Schema (Kant) - Purpose of The Schematism Chapter

Purpose of The Schematism Chapter

Kant wrote the chapter on Schematism in his Critique of Pure Reason to solve the problem of "...how we can ensure that categories have 'sense and significance.' "

A posteriori concepts have sense when they are derived from a mental image that is based on experienced sense impressions. Kant's a priori concepts, on the other hand, are alleged to have sense when they are derived from a non–experienced mental schema, trace, outline, sketch, monogram, or minimal image. This is similar to a Euclidean geometrical diagram.

Whenever two things are totally different from each other, yet must interact, there must be some common characteristic that they share in order to somehow relate to one another. Categories, or a priori concepts, have, according to Kant, a basic and necessary importance for human knowledge, even though they are totally different from sensations. However, they must be connected in some way with sensed experience because "… an a priori concept which cannot, as it were, establish any empirical connections is a fraud … the purpose of the Schematism chapter was to show that the categories at least do have satisfactory empirical connections." Kant was preoccupied "with bridging the otherwise heterogeneous poles of 'thought' and 'sensation' in the Schematism of the Pure Concepts of the Understanding (A 138/B 177)."