Kant e Maimon: prolegomeni a una topologia del tempo

The Kantian conception of time as a “pure relationship of representa-tions in our internal state” constitutes the premise for a topology of time that Kant develops as an extensive quantity (quantitas) in intuition, and as an in-tensive quantity (quantum) in perception. Due to the separation between sensibility and understanding, however, the Kantian temporal topology is remitted to the forms of judgment that are heterogeneous with respect to sensibility and need mediating figures (pure apperception and schemes) to be applied to the matter of experience. This does not solve, therefore, the “quid iuris” issue. Maimon eliminates the Kantian separation by referring to space and time as concepts and thus trying to grasp the genesis of experience starting from the process within the temporal structuring itself. In that way, Maimon offers the basis for a consistent temporal topology in which sensibility does not appear as a simple external “datum”, but shows particular “forms” (which he discusses in his theory of differentials) whose meaning is grasped – to various levels – by the understanding and reason. It is always, however, an ideal meaning that, due to the impossibility of bringing to full consciousness the origin of the sensible “matter”, prevents the topology of time from reaching completeness.