Kant’s definition of intuition, when stated quite explicitly, and
cleared of all ambiguity, is therefore as follows. _Intuition is the
immediate apprehension of a content which as given is due to the action
of an independently real object upon the mind._ This definition is
obviously not meant to be a description of intuition as it presents
itself to introspection, but to be a reflective statement of its
indispensable conditions. Also it has in view only empirical intuitions.
It does not cover the pure intuitions space and time.[350] Though space
and time are given, and though each possesses an intrinsic content,
these contents are not due to the action of objects upon the
sensibility.
“An intuition is such a representation as immediately depends upon
the presence of the object. Hence it seems impossible _originally_
to intuit _a priori_ because intuition would in that event take
place without either a former or a present object to refer to, and
by consequence could not be intuition.”[351]
This interpretation is borne out by Kant’s answer to Beck when the
latter objected that only through subsumption under the categories can a
representation become objective. Kant replies in a marginal note, the
meaning of which, though difficult to decipher, admits of a fairly
definite interpretation.
“The determining of a concept through intuition so as to yield
knowledge of the object falls within the province of the faculty of
judgment, but not the relation of the intuition to an object in
general [_i.e._ the view of it as having a content which is given
and which is therefore due to some object], for that is merely the
logical use of the representation, whereby it is thought as falling
within the province of knowledge. On the other hand, if this single
representation is related only to the subject, the use is aesthetic
(feeling), and the representation cannot be an act of
knowledge.”[352]