247 KANT ON INTUITION By Kmx Datias Wuson Kant’s Logic! begins by dividing objective representations into intuitions and concepts: Ali cognitions, that is, all [re]presentations consciously referred to an object, are either intuttions or concepts. Intuition is a singular {re]- presentation (repraesentatio singularis), the concept is a general (reprae- sentatio per notas communes) or reflective [re]presentation (repraesenta- tio discursiva) (op. cit., § 1). But, as Frege has noted, this definition of ‘intuition’ contains no mention of a connection with sensibility,? a connection that dominates the treatment of intuition in the Transcendenta] Aesthetic? What is more, in contrast with the Logic definition of intuition in terms of singularity, the opening sentence of the Transcendental Aesthetic reads, 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. . . . (A19=B34). Later in the Critique, however, ‘intuition’ is defined by both singularity and immediacy: intuition, Kant says, “relates immediately to the object and is [singular (einzeln)}” (A320 B377). Two problems with Kant’s notion of intuition emerge: (1) How are the singularity and immediacy criteria for defining in- tuitive representations related? (2) How is the connection between intuition and sensibility to be established? In the Prolegomena‘ and in the Transcendental Expositions in B, Kant treats the connection of intuition to sensibility as a consequence of a certain theory of mathematical construction (see sec. V below); however, the relation between singularity and immediacy as defining criteria of intuition is never, as far as I know, made explicit by Kant. In some recent articles Jaakko Hintikka has argued that the immediacy criterion is just another formulation of the singularity criterion.® Charles Parsons has countered that the two criteria are different and, moreover, that Ummanuel Kant: Logic, trans. Robert 8, Hartman and Wolfgang Schwarz, Library of Liberal Arts (Indianapolis, 1974). Hereinafter, Logic; references to this work will appear in the text. The Foundations of Arithmetic, trans. J. L. Austin (New York, 1960), p. 19. ___20f the Critique of Pure Reason, trans. Norman Kemp-Smith (London, 1963). Here- inafter, Critique; references will appear in the text. “Prolegomena to Any Future Metaphyeice, ed. Lewis White Bock, Library of Liberal Arts (Indianapolis, 1960). Hereinafter, Prolegomena; references will appear in the text. ‘Most notably in “On Kant’a Notion of Intuition (Anschauung)”, in The Firat ust Reflections on Kant's Critique of Pure Reason, od. T- Penelhum and J. J. tosh (Belmont, 1969), esp. p. 42. Seo also Hintikie ‘a reply to Parsons, “Kantian Intuitions”s Inquiry, 15 (1873), pp. 341-5, cop. pe B42248 KIRK DALLAS WILSON the singularity criterion is broader than that of immediacy in characterizing representations as intuitive.* I shall argue that Kant’s two criteria aro intensionally different but eztensionaily identical. In other words, although each criterion identifies a different aspect of intuitive representations, any representation that satisfies the one also satisfies the other. Against Hin- tikka, therefore, I shall argue that immediacy cannot be reduced to singular- ity, and against Parsons I shall argue that neither criterion is broader than the other. The root difficulty in both Hintikka's and Parsons’ positions lies in their interpretation of Kantian intuitions as corresponding to singular terms of the Predicate Calculus. Against this interpretation I shall defend a reconstruction of Kant’s singularity criterion in terms of mereological primitives and of the immediacy criterion in terms of a suitable notion of isomorphism. I Though much is said of the ambiguity between act and content im Kant's notion of representation, Kant rarely used ‘representation’ to mean the act of representing. While such acts are necessarily tied to our representations, representations themselves are objects of consciousness {mental entities). Our representations are the content of our acts of apprehending; they are the what of what is apprehended. Accordingly, in this paper I shall use ‘representation’ in the content-sense. Let us begin by noting a prima facie case for the intensional difference but extensional identity of the singularity and immediacy criteria. Though prima facie, this case prohibits one kind of reconstruction of Kant’s notion of intuition, Concepts are said to be general representations because they represent many objects by marks or characteristics that these objects have in common. By implication, then, intuitions do not represent their objects by marks or characteristics. But because Kant holds the transcendental thesis that intuitions are connected with sensibility, which therefore places the study of singular representations outside the scope of general logic and inside that of aesthetic (A52=B76), Kant does not explain in the logic how intuitions represent in virtue of their singularity. In formal logic Kant mentions the singularity of intuitive representations as a contrast with the generality of conceptual representations. Nevertheless, we shall find that it is possible through the contrast with the generality of concepts to reconstruct the singularity of representations with logical mechanisms (sec. III below). Thus we obtain one of Kant’s criteria for distinguishing kinds of representations —singularity versus generality—as a distinction regarding the logical strwe- ture of a representation. On the other hand, while singularity is mentioned at least seven times as the defining feature of intuitions in the logic lectures during the critical “Kant’s Philosophy of Arithmetic”, in Philosophy, Soience, and Method, ed. Sidney Morgonbosser, ef al. (New York, 1969), p. 670,KANT ON INTUITION 249 period, the immediacy criterion is alluded to only twice.” This imbalance is quite understandable, since logic, according to Kant, abstracts from the mode in which a representation relates to an object (A55<=B79). Immediacy versus mediacy, as modes of representation, constitute a critica] distinction between ways in which a representation is said to represent its object. The critical character of this distinction emerges from the important letter to Marcus Herz of February 1772 in which Kant first raised the critical question. Although he later formulated the critical question in terms of the syn- thetic a priori character of judgments, Kant originally questioned “the grounds of the relation of that in us which we call ‘representation’ to the object”.* Kant immediately added that “passive or sensuous representations ie. intuitions] have an understandable relationship to objects”, since they are the immediate effects on the mind of the objects themselves, Even in the mature critical philosophy there is some evidence that Kant tended to identify the object represented by intuition with the cause of the intuition;* it is easy to sce in this argument the justification of intuition’s immediate, and critically unproblematic, relation to its object. The critical difficulty, on the other hand, concerns “intellectual representations”, for these depend upon the “inner activity of the mind” and, therefore, cannot stand in im- mediate relation to their objects.1° This early formulation of the critical problem is reflected in the Critique by the doctrine that concepts are predi- cates of possible judgments (A69=B94) and, hence, require a mediating representation in order to relate to objects. According to this doctrine, all concepts contain other representations under themselves as the mediating elements in their relation to objects (A69=B93-94). Thus, of the two criteria In Kants Vorlesungen: Forlesungen tiber Logik, Kants Gesammelte Schriften, hrs von der Deutschen Akademie der Wisaonschaften zu Berlin, vol. 24 (Berlin, 1966), References to intuition as singular representation oecur in Logzk Philippi, p. 451: Logik Potitz, pp. 565, 568; Logik Buaolt, p. 653; Logik Dohna-Wundlacken, p. 754; and Wiener Logik, pp. 904, 905. Thtuition as immediate representation is assumed but not directly stated in Logik Politz, p. 569, during a discussion of the impossibility of infimae species (or lowest species). Immediacy is explicitly associated with intuition in Logik Dokna- Wundlacken, p. 754; but by 1792 one might expect that aspects of the critical philosophy would be creeping into the logic lectures, Further references to these notes will appear in the text; the translations are mine. "In Kant: Philosophical Correspondence 1759-99, trans. and ed. Arnulf Zweig (Chicago, 1967), p. 71. *See Norman Kemp Smith, 4 Commentary to Kant's Critique of Pure Reason (Now York, 1962), p. 80. 1°Kant; Philosophical Correspondence 1759-99, p. 72. MBy repudiating the traditional doctrine of infimae species (see Logic, § 11, Note; and Logit Politz, p. 569), Kant proves that it is part of the logical theory of concepts that aii concepta contain other concopts under themselves, for this repudiation guaran- toes at least in principle that any concept can be a genus. What is critical about this doctrine is that concepts are used as predicates in judgments when they are used to provide a conceptualization of objects. However, Manley Thompson is mistaken when ho argues that the repudiation of the doctrine of infimae species entails that Kant would havo used the first-order scheme ‘Fz° as the form of predication rather than the form of classical logic ‘S is P* (“Si lar Terms and Intuition: in Kant's Epistemology”, The Review of Metaphysics, XXVI (1972), pp. 326-326). The repudiation of the doctrine Of tnfimae species is only @ necessary condition for Kant’s critical use of concepts as mediate representations in the eritical philosophy.