Blackwell Reference Online

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E pistemology, metaphysics An important section of Kant 's Critique of Pure Reason , dealing with a procedure of judgment that adapts the categories or pure concepts of understanding to experience . Kant held that schematism is necessary because the categories do not have their origin in experience. He argued that an application of the categories in experience is possible because each category has an empirical counterpart or schema. It is not an image , but a rule for production of images. Each schema is a transcendental determination in time . For example, the schema of substance is permanence of the real in time, and the schema of necessity is the existence of an object at all time. In a sense, a schema is just the category itself with the condition of temporality added. As universal and a priori , the schema is homogeneous with the category, but it is also homogeneous with appearance because it involves imagination , time, and the empirical representation of the manifold contained in time. With these characteristics, the schema can mediate between the concept and intuition , which are otherwise heterogeneous, and enable judgments to take place. Without the schema, the concepts are insignificant because only with the aid of schema can they be applied to phenomena. Some critics argue that the schematism restates rather than solves the problem ... log in or subscribe to read full text