Studies in History and Philosophy of Science 56 (2016) 20e32

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Studies in History and Philosophy of Science

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Helmholtz’s Kant revisited (once more). The all-pervasive nature of

Helmholtz’s struggle with Kant’s Anschauung
Liesbet De Kock
Center for Logic and Philosophy of Science, Department of Philosophy and Moral Sciences, Free University of Brussels, Pleinlaan 2, Brussels, Belgium

a r t i c l e i n f o a b s t r a c t

Article history: In this analysis, the classical problem of Hermann von Helmholtz’s (1821e1894) Kantianism is explored
Received 30 January 2015 from a particular vantage point, that to my knowledge, has not received the attention it deserves
Received in revised form notwithstanding its possible key role in disentangling Helmholtz’s relation to Kant’s critical project. More
16 October 2015
particularly, we will focus on Helmholtz’s critical engagement with Kant’s concept of intuition
Available online 23 November 2015
[Anschauung] and (the related issue of) his dissatisfaction with Kant’s doctrinal dualism. In doing so, it
soon becomes clear that both (i) crucially mediated Helmholtz’s idiosyncratic appropriation and criticism
Keywords:
of (certain aspects of) Kant’s critical project, and (ii) can be considered as a common denominator in a
Immanuel Kant;
Hermann von Helmholtz;
variety of issues that are usually addressed separately under the general header of (the problem of)
Intuition; Helmholtz’s Kantianism. The perspective offered in this analysis can not only shed interesting new light
Perception on some interpretive issues that have become commonplace in discussions on Helmholtz’s Kantianism,
but also offers a particular way of connecting seemingly unrelated dimensions of Helmholtz’s engage-
ment with Kant’s critical project (e.g. Helmholtz’s views on causality and space). Furthermore, it amounts
to the rather surprising conclusion that Helmholtz’s most drastic revision of Kant’s project pertains to his
assumption of free will as a formal condition of experience and knowledge.
Ó 2015 Elsevier Ltd. All rights reserved.

When citing this paper, please use the full journal title Studies in History and Philosophy of Science

1. Introduction analysis, this classical problem will be explored from a particular

Hermann von Helmholtz’s intellectual relation to Immanuel
Kant has since long been considered as a philosophical problem
in itself. The issue is as obstinate as it is multifaceted, but
nevertheless decisive in trying to get a firm grasp of Helmholtz’s
philosophy of science, his theory of space (and time), his
approach to (perceptual) experience and other central themes in
his work. Given this vital importance, the vast amount of liter-
ature and the ongoing debates on the nature and purport of
Helmholtz’s Kantianism are hardly surprising.1 In the present
E-mail address: Liesbet.dekock@vub.ac.be.
1
During Helmholtz’s lifetime and soon after, a number of monographs appeared
entitled “Helmholtz und Kant” (see for example Goldschmidt, 1898; Krause, 1878;
Schwertschlager, 1883). Scholarly interest in the subject at hand persists up to
this day (e.g., Hatfield, 1990; and more recently in Disalle, 2006; Friedman, 2009;
Hyder, 2006; Lenoir, 2006; Meulders, 2010; Neuber, 2012; Oberdan, 2015;
Schiemann, 2009).
vantage point that, to my knowledge, has not received the
attention it deserves notwithstanding its possible key role in
disentangling Helmholtz’s relation to Kant. More particularly, we
will focus on Helmholtz’s critical engagement with Kant’s
concept of intuition [Anschauung] and (the related issue of) his
dissatisfaction with Kant’s doctrinal dualism. In doing so, it soon
becomes clear that both (i) crucially mediated Helmholtz’s idio-
syncratic appropriation and criticism of (certain aspects of)
Kant’s critical project, and (ii) can be considered as a common
denominator in a variety of issues that are usually addressed
separately under the general header of (the problem of) Helm-
holtz’s Kantianism. In short, the perspective offered in this
analysis can not only shed interesting new light on some inter-
pretive issues that have become commonplace in discussions on
Helmholtz’s Kantianism, but also offers a particular way of con-
necting seemingly unrelated dimensions of Helmholtz’s

http://dx.doi.org/10.1016/j.shpsa.2015.10.009
0039-3681/Ó 2015 Elsevier Ltd. All rights reserved.
 L. De Kock / Studies in History and Philosophy of Science 56 (2016) 20e32
engagement with Kant’s critical project (e.g. Helmholtz’s views
on causality and space).2
The analysis will be structured as follows:
(i) In Section 2, the relation between Helmholtz’s anti-
metaphysical stance and his criticism of Kant’s concept of
Anschauung is considered. First, an analysis is presented of
the way in which the alleged restrictive character of Kant’s
analysis of pure intuition invited the return of intellectual
intuition in post-Kantian idealism according to Helmholtz. In
doing so, Helmholtz’s empiricist epistemology and his
nativist interpretation of the a priori are pinpointed as crucial
mediating factors in this criticism (Section 2.1). Second,
Helmholtz’s criticism of the immediacy criterion of Kantian
intuition is explored (Section 2.2).
(ii) Next, the physiological basisdi.e., the appropriation of
Johannes Müller’s Law of Specific Nerve Energiesdof Helm-
holtz’s epistemology in general, and of his rejection of the
metaphysical hypothesis of pre-established harmony is out-
lined (Section 3).
(iii) In Section 4, Helmholtz’s twofold response to the alleged
flaws in Kant’s theory of intuition (as discussed in Section 2)
are analyzed within the context of his theory of perception,
namely his self-professed “resolution of the concept of
intuition into the elementary processes of thought”
(Helmholtz, 1995 [1878b], 364) on the one hand, and his
“redrawing of the border” that “Kant had drawn between
the facts of experience and the forms of intuition”
(Helmholtz, 1995 [1892], 407) on the other.3 This entails
that we will subsequently go into Helmholtz’s attempt to (a)
overcome the heterogeneity of sensibility and thought by
inserting the hypothesis of unconscious inference as a ter-
tium quid between both (Section 4.1), and (b) reconfigure
the Kantian borderline between the formal and the material
conditions of experience, particularly in the context of his
account of spatial perception (Section 4.2). As will be
explained, these revisions ultimately amounted to an
emphasis on the role of the category of causality and the
possibility of voluntary action as a priori conditions of
possibility for perceptual objectification.
(iv) In conclusion, some final remarks and a general summary are
presented (Section 5).
2. Intuition and metaphysics: post-Kantian aberrations
As is clear from the vast amount of secondary literature on the
subject, the challenges presented by any attempt to disentangle
the exact nature and purport of Helmholtz’s relation to Kant’s
critical philosophy are numerous and not easily overcome.4
2 expresses itself depends, of course, essentially on the type of apparatus which is
To be sure, discussions on Helmholtz’s physiological interpretation of Kant’s
forms of intuition or his criticism of Kant’s analysis of spatial intuition (see Section
4) are anything but scarce. However, this analysis argues that these specific debates
should be placed against the background of Helmholtz’s more generalized and far
reaching concern for the systematic role of what Kant called ‘intuition’ in the
genesis of perception [Wahrnehmung], defined as “representations [Vorstellungen]
of the existence, form and position [Existenz, Form und Lage] of external objects
[äusserer Objecte]” and knowledge [Wissen] (Helmholtz, 1856/66 [1867], 427; for
Helmholtz’s definition of ‘Wissen’, see Section 4.1). Furthermore, analyses of the
specific dimensions of Helmholtz’s reception of Kant only rarely take into account
Helmholtz’s related criticism of Kant’s doctrinal dualism, while this had profound
consequences for his idiosyncratic appropriation of certain aspects of Kant’s critical
project (see Section 4).
3
English translations of Helmholtz’s popular lectures are from Cahan (1995) and
Luft (2015), except when otherwise indicated.
4
See footnote 2.
21
Based on Helmholtz’s statements, however, it is fairly safe to
claim that he was at least sympathetic towards (and inspired by)
the general project of Kant’s Transcendental Aesthetic, famously
defined by the latter as “the science of all principles of a priori
sensibility” (Kant, Critique of Pure Reason (CPR in what follows)
[A21/B35], Kant, 1998). That is to say, Helmholtz was a self-
professed Kantian in accepting the general thesis that “every
content of our representation is necessarily taken up” by the “so-
called transcendental forms of intuition and though, given a
priori to any experience” (Helmholtz, 1896, 584 [my translation]),
thus rejecting a realistic correspondence view of perceptual ob-
jectivity.5 In his monumental Treatise on Physiological Optics
[Handbuch der Physiologischen Optik] Helmholtz even claimed
that “the most essential step” in the analysis of the nature of
perceptual experience was taken by “Kant in his Critique of Pure
Reason” in which perception is established as “an effect produced
on our sensitive faculty [.] being just as dependent on what
causes the effect as on the nature of that on which the effect is
produced” (Helmholtz, 1925 [1856/1866], 36).6 Notwithstanding
Helmholtz’s peculiar physiological interpretation of the a priori
(as discussed in Section 3), he repeatedly praised Kant’s critical
shift away from what we might call naïve objectivism, towards
the investigation of the a priori subjective conditions of experi-
ence and knowledge.7 However, Helmholtz was also notoriously
ambivalent towards Kant’s transcendental project, which is
especially clear when focusing on his idiosyncratic appropriation
and critical appraisal of Kant’s notion of intuition defined most
generally by the latter as that (a) by virtue of which “a cognition
is immediately [unmittelbar] related to an object” (the ‘imme-
diacy criterion’) (CPR [A19/B33]) and (b) as the antipode of
(conceptually mediated) thought.8
As is well-known, Helmholtz was not the first (and certainly not
the last) to critically engage with this key concept of Kant’s Cri-
tiques.9 One of the most obvious obstacles to our endeavor has to
do with the continuing disagreements on the precise meaning and
systematic place of Anschauung in Kant’s thought; a difficulty that
is exacerbated by Helmholtz’s failure to consistently state his
precise understanding of the term as it appears across different
argumentative contexts in his work.10 As it is our primary aim to
gain insight into the way in which Helmholtz articulated the
general epistemological principles underlying his theory of
perception in and through a polemic with (his understanding of)
Kant’s theory of intuition, however, we needn’t go into all of the
particular details and intricate discussions surrounding Kant’s
5
In this section, we abstract from Helmholtz’s peculiar physiological interpre-
tation of the a priori, which is discussed in Section 3. For now, we will focus most
generally on Helmholtz’s reception of Kant’s concept of (pure) intuition. For
Helmholtz’s rejection of the naïve correspondence view, see Section 3.
6
Also see Helmholtz (1995 [1878a], 347): “Our sensations are precisely effects
produced by external causes in our organs, and the manner in which one such effect
affected”.
7
See for example CPR [A20/B34-35]: “[T]he pure form of sensible intuitions in
general is to be encountered in the mind a priori, wherein all of the manifold of
appearances is intuited in certain relations. This pure form of sensibility itself is also
called pure intuition”.
8
For a further exploration of the heterogeneity of intuition and thought in Kant’s
theorizing, see Section 2.1.
9
In the context of this discussion, the analyses of Kant’s intuition as put forward
some decades ago by Hintikka (1969, 1972), Thompson (1972) and Parsons (1983)
are especially worth mentioning.
10
Helmholtz discussed the Kantian notion of intuition in the context of his crit-
icism of metaphysics (see Sections 2.1 and 2.2), his physiological interpretation of
Johannes Müller’s Law of Specific Nerve Energies (see Section 3), and his theory of
spatial perception (and perception in general) (see Section 4). These are the rele-
vant argumentative contexts for this analysis.
22 L. De Kock / Studies in History and Philosophy of Science 56 (2016) 20e32
original formulation. Rather, in the next sections, we will focus
especially on (the factors mediating) Helmholtz’s reception of
Kant’s theory of Anschauung, and on the way in which the latter,
according to him, suffered from some crucial flaws that had
“disastrous [verhängnissvoll] consequences for the metaphysical
aspirations of his successors” (Helmholtz, 2010 [1887], 1). More
particularly, Helmholtz objected to (1) the alleged overly restric-
tive character of Kant’s analysis of pure intuition [reine
Anschauung] on the one hand, and to (2) the immediacy criterion
of intuition on the other. Both will be discussed in what follows,
with the aim of getting a firm grasp of the more general concerns
underlying Helmholtz’s rejection of particular aspects of Kant’s
concept of intuition.
2.1. Helmholtz on the restrictive character of pure intuition and the
return of intellectual intuition
During his entire career, Helmholtz vehemently opposed the ab-
solute idealist metaphysical systems that were fashionable in the
nineteenth century.11 One of the defining features of the post-Kantian
tradition in philosophy was the rejection of Kant’s doctrinal dual-
ismdi.e., the assumed heterogeneity between the two faculties of
knowledge, sensibility and understanding, and their associated
functions, intuition and conceptdand the correlative rehabilitation
of what Kant had called ‘intellectual intuition’ [intellectuale
Anschauung].12 As such, Kant’s successors overthrew one of the most
central assumptions of Kant’s critical project, i.e., the generic differ-
ence between the ‘two stems of knowledge’.13 Although Kant
famously determined every cognition to be the result of a synthetic
actda reciprocal determination of the passive, receptive and the
active, spontaneous side of the mind [Gemüth]dhe also considered
both faculties to be fundamentally heterogeneous, and mutually
exclusive.14 “These two faculties,” Kant specified, “cannot exchange
their functions. The understanding is not capable of intuiting [.] and
the senses are not capable of thinking” (CPR [A51/B75]). An important
epistemological consequence of this doctrinal dualism was Kant’s
rejection of so-called ‘intellectual intuition’ as a legitimate source of
knowledge, and his a priori delimitation of possible knowledge as the
necessary synthetical product of conceptual thought and (non-
11
See for example Helmholtz (1995 [1853, 1862, 1869, 1877a, 1877b, 1892]).
Helmholtz’s anti-metaphysical attitude manifested itself first and foremost in his
attempts to scientifically refute vitalism in the life sciences. This endeavor culmi-
nated in his 1847 paper On the Conservation of Force [Über die Erhaltung der Kraft],
which provided a strong argument against the relevancy of the concept of life force
[Lebenskraft] in the context of the study of organic (and inorganic) nature (see De
Kock, 2014c; Finger & Wade, 2002a, 2002b).
12
The notion reappeared as a central concept in the works of Hegel, Schelling and
Fichte, for example, who considered it to be a legitimate source of knowledge,
although they all revised and transformed the concept in their own way. For dis-
cussions on the fate of Kant’s intellectual intuition in post-Kantian philosophy, see
for example Ameriks (2000) and Mensch (2009). The rejection of Kant’s doctrinal
dualism within post-Kantian philosophy is well documented and discussed in the
secondary literature; a particularly insightful analysis of this issue is offered in
Guyer (2000).
13
CPR [A15/B29]: “[T]here are two stems of human cognition, which may perhaps
arise from a common but to us unknown root, namely sensibility and under-
standing, through the first of which objects are given to us, but through the second
of which they are thought”.
14
See for example CPR [A258/B314]: “Understanding and sensibility can deter-
mine an object only in combination”. From his basic dualistic scheme, Kant derived
his ‘chart [Stufenleiter] of representations’: “The genus is representation as such
(repraesentatio). Under it stands representation with consciousness (perceptio). A
perception that refers to the subject as the modification of its state, is a sensation
(sensatio); an objective perception is cognition (cognitio). The latter is either an
intuition or a concept (intuitus vel conceptus). The former is immediately related the
object and is singular; the latter is mediate, by means of a mark, which can be
common to several things” (CPR [A320/B377]). Also see Kant (1992 [1800], x1).
conceptual) sensible intuition.15 Although he deemed archetypical or
intuitive understanding “distinct from sensibility and wholly inde-
pendent of it” to be logically possible, he also maintained that it “lies
absolutely outside the faculty of cognition” (Kant, 2007 [1790], x77,
CPR [A252/B309]).16 Hence, Kant considered every judgment made by
means of such a ‘superhuman intellect’ to be logically subreptivedi.e.,
the result of an application of the categories beyond the limits of
possible experiencedand therefore essentially problematic.17
A first hallmark of Helmholtz’s engagement with the concept of
intuition is his affirmation of Kant’s thesis concerning the insur-
mountable problematic character of intellectual intuition. In 1853,
he rejected all philosophical analyses of nature based upon “the
direct intuition of the inner eye [unmittelbaren geistigen
Anschauung],” or on the credo that “[n]ature has no secrets from the
attentive observer” (Helmholtz, 1995 [1853], 8-9). With this criti-
cism, Helmholtz especially targeted thinkers such as Hegel, Scho-
penhauer and Schiller, but also Goethe, who according to him,
attempted to reveal the secrets of nature by appealing to nothing but
a certain intellectual “aperçu, an intuition [Gewahrwerden]”
(Helmholtz, 1995 [1853], 9) that can neither be proved, nor refuted
by experience (Helmholtz, 1995 [1862], 80). This philosophical
methodology, according to Helmholtz, transformed the natural
realm into a delirious universe of “psychological anthropomor-
phisms” and lead “scientific men” to condemn philosophy altogether
as a sort of “mischievous dreaming” [schädliche Träumerei]
(Helmholtz, 1995 [1877a], 314, 1995 [1862], 80).18 In sharp contrast
with these philosophical systems, Helmholtz held that “[A] meta-
physical conclusion is either a false conclusion or a concealed
experimental conclusion” (Helmholtz, 1995 [1877a], 326). The
concept of ‘intuition’, as Helmholtz used it in these argumentative
contexts, thus denotes the sort of intellectual receptivity Kant firmly
rejected based on his strict doctrinal dualism, i.e., the divine ability
to perceive truths immediately through an ‘inner eye’ as Helmholtz
called it (Helmholtz, 1995 [1877a], 324). In his work, Helmholtz
denounced this resurrection of what Kant had once called intellec-
tual intuitiond“a mere phantom of the brain” (Kant, 1997 [1821],
122)dbut surprisingly, he added that this revival was instigated first
and foremost by the alleged flaws in Kant’s analysis of pure intuition,
and more specifically, by the latter’s identification of space (as the
pure form of outer intuition) with the Euclidian axioms.19
15
See for example Kant, 1997 [1821], 421: “[I]ntellectual intuition [.], i.e. the
possibility that purely intellectual a priori concepts [.] rest on immediate intuition
of the understanding: this mystical hypothesis [.] assumed that the understanding
could operate like the senses, having pure intuitions [.] [H]owever the faculty of
intuition, which rather applies to the senses alone, cannot be attributed to the
understanding”. In this regard, also see Kant (2007 [1790], x77-80).
16
It was precisely this idea of archetypical understanding that Goethe would later
embracedthereby explicitly appealing to Kant’s definition of the termdas a
legitimate source of knowledge. More particularly, Goethe (1983, 31) firmly upheld
the methodological ideal of “intuitive perception [Anschauende Urteilskraft] of
eternally creative nature” or “divine reason” that puts one in direct (unmediated)
contact with the essence of nature.
17
See for example Kant CPR [A255/B310]: “[W]e have no intuitiondindeed, not
even the concept of a possible intuitiondthrough which objects can be given to us
outside the realm of sensibility, and through which the understanding can be used
assertorically beyond sensibility”. For Kant on the fallacy of subreption, see for
example CPR [A260-92].
18
Helmholtz disliked Hegel’s metaphysical in particular, and thought of it as a
prototypical example of the way in which the old hypothesis of pre-established
harmony pervaded Absolute Idealism (see especially Helmholtz, 1995 [1862], 78).
19
See CPR [A19/B33] ff. In formulating this criticism, Helmholtz frequently
attacked what he called Kant’s transcendental intuition [transcendentale
Anschauung] (Helmholtz, 1995 [1877a], 186). It is important to note that this
composite term is not commonplace in Kant’s Critiques. As will become clear in this
paragraph, however, Helmholtz used the term to refer to Kant’s analysis of pure
intuition, i.e., his transcendental determination of the a priori conditions of sensi-
bility, as presented in the latter’s Transcendental Aesthetic.
 L. De Kock / Studies in History and Philosophy of Science 56 (2016) 20e32
As will be discussed in what follows, Helmholtz argued that
Kant’s ‘restricted’ theory of spatial intuition could be taken to imply
the metaphysical hypothesis of pre-established harmony [prästabi-
lirte Harmonie], and as such, that Kant might have unwillingly
paved the way for a blurring of the critical boundaries between the
a priori and the a posteriori aspects of experience and knowledge in
post-Kantian idealism.20 An analysis of this dimension of Helm-
holtz’s Kant criticism is therefore in order, not only because this is a
dimension of Helmholtz’s Kant reception that has not received the
attention it deserves, but moreover, because it is hard to square
with Kant’s explicit rejection of the Leibnizian hypothesis of pre-
established harmony, i.e., the assumption that subject and object
correspond with each other like “two clocks or watches which
perfectly agree” (Leibniz, 2004 [1695], 77).21
Before proceeding, however, two things should be made clear.
First, Helmholtz’s objection to the metaphysical hypothesis of
pre-established harmonydas it was implied in Kant’s analysis of
pure intuition, according to himdis not to be confused with his
epistemological anti-objectivism, for which he found an ally in
Kant. Given both Helmholtz’s and Kant’s emphasis on the
determining role of subjective constitution and the related claim
that no object can be known apart from a knower’s activity, both
vehemently rejected the possibility (or even the intelligibility) of
a pre-representational similarity between the content of our
representations and the thing-in-itself. While Kant famously
maintained that space is “merely the form of outer intuition, but
not a real object that can be externally intuited” (CPR [A431/
B459]), Helmholtz argued that “space perceptions are signs of
otherwise unknown relations in the world of reality, though we
may not assume any sort of similarity between the sign and what
is signified” (Helmholtz, 2015 [1878a], 34). This anti-objectivist
thesis founded Helmholtz’s semiotic understanding of the epis-
temological relationdthat will be further explored in Section
3dbetween sensations and their objects and his critical
distinction between the Actual [Wirklichkeit] or reality-as-
representation and the Real [Reale] or unknowable, mind-
independent reality.22
Second, it is important to point out that Helmholtz’s criticism of
Kant’s theory of space was restricted in scope. That is to say, he did
not object to Kant’s a priori conception of space per se, but rather to
the “peculiarities [Specialbestimmungen] of the scheme”, i.e., the
identification of space in general with the metric system of
Euclidian geometry (1995 [1870], 226).23 Helmholtz thought of
20
See for example Helmholtz (1995 [1870], 245, 2015 [1878a], 35).
21
See for example CPR [A275/B331].
22
See Helmholtz (1896 [1878b]), p. 241: “We have in our language a very fortu-
nate designation for that which, [.] permanently influences us [auf uns einwirkt],
namely: the actual [das Wirkliche]. Herein only the acting [das Wirken] is
expressed; it is not related to existence as substance [bestehen als Substanz], which
is included in the concept of the real, i.e. the thinglike”. This resonates with Kant’s
distinction between the Real (the first category of quality) as “[.] the transcen-
dental matter of all objects as things-in-themselves” (CPR, [A143/B182]]), and Ac-
tuality (the second category of modality) as that which is “[.] connected with the
material conditions [i.e., everything provided through sensibility] for experience”
(CPR [A218]). Unfortunately, the important distinction is not always respected by
translators of Helmholtz’s work. In David Cahan’s 1995 translation of the above
quote passage, for example, the term ‘Real’ is used for both Helmholtz’s Wirklichkeit
and his Realität (see Helmholtz, 1995 [1878b], 361].
23
For Helmholtz’s criticism of Kant’s theory of space, see especially Helmholtz
(1883 [1878a], 1995 [1870, 1878b], 1896), for his objections to Kant’s identifica-
tion of time with the axioms of arithmetic, see Helmholtz (2010 [1887]). At this
point, we are faced with one of the most fiercely discussed dimensions of Helm-
holtz’s Kant reception, i.e., his refutation of the aprioricity of the Euclidian axioms.
Hatfield’s (1990) monograph on this topic has become standard literature in this
respect. However, up to this day, different analyses appear on the purport and scope
of Helmholtz’s refutation of Kant’s theory of space (see for example Neuber, 2012).
23
“Kant’s theory of the a priori forms of intuition” as “a very apt and
clear expression of the relation of things”, but added that
[T]hese forms must be without content and sufficiently free to
assume any content which could generally enter into the con-
cerned form of perception. [.] Kant has here, in his Critique, not
been critical enough. (Helmholtz, 1995 [1878b], 380)
At another point in time, Helmholtz reiterated this claim, when he
stated that:
His [Kant’s] Kritik der reinen Vernunft is a continual sermon
against the category of thought beyond the limits of possible
experience. But geometry seemed to him to do something
which metaphysics was striving after; and hence geometrical
axioms, which he looked upon as a priori principles [.] he held
to be given by transcendental intuition [.]. Since that time,
pure a priori intuition has been the anchoring-ground of
metaphysicians. It is even more convenient than pure thought,
because everything can be heaped on it without going into
chains of reasoning [.]. (Helmholtz, 1995 [1878b], 324)
So in Helmholtz’s opinion, the alleged restrictive character of Kant’s
theory of space is directly related todor even inviteddthe trans-
gressive use of the faculty of intuition in post-Kantian metaphysics:
“If such a system [Euclidian geometry] were to be taken as a
transcendental form of intuition,” he claimed, “there must be
assumed a pre-established harmony between form and reality”
(Helmholtz, 1995 [1870], 245). Helmholtz therefore famously
concluded that he found Kant’s analysis of pure intuition
‘completely inoffensive’, but contended that, “space can be tran-
scendental without the axioms being so” (Helmholtz, 1995 [1878b],
369).24
So if it is not Kant’s anti-objectivism or his thesis concerning the
aprioricity of space in general what is at stake, then, in Helmholtz’s
objection of pre-established harmony, and how could he possibly
interpret Kant’s transcendental analysis of space as a possible heir
of the Leibnizian thesis that “[t]he series of representations that the
soul produces in itself will naturally correspond to the series of
changes in the universe itself” (Leibniz, 2004 [1695], 74-75)? As will
be explained in what follows, the link Helmholtz draws between
Kant’s analysis of space and the hypothesis of pre-established har-
mony was crucially mediated by his empiricist philosophy of sci-
ence on the one hand, and his nativist interpretation of the a priori
on the other.
In criticizing the alleged metaphysical superstructure of Kant’s
theory of space, Helmholtz (1883 [1878a], 2015 [1878a]) presented
a thought experiment, that starts out with the following thesis:
even if one would assume that the Euclidian axioms are a priori in
the sense that they are the necessary form of intuition in which
every possible empirical content is taken updwhich Helmholtz
denied (see Section 4.2)dtheir validity is to be established empir-
ically (Helmholtz, 2015 [1878a]; also see Helmholtz, 1995 [1870]).
In other words, even if it is in fact the case that we have a “pure
geometry grounded solely on transcendental intuition,” Helmholtz
argued, “we should [.] insure its physical applicability to the
space-relations of physical bodies,” so that “magnitudes which
appear to us as equal in transcendental intuition are also to be
recognized as physically equal” (Helmholtz, 2015 [1878a], 31). So
24
Helmholtz (2015 [1878a], 27) explained his distinction between space in gen-
eral and its special determinations by means of a comparison with color percep-
tion: “To cite a parallel instance, it undoubtedly lies in the organization of our
optical apparatus that everything we see can be seen only as a spatial distribution
of colors. This is the innate form of our visual perceptions. But it is not in the least
thereby predetermined how the colors we see shall coexist in space and follow one
another in time”.
24 L. De Kock / Studies in History and Philosophy of Science 56 (2016) 20e32
even when bracketing the question as to whether or not Euclid’s
axioms structure our representations of spatial relations a priori,
their validity, according to Helmholtz, is to be determined by
establishing their agreement with the results of physical geometry,
i.e., the system of geometry as constructed by means of “mea-
surement with physical instruments” (Helmholtz, 2015 [1878a],
30). Logically, such an inquiry could yield two possible conclusions:
(1) There is no agreement between the a priori structure of
transcendental intuition and physical geometry. In that case,
Helmholtz argues, “transcendental intuition becomes
reduced to an objectively false show [Sinnestaüschung/
Objectiv Falschen Scheines],” i.e., “the relations between the
appearance and reality would be such that [.] the repre-
sentation would be false”. In that case, Helmholtz added, we
would constantly have to “free ourselves” from transcen-
dental intuition (Helmholtz, 2015 [1878a], p.32).
(2) It is empirically determined that there is in fact an agreement
between the form of transcendental intuition and the con-
clusions of physical geometry. In this case, Helmholtz went
on to explain, this would entail that (a) “not only the form
but also the content of empirical knowledge” is determined a
priori, which not only “contradicts Kant’s principles”,
(Helmholtz, 1995 [1878b], 375) but more importantly, this
would imply (b) there is an a priori agreement between the
subjective laws of our power of representation and the laws
of nature, or a pre-established harmony between “form and
reality” (Helmholtz, 1995 [1870], 245) or between “intuition
and the world” (Helmholtz, 2015 [1878a], 35).
So while Helmholtz praised Kant for his “rejection of the claims
of pure thought”, he also maintained that Kant’s theory of pure
intuition, with its special determinations [Specialbestimmungen],
“allowed one way to escape” (Helmholtz, 1995 [1877a], 323). In
Helmholtz’s view, the alleged flaws in the demarcation of a poste-
riori and the a priori elements in Kant’s theory of space invited the
further inflation of our alleged intuitive capabilities in post-Kantian
idealism, and the progressive assimilation of the factual and the a
priori elements of cognition in post-Kantian philosophy.25 As a
consequence, Helmholtz claimed, ‘transcendental intuition’
became a breeding ground for “the empty manufacture of hy-
potheses” [leeren Hypothesenmachen] rooted in “sudden mental
flashes” [plötzliche Geistesblitze] and “a few clever strokes” [Blitze
der Genialität] (Helmholtz, 1995 [1877a], 321-322) in post-Kantian
Idealism. Therefore, Helmholtz believed that a refutation of Kant’s
transcendental analysis of space in terms of the axioms would be at
once a refutation of the possibility of metaphysics:
[A]s Kant’s Critique is otherwise hostile to all metaphysical
reasoning, his system seems to be freed from inconsistency and
a clearer notion of the nature of intuition is obtained, if the a
priori origin of the axioms is abandoned. (Helmholtz, 2015
[1878a], 28)
Hence, in refuting this dimension of Kant’s Transcendental Aesthetic,
Helmholtz not only believed he was correcting Kant “where he had
not been critical enough” (Helmholtz, 1995 [1878b], 380], he also
maintained that he closed the one gap in Kant’s theory of cognition
25
See for example Helmholtz (1995 [1870], 245): “As soon as certain principles of
mechanics are conjoined with the axioms of geometry, we obtain a system of
propositions which has real import, and which can be verified or overturned by
empirical observations, just as it can be inferred from experience. If such a system
were to be taken as a transcendental form of intuition and thought, there must be
assumed a pre-established harmony between form and matter”.
that served as the source for the post-Kantian metaphysical
aberrations:
[T]hat which we have considered as a noteworthy deficiency
[.] appears to those philosophers who have retained the ten-
dency to metaphysical speculation precisely that which is most
essential in Kant’s philosophy. In fact, Kant’s proof of the pos-
sibility of metaphysics [.] is based entirely on the opinion that
the geometrical axioms [.] may be transcendental, a priori
given theorems. (Helmholtz, 1995 [1878b], 364)
As already mentioned, however, it is hard to reconcile this
criticism with Kant’s explicit rejection of the hypothesis of pre-
established harmony, and with the efforts Kant did to distinguish his
transcendental project from the metaphysical views of Leibniz.26 To
be more specific, Kant emphasized the crucial difference between
his transcendental analysis of knowledge and a metaphysical one,
based upon transcendent principles. Whereas the former intends to
establish the objective validity of concepts and laws from their a
priori universal necessity with regard to the possibility of experi-
ence and knowledge (that is, their status as conditions of determi-
nability), the latter does so by appealing to a transcendent,
metaphysical principle. From a transcendental viewpoint,“the
apodictic certainty of all geometrical principles,” is grounded in
their necessity as “conditions of possibility for appearances” (CPR
[A24/B39]), and not in the metaphysical hypothesis of an original
correspondence between mind and matter established by the grace
of a divine being. Consequently, from a Kantian point of view, it is
very hard to make sense of the idea of a pre-established harmony
between a formal condition of possibility and an empirically deter-
mined state of affairs, or more generally, between the mind
[Gemüth] as the totality of transcendental powers [Vermögen] and
its objects, as the former is claimed to found the very possibility of
the latter.
In considering Helmholtz’s argument as sketched above, we
are met with some classical problems concerning his interpre-
tation of the a priori, that most probably mediated the link he
drew between Kant’s theory of space and the metaphysical hy-
pothesis of pre-established harmony. First of all, Helmholtz
maintained that the objective validity of concepts and laws can
only be established on empirical grounds, and as such, the
problem of validity in his theorizing is completely dissociated
from their subjective necessity as a priori conditions of experi-
ence and knowledge. This dissociationdand hence, the basic
premise of Helmholtz’s thought experiment as sketched above-
dis in itself unintelligible from a Kantian perspective, and it
suggests that Helmholtz did not fully grasp the nature of tran-
scendental methodology or transcendental argumentation. If we
add Helmholtz’s nativist interpretation of the a priori to
thisdi.e., his reading of Kant’s theory of space as a theory per-
taining to “the native forms of space-intuition” (Helmholtz, 2015
[1878a], 32), that is, to inborn aspects of a subject’s “mental and
corporeal ability” (Helmholtz, 1995 [1878b], 349)dthe objection
of pre-established harmony becomes less farfetched. If the a priori
is stripped from its formal status, and taken to denote an inborn
feature of our psychological ‘hardware’ that would moreover
correspond precisely with the results of physical geometry, this
could indeed be interpreted as suggesting a pre-representational
structural correspondence between the inborn laws of sensibility
and the laws of nature. If, on the other hand, it can be shown
that non-Euclidian spaces are empirically possible, then Kant’s
26
See especially CPR [A269/B325] ff.
 L. De Kock / Studies in History and Philosophy of Science 56 (2016) 20e32
thesis concerning the aprioricity of the axioms would do nothing
more than establish the illusory nature of our innate capacities.
In any case, in Helmholtz’s interpretation, the implications of
Kant’s thesis would inevitably vary somewhere in between a
rock and a hard place, i.e., between metaphysics and lurking
skepticism.27
2.2. Helmholtz on the immediacy criterion and Kant’s doctrinal
dualism
Helmholtz’s criticism of Kant’s theory of pure intuition was not
restricted to Kant’s Specialbestimmungen, however, but also tar-
geted Kant’s very definition of intuition as that through which “a
cognition is immediately [unmittelbar] related to an object” (CPR
[A19/B33]). This immediacy criterion was at the core of Kant’s
definition of intuition and determined intuition as “a representa-
tion such as would be dependent directly on the presence of the
object” (Kant, 2004 [1783], x8), and set it apart from conceptually
mediated thought. Helmholtz questioned this immediacy criterion,
and more importantly, Kant’s strong emphasis on the non-
conceptually mediated nature of intuition.28 On several occasions,
he criticized what he called “this older theory of intuition”, which,
according to him, “recognizes that as given by intuition whose
representation comes to consciousness immediately with the sense
impression and without recollection and effort” (Helmholtz, 1995
[1878b], 355). “According to philosophical terminology”, he
added, intuition is therefore considered to be the “antithesis to
thought, i.e., [.] the conscious comparison of ideas already ac-
quired” (Helmholtz, 1995 [1892], 396). Helmholtz thoroughly dis-
agreed with what he called this “stubborn and very widespread
prejudice” regarding the “interpretation of the concepts of intuition
[Anschauen] and of thought [Denken]”:
The term ‘thought’ is applied preferably to those conceptual
combinations wherein the person involved brings to mind in a
conscious manner the individual points from which the
conclusion can be drawn, tests them for their reliability and then
attaches them to the conclusion. On the other hand, one tends to
label as ‘intuition’ the formation of ideas in which only the
sensory input is perceived in a conscious manner and the idea of
the object leaps into consciousness [.] without any further
intermediate stages of the ideational cycle reaching awareness.
(Helmholtz, 1969 [1894], 253-254)
The last sentence of this quote suggests that Helmholtz inter-
preted the immediacy aspect of intuition in terms of the absence of
psychological mediation in the transition of mere sensation to ‘the
idea of the object’. In other words, Helmholtz took Kant’s imme-
diacy criterion to imply that the idea of an object, as an actual,
external presence, is given intuitively through mere passive
27
It is interesting to note that Hatfield (1993, 216) made a similar point with
regard to Helmholtz’s appropriation of the law of causality: “Helmholtz never
revealed an appreciation of the Kantian notion of a transcendental deduction of the
law. For him, there could be only one interpretation for the claim that the law was
both “a priori” and of guaranteed universal applicability: to treat it as innate and as
innately “corresponding” to an independent, objective world. But he could not
accept the law on these terms, for that would amount to postulating a “pre-
established harmony” between a principle of thought and a mind-independent
world [.]”. With respect to our analysis, we could say Helmholtz did not fully
grasp Kant’s transcendental argumentation for the a priori nature of spatial struc-
ture, which lead him straight to the hypothesis of pre-established harmony.
28
The exact meaning and purport of the so-called ‘immediacy criterion’ in Kant’s
theory of intuition is still a matter of debate. However, we will focus on Helmholtz’s
interpretation and not on the interpretive problems surrounding Kant’s original
formulation. In this respect, see especially the authors mentioned in footnote 10.
25
affection, thus seemingly taking Kant’s immediacy criterion to
indicate a sort of pre-critical, common-sense intuitionism or again,
nativism.29 Helmholtz’s psychologized understanding of the
immediacy criterion is confirmed by his statement that Kant un-
justly assumed intuition to be a “simple, not further reducible
mental process” (Helmholtz, 1995 [1878b], 353). The crux of
Helmholtz’s criticism thus pertained to the alleged absence of a
temporal dimension in Kant’s concept intuition, i.e., to the seem-
ingly unitary and indivisible nature of the psychological act by
means of which a perceiver establishes a cognitive relation with the
object.30 Or as Helmholtz wrote:
Kant condensed into one act, which he named intuition, all the
connecting links between pure sense perception and the for-
mation of ideas of the perceived, spatially extended object. This
plays a role for him [.] as if it were merely the result of a natural
mechanism [natürlichen Mechanismus] that could not be an
object of further philosophical and psychological investigations.
(Helmholtz, 1995 [1892], 394)
Helmholtz’s assimilation of the immediacy criterion of Kant’s
intuition with a ‘natural mechanism’ unjustly put Kant on a par
with nativism, the theory that, according to Helmholtz, assumes
that “complete ideas of objects are produced by [.] organic
mechanisms” (Helmholtz, 1995 [1878b], 357).31 In x26 of his Trea-
tise, Helmholtz indeed equated Kant’s theory of intuition with
Ewald Hering’s nativism, and went on to criticize the latter as a
naturalized version of the absolute idealist thesis of pre-established
harmony.32 Again, this could be taken to be a highly contentious
reading of Kant, for all the same reasons mentioned in the previous
section: it suggests a lack of appreciation of the difference between
the genetic and transcendental viewpoint and a correlative psy-
chologization of an abstract, formal criterion of experience. The
29
This kind of common-sense intuitionism was paradigmatically put forward by
Thomas Reid, for example, who claimed that sensations are natural signs for object,
so that “in perception, we are immediately cognizant of an external and extended
non-ego” (1852 [1788], 745). To be sure, Reid defined the relation of sensation to the
thing perceived in terms of denotation: sensation is to the perceived object what a
sign is to a thing signified. However, although he accepted the difference between
the act of perceiving and the thing to which it relates, Reid maintained that the
sensation-sign suggests its object by virtue of what he called a “natural kind of
magic” (Reid, 1852 [1764], 122). That is, he defended the idea that in perception, we
pass immediately from the sign to the thing signified by virtue of the natural
connection between sign and signification.
30
For Helmholtz’s views on the necessary temporal nature of sensible perception,
see for example Helmholtz in Koenigsberger (1902/1903, volume II, 129):
“Perception is the becoming conscious of a determinate sensation, i.e. a determi-
nate condition of our organs. A sensation can only be determined in opposition to
other sensations. [C]onsequently, there must be different parts (acts) of percep-
tion”. As a condition of possibility for this determination through differentiation,
contrast and comparison, Helmholtz points to the necessity of time.
31
For Helmholtz’s objections to nativism, especially as put forward by Ewald
Hering, see for example Helmholtz (1867 [1856/66], 442). A full discussion of the
nativism-empiricism debate falls outside the scope of this paper; in this respect, see
especially Turner (1994).
32
See Helmholtz (1924/25 [1856/66]), 17-19: “[T]he intuition theory [Nativisti-
sche Theorie] [.] simply plunges right into the midst of the matter by assuming
that certain perceptual images [.] would be produced directly by an innate
mechanism [.]. In its more recent development, especially as formulated by E.
Hering, there is an hypothetical subjective visual space, wherein the sensations of
the separate nerve fibres are supposed to be registered according to certain intui-
tive laws. Thus in this theory [.] Kant’s assertion is adopted [.]. Here we touch on
the much disputed point as to how far our ideas agree in the main with their ob-
jects [.]. Some have asserted that there is such an agreement, and others have
denied it. In favor of it, a pre-established harmony between nature and mind was
assumed [.]. The intuition theory [.] is connected with these views to the extent
that, by some innate mechanism and a certain pre-established harmony, it admits of
the origin of perceptual images”.
26 L. De Kock / Studies in History and Philosophy of Science 56 (2016) 20e32
immediacy criterion could be said to have a crucial limiting func-
tion in transcendental epistemology, as it denotes the a priori
possibility of unmediated sensory affection, and as such, limits
subjective spontaneity by establishing passivity experience as a
necessary condition for objective knowledge and experience. The
criterion does not, however, suggest a direct empirical relation
between sensation and the object inducing it, as Helmholtz con-
tended. Quite on the contrary, Kant explicitly stated that all that can
be said about sensation a priori is that it has a quantity (an intensive
magnitude, that indicates a degree of sensory affection s 0), while
its relation to certain objects is entirely an empirical matter. All that
sensation does, Kant emphasized, is provide the “subjective con-
sciousness of affection”.33 From this transcendental perspective,
the immediacy criterion of intuition guarantees the material aspect
of experience, i.e. that empirical consciousness relates to a Not-I.
This actually aligns well with Helmholtz’s (2015 [1845], 6-7)
claim that “perception is becoming conscious of a determinate
sensation, that is, a determinate state of our organs” that is not
produced through “the self-activity of our faculty of representa-
tion”, and thus “posited as independent of our self-activity, [.]
caused by something other, external to us, which we call matter”.34
In short: there seems to be no fundamental disagreement between
Kant and Helmholtz, as both claim that (a) an immediate, non-
subjectively produced increase in ‘intensive quantity’ (sensation)
is a defining feature of perception, as it guarantees a (possible)
relation to external objects, while (b) this relation itself is estab-
lished a posteriori. Once the formal criterion of immediacy is placed
in time, however, i.e. interpreted as an empirical statement con-
cerning (the lack of) a temporal process between sensation and
objective perception, it invites an interpretation along the lines of
pre-critical intuitionism and nativism. And this is, as we have seen,
exactly what Helmholtz does.
Before outlining Helmholtz’s twofold response to the alleged
flaws in Kant’s theory of intuition (Section 4), it is interesting to
further explore Helmholtz’s motives for rejecting the hypothesis of
pre-established harmony. As will be discussed in what follows, his
appropriation of Johannes Müller’sdHelmholtz’s teacher of phys-
iology in Berlin, and supervisor of his PhDdLaw of Specific Nerve
Energies [Getsetz der spezifischen Sinnesenergien] (LoSNE in what
follows) was of key importance in this respect. However, it played a
double argumentative role in his appraisal of Kant’s theory of
intuition.
3. Rethinking intuition: the role of Johannes Müller’s Law of
Specific Nerve Energies
As already mentioned in Section 2, Helmholtz found an ally in
Kant if it came to denying a pre-representational similarity be-
tween subject and object. “[R]epresentation and that which is
represented,” Helmholtz claimed accordingly, “belong to [.]
entirely different worlds, which have as little in common as the
letters of a book with the sound of the words which they signify
[.]” (Helmholtz, 1867 [1856/1866], 443). Helmholtz’s main
33
See CPR [A165/B208], ff.
34
(The evolution of) Helmholtz’s relation to subjective idealism is somewhat
more difficult to unravel than Kant’s, in this respect, see footnote 44. However,
Helmholtz did maintain until the end of his career that the perceptual process
crucially entails an inference to hypothesized real causes. Most notably, see
Helmholtz (2015 [1878a], 34): “In the world of reality there must be some causes or
aggregates of causes determining at what particular place in space an object shall
appear to us. These I will designate, for shortness, topogenous moments [.] We
know nothing of their nature [.]. Also there must be different causes in the sphere
of the real, when at the same place we think we perceive substances with different
qualities. I will call these hylogenous moments [.]”.
argument in favor of this fundamental subject-object discontinuity
was physiological in nature and derived from Müller’s LoSNE, that
stated that35
Sensation consists in the sensorium receiving through the me-
dium of the nerves [..] a knowledge of certain qualities or
conditions, not of external bodies, but of the nerves of sense
themselves; and these qualities of the nerves of sense are in all
different, the nerve of each sense having its own peculiar quality
of energy. (Müller, 1843 [1833/40], 717)
LoSNE established the quality of sensation (the particular nerve
energy involved) to be entirely determined by the physiological
makeup of the sensory apparatus, and thus, confined to the subject.
As such, it stated the case for sensory underdetermination, as according
to it, every sensation is completely underdetermined with regard to
its origin or cause.36 As Stumpf (1895, 4) expressed it: “[T]here arose
with Müller [.] the clear [.] consciousness of the incompatibility of
[.] psychological events in general, with the processes of the outer
world”.37 All that is given by the sensory apparatus is a world of
underdetermined nervous energies, i.e. qualities determined by the
specific sense organ involved, that are not inherently related to an
object. Indeed, Müller claimed, LoSNE implies that “all sensations
may be excited by internal causes independent of external stimuli”
(Müller, 1843 [1833/40]), xvi). As Helmholtz (1995 [1868], 173) put it,
when one takes into account the incongruities in the field of sensa-
tion, “[o]ne might almost believe that Nature had here contradicted
herself on purpose, in order to destroy any dream of a pre-existing
harmony between the outer and the inner world”.
LoSNE constituted the back bone of what Helmholtz called his
“physiological epistemology”, and more particularly, of his sign-
theory of sensation, i.e., his claim that sensations are not images
of, but signs or symbols for external objects, “whose special type
depends completely on our organization” (Helmholtz, 1995
[1878b], 348).38 As such, he considered Müller’s insight into the
subjective nature of the quality of sensation (as determined by our
physiological makeup) as an “an empirical statement of Kant’s
theoretical exposition with regard to the nature [.] of the human
faculty of knowledge” and as a confirmation of the “so-called
transcendental forms of intuition and thought” (Helmholtz, 1896,
35
In his Elements of Physiology [Handbuch der Physiologie des Menschen] Müller
articulated LoSNE by means of ten basic principles of sensible experience (Müller,
1843 [1833/40], 707-719). For an interesting discussion on Helmholtz’s intellec-
tual relation to his teacher Müller in general, and the impact of LoSNE on his
epistemology in particular, see Finger & Wade (2002a, 2002b).
36
Müller’s law, according to some, caused nothing less than an ‘epistemological
scandal’ as it lead to a complete dismantling of the ‘referential illusion’ (Crary,
1992). On this epochal nature of (the epistemological consequences of) LoSNE for
the science of physiology, also see Rachlin (2005) and Cassedy (2008).
37
It should be noted that Helmholtz not only adopted, but also empirically
confirmed and expanded LoSNE. In contrast to his teacher, who relied heavily on
rudimentary self-experimentation and self-observation, Helmholtz took LoSNE into
the lab, so to speak, and in doing so, succeeded in extending Müller’s case for
sensory specificity, by showing there is not only a modal difference in sensory
qualitiesdi.e., a difference across sensory systemsdas Müller argued, but likewise
a qualitative one, that applies to the sensations produced within a single sensory
system (Helmholtz, 1995 [1868, 1878b]). In this respect, also see (De Kock, 2014c).
38
More particularly, Helmholtz (1995 [1878b], 347) wrote: “Our sensations are
[.] effects produced by external causes in our organs, and the manner in which
one such effect expresses itself depends, of course, essentially on the type of
apparatus which is affected. Insofar as the quality of our sensation gives us infor-
mation about the peculiarity of the external influence stimulating it, it can pass for
a signdbut not for an image. For one requires from an image some sort of similarity
with the object [.]. A sign, however, need not have any type of similarity with
what it is a sign for”. For the centrality of LoSNE in Helmholtz’s work, also see
Helmholtz (1883 [1852], 1896 [1855], 1995 [1868, 1869, 1877a, 1878b, 1892]).
 L. De Kock / Studies in History and Philosophy of Science 56 (2016) 20e32
584 [my translation]).39 LoSNE seemed to provide empirical evi-
dence for Kant’s anti-objectivism, i.e. his claim that “we can have
cognition of no object as a thing in itself, but only [.] as an
appearance” (CPR [B XXVI]), as all possible experience is a priori
conditioned by our physiological makeup. With this Kantian
interpretation of LoSNE, Helmholtz set the stage for the (relatively
unknown) movement of physiological neo-Kantianism in the
nineteenth century.40 According to Helmholtz, Müller’s law dis-
proved once and for all that there is any “exact correspondence
between cause and effect” in sensory experience (Helmholtz, 1995
[1868], 150).
When focusing on the way in which LoSNE determined Helm-
holtz’s appraisal of Kant’s critical analysis of experience, however, it
soon becomes clear that it played a double argumentative role. On
the one hand, Helmholtz accepted LoSNE as an empirical confir-
mation of Kant’s anti-objectivism, or what we might call the
‘critique of immediacy’, i.e., the claim that “no object can count as
an object for a human knower, apart from the knower’s own ac-
tivity or spontaneity” (Baur, 2003, 91-92). On the other hand, the
case for sensory underdetermination prompted Helmholtz to
radicalize Kant’s critique of immediacy, or more particularly, to
question Kant’s immediacy criterion as he understood it, i.e., as a
psychological claim concerning the immediate, unanalyzable na-
ture of the relation between sensory affection and the idea of the
object.
In what follows, we will take a look at the way in which
Helmholtz’s critical engagement with the concept of intuition lead
him to conceptualize our sensible relation to objects as a tempo-
rally extended, psychological process mediated by (1) unconscious
inference and (2) voluntary movement. As will be clear from what
follows, this did not entail a rejection of the a priori altogether, but
rather a denial of the assumed heterogeneity between intuition and
thought and an emphasis on the role of autonomous action in the
constitution of the phenomenal world. Most generally, Helmholtz’s
revision of Kant came down to a redrawing of the borderline be-
tween the factual and the a priori elements of sensory experience,
and an analysis of the alleged ‘immediacy’ of intuition in terms of
unconscious psychological ideation. By now it should be clear
enough that this endeavor could be said to be based at least in part
39
Also see Helmholtz (1896 [1855] 98-99 [my translation]): “Johannes Müller’s
doctrine of specific nerve energies constitutes one of the most significant advances
in sense physiology in recent times. According to it, the quality of our sensations
[.] does not depend upon the perceived external objects, but on the sensory
nerves which mediate sensation. [.] Just the same what the physiology of the
senses has proven in recent times, Kant sought to prove earlier [.], by pointing out
the share that our [.] mental organization [Organisation des Geistes] has in the
formation of ideas [Vorstellungen]”.
40
With respect to the movement of physiological neo-Kantianism, that was
promoted by Helmholtz, Otto Liebmann and Friedrich Albert Lange, see for example
Ollig (1979), Schnädelbach (1984), Schmitz (1995), and Friedman (2006, 2009).
Notwithstanding its central position in his physiological epistemology, it should be
noted that Helmholtz’s Kantian interpretation of LoSNE might be considered to be
problematic for a couple of reasons. For one thing, Helmholtz’s ‘empirical confir-
mation’ of Kant’s analysis through LoSNE flies in the face of the letter of Kant’s first
Critique, where it is stated that “the quality of sensation is always merely empirical
and cannot be represented a priori at all” (CPR [A175/B217]). Second, we are faced
with the much debated issue of naturalizing the a priori. That is to say, Helmholtz’s
nativist interpretation of the a priori in terms of physiological organization trans-
forms it from a formal condition to an empirically verifiable fact. Hence, the ne-
cessity of the a priori as a constitutive condition of experience is dissolved into the
contingency of the empirical subject, which is why Kant (CPR, AIX) explicitly set this
kind of ‘physiology of understanding’ apart from his critical project. Therefore, this
kind of physiological neo-Kantianism was soon contested by members of the
Marburg School of neo-Kantianism (see especially Natorp, 1888 and Cohen, 1871).
For a recent discussion of the problems related to the attempt to naturalize the a
priori, see Patton (2009). Regarding the issues associated with any attempt to
naturalize Kantianism, see especially Allison’s (1995).
27
on a misunderstanding of the transcendental project. Although the
reasonableness of Helmholtz’s Kant interpretation is (and has been)
under discussiondand justly so considering his idiosyncratic
appropriation of the a prioridthis much debated question will be
largely suspended in what follows, in order to direct attention to
the role Helmholtz’s struggle with Kant’s concept of intuition
played in his analysis of the perceptual process.
4. Rethinking intuition: Helmholtz’s response
4.1. The unconscious as a tertium quid
In his attempt to overcome the assumption of an immediate
(sensible) relation to the world, and to redefine the role of intuition
in cognition in such a way that it could no longer invite the
metaphysical transgressions discussed above, Helmholtz (1995
[1878b], 364) first of all set himself the aim of resolving “the
concept of intuition into the elementary processes of thought,
which is still lacking in Kant”. First and foremost, this entailed a
broadening of the category of thought to include unconscious
ideation, which Helmholtz established as a tertium quid between
the classical concepts of intuition and thought.41 This enabled him
to account for at least part of that which appears to be intuitive and
unmediated in terms of thought processes based on previous
experience, while still doing justice to the phenomenal experience
of immediacy in perception.
Inserting the hypothesis of unconscious inference entails a
crucial transformation of Kant’s doctrinal dualism, as Helmholtz
claimed that “[T]he distinction [between intuition and thought]
consists essentially of this difference in becoming clearly conscious
of the intermediate stages which comprise the structure of logic in
the narrower sense” (Helmholtz, 1969 [1894], 254). As such, the
concepts of intuition and thought no longer denote heterogeneous
faculties of knowledge, but different stages in the becoming
conscious of what is essentially the same ideational process.
Helmholtz took inductive inferencedthe subsumption of particular
phenomena under experientially acquired laws or conceptsdas the
basic paradigm of what it is to think. Scientific as well as perceptual
understandingddiscursive Wissen [knowledge] and non-discursive
Kennen [cognizance]dare both founded in induction, according to
Helmholtz, but whereas the former proceeds according to the
logical principles of thought, the second unfolds in the opaqueness
of the unconscious and can therefore only be hypothesized to have
a quasi-logical structure Helmholtz (1867 [1856/1866], 430).42 In
perception too, he claimed, underdetermined sensation is related
to the object through unconscious inductive processes:
[W]e can never emerge from the world of our sensations to the
apperception of an external world, except by inferring from the
changing sensation that external objects are the causes of this
change. Once the idea of external objects has been formed, we
may not be concerned any more as to how we got this idea,
especially because the inference appears to be so self-evident
that we are not conscious of its being a new result.
(Helmholtz, 1925 [1856/1866], 32).
In the end, Helmholtz’s attempt to analyze the intermediate steps
of what Kant had allegedly ‘condensed into one act’ thus amounted
to an intellectualization of intuition: intuition thinks, albeit
41
See Helmholtz (1995 [1878b], 360): “If we take a sufficiently broad concept of
thought, [.] then everything that is added in the intuition to the raw material of
sensations can be resolved into thought”.
42
For Helmholtz’s distinction between knowledge and cognizance also see
Helmholtz (1969 [1894], 251, 1995 [1868], 198, 200).
28 L. De Kock / Studies in History and Philosophy of Science 56 (2016) 20e32
unconsciously. As a consequence of this hypothesis, the first steps
in a perceiver’s relation to the object ceases to be a function of
receptivity, but instead becomes the product of “our power of
representation [Vorstellungsvermögen]” or a “mental activity
[Psychische Thätigkeit]” (Helmholtz, 1995 [1868], 127).
The hypothesis of unconscious inference likewise allowed
Helmholtz to ascribe some of the philosophical insights apparently
generated by “sudden mental flashes” or intuitive understanding
(see Section 2), to the same unconscious process. In this context,
Helmholtz appealed to the example of “Goethe’s [.] discovery of
the vertebral structure of the skull in the course of finding a
crumbling sheep’s skull in the sand”, which Goethe ascribed to a
“sudden piece of luck”, but which, according to Helmholtz, was the
result of the unconscious combination of experientially derived
knowledge about the world (Helmholtz, 1995 [1892], 401). What is
at work in this case, according to Helmholtz, has nothing to do with
‘divine reason’, but everything with unconscious knowledge of law-
likeness. Through repeated experience of individual instances, he
argued, we gain knowledge of the law-like architecture of the
phenomenal world, however:
If the memory of these [individual examples of a law-like pro-
cess] disappears, then we also thereby lose the means of dis-
tinguishing the individual cases [.]. We retain knowledge of
the law-like, but lose sight of the individuality of the cases from
which our knowledge of the law derives; and ultimately, are
therefore unable to give an account [.] as to how we have come
to such knowledge. (Helmholtz, 1995 [1892], 397-398)
By virtue of the hypothesis of unconscious inference, Helmholtz
could reinterpret at least some metaphysical conclusions as “con-
cealed experimental conclusions”. However, as Helmholtz
acknowledged, his theory of perception as sketched above runs the
risk of being circular, as it cannot account for how a subject was first
able to form an idea of the object:
If there is to arise a connection between the idea [Vorstellung] of
an object [.] and sensations, we must already have the idea of
such a determined object. [.] What first enables us to pass from
the world of nervous sensations into the world of actuality [Welt
der Wirklichkeit]? (Helmholtz, 1896 [1855], 115 [my
translation])
At this point in his theorizing, Helmholtz famously took recourse to
Kant’s transcendental notion of causality. To solve the problem at
stake, he argued, we have to take “one last step [.] that will take us
back to Kant”:
We have to presuppose the presence of external objects as the
cause of our nervous excitation, because there can be no effect
without a cause. How do we know that there can be no effect
without a cause? Is it a law of experience [Erfahrungssatz]?
According to some, it is. But [.] we use the law to arrive [.] at
the insight that there are objects [.] in the first place [.]. In
this way, the inquiry into the nature of sense perception leads us
to the insight that Kant had already revealed: that the causal law
[.] is a law of thought, given prior to experience. (Helmholtz,
1896 [1855])
Peculiarly enough, Helmholtz thus attempted to solve the
problems caused by the physiological a priori of sensory under-
determination by resorting to another a priori, namely that of
causality. “Just as it is the particular activity of our eyes to experi-
ence light [.],” he claimed, “it is the peculiar activity of our un-
derstanding [Verstandes] [.] to search for causes” (Helmholtz
(1867 [1856/1866], 455). For Helmholtz, it is only “by virtue of”
the Denkform of causality that we are able to progress from
underdetermined sensations to their origin, and hence, he main-
tained that “[w]e cannot [.] experience [.] objects, if the law of
causality were not already operative in us” (Helmholtz (1867 [1856/
1866], 453).43
Helmholtz’s appropriation of the a priori at this point is not at all
without its difficulties. Ever since the publication of his work, two
problems in particular have dominated philosophical debates in
this respect, namely (1) his psychologized (or naturalized) under-
standing of the a priori as an inborn Trieb, and (2) the way in which
his views on causality evolved over the course of his career.44 In the
context of this analysis, however, we are especially interested in a
third issue that has been mostly discarded, but is at least as sig-
nificant. More specifically, Helmholtz’s insistence on the continuity
between intuition and thought affected the systematic place of a
priori causality. After all, the role of causality in Kant’s critical sys-
tem was crucially determined by his doctrinal dualism. That is to
say, in Kant’s system the law is a necessary condition for experience
to the extent that it guarantees the discursive unity of a sensory
manifold given through sensibility.45 As such, this discursive unity of
knowledge and experience provided by the a priori imposition of
causality logically presupposes an intuitive unity, i.e., it presupposes
that an appearance is given.46 Given Helmholtz’s blurring of the
boundaries between intuition and thought, the Kantian distinction
between the discursive and intuitive unity of experience becomes
superfluous. More importantly, however, it seems that in Helm-
holtz’s theory of the causal law becomes constitutive for what Kant
called intuition, defined as that through which an object is given in
43
It is important to mention that through the law of causality in Helmholtz’s
thought the subject indeed establishes a cognitive relation to the hypothesized real
conditions determining the law-like succession of sensations. However, this does
not mean that Helmholtz endorsed a naïve, causalist view of perception. Rather,
subjects produce the idea of a transcendent, mind-independent object as the cause
of sensations, while in Kantian terms, this concept remains nothing but an empty
ens rationis (a thing of reason), without an actual referent (CPR [A290/B347]). In the
same vein, the law-like succession of sensations evokes the idea of a stable cause or
provides the occasion for the generation of the empty concept of Reality as cause,
while this does not necessarily imply a robust metaphysical realism. Indeed,
Helmholtz confirms that he takes the reduction of phenomena to “a variety of Real
conditions [reellen Bedingungen]” to be a condition of comprehensibility, but, he
adds: “We do not know anything about these very conditions, about the actual Real
[eigentlich Reelle], that underlies appearances; all opinions [Meinungen] that we
entertain in this respect are to be considered as [.] probable hypotheses. The
preceding presumption [i.e. of the causal structure of understanding], however, is a
fundamental law of our thought [Grundgesetz unseres Denkens]; if we were to give
it up, we would thereby repudiate our very capacity to think conceptually about
these relations [diese Verhältnisse denkend begreifen zu können]. I emphasize that
we do not make any assumptions about the nature of the conditions under which
our representations arise. The hypothesis of subjective idealism [.] could be just as
admissible as the realistic perspective. We could assume all our perceiving to be but
a dream [.]” (Helmholtz, 1883 [1878a], 656 [my translation]). As I discussed in my
De Kock (2014a), however, Helmholtz articulated this precise position only later on
in his career, presumably as a result of his polemic with Land.
44
Although Helmholtz frequently stated that the causal law is logical in character,
his choice of terminology indicates a quite explicit psychological understanding of
causality. In 1867, for example, he described it as an “urge [Trieb] of our thought
[Verstandes] to subject all perceptions to its control,” and later specifies this ‘Trieb’
in nativist terms, i.e. as “the inborn effect of our organization” (Helmholtz, 1867
[1856/66], 455, 1894, 96). Another interpretive problem posed by Helmholtz’s
appropriation of the causal law is the way in which his understanding of the latter
evolved over the course of his career. While some have argued that the mature
Helmholtz endorsed an empirical conception of causality (e.g. Riehl, 1904;
Schiemann, 2009), this cannot be reconciled with Helmholtz’s insistence on the
Kantian pedigree of his conception of causality in the second, revised version of his
Treatise on Physiological Optics (1896).
45
Kant’s Second Analogy of Experience (CPR [A189/B232-A211/B256]) provides the
relevant frame of reference in this respect.
46
For Kant’s definition of appearance, see CPR [A20/B34].
 L. De Kock / Studies in History and Philosophy of Science 56 (2016) 20e32
the first place, i.e., it becomes a constitutive condition for the
intuitive unity of experience, and as such, a formal feature of
(intellectualized) intuition. For Helmholtz, the causal law functions
as a principle of determinability for underdetermined sensations,
or a condition of possibility for an object to be given.
Although Helmholtz did not seem to be aware of the way in
which his rejection of the heterogeneity between the Kantian
stems of knowledge and his correlative intellectualized under-
standing of intuition affected his use of the causal law, it did not
escape the attention of his contemporaries, and most notably of
Schopenhauer, who openly accused Helmholtz of plagiarism with
regard to this point.47 Within the scope of this analysis, we are not
interested in whether this accusation was founded or not, but
rather in understanding why Schopenhauer and Helmholtz are
frequently mentioned together when it comes to their conception
of the causal law.48 Furthermore, Schopenhauer’s revision of Kant’s
theory in this respect provides another example of the way in
which the rejection of Kant’s doctrinal dualism affects the sys-
tematic role of a priori causality in experience.49
Schopenhauer too rejected Kant’s definition of intuition,
claiming that the lack of intrinsic referentiality in sensation ne-
cessitates at least some degree of conceptual determination on the
level of sensibility, in order to explain how something can be given
at all.50 In Schopenhauer, this conceptual determination is provided
entirely by the causal law, the only Kantian category he retained in
his philosophical system:
It is only when the understanding [.] begins to act, and applies
its sole form, the law of causality, that a powerful transformation
takes place, and subjective sensation is turned into objective
intuition. That is to say, by virtue of its peculiar form, and hence
a priori, it determines [.] bodily sensation as an effect (a word,
which it alone understands) that must have a cause [.].
Therefore, this operation of understanding [.] is not a discur-
sive, reflective one [.] but intuitive and immediate.
(Schopenhauer, 1986 [1813], 69 [my translation])
Therefore, Schopenhauer (Schopenhauer, 1986 [1813], 67)dcontra
Kantdemphasized what he called the intellectual nature of intui-
tion [Intellektualität der Anschauung]. In reinterpreting the causal
law as a constitutive element of intuition, Schopenhauer felt he had
overcome the dogmatic, or in his own words, ‘miraculous’ nature of
Kantian intuition, and concluded that “intuition is essentially the
work of understanding” (Schopenhauer, 1986 [1813], 100). To be
sure, with this brief excursion into Schopenhauer’s work, we don’t
intend to assimilate Helmholtz’s physiological epistemology to
Schopenhauer’s robust post-Kantian metaphysics, but rather to
47
See for example Schopenhauer, letter to Becker (January 20th, 1856), as quoted
in Conrat (1903, volume I, 238-239 [my translation]): “Somebody like that
[Helmholtz] [.] has not read Kant, but rather ascribes [.] to him [Kant] what he
has learned from me, without mentioning me. As you know, in Kant’s work, the
external world readily passes through the senses and enters the head. [.] Helm-
holtz merely had the intention [.] of establishing himself at all costs, and precisely
to that end, does not credit others, even though he steels from them”. To be sure,
Helmholtz explicitly rejected this accusation, and even wrote that he “thoroughly
disliked everything he read” of Schopenhauer (Helmholtz, letter to Ferdinand
Helmholtz (March 4th, 1856), as quoted in Koenigsberger, 1902/1903, 291 [my
translation]).
48
See among others Liebmann (1869), Zöllner (1872), Pastore (1993) and Smith
(2002).
49
For Schopenhauer’s accusation of plagiarism, see Conrat (1903), Riehl (1904),
Erdmann (1921), Hörz & Wollgast (1971).
50
See for example Schopenhauer (1986 [1813], 68 [my translation]): “[W]hat a
meager thing is pure sensation! [.] Every kind of sensation, is, and always will be,
a process taking place within the organism, and as such, is limited to the realm
under the skin; therefore, it cannot contain anything beyond this region [jenseit
dieser Haut] [.]. [.] [T]here is never anything objective in sensation”.
29
point out the obvious similarities in their critical reception of (and
proposed solution to) Kant’s theory of intuition. As Pastore (1993)
noted, both used a priori causality to solve the problem of
external reference as it followed from sensory underdetermination.
However, the two had radically different philosophical projects.
Furthermore, as will be discussed in the next section, Helmholtz
took his attempt to solve the problem of how we escape “the world
of nervous sensations into the world of actuality” (see above) one
step further by inserting voluntary experimentation as a necessary
condition of experience and knowledge.
4.2. Helmholtz’s response (2): emptying Kant’s pure intuition
In revising Kant’s theory of intuition, Helmholtz did not only
attempt to resolve at least part of what Kant took to be intuitive into
the elementary processes of thought, he also set himself the goal of
emptying Kant’s pure forms of intuition (space and time) of their
dogmatic ‘Specialbestimmungen.’51 To get a firm grasp of the stakes
of this debate, it should first of all be noted that Helmholtz’s pri-
mary concern was not theoretical in naturedi.e., it did not pertain
to the purely logical or mathematical possibility of alternative
spacesdbut psychological. First and foremost, he aimed at ac-
counting for the (formal and factual elements of the) psychological
structure of spatial perception. Just as Kant (CPR [A23/B38]) had
defined space as the condition of possibility for “sensations to be
related to something outside me [.] thus in order for me to
represent them as outside” for Helmholtz too, the problem of space
was intrinsically related to the question of perceptual externaliza-
tion. To say that something is spatial, Helmholtz specified, is to say
that something is out there, as opposed to the internal world of self-
consciousness:
[W]e understand as the external world precisely what we
perceive as spatially determined. That which has no perceptible
spatial relation, we conceive as the world of inner intuition, as
the world of self-consciousness. (Helmholtz, 1995 [1878b], 349)
Given this identification of space with the representation of
externality, Kant’s theory, according to Helmholtz, would imply
that the external is somehow represented on the level of subjective
organization, prior to experience. This, however, was irreconcilable
with Helmholtz’s assumption of sensory underdetermination and
his rejection of pre-established harmony. Furthermore, as can be
derived from the above quote, the problem of space for Helmholtz
was closely related to that of the genesis and foundation of differ-
ential awareness, or the inner-outer distinction in perception.
Again, based on the assumption of sensory underdetermination,
one of Helmholtz’s main concerns was that of how to account for
the “separation of thought and reality,” a separation, that in his
mind, coincided with the geometrical opposition between the non-
spatial and the spatial (Helmholtz, 1995 [1878b], 362).
Given Helmholtz’s psychological perspective, his main argu-
ment against Kant’s a priori account of space (qua Euclidian ge-
ometry) pertained to the imaginability [Vorstellbarkeit] of
alternative spaces for “beings whose powers of reason are quite in
conformity with ours” (Helmholtz, 1995 [1870], 231). In his refu-
tation of Kant, Helmholtz therefore started out from the conditional
51
At this point, we enter one of the most fiercely debated dimensions of the
problem of Helmholtz’s Kantianism. Hence, it is impossible to present an exhaus-
tive list of the relevant secondary literature in this respect. Although Hatfield (1990)
work on this topic is classic, this analysis is more in line with Neuber’s (2012)
analysis, that is sensitive to Helmholtz’s psychological concerns, and to Helm-
holtz’s aim to redraw the borderline between the a priori and the a posteriori
(without annihilating the a priori altogether).
30 L. De Kock / Studies in History and Philosophy of Science 56 (2016) 20e32
statement that “if we can imagine [.] spaces of other sorts, [.] it
cannot be maintained that the axioms of geometry necessarily
follow from an a priori given transcendental form of our intuition”
(Helmholtz, 1995 [1870], 239). He subsequently attempted to
demonstrate that such alternative spatial structures would in fact
be imaginable [Vorstellbar] by means of a series of thought
experimentsdinspired mainly by Beltrami’s workdin which he
determined the possible perceptions a person would have when
moving about in a non-Euclidean space. More particularly,
‘Euclidean perceivers’ that are transported into a pseudospherical
world, according to him, would be able to adapt their rules of
spatial determination by means of active experimentation and
bodily movement:
[B]y moving the [.] finger along the objects, the sequence in
which the impressions of the object are presented becomes
known; [.] In such a way may knowledge of the spatial
ordering of things existing beside one another be acquired. [.]
[T]his observed spatial order of things originally derives from
the sequence in which the qualities of the sensation present
themselves to the moved sensory organ. (Helmholtz, 1995
[1878b], 351-352)
“[O]ur body,” Helmholtz (1995 [1878b], 240) therefore
concluded, “is the instrument we carry about in space”. Hence, the
metric structure of space is not a priori, as “we can infer [.] the
series of sensible impressions which a spherical or pseudospherical
world would give us, if it existed. [.] Therefore, it cannot be
allowed that the axioms of geometry depend on the [.] form of our
perceptive faculty” (Helmholtz, 1995 [1870], p. 243). Helmholtz
thus accounted for the metric determination of space in terms of an
‘unconscious mathematics’, so to speak, mediated by voluntary
movement. Furthermore, he hypothesized that active experimen-
tation was not only involved in the genesis of spatial structure, but
moreover (and more importantly) in the genesis of the inner-outer
distinction:
It is clear that the separation of thought and reality first be-
comes possible after we know how to complete the separation
of that which the Ego can and cannot change. This, however,
only becomes possible after we recognize which law-like con-
sequences the will’s impulses have at that time. (Helmholtz,
1995 [1878b], 362)
Or as he put it elsewhere:
The impulse to movement that we give through innervation of
our motor nerves, is something directly perceivable [.]. If we
now make such types of impulses e take a look, move the hands,
go back and forth e then we find that the sensations belonging
to [.] spatial objects can be changed; while other mental states
[.] cannot at all. A decisive distinction between the former and
the latter is thus posited. (Helmholtz, 1995 [1878b], 348-349)
The distinction between the spatial and the non-spatial in
perception is thus hypothesized to arise from the differential
awareness of that which a perceiver can and cannot change through
his will’s impulses; or as one might say, in accordance to the
scheme of will and resistance. As a consequence, the outer world
first reveals itself to the acting organism as a negative entity, i.e., as
a “power opposing us” [uns entgegentretende Macht] (Helmholtz,
1995 [1878b], 362). We learn to differentiate between the spatial
and the non-spatial through the experience of a difference between
“[t]hose changes which we can bring forth and annul by conscious
impulses of the will [.] from those which are not consequences of
the will’s impulses and cannot be overcome by such” (Helmholtz,
1995 [1878b], 351).
At this point, all the bits and pieces of Helmholtz’s psychology of
perception start falling into place. “In the experiment,” Helmholtz
(1995 [1878b], 358) argued, “the causal chain runs throughout
our self-consciousness”. The possibility of making sense of this
‘chain’ in terms of external events, he crucially added, depends on
the fact that “we know one member of these causes e our will’s
impulse e from inner intuition, and know the motive by which it
has occurred” (Helmholtz (1995 [1878b], 358). A necessary pre-
supposition with regard to this dynamic, Helmholtz therefore
claimed, is that “our will’s impulse has neither already been
influenced by physical causes, which simultaneously determine the
physical process, nor itself psychically influenced the succeeding
perceptions” (Helmholtz (1995 [1878b], 358-359).
A necessary formal condition underlying Helmholtz’s empirical
account of space (and differential consciousness) is thus that we
conceive of “acts of volition [.] as free; i.e. we deny that they are
the necessary effects of sufficient causes” (1896 [1855], 116 [my
translation]).52 In his Treatise, this essential presupposition is arti-
culated as follows:
[B]y the evidence of our own consciousness, we assume [.] a
principle of free will, for which we claim [.] a complete inde-
pendence of the stern law of causality. [.] The case of conduct
[handeln], that is best [.] known to us, we consider as an
exception to the law [of causality]. (Helmholtz, 1867 [1856/
1866], 454 [my translation])
So although the process of spatial determination is an empirical
one, the determinability of the object qua external object, is ulti-
mately founded in the presupposition of free will. In Helmholtz’s
theory of space, the a priori element is thus shifted from metric
structure to the condition of the free mobility of rigid bodies.53
Helmholtz explicitly stated that one could consider this condition
as “transcendental in Kant’s sense” and as denoting the a priori
form of intuition.54 Consequently, he concluded that
[S]pace would be a [.] form of intuition prior to all experience
insofar as its perception would be tied to the possibility of the
will’s motoric impulses, and for which the mental and corporeal
ability must be given us through our organization before we can
have spatial intuition (Helmholtz (1995 [1878b], 349).
By virtue of this approach, most of what seems to be intuitive in
the classical sense (see Section 2.1) can in effect be considered as an
experimental conclusion, mediated by unconscious inference. Ul-
timately, however, it is the principle of free will that is pinpointed
as the transcendental foundation of the possibility of experience
and knowledge, as it is the condition of possibility for spatial
determination.55 Furthermore, it is interesting to note that we once
again observe how the a priori reappears in Helmholtz’s theorizing
52
For the centrality of the assumption of free will in Helmholtz’s theorizing, also
see Heidelberger (1993, 1994, 2005). For Helmholtz’s physiological operationali-
zation of voluntary movement, see De Kock (2014b).
53
In this respect, also see Neuber (2012), who offers a very interesting analysis of
this ‘displacement’ of the a priori in Helmholtz’s theory of space.
54
Helmholtz (1995 [1870], 244): “Taking the notion of rigidity thus as a mere
ideal, a strict Kantian might certainly look upon the geometrical axioms as prop-
ositions given, a priori, by transcendental intuition, which no experience could
either confirm or refute, because it must first be decided by them whether any
natural bodies can be considered as rigid”. Also see Helmholtz (1995 [1878b], 349).
55
The way in which this part of Helmholtz’s theorizing is demonstrably rooted in
Fichte’s Ego-doctrine is discussed extensively in Heidelberger (1993, 1994) and De
Kock (2014b).
 L. De Kock / Studies in History and Philosophy of Science 56 (2016) 20e32
when his empirical account is at risk of becoming circular. After all,
the ability of constructing the inner-outer distinction by means of
voluntary movement presupposes the very distinction in question,
i.e., presupposes that the subject is already acting upon a ‘Non-Ego’
that constituted the intentionality of the act in the first place.
5. Discussion and conclusion
In this analysis, we approached the classical problem of
Helmholtz’s Kantianism from the perspective of the former’s
critical engagement with Kant’s theory of Anschauung. As was
clear from this endeavor, Helmholtz’s concern for the nature and
purport of intuition in the genesis of knowledge and experience
forms an overarching theme in his work, connecting the disparate
dimensions of his Kant reception. Whether one focuses on
Helmholtz’s anti-metaphysical stance, his theory of perception as
unconscious inference or his revision of Kant’s theory of space, all
of these discussions can be related to Helmholtz’s critical
appraisal of Kant’s intuition in one way or another. Although
Helmholtz’s dissatisfaction with Kant’s special determination of
the spatial form of outer intuition in terms of Euclidian geometry
is well-known, (the theoretical implications of) his profound and
all-pervasive concern with Kantian intuition tout court has not
received the attention it deserves. As we have discussed, Helm-
holtz especially objected to the restrictive character of Kantian
intuition, as well as its immediacy aspect which, according to him,
can only be justified by means of the metaphysical hypothesis of
pre-established harmony. As discussed, this link between Kantian
intuition and pre-established harmony is not at all evident from the
perspective of Kant’s transcendentalism, but was mediated
crucially by Helmholtz’s empirical epistemology and his nativist
interpretation of the a priori. Based on the epistemological con-
sequences of Müller’s lawdwhich stated the case for sensory
underdeterminationdHelmholtz thus set himself the twofold goal
of correcting Kant where he had allegedly “not been critical
enough”, by (1) resolving intuition into (unconscious) thought on
the one hand, and (2) redrawing the borderline between the
factual and the formal aspects of experience on the other. As was
discussed, these interventions had a profound influence on
Helmholtz’s appropriation of the causal law and his analysis of
space. In the end, Helmholtz vehemently denied any immediate
relation to the object, and instead interpreted the phenomenal
experience of immediacy as a hidden function of subjective
spontaneity.
As is well-known, Helmholtz’s criticism of Kant’s analysis of
(pure) intuition did not amount to a categorical rejection of the a
priori altogether. However, rather than dwelling endlessly on the
classical problems related to Helmholtz’s idiosyncratic appropri-
ation of the a priori within his theorizing, we have carried this
analysis to its rather surprising conclusion. That is to say, while
Helmholtz naturalized (or psychologized) the a prioride.g.,
through his physiological interpretation of pure intuition, or his
understanding of the causal law in terms of an inborn Triebdhe
did retain one purely formal condition of possibility for objecti-
fication and experience, although it is not a Kantian one. That is to
say, we have pinpointed the principle of free will as the ultimate
foundation of Helmholtz’s epistemology. This principle is neither
derived from, nor produced by experience, but has the status of a
principle of intelligibility, i.e. it is a normative claim with regard to
the subject of perception and how it has to be thought in order to
make sense of its ability to objectify. It can be argued that this is
the point at which we are faced with Helmholtz’s most drastic
revision of Kant’s epistemology: in the end, the autonomous
subject emerges as the ultimate ground of knowledge and
experience.
31
Acknowledgements
This research is funded by the Flanders Research Foundation
(FWO, Belgium).
I would like to thank Prof. Dr. Steffen Ducheyne, as well as the
reviewers and editor of Studies in History and Philosophy of Science
for their helpful comments and suggestions.
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