Logica naturalis, Healthy Understanding and the Reflecting

Power of Judgment in Kant’s Philosophy

The Source of the Problem of Judgment

in the Leibniz-Wolffian Logic and Aesthetics1

by Manuel Sánchez Rodríguez, Granada2

Abstract: The aim of this article is to explore the origin of the difficulty of founding the
reflecting power of judgment as Kant outlines it in the Preface of the third Critique. Although
a foundation for this faculty was only established in 1790, we must interpret it as a critical
solution to an old problem, which Kant had already recognized around 1770. Through his
comprehension of the meaning of healthy understanding and native wit he already confirms
the impossibility of determining the correctness of our judging activity from the use of rules.
This approach of the problem must be understood in the context of the controversy about
the concept ‘logica naturalis’ in the Leibniz-Wolffian aesthetics and logic. In close conjunc-
tion with this tradition, Kant already tries to offer an elucidation of the question of judging
through the aesthetics.
Keywords: healthy understanding, reflecting power of judgment, logica naturalis, natural
wit

Introduction

The aim of this article is to contribute to the understanding of the systematic

meaning of the aesthetic power of judgment in Kant’s philosophy. It is based on a
historical analysis of this issue in the context of German Enlightenment. Accord-
ing to Kant’s approach in the Kritik der Urteilskraft (1790), the power of judg-
ment [Urteilskraft] is called determining if it is nothing but an extension of under-
standing aimed at determining particular objects. If, on the contrary, the exercise
of the reflecting power of judgment takes place, then it would be conceived as an
autonomous faculty with its own specific principles. It is thanks to the latter func-

1 I want to thank Agata Bak for her crucial help with the English version of this paper.
J. A. Nicolás, M. de Pinedo, M.a J. Vázquez and N. Villanueva also made valuable com-
ments on the paper.
2 Leibniz-Edition Potsdam, Berlin-Brandenburgische Akademie der Wissenchaften/Depar-
tamento de Filosofía II, Universidad de Granada, Spain. With the support of the Spanish
Ministerio de Ciencia e Innovación, the Junta de Andalucía, and the Research Projects
“Leibniz en español” (P09-HUM-5109) and “Leibniz en español-2” (FFI2010–15914).
This paper develops some of the ideas contained in the doctoral thesis “El significado sis-
temático de la crítica de los juicios estéticos en la filosofía de Kant. Contribuciones a la
historia del problema de la Crítica del Juicio”, Universidad de Granada, November 2007.

Kant-Studien 103. Jahrg., S. 188–206 DOI 10.1515/kant-2012-0011

© Walter de Gruyter 2012
ISSN 0022-8877
 Logica naturalis 189

tion that the subject can search for a universal from the given particular.3 In this
case, the subject only has information of a particular case, and is not provided
with a general principle, law or rule to subsume it under, which in turn would
allow him to determine its meaning in a system of knowledge.4 Hence, the activity
of reflecting power of judgment runs from the bottom to the top in the logical pro-
cess of knowledge; it ought to reach a possible universal, starting from a particu-
lar and indeterminate case given to the subject in its sensible experience.5
According to the critical position reached in the third Critique, the foundation
of the power of judgment is possible only if we point out that this faculty does not
legislate a priori over things, but that it gives to itself the law to judge. Kant calls
this special feature of the power of judgment legislation a heautonomy [Heauto-
nomie]6, which allows the a priori principles not only to have their origins in the
subject, but also to legislate over the subject itself as well as over its cognitive ac-
tivities. Therefore, the power of judgment principles legislate over our own judg-
ing activity, which is one of the first steps in the knowledge acquisition process
that makes possible the determination of the objects presented to the sensible
intuition. It is worth pointing out that Kant considers this ‘subjective turn’ as a
solution which allows avoiding the intrinsic difficulty to every attempt of foun-
dation of the power of judgment, as it is explained in the Preface of the work:
Man kann aber aus der Natur der Urtheilskraft (deren richtiger Gebrauch so nothwendig
und allgemein erforderlich ist, daß daher unter dem Namen des gesunden Verstandes kein
anderes, als eben dieses Vermögen gemeint wird) leicht abnehmen, daß es mit großen Schwie-
rigkeiten begleitet sein müsse, ein eigenthümliches Princip derselben auszufinden […], wel-
ches gleichwohl nicht aus Begriffen a priori abgeleitet sein muß; denn die gehören dem Ver-
stande an, und die Urtheilskraft geht nur auf die Anwendung derselben. Sie soll also selbst
einen Begriff angeben, durch den eigentlich kein Ding erkannt wird, sondern der nur ihr
selbst zur Regel dient, aber nicht zu einer objectiven, der sie ihr Urtheil anpassen kann, weil
dazu wiederum eine andere Urtheilskraft erforderlich sein würde, um unterscheiden zu kön-
nen, ob es der Fall der Regel sei oder nicht.7

The principle which would serve as a basis for the activity of the power of judg-
ment cannot have objective validity, i.e. it cannot legislate on the objects them-
selves. According to Kant, if the principle of the power of judgment served to de-
cide a priori on the objective correctness or adequacy between our judgments and
objects, i.e., if it were possible to judge whether the objects could be subsumed
under the concept expressed in a particular judgment, then we would face a prob-
lem, for we would also be making a philosophical judgment, with a particular
judgment and its possible objective correctness as its object. This requires the
objective correctness of this philosophical judgment to be determined as well,
i.e. whether the judgment in question, to which the philosophical one refers, is
subsumed or not under the criteria or rules expressed in our philosophical judg-
ment. For this reason we have to form a subsequent judgment, the object of which
3 KU, AA 05: 179.19–26.
4 KU, AA 05: 179.
5 EEKU, AA 20: 211.8–18.
6 EEKU, AA 20: 225.27–32; KU, AA 05: 185 f.
7 KU, AA 05: 169.
190 Manuel Sánchez Rodríguez

would be our previous philosophical judgment and which would appeal to a new
principle, criterion or rule that proves the objective correctness of the latter. This
way, Kant concludes, the consideration of the principle that founds the judgment
as a criterion for proving his objective validity would inevitably lead the foun-
dation process ad infinitum. That is the cause of the solution given by Kant in the
Kritik der Urteilskraft, which admits the heautonomous character of the principle
of the power of judgment, based on the recognition that it is not possible to offer
rules or criteria of a discursive nature which could decide a priori on the objective
correctness of our particular judgments.
This is a question that already appears in the first Critique, in two complement-
ary arguments that allude to the limits of logic. First of all, Kant states that there is
no criterion that allows us to decide the truth of the matter or content of our par-
ticular judgments, i.e. their agreement with the particular objects whose knowl-
edge these judgments claim.8 To claim the existence of a truth criterion that allows
us to determine the objective agreement of our particular judgments would be to
claim something self-contradictory. The very nature of this criterion would be of a
universal character; but then, precisely because of this universality, such criterion
would not be sufficient to determine the objective correctness or the truth of our
judgments, inasmuch as particular judgments refer to particular cases.
Secondly, Kant already gives us an idea of the aforementioned argument of the
third Critique in the Introduction to the Analytics of Pure Principles of Under-
standing9. There he states that any attempt to universally prove the possibility of
subsuming a particular case under a rule will always demand the use of a subse-
quent rule.
Denn da [die allgemeine Logik] von allem Inhalte der Erkenntniß abstrahirt: so bleibt ihr
nichts übrig als das Geschäfte, die bloße Form der Erkenntniß in Begriffen, Urtheilen und
Schlüssen analytisch aus einander zu setzen und dadurch formale Regeln alles Verstandes-
gebrauchs zu Stande zu bringen. Wollte sie nun allgemein zeigen, wie man unter diese Regeln
subsumiren, d. i., unterscheiden sollte, ob etwas darunter stehe oder nicht, so könnte dieses
nicht anders, als wieder durch eine Regel geschehen. Diese aber erfordert eben darum, weil
sie eine Regel ist, aufs neue eine Unterweisung der Urtheilskraft; und so zeigt sich, daß […]
Urtheilskraft […] ein besonderes Talent sei, welches gar nicht belehrt, sondern nur geübt sein
will. Daher ist diese auch das Specifische des so genannten Mutterwitzes, dessen Mangel
keine Schule ersetzen kann; denn ob diese gleich einem eingeschränkten Verstande Regeln
vollauf, von fremder Einsicht entleht, darreichen und gleichsam einpfropfen kann: so muß
doch das Vermögen, sich ihrer richtig zu bedienen, dem Lehrlinge selbst angehören, und
keine Regel, die man ihm in dieser Absicht vorschreiben möchte, ist in Ermangelung einer
solchen Naturgabe vor Mißbrauch sicher.10

The transcendental logic can indeed “die Urtheilskraft im Gebrauch des reinen
Verstande durch bestimmte Regeln […] berichtigen und […] sichern”11. Kant
takes transcendental analytics of the principles to be a canon for the power of
judgment, as based in the logics of transcendental truth. As a transcendental

8 KrV, A 57–59/B 82 f.
9 KrV, A 132–134/B 171–174.
10 KrV, A 132 f./B 171 f.
11 KrV, A 135/B 174.
 Logica naturalis 191

judgement, these rules can only be the pure and transcendental principle of under-
standing, rather than particular laws of empirical knowledge. Thus the theory of
transcendental power of judgment does not offer rules for judging particular ob-
jects in concreto, but the “universal condition of the rules”, that is, the transcen-
dental and determining condition that constitutes the general objective validity of
the judgements of knowledge. In this respect, the analytics of the principles not
only offer universal and necessary conditions for particular judging, but also suf-
ficient, provided sufficiency here does not concern particular truths, or objective
adequation to the judgements, but rather concerns its transcendental truth. In this
sense, transcendental principles, as rules of the transcendental and determining
power of judgment, show in a universal and sufficient way which particular cases
are subsumed under the pure concepts of the understanding, since they determine
which judgements are objectively valid. Nevertheless, these principles do not es-
tablish a priori the objective particular correction, or the empirical truth of these
judgements; they rather speak about their general objectivity, inasmuch as they
determine a priori phenomena subsumption under pure understanding, but they
leave totally undetermined their subsumption under the understanding’s empirical
concepts and particular laws.
Auf mehrere Gesetze aber als die, auf denen eine Natur überhaupt als Gesetzmäßigkeit der
Erscheinungen im Raum und Zeit beruht, reicht auch das reine Verstandesvermögen nicht
zu, durch bloße Kategorien den Erscheinungen a priori Gesetze vorzuschreiben. Besondere
Gesetze, weil sie empirisch bestimmte Erscheinungen betreffen, können davon nicht vollstän-
dig abgeleitet werden, ob sie gleich alle insgesammt unter jenen stehen.12

Kant’s position in both arguments coincides with the quoted text from the Pref-
ace of the third Critique, as they state that we cannot decide a priori on the ob-
jective correctness or particular adequacy between our judgments and objects by
recurring to rules or criteria. The third Critique does not intend to offer such dis-
cursive or prescriptive rules or criteria, but it does contribute to an alternative
perspective, which allows Kant to deal with the issues and include the solution in
the critical system.

12 KrV, B 165. See also A 127; B 508 f. Indetermination of understanding’s transcendental

principles, with respect to objective correction of judgement in concreto, focuses Kant’s
attention again in the third Critique, while discussing the problem of grounding a specific
principle of the reflecting power of judgment: “Die bestimmende Urtheilskraft unter all-
gemeinen transscendentalen Gesetzen, die der Verstand giebt, ist nur subsumirend; das
Gesetz ist ihr a priori vorgezeichnet, und sie hat also nicht nöthig, für sich selbst auf ein
Gesetz zu denken, um das Besondere in der Natur dem Allgemeinen unterordnen zu
können. – Allein es sind so mannigfaltige Formen der Natur, gleichsam so viele Modifica-
tionen der allgemeinen transscendentalen Naturbegriffe, die durch jene Gesetze, welche
der reine Verstand a priori giebt, weil dieselben nur auf die Möglichkeit einer Natur (als
Gegenstandes der Sinne) überhaupt gehen, unbestimmt gelassen werden, daß dafür doch
auch Gesetze sein müssen, die zwar als empirische nach unserer Verstandeseinsicht zufäl-
lig sein mögen, die aber doch, wenn sie Gesetze heißen sollen […], aus einem, wenn gleich
uns unbekannten, Princip der Einheit des Mannigfaltigen als nothwendig angesehen
werden müssen”, in KU, AA 05: 179 f. See also KU, AA 05: 180, 183 f.; EEKU, AA 20:
203 f.
192 Manuel Sánchez Rodríguez

The question is: does it really tackle the same problem? In other words, is it rea-
sonable to maintain that Kant sees the theory of reflecting power of judgment as a
solution to a problem which essentially concerns the theory of knowledge, the
problem that was already present in the first Critique? The influential interpre-
tation of the Kritik der Urteilskraft proposed by Hans-Georg Gadamer in Wahr-
heit und Methode13 is based on the idea that the reflecting activity of the power
of judgment is presupposed only by aesthetic judgments, while knowledge judg-
ments and moral judgments presuppose only the determining activity of this
faculty. According to this interpretation, both problems would be independent,
and the theory of the reflecting power of judgment would not have any systematic
meaning in connection with Kant’s theory of knowledge and would only acquire
meaning within the framework of his aesthetic theory. Nevertheless, in the last
few decades it has been variously argued that Kant uses his analysis and critique
of aesthetic judgments in order to found exactly the reflecting power of judgment,
which is presupposed generally as a subjective condition of the possibility of every
singular judgment of knowledge. All in all, among those interpretations, as it is
clearly seen in Wolfgang Bartuschat’s case, it is assumed that Kant’s interest in the
problem of judging as well as the connection of this issue with his reflections on
aesthetics represent a late result in his intellectual development, a result that gave
rise to the project of the third Critique chiefly as a consequence of the systematic
difficulties that arose from the first two Critiques.14
By contrast, this article will argue that neither Kant’s recognition of the diffi-
culty lying in the founding of the power of judgment nor his reflections on aes-
thetics should be seen as a late result of his intellectual development. As we will
see in the following sections, the Kritik der Urteilskraft should be considered as
the locus of Kant’s critical solution for an ‘old’ problem, stated by him two dec-
ades earlier, and for whose comprehension the aesthetic judgment’s model was al-
ready being used.
In fact, in the Preface of the work quoted before, it is still possible to appreciate
two indications that, as we will later see in more detail, refer to Kant’s intellectual
development and to the connection to this tradition. Firstly, it should be noted
that the quoted text points out that the difficulties which affect the foundation of
the power of judgment are due to the nature of this faculty. In the next section we
will prove that this reference to the power of judgment as a natural ability should
be understood in the context of the Leibniz-Wolffian School, centered on the con-
sideration of logic as logica naturalis or logica artificialis. Secondly, later on in
this text it is stated that the “richtiger Gebrauch [der Urteilskraft] so nothwendig
und allgemein erforderlich ist, daß daher unter dem Namen des gesunden Ver-

13 Gadamer, Hans-Georg: Wahrheit und Methode: Grundzüge einer philosophischen Her-

meneutik. In: Gesammelte Werke. Tübingen 1960, vol. 1, 37–39, 44 f.
14 See Bartuschat, Wolfgang: Zum systematischen Ort von Kants Kritik der Urteilskraft.
Frankfurt am Main 1972, 21; 51–53, 67–78, 79–81. The explanation of the genesis of
Kritik der Urteilskraft as a result of a cognitive turn dating back to the second half of the
1780s is also given in Zammito, John H.: The Genesis of Kant’s Critique of Judgment.
Chicago and London, 1992, 151–77.
 Logica naturalis 193

standes kein anderes, als eben dieses Vermögen gemeint wird”. This statement
could be understood as a correction at a terminological level, in which Kant
would defend the use of the notion of ‘Urteilskraft’ or ‘reflektierende Urteilskraft’
rather than the colloquial notion of ‘gesunder Verstand’. Nevertheless, it is certain
that with this statement he is linking the terminology present in the aforemen-
tioned debates in the German School Philosophy, which he himself had used
intensively from the mid-1760s, both in the Nachlass and in the Vorlesungs-
nachschriften. That way, in his statement from the Preface, the philosopher from
Königsberg states this new theory as his own – critical – proposal in the context of
such debates.
This is why in the following part of this article it will be necessary to pay atten-
tion to the origin of this issue in the historical context of the German School Phil-
osophy from the 18th century. Firstly, we will focus on the debate on the distinction
between logica naturalis and logica artificialis in the Leibniz-Wolffian tradition,
especially on Baumgarten’s and Meier’s philosophy. Secondly, it will be proved
that Kant links such debates around 1770 through the use of the concept ‘healthy
understanding’ [‘gesunder Verstand’], which refers to the natural ability of judg-
ing in particular cases. Thirdly, it will be proved that during this period he already
notices the impossibility of founding the judging activity from criteria or rules of a
prescriptive kind. Finally, it will be shown that this standpoint lets him use the
aesthetic model in order to propose an attempt to comprehend this faculty.

1. The history of the problem: logica naturalis et logica artificialis

The double consideration of logic as logica naturalis and logica artificialis

marks one of the fundamental characteristics of Wolff’s theory of knowledge, ac-
cording to which a corrective ideal is being presupposed by philosophical knowl-
edge, in reference to the treatment of natural knowledge.
He defines logica naturalis as the very natural skill of human beings in the op-
erations of understanding, which follows rules without the necessity of being con-
scious of this legality in a distinct way: “Diese dem Verstande von Gott vorge-
schriebene Regeln und die natürliche Geschicklichkeit darnach zu handeln,
machen die natürliche Logick, und insonderheit den so genannten MutterWitz15
aus”16.

15 Please note that in KrV, A 133/B 172, already quoted, Kant uses the concept ‘Mutterwitz’
as a synonym for ‘Urteilskraft’. We will come back to this.
16 Wolff, Christian: Vernünftige Gedanken von den Kräften des menschlichen Verstandes
und ihrem richtigen Gebrauche in Erkenntnis der Wahrheit, ed. Hans Werner Arndt. In:
Gesammelte Werke. ed. Jean École et al. Hildesheim 1965 [11713], 1st sec., vol. 1, 244.
See also the definition from Wolff, Christian, Philosophia rationalis sive logica, Pars II,
ed. Jean École. In Gesammelte Werke. Hildesheim, Zürich and New York 1983 [1728],
2nd sec., vol. 1.1: § 6, 109: “Dispositio seu facultatem cognoscitivam in cognoscenda veri-
tate dicitur Logica naturalis”, and § 7, 110: “Qui Logica naturalis utitur, confusam quan-
dam ideam habes regularum, per quas mentis operationes dirigit in cognoscenda veri-
tate”.
194 Manuel Sánchez Rodríguez

While logica naturalis refers to the rules known by the subject in a confused
way within common knowledge, logica artificialis acts in order to specify those
rules with the help of strictly philosophical knowledge.17 According to Wolff, this
specification of the logical rules allows the correction and perfection of our ca-
pacities to acquire knowledge, as, although they are presupposed anyway in every
natural knowledge, awareness of them and their specification enables the subject
to avoid errors and illusions in the knowledge of truth. Logica naturalis can be
compared to an eye that does not need any explicit knowledge about its natural
rules to produce vision, but optics can make clear the origin of optical illusions.
Analogically, logica artificialis is indispensable to knowledge if the one who
knows wants to avoid error.18
Related to this matter, Wolf’s logic considers that philosophy only focuses
on the correctness of this natural knowledge by means of the explication and for-
malization of these presupposed natural rules. Therefore, he does not incorporate
into the philosophical sphere the problem of the very genesis of knowledge or the
intervention of strictly sensible elements in this natural process, without which
neither learning nor application of logical laws to particular cases would be pos-
sible.
In the School Philosophy subsequent to Wolff’s logic, attention is focused on
this natural capacity. In logical treatises by such authors as Gottsched, Frobesius,
Baumgarten or Meier, we find the relation or identification between logica natu-
ralis – in the handbooks’ definitions or translations into German – and the notions
of ‘Mutterwitz’ [native wit], ‘gesunder Verstand’ [healthy understanding] or ‘ge-
sunde Vernuft’ [healthy reason].19 The adoption of such concepts into the German
language from the 18th century onwards proves the close relationship between
the School Philosophy on the one hand and the Anglo-Saxon and French aesthetic
theories on the other, in the matter of logica naturalis comprehension. The admis-
sion of those terms into German is due to the translation of English ‘common
sense’ or ‘Commonsense’, or of French ‘Bonsense’; the origins of all lie in Latin
‘sensus communis’.20
The concept of ‘healthy understanding’ is not only adopted in the realm of logic
and theory of knowledge. In 1763 Winckelmann defined the faculty of appreciat-
ing beauty as a “natural capacity”, which, even though it can be awakened and
perfected through education and experience, it cannot come solely from instruc-
tion. It is in this context, while contrasting our natural capacity for appreciating
or producing beauty and affected erudition, that the concept of ‘healthy under-
17 Wolff, Christian: Philosophia rationalis sive logica, op. cit., §§ 10 f., 112.
18 Wolff, Christian Vernünftige Gedanken …, op. cit., 245.
19 See Aso, Ken et al.: Onomasticon Philosophicum: latinoteutonicum et teutonicumlati-
num. Tokio 1989, 615. In the German language at that time, the expressions ‘gesunde
Vernunft’ and ‘gesunder Verstand’ were generally equivalents, see Tonelli, Giorgio: Kant,
dall’estetica metafisica all’estetica psicoempirica: studi sulla genesi del criticismo
(1754–1771) e sulle sue fonti (Torino: Memorie dell’Accademia delle Scienze di Torino,
vol. 114, 2nd part, vol. 3). Torino 1955, 137.
20 See Paraschkewow, Boris: Wörter und Namen gleicher Herkunft und Struktur: Lexikon
etymologischer Dubletten im Deutschen. Berlin and New York 2004, 322.
 Logica naturalis 195

standing’ is used: “Diese Fähigkeit wird durch gute Erziehung erwecket und zeiti-
ger gemacht […]. Es wickelt sich dieselbe aber eher an großen als kleinen Orten
aus, und im Umgange mehr, als durch Gelehrsamkeit: denn das viele Wissen,
sagen die Griechen, erwecket keinen gesunden Verstand, und die sich durch bloße
Gelehrsamkeit in den Alterthümern bekannt haben, sind auch derselben weiter
nicht kundig worden”21.
Baumgarten and Meier focus on this problem in those writings in which they
discuss the systematic location of the new aesthetics within the system of knowl-
edge, or in which the relevance of the sensibility for the genesis and development
of our erudite knowledge is defended. Though Baumgarten recognizes in his
commentary of Wolff’s logic (1761) the necessity of improving logica naturalis
by founding it in logica artificialis, he introduces an interesting correction in his
statement by defending the idea that any application of logica artificialis will be
doomed to failure unless the subject’s native wit is presupposed.22 Baumgarten
openly denounces the insufficiency of logic in the Philosophische Briefe von Ale-
theophilus, as he states that the scholars’ logic promises more than it can offer for
the improvement of knowledge. There is this insufficiency because logic does not
pay attention to the perfection of all the faculties that contribute to knowledge,
as it does not deal with the laws of sensible and vivid knowledge. The typology
of such laws should lead to a specific science, namely, aesthetics,23 which is sim-
ultaneously defined by Baumgarten in a wide sense as sensible knowledge, and
in a restricted sense as doctrine regarding beauty. In this context, the insight of the
inferior faculties of knowledge can use critical aesthetics as the basis for the

21 Winckelmann, Johann Joachim: “Abhandlung von der Fähigkeit der Empfindung des
Schönen in der Kunst, und dem Unterrichte in derselben”. In: Kleine Schriften, Vorreden,
Entwürfe, ed. Walter Rehm. Berlin and New York 2002 [11763], 211–233; 215.
22 Baumgarten, Alexander Gottlieb: Acroasis logica in Christianum L. B. de Wolff. In:
Wolff, Christian: Gesammelte Werke. Hildesheim and New York 1973 [11761], 3rd sec.,
vol. 5: § 13, 6.
23 “Er stellt sie sich also, als eine Wissenschaft der Erkenntnis des Verstandes oder der deut-
lichen Einsicht vor und behält, die Gesetze der sinnlichen und lebhaften Erkenntnis,
wenn sie auch nicht bis zur Deutlichkeit, in genauester Bedeutung, aufsteigen sollte,
zu einer besondern Wissenschaft zurück. Diese letztere nennt er die Ästhetik, welcher
Name mir um so viel weniger fremd vorkommt, weil ihn schon in einigen gedruckten
akademischen Schriften bemerkt”, in Baumgarten, Alexander Gottlieb: “Philosophische
Briefe von Aletheophilus”. In: Texte zur Grundlegung der Ästhetik, ed. Hans Rudolf
Schweizer. Hamburg 1983 [11741], 67–72: 69. This academic piece that Baumgarten
refers to is, according to H. R. Schweizer (ibid.: 69, n. 220), his Magisterarbeit of 1739:
Meditationes philosophicae de nonnullis ad poema pertinentibus. In Metaphysica,
Baumgarten’s equivocal understanding of the new discipline can be clearly appreciated:
“[…] Scientia sensitiva cognoscendi et proponendi est aesthetica) (logica facultatis cog-
noscitivae inferioris, philosophia gratiarum et musarum, gnoseologia inferior, ars pulcre
cogitandi, ars analogi rationis)”, in Baumgarten, Alexander Gottlieb: Metaphysica
[11739], reprint of the 41757 edition in: AA 15: 5–54 and AA 27: 5–226: § 533, AA 15:
13. This equivocality can also be found in Aesthetica: “Aesthetica (theoria liberalium
artium, gnoseologia inferior, ars pulcre cogitandi, ars analogi rationis,) est scientia cog-
nitinis sensitiue”, in Baumgarten, Alexander Gottlieb: Aesthetica. Hildesheim, etc. 1986
[11750]: § 1, 1.
196 Manuel Sánchez Rodríguez

formation of the art of sensible judging in concreto.24 In that way, Baumgarten

recognizes that the natural process of acquiring knowledge involves elements of
sensible nature, which can and should receive a specific treatment from empirical
psychology and aesthetics. Thus, the specificity of sensible knowledge should be
presupposed for the application of knowledge to particular cases of experience.25
Therefore, not only logic, but also aesthetics makes the improvement and correc-
tion of human knowledge possible. For not only does this new discipline offer a
framework for the comprehension of general principles presupposed in art pro-
duction, but it is also an explanation of the nature and possibility of sensible
knowledge in general, and of all the disciplines that presuppose this knowledge.26
Nevertheless, although Baumgarten’s reflections on the sensible criteria of
knowledge from the standpoint of empirical psychology have a special place in the
general system of metaphysics, he expressly maintains the separation between
logic and the perfectibility of knowledge through aesthetics. However, this com-
plementary relation between both spheres of knowledge does constitute one of the
distinctive characteristics which mark the ideal of cognitio aesthetico-logica in the
doctrine of reason [Vernunftlehre] by one of Baumgarten’s most brilliant and
influential students, namely Georg Friedrich Meier. As highlighted in Riccardo
Pozzo’s excellent monographic study, Meier raises his philosophical project as a
general plan focused on reason’s efficiency [Wirksamkeit der Vernunft], which de-
mands that logic should be linked to other disciplines that enable learning, devel-
opment and application of knowledge. Such disciplines are grammar and rhetoric,
psychology, aesthetics, poetics, or hermeneutics.27 One of the grounds that justify
the inclusion of aesthetics in the logic or doctrine of reason can be found in the
statement that the senses constitute the first stage in the process in which the mind
elaborates representations.28 That is why Meier considers that the perfection of
learned [gelehrte] knowledge from the logical standpoint requires a complement
between the native wit and the scholar wit. That means that the perfection of rea-
son and understanding for the sake of learned knowledge has also to presuppose
the specific perfection of the sensible powers of the soul, as well as the matters
Meier raises in his aesthetics.29

24 Baumgarten, Alexander Gottlieb: Metaphysica, § 607, in AA 15: 30. This way, the power
of sensible judgment is for the first time conceived as independent from the superior fac-
ulties of knowledge.
25 Baumgarten, Alexander Gottlieb: “Philosophische Briefe von Aletheophilus”, op. cit., 71.
26 See Hernández Marcos, Maximiliano: “Teoría de la sensibilidad, teoría de las Humani-
dades. El proyecto filosófico de A. G. Baumgarten”. In: Cuadernos dieciochistas 4. 2003,
81–121.
27 Pozzo, Riccardo: Georg Friedrich Meiers ‘Vernunftlehre’. Eine historisch-systematische
Untersuchung. Stuttgart and Bad Cannstatt 2000: 142. See also Vázquez Lobeiras, María
Jesús: “Las raíces de la estética en el marco de la lógica y la filosofía de la conciencia del
racionalismo”. In: Ágora 22, 2003, 37–63.
28 Pozzo, Riccardo: Georg Friedrich Meiers…, op. cit, 143.
29 Meier, Georg Friedrich: Vernunftlehre. Ed. Günter Schenk. Halle 1997 [11752], vol. 2:
§ 588, 767 f.: “Vernunft und Verstand können unmöglich recht vollkommen seyn, wenn
nicht die sinnlichen Kräfte der Seele verbessert sind, und in dieser Vollkommenheit der
sinnlichen Kräfte besteht eben die Schönheit des Geistes. Wenn die untern Kräfte der Seele
 Logica naturalis 197

Furthermore, in this case it is certain that logica naturalis finds in logica artifi-
cialis the basis of its distinction and support, but the ideal of learned knowledge lies
in the claim that the latter presupposes the former and does not contradict it; and
that means that the construction of the very doctrine of reason or logic, precisely
because of its learned function, should start from and be aimed at healthy reason,
and never replace it.30 For a logic that understands the improvement of knowledge
on the basis of the abstraction of these sensible conditions and their specificity,
according to Wolff’s approach, will reach a distinct and founded exposition at the
expense of philosophy’s estrangement from healthy reason and of renouncing the
usefulness and possible communicability of this knowledge in life.31
As a result, both Baumgarten and Meier think that the natural capacity of
healthy understanding or the natural wit cannot be entirely reduced to the artifi-
cial instruction of logic. This idea is due not only to the recognition of the auton-
omy of aesthetics. From their point of view, natural knowledge is also irreducible
in this sense, inasmuch as it presupposes the same sensible capacities of knowledge
that are involved in so-called liberal arts. Hence this position can be reconstructed
through texts such as Metaphysica or Vernunftlehre, which are not mainly fo-
cused on the science of beauty, but rather on the sensible capacities behind the lib-
eral arts and common knowledge.
In the following section we will prove a close connection between this tradition
and the way Kant treats the notion of healthy understanding in his philosophy,
a concept with which he linked the capacity of the reflecting power of judgment in
1790.

2. The native wit is the natural capacity of healthy understanding

From the mid-1750s Kant uses the Auszug aus der Vernuftlehre of Meier as
a manual and guide for his lectures on logic. Even though in many points of his
exposition Kant limits himself to the book’s content, structure and concepts for
pedagogical reasons, it is certain that he himself recognizes that he is using it for
his own academic activity in order to weigh up, expand and correct the ideas of
the author, in accordance with the philosophical interests present in his own in-
tellectual development.32
There is an extensive treatment of the concept of healthy understanding both
in the Reflexionen and in the Vorlesungsnachschriften, which is not exclusively

nicht recht vollkommen sind, so legen sie den obern viele Hindernisse in den Weg. Ich
könnte noch viele besondere Ursachen von dieser letzten Foderung, anführen […]. Doch
ich habe, in meiner Ästhetik, von diesen Sachen hinlänglich gehandelt”.
30 Meier, Georg Friedrich: Vernunftlehre, op. cit.: § 6, 6; § 19, 10.
31 Meier, Georg Friedrich: Vernunftlehre, op. cit.: § 591, 772.
32 See Anmerkungen zu der Erklärung wegen der Hippelschen Autorschaft, AA 13: 538 f.;
cit. in Hinske, Norbert: “Zwischen Aufklärung und Vernunftkritik. Die Philosophische
Bedeutung des Kantschen Logikcorpus”. In: Kant und die Aufklärung. Ed. Norbert Hinske.
Stuttgart and Bad Cannstatt 1992, 57–71: 66.
198 Manuel Sánchez Rodríguez

due to the pedagogical and expository aspects present in those materials. In fact,
the notion of healthy understanding and its relation to logic is the main subject of
the first section in Logik-Blomberg, titled “Einleitung in die Vernunft-Lehre nach
denen Gedanken des Herrn Profess: Kant”33. Nevertheless, Kant follows Meier
and the aesthetical tradition when he highlights the natural capacity of healthy
understanding and healthy reason: “Der Mutterwitz ist die natürliche Fähigkeit
des gesunden Verstandes, und der gesunden Vernunft”34.
In Kant’s lectures on logic, the opposition between native wit and scholar wit
corresponds to the opposition between healthy or natural understanding and
speculative, artificial or learned understanding. Kant defines the laws of healthy
understanding and of common understanding35 as natural laws which this faculty
of knowledge observes and presupposes without being conscious of them; in
artificial understanding, however, the laws function as precepts governing our
knowledge in a normative sense.36
Kant describes the specific activity of healthy understanding as judging in con-
creto, which does not start from a general law in order to subsequently apply it to
a particular case. Healthy understanding, unlike mere common understanding,
can know correctly in a particular case, but the possibility of such correctness is
something that underlies the very nature of this faculty and does not derive from
an already determined set of rules given a priori in a distinct way to the subject.
This faculty works, let me use the expression, from the bottom to the top, and the
subject can come to a general rule only from a particular case:
[…] allein der gemeine Verstand nimmt in seinen Ausübungen einen gantz andern Weg als der
gelehrte. Der gemeine Verstand erkennet das allgemeine nur in concreto, oder ziehet das all-
gemeine aus einzeln Sätzen, die sich auf die Erfahrung gründen. Der höhere Verstand erken-
net das allgemeine in abstracto oder ziehet aus allgemeinen Sätzen einzelne heraus.37
Es giebt einen Gebrauch des Verstandes und Vernunft vor der Kentnis der Regeln: dies ist
der Gebrauch des Gesunden Verstandes […].
Der Gesunde Verstand urtheilt in concreto […].38
Zur Ausübung aber gehört gesunder Verstand und also Urtheilskraft, (in concreto) die Re-
geln […] auszumachen.39

Not only does Kant identify healthy understanding with judging in concreto,
but he also makes it clear that the function of this faculty is to extract the univer-
sal from the particular statements obtained from experience. He does not allude

33 V-Lo/Blomberg, AA 24: 16.

34 V-Lo/Blomberg, AA 24: 299.14 f. See also V-Lo/Philippi, AA 24: 314.10–19.
35 Kant refers to common understanding and healthy understanding as equal expressions,
although he recognizes that it is healthy understanding that turns out to be correct in ex-
perience.
36 V-Lo/Blomberg, AA 24.1: 16 f. See also V-Lo/Philippi, AA 24: 311 f.; V-Anth/Parow,
AA 25: 358.23–27; Refl. 1579, 1760–64? 1764–68? 1769–70? 1773–75??, AA 16:
17.6–22.
37 V-Lo/Philippi, AA 24: 312. See also Vo-Lo/Blomberg, AA 24: 21.12–16; Refl. 1573,
1760–64? 1764–68? (1769?) 1773–75, AA 16: 13.3–15; Refl. 709, 1771? (1769?)
1773–75??, AA 15: 314.
38 Refl. 1581, 1769–70? (1771–72?) (1760–64? 1764–68?) 1773–75??, AA 16: 24.
39 Refl. 2039, 1766?–71? (1764–68?), AA 16: 209.
 Logica naturalis 199

to any skill which could be developed or corrected by the conscious following of

logical precepts. It is rather applying scholar or learned wit that has to presuppose
precisely that the subject has the natural capacity to form empirical concepts
and particular laws from the cases of sensible experience. This capacity describes
the activity of healthy understanding as judging in concreto. It is this capacity that
corresponds to the natural judging human activity raised in Kritik der Urteilskraft,
and to which the theory of the reflecting power of judgment will give a critical
answer. In contrast to the so-called ‘pre-critical’ period, in the third Critique Kant
defends that the judging activity, despite being fallible and subjected to empirical
conditions, rests on a priori principles of a subjective kind, whose legislation is
characterized by the notion of heautonomy.
All in all, in both phases of his intellectual development Kant raises the same
issue: the requirement of judging on particular cases of experience to achieve a
general rule under which these can be subsumed. Both in the first approach and in
the Kritik der Urteilskraft he faces the problem of explaining how the possible
correctness of this judging could be justified. Of course, in the third Critique there
is a fundamental superseding of the position we are dealing with now. Neverthe-
less, we will see that Kant’s treatment of the concept of healthy understanding
already presupposes the appreciation of the problem of founding the judging ac-
tivity, whose further solution will be the theory of the reflecting power of judg-
ment and the concept of heautonomy. As it was pointed out at the beginning of
this paper, this issue covers two principal aspects, presupposed at the beginning of
the Kritik der Urteilskraft. Firstly, it is recognized that it is impossible to justify
the correctness of judging on the basis of rules or determined precepts that would
allow one to determine the objective adequacy of the judgment in question. Sec-
ondly, as a result of this we find out that the attempt to understand this specific
faculty is focused on the analysis of the model case of aesthetic judging. As we will
see, both aspects are already present in Kant’s reflections, which we shall deal
with in the following sections.

3. Healthy understanding and the source of the problem of judging

Kant’s exposition could initially seem dependent on a Wolffian position, as he

characterizes the natural laws of healthy understanding as “unconscious”, an ex-
pression that seems to indicate that logica artificialis enables us to gather and
make explicit those natural laws which define the specific activity of healthy
understanding as a faculty of judging. In this way, with the help of logica artifi-
cialis, the subject could come to know the natural legality in a distinct way, which
is confusingly presupposed in healthy understanding. Nevertheless, although it is
obvious that healthy understanding must unconsciously presuppose and follow
the general and formal laws categorized by the artificial logics, not every law that
healthy understanding presupposes can be gathered and made explicit in a doc-
trinal body. In particular, artificial knowledge cannot specify the intrinsic legality
of the very faculty of healthy understanding as a natural capacity. Kant maintains
200 Manuel Sánchez Rodríguez

that the correctness of healthy understanding in particular acts of judging does

not arise merely from a doctrinal body of specific laws. In this way he recognizes
the irreducibility of this initial moment of knowledge. In opposition to Wolff, he
defends in Logic-Blomberg that there is not a simple difference of degree between
logica naturalis and logica artificialis, but that each of them belongs to a specifi-
cally different sphere.40
This is why Kant insists on the idea that healthy understanding cannot be sub-
stituted by any doctrine.41 He follows Baumgarten and Meier in doubting the
value of any learned knowledge that does not presuppose the native wit of healthy
understanding and of healthy reason.42 Consequently, Kant denies that healthy
understanding could be taught or learnt from learnedness [Gehlersamkeit].43
And it is precisely in this statement where the problem of the foundation of
judging is recognized and pointed out. Around 1770 Kant firmly insists that the
judging of a case in concreto cannot stick to laws or criteria that decide a priori on
the objective correctness of the judgment in question – criteria that decide if the
particular case is or is not within reach of the rule expressed in judgment.
[Die Critick des gesunden Verstandes] kan nicht gelehrt werden; denn es wird zur application
der regeln nicht wieder eine Regel, sondern gesunder Verstand erfodert.44
Es ist zu bewundern daß keine Gelehrsamkeit, keine Unterweisung, auch nicht der höchste
Grad der Scharfsinnigkeit, den Mangel des gesunden Verstandes ersezzen könne. Der
RechenMeister giebt, seinen Schülern allgemeine Regeln zum rechnen, hat der Schüler keinen
gesunden Verstand, so wird er keinen besondern Fall unter dieser Regel subsumiren können,
denn von jedem Fall kann man nicht neue Regeln geben, weil dies wieder die Natur der all-
gemeinen Regeln wäre. Man kann keinen Menschen lehren einen Fall unter einer Regel zu
subsumiren, Man erkennt einfältige Leute sehr bald, weil sie immer nach Regeln verfahren,
dieses zeigt schon, daß sie gleichsam im GängelWagen müssen geleitet werden.45

40 V-Lo/Blomberg, AA 24: 17: “Die Gesunde Vernunft, und die Gelahrsamkeit sind nicht
bloß dem Grade nach, sonderen auch der Species nach unterschieden, es sind 2 besondere
Quellen jeder Art”. For a critique of the interpretation according to which natural logic
constitutes in Kant’s philosophy the basis for any development of artificial logic, see
Pozzo, Riccardo: Kant und das Problem einer Einleitung in die Logik: ein Beitrag zur Re-
konstruktion der historischen Hintergründe von Kants Logik-Kolleg. Frankfurt am Main,
etc. 1989, 160–65.
41 Refl. 737, 1771? (1769–70? 1773–75?), AA 15: 325: “Der gesunde Verstand ist nöthiger
als die Wissenschaft und durch sie nicht zu erwerben”. Refl. 1581, 1769–70? (1771–72?)
(1760–64? 1764–68?), AA 16: 24: “Man kan [den gesunden Verstand] nicht durch Wis-
senschaft ersetzen”.
42 V-Lo/Blomberg, AA 24: 299.14–23. See also V-Lo/Philippi, AA 24: 494.10–19.
43 V-Anth/Collins, AA 25: 156; V-Anth/Parow, AA 25: 359 f.
44 Later addition in Refl. 1579, 1760–64? 1764–68?, 1769–70? 1773–75??, AA 16: 22. See
also Refl. 737, AA 15: 325: “Daher {sind} bleiben alle logische regeln bei der theorie, weil
man die fälle in concreto nicht durch algemeine regeln erkennen kan, sondern dazu Ge-
sunden Verstand nöthig hat”.
45 V-Anth/Parow, AA 25: 359–360. See also V-Anth/Collins, AA 25: 158, and Refl. 1580,
1769–70? 1771–72? 1773–75? (1760–64 1764–68?), AA 16: 23 f.: “Regeln sind Gängel-
wagen vor diejenige, die nicht in jedem besonderen Falle unterscheiden können, was sich
geziemt. Gesunder und guter Verstand braucht keine Regeln. Die Regeln sind nicht genau
auf iedem Fall bestimt; demnach muß man ausnahmen zu lassen”.
 Logica naturalis 201

Kant already recognizes that, as stated in the first argument of the Kritik der rei-
nen Vernunft previously mentioned, there is no sense in considering the possibility
of a rule or criterion which would allow us to determine the objective correctness
of our knowledge in reference to particular cases, because any valid rule to be
taught or learnt, and therefore used as a criterion, ought to be universal. Precisely
because of that, it would not allow us to determine the objective correctness of
knowledge of particular cases. Secondly, both in the text quoted from Anthropo-
logie-Parow and in Refl. 1580 there are some elements that reappear in the second
quoted argument from the first Critique, in reference to the impossibility of for-
mulating a rule which would legislate a priori on the particular correctness of the
power of judgment; that is, the use of the same metaphor in order to illustrate the
issues relating to the application of the rules in judging: the ignorance of those
who need to be supported on the ‘walkers’ [Gängelwagen]46 of general rules and
examples in the lack of healthy understanding or, as maintained in the Kritik der
reinen Vernunft, in the lack of native wit47.
Both arguments, as stated in the first and the third Critique, express the same
problem that Kant deals with at the beginning of 1770 in the indicated texts. The
same question appears again both in the Anthropologie-Menschenkunde and in
the Anthropologie-Mrongovius, from the first half of the 1780s.48 The interesting
difference is that both lectures refer specifically to the power of judgment and no
longer to healthy understanding, in accordance with the terminology from the
first Critique. In the second text Kant inserts the infinite-regress.
Wir können den Menschen nicht durch Vorschriften unterrichten, wie er seine Urtheilskraft
gebrauchen soll: denn da werden sie wieder neue Regeln, ohne daß gezeigt werden kann, wie
wir von der Regel Gebrauch machen können.49
Man kann sie [die UrtheilsKraft] bloß üben aber nicht erlernen. Denn da mußte man Re-
geln der Anwendung haben diese aber müßten wieder neue Regeln haben da ihre Anwendung
UrtheilsKraft immer voraus setzt und das würde so ins unendliche fortgehen.50

Hence, the same issue is highlighted in different moments of Kant’s intellectual

development in two complementary arguments, namely the rejection of turning to
the rules as being self-contradictory on the one hand, and the recognition that the
founding process would lead ad infinitum on the other. Both arguments share the
same historical origin and capture the same problem, i.e. the impossibility of set-
ting out the rules or precepts that could determine the objective correctness of our
particular judgments. It becomes clear that the problem of founding judging con-
stitutes a constant theme in Kant’s thought from the beginning of 1770s and that
this interest is associated with his reflections on an important concept from Ger-
man aesthetics and logic, namely the concept of healthy understanding and native
wit.

46 The allusion to the ‘walkers’ of the native wit is present in KrV, A 134/B 174.
47 KrV, A 132 f./B 171 f.
48 V-Menschenkunde, AA 25: 1036.16–30; V-Anth/Mron, AA 25: 1297.
49 V-Menschenkunde, AA 25: 1036.
50 V-Anth/Mron, AA 25: 1297.
202 Manuel Sánchez Rodríguez

In this sense, Kant recognizes the limits of the foundation of the power of judg-
ment on general principles. Logic can offer formal and logical principles that
rule knowledge and its laws; these principles are also presupposed in the activity
of healthy understanding. Nevertheless, such a philosophy would not set out the
ultimate foundation of what escapes the prescriptive framework of universal for-
mal laws, namely the very natural capacity that enables us to judge particular
situations. As stated above, in the quoted Refl. 1579, if the healthy understand-
ing activity consists of the application in concreto of particular knowledge,
in which there is no empirical concept or rule and while general knowledge is still
to be formed, then this faculty cannot use the rules to fulfill its activity. Its cor-
rection is based on the very natural capacity that this faculty presupposes: native
wit. That is why the foundation of the process of judging, thanks to which
healthy understanding produces an empirical judgment from particular cases, re-
mains undetermined by artificial logic or by posterior formal and transcendental
logic.
Indeed, several notes by Kant, posterior to the Dissertatio period, show us that
he clearly excludes the problem of judging in concreto from the framework of for-
mal and transcendental logic.51 What is more, the possibility of transcendental
logic, as a knowledge which allows founding the objective validity of judgments in
general, lies in the recognition that such foundation leaves undetermined the is-
sues of forming empirical concepts as well as those of the empirical truth and the
specific activity of the power of judgment in a particular case. However, it does
not mean that this problem has become insignificant in Kant’s intellectual devel-
opment. The fact that he ceased to approach this problem from the point of view
of formal logic, unlike Wolff’s approach, rather indicates his interest in preserving
the specificity of this moment of the cognition process. In fact, the rejection of
founding this aspect of knowledge, the problem of its genesis, is a constant theme
in his intellectual development until 1790. Only with the Kritik der Urteilskraft
would Kant be in possession of a critical solution which would enable him to deal
with this question. The solution is achieved in his reflections on aesthetics in the
second half of 1780’s. This discovery, however, is not due to the fact that for the
first time in his intellectual development he links the problem of judging with his
reflections on aesthetics. We will see that this connection is also present in the
period we are going to deal with now.

4. The source of the connection

between the problem of judging and aesthetics

From the mid-1760s Kant sets up the problem of judging in the context of his
reflections on the meaning of aesthetical concepts. In the announcement of his lec-
tures (Nachricht), published in 1765, he still maintains that logic is involved both
in the use of healthy understanding (logica naturalis) and in learnedness (logica

51 See especially Refl. 1628, 1780–89, AA 16: 45, and Refl. 1629, 1780–89, AA 16: 47 f.
 Logica naturalis 203

artificialis). In particular, in relation to the former, logic ought to use the critique
of taste in cases in which its formal precepts turn out to be insufficient for the
life.52
Moreover, in the notes and lectures from around 1770 it is possible to ascertain
that the activity of healthy understanding in judging a singular case is conceived
by Kant on the basis of the critique of taste model and the notions of ‘sensus com-
munis’ and ‘bon sens’.
First of all, while the rules of speculative understanding can give rise to a
doctrine, the rules of healthy understanding can be used for critical purposes
only:
Die Regeln können entweder a priori erkannt und also demonstrirt werden, alsdenn {ist es}
sind sie dogmatisch. Logic.
oder nur a posteriori, und denn sind sie critisch. Im ersten Fall ist es {die dis} doctrin, im
zweyten critick. Grammatic.
Gesunder Verstand verstattet nur critic.53

When Kant refers to the ‘critique’ of healthy understanding, he does not apply
this concept with the same meaning as he will develop in the Kritik der reinen
Vernunft. He opposes the critique to the scientific and learned character typical of
a doctrine, which is contrary to the posterior description we can find in the first
Critique. In R 1579 he points out:
Die Wissenschaft von den {Gese} (g obiectiven) Regeln des richtigen Gebrauchs der Vernunft
(g überhaupft) ist Logic.
Die Wisseschaft von den (g objectiven) Regeln des richtigen Gebrauchs der reinen Vernunft
ist Metaphysic.
Die Wissenschaft von den subiectiven regeln unserer Erkentnis und anderer Kräfte der
Seelen psychologie.
Die Logic der Gesunden Vernunft: Critick, der Gelehrten: doctrin.54

52 “Ich werde die Logik von der ersten Art vortragen und zwar nach dem Handbuche des
Hrn. Prof. Meier, weil dieser die Grenzen der jetzt gedachten Absichten wohl vor Augen
hat und zugleich Anlaß giebt, neben der Cultur der feineren und gelehrten Vernunft die
Bildung des zwar gemeinen, aber thätigen und gesunden Verstandes zu begreifen, jene für
das betrachtende, diese für das thätige und bürgerliche Leben. Wobei zugleich die sehr
nahe Verwandschaft der Materien Anlaß giebt, bei der Kritik der Vernunft einige Blicke
auf die Kritik des Geschmacks, d.i. die Ästhetik, zu werfen, davon die Regeln der einen
jederzeit dazu dienen, die der andern zu erläutern, und ihre Abstechung ein Mittel ist,
beide besser zu begreifen”, in Nachricht von der Einrichtung seiner Vorlesungen in dem
Winterhalbenjahre von 1765–1766, AA 02: 310 f. On the meaning of the Nachricht for
development of aesthetics and sensibility theory in Kant’s philosophy, see especially To-
nelli, Giorgio: Kant, dall’estetica metafisica all’estetica psicoempirica…, op. cit., 136 f.,
and Baeumler, Alfred: Kants Kritik der Urteilskraft. Ihre Geschichte und Systematik (Das
Irrationalitätsproblem in der Ästhetik und Logik des 18. Jahrhunderts bis zur Kritik der
Urteilskraft, vol. 1). Darmstadt 1967 [11923]), 293.
53 Refl. 1587, 1769–70? (1771–72?) 1760–68??, AA 16: 26. See also Refl. 1575, 1760–64?
1764–68? (1769?) 1773–75??, AA 16: 14 f.; Refl. 1581, 1769–70? (1771–72?) (1760–64?
1764–68?) 1773–75??, AA 16: 24.
54 Refl. 1579, AA 16: 18.
204 Manuel Sánchez Rodríguez

In the first Critique both logic – as formal logic – and metaphysics – as tran-
scendental logic – are included in the system of philosophy,55 whereas in this
work psychology and not doctrinal critique of healthy reason or healthy under-
standing are excluded. The Kritik der reinen Vernunft considers the possibility of
the critique of reason as a doctrina diiudicationis that will underlie the theory of
the determining judgment in general. Only this theory constitutes a “logica pro-
prie dicta, doctrina”56. Of course, Kant still defines the critique as a science in the
period close to the Dissertatio; however, in that case it would be a “critica sensus
communis”, which is conceived precisely as non-doctrinal.57 He identifies the
common understanding with “sensus communis” and healthy understanding with
“bon sens”, which should be presupposed in particular acts of judging that occur
“in der Moral, Jurisprudenz, Physic oder schönen Wissenschaften”58.
“The logic of healthy reason”, which is referred to in the text, corresponds to the
natural logic or logica naturalis that, according to Wolff, is presupposed by the
native wit. Nevertheless, Kant connects with the aesthetical tradition when he de-
fines this logic presupposed by healthy reason or healthy understanding as critique.
Since the critique is opposed to the doctrine, he still does not refer to the tran-
scendental critique that is exerted by the philosopher on the subjective capacity of
healthy reason. It is rather the critique of a particular case that healthy reason
executes without the necessity of using artificial rules, but in concordance with
sensus communis or bon sens.
The materials from this period59 reveal that Kant understands that the critique
executed by healthy understanding has the same characteristics as the critique
executed by taste:
Die Vernunfterkenntnis des Schönen ist nur Critik und nicht wissenschaft, erklärt das phae-
nomenon, aber sein Beweis ist a posteriori […]
Der gute Geschmak findet nur in dem Zeitalter der Gesunden, aber nicht blos subtilen Ver-
nunft statt.60

55 On the relation between formal and transcendental logic in Kant’s intellectual develop-
ment, see Vázquez Lobeiras, María Jesús: Die Logik und ihr Spiegelbild: Das Verhältnis
von formaler und transzendentaler Logik in Kants philosophischer Entwicklung. Frank-
furt am Main 1998.
56 Refl. 1579, AA 16: 19.
57 Ibid., AA 16: 18: “Die Wissenschaft von den Regeln {der} im gemeinen (g Gebrauche der)
Vernunft ist die Critica sensus communis”.
58 V-Lo/Philippi, AA 24: 312.
59 See V-Lo/Philippi, AA 24: 344; Refl. 1587, AA 16: 26; V-Anth/Parow, AA 25: 385.14–26;
V-Anth/Collins, AA, 25: 175 f., 194; Refl. 764, 1772–73, AA 15: 333; Refl 622, 1769?
(1764–68? 1766–68?), AA 15: 269.
60 Refl. 622, 1769? (1664–68?, 1766–68?), AA 15: 269. See V-Lo/Philippi, AA 24.1: 359:
“Eine Wissenschaft des Schönen giebt es gar nicht, weil keine erste Regel gegeben werden
können, welches doch in einer Wissenschaft seyn soll. Die Geschmackslehre ist keine
Lehre, keine Doctrin, sondern nur eine Critic […]. Die Kritickregeln sind mehr Erklä-
rungen der Phänomenorum als Präcept der wirklichen Gegenstände”. V-Lo/Blomberg,
AA 24: 19: „Was schön ist, muß allgemein, und jedermann gefallen. Zu Beurtheilung der
Schönheit wird Erfahrung erforderet, und das urtheil vom schönen und Häßlichen wird zu
Folge der gemeinen und gesunden Vernunft gefället”.
 Logica naturalis 205

Wir können a priori keine Geschmackslehre geben, sondern wir müßen Producte deßelben
vor uns haben. Die allgemeine Erklärungsgrunde des Geschmaks sind aber allerdings in der
menschlichen Natur gegründet. Es läßt daher nur eine Critic, aber nicht eine Doctrin des
Geschmacks a priori geben.61

The function of both faculties is to offer a judging in concreto, and they cannot
refer to any artificial rules or criteria of a prescriptive kind. Thus, they cover fields
beyond instruction and learning. The correctness of judging according to taste
and to healthy understanding is proved in concreto or a posteriori, i.e. in the very
act in which the situation is judged. Moreover, in both cases such correctness is
based on the natural capacity of the subject. The universality and the communi-
cability of this natural capacity is not defined by Kant in terms of artificial and
universal laws of formal logic, but with the help of terms from the aesthetical
tradition, such as ‘sensus communis’ and ‘bon sens’. All in all, this characteriz-
ation also makes Kant keep distance from Baumgarten’s aesthetic project with re-
spect to his ulterior philosophical understanding of beauty, since a critique of
taste that is not grounded on a theoretical body of discursive rules cannot be
understood as a science, that is, as a cognitio aesthetica.62
On the other hand, in the previous section it was stated that the controversy
over the foundation we dealt with was seen not only in relation to healthy under-
standing, but also in relation to the empirical truth of our particular judgments.
In fact, Kant declares in the Anthropologie-Collins that the function of healthy
understanding is precisely to know truths through experience.63 In accordance
with this coincidence about the same issues, he would also base the question of
empirical truth on the requirement that we presuppose a sensus communis to which
we should always refer our particular judgments.64 Thus we can say that during

61 V-Anth/Collins, AA 25.1: 175s. “Alle schöne Künste […] verstaten demnach keine Doc-
trin, sondern nur eine Critic; denn der Geschmack läßt sich nicht durch Regel lernen”, in
V-Lo/Philippi, AA 24.1: 314. “Die Lehre des Geschmacks ist keine Doctrin, sondern eine
Critik. Die Critik ist die Unterscheidung des Werthes in einem schon gegeben Subject,
denn wäre die Lehre eine Doctrin so könnte man lernen wizig werden; allein die Critik hat
den Nutzen, daß man sich selbst beurtheilen lernt, sie schärft unsere Urtheilskraft […].
Nun kann man eine ganze Lehre der Critik abfaßen, es macht jemand ein Gedicht, nach
allen aesthetischen Regeln, und dennoch gefällt es zuweilen nicht. Wem ist es zu glauben,
denn aesthetischen Regeln oder dem, dem es nicht gefällt? Dem letztern, denn alle aesthe-
tische Regel sind nur vom Geschmack vieler Menschen Abgezogen”, in V-Anth/Parow, AA
25.1: 385; see also V-Anth/Collins, AA 25.1: 194. “Geschmack ist [die allgemein gültige]
Urtheilskraft in Ansehung dessen, was nach Gesetzen der sinnlichkeit allgemeine Gefällt.
Er hat eine Regel, aber nicht durch discursive Erkenntnisse, sondern nur durch intuitum”,
in R 764, 1772–1773, AA 15.1: 333. See also V-Lo/Philippi, AA 24.1: 314, 344; V-Lo/
Blomberg, AA 24.1: 46
62 See V-Lo/Blomgerg, AA 24.1: 77; Log, AA 09: 15.
63 V-Anth/Collins, AA 25: 155.
64 See V-Lo/Blomberg, AA 24: 85 f., 93, 150; V-Lo/Philippi, AA 24: 387–96; V-Menschen-
kunde, AA 25: 1012, 1095; Refl. 2163, 1776–78? (1773–75?), AA 16: 256; Refl. 2173,
1776–78? (1778–79? 1780–89?), AA 16: 258; R 2175, 1780–89? (1776–79?), AA 16:
259; V-Anth/Busolt, AA 25: 1488 f. The claim that we must connect our particular judge-
ments to sensus communis emanates from the idea of ‘universal human reason’, as a prin-
ciple from which Kant defends the impossibility of an absolute error. For an understand-
206 Manuel Sánchez Rodríguez

his whole intellectual development until the Kritik der Urteilskraft Kant defends
the requirement of referring our particular judgment to the judgment of others, as
a general condition from which an individual subject should start in order to
claim knowledge about objects.

Conclusion

In his reflections on the connection between aesthetics on the one hand and
the problems concerning judging and the knowledge of truth on the other, Kant
still does not reach a critical solution. He does not even have at his disposal the
fundamental principles of criticism, nor does he have a theory of faculties that is
compatible with such principles. It is only in the Kritik der Urteilskraft where he
provides a critical solution, by which the general problem of judging about par-
ticulars would be examined on the occasion of the analysis and the transcendental
critique of aesthetic judgments. Nevertheless, this paper shows that the problem
of the foundation of judging was pointed out around 1770 and Kant had already
dealt with it in the context of his reflections on aesthetics. Hence the innovation in
his intellectual development in the second half of 1780 lies not in the discovery of
the systematic relation between the problem of judging and aesthetics, but rather
in the possibility of linking both in a critical frame.
The fact that in the first Critique this issue was raised without the application of
aesthetical concepts could lead us, and rightly so, to believe that Kant has not yet
achieved a systematic solution that would enable him to incorporate the critique
of taste in his incipient philosophical system. But it cannot mean that he has
not already discovered the potential of aesthetic concepts to set out the problem
and to reflect on it, as if it had been this discovery that led him to write the Kritik
der Urteilskraft. Certainly, Kant would try to resolve with this work many of the
problems that had arisen from the two previous Critiques. Nevertheless, the dif-
ficulty of founding the reflecting power of judgment, as presented in the Preface
of this work, embraces the old question of the logic and the theory of knowledge,
on which the Leibniz-Wolffian Philosophy from the 18th century had already re-
flected, and to which Kant was linked even before the first Critique, using pre-
cisely the notions of logic and aesthetics inherited from this tradition.

ing of this concept as a key term in the German Enlightment, please refer to Hinske,
Norbert: Kant als Herausforderung an die Gegenwart. Freiburg/München 1980, 31–60.