Kant Glossary (for PHIL 120)

Based chiefly on Prolegomena to Any Future Metaphysics,

published in Modern Philosophy:
An Anthology of Primary Sources,

(Hackett Publishing Company, 1998), pp. 573ff.

I have developed this page primarily for the benefit of my undergraduate students. Suggestions for improvement that keep this aim in mind will be gratefully accepted. I have now alphabetized the entries for ease in locating them. This is a simplified version of my Kant Glossary for PHIL 303.

Contact: Dr. Jan Garrett

Last modified November 6, 2009

a posteriori knowledge = knowledge that derives from experience, empirical knowledge

a priori cognition, a priori knowledge = knowledge that does not require consultation of external or internal experience (MP 584)

analytic (explicative) judgment = a judgment in which the predicate expresses nothing that was not already implicitly contained in the subject, e.g., "yellow is a color."

[a priori, or pure] concepts of the understanding (also called Kant's categories) = concepts under which perceptions must be subsumed before they can serve for judgments of experience (which alone count as empirical knowledge).

Kant's a priori concepts are twelve in number and include four groups of three: Unity, Plurality, Totality; Reality, Negation, Limitation; Substance, Cause, Community; and Possibility, Existence, Necessity.

cosmological idea = the concept of the universe taken as a whole (see "idea of reason")

empirical concepts (e.g., green, horse)

experience = intuitions (i.e. sense-perceptions, located spatiotemporally) plus judgments (which are the work of the understanding)

external experience = the way in which one is conscious of bodies as external appearances; contrast with internal experience

[a priori] form(s) of sensibility [intuition] = formal features added to perceptions when they are grasped as having location in space and in time; the two a priori forms of sensibility are Space and Time.

ideas of reason = unavoidable concepts whose objects cannot be given in any experience; these include the cosmological idea, the theological idea, and the psychological idea, and the idea of the unknowable thing in itself that causes us to receive the content of perceptions (e.g., colors, tastes, sounds, etc.). Ideas of reason cannot be known in the strict sense. See reason.

internal experience = the way in which one is conscious of himself or his soul in time; contrast with external experience

intuition = roughly, concrete perception; "that by which a cognition refers to objects directly" (MP 646); "takes place only insofar as the object is given to us" (ibid.)

knowledge (sense 1) = a priori knowledge based strictly upon judgments that are known a priori. (This includes judgments pertaining to mathematics and judgments deriving directly from the a prior concepts of the understanding. See metaphysics in sense 1.

knowledge (sense 2) = knowledge of nature or phenomena. It is probably this sort of knowledge that Kant has in mind when he writes, "I have limited knowledge in order to make room for faith." Knowledge in this sense arises from the sensory contents supplied by sensibility, the a priori forms of sensibility that turn sensory contents into percepts located in space and time, and the a priori concepts of the understanding that impose cause-and-effect relationships (and other intellectual structures) upon percepts. It is in this connection that Kant famously says that "concepts without percepts are empty, percepts without concepts are blind."

metaphysics (sense 1) = the science of synthetic a priori judgments concerning nature and the a priori concepts of the understanding that accompany them, which judgments or concepts "find their application in experience"; metaphysical knowledge of this sort is possible

metaphysics (sense 2) = the search for knowledge of noumena or transcendent ideas of reason, an unavoidable activity but one unable to give us knowledge

nature = the existence of things so far as it is determined (governed) by universal laws

nature known "formally" Cf. metaphysics (sense 1).

noumena (sing. noumenon) = (include things in themselves, necessarily believed-in objects of ideas of reason) -- contrast with "phenomena"; noumena are "transcendent"; they are outside all possible knowledge

phenomena (singular: phenomenon) = aka appearances; "beings of sense which make up the sensible world"; phenomena appear organized in terms of Space and Time and are organized into experience by the understanding; nature as studied by natural science consists of phenomena. Contrast noumena

psychological idea = the concept of the absolute subject of particular experiences, also the immortal soul (see "idea of reason")

pure intuition = "pure form of sensibility" = "the readiness a priori of the mind [to receive] … sensations" (MP 646)

pure mathematics = mathematics (e.g., arithmetic) apart from application to the external world or to psychological description

(theoretical) reason - when used in the strictest technical sense, as in the Critique of Pure Reason, it refers to the faculty for generating concepts beyond the scope of the understanding (and knowledge), such as ideas of God and the Immortal Soul.

(practical) reason = reason used to make moral choices. See Kant's Duty Ethics.

sensibility = "capacity to acquire representations as a result of the way in which we are affected by objects" (ibid.)

synthetic a priori proposition = a synthetic proposition that could be known a priori

synthetic (ampliative) judgment = a judgment in which the predicate contains something not actually thought in the subject, e.g., "some bodies have weight." (Kant apparently thinks that occupying space, not having weight, is the defining feature of bodies.)

theological idea = the concept of God (see "idea of reason")

things in themselves = the causes of phenomena; they do not appear in sensibility or (impure) intuition; sometimes it is used more broadly to refer to any noumenon.

transcendent (contrast with transcendental) = a description of anything that goes beyond any possible experience

transcendental philosophy = Kant's term for his own philosophical project in the Prolegomena and the Critique of Pure Reason; its chief questions are whether and how synthetic a priori propositions (and therefore metaphysics) are possible.

understanding (Verstand) = the faculty that organizes our experience by subsuming perceptions (or "intuitions") under the a priori concepts and creates knowledge of the external world