ABSTRACT
The simplest and surest way to demonstrate the significance that the general symbolic function possesses for the configuration of theoretical consciousness would seem to be to turn to the highest and most abstract achievements of pure theory. Kant himself repeatedly stressed that the “transcendental” method contains within it two different directions of inquiry: The one side refers to the objects of the pure understanding and is supposed to demonstrate and make comprehensible the objective validity of its concepts a priori. The other side deals with the pure understanding itself, concerning its possibilities and the powers of cognition on which it itself rests; thus it considers it in a subjective relation. If science, from its own theoretical ideal of cognition, may look down on the objectifications as incomplete and preliminary, then from the standpoint of psychology, they depict independent and highly important stages that must be investigated and fully recognized in their particularity.
