Causation; Knowledge, Theory of; Philosophy, German; Reason
For the external sense the pure image of all quantities (quantorum) is
space; the pure image of all objects of sense in general, is time. But
the pure schema of quantity (quantitatis) as a conception of the
understanding, is number, a representation which comprehends the
successive addition of one to one (homogeneous quantities). Thus,
number is nothing else than the unity of the synthesis of the manifold
in a homogeneous intuition, by means of my generating time itself in my
apprehension of the intuition.
Reality, in the pure conception of the understanding, is that which
corresponds to a sensation in general; that, consequently, the
conception of which indicates a being (in time). Negation is that the
conception of which represents a not-being (in time). The opposition of
these two consists therefore in the difference of one and the same
time, as a time filled or a time empty. Now as time is only the form of
intuition, consequently of objects as phenomena, that which in objects
corresponds to sensation is the transcendental matter of all objects as
things in themselves (Sachheit, reality). Now every sensation has a
degree or quantity by which it can fill time, that is to say, the
internal sense in respect of the representation of an object, more or
less, until it vanishes into nothing (= 0 = negatio). Thus there is a
relation and connection between reality and negation, or rather a
transition from the former to the latter, which makes every reality
representable to us as a quantum; and the schema of a reality as the
quantity of something in so far as it fills time, is exactly this
continuous and uniform generation of the reality in time, as we descend
in time from the sensation which has a certain degree, down to the
vanishing thereof, or gradually ascend from negation to the quantity
thereof.
The schema of substance is the permanence of the real in time; that is,
the representation of it as a substratum of the empirical determination
of time; a substratum which therefore remains, whilst all else changes.
(Time passes not, but in it passes the existence of the changeable. To
time, therefore, which is itself unchangeable and permanent,
corresponds that which in the phenomenon is unchangeable in existence,
that is, substance, and it is only by it that the succession and
coexistence of phenomena can be determined in regard to time.)
The schema of cause and of the causality of a thing is the real which,
when posited, is always followed by something else. It consists,
therefore, in the succession of the manifold, in so far as that
succession is subjected to a rule.
The schema of community (reciprocity of action and reaction), or the
reciprocal causality of substances in respect of their accidents, is
the coexistence of the determinations of the one with those of the
other, according to a general rule.
Public-domain text, read in full here on John Shaqi.
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