Kant's Transcendental Method
and His Theory of Mathematics
1. The aim of this paper
This paper has a dual aim. On the one hand, it is a part of a
larger attempt to understand the nature of Kant's ideas of
transcendental method and transcendental knowledge and
their implications, for instance, the question as to what the
objects of transcendental knowledge are. On the other hand,
I am outlining once again what I take to be the true
argumentative structure of Kant's doctrines of the mathe-
matical method, space, time, and the forms of inner and
outer sense. The link between the two is that on my inter-
pretation Kant's theory of mathematics offers an excellent
example of the applications of his transcendental method.
Moreover, after having recently defended m y construal of
Kant's views on mathematical reasoning and their founda-
tion on historical and textual grounds, it may be in order to
try to vindicate it in another way, to wit, by relating it to
the overall nature of Kant's philosophy, including his idea
of transcendental knowledge. I suspect that this may be a
better way of convincing my colleagues than nitty-gritty
analyses of Kantian texts. At the same time, this approach
offers me a chance of indicating some of the consequences
of my results concerning Kant's theory of mathematics for
the rest of his philosophy. It turns out that the observations
we can make in pursuing this line of thought have also
interesting consequences for our contemporary thought in
the philosophy of logic and mathematics.
2. Kant's concept of the transcendental
A starting-point is offered by Kant's crucial concept of the
transcendental. How does Kant use the term? Kant intro-
duced the term "transcendental" in a slightly different way
in the first and in the second editions o f the Critique o f Pure
Reason:
Topoi 3 (1984), 99-108. 0167-7411/84/0032-0099501.50.
9 1984 by D. Reidel Publishing Company.
Jaakko Hintikka
A version." B version`"
I call transcendental all know- I call transcendental all
ledge which is concerned, not so knowledge which is con-
much with objects, as with our cerned, not so much with
concepts a priari about objects objects, as with our mode of
in general. (A 11-12.) knowledge of objects in
general, in so far as this
[knowledge] is to be pos-
sible a priori. (B 25.)
These definitions or characterizations seem to identify
transcendental knowledge simply and solely with the kind
of knowledge we have in general epistemology. In order to
appreciate the point of Kant's characterizations we must
look up his further explanations concerning transcenden-
tal argumentation. The obvious text to consult is his defini-
tion of the most important type of transcendental
argument, viz. transcendental deduction:
The explanation of the manner in which concepts can thus relate
a priori to objects I entitle their transcendental deduction. (A 85
= B 117.)
The "manner in which concepts can.., relate to objects"
includes for Kant their role in our knowledge-acquiring
activities ( " t h e . . . strivings of our faculty of knowledge",
as Kant puts it in A 86 = B 118). Indeed, Kant clearly
indicates that a transcendental deduction is an explanation
and a justification of certain kinds of a priori knowledge.
(See A 87 = B I l 0.) Now how is it that we can according to
Kant achieve knowledge a priori? What are the "strivings of
our faculty of knowledge" Kant has in mind? An answer is
obtained from B xviii. There Kant says that he is "adopting
as our new method of thought.., that we can know a priori
of things only what we ourselves put into them." In the
same spirit, Kant says in B xiii that "reason has insight only
into that which it produces after a plan of its own". Hence
a transcendental deduction deals, according to Kant,
essentially with the activities through which we "put things
into objects" and so "produce" the objects of our knowl-
edge. It is presumably in order to make room for this
t00 JAAKKO HINTIKKA
specific emphasis that Kant changes the wording of his
characterization of the concept of transcendental knowl-
edge in the second edition of the first Cn'tique.
All told, Kant's characterization of transcendental knowl-
edge thus has to be taken in combination with his explana-
tions of his "Copernican revolution", i.e., with his "new
method of thought" which according to him is based on
that insight that reason "must adopt as its guide..." that
which it has itself put into nature" (B xiv). In other words,
in transcendental knowledge we are dealing not so much
with our knowledge as a static system or with our own
concepts thought of as inert tools, as with our mode of
knowledge-acquisition. Not only does Kant acknowledge
that we have to do someflaing to reach the knowledge we in
fact have; he goes to the idealistic extreme and intimates
that our synthetic knowledge a priori is in the last analysis
about what we have ourselves brought about. The "mode
of knowledge" Kant speaks of in the B version has to be
thought of as an activity on the knower's part, not as a
natural phenomenon, for it is only through an activity on
our own part (acting qua rational human beings) that we
can create or (in Kant's own word) "produce" a priori
knowledge or "put it into objects". The poignancy of the
term "'transcendental" as used in Kant - or in any true
Transzendentalphitosophie -- is therefor due largely to its
being used to mark the role of human knowledge-seeking
activities in our total structure of knowledge and their con-
tribution to what this knowledge - at least its a priori
component - is about. To use the term "transcendental" of
a study of the general features of our own conceptual
system or of "descriptive metaphysics" in thus deeply
misleading as long as the role of the actual human activities
in creating and maintaining our conceptual system is not
recognized.
This point has been obscured by several different factors.
For one thing, an interesting fallacy is lurking in the wings
at this point. Frequently, indeed usually, the kind of
emphasis I am placing on the knowledge-seeking activities
of the human mind is set aside by philosophers who claim
that to take Kant to emphasize human activities means turn-
ing Kant's theory into something that has merely psychologi-
cal or merely anthropological interest. For these activities
may seem to be conditioned mainly by the contingent
nature of the individual human agents involved in them. This
objection is nevertheless fallacious, for it overlooks the
possibility that the principles governing the operations
of the human mind - and of the entire human being - are
not merely psychologically or anthropologically conditioned
but can be guided by objective rules, to the extent that
these rules can become transcendental conditions of ex-
perience. Indeed, this overlooked possibility is inter alia
shown by the analogy Kant draws between himself and
Copernicus. For how can objects conform to our concepts
unless we do something to them? And the whole point of
Kant's analogy is of course to emphasize the significance to
our "motions", i.e., our doings, as creating the transcen-
dental conditions of experience. (See B xvi-xvii.) Hence
the fallacy I am diagnosing is deeply anti-Kantian.
This interpretational fallacy has a neat linguistic counter-
part in twentieth-century philosophy. Often it is assumed
that all study of the use of language, called pragmatics,
is merely a part of psychology or sociology (or perhaps
anthropology). This is fallacious for it overlooks com-
pletely the possibility that the use of language is governed
by laws that can be studied objectively in abstraction from
tile idiosyncracies of particular language users in the same
way as syntax is studied in abstraction of the graphological
and orthographic peculiarities of language users. This could
be called the fallacy of pragmatics as an empirical science,
and the other fallacy we have encountered is its transcen-
dental counterpart.
It nevertheless seems to me that Kant himself fell victim
to this fallacy to some extent, in that he typically speaks
of the subjective conditions of our knowledge rather than
of those of our knowledge-seeking activities. This does not
yet make a decisive difference, however, and it is partly
due merely to his "Aristotelian mistake" to be discussed
later in this paper.
Here we are also already catching a glimpse of the larger
problems I mentioned in the beginning of this paper. One
reason why philosophers have not paid more attention to
such idealistic pronouncements of Kant's as I have quoted
ties in their peculiar ambiguity. Taken literally, Kant seems
to be saying that what our synthetic knowledge a priori is
really about are things of our own making and doing, what
we ourselves put in to objects. Yet in some of the passages
from which my quotes came Kant is emphasizing the con-
tribution of our activities to our knowledge of objective
realities. (In B xiii--xiv he is speaking of the knowledge we
have in experimental physics.) This poses a perplexing
problem. What is the relevant knowledge about, anyway?
How can our activities and their products - which is what
Kant seems to be talking about -. contribute to our knowl-
edge of physical reality? These questions are part and parcel
of the dialectic hidden in Kant's concept of transcendental
knowledge which I am trying to get at in this paper.
The same perplexing problem meets us in Kant's expla-
nations of the force of his notion of the transcendental.
 KANT'S TRANSCENDENTAL METHOD AND HIS THEORY OF MATHEMATICS
The explanations I quoted above from A 11-12 = B 25
identify transcendental knowledge with knowledge which is
about ("is concerned with") our knowledge rather about
its objects. But elsewhere Kant equates transcendental
.knowledge with a special kind of knowledge about objects,
viz., "a priori knowledge in so far as it relates to objects and
can be applied to them", 1 based on pure concepts and pure
intuitions. In this use, transcendental knowledge is con-
trasted by Kant to empirical knowledge.
How can Kant thus identify knowledge about our mode
of knowledge with a certain kind of knowledge about ob-
jects? Our own active role in the genesis of our knowledge
explains part of the problem, for the knowledge a priori,
which is called transcendental, applies to objects according
to Kant because we have made it apply to them through
our knowledge-seeking activities. But another part of the
puzzle remains. How can one and the same knowledge be
about objects and also about our mode of knowledge? This
is one of the larger problems which I ultimately want to get
at and which I am trying to illustrate in this paper.
3. Kant's transcendental theory of mathematics, space, and
time
In order to find material for such illustrations, we can use
the insights already reached. The partial insights we have
reached are important both historically and systematically.
Both these aspects are illustrated by an analysis of the first
major use Kant made of the basic idea of his Transzenden-
talphilosophie. It is his theory of the mathematical method,
space, time, and sense-perception. I am tempted to say, it is
his "Transcendental Aesthetic". Unfortunately, the true
argumentative structure of this part of Kant's work is
hidden in the first edition of the Critique of Pure Reason
even more thoroughly than the force of his term "transcen-
dental" was hidden in his half-hearted explanation of the
term quoted above. And when Kant clarified the structure
of his line of thought in the Prolegomena (see especially
sections 7-11, whose counterpart in the first Critique is
A 4 6 - 4 9 = B 64-66), he unfortunately left the real basis of
his argument hanging on a footnote reference to his discus-
sion of the mathematical method at the end of the Critique
Of Pure Reason (A 713 f f = B 741 ff). This basis has been
misunderstood almost universally. Since I have given full
analyses of it elsewhere, I may perhaps be relatively brief
here in setting Kant's record straight) Contrary to what is
often thought, the datum Kant is trying to account for in
the 'Transcendental Aesthetic' is not that we can obtain
101
synthetic a priori knowledge in mathematics by means of a
special source of knowledge called "intuition". According
to this fallacious view, this source of knowledge operates
like mathematical imagination, and it is for the purpose of
appealing to it that we use constructions (figures) in
geometry and comparable aids to the intuition in other
parts of mathematics. This view is grundfalsch, totally
wrong. It misconstrues the force of the term "intuition"
(Anschauung) in Kant, and it neglects Kant's own explicit
injunctions against all appeals to geometrical imagination.
" I f he [sc. a geometer] is to know anything with a priori
certainty, he must not ascribe to the figure anything save
what necessarily follows from what he himself set into it in
accordance with his concept [of the figure]" (B xii). Can
one rule out more explicitly all appeals to intuition in
geometrical proofs?
This presupposes that what Kant meant by intuitions are
simply those Vorstellungen which represent their objects as
particulars, without the help of general concepts. I have ar-
gued this point repeatedly in the past (see Note 2 above).
This has provoked some discussion. Now there is a supreme-
ly conclusive test available to us to decide whether my in-
terpretation of Kantian intuitions is correct. This test is to
see whether my interpretation makes sense of Kant's prob-
lem of the possibility of synthetic knowledge a priori in
mathematics. Kant's real problem is to explain why we can
obtain synthetic knowledge a priori in mathematics, not by
means of "intuition", but by means of what twentieth-cen-
tury logicians would call instantiations, that is, by means of
considering "arbitrarily chosen" representatives of general
concepts in mathematical arguments. For such representa-
tives of particulars (individuals) are precisely what I have
shown Kantian intuitions to be. Their introduction is what
Kant defines constructing to be. (See Kant's definition of
this term in A 713 = B 741.) The problem about the use of
such instantiation methods is that in them we introduce a
representative of a particular entity a priori, without there
being any such entity present or otherwise given to us.
More fully expressed, Kant's problem is not how instantia-
tions are used in logical or mathematical arguments. He is
accepting the traditional concept of a mathematical (for us:
logical) argumentation in which appeals to geometrical "in-
tuition" in our sense play no role. Kant's problem is: how
can such argumentation, prominently including apparent
anticipations of absent particulars in instantations, yield
knowledge which is applicable to all experience a priori.
All this is amply shown by Kant's own words. In the
Prolegomena, Section 8, Kant writes about the use of in-
tuitions (particular representations) a priori, i.e., so as to
102 JAAKKO HINTIKKA
anticipate their objects:
But with this step the difficulty seems rather to grow than to
decrease; For now the question runs: How is it possible to intuit
anything a priori? Intuition is a representation, such as would
depend directly on the presence of the object. Hence it seems
impossible to intuit anything a priori originally, because the in-
tuition would then have to take place without any object being
present, either previously or now, to which it could refer ....
Thus the usual interpretation - or at least one variety of it
- turns Kant's problem neatly upside down. Kant is not
trying to explain how intuitions can yield knowledge in
virtue of their especially immediate relation to their objects.
He is explaining why certain intuitions (viz. the instan-
tiating terms used in logic and mathematics) can yield syn-
thetic a priori knowledge even when their objects are absent.
This passage is not about our representations (intuitions)
of physical objects, either, as some scholars have claimed. It
is plainly Kant's own canonical and completely general
statement of his transcendental problem of the possibility
of mathematics. But how can intuitions yield knowledge a
priori even when they are used in the absence of their
objects? It is here that Kant's transcendental method comes
into play. Since "reason has insight only into that which it
produces after a plan of its own", the explanation of the
universal applicability of knowledge obtained by using
instantiation methods, i.e., by anticipating certain properties
and relations of particulars, can only lie in the fact that we
have ourselves p u t those properties and relations into ob-
jects in the processes through which we come to know
individuals (particulars). Then the knowledge gained in this
way must reflect the stucture of those processes, and is
applicable to objects only in so far as they are potential tar-
gets of such processes.
Now what are these processes? How is it that we do
come to know particulars? Following a long philosophical
tradition, Kant answers: by sense-perception: "Objects are
given to us by means of sensibility, and it alone yields us
intuitions... [I]n no other way can an object be given to us"
(A 19 = B 33). This answer goes all the way back to Aristot-
le, according to whom "it is sense perception alone which
can grasp particulars". (Analytica Posteriora A 18, 81 b 6.)
Given this assumption, Kant concludes that the proper-
ties and relations with which mathematics deals are put into
objects by as in sense-perception. Hence (Kant says) these
properties and relations are due to the structure (form) of
our faculty of sense-perception. These forms Kant identifies
with space and time. Thus our mathematical knowledge
reflects the form of the processes by means of which we
allegedly come to know particulars, and is applicable to ob-
jects only qua objects o f sense-perception.
Kant expresses the conclusion just indicated as follows
(Prolegomena, Section 9):
If our intuition had to be of such a nature that it represented
things as they are in themselves, no intuition a priori could ever
take place and intuition would be empirical every time.
This is Kant's transcendental assumption, which implies
that the properties and relations mathematics deals with do
not belong to things as they are in themselves, but are put
into them by ourselves. Accordingly, he concludes:
There is thus only one way in which it is possible for my intui-
tion to precede the reality of the object and take place as knowl-
edge a priori, namely, if it contains nothing else than the form of
sensibility which in me precedes all real impressions through
which I am affected by objects. (Kant's emphasis.)
Here we can see both Kant's Aristotelian premise ("the
form of sensibility.., precedes all real impressions.., by ob-
jects") and his main conclusion (an intuition a priori can
yield knowledge only "if it contains nothing else than the
form of sensibility"). A little later (Section 11) Kant notes
how this restricts the applicability of mathematics:
Pure mathematics, as synthetic knowledge a priori, is only possi-
ble because it bears on none other than mere objects of senses ....
4. Kant's Aristotelian mistake exposed
This Kantian argument depends essentially, not only on his
general transcendental position, but also on the assumption
that the particular objects to which mathematics applies are
always given to us by sense-perception. But is Kant right in
thus assuming that the process by means of which we
become aware of the existence of individuals is sense-per-
ception? In spite of its plausibility and wide currency, I
believe that Kant's assumption is deeply wrong. Indeed, I
have suggested that it is Kant's basic fallacy in his first
Critique. Kant is asking the wrong question here. He is in
effect asking: Is perception involved in all our processes of
coming to know particulars? It is not unreasonable (al-
though not unchallengeably obvious) to opt for an affirm-
ative answer to this question. But this is not the appropriate
question here. In Kant's own terms, if there is something
else involved in our cognition of particulars than perception,
we could have smuggled the requisite things into the partic-
ular objects of our knowledge in that other component.
What Kant ought to have asked therefore is this: Is percep-
 KANT'S TRANSCENDENTAL METHOD AND HIS THEORY OF MATHEMATICS
tion all that is involved in our coming to know particular
objects, especially their existence? Is sense-perception the
way of cognising individual existence in general? And as an
answer to these questions, Kant's doctrine is hopelessly
wrong. The most general description of the ways in which
we do reach the information which we actually have about
individuals (especially their existence) is not passive per-
ception, but active seeking and finding. Only rarely can we
relax and sit back and wait passively until the right particu-
lars show up in our sense-perception. Typically, we have to
get up and actually look for the particular objects o f our
knowledge. Indeed, we can speak o f seeking and finding
even in areas where sense-perception is not involved at all,
e.g., in dealing with numbers and other abstract entities.
Language-games of seeking and finding (as we might call
them) are thus much better candidates for the role o f the
general activities by means of which we come to know
particulars than perception. Hence Kant's Aristotelian view
concerning intuitions and perception is wrong. We can now
also see that Kant's mistaken view was not only myopic,
but un-transcendental and hence un-Kantian. He overlooks
here the active element in our knowledge acquisition which
he elsewhere highlights, not the least in his use of the
concept o f the transcendental, as we saw earlier.
Given this one fallacious step, Kant can claim that
mathematics is based on the structure of our faculty o f
sense-perception and reflects this structure. The only
remaining (relatively innocent) step he took is to identify
this structure with space and time.
In spite of the fact that Kant takes this one fallacious
step, it is bad interpretation and bad philosophy for the
commentators to make Kant's mistake for him. The inter-
pretation I criticized above is faulty not the least because it
disregards the distinctively transcendental element in Kant's
thinking in this department. On this interpretation, Kant's
theory o f space and time as the respective forms o f our outer
and inner sense differs little form any old naturalistic
explanation o f any old naturalistic phenomenon. This inter-
pretation, however you propose to develop it, is bound to
overlook the transcendental element in Kant's arguments
about space and time in the 'Transcendental Aesthetic',
and also to overlook the precise force o f such Kantian
terms as "intuition" (Anschauung) there. In contrast to it,
on my interpretation his arguments suddenly make perfect-
ly good sense. For instance, the interpretation of an intuition
as a Vorstellung of a particular is shown to be correct by
the way Kant argues in A 2 4 - 2 5 = B 39:
Space is not a discursive or, as we say, general concept of rela-
103
tions of things in general, but a pure intuition. For... we can
represent to ourselves only one space. (Emphasis added.)
Here the uniqueness (particularity) of space is used as a
reason for the intuitivity o f its representation, thus bringing
out the force of the term "intuition" in his argument.
in drawing conclusions from his 'Transcendental Exposi-
tion o f the Concept o f Space' Kant writes (A 26 = B 42):
Space does not represent any property of things in themselves,
nor does it represent them in their relation to one another. That
is to say, space does not represent any determination that at-
taches to the objects themselves, and which remains even when
abstraction has been made of all the subjective conditions of
intuition. For no determination.., can be intuited prior to the
existence of the things to which they belong (emphasis added),
and none, therefore, can be intuited a priori .... Space is... the
subjective condition of sensibility, under which alone outer
intuition is possible for us.
This passage should be compared with the quote from the
Prolegomena, Section 8, above. Both make the same point,
even though the Prolegomena passage is considerably more
explicit and clearer. But quite unmistakably Kant is saying
in the Critique passage, too, that the use o f intuitions is
impossible if it deals with "determinations" o f things in
themselves, that is to say, independent of the "subjective
conditions" o f our knowledge of particular objects. Intui-
tions used a priori (that is to say, used so as to precede their
objects) can yield knowledge only if they pertain to the
subjective conditions o f knowledge, that is, to out knowl-
edge-seeking activities and their products. These Kant tac-
itly identifies with sense-perception ("subjective conditions
of sensibility").
Essentially the same things can be said o f Kant's conclu-
sions concerning space and time in the Transcendental
Aesthetic, viz. in A 25 = B 42 and A 3 2 - 3 3 = 4 8 - 5 0 .
Hence the line of thought I have ascribed to Kant is not
restricted to the Prolegomena but is clearly present also in
the first Critique.
Thus a closer examination of Kant's actual argumenta-
tion confirms my interpretation o f the structure o f his line
o f thought.
5. A transcendental deduction of game-theoretical seman-
tics
In spite of Kant's fallacious idea that sense-perception is
the way o f gaining knowledge about particulars, his theory
is extremely interesting, and offers rich material for further
104 JAAKKO HINTIKKA
discussion. One reason why I have expounded Kant's line
of thought as fully as I have is that, in spite of this one slip,
the rest of his argument seems to me sound. Moreover, the
one mistake Kant makes can easily be corrected, as we saw,
by substituting the activities of seeking and finding for pas-
sive sense-perception in Kant's line of thought. The right
conclusion from the reconstructed Kantian argument is
therefore implicit in what I have already said. Obviously, it
will be that the knowledge obtained by means of instantia-
tion procedures deals "really" with our rule-governed activ-
ities of seeking and finding, and reflects the structure of
these activities. Admittedly, a terminological adjustment is
needed here. The knowledge thus obtained was identified
by Kant with mathematical knowledge, but it is easily seen
that what it really amounts to is the kind of knowledge we
obtain in logic, especially (but not exclusively) in first~rder
logic (quantification theory). After all, instantiation rules
are the cornerstone of logic, especially the ground-floor
logic just mentioned. Moreover, this logic is precisely what
goes into the kinds of mathematical arguments Kant actually
used as his paradigm cases. (They were mostly arguments
used in elementary geometry developed in the traditional
manner ~ la Euclid.) All told, the corrected Kantian line of
thought thus becomes an argument for an approach to logic
- both to formal logic and to S p r a c h l o g i k - which focuses
on the "language-games" of seeking and finding and sees in
our logical knowledge merely the structure of these games
writ large. Such an approach to logic is represented by the
"game-theoretical semantics" which I have developed in the
last few years,a The upshot of our hindsight-motivated
correction to Kant is thus - literally - a transcendental
deduction of game-theoretical semantics. Game-theoretical
semanticists are hence the true Kantians among contempo-
rary theorists of logic, we can conclude. This should alone
suffice to show that transcendental arguments are not dead
(i.e., without topical interest).
The interest and value of this born-again Kantian argu-
ment is undoubtedly seen best from the specific conclu-
sions to which it leads us. Several of them have a hauntingly
familiar transcendental quality, at least for a true Kantian.
Kant tries to analyze the nature of perceptual and apper-
ceptual processes and of the application of concepts to per-
ceptual raw material in order to gain further insights into
the limits of the legitimate use of the categories of under-
standing, which he relates to the different logical forms of
judgement. Somewhat analogously, a deeper examination
of the preconditions of the "language-games" of seeking
and finding leads us to interesting insights concerning the
presuppositions and limitations of different kinds of logics,
including a better grasp of the limitations of classical logic
and the classical concept of model in logic.4
These further applications of Kantian ideas are closely
connected with his fundamental transcendental viewpoint.
According to this view, our system of logical truths is
determined by the structure of our knowledge-seeking acti-
vities, which in my model are the language-games of seeking
and finding. Any change in the rules for these "games" orin
their preconditions will be reflected by the structure of our
logical system. For instance, if the strategies which are
available to the players of my semantical games are restricted
to computable (recursive) ones (and the overall games
divided in a certain sense into subgames), we obtain certain
nonclassical interpretations of logic which include promi-
nently G6del's famous functional interpretation of first-or-
der logic and arithmetic, s
Again, our usual logic applies to objects only in so far as
they are potential objects of our activities of seeking and
finding. This is analogous to Kant's claim that mathematics
applies to objects only q u a objects of sense-perception.
Such preconditions to our use of logic and mathematics are
usually taken to imply that the objects in question must
not change while the games in question are played on them,
in other words, that the world does not change while we
investigate it, more precisely, that the world does not
change between the moves of the semantical games. How-
ever, it is clear that not all changes in the objects make
them ineligible to serve as objects of seeking and finding.
Hence, we can broaden our concepts of logic and of model
in logic so as to accommodate certain changes in the world
while we play language-games of seeking and finding in it.
The result is the extension of the classical concept of model
which Rantala has called urn m o d e l . 6 Normal (classical)
models then turn out to be a special case of urn models, viz.
invariant urn models (models that do not change in tandem
with our steps of seeking and finding). This widening of the
classical concept of model is promising, and has already
given rise to interesting applications. 7 As we can see, it is
transcendental in spirit, for it deals with the preconditions
of our "mode of knowledge" of the world in the sense of
the preconditions of our language-games of seeking and
finding - with "the subjective conditions" of our knowl-
edge, as Kant might have put it.
This reconstructed modern counterpart to Kant's theory
may seem to belong to a sphere of ideas altogether different
from Kant's. The logical procedure of instantiation does
not seem to have any conceptual relation to geometry, even
though it has sometimes been related to sense-perception or
sensory imagination. Games of seeking and finding played
 KANT'S TRANSCENDENTAL METHOD AND HIS THEORY OF MATHEMATICS
on discrete individuals seem to be a far cry from the con-
tinuous Euclidean geometry Kant was talking about. I
believe, however, that by inquiring into the constitution of
those discrete physical objects whose availability is a pre-
supposition of my games of seeking and finding, we are
forced back to emphasizing the need of geometry frame-
works as a prerequisite of the individuation of the objects
of seeking and finding. This line of thought has been ex-
plored elsewhere) I cannot discuss it adequately here. It
offers a very interesting and promising second line of
defense to latter-day Kantians.
I might perhaps put the same point as follows: Logic
reflects those aspects of the structure of our activities of
seeking and finding. These activities are not independent
of the structure of the medium in which the relevant search
is conducted. In the long run, this structure has to be
brought in, and then we are led back to ideas that resemble
Kant's theories more closely than the logic of seeking and
finding does.
6. Kant's concept of transcendence
Turning Kant's 'Transcendental Aesthetic' into a "trans-
cendental deduction of game-theoretical semantics", by
correcting his Aristotelian mistake, thus leads to several
interesting observations. In another sense, however, Kant's
mistake is much harder to correct, viz. harder to correct
without affecting a great deal else in his philosophy. In
order to see this, it is advisable to return to the concept of
the transcendental. There is a facet of this concept in Kant's
Critique o f Pure Reason which we have not yet touched. It
is the facet of this concept that ties it to the title of Kant's
book. Kant was not only interested in describing and study-
ing our knowledge-seeking processes and their input into
the total edifice of our knowledge. His primary aim was a
critical one. He wanted to stake the legitimate boundaries
of those processes. This is what makes his book into a Cri-
tique of pure (i.e., a priori) reason. This purpose is signalled
by many Kantian concepts and terms. One of these con-
cepts is the bastard half-brother of the concept of the tran-
scendental, to wit, the concept of the transcendent. Kant's
main explanation of the difference between the two is given
in A 2 9 5 - 2 9 6 = B 3 5 2 - 3 5 3 :
We shall entitle the principles whose application is confined en-
tirely within the limits of possible experience, immanent; and
those.., which profess to pass beyond these limits, transcen-
dent ... Thus transcendental and transcendent are not one and
the same. [For instance] the principles of pure understanding...
105
allow only of empirical [employment] and not.., employment
extending beyond the limits of experience. A principle, on the
other hand, which takes away these limits, or even commands us
actually to transgress them, is called transcendent.
The picture that emerges here is seen more clearly by
recalling Kant's earlier explanation of the notion of tran-
scendental (discussed above). As was pointed out, transcen-
dental knowledge can be understood as dealing with, not
just our general conceptual system, not even with the
activities that serve to constitute this system, but more
specifically with the legitimate limits of these activities.
Now it seems that the contrast between the terms "tran-
scendental" and "transcendent" is that the former pertains
to the boundaries of the use of understanding, which Kant
identifies with the limits of possible experience, whereas
the latter refers to transgressions and even denials of these
boundaries.
This seems indeed to be the basic idea in Kant. However,
the actual situation turns out to be more complicated than
this. Kant himself uses the term "transcendental" also of
some types of steps beyond the limits of experience. (These
must not amount to denials of the boundaries of under-
standing, however, nor instigations to transgress the boun-
daries.) This is vividly illustrated by the very passage I
quoted from A 2 9 5 - 2 9 6 = B 3 5 2 - 3 5 3 . Its middle part
reads in its entirety as follows:
[For instance] the principles of pure understanding, which we
have set out above, allow only of empirical and not of transcen-
dental employment, that is, employment extending beyond the
limits of experience. A principle, on the other hand ....
Is this a confusion or perhaps even a slip on Kant's part?
Admittedly, there is a royal confusion between the two
terms in parts of later literature. Moreover, Kant was not
entirely blameless, either. However, I believe (but cannot
argue here) that there is a deeper reason for Kant's hesita-
tion about the proper use of the terms "transcendental"
and "transcendent" and about their relation. Indeed, this
uncertainty about the proper relation of the transcendental
and the transcendent turns out to be a symptom of the very
"paradox o f transcendental knowledge" which is the prob-
lem which I would ultimately like to solve.
Another notion Kant uses to highlight his critical theme
is that of thing in itself (Ding an sich). It is an inescapable
shadow of the basic idea of Kant's transcendental philoso-
phy. A soon as we consider our knowledge of objects as
being obtained by means of certain knowledge-seeking
activities, we ipso facto make it impossible for ourselves to
consider them at the same time "in themselves", that is,
106 JAAKKO HINTIKKA
to consider them independently of those knowledge-seeking
activities. The outer limits where the legitimate uses of our
cognitive activities must stop will the mark the limit beyond
which things are transcendent, an sich. The concept-of
things in themselves, like the concept of the transcendent,
is thus in effect part and parcel of Kant's project of marking
the boundaries of our knowledge-acquiring activities.
7. Kant's mistake and the transcendence of things in them-
selves
One sense in which it is very difficult to correct Kant's mis-
take (his identification of the way we gain knowledge of
the existence of particulars in general with sense-perception)
is that its consequences are virtually impossible to disentan-
gle from the rest of Kant's philosophy. Here I can only call
the reader's attention to some of the most obvious conse-
quences. It was precisely Kant's Aristotelian mistake that
turned that inevitable dark side of his transcendental posi-
tion, things in themselves, from epistemological restraints
on our knowledge into metaphysical reifications. For it was
the assumption concerning the role of perception in our
knowledge-seeking that implied that the epistemological
unreachability by our knowledge-seeking activities, which
things in themselves by definition enjoy, amounted to
transcendence with respect to sense-perception, that is,
noumenal existence. In other words, the self-same Aristo-
telian assumption is the ultimate reason why Kant identi-
fied the limits of the legitimate use of the categories of
understanding to possible sense-experience, and forced him
to seek the ground of the applicability of the categories in
the apperceptive assimilation of sense-experiences to the
texture of our knowledge. All this has to be re-evaluated if
Kant's philosophy is to be purged of his crucial mistake.
Needless to say, I cannot attempt this monumental task
here.
Attempts have been made repeatedly both by Kant and
by his followers to do better justice to those fundamental
ideas of his which are independent of the mistake. For
instance, one can start from empirical objects in Kant and
consider things in themselves as the outer limit of what
these phenomenal objects could become if we considered
them in themselves, i.e., abstracted from them all traces of
our knowledge-seeking activities. But as long as one assigns
to sense-perception the role it in fact plays according to
Kant in the acquisition of our knowledge, it is hard to see
that one cannot help ending up with the noumenal objects
all over again. However, this theme cannot be developed
fully here, even though it is extremely important for our
understanding and evaluation of Kant's philosophy. In
particular, I don't want to deny that there were forces in
Kant's own thinking which pushed him towards a position
much closer to mine than his official one.
It is not hard to find specific manifestations of such
forces. Within Kant's own system, there is for instance a
reluctant and indirect admission of the conceptual fact
that the logic of our knowledge of particulars (intuitions)
is the logic of existence and universality, that is, twentieth-
century philosophers' "first-order logic". For him, there are
certain principles of understanding which correspond to the
categories of quantity, which in turn correspond to the
different quantities of a judgment: universality, particularity
and singularity. These features of propositions (judgments)
are precisely what first-order logic deals with. Now - prima
facie quite surprisingly - the principles of understanding
which correspond to these categories are according to Kant
the axioms o f intuition. (See A 161-166 = B 200-207.)
However, in the light of what we have found, this identifi-
cation is really not very surprising. It is merely Kant's
oblique recognition of the fact that the logic of existence
and universality is the "logic" of the axioms of intuition,
i.e., of the axioms for particular representations.
Moreover, it is hard to avoid the impression that, for the
purpose of the first axiom of intuition, the connection
between intuitions and sense-percePtion postulated by Kant
is otiose. The axiom is formulated by Kant as saying that
"all intuitions are extensive magnitudes". Unpacked, it says
that all particulars are subject to geometrical and kinematic
conditions. For this purported conclusion, it is certainly
easier to argue in terms of our concepts of existence and
universality than in terms of the idea of intuitions as always
being given to us in sense-perception. It is certainly much
more difficult to think of forms of existence of particulars
which are not spatial and temporal than to imagine possible
forms of perception of which the same is true. This point is
especially persuasive if some form of game-theoretical
semantics is adopted. For how can one possibly look for a
search for particulars except in space and time? Even
though we can perhaps in the last analysis make sense of
nonspatial and nontemporal seekings and findings, the
paradigm case can nevertheless be maintained to be the
spatio-temporal one.
Whatever further arguments one may want to put for-
ward here, these observations strongly suggest that the
viewpoint from which we are looking at his theory of space,
 KANT'S TRANSCENDENTAL METHOD AND HIS THEORY OF MATHEMATICS
time, mathematics, and particular existence is one toward
which Kant himself was pushed to some extent by his own
conceptual framework.
Admittedly, Kant tries to give a deeper foundation to
the alleged connection between particulars and sensibility
by means of his examination of the threefold synthesis
through which objects of experience are according to him
constituted. But this attempt is a belated one. The plausi-
bility of Kant's account of synthesis is no greater than that
of Kant's initial Aristotelian mistake. It may be prima facie
more plausible to think of the particular objects of our
experience as being constituted in perception and appercep-
tion than as constituted to be potential objects of seeking
and finding. On reflection, it is seen that this plausibility is
merely another form of the same Aristotelian fallacy. The
true account of individuation and identification will center
crucially on the re-identification of objects in space and
time, i.e., on those very properties of theirs which make
them potential objects of seeking and finding, a In other
ways, too, can it be seen that objects are in our actual con-
ceptual system individuated primarily to be re-identifiable
objects of search and recognition.
8. Kant's transcendental vantage point as guide of inter-
pretation
There is a solid methodological reason why it is important to
examine Kant's philosophy of mathematics in the light
of his basic transcendental viewpoint. This importance is
perhaps best seen by asking: How is an interpretation of a
historical figure like Kant to be judged? Almost always,
what one finds in books and papers in the history of phi-
losophy are attempts to reconcile an interpretation with
the letter of all the different relevant texts of some famous
philosophers. This is sometimes done for the purpose of
proving an interpretation of, sometimes to criticize, the
philosopher in question but the method is the same in both
cases. Usually, the constructive results are inconclusive. An
interpretational problem which can be solved by assembling
a collection of quotations is not worth raising. By the same
token, it is a cheap shot to point out that a proposed inter-
pretation does not immediately square with what for us is
the literal meaning of the words of the philosopher in ques-
tion.
What is missing from discussions which turn on this kind
of argumentation are two things. First, they miss the
dynamics of a philosopher's thought: his problems, his
tacit conceptual assumptions, his favorite modes of argu-
107
mentation, and his different (and frequently mutally in-
compatible) attempts to solve his problems.
Second, what is often missing is the realization that a
historical philosopher's words and other conceptual phi-
losopher's words and assumptions are different from ours.
As a consequence, the argumentative structure-of a phi-
losopher's thought is easily misunderstood.
There are many examples of these phenomena in those
parts of recent Kantian studies which are relevant to my
own interpretations. To take examples from the best litera-
ture, Jill Buroker 9 discusses Kant's remarks on the problem
of incongruent counterparts without any deeper awareness
of the force of Kant's notion of intuition nor of the rela-
tion of this part of his thought to the overall argumentative
structure of Kant's philosophy of mathematics.
Likewise, Charles Parsons, in his paper on Kant's philos-
ophy of arithmetic, 1~ never really raises the questions of
what Kant's own central problems were and how various
pronouncements are related to his overall line of thought.
Yet this makes a crucial difference to Parsons' own argu-
ments. For instance, in criticizing my interpretation of
Kant's notion of intuition as amounting to a singular Vor-
stellung (and nothing more, as far as the force of the term is
concerned), Parsons correctly notes that Kant seems to
consider on a large number of occasions the immediate per-
ception-like relation of an intuition to its object as one
of its important characteristics. However, he never asks
where these occasions occur. Now it easily turns out
that each and every one of them occurs in the systematic
order of things after Kant has established to his own
satisfaction that all intuitions, not just empirical ones,
have an essential relation to sense-perception. (Empirical
intuitions are assumed to be given by perception and a
priori ones have been argued by Kant to be based on the
form of our sense-perception.) Hence these passages have
no relevance whatsoever to the question of the force of the
term "intuition" in Kant. a 1
There perhaps are no crucial experiments in science.
There are, however, crucial tests in the history of philoso-
phy. No matter what you can, for instance, say of Kant's
use of the term "intuition" (Anschauung) elsewhere, an
interpretation which does not enable us to make sense of
the very argument by means of which Kant arrives at his
theory o f space and time is not only wrong; it is a no-
starter. My focus on Kant's transcendental method is useful
in that it shows what the crucial arguments in Kant are that
can serve as "crucial tests" of this kind.
What we have to do is to therefore look at the arguments
which Kant employs to establish the link between a priori
108 JAAKKO HINTIKKA
intuitions and sensibility. This is precisely what I did above
in S.ection 3. And then it turns out that Parsons' view is not
only awkward; it is diametrically opposed to what Kant is
assuming in his argument. (A priori intuitions are not char-
acterized by an especially immediate relation to their ob-
jects; they are precisely intuitions used in the absence of
their objects.) Thus even a minimal attention to the struc-
ture of Kant's reasoning immediately settles an interpreta-
tional issue.
An emphasis on Kant's transcendental method is useful
precisely because it forces us to attend to the structure of
Kant's overall argumentation. It was, for instance, my
attention to Kant's transcendental method which led me to
inquire into the knowledge-seeking activities which accord-
ing to Kant give us our knowledge of particular objects.
And this question of course, was what led me to recognize
Kant's important Aristotelian mistake. In general, attention
to Kant's method leads us to try to understand the argu-
mentative structure of Kant's theory of mathematics.
The other major flaw in the recent literature, viz. insuf-
ficient attention to the import of Kant's key concepts, is
best cured by close attention to the literature which formed
the background of Kant's theories. I believe that' from that
literature one can find much more evidence for my inter-
pretations than has been spelled out yet. Unfortunately,
this is not the occasion to look for such evidence.
Note: This paper is closely related to the first half of my
contribution to the 1981 Cambridge Conference on Tran-
scendental Argumentation, which has appeared in German
translation under the title "Das Paradoxon transzendentaler
Erkenntnis" in the proceeding volume of the Conference,
entitled Bedingungen der M6glichkeit, Klett-Cotta Verlag,
Stuttgart, 1984, ed. by W. Vossenkuhl and E. Schaper.
The work on the changes from and additions to that earlier
version has been supported by NSF Grant # BNS 8119033.
Notes
See Carl Christian Erhard Schmid, W6rterbuch zum leichteren
Gebrauch der Kantisehen Sehriften, vierte Ausgabe, 1798, reprinted
by WissenschaftlicheBuchgesellschaft, Darmstadt, 1980, p, 525.
2 See the essays on Kant reprinted in my books, Logic Language-
Games, and Information, Clarendon Press, Oxford, 1973, and
Knowledge and the Known, D. Reidel , Dordrecht, 1974, as well as
'Kant's Theory of Mathematics Revisited', in J. N. Mohanty and
R.W. Shehan (eds.), Essays on Kant's Critique o f Pure Reason, U.
of Oklahoma Press, Norman, Oklahoma, 1982, pp. 201-215 (re-
printed from Philosophical Topics 12, No. 2 (1982)).
3 See Esa Saarinen (ed.), Game-Theoretical Semantics, D. Reidel,
Dordrecht, 1979; Jaakko Hintikka, 'The Gamc-Thcorctical Seman-
tics: Insights and Prospects', Notre Dame Journal of Formal Logic
23 (1982), 219--241; Jaakko Hintikka, The Game o f Language,
D. Reidel, Dordrecht, 1983.
4 See here Jaakko Hintikka, 'Transcendental Arguments Revived',
in A. Mercier and M. Svilar (eds.), Philosophers on Their Own Works,
Vol. 9, Peter Lang, Bern, 1982, pp. 115-166.
s See Kurt G6del, l~lbereine bisher noch nicht bentitzte Erweiter-
ung des finiten Standpunktes', in Logica. Studia Paul Bernays
dedicata (no editor given), Editions du Griffon, Neuchatel, 1959,
translated as 'On a Hitherto Unexploited Extension of the Finitary
Standpoint', Journal of Philosophical Logic 9 (1980), 133-142, and
cf. Jaakko Hintikka, 'Game-Theoretical Semantics: Insights and
Prospects' (Note 3 above). Further reference to the literature is
given in both these places.
6 See Veikko Rantala, 'Urn Models', in Saarinen (ed.) (Note 3
above).
7 See Veikko Rantala, Aspects of Definability (Acta Philosophica
Fennica, Vol. 29, Nos. 2-3, North-Holland, Amsterdam, 1977);
Jaakko Hintikka, 'Impossible Possible Worlds Vindicated', Saarinen
(ed.) (Note 3 above).
a On the subject of individuation and identification, see Jaakko
Hintikka and Merrill B. Hintikka, 'Towards a General Theory of
Individuation and Identification', in W. Leinfellner, E. Kraemer,
and J. Schank (eds.), Language and Ontology: Proceedings of
the 1981 International Wittgenstein Symposium, H61der-Pichler-
Tempsky, Vienna, 1982; pp. 137-150.
9 Jill Vance Buroker, Space and Incongruence, D. Reidel,
Dordrecht, 1981.
10 Charles Parsons, 'Kant's Philosophy of Arithmetic', in Ralph
C. S. Walker, Kant on Pure Reason, Oxford U. P., 1982, pp. 13-40;
orginally in Sidney Morgenbesser et al. (eds.), Philosophy, Science,
and Method. Essays in Honor o f Ernest Nagel, St. Martin's Press,
N. Y., 1969, pp. 588-594.
11 Some critics of my earlier work have thought that I interpret
any representative which for conceptual reasons stands for only one
entity as an intuition. No, of course not. An intuition according to
Kant represents its object qua particular, i.e., without the help of
general concepts. Hence, e.g., the Vorstellung that goes together
with a definite description is not an intuition for Kant, even though
it can stand for only one object.
Dept. o f Philosophy,
Florida State University,
TaIlahassee, Fla. 32 306, U.S.A.