Givenness and Cognition

Reply to Grüne and Chignell

Datos Bibliográficos

ID8095191
AutoresEmma Watkins (0000-0001-6488-7235, autor de correspondencia), Marcus Willaschek
Año2017
Volumen55
Número1
Páginas143-152
Fecha de publicación2017-01-01
Peer ReviewedSí
Open AccessNo
TipoARTICLE
RevistaJournal of the history of philosophy (JOURNAL)
Identificadores de la revistaISSN: 0022-5053 • E-ISSN: 1538-4586
EditorialProject MUSE (PUBLISHER • US)
DOI10.1353/hph.2017.0006
OpenAlexW2582739045
IdiomaEN
Citas recibidas2
Referencias citadas3

We are grateful to Stefanie Grüne and Andrew Chignell for their thoughtful commentaries on our paper. Both focus their remarks on the issue of 'givenness,' which could seem like a relatively narrow topic within the much broader subject matter of cognition that we have attempted to describe in our paper. However, we think that givenness, properly understood, plays an important role in Kant's account of cognition, since it is central to both of the conditions that Kant places on cognition (which we call the 'givenness condition' and the 'thought condition'). In particular, we maintain that givenness is an independent condition on cognition, one that has a meaning and function distinct from what it contributes to the thought condition. Full consideration of the givenness condition allows one to see more clearly how it gives expression to one of Kant's most fundamental concerns in the first Critique. For, in our view, the primary role of givenness is to help to explain how it is that representations can refer, or fail to refer, to objects in a specific, cognitively significant way, an achievement that Kant is marking with the term 'cognition.' To make good on these claims and to substantiate this picture of the broader significance of givenness within Kant's account of cognition, we address Grüne's paper first, then Chignell's

Cognition · Cognitive psychology · Cognitive science · Epistemology · Expression (computer science · Focus (optics · Function (biology · Meaning (existential · Subject (documents · Computer Science · Epistemology, Ethics, and Metaphysics · Philosophical Ethics and Theory · Philosophy and Theoretical Science · Psychology · Philosophy