| SS 4. SECTION 1. Of defined above Use of understanding in General. |
| The understanding was defined above only negatively, as a non-sensuous faculty of cognition. |
| Now, independently of sensibility, we cannot possibly have any intuition; consequently, the understanding is no faculty of intuition. |
| But besides intuition there is no other mode of cognition, except through conceptions; consequently, the cognition of every, at least of every human, understanding is a cognition through conceptions--not intuitive, but discursive. |
| All intuitions, as sensuous, depend on affections; conceptions, therefore, upon functions. |
| By the word function I understand the unity of the act of arranging diverse representations under one common representation. |
| Conceptions, then, are based on the spontaneity of thought, as sensuous intuitions are on the receptivity of impressions. |
| Now, the understanding cannot make any other use of these conceptions than to judge by means of them. |
| As no representation, except an intuition, relates immediately to its object, a conception never relates immediately to an object, but only to some other representation thereof, be that an intuition or itself a conception. |
| A judgement, therefore, is the mediate cognition of an object, consequently the representation of a representation of it. |
| In every judgement there is a conception which applies to, and is valid for many other conceptions, and which among these comprehends also a given representation, this last being immediately connected with an object. |
| For example, in the judgement-- "All bodies are divisible," our conception of divisible applies to various other conceptions; among these, however, it is here particularly applied to the conception of body, and this conception of body relates to certain phenomena which occur to us. |
| These objects, therefore, are mediately represented by the conception of divisibility. |
| All judgements, accordingly, are functions of unity in our representations, inasmuch as, instead of an immediate, a higher representation, which comprises this and various others, is used for our cognition of the object, and thereby many possible cognitions are collected into one. |
| But we can reduce all acts of the understanding to judgements, so that understanding may be represented as the faculty of judging. |
| For it is, according to what has been said above, a faculty of thought. |
| Now thought is cognition by means of conceptions. |
| But conceptions, as predicates of possible judgements, relate to some representation of a yet undetermined object. |
| Thus the conception of body indicates something--for example, metal--which can be cognized by means of that conception. |
| It is therefore a conception, for the reason alone that other representations are contained under it, by means of which it can relate to objects. |
| It is therefore the predicate to a possible judgement; for example; "Every metal is a body." All the functions of the understanding therefore can be discovered, when we can completely exhibit the functions of unity in judgements. |