An appearance is an object of an empirical intuition (A20/B1, A35/B52). An example of an appearance is the house standing before me
(A190/B235).
Outer intuition takes place through sensation, which provides a manifold
to the mind, while inner intuition takes place by a turning of the mind to its inner states, through inner sense. Corresponding to the distinction between outer and inner intuitions, there are outer and inner appearances. Outer appearances, such as a house, are in space, presented as such by outer sense. Inner appearances, which one and all are internal states of the mind of the intuiting subject, are presented in inner sense in time but not space (A22/B37). Outer appearances are also in time, because outer intuitions are determinations of the mind. [T]ime is an a priori condition of all appearances generally: it is the direct condition of inner appearances (of our souls) and precisely thereby also, indirectly, a condition of outer appearances
(A34/B50-1).
Appearances are the matter
of intuition. Outer intuitions have space as their form, while the form of inner intuitions is time. As the matter, appearances are determinable
(capable of spatial and temporal properties), and space and time as their forms are the basis of the determination of their specific spatial and temporal properties. Thus, outer appearances have a location in space as well as other spatial characteristics, such as size and shape as well as a location in time, as noted in the last paragraph.
When the notion of an appearance is introduced for the first time in the Critique, it is described as the undetermined
object of intuition (A20/B34). A non-sensuous factor that determines appearances is the rules of the understanding, whose basis is the categories of understanding, which prescribe how objects fit together in space and time to constitute objects of experience.
However, on many occasions appearances are treated as being such objects, as for example, [A concept] is use empirically if it is referred merely to appearances, i.e., to objects of possible experience
(A238/B298).
Bound together into a coherent whole by the laws of the understanding, appearances make up a realm or world which is called nature.
By nature (in the empirical meaning of the term) we mean the coherence of appearances as regards their existence according to necessary rules, i.e., according to laws
(A216/B263). Reason forms ideas of a totality of nature which represent it either as limited or as unlimited in various ways. This leads to a conflict of reason with itself, as described in the Antinomy of Pure Reason.
Appearances are not cognized by means of the understanding or reason alone, but their cognition must take into account the fact that they are sensible objects, which are not, contrary to Leibniz and his followers, confusedly presented objects of the intellect. Attempts to apply purely intellectual principles to them lead to false conclusions, as described in the Amphiboly of Concepts of Reflection.
Because of their essential tie to sensibility, appearances are phenomena,
that is, mere beings of sense, and not noumena,
beings of the understanding. [C]ertain objects as appearances are called by us beings of sense (phenomena), because we distinguish the way in which we intuit them from the character that they have in themselves
(A253).
In places, the basis or cause of appearances is said to be, or possibly be, or necessarily be, the basis
or cause
of appearances. [I]n general we must—in thought—lay a transcendental object at the basis of appearances although we know nothing about this object as to what it is in itself
(A540/B568, cf. Prolegomena, 314-15).
Appearances are distinguished throughout the Critique from things in themselves. Reason considers objects as things in themselves when it considers them without taking into account the character of our sensibility
(A28/B44). In abstraction from intuition, objects are not considered as sensible and in this sense are not objective
(A35/B51). As a consequence, space and time are nothing apart from the conditions of human sensible intuitions, and therefore so are appearances in space and time (A36/B52).
Despite not being things in themselves, appearances are objective beings. Appearance (Erscheinung) is not to be confused with illusion (Schein,) which is subjective cognition, such as that of color, which depends on the particular situation of a perceiver (A28-9, B44-5). Appearances are empirically real,
while being as well transcendentally ideal.
The objective reality of appearances is not the same as the subjective reality of the sensations through which they are given.
In one place in both editions, there is the following passage: Appearance always has two sides. One is the side where the object is regarded in itself (without regard to the way it is intuited, which is precisely why its character always remains problematic). The other is the side where we take account of the form of the intuition of this object
(A38/B55). This is a basis for interpreting appearances as distinct from mental entities.
However, at points in both editions of the Critique, appearances are said to be presentations (or representations, Vorstellungen). For example, . . . being appearances, [this entire character of objects and all their relations in space and time—indeed, even space and time themselves] cannot exist in themselves, but can exist only in us
(A42/B59, cf. Prolegomena 288). If presentations are taken to be internal states of the mind (as with the application of time to outer appearances discussed above), it seems to follow that appearances are mind-dependent objects, reminiscent of Berkeley’s ideas,
which exist in the mind.
The Berkeley-like account of appearances is developed most fully in the Fourth Paralogism of the first edition, which was replaced wholesale in the second and subsequent editions. There it is stated, To be sure, space itself and all its appearances are, as presentations, only in me
(A375). Also wholly replaced is the Transcendental Deduction, which states most explicitly, Appearances are not things in themselves, but are the mere play of our presentations, which in the end amount to determinations of our inner sense
(A101).
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