Kant's Prolegomena to Any Future MetaphysicsKant, Immanuel
PhilosophyPhilosophy
Kant's Prolegomena to Any Future Metaphysics
Kant, Immanuel
Knowledge, Theory of -- Early works to 1800; Metaphysics -- Early works to 1800
§ 10. Accordingly, it is only the form of the sensuous intuition by
which we can intuite things a priori, but by which we can know objects
only as they appear to us (to our senses), not as they are in
themselves; and this assumption is absolutely necessary if synthetical
propositions a priori be granted as possible, or if, in case they
actually occur, their possibility is to be comprehended and determined
beforehand.
Now, the intuitions which pure mathematics lays at the foundation of
all its cognitions and judgments which appear at once apodeictic and
necessary are Space and Time. For mathematics must first have all its
concepts in intuition, and pure mathematics in pure intuition, that
is, it must construct them. If it proceeded in any other way, it would
be impossible to make any headway, for mathematics proceeds, not
analytically by dissection of concepts, but synthetically, and if pure
intuition be wanting, there is nothing in which the matter for
synthetical judgments a priori can be given. Geometry is based upon
the pure intuition of space. Arithmetic accomplishes its concept of
number by the successive addition of units in time; and pure mechanics
especially cannot attain its concepts of motion without employing the
representation of time. Both representations, however, are only
intuitions; for if we omit from the empirical intuitions of bodies and
their alterations (motion) everything empirical, or belonging to
sensation, space and time still remain, which are therefore pure
intuitions that lie a priori at the basis of the empirical. Hence they
can never be omitted, but at the same time, by their being pure
intuitions a priori, they prove that they are mere forms of our
sensibility, which must precede all empirical intuition, or perception
of actual objects, and conformably to which objects can be known a
priori, but only as they appear to us.
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