Kant kicks off the main body of his critique with a few, extremely familiar concepts and clarifications. Again, he mentions sensibility, which is “The capacity to acquire representations through the way in which we are affected by objects” (CPR 155). This acquisition of sensibility is thought through understanding to become concepts. Along with sensation, Kant defines empirical, “intuition which is related to the object through sensation” (CPR 155), and appearance, “The undetermined object of an empirical intuition” (CPR 155). Matter relates to the appearance through sensation, whereas form relates to the appearance through relations. Of course, this idea of some basic form (big surprise) is universal and necessary, therefore the grounds for certain a priori concepts. This is, of course, regarding sensible a priori concepts, which present a problem for this transcendental aesthetic. How can concepts that we receive through our senses be realized completely void of experience? That could possibly be answered with a definition of a priori as independent of, but not preceding experience, seeing all experience through our sensations as simply reminders of what we already knew (as Plato might argue), a principle that these concepts shape our experiences before they even happen (my favorite), or any number of interpretations. I guess I pose this question to you.
In any case, Kant accepts certain concepts, namely time and space, as a priori concepts of sensibility, by separating everything we perceive of them and leaving their essential qualities remaining. He starts on space, since it is probably easier to strip of the notions conceived in it, and comes up with five points to prove his assertions.
1) “Space is not an empirical concept that has been drawn from outer experiences” (CPR 157). Basically, representations of things being as outside of one another come naturally to us, before defining things, and must therefore be a priori.
2) “Space is a necessary representation, a priori, which is the ground of all outer intuitions” (CPR 158). This is a basic fact since we can’t fathom there not being space, just a lack of things inside of it.
3) All geometric principles, considered a priori are based on this concept. Therefore, space itself must be a priori in order to govern them.
4) Space is not a concept of relations, but a pure intuition, since one can only represent an individual space as part of a whole.
5) “Space is represented as given an infinite magnitude” (CPR 159).
He concludes that space represents no relations or property, and that it is the form of appearance of the outer sense. It “comprehends all things that appear to us externally, but not all things in themselves” (CPR 160). This extension implies his “empirical reality” of space, which regards experience, and his “transcendental ideality” of space, which disregards its confines in experience. He concludes his examination of space with this assertion that it is the only necessary physical concept, which makes it a piece of the transcendental aesthetic.
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Your last two lines confused me. If the "transcendental ideality" of space is the disregard of its confines in experience, how could it be part of the transcendental aesthetic because "it is the only necessary physical concept"? I thought space is part of the transcendental aesthetic because it falls beyond the realm of empirical reality. In other words, as you mentioned, we can't learn the concept of space based on our experience alone. I don't think that the transcendental aesthetic has anything to do with "physical" things, since the physical would fall in the realm of empirical reality. Additionally, it wouldn't have to do with "physical concepts" for the same reason.
As I understood the transcendental aesthetic, it deals with everything that we can't explain within our concept of empirical reality. Thus, the reason why it falls into the metaphysical, it goes beyond our experience and the concept of the physical does not.
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