The Production of Judgments in Kant

by Maria Odete Madeira

For Kant, the production of judgments consists in thinking the diverse of the empirical experience as if it was contained in a universal.

If the universal is previously given, as a rule, principle or law, indicating, a priori, the conditions in which the empirical diverse can be subsumed, then the judgment is said to be determinant and it is objective. However, if only the empirical diverse is given, the faculty of judgment (existent in all subjects capable of thought and reason) has to find the universal to that empirical diverse, then, the judgment is said to be reflexive, indeterminate and subjective.

For Kant, to judge is, always, an exercise of subsuming the empirical diverse in unifying rules. Be it a subjective or an objective judgment, that judgment has, always, its foundation and its condition of possibility in general rules of unity of synthesis of the diverse of the experience. These rules are considered, by Kant, rules a priori, without which no possible experience could be thought or known.

Thus, in Kant, every general unity of synthesis has its condition of possibility in a reflexive capability, dispositionally existent in all the subjects capable of thought and reason.