Below is my Master’s thesis, “A Nonconceptualist Interpretation of Kant’s Theory of Perception: Focusing on Judgment of Cognition and Judgment of Taste“, completed at Seoul National University.
https://s-space.snu.ac.kr/handle/10371/211033
Abstract
We perceive the world through our senses and think with concepts to produce knowledge about objects. Simultaneously, independent of this knowledge, we experience the beauty of objects in our perceptual encounters. How can these two different activities—cognition and aesthetic experience—take place on the same ground of perception? Drawing on Kantian nonconceptualism, this thesis argues that the content of perception is nonconceptual, and is thus capable of establishing both cognition and aesthetic experience.
Nonconceptualism is a theory positing the mental content provided by perceptual experience is distinct from concepts and possesses epistemic value. This stance has been proposed against conceptualism, which maintains that the content of perception is entirely conceptual. Some debaters of these two theories have noticed the relationship between sensibility and understanding, intuition and concept presented in Kants Critique of Pure Reason. Building upon Kants assertions, they have suggested varied interpretations termed Kantian conceptualism and nonconceptualism.
Meanwhile, in Critique of Judgment, Kant argues that both judgment of cognition and of taste begin with experience and involve imagination and understanding. According to him, judgment of taste employs the same faculties of the mind as judgment of cognition, but refrains from reaching conceptual determination. Instead, it generates a feeling of pleasure through the free play of imagination and understanding. This thesis argues that Critique of Pure Reason and Critique of Judgment provide a framework for discussing cognition and aesthetic experience together. It applies a nonconceptualist reading of Kant, which has been limited to the realm of epistemology and philosophy of mind, to Critique of Judgement to elucidate the nonconceptual nature of aesthetic experience. The nonconceptual quality of perceptual content becomes more apparent in judgment of taste, where we play with nonconceptual content indeterminately to derive pleasure, than in cognitive judgment, which yields propositional knowledge.
Conceptualism holds that perceptual experience must have conceptual content in order to justify belief. According to nonconceptualism, however, the content of perception has a fine-grainedness and richness that exceeds concepts, and still can contribute to epistemic justification without having a conceptual structure. A nonconceptualist interpretation of the Critique of Pure Reason shows that this nonconceptual content is individual representations of intuitions that are ordered under the temporal form of the inner sense, and has a mereological structure. In contrast, concepts are universal representations with a set-theoretic structure. Imagination is the ability to synthesize representations of intuition under the schema, which is transcendental time-determination subject to the rules of concepts. This makes nonconceptual content available to be subsumed by understading and give concrete, intentional meaning to concepts, thereby establishing objective cognition.
Imagination serves understanding in judgment of cognition, but in judgment of taste it is free from coercion of understanding and takes the lead in judgment. Judgment of taste is conditioned by a contemplative attitude of the subject that is neither grounded on concepts nor aimed at them, and the mental activity under these conditions is referred to as Betrachtung (contemplation or consideration) rather than Denken (thinking). During this contemplation, imagination and understanding are in free agreement, and the inner sense operates as an aesthetic self-consciousness that senses the subjects harmonious state of mind and feels pleasure. Understanding, which is the spontaneous faculty, triggers the activity of imagination by suggesting applicable categories. Imagination is free to schematize without concepts, contemplating the rich qualities of individual objects without abstraction conforming them to the universal rules of concepts. Beautiful objects stimulate this activity of imagination in forms that deviate from rigid rules, and these schematizations are not unified by the single meaning of concepts. In the synthesis, which is not completed by unity, the subject feels a sense of continuity called the feeling of life, and this pleasure strengthens and reproduces the play of the mind, keeping the subject in present contemplation.
The preceding discussion leads to the following conclusion: nonconceptual content exists in our minds and has epistemic value. As Kant suggests, The representations of intuition and imagination are nonconceptual content that follows a temporal form. In thinking, it gives intentional meaning to concepts and thus founds cognition; in contemplation of beautiful objects, they give rise to the free play of imagination and understanding. In the latter process, we contemplate the individuals qualitative uniqueness, experiencing a freedom that is not closed off by a single meaning. We also feel a sense of continuity as we synthesize the richness of the individual without abstraction. These two different mental activities can be triggered by a perceptual experience, which would be impossible if the content of perception were entirely conceptual.
Nonconceptualism is a theory that provides a more plausible explanation of the nature of perception, because it can explain the establishment of both cognition and aesthetic experience through perception. There is a realm outside of concepts, and we can think and articulate only a fraction of what we can feel in terms of concepts. The sense of continuity that we feel in aesthetic experience cannot be expressed in propositions, but it nevertheless activates the faculties of the mind from feeling to thinking through a sense of harmony and unity. Kant’s explorations in both works provide a comprehensive understanding of the logical, objective, and aesthetic, subjective aspects of our minds.
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