The aim of the Analytic of Concepts is to derive and deduce a set of pure concepts of the understanding, the categories, which play a central role in Kant’s explanation of the possibility of synthetic a priori cognition and judgment. This chapter is structured around two questions. First, what is a pure concept of the understanding? Second, what is involved in a deduction of a pure concept of the understanding? In answering the first, we focus on how the categories differ (...) from the pure forms of sensibility and examine whether they are known only to be the pure forms of human thinking or rather the forms of discursive cognition as such. In answering the second, we draw a distinction between the application and the exemplification of the categories and use it to identify different ways of understanding Kant’s project in the Transcendental Deduction of the Categories. These questions connect because the answer to the first determines how we should understand the kind of entitlement which is to be established in the Deduction. (shrink)

European Journal of Philosophy, EarlyView.

This paper analyses the features of Kant’s view of memory, which Kant himself described explicitly in his lectures on anthropology and implicitly in the A edition of the Critique of Pure Reason. I shall offer a review of literature on Kant’s view of memory up to this day. I suggest that memory is a cognitive faculty that has the power to store and reproduce representations. Kant distinguishes among three different kinds of memorization which are relevant for human cognition. I offer (...) reasons to hold that imagination and memory must be differentiated by their functioning, although the first one grounds the second one. Finally, I hold that certain functions of memory need to be presupposed at a transcendental level, in which memory would play a fundamental function with regard to the possibility of experience. Resumen Este artículo analiza los rasgos de la concepción de la memoria de Kant, los cuales él describió explícitamente en sus lecciones sobre antropología e implícitamente en la edición A de la Crítica de la Razón Pura. Proporcionaré una revisión de la literatura sobre la concepción de Kant acerca de la memoria hasta el presente. Sugiero que la memoria es una facultad cognitiva que tiene el poder de almacenar y reproducir representaciones. Kant distingue tres tipos diferentes de memorización, los cuales son relevantes para el conocimiento humano. Asimismo, proporciono razones para sostener que la imaginación y la memoria deben ser diferenciadas por su funcionamiento, aunque la primera es el fundamento de la segunda. Finalmente, sostengo que ciertas funciones de la memoria necesitan ser presupuestas a un nivel trascendental, en el cual la memoria cumpliría una función fundamental con respecto a la posibilidad de la experiencia. (shrink)

This paper takes issue with the widespread view that Kant rejects epistemic phenomenalism. According to epistemic phenomenalism, only cognition of states of one’s own mind can be certain, while cognition of outer objects is necessarily uncertain. I argue that Kant does not reject this view, but accepts a modified version of it. For, in contrast to traditional skeptics, he distinguishes between two kinds of outer objects and holds that we have direct access to outer appearances in our mind; but he (...) still considers objects outside our mind unknowable. This sheds new light on Kant’s refutation of idealism. (shrink)

Recent debates in the interpretation of Kant’s theoretical philosophy have focused on the nature of Kantian intuition and, in particular, on the question of whether intuitions depend for their existence on the existence of their objects. In this paper we show how opposing answers to this question determine different accounts of the nature of Kantian cognition and we suggest that progress can be made on determining the nature of intuition by considering the implications different views have for the nature of (...) cognition. (shrink)