9. Matter — Form (see B322ff.)

1) taken as purely formalized — and from the Concept of what is understood — as what is determinative, determinans — i.e., as what affirms or negates, created predicatively (Baumgarten) and at the same time transcendentally, i.e., in connection with the possibility of the knowledge of objects in general. Expressed here as: the determinative — the determinable.

But this is only possible on the grounds of the intentionality-transcendence of existence [Daseins]. It is here that the condition for the possibility and formal necessity of this correlation is found.

I may not, however, formally and universally create this out of thin air.

For Kant the answer can already be found here, because Formal Logic — which is not grounded in fundamental ontology, but is only in itself — is the most certain.

See B345: “apperception, and with it thought, precedes all possible determinative ordering of representations.” Here the presupposition, which Kant along with Descartes and Leibniz adhered to — the most original a priori is for them the “I think,” and it is in this that the priority of Logic is grounded!

That Descartes’s presupposition is still active in this way for Kant in a completely different problematic prevents for the most part its original embedding, and therefore one can at the least overlook this presupposition, or simply strike it out.

It is synonymous with the misunderstanding of the problem of transcendence. 

2) but at the same time, the predominance of this separation must be destroyed, and it must lead back to the ontic-ontological correlate.

This is motivated by the ancient ontological difference ὕλη–εἶδος, and from this the productive horizon [Herstellungshorizont] comes forth, i.e., from the completely determined absolutizing of the concept of Being. Beings as what is at hand, and knowledge = determinative perception of these [beings].

3) The dominance of the formalization must be broken by means of the evidence that while everything is indeed interpretable, at the same time everything is also constrained by a Schema, which diverts it from the ontological problematic, derived from the original, as well as from the logical problematic.

The pure, taken logico-transcendentally, is material to what is primary. Determining presupposes what is determinable. Thus it appears remarkable: with Space and Time, to set the Form as what is primary ahead of the Matter, which makes these determinable, i.e., lets them be encountered, in the first place, B324. But one may not judge here in a purely intellectual manner according to mere concepts of things themselves. Rather, from appearances one can see that Space and Time precede all data. See B322-23 concerning the use of concepts of matter.

Matter — metaphysically explained — purely accessible, not through predicates that approach it as Object [Objekt], = “object” [“Gegenstand”] in another sense, object of perception [Gegenstand der Empfindung], “the authentically empirical in sensuous intuition,” Metaphysical Principles of Natural Science, Erklärung I, Anmerkung 2.