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Change in Kant

Dissertation

Presented in Partial Fulfillment of the Requirements for the Degree Doctor of Philosophy

in the Graduate School of The Ohio State University

By

Hope Celeste Sample, M.A.

Graduate Program in Philosophy

The Ohio State University

2018

Dissertation Committee

Lisa Shabel, Advisor

Lisa Downing

Julia Jorati

Tamar Rudavsky

Clinton Tolley

Copyright by

Hope Celeste Sample

2018

ii

Abstract

I argue that, for Kant, the inner representation of enables the direct of change, whether it is the self or an external that undergoes alteration. My interpretation contrasts with a standard view of Kant according to which time only enables direct perception of the temporal qualities of the self. My dissertation project orients Kant’s philosophy of time within a significant philosophical tradition that links time with change (a theme found in , Augustine, and Husserl, among others).

i Dedication

Dedicated to Paul and Sue Sample

ii Acknowledgments

To begin with, I am grateful for all of the support provided by my parents, Paul and Sue Sample. Additionally, I could not have asked for a better advisor than Lisa

Shabel for my project. Lisa has provided constant support that also prioritized my development of independent , which enabled me to develop a project that is truly my own. In my development as a philosopher, I have benefitted immeasurably by my conversations with William Taschek, whose office door was always open. I have also greatly benefitted from Julia Jorati’s constant help on matters both philosophical and professional. I am thankful for Lisa Downing’s insightful philosophical comments on my work that enabled productive development of themes in my project. For all of the philosophical conversations that influenced the development of this dissertation, I give thanks to Clinton Tolley. I am also thankful for my formative in Tamar

Rudavsky’s Spinoza seminar and our fruitful conversations about the philosophy of time.

I am lucky to have Juan Garcia as a friend and colleague. His helpful comments on several drafts of my chapters from various stages of development have been a crucial part of the development of this research project. I am grateful to my dissertation writing group for their support and helpful comments: Krista Benson, Krupal Amin, and Julie

Dentzer. I also thank Harry Deutsch, Aidan Makwana, Adrian Bardon, Bennett McNulty, and Nathan Oaklander for their feedback on significant portions of my dissertation, whose chapters are greatly improved as a result. iii Vita

2011 to …………………Ph.D. candidate, Philosophy, The Ohio State University

2009-2011………………………………..M.A., Philosophy, Northern Illinois University

2007-2009……………….B.A. Magna Cum Laude, Philosophy, Illinois State University

2005-2007………………………………….A.S with Honors, McHenry Country College

Publications

“Kant on Time and Change: A Series, B Series, or Both?” in and Philosophy of Time: Themes in Prior, edited by Per Hasle, Patrick Blackburn, and Peter Øhrstrøm, Aalborg University Press, 2017.

“What Makes for Conceptual ?” co-authored with Olivera Savic in Theoria, Beograd 60:4, 2017.

Fields of Study

Major Field: Philosophy

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Table of Contents

Abstract…………………………………………………………………………………....i

Dedication………………………………………………………………………………...ii

Acknowledgments……………………………………………………………………….iii

Vita……………………………………………………………………………………….iv

Introduction……………………………………………………………………………….1

Chapter 1: Time and Change in the Inaugural Dissertation and the 1772 Letter to Herz...7

Chapter 2: What Does Kant Mean by an Inner Representation of Time?.………………36

Chapter 3: Time and Change in Kant…………………………………………………....69

Chapter 4: A Kantian Approach to the A Series/B Series Debate……………………...100

Conclusion……………………………………………………………………………...120

Bibliography……………………………………………………………………………125

v Introduction

Immanuel Kant claims that mental representations of time and play a fundamental role in our about the world that we experience. More precisely, he claims that we have pure representations of time and space, which means that our representations of time and space are innate structures of the rather than things we perceive via sensation. In particular, Kant claims that the pure representation of time enables the perception of the self, while the pure representation of space enables the perception of things spatially distinct from the self. Kant also claims, however, that time is in the sense that it relates us to objects of the senses in general, whereas space is limited to external objects.

Though it has not gone entirely unnoted, the universal function of the pure inner representation of time has not yet received a satisfactory treatment in the Kant literature. This is due to a dominant interpretative trend that assumes that time and space are similar in all relevant respects and thus, that time only directly enables the perception of inner objects parallel to the way that space only directly enables the perception of outer objects. The strategy of understanding Kant’s account of time merely by extension from Kant’s account of space can be seen in recent influential systematic interpretations of his philosophical system and even in influential analyses of the portion of the Critique of Pure that contains

Kant’s account of space and time (see Allison 2004, Parsons 1992, and Hatfield 2006). My dissertation challenges this strategy by showing that the assumption underlying this common

1 methodology is false. For Kant, there are relevant differences between time and space inattention to which obscures important features of his philosophical system. In particular, I defend an interpretation according to which time has a more basic and universal function than space in virtue of its role in the perception of change, whether of inner or outer objects.

According to my interpretation, Kant’s position is that a pure inner representation of time is required for the perception of change, which is understood as the coming into and going out of being of states of objects. As an illustration, when I transition from sitting to standing, my previous state of sitting passes away and my new state of standing comes into being. Let us refer to this type of change as dynamic succession. Importantly, dynamic succession is a classic account of change that can be found in Kant’s predecessors such as

Parmenides, , and Augustine. My interpretation derives from close analysis of

Kant’s development of his doctrine of the pure inner representation of time within the context of eighteenth century philosophy of time. Notably, the extant literature on Kant’s account of time has focused mainly on Newton, Leibniz, Locke, and Hume as the relevant interlocutors.

Kant’s views about time have not yet been sufficiently oriented in relation to those of his ancient and medieval predecessors, whose views about time and change are thoroughly intertwined.

A figure whose views about time and change are of particular significance for understanding Kant is Augustine, as his Confessions raises a seminal issue about how we can perceive dynamic succession. Insofar as change involves states coming into being and going out of being, it is unclear how we can perceive, for example, a change from sitting to standing as something that has or happens over time. After all, in the perception of a change from sitting to standing the state of an object no longer exists and thus, there is

2 never a sensation of the as a succession of sitting and standing in a single object.

Even in the case of inner changes, one’s past mental states no longer exist. Thus, inner changes raise the same problem of how to perceive succession as something that occurs over time, given that prior non-existent states are not accessible in a present moment. In fact, Kant cites the relevant book of Confessions that discusses this issue about the perception of dynamic succession. Given Kant’s commitment to an account of change as dynamic succession and his familiarity with Augustine’s Confessions, Kant’s appeal to a pure inner representation of time can be fruitfully understood as resolving this Augustinian problem about the perception of dynamic succession. On my interpretation, Kant’s account of change as dynamic succession provides the philosophical foundation of Kant’s philosophy of time.

With this in mind, my dissertation has four main chapters that analyze the theme of change in Kant’s philosophy of time. Chapter One argues that in the transitional period leading up to the Kant derives his theory of the inner representation of time as an attempt to account for dynamic succession. In turn, Chapter Two shows that

Kant relies on the key premise that we perceive dynamic succession to establish that we have a pure inner representation of time in the Critique of Pure Reason. Following this, Chapter

Three demonstrates that in the Critique of Pure Reason Kant’s argument for temporal relies on the central premise that there is intelligible dynamic succession. Chapter

Four brings the preceding material on time and change to bear on the contemporary A

Series/B Series debate.

Focusing on the role of change in Kant’s philosophy of time, Chapter One analyzes the development of Kant’s account of time in the pre-Critical period. There are two significant problems that are apparently unrelated, but ultimately dovetail, in Kant’s famous

3 1772 letter to Herz. First, Kant aims in this letter to answer an objection to his temporal idealism, namely that it cannot account for the of perceived change. The basic behind the objection is this: since Kant is an idealist, he is at least committed to the reality of change in , and in turn, this commits him to the reality of time. ,

Kant’s letter raises the so-called “fundamental question of ” in which he aims to explain the scope of our entitlement to apply metaphysical such as substance, cause, and community. I argue that Kant recognizes that his Inaugural Dissertation account of the representation of change depended on the application of metaphysical concepts such as substance, cause, and community. As a result, Kant works to resolve this objection to his temporal idealism by clarifying the respective representational roles of such concepts and the pure representation of time in our perception.

Furthermore, Chapter Two analyzes the culmination of Kant’s effort in the Critique of Pure Reason to clarify the role of the pure inner representation of time in the perception of time. I argue that Kant’s doctrine of the pure inner representation of time derives from his attempt to account for the perception of dynamic succession. To perceive the motion of a body we must be able to relate its present position to a representation of its past position that no longer exists. Otherwise, we would only apprehend a sequence of appearing and disappearing states of an object. More generally, we must retain a representation of the past states of the changing object that connect them with our representation of its current existent states. For this reason, we require a representation of a relation of succession that is inner in the sense that it structures our of the states of the changing object. In addition, the relation of succession must be unchanging because otherwise it would re-introduce the original problem about how the perception of change is possible. This pure inner

4 representation of an unchanging relation of succession makes possible the basic time awareness that is necessary for the higher order application of the concepts of substance, cause, and community.

Chapter Three shows how Kant’s account of change as incompatible states in a single object ultimately supports Kant’s temporal idealism. On Kant’s view, the unchanging relation of succession that makes the dynamic succession of an object’s states intelligible must be a feature of the rather than something in the object. While Kant claims that our representation of succession is prior to our representation of change, I argue that Kant maintains that succession in being depends on the coming into and going out of existence of incompatible states in a change. Insofar as succession in existence is made possible through the incompatible states in change, one cannot appeal to succession in existence to render change consistent and intelligible. In this case, succession in existence depends on the incompatibility in change and thus, cannot resolve any issues with the consistency of the states in a change. Kant, however, maintains that time is that which makes change perceivable and intelligible. Given this, Kant identifies time with that which enables the perception and intelligible thought of dynamic succession, i.e. the form of inner sense.

Contra the early 1770s objection to his temporal idealism, the reality of perceived change depends on the ideality of time as the structure of succession among our representations.

Lastly, Chapter Four orients Kant’s philosophy of time in relation to the contemporary A Series/B Series debate. This debate is often framed in terms of the issue of whether the A series properties of being past, present, and are more fundamental than the B Series of being earlier than, later than, and simultaneous with or vice versa.

Given the preceding investigation of Kant’s account of time, we have the resources to

5 develop a Kantian argument that neither position is satisfactory. In sum, if the B series relations were fundamental, then change would be static, and if the A series properties were fundamental, then change would be unintelligible. This suggests that we should endorse a position upon which neither of these properties and relations are more fundamental, but instead are complementary aspects of change.

In closing, Kant’s account of the inner representation of time as the structure of our perception of dynamic succession provides a basis for developing new interpretations of other aspects of his philosophy. Time consciousness plays a crucial role in the

Transcendental Deduction, the Schematism, the of Pure Understanding, and the

Refutation of Idealism. This dissertation proposes that Kantian awareness of time is ultimately awareness of change, which provides a new vantage point for understanding these sections of the text.

6 Chapter 1: Time and Change in the Inaugural Dissertation and the 1772 Letter to Herz

Abstract: Kant’s 1772 letter to Herz is widely regarded as marking a turning point in the development of the philosophy of the Critique of Pure Reason. This letter contains two main themes that have not yet received an account of their direct connection. Kant raises the so- called fundamental question of metaphysics, and he attempts to respond to an objection that his temporal idealism is incompatible with the reality of perceived change. The fundamental question of metaphysics concerns the ground of the relationship between representation and object. The objection to his temporal idealism is that insofar as there is change in one’s representations, time must be real as the medium in which those changes occur and not merely a mode of our perception of the world. It is proposed that Kant’s raising of the fundamental question of metaphysics is in fact motivated by his desire to account for the perception of change, an account that in turn faces a difficulty raised in the objection concerning its compatibility with his temporal idealism. According to this interpretation, change unifies these seemingly disparate lines of thought in Kant’s pre-Critical philosophy.

Keywords: time, succession, idealism, change, and Kant’s pre-Critical philosophy

1. Introduction

In the 1772 letter to Herz, Kant sketches a response to an objection to his 1770

Inaugural Dissertation claim that time is ideal and raises what he calls the fundamental question of metaphysics.1 On one hand, Kant’s letter provides a response to an objection that calls for an explanation of our perception of change, given his temporal idealism. On the

1 All citations of the Critique of Pure Reason are from Paul Guyer and Allan Wood’s 1998 Cambridge edition translation, and the citations of the Critique list the usual A and B marginal numbers. The citations of the letters are from Arnulf Zweig’s 1999 Cambridge edition translation, the citations of the notes and fragments are from Paul Guyer’s 2005 Cambridge edition translation, and the citations of the Inaugural Dissertation and the New Elucidation are from David Walford and Ralf Meerbote’s 1992 Cambridge edition translation. The citations of these sources are cited according to the usual volume and page number.

7 other hand, Kant’s letter raises the fundamental question of metaphysics, whose final formulation concerns the ground of the necessary agreement between experience and pure principles of the understanding, i.e. judgments that are derived purely from the understanding

(10: 131). The fundamental question of metaphysics and Kant’s desire to respond to the objection concerning the ideality of time are two different lines of thought in Kant’s early development of his critical philosophy, and some interpreters think that these lines of thought are effectively independent. For example, Eric Watkins (2001: 71) claims that the fundamental question of metaphysics and the objection concerning the ideality of time seem to have no natural relation to one another. Additionally, Paul Guyer (1987: 22-23) claims that there is only an indirect relation between the two, as Kant’s investigations in the early 1770’s seem not to have been focused on the objection concerning the ideality of time, and the fundamental question of metaphysics is a problem that none of Kant’s interlocutors had raised.

In this chapter I propose, by contrast, that Kant’s desire to face an objection to his idealism about time is what leads him to raise the final formulation of the fundamental question of metaphysics, and that an understanding of the former informs an account of the latter. These two themes in Kant’s early development have as yet received no account of their direct connection. My proposal is, in short, that Kant recognizes that his account of the perception of change in the Inaugural Dissertation requires further development, which can only be completed if he answers the final formulation of the fundamental question of metaphysics. Kant appeals to concepts such as substance and cause to explain our perception of change and, in turn, the final formulation of the fundamental question of metaphysics raises a question about the origin of these concepts. Thus, these two themes in Kant’s early

8 development of his critical philosophy dovetail: in order to fully address an objection concerning the perception of change Kant must articulate the ground of our entitlement to apply metaphysical concepts such as substance and cause.

To begin to see how the problem of change ties these two themes together in Kant’s early development, section two provides an analysis of Kant’s idealism about time in the

1770 Inaugural Dissertation. I argue that his idealism is intended to account for the perception of change. In light of this, section three provides an analysis of the fundamental question of metaphysics in the later 1772 letter to Herz to show that the version of the question with which Kant is most concerned targets the metaphysical concepts that he uses to explain our representation of change in the Inaugural Dissertation. I show that metaphysical concepts such as substance and cause play a role in Kant’s Inaugural Dissertation account of the perception of change, and that it is these specific concepts that are the target of concern in the final formulation of the fundamental question of metaphysics.

With this background on the role of change in the fundamental question of metaphysics, section four analyzes the objection concerning the ideality of time in the 1772 letter to Herz. The objection to his temporal idealism is that it is incompatible with the reality of perceived change. In response, Kant makes his first explicit appeal to time as the structure of inner sense, which more closely approximates his idealism in the Critique of Pure Reason.

Kant, however, regards his own response as incomplete. I argue that Kant’s dissatisfaction with his own reply stems from the fact that his 1770 Inaugural Dissertation account of the perception of change appeals not only to temporal idealism but also to metaphysical concepts such as substance and cause. Kant has an account of the role of idealism about time in our perception of change, but he has not yet provided an explanation of our entitlement to

9 concepts such as substance and cause that are also required for explaining our representation of change. Section five provides a brief conclusion about the significance of this investigation for Kant’s account of time in the Critique of Pure Reason.

2. Time and Change in Kant’s Inaugural Dissertation

This section articulates Kant’s temporal idealism in the Inaugural Dissertation via an analysis of the notions of pure intuition, form and of sensible representation, and phenomena. Analyzing these aspects of Kant’s idealism will reveal that time plays a universal role in our perception of the world and, in particular, the perception of change.

More generally, I argue that Kant derives his early temporal idealism as a requirement for the perception of change.

To foreshadow Kant’s 1770 Inaugural Dissertation discussion of the relationship between time and change, it is useful to reflect on a key passage in Kant’s 1755 New

Elucidation:

Hence, if the connection of substances were cancelled altogether, succession and time would likewise disappear . . . But since change is the succession of determinations, that is to say, since a change occurs when a determination comes into being which was not previously present, and the being is thus determined to the opposite of a certain determination which belongs to it, it follows that the change cannot take place by means of those factors which are to be found within the substance. (1: 410-411)

This passage reveals Kant’s dissatisfaction with Leibniz’s rejection of external causal relations among substances. Kant argues in this passage that if there were no real external relations among substances, then there would be no time and succession. More precisely,

10 Kant tells us that change is a succession of determinations of coming into being and going out of being, and he claims that without real external relations there is no such change, no succession, and no time. While it is unclear how time relates to change in this early work,

Kant provides a more precise account of the relationship between time and change in his

Inaugural Dissertation, to which we now turn.

Before analyzing Kant’s views about the relationship between time and change, we must first understand his idealism about time in the Inaugural Dissertation:

Time is not something objective and real, nor is it a substance, nor an , nor a relation. Time is rather the subjective condition which is necessary, in virtue of the of the human mind, for the coordinating of all sensible things in accordance with a fixed law. It is a pure intuition. (2: 400)

Kant claims that time is not objective and real, but it is a subjective condition of our perception (2: 399). Time, as a condition of our form of perception, is identified with a pure intuition. That is, time is a medium through which perceived temporal objects are oriented, and this medium is provided by a structure of the mind rather than given through sensation.

Since Kant identifies time with a pure intuition, a thorough account of Kant’s claim about the ideality of time requires further elaboration on how time functions as a pure intuition and, in particular, its role in perception.

It is important to emphasize that Kant not only maintains in this pre-Critical period that time is a pure intuition, but also that time is the pure form of all our sensible representations (2: 398). In other words, not only do we have an inherent representation of time as a medium in intuition, but also all things that can be sensed and represented by us are oriented in time and are representable in time. The form of a sensible representation is a law of the mind that coordinates what is given through sensation (2: 393). Time is the form of

11 sensible representation in the sense that it is the structure of all sensible representation. In contrast, sensation is the matter of sensible representation. Sensation, as the matter of sensible representation, is produced through the affection of a subject by an object (2: 392-

393).2 Kant claims that objects do not us in virtue of their form or specificity, i.e. their forms do not come to us through sensation. He maintains that if our sensible representations are to have a unity that is necessary for the representation of a whole, there must be an internal feature of our “. . . in virtue of which those various facts may be clothed with a certain aspect, in accordance with stable and innate laws” (2:393). In sum, this is not a merely causal theory of intentionality because Kant’s claim is that affection by objects of perception depends on the mind’s having a certain cognitive structure with which to receive the impressions of objects.

Though Kant identifies time with a feature of the mind that enables us to perceive sensible things, this does not mean that only our minds and representations have temporal qualities. To see this, we must attend to the status of phenomena, as objects of the senses, in the Inaugural Dissertation:

Now, although phenomena, properly speaking, are aspects of things and not , and although they do not express the internal and of objects, nonetheless cognition of them is in the highest degree true. For, first of all, in so far as they are sensory concepts or apprehensions, they are, as things caused, witnesses to the presence of an object, and this is opposed to idealism. (2: 397)

2 Although the form of sensible representation indicates a connection to something that is sensed, Kant claims that the form of a sensible representation does not provide an “outline” or a “” of an object (2: 393). This implies that something beyond the unifying function of space and time as pure intuitions is required for a relation to an object (2: 393). Kant is foreshadowing his Inaugural Dissertation view that concepts also play a unifying role. Similarly, in a note from 1769, Kant assigns a unifying role to empirical concepts in the determination of appearances (M IL 17: 367).

12 Kant distinguishes between phenomena as representations and phenomena as qualities of things, which is a distinction between a representation and its content or object. Objects cause phenomenal representations, and Kant claims that this is opposed to idealism. Given that the phenomena are the objects of these representations and they are not “ideal”, this suggests that objects of experience are not to be identified with representations, as a matter of definition.3 Since Kant claims that time is an “absolutely primary and universal” form of the phenomenal world (see 2: 401) and phenomena are the objects of the senses and not mere representations, I claim that, for Kant, objects of the senses and not their mere representations are in time. Kant’s temporal idealism is the position that empirical objects derive their temporal features through a combination of what the mind contributes via a pure intuition of time and the features of sensible things that are given to us.

Kant’s idealism about time is the position that things that are neither objects of the senses nor possible objects of the senses are non-temporal. Kant refers to such non-sensible objects as noumena, and he distinguishes them from phenomena in the following way:

Sensibility is the receptivity of a subject in virtue of which it is possible for the subject’s own representative state to be affected in a definite way by the presence of some object. (rationality) is the faculty of a subject in virtue of which it has the power to represent things which cannot by their own quality come before the senses of that subject. The object of sensibility is the sensible; that which contains nothing but what is to be cognised through the intelligence is intelligible. In the schools of the ancients, the former was called a phenomenon and the latter a noumenon. Cognition, in so far as it is subject to the laws of sensibility, is sensitive, and, in so far as it subject to the laws of intelligence, it is intellectual or rational. (2: 392)

3 Although an object of a sensible representation could be a representation, as in the case of inner reflection on one’s thoughts, the “opposed to idealism” claim suggests that the objects in question need not be representations.

13 In this passage, Kant lays out his distinction between sensibility and intelligence. Sensibility is the faculty by which objects affect us, and the objects of its representations are phenomena. Intelligence is the faculty by which we represent things that cannot affect us, and when the representations are purely intellectual with no admixture of the sensible, the objects of those representations are noumena. With this distinction in mind, we can summarize

Kant’s position as follows: time is a feature of phenomena qua objects of the senses, whereas time is not a feature of noumena qua objects of the intellect.

With an understanding of Kant’s idealism about time, we are now in a position to analyze Kant’s account of the relationship between time and change:

For A and not-A are not inconsistent unless they are thought simultaneously (that is to say, at the same time), about the same thing, for they can belong to the same thing after one another (that is to say, at different ). Hence, it is only in time that the possibility of changes can be thought, whereas time cannot be thought by means of change, only vice versa. (2: 401)

In this passage, Kant critiques a view in which we derive our original representation of time from the representation of change. Kant’s argument against this view is that the incompatibility of the determinations in change can only be represented by means of time and not vice versa.4 Crucially, this account of change corresponds with the 1755 New

4 In a 1770 letter, Mendelssohn criticizes Kant on this point claiming that no appeal to time is necessary in what he refers to as the law of contradiction (10: 116). Mendelssohn goes as far as to say that the of impossibility only requires that the same subject cannot have A and non-A. In connection with this, Mendelssohn claims that the same subject cannot have A and non-A at different times, which suggests that alteration, as Kant understands it, is impossible. Although it may appear that Kant makes the stronger claim that the of contradiction contains time as a part of its content, later, in the Inaugural Dissertation, he makes the weaker claim that the understanding only notices a contradiction if it notices a simultaneous attribution of opposites to a thing (2: 406 and 2: 416). More importantly, the point that Kant is making here does not require the stronger claim, which is not clearly part of his view in the Inaugural Dissertation and which Kant later explicitly rejects in the Critique. In light of Kant’s early critique of Leibniz, it appears that Kant’s claim that the representation of change, understood as the succession of incompatible determinations, requires the representation of time because the kind of incompatibility represented in change is irreducibly temporal.

14 Elucidation account of change in terms of incompatibility of states in a single object.5 The point that Kant is making here is that change is only intelligible for us if the incompatible states are perceived at different times, but he argues, in the preceding passages, that our apprehension of different times is only possible through a pure intuition of time. In particular,

Kant’s argument that we have a pure intuition of time is grounded in the requirements for representing different times, which are only representable in relation to a singular temporal manifold presented in the pure intuition of time (2: 399). In this way, the perception of change is grounded in time as a mere form of sensible representation. In sum, the above passage shows that time has a very specific role in enabling perception; namely, it enables the perception of change.

For further confirmation that Kant’s idealism about time in the Inaugural

Dissertation is derived from an attempt to account for our perception of change, it is useful to reflect on the that corresponds to time. Kant claims that “…PURE MATHEMATICS deals with space in GEOMETRY and time in pure Mechanics…”, by which he means that there are objective non-empirical concerning space and time (2: 397). The claim that time is the subject matter of a science means, for Kant, that time is something about which one can make objective scientific judgments. Mechanics is the science of the motion of bodies, where motion is understood as a change of place. In particular, Kant claims that there is a science of change in mechanics in the sense that there is a “science of sensory things” (2:

398). It makes sense that Kant would link time with the body of synthetic a priori cognitions that belong to mechanics qua the science of sensible change in bodies, given time’s role in enabling the perception of change. Time, as a pure form of sensibility, is a requirement for

5 Notably, in Eric Watkins’s (2005: 114) analysis of Kant’s criticisms of Leibniz in the New Elucidation, he claims that although there are differences between their positions, the common ground is a traditional view that change is to be understood as the succession of incompatible modes in a subject

15 changes to appear to us as perceptible contents and in turn makes synthetic a priori judgments about the structure of motion as a change of place possible.

With this background on the role of time in enabling the perception of change we can better understand the two main themes in Kant’s famous 1772 letter to Herz. This letter is widely regarded as a pivotal moment in Kant’s development of his philosophy as it appears in the Critique of Pure Reason. In this letter, Kant’s raising of the fundamental question of metaphysics and his response to an objection to his idealism about time can be fruitfully understood in relation to his longstanding commitment to account for change. This brings us to the next section in which we examine Kant’s raising of the fundamental question of metaphysics as the first major theme in Kant’s 1772 letter to Herz.

3. Change and the Fundamental Question of Metaphysics in the 1772 Letter to Herz

Taking change as a guiding thread, let us examine the fundamental question of metaphysics as the first main theme in the 1772 letter to Herz. I will articulate the general problem of intentionality that Kant raises in the fundamental question of metaphysics, along with identifying a particular case of this problem that he takes to be most pressing in the early 1770s. More specifically, analysis of the final formulation of the fundamental question of metaphysics reveals that Kant is particularly concerned with intellectual representations that are involved in the representation of change, e.g. the concept of a substance as a sustaining cause. I argue that change is the philosophical issue that motivates Kant to address what he takes to be the most pressing formulation of the fundamental question of metaphysics.

16 In order to frame the fundamental question of metaphysics, it is necessary to consider the subject matter and the limitations of the Inaugural Dissertation. Kant describes the text’s subject matter as follows:

Now, the philosophy which contains the first principles of the use of the pure understanding is METAPHYSICS. But its propaedeutic science is that science which teaches the distinction between sensitive cognition and the cognition which derives from the understanding; it is of this science that I am offering a specimen in my present dissertation. (2: 395)

Kant claims that metaphysics is a body of knowledge that contains an account of the ground of the cognition that derives purely from the understanding. This account of metaphysics identifies it as intrinsically linked to both and . The

Inaugural Dissertation, however, does not provide a completed project in metaphysics as

Kant defines it. Instead, it provides an account of the distinction between cognition that derives from sensibility and cognition that derives from the understanding as an introductory step towards the development of a science of the pure use of the understanding.

Accordingly, the first formulation of the fundamental question of metaphysics is as follows: “What is the ground of the relation of that in us which we call “representation” to the object?” (10: 130). Given that metaphysics concerns the investigation into the ground of cognition that derives from the understanding, the general issue of the nature of the relation between a representing subject and an object is a foundational metaphysical problem. While

Kant’s interest in examination of the general relation of intentionality as the primary problem of metaphysics follows from his account of metaphysics, the final formulation of the fundamental question of metaphysics requires further explanation.

17 Kant describes the final formulation of the fundamental question of metaphysics as follows:

However, I silently passed over the further question of how a representation that refers to an object without being in any way affected by it can be possible. I had said: The sensuous representations present things as they appear, the intellectual representations present them as they are. But by what means are these things given to us, if not by the way in which they affect us? And if such intellectual representations depend on our inner activity, whence comes the agreement that they are supposed to have with objects—objects that are nevertheless not possibly produced thereby? And the axioms of pure reason concerning these objects—how do they agree with these objects, since the agreement has not been reached with the aid of experience? (10: 131)

This passage explains a problem unique to Kant’s theory of mental representation developed in the Inaugural Dissertation, as the general issue of intentionality can be raised for any systematic theory of the mind. We saw in the preceding section that Kant posited intelligible representations of non-temporal noumena whose origin derives from the spontaneity of a subject’s capacity for representation rather than affection by objects. Kant claims that these intellectual representations provide axioms about objects, even though these intellectual representations do not derive from interaction with the objects that the subject represents in accordance with such axioms. This raises a couple of significant issues: the status of the aforementioned objects and the content of the respective axioms.

With respect to the status of the objects, there is much dispute over the type of objects that Kant also refers to as things themselves (Dinge selbst), which are supposed to be in conformity with axioms of reason or pure principles that derive from understanding (10:

131).6 The controversy stems from the ambiguity of the phrase “things themselves”, which is distinct, at least in construction, from another significant Kantian phrase, namely “things in

6 Guyer (1987: 14) notes that Kant does not appear to have a fully developed distinction between understanding and reason at this stage in the development of his philosophy.

18 themselves” (Dinge an sich selbst). Notably, “things in themselves” is a that Kant uses to describe noumena qua objects independent of any relation to our forms of sensible representation. Wolfgang Carl (1989), Jennifer Mensch (2007), and Paul Guyer (1987) argue that the things themselves are phenomena, while Lewis White Beck (1989) argues that the things themselves are noumena. Predrag Cicovacki (1991) argues that the things themselves concern both noumena and phenomena because Kant is concerned with objects in general.7

While it is beyond the scope of the present chapter to settle this issue, the issue of the nature of the objects that must conform to the pure principles of the understanding can be resolved by first addressing the issue of why pure principles of the understanding must agree with experience. Knowledge of the function of the pure principles of the understanding can lend insight into the nature of the objects that must conform to them.

This leads us to the second issue, that is, the content of the axioms, which is clarified in the text that directly follows the previously cited passage:

In mathematics this is possible, because the objects before us are and can be represented as quantities only because it is possible for us to produce their mathematical representations (by taking numerical units a given number of times). Hence the concepts of the quantities can be spontaneous and their principles can be determined a priori. But in the case of relationships involving qualities—as to how my understanding may, completely a priori, form for itself concepts of things with which concepts the facts should necessarily agree, and as to how my understanding may formulate real principles concerning the possibility of such concepts, with which principles of experience must be in exact agreement and which nevertheless are independent of experience—this question, of how the faculty of the understanding

7 Cicovacki (1991: 358) makes an interesting point that there is some weak evidence in favor of his thesis in that Kant uses the terms “Sachen”, “Dinge”, and “Gegenstände” indiscriminately, which shows that he was not concerned about the nature of the objects of knowledge. However, an alternative explanation for the indiscriminate use of terms is possible. Since the account of the concept of an object in the Critique of Pure Reason requires an account of both the functions of sensibility and the understanding, the latter of which Kant has not worked out, the difference between these terms has not yet taken the significance that they do in the Critique of Pure Reason (B137). As a result, Kant’s indiscriminate use of terms may not have appeared so significant to him in 1772.

19 achieves this conformity with the things themselves is still left in a state of obscurity. (10: 131)

Kant’s discussion locates a lacuna in his Inaugural Dissertation theory of representation. He points out that if pure principles of the understanding derive solely from the faculty whereby we represent objects that cannot affect us, then it is unclear why they must govern experience, which crucially depends upon affection by objects. Note that Kant affirms that mathematical principles raise no special problem because all objects of experience are quantities, and mathematical representation is that through which we represent quantities. For this reason, Kant states that intellectual representations of do not raise any special problem.8 Nonetheless, he maintains that there remains a pressing problem for intellectual representations of quality. Together, this indicates that the kind of representations that Kant was most concerned with in this period are what Kant will describe in the Critique of Pure

Reason as dynamical rather than the mathematical categories.

To understand why Kant specifically identifies intellectual representation of qualities as playing an a priori role in experience, we should orient this point with respect to another aspect of Kant’s position on the representation of change in the Inaugural Dissertation. We saw in the last section that Kant maintains that time, as the pure form of sensibility, is required for the perception of change via enabling our representation of different times.

Time, however, only provides a necessary condition for the perception of change, and the

Inaugural Dissertation account of the perception of change also appeals to the representations of substance and cause. We will shortly see precisely how these representations figure into an overall account of the representation of change, but it is

8 This is a position that Kant will later reconsider in the Critique of Pure Reason, as he devotes two sections of the text to an explanation of the ground of our entitlement to apply mathematical principles.

20 important to first note the status of the representation of substance and cause within Kant’s philosophical system. He claims that the representations of substance and cause derive from the spontaneity of the subject rather than affection and thus, are intelligible representations rather than sensible representations (2: 395). To foreshadow where this will lead us, Kant’s concern with intellectual representations of quality and experience can be understood as follows. Change is a universal way that we experience the world, but this experience requires not only time as the form of sensibility, but also intellectual representations of substance and cause. The status of the latter representations is raised as a problem in the fundamental question of metaphysics.

The following passage from the Inaugural Dissertation indicates Kant’s position that the representation of change also requires the concepts of substance and cause:

Furthermore, the possibility of all changes and successions, of which possibility the principle, in so far as it is sensitively cognised, is to be found in the concept of time, presupposes the continued duration of a subject, the opposed states of which follow in succession. But that, of which the states flow, only endures if it is sustained by something else. And, thus, the concept of time, as the concept of something unique, infinite and immutable, in which all things are and in which all things endure, is the phenomenal of the general cause. (2: 410)

Kant claims, in the above passage, that the concept of time as something singular, unbounded, and unchangeable, is the phenomenal eternity of the general cause. The phenomenal eternity of time consists in the fact that time as the singular, unchanging, unbounded medium, makes possible the perception of any finite time in which all objects are oriented. Likewise, he claims the sensitive cognition of change and succession requires something that sustains the relations of succession, change, and endurance in finite objects.

Thus, representing the temporal relations of objects in time requires representing a general

21 cause that grounds it, and this is a singular, infinite, and unchanging substance. Kant contrasts the general cause with phenomenal eternity, which suggests that the general cause is something that does not exist in space or time because these are phenomenally given.

The general cause having a noumenal status fits well with the fact that the above passage occurs in the section on the form of the intelligible world. This is the section in which Kant argues for a ground through which there is a connection between things in themselves, as objects independent of our perception (2: 398). Moreover, in this section of the Inaugural Dissertation, Kant argues that the connection of contingent substances in space requires a unique substance that exists independently of space and time (2: 408). As a result, this cause is a thing in itself, according to the Inaugural Dissertation, and it appears that this cause not only plays the role of grounding the connections among things in space, but also grounds the possibility of change and succession in time. Thus, the pure intuition of time contributes to our sensible representation of change, while the concepts of substance and cause contribute to our intellectual representation of time with which the sensible representations are intermixed. With this in mind, we can say that the pure intuition of time and concepts of substance and cause constitute the sensible and intellectual aspects of our representation of change, respectively.

For further confirmation that Kant appeals to intellectual representations of substance and cause to explain our perception of change, it is useful to note that Kant claims his view is similar to Malebranche’s position according to which everything is perceived in God (2:

410). The context of this claim is Kant’s description of his position that all change depends on a single substance. Similarly, towards the end of his life, Kant describes the noumenal

22 aspects of time when he analyzes eternity in his 1794 The end of all things.9 The noumenal aspect of time takes the world from a God’s eye perspective, rather than a finite human perspective, and can be seen as a natural component of Kant’s complete systematic philosophy of time.

This background puts us in a position to understand why Kant focuses on intellectual representations of quality and their correspondence with experience in the final formulation of the fundamental question of metaphysics. In the Inaugural Dissertation, Kant claims that the representation of the succession, change, and endurance of things in time requires not only a relation to time qua pure intuition, but also the representation of a singular substance as a sustaining cause of all phenomenal succession, change, and endurance. In this way, the principle that succession, change, and endurance causally depend on a unique substance constitutes a principle for the experience of change that derives from the understanding.

Taking all this together, Kant’s concern with intelligible representations of quality can be understood as deriving from his own commitments concerning the requirements for the representation of change. 10

We have seen that Kant is led to raise the final formulation of the fundamental question of metaphysics due to his account of change; his account of our perception of change depends on a pure use of the understanding in his position that all succession and change depends on a unique substance that provides a sustaining cause. Kant provides no account in the Inaugural Dissertation of how the pure principles of the understanding can

9 Kant speaks of eternity (Ewigkeit) as duration (Dauer) without time (Zeit), which he calls a duratio Noumenon (8: 327). He also describes alterations (Verändrungen) in our moral character as non-temporal changes (keinem Zeitwechsel) (8: 334). This suggests that, at least later in life, Kant distinguishes between temporal and non- temporal changes. 10 This concern will be treated in the Critique of Pure Reason in the Transcendental Deduction of the Categories and especially the Analogies of Experience.

23 govern our representation of change in experience, as the former is independent of affection by objects and the latter depends on affection by objects. This preoccupation with accounting for change is also reflected in the second main theme from the 1772 letter to Herz. Kant’s desire to provide an adequate account of the representation of change dovetails with his desire to answer an objection to his temporal idealism concerning its compatibility with the reality of perceived change. This brings us to the next section in which we examine this objection in Kant’s 1772 letter to Herz.

4. Change and the Objection to Kant’s Temporal Idealism in the 1772 Letter to Herz

Kant claims that the “most serious objection” that can be raised to the philosophical system of the Inaugural Dissertation is that it cannot explain the reality of perceived change within an idealistic framework (10: 134). Interestingly, Kant finds his own response to the objection in the letter to be incomplete. I argue that Kant’s response is incomplete because it relies on intellectual representations of substance and cause to explain our perception of change without any explanation of how they could play this role qua non-sensible representations. As we saw in the preceding section, this is the problem raised in the final formulation of the fundamental question of metaphysics. Thus, these seemingly disparate lines of thought in the 1772 letter to Herz are related as aspects of Kant’s longstanding attempt to account for sensible change.

Indeed, Kant’s identification of time with a pure intuition in the Inaugural

Dissertation leads to an objection that was raised by his most esteemed interlocutors such as

24 J.H. Lambert and Moses Mendelssohn. Kant recounts this objection in the 1772 letter as follows:

It [the objection] runs like this: Changes [Veränderungen] are something real (according to the testimony of inner sense). Now, they are possible only if time is presupposed; therefore time is something real that is involved in the determinations of things in themselves. (10: 134)11

This passage presents Kant’s formulation of a common objection that alleges that we perceive real change in our representations, and that the reality of this change requires the reality of time, contra idealism. The observation of a change in our representations is the observation of an alteration in one’s state, and these alterations are real in the sense that they are objective facts about the world and not merely things happening in the mind. Change, however, requires time because it involves a transition from having a at one time to having an incompatible property at another time. Thus, speaking in the voice of his critics,

Kant says that the reality of change, at least in the change of one’s inner representations, requires the reality of time as something beyond the structure of a subject’s perception of the world.

By framing the objection as an issue concerning how time enables the reality of change, I am rejecting a common interpretation of the objection. Some authors argue that

Kant’s temporal idealism in the Inaugural Dissertation is the position that only representations are in time, and that if only representations are in time, then we cannot account for the mind as something in time that undergoes the change in representation.12 Yet,

11 The extant translations of Kant on Veränderung are not all uniform. In this passage, Arnulf Zweig translates it as “change”. In contrast, the Guyer and Wood edition of the Critique of Pure Reason translates all instances of Veränderung and its cognates as “alteration”, whereas they translate Wechsel and its cognates as “change”. 12 Guyer (1987: 22) interprets the objection in this way: the problem it raises is that time “… must really characterize those minds themselves and cannot be just an appearance of the mind to itself”. Note that Guyer

25 this reconstruction of the objection does not account for all of Kant’s claims about his temporal idealism. In section two, I examined Kant’s commitment to time as the form of phenomena qua objects of our sensible representations. According to Kant, time is a feature of phenomenal objects and not merely a feature of representations thereof. Since this common interpretation of the objection does not fit well with this aspect of Kant’s idealism, I will set this interpretation aside and pursue the problem of the reality of perceived change as it arises from within the doctrines of the Inaugural Dissertation. In the face of the objection,

Kant nonetheless maintains his idealism both in this letter and later in the Critique of Pure

Reason when he returns to an examination of this objection (A36-37/B53). This fits well with what we saw in section two: Kant’s idealism plays a foundational role in explaining our perception of change. Thus, Kant’s response to the objection should be understood in a way that preserves his longstanding commitment to the reality of perceived change.

To foreground his own response to the objection, Kant analyzes a parallel argument in the case of space and offers a diagnosis as to why no one offers it. Kant suggests the following parallel reasoning: if bodies are real according to the testimony of outer sense, and bodies presuppose space, then space must be something that inheres in things independent of being given to our forms of sensibility. In other words, space must have a reality that is independent of our human perspective. No such argument was ever raised against his spatial idealism, and Kant claims that this is because it is generally assumed that there is an important disanalogy between inner objects and outer objects.

uses the locution “themselves” and not “in themselves”. This implicitly assumes that, for Kant, time is neither a feature of noumenal objects, nor a feature of phenomenal objects that are distinct from representation. Falkenstein (1995: 338) claims that the objection is that if representations change, then so does the subject, and “… as a consequence time must be recognized to be not merely an ideal feature of the things that the mind represents, but a real feature of the mind that does the representing”. Similarly, Falkenstein assumes that, for pre-Critical Kant, time is only a feature of representations and not a feature of minds.

26 Kant articulates what he takes to be the assumed disanalogy between time and space and takes it as a starting point for the development of a reply to the original objection:

The reason lies in the fact that it is obvious, in regard to outer things, that one cannot infer the reality of the object from the reality of the representation, but in the case of inner sense the thinking or the existence of the thought and the existence of my own self are one and the same. The key to this difficulty lies herein. There is no doubt that I should not think my own state under the form of time and that therefore the form of inner sensibility does not give me the appearance of alterations. Now I do not deny that alterations [Veränderung] have reality any more than I deny that bodies have reality, though all I mean by that is that something real corresponds to the appearance. (10: 134)

This passage articulates the assumption that only inner sense provides infallible access to its perceptual contents: unlike outer sense, to be aware of thought in inner sense and to be aware of the existence of the self is one and the same. In response, Kant claims that we should not think of our own state under the form of time. Kant’s claim seems to be that one should not think of one’s own state under the form of time because our awareness of the thought does not reveal the self as it exists independent of being an object of perception. This denies the assumption that awareness of thought and awareness of the existence of the self are identical; in fact, my perception of myself in time does not mirror the way I am independent of this temporal mode of perceiving my own representational states. Thus, according to Kant, if we consider the self as a thing in itself, inner sense does not provide the appearance of a changing self. Apprehending change requires relating to different times via time as a mere inner form of sensibility, according to Kant’s idealism (10: 134). Crucially, the emphasis on the “inner” status of time is not present in the Inaugural Dissertation; the significance of this is that Kant’s idealism about time in the 1772 letter to Herz more closely aligns with his

27 mature temporal idealism in the Critique of Pure Reason, a point that will be elaborated on at the end of this section.

After Kant provides this response to the objection, he clarifies an issue concerning an implication of his position on time and change:

If someone should say that it follows from this that everything is objective and in itself unchangeable [unveränderlich], then I would reply: Things are neither changeable [veränderlich], nor unchangeable [unveränderlich], just as Baumgarten states in his Metaphysics, §18: “What is absolutely impossible is neither hypothetically possible nor impossible, for it cannot be considered under any condition”; similarly here, the things of the world are objectively or in themselves neither in one and the same state at different times nor in different states, for thus understood they are not represented in time at all. (10: 134)

Kant’s response is that things in themselves, which are objects independent of our forms of sensibility, are neither changeable nor unchangeable. To change is to have opposed states at different times and to be unchanging is to have the same state at different times. In both cases, there is an ineliminable reference to time. Given Kant’s idealism about time, the categories of being changeable or unchangeable do not apply to things in themselves because these categories only apply to temporal things. Therefore, things in themselves are not in time because they are objects independent of representation in pure sensible intuition. This, however, is consistent with phenomenal objects undergoing change and having other temporal properties.

Nevertheless, Kant himself indicates that his own response to the objection is not sufficient. To understand why, it is helpful to orient his response in relation to the problem raised in the fundamental question of metaphysics. Immediately after providing his response to the objection concerning the ideality of time, he writes that he cannot respond to the problem by stating only negative propositions (10: 135). He claimed, for example, that he did

28 not deny that bodies and changes are real, yet he did not then show how the reality of these things is consistent with his claim that space and time are ideal. As a result, Kant writes that his task is to “rebuild on the plot where one has torn down” or, at least, “make the understanding’s pure insight dogmatically intelligible and delineate its limits” (10: 135). In the Inaugural Dissertation, the dogmatic use of the understanding occurs in or rational psychology, where in both cases they utilize “general principles of pure understanding” that lead to an exemplar that provides a measure for things insofar as they are real (2: 396). According to the Inaugural Dissertation, the pure concepts of the understanding are possibility, existence, necessity, substance, and cause (2: 395). We have seen in the previous section that Kant appeals to the concepts of substance and cause to explain our perception of change, a phenomenon that pertains both to inner objects and bodies. Keeping this in mind, we have all the background necessary to understand how the two main themes in the 1772 letter to Herz relate to one another.

The objection and the fundamental question of metaphysics in the 1772 letter to Herz can be understood as aspects of Kant’s attempt to account for change. In particular, Kant’s appeal to pure principles of the understanding in connection with responding to the objection to his idealism makes sense in light of his Inaugural Dissertation account of the representation of change. His account of the perception of change appeals to the concepts of substance and cause, which are the specific concepts that are implicated in the final formulation of the fundamental question of metaphysics. Kant has not, however, explained how concepts such as substance and cause can derive merely from the spontaneity of representation yet also be requirements for the experience of change. Thus, in the context of responding to the charge that his idealism cannot account for the reality of perceived change,

29 Kant admits that his account is incomplete. It will remain incomplete unless he answers the final formulation of the fundamental question of metaphysics concerning our entitlement to apply pure metaphysical concepts of quality to our experience. As a result, Kant aims to clarify the role of the concepts of substance and cause in our representation of change to provide a complete answer to the objection concerning the status of our experience of change, whether of inner or outer objects, within his idealistic framework. In sum, change is the unifying concern expressed in these two major themes from the 1772 letter to Herz.

It is worthwhile to briefly examine how change, as the common factor among the two main themes in the 1772 letter to Herz, figures in Kant’s philosophy of time in the Critique of

Pure Reason. As noted above, Kant’s attempt to respond to the objection, which implicates the fundamental question of metaphysics, led him to the most explicit statement of what will later appear as his mature transcendental temporal idealism in the Critique of Pure Reason.

Whereas the Inaugural Dissertation identifies time with a pure intuition and form of sensibility, the 1772 letter to Herz identifies time with the form of inner sensibility as that through which we perceive the self (10: 134).13 In fact, the status of time as inner is also connected to its role in the perception of change in the Critical period.

To foreshadow how Kant’s attempt to account for change in the early 1770s also plays a pivotal role in the Critique of Pure Reason, I will close this section by briefly examining a key passage from which Kant derives his temporal idealism:

Here I add further that the concept of alteration [Veränderung] and, with it, the concept of motion (as alteration of place), is only possible through and in the representation of time—that if this representation were not a priori (inner) intuition, then no concept, whatever it might be, could make comprehensible the possibility of an alteration, i.e., of a combination of contradictorily opposed predicates (e.g., a

13 Béatrice Longuenesse (1998: 233) also notes that this appears to be Kant’s first explicit statement of his doctrine of the inner status of time.

30 thing’s being in a place and the not-being of the very same thing in the same place) in one and the same object [Objecte]. Only in time can both contradictorily opposed determinations in one thing be encountered, namely successively. (B48-49)

This passage is from Kant’s “Transcendental Exposition of the Concept of Time”, and he concludes from the argumentation in this passage that time is the mere form of inner sense

(A33/B49). Kant argues in the Transcendental Exposition of the Concept of Time that we require an “a priori (inner) intuition” to perceive and intelligibly think about alteration in general, which is understood as the combination of incompatible predicates in a single subject. This is the conception of change invoked in Kant’s early critique of Leibniz and that later has a central role in his Inaugural Dissertation account of the representation of time.

Since Kant’s argument for the inner status of time in this passage depends on claims about change, his account of change from the pre-Critical writings also appears to play a pivotal role in his later argument for the conclusion that time is ideal in the sense that it is the mere form of inner sense (A33/B50).

5. Conclusion

We have seen that Kant’s first explicit appeal to time as having an inner status arises in the context of his response to the objection to his temporal idealism that it cannot account for the reality of change in the 1772 letter to Herz. Moreover, Kant’s final formulation of the fundamental question of metaphysics, which is the formulation that he regarded as most pressing, is directly linked to issues about the perception of change. Continuous with these early concerns about change, Kant ostensibly derives his idealism about time from premises

31 about change in the Critique of Pure Reason. With the benefit of this analysis of the context of Kant’s pre-Critical development, we are in position to better understand his Critical theory of the pure inner intuition of time and its philosophical foundation in his account of change as coming into being and going out of being of incompatible states of an object. One of

Kant’s central tasks in the decade that leads up to the Critique of Pure Reason is to demonstrate that the reality of such change depends on the ideality of time as the structure of inner sense as well as to distinguish the role of inner sense from the role of concepts such as substance and cause. I propose that the problem of change leads Kant to novel and innovative doctrines concerning time in the Critique of Pure Reason.

32

References

Primary Sources:

Kant, Immanuel. The Critique of Pure Reason. Translated and edited by Paul Guyer and Allen Wood. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 1998.

______. Notes and Fragments in The Cambridge Edition of the Works of in Translation. Edited by Paul Guyer. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 2005.

______. New Elucidation in Theoretical Philosophy, 1755-1770. Translated and edited by David Walford and Ralf Meerbote. New York: Cambridge University Press, 1992.

______. On the form and principles of the sensible and the intelligible world [Inaugural Dissertation] in Theoretical Philosophy, 1755-1770. Translated and edited by David Walford and Ralf Meerbote. New York: Cambridge University Press, 1992.

______. Correspondence. Translated and Edited by Arnulf Zweig. Cambridge, U.K.: Cambridge University Press, 1999.

33 ______. The End of All Things. Translated by Allen Wood and edited by George Di Giovanni and Allen Wood. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 1996.

Secondary Sources:

Beck, Lewis White. “Two Ways of Reading Kant’s Letter to Herz: Comments on Carl.” In Kant’s Transcendental Deductions. Edited by Eckart Förster. Stanford: Stanford University Press, 1989.

Carl, Wolfgang. “Kant’s First Drafts of the Deduction of the Categories.” In Kant’s Transcendental Deductions. Edited by Eckart Förster. Stanford: Stanford University Press, 1989.

Cicovacki, Predrag. “An Aporia of A Priori Knowledge.” Kant-Studien 82 (3) (1991): 349-360.

Falkenstein, Lorne. “Kant, Mendelssohn, Lambert, and the Subjectivity of Time.” Journal of the of Philosophy 29 (2) (1991): 227-251.

______. Kant’s Intuitionism: A Commentary on the Transcendental Aesthetic. Toronto: University of Toronto Press, 1995.

Guyer, Paul. Kant and the Claims of Knowledge. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 1987.

Longuenesse, Béatrice. Kant and the Capacity to Judge: Sensibility and Discursivity in the Transcendental Analytic of the Critique of Pure Reason. Princeton, N.J: Princeton University Press, 1998.

Mensch, Jennifer. “The Key to All Metaphysics: Kant’s Letter to Herz, 1772.” Kantian Review 12 (2) (2007): 109-127.

Smith, Norman Kemp. A Commentary to Kant’s Critique of Pure Reason. Second Edition, Revised and Enlarged. New York: The Humanities Press, 1923.

34 Watkins, Eric. “The ‘Critical Turn’: Kant and Herz from 1770-1772.” In Kant und die Berliner Aufklaerung. Akten des IX. Internationalen Kant-Kongresses. Vol. 2, Berlin: Walter de Gruyter, 2001.

______. Kant and the Metaphysics of . Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 2004.

35 Chapter 2: What Does Kant Mean by an Inner Representation of Time?

Abstract: The inner status of Kant’s pure representation of time is a keystone of his critical philosophy. I will argue that Kant posits a pure inner representation of time to explain our perception of dynamic succession, which involves states coming into being and going out of being. For Kant, the pure inner representation of time enables one to connect a perception of no longer present states of things to perceptions of their current states and thus, enables a perception of dynamic succession. The pure inner representation of time presents a non- dynamic, or unchanging, structure of succession that plays a symmetric role in the perception of the successive qualities of both inner and outer states of things. This rejects a dominant interpretation that primarily uses the inner status of the pure representation of time to indicate an asymmetry, where the perception of inner succession mediates our perception of outer succession.

Keywords: time, succession, pure inner intuition, imagination, perception

1. Introduction

The issue of the significance of the inner representation of time often goes unexamined, but merits close attention due to its centrality in Kant’s philosophy. The

Transcendental Deduction, the Schematism, and the Analogies cannot be fully understood without an account of his doctrine of the inner representation of time. On one hand, Kant famously claims that the representation of time is specifically inner (see A23/B37, B48,

A33/B50, A37/B54, A99, and B163).14 On the other hand, Kant claims that the inner representation of time enables one to perceive all things that are objects of the senses

14 All citations of the Critique of Pure Reason list the usual A and B marginal numbers. The citations of Kant’s pre-Critical works follow the usual academy volume and page number.

36 (A35/B52).15 This is Kant’s empirical realism about time according to which inner and outer sensory objects of the senses are in time. While Kant’s position is not contradictory, the reason why an inner representation is also required for temporal perception of external things is not immediately obvious. This provides the starting point for this chapter, which aims to explain the philosophical foundation of Kant’s position that time plays a universal role in the perception of both inner and outer objects of the senses, despite its inner status. I will focus on the role of the inner representation of time in the perception of temporal contents rather than judgment about temporal order, where perception is understood as empirical awareness

(B160).16 In particular, I argue that Kant appeals to a pure inner representation of succession to explain how the coming into being and going out of being of states of things comes to be a perceptible content.

In contrast, a dominant interpretation of the inner status of the representation of time emphasizes an asymmetry in one’s awareness of time. This interpretation claims that the perception of succession in one’s inner states is immediate, while the perception of external succession is mediated through a perception of inner succession. Further, according to this view, one’s perception of external temporality requires a supplemental act of conceptualization in which one applies dynamical concepts of substance, cause, and community to one’s awareness of the temporal stream of our representations. In other words,

15 Since my discussion focuses primarily on perception and the appearances, it leaves open a question about the relationship between appearances and the concept of an object that is the central issue in Kant’s Transcendental Deduction of the Categories. Thus, I will remain neutral on the issue of whether appearances are in some sense identical to the objects that are determined through categories. In this chapter, I will use the terms “appearances”, “objects of the senses”, and “things” and their cognates interchangeably without any assumption about their ultimate relationship to objects of thought made possible through the categories. 16 Empirical awareness includes the case of hallucination. One can hallucinate a pink elephant walking across the room, and this would count as an empirical awareness of a temporal content due to its being a consciousness of motion, even if there is no moving elephant in reality. Even in the case of hallucination, one can distinguish between the characteristics of the representation and its content. For example, the representation of the moving pink elephant might be very vivid and forceful without necessitating the further claim that the content, a moving pink elephant, is itself vivid and forceful.

37 the dominant interpretation posits an asymmetry in the sense that the perception of inner time is immediate, while the perception of outer time is mediated, in particular, by both the perception of inner succession and dynamical concepts. Norman Kemp Smith (1923), H.J.

Paton (1936), and Henry Allison (2004) endorse this interpretation in their classic commentaries.

I argue, on the negative side of my project, that the dominant interpretation does not account for all of the key passages on the inner representation of time due to the asymmetry that it posits. More specifically, I claim that the position that the perception of inner succession mediates the perception of outer succession has difficulty accounting for Kant’s empirical realism about time. In this chapter, I will primarily focus on the asymmetry claim in the dominant interpretation and will not fully address the issue of the role of categories in the perception of temporality, whether inner or outer. To begin to address the latter issue, I will show that the representation of endurance through successive states derives originally from the a priori imagination and intuition rather than the of substance. I claim that

Kant maintains that the awareness of persistence through intuition and imagination is what makes the application of the category of substance possible. This suggests more broadly that, at least with respect to the dynamical categories, a priori imagination has priority over the a priori concepts of the understanding in the perception of temporal features.

On the positive side of my project, I orient Kant’s account of the representation of time in relation to his predecessors’ views on time, of which Kant cites Book XI Augustine’s

Confessions in his writings on time (2: 284). In Book XI of the Confessions, Augustine argues that the representation of time is inner on the basis of a key premise about dynamic succession, understood as the coming into being and going out of being of incompatible

38 states of objects. I argue that Kant’s appeal to a pure inner representation of time as a universal condition for the perception of sensible objects similarly derives from his attempt to explain the perception of dynamic succession. Reflection on the philosophical problem that the perception of dynamic succession raises will reveal that the representation of time qua unchanging structure of succession fundamentally pertains to the perception of the successive states of both inner and outer things. This means that the former does not mediate the latter, but instead an unperceived a priori representation of succession enables both the perception of inner and outer succession. Alternatively, depending on one’s understanding of

“mediation”, one can say that the inner intuition of time provides an a priori representation of succession that mediates both the perception of inner and outer dynamic succession. In sum, I defend the symmetric role of the inner representation of time in one’s perception of temporally successive states of things, whether inner or outer.

In order to make conceptual space for an alternative interpretation, section two provides a critique of the dominant interpretation of the inner representation of time. In section three, I argue that Kant’s position is that all perceptions of dynamic succession of states of things depend on a pure inner representation of time that presents a non-dynamic structure of succession. In other words, Kant appeals to a pure inner representation of time that presents a static and primitive relation of succession that is required for both the perception of inner and outer dynamic succession. Thus, the perception of outer dynamic succession is unmediated or, at the very least, it is mediated in precisely the same way as the perception of inner dynamic succession. To begin to address the issue of the role of the categories in the perception of succession, I show in section four that the a priori imagination plays a necessary role in the perception of dynamic succession in general. The role of the a

39 priori imagination is then distinguished from the role played by the dynamical categories of substance, cause, and community. In closing, I provide a brief summary of the preceding results in section five.

2. A Critique of the Dominant Interpretation of the Inner Representation of Time

According to the dominant interpretation, the pure representation of time is inner in the sense that it only enables a perception of the succession of one’s inner representational states. This is the asymmetry claim of the dominant interpretation. In addition, the dominant interpretation maintains that an application of dynamical categories is required to convert the apprehension of these inner representations into a perception of the successive states of outer objects of the senses. Beyond the asymmetry claim, this asserts that categories in particular are the further ingredient required for the perception of the successive states of external things. For background on the traditional interpretation, I will analyze defenses of it in the commentaries by Kemp Smith and Paton. However, of all the commentators, Allison provides the most explicit defense of the traditional interpretation, resting not just on its initial plausibility. Allison’s direct defense of the traditional interpretation appeals to two passages that discuss the “inner” status of the representation of time.17 The aim in this section

17 I distinguish between direct arguments for the traditional interpretation that appeal to passages that discuss the pure inner intuition of time versus indirect arguments that defend the traditional interpretation on the basis of systematic interpretative considerations. An example of the latter would be a traditional interpretation that is defended on the basis that it is required to make sense of the Second Analogy as providing a good response to Hume. Allison not only appeals to direct arguments, but also to indirect arguments that rely on his interpretation of the transcendental deduction of the categories and the Analogies. I do not have the space here to provide a systematic interpretation of all of these sections of the text and thus, cannot claim to have addressed all of the considerations that have led interpreters to endorse the dominant interpretation. Section five develops a foundation for responding to these indirect arguments by identifying the dynamical categories as a necessary condition for the experience of time rather than the perception of time.

40 is to show that the passages taken to support the dominant interpretation do not establish the asymmetry that Allison needs, as well as to analyze a passage in which Kant identifies symmetry in our time awareness.

The initial plausibility of the dominant interpretation is that it provides a straightforward way to understand Kant’s claim that the representation of time is distinctively inner, especially given the lack of any clear alternative interpretations. The passage upon which Paton and Kemp Smith base their interpretation is a passage that states Kant’s temporal idealism:

Time is nothing other than the form of inner sense, i.e., of the intuition of our self and our inner state. (A33/B49)

This passage identifies time with the structure of inner intuition, where intuition is a representation that presents particulars or concrete objects. At first glance, this passage appears to unambiguously state that time only relates to the self, and by implication, only derivatively relates to external things via some further representational capacity.

It will be useful here to reflect on Paton and Kemp Smith’s respective glosses on this passage:

Kant’s view implies that we are immediately aware only of our own mental evolution as in time, and that we have not this immediate perception of the changes in the physical world. (Paton 1936: 101)

[Time] is the form only of the intuition of our self and our inner state. Obviously these are assertions which Kant cannot possibly hold to in this unqualified form. (Kemp Smith 1923: 134)

In the first quote, Paton identifies the immediate contents of one’s perception as that of changing or successive mental states and contrasts this with one’s apprehension of the

41 succession of physical states in the world. Kemp Smith claims, in the second quote, that time is only the structure of the perception of the self and its inner state. Though Paton and Kemp

Smith’s interpretations of this passage are certainly reasonable, they are not required interpretations. A couple of preliminary points bear mentioning. First, A33/B49 does not present any distinction between the perception of the succession of mental states and the perception of the succession of physical states, as Paton’s reading suggests. Second, Kemp

Smith’s interpretation of A33/B49 is that time as the form of inner sense only provides a relation to the self and one’s inner state, whereas Kant’s claim in A33/B49 leaves open the possibility that external contents may figure in inner sense.

Importantly, Kemp Smith and Paton express reservations about their interpretations, and these reservations point the way to my alternative interpretation that is developed in sections three and four. Ultimately, Kemp Smith recognizes that interpreting time as inner in this way leads to an internal contradiction in Kant’s view. Kemp Smith (1923: 136) notes that

Kant’s empirical realism is the position that all objects of the senses are in time and thus, time belongs not only to the succession of inner states, but also the succession of outer states in motion. In this way, time directly enables the perception of changes of all objects of the senses, whether inner or outer. On Kemp Smith’s view, the internal contradiction arises because Kant maintains that time immediately enables the perception of outer succession, and also that time only immediately enables the perception of inner succession in one’s representational states. Paton (1936: 148) also raises issues about the claim that time fundamentally pertains only to representational states, noting that it is paradoxical to think that time does not belong to the successive states of external things. Nevertheless, Paton maintains that time is inner in the sense that it only belongs immediately to the perception of

42 changes in inner states and only mediately to the perception of changes in outer states. Given that the dominant interpretation is not required by the passages that Paton and Kemp Smith cite, and that the phenomenon of succession in change raises a challenge for this interpretation, it is helpful to consider whether there are more substantial arguments in favor of the dominant interpretation.

Allison (2004: 277) relies on two passages to establish an asymmetry in our time awareness:

Now time cannot be perceived by itself. (B225)

For time cannot be a determination [Bestimmung] of outer appearances; it belongs neither to a shape or a position, etc., but on the contrary determines the relation of representations in our inner state. (A33/B49)

The first passage is from the First Analogy in which Kant analyzes the function of the concept of substance in experience, and the second passage is from the Transcendental

Aesthetic in which Kant further elaborates on his temporal idealism. The first passage motivates the position that time is indirectly perceived if time is perceived at all. The second passage motivates the position that insofar as outer objects of the senses have temporal qualities, they do not have them immediately, as time is not a determination of spatial things.

Together, these passages ostensibly support positing an asymmetry in the awareness of temporality that derives from the inner representation of time. Further, Allison (2004: 277),

Paton (1936: 148-149), and Kemp Smith (1923: 137 and 365) appeal to concepts of substance, cause, and community to explain the extra element required for the mediate perception of temporal features of external things.

43 To expand one’s understanding of the interpretative options, it is worth exploring other interpretations of the significant passages that Allison cites. Kant’s transcendental idealism claims that time and space are mere structures of the mind that enable one’s perception of temporally and spatially determined things rather than themselves being objects of perception.18 This means that one perceives neither time nor space, but one can perceive the temporal and spatial features of objects. Notably, immediately after claiming that time cannot be perceived by itself, Kant states that all change and simultaneity can be apprehended in the objects of perception (B225). This presupposes a distinction between time, on one hand, and temporal features of objects, on the other hand. To capture this distinction, I will speak of the perception of temporality as the perception of temporal features of things, rather than the perception of time.

This does not yet address, however, the second passage, which indicates that perhaps time is not a feature of outer spatial objects of the senses. The claim that time does not

“determine” outer appearances can instead be understood as the claim that the inner intuition of time does not determine the specifically spatial features of outer objects of the senses.

Kant suggests this when he elaborates on the claim that time is not a determination of outer appearances: “[Time] belongs neither to a shape nor position” (A33/B50).19 Kant’s position is that the geometric qualities of objects are not temporal in nature, but outer objects of the senses may still have temporal qualities in virtue of other features that they possess. This is

18 Katherine Dunlop (2017: 58) makes a related point in her discussion of Kant’s claim in the First Analogy that time cannot be perceived. 19 Kant makes a parallel point about arithmetic in a 1788 letter to Schultz: “Time, as you correctly notice, has no influence on the properties of numbers (considered as pure determination of magnitude), as it may have on the property of any alteration (considered as an alteration of a quantity) that it itself only possible relative to a state in inner sense and its form (time)” (10: 557). Kant tells us in this passage that time does not determine qualities of number, but he suggests that time may in fact determine the qualities of alteration. My interpretation develops upon this interesting passage from the 1788 letter to Schultz about the relationship between and time and alteration and shows how the central role of the inner status of time is to make the perception of change possible.

44 why Kant claims that time is a mediate a priori condition of outer appearances, while space is an immediate a priori condition of outer intuition qua outer (B50). Not only does the passage admit of an interpretation according to which temporal features are not excluded from the qualities of external objects, but there is also positive evidence that inner and outer objects of the senses are in time in the very same way.

Kant’s empirical realist position commits him to temporally determinate external objects of the senses:

Now if the condition is added to the concept [under which time belongs to the representation of an object], and the principle says that all things as appearances (objects [Gegenstände] of sensible intuition) are in time, then the principle has its sound objective correctness and a priori universality. (A35/B52)

This passage states that all appearances are objects of the senses and thus, they are in time

(A20/B34). Given that both inner and outer objects of the senses are in time, Kant’s claim that time does not determine outer appearances should not be understood as the claim that outer appearances have no temporal features. Crucially, Kant derives his empirical realism about time from his temporal idealism. This means that the inner representation of time enables the perception of the temporal features of both inner and outer appearances.

The asymmetry posited by the dominant interpretation cannot explain the universal role of the representation of time in the perception of inner and outer objects of the senses.

Allison claims that all appearances are in time because all appearances are objects of one’s representations, and representations are all in time as the form of inner sense (2004, 277).

Kemp Smith and Paton make similar claims.20 Yet, the fact that time is a feature of our

20 Kemp Smith writes that “it does not at all follow that because our representations of objects are in time that objects themselves are in time… the argument [that all appearances are in time] is only valid from the standpoint of extreme ” (1923: 136). Kemp Smith identifies Kant’s argument as invalid and goes on to suggest that this is an irreconcilable problem (1923: 137). Paton is more sympathetic but writes that “the

45 representational states does not in itself explain how temporality becomes part of the content of our perceptual representations because Kant distinguishes between a representation and its content. The appearances are the objects of our empirical intuition, and thus, appearances are the contents of perceptual representations (A20/B34). Another way to see the challenge for the dominant interpretation is that, for Kant, not all of one’s representations have temporal content, even if one’s representations are all in time. For example, geometric representations have purely spatial content.21 The dominant interpretation cannot appeal to the mere fact that one’s representations are in time in order to explain why all objects of empirical intuition are in time. In sum, given the distinction between a representation and its content, an explanation of how temporal contents become available to empirical consciousness requires something more than a mere appeal to the fact that one’s representations are in time.

On the basis of a similar observation, Kemp Smith concludes that Kant lacks a coherent position on this issue because he never settled on an account of how outer appearances relate to time (1918: 137). This issue is not widely discussed in recent literature, though it has not gone entirely unnoticed. Markos Valaris (2008: 11) suggests that the text does not settle the issue of whether time is inner in the sense that it pertains primarily to the perception of inner states and only derivately to the perception of outer states. The subsequent two sections aim to provide context for Kant’s claims about the inner status of time in the Critique of Pure Reason and show that Kant has a coherent account of how outer

doctrine [that all appearances are in time] is full of difficulties” (1936: 150). Though there are apparent issues for understanding this line of thought in the Transcendental Aesthetic, Paton claims that the Transcendental Analytic has the resources for resolving this issue (1936: 150). I think that the difficulty lies in the fact that Kemp Smith and Paton interpret Kant as attempting to ground the temporal content of our representations in terms of the mere fact that our representations are in time. 21 Though geometric objects are constructed, Kant claims that this motion of construction is a priori rather than empirical and does not implicate any change or motion in the content represented by means of construction (B155). See Konstantin Pollok (2006) for a discussion of Kant’s distinction between a priori and empirical motion.

46 objects of the senses relate to time. Ultimately, I will argue, the inner status of the pure representation of time derives from its role in enabling the perception of dynamic succession of both inner and outer states.

3. Symmetry in the Perception of Inner and Outer Dynamic Succession

This section will examine Kant’s argument in the Critique of Pure Reason that our most fundamental representation of time is a pure inner intuition. Taking into account a problem about time that Kant aimed to address, my analysis of Kant’s argument reveals that the pure inner intuition of time plays a symmetric role in the perception of inner and outer dynamic succession. I argue in this section that the perception of inner succession does not mediate the perception of outer succession, or at least the inner intuition of time mediates the perception of inner succession in the very same way that it mediates the perception of outer succession. In short, any perceivable succession in either representation or representational contents, is itself a change that is only perceivable via a representation of an a priori unchanging succession in inner sense. Thus, the representation of pure succession in inner intuition plays a symmetric role in the perception of inner and outer states.

The role of the inner intuition of time in perception is most explicitly articulated in

Kant’s transcendental exposition of the concept of time:22

Here I add further that the concept of alteration [Veränderung], and with it, the concept of motion (as alteration of place), is only possible through and in the representation of time—that if this representation were not a priori (inner) intuition, then no concept, whatever it might be, could make comprehensible the possibility of

22 Kant claims at the beginning of the metaphysical exposition of the concept of space that the representation of time is specifically inner (A22/B37). However, he does not argue that the representation of time is inner until the Transcendental Exposition of the Concept of Time.

47 an alteration, i.e., of a combination of contradictorily opposed predicates (e.g. a thing’s being in a place and the not-being of the very same thing in the same place) in one and the same thing [Objecte]. Only in time can both contradictorily opposed determinations in one thing be encountered, namely successively. (B48-49)

Kant, in this passage, defines alteration as a combination of incompatible predicates in a single thing. Note that the definition of alteration does not make any appeal to succession.

For example, motion, as alteration of place, involves one and the same thing’s both being in one location and also not being in that location. Instead, a representation of succession made possible by pure inner intuition is what makes the perception and thought of motion and change more generally, possible. This mirrors Kant’s claim in the 1770 Inaugural

Dissertation that the incompatibility in change is represented through time and not vice versa

(2: 401).

The transcendental exposition of the concept of time emphasizes the role of the inner representation of time in allowing one to encounter the sequence of being and non-being as a succession. In emphasizing the role of succession in the encounter one has with the incompatible states of a changing thing, Kant emphasizes likewise that the inner representation of time relates one to the existence of things rather than to mere representational states of the self. Kant also claims that one’s concept of alteration is only possible through an a priori inner intuition. In sum, Kant maintains the priority of one’s representation of temporal succession in pure inner intuition over the representation of dynamic succession or change in states of both inner and outer things.

The foregoing, however, does not explain why the representation of dynamic succession requires an inner representation of time, even in the perception of the motion of bodies. The inner status of the intuition of time does not seem to be required to resolve the problem of representing incompatible states in motion; the incompatibility can be made

48 consistent by representing the changing states successively, and the representation of succession in motion does not have any obvious connection to inner representation. It is especially important to determine the origin of the inner status of the representation of time because this status is unique to the a priori intuition of time. In the transcendental exposition of the concept of time, Kant argues that the a priori intuition of time is specifically inner

(B48). He argues, in contrast, that the a priori intuition of space is specifically outer in the transcendental exposition of the concept of space (B41). To shed light on the inner status of the representation of time, it is requisite to consider Kant’s remarks about time and dynamic succession in light of a problem that he aimed to address concerning the perception of temporal contents.

Kant quotes a famous passage from Book XI of Augustine’s Confessions in his 1762

Inquiry: “What then is time? Provided that no one asks me, I know” (2: 284). Crucially, chapter xvi of Book XI provides a seminal statement of a classic problem about the perception of time understood as perception of dynamic succession.23 If the past states of a thing are no longer given to the perceiver in the current moment, and its future states are not yet given to the perceiver, then there is a problem about how we explain our perception of such dynamic succession. For example, there is never a direct awareness of the motion of a boat as successively occurring over time because one is only given the current state of a thing in the present moment. A sequence of awarenesses of present moments is not equivalent to an awareness of a duration as something that occurs over time. From this line of reasoning,

Augustine ultimately concludes that time is only represented in the and thus, that the representation of time has an inner status.

23 In particular, Augustine’s discussion of dynamic succession develops Aristotle’s discussion of time and change in IV. See Ursula Coope (2005) for a helpful resource on Aristotle and time.

49 In particular, Augustine’s solution to this problem is to claim that one’s perception of succession derives from one’s orienting a present moment within a structure that connects it to a memory of the past and an expectation of the future. Augustine’s solution, however, is circular because it appeals to a memory of a past , which assumes that one already has perception of dynamic succession through the perception of the passing away of an event.

Thus, Augustine’s account cannot explain the origin of one’s perception of dynamic succession.24 Given that Kant cites the relevant book of the Confessions and endorses the relevant dynamic conception of succession, Kant was likely to be familiar with this well- known Augustinian problem about the perception of dynamic succession. Kant’s appeal to a pure inner representation of time can be fruitfully understood as resolving it.

To orient this Augustinian problem within Kant’s own account of mental representation, it is helpful to consider Kant’s position that in a succession a past state

“would belong to a past time, and thus can not be an object of apprehension” (A211/B258).

This suggests that only the present state of the thing is given in intuition, and apprehension in intuition is an ingredient in perception or empirical consciousness (B160). As noted above, one can successively represent a boat at various positions in a river, but this only presents a series of positions that each become present. However, this is not yet to perceive a motion as something that has duration or occurs over time. Representation of such a motion would amount to a succession of representations of the boat in which the past states fall away and are replaced anew. This gives rise to the aforementioned Augustinian problem of how we can perceive successive states in motion, given that an occurrent intuition only provides content concerning the present state of a thing, rather than its past states.

24 Adrian Bardon (2013: 26) makes a similar point that Augustine provides a circular account of the origin of our representation of time.

50 For Kant, an inner intuition of succession is required to relate to one’s representation of a past state of a thing and connect it to an intuition of a present state of that thing because, at any given moment, one can only perceive the present state of a body through an intuition of both time and space. In order to perceive the dynamic succession requisite for motion, one has to relate an intuition of the present state of a thing to a representation of a past state of that thing, i.e. to its past spatial position. This requires an inner representation of a relation of succession in the sense that one must represent a relation between a current awareness of the location of a body and a representation of the states of that body that no longer present to the subject. Similarly, in order to perceive a change in one’s inner state one must relate a current state to a prior representational state of oneself. For example, if my mood changes from anticipation to excitement, then the past mental states of anticipation are no longer given in the present moment. A parallel point can be made if one substitutes perceived change in representation for perceived change in representational state. In sum, this points to the need for a representation of succession that is independent of the empirically given contents provided in the sequence of the occurrent inner states.

To avoid the circularity in Augustine’s solution, Kant’s account requires a representation of a non-dynamic relation of succession that links together the contents that are future, become present, and recede into the past. Any appeal to a representation of succession that changes would re-introduce the original puzzle concerning how change comes to be a perceptible content. To confirm that time as the form of inner sense presents relations, note that Kant tells one that “if it [intuition] contains nothing but relations, it is the form of intuition” (B67). This suggests that the pure inner intuition of time as a form of sensibility provides a relational structure that makes it possible to unify the present states of

51 things with their past states and future states.25 Thus, the representation of a static relation of succession among one’s representations is required to render the successive states in change, whether inner or outer, available to perception.

This non-dynamic succession provided in the pure inner intuition of time is not itself something perceived.26 I claim that time as the form of inner sense presents an a priori unchanging relation of succession that makes possible the perception of temporal qualities of both inner and outer sensory things. To confirm that succession is part of the a priori structure of inner intuition, compare the following passage in which Kant describes an axiom of time that derives from the pure intuition of time: “different times are not simultaneous, but successive” (A31/B47). The successive structure of time is one of the few synthetic a priori cognitions of time that Kant explicitly identifies in the Critique of Pure Reason, and this is an a priori fact that is not dependent on the empirical qualities of things, but rather makes all experience possible (A31/B47). Nonetheless, this succession cannot itself constitute a change because Kant maintains “change does not affect time itself, but only the appearances in time”

(A183/B226). Moreover, as was noted in section two, Kant claims that time is not perceived

(B225). Taking these passages together, time is a pure inner intuition of an unchanging relation of succession, which is unperceived but makes possible perceptions of dynamic succession.

More specifically, a pure inner intuition of time is required to resolve this problem about the perception of dynamic succession. If one’s apprehension of motion requires that one relate to past representational states in which the previous positions of the thing were encountered, then one must also be able to relate to one’s representations of the thing as

25 Kant says something suggestive about the role of substance in our perception of temporal characteristics. In the First Analogy, he claims that the “word ‘persistence’… pertains more to future time” (A185/B229).

52 successively structured. Since the succession is not present at any moment, this succession cannot be something that is given in the object of the senses, but must be something about the structure of one’s perception of it. As a result, the intuition of succession that enables the perception of dynamic succession cannot derive from sensation, as a causal relation to an existent thing, nor can it derive from some merely imagined empirical content. In regard to the latter point, even in cases in which one merely imagines a succession if one were to lose the “preceding parts of time”, then one would fail to represent a succession of “time from one noon to the next” (A102). Even in the case of imagined succession in hallucination or dreams, one requires a representation of succession that does not depend on the dynamic contents that become available and leave one’s empirical consciousness. The intuition of succession that makes possible the perception of dynamic succession of states of things, whether real or imagined, is pure in the sense that it derives from the structure of the mind.

Kant’s appeal to a pure representation of a non-dynamic relation of succession provides an innovation over Augustine’s account of time awareness, even though Kant’s appeal to an inner representation of time is not new.27 Augustine appeals to merely empirical representations of the past via memory to derive this awareness of succession in the passage of time. As shown above, this problematically assumes an empirical representation of a time that has passed away and re-introduces the original Augustinian problem of how the awareness of change could be possible. Kant shows that this connection between one’s awareness of the present and representation of prior states cannot itself be something derived empirically from sensation or even mere imagination because the past states of a thing, whether real or merely imaginary, are no longer available in the present.

27 According to Kant, dynamic contents cannot be represented a priori (A41/B58, A171/B213, A206-207/B252, and B291).

53 Given the preceding, it will be helpful to re-consider the asymmetry posited by the dominant interpretation. Henry Allison writes that inner sense is “viewed as providing a merely subjective order of the succession of representations in empirical consciousness”

(2004: 277). Allison claims, consistent with Kemp Smith and Paton, that inner sense only gives one an empirical awareness of the succession of one’s representations. As Hoke

Robinson (1988: 65-66) notes, this interpretation of the role of inner intuition of time according to which it solely enables perceptions of one’s inner states or representations is evident in many interpretations of Kant’s Second Analogy.28 This is suggested yet again in another passage where Allison writes “what the mind is aware of through inner sense, or equivalently, introspection, are just its own representations” (2004: 277).29 The dominant interpretation does not fit well with Kant’s argument in the transcendental exposition of the concept of time, where, as I have shown, he argues that the pure inner intuition of time makes dynamic succession of outer states of things available to perception in the same way that it makes dynamic succession of inner states of things available to perception.30 Inner appearances and outer appearances of succession are directly oriented in inner sense for precisely the same reason: the pure inner intuition of time makes it possible to relate the past states of a perceived thing to its presently given state and thus, makes succession available as

28 Robinson (1988: 182) ultimately argues that outer sense has priority over inner sense with respect to the contents of perception. This upholds the asymmetry posited by the dominant interpretation, but rejects the priority of the awareness of inner succession that the dominant interpretation maintains. On my view, there are no priority relations between inner sense and outer sense with respect to perception; inner sense enables the succession of inner and outer appearances to be given in the very same way in perception. I maintain, however, that outer sense is prior to inner sense in experience. The latter point is evident from Kant’s Refutation of Idealism in which he argues that inner experience (Erfarhrung) is mediated by outer experience (Erfarhrung) (B275). 29 Allison also maintains that the manifold of inner sense derives from outer sense (2004: 277-278). This raises further important issues about the relationship between time and space that cannot be adequately treated here. 30 I remain neutral on the issue of how to understand the contents of dreams or hallucinations. They can be understood either as merely inner appearances or as outer appearances that do not accurately represent empirical reality.

54 a perceptible content. Moreover, Kant’s empirical realism about time according to which all appearances are in time is grounded in this universal and basic role of time in enabling the perception of dynamic succession in general.

The proposed interpretation, according to which the pure inner intuition of time enables the immediate perception of all dynamic succession, faces a remaining significant issue. As Husserl has observed, one cannot hear a song merely by reproducing in memory the prior notes and combining it with the present note; that would result in a cacophony of sounds rather than a song.31 Similarly, if one represented a motion as a sequence of all the spatial positions occupied by a moving thing one would present an incoherent jumble of positions in space. Though one might take this incoherent jumble as representing a motion in some mediated way via possible inference to the existence of motion, this does not yet capture the perception of dynamic contents. This means that mere relating of a collection of states in a series via a pure inner intuition of time does not suffice for a perception of dynamic succession. One requires a representation of the sequence of states as the states of one and the same thing. Thus, an account of the perception of persistence through succession is missing from my interpretation.

Another way to raise this issue is to consider Kant’s description of the thesis of the

First Analogy: “[a]ll succession (change) of appearances is only alteration” (B233). This raises a question about whether the representation of persistence might be required for the perception of succession, given that alteration is a change of state in a single thing (B48). In particular, given that the category of substance is the representation of a logical subject, it appears that the category of substance represents of a thing through successive

31 See ’s Phenomenology of Internal Time Consciousness. Dan Zahavi (2007) provides an illuminating discussion of Husserl’s solution to this problem of the perception of succession.

55 states.32 I have claimed so far that, for Kant, the perception of temporality requires pure inner intuition without saying anything about the role of the categories. Though it is clear that the category of substance is required for experience, the issue here is whether the mere empirical consciousness of temporality in perception might require the application of categories. In claiming that there is a distinction between a perception of time and an experience of temporality, I follow Clinton Tolley’s account of perception (Wahrnehmung) as something distinct from experience (Erfahrung).33 I take perception to be mere empirical consciousness, while experience requires judgment about whether one’s perceptual contents represent objective or subjective states of the world. It is not common among interpreters to posit that there is a distinction between perception of temporality and experience of temporality in

Kant. Nevertheless, the issue to be resolved is whether mere empirical consciousness of temporality, as something weaker than representation of a subjective or objective temporal order, requires the deployment of a category of substance.

In sum, Kant’s First Analogy appears to suggest that the representation of succession itself requires the representation of persistence, while I have claimed thus far that the inner intuition of time itself makes dynamic succession available as a perceptible content. The representation of persistence is something that Kant appears to ascribe to the category of substance in the First Analogy. The First Analogy not only raises an issue for the proposed interpretation, but also raises an issue for the dominant interpretation. The dominant interpretation claims that dynamical categories are only required to perceive external temporality, and this is part of the asymmetry they allege to hold between the perception of

32 A similar observation led to maintain that the category of substance is required for the perception of dynamic succession in general because the category of substance is required to represent identity over time. In section 10 of the Phenomenological Interpretation of Kant's Critique of Pure Reason, Heidegger affirms that the application of categories is required for the perception of alteration in general. 33 See Tolley (2017) for a systematic defense of a Kantian distinction between perception and experience.

56 inner and outer things. The preceding line of argument suggests that the category of substance is also required for the perception of dynamic succession in one’s inner states, which would require a revision of the dominant interpretation. In other words, if dynamic categories play the very same role in making the perception of temporal features of both inner and outer things possible, then the dominant interpretation’s position that only the perception of outer temporality requires categories would need to be revised. To maintain my interpretation, it is necessary to resolve this problem and in so doing I will further clarify

Kant’s account of the perception of dynamic succession. To resolve this problem, the next section develops an interpretation in which a priori imagination, rather than the category of substance, is required for the perception of persistence.

4. Imagination and the Perception of Persistence in Dynamic Succession

An apparent obstacle to my proposed interpretation is that dynamic succession is a change of state in a single thing, and this raises an issue about whether the category of substance might be required for the perception of succession. This is suggested by Kant’s claims in the First Analogy. To resolve this problem, I show that Kant’s claims about substance in the First Analogy indicates that Kant’s position is that the application of the category of substance depends on one’s perception of dynamic succession via inner intuition and imagination, and not the reverse.34 This provides the resources for further articulation of

34 Hannah Ginsborg (2006) and Béatrice Longuenesse (1998) maintain that there is some sense in which any imaginative synthesis amounts to concept application. See Sally Sedgwick (2000) for a helpful analysis of Longuenesse on this issue. Evaluating Ginsborg and Longuenesse’s contributions requires examining more foundational issues about the criterion for determining whether and to what extent concepts are involved in syntheses, an issue that has been raised in Allison (2000). This chapter is limited to defending the claim that perception grounds the application of the category of substance rather than vice versa.

57 Kant’s account of the perception of dynamic succession, and it ultimately reveals that all perception of dynamic succession is perception of alteration via a pure inner intuition and a priori imagination.

Kant states that the category of substance is “nothing more than that which can be thought as a subject (without being a predicate of something else)” (A147/B186). For Kant, the category of substance has no temporal content, but is a structure of the mind that enables judgment. One might think that the concept of a subject is what enables one to perceive the successive states of a single thing. However, this is not Kant’s position:

In fact the proposition that substance persists is tautological. For only this persistence is the ground for our application of the category of substance to appearance, and one should have proved that in all appearances there is something that persists, of which that which changes is nothing but the determination of its existence. (A184/B227)

Kant claims, in this passage, that substance persists and gives this claim an analytic status.

Crucially, the schema of the category of substance is a function of the imagination that provides the representation of the “persistence of in time”, which introduces temporal content that is not present in the mere category of substance as a logical subject

(A144/B183). A schema is an a priori function of the imagination. Since Kant’s claim is that one’s relation to persistence explains the application of the category of substance rather than vice versa, this requires a distinction between the application of a category of substance and the schematizing function of the imagination that makes that application possible.35 In sum, the a priori imagination is what grounds the application of the category of substance.36

35 The way Kant describes the transcendental function of the imagination in schematization often respects the distinctness of schemata and categories. For example, Kant claims that the schemata mediate between the appearance and the categories (A139/B178). In addition, rather than speaking of “schematized categories”, as if a schema and a category could be combined to make a single item, Kant talks about setting a schema in place of a category or setting the schema alongside the category (A181/B224). Though a thorough analysis of the

58 For Kant, the imagination is the “faculty for representing an thing even without its presence in intuition” (B151). The imagination represents its contents in spatial and temporal form, but it does so spontaneously unlike passive intuition, which is the representational tool of the faculty of sensibility. Although the imagination is spontaneous in the sense that it derives from the representational activity of the subject rather than mere affection by existent objects, it is not determined by the will of the subject because one cannot control how the motion of objects affects oneself. The understanding, which provides concepts, is spontaneous in that it can generate its own representations (A51/B75). In contrast, some of the activities of the imagination are not fully under one’s control, which makes sense of

Kant’s claim in section 24 of the B deduction that imagination belongs to sensibility (B151).

To shed light on the role of the a priori function of the imagination in perception of temporal magnitudes, consider the following passage:

Only through that which persists does existence in different parts of the temporal series acquire a magnitude, which one calls duration. For in mere sequence alone existence is always disappearing and beginning, and never has the least magnitude. Without that which persists there is therefore no temporal relation. (A183/B226)

This passage explains why the perception of dynamic succession requires a relation to persistence. Otherwise, one would just be related to a sequence of appearing and disappearing existences in inner sense without any duration or magnitude of time.37 Thus, the

relationship between schemata and categories cannot be undertaken here, this provides a prima facie case for their distinctness. 36 In contrast, a standard interpretation is that categories are prior to schemata in the sense that the latter are derivative from the former. Karin de Boer (2016) challenges this interpretation and argues that categories and schemata are independent of each other. 37 Notably, this chapter does not settle important issues about spatial perception that have led many interpreters to claim that the imagination or categories are required for the intuition of spatial objects. A treatment of these issues is required for a complete account of Kant on the perception of time, especially for his account of the perception of simultaneity.

59 representation of persistence is required for the representation of finite temporal magnitudes.38

Recall from the end of the previous section that mere reproduction of past states of a thing in a series does not suffice to present a dynamic content. For Kant, the reproductive imagination is merely empirical (B152). Similarly, the imagination does not just reproduce prior contents of intuition when motion is perceived. In that case, one would simply imagine the various positions of the body all at once. Instead, the representation of a thing as no longer being at a position at which it was previously intuited to be must be combined by the imagination with the intuition of the current position of that same thing.39 In sum, the role of the a priori imagination, along with a pure inner intuition of time, is to present the successive states as states of a single thing.40

This is not to deny, however, that the dynamical categories of substance, cause, and community play a crucial role in Kant’s overall theory of time awareness. In particular, there is evidence that they are required for the experience of time rather than for the perception of time.41 Hence, I will first motivate the claim that Kant indeed makes this distinction. In the

38 The issue of whether the original pure intuition of time qua infinite magnitude depends on figurative synthesis goes beyond the scope of this discussion. See Katherine Dunlop (2009: 28-29) for an argument that any representation of time must be a product of the logical forms of judgment by appeal to section 24 of the B deduction. Wayne Waxman (1991: 102 and 108) claims that both time and space as original intuitions are products of the transcendental synthesis of the imagination independent of categories. On my view, the perception of finite temporal contents requires the imagination, but this neither implies nor excludes the position that the original representation of time in intuition requires imagination. 39 Kant thinks that the persistent thing that allows one to perceive change is not the self (A107). Given that persistence is a requirement for perceiving temporal magnitudes, determining why the persistent cannot be something inner may shed light on Kant’s Refutation of Idealism. 40 The role of the imagination in the awareness of dynamic succession does not immediately rule out the possibility of a Kantian non-conceptualism about time awareness such as that found in Allais (2015) and McLear (2011). On this issue, see Andrew Stephenson (2015) for a discussion of imagination in the context of Kantian non-conceptualist approaches. 41 This distinction is not incompatible with extant interpretations of the First Analogy. James Van Cleve (1979), Andrew Ward (2001), Jonathan Bennett (1966), Arthur Melnick (1973), and Paul Guyer (1987) provide interpretations of how the concept of substance makes the representation of a subjective time order versus an

60 introduction to the Analogies, Kant claims that experience is “a synthesis of perceptions, which is not itself contained in perception” (B218-B219). Thus, experience is something beyond perception, and perception of the appearances can be converted to an experience via some procedure of synthesis. For experience, the relevant synthesis involves a representation of the appearance “not as it is juxtaposed in time but as it is objectively in time . . . hence only through a priori connecting concepts” (B219). Thus, experience of change requires the perception of change, along with the judgment that there was also a change in the thing via categories. Ostensibly, Kant is drawing a distinction between mere perception and experience. Given that he draws this distinction in the preface to the Analogies, it suggests that the distinction between perception of time and experience of time depends on the dynamical categories of substance, cause, and community.

I claim that the category of substance is required for the explanation of one’s experience of temporality rather than the perception of temporality. I think the explanation is this: the representation of the objective/subjective distinction with respect to temporal order depends on the representation of a possible difference between the appearance of an object and the object itself. Kant argues in the Analogies that the representation of a distinction between an object and its appearance ultimately implicates the categories. One can only be aware of a distinction between the representation of a subjective temporal order and an objective temporal order if one is able to reflect on the possible limitations of one’s capacity to represent how things really are in the world. Kant claims that such reflection on one’s limitations requires, among other things, the ability to recognize that one’s perceptions are grounded in a causal order that is not transparent to perception. The dynamical categories as

objective time order possible. This, however, is consistent with the representation of the subjective/objective time order distinction being required for an experience of time rather than a perception of time.

61 “a priori connecting concepts” enables one to represent the world as a causal order beyond one’s current apprehension of it. In this way, the categories are not responsible for empirical consciousness of temporal qualities, but instead they are required for the representation of a distinction between objective and subjective time order in experience.

On my interpretation, one must first have some perception of temporality via inner intuition and imagination if one is to represent whether a perception corresponds to an objective or subjective temporal order in experience. In particular, the category of substance enables one to think of one’s perceptions as a perception of a single reality that goes beyond any particular perception of it (A187/B231). Thinking of a changing thing as something distinct from one’s perception of it is to orient it as a change in the world independent of any particular perception of it. Thinking of any change as related to other changes in the world requires relating them as changes of that single world, which requires the representation of a single thing to which all changes are related. This is the representation of an absolute persistent that is not itself a direct object of perception. In this way, Kant grounds one’s entitlement to apply the category of substance on a requirement for thought of the distinction between a subjective order of apprehension and an objective order in the world. But this is only possible if there are dynamic successions given in perception that we can then determine as objective or subjective. The a priori function of the imagination in the representation of persistence is what makes the perception of dynamic succession possible.

In sum, without the transcendental function of the imagination in representing persistence, one would not be able to represent temporal magnitudes, and in turn, determine those representations in accordance with judgments concerning their objective or subjective status. The pure inner intuition and a priori imagination makes possible the perception of

62 temporal magnitudes that enables the application of the category of substance in experience.

With this, Kant’s theory of mental representation can distinguish a thought of an objective temporal order or a subjective temporal order from a perception of dynamic succession.

Thus, one can say that, for Kant, change is the most universal way that the world is given to a perceiver in time, and the perception of change is a pre-condition for any subsequent judgments concerning temporal order.

5. Conclusion

I argued that Kant’s appeal to an inner intuition of time cannot be fully understood without appreciating its role in enabling one’s perception of inner and outer appearances by relating oneself to their changes. Kant claims that one can only perceive change if the representation of time structures the relations among one’s representations—this is the sense in which one requires an “inner” intuition of time. But this does not mean that one’s perception of change is primarily of an inner temporality that mediates one’s perception of outer temporality, as on the dominant interpretation. The emphasis on the priority of the perception of inner temporality leads proponents of the dominant representation to claim that the appearances are in time in virtue of merely being objects of representation. Instead, I claim that, for Kant, the inner intuition of time enables one’s perception of outer changes in the same way in which it enables one’s perception of inner changes. The inner intuition of time presents a non-dynamic relation of succession that is not itself perceived, but is a requirement for inner and outer temporality to become a perceptible content. On my interpretation, appearances are all in time in virtue of their being structured by a non-

63 dynamic a priori relation of succession that makes the dynamic succession of inner and outer things available to empirical consciousness.

64

References

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______. “Temporal Experience in Kant’s Critique of Pure Reason” in The Routledge Handbook of Philosophy of Temporal Experience, edited by Ian Phillips, 53-66. New York: Routledge, 2017.

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66 Longuenesse, Béatrice. Kant and the Capacity to Judge: Sensibility and Discursivity in the Transcendental Analytic of the Critique of Pure Reason. Princeton: Princeton University Press, 1998.

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68 Chapter 3: Time and Change in Kant

Abstract: This chapter analyzes Kant’s derivation of transcendental idealism about time and provides a new interpretation of the philosophical foundation of Kant’s argument; I argue that it is based on the premise that succession in existence requires change. Moreover, I show that although Kant maintains that the existence of different times in succession requires change, he maintains that we have an original representation of succession that does not require, or depend on, the representation of change. Taking these together, Kant’s position that the existence of succession requires change is a substantive step in his argument for the ideality of time that is not reducible to a mere cognitive phenomenon, contra a standard interpretative strategy. Kant’s argument for idealism about time is standardly interpreted by mere analogy to his argument for idealism about space. The derivation of the ideality of space is taken to rest solely on claims about our mental representations of space, while the derivation of the ideality of time proceeds similarly. On my interpretation, Kant’s argument for the ideality of time depends on his metaphysics of time as something above and beyond his position on our representation of time.

Keywords: time, change, succession, contradiction, idealism

1. Introduction

Kant famously claims that time is merely the form of inner sense as that through which we perceive the self and our inner states (A33/B49).42 Kant’s temporal and spatial idealism are similar in important respects, and it is typically assumed that, for Kant, they are similar in all relevant respects. On the assumption that time and space are similar in all relevant respects, the argument for temporal idealism would merely follow the same derivation as the argument for spatial idealism. This dominant interpretive strategy, which

42 All citations of the Critique of Pure Reason list the usual A and B marginal numbers. The citations of Kant’s pre-Critical works follow the usual academy volume and page number.

69 analyzes Kant’s views about time by analogy to his views about space, is employed in major recent commentaries and even in directed analyses of the section in the Critique of Pure

Reason that contains Kant’s account of time and space (Allison 2004, Parsons 1992, and

Hatfield 2006). Any thorough assessment of this strategy, however, will require an independent analysis of Kant’s derivation of temporal idealism that can then be compared to our best interpretation of his derivation of spatial idealism. This chapter provides such an independent analysis of Kant’s derivation of idealism about time.

On my interpretation, the derivation of Kant’s idealism about time rests on the premise that the existence of temporal succession, and temporal relations in general, requires change (A183/B226 and B233). I claim that Kant is also committed to the position that our most fundamental representation of temporal succession in pure inner intuition does not require, or otherwise depend, on the representation of change (A31/B47, B48, and

A183/B226). Taking these together, I argue that Kant endorses the following asymmetry: although our original representation of temporal succession does not depend on change, the existence of temporal succession requires change. The dominant interpretative strategy ignores this asymmetry because it appeals solely to cognitive phenomena to explain the argument for the ideality of space and, by extension, it would follow that the argument for the ideality of time rests merely on claims about the representation of time. I claim that

Kant’s argument for the ideality of time depends on his metaphysics of time and change as commitments beyond his account of the features of our representation of time, contra the dominant interpretative strategy.

More specifically, I argue that Kant’s idealism about time derives from his position that the existence of succession requires change in the sense of alteration. Alteration is a

70 combination of incompatible states in a single object, e.g. a single thing has the determinations of sitting and not sitting (B48). Kant’s account of the incompatibility in change in an object is not defined in terms of temporal succession, but instead offered in terms of opposed determinations of an object either coming into existence or going out of existence. Given that temporal succession requires alteration, I think that Kant’s argument for idealism goes roughly as follows. Kant’s transcendental assumption is that time is what makes the incompatible states in change consistent and thus, intelligible. Yet, if temporal succession in existence is only possible through alteration, then any appeal to the existence of different times to make the opposed states in a change consistent with one another would be circular; it would be circular to appeal to the existence of a succession of different times to render the incompatibility in change consistent when succession itself requires the incompatibility in change. Thus, the time that renders alteration consistent is not any existent succession, but instead time is the form of inner sense that presents an unchanging a priori structure of succession.

This in turn provides the material needed to turn a common objection to Kant’s idealism about time on its head. In the early 1770s when Kant first developed his idealism about time, his most significant interlocutors all raised the following objection: we perceive real change in our representations and thus, time must be as real as the successive medium in which those changes occur and not merely a structure of our perception. This objection, and the challenge that it raises for Kant’s idealism about time, has not gone unnoticed in more recent literature (Kemp Smith 1923, Paton 1936, Guyer 1987, and Falkenstein 1995).

Falkenstein (1995) shows that Kant’s idealism about time can be made consistent with the reality of perceived change. None of the extant treatments, however, have shown how Kant

71 can make the strong claim that without idealism about time the representation of alteration would not be possible (A37/B53). Given my proposed interpretation, Kant has the resources to make this strong response to the objection. I argue that the objection assumes that temporal succession, as a thing in itself, enables us to make sense of the reality of change. On my interpretation, Kant reverses this assumption: no existent succession can render change consistent and thereby, preserve its reality because succession itself requires change. Instead, time qua form of inner sense makes change consistent and grounds the reality of change.

To begin with, I show in section two that Kant commits himself to the dependence of temporal succession upon change across decades of his writings, even in periods when he did not explicitly endorse idealism about time. I demonstrate in section three that this commitment about change provides a necessary premise in a compressed line of reasoning for the transcendental ideality of time in the Critique of Pure Reason. In section four, I explain how the preceding analysis of Kant’s argument for temporal idealism provides the resources for responding to the objection that the reality of perceived change requires the reality of time. I conclude in section five with a brief summary of the preceding results.

2. Kant on Change and Temporal Succession

In this section, I analyze Kant’s metaphysical commitments about change and temporal succession. I will examine passages from a variety of different periods, even considering works in which Kant does not claim to be an idealist about time. On my interpretation, Kant endorses a view according to which time in existence depends on change in the sense that succession is made possible by change. Moreover, he endorses the

72 incompatibility of the states in a change, but nonetheless maintains that change is intelligible.

This background on Kant’s metaphysics of change and temporal succession will be helpful for understanding his argument for idealism about time in the Critique of Pure Reason.

Kant’s 1755 New Elucidation criticism of Leibniz on the basis of considerations about change is informative for understanding his commitments about time and succession:

a simple substance, which is free from every external connection… is completely immutable in itself… Hence, if the connection of substances were cancelled altogether, succession and time would likewise disappear… since change is the succession of determinations, that is to say, since a change occurs when a determination comes into being which was not previously present, and the being is thus determined to the opposite of a certain determination which belongs to it, it follows that a change cannot take place by means of those factors which are to be found within a substance. (1: 410-411)

Kant claims, in this passage, that external causal relations are required to enable change, and that without change, there is no succession and no time. Without providing the details of

Kant’s argument, it is significant to note that his critique of Leibniz’s rejection of external causal relations among substances depends on a specific account of change.43 In particular,

Kant claims that change is a succession of determinations of an object, in which an opposed state comes into existence that was not previously present. While it is not clear how change relates to time in this early work, the passage suggests that succession is only possible through change and that time is only possible through succession. It appears that change is understood in terms of determinations in an object that are “opposed” to one another, and these opposed states of an object come into and go out of existence. Thus, one can understand Kant’s claim that succession depends on change as the claim that there is no

43 In “Dynamic Change Requires Real External Relations: Kant’s Critique of Leibniz’s Pre-Established Harmony Theory of Causation”, I analyze Kant’s claim that Leibniz’s pre-established harmony theory of causation is incompatible with dynamic change, defined as incompatible predicates in a single subject. I argue Kant’s critique of Leibniz is that insofar as a substance has incompatible properties that come into and go out of being, they must have an external causal ground.

73 temporal succession without the coming into being and going out of being of incompatible states of objects.

This account of change in terms of incompatibility and coming into being also appears in Kant’s 1763 Negative Magnitudes:

All change consists in this: either something positive, which was not, is posited; or something positive, which was, is cancelled… In the first case, accordingly, where a positing, which was not, is posited, the change is a coming-to-be… In the second case, where the change consists in the cancellation of something positive, the consequence = 0. (2: 194-195)

Kant claims, in the above passage, that change involves a coming to be through something existing that did not previously exist or through something existing that no longer exists.

This fits well with the preceding passage in its emphasis on incompatibility being understood as opposed states that come into existence or go out of existence.

The position that succession is determined by dynamic coming into being and passing away is also a position maintained in the 1781 and 1787 edition of the Critique of Pure

Reason. Consider the following representative passage: “If a substance passes out of a state a into another state b, then the point in time of the latter is different from the point in time of the first state and follows it” (A207/B253). Kant tells us there are different times when a single thing passes from one state to another. This is reminiscent of the New Elucidation account of change as a combination of opposed states in a single thing that gives rise to succession, though no direct mention is made of incompatibility in this passage. For further confirmation that succession is only possible through coming into being and passing away, consider another passage: “I could regard the present point in time only as conditioned in regard to past time but never as its condition, because this moment first arises only through

74 the time that has passed…” (A412/B439). Any present point in time is only possible through the passing away of other times. Since Kant’s basic ontology consists of substances and their qualities and relations, the passing away of times should be understood in terms of the coming into being and passing away of states of objects. In sum, without change in the sense of the coming into being and passing away of states of objects, there is no difference of times in succession, and there is no present moment qua something connected to a past time.

An important qualification should be noted about the relationship between succession and change in existence: Kant’s appeal to change to account for succession is circular, but nonetheless informative. His account is circular in the sense that it appeals to temporal notions of coming into being and going out of being to explain temporal succession. This means that Kant fails to give a reductive account of time in non-temporal terms, a point that is unsurprising due to his explicit rejection of the possibility of a reductive account of time in his 1770 Inaugural Dissertation (2: 401).44 Nevertheless, it is informative to say that succession in existence derives from change, despite the circularity, because one need not accept that succession requires change. For example, Newton describes absolute time as something that has successive parts and “flows”, but nonetheless is independent of objects.45

One can interpret Newton’s view as a position according to which time is a primitive relation of succession that is independent of objects. To foreshadow, I will ultimately claim that

Kant’s positive argument for idealism about time primarily targets a relationalist view about time according to which time is identified with a relation of succession in objects.

44 In Lambert’s 1770 letter to Kant, he writes that the best definition of time is that “time is time” because defining it in terms of things in time would be circular (10: 106). Lambert also makes the point in this letter that understanding change in terms of coming into being and going out of being is itself a temporal phenomenon and for this reason, Lambert claims the reality of change requires time (10: 110). Given that Kant was aware of this circularity but maintained in the 1780s both the ideality of time and that change was to be understood in terms of the coming into being and going out of being of states of objects, it appears that Kant resists Lambert’s claim. Kant accepted the circularity and at the same time maintained the ideality of time, contra Lambert. 45 See the Scholium to the Definitions in the Principia.

75 I have argued that Kant’s position is that the relation of succession in existence is

something that derives from the qualities of changing things, but this does not imply that

change is prior to time in the sense of an asymmetric dependence relation.46 In the 1794 The

End of All Things, Kant claims that alteration requires time: “alteration [Veränderung] can

only take place in time” (8: 333). He also makes the further claim in this text that “at some

point a time will arrive in which all alteration [Veränderung] (and with it, time itself) ceases”

(8: 334). Taking these passages together, time and alteration in existence appears to mutually

depend on each other. This raises a question about how precisely time depends on alteration,

such that, without alteration it would cease. I think that a natural way to understand this is

that time understood as temporal succession in existence depends on alteration; without

change, there would be no temporal succession in the world.47

Given that Kant’s position is that existence of succession requires alteration, it makes sense that he would define such change without reference to succession in the 1787 edition of the Critique of Pure Reason:

if this representation [of time] were not a priori (inner) intuition, then no concept, whatever it might be, could make comprehensible the possibility of an alteration [Veränderung], i.e., of a combination of contradictorily opposed predicates (e.g., a thing’s being in a place and the not-being of the very same thing in the same place) in one and the same object [Objecte]. (B48)

This passage contains Kant’s definition of alteration. The Critique of Pure Reason’s

definition of alteration, as a type of identity-preserving change in which a single subject has

46 In order to be able to capture Kant’s position that succession and alteration mutually depend on each other, I assume that the dependence relation in question is not asymmetric. 47 This is confirmed in a passage from the New Elucidation: “in a world which was free from all motion (for motion is the appearance of a changed connection), nothing at all in the nature of succession would be found even in the inner states of substances” (1: 410). Kant suggests in this passage succession in states of things requires motion, which is alteration of place.

76 incompatible predicates, is parallel to the New Elucidation account of change in terms of incompatible determinations in a single thing. In the Critique of Pure Reason, Kant claims that strictly speaking states change and objects alter (A187/B230). Kant, however, renders the conclusion of the First Analogy as follows: “All change (succession) of appearances is only alteration [Veränderung]” (B233). Taking these together, there is a functional equivalence between a change of state and a change in an object because succession requires change of state in an object. Thus, I will speak interchangeably of change in an object and alteration.

This leads to a natural question: why does Kant insist that change, and ultimately temporal succession in existence, is to be understood in terms of incompatible states of a single thing? Indeed, this is a key question because, as will be shown in the next section, the argument for idealism rests on understanding change in this particular way. It appears that, for Kant, this incompatibility is something that is given to us in experience:

Now how in general anything can be altered, how it is possible that upon a state in one point of time an opposite one could follow in the next—of these we have a priori not the least concept. For this acquaintance with actual forces is required, which can only be given empirically… (A207/B252)

This passages states that alteration is fundamentally empirical because the understanding could not have given us the idea of incompatibility that is involved in change. This incompatibility is something distinctive that one could only have gotten through sensory acquaintance with things that undergo change and, in particular, via awareness of forces.48

Kant repeats the claim that the incompatibility in change is fundamentally empirical in the following passage:

48 The fundamentally empirical status of forces is one reason why they require analysis that is beyond the scope of the Critique of Pure Reason in Kant’s Metaphysical Foundations of Natural Science (A171/B213).

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Now how it is possible that from a given state an opposed state of the same thing should follow not only cannot be made comprehensible by reason without an example, but cannot even be made understandable without intuition… (B292)

Kant states, in this passage, that reason could not have given us the idea of incompatible states of a single thing. In the continuation of this passage, Kant appeals to the empirical awareness of the motion of a point in space as “a sequence of opposed determinations” to explain our original awareness of alteration (B292). In sum, his position is that experience provides us with an awareness of change that is inextricably linked with incompatibility.

A picture of Kant’s metaphysical commitments about change and time has emerged from the preceding passages, though the full view also includes a commitment to the intelligibility of change. Despite the presence of incompatible states in change, Kant maintains that change is intelligible as an object of thought in experience and natural science.

The latter is confirmed by the fact that the Negative Magnitudes passage discussed above occurs in the context of Kant’s claim that one can derive the law of inertia in pure mechanics from metaphysical principles about change (2: 195). Without going into the details of how

Kant establishes this result, this claim is significant because it means that change is representable coherently in pure mechanics qua a science of change of place. The theme of a science of change reappears in Kant’s Inaugural Dissertation: “PURE MATHEMATICS deals with space in GEOMETRY, and time in pure MECHANICS…” (2: 397). In this passage, Kant tells us that time is the subject matter of pure mechanics, and in the continuation of this passage, Kant references the as having denied that there was a

78 science of sensory things (ID, 2: 398). Famously, the Eleatics argued that change is fundamentally unintelligible because it is contradictory.49

It is helpful to pause to reflect on Kant’s reference to the Eleatics. Given Kant’s account of change as involving incompatibility, he is open to the Eleatic challenge concerning how change can be intelligible. There are some Eleatic puzzles about motion that

Kant apparently believes have been resolved; he suggests in the Inaugural Dissertation that calculus resolves a classic problem of what occurs at the moment of a change from p to not-p

(ID, 2: 400). Nevertheless, the general Eleatic challenge of how to make sense of change as something that fundamentally involves incompatibility remains a problem, given Kant’s commitments about change. This challenge will be revisited in connection with Kant’s argument for idealism about time.

It is worth summarizing Kant’s metaphysics of change and temporal succession before transitioning to Kant’s argument for temporal idealism in the Critique of Pure Reason.

Change in an object is a combination of incompatible determinations in a single subject. In addition, the incompatible states of an object that arise and pass away are what make difference of times possible and thus, change makes temporal succession in existence possible. Despite the incompatibility in change, it is nonetheless intelligible. Though Kant’s account of temporal succession is circular in the sense that it appeals to temporal notions of change to make sense of temporal succession, it is nevertheless a non-trivial metaphysical commitment that succession in existence depends on qualities of objects. With this background, I turn to the next section on Kant’s argument for idealism about time in the

Critique of Pure Reason.

49 See Patricia Curd (1998) for a discussion of Zeno on the problem of contradiction in change.

79 3. Change and Kant’s Temporal Idealism in the Critique of Pure Reason

I argue in this section for a new interpretation of Kant’s argument for idealism about time according to which the dependence of time in existence upon change leads to Kant’s idealism about time. The extant literature does not explicitly recognize Kant’s metaphysics of change as the foundation of Kant’s argument for temporal idealism, and this is due to the fact that the argument for the ideality of time is commonly assumed to derive from the features of our representation of time. I claim, however, that there is an asymmetry in the dependence relations exhibited in our representation of time and the dependence relations in being; for

Kant, the representation of succession does not require or otherwise depend on the representation of change, while temporal succession in existence requires change. I argue that this asymmetry is crucial for understanding the argument for the ideality of time and thus, it is important to attend to Kant’s metaphysics as something distinct from his claims about our representation of time.

Before presenting a positive defense of my interpretation, it is helpful to orient it with respect to the recent state of the English-speaking literature on Kant’s idealism.50 Paul Guyer sheds light on a trend in Kant scholarship on space and time:

Kant presents the “Transcendental Aesthetic” as a theory equally about space and time. But it is clear that in this part of his work his views about space were fundamental and that the argument for the transcendental ideality of time proceeds only by parallels (often strained) to the example of space . . . But the derivative nature of the theory of time in the “Transcendental Aesthetic” does not mean that I can focus exposition of Kant’s arguments there on the case of space, as indeed most commentators do. (Guyer 1987: 345)

50 Contrary to recent English language discussions, the German idealists provided analyses of Kant’s account of time independently of space (for example, see Heidegger’s Phenomenological Interpretation of the Critique of Pure Reason).

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Guyer’s preface to his own interpretation describes a dominant strategy that is taken in many interpretations of the Transcendental Aesthetic. According to this dominant strategy, Kant’s views on time are approached via analogy to his views about space. Guyer ultimately resists this dominant strategy by providing an independent analysis of Kant’s account of time.

Nevertheless, he maintains that Kant’s views about space are fundamental and his views about time “proceeds only by parallels” to the case of space. The significance of this is that there is nothing unique in Kant’s argument for the ideality of time. Guyer’s claim, which is worth highlighting, is not just that the arguments are parallel, but strainedly so.

One significant way in which the parallels between space and time are apparently strained concerns the controversial issue of the science of time. Whereas Kant is clear that the science of space is geometry, the science that corresponds to time is, in H. J. Paton’s words, “shadowy” (1936: 129). Guyer does not identify the science that corresponds to time, but just refers to some set of synthetic a priori principles about time (1987: 346). Kemp

Smith (1923: 127) argues that the closest Kant comes to identifying a science of time is mechanics, but that this cannot be the a priori science of time for two : the representation of motion is empirical and, moreover, it implicates space. Lorne Falkenstein

(1995: 271) fruitfully develops upon Kemp Smith’s discussion by noting that Kant seems to identify pure mechanics as the corresponding science of time. The previous section shows that the Inaugural Dissertation provides some basis for this interpretation. Though I suspect that Falkenstein is closest to capturing the mathematical science of time, I omit this

81 controversial issue here, as addressing it would delay completion of the task of analyzing the precise steps of Kant’s argument for temporal idealism.51

On my interpretation, Kant’s argument for temporal idealism divides into two main stages. The first stage concerns Kant’s philosophy of mind, and this stage identifies our most fundamental representation of time as a pure inner intuition. I will briefly rehearse his argument that we have a pure inner intuition of time, but the main focus will be on highlighting Kant’s position that with respect to human minds, change is represented through an unchanging a priori structure of succession in the form of inner sense. The second stage concerns Kant’s metaphysics of time wherein he aims to establish the ideality of time as the mere form of inner sense. A central problem in the Kant literature concerns how one can transition from the first stage, that establishes the result that our representation of time is a pure inner intuition, to the second stage, that establishes the metaphysical claim that time is a pure inner intuition.

This problem can be raised in different ways, but one famous version of the problem is the so-called “neglected alternative”. Many have claimed that Kant neglects the possibility that we have a pure intuition of time and space, but time and space are also features of things independent of any relation to human forms of perception. This criticism reflects the fact that there are no intervening passages between the metaphysical and transcendental expositions of the concept of time and Kant’s claim at A33/B50 that clarify how Kant can derive the metaphysical claim that time is the mere form of inner sense. In other words, there are no

51 Notably, an account of the role of time in pure mechanics will require addressing Kemp Smith’s point that mechanics also implicates space and thus, is not an obvious candidate for being the science of time. Another option for a science of time that requires further inquiry is , which J.H. Lambert mentions in a letter to Kant (10: 106). Kant never explicitly states that chronometry is the science of time, but the interpretation that chronometry is the science of time may turn out to be complementary to Kant’s Inaugural Dissertation claim that pure mechanics studies time.

82 intervening passages that explain the transition from the claims about the representation of time to the conclusion, which Kant labels as “b”, that time is nothing more than the structure of inner sense. On the negative side, this means that Kant’s ultimate view is that time is not identified with existent temporal relations in objects, i.e. their relations of succession or simultaneity. Moreover, it is unclear how Kant establishes this negative result because conclusion “b” at A33/B50 does not provide any further explicitly stated premises that bridge the gap between Kant’s claims about the representation of time and his claims about the metaphysics of time.

There is a parallel gap in the case of the argument for the ideality of space. The common approach to filling the gap is to appeal to some broadly cognitive a priori datum about space, whether synthetic a priori knowledge or a priori intuition.52 On an approach according to which the argument for the ideality of time proceeds only by parallels to the argument for the ideality of space, it follows that the argument for the ideality of time depends on a parallel fact about our cognition of time. A clue as to how this gap can be filled in the case of time can be found in conclusion “a” in the section on time. In conclusion “a”,

Kant claims time is not an objective determination of things independent of our awareness of empirical objects because then time would be “actual yet without an actual object”

(A32/B49).53 Kant suggests here that there is something absurd in positing the existence of time independent of objects, a point that I will orient with respect to his argument for the ideality of time in what follows.

52 For representatives of these two approaches to the argument for the ideality of space, see Paul Guyer (1987) and Lucy Allais (2018), respectively. 53 Kant makes a similar point in his Lectures on the philosophical doctrine of religion: “if there was a time before the world existed, then it must have been an empty time. Again another absurdity!” (28: 1103).

83 I propose that Kant’s metaphysical commitment that succession in existence is only possible through change is the premise that fills the gap between the two stages of the argument in the case of time. This premise, however, asserts the reverse of what Kant claims with respect to our representations; as I will show, Kant’s position is that the representation of temporal succession does not require, or in any way depend, on change. Broadly speaking,

I will make a case for the significance of attending to Kant’s metaphysics of time and change as something distinct from his account of our representation of time.

With this in mind, consider the first stage of the argument as it occurs in the sections entitled the “Metaphysical Exposition of the Concept of Time” and the “Transcendental

Exposition of the Concept of Time”. In the metaphysical exposition of the concept of time,

Kant argues that we have a pure intuition of time. The pure intuition of time is a representation that derives from the structure of the mind rather than sensation, and it relates us to a medium in which all temporal objects are oriented. The transcendental exposition of the concept of time argues that this pure intuition of time must be inner, and Kant later specifies that it is inner in the sense that it structures the relations among all our representations, regardless of whether its objects are inner or outer (A33-34/B50-51).

In the metaphysical exposition, Kant argues that succession and simultaneity can only become empirically perceptible via a pure representation of time. Consider the case of succession. To perceive states of objects as successive, one requires a representation of the states as being at different times, but one could not represent a difference of times if one did not already have a representation of time (A30/B46). Different times can only be rendered as distinct through orienting them in a single time in which they can be compared as earlier than or later than. Thus, this representation of a single time thus derives from the structure of the

84 mind rather than from sensation of succession. Parallel remarks can be made for the case of simultaneity. Moreover, this pure representation of time cannot be a concept because concepts present combinations of qualities, and no combinations of qualities can determine succession or simultaneity without reference to time (A32/B47). As a result, this requires a representation of time as a medium, rather than a quality, in which to orient objects as being either successive or simultaneous. Since intuition is that which relates us to particulars, a pure intuition of time presents time as a medium in which all perceivable temporal objects are oriented. In sum, it is this pure intuition of time that, in turn, enables the thought of difference and sameness of times in concepts of succession and simultaneity.54

In the transcendental exposition, Kant argues that the pure intuition of time must also be an inner representation of time:

Here I add further that the concept of alteration [Veränderung], and with it, the concept of motion (as alteration of place), is only possible through and in the representation of time—that if this representation were not a priori (inner) intuition, then no concept, whatever it might be, could make comprehensible [begreiflich] the possibility of an alteration, i.e. of a combination of contradictorily opposed predicates (e.g. a thing’s being in a place and the not-being of the very same thing in the same place) in one and the same object [Objecte]. Only in time can both contradictorily opposed determinations in one thing be encountered [anzutreffen sein], namely successively. Our concept of time therefore explains the possibility of as much synthetic a priori cognition as is presented by the general theory of motion, which is no less fruitful. (B48-49)

Kant, in this passage, defines motion as alteration of place, and alteration is defined as a combination of incompatible predicates in a single subject.55 This is an expanded version of a

54 Though I find Kant’s arguments plausible, I will not attempt, in this chapter, to further defend Kant’s claim that our most fundamental representation of time is a pure intuition. 55 Veränderung and its cognates are always translated as alteration and its cognates. Kant is careful with his use of the terms “Wechsel” for change and “Veränderung” for alteration because he will ultimately argue in the first analogy that all change in the empirical world is alteration (A182/B224 and B233). In contrast, Hume would deny the possibility of alteration, as Kant defines it, because there is no numerical identity over time.

85 passage from the previous section, and it provides an account of change that is continuous with Kant’s pre-Critical writings on change. Kant claims that alteration is only encounterable and comprehensible through a representation of succession, which is given in a pure inner intuition.56

One significant result of the transcendental exposition is that the representation of succession that makes the perception and thought of change possible is itself non-dynamic; any dynamic succession would re-introduce the problem of how the incompatible states in a change become perceptible and thinkable. The representation of succession that makes the incompatible states in a change consistent is a representation of an unchanging a priori structure of succession. In L. E. J. Brouwer’s words, the representation of time is the representation of a primitive “two-oneness” (1913: 85). Similar to Kant’s position in the transcendental exposition of time, the priority of the representation of time over the representation of change is suggested in a passage from Kant’s 1770 Inaugural Dissertation:

“it is only in time that the possibility of changes can be thought, whereas time cannot be thought by means of change, only vice versa” (2: 401). Taken together with the transcendental exposition, these passages suggest that the representation of succession has priority over change, at least with respect to our representations.

The relationship between temporal succession and change in existence is not one of priority, as in the case of the representation of succession and change. As the previous section shows, Kant is committed to the position that change is what makes temporal

56 I will omit the details of why Kant posits that the pure intuition of time is inner because it is unnecessary for understanding the central argumentative steps by which Kant establishes idealism, though it is necessary for understanding the full import of the conclusion because Kant’s view is that time is “ nothing other than the form of inner sense” (A33/B50). I show in Chapter Two that the inner status of time derives from its role in the perception of change. If the pure intuition of time is required to relate past and present states in a perception of change, then it must play this role regardless of whether the change is inner or outer. That is, time must structure the relations of representations in general as a condition for changes, whether inner or outer, to be given to us in perception.

86 succession in existence possible. This is not to say that change is prior to time in existence, which would suggest an asymmetric dependence relation. The passages from the previous section show that Kant is committed to the position that temporal succession in existence requires alteration and vice versa. This is circular in the sense that both succession and the coming into being and going out of being in change are temporal phenomena. I believe, however, that this is a necessary circularity that Kant is committed to because of his rejection of reductive accounts of temporal notions in terms of non-temporal notions. In any case, I claim that Kant’s argument for the ideality of time only requires the weaker commitment that temporal succession in existence requires change. Kant maintains, by contrast, both in the

Critique of Pure Reason and in the Inaugural Dissertation that the representation of time does not require or otherwise depend on the representation of change.

Keeping in mind that temporal succession is prior to change in representation but not in being, I think the gap in Kant’s argument for the ideality of time can be filled in the following way. In short, given that temporal succession in existence requires change and that time is what makes change consistent, this indicates the need for an ideal time that renders change consistent. Kant maintains that succession or difference of times in existence requires change understood as a combination of incompatible determinations in a single object. If difference of times requires incompatibility in states of objects, then one cannot appeal to successive times in existence to render consistent the incompatible states in change.

This would be circular and problematically so because it re-introduces the contradictory states in change. With this circularity in mind, only a small further step is required to derive

Kant’s transcendental idealism about time. Kant’s transcendental assumption is that time is what makes change consistent and in turn perceivable and thinkable as an object of

87 experience. Since any appeal to temporal succession in existence re-introduces the incompatibility in change, the time that makes change consistent does not derive from anything in existence. The metaphysical and transcendental expositions show that the pure inner intuition of time presents an unchanging structure of succession that enables a consistent representation of change. Thus, rather than time being something in objects, it is the form of inner sense that presents an a priori structure of succession through which change is represented consistently. Contra the neglected alternative, any appeal to temporal succession in objects independent of the form of inner sense is unintelligible because change remains contradictory.

In sum, I interpret Kant as having a view according to which temporal succession and change in existence require one another, but time is something distinct from succession and change in existence. Time, as the form of inner sense, is that through which which one represents succession and change in being, but time does not itself change or exemplify temporal properties or relations such as succession. This line of argumentation suggests that time, as a pure inner intuition itself, neither changes nor depends on the qualities of objects that it structures; in either case, the problem of consistency would re-appear. In fact, Kant describes time as something to which categories of change fail to apply: “[f]or change does not affect time itself, but only the appearances in time” (A183/B226). This passage states that only appearances or objects of the senses change, and that time itself does not undergo change. This is exactly what one would expect if time’s role were to make the change of objects of the senses consistent. In order for time to play this role it cannot, as noted above, change or depend on qualities of changing objects. Instead, substances are the bearers of temporal properties and relations of change, succession, and simultaneity.

88 Some qualifications should be made about the limitations of the preceding argumentation. In short, given the assumptions that temporal succession requires change, that the consistency of change requires succession, and that time is what makes change consistent, there is pressure to be an idealist about time. The first stage of Kant’s argument establishes that the representation of time that makes change consistent is a pure inner intuition of time. The second stage of Kant’s argument shows that any appeal to temporal succession as something in existence, independent of human minds, re-introduces the incompatible states in change that generated the original problem of consistency. This is due to Kant’s commitment that temporal succession in existence requires change, and change is understood in terms of incompatible states of a single thing; if the existence of temporal succession requires such change, then any appeal to succession in being will in turn generate the Eleatic challenge concerning the contradiction in change. Nonetheless, Kant maintains that time is what makes change consistent. Thus, rather than time being something in objects, independent of human minds, time is the a priori structure of succession that makes change consistent and thus, an object of perception and experience.

The assumptions that change involves incompatible states of a single object and that temporal succession in existence depends on such change can, of course, be denied, but they are not without reason. As was noted in the previous section, Kant supports the claim that there is incompatibility in change by appeal to experience. The claim that temporal succession in existence depends on change can be similarly supported by experience. The experience of transition in succession is an experience of a transition from one state to a distinct state, i.e. a passage from a state to its . Furthermore, if it is to be a representation of a transition from one state to the next rather than just a sequence of

89 representations of distinct states, then one must perceive these states as states of a single thing. This commitment is paralleled in Kant’s account of temporal relations: “in mere sequence alone existence is always disappearing and beginning, and never has the least magnitude. Without that which persists there is therefore no temporal relation” (A183/B226).

This passage states the very conception of change in an object that grounds Kant’s account of succession in existence.57 It follows from this that Kant’s position is that in a world without change there is no temporal passage. Though claims about the existence of time and experience of temporality should not be conflated, the latter can be used to support the former. It remains, however, an open question as to whether succession is the only option for making change consistent. This is not to say that it is an implausible assumption, but it is important to note that Kant does not appear to provide a defense of the position that only succession can render change consistent.

I have argued that the succession in question that makes the incompatible states in change consistent does not derive from the qualities of objects, and is thus, primitive in the sense of being unanalyzable in terms of the features of objects.58 Time as the form of inner sense is, nonetheless, intrinsically tied to change as the structure of our empirical awareness of change. In this way, Kant’s idealism can be described as following from his commitment to temporal succession in existence requiring incompatible states in change, and the transcendental role of time as that which enables a consistent representation of change so that it can be a perceptible content and object of thought. This also provides the background necessary to understand how Kant addresses the early 1770s objection that he cannot account for the reality of perceived change within his idealistic framework.

57 Kant claims that simultaneity and succession are the only relations in time (A182/B226). 58 Nathan Oaklander (2014) identifies a similar point in ’s account of the relation of succession.

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4. Kant’s Response to the Objection to his Temporal Idealism

The preceding analysis of Kant’s argument for idealism about time enables a response to the early objection to Kant’s idealism that it is incompatible with the reality of perceived change. Kant recounts this objection in the famous 1772 letter to Herz:

It runs like this: Changes are something real (according to the testimony of inner sense). Now, they are possible only if time is presupposed; therefore, time is something real that is involved in the determinations of things in themselves. (10: 134)

Kant explains, in this passage, that the objection concerns the compatibility of his temporal idealism with the reality of change. The objection goes roughly as follows: as an idealist,

Kant is at least committed to the reality of changes in our representations and thus, he is committed to the reality of time as a medium in which those changes occur. After all, I have shown that Kant himself maintains that for any change there will be temporal succession in existence and thus, it appears that Kant is at least committed to the reality of distinct times that are occupied by changing representations. Some of Kant’s most respected interlocutors, such as J.H. Lambert and Moses Mendelssohn, raised this objection to Kant’s temporal idealism.59

In section seven of the Transcendental Aesthetic, Kant continues to affirm his idealism in the face of this objection that alteration is real and thus, time must be real. Kant responds to this by claiming that he “admits the whole argument” (A37/B53). It is

59 Chapter One analyzes Kant’s early response to this objection in the 1770s. Lambert argues that time is real because change is real, and he claims that space is also real but does not provide any parallel argument for this claim about space (10: 107-108). Mendelssohn similarly emphasizes that the reality of change requires the reality of time, but, in contrast, does not address Kant’s claim that space is ideal (10: 115).

91 controversial as to how Kant could admit the whole argument and nevertheless maintain his idealism about time. Falkenstein argues that in order for Kant to maintain that time belongs only to things as they are given to us in intuition, Kant must hold a reception thesis according to which the subject does not impose a temporal order on the world but rather only passively receives things ordered in a temporal manner (1991, 250). Moreover, Falkenstein claims that in order for Kant to maintain that time applies only to things as they appear in intuition, Kant must endorse a dual aspect theory of the relationship between appearances and things in themselves (1991, 251). Without getting into the details of Falkenstein’s arguments for these claims, a couple of points should be noted about this approach to understanding Kant’s response to the objection. Though arguments can be offered in favor of either the dual aspect or two-world interpretation, Kant never explicitly endorses one over the other. As is well known by now, Kant uses language that is friendly to both interpretations. Given this, I think it is preferable to find an interpretation of Kant’s response to the objection that does not depend on the resolution of this controversial interpretative debate. Moreover, even if

Falkenstein is correct that time as the form of inner sense cannot be understood as an active sorting principle in the mind and also be ideal, Falkenstein only shows that Kant’s idealism, understood as receptive rather than active faculty, is consistent with the reality of perceived change. But Kant claims that he has a stronger reply to the objection that shows not just that transcendental idealism about time is consistent with the reality of perceived change, but that time cannot have absolute reality independent of human perceivers (A37/B53). I argue that

Kant’s metaphysical position on the relationship between temporal succession and change is at the heart of Kant’s strong response to this objection.

Kant writes the following explanation of his response to the objection:

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Time is certainly something real, namely the real form of inner intuition…But if I or another being could intuit myself without this condition of sensibility, then these very determinations, which we now represent to ourselves as alterations, would yield us a cognition in which the representation of time and thus also of alteration would not occur at all. Its empirical reality therefore remains as a condition of all our . Only absolute reality cannot be granted to it according to what has been adduced above. It is nothing except the form of our inner intuition. (A37/B53)

In this passage, Kant claims that time is real as a structure of inner intuition. Without time as a form of inner intuition, we would not be able to represent even the determinations of the self. Yet, if there were a being that did not share our form of intuition, then the determinations that appear to us as alterations would not appear as changes and moreover, there would be no representation of time. Kant concludes from this that time is empirically real as a condition of our experience of change, though time cannot be seen as absolutely real due to the considerations raised in the preceding argument for the ideality of time.

The significance of Kant’s appeal to a being that does not share our temporal form of sensibility is to make it conceivable that one could apprehend a temporal world that itself does not exhibit any change. It is likely the imagined scenario that Kant has in mind is the way God apprehends the empirical world, which is not through passive sensation, but through the activity of creation (B145). In his Lectures on the philosophical doctrine of religion, Kant writes the following about God’s cognition of the empirical world: “For him

[God], the unalterable, nothing is past or future, since he is not in time at all. He cognizes everything simultaneously, whether it is present to our representation or not” (28: 1055). For

God, there is no succession in an object because all the states of an object are given at once.

An analogous scenario could be imagined with an evil demon that can perfectly predict the totality of the states of the empirical world. Pastness, presentness, and futurity are aspects of

93 temporal change that finite minds apprehend through inner intuition. Insofar as time is what makes the representation of pastness and futurity possible, then one can say that time is specifically a condition for creatures like us to perceive the empirical world.

One might object, however, that temporal succession may be an objective feature of things, even though there are possible that do not apprehend things in terms of temporal change, as in the case of states of objects being future, present, and receding into the past. In fact, the original objection alleges that change in human perception requires that time is not merely an appearance of the mind to itself, but rather an objective feature of human minds. To respond to this, recall that Kant appeals to “what has been adduced above” in order to explain why time itself cannot be absolutely real (A37/B53). This suggests that the argument for the ideality of time shows us why time cannot be absolutely real even if change is real.

On my interpretation, the objection assumes that temporal succession as a thing in itself is required for change, at least of inner states. Kant’s position, however, is that existent temporal succession itself requires incompatible states and change and thus, temporal succession has a problematic status. As was shown in the previous section, if succession of times is fixed by change, then one cannot appeal to the reality of times as things in themselves without re-introducing the inconsistency in change. If the relation of succession were a structure in objects independent of our temporal forms of sensibility, then change would be unreal because it requires contradictory states. To render this change consistent, this requires an appeal to a temporal succession that is independent of the features of objects that change. There is no consistent appeal to temporal succession that locates it in the object independent of the subject, i.e. a temporal succession that exists in itself.

94 In sum, the objector’s claim that there is some time that is independent of a relation to our form of sensibility that supports the reality of perceived change is without sense. Since the role of time is to make the incompatibility in change consistent and any appeal to temporal succession in existence re-introduces the incompatibility in change, the time that grounds the reality of change in objects cannot derive from those objects that change. Kant shows that the time that makes the representation consistent is the pure inner intuition of time, and thus, time qua pure inner intuition is what grounds the reality of change. Kant’s metaphysics of change and temporal succession supports the position that the reality of perceived change requires the transcendental ideality of time.

5. Conclusion: Kant’s Transcendental Idealism About Time

Keeping in mind Kant’s commitment to the position that time in existence requires change, one can better understand Kant’s subsequent identification of time with the form of inner sense in the Critique of Pure Reason. Kant’s commitment to temporal succession in existence requiring change can be found throughout his writings, even in periods in which he did not endorse idealism. In light of early objections that his temporal idealism was incompatible with change, one of Kant’s major projects in the decade that leads up to the

Critique of Pure Reason was to develop his account of the inner representation of time and resolve this objection to his temporal idealism. I claim that Kant’s Critical idealism about time follows from his metaphysics of change and his desire to account for its reality. Kant’s temporal idealism is a transcendental idealism precisely because time is identified with that which explains our perception of change and renders it intelligible as an object of experience.

95 Time in its capacity to make our apprehension and thought of the world possible is the mere form of inner sense.

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References

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Kant, Immanuel. The Critique of Pure Reason. Translated and edited by Paul Guyer and Allen Wood. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 1998.

______. New Elucidation in Theoretical Philosophy, 1755-1770. Translated and edited by David Walford and Ralf Meerbote. New York: Cambridge University Press, 1992.

______. Negative Magnitudes, 1755-1770. Translated and edited by David Walford and Ralf Meerbote. New York: Cambridge University Press, 1992.

______. On the form and principles of the sensible and the intelligible world [Inaugural Dissertation] in Theoretical Philosophy, 1755-1770. Translated and edited by David Walford and Ralf Meerbote. New York: Cambridge University Press, 1992.

______. Correspondence. Translated and edited by Arnulf Zweig. Cambridge, U.K.: Cambridge University Press, 1999.

______. The End of All Things. Translated by Allen Wood and edited by George Di Giovanni and Allen Wood. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 1996.

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99 Chapter 4: A Kantian Approach to the A Series/B Series Debate

Abstract: When interpreters orient Kant in relation to contemporary philosophy of time, they claim that for Kant, the B series is dependent on the A series. In the Kant literature, the B series comprises the relations of earlier than, later than, and simultaneity, while the A series is constituted by the properties of past, present, and future. I claim, however, that the opposite direction of dependence is also supported, due to Kant’s position that change is both intelligible and involves incompatibility. This chapter extends the contemporary description of Kant’s philosophy of time to show that Kant endorses the interdependence of A series and B series views on time. I argue that Kant’s commitment to the interdependence of A series and B series views on time enables him to maintain a dynamic account of change in terms of coming into being and going out of being, while retaining the intelligibility of change. This in turn supports a position according to which time is ideal.

Keywords: Kant, A series, B series, Idealism, Change, Contradiction

1. Introduction

This paper argues that the properties and relations that constitute the A and B series are interdependent in Kant’s philosophy of time. Arthur Melnick (2004) and Ralph Walker

(2017) claim that Kant’s idealism implies that the B series relations of earlier than, later than, and simultaneity depend on the A series properties of past, present, and future. Interestingly, the issue of whether the A series properties might also depend on the B series relations is not explicitly discussed in the Kant literature. My interpretation claims that the dependence of A series properties on B series relations stems from two of Kant’s commitments about change: change is the combination of incompatible predicates in a single subject, and change is

100 intelligible. Taking this together with the results from Melnick and Walker, this supports an interpretation according to which A series properties and B series relations are interdependent.

Kant did not frame his philosophy of time around the distinction between A series properties and B series relations. Despite this, one can use these categories to try to capture an aspect of the issues that Kant attempted to address in his theory of time. Contemporary discussions of the A series / B series distinction are formulated in terms of various metaphysical commitments that are sometimes also combined with semantic claims. L.A.

Paul (2010: 333-334 and 337) emphasizes issues about the relationship between A series properties, the relation of temporal passage, and B series relations. Natalja Deng (2017: 239) characterizes the B series proponent as holding the position that all times exist and that the B- theoretic descriptions of the world are privileged. As Kant very rarely makes any claims about language in the Critique of Pure Reason, I will focus on the metaphysical side of the issue. Moreover, following the Kantian literature, this discussion will only concern the status of A series properties and B series relations and not the opposition between eternalist and non-eternalist positions.

I hope to show that Kant’s insights into time and change enable a fruitful perspective on the A series / B series debate.60 An opposition between A series proponents and B series proponents dominates contemporary discussions of philosophy of time. For example, Arthur

Prior insisted that the language of the A series was more fundamental as a description of reality than the language of the B series, and this insistence was based on his desire to account for change.61 In general, endorsement of the A series can be seen as an expression of

60 McTaggart (1908: 457) cites Kant in his seminal paper that develops the distinction. 61 For a representative passage of argumentation that indicates this point, see Prior (1959: 13).

101 a commitment to the fundamental reality of change because descriptions of B series relations are eternal when true. Kant’s position provides an interesting foil to the contemporary narrative on the A series: reflection on his dynamic account of change can be shown to motivate the dependence of the A series properties on B series relations. This is not to say that B series relations are more fundamental than A series properties; his position can be understood as one in which neither is more fundamental than the other. I argue that these properties and relations are interdependent, but separable, aspects of our representation of temporal change.62 Given this, I maintain that, for Kant, ontological dependence is not always an asymmetric relation.63 Ultimately, my line of argumentation, which supports the interdependence of these properties and relations, will also support Kant’s idealism about time.

To begin with, section two presents the extant case in the literature for the dependence of the B series relations on the A series properties based on Kant’s temporal idealism. Accepting the claim that Kant’s idealism has this implication, I argue that there remains an issue about whether the A series properties might also depend on the B series relations. Section three takes up this issue and presents an argument for the dependence of the A series properties on the B series relations based on Kant’s commitment to the incompatibility in and intelligibility of change as an object of experience. This section argues that, for Kant, the intelligibility of the mutually incompatible A series properties depends on

B series relations. Taking this result from section three, together with that of section two,

62 In “”, McTaggart (1908: 459) relies on a significant claim about change in his argument for the unreality of time: time depends on change. However, he never provides a definition of change. McTaggart’s argument for idealism cannot be fully analyzed without an identification of the kind of change that is required for time. 63 In “Symmetric Dependence”, Elizabeth Barnes argues that ontological dependence is not always an asymmetric relation.

102 section four presents a Kantian argument that the A series properties and B series relations are interdependent and shows that his idealism is best able to account for intelligible dynamic change. Finally, section five provides a brief summary of the significance of Kant’s position for the contemporary A series / B series debate.

2. Kant and the Dependence of the B series on the A series

This section focuses on Walker as a representative of the current stance in the Kant literature on the relationship between A series properties and B series relations.64 This discussion is not intended to refute Walker’s argument for the dependence of B series relations upon A series properties. Based on Kant’s temporal idealism alone, it is plausible to think that B series relations are only something in relation to A series properties. However, I argue that the current discussion is incomplete because Kant’s commitment to transcendental temporal idealism leaves open the possibility that A series properties also depend on B series relations. This possibility is further examined in section three.

Consider a passage from Walker that orients Kant in relation to McTaggart’s distinction between the A and the B series:

For Kant time is a form of intuition. Time and space are matrices which we use to order the data given to us. As such, they are inevitably indexical, understood in terms of ‘now’ and ‘here’. This is the “time” of McTaggart’s A-series, the series of events understood in terms of past, present and future. Like McTaggart, Kant would have held that it is only through this that we can understand the B-series, the series of

64 In Themes in Kant’s Ethics and Metaphysics, Melnick connects the dependence of the B series on the A series with Kant’s idealism understood as constructionism: “in Kant’s account before and after (viz., McTaggart’s B-series) are not “constructible” apart from my presently being up to a certain stage in temporizing (the “cut” between the past and the present that belongs to McTaggart’s A series). Since the B- series exists in construction as only as dependent upon and fixed in terms of the A-series, McTaggart’s argument, which depends in effect on an independent B-series, is blocked” (Melnick 2004: 120).

103 events understood in terms of ‘before’, ‘after’ and dating systems. (Walker 2017: 209)

Walker points out, in this passage, that time and space are identified with structures that order the perception of temporal and spatial things. In this way, time and space have an indexical character as always linking us to a now and a here, respectively. The divide between A series and B series positions hinges on the issue of whether there is a metaphysical difference between the present in contrast to the past and future. B series relations of being earlier than, later than, and simultaneous with do not depend on any privileged present moment, while A series properties do so depend. In this way, A series properties change, while B series relations remain. Walker’s claim is that the indexical structure of inner sense implies that our cognitive grasp of B series relations depends on the experience of a privileged now—an A series property.

I agree with Walker’s claim that inner sense has an indexical nature that in turn implies the dependence of the representation of B series relations upon A series properties.65

Kant’s innovative transcendental approach in his mature critical philosophy is to suppose that the world is fitted to our forms of cognition rather than vice versa. With this in mind, it makes sense to interpret Kant’s position, as Walker does, as the view that the structure of human cognition is reflected in the structure of the world. Thus, the B series relations of objects depend on the A series properties as a fundamental aspect of our perception of time.

However, reflecting on Kant’s transcendental idealism suggests that this is not the complete story. Kant’s transcendental idealism distinguishes between time and temporal relations of objects, and his idealism identifies time with that which enables one to perceive

65 I do not fully examine Walker’s argument here. Ralf Bader’s 2017 “Inner Sense and Time” also provides a defense of a similar view that time as the form of inner sense has an indexical nature.

104 the temporal relations of objects. In other words, time, as a condition of experience, is distinct from temporal relations of objects themselves qua objects of experience. Given this distinction, Walker’s argument can only provide part of the story about Kant’s views on time because it focuses solely on the status of the B series relations of objects by emphasizing the series of temporal relations of events. Since Kant’s transcendental idealism distinguishes between time qua condition of experience and the temporal features of experienced objects, it is necessary to also consider the structure of time itself, beyond the objects that it indexically links us to.66 This is especially important because the role of inner sense in making the perception of the temporal “now” possible contrasts with the role of outer sense in making the perception of the spatial “here” possible. Though they are both indexical and thus perspectival in nature, there are unique issues about awareness of the A series now that requires attention. In particular, the next section argues that the a priori representation of B series relations enables awareness of the A series now.

3. Kant and the Dependence of the A series on the B series

This section shows that Kant describes the formal structure of inner sense in terms of

B series relations in order to render the incompatible states in change intelligible. This means that insofar as the A series properties of objects are intelligible, they depend on B series relations. Given Kant’s transcendental approach according to which objects conform to our epistemic access to them, this means that the A series properties depend on B series relations.

Taking this result from section three together with the result of section two, I will argue in

66In addition, Kant’s transcendental idealism about space distinguishes between space qua condition of experience and the spatial qualities of objects (A22/B37).

105 section four that A series properties and B series relations are interdependent.

To begin with, understanding Kant’s account of time requires attention to his methodology in developing his unique idealism. It is useful to consider that Kant’s early criticism of Leibniz in the 1755 New Elucidation is that a pre-established harmony account of causation is incompatible with change and therefore incompatible with time (1: 410). Though this critique from his early writings does not determine precisely how time and change relate to each other on his early view, it nonetheless shows that Kant takes them to be related in some way. The relationship between time and change becomes clearer in the context of

Kant’s 1770 Inaugural Dissertation: Kant claims that we can only represent change through the pure intuition of time (2: 401). The pure intuition of time is a representation that derives from the structure of the mind rather than sensation, and it relates us to a single time as a medium in which all temporal objects are oriented. In particular, the function of the pure intuition of time is to enable us to represent the irreducibly temporal incompatibility in change (2: 401). Kant’s account of the relationship between time and change culminates in the 1787 B edition of the Critique of Pure Reason. It is here that one can see most clearly how his position on change leads him to a view that can be described as maintaining that the

A series properties depend on B series relations.

As a preliminary point, it is important to note that Kant’s critical position is that time presents relations rather than properties. More precisely, Kant claims that time as the structure of inner sense contains only relations: “that which, as representation, can precede any act of thinking something is intuition and, if it contains nothing but relations, it is the form of intuition” (B67). Time as a form of intuition is intended to explain our perception, along with our theoretical cognition, of the world. The inherently relational character of our

106 empirical awareness suggests that the a priori structure of inner sense is not that of A series properties.67 However, this is only a negative argument to prepare for further examination of inner sense’s structure.

The transcendental exposition of the concept of time is a section added to the B edition of the Critique of Pure Reason that describes the function of inner sense:

Here I add further that the concept of alteration [Veränderung] and, with it, the concept of motion (as alteration of place), is only possible through and in the representation of time-that if this representation were not a priori (inner) intuition, then no concept, whatever it might be, could make comprehensible the possibility of an alteration, i.e., of a combination of contradictorily opposed predicates (e.g., a thing’s being in a place and the not-being of the very same thing in the same place) in one and the same object [Objecte]. Only in time can both contradictorily opposed determinations in one thing be encountered, namely successively. (B48-49)

In the above passage, Kant claims that our thought of alteration depends on a pure inner intuition of time.68 This pure intuition is a representation of succession that does not derive from sensation but rather structures the relation between our representational states. To deal with the incompatibility in alteration, Kant maintains that this change is dynamic. This means that it involves a coming into existence of a state and a going out of existence of a state because a single thing cannot have both contradictory properties at the same time.69 Notably, such dynamic change is often associated with proponents of the A series and thus, serves as a point of connection with Kant. However, Kant’s transcendental exposition of the concept of

67 One might think that the A series also presents relations. Thus, even if the form of inner sense presents relations, this does not determine that those relations are B series relations. 68 Notably, the “inner” status of the intuition of time is not clearly developed in the Inaugural Dissertation, and its first explicit appearance occurs in the famous 1772 letter to Herz (10: 134). Kant also raises the so-called “fundamental question of metaphysics” in this letter, and it is widely considered to mark Kant’s transition to his critical period. 69 This position is reflected in Kant’s inference in the Analogies that “if they existed in time one after the other (in the order that begins with A and ends at E), then it would be impossible to … proceed backwards to A, since A would belong to a past time, and thus can no longer be an object of apprehension [Gegenstand der Apprehension]” (A211/B258).

107 time aims to explain how we can encounter such dynamic change, and for this task he appeals to an “a priori inner intuition” of succession.70 To clarify this, I will examine Kant’s account of the pure representation of time in the context of what was taken to be standard problems about time in the 18th century.

Dynamic accounts of change raise the following issue for an account of time awareness. At any moment we can only perceive the present state of an object because the past states no longer exist. Thus, we require an explanation of how a mere sequence of representations can be converted into a representation of the A series now as something that changes over time. In other words, the issue concerns how change comes to be a perceptible content. Crucially, the changeable status of the temporal now is what distinguishes it from the spatial here. Augustine provides a seminal statement of this problem in Book XI of the

Confessions, a text that provides background context for the philosophical problems that motivated 18th century discussions of time. In Book XI, Augustine’s solution to this problem is to say that our awareness of the now is due to it being part of a structure in which one remembers the past and expects the future. However, Augustine’s solution cannot resolve the problem of how the A series now comes to be a perceptible content because it is circular; it assumes that one already has access to a change through the memory of something’s being past.71 Not only was Augustine’s discussion of this problem common knowledge in the 18th century, but Kant also quotes Book XI of the Confessions in his writings on time.72

Kant’s appeal to a pure intuition of time resolves the problem of how the changing

70 Here Kant also identifies a role for time in pure mechanics (B49). This emphasis is repeated in the Prolegomena (4: 283). 71 Adrian Bardon (2013: 26) makes a related Kantian point that Augustine’s account cannot answer the question of the origin of our temporal representation. 72 In his 1762 Inquiry, Kant cites a well-known quote from book XI: “What then is time? Provided that no one asks me, I know” (2: 284).

108 now comes to be a perceptible content. The now serves as the ever-changing boundary of the past. But if the past states of an object are no longer available to the perceiver in the current moment, then the representation of empirically real succession does not derive from sensation. As a result, one needs an a priori representation of an unchanging relation of succession if change is to become available as a perceptible content. In other words, rather than a sensation of succession there is a successive structure of the mind that enables the perception of successive states of objects. This pure succession cannot be the representation of A series properties on pain of circularity. Instead, this a priori representation of unchanging B relations of succession is what enables the perception of the changing A series now. Thus, the a priori representation of B series relations makes the incompatibility in change intelligible in the sense that it makes dynamic change available to consciousness and, in turn, enables the thought of change. Thus, A series properties cognitively depend on B series relations. With this in mind, the next section orients this position with respect to

Walker’s claim that B series relations cognitively depend on A series properties. In addition,

I will articulate the sense in which the A series properties and B series relations are interdependent, given a clearer view of Kant’s account of change and its crucial role in his account of time.

4. Kant on the Interdependence of the A Series and B Series

In this section, I will first integrate the results of the prior two sections and articulate the sense in which A series properties and B series relations are interdependent on Kant’s view. Then I will examine why alternative approaches that maintain that one is more fundamental than the other, or opt for irreducible but independent roles for the A series and B

109 series, fail to account for the phenomenon of intelligible dynamic change. I will then propose that the interdependence of the A series and the B series is best able to explain how change as coming into being and going out of being can be intelligible as an object of experience. This in turn will reveal the further point that Kant’s transcendental idealism is best able to account for intelligible dynamic change.

On Walker’s view, Kant’s temporal idealism is the position that inner sense has an indexical structure that picks out a privileged now. On one hand, the indexical status of time accounts for the way in which our time awareness is perspectival in its ordering, and thus emphasizes the privileged A series now. On the other hand, the purpose of the a priori representation of B series relations is to enable our awareness of dynamic A series contents.

In this way, the structure of our awareness of A series contents is inextricably tied to our representation of B series relations. However, the a priori representation of B series succession would be empty without a relation to its A series contents. Given this, neither is to be preferred to the other. On Kant’s view, B series relations and A series properties are separable, but mutually supporting, as the form and content of our representation of temporal change.

We should, however, consider what would be lost by assuming that either of the series is more fundamental. To begin with, consider McTaggart’s position on this issue:

The A and B series are equally essential to time, which must be distinguished as past, present, and future, and must likewise be distinguished as earlier and later than. But the two series are not equally fundamental. The distinctions of the A series are ultimate. (McTaggart 1908: 463)

In this passage, McTaggart claims that the A and B series are both required for time. In fact,

McTaggart claims that both are essential features of our perception of time because we

110 always see the world in terms of past, present, future, and earlier than or later than (1908:

458). This fits well with the Kantian position that we have outlined thus far according to which A series properties and B series relations have a mutually supporting role in enabling the experience of dynamic change. Thus, it may seem that there is no deep disagreement between McTaggart and Kant. McTaggart, however, also insists that the A series is more fundamental, even though both series are necessary aspects of our perception of time. That is, we can say that, for McTaggart, while the A series and B series may be on a par from the perspective of our experience, A series properties play a more basic role in ontology than the

B series relations. This in turn raises a question that remains to be resolved from the preceding discussion; how do Kant’s claims about the representation of time and change translate into claims about the being of time? To answer this, I will reconsider Kant’s insights about our representation of time and change in the context of the ontology of time and change.

Kant’s starting point for theoretical philosophy is the human capacity for cognition and experience. Insofar as one allows that metaphysics explains our experience of the world,

Kant’s insights into our representation of time and change also provide resources for analyzing time qua category of being. With the preceding Kantian resources, I will analyze

McTaggart’s contention that the A series is ontologically more fundamental. Indeed, I will approach this issue broadly by analyzing McTaggart’s suggestion to think of the relationship between the A series and the B series in terms of fundamentality. There are Kantian reasons to resist thinking of the relationship between the A series properties and B series relations in terms of fundamentality. This discussion will provide the opportunity to not only see the advantages of a position upon which they are interdependent, but also to see how Kant’s

111 transcendental idealism is well placed to account for intelligible dynamic change.

On one hand, if the A series were fundamental, then change would be unintelligible.

Without the B series, the incompatible states in a change and the mutually incompatible A series properties would remain inconsistent. This means that change would both fail to be an object of perception and be incomprehensible if one did not have the representation of the relation of before and after. In other words, the incompatible states in a dynamic change are only sensible and intelligible if they are represented in a relation of succession.

On the other hand, if the B series were fundamental, then change would no longer be dynamic because then the successive states would all co-exist as the relata of the relation of succession. Recall that the main distinction between the A series and the B series is whether there is a privileged now. In a B series, whether an event is earlier than another event is independent of what event happens to exist now and thus, there is parity in the ontological status of the items related in a B series succession. Given the parity of times in the B series, the position that the B series is fundamental would imply that the items related in a succession co-exist.73 This is not to suggest that the states of an object would be simultaneous if the B series were fundamental, as co-existence and simultaneity are distinct qualities.

Instead, if the B series were fundamental, the successive states in a change would all be combined together as existent in an object without any coming into or going out of being and thus, would be a static conception of change. Together, this suggests that if one series were more fundamental than the other, then change would either fail to be intelligible or dynamic.

Some qualifications should be made about the strengths and limitations of the preceding line of argumentation. Kant aims to account for intelligible dynamic change, and

73 Although there is temporal parity in the B series, this is consistent with a growing block theory of time. Thus, it is possible to maintain a B series position and reject eternalism.

112 intelligible dynamic change provides the core commitment of the preceding Kantian argument. Of course, one is not required to think of change as both dynamic and intelligible, and this discussion has not provided any argument for this view. This is, however, a standard view about change that philosophers beyond Kant have aimed to preserve in their metaphysics. For example, the contemporary discussion of the problem of temporary intrinsics assumes that there is incompatibility in change, and that the task is to explain how such change can be made consistent or intelligible.74 In this way, the preceding Kantian argument is of interest to anyone that is tempted to endorse dynamic intelligible change. The preceding considerations suggest that those that endorse dynamic intelligible change should not accept McTaggart’s invitation to think of the issue in terms of fundamentality. As I have shown, framing the issue in terms of fundamentality compromises accounts of change that are both dynamic and intelligible.

A parallel Kantian argument can be raised against a position upon which A series and

B series are equally fundamental and independent of each other, and reflection on this argument will ultimately lead to Kantian temporal idealism. The A series properties are mutually incompatible without B series relations and thus, without the B series to structure them they are unintelligible. Without the A series properties, the B series relations would present the change as a combination of states all co-existing in a single object and thus, the change would be static. As a result, if the A series and B series are conceived as co- fundamental and independent of each other, then both of the original problems for the fundamentality approach reappear, along with an additional problem of relating these disparate ways of viewing change to one another.

74 See Ted Sider (2000: 84-85) for a description of the problem of temporary intrinsics as the problem of resolving a contradiction in change.

113 I have argued that treating the A series and B series as independent of each other and co-fundamental compounds problems raised in the original supposition that one might be more fundamental than the other. This suggests that they should be understood as mutually dependent on each other. I have also identified an explanatory role for the B series that is worth further reflection. A cross-temporal B series relation enables the intelligibility of the incompatible predicates in a single subject; one can render the incompatible properties in change intelligible by thinking of them as being had at different times. This, however, leads back to a familiar problem. A cross-temporal B series relation makes dynamic change intelligible, but if the B series relation were in objects, then change would be static in the sense that it would involve no coming into being or going out of being. This leads to the apparently paradoxical result that intelligible dynamic change both requires such a cross- temporal B series relation and is incompatible with it.

The appearance of paradox, however, is merely apparent; one can maintain the intelligibility and dynamic status of change on a temporal idealist position according to which the A series and the B series are interdependent. Given that B series relations make A series properties intelligible, they must play a role in an ontology that preserves the intelligibility of change. Given that such B series relations would compromise the dynamic status of change if they were in objects, cross-temporal B series relations are ideal as the mere form of our perception of change. Moreover, A series contents are only intelligible in relation to these ideal B series relations and thus, these A series contents qua intelligible are mind-dependent as something only in relation to the B series relations that structure our perception of change. Given this, it only requires a small additional step to arrive at temporal idealism. If one endorses the view, as Kant does, that time is what makes change perceptible

114 and thinkable, then one can also say that time is to be identified with the B series relations that structure our perception.75 Time qua ideal B series relations is what makes A series properties of objects perceivable and intelligible, and the B series relations are temporal in virtue of their role in structuring the A series contents without which they would be empty.

Thus, B series relations and A series properties are interdependent as the structure and content of change.

Note that this Kantian position does not preclude B series relations in objects, even though the B series relations that make change intelligible are merely ideal as the structure of our perception of change. This also provides an opportunity to clarify the kind of B series relations that constitute time. Crucially, B series relations of objects will not be identical to the cross-temporal B series relations that render change intelligible because, for example, the past states of objects do not exist to support such relations. This is a consequence of the dynamic account of change according to which the states in a change go into and come out of being. Instead, the B series relations of objects can be understood as consequences of the coming into being and going out of being of A properties of objects. Note that B relations that are derivative upon the A series properties cannot be used to explain the intelligibility of

A series contents themselves; since such B relations are defined in terms of A contents that involve the incompatibility in change, any appeal to such B relations would simply re- introduce the problem of intelligibility to be solved. This indicates the need for a cross- temporal B series relation that is not analyzed in terms of A series contents.76 The ideal cross-temporal B series relations that constitute time as a form of sensibility are primitive and

75 Kant’s “Transcendental Exposition of the Concept of Time” indicates that the primary role of time is to make alteration perceivable and thinkable (B48). 76 Nathan Oaklander (2014) raises this point and analyzes the role of such an irreducible B series relation in change. He refers to irreducible B series relations as “R relations”.

115 independent of A series contents.

In sum, the primitive B series relations as the a priori structure of inner sense makes the mutually incompatible A series contents consistent, while the A series properties are required to provide the dynamic content for ideal B series relations. Though A series contents are mind-dependent in virtue of their intelligibility deriving from ideal B series relations, they are nonetheless real as that through which we are affected by the world.77 On Kant’s view, dynamic succession is real as the most basic way that the world is given to us through the senses, though it could not be so given without the contribution of time as the inherent cognitive architecture of the human mind.

5. Conclusion

Kant’s philosophical writings reveal a longstanding commitment to account for change, which culminates in the B edition of the Critique of Pure Reason. I have argued that

Kant’s account of change leads to a position upon which neither A series properties nor B series relations are more fundamental due to Kant’s position that change is both intelligible and dynamic. Though Kant’s position on time is tied up with his idealism, reflection on his argumentative strategy provides a methodological insight that is useful for understanding contemporary debates. One might approach the A series / B series debate by re-examining the considerations that ground the perceived opposition between these positions. The contemporary proponent of the A series emphasizes that A series properties are changeable, while B series relations are static. In light of this, one might first determine a preferred

77 Kant defines the pure concept of reality as that “to which a sensation in general corresponds” (A143/B182).

116 account of change and then determine whether A series properties and B series relations might play complementary roles in accounting for such change. As I have shown, this approach that prioritizes considerations about change may also have consequences for debates about realism in the philosophy of time.

117

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119 Conclusion

Kant’s account of change is the philosophical foundation for many of his claims concerning time in the Transcendental Aesthetic. The inner status of our representation of time, and the ideality of time, both rest on Kant’s account of change in an object, or alteration, as incompatible determinations in a single thing. I claim that the inner status of time derives from its role enabling the perception of dynamic succession; without an a priori representation of unchanging succession in pure inner sense there would be no empirical awareness of change understood as the coming into being and going out of being of incompatible states of objects. On my interpretation, Kant’s account of change as incompatible states in a single object also supports his idealism according to which time is identified with the form of inner sense through which we perceive change. Kant’s desire to account for change is an enduring theme in his philosophical writings, and recognition of this motivation sheds light on his views about time. In addition, I believe that Kant’s insights into time and change are helpful for re-evaluating traditional problems in the philosophy of time and in contemporary philosophy of time. The preceding chapters have shown that we can read Kant on change and time in relation to his predecessors as well as in relation to contemporary debates in the philosophy of time.

Each of the preceding chapters contributes a part of a story concerning how Kant’s views about change influence his account of time and how it is represented. Chapter One identifies the role of change both in leading Kant to his pre-Critical idealism and in setting

120 the main problematic that he faced in the decade leading up to the Critique of Pure Reason.

The fundamental question of metaphysics and the objection to his idealism about time in the

1772 Letter to Herz all center on the issue of the reality of alteration, which Kant takes to amount to incompatible determinations in a single thing. Developing from this, Chapter Two shows how his account of the inner representation of time in the Critique of Pure Reason is grounded in the account of change from his pre-Critical period. According to Kant, one never directly apprehends an empirical succession at any moment without the mind contributing an a priori structure of succession to what is given through the senses. Developing from this, I show how the account of change as incompatible states in one and the same thing leads to idealism about time in Chapter Three. Kant maintains that incompatibility in change is what makes succession in being possible and thus, succession in being cannot be used to make change itself intelligible without re-introducing incompatibility and unintelligibility. Instead, change is intelligible via time as the a priori structure of succession that we represent in inner sense. Finally, Chapter Four shows how the results of the preceding chapters are relevant for the contemporary A series/B series debate. Roughly, A series proponents take the characteristics of past, present, and future to be fundamental, while B series proponents take an unchanging relation of succession to be fundamental. On a Kantian approach, I claim that neither the A Series nor the B series is prior to the other because taking one to be prior to the other in being would make the incompatibility in change fundamental and generate unintelligibility, or it would make fundamental an empty unchanging structure of succession, which would not be temporal.

I plan to extend my current research into three broad areas: Kant’s philosophy of mathematics, related issues in Kant’s metaphysics of time, and Kant’s philosophy of natural

121 science. The theme of my planned future research is the role of Kant’s conception of change and its relationship to time in the sciences and his broader metaphysics. I propose that Kant’s account of change provides a helpful framework for understanding how he develops his account of the role of time in these diverse areas.

The role of time as the structure of change can shed light on the role of time in mathematics. In contrast with the role of the pure representation of space, the pure representation of time grounds the constructive procedure through which geometric figures and arithmetic representations are generated, rather than the features of what is constructed in accordance with such procedures. For example, the successive extension of a line from a point depends on a pure representation of time even though the line, as a geometric object, is not itself temporally determined. In the process of constructing a quantity, there is a before and after with respect to the manner in which the parts are delimited even if there is no before and after with respect to the delimited object. This constructive procedure also enables us to become aware of properties of mathematical objects, e.g. the shortest distance between two points is a line. Kant’s position is that geometric and arithmetic proof depends on such constructive procedures and they are in the subject. Time qua form of change structures the motion of a subject whereby mathematical objects are constructed, even though time is not a form of the mathematical objects so constructed. This contrasts with empirical cognition in which time is part of the structure of the object cognized. Mathematical construction in time as the form of inner sense makes thoughts of mathematical objects possible in synthetic a priori cognition. This provides background on the role of time in construction that is relevant for both diagrammatic and kinematic interpretations of Kant’s account of construction.

122 In Kant’s 1755 New Elucidation, he presents a critique of Leibniz’s position that there is no external causal interaction among substances. I argue that Kant’s position can be understood as the view that the incompatibility of the states in a change of an object requires reciprocal causal relations to external substances. I claim that the three arguments that Kant gives for his position in the New Elucidation are all variations on the following theme:

Kant’s focus is on whether internal causal grounds can support change, which is understood as a combination of incompatible predicates in a single subject. In short, I claim that Kant argues that wholly internal causal grounds either cannot support the newness or incompatible states in change or they render change unintelligible. Although my aim is to identify common ground between Kant and Leibniz on change, this is not to say that Kant’s arguments, if successful, would refute the possibility of change or alteration within Leibniz’s philosophical system. Instead, my interpretation of the basis of Kant’s critique of Leibniz opens the interpretative space for seeing Kant as targeting a genuine Leibnizian position, even if there are further subtle differences in their respective metaphysics of change.

Given the preceding account of time as the structure of perceived change, this provides the background necessary for understanding why the only science whose subject matter Kant explicitly links with time is pure mechanics, as in the 1770 Inaugural

Dissertation (2:397). In Kant’s 1763 Negative Magnitudes, the later Inaugural Dissertation claim is foreshadowed in his position that the principle of the conservation of motion, as well as the law of inertia, derives its validity from a “metaphysical ground” concerning change (2:

195). In particular, with respect to natural changes, the ground of a change gives rise to a determination and its opposite: for example, when bodies collide, a new motion is initiated in a body that cancels its prior quantity of motion (2: 195). One can use these early texts as a

123 guiding thread, along with the above analysis of the role of time, for understanding the role of time in synthetic a priori cognitions of mechanics in Kant’s 1786 Metaphysical

Foundations of Natural Science. Kant ultimately maintains that time is the structure of perceived change and change implicates relations in space, as was suggested above in Kant’s critique of Leibniz’s pre-established harmony theory of causation. This provides an explanation as to why Kant claims that pure mechanics is a science of time, even though mechanics concerns space as well.

This dissertation project, and my planned future projects, focus on Kant’s account of time in the theoretical philosophy, but leave aside the significance of time in his practical philosophy. Towards the end of his life Kant begins to speak, in the 1794 The End of All

Things, of eternity as duration without time and describes changes in our moral character as non-temporal changes (8: 327 and 8: 334). With a better understanding of Kant’s account of temporal changes in the empirical world and the scope of time in the mathematical and natural sciences, one might also have the tools for a better understanding of the contrast required for clarifying the difference between temporal change in phenomena and non- temporal change in noumena. This would contribute to a systematic understanding of Kant’s philosophy of time in both its theoretical and practical aspects.

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