Just before
expounding his table of logical functions of judgment in section 10 of the Transcendental Analytic, Kant defines
the understanding as a "capacity to judge":
"We can reduce all acts of the understanding to judgments, and the
understanding may therefore be represented as a capacity to judge [Vermögen
zu urteilen]" (A69/B94). This description of the understanding appears
again in the next section, right after Kant has laid out the table of
categories according to the guiding thread provided by the logical forms of
judgment: "This division [of the categories] is developed systematically
from a common principle, namely, the capacity
to judge [neimlich dem Vermögen zu
urteilen] (which is the same as the capacity to think [Vermögen zu denken])" (A81/B 106).
Compare this Vermögen zu urteilen with Kant's distinction between Vermögen and Kraft in his Lectures on Metaphysics, inspired by Baumgarten. The Vermögen (facultas) is the possibility of acting, or tendency to act, that is proper to a substance. Following Baumgarten, Kant writes that a conatus is associated with every Vermögen. This conatus is a tendency or effort to actualize itself. For this tendency to be translated into action, it must be determined to do so by external conditions. Then the Vermögen becomes a Kraft, in Latin Vis, Force (12). Following this line, the Vermögen zu urteilen, specified according to the different logical forms presented in Kant's table, can be considered as a possibility or potentiality of forming judgments. The Urteilskraft which Kant describes in the Analytic of Principles and in the Critique of Judgment (Kritik der Urteilskraft) is the actualization of the Vermögen zu urteilen under sensory stimulation.
To be sure, one should approach this parallel with caution. First of all, the Critique warns us not to consider the Gemüt or mind, the whole of our representational capacities, as a substance (13). This being the case, it would then be incorrect to identify the meaning of Vermögen and Krafte when applied to the mind with the meaning these terms have in the metaphysics of substance set forth in the Vorlesungen zur Metaphysik. Second, the distinction between the Vermögen zu urteilen (the understanding) and the Kraft (Urteilskraft, the "power" at work in the activity of judgment) is not always entirely clear. Not only does Kant sometimes refer to the Urteilskraft (power of judgment) itself as a Vermögen zu urteilen (14) but, furthermore, he generally applies the term Vermögen to all the higher cognitive faculties: the understanding, the power of judgment (Urteilskraft), and reason. The vocabulary is thus far from fixed, and it would be a mistake to expect it to sustain overly sharp distinctions. Even so, in the context I have mentioned—that is, the establishment of the table of the logical forms of judgment as the guiding thread for the table of categories—I think the relation between the terms Vermögen and Kraft is significant. It is important for the understanding of Kant's argument to consider the Vertnögen zu urteilen as a capacity for discursive thought, and the power of judgment, Urteilskraft, as its actualization in relation to sensory perceptions. In any case, when I use the expression "capacity to judge" in the title of this work, this is how it should be taken. It should not be taken as referring to the power of judgment discussed in the System of Principles or in the third Critique (although it remains true that the Urteilskraft, in English power of judgment, expounded in these two texts depends on the Vermögen zu urteilen, the capacity to judge). My main concern shall be the Vermögen zu urteilen, the capacity for discursive thought, the specific forms of which are delineated by Kant in his table of the logical functions of judgment. I intend to show that Kant's attempt to elucidate this capacity is the key to the argument of the Transcendental Analytic, and thereby one of the cornerstones of the critical system.
Compare this Vermögen zu urteilen with Kant's distinction between Vermögen and Kraft in his Lectures on Metaphysics, inspired by Baumgarten. The Vermögen (facultas) is the possibility of acting, or tendency to act, that is proper to a substance. Following Baumgarten, Kant writes that a conatus is associated with every Vermögen. This conatus is a tendency or effort to actualize itself. For this tendency to be translated into action, it must be determined to do so by external conditions. Then the Vermögen becomes a Kraft, in Latin Vis, Force (12). Following this line, the Vermögen zu urteilen, specified according to the different logical forms presented in Kant's table, can be considered as a possibility or potentiality of forming judgments. The Urteilskraft which Kant describes in the Analytic of Principles and in the Critique of Judgment (Kritik der Urteilskraft) is the actualization of the Vermögen zu urteilen under sensory stimulation.
To be sure, one should approach this parallel with caution. First of all, the Critique warns us not to consider the Gemüt or mind, the whole of our representational capacities, as a substance (13). This being the case, it would then be incorrect to identify the meaning of Vermögen and Krafte when applied to the mind with the meaning these terms have in the metaphysics of substance set forth in the Vorlesungen zur Metaphysik. Second, the distinction between the Vermögen zu urteilen (the understanding) and the Kraft (Urteilskraft, the "power" at work in the activity of judgment) is not always entirely clear. Not only does Kant sometimes refer to the Urteilskraft (power of judgment) itself as a Vermögen zu urteilen (14) but, furthermore, he generally applies the term Vermögen to all the higher cognitive faculties: the understanding, the power of judgment (Urteilskraft), and reason. The vocabulary is thus far from fixed, and it would be a mistake to expect it to sustain overly sharp distinctions. Even so, in the context I have mentioned—that is, the establishment of the table of the logical forms of judgment as the guiding thread for the table of categories—I think the relation between the terms Vermögen and Kraft is significant. It is important for the understanding of Kant's argument to consider the Vertnögen zu urteilen as a capacity for discursive thought, and the power of judgment, Urteilskraft, as its actualization in relation to sensory perceptions. In any case, when I use the expression "capacity to judge" in the title of this work, this is how it should be taken. It should not be taken as referring to the power of judgment discussed in the System of Principles or in the third Critique (although it remains true that the Urteilskraft, in English power of judgment, expounded in these two texts depends on the Vermögen zu urteilen, the capacity to judge). My main concern shall be the Vermögen zu urteilen, the capacity for discursive thought, the specific forms of which are delineated by Kant in his table of the logical functions of judgment. I intend to show that Kant's attempt to elucidate this capacity is the key to the argument of the Transcendental Analytic, and thereby one of the cornerstones of the critical system.
(12) Cf. Met. Volckmann (1784-85), Ak. XXVIII-1, 434: "Capacity [Vermögen] and power [Kraft] must be distinguished. In capacity we represent to ourselves the possibility of an action, it does not contain the sufficient reason of the action, which is power [die Kraft], but only its possibility… The conatus, effort [Bestrebung] is properly speaking the determination of a capacity ad actum." Refl. 3582 (1775-77), Ak. XVII, 72: "The internal possibility of a power [einer Kraft] (of acting) is capacity [das Vermögen]." In the original French version of this work I translated Vermögen by pouvoir (hence the French title of the book, Kant et le pouvoir de juger). And I adopted the usual translation of Urteilskraft by, faculte de juger. I would have liked to keep the same pair in English: Vermögen zu urteilen as power of judgment and Urteilskraft as faculty of judgment (even though Vermögen, as we have seen from the texts of Baumgarten I have quoted, translates the Latin, facultas!). But power seems not to have as clearly, in English, the connotation of "mere potentiality" that pouvoir has in French. Allen Wood indicated to me that in the new translation of the Critique he is preparing with Paul Guyer, they have translated Vermögen zu urteilen by faculty of judging, and Urteilskraft by power of judgment. I have preferred capacity to judge for Vermögen zu urteilen, again to preserve as much as possible the idea of unactualized potentiality. And I have adopted Guyer and Wood's translation of Urteilskraft by power of judgment, thus sacrificing the parallel with my French use. Translating is a difficult task, and no solution will ever be completely satisfactory. In any case, as I say later, the distinction between the terms Vermögen and Kraft is interesting and illuminating in some contexts (I am convinced it is in the present one), but not always.
(13) Kant develops this view in his criticism of the Paralogisms of Pure Reason, that is, his criticism of the rationalist notion of a soul. Cf. A341/B399-40.
(14) Cf. KU, §35, Ak. V, 287; 151: The subjective condition of all judgments is our very capacity to judge [Vermögen zu urteilen selbst], i.e., the power of judgment [oder die Urteilskraft]. When we use this power of judgment in regard to a representation by which an object is given, then it requires that there be a harmony between two representational powers [zweier Vorstellungskreifte], imagination (for the intuition and the combination of its manifold) and understanding (for the concept that is the representation of the unity of this combination)."
*Longuenesse, Beatrice (1993), Kant and the capacity to judge: sensibility and discursivity in the transcendental analytic of the Critique of Pure Reason, Princeton University Press, New Jersey 1998, p.p. 7-8.