[13] Kant, in _illustrating_ the nature of a judgement, evades the difficulty occasioned by his account of perception, by illustrating a 'perception' by the 'conception of body', and 'objects' by 'certain phenomena'. He thereby covertly substitutes the relation of universal and individual for the relation of an appearance and the object which causes it.
If we do so, we see that Kant's account of judgement simply amounts to this: 'Judgement is the use of a conception or 'universal'; the use of a conception or universal consists in bringing under it corresponding individuals or species. Consequently, judgement is a function producing unity. If, for instance, we judge 'All bodies are divisible', we thereby unify 'bodies' with other kinds of divisible things by bringing them under the conception of divisibility; and if we judge 'This body is divisible' we thereby unify this divisible body with others by bringing it and them under the conception of divisibility.'[14] Again, since 'the understanding in general can be represented as a _faculty of judging_', it follows that the activity of the understanding consists in introducing unity into our representations, by bringing individuals or species--both these being representations--under the corresponding universal or conception.[15]
[14] It is not Kant's general account of judgement given in this passage, but the account of perception incompatible with it, which leads him to confine his illustrations to universal judgements.
[15] We may note three minor points. (1) Kant's definition of function as 'the unity of the act of arranging [i. e. the act which produces unity by arranging] different representations under a common representation' has no justification in its immediate context, and is occasioned solely by the forthcoming description of judgement. (2) Kant has no right to distinguish the activity which _originates_ conceptions, or upon which they depend, from the activity which _uses_ conceptions, viz. judgement. For the act of arranging diverse representations under a common representation which originates conceptions is the act of judgement as Kant describes it. (3) It is wholly artificial to speak of judgement as 'the representation of a representation of an object'.