Ricerc@Sapienza

Kant and ‘Pragmatic’ Schematism. The «Material Idea» Between Plato and Aristotle · Kant’s philosophy is often animated by the aim of conciliating opposite positions. With regard to the opposition between the two classical options of the history of metaphysics, namely Platonism and Aristotelism, he discusses the problem of the so-called « idea materialis » as a possible ‘bridge’ between material reality and immaterial knowledge. Kant ascribes the invention of « material ideas » to Descartes, but no occurrance of this expression can be found in the writings of the French thinker. On the contrary, it is Wolff that discusses « material ideas » in his psychological works. Moreover, an interesting occurrence of the expression « material idea » can be found in the architectural theory of Leonhard Christoph Sturm, where it refers to scale models. This may represent an interesting link to the Kantian theory of schematism. Rather than denoting a third level of gnoseological data – images besides senses and intellect – Schematism can indeed be interpreted as a pragmatic function and as method.