L0: English (Norman Kemp Smith 1929)
Source: Norman Kemp Smith (NKS), 1929 — translation of Kant's Kritik der reinen Vernunft (AA III/IV)
TRANSCENDENTAL AESTHETIC
SECTION II. TIME — continued
§ 7. Elucidation
<span class="nks-page-ref">NKS p. 079</span>
Against this theory, which admits the empirical reality oftime, but denies its absolute and transcendental reality, I haveheard men of intelligence so unanimously voicing an objection,that I must suppose it to occur spontaneously to every readerto whom this way of thinking is unfamiliar. The objection isthis. Alterations are real, this being proved by change of ourown representations — even if all outer appearances, togetherwith their alterations, be denied. Now alterations are possibleonly in time, and time is therefore something real. There is nodifficulty in meeting this objection. I grant the whole argument.Certainly time is something real, namely, the real form of innerintuition. It has therefore subjective reality in respect of innerexperience; that is, I really have the representation of time andof my determinations in it. Time is therefore to be regardedas real, not indeed as object but as the mode of representationof myself as object. If without this condition of sensibility Icould intuit myself, or be intuited by another being, the verysame determinations which we now represent to ourselves asalterations would yield knowledge into which the representa-tion of time, and therefore also of alteration, would in noway enter. Thus empirical reality has to be allowed to time, asthe condition of all our experiences; on our theory, it is onlyits absolute reality that has to be denied. It is nothing but theform of our inner intuition. If we take away from our innerintuition the peculiar condition of our sensibility, the conceptof time likewise vanishes; it does not inhere in the objects, butmerely in the subject which intuits them.I can indeed say that my representations follow one another;but this is only to say that we are conscious of them as in a time-sequence, that is, in conformity with the form of inner sense. Timeis not, therefore, something in itself, nor is it an objective determina-tion inherent in things.<span class="nks-page-ref">NKS p. 080</span>But the reason why this objection is so unanimously urged,and that too by those who have nothing very convincing to sayagainst the doctrine of the ideality of space, is this. They haveno expectation of being able to prove apodeictically the abso-lute reality of space; for they are confronted by idealism,which teaches that the reality of outer objects does not allowof strict proof. On the other hand, the reality of the object ofour inner sense (the reality of myself and my state) is, [theyargue,] immediately evident through consciousness. Theformer may be merely an illusion; the latter is, on their view,undeniably something real. What they have failed, how-ever, to recognise is that both are in the same position; inneither case can their reality as representations be questioned,and in both cases they belong only to appearance, whichalways has two sides, the one by which the object is viewed inand by itself (without regard to the mode of intuiting it — itsnature therefore remaining always problematic), the otherby which the form of the intuition of this object is taken intoaccount. This form is not to be looked for in the object in it-self, but in the subject to which the object appears; neverthe-less, it belongs really and necessarily to the appearance of thisobject.Time and space are, therefore, two sources of knowledge,from which bodies of a priori synthetic knowledge can bederived. (Pure mathematics is a brilliant example of suchknowledge, especially as regards space and its relations.)Time and space, taken together, are the pure forms of allsensible intuition, and so are what make a priori syntheticpropositions possible. But these a priori sources of know-ledge, being merely conditions of our sensibility, just bythis very fact determine their own limits, namely, that theyapply to objects only in so far as objects are viewed as appear-ances, and do not present things as they are in themselves. Thisis the sole field of their validity; should we pass beyond it, noobjective use can be made of them. This ideality of spaceand time leaves, however, the certainty of empirical know-ledge unaffected, for we are equally sure of it, whether theseforms necessarily inhere in things in themselves or onlyin our intuition of them. Those, on the other hand, whomaintain the absolute reality of space and time, whether as<span class="nks-page-ref">NKS p. 081</span>subsistent or only as inherent, must come into conflict withthe principles of experience itself. For if they decide for theformer alternative (which is generally the view taken bymathematical students of nature), they have to admit twoeternal and infinite self-subsistent non-entities (space andtime), which are there (yet without there being anything real)only in order to contain in themselves all that is real. If theyadopt the latter alternative (as advocated by certain meta-physical students of nature), and regard space and time asrelations of appearances, alongside or in succession to oneanother — relations abstracted from experience, and in thisisolation confusedly represented — they are obliged to denythat a priori mathematical doctrines have any validity inrespect of real things (for instance, in space), or at least todeny their apodeictic certainty. For such certainty is not tobe found in the a posteriori. On this view, indeed, thea priori concepts of space and time are merely creatures of the im-agination, whose source must really be sought in experience,the imagination framing out of the relations abstracted fromexperience something that does indeed contain what isgeneral in these relations, but which cannot exist withoutthe restrictions which nature has attached to them. Theformer thinkers obtain at least this advantage, that they keepthe field of appearances open for mathematical propositions.On the other hand, they have greatly embarrassed them-selves by those very conditions [space and time, eternal,infinite, and self-subsistent], when with the understandingthey endeavour to go out beyond this field. The latter haveindeed an advantage, in that the representations of spaceand time do not stand in their way if they seek to judgeof objects, not as appearances but merely in their relationto the understanding. But since they are unable to appeal toa true and objectively valid a priori intuition, they can neitheraccount for the possibility of a priori mathematicalknowledge, nor bring the propositions of experience into necessaryagreement with it. On our theory of the true character ofthese two original forms of sensibility, both difficulties areremoved.Lastly, transcendental aesthetic cannot contain more than<span class="nks-page-ref">NKS p. 082</span>these two elements, space and time. This is evident from thefact that all other concepts belonging to sensibility, eventhat of motion, in which both elements are united, presupposesomething empirical. Motion presupposes the perception ofsomething movable. But in space, considered in itself, thereis nothing movable; consequently the movable must besomething that is found in space only through experience,and must therefore be an empirical datum. For the samereason, transcendental aesthetic cannot count the conceptof alteration among its a priori data. Time itself does notalter, but only something which is in time. The concept oftime thus presupposes the perception of something existingand of the succession of its determinations; that is to say, itpresupposes experience.
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§ 8. General Observations on Transcendental Aesthetic
I.<span class="nks-page-ref">NKS p. 083</span>
To avoid all misapprehension, it is necessary to ex-plain, as clearly as possible, what our view is regarding thefundamental constitution of sensible knowledge in general.What we have meant to say is that all our intuition isnothing but the representation of appearance; that the thingswhich we intuit are not in themselves what we intuit themas being, nor their relations so constituted in themselves asthey appear to us, and that if the subject, or even only thesubjective constitution of the senses in general, be removed,the whole constitution and all the relations of objects inspace and time, nay space and time themselves, would vanish.As appearances, they cannot exist in themselves, but onlyin us. What objects may be in themselves, and apart fromall this receptivity of our sensibility, remains completelyunknown to us. We know nothing but our mode of perceivingthem — a mode which is peculiar to us, and not necessarilyshared in by every being, though, certainly, by every humanbeing. With this alone have we any concern. Space and timeare its pure forms, and sensation in general its matter. Theformer alone can we know a priori, that is, prior to all actualperception; and such knowledge is therefore called pureintuition. The latter is that in our knowledge which leads toits being called a posteriori knowledge, that is, empiricalintuition. The former inhere in our sensibility with absolutenecessity, no matter of what kind our sensations may be; thelatter can exist in varying modes. Even if we could bring ourintuition to the highest degree of clearness, we should notthereby come any nearer to the constitution of objects inthemselves. We should, indeed, know it completely, butalways only under the conditions of space and time —conditions which are originally inherent in the subject.What the objects may be in themselves would never be-come known to us even through the most enlightenedknowledge of that which is alone given us, namely, theirappearance.The concept of sensibility and of appearance would befalsified, and our whole teaching in regard to them would berendered empty and useless, if we were to accept the view thatour entire sensibility is nothing but a confused representationof things, containing only what belongs to them in themselves,but doing so under an aggregation of characters and partialrepresentations that we do not consciously distinguish. Forthe difference between a confused and a clear representationis merely logical, and does not concern the content. No doubtthe concept of 'right', in its common-sense usage, contains allthat the subtlest speculation can develop out of it, though inits ordinary and practical use we are not conscious of themanifold representations comprised in this thought. But wecannot say that the common concept is therefore sensible, con-taining a mere appearance. For 'right' can never be an appear-ance; it is a concept in the understanding, and represents aproperty (the moral property) of actions, which belongs tothem in themselves. The representation of a body in intuition,on the other hand, contains nothing that can belong to anobject in itself, but merely the appearance of something, andthe mode in which we are affected by that something; and thisreceptivity of our faculty of knowledge is termed sensibility.Even if that appearance could become completely transparent<span class="nks-page-ref">NKS p. 084</span>to us, such knowledge would remain toto coelo different fromknowledge of the object in itself.The philosophy of Leibniz and Wolff, in thus treating thedifference between the sensible and the intelligible as merelylogical, has given a completely wrong direction to all in-vestigations into the nature and origin of our knowledge. Thisdifference is quite evidently transcendental. It does not merelyconcern their [logical] form, as being either clear or confused.It concerns their origin and content. It is not that by oursensibility we cannot know the nature of things in themselvesin any save a confused fashion; we do not apprehend them inany fashion whatsoever. If our subjective constitution be re-moved, the represented object, with the qualities which sen-sible intuition bestows upon it, is nowhere to be found, andcannot possibly be found. For it is this subjective constitutionwhich determines its form as appearance.We commonly distinguish in appearances that which isessentially inherent in their intuition and holds for sense in allhuman beings, from that which belongs to their intuitionaccidentally only, and is valid not in relation to sensibility ingeneral but only in relation to a particular standpoint or to apeculiarity of structure in this or that sense. The former kindof knowledge is then declared to represent the object in itself,the latter its appearance only. But this distinction is merelyempirical. If, as generally happens, we stop short at this point,and do not proceed, as we ought, to treat the empirical in-tuition as itself mere appearance, in which nothing that belongsto a thing in itself can be found, our transcendental distinctionis lost. We then believe that we know things in themselves,and this in spite of the fact that in the world of sense, how-ever deeply we enquire into its objects, we have to do withnothing but appearances. The rainbow in a sunny shower maybe called a mere appearance, and the rain the thing in itself.This is correct, if the latter concept be taken in a merelyphysical sense. Rain will then be viewed only as that which,in all experience and in all its various positions relative to thesenses, is determined thus, and not otherwise, in our intuition.<span class="nks-page-ref">NKS p. 085</span>But if we take this empirical object in its general character,and ask, without considering whether or not it is the samefor all human sense, whether it represents an object initself (and by that we cannot mean the drops of rain, for theseare already, as appearances, empirical objects), the questionas to the relation of the representation to the object at oncebecomes transcendental. We then realise that not only are thedrops of rain mere appearances, but that even their roundshape, nay even the space in which they fall, are nothing inthemselves, but merely modifications or fundamental forms ofour sensible intuition, and that the transcendental objectremains unknown to us.The second important concern of our Transcendental Aes-thetic is that it should not obtain favour merely as a plausiblehypothesis, but should have that certainty and freedom fromdoubt which is required of any theory that is to serve as anorganon. To make this certainty completely convincing, weshall select a case by which the validity of the position adoptedwill be rendered obvious, and which will serve to set what hasbeen said in §3 in a clearer light.Let us suppose that space and time are in themselvesobjective, and are conditions of the possibility of things inthemselves. In the first place, it is evident that in regard toboth there is a large number of a priori apodeictic and syn-thetic propositions. This is especially true of space, to whichour chief attention will therefore be directed in this enquiry.<span class="nks-page-ref">NKS p. 086</span>Since the propositions of geometry are synthetic a priori,and are known with apodeictic certainty, I raise the question,whence do you obtain such propositions, and upon what doesthe understanding rely in its endeavour to achieve such abso-lutely necessary and universally valid truths? There is noother way than through concepts or through intuitions; andthese are given either a priori or a posteriori. In their latterform, namely, as empirical concepts, and also as that uponwhich these are grounded, the empirical intuition, neither theconcepts nor the intuitions can yield any synthetic propositionexcept such as is itself also merely empirical (that is, a pro-position of experience), and which for that very reason cannever possess the necessity and absolute universality which arecharacteristic of all geometrical propositions. As regards thefirst and sole means of arriving at such knowledge, namely,in a priori fashion through mere concepts or through in-tuitions, it is evident that from mere concepts only analyticknowledge, not synthetic knowledge, is to be obtained. Take,for instance, the proposition, "Two straight lines cannot en-close a space, and with them alone no figure is possible",and try to derive it from the concept of straight lines and ofthe number two. Or take the proposition, "Given three straightlines, a figure is possible", and try, in like manner, to deriveit from the concepts involved. All your labour is vain; and youfind that you are constrained to have recourse to intuition, as isalways done in geometry. You therefore give yourself an objectin intuition. But of what kind is this intuition? Is it a purea priori intuition or an empirical intuition? Were it the latter,no universally valid proposition could ever arise out of it —still less an apodeictic proposition — for experience can neveryield such. You must therefore give yourself an object a prioriin intuition, and ground upon this your synthetic proposition.If there did not exist in you a power of a priori intuition; andif that subjective condition were not also at the same time, asregards its form, the universal a priori condition under whichalone the object of this outer intuition is itself possible; if theobject (the triangle) were something in itself, apart from anyrelation to you, the subject, how could you say that whatnecessarily exist in you as subjective conditions for the con-struction of a triangle, must of necessity belong to the triangleitself? You could not then add anything new (the figure) toyour concepts (of three lines) as something which must neces-sarily be met with in the object, since this object is [on thatview] given antecedently to your knowledge, and not by meansof it. If, therefore, space (and the same is true of time) werenot merely a form of your intuition, containing conditionsa priori, under which alone things can be outer objects to you,and without which subjective conditions outer objects are inthemselves nothing, you could not in regard to outer objectsdetermine anything whatsoever in an a priori and syntheticmanner. It is, therefore, not merely possible or probable, but<span class="nks-page-ref">NKS p. 087</span>indubitably certain, that space and time, as the necessaryconditions of all outer and inner experience, are merely sub-jective conditions of all our intuition, and that in relation tothese conditions all objects are therefore mere appearances,and not given us as things in themselves which exist in thismanner. For this reason also, while much can be said a priorias regards the form of appearances, nothing whatsoever canbe asserted of the thing in itself, which may underlie theseappearances.
II.
In confirmation of this theory of the ideality of bothouter and inner sense, and therefore of all objects of the senses,as mere appearances, it is especially relevant to observe thateverything in our knowledge which belongs to intuition —feeling of pleasure and pain, and the will, not being know-ledge, are excluded — contains nothing but mere relations;namely, of locations in an intuition (extension), of changeof location (motion), and of laws according to which thischange is determined (moving forces). What it is that ispresent in this or that location, or what it is that is operativein the things themselves apart from change of location, is notgiven through intuition. Now a thing in itself cannot beknown through mere relations; and we may therefore concludethat since outer sense gives us nothing but mere relations, thissense can contain in its representation only the relation of anobject to the subject, and not the inner properties of the objectin itself. This also holds true of inner sense, not only becausethe representations of the outer senses constitute the propermaterial with which we occupy our mind, but because thetime in which we set these representations, which is itself ante-cedent to the consciousness of them in experience, and whichunderlies them as the formal condition of the mode in whichwe posit them in the mind, itself contains [only] relations ofsuccession, coexistence, and of that which is coexistent withsuccession, the enduring. Now that which, as representation,can be antecedent to any and every act of thinking any-thing, is intuition; and if it contains nothing but relations, itis the form of intuition. Since this form does not representanything save in so far as something is posited in the mind, itcan be nothing but the mode in which the mind is affectedthrough its own activity (namely, through this positing of itsrepresentation), and so is affected by itself; in other words, it is<span class="nks-page-ref">NKS p. 088</span>nothing but an inner sense in respect of the form of that sense.Everything that is represented through a sense is so far alwaysappearance, and consequently we must either refuse to admitthat there is an inner sense, or we must recognise that the sub-ject, which is the object of the sense, can be represented throughit only as appearance, not as that subject would judge of itselfif its intuition were self-activity only, that is, were intellectual.The whole difficulty is as to how a subject can inwardly intuititself; and this is a difficulty common to every theory. The con-sciousness of self (apperception) is the simple representationof the 'I', and if all that is manifold in the subject were givenby the activity of the self, the inner intuition would be intel-lectual. In man this consciousness demands inner perceptionof the manifold which is antecedently given in the subject,and the mode in which this manifold is given in the mindmust, as non-spontaneous, be entitled sensibility. If thefaculty of coming to consciousness of oneself is to seek out(to apprehend) that which lies in the mind, it must affect themind, and only in this way can it give rise to an intuition ofitself. But the form of this intuition, which exists antecedentlyin the mind, determines, in the representation of time, the modein which the manifold is together in the mind, since it then in-tuits itself not as it would represent itself if immediately self-active, but as it is affected by itself, and therefore as it appearsto itself, not as it is.
III.
When I say that the intuition of outer objects and theself-intuition of the mind alike represent the objects and themind, in space and in time, as they affect our senses, that is,as they appear, I do not mean to say that these objects area mere illusion. For in an appearance the objects, nay even theproperties that we ascribe to them, are always regarded assomething actually given. Since, however, in the relation ofthe given object to the subject, such properties depend uponthe mode of intuition of the subject, this object as appearanceis to be distinguished from itself as object in itself.Thus when I maintain that the quality of space and of time,in conformity with which, as a condition of their existence,I posit both bodies and my own soul, lies in my mode ofintuition and not in those objects in themselves, I am notsaying that bodies merely seem to be outside me, or that my<span class="nks-page-ref">NKS p. 089</span>soul only seems to be given in my self-consciousness. It wouldbe my own fault, if out of that which I ought to reckon asappearance, I made mere illusion. That does not follow as aconsequence of our principle of the ideality of all our sensibleintuitions — quite the contrary. It is only if we ascribe objectivereality to these forms of representation, that it becomesimpossible for us to prevent everything being thereby trans-formed into mere illusion. For if we regard space and timeas properties which, if they are to be possible at all, must befound in things in themselves, and if we reflect on the absurdi-ties in which we are then involved, in that two infinite things,which are not substances, nor anything actually inhering insubstances, must yet have existence, nay, must be the necessarycondition of the existence of all things, and moreover mustcontinue to exist, even although all existing things be removed,— we cannot blame the good Berkeley for degrading bodies tomere illusion. Nay, even our own existence, in being madethus dependent upon the self-subsistent reality of a non-entity,such as time, would necessarily be changed with it into sheerillusion — an absurdity of which no one has yet been guilty.The predicates of the appearance can be ascribed to theobject itself, in relation to our sense, for instance, the red colouror the scent to the rose. But what is illusory can never beascribed as predicate to an object (for the sufficient reason thatwe then attribute to the object, taken by itself, what belongsto it only in relation to the senses, or in general to the subject),for instance, the two handles which were formerly ascribed toSaturn. That which, while inseparable from the representationof the object, is not to be met with in the object in itself, butalways in its relation to the subject, is appearance. Accordinglythe predicates of space and time are rightly ascribed to theobjects of the senses, as such; and in this there is no illusion.On the other hand, if I ascribe redness to the rose in itself[handles to Saturn], or extension to all outer objects in them-selves, without paying regard to the determinate relation ofthese objects to the subject, and without limiting my judgmentto that relation, illusion then first arises.
IV.
In natural theology, in thinking an object [God],who not only can never be an object of intuition to us butcannot be an object of sensible intuition even to himself, weare careful to remove the conditions of time and space fromhis intuition — for all his knowledge must be intuition, and notthought, which always involves limitations. But with whatright can we do this if we have previously made time and spaceforms of things in themselves, and such as would remain, asa priori conditions of the existence of things, even though thethings themselves were removed? As conditions of all existencein general, they must also be conditions of the existence of God.If we do not thus treat them as objective forms of all things,the only alternative is to view them as subjective forms of our<span class="nks-page-ref">NKS p. 090</span>inner and outer intuition, which is termed sensible, for the veryreason that it is not original, that is, is not such as can itselfgive us the existence of its object — a mode of intuition which,so far as we can judge, can belong only to the primordial being.Our mode of intuiting in space and time need not belimited to human sensibility. It may be that all finite, thinkingbeings necessarily agree with man in this respect, althoughwe are not in a position to judge whether this is actually so.But however universal this mode of sensibility may be, itdoes not therefore cease to be sensibility. It is derivative(intuitus derivativus), not original (intuitus originarius), andtherefore not an intellectual intuition. For the reason statedabove, such intellectual intuition seems to belong solely tothe primordial being, and can never be ascribed to a dependentbeing, dependent in its existence as well as in its intuition, andwhich through that intuition determines its existence solely inrelation to given objects. This latter remark, however, mustbe taken only as an illustration of our aesthetic theory, notas forming part of the proof.
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Conclusion of the Transcendental Aesthetic
<span class="nks-page-ref">NKS p. 091</span>
Here, then, in pure a priori intuitions, space and time,we have one of the factors required for solution of the generalproblem of transcendental philosophy: how are synthetica priori judgments possible? When in a priori judgmentwe seek to go out beyond the given concept, we come in thea priori intuitions upon that which cannot be discovered inthe concept but which is certainly found a priori in the in-tuition corresponding to the concept, and can be connectedwith it synthetically. Such judgments, however, thus basedon intuition, can never extend beyond objects of the senses;they are valid only for objects of possible experience.