r things external to me."[8]

[5] _Wahrnehmung._

[6] _Anschauung._

[7] The text has been corrected in accordance with Kant's
note in the preface to the second edition, B. xxxix, M. xl.

[8] B. 275-6, M. 167.

The nature of the argument is clear. 'In order to be conscious, as
I am, of a determinate succession of my states, I must perceive
something permanent as that in relation to which alone I can perceive
my states as having a definite order.[9] But this permanent cannot be
a perception in me, for in that case it would only be a representation
of mine, which, as such, could only be apprehended in relation to
another permanent. Consequently, this permanent must be a thing
external to me and not a representation of a thing external to me.
Consequently, the consciousness of my own existence, which is
necessarily a consciousness of my successive states, involves the
immediate consciousness of things external to me.'

[9] Cf. Kant's proof of the first analogy.

Here there is no way of avoiding the conclusion that Kant is deceived
by the ambiguity of the phrase 'a thing external to me' into thinking
that he has given a proof of the existence of bodies in space which is
compatible with the view that they are only phenomena, although in
reality the proof presupposes that they are things in themselves. In
the 'proof', the phrase 'a thing external to me' must have a double
meaning. It must mean a thing external to my body, i. e. any body
which is not my body; in other words, it must be a loose expression
for a body in space. For, though the 'proof' makes us appeal to the
spatial character of things external to me, the _Refutation_ as a
whole, and especially Remark II, shows that it is of bodies in space
that he is thinking throughout. The phrase must also, and primarily,
mean a thing external to, in the sense of independent of, my mind,
i. e. a thing in itself. For the nerve of the argument consists in the
contention that the permanent the perception of which is required for
the consciousness of my successive states must be a _thing_ external
to me in opposition to the representation of a thing external to me,
and a thing external to me in opposition to a thing external to me can
only be a thing in itself. On the other hand, in Kant's conclusion,
'a thing external to me' can only mean a body in space, this being
supposed to be a phenomenon; for his aim is to establish the reality
of bodies in s