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THE CRITIQUE OF PURE REASON
By Immanuel Kant
PREFACE TO THE FIRST EDITION, 1781
Human reason, in one sphere of its cognition, is called upon to consider
questions, which it cannot decline, as they are presented by its own
nature, but which it cannot answer, as they transcend every faculty of the
mind.
It falls into this difficulty without any fault of its own. It begins with
principles, which cannot be dispensed with in the field of experience, and
the truth and sufficiency of which are, at the same time, insured by
experience. With these principles it rises, in obedience to the laws of
its own nature, to ever higher and more remote conditions. But it quickly
discovers that, in this way, its labours must remain ever incomplete,
because new questions never cease to present themselves; and thus it finds
itself compelled to have recourse to principles which transcend the region
of experience, while they are regarded by common sense without distrust.
It thus falls into confusion and contradictions, from which it conjectures
the presence of latent errors, which, however, it is unable to discover,
because the principles it employs, transcending the limits of experience,
cannot be tested by that criterion. The arena of these endless contests is
called Metaphysic.
Time was, when she was the queen of all the sciences; and, if we take the
will for the deed, she certainly deserves, so far as regards the high
importance of her object-matter, this title of honour. Now, it is the
fashion of the time to heap contempt and scorn upon her; and the matron
mourns, forlorn and forsaken, like Hecuba:
Modo maxima rerum,
Tot generis, natisque potens...
Nunc trahor exul, inops.
—Ovid, Metamorphoses. xiii
At first, her government, under the administration of the dogmatists, was
an absolute despotism. But, as the legislative continued to show traces of
the ancient barbaric rule, her empire gradually broke up, and intestine
wars introduced the reign of anarchy; while the sceptics, like nomadic
tribes, who hate a permanent habitation and settled mode of living,
attacked from time to time those who had organized themselves into civil
communities. But their number was, very happily, small; and thus they
could not entirely put a stop to the exertions of those who persisted in
raising new edifices, although on no settled or uniform plan. In recent
times the hope dawned upon us of seeing those disputes settled, and the
legitimacy of her claims established by a kind of physiology of the human
understanding—that of the celebrated Locke. But it was found that—although
it was affirmed that this so-called queen could not refer her descent to
any higher source than that of common experience, a circumstance which
necessarily brought suspicion on her claims—as this genealogy was
incorrect, she persisted in the advancement of her claims to sovereignty.
Thus metaphysics necessarily fell back into the antiquated and rotten
constitution of dogmatism, and again became obnoxious to the contempt from
which efforts had been made to save it. At present, as all methods,
according to the general persuasion, have been tried in vain, there reigns
nought but weariness and complete indifferentism—the mother of chaos
and night in the scientific world, but at the same time the source of, or
at least the prelude to, the re-creation and reinstallation of a science,
when it has fallen into confusion, obscurity, and disuse from ill directed
effort.
For it is in reality vain to profess indifference in regard to such
inquiries, the object of which cannot be indifferent to humanity. Besides,
these pretended indifferentists, however much they may try to disguise
themselves by the assumption of a popular style and by changes on the
language of the schools, unavoidably fall into metaphysical declarations
and propositions, which they profess to regard with so much contempt. At
the same time, this indifference, which has arisen in the world of
science, and which relates to that kind of knowledge which we should wish
to see destroyed the last, is a phenomenon that well deserves our
attention and reflection. It is plainly not the effect of the levity, but
of the matured judgement* of the age, which refuses to be any longer
entertained with illusory knowledge, It is, in fact, a call to reason,
again to undertake the most laborious of all tasks—that of
self-examination, and to establish a tribunal, which may secure it in its
well-grounded claims, while it pronounces against all baseless assumptions
and pretensions, not in an arbitrary manner, but according to its own
eternal and unchangeable laws. This tribunal is nothing less than the
critical investigation of pure reason.
[*Footnote: We very often hear complaints of the shallowness of the
present age, and of the decay of profound science. But I do not think that
those which rest upon a secure foundation, such as mathematics, physical
science, etc., in the least deserve this reproach, but that they rather
maintain their ancient fame, and in the latter case, indeed, far surpass
it. The same would be the case with the other kinds of cognition, if their
principles were but firmly established. In the absence of this security,
indifference, doubt, and finally, severe criticism are rather signs of a
profound habit of thought. Our age is the age of criticism, to which
everything must be subjected. The sacredness of religion, and the
authority of legislation, are by many regarded as grounds of exemption
from the examination of this tribunal. But, if they on they are exempted,
they become the subjects of just suspicion, and cannot lay claim to
sincere respect, which reason accords only to that which has stood the
test of a free and public examination.]
I do not mean by this a criticism of books and systems, but a critical
inquiry into the faculty of reason, with reference to the cognitions to
which it strives to attain without the aid of experience; in other words,
the solution of the question regarding the possibility or impossibility of
metaphysics, and the determination of the origin, as well as of the extent
and limits of this science. All this must be done on the basis of
principles.
This path—the only one now remaining—has been entered upon by
me; and I flatter myself that I have, in this way, discovered the cause of—and
consequently the mode of removing—all the errors which have hitherto
set reason at variance with itself, in the sphere of non-empirical
thought. I have not returned an evasive answer to the questions of reason,
by alleging the inability and limitation of the faculties of the mind; I
have, on the contrary, examined them completely in the light of
principles, and, after having discovered the cause of the doubts and
contradictions into which reason fell, have solved them to its perfect
satisfaction. It is true, these questions have not been solved as
dogmatism, in its vain fancies and desires, had expected; for it can only
be satisfied by the exercise of magical arts, and of these I have no
knowledge. But neither do these come within the compass of our mental
powers; and it was the duty of philosophy to destroy the illusions which
had their origin in misconceptions, whatever darling hopes and valued
expectations may be ruined by its explanations. My chief aim in this work
has been thoroughness; and I make bold to say that there is not a single
metaphysical problem that does not find its solution, or at least the key
to its solution, here. Pure reason is a perfect unity; and therefore, if
the principle presented by it prove to be insufficient for the solution of
even a single one of those questions to which the very nature of reason
gives birth, we must reject it, as we could not be perfectly certain of
its sufficiency in the case of the others.
While I say this, I think I see upon the countenance of the reader signs
of dissatisfaction mingled with contempt, when he hears declarations which
sound so boastful and extravagant; and yet they are beyond comparison more
moderate than those advanced by the commonest author of the commonest
philosophical programme, in which the dogmatist professes to demonstrate
the simple nature of the soul, or the necessity of a primal being. Such a
dogmatist promises to extend human knowledge beyond the limits of possible
experience; while I humbly confess that this is completely beyond my
power. Instead of any such attempt, I confine myself to the examination of
reason alone and its pure thought; and I do not need to seek far for the
sum-total of its cognition, because it has its seat in my own mind.
Besides, common logic presents me with a complete and systematic catalogue
of all the simple operations of reason; and it is my task to answer the
question how far reason can go, without the material presented and the aid
furnished by experience.
So much for the completeness and thoroughness necessary in the execution
of the present task. The aims set before us are not arbitrarily proposed,
but are imposed upon us by the nature of cognition itself.
The above remarks relate to the matter of our critical inquiry. As regards
the form, there are two indispensable conditions, which any one who
undertakes so difficult a task as that of a critique of pure reason, is
bound to fulfil. These conditions are certitude and clearness.
As regards certitude, I have fully convinced myself that, in this sphere
of thought, opinion is perfectly inadmissible, and that everything which
bears the least semblance of an hypothesis must be excluded, as of no
value in such discussions. For it is a necessary condition of every
cognition that is to be established upon a priori grounds that it shall be
held to be absolutely necessary; much more is this the case with an
attempt to determine all pure a priori cognition, and to furnish the
standard—and consequently an example—of all apodeictic
(philosophical) certitude. Whether I have succeeded in what I professed to
do, it is for the reader to determine; it is the author's business merely
to adduce grounds and reasons, without determining what influence these
ought to have on the mind of his judges. But, lest anything he may have
said may become the innocent cause of doubt in their minds, or tend to
weaken the effect which his arguments might otherwise produce—he may
be allowed to point out those passages which may occasion mistrust or
difficulty, although these do not concern the main purpose of the present
work. He does this solely with the view of removing from the mind of the
reader any doubts which might affect his judgement of the work as a whole,
and in regard to its ultimate aim.
I know no investigations more necessary for a full insight into the nature
of the faculty which we call understanding, and at the same time for the
determination of the rules and limits of its use, than those undertaken in
the second chapter of the "Transcendental Analytic," under the title of
"Deduction of the Pure Conceptions of the Understanding"; and they have
also cost me by far the greatest labour—labour which, I hope, will
not remain uncompensated. The view there taken, which goes somewhat deeply
into the subject, has two sides, The one relates to the objects of the
pure understanding, and is intended to demonstrate and to render
comprehensible the objective validity of its a priori conceptions; and it
forms for this reason an essential part of the Critique. The other
considers the pure understanding itself, its possibility and its powers of
cognition—that is, from a subjective point of view; and, although
this exposition is of great importance, it does not belong essentially to
the main purpose of the work, because the grand question is what and how
much can reason and understanding, apart from experience, cognize, and
not, how is the faculty of thought itself possible? As the latter is an
inquiry into the cause of a given effect, and has thus in it some
semblance of an hypothesis (although, as I shall show on another occasion,
this is really not the fact), it would seem that, in the present instance,
I had allowed myself to enounce a mere opinion, and that the reader must
therefore be at liberty to hold a different opinion. But I beg to remind
him that, if my subjective deduction does not produce in his mind the
conviction of its certitude at which I aimed, the objective deduction,
with which alone the present work is properly concerned, is in every
respect satisfactory.
As regards clearness, the reader has a right to demand, in the first
place, discursive or logical clearness, that is, on the basis of
conceptions, and, secondly, intuitive or aesthetic clearness, by means of
intuitions, that is, by examples or other modes of illustration in
concreto. I have done what I could for the first kind of intelligibility.
This was essential to my purpose; and it thus became the accidental cause
of my inability to do complete justice to the second requirement. I have
been almost always at a loss, during the progress of this work, how to
settle this question. Examples and illustrations always appeared to me
necessary, and, in the first sketch of the Critique, naturally fell into
their proper places. But I very soon became aware of the magnitude of my
task, and the numerous problems with which I should be engaged; and, as I
perceived that this critical investigation would, even if delivered in the
driest scholastic manner, be far from being brief, I found it unadvisable
to enlarge it still more with examples and explanations, which are
necessary only from a popular point of view. I was induced to take this
course from the consideration also that the present work is not intended
for popular use, that those devoted to science do not require such helps,
although they are always acceptable, and that they would have materially
interfered with my present purpose. Abbe Terrasson remarks with great
justice that, if we estimate the size of a work, not from the number of
its pages, but from the time which we require to make ourselves master of
it, it may be said of many a book that it would be much shorter, if it
were not so short. On the other hand, as regards the comprehensibility of
a system of speculative cognition, connected under a single principle, we
may say with equal justice: many a book would have been much clearer, if
it had not been intended to be so very clear. For explanations and
examples, and other helps to intelligibility, aid us in the comprehension
of parts, but they distract the attention, dissipate the mental power of
the reader, and stand in the way of his forming a clear conception of the
whole; as he cannot attain soon enough to a survey of the system, and the
colouring and embellishments bestowed upon it prevent his observing its
articulation or organization—which is the most important
consideration with him, when he comes to judge of its unity and stability.
The reader must naturally have a strong inducement to co-operate with the
present author, if he has formed the intention of erecting a complete and
solid edifice of metaphysical science, according to the plan now laid
before him. Metaphysics, as here represented, is the only science which
admits of completion—and with little labour, if it is united, in a
short time; so that nothing will be left to future generations except the
task of illustrating and applying it didactically. For this science is
nothing more than the inventory of all that is given us by pure reason,
systematically arranged. Nothing can escape our notice; for what reason
produces from itself cannot lie concealed, but must be brought to the
light by reason itself, so soon as we have discovered the common principle
of the ideas we seek. The perfect unity of this kind of cognitions, which
are based upon pure conceptions, and uninfluenced by any empirical
element, or any peculiar intuition leading to determinate experience,
renders this completeness not only practicable, but also necessary.
Tecum habita, et noris quam sit tibi curta supellex.
—Persius. Satirae iv. 52.
Such a system of pure speculative reason I hope to be able to publish
under the title of Metaphysic of Nature*. The content of this work (which
will not be half so long) will be very much richer than that of the
present Critique, which has to discover the sources of this cognition and
expose the conditions of its possibility, and at the same time to clear
and level a fit foundation for the scientific edifice. In the present
work, I look for the patient hearing and the impartiality of a judge; in
the other, for the good-will and assistance of a co-labourer. For, however
complete the list of principles for this system may be in the Critique,
the correctness of the system requires that no deduced conceptions should
be absent. These cannot be presented a priori, but must be gradually
discovered; and, while the synthesis of conceptions has been fully
exhausted in the Critique, it is necessary that, in the proposed work, the
same should be the case with their analysis. But this will be rather an
amusement than a labour.
[*Footnote: In contradistinction to the Metaphysic of
Ethics. This work was never published.]
PREFACE TO THE SECOND EDITION, 1787
Whether the treatment of that portion of our knowledge which lies within
the province of pure reason advances with that undeviating certainty which
characterizes the progress of science, we shall be at no loss to
determine. If we find those who are engaged in metaphysical pursuits,
unable to come to an understanding as to the method which they ought to
follow; if we find them, after the most elaborate preparations, invariably
brought to a stand before the goal is reached, and compelled to retrace
their steps and strike into fresh paths, we may then feel quite sure that
they are far from having attained to the certainty of scientific progress
and may rather be said to be merely groping about in the dark. In these
circumstances we shall render an important service to reason if we succeed
in simply indicating the path along which it must travel, in order to
arrive at any results—even if it should be found necessary to
abandon many of those aims which, without reflection, have been proposed
for its attainment.
That logic has advanced in this sure course, even from the earliest times,
is apparent from the fact that, since Aristotle, it has been unable to
advance a step and, thus, to all appearance has reached its completion.
For, if some of the moderns have thought to enlarge its domain by
introducing psychological discussions on the mental faculties, such as
imagination and wit, metaphysical, discussions on the origin of knowledge
and the different kinds of certitude, according to the difference of the
objects (idealism, scepticism, and so on), or anthropological discussions
on prejudices, their causes and remedies: this attempt, on the part of
these authors, only shows their ignorance of the peculiar nature of
logical science. We do not enlarge but disfigure the sciences when we lose
sight of their respective limits and allow them to run into one another.
Now logic is enclosed within limits which admit of perfectly clear
definition; it is a science which has for its object nothing but the
exposition and proof of the formal laws of all thought, whether it be a
priori or empirical, whatever be its origin or its object, and whatever
the difficulties—natural or accidental—which it encounters in
the human mind.
The early success of logic must be attributed exclusively to the
narrowness of its field, in which abstraction may, or rather must, be made
of all the objects of cognition with their characteristic distinctions,
and in which the understanding has only to deal with itself and with its
own forms. It is, obviously, a much more difficult task for reason to
strike into the sure path of science, where it has to deal not simply with
itself, but with objects external to itself. Hence, logic is properly only
a propaedeutic—forms, as it were, the vestibule of the sciences; and
while it is necessary to enable us to form a correct judgement with regard
to the various branches of knowledge, still the acquisition of real,
substantive knowledge is to be sought only in the sciences properly so
called, that is, in the objective sciences.
Now these sciences, if they can be termed rational at all, must contain
elements of a priori cognition, and this cognition may stand in a twofold
relation to its object. Either it may have to determine the conception of
the object—which must be supplied extraneously, or it may have to
establish its reality. The former is theoretical, the latter practical,
rational cognition. In both, the pure or a priori element must be treated
first, and must be carefully distinguished from that which is supplied
from other sources. Any other method can only lead to irremediable
confusion.
Mathematics and physics are the two theoretical sciences which have to
determine their objects a priori. The former is purely a priori, the
latter is partially so, but is also dependent on other sources of
cognition.
In the earliest times of which history affords us any record, mathematics
had already entered on the sure course of science, among that wonderful
nation, the Greeks. Still it is not to be supposed that it was as easy for
this science to strike into, or rather to construct for itself, that royal
road, as it was for logic, in which reason has only to deal with itself.
On the contrary, I believe that it must have remained long—chiefly
among the Egyptians—in the stage of blind groping after its true
aims and destination, and that it was revolutionized by the happy idea of
one man, who struck out and determined for all time the path which this
science must follow, and which admits of an indefinite advancement. The
history of this intellectual revolution—much more important in its
results than the discovery of the passage round the celebrated Cape of
Good Hope—and of its author, has not been preserved. But Diogenes
Laertius, in naming the supposed discoverer of some of the simplest
elements of geometrical demonstration—elements which, according to
the ordinary opinion, do not even require to be proved—makes it
apparent that the change introduced by the first indication of this new
path, must have seemed of the utmost importance to the mathematicians of
that age, and it has thus been secured against the chance of oblivion. A
new light must have flashed on the mind of the first man (Thales, or
whatever may have been his name) who demonstrated the properties of the
isosceles triangle. For he found that it was not sufficient to meditate on
the figure, as it lay before his eyes, or the conception of it, as it
existed in his mind, and thus endeavour to get at the knowledge of its
properties, but that it was necessary to produce these properties, as it
were, by a positive a priori construction; and that, in order to arrive
with certainty at a priori cognition, he must not attribute to the object
any other properties than those which necessarily followed from that which
he had himself, in accordance with his conception, placed in the object.
A much longer period elapsed before physics entered on the highway of
science. For it is only about a century and a half since the wise Bacon
gave a new direction to physical studies, or rather—as others were
already on the right track—imparted fresh vigour to the pursuit of
this new direction. Here, too, as in the case of mathematics, we find
evidence of a rapid intellectual revolution. In the remarks which follow I
shall confine myself to the empirical side of natural science.
When Galilei experimented with balls of a definite weight on the inclined
plane, when Torricelli caused the air to sustain a weight which he had
calculated beforehand to be equal to that of a definite column of water,
or when Stahl, at a later period, converted metals into lime, and
reconverted lime into metal, by the addition and subtraction of certain
elements; [Footnote: I do not here follow with exactness the history of
the experimental method, of which, indeed, the first steps are involved in
some obscurity.] a light broke upon all natural philosophers. They learned
that reason only perceives that which it produces after its own design;
that it must not be content to follow, as it were, in the leading-strings
of nature, but must proceed in advance with principles 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 a 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.*
[*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. THESIS.
Every composite substance in the world consists of simple parts; and there
exists nothing that is not either itself simple, or composed of simple
parts.
PROOF.
For, grant that composite substances do not consist of simple parts; in
this case, if all combination or composition were annihilated in thought,
no composite part, and (as, by the supposition, there do not exist simple
parts) no simple part would exist. Consequently, no substance;
consequently, nothing would exist. Either, then, it is impossible to
annihilate composition in thought; or, after such annihilation, there must
remain something that subsists without composition, that is, something
that is simple. But in the former case the composite could not itself
consist of substances, because with substances composition is merely a
contingent relation, apart from which they must still exist as
self-subsistent beings. Now, as this case contradicts the supposition, the
second must contain the truth—that the substantial composite in the
world consists of simple parts.
It follows, as an immediate inference, that the things in the world are
all, without exception, simple beings—that composition is merely an
external condition pertaining to them—and that, although we never
can separate and isolate the elementary substances from the state of
composition, reason must cogitate these as the primary subjects of all
composition, and consequently, as prior thereto—and as simple
substances.
ANTITHESIS.
No composite thing in the world consists of simple parts; and there does
not exist in the world any simple substance.
PROOF.
Let it be supposed that a composite thing (as substance) consists of
simple parts. Inasmuch as all external relation, consequently all
composition of substances, is possible only in space; the space, occupied
by that which is composite, must consist of the same number of parts as is
contained in the composite. But space does not consist of simple parts,
but of spaces. Therefore, every part of the composite must occupy a space.
But the absolutely primary parts of what is composite are simple. It
follows that what is simple occupies a space. Now, as everything real that
occupies a space, contains a manifold the parts of which are external to
each other, and is consequently composite—and a real composite, not
of accidents (for these cannot exist external to each other apart from
substance), but of substances—it follows that the simple must be a
substantial composite, which is self-contradictory.
The second proposition of the antithesis—that there exists in the
world nothing that is simple—is here equivalent to the following:
The existence of the absolutely simple cannot be demonstrated from any
experience or perception either external or internal; and the absolutely
simple is a mere idea, the objective reality of which cannot be
demonstrated in any possible experience; it is consequently, in the
exposition of phenomena, without application and object. For, let us take
for granted that an object may be found in experience for this
transcendental idea; the empirical intuition of such an object must then
be recognized to contain absolutely no manifold with its parts external to
each other, and connected into unity. Now, as we cannot reason from the
non-consciousness of such a manifold to the impossibility of its existence
in the intuition of an object, and as the proof of this impossibility is
necessary for the establishment and proof of absolute simplicity; it
follows that this simplicity cannot be inferred from any perception
whatever. As, therefore, an absolutely simple object cannot be given in
any experience, and the world of sense must be considered as the sum total
of all possible experiences: nothing simple exists in the world.
This second proposition in the antithesis has a more extended aim than the
first. The first merely banishes the simple from the intuition of the
composite; while the second drives it entirely out of nature. Hence we
were unable to demonstrate it from the conception of a given object of
external intuition (of the composite), but we were obliged to prove it
from the relation of a given object to a possible experience in general.
OBSERVATIONS ON THE SECOND ANTINOMY. THESIS.
When I speak of a whole, which necessarily consists of simple parts, I
understand thereby only a substantial whole, as the true composite; that
is to say, I understand that contingent unity of the manifold which is
given as perfectly isolated (at least in thought), placed in reciprocal
connection, and thus constituted a unity. Space ought not to be called a
compositum but a totum, for its parts are possible in the whole, and not
the whole by means of the parts. It might perhaps be called a compositum
ideale, but not a compositum reale. But this is of no importance. As space
is not a composite of substances (and not even of real accidents), if I
abstract all composition therein—nothing, not even a point, remains;
for a point is possible only as the limit of a space—consequently of
a composite. Space and time, therefore, do not consist of simple parts.
That which belongs only to the condition or state of a substance, even
although it possesses a quantity (motion or change, for example), likewise
does not consist of simple parts. That is to say, a certain degree of
change does not originate from the addition of many simple changes. Our
inference of the simple from the composite is valid only of
self-subsisting things. But the accidents of a state are not
self-subsistent. The proof, then, for the necessity of the simple, as the
component part of all that is substantial and composite, may prove a
failure, and the whole case of this thesis be lost, if we carry the
proposition too far, and wish to make it valid of everything that is
composite without distinction—as indeed has really now and then
happened. Besides, I am here speaking only of the simple, in so far as it
is necessarily given in the composite—the latter being capable of
solution into the former as its component parts. The proper signification
of the word monas (as employed by Leibnitz) ought to relate to the simple,
given immediately as simple substance (for example, in consciousness), and
not as an element of the composite. As an clement, the term atomus would
be more appropriate. And as I wish to prove the existence of simple
substances, only in relation to, and as the elements of, the composite, I
might term the antithesis of the second Antinomy, transcendental
Atomistic. But as this word has long been employed to designate a
particular theory of corporeal phenomena (moleculae), and thus presupposes
a basis of empirical conceptions, I prefer calling it the dialectical
principle of Monadology.
ANTITHESIS.
Against the assertion of the infinite subdivisibility of matter whose
ground of proof is purely mathematical, objections have been alleged by
the Monadists. These objections lay themselves open, at first sight, to
suspicion, from the fact that they do not recognize the clearest
mathematical proofs as propositions relating to the constitution of space,
in so far as it is really the formal condition of the possibility of all
matter, but regard them merely as inferences from abstract but arbitrary
conceptions, which cannot have any application to real things. Just as if
it were possible to imagine another mode of intuition than that given in
the primitive intuition of space; and just as if its a priori
determinations did not apply to everything, the existence of which is
possible, from the fact alone of its filling space. If we listen to them,
we shall find ourselves required to cogitate, in addition to the
mathematical point, which is simple—not, however, a part, but a mere
limit of space—physical points, which are indeed likewise simple,
but possess the peculiar property, as parts of space, of filling it merely
by their aggregation. I shall not repeat here the common and clear
refutations of this absurdity, which are to be found everywhere in
numbers: every one knows that it is impossible to undermine the evidence
of mathematics by mere discursive conceptions; I shall only remark that,
if in this case philosophy endeavours to gain an advantage over
mathematics by sophistical artifices, it is because it forgets that the
discussion relates solely to Phenomena and their conditions. It is not
sufficient to find the conception of the simple for the pure conception of
the composite, but we must discover for the intuition of the composite
(matter), the intuition of the simple. Now this, according to the laws of
sensibility, and consequently in the case of objects of sense, is utterly
impossible. In the case of a whole composed of substances, which is
cogitated solely by the pure understanding, it may be necessary to be in
possession of the simple before composition is possible. But this does not
hold good of the Totum substantiale phaenomenon, which, as an empirical
intuition in space, possesses the necessary property of containing no
simple part, for the very reason that no part of space is simple.
Meanwhile, the Monadists have been subtle enough to escape from this
difficulty, by presupposing intuition and the dynamical relation of
substances as the condition of the possibility of space, instead of
regarding space as the condition of the possibility of the objects of
external intuition, that is, of bodies. Now we have a conception of bodies
only as phenomena, and, as such, they necessarily presuppose space as the
condition of all external phenomena. The evasion is therefore in vain; as,
indeed, we have sufficiently shown in our Aesthetic. If bodies were things
in themselves, the proof of the Monadists would be unexceptionable.
The second dialectical assertion possesses the peculiarity of having
opposed to it a dogmatical proposition, which, among all such sophistical
statements, is the only one that undertakes to prove in the case of an
object of experience, that which is properly a transcendental idea—the
absolute simplicity of substance. The proposition is that the object of
the internal sense, the thinking Ego, is an absolute simple substance.
Without at present entering upon this subject—as it has been
considered at length in a former chapter—I shall merely remark that,
if something is cogitated merely as an object, without the addition of any
synthetical determination of its intuition—as happens in the case of
the bare representation, I—it is certain that no manifold and no
composition can be perceived in such a representation. As, moreover, the
predicates whereby I cogitate this object are merely intuitions of the
internal sense, there cannot be discovered in them anything to prove the
existence of a manifold whose parts are external to each other, and,
consequently, nothing to prove the existence of real composition.
Consciousness, therefore, is so constituted that, inasmuch as the thinking
subject is at the same time its own object, it cannot divide itself—although
it can divide its inhering determinations. For every object in relation to
itself is absolute unity. Nevertheless, if the subject is regarded
externally, as an object of intuition, it must, in its character of
phenomenon, possess the property of composition. And it must always be
regarded in this manner, if we wish to know whether there is or is not
contained in it a manifold whose parts are external to each other.
THIRD CONFLICT OF THE TRANSCENDENTAL IDEAS. THESIS.
Causality according to the laws of nature, is not the only causality
operating to originate the phenomena of the world. A causality of freedom
is also necessary to account fully for these phenomena.
PROOF.
Let it be supposed, that there is no other kind of causality than that
according to the laws of nature. Consequently, everything that happens
presupposes a previous condition, which it follows with absolute
certainty, in conformity with a rule. But this previous condition must
itself be something that has happened (that has arisen in time, as it did
not exist before), for, if it has always been in existence, its
consequence or effect would not thus originate for the first time, but
would likewise have always existed. The causality, therefore, of a cause,
whereby something happens, is itself a thing that has happened. Now this
again presupposes, in conformity with the law of nature, a previous
condition and its causality, and this another anterior to the former, and
so on. If, then, everything happens solely in accordance with the laws of
nature, there cannot be any real first beginning of things, but only a
subaltern or comparative beginning. There cannot, therefore, be a
completeness of series on the side of the causes which originate the one
from the other. But the law of nature is that nothing can happen without a
sufficient a priori determined cause. The proposition therefore—if
all causality is possible only in accordance with the laws of nature—is,
when stated in this unlimited and general manner, self-contradictory. It
follows that this cannot be the only kind of causality.
From what has been said, it follows that a causality must be admitted, by
means of which something happens, without its cause being determined
according to necessary laws by some other cause preceding. That is to say,
there must exist an absolute spontaneity of cause, which of itself
originates a series of phenomena which proceeds according to natural laws—consequently
transcendental freedom, without which even in the course of nature the
succession of phenomena on the side of causes is never complete.
ANTITHESIS.
There is no such thing as freedom, but everything in the world happens
solely according to the laws of nature.
PROOF.
Granted, that there does exist freedom in the transcendental sense, as a
peculiar kind of causality, operating to produce events in the world—a
faculty, that is to say, of originating a state, and consequently a series
of consequences from that state. In this case, not only the series
originated by this spontaneity, but the determination of this spontaneity
itself to the production of the series, that is to say, the causality
itself must have an absolute commencement, such that nothing can precede
to determine this action according to unvarying laws. But every beginning
of action presupposes in the acting cause a state of inaction; and a
dynamically primal beginning of action presupposes a state, which has no
connection—as regards causality—with the preceding state of
the cause—which does not, that is, in any wise result from it.
Transcendental freedom is therefore opposed to the natural law of cause
and effect, and such a conjunction of successive states in effective
causes is destructive of the possibility of unity in experience and for
that reason not to be found in experience—is consequently a mere
fiction of thought.
We have, therefore, nothing but nature to which we must look for
connection and order in cosmical events. Freedom—independence of the
laws of nature—is certainly a deliverance from restraint, but it is
also a relinquishing of the guidance of law and rule. For it cannot be
alleged that, instead of the laws of nature, laws of freedom may be
introduced into the causality of the course of nature. For, if freedom
were determined according to laws, it would be no longer freedom, but
merely nature. Nature, therefore, and transcendental freedom are
distinguishable as conformity to law and lawlessness. The former imposes
upon understanding the difficulty of seeking the origin of events ever
higher and higher in the series of causes, inasmuch as causality is always
conditioned thereby; while it compensates this labour by the guarantee of
a unity complete and in conformity with law. The latter, on the contrary,
holds out to the understanding the promise of a point of rest in the chain
of causes, by conducting it to an unconditioned causality, which professes
to have the power of spontaneous origination, but which, in its own utter
blindness, deprives it of the guidance of rules, by which alone a
completely connected experience is possible.
OBSERVATIONS ON THE THIRD ANTINOMY. ON THE THESIS.
The transcendental idea of freedom is far from constituting the entire
content of the psychological conception so termed, which is for the most
part empirical. It merely presents us with the conception of spontaneity
of action, as the proper ground for imputing freedom to the cause of a
certain class of objects. It is, however, the true stumbling-stone to
philosophy, which meets with unconquerable difficulties in the way of its
admitting this kind of unconditioned causality. That element in the
question of the freedom of the will, which has for so long a time placed
speculative reason in such perplexity, is properly only transcendental,
and concerns the question, whether there must be held to exist a faculty
of spontaneous origination of a series of successive things or states. How
such a faculty is possible is not a necessary inquiry; for in the case of
natural causality itself, we are obliged to content ourselves with the a
priori knowledge that such a causality must be presupposed, although we
are quite incapable of comprehending how the being of one thing is
possible through the being of another, but must for this information look
entirely to experience. Now we have demonstrated this necessity of a free
first beginning of a series of phenomena, only in so far as it is required
for the comprehension of an origin of the world, all following states
being regarded as a succession according to laws of nature alone. But, as
there has thus been proved the existence of a faculty which can of itself
originate a series in time—although we are unable to explain how it
can exist—we feel ourselves authorized to admit, even in the midst
of the natural course of events, a beginning, as regards causality, of
different successions of phenomena, and at the same time to attribute to
all substances a faculty of free action. But we ought in this case not to
allow ourselves to fall into a common misunderstanding, and to suppose
that, because a successive series in the world can only have a
comparatively first beginning—another state or condition of things
always preceding—an absolutely first beginning of a series in the
course of nature is impossible. For we are not speaking here of an
absolutely first beginning in relation to time, but as regards causality
alone. When, for example, I, completely of my own free will, and
independently of the necessarily determinative influence of natural
causes, rise from my chair, there commences with this event, including its
material consequences in infinitum, an absolutely new series; although, in
relation to time, this event is merely the continuation of a preceding
series. For this resolution and act of mine do not form part of the
succession of effects in nature, and are not mere continuations of it; on
the contrary, the determining causes of nature cease to operate in
reference to this event, which certainly succeeds the acts of nature, but
does not proceed from them. For these reasons, the action of a free agent
must be termed, in regard to causality, if not in relation to time, an
absolutely primal beginning of a series of phenomena.
The justification of this need of reason to rest upon a free act as the
first beginning of the series of natural causes is evident from the fact,
that all philosophers of antiquity (with the exception of the Epicurean
school) felt themselves obliged, when constructing a theory of the motions
of the universe, to accept a prime mover, that is, a freely acting cause,
which spontaneously and prior to all other causes evolved this series of
states. They always felt the need of going beyond mere nature, for the
purpose of making a first beginning comprehensible.
ON THE ANTITHESIS.
The assertor of the all-sufficiency of nature in regard to causality
(transcendental Physiocracy), in opposition to the doctrine of freedom,
would defend his view of the question somewhat in the following manner. He
would say, in answer to the sophistical arguments of the opposite party:
If you do not accept a mathematical first, in relation to time, you have
no need to seek a dynamical first, in regard to causality. Who compelled
you to imagine an absolutely primal condition of the world, and therewith
an absolute beginning of the gradually progressing successions of
phenomena—and, as some foundation for this fancy of yours, to set
bounds to unlimited nature? Inasmuch as the substances in the world have
always existed—at least the unity of experience renders such a
supposition quite necessary—there is no difficulty in believing
also, that the changes in the conditions of these substances have always
existed; and, consequently, that a first beginning, mathematical or
dynamical, is by no means required. The possibility of such an infinite
derivation, without any initial member from which all the others result,
is certainly quite incomprehensible. But, if you are rash enough to deny
the enigmatical secrets of nature for this reason, you will find
yourselves obliged to deny also the existence of many fundamental
properties of natural objects (such as fundamental forces), which you can
just as little comprehend; and even the possibility of so simple a
conception as that of change must present to you insuperable difficulties.
For if experience did not teach you that it was real, you never could
conceive a priori the possibility of this ceaseless sequence of being and
non-being.
But if the existence of a transcendental faculty of freedom is granted—a
faculty of originating changes in the world—this faculty must at
least exist out of and apart from the world; although it is certainly a
bold assumption, that, over and above the complete content of all possible
intuitions, there still exists an object which cannot be presented in any
possible perception. But, to attribute to substances in the world itself
such a faculty, is quite inadmissible; for, in this case; the connection
of phenomena reciprocally determining and determined according to general
laws, which is termed nature, and along with it the criteria of empirical
truth, which enable us to distinguish experience from mere visionary
dreaming, would almost entirely disappear. In proximity with such a
lawless faculty of freedom, a system of nature is hardly cogitable; for
the laws of the latter would be continually subject to the intrusive
influences of the former, and the course of phenomena, which would
otherwise proceed regularly and uniformly, would become thereby confused
and disconnected.
FOURTH CONFLICT OF THE TRANSCENDENTAL IDEAS. THESIS.
There exists either in, or in connection with the world—either as a
part of it, or as the cause of it—an absolutely necessary being.
PROOF.
The world of sense, as the sum total of all phenomena, contains a series
of changes. For, without such a series, the mental representation of the
series of time itself, as the condition of the possibility of the sensuous
world, could not be presented to us.* But every change stands under its
condition, which precedes it in time and renders it necessary. Now the
existence of a given condition presupposes a complete series of conditions
up to the absolutely unconditioned, which alone is absolutely necessary.
It follows that something that is absolutely necessary must exist, if
change exists as its consequence. But this necessary thing itself belongs
to the sensuous world. For suppose it to exist out of and apart from it,
the series of cosmical changes would receive from it a beginning, and yet
this necessary cause would not itself belong to the world of sense. But
this is impossible. For, as the beginning of a series in time is
determined only by that which precedes it in time, the 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
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