Jaime Balmes - Fundamental Philosophy, Vol. 2 (of 2)

"We call sensibility the capacity (receptivity) of our mind to receive representations, so far as affected in any way whatever: on the contrary, the faculty of producing representations, or the spontaneity of knowledge, is called understanding . Our nature is such that there can be no intuition not sensible , that is to say, which only comprehends the manner in which we are affected by objects. The understanding is the faculty of thinking the object of sensible intuition. Neither of these properties of the soul is preferable to the other. Without sensibility no object could be given to us; without the understanding none could be thought. Thoughts without contents are empty; intuitions without conceptions are blind. It is, then, just as necessary to make conceptions sensible, – that is, to give them an object in intuition, as to make intuitions intelligible, by subjecting them to conceptions. These two faculties or capacities cannot interchange their functions. The understanding can perceive nothing, 5 5 He speaks of intuitive perception, not of perception in general. and the senses can think nothing. Knowledge results only from their union. Their attributes, therefore, ought not to be confounded; on the contrary, there is every reason to distinguish them, and to separate them with great care. We distinguish then the science of the laws of sensibility in general, that is to say, Æsthetics , from the science of the laws of the understanding in general, that is, from Logic ." 6 6 Transcendental Logic. Introduction.

Mark well the meaning of this doctrine. Two facts are established; sensible intuition, and the conception of it; consequently the existence of two faculties, sensibility, and the understanding, is affirmed. To the first correspond sensible representations; to the latter conceptions. These two faculties, though different, are closely interlinked; and they are mutually necessary in order to produce cognitions. But how do they give each other that mutual aid they stand in need of?

"The understanding," Kant elsewhere says, "has been thus far defined only negatively, as a not-sensible faculty of knowing." But as we can have no intuition independently of sensibility, it follows that the understanding is not a faculty of intuition. Excepting intuition, there remains no way of knowing other than by conceptions; wherefore we infer that the knowledge of every intellect, at least every human intellect, is a knowledge by conceptions; not intuitive, but discursive. All intuitions, as sensible, rest upon affections, and consequently, all conceptions upon functions. I understand by functions, the unity of action necessary to arrange different representations under one common representation. Conceptions, then, are grounded on the spontaneity of thought, as sensible intuitions on the receptivity of impressions. The understanding can make no use of these conceptions except to judge by means of them, and as intuition is the only representation which has an immediate object, no conception can ever be immediately referred to an object, but only to some other representation of this object, whether this be an intuition, or even a conception. Judgment is the mediate cognition of an object, and consequently the representation of a representation of the object. In every judgment there is a conception applicable to many things, and under this plurality it comprises also a given representation, immediately referable to the object. Thus, in the judgment: all bodies are divisible ; the conception of divisible is common to different conceptions, among which that of body is the one it here particularly refers to. But this conception of body relates to certain phenomena we have in view; these objects are then mediately represented by the conception of divisibility. All judgments are functions of unity in our representations, since instead of one immediate representation, there comes in another more elevated, which includes the first and many others, and conduces to the cognition of the object; and a great number of possible cognitions are reduced to one alone. But we may reduce all the operations of the understanding to judgment; so that the understanding in general may be represented as a faculty of judging ; because, from what has been said, it is the faculty of thinking. Thought is cognition by conceptions; but conceptions, as predicates of possible judgments, may be referred to any representation whatever of an object, however indeterminate. Thus the conception of body signifies something, for example, a metal, which may be known by this conception. It is then a conception only because it contains in itself other representations by means of which it may be referred to objects. It is then the attribute of a possible judgment, for instance, of this: every metal is a body . 7 7 Transc. Log. Transc. Anal. Book I., Chap. I., Sec. I.

52. There are in this doctrine of Kant, two things to be distinguished: first, the facts upon which it is based; and secondly, the manner in which he examines and applies them, and the consequences he deduces from them.

We detect at once a radical difference, as far as the observation of ideological facts is concerned, between Kant's system and that of Condillac. While the latter discovers in the mind no fact but sensation, no immediate faculty more noble than that of feeling, the former upholds as a fundamental principle the distinction between sensibility and the understanding. And here the German triumphs over the French philosopher, for in his support stand both observation and experience. But this triumph over sensism had already been obtained by many philosophers, the scholastics in particular. With Kant and Condillac they admitted that all our cognitions came from the senses; but they had also noted what Kant afterwards saw, but Condillac did not discover that sensations by themselves alone could never suffice to explain all the phenomena of our soul, and that, besides the sensitive faculty, it was necessary to admit another very different, called understanding.

Kant regarded sensations as materials furnished to the understanding, which it combined in various ways, and reduced to conceptions. "Thoughts without contents," he said, "are empty; intuitions without conceptions are blind. It is then just as necessary to make conceptions sensible, that is, to give them an object in intuition, as to make intuitions intelligible by subjecting them to conceptions." Who does not perceive in this passage, the acting intellect of the Aristotelians, although expressed in other words? Substitute sensible species for sensible intuition , intelligible species for conception and we recognize a doctrine very like that of the scholastics. Let us see. Kant says: to enable us to acquire knowledge, the action of the senses, or sensible experience is necessary. The scholastics said: there is nothing in the understanding which has not previously been in the senses: nihil est in intellectu quod prius non fuerit in sensu .

Kant says: sensible intuitions of themselves are blind. The scholastics said: sensible species, or those of the imagination, also called phantasmata , are not intelligible.

Kant says: it is necessary to make conceptions sensible by giving them an object in intuition. The scholastics said: it is impossible to understand, either by acquiring science, or by using that already acquired, unless the understanding directs itself to sensible species, " sine conversione ad phantasmata ."

Kant says: it is indispensable to render intuitions intelligible by subjecting them to conceptions. The scholastics said: it is necessary to make sensible species intelligible in order that they may be the object of the understanding.