Kant’s Transcendental Idealism:an Interpretation Of Inner Sense

With the inner sense as the point of penetration, this article attempts to explore Kant’s transcendental idealism in Critique of Pure Reason, in which an important role inner sense has played so as to elucidate the value and significance of the theory of inner sense in Kant’s theory of knowledge. This thesis will focus on the issues surrounding inner sense within Critique of Pure Reason to discuss the connotation of inner sense twofold respectively in Kant’s cognition, which is, object of consciousness and self-consciousness, and inner sense will be a logical tie between the two sights which expresses the central idea of Kant’s transcendental idealism. And then, this thesis will put Kant’s transcendental idealism into a historical framework of the development of the object of consciousness to manifest the unique of Kant’s interpretation in cognition, and such connotation shall be understood within the perspective of the inner sense.As in the object of consciousness, the connotation of inner sense will first be visualized as the pure intuitive form of time, the relationship between time and the inner sense will be the key point of the second chapter for time and inner sense are inextricably tied together, however, the inner sense manifests the empirical intuition, different from the pure form of intuition of time, possesses the passive ability of making objects presence. Also, with the "affect" action when the object is given to the inner sense, the author demonstrates the homogeneous relationship between inner sense and empirical objects, and it is this relationship that makes the inner sense the capability of representing the empirical substantiality, which is also an important aspect in Kant’s transcendental idealism. As in the self-consciousness, the connotation of inner sense as being an empirical apperception is intertwined with many complex categories such as transcendental apperception, time consciousness, transcendental imagination, and many other important concepts, which builds the complexity in the theory of self-consciousness. Thus in the third chapter, the inner sense will be divided into two characteristics as internality and externality respectively in accordance with the standard of intellectuality and consciousness, the two sights overall expound the vital role inner sense has played in the self-consciousness, of which the externality of inner sense assumes as the extended part of the intellectual area, and inner sense as an empirical internal intuition which provides the empirical material for intellectuality; while the internality of inner sense turns into Kant’s self-reflection perspective, the self-awareness theory of Kant performance as the affect the subject exerts on the self-object which forms a perceivable phenomenon, and different from the affect of object consciousness, this affect form self-consciousness is expected to be the synthesis function the transcendental imagination performance on inner sense, and inner sense as the empirical apperception provides the presentation of phenomena for transcendental apperception, making the reason and intellectuality could never possibly surpass the area of experience for the thing-in-itself, this is the central role inner sense played in the transcendental idealism, and the core concept runs through Kant’s doctrine of the inner sense.On this two sights, the conclusion of this paper is to show the indispensable supporting role inner sense played in Kant’s transcendental idealism, although it is not been given full play in the intellectual philosophy of Kant, it is implicit in Kant’s critical thinking and played the fundamental role, which is the reason that inner sense shall be the key point to learn Kant’s cognition and also the meaning of this article.