The Contrast with Concepts
Published online by Cambridge University Press: 27 November 2025
It is argued that intuitions are saturated, whereas concepts are unsaturated. Intuitions have no gaps in them and cannot receive more intuitive content. Kant’s correspondence with J. S. Beck is brought in to substantiate that this was indeed Kant’s view. While intuitions represent perspectivally and under various limitations, one perception of x does not represent x more determinately than another perception of x. Because of their relational character, intuitions are in a way as “specific” as they can be, even if they can be “illuminated” further through perspectival transformations. After all, there cannot be successor intuitions that are more detailed or that cover more territory without other intuitive content being lost. What is thought through a concept, by contrast, cannot merely be illuminated, or clarified. Rather, to a concept of x, more conceptual content can always be added, so that a more determinate or specific concept of x is formed, in accordance with a more detailed or finer description of a perceived scene, or a target object in such a scene.
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