I’ve been running an informal contest to find the longest sentence ever written by a philosopher. Chelsea, a reader from the U.K., sends us this phenomenal 174-word sentence from the Critique of Pure Reason (B158-159, Guyer translation):
“Just as for the cognition of an object distinct from me I also need an intuition in addition to the thinking of an object in general (in the category), through which I determine that general concepts, so for the cognition of myself I also need an addition to the consciousness, or in addition to that which I think myself, an intuition of the manifold in me, through which I determine this thought; and I exist as an intelligence that is merely conscious of its faculty for combination but which, in regard to the manifold that is to combine, is subject to a limiting condition that it calls inner sense, which can make that combination intuitable only in accordance with temporal relations that lie entirely outside of the concepts of the understanding proper, and that can therefore still cognize itself merely as it appears to itself with regard to an intuition (which is not intellectual and capable of being given through the understanding itself), not as it would cognize itself if its intuitions were intellectual.”
So updating our content results, Kant has passed Bentham from fourth to third place and is closing in on Aristotle.
1. Locke: 309 words.
2. Aristotle: 188 words.
3. Kant: 174 words. (Previously: 163 words.)
4. Bentham: 164 words.
5. Mill: 161 words.
Let the reading games continue. Meanwhile, here’s my close reading of the famous Second Preface to Kant’s most important book:
This proves only that Kant knew nothing of THE HICKS BOSON!
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Professor Hicks, I may have a contender to unseat Locke from his throne: Kierkegaard wrote a sentence regarding the difficulties of introspection. By my count(*) Kierkegaard’s sentence is 315 words long. The sentence begins on page 64 with “If a poor private thinker…” and concludes on page 65 with “then perhaps even of surmounting it!”
(*)Please forgive any errors in my word count, as I may have napped briefly during the counting.
http://books.google.com/books?id=kE1KCSZjUaAC&pg=PA63&lpg=PA63&dq=%E2%80%9CIf+a+poor+private+thinker+%E2%80%A6%E2%80%9D&source=bl&ots=KxeqewNSmX&sig=qsO2cxsjrXYcgX0UkezAsStpth0&hl=en&sa=X&ei=4T9MUpD5LI28qQGe1oHYDQ&ved=0CCsQ6AEwAA#v=onepage&q=%E2%80%9CIf%20a%20poor%20private%20thinker%20%E2%80%A6%E2%80%9D&f=false
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Nice find, Zeppo. The Google Books link you sent does not allow me to preview that page. Can you cut and paste the monster sentence and post it here? I’ll also check my print copy. Update: Found it: 330 words. I’ll post them soon.
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Hmm. I feel that 1) this contest has not been completed and the million-dollar prize has never been awarded; and 2) the Kantian sentence chosen seems average rather than extreme for Kant. I suspect that there are longer-in-itself sentences by Kant out there. I guess I could do the work of finding one. But if this isn’t a real contest…
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How do I put this sentence in simple English?
Just as for the cognition of an object distinct from me. I also need an intuition in addition to the thinking of an object in general (in the category), through which I determine that general concepts, so for the cognition of myself. I also need an addition to the consciousness, or in addition to that which I think myself, an intuition of the manifold in me, through which I determine this thought; and I exist as an intelligence that is merely conscious of its faculty for combination but which, in regard to the manifold that is to combine, is subject to a limiting condition that it calls inner sense, which can make that combination intuitable only in accordance with temporal relations that lie entirely outside of the concepts of the understanding proper, and that can therefore still cognize itself merely as it appears to itself with regard to an intuition (which is not intellectual and capable of being given through the understanding itself), not as it would cognize itself if its intuitions were intellectual.
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