Wood

The Harmony of the Faculties
by Fred L. Rush, Jr., Lawrence/Kansas
Nur durch das Morgentor des Schönen

Drangst du in der Erkenntnis Land
An höhern Glanz sich zu gewöhnen
Übt sich am Reize der Verstand
⫺ Schiller, „Die Künstler“
The primary task confronting an examination of the claimed connection between

Kant’s general theory of cognition and his account of aesthetic judgment requires
clarifying perhaps the most obscure component of that account, the doctrine of the
harmony of the faculties. Kant’s presentation of this doctrine makes it notoriously
difficult to penetrate. Much of what Kant says about the harmony of the faculties
⫺ perhaps the very phrase “the harmony of the faculties” ⫺ is rather imprecise
and metaphorical. Yet, the importance of a correct understanding of the harmony
of the faculties to assessing both the merits of Kant’s aesthetic theory and his claims
for the epistemological significance of reflection is difficult to overstate, for it is
precisely this state of harmony that ultimately grounds the validity of judgments of
taste and does so in virtue of being a state in which the most general prerequisites
to conceptual judgment are present.
The question of the importance of Kant’s account of reflective judgment for his
general epistemological theory has been much discussed. Generally, two views have
emerged. Some, such as Paul Guyer, argue that Kant’s account of aesthetic reflective
judgment has only a problematic relation to his general account of cognition and
an even more tenuous relation to several of his more systematic claims involving
the force of the principle said to govern reflective judgment ⫺ the principle of the
systematicity and purposiveness of nature for judgment. 1 Hannah Ginsborg pre-
sents the most thoroughgoing attempt to make good on Kant’s claims. 2 But, while
recognizing the cognitive importance of taste, Ginsborg advocates doing away with
the doctrine of the harmony of the faculties altogether, replacing it with a non-
1 Kant and the Claims of Taste (Cambridge: Harvard, 1979), pp. 65, 96⫺99.
Citations to the Critique of Pure Reason utilize the customary first (A) and second (B)
edition format. All other citations are to Kants gesammelte Schriften, edited by the Königlich
Preußischen Akademie der Wissenschaften (Berlin: de Gruyter, 1902⫺) [Ak.] by volume and
page number. Translations are mine.
I thank Arthur C. Danto (Columbia), Raymond Geuss (Cambridge) and Dieter Henrich
(München) for very helpful discussion and comments.
2 “Reflective Judgement and Taste,” Noûs 24 (March 1990): 63⫺78.
Kant-Studien 92. Jahrg., S. 38⫺61

 Walter de Gruyter 2001
ISSN 0022-8877
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The Harmony of the Faculties 39
psychologistic account of the intersubjectivity of judgment. But prescinding from a

treatment of the harmony of the faculties, at least in the way that Ginsborg pro-
poses, preserves Kant’s more systematic claims for the centrality of reflective judg-
ment at the expense of giving an adequate account of the content of aesthetic expe-
rience.
I offer a reconstruction of the harmony of the faculties that attempts as much as
is possible to do justice to Kant’s claims for the epistemic importance of reflective
judgment while, at the same time, preserving those (admittedly psychologistic) fea-
tures of the exercise of reflection and reflective judgment that give his account of
aesthetic experience whatever salience it may have. The method of the paper is
cumulative; because an adequate understanding of aesthetic reflection and the har-
mony of the faculties requires solution of some very intricate issues concerning the
connection of reflection to Kant’s accounts of perception and conception, the early
sections of the paper are devoted chiefly to establishing the needed context and
addressing such questions. Section 1 discusses the general schema in terms of which
Kant differentiates determinative and aesthetic reflective judgment and sets out the
central problem of situating Kant’s account of reflection in the broader context of
his account of perception and the application of concepts to manifolds of intuition.
Section 2 provides an interpretation of the two cardinal imaginative activities that
Kant thinks constitutive of reflection, apprehension and exhibition. Section 3 turns
to problems concerning the nature of synthesis and perception and offers an inter-
pretation of Kant’s views on synthesis and perception compatible with the require-
ments of aesthetic reflection. Section 4 presents my reconstruction of the harmony
of the faculties in light of the preparatory work done in the first three sections.
Section 5 discusses the role of the principle of reflective judgment in reflection.
§1
Understanding Kant’s notion of the harmony of the faculties requires taking his
claims for a transcendental psychology seriously and this, in turn, requires an exege-
sis of the role of the imagination in both conceptual and non-conceptual contexts. 3
3 According the imagination such centrality in the investigation of Kantian epistemology has
not been a popular strategy in Anglophone Kant interpretation. Strawon’s relegation of
what he wryly calls the “imaginary subject of transcendental psychology” to the historical
dust bin still convinces many. The Bounds of Sense (London: Methuen, 1966), p. 32.
I will not defend the coherence of the notion of transcendental psychology here. I only note
that barring faculty psychology from the interpretive picture dooms the project of making
clear the epistemological import of Kant’s account of the harmony of the faculties from the
outset, since Kant’s views are expressed directly in terms that require the faculty psychology
to be in place. The claim, in broad stroke, is that there is normativity in judgments that is
not had in virtue of actual concept deployment. And since Kant construes concepts prior to
his analysis of reflective judgment as the only source for the normativity of judgment, what
normativity non-conceptual judgments can have will be explicated in terms of shared ways

40 Fred L. Rush, Jr.
Like most of his contemporaries, Kant accepts the view that the mind is composed
of various discrete faculties each of which performs cognitive functions unique to
it. 4 These faculties interact with one another, realizing various cardinal sorts of
mental states. The term “faculty” denotes for Kant a capacity ⫺ mental faculties
are mental capacities ⫺ whose central functions can be rather well-defined. Qua
capacities, faculties can be exercised in varying degrees of acuity and Kant believes
that the idea of a faculty also necessarily involves the notion that the faculty can
be ideally perfected. Thus are faculties exercised, particularly in conjunction with
one another, in ways in which certain cognitive aims are reached. This notion of
an aim, of cognitive vocation or achievement, is not limited to the attainment of
highly structured theoretical understandings of the world (although it includes
these). Rather, it is Kant’s view, and one he is committed to in virtue of faculty
psychology, that cognitive subjects exercise their abilities in terms of aims at the
very foundation of cognition ⫺ in synthesis of the manifold of intuition, in concept
formation and, crucially, in concept application ⫺ in short, the aim of unifying
experience in varying degrees.
Of particular concern for an analysis of the relation of conceptual and aesthetic
judgment are the faculties of the understanding and imagination. 5 Understanding
and imagination can be related to one another in two relevant ways: either (A) they
can interact in the process of actually applying a concept to determine a manifold
of intuition or (B) they can interact as the subject merely reflects on an object. Kant
draws the contrast between determination of manifolds of intuition and reflection
on them in terms of a three-step synthetic operation. In the unpublished First Intro-
duction to the Critique of Judgment Kant presents the stages of this paradigm as
they would be present for the actual deployment of a concept to a manifold of
intuition, that is, in terms of determinative judgment: “Every empirical concept
requires three acts of spontaneous cognitive power: (a) apprehension … of the ma-
nifold of intuition; (2) comprehension, i. e., the synthetic unity of the consciousness
of this manifold in the concept of an object … and (3) exhibition … in intuition of
the object corresponding to this concept” (Ak. XX, 220). Although Kant presents
the paradigm in terms of the requirements for the application of empirical concepts
to manifolds of intuition, deployment of empirical and pure concepts, including
the categories, requires all three steps. Reflection does not involve actual concept
deployment, therefore, it does not involve the second of the steps outlined above ⫺
in which our cognitive faculties can interrelate with one another. This obviously requires
some bit of faculty psychology to be in place. Therefore, my discussion will proceed as if
the idea of faculty psychology along Kantian lines is not inherently problematic.
4 For a synopsis of the German tradition in faculty psychology, see Lewis White Beck, Early
German Philosophy (Cambridge: Harvard, 1969), pp. 415⫺20. Kant has what Jerry Fodor
would term a “horizontal” faculty psychology. Modularity of Mind (Cambridge: MIT,
1983), pp. 10⫺12.
5 In what follows, unless otherwise noted, I mean by ‘imagination’ its productive or ‘transcen-
dental’ aspect.

“comprehension, i. e., the synthetic unity of the consciousness of this manifold in

the concept of an object.”
Kant’s explication of the nature of reflection in terms of a schema for actual
deployment of concepts to manifolds of intuition naturally suggests a certain two-
prong interpretative strategy, directed toward one end: to ascertain what sort of
pre-conceptual state Kant recognizes in his epistemological works that corresponds
to the activity specified for aesthetic reflection in the passage from the First Intro-
duction. First, commentators look to Kant’s most extended discussion of perception
⫺ §§ 18⫺22 of the Prolegomena. But what looks at first like a promising approach
to the question of the nature of aesthetic reflection and the question of the harmony
of the faculties quickly becomes ensnared in Kant’s very problematic theory of
perception. The problem, stated generally and dealt with in more detail in what
follows, is that Kant talks about perception in the Prolegomena solely in terms of
perceptual judgment and, following the B deduction, judgment seems to necessarily
implicate deployment of the categories and, therefore, of empirical concepts. Accor-
dingly, there arises the problem of how to reconcile the Prolegomena account of
judgments of experience and perception with the second edition Deduction treat-
ment of perceptual synthesis and judgment. This is not an easy question to settle
in any case, but seems particularly intractable when combined with an analysis of
the relation of reflection and conception. Second, commentators are led to the dis-
cussion of synthesis and apprehension in the Metaphysical Deduction and the first
edition Transcendental Deduction of the first Critique. Especially intriguing are
marked similarities between the tripartite structure of the process of concept appli-
cation discussed in the First Introduction and the tripartite synthesis of the first
edition Deduction. The first edition’s method of attempting to establish the trans-
cendental necessity of the categories in terms of synthesis and not in terms of judg-
ment also makes it an attractive potential source for elucidating reflection. But
looking to the Metaphysical Deduction and the first edition Transcendental Deduc-
tion for a model of the sort of synthetic activity that might comprise aesthetic
reflection is not without difficulties. Apart from the question of the very status of
the first edition Deduction relative to the second edition of the first Critique, Kant’s
remarks on synthesis and its relation to concept use can be very obscure and impres-
sionistic. Some of the obscurity is no doubt due to our historical distance from the
general views on faculty psychology of Kant’s time of which he would have presu-
med knowledge. It is relatively easy to cure this deficit by doing philosophical
archeology on figures like Tetens, Wolff, Baumgarten and Crucius. But considerable
conceptual difficulties remain that make the first edition Deduction perhaps less
inviting than initially thought.
The general conceptual problem facing the project of reconciling Kant’s remarks
on the nature of perception and non-conceptual synthesis in epistemological con-
texts with his account of aesthetic reflection and the harmony of the faculties can
be stated succinctly. Kant seems to be making three claims that may seem incompa-
tible:

(1) aesthetic reflection is non-conceptual (Ak. V, 215⫺16, et al.)

(2) aesthetic reflection takes a perception as its object (Ak. XX, 220)
(3) perception is governed by the categories, which are a priori concepts
(B 161 ff.)
The threatened incompatibility is easy to see. If reflection is as intimately related
to perception as (2) indicates, and if perception has conceptual content, it is difficult
to see how reflection can be wholly non-conceptual.
It is my contention that Kant’s account of aesthetic reflection is coherent despite
the seeming incompatibility of these claims. There are several possible ways in
which one might try to establish the sought compatibility and it is useful to survey
the range of options available before proceeding to my reconstruction. A first stra-
tegy might be to qualify (1); that is, to allow that there are certain concepts that
are involved in aesthetic reflection ⫺ specifically, in pure judgments of taste.
According the categories (and a fortiori empirical concepts) roles in the judgment
of taste has not been a favorite move, but it has been suggested by some astute
Kantians. 6 There are two drawbacks to this strategy, as I see it. First, there is
6 This view is advanced summarily by Lewis White Beck and in great detail by Rudolf Mak-
kreel; aesthetic reflection is categorically governed but left empirically indeterminate. See
Makkreel, Imagination and Interpretation in Kant (Chicago: Univ. of Chicago, 1990),
pp. 51⫺58 (in aesthetic judgment, categories are given a “reflective specification”); Lewis
White Beck, “Did the Sage of Königsberg Have No Dreams?”, in: Essays on Kant and Hume
(New Haven: Yale, 1978), p. 56 (mathematical categories apply in reflective judgment).
The idea that the categories can be “reflectively” or indeterminately specified is an inter-
esting one, but one which lacks textual support. The idea trades upon the fact that Kant
talks about the ‘specification’ of the categories along two dimensions. First, the categories
can be considered as necessary for the unity of the “manifold of intuition in general” (B 145).
I take Kant to mean by this that the categories can be considered as necessary rules for the
unity of a sensible manifold, without reference to the particular forms of intuition to which
that manifold would have conform (in our case, time and space). Here the categories are
treated as unschematized ⫺ since schematization refers to the specification of the categories
to the most universal of our forms of intuition ⫺ time. Kant even talks about synthesis in
terms governed by unschematized categories ⫺ the intellectual synthesis of the second edi-
tion Deduction ⫺ synthesis that would be insensitive to what form of intuition was in place.
The second way Kant talks about the categories, and synthesis according to the categories,
is expressed in his doctrine of figurative synthesis (B 161). Here the categories are schemati-
zed, that is, are specified temporally ⫺ to the form of our intuition. The problem with
extrapolating a sense for indeterminate specification for the categories from this picture
(apart from lack of textual support) is that both intellectual and figurative synthesis deter-
mine manifolds ⫺ they just do so at different levels of abstraction. The problem with
making sense of what Kant says about reflection cannot be settled by appeal to different
levels of specification of the categories, the categories will always be rules for determination
of objects, indeed, the very idea that the categories should apply to the manifold of intuition,
yet there be the indeterminate empirical element Kant requires of aesthetic reflection, seems
to misunderstand the relation between pure and empirical concepts. The correct way to
think about the relation of pure (the categories) and empirical concepts ⫺ and here I follow
Robert Paul Wolff and George Schrader ⫺ is that the former are construction rules for the
formation of anything that can count as the latter. See Wolff, Kant’s Theory of Mental
Activity (Cambridge: Harvard, 1963), pp. 164⫺74; Schrader, “Kant’s Theory of Concepts,”

nothing in Kant’s discussion that licenses the view; quite the contrary, he categori-
cally denies that concepts can be deployed in either reflection or reflective judgment.
Moreover, it contradicts Kant’s description of the normative basis for judgments of
taste (not the categories, but the principle of the purposiveness of nature for judg-
ment). 7 Another strategy is to down-play Kant’s assertion in the Transcendental
Deduction in the second edition of the first Critique that perception is categorially
governed. This sort of interpretation can take several forms. One might argue that
there must be a sense in Kant in which we have ‘simple’ perception and that it is
perception of this sort that Kant is talking about in his account of reflection. This
need not lead one to discount other (judgmental) species of ‘perception’ that are be
categorially governed and might even try to show how the senses are related in
various necessary ways. Or, embracing the idea that perception is inextricably
bound up with judgment for Kant, one might want to develop a sense in which
perception is conceptual, but defeasibly so. 8 Yet another tack would be to argue
that, granting arguendo that perception is categorially governed, that need not im-
ply that reflection itself is so governed.
My reconstruction combines qualifying readings of (2) and (3) while maintaining
(1) without qualification. (2) is key. I argue that, while perception is conceptual for
Kant, it is not so in a full-blown sense. I then argue that this leaves enough indeter-
minacy in the perceptual manifold for reflection to take that manifold as an object
without compromising the claim that reflection is non-conceptual. Establishing a
convincing interpretation of (2) und (3) in the light of (1) requires considering
Kant’s general view on the preconditions for concept application and the nature of
perceptual synthesis.
§2
Let’s turn first to consider the nature of the two mental activities involved in
concept deployment that Kant thinks relevant to reflection. The first is apprehen-
sion. It is of course crucial for Kant to deny the empiricist assumption that the
manifold of intuition is given to pure receptivity as discriminable ⫺ that the ele-
ments of the manifold be perceivable as elements solely in virtue of a structure that
Kant-Studien 49 (1958): 210⫺33. There is thus no sense to the idea that pure concepts can
apply to intuition absent the deployment of determinate empirical concepts.
7 It is easy to see why the move is attractive. Besides avoiding the stated incompatibility
between Kant’s views on conceptual nature of perception and reflection, it would enhance
the contemporary relevance of Kant’s aesthetic theory, given that contemporary art works
routinely assume a conceptual background for their interpretation.
8 This is, in broad stroke, the approach taken by Gerold Prauss, Erscheinung bei Kant (Berlin:
de Gruyter, 1974).

the manifold has independent of any subjective contribution to it. 9 Having sensa-
tion is not enough for a manifold as such to be given to cognition, much less
perception. Kant calls the non-synthetic capacity for having sensation, for sensible
receptivity, “synopsis” (A 97). 10 Because Kant treats all thought as combinatory, all
that could be present to mind in a synopsis is an undifferentiated, and therefore,
un-unified, manifold ⫺ in short what William James terms a “bloomin’, buzzin’
confusion.” Thus does Kant stipulate that there must be a synthesis correlated with
synopsis in order that perception take place.
“Synthesis” is a term Kant uses in a variety of contexts for a variety of purposes.
Kant first develops the idea of synthesis in pre-critical writings involving mathema-
tical construction and assigns its function to the imagination. Synthesis is a mental
process which “takes up” or “gathers together” different representations, or ele-
ments in a manifold, and links them in accordance with a rule. When directed
towards a manifold of sensible intuition, synthesis unites sensible particulars accor-
ding to a rule. Thus does Kant write in § 10 of the Analytic: “in order that the
manifold be cognized, the spontaneity of our thought requires that the manifold be
run through in a certain way, taken up and connected. I call this act synthesis ….
[Synthesis] is the act of putting different representations together and grasping (be-
greifen) what is manifold in them in one cognition” (A 77/B 102⫺03).
Apprehension is the most basic synthetic interaction with a manifold of intuition.
In both versions of the transcendental deduction in the first Critique, Kant assigns
apprehension to the imagination, though his account of how the imagination func-
tions in relation to the understanding will vary in some important ways according
to the version. Kant defines apprehension in the first edition of the first Critique as
the ‘running-through’ (Durchlaufen) and ‘holding-together’ (Zusammennehmung)
in consciousness of the manifold in intuition. Kant states that he will call this the
synthesis of apprehension because ‘it is directed immediately on intuition, which
does indeed offer a manifold, but one that can never be represented as a manifold
and as contained in a single representation, unless through this synthesis” (A 99)
(emphasis in original). To this empirical synthesis corresponds an a priori synthesis
of the imagination, viz. the synthesis of the pure manifold of time (and where outer
intuition is concerned, space) (ibid.). In the second edition of the Critique, Kant
emphasizes the importance of the synthesis of apprehension for perception: it is
“the combination of the manifold in an empirical intuition through which percep-
9 Although it does seem that Kant is committed to the notion that there are simple sensa, he
need not assert that there is no non-mental sensible combination (indeed, if Kant holds this
view, all he does is assert it, he has no arguments for it). All that he need claim is that no such
non-synthetic combination can be registered by the subject as that combination. On this
point, see Dieter Henrich, “Challenger or Competitor?: On Rorty’s Account of Transcenden-
tal Strategies,” in: Transcendental Arguments and Science: Essays in Epistemology, (ed.) Peter
Bieri, Rolf-Peter Horstmann & Lorenz Krüger (Dordrecht: Reidel, 1979), pp. 114⫺15.
10 This is a somewhat unfortunate choice of terminology, since the notion of a synopsis seems
to imply that disparate elements of the manifold are already united.

tion, that is, empirical consciousness of the intuition (as appearance) is possible”
(B 160). It is a perceptual synthesis, one that makes a further synthesis of percep-
tions into ‘cognitions’ (Erkenntnisse) possible.
Kant’s understanding of exhibition (Darstellung) involves slightly more complex
problems of interpretation. Darstellung is a technical term for Kant, nested in a
more general network of terms involving the various ways in which the imagination
constructs or displays rules in intuition for the benefit of the cognitive untertakings
of either the understanding or reason. Kant sets out the entire structure fairly suc-
cinctly and clearly in § 59 of the third Critique. The general ability of the imagina-
tion to present a rule in intuition is what Kant calls ‘hypotyposis’ (Ak. V, 352). 11
This capability is of two main types, corresponding to the two principal sorts of
concepts: concepts of the understanding and ideas of reason. In the latter case,
hypotyposis is the ability to present in intuition a form that “symbolically” repre-
sents or expresses an idea. While a thoroughgoing analysis of this capacity is requi-
site to any adequate account of Kant’s theory of artistic content, I will not discuss
it here. The other main sort of hypotyposis is schematization which, in section 59
at least, Kant speaks of in terms of the application of a priori concepts to manifolds
of intuition. Schematization is also a requirement for the deployment of empirical
concepts. It is debated whether Kant should have allowed that empirical concepts
require schemata for their application to manifolds of intuition, but it cannot be
contested that Kant thought schemata necessary for deploying empirical concepts. 12
Not only do several examples Kant gives of schematization involve empirical con-
11 ¤Ypoty¬pvsiw is generally translated “sketch.” Better in the Kantian context is “model.”

12 See, e. g., Lauchlan Chipman, “Kant’s Categories and Their Schematism,” in: Kant on Pure
Reason, ed. Ralph Walker (Oxford: Oxford, 1982), pp. 100⫺16; Jonathan Bennett, Kant’s
Analytic (Cambridge: Cambridge, 1966) §§ 35⫺36. The argument involves the claim, made
by Chipman and Bennett, that there is no sustainable distinction between possession and
use of an empirical concept for Kant. Since it is the purpose of schemata to render concepts
“usable,” this requires the rejection of the claim that schemata are needed for empirical
concepts. Put succinctly, the argument runs as follows. Kant has an abstractionist account
of the formation of empirical concepts in the traditional sense. We form empirical concepts
by attending to certain shared features of objects presented in intuition as significant for
grouping them together and abstract whatever different properties the objects might have
as insignificant for thinking them together in this particular way. The concept whose con-
tent is comprised of a particular shared property is comprised entirely of what Kant calls
“marks” (Merkmale) which are the semantic analog to the significant features. Given this
account of concept formation, there should be no need for an imaginative inscription in
intuition of a figure according to the concept sought to be applied just because the under-
standing already has at its disposal concepts whose content is empirical ⫺ comprised of
marks that purportedly track real properties of things. We have criteria for empirical con-
cept application in virtue of our having constructed those concepts in the first place. The
same cannot be said, of course, for pure concepts, which we do not construct and which
are not abstracted from experience.
What Bennett and Chipman miss in their analysis is that any application of a concept qua
rule, whether an empirival concept or a category, will require an imaginative act of configu-
ring all the Merkmale as constituting a rule and not merely an aggregate.

cepts such as ‘dog’ and ‘plate,’ but he distinguishes the schematization of pure
concepts from that of empirical concepts by insisting that the former cannot be
connected up to images in intuition, while the latter may be so connected (A 140⫺
42/B 179⫺81). Kant thinks Darstellung a necessary stage in the preparation for
application of any concept to a manifold of intuition because any such application
requires the concept to be associated with its possible instances: “[w]hen the con-
cept of an object is given, the function of judgment in the use of that concept for
cognition consists in exhibition, … i. e., placing beside the concept an intuition
corresponding to it” (Ak. V, 192; cf. A 141/B 180; Ak. XX, 220). 13 Therefore, I will
treat the terms ‘Darstellung’ and ‘schema’ as interchangeable. 14 Schemata are, fur-
ther, spontaneous productions ⫺ products of imagination that are not empirically
determined ⫺ that is, of the productive or transcendental imagination. As such
schemata do not merely register or mark in intuition some summed general image
or model of what could count as an instance of a particular concept, whose content
is limited to prior experience of things of that type. Rather, a schema must be able
to countenance instances of the concept that may vary in novel ways from past
experience and this requires an ability to produce a rule for the application of a
concept to the sensible manifold that can chart (that is, imagine) a range of comple-
tely new instances that might fall into the range of the concept sought to be applied.
This feature of schemata ⫺ that they are rules for the application of concepts to
sensible manifolds that incorporate entertainings of new possible instances ⫺ will
turn out to be very important to a correct interpretation of the imaginative activity
that occurs in the harmony of the faculties.
§3
Kant defines perception in a variety of ways which have a core of shared features.
In the first edition Deduction he states that “the first thing that is given to us is
appearance, which, when combined with consciousness, is perception” (A 120). In
the second edition Deduction, perception is defined as “empirical consciousness of
13 Kant at turns speaks of exhibition of an object of a concept and of a concept itself. I think
it clearer to speak of exhibition of an object of the concept in intuition and will adopt that
way of talking. I take the second formulation to be the clearer because I read ‘object’ to
mean a possible instance of the concept.
14 Dieter Henrich holds Darstellung to be a term specific to the schematism of empirical
concepts. “Kant’s Explanation of Aesthetic Judgment,” in: Aesthetic Judgment and the
Moral Image of the World: Studies in Kant (Stanford: Stanford Univ., 1993), pp. 47⫺50;
cf. Makkreel, Imagination and Interpretation in Kant, p. 56. I can locate no passages in
Kant that support such a restrictive reading. Rather, Kant uses Darstellung in a more
general way which would indicate its applicability to schematization of a priori concepts
(among them the categories). This is a minor quibble since Kant will argue for a close
connection between reflection and the processes by which empirical concepts are formed
and deployed.

intuitions (as appearances)” (B 160). In the Anticipations of Perception, we read:

“perception is empirical consciousness, that is, a consciousness in which there is
sensation” (B 207). In the early portions of the Dialectic, Kant offers that perception
is simply “representation with consciousness,” contrasting that ‘mere’ perception
(perceptio/Perception) with “objective” perception, “which is cognition (cognito/
Erkenntnis)” (A 320/B 376⫺77). Taking these various statements together, we ar-
rive at the following understanding of perception: perception is the empirical con-
sciousness of manifolds of intuition, or, as Kant sometimes puts it, of appearances
(A 20/B 34). 15
Kant repeatedly states in § 26 of the 1787 Deduction that perception and the
synthesis of apprehension are categorially governed. He says that “[a]ll synthesis …,
even that which makes perception possible, is subject to (steht unter) the categories”
(B 161) and that “all possible perception is dependent on the synthesis of apprehen-
sion and this empirical synthesis is in turn dependent on transcendental synthesis
and thus on the categories … everything that can come into empirical consciousness
… is subject to the categories” (B 164⫺65). § 15 reaffirms these views: “all combi-
nation, whether we are conscious of it or not, whether it is a combination of the
manifold of intuition, empirical or non-empirical, or of various concepts, is an act
of the understanding” (B 130). Given that Kant states that the only way for the
understanding to combine is via concepts, this passage seems to support the view
that all perceptual synthesis is conceptual. 16 Moreover Kant’s two examples of ap-
prehension given in § 26 ⫺ of the house and of freezing water ⫺ make the depen-
dence of perception upon the categories clear. In the case of the house, having a
perception is treated by Kant as a cognitive achievement: “By apprehension of the
manifold of a house, I make an empirical intuition … into a perception” (ibid.)
(emphasis added). 17 Kant says that constructing a perceptual figure of the house
requires “the categories of quantity (Größe)” necessary for synthesis of what is
homogenous in intuition in general. It is so required because apprehensive combina-
tion of a manifold of empirical intuition requires extensive magnitude. Likewise,
perception of freezing water involves temporal duration and thus application of the
category of cause and effect. Given the overall methodological tenor of the second
15 The sense of “appearance” here must be carefully qualified. When speaking of appearances
as the objects of perception, Kant retreats from the special transcendental sense of that
term. An appearance as an object of a perception or as the content of a particular percep-
tual state is itself merely a modification of inner sense for Kant. That is, it is a mental item
with only subjective validity.
16 Cf. Kant’s remarks that consciousness of a manifold of intuition requires the categories,
i. e. his famous statements that such representations would be “less than a dream” (A 320/
B 376) and that “intuitions without concepts are blind” (A 51/B 75). Of course, being “less
than a dream” does not entail being nothing, nor does being a “blind” intuition.
17 In the fourth edition of the Critique of Pure Reason, Kant substitutes ‘apperception’ for
‘apprehension.’ This makes the point even clearer. The synthesis of apprehension must be
in conformity with the synthesis of apperception, which is subject to the categories. Cf.
B 162 n.

edition Deduction, it seems entirely natural that Kant analyzes perception as judg-
mental, and all judgment directed towards a manifold of intuition must be catego-
rially governed ⫺ what Kant secures by his regression on the conditions for concept
formation are the necessary laws governing the very notion of an object of judgment
given in intuition.
This is not happy news for the interpretation of Kant’s theory of aesthetic reflec-
tion, for, as outlined above, the view that perception is conceptually governed sits
well neither with Kant’s claim that reflection takes perception as its object, nor with
the claim that reflection is non-conceptual. This tension has sent commentators on
a search for a sense in which there if wholly non-conceptual perception in Kant:
that is, to the Prolegomena distinction between judgments of experience and judg-
ments of perception. §§ 18⫺22 of the Prolegomena not only argue there that percep-
tion can be non-categorical, they make the much stronger claim that perceptual
judgment does not involve the categories. Judgments of experience are judgments
that an object has a certain property objectively. Such judgments must apply the
categories, since they lay claim to objective validity. Judgments of perception make
claims relativized either to the subjective state of the subject expressing the judg-
ment or to features of the world that are dependent upon the perceptual state of
the subject and are only ‘subjectively’ valid. Perceptual judgments require merely
“the logical connection of perception in a thinking subject” (Ak. IV, 301) and “hold
good merely for us [gelten bloß vor uns] (that is, for our subject)” (Ak. IV, 299). 18
18 The phrase sie gelten bloß vor uns resonates with the “Opining, Knowing, and Believing”
section of the Canon of Pure Reason where Kant develops the notion of subjective validity.
There Kant explains the concept of subjective validity of a judgment in virtue of the mental
state of the subject making the judgment ⫺ one of what he calls holding-true (Fürwahrhal-
ten) (A 822/B 850). Holding-true has three degrees: opining, believing and knowing. Only
the last two are relevant to our concerns. Belief involves conviction that the judgment is
true. Knowing involves both conviction on the part of the judge in the truth of the judgment
and its truth in fact. Kant expresses this rather clumsily by saying that judgments that
express knowledge are “certain for everyone.” That judgments of perception correspond
to what Kant describes as states of belief in the Canon is suggested by the similarity of
form of “It seems to me that p” and “I believe that p.” Moreover, that Kant clearly thinks
that knowledge begins as mere belief and, therefore, that what is in the end objectively
valid begins with mere subjective validity seems to parallel the way he takes judgments of
experience to issue from those of perception.
The two passages do not converge as neatly as one might like, however. The sense in which
judgments of perception are only “good for” the subject is not interchangeable with Kant’s
conception of subjective validity ⫺ that the judgment is only true for the judge. In the Prolego-
mena, the sense in which a judgment of perception is only “good for me” is intimately bound
up in the fact that it is a first person report of sensation. Such a judgment is only good for me
because its content is limited to claims about me. But such judgments are clearly objectively
valid. That the sea seems to me green is not true merely for me, it is a fact. Any denial of such
a statement sincerely made would be false. So, while it is true that the fact that the sea seems
green to me does not entail that it seems green to everyone, this has nothing to do with the
validity of the judgment “the sea seems green to me.” For a trenchant analysis see Henry Alli-
son, Kant’s Transcendental Idealism (New Haven: Yale, 1982), p. 151.

The distinction between judgments of perception and judgments of experience has

been found by a long line of commentary to be fundamentally confused. 19 The
assertion that judgment can be non-categorial is taken to be inherently problematic,
arguing that Kant’s views on judgment commit him to the position that any object
must be subject to the categories. This means that the distinction between judg-
ments of experience and judgments of perception must be abandoned altogether.
In the face of this there have been attempts to save the distinction by recasting
judgments of perception as judgments which express the defeasible nature of per-
ception, in which the categories only provisionally apply. 20 But the move proves
empty for the judgment of perception is still a defeasible judgment, and as such the
content of the proposition it expresses is categorially governed. The judgment that
a thing seems a certain way to me asserts no less a real feature of the world than
a judgment without the relativization clause.
To locate a sense for non-conceptual synthesis or perception we will have to
return to the first edition Deduction and Kant’s remarks concerning synthesis there.
And, in order to make a convincing case for Kant’s continued commitment to non-
conceptual perception, we will have to give arguments that show that, on this point,
the 1787 version of the Deduction does not supersede its earlier counterpart.
The first edition Deduction has been attractive to attempts to disentangle Kant’s
theory of aesthetic reflection and it is easy to see why. The 1781 Deduction’s ac-
count of the threefold synthesis can seem to mirror the tripartite analysis of the
mental operations that Kant offers as relevant to an understanding of reflection in
the First Introduction to the third Critique. It is reasoned that Kant’s account of
reflection can be cashed out in terms of the first two stages in the tripartite synthe-
sis, apprehension and reproduction and, since these are constitutive of perception
for Kant, that reflection is perception. 21 But trying to simply match the tripartite
synthesis in the first edition Deduction with the three-stage process set forth in the
First Introduction is problematic on several counts. First, to the extent that this
commits one to the view that reflection just is perception, we are saddling Kant
19 See, e. g., Pierre Lachièze-Rey, L’Idealisme kantien, 3d ed. (Paris: Vrin, 1972), pp. 312⫺20
(The judgment of perception is a ‘pseudo-judgment’); Lewis White Beck, “Did the Sage of
Königsberg Have No Dreams?”, pp. 52⫺54 (of special interest is R. 6315 (Ak. XVIII, 621),
cited by Beck on p. 45, where Kant talks about the reach of the categories to dreams and
fevers); Henry Allison, Kant’s Transcendental Idealism, pp. 151⫺52 (any Objekt requires
the categories). For a dissenting view see Béatrice Longuenesse, “Kant et les jugements
empiriques: jugements de perception et jugements d’expérience,” Kant-Studien 86 (1995):
278⫺307.
20 The idea is to distinguish judgments of the form “p” or “it is the case that p” from those
of the form “it seems to me that p.” This is Gerold Prauss’s reconstruction of the form of
judgments of perception. Erscheinung bei Kant, p. 200 ff. Prauss interprets Kant as holding
that judgments of perception are what he calls “Theaetetan.” Prauss holds that such judg-
ments employ the categories (thus the “that” clause in the reconstructed judgment form),
but qualify the assertions they make.
21 This is Guyer’s view. Kant and the Claims of Taste, p. 86.

with the view that all perceptual objects are beautiful. Even to the extent that this
result is not itself objectionable, it certainly is not Kant’s view. A second potential
problem involves the idea that the first two stages of the three-fold synthesis can
be disconnected from the third. At A 97 Kant clearly says that there is one synthesis
with three stages or parts ⫺ although Kant is not consistent on this point, to be
sure. Last, the schema in the First Introduction crucially omits the second synthesis
⫺ the synthesis of reproduction ⫺ and adds exhibition, a topic not dealt with in
the first Critique until the schematism chapter. Taken together, these problems
should warn us off too hastily identifying the tripartite synthesis in A with either
reflection or the harmony of the faculties.
Nevertheless, Kant’s remarks concerning synthesis in the first edition Deduction
give the impression that perception is not, or at least need not be, conceptual. But these
remarks are very general and often obscure. For instance, Kant states that as a general
matter it is the imagination, and not the understanding, that is responsible for the first
two parts of the tripartite synthesis, the synthesis of apprehension and the synthesis
of reproduction. Read in the light of Kant’s statement in the first edition that concept
use is a capacity of the understanding and not of the imagination, this assignment of
the first two synthesis to the faculty of the imagination may be seen to reinforce the
impression that synthesis, and particularly that which constitutes perception is not
conceptual. Similarly Kant states in the Metaphysical Deduction that synthesis is a
“power of the imagination” and not of the understanding at all. “To bring this synthe-
sis to concepts is a function belonging to the understanding alone, through which the
understanding first provides us with cognition in the proper sense of the word” (A 78/
B 103). Kant suggests that synthesis comprising perception can occur without the un-
derstanding and, since it is the understanding that is the sole source for concepts, im-
plies that it can be non-conceptual. Taking these remarks and others like them to-
gether, a certain picture emerges: the function of the understanding is limited to brin-
ging the deliverances of the imagination’s synthetic activity to concepts for the pur-
pose of cognition. But the picture is only a sketch, the remarks too general to under-
write a detailed account of what Kant has in mind.
So we must retrench. On the one hand, to the extent that the second edition’s
rendition of the Transcendental Deduction takes precedence over his earlier views
expressed in the Prolegomena and first edition of the first Critique, we must accord
Kant’s statement that the synthesis of apprehension, and thus perception, is concep-
tually governed great deference. Indeed, as Sellars often pointed out, this very idea
is Kant’s great legacy to contemporary views on the nature of perception. On the
other hand, Kant clearly wants to retain some distinction between the ways things
appear and the way they are judged to be, between conceptually guided perception
and full-blown and explicit conceptual judgment. When he is of a mind to make
this distinction clear, Kant seems to urge two views: the categories need only govern
syntheses if those syntheses are to yield an object the concept of which can figure
in a judgment, or, more narrowly, an object the concept of which can figure in
judgments through which we assert knowledge claims about those objects. The

latter position seems to be what Kant (wrongly) wants from the distinction in the
Prolegomena between judgments of experience and perception. The former seems
to be what he is insisting upon in the second edition Deduction.
As we have seen, Kant rejects the commonly held empiricist view that perception is
the passive reception of sensation. For Kant perception is always the result of synthe-
sis. Since any synthesis is a construal of the manifold according to a rule, perception
according to Kant is never ‘simple’ ⫺ all perception is ‘perception as.’ That is, a per-
ceptual object is always experiences by the perceiver as having a certain character;
perception is, for Kant, a cognitive achievement. Perception of an object involves tak-
ing a bit of the world to be a certain way. And that requires that any perceptual object
be registered as discriminable on some basis from other ways in which the object could
be perceived. So, the perception of any object involves as part of its internal structure
that the object is in principle capable of being related to past and future possible other
ways that the object could appear. This does not require that those other ways be ex-
plicitly recognized, that the object in question be recognized explicitly as being of a
definite type. The perception of a thing requires no more than construing it as being
present in the perceptual field in one of its number of possible ways. 22
The idea that perception involves imaginative synthesis according to a rule which
amounts to construing the manifold of intuition as being a certain way rather than
others can make it difficult to distinguish this from the combination of representa-
tions in a concept indicative of judgment. The very notion of taking a manifold to
be a way seems to require judgment. But Kant clearly wants to insist upon a distinc-
tion between a perceptual taking and a determining judgment involving recognition
in a concept. It is one thing to perceptually construe x as P and to be able to have
a discursive representation of x as P. Creatures might have the first capability while
lacking the second. This can be brought out rather simply if we consider the ques-
tion, from a Kantian perspective, of animal perception. My dog Sam can be sensibly
aware of the circular form in the corner of the room and construe it as his dog dish.
But Sam cannot judge it to be so, just because he lacks the discursive wherewithal for
deploying concepts. But this does not mean that Sam can only have sensation ⫺ that
he is a Cartesian automaton. 23 Following Leibniz, 24 Kant does not treat non-rational
22 My interpretation of Kant’s account of perception is similar in some respects to the one
proposed by Strawson in “Imagination and Perception,” in: Kant on Pure Reason, (ed.)
Ralph Walker (Oxford: Oxford UP, 1982), pp. 82⫺99. Strawson speaks somewhat ellipti-
cally of potential instances of perceptions ‘animating’ present ones and does not combine
the insights developed with Kant’s own expression of the relation of perception to con-
sciousness, self-consciousness or the understanding. Ralph Walker also generally recognizes
that all perception for Kant is interpretative, stressing parallels with Goodman. Kant (Lon-
don: Routledge, 1979), pp. 128⫺29, 178. A more detailed analysis to which I am indebted
is J. Michael Young, “Kant’s View of Imagination,” Kant-Studien 79 (1988): 140⫺66.
23 For a sample of Descartes’ treatment see Discours de la méthode in Œuvres complètes, rev.
ed., (ed.) Charles Adam & P. Tannery (Paris: Vrin/CNRS, 1964⫺76), VI, 58⫺59.
24 Leibniz grants that non-rational animals have souls, but not minds (that is, they can per-
ceive, but cannot apperceive). See Monadologie § 14; Principes de la nature et de la grace
fondés en raison §§ 4⫺5; Letter to von Tschirnhaus, Nov., 1684, in: Philosophical Papers
and Letters, 2nd ed., (ed. & trans.) Leroy Loemker (Dordrecht: Kluwer, 1989), pp. 275⫺76.

animals as not possessed of mental activity; they perceive and a fortiori possess syn-
thetic mental processes. 25 Sam may have quite an imagination, but no understanding.
Put another way, perception does not require that the rule according to which synthe-
sis is carried out be explicitly recognized. And awareness of a thing as one of many
possible ways it might appear only requires consciousness of the thing perceived, not
consciousness of the rule according to which the synthesis is carried forth.
To be sure, the picture, and Kant’s exposition of it, is complicated by the fact
that we are, qua perceiving creatures, conceptual as well. So it seems natural to
understand the sense in which perceptual awareness requires a taking in terms of
what we take to be the sine qua non of taking, that is, conception. Kant falls into
this way of talking and he is by no means alone. If the history of thinking about
the nature of perception can be characterized as a struggle between considering it
on the order of sensation (the empiricist model), on the one hand, or on the order
of judgment (Kant), on the other, Kant can seem pulled in both directions at once.
His view that perception results from synthesis, the idea that perception is the
taking of the world to be a certain way and Kant’s express statement that the
categories govern apprehension all show Kant wanting to find a place in his view
on perception for conceptual content. But Kant’s account of perceptual judgment
as not categorically governed, his view that perception does not involve a synthesis
of recognition in a concept, and the fact that his theory of judgment can seem
uniquely crafted to explain express, full-blown knowledge claims and their asser-
tion show him tending in the other direction as well. I think the best we can say is
that Kant wants to claim that perception is conceptual or judgmental in a sense
short of full-blown conception, but has in his possession inadequate tools, given
his theory of judgment, to capture very precisely that sense. It is perhaps but small
compensation that history of thought on this subject has shown that pinpointing
the sense in which perception is conceptually interpenetrated is extremely difficult
(just consider John McDowell’s attempts to get clear on this), even without being
saddled with eighteenth century views on the nature of judgment or the out-dated
doctrine of synthesis we find in Kant.
The main point to take from this discussion of the nature of perception into an
investigation into the nature of aesthetic reflection and the harmony of the faculties
is that perception is a taking of the manifold as having one among many potential
possible characters. That is, it is a state in which it is implicitly registered that what
is perceived is one way, but that does not foreclose, and indeed it rests upon, other
ways it might be subject to synthesis. Because perception does not involve an expli-
cit judgment that the manifold is a particular way, it is defeasible in a way that
25 Indeed Kant even says that animals can reflect (Ak. XX, 211), by which he means that they
can direct attention to one of a manifold of objects on the basis of preference or desire
satisfaction. I. e., Sam when presented with the perceptions of his dish in the corner of the
kitchen and the open back door can either go to eat or to play in the garden, depending
on which desire ⫺ to eat or to play ⫺ prevails.

full-blown conception is not. Of course any non-apodeictic judgment is defeasible

in some respect, but the point is that perception is highly defeasible. The cognitive
stake we have in our perceptions is not so great that we settle definitively upon one
way of taking the manifold over others. Relative to our orientation towards the
world when asserting knowledge claims, the manifold, though determined to some
degree, has a certain indeterminate quality as well. By this I mean no more than
the fact that anticipations of other ways to unite the manifold are not put out of
court in perception in the way that they become beside the point when assertion of
knowledge claims is at issue. Thus, what is presented to reflection as its object-
manifold crucially allows for imaginative variance of the elements of the manifold.
§4
Cognitive subjects can be oriented in at least two ways in regard to a manifold

of perception. We can seek to unify the manifold determinately under a description
by deploying the categories (and empirical concepts), or we may merely reflect upon
the manifold. ‘Reflection’ is a term of art that Kant inherits from both rationalist
and empiricist faculty psychology which refers to a very particular class of mental
activities. Kant employs the term in a variety of philosophical contexts and a com-
plete account of the intricate interconnection of these contexts is beyond the scope
of this inquiry. 26 It is possible, however, to identify certain invariant features of
reflection as conceived by Kant. Reflection is an (1) unconscious (2) second-order
mental activity or state which (3) (a) compares concepts or intuitions in terms of
their likenesses or differences, or (b) inspects and regulates the relation of cognitive
faculties to one another contemporaneous with judgment or other synthetic activity
in order to discover or form concepts. Just as concepts are rules of the synthesis of
perceptions that yield possible objects of knowledge, reflection must have a rule
that governs its activity upon the manifold of perception. Kant identifies this rule
as the principle of the purposiveness of nature for judgment. Let’s postpone a dis-
cussion of the content of the principle until we have a better understanding of
26 Very generally, there are three sources for Kant’s account of reflection in works other than
the third Critique: the Amphiboly chapter in the first Critique, various of his lectures on
logic and §§ 4⫺6 of the Anthropology. The idea of a second-order ability to inspect the
basic structures of mind and then compare them in order to ascertain in what relationship
they stand is set forth most expressly in the Amphiboly chapter. The idea of such an
ability may seem to us odd, but its recognition was a virtual commonplace in the empirical
psychology of Kant predecessors. Wolff recognized such a capacity. Psychologia empirica
§§ 257⫺60, in: Gesammelte Werke, (ed.) Jean Ecole, H. W. Arndt, Charles Corr, et al.
(Hildesheim: Olms, 1968), II.5., as did Locke, Essay II.i.4. Also relevant is Kant’s discussion
of reflection’s role in the formation of concepts and in their analysis. On this see, e. g.,
Logic Blomberg (Ak. XXIV, 161); Logik Pölitz (Ak. XXIV, 547); Logik Donha-Wundlacken
(Ak. XXIV; 737); Logik Phillipi (Ak. XXIV, 424⫺26); Wiener Logik (Ak. XXIV, 861⫺63);
and Anthro. § 4 (Ak. VII, 134⫺35 n).

Kant’s description of the activities of the imagination and understanding in aesthetic

reflection. We can then retrospectively see how the content of the principle insures
the kind of synthetic activity Kant thinks takes place when the faculties of imagina-
tion and understanding are harmoniously related and where the imagination exerci-
ses freedom in that harmony.
Let’s return to the tripartite scheme in the First Introduction with which we
began. Kant conceives of the process set forth there ⫺ deployment of concepts to
manifolds of intuition ⫺ as one of cooperation, of harmony, on the part of the
faculties of the imagination and the understanding. But the harmony between the
understanding and the imagination in the application of concepts is one in which
the imagination plays a subordinate role. For the imagination’s role in the actual
deployment of a concept is to schematize a concept provided by the understanding
⫺ its schematizing activity is limited to the presentation of instances of the particu-
lar concept sought to be applied, to the end of its determination of a manifold of
intuition. This is just to say that the cooperative relationship in which the imagina-
tion and the understanding stand relative to the actual conceptualization of a mani-
fold of intuition is not one in which the imagination is free. 27 Now, any application
of a rule ⫺ reflective or otherwise ⫺ to intuition will have to have the rule presen-
ted or encrypted in intuition and will thus require shcemata. In the case of actual
27 It should be noted that it is the freedom of the imagination in the relationship with the
understanding during reflection that is characteristic of the special mental state attendant
to reflection and not the harmony itself. The understanding and imagination must be in
harmony even in cases of conceptual thought ⫺ the imagination must schematize concepts,
in order that they apply to intuitions. Kant thinks that the imagination is not “free” in
such cases, however; since, in discharging the various roles assigned to it in determinate
judgment, the imagination always operates with concepts, which are products of the under-
standing.
The importance of the distinction between harmony and free harmony is often neglected.
Guyer overlooks it. Kant and the Claims of Taste, pp. 84⫺86. Other commentators mark
the distinction, but do not consider it significant. See, e. g., Donald Crawford, Kant’s Aes-
thetic Theory (Madison: Univ. of Wisconsin, 1974), p. 75; Jens Kuhlenkampff, Kants Logik
des ästhetischen Urteils (Frankfurt a. M.: Klostermann, 1978), p. 95. Both Henrich (“Kant’s
Explanation of Aesthetic Judgment”) and Christel Fricke (Kants Theorie des reinen Ge-
schmacksurteils (Berlin: de Gruyter, 1990)) seize the distinction most directly and argue for
its significance, albeit in substantially different ways. Sarah Gibbons seems particularly
confused on this issue, not only routinely talking about harmony when she means to be
talking about free harmony, but also stating that in the state of harmony peculiar to aesthe-
tic reflection, the understanding is also free. Kant’s Theory of Imagination: Bridging Gaps
in Judgement and Experience (Oxford: Clarendon, 1994), p. 92. Strictly speaking of course,
it is only the imagination that is in a state of free play ⫺ the understanding is free when
determining manifolds of intuition under concepts.
It is also important to note that the description of the faculties as in harmony is not a
throw-away for Kant. Kant will also explain certain aesthetic reactions as resulting from
disharmony of the understanding and the imagination, for instance, the experience of the
mathematical sublime (although the experience of the sublime results in a sort of harmony
between the imagination and reason).

concept application, the rule of synthesis is given by the understanding in the form
of the concept sought to be applied. What schema is produced depends on the
content of the concept sought to be deployed. Now, in the case of aesthetic reflec-
tion, when a concept is not deployed, the rule according to which synthesis proceeds
cannot be a concept, nor can the schemata produced be so governed. The question,
therefore, is: what rule governs the non-conceptual synthesis involved in aesthetic
reflection and what sort of synthetic activity and coordinate production of Darstel-
lungen does it prescribe?
Kant’s exposition of the relation of the understanding and imagination in free
harmony is entirely in keeping with our specification of reflection above as an
unconscious, second-order activity, indeed, what he says must seem mysterious
without that understanding of reflection in place. He states that when a concept is
not applied in a determinate judgment, imagination and understanding are to be
considered, not as they operate in a particular case of conception, but entirely
generally: respectively, as (1) the ability to apprehend any manifold of intuition and
(2) the capacity to exhibit in intuition a figure for any possible conceiving of an
object (Ak. XX, 220). In a similar vein, Kant writes that reflection “holds together
the capacity of the imagination (in merely apprehending the object) and the under-
standing (in the exhibition of a concept in general) …” (Ak. XX, 223). Reflection’s
capacity to inspect the relationships of faculties engaged in one or another first-
order processes is just the ability to consider each faculty in terms of its most
general cognitive functions ⫺ those functions as they are applicable to the entire
range of activity in which they can participate. It is also of cardinal importance
that reflection, while unconsciously, serves to regulate the first-order activity to-
wards which it directs itself according to a principle. Reflection aims at the correct
relationship of faculties according to a principle, depending upon what cognitive
activity is at stake.
Now, Kant famously states that the harmony of the faculties expresses the most
general conditions that must obtain for conception to be possible (since all concept
application requires the imaginative production of schemata and apprehension of
the manifold of intuition), without, however, any particular conceiving taking
place. Against the background understanding of what sort of synthetic activity can
count as a first-order state to be reflected upon, let’s attempt to characterize this
state yet a bit more precisely than does Kant. We can do this by considering what
the activities of the imagination and the understanding that he identifies as constitu-
tive of the harmony of the faculties would consist in if taken in their most general,
essential form. On one side is the ability of the imagination to apprehend any
manifold of intuition. Apprehension, in the most general sense, is the activity of
ranging over the manifold of intuition and unifying various elements of it in various
ways. In the case of conception, the rules governing this activity are concepts. Ab-
sent a concept to be applied, it is most natural to conceive of the activity of the
imagination in apprehension as being one of scanning the manifold of intuition and
grouping elements of the manifold in the diverse ways they allow in terms of what-

ever similarities might present themselves. These similarities could not be recogni-
zed as such ⫺ that would require synthesis under a concept: whatever features in
the manifold reflection takes to be significant for arranging it, their significance for
reflection cannot rest in being members of a set of similar features that comprise
the extension of a concept sought to be applied.
This reconstruction of the apprehensive element in the harmony of the faculties
is supported by Kant’s oblique statement that the imagination, in its freedom, is to
be considered as the “originator of arbitrary [willkürlich] forms of possible intui-
tions” (Ak. V, 241). That is, in the state of harmony of the faculties in which the
imagination is free, the imagination’s activity is to survey the manifold and ‘pose’
or ‘suggest’ different ways in which it might be arranged. That the imagination in
this activity constitutes merely “forms of possible intuitions” alerts us not only to
the fact that no determinate synthesis occurs in reflection but also brings home the
ephemeral nature of the constructions of the manifold in which the apprehending
imagination engages. The description of the forms of possible intuition as willkür-
lich emphasizes that the imagination orders the manifold in any number of ways
unconstrained by the dictates of concept deployment. The apprehensive activity of
the imagination in free harmony consists in the “running through” and “holding
together” of the manifold in various ways in which it might be united. The sense
of ‘might’ here is important. I do not mean to suggest that Kant thinks that reflec-
tion proposes or makes counterfactual constructions of the manifold of intuition ⫺
that is an activity of counterfactual conception making judgments of the sort ‘if the
manifold were constructed in this way, then concept C would determine it.’ The
notion of counterfactual judgment is parasitic on that of discursively taking the
manifold in a certain way, against which other possible ways of taking it are coun-
terfactual. But there is no one way that a manifold is taken in aesthetic reflective
judgment that would support counterfactuals. Alternatively, we can put the point
as follows, it would be inappropriate to think of the unities produced by aesthetic
reflection as subject to quantification in a modal context. The unities produced by
aesthetic reflection do not even problematically assert one way that they stand that
could be considered ‘factual’ relative to which any other way of unifying the mani-
fold could count as counterfactual. The products of this activity are not determina-
tely unified intuitions at all, but rather what Kant calls “forms of possible intuition”
⫺ ways in which the manifold might be synthesized, were a concept sought to be
applied to it. These unities ⫺ what I will call proleptic unities ⫺ will be fleeting,
but they will be imaginative constructions of the manifold nevertheless.
Let’s consider the other activity Kant includes in reflection ⫺ that of exhibiting
a concept in intuition ⫺ in light of the foregoing. Again, we must approach the
question of what role exhibition might play in the harmony by asking the question
of how this capacity can be understood in the most general way possible ⫺ abstrac-
ting from its dedicated role in actual conception. It is a bit more difficult to give a
satisfactory answer to this question in the case of Darstellung than it was in the case
of apprehension. In section 35 of the third Critique, Kant says that “the freedom of

the imagination consists precisely in the fact that it schematizes without a concept”
(Ak. V, 287). Just as the apprehending imagination produces reflective ‘surrogates’
of unified intuitions (Kant’s “forms of possible intuition,” discussed above), the
imagination might produce reflective schemata ⫺ ‘rules’ for the temporary unifica-
tion of intuitions that guide the non-conceptual apprehensive survey of the mani-
fold. This perhaps explains why Kant first speaks of exhibition as an activity of the
imagination, when the point at issue is actual concept application, then shifts em-
phasis in his discussion of reflection by treating Darstellung as expressing the role
of the understanding in the harmony. 28 Though confusing at first, this double iden-
tification of exhibition as a power of the imagination or of the understanding is in
keeping with the double character Kant assigns to the schematism and to the imagi-
nation in general ⫺ the imagination operates in the service of both the understan-
ding and sensibility and includes in its capacities elements that can be viewed as
native to both of those other faculties. And, as we have seen, schematism is that
capacity of the imagination especially attuned to the requirements of the understan-
ding ⫺ that concepts be applicable to manifolds of intuition. Precisely because of
this, it is through Darstellung that the understanding enters into the harmony. The
harmony of the faculties relevant to aesthetic experience is only present when the
imagination’s apprehensive capacity is given free reign and Kant often speaks of the
harmony solely in terms of the freedom of the imagination. But it is important to
see that harmony is a reciprocal relation. The understanding also has a general
capacity that must be forwarded in aesthetic reflection, albeit in a way that does
not impede the freedom of the imagination. Thus Kant states that the imaginative
activity of posing possible constructions of the manifold of intuition fulfills the
quite general requirement of the understanding during reflection that unity in the
manifold of intuition is, transiently, presented to it. In a passage often cited, Kant
writes the General Remark following section 22 of the third Critique:
Although in the apprehension of a given object of sense it is bound to a definite form of this
object and, to that extent, does not have free play …, yet it is readily conceived that the object
could give ready-made to the imagination just such a form as that contained in the arrange-
ment of the manifold as the imagination, if it were left to itself, would freely project in
agreement with the general conformity to law of the understanding [Verstandesgesetzmäßig-
keit]. But that the imagination should be both free and itself conforming to law, that is, carry
28 Kant can be quite confusing when identifying the faculty responsible for exhibition. Some-
times he attributes exhibition to the newly discovered faculty of judgment ⫺ in the case
where a concept is sought to be applied, determinative, and in the case in which it is not,
reflective. But through much of the third Critique Kant assigns both apprehension and
exhibition to the (productive) imagination. And, in the passage under consideration, he
treats exhibition as representative of the understanding’s role in the harmony of the facul-
ties. This multiple identification of the faculties to which exhibition belongs is understanda-
ble, however. Kant identifies exhibition and schematization, the latter being an ability of
the imagination. Moreover, since reflective judgment can be construed as “imagination-
centered” in much the same way as determinative judgment is “understanding-centered,”
a close tie between judgment considered as a faculty and imagination already exists.

autonomy with it, is a contradiction. Understanding alone gives the law. Where, however, the
imagination is required to proceed according to a definite law, then what the form of the
product is to be is determined by concepts. Thus it is conformity to law without a law [Gesetz-
mäßigkeit ohne Gesetz], and a subjective agreement of the imagination and the understanding
without an objective one … that can consist in the free conformity to the law of the under-
standing … and with the specific character of the judgment of taste (Ak. V, 240⫺41).
The activities of the imagination, in running through and holding together intui-
tion, and the understanding can cooperate without the preeminence of either fac-
ulty. This means that the imagination’s freedom is not ‘complete’; if what is meant
by complete freedom is freedom from the satisfaction of any interest of the under-
standing. But that is not what Kant means by ‘free play’ of the imagination; the
lawfulness of the understanding must also participate in the harmony. The imagina-
tion in its freedom can conform to this requirement, as Kant states because “it is
readily conceived that the object could give ready-made to the imagination just such
a form as that contained in the arrangement of the manifold as the imagination, if
it were left to itself, would freely project in agreement with the general conformity
to law of the understanding.”
Though not expressed with the greatest clarity, Kant’s intent is fairly evident. It
is possible that the products of the freely ranging apprehending imagination ⫺ what
I have called ‘proleptic unities’ of the manifold ⫺ could be forms that correspond
to exhibitions of concepts, were they synthesized unities (and not just “forms” of
them). This is what Kant means when he says that “if … apprehension in the
imagination of the object’s manifold agrees [übereinkommt] with the exhibition of
a concept of the understanding (which concept being indeterminate), then imagina-
tion and the understanding are in mere reflection in mutual harmony …” (Ak. XX,
220⫺21). What Kant envisions is a potentially endless ranging over the manifold
of intuition by the imagination, engaged in the activity of modeling it as unifiable
in any of the multifarious ways that the spatial and temporal properties of that
manifold permit. So, while it is true that any given manifold will not permit just
any imaginative modeling of it (for instance, the form of a moth cannot plausibly
even fleetingly be modeled on the order of a mountain), any beautiful thing will
permit a seamless, effortless, and potentially endless series of unconscious ‘re-imag-
inings.’ The open-ended nature of the imaginings ⫺ that the series of them need
not end, or perhaps even be repeated, until the absorption of the reflecting subject
is broken through some intervening factor or agency ⫺ also counts against its being
construed as synthetic, if ‘synthesis’ is understood to involve determination. But, to
the extent that synthesis can be thought of otherwise ⫺ as producing not definitive
unity but proleptic unities from a perceptual manifold ⫺ then the harmony of the
faculties does involve synthesis.
§5
The principle according to which reflection proceeds requires the reflecting sub-
ject to treat the manifold as if it were purposive for judgment ⫺ as if it were made
in such a way so as to be amenable to the structure of our thought. The context in

which Kant initially talks about the force of the principle can make its relation to
the problem of aesthetic reflection seem rather distant. That context involves the
interrelated problems of the possibility of forming empirical concepts, discovering
empirical laws and securing a desideratum for on-going scientific research (Ak. XX,
211 & 211 n; A 653⫺54/B 681⫺82). But the distance between these epistemological
concerns and Kant’s aesthetic theory is more apparent than real. We have already
seen that Kant explicates reflection as a capacity necessary for the formation of
concepts. In order that concepts be formed in the first place subjects must be able
to first discern regularity in the manifold of intuition. And while it is true that we
often depend on prior conceptual resources to do this, on pain of regress, such
identification must be non-conceptual. Put simply, forming concepts (as well as
applying them) requires an ability to synthesize manifolds, which ability is logically
prior to any explicit conceptual synthesis which would underlie empirical concept
formation. This is why Kant treats synthesis, not only as a process in which con-
cepts play a role, but also a process in virtue of which any concepts can be had
(A 77/B 103).
The case of aesthetic reflection throws this principle into high relief. Just as
concepts are the rules according to which determinative syntheses of manifolds of
intuition take place, the principle in question serves as the rule for proleptic reflec-
tive synthesis. This why Kant, misleadingly I think, refers to the principle as an
indeterminate concept. The reflective principle ⫺ that of the purposiveness of na-
ture for judgment ⫺ enjoins the reflective subject to treat nature as in principle
capable of being synthesized and to search for unity in general in the manifold. To
search for unity, without the constraint that imagination be directed to stop at one
actual among the many possible ways to unify any given manifold, is to keep on
synthesizing without pausing at any one particular unity. That this is held out to
reflection as possible ⫺ that the manifold will be amenable to our faculty make-up
in the first place ⫺ is what enables reflection and what, so to speak, motivates its
continual posing of unities. For the principle of reflective judgment insures that, at
least in principle, nature has an infinite store of ways in which any manifold can
be synthesized. Only on the model of something like the posing of proleptic unities
does the principle of judgment as a rule for synthesis make any sense.
Consideration of the way in which the principle mandates a certain type of syn-
thetic activity brings home the core nature of the complex relation of aesthetic
reflection to perception. We saw that perception is a “taking” of the manifold to
be a certain way, which required that it be construed as appearing in one among
many possible ways. Unlike perception, reflective synthesis does not involve con-
struing the manifold under any one of its possible appearances to the exclusion of
others. Rather, it involves only the display of possible ways to unite the manifold.
The relation to perception and conception is clear. Perception would involve taking
one of these possible ways as actual, while retaining as part of the ‘content’ of the
perception that there are other possible ways that the objects might appear. Concep-
tion is a taking of the manifold that prescinds from any such possibility. Thus does

reflection underlie both, since registering in a completely general way possible un-
ities of the manifold is conceptually prior to taking it under any one of its possible
descriptions. A sheer desire and pleasure in configuring the world without ulterior
purpose is prior to and continuous with the requirement that we classify that world
in order to have experience with epistemic import.
Now, it may be argued that my interpretation is open to the following objection.
I have attempted to argue that my reconstruction of the harmony of the faculties
and of the relation of perception and conception to aesthetic reflection is ratified
by Kant’s characterization of the principle of reflective judgment. The principle of
the purposiveness of judgment is, as the very name of principle indicates, a principle
of judgment. Yet I have been treating it as a principle of reflection which is crucially
not an explicitly judgmental act. My response to the objection appeals to the same
intuitions that I argued sustain a distinction between the operation of a rule of
perceptual synthesis and the application of a concept to a manifold of intuition.
Again, the distinction turns upon the relation of the cognitive subject to the rule.
If I am right, perceptual synthesis can amount to a taking of the world in virtue of
a rule of synthesis of which the subject is not explicitly aware. This is not to say
that the subject cannot come to know the rule of synthesis as such, but, if she
does, it is then that judgment enters the picture. Importing this distinction between
synthesis in accordance with a rule and synthesis as following a rule into the context
of reflection and reflective judgment, we have the following picture. In mere aesthe-
tic reflection, the principle of the purposiveness of nature operates to generate var-
ious unconscious models of the perceptual manifold as subsumable under whatever
concepts might be deployed to unite it. The activity of reflection or reflective syn-
thesis ⫺ the posing of proleptic unities ⫺ is just being oriented toward the manifold
in this special way, the way prescribed by the content of the principle. But taking
the world in this fashion does not require that the reflecting subject be able to be
conscious of the principle of judgment as such. To be so conscious would be to
deploy the principle, in analogy to the deployment of concepts in determinative
judgment. And that would involve reflective judgment, the judgment of the mani-
fold as purposive ⫺ indeed, a judgment of taste. But the point remains that the fact
that judgment according to the principle of the purposiveness of nature for judg-
ment requires explicit consideration of the manifold as purposive does not bar the
principle from operating as a rule of synthesis for mere aesthetic reflection.
There are many questions that still need to be answered in order to give a fully
satisfactory account of the harmony of the faculties. Even assuming the correctness
of my reconstruction, we would like to know how it accounts for the pleasure in
the beautiful that, in § 9 of the third Critique, Kant takes to be consequent on
reflective judgment. We will also have to provide a fine-grained account of the
relation between aesthetic reflection and reflective judgment. Moreover, provision
will have to be made for perceptions that resist aesthetic reflection, otherwise we
have not escaped the problem that seems to arise on every interpretation of Kant’s

aesthetic theory ⫺ that all objects are at least potentially beautiful. But my aim
here has not been to offer a comprehensive account of Kant’s account of judgments
of taste, nor their epistemological significance. Rather it has been to present a
serviceable reconstruction of the harmony of the faculties, which is an indispensable
component in any such general account.


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The Harmony of the Faculties

by Fred L. Rush, Jr., Lawrence/Kansas

Nur durch das Morgentor des Schönen

The primary task confronting an examination of the claimed connection between

Kant-Studien 92. Jahrg., S. 38⫺61

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psychologistic account of the intersubjectivity of judgment. But prescinding from a

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“comprehension, i. e., the synthetic unity of the consciousness of this manifold in

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(1) aesthetic reflection is non-conceptual (Ak. V, 215⫺16, et al.)

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11 ¤Ypoty¬pvsiw is generally translated “sketch.” Better in the Kantian context is “model.”

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intuitions (as appearances)” (B 160). In the Anticipations of Perception, we read:

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The distinction between judgments of perception and judgments of experience has

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full-blown conception is not. Of course any non-apodeictic judgment is defeasible

Cognitive subjects can be oriented in at least two ways in regard to a manifold

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Kant’s description of the activities of the imagination and understanding in aesthetic

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