Kant on Intuition

Western and Asian Perspectives on Transcendental Idealism

Stephen R. Palmquist, Stephen R. Palmquist

• Publisher: Routledge
• Year: 2018
• ISBN:
  9780429958908
• Edition: 1
• Topic: Philosophy
• Subtopic: Philosophy History & Theory

Kant on Intuition: Western and Asian Perspectives on Transcendental Idealism consists of 20 chapters, many of which feature engagements between Kant and various Asian philosophers. Key themes include the nature of human intuition (not only as theoretical—pure, sensible, and possibly intellectual—but also as relevant to Kant's practical philosophy, aesthetics, the sublime, and even mysticism), the status of Kant's idealism/realism, and Kant's notion of an object. Roughly half of the chapters take a stance on the recent conceptualism/non-conceptualism debate. The chapters are organized into four parts, each with five chapters. Part I explores themes relating primarily to the early sections of Kant's first Critique: three chapters focus mainly on Kant's theory of the "forms of intuition" and/or "formal intuition", especially as illustrated by geometry, while two examine the broader role of intuition in transcendental idealism. Part II continues to examine themes from the Aesthetic but shifts the main focus to the Transcendental Analytic, where the key question challenging interpreters is to determine whether intuition (via sensibility) is ever capable of operating independently from conception (via understanding); each contributor offers a defense of either the conceptualist or the non-conceptualist readings of Kant's text. Part III includes three chapters that explore the relevance of intuition to Kant's theory of the sublime, followed by two that examine challenges that Asian philosophers have raised against Kant's theory of intuition, particularly as it relates to our experience of the supersensible. Finally, Part IV concludes the book with five chapters that explore a range of resonances between Kant and various Asian philosophers and philosophical ideas.

Part I
The Role of Intuition in Geometry and Transcendental Idealism

1 How Does Transcendental Idealism Overcome the Scandal of Philosophy?

Perspectives on Kant’s Objekt/Gegenstand Distinction

Stephen R. Palmquist, Guy Lown, and Brandon Love

[I]f there perhaps occurs only one single word for a certain concept that, in one meaning already introduced, exactly suits this concept, and if it is of great importance to distinguish it from other related concepts, then it is advisable not to be prodigal with that word or use it merely as a synonym or an alternative in place of other words, but rather to preserve it carefully in its proper meaning.

(A312–313/B369)

1. Jacobi’s Challenge to Transcendental Idealism’s Account of Intuiting Objects

Kant’s theory of transcendental idealism answers a twofold question: How is it possible for us to intuit particular objects, and what makes such intuition impossible for certain (metaphysical) types of object? While the other chapters in this book explore various aspects of Kant’s theory of intuition, and the many controversies arising out of it, this opening chapter steps back from Kant’s core question and asks: What does Kant mean by “object”? In the course of defending transcendental idealism, Kant introduces and discusses many different types of object, only some of which relate to intuition. Indeed, the question of whether or not a particular object is (or can be) intuited is crucial to the way we are permitted to talk about it. Given this widely accepted fact, we find it nothing short of astounding that interpreters have not devoted more attention to unpacking the question of whether Kant intended to distinguish between two words he uses, which are both normally translated as “object”: namely, Objekt¹ and Gegenstand. While several valiant attempts have been made, as we shall see later in this section, each has been relatively brief and narrowly focused. But if widespread agreement is to be reached on the importance of such a distinction, in the manner Kant urges in the passage quoted above, the exposition needs to be comprehensive and its defense well-grounded in Kant’s text. We therefore aim to begin the task of filling this lacuna by defending a way of understanding how these two terms shape and even determine Kant’s theory of the object, in both its theoretical and its practical applications; this should prepare readers for a more nuanced assessment of the chapters that follow, all of which use the word “object” regularly. As we shall see, Kant’s theory of the object is integrally bound up with his theory of how the peculiar features of human intuition (as limited to sensibility) make transcendental idealism the correct theoretical understanding of human cognition.

At A369, Kant famously defines “transcendental idealism” as a “doctrine” that requires us to regard “all appearances … as mere representations and not as things in themselves”, for “space and time are only sensible forms of our intuition, but not determinations given for themselves or conditions of Objekte as things in themselves.” Shortly before Kant published the second edition of the first Critique, F.H. Jacobi published David Hume on Faith, which included an appendix criticizing Kant’s newfangled, “transcendental” version of idealism. Jacobi’s discussion of Kant’s position uses both “Objekt” and “Gegenstand” in ways that suggest he was aware of an implicit distinction between them. Most significantly, the oft-quoted claim that Jacobi makes at the climax of his criticism—typically misquoted as the claim that one cannot enter Kant’s system without assuming the thing in itself, yet with this assumption one “cannot stay within his system” (Jacobi 1994, 228)—is actually not primarily (if at all) a claim about the thing in itself. Rather, Jacobi’s actual challenge concerns Kant’s assumption that what affects us through the process of intuition is a Gegenstand, which Jacobi takes Kant to regard as an object within us, not one that is external to the mind (228): “without that presupposition I could not enter into [Kant’s] system, but with it I could not stay within it.” Jacobi treats Kant’s use of “Gegenstand” as referring not to objects outside the mind (and certainly not to the thing in itself), but to the mental awareness we must have of an object in order for us ever to cognize it objectively. Because Gegenstände are only in the mind, he argues, Kant’s claim that they affect our sensibility makes no sense, unless Kant admits that transcendental idealism leaves no room for empirical realism.²

Jacobi’s charge profoundly affected Kant. In response, he composed the Refutation of Idealism, the only entirely new section (other than the Preface) that Kant added to the second (1787) edition. (All other, seemingly new material, as Kant emphasizes at Bxxxixn, consisted of thoroughly rewritten versions of sections that also existed in 1781.) A fact that has gone curiously unnoticed in the literature, that the entire text of the Refutation employs only the term “Gegenstand”, never “Objekt”, therefore seems highly significant for our purposes. In §3, we will consider the implications of this fact and will argue that Kant had already demonstrated in the Deduction (in both the A and B editions) that Objekte are external to us; what remained to be argued (in response to Jacobi) was that, even if we limit our attention to Gegenstände, we can justify our belief that cognized objects are external (and thus legitimately defend a robust realism) without taking refuge in faith.

In §2, we examine textual evidence supporting our claim that Kant’s two technical terms for “object” have quite distinct meanings. We show that our interpretation establishes a comprehensive framework for understanding not only how Kant thought he had resolved the scandal of philosophy (§3), but also (in §4) how certain key features of his practical philosophy relate to the theoretical. But first, let us briefly examine three previous, but less comprehensive attempts at distinguishing between Objekt and Gegenstand.

By far the predominant approach among Kant scholars is simply to avoid making any Objekt/Gegenstand distinction. However, three interpreters stand out as exceptions: Henry Allison, Rudolf Makkreel, and Howard Caygill. Allison distinguished the terms in 1983, though his view underwent a shift—in light of criticisms, especially from Béatrice Longuenesse—such that he had stopped using the distinction by 2004.³

According to Allison (1983, 135), an Objekt (at least in the B Deduction) is a “logical conception of an object (an object in sensu logico).” A Gegenstand, by contrast, is “a ‘real’ sense of object”—i.e., “an object in the sense of an actual entity or state of affairs (an object of possible experience)” (135). He relates objective validity to “Objekt” and objective reality to “Gegenstand”. However, the problematic nature of this latter claim can readily be seen in the very paragraph from which Allison infers his “reciprocity thesis” (144), the thesis that “The essential move in the first part of the Deduction is the attempt to establish a reciprocal connection between the transcendental unity of apperception and the representation of objects.” At B137, Kant explicitly relates objective validity to Gegenstand, rather than Objekt: “the unity of consciousness is that which alone constitutes the relation of representations to a Gegenstand, thus their objective validity.”

The most relevant point for our understanding of the distinction (see §2) is Allison’s claim that “Objekt” refers to an object “in sensu logico”. Longuenesse (1998, 111n) points out the problem with this claim:⁴ Allison is mistaken, because Kant’s point concerning “Objekt” in the Deduction (though Longuenesse does not grant a distinction between the terms) is “a consideration of the logicodiscursive function of the understanding”, while his point concerning Gegenstand is “a reevaluation, in light of the first consideration, of what we learned in the Transcendental Aesthetic about space and time, that is, about ‘the manner in which things are given to us’ ” (70n). In revising his argument, Allison (2004, 44) says that Longuenesse convinced him to reject his initial distinction, since she showed that “the object at issue in the first part of the Deduction is defined as the object of intuition as such and is therefore an intuited object rather than merely an object in the most general or logical sense.” As a result, Allison (44) rejected “the extremely vague and potentially misleading notion of an object in sensu logico.” More recently, Allison has confessed that he now sees “a certain randomness in Kant’s use of these terms [Objekt and Gegenstand]”, such that Allison has “ceased placing any weight on the terminology” (2015, 380n). Yet he still emphasizes (380n)—what will be crucial in our account, below—that Kant makes a distinction “between two conceptions of an object rather than between two kinds of object.” This revised approach, along with Longuesse’s criticism of Allison’s earlier position, pose no problem to the position we will defend: even if the Objekt is not merely an object in sensu logico, abandoning this claim does not require abandoning the distinction altogether.

Makkreel (1990, 39–40) frames his discussion of the distinction in relation to Allison’s. For Makkreel (40), “an Objekt need not be merely logical; it can be just as real as a Gegenstand.” Still, Makkreel thinks Kant sometimes does view Objekte as merely logical. For Makkreel (41), “anything either merely thought or merely sensed would be an Objekt and becomes a Gegenstand—an object of experience—only through the mediation of the imagination. The difference between Objekt and Gegenstand is between an unmediated object and an object mediated by the schemata of the imagination.” While Makkreel’s interpretation of the distinction is more balanced, his view of “Objekt” as immediate depends on the notion of the object given in intuition. However, as we will see, Kant consistently uses “Gegenstand” for this aspect of the object. Makkreel refers to Kant’s statement at B145 to claim that Objekte are given in intuition; however, Kant there says that the unity of apperception “combines and orders the material for cognition, the intuition, which must be given to it through the Objekt.” On our reading, intuition occurs in response to the Objekt, but the material given in intuition is the Gegenstand. On this point, our reading is closer to that of Caygill.

Like both the early Allison and Makkreel, Caygill claims that “Kant’s distinction between Gegenstand and Objekt is crucial to his transcendental philosophy, although never explicitly thematized” (2000, 305).⁵ For Caygill, the two notions are intimately intertwined (305): “Gegenstände are objects of experience or appearances which conform to the limits of the understanding and intuition… . When objects [Gegenstände] of experience are made into objects for knowledge, they become Objekte.”⁶ Caygill’s rationale for this view of the relationship (which seems to reverse Makkreel’s) is that, while Gegenstände are appearances, Objekte are “that in the concept of which the manifold of a given intuition is united” (305, quoting B137). Caygill’s interpretation of the distinction is correct, but does not go far enough. Moreover, although neglecting Kant’s distinction altogether (as Longuenesse prefers) need not doom an interpretation to failure, we shall argue that taking on board the full extent of its complexities can serve not only to highlight certain contours of Kant’s transcendental idealism that are otherwise easy to miss, but also to clarify various issues relating to his moral philosophy and to the overall coherence of his entire philosophical system.

2. Kant’s Perspectival Use of Objekt and Gegenstand

The best way to detect the easily missed contours in Kant’s transcendental idealism, while identifying strengths and weaknesses in the aforementioned interpretations, is to examine several key passages in which Kant states that an object can be viewed from two perspectives. He makes two different twofold distinctions, each with implications for the Objekt/Gegenstand distinction, and remains consistent in his use of these terms whenever he explicitly discusses these perspectival distinctions. One passage is in both versions; two others, Kant added in 1787. The first relates to the appearance/thing in itself distinction and the second to the phenomena/noumena distinction.⁷

In the first passage, Kant says an appearance “always has two sides” (A38/B55). We take this to refer to two perspectives, or ways of viewing appearances (cf. Palmquist 1986 and Allison 2015, 380). When the appearance is viewed from one perspective, “the Objekt is considered in itself (without regard to the way in which it is to be intuited, the constitution of which however must for that very reason always remain problematic)” (A38/B55). Viewed from the other perspective, “the form of the intuition of this Gegenstand is considered, which must not be sought in the Gegenstand in itself but in the subject to which it appears, but which nevertheless really and necessarily pertains to the representation of this Gegenstand” (A38/B55). If we regard an appearance in itself (i.e., without considering the way it is intuited), then we treat it as an Objekt; if, by contrast, we consider an appearance in relation to our mode of intuition (i.e., as it is for us), then we treat it as a Gegenstand. Kant adopts the latter perspective when he describes appearance as “The undetermined Gegenstand of an empirical intuition” (A20/B34) and the former perspective when he writes that appearances are “Objekt[e] of sensible intuition” (Bxxvi) and “empirical Objekte” (A46/B63).

This first distinction relates to the empirical object. We have seen that Kant speaks of the Objekt as “that in the concept of which the manifold of a given intuition is united” (B137). This claim confirms our consistent observation that in Kant’s usage only Gegenstände are given in intuition;⁸ Gegenstände in intuition are then united to form the empirical Objekt through the process of determination effected by the schematized categories (see A145–146/B185). When we view an appearance as an Objekt, we regard it as the unified empirical object (without considering our mode of intuition), whereas when we view it as a Gegenstand, we regard it as the material for form...