A History of Philosophy in EpitomeSchwegler, Albert
Philosophy
A History of Philosophy in Epitome
Schwegler, Albert
Philosophy -- History
1. THE TRANSCENDENTAL ÆSTHETICS.—To anticipate at once the answer, we
may say that the apriori principles of our knowledge through the sense,
the original forms of sensuous intuition, are space and time. Space is
the form of the external sense, by means of which objects are given to
us as existing outside of ourselves separately and conjointly; time is
the form of the inner sense, by means of which the circumstances of our
own soul-life become objects to our consciousness. If we abstract every
thing belonging to the matter of our sensations, space remains as the
universal form in which all the materials of the external sense must be
arranged. If we abstract every thing which belongs to the matter of our
inner sense, time remains as the form which the movement of the mind had
filled. Space and time are the highest forms of the outer and inner
sense. That these forms lie apriori in the human mind, Kant proves,
first, directly from the nature of these conceptions themselves; and,
secondly, indirectly by showing that without apriori presupposing these
conceptions, it were not possible to have any certain science of
undoubted validity. The first of these he calls the _metaphysical_, and
the second the _transcendental discussion_.
(1.) In the _metaphysical discussion_ it is to be shown, (_a_) that
space and time are apriori given, (_b_) that these notions belong to the
sensory (æsthetics) and not to the understanding (logic), _i. e._ that
they are intuitions and not conceptions, (_a_) That space and time are
apriori is clear from the fact that every experience, before it can be,
must presuppose already a space and time. I perceive something as
external to me; but this external presupposes space. Again, I have two
sensations at the same time and successively; this presupposes time,
(_b_) Space and time, however, are by no means conceptions, but forms of
intuition, or intuitions themselves. For in every universal conception
the individual is comprehended under it, and is not a part of it; but in
space and time, all individual spaces and times are parts of and
contained within the universal space and the universal time.
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