The role of imagination in Kant's first critique

Download
2003
Barın, Özlem
The purpose of this study is to examine the role of imagination in Immanuel Kant̕s Critique of Pure Reason by means of a detailed textual analysis and interpretation. In my systematic reading of the Kantian text, I analyse how the power of imagination comes to the foreground of Kant̕s investigation into the transcendental conditions of knowledge. This is to explain the mediating function of imagination between the two distinct faculties of the subject; between sensibility and understanding. Imagination achieves its mediating function between sensibility and understanding through its activity of synthesis. By means of exploring the features of the activity of synthesis I attempt to display that imagination provides the ground of the unification of sensibility and understanding. The argument of this study resides in the claim that the power of imagination, through its transcendental synthesis, provides the ground of the possibility of all knowledge and experience. This is to announce imagination as the building block of Kant̕s Copernican Revolution that grounds the objectivity of knowledge in its subjective conditions. Therefore, the goal of this study is to display imagination as a distinctive human capacity that provides the relation of our knowledge to the objects.

Suggestions

The quiddity of knowledge in Kant's critical philosophy
Serin, İsmail; Ceylan, Yasin; Department of Philosophy (2004)
In this thesis the quiddity of knowledge in Kant's critical philosophy has been investigated within the historical context of the problem. In order to illustrate the origins of the subject-matter of the dissertation, the historical background of Kant's views on the theory of knowledge has been researched too. As a result of this research, it is concluded that Kant did not invent a new philosophical problem, but he tried to improve a decisive solution for one of the oldest question of history of philosophy i...
The formation of the self as mental unity and moral agency in hume’s philosophy
Neslioğlu, E. Funda; Grünberg, David; Department of Philosophy (2008)
This dissertation proposes to analyze the stages in the formation of the idea of self in Hume’s philosophy. According to Hume we have no a simple and individual impression that we can call the self where the self is the totality of conscious life of a person. Nevertheless, we do have an idea of personal identity that must be accounted for. He begins his explanation of this idea by noting that our perceptions are fleeting, and he concludes from this that all we are is a bundle of different perceptions. But ...
A Critical analysis of Kant’s discursivity principle
Okar, Sinan; Çırakman, Elif; Department of Philosophy (2019)
This thesis takes issue with the charge leveled against Kant, that the discursivity principle, which states knowledge of objects requires intuitions as well as concepts, remains unargued for in Kant’s Critique of Pure Reason, and therefore is an ungrounded presupposition underlying Kant’s Transcendental Idealism. I argue that Kant in the Introduction to the Critique Kant provides sufficient tools from which an argument for this principle can be reconstructed. Kant’s critique of metaphysics is taken as the f...
An inquiry into the disputable position of imagination in Kant’s philosophy
Atala, Müge; Çırakman, Elif; Department of Philosophy (2012)
My thesis aims to delve into Immanuel Kant’s formulation of the faculty of imagination in his Critique of Pure Reason and Critique of the Power of Judgment. In relation to the First Critique, it specifically concerns the relation of the “mysterious” function of imagination to the object and its representation as one of the fundamental steps of the emergence or production of theoretical knowledge. As regards the Third Critique, it scrutinizes the relation of imagination to reflective, as opposed to determina...
Marx's epistemology : the relationship between reality and knowledge
Can, Eren; Parkan, Barış; Department of Philosophy (2011)
The purpose of this thesis is to elaborate on the Marx’s theory of knowledge. Historical materialism presented in the German Ideology and the methodological remarks in Grundrisse have led to many discussions concerning the relation between knowledge and reality in Marx’s philosophy. This thesis tried to explore the interrelationships between the kinds of knowledge we produce, abstract concepts and the concrete material conditions, as elaborated by Marx. In contrast to traditional epistemology, and more alon...
Citation Formats
Ö. Barın, “The role of imagination in Kant’s first critique,” M.S. - Master of Science, Middle East Technical University, 2003.