Causation; Knowledge, Theory of; Philosophy, German; Reason
3. On this necessity à priori is also founded the possibility of
apodeictic principles of the relations of time, or axioms of time in
general, such as: “Time has only one dimension,” “Different times are
not coexistent but successive” (as different spaces are not successive
but coexistent). These principles cannot be derived from experience,
for it would give neither strict universality, nor apodeictic
certainty. We should only be able to say, “so common experience teaches
us,” but not “it must be so.” They are valid as rules, through which,
in general, experience is possible; and they instruct us respecting
experience, and not by means of it.
4. Time is not a discursive, or as it is called, general conception,
but a pure form of the sensuous intuition. Different times are merely
parts of one and the same time. But the representation which can only
be given by a single object is an intuition. Besides, the proposition
that different times cannot be coexistent could not be derived from a
general conception. For this proposition is synthetical, and therefore
cannot spring out of conceptions alone. It is therefore contained
immediately in the intuition and representation of time.
5. The infinity of time signifies nothing more than that every
determined quantity of time is possible only through limitations of one
time lying at the foundation. Consequently, the original
representation, time, must be given as unlimited. But as the
determinate representation of the parts of time and of every quantity
of an object can only be obtained by limitation, the complete
representation of time must not be furnished by means of conceptions,
for these contain only partial representations. Conceptions, on the
contrary, must have immediate intuition for their basis.
§ 6 Transcendental Exposition of the Conception of Time.
I may here refer to what is said above (§ 5, 3), where, for or sake of
brevity, I have placed under the head of metaphysical exposition, that
which is properly transcendental. Here I shall add that the conception
of change, and with it the conception of motion, as change of place, is
possible only through and in the representation of time; that if this
representation were not an intuition (internal) à priori, no
conception, of whatever kind, could render comprehensible the
possibility of change, in other words, of a conjunction of
contradictorily opposed predicates in one and the same object, for
example, the presence of a thing in a place and the non-presence of the
same thing in the same place. It is only in time that it is possible to
meet with two contradictorily opposed determinations in one thing, that
is, after each other. Thus our conception of time explains the
possibility of so much synthetical knowledge à priori, as is exhibited
in the general doctrine of motion, which is not a little fruitful.
§ 7. Conclusions from the above Conceptions.
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