Kant and the Capacity to Judge: Sensibility and Discursivity in the Transcendental Analytic of the Critique of Pure Reason

by Béatrice Longuenesse

Overview

Kant claims to have established his table of categories or "pure concepts of the understanding" according to the "guiding thread" provided by logical forms of judgment. By drawing extensively on Kant's logical writings, Béatrice Longuenesse analyzes this controversial claim, and then follows the thread through its continuation in the transcendental deduction of the categories, the transcendental schemata, and the principles of pure understanding. The result is a systematic, persuasive new interpretation of the Critique of Pure Reason.


Longuenesse shows that although Kant adopts his inventory of the forms of judgment from logic textbooks of his time, he is nevertheless original in selecting just those forms he holds to be indispensable to our ability to relate representations to objects. Kant gives formal representation to this relation between conceptual thought and its objects by introducing the term "x" into his analysis of logical forms to stand for the object that is "thought under" the concepts that are combined in judgment. This "x" plays no role in Kant's forms of logical inference, but instead plays a role in clarifying the relation between logical forms (forms of concept subordination) and combinations ("syntheses") of perceptual data, necessary for empirical cognition.


Considering Kant's logical forms of judgment thus helps illuminate crucial aspects of the Transcendental Analytic as a whole, while revealing the systematic unity between Kant's theory of judgment in the first Critique and his analysis of "merely reflective" (aesthetic and teleological) judgments in the third Critique.

Product Details

ISBN-13:	9780691214122
Publisher:	Princeton University Press
Publication date:	06/16/2020
Sold by:	Barnes & Noble
Format:	eBook
Pages:	440
File size:	723 KB

About the Author

Béatrice Longuenesse is Professor of Philosophy at Princeton University. Her other books include Hegel et la critique de la métaphysique.

Table of Contents

Acknowledgments
Note on Sources and Abbreviations
Introduction	3
Ch. 1	Synthesis and Judgment	17
Ch. 2	The "Threefold Synthesis" and the Mathematical Model	35
Ch. 3	The Transition to Judgment	59
Ch. 4	Logical Definitions of Judgment	81
Ch. 5	How Discursive Understanding Comes to the Sensible Given: Comparison of Representations and Judgment	107
Ch. 6	Concepts of Comparison, Forms of Judgment, Concept Formation	131
Ch. 7	Judgments of Perception and Judgments of Experience	167
Ch. 8	Synthesis Speciosa and Forms of Sensibility	211
Ch. 9	The Primacy of Quantitative Syntheses	243
Ch. 10	The Real as Appearance: Imagination and Sensation	292
Ch. 11	The Constitution of Experience	324
Conclusion: The Capacity to Judge and "Ontology as Immanent Thinking"	394
Bibliography	401
Index	409
Index of Citations of Kant's Works	415

What People are Saying About This

Robert B. Pippin

Beatrice Longuenesse's new book is a thorough reconsideration of Kant's first Critique,animated by Kant's greatest philosophical ambitions and informed by the best erudition,superior philosophical intelligence,and close textual fidelity. Kant and the Capacity to Judge will prove to be an important and influential event in Kant studies and in philosophy.

Pippin

Béatrice Longuenesse's new book is a thorough reconsideration of Kant's first Critique, animated by Kant's greatest philosophical ambitions and informed by the best erudition, superior philosophical intelligence, and close textual fidelity. Kant and the Capacity to Judge will prove to be an important and influential event in Kant studies and in philosophy.
— Robert B. Pippin, University of Chicago

From the Publisher

"Béatrice Longuenesse's new book is a thorough reconsideration of Kant's first Critique, animated by Kant's greatest philosophical ambitions and informed by the best erudition, superior philosophical intelligence, and close textual fidelity. Kant and the Capacity to Judge will prove to be an important and influential event in Kant studies and in philosophy."—Robert B. Pippin, University of Chicago

"Longuenesse develops points that few commentators have developed, and she does this in a very convincing and detailed way."—Richard E. Aquila, University of Tennessee

Richard E. Aquila

Longuenesse develops points that few commentators have developed,and she does this in a very convincing and detailed way.

Aquila

Longuenesse develops points that few commentators have developed, and she does this in a very convincing and detailed way.
— Richard E. Aquila, University of Tennessee

Editorial Reviews

"An original and illuminating treatment of the relationship between concepts and intuitions, sensibility and discursivity, in Kant's critical project. . . . A fascinating and imaginative reconstruction of Kant's theory of quantity. . . . Longuenesse has perceptively illuminated important aspects of [the] problem lying at the heart of Kant's theory of the categories."—-Michael Friedman, Zeitschrift für Geschichte der Philosophie

"Béatrice Longuenesse has written a bold, important, and exciting book concerning the major arguments of the Transcendental Analytic. Moreover, the entire work is organized around a central thesis that runs directly counter to most contemporary readings of the Critique. . . . I think that it is fair to say that from now on no serious interpreter will be able to ignore either the 'guiding thread' itself or her analysis of it."—-Henry Allison, Inquiry

From the Publisher

Béatrice Longuenesse has written a bold, important, and exciting book concerning the major arguments of the Transcendental Analytic. Moreover, the entire work is organized around a central thesis that runs directly counter to most contemporary readings of the Critique. . . . I think that it is fair to say that from now on no serious interpreter will be able to ignore either the 'guiding thread' itself or her analysis of it.

Inquiry - Henry Allison

An original and illuminating treatment of the relationship between concepts and intuitions, sensibility and discursivity, in Kant's critical project. . . . A fascinating and imaginative reconstruction of Kant's theory of quantity. . . . Longuenesse has perceptively illuminated important aspects of [the] problem lying at the heart of Kant's theory of the categories.
— Michael Friedman

Zeitschrift fur Geschichte der Philosophie

Béatrice Longuenesse has written a bold, important, and exciting book concerning the major arguments of the Transcendental Analytic. Moreover, the entire work is organized around a central thesis that runs directly counter to most contemporary readings of the Critique. . . . I think that it is fair to say that from now on no serious interpreter will be able to ignore either the 'guiding thread' itself or her analysis of it.
— Henry Allison

Inquiry

An original and illuminating treatment of the relationship between concepts and intuitions, sensibility and discursivity, in Kant's critical project. . . . A fascinating and imaginative reconstruction of Kant's theory of quantity. . . . Longuenesse has perceptively illuminated important aspects of [the] problem lying at the heart of Kant's theory of the categories.

Zeitschrift für Geschichte der Philosophie - Michael Friedman