History of Modern Philosophy Part 14
Though the categories take their origin in the nature of the subject, they are objective and valid for objects of experience, because experience is possible alone through them. They are not the product, but the ground of experience. The second difficulty concerns their applicability to phenomena, which are wholly disparate. By what means is the gulf between the categories, which are concepts and a priori, and perceptions, which are intuitous and empirical, bridged over? The connecting link is supplied by the imagination, as the faculty which mediates between sensibility and understanding to provide a concept with its image, and consists in the intuition of time, which, in common with the categories, has an a priori character, and, in common with perceptions, an intuitive character, so that it is at once pure and sensuous. The subsumption of phenomena or empirical intuitions under the category is effected through the Schemata[1] of the concepts of the understanding, i.e., through a priori determinations of time according to rules, which relate to time-series, time-content, time-order, and time-comprehension, and indicate whether I have to apply this or that category to a given object.
[Footnote 1: The schema is not an empirical image, but stands midway between this (the particular intuition of a definite triangle or dog) and the unintuitable concept, as a general intuition (of a triangle or a dog in general, which holds alike for right- and oblique-angled triangles, for poodles and pugs), or as a rule for determining our intuition in accordance with a concept.]
Each category has its own schema. The schema of quant.i.ty is number, as comprehending the successive addition of h.o.m.ogeneous parts. Filled time (being in time) is the schema of reality, empty time (not-being in time) the schema of negation, and more or less filled time (the intensity of sensation, indicating the degree of reality) the schema of limitation. Permanence in time is the sign for the application of the category of substance;[1] regular succession, for the application of the concept of cause; the coexistence of the determinations of one substance with those of another, the signal for their subsumption under the concept of reciprocity. The schemata of possibility, actuality, and necessity, finally, are existence at any time whatever (whensoever), existence at a definite time, and existence at all times. By such schematic syntheses the pure concept is brought near to the empirical intuition, and the way is prepared for an application of the former to the latter, or, what is the same thing, for the subsumption of the latter under the former.
[Footnote 1: This determination is important for psychology. Since the inner sense shows nothing constant, but everything in a continual flux,-for the permanent subject of our thoughts is an identical activity of the understanding, not an intuitable object,-the concept of substance is not applicable to psychical phenomena. Representations of a permanent (material substances) exist, indeed, but not permanent representations. The abiding self (ego, soul) which we posit back of internal phenomena is, as the Dialectic will show, a mere Idea, which, or, rather, the object of which, maybe "thought" as substance, it is true, but cannot be "given" in intuition, hence cannot be "known."]
As a result of the fact that the schematism permits a presentation of the categories in time intuition antecedent to all experience, the possibility is given of synthetic judgments a priori concerning objects of possible experience. Such judgments, in so far as they are not based on higher and more general cognitions, are termed "principles," and the system of them-to be given, with the table of the categories as a guide, in the a.n.a.lytic of Principles or the Doctrine of the Faculty of Judgment-furnishes the outlines of "pure natural science." When thus the rules of the subsumption to be effected have been found in the pure concepts, and the conditions and criteria of the subsumption in the schemata, it remains to indicate the principles which the understanding, through the aid of the schemata, actually produces a priori from its concepts.
The principle of quant.i.ty is the Axiom of Intuition, the principle of quality the Antic.i.p.ation of Perception; the principles of relation are termed a.n.a.logies of Experience, those of modality Postulates of Empirical Thought in General. The first runs, "All intuitions are extensive quant.i.ties"; the second, "In all phenomena sensation, and the real which corresponds to it in the object, has an intensive quant.i.ty, i.e., a degree." The principle of the "a.n.a.logies" is, "All phenomena, as far as their existence is concerned, are subject a priori to rules, determining their mutual relation in time" (in the second edition this is stated as follows: "Experience is possible only through the representation of a necessary connection of perceptions"). As there are three modes of time, there result three "a.n.a.logies," the principles of permanence, of succession (production), and of coexistence. These are: (1) "In all changes of phenomena the substance is permanent, and its quantum is neither increased nor diminished in nature." (2) "All changes take place according to the law of connection between cause and effect"; or, "Everything that happens (begins to be) presupposes something on which it follows according to a rule." (3) "All substances, in so far as they are coexistent, stand in complete community, that is, reciprocity, one to another." And, finally, the three "Postulates": "That which agrees with the formal conditions of experience (in intuition and in concepts) is possible," "That which is connected with the material conditions of experience (sensation) is actual" (perception is the only criterion of actuality). "That which, in its connection with the actual, is determined by universal conditions of experience, is (exists as) necessary."
As the categories of substance and causality are specially preferred to the others by Kant and the Kantians, and are even proclaimed by some as the only fundamental concepts, so also the principles of relation have an established reputation for special importance. The leading ideas in the proofs of the "a.n.a.logies of Experience"-for in spite of their underivative character the principles require, and are capable of, proof-may next be noted.
The time determinations of phenomena, the knowledge of their duration, their succession, and their coexistence, form an indispensable part of our experience, not only of scientific experience, but of everyday experience as well. How is the objective time-determination of things and events possible? If the matter in hand is the determination of the particulars of a fight with a b.l.o.o.d.y ending, the witnesses are questioned and testify: We heard and saw how A began the quarrel by insulting B, and the latter answered the insult with a blow, whereupon A drew his knife and wounded his opponent. Here the succession of perceptions on the part of the persons present is accepted as a true reproduction of the succession of the actual events. But the succession of perceptions is not always the sure indication of an actual succession: the trees along an avenue are perceived one after the other, while they are in reality coexistent. We might now propose the following statement: The representation of the manifold of phenomena is always successive, I apprehend one part after another. I can decide whether these parts succeed one another in the object also, or whether they are coexistent, by the fact that, in the second case, the series of my perceptions is reversible, while in the first it is not. I can, if I choose, direct my glance along the avenue in such a way that I shall begin the second time with the tree at which I left off the first time; if I wish to a.s.sure myself that the parts of a house are coexistent, I cause my eye to wander from the upper to the lower portions, from the right side to the left, and then to perform the same motions in the opposite direction. On the other hand, it is not left to my choice to hear the thunder either before or after I see the lightning, or to see a pa.s.sing wagon now here, now there, but in these cases I am bound in the succession of my sensuous representations. The possibility of interchange in the series of perceptions proves an objective coexistence, the impossibility of this, an objective succession. But this criterion is limited to the immediate present, and fails us when a time relation between un.o.bserved phenomena is to be established. If I go at evening into the dining room and see a vessel of bubbling water, which is to be used in making tea, over a burning spirit lamp, whence do I derive the knowledge that the water began, and could begin, to boil only after the alcohol had been lighted, and not before? Because I have often seen the flame precede the boiling of the water, and in this the irreversibility of the two perceptions has guaranteed to me the succession of the events perceived? Then I may only a.s.sume that it is very probable, not that it is certain, that in this case also the order of the two events has been the same as I have observed several times before. As a matter of fact, however, we all a.s.sert that the water could not have come into a boiling condition unless the generation of heat had preceded; that in every case the fire must be there before the boiling of the water can commence. Whence do we derive this must? Simply and alone from the thought of a causal connection between the two events. Every phenomenon must follow in time that phenomenon of which it is the effect, and must precede that of which it is the cause. It is through the relation of causality, and through this alone, that the objective time relation of phenomena is determined. If nothing preceded an event on which it must follow according to a rule,[1] then all succession in perception would be subjective merely, and nothing whatever would be objectively determined by it as to what was the antecedent and what the consequent in the phenomenon itself. We should then have a mere play of representations without significance for the real succession of events. Only the thought of a rule, according to which the antecedent state contains the necessary condition of the consequent state, justifies us in transferring the time order of our representations to phenomena.[2] Nay, even the distinction between the phenomenon itself, as the object of our representations, and our representations of it, is effected only by subjecting the phenomenon to this rule, which a.s.signs to it its definite position in time after another phenomenon by which it is caused, and thus forbids the inversion of the perceptions. We can derive the rule of the understanding which produces the objective time order of the manifold from experience, only because we have put it into experience, and have first brought experience into being by means of the rule. We recapitulate in Kant's own words: The objective (time) relation of phenomena remains undetermined by mere perception (the mere succession in my apprehension, if it is not determined by means of a rule in relation to an antecedent, does not guarantee any succession in the object). In order that this may be known as determined, the relation between the two states must be so conceived (through the understanding's concept of causality) that it is thereby determined with necessity which of them must be taken as coming first, and which second, and not conversely. Thus it is only by subjecting the succession of phenomena to the law of causality that empirical knowledge of them is possible. Without the concept of cause no objective time determination, and hence, without it, no experience.
[Footnote 1: "A reality following on an empty time, that is, a beginning of existence preceded by no state of things, can as little be apprehended as empty time itself."]
[Footnote 2: "If phenomena were things in themselves no one would be able, from the succession of the representations of their manifold, to tell how this is connected in the object."]
That which the relation of cause and effect does for the succession[1] of phenomena, the relation of reciprocity does for their coexistence, and that of substance and accident for their duration. Since absolute time is not an object of perception, the position of phenomena in time cannot be directly determined, but only through a concept of the understanding. When I conclude that two objects (the earth and the moon) must be coexistent, because perceptions of them can follow upon one another in both ways, I do this on the presupposition that the objects themselves reciprocally determine their position in time, hence are not isolated, but stand in causal community or a relation of reciprocal influence. It is only on the condition of reciprocity between phenomena, through which they form a whole, that I can represent them as coexistent.
[Footnote 1: Against the objection that cause and effect are frequently, indeed in most cases, simultaneous (e.g. the heated stove and the warmth of the room), Kant remarks that the question concerns the order of time merely, and not the lapse of time. The ball lying on a soft cushion is simultaneous, it is true, with its effect, the depression in the cushion. "But I, nevertheless, distinguish the two by the time relation of dynamical connection. For if I place the ball on the cushion, its previously smooth surface is followed by a depression, but if there is a depression in the cushion (I know not whence) a leaden ball does not follow from it."]
Coexistence and succession can be represented only in a permanent substratum; they are merely the modes in which the permanent exists. Since time (in which all change takes place, but which itself abides and does not change) in itself cannot be perceived, the substratum of simultaneity and succession must exist in phenomena themselves: the permanent in relation to which alone all the time relations of phenomena can be determined, is substance; that which alters is its determinations, accidents, or special modes of existing. Alteration, i.e., origin and extinction, is true of states only, which can begin and cease to be, and not of substances, which change (sich verandern), i.e., pa.s.s from one mode of existence into another, but do not alter (wechseln), i.e., pa.s.s from non-existence into existence, or the reverse. It is the permanent alone that changes, and its states alone that begin and cease to be. The origin and extinction of substances, or the increase and diminution of their quantum, would remove the sole condition of the empirical unity of time; for the time relations of the coexistent and the successive can be perceived only in an identical substratum, in a permanent, which exists always. The law "From nothing nothing comes, and nothing can return to nothing," is everywhere a.s.sumed and has been frequently advanced, but never yet proved, for, indeed, it is impossible to prove it dogmatically. Here the only possible proof for it, the critical proof, is given: the principle of permanence is a necessary condition of experience. The same argument establishes the principle of sufficient reason, and the principle of the community of substances, together with the unity of the world to be inferred from this. The three a.n.a.logies together a.s.sert: "All phenomena exist in one nature and must so exist, because without such a unity a priori no unity of experience, and therefore no determination of objects in experience, would be possible."-In connection with the Postulates the same transcendental proof is given for a series of other laws of nature a priori, viz., that in the course of the changes in the world-for the causal principle holds only for effects in nature, not for the existence of things as substances-there can be neither blind chance nor a blind necessity (but only a conditional, hence an intelligible, necessity); and, further, that in the series of phenomena, there can be neither leap, nor gap, nor break, and hence no void-in mundo non datur casus, non datur fatum, non datur saltus, non datur hiatus.
While the dynamical principles have to do with the relation of phenomena, whether it be to one another (a.n.a.logies), or to our faculty of cognition (Postulates), the mathematical relate to the quant.i.ty of intuitions and sensations, and furnish the basis for the application of mathematics to natural science.[1] An extensive quant.i.ty is one in which the representation of the parts makes the representation of the whole possible, and so precedes it. I cannot represent a line without drawing it in thought, i.e., without producing all parts of it one after the other, starting from a point. All phenomena are intuited as aggregates or as collections of previously given parts. That which geometry a.s.serts of pure intuition (i.e., the infinite divisibility of lines) holds also of empirical intuition. An intensive quant.i.ty is one which is apprehended only as unity, and in which plurality can be represented only by approximation to negation = 0. Every sensation, consequently every reality in phenomena, has a degree, which, however small it may be, is never the smallest, but can always be still more diminished; and between reality and negation there exists a continuous connection of possible smaller intermediate sensations, or an infinite series of ever decreasing degrees. The property of quant.i.ties, according to which no part in them is the smallest possible part, and no part is simple, is termed their continuity. All phenomena are continuous quant.i.ties, i.e., all their parts are in turn (further divisible) quant.i.ties. Hence it follows, first, that a proof for an empty s.p.a.ce or empty time can never be drawn from experience, and secondly, that all change is also continuous. "It is remarkable," so Kant ends his proof of the Antic.i.p.ation, "that of quant.i.ties in general we can know one quality only a priori, namely, their continuity, while with regard to quality (the real of phenomena) nothing is known to us a priori but their intensive quant.i.ty, that is, that they must have a degree. Everything else is left to experience."
[Footnote 1: In each particular science of nature, science proper (i.e., apodictically certain science) is found only to the extent in which mathematics can be applied therein. For this reason chemistry can never be anything more than a systematic art or experimental doctrine; and psychology not even this, but only a natural history of the inner sense or natural description of the soul. That which Kant's Metaphysical Elements of Natural Science, 1786-in four chapters, Phoronomy, Dynamics, Mechanics, and Phenomenology-advances as pure physics or the metaphysics of corporeal nature, is a doctrine of motion. The fundamental determination of matter (of a somewhat which is to be the object of the external senses) is motion, for it is only through motion that these senses can be affected, and the understanding itself reduces all other predicates of matter to this. The second and most valuable part of the work defines matter as the movable, that which fills s.p.a.ce by its moving force, and recognizes two original forces, repulsive, expansive superficial force or force of contact, by which a body resists the entrance of other bodies into its own s.p.a.ce, and attractive, penetrative force or the force which works at a distance, in virtue of which all particles of matter attract one another. In order to a determinate filling of s.p.a.ce the co-operation of both fundamental forces is required. In opposition to the mechanical theory of the atomists, which explains forces from matter and makes them inhere in it, Kant holds fast to the dynamical view which he had early adopted (cf. p. 324), according to which forces are the primary factor and matter is const.i.tuted by them.]
The outcome of the a.n.a.lytic of Principles sounds bold enough. The understanding is the lawgiver of nature: "It does not draw its laws a priori from nature, but prescribes them to it"; the principles of the pure understanding are the most universal laws of nature, the empirical laws of nature only particular determinations of these. All order and regularity take their origin in the spirit, and are put into objects by this. Universal and necessary knowledge remained inexplicable so long as it was a.s.sumed that the understanding must conform itself to objects; it is at once explained if, conversely, we make objects conform themselves to the understanding. This is a reversal of philosophical opinion which may justly be compared to the Copernican revolution in astronomy; it is just as paradoxical as the latter, but just as incontestably true, and just as rich in results. The sequel will show that this strangely sounding principle, that things conform themselves to our representations and the laws of nature are dependent on the understanding, is calculated to make us humble rather than proud. Our understanding is lawgiver within the limits of its knowledge, no doubt, but it knows only within the limits of its legislative authority; nature, to which it dictates laws, is nothing but a totality of phenomena; beyond the limits of the phenomenal, where its commands become of no effect, its wishes also find no hearing.
In the second edition the a.n.a.lytic of Principles contains as a supplement a "Refutation of Idealism," which, in opposition to Descartes's position that the only immediate experience is inner experience, from which we reach outer experience by inference alone, argues that, conversely, it is only through outer experience, which is immediate experience proper, that inner experience-as the consciousness of my own existence in time-is possible. For all time determination presupposes something permanent in perception, and this permanent something cannot be in me (the mere representation of an external thing), but only actually existing things which I perceive without me. There is, further, a chapter on the "Ground of the Distinction of all Objects in general into Phenomena and Noumena," with an appendix on the Amphiboly (ambiguity) of the Concepts of Reflection. The latter shows that the concepts of comparison: ident.i.ty and difference, agreement and opposition, the internal and the external, matter and form, acquire entirely different meanings when they relate to phenomena and to things in themselves (in other words, to things in their relation to the sensibility, and in relation to the understanding merely); and further, in a criticism of the philosophy of Leibnitz, reproaches him with having intellectualized phenomena, while Locke is said to have sensationalized the concepts of the understanding.
The chapter on the distinction between phenomena and noumena very much lessens the hopes, aroused, perchance, by the establishment of the non-empirical origin of the categories, for an application of these not confined to any experience. Although the categories, that is, are in their origin entirely independent of all experience (so much so that they first make experience possible), they are yet confined in their application within the bounds of possible experience. They "serve only to spell phenomena, that we may be able to read them as experience," and when applied to things in themselves lose all significance.[1] Similarly the principles which spring from them are "nothing more than principles of possible experience," and can be referred to phenomena alone, beyond which they are arbitrary combinations without objective reality. Things in themselves may be thought, but they can never be known; for knowledge, besides the empty thought of an object, implies intuitions which must be subsumed under it or by which the object must be determined. In themselves the pure concepts relate to all that is thinkable, not merely to that which can be experienced, but the schemata, which a.s.sures their applicability in the field of experience, at the same time limit them to this sphere. The schematism makes the immanent use of the categories, and thus a metaphysics of phenomena, possible, but the transcendent use of them, and consequently the metaphysics of the suprasensible, impossible. The case would be different if our intuition were intellectual instead of sensuous, or, which is the same thing, if our understanding were intuitive instead of discursive; then the objects which we think would not need to be given us from another source (through sensuous intuition), but would be themselves produced in the act by which we thought them. The divine spirit may be such an archetypal, creative understanding (intellectus archetypus), which generates objects by its thought; the human spirit is not such, and therefore is confined, with its knowledge, within the circle of possible perception.-The conception of "intellectual intuition" leads to a distinction in regard to things in themselves: in its negative meaning noumenon denotes a thing in so far as it is not the object of our sensuous intuition, in its positive meaning a thing which is the object of a non-sensuous intuition. The positive thing in itself is a problematical concept; its possibility depends on the existence of an intuitive understanding, something about which we are ignorant. The negative thing in itself cannot be known, indeed, but it can be thought; and the representation of it is a possible concept, one which is not self-contradictory[2] (a principle which is of great importance for practical philosophy). Still further, it is an indispensable concept, which shows that the boundary where our intuition ends is not the boundary of the thinkable as well; and even if it affords no positive extension of knowledge[3] it is, nevertheless, very useful, since it sets bounds to the use of the understanding, and thus, as it were, negatively extends our knowledge. That which lies beyond the boundary, the "how are they possible" (Wiemoglichkeit) of things in themselves is shrouded in darkness, but the boundary itself, i.e., the "that they are possible" (Da.s.smoglichkeit), of things in themselves, and the unknowableness of their nature, belongs to that which is within the boundary and lies in the light. In this way Kant believed that the categories of causality and substance might be applied to the relation of things in themselves to phenomena without offending against the prohibition of their transcendent use, since here the boundary appeared only to be touched, and not overstepped.
[Footnote 1: "A pure use of the categories is no doubt possible, that is, not self-contradictory, but it has no kind of objective validity, because it refers to no intuition to which it is meant to impart the unity of an object. The categories remain forever mere functions of thought by which no object can be given to me, but by which I can only think whatever may be given to me in intuition" (Critique of Pure Reason, Max Muller's translation, vol. ii. p. 220). Without the condition of sensuous intuition, for which they supply the synthesis, the categories have no relation to any definite object; for without this condition they contain nothing but the logical function, or the form of the concept, by means of which alone nothing can be known and distinguished as to any object belonging to it (Ibid., pp. 213, 214).]
[Footnote 2: The thing in itself denotes the object in so far as it can be thought by us, but not intuited, and consequently not determined by intuitions, i.e., cannot be known. It is only through the schematism that the categories are limited to phenomena. O. Liebmann (Kant und die Epigonen, p. 27, and pa.s.sim) overlooks or ignores this when he says: Kant here allows himself to "recognize an object emanc.i.p.ated from the forms of knowledge, therefore an irrational object, i.e., to represent something which is not representable-wooden iron." The thing in itself is insensible, but not irrational, and the forms of intuition and forms of thought joined by Liebmann under the t.i.tle forms of knowledge have in Kant a by no means equal rank.]
[Footnote 3: A category by itself, freed from all conditions of intuition (e.g., the representation of a substance which is thought without permanence in time, or of a cause which should not act in time), can yield no definite concept of an object.]
Though the concepts of the understanding possess a cognitive value in the sphere of phenomena alone, the hope still remains of gaining an entrance into the suprasensible sphere through the concepts of reason. It is indubitable that our spirit is conscious of a far higher need than that for the mere connection of phenomena into experience; it is that which cannot be experienced, the Ideas G.o.d, freedom, and immortality, which form the real end of its inquiry. Can this need be satisfied, and how? Can this end be attained, and reality be given to the Ideas? This is the third question of the Critique of Reason.
(c) The Reason's Ideas of the Unconditioned (Transcendental Dialectic).-"All our knowledge begins with the senses, proceeds thence to the understanding, and ends with reason." The understanding is the faculty of rules, reason the faculty of principles. The categories of the understanding are necessary concepts which make experience possible, and which, therefore, can always be given in experience; the Ideas of reason are necessary concepts to which no corresponding object can be given. Each of the Ideas gives expression to an unconditioned. How does the concept of the unconditioned arise, and what service does it perform for knowledge?
As perceptions are connected by the categories in the unity of the understanding, and thus are elevated into experience, so the manifold knowledge of experience needs a higher unity, the unity of reason, in order to form a connected system. This is supplied to it by the Ideas-which, consequently, do not relate directly to the objects of intuition, but only to the understanding and its judgments-in order, through the concept of the unconditioned, to give completion to the knowledge of the understanding, which always moves in the sphere of the conditioned, i.e., to give it the greatest possible unity together with the greatest possible extension. The concept of the absolute grows out of the logical task which is inc.u.mbent on reason, i.e., inference, and it may be best explained from this as a starting point. In the syllogism the judgment a.s.serted in the conclusion is derived from a general rule, the major premise. The validity of this general proposition is, however, itself conditional, dependent on higher conditions. Then, as reason seeks the condition for each conditioned moment, and always commands a further advance in the series of conditions, it acts under the Idea of the totality of conditions, which, nevertheless, since it can never be given in experience, does not denote an object, but only an heuristic maxim for knowledge, the maxim, namely, never to stop with any one condition as ultimate, but always to continue the search further. The Idea of the unconditioned or of the completeness of conditions is a goal which we never attain, but which we are continually to approach. The categories and the principles of the understanding were const.i.tutive principles, the Ideas are regulative merely; their function is to guide the understanding, to give it a direction helpful for the connection of knowledge, not to inform it concerning the actual character of things.
Since reason is the faculty of inference (as the understanding was found to be the faculty of judgment), the forms of the syllogism perform the same service for us in our search for the Ideas as the forms of judgment in the discovery of the categories. To the categorical, hypothetical, and disjunctive syllogisms correspond the three concepts of reason, the soul or the thinking subject, the world or the totality of phenomena, and G.o.d, the original being or the supreme condition of the possibility of all that can be thought. By means of these we refer all inner phenomena to the ego as their (unknown) common subject, think all beings and events in nature as ordered under the comprehensive system of the (never to be experienced) universe, and regard all things as the work of a supreme (unknowable) intelligence. These Ideas are necessary concepts; not accidental products nor mere fancies, but concepts sprung from the nature of reason; their use is legitimate so long as we remember that we can have a problematical concept of objects corresponding to them, but no knowledge of these; that they are problems and rules for knowledge, never objects and instruments of it. Nevertheless the temptation to regard these regulative principles as const.i.tutive and these problems as knowable objects is almost irresistible; for the ground of the involuntary confusion of the required with the given absolute lies not so much in the carelessness of the individual as in the nature of our cognitive faculty. The Ideas carry with them an unavoidable illusion of objective reality, and the sophistical inferences which spring from them are not sophistications of men, but of pure reason itself, are natural misunderstandings from which even the wisest cannot free himself. At best we can succeed in avoiding the error, not in doing away with the transcendental illusion from which it proceeds. We can see through the illusion and avoid the erroneous conclusions built upon it, not shake off the illusion itself.
On this erroneous objective use of the Ideas three so-called sciences are based: speculative psychology, speculative cosmology, and speculative theology, which, together with ontology, const.i.tute the stately structure of the (Wolffian) metaphysics. The Critique of Reason completes its work of destruction when, as Dialectic (Logic cf. Illusion), it follows the refutation of dogmatic ontology-developed in the a.n.a.lytic-which believed that it knew things in themselves through the concepts of the understanding, with a refutation of rational psychology, rational cosmology, and rational theology. It shows that the first is founded on paralogisms, and the second entangled in irreconcilable contradictions, while the third makes vain efforts to prove the existence of the Supreme Being.
(i) The Paralogisms of Rational Psychology. The transcendental self-consciousness or pure ego which accompanies and connects all my representations, the subject of all judgments which I form, is, as the a.n.a.lytic recognized, the presupposition of all knowing (pp. 358-359), but as such it can never become an object of knowledge. We must not make a given object out of the subject which never can be a predicate, nor subst.i.tute a real thinking substance for the logical subject of thought, nor revamp the unity of self-consciousness into the simplicity and identical personality of the soul. The rational psychology of the Wolffian school is guilty of this error, and whatever of proof it advances for the substantiality, simplicity, and personality of the soul, and, by way of deduction, for its immateriality and immortality as well as for its relation to the body, is based upon this subst.i.tution, this ambiguity of the middle term, and therefore upon a quaternio terminorum,-all its conclusions are fallacious. It is allowable and unavoidable to add in thought an absolute subject, the unity of the ego, to inner phenomena;[1] it is inadmissible to treat the Idea of the soul as a knowable thing. In order to be able to apply the category of substance to it, we would have to lay hold of a permanent in intuition such as cannot be found in the inner sense. Empirical psychology, then, alone remains for the extension of our knowledge of mental life, while rational psychology shrivels up from a doctrine into a mere discipline, which watches that the limits of experience are not overstepped. But even as a mere limiting determination it has great value. For, along with the hope of proving the immateriality and immortality of the soul, the fear of seeing them disproved is also dissipated; materialism is just as unfounded as spiritualism, and if the conclusions of the latter concerning the soul as a simple, immaterial substance which survives the death of the body, cannot be proved, yet we need not, for that reason, regard them as erroneous, for the opposite is as little susceptible of demonstration. The whole question belongs not in the forum of knowledge, but in the forum of faith, and that which we gain by the proof that nothing can be determined concerning it by theoretical reasoning (viz., a.s.surance against materialistic objections) is far more valuable than what we lose.
[Footnote 1: The rational concept of the soul as a simple, independent intelligence does not signify an actual being, but only expresses certain principles of systematic unity in the explanation of psychical phenomena, viz., "To regard all determinations as existing in one subject, all powers, as far as possible, as derived from, one fundamental power, all change as belonging to the states of one and the same permanent being, and to represent all phenomena in s.p.a.ce as totally distinct from acts of thought."]
(2) The Antinomies of Rational Cosmology. If in its endeavor to spin metaphysical knowledge concerning the nature of the spirit and the existence of the soul after death out of the concept of the thinking ego the reason falls into the snare of an ambiguous terminus medius, the difficulties which frustrate its attempts to use the Idea of the world in the extension of its knowledge a priori are of quite a different character. Here the formal correctness of the method of inference is not open to attack. It may be proved with absolute strictness (and in the apagogical or indirect form, from the impossibility of the contrary) that the world has a beginning in time, and also that it is limited in s.p.a.ce; that every compound substance consists of simple parts; that, besides the causality according to the laws of nature, there is a causality through freedom, and that an absolutely necessary Being exists, either as a part of the world or as the cause of it. But the contrary may be proved with equal stringency (and indirectly, as before): The world is infinite in s.p.a.ce and time; there is nothing simple in the world; there is no freedom, but everything in the world takes place entirely according to the laws of nature; and there exists no absolutely necessary Being either within the world or without it. This is the famous doctrine of the conflict of the four cosmological theses and ant.i.theses or of the Antinomy of Pure Reason, the discovery of which indubitably exercised a determining influence upon the whole course of the Kantian Critique of Reason, and which forms one of its poles. The transcendental idealism, the distinction between phenomena and noumena, and the limitation of knowledge to phenomena, all receive significant confirmation from the Ant.i.thetic. Without the critical idealism (that which is intuited in s.p.a.ce and time, and known through the categories, is merely the phenomenon of things, whose "in itself" is unknowable), the antinomies would be insoluble. How is reason to act in view of the conflict? The grounds for the ant.i.theses are just as conclusive as those for the theses; on neither side is there a preponderance which could decide the result. Ought reason to agree with both parties or with neither?
The solution distinguishes the first two antinomies, as the mathematical, from the second two, as the dynamical antinomies; in the former, since it is a question of the composition and division of quanta, the conditions may be h.o.m.ogeneous with the conditioned, in the latter, heterogeneous. In the former, thesis and ant.i.thesis are alike false, since both start from the inadmissible a.s.sumption that the universe (the complete series of phenomena) is given, while in fact it is only required of us (is an Idea). The world does not exist in itself, but only in the empirical regress of phenomenal conditions, in which we never can reach infinity and never the limitation of the world by an empty s.p.a.ce or an antecedent empty time, for infinite s.p.a.ce, like empty s.p.a.ce (and the same holds in regard to time), is not perceivable. Consequently the quant.i.ty of the world is neither finite nor infinite. The question of the quant.i.ty of the world is unanswerable, because the concept of a sense-world existing by itself (before the regress) is self-contradictory. Similarly the problem whether the composite consists of simple elements is insoluble, because the a.s.sumption that the phenomenon of body is a thing in itself, which, antecedent to all experience, contains all the parts that can be reached in experience-in other words, that representations exist outside of the representative faculty-is absurd. Matter is infinitely divisible, no doubt, yet it does not consist of infinitely numerous parts, and just as little of a definite number of simple parts, but the parts exist merely in the representation of them, in the division (decomposition), and this goes as far as possible experience extends. The case is different with the dynamical antinomies, where thesis and ant.i.thesis can both be true, in so far as the former is referred to things in themselves and the latter to phenomena. The contradiction vanishes if we take that which the thesis a.s.serts and the ant.i.thesis denies in different senses. The fact that in the world of phenomena the causal nexus proceeds without interruption and without end, so that there is no room in it either for an absolutely necessary Being or for freedom, does not conflict with this other, that beyond the world of sense there may exist an omnipotent, omniscient cause of the world, and an intelligible freedom as the ground of our empirically necessary actions. "May exist," since for the critical philosopher, who has learned that every extension of knowledge beyond the limits of experience is impossible, the question can concern only the conceivability of the world-ground and of freedom. This possibility is amply sufficient to give a support for faith, as, on the other hand, it is indispensable in order to satisfy at once the demands of the understanding and of reason, especially to satisfy their practical interests. For if it were not possible to resolve the apparent contradiction, and to show its members capable of reconciliation, it would be all over either with the possibility of experiential knowledge or with the basis of ethics and religion. Without unbroken causal connection, no nature; without freedom, no morality; and without a Deity, no religion. Of special interest is the solution of the third antinomy, which is accomplished by means of the valuable (though in the form in which it is given by Kant, untenable) conception of the intelligible character.[1] Man is a citizen of two worlds. As a being of the senses (phenomenon) he is subject in his volition and action to the control of natural necessity, while as a being of reason (thing in itself) he is free. For science his acts are the inevitable results of precedent phenomena, which, in turn, are themselves empirically caused; nevertheless moral judgment holds him responsible for his acts. In the one case, they are referred to his empirical character, in the other, to his intelligible character. Man cannot act otherwise than he does act, if he be what he is, but he need not be as he is; the moral const.i.tution of the intelligible character, which reflects itself in the empirical character, is his own work, and its radical transformation (moral regeneration) his duty, the fulfillment of which is demanded, and, hence, of necessity possible.
[Footnote 1: On the difficulties in the way of this theory and the possibility of their removal cf. R. Falckenberg, Ueber den intelligiblen Character, zur Kritik der Kantischen Freiheitslehre (from the Zeitschrift fur Philosophie, vol. lxxv.), Halle, 1879.]
(3) Speculative Theology. The principle of complete determination, according to which of all the possible predicates of things, as compared with their opposites, one must belong to each thing, relates the thing to be determined to the sum of all possible predicates or the Idea of an ens realissimum, which, since it is the representation of a single being, may be called the Ideal of pure reason. From this prototype things, as its imperfect copies, derive the material of their possibility; all their manifold determinations are simply so many modes of limiting the concept of the highest reality, which is their common substratum, just as all figures are possible only as different ways of limiting infinite s.p.a.ce. Or better: the derivative beings are not related to the ideal of the original Being as limitations to the sum of the highest reality (on which view the Supreme Being would be conceived as an aggregate consisting of the derivative beings, whereas these presuppose it, and hence cannot const.i.tute it), but as consequences to a ground. But reason does not remain content with this entirely legitimate thought of the dependence of finite things on the ideal of the Being of all beings, as a relation of concepts to the Idea, but, dazzled by an irresistible illusion, proceeds to realize, to hypostatize, and to personify this ideal, and, since she herself is dimly conscious of the illegitimacy of such a transformation of the mere Idea into a given object, devises arguments for the existence of G.o.d. Reason, moreover, would scarcely be induced to regard a mere creation of its thought as a real being, if it were not compelled from another direction to seek a resting place somewhere in the regress of conditions, and to think the empirical reality of the contingent world as founded upon the rock of something absolutely necessary. There is no being, however, which appears more fit for the prerogative of absolute necessity than that one the concept of which contains the therefore to every wherefore, and is in no respect defective; in other words, rational theology joins the rational ideal of the most perfect Being with the fourth cosmological Idea of the absolutely necessary Being.
The proof of the existence of G.o.d may be attempted in three ways: we may argue the existence of a supreme cause either by starting from a definite experience (the special const.i.tution and order of the sense-world, that is, its purposiveness), or from an indefinite experience (any existence whatever), or, finally, abstracting from all experience, from mere concepts a priori. But neither the empirical nor the transcendent nor the intermediate line of thought leads to the goal. The most impressive and popular of the proofs is the physico-theological argument. But even if we gratuitously admit the a.n.a.logy of natural products with the works of human art (for the argument is not able to prove that the purposive arrangement of the things in the world, which we observe with admiration, is contingent, and could only have been produced by an ordering, rational principle, not self-produced by their own nature according to general mechanical laws), this can yield an inference only to an intelligent author of the purposive form of the world, and not to an author of its matter, only, therefore, to a world-architect, not to a world-creator. Further, since the cause must be proportionate to the effect, this argument can prove only a very wise and wonderfully powerful, but not an omniscient and omnipotent, designer, and so cannot give any definite concept of the supreme cause of the world. In leaping from the contingency of the purposive order of the world to the existence of something absolutely necessary and thence to an all-comprehensive reality, the teleological argument abandons the ground of experience and pa.s.ses over into the cosmological argument, which in its turn is merely a concealed ontological argument (these two differ only in the fact that the cosmological proof argues from the antecedently given absolute necessity of a being to its unlimited reality, and the ontological, conversely, from supreme reality to necessary existence). The weaknesses of the cosmological argument in its first half consist in the fact that, in the inference from the contingent to a cause for it, it oversteps the boundary of the sense-world, and, in the inference from the impossibility of an infinite series of conditions to a first cause, it employs the subjective principle of investigation-to a.s.sume hypothetically a necessary ultimate ground in behalf of the systematic unity of knowledge-as an objective principle applying to things in themselves. The ontological argument, finally, which the two nominally empirical arguments hoped to avoid, but in which in the end they were forced to take refuge, goes to wreck on the impossibility of dragging out of an idea the existence of the object corresponding to it. Existence denotes nothing further than the position of the subject with all the marks which are thought in its concept-that is, its relation to our knowledge, but does not itself belong to the predicates of the concept, and hence cannot be a.n.a.lytically derived from the latter. The content of the concept is not enriched by the addition of being; a hundred real dollars do not contain a penny more than a hundred conceived dollars. All existential propositions are synthetic; hence the existence of G.o.d cannot be demonstrated from the concept of G.o.d. It is a contradiction, to be sure, to say that G.o.d is not almighty, just as it is a contradiction to deny that a triangle has three angles: if posit the concept I must not remove the predicate which necessarily belongs to it. If I remove the subject, however, together with its predicate (the almighty G.o.d is not), no contradiction arises, for in that case nothing remains to be contradicted.
Thus all the proofs for the existence of a necessary being are shown to be illusory, and the basis of speculative theology uncertain. Nevertheless the idea of G.o.d retains its validity, and the perception of the inability of reason to demonstrate its objective reality on theoretical grounds has great value. For though the existence of G.o.d cannot be proved, it is true, by way of recompense, that it cannot be disproved; the same grounds which show us that the a.s.sertion of his existence is based on a weak foundation suffice also to prove every contrary a.s.sertion unfounded. And should practical motives present themselves to turn the scale in favor of the a.s.sumption of a supreme and all-sufficient Being, reason would be obliged to take sides and to follow these grounds, which, it is true, are not objectively sufficient,[1] but still preponderant, and than which we know none better. After, however, the objective reality of the idea of G.o.d is guaranteed from the standpoint of ethics, there remains for transcendental theology the important negative duty ("censorship," Censor) of exactly determining the concept of the most perfect Being (as a being which through understanding and freedom contains the first ground of all other things), of removing from it all impure elements, and of putting an end to all opposite a.s.sertions, whether atheistic, deistic (deism maintains the possibility of knowing the existence of an original being, but declares all further determination of this being impossible), or (in the dogmatic sense) anthropomorphic. Theism is entirely possible apart from a mistaken anthropomorphism, in so far as through the predicates which we take from inner experience (understanding and will) we do not determine the concept of G.o.d as he is in himself, but only a.n.a.logically[2] in his relation to the world. That concept serves only to aid us in our contemplation of the world,[3] not as a means of knowing the Supreme Being himself. For speculative purposes it remains a mere ideal, yet a perfectly faultless one, which completes and crowns the whole of human knowledge.
[Footnote 1: "They need favor to supply their lack of legitimate claims." Of themselves alone, therefore, they are unable to yield any theological knowledge, but they are fitted to prepare the understanding for it, and to give emphasis to other possible (moral) proofs.]
[Footnote 2: We halt at the boundary of the legitimate use of reason, without overstepping it, when we limit our judgment to the relation of the world to the Supreme Being, and in this allow ourselves a symbolical anthropomorphism only, which in reality has reference to our language alone and not to the object.]
[Footnote 3: We are compelled to look on the world as if it were the work of a supreme intelligence and will. "We may confidently derive the phenomena of the world and their existence from other (phenomena), as if no necessary being existed, and yet unceasingly strive after completeness in the derivation, as though such a being were presupposed as a supreme ground." In short, physical (mechanical) explanation, and a theistic point of view or teleological judgment.]
Thus the value of the Ideas is twofold. By showing the untenable ness of atheism, fatalism, and naturalism, they I clear the way for the objects of faith. By providing natural science with the standpoint of a systematical unity through teleological connection, they make an extension of the use of the understanding possible within the realm of experience,[1] though not beyond it. The systematic development of the Kantian teleology, which is here indicated in general outlines only, is found in the second part of the Critique of Judgment; while the practical philosophy, which furnishes the only possible proof, the moral proof, for the reality of the Ideas, erects on the site left free by the removal of the airy summer-houses of dogmatic metaphysics the solid mansion of critical metaphysics, that is, the metaphysics of duties and of hopes. "I was obliged to destroy knowledge in order to make room for faith." The transition from the impossible theoretical or speculative knowledge of things in themselves to the possible "practical knowledge" of them (the belief that there is a G.o.d and a future world) is given in the Doctrine of Method, which is divided into four parts (the Discipline, the Canon, the Architectonic, and the History of Pure Reason), in its second chapter. There, in the ideal of the Summum Bonum, the proof is brought forward for the validity of the Ideas G.o.d, freedom, and immortality, as postulates inseparable from moral obligation; and by a cautious investigation of the three stages of a.s.sent (opinion, knowledge, and belief) both doctrinal and moral belief are a.s.signed their places in the system of the kinds of knowledge.
[Footnote 1: The principle to regard all order in the world (e.g., the shape of the earth, mountains, and seas, the members of animal bodies) as if it proceeded from the design of a supreme reason leads the investigator on to various discoveries.]
We may now sum up the results of the three parts of Kant's theoretical philosophy. The pure intuitions, the categories, and the Ideas are functions of the spirit, and afford non-empirical (erfahrungsfreie) knowledge concerning the objects of possible experience (and concerning the possibility of knowledge). The first make universal and necessary knowledge possible in relation to the forms under which objects can be given to us; the second make a similarly apodictic knowledge possible in relation to the forms under which phenomena must be thought; the third make possible a judgment of phenomena differing from this knowledge, yet not in conflict with it. The categories and the Ideas, moreover, yield problematical concepts of objects which are not given to us in intuition, but which may exist outside of s.p.a.ce and time: things in themselves cannot be known, it is true, but they can be thought, a fact of importance in case we should be a.s.sured of their existence in some other way than by sensuous intuition.
The determination of the limits of speculative reason is finished. All knowing and all demonstration is limited to phenomena or possible experience. But the boundary of that which can be experienced is not the boundary of that which is, still less of that which ought to be; the boundary of theoretical reason is not the boundary of practical reason. We ought to act morally; in order to be able to do this we must ascribe to ourselves the power to initiate a series of events; and, in general, we are warranted in a.s.suming everything the non-a.s.sumption of which makes moral action impossible. If we were merely theoretical, merely experiential beings, we should lack all occasion to suppose a second, intelligible world behind and above the world of phenomena; but we are volitional and active beings under laws of reason, and though we are unable to know things in themselves, yet we may and must postulate them-our freedom, G.o.d, and immortality. For not only that which is a condition of experience is true and necessary, but that, also, which is a condition of morality. The discovery of the laws and conditions of morality is the mission of practical philosophy.
2. Theory of Ethics.
The investigation now turns from the laws of nature, which express a "must," to the laws of will, in which an "ought" is expressed, and by which certain actions are not compelled, but prescribed. (If we were merely rational, and not at the same time sensuous beings, the moral law would determine the will in the form of a natural law; since, however, the constant possibility of deviation is given in the sensibility, or, rather, the moral standpoint can only be attained by conquering the sensuous impulses, therefore the moral law speaks to us in the form of an "ought," of an imperative.) Among the laws of the will or imperatives, also, there are some which possess the character of absolute necessity and universality, and which, consequently, are a priori. As the understanding dictates laws to the phenomenal world, so practical reason gives a law to itself, is autonomous; and as the a priori laws of nature relate only to the form of the objects of experience, so the moral law determines not the content, but only the form of volition: "Act only on that maxim whereby thou canst at the same time will that it should become a universal law." The law of practical reason is a "categorical imperative." What does this designation mean, and what is the basis of the formula of the moral law which has just been given?
Practical principles are either subjectively valid, in which case they are termed maxims (volitional principles of the individual), or objectively valid, when they are called imperatives or precepts. The latter are either valid under certain conditions (If you wish to become a clergyman you must study theology; he who would prosper as a merchant must not cheat his customers), or unconditionally valid (Thou shalt not lie). All prudential or technical rules are hypothetical imperatives, the moral law is a categorical imperative. The injunction to be truthful is not connected with the condition that we intend to act morally, but this general purpose, together with all the special purposes belonging to it, to avoid lying, etc., is demanded unconditionally and of everyone-as surely as we are rational beings we are under moral obligation, not in order to reputation here below and happiness above, but without all "ifs" and "in order to's." Thou shalt unconditionally, whatever be the outcome. And as the moral law is independent of every end to be attained, so it suffers neither increase nor diminution in its binding force, whether men obey it or not. It has absolute authority, no matter whether it is fulfilled frequently or seldom, nay, whether it is fulfilled anywhere or at any time whatsoever in the world!
There is an important difference between the good which we are under obligation to do and the evil which we are under obligation not to do, and the goods and ills which we seek and avoid. The goods are always relatively good only, good for something-as means to ends-and a bad use can be made of all that nature and fortune give us as well as a good one. That which duty commands is an end in itself, in itself good, absolutely worthful, and no misuse of it is possible. It might be supposed that pleasure, that happiness is an ultimate end. But men have very different opinions in regard to what is pleasant, one holding one thing pleasurable and another another. It is impossible to discover by empirical methods what duty demands of all men alike and under all circ.u.mstances; the appeal is to our reason, not to our sensibility. If happiness were the end of rational beings, then nature had endowed us but poorly for it, since instead of an unfailing instinct she has given us the weak and deceitful reason as a guide, which, with its train, culture, science, art, and luxury, has brought more trouble than satisfaction to mankind. Man has a destiny other than well-being, and a higher one-the formation of good dispositions: here we have the only thing in the whole world that can never be used for evil, the only thing that does not borrow its value from a higher end, but itself originally and inalienably contains it, and that gives value to all else that merits esteem. "Nothing can possibly be conceived in the world, or even out of it, which can be called good without qualification, except a good will." Understanding, courage, moderation, and whatever other mental gifts or praiseworthy qualities of temperament may be cited, as also the gifts of fortune, "are undoubtedly good and desirable in many respects, but they may also become extremely evil and mischievous, if the will which is to make use of them is not good." These are the cla.s.sic words with which Kant commences the Foundation of the Metaphysics of Ethics.
When does the will deserve the predicate "good"? Let us listen to the popular moral consciousness, which distinguishes three grades of moral recognition. He who refrains from that which is contrary to duty, no matter from what motives-as, for example, the shopkeeper who does not cheat because he knows that honesty is the best policy-receives moderate praise for irreproachable outward behavior. We bestow warmer praise and encouragement on him whom ambition impels to industry, kind feeling to beneficence, and pity to render a.s.sistance. But he alone earns our esteem who does his duty for duty's sake. Only in this third case, where not merely the external action, nor merely the impulse of a happy disposition, but the will itself, the maxim, is in harmony with the moral law, where the good is done for the sake of the good, do we find true morality, that unconditioned, self-grounded worth. The man who does that which is in accordance with duty out of reflection on its advantages, and he who does it from immediate-always unreliable-inclination, acts legally; he alone acts morally who, without listening to advantage and inclination, takes up the law into his disposition, and does his duty because it is duty. The sole moral motive is the consciousness of duty, respect for the moral lazy[1]
[Footnote 1: The respect or reverence which the law, and, derivatively, the person in whom it is realized, compel from us, is, as self-produced through a concept of reason and as the only feeling which can be known a priori, specifically different from all feelings of inclination or fear awakened by sensuous influences. As it strengthens and raises our rational nature, the consciousness of our freedom and of our high destination, but, at the same time, humbles our sensibility, there is mingled with the joy of exaltation a certain pain, which permits no intimate affection for the stern and sublime law. It is not quite willingly that we pay our respect-just because of the depressing effect which this feeling exerts on our self-love.]
Here Kant is threatened by a danger which he does not succeed in escaping. The moral law demands perfect purity in our maxims; only the idea of duty, not an inclination, is to determine the will. Quite right. Further, the one judging is himself never absolutely certain, even when his own volition is concerned, that no motives of pleasure have mingled with the feeling of duty in contributing to the right action, unless that which was morally demanded has been contrary to all his inclinations. When a person who is not in need and who is free from cupidity leaves the money-box intrusted to his care untouched, or when a man who loves life overcomes thoughts of suicide, I may a.s.sume that the former was sufficiently protected against the temptation by his moderation, and the other by his cheerful disposition, and I rate their behavior as merely legal. When, on the other hand, an official inclined to extravagance faithfully manages the funds intrusted to him, or one who is oppressed by hopeless misery preserves his life, although he does not love it, then I may ascribe the abstinence from wrongdoing to moral principles. This, too, may be admitted. We are certain of the mo