Kant, Bauch and the comprehensibility of nature

H. PRINGE

Conferencia; Coloquio de Instituto de Filosofía de la Universidad de Leiden; 2014

The aim of this paper is to discuss how Bruno Bauch?s neo-Kantianism deals with the problem of the coordination between concepts and spatiotemporal objects. For this purpose, we shall compare Bauch?s theory with Kant?s doctrine. In contradistinction to transcendental schematism, we shall show that the coordination of universal concepts and particular spatiotemporal objects can only occur, according to Bauch, if we abandon the Kantian dualism of concepts and intuitions, yet without eliminating the distinction between intellectual and sensible representations completely. Bauch?s theory will thereby enable a satisfactory answer to the problem of the comprehensibility of nature, i.e. to the question of the possibility of the subsumption of spatiotemporal objects under empirical concepts, which Kant?s doctrine, despite all its efforts, seems to leave open.