Section 8
Original German
§ 8.
Allein die Schwierigkeit scheint bei diesem Schritte eher zu wachsen, als abzunehmen. Denn nunmehr lautet die Frage: wie ist es möglich, etwas a priori anzuschauen? Anschauung ist eine Vorstellung, so wie sie unmittelbar von der Gegenwart des Gegenstandes abhängen würde. Daher scheint es unmöglich, a priori ursprünglich anzuschauen, weil die Anschauung alsdann ohne einen weder vorher, noch jetzt gegenwärtigen Gegenstand, worauf sie sich bezöge, stattfinden müßte und also nicht Anschauung sein könnte. Begriffe sind zwar von der Art, daß wir uns einige derselben, nämlich die, so nur das Denken eines Gegenstandes überhaupt enthalten, ganz wohl a priori machen können, ohne daß wir uns in einem unmittelbaren Verhältnisse zum Gegenstande befänden, z. B. den Begriff von Größe, von Ursache etc.; aber selbst diese bedürfen doch, um ihnen Bedeutung und Sinn zu verschaffen, einen gewissen Gebrauch in concreto, d. i. Anwendung auf irgend eine Anschauung, dadurch uns ein Gegenstand derselben gegeben wird. Allein wie kann Anschauung des Gegenstandes vor dem Gegenstande selbst vorhergehen?
Musean translation
Mouseia’s complete machine-assisted Musean translation, made directly from the complete German of the Prolegomena (AA IV 253–383, all §§1–60 and the Appendix), for fidelity, the steps of Kant’s argument, clarity and structure.
§ 8.
Yet at this step the difficulty seems to grow rather than diminish. For the question now reads: how is it possible to intuit something a priori? Intuition is a representation of the sort that would depend immediately on the presence of the object. It therefore seems impossible to intuit a priori originally, since the intuition would then have to occur without an object, present either previously or now, to which it referred, and thus could not be intuition. Concepts, to be sure, are such that we can quite well form some of them a priori—namely, those containing only the thinking of an object in general—without standing in an immediate relation to the object: for example, the concept of magnitude, of cause, and so forth. But even these require a certain use in concreto to give them significance and sense: that is, application to some intuition through which an object corresponding to them is given to us. Yet how can intuition of the object precede the object itself?
Plain English translation
Mouseia’s complete Plain English edition, made independently and directly from the same complete German text.
§ 8.
But with this step the difficulty seems to increase rather than decrease. For the question now is: How is it possible to intuit something a priori? An intuition is a representation of the sort that would depend directly on the object's presence. So it seems impossible to intuit originally a priori. The intuition would then have to occur without an object to which it referred being present either earlier or now, and thus could not be an intuition. Concepts, it is true, are such that we can quite well form some of them a priori without standing in an immediate relation to the object: namely, those that contain only the thought of an object in general, such as the concept of magnitude, of cause, and so on. But even these need a certain concrete use to give them meaning and sense: application to some intuition through which an object of these concepts is given to us. But how can the intuition of an object precede the object itself?
About this section
Section 8 is part of Prolegomena to Any Future Metaphysics by Immanuel Kant. This page sets the German original beside 2 direct-source translations, so any line can be checked against the source. It is section 13 of 72 in the work, which is kept in the European tradition.
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