ABSTRACT
In the part of his Critique of Pure Reason known as the Transcendental Aesthetic, Kant purports to show (1) that our representations of space and time are pure intuitions, and (2) that space and time themselves are pure forms of intuition. His accounts in the Aesthetic of what these claims mean are problematic, however. The purpose of this chapter is to identify and solve the relevant problems. With the help of materials from outside the Critique, I will show that the meaning of (1) must be that our representations of space and time are intuitions and that with respect to their nature (as opposed to their existence), they do not depend on sensations. With the help of materials from outside the Critique, moreover, I will show that the meaning of (2) should be that space and time themselves are aspects of sensible things which arise according as the various things which affect the senses are coordinated by a certain natural law of the mind, and that with respect to their nature (as opposed to their existence), they do not depend on sensations. This requires a substantive change to Kant’s own account in the Aesthetic but avoids a troublesome regress.
