I'm sure this topic is dead, but I am also studying Kant right now. I have just begun and have many difficulties also. Not so much in understanding what he is saying, but seeing how it is in fact valid (which I think it is).

However, I think Kant's Transcendental Aesthetic was made easier to me by keeping in mind that Kant had to have a Copernican Revolution in order for him to prove that there were a priori truths, space and time included.

For exercise, Kant's revolution was throwing away the dogmatism of metaphysics (if you could call it that). The problem philosophers previously had was they assumed that our minds were shaped by the world around us (or experience). Kant showed that if we shed this assumption and look at it from the perspective that the world around us is shaped by our mind a priori truths are not only possible, but necessary. (I think that is close to a quote from the Preface to the Second Edition of the CPR)

So, if our mind plays an active role in constructing the world, or in knowledge acquisition, there must be a priori elements involved, because in order for this to happen, our minds must have knowledge that is above experience, if it didn't it wouldn't be able to perform it's function of constructing the world.

Kant then goes on to prove the different kinds of a priori knowledge. Space and time are two of these. See, everything we experience in the world must be within space and time. Space and time are the forms of physical experience, the objects of experience are the matter. The matter must conform to the form. There is also something about necessity that must be said. Since it is necessary that all cognitions of experience must be within space and time, it is necessary that our brain is able to organize experience within the realm of space and time. If our brain could not do this, then we would never experience anything. Hume proved that we cannot learn of space and time from experience, all we learn is the habit that events are sequential and that this object is separated from that object. If this was true, Kant says we could never have knowledge of space and time, but we do have knowledge of space and time, for if we didn't, we would not be able to organize our experiences (time) or understand the separation of objects (space).

He goes on to show that causality falls under the same argument.

Any correction or critiques of what I wrote are not only welcome, they are appreciated.

I think Kant's Transcendental Aesthetic was made easier to me by keeping in mind that Kant had to have a Copernican Revolution in order for him to prove that there were a priori truths, space and time included.