國立臺灣大學哲學論評

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This paper begins with an analysis of Kant’s concept of “transcendental”, and proceeds to discuss some theoretical problems of transcendental cognition. Transcendental cognition refers to a kind of a priori cognitions about the faculty of cognition itself, which include the distinction between sensibility and understanding as well as their spatiotemporal and categorial forms. Although Kant’s transcendental philosophy aims to account for the possibility of objective experience and knowledge by investigating into our faculty of cognition, the theoretical status of transcendental cognitions itself is rather unclear.On the one hand, they cannot be cognitions of the phenomenal self through inner sense, because these empirical cognitions could never serve as a foundation for the transcendental philosophy. On the other hand, Kant also criticizes traditional rational psychology, rejecting the possibility of a priori cognitions of the noumenal self through reason alone. It is true that Kant denies every possibility of a priori self-cognition, but he does allow a kind of intellectual self-consciousness, i.e., the pure “I think” or “transcendental apperception”.Transcendental apperception is not cognition, but through transcendental reflection, we can analyze the structure of cognition. Yet, transcendental cognition is not primarily about the cognitive mechanism of human beings as a species.Kant’s transcendental philosophy is not cognitive science or transcendental psychology, but rather a kind of conceptual analysis of the structure of cognition of the finite rational being as such.