But Mr. Spencer adduces a fact, which, if it were as Mr. Spencer
represents it, would show an inability on my part of making important
distinctions. He says of me:
“He blames the English for mistranslating Kant, since they have
said ‘Kant maintained that Space and Time are intuitions,’
which is quite untrue, for they have everywhere described him
as maintaining that Space and Time are _forms_ of intuition.”
This is a double mistake: (1) Kant and his translators did not make
the distinction of which Mr. Spencer speaks, and (2) the quotation Mr.
Spencer makes from my article is represented to mean something different
from what it actually means in the context.
Before I speak for myself as to what I actually said, let us state the
facts concerning Kant’s usage of the terms “intuitions” and “forms of
intuition.”
Kant defines in § 1 of his “Critique of Pure Reason” what he understands
by “Transcendental Æsthetic.” He distinguishes between “empirical
intuition” (_empirische Anschauung_) and “pure intuition” (_reine
Anschauung_). He says:
“That sort of intuition which relates to an object by means of
sensation, is called an empirical intuition.”
Representations contain besides that which belongs to sensation some
other elements. Kant says:
“That which effects that the content of the phenomenon can be
arranged under certain relations, I call its _form_.”
And later on he continues:
“This pure form of sensibility I shall call pure intuition.”
These are Kant’s phrases in J. M. D. Meiklejohn’s well known translation.
The term “pure intuition” is repeated again and again, and we find
frequently added by way of explanation the phrases “as a mere form
of sensibility,” “the mere form of phenomena,” “forms of sensuous
intuition,” and also (as Mr. Spencer emphasises as the only correct way)
“forms of intuition.”
Kant says:
1) “_Diese reine Form der Sinnlichkeit wird auch selber reine
Anschauung heissen._ § 1.
2) “_Zweitens worden wir von dieser (der empirischen
Anschauung) noch alles abtrennen, damit nichts als reine
Anschauung und die blosse Form der Erscheinungen übrig bleibe._
§ 1.