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Kant’s Account of Intuition

Published online by Cambridge University Press:  01 January 2020

Lorne Falkenstein
Lorne Falkenstein*
Affiliation:
The University of Western Ontario, London, ON, Canada, N6A 3K7
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Extract

Kant supposed that we possess two distinct cognitive capacities, which he referred to as ‘intuition’ (Anschauung) and ‘understanding’ or ‘intellect’ (Verstand). This ‘two-faculty account of cognition’ lies at the foundation of his theoretical philosophy, and almost everything he has to say in the Critique of Pure Reason presupposes it. But it is also problematic. At the outset of the Critique Kant simply assumes the validity of the distinction, without in any way attempting to justify it. And one looks in vain through the Kantian corpus for any explanation that might legitimate it. To make matters worse, Kant does not always draw the distinction in the same way. Most notoriously, he presents two quite different accounts of intuition, defining it in some places as ‘singular representation’ (A713=B741; Logic §6), in others as ‘immediate cognition’ (A19=B33).

Type
Research Article
Information
Canadian Journal of Philosophy , Volume 21 , Issue 2 , June 1991 , pp. 165 - 193
Copyright
Copyright © The Authors 1991

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References

1 In this paper I will use ‘intellect’ to translate ‘Verstand’ rather than the more common ‘understanding.’ I do this to preserve continuity between Kant’s Latin in his ‘Inaugural Dissertation’ and his German in the Critique of Pure Reason, as well as because ‘intellect’ permits convenient adjectival and adverbial constructions.

2 See A19=B33 and again at A50-2=B74-6, introductory passages where the distinctions are simply introduced without any attempt at justification. (References to Kant’s Critique of Pure Reason are to the pagination of the first and second original editions [Riga: Johann Friedrich Hartknoch 1781 and 1787], cited as ‘A’ and ‘B’ respectively. References to Kant’s other works are to the pagination of the Academy edition of his collected writings [Berlin: de Gruyter and predecessors 1900-L cited as ‘Ak,’ with volume in roman and page in arabic numerals, except in the cases where the section § or paragraph ¶ numbers Kant himself supplied are more specific. All translations from Kant’s German are my own. Those from his Latin follow Kerferd, G.B. in Kant: Selected Pre-Critical Writings, Kerferd, G.B. and Walford, D.E. trans. [Manchester: Manchester University Press 1968].)Google Scholar

3 There has been an extensive discussion of whether these two views are identical and, if not, which ought to be taken as primary. See, most notably,jaakko Hintikka, ‘On Kant’s Notion of Intuition (Anschauung),’ in Penelhum, T. and Macintosh, J. eds., The First Critique: Reflections on Kant’s Critique of Pure Reason (Belmont, CA: Wadsworth 1969) 38-53Google Scholar; Charles Parsons, ‘Kant’s Philosophy of Arithmetic,’ in Morgenbesser, S. Suppes, P. and White, M. eds., Philosophy, Science, and Method (New York: St. Martin’s 1969) 568-94Google Scholar; Thompson, Manley ‘Singular Terms and Intuition in Kant,’ Review of Metaphysics 26 (1972) 314-43Google Scholar; Wilson, ‘Kant on Intuition; Philosophical Quarterly 25 (1975) 247-65CrossRefGoogle Scholar.

4 The point that Kant’s representation terminology has scholastic roots has been made before. See Tonelli, Giorgio ‘Das Wiederaufleben der deutsch-aristotelischen Terminologie bei Kant wahrend der Entstehung der “Kritik der reinen Vernunft,”’ Archiv fiir Begriffsgeschichte 9 (1964) 233-42Google Scholar, and Hinske, Norbert ‘Kants neue Terminologie und ihre alten Quellen,’ in Akten des 4 Internationalen Kant Congresses, pt. I (Kant-Studien 65 supp. [1974]68-85Google Scholar, esp. 68-72.) Tonelli meant, and Hinske means, to date a deliberate but critical adoption by Kant of the traditional senses of Greek and Latin terms. The goal of this paper is to examine the degree to which the meanings carried by this traditional terminology generated unnoticed tensions and inconsistencies in Kant’s thought, and the degree to which these tensions and inconsistencies led him to unconsciously modify those meanings.

5 Hinske, 70-2

6 Those familiar with the companion piece to this paper (Kant’s Account of Sensation,’ Canadian Journal of Philosophy 20 [1990) 63-88) may find this a surprising claim in the light of the conclusion defended there, so I will add a word of explanation. The papers have appeared in the reverse order to the direction of Kant’s argument. ‘Kant’s Account of Sensation’ examined the consequences attendant upon his postulating that space is a form of intuition. This paper will consider, among other things, what justifies that postulate. Kant’s line of argument, that is, is from an information theoretic account of intuition which makes no physiological presup-positions to the claim that space is a form of intuition and from there to the conclusions of ‘Kant’s Account of Sensation’ — which do involve physiological claims.

7 Rules for the Direction of the Mind XII (AT X 415-16); Meditations on First Philosophy VI (AT VII 85-6); Passions of the Soul147 (AT Xl364-5); correspondence with Mersenne, 16 October 1639 (AT II 598). (References to Descartes are to Oeuvres de Descartes, Adam, Charles and Tannery, Paul eds., 12 vols. [Paris: Cerf 1897-1913Google Scholar; revised ed. Paris: Vrin/CNRS 1964-76) cited as ‘AT with volume in roman and page in arabic numerals.)

8 Gottfried Wilhelm Leibniz, ‘Meditationes de Cognitione, Veritate, et Ideis’ (Acta Eruditorium Leipzig, November 1684), in Gerhardt, C.I. ed., Die Philosophischen Schriften von Gottfried Wilhelm Leibniz, vol. 4 (reprinted. Hildesheim: Olms 1960) 422-6Google Scholar; Wolff, Christian Philosophia Rationalis sive Logicae, 3rd ed. (Frankfurt: 1740), §§77-89Google Scholar of the main text (facsimile in Wolff, Christian Gesammelte Werke, 2nd series, vol. 1.2 [Hildesheim: Olms 1983])Google Scholar; Baumgarten, Alexander Gottlieb Metaphysica, 3rd ed. (Halle: Carol, Herman, Hemmerde 1757), §§504-33Google Scholar; reprinted in Ak XV 5-13 and in Baumgarten, Alexander Gottlieb Texte zur Grundlegung der Aesthetik, Hans Rudolf Schweizer, ed. and trans. (Hamburg: Meiner 1983) 2-17.Google Scholar

9 Baumgarten, §§521-2

10 Hume, David Enquiry Concerning Human Understanding (originally published in 1748 under the title Philosophical Essays Concerning Human Understanding), section 2; Etienne Bonnot, Abbe de Condillac, Essai sur I’origine des connaissances humaines (Amsterdam: P. Mortier 1746)Google Scholar, part 1, section 2, esp. ¶74; Helvetius, C.A. De I’ésprit (Paris: Durand 1758)Google Scholar, essay 1, chapter 1.

11 See 10 §7. Kant was always more vociferous in his opposition to the Leibnizian direction than to the empiricist. See, for instance, A43-5=B60-2, A264=B320, and Ak VIII 218.

12 Kuksewicz, Z. ‘The Potential and the Agent Intellect,’Google Scholar and Mahoney, Edward P. ‘Sense, Intellect, and Imagination in Albert, Thomas, and Siger,’ in The Cambridge History of Later Medieval Philosophy, Norman Kretzmann, Anthony Kenny, and Jan Pinborg, eds. (Cambridge: Cambridge University Press 1982) 595-601 and 602-22CrossRefGoogle Scholar. Given his immediate philosophical environment, Kant would have been especially disposed to employ unexplained terminology from antiquity and the middle ages. Konigsberg had always been a stronghold of Aristotelianism (Wundt, Max Die deutsche Schulphilosophie im Zeitalter der Aufklärung [Tubingen: J.C.B. Mohr 1945; reprinted. Hildesheim: Olms 1964] 117-20Google Scholar.

13 These points are made repeatedly by both Kuksewicz and Mahoney.

14 Boler, John F. ‘Intuitive and Abstractive Cognition,’ The Cambridge History, 460-78Google Scholar; Marenbon, John Later Medieval Philosophy 1150-1350 (London: Routledge 1987), 118-21Google Scholar

15 Meditations VI (AT VII 72-3).

16 Euler, Leonhard ‘Reflexions sur I’espace et Ie temps,’ Memoires de I’académic des sciences de Berlin, 4 (1750) 324-33Google Scholar (reprinted in Euleri, Leonhardi Opera Omnia, 3rd series, vol. 2 [Berlin: B.G. Teubner 1942) 376-83)Google Scholar. Kant specifically mentions this treatise in his 1768 paper on the differentiation of regions in space (Ak II 378).

17 This is how Kant understood the Leibniz-Wolffian position- witness ID §7 and A43-5=B60-2.

18 Why a ‘pure intuition’ rather than a form of the sensible world? As I go on to show in the next paragraph, it is really the latter which follows. That space and time should be ‘intuitions’ in the sense of intuitive — as opposed to discursive — cognitions does not follow, at least not from the bare fact that they are singular; for there is no prima facie reason why singular objects could not be discursively cognized. What we have here are the beginnings of a slippage in terminology, which is to become ever more severe as time goes on. Because Kant is already convinced that an intuitive intellection is impossible for human beings, he comes to equate ‘intuition’ with ‘sense.’ Thus, in his later work, the two faculties are not named sense and intellect, but intuition and intellect — an opposition which, from the traditional point of view, is as skewed as would be opposing the analytic with the a posteriori, or the bright with the wet. Use of ‘intuition’ rather than ‘sense’ does have one major advantage, though: it allows Kant to talk about ‘a priori’ intuitions without giving the immediate appearance of uttering a contradiction in terms.

19 Kant here opposes intuitive cognition to symbolic, rather than discursive, cognition. This distinction originated with Leibniz, 423, and it later found its way into the entry under ‘Anschauung’ in Adelung’s, Johann Christoph Grammatisch-Kritisches Woter-buch der Hochdeutschen Mundart (Leipzig: J.G.J. Breitkopf 1793-1801Google Scholar; facsimile edition Hildesheim: Olms 1970), where it played a crucial role in the definition. Because Adelung’s definition has been frequently cited as evidence for Kant’s understanding of intuition, it is important to note that, as a matter of fact, Kant explicitly rejected the intuitive/symbolic distinction: ‘It is a contrary and incorrect use of the word symbolic to contrast symbolic with intuitive modes of representation (as the new logicians have done). For the symbolic is properly a species of the intuitive’ (Ak V 351 — I am indebted to Brigitte Sassen for drawing this passage to my attention). This remark is made only in the Critique of Judgement (1790), and it may be that Kant had not yet accepted it at the time of writing ID. But it is also possible that in ID he is merely trying to get his point across in the terms is audience would have been most familiar with.

20 To forestall difficulties, a remark on what combination or figurative synthesis entails may be in order. One can conceive of the act of assembling the pieces of a jigsaw puzzle as a type of combination, and this is likely the example which comes most readily to mind. But there is another, more subtle sense of combination. Consider the example of a child’s game book, where drawings are presented in which objects are cleverly camouflaged: a knife, for example, outlined in the bark of a tree; or a train in its leaves. The act of discovering the concealed object in the more readily apparent objects is itself a kind of combination — only here the combination involved is not a co-ordination of parts in space, but simply a recognition that the parts, which are already co-ordinated in space, may be ‘combined’ in the representation of the hidden object. It is this sense of synthesis or combination, the combination of a variety already arrayed in space and time into the representation of a single object, which is the primary sense of ‘combination’ for the Transcendental Deduction. Nothing that is said either here or in what follows should therefore be taken as implying that spatial or temporal order is originally created by intellect, through co-ordinative acts.

21 Cloy’s, Karen recent attempt to defend Kant’s position (‘Die Kantische Differenz von Begriffund Anschauung und ihre Begründung,’ Kant-Studien 75 [1984]1-37)Google Scholar is vulnerable to the same criticisms. According to her, Kant’s separation of intuition from intellect is really justified by the case of incongruent counterparts, which is supposed to prove that space cannot be intellectually represented. Aside from being historically implausible (Kant’s references to incongruent counterparts appear as an appendix or an after-thought when they appear- which they do not do at all in the Critique) and in principle inadequate (incongruent counterparts only prove the case for space, not time), Cloy’s defence simply begs the question. Why should we suppose that the distinction between right and left cannot be represented by any concept? At the very least, what is called for here is (1) an account of what it means to cognize conceptually, and (2) an explanation of why this account should be supposed to be correct. Cloy supplies neither.

22 Hintikka, 42-3; Wilson, 252-6

23 For a specimen of this view see Walker, Ralph C.S. Kant (London: Routledge 1978), 12.Google Scholar

24 Our blindness to intuitions is not, therefore, so total that it allows us to doubt that there might even be intuitions, as some of Kant’s commentators have worried. (See, for instance, Kolb, Daniel C. ‘Thought and Intuition in Kant’s Critical System,’ Journal of the History of Philosophy 24 [1986]223-41.)CrossRefGoogle Scholar Though intuitions are ‘nothing to us’ without concepts, they are not nothing. Their existence follows because intellect itself can only supply the form of unity, not any of the content of representations. The fact that we think objects rather than bare forms of unity is therefore already sufficient proof of the existence of intuitions.

25 Compare Tetens, Johann Nicolas Philosophische Versuche uber die menschliche Natur und ihre Entwicklung, vol. 1 (Leipzig: M.G. Wiedmann 1777)Google Scholar, Preface, III-XXVIII (reprinted under the same title and bound with uber die allgemeine speculativische Philosophie, Wilhelm Uebele, ed.[Berlin: Reuther & Reichard 1913]. III-XXVIII), who is also at pains to separate his account of cognition from the physiological theories of Priestley, Bonnet, and Hartley.

26 The research project of which this paper is a part was funded by the Social Sciences and Humanities Research Council of Canada post-doctoral fellowships program, grant #457-88-0038. I am indebted to Thomas M. Lennon and Brigitte Sassen for comments and criticisms and to Robert Binkeley for invaluable bibliographical suggestions.