Kant’s and Frege’s Use of Vorstellung and Its Significance

Kant uses the word “Vorstellung” to explain different levels of cognition, such as sensitivity and understanding, showing the difference between “Vorstellung of object” and “Vorstellung of the Vorstellung of object”, and their distinction to understanding and insight, etc. Frege uses the word “Vorstellung” to provide an explanation for his “thought”, showing that a “Vorstellung” has a bearer, while a thought is the sense of a sentence and therefore objective. Kant and Frege are different in their way of using “Vorstellung”, so their theories are different, which show the difference between traditional philosophy and analytical philosophy as well. But the way in which they use the same word “Vorstellung” does show something: at least it shows that the traditional philosophy, especially the German philosophy, has some influence on Frege.