On the necessity of the categories
For Kant, the human cognitive faculty has two sub-faculties: sensibility and the understanding. Each has pure forms which are necessary to us as humans: space and time for sensibility; the categories for the understanding. But Kant is careful to leave open the possibility of there being creatures li...
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| 格式: | Journal article |
| 語言: | English |
| 出版: |
Duke University Press
2022
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| 總結: | For Kant, the human cognitive faculty has two sub-faculties: sensibility
and the understanding. Each has pure forms which are necessary to us as humans:
space and time for sensibility; the categories for the understanding. But Kant is
careful to leave open the possibility of there being creatures like us, with both
sensibility and understanding, who nevertheless have different pure forms of
sensibility. They would be finite rational beings and discursive cognizers. But they
would not be human. And this raises a question about the pure forms of the
understanding. Does Kant leave open the possibility of discursive cognizers who have
different categories? Even if other discursive cognizers might not sense like us, must
they at least think like us? We argue that textual and systematic considerations do
not determine the answers to these questions and examine whether Kant thinks that
the issue cannot be decided. Consideration of his wider views on the nature and
limits of our knowledge of mind shows that Kant could indeed remain neutral on
the issue but that the exact form his neutrality can take is subject to unexpected
constraints. The result would be an important difference between what Kant says
about discursive cognizers with other forms of sensibility and what he is in a position
to say about discursive cognizers with other forms of understanding. Kantian
humility here takes on a distinctive character. |
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