Apprehension (understanding)

The philosophical concept of apprehension derives from the Latin apprehendere ( capture or take ) and means the spiritual development and awareness of a phenomenon. Apprehension is thus the mental grasp of a perception. This term was used by Thomas Aquinas to Kant often.

Thomas Aquinas

According to Thomas Aquinas, the apprehension is the first stage of knowledge. It is the beginning of the transition from potency ( ability ) to act (for reals ). He distinguished four Apprehensionsformen:

Immanuel Kant

According to Immanuel Kant, there is only one Apprehensionsform:

• This is a state by a variety of interactions. You, the apprehension is, according to Kant, the " directly applied to the perception of action " of the imagination ( CPR A 120 ). It is, according to Kant a precursor of the imagination, by which the disordered phenomena " come to mind " ( CPR A 122 ). The imagination is to bring the variety of sensations ( " the manifold of phenomena " ) in an image into a " empirical intuition " ( CPR B 160 ), and thus just this can be done, must the imagination which creates a mentally visual image before apprehendieren. The apprehension of the manifold in the appearance of a house is successively.
• Kant: " There is in us an active faculty of synthesis of this manigfaltigen, which we call imagination, and their directly applied to the perceptions of action I call apprehension. " ( CPR, Chapter: Deduction of the Pure Concepts of the Understanding )
• Kant: " The imagination is namely to bring the manifold of intuition in a picture; before they must therefore take the impressions in their activities, di apprehendieren. " ( Ibid )