Kant on Perception, Experience and Judgements Thereof

Abstract

AbstractIt is commonly thought that the distinction between subjectively valid judgements of perception and objectively valid judgements of experience in theProlegomenais not consistent with the account of judgement Kant offers in the B Deduction, according to which a judgement is ‘nothing other than the way to bring given cognitions to the objective unity of apperception’. Contrary to this view, I argue that theProlegomenadistinction maps closely onto that drawn between the mathematical and dynamical principles in the System of Principles: Kant’s account of theProlegomenadistinction strongly suggests that it is the Analogies of Experience that make it possible for judgements of perception to give rise to judgements of experience. This means that judgements of perception are objectively valid with regard to the quantity and quality of objects, and subjectively valid with regard to the relation they posit between objects. If that is the case, then the notion of a judgement of perception is consistent with the B Deduction account of judgement.