History of Modern Philosophy Part 15
[Footnote 1: Will and practical reason are identical. The definition runs: Will is the faculty of acting in accordance with the representation of laws.]
The grounds which establish the derivation of the moral law from the will or reason itself exclude at the same time every material determination of it. If the categorical imperative posited definite ends for the will, if it prescribed a direction to definite objects, it could neither be known a priori nor be valid for all rational beings: its apodictic character forbids the admission of empirical elements of every sort.[1] If we think away all content from the law we retain the form of universal legality,[2] and gain the formula: "Act so that the maxim of thy will can always at the same time hold good as a principle of universal legislation." The possibility of conceiving the principle of volition as a universal law of nature is the criterion of morality. If you are in doubt concerning the moral character of an action or motive simply ask yourself the question, What would become of humanity if everyone were to act according to the same principle? If no one could trust the word of another, or count on aid from others, or be sure of his property and his life, then no social life would be possible. Even a band of robbers cannot exist unless certain laws are respected as inviolable duties.
[Footnote 1: The moral law, therefore, is independent of all experience in three respects, as to its origin, its content, and its validity. It springs from reason, it contains a formal precept only, and its validity is not concerned, whether it meets with obedience or not. It declares what ought to be done, even though this never should be done.]
[Footnote 2: The "formal principle" of the Kantian ethics has met very varied criticism. Among others Edmund Pfleiderer (Kantischer Kritizismus und Englische Philosophie, 1881) and Zeller express themselves unfavorably, Fortlage and Liebmann (Zur a.n.a.lysis der Wirklichkeit, 2d ed., 1880, p. 671) favorably.]
It was indispensable to free the supreme formula of the moral law from all material determinations, i.e., limitations. This does not prevent us, however, from afterward giving the abstract outline a more concrete coloring. First of all, the concept of the dignity of persons in contrast to the utility of things offers itself as an aid to explanation and specialization. Things are means whose worth is always relative, consisting in the useful or pleasant effects which they exercise, in the satisfaction of a need or of the taste, they can be replaced by other means, which fulfill the same purpose, and they have a (market or fancy) value; while that which is above all value and admits of no equivalent has an ultimate worth or dignity, and is an object of respect. The legislation which determines all worth, and with this the disposition which corresponds to it, has a dignity, an unconditioned, incomparable worth, and lends its subjects, rational beings framed for morality, the advantage of being ends in themselves. "Therefore morality, and humanity so far as it is capable of morality, is that which alone possesses dignity." Accordingly the following formulation of the moral law may be held equivalent to the first: "So act as to treat humanity, whether in thine own person or in that of any other, in every case as an end, never as a means only."
A further addition to the abstract formula of the categorical imperative results from the discussion of the question, What universal ends admit of subsumption under it, i.e., stand the test of fitness to be principles of a universal legislation? Here again Kant stands forth as an arbiter between the contending parties, and, with a firm grasp, combines the useful elements from both sides after winnowing them out from the worthless principles. The majority of the eudemonistic systems, along with the promotion of private welfare, prescribe the furtherance of universal good without being able to indicate at what point the pursuit of personal welfare should give way to regard for the good of others, while in the perfectionist systems the social element is wanting or retreats unduly into the background. The principle of happiness represents moral empiricism, the principle of perfection moral rationalism. Kant resolves the ant.i.thesis by restricting the theses of the respective parties within their proper limits: "Make thine own perfection and the happiness of others the end of thy actions;" these are the only ends which are at the same time duties. The perfection of others is excluded by the fact that I cannot impart to anyone a good disposition, for everyone must acquire it for himself; personal happiness by the fact that everyone seeks it naturally.
This ant.i.thesis (which is crossed by the further distinction between perfect, i.e., indispensable, and imperfect duties) serves as a basis for the division of moral duties into duties toward ourselves and duties toward other men.[1] The former enjoin the preservation and development of our natural and moral powers, the latter are duties of obligation (of respect) or of merit (of love). Since no one can obligate me to feel, we are to understand by love not the pathological love of complacency, but only the active love of benevolence or practical sympathy. Since it is just as impossible that the increase of the evils in the world should be a duty, the enervating and useless excitation of pity, which adds to the pain of the sufferer the sympathetic pain of the spectator, is to be struck off the list of virtues, and active readiness to aid put in its place. In friendship love and respect unite in exact equipoise. Veracity is one of the duties toward self; lying is an abandonment of human dignity and under no conditions allowable, not even if life depends on it.
[Footnote 1: All duties are toward men, not toward supra-human or infra-human beings. That which we commonly term duties toward animals, likewise the so-called duties toward G.o.d, are in reality duties toward ourselves. Cruelty to animals is immoral, because our sympathies are blunted by it. To have religion is a duty to ourselves, because the view of moral laws as laws of G.o.d is an aid to morality.]
After it has been settled what the categorical imperative enjoins, the further problem awaits us of explaining how it is possible. The categorical imperative is possible only on I the presupposition of our freedom. Only a free being gives laws to itself, just as an autonomous being alone is free. In theoretical philosophy the pure self-consciousness, the "I think," denoted a point where the thing in itself manifests to us not its nature, indeed, but its existence. The same holds true in practical philosophy of the moral law. The incontestable fact of the moral law empowers me to rank myself in a higher order of things than the merely phenomenal order, and in another causal relation than that of the merely necessary (mechanical) causation of nature, to regard myself as a legislative member of an intelligible world, and one independent of sensuous impulses-in short, to regard myself as free. Freedom is the ratio essendi of the self-given moral law, the latter the ratio cognoscendi of freedom. The law would have no meaning if we did not possess the power to obey it: I can because I ought. It is true that freedom is a mere Idea, whose object can never be given to me in an experience, and whose reality, consequently, cannot be objectively known and proved, but nevertheless, is required with satisfactory subjective necessity as the condition of the moral law and of the possibility of its fulfillment. I may not say it is certain, but, with safety, I am certain that I am free. Freedom is not a dogmatic proposition of theoretical reason, but a postulate of practical reason; and the latter holds the primacy over the former to this extent, that it can require the former to show that certain transcendent Ideas of the suprasensible, which are most intimately connected with moral obligation, are compatible with the principles of the understanding. It was just in view of the practical interests involved in the rational concepts G.o.d, freedom, immortality, that it was so important to establish, at least, their possibility (their conceivability without contradiction). That, therefore, which the Dialectic recognized as possible is in the Ethics shown to be real: Whoever seeks to fulfill his moral destiny-and this is the duty of every man-must not doubt concerning the conditions of its possible fulfillment, must, in spite of their incomprehensibility, believe in freedom and a suprasensible world. They are both postulates of practical reason, i.e., a.s.sumptions concerning that which is in behalf of that which ought to be. Naturally the interests of the understanding must not be infringed upon by those of the will. The principle of the complete causal determination of events retains its validity unimpeached for the sphere of the knowledge of the understanding, that is, for the realm of phenomena; while, on the other hand, it remains permissible for us to postulate another kind of causality for the realm of things in themselves, although we can have no idea of its how, and to ascribe to ourselves a free intelligible character.
While the Idea of freedom can be derived directly from the moral law as a postulate thereof, the proof of the reality of the two other Ideas is effected indirectly by means of the concept of the "highest good," in which reason conceives a union of perfect virtue and perfect happiness. The moral law requires absolute correspondence between the disposition and the commands of reason, or holiness of will. But besides this supreme good (bonum supremum) of completed morality, the highest good (bonum consummatum) further contains a degree of happiness corresponding to the degree of virtue. Everyone agrees in the judgment that, by rights, things should go well with the virtuous and ill with the wicked, though this must not imply any deduction from the principle previously announced that the least impulse of self-interest causes the maxim to forfeit its worth: the motive of the will must never be happiness, but always the being worthy of happiness. The first element in the highest good yields the argument for immortality, and the second the argument for the existence of G.o.d. (1) Perfect correspondence between the will and the law never occurs in this life, because the sensibility never allows us to attain a permanently good disposition, armed against every temptation; our will can never be holy, but at best virtuous, and our lawful disposition never escape the consciousness of a constant tendency to transgression, or at least of impurity. Since, nevertheless, the demands of the (Christian) moral law continue in their unrelenting stringency to be the standard, we are justified in the hope of an unlimited continuation of our existence, in order that by constant progress in goodness we may draw nearer in infinitum to the ideal of holiness. (2) The establishment of a rational proportion between happiness and virtue is also not to be expected until the future life, for too often on earth it is the evil man who prospers, while the good man suffers. A justly proportioned distribution of rewards and punishment can only be expected from an infinite power, wisdom, and goodness, which rules the moral world even as it has created the natural world. Deity alone is able to bring the physical and moral realms into harmony, and to establish the due relation between well-being and right action. This, the moral argument, is the only possible proof for the existence of G.o.d. Theology is not possible as speculative, but only as moral theology. The cert.i.tude of faith, moreover, is only different from, not less than, the certainty of knowledge, in so far as it brings with it not an objective, but a subjective, although universally valid, necessity. Hence it is better to speak of belief in G.o.d as a need of the reason than as a duty; while a logical error, not a moral one, should be charged against the atheist. The atheist is blind to the intimate connection which exists between the highest good and the Ideas of the reason; he does not see that G.o.d, freedom, and immortality are the indispensable conditions of the realization of this ideal.
Thus faith is based upon duty without being itself duty: ethics is the basis of religion, which consists in our regarding moral laws as (instar, as if they were) divine commands. They are not valid or obligatory because G.o.d has given them (this would be heteronomy), but they should be regarded as divine because they are necessary laws of reason. Religion differs from ethics only in its form, not in its content, in that it adds to the conception of duty the idea of G.o.d as a moral lawgiver, and thus increases the influence of this conception on the will; it is simply a means for the promotion of morality. Since, however, besides natural religion or the pure faith of reason (the moral law and the moral postulates), the historical religions contain statutory determinations or a doctrinal faith, it becomes the duty of the critical philosopher to inquire how much of this positive admixture can be justified at the bar of reason. In this investigation the question of the divine revelation of dogma and ceremonial laws is neither supra-rationalistically affirmed nor naturalistically derived, but rationalistically treated as an open question.
The four essays combined under the t.i.tle Religion within the Limits of Reason Only treat of the Radical Evil in Human Nature, the Conflict of the Good Principle with the Evil for the Mastery over Man, the Victory of the Good Principle over the Evil and the Founding of a Kingdom of G.o.d upon Earth, and, finally, Service and False Service under the Dominion of the Good Principle, or Religion and Priestcraft; or more briefly, the fall, the atonement (the Christ-idea), the Church, and true and false service of G.o.d.
(1) The individual evil deeds of the empirical character point to an original fault of the intelligible character, a propensity to evil dwelling in man and not further deducible. This, although it is self-incurred, may be called natural and innate, and consists (not in the sensibility merely, but) in a freely chosen reversal of the moral order of our maxims, in virtue of which the maxim of duty or morality is subordinated to that of well-being or self-love instead of being placed above it, and that which should be the supreme condition of all satisfaction is degraded into a mere means thereto. Morality is therefore a conversion from the evil to the good, and requires a complete revolution in the disposition, the putting on of a new man, a "new birth," which, an act out of time, can manifest itself in the temporal world of phenomena only as a gradual transformation in conduct, as a continuous advance, but which, we may hope, is judged by him who knows the heart, who regards the disposition instead of particular imperfect actions, as a completed unity.
(2) By the eternal Son of G.o.d, for whose sake G.o.d created all things, we are to understand the ideal of the perfect man, which in truth forms the end of creation, and is come down from heaven, etc. To believe in Christ means to resolve to realize in one's self the ideal of human nature which is well pleasing to G.o.d, or to make the divine disposition of the Son of G.o.d our own, not to believe that this ideal has appeared on earth as an actual man, in the person of Jesus of Nazareth. The only saving faith is the belief of reason in the ideal which Christ represents, and not the historical belief in his person. The vicarious atonement of the ideal man for those who believe on him is to be interpreted to mean that the sufferings and sacrifices (crucifixion of the flesh) imposed by moral conversion, which are due to the sinful man as punishment, are a.s.sumed by the regenerate man: the new Adam bears the sufferings of the old. In the same way as that in which Kant handles the history of Christ and the doctrine of justification, all biblical narratives and ecclesiastical doctrines are in public instruction (from the pulpit) to be interpreted morally, even where the authors themselves had no such meaning in mind.
(3) The Church is a society based upon the laws of virtue, an ethical community or a people of G.o.d, whose members confirm each other in the performance of duty by example and by the profession of a common moral conviction; we are all brothers, the children of one father. Ideally there is only one (the universal, invisible) Church, and its foundation the pure faith of reason; but in consequence of a weakness peculiar to human nature the foundation of an actual church required the addition of a statutory historical faith, with claims to a divine origin, from which a mult.i.tude of visible churches and the ant.i.thesis of orthodox and heretics have sprung. The history of the Church since the establishment of Christianity represents the conflict between the historical faith and the faith of reason; its goal is the submission of the former to the latter, as, indeed, we have already begun to perceive that G.o.d does not require a special service beyond the practice of virtue.
(4) The true service of G.o.d consists in a moral disposition and its manifestation: "All that man supposes himself able to do in order to please G.o.d, beyond living a good life, is false service" False service is the false subordination of the pure faith of reason to the statutory faith, by which the attainment of the goal of religious development is hindered and the laity are brought into dangerous dependence upon the clergy. Priestcraft, hypocrisy, and fanaticism enter in the train of fetich service. The church-faith is destined little by little to make itself superfluous. It has been necessary as a vehicle, as a means for the introduction and extension of the pure religion of morality, and it still remains useful for a time, until humanity shall become of age; with man's entrance on the period of youth and manhood, however, the leading-string of holy traditions, which in its time did good service, becomes unnecessary, nay, finally, a fetter. (This relative appreciation of the positive element in religion, in ant.i.thesis to the unthinking rejection of it by the Illumination, resembles the view of Lessing; cf. pp. 306-309.) Moreover, since it is a duty to be a co-worker in the transition from the historical to the pure religious faith, the clergy must be free as scientific theologians, as scholars and authors to examine the doctrines of faith and to give expression to dissenting opinions, while, as preachers in the pulpit, speaking under commission, they are bound to the creeds. To decide the articles of belief unalterable would be a crime against human nature, whose primal destination is just this-to progress. To renounce illumination means to trample upon the divine rights of reason.
The "General Observations" appended to each division add to the four principle discussions as many collateral inquiries concerning Operations of Grace, Miracles, Mysteries, and Means of Grace, objects of transcendent ideas, which do not properly belong in the sphere of religion within pure reason itself, but which yet border on it. (1) We are entirely incapable of calling forth works of grace, nay, even of indicating the marks by which actual divine illuminations are distinguished from imaginary ones; the supposed experience of heavenly influences belongs in the region of superst.i.tious religious illusion. But their impossibility is just as little susceptible of proof as their reality. Nothing further can be said on the question, save that works of grace may exist, and perhaps must exist in order to supplement our imperfect efforts after virtue; and that everyone, instead of waiting for divine a.s.sistance, should do for his own amendment all that is in his power. (2) Kant judges more sharply in regard to the belief in miracles, which contradict the laws of experience without in the least furthering the performance of our duties. In practical life no one regards miracles as possible; and their limitation to the past and to rare instances does not make them more credible. (3) In so far as the Christian mysteries actually represent impenetrable secrets they have no bearing on moral conduct; so far as they are morally valuable they admit of rational interpretation and thus cease to be mysteries. The Trinity signifies the three moral qualities or powers united in the head of the moral state: the one G.o.d as holy lawgiver, gracious governor, and just judge. (4) The services of the Church have worth as ethical ceremonies, as emblems of the moral disposition (prayer) and of moral fellowship (church attendance, baptism, and the Lord's Supper); but to find in these symbolic ceremonies means of grace and to seek to purchase the favor of G.o.d by them, is an error of the same kind as sorcery and fetichism. The right way leads from virtue to grace, not in the opposite direction; piety without morality is worthless.
The Kantian theory of religion is rationalistic and moralistic. The fact that religion is based on morality should never be a.s.sailed. But the foundation is not the building, the origin not the content and essence of the thing itself. As far as the nature of religion is concerned, the Kantian view does not exclude completion in the direction of Schleiermacher's theory of feeling, just as by its speculative interpretation of the Christian dogmas and its appreciation of the history of religion as a gradual transformation of historical faith into a faith of reason, it points out the path afterward followed by Hegel. The philosophy of religion of the future must be, as some recent attempts aim to be (O. Pfleiderer, Biedermann, Lipsius), a synthesis of Kant, Schleiermacher, and Hegel.
While the moral law requires rightness not only of the action, but also of the disposition, the law of right is satisfied when the act enjoined is performed, no matter from what motives. Legal right, as the sum of the conditions under which the will of the one can consist with the will of others according to a universal law, relates only to enforceable actions, without concerning itself about motives. Private right includes right in things or property, personal right or right of contract, and real-personal right (marriage right); public right is divided into the right of states, of nations, and of citizens of the world. Kant's theory of punishment is original and important. He bases it not upon prudential regard for the protection of society, or the deterrence or reformation of the criminal, but upon the exalted idea of retaliation (jus talionis), which demands that everyone should meet with what his deeds deserve: Eye for eye, life for life. In politics Kant favors democratic theories, though less decidedly than Rousseau and Fichte. As he followed with interest the efforts after freedom manifested in the American and French Revolutions, so he opposed an hereditary n.o.bility as a hindrance to the natural equality of rights, and demanded freedom for the public expression of opinion as the surest means of guarding against revolutions. The only legitimate form of the state is the republican, i.e., that in which the executive power is separated from the legislative power, in contrast to despotism, where they are united in one hand. The best guaranty for just government and civil liberty is offered by const.i.tutional monarchy, in which the people through its representatives exercises the legislative power, the sovereign the executive power, and judges chosen by the people the judicial power. The contract from which we may conceive the state to have arisen is not to be regarded as an historical fact, but as a rational idea or rule, by which we may judge whether the laws are just or not: that which the people as a whole cannot prescribe for itself, this cannot be prescribed for it by the ruler (cf. p. 235). That there is a constant progress-not only of individuals, but-of the race, not merely in technical and intellectual, but also in moral respects, is supported both by rational grounds (without faith in such progress we could not fulfill our duty as co-laborers in it) and by experiential grounds (above all, the unselfish sympathy which all the world gave to the French Revolution); and the never-ending complaint that the times are growing worse proves only that mankind is continually setting up stricter standards for itself. The beginning of history is to be placed at the point where man pa.s.ses out of the condition of innocence, in which instinct rules, and begins to subdue nature, which hitherto he has obeyed. The goal of history, again, is the establishment of the perfect form of the state. Nature itself co-operates with freedom in the gradual transformation of the state based on necessity (Notstaat) into a rational state, inasmuch as selfish compet.i.tion and the commercial spirit require peace, order, and justice for their own security and help to bring them about. And so, further, we need not doubt that humanity will constantly draw nearer to the ideal condition of everlasting peace among the nations (guaranteed by a league of states which shall as a mediator settle disputes between individual states), however impracticable the idea may at present appear.
If the bold declaration of Fortlage, that in Kant the system of absolute truth appeared, is true of any one part of his philosophy, it is true of the practical part, in which Christian morality has found its scientific expression. If we may justly complain that on the basis of his sharp distinction between legality and morality, between legal duty and virtue-duty, Kant took into account only the legal side of the inst.i.tutions of marriage and of the state, overlooking the fact that besides these they have a moral importance and purpose, if we may demand a social ethic as a supplement to his ethics, which is directed to the duties of the individual alone, yet these and other well-founded desiderata may be attained by slight corrections and by the addition of another story to the Kantian edifice, while the foundations are still retained. The bases are immovable. Autonomy, absolute oughtness, the formal character of the law of reason, and the incomparable worth of the pure, disinterested disposition-these are the corner stones of the Kantian, nay, of all morals.
3. Theory of the Beautiful and of Ends in Nature.
We now know the laws which the understanding imposes upon nature and those which reason imposes upon the will. If there is a field in which to be (Sein) and ought to be (Sollen), nature and freedom, which we have thus far been forced to consider ant.i.thetical, are reconciled-and that there is such a field is already deducible from the doctrine of the religious postulates (as practical truths or a.s.sumptions concerning what is, in behalf of what ought to be), and from the hints concerning a progress in history (in which both powers co-operate toward a common goal)-then the source of its laws is evidently to be sought in that faculty which mediates alike between understanding and reason and between knowing and feeling: in Judgment, as the higher faculty of feeling. Judgment, in the general sense, is the faculty of thinking a particular as contained in a universal, and exercises a twofold function: as "determinant" judgment it subsumes the particular under a given universal (a law), as "reflective" it seeks the universal for a given particular. Since the former coincides with the understanding, we are here concerned only with the reflective judgment, judgment in the narrower sense, which does not cognize objects, but judges them, and this according to the principle of purposiveness.[1]
[Footnote 1: The universal laws springing from the understanding, to which every nature must conform to become an object of experience for us, determine nothing concerning the particular form of the given reality; we cannot deduce the special laws of nature from them. Nevertheless the nature of our cognitive faculty does not allow us to accept the empirical manifoldness of our world as contingent, but impels us to regard it as purposive or adapted to our knowledge, and to look upon these special laws as if an intelligence had given them in order to make a system of experience possible.]
This, in turn, is of two kinds. An object is really or objectively purposive (perfect) when it corresponds to its nature or its determination, formally or subjectively purposive (beautiful) when it is conformed to the nature of our cognitive faculty. The perception of purpose is always accompanied by a feeling of pleasure; in the first case, where the pleasure is based on a concept of the object, it is a logical satisfaction, in the second, where it springs only from the harmony of the object with our cognitive powers, aesthetic satisfaction. The objects of the teleological and the aesthetic judgment, the purposive and the beautiful products of nature and art, const.i.tute the desired intermediate field between nature and freedom; and here again the critical question comes up, How, in relation to these, synthetic judgments a priori are possible?
(a) Esthetic Judgment.-The formula holds of Kant's aesthetics as well as of his theoretical and practical philosophy, that his aim is to overcome the opposition between the empirical and the rationalistic theories, and to find a middle course of his own between the two extremes. Neither Burke nor Baumgarten satisfied him. The English aesthetics was sensational, the German, i.e., that of the Wolffian school, rationalistic. The former identified the beautiful with the agreeable, the latter identified it with the perfect or with the conformity of the object to its concept; in the one case, aesthetic appreciation is treated as sensuous pleasure, in the other, it is treated as a lower, confused kind of knowledge, its peculiar nature being in both cases overlooked. In opposition to the sensualization of aesthetic appreciation, its character as judgment must be maintained; and in opposition to its rationalization, its character as feeling. This relation of the Kantian aesthetics to that of his predecessors explains both its fundamental tendency and the elements in it which appear defective and erroneous. In any case, Kant shows himself in this field also an unapproachable master of careful a.n.a.lysis.
The first task of aesthetics is the careful distinction of its object from related phenomena. The beautiful has points of contact with the agreeable, the good, the perfect, the useful, and the true. It is distinguished from the true by the fact that it is not an object of knowledge, but of satisfaction. If we inquire further into the difference between the satisfaction in the beautiful and the satisfaction in the agreeable, in the good (in itself), and in the (good for something, as a means, or in the) useful, which latter three have this in common, that they are objects of appet.i.tion-of sensuous want, of moral will, of prudential desire-it becomes evident that the beautiful pleases through its mere representation (that is, independently of the real existence of the object), and that the delight in the beautiful is a contemplative pleasure. It is for contemplation only, not to be sensuously enjoyed nor put to practical use; and, further, its production is not a universal duty. Sensuous, prudential, or moral appet.i.tion has always an "interest" in the actual existence of the object; the beautiful, on the other hand, calls forth a disinterested satisfaction.
According to quality the beautiful is the object of a disinterested, free (bound by no interest), and sportive satisfaction. According to quant.i.ty and modality the judgment of taste claims universal and necessary validity, without this being based upon concepts. This posits further differences between the beautiful and the agreeable and the good. The good also pleases universally, but it pleases through concepts; the agreeable as well as the beautiful pleases without a concept, but it does not please universally.
That which pleases the reason through the concept is good; that which pleases the senses in sensation is agreeable. That which pleases universally and necessarily without a concept is beautiful. Moral judgment demands the a.s.sent of all, and its universal validity is demonstrable. The judgment concerning the agreeable is not capable of demonstration, but neither does it pretend to possess universal validity; we readily acknowledge that what is pleasant to one need not be so to every other man. In regard to the beautiful, on the contrary, we do not content ourselves with saying that tastes differ, but we expect it to please all. We expect everyone to a.s.sent to our judgment of taste, although it is able to support itself by no proofs.
Here there is a difficulty: since the judgment of taste does not express a characteristic of the object, but a state of mind in the observer, a feeling, a satisfaction, it is purely subjective; and yet it puts forth a claim to be universally communicable. The difficulty can be removed only on the a.s.sumption of a common aesthetic sense, of a corresponding organization of the powers of representation in all men, which yields the common standard for the pleasurableness of the impression. The agreeable appeals to that in man which is different in different individuals, the beautiful to that which functions alike in all; the former addresses itself to the pa.s.sive sensibility, the latter to the active judgment. The agreeable-because of the non-calculable differences in our sensuous inclinations, which are in part conditioned by bodily states-possesses no universality whatever, the good possesses an objective, and the beautiful a subjective universality. The judgment concerning the agreeable has an empirical, that concerning the beautiful an a priori, determining ground: in the former case, the judgment follows the feeling, in the latter, it precedes it.
An object is considered beautiful (for, strictly speaking, we may say only this, not that it is beautiful) when its form puts the powers of the human mind in a state of harmony, brings the intuitive and rational faculties into concordant activity, and produces an agreeable proportion between the imagination and the understanding. In giving the occasion for an harmonious play of the cognitive activities (that is, for an easy combination of the manifold into unity) the beautiful object is purposive for us, for our function of apprehension; it is-here we obtain a determination of the judgment of taste from the standpoint of relation-purposive without a definite purpose. We know perfectly well that a landscape which attracts us has not been specially arranged for the purpose of delighting us, and we do not wish to find in a work of art anything of an intention to please. An object is perfect when it is purposive for itself (corresponds to its concept); useful when it is purposive for our desire (corresponds to a practical intention of man); beautiful when the arrangement of its parts is purposive for the relation between the fancy and understanding of the beholder (corresponds in an unusual degree to the conditions of our apprehension). Perfection is internal (real, objective) purposiveness, and utility is external purposiveness, both for a definite purpose; beauty, on the other hand, is purposiveness without a purpose, formal, subjective purposiveness. The beautiful pleases by its mere form. The satisfaction in the perfect is of a conceptual or intellectual kind, the satisfaction in the beautiful, emotional or aesthetic in character.
The combination of these four determinations yields an exhaustive definition of the beautiful: The beautiful is that which universally and necessarily arouses disinterested satisfaction by its mere form (purposiveness without the representation of a purpose).
Since the pleasurableness of the beautiful rests on the fact that it establishes a pleasing harmony between the imagination and the understanding, hence between sensuous and intellectual apprehension, the aesthetic att.i.tude is possible only in sensuous-rational beings. The agreeable exists for the animal as well, and the good is an object of approval for pure spirits; but the beautiful exists for humanity alone. Kant succeeded in giving very delicate and felicitous verbal expression to these distinctions: the agreeable gratifies (vergnugt) and excites inclination (Neigung); the good is approved (gebilligt) and arouses respect (Achtung); the beautiful "pleases" (gefallt) and finds "favor" (Gunst).
In the progress of the investigation the principle that beauty depends on the form alone, and that the concept, the purpose, the nature of the object is not taken into account at all in aesthetic judgment, experiences limitation. In its full strictness this applies only to a definite and, in fact, a subordinate division of the beautiful, which Kant marks off under the name of pure or free beauty. With this he contrasts adherent beauty, as that which presupposes a generic concept to which its form must correspond and which it must adequately present. Too much a purist not to mark the coming in of an intellectual pleasure as a beclouding of the "purity" of the aesthetic satisfaction, he is still just enough to admit the higher worth of adherent beauty. For almost the whole of artificial beauty and a considerable part of natural beauty belong to this latter division, which we to-day term ideal and characteristic beauty. Examples of free or purely formal beauty are tapestry patterns, arabesques, fountains, flowers, and landscapes, the pleasurableness of which rests simply on the proportion of their form and relations, and not upon their conformity to a presupposed significance and determination of the thing. A building, on the contrary-a dwelling, a summer-house, a temple-is considered beautiful only when we perceive in it not merely harmonious relations of the parts one to another, but also an agreement between the form and the purpose or generic concept: a church must not look like a chalet. Here the external form is compared with an inner nature, and harmony is required between form and content. Adherent beauty is significant and expressive beauty, which, although the satisfaction in it is not "purely" aesthetic, nevertheless stands higher than pure beauty, because it gives to the understanding also something to think, and hence busies the whole spirit.
The a.n.a.lytical investigations concerning the nature of the beautiful receive a valuable supplement in the cla.s.sical definition of genius. Kant gives two definitions of productive talent, one formal and one genetic.
Natural beauty is a beautiful thing; artificial beauty, a beautiful representation of a thing. The gift of agreeably presenting a thing which in itself, perhaps, is ugly, is called taste. To judge of the beautiful it is sufficient to possess taste, but for its production there is still another talent needed, spirit or genius. For an art product can fulfill the demands of taste and yet not aesthetically satisfy; while formally faultless, it may be spiritless.
While beautiful nature looks as though it were art (as though it were calculated for our enjoyment), beautiful art should resemble nature, must not appear to be intentional though, no doubt, it is so, must show a careful but not an overnice adherence to rules (i.e., not one which fetters the powers of the artist). This is the case when the artist bears the rule in himself, that is, when he is gifted. Genius is the innate disposition (through) which (nature) gives rules to art; its characteristics are originality, exemplariness, and unreflectiveness. It does not produce according to definite rules which can be learned, but it is a law in itself, it is original. It creates instinctively without consciousness of the rule, and cannot describe how it produces its results. It creates typical works which impel others to follow, not to imitate. It is only in art that there are geniuses, i.e., spirits who produce that which absolutely cannot be learned, while the great men of science differ only in degree, not in kind, from their imitators and pupils, and that which they discover can be learned by rule.
This establishes the criteria by which genius may be recognized. If we ask by what psychological factors it is produced the answer is as follows: Genius presupposes a certain favorable relation between imagination and reason. Genius is the faculty of aesthetic Ideas, but an aesthetic Idea is a representation of the imagination which animates the mind, which adds to a concept of the understanding much of ineffable thought, much that belongs to the concept but which cannot be comprehended in a definite concept. With the aid of this idea Kant solves the antinomy of the aesthetic judgment. The thesis is: The judgment of taste is not based upon concepts; for otherwise it would admit of controversy (would be determinable by proofs). The ant.i.thesis is: It is based upon concepts; for otherwise we could not contend about it (endeavor to obtain a.s.sent). The two principles are reconcilable, for "concept" is understood differently in the two cases. That which the thesis rightly seeks to exclude from the judgment of beauty is the determinate concept of the understanding; that which the ant.i.thesis with equal justice p.r.o.nounces indispensable is the indeterminate concept, the aesthetic Idea.
The freest play is afforded the imagination by poetry, the highest of all arts, which, with rhetoric ("insidious," on account of its earnest intention to deceive), forms the group termed arts of speech. To the cla.s.s of formative arts belong architecture, sculpture, and painting as the art of design. A third group, the art of the beautiful play of sensations, includes painting as the art of color, and music, which as a "fine" art is placed immediately after poetry, as an "agreeable" art at the very foot of the list, and as the play of tone in the vicinity of the entertaining play of fortune [games of chance] and the witty play of thought. The explanation of the comic (the ludicrous is based, according to Kant, on a sudden transformation of strained expectation into nothing) lays great (indeed exaggerated) weight on the resulting physiological phenomena, the bodily shock which heightens vital feeling and favors health, and which accompanies the alternating tension and relaxation of the mind.
Besides free and adherent beauty, there is still a third kind of aesthetic effect, the Sublime. The beautiful pleases by its bounded form. But also the boundless and formless can exert aesthetic effect: that which is great beyond all comparison we judge sublime. Now this magnitude is either extensive in s.p.a.ce and time or intensive greatness of force or power; accordingly there are two forms of the sublime. That phenomenon which mocks the power of comprehension possessed by the human imagination or surpa.s.ses every measure of our intuition, as the ocean and the starry heavens, is mathematically sublime. That which overcomes all conceivable resistance, as the terrible forces of nature, conflagrations, floods, earthquakes, hurricanes, thunderstorms, is dynamically sublime or mighty. The former is relative to the cognitive, the latter to the appet.i.tive faculty. The beautiful brings the imagination and the understanding into accord; by the sublime the fancy is brought into a certain favorable relation, not directly to be termed harmony, with reason. In the one case there arose a restful, positively pleasurable mood; here a shock is produced, an indirect and negative pleasure proceeding from pain. Since the sublime exceeds the functional capability of our sensuous representations and does violence to the imagination, we first feel small at the sight of the absolutely great, and incapable of compa.s.sing it with our sensuous glance. The sensibility is not equal to the impression; this at first seems contrary to purpose and violent. This humiliating impression, however, is quickly followed by a reaction, and the vital forces, which were at first checked, are stimulated to the more lively activity. Moreover, it is the sensuous part of man which is humbled and the spiritual part that is exalted: the overthrow of sensibility becomes a triumph for reason. The sight of the sublime, that is, awakens the Idea of the unconditioned, of the infinite. This Idea can never be adequately presented by an intuition, but can be aroused only by the inadequacy of all that is sensuous to present it; the infinite is presented through the impossibility of presenting it. We cannot intuit the infinite, but we can think it. In comparison with reason (as the faculty of Ideas, the faculty of thinking the infinite) even the greatest thing that can be given in the sense-world appears small; reason is the absolutely great. "That is sublime the mere ability to think which proves a faculty of the mind surpa.s.sing every standard of sense." "That is sublime which pleases immediately through its opposition to the interest of the senses." The conflict between phantasy and reason, the insufficiency of the former for the attainment of the rational Idea, makes us conscious of the superiority of reason. Just because we feel small as sensuous beings we feel great as rational beings. The pleasure (related to the moral feeling of respect and, like this, mingled with a certain pain) which accompanies this consciousness of inner greatness is explained by the fact that the imagination, in acknowledging reason superior, places itself in the appropriate and purposive relation of subordination. It is evident from the foregoing that the truly sublime is reason, the moral nature of man, his predisposition and destination, which point beyond the present world. Schiller declares that "in s.p.a.ce the sublime does not dwell," and Kant says, "Sublimity is contained in none of the things of nature, but only in our mind, in so far as we are conscious of being superior to nature within us and without us." Nevertheless, since in this contemplation we fix our thoughts entirely on the object without reflecting on ourselves, we transfer the admiration of right due to the reason and its Idea of the infinite by subreption to the object by which the Idea is occasioned, and call the object itself sublime, instead of the mood which it wakes in us.
If the sublime marks the point where the aesthetic touches on the boundary of the moral, the beautiful is also not without some relation to the good. By showing the agreement of sensibility and reason, which is demanded by the moral law, realized in aesthetic intuition (as a voluntary yielding of the imagination to the legitimacy of the understanding), it gives us the inspiring consciousness that the ant.i.thesis is reconcilable, that the rational can be presented in the sensuous, and so becomes a "symbol of the good."
(b) Teleological Judgment.-Teleological judgment is not knowledge, but a way of looking at things which comes into play where the causal or mechanical explanation fails us. This is not the case if the purposiveness is external, relative to its utility for something else. The fact that the sand of the sea-sh.o.r.e furnishes a good soil for the pine neither furthers nor prevents a causal knowledge of it. Only inner purposiveness, as it is manifested in the products of organic nature, brings the mechanical explanation to a halt. Organisms are distinguished above inorganic forms by the fact that of themselves they are at once cause and effect, that they are self-productive and this both as a species (the oak springs from the acorn, and in its turn bears acorns) and as individuals (self-preservation, growth, and the replacement of dying parts by new ones), and also by the fact that the reciprocally productive parts are in their form and their existence all conditioned by the whole. This latter fact, that the whole is the determining ground for the parts, is perfectly obvious in the products of human art. For here it is the representation of the whole (the idea of the work desired) which as the ground precedes the existence and the form of the parts (of the machine). But where is the subject to construct organisms according to its representations of ends? We may neither conceive nature itself as endowed with forces acting in view of ends, nor a praetermundane intelligence interfering in the course of nature. Either of these suppositions would be the death of natural philosophy: the hylozoist endows matter with a property which conflicts with its nature, and the theist oversteps the boundary of possible experience. Above all, the a.n.a.logy of the products of organic nature with the products of human technique is destroyed by the fact that machines do not reproduce themselves and their parts cannot produce one another, while the organism organizes itself.
For our discursive understanding an interaction between the whole and the parts is completely incomprehensible. We understand when the parts precede the whole (mechanically) or the representation of the whole precedes the parts (teleologically); but to think the whole itself (not the Idea thereof) as the ground of the parts, which is demanded by organic life, is impossible for us. It would have been otherwise if an intuitive understanding had been bestowed upon us. For a being possessing intellectual intuition the ant.i.thesis between possibility and actuality, between necessity and contingency, between mechanism and teleology, would disappear along with that between thought and intuition. For such a being everything possible (all that it thinks) would be at the same time actual (present for intuition), and all that appears to us contingent-intentionally selected from several possibilities and in order to an end-would be necessary as well; with the whole would be given the parts corresponding thereto, and consequently natural mechanism and purposive connection would be identical, while for us, to whom the intuitive understanding is denied, the two divide. Hence the teleological view is a mere form of human representation, a subjective principle. We may not say that a mechanical origin of living beings is impossible, but only that we are unable to understand it. If we knew how a blade of gra.s.s or a frog sprang from mechanical forces, we would also be in a position to produce them.
The antinomy of the teleological judgment-thesis: all production of material things and their forms must be judged to be possible according to merely mechanical laws; ant.i.thesis: some products of material nature cannot be judged to be possible according to merely mechanical laws, but to judge them requires the causality of final causes-is insoluble so long as both propositions are taken for const.i.tutive principles; but it is soluble when they are taken as regulative principles or standpoints for judgment. For it is in no wise contradictory, on the one hand, to continue the search for mechanical causes as far as this is in any way possible, and, on the other, clearly to recognize that, at last, this will still leave a remainder which we cannot make intelligible without calling to our aid the concept of ends. a.s.suming that it were possible to carry the explanation of life from life, from ancestral organisms (for the generatio aequivoca is an absurd theory) so far that the whole organic world should represent one great family descended from one primitive form as the common mother, even then the concept of final causes would only be pushed further back, not eliminated: the origin of the first organization will always resist mechanical explanation. Besides this mission of putting limits to causal derivation and of filling the gap in knowledge by a necessary, although subjective, way of looking at things, the Idea of ends has still another, the direct promotion of knowledge from efficient causes through the discovery of new causal problems. Thus, for example, physiology owes the impulse to the discovery of previously unnoticed mechanical connections (cf. also p. 382 note) to the question concerning the purpose of organs. As doctrines mechanism and teleology are irreconcilable and impossible; as rules or maxims of inquiry they are compatible, and the one as indispensable as the other.
After the problem of life, which is insoluble by means of the mechanical explanation, has necessitated the application of the concept of ends, the teleological principle must, at least by way of experiment, be extended to the whole of nature. This consideration culminates in the position that man, as the subject of morality, must be held to be the final aim of the world, for it is only in regard to a moral being that no further inquiry can be raised as to the purpose of its existence. It also repeats the moral argument for the existence of a supreme reason, thus supplementing physico-theology, which is inadequate to the demonstration of one absolutely perfect Deity; so that the third Critique, like the two preceding, concludes with the Idea of G.o.d as an object of practical faith.
There are three original and pregnant pairs of thoughts which cause Kant's name to shine in the philosophical sky as a star of the first magnitude: the demand for a critique of knowledge and the proof of a priori forms of knowledge; the moral autonomy and the categorical imperative; the regulative validity of the Ideas of reason and the practical knowledge of the transcendent world. No philosophical theory, no scientific hypothesis can henceforth avoid the duty of examining the value and legitimacy of its conclusions, as to whether they keep within the limits of the competency of human reason; whether Kant's determination of the origin and the limits of knowledge may count on continued favor or not, the fundamental critical idea, that reflection upon the nature and range of our cognitive faculty is indispensable, retains its validity for all cases and makes an end of all philosophizing at random.[1] No ethical system will with impunity pa.s.s by the autonomous legislation of reason and the unconditional imperative (the admonition of conscience translated into conceptual language): the nature and worth of moral will will be everywhere sought in vain if they are not recognized where Kant has found them-in the unselfish disposition, in that maxim which is fitted to become a general law for all rational beings. The doctrine of the Ideas, finally, reveals to us, beyond the daylight of phenomenal knowledge, the starlit landscape of another mode of looking at things,[2] in which satisfaction is afforded for the hitherto unmet wishes of the heart and demands of the reason.
[Footnote 1: "Reason consists just in this, that we are able to give account of all our concepts, opinions, and a.s.sertions, either on objective or subjective grounds."]
[Footnote 2: Those who regard all future metaphysics as refuted by the Critique of Reason are to be referred to the positive side of the Kantian doctrine of Ideas. Kant admits that the mechanical explanation does not satisfy reason, and that, besides it, a judgment according to Ideas is legitimate. When, therefore, the speculation of the constructive school gives an ideal interpretation of the world, it may be regarded as an extended application of "regulative principles," which exceeds its authority only when it professes to be "objective knowledge."]
The effect of the three Critiques upon the public was very varied. The first great work excited alarm by the sharpness of its negations and its destruction of dogmatic metaphysics, which to its earliest readers appeared to be the core of the matter; Kant was for them the universal destroyer. Then the Science of Knowledge brought into prominence the positive, boldly conquering side, the investigation of the conditions of empirical knowledge. In later times the endeavor has been made to do justice to both sides, but, in opposition to the overbold procedure of the constructive thinkers, who had fallen into a revived dogmatism, more in the spirit of caution and resignation. The second great work aroused glowing enthusiasm: "Kant is no mundane luminary," writes Jean Paul in regard to the Critique of Practical Reason, "but a whole solar system shining at once." The third, because of its subject and by its purpose of synthetic reconciliation between fields heretofore sharply separated, gained the sympathy of our poet-heroes Schiller and Goethe, and awakened in a young, speculative spirit Ideas for a Philosophy of Nature. Sch.e.l.ling reclaimed the intuitive understanding, which Kant had problematically attributed to the primal spirit, as the property of the philosopher, after Fichte had drawn attention to the fact that the consciousness of the categorical imperative, which Kant had not thoroughly investigated, could be nothing else than intellectual intuition, because in it knowing and doing coincide. Fichte, however, does not derive the material for his system from the Critique of Judgment, though he also had a high appreciation of it, but from the two earlier Critiques, the fundamental conceptions of which he-following the hint that practical and theoretical reason are only different applications of one and the same reason-brings into the closest connection. He unites the central idea of the practical philosophy, the freedom and autonomous legislation of the will, with the leading principle of the theoretical philosophy, the spontaneity of the understanding, under the original synthesis of the pure ego, in order to deduce from the activity of the ego not only the a priori forms of knowledge, but also, rejecting the thing in itself, the whole content of empirical consciousness. The thought which intervenes between the Kantian Critique of Reason and the development of thoroughgoing idealism by Fichte, with its criticisms of and additions to the former and its preparation for the latter, may be glanced at in a few supplementary pages.
4. From Kant to Fichte.
To begin with the works which aided in the extension and recognition of the Kantian philosophy, besides Kant's Prolegomena, the following stand in the front rank: Exposition of the Critique of Pure Reason, by the Konigsberg court preacher, Johannes Schulz, 1784; the flowing Letters concerning the Kantian Philosophy, by K.L. Reinhold in Wieland's Deutscher Merkur, 1786-87; and the Allgemeine Litteraturzeitung, in Jena, founded in 1785, and edited by the philologist Schutz and the jurist Hufeland, which offered itself as the organ of the new doctrine. Jena became the home and princ.i.p.al stronghold of Kantianism; while by the beginning of the nineteenth century almost all German chairs belonged to it, and the non-philosophical sciences as well received from it stimulation and guiding ideas.