Hidden Art, Special Talent: Kant on Imagination and Judgment

This event occurred on:  My aim in this paper is to consider the relationship between two capacities of the mind: imagination and judgment. I do so by way of considering Kant’s account of the ‘power of imagination’ [Einbildungskraft] and the ‘power of judgment’ [Urteilskraft]. There are a number of striking similarities between these two faculties, which have been almost entirely overlooked. As a result, the question of how they bear on each other in their respective operations has yet to be taken up. I argue for the following claim: insofar as the power of judgment is the faculty of thinking particulars under universals, the power of imagination is the faculty of producing and providing particulars for judgment (either to reflect on or to subsume under universals). Consequently, without the activity of imagination, we could not make judgments at all.