A History of Philosophy in EpitomeSchwegler, Albert
Philosophy
A History of Philosophy in Epitome
Schwegler, Albert
Philosophy -- History
From these twelve categories all the rest may be derived by combination.
From the fact that these categories are shown to belong apriori to the
understanding, it follows, (1) that these conceptions are apriori, and
hence have a necessary and universal validity, (2) that by themselves
they are empty forms, and attain a content only through intuitions. But
since our intuition is wholly through the sense, these categories have
their validity only in their application to the sensuous intuition,
which becomes a proper experience only when apprehended in the
conceptions of the understanding.—Here we meet a second question; how
does this happen? How do objects become subsumed under these forms of
the understanding, which for themselves are so empty?
There would be no difficulty with this subsumption if the objects and
the conceptions of the understanding were the same in kind. But they are
not. Because the objects come to the understanding from the sensory,
they are of the nature of the sense. Hence the question arises: how can
these sensible objects be subsumed under pure conceptions of the
understanding, and fundamental principles (judgments apriori), be formed
from them? This cannot result immediately, but there must come in
between the two, a third, which must have some thing in common with
each, _i. e._ which is in one respect pure and apriori, and in another
sensible. The two pure intuitions of the Transcendental Æsthetics, space
and time, especially the latter, are of such a nature. A transcendental
time determination, as the determination of coetaneousness, corresponds
on the one side to the categories, because it is apriori, and on the
other side to the phenomenal objects, because every thing phenomenal can
be represented only in time. The transcendental time determination, Kant
calls in this respect the transcendental _schema_, and the use which the
understanding makes of it, he calls the transcendental _schematism_ of
the pure understanding. The schema is a product of the imaginative
faculty, which self-actively determines the inner sense to this, though
the schema is something other than a mere image. An image is always
merely an individual and determinate intuition, but the schema merely
represents the universal process of the imagination, by which it
furnishes for a conception a proper image. Hence the schema can only
exist in the conception, and never suffers itself to be brought within
the sensuous intuition. If, now, we consider more closely the schematism
of the understanding, and seek the transcendental time determination for
every category, we find that:
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