The Crisis in Intuition

Abstract

Of all the leading philosophers Immanuel Kant was undoubtedly the one who assigned the greatest importance to the part played by intuition in what we call knowledge. He observed that two opposite factors are basic to our knowledge: a passive factor of simple receptivity and an active factor of spontaneity. In his Critique of Pure Reason, at the beginning of the section entitled ‘Transcendental Theory of Elements; Part Two: Transcendental Logic,’ we find the following:

“Our knowledge comes from two basic sources in the mind, of which the first is the faculty of receiving sensations (receptivity to impressions), the second the ability to recognize an object by these perceptions (spontaneity in forming concepts). Through the first an object is given to us, through the second this object is thought in relation to these perceptions, as a simple determination of the mind. Thus, intuition and concepts constitute the elements of all our knowledge…”.

That is to say, we conduct ourselves passively when through intuition we receive impressions, and actively when we deal with themin our thought. Further, according to Kant, we must distinguish between two ingredients of intuition.

First published in Krise und Neuaufbau in den exakten Wissenschaften, Fünf Wiener Vorträge, Leipzig and Vienna, 1933.