Kant on the spontaneous power of the mind

Abstract

It is well known that at the heart of Kant's Critical philosophy is the claim that the mind possesses an essentially spontaneous power or capacity [Vermögen]. It is also sometimes maintained that Kant's appeals to this spontaneous power are intimately tied to his recognition of there being a fundamental and irreducible normative dimension to judgment. However, I attempt to complicate this picture by way of appeal to some less appreciated influences upon the development of Kant's epistemology. A different conception of the role of spontaneity in judgment has clear precedents, I claim, in the works of Cudworth and Rousseau. There the imagined role for the active power of the mind is not to identify criteria that might serve as norms for epistemically responsible judgment. Rather the spontaneous power of the mind is cited as the source of representational contents that secure the truth conditions of our everyday claims to empirical knowledge.

Is it the Understanding or the Imagination that Synthesizes?

“…See Sethi 2020. 17 For a helpful discussion of Kant's understanding of spontaneity, see Callanan 2017. only recall to mind representations originally received through sensible affection (A51/B75; Anth., 7:167; 7:140-1). 18…”