Fourth Chapter - On the First Class of Objects for the Subject and the Form of the Principle of Sufficient Reason Governing in It

Summary

GENERAL EXPLANATION OF THIS CLASS OF OBJECTS

The first class of possible objects of our faculty of representation is that of intuitive, complete, empirical representations. They are intuitive in contrast to those which are merely thought, that is, to abstract concepts; complete insofar as, following Kant's distinction, they contain not merely what is formal, but also what is material in appearances; empirical, partly insofar as they proceed not merely from connection of thought, but have their origin in an excitationa of sensation in our sensitivec body to which they constantly refer as evidence of their reality, partly because in accordance with the laws of space, time, and causality in union, they are connected in that complex, without beginning or end, that constitutes our empirical reality. However, since, according to the result of the Kantian teaching, this empirical reality does not annuld it transcendental ideality, they are considered merely as representations here where the concern is the formal elements of cognition.

OUTLINE OF A TRANSCENDENTAL ANALYSIS OF EMPIRICAL REALITY

The forms of these representations are those of the inner and outer senses, time and space. But only as filled are they perceivable. Their perceptibility is matter, to which I will return later, in § 21.

If time were the only form of these representations, then there would be no simultaneityf and therefore nothing persistentg and no duration. For time is perceived only insofar as it is filled, and its course is perceived only through the change in that which fills it. Therefore the persistence of an object is recognized only through contrast with the change of other objects that are simultaneous. But the representation of simultaneity is not possible in mere time; rather, it depends for its other half on the representation of space because in mere time everything is one after another, but in space, side by side: thus this representation of simultaneity first arises through the unity of time and space.

If, in contrast, space were the only form of representation of this class, then there would be no change, since change or alteration is successiond of states, and succession is possible only through time. Therefore, time can also be defined as the possibility of opposite determinations of the same thing.