4) “_Der Raum ist nichts anderes als nur die Form aller
Erscheinungen äusserer Sinne._ § 3.
5) “_Der Raum aber betrifft nur die reine Form der Anschauung._
(This passage appears in the first edition only, the paragraph
containing it is omitted in the second edition.) § 3.
6) “_Die Zeit ist ... eine reine Form der sinnlichen
Anschauung...._ § 4.
7) “_Es muss ihr[71] unmittelbare Anschauung zum Grunde
liegen._ § 4.
8) “_Die Zeit ist nichts anderes als die Form des inneren
Sinnes._ § 6.
9) “_... dass die Vorstellung der Zeit selbst Anschauung sei._
§ 6.
10) “_Wir haben nun ... reine Anschauung a priori, Raum und
Zeit._ § 10. _Beschluss der transcendentalen Æsthetik._”
These quotations do not pretend to be exhaustive, nor is that necessary
for the present purpose.
Kant, as we learn from these quotations, makes no distinction between
_reine Anschauung_ and _Form der Anschauung_. He uses most frequently the
term _reine Anschauung_ and designates in several places Space and Time
simply as _Anschauung_. (See the quotations 3, 7, and 9.) So far as I can
gather from a renewed perusal, the expression proposed by Mr. Spencer,
“form of intuition,” _Form der Anschauung_, occurs only once and that too
in a passage omitted in the second edition.
It is almost redundant to add that the English translators and
interpreters of Kant follow the original pretty closely. Accordingly it
is actually incorrect “that they have everywhere(!) described Kant as
maintaining that Space and Time are _forms_ of intuition.” In addition
to the quotations from Meiklejohn, I call Mr. Spencer’s attention to
William Flemming’s “Vocabulary of Philosophy” (4th ed., edited by Henry
Calderwood) which reads _sub voce_ “Intuition,” p. 228 with reference to
Kant’s view:
“Space and time are _intuitions_ of sense.”
To say “Time and Space are forms of intuition” is quite correct according
to Kantian terminology. No objection can be made to Mr. Spencer on that
ground. But to say “Time and Space are intuitions” is also quite correct,
and Mr. Spencer is wrong in censuring the expression.
Why does Mr. Spencer rebuke me so severely on a point which is of no
consequence? He appears confident that I have betrayed an unpardonable
misconception of Kant’s philosophy. But having pointed out by quotations
from Kant that this is not so, I shall now proceed to explain why the
quotation which Mr. Spencer makes from my article, although the eight
words in quotation marks are literally quoted, is a misquotation. It
is torn out of its context. I did not blame the English translators
of Kant at all, but I blamed his interpreters, among whom the English
interpreters (not all English interpreters, but certainly some of them)
are the worst, for “mutilating Kant’s best thoughts, so that this hero of
progress appears as a stronghold of antiquated views”; and as an instance
I called attention to the misconception of Kant’s term _Anschauung_,
saying:
“How different is Kant’s philosophy, for instance, if his
position with reference to time and space is mistaken! ‘Time
and Space are our _Anschauung_,’ Kant says. But his English
translators declare ‘Kant maintained that space and time
are intuitions.’ What a difference it makes if intuition
is interpreted in the sense applied to it by the English
intuitionalist school instead of its being taken in the
original meaning of the word _Anschauung_.”
The word “intuition” implies something mysterious; the word _Anschauung_
denotes that which is immediately perceived, simply, as it were, by
looking at it. So especially the sense-perceptions of the things before
us are _Anschauungen_.
Mr. Spencer, believing that he had caught me in making unawares a
blunder, tears the passage out of its context, ignores its purport,
makes a point of an antithesis which had nothing in the world to do
with the topic under discussion, only to throw on me the opprobrium
of incompetence. Even if Mr. Spencer’s antithesis of “intuition” and
“forms of intuition” were of any consequence (as, unfortunately for Mr.
Spencer, it is not), it would count for nothing against me because I did
not speak of “forms” in the passage referred to, I simply alluded to one
misinterpretation of the term _Anschauung_, which is quite common among
English Kantians. It was not required by the purpose I had in view, to
enter into any details as to what kind of _Anschauung_ I meant, and an
allusion to “form” or to any other subject would have served only to
confound the idea which I intended to set forth in the paragraph from
which Mr. Spencer quotes.
Misquotation of this kind, into which Mr. Spencer was inveigled by a
hasty reading, should be avoided with utmost care, for it involves an
insinuation. It leads away from the main point under discussion to side
issues, and it misrepresents the author from whom the quotation is made.
It insinuates a meaning which the passage does not bear and which was not
even thought of in the context out of which it is torn.
Mr. Spencer quotes the passage as if I had preferred the term “intuition”
to the term “form of intuition,” or at least, as if I had no idea that
Kant conceives Time and Space as “forms.” Yet Mr. Spencer in trying to
make out a point against me betrays his own lack of information. Kant
insisted most emphatically on calling the forms of our sensibility (i. e.
space and time) “_Anschauungen_.”
But Mr. Spencer’s case is worse still. While he insists upon the
statement that according to the translators of Kant space and time are
“forms of intuition,” which is at least correct, he uses twice in the
very same paragraph the expression that according to Kant “space and
time are forms of thought,” which is incorrect. The forms of thought
according to Kantian terminology are not space and time but the domain of
the transcendental logic. Anyone who confounds the two terms “forms of
intuition” and “forms of thought” proves himself unable to form a correct
opinion on Kant’s philosophy. That is just characteristic of Kant that
he regards time and space not as thought, nor as forms of thought, but
as _Anschauungen_ and in contradistinction to sense-intuitions (i. e.
sensations) he calls them _reine Anschauungen_ or _Formen der Anschauung_.