Kant's functionalism

Ralf Meerbote

pp. 161-187

in: J.C. Smith (ed), Historical foundations of cognitive science, Berlin, Springer, 1991

Abstract

Kant's transcendental psychology, often maligned,¹ is a cognitive psychology. More specifically, it is a faculty psychology which speaks of capacities and abilities of various sorts which are needed for empirical cognition. The exercise of such capacities and abilities typically consists in mental actions of several types. An activity-characterization of cognitive mental life is the indispensable core element of transcendental psychology.² Kant conceives of cognitive mental actions as goal-oriented and as performed by an agent on the basis of the agent's conception of rules governing the actions in question.³ Such a conception assigns to cognitive activities a high degree of structure.

Cited authors

Kant Immanuel