Causation; Knowledge, Theory of; Philosophy, German; Reason
The science of all the principles of sensibility à priori, I call
transcendental æsthetic.[10] There must, then, be such a science
forming the first part of the transcendental doctrine of elements, in
contradistinction to that part which contains the principles of pure
thought, and which is called transcendental logic.
[10] The Germans are the only people who at present use this word to
indicate what others call the critique of taste. At the foundation of
this term lies the disappointed hope, which the eminent analyst,
Baumgarten, conceived, of subjecting the criticism of the beautiful to
principles of reason, and so of elevating its rules into a science.
But his endeavours were vain. For the said rules or criteria are, in
respect to their chief sources, merely empirical, consequently never
can serve as determinate laws à priori, by which our judgement in
matters of taste is to be directed. It is rather our judgement which
forms the proper test as to the correctness of the principles. On this
account it is advisable to give up the use of the term as designating
the critique of taste, and to apply it solely to that doctrine, which
is true science—the science of the laws of sensibility—and thus come
nearer to the language and the sense of the ancients in their
well-known division of the objects of cognition into aiotheta kai
noeta, or to share it with speculative philosophy, and employ it
partly in a transcendental, partly in a psychological signification.
In the science of transcendental æsthetic accordingly, we shall first
isolate sensibility or the sensuous faculty, by separating from it all
that is annexed to its perceptions by the conceptions of understanding,
so that nothing be left but empirical intuition. In the next place we
shall take away from this intuition all that belongs to sensation, so
that nothing may remain but pure intuition, and the mere form of
phenomena, which is all that the sensibility can afford à priori. From
this investigation it will be found that there are two pure forms of
sensuous intuition, as principles of knowledge à priori, namely, space
and time. To the consideration of these we shall now proceed.
SECTION I. Of Space.
§ 2. Metaphysical Exposition of this Conception.
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