Dissertation

Paul Natorp’s reformulation of the Kantian distinction between intuition and concept

The goal of our research is to analyze Natorp’s redefinition of the distinction between intuitions and concepts in relation to his conception of the method of philosophy. We will exhibit the connection between the way in which Natorp redefines the Kantian dichotomy and his conception of the method of philosophy.

Author

L.A. Pelegrin

Date

21 September 2023

We will investigate how Natorp introduces his position in dialogue with Kant’s position and with contemporary approaches to the problem, psychologism and logicism. We will argue that the question of how a cognition may refer to the object requires rethinking the method of philosophy. It will be shown that the Kantian question of how thinking can have reference to objects was badly posed. The question is how the understanding can be the source of objectivity and not how it relates to the objects. We will study the arguments that led Natorp to argue that the object is the result of a construction of the understanding The hypothesis of this investigation is that Natorp’s redefinition of the distinction between intuitions and concepts is based on a new conception of the philosophical method.