A Commentary to Kant's 'Critique of Pure Reason'

by Norman Kemp Smith

Thirdly, the entire discussion of the nature of the schemata of “sensuous concepts” and of their relation to the sense image, is out of order in this chapter; and however valuable in itself, bewilders the reader who very properly assumes for it a relevancy which it does not possess. The pure concepts of the understanding, whose schemata Kant is endeavouring to define, are altogether different in nature from sensuous representations, and can never be reduced in any form or degree to an image. They are wholly transcendental, representing pure syntheses unified through categories in accordance with the form of inner sense. This, however, brings us to our last main point.

(c) Kant’s manner of employing the term category is a typical example of his characteristic carelessness in the use of his technical terms. Sometimes it signifies the pure forms of understanding. But more frequently it stands for what he now, for the first time, entitles schemata, namely, the pure conceptual forms as modified through relation to time. To take as examples the two chief categories of relation. The first category of relation, viewed as a form of the pure understanding, is the merely logical conception of that which is always a subject and never a predicate. The corresponding schema is the conception of that which has permanent existence in time; it is not the logical notion of subject, but the transcendental conception of substance. The pure logical conception of ground and consequence is similarly distinguished from the transcendental schema of cause and effect.

This contrast is of supreme importance in the Critical philosophy, and ought therefore to have been marked by a careful distinction of terms. Had Kant restricted the term category to denote the pure forms, and invariably employed the term schemata to signify their more concrete counterparts, many ambiguities and confusions would have been prevented. The table of categories, in its distinction from the table of logical forms, would then have been named the table of schemata, and the definitions given in this chapter would have been appended to it, as the proper supplement to the metaphysical deduction, completing it by a careful definition of each separate schema. For what Kant usually means when he speaks of the categories are the schemata; and the chapter before us therefore contains their delayed definitions.[1119] As Kant has constantly been insisting, and as he again so emphatically teaches in this chapter, the pure forms of understanding, taken in and by themselves, apart from the forms of intuition, have no relation to any object, and are mere logical functions without content or determinate meaning.

From this point of view the misleading influence of Kant’s architectonic may again be noted. It forces him to preface his argument by introductory remarks which run entirely counter to the very point which he is chiefly concerned to illustrate and enforce, namely, the inseparability of conception and intuition in all experience and knowledge. He does, indeed, draw attention to the fact that the conditions which serve to realise the pure concepts of understanding also at the same time restrict them, but it is with their empirical employment that he is here chiefly concerned.

Caird’s[1120] mode of expounding Kant’s doctrine of schematism may serve as an example of the misleading influence of Kant’s artificial method of introducing his argument. As Caird accepts Kant’s initial statements at their face value, he is led to read the entire chapter in accordance with them, and so to interpret it as being a virtual recantation of the assumptions which underlie the statement of its problem. The truer view would rather seem to be that the introduction is demanded by the exigencies of Kant’s architectonic, and therefore yields no true account either of the essential purpose of the chapter or of its actual contents. Cohen not unjustly remarks that

“...recent writers are guilty of a very strange misreading of Kant when they maintain, as if in opposition to him, a thought to which his doctrine of schematism gives profound expression, namely, that intuition and conception do not function independently, and that thought, and still more knowledge, is and must always be intuitive.”[1121]

Cohen fails, however, to draw attention to the cause of the misunderstanding for which Kant must certainly share the blame. Riehl,[1122] while adopting a somewhat similar view to that here given, traces Kant’s misleading mode of stating the problem to his holding a false view of the universality of the concept. Such criticism of Kant, like that passed by Caird, is in many respects justified, but the occasion upon which the admonition is made to follow would none the less seem to be ill-chosen.

It may be asked why Kant in this chapter so completely ignores space. No really satisfactory answer seems to present itself. It is true that time is the one universal form of all intuition, of outer as well as of inner experience. It is also true that, as Kant elsewhere shows, consciousness of time presupposes consciousness of space for its own possibility, and so to that extent may be regarded as including the latter form of consciousness within itself. Nevertheless Kant’s concentration on the temporal aspect of experience is exceedingly arbitrary, and results in certain unfortunate consequences. Owing to the manner in which Kant envisages his problem[1123] he is bound, indeed, to lay the greater emphasis upon time, but that need not have involved so exclusive a recognition of its field and function. Possibly Kant’s very natural preoccupation with his new and revolutionary doctrines of inner sense and productive imagination has something to do with the matter.

Though the definitions given of the various schemata, especially of those of reality and existence, raise many difficulties, consideration of them must be deferred.[1124] They can be properly discussed only in connection with the principles which Kant bases upon them. Only one further point calls for present remark. Kant does not give a schema for each of the categories. In the first two groups of pure conceptual forms, those of quantity and of quality, he gives a schema only for the third category in each case. Number is strictly not the schema of quantity as such, but of totality. The schema of quality is a definition only of limitation.[1125] This departure from the demands of strict architectonic is made without comment or explanation of any kind. Kant delights to insist upon the confirmation given to his teaching by the fulfilment of architectonic requirements; he is for the most part silent when they fail to correspond. This architectonic was a hobby sufficiently serious to yield him keen pleasure in its elaboration, but was not so vital to his main purposes as to call for stronger measures when shortcomings occurred.

In concluding this chapter Kant draws attention to the fact that the sensuous conditions which serve to realise the pure concepts also at the same time restrict their meaning. Their wider meaning is, however, of merely logical character.[1126] Their function, as pure concepts, lies solely in establishing unity of representation; they do not therefore suffice to yield knowledge of any object. Objective application “comes to them solely from sensibility.” In these statements Kant expounds one of his fundamental doctrines, but in a manner which does less than justice to the independent value of pure thought. As he elsewhere teaches,[1127] it is not sense that sets limits to understanding; it is the pure forms of thought that enable the mind to appreciate the limited and merely phenomenal character of the world experienced.