BODY AND PRACTICE IN KANT

172
SPATIAL EXPERIENCE AND THE BODY IN THE CRITIQUE
In the Aesthetic I ascribed this unity merely to sensibility, only in
order to note that it precedes all concepts, though to be sure it
presupposes a synthesis, which does not belong to the senses but
through which all concepts of space and time first become possible. (B
161-162, note)
The passage has to be read slowly in order to not miss what is said. Time
and space has a unity that is prior to all concepts. As such, the idea of this
unity belongs within the context of the Transcendental aesthetic where
sensibility is described in abstraction from the understanding. Still this
unity presupposes a synthesis that does not belong to the senses. What is
to be inferred from this? What may be inferred, I think, is that the theory
of sensibility in the Transcendental aesthetic does presuppose activity, i.e.
synthesis, after all. How? This question is answered in two steps in the
footnote at B 161-162.
First Kant states that the concepts of time and space are made
possible through synthesis, then he goes a step further. Through the
synthesis by which the understanding determines sensibility, space and
time, considered as intuitions, are originally given.
For since through it (as the understanding determines the sensibility)
space or time are first given as intuitions, the unity of this a priori
intuition belongs to space and time, and not to the concept of the
understanding (B 162, note, my emphasis)
The passage comes late in the B-deduction in a footnote and the point is
made only once. It is therefore possible to argue that it should not be
given much weight. It might be a mistake or not express an idea that
Kant really wanted to put forward.
I think the opposite. I think the position stated in the passage at B 162
represents Kant’s final position. Kant does not specify, that is right,
which of the previously mentioned syntheses that he has in mind at this
point, and given the rather complex taxonomy of syntheses that he has
offered, I will for the moment abstain from making a guess. The
significant point, however, is that he now, as he did in the A-deduction,
explicitly states that space (and) time are first given as intuitions through
our own synthesizing activity. In this sense, our basic representation of
space presupposes the activity of the mind, or of the cognitive self. And
this was what I set out to prove here.