Chapter 6 - The Form of Time and Self-Affection

Summary

This chapter explores a significant thesis that emerges in Heidegger’s reading of Kant: the linear, unidirectional form of time that Kant outlines is dependent on another model of time – the human temporality comprising three interlaced temporal capacities. The chapter argues that developing this thesis represents the central philosophical payoff of Heidegger’s Kant interpretation; Heidegger goes to Kant to develop his own account of temporal idealism. Heidegger concurs with Kant that the form of time is relative to the human standpoint, but offers a deeper account of where that form of time comes from – i.e., how it derives from the very structure of the human being. While Being and Time attempts to trace the characteristics of linear time back to the human being’s temporality, Heidegger’s account of time in the Kant interpretation elaborates how temporality produces linear time. Specifically, Heidegger outlines the process of self-affection, in which the interaction between the human being’s three temporal capacities actualizes another model of time by interpreting the time that we ourselves are. This argumentative approach foregrounds a gap between the temporality of the human being and the interpretation of time upon which we arrive, suggesting that time could be otherwise interpreted.