Kant on the Proto-synthetic Import of Sensibility

Abstract

In this paper I focus on the role of sensibility in Kant’s account of a priori synthesis and claim that the pure forms of intuition are the non-conceptual conditions of the givenness of the object. Accordingly, I argue that the lower faculty of cognition exercises a proto-synthetic activity by giving a spatio-temporal form to every intuition. The possibility of the latter does not require any concepts, while the conceptual unity of the synthesis requires the categories of the understanding. The paper would contribute to the debate on Kant’s (non)-conceptualism by suggesting relevant conceptual and terminological distinctions: passivity/ receptivity, reference-to-object/ objective reference, synthesis/ synthetic unity, form/ matter.