Mou Zongsan famously criticizes Kant for denying human beings intellectual intuition. In this paper I try to show that Mou Zongsan's and Kant's views on this issue can be reconciled. Kant discusses the notion of intellectual intuition in the Critique of Pure Reason. He takes it up again in the Critique of the Power of Judgment, this time under the name of "intuitive understanding." An intuitive understanding grasps everything directly and in full, while a discursive understanding grasps everything indirectly, through concepts.

In the third Critique, Kant characterizes the two types of understanding in terms of purposes. An intuitive understanding sees the purpose of everything to the core. A discursive understanding, while lacking full grasp of every purpose in nature, nevertheless proceeds as if everything had a purpose. So, a discursive understanding imitates an intuitive one. This imitation is the reconciliation I see between Mou Zongsan's and Kant's positions.