structures of the context that Kant himself had in view but did not analyze. If we want to understand this definition of time as a form of intuition, the first thing we have to do is to clarify what “intuition” and “form” mean here.
a) An explanation of the notions “form” and “intuition”
As with “concept,” the primary character of an intuition is presentation. A presentation, taken as a presenting [of something], means being directed to and having an object. Intuition and concept are the two modes of presenting that Kant recognizes. Intuition, as a particular kind of presenting, is characterized by the fact that intuition is related immediately to an object and that, in such being-related, the object is immediately given. In the kind of presenting called “intuition,” the object has the possibility of being immediately given, and nothing more. The senses are the ways such giving-of-something occurs. Each sense has its field of givenness and provides a manifold from within that field.
Each sense (and Kant does not analyze this further) has its own distinct field. Colors can never be heard, sounds can never be seen. But colors and sounds each have their own determinate mode of access. And for its part, each sense’s field of givenness embraces a distinct manifold of what can be given perceptually within that field. There is a manifold of colors, of sounds, of smells, and so on. Whatever can be given within the field of a sense must be investigated according to its relevant a priori structure. Kant (like all philosophy up to now) omitted that investigation. Husserl in his early Göttingen lectures was the first [274] to carry out such a specifically phenomenological investigation. He did so usually under the rubric of an Ästhesiologie der Sinne or theory of sense-perception, an elaboration of the relevant structure of color in general, of sound in general, and so forth—as the precondition for anything like a scientific psychology in the sense of research into actual data. Kant did not examine this area in any detailed fashion. He simply took it for granted in its rough contours, and within certain limits it was sufficient for his purposes.
Kant saw that the manifold of each sense’s field of givenness has the determinate character of “one-after-another” or of “at-the-sametime.” This applies to each particular sense and to sense in general. Insofar as it is a manifold, whether in the general or specific sense, it has the character of manifold-ness. To put it more generally and yet more specifically, Kant saw that the manifold of every field of sense has the determinate character of one-after-another or of at-the-sametime.50 It does not matter whether the self-giving manifold of a sense’s
50. [More literally: “Kant has seen that the manifold of such a field of givenness, whether of one sense or of sense in general, insofar as it is a manifold, is