I argue that Kant's distinction between the cognitive roles of sensibility and understanding raises a question concerning the conditions necessary for objective representation. I distinguish two opposing interpretive positions, namely Intellectualism and Sensibilism. According to Intellectualism, all objective representation depends, at least in part, on the unifying synthetic activity of the mind. In contrast, Sensibilism argues that at least some forms of objective representation, specifically intuitions, do not require synthesis. I argue that there are deep reasons for thinking that Intellectualism is incompatible with Kant's view as expressed in the Transcendental Aesthetic. We can better see how Kant's arguments in the first Critique may be integrated, I suggest, by examining his notion of the "unity" (Einheit) of a representation. I articulate two distinct ways in which a representation may possess unity and claim that we can use these notions to integrate Kant's arguments in the Aesthetic and the Transcendental Deduction without compromising the core claims of either Sensibilism or Intellectualism-that intuition is a form of objective representation independent of synthesis, and that the kind of objective representations that ground scientific knowledge of the world require synthesis by the categories.

Call the idea that states of perceptual awareness have intentional content, and in virtue of that aim at or represent ways the world might be, the 'Content View.' I argue that though Kant is widely interpreted as endorsing the Content View there are significant problems for any such interpretation. I further argue that given the problems associated with attributing the Content View to Kant, interpreters should instead consider him as endorsing a form of acquaintance theory. Though perceptual acquaintance is controversial in itself and in attribution to Kant, it promises to make sense of central claims within his critical philosophy. He who merely senses and does not judge does not err. Thus every error lies in judgement. Judgements are actions of the understanding and of reason.

One of the central debates in contemporary Kant scholarship concerns whether Kant endorses a "conceptualist" account of the nature of sensory experience. Understanding the debate is crucial for getting a full grasp of Kant's theory of mind, cognition, perception, and epistemology. This paper situates the debate in the context of Kant's broader theory of cognition and surveys some of the major arguments for conceptualist and non-conceptualist interpretations of his critical philosophy.

This chapter examines the question of whether animals could ever, on Kant’s account, enjoy objective representational states of their environment by addressing Kant’s discussion of the conditions under which a mental state can be said to enjoy what Kant calls a ‘relation to an object’. I examine Kant’s discussion of this relation in the B-Deduction of the Critique of Pure Reason, which is standardly interpreted as arguing that a ‘relation to an object’ is possible only with the presence of intellectual faculties, and thus with the capacity for conceptual representation and judgment. I present an alternative interpretation that emphasizes the importance, in reading Kant’s argument, of distinguishing between acquaintance (Kenntnis) and cognition (Erkenntnis). On this alternative picture, although an animal does not rationally cognize the objective world, the world with which the animal mind is nevertheless acquainted is a world with particular qualities bundled or unified according to basic cognitive principles such as spatial continuity, cohesion, or proximity. I thus argue that there is a plausible interpretive case for Kant’s holding that animals enjoy objective states in a relevant sense of ‘objective’ but do not represent ‘objects’ in the sense with which Kant is primarily concerned in the Critique of Pure Reason.

In the Metaphysical Foundations of Natural Science, Kant presents an argument for the centrality of to our concept . This argument has long been considered either irredeemably obscure or otherwise defective. In this paper I provide an interpretation which defends the argument's validity and clarifies the sense in which it aims to show that is fundamental to our conception of matter.Kant's 1786 Metaphysical Foundations of Natural Science (MFNS) presents a sustained analysis and exposition of the concept in order to show that matter (the thing) is essentially movable, fills space, possesses motive force, and is a (possible) object of experience.However, as many commentators have noted, Kant's argument for the centrality of in his exposition of appears to be at best a highly compressed and potentially dogmatic empirical claim and at worst is wholly specious. The argument attempts to show two claims. First, that the "fundamental determination"[Grundbestimmung] of is . 2 Second, that is a (so to speak)"fecund" predicate, in that all of the other determinations belonging to the nature of matter must be connected to .Though the argument raises many questions, in this short discussion I focus primarily on the first claim of Kant's argument, concerning the fundamentality of to our concept . I construe Kant's argument as enthymematic but plausibly valid, drawing on auxiliary premises that he could have easily assumed as background to the project he outlines in the Preface of the MFNS. In §1 I present some initial interpretive background to the affection argument. §2 constitutes my argument for my preferred interpretation. §3 presents some further considerations concerning the sense in which is a fundamental determination of .1 Friedman (2013, 43) calls the argument "especially obscure and cryptic." Watkins considers it "dogmatic," and states that the argument "hardly amounts to a satisfactory justification" of the fundamentality of (1998, 578).Other commentators (e.g. (Hoppe 1969, 42-43, 63-66); (Walker 1971, 123); (Dahlstrom 1991, 271-90, 285)) have taken the argument to at best show that motion is empirically necessary for human beings to have experience.2 Here and throughout I take a "determination" [Bestimmung] to denote a predicate, which itself is ambiguous between a conceptual item and the worldly feature which the concept picks out. I will use corner brackets to indicate the concept and italics the worldly feature.