The Problem Of Time In Critique Of Pure Reason

Time is a important concept in Critique of pure reason, it can be seen in almost the whole Transcendental Doctrine of Elements. Kant made the distinction between understanding and sensibility and attributed time to sensibility rather than understanding in Transcendental Aesthetic, for time is not any concept that belongs to understanding but a pure form of intuition; Time as a form of sensible intuition presents transcendental ideality and empirical reality; On the one hand, Kant realized the transcendental turn in time by transcendental ideality, and that " objects conform to our knowledge" can be shown in Transcendental Aesthetic, which is a part of "Copernican Revolution"; On the other hand, Kant distinguished between appearance and thing in itself by empirical reality. Generally speaking, transcendental ideality and empirical reality of time have a very important significance in Critique of pure reason.But, in Transcendental Aesthetic, Kant regarded time not only as form of intuition, but also as formal intuition, that is, he regarded time as an object so as to find its properties. These properties are transcendental determination of time, by which, time is more than a receptive pure form, but it can further settle representations in itself preliminarily. These properties of time can't be attributed to time itself, because they are given by imagination and Transcendental apperception. So the properties of time have a producing process. However, time itself is a pure form without any property, just like nothing.We have all kinds of knowledge when sensibility and understanding can be combined after they were separated; But understanding couldn't reach empirical objects by itself, so the combination of the two parts need some third thing as a mediator, as which imagination is seen between this two extremes, namely sensibility and understanding. About this, Kant gave specific and detailed explanation in Transcendental Deduction of the Categories of first edition, according to which imagination is seen as one of three original sources of the soul (the other two are sense and apperception). In second edition, imagination also plays a mediating role, and there isn't significant difference in defining imagination between Transcendental Deduction of first edition and the one of second editioa Imagination, as a faculty of general synthesis, is different from synthetic unity of transcendental apperception, since it is a blind synthetic function of soul, which indicates in one respect it is sensible, in another is intellectual. Therefore it can be seen as the mediator, but imagination in itself is just subjective. Though transcendental apperception in itself is intellectual, it can unite all manifold which are brought by imagination in a concept of the object, so these manifold can constitute a unity, transcendental apperception can combine object with its representations, and makes an inevitable connection among different representations which are belong to the object; hence, synthetic unity of transcendental apperception is objective.Categories are quite heterogeneous from empirical objects, so they can't subsume these objects without transcendental schema that is the mediator. Transcendental determination of time accord with the requirement of transcendental schema, with the help of which categories can subsume empirical objects. Time can be taken as transcendental schema, not only because time itself is a pure form of sensible intuition, but also imagination and transcendental apperception determine it transcendentally. Accordingly, time can be conceived as a rule that can represent unity and objective necessity. And according to our instruction about imagination, the objective necessity can't be given by imagination, but by transcendental apperception. Before transcendental apperception is added to imagination, transcendental determination of time, which is brought by imagination, is preliminary and subjective, but indispensable.