Parsons, Kantian structuralism, and Kantian intuitionism
pp. 299-315
in: , In defense of intuitions, Berlin, Springer, 2013Abstract
The question is how it is possible for a priori intuition to be "of" objects that are not given a priori. Kant' own solution to the puzzle... appeals to the idea that a priori intuition contains only the form of our sensibility. This evidently removes the causal dependence of intuition on the object. It is a nice question what is left of the characterization of intuition that gives rise to the puzzle. Kant' solution seems to allow the phenome- nological presence of an object to be preserved, but it is a further question whether what one has is a representation of a physical object, not individually identified and not really present, or a representation of a mathematical object. The former is not ruled out by the a priori character of pure intuition, as the "presence" might be that characteristic of imagination rather han sense. In fact, a number of passages in Kant indicate that just that is his position. Kant' puzzle may have force for us, but we are not likely to accept the position that pure intuition contains only the form of sensibility, a central part of Kant' transcendental idealism, at least not as Kant understood it.