Kant and the Power of Perception

A richly detailed account of Kant's notion of intuition and its role in his epistemology and philosophy of perception.

This book presents a richly detailed account of Kant's notion of intuition and his philosophy of perception. It addresses the nature of intuition and the role it plays in Kant's epistemology, and shows how it connects to present-day philosophical debates about the nature and status of human and animal perception.How is it possible for the mind to be in contact with the world? How does perceiving an object differ from merely thinking about it? Is perception different for those beings who can also think? Do perceptions have representatives in language? Can mere perceptions warrant beliefs? Or is claiming so to succumb to the Myth of the Given? Frode Kjosavik presents a richly detailed account of Kant's notion of intuition, which addresses both the nature of intuition and the role it plays in Kant's epistemology. Many approaches in the analytic and phenomenological traditions are inspired by Kant's take on intuition – whether 'pure' intuition or sensory perception -- but the epistemic contributions of intuition are often downplayed or obscured. Kjosavik's highly original reading of Kant's theory of intuition connects it with present-day philosophical debates about the nature of human and animal perception, and illuminates its lasting relevance to those debates.