Wit, Hypothetical Use of Reason and Reflecting Power of Judgment in Kant’s Philosophy

Abstract

This article researches the historical and systematic background of Kant’s reflecting power of judgment theory based on a historical study of the concept of wit [ingenium, Witz]. Although the Notes from Lessons on Anthropology even expound the meaning of this concept in the context of Baumgarten’s empirical psychology, this material helps us interpret the concept of wit as one of the most important precedents of the reflecting power of judgment theory presented in Kant’s Critique of the Power of Judgment. The exposition of wit furthermore highlights the systematic and historic connection between the third Critique and the theory of the hypothetical use of reason found in the Appendix of the Transcendental Dialectic of the Critique of Pure Reason.