Kant on Intentionality, Magnitude, and the Unity of Perception

Abstract

This paper addresses a number of closely related questions concerning Kant's model of intentionality, and his conceptions of unity and of magnitude [Gröβe]. These questions are important because they shed light on three issues which are central to the Critical system, and which connect directly to the recent analytic literature on perception: the issues are conceptualism, the status of the imagination, and perceptual atomism. In Section 1, I provide a sketch of the exegetical and philosophical problems raised by Kant's views on these issues. I then develop, in Section 2, a detailed analysis of Kant's theory of perception as elaborated in both the Critique of Pure Reason and the Critique of Judgment; I show how this analysis provides a preliminary framework for resolving the difficulties raised in Section 1. In Section 3, I extend my analysis of Kant's position by considering a specific test case: the Axioms of Intuition. I contend that one way to make sense of Kant's argument is by juxtaposing it with Russell's response to Bradley's regress; I focus in particular on the concept of ‘unity’. Finally, I offer, in Section 4, a philosophical assessment of the position attributed to Kant in Sections 2 and 3. I argue that, while Kant's account has significant strengths, a number of key areas remain underdeveloped; I suggest that the phenomenological tradition may be read as attempting to fill precisely those gaps.

Perceptual Content and the Unity of Perception

“…Kant assumes that my apprehension does work in this way." A similar idea is present in the reading ofGolob (2011). By contrast, while I think such an idea does seem present in the thinker Condillac, there is much in Kant's work to resist this type of empiricist "sensationism" (seeFalkenstein 1990).…”

“…34 For an account, see Golob (2011). 35 This is the classic example introduced by Wilfrid Sellars (1982).…”