in a late note, dated 1797, Kant refers to the schematism of the pure understanding as one of the most difficult as well as one of the most important issues treated in the Critique of Pure Reason.1 His treatment of this theme is indeed notorious for its obscurity.2 As I see it, part of the problem is caused by the fact that Kant frames his discussion in terms that he could expect his readers to be familiar with, while he gradually (...) develops ideas that breach any traditional account of cognition. This holds for his references to the power of judgment and the related view that cognition is a matter of subsuming intuitions under concepts3 as well as for the suggestion that there is an initial gap between categories... (shrink)

The paper attempts to show what kant means by his claim that "the beautiful is the symbol of the morally good" in section 59 of the "critique of judgment". part i explicates his notion of symbolism in general and includes a subsidiary explication of his notion of analogy. part ii deals with some special problems which arise when he seeks to apply that general notion of symbolism to the particular province of the beautiful. the conclusions drawn are that kant means (...) the following: that in the very act of appreciating a beautiful object and making judgments of taste thereon, we have some awareness of ourselves as free, supersensible beings, which awareness is analogous to our awareness of ourselves as free moral agents; that "any" beautiful object can, in this sense, serve as a symbolic presentation of the morally good; but that the symbolic relationship between beauty and moral goodness does not constitute an argument for morality or for the actuality of human freedom, for it rather presupposes our awareness of such, nor should it simply be conflated with the beauty of nature bridging the noumenal and the phenomenal aspects of ourselves, which is a further issue. (shrink)

I defend Kant’s definition of analyticity in terms of concept “containment”, which has engendered widespread scepticism. Kant deployed a clear, technical notion of containment based on ideas standard within traditional logic, notably genus/species hierarchies formed via logical division. Kant’s analytic/synthetic distinction thereby undermines the logico-metaphysical system of Christian Wolff, showing that the Wolffian paradigm lacks the expressive power even to represent essential knowledge, including elementary mathematics, and so cannot provide an adequate system of philosophy. The results clarify the extent to (...) which analyticity sensu Kant can illuminate the problem of a priori knowledge generally. (shrink)