Not seeing and seeing nothing. Kant on the twin conditions of objective reference

Abstract

The article deals with the status and significance of Kant's distinction between intuition and concept as the two essential prerequisites for the objective reference of cognitions in the Critique of Pure Reason. More specifically, the article is concerned with Kant's account of the objective reference of cognitions a priori and with the conditions of the possibility of non-empirical knowledge in general and of metaphysical knowledge in particular. Section 1 presents Kant's transcendental project in its strategic role of providing the theoretical foundations for moral freedom. Section 2 elucidates the ground and function of the dualism that permeates Kant's critical philosophy. Section 3 details Kant's innovative account of sensuous intuition as one of the two basic elements of cognition. Section 4 addresses the original limitation of sensuous intuition as a mode of cognition and the latter's functional enhancement by the conceptual mode of cognition.