stankovic, sasa thesis.pdf - Atrium - University of Guelph

the principle of their possibility [das Prinzipium ihrer Möglichkeit], at least the occasioning
causes of their production [die Gelegenheitsursachen ihrer Erzeugung]” (CPR A86/B119).
Sensible impressions prompt the faculty of knowledge in the sense that they erzeugen it. In other
words, sensible impressions generate or produce the faculty of knowledge. For this reason, we
can say that the faculty is in fact inherent. However, to the extent that it is generated or produced,
it is not inherent as something already given. This point should already attune us to the
insufficiency of the English term ‘faculty,’ which both Kemp Smith as well as Guyer and Wood
use to translate Kant’s terms das Vermögen, die Fähigkeit or die Kraft. The English word
‘faculty’ connotes something static, in other words, something that already is, and is perhaps in
some specific place such as in my brain. However, these German terms have no such
connotations. In other words, none of these terms connotes something that already is and is, as it
were, in some specific place such as in my brain. Instead, each of these German terms connotes
something rather dynamic. Das Vermögen, die Fähigkeit or die Kraft is not. At the same time
however that does not mean that each of these terms designates a nothing. Instead, das
Vermögen, die Fähigkeit or die Kraft is not, however, it very well can be. Perhaps we can say
that each of these terms designates a kind of potentiality. For this reason, perhaps it is best not to
translate each of these terms as faculty, but rather as ‘ability.’
We have asked what faculties are. Perhaps we can think of them in terms of inherent
potentialities, in other words, in terms of abilities. This definition allows us to gain a full
meaning of the word veranlassen. That sensible impressions prompt the faculty of knowledge
means that they actualize the ability to know. “The impressions of the senses supplying the first
stimulus [den ersten Anlaß], the whole faculty of knowledge opens [eröffnen] out to them, and
experience is brought into existence [Erfahrung zustande zu bringen]” (CPR A86/B119). In other
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