An Overview of the Philosophy of Kant

The Distinction Between Sensibility, Understanding, and Reason

According to Kant, "The capacity (a receptivity) to acquire representations as a result of the way in which we are affected by objects is called sensibility" (Kant 729). In other words, sensibility refers to the capacity to produce sensory representation based on the effects of outside stimuli. Kant goes on to say, "Hence by means of sensibility objects are given to us, and it alone supplies us with intuitions" (Kant 729). This is a faculty of all sentient beings, including non- rational animals, which stands in contrast to understanding and reason which are faculties of rational beings.

Understanding refers to the rational faculty of being able to make judgments based on the representations produced the capacity of sensibility. In other words, when these representations, also referred to as objects, are utilized by the mind, "objects are thought through the understanding and concepts arise from it" (Kant 729). Reason, on the other hand, is both a logical and a transcendental faculty.

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Reason is the assessor of truth both empirical and metaphysical. It's role as the arbiter of metaphysical truth requires that "even if pure reason deal with objects, it still has no direct reference to them and their intuition but refers directly only to the understanding and its judgements; the understanding and its judgements are what initially turn to the senses and their intuition in order to determine the object of these" (Kant 785). With this in mind, there seems to be a hierarchy of cognitive faculties according to Kant.

The lowest is sensibility which, essentially, is the mind's reaction to external stimuli. Understanding is the capacity through which the sensory representations created by sensibility are processed. Reason uses the conclusions generated through understanding to form inferences. Reason and understanding are very similar, however, understanding can only form conclusions based on sensory information. Reason, on the other hand, also utilizes the transcendental- -which isn't gain through sensibility. Therefore, "All pure cognitions of the understanding have the feature that their concepts are given in experience and their principles can be confirmed by it. By contrast, the transcendent cognitions of reason cannot appear in experience as ideas or be confirmed or refuted by it as propositions" (Kant 696).

Transcendental Idealism Versus Empirical Realism

Kant argues that space and time do not exist independently from an individual's intuition. "Space represents no property whatsoever of anything in themselves, nor does it represent things in themselves in their relation to one another." (Kant 732). "Time is not something that is self- subsistent or that attaches to things as an objective determination, and that hence would remain if one abstracted from all subjective conditions of our intuition of it" (Kant 734). Kant also argues that any objects individuals think of are "appearances". These objects do not exist as things in themselves. Moreover, "time is not an empirical concept that has been abstracted from any experience" (Kant 733). This manner of comprehending the mind's interaction with 'the world' Kant refers to as "transcendental idealism". By transcendental, Kant means "all cognition that deals not so much with objects as rather with our way of cognizing objects in general insofar as that way of cognizing is to be possible a priori" (Kant 729). When speaking of idealism, Kant argues that "idealism consists in the assertion that there are only thinking beings; all other things that we believe to be perceived in intuition are nothing but representations in thinking beings, to which no object outside them in fact corresponds" (Kant 676). Transcendental idealism contrasts with idealism in that "all our intuition, however, takes place only by means of the senses; the understanding intuits nothing, but only reflects" (Kant 676) however, it does not negate the possibility of the object's existence. In other words, where idealism asserts that only thinking things exist, transcendental idealism argues that non-thinking objects may or may not exist however, "the senses never and in no way enable us to know things in themselves, but only their appearances" (Kant 676). A transcendental idealist can also be an empirical realist. In fact, empirical realism is a part of transcendental idealism as transcendental idealism acknowledges that objects are presented in space. In this way, the appearance of objects can be measured empirically, and empirical science can trusted in so far as it makes no claim regarding what things ultimately are or their metaphysical significance. "Empirical judgements, insofar as they have objective validity, are judgments of experience..objective validity and necessarily universal validity (for everybody) are equivalent concepts*" (Kant 681). The difference between transcendental idealism and empirical realism is that, while not contradictory, transcendental idealism entails more than empirical realism does. Kant avoids the problems other idealists have run into by seemingly making a claim that all things are an illusion. Instead, Kant's argument simply limits what can be known about objects, including their existence, but does not limit what actually an object is.

The Role of the Pure Concepts of the Understanding

Kant argues that all that one experiences and which one's understanding processes can be classified into categories. Kant refers to these categories as the pure concepts of the understanding. Kant delineates twelve pure concepts of the understanding which are divided into four classes of three. "If we abstract from all content of a judgment as such and pay attention only to the mere form of the understanding in it, then we can find that the function of thought in judgment can be brought under four headings, each containing under it three moments" (Kant 739). The four classes are: quantity, quality, relation, and modality. Under quantity are unity, plurality, and totality. Under quality are reality, negation, and limitation. Under relation are inherence and subsistence, causality and dependence, and community. Under modality are possibility, existence, and necessity (Kant 740-741). Knowledge of these pure concepts of understanding come a priori. "These representations are called pure concepts of understanding which apply to objects a priori" (Kant 740) therefore one cannot gain knowledge of them through experience. "This division of the categories has been generated systematically from a common principle...not...haphazardly, where we can never be certain that the enumeration of the concepts is complete" (Kant 741). Everything that one processes through their understanding utilizes these categories. The pure concepts of understanding serve as the lens through which experience is processed. In other words, the way in which the mind comes to understand phenomena and draw conclusions is by placing what it perceives into categories. For example, when a sensory representation of a blue fruit comes to mind, the understanding utilizes the pure concepts to ascertain its quantity (one), its quality (blue), etc. The point is that one's understanding searches for objective empirical facts regarding a phenomenon in accordance with the pure concepts of understanding. These pure concepts of understanding are similar to Aristotle's categories in that aim of delineating the pure concepts of understanding are "fundamentally the same as [Aristotle's categories], even though it greatly deviates from his in its execution" (Kant 740).

Kant’s Copernican Revolution

Kant argues that, prior to his philosophy, the general view of the human mind is that of the receiver. Under this view, the mind is a passive participant of sensory information generated by an outside world. In other words, the representation in the mind is a product of the object existing which thereby makes it possible for the representation to exist. Kant argues the inverse. The existence of the object is possible because the representation exists. This Kantian assertion is analogous to the Copernican revolution in terms of its radicality. Polish-born Renaissance-era mathematician Nicolaus Copernicus formulated a model of the solar system in which the planets revolved around the sun. Up to that point, most people believed that the earth was the focal point around which all other celestial bodies revolved. To be fair to those who held this view, this was the most obvious conclusion to draw. The earth seems to be still and at rest while the sun and moon traveled relatively quickly across the sky. Alas, that which is obvious isn't necessarily true. Just as the Copernicus revolution challenged those who held the seemingly obvious view, Kant's argument that the mind is not a passive participant but an active originator of experience is contrary to the default conclusion that real existing objects trigger mental images and representations. For example, while someone opposing Kant may say that the perception of the lamp is the product of the lamp existing, Kant would argue that the representation of the lamp in one's mind makes it possible for the lamp to exist. To be clear, however, Kant argues that one cannot not know anything about a thing in itself but only about its representation. That being said, the fact that the representation of the lamp is in one's mind, there exists the possibility that the thing exists.

The Distinction Between Experience and Perception

Kant distinguishes between experience and perception. Judgements of perception are different from judgements of experience. "Empirical judgments, insofar as they have objective validity, are judgements of experience; but those that are only subjectively valid, I call merely judgments of perception" (Kant 681). By bringing together multiple empirical ideas, judgements of perception are subjectively valid only. Judgments of perception "require no pure concept of understanding but only the logical connection of perceptions in a thinking subject" (Kant 681). For example, if a person sees a bonfire and notices that a rock near the bonfire is hot, one may conclude that the rock grows warm by the bonfire. However, the judgement is only true for that specific instance. Judgements of experience, on the other hand, "in addition to the representations of sensible intuition...always require special concepts originally creating in the understanding, which make the judgment of experience objectively valid" (Kant 681). Judgements of experience use pure concepts of understanding to form universally valid laws. Using the above example, pure concepts of understanding would lead a person to conclude that not only that the rock grows warm by the bonfire but also that the bonfire caused the rock to grow warm. In this way, a subjective judgment is turned into objective universally valid laws. "All our judgments are initially mere judgments of perception; they are valid only for us (i.e. for our subject) and only later do we give them a new reference (to an object) and desire that they shall always be valid for us and in the same way for everybody else; for if a judgment agrees with an object, all judgments concerning the same object must likewise agree among themselves, and thus the objective validity of the judgment of experience signified nothing other than its necessary universality" (Kant 681).

The distinction between judgments of perception and judgments of experience boil down to judgments of perception only dealing with what a person's senses and intuits while judgments of experience would be best described as what one infers from one's perceptions. Therefore, anything that is inferred from a perception goes beyond the specific individual and specific situation and, rather, becomes applicable universally to all people and all situations of the same type. Judgments of perception are true for the beholder. If a person saw a cat who seemed to be black, no one can dispute that that given cat seemed black to the person who applied their judgment of perception. Judgment of experience are universal for all, a person could point out the fact that the cat in question was not black regardless of what color it seemed to be to another individual.

Works Cited

Kant, Immanuel. Modern Philosophy: an Anthology of Primary Sources. Edited by Roger Ariew and Eric Watkins, 2nd ed., Hackett, 2009.