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PREFACE TO THE FIRST EDITION, 1781
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Human reason, in one sphere of its cognition, is called upon to consider
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questions, which it cannot decline, as they are presented by its own
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nature, but which it cannot answer, as they transcend every faculty of
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the mind.
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It falls into this difficulty without any fault of its own. It begins
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with principles, which cannot be dispensed with in the field of
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experience, and the truth and sufficiency of which are, at the same
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time, insured by experience. With these principles it rises, in
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obedience to the laws of its own nature, to ever higher and more remote
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conditions. But it quickly discovers that, in this way, its labours must
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remain ever incomplete, because new questions never cease to present
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themselves; and thus it finds itself compelled to have recourse to
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principles which transcend the region of experience, while they are
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regarded by common sense without distrust. It thus falls into confusion
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and contradictions, from which it conjectures the presence of latent
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errors, which, however, it is unable to discover, because the principles
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it employs, transcending the limits of experience, cannot be tested
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by that criterion. The arena of these endless contests is called
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Metaphysic.
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Time was, when she was the queen of all the sciences; and, if we take
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the will for the deed, she certainly deserves, so far as regards the
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high importance of her object-matter, this title of honour. Now, it is
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the fashion of the time to heap contempt and scorn upon her; and the
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matron mourns, forlorn and forsaken, like Hecuba:
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Modo maxima rerum,
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Tot generis, natisque potens...
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Nunc trahor exul, inops.
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--Ovid, Metamorphoses. xiii
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At first, her government, under the administration of the dogmatists,
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was an absolute despotism. But, as the legislative continued to show
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traces of the ancient barbaric rule, her empire gradually broke up, and
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intestine wars introduced the reign of anarchy; while the sceptics,
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like nomadic tribes, who hate a permanent habitation and settled mode
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of living, attacked from time to time those who had organized themselves
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into civil communities. But their number was, very happily, small; and
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thus they could not entirely put a stop to the exertions of those who
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persisted in raising new edifices, although on no settled or uniform
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plan. In recent times the hope dawned upon us of seeing those disputes
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settled, and the legitimacy of her claims established by a kind of
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physiology of the human understanding--that of the celebrated Locke. But
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it was found that--although it was affirmed that this so-called queen
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could not refer her descent to any higher source than that of common
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experience, a circumstance which necessarily brought suspicion on
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her claims--as this genealogy was incorrect, she persisted in the
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advancement of her claims to sovereignty. Thus metaphysics necessarily
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fell back into the antiquated and rotten constitution of dogmatism, and
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again became obnoxious to the contempt from which efforts had been
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made to save it. At present, as all methods, according to the general
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persuasion, have been tried in vain, there reigns nought but weariness
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and complete indifferentism--the mother of chaos and night in the
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scientific world, but at the same time the source of, or at least the
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prelude to, the re-creation and reinstallation of a science, when it has
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fallen into confusion, obscurity, and disuse from ill directed effort.
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For it is in reality vain to profess indifference in regard to such
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inquiries, the object of which cannot be indifferent to humanity.
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Besides, these pretended indifferentists, however much they may try to
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disguise themselves by the assumption of a popular style and by changes
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on the language of the schools, unavoidably fall into metaphysical
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declarations and propositions, which they profess to regard with so much
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contempt. At the same time, this indifference, which has arisen in the
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world of science, and which relates to that kind of knowledge which
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we should wish to see destroyed the last, is a phenomenon that well
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deserves our attention and reflection. It is plainly not the effect of
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the levity, but of the matured judgement* of the age, which refuses to
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be any longer entertained with illusory knowledge, It is, in fact, a
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call to reason, again to undertake the most laborious of all tasks--that
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of self-examination, and to establish a tribunal, which may secure it
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in its well-grounded claims, while it pronounces against all baseless
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assumptions and pretensions, not in an arbitrary manner, but according
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to its own eternal and unchangeable laws. This tribunal is nothing less
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than the critical investigation of pure reason.
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[*Footnote: We very often hear complaints of the shallowness of the
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present age, and of the decay of profound science. But I do not think
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that those which rest upon a secure foundation, such as mathematics,
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physical science, etc., in the least deserve this reproach, but that
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they rather maintain their ancient fame, and in the latter case, indeed,
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far surpass it. The same would be the case with the other kinds of
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cognition, if their principles were but firmly established. In the
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absence of this security, indifference, doubt, and finally, severe
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criticism are rather signs of a profound habit of thought. Our age
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is the age of criticism, to which everything must be subjected. The
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sacredness of religion, and the authority of legislation, are by many
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regarded as grounds of exemption from the examination of this tribunal.
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But, if they on they are exempted, they become the subjects of just
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suspicion, and cannot lay claim to sincere respect, which reason accords
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only to that which has stood the test of a free and public examination.]
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I do not mean by this a criticism of books and systems, but a critical
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inquiry into the faculty of reason, with reference to the cognitions
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to which it strives to attain without the aid of experience; in other
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words, the solution of the question regarding the possibility or
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impossibility of metaphysics, and the determination of the origin, as
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well as of the extent and limits of this science. All this must be done
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on the basis of principles.
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This path--the only one now remaining--has been entered upon by me; and
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I flatter myself that I have, in this way, discovered the cause of--and
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consequently the mode of removing--all the errors which have hitherto
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set reason at variance with itself, in the sphere of non-empirical
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thought. I have not returned an evasive answer to the questions of
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reason, by alleging the inability and limitation of the faculties of the
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mind; I have, on the contrary, examined them completely in the light
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of principles, and, after having discovered the cause of the doubts and
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contradictions into which reason fell, have solved them to its perfect
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satisfaction. It is true, these questions have not been solved as
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dogmatism, in its vain fancies and desires, had expected; for it can
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only be satisfied by the exercise of magical arts, and of these I have
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no knowledge. But neither do these come within the compass of our mental
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powers; and it was the duty of philosophy to destroy the illusions which
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had their origin in misconceptions, whatever darling hopes and valued
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expectations may be ruined by its explanations. My chief aim in this
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work has been thoroughness; and I make bold to say that there is not a
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single metaphysical problem that does not find its solution, or at
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least the key to its solution, here. Pure reason is a perfect unity; and
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therefore, if the principle presented by it prove to be insufficient for
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the solution of even a single one of those questions to which the very
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nature of reason gives birth, we must reject it, as we could not be
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perfectly certain of its sufficiency in the case of the others.
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While I say this, I think I see upon the countenance of the reader signs
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of dissatisfaction mingled with contempt, when he hears declarations
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which sound so boastful and extravagant; and yet they are beyond
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comparison more moderate than those advanced by the commonest author of
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the commonest philosophical programme, in which the dogmatist professes
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to demonstrate the simple nature of the soul, or the necessity of a
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primal being. Such a dogmatist promises to extend human knowledge beyond
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the limits of possible experience; while I humbly confess that this
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is completely beyond my power. Instead of any such attempt, I confine
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myself to the examination of reason alone and its pure thought; and I do
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not need to seek far for the sum-total of its cognition, because it
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has its seat in my own mind. Besides, common logic presents me with
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a complete and systematic catalogue of all the simple operations of
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reason; and it is my task to answer the question how far reason can go,
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without the material presented and the aid furnished by experience.
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So much for the completeness and thoroughness necessary in the execution
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of the present task. The aims set before us are not arbitrarily
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proposed, but are imposed upon us by the nature of cognition itself.
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The above remarks relate to the matter of our critical inquiry. As
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regards the form, there are two indispensable conditions, which any one
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who undertakes so difficult a task as that of a critique of pure reason,
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is bound to fulfil. These conditions are certitude and clearness.
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As regards certitude, I have fully convinced myself that, in this sphere
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of thought, opinion is perfectly inadmissible, and that everything which
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bears the least semblance of an hypothesis must be excluded, as of no
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value in such discussions. For it is a necessary condition of every
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cognition that is to be established upon a priori grounds that it shall
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be held to be absolutely necessary; much more is this the case with an
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attempt to determine all pure a priori cognition, and to furnish the
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standard--and consequently an example--of all apodeictic (philosophical)
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certitude. Whether I have succeeded in what I professed to do, it is for
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the reader to determine; it is the author's business merely to adduce
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grounds and reasons, without determining what influence these ought to
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have on the mind of his judges. But, lest anything he may have said may
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become the innocent cause of doubt in their minds, or tend to weaken the
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effect which his arguments might otherwise produce--he may be allowed
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to point out those passages which may occasion mistrust or difficulty,
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although these do not concern the main purpose of the present work. He
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does this solely with the view of removing from the mind of the reader
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any doubts which might affect his judgement of the work as a whole, and
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in regard to its ultimate aim.
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I know no investigations more necessary for a full insight into the
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nature of the faculty which we call understanding, and at the same time
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for the determination of the rules and limits of its use, than those
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undertaken in the second chapter of the "Transcendental Analytic," under
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the title of "Deduction of the Pure Conceptions of the Understanding";
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and they have also cost me by far the greatest labour--labour which, I
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hope, will not remain uncompensated. The view there taken, which goes
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somewhat deeply into the subject, has two sides, The one relates to the
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objects of the pure understanding, and is intended to demonstrate and
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to render comprehensible the objective validity of its a priori
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conceptions; and it forms for this reason an essential part of the
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Critique. The other considers the pure understanding itself, its
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possibility and its powers of cognition--that is, from a subjective
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point of view; and, although this exposition is of great importance, it
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does not belong essentially to the main purpose of the work, because the
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grand question is what and how much can reason and understanding, apart
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from experience, cognize, and not, how is the faculty of thought itself
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possible? As the latter is an inquiry into the cause of a given effect,
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and has thus in it some semblance of an hypothesis (although, as I shall
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show on another occasion, this is really not the fact), it would seem
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that, in the present instance, I had allowed myself to enounce a mere
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opinion, and that the reader must therefore be at liberty to hold
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a different opinion. But I beg to remind him that, if my subjective
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deduction does not produce in his mind the conviction of its certitude
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at which I aimed, the objective deduction, with which alone the present
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work is properly concerned, is in every respect satisfactory.
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As regards clearness, the reader has a right to demand, in the first
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place, discursive or logical clearness, that is, on the basis of
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conceptions, and, secondly, intuitive or aesthetic clearness, by means
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of intuitions, that is, by examples or other modes of illustration
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in concreto. I have done what I could for the first kind of
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intelligibility. This was essential to my purpose; and it thus became
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the accidental cause of my inability to do complete justice to the
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second requirement. I have been almost always at a loss, during the
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progress of this work, how to settle this question. Examples and
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illustrations always appeared to me necessary, and, in the first sketch
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of the Critique, naturally fell into their proper places. But I very
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soon became aware of the magnitude of my task, and the numerous problems
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with which I should be engaged; and, as I perceived that this critical
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investigation would, even if delivered in the driest scholastic manner,
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be far from being brief, I found it unadvisable to enlarge it still more
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with examples and explanations, which are necessary only from a popular
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point of view. I was induced to take this course from the consideration
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also that the present work is not intended for popular use, that those
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devoted to science do not require such helps, although they are always
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acceptable, and that they would have materially interfered with my
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present purpose. Abbe Terrasson remarks with great justice that, if we
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estimate the size of a work, not from the number of its pages, but from
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the time which we require to make ourselves master of it, it may be said
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of many a book that it would be much shorter, if it were not so short.
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On the other hand, as regards the comprehensibility of a system of
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speculative cognition, connected under a single principle, we may say
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with equal justice: many a book would have been much clearer, if it had
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not been intended to be so very clear. For explanations and examples,
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and other helps to intelligibility, aid us in the comprehension of
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parts, but they distract the attention, dissipate the mental power of
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the reader, and stand in the way of his forming a clear conception of
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the whole; as he cannot attain soon enough to a survey of the system,
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and the colouring and embellishments bestowed upon it prevent his
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observing its articulation or organization--which is the most important
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consideration with him, when he comes to judge of its unity and
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stability.
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The reader must naturally have a strong inducement to co-operate
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with the present author, if he has formed the intention of erecting a
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complete and solid edifice of metaphysical science, according to the
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plan now laid before him. Metaphysics, as here represented, is the only
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science which admits of completion--and with little labour, if it
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is united, in a short time; so that nothing will be left to
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future generations except the task of illustrating and applying it
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didactically. For this science is nothing more than the inventory of all
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that is given us by pure reason, systematically arranged. Nothing can
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escape our notice; for what reason produces from itself cannot lie
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concealed, but must be brought to the light by reason itself, so soon
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as we have discovered the common principle of the ideas we seek. The
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perfect unity of this kind of cognitions, which are based upon pure
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conceptions, and uninfluenced by any empirical element, or any peculiar
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intuition leading to determinate experience, renders this completeness
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not only practicable, but also necessary.
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Tecum habita, et noris quam sit tibi curta supellex.
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--Persius. Satirae iv. 52.
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Such a system of pure speculative reason I hope to be able to publish
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under the title of Metaphysic of Nature*. The content of this work
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(which will not be half so long) will be very much richer than that
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of the present Critique, which has to discover the sources of this
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cognition and expose the conditions of its possibility, and at the same
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time to clear and level a fit foundation for the scientific edifice. In
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the present work, I look for the patient hearing and the impartiality
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of a judge; in the other, for the good-will and assistance of a
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co-labourer. For, however complete the list of principles for this
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system may be in the Critique, the correctness of the system requires
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that no deduced conceptions should be absent. These cannot be presented
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a priori, but must be gradually discovered; and, while the synthesis of
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conceptions has been fully exhausted in the Critique, it is necessary
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that, in the proposed work, the same should be the case with their
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analysis. But this will be rather an amusement than a labour.
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[*Footnote: In contradistinction to the Metaphysic of
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Ethics. This work was never published.]
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PREFACE TO THE SECOND EDITION, 1787
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Whether the treatment of that portion of our knowledge which lies within
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the province of pure reason advances with that undeviating certainty
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which characterizes the progress of science, we shall be at no loss to
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determine. If we find those who are engaged in metaphysical pursuits,
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unable to come to an understanding as to the method which they ought
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to follow; if we find them, after the most elaborate preparations,
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invariably brought to a stand before the goal is reached, and compelled
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to retrace their steps and strike into fresh paths, we may then feel
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quite sure that they are far from having attained to the certainty of
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scientific progress and may rather be said to be merely groping about in
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the dark. In these circumstances we shall render an important service to
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reason if we succeed in simply indicating the path along which it must
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travel, in order to arrive at any results--even if it should be found
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necessary to abandon many of those aims which, without reflection, have
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been proposed for its attainment.
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That logic has advanced in this sure course, even from the earliest
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times, is apparent from the fact that, since Aristotle, it has been
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unable to advance a step and, thus, to all appearance has reached its
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completion. For, if some of the moderns have thought to enlarge its
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domain by introducing psychological discussions on the mental faculties,
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such as imagination and wit, metaphysical, discussions on the origin
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of knowledge and the different kinds of certitude, according to
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the difference of the objects (idealism, scepticism, and so on), or
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anthropological discussions on prejudices, their causes and remedies:
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this attempt, on the part of these authors, only shows their ignorance
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of the peculiar nature of logical science. We do not enlarge but
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disfigure the sciences when we lose sight of their respective limits and
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allow them to run into one another. Now logic is enclosed within limits
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which admit of perfectly clear definition; it is a science which has for
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its object nothing but the exposition and proof of the formal laws of
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all thought, whether it be a priori or empirical, whatever be its
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origin or its object, and whatever the difficulties--natural or
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accidental--which it encounters in the human mind.
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The early success of logic must be attributed exclusively to the
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narrowness of its field, in which abstraction may, or rather must,
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be made of all the objects of cognition with their characteristic
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distinctions, and in which the understanding has only to deal with
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itself and with its own forms. It is, obviously, a much more difficult
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task for reason to strike into the sure path of science, where it has to
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deal not simply with itself, but with objects external to itself. Hence,
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logic is properly only a propaedeutic--forms, as it were, the vestibule
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of the sciences; and while it is necessary to enable us to form a
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correct judgement with regard to the various branches of knowledge,
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still the acquisition of real, substantive knowledge is to be sought
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only in the sciences properly so called, that is, in the objective
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sciences.
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Now these sciences, if they can be termed rational at all, must contain
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elements of a priori cognition, and this cognition may stand in a
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twofold relation to its object. Either it may have to determine the
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conception of the object--which must be supplied extraneously, or it
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may have to establish its reality. The former is theoretical, the latter
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practical, rational cognition. In both, the pure or a priori element
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must be treated first, and must be carefully distinguished from that
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which is supplied from other sources. Any other method can only lead to
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irremediable confusion.
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Mathematics and physics are the two theoretical sciences which have to
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determine their objects a priori. The former is purely a priori, the
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latter is partially so, but is also dependent on other sources of
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cognition.
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In the earliest times of which history affords us any record,
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mathematics had already entered on the sure course of science, among
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that wonderful nation, the Greeks. Still it is not to be supposed that
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it was as easy for this science to strike into, or rather to construct
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for itself, that royal road, as it was for logic, in which reason has
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only to deal with itself. On the contrary, I believe that it must
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have remained long--chiefly among the Egyptians--in the stage of
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blind groping after its true aims and destination, and that it was
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revolutionized by the happy idea of one man, who struck out and
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determined for all time the path which this science must follow,
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and which admits of an indefinite advancement. The history of this
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intellectual revolution--much more important in its results than the
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discovery of the passage round the celebrated Cape of Good Hope--and of
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its author, has not been preserved. But Diogenes Laertius, in naming
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the supposed discoverer of some of the simplest elements of geometrical
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demonstration--elements which, according to the ordinary opinion, do not
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even require to be proved--makes it apparent that the change introduced
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by the first indication of this new path, must have seemed of the utmost
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importance to the mathematicians of that age, and it has thus been
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secured against the chance of oblivion. A new light must have flashed on
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the mind of the first man (Thales, or whatever may have been his name)
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who demonstrated the properties of the isosceles triangle. For he found
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that it was not sufficient to meditate on the figure, as it lay before
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his eyes, or the conception of it, as it existed in his mind, and thus
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endeavour to get at the knowledge of its properties, but that it was
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necessary to produce these properties, as it were, by a positive a
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priori construction; and that, in order to arrive with certainty at
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a priori cognition, he must not attribute to the object any other
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properties than those which necessarily followed from that which he had
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himself, in accordance with his conception, placed in the object.
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A much longer period elapsed before physics entered on the highway of
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science. For it is only about a century and a half since the wise Bacon
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gave a new direction to physical studies, or rather--as others were
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already on the right track--imparted fresh vigour to the pursuit of
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this new direction. Here, too, as in the case of mathematics, we find
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evidence of a rapid intellectual revolution. In the remarks which follow
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I shall confine myself to the empirical side of natural science.
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When Galilei experimented with balls of a definite weight on the
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inclined plane, when Torricelli caused the air to sustain a weight which
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he had calculated beforehand to be equal to that of a definite column of
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water, or when Stahl, at a later period, converted metals into lime, and
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reconverted lime into metal, by the addition and subtraction of certain
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elements; [Footnote: I do not here follow with exactness the history of
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the experimental method, of which, indeed, the first steps are involved
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in some obscurity.] a light broke upon all natural philosophers. They
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learned that reason only perceives that which it produces after its
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own design; that it must not be content to follow, as it were, in the
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leading-strings of nature, but must proceed in advance with principles
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of judgement according to unvarying laws, and compel nature to reply
|
|
its questions. For accidental observations, made according to no
|
|
preconceived plan, cannot be united under a necessary law. But it is
|
|
this that reason seeks for and requires. It is only the principles of
|
|
reason which can give to concordant phenomena the validity of laws, and
|
|
it is only when experiment is directed by these rational principles that
|
|
it can have any real utility. Reason must approach nature with the view,
|
|
indeed, of receiving information from it, not, however, in the character
|
|
of a pupil, who listens to all that his master chooses to tell him,
|
|
but in that of a judge, who compels the witnesses to reply to those
|
|
questions which he himself thinks fit to propose. To this single idea
|
|
must the revolution be ascribed, by which, after groping in the dark for
|
|
so many centuries, natural science was at length conducted into the path
|
|
of certain progress.
|
|
|
|
We come now to metaphysics, a purely speculative science, which occupies
|
|
a completely isolated position and is entirely independent of the
|
|
teachings of experience. It deals with mere conceptions--not, like
|
|
mathematics, with conceptions applied to intuition--and in it, reason is
|
|
the pupil of itself alone. It is the oldest of the sciences, and would
|
|
still survive, even if all the rest were swallowed up in the abyss of
|
|
an all-destroying barbarism. But it has not yet had the good fortune to
|
|
attain to the sure scientific method. This will be apparent; if we
|
|
apply the tests which we proposed at the outset. We find that reason
|
|
perpetually comes to a stand, when it attempts to gain a priori the
|
|
perception even of those laws which the most common experience confirms.
|
|
We find it compelled to retrace its steps in innumerable instances, and
|
|
to abandon the path on which it had entered, because this does not
|
|
lead to the desired result. We find, too, that those who are engaged in
|
|
metaphysical pursuits are far from being able to agree among themselves,
|
|
but that, on the contrary, this science appears to furnish an arena
|
|
specially adapted for the display of skill or the exercise of strength
|
|
in mock-contests--a field in which no combatant ever yet succeeded in
|
|
gaining an inch of ground, in which, at least, no victory was ever yet
|
|
crowned with permanent possession.
|
|
|
|
This leads us to inquire why it is that, in metaphysics, the sure path
|
|
of science has not hitherto been found. Shall we suppose that it is
|
|
impossible to discover it? Why then should nature have visited our
|
|
reason with restless aspirations after it, as if it were one of our
|
|
weightiest concerns? Nay, more, how little cause should we have to place
|
|
confidence in our reason, if it abandons us in a matter about which,
|
|
most of all, we desire to know the truth--and not only so, but even
|
|
allures us to the pursuit of vain phantoms, only to betray us in the
|
|
end? Or, if the path has only hitherto been missed, what indications do
|
|
we possess to guide us in a renewed investigation, and to enable us to
|
|
hope for greater success than has fallen to the lot of our predecessors?
|
|
|
|
It appears to me that the examples of mathematics and natural
|
|
philosophy, which, as we have seen, were brought into their present
|
|
condition by a sudden revolution, are sufficiently remarkable to fix our
|
|
attention on the essential circumstances of the change which has proved
|
|
so advantageous to them, and to induce us to make the experiment of
|
|
imitating them, so far as the analogy which, as rational sciences, they
|
|
bear to metaphysics may permit. It has hitherto been assumed that our
|
|
cognition must conform to the objects; but all attempts to ascertain
|
|
anything about these objects a priori, by means of conceptions, and thus
|
|
to extend the range of our knowledge, have been rendered abortive by
|
|
this assumption. Let us then make the experiment whether we may not
|
|
be more successful in metaphysics, if we assume that the objects must
|
|
conform to our cognition. This appears, at all events, to accord better
|
|
with the possibility of our gaining the end we have in view, that is to
|
|
say, of arriving at the cognition of objects a priori, of determining
|
|
something with respect to these objects, before they are given to us. We
|
|
here propose to do just what Copernicus did in attempting to explain
|
|
the celestial movements. When he found that he could make no progress by
|
|
assuming that all the heavenly bodies revolved round the spectator,
|
|
he reversed the process, and tried the experiment of assuming that the
|
|
spectator revolved, while the stars remained at rest. We may make
|
|
the same experiment with regard to the intuition of objects. If the
|
|
intuition must conform to the nature of the objects, I do not see how
|
|
we can know anything of them a priori. If, on the other hand, the object
|
|
conforms to the nature of our faculty of intuition, I can then easily
|
|
conceive the possibility of such an a priori knowledge. Now as I cannot
|
|
rest in the mere intuitions, but--if they are to become cognitions--must
|
|
refer them, as representations, to something, as object, and must
|
|
determine the latter by means of the former, here again there are two
|
|
courses open to me. Either, first, I may assume that the conceptions,
|
|
by which I effect this determination, conform to the object--and in this
|
|
case I am reduced to the same perplexity as before; or secondly, I may
|
|
assume that the objects, or, which is the same thing, that experience,
|
|
in which alone as given objects they are cognized, conform to my
|
|
conceptions--and then I am at no loss how to proceed. For experience
|
|
itself is a mode of cognition which requires understanding. Before
|
|
objects, are given to me, that is, a priori, I must presuppose in myself
|
|
laws of the understanding which are expressed in conceptions a
|
|
priori. To these conceptions, then, all the objects of experience must
|
|
necessarily conform. Now there are objects which reason thinks, and
|
|
that necessarily, but which cannot be given in experience, or, at least,
|
|
cannot be given so as reason thinks them. The attempt to think these
|
|
objects will hereafter furnish an excellent test of the new method of
|
|
thought which we have adopted, and which is based on the principle that
|
|
we only cognize in things a priori that which we ourselves place in
|
|
them.*
|
|
|
|
[*Footnote: This method, accordingly, which we have borrowed
|
|
from the natural philosopher, consists in seeking for the
|
|
elements of pure reason in that which admits of confirmation
|
|
or refutation by experiment. Now the propositions of pure
|
|
reason, especially when they transcend the limits of
|
|
possible experience, do not admit of our making any
|
|
experiment with their objects, as in natural science. Hence,
|
|
with regard to those conceptions and principles which we
|
|
assume a priori, our only course ill be to view them from
|
|
two different sides. We must regard one and the same
|
|
conception, on the one hand, in relation to experience as an
|
|
object of the senses and of the understanding, on the other
|
|
hand, in relation to reason, isolated and transcending the
|
|
limits of experience, as an object of mere thought. Now if
|
|
we find that, when we regard things from this double point
|
|
of view, the result is in harmony with the principle of pure
|
|
reason, but that, when we regard them from a single point of
|
|
view, reason is involved in self-contradiction, then the
|
|
experiment will establish the correctness of this
|
|
distinction.]
|
|
|
|
This attempt succeeds as well as we could desire, and promises to
|
|
metaphysics, in its first part--that is, where it is occupied with
|
|
conceptions a priori, of which the corresponding objects may be given in
|
|
experience--the certain course of science. For by this new method we are
|
|
enabled perfectly to explain the possibility of a priori cognition, and,
|
|
what is more, to demonstrate satisfactorily the laws which lie a
|
|
priori at the foundation of nature, as the sum of the objects of
|
|
experience--neither of which was possible according to the procedure
|
|
hitherto followed. But from this deduction of the faculty of a priori
|
|
cognition in the first part of metaphysics, we derive a surprising
|
|
result, and one which, to all appearance, militates against the great
|
|
end of metaphysics, as treated in the second part. For we come to the
|
|
conclusion that our faculty of cognition is unable to transcend the
|
|
limits of possible experience; and yet this is precisely the most
|
|
essential object of this science. The estimate of our rational cognition
|
|
a priori at which we arrive is that it has only to do with phenomena,
|
|
and that things in themselves, while possessing a real existence,
|
|
lie beyond its sphere. Here we are enabled to put the justice of this
|
|
estimate to the test. For that which of necessity impels us to transcend
|
|
the limits of experience and of all phenomena is the unconditioned,
|
|
which reason absolutely requires in things as they are in themselves,
|
|
in order to complete the series of conditions. Now, if it appears that
|
|
when, on the one hand, we assume that our cognition conforms to its
|
|
objects as things in themselves, the unconditioned cannot be thought
|
|
without contradiction, and that when, on the other hand, we assume that
|
|
our representation of things as they are given to us, does not conform
|
|
to these things as they are in themselves, but that these objects, as
|
|
phenomena, conform to our mode of representation, the contradiction
|
|
disappears: we shall then be convinced of the truth of that which we
|
|
began by assuming for the sake of experiment; we may look upon it as
|
|
established that the unconditioned does not lie in things as we
|
|
know them, or as they are given to us, but in things as they are in
|
|
themselves, beyond the range of our cognition.*
|
|
|
|
[*Footnote: This experiment of pure reason has a great
|
|
similarity to that of the chemists, which they term the
|
|
experiment of reduction, or, more usually, the synthetic
|
|
process. The analysis of the metaphysician separates pure
|
|
cognition a priori into two heterogeneous elements, viz.,
|
|
the cognition of things as phenomena, and of things in
|
|
themselves. Dialectic combines these again into harmony with
|
|
the necessary rational idea of the unconditioned, and finds
|
|
that this harmony never results except through the above
|
|
distinction, which is, therefore, concluded to be just.]
|
|
|
|
But, after we have thus denied the power of speculative reason to make
|
|
any progress in the sphere of the supersensible, it still remains for
|
|
our consideration whether data do not exist in practical cognition
|
|
which may enable us to determine the transcendent conception of the
|
|
unconditioned, to rise beyond the limits of all possible experience
|
|
from a practical point of view, and thus to satisfy the great ends of
|
|
metaphysics. Speculative reason has thus, at least, made room for such
|
|
an extension of our knowledge: and, if it must leave this space vacant,
|
|
still it does not rob us of the liberty to fill it up, if we can,
|
|
by means of practical data--nay, it even challenges us to make the
|
|
attempt.*
|
|
|
|
[*Footnote: So the central laws of the movements of the
|
|
heavenly bodies established the truth of that which
|
|
Copernicus, first, assumed only as a hypothesis, and, at the
|
|
same time, brought to light that invisible force (Newtonian
|
|
attraction) which holds the universe together. The latter
|
|
would have remained forever undiscovered, if Copernicus had
|
|
not ventured on the experiment--contrary to the senses but
|
|
still just--of looking for the observed movements not in the
|
|
heavenly bodies, but in the spectator. In this Preface I
|
|
treat the new metaphysical method as a hypothesis with the
|
|
view of rendering apparent the first attempts at such a
|
|
change of method, which are always hypothetical. But in the
|
|
Critique itself it will be demonstrated, not hypothetically,
|
|
but apodeictically, from the nature of our representations
|
|
of space and time, and from the elementary conceptions of
|
|
the understanding.]
|
|
|
|
|
|
This attempt to introduce a complete revolution in the procedure
|
|
of metaphysics, after the example of the geometricians and natural
|
|
philosophers, constitutes the aim of the Critique of Pure Speculative
|
|
Reason. It is a treatise on the method to be followed, not a system of
|
|
the science itself. But, at the same time, it marks out and defines both
|
|
the external boundaries and the internal structure of this science.
|
|
For pure speculative reason has this peculiarity, that, in choosing the
|
|
various objects of thought, it is able to define the limits of its own
|
|
faculties, and even to give a complete enumeration of the possible
|
|
modes of proposing problems to itself, and thus to sketch out the entire
|
|
system of metaphysics. For, on the one hand, in cognition a priori,
|
|
nothing must be attributed to the objects but what the thinking subject
|
|
derives from itself; and, on the other hand, reason is, in regard to
|
|
the principles of cognition, a perfectly distinct, independent unity, in
|
|
which, as in an organized body, every member exists for the sake of
|
|
the others, and all for the sake of each, so that no principle can be
|
|
viewed, with safety, in one relationship, unless it is, at the same
|
|
time, viewed in relation to the total use of pure reason. Hence, too,
|
|
metaphysics has this singular advantage--an advantage which falls to the
|
|
lot of no other science which has to do with objects--that, if once it
|
|
is conducted into the sure path of science, by means of this criticism,
|
|
it can then take in the whole sphere of its cognitions, and can thus
|
|
complete its work, and leave it for the use of posterity, as a capital
|
|
which can never receive fresh accessions. For metaphysics has to deal
|
|
only with principles and with the limitations of its own employment as
|
|
determined by these principles. To this perfection it is, therefore,
|
|
bound, as the fundamental science, to attain, and to it the maxim may
|
|
justly be applied:
|
|
|
|
Nil actum reputans, si quid superesset agendum.
|
|
|
|
But, it will be asked, what kind of a treasure is this that we propose
|
|
to bequeath to posterity? What is the real value of this system of
|
|
metaphysics, purified by criticism, and thereby reduced to a permanent
|
|
condition? A cursory view of the present work will lead to the
|
|
supposition that its use is merely negative, that it only serves to
|
|
warn us against venturing, with speculative reason, beyond the limits
|
|
of experience. This is, in fact, its primary use. But this, at once,
|
|
assumes a positive value, when we observe that the principles with which
|
|
speculative reason endeavours to transcend its limits lead inevitably,
|
|
not to the extension, but to the contraction of the use of reason,
|
|
inasmuch as they threaten to extend the limits of sensibility, which
|
|
is their proper sphere, over the entire realm of thought and, thus,
|
|
to supplant the pure (practical) use of reason. So far, then, as this
|
|
criticism is occupied in confining speculative reason within its proper
|
|
bounds, it is only negative; but, inasmuch as it thereby, at the same
|
|
time, removes an obstacle which impedes and even threatens to destroy
|
|
the use of practical reason, it possesses a positive and very important
|
|
value. In order to admit this, we have only to be convinced that there
|
|
is an absolutely necessary use of pure reason--the moral use--in which
|
|
it inevitably transcends the limits of sensibility, without the aid
|
|
of speculation, requiring only to be insured against the effects of a
|
|
speculation which would involve it in contradiction with itself. To deny
|
|
the positive advantage of the service which this criticism renders
|
|
us would be as absurd as to maintain that the system of police is
|
|
productive of no positive benefit, since its main business is to prevent
|
|
the violence which citizen has to apprehend from citizen, that so each
|
|
may pursue his vocation in peace and security. That space and time are
|
|
only forms of sensible intuition, and hence are only conditions of the
|
|
existence of things as phenomena; that, moreover, we have no conceptions
|
|
of the understanding, and, consequently, no elements for the cognition
|
|
of things, except in so far as a corresponding intuition can be given
|
|
to these conceptions; that, accordingly, we can have no cognition of
|
|
an object, as a thing in itself, but only as an object of sensible
|
|
intuition, that is, as phenomenon--all this is proved in the analytical
|
|
part of the Critique; and from this the limitation of all possible
|
|
speculative cognition to the mere objects of experience, follows as a
|
|
necessary result. At the same time, it must be carefully borne in mind
|
|
that, while we surrender the power of cognizing, we still reserve the
|
|
power of thinking objects, as things in themselves.* For, otherwise,
|
|
we should require to affirm the existence of an appearance, without
|
|
something that appears--which would be absurd. Now let us suppose, for a
|
|
moment, that we had not undertaken this criticism and, accordingly,
|
|
had not drawn the necessary distinction between things as objects
|
|
of experience and things as they are in themselves. The principle of
|
|
causality, and, by consequence, the mechanism of nature as determined by
|
|
causality, would then have absolute validity in relation to all things
|
|
as efficient causes. I should then be unable to assert, with regard to
|
|
one and the same being, e.g., the human soul, that its will is free, and
|
|
yet, at the same time, subject to natural necessity, that is, not free,
|
|
without falling into a palpable contradiction, for in both propositions
|
|
I should take the soul in the same signification, as a thing in general,
|
|
as a thing in itself--as, without previous criticism, I could not but
|
|
take it. Suppose now, on the other hand, that we have undertaken this
|
|
criticism, and have learnt that an object may be taken in two senses,
|
|
first, as a phenomenon, secondly, as a thing in itself; and that,
|
|
according to the deduction of the conceptions of the understanding, the
|
|
principle of causality has reference only to things in the first sense.
|
|
We then see how it does not involve any contradiction to assert, on the
|
|
one hand, that the will, in the phenomenal sphere--in visible action--is
|
|
necessarily obedient to the law of nature, and, in so far, not free;
|
|
and, on the other hand, that, as belonging to a thing in itself, it is
|
|
not subject to that law, and, accordingly, is free. Now, it is true that
|
|
I cannot, by means of speculative reason, and still less by empirical
|
|
observation, cognize my soul as a thing in itself and consequently,
|
|
cannot cognize liberty as the property of a being to which I ascribe
|
|
effects in the world of sense. For, to do so, I must cognize this being
|
|
as existing, and yet not in time, which--since I cannot support my
|
|
conception by any intuition--is impossible. At the same time, while
|
|
I cannot cognize, I can quite well think freedom, that is to say, my
|
|
representation of it involves at least no contradiction, if we bear in
|
|
mind the critical distinction of the two modes of representation (the
|
|
sensible and the intellectual) and the consequent limitation of the
|
|
conceptions of the pure understanding and of the principles which flow
|
|
from them. Suppose now that morality necessarily presupposed liberty,
|
|
in the strictest sense, as a property of our will; suppose that reason
|
|
contained certain practical, original principles a priori, which were
|
|
absolutely impossible without this presupposition; and suppose, at the
|
|
same time, that speculative reason had proved that liberty was
|
|
incapable of being thought at all. It would then follow that the
|
|
moral presupposition must give way to the speculative affirmation, the
|
|
opposite of which involves an obvious contradiction, and that liberty
|
|
and, with it, morality must yield to the mechanism of nature; for
|
|
the negation of morality involves no contradiction, except on the
|
|
presupposition of liberty. Now morality does not require the speculative
|
|
cognition of liberty; it is enough that I can think it, that its
|
|
conception involves no contradiction, that it does not interfere with
|
|
the mechanism of nature. But even this requirement we could not satisfy,
|
|
if we had not learnt the twofold sense in which things may be taken; and
|
|
it is only in this way that the doctrine of morality and the doctrine of
|
|
nature are confined within their proper limits. For this result,
|
|
then, we are indebted to a criticism which warns us of our unavoidable
|
|
ignorance with regard to things in themselves, and establishes the
|
|
necessary limitation of our theoretical cognition to mere phenomena.
|
|
|
|
[*Footnote: In order to cognize an object, I must be able to
|
|
prove its possibility, either from its reality as attested
|
|
by experience, or a priori, by means of reason. But I can
|
|
think what I please, provided only I do not contradict
|
|
myself; that is, provided my conception is a possible
|
|
thought, though I may be unable to answer for the existence
|
|
of a corresponding object in the sum of possibilities. But
|
|
something more is required before I can attribute to such a
|
|
conception objective validity, that is real possibility--the
|
|
other possibility being merely logical. We are not, however,
|
|
confined to theoretical sources of cognition for the means
|
|
of satisfying this additional requirement, but may derive
|
|
them from practical sources.]
|
|
|
|
|
|
The positive value of the critical principles of pure reason in relation
|
|
to the conception of God and of the simple nature of the soul, admits of
|
|
a similar exemplification; but on this point I shall not dwell. I
|
|
cannot even make the assumption--as the practical interests of
|
|
morality require--of God, freedom, and immortality, if I do not deprive
|
|
speculative reason of its pretensions to transcendent insight. For to
|
|
arrive at these, it must make use of principles which, in fact, extend
|
|
only to the objects of possible experience, and which cannot be applied
|
|
to objects beyond this sphere without converting them into phenomena,
|
|
and thus rendering the practical extension of pure reason impossible.
|
|
I must, therefore, abolish knowledge, to make room for belief. The
|
|
dogmatism of metaphysics, that is, the presumption that it is possible
|
|
to advance in metaphysics without previous criticism, is the true source
|
|
of the unbelief (always dogmatic) which militates against morality.
|
|
|
|
Thus, while it may be no very difficult task to bequeath a legacy
|
|
to posterity, in the shape of a system of metaphysics constructed in
|
|
accordance with the Critique of Pure Reason, still the value of such a
|
|
bequest is not to be depreciated. It will render an important service
|
|
to reason, by substituting the certainty of scientific method for that
|
|
random groping after results without the guidance of principles, which
|
|
has hitherto characterized the pursuit of metaphysical studies. It will
|
|
render an important service to the inquiring mind of youth, by leading
|
|
the student to apply his powers to the cultivation of genuine science,
|
|
instead of wasting them, as at present, on speculations which can never
|
|
lead to any result, or on the idle attempt to invent new ideas and
|
|
opinions. But, above all, it will confer an inestimable benefit on
|
|
morality and religion, by showing that all the objections urged against
|
|
them may be silenced for ever by the Socratic method, that is to say, by
|
|
proving the ignorance of the objector. For, as the world has never been,
|
|
and, no doubt, never will be without a system of metaphysics of one kind
|
|
or another, it is the highest and weightiest concern of philosophy to
|
|
render it powerless for harm, by closing up the sources of error.
|
|
|
|
This important change in the field of the sciences, this loss of its
|
|
fancied possessions, to which speculative reason must submit, does not
|
|
prove in any way detrimental to the general interests of humanity. The
|
|
advantages which the world has derived from the teachings of pure reason
|
|
are not at all impaired. The loss falls, in its whole extent, on the
|
|
monopoly of the schools, but does not in the slightest degree touch the
|
|
interests of mankind. I appeal to the most obstinate dogmatist, whether
|
|
the proof of the continued existence of the soul after death, derived
|
|
from the simplicity of its substance; of the freedom of the will in
|
|
opposition to the general mechanism of nature, drawn from the subtle but
|
|
impotent distinction of subjective and objective practical necessity;
|
|
or of the existence of God, deduced from the conception of an ens
|
|
realissimum--the contingency of the changeable, and the necessity of
|
|
a prime mover, has ever been able to pass beyond the limits of the
|
|
schools, to penetrate the public mind, or to exercise the slightest
|
|
influence on its convictions. It must be admitted that this has not been
|
|
the case and that, owing to the unfitness of the common understanding
|
|
for such subtle speculations, it can never be expected to take place. On
|
|
the contrary, it is plain that the hope of a future life arises from the
|
|
feeling, which exists in the breast of every man, that the temporal
|
|
is inadequate to meet and satisfy the demands of his nature. In like
|
|
manner, it cannot be doubted that the clear exhibition of duties
|
|
in opposition to all the claims of inclination, gives rise to the
|
|
consciousness of freedom, and that the glorious order, beauty, and
|
|
providential care, everywhere displayed in nature, give rise to the
|
|
belief in a wise and great Author of the Universe. Such is the genesis
|
|
of these general convictions of mankind, so far as they depend on
|
|
rational grounds; and this public property not only remains undisturbed,
|
|
but is even raised to greater importance, by the doctrine that the
|
|
schools have no right to arrogate to themselves a more profound insight
|
|
into a matter of general human concernment than that to which the great
|
|
mass of men, ever held by us in the highest estimation, can without
|
|
difficulty attain, and that the schools should, therefore, confine
|
|
themselves to the elaboration of these universally comprehensible and,
|
|
from a moral point of view, amply satisfactory proofs. The change,
|
|
therefore, affects only the arrogant pretensions of the schools, which
|
|
would gladly retain, in their own exclusive possession, the key to the
|
|
truths which they impart to the public.
|
|
|
|
Quod mecum nescit, solus vult scire videri.
|
|
|
|
At the same time it does not deprive the speculative philosopher of
|
|
his just title to be the sole depositor of a science which benefits the
|
|
public without its knowledge--I mean, the Critique of Pure Reason. This
|
|
can never become popular and, indeed, has no occasion to be so; for
|
|
finespun arguments in favour of useful truths make just as little
|
|
impression on the public mind as the equally subtle objections brought
|
|
against these truths. On the other hand, since both inevitably force
|
|
themselves on every man who rises to the height of speculation, it
|
|
becomes the manifest duty of the schools to enter upon a thorough
|
|
investigation of the rights of speculative reason and, thus, to prevent
|
|
the scandal which metaphysical controversies are sure, sooner or later,
|
|
to cause even to the masses. It is only by criticism that metaphysicians
|
|
(and, as such, theologians too) can be saved from these controversies
|
|
and from the consequent perversion of their doctrines. Criticism
|
|
alone can strike a blow at the root of materialism, fatalism, atheism,
|
|
free-thinking, fanaticism, and superstition, which are universally
|
|
injurious--as well as of idealism and scepticism, which are dangerous
|
|
to the schools, but can scarcely pass over to the public. If governments
|
|
think proper to interfere with the affairs of the learned, it would be
|
|
more consistent with a wise regard for the interests of science, as well
|
|
as for those of society, to favour a criticism of this kind, by which
|
|
alone the labours of reason can be established on a firm basis, than to
|
|
support the ridiculous despotism of the schools, which raise a loud cry
|
|
of danger to the public over the destruction of cobwebs, of which the
|
|
public has never taken any notice, and the loss of which, therefore, it
|
|
can never feel.
|
|
|
|
This critical science is not opposed to the dogmatic procedure of reason
|
|
in pure cognition; for pure cognition must always be dogmatic, that is,
|
|
must rest on strict demonstration from sure principles a priori--but to
|
|
dogmatism, that is, to the presumption that it is possible to make
|
|
any progress with a pure cognition, derived from (philosophical)
|
|
conceptions, according to the principles which reason has long been in
|
|
the habit of employing--without first inquiring in what way and by what
|
|
right reason has come into the possession of these principles. Dogmatism
|
|
is thus the dogmatic procedure of pure reason without previous criticism
|
|
of its own powers, and in opposing this procedure, we must not be
|
|
supposed to lend any countenance to that loquacious shallowness which
|
|
arrogates to itself the name of popularity, nor yet to scepticism, which
|
|
makes short work with the whole science of metaphysics. On the contrary,
|
|
our criticism is the necessary preparation for a thoroughly scientific
|
|
system of metaphysics which must perform its task entirely a priori, to
|
|
the complete satisfaction of speculative reason, and must, therefore,
|
|
be treated, not popularly, but scholastically. In carrying out the
|
|
plan which the Critique prescribes, that is, in the future system
|
|
of metaphysics, we must have recourse to the strict method of the
|
|
celebrated Wolf, the greatest of all dogmatic philosophers. He was the
|
|
first to point out the necessity of establishing fixed principles, of
|
|
clearly defining our conceptions, and of subjecting our demonstrations
|
|
to the most severe scrutiny, instead of rashly jumping at conclusions.
|
|
The example which he set served to awaken that spirit of profound and
|
|
thorough investigation which is not yet extinct in Germany. He would
|
|
have been peculiarly well fitted to give a truly scientific character to
|
|
metaphysical studies, had it occurred to him to prepare the field by a
|
|
criticism of the organum, that is, of pure reason itself. That he failed
|
|
to perceive the necessity of such a procedure must be ascribed to the
|
|
dogmatic mode of thought which characterized his age, and on this point
|
|
the philosophers of his time, as well as of all previous times, have
|
|
nothing to reproach each other with. Those who reject at once the method
|
|
of Wolf, and of the Critique of Pure Reason, can have no other aim
|
|
but to shake off the fetters of science, to change labour into sport,
|
|
certainty into opinion, and philosophy into philodoxy.
|
|
|
|
In this second edition, I have endeavoured, as far as possible, to
|
|
remove the difficulties and obscurity which, without fault of mine
|
|
perhaps, have given rise to many misconceptions even among acute
|
|
thinkers. In the propositions themselves, and in the demonstrations by
|
|
which they are supported, as well as in the form and the entire plan of
|
|
the work, I have found nothing to alter; which must be attributed
|
|
partly to the long examination to which I had subjected the whole before
|
|
offering it to the public and partly to the nature of the case. For pure
|
|
speculative reason is an organic structure in which there is nothing
|
|
isolated or independent, but every Single part is essential to all the
|
|
rest; and hence, the slightest imperfection, whether defect or positive
|
|
error, could not fail to betray itself in use. I venture, further, to
|
|
hope, that this system will maintain the same unalterable character for
|
|
the future. I am led to entertain this confidence, not by vanity, but by
|
|
the evidence which the equality of the result affords, when we proceed,
|
|
first, from the simplest elements up to the complete whole of pure
|
|
reason and, and then, backwards from the whole to each part. We find
|
|
that the attempt to make the slightest alteration, in any part, leads
|
|
inevitably to contradictions, not merely in this system, but in
|
|
human reason itself. At the same time, there is still much room for
|
|
improvement in the exposition of the doctrines contained in this work.
|
|
In the present edition, I have endeavoured to remove misapprehensions of
|
|
the aesthetical part, especially with regard to the conception of time;
|
|
to clear away the obscurity which has been found in the deduction of
|
|
the conceptions of the understanding; to supply the supposed want of
|
|
sufficient evidence in the demonstration of the principles of the pure
|
|
understanding; and, lastly, to obviate the misunderstanding of the
|
|
paralogisms which immediately precede the rational psychology. Beyond
|
|
this point--the end of the second main division of the "Transcendental
|
|
Dialectic"--I have not extended my alterations,* partly from want
|
|
of time, and partly because I am not aware that any portion of the
|
|
remainder has given rise to misconceptions among intelligent and
|
|
impartial critics, whom I do not here mention with that praise which is
|
|
their due, but who will find that their suggestions have been attended
|
|
to in the work itself.
|
|
|
|
[*Footnote: The only addition, properly so called--and that
|
|
only in the method of proof--which I have made in the
|
|
present edition, consists of a new refutation of
|
|
psychological idealism, and a strict demonstration--the only
|
|
one possible, as I believe--of the objective reality of
|
|
external intuition. However harmless idealism may be
|
|
considered--although in reality it is not so--in regard to
|
|
the essential ends of metaphysics, it must still remain a
|
|
scandal to philosophy and to the general human reason to be
|
|
obliged to assume, as an article of mere belief, the
|
|
existence of things external to ourselves (from which, yet,
|
|
we derive the whole material of cognition for the internal
|
|
sense), and not to be able to oppose a satisfactory proof to
|
|
any one who may call it in question. As there is some
|
|
obscurity of expression in the demonstration as it stands in
|
|
the text, I propose to alter the passage in question as
|
|
follows: "But this permanent cannot be an intuition in me.
|
|
For all the determining grounds of my existence which can be
|
|
found in me are representations and, as such, do themselves
|
|
require a permanent, distinct from them, which may determine
|
|
my existence in relation to their changes, that is, my
|
|
existence in time, wherein they change." It may, probably,
|
|
be urged in opposition to this proof that, after all, I am
|
|
only conscious immediately of that which is in me, that is,
|
|
of my representation of external things, and that,
|
|
consequently, it must always remain uncertain whether
|
|
anything corresponding to this representation does or does
|
|
not exist externally to me. But I am conscious, through
|
|
internal experience, of my existence in time (consequently,
|
|
also, of the determinability of the former in the latter),
|
|
and that is more than the simple consciousness of my
|
|
representation. It is, in fact, the same as the empirical
|
|
consciousness of my existence, which can only be determined
|
|
in relation to something, which, while connected with my
|
|
existence, is external to me. This consciousness of my
|
|
existence in time is, therefore, identical with the
|
|
consciousness of a relation to something external to me, and
|
|
it is, therefore, experience, not fiction, sense, not
|
|
imagination, which inseparably connects the external with my
|
|
internal sense. For the external sense is, in itself, the
|
|
relation of intuition to something real, external to me; and
|
|
the reality of this something, as opposed to the mere
|
|
imagination of it, rests solely on its inseparable
|
|
connection with internal experience as the condition of its
|
|
possibility. If with the intellectual consciousness of my
|
|
existence, in the representation: I am, which accompanies
|
|
all my judgements, and all the operations of my
|
|
understanding, I could, at the same time, connect a
|
|
determination of my existence by intellectual intuition,
|
|
then the consciousness of a relation to something external
|
|
to me would not be necessary. But the internal intuition in
|
|
which alone my existence can be determined, though preceded
|
|
by that purely intellectual consciousness, is itself
|
|
sensible and attached to the condition of time. Hence this
|
|
determination of my existence, and consequently my internal
|
|
experience itself, must depend on something permanent which
|
|
is not in me, which can be, therefore, only in something
|
|
external to me, to which I must look upon myself as being
|
|
related. Thus the reality of the external sense is
|
|
necessarily connected with that of the internal, in order to
|
|
the possibility of experience in general; that is, I am just
|
|
as certainly conscious that there are things external to me
|
|
related to my sense as I am that I myself exist as
|
|
determined in time. But in order to ascertain to what given
|
|
intuitions objects, external me, really correspond, in other
|
|
words, what intuitions belong to the external sense and not
|
|
to imagination, I must have recourse, in every particular
|
|
case, to those rules according to which experience in
|
|
general (even internal experience) is distinguished from
|
|
imagination, and which are always based on the proposition
|
|
that there really is an external experience. We may add the
|
|
remark that the representation of something permanent in
|
|
existence, is not the same thing as the permanent
|
|
representation; for a representation may be very variable
|
|
and changing--as all our representations, even that of
|
|
matter, are--and yet refer to something permanent, which
|
|
must, therefore, be distinct from all my representations and
|
|
external to me, the existence of which is necessarily
|
|
included in the determination of my own existence, and with
|
|
it constitutes one experience--an experience which would not
|
|
even be possible internally, if it were not also at the same
|
|
time, in part, external. To the question How? we are no more
|
|
able to reply, than we are, in general, to think the
|
|
stationary in time, the coexistence of which with the
|
|
variable, produces the conception of change.]
|
|
|
|
|
|
In attempting to render the exposition of my views as intelligible as
|
|
possible, I have been compelled to leave out or abridge various passages
|
|
which were not essential to the completeness of the work, but which many
|
|
readers might consider useful in other respects, and might be unwilling
|
|
to miss. This trifling loss, which could not be avoided without swelling
|
|
the book beyond due limits, may be supplied, at the pleasure of the
|
|
reader, by a comparison with the first edition, and will, I hope, be
|
|
more than compensated for by the greater clearness of the exposition as
|
|
it now stands.
|
|
|
|
I have observed, with pleasure and thankfulness, in the pages of
|
|
various reviews and treatises, that the spirit of profound and thorough
|
|
investigation is not extinct in Germany, though it may have been
|
|
overborne and silenced for a time by the fashionable tone of a licence
|
|
in thinking, which gives itself the airs of genius, and that the
|
|
difficulties which beset the paths of criticism have not prevented
|
|
energetic and acute thinkers from making themselves masters of the
|
|
science of pure reason to which these paths conduct--a science which is
|
|
not popular, but scholastic in its character, and which alone can hope
|
|
for a lasting existence or possess an abiding value. To these deserving
|
|
men, who so happily combine profundity of view with a talent for lucid
|
|
exposition--a talent which I myself am not conscious of possessing--I
|
|
leave the task of removing any obscurity which may still adhere to the
|
|
statement of my doctrines. For, in this case, the danger is not that
|
|
of being refuted, but of being misunderstood. For my own part, I must
|
|
henceforward abstain from controversy, although I shall carefully attend
|
|
to all suggestions, whether from friends or adversaries, which may be
|
|
of use in the future elaboration of the system of this propaedeutic. As,
|
|
during these labours, I have advanced pretty far in years this month
|
|
I reach my sixty-fourth year--it will be necessary for me to economize
|
|
time, if I am to carry out my plan of elaborating the metaphysics of
|
|
nature as well as of morals, in confirmation of the correctness of the
|
|
principles established in this Critique of Pure Reason, both speculative
|
|
and practical; and I must, therefore, leave the task of clearing up the
|
|
obscurities of the present work--inevitable, perhaps, at the outset--as
|
|
well as, the defence of the whole, to those deserving men, who have made
|
|
my system their own. A philosophical system cannot come forward armed
|
|
at all points like a mathematical treatise, and hence it may be quite
|
|
possible to take objection to particular passages, while the organic
|
|
structure of the system, considered as a unity, has no danger to
|
|
apprehend. But few possess the ability, and still fewer the inclination,
|
|
to take a comprehensive view of a new system. By confining the view to
|
|
particular passages, taking these out of their connection and comparing
|
|
them with one another, it is easy to pick out apparent contradictions,
|
|
especially in a work written with any freedom of style. These
|
|
contradictions place the work in an unfavourable light in the eyes of
|
|
those who rely on the judgement of others, but are easily reconciled
|
|
by those who have mastered the idea of the whole. If a theory possesses
|
|
stability in itself, the action and reaction which seemed at first to
|
|
threaten its existence serve only, in the course of time, to smooth
|
|
down any superficial roughness or inequality, and--if men of insight,
|
|
impartiality, and truly popular gifts, turn their attention to it--to
|
|
secure to it, in a short time, the requisite elegance also.
|
|
|
|
Konigsberg, April 1787.
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
INTRODUCTION
|
|
|
|
|
|
I. Of the difference between Pure and Empirical Knowledge
|
|
|
|
That all our knowledge begins with experience there can be no doubt. For
|
|
how is it possible that the faculty of cognition should be awakened into
|
|
exercise otherwise than by means of objects which affect our senses, and
|
|
partly of themselves produce representations, partly rouse our powers
|
|
of understanding into activity, to compare to connect, or to separate
|
|
these, and so to convert the raw material of our sensuous impressions
|
|
into a knowledge of objects, which is called experience? In respect of
|
|
time, therefore, no knowledge of ours is antecedent to experience, but
|
|
begins with it.
|
|
|
|
But, though all our knowledge begins with experience, it by no means
|
|
follows that all arises out of experience. For, on the contrary, it is
|
|
quite possible that our empirical knowledge is a compound of that which
|
|
we receive through impressions, and that which the faculty of cognition
|
|
supplies from itself (sensuous impressions giving merely the occasion),
|
|
an addition which we cannot distinguish from the original element given
|
|
by sense, till long practice has made us attentive to, and skilful
|
|
in separating it. It is, therefore, a question which requires close
|
|
investigation, and not to be answered at first sight, whether there
|
|
exists a knowledge altogether independent of experience, and even of
|
|
all sensuous impressions? Knowledge of this kind is called a priori,
|
|
in contradistinction to empirical knowledge, which has its sources a
|
|
posteriori, that is, in experience.
|
|
|
|
But the expression, "a priori," is not as yet definite enough adequately
|
|
to indicate the whole meaning of the question above started. For, in
|
|
speaking of knowledge which has its sources in experience, we are wont
|
|
to say, that this or that may be known a priori, because we do not
|
|
derive this knowledge immediately from experience, but from a general
|
|
rule, which, however, we have itself borrowed from experience. Thus,
|
|
if a man undermined his house, we say, "he might know a priori that
|
|
it would have fallen;" that is, he needed not to have waited for the
|
|
experience that it did actually fall. But still, a priori, he could not
|
|
know even this much. For, that bodies are heavy, and, consequently, that
|
|
they fall when their supports are taken away, must have been known to
|
|
him previously, by means of experience.
|
|
|
|
By the term "knowledge a priori," therefore, we shall in the sequel
|
|
understand, not such as is independent of this or that kind of
|
|
experience, but such as is absolutely so of all experience. Opposed
|
|
to this is empirical knowledge, or that which is possible only a
|
|
posteriori, that is, through experience. Knowledge a priori is either
|
|
pure or impure. Pure knowledge a priori is that with which no empirical
|
|
element is mixed up. For example, the proposition, "Every change has
|
|
a cause," is a proposition a priori, but impure, because change is a
|
|
conception which can only be derived from experience.
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
II. The Human Intellect, even in an Unphilosophical State, is in
|
|
Possession of Certain Cognitions "a priori".
|
|
|
|
The question now is as to a criterion, by which we may securely
|
|
distinguish a pure from an empirical cognition. Experience no doubt
|
|
teaches us that this or that object is constituted in such and such a
|
|
manner, but not that it could not possibly exist otherwise. Now, in
|
|
the first place, if we have a proposition which contains the idea
|
|
of necessity in its very conception, it is priori. If, moreover, it is not
|
|
derived from any other proposition, unless from one equally involving
|
|
the idea of necessity, it is absolutely priori. Secondly, an empirical
|
|
judgement never exhibits strict and absolute, but only assumed and
|
|
comparative universality (by induction); therefore, the most we can say
|
|
is--so far as we have hitherto observed, there is no exception to this
|
|
or that rule. If, on the other hand, a judgement carries with it strict
|
|
and absolute universality, that is, admits of no possible exception, it
|
|
is not derived from experience, but is valid absolutely a priori.
|
|
|
|
Empirical universality is, therefore, only an arbitrary extension of
|
|
validity, from that which may be predicated of a proposition valid in
|
|
most cases, to that which is asserted of a proposition which holds good
|
|
in all; as, for example, in the affirmation, "All bodies are heavy."
|
|
When, on the contrary, strict universality characterizes a judgement,
|
|
it necessarily indicates another peculiar source of knowledge, namely,
|
|
a faculty of cognition a priori. Necessity and strict universality,
|
|
therefore, are infallible tests for distinguishing pure from empirical
|
|
knowledge, and are inseparably connected with each other. But as in the
|
|
use of these criteria the empirical limitation is sometimes more
|
|
easily detected than the contingency of the judgement, or the unlimited
|
|
universality which we attach to a judgement is often a more convincing
|
|
proof than its necessity, it may be advisable to use the criteria
|
|
separately, each being by itself infallible.
|
|
|
|
Now, that in the sphere of human cognition we have judgements which are
|
|
necessary, and in the strictest sense universal, consequently pure a
|
|
priori, it will be an easy matter to show. If we desire an example from
|
|
the sciences, we need only take any proposition in mathematics. If we
|
|
cast our eyes upon the commonest operations of the understanding, the
|
|
proposition, "Every change must have a cause," will amply serve our
|
|
purpose. In the latter case, indeed, the conception of a cause so
|
|
plainly involves the conception of a necessity of connection with an
|
|
effect, and of a strict universality of the law, that the very notion of
|
|
a cause would entirely disappear, were we to derive it, like Hume, from
|
|
a frequent association of what happens with that which precedes; and the
|
|
habit thence originating of connecting representations--the necessity
|
|
inherent in the judgement being therefore merely subjective. Besides,
|
|
without seeking for such examples of principles existing a priori
|
|
in cognition, we might easily show that such principles are the
|
|
indispensable basis of the possibility of experience itself, and
|
|
consequently prove their existence a priori. For whence could our
|
|
experience itself acquire certainty, if all the rules on which it
|
|
depends were themselves empirical, and consequently fortuitous? No one,
|
|
therefore, can admit the validity of the use of such rules as first
|
|
principles. But, for the present, we may content ourselves with having
|
|
established the fact, that we do possess and exercise a faculty of pure
|
|
a priori cognition; and, secondly, with having pointed out the proper
|
|
tests of such cognition, namely, universality and necessity.
|
|
|
|
Not only in judgements, however, but even in conceptions, is an a
|
|
priori origin manifest. For example, if we take away by degrees from
|
|
our conceptions of a body all that can be referred to mere
|
|
sensuous experience--colour, hardness or softness, weight, even
|
|
impenetrability--the body will then vanish; but the space which it
|
|
occupied still remains, and this it is utterly impossible to annihilate
|
|
in thought. Again, if we take away, in like manner, from our empirical
|
|
conception of any object, corporeal or incorporeal, all properties which
|
|
mere experience has taught us to connect with it, still we cannot think
|
|
away those through which we cogitate it as substance, or adhering to
|
|
substance, although our conception of substance is more determined than
|
|
that of an object. Compelled, therefore, by that necessity with which
|
|
the conception of substance forces itself upon us, we must confess that
|
|
it has its seat in our faculty of cognition a priori.
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
III. Philosophy stands in need of a Science which shall Determine the
|
|
Possibility, Principles, and Extent of Human Knowledge "a priori"
|
|
|
|
Of far more importance than all that has been above said, is the
|
|
consideration that certain of our cognitions rise completely above the
|
|
sphere of all possible experience, and by means of conceptions, to which
|
|
there exists in the whole extent of experience no corresponding object,
|
|
seem to extend the range of our judgements beyond its bounds. And just
|
|
in this transcendental or supersensible sphere, where experience affords
|
|
us neither instruction nor guidance, lie the investigations of reason,
|
|
which, on account of their importance, we consider far preferable to,
|
|
and as having a far more elevated aim than, all that the understanding
|
|
can achieve within the sphere of sensuous phenomena. So high a value
|
|
do we set upon these investigations, that even at the risk of error, we
|
|
persist in following them out, and permit neither doubt nor disregard
|
|
nor indifference to restrain us from the pursuit. These unavoidable
|
|
problems of mere pure reason are God, freedom (of will), and
|
|
immortality. The science which, with all its preliminaries, has for its
|
|
especial object the solution of these problems is named metaphysics--a
|
|
science which is at the very outset dogmatical, that is, it confidently
|
|
takes upon itself the execution of this task without any previous
|
|
investigation of the ability or inability of reason for such an
|
|
undertaking.
|
|
|
|
Now the safe ground of experience being thus abandoned, it seems
|
|
nevertheless natural that we should hesitate to erect a building with
|
|
the cognitions we possess, without knowing whence they come, and on the
|
|
strength of principles, the origin of which is undiscovered. Instead of
|
|
thus trying to build without a foundation, it is rather to be expected
|
|
that we should long ago have put the question, how the understanding can
|
|
arrive at these a priori cognitions, and what is the extent, validity,
|
|
and worth which they may possess? We say, "This is natural enough,"
|
|
meaning by the word natural, that which is consistent with a just and
|
|
reasonable way of thinking; but if we understand by the term, that
|
|
which usually happens, nothing indeed could be more natural and
|
|
more comprehensible than that this investigation should be left
|
|
long unattempted. For one part of our pure knowledge, the science of
|
|
mathematics, has been long firmly established, and thus leads us to form
|
|
flattering expectations with regard to others, though these may be of
|
|
quite a different nature. Besides, when we get beyond the bounds of
|
|
experience, we are of course safe from opposition in that quarter;
|
|
and the charm of widening the range of our knowledge is so great that,
|
|
unless we are brought to a standstill by some evident contradiction, we
|
|
hurry on undoubtingly in our course. This, however, may be avoided, if
|
|
we are sufficiently cautious in the construction of our fictions, which
|
|
are not the less fictions on that account.
|
|
|
|
Mathematical science affords us a brilliant example, how far,
|
|
independently of all experience, we may carry our a priori knowledge.
|
|
It is true that the mathematician occupies himself with objects and
|
|
cognitions only in so far as they can be represented by means of
|
|
intuition. But this circumstance is easily overlooked, because the said
|
|
intuition can itself be given a priori, and therefore is hardly to be
|
|
distinguished from a mere pure conception. Deceived by such a proof of
|
|
the power of reason, we can perceive no limits to the extension of our
|
|
knowledge. The light dove cleaving in free flight the thin air, whose
|
|
resistance it feels, might imagine that her movements would be far
|
|
more free and rapid in airless space. Just in the same way did Plato,
|
|
abandoning the world of sense because of the narrow limits it sets to
|
|
the understanding, venture upon the wings of ideas beyond it, into the
|
|
void space of pure intellect. He did not reflect that he made no real
|
|
progress by all his efforts; for he met with no resistance which might
|
|
serve him for a support, as it were, whereon to rest, and on which he
|
|
might apply his powers, in order to let the intellect acquire momentum
|
|
for its progress. It is, indeed, the common fate of human reason in
|
|
speculation, to finish the imposing edifice of thought as rapidly as
|
|
possible, and then for the first time to begin to examine whether the
|
|
foundation is a solid one or no. Arrived at this point, all sorts
|
|
of excuses are sought after, in order to console us for its want of
|
|
stability, or rather, indeed, to enable Us to dispense altogether with
|
|
so late and dangerous an investigation. But what frees us during the
|
|
process of building from all apprehension or suspicion, and flatters
|
|
us into the belief of its solidity, is this. A great part, perhaps the
|
|
greatest part, of the business of our reason consists in the analysation
|
|
of the conceptions which we already possess of objects. By this means we
|
|
gain a multitude of cognitions, which although really nothing more than
|
|
elucidations or explanations of that which (though in a confused manner)
|
|
was already thought in our conceptions, are, at least in respect of
|
|
their form, prized as new introspections; whilst, so far as regards
|
|
their matter or content, we have really made no addition to our
|
|
conceptions, but only disinvolved them. But as this process does furnish
|
|
a real priori knowledge, which has a sure progress and useful results,
|
|
reason, deceived by this, slips in, without being itself aware of it,
|
|
assertions of a quite different kind; in which, to given conceptions it
|
|
adds others, a priori indeed, but entirely foreign to them, without our
|
|
knowing how it arrives at these, and, indeed, without such a question
|
|
ever suggesting itself. I shall therefore at once proceed to examine the
|
|
difference between these two modes of knowledge.
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
IV. Of the Difference Between Analytical and Synthetical Judgements.
|
|
|
|
In all judgements wherein the relation of a subject to the predicate is
|
|
cogitated (I mention affirmative judgements only here; the application
|
|
to negative will be very easy), this relation is possible in two
|
|
different ways. Either the predicate B belongs to the subject A, as
|
|
somewhat which is contained (though covertly) in the conception A; or
|
|
the predicate B lies completely out of the conception A, although
|
|
it stands in connection with it. In the first instance, I term the
|
|
judgement analytical, in the second, synthetical. Analytical judgements
|
|
(affirmative) are therefore those in which the connection of the
|
|
predicate with the subject is cogitated through identity; those in which
|
|
this connection is cogitated without identity, are called synthetical
|
|
judgements. The former may be called explicative, the latter
|
|
augmentative judgements; because the former add in the predicate
|
|
nothing to the conception of the subject, but only analyse it into its
|
|
constituent conceptions, which were thought already in the subject,
|
|
although in a confused manner; the latter add to our conceptions of the
|
|
subject a predicate which was not contained in it, and which no analysis
|
|
could ever have discovered therein. For example, when I say, "All bodies
|
|
are extended," this is an analytical judgement. For I need not go beyond
|
|
the conception of body in order to find extension connected with it, but
|
|
merely analyse the conception, that is, become conscious of the manifold
|
|
properties which I think in that conception, in order to discover this
|
|
predicate in it: it is therefore an analytical judgement. On the other
|
|
hand, when I say, "All bodies are heavy," the predicate is something
|
|
totally different from that which I think in the mere conception of
|
|
a body. By the addition of such a predicate, therefore, it becomes a
|
|
synthetical judgement.
|
|
|
|
Judgements of experience, as such, are always synthetical. For it would
|
|
be absurd to think of grounding an analytical judgement on experience,
|
|
because in forming such a judgement I need not go out of the sphere of
|
|
my conceptions, and therefore recourse to the testimony of experience
|
|
is quite unnecessary. That "bodies are extended" is not an empirical
|
|
judgement, but a proposition which stands firm a priori. For before
|
|
addressing myself to experience, I already have in my conception all the
|
|
requisite conditions for the judgement, and I have only to extract
|
|
the predicate from the conception, according to the principle of
|
|
contradiction, and thereby at the same time become conscious of the
|
|
necessity of the judgement, a necessity which I could never learn from
|
|
experience. On the other hand, though at first I do not at all include
|
|
the predicate of weight in my conception of body in general, that
|
|
conception still indicates an object of experience, a part of the
|
|
totality of experience, to which I can still add other parts; and this I
|
|
do when I recognize by observation that bodies are heavy. I can
|
|
cognize beforehand by analysis the conception of body through the
|
|
characteristics of extension, impenetrability, shape, etc., all which
|
|
are cogitated in this conception. But now I extend my knowledge, and
|
|
looking back on experience from which I had derived this conception
|
|
of body, I find weight at all times connected with the above
|
|
characteristics, and therefore I synthetically add to my conceptions
|
|
this as a predicate, and say, "All bodies are heavy." Thus it is
|
|
experience upon which rests the possibility of the synthesis of
|
|
the predicate of weight with the conception of body, because both
|
|
conceptions, although the one is not contained in the other, still
|
|
belong to one another (only contingently, however), as parts of a whole,
|
|
namely, of experience, which is itself a synthesis of intuitions.
|
|
|
|
But to synthetical judgements a priori, such aid is entirely wanting. If
|
|
I go out of and beyond the conception A, in order to recognize another
|
|
B as connected with it, what foundation have I to rest on, whereby to
|
|
render the synthesis possible? I have here no longer the advantage of
|
|
looking out in the sphere of experience for what I want. Let us take,
|
|
for example, the proposition, "Everything that happens has a cause." In
|
|
the conception of "something that happens," I indeed think an existence
|
|
which a certain time antecedes, and from this I can derive analytical
|
|
judgements. But the conception of a cause lies quite out of the above
|
|
conception, and indicates something entirely different from "that which
|
|
happens," and is consequently not contained in that conception. How
|
|
then am I able to assert concerning the general conception--"that which
|
|
happens"--something entirely different from that conception, and to
|
|
recognize the conception of cause although not contained in it, yet as
|
|
belonging to it, and even necessarily? what is here the unknown = X,
|
|
upon which the understanding rests when it believes it has found, out of
|
|
the conception A a foreign predicate B, which it nevertheless considers
|
|
to be connected with it? It cannot be experience, because the principle
|
|
adduced annexes the two representations, cause and effect, to the
|
|
representation existence, not only with universality, which experience
|
|
cannot give, but also with the expression of necessity, therefore
|
|
completely a priori and from pure conceptions. Upon such synthetical,
|
|
that is augmentative propositions, depends the whole aim of our
|
|
speculative knowledge a priori; for although analytical judgements are
|
|
indeed highly important and necessary, they are so, only to arrive at
|
|
that clearness of conceptions which is requisite for a sure and extended
|
|
synthesis, and this alone is a real acquisition.
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
V. In all Theoretical Sciences of Reason, Synthetical Judgements "a
|
|
priori" are contained as Principles.
|
|
|
|
1. Mathematical judgements are always synthetical. Hitherto this fact,
|
|
though incontestably true and very important in its consequences, seems
|
|
to have escaped the analysts of the human mind, nay, to be in
|
|
complete opposition to all their conjectures. For as it was found that
|
|
mathematical conclusions all proceed according to the principle of
|
|
contradiction (which the nature of every apodeictic certainty requires),
|
|
people became persuaded that the fundamental principles of the science
|
|
also were recognized and admitted in the same way. But the notion is
|
|
fallacious; for although a synthetical proposition can certainly be
|
|
discerned by means of the principle of contradiction, this is possible
|
|
only when another synthetical proposition precedes, from which the
|
|
latter is deduced, but never of itself.
|
|
|
|
Before all, be it observed, that proper mathematical propositions are
|
|
always judgements a priori, and not empirical, because they carry
|
|
along with them the conception of necessity, which cannot be given by
|
|
experience. If this be demurred to, it matters not; I will then limit my
|
|
assertion to pure mathematics, the very conception of which implies that
|
|
it consists of knowledge altogether non-empirical and a priori.
|
|
|
|
We might, indeed at first suppose that the proposition 7 + 5 = 12 is a
|
|
merely analytical proposition, following (according to the principle of
|
|
contradiction) from the conception of a sum of seven and five. But if we
|
|
regard it more narrowly, we find that our conception of the sum of seven
|
|
and five contains nothing more than the uniting of both sums into one,
|
|
whereby it cannot at all be cogitated what this single number is which
|
|
embraces both. The conception of twelve is by no means obtained by
|
|
merely cogitating the union of seven and five; and we may analyse our
|
|
conception of such a possible sum as long as we will, still we shall
|
|
never discover in it the notion of twelve. We must go beyond these
|
|
conceptions, and have recourse to an intuition which corresponds to
|
|
one of the two--our five fingers, for example, or like Segner in his
|
|
Arithmetic five points, and so by degrees, add the units contained in
|
|
the five given in the intuition, to the conception of seven. For I first
|
|
take the number 7, and, for the conception of 5 calling in the aid of
|
|
the fingers of my hand as objects of intuition, I add the units, which I
|
|
before took together to make up the number 5, gradually now by means of
|
|
the material image my hand, to the number 7, and by this process, I
|
|
at length see the number 12 arise. That 7 should be added to 5, I have
|
|
certainly cogitated in my conception of a sum = 7 + 5, but not that
|
|
this sum was equal to 12. Arithmetical propositions are therefore always
|
|
synthetical, of which we may become more clearly convinced by trying
|
|
large numbers. For it will thus become quite evident that, turn and
|
|
twist our conceptions as we may, it is impossible, without having
|
|
recourse to intuition, to arrive at the sum total or product by means of
|
|
the mere analysis of our conceptions. Just as little is any principle
|
|
of pure geometry analytical. "A straight line between two points is the
|
|
shortest," is a synthetical proposition. For my conception of straight
|
|
contains no notion of quantity, but is merely qualitative. The
|
|
conception of the shortest is therefore fore wholly an addition, and by
|
|
no analysis can it be extracted from our conception of a straight line.
|
|
Intuition must therefore here lend its aid, by means of which, and thus
|
|
only, our synthesis is possible.
|
|
|
|
Some few principles preposited by geometricians are, indeed, really
|
|
analytical, and depend on the principle of contradiction. They serve,
|
|
however, like identical propositions, as links in the chain of method,
|
|
not as principles--for example, a = a, the whole is equal to itself,
|
|
or (a+b) --> a, the whole is greater than its part. And yet even these
|
|
principles themselves, though they derive their validity from pure
|
|
conceptions, are only admitted in mathematics because they can be
|
|
presented in intuition. What causes us here commonly to believe that
|
|
the predicate of such apodeictic judgements is already contained in our
|
|
conception, and that the judgement is therefore analytical, is merely
|
|
the equivocal nature of the expression. We must join in thought a
|
|
certain predicate to a given conception, and this necessity cleaves
|
|
already to the conception. But the question is, not what we must join
|
|
in thought to the given conception, but what we really think therein,
|
|
though only obscurely, and then it becomes manifest that the predicate
|
|
pertains to these conceptions, necessarily indeed, yet not as thought
|
|
in the conception itself, but by virtue of an intuition, which must be
|
|
added to the conception.
|
|
|
|
2. The science of natural philosophy (physics) contains in itself
|
|
synthetical judgements a priori, as principles. I shall adduce two
|
|
propositions. For instance, the proposition, "In all changes of the
|
|
material world, the quantity of matter remains unchanged"; or, that, "In
|
|
all communication of motion, action and reaction must always be equal."
|
|
In both of these, not only is the necessity, and therefore their origin
|
|
a priori clear, but also that they are synthetical propositions. For in
|
|
the conception of matter, I do not cogitate its permanency, but merely
|
|
its presence in space, which it fills. I therefore really go out of and
|
|
beyond the conception of matter, in order to think on to it something
|
|
a priori, which I did not think in it. The proposition is therefore not
|
|
analytical, but synthetical, and nevertheless conceived a priori; and so
|
|
it is with regard to the other propositions of the pure part of natural
|
|
philosophy.
|
|
|
|
3. As to metaphysics, even if we look upon it merely as an attempted
|
|
science, yet, from the nature of human reason, an indispensable one, we
|
|
find that it must contain synthetical propositions a priori. It is not
|
|
merely the duty of metaphysics to dissect, and thereby analytically to
|
|
illustrate the conceptions which we form a priori of things; but we seek
|
|
to widen the range of our a priori knowledge. For this purpose, we must
|
|
avail ourselves of such principles as add something to the original
|
|
conception--something not identical with, nor contained in it, and by
|
|
means of synthetical judgements a priori, leave far behind us the limits
|
|
of experience; for example, in the proposition, "the world must have a
|
|
beginning," and such like. Thus metaphysics, according to the proper aim
|
|
of the science, consists merely of synthetical propositions a priori.
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
VI. The Universal Problem of Pure Reason.
|
|
|
|
It is extremely advantageous to be able to bring a number of
|
|
investigations under the formula of a single problem. For in this
|
|
manner, we not only facilitate our own labour, inasmuch as we define it
|
|
clearly to ourselves, but also render it more easy for others to decide
|
|
whether we have done justice to our undertaking. The proper problem of
|
|
pure reason, then, is contained in the question: "How are synthetical
|
|
judgements a priori possible?"
|
|
|
|
That metaphysical science has hitherto remained in so vacillating a
|
|
state of uncertainty and contradiction, is only to be attributed to the
|
|
fact that this great problem, and perhaps even the difference between
|
|
analytical and synthetical judgements, did not sooner suggest itself
|
|
to philosophers. Upon the solution of this problem, or upon sufficient
|
|
proof of the impossibility of synthetical knowledge a priori, depends
|
|
the existence or downfall of the science of metaphysics. Among
|
|
philosophers, David Hume came the nearest of all to this problem; yet it
|
|
never acquired in his mind sufficient precision, nor did he regard the
|
|
question in its universality. On the contrary, he stopped short at the
|
|
synthetical proposition of the connection of an effect with its cause
|
|
(principium causalitatis), insisting that such proposition a priori
|
|
was impossible. According to his conclusions, then, all that we term
|
|
metaphysical science is a mere delusion, arising from the fancied
|
|
insight of reason into that which is in truth borrowed from experience,
|
|
and to which habit has given the appearance of necessity. Against
|
|
this assertion, destructive to all pure philosophy, he would have been
|
|
guarded, had he had our problem before his eyes in its universality. For
|
|
he would then have perceived that, according to his own argument, there
|
|
likewise could not be any pure mathematical science, which assuredly
|
|
cannot exist without synthetical propositions a priori--an absurdity
|
|
from which his good understanding must have saved him.
|
|
|
|
In the solution of the above problem is at the same time comprehended
|
|
the possibility of the use of pure reason in the foundation and
|
|
construction of all sciences which contain theoretical knowledge
|
|
a priori of objects, that is to say, the answer to the following
|
|
questions:
|
|
|
|
How is pure mathematical science possible?
|
|
|
|
How is pure natural science possible?
|
|
|
|
Respecting these sciences, as they do certainly exist, it may with
|
|
propriety be asked, how they are possible?--for that they must be
|
|
possible is shown by the fact of their really existing.* But as to
|
|
metaphysics, the miserable progress it has hitherto made, and the fact
|
|
that of no one system yet brought forward, far as regards its true
|
|
aim, can it be said that this science really exists, leaves any one at
|
|
liberty to doubt with reason the very possibility of its existence.
|
|
|
|
[*Footnote: As to the existence of pure natural science, or
|
|
physics, perhaps many may still express doubts. But we have
|
|
only to look at the different propositions which are
|
|
commonly treated of at the commencement of proper
|
|
(empirical) physical science--those, for example, relating
|
|
to the permanence of the same quantity of matter, the vis
|
|
inertiae, the equality of action and reaction, etc.--to be
|
|
soon convinced that they form a science of pure physics
|
|
(physica pura, or rationalis), which well deserves to be
|
|
separately exposed as a special science, in its whole
|
|
extent, whether that be great or confined.]
|
|
|
|
|
|
Yet, in a certain sense, this kind of knowledge must unquestionably be
|
|
looked upon as given; in other words, metaphysics must be considered
|
|
as really existing, if not as a science, nevertheless as a natural
|
|
disposition of the human mind (metaphysica naturalis). For human
|
|
reason, without any instigations imputable to the mere vanity of great
|
|
knowledge, unceasingly progresses, urged on by its own feeling of
|
|
need, towards such questions as cannot be answered by any empirical
|
|
application of reason, or principles derived therefrom; and so there
|
|
has ever really existed in every man some system of metaphysics. It will
|
|
always exist, so soon as reason awakes to the exercise of its power
|
|
of speculation. And now the question arises: "How is metaphysics, as a
|
|
natural disposition, possible?" In other words, how, from the nature
|
|
of universal human reason, do those questions arise which pure reason
|
|
proposes to itself, and which it is impelled by its own feeling of need
|
|
to answer as well as it can?
|
|
|
|
But as in all the attempts hitherto made to answer the questions which
|
|
reason is prompted by its very nature to propose to itself, for example,
|
|
whether the world had a beginning, or has existed from eternity, it has
|
|
always met with unavoidable contradictions, we must not rest satisfied
|
|
with the mere natural disposition of the mind to metaphysics, that is,
|
|
with the existence of the faculty of pure reason, whence, indeed, some
|
|
sort of metaphysical system always arises; but it must be possible to
|
|
arrive at certainty in regard to the question whether we know or do not
|
|
know the things of which metaphysics treats. We must be able to arrive
|
|
at a decision on the subjects of its questions, or on the ability or
|
|
inability of reason to form any judgement respecting them; and therefore
|
|
either to extend with confidence the bounds of our pure reason, or to
|
|
set strictly defined and safe limits to its action. This last question,
|
|
which arises out of the above universal problem, would properly run
|
|
thus: "How is metaphysics possible as a science?"
|
|
|
|
Thus, the critique of reason leads at last, naturally and necessarily,
|
|
to science; and, on the other hand, the dogmatical use of reason without
|
|
criticism leads to groundless assertions, against which others equally
|
|
specious can always be set, thus ending unavoidably in scepticism.
|
|
|
|
Besides, this science cannot be of great and formidable prolixity,
|
|
because it has not to do with objects of reason, the variety of which is
|
|
inexhaustible, but merely with Reason herself and her problems; problems
|
|
which arise out of her own bosom, and are not proposed to her by the
|
|
nature of outward things, but by her own nature. And when once Reason
|
|
has previously become able completely to understand her own power in
|
|
regard to objects which she meets with in experience, it will be easy to
|
|
determine securely the extent and limits of her attempted application to
|
|
objects beyond the confines of experience.
|
|
|
|
We may and must, therefore, regard the attempts hitherto made to
|
|
establish metaphysical science dogmatically as non-existent. For what of
|
|
analysis, that is, mere dissection of conceptions, is contained in one
|
|
or other, is not the aim of, but only a preparation for metaphysics
|
|
proper, which has for its object the extension, by means of synthesis,
|
|
of our a priori knowledge. And for this purpose, mere analysis is
|
|
of course useless, because it only shows what is contained in these
|
|
conceptions, but not how we arrive, a priori, at them; and this it is
|
|
her duty to show, in order to be able afterwards to determine their
|
|
valid use in regard to all objects of experience, to all knowledge in
|
|
general. But little self-denial, indeed, is needed to give up these
|
|
pretensions, seeing the undeniable, and in the dogmatic mode of
|
|
procedure, inevitable contradictions of Reason with herself, have long
|
|
since ruined the reputation of every system of metaphysics that has
|
|
appeared up to this time. It will require more firmness to remain
|
|
undeterred by difficulty from within, and opposition from without, from
|
|
endeavouring, by a method quite opposed to all those hitherto followed,
|
|
to further the growth and fruitfulness of a science indispensable to
|
|
human reason--a science from which every branch it has borne may be cut
|
|
away, but whose roots remain indestructible.
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
VII. Idea and Division of a Particular Science, under the Name of a
|
|
Critique of Pure Reason.
|
|
|
|
From all that has been said, there results the idea of a particular
|
|
science, which may be called the Critique of Pure Reason. For reason
|
|
is the faculty which furnishes us with the principles of knowledge a
|
|
priori. Hence, pure reason is the faculty which contains the principles
|
|
of cognizing anything absolutely a priori. An organon of pure reason
|
|
would be a compendium of those principles according to which alone
|
|
all pure cognitions a priori can be obtained. The completely extended
|
|
application of such an organon would afford us a system of pure reason.
|
|
As this, however, is demanding a great deal, and it is yet doubtful
|
|
whether any extension of our knowledge be here possible, or, if so,
|
|
in what cases; we can regard a science of the mere criticism of pure
|
|
reason, its sources and limits, as the propaedeutic to a system of
|
|
pure reason. Such a science must not be called a doctrine, but only a
|
|
critique of pure reason; and its use, in regard to speculation, would be
|
|
only negative, not to enlarge the bounds of, but to purify, our reason,
|
|
and to shield it against error--which alone is no little gain. I apply
|
|
the term transcendental to all knowledge which is not so much occupied
|
|
with objects as with the mode of our cognition of these objects, so
|
|
far as this mode of cognition is possible a priori. A system of such
|
|
conceptions would be called transcendental philosophy. But this, again,
|
|
is still beyond the bounds of our present essay. For as such a science
|
|
must contain a complete exposition not only of our synthetical a priori,
|
|
but of our analytical a priori knowledge, it is of too wide a range for
|
|
our present purpose, because we do not require to carry our analysis
|
|
any farther than is necessary to understand, in their full extent, the
|
|
principles of synthesis a priori, with which alone we have to do. This
|
|
investigation, which we cannot properly call a doctrine, but only a
|
|
transcendental critique, because it aims not at the enlargement, but
|
|
at the correction and guidance, of our knowledge, and is to serve as a
|
|
touchstone of the worth or worthlessness of all knowledge a priori, is
|
|
the sole object of our present essay. Such a critique is consequently,
|
|
as far as possible, a preparation for an organon; and if this new
|
|
organon should be found to fail, at least for a canon of pure reason,
|
|
according to which the complete system of the philosophy of pure reason,
|
|
whether it extend or limit the bounds of that reason, might one day
|
|
be set forth both analytically and synthetically. For that this is
|
|
possible, nay, that such a system is not of so great extent as to
|
|
preclude the hope of its ever being completed, is evident. For we have
|
|
not here to do with the nature of outward objects, which is infinite,
|
|
but solely with the mind, which judges of the nature of objects, and,
|
|
again, with the mind only in respect of its cognition a priori. And the
|
|
object of our investigations, as it is not to be sought without, but,
|
|
altogether within, ourselves, cannot remain concealed, and in all
|
|
probability is limited enough to be completely surveyed and fairly
|
|
estimated, according to its worth or worthlessness. Still less let the
|
|
reader here expect a critique of books and systems of pure reason; our
|
|
present object is exclusively a critique of the faculty of pure reason
|
|
itself. Only when we make this critique our foundation, do we possess
|
|
a pure touchstone for estimating the philosophical value of ancient
|
|
and modern writings on this subject; and without this criterion, the
|
|
incompetent historian or judge decides upon and corrects the groundless
|
|
assertions of others with his own, which have themselves just as little
|
|
foundation.
|
|
|
|
Transcendental philosophy is the idea of a science, for which the
|
|
Critique of Pure Reason must sketch the whole plan architectonically,
|
|
that is, from principles, with a full guarantee for the validity and
|
|
stability of all the parts which enter into the building. It is the
|
|
system of all the principles of pure reason. If this Critique itself
|
|
does not assume the title of transcendental philosophy, it is only
|
|
because, to be a complete system, it ought to contain a full analysis of
|
|
all human knowledge a priori. Our critique must, indeed, lay before us a
|
|
complete enumeration of all the radical conceptions which constitute the
|
|
said pure knowledge. But from the complete analysis of these conceptions
|
|
themselves, as also from a complete investigation of those derived from
|
|
them, it abstains with reason; partly because it would be deviating from
|
|
the end in view to occupy itself with this analysis, since this process
|
|
is not attended with the difficulty and insecurity to be found in the
|
|
synthesis, to which our critique is entirely devoted, and partly because
|
|
it would be inconsistent with the unity of our plan to burden this
|
|
essay with the vindication of the completeness of such an analysis and
|
|
deduction, with which, after all, we have at present nothing to do. This
|
|
completeness of the analysis of these radical conceptions, as well as
|
|
of the deduction from the conceptions a priori which may be given by the
|
|
analysis, we can, however, easily attain, provided only that we are
|
|
in possession of all these radical conceptions, which are to serve as
|
|
principles of the synthesis, and that in respect of this main purpose
|
|
nothing is wanting.
|
|
|
|
To the Critique of Pure Reason, therefore, belongs all that constitutes
|
|
transcendental philosophy; and it is the complete idea of transcendental
|
|
philosophy, but still not the science itself; because it only proceeds
|
|
so far with the analysis as is necessary to the power of judging
|
|
completely of our synthetical knowledge a priori.
|
|
|
|
The principal thing we must attend to, in the division of the parts of
|
|
a science like this, is that no conceptions must enter it which contain
|
|
aught empirical; in other words, that the knowledge a priori must be
|
|
completely pure. Hence, although the highest principles and fundamental
|
|
conceptions of morality are certainly cognitions a priori, yet they do
|
|
not belong to transcendental philosophy; because, though they certainly
|
|
do not lay the conceptions of pain, pleasure, desires, inclinations,
|
|
etc. (which are all of empirical origin), at the foundation of its
|
|
precepts, yet still into the conception of duty--as an obstacle to
|
|
be overcome, or as an incitement which should not be made into a
|
|
motive--these empirical conceptions must necessarily enter, in the
|
|
construction of a system of pure morality. Transcendental philosophy is
|
|
consequently a philosophy of the pure and merely speculative reason.
|
|
For all that is practical, so far as it contains motives, relates to
|
|
feelings, and these belong to empirical sources of cognition.
|
|
|
|
If we wish to divide this science from the universal point of view of
|
|
a science in general, it ought to comprehend, first, a Doctrine of the
|
|
Elements, and, secondly, a Doctrine of the Method of pure reason. Each
|
|
of these main divisions will have its subdivisions, the separate reasons
|
|
for which we cannot here particularize. Only so much seems necessary, by
|
|
way of introduction of premonition, that there are two sources of human
|
|
knowledge (which probably spring from a common, but to us unknown root),
|
|
namely, sense and understanding. By the former, objects are given to
|
|
us; by the latter, thought. So far as the faculty of sense may contain
|
|
representations a priori, which form the conditions under which objects
|
|
are given, in so far it belongs to transcendental philosophy. The
|
|
transcendental doctrine of sense must form the first part of our science
|
|
of elements, because the conditions under which alone the objects
|
|
of human knowledge are given must precede those under which they are
|
|
thought.
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
I. TRANSCENDENTAL DOCTRINE OF ELEMENTS.
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
FIRST PART. TRANSCENDENTAL AESTHETIC.
|
|
|
|
|
|
SS I. Introductory.
|
|
|
|
In whatsoever mode, or by whatsoever means, our knowledge may relate
|
|
to objects, it is at least quite clear that the only manner in which it
|
|
immediately relates to them is by means of an intuition. To this as the
|
|
indispensable groundwork, all thought points. But an intuition can take
|
|
place only in so far as the object is given to us. This, again, is only
|
|
possible, to man at least, on condition that the object affect the
|
|
mind in a certain manner. The capacity for receiving representations
|
|
(receptivity) through the mode in which we are affected by objects,
|
|
objects, is called sensibility. By means of sensibility, therefore,
|
|
objects are given to us, and it alone furnishes us with intuitions; by
|
|
the understanding they are thought, and from it arise conceptions. But
|
|
an thought must directly, or indirectly, by means of certain signs,
|
|
relate ultimately to intuitions; consequently, with us, to sensibility,
|
|
because in no other way can an object be given to us.
|
|
|
|
The effect of an object upon the faculty of representation, so far as
|
|
we are affected by the said object, is sensation. That sort of intuition
|
|
which relates to an object by means of sensation is called an empirical
|
|
intuition. The undetermined object of an empirical intuition is called
|
|
phenomenon. That which in the phenomenon corresponds to the sensation,
|
|
I term its matter; but that which effects that the content of the
|
|
phenomenon can be arranged under certain relations, I call its form. But
|
|
that in which our sensations are merely arranged, and by which they are
|
|
susceptible of assuming a certain form, cannot be itself sensation. It
|
|
is, then, the matter of all phenomena that is given to us a posteriori;
|
|
the form must lie ready a priori for them in the mind, and consequently
|
|
can be regarded separately from all sensation.
|
|
|
|
I call all representations pure, in the transcendental meaning of
|
|
the word, wherein nothing is met with that belongs to sensation. And
|
|
accordingly we find existing in the mind a priori, the pure form of
|
|
sensuous intuitions in general, in which all the manifold content of the
|
|
phenomenal world is arranged and viewed under certain relations. This
|
|
pure form of sensibility I shall call pure intuition. Thus, if I take
|
|
away from our representation of a body all that the understanding thinks
|
|
as belonging to it, as substance, force, divisibility, etc., and also
|
|
whatever belongs to sensation, as impenetrability, hardness, colour,
|
|
etc.; yet there is still something left us from this empirical
|
|
intuition, namely, extension and shape. These belong to pure intuition,
|
|
which exists a priori in the mind, as a mere form of sensibility, and
|
|
without any real object of the senses or any sensation.
|
|
|
|
The science of all the principles of sensibility a priori, I call
|
|
transcendental aesthetic.* There must, then, be such a science
|
|
forming the first part of the transcendental doctrine of elements, in
|
|
contradistinction to that part which contains the principles of pure
|
|
thought, and which is called transcendental logic.
|
|
|
|
[Footnote: The Germans are the only people who at present
|
|
use this word to indicate what others call the critique of
|
|
taste. At the foundation of this term lies the disappointed
|
|
hope, which the eminent analyst, Baumgarten, conceived, of
|
|
subjecting the criticism of the beautiful to principles of
|
|
reason, and so of elevating its rules into a science. But
|
|
his endeavours were vain. For the said rules or criteria
|
|
are, in respect to their chief sources, merely empirical,
|
|
consequently never can serve as determinate laws a priori,
|
|
by which our judgement in matters of taste is to be
|
|
directed. It is rather our judgement which forms the proper
|
|
test as to the correctness of the principles. On this
|
|
account it is advisable to give up the use of the term as
|
|
designating the critique of taste, and to apply it solely to
|
|
that doctrine, which is true science--the science of the
|
|
laws of sensibility--and thus come nearer to the language
|
|
and the sense of the ancients in their well-known division
|
|
of the objects of cognition into aiotheta kai noeta, or to
|
|
share it with speculative philosophy, and employ it partly
|
|
in a transcendental, partly in a psychological
|
|
signification.]
|
|
|
|
|
|
In the science of transcendental aesthetic accordingly, we shall first
|
|
isolate sensibility or the sensuous faculty, by separating from it all
|
|
that is annexed to its perceptions by the conceptions of understanding,
|
|
so that nothing be left but empirical intuition. In the next place we
|
|
shall take away from this intuition all that belongs to sensation,
|
|
so that nothing may remain but pure intuition, and the mere form of
|
|
phenomena, which is all that the sensibility can afford a priori. From
|
|
this investigation it will be found that there are two pure forms of
|
|
sensuous intuition, as principles of knowledge a priori, namely, space
|
|
and time. To the consideration of these we shall now proceed.
|
|
|
|
|
|
SECTION I. Of Space.
|
|
|
|
|
|
SS 2. Metaphysical Exposition of this Conception.
|
|
|
|
By means of the external sense (a property of the mind), we represent
|
|
to ourselves objects as without us, and these all in space. Herein alone
|
|
are their shape, dimensions, and relations to each other determined
|
|
or determinable. The internal sense, by means of which the mind
|
|
contemplates itself or its internal state, gives, indeed, no intuition
|
|
of the soul as an object; yet there is nevertheless a determinate form,
|
|
under which alone the contemplation of our internal state is possible,
|
|
so that all which relates to the inward determinations of the mind is
|
|
represented in relations of time. Of time we cannot have any external
|
|
intuition, any more than we can have an internal intuition of space.
|
|
What then are time and space? Are they real existences? Or, are they
|
|
merely relations or determinations of things, such, however, as would
|
|
equally belong to these things in themselves, though they should never
|
|
become objects of intuition; or, are they such as belong only to the
|
|
form of intuition, and consequently to the subjective constitution of
|
|
the mind, without which these predicates of time and space could not be
|
|
attached to any object? In order to become informed on these points,
|
|
we shall first give an exposition of the conception of space. By
|
|
exposition, I mean the clear, though not detailed, representation of
|
|
that which belongs to a conception; and an exposition is metaphysical
|
|
when it contains that which represents the conception as given a priori.
|
|
|
|
1. Space is not a conception which has been derived from outward
|
|
experiences. For, in order that certain sensations may relate to
|
|
something without me (that is, to something which occupies a different
|
|
part of space from that in which I am); in like manner, in order that
|
|
I may represent them not merely as without, of, and near to each other,
|
|
but also in separate places, the representation of space must already
|
|
exist as a foundation. Consequently, the representation of space cannot
|
|
be borrowed from the relations of external phenomena through experience;
|
|
but, on the contrary, this external experience is itself only possible
|
|
through the said antecedent representation.
|
|
|
|
2. Space then is a necessary representation a priori, which serves for
|
|
the foundation of all external intuitions. We never can imagine or make
|
|
a representation to ourselves of the non-existence of space, though
|
|
we may easily enough think that no objects are found in it. It must,
|
|
therefore, be considered as the condition of the possibility of
|
|
phenomena, and by no means as a determination dependent on them, and
|
|
is a representation a priori, which necessarily supplies the basis for
|
|
external phenomena.
|
|
|
|
3. Space is no discursive, or as we say, general conception of the
|
|
relations of things, but a pure intuition. For, in the first place, we
|
|
can only represent to ourselves one space, and, when we talk of divers
|
|
spaces, we mean only parts of one and the same space. Moreover, these
|
|
parts cannot antecede this one all-embracing space, as the component
|
|
parts from which the aggregate can be made up, but can be cogitated only
|
|
as existing in it. Space is essentially one, and multiplicity in it,
|
|
consequently the general notion of spaces, of this or that space,
|
|
depends solely upon limitations. Hence it follows that an a priori
|
|
intuition (which is not empirical) lies at the root of all our
|
|
conceptions of space. Thus, moreover, the principles of geometry--for
|
|
example, that "in a triangle, two sides together are greater than the
|
|
third," are never deduced from general conceptions of line and triangle,
|
|
but from intuition, and this a priori, with apodeictic certainty.
|
|
|
|
4. Space is represented as an infinite given quantity. Now every
|
|
conception must indeed be considered as a representation which
|
|
is contained in an infinite multitude of different possible
|
|
representations, which, therefore, comprises these under itself; but
|
|
no conception, as such, can be so conceived, as if it contained within
|
|
itself an infinite multitude of representations. Nevertheless, space
|
|
is so conceived of, for all parts of space are equally capable of being
|
|
produced to infinity. Consequently, the original representation of space
|
|
is an intuition a priori, and not a conception.
|
|
|
|
|
|
SS 3. Transcendental Exposition of the Conception of Space.
|
|
|
|
By a transcendental exposition, I mean the explanation of a conception,
|
|
as a principle, whence can be discerned the possibility of other
|
|
synthetical a priori cognitions. For this purpose, it is requisite,
|
|
firstly, that such cognitions do really flow from the given conception;
|
|
and, secondly, that the said cognitions are only possible under the
|
|
presupposition of a given mode of explaining this conception.
|
|
|
|
Geometry is a science which determines the properties of space
|
|
synthetically, and yet a priori. What, then, must be our representation
|
|
of space, in order that such a cognition of it may be possible? It must
|
|
be originally intuition, for from a mere conception, no propositions can
|
|
be deduced which go out beyond the conception, and yet this happens in
|
|
geometry. (Introd. V.) But this intuition must be found in the mind a
|
|
priori, that is, before any perception of objects, consequently must be
|
|
pure, not empirical, intuition. For geometrical principles are always
|
|
apodeictic, that is, united with the consciousness of their necessity,
|
|
as: "Space has only three dimensions." But propositions of this kind
|
|
cannot be empirical judgements, nor conclusions from them. (Introd. II.)
|
|
Now, how can an external intuition anterior to objects themselves, and
|
|
in which our conception of objects can be determined a priori, exist
|
|
in the human mind? Obviously not otherwise than in so far as it has its
|
|
seat in the subject only, as the formal capacity of the subject's being
|
|
affected by objects, and thereby of obtaining immediate representation,
|
|
that is, intuition; consequently, only as the form of the external sense
|
|
in general.
|
|
|
|
Thus it is only by means of our explanation that the possibility of
|
|
geometry, as a synthetical science a priori, becomes comprehensible.
|
|
Every mode of explanation which does not show us this possibility,
|
|
although in appearance it may be similar to ours, can with the utmost
|
|
certainty be distinguished from it by these marks.
|
|
|
|
|
|
SS 4. Conclusions from the foregoing Conceptions.
|
|
|
|
(a) Space does not represent any property of objects as things in
|
|
themselves, nor does it represent them in their relations to each other;
|
|
in other words, space does not represent to us any determination of
|
|
objects such as attaches to the objects themselves, and would remain,
|
|
even though all subjective conditions of the intuition were abstracted.
|
|
For neither absolute nor relative determinations of objects can be
|
|
intuited prior to the existence of the things to which they belong, and
|
|
therefore not a priori.
|
|
|
|
(b) Space is nothing else than the form of all phenomena of the external
|
|
sense, that is, the subjective condition of the sensibility, under which
|
|
alone external intuition is possible. Now, because the receptivity or
|
|
capacity of the subject to be affected by objects necessarily antecedes
|
|
all intuitions of these objects, it is easily understood how the form
|
|
of all phenomena can be given in the mind previous to all actual
|
|
perceptions, therefore a priori, and how it, as a pure intuition, in
|
|
which all objects must be determined, can contain principles of the
|
|
relations of these objects prior to all experience.
|
|
|
|
It is therefore from the human point of view only that we can speak
|
|
of space, extended objects, etc. If we depart from the subjective
|
|
condition, under which alone we can obtain external intuition, or,
|
|
in other words, by means of which we are affected by objects, the
|
|
representation of space has no meaning whatsoever. This predicate is
|
|
only applicable to things in so far as they appear to us, that is, are
|
|
objects of sensibility. The constant form of this receptivity, which
|
|
we call sensibility, is a necessary condition of all relations in which
|
|
objects can be intuited as existing without us, and when abstraction of
|
|
these objects is made, is a pure intuition, to which we give the name
|
|
of space. It is clear that we cannot make the special conditions of
|
|
sensibility into conditions of the possibility of things, but only of
|
|
the possibility of their existence as far as they are phenomena. And
|
|
so we may correctly say that space contains all which can appear to us
|
|
externally, but not all things considered as things in themselves,
|
|
be they intuited or not, or by whatsoever subject one will. As to the
|
|
intuitions of other thinking beings, we cannot judge whether they are or
|
|
are not bound by the same conditions which limit our own intuition,
|
|
and which for us are universally valid. If we join the limitation of
|
|
a judgement to the conception of the subject, then the judgement will
|
|
possess unconditioned validity. For example, the proposition, "All
|
|
objects are beside each other in space," is valid only under the
|
|
limitation that these things are taken as objects of our sensuous
|
|
intuition. But if I join the condition to the conception and say, "All
|
|
things, as external phenomena, are beside each other in space," then the
|
|
rule is valid universally, and without any limitation. Our expositions,
|
|
consequently, teach the reality (i.e., the objective validity) of space
|
|
in regard of all which can be presented to us externally as object, and
|
|
at the same time also the ideality of space in regard to objects when
|
|
they are considered by means of reason as things in themselves, that is,
|
|
without reference to the constitution of our sensibility. We maintain,
|
|
therefore, the empirical reality of space in regard to all possible
|
|
external experience, although we must admit its transcendental ideality;
|
|
in other words, that it is nothing, so soon as we withdraw the condition
|
|
upon which the possibility of all experience depends and look upon space
|
|
as something that belongs to things in themselves.
|
|
|
|
But, with the exception of space, there is no representation, subjective
|
|
and referring to something external to us, which could be called
|
|
objective a priori. For there are no other subjective representations
|
|
from which we can deduce synthetical propositions a priori, as we can
|
|
from the intuition of space. (See SS 3.) Therefore, to speak accurately,
|
|
no ideality whatever belongs to these, although they agree in this
|
|
respect with the representation of space, that they belong merely to the
|
|
subjective nature of the mode of sensuous perception; such a mode, for
|
|
example, as that of sight, of hearing, and of feeling, by means of the
|
|
sensations of colour, sound, and heat, but which, because they are
|
|
only sensations and not intuitions, do not of themselves give us
|
|
the cognition of any object, least of all, an a priori cognition. My
|
|
purpose, in the above remark, is merely this: to guard any one
|
|
against illustrating the asserted ideality of space by examples quite
|
|
insufficient, for example, by colour, taste, etc.; for these must be
|
|
contemplated not as properties of things, but only as changes in the
|
|
subject, changes which may be different in different men. For, in such
|
|
a case, that which is originally a mere phenomenon, a rose, for example,
|
|
is taken by the empirical understanding for a thing in itself, though to
|
|
every different eye, in respect of its colour, it may appear different.
|
|
On the contrary, the transcendental conception of phenomena in space is
|
|
a critical admonition, that, in general, nothing which is intuited in
|
|
space is a thing in itself, and that space is not a form which belongs
|
|
as a property to things; but that objects are quite unknown to us in
|
|
themselves, and what we call outward objects, are nothing else but mere
|
|
representations of our sensibility, whose form is space, but whose
|
|
real correlate, the thing in itself, is not known by means of these
|
|
representations, nor ever can be, but respecting which, in experience,
|
|
no inquiry is ever made.
|
|
|
|
|
|
SECTION II. Of Time.
|
|
|
|
|
|
SS 5. Metaphysical Exposition of this Conception.
|
|
|
|
1. Time is not an empirical conception. For neither coexistence nor
|
|
succession would be perceived by us, if the representation of time did
|
|
not exist as a foundation a priori. Without this presupposition we could
|
|
not represent to ourselves that things exist together at one and the
|
|
same time, or at different times, that is, contemporaneously, or in
|
|
succession.
|
|
|
|
2. Time is a necessary representation, lying at the foundation of all
|
|
our intuitions. With regard to phenomena in general, we cannot think
|
|
away time from them, and represent them to ourselves as out of and
|
|
unconnected with time, but we can quite well represent to ourselves time
|
|
void of phenomena. Time is therefore given a priori. In it alone is all
|
|
reality of phenomena possible. These may all be annihilated in thought,
|
|
but time itself, as the universal condition of their possibility, cannot
|
|
be so annulled.
|
|
|
|
3. On this necessity a priori is also founded the possibility of
|
|
apodeictic principles of the relations of time, or axioms of time in
|
|
general, such as: "Time has only one dimension," "Different times are
|
|
not coexistent but successive" (as different spaces are not successive
|
|
but coexistent). These principles cannot be derived from experience, for
|
|
it would give neither strict universality, nor apodeictic certainty. We
|
|
should only be able to say, "so common experience teaches us," but not
|
|
"it must be so." They are valid as rules, through which, in general,
|
|
experience is possible; and they instruct us respecting experience, and
|
|
not by means of it.
|
|
|
|
4. Time is not a discursive, or as it is called, general conception, but
|
|
a pure form of the sensuous intuition. Different times are merely parts
|
|
of one and the same time. But the representation which can only be
|
|
given by a single object is an intuition. Besides, the proposition that
|
|
different times cannot be coexistent could not be derived from a general
|
|
conception. For this proposition is synthetical, and therefore cannot
|
|
spring out of conceptions alone. It is therefore contained immediately
|
|
in the intuition and representation of time.
|
|
|
|
5. The infinity of time signifies nothing more than that every
|
|
determined quantity of time is possible only through limitations of one
|
|
time lying at the foundation. Consequently, the original representation,
|
|
time, must be given as unlimited. But as the determinate representation
|
|
of the parts of time and of every quantity of an object can only be
|
|
obtained by limitation, the complete representation of time must not
|
|
be furnished by means of conceptions, for these contain only partial
|
|
representations. Conceptions, on the contrary, must have immediate
|
|
intuition for their basis.
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
SS 6 Transcendental Exposition of the Conception of Time.
|
|
|
|
I may here refer to what is said above (SS 5, 3), where, for or sake of
|
|
brevity, I have placed under the head of metaphysical exposition, that
|
|
which is properly transcendental. Here I shall add that the conception
|
|
of change, and with it the conception of motion, as change of place, is
|
|
possible only through and in the representation of time; that if this
|
|
representation were not an intuition (internal) a priori, no conception,
|
|
of whatever kind, could render comprehensible the possibility of change,
|
|
in other words, of a conjunction of contradictorily opposed predicates
|
|
in one and the same object, for example, the presence of a thing in a
|
|
place and the non-presence of the same thing in the same place. It
|
|
is only in time that it is possible to meet with two contradictorily
|
|
opposed determinations in one thing, that is, after each other. Thus
|
|
our conception of time explains the possibility of so much synthetical
|
|
knowledge a priori, as is exhibited in the general doctrine of motion,
|
|
which is not a little fruitful.
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
SS 7. Conclusions from the above Conceptions.
|
|
|
|
(a) Time is not something which subsists of itself, or which inheres
|
|
in things as an objective determination, and therefore remains, when
|
|
abstraction is made of the subjective conditions of the intuition of
|
|
things. For in the former case, it would be something real, yet without
|
|
presenting to any power of perception any real object. In the latter
|
|
case, as an order or determination inherent in things themselves, it
|
|
could not be antecedent to things, as their condition, nor discerned or
|
|
intuited by means of synthetical propositions a priori. But all this is
|
|
quite possible when we regard time as merely the subjective condition
|
|
under which all our intuitions take place. For in that case, this form
|
|
of the inward intuition can be represented prior to the objects, and
|
|
consequently a priori.
|
|
|
|
(b) Time is nothing else than the form of the internal sense, that is,
|
|
of the intuitions of self and of our internal state. For time cannot be
|
|
any determination of outward phenomena. It has to do neither with
|
|
shape nor position; on the contrary, it determines the relation of
|
|
representations in our internal state. And precisely because this
|
|
internal intuition presents to us no shape or form, we endeavour to
|
|
supply this want by analogies, and represent the course of time by a
|
|
line progressing to infinity, the content of which constitutes a series
|
|
which is only of one dimension; and we conclude from the properties of
|
|
this line as to all the properties of time, with this single exception,
|
|
that the parts of the line are coexistent, whilst those of time are
|
|
successive. From this it is clear also that the representation of time
|
|
is itself an intuition, because all its relations can be expressed in an
|
|
external intuition.
|
|
|
|
(c) Time is the formal condition a priori of all phenomena whatsoever.
|
|
Space, as the pure form of external intuition, is limited as a condition
|
|
a priori to external phenomena alone. On the other hand, because all
|
|
representations, whether they have or have not external things for their
|
|
objects, still in themselves, as determinations of the mind, belong to
|
|
our internal state; and because this internal state is subject to the
|
|
formal condition of the internal intuition, that is, to time--time is a
|
|
condition a priori of all phenomena whatsoever--the immediate condition
|
|
of all internal, and thereby the mediate condition of all external
|
|
phenomena. If I can say a priori, "All outward phenomena are in space,
|
|
and determined a priori according to the relations of space," I can
|
|
also, from the principle of the internal sense, affirm universally, "All
|
|
phenomena in general, that is, all objects of the senses, are in time
|
|
and stand necessarily in relations of time."
|
|
|
|
If we abstract our internal intuition of ourselves and all external
|
|
intuitions, possible only by virtue of this internal intuition and
|
|
presented to us by our faculty of representation, and consequently take
|
|
objects as they are in themselves, then time is nothing. It is only
|
|
of objective validity in regard to phenomena, because these are things
|
|
which we regard as objects of our senses. It no longer objective we,
|
|
make abstraction of the sensuousness of our intuition, in other words,
|
|
of that mode of representation which is peculiar to us, and speak of
|
|
things in general. Time is therefore merely a subjective condition of
|
|
our (human) intuition (which is always sensuous, that is, so far as we
|
|
are affected by objects), and in itself, independently of the mind
|
|
or subject, is nothing. Nevertheless, in respect of all phenomena,
|
|
consequently of all things which come within the sphere of our
|
|
experience, it is necessarily objective. We cannot say, "All things are
|
|
in time," because in this conception of things in general, we abstract
|
|
and make no mention of any sort of intuition of things. But this is
|
|
the proper condition under which time belongs to our representation
|
|
of objects. If we add the condition to the conception, and say, "All
|
|
things, as phenomena, that is, objects of sensuous intuition, are
|
|
in time," then the proposition has its sound objective validity and
|
|
universality a priori.
|
|
|
|
What we have now set forth teaches, therefore, the empirical reality of
|
|
time; that is, its objective validity in reference to all objects which
|
|
can ever be presented to our senses. And as our intuition is always
|
|
sensuous, no object ever can be presented to us in experience, which
|
|
does not come under the conditions of time. On the other hand, we deny
|
|
to time all claim to absolute reality; that is, we deny that it, without
|
|
having regard to the form of our sensuous intuition, absolutely inheres
|
|
in things as a condition or property. Such properties as belong to
|
|
objects as things in themselves never can be presented to us through
|
|
the medium of the senses. Herein consists, therefore, the transcendental
|
|
ideality of time, according to which, if we abstract the subjective
|
|
conditions of sensuous intuition, it is nothing, and cannot be
|
|
reckoned as subsisting or inhering in objects as things in themselves,
|
|
independently of its relation to our intuition. This ideality, like that
|
|
of space, is not to be proved or illustrated by fallacious analogies
|
|
with sensations, for this reason--that in such arguments or
|
|
illustrations, we make the presupposition that the phenomenon, in which
|
|
such and such predicates inhere, has objective reality, while in this
|
|
case we can only find such an objective reality as is itself empirical,
|
|
that is, regards the object as a mere phenomenon. In reference to this
|
|
subject, see the remark in Section I (SS 4)
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
SS 8. Elucidation.
|
|
|
|
Against this theory, which grants empirical reality to time, but denies
|
|
to it absolute and transcendental reality, I have heard from intelligent
|
|
men an objection so unanimously urged that I conclude that it must
|
|
naturally present itself to every reader to whom these considerations
|
|
are novel. It runs thus: "Changes are real" (this the continual change
|
|
in our own representations demonstrates, even though the existence of
|
|
all external phenomena, together with their changes, is denied). Now,
|
|
changes are only possible in time, and therefore time must be something
|
|
real. But there is no difficulty in answering this. I grant the whole
|
|
argument. Time, no doubt, is something real, that is, it is the real
|
|
form of our internal intuition. It therefore has subjective reality,
|
|
in reference to our internal experience, that is, I have really
|
|
the representation of time and of my determinations therein. Time,
|
|
therefore, is not to be regarded as an object, but as the mode of
|
|
representation of myself as an object. But if I could intuite myself,
|
|
or be intuited by another being, without this condition of sensibility,
|
|
then those very determinations which we now represent to ourselves as
|
|
changes, would present to us a knowledge in which the representation
|
|
of time, and consequently of change, would not appear. The empirical
|
|
reality of time, therefore, remains, as the condition of all our
|
|
experience. But absolute reality, according to what has been said above,
|
|
cannot be granted it. Time is nothing but the form of our internal
|
|
intuition.* If we take away from it the special condition of our
|
|
sensibility, the conception of time also vanishes; and it inheres not
|
|
in the objects themselves, but solely in the subject (or mind) which
|
|
intuites them.
|
|
|
|
[*Footnote: I can indeed say "my representations follow one
|
|
another, or are successive"; but this means only that we are
|
|
conscious of them as in a succession, that is, according to
|
|
the form of the internal sense. Time, therefore, is not a
|
|
thing in itself, nor is it any objective determination
|
|
pertaining to, or inherent in things.]
|
|
|
|
|
|
But the reason why this objection is so unanimously brought against
|
|
our doctrine of time, and that too by disputants who cannot start any
|
|
intelligible arguments against the doctrine of the ideality of space,
|
|
is this--they have no hope of demonstrating apodeictically the absolute
|
|
reality of space, because the doctrine of idealism is against them,
|
|
according to which the reality of external objects is not capable of
|
|
any strict proof. On the other hand, the reality of the object of
|
|
our internal sense (that is, myself and my internal state) is clear
|
|
immediately through consciousness. The former--external objects in
|
|
space--might be a mere delusion, but the latter--the object of my
|
|
internal perception--is undeniably real. They do not, however, reflect
|
|
that both, without question of their reality as representations, belong
|
|
only to the genus phenomenon, which has always two aspects, the one, the
|
|
object considered as a thing in itself, without regard to the mode
|
|
of intuiting it, and the nature of which remains for this very reason
|
|
problematical, the other, the form of our intuition of the object,
|
|
which must be sought not in the object as a thing in itself, but in
|
|
the subject to which it appears--which form of intuition nevertheless
|
|
belongs really and necessarily to the phenomenal object.
|
|
|
|
Time and space are, therefore, two sources of knowledge, from which, a
|
|
priori, various synthetical cognitions can be drawn. Of this we find
|
|
a striking example in the cognitions of space and its relations, which
|
|
form the foundation of pure mathematics. They are the two pure forms
|
|
of all intuitions, and thereby make synthetical propositions a priori
|
|
possible. But these sources of knowledge being merely conditions of our
|
|
sensibility, do therefore, and as such, strictly determine their own
|
|
range and purpose, in that they do not and cannot present objects as
|
|
things in themselves, but are applicable to them solely in so far as
|
|
they are considered as sensuous phenomena. The sphere of phenomena is
|
|
the only sphere of their validity, and if we venture out of this, no
|
|
further objective use can be made of them. For the rest, this formal
|
|
reality of time and space leaves the validity of our empirical knowledge
|
|
unshaken; for our certainty in that respect is equally firm, whether
|
|
these forms necessarily inhere in the things themselves, or only in our
|
|
intuitions of them. On the other hand, those who maintain the absolute
|
|
reality of time and space, whether as essentially subsisting, or only
|
|
inhering, as modifications, in things, must find themselves at utter
|
|
variance with the principles of experience itself. For, if they decide
|
|
for the first view, and make space and time into substances, this being
|
|
the side taken by mathematical natural philosophers, they must admit
|
|
two self-subsisting nonentities, infinite and eternal, which exist (yet
|
|
without there being anything real) for the purpose of containing in
|
|
themselves everything that is real. If they adopt the second view of
|
|
inherence, which is preferred by some metaphysical natural philosophers,
|
|
and regard space and time as relations (contiguity in space or
|
|
succession in time), abstracted from experience, though represented
|
|
confusedly in this state of separation, they find themselves in that
|
|
case necessitated to deny the validity of mathematical doctrines a
|
|
priori in reference to real things (for example, in space)--at all
|
|
events their apodeictic certainty. For such certainty cannot be found in
|
|
an a posteriori proposition; and the conceptions a priori of space and
|
|
time are, according to this opinion, mere creations of the imagination,
|
|
having their source really in experience, inasmuch as, out of relations
|
|
abstracted from experience, imagination has made up something which
|
|
contains, indeed, general statements of these relations, yet of which
|
|
no application can be made without the restrictions attached thereto by
|
|
nature. The former of these parties gains this advantage, that they
|
|
keep the sphere of phenomena free for mathematical science. On the other
|
|
hand, these very conditions (space and time) embarrass them greatly,
|
|
when the understanding endeavours to pass the limits of that sphere. The
|
|
latter has, indeed, this advantage, that the representations of space
|
|
and time do not come in their way when they wish to judge of objects,
|
|
not as phenomena, but merely in their relation to the understanding.
|
|
Devoid, however, of a true and objectively valid a priori intuition,
|
|
they can neither furnish any basis for the possibility of mathematical
|
|
cognitions a priori, nor bring the propositions of experience into
|
|
necessary accordance with those of mathematics. In our theory of
|
|
the true nature of these two original forms of the sensibility, both
|
|
difficulties are surmounted.
|
|
|
|
In conclusion, that transcendental aesthetic cannot contain any more
|
|
than these two elements--space and time, is sufficiently obvious from
|
|
the fact that all other conceptions appertaining to sensibility,
|
|
even that of motion, which unites in itself both elements, presuppose
|
|
something empirical. Motion, for example, presupposes the perception
|
|
of something movable. But space considered in itself contains nothing
|
|
movable, consequently motion must be something which is found in space
|
|
only through experience--in other words, an empirical datum. In like
|
|
manner, transcendental aesthetic cannot number the conception of change
|
|
among its data a priori; for time itself does not change, but only
|
|
something which is in time. To acquire the conception of change,
|
|
therefore, the perception of some existing object and of the succession
|
|
of its determinations, in one word, experience, is necessary.
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
SS 9. General Remarks on Transcendental Aesthetic.
|
|
|
|
I. In order to prevent any misunderstanding, it will be requisite,
|
|
in the first place, to recapitulate, as clearly as possible, what
|
|
our opinion is with respect to the fundamental nature of our sensuous
|
|
cognition in general. We have intended, then, to say that all our
|
|
intuition is nothing but the representation of phenomena; that
|
|
the things which we intuite, are not in themselves the same as our
|
|
representations of them in intuition, nor are their relations in
|
|
themselves so constituted as they appear to us; and that if we take away
|
|
the subject, or even only the subjective constitution of our senses in
|
|
general, then not only the nature and relations of objects in space and
|
|
time, but even space and time themselves disappear; and that these, as
|
|
phenomena, cannot exist in themselves, but only in us. What may be
|
|
the nature of objects considered as things in themselves and without
|
|
reference to the receptivity of our sensibility is quite unknown to us.
|
|
We know nothing more than our mode of perceiving them, which is peculiar
|
|
to us, and which, though not of necessity pertaining to every animated
|
|
being, is so to the whole human race. With this alone we have to do.
|
|
Space and time are the pure forms thereof; sensation the matter. The
|
|
former alone can we cognize a priori, that is, antecedent to all actual
|
|
perception; and for this reason such cognition is called pure intuition.
|
|
The latter is that in our cognition which is called cognition a
|
|
posteriori, that is, empirical intuition. The former appertain
|
|
absolutely and necessarily to our sensibility, of whatsoever kind our
|
|
sensations may be; the latter may be of very diversified character.
|
|
Supposing that we should carry our empirical intuition even to the very
|
|
highest degree of clearness, we should not thereby advance one step
|
|
nearer to a knowledge of the constitution of objects as things in
|
|
themselves. For we could only, at best, arrive at a complete cognition
|
|
of our own mode of intuition, that is of our sensibility, and this
|
|
always under the conditions originally attaching to the subject, namely,
|
|
the conditions of space and time; while the question: "What are objects
|
|
considered as things in themselves?" remains unanswerable even after the
|
|
most thorough examination of the phenomenal world.
|
|
|
|
To say, then, that all our sensibility is nothing but the confused
|
|
representation of things containing exclusively that which belongs
|
|
to them as things in themselves, and this under an accumulation of
|
|
characteristic marks and partial representations which we cannot
|
|
distinguish in consciousness, is a falsification of the conception
|
|
of sensibility and phenomenization, which renders our whole doctrine
|
|
thereof empty and useless. The difference between a confused and a clear
|
|
representation is merely logical and has nothing to do with content.
|
|
No doubt the conception of right, as employed by a sound understanding,
|
|
contains all that the most subtle investigation could unfold from
|
|
it, although, in the ordinary practical use of the word, we are not
|
|
conscious of the manifold representations comprised in the conception.
|
|
But we cannot for this reason assert that the ordinary conception is a
|
|
sensuous one, containing a mere phenomenon, for right cannot appear as
|
|
a phenomenon; but the conception of it lies in the understanding, and
|
|
represents a property (the moral property) of actions, which belongs to
|
|
them in themselves. On the other hand, the representation in intuition
|
|
of a body contains nothing which could belong to an object considered as
|
|
a thing in itself, but merely the phenomenon or appearance of something,
|
|
and the mode in which we are affected by that appearance; and this
|
|
receptivity of our faculty of cognition is called sensibility, and
|
|
remains toto caelo different from the cognition of an object in itself,
|
|
even though we should examine the content of the phenomenon to the very
|
|
bottom.
|
|
|
|
It must be admitted that the Leibnitz-Wolfian philosophy has assigned an
|
|
entirely erroneous point of view to all investigations into the nature
|
|
and origin of our cognitions, inasmuch as it regards the distinction
|
|
between the sensuous and the intellectual as merely logical, whereas
|
|
it is plainly transcendental, and concerns not merely the clearness
|
|
or obscurity, but the content and origin of both. For the faculty of
|
|
sensibility not only does not present us with an indistinct and confused
|
|
cognition of objects as things in themselves, but, in fact, gives us no
|
|
knowledge of these at all. On the contrary, so soon as we abstract in
|
|
thought our own subjective nature, the object represented, with the
|
|
properties ascribed to it by sensuous intuition, entirely disappears,
|
|
because it was only this subjective nature that determined the form of
|
|
the object as a phenomenon.
|
|
|
|
In phenomena, we commonly, indeed, distinguish that which essentially
|
|
belongs to the intuition of them, and is valid for the sensuous faculty
|
|
of every human being, from that which belongs to the same intuition
|
|
accidentally, as valid not for the sensuous faculty in general, but for
|
|
a particular state or organization of this or that sense. Accordingly,
|
|
we are accustomed to say that the former is a cognition which represents
|
|
the object itself, whilst the latter presents only a particular
|
|
appearance or phenomenon thereof. This distinction, however, is
|
|
only empirical. If we stop here (as is usual), and do not regard the
|
|
empirical intuition as itself a mere phenomenon (as we ought to do), in
|
|
which nothing that can appertain to a thing in itself is to be found,
|
|
our transcendental distinction is lost, and we believe that we cognize
|
|
objects as things in themselves, although in the whole range of the
|
|
sensuous world, investigate the nature of its objects as profoundly
|
|
as we may, we have to do with nothing but phenomena. Thus, we call the
|
|
rainbow a mere appearance of phenomenon in a sunny shower, and the
|
|
rain, the reality or thing in itself; and this is right enough, if we
|
|
understand the latter conception in a merely physical sense, that is,
|
|
as that which in universal experience, and under whatever conditions of
|
|
sensuous perception, is known in intuition to be so and so determined,
|
|
and not otherwise. But if we consider this empirical datum generally,
|
|
and inquire, without reference to its accordance with all our senses,
|
|
whether there can be discovered in it aught which represents an object
|
|
as a thing in itself (the raindrops of course are not such, for they
|
|
are, as phenomena, empirical objects), the question of the relation of
|
|
the representation to the object is transcendental; and not only are the
|
|
raindrops mere phenomena, but even their circular form, nay, the space
|
|
itself through which they fall, is nothing in itself, but both are mere
|
|
modifications or fundamental dispositions of our sensuous intuition,
|
|
whilst the transcendental object remains for us utterly unknown.
|
|
|
|
The second important concern of our aesthetic is that it does not obtain
|
|
favour merely as a plausible hypothesis, but possess as undoubted a
|
|
character of certainty as can be demanded of any theory which is to
|
|
serve for an organon. In order fully to convince the reader of this
|
|
certainty, we shall select a case which will serve to make its validity
|
|
apparent, and also to illustrate what has been said in SS 3.
|
|
|
|
Suppose, then, that space and time are in themselves objective, and
|
|
conditions of the--possibility of objects as things in themselves. In
|
|
the first place, it is evident that both present us, with very
|
|
many apodeictic and synthetic propositions a priori, but especially
|
|
space--and for this reason we shall prefer it for investigation at
|
|
present. As the propositions of geometry are cognized synthetically a
|
|
priori, and with apodeictic certainty, I inquire: Whence do you obtain
|
|
propositions of this kind, and on what basis does the understanding
|
|
rest, in order to arrive at such absolutely necessary and universally
|
|
valid truths?
|
|
|
|
There is no other way than through intuitions or conceptions, as such;
|
|
and these are given either a priori or a posteriori. The latter, namely,
|
|
empirical conceptions, together with the empirical intuition on which
|
|
they are founded, cannot afford any synthetical proposition, except such
|
|
as is itself also empirical, that is, a proposition of experience. But
|
|
an empirical proposition cannot possess the qualities of necessity and
|
|
absolute universality, which, nevertheless, are the characteristics of
|
|
all geometrical propositions. As to the first and only means to arrive
|
|
at such cognitions, namely, through mere conceptions or intuitions a
|
|
priori, it is quite clear that from mere conceptions no synthetical
|
|
cognitions, but only analytical ones, can be obtained. Take, for
|
|
example, the proposition: "Two straight lines cannot enclose a space,
|
|
and with these alone no figure is possible," and try to deduce it
|
|
from the conception of a straight line and the number two; or take the
|
|
proposition: "It is possible to construct a figure with three straight
|
|
lines," and endeavour, in like manner, to deduce it from the mere
|
|
conception of a straight line and the number three. All your endeavours
|
|
are in vain, and you find yourself forced to have recourse to intuition,
|
|
as, in fact, geometry always does. You therefore give yourself an object
|
|
in intuition. But of what kind is this intuition? Is it a pure a
|
|
priori, or is it an empirical intuition? If the latter, then neither an
|
|
universally valid, much less an apodeictic proposition can arise from
|
|
it, for experience never can give us any such proposition. You must,
|
|
therefore, give yourself an object a priori in intuition, and upon that
|
|
ground your synthetical proposition. Now if there did not exist within
|
|
you a faculty of intuition a priori; if this subjective condition were
|
|
not in respect to its form also the universal condition a priori under
|
|
which alone the object of this external intuition is itself possible;
|
|
if the object (that is, the triangle) were something in itself, without
|
|
relation to you the subject; how could you affirm that that which
|
|
lies necessarily in your subjective conditions in order to construct a
|
|
triangle, must also necessarily belong to the triangle in itself? For
|
|
to your conceptions of three lines, you could not add anything new (that
|
|
is, the figure); which, therefore, must necessarily be found in the
|
|
object, because the object is given before your cognition, and not by
|
|
means of it. If, therefore, space (and time also) were not a mere form
|
|
of your intuition, which contains conditions a priori, under which alone
|
|
things can become external objects for you, and without which subjective
|
|
conditions the objects are in themselves nothing, you could not
|
|
construct any synthetical proposition whatsoever regarding external
|
|
objects. It is therefore not merely possible or probable, but
|
|
indubitably certain, that space and time, as the necessary conditions
|
|
of all our external and internal experience, are merely subjective
|
|
conditions of all our intuitions, in relation to which all objects are
|
|
therefore mere phenomena, and not things in themselves, presented to us
|
|
in this particular manner. And for this reason, in respect to the form
|
|
of phenomena, much may be said a priori, whilst of the thing in itself,
|
|
which may lie at the foundation of these phenomena, it is impossible to
|
|
say anything.
|
|
|
|
II. In confirmation of this theory of the ideality of the external as
|
|
well as internal sense, consequently of all objects of sense, as mere
|
|
phenomena, we may especially remark that all in our cognition that
|
|
belongs to intuition contains nothing more than mere relations. (The
|
|
feelings of pain and pleasure, and the will, which are not cognitions,
|
|
are excepted.) The relations, to wit, of place in an intuition
|
|
(extension), change of place (motion), and laws according to which this
|
|
change is determined (moving forces). That, however, which is present in
|
|
this or that place, or any operation going on, or result taking place
|
|
in the things themselves, with the exception of change of place, is not
|
|
given to us by intuition. Now by means of mere relations, a thing cannot
|
|
be known in itself; and it may therefore be fairly concluded, that, as
|
|
through the external sense nothing but mere representations of relations
|
|
are given us, the said external sense in its representation can contain
|
|
only the relation of the object to the subject, but not the essential
|
|
nature of the object as a thing in itself.
|
|
|
|
The same is the case with the internal intuition, not only because,
|
|
in the internal intuition, the representation of the external senses
|
|
constitutes the material with which the mind is occupied; but because
|
|
time, in which we place, and which itself antecedes the consciousness
|
|
of, these representations in experience, and which, as the formal
|
|
condition of the mode according to which objects are placed in the mind,
|
|
lies at the foundation of them, contains relations of the successive,
|
|
the coexistent, and of that which always must be coexistent with
|
|
succession, the permanent. Now that which, as representation, can
|
|
antecede every exercise of thought (of an object), is intuition; and
|
|
when it contains nothing but relations, it is the form of the intuition,
|
|
which, as it presents us with no representation, except in so far as
|
|
something is placed in the mind, can be nothing else than the mode in
|
|
which the mind is affected by its own activity, to wit--its presenting
|
|
to itself representations, consequently the mode in which the mind is
|
|
affected by itself; that is, it can be nothing but an internal sense in
|
|
respect to its form. Everything that is represented through the medium
|
|
of sense is so far phenomenal; consequently, we must either refuse
|
|
altogether to admit an internal sense, or the subject, which is the
|
|
object of that sense, could only be represented by it as phenomenon, and
|
|
not as it would judge of itself, if its intuition were pure spontaneous
|
|
activity, that is, were intellectual. The difficulty here lies wholly in
|
|
the question: How can the subject have an internal intuition of itself?
|
|
But this difficulty is common to every theory. The consciousness of
|
|
self (apperception) is the simple representation of the "ego"; and if by
|
|
means of that representation alone, all the manifold representations in
|
|
the subject were spontaneously given, then our internal intuition
|
|
would be intellectual. This consciousness in man requires an internal
|
|
perception of the manifold representations which are previously given in
|
|
the subject; and the manner in which these representations are given in
|
|
the mind without spontaneity, must, on account of this difference
|
|
(the want of spontaneity), be called sensibility. If the faculty of
|
|
self-consciousness is to apprehend what lies in the mind, it must all
|
|
act that and can in this way alone produce an intuition of self. But the
|
|
form of this intuition, which lies in the original constitution of the
|
|
mind, determines, in the representation of time, the manner in which the
|
|
manifold representations are to combine themselves in the mind;
|
|
since the subject intuites itself, not as it would represent itself
|
|
immediately and spontaneously, but according to the manner in which the
|
|
mind is internally affected, consequently, as it appears, and not as it
|
|
is.
|
|
|
|
III. When we say that the intuition of external objects, and also the
|
|
self-intuition of the subject, represent both, objects and subject, in
|
|
space and time, as they affect our senses, that is, as they appear--this
|
|
is by no means equivalent to asserting that these objects are mere
|
|
illusory appearances. For when we speak of things as phenomena, the
|
|
objects, nay, even the properties which we ascribe to them, are looked
|
|
upon as really given; only that, in so far as this or that property
|
|
depends upon the mode of intuition of the subject, in the relation
|
|
of the given object to the subject, the object as phenomenon is to be
|
|
distinguished from the object as a thing in itself. Thus I do not say
|
|
that bodies seem or appear to be external to me, or that my soul seems
|
|
merely to be given in my self-consciousness, although I maintain that
|
|
the properties of space and time, in conformity to which I set both, as
|
|
the condition of their existence, abide in my mode of intuition, and not
|
|
in the objects in themselves. It would be my own fault, if out of that
|
|
which I should reckon as phenomenon, I made mere illusory appearance.*
|
|
But this will not happen, because of our principle of the ideality
|
|
of all sensuous intuitions. On the contrary, if we ascribe objective
|
|
reality to these forms of representation, it becomes impossible to avoid
|
|
changing everything into mere appearance. For if we regard space
|
|
and time as properties, which must be found in objects as things in
|
|
themselves, as sine quibus non of the possibility of their existence,
|
|
and reflect on the absurdities in which we then find ourselves involved,
|
|
inasmuch as we are compelled to admit the existence of two infinite
|
|
things, which are nevertheless not substances, nor anything really
|
|
inhering in substances, nay, to admit that they are the necessary
|
|
conditions of the existence of all things, and moreover, that they must
|
|
continue to exist, although all existing things were annihilated--we
|
|
cannot blame the good Berkeley for degrading bodies to mere illusory
|
|
appearances. Nay, even our own existence, which would in this case
|
|
depend upon the self-existent reality of such a mere nonentity as time,
|
|
would necessarily be changed with it into mere appearance--an absurdity
|
|
which no one has as yet been guilty of.
|
|
|
|
[*Footnote: The predicates of the phenomenon can be affixed
|
|
to the object itself in relation to our sensuous faculty;
|
|
for example, the red colour or the perfume to the rose. But
|
|
(illusory) appearance never can be attributed as a predicate
|
|
to an object, for this very reason, that it attributes to
|
|
this object in itself that which belongs to it only in
|
|
relation to our sensuous faculty, or to the subject in
|
|
general, e.g., the two handles which were formerly ascribed
|
|
to Saturn. That which is never to be found in the object
|
|
itself, but always in the relation of the object to the
|
|
subject, and which moreover is inseparable from our
|
|
representation of the object, we denominate phenomenon. Thus
|
|
the predicates of space and time are rightly attributed to
|
|
objects of the senses as such, and in this there is no
|
|
illusion. On the contrary, if I ascribe redness of the rose
|
|
as a thing in itself, or to Saturn his handles, or extension
|
|
to all external objects, considered as things in themselves,
|
|
without regarding the determinate relation of these objects
|
|
to the subject, and without limiting my judgement to that
|
|
relation--then, and then only, arises illusion.]
|
|
|
|
|
|
IV. In natural theology, where we think of an object--God--which never
|
|
can be an object of intuition to us, and even to himself can never be
|
|
an object of sensuous intuition, we carefully avoid attributing to
|
|
his intuition the conditions of space and time--and intuition all his
|
|
cognition must be, and not thought, which always includes limitation.
|
|
But with what right can we do this if we make them forms of objects as
|
|
things in themselves, and such, moreover, as would continue to exist as
|
|
a priori conditions of the existence of things, even though the things
|
|
themselves were annihilated? For as conditions of all existence in
|
|
general, space and time must be conditions of the existence of the
|
|
Supreme Being also. But if we do not thus make them objective forms
|
|
of all things, there is no other way left than to make them subjective
|
|
forms of our mode of intuition--external and internal; which is called
|
|
sensuous, because it is not primitive, that is, is not such as gives in
|
|
itself the existence of the object of the intuition (a mode of intuition
|
|
which, so far as we can judge, can belong only to the Creator), but is
|
|
dependent on the existence of the object, is possible, therefore, only
|
|
on condition that the representative faculty of the subject is affected
|
|
by the object.
|
|
|
|
It is, moreover, not necessary that we should limit the mode of
|
|
intuition in space and time to the sensuous faculty of man. It may well
|
|
be that all finite thinking beings must necessarily in this respect
|
|
agree with man (though as to this we cannot decide), but sensibility
|
|
does not on account of this universality cease to be sensibility, for
|
|
this very reason, that it is a deduced (intuitus derivativus), and not
|
|
an original (intuitus originarius), consequently not an intellectual
|
|
intuition, and this intuition, as such, for reasons above mentioned,
|
|
seems to belong solely to the Supreme Being, but never to a being
|
|
dependent, quoad its existence, as well as its intuition (which its
|
|
existence determines and limits relatively to given objects). This
|
|
latter remark, however, must be taken only as an illustration, and not
|
|
as any proof of the truth of our aesthetical theory.
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
SS 10. Conclusion of the Transcendental Aesthetic.
|
|
|
|
We have now completely before us one part of the solution of the grand
|
|
general problem of transcendental philosophy, namely, the question: "How
|
|
are synthetical propositions a priori possible?" That is to say, we have
|
|
shown that we are in possession of pure a priori intuitions, namely,
|
|
space and time, in which we find, when in a judgement a priori we pass
|
|
out beyond the given conception, something which is not discoverable in
|
|
that conception, but is certainly found a priori in the intuition which
|
|
corresponds to the conception, and can be united synthetically with it.
|
|
But the judgements which these pure intuitions enable us to make, never
|
|
reach farther than to objects of the senses, and are valid only for
|
|
objects of possible experience.
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
SECOND PART. TRANSCENDENTAL LOGIC.
|
|
|
|
INTRODUCTION. Idea of a Transcendental Logic.
|
|
|
|
I. Of Logic in General.
|
|
|
|
Our knowledge springs from two main sources in the mind, first of which
|
|
is the faculty or power of receiving representations (receptivity for
|
|
impressions); the second is the power of cognizing by means of these
|
|
representations (spontaneity in the production of conceptions). Through
|
|
the first an object is given to us; through the second, it is, in
|
|
relation to the representation (which is a mere determination of the
|
|
mind), thought. Intuition and conceptions constitute, therefore, the
|
|
elements of all our knowledge, so that neither conceptions without
|
|
an intuition in some way corresponding to them, nor intuition without
|
|
conceptions, can afford us a cognition. Both are either pure or
|
|
empirical. They are empirical, when sensation (which presupposes the
|
|
actual presence of the object) is contained in them; and pure, when no
|
|
sensation is mixed with the representation. Sensations we may call
|
|
the matter of sensuous cognition. Pure intuition consequently contains
|
|
merely the form under which something is intuited, and pure conception
|
|
only the form of the thought of an object. Only pure intuitions and pure
|
|
conceptions are possible a priori; the empirical only a posteriori.
|
|
|
|
We apply the term sensibility to the receptivity of the mind for
|
|
impressions, in so far as it is in some way affected; and, on the other
|
|
hand, we call the faculty of spontaneously producing representations,
|
|
or the spontaneity of cognition, understanding. Our nature is so
|
|
constituted that intuition with us never can be other than sensuous,
|
|
that is, it contains only the mode in which we are affected by objects.
|
|
On the other hand, the faculty of thinking the object of sensuous
|
|
intuition is the understanding. Neither of these faculties has a
|
|
preference over the other. Without the sensuous faculty no object
|
|
would be given to us, and without the understanding no object would
|
|
be thought. Thoughts without content are void; intuitions without
|
|
conceptions, blind. Hence it is as necessary for the mind to make its
|
|
conceptions sensuous (that is, to join to them the object in intuition),
|
|
as to make its intuitions intelligible (that is, to bring them under
|
|
conceptions). Neither of these faculties can exchange its proper
|
|
function. Understanding cannot intuite, and the sensuous faculty cannot
|
|
think. In no other way than from the united operation of both, can
|
|
knowledge arise. But no one ought, on this account, to overlook the
|
|
difference of the elements contributed by each; we have rather great
|
|
reason carefully to separate and distinguish them. We therefore
|
|
distinguish the science of the laws of sensibility, that is, aesthetic,
|
|
from the science of the laws of the understanding, that is, logic.
|
|
|
|
Now, logic in its turn may be considered as twofold--namely, as logic
|
|
of the general, or of the particular use of the understanding. The first
|
|
contains the absolutely necessary laws of thought, without which no use
|
|
whatsoever of the understanding is possible, and gives laws therefore to
|
|
the understanding, without regard to the difference of objects on which
|
|
it may be employed. The logic of the particular use of the understanding
|
|
contains the laws of correct thinking upon a particular class of
|
|
objects. The former may be called elemental logic--the latter, the
|
|
organon of this or that particular science. The latter is for the
|
|
most part employed in the schools, as a propaedeutic to the sciences,
|
|
although, indeed, according to the course of human reason, it is the
|
|
last thing we arrive at, when the science has been already matured, and
|
|
needs only the finishing touches towards its correction and completion;
|
|
for our knowledge of the objects of our attempted science must be
|
|
tolerably extensive and complete before we can indicate the laws by
|
|
which a science of these objects can be established.
|
|
|
|
General logic is again either pure or applied. In the former, we
|
|
abstract all the empirical conditions under which the understanding is
|
|
exercised; for example, the influence of the senses, the play of the
|
|
fantasy or imagination, the laws of the memory, the force of habit, of
|
|
inclination, etc., consequently also, the sources of prejudice--in a
|
|
word, we abstract all causes from which particular cognitions
|
|
arise, because these causes regard the understanding under certain
|
|
circumstances of its application, and, to the knowledge of them
|
|
experience is required. Pure general logic has to do, therefore, merely
|
|
with pure a priori principles, and is a canon of understanding and
|
|
reason, but only in respect of the formal part of their use, be the
|
|
content what it may, empirical or transcendental. General logic is
|
|
called applied, when it is directed to the laws of the use of the
|
|
understanding, under the subjective empirical conditions which
|
|
psychology teaches us. It has therefore empirical principles, although,
|
|
at the same time, it is in so far general, that it applies to the
|
|
exercise of the understanding, without regard to the difference of
|
|
objects. On this account, moreover, it is neither a canon of the
|
|
understanding in general, nor an organon of a particular science, but
|
|
merely a cathartic of the human understanding.
|
|
|
|
In general logic, therefore, that part which constitutes pure logic must
|
|
be carefully distinguished from that which constitutes applied (though
|
|
still general) logic. The former alone is properly science, although
|
|
short and dry, as the methodical exposition of an elemental doctrine of
|
|
the understanding ought to be. In this, therefore, logicians must always
|
|
bear in mind two rules:
|
|
|
|
1. As general logic, it makes abstraction of all content of the
|
|
cognition of the understanding, and of the difference of objects, and
|
|
has to do with nothing but the mere form of thought.
|
|
|
|
2. As pure logic, it has no empirical principles, and consequently
|
|
draws nothing (contrary to the common persuasion) from psychology, which
|
|
therefore has no influence on the canon of the understanding. It is a
|
|
demonstrated doctrine, and everything in it must be certain completely a
|
|
priori.
|
|
|
|
What I called applied logic (contrary to the common acceptation of this
|
|
term, according to which it should contain certain exercises for the
|
|
scholar, for which pure logic gives the rules), is a representation
|
|
of the understanding, and of the rules of its necessary employment
|
|
in concreto, that is to say, under the accidental conditions of the
|
|
subject, which may either hinder or promote this employment, and which
|
|
are all given only empirically. Thus applied logic treats of attention,
|
|
its impediments and consequences, of the origin of error, of the state
|
|
of doubt, hesitation, conviction, etc., and to it is related pure
|
|
general logic in the same way that pure morality, which contains only
|
|
the necessary moral laws of a free will, is related to practical ethics,
|
|
which considers these laws under all the impediments of feelings,
|
|
inclinations, and passions to which men are more or less subjected, and
|
|
which never can furnish us with a true and demonstrated science, because
|
|
it, as well as applied logic, requires empirical and psychological
|
|
principles.
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
II. Of Transcendental Logic.
|
|
|
|
General logic, as we have seen, makes abstraction of all content of
|
|
cognition, that is, of all relation of cognition to its object, and
|
|
regards only the logical form in the relation of cognitions to each
|
|
other, that is, the form of thought in general. But as we have both pure
|
|
and empirical intuitions (as transcendental aesthetic proves), in like
|
|
manner a distinction might be drawn between pure and empirical thought
|
|
(of objects). In this case, there would exist a kind of logic, in which
|
|
we should not make abstraction of all content of cognition; for or logic
|
|
which should comprise merely the laws of pure thought (of an object),
|
|
would of course exclude all those cognitions which were of empirical
|
|
content. This kind of logic would also examine the origin of our
|
|
cognitions of objects, so far as that origin cannot be ascribed to the
|
|
objects themselves; while, on the contrary, general logic has nothing
|
|
to do with the origin of our cognitions, but contemplates our
|
|
representations, be they given primitively a priori in ourselves, or be
|
|
they only of empirical origin, solely according to the laws which the
|
|
understanding observes in employing them in the process of thought, in
|
|
relation to each other. Consequently, general logic treats of the form
|
|
of the understanding only, which can be applied to representations, from
|
|
whatever source they may have arisen.
|
|
|
|
And here I shall make a remark, which the reader must bear well in mind
|
|
in the course of the following considerations, to wit, that not every
|
|
cognition a priori, but only those through which we cognize that and how
|
|
certain representations (intuitions or conceptions) are applied or are
|
|
possible only a priori; that is to say, the a priori possibility of
|
|
cognition and the a priori use of it are transcendental. Therefore
|
|
neither is space, nor any a priori geometrical determination of space,
|
|
a transcendental Representation, but only the knowledge that such a
|
|
representation is not of empirical origin, and the possibility of its
|
|
relating to objects of experience, although itself a priori, can be
|
|
called transcendental. So also, the application of space to objects
|
|
in general would be transcendental; but if it be limited to objects of
|
|
sense it is empirical. Thus, the distinction of the transcendental
|
|
and empirical belongs only to the critique of cognitions, and does not
|
|
concern the relation of these to their object.
|
|
|
|
Accordingly, in the expectation that there may perhaps be conceptions
|
|
which relate a priori to objects, not as pure or sensuous intuitions,
|
|
but merely as acts of pure thought (which are therefore conceptions,
|
|
but neither of empirical nor aesthetical origin)--in this expectation,
|
|
I say, we form to ourselves, by anticipation, the idea of a science
|
|
of pure understanding and rational cognition, by means of which we may
|
|
cogitate objects entirely a priori. A science of this kind, which should
|
|
determine the origin, the extent, and the objective validity of such
|
|
cognitions, must be called transcendental logic, because it has not,
|
|
like general logic, to do with the laws of understanding and reason
|
|
in relation to empirical as well as pure rational cognitions without
|
|
distinction, but concerns itself with these only in an a priori relation
|
|
to objects.
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
III. Of the Division of General Logic into Analytic and Dialectic.
|
|
|
|
The old question with which people sought to push logicians into a
|
|
corner, so that they must either have recourse to pitiful sophisms or
|
|
confess their ignorance, and consequently the vanity of their whole art,
|
|
is this: "What is truth?" The definition of the word truth, to wit,
|
|
"the accordance of the cognition with its object," is presupposed in
|
|
the question; but we desire to be told, in the answer to it, what is the
|
|
universal and secure criterion of the truth of every cognition.
|
|
|
|
To know what questions we may reasonably propose is in itself a strong
|
|
evidence of sagacity and intelligence. For if a question be in itself
|
|
absurd and unsusceptible of a rational answer, it is attended with the
|
|
danger--not to mention the shame that falls upon the person who proposes
|
|
it--of seducing the unguarded listener into making absurd answers, and
|
|
we are presented with the ridiculous spectacle of one (as the ancients
|
|
said) "milking the he-goat, and the other holding a sieve."
|
|
|
|
If truth consists in the accordance of a cognition with its object,
|
|
this object must be, ipso facto, distinguished from all others; for a
|
|
cognition is false if it does not accord with the object to which it
|
|
relates, although it contains something which may be affirmed of other
|
|
objects. Now an universal criterion of truth would be that which is
|
|
valid for all cognitions, without distinction of their objects. But
|
|
it is evident that since, in the case of such a criterion, we make
|
|
abstraction of all the content of a cognition (that is, of all relation
|
|
to its object), and truth relates precisely to this content, it must
|
|
be utterly absurd to ask for a mark of the truth of this content of
|
|
cognition; and that, accordingly, a sufficient, and at the same time
|
|
universal, test of truth cannot possibly be found. As we have already
|
|
termed the content of a cognition its matter, we shall say: "Of the
|
|
truth of our cognitions in respect of their matter, no universal test
|
|
can be demanded, because such a demand is self-contradictory."
|
|
|
|
On the other hand, with regard to our cognition in respect of its mere
|
|
form (excluding all content), it is equally manifest that logic, in
|
|
so far as it exhibits the universal and necessary laws of the
|
|
understanding, must in these very laws present us with criteria of
|
|
truth. Whatever contradicts these rules is false, because thereby the
|
|
understanding is made to contradict its own universal laws of thought;
|
|
that is, to contradict itself. These criteria, however, apply solely to
|
|
the form of truth, that is, of thought in general, and in so far they
|
|
are perfectly accurate, yet not sufficient. For although a cognition
|
|
may be perfectly accurate as to logical form, that is, not
|
|
self-contradictory, it is notwithstanding quite possible that it may
|
|
not stand in agreement with its object. Consequently, the merely logical
|
|
criterion of truth, namely, the accordance of a cognition with the
|
|
universal and formal laws of understanding and reason, is nothing more
|
|
than the conditio sine qua non, or negative condition of all truth.
|
|
Farther than this logic cannot go, and the error which depends not
|
|
on the form, but on the content of the cognition, it has no test to
|
|
discover.
|
|
|
|
General logic, then, resolves the whole formal business of understanding
|
|
and reason into its elements, and exhibits them as principles of all
|
|
logical judging of our cognitions. This part of logic may, therefore, be
|
|
called analytic, and is at least the negative test of truth, because all
|
|
cognitions must first of an be estimated and tried according to these
|
|
laws before we proceed to investigate them in respect of their content,
|
|
in order to discover whether they contain positive truth in regard to
|
|
their object. Because, however, the mere form of a cognition, accurately
|
|
as it may accord with logical laws, is insufficient to supply us with
|
|
material (objective) truth, no one, by means of logic alone, can venture
|
|
to predicate anything of or decide concerning objects, unless he has
|
|
obtained, independently of logic, well-grounded information about them,
|
|
in order afterwards to examine, according to logical laws, into the use
|
|
and connection, in a cohering whole, of that information, or, what is
|
|
still better, merely to test it by them. Notwithstanding, there lies so
|
|
seductive a charm in the possession of a specious art like this--an
|
|
art which gives to all our cognitions the form of the understanding,
|
|
although with respect to the content thereof we may be sadly
|
|
deficient--that general logic, which is merely a canon of judgement, has
|
|
been employed as an organon for the actual production, or rather for
|
|
the semblance of production, of objective assertions, and has thus
|
|
been grossly misapplied. Now general logic, in its assumed character of
|
|
organon, is called dialectic.
|
|
|
|
Different as are the significations in which the ancients used this
|
|
term for a science or an art, we may safely infer, from their actual
|
|
employment of it, that with them it was nothing else than a logic of
|
|
illusion--a sophistical art for giving ignorance, nay, even intentional
|
|
sophistries, the colouring of truth, in which the thoroughness of
|
|
procedure which logic requires was imitated, and their topic employed
|
|
to cloak the empty pretensions. Now it may be taken as a safe and useful
|
|
warning, that general logic, considered as an organon, must always be
|
|
a logic of illusion, that is, be dialectical, for, as it teaches us
|
|
nothing whatever respecting the content of our cognitions, but merely
|
|
the formal conditions of their accordance with the understanding, which
|
|
do not relate to and are quite indifferent in respect of objects, any
|
|
attempt to employ it as an instrument (organon) in order to extend and
|
|
enlarge the range of our knowledge must end in mere prating; any one
|
|
being able to maintain or oppose, with some appearance of truth, any
|
|
single assertion whatever.
|
|
|
|
Such instruction is quite unbecoming the dignity of philosophy. For
|
|
these reasons we have chosen to denominate this part of logic dialectic,
|
|
in the sense of a critique of dialectical illusion, and we wish the term
|
|
to be so understood in this place.
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
IV. Of the Division of Transcendental Logic into Transcendental
|
|
Analytic and Dialectic.
|
|
|
|
In transcendental logic we isolate the understanding (as in
|
|
transcendental aesthetic the sensibility) and select from our cognition
|
|
merely that part of thought which has its origin in the understanding
|
|
alone. The exercise of this pure cognition, however, depends upon this
|
|
as its condition, that objects to which it may be applied be given to
|
|
us in intuition, for without intuition the whole of our cognition
|
|
is without objects, and is therefore quite void. That part of
|
|
transcendental logic, then, which treats of the elements of pure
|
|
cognition of the understanding, and of the principles without which no
|
|
object at all can be thought, is transcendental analytic, and at the
|
|
same time a logic of truth. For no cognition can contradict it, without
|
|
losing at the same time all content, that is, losing all reference to an
|
|
object, and therefore all truth. But because we are very easily seduced
|
|
into employing these pure cognitions and principles of the understanding
|
|
by themselves, and that even beyond the boundaries of experience, which
|
|
yet is the only source whence we can obtain matter (objects) on which
|
|
those pure conceptions may be employed--understanding runs the risk of
|
|
making, by means of empty sophisms, a material and objective use of
|
|
the mere formal principles of the pure understanding, and of passing
|
|
judgements on objects without distinction--objects which are not given
|
|
to us, nay, perhaps cannot be given to us in any way. Now, as it ought
|
|
properly to be only a canon for judging of the empirical use of the
|
|
understanding, this kind of logic is misused when we seek to employ
|
|
it as an organon of the universal and unlimited exercise of the
|
|
understanding, and attempt with the pure understanding alone to judge
|
|
synthetically, affirm, and determine respecting objects in general. In
|
|
this case the exercise of the pure understanding becomes dialectical.
|
|
The second part of our transcendental logic must therefore be a critique
|
|
of dialectical illusion, and this critique we shall term transcendental
|
|
dialectic--not meaning it as an art of producing dogmatically
|
|
such illusion (an art which is unfortunately too current among
|
|
the practitioners of metaphysical juggling), but as a critique of
|
|
understanding and reason in regard to their hyperphysical use. This
|
|
critique will expose the groundless nature of the pretensions of
|
|
these two faculties, and invalidate their claims to the discovery
|
|
and enlargement of our cognitions merely by means of transcendental
|
|
principles, and show that the proper employment of these faculties is to
|
|
test the judgements made by the pure understanding, and to guard it from
|
|
sophistical delusion.
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
TRANSCENDENTAL LOGIC. FIRST DIVISION.
|
|
|
|
TRANSCENDENTAL ANALYTIC.
|
|
|
|
SS I.
|
|
|
|
Transcendental analytic is the dissection of the whole of our a priori
|
|
knowledge into the elements of the pure cognition of the understanding.
|
|
In order to effect our purpose, it is necessary: (1) That the
|
|
conceptions be pure and not empirical; (2) That they belong not to
|
|
intuition and sensibility, but to thought and understanding; (3) That
|
|
they be elementary conceptions, and as such, quite different from
|
|
deduced or compound conceptions; (4) That our table of these elementary
|
|
conceptions be complete, and fill up the whole sphere of the pure
|
|
understanding. Now this completeness of a science cannot be accepted
|
|
with confidence on the guarantee of a mere estimate of its existence in
|
|
an aggregate formed only by means of repeated experiments and attempts.
|
|
The completeness which we require is possible only by means of an idea
|
|
of the totality of the a priori cognition of the understanding, and
|
|
through the thereby determined division of the conceptions which form
|
|
the said whole; consequently, only by means of their connection in
|
|
a system. Pure understanding distinguishes itself not merely from
|
|
everything empirical, but also completely from all sensibility. It is
|
|
a unity self-subsistent, self-sufficient, and not to be enlarged by any
|
|
additions from without. Hence the sum of its cognition constitutes
|
|
a system to be determined by and comprised under an idea; and the
|
|
completeness and articulation of this system can at the same time
|
|
serve as a test of the correctness and genuineness of all the parts of
|
|
cognition that belong to it. The whole of this part of transcendental
|
|
logic consists of two books, of which the one contains the conceptions,
|
|
and the other the principles of pure understanding.
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
BOOK I.
|
|
|
|
SS 2. Analytic of Conceptions.
|
|
|
|
By the term Analytic of Conceptions, I do not understand the analysis
|
|
of these, or the usual process in philosophical investigations of
|
|
dissecting the conceptions which present themselves, according to
|
|
their content, and so making them clear; but I mean the hitherto little
|
|
attempted dissection of the faculty of understanding itself, in order to
|
|
investigate the possibility of conceptions a priori, by looking for them
|
|
in the understanding alone, as their birthplace, and analysing the pure
|
|
use of this faculty. For this is the proper duty of a transcendental
|
|
philosophy; what remains is the logical treatment of the conceptions in
|
|
philosophy in general. We shall therefore follow up the pure conceptions
|
|
even to their germs and beginnings in the human understanding, in which
|
|
they lie, until they are developed on occasions presented by experience,
|
|
and, freed by the same understanding from the empirical conditions
|
|
attaching to them, are set forth in their unalloyed purity.
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
CHAPTER I. Of the Transcendental Clue to the Discovery of all Pure
|
|
Conceptions of the Understanding.
|
|
|
|
SS 3. Introductory.
|
|
|
|
When we call into play a faculty of cognition, different conceptions
|
|
manifest themselves according to the different circumstances, and
|
|
make known this faculty, and assemble themselves into a more or less
|
|
extensive collection, according to the time or penetration that has been
|
|
applied to the consideration of them. Where this process, conducted as
|
|
it is mechanically, so to speak, will end, cannot be determined with
|
|
certainty. Besides, the conceptions which we discover in this haphazard
|
|
manner present themselves by no means in order and systematic unity,
|
|
but are at last coupled together only according to resemblances to
|
|
each other, and arranged in series, according to the quantity of their
|
|
content, from the simpler to the more complex--series which are anything
|
|
but systematic, though not altogether without a certain kind of method
|
|
in their construction.
|
|
|
|
Transcendental philosophy has the advantage, and moreover the duty, of
|
|
searching for its conceptions according to a principle; because these
|
|
conceptions spring pure and unmixed out of the understanding as
|
|
an absolute unity, and therefore must be connected with each other
|
|
according to one conception or idea. A connection of this kind, however,
|
|
furnishes us with a ready prepared rule, by which its proper place
|
|
may be assigned to every pure conception of the understanding, and the
|
|
completeness of the system of all be determined a priori--both which
|
|
would otherwise have been dependent on mere choice or chance.
|
|
|
|
|
|
SS 4. SECTION 1. Of defined above Use of understanding in General.
|
|
|
|
The understanding was defined above only negatively, as a non-sensuous
|
|
faculty of cognition. Now, independently of sensibility, we cannot
|
|
possibly have any intuition; consequently, the understanding is no
|
|
faculty of intuition. But besides intuition there is no other mode of
|
|
cognition, except through conceptions; consequently, the cognition of
|
|
every, at least of every human, understanding is a cognition through
|
|
conceptions--not intuitive, but discursive. All intuitions, as sensuous,
|
|
depend on affections; conceptions, therefore, upon functions. By the
|
|
word function I understand the unity of the act of arranging diverse
|
|
representations under one common representation. Conceptions, then, are
|
|
based on the spontaneity of thought, as sensuous intuitions are on the
|
|
receptivity of impressions. Now, the understanding cannot make any
|
|
other use of these conceptions than to judge by means of them. As no
|
|
representation, except an intuition, relates immediately to its object,
|
|
a conception never relates immediately to an object, but only to
|
|
some other representation thereof, be that an intuition or itself a
|
|
conception. A judgement, therefore, is the mediate cognition of an
|
|
object, consequently the representation of a representation of it. In
|
|
every judgement there is a conception which applies to, and is valid for
|
|
many other conceptions, and which among these comprehends also a given
|
|
representation, this last being immediately connected with an object.
|
|
For example, in the judgement--"All bodies are divisible," our
|
|
conception of divisible applies to various other conceptions; among
|
|
these, however, it is here particularly applied to the conception of
|
|
body, and this conception of body relates to certain phenomena which
|
|
occur to us. These objects, therefore, are mediately represented by the
|
|
conception of divisibility. All judgements, accordingly, are functions
|
|
of unity in our representations, inasmuch as, instead of an immediate, a
|
|
higher representation, which comprises this and various others, is used
|
|
for our cognition of the object, and thereby many possible cognitions
|
|
are collected into one. But we can reduce all acts of the understanding
|
|
to judgements, so that understanding may be represented as the faculty
|
|
of judging. For it is, according to what has been said above, a faculty
|
|
of thought. Now thought is cognition by means of conceptions. But
|
|
conceptions, as predicates of possible judgements, relate to some
|
|
representation of a yet undetermined object. Thus the conception of body
|
|
indicates something--for example, metal--which can be cognized by means
|
|
of that conception. It is therefore a conception, for the reason alone
|
|
that other representations are contained under it, by means of which
|
|
it can relate to objects. It is therefore the predicate to a possible
|
|
judgement; for example: "Every metal is a body." All the functions of
|
|
the understanding therefore can be discovered, when we can completely
|
|
exhibit the functions of unity in judgements. And that this may be
|
|
effected very easily, the following section will show.
|
|
|
|
|
|
SS 5. SECTION II. Of the Logical Function of the Understanding in
|
|
Judgements.
|
|
|
|
If we abstract all the content of a judgement, and consider only the
|
|
intellectual form thereof, we find that the function of thought in a
|
|
judgement can be brought under four heads, of which each contains three
|
|
momenta. These may be conveniently represented in the following table:
|
|
|
|
1
|
|
Quantity of judgements
|
|
Universal
|
|
Particular
|
|
Singular
|
|
|
|
2 3
|
|
Quality Relation
|
|
Affirmative Categorical
|
|
Negative Hypothetical
|
|
Infinite Disjunctive
|
|
|
|
4
|
|
Modality
|
|
Problematical
|
|
Assertorical
|
|
Apodeictical
|
|
|
|
|
|
As this division appears to differ in some, though not essential points,
|
|
from the usual technique of logicians, the following observations,
|
|
for the prevention of otherwise possible misunderstanding, will not be
|
|
without their use.
|
|
|
|
1. Logicians say, with justice, that in the use of judgements in
|
|
syllogisms, singular judgements may be treated like universal ones.
|
|
For, precisely because a singular judgement has no extent at all, its
|
|
predicate cannot refer to a part of that which is contained in the
|
|
conception of the subject and be excluded from the rest. The predicate
|
|
is valid for the whole conception just as if it were a general
|
|
conception, and had extent, to the whole of which the predicate applied.
|
|
On the other hand, let us compare a singular with a general judgement,
|
|
merely as a cognition, in regard to quantity. The singular judgement
|
|
relates to the general one, as unity to infinity, and is therefore in
|
|
itself essentially different. Thus, if we estimate a singular judgement
|
|
(judicium singulare) not merely according to its intrinsic validity as a
|
|
judgement, but also as a cognition generally, according to its quantity
|
|
in comparison with that of other cognitions, it is then entirely
|
|
different from a general judgement (judicium commune), and in a complete
|
|
table of the momenta of thought deserves a separate place--though,
|
|
indeed, this would not be necessary in a logic limited merely to the
|
|
consideration of the use of judgements in reference to each other.
|
|
|
|
2. In like manner, in transcendental logic, infinite must be
|
|
distinguished from affirmative judgements, although in general logic
|
|
they are rightly enough classed under affirmative. General logic
|
|
abstracts all content of the predicate (though it be negative), and
|
|
only considers whether the said predicate be affirmed or denied of the
|
|
subject. But transcendental logic considers also the worth or content of
|
|
this logical affirmation--an affirmation by means of a merely negative
|
|
predicate, and inquires how much the sum total of our cognition gains
|
|
by this affirmation. For example, if I say of the soul, "It is not
|
|
mortal"--by this negative judgement I should at least ward off error.
|
|
Now, by the proposition, "The soul is not mortal," I have, in respect of
|
|
the logical form, really affirmed, inasmuch as I thereby place the soul
|
|
in the unlimited sphere of immortal beings. Now, because of the whole
|
|
sphere of possible existences, the mortal occupies one part, and the
|
|
immortal the other, neither more nor less is affirmed by the proposition
|
|
than that the soul is one among the infinite multitude of things
|
|
which remain over, when I take away the whole mortal part. But by this
|
|
proceeding we accomplish only this much, that the infinite sphere of
|
|
all possible existences is in so far limited that the mortal is excluded
|
|
from it, and the soul is placed in the remaining part of the extent
|
|
of this sphere. But this part remains, notwithstanding this exception,
|
|
infinite, and more and more parts may be taken away from the whole
|
|
sphere, without in the slightest degree thereby augmenting or
|
|
affirmatively determining our conception of the soul. These judgements,
|
|
therefore, infinite in respect of their logical extent, are, in
|
|
respect of the content of their cognition, merely limitative; and are
|
|
consequently entitled to a place in our transcendental table of all
|
|
the momenta of thought in judgements, because the function of the
|
|
understanding exercised by them may perhaps be of importance in the
|
|
field of its pure a priori cognition.
|
|
|
|
3. All relations of thought in judgements are those (a) of the predicate
|
|
to the subject; (b) of the principle to its consequence; (c) of the
|
|
divided cognition and all the members of the division to each other. In
|
|
the first of these three classes, we consider only two conceptions; in
|
|
the second, two judgements; in the third, several judgements in relation
|
|
to each other. The hypothetical proposition, "If perfect justice exists,
|
|
the obstinately wicked are punished," contains properly the relation to
|
|
each other of two propositions, namely, "Perfect justice exists," and
|
|
"The obstinately wicked are punished." Whether these propositions are in
|
|
themselves true is a question not here decided. Nothing is cogitated
|
|
by means of this judgement except a certain consequence. Finally, the
|
|
disjunctive judgement contains a relation of two or more propositions to
|
|
each other--a relation not of consequence, but of logical opposition, in
|
|
so far as the sphere of the one proposition excludes that of the other.
|
|
But it contains at the same time a relation of community, in so far as
|
|
all the propositions taken together fill up the sphere of the cognition.
|
|
The disjunctive judgement contains, therefore, the relation of the parts
|
|
of the whole sphere of a cognition, since the sphere of each part is a
|
|
complemental part of the sphere of the other, each contributing to
|
|
form the sum total of the divided cognition. Take, for example, the
|
|
proposition, "The world exists either through blind chance, or through
|
|
internal necessity, or through an external cause." Each of these
|
|
propositions embraces a part of the sphere of our possible cognition
|
|
as to the existence of a world; all of them taken together, the whole
|
|
sphere. To take the cognition out of one of these spheres, is equivalent
|
|
to placing it in one of the others; and, on the other hand, to place
|
|
it in one sphere is equivalent to taking it out of the rest. There is,
|
|
therefore, in a disjunctive judgement a certain community of cognitions,
|
|
which consists in this, that they mutually exclude each other, yet
|
|
thereby determine, as a whole, the true cognition, inasmuch as, taken
|
|
together, they make up the complete content of a particular given
|
|
cognition. And this is all that I find necessary, for the sake of what
|
|
follows, to remark in this place.
|
|
|
|
4. The modality of judgements is a quite peculiar function, with this
|
|
distinguishing characteristic, that it contributes nothing to the
|
|
content of a judgement (for besides quantity, quality, and relation,
|
|
there is nothing more that constitutes the content of a judgement), but
|
|
concerns itself only with the value of the copula in relation to thought
|
|
in general. Problematical judgements are those in which the affirmation
|
|
or negation is accepted as merely possible (ad libitum). In the
|
|
assertorical, we regard the proposition as real (true); in the
|
|
apodeictical, we look on it as necessary.* Thus the two judgements
|
|
(antecedens et consequens), the relation of which constitutes a
|
|
hypothetical judgement, likewise those (the members of the division) in
|
|
whose reciprocity the disjunctive consists, are only problematical. In
|
|
the example above given the proposition, "There exists perfect justice,"
|
|
is not stated assertorically, but as an ad libitum judgement, which
|
|
someone may choose to adopt, and the consequence alone is assertorical.
|
|
Hence such judgements may be obviously false, and yet, taken
|
|
problematically, be conditions of our cognition of the truth. Thus
|
|
the proposition, "The world exists only by blind chance," is in the
|
|
disjunctive judgement of problematical import only: that is to say, one
|
|
may accept it for the moment, and it helps us (like the indication of
|
|
the wrong road among all the roads that one can take) to find out the
|
|
true proposition. The problematical proposition is, therefore, that
|
|
which expresses only logical possibility (which is not objective);
|
|
that is, it expresses a free choice to admit the validity of such a
|
|
proposition--a merely arbitrary reception of it into the understanding.
|
|
The assertorical speaks of logical reality or truth; as, for example,
|
|
in a hypothetical syllogism, the antecedens presents itself in a
|
|
problematical form in the major, in an assertorical form in the minor,
|
|
and it shows that the proposition is in harmony with the laws of the
|
|
understanding. The apodeictical proposition cogitates the assertorical
|
|
as determined by these very laws of the understanding, consequently as
|
|
affirming a priori, and in this manner it expresses logical
|
|
necessity. Now because all is here gradually incorporated with the
|
|
understanding--inasmuch as in the first place we judge problematically;
|
|
then accept assertorically our judgement as true; lastly, affirm it as
|
|
inseparably united with the understanding, that is, as necessary and
|
|
apodeictical--we may safely reckon these three functions of modality as
|
|
so many momenta of thought.
|
|
|
|
[*Footnote: Just as if thought were in the first instance a
|
|
function of the understanding; in the second, of judgement;
|
|
in the third, of reason. A remark which will be explained in
|
|
the sequel.]
|
|
|
|
|
|
SS 6. SECTION III. Of the Pure Conceptions of the Understanding, or Categories.
|
|
|
|
General logic, as has been repeatedly said, makes abstraction of all
|
|
content of cognition, and expects to receive representations from some
|
|
other quarter, in order, by means of analysis, to convert them into
|
|
conceptions. On the contrary, transcendental logic has lying before
|
|
it the manifold content of a priori sensibility, which transcendental
|
|
aesthetic presents to it in order to give matter to the pure conceptions
|
|
of the understanding, without which transcendental logic would have no
|
|
content, and be therefore utterly void. Now space and time contain an
|
|
infinite diversity of determinations of pure a priori intuition, but are
|
|
nevertheless the condition of the mind's receptivity, under which alone
|
|
it can obtain representations of objects, and which, consequently, must
|
|
always affect the conception of these objects. But the spontaneity of
|
|
thought requires that this diversity be examined after a certain manner,
|
|
received into the mind, and connected, in order afterwards to form a
|
|
cognition out of it. This Process I call synthesis.
|
|
|
|
By the word synthesis, in its most general signification, I understand
|
|
the process of joining different representations to each other and of
|
|
comprehending their diversity in one cognition. This synthesis is pure
|
|
when the diversity is not given empirically but a priori (as that in
|
|
space and time). Our representations must be given previously to any
|
|
analysis of them; and no conceptions can arise, quoad their content,
|
|
analytically. But the synthesis of a diversity (be it given a priori or
|
|
empirically) is the first requisite for the production of a cognition,
|
|
which in its beginning, indeed, may be crude and confused, and therefore
|
|
in need of analysis--still, synthesis is that by which alone the
|
|
elements of our cognitions are collected and united into a certain
|
|
content, consequently it is the first thing on which we must fix our
|
|
attention, if we wish to investigate the origin of our knowledge.
|
|
|
|
Synthesis, generally speaking, is, as we shall afterwards see, the mere
|
|
operation of the imagination--a blind but indispensable function of the
|
|
soul, without which we should have no cognition whatever, but of the
|
|
working of which we are seldom even conscious. But to reduce this
|
|
synthesis to conceptions is a function of the understanding, by means of
|
|
which we attain to cognition, in the proper meaning of the term.
|
|
|
|
Pure synthesis, represented generally, gives us the pure conception of
|
|
the understanding. But by this pure synthesis, I mean that which rests
|
|
upon a basis of a priori synthetical unity. Thus, our numeration (and
|
|
this is more observable in large numbers) is a synthesis according to
|
|
conceptions, because it takes place according to a common basis of unity
|
|
(for example, the decade). By means of this conception, therefore, the
|
|
unity in the synthesis of the manifold becomes necessary.
|
|
|
|
By means of analysis different representations are brought under one
|
|
conception--an operation of which general logic treats. On the other
|
|
hand, the duty of transcendental logic is to reduce to conceptions, not
|
|
representations, but the pure synthesis of representations. The first
|
|
thing which must be given to us for the sake of the a priori cognition
|
|
of all objects, is the diversity of the pure intuition; the synthesis
|
|
of this diversity by means of the imagination is the second; but this
|
|
gives, as yet, no cognition. The conceptions which give unity to this
|
|
pure synthesis, and which consist solely in the representation of
|
|
this necessary synthetical unity, furnish the third requisite for
|
|
the cognition of an object, and these conceptions are given by the
|
|
understanding.
|
|
|
|
The same function which gives unity to the different representation in
|
|
a judgement, gives also unity to the mere synthesis of different
|
|
representations in an intuition; and this unity we call the pure
|
|
conception of the understanding. Thus, the same understanding, and by
|
|
the same operations, whereby in conceptions, by means of analytical
|
|
unity, it produced the logical form of a judgement, introduces, by means
|
|
of the synthetical unity of the manifold in intuition, a transcendental
|
|
content into its representations, on which account they are called pure
|
|
conceptions of the understanding, and they apply a priori to objects, a
|
|
result not within the power of general logic.
|
|
|
|
In this manner, there arise exactly so many pure conceptions of the
|
|
understanding, applying a priori to objects of intuition in general, as
|
|
there are logical functions in all possible judgements. For there is no
|
|
other function or faculty existing in the understanding besides those
|
|
enumerated in that table. These conceptions we shall, with Aristotle,
|
|
call categories, our purpose being originally identical with his,
|
|
notwithstanding the great difference in the execution.
|
|
|
|
TABLE OF THE CATEGORIES
|
|
|
|
1 2
|
|
|
|
Of Quantity Of Quality
|
|
Unity Reality
|
|
Plurality Negation
|
|
Totality Limitation
|
|
|
|
3
|
|
Of Relation
|
|
Of Inherence and Subsistence (substantia et accidens)
|
|
Of Causality and Dependence (cause and effect)
|
|
Of Community (reciprocity between the agent and patient)
|
|
|
|
4
|
|
Of Modality
|
|
Possibility--Impossibility
|
|
Existence--Non-existence
|
|
Necessity--Contingence
|
|
|
|
|
|
This, then, is a catalogue of all the originally pure conceptions of
|
|
the synthesis which the understanding contains a priori, and these
|
|
conceptions alone entitle it to be called a pure understanding; inasmuch
|
|
as only by them it can render the manifold of intuition conceivable,
|
|
in other words, think an object of intuition. This division is made
|
|
systematically from a common principle, namely the faculty of judgement
|
|
(which is just the same as the power of thought), and has not arisen
|
|
rhapsodically from a search at haphazard after pure conceptions,
|
|
respecting the full number of which we never could be certain, inasmuch
|
|
as we employ induction alone in our search, without considering that in
|
|
this way we can never understand wherefore precisely these conceptions,
|
|
and none others, abide in the pure understanding. It was a design worthy
|
|
of an acute thinker like Aristotle, to search for these fundamental
|
|
conceptions. Destitute, however, of any guiding principle, he picked
|
|
them up just as they occurred to him, and at first hunted out ten, which
|
|
he called categories (predicaments). Afterwards be believed that he
|
|
had discovered five others, which were added under the name of post
|
|
predicaments. But his catalogue still remained defective. Besides,
|
|
there are to be found among them some of the modes of pure sensibility
|
|
(quando, ubi, situs, also prius, simul), and likewise an empirical
|
|
conception (motus)--which can by no means belong to this genealogical
|
|
register of the pure understanding. Moreover, there are deduced
|
|
conceptions (actio, passio) enumerated among the original conceptions,
|
|
and, of the latter, some are entirely wanting.
|
|
|
|
With regard to these, it is to be remarked, that the categories, as the
|
|
true primitive conceptions of the pure understanding, have also their
|
|
pure deduced conceptions, which, in a complete system of transcendental
|
|
philosophy, must by no means be passed over; though in a merely critical
|
|
essay we must be contented with the simple mention of the fact.
|
|
|
|
Let it be allowed me to call these pure, but deduced conceptions of
|
|
the understanding, the predicables of the pure understanding, in
|
|
contradistinction to predicaments. If we are in possession of the
|
|
original and primitive, the deduced and subsidiary conceptions can
|
|
easily be added, and the genealogical tree of the understanding
|
|
completely delineated. As my present aim is not to set forth a complete
|
|
system, but merely the principles of one, I reserve this task for
|
|
another time. It may be easily executed by any one who will refer to the
|
|
ontological manuals, and subordinate to the category of causality,
|
|
for example, the predicables of force, action, passion; to that of
|
|
community, those of presence and resistance; to the categories of
|
|
modality, those of origination, extinction, change; and so with the
|
|
rest. The categories combined with the modes of pure sensibility, or
|
|
with one another, afford a great number of deduced a priori conceptions;
|
|
a complete enumeration of which would be a useful and not unpleasant,
|
|
but in this place a perfectly dispensable, occupation.
|
|
|
|
I purposely omit the definitions of the categories in this treatise.
|
|
I shall analyse these conceptions only so far as is necessary for the
|
|
doctrine of method, which is to form a part of this critique. In
|
|
a system of pure reason, definitions of them would be with justice
|
|
demanded of me, but to give them here would only bide from our view
|
|
the main aim of our investigation, at the same time raising doubts and
|
|
objections, the consideration of which, without injustice to our main
|
|
purpose, may be very well postponed till another opportunity. Meanwhile,
|
|
it ought to be sufficiently clear, from the little we have already said
|
|
on this subject, that the formation of a complete vocabulary of pure
|
|
conceptions, accompanied by all the requisite explanations, is not only
|
|
a possible, but an easy undertaking. The compartments already exist;
|
|
it is only necessary to fill them up; and a systematic topic like the
|
|
present, indicates with perfect precision the proper place to which each
|
|
conception belongs, while it readily points out any that have not yet
|
|
been filled up.
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
SS 7.
|
|
|
|
Our table of the categories suggests considerations of some importance,
|
|
which may perhaps have significant results in regard to the scientific
|
|
form of all rational cognitions. For, that this table is useful in the
|
|
theoretical part of philosophy, nay, indispensable for the sketching
|
|
of the complete plan of a science, so far as that science rests upon
|
|
conceptions a priori, and for dividing it mathematically, according to
|
|
fixed principles, is most manifest from the fact that it contains all
|
|
the elementary conceptions of the understanding, nay, even the form of a
|
|
system of these in the understanding itself, and consequently indicates
|
|
all the momenta, and also the internal arrangement of a projected
|
|
speculative science, as I have elsewhere shown. [Footnote: In the
|
|
Metaphysical Principles of Natural Science.] Here follow some of these
|
|
observations.
|
|
|
|
I. This table, which contains four classes of conceptions of the
|
|
understanding, may, in the first instance, be divided into two classes,
|
|
the first of which relates to objects of intuition--pure as well as
|
|
empirical; the second, to the existence of these objects, either in
|
|
relation to one another, or to the understanding.
|
|
|
|
The former of these classes of categories I would entitle the
|
|
mathematical, and the latter the dynamical categories. The former, as we
|
|
see, has no correlates; these are only to be found in the second
|
|
class. This difference must have a ground in the nature of the human
|
|
understanding.
|
|
|
|
II. The number of the categories in each class is always the same,
|
|
namely, three--a fact which also demands some consideration, because
|
|
in all other cases division a priori through conceptions is necessarily
|
|
dichotomy. It is to be added, that the third category in each triad
|
|
always arises from the combination of the second with the first.
|
|
|
|
Thus totality is nothing else but plurality contemplated as unity;
|
|
limitation is merely reality conjoined with negation; community is the
|
|
causality of a substance, reciprocally determining, and determined by
|
|
other substances; and finally, necessity is nothing but existence,
|
|
which is given through the possibility itself. Let it not be supposed,
|
|
however, that the third category is merely a deduced, and not a
|
|
primitive conception of the pure understanding. For the conjunction of
|
|
the first and second, in order to produce the third conception, requires
|
|
a particular function of the understanding, which is by no means
|
|
identical with those which are exercised in the first and second. Thus,
|
|
the conception of a number (which belongs to the category of totality)
|
|
is not always possible, where the conceptions of multitude and unity
|
|
exist (for example, in the representation of the infinite). Or, if I
|
|
conjoin the conception of a cause with that of a substance, it does not
|
|
follow that the conception of influence, that is, how one substance can
|
|
be the cause of something in another substance, will be understood from
|
|
that. Thus it is evident that a particular act of the understanding is
|
|
here necessary; and so in the other instances.
|
|
|
|
III. With respect to one category, namely, that of community, which is
|
|
found in the third class, it is not so easy as with the others to
|
|
detect its accordance with the form of the disjunctive judgement which
|
|
corresponds to it in the table of the logical functions.
|
|
|
|
In order to assure ourselves of this accordance, we must observe that in
|
|
every disjunctive judgement, the sphere of the judgement (that is,
|
|
the complex of all that is contained in it) is represented as a whole
|
|
divided into parts; and, since one part cannot be contained in the
|
|
other, they are cogitated as co-ordinated with, not subordinated to each
|
|
other, so that they do not determine each other unilaterally, as in a
|
|
linear series, but reciprocally, as in an aggregate--(if one member of
|
|
the division is posited, all the rest are excluded; and conversely).
|
|
|
|
Now a like connection is cogitated in a whole of things; for one thing
|
|
is not subordinated, as effect, to another as cause of its existence,
|
|
but, on the contrary, is co-ordinated contemporaneously and
|
|
reciprocally, as a cause in relation to the determination of the others
|
|
(for example, in a body--the parts of which mutually attract and repel
|
|
each other). And this is an entirely different kind of connection from
|
|
that which we find in the mere relation of the cause to the effect (the
|
|
principle to the consequence), for in such a connection the consequence
|
|
does not in its turn determine the principle, and therefore does not
|
|
constitute, with the latter, a whole--just as the Creator does not with
|
|
the world make up a whole. The process of understanding by which it
|
|
represents to itself the sphere of a divided conception, is employed
|
|
also when we think of a thing as divisible; and in the same manner as
|
|
the members of the division in the former exclude one another, and yet
|
|
are connected in one sphere, so the understanding represents to itself
|
|
the parts of the latter, as having--each of them--an existence (as
|
|
substances), independently of the others, and yet as united in one
|
|
whole.
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
SS 8.
|
|
|
|
In the transcendental philosophy of the ancients there exists one more
|
|
leading division, which contains pure conceptions of the understanding,
|
|
and which, although not numbered among the categories, ought, according
|
|
to them, as conceptions a priori, to be valid of objects. But in this
|
|
case they would augment the number of the categories; which cannot
|
|
be. These are set forth in the proposition, so renowned among the
|
|
schoolmen--"Quodlibet ens est UNUM, VERUM, BONUM." Now, though the
|
|
inferences from this principle were mere tautological propositions,
|
|
and though it is allowed only by courtesy to retain a place in modern
|
|
metaphysics, yet a thought which maintained itself for such a length
|
|
of time, however empty it seems to be, deserves an investigation of its
|
|
origin, and justifies the conjecture that it must be grounded in some
|
|
law of the understanding, which, as is often the case, has only been
|
|
erroneously interpreted. These pretended transcendental predicates are,
|
|
in fact, nothing but logical requisites and criteria of all cognition
|
|
of objects, and they employ, as the basis for this cognition, the
|
|
categories of quantity, namely, unity, plurality, and totality. But
|
|
these, which must be taken as material conditions, that is, as belonging
|
|
to the possibility of things themselves, they employed merely in a
|
|
formal signification, as belonging to the logical requisites of all
|
|
cognition, and yet most unguardedly changed these criteria of thought
|
|
into properties of objects, as things in themselves. Now, in every
|
|
cognition of an object, there is unity of conception, which may be
|
|
called qualitative unity, so far as by this term we understand only the
|
|
unity in our connection of the manifold; for example, unity of the theme
|
|
in a play, an oration, or a story. Secondly, there is truth in respect
|
|
of the deductions from it. The more true deductions we have from a given
|
|
conception, the more criteria of its objective reality. This we might
|
|
call the qualitative plurality of characteristic marks, which belong
|
|
to a conception as to a common foundation, but are not cogitated as a
|
|
quantity in it. Thirdly, there is perfection--which consists in this,
|
|
that the plurality falls back upon the unity of the conception, and
|
|
accords completely with that conception and with no other. This we may
|
|
denominate qualitative completeness. Hence it is evident that these
|
|
logical criteria of the possibility of cognition are merely the three
|
|
categories of quantity modified and transformed to suit an unauthorized
|
|
manner of applying them. That is to say, the three categories, in
|
|
which the unity in the production of the quantum must be homogeneous
|
|
throughout, are transformed solely with a view to the connection of
|
|
heterogeneous parts of cognition in one act of consciousness, by
|
|
means of the quality of the cognition, which is the principle of that
|
|
connection. Thus the criterion of the possibility of a conception
|
|
(not of its object) is the definition of it, in which the unity of the
|
|
conception, the truth of all that may be immediately deduced from it,
|
|
and finally, the completeness of what has been thus deduced, constitute
|
|
the requisites for the reproduction of the whole conception. Thus also,
|
|
the criterion or test of an hypothesis is the intelligibility of the
|
|
received principle of explanation, or its unity (without help from any
|
|
subsidiary hypothesis)--the truth of our deductions from it (consistency
|
|
with each other and with experience)--and lastly, the completeness of
|
|
the principle of the explanation of these deductions, which refer
|
|
to neither more nor less than what was admitted in the hypothesis,
|
|
restoring analytically and a posteriori, what was cogitated
|
|
synthetically and a priori. By the conceptions, therefore, of unity,
|
|
truth, and perfection, we have made no addition to the transcendental
|
|
table of the categories, which is complete without them. We have, on
|
|
the contrary, merely employed the three categories of quantity, setting
|
|
aside their application to objects of experience, as general logical
|
|
laws of the consistency of cognition with itself.
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
CHAPTER II Of the Deduction of the Pure Conceptions of the
|
|
Understanding.
|
|
|
|
|
|
SS 9. SECTION I Of the Principles of a Transcendental Deduction in
|
|
general.
|
|
|
|
Teachers of jurisprudence, when speaking of rights and claims,
|
|
distinguish in a cause the question of right (quid juris) from the
|
|
question of fact (quid facti), and while they demand proof of both, they
|
|
give to the proof of the former, which goes to establish right or claim
|
|
in law, the name of deduction. Now we make use of a great number of
|
|
empirical conceptions, without opposition from any one; and consider
|
|
ourselves, even without any attempt at deduction, justified in attaching
|
|
to them a sense, and a supposititious signification, because we have
|
|
always experience at hand to demonstrate their objective reality. There
|
|
exist also, however, usurped conceptions, such as fortune, fate, which
|
|
circulate with almost universal indulgence, and yet are occasionally
|
|
challenged by the question, "quid juris?" In such cases, we have great
|
|
difficulty in discovering any deduction for these terms, inasmuch as we
|
|
cannot produce any manifest ground of right, either from experience or
|
|
from reason, on which the claim to employ them can be founded.
|
|
|
|
Among the many conceptions, which make up the very variegated web of
|
|
human cognition, some are destined for pure use a priori, independent
|
|
of all experience; and their title to be so employed always requires
|
|
a deduction, inasmuch as, to justify such use of them, proofs from
|
|
experience are not sufficient; but it is necessary to know how these
|
|
conceptions can apply to objects without being derived from experience.
|
|
I term, therefore, an examination of the manner in which conceptions can
|
|
apply a priori to objects, the transcendental deduction of conceptions,
|
|
and I distinguish it from the empirical deduction, which indicates the
|
|
mode in which conception is obtained through experience and reflection
|
|
thereon; consequently, does not concern itself with the right, but only
|
|
with the fact of our obtaining conceptions in such and such a manner. We
|
|
have already seen that we are in possession of two perfectly different
|
|
kinds of conceptions, which nevertheless agree with each other in this,
|
|
that they both apply to objects completely a priori. These are
|
|
the conceptions of space and time as forms of sensibility, and the
|
|
categories as pure conceptions of the understanding. To attempt an
|
|
empirical deduction of either of these classes would be labour in vain,
|
|
because the distinguishing characteristic of their nature consists in
|
|
this, that they apply to their objects, without having borrowed anything
|
|
from experience towards the representation of them. Consequently, if
|
|
a deduction of these conceptions is necessary, it must always be
|
|
transcendental.
|
|
|
|
Meanwhile, with respect to these conceptions, as with respect to all our
|
|
cognition, we certainly may discover in experience, if not the principle
|
|
of their possibility, yet the occasioning causes of their production. It
|
|
will be found that the impressions of sense give the first occasion
|
|
for bringing into action the whole faculty of cognition, and for the
|
|
production of experience, which contains two very dissimilar elements,
|
|
namely, a matter for cognition, given by the senses, and a certain form
|
|
for the arrangement of this matter, arising out of the inner fountain
|
|
of pure intuition and thought; and these, on occasion given by sensuous
|
|
impressions, are called into exercise and produce conceptions. Such
|
|
an investigation into the first efforts of our faculty of cognition to
|
|
mount from particular perceptions to general conceptions is undoubtedly
|
|
of great utility; and we have to thank the celebrated Locke for having
|
|
first opened the way for this inquiry. But a deduction of the pure a
|
|
priori conceptions of course never can be made in this way, seeing that,
|
|
in regard to their future employment, which must be entirely independent
|
|
of experience, they must have a far different certificate of birth
|
|
to show from that of a descent from experience. This attempted
|
|
physiological derivation, which cannot properly be called deduction,
|
|
because it relates merely to a quaestio facti, I shall entitle an
|
|
explanation of the possession of a pure cognition. It is therefore
|
|
manifest that there can only be a transcendental deduction of these
|
|
conceptions and by no means an empirical one; also, that all attempts
|
|
at an empirical deduction, in regard to pure a priori conceptions, are
|
|
vain, and can only be made by one who does not understand the altogether
|
|
peculiar nature of these cognitions.
|
|
|
|
But although it is admitted that the only possible deduction of pure
|
|
a priori cognition is a transcendental deduction, it is not, for
|
|
that reason, perfectly manifest that such a deduction is absolutely
|
|
necessary. We have already traced to their sources the conceptions of
|
|
space and time, by means of a transcendental deduction, and we have
|
|
explained and determined their objective validity a priori. Geometry,
|
|
nevertheless, advances steadily and securely in the province of pure
|
|
a priori cognitions, without needing to ask from philosophy any
|
|
certificate as to the pure and legitimate origin of its fundamental
|
|
conception of space. But the use of the conception in this science
|
|
extends only to the external world of sense, the pure form of the
|
|
intuition of which is space; and in this world, therefore, all
|
|
geometrical cognition, because it is founded upon a priori intuition,
|
|
possesses immediate evidence, and the objects of this cognition are
|
|
given a priori (as regards their form) in intuition by and through the
|
|
cognition itself. With the pure conceptions of understanding, on the
|
|
contrary, commences the absolute necessity of seeking a transcendental
|
|
deduction, not only of these conceptions themselves, but likewise of
|
|
space, because, inasmuch as they make affirmations concerning objects
|
|
not by means of the predicates of intuition and sensibility, but of pure
|
|
thought a priori, they apply to objects without any of the conditions
|
|
of sensibility. Besides, not being founded on experience, they are not
|
|
presented with any object in a priori intuition upon which, antecedently
|
|
to experience, they might base their synthesis. Hence results, not only
|
|
doubt as to the objective validity and proper limits of their use, but
|
|
that even our conception of space is rendered equivocal; inasmuch as we
|
|
are very ready with the aid of the categories, to carry the use of this
|
|
conception beyond the conditions of sensuous intuition--and, for this
|
|
reason, we have already found a transcendental deduction of it needful.
|
|
The reader, then, must be quite convinced of the absolute necessity of
|
|
a transcendental deduction, before taking a single step in the field of
|
|
pure reason; because otherwise he goes to work blindly, and after he
|
|
has wondered about in all directions, returns to the state of utter
|
|
ignorance from which he started. He ought, moreover, clearly to
|
|
recognize beforehand the unavoidable difficulties in his undertaking,
|
|
so that he may not afterwards complain of the obscurity in which the
|
|
subject itself is deeply involved, or become too soon impatient of
|
|
the obstacles in his path; because we have a choice of only two
|
|
things--either at once to give up all pretensions to knowledge
|
|
beyond the limits of possible experience, or to bring this critical
|
|
investigation to completion.
|
|
|
|
We have been able, with very little trouble, to make it comprehensible
|
|
how the conceptions of space and time, although a priori cognitions,
|
|
must necessarily apply to external objects, and render a synthetical
|
|
cognition of these possible, independently of all experience. For
|
|
inasmuch as only by means of such pure form of sensibility an object can
|
|
appear to us, that is, be an object of empirical intuition, space and
|
|
time are pure intuitions, which contain a priori the condition of the
|
|
possibility of objects as phenomena, and an a priori synthesis in these
|
|
intuitions possesses objective validity.
|
|
|
|
On the other hand, the categories of the understanding do not represent
|
|
the conditions under which objects are given to us in intuition; objects
|
|
can consequently appear to us without necessarily connecting themselves
|
|
with these, and consequently without any necessity binding on the
|
|
understanding to contain a priori the conditions of these objects. Thus
|
|
we find ourselves involved in a difficulty which did not present itself
|
|
in the sphere of sensibility, that is to say, we cannot discover how the
|
|
subjective conditions of thought can have objective validity, in other
|
|
words, can become conditions of the possibility of all cognition of
|
|
objects; for phenomena may certainly be given to us in intuition without
|
|
any help from the functions of the understanding. Let us take, for
|
|
example, the conception of cause, which indicates a peculiar kind of
|
|
synthesis, namely, that with something, A, something entirely different,
|
|
B, is connected according to a law. It is not a priori manifest why
|
|
phenomena should contain anything of this kind (we are of course
|
|
debarred from appealing for proof to experience, for the objective
|
|
validity of this conception must be demonstrated a priori), and it hence
|
|
remains doubtful a priori, whether such a conception be not quite void
|
|
and without any corresponding object among phenomena. For that objects
|
|
of sensuous intuition must correspond to the formal conditions of
|
|
sensibility existing a priori in the mind is quite evident, from the
|
|
fact that without these they could not be objects for us; but that they
|
|
must also correspond to the conditions which understanding requires for
|
|
the synthetical unity of thought is an assertion, the grounds for
|
|
which are not so easily to be discovered. For phenomena might be so
|
|
constituted as not to correspond to the conditions of the unity of
|
|
thought; and all things might lie in such confusion that, for example,
|
|
nothing could be met with in the sphere of phenomena to suggest a law of
|
|
synthesis, and so correspond to the conception of cause and effect;
|
|
so that this conception would be quite void, null, and without
|
|
significance. Phenomena would nevertheless continue to present objects
|
|
to our intuition; for mere intuition does not in any respect stand in
|
|
need of the functions of thought.
|
|
|
|
If we thought to free ourselves from the labour of these investigations
|
|
by saying: "Experience is constantly offering us examples of the
|
|
relation of cause and effect in phenomena, and presents us with abundant
|
|
opportunity of abstracting the conception of cause, and so at the same
|
|
time of corroborating the objective validity of this conception"; we
|
|
should in this case be overlooking the fact, that the conception of
|
|
cause cannot arise in this way at all; that, on the contrary, it must
|
|
either have an a priori basis in the understanding, or be rejected as a
|
|
mere chimera. For this conception demands that something, A, should
|
|
be of such a nature that something else, B, should follow from it
|
|
necessarily, and according to an absolutely universal law. We may
|
|
certainly collect from phenomena a law, according to which this or that
|
|
usually happens, but the element of necessity is not to be found in it.
|
|
Hence it is evident that to the synthesis of cause and effect belongs a
|
|
dignity, which is utterly wanting in any empirical synthesis; for it is
|
|
no mere mechanical synthesis, by means of addition, but a dynamical one;
|
|
that is to say, the effect is not to be cogitated as merely annexed to
|
|
the cause, but as posited by and through the cause, and resulting from
|
|
it. The strict universality of this law never can be a characteristic
|
|
of empirical laws, which obtain through induction only a comparative
|
|
universality, that is, an extended range of practical application. But
|
|
the pure conceptions of the understanding would entirely lose all their
|
|
peculiar character, if we treated them merely as the productions of
|
|
experience.
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
SS 10. Transition to the Transcendental Deduction of the Categories.
|
|
|
|
There are only two possible ways in which synthetical representation and
|
|
its objects can coincide with and relate necessarily to each other,
|
|
and, as it were, meet together. Either the object alone makes the
|
|
representation possible, or the representation alone makes the object
|
|
possible. In the former case, the relation between them is only
|
|
empirical, and an a priori representation is impossible. And this is the
|
|
case with phenomena, as regards that in them which is referable to mere
|
|
sensation. In the latter case--although representation alone (for of its
|
|
causality, by means of the will, we do not here speak) does not produce
|
|
the object as to its existence, it must nevertheless be a priori
|
|
determinative in regard to the object, if it is only by means of the
|
|
representation that we can cognize anything as an object. Now there
|
|
are only two conditions of the possibility of a cognition of objects;
|
|
firstly, intuition, by means of which the object, though only as
|
|
phenomenon, is given; secondly, conception, by means of which the object
|
|
which corresponds to this intuition is thought. But it is evident from
|
|
what has been said on aesthetic that the first condition, under which
|
|
alone objects can be intuited, must in fact exist, as a formal basis for
|
|
them, a priori in the mind. With this formal condition of sensibility,
|
|
therefore, all phenomena necessarily correspond, because it is
|
|
only through it that they can be phenomena at all; that is, can be
|
|
empirically intuited and given. Now the question is whether there do
|
|
not exist, a priori in the mind, conceptions of understanding also, as
|
|
conditions under which alone something, if not intuited, is yet thought
|
|
as object. If this question be answered in the affirmative, it follows
|
|
that all empirical cognition of objects is necessarily conformable to
|
|
such conceptions, since, if they are not presupposed, it is impossible
|
|
that anything can be an object of experience. Now all experience
|
|
contains, besides the intuition of the senses through which an object
|
|
is given, a conception also of an object that is given in intuition.
|
|
Accordingly, conceptions of objects in general must lie as a
|
|
priori conditions at the foundation of all empirical cognition; and
|
|
consequently, the objective validity of the categories, as a priori
|
|
conceptions, will rest upon this, that experience (as far as regards the
|
|
form of thought) is possible only by their means. For in that case they
|
|
apply necessarily and a priori to objects of experience, because only
|
|
through them can an object of experience be thought.
|
|
|
|
The whole aim of the transcendental deduction of all a priori
|
|
conceptions is to show that these conceptions are a priori conditions
|
|
of the possibility of all experience. Conceptions which afford us the
|
|
objective foundation of the possibility of experience are for that very
|
|
reason necessary. But the analysis of the experiences in which they are
|
|
met with is not deduction, but only an illustration of them, because
|
|
from experience they could never derive the attribute of necessity.
|
|
Without their original applicability and relation to all possible
|
|
experience, in which all objects of cognition present themselves, the
|
|
relation of the categories to objects, of whatever nature, would be
|
|
quite incomprehensible.
|
|
|
|
The celebrated Locke, for want of due reflection on these points, and
|
|
because he met with pure conceptions of the understanding in experience,
|
|
sought also to deduce them from experience, and yet proceeded so
|
|
inconsequently as to attempt, with their aid, to arrive it cognitions
|
|
which lie far beyond the limits of all experience. David Hume perceived
|
|
that, to render this possible, it was necessary that the conceptions
|
|
should have an a priori origin. But as he could not explain how it was
|
|
possible that conceptions which are not connected with each other in the
|
|
understanding must nevertheless be thought as necessarily connected in
|
|
the object--and it never occurred to him that the understanding itself
|
|
might, perhaps, by means of these conceptions, be the author of the
|
|
experience in which its objects were presented to it--he was forced
|
|
to drive these conceptions from experience, that is, from a subjective
|
|
necessity arising from repeated association of experiences erroneously
|
|
considered to be objective--in one word, from habit. But he proceeded
|
|
with perfect consequence and declared it to be impossible, with such
|
|
conceptions and the principles arising from them, to overstep the limits
|
|
of experience. The empirical derivation, however, which both of these
|
|
philosophers attributed to these conceptions, cannot possibly be
|
|
reconciled with the fact that we do possess scientific a priori
|
|
cognitions, namely, those of pure mathematics and general physics.
|
|
|
|
The former of these two celebrated men opened a wide door to
|
|
extravagance--(for if reason has once undoubted right on its side,
|
|
it will not allow itself to be confined to set limits, by vague
|
|
recommendations of moderation); the latter gave himself up entirely
|
|
to scepticism--a natural consequence, after having discovered, as he
|
|
thought, that the faculty of cognition was not trustworthy. We now
|
|
intend to make a trial whether it be not possible safely to conduct
|
|
reason between these two rocks, to assign her determinate limits, and
|
|
yet leave open for her the entire sphere of her legitimate activity.
|
|
|
|
I shall merely premise an explanation of what the categories are. They
|
|
are conceptions of an object in general, by means of which its intuition
|
|
is contemplated as determined in relation to one of the logical
|
|
functions of judgement. The following will make this plain. The function
|
|
of the categorical judgement is that of the relation of subject to
|
|
predicate; for example, in the proposition: "All bodies are divisible."
|
|
But in regard to the merely logical use of the understanding, it still
|
|
remains undetermined to which Of these two conceptions belongs the
|
|
function Of subject and to which that of predicate. For we could also
|
|
say: "Some divisible is a body." But the category of substance, when
|
|
the conception of a body is brought under it, determines that; and its
|
|
empirical intuition in experience must be contemplated always as subject
|
|
and never as mere predicate. And so with all the other categories.
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
SS 11. SECTION II Transcendental Deduction of the pure Conceptions of
|
|
the Understanding.
|
|
|
|
Of the Possibility of a Conjunction of the manifold representations
|
|
given by Sense.
|
|
|
|
The manifold content in our representations can be given in an intuition
|
|
which is merely sensuous--in other words, is nothing but susceptibility;
|
|
and the form of this intuition can exist a priori in our faculty of
|
|
representation, without being anything else but the mode in which the
|
|
subject is affected. But the conjunction (conjunctio) of a manifold in
|
|
intuition never can be given us by the senses; it cannot therefore
|
|
be contained in the pure form of sensuous intuition, for it is a
|
|
spontaneous act of the faculty of representation. And as we must, to
|
|
distinguish it from sensibility, entitle this faculty understanding; so
|
|
all conjunction whether conscious or unconscious, be it of the manifold
|
|
in intuition, sensuous or non-sensuous, or of several conceptions--is
|
|
an act of the understanding. To this act we shall give the general
|
|
appellation of synthesis, thereby to indicate, at the same time, that
|
|
we cannot represent anything as conjoined in the object without having
|
|
previously conjoined it ourselves. Of all mental notions, that of
|
|
conjunction is the only one which cannot be given through objects, but
|
|
can be originated only by the subject itself, because it is an act of
|
|
its purely spontaneous activity. The reader will easily enough perceive
|
|
that the possibility of conjunction must be grounded in the very nature
|
|
of this act, and that it must be equally valid for all conjunction, and
|
|
that analysis, which appears to be its contrary, must, nevertheless,
|
|
always presuppose it; for where the understanding has not previously
|
|
conjoined, it cannot dissect or analyse, because only as conjoined by
|
|
it, must that which is to be analysed have been given to our faculty of
|
|
representation.
|
|
|
|
But the conception of conjunction includes, besides the conception of
|
|
the manifold and of the synthesis of it, that of the unity of it also.
|
|
Conjunction is the representation of the synthetical unity of the
|
|
manifold.* This idea of unity, therefore, cannot arise out of that of
|
|
conjunction; much rather does that idea, by combining itself with the
|
|
representation of the manifold, render the conception of conjunction
|
|
possible. This unity, which a priori precedes all conceptions of
|
|
conjunction, is not the category of unity (SS 6); for all the categories
|
|
are based upon logical functions of judgement, and in these functions we
|
|
already have conjunction, and consequently unity of given conceptions.
|
|
It is therefore evident that the category of unity presupposes
|
|
conjunction. We must therefore look still higher for this unity (as
|
|
qualitative, SS 8), in that, namely, which contains the ground of the
|
|
unity of diverse conceptions in judgements, the ground, consequently, of
|
|
the possibility of the existence of the understanding, even in regard to
|
|
its logical use.
|
|
|
|
[*Footnote: Whether the representations are in themselves
|
|
identical, and consequently whether one can be thought
|
|
analytically by means of and through the other, is a
|
|
question which we need not at present consider. Our
|
|
Consciousness of the one, when we speak of the manifold, is
|
|
always distinguishable from our consciousness of the other;
|
|
and it is only respecting the synthesis of this (possible)
|
|
consciousness that we here treat.]
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
SS 12. Of the Originally Synthetical Unity of Apperception.
|
|
|
|
The "I think" must accompany all my representations, for otherwise
|
|
something would be represented in me which could not be thought; in
|
|
other words, the representation would either be impossible, or at least
|
|
be, in relation to me, nothing. That representation which can be given
|
|
previously to all thought is called intuition. All the diversity or
|
|
manifold content of intuition, has, therefore, a necessary relation to
|
|
the "I think," in the subject in which this diversity is found. But this
|
|
representation, "I think," is an act of spontaneity; that is to say,
|
|
it cannot be regarded as belonging to mere sensibility. I call it pure
|
|
apperception, in order to distinguish it from empirical; or primitive
|
|
apperception, because it is self-consciousness which, whilst it gives
|
|
birth to the representation "I think," must necessarily be capable of
|
|
accompanying all our representations. It is in all acts of consciousness
|
|
one and the same, and unaccompanied by it, no representation can exist
|
|
for me. The unity of this apperception I call the transcendental unity
|
|
of self-consciousness, in order to indicate the possibility of a priori
|
|
cognition arising from it. For the manifold representations which are
|
|
given in an intuition would not all of them be my representations,
|
|
if they did not all belong to one self-consciousness, that is, as my
|
|
representations (even although I am not conscious of them as such), they
|
|
must conform to the condition under which alone they can exist together
|
|
in a common self-consciousness, because otherwise they would not all
|
|
without exception belong to me. From this primitive conjunction follow
|
|
many important results.
|
|
|
|
For example, this universal identity of the apperception of the manifold
|
|
given in intuition contains a synthesis of representations and is
|
|
possible only by means of the consciousness of this synthesis. For the
|
|
empirical consciousness which accompanies different representations
|
|
is in itself fragmentary and disunited, and without relation to the
|
|
identity of the subject. This relation, then, does not exist because I
|
|
accompany every representation with consciousness, but because I join
|
|
one representation to another, and am conscious of the synthesis of
|
|
them. Consequently, only because I can connect a variety of given
|
|
representations in one consciousness, is it possible that I
|
|
can represent to myself the identity of consciousness in these
|
|
representations; in other words, the analytical unity of apperception
|
|
is possible only under the presupposition of a synthetical unity.* The
|
|
thought, "These representations given in intuition belong all of them
|
|
to me," is accordingly just the same as, "I unite them in one
|
|
self-consciousness, or can at least so unite them"; and although
|
|
this thought is not itself the consciousness of the synthesis of
|
|
representations, it presupposes the possibility of it; that is to
|
|
say, for the reason alone that I can comprehend the variety of my
|
|
representations in one consciousness, do I call them my representations,
|
|
for otherwise I must have as many-coloured and various a self as are
|
|
the representations of which I am conscious. Synthetical unity of the
|
|
manifold in intuitions, as given a priori, is therefore the foundation
|
|
of the identity of apperception itself, which antecedes a priori all
|
|
determinate thought. But the conjunction of representations into a
|
|
conception is not to be found in objects themselves, nor can it be,
|
|
as it were, borrowed from them and taken up into the understanding by
|
|
perception, but it is on the contrary an operation of the understanding
|
|
itself, which is nothing more than the faculty of conjoining a priori
|
|
and of bringing the variety of given representations under the unity of
|
|
apperception. This principle is the highest in all human cognition.
|
|
|
|
[*Footnote: All general conceptions--as such--depend, for
|
|
their existence, on the analytical unity of consciousness.
|
|
For example, when I think of red in general, I thereby think
|
|
to myself a property which (as a characteristic mark) can be
|
|
discovered somewhere, or can be united with other
|
|
representations; consequently, it is only by means of a
|
|
forethought possible synthetical unity that I can think to
|
|
myself the analytical. A representation which is cogitated
|
|
as common to different representations, is regarded as
|
|
belonging to such as, besides this common representation,
|
|
contain something different; consequently it must be
|
|
previously thought in synthetical unity with other although
|
|
only possible representations, before I can think in it the
|
|
analytical unity of consciousness which makes it a conceptas
|
|
communis. And thus the synthetical unity of apperception is
|
|
the highest point with which we must connect every operation
|
|
of the understanding, even the whole of logic, and after it
|
|
our transcendental philosophy; indeed, this faculty is the
|
|
understanding itself.]
|
|
|
|
|
|
This fundamental principle of the necessary unity of apperception is
|
|
indeed an identical, and therefore analytical, proposition; but it
|
|
nevertheless explains the necessity for a synthesis of the manifold
|
|
given in an intuition, without which the identity of self-consciousness
|
|
would be incogitable. For the ego, as a simple representation, presents
|
|
us with no manifold content; only in intuition, which is quite different
|
|
from the representation ego, can it be given us, and by means of
|
|
conjunction it is cogitated in one self-consciousness. An understanding,
|
|
in which all the manifold should be given by means of consciousness
|
|
itself, would be intuitive; our understanding can only think and must
|
|
look for its intuition to sense. I am, therefore, conscious of my
|
|
identical self, in relation to all the variety of representations given
|
|
to me in an intuition, because I call all of them my representations. In
|
|
other words, I am conscious myself of a necessary a priori synthesis of
|
|
my representations, which is called the original synthetical unity of
|
|
apperception, under which rank all the representations presented to me,
|
|
but that only by means of a synthesis.
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
SS 13. The Principle of the Synthetical Unity of Apperception is the
|
|
highest Principle of all exercise of the Understanding.
|
|
|
|
The supreme principle of the possibility of all intuition in relation to
|
|
sensibility was, according to our transcendental aesthetic, that all the
|
|
manifold in intuition be subject to the formal conditions of space and
|
|
time. The supreme principle of the possibility of it in relation to the
|
|
understanding is that all the manifold in it be subject to conditions
|
|
of the originally synthetical unity or apperception.* To the former
|
|
of these two principles are subject all the various representations of
|
|
intuition, in so far as they are given to us; to the latter, in so far
|
|
as they must be capable of conjunction in one consciousness; for
|
|
without this nothing can be thought or cognized, because the given
|
|
representations would not have in common the act Of the apperception "I
|
|
think" and therefore could not be connected in one self-consciousness.
|
|
|
|
[*Footnote: Space and time, and all portions thereof, are
|
|
intuitions; consequently are, with a manifold for their
|
|
content, single representations. (See the Transcendental
|
|
Aesthetic.) Consequently, they are not pure conceptions, by
|
|
means of which the same consciousness is found in a great
|
|
number of representations; but, on the contrary, they are
|
|
many representations contained in one, the consciousness of
|
|
which is, so to speak, compounded. The unity of
|
|
consciousness is nevertheless synthetical and, therefore,
|
|
primitive. From this peculiar character of consciousness
|
|
follow many important consequences. (See SS 21.)]
|
|
|
|
|
|
Understanding is, to speak generally, the faculty Of cognitions. These
|
|
consist in the determined relation of given representation to an object.
|
|
But an object is that, in the conception of which the manifold in a
|
|
given intuition is united. Now all union of representations requires
|
|
unity of consciousness in the synthesis of them. Consequently, it is
|
|
the unity of consciousness alone that constitutes the possibility of
|
|
representations relating to an object, and therefore of their objective
|
|
validity, and of their becoming cognitions, and consequently, the
|
|
possibility of the existence of the understanding itself.
|
|
|
|
The first pure cognition of understanding, then, upon which is founded
|
|
all its other exercise, and which is at the same time perfectly
|
|
independent of all conditions of mere sensuous intuition, is the
|
|
principle of the original synthetical unity of apperception. Thus the
|
|
mere form of external sensuous intuition, namely, space, affords us,
|
|
per se, no cognition; it merely contributes the manifold in a priori
|
|
intuition to a possible cognition. But, in order to cognize something
|
|
in space (for example, a line), I must draw it, and thus produce
|
|
synthetically a determined conjunction of the given manifold, so that
|
|
the unity of this act is at the same time the unity of consciousness
|
|
(in the conception of a line), and by this means alone is an object (a
|
|
determinate space) cognized. The synthetical unity of consciousness
|
|
is, therefore, an objective condition of all cognition, which I do
|
|
not merely require in order to cognize an object, but to which every
|
|
intuition must necessarily be subject, in order to become an object for
|
|
me; because in any other way, and without this synthesis, the manifold
|
|
in intuition could not be united in one consciousness.
|
|
|
|
This proposition is, as already said, itself analytical, although it
|
|
constitutes the synthetical unity, the condition of all thought; for
|
|
it states nothing more than that all my representations in any given
|
|
intuition must be subject to the condition which alone enables me to
|
|
connect them, as my representation with the identical self, and so to
|
|
unite them synthetically in one apperception, by means of the general
|
|
expression, "I think."
|
|
|
|
But this principle is not to be regarded as a principle for every
|
|
possible understanding, but only for the understanding by means of whose
|
|
pure apperception in the thought I am, no manifold content is given. The
|
|
understanding or mind which contained the manifold in intuition, in and
|
|
through the act itself of its own self-consciousness, in other words, an
|
|
understanding by and in the representation of which the objects of
|
|
the representation should at the same time exist, would not require a
|
|
special act of synthesis of the manifold as the condition of the unity
|
|
of its consciousness, an act of which the human understanding, which
|
|
thinks only and cannot intuite, has absolute need. But this principle is
|
|
the first principle of all the operations of our understanding, so that
|
|
we cannot form the least conception of any other possible understanding,
|
|
either of one such as should be itself intuition, or possess a sensuous
|
|
intuition, but with forms different from those of space and time.
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
SS 14. What Objective Unity of Self-consciousness is.
|
|
|
|
It is by means of the transcendental unity of apperception that all
|
|
the manifold, given in an intuition is united into a conception of
|
|
the object. On this account it is called objective, and must be
|
|
distinguished from the subjective unity of consciousness, which is a
|
|
determination of the internal sense, by means of which the said manifold
|
|
in intuition is given empirically to be so united. Whether I can be
|
|
empirically conscious of the manifold as coexistent or as successive,
|
|
depends upon circumstances, or empirical conditions. Hence the empirical
|
|
unity of consciousness by means of association of representations,
|
|
itself relates to a phenomenal world and is wholly contingent. On the
|
|
contrary, the pure form of intuition in time, merely as an intuition,
|
|
which contains a given manifold, is subject to the original unity of
|
|
consciousness, and that solely by means of the necessary relation of
|
|
the manifold in intuition to the "I think," consequently by means of
|
|
the pure synthesis of the understanding, which lies a priori at the
|
|
foundation of all empirical synthesis. The transcendental unity of
|
|
apperception is alone objectively valid; the empirical which we do not
|
|
consider in this essay, and which is merely a unity deduced from the
|
|
former under given conditions in concreto, possesses only subjective
|
|
validity. One person connects the notion conveyed in a word with one
|
|
thing, another with another thing; and the unity of consciousness in
|
|
that which is empirical, is, in relation to that which is given by
|
|
experience, not necessarily and universally valid.
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
SS 15. The Logical Form of all Judgements consists in the Objective
|
|
Unity of Apperception of the Conceptions contained therein.
|
|
|
|
I could never satisfy myself with the definition which logicians give of
|
|
a judgement. It is, according to them, the representation of a relation
|
|
between two conceptions. I shall not dwell here on the faultiness of
|
|
this definition, in that it suits only for categorical and not for
|
|
hypothetical or disjunctive judgements, these latter containing a
|
|
relation not of conceptions but of judgements themselves--a blunder from
|
|
which many evil results have followed.* It is more important for our
|
|
present purpose to observe, that this definition does not determine in
|
|
what the said relation consists.
|
|
|
|
[*Footnote: The tedious doctrine of the four syllogistic
|
|
figures concerns only categorical syllogisms; and although
|
|
it is nothing more than an artifice by surreptitiously
|
|
introducing immediate conclusions (consequentiae immediatae)
|
|
among the premises of a pure syllogism, to give ism' give
|
|
rise to an appearance of more modes of drawing a conclusion
|
|
than that in the first figure, the artifice would not have
|
|
had much success, had not its authors succeeded in bringing
|
|
categorical judgements into exclusive respect, as those to
|
|
which all others must be referred--a doctrine, however,
|
|
which, according to SS 5, is utterly false.]
|
|
|
|
|
|
But if I investigate more closely the relation of given cognitions in
|
|
every judgement, and distinguish it, as belonging to the understanding,
|
|
from the relation which is produced according to laws of the
|
|
reproductive imagination (which has only subjective validity), I find
|
|
that judgement is nothing but the mode of bringing given cognitions
|
|
under the objective unit of apperception. This is plain from our use
|
|
of the term of relation is in judgements, in order to distinguish the
|
|
objective unity of given representations from the subjective unity.
|
|
For this term indicates the relation of these representations to the
|
|
original apperception, and also their necessary unity, even although the
|
|
judgement is empirical, therefore contingent, as in the judgement: "All
|
|
bodies are heavy." I do not mean by this, that these representations
|
|
do necessarily belong to each other in empirical intuition, but that by
|
|
means of the necessary unity of appreciation they belong to each other
|
|
in the synthesis of intuitions, that is to say, they belong to each
|
|
other according to principles of the objective determination of all
|
|
our representations, in so far as cognition can arise from them,
|
|
these principles being all deduced from the main principle of the
|
|
transcendental unity of apperception. In this way alone can there arise
|
|
from this relation a judgement, that is, a relation which has objective
|
|
validity, and is perfectly distinct from that relation of the very same
|
|
representations which has only subjective validity--a relation, to wit,
|
|
which is produced according to laws of association. According to these
|
|
laws, I could only say: "When I hold in my hand or carry a body, I feel
|
|
an impression of weight"; but I could not say: "It, the body, is
|
|
heavy"; for this is tantamount to saying both these representations
|
|
are conjoined in the object, that is, without distinction as to the
|
|
condition of the subject, and do not merely stand together in my
|
|
perception, however frequently the perceptive act may be repeated.
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
SS 16. All Sensuous Intuitions are subject to the Categories, as
|
|
Conditions under which alone the manifold Content of them can be united
|
|
in one Consciousness.
|
|
|
|
The manifold content given in a sensuous intuition comes necessarily
|
|
under the original synthetical unity of apperception, because thereby
|
|
alone is the unity of intuition possible (SS 13). But that act of the
|
|
understanding, by which the manifold content of given representations
|
|
(whether intuitions or conceptions) is brought under one apperception,
|
|
is the logical function of judgements (SS 15). All the manifold,
|
|
therefore, in so far as it is given in one empirical intuition, is
|
|
determined in relation to one of the logical functions of judgement, by
|
|
means of which it is brought into union in one consciousness. Now the
|
|
categories are nothing else than these functions of judgement so far as
|
|
the manifold in a given intuition is determined in relation to them
|
|
(SS 9). Consequently, the manifold in a given intuition is necessarily
|
|
subject to the categories of the understanding.
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
SS 17. Observation.
|
|
|
|
The manifold in an intuition, which I call mine, is represented by means
|
|
of the synthesis of the understanding, as belonging to the necessary
|
|
unity of self-consciousness, and this takes place by means of the
|
|
category.* The category indicates accordingly that the empirical
|
|
consciousness of a given manifold in an intuition is subject to a
|
|
pure self-consciousness a priori, in the same manner as an empirical
|
|
intuition is subject to a pure sensuous intuition, which is also
|
|
a priori. In the above proposition, then, lies the beginning of a
|
|
deduction of the pure conceptions of the understanding. Now, as the
|
|
categories have their origin in the understanding alone, independently
|
|
of sensibility, I must in my deduction make abstraction of the mode in
|
|
which the manifold of an empirical intuition is given, in order to
|
|
fix my attention exclusively on the unity which is brought by the
|
|
understanding into the intuition by means of the category. In what
|
|
follows (SS 22), it will be shown, from the mode in which the empirical
|
|
intuition is given in the faculty of sensibility, that the unity which
|
|
belongs to it is no other than that which the category (according to SS
|
|
16) imposes on the manifold in a given intuition, and thus, its a
|
|
priori validity in regard to all objects of sense being established, the
|
|
purpose of our deduction will be fully attained.
|
|
|
|
[*Footnote: The proof of this rests on the represented unity
|
|
of intuition, by means of which an object is given, and
|
|
which always includes in itself a synthesis of the manifold
|
|
to be intuited, and also the relation of this latter to
|
|
unity of apperception.]
|
|
|
|
|
|
But there is one thing in the above demonstration of which I could not
|
|
make abstraction, namely, that the manifold to be intuited must be given
|
|
previously to the synthesis of the understanding, and independently of
|
|
it. How this takes place remains here undetermined. For if I cogitate
|
|
an understanding which was itself intuitive (as, for example, a divine
|
|
understanding which should not represent given objects, but by whose
|
|
representation the objects themselves should be given or produced), the
|
|
categories would possess no significance in relation to such a faculty
|
|
of cognition. They are merely rules for an understanding, whose whole
|
|
power consists in thought, that is, in the act of submitting the
|
|
synthesis of the manifold which is presented to it in intuition from
|
|
a very different quarter, to the unity of apperception; a faculty,
|
|
therefore, which cognizes nothing per se, but only connects and
|
|
arranges the material of cognition, the intuition, namely, which must
|
|
be presented to it by means of the object. But to show reasons for this
|
|
peculiar character of our understandings, that it produces unity of
|
|
apperception a priori only by means of categories, and a certain kind
|
|
and number thereof, is as impossible as to explain why we are endowed
|
|
with precisely so many functions of judgement and no more, or why time
|
|
and space are the only forms of our intuition.
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
SS 18. In Cognition, its Application to Objects of Experience is
|
|
the only legitimate use of the Category.
|
|
|
|
To think an object and to cognize an object are by no means the same
|
|
thing. In cognition there are two elements: firstly, the conception,
|
|
whereby an object is cogitated (the category); and, secondly, the
|
|
intuition, whereby the object is given. For supposing that to the
|
|
conception a corresponding intuition could not be given, it would
|
|
still be a thought as regards its form, but without any object, and no
|
|
cognition of anything would be possible by means of it, inasmuch as, so
|
|
far as I knew, there existed and could exist nothing to which my
|
|
thought could be applied. Now all intuition possible to us is sensuous;
|
|
consequently, our thought of an object by means of a pure conception of
|
|
the understanding, can become cognition for us only in so far as this
|
|
conception is applied to objects of the senses. Sensuous intuition is
|
|
either pure intuition (space and time) or empirical intuition--of that
|
|
which is immediately represented in space and time by means of sensation
|
|
as real. Through the determination of pure intuition we obtain a priori
|
|
cognitions of objects, as in mathematics, but only as regards their form
|
|
as phenomena; whether there can exist things which must be intuited
|
|
in this form is not thereby established. All mathematical conceptions,
|
|
therefore, are not per se cognition, except in so far as we presuppose
|
|
that there exist things which can only be represented conformably to the
|
|
form of our pure sensuous intuition. But things in space and time
|
|
are given only in so far as they are perceptions (representations
|
|
accompanied with sensation), therefore only by empirical representation.
|
|
Consequently the pure conceptions of the understanding, even when
|
|
they are applied to intuitions a priori (as in mathematics), produce
|
|
cognition only in so far as these (and therefore the conceptions of the
|
|
understanding by means of them) can be applied to empirical intuitions.
|
|
Consequently the categories do not, even by means of pure intuition
|
|
afford us any cognition of things; they can only do so in so far as they
|
|
can be applied to empirical intuition. That is to say, the categories
|
|
serve only to render empirical cognition possible. But this is what
|
|
we call experience. Consequently, in cognition, their application to
|
|
objects of experience is the only legitimate use of the categories.
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
SS 19.
|
|
|
|
The foregoing proposition is of the utmost importance, for it determines
|
|
the limits of the exercise of the pure conceptions of the understanding
|
|
in regard to objects, just as transcendental aesthetic determined the
|
|
limits of the exercise of the pure form of our sensuous intuition.
|
|
Space and time, as conditions of the possibility of the presentation
|
|
of objects to us, are valid no further than for objects of sense,
|
|
consequently, only for experience. Beyond these limits they represent
|
|
to us nothing, for they belong only to sense, and have no reality apart
|
|
from it. The pure conceptions of the understanding are free from this
|
|
limitation, and extend to objects of intuition in general, be the
|
|
intuition like or unlike to ours, provided only it be sensuous, and not
|
|
intellectual. But this extension of conceptions beyond the range of our
|
|
intuition is of no advantage; for they are then mere empty conceptions
|
|
of objects, as to the possibility or impossibility of the existence of
|
|
which they furnish us with no means of discovery. They are mere forms
|
|
of thought, without objective reality, because we have no intuition to
|
|
which the synthetical unity of apperception, which alone the categories
|
|
contain, could be applied, for the purpose of determining an object. Our
|
|
sensuous and empirical intuition can alone give them significance and
|
|
meaning.
|
|
|
|
If, then, we suppose an object of a non-sensuous intuition to be given
|
|
we can in that case represent it by all those predicates which are
|
|
implied in the presupposition that nothing appertaining to sensuous
|
|
intuition belongs to it; for example, that it is not extended, or in
|
|
space; that its duration is not time; that in it no change (the effect
|
|
of the determinations in time) is to be met with, and so on. But it
|
|
is no proper knowledge if I merely indicate what the intuition of the
|
|
object is not, without being able to say what is contained in it, for I
|
|
have not shown the possibility of an object to which my pure conception
|
|
of understanding could be applicable, because I have not been able to
|
|
furnish any intuition corresponding to it, but am only able to say that
|
|
our intuition is not valid for it. But the most important point is
|
|
this, that to a something of this kind not one category can be found
|
|
applicable. Take, for example, the conception of substance, that is,
|
|
something that can exist as subject, but never as mere predicate; in
|
|
regard to this conception I am quite ignorant whether there can really
|
|
be anything to correspond to such a determination of thought, if
|
|
empirical intuition did not afford me the occasion for its application.
|
|
But of this more in the sequel.
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
SS 20. Of the Application of the Categories to Objects of the
|
|
Senses in general.
|
|
|
|
The pure conceptions of the understanding apply to objects of intuition
|
|
in general, through the understanding alone, whether the intuition be
|
|
our own or some other, provided only it be sensuous, but are, for
|
|
this very reason, mere forms of thought, by means of which alone no
|
|
determined object can be cognized. The synthesis or conjunction of the
|
|
manifold in these conceptions relates, we have said, only to the unity
|
|
of apperception, and is for this reason the ground of the possibility
|
|
of a priori cognition, in so far as this cognition is dependent on the
|
|
understanding. This synthesis is, therefore, not merely transcendental,
|
|
but also purely intellectual. But because a certain form of sensuous
|
|
intuition exists in the mind a priori which rests on the receptivity
|
|
of the representative faculty (sensibility), the understanding, as a
|
|
spontaneity, is able to determine the internal sense by means of the
|
|
diversity of given representations, conformably to the synthetical
|
|
unity of apperception, and thus to cogitate the synthetical unity of
|
|
the apperception of the manifold of sensuous intuition a priori, as the
|
|
condition to which must necessarily be submitted all objects of human
|
|
intuition. And in this manner the categories as mere forms of thought
|
|
receive objective reality, that is, application to objects which are
|
|
given to us in intuition, but that only as phenomena, for it is only of
|
|
phenomena that we are capable of a priori intuition.
|
|
|
|
This synthesis of the manifold of sensuous intuition, which is possible
|
|
and necessary a priori, may be called figurative (synthesis speciosa),
|
|
in contradistinction to that which is cogitated in the mere category
|
|
in regard to the manifold of an intuition in general, and is
|
|
called connection or conjunction of the understanding (synthesis
|
|
intellectualis). Both are transcendental, not merely because they
|
|
themselves precede a priori all experience, but also because they form
|
|
the basis for the possibility of other cognition a priori.
|
|
|
|
But the figurative synthesis, when it has relation only to the
|
|
originally synthetical unity of apperception, that is to the
|
|
transcendental unity cogitated in the categories, must, to be
|
|
distinguished from the purely intellectual conjunction, be entitled the
|
|
transcendental synthesis of imagination. Imagination is the faculty of
|
|
representing an object even without its presence in intuition. Now, as
|
|
all our intuition is sensuous, imagination, by reason of the subjective
|
|
condition under which alone it can give a corresponding intuition to the
|
|
conceptions of the understanding, belongs to sensibility. But in so far
|
|
as the synthesis of the imagination is an act of spontaneity, which is
|
|
determinative, and not, like sense, merely determinable, and which is
|
|
consequently able to determine sense a priori, according to its form,
|
|
conformably to the unity of apperception, in so far is the imagination
|
|
a faculty of determining sensibility a priori, and its synthesis of
|
|
intuitions according to the categories must be the transcendental
|
|
synthesis of the imagination. It is an operation of the understanding on
|
|
sensibility, and the first application of the understanding to objects
|
|
of possible intuition, and at the same time the basis for the
|
|
exercise of the other functions of that faculty. As figurative, it is
|
|
distinguished from the merely intellectual synthesis, which is produced
|
|
by the understanding alone, without the aid of imagination. Now, in
|
|
so far as imagination is spontaneity, I sometimes call it also the
|
|
productive imagination, and distinguish it from the reproductive, the
|
|
synthesis of which is subject entirely to empirical laws, those of
|
|
association, namely, and which, therefore, contributes nothing to the
|
|
explanation of the possibility of a priori cognition, and for this
|
|
reason belongs not to transcendental philosophy, but to psychology.
|
|
|
|
We have now arrived at the proper place for explaining the paradox which
|
|
must have struck every one in our exposition of the internal sense (SS
|
|
6), namely--how this sense represents us to our own consciousness, only
|
|
as we appear to ourselves, not as we are in ourselves, because, to wit,
|
|
we intuite ourselves only as we are inwardly affected. Now this appears
|
|
to be contradictory, inasmuch as we thus stand in a passive relation
|
|
to ourselves; and therefore in the systems of psychology, the internal
|
|
sense is commonly held to be one with the faculty of apperception, while
|
|
we, on the contrary, carefully distinguish them.
|
|
|
|
That which determines the internal sense is the understanding, and its
|
|
original power of conjoining the manifold of intuition, that is, of
|
|
bringing this under an apperception (upon which rests the possibility
|
|
of the understanding itself). Now, as the human understanding is not in
|
|
itself a faculty of intuition, and is unable to exercise such a power,
|
|
in order to conjoin, as it were, the manifold of its own intuition, the
|
|
synthesis of understanding is, considered per se, nothing but the unity
|
|
of action, of which, as such, it is self-conscious, even apart from
|
|
sensibility, by which, moreover, it is able to determine our internal
|
|
sense in respect of the manifold which may be presented to it
|
|
according to the form of sensuous intuition. Thus, under the name of a
|
|
transcendental synthesis of imagination, the understanding exercises an
|
|
activity upon the passive subject, whose faculty it is; and so we
|
|
are right in saying that the internal sense is affected thereby.
|
|
Apperception and its synthetical unity are by no means one and the
|
|
same with the internal sense. The former, as the source of all our
|
|
synthetical conjunction, applies, under the name of the categories, to
|
|
the manifold of intuition in general, prior to all sensuous intuition of
|
|
objects. The internal sense, on the contrary, contains merely the form
|
|
of intuition, but without any synthetical conjunction of the manifold
|
|
therein, and consequently does not contain any determined intuition,
|
|
which is possible only through consciousness of the determination of
|
|
the manifold by the transcendental act of the imagination (synthetical
|
|
influence of the understanding on the internal sense), which I have
|
|
named figurative synthesis.
|
|
|
|
This we can indeed always perceive in ourselves. We cannot cogitate a
|
|
geometrical line without drawing it in thought, nor a circle without
|
|
describing it, nor represent the three dimensions of space without
|
|
drawing three lines from the same point perpendicular to one another. We
|
|
cannot even cogitate time, unless, in drawing a straight line (which is
|
|
to serve as the external figurative representation of time), we fix
|
|
our attention on the act of the synthesis of the manifold, whereby we
|
|
determine successively the internal sense, and thus attend also to the
|
|
succession of this determination. Motion as an act of the subject (not
|
|
as a determination of an object),* consequently the synthesis of the
|
|
manifold in space, if we make abstraction of space and attend merely to
|
|
the act by which we determine the internal sense according to its form,
|
|
is that which produces the conception of succession. The understanding,
|
|
therefore, does by no means find in the internal sense any such
|
|
synthesis of the manifold, but produces it, in that it affects this
|
|
sense. At the same time, how "I who think" is distinct from the "I"
|
|
which intuites itself (other modes of intuition being cogitable as at
|
|
least possible), and yet one and the same with this latter as the same
|
|
subject; how, therefore, I am able to say: "I, as an intelligence and
|
|
thinking subject, cognize myself as an object thought, so far as I am,
|
|
moreover, given to myself in intuition--only, like other phenomena, not
|
|
as I am in myself, and as considered by the understanding, but merely as
|
|
I appear"--is a question that has in it neither more nor less difficulty
|
|
than the question--"How can I be an object to myself?" or this--"How I
|
|
can be an object of my own intuition and internal perceptions?" But that
|
|
such must be the fact, if we admit that space is merely a pure form
|
|
of the phenomena of external sense, can be clearly proved by the
|
|
consideration that we cannot represent time, which is not an object of
|
|
external intuition, in any other way than under the image of a line,
|
|
which we draw in thought, a mode of representation without which we
|
|
could not cognize the unity of its dimension, and also that we are
|
|
necessitated to take our determination of periods of time, or of points
|
|
of time, for all our internal perceptions from the changes which
|
|
we perceive in outward things. It follows that we must arrange the
|
|
determinations of the internal sense, as phenomena in time, exactly in
|
|
the same manner as we arrange those of the external senses in space. And
|
|
consequently, if we grant, respecting this latter, that by means of them
|
|
we know objects only in so far as we are affected externally, we must
|
|
also confess, with regard to the internal sense, that by means of it we
|
|
intuite ourselves only as we are internally affected by ourselves; in
|
|
other words, as regards internal intuition, we cognize our own subject
|
|
only as phenomenon, and not as it is in itself.**
|
|
|
|
|
|
[*Footnote: Motion of an object in space does not belong to
|
|
a pure science, consequently not to geometry; because, that
|
|
a thing is movable cannot be known a priori, but only from
|
|
experience. But motion, considered as the description of a
|
|
space, is a pure act of the successive synthesis of the
|
|
manifold in external intuition by means of productive
|
|
imagination, and belongs not only to geometry, but even to
|
|
transcendental philosophy.]
|
|
|
|
|
|
[**Footnote: I do not see why so much difficulty should be
|
|
found in admitting that our internal sense is affected by
|
|
ourselves. Every act of attention exemplifies it. In such an
|
|
act the understanding determines the internal sense by the
|
|
synthetical conjunction which it cogitates, conformably to
|
|
the internal intuition which corresponds to the manifold in
|
|
the synthesis of the understanding. How much the mind is
|
|
usually affected thereby every one will be able to perceive
|
|
in himself.]
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
SS 21.
|
|
|
|
On the other hand, in the transcendental synthesis of the manifold
|
|
content of representations, consequently in the synthetical unity of
|
|
apperception, I am conscious of myself, not as I appear to myself,
|
|
nor as I am in myself, but only that "I am." This representation is a
|
|
thought, not an intuition. Now, as in order to cognize ourselves, in
|
|
addition to the act of thinking, which subjects the manifold of every
|
|
possible intuition to the unity of apperception, there is necessary a
|
|
determinate mode of intuition, whereby this manifold is given; although
|
|
my own existence is certainly not mere phenomenon (much less mere
|
|
illusion), the determination of my existence* Can only take place
|
|
conformably to the form of the internal sense, according to the
|
|
particular mode in which the manifold which I conjoin is given in
|
|
internal intuition, and I have therefore no knowledge of myself as I am,
|
|
but merely as I appear to myself. The consciousness of self is thus
|
|
very far from a knowledge of self, in which I do not use the categories,
|
|
whereby I cogitate an object, by means of the conjunction of the
|
|
manifold in one apperception. In the same way as I require, for the sake
|
|
of the cognition of an object distinct from myself, not only the thought
|
|
of an object in general (in the category), but also an intuition
|
|
by which to determine that general conception, in the same way do I
|
|
require, in order to the cognition of myself, not only the consciousness
|
|
of myself or the thought that I think myself, but in addition an
|
|
intuition of the manifold in myself, by which to determine this thought.
|
|
It is true that I exist as an intelligence which is conscious only of
|
|
its faculty of conjunction or synthesis, but subjected in relation to
|
|
the manifold which this intelligence has to conjoin to a limitative
|
|
conjunction called the internal sense. My intelligence (that is, I) can
|
|
render that conjunction or synthesis perceptible only according to
|
|
the relations of time, which are quite beyond the proper sphere of the
|
|
conceptions of the understanding and consequently cognize itself in
|
|
respect to an intuition (which cannot possibly be intellectual, nor
|
|
given by the understanding), only as it appears to itself, and not as it
|
|
would cognize itself, if its intuition were intellectual.
|
|
|
|
|
|
[*Footnote: The "I think" expresses the act of determining
|
|
my own existence. My existence is thus already given by the
|
|
act of consciousness; but the mode in which I must determine
|
|
my existence, that is, the mode in which I must place the
|
|
manifold belonging to my existence, is not thereby given.
|
|
For this purpose intuition of self is required, and this
|
|
intuition possesses a form given a priori, namely, time,
|
|
which is sensuous, and belongs to our receptivity of the
|
|
determinable. Now, as I do not possess another intuition of
|
|
self which gives the determining in me (of the spontaneity
|
|
of which I am conscious), prior to the act of determination,
|
|
in the same manner as time gives the determinable, it is
|
|
clear that I am unable to determine my own existence as that
|
|
of a spontaneous being, but I am only able to represent to
|
|
myself the spontaneity of my thought, that is, of my
|
|
determination, and my existence remains ever determinable in
|
|
a purely sensuous manner, that is to say, like the existence
|
|
of a phenomenon. But it is because of this spontaneity that
|
|
I call myself an intelligence.]
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
SS 22. Transcendental Deduction of the universally possible employment
|
|
in experience of the Pure Conceptions of the Understanding.
|
|
|
|
In the metaphysical deduction, the a priori origin of categories was
|
|
proved by their complete accordance with the general logical of thought;
|
|
in the transcendental deduction was exhibited the possibility of the
|
|
categories as a priori cognitions of objects of an intuition in general
|
|
(SS 16 and 17).At present we are about to explain the possibility of
|
|
cognizing, a priori, by means of the categories, all objects which can
|
|
possibly be presented to our senses, not, indeed, according to the form
|
|
of their intuition, but according to the laws of their conjunction or
|
|
synthesis, and thus, as it were, of prescribing laws to nature and even
|
|
of rendering nature possible. For if the categories were inadequate
|
|
to this task, it would not be evident to us why everything that is
|
|
presented to our senses must be subject to those laws which have an a
|
|
priori origin in the understanding itself.
|
|
|
|
I premise that by the term synthesis of apprehension I understand
|
|
the combination of the manifold in an empirical intuition, whereby
|
|
perception, that is, empirical consciousness of the intuition (as
|
|
phenomenon), is possible.
|
|
|
|
We have a priori forms of the external and internal sensuous intuition
|
|
in the representations of space and time, and to these must the
|
|
synthesis of apprehension of the manifold in a phenomenon be always
|
|
comformable, because the synthesis itself can only take place according
|
|
to these forms. But space and time are not merely forms of sensuous
|
|
intuition, but intuitions themselves (which contain a manifold), and
|
|
therefore contain a priori the determination of the unity of this
|
|
manifold.* (See the Transcendent Aesthetic.) Therefore is unity of the
|
|
synthesis of the manifold without or within us, consequently also a
|
|
conjunction to which all that is to be represented as determined in
|
|
space or time must correspond, given a priori along with (not in) these
|
|
intuitions, as the condition of the synthesis of all apprehension
|
|
of them. But this synthetical unity can be no other than that of the
|
|
conjunction of the manifold of a given intuition in general, in a
|
|
primitive act of consciousness, according to the categories, but applied
|
|
to our sensuous intuition. Consequently all synthesis, whereby alone
|
|
is even perception possible, is subject to the categories. And,
|
|
as experience is cognition by means of conjoined perceptions, the
|
|
categories are conditions of the possibility of experience and are
|
|
therefore valid a priori for all objects of experience.
|
|
|
|
[*Footnote: Space represented as an object (as geometry
|
|
really requires it to be) contains more than the mere form
|
|
of the intuition; namely, a combination of the manifold
|
|
given according to the form of sensibility into a
|
|
representation that can be intuited; so that the form of the
|
|
intuition gives us merely the manifold, but the formal
|
|
intuition gives unity of representation. In the aesthetic, I
|
|
regarded this unity as belonging entirely to sensibility,
|
|
for the purpose of indicating that it antecedes all
|
|
conceptions, although it presupposes a synthesis which does
|
|
not belong to sense, through which alone, however, all our
|
|
conceptions of space and time are possible. For as by means
|
|
of this unity alone (the understanding determining the
|
|
sensibility) space and time are given as intuitions, it
|
|
follows that the unity of this intuition a priori belongs to
|
|
space and time, and not to the conception of the
|
|
understanding (SS 20).]
|
|
|
|
|
|
When, then, for example, I make the empirical intuition of a house by
|
|
apprehension of the manifold contained therein into a perception, the
|
|
necessary unity of space and of my external sensuous intuition lies
|
|
at the foundation of this act, and I, as it were, draw the form of the
|
|
house conformably to this synthetical unity of the manifold in space.
|
|
But this very synthetical unity remains, even when I abstract the form
|
|
of space, and has its seat in the understanding, and is in fact the
|
|
category of the synthesis of the homogeneous in an intuition; that is
|
|
to say, the category of quantity, to which the aforesaid synthesis of
|
|
apprehension, that is, the perception, must be completely conformable.*
|
|
|
|
[*Footnote: In this manner it is proved, that the synthesis
|
|
of apprehension, which is empirical, must necessarily be
|
|
conformable to the synthesis of apperception, which is
|
|
intellectual, and contained a priori in the category. It is
|
|
one and the same spontaneity which at one time, under the
|
|
name of imagination, at another under that of understanding,
|
|
produces conjunction in the manifold of intuition.]
|
|
|
|
|
|
To take another example, when I perceive the freezing of water, I
|
|
apprehend two states (fluidity and solidity), which, as such, stand
|
|
toward each other mutually in a relation of time. But in the time, which
|
|
I place as an internal intuition, at the foundation of this phenomenon,
|
|
I represent to myself synthetical unity of the manifold, without which
|
|
the aforesaid relation could not be given in an intuition as determined
|
|
(in regard to the succession of time). Now this synthetical unity,
|
|
as the a priori condition under which I conjoin the manifold of an
|
|
intuition, is, if I make abstraction of the permanent form of my
|
|
internal intuition (that is to say, of time), the category of cause, by
|
|
means of which, when applied to my sensibility, I determine everything
|
|
that occurs according to relations of time. Consequently apprehension in
|
|
such an event, and the event itself, as far as regards the possibility
|
|
of its perception, stands under the conception of the relation of cause
|
|
and effect: and so in all other cases.
|
|
|
|
Categories are conceptions which prescribe laws a priori to phenomena,
|
|
consequently to nature as the complex of all phenomena (natura
|
|
materialiter spectata). And now the question arises--inasmuch as these
|
|
categories are not derived from nature, and do not regulate themselves
|
|
according to her as their model (for in that case they would be
|
|
empirical)--how it is conceivable that nature must regulate herself
|
|
according to them, in other words, how the categories can determine a
|
|
priori the synthesis of the manifold of nature, and yet not derive their
|
|
origin from her. The following is the solution of this enigma.
|
|
|
|
It is not in the least more difficult to conceive how the laws of the
|
|
phenomena of nature must harmonize with the understanding and with its a
|
|
priori form--that is, its faculty of conjoining the manifold--than it
|
|
is to understand how the phenomena themselves must correspond with the
|
|
a priori form of our sensuous intuition. For laws do not exist in the
|
|
phenomena any more than the phenomena exist as things in themselves.
|
|
Laws do not exist except by relation to the subject in which the
|
|
phenomena inhere, in so far as it possesses understanding, just as
|
|
phenomena have no existence except by relation to the same existing
|
|
subject in so far as it has senses. To things as things in themselves,
|
|
conformability to law must necessarily belong independently of an
|
|
understanding to cognize them. But phenomena are only representations
|
|
of things which are utterly unknown in respect to what they are in
|
|
themselves. But as mere representations, they stand under no law of
|
|
conjunction except that which the conjoining faculty prescribes. Now
|
|
that which conjoins the manifold of sensuous intuition is imagination,
|
|
a mental act to which understanding contributes unity of intellectual
|
|
synthesis, and sensibility, manifoldness of apprehension. Now as all
|
|
possible perception depends on the synthesis of apprehension, and this
|
|
empirical synthesis itself on the transcendental, consequently on the
|
|
categories, it is evident that all possible perceptions, and therefore
|
|
everything that can attain to empirical consciousness, that is, all
|
|
phenomena of nature, must, as regards their conjunction, be subject to
|
|
the categories. And nature (considered merely as nature in general)
|
|
is dependent on them, as the original ground of her necessary
|
|
conformability to law (as natura formaliter spectata). But the pure
|
|
faculty (of the understanding) of prescribing laws a priori to phenomena
|
|
by means of mere categories, is not competent to enounce other or more
|
|
laws than those on which a nature in general, as a conformability to law
|
|
of phenomena of space and time, depends. Particular laws, inasmuch
|
|
as they concern empirically determined phenomena, cannot be entirely
|
|
deduced from pure laws, although they all stand under them. Experience
|
|
must be superadded in order to know these particular laws; but in regard
|
|
to experience in general, and everything that can be cognized as an
|
|
object thereof, these a priori laws are our only rule and guide.
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
SS 23. Result of this Deduction of the Conceptions of the
|
|
Understanding.
|
|
|
|
We cannot think any object except by means of the categories; we cannot
|
|
cognize any thought except by means of intuitions corresponding to these
|
|
conceptions. Now all our intuitions are sensuous, and our cognition,
|
|
in so far as the object of it is given, is empirical. But empirical
|
|
cognition is experience; consequently no a priori cognition is possible
|
|
for us, except of objects of possible experience.*
|
|
|
|
[Footnote: Lest my readers should stumble at this assertion,
|
|
and the conclusions that may be too rashly drawn from it, I
|
|
must remind them that the categories in the act of thought
|
|
are by no means limited by the conditions of our sensuous
|
|
intuition, but have an unbounded sphere of action. It is
|
|
only the cognition of the object of thought, the determining
|
|
of the object, which requires intuition. In the absence of
|
|
intuition, our thought of an object may still have true and
|
|
useful consequences in regard to the exercise of reason by
|
|
the subject. But as this exercise of reason is not always
|
|
directed on the determination of the object, in other words,
|
|
on cognition thereof, but also on the determination of the
|
|
subject and its volition, I do not intend to treat of it in
|
|
this place.]
|
|
|
|
|
|
But this cognition, which is limited to objects of experience, is not
|
|
for that reason derived entirely, from, experience, but--and this
|
|
is asserted of the pure intuitions and the pure conceptions of the
|
|
understanding--there are, unquestionably, elements of cognition, which
|
|
exist in the mind a priori. Now there are only two ways in which a
|
|
necessary harmony of experience with the conceptions of its objects can
|
|
be cogitated. Either experience makes these conceptions possible, or
|
|
the conceptions make experience possible. The former of these statements
|
|
will not bold good with respect to the categories (nor in regard to pure
|
|
sensuous intuition), for they are a priori conceptions, and therefore
|
|
independent of experience. The assertion of an empirical origin would
|
|
attribute to them a sort of generatio aequivoca. Consequently, nothing
|
|
remains but to adopt the second alternative (which presents us with a
|
|
system, as it were, of the epigenesis of pure reason), namely, that on
|
|
the part of the understanding the categories do contain the grounds of
|
|
the possibility of all experience. But with respect to the questions
|
|
how they make experience possible, and what are the principles of the
|
|
possibility thereof with which they present us in their application to
|
|
phenomena, the following section on the transcendental exercise of the
|
|
faculty of judgement will inform the reader.
|
|
|
|
It is quite possible that someone may propose a species of
|
|
preformation-system of pure reason--a middle way between the two--to
|
|
wit, that the categories are neither innate and first a priori
|
|
principles of cognition, nor derived from experience, but are merely
|
|
subjective aptitudes for thought implanted in us contemporaneously with
|
|
our existence, which were so ordered and disposed by our Creator,
|
|
that their exercise perfectly harmonizes with the laws of nature which
|
|
regulate experience. Now, not to mention that with such an hypothesis
|
|
it is impossible to say at what point we must stop in the employment of
|
|
predetermined aptitudes, the fact that the categories would in this case
|
|
entirely lose that character of necessity which is essentially involved
|
|
in the very conception of them, is a conclusive objection to it. The
|
|
conception of cause, for example, which expresses the necessity of an
|
|
effect under a presupposed condition, would be false, if it rested only
|
|
upon such an arbitrary subjective necessity of uniting certain empirical
|
|
representations according to such a rule of relation. I could not then
|
|
say--"The effect is connected with its cause in the object (that is,
|
|
necessarily)," but only, "I am so constituted that I can think this
|
|
representation as so connected, and not otherwise." Now this is just
|
|
what the sceptic wants. For in this case, all our knowledge, depending
|
|
on the supposed objective validity of our judgement, is nothing but
|
|
mere illusion; nor would there be wanting people who would deny any such
|
|
subjective necessity in respect to themselves, though they must feel it.
|
|
At all events, we could not dispute with any one on that which merely
|
|
depends on the manner in which his subject is organized.
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
Short view of the above Deduction.
|
|
|
|
The foregoing deduction is an exposition of the pure conceptions of the
|
|
understanding (and with them of all theoretical a priori cognition), as
|
|
principles of the possibility of experience, but of experience as
|
|
the determination of all phenomena in space and time in general--of
|
|
experience, finally, from the principle of the original synthetical
|
|
unity of apperception, as the form of the understanding in relation to
|
|
time and space as original forms of sensibility.
|
|
|
|
I consider the division by paragraphs to be necessary only up to this
|
|
point, because we had to treat of the elementary conceptions. As we
|
|
now proceed to the exposition of the employment of these, I shall not
|
|
designate the chapters in this manner any further.
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
BOOK II.
|
|
|
|
Analytic of Principles.
|
|
|
|
General logic is constructed upon a plan which coincides exactly
|
|
with the division of the higher faculties of cognition. These are,
|
|
understanding, judgement, and reason. This science, accordingly, treats
|
|
in its analytic of conceptions, judgements, and conclusions in exact
|
|
correspondence with the functions and order of those mental powers which
|
|
we include generally under the generic denomination of understanding.
|
|
|
|
As this merely formal logic makes abstraction of all content of
|
|
cognition, whether pure or empirical, and occupies itself with the mere
|
|
form of thought (discursive cognition), it must contain in its analytic
|
|
a canon for reason. For the form of reason has its law, which, without
|
|
taking into consideration the particular nature of the cognition about
|
|
which it is employed, can be discovered a priori, by the simple analysis
|
|
of the action of reason into its momenta.
|
|
|
|
Transcendental logic, limited as it is to a determinate content, that of
|
|
pure a priori cognitions, to wit, cannot imitate general logic in this
|
|
division. For it is evident that the transcendental employment of reason
|
|
is not objectively valid, and therefore does not belong to the logic
|
|
of truth (that is, to analytic), but as a logic of illusion, occupies
|
|
a particular department in the scholastic system under the name of
|
|
transcendental dialectic.
|
|
|
|
Understanding and judgement accordingly possess in transcendental logic
|
|
a canon of objectively valid, and therefore true exercise, and are
|
|
comprehended in the analytical department of that logic. But reason,
|
|
in her endeavours to arrive by a priori means at some true statement
|
|
concerning objects and to extend cognition beyond the bounds of possible
|
|
experience, is altogether dialectic, and her illusory assertions cannot
|
|
be constructed into a canon such as an analytic ought to contain.
|
|
|
|
Accordingly, the analytic of principles will be merely a canon for
|
|
the faculty of judgement, for the instruction of this faculty in its
|
|
application to phenomena of the pure conceptions of the understanding,
|
|
which contain the necessary condition for the establishment of a priori
|
|
laws. On this account, although the subject of the following chapters is
|
|
the especial principles of understanding, I shall make use of the
|
|
term Doctrine of the faculty of judgement, in order to define more
|
|
particularly my present purpose.
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
INTRODUCTION. Of the Transcendental Faculty of judgement in General.
|
|
|
|
If understanding in general be defined as the faculty of laws or rules,
|
|
the faculty of judgement may be termed the faculty of subsumption under
|
|
these rules; that is, of distinguishing whether this or that does or
|
|
does not stand under a given rule (casus datae legis). General logic
|
|
contains no directions or precepts for the faculty of judgement, nor
|
|
can it contain any such. For as it makes abstraction of all content of
|
|
cognition, no duty is left for it, except that of exposing analytically
|
|
the mere form of cognition in conceptions, judgements, and conclusions,
|
|
and of thereby establishing formal rules for all exercise of the
|
|
understanding. Now if this logic wished to give some general direction
|
|
how we should subsume under these rules, that is, how we should
|
|
distinguish whether this or that did or did not stand under them, this
|
|
again could not be done otherwise than by means of a rule. But this
|
|
rule, precisely because it is a rule, requires for itself direction from
|
|
the faculty of judgement. Thus, it is evident that the understanding
|
|
is capable of being instructed by rules, but that the judgement is a
|
|
peculiar talent, which does not, and cannot require tuition, but
|
|
only exercise. This faculty is therefore the specific quality of the
|
|
so-called mother wit, the want of which no scholastic discipline can
|
|
compensate.
|
|
|
|
For although education may furnish, and, as it were, engraft upon a
|
|
limited understanding rules borrowed from other minds, yet the power of
|
|
employing these rules correctly must belong to the pupil himself; and no
|
|
rule which we can prescribe to him with this purpose is, in the absence
|
|
or deficiency of this gift of nature, secure from misuse.* A physician
|
|
therefore, a judge or a statesman, may have in his head many admirable
|
|
pathological, juridical, or political rules, in a degree that may enable
|
|
him to be a profound teacher in his particular science, and yet in the
|
|
application of these rules he may very possibly blunder--either because
|
|
he is wanting in natural judgement (though not in understanding) and,
|
|
whilst he can comprehend the general in abstracto, cannot distinguish
|
|
whether a particular case in concreto ought to rank under the former; or
|
|
because his faculty of judgement has not been sufficiently exercised by
|
|
examples and real practice. Indeed, the grand and only use of examples,
|
|
is to sharpen the judgement. For as regards the correctness and
|
|
precision of the insight of the understanding, examples are commonly
|
|
injurious rather than otherwise, because, as casus in terminis they
|
|
seldom adequately fulfil the conditions of the rule. Besides, they often
|
|
weaken the power of our understanding to apprehend rules or laws
|
|
in their universality, independently of particular circumstances of
|
|
experience; and hence, accustom us to employ them more as formulae than
|
|
as principles. Examples are thus the go-cart of the judgement, which
|
|
he who is naturally deficient in that faculty cannot afford to dispense
|
|
with.
|
|
|
|
[*Footnote: Deficiency in judgement is properly that which
|
|
is called stupidity; and for such a failing we know no
|
|
remedy. A dull or narrow-minded person, to whom nothing is
|
|
wanting but a proper degree of understanding, may be
|
|
improved by tuition, even so far as to deserve the epithet
|
|
of learned. But as such persons frequently labour under a
|
|
deficiency in the faculty of judgement, it is not uncommon
|
|
to find men extremely learned who in the application of
|
|
their science betray a lamentable degree this irremediable
|
|
want.]
|
|
|
|
|
|
But although general logic cannot give directions to the faculty of
|
|
judgement, the case is very different as regards transcendental logic,
|
|
insomuch that it appears to be the especial duty of the latter to secure
|
|
and direct, by means of determinate rules, the faculty of judgement in
|
|
the employment of the pure understanding. For, as a doctrine, that is,
|
|
as an endeavour to enlarge the sphere of the understanding in regard to
|
|
pure a priori cognitions, philosophy is worse than useless, since from
|
|
all the attempts hitherto made, little or no ground has been gained.
|
|
But, as a critique, in order to guard against the mistakes of the
|
|
faculty of judgement (lapsus judicii) in the employment of the few pure
|
|
conceptions of the understanding which we possess, although its use is
|
|
in this case purely negative, philosophy is called upon to apply all its
|
|
acuteness and penetration.
|
|
|
|
But transcendental philosophy has this peculiarity, that besides
|
|
indicating the rule, or rather the general condition for rules, which is
|
|
given in the pure conception of the understanding, it can, at the same
|
|
time, indicate a priori the case to which the rule must be applied.
|
|
The cause of the superiority which, in this respect, transcendental
|
|
philosophy possesses above all other sciences except mathematics, lies
|
|
in this: it treats of conceptions which must relate a priori to their
|
|
objects, whose objective validity consequently cannot be demonstrated a
|
|
posteriori, and is, at the same time, under the obligation of presenting
|
|
in general but sufficient tests, the conditions under which objects can
|
|
be given in harmony with those conceptions; otherwise they would be
|
|
mere logical forms, without content, and not pure conceptions of the
|
|
understanding.
|
|
|
|
Our transcendental doctrine of the faculty of judgement will contain
|
|
two chapters. The first will treat of the sensuous condition under which
|
|
alone pure conceptions of the understanding can be employed--that is, of
|
|
the schematism of the pure understanding. The second will treat of those
|
|
synthetical judgements which are derived a priori from pure conceptions
|
|
of the understanding under those conditions, and which lie a priori at
|
|
the foundation of all other cognitions, that is to say, it will treat of
|
|
the principles of the pure understanding.
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
TRANSCENDENTAL DOCTRINE OF THE FACULTY OF JUDGEMENT OR, ANALYTIC OF
|
|
PRINCIPLES.
|
|
|
|
CHAPTER I. Of the Schematism at of the Pure Conceptions of the
|
|
Understanding.
|
|
|
|
In all subsumptions of an object under a conception, the representation
|
|
of the object must be homogeneous with the conception; in other words,
|
|
the conception must contain that which is represented in the object to
|
|
be subsumed under it. For this is the meaning of the expression: "An
|
|
object is contained under a conception." Thus the empirical conception
|
|
of a plate is homogeneous with the pure geometrical conception of a
|
|
circle, inasmuch as the roundness which is cogitated in the former is
|
|
intuited in the latter.
|
|
|
|
But pure conceptions of the understanding, when compared with empirical
|
|
intuitions, or even with sensuous intuitions in general, are quite
|
|
heterogeneous, and never can be discovered in any intuition. How then
|
|
is the subsumption of the latter under the former, and consequently
|
|
the application of the categories to phenomena, possible?--For it is
|
|
impossible to say, for example: "Causality can be intuited through the
|
|
senses and is contained in the phenomenon."--This natural and important
|
|
question forms the real cause of the necessity of a transcendental
|
|
doctrine of the faculty of judgement, with the purpose, to wit, of
|
|
showing how pure conceptions of the understanding can be applied to
|
|
phenomena. In all other sciences, where the conceptions by which the
|
|
object is thought in the general are not so different and heterogeneous
|
|
from those which represent the object in concreto--as it is given, it
|
|
is quite unnecessary to institute any special inquiries concerning the
|
|
application of the former to the latter.
|
|
|
|
Now it is quite clear that there must be some third thing, which on the
|
|
one side is homogeneous with the category, and with the phenomenon on
|
|
the other, and so makes the application of the former to the latter
|
|
possible. This mediating representation must be pure (without any
|
|
empirical content), and yet must on the one side be intellectual, on the
|
|
other sensuous. Such a representation is the transcendental schema.
|
|
|
|
The conception of the understanding contains pure synthetical unity of
|
|
the manifold in general. Time, as the formal condition of the
|
|
manifold of the internal sense, consequently of the conjunction of all
|
|
representations, contains a priori a manifold in the pure intuition. Now
|
|
a transcendental determination of time is so far homogeneous with the
|
|
category, which constitutes the unity thereof, that it is universal and
|
|
rests upon a rule a priori. On the other hand, it is so far homogeneous
|
|
with the phenomenon, inasmuch as time is contained in every empirical
|
|
representation of the manifold. Thus an application of the category to
|
|
phenomena becomes possible, by means of the transcendental determination
|
|
of time, which, as the schema of the conceptions of the understanding,
|
|
mediates the subsumption of the latter under the former.
|
|
|
|
After what has been proved in our deduction of the categories, no
|
|
one, it is to be hoped, can hesitate as to the proper decision of
|
|
the question, whether the employment of these pure conceptions of the
|
|
understanding ought to be merely empirical or also transcendental;
|
|
in other words, whether the categories, as conditions of a possible
|
|
experience, relate a priori solely to phenomena, or whether, as
|
|
conditions of the possibility of things in general, their application
|
|
can be extended to objects as things in themselves. For we have
|
|
there seen that conceptions are quite impossible, and utterly without
|
|
signification, unless either to them, or at least to the elements of
|
|
which they consist, an object be given; and that, consequently, they
|
|
cannot possibly apply to objects as things in themselves without regard
|
|
to the question whether and how these may be given to us; and, further,
|
|
that the only manner in which objects can be given to us is by means of
|
|
the modification of our sensibility; and, finally, that pure a priori
|
|
conceptions, in addition to the function of the understanding in the
|
|
category, must contain a priori formal conditions of sensibility (of the
|
|
internal sense, namely), which again contain the general condition under
|
|
which alone the category can be applied to any object. This formal
|
|
and pure condition of sensibility, to which the conception of the
|
|
understanding is restricted in its employment, we shall name the
|
|
schema of the conception of the understanding, and the procedure of the
|
|
understanding with these schemata we shall call the schematism of the
|
|
pure understanding.
|
|
|
|
The schema is, in itself, always a mere product of the imagination. But,
|
|
as the synthesis of imagination has for its aim no single intuition, but
|
|
merely unity in the determination of sensibility, the schema is clearly
|
|
distinguishable from the image. Thus, if I place five points one after
|
|
another.... this is an image of the number five. On the other hand, if
|
|
I only think a number in general, which may be either five or a hundred,
|
|
this thought is rather the representation of a method of representing in
|
|
an image a sum (e.g., a thousand) in conformity with a conception, than
|
|
the image itself, an image which I should find some little difficulty in
|
|
reviewing, and comparing with the conception. Now this representation
|
|
of a general procedure of the imagination to present its image to a
|
|
conception, I call the schema of this conception.
|
|
|
|
In truth, it is not images of objects, but schemata, which lie at the
|
|
foundation of our pure sensuous conceptions. No image could ever be
|
|
adequate to our conception of a triangle in general. For the generalness
|
|
of the conception it never could attain to, as this includes under
|
|
itself all triangles, whether right-angled, acute-angled, etc., whilst
|
|
the image would always be limited to a single part of this sphere. The
|
|
schema of the triangle can exist nowhere else than in thought, and it
|
|
indicates a rule of the synthesis of the imagination in regard to pure
|
|
figures in space. Still less is an object of experience, or an image
|
|
of the object, ever to the empirical conception. On the contrary, the
|
|
conception always relates immediately to the schema of the imagination,
|
|
as a rule for the determination of our intuition, in conformity with a
|
|
certain general conception. The conception of a dog indicates a
|
|
rule, according to which my imagination can delineate the figure of a
|
|
four-footed animal in general, without being limited to any particular
|
|
individual form which experience presents to me, or indeed to any
|
|
possible image that I can represent to myself in concreto. This
|
|
schematism of our understanding in regard to phenomena and their mere
|
|
form, is an art, hidden in the depths of the human soul, whose true
|
|
modes of action we shall only with difficulty discover and unveil. Thus
|
|
much only can we say: "The image is a product of the empirical faculty
|
|
of the productive imagination--the schema of sensuous conceptions (of
|
|
figures in space, for example) is a product, and, as it were, a monogram
|
|
of the pure imagination a priori, whereby and according to which
|
|
images first become possible, which, however, can be connected with the
|
|
conception only mediately by means of the schema which they indicate,
|
|
and are in themselves never fully adequate to it." On the other hand,
|
|
the schema of a pure conception of the understanding is something that
|
|
cannot be reduced into any image--it is nothing else than the pure
|
|
synthesis expressed by the category, conformably, to a rule of unity
|
|
according to conceptions. It is a transcendental product of the
|
|
imagination, a product which concerns the determination of the internal
|
|
sense, according to conditions of its form (time) in respect to all
|
|
representations, in so far as these representations must be conjoined a
|
|
priori in one conception, conformably to the unity of apperception.
|
|
|
|
Without entering upon a dry and tedious analysis of the essential
|
|
requisites of transcendental schemata of the pure conceptions of the
|
|
understanding, we shall rather proceed at once to give an explanation
|
|
of them according to the order of the categories, and in connection
|
|
therewith.
|
|
|
|
For the external sense the pure image of all quantities (quantorum) is
|
|
space; the pure image of all objects of sense in general, is time.
|
|
But the pure schema of quantity (quantitatis) as a conception of
|
|
the understanding, is number, a representation which comprehends the
|
|
successive addition of one to one (homogeneous quantities). Thus, number
|
|
is nothing else than the unity of the synthesis of the manifold in
|
|
a homogeneous intuition, by means of my generating time itself in my
|
|
apprehension of the intuition.
|
|
|
|
Reality, in the pure conception of the understanding, is that which
|
|
corresponds to a sensation in general; that, consequently, the
|
|
conception of which indicates a being (in time). Negation is that the
|
|
conception of which represents a not-being (in time). The opposition of
|
|
these two consists therefore in the difference of one and the same
|
|
time, as a time filled or a time empty. Now as time is only the form of
|
|
intuition, consequently of objects as phenomena, that which in objects
|
|
corresponds to sensation is the transcendental matter of all objects
|
|
as things in themselves (Sachheit, reality). Now every sensation has
|
|
a degree or quantity by which it can fill time, that is to say, the
|
|
internal sense in respect of the representation of an object, more or
|
|
less, until it vanishes into nothing (= 0 = negatio). Thus there is
|
|
a relation and connection between reality and negation, or rather a
|
|
transition from the former to the latter, which makes every reality
|
|
representable to us as a quantum; and the schema of a reality as the
|
|
quantity of something in so far as it fills time, is exactly this
|
|
continuous and uniform generation of the reality in time, as we descend
|
|
in time from the sensation which has a certain degree, down to the
|
|
vanishing thereof, or gradually ascend from negation to the quantity
|
|
thereof.
|
|
|
|
The schema of substance is the permanence of the real in time; that is,
|
|
the representation of it as a substratum of the empirical determination
|
|
of time; a substratum which therefore remains, whilst all else changes.
|
|
(Time passes not, but in it passes the existence of the changeable. To
|
|
time, therefore, which is itself unchangeable and permanent, corresponds
|
|
that which in the phenomenon is unchangeable in existence, that is,
|
|
substance, and it is only by it that the succession and coexistence of
|
|
phenomena can be determined in regard to time.)
|
|
|
|
The schema of cause and of the causality of a thing is the real which,
|
|
when posited, is always followed by something else. It consists,
|
|
therefore, in the succession of the manifold, in so far as that
|
|
succession is subjected to a rule.
|
|
|
|
The schema of community (reciprocity of action and reaction), or the
|
|
reciprocal causality of substances in respect of their accidents, is the
|
|
coexistence of the determinations of the one with those of the other,
|
|
according to a general rule.
|
|
|
|
The schema of possibility is the accordance of the synthesis of
|
|
different representations with the conditions of time in general (as,
|
|
for example, opposites cannot exist together at the same time in
|
|
the same thing, but only after each other), and is therefore the
|
|
determination of the representation of a thing at any time.
|
|
|
|
The schema of reality is existence in a determined time.
|
|
|
|
The schema of necessity is the existence of an object in all time.
|
|
|
|
It is clear, from all this, that the schema of the category of quantity
|
|
contains and represents the generation (synthesis) of time itself, in
|
|
the successive apprehension of an object; the schema of quality the
|
|
synthesis of sensation with the representation of time, or the filling
|
|
up of time; the schema of relation the relation of perceptions to each
|
|
other in all time (that is, according to a rule of the determination
|
|
of time): and finally, the schema of modality and its categories, time
|
|
itself, as the correlative of the determination of an object--whether it
|
|
does belong to time, and how. The schemata, therefore, are nothing but
|
|
a priori determinations of time according to rules, and these, in regard
|
|
to all possible objects, following the arrangement of the categories,
|
|
relate to the series in time, the content in time, the order in time,
|
|
and finally, to the complex or totality in time.
|
|
|
|
Hence it is apparent that the schematism of the understanding, by means
|
|
of the transcendental synthesis of the imagination, amounts to nothing
|
|
else than the unity of the manifold of intuition in the internal
|
|
sense, and thus indirectly to the unity of apperception, as a function
|
|
corresponding to the internal sense (a receptivity). Thus, the schemata
|
|
of the pure conceptions of the understanding are the true and only
|
|
conditions whereby our understanding receives an application to objects,
|
|
and consequently significance. Finally, therefore, the categories are
|
|
only capable of empirical use, inasmuch as they serve merely to subject
|
|
phenomena to the universal rules of synthesis, by means of an a priori
|
|
necessary unity (on account of the necessary union of all consciousness
|
|
in one original apperception); and so to render them susceptible of a
|
|
complete connection in one experience. But within this whole of possible
|
|
experience lie all our cognitions, and in the universal relation to this
|
|
experience consists transcendental truth, which antecedes all empirical
|
|
truth, and renders the latter possible.
|
|
|
|
It is, however, evident at first sight, that although the schemata of
|
|
sensibility are the sole agents in realizing the categories, they do,
|
|
nevertheless, also restrict them, that is, they limit the categories
|
|
by conditions which lie beyond the sphere of understanding--namely, in
|
|
sensibility. Hence the schema is properly only the phenomenon, or the
|
|
sensuous conception of an object in harmony with the category. (Numerus
|
|
est quantitas phaenomenon--sensatio realitas phaenomenon; constans
|
|
et perdurabile rerum substantia phaenomenon--aeternitas, necessitas,
|
|
phaenomena, etc.) Now, if we remove a restrictive condition, we thereby
|
|
amplify, it appears, the formerly limited conception. In this way, the
|
|
categories in their pure signification, free from all conditions of
|
|
sensibility, ought to be valid of things as they are, and not, as the
|
|
schemata represent them, merely as they appear; and consequently the
|
|
categories must have a significance far more extended, and wholly
|
|
independent of all schemata. In truth, there does always remain to the
|
|
pure conceptions of the understanding, after abstracting every sensuous
|
|
condition, a value and significance, which is, however, merely logical.
|
|
But in this case, no object is given them, and therefore they have no
|
|
meaning sufficient to afford us a conception of an object. The notion
|
|
of substance, for example, if we leave out the sensuous determination
|
|
of permanence, would mean nothing more than a something which can be
|
|
cogitated as subject, without the possibility of becoming a predicate to
|
|
anything else. Of this representation I can make nothing, inasmuch as
|
|
it does not indicate to me what determinations the thing possesses which
|
|
must thus be valid as premier subject. Consequently, the categories,
|
|
without schemata are merely functions of the understanding for the
|
|
production of conceptions, but do not represent any object. This
|
|
significance they derive from sensibility, which at the same time
|
|
realizes the understanding and restricts it.
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
CHAPTER II. System of all Principles of the Pure Understanding.
|
|
|
|
In the foregoing chapter we have merely considered the general
|
|
conditions under which alone the transcendental faculty of judgement
|
|
is justified in using the pure conceptions of the understanding for
|
|
synthetical judgements. Our duty at present is to exhibit in systematic
|
|
connection those judgements which the understanding really produces a
|
|
priori. For this purpose, our table of the categories will certainly
|
|
afford us the natural and safe guidance. For it is precisely the
|
|
categories whose application to possible experience must constitute all
|
|
pure a priori cognition of the understanding; and the relation of which
|
|
to sensibility will, on that very account, present us with a complete
|
|
and systematic catalogue of all the transcendental principles of the use
|
|
of the understanding.
|
|
|
|
Principles a priori are so called, not merely because they contain
|
|
in themselves the grounds of other judgements, but also because they
|
|
themselves are not grounded in higher and more general cognitions. This
|
|
peculiarity, however, does not raise them altogether above the need of
|
|
a proof. For although there could be found no higher cognition, and
|
|
therefore no objective proof, and although such a principle rather
|
|
serves as the foundation for all cognition of the object, this by no
|
|
means hinders us from drawing a proof from the subjective sources of the
|
|
possibility of the cognition of an object. Such a proof is necessary,
|
|
moreover, because without it the principle might be liable to the
|
|
imputation of being a mere gratuitous assertion.
|
|
|
|
In the second place, we shall limit our investigations to those
|
|
principles which relate to the categories. For as to the principles
|
|
of transcendental aesthetic, according to which space and time are
|
|
the conditions of the possibility of things as phenomena, as also the
|
|
restriction of these principles, namely, that they cannot be applied to
|
|
objects as things in themselves--these, of course, do not fall within
|
|
the scope of our present inquiry. In like manner, the principles of
|
|
mathematical science form no part of this system, because they are
|
|
all drawn from intuition, and not from the pure conception of the
|
|
understanding. The possibility of these principles, however, will
|
|
necessarily be considered here, inasmuch as they are synthetical
|
|
judgements a priori, not indeed for the purpose of proving their
|
|
accuracy and apodeictic certainty, which is unnecessary, but merely to
|
|
render conceivable and deduce the possibility of such evident a priori
|
|
cognitions.
|
|
|
|
But we shall have also to speak of the principle of analytical
|
|
judgements, in opposition to synthetical judgements, which is the proper
|
|
subject of our inquiries, because this very opposition will free the
|
|
theory of the latter from all ambiguity, and place it clearly before our
|
|
eyes in its true nature.
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
SYSTEM OF THE PRINCIPLES OF THE PURE UNDERSTANDING.
|
|
|
|
SECTION I. Of the Supreme Principle of all Analytical Judgements.
|
|
|
|
Whatever may be the content of our cognition, and in whatever manner
|
|
our cognition may be related to its object, the universal, although only
|
|
negative conditions of all our judgements is that they do not contradict
|
|
themselves; otherwise these judgements are in themselves (even without
|
|
respect to the object) nothing. But although there may exist no
|
|
contradiction in our judgement, it may nevertheless connect conceptions
|
|
in such a manner that they do not correspond to the object, or without
|
|
any grounds either a priori or a posteriori for arriving at such a
|
|
judgement, and thus, without being self-contradictory, a judgement may
|
|
nevertheless be either false or groundless.
|
|
|
|
Now, the proposition: "No subject can have a predicate that contradicts
|
|
it," is called the principle of contradiction, and is a universal but
|
|
purely negative criterion of all truth. But it belongs to logic alone,
|
|
because it is valid of cognitions, merely as cognitions and without
|
|
respect to their content, and declares that the contradiction entirely
|
|
nullifies them. We can also, however, make a positive use of this
|
|
principle, that is, not merely to banish falsehood and error (in so far
|
|
as it rests upon contradiction), but also for the cognition of truth.
|
|
For if the judgement is analytical, be it affirmative or negative,
|
|
its truth must always be recognizable by means of the principle of
|
|
contradiction. For the contrary of that which lies and is cogitated
|
|
as conception in the cognition of the object will be always properly
|
|
negatived, but the conception itself must always be affirmed of the
|
|
object, inasmuch as the contrary thereof would be in contradiction to
|
|
the object.
|
|
|
|
We must therefore hold the principle of contradiction to be the
|
|
universal and fully sufficient Principle of all analytical cognition.
|
|
But as a sufficient criterion of truth, it has no further utility or
|
|
authority. For the fact that no cognition can be at variance with this
|
|
principle without nullifying itself, constitutes this principle the sine
|
|
qua non, but not the determining ground of the truth of our cognition.
|
|
As our business at present is properly with the synthetical part of our
|
|
knowledge only, we shall always be on our guard not to transgress this
|
|
inviolable principle; but at the same time not to expect from it any
|
|
direct assistance in the establishment of the truth of any synthetical
|
|
proposition.
|
|
|
|
There exists, however, a formula of this celebrated principle--a
|
|
principle merely formal and entirely without content--which contains a
|
|
synthesis that has been inadvertently and quite unnecessarily mixed up
|
|
with it. It is this: "It is impossible for a thing to be and not to be
|
|
at the same time." Not to mention the superfluousness of the addition of
|
|
the word impossible to indicate the apodeictic certainty, which ought to
|
|
be self-evident from the proposition itself, the proposition is affected
|
|
by the condition of time, and as it were says: "A thing = A, which is
|
|
something = B, cannot at the same time be non-B." But both, B as well
|
|
as non-B, may quite well exist in succession. For example, a man who is
|
|
young cannot at the same time be old; but the same man can very well
|
|
be at one time young, and at another not young, that is, old. Now the
|
|
principle of contradiction as a merely logical proposition must not
|
|
by any means limit its application merely to relations of time, and
|
|
consequently a formula like the preceding is quite foreign to its
|
|
true purpose. The misunderstanding arises in this way. We first of all
|
|
separate a predicate of a thing from the conception of the thing, and
|
|
afterwards connect with this predicate its opposite, and hence do
|
|
not establish any contradiction with the subject, but only with its
|
|
predicate, which has been conjoined with the subject synthetically--a
|
|
contradiction, moreover, which obtains only when the first and second
|
|
predicate are affirmed in the same time. If I say: "A man who is
|
|
ignorant is not learned," the condition "at the same time" must be
|
|
added, for he who is at one time ignorant, may at another be learned.
|
|
But if I say: "No ignorant man is a learned man," the proposition is
|
|
analytical, because the characteristic ignorance is now a constituent
|
|
part of the conception of the subject; and in this case the
|
|
negative proposition is evident immediately from the proposition of
|
|
contradiction, without the necessity of adding the condition "the
|
|
same time." This is the reason why I have altered the formula of this
|
|
principle--an alteration which shows very clearly the nature of an
|
|
analytical proposition.
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
SECTION II. Of the Supreme Principle of all Synthetical Judgements.
|
|
|
|
The explanation of the possibility of synthetical judgements is a task
|
|
with which general logic has nothing to do; indeed she needs not even
|
|
be acquainted with its name. But in transcendental logic it is the most
|
|
important matter to be dealt with--indeed the only one, if the question
|
|
is of the possibility of synthetical judgements a priori, the conditions
|
|
and extent of their validity. For when this question is fully decided,
|
|
it can reach its aim with perfect ease, the determination, to wit, of
|
|
the extent and limits of the pure understanding.
|
|
|
|
In an analytical judgement I do not go beyond the given conception,
|
|
in order to arrive at some decision respecting it. If the judgement is
|
|
affirmative, I predicate of the conception only that which was already
|
|
cogitated in it; if negative, I merely exclude from the conception its
|
|
contrary. But in synthetical judgements, I must go beyond the given
|
|
conception, in order to cogitate, in relation with it, something quite
|
|
different from that which was cogitated in it, a relation which is
|
|
consequently never one either of identity or contradiction, and by means
|
|
of which the truth or error of the judgement cannot be discerned merely
|
|
from the judgement itself.
|
|
|
|
Granted, then, that we must go out beyond a given conception, in order
|
|
to compare it synthetically with another, a third thing is necessary, in
|
|
which alone the synthesis of two conceptions can originate. Now what
|
|
is this tertium quid that is to be the medium of all synthetical
|
|
judgements? It is only a complex in which all our representations are
|
|
contained, the internal sense to wit, and its form a priori, time.
|
|
|
|
The synthesis of our representations rests upon the imagination; their
|
|
synthetical unity (which is requisite to a judgement), upon the unity
|
|
of apperception. In this, therefore, is to be sought the possibility of
|
|
synthetical judgements, and as all three contain the sources of a priori
|
|
representations, the possibility of pure synthetical judgements also;
|
|
nay, they are necessary upon these grounds, if we are to possess
|
|
a knowledge of objects, which rests solely upon the synthesis of
|
|
representations.
|
|
|
|
If a cognition is to have objective reality, that is, to relate to an
|
|
object, and possess sense and meaning in respect to it, it is necessary
|
|
that the object be given in some way or another. Without this, our
|
|
conceptions are empty, and we may indeed have thought by means of them,
|
|
but by such thinking we have not, in fact, cognized anything, we have
|
|
merely played with representation. To give an object, if this expression
|
|
be understood in the sense of "to present" the object, not mediately
|
|
but immediately in intuition, means nothing else than to apply the
|
|
representation of it to experience, be that experience real or only
|
|
possible. Space and time themselves, pure as these conceptions are from
|
|
all that is empirical, and certain as it is that they are represented
|
|
fully a priori in the mind, would be completely without objective
|
|
validity, and without sense and significance, if their necessary use
|
|
in the objects of experience were not shown. Nay, the representation
|
|
of them is a mere schema, that always relates to the reproductive
|
|
imagination, which calls up the objects of experience, without which
|
|
they have no meaning. And so it is with all conceptions without
|
|
distinction.
|
|
|
|
The possibility of experience is, then, that which gives objective
|
|
reality to all our a priori cognitions. Now experience depends upon the
|
|
synthetical unity of phenomena, that is, upon a synthesis according to
|
|
conceptions of the object of phenomena in general, a synthesis without
|
|
which experience never could become knowledge, but would be merely a
|
|
rhapsody of perceptions, never fitting together into any connected text,
|
|
according to rules of a thoroughly united (possible) consciousness, and
|
|
therefore never subjected to the transcendental and necessary unity
|
|
of apperception. Experience has therefore for a foundation, a priori
|
|
principles of its form, that is to say, general rules of unity in
|
|
the synthesis of phenomena, the objective reality of which rules, as
|
|
necessary conditions even of the possibility of experience can
|
|
which rules, as necessary conditions--even of the possibility of
|
|
experience--can always be shown in experience. But apart from this
|
|
relation, a priori synthetical propositions are absolutely impossible,
|
|
because they have no third term, that is, no pure object, in which the
|
|
synthetical unity can exhibit the objective reality of its conceptions.
|
|
|
|
Although, then, respecting space, or the forms which productive
|
|
imagination describes therein, we do cognize much a priori in
|
|
synthetical judgements, and are really in no need of experience for this
|
|
purpose, such knowledge would nevertheless amount to nothing but a busy
|
|
trifling with a mere chimera, were not space to be considered as the
|
|
condition of the phenomena which constitute the material of external
|
|
experience. Hence those pure synthetical judgements do relate, though
|
|
but mediately, to possible experience, or rather to the possibility of
|
|
experience, and upon that alone is founded the objective validity of
|
|
their synthesis.
|
|
|
|
While then, on the one hand, experience, as empirical synthesis, is
|
|
the only possible mode of cognition which gives reality to all other
|
|
synthesis; on the other hand, this latter synthesis, as cognition a
|
|
priori, possesses truth, that is, accordance with its object, only in
|
|
so far as it contains nothing more than what is necessary to the
|
|
synthetical unity of experience.
|
|
|
|
Accordingly, the supreme principle of all synthetical judgements is:
|
|
"Every object is subject to the necessary conditions of the synthetical
|
|
unity of the manifold of intuition in a possible experience."
|
|
|
|
A priori synthetical judgements are possible when we apply the formal
|
|
conditions of the a priori intuition, the synthesis of the imagination,
|
|
and the necessary unity of that synthesis in a transcendental
|
|
apperception, to a possible cognition of experience, and say: "The
|
|
conditions of the possibility of experience in general are at the same
|
|
time conditions of the possibility of the objects of experience, and
|
|
have, for that reason, objective validity in an a priori synthetical
|
|
judgement."
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
SECTION III. Systematic Representation of all Synthetical Principles of
|
|
the Pure Understanding.
|
|
|
|
That principles exist at all is to be ascribed solely to the pure
|
|
understanding, which is not only the faculty of rules in regard to that
|
|
which happens, but is even the source of principles according to which
|
|
everything that can be presented to us as an object is necessarily
|
|
subject to rules, because without such rules we never could attain
|
|
to cognition of an object. Even the laws of nature, if they are
|
|
contemplated as principles of the empirical use of the understanding,
|
|
possess also a characteristic of necessity, and we may therefore at
|
|
least expect them to be determined upon grounds which are valid a
|
|
priori and antecedent to all experience. But all laws of nature, without
|
|
distinction, are subject to higher principles of the understanding,
|
|
inasmuch as the former are merely applications of the latter to
|
|
particular cases of experience. These higher principles alone therefore
|
|
give the conception, which contains the necessary condition, and, as it
|
|
were, the exponent of a rule; experience, on the other hand, gives the
|
|
case which comes under the rule.
|
|
|
|
There is no danger of our mistaking merely empirical principles for
|
|
principles of the pure understanding, or conversely; for the character
|
|
of necessity, according to conceptions which distinguish the latter,
|
|
and the absence of this in every empirical proposition, how extensively
|
|
valid soever it may be, is a perfect safeguard against confounding
|
|
them. There are, however, pure principles a priori, which nevertheless I
|
|
should not ascribe to the pure understanding--for this reason, that they
|
|
are not derived from pure conceptions, but (although by the mediation
|
|
of the understanding) from pure intuitions. But understanding is the
|
|
faculty of conceptions. Such principles mathematical science possesses,
|
|
but their application to experience, consequently their objective
|
|
validity, nay the possibility of such a priori synthetical cognitions
|
|
(the deduction thereof) rests entirely upon the pure understanding.
|
|
|
|
On this account, I shall not reckon among my principles those of
|
|
mathematics; though I shall include those upon the possibility and
|
|
objective validity a priori, of principles of the mathematical science,
|
|
which, consequently, are to be looked upon as the principle of these,
|
|
and which proceed from conceptions to intuition, and not from intuition
|
|
to conceptions.
|
|
|
|
In the application of the pure conceptions of the understanding to
|
|
possible experience, the employment of their synthesis is either
|
|
mathematical or dynamical, for it is directed partly on the intuition
|
|
alone, partly on the existence of a phenomenon. But the a priori
|
|
conditions of intuition are in relation to a possible experience
|
|
absolutely necessary, those of the existence of objects of a possible
|
|
empirical intuition are in themselves contingent. Hence the principles
|
|
of the mathematical use of the categories will possess a character of
|
|
absolute necessity, that is, will be apodeictic; those, on the other
|
|
hand, of the dynamical use, the character of an a priori necessity
|
|
indeed, but only under the condition of empirical thought in an
|
|
experience, therefore only mediately and indirectly. Consequently
|
|
they will not possess that immediate evidence which is peculiar to the
|
|
former, although their application to experience does not, for that
|
|
reason, lose its truth and certitude. But of this point we shall be
|
|
better able to judge at the conclusion of this system of principles.
|
|
|
|
The table of the categories is naturally our guide to the table of
|
|
principles, because these are nothing else than rules for the objective
|
|
employment of the former. Accordingly, all principles of the pure
|
|
understanding are:
|
|
|
|
1
|
|
Axioms
|
|
of Intuition
|
|
|
|
2 3
|
|
Anticipations Analogies
|
|
of Perception of Experience
|
|
4
|
|
Postulates of
|
|
Empirical Thought
|
|
in general
|
|
|
|
|
|
These appellations I have chosen advisedly, in order that we might
|
|
not lose sight of the distinctions in respect of the evidence and the
|
|
employment of these principles. It will, however, soon appear that--a
|
|
fact which concerns both the evidence of these principles, and the
|
|
a priori determination of phenomena--according to the categories of
|
|
quantity and quality (if we attend merely to the form of these), the
|
|
principles of these categories are distinguishable from those of the two
|
|
others, in as much as the former are possessed of an intuitive, but
|
|
the latter of a merely discursive, though in both instances a complete,
|
|
certitude. I shall therefore call the former mathematical, and the
|
|
latter dynamical principles.* It must be observed, however, that by
|
|
these terms I mean just as little in the one case the principles of
|
|
mathematics as those of general (physical) dynamics in the other. I have
|
|
here in view merely the principles of the pure understanding, in
|
|
their application to the internal sense (without distinction of the
|
|
representations given therein), by means of which the sciences of
|
|
mathematics and dynamics become possible. Accordingly, I have named
|
|
these principles rather with reference to their application than their
|
|
content; and I shall now proceed to consider them in the order in which
|
|
they stand in the table.
|
|
|
|
|
|
[*Footnote: All combination (conjunctio) is either
|
|
composition (compositio) or connection (nexus). The former
|
|
is the synthesis of a manifold, the parts of which do not
|
|
necessarily belong to each other. For example, the two
|
|
triangles into which a square is divided by a diagonal, do
|
|
not necessarily belong to each other, and of this kind is
|
|
the synthesis of the homogeneous in everything that can be
|
|
mathematically considered. This synthesis can be divided
|
|
into those of aggregation and coalition, the former of which
|
|
is applied to extensive, the latter to intensive quantities.
|
|
The second sort of combination (nexus) is the synthesis of a
|
|
manifold, in so far as its parts do belong necessarily to
|
|
each other; for example, the accident to a substance, or the
|
|
effect to the cause. Consequently it is a synthesis of that
|
|
which though heterogeneous, is represented as connected a
|
|
priori. This combination--not an arbitrary one--I entitle
|
|
dynamical because it concerns the connection of the
|
|
existence of the manifold. This, again, may be divided into
|
|
the physical synthesis, of the phenomena divided among each
|
|
other, and the metaphysical synthesis, or the connection of
|
|
phenomena a priori in the faculty of cognition.]
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
1. AXIOMS OF INTUITION.
|
|
|
|
|
|
The principle of these is: All Intuitions are Extensive Quantities.
|
|
|
|
|
|
PROOF.
|
|
|
|
|
|
All phenomena contain, as regards their form, an intuition in space and
|
|
time, which lies a priori at the foundation of all without exception.
|
|
Phenomena, therefore, cannot be apprehended, that is, received into
|
|
empirical consciousness otherwise than through the synthesis of a
|
|
manifold, through which the representations of a determinate space
|
|
or time are generated; that is to say, through the composition of the
|
|
homogeneous and the consciousness of the synthetical unity of this
|
|
manifold (homogeneous). Now the consciousness of a homogeneous manifold
|
|
in intuition, in so far as thereby the representation of an object
|
|
is rendered possible, is the conception of a quantity (quanti).
|
|
Consequently, even the perception of an object as phenomenon is possible
|
|
only through the same synthetical unity of the manifold of the given
|
|
sensuous intuition, through which the unity of the composition of the
|
|
homogeneous manifold in the conception of a quantity is cogitated;
|
|
that is to say, all phenomena are quantities, and extensive quantities,
|
|
because as intuitions in space or time they must be represented by
|
|
means of the same synthesis through which space and time themselves are
|
|
determined.
|
|
|
|
An extensive quantity I call that wherein the representation of the
|
|
parts renders possible (and therefore necessarily antecedes) the
|
|
representation of the whole. I cannot represent to myself any line,
|
|
however small, without drawing it in thought, that is, without
|
|
generating from a point all its parts one after another, and in this
|
|
way alone producing this intuition. Precisely the same is the case with
|
|
every, even the smallest, portion of time. I cogitate therein only the
|
|
successive progress from one moment to another, and hence, by means of
|
|
the different portions of time and the addition of them, a determinate
|
|
quantity of time is produced. As the pure intuition in all phenomena
|
|
is either time or space, so is every phenomenon in its character of
|
|
intuition an extensive quantity, inasmuch as it can only be cognized
|
|
in our apprehension by successive synthesis (from part to part). All
|
|
phenomena are, accordingly, to be considered as aggregates, that is, as
|
|
a collection of previously given parts; which is not the case with
|
|
every sort of quantities, but only with those which are represented and
|
|
apprehended by us as extensive.
|
|
|
|
On this successive synthesis of the productive imagination, in the
|
|
generation of figures, is founded the mathematics of extension, or
|
|
geometry, with its axioms, which express the conditions of sensuous
|
|
intuition a priori, under which alone the schema of a pure conception of
|
|
external intuition can exist; for example, "be tween two points only one
|
|
straight line is possible," "two straight lines cannot enclose a space,"
|
|
etc. These are the axioms which properly relate only to quantities
|
|
(quanta) as such.
|
|
|
|
But, as regards the quantity of a thing (quantitas), that is to say, the
|
|
answer to the question: "How large is this or that object?" although, in
|
|
respect to this question, we have various propositions synthetical and
|
|
immediately certain (indemonstrabilia); we have, in the proper sense of
|
|
the term, no axioms. For example, the propositions: "If equals be added
|
|
to equals, the wholes are equal"; "If equals be taken from equals,
|
|
the remainders are equal"; are analytical, because I am immediately
|
|
conscious of the identity of the production of the one quantity with
|
|
the production of the other; whereas axioms must be a priori synthetical
|
|
propositions. On the other hand, the self-evident propositions as to the
|
|
relation of numbers, are certainly synthetical but not universal, like
|
|
those of geometry, and for this reason cannot be called axioms, but
|
|
numerical formulae. That 7 + 5 = 12 is not an analytical proposition.
|
|
For neither in the representation of seven, nor of five, nor of the
|
|
composition of the two numbers, do I cogitate the number twelve.
|
|
(Whether I cogitate the number in the addition of both, is not at
|
|
present the question; for in the case of an analytical proposition,
|
|
the only point is whether I really cogitate the predicate in the
|
|
representation of the subject.) But although the proposition is
|
|
synthetical, it is nevertheless only a singular proposition. In so far
|
|
as regard is here had merely to the synthesis of the homogeneous (the
|
|
units), it cannot take place except in one manner, although our use
|
|
of these numbers is afterwards general. If I say: "A triangle can
|
|
be constructed with three lines, any two of which taken together are
|
|
greater than the third," I exercise merely the pure function of the
|
|
productive imagination, which may draw the lines longer or shorter and
|
|
construct the angles at its pleasure. On the contrary, the number seven
|
|
is possible only in one manner, and so is likewise the number twelve,
|
|
which results from the synthesis of seven and five. Such propositions,
|
|
then, cannot be termed axioms (for in that case we should have an
|
|
infinity of these), but numerical formulae.
|
|
|
|
This transcendental principle of the mathematics of phenomena greatly
|
|
enlarges our a priori cognition. For it is by this principle alone that
|
|
pure mathematics is rendered applicable in all its precision to objects
|
|
of experience, and without it the validity of this application would not
|
|
be so self-evident; on the contrary, contradictions and confusions have
|
|
often arisen on this very point. Phenomena are not things in themselves.
|
|
Empirical intuition is possible only through pure intuition (of space
|
|
and time); consequently, what geometry affirms of the latter, is
|
|
indisputably valid of the former. All evasions, such as the statement
|
|
that objects of sense do not conform to the rules of construction in
|
|
space (for example, to the rule of the infinite divisibility of lines or
|
|
angles), must fall to the ground. For, if these objections hold good, we
|
|
deny to space, and with it to all mathematics, objective validity, and
|
|
no longer know wherefore, and how far, mathematics can be applied to
|
|
phenomena. The synthesis of spaces and times as the essential form of
|
|
all intuition, is that which renders possible the apprehension of a
|
|
phenomenon, and therefore every external experience, consequently all
|
|
cognition of the objects of experience; and whatever mathematics in its
|
|
pure use proves of the former, must necessarily hold good of the latter.
|
|
All objections are but the chicaneries of an ill-instructed reason,
|
|
which erroneously thinks to liberate the objects of sense from the
|
|
formal conditions of our sensibility, and represents these, although
|
|
mere phenomena, as things in themselves, presented as such to our
|
|
understanding. But in this case, no a priori synthetical cognition of
|
|
them could be possible, consequently not through pure conceptions of
|
|
space and the science which determines these conceptions, that is to
|
|
say, geometry, would itself be impossible.
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
2. ANTICIPATIONS OF PERCEPTION.
|
|
|
|
The principle of these is: In all phenomena the Real, that which is an
|
|
object of sensation, has Intensive Quantity, that is, has a Degree.
|
|
|
|
|
|
PROOF.
|
|
|
|
|
|
Perception is empirical consciousness, that is to say, a consciousness
|
|
which contains an element of sensation. Phenomena as objects of
|
|
perception are not pure, that is, merely formal intuitions, like space
|
|
and time, for they cannot be perceived in themselves.
|
|
|
|
|
|
[Footnote: They can be perceived only as phenomena, and some
|
|
part of them must always belong to the non-ego; whereas pure
|
|
intuitions are entirely the products of the mind itself, and
|
|
as such are coguized IN THEMSELVES.--Tr]
|
|
|
|
|
|
They contain, then, over and above the intuition, the materials for an
|
|
object (through which is represented something existing in space or
|
|
time), that is to say, they contain the real of sensation, as a
|
|
representation merely subjective, which gives us merely the
|
|
consciousness that the subject is affected, and which we refer to some
|
|
external object. Now, a gradual transition from empirical consciousness
|
|
to pure consciousness is possible, inasmuch as the real in this
|
|
consciousness entirely vanishes, and there remains a merely formal
|
|
consciousness (a priori) of the manifold in time and space; consequently
|
|
there is possible a synthesis also of the production of the quantity of
|
|
a sensation from its commencement, that is, from the pure intuition = 0
|
|
onwards up to a certain quantity of the sensation. Now as sensation in
|
|
itself is not an objective representation, and in it is to be found
|
|
neither the intuition of space nor of time, it cannot possess any
|
|
extensive quantity, and yet there does belong to it a quantity (and that
|
|
by means of its apprehension, in which empirical consciousness can
|
|
within a certain time rise from nothing = 0 up to its given amount),
|
|
consequently an intensive quantity. And thus we must ascribe intensive
|
|
quantity, that is, a degree of influence on sense to all objects of
|
|
perception, in so far as this perception contains sensation.
|
|
|
|
All cognition, by means of which I am enabled to cognize and determine
|
|
a priori what belongs to empirical cognition, may be called an
|
|
anticipation; and without doubt this is the sense in which Epicurus
|
|
employed his expression prholepsis. But as there is in phenomena
|
|
something which is never cognized a priori, which on this account
|
|
constitutes the proper difference between pure and empirical cognition,
|
|
that is to say, sensation (as the matter of perception), it follows,
|
|
that sensation is just that element in cognition which cannot be at
|
|
all anticipated. On the other hand, we might very well term the pure
|
|
determinations in space and time, as well in regard to figure as to
|
|
quantity, anticipations of phenomena, because they represent a priori
|
|
that which may always be given a posteriori in experience. But suppose
|
|
that in every sensation, as sensation in general, without any particular
|
|
sensation being thought of, there existed something which could be
|
|
cognized a priori, this would deserve to be called anticipation in a
|
|
special sense--special, because it may seem surprising to forestall
|
|
experience, in that which concerns the matter of experience, and which
|
|
we can only derive from itself. Yet such really is the case here.
|
|
|
|
Apprehension*, by means of sensation alone, fills only one moment, that
|
|
is, if I do not take into consideration a succession of many sensations.
|
|
As that in the phenomenon, the apprehension of which is not a successive
|
|
synthesis advancing from parts to an entire representation, sensation
|
|
has therefore no extensive quantity; the want of sensation in a moment
|
|
of time would represent it as empty, consequently = 0. That which in
|
|
the empirical intuition corresponds to sensation is reality (realitas
|
|
phaenomenon); that which corresponds to the absence of it, negation = 0.
|
|
Now every sensation is capable of a diminution, so that it can decrease,
|
|
and thus gradually disappear. Therefore, between reality in a phenomenon
|
|
and negation, there exists a continuous concatenation of many possible
|
|
intermediate sensations, the difference of which from each other is
|
|
always smaller than that between the given sensation and zero, or
|
|
complete negation. That is to say, the real in a phenomenon has always a
|
|
quantity, which however is not discoverable in apprehension, inasmuch as
|
|
apprehension take place by means of mere sensation in one instant, and
|
|
not by the successive synthesis of many sensations, and therefore does
|
|
not progress from parts to the whole. Consequently, it has a quantity,
|
|
but not an extensive quantity.
|
|
|
|
|
|
[*Footnote: Apprehension is the Kantian word for preception, in the
|
|
largest sense in which we employ that term. It is the genus which
|
|
includes under i, as species, perception proper and sensation
|
|
proper--Tr]
|
|
|
|
|
|
Now that quantity which is apprehended only as unity, and in which
|
|
plurality can be represented only by approximation to negation = O,
|
|
I term intensive quantity. Consequently, reality in a phenomenon has
|
|
intensive quantity, that is, a degree. If we consider this reality as
|
|
cause (be it of sensation or of another reality in the phenomenon, for
|
|
example, a change), we call the degree of reality in its character of
|
|
cause a momentum, for example, the momentum of weight; and for this
|
|
reason, that the degree only indicates that quantity the apprehension of
|
|
which is not successive, but instantaneous. This, however, I touch upon
|
|
only in passing, for with causality I have at present nothing to do.
|
|
|
|
Accordingly, every sensation, consequently every reality in phenomena,
|
|
however small it may be, has a degree, that is, an intensive quantity,
|
|
which may always be lessened, and between reality and negation there
|
|
exists a continuous connection of possible realities, and possible
|
|
smaller perceptions. Every colour--for example, red--has a degree,
|
|
which, be it ever so small, is never the smallest, and so is it always
|
|
with heat, the momentum of weight, etc.
|
|
|
|
This property of quantities, according to which no part of them is the
|
|
smallest possible (no part simple), is called their continuity. Space
|
|
and time are quanta continua, because no part of them can be
|
|
given, without enclosing it within boundaries (points and moments),
|
|
consequently, this given part is itself a space or a time. Space,
|
|
therefore, consists only of spaces, and time of times. Points and
|
|
moments are only boundaries, that is, the mere places or positions of
|
|
their limitation. But places always presuppose intuitions which are to
|
|
limit or determine them; and we cannot conceive either space or time
|
|
composed of constituent parts which are given before space or time.
|
|
Such quantities may also be called flowing, because synthesis (of the
|
|
productive imagination) in the production of these quantities is a
|
|
progression in time, the continuity of which we are accustomed to
|
|
indicate by the expression flowing.
|
|
|
|
All phenomena, then, are continuous quantities, in respect both to
|
|
intuition and mere perception (sensation, and with it reality). In the
|
|
former case they are extensive quantities; in the latter, intensive.
|
|
When the synthesis of the manifold of a phenomenon is interrupted, there
|
|
results merely an aggregate of several phenomena, and not properly a
|
|
phenomenon as a quantity, which is not produced by the mere continuation
|
|
of the productive synthesis of a certain kind, but by the repetition of
|
|
a synthesis always ceasing. For example, if I call thirteen dollars a
|
|
sum or quantity of money, I employ the term quite correctly, inasmuch as
|
|
I understand by thirteen dollars the value of a mark in standard silver,
|
|
which is, to be sure, a continuous quantity, in which no part is the
|
|
smallest, but every part might constitute a piece of money, which would
|
|
contain material for still smaller pieces. If, however, by the words
|
|
thirteen dollars I understand so many coins (be their value in silver
|
|
what it may), it would be quite erroneous to use the expression a
|
|
quantity of dollars; on the contrary, I must call them aggregate, that
|
|
is, a number of coins. And as in every number we must have unity as the
|
|
foundation, so a phenomenon taken as unity is a quantity, and as such
|
|
always a continuous quantity (quantum continuum).
|
|
|
|
Now, seeing all phenomena, whether considered as extensive or intensive,
|
|
are continuous quantities, the proposition: "All change (transition of a
|
|
thing from one state into another) is continuous," might be proved here
|
|
easily, and with mathematical evidence, were it not that the causality
|
|
of a change lies, entirely beyond the bounds of a transcendental
|
|
philosophy, and presupposes empirical principles. For of the possibility
|
|
of a cause which changes the condition of things, that is, which
|
|
determines them to the contrary to a certain given state, the
|
|
understanding gives us a priori no knowledge; not merely because it has
|
|
no insight into the possibility of it (for such insight is absent in
|
|
several a priori cognitions), but because the notion of change concerns
|
|
only certain determinations of phenomena, which experience alone can
|
|
acquaint us with, while their cause lies in the unchangeable. But seeing
|
|
that we have nothing which we could here employ but the pure fundamental
|
|
conceptions of all possible experience, among which of course nothing
|
|
empirical can be admitted, we dare not, without injuring the unity of
|
|
our system, anticipate general physical science, which is built upon
|
|
certain fundamental experiences.
|
|
|
|
Nevertheless, we are in no want of proofs of the great influence
|
|
which the principle above developed exercises in the anticipation of
|
|
perceptions, and even in supplying the want of them, so far as to shield
|
|
us against the false conclusions which otherwise we might rashly draw.
|
|
|
|
If all reality in perception has a degree, between which and negation
|
|
there is an endless sequence of ever smaller degrees, and if,
|
|
nevertheless, every sense must have a determinate degree of receptivity
|
|
for sensations; no perception, and consequently no experience is
|
|
possible, which can prove, either immediately or mediately, an entire
|
|
absence of all reality in a phenomenon; in other words, it is impossible
|
|
ever to draw from experience a proof of the existence of empty space or
|
|
of empty time. For in the first place, an entire absence of reality in
|
|
a sensuous intuition cannot of course be an object of perception;
|
|
secondly, such absence cannot be deduced from the contemplation of any
|
|
single phenomenon, and the difference of the degrees in its reality; nor
|
|
ought it ever to be admitted in explanation of any phenomenon. For if
|
|
even the complete intuition of a determinate space or time is thoroughly
|
|
real, that is, if no part thereof is empty, yet because every reality
|
|
has its degree, which, with the extensive quantity of the phenomenon
|
|
unchanged, can diminish through endless gradations down to nothing (the
|
|
void), there must be infinitely graduated degrees, with which space or
|
|
time is filled, and the intensive quantity in different phenomena may
|
|
be smaller or greater, although the extensive quantity of the intuition
|
|
remains equal and unaltered.
|
|
|
|
We shall give an example of this. Almost all natural philosophers,
|
|
remarking a great difference in the quantity of the matter of different
|
|
kinds in bodies with the same volume (partly on account of the momentum
|
|
of gravity or weight, partly on account of the momentum of resistance
|
|
to other bodies in motion), conclude unanimously that this volume
|
|
(extensive quantity of the phenomenon) must be void in all bodies,
|
|
although in different proportion. But who would suspect that these for
|
|
the most part mathematical and mechanical inquirers into nature should
|
|
ground this conclusion solely on a metaphysical hypothesis--a sort of
|
|
hypothesis which they profess to disparage and avoid? Yet this they
|
|
do, in assuming that the real in space (I must not here call it
|
|
impenetrability or weight, because these are empirical conceptions)
|
|
is always identical, and can only be distinguished according to its
|
|
extensive quantity, that is, multiplicity. Now to this presupposition,
|
|
for which they can have no ground in experience, and which consequently
|
|
is merely metaphysical, I oppose a transcendental demonstration, which
|
|
it is true will not explain the difference in the filling up of spaces,
|
|
but which nevertheless completely does away with the supposed necessity
|
|
of the above-mentioned presupposition that we cannot explain the said
|
|
difference otherwise than by the hypothesis of empty spaces. This
|
|
demonstration, moreover, has the merit of setting the understanding
|
|
at liberty to conceive this distinction in a different manner, if the
|
|
explanation of the fact requires any such hypothesis. For we perceive
|
|
that although two equal spaces may be completely filled by matters
|
|
altogether different, so that in neither of them is there left a single
|
|
point wherein matter is not present, nevertheless, every reality has its
|
|
degree (of resistance or of weight), which, without diminution of the
|
|
extensive quantity, can become less and less ad infinitum, before it
|
|
passes into nothingness and disappears. Thus an expansion which fills
|
|
a space--for example, caloric, or any other reality in the phenomenal
|
|
world--can decrease in its degrees to infinity, yet without leaving the
|
|
smallest part of the space empty; on the contrary, filling it with those
|
|
lesser degrees as completely as another phenomenon could with greater.
|
|
My intention here is by no means to maintain that this is really
|
|
the case with the difference of matters, in regard to their
|
|
specific gravity; I wish only to prove, from a principle of the pure
|
|
understanding, that the nature of our perceptions makes such a mode of
|
|
explanation possible, and that it is erroneous to regard the real in
|
|
a phenomenon as equal quoad its degree, and different only quoad its
|
|
aggregation and extensive quantity, and this, too, on the pretended
|
|
authority of an a priori principle of the understanding.
|
|
|
|
Nevertheless, this principle of the anticipation of perception must
|
|
somewhat startle an inquirer whom initiation into transcendental
|
|
philosophy has rendered cautious. We must naturally entertain some
|
|
doubt whether or not the understanding can enounce any such synthetical
|
|
proposition as that respecting the degree of all reality in phenomena,
|
|
and consequently the possibility of the internal difference of sensation
|
|
itself--abstraction being made of its empirical quality. Thus it is a
|
|
question not unworthy of solution: "How the understanding can pronounce
|
|
synthetically and a priori respecting phenomena, and thus anticipate
|
|
these, even in that which is peculiarly and merely empirical, that,
|
|
namely, which concerns sensation itself?"
|
|
|
|
The quality of sensation is in all cases merely empirical, and cannot
|
|
be represented a priori (for example, colours, taste, etc.). But the
|
|
real--that which corresponds to sensation--in opposition to negation =
|
|
0, only represents something the conception of which in itself contains
|
|
a being (ein seyn), and signifies nothing but the synthesis in an
|
|
empirical consciousness. That is to say, the empirical consciousness in
|
|
the internal sense can be raised from 0 to every higher degree, so that
|
|
the very same extensive quantity of intuition, an illuminated surface,
|
|
for example, excites as great a sensation as an aggregate of many other
|
|
surfaces less illuminated. We can therefore make complete abstraction
|
|
of the extensive quantity of a phenomenon, and represent to ourselves
|
|
in the mere sensation in a certain momentum, a synthesis of homogeneous
|
|
ascension from 0 up to the given empirical consciousness, All sensations
|
|
therefore as such are given only a posteriori, but this property
|
|
thereof, namely, that they have a degree, can be known a priori. It
|
|
is worthy of remark, that in respect to quantities in general, we can
|
|
cognize a priori only a single quality, namely, continuity; but in
|
|
respect to all quality (the real in phenomena), we cannot cognize a
|
|
priori anything more than the intensive quantity thereof, namely, that
|
|
they have a degree. All else is left to experience.
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
3. ANALOGIES OF EXPERIENCE.
|
|
|
|
The principle of these is: Experience is possible only through the
|
|
representation of a necessary connection of Perceptions.
|
|
|
|
|
|
PROOF.
|
|
|
|
|
|
Experience is an empirical cognition; that is to say, a cognition
|
|
which determines an object by means of perceptions. It is therefore a
|
|
synthesis of perceptions, a synthesis which is not itself contained in
|
|
perception, but which contains the synthetical unity of the manifold of
|
|
perception in a consciousness; and this unity constitutes the essential
|
|
of our cognition of objects of the senses, that is, of experience (not
|
|
merely of intuition or sensation). Now in experience our perceptions
|
|
come together contingently, so that no character of necessity in their
|
|
connection appears, or can appear from the perceptions themselves,
|
|
because apprehension is only a placing together of the manifold of
|
|
empirical intuition, and no representation of a necessity in the
|
|
connected existence of the phenomena which apprehension brings together,
|
|
is to be discovered therein. But as experience is a cognition of objects
|
|
by means of perceptions, it follows that the relation of the existence
|
|
of the existence of the manifold must be represented in experience not
|
|
as it is put together in time, but as it is objectively in time. And as
|
|
time itself cannot be perceived, the determination of the existence of
|
|
objects in time can only take place by means of their connection in
|
|
time in general, consequently only by means of a priori connecting
|
|
conceptions. Now as these conceptions always possess the character of
|
|
necessity, experience is possible only by means of a representation of
|
|
the necessary connection of perception.
|
|
|
|
The three modi of time are permanence, succession, and coexistence.
|
|
Accordingly, there are three rules of all relations of time in
|
|
phenomena, according to which the existence of every phenomenon is
|
|
determined in respect of the unity of all time, and these antecede all
|
|
experience and render it possible.
|
|
|
|
The general principle of all three analogies rests on the necessary
|
|
unity of apperception in relation to all possible empirical
|
|
consciousness (perception) at every time, consequently, as this unity
|
|
lies a priori at the foundation of all mental operations, the principle
|
|
rests on the synthetical unity of all phenomena according to their
|
|
relation in time. For the original apperception relates to our internal
|
|
sense (the complex of all representations), and indeed relates a priori
|
|
to its form, that is to say, the relation of the manifold empirical
|
|
consciousness in time. Now this manifold must be combined in original
|
|
apperception according to relations of time--a necessity imposed by the
|
|
a priori transcendental unity of apperception, to which is subjected all
|
|
that can belong to my (i.e., my own) cognition, and therefore all that
|
|
can become an object for me. This synthetical and a priori determined
|
|
unity in relation of perceptions in time is therefore the rule: "All
|
|
empirical determinations of time must be subject to rules of the general
|
|
determination of time"; and the analogies of experience, of which we are
|
|
now about to treat, must be rules of this nature.
|
|
|
|
These principles have this peculiarity, that they do not concern
|
|
phenomena, and the synthesis of the empirical intuition thereof, but
|
|
merely the existence of phenomena and their relation to each other in
|
|
regard to this existence. Now the mode in which we apprehend a thing in
|
|
a phenomenon can be determined a priori in such a manner that the rule
|
|
of its synthesis can give, that is to say, can produce this a priori
|
|
intuition in every empirical example. But the existence of phenomena
|
|
cannot be known a priori, and although we could arrive by this path at
|
|
a conclusion of the fact of some existence, we could not cognize that
|
|
existence determinately, that is to say, we should be incapable of
|
|
anticipating in what respect the empirical intuition of it would be
|
|
distinguishable from that of others.
|
|
|
|
The two principles above mentioned, which I called mathematical, in
|
|
consideration of the fact of their authorizing the application of
|
|
mathematic phenomena, relate to these phenomena only in regard to their
|
|
possibility, and instruct us how phenomena, as far as regards their
|
|
intuition or the real in their perception, can be generated according
|
|
to the rules of a mathematical synthesis. Consequently, numerical
|
|
quantities, and with them the determination of a phenomenon as a
|
|
quantity, can be employed in the one case as well as in the other. Thus,
|
|
for example, out of 200,000 illuminations by the moon, I might compose
|
|
and give a priori, that is construct, the degree of our sensations
|
|
of the sun-light.* We may therefore entitle these two principles
|
|
constitutive.
|
|
|
|
|
|
[*Footnote: Kant's meaning is: The two principles enunciated under
|
|
the heads of "Axioms of Intuition," and "Anticipations of Perception,"
|
|
authorize the application to phenomena of determinations of size and
|
|
number, that is of mathematic. For example, I may compute the light of
|
|
the sun, and say that its quantity is a certain number of times
|
|
greater than that of the moon. In the same way, heat is measured by the
|
|
comparison of its different effects on water, &c., and on mercury in a
|
|
thermometer.--Tr]
|
|
|
|
|
|
The case is very different with those principles whose province it is to
|
|
subject the existence of phenomena to rules a priori. For as existence
|
|
does not admit of being constructed, it is clear that they must only
|
|
concern the relations of existence and be merely regulative principles.
|
|
In this case, therefore, neither axioms nor anticipations are to be
|
|
thought of. Thus, if a perception is given us, in a certain relation of
|
|
time to other (although undetermined) perceptions, we cannot then say
|
|
a priori, what and how great (in quantity) the other perception
|
|
necessarily connected with the former is, but only how it is connected,
|
|
quoad its existence, in this given modus of time. Analogies in
|
|
philosophy mean something very different from that which they represent
|
|
in mathematics. In the latter they are formulae, which enounce the
|
|
equality of two relations of quantity, and are always constitutive, so
|
|
that if two terms of the proportion are given, the third is also
|
|
given, that is, can be constructed by the aid of these formulae. But in
|
|
philosophy, analogy is not the equality of two quantitative but of two
|
|
qualitative relations. In this case, from three given terms, I can
|
|
give a priori and cognize the relation to a fourth member, but not this
|
|
fourth term itself, although I certainly possess a rule to guide me in
|
|
the search for this fourth term in experience, and a mark to assist me
|
|
in discovering it. An analogy of experience is therefore only a rule
|
|
according to which unity of experience must arise out of perceptions in
|
|
respect to objects (phenomena) not as a constitutive, but merely as
|
|
a regulative principle. The same holds good also of the postulates of
|
|
empirical thought in general, which relate to the synthesis of mere
|
|
intuition (which concerns the form of phenomena), the synthesis of
|
|
perception (which concerns the matter of phenomena), and the synthesis
|
|
of experience (which concerns the relation of these perceptions). For
|
|
they are only regulative principles, and clearly distinguishable from
|
|
the mathematical, which are constitutive, not indeed in regard to the
|
|
certainty which both possess a priori, but in the mode of evidence
|
|
thereof, consequently also in the manner of demonstration.
|
|
|
|
But what has been observed of all synthetical propositions, and must
|
|
be particularly remarked in this place, is this, that these
|
|
analogies possess significance and validity, not as principles of the
|
|
transcendental, but only as principles of the empirical use of the
|
|
understanding, and their truth can therefore be proved only as such, and
|
|
that consequently the phenomena must not be subjoined directly under the
|
|
categories, but only under their schemata. For if the objects to which
|
|
those principles must be applied were things in themselves, it would
|
|
be quite impossible to cognize aught concerning them synthetically a
|
|
priori. But they are nothing but phenomena; a complete knowledge
|
|
of which--a knowledge to which all principles a priori must at
|
|
last relate--is the only possible experience. It follows that these
|
|
principles can have nothing else for their aim than the conditions of
|
|
the empirical cognition in the unity of synthesis of phenomena. But this
|
|
synthesis is cogitated only in the schema of the pure conception of the
|
|
understanding, of whose unity, as that of a synthesis in general, the
|
|
category contains the function unrestricted by any sensuous condition.
|
|
These principles will therefore authorize us to connect phenomena
|
|
according to an analogy, with the logical and universal unity of
|
|
conceptions, and consequently to employ the categories in the principles
|
|
themselves; but in the application of them to experience, we shall use
|
|
only their schemata, as the key to their proper application, instead of
|
|
the categories, or rather the latter as restricting conditions, under
|
|
the title of "formulae" of the former.
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
A. FIRST ANALOGY.
|
|
|
|
Principle of the Permanence of Substance.
|
|
|
|
In all changes of phenomena, substance is permanent, and the quantum
|
|
thereof in nature is neither increased nor diminished.
|
|
|
|
|
|
PROOF.
|
|
|
|
|
|
All phenomena exist in time, wherein alone as substratum, that is, as
|
|
the permanent form of the internal intuition, coexistence and succession
|
|
can be represented. Consequently time, in which all changes of phenomena
|
|
must be cogitated, remains and changes not, because it is that in which
|
|
succession and coexistence can be represented only as determinations
|
|
thereof. Now, time in itself cannot be an object of perception. It
|
|
follows that in objects of perception, that is, in phenomena, there must
|
|
be found a substratum which represents time in general, and in which
|
|
all change or coexistence can be perceived by means of the relation of
|
|
phenomena to it. But the substratum of all reality, that is, of all that
|
|
pertains to the existence of things, is substance; all that pertains
|
|
to existence can be cogitated only as a determination of substance.
|
|
Consequently, the permanent, in relation to which alone can all
|
|
relations of time in phenomena be determined, is substance in the
|
|
world of phenomena, that is, the real in phenomena, that which, as the
|
|
substratum of all change, remains ever the same. Accordingly, as this
|
|
cannot change in existence, its quantity in nature can neither be
|
|
increased nor diminished.
|
|
|
|
Our apprehension of the manifold in a phenomenon is always successive,
|
|
is Consequently always changing. By it alone we could, therefore,
|
|
never determine whether this manifold, as an object of experience, is
|
|
coexistent or successive, unless it had for a foundation something fixed
|
|
and permanent, of the existence of which all succession and coexistence
|
|
are nothing but so many modes (modi of time). Only in the permanent,
|
|
then, are relations of time possible (for simultaneity and succession
|
|
are the only relations in time); that is to say, the permanent is the
|
|
substratum of our empirical representation of time itself, in which
|
|
alone all determination of time is possible. Permanence is, in fact,
|
|
just another expression for time, as the abiding correlate of all
|
|
existence of phenomena, and of all change, and of all coexistence. For
|
|
change does not affect time itself, but only the phenomena in time (just
|
|
as coexistence cannot be regarded as a modus of time itself, seeing
|
|
that in time no parts are coexistent, but all successive). If we were
|
|
to attribute succession to time itself, we should be obliged to cogitate
|
|
another time, in which this succession would be possible. It is only
|
|
by means of the permanent that existence in different parts of the
|
|
successive series of time receives a quantity, which we entitle
|
|
duration. For in mere succession, existence is perpetually vanishing and
|
|
recommencing, and therefore never has even the least quantity. Without
|
|
the permanent, then, no relation in time is possible. Now, time in
|
|
itself is not an object of perception; consequently the permanent in
|
|
phenomena must be regarded as the substratum of all determination of
|
|
time, and consequently also as the condition of the possibility of
|
|
all synthetical unity of perceptions, that is, of experience; and all
|
|
existence and all change in time can only be regarded as a mode in
|
|
the existence of that which abides unchangeably. Therefore, in all
|
|
phenomena, the permanent is the object in itself, that is, the substance
|
|
(phenomenon); but all that changes or can change belongs only to the
|
|
mode of the existence of this substance or substances, consequently to
|
|
its determinations.
|
|
|
|
I find that in all ages not only the philosopher, but even the common
|
|
understanding, has preposited this permanence as a substratum of all
|
|
change in phenomena; indeed, I am compelled to believe that they
|
|
will always accept this as an indubitable fact. Only the philosopher
|
|
expresses himself in a more precise and definite manner, when he says:
|
|
"In all changes in the world, the substance remains, and the accidents
|
|
alone are changeable." But of this decidedly synthetical proposition, I
|
|
nowhere meet with even an attempt at proof; nay, it very rarely has the
|
|
good fortune to stand, as it deserves to do, at the head of the pure and
|
|
entirely a priori laws of nature. In truth, the statement that substance
|
|
is permanent, is tautological. For this very permanence is the ground
|
|
on which we apply the category of substance to the phenomenon; and
|
|
we should have been obliged to prove that in all phenomena there is
|
|
something permanent, of the existence of which the changeable is nothing
|
|
but a determination. But because a proof of this nature cannot be
|
|
dogmatical, that is, cannot be drawn from conceptions, inasmuch as it
|
|
concerns a synthetical proposition a priori, and as philosophers never
|
|
reflected that such propositions are valid only in relation to possible
|
|
experience, and therefore cannot be proved except by means of a
|
|
deduction of the possibility of experience, it is no wonder that while
|
|
it has served as the foundation of all experience (for we feel the need
|
|
of it in empirical cognition), it has never been supported by proof.
|
|
|
|
A philosopher was asked: "What is the weight of smoke?" He answered:
|
|
"Subtract from the weight of the burnt wood the weight of the remaining
|
|
ashes, and you will have the weight of the smoke." Thus he presumed it
|
|
to be incontrovertible that even in fire the matter (substance) does not
|
|
perish, but that only the form of it undergoes a change. In like manner
|
|
was the saying: "From nothing comes nothing," only another inference
|
|
from the principle or permanence, or rather of the ever-abiding
|
|
existence of the true subject in phenomena. For if that in the
|
|
phenomenon which we call substance is to be the proper substratum of all
|
|
determination of time, it follows that all existence in past as well as
|
|
in future time, must be determinable by means of it alone. Hence we are
|
|
entitled to apply the term substance to a phenomenon, only because we
|
|
suppose its existence in all time, a notion which the word permanence
|
|
does not fully express, as it seems rather to be referable to future
|
|
time. However, the internal necessity perpetually to be, is inseparably
|
|
connected with the necessity always to have been, and so the expression
|
|
may stand as it is. "Gigni de nihilo nihil; in nihilum nil posse
|
|
reverti,"* are two propositions which the ancients never parted, and
|
|
which people nowadays sometimes mistakenly disjoin, because they imagine
|
|
that the propositions apply to objects as things in themselves, and that
|
|
the former might be inimical to the dependence (even in respect of its
|
|
substance also) of the world upon a supreme cause. But this apprehension
|
|
is entirely needless, for the question in this case is only of phenomena
|
|
in the sphere of experience, the unity of which never could be possible,
|
|
if we admitted the possibility that new things (in respect of their
|
|
substance) should arise. For in that case, we should lose altogether
|
|
that which alone can represent the unity of time, to wit, the identity
|
|
of the substratum, as that through which alone all change possesses
|
|
complete and thorough unity. This permanence is, however, nothing but
|
|
the manner in which we represent to ourselves the existence of things in
|
|
the phenomenal world.
|
|
|
|
|
|
[*Footnote: Persius, Satirae, iii.83-84.]
|
|
|
|
|
|
The determinations of a substance, which are only particular modes of
|
|
its existence, are called accidents. They are always real, because they
|
|
concern the existence of substance (negations are only determinations,
|
|
which express the non-existence of something in the substance). Now,
|
|
if to this real in the substance we ascribe a particular existence (for
|
|
example, to motion as an accident of matter), this existence is called
|
|
inherence, in contradistinction to the existence of substance, which we
|
|
call subsistence. But hence arise many misconceptions, and it would be a
|
|
more accurate and just mode of expression to designate the accident
|
|
only as the mode in which the existence of a substance is positively
|
|
determined. Meanwhile, by reason of the conditions of the logical
|
|
exercise of our understanding, it is impossible to avoid separating,
|
|
as it were, that which in the existence of a substance is subject to
|
|
change, whilst the substance remains, and regarding it in relation to
|
|
that which is properly permanent and radical. On this account, this
|
|
category of substance stands under the title of relation, rather because
|
|
it is the condition thereof than because it contains in itself any
|
|
relation.
|
|
|
|
Now, upon this notion of permanence rests the proper notion of the
|
|
conception change. Origin and extinction are not changes of that which
|
|
originates or becomes extinct. Change is but a mode of existence, which
|
|
follows on another mode of existence of the same object; hence all that
|
|
changes is permanent, and only the condition thereof changes. Now since
|
|
this mutation affects only determinations, which can have a beginning
|
|
or an end, we may say, employing an expression which seems somewhat
|
|
paradoxical: "Only the permanent (substance) is subject to change; the
|
|
mutable suffers no change, but rather alternation, that is, when certain
|
|
determinations cease, others begin."
|
|
|
|
Change, when, cannot be perceived by us except in substances, and origin
|
|
or extinction in an absolute sense, that does not concern merely a
|
|
determination of the permanent, cannot be a possible perception, for
|
|
it is this very notion of the permanent which renders possible the
|
|
representation of a transition from one state into another, and from
|
|
non-being to being, which, consequently, can be empirically cognized
|
|
only as alternating determinations of that which is permanent. Grant
|
|
that a thing absolutely begins to be; we must then have a point of time
|
|
in which it was not. But how and by what can we fix and determine
|
|
this point of time, unless by that which already exists? For a void
|
|
time--preceding--is not an object of perception; but if we connect this
|
|
beginning with objects which existed previously, and which continue to
|
|
exist till the object in question in question begins to be, then the
|
|
latter can only be a determination of the former as the permanent. The
|
|
same holds good of the notion of extinction, for this presupposes the
|
|
empirical representation of a time, in which a phenomenon no longer
|
|
exists.
|
|
|
|
Substances (in the world of phenomena) are the substratum of all
|
|
determinations of time. The beginning of some, and the ceasing to be of
|
|
other substances, would utterly do away with the only condition of the
|
|
empirical unity of time; and in that case phenomena would relate to two
|
|
different times, in which, side by side, existence would pass; which is
|
|
absurd. For there is only one time in which all different times must be
|
|
placed, not as coexistent, but as successive.
|
|
|
|
Accordingly, permanence is a necessary condition under which alone
|
|
phenomena, as things or objects, are determinable in a possible
|
|
experience. But as regards the empirical criterion of this necessary
|
|
permanence, and with it of the substantiality of phenomena, we shall
|
|
find sufficient opportunity to speak in the sequel.
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
B. SECOND ANALOGY.
|
|
|
|
Principle of the Succession of Time According to the Law of Causality.
|
|
All changes take place according to the law of the connection of Cause
|
|
and Effect.
|
|
|
|
|
|
PROOF.
|
|
|
|
|
|
(That all phenomena in the succession of time are only changes, that
|
|
is, a successive being and non-being of the determinations of substance,
|
|
which is permanent; consequently that a being of substance itself which
|
|
follows on the non-being thereof, or a non-being of substance which
|
|
follows on the being thereof, in other words, that the origin or
|
|
extinction of substance itself, is impossible--all this has been fully
|
|
established in treating of the foregoing principle. This principle
|
|
might have been expressed as follows: "All alteration (succession) of
|
|
phenomena is merely change"; for the changes of substance are not origin
|
|
or extinction, because the conception of change presupposes the same
|
|
subject as existing with two opposite determinations, and consequently
|
|
as permanent. After this premonition, we shall proceed to the proof.)
|
|
|
|
I perceive that phenomena succeed one another, that is to say, a state
|
|
of things exists at one time, the opposite of which existed in a former
|
|
state. In this case, then, I really connect together two perceptions in
|
|
time. Now connection is not an operation of mere sense and intuition,
|
|
but is the product of a synthetical faculty of imagination, which
|
|
determines the internal sense in respect of a relation of time. But
|
|
imagination can connect these two states in two ways, so that either the
|
|
one or the other may antecede in time; for time in itself cannot be an
|
|
object of perception, and what in an object precedes and what follows
|
|
cannot be empirically determined in relation to it. I am only conscious,
|
|
then, that my imagination places one state before and the other after;
|
|
not that the one state antecedes the other in the object. In other
|
|
words, the objective relation of the successive phenomena remains
|
|
quite undetermined by means of mere perception. Now in order that this
|
|
relation may be cognized as determined, the relation between the two
|
|
states must be so cogitated that it is thereby determined as necessary,
|
|
which of them must be placed before and which after, and not conversely.
|
|
But the conception which carries with it a necessity of synthetical
|
|
unity, can be none other than a pure conception of the understanding
|
|
which does not lie in mere perception; and in this case it is the
|
|
conception of "the relation of cause and effect," the former of which
|
|
determines the latter in time, as its necessary consequence, and not as
|
|
something which might possibly antecede (or which might in some cases
|
|
not be perceived to follow). It follows that it is only because we
|
|
subject the sequence of phenomena, and consequently all change, to the
|
|
law of causality, that experience itself, that is, empirical cognition
|
|
of phenomena, becomes possible; and consequently, that phenomena
|
|
themselves, as objects of experience, are possible only by virtue of
|
|
this law.
|
|
|
|
Our apprehension of the manifold of phenomena is always successive. The
|
|
representations of parts succeed one another. Whether they succeed one
|
|
another in the object also, is a second point for reflection, which
|
|
was not contained in the former. Now we may certainly give the name of
|
|
object to everything, even to every representation, so far as we are
|
|
conscious thereof; but what this word may mean in the case of phenomena,
|
|
not merely in so far as they (as representations) are objects, but only
|
|
in so far as they indicate an object, is a question requiring deeper
|
|
consideration. In so far as they, regarded merely as representations,
|
|
are at the same time objects of consciousness, they are not to be
|
|
distinguished from apprehension, that is, reception into the synthesis
|
|
of imagination, and we must therefore say: "The manifold of phenomena is
|
|
always produced successively in the mind." If phenomena were things in
|
|
themselves, no man would be able to conjecture from the succession of
|
|
our representations how this manifold is connected in the object; for
|
|
we have to do only with our representations. How things may be in
|
|
themselves, without regard to the representations through which they
|
|
affect us, is utterly beyond the sphere of our cognition. Now although
|
|
phenomena are not things in themselves, and are nevertheless the only
|
|
thing given to us to be cognized, it is my duty to show what sort of
|
|
connection in time belongs to the manifold in phenomena themselves,
|
|
while the representation of this manifold in apprehension is always
|
|
successive. For example, the apprehension of the manifold in the
|
|
phenomenon of a house which stands before me, is successive. Now
|
|
comes the question whether the manifold of this house is in itself
|
|
successive--which no one will be at all willing to grant. But, so
|
|
soon as I raise my conception of an object to the transcendental
|
|
signification thereof, I find that the house is not a thing in itself,
|
|
but only a phenomenon, that is, a representation, the transcendental
|
|
object of which remains utterly unknown. What then am I to understand
|
|
by the question: "How can the manifold be connected in the phenomenon
|
|
itself--not considered as a thing in itself, but merely as a
|
|
phenomenon?" Here that which lies in my successive apprehension is
|
|
regarded as representation, whilst the phenomenon which is given
|
|
me, notwithstanding that it is nothing more than a complex of these
|
|
representations, is regarded as the object thereof, with which my
|
|
conception, drawn from the representations of apprehension, must
|
|
harmonize. It is very soon seen that, as accordance of the cognition
|
|
with its object constitutes truth, the question now before us can
|
|
only relate to the formal conditions of empirical truth; and that the
|
|
phenomenon, in opposition to the representations of apprehension, can
|
|
only be distinguished therefrom as the object of them, if it is subject
|
|
to a rule which distinguishes it from every other apprehension, and
|
|
which renders necessary a mode of connection of the manifold. That in
|
|
the phenomenon which contains the condition of this necessary rule of
|
|
apprehension, is the object.
|
|
|
|
Let us now proceed to our task. That something happens, that is to say,
|
|
that something or some state exists which before was not, cannot be
|
|
empirically perceived, unless a phenomenon precedes, which does not
|
|
contain in itself this state. For a reality which should follow upon
|
|
a void time, in other words, a beginning, which no state of things
|
|
precedes, can just as little be apprehended as the void time itself.
|
|
Every apprehension of an event is therefore a perception which follows
|
|
upon another perception. But as this is the case with all synthesis
|
|
of apprehension, as I have shown above in the example of a house, my
|
|
apprehension of an event is not yet sufficiently distinguished from
|
|
other apprehensions. But I remark also that if in a phenomenon which
|
|
contains an occurrence, I call the antecedent state of my perception,
|
|
A, and the following state, B, the perception B can only follow A in
|
|
apprehension, and the perception A cannot follow B, but only precede
|
|
it. For example, I see a ship float down the stream of a river. My
|
|
perception of its place lower down follows upon my perception of its
|
|
place higher up the course of the river, and it is impossible that,
|
|
in the apprehension of this phenomenon, the vessel should be perceived
|
|
first below and afterwards higher up the stream. Here, therefore, the
|
|
order in the sequence of perceptions in apprehension is determined;
|
|
and by this order apprehension is regulated. In the former example, my
|
|
perceptions in the apprehension of a house might begin at the roof and
|
|
end at the foundation, or vice versa; or I might apprehend the manifold
|
|
in this empirical intuition, by going from left to right, and from right
|
|
to left. Accordingly, in the series of these perceptions, there was no
|
|
determined order, which necessitated my beginning at a certain point, in
|
|
order empirically to connect the manifold. But this rule is always to be
|
|
met with in the perception of that which happens, and it makes the order
|
|
of the successive perceptions in the apprehension of such a phenomenon
|
|
necessary.
|
|
|
|
I must, therefore, in the present case, deduce the subjective sequence
|
|
of apprehension from the objective sequence of phenomena, for
|
|
otherwise the former is quite undetermined, and one phenomenon is not
|
|
distinguishable from another. The former alone proves nothing as to the
|
|
connection of the manifold in an object, for it is quite arbitrary.
|
|
The latter must consist in the order of the manifold in a phenomenon,
|
|
according to which order the apprehension of one thing (that which
|
|
happens) follows that of another thing (which precedes), in conformity
|
|
with a rule. In this way alone can I be authorized to say of the
|
|
phenomenon itself, and not merely of my own apprehension, that a certain
|
|
order or sequence is to be found therein. That is, in other words, I
|
|
cannot arrange my apprehension otherwise than in this order.
|
|
|
|
In conformity with this rule, then, it is necessary that in that which
|
|
antecedes an event there be found the condition of a rule, according to
|
|
which in this event follows always and necessarily; but I cannot reverse
|
|
this and go back from the event, and determine (by apprehension) that
|
|
which antecedes it. For no phenomenon goes back from the succeeding
|
|
point of time to the preceding point, although it does certainly relate
|
|
to a preceding point of time; from a given time, on the other hand,
|
|
there is always a necessary progression to the determined succeeding
|
|
time. Therefore, because there certainly is something that follows, I
|
|
must of necessity connect it with something else, which antecedes, and
|
|
upon which it follows, in conformity with a rule, that is necessarily,
|
|
so that the event, as conditioned, affords certain indication of a
|
|
condition, and this condition determines the event.
|
|
|
|
Let us suppose that nothing precedes an event, upon which this event
|
|
must follow in conformity with a rule. All sequence of perception
|
|
would then exist only in apprehension, that is to say, would be merely
|
|
subjective, and it could not thereby be objectively determined what
|
|
thing ought to precede, and what ought to follow in perception. In such
|
|
a case, we should have nothing but a play of representations, which
|
|
would possess no application to any object. That is to say, it would
|
|
not be possible through perception to distinguish one phenomenon from
|
|
another, as regards relations of time; because the succession in the act
|
|
of apprehension would always be of the same sort, and therefore there
|
|
would be nothing in the phenomenon to determine the succession, and to
|
|
render a certain sequence objectively necessary. And, in this case, I
|
|
cannot say that two states in a phenomenon follow one upon the other,
|
|
but only that one apprehension follows upon another. But this is merely
|
|
subjective, and does not determine an object, and consequently cannot be
|
|
held to be cognition of an object--not even in the phenomenal world.
|
|
|
|
Accordingly, when we know in experience that something happens, we
|
|
always presuppose that something precedes, whereupon it follows in
|
|
conformity with a rule. For otherwise I could not say of the object that
|
|
it follows; because the mere succession in my apprehension, if it be
|
|
not determined by a rule in relation to something preceding, does not
|
|
authorize succession in the object. Only, therefore, in reference to
|
|
a rule, according to which phenomena are determined in their sequence,
|
|
that is, as they happen, by the preceding state, can I make my
|
|
subjective synthesis (of apprehension) objective, and it is only under
|
|
this presupposition that even the experience of an event is possible.
|
|
|
|
No doubt it appears as if this were in thorough contradiction to all
|
|
the notions which people have hitherto entertained in regard to the
|
|
procedure of the human understanding. According to these opinions, it
|
|
is by means of the perception and comparison of similar consequences
|
|
following upon certain antecedent phenomena that the understanding is
|
|
led to the discovery of a rule, according to which certain events always
|
|
follow certain phenomena, and it is only by this process that we attain
|
|
to the conception of cause. Upon such a basis, it is clear that this
|
|
conception must be merely empirical, and the rule which it furnishes
|
|
us with--"Everything that happens must have a cause"--would be just as
|
|
contingent as experience itself. The universality and necessity of the
|
|
rule or law would be perfectly spurious attributes of it. Indeed, it
|
|
could not possess universal validity, inasmuch as it would not in this
|
|
case be a priori, but founded on deduction. But the same is the case
|
|
with this law as with other pure a priori representations (e.g., space
|
|
and time), which we can draw in perfect clearness and completeness from
|
|
experience, only because we had already placed them therein, and by that
|
|
means, and by that alone, had rendered experience possible. Indeed,
|
|
the logical clearness of this representation of a rule, determining
|
|
the series of events, is possible only when we have made use thereof in
|
|
experience. Nevertheless, the recognition of this rule, as a condition
|
|
of the synthetical unity of phenomena in time, was the ground of
|
|
experience itself and consequently preceded it a priori.
|
|
|
|
It is now our duty to show by an example that we never, even in
|
|
experience, attribute to an object the notion of succession or effect
|
|
(of an event--that is, the happening of something that did not
|
|
exist before), and distinguish it from the subjective succession of
|
|
apprehension, unless when a rule lies at the foundation, which compels
|
|
us to observe this order of perception in preference to any other, and
|
|
that, indeed, it is this necessity which first renders possible the
|
|
representation of a succession in the object.
|
|
|
|
We have representations within us, of which also we can be conscious.
|
|
But, however widely extended, however accurate and thoroughgoing this
|
|
consciousness may be, these representations are still nothing more than
|
|
representations, that is, internal determinations of the mind in this or
|
|
that relation of time. Now how happens it that to these representations
|
|
we should set an object, or that, in addition to their subjective
|
|
reality, as modifications, we should still further attribute to them
|
|
a certain unknown objective reality? It is clear that objective
|
|
significancy cannot consist in a relation to another representation
|
|
(of that which we desire to term object), for in that case the question
|
|
again arises: "How does this other representation go out of itself, and
|
|
obtain objective significancy over and above the subjective, which
|
|
is proper to it, as a determination of a state of mind?" If we try to
|
|
discover what sort of new property the relation to an object gives to
|
|
our subjective representations, and what new importance they thereby
|
|
receive, we shall find that this relation has no other effect than
|
|
that of rendering necessary the connection of our representations in a
|
|
certain manner, and of subjecting them to a rule; and that conversely,
|
|
it is only because a certain order is necessary in the relations of time
|
|
of our representations, that objective significancy is ascribed to them.
|
|
|
|
In the synthesis of phenomena, the manifold of our representations is
|
|
always successive. Now hereby is not represented an object, for by means
|
|
of this succession, which is common to all apprehension, no one thing is
|
|
distinguished from another. But so soon as I perceive or assume that in
|
|
this succession there is a relation to a state antecedent, from which
|
|
the representation follows in accordance with a rule, so soon do I
|
|
represent something as an event, or as a thing that happens; in other
|
|
words, I cognize an object to which I must assign a certain determinate
|
|
position in time, which cannot be altered, because of the preceding
|
|
state in the object. When, therefore, I perceive that something happens,
|
|
there is contained in this representation, in the first place, the fact,
|
|
that something antecedes; because, it is only in relation to this that
|
|
the phenomenon obtains its proper relation of time, in other words,
|
|
exists after an antecedent time, in which it did not exist. But it can
|
|
receive its determined place in time only by the presupposition
|
|
that something existed in the foregoing state, upon which it follows
|
|
inevitably and always, that is, in conformity with a rule. From all this
|
|
it is evident that, in the first place, I cannot reverse the order
|
|
of succession, and make that which happens precede that upon which
|
|
it follows; and that, in the second place, if the antecedent state be
|
|
posited, a certain determinate event inevitably and necessarily
|
|
follows. Hence it follows that there exists a certain order in our
|
|
representations, whereby the present gives a sure indication of some
|
|
previously existing state, as a correlate, though still undetermined, of
|
|
the existing event which is given--a correlate which itself relates to
|
|
the event as its consequence, conditions it, and connects it necessarily
|
|
with itself in the series of time.
|
|
|
|
If then it be admitted as a necessary law of sensibility, and
|
|
consequently a formal condition of all perception, that the preceding
|
|
necessarily determines the succeeding time (inasmuch as I cannot arrive
|
|
at the succeeding except through the preceding), it must likewise be an
|
|
indispensable law of empirical representation of the series of time
|
|
that the phenomena of the past determine all phenomena in the succeeding
|
|
time, and that the latter, as events, cannot take place, except in so
|
|
far as the former determine their existence in time, that is to say,
|
|
establish it according to a rule. For it is of course only in phenomena
|
|
that we can empirically cognize this continuity in the connection of
|
|
times.
|
|
|
|
For all experience and for the possibility of experience, understanding
|
|
is indispensable, and the first step which it takes in this sphere is
|
|
not to render the representation of objects clear, but to render the
|
|
representation of an object in general, possible. It does this by
|
|
applying the order of time to phenomena, and their existence. In other
|
|
words, it assigns to each phenomenon, as a consequence, a place in
|
|
relation to preceding phenomena, determined a priori in time, without
|
|
which it could not harmonize with time itself, which determines a place
|
|
a priori to all its parts. This determination of place cannot be derived
|
|
from the relation of phenomena to absolute time (for it is not an
|
|
object of perception); but, on the contrary, phenomena must reciprocally
|
|
determine the places in time of one another, and render these necessary
|
|
in the order of time. In other words, whatever follows or happens, must
|
|
follow in conformity with a universal rule upon that which was contained
|
|
in the foregoing state. Hence arises a series of phenomena, which, by
|
|
means of the understanding, produces and renders necessary exactly
|
|
the same order and continuous connection in the series of our possible
|
|
perceptions, as is found a priori in the form of internal intuition
|
|
(time), in which all our perceptions must have place.
|
|
|
|
That something happens, then, is a perception which belongs to a
|
|
possible experience, which becomes real only because I look upon the
|
|
phenomenon as determined in regard to its place in time, consequently as
|
|
an object, which can always be found by means of a rule in the connected
|
|
series of my perceptions. But this rule of the determination of a thing
|
|
according to succession in time is as follows: "In what precedes may be
|
|
found the condition, under which an event always (that is, necessarily)
|
|
follows." From all this it is obvious that the principle of cause and
|
|
effect is the principle of possible experience, that is, of objective
|
|
cognition of phenomena, in regard to their relations in the succession
|
|
of time.
|
|
|
|
The proof of this fundamental proposition rests entirely on the
|
|
following momenta of argument. To all empirical cognition belongs the
|
|
synthesis of the manifold by the imagination, a synthesis which is
|
|
always successive, that is, in which the representations therein always
|
|
follow one another. But the order of succession in imagination is not
|
|
determined, and the series of successive representations may be taken
|
|
retrogressively as well as progressively. But if this synthesis is a
|
|
synthesis of apprehension (of the manifold of a given phenomenon), then
|
|
the order is determined in the object, or to speak more accurately,
|
|
there is therein an order of successive synthesis which determines an
|
|
object, and according to which something necessarily precedes, and
|
|
when this is posited, something else necessarily follows. If, then,
|
|
my perception is to contain the cognition of an event, that is, of
|
|
something which really happens, it must be an empirical judgement,
|
|
wherein we think that the succession is determined; that is, it
|
|
presupposes another phenomenon, upon which this event follows
|
|
necessarily, or in conformity with a rule. If, on the contrary, when I
|
|
posited the antecedent, the event did not necessarily follow, I should
|
|
be obliged to consider it merely as a subjective play of my imagination,
|
|
and if in this I represented to myself anything as objective, I must
|
|
look upon it as a mere dream. Thus, the relation of phenomena (as
|
|
possible perceptions), according to which that which happens is, as
|
|
to its existence, necessarily determined in time by something which
|
|
antecedes, in conformity with a rule--in other words, the relation of
|
|
cause and effect--is the condition of the objective validity of
|
|
our empirical judgements in regard to the sequence of perceptions,
|
|
consequently of their empirical truth, and therefore of experience. The
|
|
principle of the relation of causality in the succession of phenomena is
|
|
therefore valid for all objects of experience, because it is itself the
|
|
ground of the possibility of experience.
|
|
|
|
Here, however, a difficulty arises, which must be resolved. The
|
|
principle of the connection of causality among phenomena is limited in
|
|
our formula to the succession thereof, although in practice we find that
|
|
the principle applies also when the phenomena exist together in the same
|
|
time, and that cause and effect may be simultaneous. For example, there
|
|
is heat in a room, which does not exist in the open air. I look about
|
|
for the cause, and find it to be the fire, Now the fire as the cause is
|
|
simultaneous with its effect, the heat of the room. In this case, then,
|
|
there is no succession as regards time, between cause and effect, but
|
|
they are simultaneous; and still the law holds good. The greater part of
|
|
operating causes in nature are simultaneous with their effects, and
|
|
the succession in time of the latter is produced only because the cause
|
|
cannot achieve the total of its effect in one moment. But at the
|
|
moment when the effect first arises, it is always simultaneous with the
|
|
causality of its cause, because, if the cause had but a moment before
|
|
ceased to be, the effect could not have arisen. Here it must be
|
|
specially remembered that we must consider the order of time and not the
|
|
lapse thereof. The relation remains, even though no time has elapsed.
|
|
The time between the causality of the cause and its immediate effect may
|
|
entirely vanish, and the cause and effect be thus simultaneous, but the
|
|
relation of the one to the other remains always determinable according
|
|
to time. If, for example, I consider a leaden ball, which lies upon a
|
|
cushion and makes a hollow in it, as a cause, then it is simultaneous
|
|
with the effect. But I distinguish the two through the relation of time
|
|
of the dynamical connection of both. For if I lay the ball upon the
|
|
cushion, then the hollow follows upon the before smooth surface; but
|
|
supposing the cushion has, from some cause or another, a hollow, there
|
|
does not thereupon follow a leaden ball.
|
|
|
|
Thus, the law of succession of time is in all instances the only
|
|
empirical criterion of effect in relation to the causality of the
|
|
antecedent cause. The glass is the cause of the rising of the
|
|
water above its horizontal surface, although the two phenomena are
|
|
contemporaneous. For, as soon as I draw some water with the glass from
|
|
a larger vessel, an effect follows thereupon, namely, the change of the
|
|
horizontal state which the water had in the large vessel into a concave,
|
|
which it assumes in the glass.
|
|
|
|
This conception of causality leads us to the conception of action; that
|
|
of action, to the conception of force; and through it, to the conception
|
|
of substance. As I do not wish this critical essay, the sole purpose of
|
|
which is to treat of the sources of our synthetical cognition a priori,
|
|
to be crowded with analyses which merely explain, but do not enlarge
|
|
the sphere of our conceptions, I reserve the detailed explanation of the
|
|
above conceptions for a future system of pure reason. Such an analysis,
|
|
indeed, executed with great particularity, may already be found in
|
|
well-known works on this subject. But I cannot at present refrain from
|
|
making a few remarks on the empirical criterion of a substance, in so
|
|
far as it seems to be more evident and more easily recognized through
|
|
the conception of action than through that of the permanence of a
|
|
phenomenon.
|
|
|
|
Where action (consequently activity and force) exists, substance also
|
|
must exist, and in it alone must be sought the seat of that fruitful
|
|
source of phenomena. Very well. But if we are called upon to explain
|
|
what we mean by substance, and wish to avoid the vice of reasoning in
|
|
a circle, the answer is by no means so easy. How shall we conclude
|
|
immediately from the action to the permanence of that which acts, this
|
|
being nevertheless an essential and peculiar criterion of substance
|
|
(phenomenon)? But after what has been said above, the solution of
|
|
this question becomes easy enough, although by the common mode
|
|
of procedure--merely analysing our conceptions--it would be quite
|
|
impossible. The conception of action indicates the relation of the
|
|
subject of causality to the effect. Now because all effect consists
|
|
in that which happens, therefore in the changeable, the last subject
|
|
thereof is the permanent, as the substratum of all that changes, that
|
|
is, substance. For according to the principle of causality, actions are
|
|
always the first ground of all change in phenomena and, consequently,
|
|
cannot be a property of a subject which itself changes, because if this
|
|
were the case, other actions and another subject would be necessary to
|
|
determine this change. From all this it results that action alone, as
|
|
an empirical criterion, is a sufficient proof of the presence of
|
|
substantiality, without any necessity on my part of endeavouring to
|
|
discover the permanence of substance by a comparison. Besides, by this
|
|
mode of induction we could not attain to the completeness which the
|
|
magnitude and strict universality of the conception requires. For that
|
|
the primary subject of the causality of all arising and passing away,
|
|
all origin and extinction, cannot itself (in the sphere of phenomena)
|
|
arise and pass away, is a sound and safe conclusion, a conclusion which
|
|
leads us to the conception of empirical necessity and permanence
|
|
in existence, and consequently to the conception of a substance as
|
|
phenomenon.
|
|
|
|
When something happens, the mere fact of the occurrence, without
|
|
regard to that which occurs, is an object requiring investigation.
|
|
The transition from the non-being of a state into the existence of it,
|
|
supposing that this state contains no quality which previously existed
|
|
in the phenomenon, is a fact of itself demanding inquiry. Such an event,
|
|
as has been shown in No. A, does not concern substance (for substance
|
|
does not thus originate), but its condition or state. It is therefore
|
|
only change, and not origin from nothing. If this origin be regarded as
|
|
the effect of a foreign cause, it is termed creation, which cannot be
|
|
admitted as an event among phenomena, because the very possibility of
|
|
it would annihilate the unity of experience. If, however, I regard all
|
|
things not as phenomena, but as things in themselves and objects of
|
|
understanding alone, they, although substances, may be considered as
|
|
dependent, in respect of their existence, on a foreign cause. But this
|
|
would require a very different meaning in the words, a meaning which
|
|
could not apply to phenomena as objects of possible experience.
|
|
|
|
How a thing can be changed, how it is possible that upon one state
|
|
existing in one point of time, an opposite state should follow in
|
|
another point of time--of this we have not the smallest conception a
|
|
priori. There is requisite for this the knowledge of real powers, which
|
|
can only be given empirically; for example, knowledge of moving forces,
|
|
or, in other words, of certain successive phenomena (as movements) which
|
|
indicate the presence of such forces. But the form of every change,
|
|
the condition under which alone it can take place as the coming into
|
|
existence of another state (be the content of the change, that is, the
|
|
state which is changed, what it may), and consequently the succession of
|
|
the states themselves can very well be considered a priori, in relation
|
|
to the law of causality and the conditions of time.*
|
|
|
|
|
|
[*Footnote: It must be remarked that I do not speak of the change of
|
|
certain relations, but of the change of the state. Thus, when a body
|
|
moves in a uniform manner, it does not change its state (of motion); but
|
|
only when all motion increases or decreases.]
|
|
|
|
|
|
When a substance passes from one state, a, into another state, b,
|
|
the point of time in which the latter exists is different from, and
|
|
subsequent to that in which the former existed. In like manner, the
|
|
second state, as reality (in the phenomenon), differs from the first, in
|
|
which the reality of the second did not exist, as b from zero. That is
|
|
to say, if the state, b, differs from the state, a, only in respect to
|
|
quantity, the change is a coming into existence of b -a, which in the
|
|
former state did not exist, and in relation to which that state is = O.
|
|
|
|
Now the question arises how a thing passes from one state = a, into
|
|
another state = b. Between two moments there is always a certain time,
|
|
and between two states existing in these moments there is always a
|
|
difference having a certain quantity (for all parts of phenomena are in
|
|
their turn quantities). Consequently, every transition from one state
|
|
into another is always effected in a time contained between two moments,
|
|
of which the first determines the state which leaves, and the second
|
|
determines the state into the thing passes. The thing leaves, and the
|
|
second determines the state into which the thing Both moments, then, are
|
|
limitations of the time of a change, consequently of the intermediate
|
|
state between both, and as such they belong to the total of the change.
|
|
Now every change has a cause, which evidences its causality in the whole
|
|
time during which the charge takes place. The cause, therefore, does not
|
|
produce the change all at once or in one moment, but in a time, so that,
|
|
as the time gradually increases from the commencing instant, a, to its
|
|
completion at b, in like manner also, the quantity of the reality (b -
|
|
a) is generated through the lesser degrees which are contained between
|
|
the first and last. All change is therefore possible only through a
|
|
continuous action of the causality, which, in so far as it is uniform,
|
|
we call a momentum. The change does not consist of these momenta, but is
|
|
generated or produced by them as their effect.
|
|
|
|
Such is the law of the continuity of all change, the ground of which is
|
|
that neither time itself nor any phenomenon in time consists of parts
|
|
which are the smallest possible, but that, notwithstanding, the state
|
|
of a thing passes in the process of a change through all these parts, as
|
|
elements, to its second state. There is no smallest degree of reality
|
|
in a phenomenon, just as there is no smallest degree in the quantity of
|
|
time; and so the new state of reality grows up out of the former state,
|
|
through all the infinite degrees thereof, the differences of which one
|
|
from another, taken all together, are less than the difference between o
|
|
and a.
|
|
|
|
It is not our business to inquire here into the utility of this
|
|
principle in the investigation of nature. But how such a proposition,
|
|
which appears so greatly to extend our knowledge of nature, is possible
|
|
completely a priori, is indeed a question which deserves investigation,
|
|
although the first view seems to demonstrate the truth and reality of
|
|
the principle, and the question, how it is possible, may be considered
|
|
superfluous. For there are so many groundless pretensions to the
|
|
enlargement of our knowledge by pure reason that we must take it as a
|
|
general rule to be mistrustful of all such, and without a thoroughgoing
|
|
and radical deduction, to believe nothing of the sort even on the
|
|
clearest dogmatical evidence.
|
|
|
|
Every addition to our empirical knowledge, and every advance made in
|
|
the exercise of our perception, is nothing more than an extension of the
|
|
determination of the internal sense, that is to say, a progression
|
|
in time, be objects themselves what they may, phenomena, or pure
|
|
intuitions. This progression in time determines everything, and is
|
|
itself determined by nothing else. That is to say, the parts of the
|
|
progression exist only in time, and by means of the synthesis thereof,
|
|
and are not given antecedently to it. For this reason, every transition
|
|
in perception to anything which follows upon another in time, is a
|
|
determination of time by means of the production of this perception.
|
|
And as this determination of time is, always and in all its parts, a
|
|
quantity, the perception produced is to be considered as a quantity
|
|
which proceeds through all its degrees--no one of which is the smallest
|
|
possible--from zero up to its determined degree. From this we perceive
|
|
the possibility of cognizing a priori a law of changes--a law,
|
|
however, which concerns their form merely. We merely anticipate our own
|
|
apprehension, the formal condition of which, inasmuch as it is itself to
|
|
be found in the mind antecedently to all given phenomena, must certainly
|
|
be capable of being cognized a priori.
|
|
|
|
Thus, as time contains the sensuous condition a priori of the
|
|
possibility of a continuous progression of that which exists to
|
|
that which follows it, the understanding, by virtue of the unity of
|
|
apperception, contains the condition a priori of the possibility of a
|
|
continuous determination of the position in time of all phenomena, and
|
|
this by means of the series of causes and effects, the former of which
|
|
necessitate the sequence of the latter, and thereby render universally
|
|
and for all time, and by consequence, objectively, valid the empirical
|
|
cognition of the relations of time.
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
C. THIRD ANALOGY.
|
|
|
|
Principle of Coexistence, According to the Law of Reciprocity or
|
|
Community.
|
|
|
|
All substances, in so far as they can be perceived in space at the same
|
|
time, exist in a state of complete reciprocity of action.
|
|
|
|
|
|
PROOF.
|
|
|
|
|
|
Things are coexistent, when in empirical intuition the perception of the
|
|
one can follow upon the perception of the other, and vice versa--which
|
|
cannot occur in the succession of phenomena, as we have shown in the
|
|
explanation of the second principle. Thus I can perceive the moon and
|
|
then the earth, or conversely, first the earth and then the moon; and
|
|
for the reason that my perceptions of these objects can reciprocally
|
|
follow each other, I say, they exist contemporaneously. Now coexistence
|
|
is the existence of the manifold in the same time. But time itself is
|
|
not an object of perception; and therefore we cannot conclude from the
|
|
fact that things are placed in the same time, the other fact, that
|
|
the perception of these things can follow each other reciprocally. The
|
|
synthesis of the imagination in apprehension would only present to us
|
|
each of these perceptions as present in the subject when the other is
|
|
not present, and contrariwise; but would not show that the objects are
|
|
coexistent, that is to say, that, if the one exists, the other also
|
|
exists in the same time, and that this is necessarily so, in order that
|
|
the perceptions may be capable of following each other reciprocally.
|
|
It follows that a conception of the understanding or category of the
|
|
reciprocal sequence of the determinations of phenomena (existing, as
|
|
they do, apart from each other, and yet contemporaneously), is requisite
|
|
to justify us in saying that the reciprocal succession of perceptions
|
|
has its foundation in the object, and to enable us to represent
|
|
coexistence as objective. But that relation of substances in which
|
|
the one contains determinations the ground of which is in the other
|
|
substance, is the relation of influence. And, when this influence is
|
|
reciprocal, it is the relation of community or reciprocity. Consequently
|
|
the coexistence of substances in space cannot be cognized in experience
|
|
otherwise than under the precondition of their reciprocal action. This
|
|
is therefore the condition of the possibility of things themselves as
|
|
objects of experience.
|
|
|
|
Things are coexistent, in so far as they exist in one and the same time.
|
|
But how can we know that they exist in one and the same time? Only
|
|
by observing that the order in the synthesis of apprehension of the
|
|
manifold is arbitrary and a matter of indifference, that is to say, that
|
|
it can proceed from A, through B, C, D, to E, or contrariwise from E
|
|
to A. For if they were successive in time (and in the order, let
|
|
us suppose, which begins with A), it is quite impossible for the
|
|
apprehension in perception to begin with E and go backwards to A,
|
|
inasmuch as A belongs to past time and, therefore, cannot be an object
|
|
of apprehension.
|
|
|
|
Let us assume that in a number of substances considered as phenomena
|
|
each is completely isolated, that is, that no one acts upon another.
|
|
Then I say that the coexistence of these cannot be an object of
|
|
possible perception and that the existence of one cannot, by any mode of
|
|
empirical synthesis, lead us to the existence of another. For we imagine
|
|
them in this case to be separated by a completely void space, and thus
|
|
perception, which proceeds from the one to the other in time, would
|
|
indeed determine their existence by means of a following perception, but
|
|
would be quite unable to distinguish whether the one phenomenon follows
|
|
objectively upon the first, or is coexistent with it.
|
|
|
|
Besides the mere fact of existence, then, there must be something by
|
|
means of which A determines the position of B in time and, conversely,
|
|
B the position of A; because only under this condition can substances
|
|
be empirically represented as existing contemporaneously. Now that alone
|
|
determines the position of another thing in time which is the cause of
|
|
it or of its determinations. Consequently every substance (inasmuch
|
|
as it can have succession predicated of it only in respect of its
|
|
determinations) must contain the causality of certain determinations in
|
|
another substance, and at the same time the effects of the causality of
|
|
the other in itself. That is to say, substances must stand (mediately or
|
|
immediately) in dynamical community with each other, if coexistence is
|
|
to be cognized in any possible experience. But, in regard to objects of
|
|
experience, that is absolutely necessary without which the experience of
|
|
these objects would itself be impossible. Consequently it is absolutely
|
|
necessary that all substances in the world of phenomena, in so far
|
|
as they are coexistent, stand in a relation of complete community of
|
|
reciprocal action to each other.
|
|
|
|
The word community has in our language [Footnote: German] two meanings,
|
|
and contains the two notions conveyed in the Latin communio and
|
|
commercium. We employ it in this place in the latter sense--that of a
|
|
dynamical community, without which even the community of place (communio
|
|
spatii) could not be empirically cognized. In our experiences it is easy
|
|
to observe that it is only the continuous influences in all parts of
|
|
space that can conduct our senses from one object to another; that the
|
|
light which plays between our eyes and the heavenly bodies produces a
|
|
mediating community between them and us, and thereby evidences their
|
|
coexistence with us; that we cannot empirically change our position
|
|
(perceive this change), unless the existence of matter throughout the
|
|
whole of space rendered possible the perception of the positions we
|
|
occupy; and that this perception can prove the contemporaneous existence
|
|
of these places only through their reciprocal influence, and thereby
|
|
also the coexistence of even the most remote objects--although in this
|
|
case the proof is only mediate. Without community, every perception (of
|
|
a phenomenon in space) is separated from every other and isolated, and
|
|
the chain of empirical representations, that is, of experience, must,
|
|
with the appearance of a new object, begin entirely de novo, without the
|
|
least connection with preceding representations, and without standing
|
|
towards these even in the relation of time. My intention here is by no
|
|
means to combat the notion of empty space; for it may exist where our
|
|
perceptions cannot exist, inasmuch as they cannot reach thereto, and
|
|
where, therefore, no empirical perception of coexistence takes place.
|
|
But in this case it is not an object of possible experience.
|
|
|
|
The following remarks may be useful in the way of explanation. In the
|
|
mind, all phenomena, as contents of a possible experience, must exist in
|
|
community (communio) of apperception or consciousness, and in so far as
|
|
it is requisite that objects be represented as coexistent and connected,
|
|
in so far must they reciprocally determine the position in time of each
|
|
other and thereby constitute a whole. If this subjective community is
|
|
to rest upon an objective basis, or to be applied to substances as
|
|
phenomena, the perception of one substance must render possible the
|
|
perception of another, and conversely. For otherwise succession, which
|
|
is always found in perceptions as apprehensions, would be predicated of
|
|
external objects, and their representation of their coexistence be thus
|
|
impossible. But this is a reciprocal influence, that is to say, a
|
|
real community (commercium) of substances, without which therefore the
|
|
empirical relation of coexistence would be a notion beyond the reach of
|
|
our minds. By virtue of this commercium, phenomena, in so far as
|
|
they are apart from, and nevertheless in connection with each other,
|
|
constitute a compositum reale. Such composita are possible in many
|
|
different ways. The three dynamical relations then, from which all
|
|
others spring, are those of inherence, consequence, and composition.
|
|
|
|
These, then, are the three analogies of experience. They are nothing
|
|
more than principles of the determination of the existence of phenomena
|
|
in time, according to the three modi of this determination; to wit, the
|
|
relation to time itself as a quantity (the quantity of existence, that
|
|
is, duration), the relation in time as a series or succession, finally,
|
|
the relation in time as the complex of all existence (simultaneity).
|
|
This unity of determination in regard to time is thoroughly dynamical;
|
|
that is to say, time is not considered as that in which experience
|
|
determines immediately to every existence its position; for this is
|
|
impossible, inasmuch as absolute time is not an object of perception,
|
|
by means of which phenomena can be connected with each other. On
|
|
the contrary, the rule of the understanding, through which alone
|
|
the existence of phenomena can receive synthetical unity as regards
|
|
relations of time, determines for every phenomenon its position in time,
|
|
and consequently a priori, and with validity for all and every time.
|
|
|
|
By nature, in the empirical sense of the word, we understand the
|
|
totality of phenomena connected, in respect of their existence,
|
|
according to necessary rules, that is, laws. There are therefore certain
|
|
laws (which are moreover a priori) which make nature possible; and all
|
|
empirical laws can exist only by means of experience, and by virtue of
|
|
those primitive laws through which experience itself becomes possible.
|
|
The purpose of the analogies is therefore to represent to us the unity
|
|
of nature in the connection of all phenomena under certain exponents,
|
|
the only business of which is to express the relation of time (in so far
|
|
as it contains all existence in itself) to the unity of apperception,
|
|
which can exist in synthesis only according to rules. The combined
|
|
expression of all is this: "All phenomena exist in one nature, and
|
|
must so exist, inasmuch as without this a priori unity, no unity of
|
|
experience, and consequently no determination of objects in experience,
|
|
is possible."
|
|
|
|
As regards the mode of proof which we have employed in treating of these
|
|
transcendental laws of nature, and the peculiar character of we must
|
|
make one remark, which will at the same time be important as a guide
|
|
in every other attempt to demonstrate the truth of intellectual and
|
|
likewise synthetical propositions a priori. Had we endeavoured to prove
|
|
these analogies dogmatically, that is, from conceptions; that is to say,
|
|
had we employed this method in attempting to show that everything which
|
|
exists, exists only in that which is permanent--that every thing or
|
|
event presupposes the existence of something in a preceding state,
|
|
upon which it follows in conformity with a rule--lastly, that in the
|
|
manifold, which is coexistent, the states coexist in connection with
|
|
each other according to a rule, all our labour would have been utterly
|
|
in vain. For more conceptions of things, analyse them as we may, cannot
|
|
enable us to conclude from the existence of one object to the existence
|
|
of another. What other course was left for us to pursue? This only, to
|
|
demonstrate the possibility of experience as a cognition in which
|
|
at last all objects must be capable of being presented to us, if the
|
|
representation of them is to possess any objective reality. Now in this
|
|
third, this mediating term, the essential form of which consists in
|
|
the synthetical unity of the apperception of all phenomena, we found
|
|
a priori conditions of the universal and necessary determination as
|
|
to time of all existences in the world of phenomena, without which the
|
|
empirical determination thereof as to time would itself be impossible,
|
|
and we also discovered rules of synthetical unity a priori, by means of
|
|
which we could anticipate experience. For want of this method, and from
|
|
the fancy that it was possible to discover a dogmatical proof of the
|
|
synthetical propositions which are requisite in the empirical employment
|
|
of the understanding, has it happened that a proof of the principle of
|
|
sufficient reason has been so often attempted, and always in vain.
|
|
The other two analogies nobody has ever thought of, although they have
|
|
always been silently employed by the mind,* because the guiding thread
|
|
furnished by the categories was wanting, the guide which alone can
|
|
enable us to discover every hiatus, both in the system of conceptions
|
|
and of principles.
|
|
|
|
|
|
[*Footnote: The unity of the universe, in which all phenomena to be
|
|
connected, is evidently a mere consequence of the admitted principle
|
|
of the community of all substances which are coexistent. For were
|
|
substances isolated, they could not as parts constitute a whole, and
|
|
were their connection (reciprocal action of the manifold) not necessary
|
|
from the very fact of coexistence, we could not conclude from the fact
|
|
of the latter as a merely ideal relation to the former as a real one. We
|
|
have, however, shown in its place that community is the proper ground
|
|
of the possibility of an empirical cognition of coexistence, and that
|
|
we may therefore properly reason from the latter to the former as its
|
|
condition.]
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
4. THE POSTULATES OF EMPIRICAL THOUGHT.
|
|
|
|
1. That which agrees with the formal conditions (intuition and
|
|
conception) of experience, is possible.
|
|
|
|
2. That which coheres with the material conditions of experience
|
|
(sensation), is real.
|
|
|
|
3. That whose coherence with the real is determined according to
|
|
universal conditions of experience is (exists) necessary.
|
|
|
|
|
|
Explanation.
|
|
|
|
|
|
The categories of modality possess this peculiarity, that they do not in
|
|
the least determine the object, or enlarge the conception to which they
|
|
are annexed as predicates, but only express its relation to the faculty
|
|
of cognition. Though my conception of a thing is in itself complete, I
|
|
am still entitled to ask whether the object of it is merely possible,
|
|
or whether it is also real, or, if the latter, whether it is also
|
|
necessary. But hereby the object itself is not more definitely
|
|
determined in thought, but the question is only in what relation it,
|
|
including all its determinations, stands to the understanding and its
|
|
employment in experience, to the empirical faculty of judgement, and to
|
|
the reason of its application to experience.
|
|
|
|
For this very reason, too, the categories of modality are nothing
|
|
more than explanations of the conceptions of possibility, reality, and
|
|
necessity, as employed in experience, and at the same time, restrictions
|
|
of all the categories to empirical use alone, not authorizing the
|
|
transcendental employment of them. For if they are to have something
|
|
more than a merely logical significance, and to be something more than
|
|
a mere analytical expression of the form of thought, and to have a
|
|
relation to things and their possibility, reality, or necessity, they
|
|
must concern possible experience and its synthetical unity, in which
|
|
alone objects of cognition can be given.
|
|
|
|
The postulate of the possibility of things requires also, that the
|
|
conception of the things agree with the formal conditions of our
|
|
experience in general. But this, that is to say, the objective form of
|
|
experience, contains all the kinds of synthesis which are requisite for
|
|
the cognition of objects. A conception which contains a synthesis
|
|
must be regarded as empty and, without reference to an object, if its
|
|
synthesis does not belong to experience--either as borrowed from it,
|
|
and in this case it is called an empirical conception, or such as is the
|
|
ground and a priori condition of experience (its form), and in this
|
|
case it is a pure conception, a conception which nevertheless belongs to
|
|
experience, inasmuch as its object can be found in this alone. For where
|
|
shall we find the criterion or character of the possibility of an object
|
|
which is cogitated by means of an a priori synthetical conception, if
|
|
not in the synthesis which constitutes the form of empirical cognition
|
|
of objects? That in such a conception no contradiction exists is indeed
|
|
a necessary logical condition, but very far from being sufficient
|
|
to establish the objective reality of the conception, that is, the
|
|
possibility of such an object as is thought in the conception. Thus, in
|
|
the conception of a figure which is contained within two straight lines,
|
|
there is no contradiction, for the conceptions of two straight lines and
|
|
of their junction contain no negation of a figure. The impossibility in
|
|
such a case does not rest upon the conception in itself, but upon the
|
|
construction of it in space, that is to say, upon the conditions of
|
|
space and its determinations. But these have themselves objective
|
|
reality, that is, they apply to possible things, because they contain a
|
|
priori the form of experience in general.
|
|
|
|
And now we shall proceed to point out the extensive utility and
|
|
influence of this postulate of possibility. When I represent to myself a
|
|
thing that is permanent, so that everything in it which changes belongs
|
|
merely to its state or condition, from such a conception alone I never
|
|
can cognize that such a thing is possible. Or, if I represent to myself
|
|
something which is so constituted that, when it is posited,
|
|
something else follows always and infallibly, my thought contains no
|
|
self-contradiction; but whether such a property as causality is to
|
|
be found in any possible thing, my thought alone affords no means
|
|
of judging. Finally, I can represent to myself different things
|
|
(substances) which are so constituted that the state or condition of one
|
|
causes a change in the state of the other, and reciprocally; but whether
|
|
such a relation is a property of things cannot be perceived from these
|
|
conceptions, which contain a merely arbitrary synthesis. Only from the
|
|
fact, therefore, that these conceptions express a priori the relations
|
|
of perceptions in every experience, do we know that they possess
|
|
objective reality, that is, transcendental truth; and that independent
|
|
of experience, though not independent of all relation to form of an
|
|
experience in general and its synthetical unity, in which alone objects
|
|
can be empirically cognized.
|
|
|
|
But when we fashion to ourselves new conceptions of substances, forces,
|
|
action, and reaction, from the material presented to us by perception,
|
|
without following the example of experience in their connection, we
|
|
create mere chimeras, of the possibility of which we cannot discover any
|
|
criterion, because we have not taken experience for our instructress,
|
|
though we have borrowed the conceptions from her. Such fictitious
|
|
conceptions derive their character of possibility not, like the
|
|
categories, a priori, as conceptions on which all experience depends,
|
|
but only, a posteriori, as conceptions given by means of experience
|
|
itself, and their possibility must either be cognized a posteriori
|
|
and empirically, or it cannot be cognized at all. A substance which is
|
|
permanently present in space, yet without filling it (like that tertium
|
|
quid between matter and the thinking subject which some have tried to
|
|
introduce into metaphysics), or a peculiar fundamental power of the mind
|
|
of intuiting the future by anticipation (instead of merely inferring
|
|
from past and present events), or, finally, a power of the mind to place
|
|
itself in community of thought with other men, however distant they may
|
|
be--these are conceptions the possibility of which has no ground to rest
|
|
upon. For they are not based upon experience and its known laws; and,
|
|
without experience, they are a merely arbitrary conjunction of thoughts,
|
|
which, though containing no internal contradiction, has no claim to
|
|
objective reality, neither, consequently, to the possibility of such an
|
|
object as is thought in these conceptions. As far as concerns reality,
|
|
it is self-evident that we cannot cogitate such a possibility in
|
|
concreto without the aid of experience; because reality is concerned
|
|
only with sensation, as the matter of experience, and not with the form
|
|
of thought, with which we can no doubt indulge in shaping fancies.
|
|
|
|
But I pass by everything which derives its possibility from reality in
|
|
experience, and I purpose treating here merely of the possibility of
|
|
things by means of a priori conceptions. I maintain, then, that the
|
|
possibility of things is not derived from such conceptions per se, but
|
|
only when considered as formal and objective conditions of an experience
|
|
in general.
|
|
|
|
It seems, indeed, as if the possibility of a triangle could be cognized
|
|
from the conception of it alone (which is certainly independent of
|
|
experience); for we can certainly give to the conception a corresponding
|
|
object completely a priori, that is to say, we can construct it. But as
|
|
a triangle is only the form of an object, it must remain a mere product
|
|
of the imagination, and the possibility of the existence of an object
|
|
corresponding to it must remain doubtful, unless we can discover some
|
|
other ground, unless we know that the figure can be cogitated under the
|
|
conditions upon which all objects of experience rest. Now, the facts
|
|
that space is a formal condition a priori of external experience,
|
|
that the formative synthesis, by which we construct a triangle in
|
|
imagination, is the very same as that we employ in the apprehension of a
|
|
phenomenon for the purpose of making an empirical conception of it, are
|
|
what alone connect the notion of the possibility of such a thing, with
|
|
the conception of it. In the same manner, the possibility of continuous
|
|
quantities, indeed of quantities in general, for the conceptions of them
|
|
are without exception synthetical, is never evident from the conceptions
|
|
in themselves, but only when they are considered as the formal
|
|
conditions of the determination of objects in experience. And where,
|
|
indeed, should we look for objects to correspond to our conceptions, if
|
|
not in experience, by which alone objects are presented to us? It is,
|
|
however, true that without antecedent experience we can cognize and
|
|
characterize the possibility of things, relatively to the formal
|
|
conditions, under which something is determined in experience as an
|
|
object, consequently, completely a priori. But still this is possible
|
|
only in relation to experience and within its limits.
|
|
|
|
The postulate concerning the cognition of the reality of things requires
|
|
perception, consequently conscious sensation, not indeed immediately,
|
|
that is, of the object itself, whose existence is to be cognized, but
|
|
still that the object have some connection with a real perception, in
|
|
accordance with the analogies of experience, which exhibit all kinds of
|
|
real connection in experience.
|
|
|
|
From the mere conception of a thing it is impossible to conclude its
|
|
existence. For, let the conception be ever so complete, and containing
|
|
a statement of all the determinations of the thing, the existence of
|
|
it has nothing to do with all this, but only with thew question whether
|
|
such a thing is given, so that the perception of it can in every case
|
|
precede the conception. For the fact that the conception of it precedes
|
|
the perception, merely indicates the possibility of its existence; it
|
|
is perception which presents matter to the conception, that is the sole
|
|
criterion of reality. Prior to the perception of the thing, however, and
|
|
therefore comparatively a priori, we are able to cognize its existence,
|
|
provided it stands in connection with some perceptions according to the
|
|
principles of the empirical conjunction of these, that is, in conformity
|
|
with the analogies of perception. For, in this case, the existence
|
|
of the supposed thing is connected with our perception in a possible
|
|
experience, and we are able, with the guidance of these analogies, to
|
|
reason in the series of possible perceptions from a thing which we do
|
|
really perceive to the thing we do not perceive. Thus, we cognize
|
|
the existence of a magnetic matter penetrating all bodies from the
|
|
perception of the attraction of the steel-filings by the magnet,
|
|
although the constitution of our organs renders an immediate perception
|
|
of this matter impossible for us. For, according to the laws of
|
|
sensibility and the connected context of our perceptions, we should
|
|
in an experience come also on an immediate empirical intuition of
|
|
this matter, if our senses were more acute--but this obtuseness has
|
|
no influence upon and cannot alter the form of possible experience in
|
|
general. Our knowledge of the existence of things reaches as far as our
|
|
perceptions, and what may be inferred from them according to empirical
|
|
laws, extend. If we do not set out from experience, or do not proceed
|
|
according to the laws of the empirical connection of phenomena, our
|
|
pretensions to discover the existence of a thing which we do not
|
|
immediately perceive are vain. Idealism, however, brings forward
|
|
powerful objections to these rules for proving existence mediately. This
|
|
is, therefore, the proper place for its refutation.
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
REFUTATION OF IDEALISM.
|
|
|
|
Idealism--I mean material idealism--is the theory which declares the
|
|
existence of objects in space without us to be either () doubtful
|
|
and indemonstrable, or (2) false and impossible. The first is the
|
|
problematical idealism of Descartes, who admits the undoubted certainty
|
|
of only one empirical assertion (assertio), to wit, "I am." The second
|
|
is the dogmatical idealism of Berkeley, who maintains that space,
|
|
together with all the objects of which it is the inseparable condition,
|
|
is a thing which is in itself impossible, and that consequently the
|
|
objects in space are mere products of the imagination. The dogmatical
|
|
theory of idealism is unavoidable, if we regard space as a property
|
|
of things in themselves; for in that case it is, with all to which it
|
|
serves as condition, a nonentity. But the foundation for this kind of
|
|
idealism we have already destroyed in the transcendental aesthetic.
|
|
Problematical idealism, which makes no such assertion, but only alleges
|
|
our incapacity to prove the existence of anything besides ourselves by
|
|
means of immediate experience, is a theory rational and evidencing a
|
|
thorough and philosophical mode of thinking, for it observes the rule
|
|
not to form a decisive judgement before sufficient proof be shown. The
|
|
desired proof must therefore demonstrate that we have experience of
|
|
external things, and not mere fancies. For this purpose, we must prove,
|
|
that our internal and, to Descartes, indubitable experience is itself
|
|
possible only under the previous assumption of external experience.
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
THEOREM.
|
|
|
|
The simple but empirically determined consciousness of my own existence
|
|
proves the existence of external objects in space.
|
|
|
|
|
|
PROOF
|
|
|
|
|
|
I am conscious of my own existence as determined in time. All
|
|
determination in regard to time presupposes the existence of something
|
|
permanent in perception. But this permanent something cannot be
|
|
something in me, for the very reason that my existence in time is itself
|
|
determined by this permanent something. It follows that the perception
|
|
of this permanent existence is possible only through a thing without
|
|
me and not through the mere representation of a thing without me.
|
|
Consequently, the determination of my existence in time is possible only
|
|
through the existence of real things external to me. Now, consciousness
|
|
in time is necessarily connected with the consciousness of the
|
|
possibility of this determination in time. Hence it follows that
|
|
consciousness in time is necessarily connected also with the existence
|
|
of things without me, inasmuch as the existence of these things is the
|
|
condition of determination in time. That is to say, the consciousness of
|
|
my own existence is at the same time an immediate consciousness of the
|
|
existence of other things without me.
|
|
|
|
Remark I. The reader will observe, that in the foregoing proof the game
|
|
which idealism plays is retorted upon itself, and with more justice.
|
|
It assumed that the only immediate experience is internal and that from
|
|
this we can only infer the existence of external things. But, as
|
|
always happens, when we reason from given effects to determined causes,
|
|
idealism has reasoned with too much haste and uncertainty, for it
|
|
is quite possible that the cause of our representations may lie in
|
|
ourselves, and that we ascribe it falsely to external things. But our
|
|
proof shows that external experience is properly immediate,* that only
|
|
by virtue of it--not, indeed, the consciousness of our own existence,
|
|
but certainly the determination of our existence in time, that is,
|
|
internal experience--is possible. It is true, that the representation
|
|
"I am," which is the expression of the consciousness which can accompany
|
|
all my thoughts, is that which immediately includes the existence of a
|
|
subject. But in this representation we cannot find any knowledge of the
|
|
subject, and therefore also no empirical knowledge, that is, experience.
|
|
For experience contains, in addition to the thought of something
|
|
existing, intuition, and in this case it must be internal intuition,
|
|
that is, time, in relation to which the subject must be determined.
|
|
But the existence of external things is absolutely requisite for this
|
|
purpose, so that it follows that internal experience is itself possible
|
|
only mediately and through external experience.
|
|
|
|
|
|
[*Footnote: The immediate consciousness of the existence of external
|
|
things is, in the preceding theorem, not presupposed, but proved, by the
|
|
possibility of this consciousness understood by us or not. The question
|
|
as to the possibility of it would stand thus: "Have we an internal
|
|
sense, but no external sense, and is our belief in external perception
|
|
a mere delusion?" But it is evident that, in order merely to fancy to
|
|
ourselves anything as external, that is, to present it to the sense in
|
|
intuition we must already possess an external sense, and must thereby
|
|
distinguish immediately the mere receptivity of an external intuition
|
|
from the spontaneity which characterizes every act of imagination. For
|
|
merely to imagine also an external sense, would annihilate the faculty
|
|
of intuition itself which is to be determined by the imagination.]
|
|
|
|
|
|
Remark II. Now with this view all empirical use of our faculty of
|
|
cognition in the determination of time is in perfect accordance.
|
|
Its truth is supported by the fact that it is possible to perceive a
|
|
determination of time only by means of a change in external relations
|
|
(motion) to the permanent in space (for example, we become aware of the
|
|
sun's motion by observing the changes of his relation to the objects
|
|
of this earth). But this is not all. We find that we possess nothing
|
|
permanent that can correspond and be submitted to the conception of a
|
|
substance as intuition, except matter. This idea of permanence is not
|
|
itself derived from external experience, but is an a priori necessary
|
|
condition of all determination of time, consequently also of the
|
|
internal sense in reference to our own existence, and that through
|
|
the existence of external things. In the representation "I," the
|
|
consciousness of myself is not an intuition, but a merely intellectual
|
|
representation produced by the spontaneous activity of a thinking
|
|
subject. It follows, that this "I" has not any predicate of intuition,
|
|
which, in its character of permanence, could serve as correlate to
|
|
the determination of time in the internal sense--in the same way as
|
|
impenetrability is the correlate of matter as an empirical intuition.
|
|
|
|
Remark III. From the fact that the existence of external things is a
|
|
necessary condition of the possibility of a determined consciousness
|
|
of ourselves, it does not follow that every intuitive representation
|
|
of external things involves the existence of these things, for their
|
|
representations may very well be the mere products of the imagination
|
|
(in dreams as well as in madness); though, indeed, these are themselves
|
|
created by the reproduction of previous external perceptions, which,
|
|
as has been shown, are possible only through the reality of external
|
|
objects. The sole aim of our remarks has, however, been to prove
|
|
that internal experience in general is possible only through external
|
|
experience in general. Whether this or that supposed experience be
|
|
purely imaginary must be discovered from its particular determinations
|
|
and by comparing these with the criteria of all real experience.
|
|
|
|
Finally, as regards the third postulate, it applies to material
|
|
necessity in existence, and not to merely formal and logical necessity
|
|
in the connection of conceptions. Now as we cannot cognize completely
|
|
a priori the existence of any object of sense, though we can do so
|
|
comparatively a priori, that is, relatively to some other previously
|
|
given existence--a cognition, however, which can only be of such an
|
|
existence as must be contained in the complex of experience, of which
|
|
the previously given perception is a part--the necessity of existence
|
|
can never be cognized from conceptions, but always, on the contrary,
|
|
from its connection with that which is an object of perception. But the
|
|
only existence cognized, under the condition of other given phenomena,
|
|
as necessary, is the existence of effects from given causes in
|
|
conformity with the laws of causality. It is consequently not the
|
|
necessity of the existence of things (as substances), but the necessity
|
|
of the state of things that we cognize, and that not immediately, but by
|
|
means of the existence of other states given in perception, according
|
|
to empirical laws of causality. Hence it follows that the criterion of
|
|
necessity is to be found only in the law of possible experience--that
|
|
everything which happens is determined a priori in the phenomenon by
|
|
its cause. Thus we cognize only the necessity of effects in nature, the
|
|
causes of which are given us. Moreover, the criterion of necessity
|
|
in existence possesses no application beyond the field of possible
|
|
experience, and even in this it is not valid of the existence of things
|
|
as substances, because these can never be considered as empirical
|
|
effects, or as something that happens and has a beginning. Necessity,
|
|
therefore, regards only the relations of phenomena according to the
|
|
dynamical law of causality, and the possibility grounded thereon, of
|
|
reasoning from some given existence (of a cause) a priori to another
|
|
existence (of an effect). "Everything that happens is hypothetically
|
|
necessary," is a principle which subjects the changes that take place in
|
|
the world to a law, that is, to a rule of necessary existence, without
|
|
which nature herself could not possibly exist. Hence the proposition,
|
|
"Nothing happens by blind chance (in mundo non datur casus)," is an
|
|
a priori law of nature. The case is the same with the proposition,
|
|
"Necessity in nature is not blind," that is, it is conditioned,
|
|
consequently intelligible necessity (non datur fatum). Both laws subject
|
|
the play of change to "a nature of things (as phenomena)," or, which
|
|
is the same thing, to the unity of the understanding, and through
|
|
the understanding alone can changes belong to an experience, as the
|
|
synthetical unity of phenomena. Both belong to the class of dynamical
|
|
principles. The former is properly a consequence of the principle of
|
|
causality--one of the analogies of experience. The latter belongs to the
|
|
principles of modality, which to the determination of causality adds the
|
|
conception of necessity, which is itself, however, subject to a rule of
|
|
the understanding. The principle of continuity forbids any leap in the
|
|
series of phenomena regarded as changes (in mundo non datur saltus); and
|
|
likewise, in the complex of all empirical intuitions in space, any
|
|
break or hiatus between two phenomena (non datur hiatus)--for we can so
|
|
express the principle, that experience can admit nothing which proves
|
|
the existence of a vacuum, or which even admits it as a part of an
|
|
empirical synthesis. For, as regards a vacuum or void, which we may
|
|
cogitate as out and beyond the field of possible experience (the world),
|
|
such a question cannot come before the tribunal of mere understanding,
|
|
which decides only upon questions that concern the employment of given
|
|
phenomena for the construction of empirical cognition. It is rather a
|
|
problem for ideal reason, which passes beyond the sphere of a possible
|
|
experience and aims at forming a judgement of that which surrounds and
|
|
circumscribes it, and the proper place for the consideration of it is
|
|
the transcendental dialectic. These four propositions, "In mundo non
|
|
datur hiatus, non datur saltus, non datur casus, non datur fatum," as
|
|
well as all principles of transcendental origin, we could very easily
|
|
exhibit in their proper order, that is, in conformity with the order
|
|
of the categories, and assign to each its proper place. But the already
|
|
practised reader will do this for himself, or discover the clue to such
|
|
an arrangement. But the combined result of all is simply this, to admit
|
|
into the empirical synthesis nothing which might cause a break in or
|
|
be foreign to the understanding and the continuous connection of all
|
|
phenomena, that is, the unity of the conceptions of the understanding.
|
|
For in the understanding alone is the unity of experience, in which all
|
|
perceptions must have their assigned place, possible.
|
|
|
|
Whether the field of possibility be greater than that of reality,
|
|
and whether the field of the latter be itself greater than that of
|
|
necessity, are interesting enough questions, and quite capable
|
|
of synthetic solution, questions, however, which come under the
|
|
jurisdiction of reason alone. For they are tantamount to asking whether
|
|
all things as phenomena do without exception belong to the complex and
|
|
connected whole of a single experience, of which every given
|
|
perception is a part which therefore cannot be conjoined with any
|
|
other phenomena--or, whether my perceptions can belong to more than one
|
|
possible experience? The understanding gives to experience, according
|
|
to the subjective and formal conditions, of sensibility as well as of
|
|
apperception, the rules which alone make this experience possible.
|
|
Other forms of intuition besides those of space and time, other forms of
|
|
understanding besides the discursive forms of thought, or of cognition
|
|
by means of conceptions, we can neither imagine nor make intelligible
|
|
to ourselves; and even if we could, they would still not belong to
|
|
experience, which is the only mode of cognition by which objects are
|
|
presented to us. Whether other perceptions besides those which belong
|
|
to the total of our possible experience, and consequently whether some
|
|
other sphere of matter exists, the understanding has no power to decide,
|
|
its proper occupation being with the synthesis of that which is given.
|
|
Moreover, the poverty of the usual arguments which go to prove the
|
|
existence of a vast sphere of possibility, of which all that is real
|
|
(every object of experience) is but a small part, is very remarkable.
|
|
"All real is possible"; from this follows naturally, according to the
|
|
logical laws of conversion, the particular proposition: "Some possible
|
|
is real." Now this seems to be equivalent to: "Much is possible that is
|
|
not real." No doubt it does seem as if we ought to consider the sum of
|
|
the possible to be greater than that of the real, from the fact that
|
|
something must be added to the former to constitute the latter. But this
|
|
notion of adding to the possible is absurd. For that which is not in
|
|
the sum of the possible, and consequently requires to be added to it,
|
|
is manifestly impossible. In addition to accordance with the formal
|
|
conditions of experience, the understanding requires a connection with
|
|
some perception; but that which is connected with this perception is
|
|
real, even although it is not immediately perceived. But that another
|
|
series of phenomena, in complete coherence with that which is given
|
|
in perception, consequently more than one all-embracing experience is
|
|
possible, is an inference which cannot be concluded from the data given
|
|
us by experience, and still less without any data at all. That which is
|
|
possible only under conditions which are themselves merely possible, is
|
|
not possible in any respect. And yet we can find no more certain ground
|
|
on which to base the discussion of the question whether the sphere of
|
|
possibility is wider than that of experience.
|
|
|
|
I have merely mentioned these questions, that in treating of the
|
|
conception of the understanding, there might be no omission of anything
|
|
that, in the common opinion, belongs to them. In reality, however, the
|
|
notion of absolute possibility (possibility which is valid in every
|
|
respect) is not a mere conception of the understanding, which can be
|
|
employed empirically, but belongs to reason alone, which passes the
|
|
bounds of all empirical use of the understanding. We have, therefore,
|
|
contented ourselves with a merely critical remark, leaving the subject
|
|
to be explained in the sequel.
|
|
|
|
Before concluding this fourth section, and at the same time the system
|
|
of all principles of the pure understanding, it seems proper to
|
|
mention the reasons which induced me to term the principles of modality
|
|
postulates. This expression I do not here use in the sense which some
|
|
more recent philosophers, contrary to its meaning with mathematicians,
|
|
to whom the word properly belongs, attach to it--that of a proposition,
|
|
namely, immediately certain, requiring neither deduction nor proof. For
|
|
if, in the case of synthetical propositions, however evident they may
|
|
be, we accord to them without deduction, and merely on the strength
|
|
of their own pretensions, unqualified belief, all critique of the
|
|
understanding is entirely lost; and, as there is no want of bold
|
|
pretensions, which the common belief (though for the philosopher this is
|
|
no credential) does not reject, the understanding lies exposed to every
|
|
delusion and conceit, without the power of refusing its assent to those
|
|
assertions, which, though illegitimate, demand acceptance as veritable
|
|
axioms. When, therefore, to the conception of a thing an a priori
|
|
determination is synthetically added, such a proposition must obtain, if
|
|
not a proof, at least a deduction of the legitimacy of its assertion.
|
|
|
|
The principles of modality are, however, not objectively synthetical,
|
|
for the predicates of possibility, reality, and necessity do not in
|
|
the least augment the conception of that of which they are affirmed,
|
|
inasmuch as they contribute nothing to the representation of the object.
|
|
But as they are, nevertheless, always synthetical, they are so merely
|
|
subjectively. That is to say, they have a reflective power, and apply
|
|
to the conception of a thing, of which, in other respects, they affirm
|
|
nothing, the faculty of cognition in which the conception originates
|
|
and has its seat. So that if the conception merely agree with the formal
|
|
conditions of experience, its object is called possible; if it is in
|
|
connection with perception, and determined thereby, the object is real;
|
|
if it is determined according to conceptions by means of the connection
|
|
of perceptions, the object is called necessary. The principles of
|
|
modality therefore predicate of a conception nothing more than the
|
|
procedure of the faculty of cognition which generated it. Now a
|
|
postulate in mathematics is a practical proposition which contains
|
|
nothing but the synthesis by which we present an object to ourselves,
|
|
and produce the conception of it, for example--"With a given line,
|
|
to describe a circle upon a plane, from a given point"; and such a
|
|
proposition does not admit of proof, because the procedure, which it
|
|
requires, is exactly that by which alone it is possible to generate the
|
|
conception of such a figure. With the same right, accordingly, can we
|
|
postulate the principles of modality, because they do not augment* the
|
|
conception of a thing but merely indicate the manner in which it is
|
|
connected with the faculty of cognition.
|
|
|
|
|
|
[*Footnote: When I think the reality of a thing, I do really think more
|
|
than the possibility, but not in the thing; for that can never contain
|
|
more in reality than was contained in its complete possibility. But
|
|
while the notion of possibility is merely the notion of a position of
|
|
thing in relation to the understanding (its empirical use), reality is
|
|
the conjunction of the thing with perception.]
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
GENERAL REMARK ON THE SYSTEM OF PRINCIPLES.
|
|
|
|
It is very remarkable that we cannot perceive the possibility of a thing
|
|
from the category alone, but must always have an intuition, by which
|
|
to make evident the objective reality of the pure conception of the
|
|
understanding. Take, for example, the categories of relation. How (1)
|
|
a thing can exist only as a subject, and not as a mere determination of
|
|
other things, that is, can be substance; or how (2), because something
|
|
exists, some other thing must exist, consequently how a thing can be a
|
|
cause; or how (3), when several things exist, from the fact that one
|
|
of these things exists, some consequence to the others follows,
|
|
and reciprocally, and in this way a community of substances can be
|
|
possible--are questions whose solution cannot be obtained from mere
|
|
conceptions. The very same is the case with the other categories; for
|
|
example, how a thing can be of the same sort with many others, that is,
|
|
can be a quantity, and so on. So long as we have not intuition we cannot
|
|
know whether we do really think an object by the categories, and where
|
|
an object can anywhere be found to cohere with them, and thus the truth
|
|
is established, that the categories are not in themselves cognitions,
|
|
but mere forms of thought for the construction of cognitions from given
|
|
intuitions. For the same reason is it true that from categories alone
|
|
no synthetical proposition can be made. For example: "In every existence
|
|
there is substance," that is, something that can exist only as a subject
|
|
and not as mere predicate; or, "Everything is a quantity"--to construct
|
|
propositions such as these, we require something to enable us to go out
|
|
beyond the given conception and connect another with it. For the same
|
|
reason the attempt to prove a synthetical proposition by means of mere
|
|
conceptions, for example: "Everything that exists contingently has a
|
|
cause," has never succeeded. We could never get further than proving
|
|
that, without this relation to conceptions, we could not conceive the
|
|
existence of the contingent, that is, could not a priori through the
|
|
understanding cognize the existence of such a thing; but it does not
|
|
hence follow that this is also the condition of the possibility of the
|
|
thing itself that is said to be contingent. If, accordingly; we look
|
|
back to our proof of the principle of causality, we shall find that we
|
|
were able to prove it as valid only of objects of possible experience,
|
|
and, indeed, only as itself the principle of the possibility of
|
|
experience, Consequently of the cognition of an object given in
|
|
empirical intuition, and not from mere conceptions. That, however,
|
|
the proposition: "Everything that is contingent must have a cause," is
|
|
evident to every one merely from conceptions, is not to be denied. But
|
|
in this case the conception of the contingent is cogitated as involving
|
|
not the category of modality (as that the non-existence of which can
|
|
be conceived) but that of relation (as that which can exist only as
|
|
the consequence of something else), and so it is really an identical
|
|
proposition: "That which can exist only as a consequence, has a cause."
|
|
In fact, when we have to give examples of contingent existence, we
|
|
always refer to changes, and not merely to the possibility of conceiving
|
|
the opposite.* But change is an event, which, as such, is possible only
|
|
through a cause, and considered per se its non-existence is therefore
|
|
possible, and we become cognizant of its contingency from the fact that
|
|
it can exist only as the effect of a cause. Hence, if a thing is assumed
|
|
to be contingent, it is an analytical proposition to say, it has a
|
|
cause.
|
|
|
|
|
|
[*Footnote: We can easily conceive the non-existence of matter; but the
|
|
ancients did not thence infer its contingency. But even the alternation
|
|
of the existence and non-existence of a given state in a thing, in
|
|
which all change consists, by no means proves the contingency of that
|
|
state--the ground of proof being the reality of its opposite. For
|
|
example, a body is in a state of rest after motion, but we cannot infer
|
|
the contingency of the motion from the fact that the former is the
|
|
opposite of the latter. For this opposite is merely a logical and not a
|
|
real opposite to the other. If we wish to demonstrate the contingency of
|
|
the motion, what we ought to prove is that, instead of the motion which
|
|
took place in the preceding point of time, it was possible for the body
|
|
to have been then in rest, not, that it is afterwards in rest; for in
|
|
this case, both opposites are perfectly consistent with each other.]
|
|
|
|
|
|
But it is still more remarkable that, to understand the possibility of
|
|
things according to the categories and thus to demonstrate the objective
|
|
reality of the latter, we require not merely intuitions, but external
|
|
intuitions. If, for example, we take the pure conceptions of relation,
|
|
we find that (1) for the purpose of presenting to the conception of
|
|
substance something permanent in intuition corresponding thereto and
|
|
thus of demonstrating the objective reality of this conception, we
|
|
require an intuition (of matter) in space, because space alone is
|
|
permanent and determines things as such, while time, and with it all
|
|
that is in the internal sense, is in a state of continual flow; (2)
|
|
in order to represent change as the intuition corresponding to the
|
|
conception of causality, we require the representation of motion as
|
|
change in space; in fact, it is through it alone that changes, the
|
|
possibility of which no pure understanding can perceive, are capable
|
|
of being intuited. Change is the connection of determinations
|
|
contradictorily opposed to each other in the existence of one and the
|
|
same thing. Now, how it is possible that out of a given state one
|
|
quite opposite to it in the same thing should follow, reason without
|
|
an example can not only not conceive, but cannot even make intelligible
|
|
without intuition; and this intuition is the motion of a point in space;
|
|
the existence of which in different spaces (as a consequence of opposite
|
|
determinations) alone makes the intuition of change possible. For, in
|
|
order to make even internal change cognitable, we require to represent
|
|
time, as the form of the internal sense, figuratively by a line, and the
|
|
internal change by the drawing of that line (motion), and consequently
|
|
are obliged to employ external intuition to be able to represent the
|
|
successive existence of ourselves in different states. The proper ground
|
|
of this fact is that all change to be perceived as change presupposes
|
|
something permanent in intuition, while in the internal sense no
|
|
permanent intuition is to be found. Lastly, the objective possibility
|
|
of the category of community cannot be conceived by mere reason, and
|
|
consequently its objective reality cannot be demonstrated without an
|
|
intuition, and that external in space. For how can we conceive the
|
|
possibility of community, that is, when several substances exist, that
|
|
some effect on the existence of the one follows from the existence
|
|
of the other, and reciprocally, and therefore that, because something
|
|
exists in the latter, something else must exist in the former, which
|
|
could not be understood from its own existence alone? For this is the
|
|
very essence of community--which is inconceivable as a property of
|
|
things which are perfectly isolated. Hence, Leibnitz, in attributing to
|
|
the substances of the world--as cogitated by the understanding alone--a
|
|
community, required the mediating aid of a divinity; for, from their
|
|
existence, such a property seemed to him with justice inconceivable. But
|
|
we can very easily conceive the possibility of community (of
|
|
substances as phenomena) if we represent them to ourselves as in space,
|
|
consequently in external intuition. For external intuition contains
|
|
in itself a priori formal external relations, as the conditions of the
|
|
possibility of the real relations of action and reaction, and
|
|
therefore of the possibility of community. With the same ease can it
|
|
be demonstrated, that the possibility of things as quantities, and
|
|
consequently the objective reality of the category of quantity, can be
|
|
grounded only in external intuition, and that by its means alone is the
|
|
notion of quantity appropriated by the internal sense. But I must avoid
|
|
prolixity, and leave the task of illustrating this by examples to the
|
|
reader's own reflection.
|
|
|
|
The above remarks are of the greatest importance, not only for the
|
|
confirmation of our previous confutation of idealism, but still more
|
|
when the subject of self-cognition by mere internal consciousness
|
|
and the determination of our own nature without the aid of external
|
|
empirical intuitions is under discussion, for the indication of the
|
|
grounds of the possibility of such a cognition.
|
|
|
|
The result of the whole of this part of the analytic of principles is,
|
|
therefore: "All principles of the pure understanding are nothing more
|
|
than a priori principles of the possibility of experience, and to
|
|
experience alone do all a priori synthetical propositions apply and
|
|
relate"; indeed, their possibility itself rests entirely on this
|
|
relation.
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
CHAPTER III Of the Ground of the Division of all Objects into Phenomena
|
|
and Noumena.
|
|
|
|
We have now not only traversed the region of the pure understanding and
|
|
carefully surveyed every part of it, but we have also measured it, and
|
|
assigned to everything therein its proper place. But this land is an
|
|
island, and enclosed by nature herself within unchangeable limits. It is
|
|
the land of truth (an attractive word), surrounded by a wide and stormy
|
|
ocean, the region of illusion, where many a fog-bank, many an iceberg,
|
|
seems to the mariner, on his voyage of discovery, a new country, and,
|
|
while constantly deluding him with vain hopes, engages him in dangerous
|
|
adventures, from which he never can desist, and which yet he never can
|
|
bring to a termination. But before venturing upon this sea, in order
|
|
to explore it in its whole extent, and to arrive at a certainty whether
|
|
anything is to be discovered there, it will not be without advantage if
|
|
we cast our eyes upon the chart of the land that we are about to
|
|
leave, and to ask ourselves, firstly, whether we cannot rest perfectly
|
|
contented with what it contains, or whether we must not of necessity
|
|
be contented with it, if we can find nowhere else a solid foundation to
|
|
build upon; and, secondly, by what title we possess this land itself,
|
|
and how we hold it secure against all hostile claims? Although, in the
|
|
course of our analytic, we have already given sufficient answers to
|
|
these questions, yet a summary recapitulation of these solutions may
|
|
be useful in strengthening our conviction, by uniting in one point the
|
|
momenta of the arguments.
|
|
|
|
We have seen that everything which the understanding draws from itself,
|
|
without borrowing from experience, it nevertheless possesses only
|
|
for the behoof and use of experience. The principles of the pure
|
|
understanding, whether constitutive a priori (as the mathematical
|
|
principles), or merely regulative (as the dynamical), contain nothing
|
|
but the pure schema, as it were, of possible experience. For experience
|
|
possesses its unity from the synthetical unity which the understanding,
|
|
originally and from itself, imparts to the synthesis of the imagination
|
|
in relation to apperception, and in a priori relation to and agreement
|
|
with which phenomena, as data for a possible cognition, must stand. But
|
|
although these rules of the understanding are not only a priori true,
|
|
but the very source of all truth, that is, of the accordance of our
|
|
cognition with objects, and on this ground, that they contain the basis
|
|
of the possibility of experience, as the ensemble of all cognition, it
|
|
seems to us not enough to propound what is true--we desire also to
|
|
be told what we want to know. If, then, we learn nothing more by this
|
|
critical examination than what we should have practised in the merely
|
|
empirical use of the understanding, without any such subtle inquiry,
|
|
the presumption is that the advantage we reap from it is not worth
|
|
the labour bestowed upon it. It may certainly be answered that no rash
|
|
curiosity is more prejudicial to the enlargement of our knowledge than
|
|
that which must know beforehand the utility of this or that piece
|
|
of information which we seek, before we have entered on the needful
|
|
investigations, and before one could form the least conception of its
|
|
utility, even though it were placed before our eyes. But there is
|
|
one advantage in such transcendental inquiries which can be made
|
|
comprehensible to the dullest and most reluctant learner--this, namely,
|
|
that the understanding which is occupied merely with empirical exercise,
|
|
and does not reflect on the sources of its own cognition, may exercise
|
|
its functions very well and very successfully, but is quite unable to do
|
|
one thing, and that of very great importance, to determine, namely,
|
|
the bounds that limit its employment, and to know what lies within
|
|
or without its own sphere. This purpose can be obtained only by
|
|
such profound investigations as we have instituted. But if it cannot
|
|
distinguish whether certain questions lie within its horizon or not, it
|
|
can never be sure either as to its claims or possessions, but must lay
|
|
its account with many humiliating corrections, when it transgresses, as
|
|
it unavoidably will, the limits of its own territory, and loses itself
|
|
in fanciful opinions and blinding illusions.
|
|
|
|
That the understanding, therefore, cannot make of its a priori
|
|
principles, or even of its conceptions, other than an empirical use,
|
|
is a proposition which leads to the most important results. A
|
|
transcendental use is made of a conception in a fundamental proposition
|
|
or principle, when it is referred to things in general and considered
|
|
as things in themselves; an empirical use, when it is referred merely to
|
|
phenomena, that is, to objects of a possible experience. That the latter
|
|
use of a conception is the only admissible one is evident from the
|
|
reasons following. For every conception are requisite, firstly, the
|
|
logical form of a conception (of thought) general; and, secondly, the
|
|
possibility of presenting to this an object to which it may apply.
|
|
Failing this latter, it has no sense, and utterly void of content,
|
|
although it may contain the logical function for constructing a
|
|
conception from certain data. Now, object cannot be given to a
|
|
conception otherwise than by intuition, and, even if a pure intuition
|
|
antecedent to the object is a priori possible, this pure intuition can
|
|
itself obtain objective validity only from empirical intuition, of which
|
|
it is itself but the form. All conceptions, therefore, and with them
|
|
all principles, however high the degree of their a priori possibility,
|
|
relate to empirical intuitions, that is, to data towards a possible
|
|
experience. Without this they possess no objective validity, but are
|
|
mere play of imagination or of understanding with images or notions. Let
|
|
us take, for example, the conceptions of mathematics, and first in its
|
|
pure intuitions. "Space has three dimensions"--"Between two points there
|
|
can be only one straight line," etc. Although all these principles,
|
|
and the representation of the object with which this science occupies
|
|
itself, are generated in the mind entirely a priori, they would
|
|
nevertheless have no significance if we were not always able to exhibit
|
|
their significance in and by means of phenomena (empirical objects).
|
|
Hence it is requisite that an abstract conception be made sensuous,
|
|
that is, that an object corresponding to it in intuition be forthcoming,
|
|
otherwise the conception remains, as we say, without sense, that
|
|
is, without meaning. Mathematics fulfils this requirement by the
|
|
construction of the figure, which is a phenomenon evident to the senses.
|
|
The same science finds support and significance in number; this in its
|
|
turn finds it in the fingers, or in counters, or in lines and points.
|
|
The conception itself is always produced a priori, together with the
|
|
synthetical principles or formulas from such conceptions; but the proper
|
|
employment of them, and their application to objects, can exist nowhere
|
|
but in experience, the possibility of which, as regards its form, they
|
|
contain a priori.
|
|
|
|
That this is also the case with all of the categories and the principles
|
|
based upon them is evident from the fact that we cannot render
|
|
intelligible the possibility of an object corresponding to them without
|
|
having recourse to the conditions of sensibility, consequently, to the
|
|
form of phenomena, to which, as their only proper objects, their use
|
|
must therefore be confined, inasmuch as, if this condition is removed,
|
|
all significance, that is, all relation to an object, disappears, and
|
|
no example can be found to make it comprehensible what sort of things we
|
|
ought to think under such conceptions.
|
|
|
|
The conception of quantity cannot be explained except by saying that
|
|
it is the determination of a thing whereby it can be cogitated how
|
|
many times one is placed in it. But this "how many times" is based upon
|
|
successive repetition, consequently upon time and the synthesis of the
|
|
homogeneous therein. Reality, in contradistinction to negation, can be
|
|
explained only by cogitating a time which is either filled therewith or
|
|
is void. If I leave out the notion of permanence (which is existence in
|
|
all time), there remains in the conception of substance nothing but the
|
|
logical notion of subject, a notion of which I endeavour to realize by
|
|
representing to myself something that can exist only as a subject. But
|
|
not only am I perfectly ignorant of any conditions under which this
|
|
logical prerogative can belong to a thing, I can make nothing out of
|
|
the notion, and draw no inference from it, because no object to which
|
|
to apply the conception is determined, and we consequently do not know
|
|
whether it has any meaning at all. In like manner, if I leave out the
|
|
notion of time, in which something follows upon some other thing in
|
|
conformity with a rule, I can find nothing in the pure category, except
|
|
that there is a something of such a sort that from it a conclusion may
|
|
be drawn as to the existence of some other thing. But in this case
|
|
it would not only be impossible to distinguish between a cause and an
|
|
effect, but, as this power to draw conclusions requires conditions of
|
|
which I am quite ignorant, the conception is not determined as to the
|
|
mode in which it ought to apply to an object. The so-called principle:
|
|
"Everything that is contingent has a cause," comes with a gravity and
|
|
self-assumed authority that seems to require no support from without.
|
|
But, I ask, what is meant by contingent? The answer is that the
|
|
non-existence of which is possible. But I should like very well to know
|
|
by what means this possibility of non-existence is to be cognized, if we
|
|
do not represent to ourselves a succession in the series of phenomena,
|
|
and in this succession an existence which follows a non-existence, or
|
|
conversely, consequently, change. For to say, that the non-existence
|
|
of a thing is not self-contradictory is a lame appeal to a logical
|
|
condition, which is no doubt a necessary condition of the existence of
|
|
the conception, but is far from being sufficient for the real objective
|
|
possibility of non-existence. I can annihilate in thought every existing
|
|
substance without self-contradiction, but I cannot infer from this their
|
|
objective contingency in existence, that is to say, the possibility of
|
|
their non-existence in itself. As regards the category of community,
|
|
it may easily be inferred that, as the pure categories of substance and
|
|
causality are incapable of a definition and explanation sufficient to
|
|
determine their object without the aid of intuition, the category
|
|
of reciprocal causality in the relation of substances to each other
|
|
(commercium) is just as little susceptible thereof. Possibility,
|
|
existence, and necessity nobody has ever yet been able to explain
|
|
without being guilty of manifest tautology, when the definition has been
|
|
drawn entirely from the pure understanding. For the substitution of the
|
|
logical possibility of the conception--the condition of which is that
|
|
it be not self-contradictory, for the transcendental possibility of
|
|
things--the condition of which is that there be an object corresponding
|
|
to the conception, is a trick which can only deceive the inexperienced.*
|
|
|
|
|
|
[*Footnote: In one word, to none of these conceptions belongs a
|
|
corresponding object, and consequently their real possibility cannot
|
|
be demonstrated, if we take away sensuous intuition--the only intuition
|
|
which we possess--and there then remains nothing but the logical
|
|
possibility, that is, the fact that the conception or thought is
|
|
possible--which, however, is not the question; what we want to know
|
|
being, whether it relates to an object and thus possesses any meaning.]
|
|
|
|
|
|
It follows incontestably, that the pure conceptions of the understanding
|
|
are incapable of transcendental, and must always be of empirical use
|
|
alone, and that the principles of the pure understanding relate only
|
|
to the general conditions of a possible experience, to objects of the
|
|
senses, and never to things in general, apart from the mode in which we
|
|
intuite them.
|
|
|
|
Transcendental analytic has accordingly this important result, to wit,
|
|
that the understanding is competent' effect nothing a priori, except the
|
|
anticipation of the form of a possible experience in general, and that,
|
|
as that which is not phenomenon cannot be an object of experience, it
|
|
can never overstep the limits of sensibility, within which alone
|
|
objects are presented to us. Its principles are merely principles of
|
|
the exposition of phenomena, and the proud name of an ontology, which
|
|
professes to present synthetical cognitions a priori of things in
|
|
general in a systematic doctrine, must give place to the modest title of
|
|
analytic of the pure understanding.
|
|
|
|
Thought is the act of referring a given intuition to an object. If
|
|
the mode of this intuition is unknown to us, the object is merely
|
|
transcendental, and the conception of the understanding is employed only
|
|
transcendentally, that is, to produce unity in the thought of a manifold
|
|
in general. Now a pure category, in which all conditions of sensuous
|
|
intuition--as the only intuition we possess--are abstracted, does not
|
|
determine an object, but merely expresses the thought of an object in
|
|
general, according to different modes. Now, to employ a conception, the
|
|
function of judgement is required, by which an object is subsumed under
|
|
the conception, consequently the at least formal condition, under which
|
|
something can be given in intuition. Failing this condition of judgement
|
|
(schema), subsumption is impossible; for there is in such a case
|
|
nothing given, which may be subsumed under the conception. The merely
|
|
transcendental use of the categories is therefore, in fact, no use at
|
|
all and has no determined, or even, as regards its form, determinable
|
|
object. Hence it follows that the pure category is incompetent to
|
|
establish a synthetical a priori principle, and that the principles of
|
|
the pure understanding are only of empirical and never of transcendental
|
|
use, and that beyond the sphere of possible experience no synthetical a
|
|
priori principles are possible.
|
|
|
|
It may be advisable, therefore, to express ourselves thus. The pure
|
|
categories, apart from the formal conditions of sensibility, have
|
|
a merely transcendental meaning, but are nevertheless not of
|
|
transcendental use, because this is in itself impossible, inasmuch as
|
|
all the conditions of any employment or use of them (in judgements) are
|
|
absent, to wit, the formal conditions of the subsumption of an object
|
|
under these conceptions. As, therefore, in the character of pure
|
|
categories, they must be employed empirically, and cannot be employed
|
|
transcendentally, they are of no use at all, when separated from
|
|
sensibility, that is, they cannot be applied to an object. They are
|
|
merely the pure form of the employment of the understanding in respect
|
|
of objects in general and of thought, without its being at the same time
|
|
possible to think or to determine any object by their means. But there
|
|
lurks at the foundation of this subject an illusion which it is very
|
|
difficult to avoid. The categories are not based, as regards their
|
|
origin, upon sensibility, like the forms of intuition, space, and time;
|
|
they seem, therefore, to be capable of an application beyond the sphere
|
|
of sensuous objects. But this is not the case. They are nothing but mere
|
|
forms of thought, which contain only the logical faculty of uniting a
|
|
priori in consciousness the manifold given in intuition. Apart, then,
|
|
from the only intuition possible for us, they have still less meaning
|
|
than the pure sensuous forms, space and time, for through them an object
|
|
is at least given, while a mode of connection of the manifold, when the
|
|
intuition which alone gives the manifold is wanting, has no meaning at
|
|
all. At the same time, when we designate certain objects as phenomena or
|
|
sensuous existences, thus distinguishing our mode of intuiting them from
|
|
their own nature as things in themselves, it is evident that by this
|
|
very distinction we as it were place the latter, considered in this
|
|
their own nature, although we do not so intuite them, in opposition to
|
|
the former, or, on the other hand, we do so place other possible
|
|
things, which are not objects of our senses, but are cogitated by the
|
|
understanding alone, and call them intelligible existences (noumena).
|
|
Now the question arises whether the pure conceptions of our
|
|
understanding do possess significance in respect of these latter, and
|
|
may possibly be a mode of cognizing them.
|
|
|
|
But we are met at the very commencement with an ambiguity, which may
|
|
easily occasion great misapprehension. The understanding, when it terms
|
|
an object in a certain relation phenomenon, at the same time forms out
|
|
of this relation a representation or notion of an object in itself, and
|
|
hence believes that it can form also conceptions of such objects. Now as
|
|
the understanding possesses no other fundamental conceptions besides the
|
|
categories, it takes for granted that an object considered as a thing
|
|
in itself must be capable of being thought by means of these pure
|
|
conceptions, and is thereby led to hold the perfectly undetermined
|
|
conception of an intelligible existence, a something out of the sphere
|
|
of our sensibility, for a determinate conception of an existence which
|
|
we can cognize in some way or other by means of the understanding.
|
|
|
|
If, by the term noumenon, we understand a thing so far as it is not an
|
|
object of our sensuous intuition, thus making abstraction of our mode of
|
|
intuiting it, this is a noumenon in the negative sense of the word. But
|
|
if we understand by it an object of a non-sensuous intuition, we in this
|
|
case assume a peculiar mode of intuition, an intellectual intuition, to
|
|
wit, which does not, however, belong to us, of the very possibility of
|
|
which we have no notion--and this is a noumenon in the positive sense.
|
|
|
|
The doctrine of sensibility is also the doctrine of noumena in the
|
|
negative sense, that is, of things which the understanding is obliged to
|
|
cogitate apart from any relation to our mode of intuition, consequently
|
|
not as mere phenomena, but as things in themselves. But the
|
|
understanding at the same time comprehends that it cannot employ its
|
|
categories for the consideration of things in themselves, because these
|
|
possess significance only in relation to the unity of intuitions in
|
|
space and time, and that they are competent to determine this unity by
|
|
means of general a priori connecting conceptions only on account of the
|
|
pure ideality of space and time. Where this unity of time is not to be
|
|
met with, as is the case with noumena, the whole use, indeed the whole
|
|
meaning of the categories is entirely lost, for even the possibility of
|
|
things to correspond to the categories is in this case incomprehensible.
|
|
On this point, I need only refer the reader to what I have said at the
|
|
commencement of the General Remark appended to the foregoing chapter.
|
|
Now, the possibility of a thing can never be proved from the fact that
|
|
the conception of it is not self-contradictory, but only by means of
|
|
an intuition corresponding to the conception. If, therefore, we wish to
|
|
apply the categories to objects which cannot be regarded as phenomena,
|
|
we must have an intuition different from the sensuous, and in this case
|
|
the objects would be a noumena in the positive sense of the word. Now,
|
|
as such an intuition, that is, an intellectual intuition, is no part of
|
|
our faculty of cognition, it is absolutely impossible for the categories
|
|
to possess any application beyond the limits of experience. It may be
|
|
true that there are intelligible existences to which our faculty of
|
|
sensuous intuition has no relation, and cannot be applied, but our
|
|
conceptions of the understanding, as mere forms of thought for our
|
|
sensuous intuition, do not extend to these. What, therefore, we call
|
|
noumenon must be understood by us as such in a negative sense.
|
|
|
|
If I take away from an empirical intuition all thought (by means of the
|
|
categories), there remains no cognition of any object; for by means of
|
|
mere intuition nothing is cogitated, and, from the existence of such
|
|
or such an affection of sensibility in me, it does not follow that this
|
|
affection or representation has any relation to an object without
|
|
me. But if I take away all intuition, there still remains the form of
|
|
thought, that is, the mode of determining an object for the manifold
|
|
of a possible intuition. Thus the categories do in some measure really
|
|
extend further than sensuous intuition, inasmuch as they think objects
|
|
in general, without regard to the mode (of sensibility) in which
|
|
these objects are given. But they do not for this reason apply to and
|
|
determine a wider sphere of objects, because we cannot assume that such
|
|
can be given, without presupposing the possibility of another than
|
|
the sensuous mode of intuition, a supposition we are not justified in
|
|
making.
|
|
|
|
I call a conception problematical which contains in itself no
|
|
contradiction, and which is connected with other cognitions as a
|
|
limitation of given conceptions, but whose objective reality cannot
|
|
be cognized in any manner. The conception of a noumenon, that is, of a
|
|
thing which must be cogitated not as an object of sense, but as a
|
|
thing in itself (solely through the pure understanding), is not
|
|
self-contradictory, for we are not entitled to maintain that sensibility
|
|
is the only possible mode of intuition. Nay, further, this conception is
|
|
necessary to restrain sensuous intuition within the bounds of phenomena,
|
|
and thus to limit the objective validity of sensuous cognition; for
|
|
things in themselves, which lie beyond its province, are called noumena
|
|
for the very purpose of indicating that this cognition does not extend
|
|
its application to all that the understanding thinks. But, after all,
|
|
the possibility of such noumena is quite incomprehensible, and beyond
|
|
the sphere of phenomena, all is for us a mere void; that is to say,
|
|
we possess an understanding whose province does problematically extend
|
|
beyond this sphere, but we do not possess an intuition, indeed, not even
|
|
the conception of a possible intuition, by means of which objects beyond
|
|
the region of sensibility could be given us, and in reference to which
|
|
the understanding might be employed assertorically. The conception of a
|
|
noumenon is therefore merely a limitative conception and therefore only
|
|
of negative use. But it is not an arbitrary or fictitious notion, but
|
|
is connected with the limitation of sensibility, without, however, being
|
|
capable of presenting us with any positive datum beyond this sphere.
|
|
|
|
The division of objects into phenomena and noumena, and of the
|
|
world into a mundus sensibilis and intelligibilis is therefore quite
|
|
inadmissible in a positive sense, although conceptions do certainly
|
|
admit of such a division; for the class of noumena have no determinate
|
|
object corresponding to them, and cannot therefore possess objective
|
|
validity. If we abandon the senses, how can it be made conceivable
|
|
that the categories (which are the only conceptions that could serve as
|
|
conceptions for noumena) have any sense or meaning at all, inasmuch
|
|
as something more than the mere unity of thought, namely, a possible
|
|
intuition, is requisite for their application to an object? The
|
|
conception of a noumenon, considered as merely problematical, is,
|
|
however, not only admissible, but, as a limitative conception of
|
|
sensibility, absolutely necessary. But, in this case, a noumenon is not
|
|
a particular intelligible object for our understanding; on the contrary,
|
|
the kind of understanding to which it could belong is itself a problem,
|
|
for we cannot form the most distant conception of the possibility of an
|
|
understanding which should cognize an object, not discursively by
|
|
means of categories, but intuitively in a non-sensuous intuition. Our
|
|
understanding attains in this way a sort of negative extension. That is
|
|
to say, it is not limited by, but rather limits, sensibility, by giving
|
|
the name of noumena to things, not considered as phenomena, but as
|
|
things in themselves. But it at the same time prescribes limits to
|
|
itself, for it confesses itself unable to cognize these by means of the
|
|
categories, and hence is compelled to cogitate them merely as an unknown
|
|
something.
|
|
|
|
I find, however, in the writings of modern authors, an entirely
|
|
different use of the expressions, mundus sensibilis and intelligibilis,
|
|
which quite departs from the meaning of the ancients--an acceptation in
|
|
which, indeed, there is to be found no difficulty, but which at the same
|
|
time depends on mere verbal quibbling. According to this meaning,
|
|
some have chosen to call the complex of phenomena, in so far as it is
|
|
intuited, mundus sensibilis, but in so far as the connection thereof is
|
|
cogitated according to general laws of thought, mundus intelligibilis.
|
|
Astronomy, in so far as we mean by the word the mere observation of the
|
|
starry heaven, may represent the former; a system of astronomy, such as
|
|
the Copernican or Newtonian, the latter. But such twisting of words is a
|
|
mere sophistical subterfuge, to avoid a difficult question, by modifying
|
|
its meaning to suit our own convenience. To be sure, understanding and
|
|
reason are employed in the cognition of phenomena; but the question is,
|
|
whether these can be applied when the object is not a phenomenon and in
|
|
this sense we regard it if it is cogitated as given to the understanding
|
|
alone, and not to the senses. The question therefore is whether, over
|
|
and above the empirical use of the understanding, a transcendental use
|
|
is possible, which applies to the noumenon as an object. This question
|
|
we have answered in the negative.
|
|
|
|
When therefore we say, the senses represent objects as they appear, the
|
|
understanding as they are, the latter statement must not be understood
|
|
in a transcendental, but only in an empirical signification, that is,
|
|
as they must be represented in the complete connection of phenomena, and
|
|
not according to what they may be, apart from their relation to possible
|
|
experience, consequently not as objects of the pure understanding. For
|
|
this must ever remain unknown to us. Nay, it is also quite unknown to us
|
|
whether any such transcendental or extraordinary cognition is possible
|
|
under any circumstances, at least, whether it is possible by means of
|
|
our categories. Understanding and sensibility, with us, can determine
|
|
objects only in conjunction. If we separate them, we have intuitions
|
|
without conceptions, or conceptions without intuitions; in both cases,
|
|
representations, which we cannot apply to any determinate object.
|
|
|
|
If, after all our inquiries and explanations, any one still hesitates to
|
|
abandon the mere transcendental use of the categories, let him attempt
|
|
to construct with them a synthetical proposition. It would, of course,
|
|
be unnecessary for this purpose to construct an analytical proposition,
|
|
for that does not extend the sphere of the understanding, but, being
|
|
concerned only about what is cogitated in the conception itself, it
|
|
leaves it quite undecided whether the conception has any relation to
|
|
objects, or merely indicates the unity of thought--complete abstraction
|
|
being made of the modi in which an object may be given: in such a
|
|
proposition, it is sufficient for the understanding to know what lies
|
|
in the conception--to what it applies is to it indifferent. The attempt
|
|
must therefore be made with a synthetical and so-called transcendental
|
|
principle, for example: "Everything that exists, exists as substance,"
|
|
or, "Everything that is contingent exists as an effect of some other
|
|
thing, viz., of its cause." Now I ask, whence can the understanding draw
|
|
these synthetical propositions, when the conceptions contained therein
|
|
do not relate to possible experience but to things in themselves
|
|
(noumena)? Where is to be found the third term, which is always
|
|
requisite PURE site in a synthetical proposition, which may connect
|
|
in the same proposition conceptions which have no logical (analytical)
|
|
connection with each other? The proposition never will be demonstrated,
|
|
nay, more, the possibility of any such pure assertion never can
|
|
be shown, without making reference to the empirical use of the
|
|
understanding, and thus, ipso facto, completely renouncing pure
|
|
and non-sensuous judgement. Thus the conception of pure and merely
|
|
intelligible objects is completely void of all principles of its
|
|
application, because we cannot imagine any mode in which they might be
|
|
given, and the problematical thought which leaves a place open for
|
|
them serves only, like a void space, to limit the use of empirical
|
|
principles, without containing at the same time any other object of
|
|
cognition beyond their sphere.
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
APPENDIX.
|
|
|
|
Of the Equivocal Nature or Amphiboly of the Conceptions of Reflection
|
|
from the Confusion of the Transcendental with the Empirical use of the
|
|
Understanding.
|
|
|
|
Reflection (reflexio) is not occupied about objects themselves, for the
|
|
purpose of directly obtaining conceptions of them, but is that state of
|
|
the mind in which we set ourselves to discover the subjective conditions
|
|
under which we obtain conceptions. It is the consciousness of the
|
|
relation of given representations to the different sources or faculties
|
|
of cognition, by which alone their relation to each other can be
|
|
rightly determined. The first question which occurs in considering our
|
|
representations is to what faculty of cognition do they belong? To the
|
|
understanding or to the senses? Many judgements are admitted to be true
|
|
from mere habit or inclination; but, because reflection neither precedes
|
|
nor follows, it is held to be a judgement that has its origin in the
|
|
understanding. All judgements do not require examination, that is,
|
|
investigation into the grounds of their truth. For, when they are
|
|
immediately certain (for example: "Between two points there can be only
|
|
one straight line"), no better or less mediate test of their truth can
|
|
be found than that which they themselves contain and express. But
|
|
all judgement, nay, all comparisons require reflection, that is, a
|
|
distinction of the faculty of cognition to which the given conceptions
|
|
belong. The act whereby I compare my representations with the faculty of
|
|
cognition which originates them, and whereby I distinguish whether they
|
|
are compared with each other as belonging to the pure understanding
|
|
or to sensuous intuition, I term transcendental reflection. Now, the
|
|
relations in which conceptions can stand to each other are those of
|
|
identity and difference, agreement and opposition, of the internal and
|
|
external, finally, of the determinable and the determining (matter
|
|
and form). The proper determination of these relations rests on the
|
|
question, to what faculty of cognition they subjectively belong, whether
|
|
to sensibility or understanding? For, on the manner in which we solve
|
|
this question depends the manner in which we must cogitate these
|
|
relations.
|
|
|
|
Before constructing any objective judgement, we compare the conceptions
|
|
that are to be placed in the judgement, and observe whether there exists
|
|
identity (of many representations in one conception), if a general
|
|
judgement is to be constructed, or difference, if a particular; whether
|
|
there is agreement when affirmative; and opposition when negative
|
|
judgements are to be constructed, and so on. For this reason we ought
|
|
to call these conceptions, conceptions of comparison (conceptus
|
|
comparationis). But as, when the question is not as to the logical form,
|
|
but as to the content of conceptions, that is to say, whether the things
|
|
themselves are identical or different, in agreement or opposition,
|
|
and so on, the things can have a twofold relation to our faculty
|
|
of cognition, to wit, a relation either to sensibility or to the
|
|
understanding, and as on this relation depends their relation to
|
|
each other, transcendental reflection, that is, the relation of given
|
|
representations to one or the other faculty of cognition, can alone
|
|
determine this latter relation. Thus we shall not be able to discover
|
|
whether the things are identical or different, in agreement or
|
|
opposition, etc., from the mere conception of the things by means
|
|
of comparison (comparatio), but only by distinguishing the mode
|
|
of cognition to which they belong, in other words, by means of
|
|
transcendental reflection. We may, therefore, with justice say, that
|
|
logical reflection is mere comparison, for in it no account is taken of
|
|
the faculty of cognition to which the given conceptions belong, and
|
|
they are consequently, as far as regards their origin, to be treated
|
|
as homogeneous; while transcendental reflection (which applies to the
|
|
objects themselves) contains the ground of the possibility of objective
|
|
comparison of representations with each other, and is therefore very
|
|
different from the former, because the faculties of cognition to which
|
|
they belong are not even the same. Transcendental reflection is a duty
|
|
which no one can neglect who wishes to establish an a priori judgement
|
|
upon things. We shall now proceed to fulfil this duty, and thereby throw
|
|
not a little light on the question as to the determination of the proper
|
|
business of the understanding.
|
|
|
|
1. Identity and Difference. When an object is presented to us several
|
|
times, but always with the same internal determinations (qualitas et
|
|
quantitas), it, if an object of pure understanding, is always the same,
|
|
not several things, but only one thing (numerica identitas); but if a
|
|
phenomenon, we do not concern ourselves with comparing the conception of
|
|
the thing with the conception of some other, but, although they may be
|
|
in this respect perfectly the same, the difference of place at the same
|
|
time is a sufficient ground for asserting the numerical difference of
|
|
these objects (of sense). Thus, in the case of two drops of water, we
|
|
may make complete abstraction of all internal difference (quality and
|
|
quantity), and, the fact that they are intuited at the same time in
|
|
different places, is sufficient to justify us in holding them to
|
|
be numerically different. Leibnitz regarded phenomena as things in
|
|
themselves, consequently as intelligibilia, that is, objects of pure
|
|
understanding (although, on account of the confused nature of their
|
|
representations, he gave them the name of phenomena), and in this
|
|
case his principle of the indiscernible (principium identatis
|
|
indiscernibilium) is not to be impugned. But, as phenomena are objects
|
|
of sensibility, and, as the understanding, in respect of them, must be
|
|
employed empirically and not purely or transcendentally, plurality
|
|
and numerical difference are given by space itself as the condition of
|
|
external phenomena. For one part of space, although it may be perfectly
|
|
similar and equal to another part, is still without it, and for this
|
|
reason alone is different from the latter, which is added to it in order
|
|
to make up a greater space. It follows that this must hold good of
|
|
all things that are in the different parts of space at the same time,
|
|
however similar and equal one may be to another.
|
|
|
|
2. Agreement and Opposition. When reality is represented by the pure
|
|
understanding (realitas noumenon), opposition between realities is
|
|
incogitable--such a relation, that is, that when these realities are
|
|
connected in one subject, they annihilate the effects of each other and
|
|
may be represented in the formula 3 -3 = 0. On the other hand, the
|
|
real in a phenomenon (realitas phaenomenon) may very well be in mutual
|
|
opposition, and, when united in the same subject, the one may completely
|
|
or in part annihilate the effect or consequence of the other; as in the
|
|
case of two moving forces in the same straight line drawing or
|
|
impelling a point in opposite directions, or in the case of a pleasure
|
|
counterbalancing a certain amount of pain.
|
|
|
|
3. The Internal and External. In an object of the pure understanding,
|
|
only that is internal which has no relation (as regards its existence)
|
|
to anything different from itself. On the other hand, the internal
|
|
determinations of a substantia phaenomenon in space are nothing
|
|
but relations, and it is itself nothing more than a complex of mere
|
|
relations. Substance in space we are cognizant of only through forces
|
|
operative in it, either drawing others towards itself (attraction),
|
|
or preventing others from forcing into itself (repulsion and
|
|
impenetrability). We know no other properties that make up the
|
|
conception of substance phenomenal in space, and which we term matter.
|
|
On the other hand, as an object of the pure understanding, every
|
|
substance must have internal determination and forces. But what other
|
|
internal attributes of such an object can I think than those which my
|
|
internal sense presents to me? That, to wit, which in either itself
|
|
thought, or something analogous to it. Hence Leibnitz, who looked upon
|
|
things as noumena, after denying them everything like external relation,
|
|
and therefore also composition or combination, declared that all
|
|
substances, even the component parts of matter, were simple substances
|
|
with powers of representation, in one word, monads.
|
|
|
|
4. Matter and Form. These two conceptions lie at the foundation of all
|
|
other reflection, so inseparably are they connected with every mode of
|
|
exercising the understanding. The former denotes the determinable in
|
|
general, the second its determination, both in a transcendental sense,
|
|
abstraction being made of every difference in that which is given, and
|
|
of the mode in which it is determined. Logicians formerly termed the
|
|
universal, matter, the specific difference of this or that part of
|
|
the universal, form. In a judgement one may call the given conceptions
|
|
logical matter (for the judgement), the relation of these to each other
|
|
(by means of the copula), the form of the judgement. In an object, the
|
|
composite parts thereof (essentialia) are the matter; the mode in which
|
|
they are connected in the object, the form. In respect to things
|
|
in general, unlimited reality was regarded as the matter of all
|
|
possibility, the limitation thereof (negation) as the form, by which
|
|
one thing is distinguished from another according to transcendental
|
|
conceptions. The understanding demands that something be given (at least
|
|
in the conception), in order to be able to determine it in a certain
|
|
manner. Hence, in a conception of the pure understanding, the matter
|
|
precedes the form, and for this reason Leibnitz first assumed the
|
|
existence of things (monads) and of an internal power of representation
|
|
in them, in order to found upon this their external relation and the
|
|
community their state (that is, of their representations). Hence, with
|
|
him, space and time were possible--the former through the relation of
|
|
substances, the latter through the connection of their determinations
|
|
with each other, as causes and effects. And so would it really be,
|
|
if the pure understanding were capable of an immediate application
|
|
to objects, and if space and time were determinations of things in
|
|
themselves. But being merely sensuous intuitions, in which we determine
|
|
all objects solely as phenomena, the form of intuition (as a subjective
|
|
property of sensibility) must antecede all matter (sensations),
|
|
consequently space and time must antecede all phenomena and all data
|
|
of experience, and rather make experience itself possible. But the
|
|
intellectual philosopher could not endure that the form should precede
|
|
the things themselves and determine their possibility; an objection
|
|
perfectly correct, if we assume that we intuite things as they are,
|
|
although with confused representation. But as sensuous intuition is a
|
|
peculiar subjective condition, which is a priori at the foundation of
|
|
all perception, and the form of which is primitive, the form must be
|
|
given per se, and so far from matter (or the things themselves which
|
|
appear) lying at the foundation of experience (as we must conclude,
|
|
if we judge by mere conceptions), the very possibility of itself
|
|
presupposes, on the contrary, a given formal intuition (space and time).
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
REMARK ON THE AMPHIBOLY OF THE CONCEPTIONS OF REFLECTION.
|
|
|
|
Let me be allowed to term the position which we assign to a
|
|
conception either in the sensibility or in the pure understanding, the
|
|
transcendental place. In this manner, the appointment of the position
|
|
which must be taken by each conception according to the difference
|
|
in its use, and the directions for determining this place to all
|
|
conceptions according to rules, would be a transcendental topic, a
|
|
doctrine which would thoroughly shield us from the surreptitious devices
|
|
of the pure understanding and the delusions which thence arise, as it
|
|
would always distinguish to what faculty of cognition each conception
|
|
properly belonged. Every conception, every title, under which many
|
|
cognitions rank together, may be called a logical place. Upon this is
|
|
based the logical topic of Aristotle, of which teachers and rhetoricians
|
|
could avail themselves, in order, under certain titles of thought, to
|
|
observe what would best suit the matter they had to treat, and thus
|
|
enable themselves to quibble and talk with fluency and an appearance of
|
|
profundity.
|
|
|
|
Transcendental topic, on the contrary, contains nothing more than the
|
|
above-mentioned four titles of all comparison and distinction, which
|
|
differ from categories in this respect, that they do not represent the
|
|
object according to that which constitutes its conception (quantity,
|
|
reality), but set forth merely the comparison of representations, which
|
|
precedes our conceptions of things. But this comparison requires a
|
|
previous reflection, that is, a determination of the place to which the
|
|
representations of the things which are compared belong, whether,
|
|
to wit, they are cogitated by the pure understanding, or given by
|
|
sensibility.
|
|
|
|
Conceptions may be logically compared without the trouble of inquiring
|
|
to what faculty their objects belong, whether as noumena, to the
|
|
understanding, or as phenomena, to sensibility. If, however, we wish to
|
|
employ these conceptions in respect of objects, previous transcendental
|
|
reflection is necessary. Without this reflection I should make a very
|
|
unsafe use of these conceptions, and construct pretended synthetical
|
|
propositions which critical reason cannot acknowledge and which
|
|
are based solely upon a transcendental amphiboly, that is, upon a
|
|
substitution of an object of pure understanding for a phenomenon.
|
|
|
|
For want of this doctrine of transcendental topic, and consequently
|
|
deceived by the amphiboly of the conceptions of reflection, the
|
|
celebrated Leibnitz constructed an intellectual system of the world,
|
|
or rather, believed himself competent to cognize the internal nature of
|
|
things, by comparing all objects merely with the understanding and the
|
|
abstract formal conceptions of thought. Our table of the conceptions of
|
|
reflection gives us the unexpected advantage of being able to exhibit
|
|
the distinctive peculiarities of his system in all its parts, and at the
|
|
same time of exposing the fundamental principle of this peculiar mode of
|
|
thought, which rested upon naught but a misconception. He compared all
|
|
things with each other merely by means of conceptions, and naturally
|
|
found no other differences than those by which the understanding
|
|
distinguishes its pure conceptions one from another. The conditions
|
|
of sensuous intuition, which contain in themselves their own means of
|
|
distinction, he did not look upon as primitive, because sensibility
|
|
was to him but a confused mode of representation and not any particular
|
|
source of representations. A phenomenon was for him the representation
|
|
of the thing in itself, although distinguished from cognition by the
|
|
understanding only in respect of the logical form--the former with its
|
|
usual want of analysis containing, according to him, a certain mixture
|
|
of collateral representations in its conception of a thing, which it is
|
|
the duty of the understanding to separate and distinguish. In one word,
|
|
Leibnitz intellectualized phenomena, just as Locke, in his system
|
|
of noogony (if I may be allowed to make use of such expressions),
|
|
sensualized the conceptions of the understanding, that is to say,
|
|
declared them to be nothing more than empirical or abstract conceptions
|
|
of reflection. Instead of seeking in the understanding and sensibility
|
|
two different sources of representations, which, however, can present us
|
|
with objective judgements of things only in conjunction, each of
|
|
these great men recognized but one of these faculties, which, in their
|
|
opinion, applied immediately to things in themselves, the other having
|
|
no duty but that of confusing or arranging the representations of the
|
|
former.
|
|
|
|
Accordingly, the objects of sense were compared by Leibnitz as things in
|
|
general merely in the understanding.
|
|
|
|
1st. He compares them in regard to their identity or difference--as
|
|
judged by the understanding. As, therefore, he considered merely the
|
|
conceptions of objects, and not their position in intuition, in
|
|
which alone objects can be given, and left quite out of sight the
|
|
transcendental locale of these conceptions--whether, that is, their
|
|
object ought to be classed among phenomena, or among things in
|
|
themselves, it was to be expected that he should extend the application
|
|
of the principle of indiscernibles, which is valid solely of conceptions
|
|
of things in general, to objects of sense (mundus phaenomenon), and that
|
|
he should believe that he had thereby contributed in no small degree to
|
|
extend our knowledge of nature. In truth, if I cognize in all its inner
|
|
determinations a drop of water as a thing in itself, I cannot look upon
|
|
one drop as different from another, if the conception of the one is
|
|
completely identical with that of the other. But if it is a phenomenon
|
|
in space, it has a place not merely in the understanding (among
|
|
conceptions), but also in sensuous external intuition (in space), and in
|
|
this case, the physical locale is a matter of indifference in regard to
|
|
the internal determinations of things, and one place, B, may contain
|
|
a thing which is perfectly similar and equal to another in a place, A,
|
|
just as well as if the two things were in every respect different from
|
|
each other. Difference of place without any other conditions, makes the
|
|
plurality and distinction of objects as phenomena, not only possible in
|
|
itself, but even necessary. Consequently, the above so-called law is not
|
|
a law of nature. It is merely an analytical rule for the comparison of
|
|
things by means of mere conceptions.
|
|
|
|
2nd. The principle: "Realities (as simple affirmations) never logically
|
|
contradict each other," is a proposition perfectly true respecting the
|
|
relation of conceptions, but, whether as regards nature, or things in
|
|
themselves (of which we have not the slightest conception), is without
|
|
any the least meaning. For real opposition, in which A -B is = 0,
|
|
exists everywhere, an opposition, that is, in which one reality united
|
|
with another in the same subject annihilates the effects of the other--a
|
|
fact which is constantly brought before our eyes by the different
|
|
antagonistic actions and operations in nature, which, nevertheless, as
|
|
depending on real forces, must be called realitates phaenomena. General
|
|
mechanics can even present us with the empirical condition of this
|
|
opposition in an a priori rule, as it directs its attention to the
|
|
opposition in the direction of forces--a condition of which the
|
|
transcendental conception of reality can tell us nothing. Although M.
|
|
Leibnitz did not announce this proposition with precisely the pomp of
|
|
a new principle, he yet employed it for the establishment of
|
|
new propositions, and his followers introduced it into their
|
|
Leibnitzio-Wolfian system of philosophy. According to this principle,
|
|
for example, all evils are but consequences of the limited nature of
|
|
created beings, that is, negations, because these are the only opposite
|
|
of reality. (In the mere conception of a thing in general this is really
|
|
the case, but not in things as phenomena.) In like manner, the upholders
|
|
of this system deem it not only possible, but natural also, to connect
|
|
and unite all reality in one being, because they acknowledge no other
|
|
sort of opposition than that of contradiction (by which the conception
|
|
itself of a thing is annihilated), and find themselves unable to
|
|
conceive an opposition of reciprocal destruction, so to speak, in which
|
|
one real cause destroys the effect of another, and the conditions of
|
|
whose representation we meet with only in sensibility.
|
|
|
|
3rd. The Leibnitzian monadology has really no better foundation than on
|
|
this philosopher's mode of falsely representing the difference of
|
|
the internal and external solely in relation to the understanding.
|
|
Substances, in general, must have something inward, which is therefore
|
|
free from external relations, consequently from that of composition
|
|
also. The simple--that which can be represented by a unit--is therefore
|
|
the foundation of that which is internal in things in themselves. The
|
|
internal state of substances cannot therefore consist in place, shape,
|
|
contact, or motion, determinations which are all external relations,
|
|
and we can ascribe to them no other than that whereby we internally
|
|
determine our faculty of sense itself, that is to say, the state of
|
|
representation. Thus, then, were constructed the monads, which were to
|
|
form the elements of the universe, the active force of which consists in
|
|
representation, the effects of this force being thus entirely confined
|
|
to themselves.
|
|
|
|
For the same reason, his view of the possible community of substances
|
|
could not represent it but as a predetermined harmony, and by no means
|
|
as a physical influence. For inasmuch as everything is occupied only
|
|
internally, that is, with its own representations, the state of the
|
|
representations of one substance could not stand in active and living
|
|
connection with that of another, but some third cause operating on all
|
|
without exception was necessary to make the different states correspond
|
|
with one another. And this did not happen by means of assistance applied
|
|
in each particular case (systema assistentiae), but through the unity of
|
|
the idea of a cause occupied and connected with all substances, in which
|
|
they necessarily receive, according to the Leibnitzian school, their
|
|
existence and permanence, consequently also reciprocal correspondence,
|
|
according to universal laws.
|
|
|
|
4th. This philosopher's celebrated doctrine of space and time, in which
|
|
he intellectualized these forms of sensibility, originated in the same
|
|
delusion of transcendental reflection. If I attempt to represent by the
|
|
mere understanding, the external relations of things, I can do so only
|
|
by employing the conception of their reciprocal action, and if I wish
|
|
to connect one state of the same thing with another state, I must avail
|
|
myself of the notion of the order of cause and effect. And thus Leibnitz
|
|
regarded space as a certain order in the community of substances, and
|
|
time as the dynamical sequence of their states. That which space and
|
|
time possess proper to themselves and independent of things, he ascribed
|
|
to a necessary confusion in our conceptions of them, whereby that which
|
|
is a mere form of dynamical relations is held to be a self-existent
|
|
intuition, antecedent even to things themselves. Thus space and time
|
|
were the intelligible form of the connection of things (substances and
|
|
their states) in themselves. But things were intelligible substances
|
|
(substantiae noumena). At the same time, he made these conceptions valid
|
|
of phenomena, because he did not allow to sensibility a peculiar mode of
|
|
intuition, but sought all, even the empirical representation of objects,
|
|
in the understanding, and left to sense naught but the despicable task
|
|
of confusing and disarranging the representations of the former.
|
|
|
|
But even if we could frame any synthetical proposition concerning things
|
|
in themselves by means of the pure understanding (which is impossible),
|
|
it could not apply to phenomena, which do not represent things in
|
|
themselves. In such a case I should be obliged in transcendental
|
|
reflection to compare my conceptions only under the conditions of
|
|
sensibility, and so space and time would not be determinations of things
|
|
in themselves, but of phenomena. What things may be in themselves, I
|
|
know not and need not know, because a thing is never presented to me
|
|
otherwise than as a phenomenon.
|
|
|
|
I must adopt the same mode of procedure with the other conceptions
|
|
of reflection. Matter is substantia phaenomenon. That in it which is
|
|
internal I seek to discover in all parts of space which it occupies, and
|
|
in all the functions and operations it performs, and which are indeed
|
|
never anything but phenomena of the external sense. I cannot therefore
|
|
find anything that is absolutely, but only what is comparatively
|
|
internal, and which itself consists of external relations. The
|
|
absolutely internal in matter, and as it should be according to the pure
|
|
understanding, is a mere chimera, for matter is not an object for
|
|
the pure understanding. But the transcendental object, which is the
|
|
foundation of the phenomenon which we call matter, is a mere nescio
|
|
quid, the nature of which we could not understand, even though someone
|
|
were found able to tell us. For we can understand nothing that does not
|
|
bring with it something in intuition corresponding to the expressions
|
|
employed. If, by the complaint of being unable to perceive the internal
|
|
nature of things, it is meant that we do not comprehend by the pure
|
|
understanding what the things which appear to us may be in themselves,
|
|
it is a silly and unreasonable complaint; for those who talk thus really
|
|
desire that we should be able to cognize, consequently to intuite,
|
|
things without senses, and therefore wish that we possessed a faculty
|
|
of cognition perfectly different from the human faculty, not merely in
|
|
degree, but even as regards intuition and the mode thereof, so that thus
|
|
we should not be men, but belong to a class of beings, the possibility
|
|
of whose existence, much less their nature and constitution, we have
|
|
no means of cognizing. By observation and analysis of phenomena we
|
|
penetrate into the interior of nature, and no one can say what progress
|
|
this knowledge may make in time. But those transcendental questions
|
|
which pass beyond the limits of nature, we could never answer, even
|
|
although all nature were laid open to us, because we have not the power
|
|
of observing our own mind with any other intuition than that of our
|
|
internal sense. For herein lies the mystery of the origin and source
|
|
of our faculty of sensibility. Its application to an object, and the
|
|
transcendental ground of this unity of subjective and objective, lie too
|
|
deeply concealed for us, who cognize ourselves only through the
|
|
internal sense, consequently as phenomena, to be able to discover in our
|
|
existence anything but phenomena, the non-sensuous cause of which we at
|
|
the same time earnestly desire to penetrate to.
|
|
|
|
The great utility of this critique of conclusions arrived at by the
|
|
processes of mere reflection consists in its clear demonstration of the
|
|
nullity of all conclusions respecting objects which are compared
|
|
with each other in the understanding alone, while it at the same time
|
|
confirms what we particularly insisted on, namely, that, although
|
|
phenomena are not included as things in themselves among the objects of
|
|
the pure understanding, they are nevertheless the only things by which
|
|
our cognition can possess objective reality, that is to say, which give
|
|
us intuitions to correspond with our conceptions.
|
|
|
|
When we reflect in a purely logical manner, we do nothing more than
|
|
compare conceptions in our understanding, to discover whether both have
|
|
the same content, whether they are self-contradictory or not, whether
|
|
anything is contained in either conception, which of the two is given,
|
|
and which is merely a mode of thinking that given. But if I apply these
|
|
conceptions to an object in general (in the transcendental sense),
|
|
without first determining whether it is an object of sensuous or
|
|
intellectual intuition, certain limitations present themselves, which
|
|
forbid us to pass beyond the conceptions and render all empirical use
|
|
of them impossible. And thus these limitations prove that the
|
|
representation of an object as a thing in general is not only
|
|
insufficient, but, without sensuous determination and independently of
|
|
empirical conditions, self-contradictory; that we must therefore make
|
|
abstraction of all objects, as in logic, or, admitting them, must think
|
|
them under conditions of sensuous intuition; that, consequently, the
|
|
intelligible requires an altogether peculiar intuition, which we do not
|
|
possess, and in the absence of which it is for us nothing; while, on the
|
|
other hand phenomena cannot be objects in themselves. For, when I merely
|
|
think things in general, the difference in their external relations
|
|
cannot constitute a difference in the things themselves; on the
|
|
contrary, the former presupposes the latter, and if the conception of
|
|
one of two things is not internally different from that of the other,
|
|
I am merely thinking the same thing in different relations. Further,
|
|
by the addition of one affirmation (reality) to the other, the positive
|
|
therein is really augmented, and nothing is abstracted or withdrawn
|
|
from it; hence the real in things cannot be in contradiction with or
|
|
opposition to itself--and so on.
|
|
|
|
The true use of the conceptions of reflection in the employment of the
|
|
understanding has, as we have shown, been so misconceived by Leibnitz,
|
|
one of the most acute philosophers of either ancient or modern times,
|
|
that he has been misled into the construction of a baseless system of
|
|
intellectual cognition, which professes to determine its objects without
|
|
the intervention of the senses. For this reason, the exposition of the
|
|
cause of the amphiboly of these conceptions, as the origin of these
|
|
false principles, is of great utility in determining with certainty the
|
|
proper limits of the understanding.
|
|
|
|
It is right to say whatever is affirmed or denied of the whole of a
|
|
conception can be affirmed or denied of any part of it (dictum de omni
|
|
et nullo); but it would be absurd so to alter this logical proposition
|
|
as to say whatever is not contained in a general conception is likewise
|
|
not contained in the particular conceptions which rank under it; for
|
|
the latter are particular conceptions, for the very reason that
|
|
their content is greater than that which is cogitated in the general
|
|
conception. And yet the whole intellectual system of Leibnitz is based
|
|
upon this false principle, and with it must necessarily fall to the
|
|
ground, together with all the ambiguous principles in reference to the
|
|
employment of the understanding which have thence originated.
|
|
|
|
Leibnitz's principle of the identity of indiscernibles or
|
|
indistinguishables is really based on the presupposition that, if in the
|
|
conception of a thing a certain distinction is not to be found, it is
|
|
also not to be met with in things themselves; that, consequently,
|
|
all things are completely identical (numero eadem) which are not
|
|
distinguishable from each other (as to quality or quantity) in our
|
|
conceptions of them. But, as in the mere conception of anything
|
|
abstraction has been made of many necessary conditions of intuition,
|
|
that of which abstraction has been made is rashly held to be
|
|
non-existent, and nothing is attributed to the thing but what is
|
|
contained in its conception.
|
|
|
|
The conception of a cubic foot of space, however I may think it, is
|
|
in itself completely identical. But two cubic feet in space are
|
|
nevertheless distinct from each other from the sole fact of their being
|
|
in different places (they are numero diversa); and these places are
|
|
conditions of intuition, wherein the object of this conception is
|
|
given, and which do not belong to the conception, but to the faculty of
|
|
sensibility. In like manner, there is in the conception of a thing no
|
|
contradiction when a negative is not connected with an affirmative;
|
|
and merely affirmative conceptions cannot, in conjunction, produce any
|
|
negation. But in sensuous intuition, wherein reality (take for example,
|
|
motion) is given, we find conditions (opposite directions)--of which
|
|
abstraction has been made in the conception of motion in general--which
|
|
render possible a contradiction or opposition (not indeed of a logical
|
|
kind)--and which from pure positives produce zero = 0. We are therefore
|
|
not justified in saying that all reality is in perfect agreement
|
|
and harmony, because no contradiction is discoverable among its
|
|
conceptions.* According to mere conceptions, that which is internal
|
|
is the substratum of all relations or external determinations. When,
|
|
therefore, I abstract all conditions of intuition, and confine myself
|
|
solely to the conception of a thing in general, I can make abstraction
|
|
of all external relations, and there must nevertheless remain a
|
|
conception of that which indicates no relation, but merely internal
|
|
determinations. Now it seems to follow that in everything (substance)
|
|
there is something which is absolutely internal and which antecedes all
|
|
external determinations, inasmuch as it renders them possible; and
|
|
that therefore this substratum is something which does not contain any
|
|
external relations and is consequently simple (for corporeal things are
|
|
never anything but relations, at least of their parts external to
|
|
each other); and, inasmuch as we know of no other absolutely internal
|
|
determinations than those of the internal sense, this substratum is not
|
|
only simple, but also, analogously with our internal sense, determined
|
|
through representations, that is to say, all things are properly monads,
|
|
or simple beings endowed with the power of representation. Now all this
|
|
would be perfectly correct, if the conception of a thing were the
|
|
only necessary condition of the presentation of objects of external
|
|
intuition. It is, on the contrary, manifest that a permanent phenomenon
|
|
in space (impenetrable extension) can contain mere relations, and
|
|
nothing that is absolutely internal, and yet be the primary substratum
|
|
of all external perception. By mere conceptions I cannot think anything
|
|
external, without, at the same time, thinking something internal, for
|
|
the reason that conceptions of relations presuppose given things, and
|
|
without these are impossible. But, as an intuition there is something
|
|
(that is, space, which, with all it contains, consists of purely formal,
|
|
or, indeed, real relations) which is not found in the mere conception of
|
|
a thing in general, and this presents to us the substratum which could
|
|
not be cognized through conceptions alone, I cannot say: because a thing
|
|
cannot be represented by mere conceptions without something absolutely
|
|
internal, there is also, in the things themselves which are contained
|
|
under these conceptions, and in their intuition nothing external to
|
|
which something absolutely internal does not serve as the foundation.
|
|
For, when we have made abstraction of all the conditions of intuition,
|
|
there certainly remains in the mere conception nothing but the internal
|
|
in general, through which alone the external is possible. But this
|
|
necessity, which is grounded upon abstraction alone, does not obtain in
|
|
the case of things themselves, in so far as they are given in intuition
|
|
with such determinations as express mere relations, without having
|
|
anything internal as their foundation; for they are not things of a
|
|
thing of which we can neither for they are not things in themselves, but
|
|
only phenomena. What we cognize in matter is nothing but relations (what
|
|
we call its internal determinations are but comparatively internal). But
|
|
there are some self-subsistent and permanent, through which a determined
|
|
object is given. That I, when abstraction is made of these relations,
|
|
have nothing more to think, does not destroy the conception of a thing
|
|
as phenomenon, nor the conception of an object in abstracto, but it does
|
|
away with the possibility of an object that is determinable according to
|
|
mere conceptions, that is, of a noumenon. It is certainly startling to
|
|
hear that a thing consists solely of relations; but this thing is simply
|
|
a phenomenon, and cannot be cogitated by means of the mere categories:
|
|
it does itself consist in the mere relation of something in general to
|
|
the senses. In the same way, we cannot cogitate relations of things in
|
|
abstracto, if we commence with conceptions alone, in any other manner
|
|
than that one is the cause of determinations in the other; for that is
|
|
itself the conception of the understanding or category of relation. But,
|
|
as in this case we make abstraction of all intuition, we lose altogether
|
|
the mode in which the manifold determines to each of its parts its
|
|
place, that is, the form of sensibility (space); and yet this mode
|
|
antecedes all empirical causality.
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
[*Footnote: If any one wishes here to have recourse to the usual
|
|
subterfuge, and to say, that at least realitates noumena cannot be in
|
|
opposition to each other, it will be requisite for him to adduce an
|
|
example of this pure and non-sensuous reality, that it may be understood
|
|
whether the notion represents something or nothing. But an example
|
|
cannot be found except in experience, which never presents to us
|
|
anything more than phenomena; and thus the proposition means nothing
|
|
more than that the conception which contains only affirmatives does not
|
|
contain anything negative--a proposition nobody ever doubted.]
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
If by intelligible objects we understand things which can be thought
|
|
by means of the pure categories, without the need of the schemata of
|
|
sensibility, such objects are impossible. For the condition of the
|
|
objective use of all our conceptions of understanding is the mode of
|
|
our sensuous intuition, whereby objects are given; and, if we make
|
|
abstraction of the latter, the former can have no relation to an object.
|
|
And even if we should suppose a different kind of intuition from our
|
|
own, still our functions of thought would have no use or signification
|
|
in respect thereof. But if we understand by the term, objects of a
|
|
non-sensuous intuition, in respect of which our categories are not
|
|
valid, and of which we can accordingly have no knowledge (neither
|
|
intuition nor conception), in this merely negative sense noumena must be
|
|
admitted. For this is no more than saying that our mode of intuition is
|
|
not applicable to all things, but only to objects of our senses,
|
|
that consequently its objective validity is limited, and that room is
|
|
therefore left for another kind of intuition, and thus also for things
|
|
that may be objects of it. But in this sense the conception of a
|
|
noumenon is problematical, that is to say, it is the notion of that it
|
|
that it is possible, nor that it is impossible, inasmuch as we do not
|
|
know of any mode of intuition besides the sensuous, or of any other sort
|
|
of conceptions than the categories--a mode of intuition and a kind of
|
|
conception neither of which is applicable to a non-sensuous object. We
|
|
are on this account incompetent to extend the sphere of our objects
|
|
of thought beyond the conditions of our sensibility, and to assume the
|
|
existence of objects of pure thought, that is, of noumena, inasmuch as
|
|
these have no true positive signification. For it must be confessed
|
|
of the categories that they are not of themselves sufficient for the
|
|
cognition of things in themselves and, without the data of sensibility,
|
|
are mere subjective forms of the unity of the understanding. Thought is
|
|
certainly not a product of the senses, and in so far is not limited by
|
|
them, but it does not therefore follow that it may be employed purely
|
|
and without the intervention of sensibility, for it would then be
|
|
without reference to an object. And we cannot call a noumenon an object
|
|
of pure thought; for the representation thereof is but the problematical
|
|
conception of an object for a perfectly different intuition and
|
|
a perfectly different understanding from ours, both of which are
|
|
consequently themselves problematical. The conception of a noumenon is
|
|
therefore not the conception of an object, but merely a problematical
|
|
conception inseparably connected with the limitation of our sensibility.
|
|
That is to say, this conception contains the answer to the question:
|
|
"Are there objects quite unconnected with, and independent of, our
|
|
intuition?"--a question to which only an indeterminate answer can be
|
|
given. That answer is: "Inasmuch as sensuous intuition does not apply
|
|
to all things without distinction, there remains room for other and
|
|
different objects." The existence of these problematical objects
|
|
is therefore not absolutely denied, in the absence of a determinate
|
|
conception of them, but, as no category is valid in respect of them,
|
|
neither must they be admitted as objects for our understanding.
|
|
|
|
Understanding accordingly limits sensibility, without at the same time
|
|
enlarging its own field. While, moreover, it forbids sensibility to
|
|
apply its forms and modes to things in themselves and restricts it
|
|
to the sphere of phenomena, it cogitates an object in itself, only,
|
|
however, as a transcendental object, which is the cause of a phenomenon
|
|
(consequently not itself a phenomenon), and which cannot be thought
|
|
either as a quantity or as reality, or as substance (because these
|
|
conceptions always require sensuous forms in which to determine an
|
|
object)--an object, therefore, of which we are quite unable to say
|
|
whether it can be met with in ourselves or out of us, whether it would
|
|
be annihilated together with sensibility, or, if this were taken away,
|
|
would continue to exist. If we wish to call this object a noumenon,
|
|
because the representation of it is non-sensuous, we are at liberty
|
|
to do so. But as we can apply to it none of the conceptions of our
|
|
understanding, the representation is for us quite void, and is available
|
|
only for the indication of the limits of our sensuous intuition, thereby
|
|
leaving at the same time an empty space, which we are competent to
|
|
fill by the aid neither of possible experience, nor of the pure
|
|
understanding.
|
|
|
|
The critique of the pure understanding, accordingly, does not permit us
|
|
to create for ourselves a new field of objects beyond those which are
|
|
presented to us as phenomena, and to stray into intelligible worlds;
|
|
nay, it does not even allow us to endeavour to form so much as a
|
|
conception of them. The specious error which leads to this--and which is
|
|
a perfectly excusable one--lies in the fact that the employment of the
|
|
understanding, contrary to its proper purpose and destination, is made
|
|
transcendental, and objects, that is, possible intuitions, are made to
|
|
regulate themselves according to conceptions, instead of the conceptions
|
|
arranging themselves according to the intuitions, on which alone their
|
|
own objective validity rests. Now the reason of this again is that
|
|
apperception, and with it thought, antecedes all possible determinate
|
|
arrangement of representations. Accordingly we think something in
|
|
general and determine it on the one hand sensuously, but, on the other,
|
|
distinguish the general and in abstracto represented object from this
|
|
particular mode of intuiting it. In this case there remains a mode of
|
|
determining the object by mere thought, which is really but a logical
|
|
form without content, which, however, seems to us to be a mode of
|
|
the existence of the object in itself (noumenon), without regard to
|
|
intuition which is limited to our senses.
|
|
|
|
Before ending this transcendental analytic, we must make an addition,
|
|
which, although in itself of no particular importance, seems to be
|
|
necessary to the completeness of the system. The highest conception,
|
|
with which a transcendental philosophy commonly begins, is the division
|
|
into possible and impossible. But as all division presupposes a divided
|
|
conception, a still higher one must exist, and this is the conception of
|
|
an object in general--problematically understood and without its being
|
|
decided whether it is something or nothing. As the categories are the
|
|
only conceptions which apply to objects in general, the distinguishing
|
|
of an object, whether it is something or nothing, must proceed according
|
|
to the order and direction of the categories.
|
|
|
|
1. To the categories of quantity, that is, the conceptions of all, many,
|
|
and one, the conception which annihilates all, that is, the conception
|
|
of none, is opposed. And thus the object of a conception, to which no
|
|
intuition can be found to correspond, is = nothing. That is, it is a
|
|
conception without an object (ens rationis), like noumena, which cannot
|
|
be considered possible in the sphere of reality, though they must not
|
|
therefore be held to be impossible--or like certain new fundamental
|
|
forces in matter, the existence of which is cogitable without
|
|
contradiction, though, as examples from experience are not forthcoming,
|
|
they must not be regarded as possible.
|
|
|
|
2. Reality is something; negation is nothing, that is, a conception of
|
|
the absence of an object, as cold, a shadow (nihil privativum).
|
|
|
|
3. The mere form of intuition, without substance, is in itself no
|
|
object, but the merely formal condition of an object (as phenomenon),
|
|
as pure space and pure time. These are certainly something, as forms
|
|
of intuition, but are not themselves objects which are intuited (ens
|
|
imaginarium).
|
|
|
|
4. The object of a conception which is self-contradictory, is nothing,
|
|
because the conception is nothing--is impossible, as a figure composed
|
|
of two straight lines (nihil negativum).
|
|
|
|
The table of this division of the conception of nothing (the
|
|
corresponding division of the conception of something does not require
|
|
special description) must therefore be arranged as follows:
|
|
|
|
|
|
NOTHING
|
|
AS
|
|
|
|
1
|
|
As Empty Conception
|
|
without object,
|
|
ens rationis
|
|
2 3
|
|
Empty object of Empty intuition
|
|
a conception, without object,
|
|
nihil privativum ens imaginarium
|
|
4
|
|
Empty object
|
|
without conception,
|
|
nihil negativum
|
|
|
|
|
|
We see that the ens rationis is distinguished from the nihil negativum
|
|
or pure nothing by the consideration that the former must not be
|
|
reckoned among possibilities, because it is a mere fiction--though
|
|
not self-contradictory, while the latter is completely opposed to
|
|
all possibility, inasmuch as the conception annihilates itself. Both,
|
|
however, are empty conceptions. On the other hand, the nihil privativum
|
|
and ens imaginarium are empty data for conceptions. If light be not
|
|
given to the senses, we cannot represent to ourselves darkness, and if
|
|
extended objects are not perceived, we cannot represent space. Neither
|
|
the negation, nor the mere form of intuition can, without something
|
|
real, be an object.
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
TRANSCENDENTAL LOGIC. SECOND DIVISION.
|
|
|
|
TRANSCENDENTAL DIALECTIC. INTRODUCTION.
|
|
|
|
I. Of Transcendental Illusory Appearance.
|
|
|
|
We termed dialectic in general a logic of appearance. This does not
|
|
signify a doctrine of probability; for probability is truth, only
|
|
cognized upon insufficient grounds, and though the information it gives
|
|
us is imperfect, it is not therefore deceitful. Hence it must not be
|
|
separated from the analytical part of logic. Still less must phenomenon
|
|
and appearance be held to be identical. For truth or illusory appearance
|
|
does not reside in the object, in so far as it is intuited, but in the
|
|
judgement upon the object, in so far as it is thought. It is, therefore,
|
|
quite correct to say that the senses do not err, not because they always
|
|
judge correctly, but because they do not judge at all. Hence truth and
|
|
error, consequently also, illusory appearance as the cause of error, are
|
|
only to be found in a judgement, that is, in the relation of an object
|
|
to our understanding. In a cognition which completely harmonizes with
|
|
the laws of the understanding, no error can exist. In a representation
|
|
of the senses--as not containing any judgement--there is also no error.
|
|
But no power of nature can of itself deviate from its own laws. Hence
|
|
neither the understanding per se (without the influence of another
|
|
cause), nor the senses per se, would fall into error; the former could
|
|
not, because, if it acts only according to its own laws, the effect (the
|
|
judgement) must necessarily accord with these laws. But in accordance
|
|
with the laws of the understanding consists the formal element in all
|
|
truth. In the senses there is no judgement--neither a true nor a false
|
|
one. But, as we have no source of cognition besides these two, it
|
|
follows that error is caused solely by the unobserved influence of
|
|
the sensibility upon the understanding. And thus it happens that the
|
|
subjective grounds of a judgement and are confounded with the objective,
|
|
and cause them to deviate from their proper determination,* just as a
|
|
body in motion would always of itself proceed in a straight line, but
|
|
if another impetus gives to it a different direction, it will then
|
|
start off into a curvilinear line of motion. To distinguish the peculiar
|
|
action of the understanding from the power which mingles with it, it is
|
|
necessary to consider an erroneous judgement as the diagonal between two
|
|
forces, that determine the judgement in two different directions, which,
|
|
as it were, form an angle, and to resolve this composite operation into
|
|
the simple ones of the understanding and the sensibility. In pure
|
|
a priori judgements this must be done by means of transcendental
|
|
reflection, whereby, as has been already shown, each representation
|
|
has its place appointed in the corresponding faculty of cognition, and
|
|
consequently the influence of the one faculty upon the other is made
|
|
apparent.
|
|
|
|
|
|
[*Footnote: Sensibility, subjected to the understanding, as the object
|
|
upon which the understanding employs its functions, is the source of
|
|
real cognitions. But, in so far as it exercises an influence upon the
|
|
action of the understanding and determines it to judgement, sensibility
|
|
is itself the cause of error.]
|
|
|
|
|
|
It is not at present our business to treat of empirical illusory
|
|
appearance (for example, optical illusion), which occurs in the
|
|
empirical application of otherwise correct rules of the understanding,
|
|
and in which the judgement is misled by the influence of imagination.
|
|
Our purpose is to speak of transcendental illusory appearance, which
|
|
influences principles--that are not even applied to experience, for in
|
|
this case we should possess a sure test of their correctness--but which
|
|
leads us, in disregard of all the warnings of criticism, completely
|
|
beyond the empirical employment of the categories and deludes us with
|
|
the chimera of an extension of the sphere of the pure understanding.
|
|
We shall term those principles the application of which is confined
|
|
entirely within the limits of possible experience, immanent; those,
|
|
on the other hand, which transgress these limits, we shall call
|
|
transcendent principles. But by these latter I do not understand
|
|
principles of the transcendental use or misuse of the categories, which
|
|
is in reality a mere fault of the judgement when not under due restraint
|
|
from criticism, and therefore not paying sufficient attention to the
|
|
limits of the sphere in which the pure understanding is allowed to
|
|
exercise its functions; but real principles which exhort us to break
|
|
down all those barriers, and to lay claim to a perfectly new field of
|
|
cognition, which recognizes no line of demarcation. Thus transcendental
|
|
and transcendent are not identical terms. The principles of the
|
|
pure understanding, which we have already propounded, ought to be
|
|
of empirical and not of transcendental use, that is, they are not
|
|
applicable to any object beyond the sphere of experience. A principle
|
|
which removes these limits, nay, which authorizes us to overstep them,
|
|
is called transcendent. If our criticism can succeed in exposing the
|
|
illusion in these pretended principles, those which are limited in their
|
|
employment to the sphere of experience may be called, in opposition to
|
|
the others, immanent principles of the pure understanding.
|
|
|
|
Logical illusion, which consists merely in the imitation of the form of
|
|
reason (the illusion in sophistical syllogisms), arises entirely from
|
|
a want of due attention to logical rules. So soon as the attention
|
|
is awakened to the case before us, this illusion totally disappears.
|
|
Transcendental illusion, on the contrary, does not cease to exist, even
|
|
after it has been exposed, and its nothingness clearly perceived by
|
|
means of transcendental criticism. Take, for example, the illusion in
|
|
the proposition: "The world must have a beginning in time." The cause of
|
|
this is as follows. In our reason, subjectively considered as a faculty
|
|
of human cognition, there exist fundamental rules and maxims of its
|
|
exercise, which have completely the appearance of objective principles.
|
|
Now from this cause it happens that the subjective necessity of a
|
|
certain connection of our conceptions, is regarded as an objective
|
|
necessity of the determination of things in themselves. This illusion it
|
|
is impossible to avoid, just as we cannot avoid perceiving that the sea
|
|
appears to be higher at a distance than it is near the shore, because we
|
|
see the former by means of higher rays than the latter, or, which is a
|
|
still stronger case, as even the astronomer cannot prevent himself from
|
|
seeing the moon larger at its rising than some time afterwards, although
|
|
he is not deceived by this illusion.
|
|
|
|
Transcendental dialectic will therefore content itself with exposing
|
|
the illusory appearance in transcendental judgements, and guarding us
|
|
against it; but to make it, as in the case of logical illusion, entirely
|
|
disappear and cease to be illusion is utterly beyond its power. For we
|
|
have here to do with a natural and unavoidable illusion, which rests
|
|
upon subjective principles and imposes these upon us as objective, while
|
|
logical dialectic, in the detection of sophisms, has to do merely with
|
|
an error in the logical consequence of the propositions, or with an
|
|
artificially constructed illusion, in imitation of the natural error.
|
|
There is, therefore, a natural and unavoidable dialectic of pure
|
|
reason--not that in which the bungler, from want of the requisite
|
|
knowledge, involves himself, nor that which the sophist devises for the
|
|
purpose of misleading, but that which is an inseparable adjunct of human
|
|
reason, and which, even after its illusions have been exposed, does not
|
|
cease to deceive, and continually to lead reason into momentary errors,
|
|
which it becomes necessary continually to remove.
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
II. Of Pure Reason as the Seat of Transcendental Illusory Appearance.
|
|
|
|
A. OF REASON IN GENERAL.
|
|
|
|
All our knowledge begins with sense, proceeds thence to understanding,
|
|
and ends with reason, beyond which nothing higher can be discovered in
|
|
the human mind for elaborating the matter of intuition and subjecting it
|
|
to the highest unity of thought. At this stage of our inquiry it is my
|
|
duty to give an explanation of this, the highest faculty of cognition,
|
|
and I confess I find myself here in some difficulty. Of reason, as of
|
|
the understanding, there is a merely formal, that is, logical use, in
|
|
which it makes abstraction of all content of cognition; but there is
|
|
also a real use, inasmuch as it contains in itself the source of certain
|
|
conceptions and principles, which it does not borrow either from the
|
|
senses or the understanding. The former faculty has been long defined by
|
|
logicians as the faculty of mediate conclusion in contradistinction to
|
|
immediate conclusions (consequentiae immediatae); but the nature of the
|
|
latter, which itself generates conceptions, is not to be understood
|
|
from this definition. Now as a division of reason into a logical and
|
|
a transcendental faculty presents itself here, it becomes necessary to
|
|
seek for a higher conception of this source of cognition which shall
|
|
comprehend both conceptions. In this we may expect, according to the
|
|
analogy of the conceptions of the understanding, that the logical
|
|
conception will give us the key to the transcendental, and that the
|
|
table of the functions of the former will present us with the clue to
|
|
the conceptions of reason.
|
|
|
|
In the former part of our transcendental logic, we defined the
|
|
understanding to be the faculty of rules; reason may be distinguished
|
|
from understanding as the faculty of principles.
|
|
|
|
The term principle is ambiguous, and commonly signifies merely a
|
|
cognition that may be employed as a principle, although it is not in
|
|
itself, and as regards its proper origin, entitled to the distinction.
|
|
Every general proposition, even if derived from experience by the
|
|
process of induction, may serve as the major in a syllogism; but it is
|
|
not for that reason a principle. Mathematical axioms (for example, there
|
|
can be only one straight line between two points) are general a priori
|
|
cognitions, and are therefore rightly denominated principles, relatively
|
|
to the cases which can be subsumed under them. But I cannot for
|
|
this reason say that I cognize this property of a straight line from
|
|
principles--I cognize it only in pure intuition.
|
|
|
|
Cognition from principles, then, is that cognition in which I cognize
|
|
the particular in the general by means of conceptions. Thus every
|
|
syllogism is a form of the deduction of a cognition from a principle.
|
|
For the major always gives a conception, through which everything that
|
|
is subsumed under the condition thereof is cognized according to a
|
|
principle. Now as every general cognition may serve as the major in a
|
|
syllogism, and the understanding presents us with such general a
|
|
priori propositions, they may be termed principles, in respect of their
|
|
possible use.
|
|
|
|
But if we consider these principles of the pure understanding in
|
|
relation to their origin, we shall find them to be anything rather
|
|
than cognitions from conceptions. For they would not even be possible
|
|
a priori, if we could not rely on the assistance of pure intuition (in
|
|
mathematics), or on that of the conditions of a possible experience.
|
|
That everything that happens has a cause, cannot be concluded from the
|
|
general conception of that which happens; on the contrary the principle
|
|
of causality instructs us as to the mode of obtaining from that which
|
|
happens a determinate empirical conception.
|
|
|
|
Synthetical cognitions from conceptions the understanding cannot supply,
|
|
and they alone are entitled to be called principles. At the same time,
|
|
all general propositions may be termed comparative principles.
|
|
|
|
It has been a long-cherished wish--that (who knows how late), may one
|
|
day, be happily accomplished--that the principles of the endless variety
|
|
of civil laws should be investigated and exposed; for in this way alone
|
|
can we find the secret of simplifying legislation. But in this case,
|
|
laws are nothing more than limitations of our freedom upon conditions
|
|
under which it subsists in perfect harmony with itself; they
|
|
consequently have for their object that which is completely our own
|
|
work, and of which we ourselves may be the cause by means of these
|
|
conceptions. But how objects as things in themselves--how the nature of
|
|
things is subordinated to principles and is to be determined, according
|
|
to conceptions, is a question which it seems well nigh impossible to
|
|
answer. Be this, however, as it may--for on this point our investigation
|
|
is yet to be made--it is at least manifest from what we have said that
|
|
cognition from principles is something very different from cognition by
|
|
means of the understanding, which may indeed precede other cognitions
|
|
in the form of a principle, but in itself--in so far as it is
|
|
synthetical--is neither based upon mere thought, nor contains a general
|
|
proposition drawn from conceptions alone.
|
|
|
|
The understanding may be a faculty for the production of unity of
|
|
phenomena by virtue of rules; the reason is a faculty for the production
|
|
of unity of rules (of the understanding) under principles. Reason,
|
|
therefore, never applies directly to experience, or to any sensuous
|
|
object; its object is, on the contrary, the understanding, to the
|
|
manifold cognition of which it gives a unity a priori by means of
|
|
conceptions--a unity which may be called rational unity, and which is
|
|
of a nature very different from that of the unity produced by the
|
|
understanding.
|
|
|
|
The above is the general conception of the faculty of reason, in so
|
|
far as it has been possible to make it comprehensible in the absence of
|
|
examples. These will be given in the sequel.
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
B. OF THE LOGICAL USE OF REASON.
|
|
|
|
A distinction is commonly made between that which is immediately
|
|
cognized and that which is inferred or concluded. That in a figure
|
|
which is bounded by three straight lines there are three angles, is an
|
|
immediate cognition; but that these angles are together equal to two
|
|
right angles, is an inference or conclusion. Now, as we are constantly
|
|
employing this mode of thought and have thus become quite accustomed to
|
|
it, we no longer remark the above distinction, and, as in the case of
|
|
the so-called deceptions of sense, consider as immediately perceived,
|
|
what has really been inferred. In every reasoning or syllogism, there
|
|
is a fundamental proposition, afterwards a second drawn from it, and
|
|
finally the conclusion, which connects the truth in the first with the
|
|
truth in the second--and that infallibly. If the judgement concluded
|
|
is so contained in the first proposition that it can be deduced from
|
|
it without the meditation of a third notion, the conclusion is called
|
|
immediate (consequentia immediata); I prefer the term conclusion of
|
|
the understanding. But if, in addition to the fundamental cognition, a
|
|
second judgement is necessary for the production of the conclusion, it
|
|
is called a conclusion of the reason. In the proposition: All men are
|
|
mortal, are contained the propositions: Some men are mortal, Nothing
|
|
that is not mortal is a man, and these are therefore immediate
|
|
conclusions from the first. On the other hand, the proposition: all the
|
|
learned are mortal, is not contained in the main proposition (for the
|
|
conception of a learned man does not occur in it), and it can be deduced
|
|
from the main proposition only by means of a mediating judgement.
|
|
|
|
In every syllogism I first cogitate a rule (the major) by means of
|
|
the understanding. In the next place I subsume a cognition under the
|
|
condition of the rule (and this is the minor) by means of the judgement.
|
|
And finally I determine my cognition by means of the predicate of the
|
|
rule (this is the conclusio), consequently, I determine it a priori
|
|
by means of the reason. The relations, therefore, which the major
|
|
proposition, as the rule, represents between a cognition and its
|
|
condition, constitute the different kinds of syllogisms. These are just
|
|
threefold--analogously with all judgements, in so far as they differ
|
|
in the mode of expressing the relation of a cognition in the
|
|
understanding--namely, categorical, hypothetical, and disjunctive.
|
|
|
|
When as often happens, the conclusion is a judgement which may follow
|
|
from other given judgements, through which a perfectly different object
|
|
is cogitated, I endeavour to discover in the understanding whether the
|
|
assertion in this conclusion does not stand under certain conditions
|
|
according to a general rule. If I find such a condition, and if the
|
|
object mentioned in the conclusion can be subsumed under the given
|
|
condition, then this conclusion follows from a rule which is also valid
|
|
for other objects of cognition. From this we see that reason endeavours
|
|
to subject the great variety of the cognitions of the understanding to
|
|
the smallest possible number of principles (general conditions), and
|
|
thus to produce in it the highest unity.
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
C. OF THE PURE USE OF REASON.
|
|
|
|
Can we isolate reason, and, if so, is it in this case a peculiar source
|
|
of conceptions and judgements which spring from it alone, and through
|
|
which it can be applied to objects; or is it merely a subordinate
|
|
faculty, whose duty it is to give a certain form to given cognitions--a
|
|
form which is called logical, and through which the cognitions of the
|
|
understanding are subordinated to each other, and lower rules to higher
|
|
(those, to wit, whose condition comprises in its sphere the condition
|
|
of the others), in so far as this can be done by comparison? This is the
|
|
question which we have at present to answer. Manifold variety of rules
|
|
and unity of principles is a requirement of reason, for the purpose of
|
|
bringing the understanding into complete accordance with itself, just as
|
|
understanding subjects the manifold content of intuition to conceptions,
|
|
and thereby introduces connection into it. But this principle prescribes
|
|
no law to objects, and does not contain any ground of the possibility of
|
|
cognizing or of determining them as such, but is merely a subjective
|
|
law for the proper arrangement of the content of the understanding.
|
|
The purpose of this law is, by a comparison of the conceptions of the
|
|
understanding, to reduce them to the smallest possible number, although,
|
|
at the same time, it does not justify us in demanding from objects
|
|
themselves such a uniformity as might contribute to the convenience and
|
|
the enlargement of the sphere of the understanding, or in expecting that
|
|
it will itself thus receive from them objective validity. In one word,
|
|
the question is: "does reason in itself, that is, does pure reason
|
|
contain a priori synthetical principles and rules, and what are those
|
|
principles?"
|
|
|
|
The formal and logical procedure of reason in syllogisms gives
|
|
us sufficient information in regard to the ground on which the
|
|
transcendental principle of reason in its pure synthetical cognition
|
|
will rest.
|
|
|
|
1. Reason, as observed in the syllogistic process, is not applicable to
|
|
intuitions, for the purpose of subjecting them to rules--for this is the
|
|
province of the understanding with its categories--but to conceptions
|
|
and judgements. If pure reason does apply to objects and the intuition
|
|
of them, it does so not immediately, but mediately--through the
|
|
understanding and its judgements, which have a direct relation to
|
|
the senses and their intuition, for the purpose of determining their
|
|
objects. The unity of reason is therefore not the unity of a possible
|
|
experience, but is essentially different from this unity, which is that
|
|
of the understanding. That everything which happens has a cause, is not
|
|
a principle cognized and prescribed by reason. This principle makes the
|
|
unity of experience possible and borrows nothing from reason, which,
|
|
without a reference to possible experience, could never have produced by
|
|
means of mere conceptions any such synthetical unity.
|
|
|
|
2. Reason, in its logical use, endeavours to discover the general
|
|
condition of its judgement (the conclusion), and a syllogism is itself
|
|
nothing but a judgement by means of the subsumption of its condition
|
|
under a general rule (the major). Now as this rule may itself be
|
|
subjected to the same process of reason, and thus the condition of the
|
|
condition be sought (by means of a prosyllogism) as long as the process
|
|
can be continued, it is very manifest that the peculiar principle of
|
|
reason in its logical use is to find for the conditioned cognition of
|
|
the understanding the unconditioned whereby the unity of the former is
|
|
completed.
|
|
|
|
But this logical maxim cannot be a principle of pure reason, unless we
|
|
admit that, if the conditioned is given, the whole series of conditions
|
|
subordinated to one another--a series which is consequently itself
|
|
unconditioned--is also given, that is, contained in the object and its
|
|
connection.
|
|
|
|
But this principle of pure reason is evidently synthetical; for,
|
|
analytically, the conditioned certainly relates to some condition, but
|
|
not to the unconditioned. From this principle also there must originate
|
|
different synthetical propositions, of which the pure understanding is
|
|
perfectly ignorant, for it has to do only with objects of a possible
|
|
experience, the cognition and synthesis of which is always conditioned.
|
|
The unconditioned, if it does really exist, must be especially
|
|
considered in regard to the determinations which distinguish it from
|
|
whatever is conditioned, and will thus afford us material for many a
|
|
priori synthetical propositions.
|
|
|
|
The principles resulting from this highest principle of pure reason
|
|
will, however, be transcendent in relation to phenomena, that is to
|
|
say, it will be impossible to make any adequate empirical use of this
|
|
principle. It is therefore completely different from all principles of
|
|
the understanding, the use made of which is entirely immanent, their
|
|
object and purpose being merely the possibility of experience. Now our
|
|
duty in the transcendental dialectic is as follows. To discover whether
|
|
the principle that the series of conditions (in the synthesis of
|
|
phenomena, or of thought in general) extends to the unconditioned is
|
|
objectively true, or not; what consequences result therefrom affecting
|
|
the empirical use of the understanding, or rather whether there exists
|
|
any such objectively valid proposition of reason, and whether it is not,
|
|
on the contrary, a merely logical precept which directs us to ascend
|
|
perpetually to still higher conditions, to approach completeness in the
|
|
series of them, and thus to introduce into our cognition the highest
|
|
possible unity of reason. We must ascertain, I say, whether this
|
|
requirement of reason has not been regarded, by a misunderstanding, as
|
|
a transcendental principle of pure reason, which postulates a thorough
|
|
completeness in the series of conditions in objects themselves. We
|
|
must show, moreover, the misconceptions and illusions that intrude into
|
|
syllogisms, the major proposition of which pure reason has supplied--a
|
|
proposition which has perhaps more of the character of a petitio than
|
|
of a postulatum--and that proceed from experience upwards to its
|
|
conditions. The solution of these problems is our task in transcendental
|
|
dialectic, which we are about to expose even at its source, that lies
|
|
deep in human reason. We shall divide it into two parts, the first of
|
|
which will treat of the transcendent conceptions of pure reason, the
|
|
second of transcendent and dialectical syllogisms.
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
BOOK I. -- OF THE CONCEPTIONS OF PURE REASON.
|
|
|
|
The conceptions of pure reason--we do not here speak of the possibility
|
|
of them--are not obtained by reflection, but by inference or
|
|
conclusion. The conceptions of understanding are also cogitated a priori
|
|
antecedently to experience, and render it possible; but they contain
|
|
nothing but the unity of reflection upon phenomena, in so far as these
|
|
must necessarily belong to a possible empirical consciousness. Through
|
|
them alone are cognition and the determination of an object possible. It
|
|
is from them, accordingly, that we receive material for reasoning, and
|
|
antecedently to them we possess no a priori conceptions of objects from
|
|
which they might be deduced, On the other hand, the sole basis of
|
|
their objective reality consists in the necessity imposed on them, as
|
|
containing the intellectual form of all experience, of restricting their
|
|
application and influence to the sphere of experience.
|
|
|
|
But the term, conception of reason, or rational conception, itself
|
|
indicates that it does not confine itself within the limits of
|
|
experience, because its object-matter is a cognition, of which every
|
|
empirical cognition is but a part--nay, the whole of possible experience
|
|
may be itself but a part of it--a cognition to which no actual
|
|
experience ever fully attains, although it does always pertain to it.
|
|
The aim of rational conceptions is the comprehension, as that of the
|
|
conceptions of understanding is the understanding of perceptions.
|
|
If they contain the unconditioned, they relate to that to which all
|
|
experience is subordinate, but which is never itself an object of
|
|
experience--that towards which reason tends in all its conclusions from
|
|
experience, and by the standard of which it estimates the degree
|
|
of their empirical use, but which is never itself an element in an
|
|
empirical synthesis. If, notwithstanding, such conceptions possess
|
|
objective validity, they may be called conceptus ratiocinati
|
|
(conceptions legitimately concluded); in cases where they do not,
|
|
they have been admitted on account of having the appearance of
|
|
being correctly concluded, and may be called conceptus ratiocinantes
|
|
(sophistical conceptions). But as this can only be sufficiently
|
|
demonstrated in that part of our treatise which relates to the
|
|
dialectical conclusions of reason, we shall omit any consideration of
|
|
it in this place. As we called the pure conceptions of the understanding
|
|
categories, we shall also distinguish those of pure reason by a new name
|
|
and call them transcendental ideas. These terms, however, we must in the
|
|
first place explain and justify.
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
SECTION I--Of Ideas in General.
|
|
|
|
Despite the great wealth of words which European languages possess, the
|
|
thinker finds himself often at a loss for an expression exactly suited
|
|
to his conception, for want of which he is unable to make himself
|
|
intelligible either to others or to himself. To coin new words is a
|
|
pretension to legislation in language which is seldom successful; and,
|
|
before recourse is taken to so desperate an expedient, it is advisable
|
|
to examine the dead and learned languages, with the hope and the
|
|
probability that we may there meet with some adequate expression of the
|
|
notion we have in our minds. In this case, even if the original meaning
|
|
of the word has become somewhat uncertain, from carelessness or want of
|
|
caution on the part of the authors of it, it is always better to adhere
|
|
to and confirm its proper meaning--even although it may be doubtful
|
|
whether it was formerly used in exactly this sense--than to make our
|
|
labour vain by want of sufficient care to render ourselves intelligible.
|
|
|
|
For this reason, when it happens that there exists only a single word to
|
|
express a certain conception, and this word, in its usual acceptation,
|
|
is thoroughly adequate to the conception, the accurate distinction of
|
|
which from related conceptions is of great importance, we ought not to
|
|
employ the expression improvidently, or, for the sake of variety and
|
|
elegance of style, use it as a synonym for other cognate words. It
|
|
is our duty, on the contrary, carefully to preserve its peculiar
|
|
signification, as otherwise it easily happens that when the attention of
|
|
the reader is no longer particularly attracted to the expression, and it
|
|
is lost amid the multitude of other words of very different import, the
|
|
thought which it conveyed, and which it alone conveyed, is lost with it.
|
|
|
|
Plato employed the expression idea in a way that plainly showed he meant
|
|
by it something which is never derived from the senses, but which
|
|
far transcends even the conceptions of the understanding (with which
|
|
Aristotle occupied himself), inasmuch as in experience nothing perfectly
|
|
corresponding to them could be found. Ideas are, according to him,
|
|
archetypes of things themselves, and not merely keys to possible
|
|
experiences, like the categories. In his view they flow from the
|
|
highest reason, by which they have been imparted to human reason, which,
|
|
however, exists no longer in its original state, but is obliged with
|
|
great labour to recall by reminiscence--which is called philosophy--the
|
|
old but now sadly obscured ideas. I will not here enter upon any
|
|
literary investigation of the sense which this sublime philosopher
|
|
attached to this expression. I shall content myself with remarking that
|
|
it is nothing unusual, in common conversation as well as in written
|
|
works, by comparing the thoughts which an author has delivered upon a
|
|
subject, to understand him better than he understood himself inasmuch
|
|
as he may not have sufficiently determined his conception, and thus have
|
|
sometimes spoken, nay even thought, in opposition to his own opinions.
|
|
|
|
Plato perceived very clearly that our faculty of cognition has the
|
|
feeling of a much higher vocation than that of merely spelling out
|
|
phenomena according to synthetical unity, for the purpose of being able
|
|
to read them as experience, and that our reason naturally raises itself
|
|
to cognitions far too elevated to admit of the possibility of an
|
|
object given by experience corresponding to them--cognitions which are
|
|
nevertheless real, and are not mere phantoms of the brain.
|
|
|
|
This philosopher found his ideas especially in all that is practical,*
|
|
that is, which rests upon freedom, which in its turn ranks under
|
|
cognitions that are the peculiar product of reason. He who would derive
|
|
from experience the conceptions of virtue, who would make (as many
|
|
have really done) that, which at best can but serve as an imperfectly
|
|
illustrative example, a model for or the formation of a perfectly
|
|
adequate idea on the subject, would in fact transform virtue into a
|
|
nonentity changeable according to time and circumstance and utterly
|
|
incapable of being employed as a rule. On the contrary, every one is
|
|
conscious that, when any one is held up to him as a model of virtue, he
|
|
compares this so-called model with the true original which he possesses
|
|
in his own mind and values him according to this standard. But this
|
|
standard is the idea of virtue, in relation to which all possible
|
|
objects of experience are indeed serviceable as examples--proofs of
|
|
the practicability in a certain degree of that which the conception of
|
|
virtue demands--but certainly not as archetypes. That the actions of
|
|
man will never be in perfect accordance with all the requirements of the
|
|
pure ideas of reason, does not prove the thought to be chimerical. For
|
|
only through this idea are all judgements as to moral merit or demerit
|
|
possible; it consequently lies at the foundation of every approach to
|
|
moral perfection, however far removed from it the obstacles in human
|
|
nature--indeterminable as to degree--may keep us.
|
|
|
|
|
|
[*Footnote: He certainly extended the application of his conception
|
|
to speculative cognitions also, provided they were given pure and
|
|
completely a priori, nay, even to mathematics, although this science
|
|
cannot possess an object otherwhere than in Possible experience.
|
|
I cannot follow him in this, and as little can I follow him in his
|
|
mystical deduction of these ideas, or in his hypostatization of them;
|
|
although, in truth, the elevated and exaggerated language which he
|
|
employed in describing them is quite capable of an interpretation more
|
|
subdued and more in accordance with fact and the nature of things.]
|
|
|
|
|
|
The Platonic Republic has become proverbial as an example--and a
|
|
striking one--of imaginary perfection, such as can exist only in the
|
|
brain of the idle thinker; and Brucker ridicules the philosopher
|
|
for maintaining that a prince can never govern well, unless he is
|
|
participant in the ideas. But we should do better to follow up this
|
|
thought and, where this admirable thinker leaves us without assistance,
|
|
employ new efforts to place it in clearer light, rather than carelessly
|
|
fling it aside as useless, under the very miserable and pernicious
|
|
pretext of impracticability. A constitution of the greatest possible
|
|
human freedom according to laws, by which the liberty of every
|
|
individual can consist with the liberty of every other (not of the
|
|
greatest possible happiness, for this follows necessarily from the
|
|
former), is, to say the least, a necessary idea, which must be placed
|
|
at the foundation not only of the first plan of the constitution of a
|
|
state, but of all its laws. And, in this, it not necessary at the outset
|
|
to take account of the obstacles which lie in our way--obstacles which
|
|
perhaps do not necessarily arise from the character of human nature, but
|
|
rather from the previous neglect of true ideas in legislation. For there
|
|
is nothing more pernicious and more unworthy of a philosopher, than the
|
|
vulgar appeal to a so-called adverse experience, which indeed would not
|
|
have existed, if those institutions had been established at the proper
|
|
time and in accordance with ideas; while, instead of this, conceptions,
|
|
crude for the very reason that they have been drawn from experience,
|
|
have marred and frustrated all our better views and intentions. The more
|
|
legislation and government are in harmony with this idea, the more rare
|
|
do punishments become and thus it is quite reasonable to maintain,
|
|
as Plato did, that in a perfect state no punishments at all would be
|
|
necessary. Now although a perfect state may never exist, the idea is
|
|
not on that account the less just, which holds up this maximum as the
|
|
archetype or standard of a constitution, in order to bring legislative
|
|
government always nearer and nearer to the greatest possible perfection.
|
|
For at what precise degree human nature must stop in its progress, and
|
|
how wide must be the chasm which must necessarily exist between the
|
|
idea and its realization, are problems which no one can or ought to
|
|
determine--and for this reason, that it is the destination of freedom to
|
|
overstep all assigned limits between itself and the idea.
|
|
|
|
But not only in that wherein human reason is a real causal agent and
|
|
where ideas are operative causes (of actions and their objects), that is
|
|
to say, in the region of ethics, but also in regard to nature herself,
|
|
Plato saw clear proofs of an origin from ideas. A plant, and animal,
|
|
the regular order of nature--probably also the disposition of the whole
|
|
universe--give manifest evidence that they are possible only by means
|
|
of and according to ideas; that, indeed, no one creature, under the
|
|
individual conditions of its existence, perfectly harmonizes with the
|
|
idea of the most perfect of its kind--just as little as man with
|
|
the idea of humanity, which nevertheless he bears in his soul as the
|
|
archetypal standard of his actions; that, notwithstanding, these ideas
|
|
are in the highest sense individually, unchangeably, and completely
|
|
determined, and are the original causes of things; and that the totality
|
|
of connected objects in the universe is alone fully adequate to that
|
|
idea. Setting aside the exaggerations of expression in the writings of
|
|
this philosopher, the mental power exhibited in this ascent from the
|
|
ectypal mode of regarding the physical world to the architectonic
|
|
connection thereof according to ends, that is, ideas, is an effort which
|
|
deserves imitation and claims respect. But as regards the principles of
|
|
ethics, of legislation, and of religion, spheres in which ideas
|
|
alone render experience possible, although they never attain to full
|
|
expression therein, he has vindicated for himself a position of peculiar
|
|
merit, which is not appreciated only because it is judged by the very
|
|
empirical rules, the validity of which as principles is destroyed by
|
|
ideas. For as regards nature, experience presents us with rules and is
|
|
the source of truth, but in relation to ethical laws experience is the
|
|
parent of illusion, and it is in the highest degree reprehensible to
|
|
limit or to deduce the laws which dictate what I ought to do, from what
|
|
is done.
|
|
|
|
We must, however, omit the consideration of these important subjects,
|
|
the development of which is in reality the peculiar duty and dignity of
|
|
philosophy, and confine ourselves for the present to the more humble but
|
|
not less useful task of preparing a firm foundation for those majestic
|
|
edifices of moral science. For this foundation has been hitherto
|
|
insecure from the many subterranean passages which reason in its
|
|
confident but vain search for treasures has made in all directions.
|
|
Our present duty is to make ourselves perfectly acquainted with the
|
|
transcendental use made of pure reason, its principles and ideas, that
|
|
we may be able properly to determine and value its influence and real
|
|
worth. But before bringing these introductory remarks to a close, I
|
|
beg those who really have philosophy at heart--and their number is but
|
|
small--if they shall find themselves convinced by the considerations
|
|
following as well as by those above, to exert themselves to preserve to
|
|
the expression idea its original signification, and to take care that
|
|
it be not lost among those other expressions by which all sorts of
|
|
representations are loosely designated--that the interests of science
|
|
may not thereby suffer. We are in no want of words to denominate
|
|
adequately every mode of representation, without the necessity of
|
|
encroaching upon terms which are proper to others. The following is
|
|
a graduated list of them. The genus is representation in general
|
|
(representatio). Under it stands representation with consciousness
|
|
(perceptio). A perception which relates solely to the subject as a
|
|
modification of its state, is a sensation (sensatio), an objective
|
|
perception is a cognition (cognitio). A cognition is either an intuition
|
|
or a conception (intuitus vel conceptus). The former has an immediate
|
|
relation to the object and is singular and individual; the latter has
|
|
but a mediate relation, by means of a characteristic mark which may be
|
|
common to several things. A conception is either empirical or pure. A
|
|
pure conception, in so far as it has its origin in the understanding
|
|
alone, and is not the conception of a pure sensuous image, is
|
|
called notio. A conception formed from notions, which transcends the
|
|
possibility of experience, is an idea, or a conception of reason. To
|
|
one who has accustomed himself to these distinctions, it must be quite
|
|
intolerable to hear the representation of the colour red called an idea.
|
|
It ought not even to be called a notion or conception of understanding.
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
SECTION II. Of Transcendental Ideas.
|
|
|
|
Transcendental analytic showed us how the mere logical form of
|
|
our cognition can contain the origin of pure conceptions a priori,
|
|
conceptions which represent objects antecedently to all experience, or
|
|
rather, indicate the synthetical unity which alone renders possible an
|
|
empirical cognition of objects. The form of judgements--converted into a
|
|
conception of the synthesis of intuitions--produced the categories
|
|
which direct the employment of the understanding in experience. This
|
|
consideration warrants us to expect that the form of syllogisms, when
|
|
applied to synthetical unity of intuitions, following the rule of the
|
|
categories, will contain the origin of particular a priori conceptions,
|
|
which we may call pure conceptions of reason or transcendental ideas,
|
|
and which will determine the use of the understanding in the totality of
|
|
experience according to principles.
|
|
|
|
The function of reason in arguments consists in the universality of
|
|
a cognition according to conceptions, and the syllogism itself is
|
|
a judgement which is determined a priori in the whole extent of its
|
|
condition. The proposition: "Caius is mortal," is one which may be
|
|
obtained from experience by the aid of the understanding alone; but my
|
|
wish is to find a conception which contains the condition under which
|
|
the predicate of this judgement is given--in this case, the conception
|
|
of man--and after subsuming under this condition, taken in its whole
|
|
extent (all men are mortal), I determine according to it the cognition
|
|
of the object thought, and say: "Caius is mortal."
|
|
|
|
Hence, in the conclusion of a syllogism we restrict a predicate to a
|
|
certain object, after having thought it in the major in its whole extent
|
|
under a certain condition. This complete quantity of the extent in
|
|
relation to such a condition is called universality (universalitas). To
|
|
this corresponds totality (universitas) of conditions in the synthesis
|
|
of intuitions. The transcendental conception of reason is therefore
|
|
nothing else than the conception of the totality of the conditions of
|
|
a given conditioned. Now as the unconditioned alone renders possible
|
|
totality of conditions, and, conversely, the totality of conditions is
|
|
itself always unconditioned; a pure rational conception in general
|
|
can be defined and explained by means of the conception of the
|
|
unconditioned, in so far as it contains a basis for the synthesis of the
|
|
conditioned.
|
|
|
|
To the number of modes of relation which the understanding cogitates by
|
|
means of the categories, the number of pure rational conceptions will
|
|
correspond. We must therefore seek for, first, an unconditioned of
|
|
the categorical synthesis in a subject; secondly, of the hypothetical
|
|
synthesis of the members of a series; thirdly, of the disjunctive
|
|
synthesis of parts in a system.
|
|
|
|
There are exactly the same number of modes of syllogisms, each of which
|
|
proceeds through prosyllogisms to the unconditioned--one to the subject
|
|
which cannot be employed as predicate, another to the presupposition
|
|
which supposes nothing higher than itself, and the third to an aggregate
|
|
of the members of the complete division of a conception. Hence the pure
|
|
rational conceptions of totality in the synthesis of conditions have a
|
|
necessary foundation in the nature of human reason--at least as modes of
|
|
elevating the unity of the understanding to the unconditioned. They
|
|
may have no valid application, corresponding to their transcendental
|
|
employment, in concreto, and be thus of no greater utility than
|
|
to direct the understanding how, while extending them as widely
|
|
as possible, to maintain its exercise and application in perfect
|
|
consistence and harmony.
|
|
|
|
But, while speaking here of the totality of conditions and of the
|
|
unconditioned as the common title of all conceptions of reason, we again
|
|
light upon an expression which we find it impossible to dispense with,
|
|
and which nevertheless, owing to the ambiguity attaching to it from long
|
|
abuse, we cannot employ with safety. The word absolute is one of the few
|
|
words which, in its original signification, was perfectly adequate to
|
|
the conception it was intended to convey--a conception which no other
|
|
word in the same language exactly suits, and the loss--or, which is
|
|
the same thing, the incautious and loose employment--of which must
|
|
be followed by the loss of the conception itself. And, as it is a
|
|
conception which occupies much of the attention of reason, its loss
|
|
would be greatly to the detriment of all transcendental philosophy. The
|
|
word absolute is at present frequently used to denote that something can
|
|
be predicated of a thing considered in itself and intrinsically. In this
|
|
sense absolutely possible would signify that which is possible in itself
|
|
(interne)--which is, in fact, the least that one can predicate of an
|
|
object. On the other hand, it is sometimes employed to indicate that
|
|
a thing is valid in all respects--for example, absolute sovereignty.
|
|
Absolutely possible would in this sense signify that which is possible
|
|
in all relations and in every respect; and this is the most that can be
|
|
predicated of the possibility of a thing. Now these significations do
|
|
in truth frequently coincide. Thus, for example, that which is
|
|
intrinsically impossible, is also impossible in all relations, that is,
|
|
absolutely impossible. But in most cases they differ from each other
|
|
toto caelo, and I can by no means conclude that, because a thing is in
|
|
itself possible, it is also possible in all relations, and therefore
|
|
absolutely. Nay, more, I shall in the sequel show that absolute
|
|
necessity does not by any means depend on internal necessity, and
|
|
that, therefore, it must not be considered as synonymous with it. Of an
|
|
opposite which is intrinsically impossible, we may affirm that it is in
|
|
all respects impossible, and that, consequently, the thing itself, of
|
|
which this is the opposite, is absolutely necessary; but I cannot reason
|
|
conversely and say, the opposite of that which is absolutely necessary
|
|
is intrinsically impossible, that is, that the absolute necessity of
|
|
things is an internal necessity. For this internal necessity is in
|
|
certain cases a mere empty word with which the least conception cannot
|
|
be connected, while the conception of the necessity of a thing in all
|
|
relations possesses very peculiar determinations. Now as the loss of a
|
|
conception of great utility in speculative science cannot be a matter of
|
|
indifference to the philosopher, I trust that the proper determination
|
|
and careful preservation of the expression on which the conception
|
|
depends will likewise be not indifferent to him.
|
|
|
|
In this enlarged signification, then, shall I employ the word absolute,
|
|
in opposition to that which is valid only in some particular respect;
|
|
for the latter is restricted by conditions, the former is valid without
|
|
any restriction whatever.
|
|
|
|
Now the transcendental conception of reason has for its object nothing
|
|
else than absolute totality in the synthesis of conditions and does not
|
|
rest satisfied till it has attained to the absolutely, that is, in all
|
|
respects and relations, unconditioned. For pure reason leaves to the
|
|
understanding everything that immediately relates to the object of
|
|
intuition or rather to their synthesis in imagination. The former
|
|
restricts itself to the absolute totality in the employment of
|
|
the conceptions of the understanding and aims at carrying out the
|
|
synthetical unity which is cogitated in the category, even to the
|
|
unconditioned. This unity may hence be called the rational unity of
|
|
phenomena, as the other, which the category expresses, may be termed the
|
|
unity of the understanding. Reason, therefore, has an immediate relation
|
|
to the use of the understanding, not indeed in so far as the latter
|
|
contains the ground of possible experience (for the conception of the
|
|
absolute totality of conditions is not a conception that can be employed
|
|
in experience, because no experience is unconditioned), but solely
|
|
for the purpose of directing it to a certain unity, of which the
|
|
understanding has no conception, and the aim of which is to collect into
|
|
an absolute whole all acts of the understanding. Hence the objective
|
|
employment of the pure conceptions of reason is always transcendent,
|
|
while that of the pure conceptions of the understanding must, according
|
|
to their nature, be always immanent, inasmuch as they are limited to
|
|
possible experience.
|
|
|
|
I understand by idea a necessary conception of reason, to which
|
|
no corresponding object can be discovered in the world of sense.
|
|
Accordingly, the pure conceptions of reason at present under
|
|
consideration are transcendental ideas. They are conceptions of pure
|
|
reason, for they regard all empirical cognition as determined by means
|
|
of an absolute totality of conditions. They are not mere fictions, but
|
|
natural and necessary products of reason, and have hence a necessary
|
|
relation to the whole sphere of the exercise of the understanding.
|
|
And, finally, they are transcendent, and overstep the limits of all
|
|
experiences, in which, consequently, no object can ever be presented
|
|
that would be perfectly adequate to a transcendental idea. When we use
|
|
the word idea, we say, as regards its object (an object of the pure
|
|
understanding), a great deal, but as regards its subject (that is, in
|
|
respect of its reality under conditions of experience), exceedingly
|
|
little, because the idea, as the conception of a maximum, can never be
|
|
completely and adequately presented in concreto. Now, as in the merely
|
|
speculative employment of reason the latter is properly the sole aim,
|
|
and as in this case the approximation to a conception, which is never
|
|
attained in practice, is the same thing as if the conception were
|
|
non-existent--it is commonly said of the conception of this kind, "it is
|
|
only an idea." So we might very well say, "the absolute totality of all
|
|
phenomena is only an idea," for, as we never can present an adequate
|
|
representation of it, it remains for us a problem incapable of solution.
|
|
On the other hand, as in the practical use of the understanding we have
|
|
only to do with action and practice according to rules, an idea of pure
|
|
reason can always be given really in concreto, although only partially,
|
|
nay, it is the indispensable condition of all practical employment of
|
|
reason. The practice or execution of the idea is always limited
|
|
and defective, but nevertheless within indeterminable boundaries,
|
|
consequently always under the influence of the conception of an absolute
|
|
perfection. And thus the practical idea is always in the highest degree
|
|
fruitful, and in relation to real actions indispensably necessary.
|
|
In the idea, pure reason possesses even causality and the power of
|
|
producing that which its conception contains. Hence we cannot say of
|
|
wisdom, in a disparaging way, "it is only an idea." For, for the very
|
|
reason that it is the idea of the necessary unity of all possible aims,
|
|
it must be for all practical exertions and endeavours the primitive
|
|
condition and rule--a rule which, if not constitutive, is at least
|
|
limitative.
|
|
|
|
Now, although we must say of the transcendental conceptions of reason,
|
|
"they are only ideas," we must not, on this account, look upon them as
|
|
superfluous and nugatory. For, although no object can be determined by
|
|
them, they can be of great utility, unobserved and at the basis of
|
|
the edifice of the understanding, as the canon for its extended and
|
|
self-consistent exercise--a canon which, indeed, does not enable it to
|
|
cognize more in an object than it would cognize by the help of its own
|
|
conceptions, but which guides it more securely in its cognition. Not
|
|
to mention that they perhaps render possible a transition from our
|
|
conceptions of nature and the non-ego to the practical conceptions, and
|
|
thus produce for even ethical ideas keeping, so to speak, and connection
|
|
with the speculative cognitions of reason. The explication of all this
|
|
must be looked for in the sequel.
|
|
|
|
But setting aside, in conformity with our original purpose, the
|
|
consideration of the practical ideas, we proceed to contemplate reason
|
|
in its speculative use alone, nay, in a still more restricted sphere, to
|
|
wit, in the transcendental use; and here must strike into the same path
|
|
which we followed in our deduction of the categories. That is to say, we
|
|
shall consider the logical form of the cognition of reason, that we
|
|
may see whether reason may not be thereby a source of conceptions which
|
|
enables us to regard objects in themselves as determined synthetically a
|
|
priori, in relation to one or other of the functions of reason.
|
|
|
|
Reason, considered as the faculty of a certain logical form of
|
|
cognition, is the faculty of conclusion, that is, of mediate
|
|
judgement--by means of the subsumption of the condition of a possible
|
|
judgement under the condition of a given judgement. The given judgement
|
|
is the general rule (major). The subsumption of the condition of another
|
|
possible judgement under the condition of the rule is the minor. The
|
|
actual judgement, which enounces the assertion of the rule in the
|
|
subsumed case, is the conclusion (conclusio). The rule predicates
|
|
something generally under a certain condition. The condition of the rule
|
|
is satisfied in some particular case. It follows that what was valid
|
|
in general under that condition must also be considered as valid in the
|
|
particular case which satisfies this condition. It is very plain that
|
|
reason attains to a cognition, by means of acts of the understanding
|
|
which constitute a series of conditions. When I arrive at the
|
|
proposition, "All bodies are changeable," by beginning with the more
|
|
remote cognition (in which the conception of body does not appear, but
|
|
which nevertheless contains the condition of that conception), "All
|
|
compound is changeable," by proceeding from this to a less remote
|
|
cognition, which stands under the condition of the former, "Bodies are
|
|
compound," and hence to a third, which at length connects for me the
|
|
remote cognition (changeable) with the one before me, "Consequently,
|
|
bodies are changeable"--I have arrived at a cognition (conclusion)
|
|
through a series of conditions (premisses). Now every series, whose
|
|
exponent (of the categorical or hypothetical judgement) is given, can be
|
|
continued; consequently the same procedure of reason conducts us to the
|
|
ratiocinatio polysyllogistica, which is a series of syllogisms, that can
|
|
be continued either on the side of the conditions (per prosyllogismos)
|
|
or of the conditioned (per episyllogismos) to an indefinite extent.
|
|
|
|
But we very soon perceive that the chain or series of prosyllogisms,
|
|
that is, of deduced cognitions on the side of the grounds or conditions
|
|
of a given cognition, in other words, the ascending series of syllogisms
|
|
must have a very different relation to the faculty of reason from that
|
|
of the descending series, that is, the progressive procedure of reason
|
|
on the side of the conditioned by means of episyllogisms. For, as in
|
|
the former case the cognition (conclusio) is given only as conditioned,
|
|
reason can attain to this cognition only under the presupposition that
|
|
all the members of the series on the side of the conditions are
|
|
given (totality in the series of premisses), because only under this
|
|
supposition is the judgement we may be considering possible a priori;
|
|
while on the side of the conditioned or the inferences, only an
|
|
incomplete and becoming, and not a presupposed or given series,
|
|
consequently only a potential progression, is cogitated. Hence, when
|
|
a cognition is contemplated as conditioned, reason is compelled to
|
|
consider the series of conditions in an ascending line as completed and
|
|
given in their totality. But if the very same condition is considered
|
|
at the same time as the condition of other cognitions, which together
|
|
constitute a series of inferences or consequences in a descending
|
|
line, reason may preserve a perfect indifference, as to how far this
|
|
progression may extend a parte posteriori, and whether the totality of
|
|
this series is possible, because it stands in no need of such a series
|
|
for the purpose of arriving at the conclusion before it, inasmuch as
|
|
this conclusion is sufficiently guaranteed and determined on grounds a
|
|
parte priori. It may be the case, that upon the side of the conditions
|
|
the series of premisses has a first or highest condition, or it may
|
|
not possess this, and so be a parte priori unlimited; but it must,
|
|
nevertheless, contain totality of conditions, even admitting that we
|
|
never could succeed in completely apprehending it; and the whole series
|
|
must be unconditionally true, if the conditioned, which is considered
|
|
as an inference resulting from it, is to be held as true. This is a
|
|
requirement of reason, which announces its cognition as determined a
|
|
priori and as necessary, either in itself--and in this case it needs no
|
|
grounds to rest upon--or, if it is deduced, as a member of a series of
|
|
grounds, which is itself unconditionally true.
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
SECTION III. System of Transcendental Ideas.
|
|
|
|
We are not at present engaged with a logical dialectic, which makes
|
|
complete abstraction of the content of cognition and aims only at
|
|
unveiling the illusory appearance in the form of syllogisms. Our subject
|
|
is transcendental dialectic, which must contain, completely a priori,
|
|
the origin of certain cognitions drawn from pure reason, and the origin
|
|
of certain deduced conceptions, the object of which cannot be given
|
|
empirically and which therefore lie beyond the sphere of the faculty
|
|
of understanding. We have observed, from the natural relation which
|
|
the transcendental use of our cognition, in syllogisms as well as in
|
|
judgements, must have to the logical, that there are three kinds of
|
|
dialectical arguments, corresponding to the three modes of conclusion,
|
|
by which reason attains to cognitions on principles; and that in all
|
|
it is the business of reason to ascend from the conditioned synthesis,
|
|
beyond which the understanding never proceeds, to the unconditioned
|
|
which the understanding never can reach.
|
|
|
|
Now the most general relations which can exist in our representations
|
|
are: 1st, the relation to the subject; 2nd, the relation to objects,
|
|
either as phenomena, or as objects of thought in general. If we connect
|
|
this subdivision with the main division, all the relations of our
|
|
representations, of which we can form either a conception or an idea,
|
|
are threefold: 1. The relation to the subject; 2. The relation to the
|
|
manifold of the object as a phenomenon; 3. The relation to all things in
|
|
general.
|
|
|
|
Now all pure conceptions have to do in general with the synthetical
|
|
unity of representations; conceptions of pure reason (transcendental
|
|
ideas), on the other hand, with the unconditional synthetical unity
|
|
of all conditions. It follows that all transcendental ideas arrange
|
|
themselves in three classes, the first of which contains the absolute
|
|
(unconditioned) unity of the thinking subject, the second the absolute
|
|
unity of the series of the conditions of a phenomenon, the third the
|
|
absolute unity of the condition of all objects of thought in general.
|
|
|
|
The thinking subject is the object-matter of Psychology; the sum total
|
|
of all phenomena (the world) is the object-matter of Cosmology; and the
|
|
thing which contains the highest condition of the possibility of all
|
|
that is cogitable (the being of all beings) is the object-matter of all
|
|
Theology. Thus pure reason presents us with the idea of a transcendental
|
|
doctrine of the soul (psychologia rationalis), of a transcendental
|
|
science of the world (cosmologia rationalis), and finally of
|
|
a transcendental doctrine of God (theologia transcendentalis).
|
|
Understanding cannot originate even the outline of any of these
|
|
sciences, even when connected with the highest logical use of reason,
|
|
that is, all cogitable syllogisms--for the purpose of proceeding from
|
|
one object (phenomenon) to all others, even to the utmost limits of
|
|
the empirical synthesis. They are, on the contrary, pure and genuine
|
|
products, or problems, of pure reason.
|
|
|
|
What modi of the pure conceptions of reason these transcendental ideas
|
|
are will be fully exposed in the following chapter. They follow
|
|
the guiding thread of the categories. For pure reason never relates
|
|
immediately to objects, but to the conceptions of these contained in the
|
|
understanding. In like manner, it will be made manifest in the detailed
|
|
explanation of these ideas--how reason, merely through the synthetical
|
|
use of the same function which it employs in a categorical syllogism,
|
|
necessarily attains to the conception of the absolute unity of the
|
|
thinking subject--how the logical procedure in hypothetical ideas
|
|
necessarily produces the idea of the absolutely unconditioned in a
|
|
series of given conditions, and finally--how the mere form of the
|
|
disjunctive syllogism involves the highest conception of a being of
|
|
all beings: a thought which at first sight seems in the highest degree
|
|
paradoxical.
|
|
|
|
An objective deduction, such as we were able to present in the case of
|
|
the categories, is impossible as regards these transcendental ideas. For
|
|
they have, in truth, no relation to any object, in experience, for the
|
|
very reason that they are only ideas. But a subjective deduction of them
|
|
from the nature of our reason is possible, and has been given in the
|
|
present chapter.
|
|
|
|
It is easy to perceive that the sole aim of pure reason is the absolute
|
|
totality of the synthesis on the side of the conditions, and that it
|
|
does not concern itself with the absolute completeness on the Part of
|
|
the conditioned. For of the former alone does she stand in need, in
|
|
order to preposit the whole series of conditions, and thus present them
|
|
to the understanding a priori. But if we once have a completely (and
|
|
unconditionally) given condition, there is no further necessity,
|
|
in proceeding with the series, for a conception of reason; for the
|
|
understanding takes of itself every step downward, from the condition
|
|
to the conditioned. Thus the transcendental ideas are available only for
|
|
ascending in the series of conditions, till we reach the unconditioned,
|
|
that is, principles. As regards descending to the conditioned, on the
|
|
other hand, we find that there is a widely extensive logical use which
|
|
reason makes of the laws of the understanding, but that a transcendental
|
|
use thereof is impossible; and that when we form an idea of the absolute
|
|
totality of such a synthesis, for example, of the whole series of
|
|
all future changes in the world, this idea is a mere ens rationis, an
|
|
arbitrary fiction of thought, and not a necessary presupposition of
|
|
reason. For the possibility of the conditioned presupposes the totality
|
|
of its conditions, but not of its consequences. Consequently, this
|
|
conception is not a transcendental idea--and it is with these alone that
|
|
we are at present occupied.
|
|
|
|
Finally, it is obvious that there exists among the transcendental ideas
|
|
a certain connection and unity, and that pure reason, by means of them,
|
|
collects all its cognitions into one system. From the cognition of self
|
|
to the cognition of the world, and through these to the supreme being,
|
|
the progression is so natural, that it seems to resemble the logical
|
|
march of reason from the premisses to the conclusion.* Now whether there
|
|
lies unobserved at the foundation of these ideas an analogy of the
|
|
same kind as exists between the logical and transcendental procedure of
|
|
reason, is another of those questions, the answer to which we must not
|
|
expect till we arrive at a more advanced stage in our inquiries. In this
|
|
cursory and preliminary view, we have, meanwhile, reached our aim. For
|
|
we have dispelled the ambiguity which attached to the transcendental
|
|
conceptions of reason, from their being commonly mixed up with
|
|
other conceptions in the systems of philosophers, and not properly
|
|
distinguished from the conceptions of the understanding; we have exposed
|
|
their origin and, thereby, at the same time their determinate number,
|
|
and presented them in a systematic connection, and have thus marked out
|
|
and enclosed a definite sphere for pure reason.
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
[*Footnote: The science of Metaphysics has for the proper object of its
|
|
inquiries only three grand ideas: GOD, FREEDOM, and IMMORTALITY, and it
|
|
aims at showing, that the second conception, conjoined with the first,
|
|
must lead to the third, as a necessary conclusion. All the other
|
|
subjects with which it occupies itself, are merely means for the
|
|
attainment and realization of these ideas. It does not require these
|
|
ideas for the construction of a science of nature, but, on the contrary,
|
|
for the purpose of passing beyond the sphere of nature. A complete
|
|
insight into and comprehension of them would render Theology, Ethics,
|
|
and, through the conjunction of both, Religion, solely dependent on the
|
|
speculative faculty of reason. In a systematic representation of these
|
|
ideas the above-mentioned arrangement--the synthetical one--would be the
|
|
most suitable; but in the investigation which must necessarily precede
|
|
it, the analytical, which reverses this arrangement, would be better
|
|
adapted to our purpose, as in it we should proceed from that which
|
|
experience immediately presents to us--psychology, to cosmology, and
|
|
thence to theology.]
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
BOOK II.-- OF THE DIALECTICAL PROCEDURE OF PURE REASON.
|
|
|
|
It may be said that the object of a merely transcendental idea is
|
|
something of which we have no conception, although the idea may be a
|
|
necessary product of reason according to its original laws. For, in
|
|
fact, a conception of an object that is adequate to the idea given
|
|
by reason, is impossible. For such an object must be capable of being
|
|
presented and intuited in a Possible experience. But we should express
|
|
our meaning better, and with less risk of being misunderstood, if
|
|
we said that we can have no knowledge of an object, which perfectly
|
|
corresponds to an idea, although we may possess a problematical
|
|
conception thereof.
|
|
|
|
Now the transcendental (subjective) reality at least of the pure
|
|
conceptions of reason rests upon the fact that we are led to such ideas
|
|
by a necessary procedure of reason. There must therefore be syllogisms
|
|
which contain no empirical premisses, and by means of which we conclude
|
|
from something that we do know, to something of which we do not even
|
|
possess a conception, to which we, nevertheless, by an unavoidable
|
|
illusion, ascribe objective reality. Such arguments are, as regards
|
|
their result, rather to be termed sophisms than syllogisms, although
|
|
indeed, as regards their origin, they are very well entitled to the
|
|
latter name, inasmuch as they are not fictions or accidental products of
|
|
reason, but are necessitated by its very nature. They are sophisms, not
|
|
of men, but of pure reason herself, from which the Wisest cannot free
|
|
himself. After long labour he may be able to guard against the error,
|
|
but he can never be thoroughly rid of the illusion which continually
|
|
mocks and misleads him.
|
|
|
|
Of these dialectical arguments there are three kinds, corresponding to
|
|
the number of the ideas which their conclusions present. In the argument
|
|
or syllogism of the first class, I conclude, from the transcendental
|
|
conception of the subject contains no manifold, the absolute unity
|
|
of the subject itself, of which I cannot in this manner attain to a
|
|
conception. This dialectical argument I shall call the transcendental
|
|
paralogism. The second class of sophistical arguments is occupied with
|
|
the transcendental conception of the absolute totality of the series of
|
|
conditions for a given phenomenon, and I conclude, from the fact that
|
|
I have always a self-contradictory conception of the unconditioned
|
|
synthetical unity of the series upon one side, the truth of the opposite
|
|
unity, of which I have nevertheless no conception. The condition of
|
|
reason in these dialectical arguments, I shall term the antinomy of pure
|
|
reason. Finally, according to the third kind of sophistical argument,
|
|
I conclude, from the totality of the conditions of thinking objects in
|
|
general, in so far as they can be given, the absolute synthetical unity
|
|
of all conditions of the possibility of things in general; that is, from
|
|
things which I do not know in their mere transcendental conception, I
|
|
conclude a being of all beings which I know still less by means of a
|
|
transcendental conception, and of whose unconditioned necessity I can
|
|
form no conception whatever. This dialectical argument I shall call the
|
|
ideal of pure reason.
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
CHAPTER I. Of the Paralogisms of Pure Reason.
|
|
|
|
The logical paralogism consists in the falsity of an argument in respect
|
|
of its form, be the content what it may. But a transcendental paralogism
|
|
has a transcendental foundation, and concludes falsely, while the form
|
|
is correct and unexceptionable. In this manner the paralogism has
|
|
its foundation in the nature of human reason, and is the parent of an
|
|
unavoidable, though not insoluble, mental illusion.
|
|
|
|
We now come to a conception which was not inserted in the general list
|
|
of transcendental conceptions, and yet must be reckoned with them,
|
|
but at the same time without in the least altering, or indicating a
|
|
deficiency in that table. This is the conception, or, if the term is
|
|
preferred, the judgement, "I think." But it is readily perceived that
|
|
this thought is as it were the vehicle of all conceptions in general,
|
|
and consequently of transcendental conceptions also, and that it is
|
|
therefore regarded as a transcendental conception, although it can
|
|
have no peculiar claim to be so ranked, inasmuch as its only use is to
|
|
indicate that all thought is accompanied by consciousness. At the same
|
|
time, pure as this conception is from empirical content (impressions
|
|
of the senses), it enables us to distinguish two different kinds of
|
|
objects. "I," as thinking, am an object of the internal sense, and am
|
|
called soul. That which is an object of the external senses is called
|
|
body. Thus the expression, "I," as a thinking being, designates the
|
|
object-matter of psychology, which may be called "the rational doctrine
|
|
of the soul," inasmuch as in this science I desire to know nothing of
|
|
the soul but what, independently of all experience (which determines me
|
|
in concreto), may be concluded from this conception "I," in so far as it
|
|
appears in all thought.
|
|
|
|
Now, the rational doctrine of the soul is really an undertaking of
|
|
this kind. For if the smallest empirical element of thought, if any
|
|
particular perception of my internal state, were to be introduced among
|
|
the grounds of cognition of this science, it would not be a rational,
|
|
but an empirical doctrine of the soul. We have thus before us a
|
|
pretended science, raised upon the single proposition, "I think," whose
|
|
foundation or want of foundation we may very properly, and agreeably
|
|
with the nature of a transcendental philosophy, here examine. It
|
|
ought not to be objected that in this proposition, which expresses the
|
|
perception of one's self, an internal experience is asserted, and that
|
|
consequently the rational doctrine of the soul which is founded upon it,
|
|
is not pure, but partly founded upon an empirical principle. For this
|
|
internal perception is nothing more than the mere apperception, "I
|
|
think," which in fact renders all transcendental conceptions possible,
|
|
in which we say, "I think substance, cause, etc." For internal
|
|
experience in general and its possibility, or perception in general, and
|
|
its relation to other perceptions, unless some particular distinction
|
|
or determination thereof is empirically given, cannot be regarded as
|
|
empirical cognition, but as cognition of the empirical, and belongs
|
|
to the investigation of the possibility of every experience, which
|
|
is certainly transcendental. The smallest object of experience (for
|
|
example, only pleasure or pain), that should be included in the general
|
|
representation of self-consciousness, would immediately change the
|
|
rational into an empirical psychology.
|
|
|
|
"I think" is therefore the only text of rational psychology, from which
|
|
it must develop its whole system. It is manifest that this thought, when
|
|
applied to an object (myself), can contain nothing but transcendental
|
|
predicates thereof; because the least empirical predicate would destroy
|
|
the purity of the science and its independence of all experience.
|
|
|
|
But we shall have to follow here the guidance of the categories--only,
|
|
as in the present case a thing, "I," as thinking being, is at first
|
|
given, we shall--not indeed change the order of the categories as it
|
|
stands in the table--but begin at the category of substance, by which at
|
|
the a thing in itself is represented and proceeds backwards through
|
|
the series. The topic of the rational doctrine of the soul, from which
|
|
everything else it may contain must be deduced, is accordingly as
|
|
follows:
|
|
|
|
|
|
1 2
|
|
The Soul is SUBSTANCE As regards its quality
|
|
it is SIMPLE
|
|
|
|
3
|
|
As regards the different
|
|
times in which it exists,
|
|
it is numerically identical,
|
|
that is UNITY, not Plurality.
|
|
|
|
4
|
|
It is in relation to possible objects in space*
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
[*Footnote: The reader, who may not so easily perceive the psychological
|
|
sense of these expressions, taken here in their transcendental
|
|
abstraction, and cannot guess why the latter attribute of the soul
|
|
belongs to the category of existence, will find the expressions
|
|
sufficiently explained and justified in the sequel. I have, moreover, to
|
|
apologize for the Latin terms which have been employed, instead of their
|
|
German synonyms, contrary to the rules of correct writing. But I judged
|
|
it better to sacrifice elegance to perspicuity.]
|
|
|
|
|
|
From these elements originate all the conceptions of pure psychology,
|
|
by combination alone, without the aid of any other principle. This
|
|
substance, merely as an object of the internal sense, gives
|
|
the conception of Immateriality; as simple substance, that of
|
|
Incorruptibility; its identity, as intellectual substance, gives the
|
|
conception of Personality; all these three together, Spirituality.
|
|
Its relation to objects in space gives us the conception of connection
|
|
(commercium) with bodies. Thus it represents thinking substance as the
|
|
principle of life in matter, that is, as a soul (anima), and as the
|
|
ground of Animality; and this, limited and determined by the conception
|
|
of spirituality, gives us that of Immortality.
|
|
|
|
Now to these conceptions relate four paralogisms of a transcendental
|
|
psychology, which is falsely held to be a science of pure reason,
|
|
touching the nature of our thinking being. We can, however, lay at
|
|
the foundation of this science nothing but the simple and in itself
|
|
perfectly contentless representation "I" which cannot even be called
|
|
a conception, but merely a consciousness which accompanies all
|
|
conceptions. By this "I," or "He," or "It," who or which thinks, nothing
|
|
more is represented than a transcendental subject of thought = x, which
|
|
is cognized only by means of the thoughts that are its predicates, and
|
|
of which, apart from these, we cannot form the least conception. Hence
|
|
in a perpetual circle, inasmuch as we must always employ it, in order
|
|
to frame any judgement respecting it. And this inconvenience we find it
|
|
impossible to rid ourselves of, because consciousness in itself is not
|
|
so much a representation distinguishing a particular object, as a form
|
|
of representation in general, in so far as it may be termed cognition;
|
|
for in and by cognition alone do I think anything.
|
|
|
|
It must, however, appear extraordinary at first sight that the condition
|
|
under which I think, and which is consequently a property of my subject,
|
|
should be held to be likewise valid for every existence which thinks,
|
|
and that we can presume to base upon a seemingly empirical proposition
|
|
a judgement which is apodeictic and universal, to wit, that everything
|
|
which thinks is constituted as the voice of my consciousness declares it
|
|
to be, that is, as a self-conscious being. The cause of this belief is
|
|
to be found in the fact that we necessarily attribute to things a priori
|
|
all the properties which constitute conditions under which alone we
|
|
can cogitate them. Now I cannot obtain the least representation of
|
|
a thinking being by means of external experience, but solely through
|
|
self-consciousness. Such objects are consequently nothing more than the
|
|
transference of this consciousness of mine to other things which can
|
|
only thus be represented as thinking beings. The proposition, "I think,"
|
|
is, in the present case, understood in a problematical sense, not in
|
|
so far as it contains a perception of an existence (like the Cartesian
|
|
"Cogito, ergo sum"),[Footnote: "I think, therefore I am."] but in regard
|
|
to its mere possibility--for the purpose of discovering what properties
|
|
may be inferred from so simple a proposition and predicated of the
|
|
subject of it.
|
|
|
|
If at the foundation of our pure rational cognition of thinking beings
|
|
there lay more than the mere Cogito--if we could likewise call in aid
|
|
observations on the play of our thoughts, and the thence derived natural
|
|
laws of the thinking self, there would arise an empirical psychology
|
|
which would be a kind of physiology of the internal sense and might
|
|
possibly be capable of explaining the phenomena of that sense. But it
|
|
could never be available for discovering those properties which do not
|
|
belong to possible experience (such as the quality of simplicity),
|
|
nor could it make any apodeictic enunciation on the nature of thinking
|
|
beings: it would therefore not be a rational psychology.
|
|
|
|
Now, as the proposition "I think" (in the problematical sense) contains
|
|
the form of every judgement in general and is the constant accompaniment
|
|
of all the categories, it is manifest that conclusions are drawn from
|
|
it only by a transcendental employment of the understanding. This use of
|
|
the understanding excludes all empirical elements; and we cannot, as
|
|
has been shown above, have any favourable conception beforehand of
|
|
its procedure. We shall therefore follow with a critical eye this
|
|
proposition through all the predicaments of pure psychology; but we
|
|
shall, for brevity's sake, allow this examination to proceed in an
|
|
uninterrupted connection.
|
|
|
|
Before entering on this task, however, the following general remark may
|
|
help to quicken our attention to this mode of argument. It is not
|
|
merely through my thinking that I cognize an object, but only through my
|
|
determining a given intuition in relation to the unity of consciousness
|
|
in which all thinking consists. It follows that I cognize myself, not
|
|
through my being conscious of myself as thinking, but only when I am
|
|
conscious of the intuition of myself as determined in relation to the
|
|
function of thought. All the modi of self-consciousness in thought
|
|
are hence not conceptions of objects (conceptions of the
|
|
understanding--categories); they are mere logical functions, which do
|
|
not present to thought an object to be cognized, and cannot therefore
|
|
present my Self as an object. Not the consciousness of the determining,
|
|
but only that of the determinable self, that is, of my internal
|
|
intuition (in so far as the manifold contained in it can be connected
|
|
conformably with the general condition of the unity of apperception in
|
|
thought), is the object.
|
|
|
|
1. In all judgements I am the determining subject of that relation which
|
|
constitutes a judgement. But that the I which thinks, must be considered
|
|
as in thought always a subject, and as a thing which cannot be a
|
|
predicate to thought, is an apodeictic and identical proposition. But
|
|
this proposition does not signify that I, as an object, am, for
|
|
myself, a self-subsistent being or substance. This latter
|
|
statement--an ambitious one--requires to be supported by data which are
|
|
not to be discovered in thought; and are perhaps (in so far as I
|
|
consider the thinking self merely as such) not to be discovered in the
|
|
thinking self at all.
|
|
|
|
2. That the I or Ego of apperception, and consequently in all thought,
|
|
is singular or simple, and cannot be resolved into a plurality of
|
|
subjects, and therefore indicates a logically simple subject--this is
|
|
self-evident from the very conception of an Ego, and is consequently an
|
|
analytical proposition. But this is not tantamount to declaring that
|
|
the thinking Ego is a simple substance--for this would be a synthetical
|
|
proposition. The conception of substance always relates to intuitions,
|
|
which with me cannot be other than sensuous, and which consequently lie
|
|
completely out of the sphere of the understanding and its thought:
|
|
but to this sphere belongs the affirmation that the Ego is simple
|
|
in thought. It would indeed be surprising, if the conception of
|
|
"substance," which in other cases requires so much labour to distinguish
|
|
from the other elements presented by intuition--so much trouble, too,
|
|
to discover whether it can be simple (as in the case of the parts of
|
|
matter)--should be presented immediately to me, as if by revelation, in
|
|
the poorest mental representation of all.
|
|
|
|
3. The proposition of the identity of my Self amidst all the manifold
|
|
representations of which I am conscious, is likewise a proposition lying
|
|
in the conceptions themselves, and is consequently analytical. But
|
|
this identity of the subject, of which I am conscious in all its
|
|
representations, does not relate to or concern the intuition of the
|
|
subject, by which it is given as an object. This proposition cannot
|
|
therefore enounce the identity of the person, by which is understood the
|
|
consciousness of the identity of its own substance as a thinking being
|
|
in all change and variation of circumstances. To prove this, we
|
|
should require not a mere analysis of the proposition, but synthetical
|
|
judgements based upon a given intuition.
|
|
|
|
4. I distinguish my own existence, as that of a thinking being, from
|
|
that of other things external to me--among which my body also is
|
|
reckoned. This is also an analytical proposition, for other things are
|
|
exactly those which I think as different or distinguished from myself.
|
|
But whether this consciousness of myself is possible without things
|
|
external to me; and whether therefore I can exist merely as a thinking
|
|
being (without being man)--cannot be known or inferred from this
|
|
proposition.
|
|
|
|
Thus we have gained nothing as regards the cognition of myself as
|
|
object, by the analysis of the consciousness of my Self in thought. The
|
|
logical exposition of thought in general is mistaken for a metaphysical
|
|
determination of the object.
|
|
|
|
Our Critique would be an investigation utterly superfluous, if there
|
|
existed a possibility of proving a priori, that all thinking beings
|
|
are in themselves simple substances, as such, therefore, possess
|
|
the inseparable attribute of personality, and are conscious of their
|
|
existence apart from and unconnected with matter. For we should thus
|
|
have taken a step beyond the world of sense, and have penetrated into
|
|
the sphere of noumena; and in this case the right could not be denied
|
|
us of extending our knowledge in this sphere, of establishing ourselves,
|
|
and, under a favouring star, appropriating to ourselves possessions
|
|
in it. For the proposition: "Every thinking being, as such, is simple
|
|
substance," is an a priori synthetical proposition; because in the first
|
|
place it goes beyond the conception which is the subject of it, and adds
|
|
to the mere notion of a thinking being the mode of its existence, and in
|
|
the second place annexes a predicate (that of simplicity) to the latter
|
|
conception--a predicate which it could not have discovered in the sphere
|
|
of experience. It would follow that a priori synthetical propositions
|
|
are possible and legitimate, not only, as we have maintained, in
|
|
relation to objects of possible experience, and as principles of the
|
|
possibility of this experience itself, but are applicable to things
|
|
in themselves--an inference which makes an end of the whole of this
|
|
Critique, and obliges us to fall back on the old mode of metaphysical
|
|
procedure. But indeed the danger is not so great, if we look a little
|
|
closer into the question.
|
|
|
|
There lurks in the procedure of rational Psychology a paralogism, which
|
|
is represented in the following syllogism:
|
|
|
|
That which cannot be cogitated otherwise than as subject, does not exist
|
|
otherwise than as subject, and is therefore substance.
|
|
|
|
A thinking being, considered merely as such, cannot be cogitated
|
|
otherwise than as subject.
|
|
|
|
Therefore it exists also as such, that is, as substance.
|
|
|
|
In the major we speak of a being that can be cogitated generally and in
|
|
every relation, consequently as it may be given in intuition. But in the
|
|
minor we speak of the same being only in so far as it regards itself as
|
|
subject, relatively to thought and the unity of consciousness, but
|
|
not in relation to intuition, by which it is presented as an object to
|
|
thought. Thus the conclusion is here arrived at by a Sophisma figurae
|
|
dictionis.*
|
|
|
|
|
|
[*Footnote: Thought is taken in the two premisses in two totally
|
|
different senses. In the major it is considered as relating and applying
|
|
to objects in general, consequently to objects of intuition also. In
|
|
the minor, we understand it as relating merely to self-consciousness. In
|
|
this sense, we do not cogitate an object, but merely the relation to the
|
|
self-consciousness of the subject, as the form of thought. In the former
|
|
premiss we speak of things which cannot be cogitated otherwise than as
|
|
subjects. In the second, we do not speak of things, but of thought (all
|
|
objects being abstracted), in which the Ego is always the subject of
|
|
consciousness. Hence the conclusion cannot be, "I cannot exist otherwise
|
|
than as subject"; but only "I can, in cogitating my existence, employ
|
|
my Ego only as the subject of the judgement." But this is an identical
|
|
proposition, and throws no light on the mode of my existence.]
|
|
|
|
|
|
That this famous argument is a mere paralogism, will be plain to any one
|
|
who will consider the general remark which precedes our exposition of
|
|
the principles of the pure understanding, and the section on noumena.
|
|
For it was there proved that the conception of a thing, which can
|
|
exist per se--only as a subject and never as a predicate, possesses
|
|
no objective reality; that is to say, we can never know whether there
|
|
exists any object to correspond to the conception; consequently, the
|
|
conception is nothing more than a conception, and from it we derive
|
|
no proper knowledge. If this conception is to indicate by the term
|
|
substance, an object that can be given, if it is to become a cognition,
|
|
we must have at the foundation of the cognition a permanent intuition,
|
|
as the indispensable condition of its objective reality. For through
|
|
intuition alone can an object be given. But in internal intuition
|
|
there is nothing permanent, for the Ego is but the consciousness of my
|
|
thought. If then, we appeal merely to thought, we cannot discover
|
|
the necessary condition of the application of the conception of
|
|
substance--that is, of a subject existing per se--to the subject as
|
|
a thinking being. And thus the conception of the simple nature of
|
|
substance, which is connected with the objective reality of this
|
|
conception, is shown to be also invalid, and to be, in fact, nothing
|
|
more than the logical qualitative unity of self-consciousness in
|
|
thought; whilst we remain perfectly ignorant whether the subject is
|
|
composite or not.
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
Refutation of the Argument of Mendelssohn for the Substantiality or
|
|
Permanence of the Soul.
|
|
|
|
This acute philosopher easily perceived the insufficiency of the common
|
|
argument which attempts to prove that the soul--it being granted that it
|
|
is a simple being--cannot perish by dissolution or decomposition; he
|
|
saw it is not impossible for it to cease to be by extinction, or
|
|
disappearance. He endeavoured to prove in his Phaedo, that the soul
|
|
cannot be annihilated, by showing that a simple being cannot cease to
|
|
exist. Inasmuch as, he said, a simple existence cannot diminish, nor
|
|
gradually lose portions of its being, and thus be by degrees reduced
|
|
to nothing (for it possesses no parts, and therefore no multiplicity),
|
|
between the moment in which it is, and the moment in which it is not,
|
|
no time can be discovered--which is impossible. But this philosopher
|
|
did not consider that, granting the soul to possess this simple nature,
|
|
which contains no parts external to each other and consequently no
|
|
extensive quantity, we cannot refuse to it any less than to any other
|
|
being, intensive quantity, that is, a degree of reality in regard to
|
|
all its faculties, nay, to all that constitutes its existence. But this
|
|
degree of reality can become less and less through an infinite series
|
|
of smaller degrees. It follows, therefore, that this supposed
|
|
substance--this thing, the permanence of which is not assured in any
|
|
other way, may, if not by decomposition, by gradual loss (remissio)
|
|
of its powers (consequently by elanguescence, if I may employ this
|
|
expression), be changed into nothing. For consciousness itself has
|
|
always a degree, which may be lessened.* Consequently the faculty of
|
|
being conscious may be diminished; and so with all other faculties. The
|
|
permanence of the soul, therefore, as an object of the internal sense,
|
|
remains undemonstrated, nay, even indemonstrable. Its permanence in
|
|
life is evident, per se, inasmuch as the thinking being (as man) is to
|
|
itself, at the same time, an object of the external senses. But this
|
|
does not authorize the rational psychologist to affirm, from mere
|
|
conceptions, its permanence beyond life.*[2]
|
|
|
|
|
|
[*Footnote: Clearness is not, as logicians maintain, the consciousness
|
|
of a representation. For a certain degree of consciousness, which may
|
|
not, however, be sufficient for recollection, is to be met with in many
|
|
dim representations. For without any consciousness at all, we should not
|
|
be able to recognize any difference in the obscure representations we
|
|
connect; as we really can do with many conceptions, such as those
|
|
of right and justice, and those of the musician, who strikes at once
|
|
several notes in improvising a piece of music. But a representation is
|
|
clear, in which our consciousness is sufficient for the consciousness
|
|
of the difference of this representation from others. If we are only
|
|
conscious that there is a difference, but are not conscious of the
|
|
difference--that is, what the difference is--the representation must be
|
|
termed obscure. There is, consequently, an infinite series of degrees of
|
|
consciousness down to its entire disappearance.]
|
|
|
|
|
|
[*[2]Footnote: There are some who think they have done enough to
|
|
establish a new possibility in the mode of the existence of souls, when
|
|
they have shown that there is no contradiction in their hypotheses on
|
|
this subject. Such are those who affirm the possibility of thought--of
|
|
which they have no other knowledge than what they derive from its use in
|
|
connecting empirical intuitions presented in this our human life--after
|
|
this life has ceased. But it is very easy to embarrass them by the
|
|
introduction of counter-possibilities, which rest upon quite as good a
|
|
foundation. Such, for example, is the possibility of the division of
|
|
a simple substance into several substances; and conversely, of
|
|
the coalition of several into one simple substance. For, although
|
|
divisibility presupposes composition, it does not necessarily require
|
|
a composition of substances, but only of the degrees (of the several
|
|
faculties) of one and the same substance. Now we can cogitate all
|
|
the powers and faculties of the soul--even that of consciousness--as
|
|
diminished by one half, the substance still remaining. In the same way
|
|
we can represent to ourselves without contradiction, this obliterated
|
|
half as preserved, not in the soul, but without it; and we can believe
|
|
that, as in this case every thing that is real in the soul, and has a
|
|
degree--consequently its entire existence--has been halved, a particular
|
|
substance would arise out of the soul. For the multiplicity, which has
|
|
been divided, formerly existed, but not as a multiplicity of substances,
|
|
but of every reality as the quantum of existence in it; and the unity of
|
|
substance was merely a mode of existence, which by this division alone
|
|
has been transformed into a plurality of subsistence. In the same manner
|
|
several simple substances might coalesce into one, without anything
|
|
being lost except the plurality of subsistence, inasmuch as the
|
|
one substance would contain the degree of reality of all the former
|
|
substances. Perhaps, indeed, the simple substances, which appear under
|
|
the form of matter, might (not indeed by a mechanical or chemical
|
|
influence upon each other, but by an unknown influence, of which the
|
|
former would be but the phenomenal appearance), by means of such a
|
|
dynamical division of the parent-souls, as intensive quantities, produce
|
|
other souls, while the former repaired the loss thus sustained with
|
|
new matter of the same sort. I am far from allowing any value to such
|
|
chimeras; and the principles of our analytic have clearly proved that
|
|
no other than an empirical use of the categories--that of substance,
|
|
for example--is possible. But if the rationalist is bold enough to
|
|
construct, on the mere authority of the faculty of thought--without any
|
|
intuition, whereby an object is given--a self-subsistent being, merely
|
|
because the unity of apperception in thought cannot allow him to believe
|
|
it a composite being, instead of declaring, as he ought to do, that he
|
|
is unable to explain the possibility of a thinking nature; what ought to
|
|
hinder the materialist, with as complete an independence of experience,
|
|
to employ the principle of the rationalist in a directly opposite
|
|
manner--still preserving the formal unity required by his opponent?]
|
|
|
|
|
|
If, now, we take the above propositions--as they must be accepted as
|
|
valid for all thinking beings in the system of rational psychology--in
|
|
synthetical connection, and proceed, from the category of relation,
|
|
with the proposition: "All thinking beings are, as such, substances,"
|
|
backwards through the series, till the circle is completed; we come
|
|
at last to their existence, of which, in this system of rational
|
|
psychology, substances are held to be conscious, independently of
|
|
external things; nay, it is asserted that, in relation to the permanence
|
|
which is a necessary characteristic of substance, they can of
|
|
themselves determine external things. It follows that idealism--at least
|
|
problematical idealism, is perfectly unavoidable in this rationalistic
|
|
system. And, if the existence of outward things is not held to be
|
|
requisite to the determination of the existence of a substance in time,
|
|
the existence of these outward things at all, is a gratuitous assumption
|
|
which remains without the possibility of a proof.
|
|
|
|
But if we proceed analytically--the "I think" as a proposition
|
|
containing in itself an existence as given, consequently modality being
|
|
the principle--and dissect this proposition, in order to ascertain its
|
|
content, and discover whether and how this Ego determines its existence
|
|
in time and space without the aid of anything external; the propositions
|
|
of rationalistic psychology would not begin with the conception of a
|
|
thinking being, but with a reality, and the properties of a thinking
|
|
being in general would be deduced from the mode in which this reality is
|
|
cogitated, after everything empirical had been abstracted; as is shown
|
|
in the following table:
|
|
|
|
|
|
1
|
|
I think,
|
|
|
|
2 3
|
|
as Subject, as simple Subject,
|
|
|
|
4
|
|
as identical Subject,
|
|
in every state of my thought.
|
|
|
|
|
|
Now, inasmuch as it is not determined in this second proposition,
|
|
whether I can exist and be cogitated only as subject, and not also as a
|
|
predicate of another being, the conception of a subject is here taken in
|
|
a merely logical sense; and it remains undetermined, whether substance
|
|
is to be cogitated under the conception or not. But in the third
|
|
proposition, the absolute unity of apperception--the simple Ego in the
|
|
representation to which all connection and separation, which constitute
|
|
thought, relate, is of itself important; even although it presents
|
|
us with no information about the constitution or subsistence of the
|
|
subject. Apperception is something real, and the simplicity of its
|
|
nature is given in the very fact of its possibility. Now in space there
|
|
is nothing real that is at the same time simple; for points, which are
|
|
the only simple things in space, are merely limits, but not constituent
|
|
parts of space. From this follows the impossibility of a definition
|
|
on the basis of materialism of the constitution of my Ego as a merely
|
|
thinking subject. But, because my existence is considered in the first
|
|
proposition as given, for it does not mean, "Every thinking being
|
|
exists" (for this would be predicating of them absolute necessity),
|
|
but only, "I exist thinking"; the proposition is quite empirical, and
|
|
contains the determinability of my existence merely in relation to my
|
|
representations in time. But as I require for this purpose something
|
|
that is permanent, such as is not given in internal intuition; the
|
|
mode of my existence, whether as substance or as accident, cannot
|
|
be determined by means of this simple self-consciousness. Thus,
|
|
if materialism is inadequate to explain the mode in which I exist,
|
|
spiritualism is likewise as insufficient; and the conclusion is that we
|
|
are utterly unable to attain to any knowledge of the constitution of
|
|
the soul, in so far as relates to the possibility of its existence apart
|
|
from external objects.
|
|
|
|
And, indeed, how should it be possible, merely by the aid of the unity
|
|
of consciousness--which we cognize only for the reason that it is
|
|
indispensable to the possibility of experience--to pass the bounds of
|
|
experience (our existence in this life); and to extend our cognition
|
|
to the nature of all thinking beings by means of the empirical--but
|
|
in relation to every sort of intuition, perfectly undetermined--proposition,
|
|
"I think"?
|
|
|
|
There does not then exist any rational psychology as a doctrine
|
|
furnishing any addition to our knowledge of ourselves. It is nothing
|
|
more than a discipline, which sets impassable limits to speculative
|
|
reason in this region of thought, to prevent it, on the one hand, from
|
|
throwing itself into the arms of a soulless materialism, and, on the
|
|
other, from losing itself in the mazes of a baseless spiritualism.
|
|
It teaches us to consider this refusal of our reason to give any
|
|
satisfactory answer to questions which reach beyond the limits of this
|
|
our human life, as a hint to abandon fruitless speculation; and to
|
|
direct, to a practical use, our knowledge of ourselves--which, although
|
|
applicable only to objects of experience, receives its principles from a
|
|
higher source, and regulates its procedure as if our destiny reached far
|
|
beyond the boundaries of experience and life.
|
|
|
|
From all this it is evident that rational psychology has its origin in
|
|
a mere misunderstanding. The unity of consciousness, which lies at the
|
|
basis of the categories, is considered to be an intuition of the subject
|
|
as an object; and the category of substance is applied to the intuition.
|
|
But this unity is nothing more than the unity in thought, by which no
|
|
object is given; to which therefore the category of substance--which
|
|
always presupposes a given intuition--cannot be applied. Consequently,
|
|
the subject cannot be cognized. The subject of the categories cannot,
|
|
therefore, for the very reason that it cogitates these, frame any
|
|
conception of itself as an object of the categories; for, to
|
|
cogitate these, it must lay at the foundation its own pure
|
|
self-consciousness--the very thing that it wishes to explain and
|
|
describe. In like manner, the subject, in which the representation of
|
|
time has its basis, cannot determine, for this very reason, its own
|
|
existence in time. Now, if the latter is impossible, the former, as an
|
|
attempt to determine itself by means of the categories as a thinking
|
|
being in general, is no less so.*
|
|
|
|
|
|
[*Footnote: The "I think" is, as has been already stated, an empirical
|
|
proposition, and contains the proposition, "I exist." But I cannot say,
|
|
"Everything, which thinks, exists"; for in this case the property of
|
|
thought would constitute all beings possessing it, necessary beings.
|
|
Hence my existence cannot be considered as an inference from the
|
|
proposition, "I think," as Descartes maintained--because in this case
|
|
the major premiss, "Everything, which thinks, exists," must precede--but
|
|
the two propositions are identical. The proposition, "I think,"
|
|
expresses an undetermined empirical intuition, that perception (proving
|
|
consequently that sensation, which must belong to sensibility, lies at
|
|
the foundation of this proposition); but it precedes experience, whose
|
|
province it is to determine an object of perception by means of the
|
|
categories in relation to time; and existence in this proposition is not
|
|
a category, as it does not apply to an undetermined given object, but
|
|
only to one of which we have a conception, and about which we wish to
|
|
know whether it does or does not exist, out of, and apart from this
|
|
conception. An undetermined perception signifies here merely something
|
|
real that has been given, only, however, to thought in general--but
|
|
not as a phenomenon, nor as a thing in itself (noumenon), but only
|
|
as something that really exists, and is designated as such in the
|
|
proposition, "I think." For it must be remarked that, when I call the
|
|
proposition, "I think," an empirical proposition, I do not thereby mean
|
|
that the Ego in the proposition is an empirical representation; on the
|
|
contrary, it is purely intellectual, because it belongs to thought in
|
|
general. But without some empirical representation, which presents to
|
|
the mind material for thought, the mental act, "I think," would not take
|
|
place; and the empirical is only the condition of the application or
|
|
employment of the pure intellectual faculty.]
|
|
|
|
|
|
Thus, then, appears the vanity of the hope of establishing a cognition
|
|
which is to extend its rule beyond the limits of experience--a cognition
|
|
which is one of the highest interests of humanity; and thus is proved
|
|
the futility of the attempt of speculative philosophy in this region of
|
|
thought. But, in this interest of thought, the severity of criticism has
|
|
rendered to reason a not unimportant service, by the demonstration of
|
|
the impossibility of making any dogmatical affirmation concerning an
|
|
object of experience beyond the boundaries of experience. She has thus
|
|
fortified reason against all affirmations of the contrary. Now, this can
|
|
be accomplished in only two ways. Either our proposition must be
|
|
proved apodeictically; or, if this is unsuccessful, the sources of this
|
|
inability must be sought for, and, if these are discovered to exist in
|
|
the natural and necessary limitation of our reason, our opponents must
|
|
submit to the same law of renunciation and refrain from advancing claims
|
|
to dogmatic assertion.
|
|
|
|
But the right, say rather the necessity to admit a future life, upon
|
|
principles of the practical conjoined with the speculative use
|
|
of reason, has lost nothing by this renunciation; for the merely
|
|
speculative proof has never had any influence upon the common reason of
|
|
men. It stands upon the point of a hair, so that even the schools have
|
|
been able to preserve it from falling only by incessantly discussing
|
|
it and spinning it like a top; and even in their eyes it has never been
|
|
able to present any safe foundation for the erection of a theory.
|
|
The proofs which have been current among men, preserve their value
|
|
undiminished; nay, rather gain in clearness and unsophisticated power,
|
|
by the rejection of the dogmatical assumptions of speculative reason.
|
|
For reason is thus confined within her own peculiar province--the
|
|
arrangement of ends or aims, which is at the same time the arrangement
|
|
of nature; and, as a practical faculty, without limiting itself to the
|
|
latter, it is justified in extending the former, and with it our own
|
|
existence, beyond the boundaries of experience and life. If we turn our
|
|
attention to the analogy of the nature of living beings in this world,
|
|
in the consideration of which reason is obliged to accept as a principle
|
|
that no organ, no faculty, no appetite is useless, and that nothing is
|
|
superfluous, nothing disproportionate to its use, nothing unsuited to
|
|
its end; but that, on the contrary, everything is perfectly conformed to
|
|
its destination in life--we shall find that man, who alone is the final
|
|
end and aim of this order, is still the only animal that seems to be
|
|
excepted from it. For his natural gifts--not merely as regards the
|
|
talents and motives that may incite him to employ them, but especially
|
|
the moral law in him--stretch so far beyond all mere earthly utility and
|
|
advantage, that he feels himself bound to prize the mere consciousness
|
|
of probity, apart from all advantageous consequences--even the shadowy
|
|
gift of posthumous fame--above everything; and he is conscious of an
|
|
inward call to constitute himself, by his conduct in this world--without
|
|
regard to mere sublunary interests--the citizen of a better. This
|
|
mighty, irresistible proof--accompanied by an ever-increasing knowledge
|
|
of the conformability to a purpose in everything we see around us,
|
|
by the conviction of the boundless immensity of creation, by the
|
|
consciousness of a certain illimitableness in the possible extension
|
|
of our knowledge, and by a desire commensurate therewith--remains to
|
|
humanity, even after the theoretical cognition of ourselves has failed
|
|
to establish the necessity of an existence after death.
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
Conclusion of the Solution of the Psychological Paralogism.
|
|
|
|
The dialectical illusion in rational psychology arises from our
|
|
confounding an idea of reason (of a pure intelligence) with the
|
|
conception--in every respect undetermined--of a thinking being in
|
|
general. I cogitate myself in behalf of a possible experience, at
|
|
the same time making abstraction of all actual experience; and infer
|
|
therefrom that I can be conscious of myself apart from experience
|
|
and its empirical conditions. I consequently confound the possible
|
|
abstraction of my empirically determined existence with the supposed
|
|
consciousness of a possible separate existence of my thinking self;
|
|
and I believe that I cognize what is substantial in myself as a
|
|
transcendental subject, when I have nothing more in thought than the
|
|
unity of consciousness, which lies at the basis of all determination of
|
|
cognition.
|
|
|
|
The task of explaining the community of the soul with the body does not
|
|
properly belong to the psychology of which we are here speaking;
|
|
because it proposes to prove the personality of the soul apart from this
|
|
communion (after death), and is therefore transcendent in the proper
|
|
sense of the word, although occupying itself with an object of
|
|
experience--only in so far, however, as it ceases to be an object of
|
|
experience. But a sufficient answer may be found to the question in
|
|
our system. The difficulty which lies in the execution of this task
|
|
consists, as is well known, in the presupposed heterogeneity of the
|
|
object of the internal sense (the soul) and the objects of the external
|
|
senses; inasmuch as the formal condition of the intuition of the one is
|
|
time, and of that of the other space also. But if we consider that both
|
|
kinds of objects do not differ internally, but only in so far as the
|
|
one appears externally to the other--consequently, that what lies at the
|
|
basis of phenomena, as a thing in itself, may not be heterogeneous; this
|
|
difficulty disappears. There then remains no other difficulty than is to
|
|
be found in the question--how a community of substances is possible;
|
|
a question which lies out of the region of psychology, and which the
|
|
reader, after what in our analytic has been said of primitive forces
|
|
and faculties, will easily judge to be also beyond the region of human
|
|
cognition.
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
GENERAL REMARK
|
|
|
|
On the Transition from Rational Psychology to Cosmology.
|
|
|
|
The proposition, "I think," or, "I exist thinking," is an empirical
|
|
proposition. But such a proposition must be based on empirical
|
|
intuition, and the object cogitated as a phenomenon; and thus our
|
|
theory appears to maintain that the soul, even in thought, is merely
|
|
a phenomenon; and in this way our consciousness itself, in fact, abuts
|
|
upon nothing.
|
|
|
|
Thought, per se, is merely the purely spontaneous logical function which
|
|
operates to connect the manifold of a possible intuition; and it does
|
|
not represent the subject of consciousness as a phenomenon--for this
|
|
reason alone, that it pays no attention to the question whether the
|
|
mode of intuiting it is sensuous or intellectual. I therefore do not
|
|
represent myself in thought either as I am, or as I appear to myself; I
|
|
merely cogitate myself as an object in general, of the mode of intuiting
|
|
which I make abstraction. When I represent myself as the subject of
|
|
thought, or as the ground of thought, these modes of representation are
|
|
not related to the categories of substance or of cause; for these are
|
|
functions of thought applicable only to our sensuous intuition. The
|
|
application of these categories to the Ego would, however, be necessary,
|
|
if I wished to make myself an object of knowledge. But I wish to be
|
|
conscious of myself only as thinking; in what mode my Self is given
|
|
in intuition, I do not consider, and it may be that I, who think, am a
|
|
phenomenon--although not in so far as I am a thinking being; but in
|
|
the consciousness of myself in mere thought I am a being, though this
|
|
consciousness does not present to me any property of this being as
|
|
material for thought.
|
|
|
|
But the proposition, "I think," in so far as it declares, "I exist
|
|
thinking," is not the mere representation of a logical function.
|
|
It determines the subject (which is in this case an object also) in
|
|
relation to existence; and it cannot be given without the aid of the
|
|
internal sense, whose intuition presents to us an object, not as a thing
|
|
in itself, but always as a phenomenon. In this proposition there is
|
|
therefore something more to be found than the mere spontaneity of
|
|
thought; there is also the receptivity of intuition, that is, my thought
|
|
of myself applied to the empirical intuition of myself. Now, in this
|
|
intuition the thinking self must seek the conditions of the employment
|
|
of its logical functions as categories of substance, cause, and so
|
|
forth; not merely for the purpose of distinguishing itself as an object
|
|
in itself by means of the representation "I," but also for the purpose
|
|
of determining the mode of its existence, that is, of cognizing
|
|
itself as noumenon. But this is impossible, for the internal empirical
|
|
intuition is sensuous, and presents us with nothing but phenomenal data,
|
|
which do not assist the object of pure consciousness in its attempt
|
|
to cognize itself as a separate existence, but are useful only as
|
|
contributions to experience.
|
|
|
|
But, let it be granted that we could discover, not in experience, but in
|
|
certain firmly-established a priori laws of the use of pure reason--laws
|
|
relating to our existence, authority to consider ourselves as
|
|
legislating a priori in relation to our own existence and as determining
|
|
this existence; we should, on this supposition, find ourselves possessed
|
|
of a spontaneity, by which our actual existence would be determinable,
|
|
without the aid of the conditions of empirical intuition. We should also
|
|
become aware that in the consciousness of our existence there was an
|
|
a priori content, which would serve to determine our own existence--an
|
|
existence only sensuously determinable--relatively, however, to a
|
|
certain internal faculty in relation to an intelligible world.
|
|
|
|
But this would not give the least help to the attempts of rational
|
|
psychology. For this wonderful faculty, which the consciousness of
|
|
the moral law in me reveals, would present me with a principle of the
|
|
determination of my own existence which is purely intellectual--but by
|
|
what predicates? By none other than those which are given in sensuous
|
|
intuition. Thus I should find myself in the same position in rational
|
|
psychology which I formerly occupied, that is to say, I should
|
|
find myself still in need of sensuous intuitions, in order to give
|
|
significance to my conceptions of substance and cause, by means of which
|
|
alone I can possess a knowledge of myself: but these intuitions can
|
|
never raise me above the sphere of experience. I should be justified,
|
|
however, in applying these conceptions, in regard to their practical
|
|
use, which is always directed to objects of experience--in conformity
|
|
with their analogical significance when employed theoretically--to
|
|
freedom and its subject. At the same time, I should understand by them
|
|
merely the logical functions of subject and predicate, of principle and
|
|
consequence, in conformity with which all actions are so determined,
|
|
that they are capable of being explained along with the laws of nature,
|
|
conformably to the categories of substance and cause, although
|
|
they originate from a very different principle. We have made these
|
|
observations for the purpose of guarding against misunderstanding, to
|
|
which the doctrine of our intuition of self as a phenomenon is exposed.
|
|
We shall have occasion to perceive their utility in the sequel.
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
CHAPTER II. The Antinomy of Pure Reason.
|
|
|
|
We showed in the introduction to this part of our work, that all
|
|
transcendental illusion of pure reason arose from dialectical arguments,
|
|
the schema of which logic gives us in its three formal species of
|
|
syllogisms--just as the categories find their logical schema in the
|
|
four functions of all judgements. The first kind of these sophistical
|
|
arguments related to the unconditioned unity of the subjective
|
|
conditions of all representations in general (of the subject or soul),
|
|
in correspondence with the categorical syllogisms, the major of which,
|
|
as the principle, enounces the relation of a predicate to a subject.
|
|
The second kind of dialectical argument will therefore be concerned,
|
|
following the analogy with hypothetical syllogisms, with the
|
|
unconditioned unity of the objective conditions in the phenomenon;
|
|
and, in this way, the theme of the third kind to be treated of in the
|
|
following chapter will be the unconditioned unity of the objective
|
|
conditions of the possibility of objects in general.
|
|
|
|
But it is worthy of remark that the transcendental paralogism produced
|
|
in the mind only a one-third illusion, in regard to the idea of the
|
|
subject of our thought; and the conceptions of reason gave no ground to
|
|
maintain the contrary proposition. The advantage is completely on the
|
|
side of Pneumatism; although this theory itself passes into naught, in
|
|
the crucible of pure reason.
|
|
|
|
Very different is the case when we apply reason to the objective
|
|
synthesis of phenomena. Here, certainly, reason establishes, with much
|
|
plausibility, its principle of unconditioned unity; but it very soon
|
|
falls into such contradictions that it is compelled, in relation to
|
|
cosmology, to renounce its pretensions.
|
|
|
|
For here a new phenomenon of human reason meets us--a perfectly natural
|
|
antithetic, which does not require to be sought for by subtle sophistry,
|
|
but into which reason of itself unavoidably falls. It is thereby
|
|
preserved, to be sure, from the slumber of a fancied conviction--which
|
|
a merely one-sided illusion produces; but it is at the same time
|
|
compelled, either, on the one hand, to abandon itself to a despairing
|
|
scepticism, or, on the other, to assume a dogmatical confidence and
|
|
obstinate persistence in certain assertions, without granting a fair
|
|
hearing to the other side of the question. Either is the death of a
|
|
sound philosophy, although the former might perhaps deserve the title of
|
|
the euthanasia of pure reason.
|
|
|
|
Before entering this region of discord and confusion, which the conflict
|
|
of the laws of pure reason (antinomy) produces, we shall present the
|
|
reader with some considerations, in explanation and justification of the
|
|
method we intend to follow in our treatment of this subject. I term all
|
|
transcendental ideas, in so far as they relate to the absolute totality
|
|
in the synthesis of phenomena, cosmical conceptions; partly on
|
|
account of this unconditioned totality, on which the conception of the
|
|
world-whole is based--a conception, which is itself an idea--partly
|
|
because they relate solely to the synthesis of phenomena--the empirical
|
|
synthesis; while, on the other hand, the absolute totality in the
|
|
synthesis of the conditions of all possible things gives rise to
|
|
an ideal of pure reason, which is quite distinct from the cosmical
|
|
conception, although it stands in relation with it. Hence, as the
|
|
paralogisms of pure reason laid the foundation for a dialectical
|
|
psychology, the antinomy of pure reason will present us with the
|
|
transcendental principles of a pretended pure (rational) cosmology--not,
|
|
however, to declare it valid and to appropriate it, but--as the very
|
|
term of a conflict of reason sufficiently indicates, to present it as an
|
|
idea which cannot be reconciled with phenomena and experience.
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
SECTION I. System of Cosmological Ideas.
|
|
|
|
That We may be able to enumerate with systematic precision these ideas
|
|
according to a principle, we must remark, in the first place, that it
|
|
is from the understanding alone that pure and transcendental conceptions
|
|
take their origin; that the reason does not properly give birth to any
|
|
conception, but only frees the conception of the understanding from the
|
|
unavoidable limitation of a possible experience, and thus endeavours to
|
|
raise it above the empirical, though it must still be in connection with
|
|
it. This happens from the fact that, for a given conditioned, reason
|
|
demands absolute totality on the side of the conditions (to which the
|
|
understanding submits all phenomena), and thus makes of the category a
|
|
transcendental idea. This it does that it may be able to give absolute
|
|
completeness to the empirical synthesis, by continuing it to the
|
|
unconditioned (which is not to be found in experience, but only in
|
|
the idea). Reason requires this according to the principle: If the
|
|
conditioned is given the whole of the conditions, and consequently the
|
|
absolutely unconditioned, is also given, whereby alone the former was
|
|
possible. First, then, the transcendental ideas are properly nothing but
|
|
categories elevated to the unconditioned; and they may be arranged in
|
|
a table according to the titles of the latter. But, secondly, all the
|
|
categories are not available for this purpose, but only those in which
|
|
the synthesis constitutes a series--of conditions subordinated to, not
|
|
co-ordinated with, each other. Absolute totality is required of reason
|
|
only in so far as concerns the ascending series of the conditions of
|
|
a conditioned; not, consequently, when the question relates to
|
|
the descending series of consequences, or to the aggregate of the
|
|
co-ordinated conditions of these consequences. For, in relation to a
|
|
given conditioned, conditions are presupposed and considered to be given
|
|
along with it. On the other hand, as the consequences do not render
|
|
possible their conditions, but rather presuppose them--in the
|
|
consideration of the procession of consequences (or in the descent from
|
|
the given condition to the conditioned), we may be quite unconcerned
|
|
whether the series ceases or not; and their totality is not a necessary
|
|
demand of reason.
|
|
|
|
Thus we cogitate--and necessarily--a given time completely elapsed up
|
|
to a given moment, although that time is not determinable by us. But
|
|
as regards time future, which is not the condition of arriving at the
|
|
present, in order to conceive it; it is quite indifferent whether we
|
|
consider future time as ceasing at some point, or as prolonging itself
|
|
to infinity. Take, for example, the series m, n, o, in which n is given
|
|
as conditioned in relation to m, but at the same time as the condition
|
|
of o, and let the series proceed upwards from the conditioned n to m (l,
|
|
k, i, etc.), and also downwards from the condition n to the conditioned
|
|
o (p, q, r, etc.)--I must presuppose the former series, to be able
|
|
to consider n as given, and n is according to reason (the totality of
|
|
conditions) possible only by means of that series. But its possibility
|
|
does not rest on the following series o, p, q, r, which for this
|
|
reason cannot be regarded as given, but only as capable of being given
|
|
(dabilis).
|
|
|
|
I shall term the synthesis of the series on the side of the
|
|
conditions--from that nearest to the given phenomenon up to the more
|
|
remote--regressive; that which proceeds on the side of the conditioned,
|
|
from the immediate consequence to the more remote, I shall call the
|
|
progressive synthesis. The former proceeds in antecedentia, the latter
|
|
in consequentia. The cosmological ideas are therefore occupied with the
|
|
totality of the regressive synthesis, and proceed in antecedentia, not
|
|
in consequentia. When the latter takes place, it is an arbitrary and
|
|
not a necessary problem of pure reason; for we require, for the complete
|
|
understanding of what is given in a phenomenon, not the consequences
|
|
which succeed, but the grounds or principles which precede.
|
|
|
|
In order to construct the table of ideas in correspondence with the
|
|
table of categories, we take first the two primitive quanta of all our
|
|
intuitions, time and space. Time is in itself a series (and the formal
|
|
condition of all series), and hence, in relation to a given present,
|
|
we must distinguish a priori in it the antecedentia as conditions
|
|
(time past) from the consequentia (time future). Consequently, the
|
|
transcendental idea of the absolute totality of the series of the
|
|
conditions of a given conditioned, relates merely to all past time.
|
|
According to the idea of reason, the whole past time, as the condition
|
|
of the given moment, is necessarily cogitated as given. But, as
|
|
regards space, there exists in it no distinction between progressus and
|
|
regressus; for it is an aggregate and not a series--its parts existing
|
|
together at the same time. I can consider a given point of time in
|
|
relation to past time only as conditioned, because this given moment
|
|
comes into existence only through the past time rather through the
|
|
passing of the preceding time. But as the parts of space are not
|
|
subordinated, but co-ordinated to each other, one part cannot be the
|
|
condition of the possibility of the other; and space is not in itself,
|
|
like time, a series. But the synthesis of the manifold parts of
|
|
space--(the syntheses whereby we apprehend space)--is nevertheless
|
|
successive; it takes place, therefore, in time, and contains a series.
|
|
And as in this series of aggregated spaces (for example, the feet in a
|
|
rood), beginning with a given portion of space, those which continue
|
|
to be annexed form the condition of the limits of the former--the
|
|
measurement of a space must also be regarded as a synthesis of the
|
|
series of the conditions of a given conditioned. It differs, however, in
|
|
this respect from that of time, that the side of the conditioned is
|
|
not in itself distinguishable from the side of the condition; and,
|
|
consequently, regressus and progressus in space seem to be identical.
|
|
But, inasmuch as one part of space is not given, but only limited,
|
|
by and through another, we must also consider every limited space
|
|
as conditioned, in so far as it presupposes some other space as
|
|
the condition of its limitation, and so on. As regards limitation,
|
|
therefore, our procedure in space is also a regressus, and the
|
|
transcendental idea of the absolute totality of the synthesis in a
|
|
series of conditions applies to space also; and I am entitled to demand
|
|
the absolute totality of the phenomenal synthesis in space as well as in
|
|
time. Whether my demand can be satisfied is a question to be answered in
|
|
the sequel.
|
|
|
|
Secondly, the real in space--that is, matter--is conditioned. Its
|
|
internal conditions are its parts, and the parts of parts its remote
|
|
conditions; so that in this case we find a regressive synthesis, the
|
|
absolute totality of which is a demand of reason. But this cannot be
|
|
obtained otherwise than by a complete division of parts, whereby the
|
|
real in matter becomes either nothing or that which is not matter,
|
|
that is to say, the simple. Consequently we find here also a series of
|
|
conditions and a progress to the unconditioned.
|
|
|
|
Thirdly, as regards the categories of a real relation between phenomena,
|
|
the category of substance and its accidents is not suitable for the
|
|
formation of a transcendental idea; that is to say, reason has no
|
|
ground, in regard to it, to proceed regressively with conditions. For
|
|
accidents (in so far as they inhere in a substance) are co-ordinated
|
|
with each other, and do not constitute a series. And, in relation to
|
|
substance, they are not properly subordinated to it, but are the mode
|
|
of existence of the substance itself. The conception of the substantial
|
|
might nevertheless seem to be an idea of the transcendental reason.
|
|
But, as this signifies nothing more than the conception of an object
|
|
in general, which subsists in so far as we cogitate in it merely a
|
|
transcendental subject without any predicates; and as the question here
|
|
is of an unconditioned in the series of phenomena--it is clear that
|
|
the substantial can form no member thereof. The same holds good of
|
|
substances in community, which are mere aggregates and do not form a
|
|
series. For they are not subordinated to each other as conditions of the
|
|
possibility of each other; which, however, may be affirmed of spaces,
|
|
the limits of which are never determined in themselves, but always by
|
|
some other space. It is, therefore, only in the category of causality
|
|
that we can find a series of causes to a given effect, and in which
|
|
we ascend from the latter, as the conditioned, to the former as the
|
|
conditions, and thus answer the question of reason.
|
|
|
|
Fourthly, the conceptions of the possible, the actual, and the necessary
|
|
do not conduct us to any series--excepting only in so far as the
|
|
contingent in existence must always be regarded as conditioned, and as
|
|
indicating, according to a law of the understanding, a condition, under
|
|
which it is necessary to rise to a higher, till in the totality of the
|
|
series, reason arrives at unconditioned necessity.
|
|
|
|
There are, accordingly, only four cosmological ideas, corresponding
|
|
with the four titles of the categories. For we can select only such as
|
|
necessarily furnish us with a series in the synthesis of the manifold.
|
|
|
|
1
|
|
The absolute Completeness
|
|
of the
|
|
COMPOSITION
|
|
of the given totality of all phenomena.
|
|
|
|
2
|
|
The absolute Completeness
|
|
of the
|
|
DIVISION
|
|
of given totality in a phenomenon.
|
|
|
|
3
|
|
The absolute Completeness
|
|
of the
|
|
ORIGINATION
|
|
of a phenomenon.
|
|
|
|
4
|
|
The absolute Completeness
|
|
of the DEPENDENCE of the EXISTENCE
|
|
of what is changeable in a phenomenon.
|
|
|
|
|
|
We must here remark, in the first place, that the idea of absolute
|
|
totality relates to nothing but the exposition of phenomena, and
|
|
therefore not to the pure conception of a totality of things. Phenomena
|
|
are here, therefore, regarded as given, and reason requires the absolute
|
|
completeness of the conditions of their possibility, in so far as these
|
|
conditions constitute a series--consequently an absolutely (that is, in
|
|
every respect) complete synthesis, whereby a phenomenon can be explained
|
|
according to the laws of the understanding.
|
|
|
|
Secondly, it is properly the unconditioned alone that reason seeks in
|
|
this serially and regressively conducted synthesis of conditions. It
|
|
wishes, to speak in another way, to attain to completeness in the series
|
|
of premisses, so as to render it unnecessary to presuppose others.
|
|
This unconditioned is always contained in the absolute totality of the
|
|
series, when we endeavour to form a representation of it in thought.
|
|
But this absolutely complete synthesis is itself but an idea; for it is
|
|
impossible, at least before hand, to know whether any such synthesis is
|
|
possible in the case of phenomena. When we represent all existence in
|
|
thought by means of pure conceptions of the understanding, without any
|
|
conditions of sensuous intuition, we may say with justice that for a
|
|
given conditioned the whole series of conditions subordinated to each
|
|
other is also given; for the former is only given through the latter.
|
|
But we find in the case of phenomena a particular limitation of the mode
|
|
in which conditions are given, that is, through the successive synthesis
|
|
of the manifold of intuition, which must be complete in the regress. Now
|
|
whether this completeness is sensuously possible, is a problem. But the
|
|
idea of it lies in the reason--be it possible or impossible to connect
|
|
with the idea adequate empirical conceptions. Therefore, as in the
|
|
absolute totality of the regressive synthesis of the manifold in a
|
|
phenomenon (following the guidance of the categories, which represent it
|
|
as a series of conditions to a given conditioned) the unconditioned is
|
|
necessarily contained--it being still left unascertained whether and
|
|
how this totality exists; reason sets out from the idea of totality,
|
|
although its proper and final aim is the unconditioned--of the whole
|
|
series, or of a part thereof.
|
|
|
|
This unconditioned may be cogitated--either as existing only in the
|
|
entire series, all the members of which therefore would be
|
|
without exception conditioned and only the totality absolutely
|
|
unconditioned--and in this case the regressus is called infinite; or
|
|
the absolutely unconditioned is only a part of the series, to which the
|
|
other members are subordinated, but which Is not itself submitted to
|
|
any other condition.* In the former case the series is a parte priori
|
|
unlimited (without beginning), that is, infinite, and nevertheless
|
|
completely given. But the regress in it is never completed, and can only
|
|
be called potentially infinite. In the second case there exists a first
|
|
in the series. This first is called, in relation to past time, the
|
|
beginning of the world; in relation to space, the limit of the world; in
|
|
relation to the parts of a given limited whole, the simple; in relation
|
|
to causes, absolute spontaneity (liberty); and in relation to the
|
|
existence of changeable things, absolute physical necessity.
|
|
|
|
|
|
[*Footnote: The absolute totality of the series of conditions to a given
|
|
conditioned is always unconditioned; because beyond it there exist no
|
|
other conditions, on which it might depend. But the absolute totality of
|
|
such a series is only an idea, or rather a problematical conception, the
|
|
possibility of which must be investigated--particularly in relation to
|
|
the mode in which the unconditioned, as the transcendental idea which is
|
|
the real subject of inquiry, may be contained therein.]
|
|
|
|
|
|
We possess two expressions, world and nature, which are generally
|
|
interchanged. The first denotes the mathematical total of all phenomena
|
|
and the totality of their synthesis--in its progress by means of
|
|
composition, as well as by division. And the world is termed nature,*
|
|
when it is regarded as a dynamical whole--when our attention is not
|
|
directed to the aggregation in space and time, for the purpose of
|
|
cogitating it as a quantity, but to the unity in the existence of
|
|
phenomena. In this case the condition of that which happens is called
|
|
a cause; the unconditioned causality of the cause in a phenomenon is
|
|
termed liberty; the conditioned cause is called in a more limited sense
|
|
a natural cause. The conditioned in existence is termed contingent, and
|
|
the unconditioned necessary. The unconditioned necessity of phenomena
|
|
may be called natural necessity.
|
|
|
|
|
|
[*Footnote: Nature, understood adjective (formaliter), signifies the
|
|
complex of the determinations of a thing, connected according to an
|
|
internal principle of causality. On the other hand, we understand by
|
|
nature, substantive (materialiter), the sum total of phenomena, in
|
|
so far as they, by virtue of an internal principle of causality, are
|
|
connected with each other throughout. In the former sense we speak of
|
|
the nature of liquid matter, of fire, etc., and employ the word only
|
|
adjective; while, if speaking of the objects of nature, we have in our
|
|
minds the idea of a subsisting whole.]
|
|
|
|
|
|
The ideas which we are at present engaged in discussing I have called
|
|
cosmological ideas; partly because by the term world is understood the
|
|
entire content of all phenomena, and our ideas are directed solely to
|
|
the unconditioned among phenomena; partly also, because world, in the
|
|
transcendental sense, signifies the absolute totality of the content
|
|
of existing things, and we are directing our attention only to the
|
|
completeness of the synthesis--although, properly, only in regression.
|
|
In regard to the fact that these ideas are all transcendent, and,
|
|
although they do not transcend phenomena as regards their mode, but
|
|
are concerned solely with the world of sense (and not with noumena),
|
|
nevertheless carry their synthesis to a degree far above all possible
|
|
experience--it still seems to me that we can, with perfect propriety,
|
|
designate them cosmical conceptions. As regards the distinction between
|
|
the mathematically and the dynamically unconditioned which is the aim of
|
|
the regression of the synthesis, I should call the two former, in a
|
|
more limited signification, cosmical conceptions, the remaining two
|
|
transcendent physical conceptions. This distinction does not at present
|
|
seem to be of particular importance, but we shall afterwards find it to
|
|
be of some value.
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
SECTION II. Antithetic of Pure Reason.
|
|
|
|
Thetic is the term applied to every collection of dogmatical
|
|
propositions. By antithetic I do not understand dogmatical assertions
|
|
of the opposite, but the self-contradiction of seemingly dogmatical
|
|
cognitions (thesis cum antithesis), in none of which we can discover
|
|
any decided superiority. Antithetic is not, therefore, occupied with
|
|
one-sided statements, but is engaged in considering the contradictory
|
|
nature of the general cognitions of reason and its causes.
|
|
Transcendental antithetic is an investigation into the antinomy of pure
|
|
reason, its causes and result. If we employ our reason not merely in
|
|
the application of the principles of the understanding to objects of
|
|
experience, but venture with it beyond these boundaries, there arise
|
|
certain sophistical propositions or theorems. These assertions have
|
|
the following peculiarities: They can find neither confirmation
|
|
nor confutation in experience; and each is in itself not only
|
|
self-consistent, but possesses conditions of its necessity in the very
|
|
nature of reason--only that, unluckily, there exist just as valid and
|
|
necessary grounds for maintaining the contrary proposition.
|
|
|
|
The questions which naturally arise in the consideration of this
|
|
dialectic of pure reason, are therefore: 1st. In what propositions is
|
|
pure reason unavoidably subject to an antinomy? 2nd. What are the causes
|
|
of this antinomy? 3rd. Whether and in what way can reason free itself
|
|
from this self-contradiction?
|
|
|
|
A dialectical proposition or theorem of pure reason must, according
|
|
to what has been said, be distinguishable from all sophistical
|
|
propositions, by the fact that it is not an answer to an arbitrary
|
|
question, which may be raised at the mere pleasure of any person, but
|
|
to one which human reason must necessarily encounter in its progress. In
|
|
the second place, a dialectical proposition, with its opposite, does not
|
|
carry the appearance of a merely artificial illusion, which disappears
|
|
as soon as it is investigated, but a natural and unavoidable illusion,
|
|
which, even when we are no longer deceived by it, continues to mock us
|
|
and, although rendered harmless, can never be completely removed.
|
|
|
|
This dialectical doctrine will not relate to the unity of understanding
|
|
in empirical conceptions, but to the unity of reason in pure ideas. The
|
|
conditions of this doctrine are--inasmuch as it must, as a synthesis
|
|
according to rules, be conformable to the understanding, and at the same
|
|
time as the absolute unity of the synthesis, to the reason--that, if
|
|
it is adequate to the unity of reason, it is too great for the
|
|
understanding, if according with the understanding, it is too small for
|
|
the reason. Hence arises a mutual opposition, which cannot be avoided,
|
|
do what we will.
|
|
|
|
These sophistical assertions of dialectic open, as it were, a
|
|
battle-field, where that side obtains the victory which has been
|
|
permitted to make the attack, and he is compelled to yield who has been
|
|
unfortunately obliged to stand on the defensive. And hence, champions of
|
|
ability, whether on the right or on the wrong side, are certain to carry
|
|
away the crown of victory, if they only take care to have the right to
|
|
make the last attack, and are not obliged to sustain another onset from
|
|
their opponent. We can easily believe that this arena has been often
|
|
trampled by the feet of combatants, that many victories have been
|
|
obtained on both sides, but that the last victory, decisive of the
|
|
affair between the contending parties, was won by him who fought for the
|
|
right, only if his adversary was forbidden to continue the tourney. As
|
|
impartial umpires, we must lay aside entirely the consideration whether
|
|
the combatants are fighting for the right or for the wrong side, for
|
|
the true or for the false, and allow the combat to be first decided.
|
|
Perhaps, after they have wearied more than injured each other, they
|
|
will discover the nothingness of their cause of quarrel and part good
|
|
friends.
|
|
|
|
This method of watching, or rather of originating, a conflict of
|
|
assertions, not for the purpose of finally deciding in favour of either
|
|
side, but to discover whether the object of the struggle is not a mere
|
|
illusion, which each strives in vain to reach, but which would be
|
|
no gain even when reached--this procedure, I say, may be termed the
|
|
sceptical method. It is thoroughly distinct from scepticism--the
|
|
principle of a technical and scientific ignorance, which undermines
|
|
the foundations of all knowledge, in order, if possible, to destroy
|
|
our belief and confidence therein. For the sceptical method aims at
|
|
certainty, by endeavouring to discover in a conflict of this kind,
|
|
conducted honestly and intelligently on both sides, the point
|
|
of misunderstanding; just as wise legislators derive, from the
|
|
embarrassment of judges in lawsuits, information in regard to the
|
|
defective and ill-defined parts of their statutes. The antinomy which
|
|
reveals itself in the application of laws, is for our limited wisdom
|
|
the best criterion of legislation. For the attention of reason, which in
|
|
abstract speculation does not easily become conscious of its errors, is
|
|
thus roused to the momenta in the determination of its principles.
|
|
|
|
But this sceptical method is essentially peculiar to transcendental
|
|
philosophy, and can perhaps be dispensed with in every other field of
|
|
investigation. In mathematics its use would be absurd; because in it no
|
|
false assertions can long remain hidden, inasmuch as its demonstrations
|
|
must always proceed under the guidance of pure intuition, and by means
|
|
of an always evident synthesis. In experimental philosophy, doubt and
|
|
delay may be very useful; but no misunderstanding is possible, which
|
|
cannot be easily removed; and in experience means of solving the
|
|
difficulty and putting an end to the dissension must at last be found,
|
|
whether sooner or later. Moral philosophy can always exhibit its
|
|
principles, with their practical consequences, in concreto--at least in
|
|
possible experiences, and thus escape the mistakes and ambiguities of
|
|
abstraction. But transcendental propositions, which lay claim to insight
|
|
beyond the region of possible experience, cannot, on the one hand,
|
|
exhibit their abstract synthesis in any a priori intuition, nor, on the
|
|
other, expose a lurking error by the help of experience. Transcendental
|
|
reason, therefore, presents us with no other criterion than that of an
|
|
attempt to reconcile such assertions, and for this purpose to permit a
|
|
free and unrestrained conflict between them. And this we now proceed to
|
|
arrange.*
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
[*Footnote: The antinomies stand in the order of the four transcendental
|
|
ideas above detailed.]
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
FIRST CONFLICT OF THE TRANSCENDENTAL IDEAS.
|
|
|
|
THESIS.
|
|
|
|
The world has a beginning in time, and is also limited in regard to
|
|
space.
|
|
|
|
|
|
PROOF.
|
|
|
|
Granted that the world has no beginning in time; up to every given
|
|
moment of time, an eternity must have elapsed, and therewith passed away
|
|
an infinite series of successive conditions or states of things in the
|
|
world. Now the infinity of a series consists in the fact that it never
|
|
can be completed by means of a successive synthesis. It follows that an
|
|
infinite series already elapsed is impossible and that, consequently,
|
|
a beginning of the world is a necessary condition of its existence. And
|
|
this was the first thing to be proved.
|
|
|
|
As regards the second, let us take the opposite for granted. In this
|
|
case, the world must be an infinite given total of coexistent things.
|
|
Now we cannot cogitate the dimensions of a quantity, which is not given
|
|
within certain limits of an intuition,* in any other way than by means
|
|
of the synthesis of its parts, and the total of such a quantity only
|
|
by means of a completed synthesis, or the repeated addition of unity to
|
|
itself. Accordingly, to cogitate the world, which fills all spaces, as
|
|
a whole, the successive synthesis of the parts of an infinite world must
|
|
be looked upon as completed, that is to say, an infinite time must be
|
|
regarded as having elapsed in the enumeration of all co-existing things;
|
|
which is impossible. For this reason an infinite aggregate of actual
|
|
things cannot be considered as a given whole, consequently, not as a
|
|
contemporaneously given whole. The world is consequently, as regards
|
|
extension in space, not infinite, but enclosed in limits. And this was
|
|
the second thing to be proved.
|
|
|
|
|
|
[*Footnote: We may consider an undetermined quantity as a whole, when it
|
|
is enclosed within limits, although we cannot construct or ascertain
|
|
its totality by measurement, that is, by the successive synthesis of
|
|
its parts. For its limits of themselves determine its completeness as a
|
|
whole.]
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
ANTITHESIS.
|
|
|
|
The world has no beginning, and no limits in space, but is, in relation
|
|
both to time and space, infinite.
|
|
|
|
|
|
PROOF.
|
|
|
|
For let it be granted that it has a beginning. A beginning is an
|
|
existence which is preceded by a time in which the thing does not exist.
|
|
On the above supposition, it follows that there must have been a time in
|
|
which the world did not exist, that is, a void time. But in a void time
|
|
the origination of a thing is impossible; because no part of any such
|
|
time contains a distinctive condition of being, in preference to that of
|
|
non-being (whether the supposed thing originate of itself, or by means
|
|
of some other cause). Consequently, many series of things may have a
|
|
beginning in the world, but the world itself cannot have a beginning,
|
|
and is, therefore, in relation to past time, infinite.
|
|
|
|
As regards the second statement, let us first take the opposite for
|
|
granted--that the world is finite and limited in space; it follows that
|
|
it must exist in a void space, which is not limited. We should therefore
|
|
meet not only with a relation of things in space, but also a relation
|
|
of things to space. Now, as the world is an absolute whole, out of and
|
|
beyond which no object of intuition, and consequently no correlate to
|
|
which can be discovered, this relation of the world to a void space is
|
|
merely a relation to no object. But such a relation, and consequently
|
|
the limitation of the world by void space, is nothing. Consequently,
|
|
the world, as regards space, is not limited, that is, it is infinite in
|
|
regard to extension.*
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
[*Footnote: Space is merely the form of external intuition (formal
|
|
intuition), and not a real object which can be externally perceived.
|
|
Space, prior to all things which determine it (fill or limit it), or,
|
|
rather, which present an empirical intuition conformable to it, is,
|
|
under the title of absolute space, nothing but the mere possibility of
|
|
external phenomena, in so far as they either exist in themselves, or can
|
|
annex themselves to given intuitions. Empirical intuition is therefore
|
|
not a composition of phenomena and space (of perception and empty
|
|
intuition). The one is not the correlate of the other in a synthesis,
|
|
but they are vitally connected in the same empirical intuition, as
|
|
matter and form. If we wish to set one of these two apart from
|
|
the other--space from phenomena--there arise all sorts of empty
|
|
determinations of external intuition, which are very far from being
|
|
possible perceptions. For example, motion or rest of the world in an
|
|
infinite empty space, or a determination of the mutual relation of both,
|
|
cannot possibly be perceived, and is therefore merely the predicate of a
|
|
notional entity.]
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
OBSERVATIONS ON THE FIRST ANTINOMY.
|
|
|
|
ON THE THESIS.
|
|
|
|
In bringing forward these conflicting arguments, I have not been on
|
|
the search for sophisms, for the purpose of availing myself of special
|
|
pleading, which takes advantage of the carelessness of the opposite
|
|
party, appeals to a misunderstood statute, and erects its unrighteous
|
|
claims upon an unfair interpretation. Both proofs originate fairly from
|
|
the nature of the case, and the advantage presented by the mistakes of
|
|
the dogmatists of both parties has been completely set aside.
|
|
|
|
The thesis might also have been unfairly demonstrated, by the
|
|
introduction of an erroneous conception of the infinity of a given
|
|
quantity. A quantity is infinite, if a greater than itself cannot
|
|
possibly exist. The quantity is measured by the number of given
|
|
units--which are taken as a standard--contained in it. Now no number can
|
|
be the greatest, because one or more units can always be added. It follows
|
|
that an infinite given quantity, consequently an infinite world (both as
|
|
regards time and extension) is impossible. It is, therefore, limited in
|
|
both respects. In this manner I might have conducted my proof; but the
|
|
conception given in it does not agree with the true conception of an
|
|
infinite whole. In this there is no representation of its quantity,
|
|
it is not said how large it is; consequently its conception is not the
|
|
conception of a maximum. We cogitate in it merely its relation to an
|
|
arbitrarily assumed unit, in relation to which it is greater than any
|
|
number. Now, just as the unit which is taken is greater or smaller, the
|
|
infinite will be greater or smaller; but the infinity, which consists
|
|
merely in the relation to this given unit, must remain always the same,
|
|
although the absolute quantity of the whole is not thereby cognized.
|
|
|
|
The true (transcendental) conception of infinity is: that the successive
|
|
synthesis of unity in the measurement of a given quantum can never be
|
|
completed.* Hence it follows, without possibility of mistake, that an
|
|
eternity of actual successive states up to a given (the present) moment
|
|
cannot have elapsed, and that the world must therefore have a beginning.
|
|
|
|
|
|
[*Footnote: The quantum in this sense contains a congeries of given
|
|
units, which is greater than any number--and this is the mathematical
|
|
conception of the infinite.]
|
|
|
|
|
|
In regard to the second part of the thesis, the difficulty as to an
|
|
infinite and yet elapsed series disappears; for the manifold of a world
|
|
infinite in extension is contemporaneously given. But, in order to
|
|
cogitate the total of this manifold, as we cannot have the aid of limits
|
|
constituting by themselves this total in intuition, we are obliged to
|
|
give some account of our conception, which in this case cannot proceed
|
|
from the whole to the determined quantity of the parts, but must
|
|
demonstrate the possibility of a whole by means of a successive
|
|
synthesis of the parts. But as this synthesis must constitute a series
|
|
that cannot be completed, it is impossible for us to cogitate prior to
|
|
it, and consequently not by means of it, a totality. For the conception
|
|
of totality itself is in the present case the representation of a
|
|
completed synthesis of the parts; and this completion, and consequently
|
|
its conception, is impossible.
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
ON THE ANTITHESIS.
|
|
|
|
The proof in favour of the infinity of the cosmical succession and the
|
|
cosmical content is based upon the consideration that, in the opposite
|
|
case, a void time and a void space must constitute the limits of the
|
|
world. Now I am not unaware, that there are some ways of escaping this
|
|
conclusion. It may, for example, be alleged, that a limit to the world,
|
|
as regards both space and time, is quite possible, without at the same
|
|
time holding the existence of an absolute time before the beginning of
|
|
the world, or an absolute space extending beyond the actual world--which
|
|
is impossible. I am quite well satisfied with the latter part of this
|
|
opinion of the philosophers of the Leibnitzian school. Space is merely
|
|
the form of external intuition, but not a real object which can itself
|
|
be externally intuited; it is not a correlate of phenomena, it is
|
|
the form of phenomena itself. Space, therefore, cannot be regarded as
|
|
absolutely and in itself something determinative of the existence
|
|
of things, because it is not itself an object, but only the form of
|
|
possible objects. Consequently, things, as phenomena, determine space;
|
|
that is to say, they render it possible that, of all the possible
|
|
predicates of space (size and relation), certain may belong to
|
|
reality. But we cannot affirm the converse, that space, as something
|
|
self-subsistent, can determine real things in regard to size or shape,
|
|
for it is in itself not a real thing. Space (filled or void)* may
|
|
therefore be limited by phenomena, but phenomena cannot be limited by
|
|
an empty space without them. This is true of time also. All this being
|
|
granted, it is nevertheless indisputable, that we must assume these two
|
|
nonentities, void space without and void time before the world, if we
|
|
assume the existence of cosmical limits, relatively to space or time.
|
|
|
|
|
|
[*Footnote: It is evident that what is meant here is, that empty space,
|
|
in so far as it is limited by phenomena--space, that is, within the
|
|
world--does not at least contradict transcendental principles, and may
|
|
therefore, as regards them, be admitted, although its possibility cannot
|
|
on that account be affirmed.]
|
|
|
|
|
|
For, as regards the subterfuge adopted by those who endeavour to evade
|
|
the consequence--that, if the world is limited as to space and time, the
|
|
infinite void must determine the existence of actual things in regard
|
|
to their dimensions--it arises solely from the fact that instead of a
|
|
sensuous world, an intelligible world--of which nothing is known--is
|
|
cogitated; instead of a real beginning (an existence, which is preceded
|
|
by a period in which nothing exists), an existence which presupposes no
|
|
other condition than that of time; and, instead of limits of extension,
|
|
boundaries of the universe. But the question relates to the mundus
|
|
phaenomenon, and its quantity; and in this case we cannot make
|
|
abstraction of the conditions of sensibility, without doing away with
|
|
the essential reality of this world itself. The world of sense, if it is
|
|
limited, must necessarily lie in the infinite void. If this, and with it
|
|
space as the a priori condition of the possibility of phenomena, is left
|
|
out of view, the whole world of sense disappears. In our problem is this
|
|
alone considered as given. The mundus intelligibilis is nothing but the
|
|
general conception of a world, in which abstraction has been made of
|
|
all conditions of intuition, and in relation to which no synthetical
|
|
proposition--either affirmative or negative--is possible.
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
SECOND CONFLICT OF TRANSCENDENTAL IDEAS.
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THESIS.
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Every composite substance in the world consists of simple parts; and
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there exists nothing that is not either itself simple, or composed of
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simple parts.
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PROOF.
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For, grant that composite substances do not consist of simple parts;
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in this case, if all combination or composition were annihilated in
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thought, no composite part, and (as, by the supposition, there do
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not exist simple parts) no simple part would exist. Consequently,
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no substance; consequently, nothing would exist. Either, then, it
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is impossible to annihilate composition in thought; or, after such
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annihilation, there must remain something that subsists without
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composition, that is, something that is simple. But in the former case
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the composite could not itself consist of substances, because with
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substances composition is merely a contingent relation, apart from
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which they must still exist as self-subsistent beings. Now, as this case
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contradicts the supposition, the second must contain the truth--that the
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substantial composite in the world consists of simple parts.
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It follows, as an immediate inference, that the things in the world are
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all, without exception, simple beings--that composition is merely an
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external condition pertaining to them--and that, although we never
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can separate and isolate the elementary substances from the state of
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composition, reason must cogitate these as the primary subjects of
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all composition, and consequently, as prior thereto--and as simple
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substances.
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ANTITHESIS.
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No composite thing in the world consists of simple parts; and there does
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not exist in the world any simple substance.
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PROOF.
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Let it be supposed that a composite thing (as substance) consists
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of simple parts. Inasmuch as all external relation, consequently
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all composition of substances, is possible only in space; the space,
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occupied by that which is composite, must consist of the same number of
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parts as is contained in the composite. But space does not consist of
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simple parts, but of spaces. Therefore, every part of the composite must
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occupy a space. But the absolutely primary parts of what is composite
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are simple. It follows that what is simple occupies a space. Now, as
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everything real that occupies a space, contains a manifold the parts of
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which are external to each other, and is consequently composite--and
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a real composite, not of accidents (for these cannot exist external to
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each other apart from substance), but of substances--it follows that the
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simple must be a substantial composite, which is self-contradictory.
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The second proposition of the antithesis--that there exists in the
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world nothing that is simple--is here equivalent to the following:
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The existence of the absolutely simple cannot be demonstrated from any
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experience or perception either external or internal; and the absolutely
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simple is a mere idea, the objective reality of which cannot be
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demonstrated in any possible experience; it is consequently, in the
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exposition of phenomena, without application and object. For, let us
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take for granted that an object may be found in experience for this
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transcendental idea; the empirical intuition of such an object must then
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be recognized to contain absolutely no manifold with its parts external
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to each other, and connected into unity. Now, as we cannot reason from
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the non-consciousness of such a manifold to the impossibility of its
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existence in the intuition of an object, and as the proof of this
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impossibility is necessary for the establishment and proof of absolute
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simplicity; it follows that this simplicity cannot be inferred from any
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perception whatever. As, therefore, an absolutely simple object cannot
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be given in any experience, and the world of sense must be considered as
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the sum total of all possible experiences: nothing simple exists in the
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world.
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This second proposition in the antithesis has a more extended aim than
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the first. The first merely banishes the simple from the intuition of
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the composite; while the second drives it entirely out of nature. Hence
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we were unable to demonstrate it from the conception of a given object
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of external intuition (of the composite), but we were obliged to prove
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it from the relation of a given object to a possible experience in
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general.
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OBSERVATIONS ON THE SECOND ANTINOMY.
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THESIS.
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When I speak of a whole, which necessarily consists of simple parts, I
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understand thereby only a substantial whole, as the true composite; that
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is to say, I understand that contingent unity of the manifold which is
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given as perfectly isolated (at least in thought), placed in reciprocal
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connection, and thus constituted a unity. Space ought not to be called a
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compositum but a totum, for its parts are possible in the whole, and not
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the whole by means of the parts. It might perhaps be called a compositum
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ideale, but not a compositum reale. But this is of no importance. As
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space is not a composite of substances (and not even of real accidents),
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if I abstract all composition therein--nothing, not even a
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point, remains; for a point is possible only as the limit of a
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space--consequently of a composite. Space and time, therefore, do not
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consist of simple parts. That which belongs only to the condition or
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state of a substance, even although it possesses a quantity (motion or
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change, for example), likewise does not consist of simple parts. That is
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to say, a certain degree of change does not originate from the addition
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of many simple changes. Our inference of the simple from the composite
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is valid only of self-subsisting things. But the accidents of a state
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are not self-subsistent. The proof, then, for the necessity of the
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simple, as the component part of all that is substantial and composite,
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may prove a failure, and the whole case of this thesis be lost, if we
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carry the proposition too far, and wish to make it valid of everything
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that is composite without distinction--as indeed has really now and then
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happened. Besides, I am here speaking only of the simple, in so far as
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it is necessarily given in the composite--the latter being capable
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of solution into the former as its component parts. The proper
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signification of the word monas (as employed by Leibnitz) ought to
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relate to the simple, given immediately as simple substance (for
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example, in consciousness), and not as an element of the composite. As
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an clement, the term atomus would be more appropriate. And as I wish to
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prove the existence of simple substances, only in relation to, and
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as the elements of, the composite, I might term the antithesis of the
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second Antinomy, transcendental Atomistic. But as this word has long
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been employed to designate a particular theory of corporeal phenomena
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(moleculae), and thus presupposes a basis of empirical conceptions, I
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prefer calling it the dialectical principle of Monadology.
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ANTITHESIS.
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Against the assertion of the infinite subdivisibility of matter whose
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ground of proof is purely mathematical, objections have been alleged by
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the Monadists. These objections lay themselves open, at first sight,
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to suspicion, from the fact that they do not recognize the clearest
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mathematical proofs as propositions relating to the constitution of
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space, in so far as it is really the formal condition of the possibility
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of all matter, but regard them merely as inferences from abstract but
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arbitrary conceptions, which cannot have any application to real things.
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Just as if it were possible to imagine another mode of intuition than
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that given in the primitive intuition of space; and just as if its a
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priori determinations did not apply to everything, the existence of
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which is possible, from the fact alone of its filling space. If we
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listen to them, we shall find ourselves required to cogitate, in
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addition to the mathematical point, which is simple--not, however,
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a part, but a mere limit of space--physical points, which are indeed
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likewise simple, but possess the peculiar property, as parts of space,
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of filling it merely by their aggregation. I shall not repeat here the
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common and clear refutations of this absurdity, which are to be
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found everywhere in numbers: every one knows that it is impossible to
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undermine the evidence of mathematics by mere discursive conceptions; I
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shall only remark that, if in this case philosophy endeavours to gain
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an advantage over mathematics by sophistical artifices, it is because
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it forgets that the discussion relates solely to Phenomena and their
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conditions. It is not sufficient to find the conception of the simple
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for the pure conception of the composite, but we must discover for the
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intuition of the composite (matter), the intuition of the simple. Now
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this, according to the laws of sensibility, and consequently in the
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case of objects of sense, is utterly impossible. In the case of a
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whole composed of substances, which is cogitated solely by the pure
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understanding, it may be necessary to be in possession of the simple
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before composition is possible. But this does not hold good of the Totum
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substantiale phaenomenon, which, as an empirical intuition in space,
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possesses the necessary property of containing no simple part, for the
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very reason that no part of space is simple. Meanwhile, the Monadists
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have been subtle enough to escape from this difficulty, by presupposing
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intuition and the dynamical relation of substances as the condition of
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the possibility of space, instead of regarding space as the condition
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of the possibility of the objects of external intuition, that is, of
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bodies. Now we have a conception of bodies only as phenomena, and, as
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such, they necessarily presuppose space as the condition of all external
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phenomena. The evasion is therefore in vain; as, indeed, we have
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sufficiently shown in our Aesthetic. If bodies were things in
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themselves, the proof of the Monadists would be unexceptionable.
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The second dialectical assertion possesses the peculiarity of
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having opposed to it a dogmatical proposition, which, among all such
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sophistical statements, is the only one that undertakes to prove in the
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case of an object of experience, that which is properly a transcendental
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idea--the absolute simplicity of substance. The proposition is that the
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object of the internal sense, the thinking Ego, is an absolute simple
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substance. Without at present entering upon this subject--as it has been
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considered at length in a former chapter--I shall merely remark that, if
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something is cogitated merely as an object, without the addition of any
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synthetical determination of its intuition--as happens in the case
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of the bare representation, I--it is certain that no manifold and no
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composition can be perceived in such a representation. As, moreover, the
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predicates whereby I cogitate this object are merely intuitions of the
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internal sense, there cannot be discovered in them anything to prove
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the existence of a manifold whose parts are external to each other,
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and, consequently, nothing to prove the existence of real composition.
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Consciousness, therefore, is so constituted that, inasmuch as the
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thinking subject is at the same time its own object, it cannot divide
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itself--although it can divide its inhering determinations. For every
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object in relation to itself is absolute unity. Nevertheless, if the
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subject is regarded externally, as an object of intuition, it must, in
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its character of phenomenon, possess the property of composition. And it
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must always be regarded in this manner, if we wish to know whether there
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is or is not contained in it a manifold whose parts are external to each
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other.
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THIRD CONFLICT OF THE TRANSCENDENTAL IDEAS.
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THESIS.
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Causality according to the laws of nature, is not the only causality
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operating to originate the phenomena of the world. A causality of
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freedom is also necessary to account fully for these phenomena.
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PROOF.
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Let it be supposed, that there is no other kind of causality than that
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according to the laws of nature. Consequently, everything that happens
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presupposes a previous condition, which it follows with absolute
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certainty, in conformity with a rule. But this previous condition must
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itself be something that has happened (that has arisen in time, as it
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did not exist before), for, if it has always been in existence, its
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consequence or effect would not thus originate for the first time,
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but would likewise have always existed. The causality, therefore, of a
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cause, whereby something happens, is itself a thing that has happened.
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Now this again presupposes, in conformity with the law of nature, a
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previous condition and its causality, and this another anterior to the
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former, and so on. If, then, everything happens solely in accordance
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with the laws of nature, there cannot be any real first beginning of
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things, but only a subaltern or comparative beginning. There cannot,
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therefore, be a completeness of series on the side of the causes which
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originate the one from the other. But the law of nature is that
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nothing can happen without a sufficient a priori determined cause. The
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proposition therefore--if all causality is possible only in accordance
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with the laws of nature--is, when stated in this unlimited and general
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manner, self-contradictory. It follows that this cannot be the only kind
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of causality.
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From what has been said, it follows that a causality must be admitted,
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by means of which something happens, without its cause being determined
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according to necessary laws by some other cause preceding. That is to
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say, there must exist an absolute spontaneity of cause, which of itself
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originates a series of phenomena which proceeds according to natural
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laws--consequently transcendental freedom, without which even in the
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course of nature the succession of phenomena on the side of causes is
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never complete.
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ANTITHESIS.
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There is no such thing as freedom, but everything in the world happens
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solely according to the laws of nature.
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PROOF.
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Granted, that there does exist freedom in the transcendental sense, as a
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peculiar kind of causality, operating to produce events in the world--a
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faculty, that is to say, of originating a state, and consequently a
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series of consequences from that state. In this case, not only the
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series originated by this spontaneity, but the determination of this
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spontaneity itself to the production of the series, that is to say, the
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causality itself must have an absolute commencement, such that nothing
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can precede to determine this action according to unvarying laws. But
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every beginning of action presupposes in the acting cause a state of
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inaction; and a dynamically primal beginning of action presupposes a
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state, which has no connection--as regards causality--with the preceding
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state of the cause--which does not, that is, in any wise result from it.
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Transcendental freedom is therefore opposed to the natural law of cause
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and effect, and such a conjunction of successive states in effective
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causes is destructive of the possibility of unity in experience and
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for that reason not to be found in experience--is consequently a mere
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fiction of thought.
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We have, therefore, nothing but nature to which we must look for
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connection and order in cosmical events. Freedom--independence of the
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laws of nature--is certainly a deliverance from restraint, but it is
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also a relinquishing of the guidance of law and rule. For it cannot
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be alleged that, instead of the laws of nature, laws of freedom may be
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introduced into the causality of the course of nature. For, if freedom
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were determined according to laws, it would be no longer freedom,
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but merely nature. Nature, therefore, and transcendental freedom are
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distinguishable as conformity to law and lawlessness. The former imposes
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upon understanding the difficulty of seeking the origin of events ever
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higher and higher in the series of causes, inasmuch as causality is
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always conditioned thereby; while it compensates this labour by the
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guarantee of a unity complete and in conformity with law. The latter, on
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the contrary, holds out to the understanding the promise of a point
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of rest in the chain of causes, by conducting it to an unconditioned
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causality, which professes to have the power of spontaneous origination,
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but which, in its own utter blindness, deprives it of the guidance of
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rules, by which alone a completely connected experience is possible.
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OBSERVATIONS ON THE THIRD ANTINOMY.
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ON THE THESIS.
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The transcendental idea of freedom is far from constituting the entire
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content of the psychological conception so termed, which is for the most
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part empirical. It merely presents us with the conception of spontaneity
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of action, as the proper ground for imputing freedom to the cause of a
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certain class of objects. It is, however, the true stumbling-stone to
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philosophy, which meets with unconquerable difficulties in the way of
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its admitting this kind of unconditioned causality. That element in the
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question of the freedom of the will, which has for so long a time placed
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speculative reason in such perplexity, is properly only transcendental,
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and concerns the question, whether there must be held to exist a faculty
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of spontaneous origination of a series of successive things or states.
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How such a faculty is possible is not a necessary inquiry; for in the
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case of natural causality itself, we are obliged to content ourselves
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with the a priori knowledge that such a causality must be presupposed,
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although we are quite incapable of comprehending how the being of
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one thing is possible through the being of another, but must for this
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information look entirely to experience. Now we have demonstrated this
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necessity of a free first beginning of a series of phenomena, only in so
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far as it is required for the comprehension of an origin of the world,
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all following states being regarded as a succession according to laws
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of nature alone. But, as there has thus been proved the existence of a
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faculty which can of itself originate a series in time--although we
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are unable to explain how it can exist--we feel ourselves authorized to
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admit, even in the midst of the natural course of events, a beginning,
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as regards causality, of different successions of phenomena, and at the
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same time to attribute to all substances a faculty of free action.
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But we ought in this case not to allow ourselves to fall into a common
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misunderstanding, and to suppose that, because a successive series in
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the world can only have a comparatively first beginning--another state
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or condition of things always preceding--an absolutely first beginning
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of a series in the course of nature is impossible. For we are not
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speaking here of an absolutely first beginning in relation to time, but
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as regards causality alone. When, for example, I, completely of my own
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free will, and independently of the necessarily determinative influence
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of natural causes, rise from my chair, there commences with this event,
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including its material consequences in infinitum, an absolutely
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new series; although, in relation to time, this event is merely the
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continuation of a preceding series. For this resolution and act of mine
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do not form part of the succession of effects in nature, and are not
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mere continuations of it; on the contrary, the determining causes of
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nature cease to operate in reference to this event, which certainly
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succeeds the acts of nature, but does not proceed from them. For
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these reasons, the action of a free agent must be termed, in regard to
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causality, if not in relation to time, an absolutely primal beginning of
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a series of phenomena.
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The justification of this need of reason to rest upon a free act as
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the first beginning of the series of natural causes is evident from
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the fact, that all philosophers of antiquity (with the exception of the
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Epicurean school) felt themselves obliged, when constructing a theory of
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the motions of the universe, to accept a prime mover, that is, a freely
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acting cause, which spontaneously and prior to all other causes evolved
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this series of states. They always felt the need of going beyond mere
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nature, for the purpose of making a first beginning comprehensible.
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ON THE ANTITHESIS.
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The assertor of the all-sufficiency of nature in regard to causality
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(transcendental Physiocracy), in opposition to the doctrine of freedom,
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would defend his view of the question somewhat in the following manner.
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He would say, in answer to the sophistical arguments of the opposite
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party: If you do not accept a mathematical first, in relation to time,
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you have no need to seek a dynamical first, in regard to causality. Who
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compelled you to imagine an absolutely primal condition of the world,
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and therewith an absolute beginning of the gradually progressing
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successions of phenomena--and, as some foundation for this fancy of
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yours, to set bounds to unlimited nature? Inasmuch as the substances in
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the world have always existed--at least the unity of experience renders
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such a supposition quite necessary--there is no difficulty in believing
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also, that the changes in the conditions of these substances have always
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existed; and, consequently, that a first beginning, mathematical or
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dynamical, is by no means required. The possibility of such an infinite
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derivation, without any initial member from which all the others result,
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is certainly quite incomprehensible. But, if you are rash enough to
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deny the enigmatical secrets of nature for this reason, you will find
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yourselves obliged to deny also the existence of many fundamental
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properties of natural objects (such as fundamental forces), which you
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can just as little comprehend; and even the possibility of so simple
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a conception as that of change must present to you insuperable
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difficulties. For if experience did not teach you that it was real, you
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never could conceive a priori the possibility of this ceaseless sequence
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of being and non-being.
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But if the existence of a transcendental faculty of freedom is
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granted--a faculty of originating changes in the world--this faculty
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must at least exist out of and apart from the world; although it is
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certainly a bold assumption, that, over and above the complete content
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of all possible intuitions, there still exists an object which cannot be
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presented in any possible perception. But, to attribute to substances
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in the world itself such a faculty, is quite inadmissible; for, in
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this case; the connection of phenomena reciprocally determining and
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determined according to general laws, which is termed nature, and along
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with it the criteria of empirical truth, which enable us to distinguish
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experience from mere visionary dreaming, would almost entirely
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disappear. In proximity with such a lawless faculty of freedom, a system
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of nature is hardly cogitable; for the laws of the latter would be
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continually subject to the intrusive influences of the former, and
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the course of phenomena, which would otherwise proceed regularly and
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uniformly, would become thereby confused and disconnected.
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FOURTH CONFLICT OF THE TRANSCENDENTAL IDEAS.
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THESIS.
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There exists either in, or in connection with the world--either as a
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part of it, or as the cause of it--an absolutely necessary being.
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PROOF.
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The world of sense, as the sum total of all phenomena, contains a series
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of changes. For, without such a series, the mental representation of
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the series of time itself, as the condition of the possibility of the
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sensuous world, could not be presented to us.* But every change stands
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under its condition, which precedes it in time and renders it necessary.
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Now the existence of a given condition presupposes a complete series of
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conditions up to the absolutely unconditioned, which alone is absolutely
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necessary. It follows that something that is absolutely necessary must
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exist, if change exists as its consequence. But this necessary thing
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itself belongs to the sensuous world. For suppose it to exist out of and
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apart from it, the series of cosmical changes would receive from it a
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beginning, and yet this necessary cause would not itself belong to
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the world of sense. But this is impossible. For, as the beginning of a
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series in time is determined only by that which precedes it in time, the
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supreme condition of the beginning of a series of changes must exist
|
|
in the time in which this series itself did not exist; for a beginning
|
|
supposes a time preceding, in which the thing that begins to be was
|
|
not in existence. The causality of the necessary cause of changes,
|
|
and consequently the cause itself, must for these reasons belong
|
|
to time--and to phenomena, time being possible only as the form of
|
|
phenomena. Consequently, it cannot be cogitated as separated from the
|
|
world of sense--the sum total of all phenomena. There is, therefore,
|
|
contained in the world, something that is absolutely necessary--whether
|
|
it be the whole cosmical series itself, or only a part of it.
|
|
|
|
|
|
[*Footnote: Objectively, time, as the formal condition of the
|
|
possibility of change, precedes all changes; but subjectively, and in
|
|
consciousness, the representation of time, like every other, is given
|
|
solely by occasion of perception.]
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
ANTITHESIS.
|
|
|
|
An absolutely necessary being does not exist, either in the world, or
|
|
out of it--as its cause.
|
|
|
|
|
|
PROOF.
|
|
|
|
Grant that either the world itself is necessary, or that there is
|
|
contained in it a necessary existence. Two cases are possible. First,
|
|
there must either be in the series of cosmical changes a beginning,
|
|
which is unconditionally necessary, and therefore uncaused--which is at
|
|
variance with the dynamical law of the determination of all phenomena
|
|
in time; or, secondly, the series itself is without beginning, and,
|
|
although contingent and conditioned in all its parts, is nevertheless
|
|
absolutely necessary and unconditioned as a whole--which is
|
|
self-contradictory. For the existence of an aggregate cannot be
|
|
necessary, if no single part of it possesses necessary existence.
|
|
|
|
Grant, on the other band, that an absolutely necessary cause exists out
|
|
of and apart from the world. This cause, as the highest member in the
|
|
series of the causes of cosmical changes, must originate or begin* the
|
|
existence of the latter and their series. In this case it must also
|
|
begin to act, and its causality would therefore belong to time, and
|
|
consequently to the sum total of phenomena, that is, to the world.
|
|
It follows that the cause cannot be out of the world; which is
|
|
contradictory to the hypothesis. Therefore, neither in the world, nor
|
|
out of it (but in causal connection with it), does there exist any
|
|
absolutely necessary being.
|
|
|
|
|
|
[*Footnote: The word begin is taken in two senses. The first is
|
|
active--the cause being regarded as beginning a series of conditions as
|
|
its effect (infit). The second is passive--the causality in the cause
|
|
itself beginning to operate (fit). I reason here from the first to the
|
|
second.]
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
OBSERVATIONS ON THE FOURTH ANTINOMY.
|
|
|
|
ON THE THESIS.
|
|
|
|
To demonstrate the existence of a necessary being, I cannot be permitted
|
|
in this place to employ any other than the cosmological argument,
|
|
which ascends from the conditioned in phenomena to the unconditioned in
|
|
conception--the unconditioned being considered the necessary condition
|
|
of the absolute totality of the series. The proof, from the mere idea
|
|
of a supreme being, belongs to another principle of reason and requires
|
|
separate discussion.
|
|
|
|
The pure cosmological proof demonstrates the existence of a necessary
|
|
being, but at the same time leaves it quite unsettled, whether this
|
|
being is the world itself, or quite distinct from it. To establish
|
|
the truth of the latter view, principles are requisite, which are not
|
|
cosmological and do not proceed in the series of phenomena. We
|
|
should require to introduce into our proof conceptions of contingent
|
|
beings--regarded merely as objects of the understanding, and also
|
|
a principle which enables us to connect these, by means of mere
|
|
conceptions, with a necessary being. But the proper place for all such
|
|
arguments is a transcendent philosophy, which has unhappily not yet been
|
|
established.
|
|
|
|
But, if we begin our proof cosmologically, by laying at the foundation
|
|
of it the series of phenomena, and the regress in it according to
|
|
empirical laws of causality, we are not at liberty to break off from
|
|
this mode of demonstration and to pass over to something which is not
|
|
itself a member of the series. The condition must be taken in exactly
|
|
the same signification as the relation of the conditioned to its
|
|
condition in the series has been taken, for the series must conduct us
|
|
in an unbroken regress to this supreme condition. But if this relation
|
|
is sensuous, and belongs to the possible empirical employment of
|
|
understanding, the supreme condition or cause must close the regressive
|
|
series according to the laws of sensibility and consequently, must
|
|
belong to the series of time. It follows that this necessary existence
|
|
must be regarded as the highest member of the cosmical series.
|
|
|
|
Certain philosophers have, nevertheless, allowed themselves the liberty
|
|
of making such a saltus (metabasis eis allo gonos). From the changes
|
|
in the world they have concluded their empirical contingency, that
|
|
is, their dependence on empirically-determined causes, and they thus
|
|
admitted an ascending series of empirical conditions: and in this they
|
|
are quite right. But as they could not find in this series any primal
|
|
beginning or any highest member, they passed suddenly from the empirical
|
|
conception of contingency to the pure category, which presents us with
|
|
a series--not sensuous, but intellectual--whose completeness does
|
|
certainly rest upon the existence of an absolutely necessary cause. Nay,
|
|
more, this intellectual series is not tied to any sensuous conditions;
|
|
and is therefore free from the condition of time, which requires it
|
|
spontaneously to begin its causality in time. But such a procedure is
|
|
perfectly inadmissible, as will be made plain from what follows.
|
|
|
|
In the pure sense of the categories, that is contingent the
|
|
contradictory opposite of which is possible. Now we cannot reason from
|
|
empirical contingency to intellectual. The opposite of that which is
|
|
changed--the opposite of its state--is actual at another time, and is
|
|
therefore possible. Consequently, it is not the contradictory opposite
|
|
of the former state. To be that, it is necessary that, in the same time
|
|
in which the preceding state existed, its opposite could have existed in
|
|
its place; but such a cognition is not given us in the mere phenomenon
|
|
of change. A body that was in motion = A, comes into a state of rest =
|
|
non-A. Now it cannot be concluded from the fact that a state opposite
|
|
to the state A follows it, that the contradictory opposite of A is
|
|
possible; and that A is therefore contingent. To prove this, we should
|
|
require to know that the state of rest could have existed in the very
|
|
same time in which the motion took place. Now we know nothing more than
|
|
that the state of rest was actual in the time that followed the state of
|
|
motion; consequently, that it was also possible. But motion at one time,
|
|
and rest at another time, are not contradictorily opposed to each other.
|
|
It follows from what has been said that the succession of opposite
|
|
determinations, that is, change, does not demonstrate the fact of
|
|
contingency as represented in the conceptions of the pure understanding;
|
|
and that it cannot, therefore, conduct us to the fact of the existence
|
|
of a necessary being. Change proves merely empirical contingency, that
|
|
is to say, that the new state could not have existed without a cause,
|
|
which belongs to the preceding time. This cause--even although it is
|
|
regarded as absolutely necessary--must be presented to us in time, and
|
|
must belong to the series of phenomena.
|
|
|
|
|
|
ON THE ANTITHESIS.
|
|
|
|
The difficulties which meet us, in our attempt to rise through the
|
|
series of phenomena to the existence of an absolutely necessary supreme
|
|
cause, must not originate from our inability to establish the truth of
|
|
our mere conceptions of the necessary existence of a thing. That is to
|
|
say, our objections not be ontological, but must be directed against
|
|
the causal connection with a series of phenomena of a condition which is
|
|
itself unconditioned. In one word, they must be cosmological and relate
|
|
to empirical laws. We must show that the regress in the series of
|
|
causes (in the world of sense) cannot conclude with an empirically
|
|
unconditioned condition, and that the cosmological argument from the
|
|
contingency of the cosmical state--a contingency alleged to arise from
|
|
change--does not justify us in accepting a first cause, that is, a prime
|
|
originator of the cosmical series.
|
|
|
|
The reader will observe in this antinomy a very remarkable contrast. The
|
|
very same grounds of proof which established in the thesis the existence
|
|
of a supreme being, demonstrated in the antithesis--and with equal
|
|
strictness--the non-existence of such a being. We found, first, that a
|
|
necessary being exists, because the whole time past contains the series
|
|
of all conditions, and with it, therefore, the unconditioned (the
|
|
necessary); secondly, that there does not exist any necessary being,
|
|
for the same reason, that the whole time past contains the series of
|
|
all conditions--which are themselves, therefore, in the aggregate,
|
|
conditioned. The cause of this seeming incongruity is as follows. We
|
|
attend, in the first argument, solely to the absolute totality of the
|
|
series of conditions, the one of which determines the other in time, and
|
|
thus arrive at a necessary unconditioned. In the second, we consider,
|
|
on the contrary, the contingency of everything that is determined in
|
|
the series of time--for every event is preceded by a time, in which the
|
|
condition itself must be determined as conditioned--and thus everything
|
|
that is unconditioned or absolutely necessary disappears. In both, the
|
|
mode of proof is quite in accordance with the common procedure of human
|
|
reason, which often falls into discord with itself, from considering an
|
|
object from two different points of view. Herr von Mairan regarded
|
|
the controversy between two celebrated astronomers, which arose from
|
|
a similar difficulty as to the choice of a proper standpoint, as a
|
|
phenomenon of sufficient importance to warrant a separate treatise
|
|
on the subject. The one concluded: the moon revolves on its own axis,
|
|
because it constantly presents the same side to the earth; the other
|
|
declared that the moon does not revolve on its own axis, for the same
|
|
reason. Both conclusions were perfectly correct, according to the point
|
|
of view from which the motions of the moon were considered.
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
SECTION III. Of the Interest of Reason in these Self-contradictions.
|
|
|
|
We have thus completely before us the dialectical procedure of the
|
|
cosmological ideas. No possible experience can present us with an object
|
|
adequate to them in extent. Nay, more, reason itself cannot cogitate
|
|
them as according with the general laws of experience. And yet they
|
|
are not arbitrary fictions of thought. On the contrary, reason, in
|
|
its uninterrupted progress in the empirical synthesis, is necessarily
|
|
conducted to them, when it endeavours to free from all conditions and
|
|
to comprehend in its unconditioned totality that which can only be
|
|
determined conditionally in accordance with the laws of experience.
|
|
These dialectical propositions are so many attempts to solve four
|
|
natural and unavoidable problems of reason. There are neither more, nor
|
|
can there be less, than this number, because there are no other series
|
|
of synthetical hypotheses, limiting a priori the empirical synthesis.
|
|
|
|
The brilliant claims of reason striving to extend its dominion beyond
|
|
the limits of experience, have been represented above only in dry
|
|
formulae, which contain merely the grounds of its pretensions. They
|
|
have, besides, in conformity with the character of a transcendental
|
|
philosophy, been freed from every empirical element; although the full
|
|
splendour of the promises they hold out, and the anticipations they
|
|
excite, manifests itself only when in connection with empirical
|
|
cognitions. In the application of them, however, and in the advancing
|
|
enlargement of the employment of reason, while struggling to rise from
|
|
the region of experience and to soar to those sublime ideas, philosophy
|
|
discovers a value and a dignity, which, if it could but make good its
|
|
assertions, would raise it far above all other departments of human
|
|
knowledge--professing, as it does, to present a sure foundation for our
|
|
highest hopes and the ultimate aims of all the exertions of reason.
|
|
The questions: whether the world has a beginning and a limit to its
|
|
extension in space; whether there exists anywhere, or perhaps, in my
|
|
own thinking Self, an indivisible and indestructible unity--or whether
|
|
nothing but what is divisible and transitory exists; whether I am a free
|
|
agent, or, like other beings, am bound in the chains of nature and fate;
|
|
whether, finally, there is a supreme cause of the world, or all our
|
|
thought and speculation must end with nature and the order of external
|
|
things--are questions for the solution of which the mathematician would
|
|
willingly exchange his whole science; for in it there is no satisfaction
|
|
for the highest aspirations and most ardent desires of humanity. Nay, it
|
|
may even be said that the true value of mathematics--that pride of human
|
|
reason--consists in this: that she guides reason to the knowledge of
|
|
nature--in her greater as well as in her less manifestations--in her
|
|
beautiful order and regularity--guides her, moreover, to an insight into
|
|
the wonderful unity of the moving forces in the operations of nature,
|
|
far beyond the expectations of a philosophy building only on experience;
|
|
and that she thus encourages philosophy to extend the province of reason
|
|
beyond all experience, and at the same time provides it with the most
|
|
excellent materials for supporting its investigations, in so far as
|
|
their nature admits, by adequate and accordant intuitions.
|
|
|
|
Unfortunately for speculation--but perhaps fortunately for the
|
|
practical interests of humanity--reason, in the midst of her highest
|
|
anticipations, finds herself hemmed in by a press of opposite and
|
|
contradictory conclusions, from which neither her honour nor her safety
|
|
will permit her to draw back. Nor can she regard these conflicting
|
|
trains of reasoning with indifference as mere passages at arms, still
|
|
less can she command peace; for in the subject of the conflict she has a
|
|
deep interest. There is no other course left open to her than to reflect
|
|
with herself upon the origin of this disunion in reason--whether it may
|
|
not arise from a mere misunderstanding. After such an inquiry, arrogant
|
|
claims would have to be given up on both sides; but the sovereignty
|
|
of reason over understanding and sense would be based upon a sure
|
|
foundation.
|
|
|
|
We shall at present defer this radical inquiry and, in the meantime,
|
|
consider for a little what side in the controversy we should most
|
|
willingly take, if we were obliged to become partisans at all. As, in
|
|
this case, we leave out of sight altogether the logical criterion of
|
|
truth, and merely consult our own interest in reference to the question,
|
|
these considerations, although inadequate to settle the question of
|
|
right in either party, will enable us to comprehend how those who have
|
|
taken part in the struggle, adopt the one view rather than the other--no
|
|
special insight into the subject, however, having influenced their
|
|
choice. They will, at the same time, explain to us many other things
|
|
by the way--for example, the fiery zeal on the one side and the cold
|
|
maintenance of their cause on the other; why the one party has met with
|
|
the warmest approbations, and the other has always been repulsed by
|
|
irreconcilable prejudices.
|
|
|
|
There is one thing, however, that determines the proper point of view,
|
|
from which alone this preliminary inquiry can be instituted and carried
|
|
on with the proper completeness--and that is the comparison of the
|
|
principles from which both sides, thesis and antithesis, proceed. My
|
|
readers would remark in the propositions of the antithesis a complete
|
|
uniformity in the mode of thought and a perfect unity of principle. Its
|
|
principle was that of pure empiricism, not only in the explication
|
|
of the phenomena in the world, but also in the solution of the
|
|
transcendental ideas, even of that of the universe itself. The
|
|
affirmations of the thesis, on the contrary, were based, in addition to
|
|
the empirical mode of explanation employed in the series of phenomena,
|
|
on intellectual propositions; and its principles were in so far
|
|
not simple. I shall term the thesis, in view of its essential
|
|
characteristic, the dogmatism of pure reason.
|
|
|
|
On the side of Dogmatism, or of the thesis, therefore, in the
|
|
determination of the cosmological ideas, we find:
|
|
|
|
1. A practical interest, which must be very dear to every right-thinking
|
|
man. That the word has a beginning--that the nature of my thinking self
|
|
is simple, and therefore indestructible--that I am a free agent, and
|
|
raised above the compulsion of nature and her laws--and, finally, that
|
|
the entire order of things, which form the world, is dependent upon a
|
|
Supreme Being, from whom the whole receives unity and connection--these
|
|
are so many foundation-stones of morality and religion. The antithesis
|
|
deprives us of all these supports--or, at least, seems so to deprive us.
|
|
|
|
2. A speculative interest of reason manifests itself on this side. For,
|
|
if we take the transcendental ideas and employ them in the manner which
|
|
the thesis directs, we can exhibit completely a priori the entire
|
|
chain of conditions, and understand the derivation of the
|
|
conditioned--beginning from the unconditioned. This the antithesis does
|
|
not do; and for this reason does not meet with so welcome a reception.
|
|
For it can give no answer to our question respecting the conditions of
|
|
its synthesis--except such as must be supplemented by another question,
|
|
and so on to infinity. According to it, we must rise from a given
|
|
beginning to one still higher; every part conducts us to a still smaller
|
|
one; every event is preceded by another event which is its cause; and
|
|
the conditions of existence rest always upon other and still higher
|
|
conditions, and find neither end nor basis in some self-subsistent thing
|
|
as the primal being.
|
|
|
|
3. This side has also the advantage of popularity; and this constitutes
|
|
no small part of its claim to favour. The common understanding does not
|
|
find the least difficulty in the idea of the unconditioned beginning of
|
|
all synthesis--accustomed, as it is, rather to follow our consequences
|
|
than to seek for a proper basis for cognition. In the conception of an
|
|
absolute first, moreover--the possibility of which it does not inquire
|
|
into--it is highly gratified to find a firmly-established point
|
|
of departure for its attempts at theory; while in the restless and
|
|
continuous ascent from the conditioned to the condition, always with one
|
|
foot in the air, it can find no satisfaction.
|
|
|
|
On the side of the antithesis, or Empiricism, in the determination of
|
|
the cosmological ideas:
|
|
|
|
1. We cannot discover any such practical interest arising from pure
|
|
principles of reason as morality and religion present. On the contrary,
|
|
pure empiricism seems to empty them of all their power and influence.
|
|
If there does not exist a Supreme Being distinct from the world--if the
|
|
world is without beginning, consequently without a Creator--if our wills
|
|
are not free, and the soul is divisible and subject to corruption just
|
|
like matter--the ideas and principles of morality lose all validity and
|
|
fall with the transcendental ideas which constituted their theoretical
|
|
support.
|
|
|
|
2. But empiricism, in compensation, holds out to reason, in its
|
|
speculative interests, certain important advantages, far exceeding any
|
|
that the dogmatist can promise us. For, when employed by the empiricist,
|
|
understanding is always upon its proper ground of investigation--the
|
|
field of possible experience, the laws of which it can explore, and thus
|
|
extend its cognition securely and with clear intelligence without being
|
|
stopped by limits in any direction. Here can it and ought it to find and
|
|
present to intuition its proper object--not only in itself, but in all
|
|
its relations; or, if it employ conceptions, upon this ground it can
|
|
always present the corresponding images in clear and unmistakable
|
|
intuitions. It is quite unnecessary for it to renounce the guidance of
|
|
nature, to attach itself to ideas, the objects of which it cannot know;
|
|
because, as mere intellectual entities, they cannot be presented in
|
|
any intuition. On the contrary, it is not even permitted to abandon
|
|
its proper occupation, under the pretence that it has been brought to
|
|
a conclusion (for it never can be), and to pass into the region of
|
|
idealizing reason and transcendent conceptions, which it is not required
|
|
to observe and explore the laws of nature, but merely to think and to
|
|
imagine--secure from being contradicted by facts, because they have not
|
|
been called as witnesses, but passed by, or perhaps subordinated to the
|
|
so-called higher interests and considerations of pure reason.
|
|
|
|
Hence the empiricist will never allow himself to accept any epoch of
|
|
nature for the first--the absolutely primal state; he will not believe
|
|
that there can be limits to his outlook into her wide domains, nor pass
|
|
from the objects of nature, which he can satisfactorily explain by
|
|
means of observation and mathematical thought--which he can determine
|
|
synthetically in intuition, to those which neither sense nor imagination
|
|
can ever present in concreto; he will not concede the existence of a
|
|
faculty in nature, operating independently of the laws of nature--a
|
|
concession which would introduce uncertainty into the procedure of the
|
|
understanding, which is guided by necessary laws to the observation of
|
|
phenomena; nor, finally, will he permit himself to seek a cause beyond
|
|
nature, inasmuch as we know nothing but it, and from it alone receive an
|
|
objective basis for all our conceptions and instruction in the unvarying
|
|
laws of things.
|
|
|
|
In truth, if the empirical philosopher had no other purpose in the
|
|
establishment of his antithesis than to check the presumption of a
|
|
reason which mistakes its true destination, which boasts of its insight
|
|
and its knowledge, just where all insight and knowledge cease to
|
|
exist, and regards that which is valid only in relation to a practical
|
|
interest, as an advancement of the speculative interests of the mind
|
|
(in order, when it is convenient for itself, to break the thread of our
|
|
physical investigations, and, under pretence of extending our cognition,
|
|
connect them with transcendental ideas, by means of which we really know
|
|
only that we know nothing)--if, I say, the empiricist rested satisfied
|
|
with this benefit, the principle advanced by him would be a maxim
|
|
recommending moderation in the pretensions of reason and modesty in its
|
|
affirmations, and at the same time would direct us to the right mode
|
|
of extending the province of the understanding, by the help of the only
|
|
true teacher, experience. In obedience to this advice, intellectual
|
|
hypotheses and faith would not be called in aid of our practical
|
|
interests; nor should we introduce them under the pompous titles of
|
|
science and insight. For speculative cognition cannot find an objective
|
|
basis any other where than in experience; and, when we overstep its
|
|
limits our synthesis, which requires ever new cognitions independent of
|
|
experience, has no substratum of intuition upon which to build.
|
|
|
|
But if--as often happens--empiricism, in relation to ideas, becomes
|
|
itself dogmatic and boldly denies that which is above the sphere of its
|
|
phenomenal cognition, it falls itself into the error of intemperance--an
|
|
error which is here all the more reprehensible, as thereby the practical
|
|
interest of reason receives an irreparable injury.
|
|
|
|
And this constitutes the opposition between Epicureanism* and Platonism.
|
|
|
|
|
|
[*Footnote: It is, however, still a matter of doubt whether Epicurus
|
|
ever propounded these principles as directions for the objective
|
|
employment of the understanding. If, indeed, they were nothing more than
|
|
maxims for the speculative exercise of reason, he gives evidence therein
|
|
a more genuine philosophic spirit than any of the philosophers of
|
|
antiquity. That, in the explanation of phenomena, we must proceed as
|
|
if the field of inquiry had neither limits in space nor commencement
|
|
in time; that we must be satisfied with the teaching of experience in
|
|
reference to the material of which the world is posed; that we must not
|
|
look for any other mode of the origination of events than that which is
|
|
determined by the unalterable laws of nature; and finally, that we not
|
|
employ the hypothesis of a cause distinct from the world to account for
|
|
a phenomenon or for the world itself--are principles for the extension
|
|
of speculative philosophy, and the discovery of the true sources of the
|
|
principles of morals, which, however little conformed to in the present
|
|
day, are undoubtedly correct. At the same time, any one desirous of
|
|
ignoring, in mere speculation, these dogmatical propositions, need not
|
|
for that reason be accused of denying them.]
|
|
|
|
|
|
Both Epicurus and Plato assert more in their systems than they know. The
|
|
former encourages and advances science--although to the prejudice of
|
|
the practical; the latter presents us with excellent principles for the
|
|
investigation of the practical, but, in relation to everything regarding
|
|
which we can attain to speculative cognition, permits reason to append
|
|
idealistic explanations of natural phenomena, to the great injury of
|
|
physical investigation.
|
|
|
|
3. In regard to the third motive for the preliminary choice of a party
|
|
in this war of assertions, it seems very extraordinary that empiricism
|
|
should be utterly unpopular. We should be inclined to believe that the
|
|
common understanding would receive it with pleasure--promising as it
|
|
does to satisfy it without passing the bounds of experience and its
|
|
connected order; while transcendental dogmatism obliges it to rise to
|
|
conceptions which far surpass the intelligence and ability of the most
|
|
practised thinkers. But in this, in truth, is to be found its real
|
|
motive. For the common understanding thus finds itself in a situation
|
|
where not even the most learned can have the advantage of it. If it
|
|
understands little or nothing about these transcendental conceptions, no
|
|
one can boast of understanding any more; and although it may not express
|
|
itself in so scholastically correct a manner as others, it can busy
|
|
itself with reasoning and arguments without end, wandering among mere
|
|
ideas, about which one can always be very eloquent, because we know
|
|
nothing about them; while, in the observation and investigation of
|
|
nature, it would be forced to remain dumb and to confess its utter
|
|
ignorance. Thus indolence and vanity form of themselves strong
|
|
recommendations of these principles. Besides, although it is a hard
|
|
thing for a philosopher to assume a principle, of which he can give to
|
|
himself no reasonable account, and still more to employ conceptions, the
|
|
objective reality of which cannot be established, nothing is more usual
|
|
with the common understanding. It wants something which will allow it
|
|
to go to work with confidence. The difficulty of even comprehending
|
|
a supposition does not disquiet it, because--not knowing what
|
|
comprehending means--it never even thinks of the supposition it may be
|
|
adopting as a principle; and regards as known that with which it
|
|
has become familiar from constant use. And, at last, all speculative
|
|
interests disappear before the practical interests which it holds dear;
|
|
and it fancies that it understands and knows what its necessities
|
|
and hopes incite it to assume or to believe. Thus the empiricism of
|
|
transcendentally idealizing reason is robbed of all popularity; and,
|
|
however prejudicial it may be to the highest practical principles, there
|
|
is no fear that it will ever pass the limits of the schools, or acquire
|
|
any favour or influence in society or with the multitude.
|
|
|
|
Human reason is by nature architectonic. That is to say, it regards all
|
|
cognitions as parts of a possible system, and hence accepts only such
|
|
principles as at least do not incapacitate a cognition to which we may
|
|
have attained from being placed along with others in a general system.
|
|
But the propositions of the antithesis are of a character which renders
|
|
the completion of an edifice of cognitions impossible. According to
|
|
these, beyond one state or epoch of the world there is always to be
|
|
found one more ancient; in every part always other parts themselves
|
|
divisible; preceding every event another, the origin of which
|
|
must itself be sought still higher; and everything in existence is
|
|
conditioned, and still not dependent on an unconditioned and primal
|
|
existence. As, therefore, the antithesis will not concede the existence
|
|
of a first beginning which might be available as a foundation, a
|
|
complete edifice of cognition, in the presence of such hypothesis, is
|
|
utterly impossible. Thus the architectonic interest of reason, which
|
|
requires a unity--not empirical, but a priori and rational--forms a
|
|
natural recommendation for the assertions of the thesis in our antinomy.
|
|
|
|
But if any one could free himself entirely from all considerations
|
|
of interest, and weigh without partiality the assertions of reason,
|
|
attending only to their content, irrespective of the consequences which
|
|
follow from them; such a person, on the supposition that he knew no
|
|
other way out of the confusion than to settle the truth of one or
|
|
other of the conflicting doctrines, would live in a state of continual
|
|
hesitation. Today, he would feel convinced that the human will is free;
|
|
to-morrow, considering the indissoluble chain of nature, he would look
|
|
on freedom as a mere illusion and declare nature to be all-in-all. But,
|
|
if he were called to action, the play of the merely speculative reason
|
|
would disappear like the shapes of a dream, and practical interest would
|
|
dictate his choice of principles. But, as it well befits a reflective
|
|
and inquiring being to devote certain periods of time to the examination
|
|
of its own reason--to divest itself of all partiality, and frankly to
|
|
communicate its observations for the judgement and opinion of others; so
|
|
no one can be blamed for, much less prevented from, placing both
|
|
parties on their trial, with permission to end themselves, free
|
|
from intimidation, before intimidation, before a sworn jury of equal
|
|
condition with themselves--the condition of weak and fallible men.
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
SECTION IV. Of the necessity imposed upon Pure Reason of
|
|
presenting a Solution of its Transcendental Problems.
|
|
|
|
To avow an ability to solve all problems and to answer all questions
|
|
would be a profession certain to convict any philosopher of extravagant
|
|
boasting and self-conceit, and at once to destroy the confidence that
|
|
might otherwise have been reposed in him. There are, however, sciences
|
|
so constituted that every question arising within their sphere must
|
|
necessarily be capable of receiving an answer from the knowledge already
|
|
possessed, for the answer must be received from the same sources whence
|
|
the question arose. In such sciences it is not allowable to excuse
|
|
ourselves on the plea of necessary and unavoidable ignorance; a solution
|
|
is absolutely requisite. The rule of right and wrong must help us to the
|
|
knowledge of what is right or wrong in all possible cases; otherwise,
|
|
the idea of obligation or duty would be utterly null, for we cannot have
|
|
any obligation to that which we cannot know. On the other hand, in our
|
|
investigations of the phenomena of nature, much must remain uncertain,
|
|
and many questions continue insoluble; because what we know of nature
|
|
is far from being sufficient to explain all the phenomena that are
|
|
presented to our observation. Now the question is: Whether there is in
|
|
transcendental philosophy any question, relating to an object presented
|
|
to pure reason, which is unanswerable by this reason; and whether we
|
|
must regard the subject of the question as quite uncertain, so far as
|
|
our knowledge extends, and must give it a place among those subjects, of
|
|
which we have just so much conception as is sufficient to enable us
|
|
to raise a question--faculty or materials failing us, however, when we
|
|
attempt an answer.
|
|
|
|
Now I maintain that, among all speculative cognition, the peculiarity of
|
|
transcendental philosophy is that there is no question, relating to an
|
|
object presented to pure reason, which is insoluble by this reason; and
|
|
that the profession of unavoidable ignorance--the problem being alleged
|
|
to be beyond the reach of our faculties--cannot free us from the
|
|
obligation to present a complete and satisfactory answer. For the very
|
|
conception which enables us to raise the question must give us the power
|
|
of answering it; inasmuch as the object, as in the case of right and
|
|
wrong, is not to be discovered out of the conception.
|
|
|
|
But, in transcendental philosophy, it is only the cosmological questions
|
|
to which we can demand a satisfactory answer in relation to the
|
|
constitution of their object; and the philosopher is not permitted to
|
|
avail himself of the pretext of necessary ignorance and impenetrable
|
|
obscurity. These questions relate solely to the cosmological ideas. For
|
|
the object must be given in experience, and the question relates to the
|
|
adequateness of the object to an idea. If the object is transcendental
|
|
and therefore itself unknown; if the question, for example, is whether
|
|
the object--the something, the phenomenon of which (internal--in
|
|
ourselves) is thought--that is to say, the soul, is in itself a simple
|
|
being; or whether there is a cause of all things, which is absolutely
|
|
necessary--in such cases we are seeking for our idea an object, of which
|
|
we may confess that it is unknown to us, though we must not on that
|
|
account assert that it is impossible.* The cosmological ideas alone
|
|
posses the peculiarity that we can presuppose the object of them and the
|
|
empirical synthesis requisite for the conception of that object to be
|
|
given; and the question, which arises from these ideas, relates merely
|
|
to the progress of this synthesis, in so far as it must contain absolute
|
|
totality--which, however, is not empirical, as it cannot be given in any
|
|
experience. Now, as the question here is solely in regard to a thing as
|
|
the object of a possible experience and not as a thing in itself, the
|
|
answer to the transcendental cosmological question need not be sought
|
|
out of the idea, for the question does not regard an object in itself.
|
|
The question in relation to a possible experience is not, "What can be
|
|
given in an experience in concreto" but "what is contained in the idea,
|
|
to which the empirical synthesis must approximate." The question must
|
|
therefore be capable of solution from the idea alone. For the idea is
|
|
a creation of reason itself, which therefore cannot disclaim the
|
|
obligation to answer or refer us to the unknown object.
|
|
|
|
|
|
[*Footnote: The question, "What is the constitution of a transcendental
|
|
object?" is unanswerable--we are unable to say what it is; but we can
|
|
perceive that the question itself is nothing; because it does not relate
|
|
to any object that can be presented to us. For this reason, we must
|
|
consider all the questions raised in transcendental psychology as
|
|
answerable and as really answered; for they relate to the transcendental
|
|
subject of all internal phenomena, which is not itself phenomenon and
|
|
consequently not given as an object, in which, moreover, none of
|
|
the categories--and it is to them that the question is properly
|
|
directed--find any conditions of its application. Here, therefore, is a
|
|
case where no answer is the only proper answer. For a question regarding
|
|
the constitution of a something which cannot be cogitated by any
|
|
determined predicate, being completely beyond the sphere of objects and
|
|
experience, is perfectly null and void.]
|
|
|
|
|
|
It is not so extraordinary, as it at first sight appears, that a science
|
|
should demand and expect satisfactory answers to all the questions that
|
|
may arise within its own sphere (questiones domesticae), although, up to
|
|
a certain time, these answers may not have been discovered. There are,
|
|
in addition to transcendental philosophy, only two pure sciences
|
|
of reason; the one with a speculative, the other with a practical
|
|
content--pure mathematics and pure ethics. Has any one ever heard
|
|
it alleged that, from our complete and necessary ignorance of the
|
|
conditions, it is uncertain what exact relation the diameter of a circle
|
|
bears to the circle in rational or irrational numbers? By the former
|
|
the sum cannot be given exactly, by the latter only approximately; and
|
|
therefore we decide that the impossibility of a solution of the question
|
|
is evident. Lambert presented us with a demonstration of this. In the
|
|
general principles of morals there can be nothing uncertain, for the
|
|
propositions are either utterly without meaning, or must originate
|
|
solely in our rational conceptions. On the other hand, there must be
|
|
in physical science an infinite number of conjectures, which can never
|
|
become certainties; because the phenomena of nature are not given as
|
|
objects dependent on our conceptions. The key to the solution of such
|
|
questions cannot, therefore, be found in our conceptions, or in pure
|
|
thought, but must lie without us and for that reason is in many cases
|
|
not to be discovered; and consequently a satisfactory explanation cannot
|
|
be expected. The questions of transcendental analytic, which relate to
|
|
the deduction of our pure cognition, are not to be regarded as of the
|
|
same kind as those mentioned above; for we are not at present treating
|
|
of the certainty of judgements in relation to the origin of our
|
|
conceptions, but only of that certainty in relation to objects.
|
|
|
|
We cannot, therefore, escape the responsibility of at least a critical
|
|
solution of the questions of reason, by complaints of the limited nature
|
|
of our faculties, and the seemingly humble confession that it is beyond
|
|
the power of our reason to decide, whether the world has existed from
|
|
all eternity or had a beginning--whether it is infinitely extended, or
|
|
enclosed within certain limits--whether anything in the world is simple,
|
|
or whether everything must be capable of infinite divisibility--whether
|
|
freedom can originate phenomena, or whether everything is absolutely
|
|
dependent on the laws and order of nature--and, finally, whether there
|
|
exists a being that is completely unconditioned and necessary, or
|
|
whether the existence of everything is conditioned and consequently
|
|
dependent on something external to itself, and therefore in its own
|
|
nature contingent. For all these questions relate to an object, which
|
|
can be given nowhere else than in thought. This object is the absolutely
|
|
unconditioned totality of the synthesis of phenomena. If the conceptions
|
|
in our minds do not assist us to some certain result in regard to these
|
|
problems, we must not defend ourselves on the plea that the object
|
|
itself remains hidden from and unknown to us. For no such thing or
|
|
object can be given--it is not to be found out of the idea in our minds.
|
|
We must seek the cause of our failure in our idea itself, which is an
|
|
insoluble problem and in regard to which we obstinately assume that
|
|
there exists a real object corresponding and adequate to it. A clear
|
|
explanation of the dialectic which lies in our conception, will very
|
|
soon enable us to come to a satisfactory decision in regard to such a
|
|
question.
|
|
|
|
The pretext that we are unable to arrive at certainty in regard to these
|
|
problems may be met with this question, which requires at least a plain
|
|
answer: "From what source do the ideas originate, the solution of which
|
|
involves you in such difficulties? Are you seeking for an explanation
|
|
of certain phenomena; and do you expect these ideas to give you the
|
|
principles or the rules of this explanation?" Let it be granted, that
|
|
all nature was laid open before you; that nothing was hid from your
|
|
senses and your consciousness. Still, you could not cognize in concreto
|
|
the object of your ideas in any experience. For what is demanded is not
|
|
only this full and complete intuition, but also a complete synthesis and
|
|
the consciousness of its absolute totality; and this is not possible by
|
|
means of any empirical cognition. It follows that your question--your
|
|
idea--is by no means necessary for the explanation of any phenomenon;
|
|
and the idea cannot have been in any sense given by the object itself.
|
|
For such an object can never be presented to us, because it cannot be
|
|
given by any possible experience. Whatever perceptions you may attain
|
|
to, you are still surrounded by conditions--in space, or in time--and
|
|
you cannot discover anything unconditioned; nor can you decide whether
|
|
this unconditioned is to be placed in an absolute beginning of the
|
|
synthesis, or in an absolute totality of the series without beginning.
|
|
A whole, in the empirical signification of the term, is always merely
|
|
comparative. The absolute whole of quantity (the universe), of division,
|
|
of derivation, of the condition of existence, with the question--whether
|
|
it is to be produced by finite or infinite synthesis, no possible
|
|
experience can instruct us concerning. You will not, for example, be
|
|
able to explain the phenomena of a body in the least degree better,
|
|
whether you believe it to consist of simple, or of composite parts;
|
|
for a simple phenomenon--and just as little an infinite series of
|
|
composition--can never be presented to your perception. Phenomena
|
|
require and admit of explanation, only in so far as the conditions of
|
|
that explanation are given in perception; but the sum total of that
|
|
which is given in phenomena, considered as an absolute whole, is itself
|
|
a perception--and we cannot therefore seek for explanations of this
|
|
whole beyond itself, in other perceptions. The explanation of this whole
|
|
is the proper object of the transcendental problems of pure reason.
|
|
|
|
Although, therefore, the solution of these problems is unattainable
|
|
through experience, we must not permit ourselves to say that it is
|
|
uncertain how the object of our inquiries is constituted. For the object
|
|
is in our own mind and cannot be discovered in experience; and we have
|
|
only to take care that our thoughts are consistent with each other,
|
|
and to avoid falling into the amphiboly of regarding our idea as a
|
|
representation of an object empirically given, and therefore to be
|
|
cognized according to the laws of experience. A dogmatical solution is
|
|
therefore not only unsatisfactory but impossible. The critical solution,
|
|
which may be a perfectly certain one, does not consider the question
|
|
objectively, but proceeds by inquiring into the basis of the cognition
|
|
upon which the question rests.
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
SECTION V. Sceptical Exposition of the Cosmological Problems
|
|
presented in the four Transcendental Ideas.
|
|
|
|
We should be quite willing to desist from the demand of a dogmatical
|
|
answer to our questions, if we understood beforehand that, be the answer
|
|
what it may, it would only serve to increase our ignorance, to throw
|
|
us from one incomprehensibility into another, from one obscurity
|
|
into another still greater, and perhaps lead us into irreconcilable
|
|
contradictions. If a dogmatical affirmative or negative answer is
|
|
demanded, is it at all prudent to set aside the probable grounds of
|
|
a solution which lie before us and to take into consideration what
|
|
advantage we shall gain, if the answer is to favour the one side or the
|
|
other? If it happens that in both cases the answer is mere nonsense,
|
|
we have in this an irresistible summons to institute a critical
|
|
investigation of the question, for the purpose of discovering whether
|
|
it is based on a groundless presupposition and relates to an idea, the
|
|
falsity of which would be more easily exposed in its application and
|
|
consequences than in the mere representation of its content. This is the
|
|
great utility of the sceptical mode of treating the questions addressed
|
|
by pure reason to itself. By this method we easily rid ourselves of
|
|
the confusions of dogmatism, and establish in its place a temperate
|
|
criticism, which, as a genuine cathartic, will successfully remove
|
|
the presumptuous notions of philosophy and their consequence--the vain
|
|
pretension to universal science.
|
|
|
|
If, then, I could understand the nature of a cosmological idea and
|
|
perceive, before I entered on the discussion of the subject at all,
|
|
that, whatever side of the question regarding the unconditioned of the
|
|
regressive synthesis of phenomena it favoured--it must either be too
|
|
great or too small for every conception of the understanding--I would
|
|
be able to comprehend how the idea, which relates to an object of
|
|
experience--an experience which must be adequate to and in accordance
|
|
with a possible conception of the understanding--must be completely void
|
|
and without significance, inasmuch as its object is inadequate, consider
|
|
it as we may. And this is actually the case with all cosmological
|
|
conceptions, which, for the reason above mentioned, involve reason, so
|
|
long as it remains attached to them, in an unavoidable antinomy. For
|
|
suppose:
|
|
|
|
First, that the world has no beginning--in this case it is too large
|
|
for our conception; for this conception, which consists in a successive
|
|
regress, cannot overtake the whole eternity that has elapsed. Grant
|
|
that it has a beginning, it is then too small for the conception of
|
|
the understanding. For, as a beginning presupposes a time preceding, it
|
|
cannot be unconditioned; and the law of the empirical employment of the
|
|
understanding imposes the necessity of looking for a higher condition of
|
|
time; and the world is, therefore, evidently too small for this law.
|
|
|
|
The same is the case with the double answer to the question regarding
|
|
the extent, in space, of the world. For, if it is infinite and
|
|
unlimited, it must be too large for every possible empirical conception.
|
|
If it is finite and limited, we have a right to ask: "What determines
|
|
these limits?" Void space is not a self-subsistent correlate of things,
|
|
and cannot be a final condition--and still less an empirical condition,
|
|
forming a part of a possible experience. For how can we have any
|
|
experience or perception of an absolute void? But the absolute totality
|
|
of the empirical synthesis requires that the unconditioned be an
|
|
empirical conception. Consequently, a finite world is too small for our
|
|
conception.
|
|
|
|
Secondly, if every phenomenon (matter) in space consists of an infinite
|
|
number of parts, the regress of the division is always too great for our
|
|
conception; and if the division of space must cease with some member
|
|
of the division (the simple), it is too small for the idea of the
|
|
unconditioned. For the member at which we have discontinued our division
|
|
still admits a regress to many more parts contained in the object.
|
|
|
|
Thirdly, suppose that every event in the world happens in accordance
|
|
with the laws of nature; the causality of a cause must itself be
|
|
an event and necessitates a regress to a still higher cause, and
|
|
consequently the unceasing prolongation of the series of conditions
|
|
a parte priori. Operative nature is therefore too large for every
|
|
conception we can form in the synthesis of cosmical events.
|
|
|
|
If we admit the existence of spontaneously produced events, that is, of
|
|
free agency, we are driven, in our search for sufficient reasons, on an
|
|
unavoidable law of nature and are compelled to appeal to the empirical
|
|
law of causality, and we find that any such totality of connection in
|
|
our synthesis is too small for our necessary empirical conception.
|
|
|
|
Fourthly, if we assume the existence of an absolutely necessary
|
|
being--whether it be the world or something in the world, or the cause
|
|
of the world--we must place it in a time at an infinite distance from
|
|
any given moment; for, otherwise, it must be dependent on some other and
|
|
higher existence. Such an existence is, in this case, too large for our
|
|
empirical conception, and unattainable by the continued regress of any
|
|
synthesis.
|
|
|
|
But if we believe that everything in the world--be it condition or
|
|
conditioned--is contingent; every given existence is too small for our
|
|
conception. For in this case we are compelled to seek for some other
|
|
existence upon which the former depends.
|
|
|
|
We have said that in all these cases the cosmological idea is either
|
|
too great or too small for the empirical regress in a synthesis, and
|
|
consequently for every possible conception of the understanding. Why did
|
|
we not express ourselves in a manner exactly the reverse of this and,
|
|
instead of accusing the cosmological idea of over stepping or of falling
|
|
short of its true aim, possible experience, say that, in the first case,
|
|
the empirical conception is always too small for the idea, and in the
|
|
second too great, and thus attach the blame of these contradictions to
|
|
the empirical regress? The reason is this. Possible experience can alone
|
|
give reality to our conceptions; without it a conception is merely an
|
|
idea, without truth or relation to an object. Hence a possible empirical
|
|
conception must be the standard by which we are to judge whether an
|
|
idea is anything more than an idea and fiction of thought, or whether it
|
|
relates to an object in the world. If we say of a thing that in
|
|
relation to some other thing it is too large or too small, the former is
|
|
considered as existing for the sake of the latter, and requiring to
|
|
be adapted to it. Among the trivial subjects of discussion in the old
|
|
schools of dialectics was this question: "If a ball cannot pass through
|
|
a hole, shall we say that the ball is too large or the hole too small?"
|
|
In this case it is indifferent what expression we employ; for we do
|
|
not know which exists for the sake of the other. On the other hand, we
|
|
cannot say: "The man is too long for his coat"; but: "The coat is too
|
|
short for the man."
|
|
|
|
We are thus led to the well-founded suspicion that the cosmological
|
|
ideas, and all the conflicting sophistical assertions connected with
|
|
them, are based upon a false and fictitious conception of the mode in
|
|
which the object of these ideas is presented to us; and this suspicion
|
|
will probably direct us how to expose the illusion that has so long led
|
|
us astray from the truth.
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
SECTION VI. Transcendental Idealism as the Key to theSolution
|
|
of Pure Cosmological Dialectic.
|
|
|
|
In the transcendental aesthetic we proved that everything intuited in
|
|
space and time, all objects of a possible experience, are nothing but
|
|
phenomena, that is, mere representations; and that these, as
|
|
presented to us--as extended bodies, or as series of changes--have no
|
|
self-subsistent existence apart from human thought. This doctrine I
|
|
call Transcendental Idealism.* The realist in the transcendental
|
|
sense regards these modifications of our sensibility, these mere
|
|
representations, as things subsisting in themselves.
|
|
|
|
|
|
[*Footnote: I have elsewhere termed this theory formal idealism, to
|
|
distinguish it from material idealism, which doubts or denies the
|
|
existence of external things. To avoid ambiguity, it seems advisable in
|
|
many cases to employ this term instead of that mentioned in the text.]
|
|
|
|
|
|
It would be unjust to accuse us of holding the long-decried theory of
|
|
empirical idealism, which, while admitting the reality of space, denies,
|
|
or at least doubts, the existence of bodies extended in it, and thus
|
|
leaves us without a sufficient criterion of reality and illusion. The
|
|
supporters of this theory find no difficulty in admitting the reality of
|
|
the phenomena of the internal sense in time; nay, they go the length
|
|
of maintaining that this internal experience is of itself a sufficient
|
|
proof of the real existence of its object as a thing in itself.
|
|
|
|
Transcendental idealism allows that the objects of external
|
|
intuition--as intuited in space, and all changes in time--as represented
|
|
by the internal sense, are real. For, as space is the form of that
|
|
intuition which we call external, and, without objects in space, no
|
|
empirical representation could be given us, we can and ought to regard
|
|
extended bodies in it as real. The case is the same with representations
|
|
in time. But time and space, with all phenomena therein, are not in
|
|
themselves things. They are nothing but representations and cannot exist
|
|
out of and apart from the mind. Nay, the sensuous internal intuition of
|
|
the mind (as the object of consciousness), the determination of which
|
|
is represented by the succession of different states in time, is not
|
|
the real, proper self, as it exists in itself--not the transcendental
|
|
subject--but only a phenomenon, which is presented to the sensibility of
|
|
this, to us, unknown being. This internal phenomenon cannot be admitted
|
|
to be a self-subsisting thing; for its condition is time, and time
|
|
cannot be the condition of a thing in itself. But the empirical truth
|
|
of phenomena in space and time is guaranteed beyond the possibility of
|
|
doubt, and sufficiently distinguished from the illusion of dreams
|
|
or fancy--although both have a proper and thorough connection in an
|
|
experience according to empirical laws. The objects of experience then
|
|
are not things in themselves, but are given only in experience, and have
|
|
no existence apart from and independently of experience. That there may
|
|
be inhabitants in the moon, although no one has ever observed them, must
|
|
certainly be admitted; but this assertion means only, that we may in the
|
|
possible progress of experience discover them at some future time. For
|
|
that which stands in connection with a perception according to the
|
|
laws of the progress of experience is real. They are therefore really
|
|
existent, if they stand in empirical connection with my actual or real
|
|
consciousness, although they are not in themselves real, that is, apart
|
|
from the progress of experience.
|
|
|
|
There is nothing actually given--we can be conscious of nothing as
|
|
real, except a perception and the empirical progression from it to other
|
|
possible perceptions. For phenomena, as mere representations, are real
|
|
only in perception; and perception is, in fact, nothing but the reality
|
|
of an empirical representation, that is, a phenomenon. To call a
|
|
phenomenon a real thing prior to perception means either that we must
|
|
meet with this phenomenon in the progress of experience, or it means
|
|
nothing at all. For I can say only of a thing in itself that it exists
|
|
without relation to the senses and experience. But we are speaking here
|
|
merely of phenomena in space and time, both of which are determinations
|
|
of sensibility, and not of things in themselves. It follows that
|
|
phenomena are not things in themselves, but are mere representations,
|
|
which if not given in us--in perception--are non-existent.
|
|
|
|
The faculty of sensuous intuition is properly a receptivity--a capacity
|
|
of being affected in a certain manner by representations, the relation
|
|
of which to each other is a pure intuition of space and time--the pure
|
|
forms of sensibility. These representations, in so far as they are
|
|
connected and determinable in this relation (in space and time)
|
|
according to laws of the unity of experience, are called objects. The
|
|
non-sensuous cause of these representations is completely unknown to us
|
|
and hence cannot be intuited as an object. For such an object could not
|
|
be represented either in space or in time; and without these conditions
|
|
intuition or representation is impossible. We may, at the same time,
|
|
term the non-sensuous cause of phenomena the transcendental object--but
|
|
merely as a mental correlate to sensibility, considered as a
|
|
receptivity. To this transcendental object we may attribute the whole
|
|
connection and extent of our possible perceptions, and say that it is
|
|
given and exists in itself prior to all experience. But the phenomena,
|
|
corresponding to it, are not given as things in themselves, but in
|
|
experience alone. For they are mere representations, receiving from
|
|
perceptions alone significance and relation to a real object, under
|
|
the condition that this or that perception--indicating an object--is in
|
|
complete connection with all others in accordance with the rules of the
|
|
unity of experience. Thus we can say: "The things that really existed
|
|
in past time are given in the transcendental object of experience." But
|
|
these are to me real objects, only in so far as I can represent to my
|
|
own mind, that a regressive series of possible perceptions--following
|
|
the indications of history, or the footsteps of cause and effect--in
|
|
accordance with empirical laws--that, in one word, the course of the
|
|
world conducts us to an elapsed series of time as the condition of the
|
|
present time. This series in past time is represented as real, not in
|
|
itself, but only in connection with a possible experience. Thus, when
|
|
I say that certain events occurred in past time, I merely assert the
|
|
possibility of prolonging the chain of experience, from the present
|
|
perception, upwards to the conditions that determine it according to
|
|
time.
|
|
|
|
If I represent to myself all objects existing in all space and time, I
|
|
do not thereby place these in space and time prior to all experience; on
|
|
the contrary, such a representation is nothing more than the notion of
|
|
a possible experience, in its absolute completeness. In experience alone
|
|
are those objects, which are nothing but representations, given. But,
|
|
when I say they existed prior to my experience, this means only that
|
|
I must begin with the perception present to me and follow the track
|
|
indicated until I discover them in some part or region of experience.
|
|
The cause of the empirical condition of this progression--and
|
|
consequently at what member therein I must stop, and at what point
|
|
in the regress I am to find this member--is transcendental, and hence
|
|
necessarily incognizable. But with this we have not to do; our concern
|
|
is only with the law of progression in experience, in which objects,
|
|
that is, phenomena, are given. It is a matter of indifference, whether
|
|
I say, "I may in the progress of experience discover stars, at a hundred
|
|
times greater distance than the most distant of those now visible," or,
|
|
"Stars at this distance may be met in space, although no one has,
|
|
or ever will discover them." For, if they are given as things in
|
|
themselves, without any relation to possible experience, they are for me
|
|
non-existent, consequently, are not objects, for they are not contained
|
|
in the regressive series of experience. But, if these phenomena must be
|
|
employed in the construction or support of the cosmological idea of an
|
|
absolute whole, and when we are discussing a question that oversteps the
|
|
limits of possible experience, the proper distinction of the different
|
|
theories of the reality of sensuous objects is of great importance,
|
|
in order to avoid the illusion which must necessarily arise from the
|
|
misinterpretation of our empirical conceptions.
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
SECTION VII. Critical Solution of the Cosmological Problem.
|
|
|
|
The antinomy of pure reason is based upon the following dialectical
|
|
argument: "If that which is conditioned is given, the whole series
|
|
of its conditions is also given; but sensuous objects are given as
|
|
conditioned; consequently..." This syllogism, the major of which seems
|
|
so natural and evident, introduces as many cosmological ideas as there
|
|
are different kinds of conditions in the synthesis of phenomena, in
|
|
so far as these conditions constitute a series. These ideas require
|
|
absolute totality in the series, and thus place reason in inextricable
|
|
embarrassment. Before proceeding to expose the fallacy in this
|
|
dialectical argument, it will be necessary to have a correct
|
|
understanding of certain conceptions that appear in it.
|
|
|
|
In the first place, the following proposition is evident, and
|
|
indubitably certain: "If the conditioned is given, a regress in the
|
|
series of all its conditions is thereby imperatively required." For the
|
|
very conception of a conditioned is a conception of something related
|
|
to a condition, and, if this condition is itself conditioned, to
|
|
another condition--and so on through all the members of the series.
|
|
This proposition is, therefore, analytical and has nothing to fear
|
|
from transcendental criticism. It is a logical postulate of reason:
|
|
to pursue, as far as possible, the connection of a conception with its
|
|
conditions.
|
|
|
|
If, in the second place, both the conditioned and the condition are
|
|
things in themselves, and if the former is given, not only is the
|
|
regress to the latter requisite, but the latter is really given with
|
|
the former. Now, as this is true of all the members of the series, the
|
|
entire series of conditions, and with them the unconditioned, is at the
|
|
same time given in the very fact of the conditioned, the existence of
|
|
which is possible only in and through that series, being given. In
|
|
this case, the synthesis of the conditioned with its condition, is a
|
|
synthesis of the understanding merely, which represents things as they
|
|
are, without regarding whether and how we can cognize them. But if
|
|
I have to do with phenomena, which, in their character of mere
|
|
representations, are not given, if I do not attain to a cognition of
|
|
them (in other words, to themselves, for they are nothing more than
|
|
empirical cognitions), I am not entitled to say: "If the conditioned
|
|
is given, all its conditions (as phenomena) are also given." I cannot,
|
|
therefore, from the fact of a conditioned being given, infer the
|
|
absolute totality of the series of its conditions. For phenomena are
|
|
nothing but an empirical synthesis in apprehension or perception, and
|
|
are therefore given only in it. Now, in speaking of phenomena it does
|
|
not follow that, if the conditioned is given, the synthesis which
|
|
constitutes its empirical condition is also thereby given and
|
|
presupposed; such a synthesis can be established only by an actual
|
|
regress in the series of conditions. But we are entitled to say in this
|
|
case that a regress to the conditions of a conditioned, in other
|
|
words, that a continuous empirical synthesis is enjoined; that, if the
|
|
conditions are not given, they are at least required; and that we are
|
|
certain to discover the conditions in this regress.
|
|
|
|
We can now see that the major, in the above cosmological syllogism,
|
|
takes the conditioned in the transcendental signification which it has
|
|
in the pure category, while the minor speaks of it in the empirical
|
|
signification which it has in the category as applied to phenomena.
|
|
There is, therefore, a dialectical fallacy in the syllogism--a sophisma
|
|
figurae dictionis. But this fallacy is not a consciously devised one,
|
|
but a perfectly natural illusion of the common reason of man. For,
|
|
when a thing is given as conditioned, we presuppose in the major its
|
|
conditions and their series, unperceived, as it were, and unseen;
|
|
because this is nothing more than the logical requirement of complete
|
|
and satisfactory premisses for a given conclusion. In this case, time
|
|
is altogether left out in the connection of the conditioned with
|
|
the condition; they are supposed to be given in themselves, and
|
|
contemporaneously. It is, moreover, just as natural to regard phenomena
|
|
(in the minor) as things in themselves and as objects presented to the
|
|
pure understanding, as in the major, in which complete abstraction was
|
|
made of all conditions of intuition. But it is under these conditions
|
|
alone that objects are given. Now we overlooked a remarkable distinction
|
|
between the conceptions. The synthesis of the conditioned with its
|
|
condition, and the complete series of the latter (in the major) are not
|
|
limited by time, and do not contain the conception of succession. On the
|
|
contrary, the empirical synthesis and the series of conditions in the
|
|
phenomenal world--subsumed in the minor--are necessarily successive and
|
|
given in time alone. It follows that I cannot presuppose in the minor,
|
|
as I did in the major, the absolute totality of the synthesis and of
|
|
the series therein represented; for in the major all the members of the
|
|
series are given as things in themselves--without any limitations or
|
|
conditions of time, while in the minor they are possible only in and
|
|
through a successive regress, which cannot exist, except it be actually
|
|
carried into execution in the world of phenomena.
|
|
|
|
After this proof of the viciousness of the argument commonly employed
|
|
in maintaining cosmological assertions, both parties may now be justly
|
|
dismissed, as advancing claims without grounds or title. But the process
|
|
has not been ended by convincing them that one or both were in the
|
|
wrong and had maintained an assertion which was without valid grounds
|
|
of proof. Nothing seems to be clearer than that, if one maintains: "The
|
|
world has a beginning," and another: "The world has no beginning," one
|
|
of the two must be right. But it is likewise clear that, if the evidence
|
|
on both sides is equal, it is impossible to discover on what side the
|
|
truth lies; and the controversy continues, although the parties have
|
|
been recommended to peace before the tribunal of reason. There remains,
|
|
then, no other means of settling the question than to convince the
|
|
parties, who refute each other with such conclusiveness and ability,
|
|
that they are disputing about nothing, and that a transcendental
|
|
illusion has been mocking them with visions of reality where there is
|
|
none. The mode of adjusting a dispute which cannot be decided upon its
|
|
own merits, we shall now proceed to lay before our readers.
|
|
|
|
Zeno of Elea, a subtle dialectician, was severely reprimanded by Plato
|
|
as a sophist, who, merely from the base motive of exhibiting his
|
|
skill in discussion, maintained and subverted the same proposition by
|
|
arguments as powerful and convincing on the one side as on the other. He
|
|
maintained, for example, that God (who was probably nothing more, in his
|
|
view, than the world) is neither finite nor infinite, neither in motion
|
|
nor in rest, neither similar nor dissimilar to any other thing. It
|
|
seemed to those philosophers who criticized his mode of discussion
|
|
that his purpose was to deny completely both of two self-contradictory
|
|
propositions--which is absurd. But I cannot believe that there is any
|
|
justice in this accusation. The first of these propositions I shall
|
|
presently consider in a more detailed manner. With regard to the others,
|
|
if by the word of God he understood merely the Universe, his meaning
|
|
must have been--that it cannot be permanently present in one place--that
|
|
is, at rest--nor be capable of changing its place--that is, of
|
|
moving--because all places are in the universe, and the universe itself
|
|
is, therefore, in no place. Again, if the universe contains in itself
|
|
everything that exists, it cannot be similar or dissimilar to any other
|
|
thing, because there is, in fact, no other thing with which it can be
|
|
compared. If two opposite judgements presuppose a contingent impossible,
|
|
or arbitrary condition, both--in spite of their opposition (which is,
|
|
however, not properly or really a contradiction)--fall away; because the
|
|
condition, which ensured the validity of both, has itself disappeared.
|
|
|
|
If we say: "Everybody has either a good or a bad smell," we have omitted
|
|
a third possible judgement--it has no smell at all; and thus both
|
|
conflicting statements may be false. If we say: "It is either
|
|
good-smelling or not good-smelling (vel suaveolens vel non-suaveolens),"
|
|
both judgements are contradictorily opposed; and the contradictory
|
|
opposite of the former judgement--some bodies are not
|
|
good-smelling--embraces also those bodies which have no smell at all. In
|
|
the preceding pair of opposed judgements (per disparata), the contingent
|
|
condition of the conception of body (smell) attached to both conflicting
|
|
statements, instead of having been omitted in the latter, which is
|
|
consequently not the contradictory opposite of the former.
|
|
|
|
If, accordingly, we say: "The world is either infinite in extension, or
|
|
it is not infinite (non est infinitus)"; and if the former proposition
|
|
is false, its contradictory opposite--the world is not infinite--must
|
|
be true. And thus I should deny the existence of an infinite, without,
|
|
however affirming the existence of a finite world. But if we construct
|
|
our proposition thus: "The world is either infinite or finite
|
|
(non-infinite)," both statements may be false. For, in this case, we
|
|
consider the world as per se determined in regard to quantity, and
|
|
while, in the one judgement, we deny its infinite and consequently,
|
|
perhaps, its independent existence; in the other, we append to the
|
|
world, regarded as a thing in itself, a certain determination--that
|
|
of finitude; and the latter may be false as well as the former, if the
|
|
world is not given as a thing in itself, and thus neither as finite nor
|
|
as infinite in quantity. This kind of opposition I may be allowed to
|
|
term dialectical; that of contradictories may be called analytical
|
|
opposition. Thus then, of two dialectically opposed judgements both may
|
|
be false, from the fact, that the one is not a mere contradictory of
|
|
the other, but actually enounces more than is requisite for a full and
|
|
complete contradiction.
|
|
|
|
When we regard the two propositions--"The world is infinite in
|
|
quantity," and, "The world is finite in quantity," as contradictory
|
|
opposites, we are assuming that the world--the complete series of
|
|
phenomena--is a thing in itself. For it remains as a permanent quantity,
|
|
whether I deny the infinite or the finite regress in the series of
|
|
its phenomena. But if we dismiss this assumption--this transcendental
|
|
illusion--and deny that it is a thing in itself, the contradictory
|
|
opposition is metamorphosed into a merely dialectical one; and the
|
|
world, as not existing in itself--independently of the regressive series
|
|
of my representations--exists in like manner neither as a whole which is
|
|
infinite nor as a whole which is finite in itself. The universe exists
|
|
for me only in the empirical regress of the series of phenomena and not
|
|
per se. If, then, it is always conditioned, it is never completely or as
|
|
a whole; and it is, therefore, not an unconditioned whole and does not
|
|
exist as such, either with an infinite, or with a finite quantity.
|
|
|
|
What we have here said of the first cosmological idea--that of the
|
|
absolute totality of quantity in phenomena--applies also to the
|
|
others. The series of conditions is discoverable only in the regressive
|
|
synthesis itself, and not in the phenomenon considered as a thing in
|
|
itself--given prior to all regress. Hence I am compelled to say: "The
|
|
aggregate of parts in a given phenomenon is in itself neither finite nor
|
|
infinite; and these parts are given only in the regressive synthesis
|
|
of decomposition--a synthesis which is never given in absolute
|
|
completeness, either as finite, or as infinite." The same is the case
|
|
with the series of subordinated causes, or of the conditioned up to the
|
|
unconditioned and necessary existence, which can never be regarded as in
|
|
itself, ind in its totality, either as finite or as infinite; because,
|
|
as a series of subordinate representations, it subsists only in the
|
|
dynamical regress and cannot be regarded as existing previously to this
|
|
regress, or as a self-subsistent series of things.
|
|
|
|
Thus the antinomy of pure reason in its cosmological ideas disappears.
|
|
For the above demonstration has established the fact that it is merely
|
|
the product of a dialectical and illusory opposition, which arises from
|
|
the application of the idea of absolute totality--admissible only as a
|
|
condition of things in themselves--to phenomena, which exist only in
|
|
our representations, and--when constituting a series--in a successive
|
|
regress. This antinomy of reason may, however, be really profitable to
|
|
our speculative interests, not in the way of contributing any dogmatical
|
|
addition, but as presenting to us another material support in our
|
|
critical investigations. For it furnishes us with an indirect proof
|
|
of the transcendental ideality of phenomena, if our minds were
|
|
not completely satisfied with the direct proof set forth in the
|
|
Trancendental Aesthetic. The proof would proceed in the following
|
|
dilemma. If the world is a whole existing in itself, it must be either
|
|
finite or infinite. But it is neither finite nor infinite--as has been
|
|
shown, on the one side, by the thesis, on the other, by the antithesis.
|
|
Therefore the world--the content of all phenomena--is not a whole
|
|
existing in itself. It follows that phenomena are nothing, apart
|
|
from our representations. And this is what we mean by transcendental
|
|
ideality.
|
|
|
|
This remark is of some importance. It enables us to see that the proofs
|
|
of the fourfold antinomy are not mere sophistries--are not fallacious,
|
|
but grounded on the nature of reason, and valid--under the supposition
|
|
that phenomena are things in themselves. The opposition of the
|
|
judgements which follow makes it evident that a fallacy lay in the
|
|
initial supposition, and thus helps us to discover the true constitution
|
|
of objects of sense. This transcendental dialectic does not favour
|
|
scepticism, although it presents us with a triumphant demonstration of
|
|
the advantages of the sceptical method, the great utility of which is
|
|
apparent in the antinomy, where the arguments of reason were allowed to
|
|
confront each other in undiminished force. And although the result of
|
|
these conflicts of reason is not what we expected--although we have
|
|
obtained no positive dogmatical addition to metaphysical science--we
|
|
have still reaped a great advantage in the correction of our judgements
|
|
on these subjects of thought.
|
|
|
|
|
|
SECTION VIII. Regulative Principle of Pure Reason in relation to the
|
|
Cosmological Ideas.
|
|
|
|
The cosmological principle of totality could not give us any certain
|
|
knowledge in regard to the maximum in the series of conditions in the
|
|
world of sense, considered as a thing in itself. The actual regress in
|
|
the series is the only means of approaching this maximum. This principle
|
|
of pure reason, therefore, may still be considered as valid--not as an
|
|
axiom enabling us to cogitate totality in the object as actual, but as
|
|
a problem for the understanding, which requires it to institute and
|
|
to continue, in conformity with the idea of totality in the mind, the
|
|
regress in the series of the conditions of a given conditioned. For in
|
|
the world of sense, that is, in space and time, every condition which
|
|
we discover in our investigation of phenomena is itself conditioned;
|
|
because sensuous objects are not things in themselves (in which case an
|
|
absolutely unconditioned might be reached in the progress of cognition),
|
|
but are merely empirical representations the conditions of which must
|
|
always be found in intuition. The principle of reason is therefore
|
|
properly a mere rule--prescribing a regress in the series of conditions
|
|
for given phenomena, and prohibiting any pause or rest on an absolutely
|
|
unconditioned. It is, therefore, not a principle of the possibility
|
|
of experience or of the empirical cognition of sensuous
|
|
objects--consequently not a principle of the understanding; for every
|
|
experience is confined within certain proper limits determined by the
|
|
given intuition. Still less is it a constitutive principle of reason
|
|
authorizing us to extend our conception of the sensuous world beyond all
|
|
possible experience. It is merely a principle for the enlargement and
|
|
extension of experience as far as is possible for human faculties. It
|
|
forbids us to consider any empirical limits as absolute. It is, hence, a
|
|
principle of reason, which, as a rule, dictates how we ought to proceed
|
|
in our empirical regress, but is unable to anticipate or indicate prior
|
|
to the empirical regress what is given in the object itself. I have
|
|
termed it for this reason a regulative principle of reason; while the
|
|
principle of the absolute totality of the series of conditions,
|
|
as existing in itself and given in the object, is a constitutive
|
|
cosmological principle. This distinction will at once demonstrate the
|
|
falsehood of the constitutive principle, and prevent us from attributing
|
|
(by a transcendental subreptio) objective reality to an idea, which is
|
|
valid only as a rule.
|
|
|
|
In order to understand the proper meaning of this rule of pure reason,
|
|
we must notice first that it cannot tell us what the object is, but only
|
|
how the empirical regress is to be proceeded with in order to attain to
|
|
the complete conception of the object. If it gave us any information in
|
|
respect to the former statement, it would be a constitutive principle--a
|
|
principle impossible from the nature of pure reason. It will not
|
|
therefore enable us to establish any such conclusions as: "The series
|
|
of conditions for a given conditioned is in itself finite," or, "It is
|
|
infinite." For, in this case, we should be cogitating in the mere idea
|
|
of absolute totality, an object which is not and cannot be given in
|
|
experience; inasmuch as we should be attributing a reality objective and
|
|
independent of the empirical synthesis, to a series of phenomena. This
|
|
idea of reason cannot then be regarded as valid--except as a rule for
|
|
the regressive synthesis in the series of conditions, according to
|
|
which we must proceed from the conditioned, through all intermediate and
|
|
subordinate conditions, up to the unconditioned; although this goal is
|
|
unattained and unattainable. For the absolutely unconditioned cannot be
|
|
discovered in the sphere of experience.
|
|
|
|
We now proceed to determine clearly our notion of a synthesis which
|
|
can never be complete. There are two terms commonly employed for this
|
|
purpose. These terms are regarded as expressions of different and
|
|
distinguishable notions, although the ground of the distinction has
|
|
never been clearly exposed. The term employed by the mathematicians
|
|
is progressus in infinitum. The philosophers prefer the expression
|
|
progressus in indefinitum. Without detaining the reader with an
|
|
examination of the reasons for such a distinction, or with remarks
|
|
on the right or wrong use of the terms, I shall endeavour clearly to
|
|
determine these conceptions, so far as is necessary for the purpose in
|
|
this Critique.
|
|
|
|
We may, with propriety, say of a straight line, that it may be produced
|
|
to infinity. In this case the distinction between a progressus in
|
|
infinitum and a progressus in indefinitum is a mere piece of subtlety.
|
|
For, although when we say, "Produce a straight line," it is more correct
|
|
to say in indefinitum than in infinitum; because the former means,
|
|
"Produce it as far as you please," the second, "You must not cease to
|
|
produce it"; the expression in infinitum is, when we are speaking of the
|
|
power to do it, perfectly correct, for we can always make it longer if
|
|
we please--on to infinity. And this remark holds good in all cases, when
|
|
we speak of a progressus, that is, an advancement from the condition to
|
|
the conditioned; this possible advancement always proceeds to infinity.
|
|
We may proceed from a given pair in the descending line of generation
|
|
from father to son, and cogitate a never-ending line of descendants from
|
|
it. For in such a case reason does not demand absolute totality in the
|
|
series, because it does not presuppose it as a condition and as given
|
|
(datum), but merely as conditioned, and as capable of being given
|
|
(dabile).
|
|
|
|
Very different is the case with the problem: "How far the regress, which
|
|
ascends from the given conditioned to the conditions, must extend";
|
|
whether I can say: "It is a regress in infinitum," or only "in
|
|
indefinitum"; and whether, for example, setting out from the human
|
|
beings at present alive in the world, I may ascend in the series of
|
|
their ancestors, in infinitum--mr whether all that can be said is, that
|
|
so far as I have proceeded, I have discovered no empirical ground for
|
|
considering the series limited, so that I am justified, and indeed,
|
|
compelled to search for ancestors still further back, although I am not
|
|
obliged by the idea of reason to presuppose them.
|
|
|
|
My answer to this question is: "If the series is given in empirical
|
|
intuition as a whole, the regress in the series of its internal
|
|
conditions proceeds in infinitum; but, if only one member of the series
|
|
is given, from which the regress is to proceed to absolute totality, the
|
|
regress is possible only in indefinitum." For example, the division of
|
|
a portion of matter given within certain limits--of a body, that
|
|
is--proceeds in infinitum. For, as the condition of this whole is its
|
|
part, and the condition of the part a part of the part, and so on, and
|
|
as in this regress of decomposition an unconditioned indivisible member
|
|
of the series of conditions is not to be found; there are no reasons
|
|
or grounds in experience for stopping in the division, but, on the
|
|
contrary, the more remote members of the division are actually and
|
|
empirically given prior to this division. That is to say, the division
|
|
proceeds to infinity. On the other hand, the series of ancestors of
|
|
any given human being is not given, in its absolute totality, in any
|
|
experience, and yet the regress proceeds from every genealogical member
|
|
of this series to one still higher, and does not meet with any empirical
|
|
limit presenting an absolutely unconditioned member of the series.
|
|
But as the members of such a series are not contained in the empirical
|
|
intuition of the whole, prior to the regress, this regress does not
|
|
proceed to infinity, but only in indefinitum, that is, we are called
|
|
upon to discover other and higher members, which are themselves always
|
|
conditioned.
|
|
|
|
In neither case--the regressus in infinitum, nor the regressus in
|
|
indefinitum, is the series of conditions to be considered as actually
|
|
infinite in the object itself. This might be true of things in
|
|
themselves, but it cannot be asserted of phenomena, which, as conditions
|
|
of each other, are only given in the empirical regress itself. Hence,
|
|
the question no longer is, "What is the quantity of this series of
|
|
conditions in itself--is it finite or infinite?" for it is nothing in
|
|
itself; but, "How is the empirical regress to be commenced, and how
|
|
far ought we to proceed with it?" And here a signal distinction in
|
|
the application of this rule becomes apparent. If the whole is given
|
|
empirically, it is possible to recede in the series of its internal
|
|
conditions to infinity. But if the whole is not given, and can only
|
|
be given by and through the empirical regress, I can only say: "It
|
|
is possible to infinity, to proceed to still higher conditions in
|
|
the series." In the first case, I am justified in asserting that more
|
|
members are empirically given in the object than I attain to in the
|
|
regress (of decomposition). In the second case, I am justified only in
|
|
saying, that I can always proceed further in the regress, because no
|
|
member of the series is given as absolutely conditioned, and thus
|
|
a higher member is possible, and an inquiry with regard to it is
|
|
necessary. In the one case it is necessary to find other members of the
|
|
series, in the other it is necessary to inquire for others, inasmuch as
|
|
experience presents no absolute limitation of the regress. For, either
|
|
you do not possess a perception which absolutely limits your empirical
|
|
regress, and in this case the regress cannot be regarded as complete;
|
|
or, you do possess such a limitative perception, in which case it is not
|
|
a part of your series (for that which limits must be distinct from
|
|
that which is limited by it), and it is incumbent you to continue your
|
|
regress up to this condition, and so on.
|
|
|
|
These remarks will be placed in their proper light by their application
|
|
in the following section.
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
SECTION IX. Of the Empirical Use of the Regulative Principle of
|
|
Reason with regard to the Cosmological Ideas.
|
|
|
|
We have shown that no transcendental use can be made either of the
|
|
conceptions of reason or of understanding. We have shown, likewise, that
|
|
the demand of absolute totality in the series of conditions in the world
|
|
of sense arises from a transcendental employment of reason, resting on
|
|
the opinion that phenomena are to be regarded as things in themselves.
|
|
It follows that we are not required to answer the question respecting
|
|
the absolute quantity of a series--whether it is in itself limited or
|
|
unlimited. We are only called upon to determine how far we must proceed
|
|
in the empirical regress from condition to condition, in order to
|
|
discover, in conformity with the rule of reason, a full and correct
|
|
answer to the questions proposed by reason itself.
|
|
|
|
This principle of reason is hence valid only as a rule for the extension
|
|
of a possible experience--its invalidity as a principle constitutive of
|
|
phenomena in themselves having been sufficiently demonstrated. And thus,
|
|
too, the antinomial conflict of reason with itself is completely put an
|
|
end to; inasmuch as we have not only presented a critical solution of
|
|
the fallacy lurking in the opposite statements of reason, but have shown
|
|
the true meaning of the ideas which gave rise to these statements. The
|
|
dialectical principle of reason has, therefore, been changed into a
|
|
doctrinal principle. But in fact, if this principle, in the subjective
|
|
signification which we have shown to be its only true sense, may be
|
|
guaranteed as a principle of the unceasing extension of the employment
|
|
of our understanding, its influence and value are just as great as if
|
|
it were an axiom for the a priori determination of objects. For such
|
|
an axiom could not exert a stronger influence on the extension and
|
|
rectification of our knowledge, otherwise than by procuring for the
|
|
principles of the understanding the most widely expanded employment in
|
|
the field of experience.
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
I. Solution of the Cosmological Idea of the Totality of the
|
|
Composition of Phenomena in the Universe.
|
|
|
|
Here, as well as in the case of the other cosmological problems, the
|
|
ground of the regulative principle of reason is the proposition that
|
|
in our empirical regress no experience of an absolute limit, and
|
|
consequently no experience of a condition, which is itself absolutely
|
|
unconditioned, is discoverable. And the truth of this proposition itself
|
|
rests upon the consideration that such an experience must represent
|
|
to us phenomena as limited by nothing or the mere void, on which our
|
|
continued regress by means of perception must abut--which is impossible.
|
|
|
|
Now this proposition, which declares that every condition attained in
|
|
the empirical regress must itself be considered empirically conditioned,
|
|
contains the rule in terminis, which requires me, to whatever extent
|
|
I may have proceeded in the ascending series, always to look for some
|
|
higher member in the series--whether this member is to become known to
|
|
me through experience, or not.
|
|
|
|
Nothing further is necessary, then, for the solution of the first
|
|
cosmological problem, than to decide, whether, in the regress to the
|
|
unconditioned quantity of the universe (as regards space and time),
|
|
this never limited ascent ought to be called a regressus in infinitum or
|
|
indefinitum.
|
|
|
|
The general representation which we form in our minds of the series of
|
|
all past states or conditions of the world, or of all the things which
|
|
at present exist in it, is itself nothing more than a possible empirical
|
|
regress, which is cogitated--although in an undetermined manner--in the
|
|
mind, and which gives rise to the conception of a series of conditions
|
|
for a given object.* Now I have a conception of the universe, but not
|
|
an intuition--that is, not an intuition of it as a whole. Thus I cannot
|
|
infer the magnitude of the regress from the quantity or magnitude of the
|
|
world, and determine the former by means of the latter; on the contrary,
|
|
I must first of all form a conception of the quantity or magnitude
|
|
of the world from the magnitude of the empirical regress. But of this
|
|
regress I know nothing more than that I ought to proceed from every
|
|
given member of the series of conditions to one still higher. But the
|
|
quantity of the universe is not thereby determined, and we cannot affirm
|
|
that this regress proceeds in infinitum. Such an affirmation would
|
|
anticipate the members of the series which have not yet been reached,
|
|
and represent the number of them as beyond the grasp of any empirical
|
|
synthesis; it would consequently determine the cosmical quantity
|
|
prior to the regress (although only in a negative manner)--which is
|
|
impossible. For the world is not given in its totality in any intuition:
|
|
consequently, its quantity cannot be given prior to the regress. It
|
|
follows that we are unable to make any declaration respecting the
|
|
cosmical quantity in itself--not even that the regress in it is a
|
|
regress in infinitum; we must only endeavour to attain to a conception
|
|
of the quantity of the universe, in conformity with the rule which
|
|
determines the empirical regress in it. But this rule merely requires
|
|
us never to admit an absolute limit to our series--how far soever we may
|
|
have proceeded in it, but always, on the contrary, to subordinate every
|
|
phenomenon to some other as its condition, and consequently to proceed
|
|
to this higher phenomenon. Such a regress is, therefore, the regressus
|
|
in indefinitum, which, as not determining a quantity in the object, is
|
|
clearly distinguishable from the regressus in infinitum.
|
|
|
|
|
|
[*Footnote: The cosmical series can neither be greater nor smaller than
|
|
the possible empirical regress, upon which its conception is based. And
|
|
as this regress cannot be a determinate infinite regress, still less a
|
|
determinate finite (absolutely limited), it is evident that we cannot
|
|
regard the world as either finite or infinite, because the regress,
|
|
which gives us the representation of the world, is neither finite nor
|
|
infinite.]
|
|
|
|
|
|
It follows from what we have said that we are not justified in declaring
|
|
the world to be infinite in space, or as regards past time. For this
|
|
conception of an infinite given quantity is empirical; but we cannot
|
|
apply the conception of an infinite quantity to the world as an object
|
|
of the senses. I cannot say, "The regress from a given perception to
|
|
everything limited either in space or time, proceeds in infinitum," for
|
|
this presupposes an infinite cosmical quantity; neither can I say, "It
|
|
is finite," for an absolute limit is likewise impossible in experience.
|
|
It follows that I am not entitled to make any assertion at all
|
|
respecting the whole object of experience--the world of sense; I must
|
|
limit my declarations to the rule according to which experience or
|
|
empirical knowledge is to be attained.
|
|
|
|
To the question, therefore, respecting the cosmical quantity, the first
|
|
and negative answer is: "The world has no beginning in time, and no
|
|
absolute limit in space."
|
|
|
|
For, in the contrary case, it would be limited by a void time on the
|
|
one hand, and by a void space on the other. Now, since the world, as a
|
|
phenomenon, cannot be thus limited in itself for a phenomenon is not a
|
|
thing in itself; it must be possible for us to have a perception of this
|
|
limitation by a void time and a void space. But such a perception--such
|
|
an experience is impossible; because it has no content. Consequently,
|
|
an absolute cosmical limit is empirically, and therefore absolutely,
|
|
impossible.*
|
|
|
|
|
|
[*Footnote: The reader will remark that the proof presented above is
|
|
very different from the dogmatical demonstration given in the antithesis
|
|
of the first antinomy. In that demonstration, it was taken for granted
|
|
that the world is a thing in itself--given in its totality prior to
|
|
all regress, and a determined position in space and time was denied to
|
|
it--if it was not considered as occupying all time and all space. Hence
|
|
our conclusion differed from that given above; for we inferred in the
|
|
antithesis the actual infinity of the world.]
|
|
|
|
|
|
From this follows the affirmative answer: "The regress in the series
|
|
of phenomena--as a determination of the cosmical quantity, proceeds in
|
|
indefinitum." This is equivalent to saying: "The world of sense has no
|
|
absolute quantity, but the empirical regress (through which alone the
|
|
world of sense is presented to us on the side of its conditions) rests
|
|
upon a rule, which requires it to proceed from every member of the
|
|
series, as conditioned, to one still more remote (whether through
|
|
personal experience, or by means of history, or the chain of cause and
|
|
effect), and not to cease at any point in this extension of the possible
|
|
empirical employment of the understanding." And this is the proper and
|
|
only use which reason can make of its principles.
|
|
|
|
The above rule does not prescribe an unceasing regress in one kind of
|
|
phenomena. It does not, for example, forbid us, in our ascent from an
|
|
individual human being through the line of his ancestors, to expect that
|
|
we shall discover at some point of the regress a primeval pair, or to
|
|
admit, in the series of heavenly bodies, a sun at the farthest possible
|
|
distance from some centre. All that it demands is a perpetual progress
|
|
from phenomena to phenomena, even although an actual perception is not
|
|
presented by them (as in the case of our perceptions being so weak
|
|
as that we are unable to become conscious of them), since they,
|
|
nevertheless, belong to possible experience.
|
|
|
|
Every beginning is in time, and all limits to extension are in space.
|
|
But space and time are in the world of sense. Consequently phenomena
|
|
in the world are conditionally limited, but the world itself is not
|
|
limited, either conditionally or unconditionally.
|
|
|
|
For this reason, and because neither the world nor the cosmical series
|
|
of conditions to a given conditioned can be completely given, our
|
|
conception of the cosmical quantity is given only in and through the
|
|
regress and not prior to it--in a collective intuition. But the regress
|
|
itself is really nothing more than the determining of the cosmical
|
|
quantity, and cannot therefore give us any determined conception of
|
|
it--still less a conception of a quantity which is, in relation to a
|
|
certain standard, infinite. The regress does not, therefore, proceed to
|
|
infinity (an infinity given), but only to an indefinite extent, for or
|
|
the of presenting to us a quantity--realized only in and through the
|
|
regress itself.
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
II. Solution of the Cosmological Idea of the Totality of the Division
|
|
of a Whole given in Intuition.
|
|
|
|
When I divide a whole which is given in intuition, I proceed from a
|
|
conditioned to its conditions. The division of the parts of the whole
|
|
(subdivisio or decompositio) is a regress in the series of these
|
|
conditions. The absolute totality of this series would be actually
|
|
attained and given to the mind, if the regress could arrive at simple
|
|
parts. But if all the parts in a continuous decomposition are themselves
|
|
divisible, the division, that is to say, the regress, proceeds from the
|
|
conditioned to its conditions in infinitum; because the conditions (the
|
|
parts) are themselves contained in the conditioned, and, as the latter
|
|
is given in a limited intuition, the former are all given along with it.
|
|
This regress cannot, therefore, be called a regressus in indefinitum, as
|
|
happened in the case of the preceding cosmological idea, the regress
|
|
in which proceeded from the conditioned to the conditions not given
|
|
contemporaneously and along with it, but discoverable only through the
|
|
empirical regress. We are not, however, entitled to affirm of a whole
|
|
of this kind, which is divisible in infinitum, that it consists of an
|
|
infinite number of parts. For, although all the parts are contained in
|
|
the intuition of the whole, the whole division is not contained therein.
|
|
The division is contained only in the progressing decomposition--in the
|
|
regress itself, which is the condition of the possibility and actuality
|
|
of the series. Now, as this regress is infinite, all the members
|
|
(parts) to which it attains must be contained in the given whole as an
|
|
aggregate. But the complete series of division is not contained therein.
|
|
For this series, being infinite in succession and always incomplete,
|
|
cannot represent an infinite number of members, and still less a
|
|
composition of these members into a whole.
|
|
|
|
To apply this remark to space. Every limited part of space presented to
|
|
intuition is a whole, the parts of which are always spaces--to whatever
|
|
extent subdivided. Every limited space is hence divisible to infinity.
|
|
|
|
Let us again apply the remark to an external phenomenon enclosed in
|
|
limits, that is, a body. The divisibility of a body rests upon the
|
|
divisibility of space, which is the condition of the possibility of the
|
|
body as an extended whole. A body is consequently divisible to infinity,
|
|
though it does not, for that reason, consist of an infinite number of
|
|
parts.
|
|
|
|
It certainly seems that, as a body must be cogitated as substance
|
|
in space, the law of divisibility would not be applicable to it as
|
|
substance. For we may and ought to grant, in the case of space, that
|
|
division or decomposition, to any extent, never can utterly annihilate
|
|
composition (that is to say, the smallest part of space must still
|
|
consist of spaces); otherwise space would entirely cease to
|
|
exist--which is impossible. But, the assertion on the other band that
|
|
when all composition in matter is annihilated in thought, nothing
|
|
remains, does not seem to harmonize with the conception of substance,
|
|
which must be properly the subject of all composition and must remain,
|
|
even after the conjunction of its attributes in space--which constituted
|
|
a body--is annihilated in thought. But this is not the case with
|
|
substance in the phenomenal world, which is not a thing in itself
|
|
cogitated by the pure category. Phenomenal substance is not an absolute
|
|
subject; it is merely a permanent sensuous image, and nothing more than
|
|
an intuition, in which the unconditioned is not to be found.
|
|
|
|
But, although this rule of progress to infinity is legitimate and
|
|
applicable to the subdivision of a phenomenon, as a mere occupation or
|
|
filling of space, it is not applicable to a whole consisting of a number
|
|
of distinct parts and constituting a quantum discretum--that is to say,
|
|
an organized body. It cannot be admitted that every part in an organized
|
|
whole is itself organized, and that, in analysing it to infinity, we
|
|
must always meet with organized parts; although we may allow that the
|
|
parts of the matter which we decompose in infinitum, may be organized.
|
|
For the infinity of the division of a phenomenon in space rests
|
|
altogether on the fact that the divisibility of a phenomenon is given
|
|
only in and through this infinity, that is, an undetermined number of
|
|
parts is given, while the parts themselves are given and determined only
|
|
in and through the subdivision; in a word, the infinity of the division
|
|
necessarily presupposes that the whole is not already divided in se.
|
|
Hence our division determines a number of parts in the whole--a number
|
|
which extends just as far as the actual regress in the division; while,
|
|
on the other hand, the very notion of a body organized to infinity
|
|
represents the whole as already and in itself divided. We expect,
|
|
therefore, to find in it a determinate, but at the same time, infinite,
|
|
number of parts--which is self-contradictory. For we should thus have a
|
|
whole containing a series of members which could not be completed in
|
|
any regress--which is infinite, and at the same time complete in an
|
|
organized composite. Infinite divisibility is applicable only to a
|
|
quantum continuum, and is based entirely on the infinite divisibility
|
|
of space, But in a quantum discretum the multitude of parts or units is
|
|
always determined, and hence always equal to some number. To what extent
|
|
a body may be organized, experience alone can inform us; and although,
|
|
so far as our experience of this or that body has extended, we may not
|
|
have discovered any inorganic part, such parts must exist in possible
|
|
experience. But how far the transcendental division of a phenomenon
|
|
must extend, we cannot know from experience--it is a question which
|
|
experience cannot answer; it is answered only by the principle of reason
|
|
which forbids us to consider the empirical regress, in the analysis of
|
|
extended body, as ever absolutely complete.
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
Concluding Remark on the Solution of the Transcendental Mathematical
|
|
Ideas--and Introductory to the Solution of the Dynamical Ideas.
|
|
|
|
We presented the antinomy of pure reason in a tabular form, and we
|
|
endeavoured to show the ground of this self-contradiction on the part
|
|
of reason, and the only means of bringing it to a conclusion--namely, by
|
|
declaring both contradictory statements to be false. We represented
|
|
in these antinomies the conditions of phenomena as belonging to the
|
|
conditioned according to relations of space and time--which is the
|
|
usual supposition of the common understanding. In this respect, all
|
|
dialectical representations of totality, in the series of conditions
|
|
to a given conditioned, were perfectly homogeneous. The condition was
|
|
always a member of the series along with the conditioned, and thus the
|
|
homogeneity of the whole series was assured. In this case the regress
|
|
could never be cogitated as complete; or, if this was the case, a member
|
|
really conditioned was falsely regarded as a primal member, consequently
|
|
as unconditioned. In such an antinomy, therefore, we did not consider
|
|
the object, that is, the conditioned, but the series of conditions
|
|
belonging to the object, and the magnitude of that series. And thus
|
|
arose the difficulty--a difficulty not to be settled by any decision
|
|
regarding the claims of the two parties, but simply by cutting the
|
|
knot--by declaring the series proposed by reason to be either too long
|
|
or too short for the understanding, which could in neither case make its
|
|
conceptions adequate with the ideas.
|
|
|
|
But we have overlooked, up to this point, an essential difference
|
|
existing between the conceptions of the understanding which reason
|
|
endeavours to raise to the rank of ideas--two of these indicating a
|
|
mathematical, and two a dynamical synthesis of phenomena. Hitherto, it
|
|
was necessary to signalize this distinction; for, just as in our general
|
|
representation of all transcendental ideas, we considered them under
|
|
phenomenal conditions, so, in the two mathematical ideas, our discussion
|
|
is concerned solely with an object in the world of phenomena. But as
|
|
we are now about to proceed to the consideration of the dynamical
|
|
conceptions of the understanding, and their adequateness with ideas, we
|
|
must not lose sight of this distinction. We shall find that it opens up
|
|
to us an entirely new view of the conflict in which reason is involved.
|
|
For, while in the first two antinomies, both parties were dismissed, on
|
|
the ground of having advanced statements based upon false hypothesis; in
|
|
the present case the hope appears of discovering a hypothesis which may
|
|
be consistent with the demands of reason, and, the judge completing the
|
|
statement of the grounds of claim, which both parties had left in an
|
|
unsatisfactory state, the question may be settled on its own merits,
|
|
not by dismissing the claimants, but by a comparison of the arguments on
|
|
both sides. If we consider merely their extension, and whether they are
|
|
adequate with ideas, the series of conditions may be regarded as all
|
|
homogeneous. But the conception of the understanding which lies at the
|
|
basis of these ideas, contains either a synthesis of the homogeneous
|
|
(presupposed in every quantity--in its composition as well as in its
|
|
division) or of the heterogeneous, which is the case in the dynamical
|
|
synthesis of cause and effect, as well as of the necessary and the
|
|
contingent.
|
|
|
|
Thus it happens that in the mathematical series of phenomena no other
|
|
than a sensuous condition is admissible--a condition which is itself a
|
|
member of the series; while the dynamical series of sensuous conditions
|
|
admits a heterogeneous condition, which is not a member of the series,
|
|
but, as purely intelligible, lies out of and beyond it. And thus reason
|
|
is satisfied, and an unconditioned placed at the head of the series
|
|
of phenomena, without introducing confusion into or discontinuing it,
|
|
contrary to the principles of the understanding.
|
|
|
|
Now, from the fact that the dynamical ideas admit a condition of
|
|
phenomena which does not form a part of the series of phenomena, arises
|
|
a result which we should not have expected from an antinomy. In former
|
|
cases, the result was that both contradictory dialectical statements
|
|
were declared to be false. In the present case, we find the conditioned
|
|
in the dynamical series connected with an empirically unconditioned,
|
|
but non-sensuous condition; and thus satisfaction is done to the
|
|
understanding on the one hand and to the reason on the other.* While,
|
|
moreover, the dialectical arguments for unconditioned totality in mere
|
|
phenomena fall to the ground, both propositions of reason may be shown
|
|
to be true in their proper signification. This could not happen in
|
|
the case of the cosmological ideas which demanded a mathematically
|
|
unconditioned unity; for no condition could be placed at the head of
|
|
the series of phenomena, except one which was itself a phenomenon and
|
|
consequently a member of the series.
|
|
|
|
|
|
[*Footnote: For the understanding cannot admit among phenomena a
|
|
condition which is itself empirically unconditioned. But if it is
|
|
possible to cogitate an intelligible condition--one which is not a
|
|
member of the series of phenomena--for a conditioned phenomenon, without
|
|
breaking the series of empirical conditions, such a condition may be
|
|
admissible as empirically unconditioned, and the empirical regress
|
|
continue regular, unceasing, and intact.]
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
III. Solution of the Cosmological Idea of the Totality of the
|
|
Deduction of Cosmical Events from their Causes.
|
|
|
|
There are only two modes of causality cogitable--the causality of nature
|
|
or of freedom. The first is the conjunction of a particular state with
|
|
another preceding it in the world of sense, the former following the
|
|
latter by virtue of a law. Now, as the causality of phenomena is
|
|
subject to conditions of time, and the preceding state, if it had always
|
|
existed, could not have produced an effect which would make its first
|
|
appearance at a particular time, the causality of a cause must itself be
|
|
an effect--must itself have begun to be, and therefore, according to the
|
|
principle of the understanding, itself requires a cause.
|
|
|
|
We must understand, on the contrary, by the term freedom, in the
|
|
cosmological sense, a faculty of the spontaneous origination of a state;
|
|
the causality of which, therefore, is not subordinated to another cause
|
|
determining it in time. Freedom is in this sense a pure transcendental
|
|
idea, which, in the first place, contains no empirical element; the
|
|
object of which, in the second place, cannot be given or determined in
|
|
any experience, because it is a universal law of the very possibility
|
|
of experience, that everything which happens must have a cause, that
|
|
consequently the causality of a cause, being itself something that has
|
|
happened, must also have a cause. In this view of the case, the whole
|
|
field of experience, how far soever it may extend, contains nothing that
|
|
is not subject to the laws of nature. But, as we cannot by this means
|
|
attain to an absolute totality of conditions in reference to the series
|
|
of causes and effects, reason creates the idea of a spontaneity, which
|
|
can begin to act of itself, and without any external cause determining
|
|
it to action, according to the natural law of causality.
|
|
|
|
It is especially remarkable that the practical conception of freedom
|
|
is based upon the transcendental idea, and that the question of
|
|
the possibility of the former is difficult only as it involves the
|
|
consideration of the truth of the latter. Freedom, in the practical
|
|
sense, is the independence of the will of coercion by sensuous impulses.
|
|
A will is sensuous, in so far as it is pathologically affected (by
|
|
sensuous impulses); it is termed animal (arbitrium brutum), when it is
|
|
pathologically necessitated. The human will is certainly an arbitrium
|
|
sensitivum, not brutum, but liberum; because sensuousness does not
|
|
necessitate its action, a faculty existing in man of self-determination,
|
|
independently of all sensuous coercion.
|
|
|
|
It is plain that, if all causality in the world of sense were
|
|
natural--and natural only--every event would be determined by another
|
|
according to necessary laws, and that, consequently, phenomena, in
|
|
so far as they determine the will, must necessitate every action as a
|
|
natural effect from themselves; and thus all practical freedom would
|
|
fall to the ground with the transcendental idea. For the latter
|
|
presupposes that although a certain thing has not happened, it ought to
|
|
have happened, and that, consequently, its phenomenal cause was not so
|
|
powerful and determinative as to exclude the causality of our will--a
|
|
causality capable of producing effects independently of and even in
|
|
opposition to the power of natural causes, and capable, consequently, of
|
|
spontaneously originating a series of events.
|
|
|
|
Here, too, we find it to be the case, as we generally found in the
|
|
self-contradictions and perplexities of a reason which strives to pass
|
|
the bounds of possible experience, that the problem is properly not
|
|
physiological, but transcendental. The question of the possibility
|
|
of freedom does indeed concern psychology; but, as it rests upon
|
|
dialectical arguments of pure reason, its solution must engage the
|
|
attention of transcendental philosophy. Before attempting this solution,
|
|
a task which transcendental philosophy cannot decline, it will
|
|
be advisable to make a remark with regard to its procedure in the
|
|
settlement of the question.
|
|
|
|
If phenomena were things in themselves, and time and space forms of the
|
|
existence of things, condition and conditioned would always be members
|
|
of the same series; and thus would arise in the present case the
|
|
antinomy common to all transcendental ideas--that their series is either
|
|
too great or too small for the understanding. The dynamical ideas, which
|
|
we are about to discuss in this and the following section, possess the
|
|
peculiarity of relating to an object, not considered as a quantity, but
|
|
as an existence; and thus, in the discussion of the present question,
|
|
we may make abstraction of the quantity of the series of conditions,
|
|
and consider merely the dynamical relation of the condition to the
|
|
conditioned. The question, then, suggests itself, whether freedom is
|
|
possible; and, if it is, whether it can consist with the universality
|
|
of the natural law of causality; and, consequently, whether we enounce a
|
|
proper disjunctive proposition when we say: "Every effect must have its
|
|
origin either in nature or in freedom," or whether both cannot exist
|
|
together in the same event in different relations. The principle of
|
|
an unbroken connection between all events in the phenomenal world, in
|
|
accordance with the unchangeable laws of nature, is a well-established
|
|
principle of transcendental analytic which admits of no exception. The
|
|
question, therefore, is: "Whether an effect, determined according to
|
|
the laws of nature, can at the same time be produced by a free agent, or
|
|
whether freedom and nature mutually exclude each other?" And here, the
|
|
common but fallacious hypothesis of the absolute reality of phenomena
|
|
manifests its injurious influence in embarrassing the procedure
|
|
of reason. For if phenomena are things in themselves, freedom is
|
|
impossible. In this case, nature is the complete and all-sufficient
|
|
cause of every event; and condition and conditioned, cause and effect
|
|
are contained in the same series, and necessitated by the same law. If,
|
|
on the contrary, phenomena are held to be, as they are in fact, nothing
|
|
more than mere representations, connected with each other in accordance
|
|
with empirical laws, they must have a ground which is not phenomenal.
|
|
But the causality of such an intelligible cause is not determined or
|
|
determinable by phenomena; although its effects, as phenomena, must be
|
|
determined by other phenomenal existences. This cause and its causality
|
|
exist therefore out of and apart from the series of phenomena; while
|
|
its effects do exist and are discoverable in the series of empirical
|
|
conditions. Such an effect may therefore be considered to be free in
|
|
relation to its intelligible cause, and necessary in relation to the
|
|
phenomena from which it is a necessary consequence--a distinction which,
|
|
stated in this perfectly general and abstract manner, must appear in
|
|
the highest degree subtle and obscure. The sequel will explain. It is
|
|
sufficient, at present, to remark that, as the complete and unbroken
|
|
connection of phenomena is an unalterable law of nature, freedom is
|
|
impossible--on the supposition that phenomena are absolutely real. Hence
|
|
those philosophers who adhere to the common opinion on this subject can
|
|
never succeed in reconciling the ideas of nature and freedom.
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
Possibility of Freedom in Harmony with the Universal Law of Natural
|
|
Necessity.
|
|
|
|
That element in a sensuous object which is not itself sensuous, I may be
|
|
allowed to term intelligible. If, accordingly, an object which must be
|
|
regarded as a sensuous phenomenon possesses a faculty which is not an
|
|
object of sensuous intuition, but by means of which it is capable of
|
|
being the cause of phenomena, the causality of an object or existence of
|
|
this kind may be regarded from two different points of view. It may be
|
|
considered to be intelligible, as regards its action--the action of
|
|
a thing which is a thing in itself, and sensuous, as regards its
|
|
effects--the effects of a phenomenon belonging to the sensuous world. We
|
|
should accordingly, have to form both an empirical and an intellectual
|
|
conception of the causality of such a faculty or power--both, however,
|
|
having reference to the same effect. This twofold manner of cogitating
|
|
a power residing in a sensuous object does not run counter to any of
|
|
the conceptions which we ought to form of the world of phenomena or of
|
|
a possible experience. Phenomena--not being things in themselves--must
|
|
have a transcendental object as a foundation, which determines them as
|
|
mere representations; and there seems to be no reason why we should not
|
|
ascribe to this transcendental object, in addition to the property of
|
|
self-phenomenization, a causality whose effects are to be met with in
|
|
the world of phenomena, although it is not itself a phenomenon. But
|
|
every effective cause must possess a character, that is to say, a law of
|
|
its causality, without which it would cease to be a cause. In the above
|
|
case, then, every sensuous object would possess an empirical character,
|
|
which guaranteed that its actions, as phenomena, stand in complete and
|
|
harmonious connection, conformably to unvarying natural laws, with all
|
|
other phenomena, and can be deduced from these, as conditions, and that
|
|
they do thus, in connection with these, constitute a series in the order
|
|
of nature. This sensuous object must, in the second place, possess an
|
|
intelligible character, which guarantees it to be the cause of those
|
|
actions, as phenomena, although it is not itself a phenomenon nor
|
|
subordinate to the conditions of the world of sense. The former may
|
|
be termed the character of the thing as a phenomenon, the latter the
|
|
character of the thing as a thing in itself.
|
|
|
|
Now this active subject would, in its character of intelligible subject,
|
|
be subordinate to no conditions of time, for time is only a condition
|
|
of phenomena, and not of things in themselves. No action would begin or
|
|
cease to be in this subject; it would consequently be free from the law
|
|
of all determination of time--the law of change, namely, that everything
|
|
which happens must have a cause in the phenomena of a preceding
|
|
state. In one word, the causality of the subject, in so far as it is
|
|
intelligible, would not form part of the series of empirical conditions
|
|
which determine and necessitate an event in the world of sense. Again,
|
|
this intelligible character of a thing cannot be immediately cognized,
|
|
because we can perceive nothing but phenomena, but it must be capable of
|
|
being cogitated in harmony with the empirical character; for we always
|
|
find ourselves compelled to place, in thought, a transcendental object
|
|
at the basis of phenomena although we can never know what this object is
|
|
in itself.
|
|
|
|
In virtue of its empirical character, this subject would at the same
|
|
time be subordinate to all the empirical laws of causality, and, as a
|
|
phenomenon and member of the sensuous world, its effects would have
|
|
to be accounted for by a reference to preceding phenomena. Eternal
|
|
phenomena must be capable of influencing it; and its actions, in
|
|
accordance with natural laws, must explain to us how its empirical
|
|
character, that is, the law of its causality, is to be cognized in and
|
|
by means of experience. In a word, all requisites for a complete and
|
|
necessary determination of these actions must be presented to us by
|
|
experience.
|
|
|
|
In virtue of its intelligible character, on the other hand (although we
|
|
possess only a general conception of this character), the subject
|
|
must be regarded as free from all sensuous influences, and from
|
|
all phenomenal determination. Moreover, as nothing happens in this
|
|
subject--for it is a noumenon, and there does not consequently exist in
|
|
it any change, demanding the dynamical determination of time, and for
|
|
the same reason no connection with phenomena as causes--this active
|
|
existence must in its actions be free from and independent of natural
|
|
necessity, for or necessity exists only in the world of phenomena. It
|
|
would be quite correct to say that it originates or begins its effects
|
|
in the world of sense from itself, although the action productive of
|
|
these effects does not begin in itself. We should not be in this case
|
|
affirming that these sensuous effects began to exist of themselves,
|
|
because they are always determined by prior empirical conditions--by
|
|
virtue of the empirical character, which is the phenomenon of the
|
|
intelligible character--and are possible only as constituting a
|
|
continuation of the series of natural causes. And thus nature and
|
|
freedom, each in the complete and absolute signification of these terms,
|
|
can exist, without contradiction or disagreement, in the same action.
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
Exposition of the Cosmological Idea of Freedom in Harmony with the
|
|
Universal Law of Natural Necessity.
|
|
|
|
I have thought it advisable to lay before the reader at first merely
|
|
a sketch of the solution of this transcendental problem, in order to
|
|
enable him to form with greater ease a clear conception of the course
|
|
which reason must adopt in the solution. I shall now proceed to exhibit
|
|
the several momenta of this solution, and to consider them in their
|
|
order.
|
|
|
|
The natural law that everything which happens must have a cause, that
|
|
the causality of this cause, that is, the action of the cause (which
|
|
cannot always have existed, but must be itself an event, for it precedes
|
|
in time some effect which it has originated), must have itself a
|
|
phenomenal cause, by which it is determined and, and, consequently, all
|
|
events are empirically determined in an order of nature--this law, I
|
|
say, which lies at the foundation of the possibility of experience,
|
|
and of a connected system of phenomena or nature is a law of the
|
|
understanding, from which no departure, and to which no exception, can
|
|
be admitted. For to except even a single phenomenon from its operation
|
|
is to exclude it from the sphere of possible experience and thus to
|
|
admit it to be a mere fiction of thought or phantom of the brain.
|
|
|
|
Thus we are obliged to acknowledge the existence of a chain of causes,
|
|
in which, however, absolute totality cannot be found. But we need
|
|
not detain ourselves with this question, for it has already been
|
|
sufficiently answered in our discussion of the antinomies into which
|
|
reason falls, when it attempts to reach the unconditioned in the series
|
|
of phenomena. If we permit ourselves to be deceived by the illusion of
|
|
transcendental idealism, we shall find that neither nature nor freedom
|
|
exists. Now the question is: "Whether, admitting the existence of
|
|
natural necessity in the world of phenomena, it is possible to consider
|
|
an effect as at the same time an effect of nature and an effect of
|
|
freedom--or, whether these two modes of causality are contradictory and
|
|
incompatible?"
|
|
|
|
No phenomenal cause can absolutely and of itself begin a series. Every
|
|
action, in so far as it is productive of an event, is itself an event or
|
|
occurrence, and presupposes another preceding state, in which its cause
|
|
existed. Thus everything that happens is but a continuation of a series,
|
|
and an absolute beginning is impossible in the sensuous world. The
|
|
actions of natural causes are, accordingly, themselves effects, and
|
|
presuppose causes preceding them in time. A primal action which forms an
|
|
absolute beginning, is beyond the causal power of phenomena.
|
|
|
|
Now, is it absolutely necessary that, granting that all effects are
|
|
phenomena, the causality of the cause of these effects must also be a
|
|
phenomenon and belong to the empirical world? Is it not rather possible
|
|
that, although every effect in the phenomenal world must be connected
|
|
with an empirical cause, according to the universal law of nature, this
|
|
empirical causality may be itself the effect of a non-empirical and
|
|
intelligible causality--its connection with natural causes remaining
|
|
nevertheless intact? Such a causality would be considered, in reference
|
|
to phenomena, as the primal action of a cause, which is in so far,
|
|
therefore, not phenomenal, but, by reason of this faculty or power,
|
|
intelligible; although it must, at the same time, as a link in the chain
|
|
of nature, be regarded as belonging to the sensuous world.
|
|
|
|
A belief in the reciprocal causality of phenomena is necessary, if
|
|
we are required to look for and to present the natural conditions of
|
|
natural events, that is to say, their causes. This being admitted as
|
|
unexceptionably valid, the requirements of the understanding, which
|
|
recognizes nothing but nature in the region of phenomena, are satisfied,
|
|
and our physical explanations of physical phenomena may proceed in their
|
|
regular course, without hindrance and without opposition. But it is no
|
|
stumbling-block in the way, even assuming the idea to be a pure fiction,
|
|
to admit that there are some natural causes in the possession of a
|
|
faculty which is not empirical, but intelligible, inasmuch as it is not
|
|
determined to action by empirical conditions, but purely and solely upon
|
|
grounds brought forward by the understanding--this action being still,
|
|
when the cause is phenomenized, in perfect accordance with the laws of
|
|
empirical causality. Thus the acting subject, as a causal phenomenon,
|
|
would continue to preserve a complete connection with nature and
|
|
natural conditions; and the phenomenon only of the subject (with all
|
|
its phenomenal causality) would contain certain conditions, which, if we
|
|
ascend from the empirical to the transcendental object, must necessarily
|
|
be regarded as intelligible. For, if we attend, in our inquiries with
|
|
regard to causes in the world of phenomena, to the directions of nature
|
|
alone, we need not trouble ourselves about the relation in which the
|
|
transcendental subject, which is completely unknown to us, stands to
|
|
these phenomena and their connection in nature. The intelligible ground
|
|
of phenomena in this subject does not concern empirical questions. It
|
|
has to do only with pure thought; and, although the effects of this
|
|
thought and action of the pure understanding are discoverable in
|
|
phenomena, these phenomena must nevertheless be capable of a full and
|
|
complete explanation, upon purely physical grounds and in accordance
|
|
with natural laws. And in this case we attend solely to their empirical
|
|
and omit all consideration of their intelligible character (which is the
|
|
transcendental cause of the former) as completely unknown, except in so
|
|
far as it is exhibited by the latter as its empirical symbol. Now let us
|
|
apply this to experience. Man is a phenomenon of the sensuous world and,
|
|
at the same time, therefore, a natural cause, the causality of which
|
|
must be regulated by empirical laws. As such, he must possess an
|
|
empirical character, like all other natural phenomena. We remark this
|
|
empirical character in his actions, which reveal the presence of certain
|
|
powers and faculties. If we consider inanimate or merely animal nature,
|
|
we can discover no reason for ascribing to ourselves any other than a
|
|
faculty which is determined in a purely sensuous manner. But man, to
|
|
whom nature reveals herself only through sense, cognizes himself not
|
|
only by his senses, but also through pure apperception; and this in
|
|
actions and internal determinations, which he cannot regard as sensuous
|
|
impressions. He is thus to himself, on the one hand, a phenomenon,
|
|
but on the other hand, in respect of certain faculties, a purely
|
|
intelligible object--intelligible, because its action cannot be ascribed
|
|
to sensuous receptivity. These faculties are understanding and reason.
|
|
The latter, especially, is in a peculiar manner distinct from all
|
|
empirically-conditioned faculties, for it employs ideas alone in the
|
|
consideration of its objects, and by means of these determines the
|
|
understanding, which then proceeds to make an empirical use of its
|
|
own conceptions, which, like the ideas of reason, are pure and
|
|
non-empirical.
|
|
|
|
That reason possesses the faculty of causality, or that at least we are
|
|
compelled so to represent it, is evident from the imperatives, which in
|
|
the sphere of the practical we impose on many of our executive powers.
|
|
The words I ought express a species of necessity, and imply a connection
|
|
with grounds which nature does not and cannot present to the mind of
|
|
man. Understanding knows nothing in nature but that which is, or has
|
|
been, or will be. It would be absurd to say that anything in nature
|
|
ought to be other than it is in the relations of time in which it
|
|
stands; indeed, the ought, when we consider merely the course of nature,
|
|
has neither application nor meaning. The question, "What ought to happen
|
|
in the sphere of nature?" is just as absurd as the question, "What ought
|
|
to be the properties of a circle?" All that we are entitled to ask is,
|
|
"What takes place in nature?" or, in the latter case, "What are the
|
|
properties of a circle?"
|
|
|
|
But the idea of an ought or of duty indicates a possible action, the
|
|
ground of which is a pure conception; while the ground of a merely
|
|
natural action is, on the contrary, always a phenomenon. This action
|
|
must certainly be possible under physical conditions, if it is
|
|
prescribed by the moral imperative ought; but these physical or natural
|
|
conditions do not concern the determination of the will itself, they
|
|
relate to its effects alone, and the consequences of the effect in the
|
|
world of phenomena. Whatever number of motives nature may present to
|
|
my will, whatever sensuous impulses--the moral ought it is beyond their
|
|
power to produce. They may produce a volition, which, so far from
|
|
being necessary, is always conditioned--a volition to which the ought
|
|
enunciated by reason, sets an aim and a standard, gives permission or
|
|
prohibition. Be the object what it may, purely sensuous--as pleasure,
|
|
or presented by pure reason--as good, reason will not yield to grounds
|
|
which have an empirical origin. Reason will not follow the order
|
|
of things presented by experience, but, with perfect spontaneity,
|
|
rearranges them according to ideas, with which it compels empirical
|
|
conditions to agree. It declares, in the name of these ideas, certain
|
|
actions to be necessary which nevertheless have not taken place and
|
|
which perhaps never will take place; and yet presupposes that it
|
|
possesses the faculty of causality in relation to these actions. For,
|
|
in the absence of this supposition, it could not expect its ideas to
|
|
produce certain effects in the world of experience.
|
|
|
|
Now, let us stop here and admit it to be at least possible that reason
|
|
does stand in a really causal relation to phenomena. In this case it
|
|
must--pure reason as it is--exhibit an empirical character. For every
|
|
cause supposes a rule, according to which certain phenomena follow as
|
|
effects from the cause, and every rule requires uniformity in these
|
|
effects; and this is the proper ground of the conception of a cause--as
|
|
a faculty or power. Now this conception (of a cause) may be termed the
|
|
empirical character of reason; and this character is a permanent one,
|
|
while the effects produced appear, in conformity with the various
|
|
conditions which accompany and partly limit them, in various forms.
|
|
|
|
Thus the volition of every man has an empirical character, which is
|
|
nothing more than the causality of his reason, in so far as its effects
|
|
in the phenomenal world manifest the presence of a rule, according to
|
|
which we are enabled to examine, in their several kinds and degrees, the
|
|
actions of this causality and the rational grounds for these actions,
|
|
and in this way to decide upon the subjective principles of the
|
|
volition. Now we learn what this empirical character is only from
|
|
phenomenal effects, and from the rule of these which is presented by
|
|
experience; and for this reason all the actions of man in the world
|
|
of phenomena are determined by his empirical character, and the
|
|
co-operative causes of nature. If, then, we could investigate all the
|
|
phenomena of human volition to their lowest foundation in the mind,
|
|
there would be no action which we could not anticipate with certainty,
|
|
and recognize to be absolutely necessary from its preceding conditions.
|
|
So far as relates to this empirical character, therefore, there can be
|
|
no freedom; and it is only in the light of this character that we can
|
|
consider the human will, when we confine ourselves to simple observation
|
|
and, as is the case in anthropology, institute a physiological
|
|
investigation of the motive causes of human actions.
|
|
|
|
But when we consider the same actions in relation to reason--not for the
|
|
purpose of explaining their origin, that is, in relation to speculative
|
|
reason, but to practical reason, as the producing cause of these
|
|
actions--we shall discover a rule and an order very different from those
|
|
of nature and experience. For the declaration of this mental faculty may
|
|
be that what has and could not but take place in the course of nature,
|
|
ought not to have taken place. Sometimes, too, we discover, or believe
|
|
that we discover, that the ideas of reason did actually stand in a
|
|
causal relation to certain actions of man; and that these actions have
|
|
taken place because they were determined, not by empirical causes, but
|
|
by the act of the will upon grounds of reason.
|
|
|
|
Now, granting that reason stands in a causal relation to phenomena; can
|
|
an action of reason be called free, when we know that, sensuously, in
|
|
its empirical character, it is completely determined and absolutely
|
|
necessary? But this empirical character is itself determined by the
|
|
intelligible character. The latter we cannot cognize; we can only
|
|
indicate it by means of phenomena, which enable us to have an immediate
|
|
cognition only of the empirical character.* An action, then, in so far
|
|
as it is to be ascribed to an intelligible cause, does not result from
|
|
it in accordance with empirical laws. That is to say, not the conditions
|
|
of pure reason, but only their effects in the internal sense, precede
|
|
the act. Pure reason, as a purely intelligible faculty, is not subject
|
|
to the conditions of time. The causality of reason in its intelligible
|
|
character does not begin to be; it does not make its appearance at a
|
|
certain time, for the purpose of producing an effect. If this were not
|
|
the case, the causality of reason would be subservient to the natural
|
|
law of phenomena, which determines them according to time, and as a
|
|
series of causes and effects in time; it would consequently cease to
|
|
be freedom and become a part of nature. We are therefore justified in
|
|
saying: "If reason stands in a causal relation to phenomena, it is a
|
|
faculty which originates the sensuous condition of an empirical
|
|
series of effects." For the condition, which resides in the reason, is
|
|
non-sensuous, and therefore cannot be originated, or begin to be. And
|
|
thus we find--what we could not discover in any empirical series--a
|
|
condition of a successive series of events itself empirically
|
|
unconditioned. For, in the present case, the condition stands out of and
|
|
beyond the series of phenomena--it is intelligible, and it
|
|
consequently cannot be subjected to any sensuous condition, or to any
|
|
time-determination by a preceding cause.
|
|
|
|
|
|
[*Footnote: The real morality of actions--their merit or demerit, and
|
|
even that of our own conduct, is completely unknown to us. Our estimates
|
|
can relate only to their empirical character. How much is the result
|
|
of the action of free will, how much is to be ascribed to nature and
|
|
to blameless error, or to a happy constitution of temperament (merito
|
|
fortunae), no one can discover, nor, for this reason, determine with
|
|
perfect justice.]
|
|
|
|
|
|
But, in another respect, the same cause belongs also to the series
|
|
of phenomena. Man is himself a phenomenon. His will has an empirical
|
|
character, which is the empirical cause of all his actions. There is
|
|
no condition--determining man and his volition in conformity with this
|
|
character--which does not itself form part of the series of effects
|
|
in nature, and is subject to their law--the law according to which an
|
|
empirically undetermined cause of an event in time cannot exist.
|
|
For this reason no given action can have an absolute and spontaneous
|
|
origination, all actions being phenomena, and belonging to the world of
|
|
experience. But it cannot be said of reason, that the state in which it
|
|
determines the will is always preceded by some other state determining
|
|
it. For reason is not a phenomenon, and therefore not subject to
|
|
sensuous conditions; and, consequently, even in relation to its
|
|
causality, the sequence or conditions of time do not influence reason,
|
|
nor can the dynamical law of nature, which determines the sequence of
|
|
time according to certain rules, be applied to it.
|
|
|
|
Reason is consequently the permanent condition of all actions of the
|
|
human will. Each of these is determined in the empirical character of
|
|
the man, even before it has taken place. The intelligible character, of
|
|
which the former is but the sensuous schema, knows no before or after;
|
|
and every action, irrespective of the time-relation in which it stands
|
|
with other phenomena, is the immediate effect of the intelligible
|
|
character of pure reason, which, consequently, enjoys freedom of
|
|
action, and is not dynamically determined either by internal or external
|
|
preceding conditions. This freedom must not be described, in a merely
|
|
negative manner, as independence of empirical conditions, for in this
|
|
case the faculty of reason would cease to be a cause of phenomena; but
|
|
it must be regarded, positively, as a faculty which can spontaneously
|
|
originate a series of events. At the same time, it must not be supposed
|
|
that any beginning can take place in reason; on the contrary, reason,
|
|
as the unconditioned condition of all action of the will, admits of no
|
|
time-conditions, although its effect does really begin in a series of
|
|
phenomena--a beginning which is not, however, absolutely primal.
|
|
|
|
I shall illustrate this regulative principle of reason by an example,
|
|
from its employment in the world of experience; proved it cannot be by
|
|
any amount of experience, or by any number of facts, for such arguments
|
|
cannot establish the truth of transcendental propositions. Let us take a
|
|
voluntary action--for example, a falsehood--by means of which a man
|
|
has introduced a certain degree of confusion into the social life
|
|
of humanity, which is judged according to the motives from which it
|
|
originated, and the blame of which and of the evil consequences arising
|
|
from it, is imputed to the offender. We at first proceed to examine the
|
|
empirical character of the offence, and for this purpose we endeavour
|
|
to penetrate to the sources of that character, such as a defective
|
|
education, bad company, a shameless and wicked disposition, frivolity,
|
|
and want of reflection--not forgetting also the occasioning causes which
|
|
prevailed at the moment of the transgression. In this the procedure is
|
|
exactly the same as that pursued in the investigation of the series of
|
|
causes which determine a given physical effect. Now, although we believe
|
|
the action to have been determined by all these circumstances, we do
|
|
not the less blame the offender. We do not blame him for his unhappy
|
|
disposition, nor for the circumstances which influenced him, nay, not
|
|
even for his former course of life; for we presuppose that all these
|
|
considerations may be set aside, that the series of preceding conditions
|
|
may be regarded as having never existed, and that the action may
|
|
be considered as completely unconditioned in relation to any state
|
|
preceding, just as if the agent commenced with it an entirely new series
|
|
of effects. Our blame of the offender is grounded upon a law of reason,
|
|
which requires us to regard this faculty as a cause, which could have
|
|
and ought to have otherwise determined the behaviour of the culprit,
|
|
independently of all empirical conditions. This causality of reason we
|
|
do not regard as a co-operating agency, but as complete in itself. It
|
|
matters not whether the sensuous impulses favoured or opposed the
|
|
action of this causality, the offence is estimated according to its
|
|
intelligible character--the offender is decidedly worthy of blame, the
|
|
moment he utters a falsehood. It follows that we regard reason, in
|
|
spite of the empirical conditions of the act, as completely free, and
|
|
therefore, therefore, as in the present case, culpable.
|
|
|
|
The above judgement is complete evidence that we are accustomed to think
|
|
that reason is not affected by sensuous conditions, that in it no change
|
|
takes place--although its phenomena, in other words, the mode in
|
|
which it appears in its effects, are subject to change--that in it no
|
|
preceding state determines the following, and, consequently, that
|
|
it does not form a member of the series of sensuous conditions which
|
|
necessitate phenomena according to natural laws. Reason is present and
|
|
the same in all human actions and at all times; but it does not itself
|
|
exist in time, and therefore does not enter upon any state in which it
|
|
did not formerly exist. It is, relatively to new states or conditions,
|
|
determining, but not determinable. Hence we cannot ask: "Why did not
|
|
reason determine itself in a different manner?" The question ought to
|
|
be thus stated: "Why did not reason employ its power of causality
|
|
to determine certain phenomena in a different manner?" But this is
|
|
a question which admits of no answer. For a different intelligible
|
|
character would have exhibited a different empirical character; and,
|
|
when we say that, in spite of the course which his whole former life has
|
|
taken, the offender could have refrained from uttering the falsehood,
|
|
this means merely that the act was subject to the power and
|
|
authority--permissive or prohibitive--of reason. Now, reason is not
|
|
subject in its causality to any conditions of phenomena or of time; and
|
|
a difference in time may produce a difference in the relation of
|
|
phenomena to each other--for these are not things and therefore not
|
|
causes in themselves--but it cannot produce any difference in the
|
|
relation in which the action stands to the faculty of reason.
|
|
|
|
Thus, then, in our investigation into free actions and the causal power
|
|
which produced them, we arrive at an intelligible cause, beyond which,
|
|
however, we cannot go; although we can recognize that it is free, that
|
|
is, independent of all sensuous conditions, and that, in this way, it
|
|
may be the sensuously unconditioned condition of phenomena. But for what
|
|
reason the intelligible character generates such and such phenomena
|
|
and exhibits such and such an empirical character under certain
|
|
circumstances, it is beyond the power of our reason to decide. The
|
|
question is as much above the power and the sphere of reason as the
|
|
following would be: "Why does the transcendental object of our external
|
|
sensuous intuition allow of no other form than that of intuition in
|
|
space?" But the problem, which we were called upon to solve, does not
|
|
require us to entertain any such questions. The problem was merely
|
|
this--whether freedom and natural necessity can exist without opposition
|
|
in the same action. To this question we have given a sufficient
|
|
answer; for we have shown that, as the former stands in a relation to a
|
|
different kind of condition from those of the latter, the law of the one
|
|
does not affect the law of the other and that, consequently, both can
|
|
exist together in independence of and without interference with each
|
|
other.
|
|
|
|
The reader must be careful to remark that my intention in the above
|
|
remarks has not been to prove the actual existence of freedom, as a
|
|
faculty in which resides the cause of certain sensuous phenomena. For,
|
|
not to mention that such an argument would not have a transcendental
|
|
character, nor have been limited to the discussion of pure
|
|
conceptions--all attempts at inferring from experience what cannot be
|
|
cogitated in accordance with its laws, must ever be unsuccessful. Nay,
|
|
more, I have not even aimed at demonstrating the possibility of freedom;
|
|
for this too would have been a vain endeavour, inasmuch as it is beyond
|
|
the power of the mind to cognize the possibility of a reality or of a
|
|
causal power by the aid of mere a priori conceptions. Freedom has been
|
|
considered in the foregoing remarks only as a transcendental idea, by
|
|
means of which reason aims at originating a series of conditions in
|
|
the world of phenomena with the help of that which is sensuously
|
|
unconditioned, involving itself, however, in an antinomy with the laws
|
|
which itself prescribes for the conduct of the understanding. That this
|
|
antinomy is based upon a mere illusion, and that nature and freedom are
|
|
at least not opposed--this was the only thing in our power to prove, and
|
|
the question which it was our task to solve.
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
IV. Solution of the Cosmological Idea of the Totality of the
|
|
Dependence of Phenomenal Existences.
|
|
|
|
In the preceding remarks, we considered the changes in the world of
|
|
sense as constituting a dynamical series, in which each member is
|
|
subordinated to another--as its cause. Our present purpose is to avail
|
|
ourselves of this series of states or conditions as a guide to
|
|
an existence which may be the highest condition of all changeable
|
|
phenomena, that is, to a necessary being. Our endeavour to reach,
|
|
not the unconditioned causality, but the unconditioned existence, of
|
|
substance. The series before us is therefore a series of conceptions,
|
|
and not of intuitions (in which the one intuition is the condition of
|
|
the other).
|
|
|
|
But it is evident that, as all phenomena are subject to change and
|
|
conditioned in their existence, the series of dependent existences
|
|
cannot embrace an unconditioned member, the existence of which would
|
|
be absolutely necessary. It follows that, if phenomena were things
|
|
in themselves, and--as an immediate consequence from this
|
|
supposition--condition and conditioned belonged to the same series of
|
|
phenomena, the existence of a necessary being, as the condition of the
|
|
existence of sensuous phenomena, would be perfectly impossible.
|
|
|
|
An important distinction, however, exists between the dynamical and the
|
|
mathematical regress. The latter is engaged solely with the combination
|
|
of parts into a whole, or with the division of a whole into its parts;
|
|
and therefore are the conditions of its series parts of the series,
|
|
and to be consequently regarded as homogeneous, and for this reason, as
|
|
consisting, without exception, of phenomena. If the former regress, on
|
|
the contrary, the aim of which is not to establish the possibility of
|
|
an unconditioned whole consisting of given parts, or of an unconditioned
|
|
part of a given whole, but to demonstrate the possibility of the
|
|
deduction of a certain state from its cause, or of the contingent
|
|
existence of substance from that which exists necessarily, it is not
|
|
requisite that the condition should form part of an empirical series
|
|
along with the conditioned.
|
|
|
|
In the case of the apparent antinomy with which we are at present
|
|
dealing, there exists a way of escape from the difficulty; for it is
|
|
not impossible that both of the contradictory statements may be true
|
|
in different relations. All sensuous phenomena may be contingent, and
|
|
consequently possess only an empirically conditioned existence, and yet
|
|
there may also exist a non-empirical condition of the whole series,
|
|
or, in other words, a necessary being. For this necessary being, as an
|
|
intelligible condition, would not form a member--not even the highest
|
|
member--of the series; the whole world of sense would be left in its
|
|
empirically determined existence uninterfered with and uninfluenced.
|
|
This would also form a ground of distinction between the modes of
|
|
solution employed for the third and fourth antinomies. For, while in the
|
|
consideration of freedom in the former antinomy, the thing itself--the
|
|
cause (substantia phaenomenon)--was regarded as belonging to the series
|
|
of conditions, and only its causality to the intelligible world--we are
|
|
obliged in the present case to cogitate this necessary being as purely
|
|
intelligible and as existing entirely apart from the world of sense
|
|
(as an ens extramundanum); for otherwise it would be subject to the
|
|
phenomenal law of contingency and dependence.
|
|
|
|
In relation to the present problem, therefore, the regulative principle
|
|
of reason is that everything in the sensuous world possesses an
|
|
empirically conditioned existence--that no property of the sensuous
|
|
world possesses unconditioned necessity--that we are bound to expect,
|
|
and, so far as is possible, to seek for the empirical condition of every
|
|
member in the series of conditions--and that there is no sufficient
|
|
reason to justify us in deducing any existence from a condition which
|
|
lies out of and beyond the empirical series, or in regarding any
|
|
existence as independent and self-subsistent; although this should not
|
|
prevent us from recognizing the possibility of the whole series being
|
|
based upon a being which is intelligible, and for this reason free from
|
|
all empirical conditions.
|
|
|
|
But it has been far from my intention, in these remarks, to prove the
|
|
existence of this unconditioned and necessary being, or even to evidence
|
|
the possibility of a purely intelligible condition of the existence or
|
|
all sensuous phenomena. As bounds were set to reason, to prevent it from
|
|
leaving the guiding thread of empirical conditions and losing itself in
|
|
transcendent theories which are incapable of concrete presentation; so
|
|
it was my purpose, on the other band, to set bounds to the law of the
|
|
purely empirical understanding, and to protest against any attempts
|
|
on its part at deciding on the possibility of things, or declaring the
|
|
existence of the intelligible to be impossible, merely on the ground
|
|
that it is not available for the explanation and exposition of
|
|
phenomena. It has been shown, at the same time, that the contingency
|
|
of all the phenomena of nature and their empirical conditions is quite
|
|
consistent with the arbitrary hypothesis of a necessary, although purely
|
|
intelligible condition, that no real contradiction exists between them
|
|
and that, consequently, both may be true. The existence of such an
|
|
absolutely necessary being may be impossible; but this can never be
|
|
demonstrated from the universal contingency and dependence of sensuous
|
|
phenomena, nor from the principle which forbids us to discontinue the
|
|
series at some member of it, or to seek for its cause in some sphere
|
|
of existence beyond the world of nature. Reason goes its way in the
|
|
empirical world, and follows, too, its peculiar path in the sphere of
|
|
the transcendental.
|
|
|
|
The sensuous world contains nothing but phenomena, which are mere
|
|
representations, and always sensuously conditioned; things in themselves
|
|
are not, and cannot be, objects to us. It is not to be wondered at,
|
|
therefore, that we are not justified in leaping from some member of
|
|
an empirical series beyond the world of sense, as if empirical
|
|
representations were things in themselves, existing apart from their
|
|
transcendental ground in the human mind, and the cause of whose
|
|
existence may be sought out of the empirical series. This would
|
|
certainly be the case with contingent things; but it cannot be with mere
|
|
representations of things, the contingency of which is itself merely a
|
|
phenomenon and can relate to no other regress than that which determines
|
|
phenomena, that is, the empirical. But to cogitate an intelligible
|
|
ground of phenomena, as free, moreover, from the contingency of the
|
|
latter, conflicts neither with the unlimited nature of the empirical
|
|
regress, nor with the complete contingency of phenomena. And the
|
|
demonstration of this was the only thing necessary for the solution of
|
|
this apparent antinomy. For if the condition of every conditioned--as
|
|
regards its existence--is sensuous, and for this reason a part of
|
|
the same series, it must be itself conditioned, as was shown in the
|
|
antithesis of the fourth antinomy. The embarrassments into which a
|
|
reason, which postulates the unconditioned, necessarily falls, must,
|
|
therefore, continue to exist; or the unconditioned must be placed in the
|
|
sphere of the intelligible. In this way, its necessity does not require,
|
|
nor does it even permit, the presence of an empirical condition: and it
|
|
is, consequently, unconditionally necessary.
|
|
|
|
The empirical employment of reason is not affected by the assumption
|
|
of a purely intelligible being; it continues its operations on the
|
|
principle of the contingency of all phenomena, proceeding from empirical
|
|
conditions to still higher and higher conditions, themselves empirical.
|
|
Just as little does this regulative principle exclude the assumption
|
|
of an intelligible cause, when the question regards merely the pure
|
|
employment of reason--in relation to ends or aims. For, in this case, an
|
|
intelligible cause signifies merely the transcendental and to us unknown
|
|
ground of the possibility of sensuous phenomena, and its existence,
|
|
necessary and independent of all sensuous conditions, is not
|
|
inconsistent with the contingency of phenomena, or with the unlimited
|
|
possibility of regress which exists in the series of empirical
|
|
conditions.
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
Concluding Remarks on the Antinomy of Pure Reason.
|
|
|
|
So long as the object of our rational conceptions is the
|
|
totality of conditions in the world of phenomena, and the
|
|
satisfaction, from this source, of the requirements of reason,
|
|
so long are our ideas transcendental and cosmological.
|
|
But when we set the unconditioned--which is the aim of
|
|
all our inquiries--in a sphere which lies out of the
|
|
world of sense and possible experience, our ideas become transcendent.
|
|
They are then not merely serviceable towards the completion of the
|
|
exercise of reason (which remains an idea, never executed, but always
|
|
to be pursued); they detach themselves completely from experience and
|
|
construct for themselves objects, the material of which has not been
|
|
presented by experience, and the objective reality of which is not based
|
|
upon the completion of the empirical series, but upon pure a priori
|
|
conceptions. The intelligible object of these transcendent ideas may
|
|
be conceded, as a transcendental object. But we cannot cogitate it as
|
|
a thing determinable by certain distinct predicates relating to its
|
|
internal nature, for it has no connection with empirical conceptions;
|
|
nor are we justified in affirming the existence of any such object.
|
|
It is, consequently, a mere product of the mind alone. Of all the
|
|
cosmological ideas, however, it is that occasioning the fourth antinomy
|
|
which compels us to venture upon this step. For the existence of
|
|
phenomena, always conditioned and never self-subsistent, requires us
|
|
to look for an object different from phenomena--an intelligible object,
|
|
with which all contingency must cease. But, as we have allowed ourselves
|
|
to assume the existence of a self-subsistent reality out of the field
|
|
of experience, and are therefore obliged to regard phenomena as merely a
|
|
contingent mode of representing intelligible objects employed by beings
|
|
which are themselves intelligences--no other course remains for us than
|
|
to follow analogy and employ the same mode in forming some conception
|
|
of intelligible things, of which we have not the least knowledge, which
|
|
nature taught us to use in the formation of empirical conceptions.
|
|
Experience made us acquainted with the contingent. But we are at present
|
|
engaged in the discussion of things which are not objects of experience;
|
|
and must, therefore, deduce our knowledge of them from that which is
|
|
necessary absolutely and in itself, that is, from pure conceptions.
|
|
Hence the first step which we take out of the world of sense obliges
|
|
us to begin our system of new cognition with the investigation of
|
|
a necessary being, and to deduce from our conceptions of it all our
|
|
conceptions of intelligible things. This we propose to attempt in the
|
|
following chapter.
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
CHAPTER III. The Ideal of Pure Reason.
|
|
|
|
SECTION I. Of the Ideal in General.
|
|
|
|
We have seen that pure conceptions do not present objects to the mind,
|
|
except under sensuous conditions; because the conditions of objective
|
|
reality do not exist in these conceptions, which contain, in fact,
|
|
nothing but the mere form of thought. They may, however, when applied to
|
|
phenomena, be presented in concreto; for it is phenomena that present to
|
|
them the materials for the formation of empirical conceptions, which
|
|
are nothing more than concrete forms of the conceptions of the
|
|
understanding. But ideas are still further removed from objective
|
|
reality than categories; for no phenomenon can ever present them to the
|
|
human mind in concreto. They contain a certain perfection, attainable
|
|
by no possible empirical cognition; and they give to reason a systematic
|
|
unity, to which the unity of experience attempts to approximate, but can
|
|
never completely attain.
|
|
|
|
But still further removed than the idea from objective reality is the
|
|
Ideal, by which term I understand the idea, not in concreto, but in
|
|
individuo--as an individual thing, determinable or determined by the
|
|
idea alone. The idea of humanity in its complete perfection supposes not
|
|
only the advancement of all the powers and faculties, which constitute
|
|
our conception of human nature, to a complete attainment of their
|
|
final aims, but also everything which is requisite for the complete
|
|
determination of the idea; for of all contradictory predicates, only
|
|
one can conform with the idea of the perfect man. What I have termed
|
|
an ideal was in Plato's philosophy an idea of the divine mind--an
|
|
individual object present to its pure intuition, the most perfect of
|
|
every kind of possible beings, and the archetype of all phenomenal
|
|
existences.
|
|
|
|
Without rising to these speculative heights, we are bound to confess
|
|
that human reason contains not only ideas, but ideals, which possess,
|
|
not, like those of Plato, creative, but certainly practical power--as
|
|
regulative principles, and form the basis of the perfectibility of
|
|
certain actions. Moral conceptions are not perfectly pure conceptions of
|
|
reason, because an empirical element--of pleasure or pain--lies at the
|
|
foundation of them. In relation, however, to the principle, whereby
|
|
reason sets bounds to a freedom which is in itself without law, and
|
|
consequently when we attend merely to their form, they may be considered
|
|
as pure conceptions of reason. Virtue and wisdom in their perfect purity
|
|
are ideas. But the wise man of the Stoics is an ideal, that is to say, a
|
|
human being existing only in thought and in complete conformity with the
|
|
idea of wisdom. As the idea provides a rule, so the ideal serves as an
|
|
archetype for the perfect and complete determination of the copy. Thus
|
|
the conduct of this wise and divine man serves us as a standard of
|
|
action, with which we may compare and judge ourselves, which may help
|
|
us to reform ourselves, although the perfection it demands can never be
|
|
attained by us. Although we cannot concede objective reality to these
|
|
ideals, they are not to be considered as chimeras; on the contrary,
|
|
they provide reason with a standard, which enables it to estimate, by
|
|
comparison, the degree of incompleteness in the objects presented to
|
|
it. But to aim at realizing the ideal in an example in the world of
|
|
experience--to describe, for instance, the character of the perfectly
|
|
wise man in a romance--is impracticable. Nay more, there is something
|
|
absurd in the attempt; and the result must be little edifying, as
|
|
the natural limitations, which are continually breaking in upon the
|
|
perfection and completeness of the idea, destroy the illusion in the
|
|
story and throw an air of suspicion even on what is good in the idea,
|
|
which hence appears fictitious and unreal.
|
|
|
|
Such is the constitution of the ideal of reason, which is always based
|
|
upon determinate conceptions, and serves as a rule and a model for
|
|
limitation or of criticism. Very different is the nature of the ideals
|
|
of the imagination. Of these it is impossible to present an intelligible
|
|
conception; they are a kind of monogram, drawn according to no
|
|
determinate rule, and forming rather a vague picture--the production of
|
|
many diverse experiences--than a determinate image. Such are the ideals
|
|
which painters and physiognomists profess to have in their minds, and
|
|
which can serve neither as a model for production nor as a standard for
|
|
appreciation. They may be termed, though improperly, sensuous ideals, as
|
|
they are declared to be models of certain possible empirical intuitions.
|
|
They cannot, however, furnish rules or standards for explanation or
|
|
examination.
|
|
|
|
In its ideals, reason aims at complete and perfect determination
|
|
according to a priori rules; and hence it cogitates an object, which
|
|
must be completely determinable in conformity with principles, although
|
|
all empirical conditions are absent, and the conception of the object is
|
|
on this account transcendent.
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
SECTION II. Of the Transcendental Ideal (Prototypon Trancendentale).
|
|
|
|
Every conception is, in relation to that which is not contained in
|
|
it, undetermined and subject to the principle of determinability. This
|
|
principle is that, of every two contradictorily opposed predicates, only
|
|
one can belong to a conception. It is a purely logical principle, itself
|
|
based upon the principle of contradiction; inasmuch as it makes complete
|
|
abstraction of the content and attends merely to the logical form of the
|
|
cognition.
|
|
|
|
But again, everything, as regards its possibility, is also subject to
|
|
the principle of complete determination, according to which one of all
|
|
the possible contradictory predicates of things must belong to it.
|
|
This principle is not based merely upon that of contradiction; for,
|
|
in addition to the relation between two contradictory predicates,
|
|
it regards everything as standing in a relation to the sum of
|
|
possibilities, as the sum total of all predicates of things, and, while
|
|
presupposing this sum as an a priori condition, presents to the mind
|
|
everything as receiving the possibility of its individual existence from
|
|
the relation it bears to, and the share it possesses in, the aforesaid
|
|
sum of possibilities.* The principle of complete determination relates
|
|
the content and not to the logical form. It is the principle of the
|
|
synthesis of all the predicates which are required to constitute the
|
|
complete conception of a thing, and not a mere principle analytical
|
|
representation, which enounces that one of two contradictory predicates
|
|
must belong to a conception. It contains, moreover, a transcendental
|
|
presupposition--that, namely, of the material for all possibility, which
|
|
must contain a priori the data for this or that particular possibility.
|
|
|
|
|
|
[*Footnote: Thus this principle declares everything to possess a
|
|
relation to a common correlate--the sum-total of possibility, which, if
|
|
discovered to exist in the idea of one individual thing, would establish
|
|
the affinity of all possible things, from the identity of the ground of
|
|
their complete determination. The determinability of every conception
|
|
is subordinate to the universality (Allgemeinheit, universalitas) of
|
|
the principle of excluded middle; the determination of a thing to the
|
|
totality (Allheit, universitas) of all possible predicates.]
|
|
|
|
|
|
The proposition, everything which exists is completely determined, means
|
|
not only that one of every pair of given contradictory attributes, but
|
|
that one of all possible attributes, is always predicable of the thing;
|
|
in it the predicates are not merely compared logically with each other,
|
|
but the thing itself is transcendentally compared with the sum-total of
|
|
all possible predicates. The proposition is equivalent to saying: "To
|
|
attain to a complete knowledge of a thing, it is necessary to possess a
|
|
knowledge of everything that is possible, and to determine it thereby in
|
|
a positive or negative manner." The conception of complete determination
|
|
is consequently a conception which cannot be presented in its totality
|
|
in concreto, and is therefore based upon an idea, which has its seat in
|
|
the reason--the faculty which prescribes to the understanding the laws
|
|
of its harmonious and perfect exercise.
|
|
|
|
Now, although this idea of the sum-total of all possibility, in so far
|
|
as it forms the condition of the complete determination of everything,
|
|
is itself undetermined in relation to the predicates which may
|
|
constitute this sum-total, and we cogitate in it merely the sum-total of
|
|
all possible predicates--we nevertheless find, upon closer examination,
|
|
that this idea, as a primitive conception of the mind, excludes a
|
|
large number of predicates--those deduced and those irreconcilable with
|
|
others, and that it is evolved as a conception completely determined a
|
|
priori. Thus it becomes the conception of an individual object, which
|
|
is completely determined by and through the mere idea, and must
|
|
consequently be termed an ideal of pure reason.
|
|
|
|
When we consider all possible predicates, not merely logically, but
|
|
transcendentally, that is to say, with reference to the content which
|
|
may be cogitated as existing in them a priori, we shall find that
|
|
some indicate a being, others merely a non-being. The logical negation
|
|
expressed in the word not does not properly belong to a conception, but
|
|
only to the relation of one conception to another in a judgement, and is
|
|
consequently quite insufficient to present to the mind the content of a
|
|
conception. The expression not mortal does not indicate that a non-being
|
|
is cogitated in the object; it does not concern the content at all. A
|
|
transcendental negation, on the contrary, indicates non-being in itself,
|
|
and is opposed to transcendental affirmation, the conception of which
|
|
of itself expresses a being. Hence this affirmation indicates a reality,
|
|
because in and through it objects are considered to be something--to be
|
|
things; while the opposite negation, on the other band, indicates a
|
|
mere want, or privation, or absence, and, where such negations alone
|
|
are attached to a representation, the non-existence of anything
|
|
corresponding to the representation.
|
|
|
|
Now a negation cannot be cogitated as determined, without cogitating at
|
|
the same time the opposite affirmation. The man born blind has not the
|
|
least notion of darkness, because he has none of light; the vagabond
|
|
knows nothing of poverty, because he has never known what it is to be in
|
|
comfort;* the ignorant man has no conception of his ignorance, because
|
|
he has no conception of knowledge. All conceptions of negatives are
|
|
accordingly derived or deduced conceptions; and realities contain the
|
|
data, and, so to speak, the material or transcendental content of the
|
|
possibility and complete determination of all things.
|
|
|
|
|
|
[*Footnote: The investigations and calculations of astronomers have
|
|
taught us much that is wonderful; but the most important lesson we have
|
|
received from them is the discovery of the abyss of our ignorance in
|
|
relation to the universe--an ignorance the magnitude of which reason,
|
|
without the information thus derived, could never have conceived.
|
|
This discovery of our deficiencies must produce a great change in the
|
|
determination of the aims of human reason.]
|
|
|
|
|
|
If, therefore, a transcendental substratum lies at the foundation of the
|
|
complete determination of things--a substratum which is to form the fund
|
|
from which all possible predicates of things are to be supplied, this
|
|
substratum cannot be anything else than the idea of a sum-total of
|
|
reality (omnitudo realitatis). In this view, negations are nothing but
|
|
limitations--a term which could not, with propriety, be applied to
|
|
them, if the unlimited (the all) did not form the true basis of our
|
|
conception.
|
|
|
|
This conception of a sum-total of reality is the conception of a thing
|
|
in itself, regarded as completely determined; and the conception of an
|
|
ens realissimum is the conception of an individual being, inasmuch as
|
|
it is determined by that predicate of all possible contradictory
|
|
predicates, which indicates and belongs to being. It is, therefore, a
|
|
transcendental ideal which forms the basis of the complete determination
|
|
of everything that exists, and is the highest material condition of
|
|
its possibility--a condition on which must rest the cogitation of all
|
|
objects with respect to their content. Nay, more, this ideal is the only
|
|
proper ideal of which the human mind is capable; because in this case
|
|
alone a general conception of a thing is completely determined by and
|
|
through itself, and cognized as the representation of an individuum.
|
|
|
|
The logical determination of a conception is based upon a disjunctive
|
|
syllogism, the major of which contains the logical division of the
|
|
extent of a general conception, the minor limits this extent to a
|
|
certain part, while the conclusion determines the conception by this
|
|
part. The general conception of a reality cannot be divided a priori,
|
|
because, without the aid of experience, we cannot know any determinate
|
|
kinds of reality, standing under the former as the genus. The
|
|
transcendental principle of the complete determination of all things is
|
|
therefore merely the representation of the sum-total of all reality; it
|
|
is not a conception which is the genus of all predicates under
|
|
itself, but one which comprehends them all within itself. The complete
|
|
determination of a thing is consequently based upon the limitation of
|
|
this total of reality, so much being predicated of the thing, while all
|
|
that remains over is excluded--a procedure which is in exact agreement
|
|
with that of the disjunctive syllogism and the determination of the
|
|
objects in the conclusion by one of the members of the division.
|
|
It follows that reason, in laying the transcendental ideal at the
|
|
foundation of its determination of all possible things, takes a course
|
|
in exact analogy with that which it pursues in disjunctive syllogisms--a
|
|
proposition which formed the basis of the systematic division of all
|
|
transcendental ideas, according to which they are produced in complete
|
|
parallelism with the three modes of syllogistic reasoning employed by
|
|
the human mind.
|
|
|
|
It is self-evident that reason, in cogitating the necessary complete
|
|
determination of things, does not presuppose the existence of a being
|
|
corresponding to its ideal, but merely the idea of the ideal--for
|
|
the purpose of deducing from the unconditional totality of complete
|
|
determination, The ideal is therefore the prototype of all things,
|
|
which, as defective copies (ectypa), receive from it the material of
|
|
their possibility, and approximate to it more or less, though it is
|
|
impossible that they can ever attain to its perfection.
|
|
|
|
The possibility of things must therefore be regarded as derived--except
|
|
that of the thing which contains in itself all reality, which must be
|
|
considered to be primitive and original. For all negations--and they
|
|
are the only predicates by means of which all other things can be
|
|
distinguished from the ens realissimum--are mere limitations of a
|
|
greater and a higher--nay, the highest reality; and they consequently
|
|
presuppose this reality, and are, as regards their content, derived from
|
|
it. The manifold nature of things is only an infinitely various mode of
|
|
limiting the conception of the highest reality, which is their common
|
|
substratum; just as all figures are possible only as different modes of
|
|
limiting infinite space. The object of the ideal of reason--an object
|
|
existing only in reason itself--is also termed the primal being (ens
|
|
originarium); as having no existence superior to him, the supreme being
|
|
(ens summum); and as being the condition of all other beings, which rank
|
|
under it, the being of all beings (ens entium). But none of these terms
|
|
indicate the objective relation of an actually existing object to
|
|
other things, but merely that of an idea to conceptions; and all our
|
|
investigations into this subject still leave us in perfect uncertainty
|
|
with regard to the existence of this being.
|
|
|
|
A primal being cannot be said to consist of many other beings with an
|
|
existence which is derivative, for the latter presuppose the former, and
|
|
therefore cannot be constitutive parts of it. It follows that the ideal
|
|
of the primal being must be cogitated as simple.
|
|
|
|
The deduction of the possibility of all other things from this primal
|
|
being cannot, strictly speaking, be considered as a limitation, or as a
|
|
kind of division of its reality; for this would be regarding the primal
|
|
being as a mere aggregate--which has been shown to be impossible,
|
|
although it was so represented in our first rough sketch. The highest
|
|
reality must be regarded rather as the ground than as the sum-total
|
|
of the possibility of all things, and the manifold nature of things be
|
|
based, not upon the limitation of the primal being itself, but upon the
|
|
complete series of effects which flow from it. And thus all our powers
|
|
of sense, as well as all phenomenal reality, phenomenal reality, may be
|
|
with propriety regarded as belonging to this series of effects,
|
|
while they could not have formed parts of the idea, considered as an
|
|
aggregate. Pursuing this track, and hypostatizing this idea, we shall
|
|
find ourselves authorized to determine our notion of the Supreme Being
|
|
by means of the mere conception of a highest reality, as one, simple,
|
|
all-sufficient, eternal, and so on--in one word, to determine it in its
|
|
unconditioned completeness by the aid of every possible predicate.
|
|
The conception of such a being is the conception of God in its
|
|
transcendental sense, and thus the ideal of pure reason is the
|
|
object-matter of a transcendental theology.
|
|
|
|
But, by such an employment of the transcendental idea, we should be over
|
|
stepping the limits of its validity and purpose. For reason placed
|
|
it, as the conception of all reality, at the basis of the complete
|
|
determination of things, without requiring that this conception be
|
|
regarded as the conception of an objective existence. Such an existence
|
|
would be purely fictitious, and the hypostatizing of the content of
|
|
the idea into an ideal, as an individual being, is a step perfectly
|
|
unauthorized. Nay, more, we are not even called upon to assume the
|
|
possibility of such an hypothesis, as none of the deductions drawn
|
|
from such an ideal would affect the complete determination of things in
|
|
general--for the sake of which alone is the idea necessary.
|
|
|
|
It is not sufficient to circumscribe the procedure and the dialectic
|
|
of reason; we must also endeavour to discover the sources of this
|
|
dialectic, that we may have it in our power to give a rational
|
|
explanation of this illusion, as a phenomenon of the human mind. For
|
|
the ideal, of which we are at present speaking, is based, not upon an
|
|
arbitrary, but upon a natural, idea. The question hence arises: How
|
|
happens it that reason regards the possibility of all things as deduced
|
|
from a single possibility, that, to wit, of the highest reality, and
|
|
presupposes this as existing in an individual and primal being?
|
|
|
|
The answer is ready; it is at once presented by the procedure of
|
|
transcendental analytic. The possibility of sensuous objects is a
|
|
relation of these objects to thought, in which something (the empirical
|
|
form) may be cogitated a priori; while that which constitutes the
|
|
matter--the reality of the phenomenon (that element which corresponds to
|
|
sensation)--must be given from without, as otherwise it could not even
|
|
be cogitated by, nor could its possibility be presentable to the mind.
|
|
Now, a sensuous object is completely determined, when it has been
|
|
compared with all phenomenal predicates, and represented by means of
|
|
these either positively or negatively. But, as that which constitutes
|
|
the thing itself--the real in a phenomenon, must be given, and that, in
|
|
which the real of all phenomena is given, is experience, one, sole, and
|
|
all-embracing--the material of the possibility of all sensuous objects
|
|
must be presupposed as given in a whole, and it is upon the limitation
|
|
of this whole that the possibility of all empirical objects, their
|
|
distinction from each other and their complete determination, are based.
|
|
Now, no other objects are presented to us besides sensuous objects, and
|
|
these can be given only in connection with a possible experience; it
|
|
follows that a thing is not an object to us, unless it presupposes
|
|
the whole or sum-total of empirical reality as the condition of
|
|
its possibility. Now, a natural illusion leads us to consider this
|
|
principle, which is valid only of sensuous objects, as valid with regard
|
|
to things in general. And thus we are induced to hold the empirical
|
|
principle of our conceptions of the possibility of things, as phenomena,
|
|
by leaving out this limitative condition, to be a transcendental
|
|
principle of the possibility of things in general.
|
|
|
|
We proceed afterwards to hypostatize this idea of the sum-total of all
|
|
reality, by changing the distributive unity of the empirical exercise
|
|
of the understanding into the collective unity of an empirical whole--a
|
|
dialectical illusion, and by cogitating this whole or sum of experience
|
|
as an individual thing, containing in itself all empirical reality.
|
|
This individual thing or being is then, by means of the above-mentioned
|
|
transcendental subreption, substituted for our notion of a thing which
|
|
stands at the head of the possibility of all things, the real conditions
|
|
of whose complete determination it presents.*
|
|
|
|
|
|
[*Footnote: This ideal of the ens realissimum--although merely a
|
|
mental representation--is first objectivized, that is, has an objective
|
|
existence attributed to it, then hypostatized, and finally, by the
|
|
natural progress of reason to the completion of unity, personified, as
|
|
we shall show presently. For the regulative unity of experience is not
|
|
based upon phenomena themselves, but upon the connection of the variety
|
|
of phenomena by the understanding in a consciousness, and thus the unity
|
|
of the supreme reality and the complete determinability of all things,
|
|
seem to reside in a supreme understanding, and, consequently, in a
|
|
conscious intelligence.]
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
SECTION III. Of the Arguments employed by Speculative Reason in
|
|
Proof of the Existence of a Supreme Being.
|
|
|
|
Notwithstanding the pressing necessity which reason feels, to form some
|
|
presupposition that shall serve the understanding as a proper basis
|
|
for the complete determination of its conceptions, the idealistic and
|
|
factitious nature of such a presupposition is too evident to allow
|
|
reason for a moment to persuade itself into a belief of the objective
|
|
existence of a mere creation of its own thought. But there are other
|
|
considerations which compel reason to seek out some resting place in the
|
|
regress from the conditioned to the unconditioned, which is not given
|
|
as an actual existence from the mere conception of it, although it
|
|
alone can give completeness to the series of conditions. And this is
|
|
the natural course of every human reason, even of the most uneducated,
|
|
although the path at first entered it does not always continue to
|
|
follow. It does not begin from conceptions, but from common experience,
|
|
and requires a basis in actual existence. But this basis is insecure,
|
|
unless it rests upon the immovable rock of the absolutely necessary. And
|
|
this foundation is itself unworthy of trust, if it leave under and above
|
|
it empty space, if it do not fill all, and leave no room for a why or a
|
|
wherefore, if it be not, in one word, infinite in its reality.
|
|
|
|
If we admit the existence of some one thing, whatever it may be, we must
|
|
also admit that there is something which exists necessarily. For what is
|
|
contingent exists only under the condition of some other thing, which
|
|
is its cause; and from this we must go on to conclude the existence of a
|
|
cause which is not contingent, and which consequently exists necessarily
|
|
and unconditionally. Such is the argument by which reason justifies its
|
|
advances towards a primal being.
|
|
|
|
Now reason looks round for the conception of a being that may be
|
|
admitted, without inconsistency, to be worthy of the attribute of
|
|
absolute necessity, not for the purpose of inferring a priori, from
|
|
the conception of such a being, its objective existence (for if reason
|
|
allowed itself to take this course, it would not require a basis in
|
|
given and actual existence, but merely the support of pure conceptions),
|
|
but for the purpose of discovering, among all our conceptions of
|
|
possible things, that conception which possesses no element inconsistent
|
|
with the idea of absolute necessity. For that there must be some
|
|
absolutely necessary existence, it regards as a truth already
|
|
established. Now, if it can remove every existence incapable of
|
|
supporting the attribute of absolute necessity, excepting one--this
|
|
must be the absolutely necessary being, whether its necessity is
|
|
comprehensible by us, that is, deducible from the conception of it
|
|
alone, or not.
|
|
|
|
Now that, the conception of which contains a therefore to every
|
|
wherefore, which is not defective in any respect whatever, which is
|
|
all-sufficient as a condition, seems to be the being of which we can
|
|
justly predicate absolute necessity--for this reason, that, possessing
|
|
the conditions of all that is possible, it does not and cannot itself
|
|
require any condition. And thus it satisfies, in one respect at least,
|
|
the requirements of the conception of absolute necessity. In this
|
|
view, it is superior to all other conceptions, which, as deficient and
|
|
incomplete, do not possess the characteristic of independence of all
|
|
higher conditions. It is true that we cannot infer from this that what
|
|
does not contain in itself the supreme and complete condition--the
|
|
condition of all other things--must possess only a conditioned
|
|
existence; but as little can we assert the contrary, for this supposed
|
|
being does not possess the only characteristic which can enable reason
|
|
to cognize by means of an a priori conception the unconditioned and
|
|
necessary nature of its existence.
|
|
|
|
The conception of an ens realissimum is that which best agrees with
|
|
the conception of an unconditioned and necessary being. The former
|
|
conception does not satisfy all the requirements of the latter; but
|
|
we have no choice, we are obliged to adhere to it, for we find that we
|
|
cannot do without the existence of a necessary being; and even although
|
|
we admit it, we find it out of our power to discover in the whole sphere
|
|
of possibility any being that can advance well-grounded claims to such a
|
|
distinction.
|
|
|
|
The following is, therefore, the natural course of human reason. It
|
|
begins by persuading itself of the existence of some necessary being. In
|
|
this being it recognizes the characteristics of unconditioned existence.
|
|
It then seeks the conception of that which is independent of all
|
|
conditions, and finds it in that which is itself the sufficient
|
|
condition of all other things--in other words, in that which contains
|
|
all reality. But the unlimited all is an absolute unity, and is
|
|
conceived by the mind as a being one and supreme; and thus reason
|
|
concludes that the Supreme Being, as the primal basis of all things,
|
|
possesses an existence which is absolutely necessary.
|
|
|
|
This conception must be regarded as in some degree satisfactory, if we
|
|
admit the existence of a necessary being, and consider that there exists
|
|
a necessity for a definite and final answer to these questions. In such
|
|
a case, we cannot make a better choice, or rather we have no choice at
|
|
all, but feel ourselves obliged to declare in favour of the absolute
|
|
unity of complete reality, as the highest source of the possibility
|
|
of things. But if there exists no motive for coming to a definite
|
|
conclusion, and we may leave the question unanswered till we have fully
|
|
weighed both sides--in other words, when we are merely called upon to
|
|
decide how much we happen to know about the question, and how much we
|
|
merely flatter ourselves that we know--the above conclusion does not
|
|
appear to be so great advantage, but, on the contrary, seems defective
|
|
in the grounds upon which it is supported.
|
|
|
|
For, admitting the truth of all that has been said, that, namely, the
|
|
inference from a given existence (my own, for example) to the existence
|
|
of an unconditioned and necessary being is valid and unassailable;
|
|
that, in the second place, we must consider a being which contains all
|
|
reality, and consequently all the conditions of other things, to
|
|
be absolutely unconditioned; and admitting too, that we have thus
|
|
discovered the conception of a thing to which may be attributed, without
|
|
inconsistency, absolute necessity--it does not follow from all this that
|
|
the conception of a limited being, in which the supreme reality does not
|
|
reside, is therefore incompatible with the idea of absolute necessity.
|
|
For, although I do not discover the element of the unconditioned in the
|
|
conception of such a being--an element which is manifestly existent in
|
|
the sum-total of all conditions--I am not entitled to conclude that its
|
|
existence is therefore conditioned; just as I am not entitled to affirm,
|
|
in a hypothetical syllogism, that where a certain condition does not
|
|
exist (in the present, completeness, as far as pure conceptions are
|
|
concerned), the conditioned does not exist either. On the contrary,
|
|
we are free to consider all limited beings as likewise unconditionally
|
|
necessary, although we are unable to infer this from the general
|
|
conception which we have of them. Thus conducted, this argument is
|
|
incapable of giving us the least notion of the properties of a necessary
|
|
being, and must be in every respect without result.
|
|
|
|
This argument continues, however, to possess a weight and an authority,
|
|
which, in spite of its objective insufficiency, it has never been
|
|
divested of. For, granting that certain responsibilities lie upon us,
|
|
which, as based on the ideas of reason, deserve to be respected and
|
|
submitted to, although they are incapable of a real or practical
|
|
application to our nature, or, in other words, would be responsibilities
|
|
without motives, except upon the supposition of a Supreme Being to give
|
|
effect and influence to the practical laws: in such a case we should be
|
|
bound to obey our conceptions, which, although objectively insufficient,
|
|
do, according to the standard of reason, preponderate over and are
|
|
superior to any claims that may be advanced from any other quarter.
|
|
The equilibrium of doubt would in this case be destroyed by a practical
|
|
addition; indeed, Reason would be compelled to condemn herself, if she
|
|
refused to comply with the demands of the judgement, no superior to
|
|
which we know--however defective her understanding of the grounds of
|
|
these demands might be.
|
|
|
|
This argument, although in fact transcendental, inasmuch as it rests
|
|
upon the intrinsic insufficiency of the contingent, is so simple and
|
|
natural, that the commonest understanding can appreciate its value.
|
|
We see things around us change, arise, and pass away; they, or their
|
|
condition, must therefore have a cause. The same demand must again be
|
|
made of the cause itself--as a datum of experience. Now it is natural
|
|
that we should place the highest causality just where we place supreme
|
|
causality, in that being, which contains the conditions of all possible
|
|
effects, and the conception of which is so simple as that of an
|
|
all-embracing reality. This highest cause, then, we regard as absolutely
|
|
necessary, because we find it absolutely necessary to rise to it, and
|
|
do not discover any reason for proceeding beyond it. Thus, among all
|
|
nations, through the darkest polytheism glimmer some faint sparks of
|
|
monotheism, to which these idolaters have been led, not from reflection
|
|
and profound thought, but by the study and natural progress of the
|
|
common understanding.
|
|
|
|
There are only three modes of proving the existence of a Deity, on the
|
|
grounds of speculative reason.
|
|
|
|
All the paths conducting to this end begin either from determinate
|
|
experience and the peculiar constitution of the world of sense, and
|
|
rise, according to the laws of causality, from it to the highest
|
|
cause existing apart from the world--or from a purely indeterminate
|
|
experience, that is, some empirical existence--or abstraction is made of
|
|
all experience, and the existence of a supreme cause is concluded from a
|
|
priori conceptions alone. The first is the physico-theological argument,
|
|
the second the cosmological, the third the ontological. More there are
|
|
not, and more there cannot be.
|
|
|
|
I shall show it is as unsuccessful on the one path--the empirical--as on
|
|
the other--the transcendental, and that it stretches its wings in vain,
|
|
to soar beyond the world of sense by the mere might of speculative
|
|
thought. As regards the order in which we must discuss those arguments,
|
|
it will be exactly the reverse of that in which reason, in the progress
|
|
of its development, attains to them--the order in which they are
|
|
placed above. For it will be made manifest to the reader that, although
|
|
experience presents the occasion and the starting-point, it is the
|
|
transcendental idea of reason which guides it in its pilgrimage and
|
|
is the goal of all its struggles. I shall therefore begin with an
|
|
examination of the transcendental argument, and afterwards inquire what
|
|
additional strength has accrued to this mode of proof from the addition
|
|
of the empirical element.
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
SECTION IV. Of the Impossibility of an Ontological Proof of the
|
|
Existence of God.
|
|
|
|
It is evident from what has been said that the conception of an
|
|
absolutely necessary being is a mere idea, the objective reality of
|
|
which is far from being established by the mere fact that it is a
|
|
need of reason. On the contrary, this idea serves merely to indicate a
|
|
certain unattainable perfection, and rather limits the operations
|
|
than, by the presentation of new objects, extends the sphere of the
|
|
understanding. But a strange anomaly meets us at the very threshold;
|
|
for the inference from a given existence in general to an absolutely
|
|
necessary existence seems to be correct and unavoidable, while the
|
|
conditions of the understanding refuse to aid us in forming any
|
|
conception of such a being.
|
|
|
|
Philosophers have always talked of an absolutely necessary being,
|
|
and have nevertheless declined to take the trouble of conceiving
|
|
whether--and how--a being of this nature is even cogitable, not to
|
|
mention that its existence is actually demonstrable. A verbal definition
|
|
of the conception is certainly easy enough: it is something the
|
|
non-existence of which is impossible. But does this definition throw
|
|
any light upon the conditions which render it impossible to cogitate the
|
|
non-existence of a thing--conditions which we wish to ascertain, that we
|
|
may discover whether we think anything in the conception of such a
|
|
being or not? For the mere fact that I throw away, by means of the word
|
|
unconditioned, all the conditions which the understanding habitually
|
|
requires in order to regard anything as necessary, is very far from
|
|
making clear whether by means of the conception of the unconditionally
|
|
necessary I think of something, or really of nothing at all.
|
|
|
|
Nay, more, this chance-conception, now become so current, many have
|
|
endeavoured to explain by examples which seemed to render any inquiries
|
|
regarding its intelligibility quite needless. Every geometrical
|
|
proposition--a triangle has three angles--it was said, is absolutely
|
|
necessary; and thus people talked of an object which lay out of the
|
|
sphere of our understanding as if it were perfectly plain what the
|
|
conception of such a being meant.
|
|
|
|
All the examples adduced have been drawn, without exception, from
|
|
judgements, and not from things. But the unconditioned necessity of
|
|
a judgement does not form the absolute necessity of a thing. On the
|
|
contrary, the absolute necessity of a judgement is only a conditioned
|
|
necessity of a thing, or of the predicate in a judgement. The
|
|
proposition above-mentioned does not enounce that three angles
|
|
necessarily exist, but, upon condition that a triangle exists, three
|
|
angles must necessarily exist--in it. And thus this logical necessity
|
|
has been the source of the greatest delusions. Having formed an a
|
|
priori conception of a thing, the content of which was made to embrace
|
|
existence, we believed ourselves safe in concluding that, because
|
|
existence belongs necessarily to the object of the conception (that is,
|
|
under the condition of my positing this thing as given), the existence
|
|
of the thing is also posited necessarily, and that it is therefore
|
|
absolutely necessary--merely because its existence has been cogitated in
|
|
the conception.
|
|
|
|
If, in an identical judgement, I annihilate the predicate in thought,
|
|
and retain the subject, a contradiction is the result; and hence I say,
|
|
the former belongs necessarily to the latter. But if I suppress both
|
|
subject and predicate in thought, no contradiction arises; for there is
|
|
nothing at all, and therefore no means of forming a contradiction. To
|
|
suppose the existence of a triangle and not that of its three angles,
|
|
is self-contradictory; but to suppose the non-existence of both triangle
|
|
and angles is perfectly admissible. And so is it with the conception of
|
|
an absolutely necessary being. Annihilate its existence in thought, and
|
|
you annihilate the thing itself with all its predicates; how then can
|
|
there be any room for contradiction? Externally, there is nothing
|
|
to give rise to a contradiction, for a thing cannot be necessary
|
|
externally; nor internally, for, by the annihilation or suppression of
|
|
the thing itself, its internal properties are also annihilated. God is
|
|
omnipotent--that is a necessary judgement. His omnipotence cannot be
|
|
denied, if the existence of a Deity is posited--the existence, that is,
|
|
of an infinite being, the two conceptions being identical. But when you
|
|
say, God does not exist, neither omnipotence nor any other predicate
|
|
is affirmed; they must all disappear with the subject, and in this
|
|
judgement there cannot exist the least self-contradiction.
|
|
|
|
You have thus seen that when the predicate of a judgement is annihilated
|
|
in thought along with the subject, no internal contradiction can arise,
|
|
be the predicate what it may. There is no possibility of evading the
|
|
conclusion--you find yourselves compelled to declare: There are certain
|
|
subjects which cannot be annihilated in thought. But this is
|
|
nothing more than saying: There exist subjects which are absolutely
|
|
necessary--the very hypothesis which you are called upon to establish.
|
|
For I find myself unable to form the slightest conception of a thing
|
|
which when annihilated in thought with all its predicates, leaves
|
|
behind a contradiction; and contradiction is the only criterion of
|
|
impossibility in the sphere of pure a priori conceptions.
|
|
|
|
Against these general considerations, the justice of which no one can
|
|
dispute, one argument is adduced, which is regarded as furnishing a
|
|
satisfactory demonstration from the fact. It is affirmed that there is
|
|
one and only one conception, in which the non-being or annihilation of
|
|
the object is self-contradictory, and this is the conception of an ens
|
|
realissimum. It possesses, you say, all reality, and you feel yourselves
|
|
justified in admitting the possibility of such a being. (This I am
|
|
willing to grant for the present, although the existence of a conception
|
|
which is not self-contradictory is far from being sufficient to prove
|
|
the possibility of an object.)* Now the notion of all reality embraces
|
|
in it that of existence; the notion of existence lies, therefore, in
|
|
the conception of this possible thing. If this thing is annihilated
|
|
in thought, the internal possibility of the thing is also annihilated,
|
|
which is self-contradictory.
|
|
|
|
|
|
[*Footnote: A conception is always possible, if it is not
|
|
self-contradictory. This is the logical criterion of possibility,
|
|
distinguishing the object of such a conception from the nihil negativum.
|
|
But it may be, notwithstanding, an empty conception, unless the
|
|
objective reality of this synthesis, but which it is generated, is
|
|
demonstrated; and a proof of this kind must be based upon principles
|
|
of possible experience, and not upon the principle of analysis or
|
|
contradiction. This remark may be serviceable as a warning against
|
|
concluding, from the possibility of a conception--which is logical--the
|
|
possibility of a thing--which is real.]
|
|
|
|
|
|
I answer: It is absurd to introduce--under whatever term disguised--into
|
|
the conception of a thing, which is to be cogitated solely in reference
|
|
to its possibility, the conception of its existence. If this is
|
|
admitted, you will have apparently gained the day, but in reality have
|
|
enounced nothing but a mere tautology. I ask, is the proposition,
|
|
this or that thing (which I am admitting to be possible) exists, an
|
|
analytical or a synthetical proposition? If the former, there is no
|
|
addition made to the subject of your thought by the affirmation of its
|
|
existence; but then the conception in your minds is identical with
|
|
the thing itself, or you have supposed the existence of a thing to
|
|
be possible, and then inferred its existence from its internal
|
|
possibility--which is but a miserable tautology. The word reality in the
|
|
conception of the thing, and the word existence in the conception of the
|
|
predicate, will not help you out of the difficulty. For, supposing you
|
|
were to term all positing of a thing reality, you have thereby posited
|
|
the thing with all its predicates in the conception of the subject
|
|
and assumed its actual existence, and this you merely repeat in the
|
|
predicate. But if you confess, as every reasonable person must, that
|
|
every existential proposition is synthetical, how can it be
|
|
maintained that the predicate of existence cannot be denied without
|
|
contradiction?--a property which is the characteristic of analytical
|
|
propositions, alone.
|
|
|
|
I should have a reasonable hope of putting an end for ever to this
|
|
sophistical mode of argumentation, by a strict definition of the
|
|
conception of existence, did not my own experience teach me that the
|
|
illusion arising from our confounding a logical with a real predicate (a
|
|
predicate which aids in the determination of a thing) resists almost all
|
|
the endeavours of explanation and illustration. A logical predicate may
|
|
be what you please, even the subject may be predicated of itself;
|
|
for logic pays no regard to the content of a judgement. But the
|
|
determination of a conception is a predicate, which adds to and enlarges
|
|
the conception. It must not, therefore, be contained in the conception.
|
|
|
|
Being is evidently not a real predicate, that is, a conception of
|
|
something which is added to the conception of some other thing. It is
|
|
merely the positing of a thing, or of certain determinations in it.
|
|
Logically, it is merely the copula of a judgement. The proposition, God
|
|
is omnipotent, contains two conceptions, which have a certain object or
|
|
content; the word is, is no additional predicate--it merely indicates
|
|
the relation of the predicate to the subject. Now, if I take the subject
|
|
(God) with all its predicates (omnipotence being one), and say: God is,
|
|
or, There is a God, I add no new predicate to the conception of God,
|
|
I merely posit or affirm the existence of the subject with all its
|
|
predicates--I posit the object in relation to my conception. The content
|
|
of both is the same; and there is no addition made to the conception,
|
|
which expresses merely the possibility of the object, by my cogitating
|
|
the object--in the expression, it is--as absolutely given or existing.
|
|
Thus the real contains no more than the possible. A hundred real dollars
|
|
contain no more than a hundred possible dollars. For, as the latter
|
|
indicate the conception, and the former the object, on the supposition
|
|
that the content of the former was greater than that of the latter, my
|
|
conception would not be an expression of the whole object, and would
|
|
consequently be an inadequate conception of it. But in reckoning my
|
|
wealth there may be said to be more in a hundred real dollars than in a
|
|
hundred possible dollars--that is, in the mere conception of them.
|
|
For the real object--the dollars--is not analytically contained in my
|
|
conception, but forms a synthetical addition to my conception (which
|
|
is merely a determination of my mental state), although this objective
|
|
reality--this existence--apart from my conceptions, does not in the
|
|
least degree increase the aforesaid hundred dollars.
|
|
|
|
By whatever and by whatever number of predicates--even to the complete
|
|
determination of it--I may cogitate a thing, I do not in the least
|
|
augment the object of my conception by the addition of the statement:
|
|
This thing exists. Otherwise, not exactly the same, but something more
|
|
than what was cogitated in my conception, would exist, and I could not
|
|
affirm that the exact object of my conception had real existence. If I
|
|
cogitate a thing as containing all modes of reality except one, the mode
|
|
of reality which is absent is not added to the conception of the thing
|
|
by the affirmation that the thing exists; on the contrary, the thing
|
|
exists--if it exist at all--with the same defect as that cogitated in
|
|
its conception; otherwise not that which was cogitated, but something
|
|
different, exists. Now, if I cogitate a being as the highest reality,
|
|
without defect or imperfection, the question still remains--whether this
|
|
being exists or not? For, although no element is wanting in the possible
|
|
real content of my conception, there is a defect in its relation to my
|
|
mental state, that is, I am ignorant whether the cognition of the object
|
|
indicated by the conception is possible a posteriori. And here the cause
|
|
of the present difficulty becomes apparent. If the question regarded an
|
|
object of sense merely, it would be impossible for me to confound the
|
|
conception with the existence of a thing. For the conception merely
|
|
enables me to cogitate an object as according with the general
|
|
conditions of experience; while the existence of the object permits me
|
|
to cogitate it as contained in the sphere of actual experience. At the
|
|
same time, this connection with the world of experience does not in the
|
|
least augment the conception, although a possible perception has been
|
|
added to the experience of the mind. But if we cogitate existence by the
|
|
pure category alone, it is not to be wondered at, that we should find
|
|
ourselves unable to present any criterion sufficient to distinguish it
|
|
from mere possibility.
|
|
|
|
Whatever be the content of our conception of an object, it is necessary
|
|
to go beyond it, if we wish to predicate existence of the object. In the
|
|
case of sensuous objects, this is attained by their connection according
|
|
to empirical laws with some one of my perceptions; but there is no means
|
|
of cognizing the existence of objects of pure thought, because it must
|
|
be cognized completely a priori. But all our knowledge of existence (be
|
|
it immediately by perception, or by inferences connecting some object
|
|
with a perception) belongs entirely to the sphere of experience--which
|
|
is in perfect unity with itself; and although an existence out of
|
|
this sphere cannot be absolutely declared to be impossible, it is a
|
|
hypothesis the truth of which we have no means of ascertaining.
|
|
|
|
The notion of a Supreme Being is in many respects a highly useful idea;
|
|
but for the very reason that it is an idea, it is incapable of enlarging
|
|
our cognition with regard to the existence of things. It is not even
|
|
sufficient to instruct us as to the possibility of a being which we
|
|
do not know to exist. The analytical criterion of possibility, which
|
|
consists in the absence of contradiction in propositions, cannot
|
|
be denied it. But the connection of real properties in a thing is a
|
|
synthesis of the possibility of which an a priori judgement cannot be
|
|
formed, because these realities are not presented to us specifically;
|
|
and even if this were to happen, a judgement would still be impossible,
|
|
because the criterion of the possibility of synthetical cognitions must
|
|
be sought for in the world of experience, to which the object of an idea
|
|
cannot belong. And thus the celebrated Leibnitz has utterly failed in
|
|
his attempt to establish upon a priori grounds the possibility of this
|
|
sublime ideal being.
|
|
|
|
The celebrated ontological or Cartesian argument for the existence of
|
|
a Supreme Being is therefore insufficient; and we may as well hope
|
|
to increase our stock of knowledge by the aid of mere ideas, as the
|
|
merchant to augment his wealth by the addition of noughts to his cash
|
|
account.
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
SECTION V. Of the Impossibility of a Cosmological Proof of the
|
|
Existence of God.
|
|
|
|
It was by no means a natural course of proceeding, but, on the contrary,
|
|
an invention entirely due to the subtlety of the schools, to attempt
|
|
to draw from a mere idea a proof of the existence of an object
|
|
corresponding to it. Such a course would never have been pursued,
|
|
were it not for that need of reason which requires it to suppose the
|
|
existence of a necessary being as a basis for the empirical regress, and
|
|
that, as this necessity must be unconditioned and a priori, reason is
|
|
bound to discover a conception which shall satisfy, if possible, this
|
|
requirement, and enable us to attain to the a priori cognition of such
|
|
a being. This conception was thought to be found in the idea of an ens
|
|
realissimum, and thus this idea was employed for the attainment of a
|
|
better defined knowledge of a necessary being, of the existence of
|
|
which we were convinced, or persuaded, on other grounds. Thus reason was
|
|
seduced from her natural courage; and, instead of concluding with the
|
|
conception of an ens realissimum, an attempt was made to begin with it,
|
|
for the purpose of inferring from it that idea of a necessary existence
|
|
which it was in fact called in to complete. Thus arose that unfortunate
|
|
ontological argument, which neither satisfies the healthy common sense
|
|
of humanity, nor sustains the scientific examination of the philosopher.
|
|
|
|
The cosmological proof, which we are about to examine, retains the
|
|
connection between absolute necessity and the highest reality; but,
|
|
instead of reasoning from this highest reality to a necessary existence,
|
|
like the preceding argument, it concludes from the given unconditioned
|
|
necessity of some being its unlimited reality. The track it pursues,
|
|
whether rational or sophistical, is at least natural, and not only goes
|
|
far to persuade the common understanding, but shows itself deserving of
|
|
respect from the speculative intellect; while it contains, at the
|
|
same time, the outlines of all the arguments employed in natural
|
|
theology--arguments which always have been, and still will be, in
|
|
use and authority. These, however adorned, and hid under whatever
|
|
embellishments of rhetoric and sentiment, are at bottom identical
|
|
with the arguments we are at present to discuss. This proof, termed by
|
|
Leibnitz the argumentum a contingentia mundi, I shall now lay before the
|
|
reader, and subject to a strict examination.
|
|
|
|
It is framed in the following manner: If something exists, an
|
|
absolutely necessary being must likewise exist. Now I, at least, exist.
|
|
Consequently, there exists an absolutely necessary being. The minor
|
|
contains an experience, the major reasons from a general experience to
|
|
the existence of a necessary being.* Thus this argument really begins at
|
|
experience, and is not completely a priori, or ontological. The
|
|
object of all possible experience being the world, it is called the
|
|
cosmological proof. It contains no reference to any peculiar property
|
|
of sensuous objects, by which this world of sense might be distinguished
|
|
from other possible worlds; and in this respect it differs from the
|
|
physico-theological proof, which is based upon the consideration of the
|
|
peculiar constitution of our sensuous world.
|
|
|
|
|
|
[*Footnote: This inference is too well known to require more detailed
|
|
discussion. It is based upon the spurious transcendental law of
|
|
causality, that everything which is contingent has a cause, which, if
|
|
itself contingent, must also have a cause; and so on, till the series of
|
|
subordinated causes must end with an absolutely necessary cause, without
|
|
which it would not possess completeness.]
|
|
|
|
|
|
The proof proceeds thus: A necessary being can be determined only in one
|
|
way, that is, it can be determined by only one of all possible opposed
|
|
predicates; consequently, it must be completely determined in and by its
|
|
conception. But there is only a single conception of a thing possible,
|
|
which completely determines the thing a priori: that is, the conception
|
|
of the ens realissimum. It follows that the conception of the ens
|
|
realissimum is the only conception by and in which we can cogitate a
|
|
necessary being. Consequently, a Supreme Being necessarily exists.
|
|
|
|
In this cosmological argument are assembled so many sophistical
|
|
propositions that speculative reason seems to have exerted in it all
|
|
her dialectical skill to produce a transcendental illusion of the most
|
|
extreme character. We shall postpone an investigation of this argument
|
|
for the present, and confine ourselves to exposing the stratagem by
|
|
which it imposes upon us an old argument in a new dress, and appeals
|
|
to the agreement of two witnesses, the one with the credentials of pure
|
|
reason, and the other with those of empiricism; while, in fact, it is
|
|
only the former who has changed his dress and voice, for the purpose
|
|
of passing himself off for an additional witness. That it may possess
|
|
a secure foundation, it bases its conclusions upon experience, and thus
|
|
appears to be completely distinct from the ontological argument, which
|
|
places its confidence entirely in pure a priori conceptions. But this
|
|
experience merely aids reason in making one step--to the existence of a
|
|
necessary being. What the properties of this being are cannot be learned
|
|
from experience; and therefore reason abandons it altogether, and
|
|
pursues its inquiries in the sphere of pure conception, for the purpose
|
|
of discovering what the properties of an absolutely necessary being
|
|
ought to be, that is, what among all possible things contain the
|
|
conditions (requisita) of absolute necessity. Reason believes that
|
|
it has discovered these requisites in the conception of an ens
|
|
realissimum--and in it alone, and hence concludes: The ens realissimum
|
|
is an absolutely necessary being. But it is evident that reason has
|
|
here presupposed that the conception of an ens realissimum is perfectly
|
|
adequate to the conception of a being of absolute necessity, that is,
|
|
that we may infer the existence of the latter from that of the former--a
|
|
proposition which formed the basis of the ontological argument, and
|
|
which is now employed in the support of the cosmological argument,
|
|
contrary to the wish and professions of its inventors. For the existence
|
|
of an absolutely necessary being is given in conceptions alone. But if
|
|
I say: "The conception of the ens realissimum is a conception of this
|
|
kind, and in fact the only conception which is adequate to our idea of a
|
|
necessary being," I am obliged to admit, that the latter may be inferred
|
|
from the former. Thus it is properly the ontological argument which
|
|
figures in the cosmological, and constitutes the whole strength of the
|
|
latter; while the spurious basis of experience has been of no further
|
|
use than to conduct us to the conception of absolute necessity, being
|
|
utterly insufficient to demonstrate the presence of this attribute in
|
|
any determinate existence or thing. For when we propose to ourselves
|
|
an aim of this character, we must abandon the sphere of experience, and
|
|
rise to that of pure conceptions, which we examine with the purpose of
|
|
discovering whether any one contains the conditions of the possibility
|
|
of an absolutely necessary being. But if the possibility of such a being
|
|
is thus demonstrated, its existence is also proved; for we may then
|
|
assert that, of all possible beings there is one which possesses
|
|
the attribute of necessity--in other words, this being possesses an
|
|
absolutely necessary existence.
|
|
|
|
All illusions in an argument are more easily detected when they are
|
|
presented in the formal manner employed by the schools, which we now
|
|
proceed to do.
|
|
|
|
If the proposition: "Every absolutely necessary being is likewise an ens
|
|
realissimum," is correct (and it is this which constitutes the nervus
|
|
probandi of the cosmological argument), it must, like all affirmative
|
|
judgements, be capable of conversion--the conversio per accidens, at
|
|
least. It follows, then, that some entia realissima are absolutely
|
|
necessary beings. But no ens realissimum is in any respect different
|
|
from another, and what is valid of some is valid of all. In this present
|
|
case, therefore, I may employ simple conversion, and say: "Every ens
|
|
realissimum is a necessary being." But as this proposition is determined
|
|
a priori by the conceptions contained in it, the mere conception of
|
|
an ens realissimum must possess the additional attribute of absolute
|
|
necessity. But this is exactly what was maintained in the ontological
|
|
argument, and not recognized by the cosmological, although it formed the
|
|
real ground of its disguised and illusory reasoning.
|
|
|
|
Thus the second mode employed by speculative reason of demonstrating the
|
|
existence of a Supreme Being, is not only, like the first, illusory
|
|
and inadequate, but possesses the additional blemish of an ignoratio
|
|
elenchi--professing to conduct us by a new road to the desired goal, but
|
|
bringing us back, after a short circuit, to the old path which we had
|
|
deserted at its call.
|
|
|
|
I mentioned above that this cosmological argument contains a perfect
|
|
nest of dialectical assumptions, which transcendental criticism does not
|
|
find it difficult to expose and to dissipate. I shall merely enumerate
|
|
these, leaving it to the reader, who must by this time be well practised
|
|
in such matters, to investigate the fallacies residing therein.
|
|
|
|
The following fallacies, for example, are discoverable in this mode of
|
|
proof: 1. The transcendental principle: "Everything that is contingent
|
|
must have a cause"--a principle without significance, except in the
|
|
sensuous world. For the purely intellectual conception of the contingent
|
|
cannot produce any synthetical proposition, like that of causality,
|
|
which is itself without significance or distinguishing characteristic
|
|
except in the phenomenal world. But in the present case it is employed
|
|
to help us beyond the limits of its sphere. 2. "From the impossibility
|
|
of an infinite ascending series of causes in the world of sense a first
|
|
cause is inferred"; a conclusion which the principles of the employment
|
|
of reason do not justify even in the sphere of experience, and still
|
|
less when an attempt is made to pass the limits of this sphere. 3.
|
|
Reason allows itself to be satisfied upon insufficient grounds, with
|
|
regard to the completion of this series. It removes all conditions
|
|
(without which, however, no conception of Necessity can take place);
|
|
and, as after this it is beyond our power to form any other conceptions,
|
|
it accepts this as a completion of the conception it wishes to form of
|
|
the series. 4. The logical possibility of a conception of the total
|
|
of reality (the criterion of this possibility being the absence of
|
|
contradiction) is confounded with the transcendental, which requires a
|
|
principle of the practicability of such a synthesis--a principle which
|
|
again refers us to the world of experience. And so on.
|
|
|
|
The aim of the cosmological argument is to avoid the necessity
|
|
of proving the existence of a necessary being priori from mere
|
|
conceptions--a proof which must be ontological, and of which we feel
|
|
ourselves quite incapable. With this purpose, we reason from an
|
|
actual existence--an experience in general, to an absolutely necessary
|
|
condition of that existence. It is in this case unnecessary to
|
|
demonstrate its possibility. For after having proved that it exists, the
|
|
question regarding its possibility is superfluous. Now, when we wish to
|
|
define more strictly the nature of this necessary being, we do not look
|
|
out for some being the conception of which would enable us to comprehend
|
|
the necessity of its being--for if we could do this, an empirical
|
|
presupposition would be unnecessary; no, we try to discover merely the
|
|
negative condition (conditio sine qua non), without which a being would
|
|
not be absolutely necessary. Now this would be perfectly admissible in
|
|
every sort of reasoning, from a consequence to its principle; but in
|
|
the present case it unfortunately happens that the condition of absolute
|
|
necessity can be discovered in but a single being, the conception of
|
|
which must consequently contain all that is requisite for demonstrating
|
|
the presence of absolute necessity, and thus entitle me to infer this
|
|
absolute necessity a priori. That is, it must be possible to reason
|
|
conversely, and say: The thing, to which the conception of the highest
|
|
reality belongs, is absolutely necessary. But if I cannot reason
|
|
thus--and I cannot, unless I believe in the sufficiency of the
|
|
ontological argument--I find insurmountable obstacles in my new path,
|
|
and am really no farther than the point from which I set out. The
|
|
conception of a Supreme Being satisfies all questions a priori regarding
|
|
the internal determinations of a thing, and is for this reason an ideal
|
|
without equal or parallel, the general conception of it indicating it
|
|
as at the same time an ens individuum among all possible things. But the
|
|
conception does not satisfy the question regarding its existence--which
|
|
was the purpose of all our inquiries; and, although the existence of a
|
|
necessary being were admitted, we should find it impossible to answer
|
|
the question: What of all things in the world must be regarded as such?
|
|
|
|
It is certainly allowable to admit the existence of an all-sufficient
|
|
being--a cause of all possible effects--for the purpose of enabling
|
|
reason to introduce unity into its mode and grounds of explanation with
|
|
regard to phenomena. But to assert that such a being necessarily exists,
|
|
is no longer the modest enunciation of an admissible hypothesis, but
|
|
the boldest declaration of an apodeictic certainty; for the cognition of
|
|
that which is absolutely necessary must itself possess that character.
|
|
|
|
The aim of the transcendental ideal formed by the mind is either to
|
|
discover a conception which shall harmonize with the idea of absolute
|
|
necessity, or a conception which shall contain that idea. If the one
|
|
is possible, so is the other; for reason recognizes that alone as
|
|
absolutely necessary which is necessary from its conception. But both
|
|
attempts are equally beyond our power--we find it impossible to satisfy
|
|
the understanding upon this point, and as impossible to induce it to
|
|
remain at rest in relation to this incapacity.
|
|
|
|
Unconditioned necessity, which, as the ultimate support and stay of
|
|
all existing things, is an indispensable requirement of the mind, is an
|
|
abyss on the verge of which human reason trembles in dismay. Even the
|
|
idea of eternity, terrible and sublime as it is, as depicted by Haller,
|
|
does not produce upon the mental vision such a feeling of awe and
|
|
terror; for, although it measures the duration of things, it does not
|
|
support them. We cannot bear, nor can we rid ourselves of the
|
|
thought that a being, which we regard as the greatest of all possible
|
|
existences, should say to himself: I am from eternity to eternity;
|
|
beside me there is nothing, except that which exists by my will; whence
|
|
then am I? Here all sinks away from under us; and the greatest, as the
|
|
smallest, perfection, hovers without stay or footing in presence of the
|
|
speculative reason, which finds it as easy to part with the one as with
|
|
the other.
|
|
|
|
Many physical powers, which evidence their existence by their effects,
|
|
are perfectly inscrutable in their nature; they elude all our powers
|
|
of observation. The transcendental object which forms the basis of
|
|
phenomena, and, in connection with it, the reason why our sensibility
|
|
possesses this rather than that particular kind of conditions, are and
|
|
must ever remain hidden from our mental vision; the fact is there, the
|
|
reason of the fact we cannot see. But an ideal of pure reason cannot
|
|
be termed mysterious or inscrutable, because the only credential of
|
|
its reality is the need of it felt by reason, for the purpose of giving
|
|
completeness to the world of synthetical unity. An ideal is not even
|
|
given as a cogitable object, and therefore cannot be inscrutable; on
|
|
the contrary, it must, as a mere idea, be based on the constitution of
|
|
reason itself, and on this account must be capable of explanation and
|
|
solution. For the very essence of reason consists in its ability to
|
|
give an account, of all our conceptions, opinions, and assertions--upon
|
|
objective, or, when they happen to be illusory and fallacious, upon
|
|
subjective grounds.
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
Detection and Explanation of the Dialectical Illusion in all
|
|
Transcendental Arguments for the Existence of a Necessary Being.
|
|
|
|
Both of the above arguments are transcendental; in other words, they do
|
|
not proceed upon empirical principles. For, although the cosmological
|
|
argument professed to lay a basis of experience for its edifice
|
|
of reasoning, it did not ground its procedure upon the peculiar
|
|
constitution of experience, but upon pure principles of reason--in
|
|
relation to an existence given by empirical consciousness; utterly
|
|
abandoning its guidance, however, for the purpose of supporting its
|
|
assertions entirely upon pure conceptions. Now what is the cause,
|
|
in these transcendental arguments, of the dialectical, but natural,
|
|
illusion, which connects the conceptions of necessity and supreme
|
|
reality, and hypostatizes that which cannot be anything but an idea?
|
|
What is the cause of this unavoidable step on the part of reason, of
|
|
admitting that some one among all existing things must be necessary,
|
|
while it falls back from the assertion of the existence of such a being
|
|
as from an abyss? And how does reason proceed to explain this anomaly
|
|
to itself, and from the wavering condition of a timid and reluctant
|
|
approbation--always again withdrawn--arrive at a calm and settled
|
|
insight into its cause?
|
|
|
|
It is something very remarkable that, on the supposition that something
|
|
exists, I cannot avoid the inference that something exists necessarily.
|
|
Upon this perfectly natural--but not on that account reliable--inference
|
|
does the cosmological argument rest. But, let me form any conception
|
|
whatever of a thing, I find that I cannot cogitate the existence of
|
|
the thing as absolutely necessary, and that nothing prevents me--be the
|
|
thing or being what it may--from cogitating its non-existence. I may
|
|
thus be obliged to admit that all existing things have a necessary
|
|
basis, while I cannot cogitate any single or individual thing as
|
|
necessary. In other words, I can never complete the regress through the
|
|
conditions of existence, without admitting the existence of a necessary
|
|
being; but, on the other hand, I cannot make a commencement from this
|
|
being.
|
|
|
|
If I must cogitate something as existing necessarily as the basis of
|
|
existing things, and yet am not permitted to cogitate any individual
|
|
thing as in itself necessary, the inevitable inference is that necessity
|
|
and contingency are not properties of things themselves--otherwise an
|
|
internal contradiction would result; that consequently neither of
|
|
these principles are objective, but merely subjective principles
|
|
of reason--the one requiring us to seek for a necessary ground
|
|
for everything that exists, that is, to be satisfied with no other
|
|
explanation than that which is complete a priori, the other forbidding
|
|
us ever to hope for the attainment of this completeness, that is, to
|
|
regard no member of the empirical world as unconditioned. In this
|
|
mode of viewing them, both principles, in their purely heuristic and
|
|
regulative character, and as concerning merely the formal interest of
|
|
reason, are quite consistent with each other. The one says: "You must
|
|
philosophize upon nature," as if there existed a necessary primal basis
|
|
of all existing things, solely for the purpose of introducing systematic
|
|
unity into your knowledge, by pursuing an idea of this character--a
|
|
foundation which is arbitrarily admitted to be ultimate; while the
|
|
other warns you to consider no individual determination, concerning
|
|
the existence of things, as such an ultimate foundation, that is,
|
|
as absolutely necessary, but to keep the way always open for further
|
|
progress in the deduction, and to treat every determination as
|
|
determined by some other. But if all that we perceive must be regarded
|
|
as conditionally necessary, it is impossible that anything which is
|
|
empirically given should be absolutely necessary.
|
|
|
|
It follows from this that you must accept the absolutely necessary
|
|
as out of and beyond the world, inasmuch as it is useful only as a
|
|
principle of the highest possible unity in experience, and you cannot
|
|
discover any such necessary existence in the would, the second rule
|
|
requiring you to regard all empirical causes of unity as themselves
|
|
deduced.
|
|
|
|
The philosophers of antiquity regarded all the forms of nature as
|
|
contingent; while matter was considered by them, in accordance with the
|
|
judgement of the common reason of mankind, as primal and necessary.
|
|
But if they had regarded matter, not relatively--as the substratum of
|
|
phenomena, but absolutely and in itself--as an independent existence,
|
|
this idea of absolute necessity would have immediately disappeared. For
|
|
there is nothing absolutely connecting reason with such an existence;
|
|
on the contrary, it can annihilate it in thought, always and without
|
|
self-contradiction. But in thought alone lay the idea of absolute
|
|
necessity. A regulative principle must, therefore, have been at
|
|
the foundation of this opinion. In fact, extension and
|
|
impenetrability--which together constitute our conception of
|
|
matter--form the supreme empirical principle of the unity of phenomena,
|
|
and this principle, in so far as it is empirically unconditioned,
|
|
possesses the property of a regulative principle. But, as every
|
|
determination of matter which constitutes what is real in it--and
|
|
consequently impenetrability--is an effect, which must have a cause, and
|
|
is for this reason always derived, the notion of matter cannot harmonize
|
|
with the idea of a necessary being, in its character of the principle of
|
|
all derived unity. For every one of its real properties, being derived,
|
|
must be only conditionally necessary, and can therefore be annihilated
|
|
in thought; and thus the whole existence of matter can be so annihilated
|
|
or suppressed. If this were not the case, we should have found in the
|
|
world of phenomena the highest ground or condition of unity--which is
|
|
impossible, according to the second regulative principle. It follows
|
|
that matter, and, in general, all that forms part of the world of sense,
|
|
cannot be a necessary primal being, nor even a principle of empirical
|
|
unity, but that this being or principle must have its place assigned
|
|
without the world. And, in this way, we can proceed in perfect
|
|
confidence to deduce the phenomena of the world and their existence from
|
|
other phenomena, just as if there existed no necessary being; and we
|
|
can at the same time, strive without ceasing towards the attainment of
|
|
completeness for our deduction, just as if such a being--the supreme
|
|
condition of all existences--were presupposed by the mind.
|
|
|
|
These remarks will have made it evident to the reader that the ideal of
|
|
the Supreme Being, far from being an enouncement of the existence of a
|
|
being in itself necessary, is nothing more than a regulative principle
|
|
of reason, requiring us to regard all connection existing between
|
|
phenomena as if it had its origin from an all-sufficient necessary
|
|
cause, and basing upon this the rule of a systematic and necessary unity
|
|
in the explanation of phenomena. We cannot, at the same time, avoid
|
|
regarding, by a transcendental subreptio, this formal principle as
|
|
constitutive, and hypostatizing this unity. Precisely similar is the
|
|
case with our notion of space. Space is the primal condition of all
|
|
forms, which are properly just so many different limitations of it; and
|
|
thus, although it is merely a principle of sensibility, we cannot help
|
|
regarding it as an absolutely necessary and self-subsistent thing--as
|
|
an object given a priori in itself. In the same way, it is quite natural
|
|
that, as the systematic unity of nature cannot be established as a
|
|
principle for the empirical employment of reason, unless it is based
|
|
upon the idea of an ens realissimum, as the supreme cause, we should
|
|
regard this idea as a real object, and this object, in its character
|
|
of supreme condition, as absolutely necessary, and that in this way a
|
|
regulative should be transformed into a constitutive principle. This
|
|
interchange becomes evident when I regard this supreme being, which,
|
|
relatively to the world, was absolutely (unconditionally) necessary,
|
|
as a thing per se. In this case, I find it impossible to represent this
|
|
necessity in or by any conception, and it exists merely in my own mind,
|
|
as the formal condition of thought, but not as a material and hypostatic
|
|
condition of existence.
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
SECTION VI. Of the Impossibility of a Physico-Theological Proof.
|
|
|
|
If, then, neither a pure conception nor the general experience of an
|
|
existing being can provide a sufficient basis for the proof of the
|
|
existence of the Deity, we can make the attempt by the only other
|
|
mode--that of grounding our argument upon a determinate experience of
|
|
the phenomena of the present world, their constitution and disposition,
|
|
and discover whether we can thus attain to a sound conviction of
|
|
the existence of a Supreme Being. This argument we shall term the
|
|
physico-theological argument. If it is shown to be insufficient,
|
|
speculative reason cannot present us with any satisfactory proof of the
|
|
existence of a being corresponding to our transcendental idea.
|
|
|
|
It is evident from the remarks that have been made in the preceding
|
|
sections, that an answer to this question will be far from being
|
|
difficult or unconvincing. For how can any experience be adequate
|
|
with an idea? The very essence of an idea consists in the fact that no
|
|
experience can ever be discovered congruent or adequate with it. The
|
|
transcendental idea of a necessary and all-sufficient being is so
|
|
immeasurably great, so high above all that is empirical, which is always
|
|
conditioned, that we hope in vain to find materials in the sphere of
|
|
experience sufficiently ample for our conception, and in vain seek the
|
|
unconditioned among things that are conditioned, while examples, nay,
|
|
even guidance is denied us by the laws of empirical synthesis.
|
|
|
|
If the Supreme Being forms a link in the chain of empirical conditions,
|
|
it must be a member of the empirical series, and, like the lower members
|
|
which it precedes, have its origin in some higher member of the series.
|
|
If, on the other hand, we disengage it from the chain, and cogitate it
|
|
as an intelligible being, apart from the series of natural causes--how
|
|
shall reason bridge the abyss that separates the latter from the former?
|
|
All laws respecting the regress from effects to causes, all synthetical
|
|
additions to our knowledge relate solely to possible experience and
|
|
the objects of the sensuous world, and, apart from them, are without
|
|
significance.
|
|
|
|
The world around us opens before our view so magnificent a spectacle of
|
|
order, variety, beauty, and conformity to ends, that whether we pursue
|
|
our observations into the infinity of space in the one direction, or
|
|
into its illimitable divisions in the other, whether we regard the world
|
|
in its greatest or its least manifestations--even after we have attained
|
|
to the highest summit of knowledge which our weak minds can reach, we
|
|
find that language in the presence of wonders so inconceivable has lost
|
|
its force, and number its power to reckon, nay, even thought fails to
|
|
conceive adequately, and our conception of the whole dissolves into an
|
|
astonishment without power of expression--all the more eloquent that it
|
|
is dumb. Everywhere around us we observe a chain of causes and effects,
|
|
of means and ends, of death and birth; and, as nothing has entered
|
|
of itself into the condition in which we find it, we are constantly
|
|
referred to some other thing, which itself suggests the same inquiry
|
|
regarding its cause, and thus the universe must sink into the abyss
|
|
of nothingness, unless we admit that, besides this infinite chain
|
|
of contingencies, there exists something that is primal and
|
|
self-subsistent--something which, as the cause of this phenomenal world,
|
|
secures its continuance and preservation.
|
|
|
|
This highest cause--what magnitude shall we attribute to it? Of the
|
|
content of the world we are ignorant; still less can we estimate its
|
|
magnitude by comparison with the sphere of the possible. But this
|
|
supreme cause being a necessity of the human mind, what is there to
|
|
prevent us from attributing to it such a degree of perfection as to
|
|
place it above the sphere of all that is possible? This we can easily
|
|
do, although only by the aid of the faint outline of an abstract
|
|
conception, by representing this being to ourselves as containing
|
|
in itself, as an individual substance, all possible perfection--a
|
|
conception which satisfies that requirement of reason which demands
|
|
parsimony in principles, which is free from self-contradiction, which
|
|
even contributes to the extension of the employment of reason in
|
|
experience, by means of the guidance afforded by this idea to order and
|
|
system, and which in no respect conflicts with any law of experience.
|
|
|
|
This argument always deserves to be mentioned with respect. It is the
|
|
oldest, the clearest, and that most in conformity with the common reason
|
|
of humanity. It animates the study of nature, as it itself derives its
|
|
existence and draws ever new strength from that source. It introduces
|
|
aims and ends into a sphere in which our observation could not of itself
|
|
have discovered them, and extends our knowledge of nature, by directing
|
|
our attention to a unity, the principle of which lies beyond nature.
|
|
This knowledge of nature again reacts upon this idea--its cause; and
|
|
thus our belief in a divine author of the universe rises to the power of
|
|
an irresistible conviction.
|
|
|
|
For these reasons it would be utterly hopeless to attempt to rob this
|
|
argument of the authority it has always enjoyed. The mind, unceasingly
|
|
elevated by these considerations, which, although empirical, are so
|
|
remarkably powerful, and continually adding to their force, will
|
|
not suffer itself to be depressed by the doubts suggested by subtle
|
|
speculation; it tears itself out of this state of uncertainty, the
|
|
moment it casts a look upon the wondrous forms of nature and the majesty
|
|
of the universe, and rises from height to height, from condition to
|
|
condition, till it has elevated itself to the supreme and unconditioned
|
|
author of all.
|
|
|
|
But although we have nothing to object to the reasonableness and utility
|
|
of this procedure, but have rather to commend and encourage it,
|
|
we cannot approve of the claims which this argument advances to
|
|
demonstrative certainty and to a reception upon its own merits, apart
|
|
from favour or support by other arguments. Nor can it injure the cause
|
|
of morality to endeavour to lower the tone of the arrogant sophist, and
|
|
to teach him that modesty and moderation which are the properties of a
|
|
belief that brings calm and content into the mind, without
|
|
prescribing to it an unworthy subjection. I maintain, then, that the
|
|
physico-theological argument is insufficient of itself to prove
|
|
the existence of a Supreme Being, that it must entrust this to the
|
|
ontological argument--to which it serves merely as an introduction, and
|
|
that, consequently, this argument contains the only possible ground of
|
|
proof (possessed by speculative reason) for the existence of this being.
|
|
|
|
The chief momenta in the physico-theological argument are as follow:
|
|
1. We observe in the world manifest signs of an arrangement full of
|
|
purpose, executed with great wisdom, and argument in whole of a
|
|
content indescribably various, and of an extent without limits. 2. This
|
|
arrangement of means and ends is entirely foreign to the things existing
|
|
in the world--it belongs to them merely as a contingent attribute;
|
|
in other words, the nature of different things could not of itself,
|
|
whatever means were employed, harmoniously tend towards certain
|
|
purposes, were they not chosen and directed for these purposes by a
|
|
rational and disposing principle, in accordance with certain fundamental
|
|
ideas. 3. There exists, therefore, a sublime and wise cause (or
|
|
several), which is not merely a blind, all-powerful nature, producing
|
|
the beings and events which fill the world in unconscious fecundity, but
|
|
a free and intelligent cause of the world. 4. The unity of this cause
|
|
may be inferred from the unity of the reciprocal relation existing
|
|
between the parts of the world, as portions of an artistic edifice--an
|
|
inference which all our observation favours, and all principles of
|
|
analogy support.
|
|
|
|
In the above argument, it is inferred from the analogy of certain
|
|
products of nature with those of human art, when it compels Nature to
|
|
bend herself to its purposes, as in the case of a house, a ship, or
|
|
a watch, that the same kind of causality--namely, understanding
|
|
and will--resides in nature. It is also declared that the internal
|
|
possibility of this freely-acting nature (which is the source of all
|
|
art, and perhaps also of human reason) is derivable from another and
|
|
superhuman art--a conclusion which would perhaps be found incapable of
|
|
standing the test of subtle transcendental criticism. But to neither of
|
|
these opinions shall we at present object. We shall only remark that
|
|
it must be confessed that, if we are to discuss the subject of cause
|
|
at all, we cannot proceed more securely than with the guidance of the
|
|
analogy subsisting between nature and such products of design--these
|
|
being the only products whose causes and modes of organization are
|
|
completely known to us. Reason would be unable to satisfy her own
|
|
requirements, if she passed from a causality which she does know, to
|
|
obscure and indemonstrable principles of explanation which she does not
|
|
know.
|
|
|
|
According to the physico-theological argument, the connection and
|
|
harmony existing in the world evidence the contingency of the form
|
|
merely, but not of the matter, that is, of the substance of the world.
|
|
To establish the truth of the latter opinion, it would be necessary to
|
|
prove that all things would be in themselves incapable of this harmony
|
|
and order, unless they were, even as regards their substance, the
|
|
product of a supreme wisdom. But this would require very different
|
|
grounds of proof from those presented by the analogy with human art.
|
|
This proof can at most, therefore, demonstrate the existence of an
|
|
architect of the world, whose efforts are limited by the capabilities of
|
|
the material with which he works, but not of a creator of the world, to
|
|
whom all things are subject. Thus this argument is utterly insufficient
|
|
for the task before us--a demonstration of the existence of an
|
|
all-sufficient being. If we wish to prove the contingency of matter,
|
|
we must have recourse to a transcendental argument, which the
|
|
physico-theological was constructed expressly to avoid.
|
|
|
|
We infer, from the order and design visible in the universe, as a
|
|
disposition of a thoroughly contingent character, the existence of a
|
|
cause proportionate thereto. The conception of this cause must contain
|
|
certain determinate qualities, and it must therefore be regarded as the
|
|
conception of a being which possesses all power, wisdom, and so on, in
|
|
one word, all perfection--the conception, that is, of an all-sufficient
|
|
being. For the predicates of very great, astonishing, or immeasurable
|
|
power and excellence, give us no determinate conception of the thing,
|
|
nor do they inform us what the thing may be in itself. They merely
|
|
indicate the relation existing between the magnitude of the object and
|
|
the observer, who compares it with himself and with his own power of
|
|
comprehension, and are mere expressions of praise and reverence,
|
|
by which the object is either magnified, or the observing subject
|
|
depreciated in relation to the object. Where we have to do with the
|
|
magnitude (of the perfection) of a thing, we can discover no determinate
|
|
conception, except that which comprehends all possible perfection or
|
|
completeness, and it is only the total (omnitudo) of reality which is
|
|
completely determined in and through its conception alone.
|
|
|
|
Now it cannot be expected that any one will be bold enough to declare
|
|
that he has a perfect insight into the relation which the magnitude
|
|
of the world he contemplates bears (in its extent as well as in its
|
|
content) to omnipotence, into that of the order and design in the
|
|
world to the highest wisdom, and that of the unity of the world to
|
|
the absolute unity of a Supreme Being. Physico-theology is therefore
|
|
incapable of presenting a determinate conception of a supreme cause of
|
|
the world, and is therefore insufficient as a principle of theology--a
|
|
theology which is itself to be the basis of religion.
|
|
|
|
The attainment of absolute totality is completely impossible on the
|
|
path of empiricism. And yet this is the path pursued in the
|
|
physico-theological argument. What means shall we employ to bridge the
|
|
abyss?
|
|
|
|
After elevating ourselves to admiration of the magnitude of the power,
|
|
wisdom, and other attributes of the author of the world, and finding we
|
|
can advance no further, we leave the argument on empirical grounds,
|
|
and proceed to infer the contingency of the world from the order and
|
|
conformity to aims that are observable in it. From this contingency we
|
|
infer, by the help of transcendental conceptions alone, the existence of
|
|
something absolutely necessary; and, still advancing, proceed from
|
|
the conception of the absolute necessity of the first cause to the
|
|
completely determined or determining conception thereof--the conception
|
|
of an all-embracing reality. Thus the physico-theological, failing
|
|
in its undertaking, recurs in its embarrassment to the cosmological
|
|
argument; and, as this is merely the ontological argument in disguise,
|
|
it executes its design solely by the aid of pure reason, although it at
|
|
first professed to have no connection with this faculty and to base its
|
|
entire procedure upon experience alone.
|
|
|
|
The physico-theologians have therefore no reason to regard with such
|
|
contempt the transcendental mode of argument, and to look down upon
|
|
it, with the conceit of clear-sighted observers of nature, as the
|
|
brain-cobweb of obscure speculatists. For, if they reflect upon and
|
|
examine their own arguments, they will find that, after following for
|
|
some time the path of nature and experience, and discovering themselves
|
|
no nearer their object, they suddenly leave this path and pass into the
|
|
region of pure possibility, where they hope to reach upon the wings of
|
|
ideas what had eluded all their empirical investigations. Gaining, as
|
|
they think, a firm footing after this immense leap, they extend their
|
|
determinate conception--into the possession of which they have come,
|
|
they know not how--over the whole sphere of creation, and explain their
|
|
ideal, which is entirely a product of pure reason, by illustrations
|
|
drawn from experience--though in a degree miserably unworthy of the
|
|
grandeur of the object, while they refuse to acknowledge that they have
|
|
arrived at this cognition or hypothesis by a very different road from
|
|
that of experience.
|
|
|
|
Thus the physico-theological is based upon the cosmological, and this
|
|
upon the ontological proof of the existence of a Supreme Being; and as
|
|
besides these three there is no other path open to speculative reason,
|
|
the ontological proof, on the ground of pure conceptions of reason, is
|
|
the only possible one, if any proof of a proposition so far transcending
|
|
the empirical exercise of the understanding is possible at all.
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
SECTION VII. Critique of all Theology based upon Speculative
|
|
Principles of Reason.
|
|
|
|
If by the term theology I understand the cognition of a primal being,
|
|
that cognition is based either upon reason alone (theologia rationalis)
|
|
or upon revelation (theologia revelata). The former cogitates its
|
|
object either by means of pure transcendental conceptions, as an ens
|
|
originarium, realissimum, ens entium, and is termed transcendental
|
|
theology; or, by means of a conception derived from the nature of our
|
|
own mind, as a supreme intelligence, and must then be entitled natural
|
|
theology. The person who believes in a transcendental theology alone,
|
|
is termed a deist; he who acknowledges the possibility of a natural
|
|
theology also, a theist. The former admits that we can cognize by pure
|
|
reason alone the existence of a Supreme Being, but at the same time
|
|
maintains that our conception of this being is purely transcendental,
|
|
and that all we can say of it is that it possesses all reality, without
|
|
being able to define it more closely. The second asserts that reason
|
|
is capable of presenting us, from the analogy with nature, with a more
|
|
definite conception of this being, and that its operations, as the cause
|
|
of all things, are the results of intelligence and free will. The former
|
|
regards the Supreme Being as the cause of the world--whether by the
|
|
necessity of his nature, or as a free agent, is left undetermined; the
|
|
latter considers this being as the author of the world.
|
|
|
|
Transcendental theology aims either at inferring the existence of a
|
|
Supreme Being from a general experience, without any closer reference
|
|
to the world to which this experience belongs, and in this case it is
|
|
called cosmotheology; or it endeavours to cognize the existence of such
|
|
a being, through mere conceptions, without the aid of experience, and is
|
|
then termed ontotheology.
|
|
|
|
Natural theology infers the attributes and the existence of an author of
|
|
the world, from the constitution of, the order and unity observable
|
|
in, the world, in which two modes of causality must be admitted to
|
|
exist--those of nature and freedom. Thus it rises from this world to a
|
|
supreme intelligence, either as the principle of all natural, or of
|
|
all moral order and perfection. In the former case it is termed
|
|
physico-theology, in the latter, ethical or moral-theology.*
|
|
|
|
|
|
[*Footnote: Not theological ethics; for this science contains ethical
|
|
laws, which presuppose the existence of a Supreme Governor of the world;
|
|
while moral-theology, on the contrary, is the expression of a conviction
|
|
of the existence of a Supreme Being, founded upon ethical laws.]
|
|
|
|
|
|
As we are wont to understand by the term God not merely an eternal
|
|
nature, the operations of which are insensate and blind, but a Supreme
|
|
Being, who is the free and intelligent author of all things, and as it
|
|
is this latter view alone that can be of interest to humanity, we might,
|
|
in strict rigour, deny to the deist any belief in God at all, and
|
|
regard him merely as a maintainer of the existence of a primal being or
|
|
thing--the supreme cause of all other things. But, as no one ought to be
|
|
blamed, merely because he does not feel himself justified in maintaining
|
|
a certain opinion, as if he altogether denied its truth and asserted
|
|
the opposite, it is more correct--as it is less harsh--to say, the deist
|
|
believes in a God, the theist in a living God (summa intelligentia). We
|
|
shall now proceed to investigate the sources of all these attempts of
|
|
reason to establish the existence of a Supreme Being.
|
|
|
|
It may be sufficient in this place to define theoretical knowledge or
|
|
cognition as knowledge of that which is, and practical knowledge as
|
|
knowledge of that which ought to be. In this view, the theoretical
|
|
employment of reason is that by which I cognize a priori (as necessary)
|
|
that something is, while the practical is that by which I cognize a
|
|
priori what ought to happen. Now, if it is an indubitably certain,
|
|
though at the same time an entirely conditioned truth, that something
|
|
is, or ought to happen, either a certain determinate condition of this
|
|
truth is absolutely necessary, or such a condition may be arbitrarily
|
|
presupposed. In the former case the condition is postulated (per
|
|
thesin), in the latter supposed (per hypothesin). There are certain
|
|
practical laws--those of morality--which are absolutely necessary. Now,
|
|
if these laws necessarily presuppose the existence of some being, as the
|
|
condition of the possibility of their obligatory power, this being must
|
|
be postulated, because the conditioned, from which we reason to this
|
|
determinate condition, is itself cognized a priori as absolutely
|
|
necessary. We shall at some future time show that the moral laws
|
|
not merely presuppose the existence of a Supreme Being, but also, as
|
|
themselves absolutely necessary in a different relation, demand
|
|
or postulate it--although only from a practical point of view. The
|
|
discussion of this argument we postpone for the present.
|
|
|
|
When the question relates merely to that which is, not to that which
|
|
ought to be, the conditioned which is presented in experience is
|
|
always cogitated as contingent. For this reason its condition cannot be
|
|
regarded as absolutely necessary, but merely as relatively necessary,
|
|
or rather as needful; the condition is in itself and a priori a mere
|
|
arbitrary presupposition in aid of the cognition, by reason, of the
|
|
conditioned. If, then, we are to possess a theoretical cognition of
|
|
the absolute necessity of a thing, we cannot attain to this cognition
|
|
otherwise than a priori by means of conceptions; while it is impossible
|
|
in this way to cognize the existence of a cause which bears any relation
|
|
to an existence given in experience.
|
|
|
|
Theoretical cognition is speculative when it relates to an object
|
|
or certain conceptions of an object which is not given and cannot be
|
|
discovered by means of experience. It is opposed to the cognition of
|
|
nature, which concerns only those objects or predicates which can be
|
|
presented in a possible experience.
|
|
|
|
The principle that everything which happens (the empirically contingent)
|
|
must have a cause, is a principle of the cognition of nature, but not of
|
|
speculative cognition. For, if we change it into an abstract principle,
|
|
and deprive it of its reference to experience and the empirical, we
|
|
shall find that it cannot with justice be regarded any longer as a
|
|
synthetical proposition, and that it is impossible to discover any
|
|
mode of transition from that which exists to something entirely
|
|
different--termed cause. Nay, more, the conception of a cause likewise
|
|
that of the contingent--loses, in this speculative mode of employing
|
|
it, all significance, for its objective reality and meaning are
|
|
comprehensible from experience alone.
|
|
|
|
When from the existence of the universe and the things in it the
|
|
existence of a cause of the universe is inferred, reason is proceeding
|
|
not in the natural, but in the speculative method. For the principle of
|
|
the former enounces, not that things themselves or substances, but only
|
|
that which happens or their states--as empirically contingent, have
|
|
a cause: the assertion that the existence of substance itself is
|
|
contingent is not justified by experience, it is the assertion of a
|
|
reason employing its principles in a speculative manner. If, again, I
|
|
infer from the form of the universe, from the way in which all things
|
|
are connected and act and react upon each other, the existence of
|
|
a cause entirely distinct from the universe--this would again be a
|
|
judgement of purely speculative reason; because the object in this
|
|
case--the cause--can never be an object of possible experience. In both
|
|
these cases the principle of causality, which is valid only in the field
|
|
of experience--useless and even meaningless beyond this region, would be
|
|
diverted from its proper destination.
|
|
|
|
Now I maintain that all attempts of reason to establish a theology
|
|
by the aid of speculation alone are fruitless, that the principles of
|
|
reason as applied to nature do not conduct us to any theological truths,
|
|
and, consequently, that a rational theology can have no existence,
|
|
unless it is founded upon the laws of morality. For all synthetical
|
|
principles of the understanding are valid only as immanent in
|
|
experience; while the cognition of a Supreme Being necessitates their
|
|
being employed transcendentally, and of this the understanding is quite
|
|
incapable. If the empirical law of causality is to conduct us to
|
|
a Supreme Being, this being must belong to the chain of empirical
|
|
objects--in which case it would be, like all phenomena, itself
|
|
conditioned. If the possibility of passing the limits of experience be
|
|
admitted, by means of the dynamical law of the relation of an effect to
|
|
its cause, what kind of conception shall we obtain by this procedure?
|
|
Certainly not the conception of a Supreme Being, because experience
|
|
never presents us with the greatest of all possible effects, and it is
|
|
only an effect of this character that could witness to the existence
|
|
of a corresponding cause. If, for the purpose of fully satisfying the
|
|
requirements of Reason, we recognize her right to assert the existence
|
|
of a perfect and absolutely necessary being, this can be admitted
|
|
only from favour, and cannot be regarded as the result or irresistible
|
|
demonstration. The physico-theological proof may add weight to
|
|
others--if other proofs there are--by connecting speculation with
|
|
experience; but in itself it rather prepares the mind for theological
|
|
cognition, and gives it a right and natural direction, than establishes
|
|
a sure foundation for theology.
|
|
|
|
It is now perfectly evident that transcendental questions admit only
|
|
of transcendental answers--those presented a priori by pure conceptions
|
|
without the least empirical admixture. But the question in the present
|
|
case is evidently synthetical--it aims at the extension of our cognition
|
|
beyond the bounds of experience--it requires an assurance respecting the
|
|
existence of a being corresponding with the idea in our minds, to which
|
|
no experience can ever be adequate. Now it has been abundantly proved
|
|
that all a priori synthetical cognition is possible only as the
|
|
expression of the formal conditions of a possible experience; and that
|
|
the validity of all principles depends upon their immanence in the field
|
|
of experience, that is, their relation to objects of empirical cognition
|
|
or phenomena. Thus all transcendental procedure in reference to
|
|
speculative theology is without result.
|
|
|
|
If any one prefers doubting the conclusiveness of the proofs of our
|
|
analytic to losing the persuasion of the validity of these old and
|
|
time honoured arguments, he at least cannot decline answering the
|
|
question--how he can pass the limits of all possible experience by the
|
|
help of mere ideas. If he talks of new arguments, or of improvements
|
|
upon old arguments, I request him to spare me. There is certainly no
|
|
great choice in this sphere of discussion, as all speculative arguments
|
|
must at last look for support to the ontological, and I have, therefore,
|
|
very little to fear from the argumentative fecundity of the dogmatical
|
|
defenders of a non-sensuous reason. Without looking upon myself as a
|
|
remarkably combative person, I shall not decline the challenge to detect
|
|
the fallacy and destroy the pretensions of every attempt of speculative
|
|
theology. And yet the hope of better fortune never deserts those who
|
|
are accustomed to the dogmatical mode of procedure. I shall, therefore,
|
|
restrict myself to the simple and equitable demand that such reasoners
|
|
will demonstrate, from the nature of the human mind as well as from that
|
|
of the other sources of knowledge, how we are to proceed to extend
|
|
our cognition completely a priori, and to carry it to that point where
|
|
experience abandons us, and no means exist of guaranteeing the objective
|
|
reality of our conceptions. In whatever way the understanding may have
|
|
attained to a conception, the existence of the object of the conception
|
|
cannot be discovered in it by analysis, because the cognition of the
|
|
existence of the object depends upon the object's being posited and
|
|
given in itself apart from the conception. But it is utterly impossible
|
|
to go beyond our conception, without the aid of experience--which
|
|
presents to the mind nothing but phenomena, or to attain by the help
|
|
of mere conceptions to a conviction of the existence of new kinds of
|
|
objects or supernatural beings.
|
|
|
|
But although pure speculative reason is far from sufficient to
|
|
demonstrate the existence of a Supreme Being, it is of the highest
|
|
utility in correcting our conception of this being--on the supposition
|
|
that we can attain to the cognition of it by some other means--in making
|
|
it consistent with itself and with all other conceptions of intelligible
|
|
objects, clearing it from all that is incompatible with the conception
|
|
of an ens summun, and eliminating from it all limitations or admixtures
|
|
of empirical elements.
|
|
|
|
Transcendental theology is still therefore, notwithstanding its
|
|
objective insufficiency, of importance in a negative respect; it is
|
|
useful as a test of the procedure of reason when engaged with pure
|
|
ideas, no other than a transcendental standard being in this case
|
|
admissible. For if, from a practical point of view, the hypothesis of
|
|
a Supreme and All-sufficient Being is to maintain its validity without
|
|
opposition, it must be of the highest importance to define this
|
|
conception in a correct and rigorous manner--as the transcendental
|
|
conception of a necessary being, to eliminate all phenomenal elements
|
|
(anthropomorphism in its most extended signification), and at the
|
|
same time to overflow all contradictory assertions--be they atheistic,
|
|
deistic, or anthropomorphic. This is of course very easy; as the same
|
|
arguments which demonstrated the inability of human reason to affirm
|
|
the existence of a Supreme Being must be alike sufficient to prove the
|
|
invalidity of its denial. For it is impossible to gain from the pure
|
|
speculation of reason demonstration that there exists no Supreme Being,
|
|
as the ground of all that exists, or that this being possesses none
|
|
of those properties which we regard as analogical with the dynamical
|
|
qualities of a thinking being, or that, as the anthropomorphists would
|
|
have us believe, it is subject to all the limitations which sensibility
|
|
imposes upon those intelligences which exist in the world of experience.
|
|
|
|
A Supreme Being is, therefore, for the speculative reason, a mere ideal,
|
|
though a faultless one--a conception which perfects and crowns the
|
|
system of human cognition, but the objective reality of which can
|
|
neither be proved nor disproved by pure reason. If this defect is ever
|
|
supplied by a moral theology, the problematic transcendental theology
|
|
which has preceded, will have been at least serviceable as demonstrating
|
|
the mental necessity existing for the conception, by the complete
|
|
determination of it which it has furnished, and the ceaseless testing of
|
|
the conclusions of a reason often deceived by sense, and not always in
|
|
harmony with its own ideas. The attributes of necessity, infinitude,
|
|
unity, existence apart from the world (and not as a world soul),
|
|
eternity (free from conditions of time), omnipresence (free from
|
|
conditions of space), omnipotence, and others, are pure transcendental
|
|
predicates; and thus the accurate conception of a Supreme Being, which
|
|
every theology requires, is furnished by transcendental theology alone.
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
APPENDIX.
|
|
|
|
Of the Regulative Employment of the Ideas of Pure Reason.
|
|
|
|
The result of all the dialectical attempts of pure reason not only
|
|
confirms the truth of what we have already proved in our Transcendental
|
|
Analytic, namely, that all inferences which would lead us beyond the
|
|
limits of experience are fallacious and groundless, but it at the same
|
|
time teaches us this important lesson, that human reason has a natural
|
|
inclination to overstep these limits, and that transcendental ideas
|
|
are as much the natural property of the reason as categories are of the
|
|
understanding. There exists this difference, however, that while the
|
|
categories never mislead us, outward objects being always in perfect
|
|
harmony therewith, ideas are the parents of irresistible illusions, the
|
|
severest and most subtle criticism being required to save us from the
|
|
fallacies which they induce.
|
|
|
|
Whatever is grounded in the nature of our powers will be found to be in
|
|
harmony with the final purpose and proper employment of these powers,
|
|
when once we have discovered their true direction and aim. We are
|
|
entitled to suppose, therefore, that there exists a mode of employing
|
|
transcendental ideas which is proper and immanent; although, when we
|
|
mistake their meaning, and regard them as conceptions of actual things,
|
|
their mode of application is transcendent and delusive. For it is not
|
|
the idea itself, but only the employment of the idea in relation to
|
|
possible experience, that is transcendent or immanent. An idea is
|
|
employed transcendently, when it is applied to an object falsely
|
|
believed to be adequate with and to correspond to it; imminently, when
|
|
it is applied solely to the employment of the understanding in the
|
|
sphere of experience. Thus all errors of subreptio--of misapplication,
|
|
are to be ascribed to defects of judgement, and not to understanding or
|
|
reason.
|
|
|
|
Reason never has an immediate relation to an object; it relates
|
|
immediately to the understanding alone. It is only through the
|
|
understanding that it can be employed in the field of experience. It
|
|
does not form conceptions of objects, it merely arranges them and gives
|
|
to them that unity which they are capable of possessing when the sphere
|
|
of their application has been extended as widely as possible. Reason
|
|
avails itself of the conception of the understanding for the sole
|
|
purpose of producing totality in the different series. This totality the
|
|
understanding does not concern itself with; its only occupation is the
|
|
connection of experiences, by which series of conditions in accordance
|
|
with conceptions are established. The object of reason is, therefore,
|
|
the understanding and its proper destination. As the latter brings unity
|
|
into the diversity of objects by means of its conceptions, so the former
|
|
brings unity into the diversity of conceptions by means of ideas; as
|
|
it sets the final aim of a collective unity to the operations of the
|
|
understanding, which without this occupies itself with a distributive
|
|
unity alone.
|
|
|
|
I accordingly maintain that transcendental ideas can never be employed
|
|
as constitutive ideas, that they cannot be conceptions of objects, and
|
|
that, when thus considered, they assume a fallacious and dialectical
|
|
character. But, on the other hand, they are capable of an admirable and
|
|
indispensably necessary application to objects--as regulative ideas,
|
|
directing the understanding to a certain aim, the guiding lines towards
|
|
which all its laws follow, and in which they all meet in one point. This
|
|
point--though a mere idea (focus imaginarius), that is, not a point from
|
|
which the conceptions of the understanding do really proceed, for it
|
|
lies beyond the sphere of possible experience--serves, notwithstanding,
|
|
to give to these conceptions the greatest possible unity combined with
|
|
the greatest possible extension. Hence arises the natural illusion which
|
|
induces us to believe that these lines proceed from an object which lies
|
|
out of the sphere of empirical cognition, just as objects reflected in
|
|
a mirror appear to be behind it. But this illusion--which we may hinder
|
|
from imposing upon us--is necessary and unavoidable, if we desire to
|
|
see, not only those objects which lie before us, but those which are at
|
|
a great distance behind us; that is to say, when, in the present case,
|
|
we direct the aims of the understanding, beyond every given experience,
|
|
towards an extension as great as can possibly be attained.
|
|
|
|
If we review our cognitions in their entire extent, we shall find that
|
|
the peculiar business of reason is to arrange them into a system, that
|
|
is to say, to give them connection according to a principle. This unity
|
|
presupposes an idea--the idea of the form of a whole (of cognition),
|
|
preceding the determinate cognition of the parts, and containing the
|
|
conditions which determine a priori to every part its place and relation
|
|
to the other parts of the whole system. This idea, accordingly, demands
|
|
complete unity in the cognition of the understanding--not the unity of
|
|
a contingent aggregate, but that of a system connected according to
|
|
necessary laws. It cannot be affirmed with propriety that this idea is a
|
|
conception of an object; it is merely a conception of the complete unity
|
|
of the conceptions of objects, in so far as this unity is available to
|
|
the understanding as a rule. Such conceptions of reason are not derived
|
|
from nature; on the contrary, we employ them for the interrogation and
|
|
investigation of nature, and regard our cognition as defective so long
|
|
as it is not adequate to them. We admit that such a thing as pure earth,
|
|
pure water, or pure air, is not to be discovered. And yet we require
|
|
these conceptions (which have their origin in the reason, so far as
|
|
regards their absolute purity and completeness) for the purpose of
|
|
determining the share which each of these natural causes has in every
|
|
phenomenon. Thus the different kinds of matter are all referred to
|
|
earths, as mere weight; to salts and inflammable bodies, as pure force;
|
|
and finally, to water and air, as the vehicula of the former, or the
|
|
machines employed by them in their operations--for the purpose of
|
|
explaining the chemical action and reaction of bodies in accordance with
|
|
the idea of a mechanism. For, although not actually so expressed, the
|
|
influence of such ideas of reason is very observable in the procedure of
|
|
natural philosophers.
|
|
|
|
If reason is the faculty of deducing the particular from the general,
|
|
and if the general be certain in se and given, it is only necessary
|
|
that the judgement should subsume the particular under the general,
|
|
the particular being thus necessarily determined. I shall term this
|
|
the demonstrative or apodeictic employment of reason. If, however,
|
|
the general is admitted as problematical only, and is a mere idea,
|
|
the particular case is certain, but the universality of the rule which
|
|
applies to this particular case remains a problem. Several particular
|
|
cases, the certainty of which is beyond doubt, are then taken and
|
|
examined, for the purpose of discovering whether the rule is applicable
|
|
to them; and if it appears that all the particular cases which can be
|
|
collected follow from the rule, its universality is inferred, and at the
|
|
same time, all the causes which have not, or cannot be presented to our
|
|
observation, are concluded to be of the same character with those which
|
|
we have observed. This I shall term the hypothetical employment of the
|
|
reason.
|
|
|
|
The hypothetical exercise of reason by the aid of ideas employed as
|
|
problematical conceptions is properly not constitutive. That is to say,
|
|
if we consider the subject strictly, the truth of the rule, which has
|
|
been employed as an hypothesis, does not follow from the use that is
|
|
made of it by reason. For how can we know all the possible cases
|
|
that may arise? some of which may, however, prove exceptions to
|
|
the universality of the rule. This employment of reason is merely
|
|
regulative, and its sole aim is the introduction of unity into the
|
|
aggregate of our particular cognitions, and thereby the approximating of
|
|
the rule to universality.
|
|
|
|
The object of the hypothetical employment of reason is therefore the
|
|
systematic unity of cognitions; and this unity is the criterion of the
|
|
truth of a rule. On the other hand, this systematic unity--as a mere
|
|
idea--is in fact merely a unity projected, not to be regarded as given,
|
|
but only in the light of a problem--a problem which serves, however, as
|
|
a principle for the various and particular exercise of the understanding
|
|
in experience, directs it with regard to those cases which are not
|
|
presented to our observation, and introduces harmony and consistency
|
|
into all its operations.
|
|
|
|
All that we can be certain of from the above considerations is that
|
|
this systematic unity is a logical principle, whose aim is to assist the
|
|
understanding, where it cannot of itself attain to rules, by means of
|
|
ideas, to bring all these various rules under one principle, and thus
|
|
to ensure the most complete consistency and connection that can be
|
|
attained. But the assertion that objects and the understanding by which
|
|
they are cognized are so constituted as to be determined to systematic
|
|
unity, that this may be postulated a priori, without any reference
|
|
to the interest of reason, and that we are justified in declaring all
|
|
possible cognitions--empirical and others--to possess systematic unity,
|
|
and to be subject to general principles from which, notwithstanding
|
|
their various character, they are all derivable such an assertion can
|
|
be founded only upon a transcendental principle of reason, which would
|
|
render this systematic unity not subjectively and logically--in its
|
|
character of a method, but objectively necessary.
|
|
|
|
We shall illustrate this by an example. The conceptions of the
|
|
understanding make us acquainted, among many other kinds of unity,
|
|
with that of the causality of a substance, which is termed power. The
|
|
different phenomenal manifestations of the same substance appear at
|
|
first view to be so very dissimilar that we are inclined to assume
|
|
the existence of just as many different powers as there are different
|
|
effects--as, in the case of the human mind, we have feeling,
|
|
consciousness, imagination, memory, wit, analysis, pleasure, desire
|
|
and so on. Now we are required by a logical maxim to reduce these
|
|
differences to as small a number as possible, by comparing them and
|
|
discovering the hidden identity which exists. We must inquire, for
|
|
example, whether or not imagination (connected with consciousness),
|
|
memory, wit, and analysis are not merely different forms of
|
|
understanding and reason. The idea of a fundamental power, the existence
|
|
of which no effort of logic can assure us of, is the problem to be
|
|
solved, for the systematic representation of the existing variety of
|
|
powers. The logical principle of reason requires us to produce as great
|
|
a unity as is possible in the system of our cognitions; and the more
|
|
the phenomena of this and the other power are found to be identical,
|
|
the more probable does it become, that they are nothing but different
|
|
manifestations of one and the same power, which may be called,
|
|
relatively speaking, a fundamental power. And so with other cases.
|
|
|
|
These relatively fundamental powers must again be compared with
|
|
each other, to discover, if possible, the one radical and absolutely
|
|
fundamental power of which they are but the manifestations. But this
|
|
unity is purely hypothetical. It is not maintained, that this unity does
|
|
really exist, but that we must, in the interest of reason, that is,
|
|
for the establishment of principles for the various rules presented by
|
|
experience, try to discover and introduce it, so far as is practicable,
|
|
into the sphere of our cognitions.
|
|
|
|
But the transcendental employment of the understanding would lead us to
|
|
believe that this idea of a fundamental power is not problematical, but
|
|
that it possesses objective reality, and thus the systematic unity
|
|
of the various powers or forces in a substance is demanded by the
|
|
understanding and erected into an apodeictic or necessary principle.
|
|
For, without having attempted to discover the unity of the various
|
|
powers existing in nature, nay, even after all our attempts have failed,
|
|
we notwithstanding presuppose that it does exist, and may be, sooner or
|
|
later, discovered. And this reason does, not only, as in the case
|
|
above adduced, with regard to the unity of substance, but where
|
|
many substances, although all to a certain extent homogeneous, are
|
|
discoverable, as in the case of matter in general. Here also does
|
|
reason presuppose the existence of the systematic unity of various
|
|
powers--inasmuch as particular laws of nature are subordinate to general
|
|
laws; and parsimony in principles is not merely an economical principle
|
|
of reason, but an essential law of nature.
|
|
|
|
We cannot understand, in fact, how a logical principle of unity can of
|
|
right exist, unless we presuppose a transcendental principle, by which
|
|
such a systematic unit--as a property of objects themselves--is regarded
|
|
as necessary a priori. For with what right can reason, in its logical
|
|
exercise, require us to regard the variety of forces which nature
|
|
displays, as in effect a disguised unity, and to deduce them from one
|
|
fundamental force or power, when she is free to admit that it is just
|
|
as possible that all forces should be different in kind, and that a
|
|
systematic unity is not conformable to the design of nature? In this
|
|
view of the case, reason would be proceeding in direct opposition to her
|
|
own destination, by setting as an aim an idea which entirely conflicts
|
|
with the procedure and arrangement of nature. Neither can we assert that
|
|
reason has previously inferred this unity from the contingent nature
|
|
of phenomena. For the law of reason which requires us to seek for this
|
|
unity is a necessary law, inasmuch as without it we should not possess
|
|
a faculty of reason, nor without reason a consistent and self-accordant
|
|
mode of employing the understanding, nor, in the absence of this, any
|
|
proper and sufficient criterion of empirical truth. In relation to this
|
|
criterion, therefore, we must suppose the idea of the systematic unity
|
|
of nature to possess objective validity and necessity.
|
|
|
|
We find this transcendental presupposition lurking in different forms in
|
|
the principles of philosophers, although they have neither recognized
|
|
it nor confessed to themselves its presence. That the diversities of
|
|
individual things do not exclude identity of species, that the various
|
|
species must be considered as merely different determinations of a
|
|
few genera, and these again as divisions of still higher races, and
|
|
so on--that, accordingly, a certain systematic unity of all possible
|
|
empirical conceptions, in so far as they can be deduced from higher and
|
|
more general conceptions, must be sought for, is a scholastic maxim or
|
|
logical principle, without which reason could not be employed by us. For
|
|
we can infer the particular from the general, only in so far as general
|
|
properties of things constitute the foundation upon which the particular
|
|
rest.
|
|
|
|
That the same unity exists in nature is presupposed by philosophers
|
|
in the well-known scholastic maxim, which forbids us unnecessarily to
|
|
augment the number of entities or principles (entia praeter necessitatem
|
|
non esse multiplicanda). This maxim asserts that nature herself assists
|
|
in the establishment of this unity of reason, and that the seemingly
|
|
infinite diversity of phenomena should not deter us from the expectation
|
|
of discovering beneath this diversity a unity of fundamental properties,
|
|
of which the aforesaid variety is but a more or less determined form.
|
|
This unity, although a mere idea, thinkers have found it necessary
|
|
rather to moderate the desire than to encourage it. It was considered
|
|
a great step when chemists were able to reduce all salts to two main
|
|
genera--acids and alkalis; and they regard this difference as itself a
|
|
mere variety, or different manifestation of one and the same fundamental
|
|
material. The different kinds of earths (stones and even metals)
|
|
chemists have endeavoured to reduce to three, and afterwards to two; but
|
|
still, not content with this advance, they cannot but think that behind
|
|
these diversities there lurks but one genus--nay, that even salts and
|
|
earths have a common principle. It might be conjectured that this is
|
|
merely an economical plan of reason, for the purpose of sparing itself
|
|
trouble, and an attempt of a purely hypothetical character, which,
|
|
when successful, gives an appearance of probability to the principle of
|
|
explanation employed by the reason. But a selfish purpose of this kind
|
|
is easily to be distinguished from the idea, according to which every
|
|
one presupposes that this unity is in accordance with the laws of
|
|
nature, and that reason does not in this case request, but requires,
|
|
although we are quite unable to determine the proper limits of this
|
|
unity.
|
|
|
|
If the diversity existing in phenomena--a diversity not of form (for
|
|
in this they may be similar) but of content--were so great that the
|
|
subtlest human reason could never by comparison discover in them the
|
|
least similarity (which is not impossible), in this case the logical law
|
|
of genera would be without foundation, the conception of a genus, nay,
|
|
all general conceptions would be impossible, and the faculty of the
|
|
understanding, the exercise of which is restricted to the world
|
|
of conceptions, could not exist. The logical principle of genera,
|
|
accordingly, if it is to be applied to nature (by which I mean objects
|
|
presented to our senses), presupposes a transcendental principle. In
|
|
accordance with this principle, homogeneity is necessarily presupposed
|
|
in the variety of phenomena (although we are unable to determine a
|
|
priori the degree of this homogeneity), because without it no empirical
|
|
conceptions, and consequently no experience, would be possible.
|
|
|
|
The logical principle of genera, which demands identity in phenomena, is
|
|
balanced by another principle--that of species, which requires variety
|
|
and diversity in things, notwithstanding their accordance in the same
|
|
genus, and directs the understanding to attend to the one no less than
|
|
to the other. This principle (of the faculty of distinction) acts as a
|
|
check upon the reason and reason exhibits in this respect a double and
|
|
conflicting interest--on the one hand, the interest in the extent (the
|
|
interest of generality) in relation to genera; on the other, that of the
|
|
content (the interest of individuality) in relation to the variety of
|
|
species. In the former case, the understanding cogitates more under its
|
|
conceptions, in the latter it cogitates more in them. This distinction
|
|
manifests itself likewise in the habits of thought peculiar to natural
|
|
philosophers, some of whom--the remarkably speculative heads--may be
|
|
said to be hostile to heterogeneity in phenomena, and have their
|
|
eyes always fixed on the unity of genera, while others--with a strong
|
|
empirical tendency--aim unceasingly at the analysis of phenomena,
|
|
and almost destroy in us the hope of ever being able to estimate the
|
|
character of these according to general principles.
|
|
|
|
The latter mode of thought is evidently based upon a logical principle,
|
|
the aim of which is the systematic completeness of all cognitions.
|
|
This principle authorizes me, beginning at the genus, to descend to the
|
|
various and diverse contained under it; and in this way extension, as
|
|
in the former case unity, is assured to the system. For if we merely
|
|
examine the sphere of the conception which indicates a genus, we cannot
|
|
discover how far it is possible to proceed in the division of that
|
|
sphere; just as it is impossible, from the consideration of the space
|
|
occupied by matter, to determine how far we can proceed in the division
|
|
of it. Hence every genus must contain different species, and these again
|
|
different subspecies; and as each of the latter must itself contain a
|
|
sphere (must be of a certain extent, as a conceptus communis), reason
|
|
demands that no species or sub-species is to be considered as the lowest
|
|
possible. For a species or sub-species, being always a conception, which
|
|
contains only what is common to a number of different things, does not
|
|
completely determine any individual thing, or relate immediately to
|
|
it, and must consequently contain other conceptions, that is, other
|
|
sub-species under it. This law of specification may be thus expressed:
|
|
entium varietates non temere sunt minuendae.
|
|
|
|
But it is easy to see that this logical law would likewise be without
|
|
sense or application, were it not based upon a transcendental law of
|
|
specification, which certainly does not require that the differences
|
|
existing phenomena should be infinite in number, for the logical
|
|
principle, which merely maintains the indeterminateness of the logical
|
|
sphere of a conception, in relation to its possible division, does not
|
|
authorize this statement; while it does impose upon the understanding
|
|
the duty of searching for subspecies to every species, and minor
|
|
differences in every difference. For, were there no lower conceptions,
|
|
neither could there be any higher. Now the understanding cognizes only
|
|
by means of conceptions; consequently, how far soever it may proceed
|
|
in division, never by mere intuition, but always by lower and lower
|
|
conceptions. The cognition of phenomena in their complete determination
|
|
(which is possible only by means of the understanding) requires an
|
|
unceasingly continued specification of conceptions, and a progression
|
|
to ever smaller differences, of which abstraction bad been made in the
|
|
conception of the species, and still more in that of the genus.
|
|
|
|
This law of specification cannot be deduced from experience; it can
|
|
never present us with a principle of so universal an application.
|
|
Empirical specification very soon stops in its distinction of
|
|
diversities, and requires the guidance of the transcendental law, as
|
|
a principle of the reason--a law which imposes on us the necessity of
|
|
never ceasing in our search for differences, even although these may not
|
|
present themselves to the senses. That absorbent earths are of different
|
|
kinds could only be discovered by obeying the anticipatory law of
|
|
reason, which imposes upon the understanding the task of discovering the
|
|
differences existing between these earths, and supposes that nature is
|
|
richer in substances than our senses would indicate. The faculty of the
|
|
understanding belongs to us just as much under the presupposition of
|
|
differences in the objects of nature, as under the condition that these
|
|
objects are homogeneous, because we could not possess conceptions, nor
|
|
make any use of our understanding, were not the phenomena included under
|
|
these conceptions in some respects dissimilar, as well as similar, in
|
|
their character.
|
|
|
|
Reason thus prepares the sphere of the understanding for the operations
|
|
of this faculty: 1. By the principle of the homogeneity of the diverse
|
|
in higher genera; 2. By the principle of the variety of the homogeneous
|
|
in lower species; and, to complete the systematic unity, it adds, 3.
|
|
A law of the affinity of all conceptions which prescribes a continuous
|
|
transition from one species to every other by the gradual increase of
|
|
diversity. We may term these the principles of the homogeneity, the
|
|
specification, and the continuity of forms. The latter results from the
|
|
union of the two former, inasmuch as we regard the systematic connection
|
|
as complete in thought, in the ascent to higher genera, as well as in
|
|
the descent to lower species. For all diversities must be related
|
|
to each other, as they all spring from one highest genus, descending
|
|
through the different gradations of a more and more extended
|
|
determination.
|
|
|
|
We may illustrate the systematic unity produced by the three logical
|
|
principles in the following manner. Every conception may be regarded as
|
|
a point, which, as the standpoint of a spectator, has a certain horizon,
|
|
which may be said to enclose a number of things that may be viewed,
|
|
so to speak, from that centre. Within this horizon there must be an
|
|
infinite number of other points, each of which has its own horizon,
|
|
smaller and more circumscribed; in other words, every species contains
|
|
sub-species, according to the principle of specification, and the
|
|
logical horizon consists of smaller horizons (subspecies), but not of
|
|
points (individuals), which possess no extent. But different horizons
|
|
or genera, which include under them so many conceptions, may have one
|
|
common horizon, from which, as from a mid-point, they may be surveyed;
|
|
and we may proceed thus, till we arrive at the highest genus, or
|
|
universal and true horizon, which is determined by the highest
|
|
conception, and which contains under itself all differences and
|
|
varieties, as genera, species, and subspecies.
|
|
|
|
To this highest standpoint I am conducted by the law of homogeneity,
|
|
as to all lower and more variously-determined conceptions by the law
|
|
of specification. Now as in this way there exists no void in the whole
|
|
extent of all possible conceptions, and as out of the sphere of these
|
|
the mind can discover nothing, there arises from the presupposition of
|
|
the universal horizon above mentioned, and its complete division, the
|
|
principle: Non datur vacuum formarum. This principle asserts that there
|
|
are not different primitive and highest genera, which stand isolated, so
|
|
to speak, from each other, but all the various genera are mere divisions
|
|
and limitations of one highest and universal genus; and hence follows
|
|
immediately the principle: Datur continuum formarum. This principle
|
|
indicates that all differences of species limit each other, and do not
|
|
admit of transition from one to another by a saltus, but only through
|
|
smaller degrees of the difference between the one species and the other.
|
|
In one word, there are no species or sub-species which (in the view of
|
|
reason) are the nearest possible to each other; intermediate species or
|
|
sub-species being always possible, the difference of which from each of
|
|
the former is always smaller than the difference existing between these.
|
|
|
|
The first law, therefore, directs us to avoid the notion that there
|
|
exist different primal genera, and enounces the fact of perfect
|
|
homogeneity; the second imposes a check upon this tendency to unity and
|
|
prescribes the distinction of sub-species, before proceeding to apply
|
|
our general conceptions to individuals. The third unites both the
|
|
former, by enouncing the fact of homogeneity as existing even in the
|
|
most various diversity, by means of the gradual transition from one
|
|
species to another. Thus it indicates a relationship between the
|
|
different branches or species, in so far as they all spring from the
|
|
same stem.
|
|
|
|
But this logical law of the continuum specierum (formarum logicarum)
|
|
presupposes a transcendental principle (lex continui in natura), without
|
|
which the understanding might be led into error, by following the
|
|
guidance of the former, and thus perhaps pursuing a path contrary to
|
|
that prescribed by nature. This law must, consequently, be based upon
|
|
pure transcendental, and not upon empirical, considerations. For, in the
|
|
latter case, it would come later than the system; whereas it is really
|
|
itself the parent of all that is systematic in our cognition of nature.
|
|
These principles are not mere hypotheses employed for the purpose
|
|
of experimenting upon nature; although when any such connection is
|
|
discovered, it forms a solid ground for regarding the hypothetical unity
|
|
as valid in the sphere of nature--and thus they are in this respect not
|
|
without their use. But we go farther, and maintain that it is manifest
|
|
that these principles of parsimony in fundamental causes, variety in
|
|
effects, and affinity in phenomena, are in accordance both with reason
|
|
and nature, and that they are not mere methods or plans devised for the
|
|
purpose of assisting us in our observation of the external world.
|
|
|
|
But it is plain that this continuity of forms is a mere idea, to which
|
|
no adequate object can be discovered in experience. And this for two
|
|
reasons. First, because the species in nature are really divided, and
|
|
hence form quanta discreta; and, if the gradual progression through
|
|
their affinity were continuous, the intermediate members lying between
|
|
two given species must be infinite in number, which is impossible.
|
|
Secondly, because we cannot make any determinate empirical use of this
|
|
law, inasmuch as it does not present us with any criterion of affinity
|
|
which could aid us in determining how far we ought to pursue the
|
|
graduation of differences: it merely contains a general indication that
|
|
it is our duty to seek for and, if possible, to discover them.
|
|
|
|
When we arrange these principles of systematic unity in the order
|
|
conformable to their employment in experience, they will stand thus:
|
|
Variety, Affinity, Unity, each of them, as ideas, being taken in the
|
|
highest degree of their completeness. Reason presupposes the existence
|
|
of cognitions of the understanding, which have a direct relation to
|
|
experience, and aims at the ideal unity of these cognitions--a unity
|
|
which far transcends all experience or empirical notions. The affinity
|
|
of the diverse, notwithstanding the differences existing between its
|
|
parts, has a relation to things, but a still closer one to the mere
|
|
properties and powers of things. For example, imperfect experience
|
|
may represent the orbits of the planets as circular. But we discover
|
|
variations from this course, and we proceed to suppose that the planets
|
|
revolve in a path which, if not a circle, is of a character very similar
|
|
to it. That is to say, the movements of those planets which do not form
|
|
a circle will approximate more or less to the properties of a circle,
|
|
and probably form an ellipse. The paths of comets exhibit still greater
|
|
variations, for, so far as our observation extends, they do not return
|
|
upon their own course in a circle or ellipse. But we proceed to the
|
|
conjecture that comets describe a parabola, a figure which is closely
|
|
allied to the ellipse. In fact, a parabola is merely an ellipse, with
|
|
its longer axis produced to an indefinite extent. Thus these principles
|
|
conduct us to a unity in the genera of the forms of these orbits, and,
|
|
proceeding farther, to a unity as regards the cause of the motions of
|
|
the heavenly bodies--that is, gravitation. But we go on extending our
|
|
conquests over nature, and endeavour to explain all seeming deviations
|
|
from these rules, and even make additions to our system which no
|
|
experience can ever substantiate--for example, the theory, in affinity
|
|
with that of ellipses, of hyperbolic paths of comets, pursuing which,
|
|
these bodies leave our solar system and, passing from sun to sun, unite
|
|
the most distant parts of the infinite universe, which is held together
|
|
by the same moving power.
|
|
|
|
The most remarkable circumstance connected with these principles is that
|
|
they seem to be transcendental, and, although only containing ideas
|
|
for the guidance of the empirical exercise of reason, and although this
|
|
empirical employment stands to these ideas in an asymptotic relation
|
|
alone (to use a mathematical term), that is, continually
|
|
approximate, without ever being able to attain to them, they possess,
|
|
notwithstanding, as a priori synthetical propositions, objective
|
|
though undetermined validity, and are available as rules for possible
|
|
experience. In the elaboration of our experience, they may also be
|
|
employed with great advantage, as heuristic [Footnote: From the Greek,
|
|
eurhioko.] principles. A transcendental deduction of them cannot be
|
|
made; such a deduction being always impossible in the case of ideas, as
|
|
has been already shown.
|
|
|
|
We distinguished, in the Transcendental Analytic, the dynamical
|
|
principles of the understanding, which are regulative principles of
|
|
intuition, from the mathematical, which are constitutive principles of
|
|
intuition. These dynamical laws are, however, constitutive in relation
|
|
to experience, inasmuch as they render the conceptions without which
|
|
experience could not exist possible a priori. But the principles of pure
|
|
reason cannot be constitutive even in regard to empirical conceptions,
|
|
because no sensuous schema corresponding to them can be discovered, and
|
|
they cannot therefore have an object in concreto. Now, if I grant that
|
|
they cannot be employed in the sphere of experience, as constitutive
|
|
principles, how shall I secure for them employment and objective
|
|
validity as regulative principles, and in what way can they be so
|
|
employed?
|
|
|
|
The understanding is the object of reason, as sensibility is the object
|
|
of the understanding. The production of systematic unity in all the
|
|
empirical operations of the understanding is the proper occupation of
|
|
reason; just as it is the business of the understanding to connect the
|
|
various content of phenomena by means of conceptions, and subject them
|
|
to empirical laws. But the operations of the understanding are, without
|
|
the schemata of sensibility, undetermined; and, in the same manner,
|
|
the unity of reason is perfectly undetermined as regards the conditions
|
|
under which, and the extent to which, the understanding ought to carry
|
|
the systematic connection of its conceptions. But, although it is
|
|
impossible to discover in intuition a schema for the complete systematic
|
|
unity of all the conceptions of the understanding, there must be some
|
|
analogon of this schema. This analogon is the idea of the maximum of the
|
|
division and the connection of our cognition in one principle. For we
|
|
may have a determinate notion of a maximum and an absolutely perfect,
|
|
all the restrictive conditions which are connected with an indeterminate
|
|
and various content having been abstracted. Thus the idea of reason
|
|
is analogous with a sensuous schema, with this difference, that the
|
|
application of the categories to the schema of reason does not present
|
|
a cognition of any object (as is the case with the application of the
|
|
categories to sensuous schemata), but merely provides us with a rule or
|
|
principle for the systematic unity of the exercise of the understanding.
|
|
Now, as every principle which imposes upon the exercise of the
|
|
understanding a priori compliance with the rule of systematic unity
|
|
also relates, although only in an indirect manner, to an object of
|
|
experience, the principles of pure reason will also possess objective
|
|
reality and validity in relation to experience. But they will not aim at
|
|
determining our knowledge in regard to any empirical object; they
|
|
will merely indicate the procedure, following which the empirical and
|
|
determinate exercise of the understanding may be in complete harmony and
|
|
connection with itself--a result which is produced by its being brought
|
|
into harmony with the principle of systematic unity, so far as that is
|
|
possible, and deduced from it.
|
|
|
|
I term all subjective principles, which are not derived from observation
|
|
of the constitution of an object, but from the interest which Reason
|
|
has in producing a certain completeness in her cognition of that object,
|
|
maxims of reason. Thus there are maxims of speculative reason, which are
|
|
based solely upon its speculative interest, although they appear to be
|
|
objective principles.
|
|
|
|
When principles which are really regulative are regarded as
|
|
constitutive, and employed as objective principles, contradictions must
|
|
arise; but if they are considered as mere maxims, there is no room for
|
|
contradictions of any kind, as they then merely indicate the different
|
|
interests of reason, which occasion differences in the mode of thought.
|
|
In effect, Reason has only one single interest, and the seeming
|
|
contradiction existing between her maxims merely indicates a difference
|
|
in, and a reciprocal limitation of, the methods by which this interest
|
|
is satisfied.
|
|
|
|
This reasoner has at heart the interest of diversity--in accordance
|
|
with the principle of specification; another, the interest of unity--in
|
|
accordance with the principle of aggregation. Each believes that
|
|
his judgement rests upon a thorough insight into the subject he is
|
|
examining, and yet it has been influenced solely by a greater or less
|
|
degree of adherence to some one of the two principles, neither of which
|
|
are objective, but originate solely from the interest of reason, and on
|
|
this account to be termed maxims rather than principles. When I observe
|
|
intelligent men disputing about the distinctive characteristics of men,
|
|
animals, or plants, and even of minerals, those on the one side assuming
|
|
the existence of certain national characteristics, certain well-defined
|
|
and hereditary distinctions of family, race, and so on, while the other
|
|
side maintain that nature has endowed all races of men with the same
|
|
faculties and dispositions, and that all differences are but the result
|
|
of external and accidental circumstances--I have only to consider for
|
|
a moment the real nature of the subject of discussion, to arrive at the
|
|
conclusion that it is a subject far too deep for us to judge of, and
|
|
that there is little probability of either party being able to speak
|
|
from a perfect insight into and understanding of the nature of the
|
|
subject itself. Both have, in reality, been struggling for the twofold
|
|
interest of reason; the one maintaining the one interest, the other the
|
|
other. But this difference between the maxims of diversity and unity
|
|
may easily be reconciled and adjusted; although, so long as they
|
|
are regarded as objective principles, they must occasion not only
|
|
contradictions and polemic, but place hinderances in the way of the
|
|
advancement of truth, until some means is discovered of reconciling
|
|
these conflicting interests, and bringing reason into union and harmony
|
|
with itself.
|
|
|
|
The same is the case with the so-called law discovered by Leibnitz, and
|
|
supported with remarkable ability by Bonnet--the law of the continuous
|
|
gradation of created beings, which is nothing more than an inference
|
|
from the principle of affinity; for observation and study of the order
|
|
of nature could never present it to the mind as an objective truth. The
|
|
steps of this ladder, as they appear in experience, are too far apart
|
|
from each other, and the so-called petty differences between different
|
|
kinds of animals are in nature commonly so wide separations that no
|
|
confidence can be placed in such views (particularly when we reflect
|
|
on the great variety of things, and the ease with which we can discover
|
|
resemblances), and no faith in the laws which are said to express
|
|
the aims and purposes of nature. On the other hand, the method of
|
|
investigating the order of nature in the light of this principle,
|
|
and the maxim which requires us to regard this order--it being still
|
|
undetermined how far it extends--as really existing in nature, is beyond
|
|
doubt a legitimate and excellent principle of reason--a principle which
|
|
extends farther than any experience or observation of ours and which,
|
|
without giving us any positive knowledge of anything in the region of
|
|
experience, guides us to the goal of systematic unity.
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
Of the Ultimate End of the Natural Dialectic of Human Reason.
|
|
|
|
The ideas of pure reason cannot be, of themselves and in their own
|
|
nature, dialectical; it is from their misemployment alone that fallacies
|
|
and illusions arise. For they originate in the nature of reason itself,
|
|
and it is impossible that this supreme tribunal for all the rights and
|
|
claims of speculation should be itself undeserving of confidence and
|
|
promotive of error. It is to be expected, therefore, that these ideas
|
|
have a genuine and legitimate aim. It is true, the mob of sophists raise
|
|
against reason the cry of inconsistency and contradiction, and affect to
|
|
despise the government of that faculty, because they cannot understand
|
|
its constitution, while it is to its beneficial influences alone
|
|
that they owe the position and the intelligence which enable them to
|
|
criticize and to blame its procedure.
|
|
|
|
We cannot employ an a priori conception with certainty, until we have
|
|
made a transcendental deduction therefore. The ideas of pure reason do
|
|
not admit of the same kind of deduction as the categories. But if they
|
|
are to possess the least objective validity, and to represent anything
|
|
but mere creations of thought (entia rationis ratiocinantis), a
|
|
deduction of them must be possible. This deduction will complete the
|
|
critical task imposed upon pure reason; and it is to this part Of our
|
|
labours that we now proceed.
|
|
|
|
There is a great difference between a thing's being presented to the
|
|
mind as an object in an absolute sense, or merely as an ideal object. In
|
|
the former case I employ my conceptions to determine the object; in the
|
|
latter case nothing is present to the mind but a mere schema, which does
|
|
not relate directly to an object, not even in a hypothetical sense, but
|
|
which is useful only for the purpose of representing other objects to
|
|
the mind, in a mediate and indirect manner, by means of their relation
|
|
to the idea in the intellect. Thus I say the conception of a supreme
|
|
intelligence is a mere idea; that is to say, its objective reality does
|
|
not consist in the fact that it has an immediate relation to an object
|
|
(for in this sense we have no means of establishing its objective
|
|
validity), it is merely a schema constructed according to the necessary
|
|
conditions of the unity of reason--the schema of a thing in general,
|
|
which is useful towards the production of the highest degree of
|
|
systematic unity in the empirical exercise of reason, in which we deduce
|
|
this or that object of experience from the imaginary object of this
|
|
idea, as the ground or cause of the said object of experience. In this
|
|
way, the idea is properly a heuristic, and not an ostensive, conception;
|
|
it does not give us any information respecting the constitution of an
|
|
object, it merely indicates how, under the guidance of the idea, we
|
|
ought to investigate the constitution and the relations of objects in
|
|
the world of experience. Now, if it can be shown that the three kinds
|
|
of transcendental ideas (psychological, cosmological, and theological),
|
|
although not relating directly to any object nor determining it, do
|
|
nevertheless, on the supposition of the existence of an ideal object,
|
|
produce systematic unity in the laws of the empirical employment of
|
|
the reason, and extend our empirical cognition, without ever being
|
|
inconsistent or in opposition with it--it must be a necessary maxim
|
|
of reason to regulate its procedure according to these ideas. And this
|
|
forms the transcendental deduction of all speculative ideas, not as
|
|
constitutive principles of the extension of our cognition beyond the
|
|
limits of our experience, but as regulative principles of the systematic
|
|
unity of empirical cognition, which is by the aid of these ideas
|
|
arranged and emended within its own proper limits, to an extent
|
|
unattainable by the operation of the principles of the understanding
|
|
alone.
|
|
|
|
I shall make this plainer. Guided by the principles involved in these
|
|
ideas, we must, in the first place, so connect all the phenomena,
|
|
actions, and feelings of the mind, as if it were a simple substance,
|
|
which, endowed with personal identity, possesses a permanent existence
|
|
(in this life at least), while its states, among which those of the
|
|
body are to be included as external conditions, are in continual change.
|
|
Secondly, in cosmology, we must investigate the conditions of all
|
|
natural phenomena, internal as well as external, as if they belonged to
|
|
a chain infinite and without any prime or supreme member, while we do
|
|
not, on this account, deny the existence of intelligible grounds of
|
|
these phenomena, although we never employ them to explain phenomena, for
|
|
the simple reason that they are not objects of our cognition. Thirdly,
|
|
in the sphere of theology, we must regard the whole system of
|
|
possible experience as forming an absolute, but dependent and
|
|
sensuously-conditioned unity, and at the same time as based upon a
|
|
sole, supreme, and all-sufficient ground existing apart from the world
|
|
itself--a ground which is a self-subsistent, primeval and creative
|
|
reason, in relation to which we so employ our reason in the field of
|
|
experience, as if all objects drew their origin from that archetype
|
|
of all reason. In other words, we ought not to deduce the internal
|
|
phenomena of the mind from a simple thinking substance, but deduce them
|
|
from each other under the guidance of the regulative idea of a simple
|
|
being; we ought not to deduce the phenomena, order, and unity of the
|
|
universe from a supreme intelligence, but merely draw from this idea
|
|
of a supremely wise cause the rules which must guide reason in its
|
|
connection of causes and effects.
|
|
|
|
Now there is nothing to hinder us from admitting these ideas to possess
|
|
an objective and hyperbolic existence, except the cosmological ideas,
|
|
which lead reason into an antinomy: the psychological and theological
|
|
ideas are not antinomial. They contain no contradiction; and how, then,
|
|
can any one dispute their objective reality, since he who denies it
|
|
knows as little about their possibility as we who affirm? And yet,
|
|
when we wish to admit the existence of a thing, it is not sufficient to
|
|
convince ourselves that there is no positive obstacle in the way; for
|
|
it cannot be allowable to regard mere creations of thought, which
|
|
transcend, though they do not contradict, all our conceptions, as real
|
|
and determinate objects, solely upon the authority of a speculative
|
|
reason striving to compass its own aims. They cannot, therefore, be
|
|
admitted to be real in themselves; they can only possess a comparative
|
|
reality--that of a schema of the regulative principle of the systematic
|
|
unity of all cognition. They are to be regarded not as actual things,
|
|
but as in some measure analogous to them. We abstract from the object
|
|
of the idea all the conditions which limit the exercise of our
|
|
understanding, but which, on the other hand, are the sole conditions of
|
|
our possessing a determinate conception of any given thing. And thus we
|
|
cogitate a something, of the real nature of which we have not the
|
|
least conception, but which we represent to ourselves as standing in a
|
|
relation to the whole system of phenomena, analogous to that in which
|
|
phenomena stand to each other.
|
|
|
|
By admitting these ideal beings, we do not really extend our cognitions
|
|
beyond the objects of possible experience; we extend merely the
|
|
empirical unity of our experience, by the aid of systematic unity, the
|
|
schema of which is furnished by the idea, which is therefore valid--not
|
|
as a constitutive, but as a regulative principle. For although we posit
|
|
a thing corresponding to the idea--a something, an actual existence--we
|
|
do not on that account aim at the extension of our cognition by means
|
|
of transcendent conceptions. This existence is purely ideal, and not
|
|
objective; it is the mere expression of the systematic unity which is to
|
|
be the guide of reason in the field of experience. There are no attempts
|
|
made at deciding what the ground of this unity may be, or what the real
|
|
nature of this imaginary being.
|
|
|
|
Thus the transcendental and only determinate conception of God, which
|
|
is presented to us by speculative reason, is in the strictest sense
|
|
deistic. In other words, reason does not assure us of the objective
|
|
validity of the conception; it merely gives us the idea of something, on
|
|
which the supreme and necessary unity of all experience is based. This
|
|
something we cannot, following the analogy of a real substance, cogitate
|
|
otherwise than as the cause of all things operating in accordance with
|
|
rational laws, if we regard it as an individual object; although we
|
|
should rest contented with the idea alone as a regulative principle
|
|
of reason, and make no attempt at completing the sum of the conditions
|
|
imposed by thought. This attempt is, indeed, inconsistent with the grand
|
|
aim of complete systematic unity in the sphere of cognition--a unity to
|
|
which no bounds are set by reason.
|
|
|
|
Hence it happens that, admitting a divine being, I can have no
|
|
conception of the internal possibility of its perfection, or of the
|
|
necessity of its existence. The only advantage of this admission is that
|
|
it enables me to answer all other questions relating to the contingent,
|
|
and to give reason the most complete satisfaction as regards the unity
|
|
which it aims at attaining in the world of experience. But I cannot
|
|
satisfy reason with regard to this hypothesis itself; and this proves
|
|
that it is not its intelligence and insight into the subject, but its
|
|
speculative interest alone which induces it to proceed from a point
|
|
lying far beyond the sphere of our cognition, for the purpose of being
|
|
able to consider all objects as parts of a systematic whole.
|
|
|
|
Here a distinction presents itself, in regard to the way in which we may
|
|
cogitate a presupposition--a distinction which is somewhat subtle, but
|
|
of great importance in transcendental philosophy. I may have sufficient
|
|
grounds to admit something, or the existence of something, in a
|
|
relative point of view (suppositio relativa), without being justified
|
|
in admitting it in an absolute sense (suppositio absoluta). This
|
|
distinction is undoubtedly requisite, in the case of a regulative
|
|
principle, the necessity of which we recognize, though we are ignorant
|
|
of the source and cause of that necessity, and which we assume to
|
|
be based upon some ultimate ground, for the purpose of being able to
|
|
cogitate the universality of the principle in a more determinate way.
|
|
For example, I cogitate the existence of a being corresponding to a
|
|
pure transcendental idea. But I cannot admit that this being exists
|
|
absolutely and in itself, because all of the conceptions by which I can
|
|
cogitate an object in a determinate manner fall short of assuring me
|
|
of its existence; nay, the conditions of the objective validity of my
|
|
conceptions are excluded by the idea--by the very fact of its being an
|
|
idea. The conceptions of reality, substance, causality, nay, even that
|
|
of necessity in existence, have no significance out of the sphere of
|
|
empirical cognition, and cannot, beyond that sphere, determine any
|
|
object. They may, accordingly, be employed to explain the possibility of
|
|
things in the world of sense, but they are utterly inadequate to explain
|
|
the possibility of the universe itself considered as a whole; because
|
|
in this case the ground of explanation must lie out of and beyond the
|
|
world, and cannot, therefore, be an object of possible experience.
|
|
Now, I may admit the existence of an incomprehensible being of this
|
|
nature--the object of a mere idea, relatively to the world of sense;
|
|
although I have no ground to admit its existence absolutely and in
|
|
itself. For if an idea (that of a systematic and complete unity, of
|
|
which I shall presently speak more particularly) lies at the foundation
|
|
of the most extended empirical employment of reason, and if this
|
|
idea cannot be adequately represented in concreto, although it is
|
|
indispensably necessary for the approximation of empirical unity to the
|
|
highest possible degree--I am not only authorized, but compelled,
|
|
to realize this idea, that is, to posit a real object corresponding
|
|
thereto. But I cannot profess to know this object; it is to me merely a
|
|
something, to which, as the ground of systematic unity in cognition, I
|
|
attribute such properties as are analogous to the conceptions employed
|
|
by the understanding in the sphere of experience. Following the analogy
|
|
of the notions of reality, substance, causality, and necessity, I
|
|
cogitate a being, which possesses all these attributes in the highest
|
|
degree; and, as this idea is the offspring of my reason alone, I
|
|
cogitate this being as self-subsistent reason, and as the cause of the
|
|
universe operating by means of ideas of the greatest possible harmony
|
|
and unity. Thus I abstract all conditions that would limit my idea,
|
|
solely for the purpose of rendering systematic unity possible in the
|
|
world of empirical diversity, and thus securing the widest possible
|
|
extension for the exercise of reason in that sphere. This I am enabled
|
|
to do, by regarding all connections and relations in the world of sense,
|
|
as if they were the dispositions of a supreme reason, of which our
|
|
reason is but a faint image. I then proceed to cogitate this Supreme
|
|
Being by conceptions which have, properly, no meaning or application,
|
|
except in the world of sense. But as I am authorized to employ the
|
|
transcendental hypothesis of such a being in a relative respect
|
|
alone, that is, as the substratum of the greatest possible unity in
|
|
experience--I may attribute to a being which I regard as distinct from
|
|
the world, such properties as belong solely to the sphere of sense and
|
|
experience. For I do not desire, and am not justified in desiring, to
|
|
cognize this object of my idea, as it exists in itself; for I possess
|
|
no conceptions sufficient for or task, those of reality, substance,
|
|
causality, nay, even that of necessity in existence, losing all
|
|
significance, and becoming merely the signs of conceptions, without
|
|
content and without applicability, when I attempt to carry them beyond
|
|
the limits of the world of sense. I cogitate merely the relation of a
|
|
perfectly unknown being to the greatest possible systematic unity of
|
|
experience, solely for the purpose of employing it as the schema of the
|
|
regulative principle which directs reason in its empirical exercise.
|
|
|
|
It is evident, at the first view, that we cannot presuppose the reality
|
|
of this transcendental object, by means of the conceptions of reality,
|
|
substance, causality, and so on, because these conceptions cannot be
|
|
applied to anything that is distinct from the world of sense. Thus
|
|
the supposition of a Supreme Being or cause is purely relative; it is
|
|
cogitated only in behalf of the systematic unity of experience; such a
|
|
being is but a something, of whose existence in itself we have not the
|
|
least conception. Thus, too, it becomes sufficiently manifest why we
|
|
required the idea of a necessary being in relation to objects given by
|
|
sense, although we can never have the least conception of this being, or
|
|
of its absolute necessity.
|
|
|
|
And now we can clearly perceive the result of our transcendental
|
|
dialectic, and the proper aim of the ideas of pure reason--which become
|
|
dialectical solely from misunderstanding and inconsiderateness. Pure
|
|
reason is, in fact, occupied with itself, and not with any object.
|
|
Objects are not presented to it to be embraced in the unity of an
|
|
empirical conception; it is only the cognitions of the understanding
|
|
that are presented to it, for the purpose of receiving the unity of
|
|
a rational conception, that is, of being connected according to
|
|
a principle. The unity of reason is the unity of system; and this
|
|
systematic unity is not an objective principle, extending its dominion
|
|
over objects, but a subjective maxim, extending its authority over the
|
|
empirical cognition of objects. The systematic connection which reason
|
|
gives to the empirical employment of the understanding not only advances
|
|
the extension of that employment, but ensures its correctness, and thus
|
|
the principle of a systematic unity of this nature is also objective,
|
|
although only in an indefinite respect (principium vagum). It is not,
|
|
however, a constitutive principle, determining an object to which
|
|
it directly relates; it is merely a regulative principle or maxim,
|
|
advancing and strengthening the empirical exercise of reason, by the
|
|
opening up of new paths of which the understanding is ignorant, while
|
|
it never conflicts with the laws of its exercise in the sphere of
|
|
experience.
|
|
|
|
But reason cannot cogitate this systematic unity, without at the
|
|
same time cogitating an object of the idea--an object that cannot be
|
|
presented in any experience, which contains no concrete example of a
|
|
complete systematic unity. This being (ens rationis ratiocinatae) is
|
|
therefore a mere idea and is not assumed to be a thing which is
|
|
real absolutely and in itself. On the contrary, it forms merely the
|
|
problematical foundation of the connection which the mind introduces
|
|
among the phenomena of the sensuous world. We look upon this connection,
|
|
in the light of the above-mentioned idea, as if it drew its origin from
|
|
the supposed being which corresponds to the idea. And yet all we aim at
|
|
is the possession of this idea as a secure foundation for the systematic
|
|
unity of experience--a unity indispensable to reason, advantageous
|
|
to the understanding, and promotive of the interests of empirical
|
|
cognition.
|
|
|
|
We mistake the true meaning of this idea when we regard it as an
|
|
enouncement, or even as a hypothetical declaration of the existence of
|
|
a real thing, which we are to regard as the origin or ground of a
|
|
systematic constitution of the universe. On the contrary, it is left
|
|
completely undetermined what the nature or properties of this so-called
|
|
ground may be. The idea is merely to be adopted as a point of view,
|
|
from which this unity, so essential to reason and so beneficial to
|
|
the understanding, may be regarded as radiating. In one word, this
|
|
transcendental thing is merely the schema of a regulative principle, by
|
|
means of which Reason, so far as in her lies, extends the dominion of
|
|
systematic unity over the whole sphere of experience.
|
|
|
|
The first object of an idea of this kind is the ego, considered merely
|
|
as a thinking nature or soul. If I wish to investigate the properties of
|
|
a thinking being, I must interrogate experience. But I find that I
|
|
can apply none of the categories to this object, the schema of these
|
|
categories, which is the condition of their application, being given
|
|
only in sensuous intuition. But I cannot thus attain to the cognition of
|
|
a systematic unity of all the phenomena of the internal sense. Instead,
|
|
therefore, of an empirical conception of what the soul really is, reason
|
|
takes the conception of the empirical unity of all thought, and, by
|
|
cogitating this unity as unconditioned and primitive, constructs the
|
|
rational conception or idea of a simple substance which is in itself
|
|
unchangeable, possessing personal identity, and in connection with other
|
|
real things external to it; in one word, it constructs the idea of a
|
|
simple self-subsistent intelligence. But the real aim of reason in this
|
|
procedure is the attainment of principles of systematic unity for the
|
|
explanation of the phenomena of the soul. That is, reason desires to
|
|
be able to represent all the determinations of the internal sense as
|
|
existing in one subject, all powers as deduced from one fundamental
|
|
power, all changes as mere varieties in the condition of a being which
|
|
is permanent and always the same, and all phenomena in space as entirely
|
|
different in their nature from the procedure of thought. Essential
|
|
simplicity (with the other attributes predicated of the ego) is regarded
|
|
as the mere schema of this regulative principle; it is not assumed
|
|
that it is the actual ground of the properties of the soul. For these
|
|
properties may rest upon quite different grounds, of which we are
|
|
completely ignorant; just as the above predicates could not give us any
|
|
knowledge of the soul as it is in itself, even if we regarded them as
|
|
valid in respect of it, inasmuch as they constitute a mere idea, which
|
|
cannot be represented in concreto. Nothing but good can result from
|
|
a psychological idea of this kind, if we only take proper care not to
|
|
consider it as more than an idea; that is, if we regard it as valid
|
|
merely in relation to the employment of reason, in the sphere of the
|
|
phenomena of the soul. Under the guidance of this idea, or principle,
|
|
no empirical laws of corporeal phenomena are called in to explain that
|
|
which is a phenomenon of the internal sense alone; no windy hypotheses
|
|
of the generation, annihilation, and palingenesis of souls are admitted.
|
|
Thus the consideration of this object of the internal sense is kept
|
|
pure, and unmixed with heterogeneous elements; while the investigation
|
|
of reason aims at reducing all the grounds of explanation employed
|
|
in this sphere of knowledge to a single principle. All this is best
|
|
effected, nay, cannot be effected otherwise than by means of such
|
|
a schema, which requires us to regard this ideal thing as an actual
|
|
existence. The psychological idea is, therefore, meaningless and
|
|
inapplicable, except as the schema of a regulative conception. For, if
|
|
I ask whether the soul is not really of a spiritual nature--it is
|
|
a question which has no meaning. From such a conception has been
|
|
abstracted, not merely all corporeal nature, but all nature, that is,
|
|
all the predicates of a possible experience; and consequently, all the
|
|
conditions which enable us to cogitate an object to this conception have
|
|
disappeared. But, if these conditions are absent, it is evident that the
|
|
conception is meaningless.
|
|
|
|
The second regulative idea of speculative reason is the conception of
|
|
the universe. For nature is properly the only object presented to us,
|
|
in regard to which reason requires regulative principles. Nature is
|
|
twofold--thinking and corporeal nature. To cogitate the latter in regard
|
|
to its internal possibility, that is, to determine the application
|
|
of the categories to it, no idea is required--no representation which
|
|
transcends experience. In this sphere, therefore, an idea is impossible,
|
|
sensuous intuition being our only guide; while, in the sphere of
|
|
psychology, we require the fundamental idea (I), which contains a priori
|
|
a certain form of thought namely, the unity of the ego. Pure reason has,
|
|
therefore, nothing left but nature in general, and the completeness of
|
|
conditions in nature in accordance with some principle. The absolute
|
|
totality of the series of these conditions is an idea, which can never
|
|
be fully realized in the empirical exercise of reason, while it is
|
|
serviceable as a rule for the procedure of reason in relation to that
|
|
totality. It requires us, in the explanation of given phenomena (in
|
|
the regress or ascent in the series), to proceed as if the series were
|
|
infinite in itself, that is, were prolonged in indefinitum; while on
|
|
the other hand, where reason is regarded as itself the determining cause
|
|
(in the region of freedom), we are required to proceed as if we had not
|
|
before us an object of sense, but of the pure understanding. In this
|
|
latter case, the conditions do not exist in the series of phenomena, but
|
|
may be placed quite out of and beyond it, and the series of conditions
|
|
may be regarded as if it had an absolute beginning from an intelligible
|
|
cause. All this proves that the cosmological ideas are nothing but
|
|
regulative principles, and not constitutive; and that their aim is not
|
|
to realize an actual totality in such series. The full discussion of
|
|
this subject will be found in its proper place in the chapter on the
|
|
antinomy of pure reason.
|
|
|
|
The third idea of pure reason, containing the hypothesis of a being
|
|
which is valid merely as a relative hypothesis, is that of the one and
|
|
all-sufficient cause of all cosmological series, in other words, the
|
|
idea of God. We have not the slightest ground absolutely to admit the
|
|
existence of an object corresponding to this idea; for what can empower
|
|
or authorize us to affirm the existence of a being of the highest
|
|
perfection--a being whose existence is absolutely necessary--merely
|
|
because we possess the conception of such a being? The answer is: It is
|
|
the existence of the world which renders this hypothesis necessary. But
|
|
this answer makes it perfectly evident that the idea of this being, like
|
|
all other speculative ideas, is essentially nothing more than a demand
|
|
upon reason that it shall regulate the connection which it and its
|
|
subordinate faculties introduce into the phenomena of the world by
|
|
principles of systematic unity and, consequently, that it shall regard
|
|
all phenomena as originating from one all-embracing being, as the
|
|
supreme and all-sufficient cause. From this it is plain that the only
|
|
aim of reason in this procedure is the establishment of its own formal
|
|
rule for the extension of its dominion in the world of experience; that
|
|
it does not aim at an extension of its cognition beyond the limits
|
|
of experience; and that, consequently, this idea does not contain any
|
|
constitutive principle.
|
|
|
|
The highest formal unity, which is based upon ideas alone, is the unity
|
|
of all things--a unity in accordance with an aim or purpose; and the
|
|
speculative interest of reason renders it necessary to regard all order
|
|
in the world as if it originated from the intention and design of a
|
|
supreme reason. This principle unfolds to the view of reason in the
|
|
sphere of experience new and enlarged prospects, and invites it to
|
|
connect the phenomena of the world according to teleological laws,
|
|
and in this way to attain to the highest possible degree of systematic
|
|
unity. The hypothesis of a supreme intelligence, as the sole cause of
|
|
the universe--an intelligence which has for us no more than an ideal
|
|
existence--is accordingly always of the greatest service to reason.
|
|
Thus, if we presuppose, in relation to the figure of the earth (which
|
|
is round, but somewhat flattened at the poles),* or that of mountains or
|
|
seas, wise designs on the part of an author of the universe, we cannot
|
|
fail to make, by the light of this supposition, a great number of
|
|
interesting discoveries. If we keep to this hypothesis, as a principle
|
|
which is purely regulative, even error cannot be very detrimental. For,
|
|
in this case, error can have no more serious consequences than that,
|
|
where we expected to discover a teleological connection (nexus finalis),
|
|
only a mechanical or physical connection appears. In such a case, we
|
|
merely fail to find the additional form of unity we expected, but we do
|
|
not lose the rational unity which the mind requires in its procedure in
|
|
experience. But even a miscarriage of this sort cannot affect the law in
|
|
its general and teleological relations. For although we may convict an
|
|
anatomist of an error, when he connects the limb of some animal with a
|
|
certain purpose, it is quite impossible to prove in a single case that
|
|
any arrangement of nature, be it what it may, is entirely without aim or
|
|
design. And thus medical physiology, by the aid of a principle presented
|
|
to it by pure reason, extends its very limited empirical knowledge of
|
|
the purposes of the different parts of an organized body so far that it
|
|
may be asserted with the utmost confidence, and with the approbation of
|
|
all reflecting men, that every organ or bodily part of an animal has its
|
|
use and answers a certain design. Now, this is a supposition which,
|
|
if regarded as of a constitutive character, goes much farther than any
|
|
experience or observation of ours can justify. Hence it is evident that
|
|
it is nothing more than a regulative principle of reason, which aims
|
|
at the highest degree of systematic unity, by the aid of the idea of
|
|
a causality according to design in a supreme cause--a cause which it
|
|
regards as the highest intelligence.
|
|
|
|
|
|
[*Footnote: The advantages which a circular form, in the case of the
|
|
earth, has over every other, are well known. But few are aware that the
|
|
slight flattening at the poles, which gives it the figure of a spheroid,
|
|
is the only cause which prevents the elevations of continents or even
|
|
of mountains, perhaps thrown up by some internal convulsion, from
|
|
continually altering the position of the axis of the earth--and that to
|
|
some considerable degree in a short time. The great protuberance of the
|
|
earth under the Equator serves to overbalance the impetus of all other
|
|
masses of earth, and thus to preserve the axis of the earth, so far as
|
|
we can observe, in its present position. And yet this wise arrangement
|
|
has been unthinkingly explained from the equilibrium of the formerly
|
|
fluid mass.]
|
|
|
|
|
|
If, however, we neglect this restriction of the idea to a purely
|
|
regulative influence, reason is betrayed into numerous errors. For it
|
|
has then left the ground of experience, in which alone are to be
|
|
found the criteria of truth, and has ventured into the region of the
|
|
incomprehensible and unsearchable, on the heights of which it loses
|
|
its power and collectedness, because it has completely severed its
|
|
connection with experience.
|
|
|
|
The first error which arises from our employing the idea of a Supreme
|
|
Being as a constitutive (in repugnance to the very nature of an idea),
|
|
and not as a regulative principle, is the error of inactive reason
|
|
(ignava ratio).* We may so term every principle which requires us to
|
|
regard our investigations of nature as absolutely complete, and allows
|
|
reason to cease its inquiries, as if it had fully executed its task.
|
|
Thus the psychological idea of the ego, when employed as a constitutive
|
|
principle for the explanation of the phenomena of the soul, and for the
|
|
extension of our knowledge regarding this subject beyond the limits of
|
|
experience--even to the condition of the soul after death--is convenient
|
|
enough for the purposes of pure reason, but detrimental and even ruinous
|
|
to its interests in the sphere of nature and experience. The dogmatizing
|
|
spiritualist explains the unchanging unity of our personality through
|
|
all changes of condition from the unity of a thinking substance, the
|
|
interest which we take in things and events that can happen only after
|
|
our death, from a consciousness of the immaterial nature of our thinking
|
|
subject, and so on. Thus he dispenses with all empirical investigations
|
|
into the cause of these internal phenomena, and with all possible
|
|
explanations of them upon purely natural grounds; while, at the
|
|
dictation of a transcendent reason, he passes by the immanent sources of
|
|
cognition in experience, greatly to his own ease and convenience, but
|
|
to the sacrifice of all, genuine insight and intelligence. These
|
|
prejudicial consequences become still more evident, in the case of the
|
|
dogmatical treatment of our idea of a Supreme Intelligence, and the
|
|
theological system of nature (physico-theology) which is falsely based
|
|
upon it. For, in this case, the aims which we observe in nature, and
|
|
often those which we merely fancy to exist, make the investigation
|
|
of causes a very easy task, by directing us to refer such and such
|
|
phenomena immediately to the unsearchable will and counsel of the
|
|
Supreme Wisdom, while we ought to investigate their causes in the
|
|
general laws of the mechanism of matter. We are thus recommended to
|
|
consider the labour of reason as ended, when we have merely dispensed
|
|
with its employment, which is guided surely and safely only by the order
|
|
of nature and the series of changes in the world--which are arranged
|
|
according to immanent and general laws. This error may be avoided, if we
|
|
do not merely consider from the view-point of final aims certain parts
|
|
of nature, such as the division and structure of a continent, the
|
|
constitution and direction of certain mountain-chains, or even the
|
|
organization existing in the vegetable and animal kingdoms, but look
|
|
upon this systematic unity of nature in a perfectly general way, in
|
|
relation to the idea of a Supreme Intelligence. If we pursue this
|
|
advice, we lay as a foundation for all investigation the conformity to
|
|
aims of all phenomena of nature in accordance with universal laws, for
|
|
which no particular arrangement of nature is exempt, but only cognized
|
|
by us with more or less difficulty; and we possess a regulative
|
|
principle of the systematic unity of a teleological connection, which we
|
|
do not attempt to anticipate or predetermine. All that we do, and ought
|
|
to do, is to follow out the physico-mechanical connection in nature
|
|
according to general laws, with the hope of discovering, sooner or
|
|
later, the teleological connection also. Thus, and thus only, can the
|
|
principle of final unity aid in the extension of the employment
|
|
of reason in the sphere of experience, without being in any case
|
|
detrimental to its interests.
|
|
|
|
|
|
[*Footnote: This was the term applied by the old dialecticians to a
|
|
sophistical argument, which ran thus: If it is your fate to die of this
|
|
disease, you will die, whether you employ a physician or not. Cicero
|
|
says that this mode of reasoning has received this appellation, because,
|
|
if followed, it puts an end to the employment of reason in the affairs
|
|
of life. For a similar reason, I have applied this designation to the
|
|
sophistical argument of pure reason.]
|
|
|
|
|
|
The second error which arises from the misconception of the principle
|
|
of systematic unity is that of perverted reason (perversa ratio, usteron
|
|
roteron rationis). The idea of systematic unity is available as a
|
|
regulative principle in the connection of phenomena according to general
|
|
natural laws; and, how far soever we have to travel upon the path of
|
|
experience to discover some fact or event, this idea requires us to
|
|
believe that we have approached all the more nearly to the completion of
|
|
its use in the sphere of nature, although that completion can never be
|
|
attained. But this error reverses the procedure of reason. We begin
|
|
by hypostatizing the principle of systematic unity, and by giving
|
|
an anthropomorphic determination to the conception of a Supreme
|
|
Intelligence, and then proceed forcibly to impose aims upon nature. Thus
|
|
not only does teleology, which ought to aid in the completion of unity
|
|
in accordance with general laws, operate to the destruction of its
|
|
influence, but it hinders reason from attaining its proper aim, that
|
|
is, the proof, upon natural grounds, of the existence of a supreme
|
|
intelligent cause. For, if we cannot presuppose supreme finality in
|
|
nature a priori, that is, as essentially belonging to nature, how can
|
|
we be directed to endeavour to discover this unity and, rising gradually
|
|
through its different degrees, to approach the supreme perfection of an
|
|
author of all--a perfection which is absolutely necessary, and therefore
|
|
cognizable a priori? The regulative principle directs us to presuppose
|
|
systematic unity absolutely and, consequently, as following from the
|
|
essential nature of things--but only as a unity of nature, not merely
|
|
cognized empirically, but presupposed a priori, although only in
|
|
an indeterminate manner. But if I insist on basing nature upon the
|
|
foundation of a supreme ordaining Being, the unity of nature is in
|
|
effect lost. For, in this case, it is quite foreign and unessential to
|
|
the nature of things, and cannot be cognized from the general laws of
|
|
nature. And thus arises a vicious circular argument, what ought to have
|
|
been proved having been presupposed.
|
|
|
|
To take the regulative principle of systematic unity in nature for a
|
|
constitutive principle, and to hypostatize and make a cause out of that
|
|
which is properly the ideal ground of the consistent and harmonious
|
|
exercise of reason, involves reason in inextricable embarrassments. The
|
|
investigation of nature pursues its own path under the guidance of the
|
|
chain of natural causes, in accordance with the general laws of nature,
|
|
and ever follows the light of the idea of an author of the universe--not
|
|
for the purpose of deducing the finality, which it constantly pursues,
|
|
from this Supreme Being, but to attain to the cognition of his existence
|
|
from the finality which it seeks in the existence of the phenomena of
|
|
nature, and, if possible, in that of all things to cognize this being,
|
|
consequently, as absolutely necessary. Whether this latter purpose
|
|
succeed or not, the idea is and must always be a true one, and its
|
|
employment, when merely regulative, must always be accompanied by
|
|
truthful and beneficial results.
|
|
|
|
Complete unity, in conformity with aims, constitutes absolute
|
|
perfection. But if we do not find this unity in the nature of the things
|
|
which go to constitute the world of experience, that is, of objective
|
|
cognition, consequently in the universal and necessary laws of nature,
|
|
how can we infer from this unity the idea of the supreme and absolutely
|
|
necessary perfection of a primal being, which is the origin of all
|
|
causality? The greatest systematic unity, and consequently teleological
|
|
unity, constitutes the very foundation of the possibility of the most
|
|
extended employment of human reason. The idea of unity is therefore
|
|
essentially and indissolubly connected with the nature of our reason.
|
|
This idea is a legislative one; and hence it is very natural that we
|
|
should assume the existence of a legislative reason corresponding to it,
|
|
from which the systematic unity of nature--the object of the operations
|
|
of reason--must be derived.
|
|
|
|
In the course of our discussion of the antinomies, we stated that it is
|
|
always possible to answer all the questions which pure reason may raise;
|
|
and that the plea of the limited nature of our cognition, which is
|
|
unavoidable and proper in many questions regarding natural phenomena,
|
|
cannot in this case be admitted, because the questions raised do not
|
|
relate to the nature of things, but are necessarily originated by the
|
|
nature of reason itself, and relate to its own internal constitution. We
|
|
can now establish this assertion, which at first sight appeared so rash,
|
|
in relation to the two questions in which reason takes the greatest
|
|
interest, and thus complete our discussion of the dialectic of pure
|
|
reason.
|
|
|
|
If, then, the question is asked, in relation to transcendental
|
|
theology,* first, whether there is anything distinct from the world,
|
|
which contains the ground of cosmical order and connection according
|
|
to general laws? The answer is: Certainly. For the world is a sum of
|
|
phenomena; there must, therefore, be some transcendental basis of these
|
|
phenomena, that is, a basis cogitable by the pure understanding alone.
|
|
If, secondly, the question is asked whether this being is substance,
|
|
whether it is of the greatest reality, whether it is necessary, and so
|
|
forth? I answer that this question is utterly without meaning. For all
|
|
the categories which aid me in forming a conception of an object cannot
|
|
be employed except in the world of sense, and are without meaning when
|
|
not applied to objects of actual or possible experience. Out of this
|
|
sphere, they are not properly conceptions, but the mere marks or indices
|
|
of conceptions, which we may admit, although they cannot, without the
|
|
help of experience, help us to understand any subject or thing. If,
|
|
thirdly, the question is whether we may not cogitate this being, which
|
|
is distinct from the world, in analogy with the objects of experience?
|
|
The answer is: Undoubtedly, but only as an ideal, and not as a real
|
|
object. That is, we must cogitate it only as an unknown substratum of
|
|
the systematic unity, order, and finality of the world--a unity which
|
|
reason must employ as the regulative principle of its investigation of
|
|
nature. Nay, more, we may admit into the idea certain anthropomorphic
|
|
elements, which are promotive of the interests of this regulative
|
|
principle. For it is no more than an idea, which does not relate
|
|
directly to a being distinct from the world, but to the regulative
|
|
principle of the systematic unity of the world, by means, however, of a
|
|
schema of this unity--the schema of a Supreme Intelligence, who is the
|
|
wisely-designing author of the universe. What this basis of cosmical
|
|
unity may be in itself, we know not--we cannot discover from the
|
|
idea; we merely know how we ought to employ the idea of this unity,
|
|
in relation to the systematic operation of reason in the sphere of
|
|
experience.
|
|
|
|
|
|
[*Footnote: After what has been said of the psychological idea of
|
|
the ego and its proper employment as a regulative principle of the
|
|
operations of reason, I need not enter into details regarding the
|
|
transcendental illusion by which the systematic unity of all the various
|
|
phenomena of the internal sense is hypostatized. The procedure is in
|
|
this case very similar to that which has been discussed in our remarks
|
|
on the theological ideal.]
|
|
|
|
|
|
But, it will be asked again, can we on these grounds, admit the
|
|
existence of a wise and omnipotent author of the world? Without doubt;
|
|
and not only so, but we must assume the existence of such a being.
|
|
But do we thus extend the limits of our knowledge beyond the field
|
|
of possible experience? By no means. For we have merely presupposed a
|
|
something, of which we have no conception, which we do not know as it
|
|
is in itself; but, in relation to the systematic disposition of the
|
|
universe, which we must presuppose in all our observation of nature,
|
|
we have cogitated this unknown being in analogy with an intelligent
|
|
existence (an empirical conception), that is to say, we have endowed it
|
|
with those attributes, which, judging from the nature of our own
|
|
reason, may contain the ground of such a systematic unity. This idea is
|
|
therefore valid only relatively to the employment in experience of our
|
|
reason. But if we attribute to it absolute and objective validity, we
|
|
overlook the fact that it is merely an ideal being that we cogitate;
|
|
and, by setting out from a basis which is not determinable by
|
|
considerations drawn from experience, we place ourselves in a position
|
|
which incapacitates us from applying this principle to the empirical
|
|
employment of reason.
|
|
|
|
But, it will be asked further, can I make any use of this conception and
|
|
hypothesis in my investigations into the world and nature? Yes, for this
|
|
very purpose was the idea established by reason as a fundamental basis.
|
|
But may I regard certain arrangements, which seemed to have been made in
|
|
conformity with some fixed aim, as the arrangements of design, and look
|
|
upon them as proceeding from the divine will, with the intervention,
|
|
however, of certain other particular arrangements disposed to that
|
|
end? Yes, you may do so; but at the same time you must regard it as
|
|
indifferent, whether it is asserted that divine wisdom has disposed all
|
|
things in conformity with his highest aims, or that the idea of supreme
|
|
wisdom is a regulative principle in the investigation of nature, and at
|
|
the same time a principle of the systematic unity of nature according to
|
|
general laws, even in those cases where we are unable to discover that
|
|
unity. In other words, it must be perfectly indifferent to you whether
|
|
you say, when you have discovered this unity: God has wisely willed
|
|
it so; or: Nature has wisely arranged this. For it was nothing but the
|
|
systematic unity, which reason requires as a basis for the investigation
|
|
of nature, that justified you in accepting the idea of a supreme
|
|
intelligence as a schema for a regulative principle; and, the farther
|
|
you advance in the discovery of design and finality, the more certain
|
|
the validity of your idea. But, as the whole aim of this regulative
|
|
principle was the discovery of a necessary and systematic unity in
|
|
nature, we have, in so far as we attain this, to attribute our success
|
|
to the idea of a Supreme Being; while, at the same time, we cannot,
|
|
without involving ourselves in contradictions, overlook the general
|
|
laws of nature, as it was in reference to them alone that this idea was
|
|
employed. We cannot, I say, overlook the general laws of nature, and
|
|
regard this conformity to aims observable in nature as contingent or
|
|
hyperphysical in its origin; inasmuch as there is no ground which can
|
|
justify us in the admission of a being with such properties distinct
|
|
from and above nature. All that we are authorized to assert is that
|
|
this idea may be employed as a principle, and that the properties of
|
|
the being which is assumed to correspond to it may be regarded as
|
|
systematically connected in analogy with the causal determination of
|
|
phenomena.
|
|
|
|
For the same reasons we are justified in introducing into the idea of
|
|
the supreme cause other anthropomorphic elements (for without these we
|
|
could not predicate anything of it); we may regard it as allowable
|
|
to cogitate this cause as a being with understanding, the feelings of
|
|
pleasure and displeasure, and faculties of desire and will corresponding
|
|
to these. At the same time, we may attribute to this being infinite
|
|
perfection--a perfection which necessarily transcends that which our
|
|
knowledge of the order and design in the world authorize us to predicate
|
|
of it. For the regulative law of systematic unity requires us to study
|
|
nature on the supposition that systematic and final unity in infinitum
|
|
is everywhere discoverable, even in the highest diversity. For, although
|
|
we may discover little of this cosmical perfection, it belongs to the
|
|
legislative prerogative of reason to require us always to seek for
|
|
and to expect it; while it must always be beneficial to institute all
|
|
inquiries into nature in accordance with this principle. But it is
|
|
evident that, by this idea of a supreme author of all, which I place as
|
|
the foundation of all inquiries into nature, I do not mean to assert
|
|
the existence of such a being, or that I have any knowledge of its
|
|
existence; and, consequently, I do not really deduce anything from the
|
|
existence of this being, but merely from its idea, that is to say, from
|
|
the nature of things in this world, in accordance with this idea. A
|
|
certain dim consciousness of the true use of this idea seems to have
|
|
dictated to the philosophers of all times the moderate language used
|
|
by them regarding the cause of the world. We find them employing
|
|
the expressions wisdom and care of nature, and divine wisdom, as
|
|
synonymous--nay, in purely speculative discussions, preferring the
|
|
former, because it does not carry the appearance of greater pretensions
|
|
than such as we are entitled to make, and at the same time directs
|
|
reason to its proper field of action--nature and her phenomena.
|
|
|
|
Thus, pure reason, which at first seemed to promise us nothing less
|
|
than the extension of our cognition beyond the limits of experience,
|
|
is found, when thoroughly examined, to contain nothing but regulative
|
|
principles, the virtue and function of which is to introduce into our
|
|
cognition a higher degree of unity than the understanding could of
|
|
itself. These principles, by placing the goal of all our struggles at
|
|
so great a distance, realize for us the most thorough connection
|
|
between the different parts of our cognition, and the highest degree of
|
|
systematic unity. But, on the other hand, if misunderstood and employed
|
|
as constitutive principles of transcendent cognition, they become the
|
|
parents of illusions and contradictions, while pretending to introduce
|
|
us to new regions of knowledge.
|
|
|
|
Thus all human cognition begins with intuitions, proceeds from thence to
|
|
conceptions, and ends with ideas. Although it possesses, in relation
|
|
to all three elements, a priori sources of cognition, which seemed
|
|
to transcend the limits of all experience, a thoroughgoing criticism
|
|
demonstrates that speculative reason can never, by the aid of these
|
|
elements, pass the bounds of possible experience, and that the proper
|
|
destination of this highest faculty of cognition is to employ all
|
|
methods, and all the principles of these methods, for the purpose of
|
|
penetrating into the innermost secrets of nature, by the aid of the
|
|
principles of unity (among all kinds of which teleological unity is
|
|
the highest), while it ought not to attempt to soar above the sphere of
|
|
experience, beyond which there lies nought for us but the void inane.
|
|
The critical examination, in our Transcendental Analytic, of all the
|
|
propositions which professed to extend cognition beyond the sphere of
|
|
experience, completely demonstrated that they can only conduct us to
|
|
a possible experience. If we were not distrustful even of the clearest
|
|
abstract theorems, if we were not allured by specious and inviting
|
|
prospects to escape from the constraining power of their evidence, we
|
|
might spare ourselves the laborious examination of all the dialectical
|
|
arguments which a transcendent reason adduces in support of its
|
|
pretensions; for we should know with the most complete certainty that,
|
|
however honest such professions might be, they are null and valueless,
|
|
because they relate to a kind of knowledge to which no man can by any
|
|
possibility attain. But, as there is no end to discussion, if we cannot
|
|
discover the true cause of the illusions by which even the wisest are
|
|
deceived, and as the analysis of all our transcendent cognition into its
|
|
elements is of itself of no slight value as a psychological study, while
|
|
it is a duty incumbent on every philosopher--it was found necessary to
|
|
investigate the dialectical procedure of reason in its primary sources.
|
|
And as the inferences of which this dialectic is the parent are not only
|
|
deceitful, but naturally possess a profound interest for humanity, it
|
|
was advisable at the same time, to give a full account of the momenta of
|
|
this dialectical procedure, and to deposit it in the archives of human
|
|
reason, as a warning to all future metaphysicians to avoid these causes
|
|
of speculative error.
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
II.
|
|
|
|
TRANSCENDENTAL DOCTRINE OF METHOD.
|
|
|
|
If we regard the sum of the cognition of pure speculative reason as an
|
|
edifice, the idea of which, at least, exists in the human mind, it may
|
|
be said that we have in the Transcendental Doctrine of Elements examined
|
|
the materials and determined to what edifice these belong, and what
|
|
its height and stability. We have found, indeed, that, although we had
|
|
purposed to build for ourselves a tower which should reach to Heaven,
|
|
the supply of materials sufficed merely for a habitation, which was
|
|
spacious enough for all terrestrial purposes, and high enough to
|
|
enable us to survey the level plain of experience, but that the bold
|
|
undertaking designed necessarily failed for want of materials--not to
|
|
mention the confusion of tongues, which gave rise to endless disputes
|
|
among the labourers on the plan of the edifice, and at last scattered
|
|
them over all the world, each to erect a separate building for himself,
|
|
according to his own plans and his own inclinations. Our present task
|
|
relates not to the materials, but to the plan of an edifice; and, as we
|
|
have had sufficient warning not to venture blindly upon a design which
|
|
may be found to transcend our natural powers, while, at the same time,
|
|
we cannot give up the intention of erecting a secure abode for the mind,
|
|
we must proportion our design to the material which is presented to us,
|
|
and which is, at the same time, sufficient for all our wants.
|
|
|
|
I understand, then, by the transcendental doctrine of method, the
|
|
determination of the formal conditions of a complete system of pure
|
|
reason. We shall accordingly have to treat of the discipline, the canon,
|
|
the architectonic, and, finally, the history of pure reason. This part
|
|
of our Critique will accomplish, from the transcendental point of view,
|
|
what has been usually attempted, but miserably executed, under the name
|
|
of practical logic. It has been badly executed, I say, because general
|
|
logic, not being limited to any particular kind of cognition (not
|
|
even to the pure cognition of the understanding) nor to any particular
|
|
objects, it cannot, without borrowing from other sciences, do more than
|
|
present merely the titles or signs of possible methods and the technical
|
|
expressions, which are employed in the systematic parts of all sciences;
|
|
and thus the pupil is made acquainted with names, the meaning and
|
|
application of which he is to learn only at some future time.
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
CHAPTER I. The Discipline of Pure Reason.
|
|
|
|
Negative judgements--those which are so not merely as regards their
|
|
logical form, but in respect of their content--are not commonly held in
|
|
especial respect. They are, on the contrary, regarded as jealous enemies
|
|
of our insatiable desire for knowledge; and it almost requires an
|
|
apology to induce us to tolerate, much less to prize and to respect
|
|
them.
|
|
|
|
All propositions, indeed, may be logically expressed in a negative form;
|
|
but, in relation to the content of our cognition, the peculiar province
|
|
of negative judgements is solely to prevent error. For this reason, too,
|
|
negative propositions, which are framed for the purpose of correcting
|
|
false cognitions where error is absolutely impossible, are undoubtedly
|
|
true, but inane and senseless; that is, they are in reality purposeless
|
|
and, for this reason, often very ridiculous. Such is the proposition
|
|
of the schoolman that Alexander could not have subdued any countries
|
|
without an army.
|
|
|
|
But where the limits of our possible cognition are very much contracted,
|
|
the attraction to new fields of knowledge great, the illusions to
|
|
which the mind is subject of the most deceptive character, and the
|
|
evil consequences of error of no inconsiderable magnitude--the negative
|
|
element in knowledge, which is useful only to guard us against error,
|
|
is of far more importance than much of that positive instruction which
|
|
makes additions to the sum of our knowledge. The restraint which is
|
|
employed to repress, and finally to extirpate the constant inclination
|
|
to depart from certain rules, is termed discipline. It is distinguished
|
|
from culture, which aims at the formation of a certain degree of skill,
|
|
without attempting to repress or to destroy any other mental power,
|
|
already existing. In the cultivation of a talent, which has given
|
|
evidence of an impulse towards self-development, discipline takes a
|
|
negative,* culture and doctrine a positive, part.
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
[*Footnote: I am well aware that, in the language of the schools, the
|
|
term discipline is usually employed as synonymous with instruction.
|
|
But there are so many cases in which it is necessary to distinguish the
|
|
notion of the former, as a course of corrective training, from that of
|
|
the latter, as the communication of knowledge, and the nature of things
|
|
itself demands the appropriation of the most suitable expressions for
|
|
this distinction, that it is my desire that the former terms should
|
|
never be employed in any other than a negative signification.]
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
That natural dispositions and talents (such as imagination and wit),
|
|
which ask a free and unlimited development, require in many respects the
|
|
corrective influence of discipline, every one will readily grant. But
|
|
it may well appear strange that reason, whose proper duty it is to
|
|
prescribe rules of discipline to all the other powers of the mind,
|
|
should itself require this corrective. It has, in fact, hitherto
|
|
escaped this humiliation, only because, in presence of its magnificent
|
|
pretensions and high position, no one could readily suspect it to be
|
|
capable of substituting fancies for conceptions, and words for things.
|
|
|
|
Reason, when employed in the field of experience, does not stand in need
|
|
of criticism, because its principles are subjected to the continual test
|
|
of empirical observations. Nor is criticism requisite in the sphere of
|
|
mathematics, where the conceptions of reason must always be presented
|
|
in concreto in pure intuition, and baseless or arbitrary assertions are
|
|
discovered without difficulty. But where reason is not held in a plain
|
|
track by the influence of empirical or of pure intuition, that is, when
|
|
it is employed in the transcendental sphere of pure conceptions, it
|
|
stands in great need of discipline, to restrain its propensity to
|
|
overstep the limits of possible experience and to keep it from wandering
|
|
into error. In fact, the utility of the philosophy of pure reason is
|
|
entirely of this negative character. Particular errors may be corrected
|
|
by particular animadversions, and the causes of these errors may be
|
|
eradicated by criticism. But where we find, as in the case of pure
|
|
reason, a complete system of illusions and fallacies, closely connected
|
|
with each other and depending upon grand general principles, there
|
|
seems to be required a peculiar and negative code of mental legislation,
|
|
which, under the denomination of a discipline, and founded upon the
|
|
nature of reason and the objects of its exercise, shall constitute a
|
|
system of thorough examination and testing, which no fallacy will be
|
|
able to withstand or escape from, under whatever disguise or concealment
|
|
it may lurk.
|
|
|
|
But the reader must remark that, in this the second division of our
|
|
transcendental Critique the discipline of pure reason is not directed
|
|
to the content, but to the method of the cognition of pure reason. The
|
|
former task has been completed in the doctrine of elements. But there
|
|
is so much similarity in the mode of employing the faculty of reason,
|
|
whatever be the object to which it is applied, while, at the same time,
|
|
its employment in the transcendental sphere is so essentially different
|
|
in kind from every other, that, without the warning negative influence
|
|
of a discipline specially directed to that end, the errors are
|
|
unavoidable which spring from the unskillful employment of the methods
|
|
which are originated by reason but which are out of place in this
|
|
sphere.
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
SECTION I. The Discipline of Pure Reason in the Sphere of Dogmatism.
|
|
|
|
The science of mathematics presents the most brilliant example of the
|
|
extension of the sphere of pure reason without the aid of experience.
|
|
Examples are always contagious; and they exert an especial influence on
|
|
the same faculty, which naturally flatters itself that it will have
|
|
the same good fortune in other case as fell to its lot in one fortunate
|
|
instance. Hence pure reason hopes to be able to extend its empire in the
|
|
transcendental sphere with equal success and security, especially
|
|
when it applies the same method which was attended with such brilliant
|
|
results in the science of mathematics. It is, therefore, of the
|
|
highest importance for us to know whether the method of arriving at
|
|
demonstrative certainty, which is termed mathematical, be identical with
|
|
that by which we endeavour to attain the same degree of certainty in
|
|
philosophy, and which is termed in that science dogmatical.
|
|
|
|
Philosophical cognition is the cognition of reason by means of
|
|
conceptions; mathematical cognition is cognition by means of the
|
|
construction of conceptions. The construction of a conception is
|
|
the presentation a priori of the intuition which corresponds to the
|
|
conception. For this purpose a non-empirical intuition is requisite,
|
|
which, as an intuition, is an individual object; while, as the
|
|
construction of a conception (a general representation), it must be seen
|
|
to be universally valid for all the possible intuitions which rank under
|
|
that conception. Thus I construct a triangle, by the presentation of the
|
|
object which corresponds to this conception, either by mere imagination,
|
|
in pure intuition, or upon paper, in empirical intuition, in both cases
|
|
completely a priori, without borrowing the type of that figure from any
|
|
experience. The individual figure drawn upon paper is empirical; but
|
|
it serves, notwithstanding, to indicate the conception, even in its
|
|
universality, because in this empirical intuition we keep our eye merely
|
|
on the act of the construction of the conception, and pay no attention
|
|
to the various modes of determining it, for example, its size, the
|
|
length of its sides, the size of its angles, these not in the least
|
|
affecting the essential character of the conception.
|
|
|
|
Philosophical cognition, accordingly, regards the particular only in
|
|
the general; mathematical the general in the particular, nay, in the
|
|
individual. This is done, however, entirely a priori and by means of
|
|
pure reason, so that, as this individual figure is determined under
|
|
certain universal conditions of construction, the object of the
|
|
conception, to which this individual figure corresponds as its schema,
|
|
must be cogitated as universally determined.
|
|
|
|
The essential difference of these two modes of cognition consists,
|
|
therefore, in this formal quality; it does not regard the difference of
|
|
the matter or objects of both. Those thinkers who aim at distinguishing
|
|
philosophy from mathematics by asserting that the former has to do with
|
|
quality merely, and the latter with quantity, have mistaken the effect
|
|
for the cause. The reason why mathematical cognition can relate only to
|
|
quantity is to be found in its form alone. For it is the conception of
|
|
quantities only that is capable of being constructed, that is, presented
|
|
a priori in intuition; while qualities cannot be given in any other than
|
|
an empirical intuition. Hence the cognition of qualities by reason is
|
|
possible only through conceptions. No one can find an intuition which
|
|
shall correspond to the conception of reality, except in experience;
|
|
it cannot be presented to the mind a priori and antecedently to the
|
|
empirical consciousness of a reality. We can form an intuition, by means
|
|
of the mere conception of it, of a cone, without the aid of experience;
|
|
but the colour of the cone we cannot know except from experience. I
|
|
cannot present an intuition of a cause, except in an example which
|
|
experience offers to me. Besides, philosophy, as well as mathematics,
|
|
treats of quantities; as, for example, of totality, infinity, and so
|
|
on. Mathematics, too, treats of the difference of lines and surfaces--as
|
|
spaces of different quality, of the continuity of extension--as a
|
|
quality thereof. But, although in such cases they have a common object,
|
|
the mode in which reason considers that object is very different in
|
|
philosophy from what it is in mathematics. The former confines itself
|
|
to the general conceptions; the latter can do nothing with a mere
|
|
conception, it hastens to intuition. In this intuition it regards the
|
|
conception in concreto, not empirically, but in an a priori intuition,
|
|
which it has constructed; and in which, all the results which follow
|
|
from the general conditions of the construction of the conception are in
|
|
all cases valid for the object of the constructed conception.
|
|
|
|
Suppose that the conception of a triangle is given to a philosopher
|
|
and that he is required to discover, by the philosophical method, what
|
|
relation the sum of its angles bears to a right angle. He has nothing
|
|
before him but the conception of a figure enclosed within three right
|
|
lines, and, consequently, with the same number of angles. He may analyse
|
|
the conception of a right line, of an angle, or of the number three
|
|
as long as he pleases, but he will not discover any properties not
|
|
contained in these conceptions. But, if this question is proposed to
|
|
a geometrician, he at once begins by constructing a triangle. He knows
|
|
that two right angles are equal to the sum of all the contiguous angles
|
|
which proceed from one point in a straight line; and he goes on to
|
|
produce one side of his triangle, thus forming two adjacent angles which
|
|
are together equal to two right angles. He then divides the exterior of
|
|
these angles, by drawing a line parallel with the opposite side of the
|
|
triangle, and immediately perceives that he has thus got an exterior
|
|
adjacent angle which is equal to the interior. Proceeding in this way,
|
|
through a chain of inferences, and always on the ground of intuition, he
|
|
arrives at a clear and universally valid solution of the question.
|
|
|
|
But mathematics does not confine itself to the construction of
|
|
quantities (quanta), as in the case of geometry; it occupies itself
|
|
with pure quantity also (quantitas), as in the case of algebra, where
|
|
complete abstraction is made of the properties of the object indicated
|
|
by the conception of quantity. In algebra, a certain method of
|
|
notation by signs is adopted, and these indicate the different possible
|
|
constructions of quantities, the extraction of roots, and so on. After
|
|
having thus denoted the general conception of quantities, according to
|
|
their different relations, the different operations by which quantity
|
|
or number is increased or diminished are presented in intuition in
|
|
accordance with general rules. Thus, when one quantity is to be divided
|
|
by another, the signs which denote both are placed in the form peculiar
|
|
to the operation of division; and thus algebra, by means of a symbolical
|
|
construction of quantity, just as geometry, with its ostensive or
|
|
geometrical construction (a construction of the objects themselves),
|
|
arrives at results which discursive cognition cannot hope to reach by
|
|
the aid of mere conceptions.
|
|
|
|
Now, what is the cause of this difference in the fortune of the
|
|
philosopher and the mathematician, the former of whom follows the path
|
|
of conceptions, while the latter pursues that of intuitions, which he
|
|
represents, a priori, in correspondence with his conceptions? The cause
|
|
is evident from what has been already demonstrated in the introduction
|
|
to this Critique. We do not, in the present case, want to discover
|
|
analytical propositions, which may be produced merely by analysing our
|
|
conceptions--for in this the philosopher would have the advantage over
|
|
his rival; we aim at the discovery of synthetical propositions--such
|
|
synthetical propositions, moreover, as can be cognized a priori. I must
|
|
not confine myself to that which I actually cogitate in my conception
|
|
of a triangle, for this is nothing more than the mere definition; I
|
|
must try to go beyond that, and to arrive at properties which are not
|
|
contained in, although they belong to, the conception. Now, this is
|
|
impossible, unless I determine the object present to my mind according
|
|
to the conditions, either of empirical, or of pure, intuition. In the
|
|
former case, I should have an empirical proposition (arrived at by
|
|
actual measurement of the angles of the triangle), which would possess
|
|
neither universality nor necessity; but that would be of no value. In
|
|
the latter, I proceed by geometrical construction, by means of which I
|
|
collect, in a pure intuition, just as I would in an empirical intuition,
|
|
all the various properties which belong to the schema of a triangle
|
|
in general, and consequently to its conception, and thus construct
|
|
synthetical propositions which possess the attribute of universality.
|
|
|
|
It would be vain to philosophize upon the triangle, that is, to reflect
|
|
on it discursively; I should get no further than the definition with
|
|
which I had been obliged to set out. There are certainly transcendental
|
|
synthetical propositions which are framed by means of pure conceptions,
|
|
and which form the peculiar distinction of philosophy; but these do not
|
|
relate to any particular thing, but to a thing in general, and enounce
|
|
the conditions under which the perception of it may become a part of
|
|
possible experience. But the science of mathematics has nothing to do
|
|
with such questions, nor with the question of existence in any fashion;
|
|
it is concerned merely with the properties of objects in themselves,
|
|
only in so far as these are connected with the conception of the
|
|
objects.
|
|
|
|
In the above example, we merely attempted to show the great difference
|
|
which exists between the discursive employment of reason in the sphere
|
|
of conceptions, and its intuitive exercise by means of the construction
|
|
of conceptions. The question naturally arises: What is the cause which
|
|
necessitates this twofold exercise of reason, and how are we to discover
|
|
whether it is the philosophical or the mathematical method which reason
|
|
is pursuing in an argument?
|
|
|
|
All our knowledge relates, finally, to possible intuitions, for it
|
|
is these alone that present objects to the mind. An a priori or
|
|
non-empirical conception contains either a pure intuition--and in this
|
|
case it can be constructed; or it contains nothing but the synthesis of
|
|
possible intuitions, which are not given a priori. In this latter case,
|
|
it may help us to form synthetical a priori judgements, but only in the
|
|
discursive method, by conceptions, not in the intuitive, by means of the
|
|
construction of conceptions.
|
|
|
|
The only a priori intuition is that of the pure form of phenomena--space
|
|
and time. A conception of space and time as quanta may be presented
|
|
a priori in intuition, that is, constructed, either alone with their
|
|
quality (figure), or as pure quantity (the mere synthesis of the
|
|
homogeneous), by means of number. But the matter of phenomena, by which
|
|
things are given in space and time, can be presented only in perception,
|
|
a posteriori. The only conception which represents a priori this
|
|
empirical content of phenomena is the conception of a thing in general;
|
|
and the a priori synthetical cognition of this conception can give
|
|
us nothing more than the rule for the synthesis of that which may be
|
|
contained in the corresponding a posteriori perception; it is utterly
|
|
inadequate to present an a priori intuition of the real object, which
|
|
must necessarily be empirical.
|
|
|
|
Synthetical propositions, which relate to things in general, an a priori
|
|
intuition of which is impossible, are transcendental. For this
|
|
reason transcendental propositions cannot be framed by means of the
|
|
construction of conceptions; they are a priori, and based entirely on
|
|
conceptions themselves. They contain merely the rule, by which we are to
|
|
seek in the world of perception or experience the synthetical unity
|
|
of that which cannot be intuited a priori. But they are incompetent
|
|
to present any of the conceptions which appear in them in an a priori
|
|
intuition; these can be given only a posteriori, in experience, which,
|
|
however, is itself possible only through these synthetical principles.
|
|
|
|
If we are to form a synthetical judgement regarding a conception, we
|
|
must go beyond it, to the intuition in which it is given. If we keep
|
|
to what is contained in the conception, the judgement is merely
|
|
analytical--it is merely an explanation of what we have cogitated in the
|
|
conception. But I can pass from the conception to the pure or empirical
|
|
intuition which corresponds to it. I can proceed to examine my
|
|
conception in concreto, and to cognize, either a priori or a posterio,
|
|
what I find in the object of the conception. The former--a priori
|
|
cognition--is rational-mathematical cognition by means of the
|
|
construction of the conception; the latter--a posteriori cognition--is
|
|
purely empirical cognition, which does not possess the attributes of
|
|
necessity and universality. Thus I may analyse the conception I have
|
|
of gold; but I gain no new information from this analysis, I merely
|
|
enumerate the different properties which I had connected with the notion
|
|
indicated by the word. My knowledge has gained in logical clearness
|
|
and arrangement, but no addition has been made to it. But if I take the
|
|
matter which is indicated by this name, and submit it to the examination
|
|
of my senses, I am enabled to form several synthetical--although still
|
|
empirical--propositions. The mathematical conception of a triangle I
|
|
should construct, that is, present a priori in intuition, and in
|
|
this way attain to rational-synthetical cognition. But when the
|
|
transcendental conception of reality, or substance, or power is
|
|
presented to my mind, I find that it does not relate to or indicate
|
|
either an empirical or pure intuition, but that it indicates merely the
|
|
synthesis of empirical intuitions, which cannot of course be given
|
|
a priori. The synthesis in such a conception cannot proceed a
|
|
priori--without the aid of experience--to the intuition which
|
|
corresponds to the conception; and, for this reason, none of these
|
|
conceptions can produce a determinative synthetical proposition, they
|
|
can never present more than a principle of the synthesis* of possible
|
|
empirical intuitions. A transcendental proposition is, therefore, a
|
|
synthetical cognition of reason by means of pure conceptions and the
|
|
discursive method, and it renders possible all synthetical unity in
|
|
empirical cognition, though it cannot present us with any intuition a
|
|
priori.
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
[*Footnote: In the case of the conception of cause, I do really go
|
|
beyond the empirical conception of an event--but not to the
|
|
intuition which presents this conception in concreto, but only to the
|
|
time-conditions, which may be found in experience to correspond to
|
|
the conception. My procedure is, therefore, strictly according to
|
|
conceptions; I cannot in a case of this kind employ the construction of
|
|
conceptions, because the conception is merely a rule for the synthesis
|
|
of perceptions, which are not pure intuitions, and which, therefore,
|
|
cannot be given a priori.]
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
There is thus a twofold exercise of reason. Both modes have the
|
|
properties of universality and an a priori origin in common, but are,
|
|
in their procedure, of widely different character. The reason of this is
|
|
that in the world of phenomena, in which alone objects are presented to
|
|
our minds, there are two main elements--the form of intuition (space and
|
|
time), which can be cognized and determined completely a priori, and the
|
|
matter or content--that which is presented in space and time, and which,
|
|
consequently, contains a something--an existence corresponding to our
|
|
powers of sensation. As regards the latter, which can never be given in
|
|
a determinate mode except by experience, there are no a priori notions
|
|
which relate to it, except the undetermined conceptions of the synthesis
|
|
of possible sensations, in so far as these belong (in a possible
|
|
experience) to the unity of consciousness. As regards the former, we
|
|
can determine our conceptions a priori in intuition, inasmuch as we are
|
|
ourselves the creators of the objects of the conceptions in space and
|
|
time--these objects being regarded simply as quanta. In the one case,
|
|
reason proceeds according to conceptions and can do nothing more than
|
|
subject phenomena to these--which can only be determined empirically,
|
|
that is, a posteriori--in conformity, however, with those conceptions as
|
|
the rules of all empirical synthesis. In the other case, reason proceeds
|
|
by the construction of conceptions; and, as these conceptions relate
|
|
to an a priori intuition, they may be given and determined in pure
|
|
intuition a priori, and without the aid of empirical data. The
|
|
examination and consideration of everything that exists in space
|
|
or time--whether it is a quantum or not, in how far the particular
|
|
something (which fills space or time) is a primary substratum, or a mere
|
|
determination of some other existence, whether it relates to anything
|
|
else--either as cause or effect, whether its existence is isolated or in
|
|
reciprocal connection with and dependence upon others, the possibility
|
|
of this existence, its reality and necessity or opposites--all these
|
|
form part of the cognition of reason on the ground of conceptions, and
|
|
this cognition is termed philosophical. But to determine a priori an
|
|
intuition in space (its figure), to divide time into periods, or merely
|
|
to cognize the quantity of an intuition in space and time, and to
|
|
determine it by number--all this is an operation of reason by means of
|
|
the construction of conceptions, and is called mathematical.
|
|
|
|
The success which attends the efforts of reason in the sphere of
|
|
mathematics naturally fosters the expectation that the same good fortune
|
|
will be its lot, if it applies the mathematical method in other regions
|
|
of mental endeavour besides that of quantities. Its success is thus
|
|
great, because it can support all its conceptions by a priori intuitions
|
|
and, in this way, make itself a master, as it were, over nature; while
|
|
pure philosophy, with its a priori discursive conceptions, bungles
|
|
about in the world of nature, and cannot accredit or show any a priori
|
|
evidence of the reality of these conceptions. Masters in the science of
|
|
mathematics are confident of the success of this method; indeed, it is a
|
|
common persuasion that it is capable of being applied to any subject of
|
|
human thought. They have hardly ever reflected or philosophized on
|
|
their favourite science--a task of great difficulty; and the specific
|
|
difference between the two modes of employing the faculty of reason
|
|
has never entered their thoughts. Rules current in the field of common
|
|
experience, and which common sense stamps everywhere with its approval,
|
|
are regarded by them as axiomatic. From what source the conceptions of
|
|
space and time, with which (as the only primitive quanta) they have
|
|
to deal, enter their minds, is a question which they do not trouble
|
|
themselves to answer; and they think it just as unnecessary to examine
|
|
into the origin of the pure conceptions of the understanding and the
|
|
extent of their validity. All they have to do with them is to employ
|
|
them. In all this they are perfectly right, if they do not overstep the
|
|
limits of the sphere of nature. But they pass, unconsciously, from the
|
|
world of sense to the insecure ground of pure transcendental conceptions
|
|
(instabilis tellus, innabilis unda), where they can neither stand nor
|
|
swim, and where the tracks of their footsteps are obliterated by time;
|
|
while the march of mathematics is pursued on a broad and magnificent
|
|
highway, which the latest posterity shall frequent without fear of
|
|
danger or impediment.
|
|
|
|
As we have taken upon us the task of determining, clearly and certainly,
|
|
the limits of pure reason in the sphere of transcendentalism, and as
|
|
the efforts of reason in this direction are persisted in, even after the
|
|
plainest and most expressive warnings, hope still beckoning us past the
|
|
limits of experience into the splendours of the intellectual world--it
|
|
becomes necessary to cut away the last anchor of this fallacious and
|
|
fantastic hope. We shall, accordingly, show that the mathematical
|
|
method is unattended in the sphere of philosophy by the least
|
|
advantage--except, perhaps, that it more plainly exhibits its own
|
|
inadequacy--that geometry and philosophy are two quite different things,
|
|
although they go band in hand in hand in the field of natural science,
|
|
and, consequently, that the procedure of the one can never be imitated
|
|
by the other.
|
|
|
|
The evidence of mathematics rests upon definitions, axioms, and
|
|
demonstrations. I shall be satisfied with showing that none of these
|
|
forms can be employed or imitated in philosophy in the sense in which
|
|
they are understood by mathematicians; and that the geometrician, if
|
|
he employs his method in philosophy, will succeed only in building
|
|
card-castles, while the employment of the philosophical method in
|
|
mathematics can result in nothing but mere verbiage. The essential
|
|
business of philosophy, indeed, is to mark out the limits of the
|
|
science; and even the mathematician, unless his talent is naturally
|
|
circumscribed and limited to this particular department of knowledge,
|
|
cannot turn a deaf ear to the warnings of philosophy, or set himself
|
|
above its direction.
|
|
|
|
I. Of Definitions. A definition is, as the term itself indicates, the
|
|
representation, upon primary grounds, of the complete conception of
|
|
a thing within its own limits.* Accordingly, an empirical conception
|
|
cannot be defined, it can only be explained. For, as there are in such
|
|
a conception only a certain number of marks or signs, which denote a
|
|
certain class of sensuous objects, we can never be sure that we do not
|
|
cogitate under the word which indicates the same object, at one time
|
|
a greater, at another a smaller number of signs. Thus, one person may
|
|
cogitate in his conception of gold, in addition to its properties of
|
|
weight, colour, malleability, that of resisting rust, while another
|
|
person may be ignorant of this quality. We employ certain signs only so
|
|
long as we require them for the sake of distinction; new observations
|
|
abstract some and add new ones, so that an empirical conception never
|
|
remains within permanent limits. It is, in fact, useless to define a
|
|
conception of this kind. If, for example, we are speaking of water and
|
|
its properties, we do not stop at what we actually think by the word
|
|
water, but proceed to observation and experiment; and the word, with
|
|
the few signs attached to it, is more properly a designation than a
|
|
conception of the thing. A definition in this case would evidently be
|
|
nothing more than a determination of the word. In the second place, no
|
|
a priori conception, such as those of substance, cause, right, fitness,
|
|
and so on, can be defined. For I can never be sure, that the clear
|
|
representation of a given conception (which is given in a confused
|
|
state) has been fully developed, until I know that the representation
|
|
is adequate with its object. But, inasmuch as the conception, as it is
|
|
presented to the mind, may contain a number of obscure representations,
|
|
which we do not observe in our analysis, although we employ them in our
|
|
application of the conception, I can never be sure that my analysis is
|
|
complete, while examples may make this probable, although they can never
|
|
demonstrate the fact. Instead of the word definition, I should rather
|
|
employ the term exposition--a more modest expression, which the critic
|
|
may accept without surrendering his doubts as to the completeness of the
|
|
analysis of any such conception. As, therefore, neither empirical nor a
|
|
priori conceptions are capable of definition, we have to see whether the
|
|
only other kind of conceptions--arbitrary conceptions--can be subjected
|
|
to this mental operation. Such a conception can always be defined; for
|
|
I must know thoroughly what I wished to cogitate in it, as it was I who
|
|
created it, and it was not given to my mind either by the nature of my
|
|
understanding or by experience. At the same time, I cannot say that, by
|
|
such a definition, I have defined a real object. If the conception is
|
|
based upon empirical conditions, if, for example, I have a conception of
|
|
a clock for a ship, this arbitrary conception does not assure me of the
|
|
existence or even of the possibility of the object. My definition of
|
|
such a conception would with more propriety be termed a declaration of
|
|
a project than a definition of an object. There are no other conceptions
|
|
which can bear definition, except those which contain an arbitrary
|
|
synthesis, which can be constructed a priori. Consequently, the science
|
|
of mathematics alone possesses definitions. For the object here thought
|
|
is presented a priori in intuition; and thus it can never contain more
|
|
or less than the conception, because the conception of the object has
|
|
been given by the definition--and primarily, that is, without deriving
|
|
the definition from any other source. Philosophical definitions are,
|
|
therefore, merely expositions of given conceptions, while mathematical
|
|
definitions are constructions of conceptions originally formed by the
|
|
mind itself; the former are produced by analysis, the completeness of
|
|
which is never demonstratively certain, the latter by a synthesis. In
|
|
a mathematical definition the conception is formed, in a philosophical
|
|
definition it is only explained. From this it follows:
|
|
|
|
|
|
[*Footnote: The definition must describe the conception completely that
|
|
is, omit none of the marks or signs of which it composed; within its own
|
|
limits, that is, it must be precise, and enumerate no more signs than
|
|
belong to the conception; and on primary grounds, that is to say, the
|
|
limitations of the bounds of the conception must not be deduced from
|
|
other conceptions, as in this case a proof would be necessary, and the
|
|
so-called definition would be incapable of taking its place at the bead
|
|
of all the judgements we have to form regarding an object.]
|
|
|
|
|
|
(a) That we must not imitate, in philosophy, the mathematical usage of
|
|
commencing with definitions--except by way of hypothesis or experiment.
|
|
For, as all so-called philosophical definitions are merely analyses of
|
|
given conceptions, these conceptions, although only in a confused form,
|
|
must precede the analysis; and the incomplete exposition must precede
|
|
the complete, so that we may be able to draw certain inferences from the
|
|
characteristics which an incomplete analysis has enabled us to discover,
|
|
before we attain to the complete exposition or definition of the
|
|
conception. In one word, a full and clear definition ought, in
|
|
philosophy, rather to form the conclusion than the commencement of our
|
|
labours.* In mathematics, on the contrary, we cannot have a conception
|
|
prior to the definition; it is the definition which gives us the
|
|
conception, and it must for this reason form the commencement of every
|
|
chain of mathematical reasoning.
|
|
|
|
|
|
[*Footnote: Philosophy abounds in faulty definitions, especially such as
|
|
contain some of the elements requisite to form a complete definition.
|
|
If a conception could not be employed in reasoning before it had been
|
|
defined, it would fare ill with all philosophical thought. But,
|
|
as incompletely defined conceptions may always be employed without
|
|
detriment to truth, so far as our analysis of the elements contained in
|
|
them proceeds, imperfect definitions, that is, propositions which are
|
|
properly not definitions, but merely approximations thereto, may be used
|
|
with great advantage. In mathematics, definition belongs ad esse, in
|
|
philosophy ad melius esse. It is a difficult task to construct a proper
|
|
definition. Jurists are still without a complete definition of the idea
|
|
of right.]
|
|
|
|
|
|
(b) Mathematical definitions cannot be erroneous. For the conception is
|
|
given only in and through the definition, and thus it contains only what
|
|
has been cogitated in the definition. But although a definition cannot
|
|
be incorrect, as regards its content, an error may sometimes, although
|
|
seldom, creep into the form. This error consists in a want of precision.
|
|
Thus the common definition of a circle--that it is a curved line,
|
|
every point in which is equally distant from another point called the
|
|
centre--is faulty, from the fact that the determination indicated by the
|
|
word curved is superfluous. For there ought to be a particular theorem,
|
|
which may be easily proved from the definition, to the effect that every
|
|
line, which has all its points at equal distances from another point,
|
|
must be a curved line--that is, that not even the smallest part of
|
|
it can be straight. Analytical definitions, on the other hand, may be
|
|
erroneous in many respects, either by the introduction of signs which do
|
|
not actually exist in the conception, or by wanting in that completeness
|
|
which forms the essential of a definition. In the latter case, the
|
|
definition is necessarily defective, because we can never be fully
|
|
certain of the completeness of our analysis. For these reasons, the
|
|
method of definition employed in mathematics cannot be imitated in
|
|
philosophy.
|
|
|
|
2. Of Axioms. These, in so far as they are immediately certain, are a
|
|
priori synthetical principles. Now, one conception cannot be connected
|
|
synthetically and yet immediately with another; because, if we wish to
|
|
proceed out of and beyond a conception, a third mediating cognition is
|
|
necessary. And, as philosophy is a cognition of reason by the aid
|
|
of conceptions alone, there is to be found in it no principle which
|
|
deserves to be called an axiom. Mathematics, on the other hand, may
|
|
possess axioms, because it can always connect the predicates of an
|
|
object a priori, and without any mediating term, by means of the
|
|
construction of conceptions in intuition. Such is the case with the
|
|
proposition: Three points can always lie in a plane. On the other hand,
|
|
no synthetical principle which is based upon conceptions, can ever
|
|
be immediately certain (for example, the proposition: Everything that
|
|
happens has a cause), because I require a mediating term to connect
|
|
the two conceptions of event and cause--namely, the condition of
|
|
time-determination in an experience, and I cannot cognize any such
|
|
principle immediately and from conceptions alone. Discursive principles
|
|
are, accordingly, very different from intuitive principles or axioms.
|
|
The former always require deduction, which in the case of the latter
|
|
may be altogether dispensed with. Axioms are, for this reason, always
|
|
self-evident, while philosophical principles, whatever may be the degree
|
|
of certainty they possess, cannot lay any claim to such a distinction.
|
|
No synthetical proposition of pure transcendental reason can be so
|
|
evident, as is often rashly enough declared, as the statement, twice two
|
|
are four. It is true that in the Analytic I introduced into the list of
|
|
principles of the pure understanding, certain axioms of intuition; but
|
|
the principle there discussed was not itself an axiom, but served merely
|
|
to present the principle of the possibility of axioms in general, while
|
|
it was really nothing more than a principle based upon conceptions. For
|
|
it is one part of the duty of transcendental philosophy to establish
|
|
the possibility of mathematics itself. Philosophy possesses, then, no
|
|
axioms, and has no right to impose its a priori principles upon thought,
|
|
until it has established their authority and validity by a thoroughgoing
|
|
deduction.
|
|
|
|
3. Of Demonstrations. Only an apodeictic proof, based upon intuition,
|
|
can be termed a demonstration. Experience teaches us what is, but it
|
|
cannot convince us that it might not have been otherwise. Hence a proof
|
|
upon empirical grounds cannot be apodeictic. A priori conceptions, in
|
|
discursive cognition, can never produce intuitive certainty or evidence,
|
|
however certain the judgement they present may be. Mathematics alone,
|
|
therefore, contains demonstrations, because it does not deduce its
|
|
cognition from conceptions, but from the construction of conceptions,
|
|
that is, from intuition, which can be given a priori in accordance with
|
|
conceptions. The method of algebra, in equations, from which the
|
|
correct answer is deduced by reduction, is a kind of construction--not
|
|
geometrical, but by symbols--in which all conceptions, especially those
|
|
of the relations of quantities, are represented in intuition by signs;
|
|
and thus the conclusions in that science are secured from errors by the
|
|
fact that every proof is submitted to ocular evidence. Philosophical
|
|
cognition does not possess this advantage, it being required to consider
|
|
the general always in abstracto (by means of conceptions), while
|
|
mathematics can always consider it in concreto (in an individual
|
|
intuition), and at the same time by means of a priori representation,
|
|
whereby all errors are rendered manifest to the senses. The
|
|
former--discursive proofs--ought to be termed acroamatic proofs,
|
|
rather than demonstrations, as only words are employed in them, while
|
|
demonstrations proper, as the term itself indicates, always require a
|
|
reference to the intuition of the object.
|
|
|
|
It follows from all these considerations that it is not consonant with
|
|
the nature of philosophy, especially in the sphere of pure reason, to
|
|
employ the dogmatical method, and to adorn itself with the titles and
|
|
insignia of mathematical science. It does not belong to that order, and
|
|
can only hope for a fraternal union with that science. Its attempts at
|
|
mathematical evidence are vain pretensions, which can only keep it back
|
|
from its true aim, which is to detect the illusory procedure of reason
|
|
when transgressing its proper limits, and by fully explaining and
|
|
analysing our conceptions, to conduct us from the dim regions of
|
|
speculation to the clear region of modest self-knowledge. Reason must
|
|
not, therefore, in its transcendental endeavours, look forward with such
|
|
confidence, as if the path it is pursuing led straight to its aim,
|
|
nor reckon with such security upon its premisses, as to consider it
|
|
unnecessary to take a step back, or to keep a strict watch for errors,
|
|
which, overlooked in the principles, may be detected in the arguments
|
|
themselves--in which case it may be requisite either to determine these
|
|
principles with greater strictness, or to change them entirely.
|
|
|
|
I divide all apodeictic propositions, whether demonstrable or
|
|
immediately certain, into dogmata and mathemata. A direct synthetical
|
|
proposition, based on conceptions, is a dogma; a proposition of the same
|
|
kind, based on the construction of conceptions, is a mathema. Analytical
|
|
judgements do not teach us any more about an object than what was
|
|
contained in the conception we had of it; because they do not extend our
|
|
cognition beyond our conception of an object, they merely elucidate the
|
|
conception. They cannot therefore be with propriety termed dogmas. Of
|
|
the two kinds of a priori synthetical propositions above mentioned, only
|
|
those which are employed in philosophy can, according to the general
|
|
mode of speech, bear this name; those of arithmetic or geometry would
|
|
not be rightly so denominated. Thus the customary mode of speaking
|
|
confirms the explanation given above, and the conclusion arrived at,
|
|
that only those judgements which are based upon conceptions, not on the
|
|
construction of conceptions, can be termed dogmatical.
|
|
|
|
Thus, pure reason, in the sphere of speculation, does not contain a
|
|
single direct synthetical judgement based upon conceptions. By means
|
|
of ideas, it is, as we have shown, incapable of producing synthetical
|
|
judgements, which are objectively valid; by means of the conceptions of
|
|
the understanding, it establishes certain indubitable principles, not,
|
|
however, directly on the basis of conceptions, but only indirectly by
|
|
means of the relation of these conceptions to something of a purely
|
|
contingent nature, namely, possible experience. When experience is
|
|
presupposed, these principles are apodeictically certain, but in
|
|
themselves, and directly, they cannot even be cognized a priori. Thus
|
|
the given conceptions of cause and event will not be sufficient for
|
|
the demonstration of the proposition: Every event has a cause. For this
|
|
reason, it is not a dogma; although from another point of view, that of
|
|
experience, it is capable of being proved to demonstration. The proper
|
|
term for such a proposition is principle, and not theorem (although
|
|
it does require to be proved), because it possesses the remarkable
|
|
peculiarity of being the condition of the possibility of its own ground
|
|
of proof, that is, experience, and of forming a necessary presupposition
|
|
in all empirical observation.
|
|
|
|
If then, in the speculative sphere of pure reason, no dogmata are to
|
|
be found; all dogmatical methods, whether borrowed from mathematics,
|
|
or invented by philosophical thinkers, are alike inappropriate and
|
|
inefficient. They only serve to conceal errors and fallacies, and to
|
|
deceive philosophy, whose duty it is to see that reason pursues a safe
|
|
and straight path. A philosophical method may, however, be systematical.
|
|
For our reason is, subjectively considered, itself a system, and, in
|
|
the sphere of mere conceptions, a system of investigation according to
|
|
principles of unity, the material being supplied by experience alone.
|
|
But this is not the proper place for discussing the peculiar method
|
|
of transcendental philosophy, as our present task is simply to examine
|
|
whether our faculties are capable of erecting an edifice on the basis
|
|
of pure reason, and how far they may proceed with the materials at their
|
|
command.
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
SECTION II. The Discipline of Pure Reason in Polemics.
|
|
|
|
Reason must be subject, in all its operations, to criticism, which
|
|
must always be permitted to exercise its functions without restraint;
|
|
otherwise its interests are imperilled and its influence obnoxious to
|
|
suspicion. There is nothing, however useful, however sacred it may be,
|
|
that can claim exemption from the searching examination of this supreme
|
|
tribunal, which has no respect of persons. The very existence of reason
|
|
depends upon this freedom; for the voice of reason is not that of
|
|
a dictatorial and despotic power, it is rather like the vote of the
|
|
citizens of a free state, every member of which must have the privilege
|
|
of giving free expression to his doubts, and possess even the right of
|
|
veto.
|
|
|
|
But while reason can never decline to submit itself to the tribunal of
|
|
criticism, it has not always cause to dread the judgement of this court.
|
|
Pure reason, however, when engaged in the sphere of dogmatism, is not so
|
|
thoroughly conscious of a strict observance of its highest laws, as to
|
|
appear before a higher judicial reason with perfect confidence. On the
|
|
contrary, it must renounce its magnificent dogmatical pretensions in
|
|
philosophy.
|
|
|
|
Very different is the case when it has to defend itself, not before a
|
|
judge, but against an equal. If dogmatical assertions are advanced on
|
|
the negative side, in opposition to those made by reason on the positive
|
|
side, its justification kat authrhopon is complete, although the proof
|
|
of its propositions is kat aletheian unsatisfactory.
|
|
|
|
By the polemic of pure reason I mean the defence of its propositions
|
|
made by reason, in opposition to the dogmatical counter-propositions
|
|
advanced by other parties. The question here is not whether its own
|
|
statements may not also be false; it merely regards the fact that
|
|
reason proves that the opposite cannot be established with demonstrative
|
|
certainty, nor even asserted with a higher degree of probability. Reason
|
|
does not hold her possessions upon sufferance; for, although she cannot
|
|
show a perfectly satisfactory title to them, no one can prove that she
|
|
is not the rightful possessor.
|
|
|
|
It is a melancholy reflection that reason, in its highest exercise,
|
|
falls into an antithetic; and that the supreme tribunal for the
|
|
settlement of differences should not be at union with itself. It is true
|
|
that we had to discuss the question of an apparent antithetic, but we
|
|
found that it was based upon a misconception. In conformity with the
|
|
common prejudice, phenomena were regarded as things in themselves, and
|
|
thus an absolute completeness in their synthesis was required in the one
|
|
mode or in the other (it was shown to be impossible in both); a demand
|
|
entirely out of place in regard to phenomena. There was, then, no
|
|
real self-contradiction of reason in the propositions: The series of
|
|
phenomena given in themselves has an absolutely first beginning; and:
|
|
This series is absolutely and in itself without beginning. The two
|
|
propositions are perfectly consistent with each other, because phenomena
|
|
as phenomena are in themselves nothing, and consequently the hypothesis
|
|
that they are things in themselves must lead to self-contradictory
|
|
inferences.
|
|
|
|
But there are cases in which a similar misunderstanding cannot be
|
|
provided against, and the dispute must remain unsettled. Take, for
|
|
example, the theistic proposition: There is a Supreme Being; and on the
|
|
other hand, the atheistic counter-statement: There exists no Supreme
|
|
Being; or, in psychology: Everything that thinks possesses the attribute
|
|
of absolute and permanent unity, which is utterly different from the
|
|
transitory unity of material phenomena; and the counter-proposition: The
|
|
soul is not an immaterial unity, and its nature is transitory, like that
|
|
of phenomena. The objects of these questions contain no heterogeneous or
|
|
contradictory elements, for they relate to things in themselves, and not
|
|
to phenomena. There would arise, indeed, a real contradiction, if reason
|
|
came forward with a statement on the negative side of these questions
|
|
alone. As regards the criticism to which the grounds of proof on the
|
|
affirmative side must be subjected, it may be freely admitted, without
|
|
necessitating the surrender of the affirmative propositions, which have,
|
|
at least, the interest of reason in their favour--an advantage which the
|
|
opposite party cannot lay claim to.
|
|
|
|
I cannot agree with the opinion of several admirable thinkers--Sulzer
|
|
among the rest--that, in spite of the weakness of the arguments hitherto
|
|
in use, we may hope, one day, to see sufficient demonstrations of the
|
|
two cardinal propositions of pure reason--the existence of a Supreme
|
|
Being, and the immortality of the soul. I am certain, on the contrary,
|
|
that this will never be the case. For on what ground can reason base
|
|
such synthetical propositions, which do not relate to the objects
|
|
of experience and their internal possibility? But it is also
|
|
demonstratively certain that no one will ever be able to maintain the
|
|
contrary with the least show of probability. For, as he can attempt such
|
|
a proof solely upon the basis of pure reason, he is bound to prove
|
|
that a Supreme Being, and a thinking subject in the character of a pure
|
|
intelligence, are impossible. But where will he find the knowledge which
|
|
can enable him to enounce synthetical judgements in regard to things
|
|
which transcend the region of experience? We may, therefore, rest
|
|
assured that the opposite never will be demonstrated. We need not, then,
|
|
have recourse to scholastic arguments; we may always admit the truth of
|
|
those propositions which are consistent with the speculative interests
|
|
of reason in the sphere of experience, and form, moreover, the only
|
|
means of uniting the speculative with the practical interest. Our
|
|
opponent, who must not be considered here as a critic solely, we can
|
|
be ready to meet with a non liquet which cannot fail to disconcert him;
|
|
while we cannot deny his right to a similar retort, as we have on our
|
|
side the advantage of the support of the subjective maxim of reason,
|
|
and can therefore look upon all his sophistical arguments with calm
|
|
indifference.
|
|
|
|
From this point of view, there is properly no antithetic of pure reason.
|
|
For the only arena for such a struggle would be upon the field of
|
|
pure theology and psychology; but on this ground there can appear no
|
|
combatant whom we need to fear. Ridicule and boasting can be his
|
|
only weapons; and these may be laughed at, as mere child's play.
|
|
This consideration restores to Reason her courage; for what source
|
|
of confidence could be found, if she, whose vocation it is to destroy
|
|
error, were at variance with herself and without any reasonable hope of
|
|
ever reaching a state of permanent repose?
|
|
|
|
Everything in nature is good for some purpose. Even poisons are
|
|
serviceable; they destroy the evil effects of other poisons generated
|
|
in our system, and must always find a place in every complete
|
|
pharmacopoeia. The objections raised against the fallacies and
|
|
sophistries of speculative reason, are objections given by the nature
|
|
of this reason itself, and must therefore have a destination and
|
|
purpose which can only be for the good of humanity. For what purpose has
|
|
Providence raised many objects, in which we have the deepest interest,
|
|
so far above us, that we vainly try to cognize them with certainty, and
|
|
our powers of mental vision are rather excited than satisfied by the
|
|
glimpses we may chance to seize? It is very doubtful whether it is for
|
|
our benefit to advance bold affirmations regarding subjects involved
|
|
in such obscurity; perhaps it would even be detrimental to our best
|
|
interests. But it is undoubtedly always beneficial to leave the
|
|
investigating, as well as the critical reason, in perfect freedom, and
|
|
permit it to take charge of its own interests, which are advanced as
|
|
much by its limitation, as by its extension of its views, and which
|
|
always suffer by the interference of foreign powers forcing it, against
|
|
its natural tendencies, to bend to certain preconceived designs.
|
|
|
|
Allow your opponent to say what he thinks reasonable, and combat him
|
|
only with the weapons of reason. Have no anxiety for the practical
|
|
interests of humanity--these are never imperilled in a purely
|
|
speculative dispute. Such a dispute serves merely to disclose the
|
|
antinomy of reason, which, as it has its source in the nature of
|
|
reason, ought to be thoroughly investigated. Reason is benefited by the
|
|
examination of a subject on both sides, and its judgements are corrected
|
|
by being limited. It is not the matter that may give occasion to
|
|
dispute, but the manner. For it is perfectly permissible to employ,
|
|
in the presence of reason, the language of a firmly rooted faith, even
|
|
after we have been obliged to renounce all pretensions to knowledge.
|
|
|
|
If we were to ask the dispassionate David Hume--a philosopher endowed,
|
|
in a degree that few are, with a well-balanced judgement: What motive
|
|
induced you to spend so much labour and thought in undermining the
|
|
consoling and beneficial persuasion that reason is capable of assuring
|
|
us of the existence, and presenting us with a determinate conception
|
|
of a Supreme Being?--his answer would be: Nothing but the desire of
|
|
teaching reason to know its own powers better, and, at the same time, a
|
|
dislike of the procedure by which that faculty was compelled to support
|
|
foregone conclusions, and prevented from confessing the internal
|
|
weaknesses which it cannot but feel when it enters upon a rigid
|
|
self-examination. If, on the other hand, we were to ask Priestley--a
|
|
philosopher who had no taste for transcendental speculation, but was
|
|
entirely devoted to the principles of empiricism--what his motives were
|
|
for overturning those two main pillars of religion--the doctrines of
|
|
the freedom of the will and the immortality of the soul (in his view
|
|
the hope of a future life is but the expectation of the miracle of
|
|
resurrection)--this philosopher, himself a zealous and pious teacher of
|
|
religion, could give no other answer than this: I acted in the interest
|
|
of reason, which always suffers, when certain objects are explained
|
|
and judged by a reference to other supposed laws than those of material
|
|
nature--the only laws which we know in a determinate manner. It would be
|
|
unfair to decry the latter philosopher, who endeavoured to harmonize his
|
|
paradoxical opinions with the interests of religion, and to undervalue
|
|
an honest and reflecting man, because he finds himself at a loss the
|
|
moment he has left the field of natural science. The same grace must be
|
|
accorded to Hume, a man not less well-disposed, and quite as blameless
|
|
in his moral character, and who pushed his abstract speculations to an
|
|
extreme length, because, as he rightly believed, the object of them lies
|
|
entirely beyond the bounds of natural science, and within the sphere of
|
|
pure ideas.
|
|
|
|
What is to be done to provide against the danger which seems in the
|
|
present case to menace the best interests of humanity? The course to be
|
|
pursued in reference to this subject is a perfectly plain and natural
|
|
one. Let each thinker pursue his own path; if he shows talent, if he
|
|
gives evidence of profound thought, in one word, if he shows that he
|
|
possesses the power of reasoning--reason is always the gainer. If you
|
|
have recourse to other means, if you attempt to coerce reason, if you
|
|
raise the cry of treason to humanity, if you excite the feelings of
|
|
the crowd, which can neither understand nor sympathize with such subtle
|
|
speculations--you will only make yourselves ridiculous. For the question
|
|
does not concern the advantage or disadvantage which we are expected
|
|
to reap from such inquiries; the question is merely how far reason can
|
|
advance in the field of speculation, apart from all kinds of interest,
|
|
and whether we may depend upon the exertions of speculative reason, or
|
|
must renounce all reliance on it. Instead of joining the combatants,
|
|
it is your part to be a tranquil spectator of the struggle--a laborious
|
|
struggle for the parties engaged, but attended, in its progress as
|
|
well as in its result, with the most advantageous consequences for
|
|
the interests of thought and knowledge. It is absurd to expect to be
|
|
enlightened by Reason, and at the same time to prescribe to her what
|
|
side of the question she must adopt. Moreover, reason is sufficiently
|
|
held in check by its own power, the limits imposed on it by its own
|
|
nature are sufficient; it is unnecessary for you to place over it
|
|
additional guards, as if its power were dangerous to the constitution of
|
|
the intellectual state. In the dialectic of reason there is no victory
|
|
gained which need in the least disturb your tranquility.
|
|
|
|
The strife of dialectic is a necessity of reason, and we cannot but wish
|
|
that it had been conducted long ere this with that perfect freedom which
|
|
ought to be its essential condition. In this case, we should have had at
|
|
an earlier period a matured and profound criticism, which must have
|
|
put an end to all dialectical disputes, by exposing the illusions and
|
|
prejudices in which they originated.
|
|
|
|
There is in human nature an unworthy propensity--a propensity which,
|
|
like everything that springs from nature, must in its final purpose be
|
|
conducive to the good of humanity--to conceal our real sentiments, and
|
|
to give expression only to certain received opinions, which are regarded
|
|
as at once safe and promotive of the common good. It is true, this
|
|
tendency, not only to conceal our real sentiments, but to profess those
|
|
which may gain us favour in the eyes of society, has not only civilized,
|
|
but, in a certain measure, moralized us; as no one can break through the
|
|
outward covering of respectability, honour, and morality, and thus
|
|
the seemingly-good examples which we which we see around us form an
|
|
excellent school for moral improvement, so long as our belief in
|
|
their genuineness remains unshaken. But this disposition to represent
|
|
ourselves as better than we are, and to utter opinions which are not
|
|
our own, can be nothing more than a kind of provisionary arrangement
|
|
of nature to lead us from the rudeness of an uncivilized state, and to
|
|
teach us how to assume at least the appearance and manner of the good we
|
|
see. But when true principles have been developed, and have obtained a
|
|
sure foundation in our habit of thought, this conventionalism must
|
|
be attacked with earnest vigour, otherwise it corrupts the heart, and
|
|
checks the growth of good dispositions with the mischievous weed of air
|
|
appearances.
|
|
|
|
I am sorry to remark the same tendency to misrepresentation and
|
|
hypocrisy in the sphere of speculative discussion, where there is less
|
|
temptation to restrain the free expression of thought. For what can be
|
|
more prejudicial to the interests of intelligence than to falsify our
|
|
real sentiments, to conceal the doubts which we feel in regard to our
|
|
statements, or to maintain the validity of grounds of proof which we
|
|
well know to be insufficient? So long as mere personal vanity is the
|
|
source of these unworthy artifices--and this is generally the case
|
|
in speculative discussions, which are mostly destitute of practical
|
|
interest, and are incapable of complete demonstration--the vanity of
|
|
the opposite party exaggerates as much on the other side; and thus the
|
|
result is the same, although it is not brought about so soon as if the
|
|
dispute had been conducted in a sincere and upright spirit. But
|
|
where the mass entertains the notion that the aim of certain subtle
|
|
speculators is nothing less than to shake the very foundations of public
|
|
welfare and morality--it seems not only prudent, but even praise worthy,
|
|
to maintain the good cause by illusory arguments, rather than to give to
|
|
our supposed opponents the advantage of lowering our declarations to the
|
|
moderate tone of a merely practical conviction, and of compelling us to
|
|
confess our inability to attain to apodeictic certainty in speculative
|
|
subjects. But we ought to reflect that there is nothing, in the
|
|
world more fatal to the maintenance of a good cause than deceit,
|
|
misrepresentation, and falsehood. That the strictest laws of honesty
|
|
should be observed in the discussion of a purely speculative subject is
|
|
the least requirement that can be made. If we could reckon with security
|
|
even upon so little, the conflict of speculative reason regarding the
|
|
important questions of God, immortality, and freedom, would have been
|
|
either decided long ago, or would very soon be brought to a conclusion.
|
|
But, in general, the uprightness of the defence stands in an inverse
|
|
ratio to the goodness of the cause; and perhaps more honesty and
|
|
fairness are shown by those who deny than by those who uphold these
|
|
doctrines.
|
|
|
|
I shall persuade myself, then, that I have readers who do not wish
|
|
to see a righteous cause defended by unfair arguments. Such will now
|
|
recognize the fact that, according to the principles of this Critique,
|
|
if we consider not what is, but what ought to be the case, there can be
|
|
really no polemic of pure reason. For how can two persons dispute about
|
|
a thing, the reality of which neither can present in actual or even in
|
|
possible experience? Each adopts the plan of meditating on his idea for
|
|
the purpose of drawing from the idea, if he can, what is more than the
|
|
idea, that is, the reality of the object which it indicates. How shall
|
|
they settle the dispute, since neither is able to make his assertions
|
|
directly comprehensible and certain, but must restrict himself to
|
|
attacking and confuting those of his opponent? All statements enounced
|
|
by pure reason transcend the conditions of possible experience, beyond
|
|
the sphere of which we can discover no criterion of truth, while
|
|
they are at the same time framed in accordance with the laws of the
|
|
understanding, which are applicable only to experience; and thus it is
|
|
the fate of all such speculative discussions that while the one party
|
|
attacks the weaker side of his opponent, he infallibly lays open his own
|
|
weaknesses.
|
|
|
|
The critique of pure reason may be regarded as the highest tribunal
|
|
for all speculative disputes; for it is not involved in these disputes,
|
|
which have an immediate relation to certain objects and not to the laws
|
|
of the mind, but is instituted for the purpose of determining the rights
|
|
and limits of reason.
|
|
|
|
Without the control of criticism, reason is, as it were, in a state
|
|
of nature, and can only establish its claims and assertions by war.
|
|
Criticism, on the contrary, deciding all questions according to the
|
|
fundamental laws of its own institution, secures to us the peace of
|
|
law and order, and enables us to discuss all differences in the more
|
|
tranquil manner of a legal process. In the former case, disputes are
|
|
ended by victory, which both sides may claim and which is followed by a
|
|
hollow armistice; in the latter, by a sentence, which, as it strikes
|
|
at the root of all speculative differences, ensures to all concerned a
|
|
lasting peace. The endless disputes of a dogmatizing reason compel us
|
|
to look for some mode of arriving at a settled decision by a critical
|
|
investigation of reason itself; just as Hobbes maintains that the state
|
|
of nature is a state of injustice and violence, and that we must leave
|
|
it and submit ourselves to the constraint of law, which indeed limits
|
|
individual freedom, but only that it may consist with the freedom of
|
|
others and with the common good of all.
|
|
|
|
This freedom will, among other things, permit of our openly stating the
|
|
difficulties and doubts which we are ourselves unable to solve, without
|
|
being decried on that account as turbulent and dangerous citizens.
|
|
This privilege forms part of the native rights of human reason, which
|
|
recognizes no other judge than the universal reason of humanity; and
|
|
as this reason is the source of all progress and improvement, such a
|
|
privilege is to be held sacred and inviolable. It is unwise, moreover,
|
|
to denounce as dangerous any bold assertions against, or rash attacks
|
|
upon, an opinion which is held by the largest and most moral class of
|
|
the community; for that would be giving them an importance which they
|
|
do not deserve. When I hear that the freedom of the will, the hope of
|
|
a future life, and the existence of God have been overthrown by the
|
|
arguments of some able writer, I feel a strong desire to read his
|
|
book; for I expect that he will add to my knowledge and impart greater
|
|
clearness and distinctness to my views by the argumentative power shown
|
|
in his writings. But I am perfectly certain, even before I have opened
|
|
the book, that he has not succeeded in a single point, not because
|
|
I believe I am in possession of irrefutable demonstrations of these
|
|
important propositions, but because this transcendental critique, which
|
|
has disclosed to me the power and the limits of pure reason, has fully
|
|
convinced me that, as it is insufficient to establish the affirmative,
|
|
it is as powerless, and even more so, to assure us of the truth of
|
|
the negative answer to these questions. From what source does this
|
|
free-thinker derive his knowledge that there is, for example, no Supreme
|
|
Being? This proposition lies out of the field of possible experience,
|
|
and, therefore, beyond the limits of human cognition. But I would not
|
|
read at, all the answer which the dogmatical maintainer of the good
|
|
cause makes to his opponent, because I know well beforehand, that he
|
|
will merely attack the fallacious grounds of his adversary, without
|
|
being able to establish his own assertions. Besides, a new illusory
|
|
argument, in the construction of which talent and acuteness are shown,
|
|
is suggestive of new ideas and new trains of reasoning, and in this
|
|
respect the old and everyday sophistries are quite useless. Again,
|
|
the dogmatical opponent of religion gives employment to criticism,
|
|
and enables us to test and correct its principles, while there is no
|
|
occasion for anxiety in regard to the influence and results of his
|
|
reasoning.
|
|
|
|
But, it will be said, must we not warn the youth entrusted to academical
|
|
care against such writings, must we not preserve them from the knowledge
|
|
of these dangerous assertions, until their judgement is ripened, or
|
|
rather until the doctrines which we wish to inculcate are so firmly
|
|
rooted in their minds as to withstand all attempts at instilling the
|
|
contrary dogmas, from whatever quarter they may come?
|
|
|
|
If we are to confine ourselves to the dogmatical procedure in the
|
|
sphere of pure reason, and find ourselves unable to settle such
|
|
disputes otherwise than by becoming a party in them, and setting
|
|
counter-assertions against the statements advanced by our opponents,
|
|
there is certainly no plan more advisable for the moment, but, at the
|
|
same time, none more absurd and inefficient for the future, than this
|
|
retaining of the youthful mind under guardianship for a time, and thus
|
|
preserving it--for so long at least--from seduction into error. But
|
|
when, at a later period, either curiosity, or the prevalent fashion
|
|
of thought places such writings in their hands, will the so-called
|
|
convictions of their youth stand firm? The young thinker, who has in his
|
|
armoury none but dogmatical weapons with which to resist the attacks of
|
|
his opponent, and who cannot detect the latent dialectic which lies in
|
|
his own opinions as well as in those of the opposite party, sees the
|
|
advance of illusory arguments and grounds of proof which have the
|
|
advantage of novelty, against as illusory grounds of proof destitute
|
|
of this advantage, and which, perhaps, excite the suspicion that the
|
|
natural credulity of his youth has been abused by his instructors. He
|
|
thinks he can find no better means of showing that he has out grown the
|
|
discipline of his minority than by despising those well-meant warnings,
|
|
and, knowing no system of thought but that of dogmatism, he drinks deep
|
|
draughts of the poison that is to sap the principles in which his early
|
|
years were trained.
|
|
|
|
Exactly the opposite of the system here recommended ought to be pursued
|
|
in academical instruction. This can only be effected, however, by a
|
|
thorough training in the critical investigation of pure reason. For, in
|
|
order to bring the principles of this critique into exercise as soon as
|
|
possible, and to demonstrate their perfect even in the presence of the
|
|
highest degree of dialectical illusion, the student ought to examine the
|
|
assertions made on both sides of speculative questions step by step, and
|
|
to test them by these principles. It cannot be a difficult task for him
|
|
to show the fallacies inherent in these propositions, and thus he begins
|
|
early to feel his own power of securing himself against the influence of
|
|
such sophistical arguments, which must finally lose, for him, all their
|
|
illusory power. And, although the same blows which overturn the edifice
|
|
of his opponent are as fatal to his own speculative structures, if such
|
|
he has wished to rear; he need not feel any sorrow in regard to this
|
|
seeming misfortune, as he has now before him a fair prospect into the
|
|
practical region in which he may reasonably hope to find a more secure
|
|
foundation for a rational system.
|
|
|
|
There is, accordingly, no proper polemic in the sphere of pure reason.
|
|
Both parties beat the air and fight with their own shadows, as they
|
|
pass beyond the limits of nature, and can find no tangible point
|
|
of attack--no firm footing for their dogmatical conflict. Fight as
|
|
vigorously as they may, the shadows which they hew down, immediately
|
|
start up again, like the heroes in Walhalla, and renew the bloodless and
|
|
unceasing contest.
|
|
|
|
But neither can we admit that there is any proper sceptical employment
|
|
of pure reason, such as might be based upon the principle of neutrality
|
|
in all speculative disputes. To excite reason against itself, to place
|
|
weapons in the hands of the party on the one side as well as in those of
|
|
the other, and to remain an undisturbed and sarcastic spectator of the
|
|
fierce struggle that ensues, seems, from the dogmatical point of view,
|
|
to be a part fitting only a malevolent disposition. But, when the
|
|
sophist evidences an invincible obstinacy and blindness, and a pride
|
|
which no criticism can moderate, there is no other practicable course
|
|
than to oppose to this pride and obstinacy similar feelings and
|
|
pretensions on the other side, equally well or ill founded, so that
|
|
reason, staggered by the reflections thus forced upon it, finds it
|
|
necessary to moderate its confidence in such pretensions and to listen
|
|
to the advice of criticism. But we cannot stop at these doubts, much
|
|
less regard the conviction of our ignorance, not only as a cure for the
|
|
conceit natural to dogmatism, but as the settlement of the disputes in
|
|
which reason is involved with itself. On the contrary, scepticism is
|
|
merely a means of awakening reason from its dogmatic dreams and exciting
|
|
it to a more careful investigation into its own powers and pretensions.
|
|
But, as scepticism appears to be the shortest road to a permanent peace
|
|
in the domain of philosophy, and as it is the track pursued by the
|
|
many who aim at giving a philosophical colouring to their contemptuous
|
|
dislike of all inquiries of this kind, I think it necessary to present
|
|
to my readers this mode of thought in its true light.
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
Scepticism not a Permanent State for Human Reason.
|
|
|
|
The consciousness of ignorance--unless this ignorance is recognized to
|
|
be absolutely necessary ought, instead of forming the conclusion of
|
|
my inquiries, to be the strongest motive to the pursuit of them. All
|
|
ignorance is either ignorance of things or of the limits of knowledge.
|
|
If my ignorance is accidental and not necessary, it must incite me, in
|
|
the first case, to a dogmatical inquiry regarding the objects of which I
|
|
am ignorant; in the second, to a critical investigation into the bounds
|
|
of all possible knowledge. But that my ignorance is absolutely necessary
|
|
and unavoidable, and that it consequently absolves from the duty of all
|
|
further investigation, is a fact which cannot be made out upon empirical
|
|
grounds--from observation--but upon critical grounds alone, that is, by
|
|
a thoroughgoing investigation into the primary sources of cognition. It
|
|
follows that the determination of the bounds of reason can be made only
|
|
on a priori grounds; while the empirical limitation of reason, which
|
|
is merely an indeterminate cognition of an ignorance that can never be
|
|
completely removed, can take place only a posteriori. In other words,
|
|
our empirical knowledge is limited by that which yet remains for us to
|
|
know. The former cognition of our ignorance, which is possible only on a
|
|
rational basis, is a science; the latter is merely a perception, and we
|
|
cannot say how far the inferences drawn from it may extend. If I regard
|
|
the earth, as it really appears to my senses, as a flat surface, I am
|
|
ignorant how far this surface extends. But experience teaches me that,
|
|
how far soever I go, I always see before me a space in which I can
|
|
proceed farther; and thus I know the limits--merely visual--of my actual
|
|
knowledge of the earth, although I am ignorant of the limits of the
|
|
earth itself. But if I have got so far as to know that the earth is a
|
|
sphere, and that its surface is spherical, I can cognize a priori and
|
|
determine upon principles, from my knowledge of a small part of this
|
|
surface--say to the extent of a degree--the diameter and circumference
|
|
of the earth; and although I am ignorant of the objects which this
|
|
surface contains, I have a perfect knowledge of its limits and extent.
|
|
|
|
The sum of all the possible objects of our cognition seems to us to be
|
|
a level surface, with an apparent horizon--that which forms the limit
|
|
of its extent, and which has been termed by us the idea of unconditioned
|
|
totality. To reach this limit by empirical means is impossible, and all
|
|
attempts to determine it a priori according to a principle, are alike in
|
|
vain. But all the questions raised by pure reason relate to that which
|
|
lies beyond this horizon, or, at least, in its boundary line.
|
|
|
|
The celebrated David Hume was one of those geographers of human reason
|
|
who believe that they have given a sufficient answer to all such
|
|
questions by declaring them to lie beyond the horizon of our
|
|
knowledge--a horizon which, however, Hume was unable to determine. His
|
|
attention especially was directed to the principle of causality; and he
|
|
remarked with perfect justice that the truth of this principle, and even
|
|
the objective validity of the conception of a cause, was not commonly
|
|
based upon clear insight, that is, upon a priori cognition. Hence
|
|
he concluded that this law does not derive its authority from its
|
|
universality and necessity, but merely from its general applicability
|
|
in the course of experience, and a kind of subjective necessity
|
|
thence arising, which he termed habit. From the inability of reason to
|
|
establish this principle as a necessary law for the acquisition of all
|
|
experience, he inferred the nullity of all the attempts of reason to
|
|
pass the region of the empirical.
|
|
|
|
This procedure of subjecting the facta of reason to examination, and,
|
|
if necessary, to disapproval, may be termed the censura of reason. This
|
|
censura must inevitably lead us to doubts regarding all transcendent
|
|
employment of principles. But this is only the second step in our
|
|
inquiry. The first step in regard to the subjects of pure reason, and
|
|
which marks the infancy of that faculty, is that of dogmatism. The
|
|
second, which we have just mentioned, is that of scepticism, and it
|
|
gives evidence that our judgement has been improved by experience. But
|
|
a third step is necessary--indicative of the maturity and manhood of the
|
|
judgement, which now lays a firm foundation upon universal and necessary
|
|
principles. This is the period of criticism, in which we do not examine
|
|
the facta of reason, but reason itself, in the whole extent of its
|
|
powers, and in regard to its capability of a priori cognition; and thus
|
|
we determine not merely the empirical and ever-shifting bounds of our
|
|
knowledge, but its necessary and eternal limits. We demonstrate from
|
|
indubitable principles, not merely our ignorance in respect to this
|
|
or that subject, but in regard to all possible questions of a certain
|
|
class. Thus scepticism is a resting place for reason, in which it may
|
|
reflect on its dogmatical wanderings and gain some knowledge of the
|
|
region in which it happens to be, that it may pursue its way with
|
|
greater certainty; but it cannot be its permanent dwelling-place. It
|
|
must take up its abode only in the region of complete certitude, whether
|
|
this relates to the cognition of objects themselves, or to the limits
|
|
which bound all our cognition.
|
|
|
|
Reason is not to be considered as an indefinitely extended plane, of the
|
|
bounds of which we have only a general knowledge; it ought rather to
|
|
be compared to a sphere, the radius of which may be found from the
|
|
curvature of its surface--that is, the nature of a priori synthetical
|
|
propositions--and, consequently, its circumference and extent. Beyond
|
|
the sphere of experience there are no objects which it can cognize; nay,
|
|
even questions regarding such supposititious objects relate only to the
|
|
subjective principles of a complete determination of the relations
|
|
which exist between the understanding-conceptions which lie within this
|
|
sphere.
|
|
|
|
We are actually in possession of a priori synthetical cognitions, as is
|
|
proved by the existence of the principles of the understanding, which
|
|
anticipate experience. If any one cannot comprehend the possibility
|
|
of these principles, he may have some reason to doubt whether they
|
|
are really a priori; but he cannot on this account declare them to be
|
|
impossible, and affirm the nullity of the steps which reason may have
|
|
taken under their guidance. He can only say: If we perceived their
|
|
origin and their authenticity, we should be able to determine the
|
|
extent and limits of reason; but, till we can do this, all propositions
|
|
regarding the latter are mere random assertions. In this view, the
|
|
doubt respecting all dogmatical philosophy, which proceeds without the
|
|
guidance of criticism, is well grounded; but we cannot therefore deny
|
|
to reason the ability to construct a sound philosophy, when the way has
|
|
been prepared by a thorough critical investigation. All the conceptions
|
|
produced, and all the questions raised, by pure reason, do not lie in
|
|
the sphere of experience, but in that of reason itself, and hence they
|
|
must be solved, and shown to be either valid or inadmissible, by that
|
|
faculty. We have no right to decline the solution of such problems, on
|
|
the ground that the solution can be discovered only from the nature of
|
|
things, and under pretence of the limitation of human faculties, for
|
|
reason is the sole creator of all these ideas, and is therefore bound
|
|
either to establish their validity or to expose their illusory nature.
|
|
|
|
The polemic of scepticism is properly directed against the dogmatist,
|
|
who erects a system of philosophy without having examined the
|
|
fundamental objective principles on which it is based, for the purpose
|
|
of evidencing the futility of his designs, and thus bringing him to a
|
|
knowledge of his own powers. But, in itself, scepticism does not give
|
|
us any certain information in regard to the bounds of our knowledge. All
|
|
unsuccessful dogmatical attempts of reason are facia, which it is always
|
|
useful to submit to the censure of the sceptic. But this cannot help
|
|
us to any decision regarding the expectations which reason cherishes of
|
|
better success in future endeavours; the investigations of scepticism
|
|
cannot, therefore, settle the dispute regarding the rights and powers of
|
|
human reason.
|
|
|
|
Hume is perhaps the ablest and most ingenious of all sceptical
|
|
philosophers, and his writings have, undoubtedly, exerted the most
|
|
powerful influence in awakening reason to a thorough investigation into
|
|
its own powers. It will, therefore, well repay our labours to consider
|
|
for a little the course of reasoning which he followed and the errors
|
|
into which he strayed, although setting out on the path of truth and
|
|
certitude.
|
|
|
|
Hume was probably aware, although he never clearly developed the notion,
|
|
that we proceed in judgements of a certain class beyond our conception
|
|
if the object. I have termed this kind of judgement synthetical. As
|
|
regard the manner in which I pass beyond my conception by the aid
|
|
of experience, no doubts can be entertained. Experience is itself a
|
|
synthesis of perceptions; and it employs perceptions to increment the
|
|
conception, which I obtain by means of another perception. But we feel
|
|
persuaded that we are able to proceed beyond a conception, and to extend
|
|
our cognition a priori. We attempt this in two ways--either, through the
|
|
pure understanding, in relation to that which may become an object of
|
|
experience, or, through pure reason, in relation to such properties of
|
|
things, or of the existence of things, as can never be presented in any
|
|
experience. This sceptical philosopher did not distinguish these
|
|
two kinds of judgements, as he ought to have done, but regarded this
|
|
augmentation of conceptions, and, if we may so express ourselves, the
|
|
spontaneous generation of understanding and reason, independently of the
|
|
impregnation of experience, as altogether impossible. The so-called a
|
|
priori principles of these faculties he consequently held to be invalid
|
|
and imaginary, and regarded them as nothing but subjective habits of
|
|
thought originating in experience, and therefore purely empirical
|
|
and contingent rules, to which we attribute a spurious necessity and
|
|
universality. In support of this strange assertion, he referred us to
|
|
the generally acknowledged principle of the relation between cause and
|
|
effect. No faculty of the mind can conduct us from the conception of a
|
|
thing to the existence of something else; and hence he believed he could
|
|
infer that, without experience, we possess no source from which we can
|
|
augment a conception, and no ground sufficient to justify us in framing
|
|
a judgement that is to extend our cognition a priori. That the light of
|
|
the sun, which shines upon a piece of wax, at the same time melts it,
|
|
while it hardens clay, no power of the understanding could infer from
|
|
the conceptions which we previously possessed of these substances;
|
|
much less is there any a priori law that could conduct us to such a
|
|
conclusion, which experience alone can certify. On the other hand, we
|
|
have seen in our discussion of transcendental logic, that, although we
|
|
can never proceed immediately beyond the content of the conception which
|
|
is given us, we can always cognize completely a priori--in relation,
|
|
however, to a third term, namely, possible experience--the law of its
|
|
connection with other things. For example, if I observe that a piece of
|
|
wax melts, I can cognize a priori that there must have been something
|
|
(the sun's heat) preceding, which this law; although, without the aid
|
|
of experience, I could not cognize a priori and in a determinate manner
|
|
either the cause from the effect, or the effect from the cause.
|
|
Hume was, therefore, wrong in inferring, from the contingency of the
|
|
determination according to law, the contingency of the law itself; and
|
|
the passing beyond the conception of a thing to possible experience
|
|
(which is an a priori proceeding, constituting the objective reality of
|
|
the conception), he confounded with our synthesis of objects in actual
|
|
experience, which is always, of course, empirical. Thus, too,
|
|
he regarded the principle of affinity, which has its seat in the
|
|
understanding and indicates a necessary connection, as a mere rule of
|
|
association, lying in the imitative faculty of imagination, which can
|
|
present only contingent, and not objective connections.
|
|
|
|
The sceptical errors of this remarkably acute thinker arose principally
|
|
from a defect, which was common to him with the dogmatists, namely, that
|
|
he had never made a systematic review of all the different kinds of
|
|
a priori synthesis performed by the understanding. Had he done so, he
|
|
would have found, to take one example among many, that the principle of
|
|
permanence was of this character, and that it, as well as the principle
|
|
of causality, anticipates experience. In this way he might have been
|
|
able to describe the determinate limits of the a priori operations of
|
|
understanding and reason. But he merely declared the understanding to be
|
|
limited, instead of showing what its limits were; he created a
|
|
general mistrust in the power of our faculties, without giving us any
|
|
determinate knowledge of the bounds of our necessary and unavoidable
|
|
ignorance; he examined and condemned some of the principles of
|
|
the understanding, without investigating all its powers with the
|
|
completeness necessary to criticism. He denies, with truth, certain
|
|
powers to the understanding, but he goes further, and declares it to be
|
|
utterly inadequate to the a priori extension of knowledge, although he
|
|
has not fully examined all the powers which reside in the faculty; and
|
|
thus the fate which always overtakes scepticism meets him too. That is
|
|
to say, his own declarations are doubted, for his objections were based
|
|
upon facta, which are contingent, and not upon principles, which can
|
|
alone demonstrate the necessary invalidity of all dogmatical assertions.
|
|
|
|
As Hume makes no distinction between the well-grounded claims of the
|
|
understanding and the dialectical pretensions of reason, against which,
|
|
however, his attacks are mainly directed, reason does not feel itself
|
|
shut out from all attempts at the extension of a priori cognition, and
|
|
hence it refuses, in spite of a few checks in this or that quarter, to
|
|
relinquish such efforts. For one naturally arms oneself to resist an
|
|
attack, and becomes more obstinate in the resolve to establish the
|
|
claims he has advanced. But a complete review of the powers of reason,
|
|
and the conviction thence arising that we are in possession of a limited
|
|
field of action, while we must admit the vanity of higher claims, puts
|
|
an end to all doubt and dispute, and induces reason to rest satisfied
|
|
with the undisturbed possession of its limited domain.
|
|
|
|
To the uncritical dogmatist, who has not surveyed the sphere of his
|
|
understanding, nor determined, in accordance with principles, the limits
|
|
of possible cognition, who, consequently, is ignorant of his own powers,
|
|
and believes he will discover them by the attempts he makes in the field
|
|
of cognition, these attacks of scepticism are not only dangerous, but
|
|
destructive. For if there is one proposition in his chain of reasoning
|
|
which be he cannot prove, or the fallacy in which he cannot evolve in
|
|
accordance with a principle, suspicion falls on all his statements,
|
|
however plausible they may appear.
|
|
|
|
And thus scepticism, the bane of dogmatical philosophy, conducts us to
|
|
a sound investigation into the understanding and the reason. When we are
|
|
thus far advanced, we need fear no further attacks; for the limits of
|
|
our domain are clearly marked out, and we can make no claims nor become
|
|
involved in any disputes regarding the region that lies beyond these
|
|
limits. Thus the sceptical procedure in philosophy does not present any
|
|
solution of the problems of reason, but it forms an excellent exercise
|
|
for its powers, awakening its circumspection, and indicating the
|
|
means whereby it may most fully establish its claims to its legitimate
|
|
possessions.
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
SECTION III. The Discipline of Pure Reason in Hypothesis.
|
|
|
|
This critique of reason has now taught us that all its efforts to extend
|
|
the bounds of knowledge, by means of pure speculation, are utterly
|
|
fruitless. So much the wider field, it may appear, lies open to
|
|
hypothesis; as, where we cannot know with certainty, we are at liberty
|
|
to make guesses and to form suppositions.
|
|
|
|
Imagination may be allowed, under the strict surveillance of reason,
|
|
to invent suppositions; but, these must be based on something that is
|
|
perfectly certain--and that is the possibility of the object. If we
|
|
are well assured upon this point, it is allowable to have recourse to
|
|
supposition in regard to the reality of the object; but this supposition
|
|
must, unless it is utterly groundless, be connected, as its ground of
|
|
explanation, with that which is really given and absolutely certain.
|
|
Such a supposition is termed a hypothesis.
|
|
|
|
It is beyond our power to form the least conception a priori of the
|
|
possibility of dynamical connection in phenomena; and the category
|
|
of the pure understanding will not enable us to excogitate any such
|
|
connection, but merely helps us to understand it, when we meet with
|
|
it in experience. For this reason we cannot, in accordance with the
|
|
categories, imagine or invent any object or any property of an object
|
|
not given, or that may not be given in experience, and employ it in a
|
|
hypothesis; otherwise, we should be basing our chain of reasoning upon
|
|
mere chimerical fancies, and not upon conceptions of things. Thus, we
|
|
have no right to assume the existence of new powers, not existing in
|
|
nature--for example, an understanding with a non-sensuous intuition,
|
|
a force of attraction without contact, or some new kind of substances
|
|
occupying space, and yet without the property of impenetrability--and,
|
|
consequently, we cannot assume that there is any other kind of community
|
|
among substances than that observable in experience, any kind of
|
|
presence than that in space, or any kind of duration than that in time.
|
|
In one word, the conditions of possible experience are for reason the
|
|
only conditions of the possibility of things; reason cannot venture
|
|
to form, independently of these conditions, any conceptions of things,
|
|
because such conceptions, although not self-contradictory, are without
|
|
object and without application.
|
|
|
|
The conceptions of reason are, as we have already shown, mere ideas, and
|
|
do not relate to any object in any kind of experience. At the same time,
|
|
they do not indicate imaginary or possible objects. They are purely
|
|
problematical in their nature and, as aids to the heuristic exercise
|
|
of the faculties, form the basis of the regulative principles for the
|
|
systematic employment of the understanding in the field of experience.
|
|
If we leave this ground of experience, they become mere fictions of
|
|
thought, the possibility of which is quite indemonstrable; and they
|
|
cannot, consequently, be employed as hypotheses in the explanation of
|
|
real phenomena. It is quite admissible to cogitate the soul as simple,
|
|
for the purpose of enabling ourselves to employ the idea of a perfect
|
|
and necessary unity of all the faculties of the mind as the principle
|
|
of all our inquiries into its internal phenomena, although we cannot
|
|
cognize this unity in concreto. But to assume that the soul is a simple
|
|
substance (a transcendental conception) would be enouncing a proposition
|
|
which is not only indemonstrable--as many physical hypotheses are--but
|
|
a proposition which is purely arbitrary, and in the highest degree rash.
|
|
The simple is never presented in experience; and, if by substance is
|
|
here meant the permanent object of sensuous intuition, the possibility
|
|
of a simple phenomenon is perfectly inconceivable. Reason affords no
|
|
good grounds for admitting the existence of intelligible beings, or
|
|
of intelligible properties of sensuous things, although--as we have no
|
|
conception either of their possibility or of their impossibility--it
|
|
will always be out of our power to affirm dogmatically that they do not
|
|
exist. In the explanation of given phenomena, no other things and no
|
|
other grounds of explanation can be employed than those which stand
|
|
in connection with the given phenomena according to the known laws of
|
|
experience. A transcendental hypothesis, in which a mere idea of reason
|
|
is employed to explain the phenomena of nature, would not give us any
|
|
better insight into a phenomenon, as we should be trying to explain what
|
|
we do not sufficiently understand from known empirical principles, by
|
|
what we do not understand at all. The principles of such a hypothesis
|
|
might conduce to the satisfaction of reason, but it would not assist
|
|
the understanding in its application to objects. Order and conformity to
|
|
aims in the sphere of nature must be themselves explained upon natural
|
|
grounds and according to natural laws; and the wildest hypotheses, if
|
|
they are only physical, are here more admissible than a hyperphysical
|
|
hypothesis, such as that of a divine author. For such a hypothesis would
|
|
introduce the principle of ignava ratio, which requires us to give
|
|
up the search for causes that might be discovered in the course of
|
|
experience and to rest satisfied with a mere idea. As regards the
|
|
absolute totality of the grounds of explanation in the series of these
|
|
causes, this can be no hindrance to the understanding in the case of
|
|
phenomena; because, as they are to us nothing more than phenomena, we
|
|
have no right to look for anything like completeness in the synthesis of
|
|
the series of their conditions.
|
|
|
|
Transcendental hypotheses are therefore inadmissible; and we cannot
|
|
use the liberty of employing, in the absence of physical, hyperphysical
|
|
grounds of explanation. And this for two reasons; first, because such
|
|
hypothesis do not advance reason, but rather stop it in its progress;
|
|
secondly, because this licence would render fruitless all its exertions
|
|
in its own proper sphere, which is that of experience. For, when the
|
|
explanation of natural phenomena happens to be difficult, we have
|
|
constantly at hand a transcendental ground of explanation, which lifts
|
|
us above the necessity of investigating nature; and our inquiries are
|
|
brought to a close, not because we have obtained all the
|
|
requisite knowledge, but because we abut upon a principle which is
|
|
incomprehensible and which, indeed, is so far back in the track of
|
|
thought as to contain the conception of the absolutely primal being.
|
|
|
|
The next requisite for the admissibility of a hypothesis is its
|
|
sufficiency. That is, it must determine a priori the consequences
|
|
which are given in experience and which are supposed to follow from the
|
|
hypothesis itself. If we require to employ auxiliary hypotheses, the
|
|
suspicion naturally arises that they are mere fictions; because the
|
|
necessity for each of them requires the same justification as in the
|
|
case of the original hypothesis, and thus their testimony is invalid.
|
|
If we suppose the existence of an infinitely perfect cause, we possess
|
|
sufficient grounds for the explanation of the conformity to aims, the
|
|
order and the greatness which we observe in the universe; but we
|
|
find ourselves obliged, when we observe the evil in the world and the
|
|
exceptions to these laws, to employ new hypothesis in support of the
|
|
original one. We employ the idea of the simple nature of the human soul
|
|
as the foundation of all the theories we may form of its phenomena; but
|
|
when we meet with difficulties in our way, when we observe in the soul
|
|
phenomena similar to the changes which take place in matter, we require
|
|
to call in new auxiliary hypotheses. These may, indeed, not be false,
|
|
but we do not know them to be true, because the only witness to their
|
|
certitude is the hypothesis which they themselves have been called in to
|
|
explain.
|
|
|
|
We are not discussing the above-mentioned assertions regarding the
|
|
immaterial unity of the soul and the existence of a Supreme Being as
|
|
dogmata, which certain philosophers profess to demonstrate a priori, but
|
|
purely as hypotheses. In the former case, the dogmatist must take care
|
|
that his arguments possess the apodeictic certainty of a demonstration.
|
|
For the assertion that the reality of such ideas is probable is as
|
|
absurd as a proof of the probability of a proposition in geometry. Pure
|
|
abstract reason, apart from all experience, can either cognize nothing
|
|
at all; and hence the judgements it enounces are never mere opinions,
|
|
they are either apodeictic certainties, or declarations that nothing can
|
|
be known on the subject. Opinions and probable judgements on the nature
|
|
of things can only be employed to explain given phenomena, or they may
|
|
relate to the effect, in accordance with empirical laws, of an actually
|
|
existing cause. In other words, we must restrict the sphere of opinion
|
|
to the world of experience and nature. Beyond this region opinion is
|
|
mere invention; unless we are groping about for the truth on a path not
|
|
yet fully known, and have some hopes of stumbling upon it by chance.
|
|
|
|
But, although hypotheses are inadmissible in answers to the questions
|
|
of pure speculative reason, they may be employed in the defence of these
|
|
answers. That is to say, hypotheses are admissible in polemic, but
|
|
not in the sphere of dogmatism. By the defence of statements of this
|
|
character, I do not mean an attempt at discovering new grounds for their
|
|
support, but merely the refutation of the arguments of opponents. All a
|
|
priori synthetical propositions possess the peculiarity that, although
|
|
the philosopher who maintains the reality of the ideas contained in the
|
|
proposition is not in possession of sufficient knowledge to establish
|
|
the certainty of his statements, his opponent is as little able to prove
|
|
the truth of the opposite. This equality of fortune does not allow
|
|
the one party to be superior to the other in the sphere of speculative
|
|
cognition; and it is this sphere, accordingly, that is the proper arena
|
|
of these endless speculative conflicts. But we shall afterwards show
|
|
that, in relation to its practical exercise, Reason has the right of
|
|
admitting what, in the field of pure speculation, she would not be
|
|
justified in supposing, except upon perfectly sufficient grounds;
|
|
because all such suppositions destroy the necessary completeness of
|
|
speculation--a condition which the practical reason, however, does not
|
|
consider to be requisite. In this sphere, therefore, Reason is
|
|
mistress of a possession, her title to which she does not require to
|
|
prove--which, in fact, she could not do. The burden of proof accordingly
|
|
rests upon the opponent. But as he has just as little knowledge
|
|
regarding the subject discussed, and is as little able to prove the
|
|
non-existence of the object of an idea, as the philosopher on the other
|
|
side is to demonstrate its reality, it is evident that there is an
|
|
advantage on the side of the philosopher who maintains his proposition
|
|
as a practically necessary supposition (melior est conditio
|
|
possidentis). For he is at liberty to employ, in self-defence, the same
|
|
weapons as his opponent makes use of in attacking him; that is, he has a
|
|
right to use hypotheses not for the purpose of supporting the arguments
|
|
in favour of his own propositions, but to show that his opponent knows
|
|
no more than himself regarding the subject under 'discussion and cannot
|
|
boast of any speculative advantage.
|
|
|
|
Hypotheses are, therefore, admissible in the sphere of pure reason
|
|
only as weapons for self-defence, and not as supports to dogmatical
|
|
assertions. But the opposing party we must always seek for in ourselves.
|
|
For speculative reason is, in the sphere of transcendentalism,
|
|
dialectical in its own nature. The difficulties and objections we have
|
|
to fear lie in ourselves. They are like old but never superannuated
|
|
claims; and we must seek them out, and settle them once and for ever, if
|
|
we are to expect a permanent peace. External tranquility is hollow and
|
|
unreal. The root of these contradictions, which lies in the nature of
|
|
human reason, must be destroyed; and this can only be done by giving it,
|
|
in the first instance, freedom to grow, nay, by nourishing it, that it
|
|
may send out shoots, and thus betray its own existence. It is our duty,
|
|
therefore, to try to discover new objections, to put weapons in the
|
|
bands of our opponent, and to grant him the most favourable position
|
|
in the arena that he can wish. We have nothing to fear from these
|
|
concessions; on the contrary, we may rather hope that we shall thus
|
|
make ourselves master of a possession which no one will ever venture to
|
|
dispute.
|
|
|
|
The thinker requires, to be fully equipped, the hypotheses of pure
|
|
reason, which, although but leaden weapons (for they have not been
|
|
steeled in the armoury of experience), are as useful as any that can
|
|
be employed by his opponents. If, accordingly, we have assumed, from a
|
|
non-speculative point of view, the immaterial nature of the soul, and
|
|
are met by the objection that experience seems to prove that the growth
|
|
and decay of our mental faculties are mere modifications of the sensuous
|
|
organism--we can weaken the force of this objection by the assumption
|
|
that the body is nothing but the fundamental phenomenon, to which, as
|
|
a necessary condition, all sensibility, and consequently all thought,
|
|
relates in the present state of our existence; and that the separation
|
|
of soul and body forms the conclusion of the sensuous exercise of our
|
|
power of cognition and the beginning of the intellectual. The body
|
|
would, in this view of the question, be regarded, not as the cause of
|
|
thought, but merely as its restrictive condition, as promotive of the
|
|
sensuous and animal, but as a hindrance to the pure and spiritual life;
|
|
and the dependence of the animal life on the constitution of the body,
|
|
would not prove that the whole life of man was also dependent on the
|
|
state of the organism. We might go still farther, and discover new
|
|
objections, or carry out to their extreme consequences those which have
|
|
already been adduced.
|
|
|
|
Generation, in the human race as well as among the irrational animals,
|
|
depends on so many accidents--of occasion, of proper sustenance, of the
|
|
laws enacted by the government of a country of vice even, that it is
|
|
difficult to believe in the eternal existence of a being whose life has
|
|
begun under circumstances so mean and trivial, and so entirely dependent
|
|
upon our own control. As regards the continuance of the existence of the
|
|
whole race, we need have no difficulties, for accident in single cases
|
|
is subject to general laws; but, in the case of each individual, it
|
|
would seem as if we could hardly expect so wonderful an effect from
|
|
causes so insignificant. But, in answer to these objections, we
|
|
may adduce the transcendental hypothesis that all life is properly
|
|
intelligible, and not subject to changes of time, and that it neither
|
|
began in birth, nor will end in death. We may assume that this life is
|
|
nothing more than a sensuous representation of pure spiritual life; that
|
|
the whole world of sense is but an image, hovering before the faculty of
|
|
cognition which we exercise in this sphere, and with no more objective
|
|
reality than a dream; and that if we could intuite ourselves and
|
|
other things as they really are, we should see ourselves in a world of
|
|
spiritual natures, our connection with which did not begin at our birth
|
|
and will not cease with the destruction of the body. And so on.
|
|
|
|
We cannot be said to know what has been above asserted, nor do we
|
|
seriously maintain the truth of these assertions; and the notions
|
|
therein indicated are not even ideas of reason, they are purely
|
|
fictitious conceptions. But this hypothetical procedure is in perfect
|
|
conformity with the laws of reason. Our opponent mistakes the absence
|
|
of empirical conditions for a proof of the complete impossibility of all
|
|
that we have asserted; and we have to show him that he has not exhausted
|
|
the whole sphere of possibility and that he can as little compass that
|
|
sphere by the laws of experience and nature, as we can lay a secure
|
|
foundation for the operations of reason beyond the region of experience.
|
|
Such hypothetical defences against the pretensions of an opponent must
|
|
not be regarded as declarations of opinion. The philosopher abandons
|
|
them, so soon as the opposite party renounces its dogmatical conceit.
|
|
To maintain a simply negative position in relation to propositions which
|
|
rest on an insecure foundation, well befits the moderation of a true
|
|
philosopher; but to uphold the objections urged against an opponent as
|
|
proofs of the opposite statement is a proceeding just as unwarrantable
|
|
and arrogant as it is to attack the position of a philosopher who
|
|
advances affirmative propositions regarding such a subject.
|
|
|
|
It is evident, therefore, that hypotheses, in the speculative sphere,
|
|
are valid, not as independent propositions, but only relatively to
|
|
opposite transcendent assumptions. For, to make the principles of
|
|
possible experience conditions of the possibility of things in general
|
|
is just as transcendent a procedure as to maintain the objective reality
|
|
of ideas which can be applied to no objects except such as lie without
|
|
the limits of possible experience. The judgements enounced by pure
|
|
reason must be necessary, or they must not be enounced at all. Reason
|
|
cannot trouble herself with opinions. But the hypotheses we have been
|
|
discussing are merely problematical judgements, which can neither be
|
|
confuted nor proved; while, therefore, they are not personal opinions,
|
|
they are indispensable as answers to objections which are liable to
|
|
be raised. But we must take care to confine them to this function,
|
|
and guard against any assumption on their part of absolute validity, a
|
|
proceeding which would involve reason in inextricable difficulties and
|
|
contradictions.
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
SECTION IV. The Discipline of Pure Reason in Relation to Proofs.
|
|
|
|
It is a peculiarity, which distinguishes the proofs of transcendental
|
|
synthetical propositions from those of all other a priori synthetical
|
|
cognitions, that reason, in the case of the former, does not apply its
|
|
conceptions directly to an object, but is first obliged to prove, a
|
|
priori, the objective validity of these conceptions and the possibility
|
|
of their syntheses. This is not merely a prudential rule, it is
|
|
essential to the very possibility of the proof of a transcendental
|
|
proposition. If I am required to pass, a priori, beyond the conception
|
|
of an object, I find that it is utterly impossible without the guidance
|
|
of something which is not contained in the conception. In mathematics,
|
|
it is a priori intuition that guides my synthesis; and, in this case,
|
|
all our conclusions may be drawn immediately from pure intuition.
|
|
In transcendental cognition, so long as we are dealing only with
|
|
conceptions of the understanding, we are guided by possible experience.
|
|
That is to say, a proof in the sphere of transcendental cognition does
|
|
not show that the given conception (that of an event, for example) leads
|
|
directly to another conception (that of a cause)--for this would be a
|
|
saltus which nothing can justify; but it shows that experience itself,
|
|
and consequently the object of experience, is impossible without the
|
|
connection indicated by these conceptions. It follows that such a
|
|
proof must demonstrate the possibility of arriving, synthetically and a
|
|
priori, at a certain knowledge of things, which was not contained in our
|
|
conceptions of these things. Unless we pay particular attention to this
|
|
requirement, our proofs, instead of pursuing the straight path indicated
|
|
by reason, follow the tortuous road of mere subjective association. The
|
|
illusory conviction, which rests upon subjective causes of association,
|
|
and which is considered as resulting from the perception of a real and
|
|
objective natural affinity, is always open to doubt and suspicion.
|
|
For this reason, all the attempts which have been made to prove the
|
|
principle of sufficient reason, have, according to the universal
|
|
admission of philosophers, been quite unsuccessful; and, before the
|
|
appearance of transcendental criticism, it was considered better, as
|
|
this principle could not be abandoned, to appeal boldly to the common
|
|
sense of mankind (a proceeding which always proves that the problem,
|
|
which reason ought to solve, is one in which philosophers find great
|
|
difficulties), rather than attempt to discover new dogmatical proofs.
|
|
|
|
But, if the proposition to be proved is a proposition of pure reason,
|
|
and if I aim at passing beyond my empirical conceptions by the aid of
|
|
mere ideas, it is necessary that the proof should first show that such
|
|
a step in synthesis is possible (which it is not), before it proceeds
|
|
to prove the truth of the proposition itself. The so-called proof of
|
|
the simple nature of the soul from the unity of apperception, is a very
|
|
plausible one. But it contains no answer to the objection, that, as
|
|
the notion of absolute simplicity is not a conception which is directly
|
|
applicable to a perception, but is an idea which must be inferred--if
|
|
at all--from observation, it is by no means evident how the mere fact of
|
|
consciousness, which is contained in all thought, although in so far a
|
|
simple representation, can conduct me to the consciousness and cognition
|
|
of a thing which is purely a thinking substance. When I represent to my
|
|
mind the power of my body as in motion, my body in this thought is so
|
|
far absolute unity, and my representation of it is a simple one; and
|
|
hence I can indicate this representation by the motion of a point,
|
|
because I have made abstraction of the size or volume of the body. But
|
|
I cannot hence infer that, given merely the moving power of a body,
|
|
the body may be cogitated as simple substance, merely because the
|
|
representation in my mind takes no account of its content in space, and
|
|
is consequently simple. The simple, in abstraction, is very different
|
|
from the objectively simple; and hence the Ego, which is simple in the
|
|
first sense, may, in the second sense, as indicating the soul itself,
|
|
be a very complex conception, with a very various content. Thus it is
|
|
evident that in all such arguments there lurks a paralogism. We guess
|
|
(for without some such surmise our suspicion would not be excited
|
|
in reference to a proof of this character) at the presence of the
|
|
paralogism, by keeping ever before us a criterion of the possibility of
|
|
those synthetical propositions which aim at proving more than experience
|
|
can teach us. This criterion is obtained from the observation that such
|
|
proofs do not lead us directly from the subject of the proposition to
|
|
be proved to the required predicate, but find it necessary to presuppose
|
|
the possibility of extending our cognition a priori by means of ideas.
|
|
We must, accordingly, always use the greatest caution; we require,
|
|
before attempting any proof, to consider how it is possible to extend
|
|
the sphere of cognition by the operations of pure reason, and from
|
|
what source we are to derive knowledge, which is not obtained from
|
|
the analysis of conceptions, nor relates, by anticipation, to possible
|
|
experience. We shall thus spare ourselves much severe and fruitless
|
|
labour, by not expecting from reason what is beyond its power, or rather
|
|
by subjecting it to discipline, and teaching it to moderate its vehement
|
|
desires for the extension of the sphere of cognition.
|
|
|
|
The first rule for our guidance is, therefore, not to attempt a
|
|
transcendental proof, before we have considered from what source we are
|
|
to derive the principles upon which the proof is to be based, and what
|
|
right we have to expect that our conclusions from these principles will
|
|
be veracious. If they are principles of the understanding, it is vain to
|
|
expect that we should attain by their means to ideas of pure reason;
|
|
for these principles are valid only in regard to objects of possible
|
|
experience. If they are principles of pure reason, our labour is alike
|
|
in vain. For the principles of reason, if employed as objective, are
|
|
without exception dialectical and possess no validity or truth, except
|
|
as regulative principles of the systematic employment of reason in
|
|
experience. But when such delusive proof are presented to us, it is
|
|
our duty to meet them with the non liquet of a matured judgement; and,
|
|
although we are unable to expose the particular sophism upon which the
|
|
proof is based, we have a right to demand a deduction of the principles
|
|
employed in it; and, if these principles have their origin in pure
|
|
reason alone, such a deduction is absolutely impossible. And thus it
|
|
is unnecessary that we should trouble ourselves with the exposure and
|
|
confutation of every sophistical illusion; we may, at once, bring all
|
|
dialectic, which is inexhaustible in the production of fallacies, before
|
|
the bar of critical reason, which tests the principles upon which all
|
|
dialectical procedure is based. The second peculiarity of transcendental
|
|
proof is that a transcendental proposition cannot rest upon more than
|
|
a single proof. If I am drawing conclusions, not from conceptions, but
|
|
from intuition corresponding to a conception, be it pure intuition, as
|
|
in mathematics, or empirical, as in natural science, the intuition which
|
|
forms the basis of my inferences presents me with materials for many
|
|
synthetical propositions, which I can connect in various modes, while,
|
|
as it is allowable to proceed from different points in the intention, I
|
|
can arrive by different paths at the same proposition.
|
|
|
|
But every transcendental proposition sets out from a conception,
|
|
and posits the synthetical condition of the possibility of an object
|
|
according to this conception. There must, therefore, be but one ground
|
|
of proof, because it is the conception alone which determines the
|
|
object; and thus the proof cannot contain anything more than the
|
|
determination of the object according to the conception. In our
|
|
Transcendental Analytic, for example, we inferred the principle: Every
|
|
event has a cause, from the only condition of the objective possibility
|
|
of our conception of an event. This is that an event cannot be
|
|
determined in time, and consequently cannot form a part of experience,
|
|
unless it stands under this dynamical law. This is the only possible
|
|
ground of proof; for our conception of an event possesses objective
|
|
validity, that is, is a true conception, only because the law of
|
|
causality determines an object to which it can refer. Other arguments
|
|
in support of this principle have been attempted--such as that from the
|
|
contingent nature of a phenomenon; but when this argument is considered,
|
|
we can discover no criterion of contingency, except the fact of an
|
|
event--of something happening, that is to say, the existence which is
|
|
preceded by the non-existence of an object, and thus we fall back on the
|
|
very thing to be proved. If the proposition: "Every thinking being is
|
|
simple," is to be proved, we keep to the conception of the ego, which
|
|
is simple, and to which all thought has a relation. The same is the
|
|
case with the transcendental proof of the existence of a Deity, which is
|
|
based solely upon the harmony and reciprocal fitness of the conceptions
|
|
of an ens realissimum and a necessary being, and cannot be attempted in
|
|
any other manner.
|
|
|
|
This caution serves to simplify very much the criticism of all
|
|
propositions of reason. When reason employs conceptions alone, only one
|
|
proof of its thesis is possible, if any. When, therefore, the dogmatist
|
|
advances with ten arguments in favour of a proposition, we may be sure
|
|
that not one of them is conclusive. For if he possessed one which proved
|
|
the proposition he brings forward to demonstration--as must always be
|
|
the case with the propositions of pure reason--what need is there for
|
|
any more? His intention can only be similar to that of the advocate who
|
|
had different arguments for different judges; this availing himself of
|
|
the weakness of those who examine his arguments, who, without going into
|
|
any profound investigation, adopt the view of the case which seems most
|
|
probable at first sight and decide according to it.
|
|
|
|
The third rule for the guidance of pure reason in the conduct of a proof
|
|
is that all transcendental proofs must never be apagogic or indirect,
|
|
but always ostensive or direct. The direct or ostensive proof not only
|
|
establishes the truth of the proposition to be proved, but exposes the
|
|
grounds of its truth; the apagogic, on the other hand, may assure us of
|
|
the truth of the proposition, but it cannot enable us to comprehend
|
|
the grounds of its possibility. The latter is, accordingly, rather an
|
|
auxiliary to an argument, than a strictly philosophical and rational
|
|
mode of procedure. In one respect, however, they have an advantage over
|
|
direct proofs, from the fact that the mode of arguing by contradiction,
|
|
which they employ, renders our understanding of the question more
|
|
clear, and approximates the proof to the certainty of an intuitional
|
|
demonstration.
|
|
|
|
The true reason why indirect proofs are employed in different sciences
|
|
is this. When the grounds upon which we seek to base a cognition are too
|
|
various or too profound, we try whether or not we may not discover
|
|
the truth of our cognition from its consequences. The modus ponens of
|
|
reasoning from the truth of its inferences to the truth of a proposition
|
|
would be admissible if all the inferences that can be drawn from it are
|
|
known to be true; for in this case there can be only one possible ground
|
|
for these inferences, and that is the true one. But this is a quite
|
|
impracticable procedure, as it surpasses all our powers to discover all
|
|
the possible inferences that can be drawn from a proposition. But this
|
|
mode of reasoning is employed, under favour, when we wish to prove
|
|
the truth of an hypothesis; in which case we admit the truth of the
|
|
conclusion--which is supported by analogy--that, if all the inferences
|
|
we have drawn and examined agree with the proposition assumed, all
|
|
other possible inferences will also agree with it. But, in this way, an
|
|
hypothesis can never be established as a demonstrated truth. The modus
|
|
tollens of reasoning from known inferences to the unknown proposition,
|
|
is not only a rigorous, but a very easy mode of proof. For, if it can
|
|
be shown that but one inference from a proposition is false, then the
|
|
proposition must itself be false. Instead, then, of examining, in an
|
|
ostensive argument, the whole series of the grounds on which the
|
|
truth of a proposition rests, we need only take the opposite of this
|
|
proposition, and if one inference from it be false, then must the
|
|
opposite be itself false; and, consequently, the proposition which we
|
|
wished to prove must be true.
|
|
|
|
The apagogic method of proof is admissible only in those sciences where
|
|
it is impossible to mistake a subjective representation for an objective
|
|
cognition. Where this is possible, it is plain that the opposite of a
|
|
given proposition may contradict merely the subjective conditions of
|
|
thought, and not the objective cognition; or it may happen that both
|
|
propositions contradict each other only under a subjective condition,
|
|
which is incorrectly considered to be objective, and, as the condition
|
|
is itself false, both propositions may be false, and it will,
|
|
consequently, be impossible to conclude the truth of the one from the
|
|
falseness of the other.
|
|
|
|
In mathematics such subreptions are impossible; and it is in this
|
|
science, accordingly, that the indirect mode of proof has its true
|
|
place. In the science of nature, where all assertion is based upon
|
|
empirical intuition, such subreptions may be guarded against by the
|
|
repeated comparison of observations; but this mode of proof is of little
|
|
value in this sphere of knowledge. But the transcendental efforts of
|
|
pure reason are all made in the sphere of the subjective, which is the
|
|
real medium of all dialectical illusion; and thus reason endeavours,
|
|
in its premisses, to impose upon us subjective representations for
|
|
objective cognitions. In the transcendental sphere of pure reason,
|
|
then, and in the case of synthetical propositions, it is inadmissible
|
|
to support a statement by disproving the counter-statement. For only
|
|
two cases are possible; either, the counter-statement is nothing but
|
|
the enouncement of the inconsistency of the opposite opinion with the
|
|
subjective conditions of reason, which does not affect the real case
|
|
(for example, we cannot comprehend the unconditioned necessity of the
|
|
existence of a being, and hence every speculative proof of the existence
|
|
of such a being must be opposed on subjective grounds, while the
|
|
possibility of this being in itself cannot with justice be denied); or,
|
|
both propositions, being dialectical in their nature, are based upon an
|
|
impossible conception. In this latter case the rule applies: non entis
|
|
nulla sunt predicata; that is to say, what we affirm and what we deny,
|
|
respecting such an object, are equally untrue, and the apagogic mode of
|
|
arriving at the truth is in this case impossible. If, for example, we
|
|
presuppose that the world of sense is given in itself in its totality,
|
|
it is false, either that it is infinite, or that it is finite and
|
|
limited in space. Both are false, because the hypothesis is false. For
|
|
the notion of phenomena (as mere representations) which are given in
|
|
themselves (as objects) is self-contradictory; and the infinitude of
|
|
this imaginary whole would, indeed, be unconditioned, but would be
|
|
inconsistent (as everything in the phenomenal world is conditioned)
|
|
with the unconditioned determination and finitude of quantities which is
|
|
presupposed in our conception.
|
|
|
|
The apagogic mode of proof is the true source of those illusions which
|
|
have always had so strong an attraction for the admirers of dogmatical
|
|
philosophy. It may be compared to a champion who maintains the honour
|
|
and claims of the party he has adopted by offering battle to all who
|
|
doubt the validity of these claims and the purity of that honour; while
|
|
nothing can be proved in this way, except the respective strength of the
|
|
combatants, and the advantage, in this respect, is always on the side
|
|
of the attacking party. Spectators, observing that each party is
|
|
alternately conqueror and conquered, are led to regard the subject of
|
|
dispute as beyond the power of man to decide upon. But such an opinion
|
|
cannot be justified; and it is sufficient to apply to these reasoners
|
|
the remark:
|
|
|
|
Non defensoribus istis
|
|
Tempus eget.
|
|
|
|
Each must try to establish his assertions by a transcendental deduction
|
|
of the grounds of proof employed in his argument, and thus enable us to
|
|
see in what way the claims of reason may be supported. If an opponent
|
|
bases his assertions upon subjective grounds, he may be refuted with
|
|
ease; not, however to the advantage of the dogmatist, who likewise
|
|
depends upon subjective sources of cognition and is in like manner
|
|
driven into a corner by his opponent. But, if parties employ the direct
|
|
method of procedure, they will soon discover the difficulty, nay, the
|
|
impossibility of proving their assertions, and will be forced to appeal
|
|
to prescription and precedence; or they will, by the help of criticism,
|
|
discover with ease the dogmatical illusions by which they had been
|
|
mocked, and compel reason to renounce its exaggerated pretensions to
|
|
speculative insight and to confine itself within the limits of its
|
|
proper sphere--that of practical principles.
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
CHAPTER II. The Canon of Pure Reason.
|
|
|
|
It is a humiliating consideration for human reason that it is
|
|
incompetent to discover truth by means of pure speculation, but, on the
|
|
contrary, stands in need of discipline to check its deviations from the
|
|
straight path and to expose the illusions which it originates. But,
|
|
on the other hand, this consideration ought to elevate and to give it
|
|
confidence, for this discipline is exercised by itself alone, and it is
|
|
subject to the censure of no other power. The bounds, moreover, which it
|
|
is forced to set to its speculative exercise, form likewise a check upon
|
|
the fallacious pretensions of opponents; and thus what remains of its
|
|
possessions, after these exaggerated claims have been disallowed, is
|
|
secure from attack or usurpation. The greatest, and perhaps the only,
|
|
use of all philosophy of pure reason is, accordingly, of a purely
|
|
negative character. It is not an organon for the extension, but a
|
|
discipline for the determination, of the limits of its exercise; and
|
|
without laying claim to the discovery of new truth, it has the modest
|
|
merit of guarding against error.
|
|
|
|
At the same time, there must be some source of positive cognitions which
|
|
belong to the domain of pure reason and which become the causes of error
|
|
only from our mistaking their true character, while they form the goal
|
|
towards which reason continually strives. How else can we account for
|
|
the inextinguishable desire in the human mind to find a firm footing in
|
|
some region beyond the limits of the world of experience? It hopes to
|
|
attain to the possession of a knowledge in which it has the deepest
|
|
interest. It enters upon the path of pure speculation; but in vain. We
|
|
have some reason, however, to expect that, in the only other way that
|
|
lies open to it--the path of practical reason--it may meet with better
|
|
success.
|
|
|
|
I understand by a canon a list of the a priori principles of the proper
|
|
employment of certain faculties of cognition. Thus general logic, in
|
|
its analytical department, is a formal canon for the faculties of
|
|
understanding and reason. In the same way, Transcendental Analytic was
|
|
seen to be a canon of the pure understanding; for it alone is competent
|
|
to enounce true a priori synthetical cognitions. But, when no proper
|
|
employment of a faculty of cognition is possible, no canon can exist.
|
|
But the synthetical cognition of pure speculative reason is, as has been
|
|
shown, completely impossible. There cannot, therefore, exist any canon
|
|
for the speculative exercise of this faculty--for its speculative
|
|
exercise is entirely dialectical; and, consequently, transcendental
|
|
logic, in this respect, is merely a discipline, and not a canon.
|
|
If, then, there is any proper mode of employing the faculty of pure
|
|
reason--in which case there must be a canon for this faculty--this canon
|
|
will relate, not to the speculative, but to the practical use of reason.
|
|
This canon we now proceed to investigate.
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
SECTION I. Of the Ultimate End of the Pure Use of Reason.
|
|
|
|
There exists in the faculty of reason a natural desire to venture beyond
|
|
the field of experience, to attempt to reach the utmost bounds of all
|
|
cognition by the help of ideas alone, and not to rest satisfied until
|
|
it has fulfilled its course and raised the sum of its cognitions into a
|
|
self-subsistent systematic whole. Is the motive for this endeavour to be
|
|
found in its speculative, or in its practical interests alone?
|
|
|
|
Setting aside, at present, the results of the labours of pure reason in
|
|
its speculative exercise, I shall merely inquire regarding the problems
|
|
the solution of which forms its ultimate aim, whether reached or
|
|
not, and in relation to which all other aims are but partial and
|
|
intermediate. These highest aims must, from the nature of reason,
|
|
possess complete unity; otherwise the highest interest of humanity could
|
|
not be successfully promoted.
|
|
|
|
The transcendental speculation of reason relates to three things: the
|
|
freedom of the will, the immortality of the soul, and the existence of
|
|
God. The speculative interest which reason has in those questions is
|
|
very small; and, for its sake alone, we should not undertake the labour
|
|
of transcendental investigation--a labour full of toil and ceaseless
|
|
struggle. We should be loth to undertake this labour, because the
|
|
discoveries we might make would not be of the smallest use in the sphere
|
|
of concrete or physical investigation. We may find out that the will is
|
|
free, but this knowledge only relates to the intelligible cause of our
|
|
volition. As regards the phenomena or expressions of this will, that is,
|
|
our actions, we are bound, in obedience to an inviolable maxim, without
|
|
which reason cannot be employed in the sphere of experience, to explain
|
|
these in the same way as we explain all the other phenomena of nature,
|
|
that is to say, according to its unchangeable laws. We may have
|
|
discovered the spirituality and immortality of the soul, but we cannot
|
|
employ this knowledge to explain the phenomena of this life, nor the
|
|
peculiar nature of the future, because our conception of an incorporeal
|
|
nature is purely negative and does not add anything to our knowledge,
|
|
and the only inferences to be drawn from it are purely fictitious. If,
|
|
again, we prove the existence of a supreme intelligence, we should be
|
|
able from it to make the conformity to aims existing in the arrangement
|
|
of the world comprehensible; but we should not be justified in deducing
|
|
from it any particular arrangement or disposition, or inferring any
|
|
where it is not perceived. For it is a necessary rule of the speculative
|
|
use of reason that we must not overlook natural causes, or refuse to
|
|
listen to the teaching of experience, for the sake of deducing what we
|
|
know and perceive from something that transcends all our knowledge.
|
|
In one word, these three propositions are, for the speculative reason,
|
|
always transcendent, and cannot be employed as immanent principles in
|
|
relation to the objects of experience; they are, consequently, of no use
|
|
to us in this sphere, being but the valueless results of the severe but
|
|
unprofitable efforts of reason.
|
|
|
|
If, then, the actual cognition of these three cardinal propositions is
|
|
perfectly useless, while Reason uses her utmost endeavours to induce us
|
|
to admit them, it is plain that their real value and importance relate
|
|
to our practical, and not to our speculative interest.
|
|
|
|
I term all that is possible through free will, practical. But if the
|
|
conditions of the exercise of free volition are empirical, reason can
|
|
have only a regulative, and not a constitutive, influence upon it, and
|
|
is serviceable merely for the introduction of unity into its empirical
|
|
laws. In the moral philosophy of prudence, for example, the sole
|
|
business of reason is to bring about a union of all the ends, which
|
|
are aimed at by our inclinations, into one ultimate end--that of
|
|
happiness--and to show the agreement which should exist among the
|
|
means of attaining that end. In this sphere, accordingly, reason cannot
|
|
present to us any other than pragmatical laws of free action, for our
|
|
guidance towards the aims set up by the senses, and is incompetent to
|
|
give us laws which are pure and determined completely a priori. On the
|
|
other hand, pure practical laws, the ends of which have been given by
|
|
reason entirely a priori, and which are not empirically conditioned, but
|
|
are, on the contrary, absolutely imperative in their nature, would be
|
|
products of pure reason. Such are the moral laws; and these alone belong
|
|
to the sphere of the practical exercise of reason, and admit of a canon.
|
|
|
|
All the powers of reason, in the sphere of what may be termed pure
|
|
philosophy, are, in fact, directed to the three above-mentioned problems
|
|
alone. These again have a still higher end--the answer to the question,
|
|
what we ought to do, if the will is free, if there is a God and a future
|
|
world. Now, as this problem relates to our in reference to the highest
|
|
aim of humanity, it is evident that the ultimate intention of nature, in
|
|
the constitution of our reason, has been directed to the moral alone.
|
|
|
|
We must take care, however, in turning our attention to an object which
|
|
is foreign* to the sphere of transcendental philosophy, not to injure
|
|
the unity of our system by digressions, nor, on the other hand, to fail
|
|
in clearness, by saying too little on the new subject of discussion.
|
|
I hope to avoid both extremes, by keeping as close as possible to the
|
|
transcendental, and excluding all psychological, that is, empirical,
|
|
elements.
|
|
|
|
|
|
[*Footnote: All practical conceptions relate to objects of pleasure and
|
|
pain, and consequently--in an indirect manner, at least--to objects of
|
|
feeling. But as feeling is not a faculty of representation, but lies
|
|
out of the sphere of our powers of cognition, the elements of our
|
|
judgements, in so far as they relate to pleasure or pain, that is, the
|
|
elements of our practical judgements, do not belong to transcendental
|
|
philosophy, which has to do with pure a priori cognitions alone.]
|
|
|
|
|
|
I have to remark, in the first place, that at present I treat of the
|
|
conception of freedom in the practical sense only, and set aside the
|
|
corresponding transcendental conception, which cannot be employed as a
|
|
ground of explanation in the phenomenal world, but is itself a problem
|
|
for pure reason. A will is purely animal (arbitrium brutum) when it is
|
|
determined by sensuous impulses or instincts only, that is, when it is
|
|
determined in a pathological manner. A will, which can be determined
|
|
independently of sensuous impulses, consequently by motives presented by
|
|
reason alone, is called a free will (arbitrium liberum); and everything
|
|
which is connected with this free will, either as principle or
|
|
consequence, is termed practical. The existence of practical freedom can
|
|
be proved from experience alone. For the human will is not determined
|
|
by that alone which immediately affects the senses; on the contrary, we
|
|
have the power, by calling up the notion of what is useful or hurtful in
|
|
a more distant relation, of overcoming the immediate impressions on
|
|
our sensuous faculty of desire. But these considerations of what is
|
|
desirable in relation to our whole state, that is, is in the end good
|
|
and useful, are based entirely upon reason. This faculty, accordingly,
|
|
enounces laws, which are imperative or objective laws of freedom and
|
|
which tell us what ought to take place, thus distinguishing themselves
|
|
from the laws of nature, which relate to that which does take place. The
|
|
laws of freedom or of free will are hence termed practical laws.
|
|
|
|
Whether reason is not itself, in the actual delivery of these laws,
|
|
determined in its turn by other influences, and whether the action
|
|
which, in relation to sensuous impulses, we call free, may not, in
|
|
relation to higher and more remote operative causes, really form a part
|
|
of nature--these are questions which do not here concern us. They are
|
|
purely speculative questions; and all we have to do, in the practical
|
|
sphere, is to inquire into the rule of conduct which reason has to
|
|
present. Experience demonstrates to us the existence of practical
|
|
freedom as one of the causes which exist in nature, that is, it shows
|
|
the causal power of reason in the determination of the will. The idea
|
|
of transcendental freedom, on the contrary, requires that reason--in
|
|
relation to its causal power of commencing a series of phenomena--should
|
|
be independent of all sensuous determining causes; and thus it seems to
|
|
be in opposition to the law of nature and to all possible experience.
|
|
It therefore remains a problem for the human mind. But this problem does
|
|
not concern reason in its practical use; and we have, therefore, in a
|
|
canon of pure reason, to do with only two questions, which relate to
|
|
the practical interest of pure reason: Is there a God? and, Is there
|
|
a future life? The question of transcendental freedom is purely
|
|
speculative, and we may therefore set it entirely aside when we come
|
|
to treat of practical reason. Besides, we have already discussed this
|
|
subject in the antinomy of pure reason.
|
|
|
|
|
|
SECTION II. Of the Ideal of the Summum Bonum as a Determining
|
|
Ground of the Ultimate End of Pure Reason.
|
|
|
|
Reason conducted us, in its speculative use, through the field of
|
|
experience and, as it can never find complete satisfaction in that
|
|
sphere, from thence to speculative ideas--which, however, in the end
|
|
brought us back again to experience, and thus fulfilled the purpose of
|
|
reason, in a manner which, though useful, was not at all in accordance
|
|
with our expectations. It now remains for us to consider whether pure
|
|
reason can be employed in a practical sphere, and whether it will here
|
|
conduct us to those ideas which attain the highest ends of pure reason,
|
|
as we have just stated them. We shall thus ascertain whether, from
|
|
the point of view of its practical interest, reason may not be able to
|
|
supply us with that which, on the speculative side, it wholly denies us.
|
|
|
|
The whole interest of reason, speculative as well as practical, is
|
|
centred in the three following questions:
|
|
|
|
1. WHAT CAN I KNOW?
|
|
2. WHAT OUGHT I TO DO?
|
|
3. WHAT MAY I HOPE?
|
|
|
|
The first question is purely speculative. We have, as I flatter myself,
|
|
exhausted all the replies of which it is susceptible, and have at last
|
|
found the reply with which reason must content itself, and with which it
|
|
ought to be content, so long as it pays no regard to the practical. But
|
|
from the two great ends to the attainment of which all these efforts of
|
|
pure reason were in fact directed, we remain just as far removed as if
|
|
we had consulted our ease and declined the task at the outset. So far,
|
|
then, as knowledge is concerned, thus much, at least, is established,
|
|
that, in regard to those two problems, it lies beyond our reach.
|
|
|
|
The second question is purely practical. As such it may indeed fall
|
|
within the province of pure reason, but still it is not transcendental,
|
|
but moral, and consequently cannot in itself form the subject of our
|
|
criticism.
|
|
|
|
The third question: If I act as I ought to do, what may I then hope?--is
|
|
at once practical and theoretical. The practical forms a clue to
|
|
the answer of the theoretical, and--in its highest form--speculative
|
|
question. For all hoping has happiness for its object and stands in
|
|
precisely the same relation to the practical and the law of morality as
|
|
knowing to the theoretical cognition of things and the law of nature.
|
|
The former arrives finally at the conclusion that something is (which
|
|
determines the ultimate end), because something ought to take place; the
|
|
latter, that something is (which operates as the highest cause), because
|
|
something does take place.
|
|
|
|
Happiness is the satisfaction of all our desires; extensive, in regard
|
|
to their multiplicity; intensive, in regard to their degree; and
|
|
protensive, in regard to their duration. The practical law based on the
|
|
motive of happiness I term a pragmatical law (or prudential rule); but
|
|
that law, assuming such to exist, which has no other motive than the
|
|
worthiness of being happy, I term a moral or ethical law. The first
|
|
tells us what we have to do, if we wish to become possessed of
|
|
happiness; the second dictates how we ought to act, in order to deserve
|
|
happiness. The first is based upon empirical principles; for it is only
|
|
by experience that I can learn either what inclinations exist which
|
|
desire satisfaction, or what are the natural means of satisfying them.
|
|
The second takes no account of our desires or the means of satisfying
|
|
them, and regards only the freedom of a rational being, and the
|
|
necessary conditions under which alone this freedom can harmonize with
|
|
the distribution of happiness according to principles. This second law
|
|
may therefore rest upon mere ideas of pure reason, and may be cognized a
|
|
priori.
|
|
|
|
I assume that there are pure moral laws which determine, entirely a
|
|
priori (without regard to empirical motives, that is, to happiness), the
|
|
conduct of a rational being, or in other words, to use which it makes of
|
|
its freedom, and that these laws are absolutely imperative (not merely
|
|
hypothetically, on the supposition of other empirical ends), and
|
|
therefore in all respects necessary. I am warranted in assuming this,
|
|
not only by the arguments of the most enlightened moralists, but by
|
|
the moral judgement of every man who will make the attempt to form a
|
|
distinct conception of such a law.
|
|
|
|
Pure reason, then, contains, not indeed in its speculative, but in
|
|
its practical, or, more strictly, its moral use, principles of the
|
|
possibility of experience, of such actions, namely, as, in accordance
|
|
with ethical precepts, might be met with in the history of man. For
|
|
since reason commands that such actions should take place, it must
|
|
be possible for them to take place; and hence a particular kind of
|
|
systematic unity--the moral--must be possible. We have found, it is
|
|
true, that the systematic unity of nature could not be established
|
|
according to speculative principles of reason, because, while reason
|
|
possesses a causal power in relation to freedom, it has none in relation
|
|
to the whole sphere of nature; and, while moral principles of reason can
|
|
produce free actions, they cannot produce natural laws. It is, then, in
|
|
its practical, but especially in its moral use, that the principles of
|
|
pure reason possess objective reality.
|
|
|
|
I call the world a moral world, in so far as it may be in accordance
|
|
with all the ethical laws--which, by virtue of the freedom of reasonable
|
|
beings, it can be, and according to the necessary laws of morality it
|
|
ought to be. But this world must be conceived only as an intelligible
|
|
world, inasmuch as abstraction is therein made of all conditions (ends),
|
|
and even of all impediments to morality (the weakness or pravity of
|
|
human nature). So far, then, it is a mere idea--though still a practical
|
|
idea--which may have, and ought to have, an influence on the world of
|
|
sense, so as to bring it as far as possible into conformity with itself.
|
|
The idea of a moral world has, therefore, objective reality, not as
|
|
referring to an object of intelligible intuition--for of such an
|
|
object we can form no conception whatever--but to the world of
|
|
sense--conceived, however, as an object of pure reason in its practical
|
|
use--and to a corpus mysticum of rational beings in it, in so far as the
|
|
liberum arbitrium of the individual is placed, under and by virtue of
|
|
moral laws, in complete systematic unity both with itself and with the
|
|
freedom of all others.
|
|
|
|
That is the answer to the first of the two questions of pure reason
|
|
which relate to its practical interest: Do that which will render thee
|
|
worthy of happiness. The second question is this: If I conduct myself
|
|
so as not to be unworthy of happiness, may I hope thereby to obtain
|
|
happiness? In order to arrive at the solution of this question, we must
|
|
inquire whether the principles of pure reason, which prescribe a priori
|
|
the law, necessarily also connect this hope with it.
|
|
|
|
I say, then, that just as the moral principles are necessary according
|
|
to reason in its practical use, so it is equally necessary according
|
|
to reason in its theoretical use to assume that every one has ground to
|
|
hope for happiness in the measure in which he has made himself worthy
|
|
of it in his conduct, and that therefore the system of morality is
|
|
inseparably (though only in the idea of pure reason) connected with that
|
|
of happiness.
|
|
|
|
Now in an intelligible, that is, in the moral world, in the conception
|
|
of which we make abstraction of all the impediments to morality
|
|
(sensuous desires), such a system of happiness, connected with and
|
|
proportioned to morality, may be conceived as necessary, because freedom
|
|
of volition--partly incited, and partly restrained by moral laws--would
|
|
be itself the cause of general happiness; and thus rational beings,
|
|
under the guidance of such principles, would be themselves the authors
|
|
both of their own enduring welfare and that of others. But such a system
|
|
of self-rewarding morality is only an idea, the carrying out of which
|
|
depends upon the condition that every one acts as he ought; in other
|
|
words, that all actions of reasonable beings be such as they would be if
|
|
they sprung from a Supreme Will, comprehending in, or under, itself all
|
|
particular wills. But since the moral law is binding on each individual
|
|
in the use of his freedom of volition, even if others should not act
|
|
in conformity with this law, neither the nature of things, nor the
|
|
causality of actions and their relation to morality, determine how the
|
|
consequences of these actions will be related to happiness; and the
|
|
necessary connection of the hope of happiness with the unceasing
|
|
endeavour to become worthy of happiness, cannot be cognized by reason,
|
|
if we take nature alone for our guide. This connection can be hoped for
|
|
only on the assumption that the cause of nature is a supreme reason,
|
|
which governs according to moral laws.
|
|
|
|
I term the idea of an intelligence in which the morally most perfect
|
|
will, united with supreme blessedness, is the cause of all happiness in
|
|
the world, so far as happiness stands in strict relation to morality
|
|
(as the worthiness of being happy), the ideal of the supreme Good. It is
|
|
only, then, in the ideal of the supreme original good, that pure reason
|
|
can find the ground of the practically necessary connection of
|
|
both elements of the highest derivative good, and accordingly of an
|
|
intelligible, that is, moral world. Now since we are necessitated by
|
|
reason to conceive ourselves as belonging to such a world, while the
|
|
senses present to us nothing but a world of phenomena, we must assume
|
|
the former as a consequence of our conduct in the world of sense (since
|
|
the world of sense gives us no hint of it), and therefore as future in
|
|
relation to us. Thus God and a future life are two hypotheses which,
|
|
according to the principles of pure reason, are inseparable from the
|
|
obligation which this reason imposes upon us.
|
|
|
|
Morality per se constitutes a system. But we can form no system of
|
|
happiness, except in so far as it is dispensed in strict proportion to
|
|
morality. But this is only possible in the intelligible world, under a
|
|
wise author and ruler. Such a ruler, together with life in such a world,
|
|
which we must look upon as future, reason finds itself compelled to
|
|
assume; or it must regard the moral laws as idle dreams, since the
|
|
necessary consequence which this same reason connects with them must,
|
|
without this hypothesis, fall to the ground. Hence also the moral laws
|
|
are universally regarded as commands, which they could not be did they
|
|
not connect a priori adequate consequences with their dictates, and thus
|
|
carry with them promises and threats. But this, again, they could not
|
|
do, did they not reside in a necessary being, as the Supreme Good, which
|
|
alone can render such a teleological unity possible.
|
|
|
|
Leibnitz termed the world, when viewed in relation to the rational
|
|
beings which it contains, and the moral relations in which they stand
|
|
to each other, under the government of the Supreme Good, the kingdom of
|
|
Grace, and distinguished it from the kingdom of Nature, in which these
|
|
rational beings live, under moral laws, indeed, but expect no other
|
|
consequences from their actions than such as follow according to the
|
|
course of nature in the world of sense. To view ourselves, therefore, as
|
|
in the kingdom of grace, in which all happiness awaits us, except in
|
|
so far as we ourselves limit our participation in it by actions which
|
|
render us unworthy of happiness, is a practically necessary idea of
|
|
reason.
|
|
|
|
Practical laws, in so far as they are subjective grounds of actions,
|
|
that is, subjective principles, are termed maxims. The judgements
|
|
of moral according to in its purity and ultimate results are framed
|
|
according ideas; the observance of its laws, according to according to
|
|
maxims.
|
|
|
|
The whole course of our life must be subject to moral maxims; but this
|
|
is impossible, unless with the moral law, which is a mere idea, reason
|
|
connects an efficient cause which ordains to all conduct which is in
|
|
conformity with the moral law an issue either in this or in another
|
|
life, which is in exact conformity with our highest aims. Thus, without
|
|
a God and without a world, invisible to us now, but hoped for, the
|
|
glorious ideas of morality are, indeed, objects of approbation and of
|
|
admiration, but cannot be the springs of purpose and action. For they do
|
|
not satisfy all the aims which are natural to every rational being, and
|
|
which are determined a priori by pure reason itself, and necessary.
|
|
|
|
Happiness alone is, in the view of reason, far from being the complete
|
|
good. Reason does not approve of it (however much inclination may desire
|
|
it), except as united with desert. On the other hand, morality alone,
|
|
and with it, mere desert, is likewise far from being the complete good.
|
|
To make it complete, he who conducts himself in a manner not unworthy
|
|
of happiness, must be able to hope for the possession of happiness. Even
|
|
reason, unbiased by private ends, or interested considerations, cannot
|
|
judge otherwise, if it puts itself in the place of a being whose
|
|
business it is to dispense all happiness to others. For in the practical
|
|
idea both points are essentially combined, though in such a way
|
|
that participation in happiness is rendered possible by the moral
|
|
disposition, as its condition, and not conversely, the moral disposition
|
|
by the prospect of happiness. For a disposition which should require the
|
|
prospect of happiness as its necessary condition would not be moral, and
|
|
hence also would not be worthy of complete happiness--a happiness which,
|
|
in the view of reason, recognizes no limitation but such as arises from
|
|
our own immoral conduct.
|
|
|
|
Happiness, therefore, in exact proportion with the morality of rational
|
|
beings (whereby they are made worthy of happiness), constitutes alone
|
|
the supreme good of a world into which we absolutely must transport
|
|
ourselves according to the commands of pure but practical reason.
|
|
This world is, it is true, only an intelligible world; for of such a
|
|
systematic unity of ends as it requires, the world of sense gives us no
|
|
hint. Its reality can be based on nothing else but the hypothesis of a
|
|
supreme original good. In it independent reason, equipped with all
|
|
the sufficiency of a supreme cause, founds, maintains, and fulfils the
|
|
universal order of things, with the most perfect teleological harmony,
|
|
however much this order may be hidden from us in the world of sense.
|
|
|
|
This moral theology has the peculiar advantage, in contrast with
|
|
speculative theology, of leading inevitably to the conception of a sole,
|
|
perfect, and rational First Cause, whereof speculative theology does
|
|
not give us any indication on objective grounds, far less any convincing
|
|
evidence. For we find neither in transcendental nor in natural theology,
|
|
however far reason may lead us in these, any ground to warrant us in
|
|
assuming the existence of one only Being, which stands at the head of
|
|
all natural causes, and on which these are entirely dependent. On the
|
|
other band, if we take our stand on moral unity as a necessary law of
|
|
the universe, and from this point of view consider what is necessary to
|
|
give this law adequate efficiency and, for us, obligatory force, we
|
|
must come to the conclusion that there is one only supreme will, which
|
|
comprehends all these laws in itself. For how, under different wills,
|
|
should we find complete unity of ends? This will must be omnipotent,
|
|
that all nature and its relation to morality in the world may be
|
|
subject to it; omniscient, that it may have knowledge of the most secret
|
|
feelings and their moral worth; omnipresent, that it may be at hand to
|
|
supply every necessity to which the highest weal of the world may give
|
|
rise; eternal, that this harmony of nature and liberty may never fail;
|
|
and so on.
|
|
|
|
But this systematic unity of ends in this world of intelligences--which,
|
|
as mere nature, is only a world of sense, but, as a system of freedom
|
|
of volition, may be termed an intelligible, that is, moral world (regnum
|
|
gratiae)--leads inevitably also to the teleological unity of all things
|
|
which constitute this great whole, according to universal natural
|
|
laws--just as the unity of the former is according to universal and
|
|
necessary moral laws--and unites the practical with the speculative
|
|
reason. The world must be represented as having originated from an idea,
|
|
if it is to harmonize with that use of reason without which we cannot
|
|
even consider ourselves as worthy of reason--namely, the moral use,
|
|
which rests entirely on the idea of the supreme good. Hence the
|
|
investigation of nature receives a teleological direction, and becomes,
|
|
in its widest extension, physico-theology. But this, taking its rise
|
|
in moral order as a unity founded on the essence of freedom, and
|
|
not accidentally instituted by external commands, establishes the
|
|
teleological view of nature on grounds which must be inseparably
|
|
connected with the internal possibility of things. This gives rise to
|
|
a transcendental theology, which takes the ideal of the highest
|
|
ontological perfection as a principle of systematic unity; and this
|
|
principle connects all things according to universal and necessary
|
|
natural laws, because all things have their origin in the absolute
|
|
necessity of the one only Primal Being.
|
|
|
|
What use can we make of our understanding, even in respect of
|
|
experience, if we do not propose ends to ourselves? But the highest ends
|
|
are those of morality, and it is only pure reason that can give us the
|
|
knowledge of these. Though supplied with these, and putting ourselves
|
|
under their guidance, we can make no teleological use of the knowledge
|
|
of nature, as regards cognition, unless nature itself has established
|
|
teleological unity. For without this unity we should not even possess
|
|
reason, because we should have no school for reason, and no cultivation
|
|
through objects which afford the materials for its conceptions. But
|
|
teleological unity is a necessary unity, and founded on the essence of
|
|
the individual will itself. Hence this will, which is the condition of
|
|
the application of this unity in concreto, must be so likewise. In this
|
|
way the transcendental enlargement of our rational cognition would be,
|
|
not the cause, but merely the effect of the practical teleology which
|
|
pure reason imposes upon us.
|
|
|
|
Hence, also, we find in the history of human reason that, before the
|
|
moral conceptions were sufficiently purified and determined, and
|
|
before men had attained to a perception of the systematic unity of
|
|
ends according to these conceptions and from necessary principles, the
|
|
knowledge of nature, and even a considerable amount of intellectual
|
|
culture in many other sciences, could produce only rude and vague
|
|
conceptions of the Deity, sometimes even admitting of an astonishing
|
|
indifference with regard to this question altogether. But the more
|
|
enlarged treatment of moral ideas, which was rendered necessary by
|
|
the extreme pure moral law of our religion, awakened the interest, and
|
|
thereby quickened the perceptions of reason in relation to this object.
|
|
In this way, and without the help either of an extended acquaintance
|
|
with nature, or of a reliable transcendental insight (for these have
|
|
been wanting in all ages), a conception of the Divine Being was arrived
|
|
at, which we now bold to be the correct one, not because speculative
|
|
reason convinces us of its correctness, but because it accords with the
|
|
moral principles of reason. Thus it is to pure reason, but only in its
|
|
practical use, that we must ascribe the merit of having connected with
|
|
our highest interest a cognition, of which mere speculation was able
|
|
only to form a conjecture, but the validity of which it was unable to
|
|
establish--and of having thereby rendered it, not indeed a demonstrated
|
|
dogma, but a hypothesis absolutely necessary to the essential ends of
|
|
reason.
|
|
|
|
But if practical reason has reached this elevation, and has attained to
|
|
the conception of a sole Primal Being as the supreme good, it must not,
|
|
therefore, imagine that it has transcended the empirical conditions of
|
|
its application, and risen to the immediate cognition of new objects; it
|
|
must not presume to start from the conception which it has gained, and
|
|
to deduce from it the moral laws themselves. For it was these very laws,
|
|
the internal practical necessity of which led us to the hypothesis of an
|
|
independent cause, or of a wise ruler of the universe, who should give
|
|
them effect. Hence we are not entitled to regard them as accidental
|
|
and derived from the mere will of the ruler, especially as we have no
|
|
conception of such a will, except as formed in accordance with these
|
|
laws. So far, then, as practical reason has the right to conduct us,
|
|
we shall not look upon actions as binding on us, because they are the
|
|
commands of God, but we shall regard them as divine commands, because
|
|
we are internally bound by them. We shall study freedom under the
|
|
teleological unity which accords with principles of reason; we shall
|
|
look upon ourselves as acting in conformity with the divine will only in
|
|
so far as we hold sacred the moral law which reason teaches us from the
|
|
nature of actions themselves, and we shall believe that we can obey
|
|
that will only by promoting the weal of the universe in ourselves and in
|
|
others. Moral theology is, therefore, only of immanent use. It teaches
|
|
us to fulfil our destiny here in the world, by placing ourselves in
|
|
harmony with the general system of ends, and warns us against the
|
|
fanaticism, nay, the crime of depriving reason of its legislative
|
|
authority in the moral conduct of life, for the purpose of directly
|
|
connecting this authority with the idea of the Supreme Being. For this
|
|
would be, not an immanent, but a transcendent use of moral theology,
|
|
and, like the transcendent use of mere speculation, would inevitably
|
|
pervert and frustrate the ultimate ends of reason.
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
SECTION III. Of Opinion, Knowledge, and Belief.
|
|
|
|
The holding of a thing to be true is a phenomenon in our understanding
|
|
which may rest on objective grounds, but requires, also, subjective
|
|
causes in the mind of the person judging. If a judgement is valid for
|
|
every rational being, then its ground is objectively sufficient, and it
|
|
is termed a conviction. If, on the other hand, it has its ground in the
|
|
particular character of the subject, it is termed a persuasion.
|
|
|
|
Persuasion is a mere illusion, the ground of the judgement, which lies
|
|
solely in the subject, being regarded as objective. Hence a judgement
|
|
of this kind has only private validity--is only valid for the individual
|
|
who judges, and the holding of a thing to be true in this way cannot
|
|
be communicated. But truth depends upon agreement with the object, and
|
|
consequently the judgements of all understandings, if true, must be in
|
|
agreement with each other (consentientia uni tertio consentiunt inter
|
|
se). Conviction may, therefore, be distinguished, from an external point
|
|
of view, from persuasion, by the possibility of communicating it and by
|
|
showing its validity for the reason of every man; for in this case the
|
|
presumption, at least, arises that the agreement of all judgements with
|
|
each other, in spite of the different characters of individuals, rests
|
|
upon the common ground of the agreement of each with the object, and
|
|
thus the correctness of the judgement is established.
|
|
|
|
Persuasion, accordingly, cannot be subjectively distinguished from
|
|
conviction, that is, so long as the subject views its judgement simply
|
|
as a phenomenon of its own mind. But if we inquire whether the grounds
|
|
of our judgement, which are valid for us, produce the same effect on
|
|
the reason of others as on our own, we have then the means, though only
|
|
subjective means, not, indeed, of producing conviction, but of detecting
|
|
the merely private validity of the judgement; in other words, of
|
|
discovering that there is in it the element of mere persuasion.
|
|
|
|
If we can, in addition to this, develop the subjective causes of the
|
|
judgement, which we have taken for its objective grounds, and thus
|
|
explain the deceptive judgement as a phenomenon in our mind, apart
|
|
altogether from the objective character of the object, we can then
|
|
expose the illusion and need be no longer deceived by it, although, if
|
|
its subjective cause lies in our nature, we cannot hope altogether to
|
|
escape its influence.
|
|
|
|
I can only maintain, that is, affirm as necessarily valid for every one,
|
|
that which produces conviction. Persuasion I may keep for myself, if it
|
|
is agreeable to me; but I cannot, and ought not, to attempt to impose it
|
|
as binding upon others.
|
|
|
|
Holding for true, or the subjective validity of a judgement in relation
|
|
to conviction (which is, at the same time, objectively valid), has the
|
|
three following degrees: opinion, belief, and knowledge. Opinion is a
|
|
consciously insufficient judgement, subjectively as well as objectively.
|
|
Belief is subjectively sufficient, but is recognized as being
|
|
objectively insufficient. Knowledge is both subjectively and objectively
|
|
sufficient. Subjective sufficiency is termed conviction (for myself);
|
|
objective sufficiency is termed certainty (for all). I need not dwell
|
|
longer on the explanation of such simple conceptions.
|
|
|
|
I must never venture to be of opinion, without knowing something, at
|
|
least, by which my judgement, in itself merely problematical, is brought
|
|
into connection with the truth--which connection, although not perfect,
|
|
is still something more than an arbitrary fiction. Moreover, the law of
|
|
such a connection must be certain. For if, in relation to this law,
|
|
I have nothing more than opinion, my judgement is but a play of the
|
|
imagination, without the least relation to truth. In the judgements of
|
|
pure reason, opinion has no place. For, as they do not rest on empirical
|
|
grounds and as the sphere of pure reason is that of necessary truth
|
|
and a priori cognition, the principle of connection in it
|
|
requires universality and necessity, and consequently perfect
|
|
certainty--otherwise we should have no guide to the truth at all. Hence
|
|
it is absurd to have an opinion in pure mathematics; we must know, or
|
|
abstain from forming a judgement altogether. The case is the same with
|
|
the maxims of morality. For we must not hazard an action on the mere
|
|
opinion that it is allowed, but we must know it to be so. In the
|
|
transcendental sphere of reason, on the other hand, the term opinion
|
|
is too weak, while the word knowledge is too strong. From the merely
|
|
speculative point of view, therefore, we cannot form a judgement at
|
|
all. For the subjective grounds of a judgement, such as produce belief,
|
|
cannot be admitted in speculative inquiries, inasmuch as they cannot
|
|
stand without empirical support and are incapable of being communicated
|
|
to others in equal measure.
|
|
|
|
But it is only from the practical point of view that a theoretically
|
|
insufficient judgement can be termed belief. Now the practical reference
|
|
is either to skill or to morality; to the former, when the end proposed
|
|
is arbitrary and accidental, to the latter, when it is absolutely
|
|
necessary.
|
|
|
|
If we propose to ourselves any end whatever, the conditions of its
|
|
attainment are hypothetically necessary. The necessity is subjectively,
|
|
but still only comparatively, sufficient, if I am acquainted with no
|
|
other conditions under which the end can be attained. On the other hand,
|
|
it is sufficient, absolutely and for every one, if I know for certain
|
|
that no one can be acquainted with any other conditions under which the
|
|
attainment of the proposed end would be possible. In the former case my
|
|
supposition--my judgement with regard to certain conditions--is a merely
|
|
accidental belief; in the latter it is a necessary belief. The physician
|
|
must pursue some course in the case of a patient who is in danger, but
|
|
is ignorant of the nature of the disease. He observes the symptoms, and
|
|
concludes, according to the best of his judgement, that it is a case
|
|
of phthisis. His belief is, even in his own judgement, only contingent:
|
|
another man might, perhaps come nearer the truth. Such a belief,
|
|
contingent indeed, but still forming the ground of the actual use of
|
|
means for the attainment of certain ends, I term Pragmatical belief.
|
|
|
|
The usual test, whether that which any one maintains is merely his
|
|
persuasion, or his subjective conviction at least, that is, his firm
|
|
belief, is a bet. It frequently happens that a man delivers his opinions
|
|
with so much boldness and assurance, that he appears to be under no
|
|
apprehension as to the possibility of his being in error. The offer of
|
|
a bet startles him, and makes him pause. Sometimes it turns out that
|
|
his persuasion may be valued at a ducat, but not at ten. For he does not
|
|
hesitate, perhaps, to venture a ducat, but if it is proposed to stake
|
|
ten, he immediately becomes aware of the possibility of his being
|
|
mistaken--a possibility which has hitherto escaped his observation. If
|
|
we imagine to ourselves that we have to stake the happiness of our whole
|
|
life on the truth of any proposition, our judgement drops its air of
|
|
triumph, we take the alarm, and discover the actual strength of our
|
|
belief. Thus pragmatical belief has degrees, varying in proportion to
|
|
the interests at stake.
|
|
|
|
Now, in cases where we cannot enter upon any course of action in
|
|
reference to some object, and where, accordingly, our judgement is
|
|
purely theoretical, we can still represent to ourselves, in thought,
|
|
the possibility of a course of action, for which we suppose that we have
|
|
sufficient grounds, if any means existed of ascertaining the truth of
|
|
the matter. Thus we find in purely theoretical judgements an analogon of
|
|
practical judgements, to which the word belief may properly be applied,
|
|
and which we may term doctrinal belief. I should not hesitate to stake
|
|
my all on the truth of the proposition--if there were any possibility of
|
|
bringing it to the test of experience--that, at least, some one of the
|
|
planets, which we see, is inhabited. Hence I say that I have not merely
|
|
the opinion, but the strong belief, on the correctness of which I would
|
|
stake even many of the advantages of life, that there are inhabitants in
|
|
other worlds.
|
|
|
|
Now we must admit that the doctrine of the existence of God belongs to
|
|
doctrinal belief. For, although in respect to the theoretical cognition
|
|
of the universe I do not require to form any theory which necessarily
|
|
involves this idea, as the condition of my explanation of the phenomena
|
|
which the universe presents, but, on the contrary, am rather bound so
|
|
to use my reason as if everything were mere nature, still teleological
|
|
unity is so important a condition of the application of my reason to
|
|
nature, that it is impossible for me to ignore it--especially since, in
|
|
addition to these considerations, abundant examples of it are supplied
|
|
by experience. But the sole condition, so far as my knowledge extends,
|
|
under which this unity can be my guide in the investigation of nature,
|
|
is the assumption that a supreme intelligence has ordered all things
|
|
according to the wisest ends. Consequently, the hypothesis of a wise
|
|
author of the universe is necessary for my guidance in the investigation
|
|
of nature--is the condition under which alone I can fulfil an end which
|
|
is contingent indeed, but by no means unimportant. Moreover, since
|
|
the result of my attempts so frequently confirms the utility of this
|
|
assumption, and since nothing decisive can be adduced against it, it
|
|
follows that it would be saying far too little to term my judgement,
|
|
in this case, a mere opinion, and that, even in this theoretical
|
|
connection, I may assert that I firmly believe in God. Still, if we use
|
|
words strictly, this must not be called a practical, but a doctrinal
|
|
belief, which the theology of nature (physico-theology) must also
|
|
produce in my mind. In the wisdom of a Supreme Being, and in the
|
|
shortness of life, so inadequate to the development of the glorious
|
|
powers of human nature, we may find equally sufficient grounds for a
|
|
doctrinal belief in the future life of the human soul.
|
|
|
|
The expression of belief is, in such cases, an expression of modesty
|
|
from the objective point of view, but, at the same time, of firm
|
|
confidence, from the subjective. If I should venture to term this merely
|
|
theoretical judgement even so much as a hypothesis which I am entitled
|
|
to assume; a more complete conception, with regard to another world and
|
|
to the cause of the world, might then be justly required of me than I
|
|
am, in reality, able to give. For, if I assume anything, even as a mere
|
|
hypothesis, I must, at least, know so much of the properties of such a
|
|
being as will enable me, not to form the conception, but to imagine the
|
|
existence of it. But the word belief refers only to the guidance which
|
|
an idea gives me, and to its subjective influence on the conduct of
|
|
my reason, which forces me to hold it fast, though I may not be in a
|
|
position to give a speculative account of it.
|
|
|
|
But mere doctrinal belief is, to some extent, wanting in stability.
|
|
We often quit our hold of it, in consequence of the difficulties which
|
|
occur in speculation, though in the end we inevitably return to it
|
|
again.
|
|
|
|
It is quite otherwise with moral belief. For in this sphere action is
|
|
absolutely necessary, that is, I must act in obedience to the moral law
|
|
in all points. The end is here incontrovertibly established, and there
|
|
is only one condition possible, according to the best of my perception,
|
|
under which this end can harmonize with all other ends, and so have
|
|
practical validity--namely, the existence of a God and of a future
|
|
world. I know also, to a certainty, that no one can be acquainted with
|
|
any other conditions which conduct to the same unity of ends under the
|
|
moral law. But since the moral precept is, at the same time, my maxim
|
|
(as reason requires that it should be), I am irresistibly constrained to
|
|
believe in the existence of God and in a future life; and I am sure
|
|
that nothing can make me waver in this belief, since I should thereby
|
|
overthrow my moral maxims, the renunciation of which would render me
|
|
hateful in my own eyes.
|
|
|
|
Thus, while all the ambitious attempts of reason to penetrate beyond the
|
|
limits of experience end in disappointment, there is still enough left
|
|
to satisfy us in a practical point of view. No one, it is true, will be
|
|
able to boast that he knows that there is a God and a future life; for,
|
|
if he knows this, he is just the man whom I have long wished to find.
|
|
All knowledge, regarding an object of mere reason, can be communicated;
|
|
and I should thus be enabled to hope that my own knowledge would
|
|
receive this wonderful extension, through the instrumentality of his
|
|
instruction. No, my conviction is not logical, but moral certainty; and
|
|
since it rests on subjective grounds (of the moral sentiment), I must
|
|
not even say: It is morally certain that there is a God, etc., but: I
|
|
am morally certain, that is, my belief in God and in another world is so
|
|
interwoven with my moral nature that I am under as little apprehension
|
|
of having the former torn from me as of losing the latter.
|
|
|
|
The only point in this argument that may appear open to suspicion is
|
|
that this rational belief presupposes the existence of moral sentiments.
|
|
If we give up this assumption, and take a man who is entirely
|
|
indifferent with regard to moral laws, the question which reason
|
|
proposes, becomes then merely a problem for speculation and may, indeed,
|
|
be supported by strong grounds from analogy, but not by such as
|
|
will compel the most obstinate scepticism to give way.* But in these
|
|
questions no man is free from all interest. For though the want of good
|
|
sentiments may place him beyond the influence of moral interests, still
|
|
even in this case enough may be left to make him fear the existence of
|
|
God and a future life. For he cannot pretend to any certainty of the
|
|
non-existence of God and of a future life, unless--since it could only
|
|
be proved by mere reason, and therefore apodeictically--he is prepared
|
|
to establish the impossibility of both, which certainly no reasonable
|
|
man would undertake to do. This would be a negative belief, which could
|
|
not, indeed, produce morality and good sentiments, but still could
|
|
produce an analogon of these, by operating as a powerful restraint on
|
|
the outbreak of evil dispositions.
|
|
|
|
|
|
[*Footnote: The human mind (as, I believe, every rational being must
|
|
of necessity do) takes a natural interest in morality, although this
|
|
interest is not undivided, and may not be practically in preponderance.
|
|
If you strengthen and increase it, you will find the reason become
|
|
docile, more enlightened, and more capable of uniting the speculative
|
|
interest with the practical. But if you do not take care at the outset,
|
|
or at least midway, to make men good, you will never force them into an
|
|
honest belief.]
|
|
|
|
|
|
But, it will be said, is this all that pure reason can effect, in
|
|
opening up prospects beyond the limits of experience? Nothing more than
|
|
two articles of belief? Common sense could have done as much as this,
|
|
without taking the philosophers to counsel in the matter!
|
|
|
|
I shall not here eulogize philosophy for the benefits which the
|
|
laborious efforts of its criticism have conferred on human
|
|
reason--even granting that its merit should turn out in the end to be
|
|
only negative--for on this point something more will be said in the next
|
|
section. But, I ask, do you require that that knowledge which concerns
|
|
all men, should transcend the common understanding, and should only be
|
|
revealed to you by philosophers? The very circumstance which has called
|
|
forth your censure, is the best confirmation of the correctness of
|
|
our previous assertions, since it discloses, what could not have been
|
|
foreseen, that Nature is not chargeable with any partial distribution of
|
|
her gifts in those matters which concern all men without distinction
|
|
and that, in respect to the essential ends of human nature, we cannot
|
|
advance further with the help of the highest philosophy, than under the
|
|
guidance which nature has vouchsafed to the meanest understanding.
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
CHAPTER III. The Architectonic of Pure Reason.
|
|
|
|
By the term architectonic I mean the art of constructing a system.
|
|
Without systematic unity, our knowledge cannot become science; it will
|
|
be an aggregate, and not a system. Thus architectonic is the doctrine of
|
|
the scientific in cognition, and therefore necessarily forms part of our
|
|
methodology.
|
|
|
|
Reason cannot permit our knowledge to remain in an unconnected and
|
|
rhapsodistic state, but requires that the sum of our cognitions should
|
|
constitute a system. It is thus alone that they can advance the ends
|
|
of reason. By a system I mean the unity of various cognitions under one
|
|
idea. This idea is the conception--given by reason--of the form of a
|
|
whole, in so far as the conception determines a priori not only the
|
|
limits of its content, but the place which each of its parts is to
|
|
occupy. The scientific idea contains, therefore, the end and the form of
|
|
the whole which is in accordance with that end. The unity of the end, to
|
|
which all the parts of the system relate, and through which all have a
|
|
relation to each other, communicates unity to the whole system, so that
|
|
the absence of any part can be immediately detected from our knowledge
|
|
of the rest; and it determines a priori the limits of the system, thus
|
|
excluding all contingent or arbitrary additions. The whole is thus an
|
|
organism (articulatio), and not an aggregate (coacervatio); it may grow
|
|
from within (per intussusceptionem), but it cannot increase by external
|
|
additions (per appositionem). It is, thus, like an animal body, the
|
|
growth of which does not add any limb, but, without changing their
|
|
proportions, makes each in its sphere stronger and more active.
|
|
|
|
We require, for the execution of the idea of a system, a schema, that
|
|
is, a content and an arrangement of parts determined a priori by the
|
|
principle which the aim of the system prescribes. A schema which is not
|
|
projected in accordance with an idea, that is, from the standpoint of
|
|
the highest aim of reason, but merely empirically, in accordance
|
|
with accidental aims and purposes (the number of which cannot be
|
|
predetermined), can give us nothing more than technical unity. But the
|
|
schema which is originated from an idea (in which case reason presents
|
|
us with aims a priori, and does not look for them to experience), forms
|
|
the basis of architectonical unity. A science, in the proper acceptation
|
|
of that term, cannot be formed technically, that is, from observation
|
|
of the similarity existing between different objects, and the purely
|
|
contingent use we make of our knowledge in concreto with reference to
|
|
all kinds of arbitrary external aims; its constitution must be framed on
|
|
architectonical principles, that is, its parts must be shown to possess
|
|
an essential affinity, and be capable of being deduced from one supreme
|
|
and internal aim or end, which forms the condition of the possibility
|
|
of the scientific whole. The schema of a science must give a priori the
|
|
plan of it (monogramma), and the division of the whole into parts, in
|
|
conformity with the idea of the science; and it must also distinguish
|
|
this whole from all others, according to certain understood principles.
|
|
|
|
No one will attempt to construct a science, unless he have some idea to
|
|
rest on as a proper basis. But, in the elaboration of the science, he
|
|
finds that the schema, nay, even the definition which he at first gave
|
|
of the science, rarely corresponds with his idea; for this idea lies,
|
|
like a germ, in our reason, its parts undeveloped and hid even from
|
|
microscopical observation. For this reason, we ought to explain and
|
|
define sciences, not according to the description which the originator
|
|
gives of them, but according to the idea which we find based in reason
|
|
itself, and which is suggested by the natural unity of the parts of
|
|
the science already accumulated. For it will of ten be found that the
|
|
originator of a science and even his latest successors remain attached
|
|
to an erroneous idea, which they cannot render clear to themselves, and
|
|
that they thus fail in determining the true content, the articulation or
|
|
systematic unity, and the limits of their science.
|
|
|
|
It is unfortunate that, only after having occupied ourselves for a long
|
|
time in the collection of materials, under the guidance of an idea which
|
|
lies undeveloped in the mind, but not according to any definite plan of
|
|
arrangement--nay, only after we have spent much time and labour in the
|
|
technical disposition of our materials, does it become possible to view
|
|
the idea of a science in a clear light, and to project, according to
|
|
architectonical principles, a plan of the whole, in accordance with the
|
|
aims of reason. Systems seem, like certain worms, to be formed by a kind
|
|
of generatio aequivoca--by the mere confluence of conceptions, and to
|
|
gain completeness only with the progress of time. But the schema or
|
|
germ of all lies in reason; and thus is not only every system organized
|
|
according to its own idea, but all are united into one grand system
|
|
of human knowledge, of which they form members. For this reason, it is
|
|
possible to frame an architectonic of all human cognition, the formation
|
|
of which, at the present time, considering the immense materials
|
|
collected or to be found in the ruins of old systems, would not indeed
|
|
be very difficult. Our purpose at present is merely to sketch the plan
|
|
of the architectonic of all cognition given by pure reason; and we begin
|
|
from the point where the main root of human knowledge divides into two,
|
|
one of which is reason. By reason I understand here the whole higher
|
|
faculty of cognition, the rational being placed in contradistinction to
|
|
the empirical.
|
|
|
|
If I make complete abstraction of the content of cognition, objectively
|
|
considered, all cognition is, from a subjective point of view, either
|
|
historical or rational. Historical cognition is cognitio ex datis,
|
|
rational, cognitio ex principiis. Whatever may be the original source of
|
|
a cognition, it is, in relation to the person who possesses it, merely
|
|
historical, if he knows only what has been given him from another
|
|
quarter, whether that knowledge was communicated by direct experience
|
|
or by instruction. Thus the Person who has learned a system of
|
|
philosophy--say the Wolfian--although he has a perfect knowledge of all
|
|
the principles, definitions, and arguments in that philosophy, as well
|
|
as of the divisions that have been made of the system, possesses really
|
|
no more than an historical knowledge of the Wolfian system; he knows
|
|
only what has been told him, his judgements are only those which he has
|
|
received from his teachers. Dispute the validity of a definition, and
|
|
he is completely at a loss to find another. He has formed his mind
|
|
on another's; but the imitative faculty is not the productive. His
|
|
knowledge has not been drawn from reason; and although, objectively
|
|
considered, it is rational knowledge, subjectively, it is merely
|
|
historical. He has learned this or that philosophy and is merely a
|
|
plaster cast of a living man. Rational cognitions which are objective,
|
|
that is, which have their source in reason, can be so termed from
|
|
a subjective point of view, only when they have been drawn by the
|
|
individual himself from the sources of reason, that is, from principles;
|
|
and it is in this way alone that criticism, or even the rejection of
|
|
what has been already learned, can spring up in the mind.
|
|
|
|
All rational cognition is, again, based either on conceptions, or on
|
|
the construction of conceptions. The former is termed philosophical, the
|
|
latter mathematical. I have already shown the essential difference of
|
|
these two methods of cognition in the first chapter. A cognition may be
|
|
objectively philosophical and subjectively historical--as is the case
|
|
with the majority of scholars and those who cannot look beyond the
|
|
limits of their system, and who remain in a state of pupilage all their
|
|
lives. But it is remarkable that mathematical knowledge, when committed
|
|
to memory, is valid, from the subjective point of view, as rational
|
|
knowledge also, and that the same distinction cannot be drawn here as in
|
|
the case of philosophical cognition. The reason is that the only way
|
|
of arriving at this knowledge is through the essential principles of
|
|
reason, and thus it is always certain and indisputable; because reason
|
|
is employed in concreto--but at the same time a priori--that is, in pure
|
|
and, therefore, infallible intuition; and thus all causes of illusion
|
|
and error are excluded. Of all the a priori sciences of reason,
|
|
therefore, mathematics alone can be learned. Philosophy--unless it be
|
|
in an historical manner--cannot be learned; we can at most learn to
|
|
philosophize.
|
|
|
|
Philosophy is the system of all philosophical cognition. We must use
|
|
this term in an objective sense, if we understand by it the archetype of
|
|
all attempts at philosophizing, and the standard by which all subjective
|
|
philosophies are to be judged. In this sense, philosophy is merely the
|
|
idea of a possible science, which does not exist in concreto, but
|
|
to which we endeavour in various ways to approximate, until we have
|
|
discovered the right path to pursue--a path overgrown by the errors
|
|
and illusions of sense--and the image we have hitherto tried in vain to
|
|
shape has become a perfect copy of the great prototype. Until that time,
|
|
we cannot learn philosophy--it does not exist; if it does, where is
|
|
it, who possesses it, and how shall we know it? We can only learn
|
|
to philosophize; in other words, we can only exercise our powers of
|
|
reasoning in accordance with general principles, retaining at the same
|
|
time, the right of investigating the sources of these principles, of
|
|
testing, and even of rejecting them.
|
|
|
|
Until then, our conception of philosophy is only a scholastic
|
|
conception--a conception, that is, of a system of cognition which we are
|
|
trying to elaborate into a science; all that we at present know being
|
|
the systematic unity of this cognition, and consequently the logical
|
|
completeness of the cognition for the desired end. But there is also a
|
|
cosmical conception (conceptus cosmicus) of philosophy, which has always
|
|
formed the true basis of this term, especially when philosophy was
|
|
personified and presented to us in the ideal of a philosopher. In this
|
|
view philosophy is the science of the relation of all cognition to
|
|
the ultimate and essential aims of human reason (teleologia rationis
|
|
humanae), and the philosopher is not merely an artist--who occupies
|
|
himself with conceptions--but a lawgiver, legislating for human reason.
|
|
In this sense of the word, it would be in the highest degree arrogant to
|
|
assume the title of philosopher, and to pretend that we had reached the
|
|
perfection of the prototype which lies in the idea alone.
|
|
|
|
The mathematician, the natural philosopher, and the logician--how far
|
|
soever the first may have advanced in rational, and the two latter in
|
|
philosophical knowledge--are merely artists, engaged in the arrangement
|
|
and formation of conceptions; they cannot be termed philosophers. Above
|
|
them all, there is the ideal teacher, who employs them as instruments
|
|
for the advancement of the essential aims of human reason. Him alone
|
|
can we call philosopher; but he nowhere exists. But the idea of his
|
|
legislative power resides in the mind of every man, and it alone teaches
|
|
us what kind of systematic unity philosophy demands in view of
|
|
the ultimate aims of reason. This idea is, therefore, a cosmical
|
|
conception.*
|
|
|
|
|
|
[*Footnote: By a cosmical conception, I mean one in which all men
|
|
necessarily take an interest; the aim of a science must accordingly be
|
|
determined according to scholastic conceptions, if it is regarded merely
|
|
as a means to certain arbitrarily proposed ends.]
|
|
|
|
|
|
In view of the complete systematic unity of reason, there can only be
|
|
one ultimate end of all the operations of the mind. To this all other
|
|
aims are subordinate, and nothing more than means for its attainment.
|
|
This ultimate end is the destination of man, and the philosophy which
|
|
relates to it is termed moral philosophy. The superior position occupied
|
|
by moral philosophy, above all other spheres for the operations of
|
|
reason, sufficiently indicates the reason why the ancients always
|
|
included the idea--and in an especial manner--of moralist in that of
|
|
philosopher. Even at the present day, we call a man who appears to have
|
|
the power of self-government, even although his knowledge may be very
|
|
limited, by the name of philosopher.
|
|
|
|
The legislation of human reason, or philosophy, has two objects--nature
|
|
and freedom--and thus contains not only the laws of nature, but also
|
|
those of ethics, at first in two separate systems, which, finally, merge
|
|
into one grand philosophical system of cognition. The philosophy of
|
|
nature relates to that which is, that of ethics to that which ought to
|
|
be.
|
|
|
|
But all philosophy is either cognition on the basis of pure reason, or
|
|
the cognition of reason on the basis of empirical principles. The former
|
|
is termed pure, the latter empirical philosophy.
|
|
|
|
The philosophy of pure reason is either propaedeutic, that is, an
|
|
inquiry into the powers of reason in regard to pure a priori cognition,
|
|
and is termed critical philosophy; or it is, secondly, the system of
|
|
pure reason--a science containing the systematic presentation of the
|
|
whole body of philosophical knowledge, true as well as illusory, given
|
|
by pure reason--and is called metaphysic. This name may, however, be
|
|
also given to the whole system of pure philosophy, critical philosophy
|
|
included, and may designate the investigation into the sources or
|
|
possibility of a priori cognition, as well as the presentation of the a
|
|
priori cognitions which form a system of pure philosophy--excluding, at
|
|
the same time, all empirical and mathematical elements.
|
|
|
|
Metaphysic is divided into that of the speculative and that of the
|
|
practical use of pure reason, and is, accordingly, either the metaphysic
|
|
of nature, or the metaphysic of ethics. The former contains all the pure
|
|
rational principles--based upon conceptions alone (and thus excluding
|
|
mathematics)--of all theoretical cognition; the latter, the principles
|
|
which determine and necessitate a priori all action. Now moral
|
|
philosophy alone contains a code of laws--for the regulation of our
|
|
actions--which are deduced from principles entirely a priori. Hence the
|
|
metaphysic of ethics is the only pure moral philosophy, as it is not
|
|
based upon anthropological or other empirical considerations. The
|
|
metaphysic of speculative reason is what is commonly called metaphysic
|
|
in the more limited sense. But as pure moral philosophy properly forms a
|
|
part of this system of cognition, we must allow it to retain the name
|
|
of metaphysic, although it is not requisite that we should insist on so
|
|
terming it in our present discussion.
|
|
|
|
It is of the highest importance to separate those cognitions which
|
|
differ from others both in kind and in origin, and to take great care
|
|
that they are not confounded with those with which they are generally
|
|
found connected. What the chemist does in the analysis of substances,
|
|
what the mathematician in pure mathematics, is, in a still higher
|
|
degree, the duty of the philosopher, that the value of each different
|
|
kind of cognition, and the part it takes in the operations of the mind,
|
|
may be clearly defined. Human reason has never wanted a metaphysic
|
|
of some kind, since it attained the power of thought, or rather of
|
|
reflection; but it has never been able to keep this sphere of thought
|
|
and cognition pure from all admixture of foreign elements. The idea of a
|
|
science of this kind is as old as speculation itself; and what mind does
|
|
not speculate--either in the scholastic or in the popular fashion? At
|
|
the same time, it must be admitted that even thinkers by profession have
|
|
been unable clearly to explain the distinction between the two elements
|
|
of our cognition--the one completely a priori, the other a posteriori;
|
|
and hence the proper definition of a peculiar kind of cognition, and
|
|
with it the just idea of a science which has so long and so deeply
|
|
engaged the attention of the human mind, has never been established.
|
|
When it was said: "Metaphysic is the science of the first principles
|
|
of human cognition," this definition did not signalize a peculiarity in
|
|
kind, but only a difference in degree; these first principles were thus
|
|
declared to be more general than others, but no criterion of distinction
|
|
from empirical principles was given. Of these some are more general,
|
|
and therefore higher, than others; and--as we cannot distinguish what is
|
|
completely a priori from that which is known to be a posteriori--where
|
|
shall we draw the line which is to separate the higher and so-called
|
|
first principles, from the lower and subordinate principles of
|
|
cognition? What would be said if we were asked to be satisfied with a
|
|
division of the epochs of the world into the earlier centuries and those
|
|
following them? "Does the fifth, or the tenth century belong to the
|
|
earlier centuries?" it would be asked. In the same way I ask: Does the
|
|
conception of extension belong to metaphysics? You answer, "Yes." Well,
|
|
that of body too? "Yes." And that of a fluid body? You stop, you are
|
|
unprepared to admit this; for if you do, everything will belong
|
|
to metaphysics. From this it is evident that the mere degree of
|
|
subordination--of the particular to the general--cannot determine the
|
|
limits of a science; and that, in the present case, we must expect to
|
|
find a difference in the conceptions of metaphysics both in kind and in
|
|
origin. The fundamental idea of metaphysics was obscured on another
|
|
side by the fact that this kind of a priori cognition showed a certain
|
|
similarity in character with the science of mathematics. Both have the
|
|
property in common of possessing an a priori origin; but, in the
|
|
one, our knowledge is based upon conceptions, in the other, on the
|
|
construction of conceptions. Thus a decided dissimilarity between
|
|
philosophical and mathematical cognition comes out--a dissimilarity
|
|
which was always felt, but which could not be made distinct for want
|
|
of an insight into the criteria of the difference. And thus it happened
|
|
that, as philosophers themselves failed in the proper development of the
|
|
idea of their science, the elaboration of the science could not
|
|
proceed with a definite aim, or under trustworthy guidance. Thus, too,
|
|
philosophers, ignorant of the path they ought to pursue and always
|
|
disputing with each other regarding the discoveries which each asserted
|
|
he had made, brought their science into disrepute with the rest of the
|
|
world, and finally, even among themselves.
|
|
|
|
All pure a priori cognition forms, therefore, in view of the peculiar
|
|
faculty which originates it, a peculiar and distinct unity; and
|
|
metaphysic is the term applied to the philosophy which attempts to
|
|
represent that cognition in this systematic unity. The speculative part
|
|
of metaphysic, which has especially appropriated this appellation--that
|
|
which we have called the metaphysic of nature--and which considers
|
|
everything, as it is (not as it ought to be), by means of a priori
|
|
conceptions, is divided in the following manner.
|
|
|
|
Metaphysic, in the more limited acceptation of the term, consists of two
|
|
parts--transcendental philosophy and the physiology of pure reason.
|
|
The former presents the system of all the conceptions and principles
|
|
belonging to the understanding and the reason, and which relate to
|
|
objects in general, but not to any particular given objects (Ontologia);
|
|
the latter has nature for its subject-matter, that is, the sum of given
|
|
objects--whether given to the senses, or, if we will, to some other kind
|
|
of intuition--and is accordingly physiology, although only rationalis.
|
|
But the use of the faculty of reason in this rational mode of regarding
|
|
nature is either physical or hyperphysical, or, more properly speaking,
|
|
immanent or transcendent. The former relates to nature, in so far as our
|
|
knowledge regarding it may be applied in experience (in concreto); the
|
|
latter to that connection of the objects of experience, which transcends
|
|
all experience. Transcendent physiology has, again, an internal and
|
|
an external connection with its object, both, however, transcending
|
|
possible experience; the former is the physiology of nature as a whole,
|
|
or transcendental cognition of the world, the latter of the connection
|
|
of the whole of nature with a being above nature, or transcendental
|
|
cognition of God.
|
|
|
|
Immanent physiology, on the contrary, considers nature as the sum of
|
|
all sensuous objects, consequently, as it is presented to us--but still
|
|
according to a priori conditions, for it is under these alone that
|
|
nature can be presented to our minds at all. The objects of immanent
|
|
physiology are of two kinds: 1. Those of the external senses, or
|
|
corporeal nature; 2. The object of the internal sense, the soul, or, in
|
|
accordance with our fundamental conceptions of it, thinking nature.
|
|
The metaphysics of corporeal nature is called physics; but, as it must
|
|
contain only the principles of an a priori cognition of nature, we must
|
|
term it rational physics. The metaphysics of thinking nature is called
|
|
psychology, and for the same reason is to be regarded as merely the
|
|
rational cognition of the soul.
|
|
|
|
Thus the whole system of metaphysics consists of four principal parts:
|
|
1. Ontology; 2. Rational Physiology; 3. Rational cosmology; and 4.
|
|
Rational theology. The second part--that of the rational doctrine of
|
|
nature--may be subdivided into two, physica rationalis* and psychologia
|
|
rationalis.
|
|
|
|
|
|
[*Footnote: It must not be supposed that I mean by this appellation what
|
|
is generally called physica general is, and which is rather mathematics
|
|
than a philosophy of nature. For the metaphysic of nature is completely
|
|
different from mathematics, nor is it so rich in results, although it
|
|
is of great importance as a critical test of the application of pure
|
|
understanding--cognition to nature. For want of its guidance, even
|
|
mathematicians, adopting certain common notions--which are, in fact,
|
|
metaphysical--have unconsciously crowded their theories of nature with
|
|
hypotheses, the fallacy of which becomes evident upon the application
|
|
of the principles of this metaphysic, without detriment, however, to the
|
|
employment of mathematics in this sphere of cognition.]
|
|
|
|
|
|
The fundamental idea of a philosophy of pure reason of necessity
|
|
dictates this division; it is, therefore, architectonical--in accordance
|
|
with the highest aims of reason, and not merely technical, or according
|
|
to certain accidentally-observed similarities existing between the
|
|
different parts of the whole science. For this reason, also, is the
|
|
division immutable and of legislative authority. But the reader may
|
|
observe in it a few points to which he ought to demur, and which may
|
|
weaken his conviction of its truth and legitimacy.
|
|
|
|
In the first place, how can I desire an a priori cognition or metaphysic
|
|
of objects, in so far as they are given a posteriori? and how is
|
|
it possible to cognize the nature of things according to a priori
|
|
principles, and to attain to a rational physiology? The answer is this.
|
|
We take from experience nothing more than is requisite to present us
|
|
with an object (in general) of the external or of the internal sense;
|
|
in the former case, by the mere conception of matter (impenetrable and
|
|
inanimate extension), in the latter, by the conception of a thinking
|
|
being--given in the internal empirical representation, I think. As to
|
|
the rest, we must not employ in our metaphysic of these objects any
|
|
empirical principles (which add to the content of our conceptions by
|
|
means of experience), for the purpose of forming by their help any
|
|
judgements respecting these objects.
|
|
|
|
Secondly, what place shall we assign to empirical psychology, which has
|
|
always been considered a part of metaphysics, and from which in our time
|
|
such important philosophical results have been expected, after the hope
|
|
of constructing an a priori system of knowledge had been abandoned? I
|
|
answer: It must be placed by the side of empirical physics or physics
|
|
proper; that is, must be regarded as forming a part of applied
|
|
philosophy, the a priori principles of which are contained in pure
|
|
philosophy, which is therefore connected, although it must not be
|
|
confounded, with psychology. Empirical psychology must therefore be
|
|
banished from the sphere of metaphysics, and is indeed excluded by
|
|
the very idea of that science. In conformity, however, with scholastic
|
|
usage, we must permit it to occupy a place in metaphysics--but only
|
|
as an appendix to it. We adopt this course from motives of economy;
|
|
as psychology is not as yet full enough to occupy our attention as
|
|
an independent study, while it is, at the same time, of too great
|
|
importance to be entirely excluded or placed where it has still less
|
|
affinity than it has with the subject of metaphysics. It is a stranger
|
|
who has been long a guest; and we make it welcome to stay, until it can
|
|
take up a more suitable abode in a complete system of anthropology--the
|
|
pendant to empirical physics.
|
|
|
|
The above is the general idea of metaphysics, which, as more was
|
|
expected from it than could be looked for with justice, and as these
|
|
pleasant expectations were unfortunately never realized, fell into
|
|
general disrepute. Our Critique must have fully convinced the reader
|
|
that, although metaphysics cannot form the foundation of religion,
|
|
it must always be one of its most important bulwarks, and that human
|
|
reason, which naturally pursues a dialectical course, cannot do without
|
|
this science, which checks its tendencies towards dialectic and, by
|
|
elevating reason to a scientific and clear self-knowledge, prevents the
|
|
ravages which a lawless speculative reason would infallibly commit in
|
|
the sphere of morals as well as in that of religion. We may be sure,
|
|
therefore, whatever contempt may be thrown upon metaphysics by those who
|
|
judge a science not by its own nature, but according to the accidental
|
|
effects it may have produced, that it can never be completely abandoned,
|
|
that we must always return to it as to a beloved one who has been for a
|
|
time estranged, because the questions with which it is engaged relate
|
|
to the highest aims of humanity, and reason must always labour either
|
|
to attain to settled views in regard to these, or to destroy those which
|
|
others have already established.
|
|
|
|
Metaphysic, therefore--that of nature, as well as that of ethics, but in
|
|
an especial manner the criticism which forms the propaedeutic to all the
|
|
operations of reason--forms properly that department of knowledge which
|
|
may be termed, in the truest sense of the word, philosophy. The path
|
|
which it pursues is that of science, which, when it has once been
|
|
discovered, is never lost, and never misleads. Mathematics, natural
|
|
science, the common experience of men, have a high value as means, for
|
|
the most part, to accidental ends--but at last also, to those which are
|
|
necessary and essential to the existence of humanity. But to guide them
|
|
to this high goal, they require the aid of rational cognition on the
|
|
basis of pure conceptions, which, be it termed as it may, is properly
|
|
nothing but metaphysics.
|
|
|
|
For the same reason, metaphysics forms likewise the completion of the
|
|
culture of human reason. In this respect, it is indispensable, setting
|
|
aside altogether the influence which it exerts as a science. For its
|
|
subject-matter is the elements and highest maxims of reason, which form
|
|
the basis of the possibility of some sciences and of the use of all.
|
|
That, as a purely speculative science, it is more useful in preventing
|
|
error than in the extension of knowledge, does not detract from its
|
|
value; on the contrary, the supreme office of censor which it occupies
|
|
assures to it the highest authority and importance. This office it
|
|
administers for the purpose of securing order, harmony, and well-being
|
|
to science, and of directing its noble and fruitful labours to the
|
|
highest possible aim--the happiness of all mankind.
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
CHAPTER IV. The History of Pure Reason.
|
|
|
|
This title is placed here merely for the purpose of designating a
|
|
division of the system of pure reason of which I do not intend to treat
|
|
at present. I shall content myself with casting a cursory glance, from
|
|
a purely transcendental point of view--that of the nature of pure
|
|
reason--on the labours of philosophers up to the present time. They have
|
|
aimed at erecting an edifice of philosophy; but to my eye this edifice
|
|
appears to be in a very ruinous condition.
|
|
|
|
It is very remarkable, although naturally it could not have been
|
|
otherwise, that, in the infancy of philosophy, the study of the nature
|
|
of God and the constitution of a future world formed the commencement,
|
|
rather than the conclusion, as we should have it, of the speculative
|
|
efforts of the human mind. However rude the religious conceptions
|
|
generated by the remains of the old manners and customs of a less
|
|
cultivated time, the intelligent classes were not thereby prevented from
|
|
devoting themselves to free inquiry into the existence and nature of
|
|
God; and they easily saw that there could be no surer way of pleasing
|
|
the invisible ruler of the world, and of attaining to happiness in
|
|
another world at least, than a good and honest course of life in this.
|
|
Thus theology and morals formed the two chief motives, or rather the
|
|
points of attraction in all abstract inquiries. But it was the former
|
|
that especially occupied the attention of speculative reason, and which
|
|
afterwards became so celebrated under the name of metaphysics.
|
|
|
|
I shall not at present indicate the periods of time at which the
|
|
greatest changes in metaphysics took place, but shall merely give a
|
|
hasty sketch of the different ideas which occasioned the most important
|
|
revolutions in this sphere of thought. There are three different ends in
|
|
relation to which these revolutions have taken place.
|
|
|
|
1. In relation to the object of the cognition of reason, philosophers
|
|
may be divided into sensualists and intellectualists. Epicurus may be
|
|
regarded as the head of the former, Plato of the latter. The distinction
|
|
here signalized, subtle as it is, dates from the earliest times, and was
|
|
long maintained. The former asserted that reality resides in sensuous
|
|
objects alone, and that everything else is merely imaginary; the latter,
|
|
that the senses are the parents of illusion and that truth is to
|
|
be found in the understanding alone. The former did not deny to the
|
|
conceptions of the understanding a certain kind of reality; but with
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them it was merely logical, with the others it was mystical. The former
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admitted intellectual conceptions, but declared that sensuous objects
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alone possessed real existence. The latter maintained that all real
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objects were intelligible, and believed that the pure understanding
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possessed a faculty of intuition apart from sense, which, in their
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opinion, served only to confuse the ideas of the understanding.
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2. In relation to the origin of the pure cognitions of reason, we find
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one school maintaining that they are derived entirely from experience,
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|
and another that they have their origin in reason alone. Aristotle may
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|
be regarded as the bead of the empiricists, and Plato of the noologists.
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Locke, the follower of Aristotle in modern times, and Leibnitz of Plato
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(although he cannot be said to have imitated him in his mysticism),
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|
have not been able to bring this question to a settled conclusion.
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|
The procedure of Epicurus in his sensual system, in which he always
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|
restricted his conclusions to the sphere of experience, was much more
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|
consequent than that of Aristotle and Locke. The latter especially,
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|
after having derived all the conceptions and principles of the mind
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|
from experience, goes so far, in the employment of these conceptions and
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|
principles, as to maintain that we can prove the existence of God and
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|
the existence of God and the immortality of them objects lying beyond
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|
the soul--both of them of possible experience--with the same force of
|
|
demonstration as any mathematical proposition.
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|
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|
3. In relation to method. Method is procedure according to principles.
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|
We may divide the methods at present employed in the field of inquiry
|
|
into the naturalistic and the scientific. The naturalist of pure reason
|
|
lays it down as his principle that common reason, without the aid of
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|
science--which he calls sound reason, or common sense--can give a more
|
|
satisfactory answer to the most important questions of metaphysics than
|
|
speculation is able to do. He must maintain, therefore, that we can
|
|
determine the content and circumference of the moon more certainly
|
|
by the naked eye, than by the aid of mathematical reasoning. But this
|
|
system is mere misology reduced to principles; and, what is the most
|
|
absurd thing in this doctrine, the neglect of all scientific means is
|
|
paraded as a peculiar method of extending our cognition. As regards
|
|
those who are naturalists because they know no better, they are
|
|
certainly not to be blamed. They follow common sense, without parading
|
|
their ignorance as a method which is to teach us the wonderful secret,
|
|
how we are to find the truth which lies at the bottom of the well of
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|
Democritus.
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|
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|
Quod sapio satis est mihi, non ego curo Esse quod
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|
Arcesilas aerumnosique Solones. PERSIUS
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|
--Satirae, iii. 78-79.
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|
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|
is their motto, under which they may lead a pleasant and praiseworthy
|
|
life, without troubling themselves with science or troubling science
|
|
with them.
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|
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|
As regards those who wish to pursue a scientific method, they have now
|
|
the choice of following either the dogmatical or the sceptical, while
|
|
they are bound never to desert the systematic mode of procedure. When I
|
|
mention, in relation to the former, the celebrated Wolf, and as regards
|
|
the latter, David Hume, I may leave, in accordance with my present
|
|
intention, all others unnamed. The critical path alone is still open.
|
|
If my reader has been kind and patient enough to accompany me on this
|
|
hitherto untravelled route, he can now judge whether, if he and others
|
|
will contribute their exertions towards making this narrow footpath
|
|
a high road of thought, that which many centuries have failed to
|
|
accomplish may not be executed before the close of the present--namely,
|
|
to bring Reason to perfect contentment in regard to that which has
|
|
always, but without permanent results, occupied her powers and engaged
|
|
her ardent desire for knowledge.
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