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Kant is often thought to hold that we cannot perceive distinct particular things without applying concepts to our experience, and, in particular, without applying the a priori concepts he calls the categories. I argue that, once we draw a distinction between the perception of a distinct particular and cognition of an object in the full- blown Kantian sense of an object, we can allow that Kant does not see concepts as necessary for the basic intentionality of perception – the fact that perception presents us with distinct particular things.1 Rather, he thinks it is an a priori and non- conceptual representation of space which enables us to perceive particulars which are distinct from ourselves and from each other. I argue that this reading straightforwardly makes sense of Kant's account of the separate and essential contribution to cognition made by intuition and concepts, and, in particular, of the contribution made by intuition.2 I then look at the implications this account has for how we think about transcendental idealism, the relation between transcendental idealism and the Transcendental Deduction of the categories, and Kant's argument for transcendental idealism in the Aesthetic.

DOI: 10.1057/9780230358911_3

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