Kant's transcendental and empirical psychology of cognition.

Full Abstract

One of the perennially intriguing questions regarding Kant's approach to the human sciences is the relation between his 'transcendental psychology' and empirical cognitive psychology. In this paper I compare his analysis of the a priori conditions of human cognition in the Critique of pure reason with his empirical account of the human cognitive faculties in his Anthropology from a pragmatic point of view. In comparing his approach to self-consciousness, sensibility, imagination, and understanding in these two works, I 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 consciousness, 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.

Author information

Author/s: Schmidt, Claudia M (CM);

Affiliation: Department of Philosophy, 132 Coughlin Hall, PO Box 1881, Marquette University, Milwaukee WI 53201-1881, USA. claudia.schmidt(-atsign-)marquette.edu

Journal and publication information

Publication Type: Biography; Historical Article; Journal Article

Journal: Studies in history and philosophy of science (Stud Hist Philos Sci), published in England. (Language: eng)

Reference: 2008-Dec; vol 39 (issue 4) : pp 462-72

Dates: Created 2009/04/27; Completed 2009/08/12;

PMID: 19391364, status: MEDLINE (last retrieval date: 8/21/2009, IMS Date: )

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