PHIL 101 Lecture Notes - Lecture 16: Gnosiology, Transcendental Idealism, Noumenon
Document Summary
After having investigated the a priori structure of sensibility, kant undertakes the study of understanding (verstand) which produces intellectual representations as concepts. The cooperation of sensitivity and understanding is necessary for knowledge: "a feeling without a concept is blind, and not a concept without a feeling is empty. Transcendental analysis is dedicated to the study of concepts a priori of understanding or categories. The operations of understanding can be reduced to judgments or proposals. Each form of intellectual judgment is determined by a pure concept (a priori concept) or category. Categories" are then the transcendental structure of the subject, and not the "objective" characteristics of things in themselves as aristotle"s use of the term implies. Catego- ries are the a priori conditions of the possibility that objects, resp. sensitive intuitions, are thought. Outside this a priori structure of understanding there are no "objects" of thinking, and therefore no possible experience.