Luther 8
For Kant, the only possibility for objects to be given to us lies in receptive
sensibility, the capacity of the mind to be affected by objects.
30
In recognizing
sensibility, he assents to the basic empiricist idea that human knowledge relies upon
something given; but with his insight as to the necessity of understanding, he assents to
the rationalist view that without thought no knowledge is possible either.
31
Hence, there
are two sources of human knowledge—sensibility and understanding. Judgment requires
the joint operation of sensibility and understanding:
In whatever manner and by whatever means a mode of knowledge may relate to objects,
intuition is that through which it is in immediate relation to them, and to which all
thought as a means is directed. But intuition takes place only in so far as the object is
given to us. This again is only possible, to man at least, in so far as the mind is affected
in a certain way. The capacity (receptivity) for receiving representations through the
mode in which we are affected by objects, is entitled sensibility. Objects are given to us
by means of sensibility, and it alone yields us intuitions; they are the thought through the
understanding, and from the understanding arise concepts. But all thought must, directly
or indirectly, by way of certain characters, relate ultimately to intuitions, and therefore,
with us, to sensibility, because in no other way can an object be given to us.
32
Without sensibility, no object would be given to us; without understanding, no object
would be thought. Thoughts without content are empty, and intuitions without concepts
are blind.
33
Understanding requires intuition if it is to become cognition rather than mere
thought; and intuition requires understanding if it is not be remain a mere subjective
jumble. So, perception is a kind of thinking, and understanding is present in every
perception. Kant calls this field of inquiry transcendental philosophy: “I entitle
transcendental all knowledge which is occupied not so much with objects as with the
mode of our understanding of objects in so far as this mode of knowledge is to be
possible a priori.”
34
A judgment is transcendental if it transcends the limits of empirical
inquiry and establishes the a priori conditions of experience.
30
Ibid., p. 65.
31
Höffe, Immanuel Kant, p. 55.
32
Kant, Critique of Pure Reason, p. 65.
33
Ibid., p. 93.
34
Ibid., p. 59. Immanuel Kant, Critique of Judgement, trans. J. Bernard (New York: Hafner, 1951), p. 17.
Convention