'Wild above rule or art' : creation and critique
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Abstract
This thesis is an interrogation of the viability of transitive production, which I associate with the
Aristotelian term hylomorphic. The central axiom of hylomorphic production that will be
targeted for critique is that the agent of production must be distinguished absolutely from the
product. The thesis follows the thought of production primarily-but not exclusively-in its
characteristically modem instantiation in the Kantian transcendental. The argument seeks to
demonstrate that the productive aspect of the operator of transitive production is incompatible
with the transcendental element, and that Kant was himself increasingly aware of this problem.
The Third Critique, under the rubric of an aesthetics, it will be argued, manifests this awareness
in its problematic of a manifold of empirical laws. That this constitutes a difficulty for
transcendent idealism means that the transcendental operators of the First Critique have failed to
constitute experience in a relevant and important way. Furthermore, it is possible to see in some
of the famous slogans of the Third Critique, an indication of another mode of production which
is immune to the difficulties of the axiom of transitive production. In conclusion I suggest that
the consequences of this new mode of intransitive production, associated with materiality, is
destructive of the thought of the axiomatic otherworldliness of production operators. Production
is not operated at all. Some suggestions are then made as to the explanation of the error
embodied in the axiom of transitivity