Kirk Dallas Wilson

KANT ON INTUITION

The Philosophical Quarterly, Vol. 25, No. 100. (Jul., 1975), pp. 247-265.

Kant's Logic1 begins by dividing objective representations into intuitions and concepts:
All cognitions, that is, all [re]presentations consciously referred to an object, are either intuitions or concepts.
Intuition is a singular [re]presentation (repraesentatio singular's), the concept is a general (repraesentatio per
notas communes) or reflective [re]presentation (repraesentatio discursiva) (op. cit., 1).
1
Immanuel Kant: Logic, trans. Robert S. Hartman and Wolfgang Schwarz, Library of Liberal Arts
(Indianapolis, 1974). Hereinafter, Logic; references to this work will appear in the text.
But, as Frege has noted, this definition of `intuition' contains no mention of a connection with
sensibility,2 a connection that dominates the treatment of intuition in the Transcendental Aesthetics
What is more, in contrast with the Logic definition of intuition in terms of singularity, the opening
sentence of the Transcendental Aesthetic reads,
In whatever manner and by whatever means a mode of knowledge may relate to objects, intuition is that
through which it is in immediate relation to them. . . . (A19 = B34).
2
The Foundations of Arithmetic, trans. J. L. Austin (New York, 1960), p. 19.
Later in the Critique, however, `intuition' is defined by both singularity and immediacy: intuition,
Kant says, "relates immediately to the object and is [singular (einzeln)]" (A320=B377).
Two problems with Kant's notion of intuition emerge:
(1) How are the singularity and immediacy criteria for defining intuitive representations related?
(2) How is the connection between intuition and sensibility to be established?
In the Prolegomena4 and in the Transcendental Expositions in B, Kant treats the connection of
intuition to sensibility as a consequence of a certain theory of mathematical construction (see sec. V
below); however, the relation between singularity and immediacy as defining criteria of intuition is
never, as far as I know, made explicit by Kant.
In some recent articles Jaakko Hintikka has argued that the immediacy criterion is just another
formulation of the singularity criterion.5 Charles Parsons has countered that the two criteria are
different and, moreover, that

3 Of the Critique of Pure Reason, trans. Norman Kemp-Smith (London, 1963). Hereinafter, Critique;
references will appear in the text.
4 Prolegomena to Any Future Metaphysics, ed. Lewis White Beck, Library of Liberal Arts
(Indianapolis, 1950). Hereinafter, Prolegomena; references will appear in the text.
5 Most notably in "On Kant's Notion of Intuition (Anschauung)", in The First Critique: Reflections on
Kant's Critique of Pure Reason, ed. T. Penelhum and J. J. Macintosh (Belmont, 1969), esp. p. 42. See
also Hintikka's reply to Parsons, "Kantian Intuitions", Inquiry, 15 (1972), pp. 341-5, esp. p. 342.
248 KIRK DALLAS WILSON
the singularity criterion is broader than that of immediacy in characterizing representations as
intuitive.' I shall argue that Kant's two criteria are intensionally different but extensionally identical. In
other words, although each criterion identifies a different aspect of intuitive representations, any
representation that satisfies the one also satisfies the other. Against Hintikka, therefore, I shall argue
that immediacy cannot be reduced to singularity, and against Parsons I shall argue that neither
criterion is broader than the other. The root difficulty in both Hintikka's and Parsons' positions lies in
their interpretation of Kantian intuitions as corresponding to singular terms of the Predicate Calculus.
Against this interpretation I shall defend a reconstruction of Kant's singularity criterion in terms of
mereological primitives and of the immediacy criterion in terms of a suitable notion of isomorphism.
I
Though much is said of the ambiguity between act and content in Kant's notion of representation,
Kant rarely used `representation' to mean the act of representing. While such acts are necessarily tied

1
to our representations, representations themselves are objects of consciousness (mental entities). Our
representations are the content of our acts of apprehending; they are the what of what is apprehended.
Accordingly, in this paper I shall use `representation' in the content-sense.
Let us begin by noting a prima facie case for the intensional difference but extensional identity of the
singularity and immediacy criteria. Though prima facie, this case prohibits one kind of reconstruction
of Kant's notion of intuition.
Concepts are said to be general representations because they represent many objects by marks or
characteristics that these objects have in common. By implication, then, intuitions do not represent
their objects by marks or characteristics. But because Kant holds the transcendental thesis that
intuitions are connected with sensibility, which therefore places the study of singular representations
outside the scope of general logic and inside that of aesthetic (A52=1376), Kant does not explain in
the logic how intuitions represent in virtue of their singularity. In formal logic Kant mentions the
singularity of intuitive representations as a contrast with the generality of conceptual representations.
Nevertheless, we shall find that it is possible through the contrast with the generality of concepts to
reconstruct the singularity of representations with logical mechanisms (sec. III below). Thus we
obtain one of Kant's criteria for distinguishing kinds of representations -singularity versus generality-
as a distinction regarding the logical structure of a representation.
On the other hand, while singularity is mentioned at least seven times as the defining feature of
intuitions in the logic lectures during the critical 6 "Kant's Philosophy of Arithmetic", in Philosophy,
Science, and Method, ed. Sidney Morgenbesser, et al. (New York, 1969), p. 570.
KANT OX INTUITION 249
period, the immediacy criterion is alluded to only twice.' This imbalance is quite understandable, since
logic, according to Kant, abstracts from the mode in which a representation relates to an object
(A55=B79). Immediacy versus mediacy, as modes of representation, constitute a critical distinction
between ways in which a representation is said to represent its object. The critical character of this
distinction emerges from the important letter to Marcus Herz of February 1772 in which Kant first
raised the critical question.
Although he later formulated the critical question in terms of the synthetic a priori character of
judgments, Kant originally questioned "the grounds of the relation of that in us which we call
`representation' to the object"." Kant immediately added that "passive or sensuous representations [i.e.
intuitions] have an understandable relationship to objects", since they are the immediate effects on the
mind of the objects themselves. Even in the mature critical philosophy there is some evidence that
Kant tended to identify the object represented by intuition with the cause of the intuition;9 it is easy to
see in this argument the justification of intuition's immediate, and critically unproblematic, relation to
its object. The critical difficulty, on the other hand, concerns "intellectual representations", for these
depend upon the "inner activity of the mind" and, therefore, cannot stand in immediate relation to
their objects.10 This early formulation of the critical problem is reflected in the Critique by the
doctrine that concepts are predicates of possible judgments (A69=B94) and, hence, require a
mediating representation in order to relate to objects. According to this doctrine, all concepts contain
other representations under themselves as the mediating elements in their relation to objects
(A69=B93-94).11 Thus, of the two criteria
7 In Kants Vorlesungen: Vorlesungen ber Logik, Kants Gesammelte Schriften, hrsg. von der
Deutschen Akademie der Wissenschaften zu Berlin, vol. 24 (Berlin, 1966). References to intuition as
singular representation occur in Logik Philippi, p. 451; Logik P6litz, pp. 565, 566; Logik Busolt, p.
653; Logik Dohna-Wundlacken, p. 754; and Wiener Logik, pp. 904, 905. Intuition as immediate
representation is assumed but not directly stated in Logik Plitz, p. 569, during a discussion of the
impossibility of infimae species (or lowest species). Immediacy is explicitly associated with intuition
in Logik DohnaWundlacken, p. 754; but by 1792 one might expect that aspects of the critical
philosophy would be creeping into the logic lectures. Further references to these notes will appear in
the text; the translations are mine.
8 In Kant: Philosophical Correspondence 1759-99, trans. and ed. Arnulf Zweig (Chicago, 1967), p.
71.
9 See Norman Kemp Smith, A Commentary to Kant's Critique of Pure Reason (New York, 1962), p.
80.
10 Kant: Philosophical Correspondence 1759-99, p. 72.

2
"By repudiating the traditional doctrine of infamae species (see Logic, 11, Note; and Logik P6litz, p.
569), Kant proves that it is part of the logical theory of concepts that all concepts contain other
concepts under themselves, for this repudiation guarantees at least in principle that any concept can be
a genus. What is critical about this doctrine is that coneepts are used as predicates in judgments when
they are used to provide a conceptualization of objects. However, Manley Thompson is mistaken
when he argues that the repudiation of the doctrine of infimae species entails that Kant would have
used the first-order scheme `Fx' as the form of predication rather than the form of classical logic `S is
P' ("Singular Terms and Intuitions in Kant's Epistemology", The Review of Metaphysics, XXVI
(1972), pp. 325-326). The repudiation of the doctrine of infimae species is only a necessary condition
for Kant's critical use of concepts as mediate representations in the critical philosophy.
250
MR DALLAS WILSON
for classifying representations, the one concerns the logical structure of a representation, the other its
critical relation to its object.
The intensional difference between singularity and immediacy, therefore, lies in the distinction
between defining logical and critical (semantic) aspects of a representation. Nevertheless, since
concepts (general representations) are associated with mediate representations in the critical
philosophy, it is natural to assume that singular representations stand in immediate relation to their
object. Hence we have the extensional identity of the two criteria.
Moreover, it follows that intuitions cannot be construed in terms equivalent to conceptual singularity.
Intuitions qua singular concepts would be in immediate (and unproblematic) relation to their objects
insofar as they are intuitions, but in mediate (and problematic) relations to these same objects insofar
as they are conceptual. These critical associations of singularity-immediacy and generality-mediacy
contrast with Kant's pre-critical position where intuitions were treated as singular concepts. In the
Dissertation of 1770, the concepts of time and space are said to be singular and intuitions.12 This
ambiguity occurs, for instance, when Kant says,
The concept of space contains in itself the very form of all sensual intuition (Diss., 15 C.
This position should be compared with the precise statement at the conclusion of the Metaphysical
Exposition of Space in the Critique: ". . . the original representation of space is an a priori intuition,
not a concept" (A25=B40).
Kant's rejection of conceptual singularity as a conception of intuition is clearly indicated in the logic
lecture notes. In the pre-critical Logik Blomberg (1771), Kant divides concepts into singular and
common (general) ( 260, p. 257). The former take up the role of intuition by representing an object
immediately. However, after the critical question is raised, conceptual representation is restricted to
generality and the immediacy criterion, as we have noted, is reduced in importance in the logic. In the
Logik Philippi (May, 1772), Kant draws the logical distinction between concepts and intuitions as it
functions in the critical philosophy:
A concept is a general representation; representations which are not general are not concepts. . . . A
singular representation is intuition (p. 451).
II
While logic abstracts from the mode of representing an object, it nevertheless deals with objective
representations, representations which purport to represent an object, and excludes subjective
representations such as sensations and feelings. Compliance with the singularity criterion requires that
a representation purports to represent a single object. We might thus
12 0n the form and principles of the sensible and intelligible world, trans. G. B. Kerferd, in Kant:
Selected Pre-Critical Writings and Correspondence with Beck, trans. Kerferd and D. E. Walford (New
York, 1968); see esp. 14 (subsections 2 and 3), and 15 (subsections B and C). Hereinafter, Diss.;
references will appear in the text.
KANT ON INTUITION 251
be tempted to agree with Hintikka that
Kant's notion of intuition is not very far from what we would call a singular term. An intuition is for
Kant a "representation"-we would perhaps rather say a symbol-which refers to an individual object or
which is used as if it would refer to one.13
But problems confront such a reconstruction. Parsons is correct in pointing out that definite
descriptions are singular but that they designate by means of conceptual representations.14 Certainly

3
our prima facie case in sec. I. is against any identification of intuitions with definite descriptions, for
this identification would amount to conceiving of intuitions in terms of conceptual singularity.
Parsons takes the existence of definite descriptions to show, contra Hintikka's reduction of immediacy
to singularity, that there can be nonimmediate singular representations, and therefore that the
singularity criterion is broader in picking out intuitive representations than is the immediacy criterion.
Parsons maintains that
. . . Kant never remarks, so far as I know, on the implications of the possibility of non-immediate
singular representations for the concept of intuition.15
But certainly such implications are in Kant. In the critical philosophy, intuition is defined in terms of
immediacy, and non-immediate singularity would, again, be a case of intuitions as singular concepts.
Parsons is led to this curious position because he retains Hintikka's assumption that intuitions
correspond to singular terms of modern logic. Hence, for Parsons, there can be singular
representations (i.e., singular terms) containing mediate representations as parts.
But neither demonstratives nor proper names can function as formal counterparts of Kantian intuitions
for the same reason that definite descriptions cannot-namely, their conceptuality. Manley Thompson,
in his excellent discussion of this problem, notes that demonstratives "are conspicuously
representations of concepts"." Demonstratives such as `this' and `the . . . here' are construed in
Kantian logic as giving concepts a singular use in judgments in order to enable one to use a (general)
concept to refer to a single object of that kind.17 Kant himself gives `Diese Welt ist die beste' as an
example of a singular judgment.18 As far as I can determine, Kant employs demonstratives only in
singular judgments, and it is absurd to claim
13"On Kant's Notion of Intuition", p. 43. Hintikka's final phrase, "or which is used as if it would refer
to one", is meant to refer to the a priori intuitions of space and time.
14"Kant's Philosophy of Arithmetic", p. 570.
15 lbid.
18"Singular Terms and Intuitions in Kant's Epistemology", p. 329. I owe much more than can be
footnoted to Professor Thompson's acute article.
17 See Logic, 1, Note 2: "It is more tautology to speak of general or common con. cepts, a mistake
based on a wrong division of concepts into general, particular, and singular. Not the concepts
themselves, only their use can be divided in this way."
18 Kants Handschriftlicher Nachlass, Kants Gesammelte Schriften, hrsg. von der Kniglich
Preussischen Akademie der Wissenschaften, vol. 16 (Berlin, 1924), N 3173.
252 KIRK DALLAS WILSON
that concepts which are given a singular use by demonstratives are miracu lously converted into an
intuition of an object.
Similarly, proper names cannot represent Kantian intuitions, for proper names are eliminable in the
Predicate Calculus in favour of general terms (representations of concepts) and variables of
quantification. Interpreting intuitions as proper names would reduce intuitions in principle to
conceptual representations. That such a reduction would be misguided is seen from the fact that one
cannot make a judgment about Wilson by just possessing the proper name `Wilson'. An intuition of
Wilson is still required. Indeed, the use of proper names shares common features with the use of
concepts, features that distinguish proper names from intuitions. As with conceptual representations, it
makes sense to talk about the application, reapplication, and misapplication of names. But since
intuitions are means by which objects are given (A50=1374), they are not applied to objects;
therefore, they cannot be reapplied or misapplied.19
Thus, no singular term of the Predicate Calculus conforms to Kant's use of `intuition'. In particular
then, no singular term can conform to Kant's singularity criterion.
III
The form of singular and general representations determines different ways in which intuitions and
concepts express part-whole relationships and divisibility-today we might say that these
representations express different relations of membership. I shall consider concepts first. The form of
concepts possesses two distinctive features: Allgemeinheit (= generality or universality), and the fact
that this form must be generated by the mind itself (Logic, 2, & 4, Note). In Logic, 5-6, Kant
argues that a representation is made general by subordinating other representations to it through
"logical acts" (analytic judgments) of comparison, reflection, and abstraction. This subordination

4
produces a hierarchical ordering of concepts according to which the subordinated concept, from
which the higher concept is abstracted, is contained under the higher concept. Those representations
that are contained under a concept constitute the Umfang of that concept. Moreover, the higher
concept is said to be contained in the subordinated concepts (Logic, 7 & 9). In this way we
generate a species-genus ordering of concepts (Logic, 10): the concept Philosopher is subordinated
under the concept Human which in turn is subordinated under Animal; conversely, the concept Human
is contained in the concept Philosopher, which differs from the concept Human by some specific
differentia, and Animal is contained in Human, which also contains the differentia Rational.
Because the concepts subordinated under a higher concept may be called
19 The argument beginning with "Indeed, the use of proper names . . ." is Manley Thompson's
argument against construing Kantian intuitions as proper names; see "Singular Terms and Intuitions in
Kant's Epistemology", pp. 327-8.
KANT ON INTUITION 253
the members of the division of that concept (Logic 110), a theory of one kind of part-whole relation
results from the generality of concepts. According to this theory the parts of a whole are subordinated
to the whole, while the whole is contained within the parts. The paradoxical character of the claim that
the whole can be contained within the parts may be removed by noting that in dividing a concept one
divides the extension (Umfang) of that concept. In discussing the nature of logical division, Kant tells
us,
To dissect a concept and to divide it are two very different things. In dissecting the concept I see what
is contained in it (through analysis); in dividing it I consider what is contained under it. Here I divide
the sphere [Umfang] of the concept, not the concept itself. The division, far from dissecting the
concept, rather adds to it through its members, for they contain more within them than does the con-
cept (Logic, 110, Note 1).
The members of a logical division are obtained by placing differentiae upon a concept. Thus, in the
sense that a logical division of a concept A results in its species, all of which are A's, the whole is
contained within the parts of the division. The logical division of concepts is a regresses in
indefinitem, for the process of finding specific differentiae for a concept qua genus continues
indefinitely in principle (Logic, 11; also Wiener Logik, p. 910). Moreover, this regression is merely
a regulative principle of reaso20 (A668= B696); it is only a methodological procedure for
investigating nature.
It is noteworthy that the subordination of part to whole is expressible by the classical class-
membership relation. Kant was aware of the settheoretic character of the conceptual part-whole
relation, for in his lectures he often defined the extension of a concept as a set:
The sphere [Sphaera] is the extension [Umfang] of a concept, and concerns the set of things [Menge
der Dinge] which are subordinated under the concept (Wiener Logik, p. 911; also Dohna-Wundlacken
Logik, p. 755).
We have the following definition of the subordination relation:
A is a subordinated part of B =df. A e 1(P is contained under B). Further formalization of Kant's
theory of concepts lies beyond the scope of this paper. In particular, one cannot tell as yet whether
Kant's theory contains antinomies. However, it is likely that Kant avoids antinomies by restricting the
scope of his theory to species-genus concepts (gelehrte Begriffe) thereby excluding antinomic
concepts.
In contrast with concepts, intuitive representations are given with their forms. While time, Kant
contends, is the form of all human intuitions, it will be convenient in this section and the next to
confine our attention to space, which is the form of intuitions representing things "outside" us. Now
since the form of concepts defines these representations as general, we must assume that space defines
intuitions as singular representations. In
1I+ or further discussion of the preceding two features of the logical division of concepts, see Jules
Vuillemin, "Reflexionen iiber Kants Logik", Kant-Studien Band 52, Heft 3 (1960-1), p. 316.
254 MR bALLAS WILSON
this case, the theory of singularity will result in a part-whole relation that is the converse of that which
results from generality. Whereas for concepts the parts are subordinated to the whole and the whole is
contained within the parts, it follows that the parts of an intuition are contained within the whole and

5
that the whole is greater than any individual part. Kant puts forward this view in the third argument
(in B) of the Metaphysical Exposition of Space when he says,
. . . if we speak of diverse spaces, we mean thereby only parts of one and the same unique space
(A25=B39).
Thus, in general, we may say that an intuition is a representation whose parts are contained within its
whole.
The part-whole relation associated with singularity, moreover, leads to a different theory of division
from that associated with generality. The division of concepts occurs by limiting a concept by means
of differentiae; however, in the Metaphysical Exposition of Space Kant argues,
Space is essentially one; the manifold in it . . . depends solely on [the introduction of] limitations
[Einschrdnkungen] (A25=B39; the insert is Kemp Smith's).
These limitations are boundaries placed within the whole of space. The division of an intuition does
not take place by noting specific differences between one part of space and other, but through placing
boundaries within one and the same space. Vuillemin has pointed out two features of this division
(compare these with the corresponding features of the division of conceptual representations): first,
the division is a regressus in infinitum, and secondly, this division represents a constitutive principle
of intuitive representations.21
Since the conceptual part-whole relation is a counterpart to a set-theoretic notion of membership, it is
natural to suggest that the singularity criterion determines the structure of a representation according
to a mereological conception of the part-whole relation. Also called the calculus of individuals,
mereology22 is the study of the formal relations in which the parts of a concrete whole, or of an
individual, stand to the whole itself. Whitehead saw that events possess a mereological structure: one
event can be part of another, "larger", event, or two events may overlap. Similarly, the parts of
physical objects stand in a mereological relation with the whole physical object of which they are the
parts, as, for example, a window is part of a house. While a concrete whole may be called the
(mereological) class of its parts, it is obvious that this concept of class differs from that of classical
21"Reflexionen ber Kants Logik", pp. 315-6.
22 Mereology was first developed by S. Lesniewski. It was developed by Nelson Goodman and H. S.
Leonard in "The Calculus of Individuals and its Uses", The Journal of Symbolic Logic, 5 (1940), pp.
45-55; see also Nelson Goodman, The Structure of Appearance (Indianapolis, 1966), eh. II, 4. A
formalization of mereology by Alfred Tarski appears in J. H. Woodger, Axiomatic Method in Biology
(Cambridge, 1937), Appendix V. For a brief discussion of mereology, see Guido Kung, Ontology and
the Logical Analysis of Language (Dordrecht, 1967), ch. S, esp. pp. 102-7.
KANT ON INTUITION 255
set theory. There is no need to consider the variables of a system of mereo logical relations as ranging
over different orders of objects, and there are no antinomies in mereology.
It is easy to obtain from a mereological primitive, say that of overlap,23 the part-whole relation that
characterizes singular representations. Here we use variables to range over regions of space:
x is a part of y=df. (z) (z overlaps x > z overlaps y) and, then,
x is a proper part of y=df. (x is a part of y) & ~ (y is a part of x). The proper-part relation is the formal
expression of the relation between the parts of a space and the whole space. In terms of it we may
formalize the properties of the division of space; for instance, the regresses in infinitum character of
the division is represented by the axiom:
(x) (3y) (y is a proper part of x).
Since this axiom asserts the existence of some proper part, the division is also represented as a
constitutive feature of the part-whole relation. Moreover, unlike the classical class-membership
relation, and therefore unlike Kant's relation of subordination, the proper-part relation is transitive. (It
is, moreover, asymmetrical and irreflexive.)
We obtain discreteness, x is discrete from y, in terms of regions of space having no parts in common
in all spaces of which they are proper parts. Ultimately, the plausibility of Kant's mereological view of
space depends upon originating definitions of on the right/left of, above/below, and behind in front of.
Undoubtedly, the fact that these relations are to be defined, for Kant, by mereological primitives lies
at the basis of his treatment in the Prolegomena of identical but non-congruent objects. Kant
maintains that

6
. . . the difference between similar and equal things which are not congruent . . . cannot be made
intelligible by any concept, but only by the relation to the right and left hands which immediately
refers to intuition (Proleg., 13).
The difference between right and left is a difference in the arrangement of parts of a representation;
hence, it must be ascribed to the structure of an intuitive representation rather than to concepts.
Kantian intuitions, therefore, are not to be compared with singular terms but with patterns whose
internal structure is expressible in terms of the mereological relations in which spatio-temporal
regions stand to one another. Kant brings out the relational character of intuitions in a concluding
section of the Transcendental Aesthetic added in B:
. . . it is especially relevant to observe that everything in our knowledge that belongs to intuition . . .
contains nothing but mere relations; namely, of locations in an intuition (extension), of change of
location (motion), and of laws according to which this change is determined (moving forces) (1366-
7).
"See Goodman, The Structure of Appearance, p. 49.
256 XMX DAILAS WILSON
Moreover, besides being the forms of intuitions, space and time are obviously themselves intuitions,
for they possess within themselves the same mereological structure as do the representations of which
they are the forms. Kant calls space and time pure intuitions (A20=B34-5). Thus we obtain Kant's
doctrine of the dual character of space and time as both the forms of intuitions and themselves
intuitions (A20=B34-5; also B160).
Finally, let us note that a consequence of the constitutive character of the divisibility of intuitive
representations is that every intuition contains in itself a manifold (A99). This thesis, in turn, implies
that intuitions must be synthesized in order to enter into experience. This view of singularity, and of
its contrast with the generality of concepts, is stated by Kant in a long footnote in the Transcendental
Deduction of B.
Space and time, and all their parts, are intuitions, and are, therefore, with the manifold which they
contain, singular representations (vide the Transcendental Aesthetic). Consequently they are not mere
concepts through which one and the same consciousness is found to be contained in a number of
representations. On the contrary, through them many representations are found to be contained in one
representation, and in the consciousness of that representation; and they are thus composite. The unity
of that consciousness is therefore synthetic and yet is also original. The singularity of such intuitions
is found to have important consequences (B137 fn.; italics original).
IV
In its most sophisticated form, synthesis is the process whereby a manifold is given a conceptual
expression as part of a scientific theory. In the Transcendental Deduction Kant argues that the
categories are the forms in which this synthesis must be articulated in order to generate scientific
knowledge. Clearly, Kant associates synthesis with the generation of a unified conceptual scheme
when he states
By synthesis, in its most general sense, I understand the act of putting different representations
together, and of grasping [begreifen, which here should be more accurately and less metaphorically
translated as `conceiving'] what is manifold in them in one . . . knowledge (A77= B103).
In both formulations of the Transcendental Deduction, synthesis appears as the conceptual expression
of a given manifold. In A Kant argues that knowledge is possible only through the recognition of a
manifold in a concept, and in B he maintains that combination of a manifold by understanding is the
foundation of synthesis (B, 15). And Kant defines understanding as the faculty for making
judgments by bringing concepts into conformity with the objective unity of apperception (B141). The
function of the Transcendental Deductions is to ascertain what are the conditions of objective unity
with which the generation of a scientific conceptual scheme must comply: these Kant maintains to be
the categories.
To be sure, Kant defines synthesis as the generation of experience. But
KANT ON INTUITION 257
here Kant is not using `experience' to mean sensible perception of, say, my desk as a spatio-temporal
object characterized by sensible qualities. (Perception is merely intuition accompanied by
consciousness.) For Kant, experience is empirical knowledge (A176=13218), and Kant identifies
experience with "the sum of all knowledge wherein objects can be given to us" (A237=13296).

7
"Knowledge", says Kant, "is a whole in which representations stand compared and connected" (A97),
and,
There is one single experience in which all perceptions are represented as in thoroughgoing and
orderly connection. . . (A110; vide 13161). The unity of experience arises from the synthesis of the
manifold of intuitions and is possible only by ascribing representations to one consciousness (B, 16;
vide A113).
It is not surprising, therefore, to find that Kant argues in the Transcendental Deductions that the
categories are the a priori forms of transcendental unity by which intuitions are conceptually
articulated in a necessary connection (see, e.g., A119). This argument is most clearly visible in B
where Kant argues in 20 that "All sensible intuitions*24 are subject to the categories" and then
shows in 26 that the categories make possible the prescription of laws to nature for the combination
of empirical intuitions (13159). In this way the categories make possible the synthesis of observations
and experiments in the generation of scientific theory. Kant concludes the Transcendental Deduction
in B with the observation:
Categories are concepts which prescribe laws a priori to appearances*, and therefore to nature, the
sum of all appearances (13163).
In A Kant expresses this same point by arguing that the categories are "the laws of the synthetic unity
of all appearances*" (A128). The construction of scientific theory, therefore, does not rest upon the
formation of a Humeantype habit, but involves the conceptual expression in accordance with cate-
gories of what is presented in intuition.
According to Kant, furthermore, scientific theory is generated through the synthesis of the manifold of
pure, a priori intuitions (13160). These manifolds contain only mereological relations reducible to
those holding for regions of space and time (A41=1358). Since the pure intuitions of space and time
are the media in which mathematical construction takes place (see sec. V), Kant maintains in the
"Axioms of Intuition" that appearances are related to experience through the same synthesis whereby
space and time are determined in the first place (13203). The synthesis of pure intuitions is given by
pure mathematics (A165-6=13206). Pure mathematics, therefore, is constitutive of scientific
knowledge (A237=13295-6). In other words, our intuitions must be conceptually articulated in terms
of the structures of pure mathematics. Certainly, the rise of modern physics has provided ample
verification of this Kantian thesis.
It is possible now to consider Kant's famous dictum, "Thoughts without
24 The asterisk (*) here and elsewhere indicates words italicized by me, not by Kant.
258 KIRK DALLAS WILSON
content are empty, intuitions without concepts are blind" (A51=B75). That concepts must be given
intuitions is no mystery; human beings must apply their concepts to spatio-temporal objects whose
spatio-temporal structure is presented by an intuition. But the problem of this passage is how
intuitions can be "blind" without concepts and yet be a species of objective representations. An
intuition is objective insofar as it presents the mereological structure of an appearance, but it is "blind"
without further synthesis relating it to other appearances in one knowledge. Kant is quite clear that
"appearances can certainly be given in intuition independently of functions of the understanding"
(A90=B122); though such appearances "would be for us as good as nothing" (A111). Intuition
contains logically and temporally prior to all experience principles which determine the rela tions of
objects (A26=B42), but without synthesis these relations remain unconnected with any knowledge,
and therefore, "blind".
V
Sensible intuition is either pure intuition (space and time) or empirical intuition of that which is
immediately represented, through sensation, as actual in space and time (B147).
To this classification of intuitions, as we shall see, we must add images (Bilder). In this section I want
to consider the types of intuitions in terms of the proposed interpretation of the singularity criterion.
Empirical intuitions, says Kant, are those that are "in relation to the object through sensation"
(A20=B34). Any identification of empirical intuition with sensation is misguided. Sensations are mere
subjective representations pertaining to the "subjective constitution of our manner of sensibility", and,
therefore, are not intuitions (A28=B44). Kant holds, rather, that sensations enter into intuitions insofar
as they admit of being ordered in a spatio-temporal system of relations (A20=B34). Thus sensations
are merely the medium through which the mereological structure of an object of empirical

8
consciousness is represented. Kant aptly chose the word Anschauung, which comes from the verb
anschauen, meaning `to view' or `to show forth', for intuition. Intuitive representations "show forth"
their object by representing its mereological structure and, in the case of empirical intuitions, its
empirical properties (B69, fn.). Kemp Smith is probably correct in observing that "Anschauung
etymologically applies only to visual sensation", and that "Kant extends it to cover sensations of all
the senses".25 However, Kemp Smith fails to grasp the interesting philosophical problem of
identifying what sensations can be ordered under which forms of intuition. Berkeley evidently thought
that tactile sensations were capable of revealing a spatial world ("outness"), that is, of falling within
space.26 However,
25 A Commentary To Kant's Critique of Pure Reason, p. 79.
26 An Essay Towards a New Theory of Vision, 45-6; in Works on Vision: George Berkeley, ed. C.
M. Turbayne (Indianapolis, 1963).
$ANT ON INTUITION 259
aural sensations, it seems, are not isomorphic with a spatial world.27 Along with sensations of taste
and smell, these sensations stand only in temporal relations. They cannot represent an outer world.
Kant maintains that only space is the form of outer intuition and that time is just the form of inner
sense. That space can be outer and yet in the mind (insofar as it is a representation, A373) is
paradoxical only if the mereological structure of space is not understood. Certainly, interpreting space
as an entity or as a "container" which exists independently of that which is in space renders Kant's
view nonsensical. The paradoxical character is removed when we realize that `space' connotes only
the notion that what exists in the mind possesses a kind of part-whole relationship expressible
mereologically.28 These representations are outer because what is represented in them is said to be
apart, or discrete, from the knower's own mind. Kant's mereological conception of space is the
coherent working out of Leibniz's view that space is "the order of co-existence" (see A374)-Leibniz,
however, like the early Kant, had failed to see the logical difference between concepts and intuitions
and had treated space as a singular concept.
On the other hand, time, whose single dimension of succession is mereologically representable and is
therefore an intuition (A33=1350), is required for the representation of motion and alteration (1348-
9). Since time represents the manner in which representations of outer sense (the order of coexistence)
are taken up into consciousness, time is the form of inner sense. All our representations are ordered in
time. But, it is to be noted, time does not for this reason yield a mereological representation of the
soul as an object in the way that outer intuition yields a representation of an empirical object
(A23=1337).
We turn now to consider the pure intuitions, not in relation to empirical intuitions, but in themselves.
For Kant, the pure intuitions of space and time are the media in which the construction of
mathematical objects takes place (Proleg. 10). It has been said that the interpretation of Kant's
notion of intuition "stands or falls on the interpretation of the role of intuitions in mathematics".2s
This contention is unfortunate, because, as I shall now argue, Kant himself was unclear about this
role.
Much misunderstanding has resulted from identifying the construction of a concept with a mental
image.30 When speaking carefully, Kant maintains that mathematics has recourse to "the universal
procedure of imagina
27 See P. F. Strawson, Individuals (London, 1959), ch. II, "Sounds". Also, and especially, J. W.
Swanson, "On a Problem of Nicod and Strawson", Philosophy Phenomenological Research, XXVIII
(1967), pp. 222-9.
28 For a discussion of the 17th-18th century background of this concept of space, see Ivor Leclerc,
"The Meaning of `Space' in Kant", Proceedings of the Third International Kant Congress (Dordrecht-
Holland: D. Reidel Publishing Co., 1972), pp. 393-400. 29 By Parsons, op. cit., p. 571.
30 Hintikka maintains that such an identification, or at least the need for mental images, is entailed by
Kant's critical association of intuition with the form of sensibility through transcendental exposition
("On Kant's Notion of Intuition", p. 51.) This contention is groundless (see discussion in the following
paragraphs).
260 =X nniiAs wILS011T
tion for providing an image* for a concept" (A140=13179-80). Kant calls this universal procedure a
schema, and implies that it is found in intuition (A665=13693). Pure schemata, rather than images, are

9
the proper objects of mathematical construction (A140-1=13180). I wish to suggest that a schema is a
model obtained by interpreting a mathematical concept in a mereological system. Tarski has shown, in
fact, that mereology provides the logical foundations for a geometry of solids, a geometry that admits
only bodily figures.31 It is my contention that the geometry of solids is the formal system that
underlies Kant's theory of the pure schematism. (In turn, this system itself is grounded in human
cognition as the form of sensibility through the transcendental exposition of space-see below.)
To construct a concept in intuition, that is, to provide a schema for a mathematical concept, is, then, a
formal procedure whereby the concept is modelled in a mereological system sufficient for the
geometry of solids. Kant posits "certain universal conditions of construction" as determining the
object of a mathematical concept (A714=13742). These conditions are determined by the structure of
space, but until space is understood mereologically, we have no clear conception of how these
conditions are ascertained. These conditions are nothing other than the axioms of mereology (e.g., that
the part-of relation is transitive) and the special axioms required for the geometry of solids. Moreover,
we can be assured that the axiomatic system of threedimensional Euclidean geometry does have a
model in the geometry of solids32 - in Kantian language, that geometrical concepts can be provided
with schemata in the pure intuition of space.
Unfortunately, there is ample evidence that Kant himself did not appreciate the wholly formal
procedure for obtaining schemata for geometrical concepts in the pure intuition of space. In the first
place, Kant claims that mathematical knowledge considers "the universal in the particular, or even in
the single instance" (A714=13742). Since intuitive representations are patterns (see sec. III above),
Kant describes geometrical method as involving the representation of a configuration by the
imagination in order that the geometer may obtain a pure intuition. Kant apparently wishes to
maintain that a geometer requires a concrete model provided by imagination, not just a model of the
mathematical concept in a formal system. To be sure, schemata are the means by which imagination
can provide such images for a mathematical concept, and Kant back-tracks from his characterization
of mathematical knowledge as considering the single instance and claims that the geometer "pays
attention" only to what "follows from the universal conditions of the construction" in the figure itself
(A716=B744; also Bxii). In fact, Kant must back-track from a concrete model, for images themselves
are always inadequate to express the universality of a pure intuition (A140-1
""Foundations of the Geometry of Solids", Logic, Semantics, and Metamathematics (Oxford, 1956),
Essay IT., pp. 24-9.
32 Tarski, op. cit., p. 29.
RANT ON INTUITION 261
=13180). Here Kant is struggling with the problem of how a pure intuition can be obtained in human
cognition. The problem is that there is no way literally to have a pure intuition, a configuration. of
regions in space without the admixture of anything empirical; therefore a concrete model must be
provided by imagination. But this pattern is inadequate to do the job of a pure intuition. What Kant
fails to see is that we can ascertain the structure o f a pure intuition by a formal procedure of
representing a mathematical concept in a mereological system.
Secondly, further evidence that Kant failed to appreciate the formal character of the theory underlying
the schematism occurs in his description of the construction of a line. Kant writes,
I cannot represent to myself a line, however small, without drawing it in thought, that is, generating
from a point all its parts one after another (A162-3=13203).
(As we have seen, one can also represent to oneself the formal structure of a line in the geometry of
solids.) But the problem of this passage lies in this: In the geometry of solids, points, lines and
surfaces must be treated as classes of figures. (For a definition of `point', see Tarski's discussion,
mentioned above.) One cannot picture a point without imagining a little dot, but that is not a point in
the pure intuition of space itself. Certainly, the regresses in infinitum character of intuition implies
that each figure, insofar as it is constituted by regions of space, contains another figure as a proper
part, which is a characteristic axiom of the geometry of solids. Thus, the construction of a point by
recourse to a pure schematism cannot be a simple matter of imagining a point. If my argument is
correct that a geometry of solids underlies mathematical concepts for Kant, then recourse to the pure
schematism for a point, line, or surface cannot be had simply through imagination.
In spite of these difficulties in Kant's philosophy of mathematics, the argument of the Transcendental
Expositions may still be salvaged. This argument proceeds roughly as follows:

10
(1) Sensibility is the only possible way for human beings to acquire intuitions. (Man does not possess
an intuitive intellect, a peculiar fact about human nature.)
(2) Pure intuitions contain the form of intuition (see sec. III above). (3) Therefore, pure intuitions are
possible only if the form they contain is the form of human sensibility (Proleg. 9; also B41).
It would be incumbent upon Kant's opponent to produce another explanation of how pure intuition is
grounded in human cognition. Now since mathematics and mechanics are the a priori disciplines in
which man investigates the structure of pure intuition, space and time are the a priori forms of
sensibility (Proleg. 10, cf. 1348-9). This account of pure intuition is transcendental (A56=B80-1)
and, therefore, in no way affects the actual doing of mathematics. With transcendental exposition we
establish some-
262 ging DALLAS WILSON
thing about the ontological status of space, namely, that it is "in the mind" (since sensibility pertains to
what is in the mind); however, this status is of no concern to the mathematician who proceeds with his
constructions regardless of whether space is "in the mind" or a thing-in-itself. What is shown is that
the formal representation of the structure of pure intuition expresses the form under which the human
mind must have sensible intuition; that is, the form under which something must be represented
intuitively (A50= B74-5).
I shall consider, finally, the intuitive character of images (Bilder). In the historical tradition underlying
Kant's use of 'intuition'33 as well as in Kant himself, an association is made between image (Bild) and
intuition. We have already seen Kant's use of imagination as a means, although inadequate, of
obtaining pure intuitions. Moreover, Kant makes this association explicitly when he says that
. . . not every intuitive representation of outer things involves the existence of these things, for their
representation can very well be a product of the imagination [Einbildungskraft] (as in dreams and
delusions) (B278).
This association is natural on the proposed interpretation of the singularity criterion, for mental
images contain mereological relations in the same way as empirical intuitions upon which imagination
must draw in order to produce an image.
Moreover, from this interpretation of singularity, a neat interpretation of the immediacy criterion
follows.
VI
Hintikka argues that immediacy can be reduced to singularity. The prima facie case against this
reduction is that critical distinctions, such as immediacy versus mediacy, cannot be reduced merely to
logical distinctions between types of representations. Hintikka's argument proceeds:34
(1) The alternative to immediacy is reference to objects by marks or characteristics which may be
shared by several objects.
(2) Reference to objects by such marks or characteristics is generality. (3) Therefore, immediacy is
reference to objects by particular (i.e., singular) representations.
(2) is true by definition, but the argument requires at least the assumption that if a representation is not
general, then it is singular.
Textual evidence, however, is insufficient to justify (1) and the additional assumption. Hintikka offers
as proof of (1) the Stufenleiter passage, a portion of which was quoted at the beginning of this paper.
Kant says, concerning intuitions and concepts,
33 See, for instance, the following passage from J. Chr. Adelung's Auszug aus dem grammatisch-
kritischen Wrterbuch: ". . . versteht man durch die anschauende Erkenntniss, eine jede Erkenntniss,
die wir durch die Empfindung erlangen, oder da wir uns die Sache selbst oder doch ihr Bild vorstellen
. . ."; quoted by Hintikka, "On Kant's Notion of Intuition", pp. 41-2.
s4"On Kant's Notion of Intuition", p. 42.
RANT ON INTUITION 263
The former relates immediately to the object and is single [i.e., singular], the latter refers to it
mediately by means of a feature which several things may have in common (A320=B377).
But this passage is merely a summary of Kant's representational vocabulary and should not be taken
as supplying a premiss for an argument about the relationships between the criteria for
representations. The opposite of immediate representation is mediate representation, not generality as
Hintikka maintains in (1), and which, Kant argues, crosscuts with generality in concepts in the same
way that immediacy crosscuts with singularity in intuitions. (See sec. I for the prima facie case for

11
this argument, and sec. VIII below.) But these relationships are the conclusions of Kant's theory of
representations. The opposite of immediacy is generality (reference to objects by marks or
characteristics) only if generality is already determined to be mediate representation (that is, if
concepts are predicates of possible judgments). Clearly, however, the identification of generality with
mediacy is not true simply by definition. Hence, it makes little difference whether we establish first
the correlation of mediacy to generality in concepts or establish the correlation of immediacy to
singularity in intuitions: each correlation is a corollary of the other. Thus, Hintikka's first premiss is
question-begging; it is true only if we assume that generality is mediate representation.
Similarly, the extra assumption that if a representation is not general it is singular can be accepted
only if we assume that generality is mediacy; otherwise it could be false if a representation is
immediate (i.e. not general, and thus fulfilling the antecedent) and it is not singular (as will be the case
when the representation is mediate).
Furthermore, premiss (1) is equivalent to saying that an immediate representation does not refer to
objects by marks or characteristics. The premiss, thus, does not provide any sense of what we do
mean by an immediate representation. Parsons suggests that immediacy
evidently means that the object of an intuition is in some way directly present to the mind, as in
perception . . .35
The phrase 'in some way' doesn't help, and 'as in perception' offers only an analogy. Hintikka is
undoubtedly correct in his Inquiry response to Parsons that, interpreted literally, this definition is
inconsistent with Kant's use of 'intuition' in the Prolegomena.36 Kant there maintains that in
mathematics we use intuitions prior to the perceptual presence of their objects, that "An intuition is
such a representation as would* immediately depend upon the presence of the object" (Proleg. 8).
VII
In this section I shall define immediacy by examining the nature of empirical intuitions. These
intuitions present several important features. 33"Kant's Philosophy of Arithmetic", p. 569.
36 "Kantian Intuitions", p. 343.
264 KIRK DALLAS WILSON
First, by taking empirical intuitions as basic, we might be tempted to define immediacy as the
consciousness of the object as actually existing; but this would be a mistake. Such a definition would
be incompatible with what Kant says about images (see the final quotation in sec. V), and would,
moreover, render the point of the Second Postulate superfluous. This postulate reads, "That which is
bound up with the material conditions of experience, that is, with sensation, is actual" (A218=B266).
If empirical intuitions involve by definition the consciousness of actual existence, it is cheating to
dignify this definition into a synthetic a priori principle. Secondly, we cannot define immediacy as
epistemologically direct awareness of the object, for Kant defines empirical intuitions as
representations which stand in immediate relation to their object through sensations.
Our interpretation of singularity naturally suggests that a singular representation is in immediate
relation to its object because its structure is isomorphic with that of its object. But it is impossible to
use the notion of extensional isomorphism to explain the relation between intuitions and their object.
For extensional isomorphism, Goodman, for instance, requires us to compare the ultimate factors in
the extensions of different concepts.31 However, to try to establish such a relationship between
intuitions and their object would be to incur the ancient fallacy of diallelus, a fallacy that Kant decries
in a different, but related, context:
Now I can, however, compare the object with my cognition only by cognizing it. My cognition thus
shall confirm itself, which is yet far from sufficient for truth. For since the object is outside me and
the cognition in me, I can judge only whether my cognition of the object agrees with my cognition of
the object. Such a circle in explanation was called by the ancients diallelus. And really it was this
mistake for which the logicians were always reproached by the sceptics, who noted that with this
explanation it was the same as if someone testified in court and appealed to a witness whom no one
knows, but who wants to gain credibility by maintaining that the one who called him as a witness is
an honest man. The charge was well founded indeed; but the solution of the task in question is
completely impossible for anyone (Logic, "Introduction", Chapter VII, p. 55).
Similarly, we could determine whether an intuition is extensionally isomorphic with its object only by
having an intuition of that object. Thus we could determine only that our intuition is isomorphic with

12
our intuition. In this, we are again reminded that the immediacy-mediacy distinction is critical and,
therefore, lies outside the domain of purely logical explanation.
Since this distinction is critical, we might attempt to glean a definition of immediacy from the
doctrines of the Aesthetic. The relevant doctrine is that of transcendental idealism, the thesis that
appearances, the objects of empirical intuitions, are just representations in the mind (A369; see also
A490-1=B518-9, A492=B520). Now one cannot distinguish within con
37 For a complete explanation of extensional isomorphism, the reader should see N. Goodman, The
Structure of Appearance, Chapter I, 3, esp. p. 14.
RANT ON INTUITION 265
sciousness of an object its appearance from its intuition. I cannot distinguish within my perception
(intuition) of my desk a separate item which is my desk. The implication of transcendental idealism is
that we must identify the appearance qua object of intuition with the intuition itself.38 Thus, we can
define immediacy as isomorphic identity between an intuition and its object. Kant himself indicates
this identity in the following brief comment,
. . . what we call outer objects are nothing but mere representations of our sensibility, the form of
which is space (A30=B45)
(certainly, the "representations of our sensibility" are nothing other than intuitions), and implies it
when he states,
If . . . we . . . do not proceed, as we ought*, to treat the empirical intuition as itself mere appearance,
in which nothing that belongs to a thing in itself can be found, our transcendental distinction [between
appearances and things in themselves] is lost (A45=B62).
The object of intuition, then, is merely the intuition regarded as object. What distinctions one does
make regarding what, in the intuition, holds of the object and what pertains only to the subjective
relation of sensibility are only empirical distinctions and do not reveal any object in itself "out side"
the intuition (A45=B62; also A29-30=B45). (And what belongs objectively to the intuitions is its
mereological structure - A28 = B44.)
VIII
I have said that because an intuition possesses a mereological structure, Kant can say that an intuition
is isomorphic with its object. It may be objected that this argument only vindicates Hintikka's position
that immediacy is only "a corollary" of singularity.39 However, by reducing immediacy to singularity,
Hintikka wants to argue that immediacy has no other meaning than that of singularity. In this he is
mistaken. My procedure in the preceding section shows how Kant can base critical distinctions upon
given logical distinctions while yet maintaining a separate meaning to the critical distinction (cf.
Proleg. 9, fn. 4).
Only the relatively simple task remains of showing that the singularity and immediacy criteria are
extensionally identical. This identity follows because (i) if a representation is singular in the defined
sense, it is isomorphic with an empirical object, and (ii) if a representation is isomorphically identical
with an empirical object, it must be singular in Kant's mereological sense of singularity.
Georgia State University
38 The same point is made by Henry E. Allison, in "Kant's Concept of the Transcendental Object",
Kant-Studien, Band 59, Heft 2 (1968), when he says, ". . . when we distinguish between
representations and their objects, we are not distinguishing between two kinds of entities, one in the
mind, and the other "out there", but between two ways in which we can regard our
representations . . ." (p. 179). Allison arrives at this interpretation not through transcendental idealism
but through its opposite side, namely, through an analysis of the transcendental object, the object
which is represented by appearances qua representations.
39 Hintikka uses this formulation of his reduction of immediacy to singularity in his Inquiry response
to Parsons, "Kantian Intuitions".

13