Now, in order to determine whether schemata can constitute the desired link between the pure conceptions or categories and the manifold of sense, it is necessary to follow closely this account of a schema. Kant unquestionably in this passage treats as a mental image related to a conception what really is, and what on his own theory ought to have been, an individual object related to a conception, i. e. an instance of it. In other words, he takes a mental image of an individual for the individual itself.[7] On the one hand, he treats a schema of a conception throughout as the thought of a procedure of the imagination to present to the conception its _image_, and he opposes schemata not to objects but to _images_; on the other hand, his problem concerns subsumption under a conception, and what is subsumed must be an instance of the conception, i. e. an individual object of the kind in question.[8] Again, in asserting that if I place five points one after another, . . . . . this is an image of the number five, he is actually saying that an individual group of five points is an image of a group of five in general.[9] Further, if the process of schematizing is to enter--as it must--into knowledge of the phenomenal world, what Kant here speaks of as the images related to a conception must be taken to be individual instances of the conception, whatever his language may be. For, in order to enter into knowledge, the process referred to must be that by which _objects of experience_ are constructed. Hence the passage should be interpreted as if throughout there had been written for 'image' 'individual instance' or more simply 'instance'. Again, the process of schematizing, although _introduced_ simply as a process by which an individual is to be subsumed indirectly under a conception, is assumed in the passage quoted to be a process of _synthesis_. Hence we may say that the process of schematizing is a process by which we combine the manifold of perception into an individual whole in accordance with a conception, and that the schema of a conception is the thought of the rule of procedure on our part by which we combine the manifold in accordance with the conception, and so bring the manifold under the conception. Thus the schema of the conception of 100 is the thought of a process of synthesis by which we combine say 10 groups of 10 units into 100, and the schematizing of the conception of 100 is the process by which we do so. Here it is essential to notice three points. In the first place, the schema is a conception which relates not to the reality apprehended but to us. It is the thought of a rule of procedure on our part by which an instance of a conception is constructed, and not the thought of a characteristic of the reality constructed. For instance, the thought of a rule by which we can combine points to make 100 is a thought which concerns us and not the points; it is only the conception corresponding to this schema, viz. the thought of 100, which concerns the points. In the second place, although the thought of time is involved in the schema, the succession in question lies not in the object, but in our act of construction or apprehension. In the third place, the schema presupposes the corresponding conception and the process of schematizing directly brings the manifold of perception under the conception. Thus the thought of combining 10 groups of 10 units to make 100 presupposes the thought of 100, and the process of combination brings the units under the conception of 100.
Photography Report
Kant's Theory of Knowledge — Part 146
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