Stud. Hist. Phil. Sci.

39 (2008) 462–472

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Stud. Hist. Phil. Sci.

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Kant’s transcendental and empirical psychology of cognition

Claudia M. Schmidt
Department of Philosophy, 132 Coughlin Hall, PO Box 1881, Marquette University, Milwaukee WI 53201-1881, USA

a r t i c l e i n f o a b s t r a c t

Keywords: One of the perennially intriguing questions regarding Kant’s approach to the human sciences is the rela-
Immanuel Kant tion between his ‘transcendental psychology’ and empirical cognitive psychology. In this paper I compare
Anthropology his analysis of the a priori conditions of human cognition in the Critique of pure reason with his empirical
Psychology account of the human cognitive faculties in his Anthropology from a pragmatic point of view. In comparing
Cognition
his approach to self-consciousness, sensibility, imagination, and understanding in these two works, I
Transcendental
Empirical
argue that Kant distinguishes between the transcendental and empirical aspects of the human cognitive
faculties, and regards the transcendental functions as configuring the empirical faculties of human con-
sciousness, or as giving them the structure that they require to become faculties of cognition. I then show
that the cognitive faculties of human beings may vary in their empirical operation, even while they are
configured by the same transcendental structure. Finally, I characterize Kant’s transcendental psychology
in the first Critique as an account of the faculties that are required for a mind to be an agent or subject of
cognition, corresponding to his account of the conditions that are required universally and necessarily for
something to be an object of cognition.
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1. Introduction psychology as the study of the particular contents of human mental

One of the perennially intriguing questions regarding Kant’s ap-
proach to the human sciences has been the relation between his
account of the a priori conditions of human cognition and the var-
ious disciplines called ‘psychology’.1 In his critical philosophical
writings, Kant identifies a number of cognitive functions that are re-
quired for the possibility of experience. However, he distinguishes
this study of the a priori elements of cognition, or those functions
that are required universally and necessarily for empirical cognition,
both from ‘rational psychology’ and from ‘empirical psychology’. Fol-
lowing Wolff and Baumgarten, he identifies rational psychology as
the study of the soul as a specific type of substance, and empirical
states, including cognitive states.2 He then offers a critique of
rational psychology as consisting in a series of ‘paralogisms’ arising
from an unavoidable self-deception of reason (Kant, 1998, pp.
411–416; CPR, A 341–348/B 399–406),3 and of empirical psychology
as an applied discipline that cannot have the structure of a science
(ibid., pp. 699–700; CPR, A 848–849/B 876–877; Kant, 2002, pp.
185–186; MFNS, 4:469–471).4
Since the 1990s, Patricia Kitcher and others have argued that
Kant’s critical philosophy includes a ‘transcendental psychology’,
or a theory of the set of cognitive faculties that we must attribute
to a cognitive agent in order to account for the possibility of cogni-
tion.5 This proposal encourages us to consider further what Kant’s

E-mail address: claudia.schmidt@marquette.edu

1
For the history of various theories concerning the role of psychology in Kant’s critical philosophy, see Kitcher (1990), pp. 3–29; Hatfield (1990).
2
On the historical background to Kant’s treatment of rational and empirical psychology, see Hatfield (1992), pp. 200–227; Stark (2003), pp. 15–37; Kitcher (2006), pp. 169–
202; Wilson (2006), pp. 7–26.
3
References to the Critique of pure reason are to the pages of the first (A) and second (B) editions. For other works by Kant, references are also given to Kants gesammelte
Schriften, edited under the auspices of the Königlich Preussische Akademie der Wissenschaften (Kant, 1900–).
4
See Hatfield (1992), pp. 200–227. For an analysis of Kant’s treatment of rational psychology, see Ameriks (2000) and Bird (2000), pp. 129–145. On Kant’s treatment of
empirical psychology see Sturm (2001), pp. 163–184.
5
This recent use of the phrase ‘transcendental psychology’ should be distinguished from Kant’s own use of this phrase as a synonym for ‘rational psychology’ (Kant 1998,
p. 440; CPR, A 397); see Keller (1998), pp. 161–181.

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 C.M. Schmidt / Stud. Hist. Phil. Sci. 39 (2008) 462–472 463

‘transcendental psychology’ might be, and how it is related to other
approaches to psychology.6
One especially promising approach to the study of Kant’s cogni-
tive psychology has been largely overlooked in these discussions: a
comparison of his critical theory of cognition with his study of the
cognitive faculties in the Anthropology from a pragmatic point of
view.7 Elsewhere I have argued that in Book I of the Anthropology
Kant presents an empirical study of the human cognition that is in-
tended to be useful for ‘pragmatic’ purposes, in which he also occa-
sionally refers to topics in his critical theory of cognition.8 Kant
refers to his study of human nature in this text, and in the lecture
course that preceded it, as ‘anthropology’ rather than ‘psychology’,
since it rests upon a combination of self-observation with social
observation that he regards as distinct from, and more comprehen-
sive than, introspective empirical psychology as envisioned in the
Wolff–Baumgarten tradition (cf. Kant, 1998, pp. 699–700; CPR, A
848–849/B 876–877).9 However, I wil use the more modern phrase
‘empirical cognitive psychology’ for Kant’s empirical study of cogni-
tion in the Anthropology.
In the Anthropology Kant considers many of the same cognitive
functions or ‘faculties’ that he also examines in the Critique of pure
reason, including self-consciousness, sensibility, imagination, and
understanding. In comparing his account of cognition in these
two works, I will argue that Kant distinguishes between the tran-
scendental and empirical aspects of the human cognitive faculties,
and that he regards the transcendental functions as configuring the
empirical faculties of human consciousness, or in other words as
giving them the structure that they require to become faculties
of cognition.10 Kant explicitly articulates this distinction in his
description of the ‘subjective sources of cognition’—sense, imagina-
tion, and apperception—as each having an empirical and a transcen-
dental use, with the empirical dependent on the transcendental use
(ibid., pp. 236, 225; CPR, A 115, 94–95). He offers a different distinc-
tion between the ‘empirical use’ and ‘transcendental use’ of the
understanding, as instead pertaining to the types of objects to which
its pure concepts are supposedly applied. That is, pure concepts of
the understanding have an ‘empirical use’, insofar as they are applied
to empirical objects as appearances in time and space; but not a
‘transcendental use’, since they cannot be applied beyond experience
to things as they are in themselves (ibid., pp. 339–345; CPR, A 237–
46/B 296–303). In order to avoid this usage, I will therefore refer to
the transcendental and empirical ‘operations’ or ‘activities’ of the
understanding, corresponding to the transcendental and empirical
‘uses’ of sensibility, imagination, and apperception.11
Accordingly, in this article I will examine Kant’s account of the
transcendental and empirical aspects of self-consciousness, sensi-
bility, imagination, and understanding. More specifically, I will
show that each of these faculties has both an a priori structure
by which it is configured as a capacity for experience, and an
empirical operation as a faculty of representation that is config-
ured by this structure.12 The a priori aspect is the universal and
necessary structure that is required for these faculties of represen-
tation to be faculties of experience: that is, faculties that contribute
to our processing of the content of sensible intuition as representa-
tions of outer or inner objects that may be subsumed under con-
cepts and about which judgments may be made. By contrast, the
empirical operation of these faculties is the activity of a specific hu-
man agent in representing specific objects of both inner and outer
intuition, in developing and applying empirical concepts to these
objects, and in joining these concepts in specific judgments. Kant’s
study of the a priori aspect of cognition may thus be identified as
his epistemology of empirical cognition, and his study of the empir-
ical aspect of cognition may be identified as his empirical cognitive
psychology.
This distinction between the transcendental structure and the
empirical operation of the cognitive faculties, or between episte-
mology and empirical cognitive psychology, has several implica-
tions for Kant’s conception of human nature. First, it allows us
to distinguish between the study of the universal and necessary
principles of empirical cognition as such, and the study of the suc-
cess of any given human subject in any particular activity of judg-
ment, which may be studied at the level of empirical cognitive
psychology. That is, one human subject may be more successful
on one occasion than another, or successful more often than an-
other human subject, in achieving true judgments about empirical
objects, or in applying the standards for true judgment that are
appropriate in a given domain. Secondly, this analysis enables
Kant to describe the conscious states of some individuals—includ-
ing newborn infants and individuals with certain types of cogni-
tive disorders—as including a capacity for sensation, but not for
experience. In these cases, the subject is affected by sensations
but is not able to resolve these into objects within a connected
field of experience through the application of the categories, nor
to attain a unified self-consciousness. These issues are addressed
by Kant especially in the Anthropology, in which he discusses the
empirical operation of the cognitive faculties, the development
of these faculties in human individuals, and the variations among
individuals in the empirical operation of their cognitive faculties,
as belonging to a field of study that presupposes but is distinct
from the study of the universal and necessary principles of empir-
ical cognition. I will therefore give special attention to the Anthro-
pology in developing my discussion of Kant’s distinction between
the transcendental and empirical operation of the cognitive
faculties.
In light of this analysis, I will also locate Kant’s transcendental
psychology more securely within his system by concluding that
his critical philosophy includes an account of the necessary and
universal conditions, not only for something to be an object of cog-
nition, but also for a mind to be an agent or subject of cognition,
since these a priori structures of objectivity and subjectivity are
realized in objects and minds that are given empirically and that
may be studied empirically.

6
Kitcher (1990), Hatfield (1990), pp. 77–87, 98–101, 114; (1992), pp. 209–17; Bird (2000), p. 129. See also Allison (1996), pp. 53–66; Hanna (2001), pp. 15–16, 34–36.
7
Brook (1994), pp. 8–10, and Bird (2000), p. 129, have called attention to the potential value of the Anthropology for studying Kant’s theory of the mind. For other discussions of
Kant’s theory of cognition in the Anthropology, see Arens (1990), pp. 190–206; Makkreel (2001), pp. 185–201; Caygill (2003), pp. 164–193.
8
See Schmidt (2007), 156–182. In this article I argue that the Anthropology includes elements of what I call Kant’s transcendental, empirical, pragmatic, and moral
anthropology, and should not be regarded as excluding any of these projects.
9
For the historical context and the development of Kant’s approach to anthropology, see Brandt (1999), Louden (2000), pp. 62–106; Makkreel (2001), pp. 185–201; Zammito
(2002); Jacobs & Kain (2003); Wilson (2006).
10
In using the word ‘configure’ here, I am further developing Hatfield’s suggestion that the operations of transcendental psychology serve to ‘condition’ or prescribe structure to
the operations of empirical psychology (Hatfield, 1990, pp. 87, 98–101; see also Hanna, 2006, pp. 3, 25).
11
In the first Critique Kant characterizes the study of the empirical operation of the understanding, as I am using the phrase here, as ‘applied general logic’, or the study of our
application of the a priori principles of human understanding ‘under the subjective empirical conditions that psychology teaches us’. This includes the study of empirical
influences such as habit, inclination, prejudice, and variations in attention, as these tend to ‘hinder or promote’ the use of the understanding in ordinary cognition (Kant, 1998, pp.
194–195; CPR, A 52–55/B 77–79).
12
Hanna (2006), pp. 150–151, presents a parallel analysis of the faculty of reason, as depicted by Kant, by distinguishing between the ‘protologic’ or innate structure of logical
thinking that is presupposed by the ability to engage in reasoning, and individual activities of reasoning by human agents, which may be more or less successful in conforming to
this proctologic.
464 C.M. Schmidt / Stud. Hist. Phil. Sci. 39 (2008) 462–472
2. Self-consciousness
In the Critique of pure reason Kant argues that transcendental
apperception, or the transcendental unity of self-consciousness,
is the fundamental condition for the cognition of objects, since
any activity of judgment already presupposes the unity of con-
sciousness in a subject who is connecting representations accord-
ing to the categories (Kant, 1998, pp. 232–233, 246–247; CPR, A
106–107/B 132). Kant accordingly describes ‘pure apperception’
as the act of consciousness by which I refer all of my representa-
tions to myself. However, the representations that are combined
in a judgment can only be given through intuition. We may thus
call the act of referring my representations to myself ‘transcenden-
tal’ apperception or self-consciousness, and my consciousness of
the specific contents of my own mental states ‘empirical’ apper-
ception or self-consciousness (ibid., pp. 232–234, 246–250, 257–
260; CPR, A 106–110/B 131–139, 152–159).13 We become aware
of our own empirical states of consciousness through introspection
or ‘inner sense’, which discloses the modifications of consciousness,
including those conveyed by outer sense, as a series of affective
states ultimately arising from sensibility. Our empirical states of
consciousness are synthesized into an organized empirical self-con-
sciousness by the activities of the understanding, which are unified
in the transcendental unity of apperception (ibid., pp. 157–158,
232–233, 188–190, 250–251, 257–259, 456–458; CPR, A 22–23/B
37–38; A 107/B 66–69, 139–140, 152–156, 428–432).
In the Anthropology, Kant argues in similar terms that ‘the fact
that the human being can have the ‘‘I” in his representations’ estab-
lishes the ‘unity of consciousness’ that endures through all its
changes, and constitutes the individual as ‘one and the same per-
son’ (Kant, 2006, p. 15; Anth, 7:127). He then argues that the ‘con-
sciousness of oneself (apperception)’ can be divided into two
levels: that the self-consciousness of ‘reflection’ or spontaneous
thought; and of ‘apprehension’ or receptive sensibility, which he
also calls respectively ‘pure apperception’ and ‘empirical appercep-
tion’. The study of the I as the mere subject of thought belongs to
‘logic’, while the study of the I as the object of inner sense belongs
to ‘psychology’. While this analysis might seem to entail a double
self, Kant instead maintains that the human subject is twofold only
in its ‘form’ or ‘manner of representation’, not in its ‘matter’ or ‘con-
tent’ (ibid., p. 23; Anth, 7:134 n. b). In other words, human self-con-
sciousness is unitary, but may be regarded from two perspectives:
as a logical subject considered simply as attributing conscious
states to itself; or as the particular series of conscious states that I
attribute to myself, as an individual human subject with my own
particular memories, experiences, and expectations, within the
structure provided by the transcendental unity of apperception.14
As part of a digression into ‘metaphysics’ in the Anthropology, in
which he recalls his analysis in the Critique of pure reason, Kant ar-
gues that since my representations consist only in the ways I am
affected by objects, I can only cognize objects as they appear to
me, rather than as they are in themselves: a conclusion that he ap-
plies to objects of inner as well as outer intuition. Thus, even if the I
of pure apperception and the I of empirical intuition are the same
subject, I can only know myself in one of these aspects: ‘as I appear
to myself’, or as ‘the object of inner empirical intuition’, not as I am
in myself. We may therefore distinguish between inner sense as
13
On the interpretation of transcendental and empirical apperception as transcendental and empirical self-awareness, see Brook (1994), pp. 55–69, and Keller (1998). Allison
(1996), pp. 53–66, has criticized Kitcher’s account of Kant’s transcendental psychology as a functionalist interpretation that denies the crucial role of self-awareness in Kant’s
theory of transcendental apperception.
14
Brook (1994), pp. 92–93, 273 n. 34, has cited this footnote, together with Kant’s account of unity of the cognitive subject in both versions of the Transcendental Deduction, to
show that Kant distinguishes between two types of self-awareness, rather than between two or even three different selves, a view that Brook attributes especially to Kitcher.
Kitcher actually attributes to Kant the view that ‘there are two selves or that the self may be viewed from two perspectives’, though these seem to be two different ontological
claims (Kitcher, 1990, pp. 139–141, cf. 21–22).
15
Here Kant is probably offering, at least in part, a criticism of Emanuel Swedenborg, the contemporary visionary whom he had already criticized in his Dreams of a spirit-seer
elucidated by metaphysics (1766).
psychological or ‘applied’ consciousness, and pure apperception
as ‘logical’ consciousness (ibid., p. 33; Anth, 7:142). Pure appercep-
tion is therefore the ‘consciousness of what the human being does’
as given in the power of thinking; while inner sense is the ‘con-
sciousness of what he undergoes’, insofar as we are passively af-
fected, even by the play of our own thoughts (ibid., p. 53; Anth,
7:161).
In these chapters of the Anthropology, Kant has summarized his
critical analysis of the transcendental unity of apperception and its
relation to empirical self-consciousness. However, his main con-
cern in considering self-consciousness in the Anthropology is to de-
scribe various aspects of empirical self-consciousness, including
the development of self-consciousness during infancy and child-
hood, the dynamics of empirical introspection, and the social as-
pect of self-consciousness, including the ways in which we
respond to and present ourselves to others.
In the first chapter of the Anthropology Kant traces the signs of
self-consciousness in a human child through three stages. First, a
newborn infant does not respond to external objects as objects of
perception, or respond to expressions or gestures. This suggests
that the conscious states of a newborn do not include either self-
consciousness or experience, but only ‘scattered perceptions’ that
are ‘not yet united under the concept of an object’. During the next
two years the child gradually shows signs of the capacity for per-
ception and cognition, responds to the expressions of intention
and emotion by other people, and begins to speak, although with-
out yet using the word ‘I’. During this stage, according to Kant, the
child ‘feels’ himself but does not yet ‘think’ himself. Finally, the
child begins to use the word ‘I’, and ‘a light seems to dawn on
him’, indicating that the child has attained not only the transcen-
dental unity of consciousness but also empirical self-consciousness
(ibid., pp. 15–16; Anth, 7:127–128).
Turning next to adult self-consciousness, Kant considers several
types of empirical self-observation, and the problems we encoun-
ter in our observation and assessment of our own mental states.
Among the different types of self-observation, he distinguishes be-
tween our inevitable and useful tendency to notice ourselves while
engaged in various activities, and the persistent habit of observing
one’s own mental states, which he considers to be pathological,
since it involves attending to my inner states merely as subjective
states of consciousness, rather than as responses to external ob-
jects and situations. This obsessive attention to ‘the involuntary
course’ of our inner states can lead to extremes of arrogance or
self-torment, and even produce ‘enthusiasm and madness’ if we re-
gard the images and emotions generated by our own minds as
‘supposed higher inspirations and powers flowing into us’.15 Echo-
ing his Refutation of Idealism, Kant recommends that we should
counteract such tendencies toward pathological introspection by
attending mainly to the conscious states arising from the activity
of our minds, rather than those that occur ‘unbidden and on their
own’, and that we should persistently return our attention to exter-
nal objects, since these provide the ‘stability of observation neces-
sary for experience’ (ibid., pp. 20–23, cf. 34, 54–55; Anth, 7:132–
134, cf. 143, 161–162; cf. Kant, 1998, p. 121–122, 326–329; CPR, B
xxxix–xli, 274–279).
While the tendency to regard one’s own thoughts and emotions
as implanted by outside sources might be relatively extreme, Kant
 C.M. Schmidt / Stud. Hist. Phil. Sci. 39 (2008) 462–472
also describes other indications of the unreliability of introspec-
tion. First, we find it difficult to observe ourselves when we are
preoccupied by a powerful emotion or incentive: indeed, the at-
tempt to observe oneself requires a condition of calmness that is
relatively atypical among our inner states (Kant, 2006, p. 5; Anth,
7:121). We are also prone to misunderstand and even misrepresent
our own motives, especially by deceiving ourselves into believing
that the actions we perform out of self-love are morally justified
(ibid., pp. 44–45; Anth, 7:153; cf. Kant, 1996b, pp. 61–62; Ground-
work, 4:406–408; Kant, 1996c, pp. 76–79; Religion, 6:29–32). Thus,
while we manifestly cannot directly intuit the motives of others,
Kant maintains that we also cannot attain a completely transpar-
ent view of our own motives: an issue that he regards as a central
problem for our self-understanding as moral agents.16
Kant also considers the social dimension of human self-con-
sciousness, as this is evident in our ability to observe ourselves
in our interactions with others, and to regulate our thoughts, feel-
ings, and actions in response to these self-observations. As exam-
ples of this he describes our efforts to be liked and admired
(Kant, 2006, p. 141; Anth, 7:244), our use of the forms of courtesy
toward others (ibid., pp. 42–44; Anth, 7:151–152), our tendency to
present ourselves to others in a way that is advantageous to our-
selves (ibid., p. 137; Anth, 7:240), our tendency to imitate others
(ibid., pp. 142–143; Anth, 7:245), and our enjoyment of sharing
enjoyment with others (ibid., pp. 137–141, cf. 178–182; Anth,
7:240–244; cf. 277–282). However, our ability to regulate our so-
cial self-presentation also enables us to deceive, compete with,
and take advantage of others (ibid., pp. 5, 92, 99–100, 137, 225–
238; Anth, 7:121, 198, 205, 240, 321–333).
In addition to these types of self-observation and self-regula-
tion, Kant also describes the tension between egoism and pluralism
in various realms of judgment. In the chapter entitled ‘On egoism’,
he argues that from the moment the child refers to himself as ‘I’,
the human individual ‘brings his beloved self to light wherever
he is permitted to, and egoism progresses unchecked’. Kant then
describes cognitive, aesthetic, and moral egoism, as dispositions
to believe in the sufficiency and superiority of one’s own judg-
ments in these respective domains.17 As a method for counteracting
our tendencies toward egoism, Kant encourages us to compare our
judgments with those of others, and to cultivate ‘pluralism’, which
is an attitude of regarding oneself as a ‘mere citizen of the world’,
or as one individual within the larger human community (ibid., pp.
16–18; Anth, 7:128–130). He also indicates elsewhere that compar-
ing our cognitive activities with those of others, or indeed with the
accumulated cognitive tradition of ‘common sense’, is a ‘subjectively
necessary touchstone’ of the correctness of our understanding (ibid.,
pp. 113–114, 28; Anth, 7:219–220, 139; cf. Kant, 2000, pp. 174–176;
CPJ, 5:294–296).
Finally, Kant describes the tendency of human beings to adopt
certain types of behavior, or conform to certain roles, in their inter-
actions with others. This activity of self-presentation is especially
evident in contrast to the spontaneity of children, and the naiveté
or awkwardness of adults in unfamiliar situations, since sophisti-
cated adults in familiar settings tend to adjust their behavior
according to the expectations of others and their purposes in that
situation, and may be more or less successful in this endeavor,
according to the situation and their abilities (Kant, 2006, pp. 16,
20–21, 42–44; Anth, 7:128, 132–133, 151–153).
Kant thus distinguishes in both his critical and his anthropolog-
ical writings between the transcendental unity of apperception and
empirical self-consciousness. Of these, transcendental appercep-
tion is the activity by which I connect my conscious states as
16
For a further discussion of Kant’s treatment of empirical self-consciousness, including self-deception, see Wood (2003), pp. 48–50.
17
On Kant’s discussions of egoism, see Wood (2003), pp. 55–56; Louden (2003), pp. 67–69.
465
formally belonging to a single consciousness, while empirical self-
consciousness is my awareness of my remembered and present
conscious states as a connected sequence. I am not directly aware
of the activity of transcendental apperception, as I am of my empir-
ically given stream of conscious states; but I recognize through
critical reflection that the transcendental unity of apperception is
a necessary condition for empirical self-consciousness. In other
words, transcendental apperception provides the underlying struc-
ture or configuration for empirical self-consciousness. Finally, in
his account of empirical self-consciousness in the Anthropology,
Kant considers its development of this self-awareness in a human
child, the distinction between normal and pathological introspec-
tive self-observation, the problem of opacity and self-deception
in our self-awareness, the variations among individuals in these
respects, and the ways in which our social context influences our
empirical self-consciousness, judgments, and behavior.
Kant therefore provides an account of both the transcendental
structure and the empirical operation of self-consciousness. The
transcendental structure of self-consciousness is the activity of
referring all of my representations to myself, which is implicit in
every judgment. This act of self-attribution is also located as the
central temporal point, or ‘present’, in my representation of time.
By contrast, the empirical aspect of self-consciousness is the
activity by which I am aware, through inner sense and memory,
of my own specific thoughts, feelings, and judgments, by which I
attribute them to myself, and by which I characterize my own dis-
positions and tendencies, or the various aspects of my empirical
character. This empirical self-consciousness also enables me to
consider the view that other people have of me, and to adjust my
conduct in order to influence their view of me in order to pursue
my own purposes. However, these activities of empirical self-
observation and empirical self-presentation are only possible if
we presuppose the structure of self-reference that is described by
Kant as the transcendental unity of apperception.
3. Senses
In the Critique of pure reason Kant designates that aspect of a
cognition by which it is immediately related to an object as ‘intu-
ition’, which is possible for finite beings ‘only insofar as the object
is given to us’, or as the mind is affected ‘in a certain way’. Kant
identifies ‘the way in which we are affected by objects’ as ‘sensibil-
ity’. The conscious state produced in us by the influence of an ob-
ject on sensibility is a ‘sensation’, the intuition of an object through
sensation is called an ‘empirical intuition’, and the object of such
an intuition is an ‘appearance’. Each empirical intuition includes
the sensations constituting its ‘matter’, and the arrangement of
these sensations, which he calls their ‘form’. Human sensibility in-
cludes ‘outer sense’, which provides representations of external
objects, and ‘inner sense’, which is directed toward our own series
of conscious states (Kant, 1998, pp. 155–157; CPR, A 19–23/B 33–
37). Inner and outer sense therefore require both a formal structure
(the intuitions of space and time) as well as the ‘matter’ of
sensation.
In the Transcendental Aesthetic, Kant argues that space and
time are the ‘pure forms of sensible intuition’, or the a priori fields
in which the mind orders the representations it receives through
empirical intuition (ibid., pp. 155–157; CPR, A 20–22/B 34–36).
Of these, space is ‘the form of outer sense in general’ and thus also
‘of all appearances of outer sense’ (ibid., pp. 176–177; CPR, B 41–
42), while time is ‘the form of inner sense’, or ‘the subjective con-
dition under which all intuitions can take place in us’ (ibid., p. 180;
466 C.M. Schmidt / Stud. Hist. Phil. Sci. 39 (2008) 462–472
CPR, A 33/B 49). By contrast, he identifies sensations such as colors,
sounds, tastes, and temperatures as subjective modifications of our
‘manner of sensibility’ determined by the constitution of our sense
organs, and thus as subjective states that may be qualitatively dif-
ferent for different people. Accordingly, the ‘quality of sensation is
always merely empirical’, although, as he argues in the Axioms of
Intuition and the Anticipations of Perception, we recognize a priori
that every sensation must have an extensive magnitude and an
intensive magnitude (ibid., pp. 160–162, 290–295; CPR, A 28–30/
B 44–45, A 165–76/B 207–218).
Kant begins his discussion of sensibility in the Anthropology by
again distinguishing between the sensory and the intellectual cog-
nitive powers, or the passive and active faculties of the mind (Kant,
2006, p. 29; Anth, 7:140). He further divides sensibility into two
powers: these are sense, or ‘the faculty of intuition in the presence
of an object’, and imagination, or the power of intuition ‘even with-
out the presence of an object’.18 He then reaffirms his account of
space and time as a priori intuitions that determine the ‘formal con-
stitution’ of human sensibility (ibid., p. 32, cf. 94; Anth, 7:141; cf.
199–200). In considering the faculty of sense, he again distinguishes
the outer senses from inner sense, indicating that ‘outer sense is
where the human body is affected by physical things; inner sense,
where it is affected by the mind’ (ibid., p. 45; Anth, 7:153). He thus
indicates that ‘inner sense sees the relations of its determinations
only in time, hence in flux, where the stability of observation neces-
sary for experience does not occur’, while outer sense provides us
with ‘external experiences of objects in space, where the objects ap-
pear next to each other and permanently fixed’ (ibid., p. 23; Anth,
7:134).
After this summary of his critical analysis of sensibility, Kant
devotes most of his discussion of sense in the Anthropology to con-
sidering the empirical aspects of inner and outer sense, including
various types of internal bodily sensations, the five senses as the
means for perceiving external objects, and the influence of various
empirical conditions in the operation of the senses.
Kant characterizes inner sense as ‘a mere faculty of perception
(of empirical intuition)’ that is directed toward our own conscious
states. These conscious states, including our thoughts, sensations,
images, and emotions, are perceived through inner sense as given
and connected in time, and therefore constitute ‘inner experience’.
Kant distinguishes inner sense both from the operation of the bod-
ily senses and from the feelings of pleasure or displeasure, which
are not intuitions, but ‘affects’ arising from ‘the receptivity of the
subject to be determined by certain ideas for the preservation or
rejection of the condition of these ideas’. He ascribes our feelings
of pleasure and displeasure to an affective capacity called ‘interior
sense’, which he considers further in Book II of the Anthropology
(ibid., p. 45; Anth, 7:153; ibid., p. 53; Anth, 7:161; cf. ibid., pp.
125–148; Anth, 7:230–250).19
When he turns to his discussion of the senses that operate
through the body, we find that, on this single occasion, Kant uses
a different term for the type of sense he is contrasting to inner
sense, referring to what he usually calls ‘outer sense’ as die Sinne
der Körperempfindung (ibid., p. 45; Anth, 7:153). The interpretation
and accordingly the translation of this expression have been con-
troversial, but I would argue that ‘the senses of bodily sensation’
is the most accurate reading, and that it indeed identifies the types
of sensation that Kant is considering in this section more compre-
18
On Kant’s discussion of sensibility in the Anthropology, see Caygill (2003), pp. 182–190.
19
Kant’s formulation here is perhaps a little misleading, since pleasure and displeasure, while they may be attributed to a distinct faculty called ‘interior sense’, are presumably,
as states of consciousness, discerned through inner sense.
20
Other translations include ‘the senses that give us the sensations of bodies’, as used by McGregor in Kant (1974), p. 32, and ‘the senses of physical sensation’, as translated
both by Dowdell in Kant (1978), p. 40, and by Louden in Kant (2006), p. 45; Anth, 7:153. Brandt (1999), p. 210, also notes the ambiguity of the German expression, which could
mean the ‘sense of the sensations of bodies’, meaning primarily external objects, or the ‘sense of the sensations of one’s own body’, which would encompass both ‘vital sensation’
and ‘organ sensation’.
hensively than his usual phrase ‘outer sense’.20 That is, ‘bodily sen-
sation’ includes sensations that reverberate through our entire
bodies, sensations that we receive by means of our sense organs as
intuitions of outer objects, and localized sensations within our
bodies. Kant’s explicit classification of bodily sensations includes
only the first two of these, but he also discusses particular examples
of localized sensations in the Anthropology and elsewhere. He also
describes all types of bodily sensations as operating through nerves,
either the whole nervous system or the nerves in a certain part of the
body. We may thus interpret Kant’s phrase ‘outer sense’ more
broadly as referring to the capacity to perceive bodies, including
one’s own body, through sensation; while ‘inner sense’ is the capac-
ity to perceive and connect one’s own conscious states. In this re-
spect, both external objects and one’s own body are intuited by
‘outer sense’, since they are outside the mind, which is intuited by
inner sense.
As I have already noted, Kant initially divides ‘the senses of bod-
ily sensation’ into two types. The first is ‘vital sensation’ or sensus
vagus, which affects the entire nervous system and thus the whole
body. Examples of these include sensations of temperature, the
sensations that accompany sudden emotions such as hope, fear,
or revulsion, and the sensations associated with involuntary ac-
tions such as shivering, laughter, and weeping (ibid., pp. 45–46,
49, 71, 163–165; Anth, 7:153–154, 157, 178, 263–265). The second
type is ‘organ sensation’ or sensus fixus, which is the capacity to re-
ceive sensations through specific organs, and more specifically the
ability to receive intuitions of external objects through the five
senses that operate on the surface of the body. Three of these
senses—touch, sight, and hearing—are ‘more objective than subjec-
tive’, since the intuitions conveyed by these senses ‘contribute
more to the cognition of the external object than they stir up the
consciousness of the affected organ’. By contrast, taste and smell
are ‘more subjective than objective’, since they call our attention
to the condition of the organ in the encounter with the object,
especially to inform us whether an external object is likely to be
either nourishing or harmful if ingested (ibid., pp. 45–46, 49; Anth,
7:153–154, 157).
Kant characterizes touch as the ability to discover the shape of a
solid object by sensing it from all sides with the fingertips. Kant re-
gards this type of tactile perception as unique to human beings,
and traces this capacity for touch to the ‘form and organization’
of the human hand, by which nature has given us the ability to
manipulate things, not merely in certain limited ways, but in any
number of ways that we may devise through reason. This combina-
tion of reason and dexterity has enabled human beings to develop
a variety of skills, which reflect the ‘technical predisposition’ of the
species (ibid., pp. 46–47, 226–227; Anth, 7:155, 322–323). We re-
quire touch ‘to form any concept at all of a bodily shape’, and
can only use the other two objective external senses—sight and
hearing—as sources of experiential cognition when we relate their
perceptions to those provided by touch (ibid., pp. 46–47; Anth,
7:155). The sense of touch, which involves direct contact with its
object, is therefore the most important of the objective external
senses, although it is also the coarsest and most limited.
Vision, by contrast, is the most delicate and most comprehen-
sive of the objective senses, since it enables us to perceive details
on the surfaces of distant objects. Vision is also the outer sense
in which we are least aware of the organ and its operation. We
 C.M. Schmidt / Stud. Hist. Phil. Sci. 39 (2008) 462–472
therefore regard vision as the noblest of the senses, and as most
nearly approaching the supposed, but humanly unattainable, intu-
ition of an object as it is in itself (ibid., p. 48; Anth, 7:156).
The sense of hearing alerts us to the presence of an external ob-
ject, but does not depict its shape, and is therefore less informative
than vision or touch. Kant does not immediately consider our
ability to draw inferences through hearing concerning the type,
location, or movement of an object, although he indicates that a
person who is blind is often able to learn about objects and spaces
through hearing. Instead, Kant devotes most of his discussion in
the Anthropology to two types of sounds that affect us in ways
other than as the simple perception of objects: these are speech,
which we use to communicate with each other, and music, which
arouses emotions and gives pleasure (ibid., p. 47, cf. 65–66; Anth,
7:155; cf. 172).
Finally, the sensations of taste and smell arise from certain com-
pounds, or ‘salts’, when these are absorbed into the membranes of
the mouth and nasal cavity (ibid., pp. 49–52, cf. 61; Anth, 7:157–
159; cf. 168). Kant later distinguishes the ‘taste that merely differ-
entiates’ from the ‘taste that also savors’. The former is the ability to
characterize the flavor of an object (such as sweet or bitter), and
even to identify the type of object by its flavor. We expect others
to agree with us in these judgments, if their organs are functioning
normally and they have had the appropriate range of experience.
By contrast, appreciative taste is the disposition to find various fla-
vors pleasant or unpleasant: this pleasure or displeasure is merely
a determination of the subject, which is not referred to the object,
and therefore cannot be expected to provide the basis for a univer-
sally valid objective judgment. This distinction would presumably
apply at least to all of the other types of organ sensation, insofar as
organ sensations serve both for the perception of objects and as
sources of pleasure and pain. Kant also notes that we use the word
‘taste’ for a faculty of judging according to a rule that is represented
as valid for everyone: such a rule may be empirical, as in the rules
governing the ‘tasteful’ presentation of a meal in a given culture; or
it may claim universal validity, as in judgments of beauty, a topic
that Kant addressed in the Critique of the power of judgment and re-
turns to in this text (ibid., p. 136; Anth, 7:239–240; cf. Kant, 2000,
pp. 97–98, 165; CPJ, 5:212–213, 285).
Kant does not include localized bodily sensations in his account
of the different types of sensation, although he refers to examples
of such sensations elsewhere in the Anthropology. For example, he
notes that certain ‘local impressions’ within our bodies tend to be
strengthened if we pay attention to them, but diminish if we direct
our attention to something else. Indeed, he describes hypochondria
as a mental disorder in which ‘certain internal physical sensations
do not so much disclose a real disease present in the body but
rather are mere causes of anxiety about it’ (Kant, 2006, p. 106;
Anth, 7:212).21 Other examples of localized sensations are hunger
and pain, including the pain that we experience in our sense organs
after certain types of very intense sensations (ibid., pp. 48–49, 51,
61; Anth, 7:156–157, 159, 168). These types of internal bodily sensa-
tions resemble vital sensations, insofar as they do not depict external
objects, but they also resemble organ sensations insofar as they arise
from the stimulation of nerves within a particular part of the body. I
will use the phrase ‘internal sensation’ for any localized sensation
within the body, in contrast to Kant’s use of ‘inner sense’ for our
introspective awareness of our conscious states, and ‘interior sense’
for our capacity to feel pleasure and pain.
From this survey of the different types of empirical sensation,
we may consider Kant’s view of the way in which these empirical
modifications of human sensibility are related to the a priori forms
21
On Kant’s discussions of hypochondria, see Shell (1996), pp. 264–305.
22
Hatfield (1990), pp. 101–107.
467
of human sensible intuition. As we have already seen, Kant reaf-
firms his analysis of space and time in the Anthropology. However,
he also considers the relation between empirical human sensibility
and the transcendental structure of human sensible intuition. For
example, he indicates that the first signs of self-consciousness in
an infant coincide with its developing ability to follow the move-
ment of objects with its eyes: this is a sign of its progress from
mere perception, or the ‘apprehension of a representation of sensa-
tion’, toward the ‘cognition of objects of sense’ that we call ‘experi-
ence’ (ibid., pp. 15–16; Anth, 7:127–128; my translation). He also
identifies three senses—touch, sight, and sound—as the ones that
lead us ‘through reflection to cognition of the object as a thing out-
side ourselves’, though the sense of touch is primary in this regard,
since our visual and auditory perceptions must be coordinated
with our tactile perceptions if they are to contribute to external
cognition (ibid., pp. 46–48; Anth, 7:155–156).
In these passages Kant seems to indicate that the intuition of
space arises gradually in human cognitive development through
the coordination of sight with touch, a conclusion that might seem
to conflict with his claim that space is a pure a priori intuition. In
response to this concern, Hatfield has argued that Kant’s doctrine
of space as an a priori form of intuition is not equivalent to ‘nativ-
ism’, which is the theory that human beings soon after birth
already have the ability to perceive objects in three-dimensional
space. However, this rejection of nativism does not commit Kant
to the empiricist theory that our ability to perceive spatial relations
arises from experience: a view that he refutes in the Transcenden-
tal Aesthetic. Instead, the capacity for spatial intuition may be
understood as prescribing the structure of spatial intuition to the
faculties of sensation as they develop during human infancy.22 Hat-
field supports this theory by referring to Kant’s argument in the
Anthropology that spatial intuition ordinarily arises from the co-ordi-
nation of the perceptions of vision and touch. This interpretation
may also be supported by appealing to Kant’s observation that a per-
son who is blind from birth develops the capacity to perceive exter-
nal objects through a more highly developed attention to touch and
hearing, which are also evidently structured by the form of spatial
intuition (ibid., pp. 16, 46–47, 51–52, 65–66; Anth, 7:128, 155,
159–160, 172–173). In other words, the claim that the intuition of
space is an a priori condition for the possibility of experience does
not entail that a newborn infant has the capacity for spatial intuition,
or more generally the capacity for experience: it only entails that hu-
man individuals cannot have the capacity for experience until they
develop the capacity for spatial (and temporal) intuition. We may
accordingly infer from observation that the intuition of space does
not develop until several weeks after birth, when an infant shows
signs of an emerging capacity for experience, which had not been
possible during its first few weeks.
Kant also considers the empirical dimension of time-conscious-
ness in his discussion of sensibility in the Anthropology, though
more specifically in his account of the imagination, as the active
faculty of sensibility, rather than in his discussion of the senses.
We will therefore consider his discussion of time-consciousness
in the context of his account of the imagination.
As part of his treatment of the empirical aspect of the senses in
the Anthropology, Kant also considers the variations among individ-
ual human beings in the empirical use of our sensory capabilities.
These include variations arising from differences in the constitu-
tion and condition of our sense organs, and those arising from
differences in the way we direct our attention or apply our under-
standing to the representations given in sensible intuition. He also
describes several types of disorders that may affect human sensible
468 C.M. Schmidt / Stud. Hist. Phil. Sci. 39 (2008) 462–472
intuition, as part of his larger discussion of the different type of
mental disorders that may afflict human beings.23
Among the conditions affecting our sense organs, Kant consid-
ers the effects of extreme sensations, such as loud noises or bright
lights, on their respective organs, and also several types of deficien-
cies in the sense organs, such as tone-deafness and color-blindness
(ibid., pp. 45–49, 52, 61; Anth, 7: 156–157, 159, 168). Human indi-
viduals may also lack one or more of the external senses, and such
an individual usually ‘cultivates, as far as possible, another sense to
use as a substitute for it’. For example, a person who is blind relies
more extensively on touch, and even ‘tries to make the spaciousness
conceivable by still another sense, possibly hearing, com, that is,
through the echo of voices in a room’ (ibid., pp. 65–66; Anth,
7:172–173). Similarly, an individual who is deaf can use other
senses ‘vicariously’ to perceive speech, by watching or touching
the lips of a speaker (ibid., pp. 51–52; Anth, 7:159–160). This activ-
ity of cultivation may however involve attending more carefully to
certain senses, rather than improving the operations of those or-
gans as such.24
Next, our capacity for external sensation can be ‘weakened,
inhibited, or lost completely’ because of physiological conditions
affecting the entire nervous system. These include sleep or uncon-
sciousness, along with physical or emotional agitation, which
direct our attention away from outer sensation (ibid., pp. 57–58;
Anth, 7:165–166). Our capacity for external sensation, as well as
our other cognitive and affective powers, can also be affected by
intoxicants, such as drugs or alcohol, which act on the vital system
of the body. Indeed, in one of the most striking convergences,
though perhaps intended humorously, between his transcendental
and empirical account of human cognition, Kant describes a drun-
ken person as ‘for a time incapable of ordering his sense represen-
tations according to laws of experience’. It is not entirely clear from
Kant’s use of the phrase ‘laws of experience’ whether he means
‘laws derived from experience’ (that is, the empirical laws of nat-
ure, at least as discerned through ordinary experience), or ‘the laws
that constitute experience’ (that is, the principles of pure under-
standing derived from the categories). If the latter, however, Kant
would be indicating that drunkenness can produce a condition in
which the person is capable of sensory awareness, but unable to
synthesize his or her sensations according to the schematized cat-
egories to achieve empirical cognition, because the faculty of
understanding, which prescribes the ‘laws of experience’, has been
disrupted (ibid., pp. 62–63, cf. 58, 111; Anth, 7:169–170; cf. 165,
216–217).
Kant provides a more explicit description of precisely such a
condition in his account of the most serious type of cognitive
derangement, which he calls amentia or Unsinnigkeit, and describes
as ‘the inability to bring one’s representations into even the coher-
ence necessary for the possibility of experience’. Someone who is
afflicted by this condition is apparently unable to apply the pure
concepts of the understanding to the raw material of his or her sen-
sations, and is thus incapable of any cognition of objects whatso-
ever, and indeed presumably of any unified self-consciousness.
This condition might indeed be the ‘rhapsody’ of unsynthesized
perceptions that Kant describes in the first Critique as constituting
the content of the human mind, if the understanding did not con-
nect its perceptions according to the schematized categories with-
in a unified consciousness (ibid., p. 109; Anth, 7:214; CPR, A 156/B
195).
23
See Schmidt (2004), pp. 299–329. In this article I consider Kant’s empirical account of the different types of cognitive disorders as a systematic counterpart to his critical
analysis of the faculties of cognition, without evaluating its merits as an empirical study of psychology.
24
Kant refers to ‘attention’ in the first Critique as one of the subjective conditions that can influence the empirical operation of human understanding (Kant, 1998, pp. 194–195;
cf. 259; CPR, A 54–55/B 78–79; cf. B 156 n.). See also his discussions of attention in the Anthropology (Kant, 2006, pp. 19–20, 54–58, 100–102; Anth, 7:131–132, 162–165, 206–
208).
25
See Shell (1996), pp. 264–305.
Kant also considers a type of disorder affecting our internal bod-
ily sensations, or at least our attention to such sensations, in his
discussion of hypochondria. Here he notes that a morbid preoccu-
pation with our internal sensations may lead us to believe that we
are physically ill merely on the basis of a vague symptom or minor
complaint. However, in such cases we find that when we turn our
attention away from our physical condition, these sensations may
subside and even disappear. He therefore advises, both in the
Anthropology and in his essay ‘On the power of the mind to master
its morbid feelings by sheer resolution’, in The conflict of the facul-
ties, that we should counteract tendencies toward hypochondria, as
well as obsessive thoughts or distressing emotions, by redirecting
our attention, especially toward external objects and self-disci-
plined activity (ibid., pp. 106–107, cf. 22, 53–54; Anth, 7:212, cf.
134, 161–162; Kant, 1996a, pp. 313–327; CF 7:97–116).25
In his account in the Anthropology of the empirical aspect of the
human senses, Kant therefore indicates that human sensibility
develops during infancy through the configuration of the external
senses, especially those of vision and touch, into the capacity for
the empirical intuition of objects as given in space, a process that
coincides with the development of self-consciousness as config-
ured by time and as given empirically to inner sense. He also de-
scribes a number of variations between human individuals, both
in our physical capacities for sensation and in our attention to
our own sensations. Finally, Kant describes perhaps drunkenness
and certainly the cognitive disorder called amentia as conditions
in which the sensory capacities of adult human beings are not con-
figured as capacities for the empirical intuition of objects as given
in time and space and as determined according to the categories—
configurations that are required for the possibility of experience.
4. Imagination
In the Critique of pure reason Kant initially describes our activity
in synthesizing the manifold of sensible intuition as ‘the mere ef-
fect of the power of imagination, a blind though indispensable
function of the soul, without which we would have no cognition
at all, but of which we are seldom even conscious’. This synthe-
sized manifold of intuition is then subsumed under concepts by
the understanding, in order for us to attain cognition of objects that
are given to sensibility (Kant, 1998, p. 211; CPR, A 78/B 103).
In the Transcendental Deduction Kant argues that the imagina-
tion has both an empirical use in reproducing perceptions, and a
transcendental use in synthesizing the manifold of sensible intui-
tion according to the categories (ibid., pp. 225, 236–237; CPR, A
94, 115–116). The ‘empirical synthesis of reproduction’ is the exhi-
bition of an image in the mind according to a rule, such as the rule
connecting a particular quality with a particular type of object,
which is established through experience. However, even before
any empirical synthesis by which we represent an image, the mind
must have already performed a synthesis a priori, or an original
combination of the manifold, in its general representation of an ob-
ject as such in time and space. This ‘pure transcendental synthesis’
of the manifold by the imagination is thus a necessary condition for
the possibility of experience (ibid., pp. 229–230; CPR, A 100–102).
Kant later identifies this a priori or spontaneous function as the
‘productive synthesis of the imagination’, in contrast to the ‘repro-
ductive faculty of imagination, which is then also merely empirical’
(ibid., pp. 237–239; CPR, A 118–121). In the B Deduction, Kant
 C.M. Schmidt / Stud. Hist. Phil. Sci. 39 (2008) 462–472
defines the imagination as ‘the faculty for representing an object
even without its presence in intuition’. The imagination ‘belongs
to sensibility’, insofar as it provides representations derived from
sensible intuition. However, the transcendental or ‘figurative’ syn-
thesis of the imagination is an expression of spontaneity, since it
determines the form of sensibility a priori through a synthesis of
intuition in accordance with the categories, and is thus ‘an effect
of the understanding on sensibility’ (ibid., pp. 256–257; CPR, B
150–153).
In the Anthropology Kant presents the imagination as one of the
two cognitive powers belonging to sensibility, and more specifi-
cally as the power of intuiting ‘even without the presence of an ob-
ject’ (Kant, 2006, p. 45; Anth, 7:153). He again divides the activities
of the imagination into two types, ‘productive’ and ‘reproductive’.
Of these, he initially identifies the productive imagination as ‘a fac-
ulty of the original presentation of the object . . . which thus pre-
cedes experience’, and assigns to this faculty the ‘pure intuitions
of space and time’. By contrast, the reproductive imagination is ‘a
faculty of the derivative presentation of the object’, which recalls
a previous empirical intuition and therefore presupposes experi-
ence (ibid., p. 60; Anth, 7:167). Almost immediately, however, Kant
departs from this usage, which is also his usage in the first Critique,
by using the term ‘productive’ for the capacity of the imagination
to formulate fictional images, in contrast to the ‘reproductive’
activity of the imagination in memory. That is, he states that the
imagination ‘is either inventive (productive) or merely recollective
(reproductive)’, and specifies that the productive imagination re-
quires sensation to provide the material for its fictional representa-
tions (ibid., p. 61; Anth, 7:167–168). Here, rather than
distinguishing the transcendental from the empirical operation of
the imagination, Kant is evidently distinguishing between two
operations of the empirical imagination: creative imagination
and memory (cf. ibid., pp. 66, 144; Anth, 7:173, 246).
Kant characterizes some of the activities of the productive or
creative imagination as in many cases involuntary: these include
the formulation of images within inner intuition to illustrate
empirical concepts (ibid., pp. 61–62, 66; Anth, 7:169, 173; cf. Kant,
1998, p. 273–274; CPR, A 141–142/B 180–181), and extrapolating
from objects of immediate perception to produce images, emo-
tions, or vital sensations, as when the imagination produces a sen-
sation of giddiness when we look into a deep precipice (Kant, 2006,
pp. 71–72; Anth, 7:178–179). Other involuntary activities include
the production of images in dreams, in various types of visionary
states, and in certain types of mental disorders (ibid., pp. 60, 68,
82–83, cf. 74–75, 96–97, 109; Anth, 7:167, 175, 189–190; cf. 181,
202, 215).
However, Kant also indicates that the imagination, as the active
faculty of sensibility, has several voluntary creative faculties (Dic-
htungsvermögen). These are ‘the forming of intuitions in space
(imaginatio plastica), the associating of intuitions in time (imagina-
tio associans), and that of affinity [Verwandtschaft], based on the
common origin of representations from each other (affinitas)’. All
three of these creative powers are activities of the empirical imag-
ination, although they presuppose the activity of the transcenden-
tal imagination in its figurative synthesis of objects as
representations in space and time. The empirical ability to formu-
late spatial images is seen for example in the case of an artist or a
craftsman, who before depicting or manufacturing a physical ob-
ject must already have imagined it. Next, the ‘law of association’
is the principle of the progression of thought by which ‘empirical
representations, which frequently follow each other, bring about
a habit in the mind, when the one is generated, of also allowing
26
Kenneth Westphal has provided a valuable discussion of Kant’s concept of affinity in the first Critique, which he regards as a neglected key to the interpretation of Kant’s
thought: see Westphal (2004), pp. 23–25, 33–34, 68, 87–126.
27
See Caygill (1995), pp. 60–61; Brandt (1999), pp. 256–257.
469
the other to arise’ (ibid., pp. 67–69; Anth, 7:174–176; my transla-
tion; cf. Kant, 1998, p. 229, cf. 235–240, 225–226, 257; CPR, A
100, cf. 112–122/B 127, 152).
Kant’s discussion of the power of affinity is especially intrigu-
ing. In the first Critique Kant introduces the ‘affinity [Affinität] of
the manifold’ in the A Deduction as grounding the possibility of
connecting appearances, insofar as this ground lies in the objects.
That is, our ability to recognize connections depends in part on
the characteristics of our representations, as well as upon our abil-
ity to make judgments of connection. Kant identifies the ground for
the possibility of any connection as such as a ‘transcendental affin-
ity’, and distinguishes this from an ‘empirical affinity’, which is
presumably a specific connection that we recognize among
appearances that are given to us in intuition. Even the recognition
of the transcendental affinity of appearances, however, ultimately
depends upon the transcendental unity of apperception, and is a
product of the transcendental activity of the imagination (Kant,
1998, pp. 235–236, 239–240; CPR, A 113–114, 122–123). Later in
both editions of the first Critique, Kant discusses the principles of
homogeneity, specification, and continuity or affinity (Verwandts-
chaft) as ‘ideas’ according to which we regard the manifold of
appearances as unified, diversified, and organized; thus enabling
us to recognize similarities, differences, and connections (ibid.,
pp. 598–601; CPR, A 657–662/B 685–690).26 In the Anthropology
Kant initially describes affinity in similar terms as ‘unification on
the basis of the origin of the manifold from a single ground’. This
characterization suggests that he is indicating that empirical affini-
ties are based on the ‘origins’ of all representations in a single man-
ifold that is unified by a transcendental affinity. Indeed, his example
of the empirical power of affinity appears in his recommendation
that, both in conversation and in silent thought, the order of our rep-
resentations should follow ‘the rules of sensibility’—that is, our
imagination should follow a theme, or the order that objectively
belongs to a given topic, rather than jumping from one subject to an-
other. However, in the Anthropology he also relates his discussion to
the concept of affinity in chemistry, which is the tendency of two
elements to be drawn to each other and then combine to produce
a third thing.27 His main example of this is not however a case of
empirical affinity, but rather the relation of sensibility and the
understanding in the production of cognition, as if one originated
in the other, or both from a common root—a passage that recalls
one of the deepest unanswered questions in the first Critique (Kant,
2006, pp. 69–70; Anth, 7:176–177; my translation; cf. Kant, 1998,
p. 135; CPR A 15/B 29).
We have already considered the relation between Kant’s ac-
count of the relation between space as an a priori form of sensible
intuition and his account of the development of the capacity for
spatial intuition in a human being, especially in relation to the
developing senses, primarily the senses of vision and touch, during
infancy. Although Kant does not specifically consider the develop-
ment of time-consciousness in human individuals in the Anthropol-
ogy, he does consider the empirical dimension of our judgments
regarding events in time. This discussion is presented in his ac-
count of the imagination, to which he attributes ‘the faculty of
visualizing the past and the future’, by means respectively of mem-
ory and foresight, and of connecting ‘the past and future conscious-
ness of the subject with the present’, in order to achieve a coherent
experience. Kant does not clearly indicate whether the differentia-
tion of time from the point of view of the subject into past, present,
and future belongs to the transcendental or empirical operation of
the imagination, and indeed this is one of the most interesting
questions left open when comparing the first Critique to the
470 C.M. Schmidt / Stud. Hist. Phil. Sci. 39 (2008) 462–472
Anthropology. Instead, Kant considers what might be regarded as
the empirical aspects of both memory and foresight. In the case
of memory, he describes various circumstances that tend to influ-
ence the empirical accuracy of memory, and he also evaluates var-
ious types of mnemonic devices and procedures (Kant, 2006, pp.
75–78; Anth 7:182–185). In his discussion of foresight he considers
various supposed methods for predicting the future, such as pre-
monition, fortune-telling, and prophesying, and contrasts these
to the types of foresight that require judgments of the understand-
ing based on past experience, which we call prescience or predic-
tion (ibid., pp. 79–82; Anth 7:185–189). As we shall see in the
next section, individuals may differ from each other, or vary over
time, in the success with which they are able to predict future
events from past experience, as well as in the effectiveness of their
memories.
Kant thus distinguishes between the transcendental and the
empirical operation of the imagination in both the first Critique
and the Anthropology. In the first Critique he refers to these opera-
tions respectively as the ‘productive’ and ‘reproductive’ imagina-
tion, and although he reaffirms this distinction in the
Anthropology, he also applies these words to two operations of
the empirical imagination: creative imagination and memory.
And here again, as in the case of sensible intuition, Kant indicates
that the empirical activity of the imagination, both in creativity
and in memory, presupposes the structuring of objects in space,
and the ordering of events in time, that is achieved by the tran-
scendental activity of the imagination.
5. Understanding
In the Critique of pure reason, Kant argues that all human cogni-
tion is ‘discursive’, or rests on functions by which we bring ‘differ-
ent representations under a common one’. The understanding may
thus be called the ‘faculty for judging’, and its activity is expressed
in the various ‘functions of unity in judgments’, which Kant enu-
merates in his table of the logical forms of judgment (Kant, 1998,
pp. 204–206; CPR, A 67–69/B 92–94). Kant further divides ‘under-
standing’ in this general sense into several mental powers that may
be distinguished, according to their function and ordering, as
‘understanding, the power of judgment and reason’, which give rise
respectively to ‘concepts, judgments, and inferences’. Of these,
‘understanding in general’ is the ‘faculty of rules’, while judgment
is ‘the faculty of subsuming under rules’, or of ‘determining whether
something stands under a given rule’ (ibid., pp. 267–269; CPR, A
130–134/B 169–174). Finally, reason is the ‘faculty of principles’,
by which ‘I cognize the particular in the universal through con-
cepts’, or in other words through a mediate inference (ibid., pp.
286–288; CPR, A 298–300/B 355–357).
This general analysis is echoed in the Anthropology. Here Kant
initially observes that with regard to the ‘state of its representa-
tions’ the mind is ‘either active and exhibits a faculty’, or ‘passive
and consists in receptivity’. Those representations by which the
mind is passively affected belong to the ‘sensuous cognitive faculty’,
while those that contain ‘a sheer activity (thinking) belong to the
intellectual cognitive faculty’. The study of sensibility belongs to
‘psychology’, which is ‘a sum of all inner perceptions under laws
of nature’, while the study of cognition ‘belongs to logic’, which
is ‘a system of rules of the understanding’ (Kant, 2006, pp. 29–
30; Anth, 7:140–141).
In contrast to those philosophers who denounce the senses for
seeking to dominate or deceive our cognitive power, and also to
those apologists for sensibility who demand that we should sensu-
alize our concepts, Kant argues that the understanding should rule
28
For a discussion of this argument in the Anthropology, and its relation to the development of Kant’s thought, see Caygill (2003), pp. 164–193.
cognition, but only by honoring the distinctive contribution of sen-
sibility, since ‘without sensibility there would be no material that
could be processed for the use of legislative understanding’.28 On
the other hand, sense perceptions are only ‘inner appearances’, and
do not become ‘experience’ until they are connected by the under-
standing under a ‘rule of thought’ or according to concepts. In this
activity, the understanding cannot be dominated or deceived by
the senses, but can only be mistaken in applying its concepts to
the material provided by sensation (ibid., pp. 34–37, cf. 90; Anth,
7:143–146; cf. 196).
In the Anthropology Kant again distinguishes between the
understanding as ‘the faculty of rules’, judgment as ‘the faculty of
discovering the particular in so far as it is an instance of these
rules’, and reason as ‘the faculty of deriving the particular from
the universal and thus of representing it according to principles
and as necessary’ (ibid., p. 93; Anth, 7:199). He also considers the
empirical variations in the operation of these powers, among indi-
viduals or in one individual over time, as measured by the extent to
which these operations approximate a ‘correct understanding,
practiced judgment and thorough reason’ (ibid., p. 91; Anth, 7:198).
First, a ‘correct understanding’ is characterized not only by pos-
sessing a ‘great number of concepts’, but also by its ‘ability and skill
to apprehend truth’ through ‘the appropriateness of its concepts for
cognition of the object’. A correct understanding is thus character-
ized by the ‘sufficiency’ and ‘precision’ of its empirical concepts.
Kant distinguishes a correct or sound (gesund) understanding from
that of a person whose mind is full of concepts, which may cover a
wide range and even be handled ‘with dexterity’, but ‘do not turn
out to be true of the object and its determination’. Finally, while
a correct understanding may be regarded as given by nature, Kant
also notes that ‘natural understanding can be enriched through
instruction with many concepts and furnished with rules’ (ibid.,
pp. 90–93; Anth, 7:197–199).
On the other hand, people may acquire concepts without pos-
sessing ‘power of judgment suitable for choosing among all this
knowledge in order to make appropriate use of it’ (ibid., pp. 77–
78; Anth, 7:184). Kant describes judgment as the faculty of ‘dis-
cerning whether something is an instance of the rule or not’, or
of applying concepts to objects of experience. Unlike the under-
standing, which can be equipped with additional concepts through
instruction, judgment cannot be enhanced through learning, but
only improved by practice, since we cannot be taught a rule for
determining whether something is an instance of a rule ‘without
a further inquiry on into infinity’ (ibid., p. 93; Anth, 7:199).
Kant also describes another faculty, ‘wit’ (Witz or ingenium)
which apparently operates as a counterpart to judgment. Thus,
while judgment is ‘the faculty of discovering the particular for
the universal (the rule)’, wit is the power of ‘thinking up the uni-
versal for the particular’. The task of judgment is to notice ‘differ-
ences in a manifold that is identical in part’, while that of wit is
to notice ‘the identity of a manifold that is different in part’. In
other words, judgment notices dissimilarities, while wit notices
similarities. Kant also describes the different degrees of both wit
and judgment that we may observe among individuals, and refers
to these as differences of ‘acumen’ in observing ‘subtleties’ (ibid., p.
95; Anth, 7:201).
At various intervals in Book I, Kant refers to the empirical vari-
ations that appear among human individuals in the operation of
their cognitive faculties of understanding, judgment, wit, and rea-
son. For example, he distinguishes between a brain (Kopf), a block-
head (Pinsel) and a genius, and also between those who possess
‘common sense’ and ‘people of science’ (ibid., p. 27, cf. 104; Anth,
7:138–139; cf. 210). However, he provides a more systematic
 C.M. Schmidt / Stud. Hist. Phil. Sci. 39 (2008) 462–472
account of these variations in the sections entitled ‘On the weak-
nesses and illnesses of the soul with respect to its cognitive faculty’
and ‘On the talents in the cognitive faculty’ (ibid., p. 96, 115; Anth.
7:202, 220).
In his discussion of cognitive weaknesses Kant begins by con-
sidering the relatively minor deficiencies of wit, judgment, or both,
that lead to individuals being regarded as ‘obtuse’, ‘silly’, or ‘stupid’
(ibid., pp. 98–99; Anth, 7:204). He then considers the more severe
types of deficiency in the understanding, or the different degrees of
mental retardation (ibid., pp. 104–106; Anth, 7:210–212). Next, he
divides mental illnesses into melancholy or hypochondria, and the
different kinds of derangement or madness. Melancholy or hypo-
chondria is, in Kant’s view, a disorder of attention, in which one
is obsessed by distressing thoughts or emotions, or by internal
bodily sensations that are taken to be symptoms of a serious disor-
der (ibid., pp. 96, 106–107; Anth, 7:202, 212–213; Kant, 1996a, pp.
313–327; CF 7:97–116). By contrast, the different types of derange-
ment are disorders of the various faculties of cognition themselves.
These disorders include amentia or Unsinnigkeit, which he de-
scribes as ‘the inability to bring one’s representations into even
the coherence necessary for the possibility of experience’; dementia
or Wahnsinn, rom, in which the patient confuses the products of his
imagination with perceptions; insania or Wahnwitz, in which a ‘de-
ranged power of judgment’ misleads the mind ‘by means of analo-
gies that are confused with concepts of similar things’; and
vesania or Aberwitz, which Kant describes as a ‘deranged reason’,
in which the patient claims to apply principles of reasoning to mat-
ters beyond the boundaries of experience (Kant, 2006, pp. 96, 106–
110; Anth, 7:202, 212–216). As we have seen, amentia seems to be
a state in which the patient is incapable of the synthesis that is re-
quired for experience as such. However, in the other three types of
derangement—dementia, insania, and vesania—the patient has a
capacity for cognition, but his or her thought follows ‘an arbitrary
course


which has its own (subjective) rule, but which runs con-
trary to the (objective) rule that is in agreement with laws of expe-
rience’ (ibid., p. 96; Anth, 7:202). These disorders are thus
characterized by ‘the loss of common sense (sensus communis) and
its replacement with logical private sense (sensus privatus)’, or with
idiosyncratic principles of perception, judgment, and reasoning
(ibid., p. 113; Anth, 7:219; cf. Kant, 2000, pp. 120–124, 173–176;
CPJ, 5:236–240, 293–296).
In the final chapter of Book I, Kant turns to the talents of the
cognitive power, which he defines as those excellences of the cog-
nitive faculty that depend ‘not on instruction but on the subject’s
natural predisposition’. Kant identifies three main talents of
human cognition. The first is ‘productive wit’, or the ability ‘to
discover similarities among dissimilar things’, which can be used
playfully, but is also evident in the invention and expansion of con-
cepts (Kant, 2006, pp. 115–116; Anth, 7:220–221). The second cog-
nitive talent is ‘sagacity’, or the ‘gift of inquiry’, which is a talent for
‘knowing how to search well’ by using ‘the slightest grounds of
relationship to discover or invent that which is sought’ (ibid., pp.
118–119; Anth, 7:223–224). The third is ‘genius’, or that originality
in the cognitive power belonging to a person who ‘knows how to
make something’, rather than one who is ‘merely acquainted with
and knows many things’. As we have seen, Kant’s examples of gen-
ius include both artistic and technological creativity, and he devel-
ops a more specific account of artistic genius in Book II of the
Anthropology and in the third Critique (ibid., p. 119, cf. 27, 137–
138, 143–147; Anth, 7:224; cf. 138, 241, 246–249; cf. Kant, 2000,
pp. 186–197, 219; CPJ, 5:307–320, 344).
29
Kitcher (1990), pp. 21–22, 139–140; Hatfield (1992), pp. 212–217; Kitcher (2006), pp. 169–202. Guyer argues that the operations described in the Transcendental Deduction
are distinct from empirical psychology because the facts of empirical psychology are given as temporal, contingent, and as established through introspection, while the operations
described in the Transcendental Deduction are conditions for the possibility of any cognitive synthesis in time, regardless of when or how they are instantiated as functions of a
cognitive system (Guyer, 1989, pp. 47–68). A similar analysis is presented by Hanna (2001), pp. 15–16, 34–36.
471
We thus find that while Kant attributes the cognitive faculty of
understanding, along with its supporting faculties of judgment and
wit, to all human beings except for those with the most severe
types of mental disorders, he also maintains that human beings
may vary in the degree of success that they achieve in using these
faculties. That is, individuals may vary in the accuracy, range, and
quickness of their understanding, judgment, or wit, and also in
their ability to draw upon the information or principles provided
by their own experience or the experience of others. These varia-
tions range from relatively mild differences among individuals in
their exercise of understanding, judgment, or wit, to the extremes
represented by the various types of cognitive disorders on the one
hand, and the talents of cognition on the other. Thus, while in all
human beings the understanding is presumably structured by the
pure concepts of the understanding, as derived from the logical
forms of judgment, individuals may vary in the success, idiosyn-
crasy, or originality with which they apply these concepts to ob-
jects that are given in empirical intuition, in specific judgments
concerning these objects.
6. Conclusion
In this study I have examined Kant’s view of the transcendental
and empirical aspects of the faculties of human cognition, as seen
in self-consciousness, sensibility, imagination, and understanding.
More specifically, I have described the transcendental aspect of
these faculties as the structures that are required universally and
necessarily for cognition, while indicating that each of these pow-
ers also has an empirical operation in individuals as they respond
to specific sensible intuitions and form specific judgments, and
that these empirical operations may vary among different individ-
uals. Accordingly, I would identify Kant’s account of the universal
and necessary conditions of cognition that are required for the pos-
sibility of experience as his epistemology, and his account of the
empirical aspects of cognition as his empirical cognitive psychology.
Kitcher and Hatfield have both sought to identify a distinctive
‘transcendental psychology’ in Kant’s critical philosophy, and to
distinguish this from three other arguably psychological disci-
plines: rational psychology, empirical psychology, and an account
of the cognizing agent as a noumenal subject (that is, as it is in it-
self). Kitcher has suggested that, in contrast to these other appar-
ent approaches to psychology, transcendental psychology is the
psychology of the knowing mind, which is conceptually distinct
from the conception of the soul as a substance, from the empirical
self, and from the noumenal self. This is also indicated by Hatfield’s
description of Kant’s transcendental psychology as ‘epistemic’.29
On the basis of this study, I would suggest that Kant’s critical
philosophy accommodates, and indeed even requires, the positing
of transcendental psychology as a parallel to the structure that we
attribute a priori, by means of the categories, to an empirical ob-
ject. In developing his transcendental philosophy, or his account
of the conditions for the possibility of experience, Kant provides
an explicit account of the universal and necessary conditions re-
quired for something to be an object of empirical cognition. How-
ever, he also provides an implicit account of what is required for
something (a mind) to be a cognitive agent, or a subject that is capa-
ble of empirical cognition. An object of cognition (Gegenstand) must
have a set of objective characteristics: it must be given in space and
time, and structured according to the schematized categories. As a
parallel to this, a cognitive agent must have a set of epistemic
capacities, including intuition, imagination, understanding, and a
472 C.M. Schmidt / Stud. Hist. Phil. Sci. 39 (2008) 462–472
unity of apperception. However, in addition to these universal and
necessary structures respectively of objectivity and subjectivity,
both objects and agents of cognition each also have a determinate
empirical character. That is, an object that is given in space and
time has a specific size, shape, and set of sensible qualities, and
is related to certain other objects and events according to regular-
ities which we identify as the laws of nature that are discovered
empirically. Similarly, the faculties of cognition in a cognitive agent
have a specific transcendental structure, since they are configured
as capacities for a unified sensible intuition in time and space, for
the representations of objects, and for judgments concerning these
objects. These transcendental structures are expressed within the
subjectivity of an empirical human individual as the configuration
of his or her self-consciousness, external senses, inner sense, imag-
ination, and understanding as epistemic faculties. However, these
faculties also have an empirical operation in each human being,
in response to specific intuitions, and these empirical operations
reflect the differences among individuals in their experiences,
capacities, and talents.
In dividing his study of cognition between the first Critique
and the Anthropology, Kant therefore outlines a systematic dis-
tinction and a systematic correlation between the transcendental
and the empirical psychology of cognition, showing that the
transcendental conditions of cognition serve to configure the
empirical faculties of cognition, which can then be studied in
individual minds with regard to their variable content and oper-
ation. He therefore distinguishes between the domains of episte-
mology and empirical cognitive psychology, provides an
overview of each discipline, and also provides an account of
the universal and necessary conditions required for something
to be an agent of cognition, as a parallel to his account of the
conditions that are required universally and necessarily for
something to be an object of cognition.
Acknowledgements
Several of the other contributors to this issue commented
anonymously on the initial draft of this article, and I would like
to thank them for their suggestions.
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