“...a synthesis of the uniform progression from zero to the given empirical consciousness.”
These statements are far from clear; but it is hardly necessary to criticise them in detail. Since Kant is endeavouring to prove that a schema, that of reality or limitation, is involved in the apprehension of sensation, he is bound in consistency to maintain, in accordance with the teaching of his deduction of the categories, that the application of the schema demands some species of synthesis.
The third proof, added in the second edition,[1153] is somewhat more explicit, and represents a further and last stage in Kant’s vain endeavour to harmonise the teaching of this section with his general principles. In the empirical consciousness of sensation there is
“...a synthesis of the different quantities involved in the generation of a sensation from its beginning in pure intuition = 0 to its particular required magnitude.”
Or again, apprehension of magnitude is apprehension
“...in which the empirical consciousness can in a certain time increase from zero up to its given measure.”
Here, again, what Kant asserts as occurring in our awareness of sensation calls for much more rigorous demonstration. Like the argument of the second proof, it is not independently established; it is a mere corollary to the general principles of his deduction of the categories.
Thus Kant’s thesis, that the apprehension of sense qualities as intensive magnitudes presupposes a synthesis according to an a priori schema, is both obscure in statement, and unconvincing in argument; and some of the assertions made, especially in reference to the occurrence of synthesis, would seem to be hardly less arbitrary than the connection which Kant professes to trace between logical “quality,” as affirmation or negation, and the dynamical intensity of sensuous qualities. For, as already indicated,[1154] logical “quality” and intensive magnitude have nothing in common save the name.
Kant next proceeds to a discussion of the general problem of continuity. The connection is somewhat forced. But if we overlook the artificial ordering of the argument and are content to regard what is given as in the nature of parenthetical comment, we find in the middle paragraph of this section an excellent statement of his view of the nature of continuity and a very clear statement of his dynamical theory of matter.
Kant develops the conception of continuity (a) in reference to space and time, and (b) in its application to the intensity of sensations and of their causes.