THE SCHEMATISM OF THE PURE CONCEPTS OF UNDERSTANDING

“In all subsumptions of an object under a concept the representation of the object must be
homogeneous with the concept; in other words, the concept must contain something which is
represented in the object that is to be subsumed under it.” (KRV, B 176)

The possibility of bringing the forms of representation together requires that there is something
connecting the categories, on the one hand, and phenomena, on the other, i.e. something that shares
both the intellectual and the phenomenal nature. Understanding provides the unity of the manifold of
experience in space and time by appealing to some third, intermediate structure. This
intermediate structure Kant calls the “TRANSCENDENTAL SCHEME,” which is always a
product of the IMAGINATION.

“Tis schematism of our understanding, in its application to appearances and their mere form, is an art
concealed in the depths of the human soul, whose real modes of activity nature is hardly likely ever to
allow us to discover, and to have open to our gaze.” (KRV, B 180).
Why do we need a mediation between A PRIORI concepts and phenomena?

The Empiricist: But how do we pass from

Simple ideas pile up particulars to general concepts
into complex ones unrelated to experience?

The Rationalist:
General ideas are
But how about
always already there
experience?
Concepts other than a priori ones actually are inherently homogeneous with their objects.

A mathematical concept of a circle is homogeneous with our experience, because it describes its
object in terms of properties that can be directly presented in experience

An empirical concept of a plate or a dog is already homogeneous with its object because it includes predicates
that correspond immediately to observable properties of objects.

Such concepts can be thought of as rules for the application of a name on the basis of observable
properties. The concept circle is equivalent to the rule “Call a figure a circle if it is a curved, closed line every
point of which is equidistant from its center,” and the concept dog is equivalent to the rule “Call an animal a
dog if it is a four-footed, barking mammal with a certain kind of teeth, etc.”
 SCHEMATA FOR EMPIRICAL CONCEPTS

An empirical concept is an abstract thought of that which is common to several

perceptions. The schema of such a posteriori, empirical concept is a vague image that we
evoke to make a link between an object and the appropriate concept:

“In order to test whether a concept is sensible, we sometimes " … go back to perception only
tentatively and for the moment, by calling up in imagination a perception corresponding to the
concept that occupies us at the moment, a perception that can never be quite adequate to the
(general) concept, but is a mere representative of it for the time being.”
 SCHEMATA FOR PURE SENSUOUS CONCEPTS

There are concepts that relate, prior to experience, to the external sense of space and the internal
sense of time. These are mathematical concepts. These concepts do not require visual images,
but appeal to pure, general geometrical form. They require schemata based on thought only.

The schema of a geometrical figure (say, a circle or triangle) “can never exist anywhere except in
thought, and signifies a rule of the synthesis of the imagination with regard to pure shapes in space.”
 SCHEMATA FOR A PRIORI CONCEPTS

A pure concept of the understanding, or a category, is a characteristic, predicate, attribute, quality, or

property of any possible object, that is, an object in general or as such.

"Since the categories are a priori and are therefore not abstractions from sense perceptions, they
owe their origin to the very nature of the mind itself."

These concepts are not abstractions of what is common to several perceived objects. They are unlike
empirical concepts in that they are not derived from perceptions of external objects.

Because schemata are determinations of objects in general, not specific, individual objects, they
are not particular images. A schema fro an a priori concept is a procedural rule. The rule prescribes
the way to relate a pure concept to an object in general. Schemata are ways of applying pure
concepts (categories) to sense impressions.
 TIME

Although categories, or concepts of the understanding, are abstract representations of objects in

general, they can result in thought about particular, specific objects if they are related to time. If
concepts are derived from perceptions, pure concepts (Categories) are derived from pure
perceptions. The purest perception, or schema, is TIME. Time has the most fundamental
relation to any sensation.

As all things are experienced in time, this applies to our internal selves as well as to all external
objects. Time is homogenous with appearances in that it belongs to all objects – as far as they are
temporal. Time is homogenous with categories in that it is universal and rests on an a priori rule.

Why TIME and not SPACE?

While space is the form of outer sense, and, therefore, only external objects pass through it,
time is the form of inner sense, and, therefore, both outer and inner objects pass through it.
Thus time is the formal condition of all phenomena in general.
“Now a transcendental determination of time is so far homogeneous with the category,
which constitutes its unity, in that it is universal and rests upon an B 178 a priori rule. But, on
the other hand, it is so far homogeneous A 139 with appearance, in that time is
contained in every empirical representation of the manifold. Thus an application of the
category to appearances becomes possible by means of the transcendental
determination of time, which, as the schema of the concepts of understanding,
mediates the subsumption of the appearances under the category.”
 concept

applicability mediation

image schema
generality
 REFUTATION OF IDEALISM

1. The section “Refutation of Idealism” distinguishes Kant’s own “transcendental” idealism

from the merely “subjective idealism” of George Berkeley.

2. Kant’s refutation of idealism is also Kant’s another response to Cartesian skepticism, or as he

calls it “problematic idealism” – uncertainty about the existence of external objects on
the basis of internal representations of them.

The thesis that the “Refutation” is to prove is that

“The mere, but empirically determined consciousness of my own existence proves the
existence of objects in space outside me” (B 275).
 OUTLINE OF KANT’S ARGUMENT:

[1] I am conscious of my existence as determined in time.

[2] All time determination presupposes something persistent in perception.

[3] This persistent thing, however, cannot be something in me, since my own existence in time can first be
determined only through this persistent thing [remember: I know of my own self in the same way I know
of outer facts].

[4] The perception of this persistent thing, therefore, is possible only through a thing outside me, and not
through the mere representation of a thing outside me.

[Conclusion]
The determination of my existence in time is possible only by means of the existence of actual things that I
perceive outside myself.
Questions to ask about Kant’s argument:

(1) What does Kant mean by consciousness of my existence as determined in

time?

(2) Why does time-determination require something permanent in time?

(3) Why must the permanent that is required for consciousness of my existence
in time be something other than my enduring self itself ?