History of Europe

What was doctrine of Anschauung?

Anschauung ("intuition") is a key concept in the philosophy of Immanuel Kant. It refers to the immediate, direct experience of an object or event, as opposed to knowledge gained through abstract reasoning or conceptual analysis. Kant argued that Anschauung is the foundation of all knowledge, and that it is only through Anschauung that we can come to understand the world around us.

According to Kant, Anschauung is a pure and simple representation of an object, unmediated by any concepts or categories. It is the raw material of experience, which is then shaped and organized by the mind through the use of concepts and categories. For example, when we see a tree, we have an immediate, intuitive experience of the tree as a whole. This Anschauung is then organized and categorized by the mind, which applies the concepts of "tree," "plant," "organism," etc., to the experience.

Kant also distinguished between two types of Anschauung: pure Anschauung and empirical Anschauung. Pure Anschauung is the immediate experience of objects that are not mediated by any concepts or categories. It is the Anschauung of the pure forms of space and time, which Kant argued are the necessary conditions for all experience. Empirical Anschauung, on the other hand, is the immediate experience of objects that are mediated by concepts and categories. It is the Anschauung of the world as it appears to us through our senses.

Kant's doctrine of Anschauung has been influential in many areas of philosophy, including epistemology, metaphysics, and aesthetics. It has also been used to develop theories of art, literature, and music.