God’s Knowledge and Ours: Kant and Mou Zongsan on Intellectual Intuition

Abstract

This article examines Mou Zongsan’s claim that “if it is true that human beings cannot have intellectual intuition, then the whole of Chinese philosophy must collapse completely, and the thousands years of effort must be in vain. It is just an illusion.” I argue that Mou’s commitment to establishing and justifying a “moral metaphysics” was his main motivation for rejecting Kant’s denial of the possibility of humans having intellectual intuition. I consider the implications of Mou’s response to Kant for the future of Chinese philosophy, for the interpretation of crucial aspects of Kant’s own critical thought and for organizing the perspicuous comparison of Chinese and European philosophy.