵

In the above-mentioned passage, Socrates uses a metaphor to describe Ion’s competence concerning Homer’s poetry: just like the Corybantic revelers possessed by the gods are able to improvise dances⁶ and poetical forms (σχηµάτων), so Ion is possessed by Homer’s verses. Therefore, schema means artistic composition of words, poetical structures.

      But Plato uses the term also with a different meaning, dealing with behaviour and action. In Epinomis, the dialogue dedicated to the various kinds of knowledge and to the nature of virtue, he writes:

“For these things (desire of knowledge and virtue) are not easily engendered, but when once they are begotten, and receive due nourishment and education, they will be able to restrain the greater number of men, even the worse among us, in the most correct way by our every thought, every action, and every word about the gods, in due manner and due season, as regards both sacrifices and purifications in matters concerning gods ←24 | 25→and men alike, so that we are contriving no life of pretence (σχήµασι), [989d] but truly honouring virtue, which indeed is the most important of all business for the whole state.” (Plato, Epin.989 c.-d, transl. W.R.M. Lamb.)⁷

Here the first rhetorical use of the notion turns into a moral one, indicating external features and misleading behaviours, in opposition to honesty⁸. This reference to ‘schema’ as a feature which might not mirror the truth but, instead, falsity and appearance of things, is found also in other lines of Plato’s works (Plato, Resp. 365 d; Resp, 529 d.) with a more philosophical connotation. Moreover, in Timeo the term ‘schema’ is used to point to the geometrical figure (Plato, Tim, 53 b). In this sense, the notion is found also in some passages of Aristotle (Aristotle, De ani II. 3, 414, b 20–32).

Aristotle’s primary uses of the term are either in metaphysics (Rohr 2017, pp. 7–17), namely for clarifying his notion of form - morphē, eidos - (Aristotle, Phys VII, 3, 246 A I; De part. anim. I. I. 640, b 33.), or within his