Anti-Metaphysical Arguments in the Anticipations of Perception

Abstract

In the Anticipations, Kant defends the claim that all sensations must register on a purely subjective scale of response to stimuli, in order for sensation to be a possible source of knowledge. In this paper, I argue that Kant defends this claim in response to “scholasticism” or transcendental realism about sensation. The fact that all sensations are measurable on a subjec- tive scale is the a priori content of the principle of the Anticipations, and, according to Kant, is a necessary condition for building any systematic analysis of sensation. The anti-metaphysical arguments in the “Anticipations of Perception” are key building blocks of Kant’s transcendental idealism.