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The Aesthetics of Time: Summary of The Second Section, 'On Time', of the 'Transcendental Aesthetic' in the Critique of Pure Reason
Previously Kant discussed space. Things around us occupy space. But did we first see objects, and then obtain our sense of what space is, or did we already have a sense for what space is, and then secondarily we saw objects outside us? Kant notes that in the first place we begin by acknowledging that the external thing we sense is in a different place than we are. So even before we sense its spatial features, we already have some mental grasp of what space is, even before encountering spatial objects. In a way, we posses a representation of space, even before it is presented to us. It comes prior to experience, so we call it a priori. And because this representation exists without yet accompanying any definite object, which has determinate properties, we call it 'pure'. It is a pure, empty, a priori form of space that is necessary for us to perceive spatial objects. Now, try to imagine some external situation that we might experience, while also imagining space somehow being absent. It is impossible for us to conceive of the external world without also conceptualizing space being a part of it. And we cannot think of an external object that does not extend in space. However, we can think of space without there also being objects occupying that space. So the a priori representation of space is a necessary precondition for our experiences of the external world
We also would not say that space is something inherent to things as they are in themselves and all by themselves. If it were, then it would be something that we determine as inhering in objects, even before we sense them. However, we cannot determine something about an object before we sense it. We cannot determine that it is this and not that, without first knowing what it is. So we are not able to observe that objects have the property of being spatial before we sense them. However, we do in a way presuppose that they are spatial. So our representation of space is more like a 'receptivity' to external objects. We welcome them as spatial things. But their spatiality comes from the way we welcome them, and not necessarily on account of the way they themselves are, as they are, by themselves alone. I suggest we consider it this way. Our minds open-up a field of space. Objects that appear to us, appear in this space our minds have opened, so that we can receive them in our particular way. But because this is the only way we have to receive objects, we cannot think of them as not being spatial. For this reason, space is the condition that allows us to perceive external objects.
Kant will now explain why time is similarly a priori.
The Transcendental Aesthetic
Second Section
On time
Kant's First Point: To Experience Things in Time, We Must First Give Them Some Time
Recall why we know that we presuppose space when sensing the external world. For us to do so, we must in the first place consider the object as external to us. Hence it would be in a different spatial place then us. So sensing external objects presupposes even before we sense them that they take-up space. Time likewise is not a concept that we obtained by first experiencing the flow of time. For, we grasp at least two temporal properties that things might have: they could occur either simultaneously or successively. But consider succession. Is it possible for us to experience one event following after another if we did not first at least receive the second thing as coming at a different time? The next event could not appear to us if we did not already in the first place grant it the time to do so. So if we experience one thing as succeeding another, we have already prior to that experience had some sense or representation of time. This holds as well for simultaneity. We can sense that one event happens at the same time as another only if we first supposed that there was some form of time for them to concur in.
Kant's Second Point: Things Can Appear, Then, Only Because Time is Prior to Them
According to Kant, we can think of time passing without anything appearing to us. But something cannot appear to us without us also experiencing time. Hence our representation of time comes prior to our experiences. Like space, then, it is a priori. On account of this a priori sense of time, all things can then appear to our senses. All appearances might disappear, "but time itself, as the universal condition of their possibility, cannot be removed" (A31/B47; p.162b).
Kant's Third Point: Our Minds Dictate the Laws of Time; We Did not Learn These Laws From Our Experiences with Time
Consider how there are different times that events occur-in. If they really are different times, then they cannot be simultaneous. They must rather be successive. It cannot be otherwise; for then we would be saying that times which come at different moments happen all in the same moment. So we know that different times are successive and not simultaneous. This is necessarily true. We say that it is an 'apodictic' principle or axiom of time and its relations.
[Now also consider how we can view some regularity in the world around us, like the sun rising each morning, or heavy things falling when we let-go of them. It happens so often that we become sure of these facts or principles regarding the world around us. But we cannot on the basis of a selection of experiences say that it is absolutely necessary for these facts to always and everywhere be so. We can only say that this is what experience teaches us. This means that no apodictically (necessarily) certain principle can be obtained by experience alone. But we noted that the principle 'different times are successive and not simultaneous' is apodictically certain. Hence] we cannot have obtained such apodictic principles by means of experience. Rather, we had some sense of them even before having experiences in time. Our mind receives events in such a way that they must conform to this law: "These principles are valid as rules under which experiences are possible at all, and instruct us prior to them, not through it" (A31/B47; p.162c.d).
Kant's Fourth Point: Time is Not a General Concept, Even though There is Only One Time That All Times are a Part of
It might seem that things are like this: We have experiences of different times. Then we generalize the common temporal feature of each instance to obtain a general concept of time.
But also consider this. We have an experience of an event happening at one time. Then we have an experience of another event happening at another time. It cannot be that we experience them in the first place as being uniquely different times, and then secondarily come upon a general unified concept of time. If one event happens at a different time, that could only be because some stretch of time extends between them, joining them together as one time. So first we have an intuition of one same time. This is a precondition for us then to sense different parts of that time.
Recall that there is an a priori necessity for the principle that different times are successive and not simultaneous. Even though it is a priori, we cannot know this by first thinking some concept, and drawing the principle out from it. We can only do this when we analyze what is already in a concept. But the idea of succession is not already a part of the concept of 'different times'. We only obtain this notion by means of our direct grasp, our intuition, of time.
Kant's Fifth Point: Time is One and Infinite
We consider there to be any number of determinate stretches of time. This is because we suppose there in the first place to be an unlimited, or infinite time, that we divide up into countless limited parts.
When we consider a limited part of the unlimited whole of time, we might be regarding that limited part conceptually. As a limitation, we must conceptualize where it ends, and what lies beyond its determinations (where it terminates at its beginning and end). But the whole of time cannot be given with such conceptual determinations. So we cannot conceive it by means of concepts. Rather, it can only be given to our immediate grasp, that is, by means of an 'immediate intuition'.
Time is the Empty Form that Change Fills-Up
SS 6 Transcendental Exposition of the Conception of Time
[Found in the Meiklejohn translation]
Consider when things change, for example, when something is moving. We notice it at point A. It is there. And we notice it at point B. It is somewhere else. At point B, it cannot be at A. And when it is as point A, it cannot be at B. However, when there is motion, something is at both points. This would seem to be a contradiction. It is not a contradiction, however, when we take time into account. At one time it is at A, and at another time it is at B.
For our minds to immediately grasp, to intuit, a change, it needs already to have a pure a priori representation of time. Change is what happens by means of this pure form of time. [The pure form of time does not itself change. Rather, it is the pre-experiential representation that makes possible all intuitions of change. But we have this representation even before we experience any change.]
the conception of change, and with it the conception of motion, as change of place, is possible only through and in the representation of time; that if this representation were not an intuition (internal) a priori, no conception, of whatever kind, could render comprehensible the possibility of change, in other words, of a conjunction of contradictorily opposed predicates in one and the same object, for example, the presence of a thing in a place and the non-presence of the same thing in the same place. It is only in time that it is possible to meet with two contradictorily opposed determinations in one thing, that is, after each other. (emphasis mine)
From the text of the Meiklejohn translation:
SECTION II.OF TIME.SS 5 Metaphysical Exposition of this Conception.
1. TIME is not an empirical conception. For neither coexistence nor succession would be perceived by us, if the representation of time did not exist as a foundation a priori. Without this presupposition we could not represent to ourselves that things exist together at one and the same time, or at different times, that is, contemporaneously, or in succession.
2. Time is a necessary representation, lying at the foundation of all our intuitions. With regard to phenomena in general, we cannot think away time from them, and represent them to ourselves as out of and unconnected with time, but we can quite well represent to ourselves time void of phenomena. Time is therefore given a priori. In it alone is all reality of phenomena possible. These may all be annihilated in thought, but time itself, as the universal condition of their possibility, cannot be so annulled.
3. On this necessity a priori is also founded the possibility of apodeictic principles of the relations of time, or axioms of time in general, such as: "Time has only one dimension," "Different times are not coexistent but successive" (as different spaces are not successive but coexistent). These principles cannot be derived from experience, for it would give neither strict universality, nor apodeictic certainty. We should only be able to say, "so common experience teaches us," but not "it must be so." They are valid as rules, through which, in general, experience is possible; and they instruct us respecting experience, and not by means of it.
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4. Time is not a discursive, or as it is called, general conception, but a pure form of the sensuous intuition. Different times are merely parts of one and the same time. But the representation which can only be given by a single object is an intuition. Besides, the proposition that different times cannot be coexistent could not be derived from a general conception. For this proposition is synthetical, and therefore cannot spring out of conceptions alone. It is therefore contained immediately in the intuition and representation of time.
5. The infinity of time signifies nothing more than that every determined quantity of time is possible only through limitations of one time lying at the foundation. Consequently, the original representation, time, must be given as unlimited. But as the determinate representation of the parts of time and of every quantity of an object can only be obtained by limitation, the complete representation of time must not be furnished by means of conceptions, for these contain only partial representations. Conceptions, on the contrary, must have immediate intuition for their basis.
SS 6 Transcendental Exposition of the Conception of Time.
I may here refer to what is said above (SS 5, 3), where, for or sake of brevity, I have placed under the head of metaphysical exposition, that which is properly transcendental. Here I shall add that the conception of change, and with it the conception of motion, as change of place, is possible only through and in the representation of time; that if this representation were not an intuition (internal) a priori, no conception, of whatever kind, could render comprehensible the possibility of change, in other words, of a conjunction of contradictorily opposed predicates in one and the same object, for example, the presence of a thing in a place and the non -- presence of the same thing in the same place. It is only in time that it is possible to meet with two contradictorily opposed determinations in one thing, that is, after each other.* Thus our conception of time explains the possibility of so much synthetical
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knowledge a priori, as is exhibited in the general doctrine of motion, which is not a little fruitful.
* Kant's meaning is: You cannot affirm and deny the same thing of a subject, except by means of the representation, time. No other idea, intuition, or conception, or whatever other form of thought there be, can mediate the connection of such predicates. -- Tr.
Summary based on:
Kant. Critique of Pure Reason. Eds. & Transls. Paul Guyer and Allen Wood. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 1998.
Full text taken from:
Kant. Critique of Pure Reason. Transl. J.M.D Meiklejohn.
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