BODY AND PRACTICE IN KANT

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THE RELATIONAL CATEGORIES
we use the movement of the sun or another object to determine time are
such practices. This problem is followed up in a further discussion in the
next chapter
As for the secondary literature, with a few significant exceptions I
have found little of immediate relevance to what I shall discuss in this
chapter. 2
Of course, the textual passages on which my interpretation is
based have frequently been discussed but these discussions have mostly
taken a rather different direction from the one I will be pursuing.
10.1 The analogies of experience
First, let us take a look at Kant’s discussion of the relational categories,
and the function he ascribes to them within his theory of time. As we
have seen, according to Kant, the categories do not all determine time in
the same way. The transcendental schema of quantity merely produces a
time flow [Zeitreihe] (A 145/B 184). In order to have a representation of
time order [Zeitordnung] we need something more. We need the
transcendental schemata of the relational categories of substance,
causality and interaction. The distinction made between time flow and
time order may be interpreted as a distinction between subjective and
objective time. Through empirical apprehension a first, primitive time is
produced, and sensations or perceptions are located in this time. This,
however, does not tell me anything about the objective order of time,
that is, the time order of the objective world. All I know at this point is
the temporal succession of my subjective representations. How is it
possible for us to know, then, that there also exists an objective time
order? And what does it mean to say that such an order exists?
Kant’s answer to this question is presented in his theory of the
transcendental schemata corresponding to the three relational categories.
This theory is provided in the chapter entitled the Analogies of
experience, consisting of what Kant refers to as three analogies. Each
analogy is connected to one of the three relational categories, and each
consists of a principle followed by a proof.
2
An exception is Kambartel (1976). Cf. also Melnick (1989). As part of his
general attempt to interpret the categories at the level of human behavior, he
argues, for instance, that the relational category of substance may be interpreted
as referring to our capacity to perform certain procedures characterized by a
temporally extending behavior (1989), 86. Saugstad presents an externalist
interpretation of the Kantian notion of causation in Saugstad (1993a), 219ff, cf.
also Saugstad (1992), 383.