Philosophie nach Kant (Neue Wege zum Verständnis von Kants Transzendental- und Moralphilosophie) || Revisiting Judgments of Perception

Henry E. Allison

Revisiting Judgments of Perception

In the second part of the Prolegomena Kant introduces the oft criticized distinc-tion between two species of empirical judgment: judgments of perception andjudgments of experience. He writes:

Empirical judgments, insofar as they have objective validity, are judgments of experience;those, however, that are only subjectively valid I call mere judgments of perception. Thelatter do not require a pure concept of the understanding, but only the logical connection ofperceptions in a thinking subject. But the former always demand, in addition to the repre-sentations of sensory intuition, special concepts originally generated in the understanding,which are precisely what makes the judgment of experience objectively valid. (Prol: 2981-8)

It seems likely that Kant was led to this distinction by Georg Friedrich Meier’sdistinction between intuitive and discursive judgments. In his Auszug aus derVernunftlehre,which Kant used as the textbook for his logic lectures, Meier char-acterized an intuitive judgment consisting merely of empirical concepts as an im-mediate experience and as singular.¹ In the Vernunftlehre itself, however, heclaimed that such judgments are composed merely of sensations and he gaveas examples: “I think”, “I am warm”, “I am cold”, and “This wine tastessweet”.² By a discursive empirical judgment Meier understood one involving con-cepts that are not taken directly from sensation, which therefore lacks the imme-diate certainty of an intuitive judgment. As examples of such judgments he cites“There are spots on the sun” and “The air is heavy.”³

Despite evident similarities, Kant’s account differs from Meier’s in at leastthree significant respects. First, since for Kant all judgments are discursive, hehas no place for intuitive judgments in Meier’s sense.⁴ Second, in contrast to

Meier §319 AA XVI: 674–75. Meier 1752; p. 520; cited from AA XVI: 674–75. Ibid. Admittedly, however, Kant appears to have claimed the opposite in L-DW: 76730-33, where, inagreement with Meier, he is cited as saying that “A judgment of perception is intuitive (notdiscursive). An empirical judgment is intuitive, but experience is nonetheless discursive. Judg-ments of experience are always discursive, because we always connect perceptions with them.”Since I have no explanation for this other than the possibility that the transcriber misunderstoodKant, mistaking an exposition of Meier’s position for a statement of his own (remember thatMeier’s Auszug aus der Vernunftlehre was the text on which Kant’s lectures were based), I shallsimply note that judgments of perception, as Kant viewed them in the Prolegomena, likewise

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Meier, for whom intuitive judgments are the epistemic gold standard with respectto which all other modes of cognition are weighed, Kant attaches merely a sub-jective validity to his judgments of perception. Third, for Kant judgments of ex-perience require not merely concepts (since this is a condition of all judgments),but a special set of concepts, which stem from the very nature of the understand-ing and are the source of their claim to objectivity.

Taking these differences from Meier’s distinction between two kinds of em-pirical judgment as a point of departure, I shall structure my discussion of Kant’sconception of judgments of perception and their distinction from judgments ofexperience around them. But since, in addition to considering the discursive na-ture of judgments of perception, their subjective validity, and their absence of thecategories, I shall pose the questions of how such judgments are possible andthe function they serve, the discussion will be divided into four parts.

(1) The discursive nature of judgments of perception: Insofar as judgments of per-ception contain the logical connection of representations in a thinking subject,they are obviously discursive. The problem, however, is seeing how there couldbe such a thing as a logical connection of perceptions.⁵ Clearly, any such connec-tion must be in a thinking subject, since only for such a subject could there beanything like a logical connection; but this leaves unexplained how this connec-tion could be between perceptions. Simply put, perceptions do not appear to bethe sort of things that are capable of logical connections, which for Kant meansstanding in a relation of subordination rather than simply being juxtaposed toone another, as is the case with merely associated perceptions.⁶ Expressed interms of the familiar Sellarsian metaphor, the association of perceptions occursin the logical space of causes rather than reasons. To which one might add thatjudgment, as both Kant and the tradition conceived it, involves the relation be-tween concepts rather than perceptions.

This focus on perceptions reflects the fact that Kant is here concerned exclu-sively with empirical judgment rather than judgment in general. Empirical judg-ments involve perceptions in the sense of perceivings, since these constitute theirmatter. The difference between the two species of empirical judgment concernsthe manner in which the relations between these perceivings are thought: eitheras holding only between them in the consciousness of my state or as holding forany observer in the relevant circumstances and therefore of the object.

involve the connection of perceptions in a thinking subject. For my account of why I take suchjudgments as discursive see below. The problem is noted by Freudiger 1991, esp. pp. 418–21. See R 3051 and R 3053: 633.

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Kant divides his examples of the judgments of perception in the Prolegome-na into two classes: those that can and those that cannot be transformed intojudgments of experience by the addition of a category. As examples of the latterKant lists: “the room is warm, the sugar sweet, the wormwood repugnant.” (Prol:29910-11). The examples of the former are: “the air is elastic” (Prol: 3007) and “Ifthe sun shines on the stone, it becomes warm” (Prol: 30129). In the first case,the corresponding judgment of experience has the same semantic form, whichmeans that it is impossible to determine its epistemic form (whether it is a judg-ment of perception or experience) by simply inspecting it. This is possible in thesecond case, however, where the corresponding judgment of experience is thestraightforwardly causal judgment: “The sun warms the stone” (Prol: 30133-34).It is therefore evident in this case that the distinction is between a judgmentthat merely affirms a constant conjunction and one that affirms a causal connec-tion between the same data. Accordingly, it is clear that the category responsiblefor the difference is that of cause.

The distinctive feature of judgments of perception is their irreducibly first-person nature. They express how things seem to a subject under certain condi-tions and therefore make no claim to universalizability. In their categoricalform they can be expressed schematically as “It seems to me that P.” In manycases others would have similar perceptions under similar conditions; but ifthe judgment concerns merely the relation between these perceptions in the sub-ject’s own conscious state it can make no demand on their agreement.

Underlying Kant’s account is his identification of thinking and judging (Prol:30431-32). Since judgments of perception involve an act of thinking, they are properjudgments with their own mode of validity. In other words, even though suchjudgments are based on nothing more than how perceivings are connected inthe mental state of a particular subject, Kant wants to distinguish them frommere associations, e.g., touching the stone when the sun is shining on it andhaving a sensation of heat. While a sentient being lacking a capacity to thinkwould likewise have a sensation of heat when touching the stone and modifyits behavior accordingly, such a being could not be said to have recognizedthat there is an invariable connection of perceptions in its mental state, muchless that there is a causal connection between the heat and the action of thesun on the stone.

This still leaves us, however, with the problem with which we began: howcan perceptions stand in the logical relations necessary for being connected injudgment?Apart from providing a definition of perception as “an intuition ofwhich I am conscious” (Prol: 3005), which is basically equivalent to the one con-tained in the Critique (KrVA320/B376), Kant has precious little to say on the topicin the Prolegomena. Nevertheless, it is clear that the fundamental point is that if

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perceptions are to be capable of logical as opposed to causal or merely associa-tive connections they must contain a conceptual component. Moreover, Kantgives an indication of his underlying position when he remarks that judgmentsof experience must add something “beyond the sensory intuition and its logicalconnection (in accordance with which the intuition has been rendered universalthrough comparison in a judgment)” (Prol: 30417-18; 98). To say that the intuitionhas been “rendered universal” is to say that it has been brought under a concept;while saying that this universalization has been accomplished “by comparison ina judgment” refers to the logical activities of reflection, comparison and abstrac-tion through which concepts on Kant’s view are formed.⁷ Otherwise expressed,the perceivings, which Kant claims are connected according to their logical rela-tions in judgments of perception, are to be considered not only as the products ofa unification of a sensible manifold through the synthesis of apprehension-cumreproduction, but also as recognized in an empirical concept. This is clearly thecase in Kant’s examples, where the items judged to be connected in the mentalstate of the subject are not raw perceptions, but conceptualized ones. Moreover,it must be the case if judgments of perception are to be considered judgments incontrast to mere associations.

(2) Subjective validity: Our second problem concerns Kant’s attribution of a sub-jective validity to judgments of perception. Not only does this appear to conflictwith his claim in the B-Deduction that judgment as such is objectively valid (KrVB141–42), but the very notion of a subjective validity calls for clarification. Andsince in the Prolegomena Kant explicates the subjective validity of judgments ofperception by contrasting it with the objective validity of judgments of experi-ence, the conception of subjective validity is best approached indirectly throughthe latter, which Kant equates with their “necessary universal validity” (Prol:29815-16).

Inasmuch as judgments of experience can refer to one or some, as well as allof the objects falling under the extension of the subject-concept, the universalitythey involve cannot be understood as referring to their logical quantity. Like purejudgments of taste, which are always singular, it must be a “subjective universal-ity,” which applies to the sphere of judging subjects (KU: 213– 16).Similarly, sincejudgments of experience are empirical, their necessity cannot be construed aslogical. Instead, it must be taken as characterizing the nature of the subjectiveuniversity involved in such judgments. In other words, the claim is that this uni-versality is not simply a contingent matter, as if it just happens to be the case

On the latter point see Longuenesse 1998, esp. pp. 107–30.

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that everyone agrees regarding the matter; it is rather that in some sense every-one must agree, because the judgment holds of the object. Accordingly, the ne-cessity at issue is best seen as normative, much like the “exemplary necessity”that Kant attributes to pure judgments of taste, with the difference being that, incontrast to judgments of experience, which are cognitive and therefore based ona concept, the latter are based on feeling rather than a concept or statable rule(KU: 237).

Kant further explicates the normative necessity of judgments of experienceby noting that in making such a judgment one intends [wollen] that “the judg-ment should also be valid at all times for us and for everyone else,” which hejustifies on the grounds that “if a judgment agrees with an object, then all judg-ments of the same object must also agree with one another,” from which he in-fers that objective validity consists in “necessary universality” (Prol: 29816). Ob-viously, the mere fact that one intends to make such a judgment does notmake it so; but Kant’s point is that this necessary universality characterizesthe formal structure of such judgments. As such, it might be considered it’s epis-temic, as opposed to its semantic form. The latter is determined by the logicalfunctions, which govern all judgments, simply qua judgments; whereas, atleast in the case of empirical judgments, the former is determined by the sub-sumption of the conceptually connected perceptions under a category. Kantclarifies the formal nature of his claim, when, rather than simply stating thatthe resulting judgment in fact agrees with its object, he remarks that, underthese conditions, we must “deem it objective” [müssen wir es auch vor objectivhalten], which he glosses as “expressing not merely a relation of a perceptionto a subject, but a property of an object.” And he underscores the normative na-ture of the necessity at issue by pointing out that, “there would be no reason whyother judgments necessarily would have to agree with mine, if there were not theunity of the object-an object to which they all refer, with which they all agree,and, for that reason, must also harmonize among themselves” (Prol: 29822-26).

Although some of Kant’s language suggests a commonsensical, realistic pic-ture, according to which judgments agree or harmonize with each other just incase they agree with the object, by understanding objective validity in termsof a subjective universality and incorporating a normative necessity into thestory, Kant is actually implying the reverse, namely, that it is the non-contingentharmony or agreement of the judgments that define their objectivity. As Kant suc-cinctly puts it, “Objective validity and necessary universal validity (for everyone)are interchangeable concepts, and although we do not know the object in itself,nonetheless, if we regard a judgment as universally valid and hence necessary,objective validity is understood to be included” (Prol: 29828-29).



It follows from this that the subjective validity, which Kant ascribes to judg-ments of perception, is to be understood negatively as the lack of the subjectiveuniversity and normativity claimed for judgments of experience. Once again,however, the crucial point is that judgments of perception are judgments, thatis, acts of thought, which, as such, require a warrant. As with all judgments,this warrant stems from its grounds, which in the case of judgments of percep-tion is provided by the connection of (conceptualized) perceptions in the con-sciousness of the judging subject, e.g., the fact that the room feels warm tome or my perception of the sun shining on the stone has invariably been fol-lowed by the stone feeling warm to my touch. Clearly, in neither case doesthis connection of perceptions in my mental state justify the demand that othersconnect their perceptions in the same manner, which would amount to the claimthat the connection is objectively valid.

In the Prolegomena Kant contrasts the two species of empirical judgment interms of a distinction between two ways in which one can connect or compareone’s perceptions in a judgment: in a consciousness of one’s mental state andin a consciousness in general (Prol: 3008-10). The former, Kant tells us, “is merelya judgment of perception and has thus far [my emphasis] only subjective validity;it is merely a connection of perceptions within my mental state, without referenceto the object [my emphasis]” (Prol: 30010-14). By contrast, to connect the percep-tions in consciousness in general is to regard this connection as holding notmerely for oneself, but for any cognizer in relevantly similar circumstances.

With respect to judgments of perception, two features of this claim call forcomment. The first is the qualification “thus far,” which suggests that furtherdown the road a judgment of perception might be transformed into a judgmentof experience. This recalls Kant’s earlier remark that “All of our judgments areat first mere judgments of perception; they hold only for us, i.e., for our subjectand only afterwards do we give them a new relation, namely to an object” (Prol:2989-11). Its importance at this point stems from the fact that subsumption under acategory, which is the procedure through which this transformation is broughtabout, requires that what is subsumed already have the form of a thought. Inother words, just as raw, i.e., unconceptualized, perceptions cannot stand in log-ical relations, so they also cannot be subsumed under a category, the function ofwhich is to determine these relations with regard to the logical functions of judg-ment.

The second noteworthy feature, which also applies to the just cited passage,concerns the relation to an object. Since every judgment, qua judgment, involvesrelating representations to an object, this is potentially misleading. Indeed,Kant’s own examples of judgments of perception already have their (intentional)objects prior to being subsumed under a category, e.g., the room that is per-

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ceived as warm and the stone with the sun shining on it that is perceived to beinvariably connected with a sensation of heat when touched. Kant’s point, how-ever, is that, without appealing to a category, the property of warmth (a secon-dary quality) or producing heat to the touch (a causal property) cannot be pre-dicated of these objects. Moreover, Kant concludes from this that,

[I]t is not, as is commonly imagined, sufficient for experience to compare perceptions andto connect them in one consciousness by means of judging; from that there arises no uni-versal validity and necessity of the judgment, on account of which alone it can be objective-ly valid and so can be experience. (Prol: 30013-17)

In addition to the conception of experience as empirical cognition, underlyingthis remark is the generally accepted conception of judgment as consisting inthe comparison of concepts. Kant’s quarrel is not with this conception itself,but, rather, with the assumption that this is the whole story. In the case of em-pirical judgments, where the terms of comparison are conceptually articulatedperceptions, his claim is that this is not sufficient to account for their objectivevalidity. More specifically, Kant insinuates that, on this conception, all empiricaljudgments would be nothing more than judgments of perception. And while theskeptic might welcome such a result, this does not appear to have unduly con-cerned Kant. To a considerable extent, Kant’s apparent insouciance can betraced to his adherence to the analytic method in this section of the Prolegome-na, which enabled him to assume the actuality of “pure natural science,” that is,the set of a priori propositions concerning nature in general, which were articu-lated in the Analytic of Principles in the Critique. Accordingly, Kant’s self-ap-pointed task was not to address the question of whether such propositions arepossible (this being assumed to be the case), but merely how (under what con-ditions) they are possible.

(3) Judgments of perception and the categories: Since Kant’s central claim is thatthe categories function as the vehicles through which judgments of perceptionare transformed into judgments of experience, he appears to be committed tothe view that judgments of perception as such are not subject to the categories.The problem, however, is that this seems difficult to reconcile not only with whatKant maintains in both versions of the Transcendental Deduction in the Critique,but also with his own examples of judgments of perception and their transforma-tion into judgments of experience in the Prolegomena.

As we have seen, the Prolegomena provides two such examples: (1) “The airis elastic,” which with the subsumption of “air” under a category becomes ajudgment of experience; and (2) “If the sun shines on the stone, it becomes



warm,” which with the subsumption of ‘sun’ under a category becomes “The sunwarms the stone.” Even accepting what Kant says about these examples, howev-er, the most that he can claim is that the judgments of perception do not involvethe three categories of relation, which in the Prolegomena he refers to as sub-stance, cause, and community (Prol: 30315-17).⁸ This is because of Kant’s twelvecategories, the transformational function for which he here argues that catego-ries are required is one that could only be fulfilled by these three, whichseems to render the remaining categories redundant.⁹

Moreover, it has often been noted that Kant’s judgments of perception in-volve at least the categories of quantity and quality. For example, the warmth re-ferred to in the judgment of perception that Kant cites in the Prolegomena obvi-ously has a degree and therefore an intensive magnitude, which presupposes thecategories of quality. More generally, the problem seems to be that, because ofhis focus on the transformation of judgments of perception into judgments of ex-perience, Kant left unmentioned another way in which categories are claimed tobe necessary conditions of experience in both editions of the Critique, namely, asconditions of apprehension.

In fact, the situation seems to be even more problematic, since among thecategories of relation the only one that Kant discusses in connection with his ex-amples is causality. As already noted the role of this concept in the second ex-ample is evident and does not call for further discussion at this point, sincethe judgment of experience “The sun warms the stone” is explicitly causal.But the same cannot be said about “The air is elastic.” Since this judgment isin the categorical form and qua judgment of experience predicates a property(elasticity) of an entity (air), one would expect Kant to claim that the categoryat work is substance.What he actually claims, however, is that here too the judg-ment involves a subsumption under the category of cause on the grounds thatthis concept renders it (the air) “hypothetical with respect to expansion” (Prol:3013). And in explanation of this Kant notes that,

This expansion is thereby represented not only as belonging merely to my perception of theair in my state of perception or in several of my states or in the state of others, but as nec-essarily belonging to it, and the judgment: the air is elastic, becomes universally valid andthereby for the first time a judgment of experience, because certain judgments beforehand,which subsume the intuition of the air under the concept of cause and effect, and therebydetermine the perceptions not merely with respect to each other in my subject, but with

In the Critique Kant provides a more detailed characterization of these categories, whichemphasizes their relational nature. See KrV A80/B106. The point is noted by Prauss 1971, p. 163.

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respect to the form of judging in general (here, the hypothetical), and in this way makes theempirical judgment universally valid. (Prol: 3011-13).

Following the illuminating analysis of this passage by Longuenesse, the salientpoints are that Kant regards elasticity as one of the two fundamental propertiesof matter, specifically, its expansive force, which is the property through which itfills space (MAN: 5001-6), and that it is derived by subsuming this concept of mat-ter under the category of cause. Assuming that air is something material ratherthan mere empty space, it follows that “The air is elastic” can be shown to beobjectively valid, and therefore not merely a judgment of perception, since by di-rectly subsuming it under the dynamical property of elasticity one is eo ipso alsosubsuming it indirectly under the category of cause. And in light of this Longue-nesse explains Kant’s claim that the category renders the judgment “hypotheti-cal with respect to expansion as an oblique reference to the fact that, due to itselasticity, air can be known to behave in different ways under different circum-stances.¹⁰

Although Longuenesse does not present it as such, her analysis underscoreswhat appears to be a pervasive problem, which stems from Kant’s penchant forusing causal judgments to illustrate a more general point regarding the objecti-fying role of the categories in all objectively valid empirical judgments, not mere-ly those that are explicitly causal. This is a problem because, as we have seen,Kant links the latter with a normative necessity, understood as a demand for uni-versal agreement, which is distinct from the necessary connection that is eitheraffirmed or presupposed in this use of causal judgments; and while this may notrise to the level of a modal fallacy, it does tend to blur the difference betweenthese two kinds of necessity.¹¹

In sum, there are three problems posed by these examples of transformablejudgments of perception and the role of the categories in their transformation. (1)Kant’s analysis applies only to the categories of relation, leaving the erroneousimpression that the other categories are idle. (2) By neglecting to refer to the con-cept of substance, his analysis of the judgment of experience regarding the elas-ticity of air, together with the lack of any example that might suggest a possiblerole for the category of community, gives rise to the equally erroneous impres-sion that of the relational categories only causality does any heavy lifting. (3)By appealing to examples featuring causality in an effort to illustrate the “criti-

Longuenesse 1998, pp. 174–77. This not to deny, however, that there is a modal difference: Kant’s normative necessity beingde dicto and a causal necessity de re. My point is only that this is incidental to the problem.



cal” thesis that only a category can ground the necessity that pertains to everyempirical judgment to which objective validity is ascribed, Kant focuses the read-er’s attention on the wrong kind of necessity, thereby obfuscating his centralpoint regarding the equivalence of objective validity and a necessary (subjective)universality.

I think that Kant should be found guilty on all three counts; though with mit-igating circumstances.While it is impossible here to explore the charges further,I shall say a word about their mitigation. Proceeding in reverse order, we haveseen that Kant does provide an account of the normative necessity that appliesto empirical judgment as such, not merely to causal judgments. Accordingly, theproblem concerns Kant’s somewhat careless use of examples rather than his un-derlying theory.¹²

The account of “The air is elastic” and presumably other categorical judg-ments of experience as falling under the category of cause rather than substancemust be considered in light of Kant’s view of the relation between these catego-ries. Although Kant held that they express two distinct relations (inherence anddependence), he also maintained that action or force, which are predicables ofcause (KrV A82/B109), function as the empirical criteria of substance (KrVA204–05/B249–50). Such criteria are necessary because substance itself is un-perceivable and, as such, can be cognized only through the actions or forcesthrough which it expresses itself. Moreover, while Kant does not provide an ex-ample of a judgment of experience involving the concept of community and itscontrast with a corresponding judgment of perception, he arguably could havedone so.¹³

Finally, in mitigation of Kant’s failure to note that the categories of qualityand quantity are operative in judgments of perception, I shall note two points.First, doing so would have required him to introduce the issue of perceptual syn-thesis and therefore the role of the imagination, which would have greatly com-plicated the story. Second, Kant does deal with the matter indirectly by distin-guishing between the functions and the mode of proof of the various

The charge that Kant was careless in his use of examples was also raised, albeit with adifferent focus, by Kotzin and Baumgärtner 1990. Kant provides such an example (or at least the materials for one) in the Third Analogy withhis analysis of the cognition of the objective coexistence or simultaneity of the earth and themoon (KrV B257–58) through the category of community or interaction. Presumably, the ideawould be that the category converts what is initially merely a subjectively valid estimation of thecoexistence of the phenomena (and therefore a judgment of perception) into an objective one(and therefore a judgment of experience). I analyze Kant’s argument in Allison 2004, pp. 260–74.

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principles corresponding to the categories and even uses the case of warmth toillustrate the conception of an intensive magnitude. (See Prol: 308– 10).¹⁴

(4) How are judgments of perception possible and what function do they serve?Since the Prolegomena focuses on the conditions of the possibility of judgmentsof experience, Kant does not there address the issue of the possibility of judg-ments of perception. Instead, he takes such judgments for granted and empha-sizes their incapacity to yield objectively valid cognitions. He does appear tohave touched upon the question in the Jäsche Logic, however, where, after stat-ing in the main text that “A judgment of perception is merely subjective, an ob-jective judgment from perceptions is a judgment of experience” (JL: 1132-3), in anote attached to this he writes:

A judgment from mere perceptions is really not possible, except through the fact that I ex-press my representation as perception: I, who perceive a tower, perceive in it the red color.But I cannot say: It is red. For this would not be merely an empirical judgment, but a judg-ment of experience, i.e., an empirical judgment through which I get a concept of the object.E.g., In touching the stone I sense warmth, is a judgment of perception: but on the otherhand, The stone is warm, is a judgment of experience. It pertains to the latter that I donot reckon to the object what is merely in my subject, for a judgment of experience is per-ception from which a concept of the object arises; e.g., whether points of light move on themoon or in the air or in my eye. (JL: 1135-16)¹⁵

Kant also appeals to the categories of quantity; though he illustrates this through their rolein mathematics rather than empirical cognition. See Prol: 3020 - 3022. There are also noteworthy differences in the reading of this note in the secondary literature.Thus, Prauss 1971, p. 189, sees Kant as here rendering a self-criticism of his formulations inProlegomena; whereas Longuenesse 1998a, p. 169 sees in it an apparent shift in Kant’s view ofwhat judgments of perception are about. According to her, judgments of perception in theProlegomena are “judgments about spatiotemporal objects, albeit ‘valid only for me’; whilethose in the Logic “appear to be judgments about my own subjective states.” Unlike, Prauss,however, she denies that there is any real change. More recently, Pollok 2008, p. 336 note 28, hasargued with respect to the account in the Logic that “what we are told about this distinction[between judgments of perception and judgments of experience] does not go a step beyond whatG.F. Meier had written in §§319–24 of Auszug aus der Vernunftlehre.” Moreover, in contrast toboth Prauss and Longuenesse, Pollok insists that Kant abandoned this distinction in the B-Deduction. Speaking against this, however, is the fact that the contents of this note are con-tained verbatim in R 3145: 678, which, together with a closely associated Reflexion (R3146: 679),Adickes dates from the 1790 s (phase w). Accordingly, if Adickes’ dating is even roughly correct,it shows that Kant retained the conception of a judgment of perception well after the compo-sition of the B-Deduction.Although this is compatible with the hypothesis that Kant abandonedthis conception sometime after 1783 and reaffirmed it sometime after 1787, I am aware of noevidence for this and of no one who has advocated it.



Although much of this note covers familiar ground, albeit with new examples, italso addresses our question, at least tangentially, by stipulating as a condition ofthe possibility of a judgment of perception that it expresses one’s representationas a perception. I take this to mean that such a judgment requires, as a conditionof its possibility, the capacity to takes one’s perceptual representing, e.g., of thetower as red, not merely as a perception (of a red tower) but as merely a percep-tion, that is, a seeming-to-be rather than a warranted assessment of an objectand its properties.¹⁶ And since the latter would be a judgment of experience, itfollows that the capacity to forms judgments of experience is a necessary condi-tion of the possibility of forming judgments of perception, which is likely whyKant did not focus on the issue. At the transcendental level it seems that nothingmore need be said.

This, however, leads one to ask why Kant discusses such judgments at all inthe Prolegomena?As has often been noted, part of the answer lies in the proofstrategy of the work, which, together with the adoption of the analytic method,involves using the conception of a judgment of perception as a didactic devicefor illustrating the inadequacy of the widely shared conception of judgment asconsisting merely in the comparison of concepts (without any a priori ele-ments).¹⁷ But while this appears to be part of the story, the fact that it cannotbe the whole story is evident from Kant’s claim that “All our judgments are atfirst merely judgments of perception” (Prol: 2989); for this indicates that Kant as-signed a positive function to such judgments in his overall account of empiricalcognition, if not of its transcendental conditions.

In order to comprehend this function it is necessary to keep in mind Kant’sequation of thinking with judging. Since we have seen that for Kant what is sub-sumed under a category in a judgment of experience must already have beenbrought under a concept, that is, thought, this entails that such judgment pre-supposes a prior judgment in which this initial conceptualization is achieved.And if this is the case, it follows that the conception of a judgment of perceptionis used by Kant in the Prolegomena and elsewhere to characterize this founda-

Although this is superficially similar to the interpretation of Prauss, inasmuch as he regardsjudgments of perception as “es scheint Urteilen,” it is actually quite distinct. According to Prauss1971, esp. p. 224–72, rather than relating perceptions to an object, which is the basic function ofempirical judgment for Kant, judgments of perception take the perceptions themselves for theirobjects.Among other problems, which cannot be discussed here, this view cannot make anysense of Kant’s claim that all our (empirical) judgments are first judgments of perception. Bycontrast, as will become clear below, I consider judgments of perception as a species of pro-visional judgment, which, as such, have spatiotemporal objects as their intentional objects, butdo not make a warranted claim to objective validity. The classical formulation of this view is by Cassirer 1953, pp. 255–56.

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tional act of thought. In short, Kant assigns to the conception of such a judgmentin the Prolegomena two quite distinct functions: as a “critical” tool for rejectingwhat he takes to be an inadequate view of judgment and as an integral part ofhis own account of empirical cognition.¹⁸

Moreover, it is important to realize that the judgment of perception is not theonly conception to which Kant assigns the second of these functions. In fact, ifwe consider the Kantian corpus as a whole, this role is usually assigned to the“provisional judgment” [vorläufiges Urtheil].¹⁹ Unfortunately, the task of provid-ing a concise account of this conception is complicated by Kant’s failure to offereither a formal definition of a provisional judgment or many useful examples ofsuch judgments. Perhaps the closest thing to a definition that Kant supplies isthe characterization of a provisional judgment as one that precedes investigation(LD-W: 737). And the examples include the judgment that a book that one has notyet read is good because of the repute of its author (PE: 24); or, alternatively, be-cause of its title (WL: 861); the judgment of a person’s character on the basis ofhis appearance and bearing (WL: 861); and the judgment that the sun rises andsets on the basis of what one perceives (ML1: 234). Although these examplesmight suggest that Kant considers a provisional judgment simply as one thatis rash or precipitous, this not the case. Rather, he regards it as an initial assess-ment, which, as the term suggests, is taken to hold only provisionally and there-fore as subject to revision. But Kant’s main point is that such a preliminary as-sessment is the indispensable starting point of any cognitive endeavor.

In his various discussions of the topic, Kant clarifies the point by contrastinga provisional judgment with both a determinate judgment and a prejudice.²⁰ Theformer is the culmination of a cognitive process that begins with a provisionaljudgment; while the latter is essentially a provisional judgment that is erroneous-ly taken as determinate. Leaving aside the issue of prejudice, what is noteworthyhere is the close parallel between the relation between judgments of perception

My emphasis on the dual function of judgments of perception in the Prolegomena is one oftwo major respects in which my interpretation of such judgments differs from that of Longue-nesse, who evidently denies that they play anything like the didactic role, which I (followingCassirer) attribute to them (1998, pp. 167–97). The other is her denial that such judgmentsinvolve the categories as distinct from the logical functions. I discuss this aspect of her position,which extends also to the first part of the B-Deduction in Allison 2012, pp. 31–48. I am quitesympathetic, however, to her central claim that reflection according to the logical forms ofjudgment is essential to understanding such judgments, which she rightly claims to have beenthe first to have pointed out (op. cit. 169, note 5). Although I express it in different terms, Ibelieve that my account is compatible with this view. See LB: 161 and 164; LD-W: 737; WL: 861–63; JL: 66–67; 571–72. See the preceding note.



and judgments of experience, on the one hand, and provisional and determinatejudgments, on the other; for in both cases they are considered respectively as theterminos a quo and the terminos ad quem of the cognitive process. Although thismakes it tempting to identify these judgment-pairs, I believe that this would begoing too far; since the examples cited indicate that the contrast between provi-sional and determinate judgments is much broader than that between judgmentsof perception and judgments of experience, which is limited to empirical cogni-tions of nature and does not include matters like the evaluation of a book or aperson’s character. Nevertheless, this does not preclude regarding the latter con-trast as a specification of the former.²¹ Indeed, such a relationship is stronglysuggested by Kant’s analysis of “The air is elastic,” which we have seen was ini-tially considered a mere judgment of perception and became a judgment of ex-perience as the result of the air being subjected to certain tests, which showedthat it retains this property under different conditions.

Finally, this puts us in a position to deal succinctly with the lack of any men-tion of judgments of perception in the B-Deduction. The short answer is simplythat we should not expect to find one (any more than in the A-Deduction), sincethe Deduction is limited to a consideration of transcendental conditions. Clearly,however, this does not suffice, since the main point that is appealed to by thosewho reject the view that the judgment of perception is a serious part of Kant’s“critical” position in 1787 is the characterization of judgment as “nothingother than the way to bring given cognitions to the objective unity of appercep-tion” (KrV B141), which is thought to be incompatible with a judgment that pos-sesses merely a subjective validity.

Although I had previously adhered to such a view I no longer do so.²² Andthe key points behind my change of mind were the realization of the import ofKant’s identification of thinking and judging and closer attention to the affinitybetween judgments of perception and provisional judgments. Inasmuch as theextensive discussion of the latter in the various versions of Kant’s Lectures onLogic, both before and during the “critical” period, indicate the indispensabilitythat Kant attributes to them in his overall account of cognition, this affinitymakes it difficult to deny a similar significance to judgments of perceptionwith respect to judgments concerning objects and occurrences in nature.

While I am not sure that he would accept this characterization of the relation betweenprovisional judgments and judgments of perception, I am indebted to Svendsen 1999, pp. 285–95, for his discussion of the former and of their relevance to the understanding of judgments ofperception. For my previous discussions of the topic, see Allison 1983, pp. 149–52 and 2004, pp. 179–82.

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Moreover, it must also be noted that, while Kant does not refer explicitly tojudgments of perception in the B-Deduction, he provides a clear example of one,when he contrasts “Bodies are heavy” and “If I carry a body, I feel a pressure ofweight,” the former of which is said to be objectively and the latter merely sub-jectively valid (KrV B142). The only difference between this and similar examplesin the Prolegomena is that Kant no longer refers to the latter as a judgment be-cause the representations are combined only according to laws of associationand their unification therefore lacks the objective validity required for a judg-ment, as he there defines it. But if it is not a judgment Kant owes us an accountof what it is.

Unfortunately, the little that Kant there says about the matter further obfus-cates rather than clarifies the situation. Essentially, it consists in reducing whatin the Prolegomena would be a clear case of a judgment of perception, which, ála Hume, is based merely on a constant conjunction or association of percep-tions, to the bare association of the perceptions of weight and of carrying (or lift-ing) a body. We have already seen, however, that a judgment of perception ismore than this, since it involves not merely the de facto association of percep-tions in one’s mental state but also the thought that the two are somehow con-nected, even if only in one’s mental state. Moreover, since Kant held that think-ing is judging, he had no choice but to regard it as a judgment.Why, then, did henot do so? My hypothesis, which I propose in the spirit of a provisional judg-ment, is that Kant refrained from doing so and instead glossed over the matterbecause dealing with it would have greatly complicated his proof-strategy inthe B-Deduction, much as for similar reasons he failed to note in the Prolegome-na that judgments of perception involve at least the categories of quality andquantity. And if this is correct, it indicates that in both cases Kant’s proof-strat-egy got in the way of saying what in different circumstances he would have beenquite willing to admit and perhaps even insist upon.

Literature

Allison, Henry E. (2004): Kant’s Transcendental Idealism, An Interpretation and Defense,Revised and Enlarged Edition, New Haven: Yale University Press.

Allison, Henry E. (2012): Essays on Kant, Oxford: Oxford University Press.Cassirer, Ernst (1953): Substance and Function, trans. W.C. Swabey and M.C. Swabey, New

York: Dover.Freudiger, Jürg (1991): “Zum Problem der Wahrnehmungsurteile in Kants theoretischer

Philosophie,” Kant-Studien 82, pp. 413–35.



Kotzin Rohda and Baumgärtner Jörg (1990): “Sensations and Judgments of Perceptions:Diagnosis and Rehabilitation of some of Kant’s Misleading Examples,” Kant-Studien 81,pp. 401–12.

Longuenesse, Béatrice (1998): Kant and the Capacity to Judge, translated by Charles Wolfe,Princeton: Princeton University Press.

Meier, Georg Friedrich (1924): Auszug aus der Vernunftlehre, Halle (1752) in: Kant’sgesammelte Schriften, herausgegeben von der Preussischen Akademie derWissenschaften, Berlin and Leipzig: Walter de Gruyter & Co., vol. 16, pp. 3–872.

Pollok, Konstantin (2008): “‘An Almost Single Inference’- Kant’s Deduction of the CategoriesReconsidered,” Archiv für Geschichte der Philosophie 90, pp. 323–45.

Prauss, Gerold (1971): Erscheinung bei Kant: Ein Problem der Kritik der reinen Vernunft,Berlin: De Gruyter.

Svendsen, Lars Fr. H. (1999): Kant’s Critical Hermeneutics: On Schematization andInterpretation, Dissertation Oslo: Unipub Forlag/Akademiika.

Abbreviations

Apart from the Critique of Pure Reason, where references are to the standard A and B pagina-tion, all references to Kant are to the volume and page of Kant’s gesammelte Schriften (Aka-demieausgabe: AA), herausgegeben von der Deutschen (formerly Könliglichen Preuissischen)Akademie der Wissenschaften, 29 volumes [Berlin: Walter de Gruyter (and predecessors),1902ff].JL Jäsche Logik (AA IX, –).KrV Kritik der reinen Vernunft (AA III-IV).KU Kritik der Urtheilskraft (AA V, –).LB Logik Blomberg (AA XXIV, –).LD-W

Logik Dohna-Wundlacken (AA XXIV, –).

MAN Metaphysische Anfangsgründe der Naturwissenschaft (AA IV, –).ML Metaphysik L (AA XXVIII, –).PE Philosophische Enzyklopädie (AA XXIX, –).Prol Prolegomena zu einer jeden künftigen Metaphysik, die als Wissenschaft wird auftreten

können (AA IV, –).R Reflexionen zur Logik (AA XVI).WL Wiener Logik (AA XXIV, –).Citations from the Prolegomena are to the translation by Gary Hatfield, in Theoretical Philoso-phy after , The Cambridge Edition of the Works of Immanuel Kant (–), edited byHenry Allison and Peter Heath, Cambridge: Cambridge University Press (). The citation fromthe Jäsche Logik is to the translation by J. Michael Young, in Lectures on Logic, The CambridgeEdition of the Works of Immanuel Kant edited by J. Michael Young (–), Cambridge:Cambridge University Press ().

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Philosophie nach Kant (Neue Wege zum Verständnis von Kants Transzendental- und Moralphilosophie) || Revisiting Judgments of Perception