Formale Anschauung

Abstract

Abstract Kant’s distinction between “form of intuition” and “formal intuition” in the Critique of Pure Reason is a crucial one. It highlights the fact that, even while the manifold of sensible intuition is given to us, the forms of space and time are, in themselves, a product of our understanding. The way Kant introduces “formal intuition” is, of course, highly problematic, but it nevertheless stimulated the post-Kantian debates, with subsequent authors following him in one direction or the other. Setting out from Kant’s notion of formal intuition, this paper advances the thesis that the question of whether space and time as such can be derived from our understanding is at the core of the debates that make up much of post-Kantian philosophy. Examining an argument between Jacobi and Hegel, it goes on to argue that the Kantian notion of formal intuition is closely connected to our very understanding of being a subject in time.