How are Synthetic a posteriori Judgments possible? The Conditions and Process of Empirical Knowledge...

Claudio La Rocca

How are Synthetic a priori Judgmentspossible? The Conditions and Process of Empirical Knowledge in Kant

Understanding, n. A cerebral secretion that enables one having it to know a house froma horse by the roof of the house. Its nature and laws have been exhaustively expound-ed by Locke, who rode a house, and by Kant, who lived in a horse. (Ambrose Bierce,The Devil’s Dictionary)

1. Presuppositions and preconditions

It is a widespread opinion that in the epistemological realm, Kant has been aboveall the theoretician of the a priori conditions of knowledge, and hence of syn-thetic a priori judgments. An authoritative witness, Edmund Husserl, noticedhow Kant’s treatment could give rise to the impression that «synthetic a posteri-ori judgments contain no enigma». Against this, he observed how «the briefestreflection is needed to reach the awareness of the fact that, for instance, theselatter judgments contain the same enigma of synthetic a priori judgments. As amatter of fact, judgments of experience are not meant to be judgments on mylived experience, but to state something on relations and things that are inde-pendently of my knowing them or not. After all, Kant’s theory of experience it-self, in the Transcendental Analytic, bears witness to this fact: just those judg-ments which according to the Introduction were supposed to be unproblematicare here, upon careful inspection, a problem»1. Husserl’s judgment refers, no-ticeably, to the Critique of Pure Reason, and recognizes simultaneously the fact(a symptom of ambiguity, from Husserl’s standpoint) that in the Analytic whatwas at stake was also the issue of synthetic a posteriori judgments.

In this respect, it’s worth remembering that the general intention of the first

1 E. HUSSERL, Hat Kant wirklich das Grundproblem der Erkenntniskritik getroffen?, in Husserliana VII,380.

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Claudio La Rocca

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Kantian Critique was not of the epistemological sort but instead of a critique andmethodology of metaphysics: it was the critical question of the possibility of ametaphysics that oriented the interest toward the question, instrumental in thissense, of the possibility of synthetic a priori judgments. Naturally, in philosophyin general, and certainly in a philosophy with the scope of the Kantian one, toutse tient: the question of the possibility of synthetic a priori judgments not onlyrequired a more general answer to the question of the possibility of syntheticjudgments2 and recourse to the obvious term of comparison of synthetic a poste-riori judgments; but that answer also gave, from a certain viewpoint (almost as aside effect), the answer to the question about synthetic a posteriori judgments3.In other words, if the issue of synthetic a priori judgments was solved by singlingout as possible only those synthetic a priori judgments that turned out to be con-ditions for the possibility of experience, in some measure the result was also adetermination of the possibility of synthetic a posteriori judgments. In this case,the answer (in a simplified – and as we shall see, simplifying – formula) couldgo as follows: synthetic a priori judgments are possible thanks to (on the basisof) synthetic a priori judgments. I believe this answer to be legitimate and valid,although again, only in a certain measure or from a given standpoint: that is, fromthe standpoint of a merely transcendental construal of the problem, which un-derstands the question of possibility as a question about the necessary a prioripresuppositions of concrete empirical judging. In this sense, we read Husserl asrightly claiming that even the possibility of a posteriori synthetic judgments wasat issue in the Transcendental Analytic. Nevertheless, the admittedly complexfoundation of the possibility of experience given by the Analytic does not exhaustthe issue. On the one hand, it is doubtful that the transcendental conditions ofexperience indicated therein exhaust the conditions – be it only the transcen-

2 Actually, Kant formulates an answer in general terms concerning all synthetic judgments only in aletter to Reinhold of May 12, 1789. The principle is referred to synthetic judgments as such, and then dif-ferentiated: «all synthetic judgments of theoretical knowledge are possible only thanks to the referral ofthe given concept to an intuition. If the synthetic judgment is an experiential judgment, an empirical in-tuition must be posited as the ground; but if it is an a priori judgment, a pure intuition has to be positedas ground» (Ak XI 38). Kant acknowledges that even in the case of synthetic a priori judgments theirground «is not enounced in a suitable formula» in the first Critique, even if «indicated in a no wise am-biguous way» in the work (ibid.). The production of this formula, however, does not constitute in my viewa clarifying move; rather, limiting oneself to this formula generates instead confusion in respect of bothtypes of judgment. For the a priori ones, cf. C. LA ROCCA, Introduzione a I. KANT, Contro Eberhard, Giar-dini, Pisa 1994, especially 33-ff.

3 However, according to some interpreters, and against Husserl’s view, the issue was by no means sec-ondary for Kant himself: «One of Kant’s principal aims is to prove that all judgments, a posteriori as wellas a priori, are in need of explanation and critique» (R.P. WOLFF, Kant’s theory of Mental Activity, A Com-mentary on the Transcendental Analytic of the «Critique of Pure Reason», Peter Smith, Gloucester, Mass.1963, 1).


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dental ones – necessary for empirical judgment. On the other, the question as tothe possibility of synthetic a posteriori judgments can be taken in a not exclu-sively transcendental sense, without this implying necessarily an «empirical» or«psychological» sense. Finally, indicating the conditions for the possibility ofexperience does not in and of itself amount to showing how specific empiricaljudgments (those minute and indispensable elements of experience) are possi-ble.

Husserl’s discourse, and in general the idea of a Kant who was focused onsynthetic a priori judgments and neglectful of the more intricate skein of empir-ical knowledge, have a legitimate sense vis-à-vis the Critique of Pure Reason; af-ter all, as we said, this work set itself the task of a critique and methodology ofmetaphysics. However, if one does not constrain one’s gaze to this work, and ingeneral to Kant’s real works, the image of Kant as theoretician of mere transcen-dental knowledge or of the mere transcendental conditions of empirical knowl-edge appears to be overly cramped by the adoption of a single standpoint4.Alongside the transcendental analysis, Kant also developed what could be de-fined not just as a simple empirical description, but a phenomenology of theepistemic process. Such an analysis of empirical knowledge, traceable mostly inthe Reflexionen and Vorlesungen on the theme of logic and anthropology, is notdisconnected from the transcendental perspective. This is true not only in thesense that the transcendental conditions offer the grounding framework of thebroader cognitive process, but also because the two aspects intertwine and mu-tually clarify each other. It’s enough to be aware that what, according to Kant,precedes or follows something else in the cognitive sphere can be construed ina transcendental, just as much as in a temporal, sense. The explanation of thatwhich is a logical presupposition conditions then the understanding of that whichis a processual precondition – and viceversa. More generally, the clarification ofthe non-transcendental conditions of empirical judgment can lead to a correctidentification of the scope and limits of the transcendental foundation itself. Nota few «phenomenal» or «idealistic» readings of Kant, from which then followjudgments of acceptance or critique of his theses, are based on a mistaken esti-mation of the contribution of one or the other perspective. These readings suffer

4 Thus, that Kant «appears to be extraordinarily disinterested to clarify how we know the objects ofeveryday experience» (U. ECO, Kant e L’ornitorinco, Bompiani, Milano 1997, 54) is an extreme claim, justas much as Husserl’s thesis, to which Eco himself appeals: «Kant slips right away on the soil of a meta-physical theory of knowledge, because he sets about a critical “rescue” of mathematics, of the science ofnature and of metaphysics, before subjecting knowledge as such – the overall sphere of the acts in whichprelogical objectification and logical thought achieves itself – to a critique and an essential analytic clar-ification» (E. HUSSERL, Logische Untersuchungen, Husserliana XIX/2, VI, § 66).



from a failure to trace correctly the limits between the transcendental contribu-tion of the categories and the empirical processes of knowledge.

Kant’s phenomenology of the empirical process of knowledge, even limited tothe possibility of synthetic a posteriori judgments, is unexpectedly rich, more sothan the phenomenology offered by his empiricist interlocutors. The picture Iwill propose does not claim to offer an exhaustive description of it, but insteadto offer some elements that can be interesting for a reconstruction of this prob-lematic stratum. These elements will concern intuition, concept and judgment.In all three of these aspects it will be possible to lay the stress on a shared traitwhich, as we will be able to elucidate better later, can be pointed out as the «par-tial» nature of each of these forms of representation.

2. Experience as «x»

Let us start from that passage in the Introduction to the Critique of Pure Reasonwhich Husserl evidently had in mind when he claimed that in this work synthetica posteriori judgments were meant not to constitute a problem at all. In the firstedition – vis-à-vis which the second edition presents not insignificant variationsconcerning this aspect – the apparently non-problematic solution is presentedin the following fashion. It is premised as a clear datum that «In the case of syn-thetic judgments I must have, beside the concept of the subject, still somethingelse (X) on which the intellect leans to recognize a predicate that is not containedin that subject, as nevertheless belonging to it»; Kant adds: «In the case of em-pirical judgments or of experience this does not present any difficulty. This X isindeed the complete experience of the object that I think through the concept A,which constitutes only a part of this experience»5.

Despite what Kant says, it is hard not to notice a difficulty here. What doesKant mean by «the complete experience (die vollständige Erfahrung)» of the ob-ject, which should constitute the ground of the synthetic a posteriori judgment?A complete experience in the literal sense is impossible if not as idea, as Kanthimself will let it be understood in the chapter on the transcendental ideal andwill affirm more radically in the Opus Postumum. A first, perhaps reductive,reading could understand this expression as equivalent to the possible, unlimit-ed experience of the object, that possibility in principle which allows us to estab-lish, always in principle, each of its properties and thus to formulate any syn-thetic a posteriori judgment concerning it. Here «complete experience» would

5 Kritik der reinen Vernunft (KrV) A 8.



be equivalent to the complete (unlimited) possibility of experiences, that is, to thepossibility of completing experience beyond the part indicated by A. Trivially, itwould be a matter of the possibility of ascertaining empirically the presence (orlack thereof) of a given property indicated by the predicate. «Thus experience isthat X», writes again Kant in the first edition of the Critique of Pure Reason,«which lies outside the concept A, and on which is based the possibility of thesynthesis of the predicate of heaviness B with the concept A»6. Nevertheless, thesecond edition adds to this, continuing the sentence: «…since both concepts, al-though the one is not contained in the other, all the same belong to each other,although contingently, as parts of a whole (als Teile eines Ganzes), that is of ex-perience, which is itself a synthetic connection of intuitions»7. Here completeexperience has become experience as a whole, and no longer (if Kant construedit in this fashion) the unlimited possibility of empirical confirmation, but ratherthe structured totality of which every concept turns out to be a part.

From this point can begin – and as a matter of fact does begin – that routewhich shows the possibility of single synthetic a posteriori judgments to befounded on experience as synthetic connection of the whole, and thus on the con-ditions (which prove to be a priori) of experience so understood. But anotherproblem, tacitly presupposed by Kant in these pages, can emerge at this junc-ture. Not only can one ask how that X is possible, one can also pose the differ-ent question of how it is possible to refer to it: not how experience as a structuredwhole is possible (a whole which each individual judgment draws from), but howis access to it possible. Thus, it is not generally synthetic predication (which re-quires experience tout court), but the individual empirical judgment (which re-quires that experience) that must have access to that specific experience. Obvi-ously interconnected, the two questions do not nonetheless coincide.

If we return to the concept as «part» of experience we see that the part-wholenexus can allude not only to the totality of experience, and thus to the transcen-dental perspective bound to that notion, but also to that which we could name aparts-parts connection dealing with the logic of the cognitive process, with itsepistemic rather than its transcendental dimension. In the same context of theIntroduction to the first Critique to which we referred initially, Kant writes that«although in the concept of a body in general I do not understand the predicateof heaviness, nevertheless that concept designates (bezeichnet) an object of ex-perience8 through one of its parts, to which I thus can still add other parts of the

6 KrV A 8.7 KrV B 12.8 In A, in place of einen Gegenstand der Erfahrung one read die vollständige Erfahrung (KrV A 18).

It is not an unlikely hypothesis that Kant may have recognized the problematic character of this expres-



same experience, as belonging to the same object»9. Here there is an implicit al-lusion to two Kantian theories which play a role in the analysis of the possibili-ty of synthetic predication: the doctrine of the concept as (mere) designation andthe correlated theory of what Kant calls Merkmale, the «marks» which make pos-sible both empirical predication and the very act of intuitive referring.

3. Cognition and «Merkmale»

Let’s begin from the Merkmale theory, which represents the first step in descrip-tion of the cognitive process tracking the effective pathway of empirical judg-ment. Like most analyses of the cognitive process developed by Kant, this theo-ry can be especially located in the Logik-Corpus, that is, in the Reflexionen andthe surviving Vorlesungen having a logical theme. It will not be possible here todescribe exhaustively this theory and the other aspects of the empirical cogni-tive process. I will only put forth some of its elements, in order to shape a tasselof the mosaic to be reconstructed.

«We know things only through marks; this is indeed the meaning of erkennen,which derives from kennen»10. This Kantian claim deals with the essentially dis-cursive character of human cognition. It involves the exclusion of intellectual in-tuition, an activity which inter alia is a type of cognition capable of moving fromtotality and to assume it as such11. It follows that discursivity not only dooms usto the indirect and general knowledge of concepts (indirect because general andgeneral because indirect) but also to an essential «partiality» of knowledgewhich involves intuition itself, as we will see more clearly.

Therefore, it would seem that marks constitute the first building block of knowl-edge. But marks (and this is an important point for our problem) constitute for Kantalso pre-cognitive conditions in the pre-conceptual sense and in some respectsthey are also pre-intuitive conditions. That is, they can exhibit themselves in a stillpreliminary condition, about which it is appropriate to make some remarks.

sion, requiring a transcendental reconceptualization – and may have thus put in its place an expressionwith a more epistemological slant.

9 KrV A 8 / B 12 (italics mine). Cf. in R 2289 Ak XVI 300-301, the synthetisches Merkmal as der theileines Begrifs als möglichen Ganzen, was durch mehrere theile allererst werden soll.

10 R 2281, Ak XVI 298; cfr. Logik, Ak IX 58; R 2279, Ak XVI 297-298.11 Cf. Kritik der Urteilskraft, § 77. Here the human intellect is said to proceed from the analytic uni-

versal (vom Analytisch-Allgemeinen) which leaves the particular undetermined, since the latter can onlybe given in experience. An intuitive intellect would move instead from «the synthetic universal (vom Syn-thetisch-Allgemeinen)», that is from the «intuition of a whole as such», i.e. «from the whole to the parts»(Ak V 407).



In one of the definitions of the concept of Merkmal (a definition later madeobsolete or comprehended in other definitions) to be found in a rather ancientReflexion (dated by Adickes within an ample time span, from 1760 to 1775),Kant speaks of the mark as «that of a thing (an einem Dinge) of which I am con-scious»12. It is a definition that harks back to Georg Friedrich Meier, althoughwithout following him closely; but as a matter of fact Kant distances himself fromMeier – on whose Auszug aus der Vernunftlehre Kant’s logic lectures were based– on an important point. While for Meier the mark is, in knowledge or in things,«the reason (Grund) for which we are conscious of them»13, Kant (in spite of thejust quoted definition) does not recognize a relationship of mutual implicationbetween mark and consciousness. One of his very first remarks (dating from1758-1759) rings as a critical observation against Meier on this point: «Whenthere is consciousness (beim Bewustseyn) there are marks. But where marks arerepresented, not always is there consciousness»14. An «obscure» representation(as Kant terms it in Leibnizian fashion) is thus possible, but such a representa-tion is already a representation of marks15, and thus it has a positive functionwithin the sphere of knowledge. For Meier a dunkle Erkenntnis is not a Gedanke(cogitatio), i.e. a conscious representation; to speak of representation or obscureknowledge16 is to give it a negative characterization. A negative representation

12 R 2276, Ak XVI 297.13 G.F. MEIER, Auszug aus der Vernunftlehre, Halle 1752, § 115 (Meier’s Auszug is reprinted in vol.

XVI of the Akademie-Ausgabe; cf. here Ak XVI 296): «A mark, a character of knowledge and of things(nota, character cognitionis et rei) is that [element] in knowledge or in things which, if known, is the rea-son for which we are conscious of them; that is, they are the differentiating elements of knowledge and itsobjects. Thus where there is a consciousness, there marks are known». In the Busolt Logik (datable be-tween 1788 and 1790) Kant traces back to Wolff the idea of the mark as distinctive representation (Un-terscheidungsbegriff), but qualifying his endorsement, in that a mark can also signal a similarity betweenthings: there are thus marks of identity and marks of diversity (Ak XXIV 633-634).

14 R 2275, Ak XVI 297.15 For Meier an obscure knowledge is possible, but an obscure mark (in the sense of a representative

element) isn’t. When there is mention of a dunkele Erkentnis of marks, the reference is to marks as ele-ments of things, of represented objects (cf. G.F. MEIER, Vernunftlehre, Halle 1752, reprinted by G. Schenk,Hallescher Verlag, Halle 1997). In Baumgarten, similarly, the perceptio of marks in obscure representa-tions concerns the cogitatum (cf. Metaphysica, § 510). On the other hand consciousness, which «arisesfrom marks (aus den Merkmalen entsteht)» is also liable to different degrees, as Meier claims in § 153 ofthe Vernunftlehre (but cf. also Auszug, § 122). In the same work marks are defined as «the source of con-sciousness» (§ 146; the nexus between marks and consciousness is treated also in § 153). On Meier cf.R. POZZO, Georg Friedrich Meiers «Vernunftlehre». Eine historisch-systematische Untersuchung, Fromman-Holzboog, Stuttgart-Bad Cannstatt 2000, 219 ff. Another salient difference with Meier is Kant’s idea thatthe Merkmal is a part only of representation, not also of the thing. Cf. e.g. Logik Busolt Ak XXIV 633,against what Meier writes, Auszug § 115 (cf. Vernunftlehre, § 146, 147).

16 It is worthwhile to remember that Erkenntnis or cognitio does not have in Meier the pregnant senseof the current term «knowledge», and not even the strong sense that Erkenntnis or Erkennen has in Kant.Erkenntnis/cognitio is for Meier «an ensemble of many representations» or, in a dynamical sense, «thataction through which the representation of a thing is produced» (Auszug, § 11, Ak XVI 76-77; Vernunft-



stems from a deficiency of subjective forces, from a lack of attention, from non-knowledge (Unwissenheit)17. To have an even partially obscure representationmeans to have a mixture of conscious and unconscious representations, a mix-ture capable of several degrees, and thus of greater or lesser perfection; the un-conscious representations are simply destined to become conscious, to giveplace to clear knowledge. Although Maier admits, for instance, that obscureknowledge can also be true18, he fails to indicate a positive function for obscurerepresentations. For him they are simply that which (still) escapes the attentivefocus of consciousness – be it for the nature of the thing or the insufficiency ofsubjective forces. Or they are simply the inert «raw clot of matter»19 elaboratedby the creative force of the soul. Obscurity has a «privative» character, it con-sists in the «unfulfilled knowledge (Unwissenheit) of sufficient marks»20. Thefunction that Meier is willing to ascribe to obscure representation does not gobeyond that of «matter» or «original matter» (Urstoff) for the construction of theedifice of knowledge. These representations may be unavoidable, but they are a«necessary evil»21. In Kant instead there is distinct realm of subjective opera-tions, at a preconscious level, which elaborates Merkmale in different ways. Theobscure is not the not-yet-clear, a residue possibly mixed with what is clear, buta positive dimension of the activity of representation. This grounds the possibil-ity of a whole series of «obscure» operations which participate in empirical judg-ment22.

The Kantian idea of obscure representation has many aspects, which cannotbe discussed here23. We restrict ourselves to underscoring that component which

lehre, § 25). As Meier himself underscores, Erkenntnis is substantially equivalent to representation: «Onecan also, without making a significant error, consider representations and knowledge to be equivalent»(Auszug, Ak XVI 77).

17 MEIER, Auszug, § 129, Ak XVI 323; Vernunftlehre, § 160. In Baumgarten Unwissenheit translatesignorantia (cf. Metaphysica cit., § 515.

18 MEIER, Auszug, § 130, Ak XVI 324.19 MEIER, Vernunftlehre, § 159, ed. cit., 176.20 MEIER, Vernunftlehre, § 155, ed. cit., 167. Sufficient marks are those which allow consciousness;

cf. ibid., § 150. The «privative» character of obscure knowledge in Meier is extreme in the case of «com-pletely obscure» knowledge, which corresponds to those representations that we simply do not have (cf.ibid, § 156, ed. cit., 170). Nevertheless Meier denies (not without effort, given his definition of obscuritywe just mentioned) the identity between obscure knowledge and Unwissenheit (§ 159, ed. cit., 175).

21 Cf. MEIER, Vernunftlehre, § 159, § 161, ed. cit., 176, 179, 180.22 Note that in a Leibnizian horizon an obscure operation of the intellect is not conceivable, since the

characters of obscurity, clarity and distinction are what defines what is sensible and what is intellectual,and nothing obscure can be intellectual (just as much, nothing distinct can be sensible). As is known,Kant objects to this classificatory criterion; a particularly clear and sharp attack can be found in the Meta-physik L1 lessons (AK XXVIII 229-230).

23 Cf. supra the idea of provisional judgment as obscure representation. Already in the Träume einesGeistersehers it is said that «many concepts emerge through secret and obscure inferences (geheime und



can concern empirical knowledge and play a part in it. Obscure or unconsciousrepresentations constitute for Kant the background of knowledge proper. In sev-eral Vorlesungen one finds the image of the human soul as that of a great sheetof paper, «on which a great quantity of places are not illuminated, but few of themare. The non-illuminated sphere (das Unilluminierte) is the field of obscure rep-resentations, the dimly illuminated places constitute clear representations, andamong the clear ones some stand out for their own light: these are distinct rep-resentations»24. However, obscure representations do not simply, as one reads,«constitute the majority of human representations»25, but they have also a pos-itive function, unlike that of a merely passive background of knowledge. An ob-scure representation is not necessarily true, but not even necessarily false. «Trueobscure knowledge» – writes Kant in a note at the end of the 1750s – «is the ma-terial element (das materiale) for clear, true concepts»26. And still, in anothernote: «obscure knowledge is a [piece of] knowledge, just as much as a pictureremains a picture, [even if] it has been hung in an obscure room. Without ob-scure knowledge there would not even be a clear knowledge»27. The dating ofthese notes to the period of the first precritical Kant, and the fact that they arecomments to Meier’s Auszug aus der Vernunftlehre may lead one to dismiss themas simple, vestigial Leibnizian elements. But the epistemically interesting as-pect of the Kantian elaborations hinges precisely on the points at which they de-tach themselves from Meier and the tradition; that is, in the way in which therole of obscure knowledge is construed.

dunkele Schlüsse) in occasion of experiences» (Ak II, 320). In the Pölitz Logik there is explicit talk of anobscure operation of the understanding («it is a singular fact that the understanding often works in ob-scurity») or of an obscure reflection (Ak XXIV 536). According to R 177 even «most of what the under-standing does takes place in obscurity»; «many things which are a judgment constituted by obscure rep-resentations are attributed to sensation» (Ak XV 65). According to the Kritik der Urteilskraft «the com-mon understanding» or sensus communis logicus is that which operates with concepts, «according to ob-scurely represented principles» (§ 20, B 64). Cf. also Anthr., Ak VII 144-145, where there is talk of «actsof reflection» which the understanding enacts in obscurity. For Kant, obscure representations can also bethose of morality and metaphysics, which every man «knows already» obscurely. Cf. for instance Meta-physik L1, Ak XXVIII 227-228. On the different types of obscure representation cf. V. SATURA, KantsErkenntnispsychologie, Bouvier, Bonn 1971, 55-64; P. MANGANARO, L’antropologia di Kant, Guida, Napoli1983, 101-119. Cf. also M. OBERHAUSEN, Dunkle Vorstellungen als Thema von Kants Anthropologie undA.G. Baumgartens Psychologie, «Aufklärung», 14 (2002), 123-146; C. LA ROCCA, Das Schöne und derSchatten. Dunkle Vorstellungen und ästhetische Erfahrung zwischen Baumgarten und Kant, in H. KLEMME

/ M. PAUEN (hrsg. v.), Im Schatten des Schönen. Die Ästhetik des Hässlichen in historischen Ansätzen undaktuellen Debatten, Aisthesis Verlag, Bielefeld, forthcoming.

24 Menschenkunde, Ak XXV2 868; cf. Anthropologie in pragmatischer Hinsicht, Ak VII 135; cf. al-ready R 176 (1764-1769), Ak XV 64-65.

25 Menschenkunde, Ak XXV2 868. In the lectures Metaphysik L1 this thesis is ascribed to Leibniz (AkXXVIII 227).

26 R 2342, Ak XVI 324.27 R 2338, Ak XVI 322. The image is MEIER’s, Vernunftlehre, § 159, ed. cit., 175.



A type of obscure knowledge which can be relevant for our theme of the pos-sibility of empirical judgment is that relative to sensory knowledge. Kant’s fa-vorite example to illustrate he perception of obscure elements is the optical oneof the Milky Way, whose the stars supposedly can be made out obscurely, evenif they are not clearly distinguishable and thus ‘clearly’ perceptible28. The per-ceived would contain elements perceived in an unconscious manner but withoutwhich there would no end conscious result. From parts lacking awareness aknown whole can emerge: the same type of observation leads the Leibnizian tra-dition29 and Kant to opposite interpretations. For Leibniz and the Leibniziansthis revealed an implicit representational value of sensible knowledge, whichsimply needed to be made explicit in the conceptual stage. Conversely, for Kantthis revealed the synthetic, constructive character of knowledge itself, as we willsee.

If we focus on the process that ought to lead to an empirical judgment, themode of the transition from obscure to clear knowledge is what is decisive, how-ever. Clarity consists, it is worth remembering it, in the possibility of drawingdistinctions. In Meier this process is termed evolutio or Auswickelung of knowl-edge, and it is achieved via attention, comparison and abstraction30. Kant ob-jects to this terminology and its implications. The idea of an evolutio (or also ex-planatio)31, of a «development» of representation, entails an act of gradual un-folding of what the representation itself already contains. The sensation-conceptrelationship takes just this shape, that of «development» along the lines of aLeibnizian model. And the passage from one to the other quality of representa-tion is indeed warranted by operations of development or explicitation. The al-ready critical or no longer pre-critical Kant objects that «the production of clearknowledge is not evolutio», and asserts the «synthetic origin of clearness»32. Thedifference is by no means minor. Note that for Kant we are not within the realmof conceptual knowledge; once we have produced clearness, we are still withinthe realm of what he ends up calling, against the Leibnizian tradition, intuitive

28 Cf. Logik, Ak IX 35, Anthropologie Friedlander, Ak XXV 479; Menschenkunde, Ak XXV 867-868;Metaphysik L1, Ak XXVIII 227. The example is Wolffian, just as the reference to the telescope: cf.Deutsche Logik, Ch. I, § 22. But this theme returns also in Lambert, and it is significant that this occursin connection to his discussion of Merkmale: cf. J. H. LAMBERT, Neues Organon, Leipzig 1764, Dianoiologie, § 9.

29 Cf. in Nouveaux Essais, Book II, Ch. IX, § 4 the example of the perception of light and color as«composed of a quantity of small perceptions of which we lack apperception».

30 MEIER, Auszug § 131, Ak XVI 326; Vernunftlehre, § 162 (in both texts there is also talk of Entwickelung).

31 MEIER, Auszug § 131. Cf. also BAUMGARTEN, Metaphysica cit., § 559.32 R 2343, Ak XVI 324; the dating of the Reflexion is uncertain, in a phase oscillating between 1760

and 1775.



knowledge. Let’s recapitulate. If clearness is the possibility to draw distinctions,and if distinctions are given by marks (by Merkmale), the emergence of the lat-ter – from their merely unconscious acquisition, to their becoming a ground ofdistinction – cannot be simply a matter of details making themselves noticeable.And this is so despite the optical example with its suggestion of a refinement ofthe perceptual grain, in which stars not consciously perceived in the Milky Way– but «assumed» – become distinguishable. Since there are Merkmale both inunconscious and conscious representation, it follows that it isn’t their presenta-tion (in the course of development of something implicit) to create clearness, buta synthetic act. This is not yet a conceptual synthesis: the synthetic origin of in-tuitive clearness can be grasped only as a making-pertinent – to assign a «sig-nic» function to – some parts, i.e. some traits of the intuited, and this must nec-essarily happen in relation to other traits. We are dealing with a process whichis in a determinate sense constructive: one does not extract any representativevalue already present as such33, but one confers it.

In relation to sensible representation this means that the latter lacks any in-trinsically representative power at any level, no matter how basic. The repre-sentational value of intuition rests in the assumption of a part of it as «epistemicfoundation of the entire representation»34, that is, in making pertinent a per-ceptual trait for the identification of the object. The Busolt Logik affirms clearlythat «intuition refers to a single object, insofar as it is distinguished from oth-ers»35. Intuition’s power of referring to the object – its intentionality – is nothingof mysteriously immediate, but the result of an ensemble of intuitive marks,which in a certain combination (regulated by a priori functions) give rise to a ref-erence: «Only through the fact that the relationship posited according to the con-ditions of intuition is assumed as determinable in accordance with a rule, doesthe phenomenon refer to an object (obiect); otherwise it is only an internal affec-tion of the soul» 36. The fact that intuition is in a certain sense immediate37 anda representation of a singularity does not make of it a simple entity nor some-thing identifiable with punctual and unrelated sense-data (Kant has never beena victim of the Myth of the Given)38. That said, its referring to a singularity is all

33 Cf. instead MEIER, Vernunftlehre, § 146: «One says thus that marks are contained and present (en-thalten und vorhanden) in knowledge and in the thing of which they are marks». Cf. R. POZZO, GeorgFriedrich Meiers «Vernunftlehre» cit., 220.

34 R 2282, Ak XVI 298; cf. R 2283, Ak XVI 299.35 Ak XXIV 616 (italics mine).36 R 4677, Ak XVII 657.37 Cf. on this point the excellent clarifications of H. SMIT, Kant on Marks and the Immediacy of Intu-

ition, «The Philosophical Review», 109 (2002), n. 2, 235-266.38 Cf. J. MCDOWELL, Mind and World, Harvard University Press, Cambridge MA 19962.



the same the product of a complex multiplicity. This means also that intuition it-self, insofar as it is a referring to something singular, and thus perception, can-not happen through assumptions of isolated entities, but within a perceptualfield39.

We are talking, it is important to stress, about a level in which concepts – em-pirical concepts – have not yet stepped in. In a reflection of the critical periodKant distinguishes explicitly between discursive marks and intuitive marks40,and only the latter are at issue in intuition. Just as in this Reflexion, where marksare designated through the terms intuitus or conceptus partialis, in the late LogikDohna-Wundlacken there is explicit talk of Partialbegriffe and Partialanschau-ungen41. Although we claimed that clearness and the becoming-noticeable ofmarks has a synthetic origin, nevertheless this involves correlation rules pro-vided by the categories. «A phenomenon of which one is conscious is perception(Wahrnehmung)»42, writes Kant in a Reflexion of the Duisburg Fund, datablearound 1773-1775, and for him consciousness implies the connection providedby the concepts of the understanding. Intuitive marks are at the basis of the pos-sibility of perceptive synthesis, which certainly is already an application of theunderstanding. «Through marks», one reads in a Reflexion on logic which coulddate around the 1780s, «the understanding decomposes (löset auf) intuitions andcomposes them (setzt sie zusammen)»43. But the making-pertinent of sensibletraits of the object made possible by the transcendental conditions of experiencedoes not yet need any empirical concept. It refers to that X to which one can re-fer – once one has formed it – a first empirical concept (a), and which constitutesthe terminus of an ostensive relationship, i.e. that which is translatable in the in-dexical «this» of a proto-judgment of the form «this is a», to which correspondsthe first application of an empirical concept to intuition.

Differently put, the intuitive marks become noticeable as such just on the ba-sis of the reading-rules of an object in general, which allow us to identify it and

39 Cf. R. AQUILA, The Holistic Character of Kantian Intuition (in P. PARRINI [ed.], Kant and Contem-porary Epistemology, Kluwer Academic Publishers, Dordrecht/Boston 1994) which develops extensivelythe idea, although without reference to the idea of the intuitive Merkmal.

40 R 2286 (1780-1789), Ak XVI 299-300. Cf. on this distinction SMIT, Kant on Marks cit.; at any rate,the distinction is implicit in the distinction that Kant draws between Deutlichkeit – and thus Klarheit –through concepts and the one through intuitions (Logik, Ak IX 34, 61-62). In the Pölitz Logik there is thefollowing example: «E.g. the color red is a partial representation of the whole possible representation ofa rose» (Ak XXIV 532). There is talk of intuitive marks also in the First Introduction to the Third Critique(Ak XX 226-27, note).

41 Ak XXIV 725. This Vorlesung (datable to 1792) distinguishes also, as seen in the Busolt Logik, be-tween nota identitatis (Merkmal, Kennzeichen) and nota diversitatis (Unterscheidungszeichen).

42 R 4679, Ak XVII 664.43 R 2281, Ak XVI 298. Adickes’s dating is uncertain, oscillating between 1780-89 or 1776-1779.



re-identify it (the categories)44. A red rose45 is identifiable for instance on theground of some sort of its permanence, or regulated modification (the movementdue to the hand touching it), in the framework of a flux of perceptions decipheredin their interconnection. There is no need for the flower to have a name (nor forred to have one), in order for this to be possible: it is not necessary to have al-ready produced empirical concepts. Nonetheless, what ends being identified inthe categorial net is a certain three-dimensional figure and a certain color, andthese elements – which remain intuitive46 – are with this already pertinent traits,which can then be generalized in the formation of an empirical concept. Thefalse dilemma between the thesis according to which an intuitive Merkmal is giv-en in intuition, and that according to which it is «produced» by the subject47

must be unraveled: the intuitive mark is naturally in intuition, but it is a markonly insofar as a function is ascribed to it. This is true at the preliminary andgrounding categorial level, which impacts intuition insofar as the latter is not(empirically) conceptualized. It is also true at the level of the empirical concept’sformation. The issue, again, concerns not what there is, but how what there is isread, what sense is assigned to it. Kant’s annotation indicating the intuitiveMerkmal as «synthetic part»48 is thus completely coherent.

4. Empirical concepts and designation

Therefore, the pre-judgmental empirical process begins to unfold on the basis ofa background of obscure sensible bits of knowledge, which provide, as it were,non-organized information. This process also unfolds through the synthetic ori-gin of intuitive marks, on whose basis the empirical concept must come about.The categorial organization is a condition of this process, but it is not a sufficientmeans to foster it: «determinate rules of synthesis can only be given through ex-perience, whereas their general norm is given a priori»49. In other words, whilethe a posteriori synthesis is grounded a priori (as far as it general conditions are

44 Cf. C. LA ROCCA, Esistenza e Giudizio. Linguaggio e ontologia in Kant, ETS, Pisa 1999, 124-125.45 KrV B 69.46 The figure is that figure, red is that red, situated moreover, in that space and that time: the re-

quirements of the singularity of an intuition are fully satisfied.47 Cf. D. LOHMAR, Erfahrung und kategoriales Denken. Hume, Kant und Husserl über vorprädikative

Erfahrung und prädikative Erkenntnis, Kluwer Academic Publishers, Dordrecht/Boston/London 1998,43-44. Lohmar’s book contains an accurate analysis of the Merkmale doctrine.

48 R 2286, Ak XVI 299. Cf. LOHMAR, Erfahrung und kategoriales Denken cit., 42, which draws at-tention on this Kantian distinction.

49 R 4679, Ak XVII 663.



concerned), as a particular synthesis it unfolds and justifies itself a posteriori.How can such a synthesis happen, once we have granted the already mentionedtranscendental and material conditions?

We can start again from the partiality of Merkmale, common to both intuitiveand discursive ones. In the case of empirical concepts, this partiality is not acondition in principle eliminable with a possible final adequacy of the concept.For Kant, the concept is originally a partial and extrinsic designation of the ob-ject, a designation bereft of simple elements, which bases its cognitive value up-on a gradual composition of marks. This composition has, in respect of its initialdesignating function and of the way the referential connection takes place, a par-tially casual and arbitrary character. Kant affirms this clearly in the Critique ofPure Reason. Even an already constituted empirical concept, we read in thiswork, cannot be properly defined:

For since we find in it only a few characteristics of a certain species of sensible object,it is never certain that we are not using the word, in denoting one and the same object,sometimes so as to stand for more, and sometimes so as to stand for fewer characteris-tics50.

This does not imply a limit to the validity of empirical knowledge, since the en-semble of marks constituting the concept has an only instrumental value: «Wemake use of certain characteristics only so long as they are adequate for the pur-pose of distinguishing»51 (the object). Definition would be impossible, but alsouseless, since «when we speak of water and its properties», Kant adds, «we donot stop short at what is thought in the word, water, but proceed to experiments.The word, with the few characteristics we attach to it, is more properly to be re-garded as a merely a designation than as a concept of the thing»52.

The same thesis, referred to a still preliminary stage, was endorsed by Kantin the 1770s, in the notes of the Duisburg Fund, in the context of the analysis ofthe X-relationship typical of synthetic a posteriori judgments. When one predi-cates synthetically ‘b’ of ‘a’, one institutes a relationship that is no longer a con-nection between concepts, as is the case in analytical judgments. If X is not ex-hausted in the concept ‘a’ – as is never the case in empirical knowledge – then,Kant writes, «a and b are not in a logical relationship, but in a real one […] of

50 KrV A 727-728 / B 755-756.51 KrV 728 B 756. 52 KrV A 728 / B 756. Cf. already R 2919 (1769-71): «In empirical knowledge one does not derive

anything from the concept through which one designates (bezeichnet) a thing, but from experiences […].In such knowledge the exposition of the concept of the name serves only the purpose of characterizing(auszeichnen) the object with a word» (Ak XVI 576).



combination, thus not [in a relationship] of involution»53. Here the polemic withMeier resonates once more: where there’s no involutio there can’t be any evolu-tio, any production of clarity only through unfolding, i.e. conceptualizationthrough mere «perfecting» of what is sensibly represented. Where there is no in-volutio, there is no process that can operate on the intrinsic representative na-ture (needing simply to be made explicit) – neither for sensation nor for the con-cept. And Kant concludes that «thus their [a’s and b’s] relationship is not deter-mined by concepts in themselves, but through x, of which a contains the desig-nation»54. This means that the original relationship between intuition and con-cept is not of representation, but of designation. That is, the first step is the ‘sig-nic’ connection of the object which can happen only on the base of differentMerkmale, in a not-preordained, and in a certain sense arbitrary, unity (whoselimits coincide with the capacity of those Merkmale to be principles of identifi-cation)55. The true cognitive force of the empirical concept is to be constructedvia a long process, not implicit in the concept itself. Originally, as Kant himself,«the empirical concept is only a sign of experience»56. And the institution of thissignic referral is at the same time the process through which, as Kant writes,«one manages to attach to the expression a signification (an den Ausdruck einesignification zu hengen)»57.

The merely designative function of the concept and its arbitrariness sees toit that the representative value devolves entirely upon the faculty of judgment,or better still, to the cognitive process realizing itself in an indefinite series ofempirical judgments. Kant does not admit for empirical knowledge the idea of a«real essence», allowing it only for pure or «arbitrary» concepts. Since such anessence would constitute the ontological counterpart of the representative forceof the concept, Kant resorts instead to the idea of a «logical essence» formedsimply by the necessary constituents of the concept58. From the standpoint of theunfolding of the cognitive process, logical essence is actually less an original nu-

53 R 4676, Ak XVII 654.54 R 4676, Ak XVII 654, italics mine.55 The definitions of empirical concepts serve to «comprehend the word one utilizes; and since the

word contains a lot or little of the object, it is more than anything else an arbitrary determination» (R 2936,Ak XVI 581). The appended example, in this note datable from the years 1771-1772, is the water exam-ple which returns in the Critique of Pure Reason. Cf. also R 2995 (1769-1777), Ak XVI 607: «Nominaldefinitions are possible for all objects (one inserts in them often a certain positio arbitraria)».

56 R 2954, Ak XVI 586.57 R 2954 (1770-1778?), Ak XVI 580. Even here Kant brings up the familiar water example.58 Cf. e.g. R 2319: essence is «the complex (Inbegriff) of all primitive marks which constitute togeth-

er the entire concept of a thing» (Ak XVI 314). Cf. Logik, Ak IX 61, where this definition is taken upagain, and any reference to real essence is excluded.



cleus than the artificial result of a reduction, that gradually individuates the«minimal» elements, pruning the superfluous ones from the concept59. Further-more, it is noteworthy that the idea of a logical essence has a very broad andgeneric scope, concerning namely every type of concept. In the specific case ofempirical concepts, Kant makes it clear on one occasion that we could never re-fer to any real essence («not an atom, not a drop» is known according to its realessence)60. And, what is more, logical essence itself is more a target than a da-tum, it is rather a limit of empirical knowledge: «Since the experiences of a thingnever reach a terminus, insofar as my limitation prevents me from reaching it, itfollows that one cannot know any essence of a thing. Innumerable things are noteven known according to the logical essence – we are simply looking for the log-ical essence»61. This gives the lie to any interpretation claiming to find in Kanta realism of universals, albeit a renewed one – as opposed to a pure nominalisma la Locke. The logical essence does not represent at all something universal«’present in itself’ in the given object, for it is ‘present in itself’ in our appre-hension of the given object or in other words ‘present in itself’ in the object justas it is for us»62. The object’s rules of apprehension warrant the objectivity of thecognitive process – namely its universality and tendential objectivity, and whilethey are the ground of the generalization of the forms of apprehension they donot ground any specific generalization. It is the process of search for the univer-sal that is guaranteed in re, i.e. in the phenomenic interpretation of objectivity;conversely, no particular generalization is guaranteed. Kant always construes thelatter as a simple analogue of authentic generality.

59 Cf. Logik Bauch (before 1775), in I. KANT, Logik-Vorlesung. Unveröffentlichte Nachschriften I. LogikBauch, bearb. v. T. Pinder, Felix Meiner Verlag, Hamburg 1998, 113. The fact that logical essence is «thefirst fundamental concept (der erste Grundbegriff)» (112) is to be construed in a logical sense, not a chrono-logical one – as made clear by the idea of a reduction «ad minores terminos» presented here. From thestandpoint of the cognitive process, empirical concepts admit, to be sure, «a first nucleus around whichthe subsequent definitions will coagulate or order themselves harmoniously» (ECO, Kant e l’ornitorincocit., 69). But it is important to stress that there is not only one first nucleus. This prevents us from talk-ing, for empirical concepts, of «definition».

60 Logik Philippi, Ak XXIV; cf. Logik Bauch, cit, p. 113.61 Logik Bauch cit., 113, italics mine. Cf. also R 3966 (Ak XVII 369), which suggests an idea of log-

ical essence as of something subjectively changeable: «Logical essence is the fundamentally subjectiveconcept (subjective Grundbegrif) and it does not hold good for everyone, it is also mutable […]; it concernsthe meaning of a word, which certainly becomes gradually polished and becomes univocal (einstimmig)with usage».

62 B. LONGUENESSE, Kant et le pouvoir de juger, Presses Universitaires de France, Paris 1993, 143 (thissentence is not entirely reproduced in the English version of Longuenesse’s book: cf. B. LONGUENESSE, Kantand the Capacity to Judge, Princeton University Press, Princeton and Oxford, 1998, 120).



5. The origin of content

This signic connection of not-yet-conceptualized intuition – in relation to em-pirical concepts – thus has a margin of arbitrariness in its result, in the sensethat the original reference can happen through this or that distinctive sign. Butit is not arbitrary in respect to the regulated process leading to that result. Howdoes such a process take place? How does the concept’s original reference to in-tuition happen, a reference which is simultaneously the emergence of an empir-ical concept?

As is known, Kant offers a theory of concept formation turning upon the op-erations of comparison, reflection and abstraction. Nevertheless, Kant himselfclaims that this theory concerns the «logical origin»63 of concepts, that is, theirproduction «in respect of form»64. This distinction is not developed in the mostpellucid way; but if one keeps in mind that the form of a concept consists in itsgenerality, then those procedures signal the way in which the generality of theconcept is produced. This happens through a gradual discrimination and selec-tion of marks: from attention, which registers them, to comparison, which inves-tigates their relations, to reflection, which inquires on the modes of connectionwith consciousness, and finally to abstraction, which concludes the selectiveprocess65. This reconstruction is silent on the way in which the generalized con-tent makes itself available, and thus it is silent apropos of the origin of the con-cept insofar as its matter is concerned – a problem which is, one reads, a themeof «metaphysics»66. In the respect of matter, Kant claims, concepts are given orconstructed67, and empirical concepts are given without further ado. If the con-tent of a concept is construed as given, and if we keep in mind that it is primar-ily intuitions that are given sensu strictu, it clearly follows that the way in whichan empirical conceptual content turns out to be «given» will concern the transi-tion from intuitions to concepts, that is, the conceptualization of phenomena.

63 R 2876, Ak XVI 555.64 R 2859, Ak XVI 549; cf. Logik, §6, Ak IX 94.65 Cf. R 2876 (Ak XVI 555) where, beyond the three acts present in the Jäsche-Logik, there is a ref-

erence to attention, which Jäsche neglects in his edition, but which marks here the transition from the ob-scure to the clear Merkmal (as in Leibniz: cf. Nouveaux Essais, Book II, Ch. IX; but also in Wolff: cf.Deutsche Logik, ch. I, § 23). Cf. also R 2854 (Ak XVI 547), where comparison, reflection and abstractionare seen in relation to marks. Nevertheless, it is worth noting that Kant excludes in several Reflexionen –although with oscillations which it is not possible here to follow and analyze – that the production of con-cepts happens through abstraction, and indicates instead in reflection the decisive operation. Cf. R 2851,2865, 2878. We will return to this point later.

66 Cf. R 2851 and Logik, Ak IX 33-34, 94.67 R 2859, Ak XVI 549; cf. KrV A 729 B 757. Only mathematical concepts are constructed in respect

of their matter.



We know that Kant calls this conceptualization the Exposition of phenome-na. One can talk of exposition as far as concepts are concerned – or rather, thereis an original talk of those concepts which, qua «given», cannot be properly de-fined, as we have seen for the concept of water. To expose means to render dis-tinct the sense of a given representation68. When it comes to the given phenom-ena, expatiating on their exposition means referring to the conceptualization oftheir intuitive content. It’s a matter, in the first place, of that conceptualizationwhich configures itself as relationship between phenomena, concepts and cate-gories. These last define the «exponent», that is, the function defining the rela-tions of an undefined series. But the rule of a relation is not the definition of adetermined relation. If, with the effective Kantian image of the Prolegomena, thequestion is to «spell out (buchstabieren) the phenomena» with the categories «soas to be able to read them as experience»69, the production of the content of anempirical concept corresponds to the reading, if not of a proposition, of a «word»of experience, which cannot be given by the sole categorial «spelling out».

The fact that a content of an empirical concept can be understood as a «given» does not exclude that the concept’s arising is possible only if it ismade70. That is to say, to make a concept does not mean to create its content exnihilo. Such a content – Kant says: «a new matter»71 – arises not if a concept ismade distinct, but if a distinct concept is made72. The second operation is a syn-thetic act. When this happens, the particular empirical concepts replaces thegeneric conceptualization given by the categories.

The latter seems to derive, first and foremost, from the generalization – andthus from the conceptualization – of an intuitive mark73. The intuitive mark of-fers the content, provided such content generalizes itself (i.e. assumes the formof the concept)74. The generic process of production of logical form must applyto the specific matter, which will be able to give rise to empirical concepts. Herethe fact that Kant seems to occasionally privilege the act of reflection over theothers (comparison and abstraction) acquires significance. Understood as the ex-

68 Cf. R 2920: «der deutlich gemachte Sinn einer gegebenen Vorstellung» (Ak XVI 577). Cf. also R2925. On the concept of Exposition, cf. M. KUGELSTADT, Synthetische Reflexion, de Gruyter, Berlin, 1998,85 ff.

69 Prolegomena § 30, Ak IV 312.70 «The form of a concept, qua discursive representation, is always constructed» (Logik, Ak IX 94).71 R 2392, Ak XVI 342.72 Cf. Logik, Ak IX 63; cf. R 2358, Ak XVI 331 which speaks of «knowledge» instead of concept.73 «Distinction (Deutlichkeit) through synthetic [marks], through what is added to the concept, which

thus is given in intuition qua note» (R 2363, Ak XVI 332, italics mine).74 Cf. Metaphysik L1: «a concept is a general mark (ein Begriff ist ein allgemeines Merkmal)» (Ak XVI-

II 240).



amination of the possibility of uniting different representations in a conscious-ness75 (a horizontal and vertical examination, so to speak), reflection could per-haps apply also to a single intuition. Kant asks himself explicitly:

Question: if we can separate something, without comparison, from a single intuition,to subordinate several things to it, should they be found76.

In other words, determinate configurations of intuitive marks could be isolated,and utilized for the reference to other objects presenting themselves with thesame configuration77. This means also to make an Erkenntnisgrund out of thatmark (or out of those marks)78. Kant does not deny that a single apprehensioncan have a cognitive value: in relation to this question, he remarks that

We can become aware of the action of the imagination, that is, of the connection of rep-resentations with each other or with our senses in complete isolation (ganz allein),without noticing what is connected and its peculiarities, e.g. a house. But the conceptbecomes clear only in the application in a comparison79.

In other words, one can see a house and yet not recognize it as such (it’s the ex-ample that Kant makes also in the Logik)80, and have only a clear intuition. This

75 Reflection is that through which «one knows that which many things have in common» (WienerLogik, Ak XXIV 909); compared to it, abstraction is only the concluding negative moment («…then ab-straction eliminates that on which they do not agree and in the end the repraesentatio communis remains»,ibid). In this sense, the «productive» moment of the birth of a concept’s content is the reflection identify-ing that which is common, and establishes the relevant identity of a mark. Kant’s negation of abstraction’srole is intended as a polemical limitation (cf. the note of B. Bianco in his translation of the Wiener Logik:I. KANT, Logica di Vienna, Franco Angeli, Milano, 2000, 183), and as a privileging of more clearly posi-tive acts: «with elimination and abstraction a concept is not born, but such operations accomplish it» (AkXXIV 909). In the same Wiener Logik Kant traces back to the wit (Witz; cf. Ak XXIV 908; cf. also Meta-physik L1, Ak XXVIII 244-245) the recognition of the accord or identity of things; Witz is a faculty thatprefigures or assumes the function of that which Kant will later describe as reflektierende Urtheilskraft (cf.Anthr., Ak. VII 201; see also KUGELSTADT, Synthetische Reflexion cit., 35 ff.). Cf. also Logik, Ak IX 95:«abstraction is only the negative condition under which universally valid representations can be produced;the positive condition is comparison and abstraction. Through abstraction, indeed, no concept is formed;abstraction completes (vollendet) it only, enclosing it in its determinate limits».

76 R 2878, Ak XVI 556.77 Cf. the example of MCDOWELL referred to a mere color shade in Mind and World cit., 60 ff. I discuss

this in C. LA ROCCA, L’esperienza e il suo sfondo. Intorno a McDowell, in R. LANFREDINI (a cura di), Formae contenuto. Temi di teoria della conoscenza, filosofia della mente, filosofia della storia e teoria della ra-zionalità, Led Edizioni, Milano 2002, 183-210.

78 R 2881, Ak XVI 558.79 R 2878, Ak XVI 556-557.80 Logik, Ak IX 33: «If, for example, a savage sees a house from a distance, whose use he does not

know, he admittedly has before him in his representation the very same object as someone else who knowsit determinately as a dwelling established for human beings. But as form, this cognition of one and thesame object is different in the to cases. In the former it is mere intuition, in the latter it is simultaneously



entails, for instance, being capable of isolating the house from the backgroundand identifying it from several perspectives – awareness of «the connection ofrepresentations with each other or with our senses»81. But this capacity does notentail the ascription of objective properties to the percept identified in this fash-ion, properties which characterize the percept as determined object, distinctfrom others: «without noticing what is connected and its peculiarities». Howev-er, if the concept is to be clear – if the intuitive mark passes into a conceptualone – comparison (that is, the simultaneous relation between several intuitionsand several concepts) would seem to be necessary. A clear concept is a repre-sentation that allows us not only to identify – to connect «representations witheach other» – but also to classify82. Classification not only unifies present rep-resentations, but also possible ones83. Each predicate ‘a’ can assume the func-tion of a subject to which one may, or may not, attribute another predicate «b»(through agreement or contrast [Einstimmung oder Widerstreit])84. A tissue ofidentity and difference is required, and this not only for the constitution of theobject in general (which cannot take place without transcendental reflection),but also for the formation of empirical concepts, including those with the mostprimitive conceptual structure. There is a concept when there are other concepts,

intuition and concept» (Lectures on Logic, ed. and transl. J.M. Young, Cambridge University Press, Cam-bridge 1992, 544-555).

81 I do not share B. Longuenesse’s interpretation of these words, in her very acute and deep readingof R 2728, Logik Ak IX 33 and its connected problem-field. The consciousness of the connection at issueis not at all the consciousness of these representations «not merely as presenting an object to him [to thesubject], but as sensations within him, perhaps associated with feelings of pleasure or displeasure»(LONGUENESSE, Kant et le pouvoir de juger cit., 140; ID., Kant and the Capacity to Judge cit., 118). An ex-perience that is merely sensible and bereft of concept is, qua intuition (regulated by categories) already«objective», not in the sense of a judgment of experience, but insofar as it is guided by general rules whichmake it non-subjective and non-private. The classificatory inclusion of intuitions among objective Perzep-tionen in Krv A 320 / B 376 cannot be explained in any other way.

82 «I can know (erkennen) something through intuition, without having a concept […]. For instance,if someone chanced to suddenly glimpse a monstrous animal, in this case he would have a representation,he would know it via his intuition, he would represent it to himself in a clear (deutlich) fashion; but hewould not have a concept of it, since he sees it [the animal] for the first time, it is something altogethernew for him. If he has to subsume it under a concept, then his senses have to represent several singularitems of this species» (Logik Bauch cit., pp. 47-48). This is the case of the platypus, which Kant had (ab-stractly) foreseen. – This passage, or rather, the entire Kantian theory is at loggerheads with M. KUGEL-STADT’s position (Synthetische Reflexion cit.); according to the latter, the act of concept-formation is al-legedly distinct from the ulterior classification «possible as an addition», with an involvement of «sever-al real things» (202).

83 R 3045: «Thanks to its generality (Gemeingültigkeit), a concept has the function of a judgment. Itrefers potentialiter to other concepts. Judgment is the actual (wirklich) reference of a concept to others asa means to their knowledge. It is in this way that our knowledge becomes distinct» (Ak XVI 630). Com-pare the previously quoted idea of the mark as part of a concept understood as a possible whole (R 2289,cf. supra n. 9).



when I can not only identify a house as an object (rather than taking it as a chaosof subjective sensations) thanks to intuition and categories, but when I can alsodistinguish it from (or, in the case of error, identify it as) a rock, etc. «We com-pare only the general element of the rule of our apprehension», writes Kant, «e.g.someone sees a sapling, and can represent to himself a tree; an elongated quadri-lateral occasions [the thought of] a square»85: in other words, the concept has ageneral validity (it has extension) because it allows one, to a greater or lesser de-gree, to distinguish. As Kant states, «Generality does not rest on the fact that theconcept is a partial concept» (i.e. only a part of representation; what can be ab-stracted from a representation), «but on the fact that it is a ground of knowl-edge»86, that which allows to recognize or discriminate. This happens thanks toa tissue whose threads are already general procedures on which the tissue of em-pirical conceptuality can define itself.

The view of a house or a tree is already connoted by rules (of apprehension)with a general validity87. I identify the house or the tree thanks to rules of spa-tio-temporal permanence and mutability which make it possible for me, for ex-ample, to «cut out» in different apprehensions the object from its background.In this act, which does not involve an out and out classification, I do not operatewith impressions, but with traits identified by general rules, that would remainthe same also for objects classifiable otherwise. To take up the Kantian exampleonce again: the rule of the apprehension of a tree is not supposed to be differentfrom that of a bush, analogously structured but with smaller dimensions. In thissense, the formation of the empirical concept’s does not create ex novo general-ity, since it operates on procedures already possessing general validity. The con-cept goes through an act of designation that is not based on objects or imagesthereof, but on general procedures. The generalization of an intuitive mark is al-so the specification of a more general procedure, that of the categorial recognitionof an object as such. In this sense, the generalization of a mark does not derivefrom a comparison of perceptions, i.e. of data, but from a comparison of (rulesof) apprehensions, of specific modalities in which procedures aimed at readingphenomena realize themselves. Our apprehension – the synthetic act of making-pertinent given phenomenal traits – is thus compared «insofar as it contains theexhibition of a yet undetermined concept, and it is general in itself»88. From this

84 R 3920, Ak XVII 345.85 R 2880, Ak XV 557, italics mine.86 R 2881, Ak XVI 558.87 «Every synthesis, through which perception itself becomes possible, is submitted to the categories»

(KrV B 161).88 «Diese Gemeingültigkeit setzt freylich eine Vergleichung voraus, aber nicht der Wahrnehmungen,



viewpoint there is no vicious circle (like the one for which «I cannot abstract theschema of the dog from the data of intuition because they become thinkable pre-cisely in consequence of the application of the schema»)89, insofar as the think-ability of the intuition is warranted by the transcendental concept (and schema),not by the empirical.

Nevertheless, when the procedure is reflectively isolated as such, that is,when one identifies the rule of intuitive generalization operating in those spe-cific cases, one no longer limits oneself to applying a generalizing procedure. In-stead, one must become conscious of those specific aspects on which that proce-dure has operated in that case (form, color, etc), that is, one must be aware ofwhich part of the overall generalizing apparatus has been active, and in whichway. This reflexive consciousness – it is no accident that Kant speaks of reflec-tion as «the way of unifying representations in a consciousness»90 – involves anact of identification not of the object (as in simple sensible apprehension), but ofsensible traits which operate in several cases: e.g. in both bush and tree there aretrunk, branches and leaves, etc. These general traits identified in several casesconstitute that which we could today call a cognitive type91. The cognitive typecan be said to be consciously pinpointed when it can be «applied» (it can be op-erated with), independently of the occurrence of one of its tokens. Its function isto make possible a judgment, affirmative or negative, of the type: «this is/is nota tree» (i.e. to be a predicate of a possible judgment). To allow such a judgment,and to be a ground of distinction (e.g. «this is not a tree»), the cognitive type hasto be relatable to something distinct from it, to a concept ‘b’ whose relation to ‘a’is determinable according to the forms of judgment. If x is not ‘a’, then it is ‘b’on the basis of at least a ground of distinction, a Merkmal of which one can/mustbe aware92. The function of the concept (qua representation isolated from the oc-

sondern unserer Auffassung, so fern sie schon die Darstellung eines noch unbestimmten Begrifs enthältund an sich allgemein ist» (R 2883 [1776-1789], Ak XVI 558).

89 ECO, Kant e l’ornitorinco cit., 71.90 For example, in R 2876, Ak XVI 555.91 Cf. ECO, Kant e l’ornitorinco cit., 109 ff. With good reasons, Eco identifies the Kantian scheme with

what he pinpoints and defines as «cognitive type» (see 109-110). The triad proposed by his theory (cog-nitive type, nuclear content, molar content) ends up, he believes, by making obsolete the very idea of aconcept. The latter would turn out to be even in Kant an «embarrassing residue» (120), whereas as a mat-ter of fact there is an alleged, tendential identity between schema, concept and meaning (69). This is notthe place to wrestle with the problem of the relationship between these terms, neither from the theoreti-cal nor from the exegetical perspective. For some additional synthetic remarks on the exegetical issue, Irefer the reader to C. LA ROCCA, Schematismo e linguaggio, in Strutture Kantiane, ETS, Pisa 1990, 35(note 38).

92 «A representation which, as mark, becomes general through consciousness, is called a (clear) con-cept» (R 3057, Ak XVI 634, years 1790-ff). The Academy Edition interprets the words die durch das Be-wustsein als Merkmals allgemein wird, words containing an improper genitive (Merkmals) as being able to



currence of one of its tokens) is present (i.e. the concept is identified reflexive-ly as such) when there is a possible comparison between distinctive cognitive typeswhich can be related to each other autonomously. This relating rests on the ba-sis of their own properties, even if the institution of such properties can natural-ly resort to experience. This means that the concept «becomes clear», is au-tonomously conceivable as a composition of marks of which one knows (judges)the relationship.

The meaningful trait that can be identified in the constitution of the conceptis actually a generalizing procedure, not an image or a percept. In this sense, thebirth of an empirical concept is the production of a schema. The schema is notthe intuitive Merkmal: the latter is a trait made pertinent by the phenomenon,which can thus act as such and play its functions of intuitive recognition; thiscan happen even according to a contingent logic, an idiolectic one as it were,even in occasional interaction with other Merkmale. Such «logic» of interactioncan work, for instance, outside or beyond the concept, in aesthetic apprehen-sion93. There is a conceptual scheme, instead, when a generalized procedure ofthe recognition of intuitive traits is brought out. The reflexive act which allowsus to isolate and make autonomous an intuitive trait (that is, the rule of its ap-prehension) permits precisely Bezeichnung, designation, which, as we haveseen, characterizes the first cognitive function of the concept94.

Kant seems sometimes to give an associativist and thus empiricist reading ofthe act of designation, which ostensibly reduces itself to the association betweensounds and concepts, and to the possibility of reproducing such an associationas well. Actually, this association is not as extrinsic as it would seem, and as itappears to be in some empiricist models. Indeed, what is at issue is not unifyingan external sign with something – the concept (or the idea of the empiricists)which is already endowed with its own autonomous representational force. Theconcept can come about through the operation of designation (of the passage

be recast in dadurch, dass man sich ihrer als Merkmals bewusst ist. The representation of which we can at-tain reflexive consciousness as a distinctive trait of phenomena, becomes with this general, that is, it isexplicitly (treatable as) an element of classification, as concept or component thereof, instead of operat-ing implicitly as such only in concrete apprehension.

93 Cf. Schematizzare senza concetto, in C. LA ROCCA, Soggetto e mondo. Studi su Kant, Marsilio, Venezia2003, 245-266. In aesthetic experience – and in what Kant calls its Deutlichkeit – the representation ofmany marks in few things prevails (with «a swarm of collateral representations»), against the conversemovement of logical abstraction, which is that of representing «much in few things» (Logik Dohna-Wund-lacken, Ak XXIV 709).

94 One can speak of two distinct functions of the concept, the cognitive/referential and the logical one.Kant makes this explicit in a Reflexion: in the case of synthetic production of Deutlichkeit «the subject isdistinct (unterschieden) from the concept through which it is thought. This last one contains marks of thesubject; thus the concept that in one case is used to designate the (logical) subject, in the other case isutilized in place of the predicate» (R 2392, Ak XVI 342).



from ‘x’ to ‘a’) which concludes a series of other preconceptual operations. Kantsummarizes them in a rather perspicuous way in a Reflexion datable between1780 and 1789:

The senses give the matter for all our representations. From this, first of all, the facul-ty of formation creates representations, independently of the presence of objects: for-matting faculty (Bildungskraft), imaginatio. 2. The faculty of comparing: wit (Witz) andfaculty of distinguishing (Unterscheidungskraft), iudicium discretivum. 3. The facultyof connecting representations not immediately with their object, but via a representer:that is, the faculty of designating95.

A first step is thus the reflexive making-autonomous of the sensible traits them-selves, in a fashion that is not simply reproductive: which is to say, it concernsthe possibility of referring to those traits independently of their presence. Thisstep is guaranteed by the Einbildungskraft, although on this step itself one graftsa comparative operation still lacking conceptual validity. The rules of produc-tion of sensible cognitive schemes thus brought out are fixed with an act of des-ignation96, which can unify those operations and give rise to that mediated rela-tion with the object which is proper to the concept97. Here it is not a question ofthat external signic function which associates a word to a concept («the repre-sentation which works only as a means to produce (reproduce) another is thesign»)98, but the act of designation which «attaches a meaning to the expression»(it doesn’t «associate» sign and meaning, but institutes the meaning of a sign).In such an act, we have seen, originally consists the empirical concept as a «signof experience».

Let me recapitulate. The categories permit a reading of phenomena first of allthrough the synthetic emergence of intuitive marks, the composition of severalpertinent traits in accordance with rules. This can ground the reference to an X,the correlate of the ostensive «this», which in turn can allow the judgment «x isa», that is, the formation or potential usage of a conceptual mark. The concep-

95 R 339, Ak XV 134.96 Cf. R. 346, Ak XV 135: «Imagination connects representations with each other as intuitions, or the

latter with concepts (facultas Characteristica)».97 Mediatedness and generality in this sense are not equivalent, as SMIT has underscored (Kant on

Marks and the Immediacy of Intuition cit.). There is generality already in the rules of apprehension, insensible and imaginative procedures – Kant speaks of the schema as allgemeines Verfahren der Einbil-dungskraft (KrV A 140 / B 179) – which operate nevertheless always directly in relationship to phenom-ena. Designation, which constitutes the first element of an empirical concept, is an indirect reference, andtherefore institutes an autonomous element on which one can operate independently of, yet not without acognitive link to, intuition.

98 R 334, Ak XV 132



tual mark can constitute the initial imposition of significance on the phenome-non, the meaning of an expression capable of designating it (in the theoreticalcase that a single mark suffices for its distinction). As a matter of fact, distinc-tion presupposes comparison and thus differences, resulting in at least two (butactually a plurality of) marks. Here a further step takes place. Where the goal isa conceptually dominable unity and plurality, there has to be an empirical sys-tem of concepts. From the transcendental standpoint, categorical presupposi-tions are no longer enough. The formation of concepts requires the possibility ofa system of concepts, and this presupposes a further principle (which is inde-terminate and heuristic); Kant will identify it as the transcendental principle ofthe faculty of judgment99. As we can see, each descriptive element, each acqui-sition of the phenomenology of knowledge involves or can involve a reflex on thetranscendental conditions to be recognized. But, at this juncture, we want toleave this aspect in the background. What is still missing from the phenome-nology of the epistemic process that must conduce to synthetic a priori judg-ments is a more exhaustive analysis of concept-formation, and thus of judgmentitself.

The concept as Bezeichnung, as a mere designation involves all the same aminimal intension, consisting of a minimal number of conceptual marks trans-latable in intuitive ones, that is, marks originating from rules of apprehension ofparticular phenomena. But the concept’s process of synthetic growth – which isat once conceptualization of the phenomenon, and what permits an as-one-goes-correction of the concept itself – involves something more than simple observa-tion. Or better, the latter reveals itself not as a process of passive witnessing, butrather as an originally inferential one. If x (an identifiable intuitive complex ofmarks) is characterized by ‘a’, each attribution of ‘b’ to ‘a’, each synthetic ex-tension of the concept – which lacks as such any ontological weight, being onlya «nominal» designation – is an inference about the generalized connection of awith b, i.e. an induction, or at least an analogy. It has been underscored100 thatwhat induction presupposes must already hold for concept formation. Converse-ly, this can mean that concept formation is itself an inductive procedure. At thebasis of a more simple determinative judgment there is a reflecting activitywhich constructs in an inductive and synthetic way an empirical generality.

99 Cf. LA ROCCA, Esistenza e Giudizio cit., 195 ff.100 M. PERA, Hume, Kant e l’induzione, il Mulino, Bologna 1982, 119 ff.



6. Conceptualization and provisional judgments

To create a concept as a representation capable of referring to several individu-als means to give rise to a classification. The cognitive sense of a representationdoes not lie in the sole Bezeichnung, in the capacity, that is, to designate a groupof objects with a name, distinguishing them from others. Designation has a cog-nitive sense if, although it is based originally on arbitrarily chosen marks, it al-lows a non-arbitrary synthetic growth, that is, a connecting to the same conceptof marks allowing more precise distinctions. Nevertheless, the addition of newmarks is not a process of taking notice: if it has to enrich a general concept, itmust hold for all possible cases of that concept, and not only for those observedup to now. It thus presupposes nature’s uniform legality in its particular laws, inthe same way that the more general possibility of experience presupposes it inits fundamental rules. Here one is transcendentally referred to the systematici-ty principle proper to the faculty of judgment. But the procedure is not exhaust-ed by this referral. If the reference to the presupposed uniformity rescues frommeaninglessness the attempt to construct generalities with a cognitive sense, itis necessary that there be – for the success of the procedure, i.e. for reaching em-pirical concepts through synthetic a priori judgments – a self-regulation whichdoes not limit itself to the presupposition of uniformity. The road to a groundedsynthetic judgment is still long. And it leads to an «empirical generality» which,as Kant claims, «is only an analogon of the logical one»101.

An essential part of these self-regulating procedures is that cognitive activi-ty which Kant inserts between the judgment and the proposition, between Urteiland Satz, or better, between judgments and that assertoric determinative judg-ment in which the synthetic process can conclude itself, albeit not definitive-ly102. Those which Kant names provisional judgments are part of this activity,and have a relevant role within it. Provisional judgments have for Kant an am-ple function in several kinds of knowledge. We cannot reconstruct here in gen-eral their nature and their logic103, but will instead limit ourselves to an exam-ple which illustrates their contribution in relation to a case of perception-basedempirical knowledge.

We return once more to the example of the house, which we have seen emerge

101 R 3286, Ak XVI 759.102 On the difference between Urteil and Satz, cf. Über eine Entdeckung..., Ak VIII 193-194.103 Cf. C. LA ROCCA, Vorläufige Urteile und Urteilskraft. Zur heuristischen Logik des Erkenntnis-

prozesses, in Kant und die Berliner Aufklärung. Akten des 9. Internationalen Kant-Kongresses 26. bis 31.März 2000 in Berlin, hg. von V. Gerhardt, R. Horstmann u. R. Schumacher, de Gruyter Berlin 2001, 351-361 (expanded version in Soggetto e mondo cit., 79-119).



in more than one context. Now we find it in the Vorlesung über philosophische En-zyklopädie:

I see a house from the side. I still lack the representation of the house in its entirety, Ihave only the representation of the house as it appears to me from this side. I must ob-serve it from all sides, and then emerges in me the idea of the house, which is alto-gether different from the ways in which it has appeared to me (von der gehabten Er-scheinungen)104.

That knowledge, even of the intuitive sort, happens through marks means thatapprehension is never of one thing. Instead, apprehension is of partial, intuitiverepresentations of a thing, which correspond also to different aspects of thatthing in sensible presentation, to different modalities of appearance (to its Ab-schattungen, we would say in Husserlian terms). In respect to these modes ofpresentation, and in general in respect to the congeries of intuitive marks, it isnot the case that conceptual activity stays inert until a determinative judgmentis formed. There is a provisional and preliminary judging activity, which Kantcalls a «secret process of the soul»105, and which in a Vorlesung on anthropolo-gy is counted among the «obscure representations», or among unconscious men-tal processes, «the hidden threads of that which happens in the light»106. Suchan activity accompanies the stream of perceptions, guiding the formulation of adeterminative judgment. In the same Vorlesungen we read:

It is amazing how each determinative judgment is preceded by a provisional judgment.When we read, first of all we spell. And we act like this in all cases. We never imme-diately judge in a determinative mode, because for this a complete (vollständig) con-cept of the object is required, of how the object is. But we do not know this upon thefirst inspection (bei dem ersten Anblick). Before we attain it, we have first of all to con-sider the object from all viewpoints and to research (aussuchen) that which correspondsto all the modes of manifestation (was für alle Erscheinungen paßt)107.

Thus, there isn’t a sudden and rather mysterious passage of perception – under-stood as a punctual event – to judgment (to a peremptory and, so to speak, «pho-tographic» determinative judgment). Perception not only exhibits intuitive

104 Vorlesung über philosophische Enzyklopädie (1775; quoted from now on with the abbreviation«Ev»), Ak XXIX, 24. The example of the house returns, besides the already mentioned places, also in AkIX 34, and two important passages of the Kritik der reinen Vernunft (A 190 / B 235; B 162).

105 This is the expression of the Anthropologie Friedländer referred precisely to provisional judgments(Ak XXV 481).

106 Anthropologie Friedländer (1775-76), Ak XXV 481, 479.107 Ev, Ak XXIX1 24.



marks that are translatable in conceptual characterizations through that «art hid-den in the depths of the human soul»108 which is the schematic procedure. In-stead, it is constantly accompanied by an activity of presupposing anticipa-tion109, and Kant calls such provisional judgments also Antizipationen and Prä-sumptionen. This activity is already conceptual, it is a series of judgments thatdo not yet have a determinative character because they take place within theframework of a general suspension of assent.

Provisional judgments, about which Kant claims that they «belong to all of ourknowledge» and that they «happen also constantly»110, are (as we mentioned) ofdifferent kinds, and they play a part in several types of knowledge. However, asthe example of the house demonstrates, they concern also the heuristic orienta-tion of empirical judgment and also that basic level which is the subsumption ofa sensible object under a concept. Here the image of spelling and reading whichonce more we have seen appearing has a slightly different sense from that of theProlegomena, a sense which is not severed from it, but one that specifies it andcompletes it. The conceptualization of phenomena – their Exposition – happensnot only by submitting them (in a transcendental sense) to rules making themabove all pertinent for a reading (the buchstabieren of the Prolegomena), but alsoto a minute deciphering (the buchstabieren of the Enzyklopädievorlesung). Thisdeciphering is partial and provisional, in part unconscious111, capable of self-cor-rection as it goes, which is preliminary but not a priori in a transcendental sense.

108 It is the well-known Kantian expression, referring to schematism: cf. KrV A 141 / B 180.109 This pre-predicative activity is tightly commixed with the intuitive processes, so much so that it is

not normally conscious («we exert this act of reflection as soon as we have sensory impressions. Throughthis habit this reflection becomes normal (geläufig), so that we do not notice that we are reflecting; as a re-sult, we believe that this is in sensible intuition»: Metaphysik L1, Ak XXVIII 233-234). Thus, the facultywhich Kant ascribes to provisional judgments weaves itself also with the «figurative (bildend) faculty of in-tuition», which has just the task of forming out of multiple appearances a unitary image: «the soul mustmake many observations, to make itself an image (abbilden) of an object, reproducing (abbilden) it differ-ently from each side. […] There are thus many appearances (Erscheinungen) of a thing, according to thedifferent sides and viewpoints. Out of all these appearances the soul must make an image (Abbildung), col-lecting all of them together» (236). In the Vorlesungen themselves the activity of provisional judgments isconnected to «appearance (Schein)», understood as something that is «neither true nor false» (234).

110 Ev, Ak XXIX1 24.111 The image of buchstabieren presents itself also in the problematic context of obscure representa-

tions. In the Friedländer Anthropologie we read: «the greatest part of the human soul’s treasure of knowl-edge dwells in obscurity. For example, when man reads, the soul pays attention to the letter (Buchstabe),then it spells (buchstabiert), then it reads, then it pays attention to what it reads. Of all of this, man is notconscious» (Ak XXV 479). The idea of an obscure activity of the soul, in reference to reading, is alreadyillustrated by Kant already in the Attempt to introduce the concept of negative magnitudes in philosophy of1763. Cf. Versuch, Ak II 191: «What marvelous bustle hides itself in the depths of our mind, which we failto notice in the full of its activity: this is because the actions are many, and each of them is representedbut very obscurely. The demonstrations of this are familiar to everyone; to be amazed at this, let it sufficeto consider all of those actions which, unbeknownst to us, happens in us when we read».



The intuition-concept relation thus must not be construed as an abrupt tran-sition from the not-yet-objective to the suddenly objectivated, as some interpre-tations erroneously do: intuition has its own, categorically grounded objectivity.Judgment has its own subjectivity, a heuristic provisionality that is waiting topass into actual objectivity, in the determinative proposition. If we keep in mindwhat we read in the just quoted passage from the Enzyklopädie Vorlesung (thatto judge in a determinative mode «a complete (vollständig) concept of the objectis required, of how it is») and what we know on the nature of the empirical con-cept, this is what follows. We can advance a thesis that seems extreme, but whichisn’t really: in empirical knowledge not only do «we never immediately judge ina determinative mode», but actually, if we are uttering synthetic a posteriorijudgments, we never judge in a determinative fashion. We operate, instead, withessentially provisional concepts and judgments; we enact a process that constantrevises itself, a process of inductive and analogical production of an always in-complete generality. Differently put, there are no basal claims which are a pas-sive taking-in and not an inference. We have instead a reflecting fabric of all ourempirical knowledge, whose warp and woof lacks a preestablished starting point,and is never interrupted.

It is in this horizon and with this status that synthetic a posteriori judgmentsare possible. Far from being a simple, unproblematic moment, their productionpresupposes a long process and a wide ensemble of transcendental conditions.We have tried to indicate some dimensions of the (not always readily apparent)complexity of the argument, of which Kant was fully aware.


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