Intuition

the passive species of representation, by means of which our sensibility enables to have sensations. By requiring appearances to be given in space and time, intuitions allow us to perceive particular relations between representations, thereby limiting empirical knowledge to the sensible realm. (Cf. concept.)

[B33/A19] Intuitions are one of two sorts of representations which we synthesize to form experience; they are connected with the sensibility (concepts are the other sort of representation; they are connected with the understanding). Through intuitions, "objects are given to us by means of sensibility". Intuitions rest on "affectations": objects affect our mind in certain ways in which we are "receptive"; in us are produced "sensations" and thereby we "receive representations", viz. intuitions. Since "in no other way can an object be given to us...all thought must...relate ultimately to intuitions". Intuitions are the only sort of representations which "relate immediately to the object". However, there is another type of intuition, namely pure intuitions. [A50/B74] For Kant, representations which "contain sensation" are empirical; in cases where there is "no mingling of sensation" representations are pure. Thus some intuitions--the pure ones--are not connected with affectations and sensation. Rather, "pure intuition...contains the form under which something in intuited". For us, space and time are pure intuitions; these are a priori conditions on our sensibility which determine exactly how we are "receptive" to affectations. Because Kant argues that our representation of space must be of space as a whole, we have a pure intuition and not a pure concept.