Le Anticipazioni della percezione. Un riesame analitico

This article aims at providing an analytical commentary to the section on the Anticipations of Perception, with particular regard both to the question about the “subject” that carries the anticipations out and to the features that differentiate the anticipations of perception from other forms of anticipation. The structure of the essay follows the Kantian text in order to develop a gradual understanding of the arguments involved in the section and to grasp the theoretical tensions that shine through it. As a first step, I briefly trace the main philosophical usages of the notion of ‘anticipation’ in the history of philosophy in order to clarify the specificity of Kant’s use; in a second step, I raise the issue regarding the attribution of anticipation (i.e. does perception itself anticipate or is perception anticipated?). In the third part, I analyse the two formulations of the principle, since their difference displays some relevant elements for setting the problem of the subject of anticipation. In the fourth section, I will deal with Kant’s definition of some pivotal notions such as perception, sensation, phaenomena, matter, reality. Then, I will focus on the relationship between sensation and reality. In a sixth step, I analyse the theoretical path by which Kant obtains the notions of intensive magnitude and grade. Then, I provide a discussion about the kind of anticipation involved in the Anticipations of perception, by distinguishing it from other conceptions of anticipation Kant evokes. In an eighth section, I dwell on the peculiar synthesis that grade conveys into experience. Then, I analyse both the intertwining of continuity of perceiving and discontinuity of change – especially through Scaravelli’s account – and the double behaviour displayed by extensive and intensive quantities. Finally, I draw some conclusions in order to answer the problem of attribution.