Kant´s Notion of a Transcendental Schema. Lara Scaglia

a mere unclear outline to addressing the form through which the coordination of impressions is possible. Finally, since the notion of schema occurs in reference to space and time, I shall analyse how Kant positions himself in contemporary debates over realism and idealism about space and time.

2.1 The metaphysical notion of schema in the Nova Dilucidatio

      The first appearance of Kant’s use of the term ‘schema’ is found in the Principiorum Primorum Cognitionis Metaphysicae Nova Dilucidato of the year 1755. The aim of this work, presented by Kant to receive permission to teach philosophy at the Faculty of Königsberg, is to clarify the first principles of knowledge. The New Elucidation (Nova Dilucidatio) deals with the value of the principles of non-contradiction and sufficient reason, from which Kant derives two principles of metaphysical knowledge: succession and coexistence. The former establishes that the possibility of change in a substance depends on its connection to other substances; the latter affirms that without a common principle of existence (the divine understanding), no relation among substances would be possible. It is first in the demonstration and second in the clarification of the latter that the noun ‘schema’ can be found.

      According to the demonstration of the principle of succession each substance is separated and intelligible in itself and has no relation to the others, since they are not the cause of each other’s existence. Therefore, to explain the relation among substances, it is necessary to address their common cause, God, intended as a general principle of existence of all entities. However, this reference is not sufficient, because it might be the case that God caused the existence of separated entities, without them having relation to each other. For this reason a further clarification is needed, namely that God determines not only the existence but also the mutual relations of things and it is in this context where Kant speaks for the first time of a certain ‘schema’:

“But it does not follow from the fact that God simply established the existence of things that there is also a reciprocal relation between those things, unless the self-same schema of the divine understanding (intellectus divini schema), which gives existence, also ←45 | 46→established the relations of things to each other, by conceiving their existences as correlated with each other.”(AA I, p. 413)⁵²

      Later on, in the context of the clarification of the principle of coexistence, a second occurrence of the notion of a schema is found:

“The schema of the divine understanding, the origin of existences, is an enduring act (it is called preservation); and in that act, if any substances are conceived by God as existing in isolation and without any relational determinations, no connection between them and no reciprocal relation would come into being.” (AA I, p. 414)⁵³

      In this passage, Kant explains that God’s activity, which brings things into existence and mutual commerce, is not an instantaneous and punctual act, but rather an enduring one, called conservation, thus providing the reason why things endure and have relations persisting in time.

      As demonstrated in lines mentioned above, the notion of schema in this work possesses a mere metaphysical sense: it refers to a divine project or organisation, and it can be regarded as a synonym for ‘divine understanding’. It is close to a general and common way of using the term as a synonym for order, structure and it is thus far from the epistemological and logical views of some of Kant’s predecessors.

2.2 The new significance of schema in the Dissertation from 1770. A first reference to the problem of objectivity

      As already anticipated the literature on the use of ‘schema’ in the pre-critical writings is scarce. In the Kant-Lexikon Martin Schönefeld refers only indirectly to ‘schemata’, in order to explain the forms of the sensible world, without further inquiring if there is a distinction between the meaning of ‘schema’ in the Dissertation from 1770 and the Critique of Pure Reason. Moreover, in the Historisches Wörterbuch der Philosophie Stegmeier (Stegmeier 1992, pp. 1249–1252) only reports where the term ‘schema’ appears in the text, while Jiménez Rodríguez claims that the Dissertation from 1770 contains the first, ←46 | 47→clearest anticipation of the chapter of schematism of the Critique. More specifically, she points out that the work includes theories - such as: the definition of space and time as formal principles, the distinctions between empirical and pure intuitions, between receptivity and spontaneity as well as between form and content - that will be reechoed in the Critique (Jiménez Rodríguez 2016, p. 431).

      In the following sections, I shall stress that after the Dilucidatio of 1755 ‘schema’ is taken up again only fifteen years later, namely in the dissertation De mundi intelligibilis atque sensibilis forma et principiis from 1770. As the term, here, refers to the notions of the forms of the worlds I will give a short overview of this topic.

2.2.1 Schema and the forms of the worlds

      Thanks to his Dissertation Kant obtained the position of Professor of Logics and Metaphysics at Königsberg. One of the main themes of the De mundi intelligibilis atque sensibilis forma et principiis lies in the antinomical (Hinske 1980) contrast between the laws of the understanding and of the pure reason and those of the intuitive faculty, which implies a distinction between two kinds of knowledge (intellectual and empirical) and two kinds of entities: phenomena, objects “as they appear” in sensibility and things in themselves.

      With this sharp distinction between intelligible and sensible levels, Kant situates himself in accordance with traditional views such as those of Alexander Gottlieb Baumgarten and Christian Wolff, while through his reference to the notion of form he distances himself from them, introducing a novelty regarding the theory of sensibility. According to Kant, the unity and organisation of empirical elements is provided not by the matter itself, but by formal principles, which, although not sensible, are implied in the constitution of the objects of experience. Although defined as forms, these principles are not conceived as the ancient ousia, as a static and immutable essence of a thing, rather they are dynamic relations, coordinative functions:

“Form, which consists in the co-ordination, not in the subordination, of substances. For co-ordinates are related to one another as complements to a whole, while subordinates are related to one another as caused and cause, or, generally, as principle and that which is governed by principle.’ The former relationship is reciprocal and homonymous, so that any correlate is related to the other as both determining it and being determined by it.” (AA II, p. 390)⁵⁴←47 | 48→

      It is precisely in reference to the explanation of the constitution of sensible objects, i.e. representations, that the first use of the term ‘schema’ in the work is found. As the author states, each sensible representation is given both by matter, which reveals the presence of something sensible, although it depends in its quality also on the nature of the subject, and by form:

“Moreover, just as the sensation which constitutes the matter of a sensible representation is, indeed, evidence for the presence of something sensible, though in respect of its quality is dependent upon the nature of the subject insofar as the latter is capable of modification by the object in question, so also the form of the same representation is undoubtedly evidence of a certain reference in what is sensed, though properly speaking it is not an outline or any kind of schema of the object, but only a certain law, which is inherent in the mind and by means of which it co-ordinates for itself that which is sensed from the presence of the object.” (AA II. p. 393)⁵⁵

      Here “schema” or “the outline” refers no longer to the divine understanding as it did in the Dilucidatio, but to an unclear image, a “shadow” (adumbratio in the Latin text), which is opposed to form, because