This article argues that Kant was engaged in an ongoing critical appropriation of Wolffian faculty psychology throughout his career. It provides an overview of Wolffian faculty psychology, emphasizing the distinction between rational psychology and empirical psychology; the relationship between the soul’s power of representation and the cognitive faculties; and the criteria Wolff uses to distinguish sensibility and the understanding. It also tracks Kant’s appropriation of Wolffian faculty psychology through his published writings and the transcripts of his lectures from the 1760s and 1770s. Although he modifies and transforms many of the central doctrines of Wolff’s faculty psychology during the pre-critical period, the article concludes that many of the positions Kant defends in the Critique of Pure Reason are still indebted to Wolffian faculty psychology.
Keywords: Immanuel Kant, Christian Wolff, Empirical Psychology, Rational Psychology, Metaphysics.