Understanding refers to the intuition, insight, or comprehension ability of the nature or content of an object. Kant and Hegel respectively explained understanding from the philosophical perspective. Kant argued that human beings have three innate cognitive powers, namely “sensibility” [Sinnlichkeit], “understanding” [Verstand], and “reason” [Vernunft]. People’s knowledge all starts from sensation (sensibility), and develops from understanding to reason in the end. Kant gave a rich definition of “understanding” and explained it as the spontaneity of knowledge, the ability of thinking, the ability of conception, or the ability of judgment, etc. If we really understand these definitions, we’ll find they actually mean the same thing—the ability to recognize and express laws. This recognition is more effective and closer to the nature of understanding. Sensibility shows people intuition, while understanding gives people laws. Understanding often focuses on the study of phenomena to find a certain law in phenomena. Kant regarded perception and intuition as the premise of understanding, but he argued understanding itself establishes laws for nature. Understanding, as an ability to discover laws in phenomena, integrates various perceptual materials. There can never be another ability to comprehensively unite various things in nature apart from understanding. Therefore, understanding itself is the root of the unification of natural laws and methods. Category can only come from understanding and has nothing to do with perception. The actuality, substantiality, causality and interaction derived from the category of understanding are priori and have universality and necessity. It can be found that Kant’s understanding is not the ability to penetrate and understand objective things and grasp their objective laws on the basis of social practice, but the inherent, fixed and transcendental cognitive ability of human beings, thus falling into transcendental idealism. He argued that what people know is only phenomena, while the objects studied by reason—universe, soul and God—are thing-in-themselves. However, since the thing-in-itself has no empirical materials and are unknowable, Kant’s belief fell into agnosticism…
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