The Southern Journal of Philosophy (1986) Vol. XXIV, No.

HEIDEGGER, KANT, AND THE

PROBLEM OF TRANSCENDENCE
Alberto Moreiras
University 0/ Georgia
This paper will focus on Heidegger's repetition of the Kantian
solution to the problem of transcendence. F"'or Kant a laying of the
foundation of nletaphysics is possible only if the ground of the
possibility of ontological knowledge is established. Ontological
knowledge is only possible if there exists such a thing as transcendence
for finite beings; in other words, ifthe knowledge of an object in general
is at all possible for a human being. Kant's laying of the foundation of
metaphysics is in some ways an enterprise parallel to Heidegger's
fundamental ontology. The question oftranscendence is crucial to both
projects, and it is therefore an essential aspect of Heidegger's critique of
Kant. But Heidegger's critique underwent a substantial modification
between Being and Time (1927) and Kant and the Problem 0/
Metaphysics (1929).
According to Being and Time, in order to build a fundamental
ontology it is necessary to give an "ontological analytic of Dasein" (36).
In this respect "time needs to be explicated primordially as the horizon
for the understanding ofBeing, and in terms oftemporality as the Being
of Dasein, which understands Being" (39). In The Basic Problems 0/
Phenomenology (1927) and Kant and the "Problem 0/ Metaphysics
Heidegger, still moving in the direction of his ontological analytic,
concentrates upon Kant because Kant is "the first and only person who
has gone any stretch of the way towards investigating the dimension of
Temporality or has even let himself be drawn hither by the coercion of
the phenomena themselves" (BT 45).1 Heidegger's confrontation with
Kant is a radical moment ofthe early Heideggerian project. Indeed it is
a radical moment in the history of contemporary thought, as I shall try
to show.

Alberto Moreiras got his Licenciatura in Philosophy at the University ofBarcelona. He

has published several articles on contemporary Spanish and Latin American authors. He
is coeditor of the literary journal ULULA, and a doctoral candidate in Romance
Languages at the University ofGeorgia. His dissertation (in progress) is on the concepts of
mimesis and phronesis in the works ofJose Lezama Lima. He is also working on a book
about the Spanish poet Jose Hierro.

81
 For Being and Time Kant's fundamental ontology failed because
Kant "could never achieve an insight into the problematic of
Temporality." Two things prevented Kant from it: in the first place, he
"took over Descartes' position dogmatically;" in the second place, "his
analysis of [time] remained oriented towards the traditional way in
which time had been ordinarily understood." As a consequence, "the
decisive connection between time and the '[ think' was shrouded in utter
darkness; it did not even become a problem" (BT 45). But in 1929
Heidegger reinterpreted Kant seeking "to reveal the basic import of[the
Critique 0/ Pure Reason] by bringing out what Kant 'intended to say' "
(KPM 206).2 The result of such hermeneutical analysis was that
Heidegger inverted his former assertion about Kant:
Time and the "I think" are no longer opposed to one another as unlike and incompatible;
they are the same. Thanks to the radicalism with which, in the laying ofthe foundation of
metaphysics, Kant for the first time subjected time and the "I think", each taken
separately, to a transcendental interpretation, he succeeded in bringing them together in
their primordial identity-without, to be sure, having seen this identity expressly as such
(KPM 197).

The possibility offinite ontological knowledge-oftranscendence for

a human being-was expressed by Kant in his formulation ofthe "highest
principle of all synthetic judgments:" "the conditions of the possibility
0/ experience in general are at the same time conditions of the
possibility o/the objects 0/experience"( CPR A 138, B 197). According
to Heidegger it is only the identification of time and the 'I think'-of
temporality and the Dasein-which succeeds in securely establishing
the possibility of transcendence of the finite being, therefore setting the
"highest principle of all synthetic judgments" on firm grounds.
Heidegger's repetition of Kant in his Kant-book claims success in
"loosening up" Kant's laying of the foundation of metaphysics, "thus
aiding this foundation ... to realize its own primordial possibility"
(KPM 208).
The question informing my inquiry is how was it possible for
Heidegger to reinterpret Kant to the point of identifying the Kantian
transcendental imagination with Temporality. The import of this was
intimated by Heidegger hirnself, who considered his repetition of Kant a
true overcoming of Transcendental Idealism. Heidegger's Kant-
interpretation enables hirn to reassess the philosophical tradition by
condemning Post-Kantianism as paradoxically representing the death
of philosophy.

Heidegger first elaborates on the Kantian idea of transcendence and

the transcendental in the context of his exposition and phenom-
enological critique of the "Thesis of Modern Ontology" in The Basic
Problems 0/ Phenomenology (122-54). Kant calls transcendental "all

82
knowledge which is occupied not so much with objects as with our mode
ofknowing objects insofar as this knowledge is supposed to be possible
apriori" (CPR B 25; BPPh 127-38). The condition of aB knowledge is
for Kant the ego as "I think". Kant characterizes the ego as res cogitans
foBowing Descartes. The "I think" accompanies aB our representations
in such a way that "it is only on the basis of the 'I think' that any
manifold can be given to me"(BPPh 127). Kant develops the Cartesian
position with the notion of the original synthetic unity of apperception
(CPR B 134-39). As synthetic unity of apperception the ego becomes the
ground of all being. Accordingly, the categories have to be defined as
"the possible forms of unity of the possible modes of the thinking ego"
(BPPh 129). The ego comes in this way to be "the fundamental
ontological condition, the transcendental that lies at the basis of every
particular apriori" (BPPh 129).
But Kant's interpretation of the transcendental ego fails to give us a
clue as to the ego's specific mode ofbeing. In fact Kant observes in "The
Paralogisms of Pure Reason" (CPR B 399 ff.) that the transcendental
ego's mode of being cannot be adequately explained, for there is no
possibility of an application of the categories to the ego as "I think". As
condition of the possibility of the "I think", the ego is at the same time
the condition of possibility of the categories. "Since these categories are
conditioned by the ego, they cannot be applied in turn to the ego in
order to apprehend it. That which conditions absolutely, the ego as the
original synthetic unity of apperception, cannot be determined with the
aid of what is conditioned by it" (BPPh 144). The threat of a vicious
circle precludes an ontological determination of the ego.
For Heidegger Kant's failure comes from taking "the type of
knowledge which is valid for nature as the sole possible basis for
knowledge ofthe ego"(BPPh 146). Heidegger's way out ofthis Kantian
dead end is at the core ofhis turnabout with respect to the totality ofthe
ontological tradition. Rather than accepting the fact that the ego cannot
be ontologically interpreted Heidegger seeks to establish a new
ontological interpretation of the transcendental subject, which finds its
ground in a previous determination of the subject's mode of being as
distinct from that of extant entities. Categories would then not be
applicable to an ontological apprehension of the subject. Being and
Time had already laid out that previous groundwork. At this stage ofhis
confrontation with Kant Heidegger's task is to offer a concept of
transcendence which holds fast to the discoveries of his analytic.
Transcendence, for Heidegger, must be understood in view of the
basic constitution of Dasein, which is being-in-the world. Over against
Kant's concept of the transcendental ego, for Heidegger it is being-in-
the-world which makes possible the apprehension of anything at all.
Extants are encountered always as intraworldly beings. The concept of
world, says Heidegger, "is what has hitherto not been recognized in

83
philosophy" (BPPh 165). As already present in advance before the
totality of intraworldly beings, world is the transcendent:
World is understood beforehand when objects encounter us ... The mode ofbeing ofthe
world is not the extantness of objects; instead, the world exists. The world ... is the truly
transcendent, that which is still further beyond than objects, and at the same time this
beyond is, as an existent, a basic determination of being in the world, of the Dasein. If the
world is the transcendent, then what is truly transcendent is the Dasein. With this we first
arrive at the genuine ontological sense 0/ transcendence (BPPh 299)

Transcendence meant for Kant the self-relating of the subject to

objects in the synthetic unity of apperception. The original deter-
mination of the mode of being of Dasein as being-in-the-world enables
Heidegger to move beyond Kant by asserting that, since the Dasein is as
such beyond itself, in the world, self and world are not two different
beings, but "belong together in the single entity, the Dasein" (BPPh
297). The overcoming of the Kantian position is made explicit in the
following words: "Transcendence is ... the presupposition for the
Dasein's having the character of a self. The selfhood of the Dasein is
Jounded on its transcendence, and the Dasein is not first an ego-self
which then oversteps something or other. The 'toward-itself' and the
'out-from-itself' are implicit in the concept of selfbood. What exists as a
self can do so only as a transcendent being" (BPPh 300). Heidegger goes
on to say that the ground oftranscendence is temporality. Temporality
alone makes transcendence possible: "The ecstatic character of time
makes possible the Dasein's specific overstepping character, tran-
scendence, and thus also the world" (BPPh 302).
The Critique oJ Pure Reason wanted to lay the foundation of the
possibility of metaphysics. Correspondingly, Heidegger's question as to
the meaning of being must also ask about the conditions of possibility of
the understanding of being. Kant's transcendental ego is necessarily
related to the Kantian conception of being, just as, for Heidegger,
transcendence is first of all what makes something like understanding of
being possible. Transcendence is rooted in temporality. Temporality is
therefore the real condition ofpossibility ofthe understanding ofbeing.
But Heidegger's first assertion about Kant in Being and Time was:
"[For Kant] the decisive connection between time and the '[ think' was
shrouded in utter darkness; it did not even become a problem"(BT 45).
Kant, then, could not possibly understand being. The question now is:
Can Heidegger, after having reached that conclusion, still move
fruitfully along the path of arepetition of Kant 's thinking?
The answer is probably no. In order to carry on an effective dialogue
with Kant Heidegger was forced to modify his position. He does so
when he is ab out to start the task of investigating exactly in what way
temporality makes possible the understanding of being: "when Kant
tries to conceive being as such and defines it as position, he manifestly
makes no use of tin1e in the common sense. But it does not follow from

84
this that he made no use of temporality in the original sense of
Temporality, without an understanding ofbeing, without himselfbeing
in the clear about the condition of possibility of his ontological
propositions" (BPPh 303). Heidegger is here clearly "understanding
Kant better than Kant understood hirnself, " as the well-known
hermeneutical maxim has it. The necessity of preserving the possibility
of dialogue takes Heidegger to the interpretive position that was to
become explicit in Kant and the Problem 0/ Metaphysics: what needs to
be elucidated is, not what Kant actually said, but rather what he
"intended to say"(KPM 206). At any rate those statements constitute a
middle point between Being and Time and Kant and the Problem 0/
Metaphysics, where Heidegger affirms that Kant succeeded in bringing
time and the "I think" together "in their primordial identity" (197).
Heidegger is certainly still pursuing arepetition of Kant. An adequate
trailing of it, even if fQcusing upon the specific problem of tran-
scendence, must concern itself with what Heidegger immediately
develops as an "explicit confrontation between the Kantian inter-
pretation of being and the Temporal problematic" (BPPh 313).
Kant's thesis, as it was formulated in the first Critique, reads as
follows: "Being is manifestly not areal predicate, that is, a concept of
something that could be added to the concept of a thing. It is merely the
position of a thing or of certain determinations in themselves" (CPR B
626). The positive content of the thesis is that being equals position. If
being equals position, existence means absolute position: "In the
proposition'A is B,' B is areal predicate adj oined to A. In contrast, in
the statement'A exists,' A is posited absolutely, and indeed with the
sum total of its real determinations B, C, D, and so forth" (BPPh 45).
Now, existence, according to Kant, has to do "only with the question
whether such a thing is given to us in such a way that the perception of it
can possibly precede the concept" (CPR B 272-73; BPPh 46). "Thus the
specijic character 0/ absolute position, as Kant defines it, reveals itself
as perception"(BPPh 46). A phenomenological analysis ofthe Kantian
concept of perception, or of what is designated by perception, will
determine it as a phenomenon the ontological constitution of which is
best defined by intentionality: "What we concisely call perception is,
more explicitly formulated, the perceptual directing %neselftoward
what is perceived, in such a way indeed that the perceived is itself always
understood as perceived in its perceivedness" (BPPh 57). Intentionality
is the phenomenological name for the structure of directing-oneself-
toward-or being-directed-toward: it is neither objective nor subjective
in the traditional sense, but, as necessarily related to the phenomenon of
transcendence, it constitutes the structure of the subject's comportment
as such.
As constituted by intentionality, subject-comportment is grounded in
transcendence. Transcendence is rooted in temporality. Therefore,
perception must be grounded in temporality too. The temporal mode

85
that makes possible perceiving as such is of course the present: "The
ecstasis of the present is the foundation for the specifically intentional
transcendence of the perception of extant entities" (BPPh 315). On the
other hand, the directional sense of the intentionality of perception is
defined by Heirlegger in the following way: "In perceiving, the Dasein,
in accordance with its own comportmental sense, lets that toward which
it is directed, the [intended] entity, be encountered in such a way that it
understands this entity in its incarnate character as an in-itself' (BPPh
315). Heidegger has now reached the point in which he can restate
Kant's thesis: "On our interpretation, 'being is perception' now means:
being is an intentional comportment of a peculiar sort ... it is an
ecstasis in the unity of temporality ... being equals presence" (BPPh
315). The Temporal content of Kant's thesis has been clarified.
Heidegger has dissolved the concealments that were latent in Kant's
ontological terminology. Indeed, for Heidegger it is not just that "only
through Temporal interpretation does Kant's assertion that being
equals position ... acquire a realizable sense," but also that Kant
"surely understood the equivalence of being and position in the way we
have interpreted hirn" (BPPh 317).
Heidegger's restating of Kant's thesis is to an extent the direct result
of his phenomenological methodology: "only a phenon1enological
interpretation affords the possibility of opening up a positive under-
standing of the Kantian problems and his solution of them" (BPPh
318). Heidegger's confrontation with Kant takes advantage of the
possibilities offered by phenomenology, although it was Heidegger
hirnself who took phenomenology to a point where a new reading of
Kant was made possible, since for H usserl the doctrine of being was still
a doctrine of categories. Yet, Thomas Sheehan has explained how
H usserl, in Logicallnvestigations VI, ch. 6, "Sensuous and Categorial
Intuitions," accomplished what Heidegger could take as the clue to set
ontology on a new basis. 3 According to Sheehan, Husserl's fundamental
achievement in that text is the demonstration of how the propositional
categorial form can be intuitively fulfilled. The categorial acts comes to
be considered as the letting-appear ofthe object as what and how it is: in
its Being-dimension. The Being-dimension would no longer be a mere
function of the synthetic apperception. Phenomenology attained here
what the Kantian method thought impossible, the concept of categorial
intuitions. Being was thus rescued from its traditional place in the
apophantic assertion in the copula (cf. Kant's thesis: "Being is merely
the position of a thing . . ."). Being, as immediately given to the
categorial intuition, reveals itself a phenomenon. "With his discovery of
being as the presentness ofbeings, itself immediately present, Heidegger
now had a clue for returning to Plato, Aristotle and the whole tradition,
and for reading being in terms oftemporality"(Sheehan 8). Heidegger's
position does represent a radical divergence with respect to Kant; and
yet, Heidegger contends, only from that position is it possible to release
and thus retrieve the Kantian accomplishment.

86
 Heidegger's awareness of the decisiveness of the phenomenological
method in this issue is shown at the end of the discussion of the Kantian
interpretation of being in The Basic Problems of Phenomenology.
Heidegger blames the transcendental method for not having been able
to carry through the possibilities concealed in Kant's sublated
realization of the importance of temporality: "The reason why Kant
calls being a logical predicate is connected with his ontological, that is,
transcendental, mode of inquiry, and it leads us to a fundamental
confrontation with this type of inquiry, which we shall discuss in the
context ofthe Critique ofPure Reason next semester"(BPPh 317). The
results of that confrontation were published by Heidegger in Kant and
the Problem of Metaphysics. 4 I shall now turn to this book in order to
further examine the Heideggerian view of Kant's concept of tran-
scendence.
11.
The Heideggerian turn in the history of philosophical tradition must
be seen in the light of the dialogue that Heidegger carried on with
Kant. It is even possible to say that the overall significance of early
Heideggerian thought resides in his rethinking of, and finding a
phenomenological solution for, many ofKant's fundamental problems.
Heidegger was conscious of this: in fact, he explicitly says that the
development that Fichte, Schelling and Hegel gave to Kant's central
concern of the transcendental ego "retarded" the possibility of a
fundamental ontological interpretation of the Dasein (BPPh 153).
Heidegger does certainly not disregard Hegel. On the contrary, he
points out that the "overcoming of Hegel is the intrinsically necessary
step in the development of Western philosophy which must be made for
it to remain at all alive" (BPPh 178): Hegelianisrn is the end of
philosophy. To overcorne Hegel must rnean to go behind hirn, find his
source, that is, Kant, and rnove from it in a different direction. We can
hardly be surprised when we read, in a footnote placed by Heidegger at
the very heart of Kant and the Problem ofMetaphysics, that the book's
crucial issue, i.e., the interpretation'of the transcendental imagination,
"moves in a direction opposite to that of Gerrnan idealism"(KPM 144).
Heidegger set about the task of developing Western philosophy by
bridging over German idealism to Kant hirnself, in pursuit of a fresh
formulation of the fundamental ontological problems.
Heidegger's repetition of Kant in the Kant-book works within the
context of the Critique. As such, it moves toward a clarification of
ontological knowledge. Clarifying means for Heidegger "loosening up"
the contents of the Kantian text through a carefully close reading of it.
Reconstructing this close reading seems the only way to penetrate the
nature ofthe reinterpretation at hand. I attempt in what follows a short
but faithful summary ofthe steps Heidegger takes in his repetition ofthe
first Critique.

87
 For Kant ontological knowledge, as transcendental knowledge,
refers to the knowledge of the apriori conditions of human
understanding. Any particular human cognition synthetizes two
elemental constituents: the apriori concepts, or categories, and the
empirical in1pressions. We receive sense impressions through the forms
of Anschauung, intuition. The forms of intuition, that is, the conditions
of possibility of any specific empirical impression, are space and time.
Space, being the form of external sense, and time, the form of internal
sense, seem to refer to two distinct regions of experience. But Kant
himself stated that aH representations, whether internal or external,
happen within time. Therefore, "time is the formal apriori condition of
all appearance whatsoever" (CPR A 34; B 50). Time takes precedence
over space. And then time "must be the dominant and essential element
of pure knowledge and hence of transcendence as weH, since it is pure
knowledge which makes transcendence possible" (KPM 52).
The raw material of intuition must be processed and interpreted by
the human subject. Kant calls categories the apriori universal principles
that we impose upqn empirical data in order to make the knowledge of
the object possible. Categories and time are, then, the pure elements of
pure-that is, non-empirical or not-yet-empirical-knowledge. We are
now taking them separately, but, as separate, they cannot be properly
understood. Even less do they work separately. "The question of the
essential unity of ontological knowledge is ... at bottom a question
about the original unification" of pure intuition and pure thought, time
and the categories (KPM 61). Such unification-the "ontological
synthesis"-cannot be carried out by either intuition or thought.
Rather, it must be the affair of a different faculty. Kant will say that
synthesis in general "is the mere result of the power of imagination, a
blind but indispensable function of the soul, without which we should
have no knowledge whatsoever" (CPR A 78; B 103). The synthesis of
imagination unifies the synopsis of the manifold in intuition and the
synthesis of the understanding. The synthesis of imagination is
therefore the pure ontological synthesis. In conclusion, "If the
possibility of ontological knowledge is based upon the pure synthesis, ...
then the pure synthesis must manifest itself as that which organizes and
supports the unified totality of the intrinsic, essential structure of
transcendence" (KPM 75). Imagination thus becomes the basis of the
possibility of transcendence.
The transcendental deduction of the categories is the analytical
revelation of the structure of the pure synthesis of the imagination. It
shows how pure understanding and pure intuition are apriori
dependent on one another, and it also shows how the act of
objectification, as carried out by the synthesis of the understanding, is
possible. It establishes, then, the intrinsic possibility of transcendence
for the finite being.

88
 Heidegger, already limiting himself to the text of the first edition of
the Critique, finds the basic accomplishment of the transcendental
deduction in the revelation of "the mediating function of the pure
synthesis [of imagination]." By this revelation, "the understanding loses
its priority and by this very loss manifests its essence, which consists in
having to be grounded in the pure synthesis of the imagination, a
synthesis that is bound to time" (KPM 89). The discussion of the
unifying function of transcendental imagination clarifies the nature of
its connection with time. This is why, for Heidegger, the section of the
Critique entitled "The Schematism of the Pure Concepts of Under-
standing" (A 137-48; B 176-87) "form[s] the heart of the whole work"
(KPM 94).
Kant shows in those pages that "all conceptual representation is
essentially schematism. N ow, all finite cognition is, as thinking
intuition, necessarily conceptual" (KPM 106). Schematism belongs
then to the essence of finite knowledge. Consequently, "if finitude is
centered in transcendence, transcendence must take place as a
schematism. Therefore, Kant must necessarily be concerned with a
'transcendental schematism' as soon as he tries to bring to light the
intrinsic possibility of transcendence" (KPM 106). The core of
transcendental schematism can be expressed in this way: Pure concepts
must be grounded in schemata which proeure "images" for these
concepts if the sensibilization of concepts is to have place. Now, "the
schema of a pure concept of understanding can never be reduced to any
image" (CPR A 142; B 181). Heidegger contends that in the sentence
just quoted "image" means "empirical aspect." It is obvious that the
categories cannot find their schemata in empirically-conditioned
images. Heidegger's conclusion is that "as pure intuition, time is that
which furnishes an aspect prior to all experience" (KPM 108). Time
must be termedpure image. In fact, Kant says: "the pure image ... [is]
time." We must then accept that "as a 'pure image,' time is the schema-
image and not merely the form of pure intuition corresponding to the
pure concepts of the understanding" (KPM 108). "In this sense, the
schemata of the pure concepts of the understanding 'determine' time"
(KPM 109). The interpretation is not far-fetched, since Kant himself
wrote: "The schemata are nothing but apriori determinations of time in
accordance with rules" (Critique A 145; B 184). We can now see that
transcendental imagination, as the possibility of the synthesis of time
and the categories, is the ground of the intrinsic possibility of
ontological knowledge, and therefore also of transcendence.
Section Three of Kant and the Problem oJr Metaphysics is the most
controversial section of the book, insofar as Heidegger attempts in it to
demonstrate that the first edition of the Critique is "essentially to be
preferred to the second" (KPM 20); indeed, that the first edition
contains a revelation of the true nature of temporality that could have
altered the course of philosophy if Kant had not covered it up with his

89
second edition. According to Heidegger, Kant saw that temporality is
the ground of transcendental imagination and, because of and beyond
that, it is also the basis of the self.
Transcendental imagination, as the ground of pure knowledge, must
determine the essential constitution of man. The problem is now to
understand in what way can the transcendental imagination have
become such a dangerous instance that Kant was led to turn back from
his discoveries and suppress, in the second edition of the Critique, the
passages that speak of it as a fundamental faculty of the soul. For
Heidegger, "the transcendental imagination itself must have provided
the motive which led Kant to turn away from it as an autonomous and
transcendental fundamental faculty" (KPM 172). Heidegger points out
two possible reasons: To traditional anthropology, the imagination was
considered a lower faculty. Can a lower faculty be permitted to
determine reason? If so, the primacy of logic in "scientific" discourse
disappears and the very architectonic of Western culture threatens
collapse. The insight into the transcendental essence of imagination
leads to an abyss. "By his radical interrogation, Kant brought the
'possibility' of nletaphysics before this abyss. He saw the unknown; he
had to draw back" (KPM 173).
There is another line of argumentation, although Heidegger does not
distinguish it from the former. Kant's book was a critique of pure
reason. If pure reason is transformed into transcendental imagination,
the Critique deprives itself of its own ground. Kant's insight was not
powerful enough to enable hirn to absolutely invert traditional
positions. As it was, "the problematic of a pure reason [self-reinforcing]
must inevitably thrust the imagination into the background, thus
concealing its transcendental nature completely" (KPM 174). For all
this, "the primordial essence of the transcendental imagination ...
opened up only for an instant" (KPM 175).
Heidegger's repetition of Kant is centered around that very instant.
He can be considered a Kantian precisely because he found and seized
upon Kant's discovery of the transcendental imagination, which for a
moment threatened the edifice of Western culture in the XVI11th
century. Kant's second edition ofthe Critique made modern philosophy
what it was, at the same time preventing it from becoming something
else. Heidegger understates his point in saying: "the first edition is
essentially to be preferred to the second. All transformation of the pure
imagination into a function of pure thought-a transformation
accentuated by German idealism following the second edition-is the
result of a misunderstanding of the nature of pure imagination" (KPM
202). Where then resides the momentous character of transcendental
imagination?
III.
In his Vorlesungen ber die Metaphysic Kant had analysed the
faculty of imagination as consisting of the faculty of forming images,

90
the faculty of reproducing them, and the faculty of anticipating them.
As forming (present), reproducing (past), and anticipating (future),
imagination, or the power of imagination, is in itself relative to time
(KPM 180; Heidegger quotes the Vorlesungen). Heidegger's thesis is
that pure imagination, "since it is in itself relative to time," must
"constitute tin1e originally:" "Time as pure intuition is neither only what
is intuited in the pure act of intuition nor this act itself deprived of its
'object'. Time as pure intuition is in one the formative act of intuiting
and what is intuited therein. Such is the cOlnplete concept of time"
(KPM 180). Accordingly, Heidegger shows that the transcendental
imagination "as that which lets time as the now-sequence spring forth
is ... primordial time" (KPM 181).
At the outset of the deduction of the categories Kant had stated that
"all our knowledge is ... subject to time, the formal condition of inner
sense ... This is a general observation whic:h ... must be borne in
mind as being quite fundamental" (CPR A 99). Heidegger takes this
warning literally and, through an analysis of the Kantian presentation
of the three syntheses-namely, of apprehension in intuition, of
reproduction in imagination, and of recognition in concepts (CPR A 95
ff.)-he proceeds to demonstrate not only that time pervades and makes
those syntheses possible, but also that Kant did reach an idea of original
time that went beyond the traditional conception of time as the now-
sequence. 5 In particular, Kant established the synthetic modes as time-
forming. His analysis ofthe pure synthesis in concepts, by showing that
it alone creates the prospective horizon of objectification as such,
reveals that the most primordial essence of time is that "it temporalizes
itself out ofthe future"(KPM 192). To sum up, the Kantian analysis of
the modes of the synthesis, in Heidegger's interpretation, shows the
transcendental imagination as intrinsically telnporal in character.
Transcendence is the "being-as-self' of the: finite self; the self must
also have a temporal character. Heidegger cornplements his conclusion
with his own definition of time: "Time is, by nature, pure affection of
itself" (KPM 194). He now says, in a classical passage: "As pure self-
reflection, time is not an active affection concerned with the concrete
self; as pure, it forms the essence of all auto-solicitation. Therefore, if
the power of being solicited as a self belongs to the essence of the finite
subject, time as pure self-affection forms the essential structure of
subjectivity ... it originally forms finite selfhood in such a way that the
self can become self-consciousness" (KPM 194-95).
Heidegger's recognition of the self as temporality in Kant opens up a
new understanding of being that for the first time in Western history
overcomes the ancient ontological conception of being as produced-
ness. In ancient ontology, production was the underlying horizon for
the interpretation of beings and of the being of beings. This idea was
absorbed by Kant, who certainly maintained that "a genuine cognitive
grasp of a being in its being is available only to that being's creator"

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(BPPh 150). It is not necessary to go into detail here concerning the
lengthy Heideggerian analysis in this respect, and in those related to the
old conception ofbeing in the horizon ofproduction (see BPPh 101-02,
106 ff., 114 ff., etc.). Even though, to be sure, "the being of a being
means nothing but producednes for Kant" (BPPh 150), Kant never-
theless made it possible for a new conception to come forward. The idea
of being as producedness remained operative throughout German
idealism, which made self-consciousness, Le., self-conceiving, the only
true substantiality. "For [Hegel] the essential nature ofsubstance lies in
its being the concept of its own self" (BPPh 153). But Heidegger's
repetition of Kant, by finding in Kantian philosophy the revelation of
self-as-temporality, makes it clear that the Hegelian trap was not the
only possible destiny of Transcendental Idealism. The conception of
self as temporality, which Heidegger carried through in his own
philosophical production, discloses the possibility of that overcoming
of Hegel that Heidegger considered necessary for Western philosophy
"to remain at all alive" (BPPh 178). 6
Kant never realized his having brought to light primordial tem-
porality as the ground for the understanding of being, but his analysis
enabled philosophy to move in that direction. Heidegger's repetition of
Kant can now be considered a grounding ofthe Critique 0/ Pure reason
itself-and a grounding which displaces Transcendental Idealism from
its stated pretension of having picked up the Kantian heritage. At the
same time, it suggests that Heidegger's own understanding of time can
be elicited from the Critique. 7 Heidegger hirnself placed the Critique as
the basic ground of Heideggerian philosophy.
Heidegger's insight into the Critique certainly advanced between
Being and Time-where it was said that Kant left "in utter darkness" the
decisive connection between time and the "I think"-and the Kant-
book-where it was affirmed that time and the "I think""are the same"
for Kant. Did that reevaluation amount to aglobaI reinterpretation of
Kantian thought? Already in Being and Time Heidegger considers Kant
"the first and only person who has gone any stretchofthe way towards
investigating the dimension of Temporality" (BT 45). And, as William
Richardson says, it is very possible that the Kant-book were conceived
even before Being and Time. 8 It is safer and probably more accurate to
see Heidegger's relationship to Kant as a hermeneutical process of
dialogue and self-discovery. By means of just such dialogue Western
metaphysics accomplished the momentous feat of"overcoming HegeI,"
which means overcoming the tradition that was taking being as
production and the subject as true substantiality. The possibility of
finding anew the question of being was thus disclosed-being, that
which no longer can be mastered by man posing as the Producer,
demiourgos, God's surrogate. 9

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 NOTES

1 The interpretation of Kant's thinking is part of the original design of Being and Time:
see BT 64. Also: "If we put together Being and Time as published, Kant and the Problem
of Metaphysics, and ... The Basic Problems of Phenomenology, we have in three
volumes the entire treatise which Heidegger had originally wished to call 'Being and
Time'-even if not quite in the form then imagined" (Albert Hofstadter, "Translator"s
Introduction," BPPh xvii). I will be quoting from the available translations: Being and
Time, tr. by J. Macquarrie & E. Robinson (New York: Harper & Row, 1962); Kant and
the Problem ofMetaphysics, tr. by J. S. Churchill(Bloomington: Indiana UP, 1962); The
Basic Problems of Phenomenology, tr. by A. Hofstadtel' (Bloomington: Indiana UP,
1982). (This is a course of lectures given at Marburg in 1927; originally published in
German in 1975); Critique of Pure Reason, tr. by N. K. Smith, 2nd ed. (London:
Macmillan/New York: St. Martin's Press, 1933).
2 Heidegger was soon accused by Ernst Cassirer of a manipulation of Kant's thought.
Edwin Alexander has dealt with the problems associated with Heidegger's approach to
interpreting Kant in "Heidegger's Kant-Interpretation. Hermeneutical Violence, "
Philosophy Today 25 (Winter 1981): 286-306. I agree with Alexander's treatment of the
issue, so any further reference to it seems unnecessary.
3 Thomas Sheehan, "Heidegger: the Project and the Fulfillment," in Heidegger: the
Manandthe Thinker, Thomas Sheehaned. (Chicago: Precedent, 1981), xiii-xv; Edmund
Husserl, Logical Investigations, tr. by J. M. Findlay, vol. 2 (New York: Humanities,
1970), 773-802.
4 But the texts for that course of lectures were published in 1977: Heidegger,
Phnomenologische Interpretation von Kants Kritik der reinen Vernunft. Gesam-
tausgabe, 11 Abteilung, Band 25 (Frankfurt am Main: Klosterman, 1977).
5 An excellent discussion of the traditional notion of time and Heidegger's analysis of
Kant in that respect can be found in Charles M. Sherover, Heidegger, Kant, and Time
(Bloomington: Indiana UP, 1971), 193-201.
6 How and in what sense the conception of self as temporality discloses that possibility is

the subject of Being and Time.

7 See S herover 7.
8 William J. Richardson, S. J., Heidegger: Through Phenomenology to Thought (The
Hague: Martinus Nijhoff, 1963),24.
9 I wish to thank Bernard P. Dauenhauer fr helping me with this paper, which is
dedicated to hirn.

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