Causation; Knowledge, Theory of; Philosophy, German; Reason
[20] Motion of an object in space does not belong to a pure science,
consequently not to geometry; because, that a thing is movable cannot
be known à priori, but only from experience. But motion, considered as
the description of a space, is a pure act of the successive synthesis
of the manifold in external intuition by means of productive
imagination, and belongs not only to geometry, but even to
transcendental philosophy.
[21] I do not see why so much difficulty should be found in admitting
that our internal sense is affected by ourselves. Every act of
attention exemplifies it. In such an act the understanding determines
the internal sense by the synthetical conjunction which it cogitates,
conformably to the internal intuition which corresponds to the
manifold in the synthesis of the understanding. How much the mind is
usually affected thereby every one will be able to perceive in
himself.
§ 21
On the other hand, in the transcendental synthesis of the manifold
content of representations, consequently in the synthetical unity of
apperception, I am conscious of myself, not as I appear to myself, nor
as I am in myself, but only that “I am.” This representation is a
thought, not an intuition. Now, as in order to cognize ourselves, in
addition to the act of thinking, which subjects the manifold of every
possible intuition to the unity of apperception, there is necessary a
determinate mode of intuition, whereby this manifold is given; although
my own existence is certainly not mere phenomenon (much less mere
illusion), the determination of my existence[22] Can only take place
conformably to the form of the internal sense, according to the
particular mode in which the manifold which I conjoin is given in
internal intuition, and I have therefore no knowledge of myself as I
am, but merely as I appear to myself. The consciousness of self is thus
very far from a knowledge of self, in which I do not use the
categories, whereby I cogitate an object, by means of the conjunction
of the manifold in one apperception. In the same way as I require, for
the sake of the cognition of an object distinct from myself, not only
the thought of an object in general (in the category), but also an
intuition by which to determine that general conception, in the same
way do I require, in order to the cognition of myself, not only the
consciousness of myself or the thought that I think myself, but in
addition an intuition of the manifold in myself, by which to determine
this thought. It is true that I exist as an intelligence which is
conscious only of its faculty of conjunction or synthesis, but
subjected in relation to the manifold which this intelligence has to
conjoin to a limitative conjunction called the internal sense. My
intelligence (that is, I) can render that conjunction or synthesis
perceptible only according to the relations of time, which are quite
beyond the proper sphere of the conceptions of the understanding and
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