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

by Norman Kemp Smith

“...that no differences among our sensations are determined by any differences in the non-ego (for to say that they are so determined is to say that the form under which the non-ego exists produces an effect upon the ego); and as it similarly follows that the order of coexistence and sequence among these sensations is not determined by any order in the non-ego; we are compelled to conclude that all these differences and changes in the ego are self-determined.”

Kant’s argument in the Dissertation is exactly of this nature.

“Objects do not strike the senses by their form. In order, therefore, that the various impressions from the object acting on the sense may coalesce into some whole of representation, there is required an inner principle of the mind through which in accordance with stable and innate laws that manifold may take on some form.”[387]

In the paragraph before us Kant may, at first sight, seem to offer an argument. He is really only restating his premiss. “That wherein alone sensations can be arranged (sich ordnen[388]) and placed in a certain form cannot itself again be sensation.” Now, of course, if the term sensation is to be limited to the sense qualities, i.e. to content or matter, conceived as existing apart from all formal relations, the formal elements cannot possibly be sensational. The legitimacy of that limitation is, however, the question at issue. It cannot be thus decided by an arbitrary verbal distinction.

“Were the contention that the relations of sensations are not themselves sensed correct, the inference to the pure apriority of the form of our perception would be inevitable. For sensation is the sole form of interaction between consciousness and reality.... But that contention is false. The relations of sensations, their determined coexistence and sequence, impress consciousness, just as do the sensations. We feel this impression in the compulsion which the determinateness of the empirical manifolds lays upon the perceiving consciousness. The mere affection of consciousness by these relations does not, indeed, by itself suffice for their apprehension; but neither does it suffice for the apprehension of the sensation itself. Thus there is in these respects no difference between the matter and the form of appearance.”[389]

In this way, then, by means of his definition of sensation, Kant surreptitiously introduces his fundamental assumption. That assumption reappears as the conclusion that since the form of appearance cannot be sensation, it does not arise through the action of the object, and consequently must be a priori. Though the paragraph seems to offer an argument in support of the apriority of space and time, it is found on examination merely to unfold a position adopted without the slightest attempt at proof.[390]

The form of appearance must lie ready in the mind.[391]—Comment upon this, in order to be adequate, had best take the form of a systematic discussion of Kant’s views, here and elsewhere, of space as an a priori form of intuition. As already stated, the definition which Kant gives of intuition—as knowledge which stands in immediate relation to objects—applies only to empirical intuition. Though by the term object Kant, in so far as he is definite, means content, that content is such as can arise only through the action of some independent object upon the sensibility. In other words, the content apprehended must be sensuous. Now such a view of intuition obviously does not apply to pure intuition. As the concluding line of the paragraph before us states, pure intuition “can be contemplated in separation from all sensation;” and as the next paragraph adds, it exists in the mind “without any actual object of the senses.” Yet Kant does not mean to imply that it is without content of any kind. “This pure form of sensibility may also itself be called pure intuition.”[392] “It can be known before all actual perception, and for that reason is called pure intuition.”[393] Though, therefore, pure intuition has an intrinsic content, and is the immediate apprehension of that content, it stands in no relation to any actual independent object. The content as well as the form is a priori. That, however, raises wider questions, and these we must now discuss.

Here, as in most of his fundamental positions, Kant entertains divergent and mutually contradictory doctrines. Only in his later utterances does he in any degree commit himself to one consistent view. The position to which he finally inclines must not, however, be allowed to dominate the interpretation of his earlier statements. The Aesthetic calls for its own separate exegesis, quite as if it formed by itself an independent work. Its problems are discussed from a standpoint more or less peculiar to itself. The commentator has the twofold task of stating its argumentation both in its conflict with, and in its relation to, the other parts of the Critique.

One essential difference between Kant’s earlier and later treatments of space is that in his earlier utterances it is viewed almost exclusively as a psychological a priori. The logical aspect of the problem first receives anything like adequate recognition in the Analytic. If we keep this important fact in mind, two distinct and contradictory views of the psychological nature of space intuition can be traced throughout the Aesthetic. On one view, it antedates experience as an actual, completed, conscious intuition. On the other view, it precedes experience only as a potential disposition. We rule ourselves out from understanding Kant’s most explicit utterances if we refuse to recognise the existence of both views. Kant’s commentators have too frequently shut their eyes to the first view, and have then blamed Kant for using misleading expressions. It is always safer to take Kant quite literally. He nearly always means exactly what he says at the time when he says it. Frequently he holds views which run completely counter to present-day psychology, and on several occasions he flatly contradicts what he has with equal emphasis maintained in other contexts. The aspects of Kant’s problems are so complex and various, and he is so preoccupied in doing complete justice to each in turn, that the question of the mutual consistency of his results is much less considered than is ideally desirable.

The two views can be more explicitly formulated. The first view alone is straightforward and unambiguous. Space lies ready (liegt bereit) in the mind, i.e. it does not arise. Prior even to sense-experience it exists as a conscious intuition. For this reason it can be contemplated apart from all sensation. It still remains when all sense content is thought away, and yet is not a mere form. In independence of the sensuous manifold it possesses a pure manifold of its own. The ground thesis of the second view—that space, prior to sense-experience, exists only as a permanent endowment of the mind—is likewise unambiguous. But in its development Kant throws consistency to the winds. The possible ways in which, on the second view, consciousness of space may be gained, can be tabulated as follows: