[5] It is here assumed that this is Kant's normal view of the phenomenal character of our knowledge. Cf. p. 75.
The above may be said to represent the train of thought by which Kant arrived at his doctrine of time and the inner sense. It was reached by combining recognition of the fact that we come to be aware not only of the details of the physical world, but also of the successive process on our part by which we have attained this knowledge, with the view that our apprehension of this successive process is based on 'sense', just as is our apprehension of the world. But the question remains whether Kant is, on his own principles, entitled to speak of an inner sense at all. According to him, knowledge begins with the production in us of sensations, or, as we ought to say in the present context, appearances by the action of things in themselves. These sensations or appearances can reasonably be ascribed to external sense. They may be ascribed to sense, because they arise through our being _affected_ by things in themselves. The sense may be called external, because the object affecting it is external to the mind, i. e. independent of it. In conformity with this account, internal sense must be the power of being affected by something internal to the mind, i. e. dependent upon the mind itself, and since being affected implies the activity of affecting, it will be the power of being affected by the mind's own activity.[6] The activity will presumably be that of arranging spatially the sensations or appearances due to things in themselves.[7] This activity must be said to produce an affection in us, the affection being an appearance due to ourselves. Lastly, the mind must be said to arrange these appearances temporally. Hence it will be said to follow that we know only the appearances due to ourselves and not ourselves, and that time is only a determination of these appearances.[8]
[7] The precise nature of the activity makes no difference to the argument.
[8] In B. 152 fin., M. 93 fin. Kant expresses his conclusion in the form that we know ourselves only as we appear to ourselves, and not as we are in ourselves (cf. p. 75). The above account, and the criticism which immediately follows, can be adapted, _mutatis mutandis_, to this form of the view.