In other words, cognition would have to be cognized by itself.
Pain and pleasure are qualities of the soul but they need to be cognized by the self in order to be experienced.
Definitions as well as fundamental mathematical propositions, for example, that space can only have three dimensions, must be "examined in concreto so that they come to be cognized intuitively", but such propositions can never be proved since they are not inferred from other propositions (2 281).
There were, however, a number of members of the Franciscan order, including John Duns Scotus, who was sometimes understood by contemporaries to have claimed that singulars could be cognized as singular by the intellect.
Kant then argues that because "the possibility of determinate natural things cannot be cognized from their mere concepts … it is still required that the intuition corresponding to the concept be given a priori, that is, that the concept be constructed" (4:470), which is a task that requires mathematics.
… Now there is no existence that could be cognized as necessary under the condition of other given appearances except the existence of effects from given causes in accordance with laws of causality.
The naturalism of Democritus, Hobbes and others derives everything from what can be cognized and is pluralistic in structure; idealism of freedom as found in Plato, Kant and others insists on the sovereignty of the will and is dualistic; objective idealism as found in Heraclitus, Leibniz and Hegel affirms reality as the embodiment of a harmonious set of values and is monistic.
According to the first, extra-mental entities exist simultaneously to their cognition and are cognized directly by the latter.
Citta can never be experienced as bare consciousness in its own origination moment, for consciousness is always intentional, directed to a particular object that is cognized by means of certain mental factors.
A variant is the so-called "saṃvedana- inference": "the object is not different from the cognizing consciousness, because it is being cognized (saṃvedyamāna); only what is essentially identical (tādātmya) with consciousness is cognizable".
In an unpublished Reflexion, written between the late 1770s and mid 1780s, Kant illustrates the transformation in question by precisely the transition from Kepler to Newton (R 5414; 18, 176): "Empirically one can certainly discover rules, but not laws as Kepler in comparison with Newton for to the latter belongs necessity, and hence that they are cognized a priori".
