Example: Kant's concept of a "line"
'In order to know anything in space - for instance, a line - I must draw it, and thus synthetically bring into being a determinate connection of the given manifold, so that the unity of this act is at the same time the unity of conscious ness (in the concept of a line) and it is precisely through this that an object (a certain space) is known' (B 137-138)
- concept of a line: serves as a rule (procedure) for connecting
- mode of connection: by drawing
- this connecting realizes the required consistency and coherence of a line in our mind
- role of concepts: serve as unifying functions of consciousness applied to spatio-temporal patterns which:
'are nothing to us, and do not in the least concern us if they cannot be taken up into consciousness' (A 116).
©1998,M.Bettoni,CZM,Fachhochschule beider Basel
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