Imagination and the Distinction Between Intuition and Image in Kant
R. Brian Tracz forthcoming in Ergo
Abstract: The role of intuition in Kant’s account of experience receives peren- nial philosophical attention. In this essay, I present the textual case that Kant also makes extensive reference to what he terms “images” that are generated by the imagination. Beyond this, as I argue, images are fundamentally distinct from empirical and pure intuitions. Images and empirical intuitions differ in how they relate to sensation, and all images (even “pure images”) actually de- pend on pure intuitions. Moreover, all images differ from intuitions in their structure or format. I then turn to a question that naturally arises on the re- sulting view: if the imagination produces images, and if images are fundamen- tally distinct from intuitions, then how do intuitions relate to the imagination? Ioutlinereasonsforthinkingthatintuitionsandtheiressentialfeaturesdonot depend on the imagination at all. Though this essay does not decisively argue for this thesis, the resulting view provides a clear account of the distinction between the senses and the imagination in Kant’s theory of sensibility.
Kant famously argues that objects are “given to us” in intuitions and “thought” through concepts,andthatbothintuitionsandconceptsarerequiredfor“experience”(A – /B – ). Kant’sboldclaimsabouttheoppositionbetweenintuitionandconcept(andbetween the faculties of sensibility and understanding) attract perennial philosophical interest and debate, particularly among those interested in Kant’s conception of perceptual experience. However, because of the tendency to focus particularly on the role of intuitions in Kant’s overall picture of perceptual experience, it usually goes unnoticed that besides intuitions, Kantalsoclaimsthatsensibilityproduces“images”(Bilder, Einbildungen)andthattheyare a “product” of the imagination (A /B ). Though commentators occasionally invoke