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KANT' S COR'OEPT OF IB'l'ELLECTOAL INTUITION

A thesis submitted to the P,aoulty Graduate Studies '8Dd aea.,.a.r9h in partial of the requirementa for 'the degree Kaster of Arts

!Dr71t Welltaoo'tt

•• nt RoOi11 Universlt", Kontrea1

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. (i) 1984

JUDe, 1984

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The main aim of this work ie ·tq elucidate the meaning and

significance of Kant' s not'ion of intbi t'ion. The .. concept ie anal:yse.d on the 'basi's of a close scrutin:y of Kan.t' s

principal works, and the 'importance it has f-ar his cr'itica-l,

and practical ta examined. Some attempt

is made to place Kant's treatment of the problem in . ' " .

" . mode of' '4u'roan cogll-i tion' ie t.o be ,ta "Copern'ican

revolution" in metaphysics" not simpl:y one c4 lté conse,quÈm,ceb. and, , ,

moreover, 'i tif;!, shown to carry, vi th i t a view pt man radiElally

opposed to that heid by most of Kant's predecessdrs (as'well aB ; '.. .

1 b,Y mân.Y' of' his ·successqrs).' , of. ,1S

tor;y crÙ'ical.' sorne ls giVl?n pt the

kind ot ·dit:ficulties which' ICant.' e Qverall <position in"lrolv8s. , '.'. .. . '. ' ,

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Ré.wné

Le but pr incipal de cet oeuvre 8'51 t dl eX&DIiner, d..e

comprendre et notion de llir.tuition intellectuelle

de lant. une lecture A5.idue dea oeuvre. principale. de Kant

8a penaee theurlque et eaMGyUnM de

mettre déLn8 un cou1;t:xte hiltloorlque 1. :fac.o,u 401.1; t;Gl.t.e 1

la 'queliOtl.un. Son %t;1\U1 l'ir..tul.tic..n il.t.,,11E.ctuelle

. comme baa. de la COnD"-1aaanee bumai.lle Jouer ... t un rOI_

'.condaa.otal <;l-.na lia de Cupernl.c" en t "

et n 'aerait péoJol la 1l.1Il1l1e' coru.;équeJ.ce; de plu&, cela -.1

comporterét.l.t un. iC1ée Cl. l'eaVrl,t huma.ir. rw1icalelll8nt 0PlIo ....

celle de la pluphrt de au •• l. bien que de

nombreuX auce •••• ur.. D •• crl.ptl.ve que crit.19-ue, notre

d1aaert&.tiun donne néanmoina une iDaicat10n du genre de ,

'cl:Uficultéa inhérente. aux idé •• généralfra d. Kant. '-

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PREPACE

• CHAPTUt ONE

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1 DEFINITION ABD DmIVATIOH

1. Intui t1 on iJl geeral 2. Derivation and juriitioation

01IAPTm TWO _1 '!'HE PRINCIPAL lrlARKS OF THE CoNCEPT

1. The problem ot disours1v1.t 7 Ideationalit)" 2.

3. oreativit)" 4. SUbjeo't-objeot identi V

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CRAP'l'ER Tl!llB. INTELLECroAL ÂUD - 54' 1. in 1108.1(" 2. •• ' 3. '.eqhani •• and teleo1087

1. t'he ft flact ot' rea8on" 2. hltt and J'1oht.

\ ,. ' 3: IaDt '. oonoeption ot -tatih c •

4. Thè 11017 will

BaARD -. '

BIBLIÔ<IllPBf

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Prefaoe

aim this dissertation was to examine the

role the oonoept of intelleotual in develop-

ment of idealism from Kant to Hegel. It soon olear,

however, any reasonably thorough treatment of this subjeot

a pieoe of work muoh longer than an ordinary Master's

l deoided to restriot a disoussion of

Kant, and the Whioh the oonoept has in his

The problem or intell.ctual intuition has reoeived relatively

litt le attention trom Most Kantian soholars whose warks are

:lJ1 EZglish. In .full b.ooks on i t reoeives- only a

of'ten dlsmhsive" 'l'l;te rea$OI1 tor tl1is'

.eeme to be the prevaleno.e of a cert'ain view of Kant':3 theoret1oal:

philosopy, whioh holds that 1ts real and rnerit lies,

êither or in the analysis eXparianoe presented in

the tirst of' Critigue of PUre Reason, in bis oritioism

metaphisioal 1de4l:8, and in his original use of

transoendental These aspeota of Kant's thought are , .

wideniab.ly', important •. 'Ho_ver, the _phas1s whioh ia 0t:tell plaèed

l1pon them tends :to be aoo,OIIlpaniad b7 a oOM".e.,ponding n'6'leot ot tb. , aore apecl1iatlve his and a tailure to underatazad

'ind1vidual idea., or inalghta in the1r relation to the Kailtian qn .. , ) - a. a Whole. The re81llt,ot l b.lieve. 1a ott.n 'a rather

li.it.4 appreoiation of' the Yalae, of Kant'.

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Instead of viewing Kant one who refUtes the rationalists

while merely rebùking the empirioists, I have tried to understand

hi. as a philosopher intent oonstructing a system - le a '-

oomprehensive view of the world, and man's plaoe in it - the parts

of Nhioh need to be examined in their relation to the whole.

Furthermore, I made a oonsoiou8 effort to present his ideas

in their historioal oontext. If it sometimes appears that my

attitude to Kant is rather unoritioal, this/ia not because I ....

agree with his views, but rather because M1 primary

intention throughout ls simply to underst"and what his posi tioD is.;

for only when this has been done are we in a position to

In keeping with the and requirelllents ot an lIA thesis,

< th! s work i s no .more than seminal. llwperou8 probleme and

41ttti cuJ.t les , some ,of them very seri oua tor ICaDt·s

ar.e impliol tly ra1sed iD the oourse of the diacussion, probleme,

for ins:tanoe, suoh a. the exaot nature and IRatus ot sensible

&Dd UDderstanding, or the u1t1 .. te statu8 ot the tbing in i1:se1f

(1 .. wheth.r 'u JItI!q, in sense, be oonaidered an objeot).

parUoular1;r 1»7- Piçhte,. who, I baU"e, interpretted Md d .... lop.cl

1ôhought in li. perf.ot17 1-«1t1-.t. 1IÇ. ÎA 1ôhi. 'th.eia,

ho...-ver, 1 have not a't1ôeaÏpted to ·taok1 .. the •• -que.tionij. ' ..

ai. bas been to explore the liait. of ab id.ea ra1:her thazl e,m .. .n (,,'

there is relatively litt le secondary material

availible in English whioh Kànt's view of intellectual

intuition, ,l' have, the most part, concentrated my attention

on Kànt's abtual writings. For the same reason l,have restricted

the bibliography 'to 'a minimum, inctuding only those worka actually

oited in the text or in the notes.

In the' oourse of -my graduate etudies 1 have reoei ved

valuable from a number of people. To Mrs. J. Sise,

who helped me to deal with the administrative side of tbings,

to Professor J. KoGilvray, who helped me to secure finanoial

assistanoe, and to many other people in the Department of Phi10Bophy

at McGill University, both 6taff and students, l offer sinoere

thanks. In partioular, l would like to aoknowledge a,debt of

gratitude to Professor M. G1aqberman, wbQse seminars on Kant and Descartes 1 attended in 1980-81" and to Professor G. di Giovanni,

". "ho not only supervised the thesis, but who also, in selDinars aad

in privaté conversations, did much to enbance my understanding of

ICant, and of aeraan ieleali ... in general.

PiDalli, 1 vould,. like to thaDk aIl my tri_dB ,troa Rue ste.

Paaille. Vith th •• 1 shared BOIDe WOIlcl.rf'ul ti.IIe., in JlODtr •• l, the

__ ory ot tlhloh 1 abàll ctieriQ. WUhout 'th .. l oould. Ilot

,baye completecl th!. vork.

Sb.ni.lel (UI:)

J(et, 1984

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li CHAPTER ONE

Detinition and Derivation

In the role of the oono&pt of

intui"tion in Kant' s work, one oan identify at least three fairly

questions whioh have to be anew.red:

1) Hha.t does K8!i.t mèan by lntelleotua.1 intuition?

2) \olby d9e.8 he introduoe the notion of inull-ectual intuition

into his philosophical writings?

,3) Wby does"he oh4raoterize tntelleotual iJltuition in tbe way

that he' does?

Clearly {ssués'are interelated, and for this re8sOD

l,propose to compine, the explication' ot the dist:1ngùshabl.

:teatures ocntained, vi thin 'the oQJ:loep't wi th an éxplSDat:l,'On of l:fhy

Kant oonstruots the oOlloept' as he doee. "The :tull signif'ioanoe ,whibh

the idea ot intelleotuâl int11i tion has tor hila will hopet'ully emerge

in the oounse o:t t-bis- aooount.

li IDtui tion in gen.ral

Ottr tirat taaJc ia to lJ11derstand what Kant .. aaias b7 tb!, tera

'"intuition" (Altscbammed. This ie ,not mada aasier 'by the tact tbat,

he uaea' the in" tvc;' clit't'erent ways" So •• U .. a "llltlü tiOB"

,re:ter. to a oopUiva vrooeaB or .ode ot as, :tor

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when Kant writesl "our intuition oari never be other than sensible".l

As a mode of awareness, intuition may be either sensible or )

intellectual, depending on the nature of the subjeot. On other

oooasions the word refers to a representati.on in the mind whioh

is the product of an intuitive mode of awareneSB. Intuitions are

pure "hen they arise Bolely out of the nature of the subject' s " /

taculty of intuition, and are empirioal when they result from that

raoul ty 's being affected by something external to i t. This slight

ambigui ty in the term "intuition" should not, however, be taken to

indioate a confusion in Kant' s thinking, for his meaning fs

generally olear from the contert. In the following discussion we

be oonoeme" primM'ily vith intuition ss a mode of awareness.

What ia the nature of the kind of awareness whioh !'"ant

describes as intuitive? Obviously he is not ooncerned with su ob

tbings as femLDine intuition, moral intuition, or any of

mystical intuition (althougb, as they are ordinarily conceived,

tbeae abare witb the kind of intuitive swareness Kant has in mind

the cbaracteristio of being unmediated by discursive ressoning).

of intuition, far from being a neoessar.y oondition of

knowledge, oould never, in Kant's view, contribute anything to

our theoretical knowledge; indeed, reliance upon it would '"

undermine the.olaim of any judgement to be objeotive or soientifio.

It i8 also inoorreot to identify vith sense-perception

or sensation as some ori have tended to do'. 2 Sense'7peroeption

ie only one kind 'Of intuition: namely, sensible intuition. ' To

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oons1der the conoepts synonymoua 19 olearly a gross over-

simplifioation whioh 1fould entai! the oonclusion that by "itltelleo-

tuaI intuition" Kant means "intelleotual sense-pe.rception". The

ab aurdi t y of this oonclusion IS evident from the,faot that while

Kant defends the legi timaoy of the former concept, he would regard

the latter notIon a.s self-contradlctory. This ia not, of oourse,

to deny that Kant frequently does use the general term "intuition"

when speaking speoifioally of Bensi ble intul tion, as, for example,

when he apea.ks of the "manifold of intuition" which presents inself

to us in experience. But there is no inconsistency here: he is

merely using the generio term to refer ta the apecies. He prefers

to use the general term rather than the more specifio tero.

"sensation" for two main reasons: a) beoause he wishes ta malee i t

olear that sensible intuition (immediate awareness through inner

and outer sense) 1a not the only kind of intuition possible,

although it ia the only kind of unmediated cognition which human

beings enJoy: and b) because "sensation" does not normally include

the immediate awareness we can have of our empirical selves (t'brough

inner sense) whiob Kant regards as a partioula.r kind of Sensible'

intui tion.

As Hintikka points out, J the etymologioal association between

Ansohauung and shauen (tl> view) suggests a Unk: between intuition

and sense perception whioh, given Kant' s contention that 10 Il h11JD8.l1

intui tion ls sensible, may have influenced his decision ta ellploy

the term. However the oonoept of intui tien had been used

by his rationalist pradeoessors, and Kant ta use of the term llUet

primarily be understood in relation to the signitioance whioh 1t

had in their writinge. For DeBcartes, Spinosa, and Leibn:l., an _ r

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... eseential oharactèristio of int11ition, or intuitive knowledge, ,ia

i ta ilDlDediaoy. It i6 qui te different from sense-perception in that

i 10 is equally -ge'pentially a mode of intellectual actl..vity; but

i t 15 analogoUB to sellae-perception in ths.t the relation be'tween

the mind (OT thought) and Ha objecta ia unmediated. The object

'i.e ,a.pprebended wi thout the mediation of abstraot genersl concepts 'Or

l>roposi tiens. The important oontrast, theref'ore, i9 not between

intuitien and sense-'Perception, but bf;l-tween intuition and the kind

of' knowledge whicb Leibniz labels It symbcli'O,,4 and which Kant refers

to as "discursive".

The a. genéral ccncept :i.a held to mediate the relation

l?etlf&en çonciousne-ss and Hs is that it relates cnly to

BODle f..sature cr features which one ob jert s,haree, wi th a number cf'

otbers', rather than réf'erring directly the cbject i tself • It 1

18 cl&ar,' tlierefcre, tbat the reascn an intuition is thought tc "

rè.J.ah-ilDlDediately to ite cbject, is tl'tat it ia

, . répreiën-tanen... Thus "nen Kant speaka 'Of intuitien, h& haB in mind

- . â Dlede cf àwarenees in whioh particulare are, appreheDded ilDllle4iatel;y •. , HintiJ«a rightly pOints eut that this cenneoticn betwe'en intuition

and- particularity enabl.es to underatand KaDt's t-estrio'tion ct

-iQ.."t-uitïori: .sensi:billty ,as a cierived t'ra. Al"is\otl.,

who-ha,d seD154J-pe:rception 1.8 ,the .0nlY lle8llB 118 have fer

However, in speaki,ng of hthis transtormation'

of Jthe l,f'. iÏltlÛ tion (rom expres,!ing .iJumedia,CY to indicat.ing . .

.. ':"' a .ove 'h-e traces in part to the influence ot Laabert

Hin11.t.ka t9 imply that ,for the • ..rUer raUehalistlJ, li.ke ·Desoarh.

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intuition w&s eseent1ally oharacterlzed on17 by immediaoy and not

by particularity. If this la his view then he 18, l mistaken, , ..

for reaSODS that should become olear when "e diseuse the t1' ' l

tnteileoluai intuition.

Let Ua now oonsider Kant'.s distil1ct.ion between pure and

intuition. On this question WTlteS!

in general, vere for Kant Vor&tellungen or ideas which are to the i .. ediate presenoe of their objeots or whidh are used as if the,. were due to the presence of objects. In the t'irst case Ne have to do witb ellpirical (a .posteriori) intui:Uonl in th. seQond, ri th aD a priori one. Here sa;ring tbat- .!. posteriori intuitions are dy.e ta Objeots ia, accordiJlg to Kant, the saae as to say that are resulis ot an a'tfeotion or influenctt on our Ilinds by objects. Kant det'ined sellaibili ty as 1;he vèry capaoi ty ot the ·.ind ot being at'feoted in this vay. Henoe the a 'post-eriori intui tiODB are oonnected vi th 'Sellai bili ty virtually 2er detinit!oneD.6

This interpretau'on of Kaa-t '8 notiou of eapirioal .intui tiœ

is, l think, mistaken. The reaarks of the

ci tëd more or less te the clat. that, tor Kant, the COIlcept.

of .empirical intUi tien 8Jld sosible iDtuition are ,

linked. It CEi.ll be sholG1, hovever, both that Eant .does not hoI4

this and that tt. rejeotiOID 111 rec:;.uired. b7 the

argaments ot' the althOUBb iD order to do thi ••

BDticipatioa ot 7et to be di.cus.ecl ta =avoidable

!bat Dei ther identifies th. oOl1oept. ot ...,îrioal

. iDtu:Uiœ sesible tn'tlli Uoa, Dor oOluiiders t.h_ to be r.l:ated.

te each other O&A be' t'iret 'ot a11, by a

oOlreideratiOD ot the foUowing tabll t'rea the. mlMa.!IIIP. \ .

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'Lt our intuiUon had. to be oC suQh a nature that 1t repre.eDted thiDgs as the:; are in themselye., DO iDtuiUOIl &. priori VOUhl ever talce plaoe, and iutu! ti'OD wouid be ellpiri·oai even U .. e. 7

Ro.., àacordiDg to Kant the kiDd oC intuition whiob oould ;yield

.. lmowledge of things in t}lemseives is inteUeotual intuition, and

the primary negative signi1'ioanoe of the term "inteneotual" in

this, as in other Kantian éODtw.xts, i-8 "nOD-sensible". It is

there1'ore olear that intuition can be .-pirioai vithout being

sensible (alt.hough given the distinctness of 1'aoulties 01'

intu! and w:aderlltanding, 11 neoe6l1aril,y tollowa that, tor ua

aH _pirioai intu! tion ia eenaible in aature).

1t aight be objeoted, ot ooUrse, that the pa •• age oited

repreaenh an iDoODs1eteC;7" iD Kant 'II thouOit rather t!ùm hi. r

position. .AI. .. ost 'oriUo. agree that Kant '. vriting. cOD'\ain

DWllerous '01' greater 01,' lesser i.portuoe, the

possibility of thi. ldnd' 01' obJection aru.t be talten iDto

accoUnt . avidence is rarel.y lSuf1'icient to prove the

valldi t1 ot &.Il hlterpretation oOl1clusive17. Sucll an objeotion

then1'ore be an.Ver.d Ùl the only possible: " . " b1: shovi.n« hov the,

ol&i.s we are aakPlg fit in vith, and ind.ed are entailèd. bJ, o'ULer-

general tenet. ot lümt 's thougbt.

/ Aocordj.ng to Kant our mowledge i8 a priori eUher when it

• ooncerns. rogi.oal. relations bet_en (le. wben i t i. aaalTtlo),

or men i't relate" to th. f'oraa1 f'eatures -present in due ,f.. _ "

to the nature ôt 01J.r oognitive .• ' ID i;nte"lleotllal '1n-tu;1tica;

sources or .. priori 'ty are no laa.ger c-e,al

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copi tion, henoe Dothillg oould b. mote to be iulal1'tioa117 tra.e

or taIse. The pOBsib1Ütt ot QDtheUo a priori mowletige vould

aho be azmul1ed, tor this 1.e iDe.parab17 bound up vith the tact

that we only DOW things aa th-.y appear. To lœow thug.. a. th87

are in thells.lves - ie. throup iDtellectual iDtui tion - meana t-o (

mow thell vi th out the sub ject1 ve 1.pos1 ti of a t01'll wh1 ch ret'lecb

the tact that our Dature a110ws us on1y to e%peri.ce Id.Dd.

ot ob jeet in a certa'ill ID tact, iD illteUectual' 1Dtui tien

would be no distinotion betveeD tOni ud oOQ,tent. lzl short,

'J:ant traces a11 the " priori iD ouzo lœOvledge to those teatures of

our coga,iUve apparatua vhich ua reepOllsible tOr th. 1iaitaUOll ot

'our blov1edge' to .pp.arance.l

ftie, oOllcludOll is unqlle.Ucmably e0a8 iJlpOriuce to J[aat,

Dot l ... t -becauaa 1 t .ulure. 'there cali be 110 cœtu"101l

betveers pure msd intelleona1 intuition. lie' llit;ht 'ooneicle.r

at the tdlloh' ai ... to that -8J)&Oe'''''' , 1 <0>

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be Olle ot the fora. ot ... i.ibiiit7. Briet17, ..... tQ ai'pe ,&II

tollo.,., intuition. (repreisataUOIlB lœOVll in or thrOQCh , '

'characteri.e_cl b7 aiDplarit 7 p.ari-lou1.at-it7,

ulilte oonoepts whioh àre repre •• tatio.n.

b7 general1t7. Sinee the ide& ot ia .iaguùt.r '.;. ie. parlicv.lar'

8paoe. are Dot illatmsoes Id a' ..... 1 blti aH' pr!s of

'spao ... & who1. - apace -..t H BD intuttiOll. 8 a1D.Qe

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.ve .oaDJlot iMdBe -the pero.ptual relatibn bet_. our.elvea ,_cl

objeote outer sena. ever betng-a

tbe ide.-. ot be a priort. 9 Sp&o. i8 thér.tore â p1Ù'e -or , '

a priori. intuition, and the soience "ot' ,&paoe, ,po.etry" containB

proposi ti,.one whtch are mOIdl to be true a priori, and whtch requ;J.re

a pr1qri 107 or our ,1de& of apaoe, BDd ot truth., be

eXplailled? laD:t argues tbat i t can ôn17 b •• %plaiDed 'li7 ,th».t 'our or' apAOe i, 1Ib0117 subjeotive 111' origiD..

Dl -oth.l" 'wardB, t'he l'_BOIl the truth., ot geOII.tr, hav. the - -

kj.nd ot the,. do la tut sUplat." Ut a general W\r, , '

th. pl'operiiés aIl objeota an,et uMbit. 1Jr viriu. ot " ,

bë1q objeots .!!. int1l1t (through outer sese) •. •.

....... cm lM' cu be 1ohat' the wor14' Ile .xperi8llcé ri'll . l ,_ 1 - -to our· geOll.trtcal oalculaUone ia ,tbat in order 'tGr 'ua to enocnm1;_er . , ,

, '., an qbjèct ldlioh clenad a iIl the Ilatur. ot '

c;mr oognt Uv" vould. 'be " 0Il.' m,ght .8ày , . , , .

tb..a't Ne on13 appfN)r' CIl, the stage or it

_ppear a titterat coètue, in DO at it ·vcnild D.,t ,

be one ot tlle pla.7VS and,woulti IlOt 117· u., ... pari 'ot

'the protluctiOill. " , , .

bIl-t nov -..k •• a crabla1 : PrOli the , .

oœoluBi";' that .-..t H. t'Or.' •• .t.biliti. lO .,.' the . - -, ,. ". .... '

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thill aove lIight be que.rUcmed. Grant.d "bat. the l,d ..

epaoe :1., in oX'igiD', one .ight aek, .s1: 1IP_0. b •

•• reIT a s-ribilU;r? Q.ould, it DOt- be !'objeot" ,. ,

,oreated b7 us? ID short, ho", doe. Kan" mow that what he cles01"ibe. " ,

a8 a pure intuition Us Dot r'eally the produ.ot of in..telleotual

iDtui tion?, Gi-V8I1 that. the •• qùestions are Haningt'ul. ilt is erid .. -t

tJiat Kant would re.pond by onCe again pointing to the, ,. 'priori

certainty' oharacteri •••. Our knowiedge ,

If .paoe _. not a p'Ul'e but _8 iDat .. d tll:e ot ,

intelleotual intuition, the 80:18110. ot ,apaoe would'be aD·,.-pi.riéal ' • • . '. t \

cl:1'80ipUnel' toX' iDteUeo:tu.&l 1Dt.uiUon QOÙld ODly eçirtoal ' . .

laIo"ledge. .TIte geo •• 'h7 i,8 D«?1: _ .oJ.eaoé 1:h1l8 '

prov •• apaoe III18t to be' a ... ibUl,11' •. ·

, , . nbj.otlve ,to. 'the oOllolusiQD that is a. tOl'll . '

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there 18 DO .. ,OOlm.OUOD b.t_en .. p". .. " . _4 ., ., . .'. , .'

. fo · .... t 'ha. b .... ,nidl i;Btv.1·U,Oa 1. "a .cs..

' .• içb • .;. '. ." \ ... " ' . . , .

. 11: ... y be eUh.r s.eible ' If. iD:teli.otU1, '11: ie . , .... . , . '.. #. _. , . ..., . J... / • .. - '. •

zieoes.arlly' . 8Ild 0_ 01117 pronde •. 'poet8J":1or1 -mowl... " • , .' l , " \... • •

Ii. lt ,pgj.. .. .,- , , .' • - - .. , l '., •

1'lelcJ.8 • pr:l.or'i movi.dge beoau.e 11: 1'.1,&'bè. to 'the t'..or.. ot , 1 l' l ' ., >1'" _ • •

: '!'ha1: :1..; , , , '

. ' , . " . , . . ,

"

.,1 a

" ,

, "

- ,

'- 10'- • " '

n.o •• sarilJ hav.'tn vith a1l oth.r pheao-.aa,in Yirtu. of the

, ' , a.aiblè r.lat •• to the cQIltan,1; _t ..... ,b, u.tu1te4. and iielda

, • j , • ,

01117 knowledge. 1t ie "'t .. 'ordiDarilJ a. , 11

0,

1t ia pr.sœaab17 tbat th.r. ar.,'or oou1d be,

'tntui't ••• ib17, who •• a.aibiltv i. quit. , ..

ditf.rent t'rOll our' 01111. cm., w&7 in which ft oan iilagine thi., to be " ,

80 1. 'b7 th1.nking equipped with alternative a.aGr7 , ,

.echami.a to 'tho •• with winoh ... N". aquainted. J. •• o_d, .or. , '

l'adi,oal, 'and EaD.t .or. philoaopb.1oaU.7 int.r.rimg idea, ie

nbj.ot,. ,.xP.rlence who do n01 p.ro.iv. th1ap

thr,oagh the .pao. and U •• , but inri.ad "içoa." SOlI. ot_ , , '

khd for.' CD the, of intuitioa., We 'obY1ous17 CQIlot

,a d.bra'ipate of "'t euch a,.ode .enailll. Wul.d

b. 1i.k., .ine 1t 1. .aàetb.t,'q with M1doh ft oould aquaia-, '

t.el witb.1n thie wrld 'of po •• ibl. hlIIIIID • .".nul., •• ,

on luit'. tlieor;r .. ooulel neptiv.17, that .0, 1 .... 'thi. , . .

intU1 tion '1. e.albi' it wOuld not 71e1el Jr:ao1fl.clp of thinp ta , , , ' . th .... lv •• : ,EaDt t. rea.OI1. for aqing thi.. &J'e, àa ..... 11 ... , , ,

, ,

be10w, .s10&1l.1 .. 1a1l J

"

" .- " "

" , "

.. ! ,

-11

, . . or No4tp'U.n:q. 1]Ih1ob, aooording to ha1i, oUmot' be pr •• ent lA tut

, .oele ot OOCDi ilGil thrOQgh, whrob alone Dowle. ot th., "hia« iD

int .. lt .1cb" ..,. attaiD.d:

w. oaa .1110,''''. allOlf tbe pos.lb1111;7 ot a Jd.D.d ot

t..41at. --.r .... aa tddoh ia nat •• sible. 1 •• a Dœ-aen81bl.

iDtl11:Uon. \'he IUbjeot in 8lloh a oa •• wov.ld, aooord1ng to IaDt,

appr.heDd the objeat in a pur.17 ac:'Uv. aeaDS, ln .tteot,

tbat tbe aubjeot would "oreat ... thé objeo1i in the a<J1 ot' 1t).

!hi,s 1. the .od. ot oop1tlOD 1IIIU.ah lant d.sorihs •• lD:hll.otUàl

•

to UIq oritio. to bé que.tionabl.. for in-'-oe,

". • • IaDt '1S roUte to 1 t , Li,.. ti.. notton ot !at.ll.etul ia"uJ:t101ll - in tddob h. eqv.1.ooat.a nth ' 1l8iJlg :l:t tir.t ta ..an "&Ot1.,e" ar;z.d th_ ta lM&Il "1a,t.lleotaal-in • .ore ord.iD.ar7 senae,.- 18 inTalld." 12

n ..... to .. tbat thi. 0I"1tl01 .. ot bDt ta r ... oain« 1 •• UPtl)

sensibl., to the 00l101u.1oa that i t tmat be tb.r.torè iDt.ll.otual"

18 quit. vaUd, 80 long aa ODe .-ltelS iD the ,tbat ou

be DO other ldada ,ot iIltlQ,tlO1l apart trOll tbe the

iDt.;Ueoiual. AD. oné oan argue 'Chat .,tht. preais." 1e

he cODtra.ta the' of ••• ,and

iBt.lleotual 1Dt1l1tlon. Nha1; h! .... r, i, IhDt'.

ript, noh a olai.. bis Olm' ·t.... he O&DDcR l.d:U .... ".lI' nI. 0...1; •• ot \here beill« ,a of 1.·

1. l , '. , " ,.,.. ,

. "

-12-

ot whioh lie bqOlld the rua ot hUMa exper:l_oe,

Abd thereb7 to i:Bdul«. 1a preo:ls'17 the ki.ad ot dopaUo .. tap!ITa:loal

apecmlation wb:léb h. ele.wh.re oond.-na. ODe _,. &r&"1e, t'heretore,

that what le wrOllg 'ri th ICant' s derivatloa or the oonoept ot

intelleotual 1ntuitioa 1. Dot, as Benaett olai.s, that 1t la

"perteotl,. inYalld", but rather tbat it, tavolves a Yiolation ot hia . OMn

BOtMYer, ... U· ciDe "._t. to Beanett tbat iD Olle or

,_other ie .. t raüt h.re, two' turthel'" pOtata oan be

_lob, at le.ri to .000e en .. .1Ugate th. ottenoe. Firat of ail,

ooulet, argue that aiao. th ...... l'bl. aad. th. 1at.l1.otllal are,

. lD the lIOat'l-er'al _ ••• , the 01117 capao,"t1e. 'cd whioh _

have &IQ" d.t.nliDat. ldea, i t ':la so UDr .. to label &IQ",

•• ode ot intU:lUon. "iat.lleotU4l-. 01"811 th. ririot

diohotOlll7 ..... 1at.l1eo:t :la ,iani '15 'thougbt, tbie .OY. .. . , , .

18 a. natural, ae b7 whtoh a '80 •• or' copitl_ 1. , ' ,

, , d.eelMd ,to 'be aot:l"e.

'.eoond by tG th' purpoaes'whioh hta

tloa or the notloa ot :lAtel·l.otual intll1tioa 1. 1ateDded .erY •• --

, ...... , ,

' .. lIIaiq hia pr.d.oessor., that th. hUMil II1lbj,eot 0aD ,

the 1:1a1 . of 11811.11:»11:1. t7 aDd attain 1na1&ht, ihto a_UV , t p, .. ." .. •

" t t " ,b7 .. aa. 'of * II1!-peri.O!, pveq iat.lleO'tual lIOde ot ti,OD_, !bl. .' • • 1 • • \., - \ •

'4ocnriaè 1. perhapa Il''. :UÎI clear.st ... làn'1D-,th •. .n.tlap ,01. . . . .. \

, '

, ' "

, .

" , '

" , ,

, 1

" ,

. -, .

..

. ..

- '13-

Pla\o _'" In the Pbaedo tor iDdaoGe, ... an told "tbat,

• :. the' person who i. IUt.:q to -,&ooeecl iD thi. atteç-t [ ie. the tor baowledp, ot th. Por-..l le the'

approaoh •• .-oh objecrt" .. tar •• po.si.ble, th. unatded vithout tak1ng aooouat ot .ea •• ot .ilbt ,iD 'hi. thinting, or &n7 • .n.e' hi. reCkœiDg, - the who perce! ve. tru'th, b7 appl3'iDg his pur. and UDa4n1'terated thought, to the ,pare unadDl't-rated objeo't, ou"tting hi •• elt aa Bmch a. po •• ible tra hi. 87,e. 1IIId ears. and rtrtually Ali the re.'t ot hi. bod;y', à. an, whioh b7 U. pi"e.aOe pr"enta the aoul tra., attaiDing to tl'Uth an4 olear tbinkipg .,13

B7 l under.-tAlld,. Dot the ,tluotuat..t.Ag of that prooeeda tr:0II blunderiDg o't but the O9Déevtion ,whioh ,an UIlolOU:d.d and at't_Uv. lIin.d d'Ye. u. BO l"ea4117 and tbat we tr,e4 troa 40Ilbt .about tut 1Ihich' we UIlderatand.14

And oODoludea hi. ta.ou •• zperi?leht wi'th th. piece pt -.x 1v

d.olar:1Bg ,

••• it • ., aind alODe whioh peroe!ve.: it" ••• u. peroeption ,is neUher an ot viàicm,:nor ot toa.oh."

, !lOr •• ': ., but GIlly ot , :aiDd. .,. 5 ' " . .

Ther. are" or •• t 'dittU'eno •• bet"een Platà ànd

-De.carte. 'an"d. 'nature ot th.

iDt.lleotual k1nd ot oopit!. ,reti.red to ,iD •• -

we 'note q4lrtaiD' illporlailt ai.ilarj:ti •• ·• B.oth , . ,

•• up à Sh&rp oppo.ition the, _eneibl. aa4 th.

' thq: each ,01ai.- tbat t,. ,o8D .b. '.

.• .,pr.mended ..". Ii pÙr,ei7 oo.pitiOllJ t,hQ'. "tIIat , '

, ..

" '

. ,

..

-, 1 ;'" .,.., '.

-, '

14-

th.' h1lllAD subject Qa. th • .o&pao1t7 <at lea.t potauall1') to mow

"things in 1:h .... lv •• "J &Dd both tènd to de.orlbe th!. oopltlve

Aot of the una.sined intellect in·a •• tapborlcal wa71, uaing te!"lll.

of the que.tion. ne.carte., for exaaple, tell. us

that tbe .ind P.roe! ve. the true nature of things arter reoei v:1ng

illuainaUon frOli the Ught of ae .. on'. And Plato too "Peak. 01 the

"eye'of the ,soul" which apprehen4s, sees, or enJQ7.

a v'ision the supersensible Foras. R:ov lant '. OWll notion of

int.lleotual is an important plank in his pole.ie &pinet

Roh oODoept1on. tHe oOBQitive att.tion. 1t 18 b.is tel"!l

for that" ... ing ri. th, th,e _bel'. .yed , which hie •• or.

aftorde the subjeot • wiD40w ontô super.en.ible r8alit1'

whioh lie. be70ad spatio-t.lIPoral ,phenOlleDa.. ,AD.d sinee tb,ey, on

th. )mole, DQIl-.enslble 00gn1tion vith iDtelleotual, ,\

1 t 1. botb Datural &Dd re •• ,ODable tor Kant to do the ..... ID aotual taot, ottWa.'a ot, the oODoept or

'bt.l1e-qtual 'intui-tion qui te- trOll the ()D;e ",Moli BeDDett

or1t101.elll. In the O:r:iU9pe ot Judêe.ent (.ect1on 76) .b. arpe.

Dot· only that ,he 1 .. jb..ti1t1ed iD Working ":l'th the notion ot _

U:tUl't1ve. \h.&t th. critioal 'philoaoph,.r aaiJt

eaplot thh - Hie argu.ent, lIUri ...

tair17 ,oogent ,to .0', .,hare. ,hi" presuppoei tiOl19', l'ùDe a.

tollows., Cèrtain t.ature. ot o.u' oan be to th. , " .. . -

'par\icular oqr UJLd4Jl".t.Nlding. ' 'Por lustance,· -, "

l '

•

-, l - _ r, l,' ;:"'\. ,< ..

'::..' , '- ".

15 -

with a basic logical distinction P98sibility and aotuàlitYJ

and this 1a sotllething wh10h ve oQ.nnot avoid doing. The reasOD. this

. 18 so i8 that' understanding, bei.ng -quitC' distinct t'rom our

taculty of 1ntuitiotl, j.s essentially a faOtllt)' df ooncepts. Now 16 concepts, says Kant, "merely extend to thè possibil1ty of an objeot" ;

when l think a concept, 1 represent te myee1f a possi'bili-ty, fully

avare bath that l have not thereby "made" anything aotual, and that

there lIIay in fact be noth1ng actua.l whioh wou1d inetantiate my

conoept. BY i tself, then, our understanding cannot deoide questions

of aotuality. In order to deoide Whether or not something of which

va oan fOrQI a 'ooncept 1s aotua:l we must see whe'ther .or not 1 t ls ,

pre8en:ted to us in i)ltui tion. Thus the distinotion betveen

possibility and aotuality has tta souoe in the fact that our

t'aoultiea of and !ntui tion are completely distinot

• Now the qU4tstion (oan be raised: ia this dis:tinotnass of our

a oohtingegt taot', or is it somathing which can be shown

to be the case tor aIl subjects? Clear1y i t ie 1

oontingent. To show i t to be nepessary QJle would bave to deduoe i t

a priori trom neoaMlary premisses, s911ething which la no more

possible than ill an a priori deduotion ,of our mortal1 ty. If suoh a

daduotion possible, it would prc"'e, among other things, that

the dietinction pOdsibility and actuality was valid, , ,

merely tor t'hings as we kn9w them, but for things &8 they are in

themselves. Givén the of sucb a d.duotion.however,

ft must coDofude that the cao 1?e, kno'im to be val id

. ,-

- 16 -

for knowing subjeots with a cognitive nature such aa our own, and

so only for thinga as they appear to suoh a subjeot.

The faet that we diatinguish betweèn the possible and the

actual la theretore explained by relating it to a contingent

feature ot our cognitive apparatus. But in order for ihis prooeed-

ure to make sense, in order tor us to reoognize the nature of our

understanding as something contingent, we must consider other kinds

ot possible. As critical philosophera theretore, we

must necessarilY'have the idea of an intuitive understanding.

At this point, a oritio such as Bennet might objeot that

although Kant has shown that we must entertain the possibility ot

other types of understanding, he has not shown the need for the

idea of an intuitive understanding. However general such a ooncept

might be, it ie nevertheless illegitimately determinate. AlI that

ie neoessary i5 that we have the oompletely indeterminate notion

of an understanding ditferent from our own.

Suoh an objection ia easily apswered. When Kant aooounts for

the distinction between possibllity and aotuality by ahoWing to be a " funotion of the dist\Dctness of our t'a ouI Ues of intuition and

understanding, the· éontrast whioh his explanation implies

ls not that between our kind of understanding and other kind, but

that between our kind of understanding and one which belonged to a .

subjeot \oIhose faoultiea of intuiti'On and understanding were !!.21

. f

1

l' . 1: 1 l

, , • "

! - 17 - [

distinot. It is there1"ore the more specifio idea 01" an intuitive

understanding (and with H, the concept of intellectual intuition)

which Kant has shown to be an indiBpensible part of his cri tioal

arsenal.

\ •

-".

-0,. _;"_ ... .'

" -- .

- 18 -

lote. to Chapt,er Ope.

1. t. Kant, Crilique of Pure Reason, It. Sai th (NaOlllillan-, 1929), A51:-B75.

2. Snch a Ti." ie Ï1Ilplied, for instance, by Wilkereon's olaim that "obviou-s-ly meant 'intuition' to lDean ·seDse-impJ'8iJsion'."

T .E. wi lkerson, Kant· s Critioue of Pure Ree.san; -A. Commenta for studettta (Clarendon Press, Oxford, 197 l •

3. J. Hintilcka, "On Kant • s Rotion of Intuition Aneobauun ", in The tiret -Cri tique, ed. Penelhum and Macintosh liadellOrth, Belmont, Cautornla, 1969) .

4. G.W. "Ref'lectlons on Knowlecige, 'l'ruth, and Ideas", in Monadolo and Other Pbiloso hioal Essa s., trane. l'. and A. Martin Scbreckér Rew York, 19 5 •

5. J. Hint ikka , "On Kant· s Nohon of Intuihon (Anschauung)" , in The First Critiaue, ed. Penelhum and Maointosh,

6. ill!!., p. 45

7. Future Meta

p.

8. Cf. Cri tique of' Pure Reason, A24-5-B39'.

9. Convera&!y, faot that we have synthe'Uc a priori knowledge prov8s '\hat our underatariding is no1; intuitive. Thus, in responae to Maimon, who -argued that "'8' have i,ntelleotual iutui tion and that. the human -_i..D,d fa, in some. vay, a "part" or GM' 5 mind" Kant wri. teal "Even if' we vere capable of intellectual in"tui tion • i:t would impossible to show ty of sucb judgIDents in oontormi ty vith the na,ture our Uhderstanding i11 ",hich oouQepta suol:\ as- "neoesaity" ex18t. For suob iDtuitious would atill be aere for example, the peroeption that in a triangle two sides taken togetner are l,onger tha.& the thlrd Qide - not the. reoogn1:tion that the _property would hav.e to' beloJOlg to a triangle neoesslI-rilY." Letter to M. Harz, Kay 26, 1189, in I. K8l1tt Philos, hical Corres ondenoe 1 ed. and trana. A. Zweig,

Universi ty of Chicago Prees, , J'. 153·

1Q. Cri'hque o:f Pure Reason, A26-B42.

Il. The in whicb the distinction betwèen and empirioal, sensible intuition is drawn bere ia, l beli.ve, true to.ICailt. This does not aean, hovèver, tbat it i8 :trom or 8IIlbigu.1 ty. It cou,ld be -argue cl that the distinotion in question anurt ul timate17 rest on a rU.stinotion be'tween the kinda ot ol?jeot_ intUited (ghèn that space and Ulle IP.,. legi UDI&teq be to as "objeot.s") •. But if tbia 18 so, t.hen Kant 'II original d4tsorip:tion of the nature of seJlsibiU.ty, and of sensible

. .

'"ct:. J' .... 1'1-( ".r . .

".

- 19

iD'tuitlon, would havè to be rej"c"ted. Anothel" way 1rying to under"tend (ant's position would be to rtew pure (ie. space and tiae) &S ideal c0ll8truc'te. Tha't ls, 'theyaight be regarded &s produc.ts of the i.-gination, rather like the Idees of" ReallOD, servtng to provide the liai t·s or OQ'tlines of a complete world. The taet that space and time, lilte Ideas, are, ciistinguished trom the categories on the ground:s that thq are Kot characterhed by geilerali"ty lads support 'to this line thought, liIhich vas' pursued by ICant's ideaHst suceeSBors. But the oonclusion to i t pOin'ts, n ... ly, tha-t space and tilDe pla,.. at a more t'undemental level, a sial.lar role to that 'which Id.as are said to play at the. speoulative level, again seems to underllline Kant' s aooouo t of sensi bIe intuition.

12. J. Bennett, Kant· s Dialectlc (Caabri'dge University Pres8, 1.974), p. 19. '

13. Plat9, Phaedo, trans. H. Tredenniek, in The Collected Plato ed. E. Hamilton and H. Cairns (Prinoeton University

Press, 1963), 650-668. Cf. alao, Phaedo, 83a-b.

14. R. Descartes, Rulee for the Direotion of the Kind, in The Philo$-ophloal w.orts Deaoartes, traus. E.S. Haldane and G.R.T. Ross (CUJbrid.ge Unive'r13ity Pres8, 1911), Vol. l, p. 1.

15. R. Descartes, Meditations on H'irst Philo8opb;r, .ill.!!., p.o 155.

16. 1. Kant; Press, KaOlliUan,

J. H. Bernard (Ramer

, .

20

The Principal Marks of the COboept

Kant denie8 oh several oocasions th.at we can have a genllinely

int-eUigible idea of Nhat intfJUectual intui tian would involvef or

that we oan be sure that there anylfbere existe an undarstéI.Dding , 1 whioh intuits ite objeote. The chief reaaon, of o our se , is simply

that we never, in experianoe, have an 1ot"i tion or an intui. tiva

of an intuitive understanding, ,l1or do we ever enjoy. the aotual

(subjeotive) experienoe ot a purely inteqeotual insight into the

nOUIDenal wor-ld. (It is worth remarki_ng that Plato ia, in fact, _,.-/

largely in with this v1ew. The Ilepublio qaakes 1t oleu

that he oonsidera impossible an ordiJlar,y aOoo\U1t- what

a knowl'edge ,of the Forms invôlves. One IlUst ei tber have first-hand

experiance of this "high8'st stage of oogni t;l.on", or one muJt ras't

c(mtent wi th and metaphor. 2), NeverihelesB, Kant doea

establi-sh, negativel)"., certain raquir4!'men.ts' whioh would h8.v .. to b.

satisfied if '&n aot of oognition is :to be deemed an intelleotual

intuition; this gtves us at least some idea of what suoh a mode

of cognition would involve. \ole shall' th_refore t.o examine

individual1J the di st inguishab le aiarlts of the OODOftpt.

1. Th&. problem of Diseurs!.,i t1'

It ia extr_el,y to that the term

"intell.eotual", as 1t feature. iD the KaDUan of illtelleo'tual

- 21 -

i.AtuitiOll;' doe8 Dot •• aD. Jrnowledge or oognition

which lnvolves the eœployment oonoepts pure or eaaPirioalj

la b.1 Kant aa discursive", and ls held to

relate only to phenom8lla, never to thlngs ip. thellselve.a. ' And

to kant, human knowledge is' discursive - ie, 'it

must alvays make use of concepts - it 1a neoess8r1ly reBtricted to a

knowledge appearanoes.

This oonneotion which Kant mates, betveen the discurslve

chàraoter of our knowledge and i:ta consequent Uai tation, has otten

been overlooked by analytlc commeutatora. 3 Tet 11; la a taot that

the Of disGUrs1vity,has distinotly negatlve connotation. tor-

Kant. He oontrasta the intuitive oerta1nty whioh aocoapenhs 'the

a priori containing the oategories ot and quality

favourably wïth,t;e merely disoursive which charaoterises

the oategories of relation mOdallty.4

On a.. of oocasions he to regret the taot that,

mathemati?s, whose truths can be demonstrated in' intuition,

"philospphy has t'o be aat.isfied' wi th discursive judgements out of

mere ,oODcepts and May ill'ustrate i t. apodiotic doctrines through

intuition Qut can never deduoe them from U.n5 And explaining th.

imp.osaibility- ot forming a detentinate and intelligible ide. of

inteileotuai he writes:

To this end, l sh-ould have to thiJ)k a different underl!ltandiDg which intuited objeots, but of l cannot in the le&8t oonoeive, beoauae the huaan understanding

6,is discursive an'cl oan on17 know through lUliversa.l'

• - f

- 22

Kant insists that the possibility knowl'edge, 8I1d 'evu ot

our 'be,1ng' subjeots ol intelligible .experienoe,' upon the .. '

i) Our passivity vith respect to the oontent ot sensible intuttiCUt. . , ,

neoesaitates the application of oOl1cepts- (vb •. the, categorie,s) b7 ,

the to the manifold. In their absenoe va would have a

subjeotive series of representations whioh, says Kant, "would l ,

,be vi thout an object" merely a blind play of repr,esentati,ons,less

4!lven a dream ... 7 pure conG.pts, 'taken together, give us the

.oODoept of an abjeot in generall 1 •. wa reoognize onlY what

under them to be an objeot, whioh (at the empirioal

oan persist iftdependently of Unless some of our

have this objeotive that formaI self-oODsoiousness whioh

gives to eXperienqe a neoessary formaI unit Y would not be possible. _

!hus intelligible kind that we, oan ooneeive,

employment 'of

ii} The vehiele all ,our know\edge 1s the of jUdgém4!lnt,

whioh must be oon'sidered basio. That

Kant links this view to the thesis lDakes,

possible is -qui te olear<: -1s ,aD. 'elllP1ricai , - ' , " ' '8

knowledge ... whioh determines an objeot 'throùgh perception. fI ,l'.all,

Ja;1<lwledge de'mands a oonoept" 9 • "In every judgement there a , 10 ' . oonoept" , "... na ooncept ls ever related ·ta 8.l) abjeot,

ill1lledi:ately" Il. Judgement is the .. ediate knovle!ige ab

elsewhere he wrltesl

. ,

The business the sense. ls to t l' that, of tJ1e understancUng to think. Now thinking i8 uni1'71n,.

. ,

, ,

23 -,

repr888!l'ta'tiOJ1S Ûcl 8. ot repre.eil'ta'tlODII iD a ocmoioustie •• ' h judge.ent. 'Th.retore thiDking ts the s.e as j\ld«ing.'13

, , '

,then,' are the' rea.oDs Kant orter'. tor'

ôur knowiedge ot objeots is ' What !lUst now be

explained is wby, he thinks tbis entails 'the oonolusion' that we

, Cl\Il only .. ver arrive at a knowledge of A convincing, " 1 \ , 14 '

answer 'to this que.tion hall beau put torwàrd by Gloubel'1ll8D. ,and , t,he aooount tol19W8 ls on his bteJ"PretatiOD

"

'1 We oan begin b7 notin:g that this view Was not' original t'o

but in taot .ttiraed b,y both hi. rationaliât and'e.piri-

predeoessors. DftsoarteB, tor' ,argued that th. "ciear - . '

- ,

ad distinot" ideas ot ReasOIl Wer. the ol;llJ proper .ediu.' t1u:oUp

whioh an adèquate cognition ,ot reali:ty, could be An"- on the' elDpirl01.t s1de, Berléeley ,that ,the "ideaàn peroeiv:ed

" able tp "penet'rate --the

< 'things,."15 'NOW:Whtl. Dèscartes and

_ay ve,ll Han ditterent things by, the ,the,.'

both Id.sh tt, 'oontrast vi th conoepts, ,or, as BérJéeltlf oaUa , \..

,thelll, -abstraot . This is '. -

. 'Howevér in' the ot ,8I1d is-" , , ,

aOlleU.es do 'no;t use -the., tera. ri th' COllPlete -

lI'ever:theless., i t ,is r .. irly olear both , ,

rècognize the, diaUncti9n general -concepts ind1Tidua-iinC' 1 1 , 1 •

In order \0 grasp i t •.• ". Û7 oàllaider what

.. '

, ' " ,-

"

: '

"

24-

eaL7s ln bis Principles'o't Hu.. 'lnOwl!fg! lIh-.re i't rece1.v •• , 1; :

, '

8Ja.d and notion of "dia'tinctn.ss" ip.volved h.re is'

'a .. ere oiaor1tj" put" al.o beHet that th.

id,as in oan be as oompletelr aeparate entities, , . ,

quit. independ_nt' of' eaol) We 'learn that '''ideas illlprinted GD , " . ,

, 16' , . the sensès, are, r.al, th1ngs • • ." , and that 'thq to,

or res •• ble, the ideas in God's .. lnd which 'ar. th.ir. arckety,peà. ,

On tbe hand, "geu.ral, ideas ,are' ,fiotio'iou. and of

the 'm1nd • • • asrka of c;rur the be1ng

that "ail 'thiagé that eiis't ar .. parti'C1ilar", while gener.a111;7' , , '

&;pd "th.' or Ilodes ot ,things do' never • , •• "l9

B.rkeley h to, be 'here underatood as only ,rej.,c'Ung cognition

,'throqgh oertai.n kinds ot oonçept·. as a mole' 'i!, oonaidere.d· . , . , '," '. 20

the source of 110 st the prevaiiing errora in philoBophi ; and . , ao oal,la tor -"an _,J.r. Ileliverance 't'roa 'th.'

21 ' ' oC 'h 'd' .1_ 22 lit ' whioh "are Sp Apt t,o .... mpQs. • \1D erslll&Dd.wag." , , ,

. .' \,

and. -naked"-, in 'the that,. . 80 '.as l • .} thoughtll 'rq, otin ideas,. -div •• iecl ot word" r do not, a •• hov 'r oan. •• lIlib' b_ ''!'he. objecte l ,1 ole .. rly and Jalov.23. " '

'. The p!Oblelll with.' 1s- .being :or , abstraot, ·th.ey do Ilot· thlngs 'aub'8ist

àre .erely

cànnot, have an independ.n'fi •. ROlf 'eiiloe, as • \ (1 •

" . ,

'.

'Ii

"

" . " - ..

. . , "

" ,(

i.D:toras .1qlas,. "U la a UAiversal17 r.oèived dlaXi .. tbat ever;ything " - '2-4 - Whiob eXista ls a part ioularft , , oan be said' to

aspeota ot things, rather tboae things th •• is.iveà.

Hene., Jr:nowleclge by meana ot. conoept s i8 or untl'Uatworih1' '

on at least tvo

1) Unl1ke a distinction bettreen id;eas, a dhtînotion between

ooncepts doea not entail any oorr,sp-oncUng cOlIIP1exity.

For instanoe, ve can oonsider the Bize of, sometbing wi thout

considering i ts veigbt; but ve are thereb,- consideJ'ing tve

thingA, or dif'ferent parts o:t the thing. ' T)l-e diS'tin-

otion io an abstraot one, and ther.ef'ore, in JI vie",,'

"f'icUo.ious". AcoorcUl'1g to him, it ia philosophera œistaken17

take a mereli COJlottptuàl distinction to be a real diatinction' that'

the)' are lèd to, falaely dist1ncuiel1 between, say, a thing's

1 and ih per:oeived, b't"een substanoe and aocident, aD.d -

seoond'l"Y 9uali t'ies, or spa-oe body.

2) To an objéért &ap.eotually', a,s ,one doea ,when one, 1

employs i's to mow that objèct only in a '

Oertain aspeota ot the' objeot are at the expense of'

aa, far instance, when tbe subj'eot cb.oof!les t'o a thing's

colour without to it'a sbape. The objeot ie thus , '

'as, it, wer., trom a perspeotive, -which will be • J ••

by will' re:tlec;t) the Qf

th. !Ji ;this -way it ia laio. oÎl4r s.s it

",0' a partioular _ aubjeo,t, and, D,ot as it i taei:t •

then'. are 11:k. oOlloider a discursive bt, thugl

"

26

ta be 'They ,a,"oid ·the soeptiçal' COJlC)Iusion that our

Jmovl-edge '18 11.;1".d -ta app'earance. beoauee beUIit,fe the ,hUll8ll

aubjeot has .at his diaposaI: the -oapkoity for a' non-discUrsive " , ,

blovledge 0" Objeats',' name'I)', i4eationsl .cogni tion. Par Descartes

this .e&Ds'uaing "olear and distinct" ideas of the inte4lect;

with Berketey it means relyi,ng on the "ideas" in sense-

perceptieri. Kant, however, h, has a fundementally differeùt

viev of th_ bÙJDan o'ognitive situation, ia led to attirm the scepUcal

oonclusion wh'ich Descartea and Berkeley to avoid'. AocordïDg

to te.chint, ltaelf; not knovledge, , 1 ,would' be impQsBible (tor the hUlD8Zi SUbject) vithout the elDployment • ot oonQepts_ And while ,it is true the applicatiQD of the

to .aitold'is of a order to pur

emplo,yment ot. empirical CODe_pts' - tor in the latter case 1t is the

inter •• ta· ot the subjeot that are retlècted, in the former , , , ,

Qaae 11; 18 tl;le structure and the limitation!J of th,e hWD8l1 mincl -

.th. ,lDetaph;1e.ioàl illlpl1oatiOD.a are· th. s .....

2. IdeattO!!ali'b'

that t!le ti ve doe. Ilot mow 'th. thing

in 'it.elt, the ot "lDer • .concepts"." the question , , . b7: what exact,ly., 1a the thing in i tselt. to be known? The

" ..,. 1

anawèr, 'which halt emerged in the, preeeeding would s.e. . ' "

to be intuition not disour.ivelY, but 1 _ , ... •

idea'tionaIly. l3Y this,. l, IDean something simUar -to whèn,

vith retereDç:8 to the ',-, . " . . " ')

, . , '-. \. ... . .

, . '. -

, '

"

I.DiiW!IlBliIiJI."IIiIII •• ___ !AAolI:'&'il'?, -.LM' __ IIIIII_Iii'illtiIulJa __ p ___ .PIiiR"' ...

27

If Roh .. Ildnd, CGU1d be' "aid 'ta POSS"S8, ooncepts thé,. wou1d bè sé1t-apeoU';ring down to leV81 ot indi"idua1sl tbe oODo.pts'tpéaàelveB vou1d detérmin_ wbat partiaulars'tè1l under th •• , ,a"'\ller, that vaU- 'around tor to an:r ' nitabie particularB tbat might turn up .25 ,

The proble. vith d.finition however, ae walsh ge8ms lo he'

aware, i8 that the intuitive understandÜ.lg cannot be aaid to

pos.ese concepts. In the Loeio Kant poiDts out that t is •• re , 26

tautology to speak ot general or odmmon concepts". From thls it

obv10usly fo1101l8 that the notion ot a "selt-specifyine conoept" -

unders100d ta mean a non-generai - is self,-oontradictory.

It would perhaps be better, theretore, to spaak of "Be1f'-specitying

representatiODs", al though ,even tht s expression ha. the disadvant&«e

Dt a distinction b.tween" the. r.presentation aQd the thing

a distinction Mhich doea not app17' to intellectual

, intuition.

does not expliaitl,. state that intuition ta

ideationa1 in pharaoter, but this oonolusiOn éan, l 1:hink, b.

rea80nably iDferred: tirst ot tram th. taet that the pre-,

I8:Dt ians took 1d'ea.tional cognition 'to be the paradigu.tio 1II0Ü a't'.

, tnowledge, (and. Kant' ,8 notion Qf tDtui tian is tntended

to cap'ture this paradïgm in order ,to bring bUt, th. 001\tr&81o 'be<tween

'U,' and the actù&l open to the lJub:jeot);

and seoondly. a of doctrine of the Jdeas of

Pure IfeaSDD. Let us' èX8lline 'these i saues in detai 1,.

Of oentral importanoe in th .. rationa.list and soholaeUo aooOQllt.

of hùaap. unders;tanditlg is question of b.Ow lt to,

oompàres w'i th, 'the kind ot bONIedgè 'whioh God. i8, thougbt pO •• esa. -, , .

.'

- 26-

1s to put an end to the debate, by demonstrating the enorlllous

qualitative di1'1'erence' between iDan and Go vith respeot to :their

oognitive oapabilities. notion Kant not only.tries

to oapture his predeoessor s conceptions of possible

human oognition, in order to 6%p08e 1t8 Botnal limitation, but also

seeka to represent both his own and his predecessors' views on the

nature 01' divine- cognition (this being understood as B paradigmatio

oomprehension of Reality). Thua, in the Aesthetic he writes:

Our mode 01' intuition is dependent on the existenoe of the objeot, and is thete1'ore possible only if the subJeot' s t'aculty 01' representation ia affected by that objeot • • • It ia derivative • • • not original ••• and not an intelleotual intuition ••• such intellectual intuition seems to belong solely to the primordial being, ana oan never be ascribed to a dependant being, depandent in i ts enst.ence as wall .as in i ta intui. ti'on • .. .27

s_nti.ente which echo, in.part, those of Desoartes, who argueSJ -" ••• because in aIl sensations there i's pasfivity and tha't indicatee dependence, we oQDclude that 1I0d is possessed ot' no 'lIenses, but that he understands and will'8 - Dot i-ndeed as we do, by operation. which are in ,some way yer'1 di.stinct t'r9m one. another,' but by ca. ident10al and very

Be.ring in Dlind thit conneotion bet"een. i,ntelleotual 'intuit-1œ

traditional oonoeption of Cod's we may < 1

,note tbat wi. th ideationliLl cognition is .donsidered to be

a superior 1D0de 61' l$:nowledge not sililply beoause i t ia rree frOID the . problelDs inherent- in di.scursive mowledge, bu"t a180 beoause 1t beara

rese.blence to the way 'in whioh God i8 though:t to c0l!*Preheliid

CODsil.rt . (or instanoe, hOll Descartes the

between a1nd and boQy. He doea uot, aB 80.e

01a1.29 , try to 'd •• onstrate dualfsm by

..

te •

- 29 -

and pqcbologicai properlies are quite different: trom each other, a

'thing OanDot have 'both ld.nde of property: ego be both a thinlting and

an erlended 'beingo Rather, he argues that the clear and

distinot idea whioh he has of his Otm mind oOlDJ)letely exoludee the

idea of aD!:rthing oorporeal, he may conolude tbat mind (thinking t:

substanoe) and body (extended substanoe) are ontologically distinot 0

The reai ie prpperly speaking found between two or more substaiiCes: and we oan oonciude that two substanoes are really distinct one tram the other trom the sole faot that 1Ie can conceive one olearIy and distinctly without the other 0 For in aooordanoe vith the mowledge wbich we have of God, lie are that he oan oarry into effeot aIl that of which we have a st1nct idea 0 0 0 And even if we suppose that God has uni a bod..v to a sOlll so closely that it w&s impossible to together more close1y and malee a single thing out two, they would yet remain really distinot one trom other notw1thstanding the union: beoause however olosely conneoted them, He cou1d Dot set aeide the power he pos of separating them or cODceiving thelll one apart e other, and those things which God can separate or cODcei in separation are rea1ly distinct 0 30

1t would be quite wrong to interpret tbis as merely

another invooat ion ot God t s veraoi ty in order t 0 support

from having distinct ideas of mind and body to asserting their

distinctness ln real1ty aa tvo different klnds of substanoe (although

even this tendency ln Desoartes' thought forma a part of that be1ief

in an affini ty or oontaot betweeo man and God \lhich Kant rejeota) 0

Rather, Descartes ia saying tbat we can have oertain knowledge (ego

of the substantial ditf'erence between mind and body) when we gra.sp

things in a similar lIlanner to that by whioh God oomprehends thom.

The oloeing vorde of the above quotation are very revealingl

o 0 • those thines which God oan eeparate or coneeive in separation are really distinct.

.. _ .... _-- ... _--------_._----------

- 30 -

One might ask why we oannot say the same about hwnan oomprehension.

The answer 1a that \"e could, if we only ever employed 1n our thoughts

those olear and distinct ideas which deaignate self-subsistent

substances. HOti9Ver, because we frequent ly use different, less

adequate modes of representation, W9 sometimes assert as real what

ln fact is only a modal or conceptual d1stinction. 31 God is thought

to have an immediate knowledge of substances (as opposed to knoNing

merely the accident s or modes of substance), and Descart.es hopes

that through such clear and distinot ideas as that which he has of

his own mind as a thinkine substance, he can come to a somewhat

aimi lar mo edge of the wor Id; for,

• those ideas which reveai substances to me are something greater and, so to speak, contain Wl. thin them more obJectl ve reali ty than those whlch represent only modes or acoident s. 32

We ahaii have oause to observe later ho", this attempt to

secure soience by giving i t a metaphyslcal foundation which ls

arrived at through an emulation of the divine understandihg la a1so

evident in other aspects of Descartes t methodology. At this point

it is sufficient to remark that whl1e, for many reasons, phiIoaophical,

theologioai and political, he never denies the great superior1ty of

divine oomprehension over human understanding, he nevertheless takea the

difference to be not qualitative,' but rather one of degree. In short,

Descartes holds that the world or the Reali ty whlch we knO\# i B the

as thst whioh God oomprehends. olaims are denied in , radical fsahion by Kant.)

The ohief olaim of this seotion (viz. that Kant must oonoeive

· "

- 31 -

of inte1leotua1 as ideationa1 in oharacter since: a) the

ooncept ia meant to oapture hlS predecassor's oonception of divine

cognition; and b) they believe God to know things idaationally)

cao be further supported and elaborated by a brief

of Berkeley's views on the question of how our knowledge of thlngs

compares to the God is thought to enJoy. At first sight it May

seern that Berkeley's emplrlclst premlsses should prevant hlm from

asserting any similarity whatsoever between human knowledge and

divine knowlege. For 00 the one hand he agrees with Descartes and

orthodox theology ln holding that God, being a disembodled miod

without seosory organs, does not rely 00 sensation for hlS knowledge

of thingsj yet on the other hand he denies the Carteslan doctrlne

that we cao form intelliglble ideas of a purely intelleotual nature,

and insists lnstead that the only genuine ideas we have are those

derived from sense-perception. ThlS problem disappears, however,

when we recognize that Berkeley does not restrict the meaning of

the term "idea" to refer only to ideas encountered in seDse-experienoe.

Acoopding to him,

it is very possible to apprehend how the Boul May have ideas of colour without an eye, or of Bounds without an ear

33

Thue, the oontrast, or opposltion, he wishes to emphasize 18 not that

our own sense-based and God's lntelleotual mode ot

perception, with a Vlew to brlng1ng out the inadequaoy of the former;

on the contrary, the reason senee-peroeption 18 thought to represent

reality Wlth perfect adequacy is beoause it, like the divine mode

of oognition, operates ideationally. The Berkeley dOGe

wish to emphasize is rather that betveen genuine ideas (whether

human or divine) and general abstraot ideae (ie. oonoepts) which

Y, • ' 'bv-s

- 32 -

are said to perpetuate fiotions. This is the point, for example,

of his rather odd olaill that, "S'trictly spealting ••• lofe do not

see the s&me ob Jeot tha t l'fe tee 1 • • • ,,34 ; for on ly th'D,s 0811 he

avoid Baying that ideas, like concepts, merely represent aspeots

of thines.

course Berkeley, like Descartes, readily admits the superiority

of God's knowledge to our OVll. This superiority oonsists primarily

in the taot that whereas ve are passive in our perception of things,

God is active or oreative (a p01nt on which Descartes, Berkeley and

Kant aIl agree). However from this Berkeley does not draw the Kantian

conclusion that the world lof. mow ia a completely different world

from that lChich God mows. (To be sure, he ooncludea that God' s ideas

.ust be considered archetypal, while the ideas Ne encounter in sense-

experienoe can only be eotypal. 35 But the relationship between

eotypes and archetypes, as conceived b,. Berkeley, ia not at aIl the

sue as that whioh obtains in Kant' s theor,y between appearances and

thines in themaelves (notlli. thst8Zldine the tact that lant oocasionallJ'

employs this term1nology36 - a poi.Dt ft will oOllsider later. A

Berkelian ectype ma.y resemble 1ta archetype; but it lISkes no sense

at aIl to speak of even a possible resellblance betveen appearances

and thines in themselves.) Instead, we find that Berkeley has the

sUIe confidence in the basic affini ty between our world él.nd the world

which God knOlofs that we observed previously in the thought of Descartes.

He firmly believea that aeDse-perception, be1ng ideational, enables (

us to enJoy a perfeotly adequate mowledge of 1hingsj and sinee,

aooordine to his theory, things in the world are,_ Jeffeot, ideas

in the mind of God (for the only "things" which e%1st apart trom

\

, \..-

.... .. "..... "'." ."i l , .

- 33 -

spirits are ideas), this aaounts to saying that our ectypal ide ••

adequately repreeent the archetypa! ideas of God. Thus, despite

the fact that Berkeley sometimes ridicules Descartes for appealing

to the veracity of God in order to achieve truth and certainty hm

knovledge of the physical vorld, he does not attempt to contradict

Johnson' s reasonable inference that our ideas are to their arohetypes

"in BUoh a degree resemblances a8 the Almlghty ls pleased to

oommun1cate to us".37

Wha:1; has been _id above can be g1 ven final BUpport througb a

oonaideration of Kant's vell knOWD remark that, for Berkeley,

All 1movledge througb the senses and through e%perunee 18 nothing bu1; illusion, and only in ideas of the pure understanding and reason 18 trut.h.

Kany orities feel that while this migbt stand a8 a reasonable state-

.ent of Descar"tes' position, lt is a blatent

Berkeley's views. However, if va recognlze that la here

charaoterizing Berkeley's phl10sophy in Kantian terme, then, in t.he

ligbt of vhat has already been sa1d, the above quo1;ation makes

perfect sense. ;.lhat Kant is ie that Berkeley's delD&l1d that

va know 1;hine-s cOlllpletely and iaaediately as they really are by

.eans of ideational oognition .. ounta to a deaand for an alternaotive

.ode of COgll1 tion to t.hat vhioh w tact have. For va do !.2! DOV

thlnge ideationally; and only a subject vhose intuition is nOll-

eenS1ble and wos. understanding 15 Dot d.iscFsive can know thinga

as they ara in th.ae l vas. 39

•

" .

- 34 -

Evidence in support ot the claim that tntellectual intuition

should be understood as an ideational mode of cognition can also 1

be adduced trom Kant' a doctrine of the Ideas of Reason. In the

Dialeotio Kant sets about disproving the belief held by his

rat10naliat predeoessors that a speoulative knowledge of

reah ty 19 possible; and the theory of Ideas pluys a role both in

the ref'utation of their arguments and ln the diagnosis of their

errorB. The IdeoB in Guestion are those of the Boul, the world as

a whole, and God. Kant qrants to the speoulative lDetaphysici&n that

these are intelligible ideas, arising naturally, even neoessarily, 'J'

in the m.ind out of the neod ve teel to g1 ve our movledge a uni ty

and ccmpleteness it would otherwise lack. Hovever he denies that

possession of these ideas can in any lead us to a mowledge

the objects they purport to denote; 'for Imowledge requires an

intuition, and the objeots in question can be intuited b.7 ua.

The reason for this ia si.ply that beoause the things designated b.y

the Ideas are nouaenal, they cannet be given in a sensible intuitiOl1;

'for sensible intuition only presents thines as they appear, not as

th.,. are in thelllselves_ Cons&quently, the intuition woulè have to

be intellectual, and that is beyond our cognitive capabilities.

Accordine to Kant the flaw in the rational1st atte.pt to aohi ...

movledge of such things as pod or the soul lies ei ther in theil"

failure to recognize the (Xantian) princip le that, 'for us,

o'f an object 19 only possible if the object ia 8U8ceptible to being

presented in a sensible intuition; or in their mistaking a sensible

intul tian of so.ething belonging to the phenOIDenal reala for an

- 35 -

intelleotual intui '\ion of tbe tbing in i tse11'. Descartes t attempt

to prove God's enstence on the basis of a intelleotual

consideration of the idea he has of God is an instance of the

tirst kind of failure, his beHef tbat he can come to know the

nature of the soul through introspection furnishes an example of

the seoond kind of mistake.

Kant sometimes diagnoFes these errors as a result of 8 tailure

on the part of bis predecessors to understand the true cbaracter Gf

tbe ideas in question. 40 In particub.r, he argues, they fail to

recognise the ditterence betveen the Idea.s of Pure Reason and the

categories are generated b.J the understanding. Bow 8t

silbt this oontention may seem rather tanc1tul. Is 1t really plausible

to clai. that the probleas in Descartes' .etaphysics, for instance,

.t.. trom the faot tbat he believe3 the idea. of God or the soul to

have ti}. same cbaracter as concepts BUch as causality? If, however!

va bear it in mind that Kant generally prefers to ù_soribe alternative

philosophies in his OND terme, so.e sense can be made of his olai ••

Aooording to the theory put torward in the Analy1;io, the categorie., (

tùen together, give ua the ooncept an objeot in general. And in

thull determiDing what is to couat as an object, they deteraine the

gan.ral nature of the cbject. ",e mow in e%perience. Ta the e.xtent,

then, tbat the mind "shapes" the objeot, it can, in so •• sense, be

a.1d tG create the object qua phenolllanon. This "creation" of the

object is not absolute of course, for the lDind M'a no power to

determine .ether or not something ia pre'8ented to i t in intui tien.

Bev.rtheless, in Shaping the object (le. in determining lta gaDerai

-36-

fore), the aind can legitimately be said to create the obJect (qua

appearance) in a way siailAr to that in which a soulptor is said to

create a statue when he gives form to material which must tirst be

given to hi. (notwithstanding the fact that the latter kind of

creation, unlike the former, ia tree or intentional). l do not

. ,.

think it over-fancifUl to read into Kant's conception of the categories,

as determining the a priori intellectual form of objeots, this kind of

connotation. To e. large e%tent i t is what he means when he desoribes

the employaent of the categories as "constitutive".

Rov, when Kant impl1es that thinkers lib ne.carte. falsely

believe the Ideas of Pure Reason to be of a similar nature to the . pure concepts of the Understandine, the point he ia lllaking i.e that

demonstrations of the existence and nature of God, or

the soul, Mhioh proeeed simply trom a oonsideration of the ideas we

have of these things, oan only be valid if the Ideas in question C8D

a oonstitutive, rather than a merely'regulative,employment.

Kant, of course, denies that they can be used in The

oategories ean be said to fUnotion eonstitutively because they are

generai ooncepts, and the objects they detereine are only

appearances. From the fact that we have these a priori ooneepts,

we oan legitimately oonolude that the world is oonstituted in a

oertain vay. The Ideas of Fure Reason, on the other hand, purport

to designate ind.:ividuals belonging to the Doumenal world, and trOll

the faot that we have these a priori Ideas, nothing ean be aonoluded

ooncerning ei ther the existence or the nature of the things to whioh

they aupposedly refer. For this kiDd of inferance ta be

/ - 37 -

Ideas would have to "dete1'ltine their objeots vith respeot to

existenoe", eo tbat the act knowing the objeot tbrough the Idea

would simUtaneoualy be an absolute oreation the objeot. '!'hi.,

as we have seen, îs how Ood is thought to bow thinp. It is not,

however, a po.eible .ode oognition us, sinoe our knowledge

18 abays dependent on aOllething being Oven tn seDsible intuition.

The conolusion we oan draw rro. this la tbat .!! the Ideas '0.

Resson did oreate their objeots, then we would have intelleotual

intuitlon. And this gives turther support to the olai. above,

that to mOll a thing throuch intellectuai intuition is to lcnow 1 t

ideationally •

1 3. ereativitz

At the be8inDing the Kant vritesl

••• intuition ••• is only pos.ible, to .an at lea8t, in so a. .ind is in a oeriain '!'his capacity (reoeptivity) receiving iapressions tbrougb the .ode in vhioh lM are b.1 objeots la _titled41 sensibility •• _ and it al one yields us intuitions_

One ot the pr:i.l1oipal olaills bein« .ade bere, that in seDsation -

are passive (or at l .. st partly passive), would oertainl.y

acceptance &IIODg .ost philosophera_ Honver tbe re.son Kant i.

so ooncerned to est.blisb this point tro. the outset ia beoause,

t&ken in oonjunotion wi th the olai. that s.asation ia the on17 ld.nd

of intuition we enjoy, and the dootrine th&.t aU knowleclge requix4es

intuition, ft provides one or the .. in supports tor hi. that

the human IIlind oan only ever bow appearanoe ••

- 38 -

should our pasaivity in seDse-perception be thought to

oondeJal ua to knowiDg only appearanoes? There are, l think, at

least three reaSOUa tOI' JD8:!t1ng the conneption. 'l'he tirst, suggested

by Descarte. and apparently acoepied by Kant, i9 that sen.e-

peroeption, being a passive aode knoNing, only reveals to us

the ex'terior of things. Sirictly speaking, Descartes argues, whsn

he looks out of his window he does not see men in the street,

but only bats and ooats (wh:Lch he jUdges to oover people). Our

sense. are atfeoted by objeots' as wax ia imprinted by a seal, tbey

are imprinted or atteoted b.1 the surfaoe of the objeot va perceive,

but do Dot give us inaitiht :Lnto Ua ellllenoe or essential nature.

, aeoond rea.on la ottered b7 Kant in the ProlelO!!!a,

••• it is • :Lnoonoeivable how the intuition of a thing tha't le preseD(t sbould .. ke .• e mo. lt a8 it 18 :Ln ltseU, tor lts propertles oannot migrate into taoulty of repre.entatlon.42

For instance, the subjeotive repreaentation ot a colour in con.oioue-

neas ..... to be neo •• earily and coapletely difterent frOlB tho.e

prop."i •• ot the object whiob are ther.by repre.ented. SO agaiD,-, "

.ay oonclud. that the perc.iving subjeot only kno •• the objeot &. it

appear. to hia. Bowever the arguaent only holda for a aubjeot who

is aff.cted by objeots that are aimply given or preaented to hi ••

If his perception w&s at the same ti.e a oreation of the objeot, there

would be no distinotion between the tbings ,pl'opertie. and bis

representation ot the.. Thus l oaDDot &gre. Mi th Bintikka wh_ he

bDt doea Dot di.Unpiah beh.eu au !n'tui UOI1 repre.stie« lU1 iDdivld.ual objeot &Ad an intuition it .. lt beW _ invdividual objeot.43

- 39 -

It se ••• to ID. that thi. di.tinction is, in etteot, preoi.el,y tbat

be'tween an intuition whioh is sensible and an intuition whioh 1s

in'telleotual.44

The third reason Kant has for linking our passivity in sens&-

tion to the idea that our knowledge is li.1ted to appearances, i.

that, according to his theory, it is the reoeptivity ot sensible

intuition wbich neoessitates the applioation ot the categories to

the manifold:

receptivity can make knowledge pOSSible onl,y when cc.bined vi th spontanei ty • • • thi.., spontanei t7 is the ground ot a • • • whioh MUst neoe •• arily be tound in aIl mowledge .4 5

roughl,y lCaDt t s argument runs as tollo"".. Experience (and

theretore knowledge) requires at least the possibility ot some kind

ot selr-conciousness on the part ot the subject; tor

experience would Ibse its essential unit y and ooherenoe, given to it

by the tact that the subject is able J.o idenUt'y separate exper1enoe.

as eaoh belonging to him. Suoh selt-conciousnes., however, only

possible if the subjeot is able to difr.rentiate b.tw.en hi ••• lt and

something other than himselt - in other vards, it his representatioœ

oan be related to an objeotive order. This comes about, aocording

to Kant, by the applioation ot the oategories, whiob provid. the

ooncept of an objeot in g.neral, to the maaitold present.d in sensible

intuition. But, tor the r.asons giv.n .arli.r, mowledge lIhiob r .....

on the use of gen.ral oono.pts oaD only b. ot things as the,. appear,

not ot things a. they are in themselve.. '!'hua wheD Kant wrUes:

• • • wen 1: 10 thiDk an underst8Z1ding whioh i. i tselt intuitiv, (aa tor exupl., a divine uad.r.tuuling whiob

.• hauld not repre.ent to its.lt 'IiVeD objeot., but through who •• the objecta should th __ •• lves be given or produo.d), the oategories would bave no .e8DiDB whatsoever in resp.ct ot Rob a .048 ot motll.dge. 'Rh.,. are .erely rul •• tor 8Zl uacl.rBtancl1a«

40 -

whos. power oonststs ••• in the aot Nhereby it bringe the u,rnthesis of the to lt from .lsewh.re in intuition, to the unit Y of apperoeption • 46

i' he should not be understood as saying that the intuitive understand-

ing simply would not tqe oategories, but rather that it

would not use them at all. Similarly, when he says

that the categories "think objects in general without regard to the

special mode ••• in whioh they are givenn41 , he obviously does

not Mean that even an intuitive understanding, to which objects

are ngiven" in a different mode, would conceive its objects aooording

to the oategories. Strictly speaking, the understanding

would not "think" at al1, in Kant 's liens of the word; for "thinking"

implies disourllivity, Mediation, and henoe limitation. Heither oan

he aean that even those objeots whioh oannot be given to us in

sensible intuition must confora to the categories. Su ch a olaim is,

in his view, the essenoe of dogmatisme His point is siaply that

when attempt to think of any object, whether it can be presented

to us in or not, WB are oODstrained to oonceive of it as

one to Nh1ch the categories apply.

"Concepts", says Kant, "are balled on the spontaneity of thOU8htJ

sensible intuitiOl1s on the reoeptivity of impressions.,,48 Thus,

while the application of conoepts to the manifold repreaents th.

aotive ele.eut in our oognition of objects, beoause our taculties

intuition and understanding are distinot WB are ODly partly active

in our knowledg. of things. By contraet, an intuitive understand.in«

would be purely active in Us oognition. To say this though, i8 to

say that int.U.O'tual intut tion is a oreati ve aot. .0 other sens.

oan really be pven to the notion of a purely activ •• ode of cognition.

- 41

As was mentioned th.re are, traditlonally, two

conceptions of oreation or creativityt oreation ex nihilo, and the

oreation of arder out of ohaos. Wow it is olear that intelleetual

intuition must be understood aa a creative aot of the first kind.

For as we have seen Kant himself argues thst, st the deepest level,

the human subjeot ia oreative in the second sense. Through. a

oomplex act of synthesis, our mind "oreates" its phenomenal objeots

our of material which, by itself, laoks coherence or intelligihility

(ie. the oonterit of what Kant oalls "apprehension")49. And this

kind of oreativity ia also held by Kant to be a of aoientifie

practioe, Nhich refleota, at a higber or more consoious level, vbat

goes on unoonsciously in our oognition of objecta. The

aoientiat does not an order whioh exists

a.ong phenomena. Be too can be said to ereate order ot ohaos,

for the intelligible and ooherent struoture he in nature ls

partly a tunetion his OVD approach and interests. Bis disoove17

is thus at the same time a oreative aot. 5O

In intelleotual intuition, then, the objeot ia oreated eX nihilo

by a pure ly aot ive eub jeot • Snoh au idea 111&7, aB Kant speoiti oally

saya, be aOlDewhat unint!Jlligible, and to believe that the hUID8D f

Bubjeot ia oa.pable ot this k1nd knowledge Il&y appear quite far-

fetohed. Nev.rtheleBs, in using the ooncept of tntelleetual intuition

to argue againat alternative views ,on the nature and liaitations of

human knoNledge, Kant ia not simply attaoking stra)'. men. Por while

the may not be stated explioitly, a belief in the possibility of

our achi.vine knowled8e in this ia, to aa.. e%tant, iaplicit in

rationéa.1ist thOU&ht, and partiOWlarly in the Carie.ian philoçiq'.

- 42 -

ThUB Desoartes begins the Meditations, for instance, by eneuring

that he iB "a.gitated by no passions,,51 (lIbich impose themselves on a

passive sUbject), in order that the que st for be oarried

out by a purely aoti ve subject engaged in purely intellectual

aotivity. And after casting aside aIl his previously held beliefs,

80 tbat literally nothing is thought to be true52 , he attempts to

produce out of this vacuum a system of certain knowledge. Like an

arohltect he haa a plan; but in this case the arohitect has to

provide bis own materials. He starts out from a mental intuition of

his own essential being, and after six days of meditation hls work la

oomplete. The blueprint for suoh a project ia clearly the intelleotual

aotivity through which God oreated the world ex nihilo. Thus our

interpretation of Kant 1a aga in given addltionai support by the faot

that Descartes, who considera us capable of intelleotuel intuition,

also believes, ta som. extent, that knowledge oan be attained througb

a oompletely oreative effort on our part.

4. SubJeot-Objeot Identity

The ldentity subjeot and objeot ls the most general require-

ment Nbich MUst be satisfied if intelleotual intuition la ta be

possible. 1t ia also, in a sense, the moet important IlArk which

charaoterizes this mode of knovledge, faT it entails the oonolusion

that intellectual intuition is a form of self-coneoiousnessl

and the problem of self-oDnsciousness is cne of the oentral oonoerns

of thinkerB suoh as Fiohte and Hegel, and indeed of philoBophy as

suoh. We shaH theretore attempt ta explain in sOlle detail Kant

.. '

- 43 -

conceives of intellectual intuit10n in this way.

AlI knowledge involves a subJect and an objeot. These muet

stand to eaoh other in Bome kind of relation; and the nature of

this cognitive relation will be determined partly by the nature of

the PoubJect, and partly by the nature of the obJect. In turn, the

nature of this relation will determine the character of the knowledge

wh10h the subJect has of the object (eg. its adequacy or completeness).

Nowone of Kant's main tasks in the first Critique iB to disoover

exactly how the nature of our mind affeots the oognitive relation

between ourselves and the objeot to be knO\iIl, and thus to find out

exaotly how our nature (qua knowing subjeots) determines the oharacter

of our knowledge. In other \forde, Kant aims to identify whl.ch

features in our knowledee of things refleot, or represent, subJeotive

influence an the subjeot-objeot relation.

For instanoe, according the the Aesthetic, the faot that

the abjects we know through outer sense exist in spaoe refleots the

nature of our sensibility. This is largely what Kant means when he

8ay8 that space ls an a priori form of intuition; and he draws the

oonolusion that we know these objects only as appearances. Now Kant's

positl.on here could be interpretted in the Beoauae the

cognitive relation between ourselves and the objects in question ia

always charaoterized spatiality, spatiality can be described as a

formaI feature of the subject-objeot nexus. Any particular spatial

relation, however, exoludes an infinite number of alternative possible

relations of this kind. Thus, when l peroeive an obJect, l perc.ive

- 44 -

it from one particular perspective or vantage point ta the exclusion . of aIl others. At any given time, therefore, MY knowledge of an

obJect to whioh l relate spatially, in sa far as it is based on my

perception of the objeot, must be considered partial or incomplete:

ie. l only know the objeot as it appears to me. 53

\fuile this way of looking at Kant has certain merits, there are,

l think, a number of reasons for ultimately reJecting it as a valid

lnterpretation. First of aIl, Kant argues that the obJeots we know

are appearances because they are 1n space, not simply because we know

them through spaoe. On the reading outlined above, our knowledge

would not simply be limited to appearances, but to the way in which

these appearanoes (objects in spaoe) appeared to ua (who peroeive

thern from partioular varitage-points). The point 16, according to

Kant the relation between ourselves and the phenomena known througb

outer Bense is indeed spatial; but the relation between ourselves

and the th1ng in 1tself 18 not. Consequently, he cannot be arguing

that we only know the object (1e. the thing 1n itself) as it appears

to us on the ground that WB only know it from a speoific spatial

vantaf'"e point.

Seoond, the above interpretation does not seem to make sense

ri th respeot to Kant 's dootrine oonoerning time. Aooording to Kant,

the fact that thinge exist in time entaile their merely phenomenal

status for the same reason that their existenoe in spaoe implies this.

But this reason cannot be that, due to the nature of our seDsibility,

we only know the object from a temporal perspeotive or vantage point.

For ev en if this idea is acoepted as meaningful, and the temporality

- 45 -

of the cogn1ti\r e relation was understood &s a function of the way

our mind 1s oonstituted, lt still remains unclear wby this l'eature

of the relation should distan, restrict or modify our knowledge 01'

the object. Suppose, for instance, that an abjeot w&s knOMll retro-

spectively - ie. trom the "va.ntage pOl.nt" of' the present ve apprehèn-

ded the object as i t was at a previous Ume. There seems to be no

reason, l.n such a case, why we could Dot claim to mo", the objecrl

a. it in i tself .

.l third objeaUOD 10 'the interpretatiCD Ming oonsidered ls

tbat U tails 'to reoopiae the to whioh Kant separates the

phea...aal wor14 wh1ch ... mow trOll the ll0\M8aal world of whloh onq

Gocl ha. kaovlecl«e. l't iapl1e. tbat it we cou.ld sOlMhow overcOlie the

ttpattal .... t ...... poiDt, 'b7 movi.Jls' i't trOll .... T1 po.aible perspecti ... e,

_ 1IOU.l4 'he DOW the object Ilot ... AIl appearance, but as it is iD

..... ... denalJ i.. S. te • •

-.11' adep't ... wq po .... \l. .....na..l ... , tor '-'t,

tId.a .... fil _. _ .. _.14 .... nnal .. tIa1.ac ta :1:l .. ltJ 1. i1;

. ..st ... ...u.--. ta .. ll_'-1 bddtl-.. ,.. tM;· .. __ la )

.ad .... ,..,.. _lU ..... ta ...... ' t'-... - ..., .....u..c

...... tt ___ lie .... an J .... wuc. tilla klù Id ... 1 ....

..... 1tUl111d.1 ....... m ............ m. __ M'"

, •• u .. ta _.IU. ............ -JMUft JF tw .. _. ..

" i

, --' <.

"J" ./1'

- 46 -

problems in faot arise wherever there 1a a lsck of ident1ty between

8ubJect and objeot.

Given, then, that knowledge of the th1ng in itsel! requires'

that the oognHive relation between subject and objeot be rree trom

subjective distortion, and also that i t be not Just one of lJ8Dy

possible relations or a aimilar kind, 1t fo11ovs, for Kant at lea8t,

that intelleotual intuition, tbrough whioh E.lone the thing in itself

CM be knOlGl, 1s only possible whare there is an identi ty or coinc1-

dance of subject and object. On1y in this case 1s the aubjeo't'8

knovledge of the object no't detri.aental1y arfee'ted by 'the inf'luence -

of 'the oogn! t 1 ve re laUon j,etween thell.

!'hi. eOllclusiOft h ... 1ly suppor'ted. P'1rs't of aIl, Kan't

8xp11cit17 cleaoribe. the iDtuiU". Wlderataad.iDg as ODe "iD which

thrOU8h •• It'-OOIlao:l.a.tsa ••• aIl the ... it'old wouid eo ip.o be given. n54

th.er. to b •• oo1no:l.dace ot nbj.ot IIIld objeo't, 80 tba't movl"

of ULe object woù.4 iD t&en CClDdi:ht. •• U-movledp.

s.oo.cl17, t,bia helpa to explab tIIb.7 bD" tù •• lI1lch

palaa 1;0 drea tM 1II.acI.,

..... " .. 11' oaq _ 1t ...... w l't .. U iD re ... ot Id _ la'hl 'i_ 1IIl1_ i.. ao\ la'.lleotul ... caaaot 'be ct ... __ ... t.nt_.t-, .. lt, IlOt .. :1." WIll4 JI:aow

Il 1'- iaW' ........ tatelleoUal.55

, "

- 47 -

intellectual intuition with self-oonsc1ousness, Kant hie

recogIll. tion of' the truth of this view. His denül that ve CM know

the thing ln i t selt must therefore be Bupported (1"or reasons both

hl. storl. ca 1 and phfloBophical) 81th an explanation of why the In.nd of

self-oonsolousnes8 of vhich ve are capable fal.ls to qualif'y as an

l.nstance of intellectual intuition.

Thirdly, .-le zay observe that 1. t i5 only when BubJect and

ob Ject are identical that the subJect could really clalm to know

the "inner nature" of the object, as oppased ta knoWl.ng only Hs

superficial oharacter" or knowing i in a merely representative way

(defeots which" as we saw, are thought to characterize mOlliedge

aquired througb sensible intuition).

o Finally, this interpretation helps us to understand Kant 1 s

clalm that the intuitive intellect .ust be oompletely self-dependant

and infini te. 56 When subJect and objeot are identical, the

subJect 's knowledge, attained througb intelleotual intuition, arises

ri thout any dependence on au;rthing other than the subjeot i tse11".

Being thus totally the intuitive Ultel1ect a&7 be

described as inf'inite, Sl.nce it i! everything which exista tor it.

Pert'ect selt-oonsoiousness ie infini te in the BIllIe '-1 a. is the

a circl ••

It should b. clear froca wbat has 'be .. aa1d tl1&t, dAce iDtelleo-

tuaI intuitlOn involvea bath the ab.olub creation ot the objeat b7

- 48-

the subJeot, and the identity of subject ...nd objeot, the l.Dtuitive

understand1ng IDUst be understood as self-creative; which is to

say that inte1leotual i.ntuition i8 an aot of' self-oreation on the

part of the subject. One lIay, of oourse, choose to regard this idea

as quite unintelligible, and Kant hi.self would not wish to argue

otherWl.se. HOt"ever it i9 perhaps 1I0re f'ruitt'ul to relate the idea , to the Cartesian oonoeption of God as belng the "cause" of his own

exi "Jtenoe • What le meant by that God lS self-oauRed, or that

the lotui tive understanding la self-oreative, i5 not that the subjeot B

in question crestes itself out of nothing at a given !DOIIent in .kime;

for in e1ther case tbe subJeot 18 beld to stand outside of ti11le (God

being eternal, and Hme being Dothi:ng but the fOnD of sensible

lntultl0n). Ratber, what is aeant la that the subjeot 's existence,

like his knowledge, does not depend on anythine other than. the

9ubjed hi.selt'. This ia Kant 8ays that intelleotual iDtuition

"can never be asoribed to a • being depandent in 1 ta axi.stence a. weIl as i.n Hs 1lltuition ... 57 The tvo kinda ot' dependanoe are linlted

because bath lapl]' a fa:ilure ta be truly creative. The subject vIlo

ls depandant in his intuition cannot create the objeot h. 1.Dtuits,

but must have i 10 giveD or preaeated 100 hi. elaevllere. The aubject

who has only a dependen't ex1.st8l1oe cannot be self-creative :l.n the

sense outlined abcve. Thelle tvo notione of creatirit,- are linlted

beoa.use in intellectual intuition, aubject and object coincide.

Thus WCI cau see hov the ooncepts vith vhich ... have be.

working - paaaivit,-, dependence, creativi't7, subjec't-objeo-t iden'ti't7,

etc. are cODAeoted to each o'ther not only logical17,. but clialeatioaill.

- 49 -

By this l mean that the ooncepts in question oannot be suocessfull1

separated from one another, despite the faot that they each have

their own meaning. The concepts self-oreativity and

subjeot-objeot 'identi ty, for instance, ini tially seem to be quite

distinct. It is then reoognised that they entail one another.

the subject i8 self-oreative then he ia identical to the objeot

created; but at this point they are still reoognised aa separate

notions. Eventually, however, they have to be regarded as having,

1n some sense, the saae Everything Nhich i9 entailed

by, or opp08ed to, the one i8 by, or opposed to, the other •

•

\

- 50 -

Notes to Chapter Two

1. ct., for instance, critique of Pure Reason, B149 and A2)O-B286; also Prolegomena, 51, pp. 122-3

2. ct. P1ato's Repulblic, Books VI and VII.

3. Ct. N. Glouberman, Intuition and Cognitive Assimi1ability" (Journal of the British Sooiety for Phenomeno 1 ogy , 1979), and "Conceptua1ity: An Essay in Retrieval" studies, 1979) .

4. Cf Critisue of Pure Reason, A16l-2-B20l.

Prolesomena, SectiQD 7, p. 36. ct. al sa Critique of Pure Reason, A717-B745}

6. Prolegomena, 57, p. 123.

7. Critique ot Pure Reason, Al12.

8. B2l8.

9. A106.

10. Ibid., A68-B93. --,. 11. nid., A68-B93.

12 . .!!!!., A68-B93.

13. Proleeoeena, Seotion 22, p. 64. 14. ct. M. Glouberm&ll, "Int.Uectual IntuitiOD _d CopiUve A.s1l1ila-

bi1it7" (Journal ot the British Sooiet7 tor P.h.Do.eao1ol7, 1919), and "Conceptualit7& An Essay iD R.trien1" (lCsDt studie., 1919).

15. G. Berkeley, '!'he PriDa! le .. of Huaan lI1ow1 Philoaophical Writings, ed. D ••• Introduction, Seotion 2, p. 45.

16. Prinoiple .. , Seotion 90, p. 98.

/ in Berk.l'l's Collier BoOka, 1965),

11. Prinoip1e .. , Introduotion, Seotion 13, p. 52 (oiting Look.'a Essay on Huaan UnderstandinG, Bk. IV, Ch. 7).

18. Principles, Introduction, Section II, p. 50 (oittng Locke's Essay, Bk. III, Ch. 3).

19. Princip18", Introduction, Section 7, p. 47.

- 51 -

20. Introduotion, Seotion 18.

21. Introduotion, Seotion 23, p. 59.

22. Introduotion, Seotion 21, p. 58.

23. Introduotion, Seotion 22, p. 58.

24. O. Berkeley, Three es between Berkelel' s Philoso2hica.l \iritine;:s, ed.

1965), Piret Dialogue, p. 156. Books,

25. W.H. Walsh, [ant's Critieism of Meta University Press, 1975 , pp. 14-15.

las and Philonous, in D.K. Arastrong Collier .

sies, (Edinburgh

26. I. Kant, Lor.e, transe R.S. Hartaan and W. Sohwarz (Bobba-Merri11, 1974), p. 9 •

27· Critique of Pure Reason, B72.

28. R. Descart.s, The Princi2les of Philoso2h.Y, in '!'he Phllosphical Works of Desoartes, trans. E.S. Haldan. and G.R.T. Ross {Caabridge Univereity pr.ss, 1911}.Vol. l, p. 228.

29. Eg. T.E. Wllk.rson; of. Iau.t's Critique ot Pure Reason, p. 110.

30.

31.

32.

33.

34.

Desoartes, Prinoip1ea LX, Haldalle and Ross, Vol. l, pp

Desoartes, Prinoiple. LXI, .!l!!!!" pp. 244-5.

Desoartes, Meditations III, p. 162. " - . \ Latter to Johnson, Nov. 25, 1729, Philosophioal .tritin5s, p. 231.

'l'bree Dialoguee ('!'hird Dialogue), Philosophica1 !olritin5s, p. 201.

35 .. / Latt.r 100 Johnson, J(arch 24, 1130, Phl10aophioal 1Iriti.D.p, p. 246.

36. Eg. Criticue of Judgellent, pp. 256-1.

37. S. Johnson, Latter 100 Peb. 5, 1730, in Berkel.'. Phl1080phioal p. 240.

38. Prolepeilla. Appendix, p. 145·

39. In aotual taot a second, sligh'tly t'anoiful but no't Wll'eaSOIULbl., lnterpretation ot Kant 's etat .. ent ls posslble. Bie r".OI1ing oould be that .ino. B.rk.le;r .. cl.Us that Ood alOGe ha. iD.'t.Ueataal in'tuitlon (tor ooly His oogni'tlon la or •• tiye a. vell .. id ..... ti0l181), b. ahou1d, tor '\he sake ot oODelrien07, derq th.

huaan knowledg. oo.plete17. Por, unl1ke laD'\, he 40 •• Dot eat.riaiD '\he idea ot a knowle.sg. _lob le real, yet reta ... s on17 to. app.aranoee.

"

40.

41-, l} 42.

43.

- 52 -

for instanoe, Prolegomena, Sect1::m 9, p. 38.

Critique Pure Reason, A19.

Prolegomena, 8eotion.9, p. 38.

J. Hintiklca, "On Kant· 8 Botion of Intuition (Anschauung)", .!.!!!. Firot Critigue, p. 43.

44. Onoe again, it i8 worth noting at thls point that Kant 's whole aooount of sensible intuition Is deoidedly proble ... tl0. He f'requently refera to sensible intuitions as "repreaentations". Tet since a repreaentation, for Kant, ie normally aonsidered to be, at least to some enet, the produot of intelleotual activity on the part the 9ubject (rather than aomething which ia aillply "given lt ), auch c.. description would seem to rob sensations of the primitive i/IIIDediaoy whioh Kant elawere aaoribes to them.· The underlyine problem here conoerns spaoe and time. Kant argues that space and time are both illllDanm't to sense experiance and, at the same tilDe, a priori forma ot sensible intuition, and it is this,in hie opinion,- whioh guaran-tees bath the illlllediroy of !fensible intuitions, and i;heir oognitive assiailability. Only if' both of these oonditions are mei; can the critioal philosophy be saved from fa.lling !nto either radioal sceptioi811 or complete idealism. But, as sOlDe of hie early critios pointed out, the dual status thug eiven ta spaoe and time r_ins probleaaatio. For th.re seHls ta be no good rec..son wb;y, if-they are to be viewed as a priori forDs, they should not be regarded ae products of tho intellect (in which case that whioh is "given" in sensation ia alreac:Q- lDediated -le. It i8 not simply "given" at a11).

45 • Cri tique of Pure Rer, son, A97.

46 • .!2!!!., Bl45·

47· B309.

48. A68-B9'3.

49. Cf. A97.

50· ct • .ill!., A647-B675

51. Descartes, Ioteditations I, Ba1dule &.nd ROBS, Vol. l, p. 144

52. ct. Desoartes, Mediations II, ,ill!., p. 149.

53. This Interpretation hall been by M. Glouber88ll. Aoc)ord-ing to hi. this probl .. , iDh.rent in a oognitive relation whioh i8 characterhed b7 spati81ity, is one of the rea.ons behincl Descartes' rejeotion s.e8-based cOtalition, lt aleo help to explain the BerkeUen .ove COllapsing the distillation between thines aud ideas, as well as ths re.sons for Berkelq '. vlgorous denlttl that.,. ever rea1q peroeive dirianoe.

\

"

- 53 -

54. Cri t igue o"r Pure Reason, B135. \ 55. B159.

56. ct. B72.

57. Ibid.

"

-

i f.'

l,:': n.""

'" . . .

-54-

CBAP'l'm 'l'HREE

Intelleotual Intuition and Kantien .et.Pblsios r

1. The Thln« in Itselt

The concept ot intellectual intuition 19 as closely tied to

the notion of the tbing in itself as the concept ot sensible

intuition le to tbe dootrine of appearances. Indeed, one

(admittedly unhelptul) way ot datlning lt ls to Bay that 1t ls tbat

lIIode of cognl tian tbrough vhioh alone knowledge ot the th1ng in

ltselt is po.sible. More signlficantly, the oonoept le ueed b.r

Kant in the tirst Critique to help distingulsh betveen the positive

and negative senses whioh attaeh to the lde. ot the noumenon, and to

rule out the Coraer as dogaatio and henee illegltimate so far 8S

theor.tical reason ls Some account ot Kant's conception

of the thing in ltselt and ita oonneotton with 1ntellectual intuition

la theretore necessary.

On thie issue numeroua interpretations ot Kant have been otfered,

lIost ot whioh bave tbeir olaim. to plausibility and •• rit. Bowever,

it vould be neither praotioal nor, tor our purpoae., to

exam1ne even a tev of th... wi th a view to deoiding between them.

v. aball ai.ply otter an analyst. ot that seotion ot the

ohapter "On Phenomene and Noumena" where Kabt bringe in the oonoept 1 of tntelleotual intuition in order to olarifY hie position.

AlthOUtn Kant revrote parta ot this chapter in th. seoond edit ion

of the Cri tique, there are no tundaaental doctrinal ditterenoe.

batween the two ver.ioDa. His _in claio .q be su..arl.ed a.

- 55 -

fo110'Ns:

i) If the objeota lie bow are appearancea, ". IllUst have the

1dea of something which appears - the noumenon.

ii) Understood negatively, the noumenon 1'8 the eonoept of seme-

th1ng in general Nhieh containa nothing pertaining to sensible

intuition.

111) Unders'tood positively, the noumenon is an objeot 'Nhioh ean

be knONO only through intellectual intuition.

1v) Only the neeative e .. ployment of the concept of the noumenon,

'Nhereby it repreaents the limita of our 1s legtti-

mate.

In the tirst edition Kant initially seems ta argue for the

legitimacy of both interpretatioos of the nOUlD8DOn. He writea:

••• the ooncept of appearances, a8 limited by the ' .. "ran I!Icendental of itaelf estabUshes the objeotive reality of DDUmena and juatifies the divisicn of objecta 1nto ph_olll ... and nOWllena, and sc of the Norld intc a world of the aeDaea and a world of the understanding • • • For if the sense a represent something lDerely aa it appear., tbia ac .. ething IllUst itaelt be & thing, and an objeot ot a non-sensible !ntui tion • • • In other ward., a kind of kno'Nledge IDUst be possible, in which there i8 no aenaib1lity, and which alone has reality that ia abaolutedly objective. 2

HONever, thi. apparent inoonaiatenoy can be resolved. It ia neoea8&17

to distinguish betveen our understanding of the oonoept of a nOu.enOD,

and our employment of this ooncept. Kant' 3 vieN 1S that 'He neoeaearlly

posses8 or arrive at this notion, and cao undeTstand 1t, or detine it,

ln two ways. Either way 1t 1s extremely indeterminate, but 1t la not

therefore lDean1nglesa (in the ordinary SeDse of the word). The

C'uestion .:Jf 18g1tilll8ex only really arises in cODJlection vith the

,

l , 1 : 1

\ i i'

l 1_

lIo,f ':.\:' _ ' • r':.. :1 .. { , ,.

- 56 -

the oOlloept. Ro" the oODoept the DOWD8Ilon

eaploya.t onq in philoaoplQ-, and in the f'irst Critique Kant 18

OODeemM with dateraining the roIe it oan leg1timately play in

theoreUoal philoeoplQ-. Hi. general viev 18 that a oonoept oan only

be legiti_tely etap10yeel in th1s oonterl If i t can be ahOlilD 100 relate

100 experienoe in sOlle The concept of the DOUIIeDOn, taken

negative17, a. a liaiting oonoept, doe. have thls relation.

J'or 110 expre •••• a r.oopition the that there 18 sCMlething

about the worlel, or 8t l .. st ln our experienca of the worIel, vhich

ta aot naoept1ble to rational explaaation or discursive articulation;

a probl. iD the riruc'\ure of experimoe for which ve oannot conoeive,

w. ta priDoiple, the pO •• ibilit7 of an an_ver; so •• thlng,

.. _ a1iR_'Ua1 .. bject 1 llight oontrenteci b7

1ohl. JWob1- or IIIF-'eq __ , tor iDd8Dce, 1 wonder vlq this oonsoioua-D... or peraca&li"t7 tllaioh 1 vi th .... born a10 a • ; 1,

pariicnalar "i .. Nl«l pla,oe, &Del .. tbe of cerlain

41t1'w." 1 .. e1 "u .0i_tia1o oo.e. llP &gainat aoaethtng sill1lar17

_., alter de.oribing al." er nature such aa that

.......uc the rat. fit aooelerati_ ot • hl11ng bocb" b7 •• ans of a

...... "10&1 tOlWÙ.., he wonder. _ pben-.- ahoa.lcl 100 thi. # •

r..l& ra .... t .... to .... other. Jnd at the hipeat leve1

- ref1.eotiaa, that ot ori1;io&l eiailar kincl. of questions

Rl_. aat ia 'Ua. .oar08 ot tbht whioh 1s ablpq "p,ven" iD senaibl.

,"

! . 1.

J: i: l' 1 •

- 57 -

reasonable, they do not appear to be oOlll])letely meaninglessj and

yet if we to Crame some kind of &naver Ne immediately reoognise

tbat lt ls oouched in terms which are oompletely inapproprlate.

Kant ooncludee from this tbat the root oC the problem lies not in

the nature of the vorld, but ln the way that we think. Our under-

standing is liaited and beoomea OOO80ioU8 of these limita beoause of

lta fixed nature, beoause it ls discursive rather than intuitive -

ln short, beoause ve are hUll8ll and not di vine.

Iant's again seeas inoonsistent, if not oootradictory,

when he first of ail saya:

Unl.ss va are ta .ove oonatantly in a cirole, the word appearanoe au.t be reoogniaed as already indioatiDg a relation to sa.ething, the t.8ediate representation of _ich is, indeed, seJlsible, but whioh even apart from the oODsitutiOll of our 881leibilit7 ••• IllUst be some-thin« in !ts.lf', that ie, &Il independent of' lien dbl1 1't70 'rhere thua renlb the oonoept of a DOWIeIlOD. l't ia not iDcleed in Ilq vay positlve, and la Ilot a u'teraillate mOllIe. ot aDTthing, but sipi-fie. -17 the thoupt ot ao.ething in general, in vhioh 1 abnraot l'rOll that beloDga ta the form of •• rible intuitlœ • • 0"3

but th_ 804ts on to iD the tollowing paragraphs

fbe objeot to I relate appeAraDoe in geoeral 1. the traD.oeacleotal objeot, tha-t ia, the oOilpleteq ia4eterldaate 'thoa&bt ot 801Hthing ia ganeral. Thi. ouaot 'be .titlecl the 1l0UlMll0ll, l'or 1 DOW Do'thiDg ot .... t 1'& 1. in tt.eU, _d have IlO OODOept of' lt saye ae .... 17 the obj.ct of ___ lb le intv.1tlon in geoeral, ad .. a. 'be1nc Olle aad the 8 ... tor aIl appearanoes.4

bat .... to aa:r 'bath 'tbat the "ao.ethiDg" to whioh lM -.dn.. .. late ap, ...... 08. oaa be oalled the liOUtellOll, and tbat i't ahould

\ \ '

an .. _1le4 tIle I1s lIOrdiDC ta 'th ... passapa 1 •

..

. ..

i :

l '

- 58 -

certa1nly confusine. The can, however, be resolved in the

following way.

The transcendental obJect ia not a thing or an entity Wh1Ch

existe ln either the phenomenal or the noumenal world. It 18, as

K,,-nt exphn. t ly states ln the second passage ci ted above, a thought.

Although "completely indetermlnate", it i8 still a thought of some-

thing: namely, the thoueht of an object in general WhlCh is capable

of belng known through sensible intuition. AU the ob Jects by

meana of sensible intuition have certain very general features in

common. The transcendental objeot is the thought of Just these

features, abstracted from any more specific charaoteristios which are

shared by some of the objeots (appearances) that oan be known by a

BubJeot whose faculty of intuition iB sensible. The transoendental

objeot lS therefore identioal to the indeterminate concept of an

objeot - not exaotly an objeot in general, but an obJeot WhlCh is

susceptible to being sensible intuited. When Kant says that we

appearance in general" to the transoendental obJeot, he

meane that we neoeesarily relate what ia presented in sensible

intuition to this indeterminate ooncept. The relation in question

1s that of instantiation, and it ie established by us through a

spontaneoua aot ot the intelleot. It ia by establishing this relation

that we confer objectivity to our r.epreaentations.

What, then, ie the noumenon? And how dosa it dltf'er from the

Again, explioi tly states that 1

". • • the oonoept of' a noumenon • • • signifies only the thought of

'1 '

, , ,

, 1 , , ... i l' 1 1 .:

- 59 -

something Ln general". It ls an even 1II0re general concept than the

transcendental abJect, for 1n forul1ne lt ve "abstract from everything

that belanes to the fOnll of sensible intuition." The noumenon may

thus be understaod a8 the concept of an obJeot ln general, formed

Wl thout regard to the manner ln whlCh the obJect ml,:ht be apprehended.

rie must nov d1stlngulsb batwaen the posltlve and negative

notlJn q of the nownenon. The dl.fference 15 falrly clear. Understood

nego.tlvely, the ooncept of tne noumenon a "thought".

Understood posltlvely, lt slbl'llfles, or purports to slgJllfy, "a true

Here we have the concluslon of lI.ant 'a critlque of h15 own

Inaugral Dlssertatlon of 1770. Ln that work he had held thaL the

pure ooncepts of the understandlne descrloe noumens, although s1nce

we do not have intelleotual lntul tl.on our knowledge of noumenal

reallty can only be "symboll.c" and not lntultive. He soon came to

see, however, that thls bellef ln an "aocordsnce" betveen our pure

concepts a..nd noumenal obJects vas merely an assumptlon WhlCh had not

been Justlfled. lt vas diffloult to Bee hov lt could be

Justlfled ln a.ny vay st aIl. In the first. Critlque, therefore, he

argues <-gal.nst. the legitimscy of any such sssumptian. The concept

of noumenon, constructed out of a priori oonoepts, oan only be

used 1.n theoretlcal philosoph,y BO long as l t la not thougbt to

slgrllfy actual lntellig-lblè obJeots. This meana, bowever, that 1n

lts leglhmate employment, the oonoept JllU8t on1y be taken

to sigXllfy a tbought - n88ely, the thou(';bt of aa.ething ln genera!.

Tc employ it ln a positlve way wanld be to rayeTt bsck to the UDJusti-

fied assumpt10DS of the Dissertat1.on.

- 60 -

It mieht be obJected to Nhat héoS been sald that Iole have off'ered

t lolO CUl. te diff'erent of the Ul i tsp If, arguing

flrst of' aIl that lt sl.gnlfied the limlts of' our understand1ne, but

then luentlfy1nc i t ri the l.ndeterm1.nate concept of somethl.ne l.n

f"eneral. Thl.S l.S true; but 1.t should not be difficult ta see that

the two 1.nterpretat1.ons are completely complementary. As the thought

of somethlne ln general, the noumenon sl[';Dl.fleS the extreme limits

of crltl.cê..1ly signiflcant thought. It 1'> the most abstré:.ct concept

but nevertheless reta1.ns the alI-important relation to

erperlence wh1ch a10ne can guarantee l.ts crl.tical s1.gnfficance. Any

move to render 1t more "concrete" by relating 1t to a suprasensible

reahty backfiresj for the concreteness of any concept must ah·Tays 4

be a functlon of its relation to the phenomenal world. This 1nter-

pretatiJn of the noumenon complements the first one offered because

the 11m1.ts of crltically significant thought are determlned by, and

really ident1.ca1 to, the 11.m1.ts of our understandine. As Kant

sees 1. t, the 1imi ts of' our knowledge are a f'unction of ",hat we can

mean1.ngf'u1ly thi:1kj this 1s determined by the nature of our thoueht,

\o'.'hlCh 1G in turn a function of' the nature of our understanding.

The might also be raised against the we have

offered that it 1.5 far too sympathetio to Kant and overlooks some

obvious diffl.cul tie8. ';laIsh, for instance, who is himself generally

sympathetic, criticises Kant's use of the distinotion between a

discursive and an intuitive understanding to uphold a distinotion

between the world of appearances known by us and an independently

existine ReaU ty on the following grounds: i) we do not have a

.-----------------___ •••• •• iI.; ••

- 61 -

;oslt1ve notl')n of an Ultuitive understanding, and ve do not even

kno", that 1 t lB possible; ii) any conception we could have of an

lndependent Reality would be of a kLnd WhlCh enabled our discursiv.e

understandlng to 1t; i11) there ls no reaeon to suppose

that what lS k::nO\m. through 1ntellectual l.ntuition lS more "real" or

more it true" than the ,.,orld ".,tlch we know. J

It cannot be denled that these crlticisms do have &. pOlnt; but

lf our lnterpretatian iB reasonable, the problems they need not,

for the most part, be seen as fundamental ta Kant's thought, but

rather aB reldting malnly to inconsistencleB in hlS expositlon. The

first two pOlnts Walsh makes are both made by Kant hlmself. They need

not be taken to undermine h1S position because, as ve have seen, he

uoes not UGe the contrast between & disoursive and an lntuitive

understandine to 6stablish a metaphysical distinction between a world

of the ::;enses and a world of the understanding, but only employa i t

to draw a 1ine between the positive and negative ways of understand-

ine the éoncept of the noumenon. The ides of intellectual intuition

1 s therefore introduced only to establiah a distinction in thought,

"hl. ch Ka.n t accept s cannot be extended The tbird point

.-ialsh nakes, however, is rather more diffioult to &nswer. He vritesl

. • i t ie not clear why we must say that what i8 known in lntellectual intuition ia reGl while what is made out in Judgement ia merely a.pparent. If what va express in the form of judgements could a180 be the subJect of a wholly d1fferent form of apprehension'6that would not make our judgements any the le88 true.

One hf S to concede thut Ul spite of hle crltl0é 1 principles

Y-ênt doee tend to uphold that oid Platonio vay of tb1nking Mhioh

./alsh 1:" here cr1tlclsin Hevertheless, more needs to be eaid on

thl;' 1 -sue, and a number of point:> cr--n be made wh1ch to sd.. erten't

-- ... - 62 - 1

blunt the edge of Walsh's criticism. First of a11, Kant never

really says that our jud.gements are "less true" beca.uee they only

relate to phenomena. What he does Bay 15 thnt our lcnowledf'e 16

ll.m1.ted due to the nature of our understanding, ond is, in this way,

lnferlor to the kind of comprehenslon which an intu1 tive understand-

lng would enjoy. Second ly, KL.nt does have re6-sons ror holding that

noumenal reallty 18 more "real" than the phenomenal world, these

be1.nG of a very tradit10nal order. The "real" la that the existence

of WhlCh 1.8 not dependent upon any-thing other than itsE:lf. In Kant'e

phllosophy, the resl 1s opposed to the "ideel", the existence of

wh1.ch 1s dependent uPon ita bel.ng known. The spatio-temporal world

whl.ch 18 the subJect matter for a11 our non-speculative theoreticai

Judgements ia held to be ideal becauee its existence 1.s dependent

upon us. Now one mi&bt be tempted to say here tbat 1f there are

th1.ng' in themsel vos the,. DlUst a180 be idee1, Slnce they have being

on 1y 1.n consequence of their being intui ted by God (the intul tl ve

\llluerstanding) • Bu.t as we saw eél.r li er , ln inteilectual lntui tion

subJect and obJect are identical; the intuitive understanding,

, /

WhlCh hél.6 a pureLy self-dependent existence, knOWB 1t8 obJects "througb

seIf-ooDsciousness". The Doum.aai reali ty which Gad bolo/s, being

ldentical to the knower, tharat'ore exists in a completely seIf-

depenaent ma.nner. This ie the sense iD whl.ch the nou.eDal worId, ir

it e.:ust8 a1; all, IllUst, according to KaIlt, be consid.ered "r.al" rather

than iGeal.

These cons1deratione 1ea4 us to a turtber poin't which C8Zl alac

be mE-de l.n à.fence of Kazst, but which at the f1&8e t1ae shova ho.

·

- 63 -

:/éolsh' s dissatisfac"tlon la not entlrely groundless. At the hee.rt

of the Critique of Pure ReasOD there seems to b,.a paradox surround-

lng Kant's notion of objectivity. From the transoendental standpoint

our kno\·dedge of the world is said to be only subJ8ctively valid

because the formaI properties of obJeots (appearances), BU ch as

eXlstence Ln time or to oausal law, have their source in

the mind and are not intrinsic features of things in themselvee.

ThlS seems to that if the formaI, as weIl as the material,

features of objecta vere simply "given", and not imposed on the

obJeots by us, our knowledge could then be deacribed as objeotlvely

volid, even from the trEnscendental pOlnt of Vlew. However this is

not, and cannot be, Kant's view; and to think of his Copernican

Revol'Ution in these terms would be to completely misunderatand his

position. In his view, if both form and content were "given from

elaewhere" to a subJect, knowledge would never arise. On the other

hand, knowledge from the transcendantal standpolnt, has

complete obJective 'validlty, - that la, knowledge which relates to

thlnes themselves rather than to appearanoes - recuiras intellee-

tUaI lntuitl0n ln wblCh for. and content (now inseparable) have

th81r source within the subJeot. Thus, the tuDdamental reason that

our knowledge has only subJeotive validity 18, 10 a sense, because

l ta baais ia not wholly subjeotiv., and for Kant, truly objective

knowledge le, in this sanee, entirely subJeottve

his lmaedlate sucoeSGors (ully recognised.

<. • Ect;ypes and Arohetues

8011lething vhich

Havine- loolced at the tI&7 in lIIbioh lUult use. the oonoept of

< •

- 64 -

intellectual intuition to help between the positive and

negatlve ideas of the noumenon it is well, for the sake of thorougb-1

ness, to consider briefly a separate but closely related issue. Kant

occaSHn. lly refers to the humen intellect as "eotypal", while

descri bing the intui ti ve und.r8tanding as "aroh.typal n 1 • Thîs would

seem to indioate that appearances be thougbt of as ectypes, and

things Ln themselves as their archetypes. Bowever, turther consid.r-

at1ün reveals that this Ohn be a and innappropriate way

of understanding the relation betveen them.

The metaphysical distinction between eotypes and arohetypes

has 1ts origin in PIsto's theory of Forma, to which

particulér things in the spatio-temporal world are what they are, and

possess the properties they do, becsuse of their conneotion with the

immutable Forms. Pléto does not specify the exact nature of this

connectionj but on the basis of his aooount one oao point to three

ma1n featurea which oharacterize the relation between eotypes and

archetypesl

i) Eotypes reseable their archetypes.

ii) Archetypes are lDore real than eotype •.

11i) Archetypes are the "cause" of ectnes in th" sense of being

the ground or source of whatever reality the latter may have.

In the Chriotian philosophical tradition leading up to Kant,

the vuestlon of how eotypes to aroh.types beoo.ea the .ore

specifie proble. of how man ie related to the Christian God. Tb_

Ph.tonie dootrine outlined above is retain.d, but in a new OOllt.:rt.

l '

- 65 -

l.fan ia unders'toocl to be a depend8llt being,. oreated b7 Gad in

His OND image, and oCGUp,1ing a lover position on a scale of Nature

Whl ch, among o'ther things, detenaines degrees of reali ty • '!'he

epiBte.ologionl theories of pr ... Kan'tians BUch as Descartes and

Berkeley also a basically Platonic oonoeptlon of the ectype-

archetype relation. Berkeley, for instance, argues that the ide&.s

we have in sensation are caused by God' s i,ieas, the latter are more

real in th&.t they persist independently of us, and hUlllan movledge

ls adeouate, or objeo'tive, because our ectypal ld'"!E:LS resemble their

archetypes in Godls .ind.

Let U8 now oonsider bow Kant conoeives of the distinotion

between the eotypal and the arohet1'pal. In the important letter to

Herz of 1772 he writesl

" ••• the po •• ibility of both aD tntellectus arohetzpi (on whose intuition the thing. the.selves vould be grounded) aud an 1ntelleotus eotyp l (whicb would derive the data for it. logical prooedure trom the aensuous in'tui tion of things) 18 at leari intelligible. However our understanding, through lt represen'ta'tions, 19 no't the caus", of 'the objeo't (save in the case moral enda), nor is objeot the cause the intelleotual representatlone in the mind (in s_su reali) .n8

Here the archtypal in'telleot i B identif1ed vi th the intui t 1 Va under-

standine, and an arohe'tTPal intuition la an Idea through whioh the

abJect is oOlipletel1' oreated (tMa objeot, &s we have seen, being

aotually identical to the Idea). Converse17, an eot7Pal tntelleot

ls one "hich 16 .ere17 atfec'ted by objectsl and eot:,rpal represcta-

hons are ODes whioh are the product of 8uch afteotion, suéh

as our represen'tatiooa ot oolour. which N"e tlbol17 aawous and

eapirical.

- 66 -

The proble. which Kant ia posing at thls point can be summarised

in the f'ollowing way. There la no problem in understanding how an

archetypal intuition (an Idea) muat be "in acoordance" wi th Us

object, Cor the object ia oreated by, and aooording to, the Idea, and

the two are ultlmately identioal. Neither le there ,any difficulty

ln aeeing how eotypal representations must be in acoordance with

their objects, for they are produoed by the object aCfecting the

subJeot. True, the properties of an object whioh produce a certain

senauous representation within the subjeot are of' a quite diCferent

order to the aubject's aotual empirical intuition. We see an object

as red or blue, although the objeot ltself merely has certain

properties whioh oause us to have these intuitions. HOtleVer thls is

not the kind of' "aooordanoe" with whioh Kant ia ooncemed. What he

means is that it neoessarily follows Crom the faot that a ooncept la

empiricaIIy derived that oonoept will be instantiated by oertain

phenomena, if only by those from whioh it was origlnally derived.

Kant takes it to be obvious that none of our representations

create the1r objeota oompletely; our intellect cannot therefore be

thought of as archetypal. In so f'ar as most of our repreaentations

have an empiricai origin, our is eotypal. But lt ls not

.entirely so. The neoesllity of judgellents suoh a8, "every event 18

oaused", proves that the oonoept of oausall ty la not ellplrioall1

derived, and therefore that our 1a not wolly eotypal.

Tet neither 18 the pure oonoept of causality aD arohetypai Idea.

How, then, oan .,. laIow that there 1s a ooof01"ll1 t.1 b.tveen such oonoepts

and the objeots to whioh are applled?

- 67 -

Nearly a de cade later Kant presented his solution to

problem. Since intellect is not intuitive or archetypal, the

assumption made the Dissertation, that noumenal and intelligible . obJects conform to our pure concepts, must be diacarded as impossible

to Just1fy. However it is possible to Justify the claim

phenomenal obJects conform to these pure concepts (something Hume

had, ln effect, denied). For whlle they do not create their obJeots .SJi.I

completely, the cateeories do determine a11 phenomena with respect to

form, and thereby help to organise the material eiven in sensible

intuition in such a way as to make intelligible experience as we

know it possible. justification, however, carries with it the

oorollary that our pure concepts only be imformatively employed in

conJunotion with sensible intuitions. It also reinforoes the oon-

olusion of Aesthetio that the objects we know are only appearances.

Ilhen K[Jlt describes our understanding) aS eotypal, contrast

to God's whioh he refers to as archetypnl9, what he means, tharerore,

is that unlike God we need "images", produoed by or derived fro .. the

affection of our sensibility, in order to generate knowledge. Let us

now see to what e%tent Kant's uae ot the di.tinction between the

eotYP!l-l and the archet.ypal oon1'onas to the traditional (Platonio).

oonception of how relate to eaCh other. As we noted earlier,

i t does aake senae to r.gard nCNaen& as "llore real" thàn pheDOlieDa.

liUrthenaore, Kant otten retera to the world, oonai.t_t17 or

otherwiee, 8S the "ground" or the phenoaenal world. In the.e respeota, . . then, the relat1.on bat_en appearance. and thiR8'S iD th •• el ... oaa b.

said to be siai lar to tbat wh.iob obta1na b.t ..... otnea and arch.t7j)e.

- 68 -

according to the traditional schema. However the traditional

doctrine also involves the that ectypes in some \iay resemble

thelr arohetypesj and thi3 oannot really be a feature of the

relationship between appearances and things. in themselves. Kant

does not hold, even when writlng dogmatically, that there are

lndiVLdual noumenal objects correspondlng to individuai phenomenal

objecta (in the way thnt Berkeley believes there are distinguishable

divine ideaa oorrosponding to the distinct ideaa we percelve in

sense-perception). Nor doee he believe that spatlo-temporai

phenomena are assooiated with noumenal entities simllar to PIato's

Forma. If it were legitimate to employ the oategory of quantity

transoendently, we would have to say that there ia, strictIy

speaking, only one noumenon, and that ia God, who ia (or, if one

prefers, is identioai to) the whole of the noumenal world.

Consequently, the things we know do not, as indivldual things, have

noumenal oounterparts whioh they oould resemble. Berkeley seeme tQ

believe that a blue idea in the mind or a man resembles a blue

in the mind of God. And trom Plato we hear, for instance, that the

Form or beauty must itselt be beautiful. For Kant, however,

appearanoes olearly cannot resemble things in themselves in this

Ir there le to b. a resemblanoe at aIl, it .net be in the ganeral

nature or ot the phenomenal and nowaenal worlda taken aa

oomplete Nholea. Bere Kant doe8 someti.es speak ot a reaemblance

between the law-governed order which oharacterizea both real.s. 'Just

as the pheno.anal world la oharaoter1zed b.1 necessity, being . governed by striot causal lavs, so 18 the noua.nal world eoverned b.1

the lawa aeaSGD, ther.b.J a neoe8sit1 of a dirterent

- 69 -

klnd. In the Critique of Pure Reason, however, Kant is more

concerned to emphasize the complete dissimilarity between the two

spheres.

Neither dose Kant, when he refera tc the human mind aa ectypal

and God's as archetypal, mean to assert or any similarity or '-

resemblance between the two types of understanding. Writing 1.n

response to the ideas of Maimon, Kant

• • • one oannot assume human reason to be of one kind wi th the divine reason, distinot from lt only by limitation, that ia, in degree • • • human reason, unlike the divine resson, must1Be regarded as a f'aoulty o'f' th1nking not of' intui ting • • •

In so far as we are men of knouledge we are not made in God' 5 1 mage •

3. r,ieohan1sm and Teleoloe:.y

Kant'o of' the oonoept of intellectual intuition i8

not, of' course, confined to the firet Critique. In the Dialeotic of'

Teleologieal Judgement (seotidns 69-78 bf the Critique of JUdgeaent),

where he argues for the compatibility of the meohanistio and teleolo-

gical standpolnts, the idea of an inutuitive understandine again

a s1gnifioant role. Sections 76 and 77 are of partleular interest and

relevance. Firat o'f' all, Kant here employa the ooneept to help explain

why we IDUst use teleological prinoiples tchen investigating Nature,

why suoh prlnoiples can only be regulative, and '.'Illy meohaniBll and

teleology need not be regarded as inoompatible. Seoondly, va are

offered a further justifioation of the oonoept, as One whioh WB, or

at least the crltical philosopher, muot necessarily pos..... Third17,

these pat'sages lnfol"lD us tûrther about the exaot oonoeption. whioh

Kant has of the intuitive unclerstandine and Us .ode o'f' cognUion,

- 7') -

particularly wi th regard to the question of neoessi ty and oontingenoy.

FinalIy, these chapters great ly inf'luenced Kant' 5 successorsj

especiaIIy Hegel, who believed that they could demonstrate the

possiblli ty attaining the kind of knol'lledge which Kant asoribes

only to an lntuitive understanding (1e. God).

Before we examLne these issues ln detall, 1t 1a worth

1 Zlng the out lines of' Kant' 9 argument ln the D1aIect1c of Teleological

Judr,ement.

An adequate understanding of a natural phenomenon involves not

only a desoription of its salient oharaoteristics, but also an

8xplanat1on of hOll i t caae into being, and, perhaps, an account of

how it to other Datural phenoaena. For meny of the things

WB d1soover in Nature such an understandinr: oan he gained through

an lnvest1gation guided solely Qy meohanistio oausal princ1ples.

Thus, mowledbe of the natu,re of the planets, for instance, the1r

0:-lg1n, and the reasOD they oooupy the1r relat1ve positions in the

"olar system., oan be attained by them from a purely

IDechanlat1c standpoint .11 How.ver, o.rtiun Datural phenolllena, suoh

as livine organisme, cannat be adequately understood in this vay.

Thera are at Ieast tue. eosent1al chL..racterist1cs of an orgaD-

lSID which, taken together, distinguiah lt frOID inanimate obJeots.

c.) The parte of an organ1.sm can only come to exist, and can only

have the fOnD they do,. in relation to ',the whoie. (An oak leat, for

lnstance, couid not be produced exoept as part ot an oak tr ••• )

b) part ot an organisa, in Hs parUoular fOnl, is both

- 11 -

cause <md effect of the other part 9. (Thus, leaves are produced and

sustained by other parts of the tree, and at the same tlme provlùe

the which 15 essen.lal to the growth of thosa other

parts.1 Thls reolprocal, relation of the parts to each other la Nhat

const 1 tutes the organic unl ty of the whole.

c) j·lost organisms, at least, can reproduce themselves.

The human mind oannot underatand the nature of organio

comblnat1on, nor how lt la that organlsms oould come lnto eXlstence,

from a purely meohanlstio point of Vlew. Nor can lt account for the

remarkable vay in whioh naturai phenomena are lnterrelated, and the

marvellous "balanoe" !lature as 8 whole whl.ch ansuas, W1thout

erplanatory principles of a different order. In order to

satlSty the demanda of Reason for a comprehenslve and unlfied system

of knowledge, ve therefore h&ve to make use of teleologlcni

pI"lnClples and concepts in our study of Nat·ure. In fact, saya Kant,

r'e cannot really be llald to cOgnize an organlsm adeq uately, qua

organlsm, unless ve lmmediately subsume it under a

concept that le, unless we see it from the out set as something

WhlCh ia purposlvely.

That we use teleologioal prinolples, and thst ve feel compelled

to do so, is, saya K&nt, simply a taot. The philosophieal problem

Wl. th respect to snch princlr les le ta determ1ne exact statu.s,

and exp laln how, ond \olt thlD \o,hét limita, they may be legi tl.!Dl1tely

employed. The given by the majorlty of pre-Kantian thlnkere

are unr.at lsfactory , primarlly because they treat the issue

dogmatlcally rather than ori tically. The least tonvinolng of tbese

- 72 -

elther directly or lndlrectly, thE.t Nature can, in fact, be

fully uncierstood ln purely mechenlstic terrnsj hence there i6 really

no need for us to use teleology at aIl. But sinoe it quite

impossIble to prove that everything in Nature can be fully explained

r..nd understood from a mechan16tic pOlnt of view, such VleHS rest on

an unJustifled assumption. Moreover, the descrlption of Nature

ul'derlylng them i8 untrue to human experlence. do not regard

as nothlng more th&n highly cornplex "chunks" of inanirnate

Nature. Our mind iB compelled to subsume them under teleologlcal

concepts: and it incumbent on the philosopher to account for this.

The best of the dogmatlc explanatlons, accordine to Kant, i6

the thelstic account which he terms "hyperRhysical reallsm". This

accepta the need for teleology, attempts to jUBtify our use of

teleologlcal concepts by relating the natural production of organlsms

to a suprasensIble Intellieence (not mere13 a blind force), and

the unit Y of Nature as a whole by the eXlstence of

God c.E its ultlmate ground .. HO\'Iever thlS solution i8 still dogmatic;

for lt asserts, Justification, that organlsms could not

be produced solely by mechanlcal means - a claim which ia aa

Impossible to prove a8 is its contrary. AlI we can be certaln of i8

that the humun mind cannot fully understand Nature from a purely

mechanlstlc standpoint. If Nature were noumenal this fact would be

declsive. de oould then make a vaUd move from the f,· ct that w6 ce.nDot

comprehend aIl of Nature in mechanistic terms to the conclusion that

at least sorne thlngs ln Nature could not have come into existence

throueh the operation of mechaniatio laws alone. But as the \17orld we

experlence is only phenomenal, such a move is illegitimate. It iB not

- 73 -

lllegltlmate, however, to ass.rt that blnce ... e can ooly upd.rstand

the productlon ii.lld nature of orgal1l5ms by see1.n.r them as products of

des1.t;n - and hence a.s depenaent for the1.r e:U3tence upon a supra-

3ens1.ble Intelllgence - we must, ln the end, thlnk of the whole

world ;.s dependent upon a trél.llscenClent ::Jod. Teleoloey thus leads

lnev1.tably to theology, but does thereby fUrtllsh the theolopa.n

Wl th a proof of God' s exl. stenee ..

The raRson why even the better brands of dogmatl.sm fall 15

that teleological concepts cannot be obJectlvely Justlf'led. A

concept like thnt of a natural purpoee 15 not an emp1.rlcal abstrac-

hon. It 1.5 an a prlori con,ept apphed by us ta certa1.n obJecte of

eX)ler1.ence in the attewpt to understand them. But 1.ts employment 15

not necessary lD order for experlence 1 taelf to be posslble. This

13 how teleologl.cal conoepts diff'er from the categor1.es. They do

not make experlence posSl.blej they Slmp ly enable UB to aohl.eve a

more adeouate understanding of thlngs. Our employment of teleological

concepts ia thus necessary only at the level: le. at

the stage- where we refleot upon experience. ;ihen Kant says that,

compared to the constitutive Judgement, the reflective judgement has

"autonom,y" , what he means lS that the subsumption of natural phenomena

under concepts such as that of a natural purpose takes pI2ce

consoiously, whereas our applicetion of the categorles lS unconsciotB.

Consequently, whereas we cannot help but employ the oategories, 'We Il

can, to an erlent, ohoose whether or not to employ teleological l' 1

con cept S (even thougb a refusa 1 t 0 do so would serious l.y hinder our

attempt to comprehend, Nature).

- 74 -

TeleoloeJ-cal princip les differ from mecharl1stlc ones ln a

h!'tber (though rela.ted) way. fuereas mechanlsm seeICs to explaUl

a -henomenon by rel<'.tlnp l t to other rhenomena, teleoloe:; relates

natur-a l :lhenortena to tr:elr --round. : on s eo uen t 1)' ,

,Ince t:.nolooledge of the supréo.senslole 1G l.mposslble.

pnn::lî:"s may only be used ln a reJ7tilatlve way. They c2.n fUl de

:è'.l:- of Nature, but at no :>01nt "re we entltled 1.0

aosert rosltlvel: that such thlne-s ilS organlsms could only be

produced by des len.

The and teleoloe;l.c<..l st.andpo1Dt.s are t.hus a

dlfferent arder; and far from bel.n€, cont,radlctory oan, and do,

supplement each other. Both are lnulspensable 1.0 ua in our attempt

to :>.ch1eve a comprehenSlve and unl.fled system aï knowledge. Because

teleology does not rest on such .? fl1'm philosophical footlng as

mechéo.nlsm, 11.8 prlnClplps belne merely regul"t1ve, the scientist 1a

unùer an obligation to investigate Nature from the mechanlstlc

standpoint to the fullest poss1ble extent, only resorting to the

teleolof,lcal standpOlnt when forced to do so. In this sense,

teleology takes second pl& ce 1.0 mechanism, so far as scientific

methodoloey i8 concerned. Tbe philosopher, however, may view

mechanlsm LIS ultimately subordlna1.e to teleolotQ', and regard the

ope tition of mechanistic laws as merely the means by which God -

the suprasensible erounu oÏ Nature as a whole - achieves His ends. il i 1

One of the virtues of the critical philosophy, which indicates

1.0 Ké..nt the superiori ty of his analysie oÏ teleological judgment

over alternative aocounto, is that it i6 able to SDswer satistaotor1l.y

\ 1

- -

--,ott Jf the folloving Questions:

why 15 the hua&.ll mind led to look at NLture, or at leaot

,art·, of Nature, l.n a t.eleoloe;lc&l Nay (ie. 8S lf they .. ere produced

Our';'OSl va ly)?

111 whJ' cac teleolog2cal prl.Jlclples only heve regulé_ tl. va statua,

and never be granted complete obJect.lvlty?

1'1'.e "ldeallat" theorlee of tbinkers ll.ke Democrltu3 and Spinoza,

""hl r h deDJ' the value or the validi ty of the teleolog1.cul standpo1.nt,

cle .. rly C<>.D11ot an8wer the first ouestion, for they deny the preml.s8

on WhlCh lt resta. For .. alml.lE.r reason, the "realist" a.ooounts

'hylozolsm and thelsm) can provide no solutlon to the second question.

Kant offers answers to both problellls, and hlS solutions ha.ve a

common startlng pOint. Our facult1es of understanding and intu1 tian

are distinct. Particulars are presented to us through sensible

lntu1.tion and subsumed under universal concepts provided by the

understandine. Since our understanding 1s discursive ratber than

lntu1 ti ve 1t cannot completely determine the abJect s it cognizes.

Conseouently, in our cognition of an objeot there is always an

e lemen t (or moment) of conh.ngenoy. From here on, however, Kant' s

treatment of the t,wo problems differs, as the kind of contingenoy

out of whicb they arise is not Duite the same.

Let us deal first with the problem of why, when unable to

understand a product of Nature we try to understand

i t teleologically. Kant' G runa as followB. 12 An organism

1s a whole, the parts of which are combined in < certain way. To our

\,

7

( \

, \.

- 76 -

·.l11cer.,tand1.ng, the 14)' tbe parts of an orl\fUl:ullD are co.binf*d

a "ears t 0 be 0011 t lngent • ie see the complete org8111S. - the Mhole -

.' the conseouence, or product. of the .,arts cOlllbinlong th e,,"ch

omblnatl.On, as the "ground" of' the whole. 3ut we do not se. why

the pé:.rts bave to be comblned 1n the way they é:.re. r&ason for

thlS. of cOUTse, 18 that our understanding, being d1.3tinct t'r01ll our

fé:.cul ty of l.otU1 t10n, lB only able to generate abstr&.ct concepts

("an<ilytlcal UD1versale") which do not fully determine the nature

of the particular3 subsu.ed under9them. Th18 faculty of abstraotion

enableo us to consider the parts of an organi5m in isolation froID the

whole; but it does not enable Us to see them, and their manner of

comnnation, as determined by the who le .

The oontingenoy which we oonfront when we consider an organically

oreanized who1e i3 thuG a function of the way our minds work.

An understandiog which being not like ours, discursive, but intuitive, proceeds trom the Ftthetica1 universal ( the intuition of a who1e as such to the particular, ie. from the whole to the parts. The oontingency of combination of the parts, in order thnt a derini te form of the Ilhole shall be possible, ia not implied by Buch an Wlderstandine and i te repreaentation of the whole .13

The intuitive understanding doea not encoWlter any in the

structure of the object becau."e lta universal "representation" of

the object i8 a completely determinate one. As we sa" earlier, this

can be expressed by sayine that Ha mode of cognition i'3 ideational

rather than discursive.

The hm. ecapl07ed by Kant here

.(

- TI -

m1V,.r5'.l" and "lQ"Iltbetlcal unlversal' _ are perhaps not the beat

Nt.: sh COU:'1 be used ta brinr, out the contrast 1.0 question. The

"!:ynthetical universal" does, to be sure, capture the ide.,.

ln intel1ectu .. 1 intultion the parts of a who1e are cOf,ll1zed

l':!r.lecl1Eitely ln thelr necessary relatl0!'l to that who1e. But Kant la

rea I1J the notion of "synthehc" 1n a way whicb erlenda Hs

,ense beyond thnt WhlCh lt. has in the flrst Cr1tlcue. There, lt

13, for the most part, loterpreted mathamat1ca11y. The 1dea of space,

for lontance, could be considered an example of a rr,ynthet1csl

un1vers<.1; for lt lS oot a universa1 concept under partloular

lnstances fall. Rather:

if we spaak of diverse spaoes, we Mean theraby only parts of one and the same unique space • . • the se parts cannot precede the one a1l-embracine space, aB being, as it were, out of which it can be composrg; on the contrary, they can be thought only as ln i t. 4

f In the DiaIeot1c of Teleologlcai Judgement, however, where the

obJects under consideration are organic combinat ions , the

ln la not mathematicai but In place of Kant's

"analytical universal" and "synthetical universal", Hegel substi tutes

the terms "abstract universal" and "concrete This 1s

undoubtably an improvement, for it points to the more fundamental

characterist1cs of the two kinds of universal which distinguish them

from each other. It is the abstraotness of our concepts which

ensures that the particulars subsumed under them will exhibit a

certain contineency. And it the identity of the Idea and the

object - le. the reality, or concreteness, of the Idea - \ihioh rules

out the possibili ty of an intuitive understandine enoounterin8 such

contineenoy.

- 78 -

Teleolocioal explanatlon is, in a sense, a substitute for

lotellectual intuition. This ia the leernel of Kant's aooount of

why ... e lllUot regard SO .. e things in Nature as purpos1 vell" produced.

The presence of contingenoy represents a limit to understanding.

-:'.) understand a thing fully l s therefore to di vest i t of cont ingenoy.

In the case of organisms, the manner in the parts oombine to

form a whole appears oontingent to our minds. If lofe oould see the

as the BTound of the parts and their manner of combination -

le. if our understanding intuitive - this would not be so.

HOl/ever our minds are not able to cognize things in this way;

moreover, although we oan posit suoh a mode of oognition as possible,

we cannot really coneeive of what i t would' be like to mow things

after this fashion. The olosest we can oome to seeing things in

this way 50 divest the form of an organ1c eombination of its

apparent contingenoy) 18 by regarding the parts of an organism, and

thelr manner of colbbination, as grounded not in the whole but in the

idea of the whole. This idee of the whole 1s then viewed aB the cause

of the whole, and the whole is regarded as an effect. The parts of

the who le, and the form of their oombinetion, 1e s1milarly seen as

belne determined by the idea of the whole. This kind of causali ty,

through which something is determined according to an ides, is oalled

purposive oausslity; for the only way in whioh Iole can conceive 1t

possible that an idea or representation of a thinff be the oause of

that thing, ia by imagining some intent or purpose as it were,

initiates the proceSB whereby the idea i8 realized.

To 8\1111 Upl meohanism alone cannot adequately explain the

\

11lIi!K'''' , T

..

- 79 i \

product i::>n organi sas. To und.erstand how an organisa oould be

produced involves, in ganeraI tenDs, seeing Us parts in their

neoessary relation to the whole, rather than seeing thera as

combined in a contingent way. Lackine intelleotual intuition, ve

can on ly Rohi eve thi s in an indireot way, by regarding the organi a

combination of the parts as eomething which lS detenDined, in the

rtrst instance, 1>7 the idea the "hole - the production ot the

organism representing the intentional realization of thls idea.

Some important and perhaps surprising conclusions can be

dratm t'rom what has been said above. First of aIl, 1t lIay be not.d

that the intui t ive understandine, as oonaei ved by Kant, 18 an und.r-

sté.nding which never .noounters any oontingenoy in the objeot. \ihat

makes this idea surprising is the t'act that, as we saw earlier,

in tellectual intuition is not a priori but empirical.15 To our way

of thinking, of course, the ides that an objeot oould be known in a

purely empirioal way, and yet be thereby divested of aIl cont.ingenoy,

1 S paradoxica.l to say the least. Kant would not disagree. He would

merely point out that our inoapaoi ty to properly comprehend sOlllething

ig no proof of ita impossibility.l6

Ma.y we theret'ore conclude.that, sinoe, an intuitive unders\anding

would enoounter no contingenoy in lta oognition, intelleotual

tion would yield insll.)ht lnto the neoesstty of things (ie.

would enable the subjeot to see both the existenoe and the forlll of

the objeot as oompletely neoessary)? Thore are a number of possible

tor thinking ot intelleotual intuition-iii-this way. First or

aIl, there would se. to be no lIliddle ,-ound, as it were, between

necessity and contingena.r. TbU8 to divest the obJeot ot contingenqy

12 to see it as neoessary. Seoondly, in lntelleotual intuition

subJeot and objeot are identical. Tberefore the absence ot any

contingenoy in the intui ti Va understandlne' s cogoi tion of the ob Ject

that suoh a subJeot MUst its own existence and

nature as neoessary. And this conception of the intuitive understand-

lne aocords nicely with the tr8,fiitional ldea of God as a necesaary

being. Thirdly, Kant ao.etimea remarks that if we could have insight l '

into the noumenal real. we would reoognize a kind or neoessity Which

la of a different order tram the causal necesnity which extends

throuehout the phenomenal world. Given auch insicht, we would see

that things .!!!!!!!i be the way the,. are simply because it ls È!.!!l that

thines be that way. And this" one might assume, 13 how God (tDe

intuitive understanding) comprehends things, regarding

necessary in the sense that they are in aocornance with the lawa of

Reason.

On the other hand, however, there are grounds for rejeotine this

vie,., of intellectual intuition. The conoepts of contingency and

necessity are, after aIl, only ot hum an thought. Anything

"-of which we oan have knowledge, anything of whioh we can even form

an idea, must be thought of, by us, as either neoessary or oontingent.

But this does not Mean that a. different kind otl'Wlderstanding would

thinge to 1taelt' in this way. Furthermore, the idea ot

necessity only has significance where sODle kind of- oontraet with the

idea of contingenoy 1a possible. Thus Kant writesl

l. '

a 11f.'ê' .-:.:;."' •• ----------___________ _

- 81 -

An IlDderstandiDe 1n'to whioh this distino'tion [1e. between thinking and intuUing] did Dot enter at1gbt 8a)'1 AIl obJecte that 1 kilo,",,!!!: le. enst, and the possibllit7 of some which ret do Dot e%181 (ie. the contiogenoy or the con tra8'ted 080e •• Ul of thoAe whlch do enet) mlght Dever come into the repre entation of !Juch a be1ne nt all. 11

Should W8 oODclude from this that l:ant has two dlt'ferent

conceptions of intellectual intuition whioh are incolIIPatible with

each other':' Certainly, he does not state his pooition very oharly.

However 1;t la possible, l believe, ta present his vie'w,- in a way

whioh enable1l us to reoolve this paradoxe

Since wa are concerned with modal concepts, it ia worth

consiùering the cate-gories of modality WhlCh Kant lista in the tiret

These are: pOBsibility-impossibilitYl existence-non-

existence; and neoesslty-oontir.gency. These oategorle3 exhibit

eertaln logieal For instance, ir a thing ia necessary,

i t fo110115 that i t must exist; and t'rom the faet that it exists one

can infer that it must be possible. If, on the other ha.nd, a thing

lB considered only aS a possibility, one cannat infer that it existsJ

nor, from the fact that 1t exista, may one oonolude that it.s existenoe

l S necessary.

Now, our understanding ia ta generate and employ the se a

priori concepts ror the sarne basic reason tha.t it has to construct

empirical concepts: namely, because particulars are presented to i t

by means of a distinct nlculty of intuition (sensibil1ty). The o

unschematized cat.gories mentioned above pnrtially desoribe the

"outUne", as it were, of an objeot in- general, tha.t iEl, oC anything

..

- 82 -

Whlch we m&3 tbink, just ae the 8ohemat1zed categories provtde, ln

part, an out line of a.nything of h'hich we could have experl once.

Between these two sets of limite lie Ideas such as thosi of God, the

intuitive the Boul, etc., which we may th1nk, but of

"'hlCh Ile oan have no experience. If we form a conceptlon of Eln

intui tive understanding, and deolare that nothl.ne appear

contingent to it, we are compelled to conclude tnat it must regard

everything it cognizes ae neoesesry. Similarly, lf we are lad to

believe that intellectual intuition cao only be ascribed to a being . 18 existence ls in no way contingent, then we are foroed to

that it may only be attributed to a being whose existence and nature

are necessary (althoueh, of course, the of necessity involved

may be left undefined). That is how we must conceive of an intuitive

understanding - as a necessary being, conscious of its own necessity.

But such an understanding does not, of course, think as we do;

indeed, 'if one accepts Kant's notion of thinking as .:iscursive r.ctivity,

an l.ntuiti ve understand1ng coulè. not be said to "think" at aIl. It

apprehends the object solely by means of intuition. An intuition ia

a mode of awareness through which a subJect may apprehend particulars

or individuals, but not modalities. Since,in intel1ectual intuition,

there can be no distinction between the ideal and the reel (ie.

between the representation and the thing represented), an

understanding'would have neither a need nor a use for categories su oh

as possibility and impossibility; for it could not represent to

i tse1f a mere possibili ty. It would simp1y say: "AIl objeota that

l know • Similarly, i t could make no use of the distinction

between contingency and neoesaity (concepts which are logically .

- 8) -

connected to those of possibility and impossibility). Necesslty

'Jo ::md C'ontingency cannot be intuited. It woulà simply say: "AlI

abjects that l know The pOlnt Kant 18 lIIaking in the passage

clted above 16 thisl the Judgement that a thine's existence and

nature are necessnry stands as an answer ta a

, uestion whioh an intuitive understanding would never ask. ,

ooncernln.,- possibility, impossibility, necessity or contlneency only

arlse, and only have meanine, for subJeots like ourselves, whose

fLctulties intuition and understanding are distinct.

Thus, to our W8J of thinkine, a subJeot endowed with intellect-

ual intuition must be thought of ae one who, unlike us, could "infer"

necessity from (mere) existence, and eXistence from (mere) possibility.

But such a BubJect, prëêisely because it possesses intellectual

intuitlon, would not, and could not, look at things in this way.

From Kant' s account of why we employ teleoloeical

a further, perhaps surprlSlng, conclusion may be drawn. Strictly

speaking an intuitive understanding would not comprehend reality in

a teleoloeical way. It is tempting, but mistaken to imagine that

y:hile for us teleological concepts and principles have only a

regulative status, an intuitive understanding could confer complete

objectivity on the teleological standpoint. The problem with such

an interpretation is that it overlooks Kant's point that we resort • Ii to teleology bec2use we caJhot know thines as an intuitive understand- 1: ine mit;ht lmow the'm. Teleoloeical comprehension 15, so the speak, a

poor man's substitute for intellectual intuition; for it relates

organic organization to the of the whole rather tpan to the

- 84 -

,.;hole ltself. 19

Let us now look at Kant' s expl[.natlon of why we can only

employ principles ln F\ regulE.tive way.

,le have a priori concepte auch é>.e the concept of a natural

purpose, or the concept of purposive causality. \/e observe Nature,

and lt ctppears that certain phenomena, auch ns are ln

accordance with these ooncepts; that le, they are susceptible to

balne sUbsumed under them. But the faot that this iB so, the fact

that these products of Nature seem to aocommodate the teleoloeical 20 standpolnt, appears contingent to us. .Je cannot explain ho,,', or

prove that, these of Nature necessarily must fall under

teleological concepts. . ... If the ooncepts in ouestlon were emplricnl

thore wouln, of oourse, be no here. But it iR OOV10US that

a concept like that of purposive causality cannot bp empirically

derlved or deduced, since WB never witness the actual operation of

thlS kind of causality. We only have experience of what we take to

be ita effects. Of course the same could be aaid about the pure

concept of causallty which underlies the mechanistio principle'of

cause and effect. However the concept of causality,

though it is a priori and oannot be empirically Justified, can be

justified in a transoendental way. The.Critique of Pure Reason

... ok. to demonstrate 'hat aU objeots of human oxperi.noo mua' fan I! under the mechanistic concept; and this transcendental justification, Il

which assures the concept of its objectivity, at the Bame time proves l'

that there ia nothing contingent about the aocordance between it and

•

..

. '

- 85 -

the we encounter 1.n experience. However,1.t 15 1.mposB1ble

ta praye 1n a similél.rly transcendental way that all phenomena, or even

a certa1.n class of phenomena, must neoesBar11y accora w1.th the concept

of purpos1. ve causali ty .

There are two possible explanat10ns of the fact that certaln

abjects (V1Z. organisme) oan be sc readily subsumed under teleolog1cal

concoepts. they really are the products of design, in whl.ch

c .. se the acoordanoe between concept and obJeot ls - though we

Mot prove thi s - not contingent. Or thE'y are not produced

dPQiO'ledly but merely appear ta be 90 produceà, ln which case the

foct they are susceptible ta subsumption under teleologlcal concepts

18 pure chance. The problem, says Kant, ls th<;>t ,,.,e c&nnot concluslvely

declde \.h1Ch of these alternatlves- ls true.

characteri '7,es the accordance between organic Nature and teleoloe1Cél.l

concepts 18 irreducible:

. • • and i t i s thi s contingency' that makes' i t sO hard for the understanding to reduce the manifold of Nature to the unl. ty of kno, ... ledge .21

The knot oould, of oourse, be eut by a dogmatic affirmation of

one of the two alternatives stated above. Kant reJects su ch a move,

however, and argues that in our attempt ta understand Nature

we should, for assume that the accordance

between the organic of Nature also Nature as a whole)

and our teleological concepts is not due merely to chance. This

preference for the "realist" flternative is not arbitrary. For

"lhile i t cannat be proved that everytbing in.. Nature oould not have

been produced solely by me8Da, it be proved that the

l'

"

- 86 -

human mind cannot fully comprehend Nature from a purely mech,ln19t1c

standpolnt. Given that we committed to achleving a comprehens1ve

,,-nti un1fied system of knol-lledge, lt 15, therefore, both nece3s'.ry i'

.nri reasonable to adopt the teleoloC1cal perspect1ve at that ;Jolnt '-

where the of Nature from a purely pOlnt of

Vlew ceases to be fru1 tful. In this 'way, teleolot-:1cci1 pr1nclples

c ,n be granted regulative utl.lity \Hthou"'.; lt ever belne necessary to

lnto dogmat1sm by afflrm1nè the1r obJectlve validlty.

Once aea1n, a full understandl.ns of Kant's argument reCUl.res

a comparison between the human coglll.tlve :31tuntio'l'pnd that of the

1ntultive understand1n5. The reason prinG1ples can

only be allowed status the accordance between

teleological concept3 and thelobJects WhlCh are subsumed under them

'-;Jpears contlneent to UH. ThlS lB due to the fnct that our concepts

are .-::.bstrr ct unlversals, and therefore do not cOPlpleteLy Lietermine

the obJect. In contr8st to t!1l'3:

• we can think an lntu1 tive understanci1ng, WhlCh does not proceed from the univerBal to the part1cular and so to the lndi vidua l (through concept s). For i t tha t cont ingency of the accordance of Nature in its products accordlne to particul;;.r lawB wi th the understand1ne \..fould not be met Wl.th. 22 J

One should not conclude from tbis, nOHever, that intellectual intuition

would enable the subJect to adopt the teleological standpo1nt with

complete, non-regulative, assurance. it i5 the encounter ,

with contingency, owing to the discursive nature of our understandiRg,

which prevents us trom granting teleol-ogical conoepts anything beyond

•

Il

- 8ï -

a merely regnlati ve statua. But as ve sa" above, it i s for il very

Slmllar reason that ve are led to construct teleologl ca1 concepts

ln the flrst place. Intelleotual lntuition would therefore not

Slm!"'ly remove those oogrll.tlve l.l.M1tatlons which force us to postt

pr1nciples in a merel,y b3'potbetical or regulati v e vay; it

\ioule. dlso obviate the need, peculiar to the hUJD8ll mind, for teleologr.

1

\

---/ ,

/ /'

.

1.

2.

3.

4.

5.

b.

7.

8.

9.

10.

Il.

12.

n. 14.

15.

16.

- 88 -

lotes to Three

le. Cri'tiC'ue of Pure Reason, A248-256-B305-312.

Ibid., A249.

1!?.!.!! ., A2 52 •

Ibid., A253.

Cf. walsh, 's Cri tlcism of Metaph,ysics, pp. 164-5.

Cf., tor instance, his htter to Herz, Feb, 21, 1772, Zweig, p. 7li a180, Crltique of Judeement, pp. 256-1.

Letter to Herz, Feb. 21, 1772, Zweig, pp. 71-2.

ct. Critioue ot Judt:eaent, p. 251.

Letter to Berz, May 26, 1789, Zweig, p. 156.

This olai. ta, however, subjeot to certain qualifications. Fir8t, s1noe a complete understanding of any part or nature would i.nvolve a description ct ita relation to the whole, and sinee, in Kant 'a view, nature as a systematio whole cannot be understood (by us) trom a purely •• ohanistte point or viev, U lIOuld seem ta toI ION tha't the mechanis'tic approach oan Dever provide ua vi th a truly thorough underatanding of any part nature, regardless of whether or not i t ia orga:nie. Seoond, ail Rehrland sqal "by proving that the oonceptual qs'tem vhich justit1ea New'tonian mechanios neoessariq appl1es to nature XsDt did Dot prove that It wa. the 0Il17 coneeptual qstem possible ter \lS • • • we are t'ree to adopt IUQ' _thodologioal principl. •• _ l.ike in approaching nature, but the only prinoiple. which wUl result in objective (ie. pnuinely theore'tioal) e%plana'tiolle are the lIIechanioal principles fOUDded on. the oa'tegories." (J. D. loParland, kant'. Concept ot 'l'eleoloQ (UniverSity or Bdinburgh Press, 1910} , p. I2O.) ,.

Cf. Cri 'tique or Judpent, pp. 255-260.

Cri tique ot JUdgelien-t, p. 255.

Critiou. ot Pure a.Baon, A25-B39.

ct. Prolepea.a, Seotion 9, p. 38.

ct. Pro lesoaea.a, Sec-t ion 51, p. I11.

- 89 -

I7· Critique of JUdgement, p. 251 (itaUos mine).

I8. Cri tique of Pure Reason, B72. -I9. It 18 worth noting that these oonsiderations .ight throw some light 011 Begel's thinking in his Phenoa_oloR ot Spirit. Begel is COllllllon13' tor attemptlng to oonter neoessitl" on wha:t h oontingent. Be 1s also aocused of treat1.ng hi." in an illegi timately teleological atanner. Bowev4tr, given that in the Phenomenology Hegel 18 trying 'to demonstrate the possibil1tl", for man, of that ltind of oomprehension whioh Kant believes to be possible on13 through intelleotual intui tien, the validity of these and ai.ilar critioisms ia questionable. liith regard to the tirst point, Hegel oould well argue that 1t rests on a dogmatio assertion of an unbreakable oonnection between the eapirioal BDd the contingent. What he 18 tt71.ng- to do is not deduoe a priori what o&Il CIlly be known .lIpir1cally; for through inteUeo'tual intuition everything Is cognized ln an empir1cal vay. Rather, he 19 attellpting to show, contra Kant, how the h1Ul&D a1Q.&is capable ot divestint; of Us ccmtingency that whioh h kndIIP 8IÇirioally. Wi th respect to th. question

\ of whether Hegel 's out look ahou1d be claesif'ied &s t.le010«1oal, this .a.ch at l ... et oan b. said. If' Hegel is indeed tr;ying to d_OIllJtrate th. pOllsib111ty ot that kind ot kIlovledge which

aoeredih to th. intuitive underatanding, and 1f he bas aaal1111ated what Iant 8&7e in the nialectie of Teleological J'udgeaent, then there are good grounds tor believlng that he himeelt would dispute idea that h1s system oan, atl'ictly speald.ng, be de .. cr1bed as teleolopeal. It would OIlly appear th1s -7 to one who _s not a Hegelian.

20 • One lllight r.asOIl&blJo q u • .,Uon whetber th. two ldnda ot oOllt1D.gena;y, tih10b have beel1 1de1lt.ified partly tO faoilita"e the cl:iscusa1011, ara, ultimat.ely, so very ditterent. On [ant's theor'7 ther. 1s al_ys sOlle oontingen07 in eXperianoe

becau •• the eategor1ee, whioh .e.ke exparience possibl., are abriract. !'he Ideaa ot aeason represen" a theoretieal q8t. vh1ch serYas 1:0 reetrlct thls oOlltingenq. However, thie qs't_ ot 1deaa is sUll oonstruo'ted b7 us, and. oodd., 'therefore, b. difterenU". (at 1ea81 in prinoiple). COIlsequea'tq, b7 relat1ng the wor1d experianee 'to thes. Idea. we do not so wch overcoae the problera of eOll1:1ncen07 a. reaov. i t œto a dift.rent level.

2I. Critique of Jwteellent, p. 255.

22. Ib14., p. 254.

f

-90-

r" !ntelleotul Intui tiCll BDd Praotical aeasœ

So tar lie have oODllidered the idea ot iDtelleotual intuition

rqainly in a theoretical rather than practical oonterl. However, i t.

signifioanoe tor Kant ia not oontined œly ta speculative

In the seoOl1d Cri t,i..gue he Nri telll ;\ :Pl

It we 1Iere .-j;ble an iDtelleotual iDtui tien CIl the saae subjeot Ina. lI8D aa agent ... wuld then d1aoover that the entire ohain ot app.araDce., vith retereno. to that whlob oonoerna onl1 the .oral lav, depende cm the

ot the subjeot aa a thing iD itaeU, tor the determination ot which no êxplanation C8ft be gtven.I

In other vorda, 111I10e i.Dtelleotual intuition 1'181dll a mowleclge ot

the noumena1 world, and sinoe this world ia the renl .. ot t'reedo. and

reason, an intuitIve intellect wonld be oapable ot that in.ight into

the real .oral oharaoter ot huaan behaTiour whioh, acoordiDg to Kant,

we 0811 never have. It wou1d,iD taot, oonB'titute speculative mo"le.

ot the praO'tioal reala. It tollon t'rom thia that the ot

tnteUeetual intuitiOl1 la 010 •• 17 tied to the poslibility there

being BD und.rlying m:1 't7 'bet .... the theoret ica1 and the praot1oal,

the nou.enal aad tbe pbeDOIIenal, treed.oe ad neo.sai t7. Thi. lari

olaill, hovever, ha. to b. understood oar.t'ully. Giv .. the lillitations

ot th. h1UllUl und.ratuuUng, as oODoeived b7 Kaat, 1t 111 not possible

tor us to be theor.Uoally oertain ot ",en the 1 ...

a100e the basio unit, ot, tor instanoe, tre.dOll aad Deoe •• i t7. Ali

that oan b. d .. onatr,ted 18 that they are not n.oe..-aari17

incollpatible. Ta put thi. in .. lIOI"e geeral th. critique ot Î

''1

,1

- 9I-

Pure ReQson tells 'WJ that _ have no reason to suppose that the

(natural) world in whioh Ife live is not oonduoive to the reaUsation

our moral aima. ICaDt 18 avare, ho".ver, that while woh a

conolusion satiaty the philosopher ii will appear quite

Inadequate to the en.tenUal agent. In the seoond Critique he

ther.tore argues that the oonduoiveness the Datural world to our

moral aspirations "Ill b. positivel.y not tor theorettoal

reaSOD8, but on praoUoal grOUDds. tntimateq, what thb meazlS is

that laDtiBD uraUt1 ia only posBible on the basts taith iD God.

Onl1 throUBb a beUet iD the existeno. of Ood 08D we render

oOlllprehenaibl,. to ovs.lve. the idee tbat th. DOWIcal world Uld

This 40 •• Dot _ ... , hOveYer, that Oocl - the iDtuitive understudiDg -

ha., iD addition His "bowladp ot the ... l .orlel, insiaht

1nto DOUIDeDAl r ... 11t7, and oa.preh8llù th •• both ail œaited in Hi_

OVD beins. '!'he pheDouaal world t. Dot 'iapq th. wor14 whioh 1.

m01l1 b7 u. (1 •• 'th. ha.Nl nbject), it la the worlel .!.! lt 1. mo.

117 ua, and ls, h"oII th. 't.raa_oelldental at8lldpoint, ideal - ie. a

t'unoUOft our oopiti". oondltuUon. 1aD't 401. aO't, ther.tor.,

uni t,. nCMmena _d or trNd_ ad. n.o ••• i t7. Hi. 01&1_

i s rather that OIlq 'b7 .... the oaaoep't 0' Ni iutui ti ....

und.rataadiDg oan n arrive at a po.itl .... id.ea ot tbi. uniq (a.

oppo .. el to th. "'11 a.pti .... idea 0' their poe.lbi. 0GIÎpa"ibillq).2

Thi .. b 1Ih7, ln th. OOII"ext ot 'the thiri antiqu., b. de.OriH. tb.

id.a aD iDtuiti .... a. -,..d-_tal-.3

'11'

'! . . " -.a. . .

t

, \ V

., '

• - 92 -

l • The "Pact aea8on"

It 18 ad_iable that there are a alti tud.e problems and

paradoxe. inher_t iD Kan't'II lItoral philosopQ and lINq if Dot 1II0et

the.e probleas have received attemtion trom varioue critio. and

oommentator.. Soae of these critioi8IBs relate priaarlly 100

Inadequaoie., inOOll.irieaoie. and iDvalidi tie. vhlob are, SO 100

speak, lDternal to bat ' •• thical theoI'1. Other problellls, however,

have their .ouroe in hi. speculative dootrines, or, .ore preoi.el1,

in the tension between hi. theoret1oal and praotical

And ot thi. latter kind proble., the d •• pest aad .oet general are

ultilllate17 traoeabl. to hi. rejeotton of intelleetual intUition as ,a

possible 80de ot o08l'dtlaa. for the human subjeot. Por tro8 thie 110 /

apparent17 -M}ove tbat _ oamaot DOw whether '" are rr.e, nor oaD --we be theoretioal17 certain that ft are boand b7 the 1101'&1 la1l, ner

.-oan we ."sr 1Iak. a oonolus1 .. e .-n.luatlcm <at tbe theoretioal 1 .... 1)

ot th. lIOral worth ot our aotione. ID r.jeotiDc the poss1bllU, ot

"

1ntellectual intuition thereb7 rejeote th. po_il.iliV ot

geDutne .elt-Jalo.ledp. ft. èJD17 kiDd ot •• he

aval16.ble to 1111 1. the tind wh1oh, aooorcliDB to hi8, i.

lar .. lrrel .... t 100 aoralit7. '!h. dittioul't7 he tb_ taoe. t. tG

explata h01l, aa4er ftoh eaaditlœ., .-raliq (as oOlloeivecl b.J bill)

1. po •• lbl. at all.

Ki. poattiOD 'be O'IltUll.d •• 1"0110_. \Ile bave, he .., ••

noa-•• _ible awaren ••• or oOD.oi .. e •• ot AIl obliptl_ 100 -ct . aooord1nc 100 the 801'&1 lAur. fta.lll le • "tan re&eOD,,4 1dlioll 1.

qui te UIllque lillel 1IDlit. IIIQ' ot the other or aotivi 't'l ••

..

93 -•• , IUld tlai .• auet serY. a. the ba.ic UpOID

which a, .oral has to be oonstruot.ed. &o,""e1", our

recosnit1on ot the ob11gatory power of' the aoral' law ill not a part

ot our speculative or theoretical knowledge., but .ere17 oon.tUut ••

what Kant calls "praotioal knowledge". For _ile our bel1et' tlult

the moral la" ia billding on us 1s inescapable at the .:d.stenti'al

level, th1s .ue beliet, who arti01llated as a theoreticel propos1'tion,

clear11 presupposes 1I00001ihing whioh proved at the theore't1oal

level: n_eq, the of the Moral obl1gation CM

.rtend to fr.e apnta who oan choolla bel"eD alternative oourae.

a.ot1.on. Th.retore, althOUBh we "7 be ooa.oiou. of' b.ing Wlder .oral

obligation (or eYen ot be1ng t'rea), we oannot, strictly

apeak1ng, 15!!.2!! that the la" 1. bincling on unle.. we oan be

theorreticalq oertala that we are in l'ree. Acoording- to hAt,

ho,,",".r, . 'thi. kind of' o.rtaint7 1. 110,", pOllsibl.. The oonôep,", 'ot

rr •• dOll oaa be justif'ied llept1veq, on tho 8Z"O\1Dde that .:triot

oausal Ileoeasity i. only mOMll 'to obtain in the world ot appearUl9 ••

8114 .0 .. y not enelld. to th. 1l0000000ai r .. l... But a "pOli! t1 ve à_aept"

h •• do. - which N'OlIl4 .. ble 118 to 1Uld..rriand the 1"_1 DA'tur.

rreedo., and 110 Ialow- 1;bat our OWil will 1.8 tr .. - oould, in EaIlt t. "-

vie .. , on17 'b. arrived. ., b7 ..... ot an tnte1.1eotual in'\u1:t101l.

SiDc. ... do not bave "hi. kiAd ot i".i.pt bDt oDllolu4 •• tba't, lt 1.

ll1po •• 1ble tor ua "'ft' ",0 Jalow. in the tull (i •• apeoulatt".) • __ •

tba1. th. aoral la. b1Dd. ua.

If. lNet ooat .. " with a ratioaal17 .crawacled hf.'tb ,:ln tr ......

i..or:\ali't7, an4 the ed.llteao. of God. SUob a tat'ÜI oaa 'De OCIIIÛ .....

'. , 'j

- 94 -

our •• of aohl obligation, vhioh would O'therwise have to

be regarded &-. Ii! bizarre .piph.nOllenOD, a .. ere etf'eat ot phenomenal \1

causea, laoking IIIQ' real lIeaniDg and sipitlcant onl.y aa a "S)'IIpto.t" ..

Secondly only throup the adoption 0'( thla t'aith ia i t poseible to

OOllstruct a oo.p.reha.lve qs't_ which en ... da ov.r both the th.oret-

ic::al and the praotioal dOllain., and provide. an aooount ot .an as

bo'th mOwing subjeot aad .oral &pIlt. In JCantlnn it la

"iD the iDtereri __ ot R .... to t'ol1ow thls l'ath. 'l'hi rd ly , sine.

this taith Dot on17 at't'ira. the objectiv1t,. ot the .oral la .... but &'1.0,

at the existential 1 ... 1, atr-cthens our moentiv ... and,

to act aooordiac to the lav, 'th. adop'tion of the talth la lt.elf a

aoral17 oorrect aet - and bello. ratioealf

. Suoh ie K.aD.t'a O'Y.rall poBitiOD vh1oh, to & «I" ... t ext_t, 1e

Iln. th_at at cm. point iD hia aoral philoaopb!7 he 4esorib.e .000eth1.Da wbich COla •• 010 •• to aa &Il 1llte11.otual intuition OQ th.

pàrt of th. huaB,ll II11bjeot.. !aIl1; ùaoribeo our OOl1ciCNSDe.s ot the

IIOral la ..... "DeR an .-p1rlcal fOaet, but the aol. t'aot ot pu:re J:ea8Oll".'

While this doe. Ilot t.ll ua & ... t d.eal, it clMa 1Dd1cate the

UIli'luea ••• of thi. "tao1;" 1 for what EaDt •• ..., to 'be desoribiDg i.

an i_ed.iate, ,.et nCID-aeasibl. .ode of _..arene.a, a Jdad of apprebea-

Î'

, '

aion whioh 1 .. nei ther " proo ••• ot thouaht, Ilor a t'cnw of' iDtrollJ)eo'tlOD t L ('througb 'llhioh Ne would senllibq intuit our phen ..... al lIel ..... ). Bor

18 this 'th. only WI&7 lD Mllob thi. "t'aGt. ot rea •• tt ia QlÜQ.ae. It ia

q1Ü te po.sible to Kant •• 'tbat th. lav ha. objeoti ....

J

..

95--

vali.dit 7 b.ca1l8e it i. iÇos8ible tor the abjeot to beoOlle oOllsoioua

ot i t RDd not be obligecl' b.Y i t. In other )tOrds, hu.ving the idea ot

the la" _tails the objecti'rit,. ot the la". 'l'be sill1larity betwe_

thi. and "at Kant clescribe .. as the oonstitutive eaplo;raent ot the 6

Id80s ot pure r •• aOll should be apparent. Moreover, Kant never tire.

ot expla1n1.D6 that th. moral lav 18 not iaposed upon us in the

that th. oont.t ot the .... 1told ot .ensibl. iAt1ÜtiOft ia. "81. .... " to

USJ 1t ha. U. souro. ln aeaeOD, and th.retore in ua, qu ratlC1D&l -. b.1Age.

!he_ ocaai.ûn-liaea, t-..a topt.ber, IfII*ld ._ to proYid.

acr. thall' -'llot._t tor OCIDol11AU.IlC that th. "t'act fd r ... oa"

- our OOD.oi.OQ •• a. ot lIOral obl1gatioq. - 00II-"'1 tut.. an innano. o't

int.ll.ot1l&1 iAtuitiOD. ft1s, a't l_at, wafl the vie. ot Iaa't '.

the philoaophioal AIlcl h1sterical .ipi'tlcaao. ot ICant '. "adai.aaioa."

1t la wortb looki ... brl.rq At ftobt.'. r8çODSe ta th. probl_.

tbe Nee or ww1!c!e l'lOIR ..... twc 01-1_ tllûola, _

U. "".0 •. appMr to 'lte G;ut. ta the GDe baa4 Ile

u .... that tnt.l1eOtqal ut1l1tlcm __ lie tb. -tari1Dc ot àl1 ,..

paw" •• (1 •• itleali-t) pbilollOPl9- .lad. _ tH otber kaacl be ... .

tbat hi. qat. "i. per"eot17 ia aooordMaoe vith the teeolli .... ot

lant. Mcl la llothlDr ether thall ICaatiaa1_ propv17 lIDMrzo ... ood. ... 1

)

- 96 -

1Jl'tUi:t1on, acoordl'ng to J'1oh'te, can ooeur iD two

1) ae the prlaordial .elt-assertion ot the selt vhioh ta the

tuncla8ental concl1tlàD ot all experience. Thi. orginal aÇ't ot gelt-

cODsoiousnees, whioh tor Fichte 18 also an act 01' aelr-creation,

never ooours 117 i'tselt "ln laolatio'l, as a ooeplete aot or 8.11'-8 oonsc10ulmess", but 18 al.ays aooOllpan1ed bl' sensible tntu! t1on, _cl

bl' represeD'tations which th. subject thinks up in the proo.as ot

settiDC hi.selt goals. ()Qr Idea ot Roh l\Il Act can th.-retor. oa17

be arriv.d at b7 ab.traotion. "e.erih.le.e, .iDee it i. a Deoe ... l"7

oondJ. tl0D ot els. whiah b. pr.SeDt in or to 00l1sc1088ll •• a,

th. OODo.p"ta ot s.dble iAtui t1011 01' ot an;, oth.r Jd.Ad ot repre •• ta-,

tioa Ar. abstractions.

11) ae philoeopher'. introspective insigbt iuto othis priaordial

aot 01' 1Iltelleotual iDtu1t101l. '!'hi. inai_t, eq. ptch"t., oan 'he

aahl ... ed in the tI&7. :Ie retlect on the clifferance bet .. _

a suooeslJioa ot representatlon. whloh Ne p.seively "recel .... " (e«. tho ••

«iyea to ua 1Jl eene_percep"tiont, and a suacee.ion ot

iD Idû ob .,. ttrd 4.oid. to of soaethlftB, and then thiDk 1 t • ) . 'rh. 41I't.r.oe U •• iD the l'act tbat in the s.oond cas. the repre. __

ts the sroua4 ot the .e00ll4. Th. question nov ls. .œat just1t'i •• ua

111 A •• erU.!I« that pr.oi •• !!!!!. i. ihe ditt.r_oe be'twe. th. -tvo

ca ••• ? Acoorcliq to P1oht. th. only j1lstltloatlO1l po •• lbl., aac1 the

onq one ne08e.&.I7, i. th. that iD th. s.oOllld Oio.. IN bave IID

lntuJ:tlon tr •• 408, or, .ore apec1tioal17, the power ot l're.dOla,

_lob h. 4 •• cri.be. aa "u 1Iltuit1on ot sluter aotiYit;r, Dot st.otto, bmt

a .tter ot axiat_ce bu' ot 1i1".-. 9

-91-

1 AUhough li. can diriiDguish between "pri.ordlal" and "phi losopb-

ioal" intelleC'tual intuition, lt woulù be laialeadine to regard tb_

a8 tvo different Jd.nds of ac't. The latter is really only the former

brought to cODsciouaess by :l tree- act. For tbe original self

lnt.lleotual intuition is an for the philosopher it 18 a

of consciouaness - but ane whicb must be uncovered by an aot of

treedom. ID this act Bubject and obJect are identioél, .oreover,

they are notbing tbis act. We do not, here a

subject and &Il obj.ct lillkecl by an act knowing, but just one aot,

or actlv1t;" Mbich is .iJnll:' ... aU tbr.e.

th. Science lDo"'l.4p, al:thoup it reris equarely on tbe ide. that

the hu.aa aiad 1. oapabl. btellecillAl 1Dtui tion, la neverib.-le ...

"Dotbing o'th.r tun Kaa'tiaai_ properq UDclera'tood".

:1) ft. oOllcept ot tatell.atual iDtui tiœ whiah t.at11r.s in the

Sclenoe ot bowlew, is dif'f'.rent l'rOll that vith whioh lCaut worka.

li) rant:1n aùd.t., albei't iaplicit1:r, the pO •• ibilit;, ot

Hi) Iant 'a philo.opJb- requir •• that th. huaan llind be capable ot

bt.llecillAl iDtui tiona theref'ore h. cnydIt to have allovecl 1 t to be

p08rible, it -17 tor the aake ot condateDOY.

:11 th re.p.ct to the f'irat of th... &S"l\1IMIIt., .... t ftoh'te aq.

la uncClllviDC:1Dg. U. points out tba't, unl1ke bat, h. clo •• not

- 98-

concel Ve int.llectual intui tion as a IDOde of cogn1 tion through

which the thing in !tself oan be ICDown; fqr he elllphatioally reJeota

the very notion the thing in itself' as "a wraith whioh when

ve try ta th1nlc i t, and d.serves not even a name". 10 Nor does he

restriot the capaoi ty intelleotual intuition, as K'..nt does, to

God aloue, but grants 1 t te every free eubJeot. tillat 1s to be

noticed here, though, 1s that these are rather inoidental, secondary

or aspects the ooncept. As we have sean, for Kant, as

weIl as for Fichte, inteUectual intuition is the pure, free, sel1'-

aotivi ty of a. subjeet (the subject being

nothing but th1s very act1vity). And these are the more sign1f1cant,

def'ining marks of' the conoept.

The seoond the above arguaents need not greatly cone.rn us

here. Certaillly there are ,ocoasions when Kant seellls to concede the

posl!lib1l1ty of intellectual intuition to the huaan subjeot. For

1nstanoe, in the Critiaue of Pure ReasOll he writes,

14an • • • who lalovs the rest of nature solely througb. the sense., kDOW8 billle.lf also pure appero.ption, and this ind •• cl iD acts and irmer determinations which he oazmn ,reprd a8 iapre.sions of the senees. He is thus to hi .... on th. one h&Dd pb8lla..D&, &Dd OB the other hand, iD respect certain the action of which cannot be ascribed 100 the receptivity of" seDsibility, a purely intelligible object. ll

Furtheraore, th.re is a clos. sillilari"ty b.tveen Ka.nt 'a idea or pure

apperoeption and Fichte 's notion of inteUectual intuition as a

prillordial self-assertion or the ego. It 1a perfectty possible,

howeTer, to view statements such as the one oited ab ove as inoonsis-

tencies in Kant's presentation rather than as state.ents of' his Ureal"

position. Oonseouently. this issue is really reduoible to the auenion

-

99 -

of whether or not Kant oUgbt to have positively affirmed a human

capacity for intelleotual intuition.

In the Groundwork Kant wri tes:

By thinking itself into the intelligible world reason doe9 not overstep the limits in the least: it would do so only it 90ught to intuit or feel itself into that world. l

Now as we have seen, in the second Cri tique Kant geems to come olose \

to these self-preaoribed limits when he posits the non-

sensible awareness of moral obligation as "the sole fact of reason".

The mystery which surrounds the statua of this "fact" - that i8,

Ké..nt' s apparent tailure to speoify the mode of cognition through

whioh we apprehend our obligation under the moral law - may reasonably

be regarded as indicating a certain disaatisfaction on Kant' spart

wi th the implications which his theoretical philosophy has for the

stbtU!'! of moral JudgementD. The problem, stated simply, ia thisr

wi thout intelleotual intuition we oannot lmo\-! that we are free; but

moral obligation ean only have genuine sienificanoe for free agents;

how, then, can we be sure that the moral law applies to us? The

philosopher oan perhaps afford to be satisfied simply with demonstra-

ting the possibilit;y that tle are free, and ,dth showing how the

assumption that we are indeed t'ree and are bound by the moral law

makea possible a comprehensive s,ystem whioh la able to give an aooount

of man nS both oogni tive subject- and practioal agent. But to a man

actue.lly engaged in the world, confronted with more.l issues and

strugglin{!" wi th <,onorete existential problems, such considerations

a.re of li ttle oomf'ort. If moral aotion, BS Kant oonceives of i t,

i9 to be more than merely theoreticc:.lly possible, a f'irmer, mo:r:e

1 "

- 100 -

relevent basis i8 rec.uired. i8 proviaed, Kant beheves, by

what he OE.lls "the fact of reélson". ;lithout <l "positive ooncept"

of freedom we can have no certainty W1 th respect to

moral Judgments. 'le cL.-n, hOllever, have may be called existential

certainty. Our awarenes<,; of moral obheatic1n 1<' Iolhich Kant

takes as given. At the level of theoretl.Cé' 1 phllosophy one cannot

rule out the posslbl.lit;; that th1fl "feeling" is a mere phenomenon,

the effect, perhape, of complf'x causes which thour;h unknown are not

unknowable, and coule, for instHrlOe, be broueht to light by Freudian

SCl.ence. But at the existential level, thls possibility l.S ruled out;

for the l.mmediate apprehension of the moral law wlth It, or

rather entails, the recognition of the law as bl.nding.

:.. Kant therefore avolds invoking an intellectual intuition on

which to eround his pracHcal philosophy by appealing to something

which mél.y be considered analogous to an lntellectual intui tiQn (the

"rer;.li ty" of moral obligation being brought about by our "idea" the

same). However, in doing this he pa,-s a priee Io.'hich ln Fiohte's view

i s unacceptable. There is an evident lack of unl. ty between his

theoretical and pra.ctical phi losophy. They are conotructed on

different tirst principlesj their conolusions a.re not of the seme

order; neither ia entailed by the other. And although they are

intended ta offer an account of different aspects of the same subjeot,

-.n, in actual fact the lcnowl.ng subject of the first Cri and' the

moral agent of the second Cri tique seern to be qui te different

indi viduala.

Il! 1

- 101 -

It i5 in order ta avercome this unsatisfaotory state o"f

affairs that Fichte affirma the possib1lity of an intellectual

1ntui tion wh1ch oan provide the common foundation of both theoretical

and practioal plu losophy. To a great extent his procedure is, as he

" says, der1ved from Kant. For instance, the thougbt experiment

wh1ch Fichte uses to ee-tabl1sh the fact that we oan intellectually

intu1 t our own freedom would seem to be suggested b7 the t'ollowing

passage 1n the Groundwork:

• • • the distinction between appearances and things in themselves May be made merely b,y noting the dif"ference between ideas given to us trom vi. thout, we ourse Ives being passive, and thoae which we produce from

and so manifest our OWD aotivity ••• 13

Acoording to Fichte, rerlect10n upon this d1fference enables one to

1dentify, through intellectual intuition, the power of t'reedom

10'1 thin oneself, manifesting i teel"f as "sheer, dynamic aetivi ty"

(the self anù its freedom being Dothing but this setivity). Here

again he is following Kant who writes:

• as regards whatever there may be in him r- ie. manl of pure aetivity (whatever comes into COD8ciousness immediahly) he IllU.st coant himseit as belODging to the intellectual world • • • 14

To sOIIIe e%tent, ot oourse, F!ehte's account involves a reversaI

of Kant's position. Kant had argued that sinee we are

aware of the moral law, we have te assume that we are t'ree, although

we cannet prove this at the theoretical level. For Fichte, however,

intellectuai is, a.ong other things, the Immediate

consciousness which the subjeot has, or oan have, o"f his OWD heedDaI

and it i5 only because or this cODsciousne8s that he recognizes

himselt to be bound by moral obligatiODs. 15 Tet even this reversaI

...

1 ! "

_____ ''''''

- 102 -

15 prompted by Kantlan reaSOnl.ng. Kant says on many ocousions that

lf we could ground the idea of freedom on an inte1lectual intuition,

many of the difficulties vhicn confront the cr1tical philosopher

would be retlloved, particuhrly in the sphere of ethl.cs. This la

what Fichte tries to do. He sees in in'tellectual intui hon the

possibility of bridging the gulf vhich Kunt had estab1l'hed between

the sensl.ble and intelligible worlds, and between practleal and

theoretical phi losophy. The intuition of freedom aa "sheer activi ty"

gives rise to the ooncept of action, through whieb the 9ubject

attempts ta transform the sensible world vhich opposes bim into a

kingdom ordered acoording to reason. The thing in ttself ia thus,

for Fichte, not somethint' we try in vain i t iB rather

something to be realized througb practise. ABd that sarne intuition

provides the startine point for a transcendental deduction of the

sensible world va experienoe, whioh attempts 1.0 show how and why ve

experience the world in the vay that ve do. Thus, he claims, a

philosophy whieh sets out from intellectua1 intuition "stands

preoisely at the point joining two worlds, from whence they may be 16 surveyed at a single glSbce.

3. Kant's Conoeption Faith

The view that Kant oonoeives of taith as a aublriitute for

speculative knowledge of the practical realm, and therefore as a

substitute for intellectual intuition, is uncontroversial. Neverthe-

less, certain philosophical detalls ot this substitution are worth

bringing to light.

----"i,: ••• IIlI!!lJ.tt· ..

- 103 -

In Kant' a ro-stem, the distanoe or oppoai tien betveen the

hlUllan and the divine ia arguably represented as greater, or more

tfxtreme, tban in the thought of any of bis predeoessors who

genuinely hold religl.ous beUefs. The world that lffl mow is

considered to be a ditterent wor1d from that N'hich God knows. One

could, of oourse, obJect to this statement, on the grounds that

Kant on 1y main'tains that ve mo", thinga in a different way to the

manner in ""nioh Gad knO\/S them. But this objection rails to

8oknowledgel a) the Kantinn princip le that the nature of a thing

and the manner in' whi ch i t i 8 known are not, ul t ima te ly , independent

issues, b) the tact that Kant c1early believes the dirference

between human and divine knowledge to be great enough to justif,. his

speackin6 of them as pertaining to two ditferent worId; and c) the

obvio\l9 point that the underlying unit,. of the noumenal and phenomenal

warlde C8n no more be known, acoording to Kant, than the existenoe

or nature of the noumenal lt8e1(.

This oonception ot man as a11enated from God ls clearly connec-

ted to the absolute distinction betlffleD subject and object N'hioh

Kant takes as the starting point for his theoretical philosophy.

The Iaok identity between 3ubjeot and objeot i3, at the deepest

level, the reason we oan never have genuine knowledge of the thing

in i tseIf, or of anything belongine to the noumenal world, or ot

how the noumenai and phenomenal realms are related, it indeed thay

are related to aach other at all.

Thar. 15, theretore, an important dif'terence between the role

Kant assigna to moral or re1igious tai th, and the role i t pl1Q'8 in

•

- 104 -

the thought of Desoartes and the Scholastics. For the latter,

in God is held to rest primarily on knowledge; that iB, it

resta On an acceptance of a set of metaphysical doctrines thought

ta be demonstrable. Belief in God does not require

anything other than the correct use of onels resson (although

something more ia re(!uired in order for one'e attitude ta God to

be pioue). For Kant, on the other hand, faith rests

not on knowledge but on the interests of our practical renson, or,

more specifically, on the will. Thus he writes,

Granted that the moral law inexorably binds every man as a command • • ., the righteous man may say: 1 will that there be a Gad, that ., existence in this world be also an existence in a pure world of the understanding outside of the system of natural conneotions, and finally tbat m::I duration be endless. 1 stand bl" this and will not give up thie beliet for thiB ia the only case where rrry interest inevi tably determines rny judgement • • .17

Now the speculative theo10gian wou1d admit that the attitude

8xpressed here is an e3sential part religious pietYJ and to this

extent he too could argue that faith must rest on the will. However,

it ls clear that if ve can have knowledge of Oad's existenoe, then,

striotly speakinG, faith la not really needed, exoept, perhaps,

wh en the speoula ti1re going ge't s rough. For Kant, however, tal th,

understood in the strict senae as a substi tute for knowledge

(rather than as eoaething merely supJ>lementillr7),18 indeap8llsible, ".

partioularly in the praotical sphere.

The ides that the will muat bear the burden our oosnitive

limitations can be understood more thoroughly by once again oontrasting

Kant 'a position to that ot Descartes. As lN saw earlier, an

important feature of the Cartesip.n attempt to oonatruot a syste. ot

105

certain mOllledge is the deaire to emulate iD so.e way the 1ntel1eo- \

tuaI aotiv1ty of God. 'l'he di:t':t'arenoes between man and God are not

denied, but they are Dot regarded ail insurmowitable to

the speoulnti ve enterprise. For instanoe, unl1ke God 118 use eensory

organs to aquire lllUoh ot our know1edge, bu1: it 1s perfectly possible,

in Desoartes' viev, for us ta gain knowledge without using the SeDses.

A seoond important difterence is also adJaittedz

God ••• understands and vills - not lndeéd as do, by operations W'hioh are in some Hay very distinct one trom another, but ever by one id.nUcal and very simple action . .

Moreover, this difterance is reoogni.ed &8 highly signiticant, tor

i t helps to explain unl1ke Gad, we trequently err in our

mente. Error, aooording to Descartes, has its source in the taot

that our will has a rider range than our understanding19 - sOllethiDg

whioh 18 only possible where the two are dis'tinot faoulUes.

Nevertheless, Desoartes does Dot se. iD this difteranoe auy insuperable

di ffloul tl'l

tor a1l otten as l so raatrain IIY will within the 111111te ot ot knowledge • • • 1 oan na.er be deoeived.20

.!pinst this speculative optiais. Kaat- argu.e. that there i. a

difterence between lI8:n and God whloh llAke. i t 111lpossible :t'or our

knowledge to resemble his ln any way: n .. ety, tbe taot that our

:t'aoulties ot intuition and underdandine: are distinct, wherea. iD

God the t"o are united. Consequentq, whereas we ooq intui t objeots

that are given to us, and which represent something opposed to

consoiousness, God oreat •• the objeot in the aot or lalowing 1't, and

so la identtoal to 1t.2l

1

/ t

)

, ,

.,

- 106 -

4. The ROll Will

Ir KaDt allowa the ot there a

bet.en the human and the divine it is in his oonception

of moral activity. Thus, he of'ten describe. the performanoe or moral

aotlono in teras which indicate a cert3.in analogy between the

oognitive aotiVi-t,. ot aD intui1:ive Wld.erstanding aIld the real1zation

or moral goals. In a letter to Berll, tor instanoe, he writesl

• • • our understanding, through i ta representations, ie not the caue ot the object in the case ot lIoral cds) ••• 22

While troa the theoretical point ot view the thing in Uaelt' 18

unknowable, trom the atandpoint ot practiohl reason 1 t is sOliething

whioh, in prinoiple at least, i. realisabIe. see. an odd

or desoribing Kant 's .position, but it neverlheless oaptures &Il

s._onant upeot ot hi. thoqIl" - ODe tIb10h J'lobte later 4eYelo,ec1.

In Kant 'a View, moral aotion repreasnts a kind ot wh10h 1.

rr •• (in 80 far &s it la moral, and theretore rational),

and through whiob ve oreate the object (ie. the encl at which we aill).

In llUoh o&.es the acUon is deterain.cl 'b)' Ba 1dea, whioh oaZ1 thus < 1 ,

be said to operate ,as a oau.e,- the object repreaentiDg the re.lilla-

tion or this idea. Puiij.ng th!.. in a more IIWldan. the IIOral

qual1ty or the world in which we live d.penele upon us; the MOunt

ot goodneae, virtue or justioe which ax1et. iD thi. wor1d ia

deterainecl b.r our behaviour.

II1ght objeot her. 1:&t a 8ill11ar ao.alog oould he dra.

bet_en .!!!l. Idnd or ao'tivlt7 BDd inte11ectua1 intuition. RoveYer

in JC&Ilt· s vi.w, ther. la _ ianporlant d1rrerenoe bet__ the pur .....

- 101-

ot DOil-oral pro.1.ct. 8Ild the at'teapt to r_11.e .oral 8I'lda. Our'

DOIl-80ral aotiviti •• ar., b7 and large, diotat.d by th. oontingent

and 1n41vidual D&tur. ot our ph.aQlleDa\ perscmal1tie.. Where the • fi '

object ot our actiVit1 i. moral, ho"ver, tbat aotivi't7 1& det.l'IIiaed ,/

b7 lav8 of Re.son. Ae suoh i t expresses Dot what 1s OOJltiJlgeat or

individul about the &pDt, but 'tbat whioh ie lUlivere.l. ID other

NOrde, 1t is ODq through 1Il0ral aotlvlt7, aooording to KaDt, tbat

we a8Illte.t 8Ild reali,ze our "rea1" e.lves.

It la poasib1e, ther.tore, to drav a 100e •• a1017

t 8 oODe.p'Uon ot uraL aotlVitl and his OODOepUon or m'teUeo-

tual intuition. .oreover, 1Ihile he r.jeota the pr ... lCaatian idea

tha't ft oan, 8Dd ehould, •• ek to eeoure )œow1edge atter the aanner

ot the cliville uadernand1ng, h. doe., ta a 8e1lee, believe it wotth-

whi1e to attempt to --.lat. God in lIoral 11t.. This we do when _

&ot raUonally 8Dd puraue the good in .ooordallce vi th the Itoral la ••

lf'Ilrtheraore, aooordiDg to lant 'the u1tlute aia of the righteou8 lIIIIIl

18 Ilot Biapl,y to aot right17, but rather to cultivat. hie lIoral

peraonall t7' to the poirat where h. Dever hall 8IQ' desire or mo11natiOD

to do othervill.. In oth.r worda, ... aspire to ..t. our will

"ho17". KeAt that tor a beillg lI1Ioh as 1INl, who beaidee

poeeesiDg rat lom.1 i't y 1a al.o obaracterl •• d b7 ut_U:'7, thie id.al

.. 1l1tiut.l,y unattainab1e. COIleequent17, be iasue. th.

It la ot goocl to ta1k ot laitaUDg God. God tells ue to be bo17, nert ...mlJ1g tbat ". oapt to lai tata Bi., \mot tbat ,.. oqht to &pproxi_te to' th. unaUaiDable id .. 1 boU. ••• e. Ife oamaot lai 'lat ... t 1. apeo1tloalq dif'terut tut • • • OUr arohetfpe le not a' patt .. whloh w. lIWI1; r.pl'OCluoe, but a nl. to whioh w. ehoulc1 OODtora.23

, "

.,

• - 108-

'!he idea et a 11)&017 will" is m'Voltécl b7 ba. iD orcler to help

.zplaia the aora1 law appeara to ua in the torii ot a

iJlperat:l.",e. For Oocl (:I.e. tor a hoq vill) there :l.a' neYer a oontl:l.ct

b.tween vIlat ta desir.d _d "t ia kIlotal to ba right (BD id.a

olaar17 related to the 081"1ea:l.. Yi." that there le no diatinction

batween the dirine will and the dirine \Ulderatanding). This is

beoaus. Ood t., will oaDDot b. det.md.ned 1»7 aDTthing other tlum

Reason. COIlaequent17, tor Ood the aoral la. wo.ll'd not appear in .. he

fora ot aD

"1 oapt" :l.s hera out ot place, because "1 will" la alreaq ot 1 t.eU lleoe.aarilJ' iJ1 ha.rrIaD7 tdt.h the la". 24

'!'ha reason tIb;r _ expert__ the aoral la. a. a OOIIIIlIaDd t. tbua

beoause our will t. not b7 a_OR alon.. BeloaB1D«, t

1ft part, to the ph_OIHDal worlel, _d theretore a.bjeot to sensible

(auiIll&1) .ppetite. aDd de.1re., ... U'e on_ pro.pted to s.tiat7

mere inoUnat:l.OI1s rather tlual elo wbat .. kIlow to be rtght.

To ao ••• xtant, then, thera i •• 100se parai lei bet",e. the

roie played b7 tha idea ot int.lleG'tual intuition in Iut 's theor.Uaal

RAd th. purpoae _ich thellGttoa ot a hoq will .erv •• iD

hie praotioa.1 philosoplQ'. The t01"lMl". ezpr ••••• the posribilUy ot au

oopi tlon lib.rateel f'roa the ef'taot. of' a pero.ptual or

discurslve oopitive relation ('b.t_. aubj.ot aad object) in ordel"

to high1ipt &Dd &oootmt for CUl' oopUi .... U.lI1.tations. '!'he lat" ..

desorib.s a tr •• trOll the int11lel1Ce of' Jlon-tlO1"&l, 1I000-l'&tlO11&I

inolinations, in order to tuov 11gbt "Pon, and eltPlain, our .oral

illperf'.ot:t.ons. lor is thi8 tha cm17 .. loQ whioh 0&1l be dra_. WB

bave ••• prerioua,l1' how Inat aooOQll'ta th. 1Ib:I.cb

.. •

"

- 109-

la due to the tact tbat our oODoepta" beiDg do 0011-

pletelT deteniJ1e the objeot. .ether or not ve

rlght17 -in 8b7 given inataace ia alWl9a a oontiDpnt issue, tOI"

sinoe we are .ere17 baaan, the .oral law does Dot deteraine

our aotiODs cOIIplet.lJr., Dy oontra.t, tOI" Ood th.re is no

etther in the aooordanoe betveen the represeDtation and

the object, or in the aooordanoe between the lall and the deed; rar

in bath cases th. latter ie oOllPlete17 deterained by the torller.

Olle mght also clrav an &11&1017 between the paradoxes whioh are

involved in E&Dt's notion ot and iD his id.a ot

Earli.r .e sali hov he deDie. ulttaat. objeotivity to our knovledge

on the grcnmcla tbat tt d.oe. Dot aria. t'ro. an 8I1t1re17' subjective

souroe, parttculare are pr ••• tttct to U8, through sensible intuition,

trOm ".1 •••• 1".... God's mowle4p, on the other band, whlch one

lIIigbt take to lM ctetillitati ... e17 obj,ativ., bas an _tireq subjeotive

'th. object beiaC d-'U"IIiDed, .. tIIl w1th respect to l1a exi.'t_oe,

by th. repre.entatiOll. ID a eill11ar Wo7, beoau. EaIlt u •• .0 0108e17 th. OCIloepte ot tree40ll ... cl ratioa.alit7, it woul.d appear

that th • .en1ona a INbj.ot who' al..,.. iD oOliplet. treedola

vould, in Pl'inoipl. at 1 ..... , be "tter17 pred1ctabl., th81r aooord.aD.oe'

vi th th. lava ot praotioal l' ... oa wonld be a D.08 .... 17 011.. In.

_ ••• , ther.tore, i t le b.oaua. h1W8D b.tnga do Ilot act fr •• q

(their aotiOlla or thelr will SOIHU,,,. d.td'll1Decl b.7

caue.) that th.ir behaviour la, troca th • .aral point ot viev,

anprec1iatablel it. acoordaDoe with 'th •• oral la. Ming contiD«eD't.

A hoq vill, on the ot!Mr haDcl, whioh n.ver aot. otbervi •• thM

8Dd hen_ deea 1lCJ'\, a ... clo, .-roi .. a oIlo1oe

-) "

- ---------------------------

- 110 -

betwee attemative oouraea aotion. Ev.r,y action, iD llUoh a O8se,

would be p.rteot17 preclio"table, as the neoeasary expression ot i'ta

completely rational nature (ie. of its freedee).

The abOYa oonsid.rations nOvithstancling, hove"er, we should not

aS8WBe too read.ily that the idea ot au intuitive understanding and

the oonoept of a holy wl11 are etlplo:red in an exaot1:r 8ill1.1ar

in Kant 'a philosoplq. Both oono.pt., are ueed to olarit) and e%plaiD

the huaan .,i tuat ion as Kant see., i t • But lIberea., the foraer notion 0/

ha., a gaDeral17 n.gatlve rOle, the la u.,ed in a more poaitive

wrq. The att .. pt to ,mow thinga a8 God knOWII the. ia, in Kant view,

tutUe, and oazmot even BUoo.ed. But the attelllPt to will

as God ville (i •• to will only wbat ia right), whi1e 1t oamlot

1I1100e.d oo.pl.t.17, oaD be suoo.sstul, &Dd i8, aoreover,

w. oODolwl. thi. chapt.r b7 a probl_ lN have

.0 tar ipor.el, but Waioh li •• at the "ePT b-.rt ot IaDt t s oOiloep-

tion ot GOd, &Dd, inclee4, ot bis philoaoplQ" a. a whol.. ID Chapter

Thre. lM eaw that &Il intu! ti ve unde:l"standing would not oOllpreh_el

real1t,. in a _ohaai8tio 1111.1, aDd 7et would n.ver eDocnmt.r 8Iq

oontinpDG,1 ln this reali t,.. PrOli this 1t ..... el rea.OIlable to Wer .

tora ot thing1l a. neoe •• a.r.r in a ta3. whiob might be

expr.ss.cl b7 s&71Dg that ever,.thiDg!!!!!!! b. the w.:r 1 t ta b.cau.. i t

la .!!!!! tor thugs to be that '!'his la the kind ot 1IIldAratBD4iDg

ot the worlel whioh Soorat • ., •• oribes in the Phaedo a8 the onl7

geDuin. tne 1CD0wledp. (ODe i. remadecl too oi the ratlcma.list

pJ"illoiple tut "all ia for the beat in this ben ot all possible

i "

1

- 111 -

worlels" - lUl idea which, thoueh otten ridiouled, should neverthless

be treated e.riousq in sO tar as 1t represents not s complacent and

superticial ot looking st things, but rather an ideal mode ot

underBtanding towarde wh1ch philoBOpb;y has to aspire.) However, 8e

.,. sav, there are dit'ticulUe. ri th .scribing thie 1cind of oomprehen-

sion to Goel (a8 cODceiveel b;y Kant), since it would involve some

'ot the concept or neoeBetty, tor an intuitive

understanding would have no use. 'l'bWI, a Kazltian God woo.ld not say,

"Thinga are neoes.arily the vay they are beoause it 13 beri that

th.,. b. thb rather, Ue would say, "AlI thinea thnt 1 mON

enst, 'the;r ex1.t beoause 1 lmow tbelllo"25

I •• ping tbis ln aind, let UB nov OODeider -a seriouB probl_

po.ed. b;y Eant f. rihloal theOl7. In 'the Groundwork he wite.f

o 0 • l!.2!! pure reaeOD Gan b. praotloal in Uselt vUhout tur'ther IIOtive. clratm t'roe. .a.e ather .ouro., that le, ho" the bare principl. ot the 1Ul1versal val1d1t7 ot all tt. !IIa%i •• a. la.. (lIbich would a4m1 tted17 b. the tora ot a pure practlcal 1" .... 011) can b,y tt.elt - wi'thout _t't.r (or objeot) ot the will in which lM could tan so_ ant.oed.aat int.re.t - euppl)- a aotiv. _d Ol'eate an intent tddch OCNld be called pure17 .oral ••• - aU n.an J"_oa 1. 1Dcapabl. ot ez:pla1nin,; thi., 8Ilel aIl the labov.r and. efton to .eek nab AD. explaaa:UOIl 1. _sted.26

'!'h. crux ot th. d1ttloul.t;r r:8Zlt i. ra1s1Dg her. C&Il, 1 thiDk, be

expr •••• " eillp17: _ be 8Oral? Aocord.ing to hi ...

aoral aationo, ia .0 as the7 are aor>*l, are Ilot

perforaed to f'urth.r aay intereet or to sa'tiat'7 wq Il •• d or de.1re.

For Nhat rea.on, then, should lM per:f'or. noh aot101l8? i'lhether or

Dot lM iD tact b.bave in th1s wq 1. a _t'ter altoc-thU.

'!'he çue.t1OD her. OOll081'1ls the point ot doine so. Idgbt sa:, 'tJaat

EaIlt hi •• eU otters a ldnd u._r in the .. ocmd Critique. Koral

aotioa.s. h. arpe., are paradipatlc expr.ssion. ot ov ratioaat.l't7J

- 112 -

éUld they are pert'ormed, in a sense, the sake of rationailty as

such. But it i8 clear that thia oannot stand as a ooherent answer,

for one Oarl still asle: wby -19 it rational to perform an action for

the sake of rationality? Given Kant ta refusa! to alloll all

"erlraneous" faotors which miffht provide some sort of motive for ua

to aot morally, there seems to be no way of av01d1ne this 1nfinite

regreas. One has to conclude that that Reason '-lhich prompts us to

aot in accordance with the moral law for no apparant reason whataoever,

ia itaelf somethine non-rational. Kant himself perhaps hints at this

vhen he descri.bes Reason as "pure spontaneity".

This conolusion ia confirmed it' we look at K2.l1t ta notion ot' a

holy viU, in whioh there i5 no oonflict between desire and dut Y •

In suoh a case, - ie. in the oase of God - "I ought" is replaced by ",

"1 will". Putting this in rather IBQJldaue language, we lDie;ht say that

a holy will "does Ilhat oomes naturally"; i ta aotions would si.ply

be a natural expression of lt9 own nature.

If we now pull together to tvo strands ot Kant ta thought we

have be.n cons i der ing , ve find that arrive at cODclusions wioh, 1

to say the l8a8t, are not quite wttat one \"ould expeot ta find in a

Kantian context. The concepts of Reason, the holy will, and the

intuitive understanding can, vith some be identified

with each ether in the persan of God, as oanoeived by Kant. God, we

are gi ven tO understand, epontaneously creates the reali ty which He

mOtls in the Bot 01' knowing i t. Be does sa in acoordance vi 'l;h lavs

01' ReaaODJ but this is Il8re1J' to say that Be thereby gives expression

to, or real1ses, His o. nature. :lhatever He villa oomes into being

(th.ra being DO distinotion bere b."'w8Il cognitive and .,raottoal

- 113 -

faculties) • .

This again is in aooordanoe wi th a la\-I; but this ia

only to say that His will i5 determined by His nature. One mieht

aak: why does God act as He doee? Natura.lly, in Kant's vieN the

human mind ls quite incapable of answering such a question; WB can

aimply have fa1th that what He does ls for the best. However it 15

diffioult to see how even the God we have been desoribing oould

answer that kind of question, aven if He were oàpab1e of thought and ·1-

jUdgemént. Identical to whatever He knows and wills, He could

say nothing other than, "1 am", or alternatively, "r will".

Naturally, Kant doea not view his own in this l1ght.

In the Critique of JUdgement he against thinkers like

Spinoza who, he saya, "takes away aIl intelligenoe from the original

ground of natural things". 27 The conseouence of doing this, he

explains, is a view of the world which must deny that the unit Y of

things (a fUnotion of their relation to God) represents any of

rationality or purposiveness, and a conception of God, or "the original

ground of natural things", as nothing other than a blind force. On

the basis the preoeeding discussion, however, one has to say that

Kant's own philosophy seams to lead, ultimately, to the same oonoluaions.

The ideéo.s of post-Kantians like Fiohte, ,.,ho takes the fundamental

ground of experience to be the eternally aotive, self-asserting,

Absolute Ego, and Sohopenhauer, who identifies the thing in itself

with a blind, incessantly striving Will, may reasonably be viewed,

theretore, not as positions oompletely opposed to Kant, but as logical

developments of certain important aspects of his metaphysioa.

,1 ,

1 .

r.

2.

3.

4.

5· 6.

8.

9·

IO.

II.

12.

I3.

I4.

I5.

I6.

17.

- II4 -

Notes to Chapter Four

1. Kant, Critioue of practical Reason, transe L. W. Beek (Bobbs-Merrill, 1956), p. ro).

To e1aborate: we arrive at the posi ti ve idea of a uni ty between the two realma in the course of respondine to a oertain problem. This problem has i ts roots in the distinction between the two wor1ds whieh, in Kant's vlew, we oannot avoid.making. But both the distinction and the problem to which it rise only make sense to us. For the sake of resolving the problem we may construct the idea of a God; and if moral oommi tment i s to be possible we must believe in this God who ensures the fundamental uni ty of the two realms. The fact remaina, however, that the distinction in question could only make sense to human mind. Similarly, the problem of unification on1y has meanine or importance to us. God hi,mself could have no idea of these things.

Critlque of Judgement, p. 253.

Cf". Critique of Practical Reason, p. 31.

Ibid.

The ontoloeioal argument, for example, aocording to which the exi stence of God can be inferred from the mere idea of God.

J. G. Fichte, The Science of Know1edge, trans. P. Heath and -J. Laohe (Cambridge Univfrsity Press, 1982), p. 43.

p. 38.

p. 40.

Ibid. , p. 46.

Cri of Pure Reason, A546-B574.

• I. Kant, Groundwork of H. Paton in The Moral Law , p.

Ibid ., IIr. p.

\ p. II2.

Cf. The Science • 42. of" Kiiowledge, p.

Cri tique of" Practieal Reason, pp • 148-9.

J. 1

,1 1 1

, i .]

':l l

. '

- II5 -

18. Desoartes, Prino1ples XXIII, Baldane and Ross, Vol. 1, p. 228.

19. Cf. Meditations IV, ltaidane and Ross, Vol. l, p. 175.

20. Ibid., p. 178.

21. Iole might note here the exact point of disagreement between Kan't and Desoartes. It 19 sometimes tbougbt to lie in Kant' s insistance that knowledge requires intuitions. However, 1t should be clear frolll our discussion that Kant' s well-known dictum tha't concepts without intuitions are empty need not provoke rat10nalist reaotion. Kant· s appos! tion to Descar1;ee really resta on his olaim that our intuition 18 always sensible.

22. Latter to Herz, Feb. 2I, 1772, Zweig, p. 71.

23. 1. Kant, Lectures on Ethics, transe L. In1'ield (Harper and Rov, 1963), p. 98.

24. Groundwork, The Moral Law, p. 78.

25. Cf. Critioue of Judgement, p. 251.

26. Groundwork, The rotorai Law, p. I2I.

27. Cri tioue o-r Judgment, p. 240

- 116-

Concluci.ing Remarks

Having looked at Kant 1 s notion or intelleotual intui tian in the

conten both his theoretical and his rractioal philosophy, we are

now able to 't'orm a fairly comprehensive idee of its meanine, i'l.nd

make a just assessment of the role i t p lays in his system.

Intelleotual intuition 1. s a mode of apprehension through which

the eub ject oogni zes the ob jedt in an unmedi& t ed It i a nei ther

sensible nor discursive, but iùeational in chnracter. Through this

mode of cognition the subJect determines the objeot not merely with

respeot to lh forro, but alao with respect to its existence; the

BubJect la therel'ore creative in the fullest sense of the ''lord, and

intellectual int.uition is an act of pure creativity. Since auhJeot

and obJect must be iùentical, i t is a fartn of self-consciousness

(indeed, the only genuine form of aelf'-con'1oiousness) in the " subJeot is self-creative (le. depandant for its existenco on nothing

other than i heIf') •

An intuitive understanding would cognize only noumenal individ-

and would do 80 in a wholly empirical manner, since a priori

knowledge cao arise only where the objeots known are phenomenal •

(ie. appearances). Ho,,,ever, aince intelleotual intuition involves

the' absolute oreation of" the object by the subject, an intuitive

underatandine- ,roulè never be confronted by a.ny kind of contingenoy

in or about the objeot, the determination of the abJeot

would be a.bsolute. Tet neither would the objeot, or El.Dythir.g about

the obJect, he seen 5.s necessary, neoeasi ty beine a ooncept generated

- 111 -

by a merely discursive understandine. Ultim;:.tely, there could only

be one proper object for an intuitive understanding - itself; and

there could b. only or{; bein" po •• es •• d of such an understandine -

God. Intellectual intUition i5 thus the mode of cognition by me&ns

of which God ls thought to enjoy perfect self-consciousness. IJ

The concept has é- multiple purpose in Kant t s work. It signifies

both his own and his predeoessors conception of the divine understand-

lng. It captures, to 0. It:.rge erlent, the pre-Kantian ideo. of "hat

const! tutes a paradigmatio tYl'f! of knowledge, thereby enabline Kant

to bring out the sharp contrast between this paradigm and the klnd

of knowledge he believes 1a actually available to the hWll&n subject.

Furtberrnore, i t helps to articulate and emphasize Kant '3 conception

of the redicDl difference between man and God (and their respective

modes of cognition), and therefore, alao, the utent and nature of

the difference betweeD his OWll pbilosophy and the views of thinkers

like Descartes and Berkeley.

have also eeen how, on occasion, the notion of intelleC'tual

intuition plays a more specil'ic role. Kent uses i't, tor instance, to

distinguish between the positive and negative ideas ot the noumenon,

to help explain w}]y lM must sometimes adopt the teleologi.cal siand-

point, to clarlf) his vie" that hleologicb-l principles can on17 be

granted regulE'.tive status, and to justif) his claim tbat moral beliets

do not admit of <Uly speculative certalnty. In aach ot these cases,

however, of la more or less the S8II8e to help

idenUfy certain fundalaental characteristics ot the huav.n 1Il1nd, and

to high1.1gbt the li.1 'tat1ons whioh tl).ey impose upon ou knowledge.

r

•

- 118-

Throughout our discueion we have observed how Kant' 8 denial

that the human mind i5 capable of intellectual intuition t'orms a oentral

part of his attack on the views put by his predeoesBors.

However the significance of this denial iB IDUch greeter than might

appear 8t first sieht. We may appropriately conciude, therefore, by

placing Kant's treatment of the problem of intellectual intuition ln

1108 wider philosophiral context.

In the history of Western the idea of self-conscioua-

ness, or self knowledge, oecupies a central position. Indeed, many

of the major thinkers from antiquity to modern times have taken

self-eonsoiousness to represent a paradigmatic mdde of knowledge.

The tradition gOp.s back at Ieast as far as the Delphic Oracle'a t'amoua

princlple, "Xnow and this simple imperative la olearly the

parent of the Socratlc diotum that "the unexamined life is not worth

living". PInto 's theory of Forme mieht seem to represent a departure

from the tradition, yet it would not be difficult 100 argue that Plato

in fact t&kes t1;1e "highest stage of cognition" to involve the identifi-

oation ot' lIoral mowle4ge and selt-1cnowledge. Aristotle certainq

regards selt-oonsoiousneas as somehoM special, for st the ape% of his

system he plaoes a God coneei ved to be nothing other than n selt-

thinking thought". Descartes, ot oourse, taltes self-oonsoiousness 100

be the only adequate founda"tion tor a met.aplqsioal syst •• , and employs

the cod. a8 .. atrmdard tor d.eterm1Ding the statua ot ether knovledge-

claims. M8D7 post-Kantian philosophera oontinue to uphold thi.

tra.dition. Fiohte, as we have seen, believe8 that genuine philosop!JT

should begin wi th an introspective Schelling takes the iden'\it;,y

of Bubjeot and objeot as his point, Hegel identifies

Abaolute Xnowledge with "Spiri '5 coming to DOW aa Spirit" •

- 119-

Even l.larx, at least in his earlier writings, appeare to acoept

something of' this tradition whon he declarea (in the third the

Paris maauacripts) that "communism ie the riddle of histo17 eolved,

and i t nows Uaelf" to be the solution". And an emphasie on the

importance of selt-ooneciousne.ss i5 also evident in the works of'

modern existentialists suah as Satre, whoee centree around

the oontrast between critical self'-awareness and "bad f'aith".

Jow Kant himself is very IJIUch Il part of' this tradition. He

too identif'ies "absolute knowledge" td th gennine self-consoiousnees,

and his oonception of God as an intuitive understandine; ia olosely

related to Aristotle 'a idea of' God as "selt thinking 'thought".

Moreov.r, his philosophy is consoiousl.)r written in the spirit of'

the Delphic OraoleJ a ori tique .2! pure reason St pure reason le, in

his view, 'the only lIIeans by which a phi10sophy can oOlDe to understand

its OWll nature and liMitations. However, Kant dlffers t'rom Most 01'

the other thlJÙC4trs menUoned abov, in tbat h. rejeota 'the poseibili'ty

ot the hu.an aind ever a'ttaining genuine aelt-consoiousnesB or 8e1t-

tnow1edge. And the ref\l.,al to admit that our un4erstanding ia, or

ever C8n be, intui'tive, la an inteçai part of' his argwaent.

It ia tempting, 8Ad eaq, to regard th. di1'terenoe be'tweeD

Kan't and thinkers like Deaoartes, li'ichte, and Hegel, as ailllp17 a . di1':tereno. b,t,..en realism and 1'ooliah op'tiais.. \tfho would care to

as.ert nowaclaye that our minda are capable ot in'teUeotual intu1tion?

And who would dare to aN':il'lll vith oonfidenoe the po.e:ibility 01' pu-e

.el:t-oonsoioulIDesa and perle ct self-knowledge? JCant t. lIoeptioal '"

poai tien on theae e.ttera UJldeniab.1Y. haB lIINI7 poin'ta ln Ua t'aTour.

1

1 !

- I20. -

Rowever, "e should perhaps beware of adopt1ng the Kantien standpoint

too lt carries with it implications, ot a ver.y genera1

nature, whioh pose awkward problems for the phil080phy as a t

whole. This was certa1nly the view of Kant' s immediate succeseors,

and was the l'eaaon why, deapite Kant's critique, they af'tirmed not

the possibllity, but also the neoessity (in philosophy) 01' the

kind ot knowledge which in ICt.nt' s view could only be attained through

intellectual intuition.

The principal difticulty thrown up by Kant 's rejection 01'

intelleotual intuition (and, OOnà8qUently, ot genuine self-knowledge)

can be stated in f'airly general terIRa. Given that the goal ot

philosoph,y ie to provide a coherent and comprehensive aocount of the

world as a wh01e, some aocount must neoesaarily be given of the

subjeot, and or the standpoint trom which the aocount is eiven.

Otherwise the description and explanation ottered iB neoessbrily

inoomplete. FUrthermore, it one acoepts that an adequate desoription

ot any partiou1ar thing must ino1ude Bome aooount of how it relates

to the whole, 1t fo110wa th&t genuine eelf-knowledge must be possible

if philosophy ie to us w1 th a. really thorough underat8llding

ot aQ7thing at a1l.

It would see. that Kant reoognisee, at 1e88t in part, the tore.

of Buoll arguaente, tor, as we no1;ed above, he clai •• that his 0_

oritioue represents an ot self'-examination OB the part

pJlllosopq. UeveriheIees, it 1s presumably legitiute 1;0 question

the .tatus of' the judge.ente 'set out in the critique Pur. Reaeon.

lant th.re describes the nature the aind and i te varlous op.ratiCIDel

- 122 -

meehanictic and the teleelogical; - and te demODstrate their

ultlmate compatibility. However, in deing this, he hi.selt Jl!Ust, ot

neceseity, adopt a certain vantage point (one call it

the tran'scendental standpoint). The problem we have ra1sed concerna

his reight to do this.

In the ey88 of his idealiri successors, parlicularly Hegel,

the paradox generated by Kant 's f'ailure to justity his trBheendental

standpoint was seen as an inevltible oonsequence of his soeptica,l

preaa1sses and his rejeotion ot the P088ibil1ty ot intellectuel

intuition. Fichte a.nd Sohelling sought to overCOllle the problem

through a straighttorward and explicit attirmation ot the poaa1bllit7

ot inteUeO'tual intui tien (whioh, they believed, ilIIIIIediately

guaranteed the 01' their philoscphieal standpoint). This

prooedure, however, would Beern to create ne" ditf'ioultiesJ in

particub.r, it rune the risk ot lapsing into a kind ot visiona17

dogma:tism which renders an eBoterio aotivity, open _only

ta the chosen tew. Hegel, theretore, in his PhenornenoloQ ot Spirit,

attempts to rèaolve the paradox in a diff'erent way. lnstead 01'

atarting out by proclailling the posaibili ty ot intellectual intuitlOJl,

he ottera the whole ot the yhenomenology a8 a eustained dellOllstratlOD

of thi S pOBsi bili ty or, more preoiaely, ot the poa8ibility 01' our

attaining the kind of" oomprehension which in Kant' s view would onq b. accesaiblV» to an il!-tuitive understanding. And by traoing the

development of Spirit, fro .. a oondi tion of' prilllitive ael:t-identi t,',

through Us various phenomenal tOrlRa, to a stat. ot complet • • e1t-

consciousness, the Phenomenologr siailtaneouslY o:ttera a juatlrlcatlon ,

ot the t.ranaoendental stanclpoint Croll whiob it is wrlttea. A&bI1ttectq,

... 123 -

in order to tistanoe hi.aelt" trOll Pichte and Sohelling, aepl speak.

"Ab.olute ICnOwing" or ot "Spirit 's ooming to lmow liselt aa

Spiri t" t rather than ot intelleotual intut tion. And one 111&1 concede

that these expt'lessions are not oompletel3" tJ1DODOIIlOU8. For inatSDc.,

what Kant, 8Jld general17 thl,nk ot ae an,!2!, is

underatood Belgel as a procea8. Ueverth.leslI, Ab.olut. Inowledge,

as oonoeived by Segel, olear17 incorporat • ., the e.,senoe ot" Kant 's

OODoept ot tnteUectual intuitionl a pertect tora of seH-oGllaoiouaeas

involving the identit7 ot aubjeot 'Jand objeot •

• . \

- 124 -

Blbli°sr&Phl

WOrks br Kan"

Kan", Seleaiell Pre-Critioal Wri Ullgs, "l'ans. G. B. Kerterd and D. E. walf'ord (University ot Manchester Press, I968).

Cri"igue ot Pure Reason (bo'tb editions), transe If. Kemp-SIIlith (JlaomlllaD, London, 1929).

Prole a to FUture .e'ta sics that will be able 'to resent !taelf as a Soience, transe P. Lucas MBDcheahr University Press, I953).

C7!"itique ot Practioal Reason, transe L. W. Beck (Bobbs-Merrill, Librar.T ot Liberal Arts, Indianapolis, 1956).

Critique ot Judgement, transe J. H. Bernard (Hatuer Press, Macmillan, H." Tork, 1951).

Lopo, trens. R. S. Hartman and ti. Schwarz (Bobbs-Mwrrill, Library ot Liberal Arts, Indianapolis, I974).

Leotures on Ethics, trens. L. Intield (Harper end ROlf, Ne\-, York, . I963).

Other Worka MeD:Uoned iD the 'l'en

BeDD.ett, J., lCaDt's DialeGtie (Cambridge University Press, 1974).

Bertal.,., G., Philosophieal ed. D. M. Armstrong (COllier Boeks, Macmillan, Ne" York, 1965 •

Deacartes, R., Philoso:phioal Worka,' ed. and tr8Ds. in two volumes b:r E. S. Re.ldane and G. R. T. Roas (Cambridge University PresB, ,19II) •

Pi chte , J. G., The Scienoe of' ICnewledge, transe P. Beath and J. Lachs (Cambridge University Press, I982).

M., Intuition and Cognitive ' •• 11111abllit1" (Journal of' the British Socie",. tor PhenOIIIeDolQ, 1979).

"OOJloeptualityl AD Ettaq iD aetri.val" (EaAt-StucH.c, 1919).

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Il.pl, G. W. F., PhenOllftoloQ ot Spirit, tr8ZlS. A. V. 1Uller (Oxtord University Pres8, I977).

H1.nt1kka, J., "On Kant 's Notion of Intuition (Ansohauung)", in Tbe 1Pirst Critirtue, ed. 'l'. Penelhum and Jo Aaointoah (wadsworlh, Bel_ont, calitornia, 1969).

Leibais, o. W., MonadoloQ and ot,her PhU()aophioal EssaIS, transe P. and A. Martin Schreoker (Bobbe-Merrill, Librar,y of Liberal Arts, N." York, 1965) 0

IIcFarl8Dd, J. -[8IIt 'B Concept ot TeleoloQ' (Univereity Edinburgh Press, 1970) 0

Plato, Collected DialoSiea, ed. E. Hamilton and H. Cairns (Princetan Univereit;y Press, 19 3).

tlabh, w. Ho, CriUcism ot MetaphyaiOs, Edinburgh University Prese, 1975).

VillerBon, T. E., Kant 'a Critiq.ue ot Pln"e Re.sonl A. COIUlentaq tor Studenh (Clarendon Press, Oxtord, 1976).

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