Kant and Nonconceptual Content: A Podcast.
by Robert Hanna and Scott HeftlerJune 2, 2025
In “Kant and Nonconceptual Content,” Robert Hanna argues that Immanuel Kant is a significant early proponent of nonconceptual mental content — Kant’s notion of intuitional cognitive content is fundamentally equivalent to contemporary notions of nonconceptual content. Hanna contends that Kant’s famous dictum “intuitions without concepts are blind” should be understood as applying to the formation of objectively valid judgments rather than as a denial of the independent existence or validity of intuitions apart from concepts. Kantian intuitions are immediate, sense-related, singular, object-dependent, and importantly, prior to thought, making them nonconceptual. Hanna distinguishes four Kantian types of nonconceptuality — Very Strong (lacks concepts entirely), Fairly Strong (doesn’t require correct concept application, as in illusions or indistinct perception), Moderate (doesn’t require concepts at all, as in aesthetic judgments), and Weak (requires concepts/application but not conscious possession). He supports these distinctions by way of phenomenological arguments. The core explanation for the existence and representational significance of all this nonconceptual content in Kant lies in the forms of intuition: space and time. These a priori necessary subjective forms of empirical intuition introduce intrinsic, irreducible phenomenal spatiotemporal structures into experience, providing the necessary framework for the unique location of individual objects and constituting the subjective, first-person point of view, thereby offering a plausible solution to the “unity problem” of nonconceptual content.
Hanna’s article spawned an extended, vigorous debate about Kantian nonconceptualism, as per the book imaged above.
You can find an accessible but also fully detailed podcast on “Kant and Nonconceptual Content,” created by Scott Heftler and other friends of Philosophy Without Borders, HERE.
And you can also download and read or share a .pdf of the full text of “Kant and Nonconceptual Content” by clicking on the Download tab directly below.
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