Kant’s Enigmatic Transition Practical Cognition of the Supersensible

Despite his well-known critical restriction of human cognition to the domain of objects of sense, Kant also repeatedly asserts in his various Critical period texts that we can attain “practical cognition” and knowledge of the cardinal supersensible objects of traditional metaphysics, i.e., freedom, God, immortality or the afterlife(A796/B824; KpV 5:5; FM 20:295–300; KU §§88–91). Kant’s account of the structure and limits of theoretical cognition as well as whether there is a sense in which we can have any theoretical insight into the supersensible have attracted significant scholarly attention. Excellent work has also been done on Kant’s approach to the supersensible objects as articles of practical postulation and practical(rational) belief. Yet, Kant’s conception of practical cognition, both in general and with regard to the supersensible objects in particular, has not enjoyed a proportionate interest, perhaps because Kant’s use of the term “cognition” in this context is regarded as too loose to signify anything like full-fledged cognition as we know it from Kant’s theoretical works. This chapter argues that there is a rigorous sense in which what Kant refers to as the practical cognition of the supersensible is a genuine instance of cognition. Following a reconstruction of Kant’s theory of cognition in general, the author demonstrates how theoretical and practical cognition, respectively, both fit this general account and yet differ radically such that while the former is limited to the sensible the latter extends to the supersensible realm of objects.