Hanna, Kantian Non-Conceptualism, and Benacerraf’s Dilemma

Abstract

Robert Hanna has recently advanced a theory of non-conceptual content, the central claim of which is that ‘it is perfectly possible for there to be directly referential intuitions without concepts’. Hanna bases this claim in Kant’s account of intuition in the Critique of Pure Reason, and so extends his Kantian non-conceptualism beyond the epistemology of empirical knowledge into the realm of mathematics. Thus, Hanna has proposed a Kantian non-conceptualist solution to a well-known dilemma set out by Paul Benacerraf in his 1973 paper, ‘Mathematical Truth’. I argue that Hanna is right about Kant’s non-conceptualism, but mistaken in its application to Benacerraf’s Dilemma.