i.e., in terms of the fact that the now points away from itself. The highlighting is not a matter of contemplating this structure, but of following it as it points away from itself; and that is where the unthematic becomes thematic. Thus the various modes of the synthesis speciosa temporis are grounded in the way the unthematic pre-view of the now and the now-sequence is carried out. Insofar as these syntheses have a transcendental a priori character, they are antecedent. The syntheses are modes of the antecedent, unthematic pre-viewing of the pure now-sequence.
Earlier, however, we used this phenomenon of a prior, unthematic pre-view to interpret what Kant calls the form of pure intuition. From this point on, let us try to further clarify the schema of substance in its character as synthesizing. That wherein substance is sensibly depicted is persistence. But according to Kant (B 225–226), persistence represents time itself. In this synthesis, there occurs a highlighting of the whole sequence of nows. In other words, the “something” to which every now points is understood as the “something” in every now, “at all times.” Here the synthesis speciosa relates antecedently and unthematically to the whole of time; and so here the pure image of time shows up most purely. This corresponds to the fact that, since antiquity, substance has been understood as the basic category. The schema of substance is therefore the most original and most pure in its [400] pre-viewing of the whole of time with regard to its pure character of referring to the “something” as the same at all times, that is, for the whole of time. Therefore, the mode of this most original synthesis speciosa is the prior and constant allowing of the same to encounter us. This preeminent, prior, unthematic taking-a-look is the primary a priori constitution of what Kant calls the form of intuition.147 Thus that which shows up in the Transcendental Aesthetic seemingly formally and generally as a characterization of time is now uncovered as the fundamental and first synthesis speciosa temporis.
§36. The now-structure that we have attained: its character of referral and of making present. The phenomenal demonstrability and limits of Kant’s interpretation of time
According to Kant, to intuit this form, this pure pre-viewing of the sequence of nows (which is to be understood in the phenomenologically clarified sense of the now), is time itself. Time as this pre-viewing is related (unthematically) to time as the pure sequence of nows,
147. [Reading “mit Form der Anschauung” (Moser, p. 799.13), instead of “mit Form anzuschauen.”]