Abstract

Whereas on the ancient Greek view concepts are constitutively sensory and object involving, on the modern conception make possible by Descartes’ new mathematical practice and made explicit in Kant, concepts are merely predicates of possible judgment. They do not give objects but are instead that through which independently given objects are thought. Kant’s understanding of concepts and intuitions, and his new philosophical practice of critique, are motivated, this chapter argues, by the need to get between the horns of a dilemma that inevitably arises in the wake of Descartes’ transformed conception of being, between, that is, dogmatism and scepticism. Kant’s solution is to reject the foundationalist conception of knowing on which the dilemma rests. It is the activity of inquiry that holds the key to an adequate conception of truth in the exact sciences.