The holistic character of Kantian intuition

Richard Aquila

pp. 309-329

in: Paolo Parrini (ed), Kant and contemporary epistemology, Berlin, Springer, 1994

Abstract

I am going to discuss a particular aspect of the following question: To what extent does Kantian intuition involve an irreducible mental capacity that is presupposed by our knowledge of objects? One might suppose that, apart from what is really a fact about human understanding — namely, that it is limited a priori by spatiotemporal conditions — and, possibly, apart from the ineffable sensory quality of spatiotemporal awareness, if we are to concede that Kantian intuition involves an irreducible mental capacity, then it is because Kant, perhaps despite himself, takes it to involve a capacity for cognitive relations with objects independently of concepts. However, what I have in mind is none of these things: neither an a priori limitation, nor an ineffable quality, nor a supposed autonomous power of apprehension. What I have in mind is rather the capacity for a certain kind of wholeness of apprehension: a kind of wholeness that is more basic than, and presupposed by, whatever kind of wholeness might be due to concepts, insofar as the latter are predicable of objects in intuition.

Cited authors

Kant Immanuel