Part 24

I. CRITICK OF PURE REASON.—The critick of pure reason, says Kant, is the inventory in which all our possessions through pure reason are systematically arranged. What are these possessions? When we have a cognition, what is it that we bring thereto? To answer these questions, Kant explores the two chief fields of our theoretical consciousness, the two chief factors of all knowledge, the sensory and the understanding. Firstly: what does our sensory or our faculty of intuition possess apriori? Secondly: what is the apriori possession of our understanding? The first of these questions is discussed in the transcendental _Æsthetics_ (a title which we must take not in the sense now commonly attached to the word, but in its etymological signification as the “science of the apriori principles of the sensory”); and the second in the transcendental _Logic_ or _Analytics_. Sense and understanding are thus the two factors of all knowledge, the two stalks—as Kant expresses it—of our knowledge, which may spring from a common root, though this is unknown to us: the sensory is the receptivity, and the understanding the spontaneity of our cognitive faculty; by the sensory, which can only furnish intuitions, objects become _given_ to us; by the understanding, which forms conceptions, these objects become _thought_. Conceptions without intuitions are empty; intuitions without conceptions are blind. Intuitions and conceptions constitute the reciprocally complemental elements of our intellectual activity. What now are the apriori principles respectively of our knowledge, through the sense and through the thought? The first of these questions, as already said, is answered by

1. THE TRANSCENDENTAL ÆSTHETICS.—To anticipate at once the answer, we may say that the apriori principles of our knowledge through the sense, the original forms of sensuous intuition, are space and time. Space is the form of the external sense, by means of which objects are given to us as existing outside of ourselves separately and conjointly; time is the form of the inner sense, by means of which the circumstances of our own soul-life become objects to our consciousness. If we abstract every thing belonging to the matter of our sensations, space remains as the universal form in which all the materials of the external sense must be arranged. If we abstract every thing which belongs to the matter of our inner sense, time remains as the form which the movement of the mind had filled. Space and time are the highest forms of the outer and inner sense. That these forms lie apriori in the human mind, Kant proves, first, directly from the nature of these conceptions themselves; and, secondly, indirectly by showing that without apriori presupposing these conceptions, it were not possible to have any certain science of undoubted validity. The first of these he calls the _metaphysical_, and the second the _transcendental discussion_.

(1.) In the _metaphysical discussion_ it is to be shown, (_a_) that space and time are apriori given, (_b_) that these notions belong to the sensory (æsthetics) and not to the understanding (logic), _i. e._ that they are intuitions and not conceptions, (_a_) That space and time are apriori is clear from the fact that every experience, before it can be, must presuppose already a space and time. I perceive something as external to me; but this external presupposes space. Again, I have two sensations at the same time and successively; this presupposes time, (_b_) Space and time, however, are by no means conceptions, but forms of intuition, or intuitions themselves. For in every universal conception the individual is comprehended under it, and is not a part of it; but in space and time, all individual spaces and times are parts of and contained within the universal space and the universal time.

(2.) In the _transcendental discussion_ Kant draws his proof indirectly by showing that certain sciences, universally recognized as such, can only be conceived upon the supposition that space and time are apriori. A pure mathematics is only possible on the ground that space and time are pure and not empirical intuitions. Kant comprises the whole problem of the Transcendental Æsthetics in the question—how are pure mathematical sciences possible? The ground, says Kant, upon which pure mathematics moves, is space and time. But now mathematics utters its principles as universal and necessary. Universal and necessary principles, however, can never come from experience; they must have an apriori ground; consequently it is impossible that space and time, out of which mathematics receives its principles, should be first given aposteriori; they must be given apriori as pure intuitions. Hence we have a knowledge apriori, and a science which rests upon apriori grounds; and the matter simply resolves itself into this, viz.: whosoever should deny that apriori knowledge can be, must also at the same time deny the possibility of mathematics. But if the fundamental truths of mathematics are intuitions apriori, we might conclude that there may be also apriori conceptions, out of which, in connection with these pure intuitions, a metaphysics could be formed. This is the positive result of the Transcendental Æsthetics, though with this positive side the negative is closely connected. Intuition or immediate knowledge can be attained by man only through the sensory, whose universal intuitions are only space and time. But since these intuitions of space and time are no objective relations, but only subjective forms, there is therefore something subjective mingled with all our intuitions, and we can know things not as they are in themselves, but only as they appear to us through this subjective medium of space and time. This is the meaning of the Kantian principle, that we do not know things in themselves, but only phenomena. But if on this account we should affirm that all things are in space and time, this would be too much; they are in space and time only for us,—all phenomena of the external sense appearing both in space and in time, and all phenomena of the inner sense appearing only in time. Notwithstanding this, Kant would in no ways have admitted that the world of sense is mere appearance. He affirmed, that while he contended for a transcendental ideality, there was, nevertheless, an empirical reality of space and time: things external to ourselves exist just as certainly as do we and the circumstances within us, only they are not represented to us as they are in themselves and in their independence of space and of time. As to the question, whether there is any thing in the thing itself back of the phenomena, Kant intimates in the first edition of his Critick, that it is not impossible that the Ego and the thing-in-itself are one and the same thinking substance. This thought, which Kant threw out as a mere conjecture, was the source of all the wider developments of the latest philosophy. It was afterwards the fundamental idea of the Fichtian system, that the Ego does not become affected through a thing essentially foreign to it, but purely through itself. In the second edition of his Critick, however, Kant omitted this sentence.

The Transcendental Æsthetics closes with the discussion of space and time, _i. e._ with finding out what is in the sensory apriori. But the human mind cannot be satisfied merely with the receptive relation of the sensory; it does not simply receive objects, but it applies to these its own spontaneity, and attempts to think these through its conceptions, and embrace them in the forms of its understanding. It is the object of the _Transcendental Analytic_ (which forms the first part of the _Transcendental Logic_), to examine these apriori conceptions or forms of thought which lie originally in the understanding, as the forms of space and time do in the intuitive faculty.

2. THE TRANSCENDENTAL ANALYTIC.—It is the first problem of the Analytic to attain the pure conceptions of the understanding. Aristotle had already attempted to form a table of these conceptions or categories, but he had collected them empirically instead of deriving them from a common principle, and had numbered among them space and time, though these are no pure conceptions of the understanding, but only forms of intuition. But if we would have a perfect, pure, and regularly arranged table of all the conceptions of the understanding, or all the apriori forms of thought, we must look for a principle out of which we may derive them. This principle is the judgment. The general fundamental conceptions of the understanding may be perfectly attained if we look at all the different modes or forms of the judgment. For this end Kant considers the different kinds of judgment as ordinarily pointed out to us by the science of logic. Now logic shows that there are four kinds of judgment, viz., judgments of

_Quantity._ _Quality._ _Relation._ _Modality._ Universal, Affirmative, Categorical, Problematical, Plurative, Negative, Hypothetical, Assertive, Singular. Illimitable. Disjunctive. Apodictic.

From these judgments result the same number of fundamental conceptions or categories of the understanding, viz.:

_Quantity._ _Quality._ _Relation._ _Modality._ Totality, Reality, Substance and Possibility and inherence, impossibility, Multiplicity, Negation, Cause and Being and dependence, not-being, Unity. Limitation. Reciprocal action. Necessity and accidence.

From these twelve categories all the rest may be derived by combination. From the fact that these categories are shown to belong apriori to the understanding, it follows, (1) that these conceptions are apriori, and hence have a necessary and universal validity, (2) that by themselves they are empty forms, and attain a content only through intuitions. But since our intuition is wholly through the sense, these categories have their validity only in their application to the sensuous intuition, which becomes a proper experience only when apprehended in the conceptions of the understanding.—Here we meet a second question; how does this happen? How do objects become subsumed under these forms of the understanding, which for themselves are so empty?

There would be no difficulty with this subsumption if the objects and the conceptions of the understanding were the same in kind. But they are not. Because the objects come to the understanding from the sensory, they are of the nature of the sense. Hence the question arises: how can these sensible objects be subsumed under pure conceptions of the understanding, and fundamental principles (judgments apriori), be formed from them? This cannot result immediately, but there must come in between the two, a third, which must have some thing in common with each, _i. e._ which is in one respect pure and apriori, and in another sensible. The two pure intuitions of the Transcendental Æsthetics, space and time, especially the latter, are of such a nature. A transcendental time determination, as the determination of coetaneousness, corresponds on the one side to the categories, because it is apriori, and on the other side to the phenomenal objects, because every thing phenomenal can be represented only in time. The transcendental time determination, Kant calls in this respect the transcendental _schema_, and the use which the understanding makes of it, he calls the transcendental _schematism_ of the pure understanding. The schema is a product of the imaginative faculty, which self-actively determines the inner sense to this, though the schema is something other than a mere image. An image is always merely an individual and determinate intuition, but the schema merely represents the universal process of the imagination, by which it furnishes for a conception a proper image. Hence the schema can only exist in the conception, and never suffers itself to be brought within the sensuous intuition. If, now, we consider more closely the schematism of the understanding, and seek the transcendental time determination for every category, we find that:

(1) _Quantity_ has for a universal schema _the series of time_ or number, which represents the successive addition of one and one of the same kind. I can only represent to myself the pure understanding conception of greatness, except as I bring into the imagination a number of units one after another. If I stop this process at its first beginning, the result is unity; if I let it go on farther I have plurality; and if I suffer it to continue without limit, there is totality. Whenever I meet with objects in the phenomenal world, which I can only apprehend successively, I am directed to apply the conception of greatness, which would not be possible without the schema of _the series of time_.

(2) _Quality_ has for its schema _the content of time_. If I wish to represent to myself the understanding conception of reality, which belongs to quality, I bring before me in thought a time filled up, or a content of time. That is real which fills a time. If also I would represent to myself the pure understanding conception of negation, I bring into thought a void time.

(3) The categories of _relation_ take their schemata from _the order of time_; for if I would represent to myself a determinate relation, I always bring into thought a determinate order of things in time. Substance appears as the persistence of the real in time; causality as regular succession in time; reciprocal action as the regular coetaneousness of the determinations in the one substance, with the determinations in the other.

(4) The categories of _modality_ take their schema from _the whole of time_, _i. e._ from whether, and how, an object belongs to time. The schema of possibility is the general harmony of a representation with the conditions of time; the schema of actuality is the existence of an object in a determined time; that of necessity is the existence of an object for all time.

We are thus furnished with all the means for forming metaphysical fundamental principles (judgments apriori); we have, _firstly_, conceptions apriori, and _secondly_, schemata through which we can apply these conceptions to objects; for since every object which we can perceive, falls in time, so must it also fall under one of these schemata, which have been borrowed from time, and must consequently permit the corresponding category to be applied to it. The judgments which we here attain are synthetical. They are, corresponding to the four classes of categories, the following: (1) All phenomena are, according to intuition, extensive greatness, since they cannot be apprehended otherwise than through space and time. On this principle the axioms of intuition rely. (2) All phenomena are, according to sensation, intensive greatness, since every sensation has a determined degree, and is capable of increase and diminution. On this principle the anticipations of perception rest. (3) The phenomena stand under necessary time-determinations. They contain the substantial, which abides, and the accidental, which changes. In reference to the change of accidence, they are subject to the law of the following connection, through the relation of cause and effect: as substances they are, in respect of their accidences, in a constant reciprocal action. From this principle spring the analogies of experience. (4) The postulates of empirical thinking are contained in the principles: (_a_) that which coincides with the formal conditions of experience, is possible, and can become phenomenon; (_b_) that which agrees with the material conditions of experience is actual, and is phenomenon; (_c_) that, whose connection with the actual is determined according to the universal conditions of experience, is necessary, and must be phenomenon. Such are the possible and authorized synthetical judgments apriori. But it must not be forgotten that we are entitled to make only an empirical use of all these conceptions and principles, and that we must ever apply them only to things as objects of a possible experience, and never to things in themselves; for the conception without an object is an empty form, but the object cannot be given to the conception except in intuition, and the pure intuition of space and time needs to be filled by experience. Hence, without reference to human experience, these apriori conceptions and principles are nothing but a sporting of the imagination and the understanding, with their representations. Their peculiar determination is only to enable us to spell perceptions, that we may read them as experiences. But here one is apt to fall into a delusion, which can hardly be avoided. Since the categories are not grounded upon the sensory, but have an apriori origin, it would seem as though their application would reach far beyond the sense; but such a view is a delusion; our conceptions are not able to lead us to a knowledge of things in themselves (_noumena_), since our intuition gives us only phenomena for the content of our conceptions, and the thing in itself can never be given in a possible experience; our knowledge remains limited to the phenomena. The source of all the confusions and errors and strife in previous metaphysics, was in confounding the phenomenal with the noumenal world.

Besides the categories or conceptions of the understanding, which have been considered, and which are especially important for experience, though often applied erroneously beyond the province of experience, there are other conceptions whose peculiar province is only to deceive; conceptions whose express determination is to pass beyond the province of experience, and which may consequently be called transcendent. These are the fundamental conceptions and principles of the previous metaphysics. To examine these conceptions, and destroy the appearance of objective science and knowledge, which they falsely exhibit, is the problem of the _Transcendental Dialectics_ (the second part of the transcendental logic).

3. THE TRANSCENDENTAL DIALECTICS.—In a strict sense, the reason is distinguished from the understanding. As the understanding has its categories, the reason has its ideas; as the understanding forms fundamental maxims from conceptions, the reason forms principles from ideas, in which the maxims of the understanding have their highest confirmation. The peculiar work of the reason is, in general, to find the unconditioned for the conditioned knowledge of the understanding, and to unify it. Hence the reason is the faculty of the unconditioned, or of principles; but since it has no immediate reference to objects, but only to the understanding and its judgments, its activity must remain an immanent one. If it would take the highest unity of the reason not simply in a transcendental sense, but exalt it to an actual object of knowledge, then it would become transcendent in that it applied the conceptions of the understanding to the knowledge of the unconditioned. From this transcending and false use of the categories, arises the transcendental appearance which decoys us beyond experience, by the delusive pretext of widening the domain of the pure understanding. It is the problem of the transcendental logic to discover this transcendental appearance.

The speculative ideas of the reason, derived from the three kinds of logical conclusion, the categorical, the hypothetical, and the disjunctive, are threefold.

(1.) The psychological idea, the idea of the soul, as a thinking substance (the object hitherto of rational psychology).

(2.) The cosmological idea, the idea of the world as including all phenomena (the object hitherto of cosmology).

(3.) The theological idea, the idea of God as the highest condition of the possibility of all things (the object hitherto of rational theology).

But with these ideas, in which the reason attempts to apply the categories of the understanding to the unconditioned, the reason becomes unavoidably entangled in a semblance and an illusion. This transcendental semblance, or this optical illusion of the reason, exhibits itself differently in each of the different ideas. With the psychological ideas the reason perpetrates a simple paralogism, while with the cosmological it finds itself driven to contradictory affirmations or antinomies, and, with the theological, it wanders about in an empty ideal.

(1.) _The psychological ideas, or the paralogisms of the pure reason._

Kant has attempted, under this rubric, to overthrow all rational psychology as this had been previously apprehended. Rational psychology has considered the soul as a thing called by that name with the attribute of immateriality, as a simple substance with the attribute of incorruptibility, as a numerically identical, intellectual substance with the predicate of personality, as an unextended and thinking being with the predicate of immortality. All these principles of rational psychology, says Kant, are surreptitious; they are all derived from the one premise, “I think;” but this premise is neither intuition nor conception, but a simple consciousness, an act of the mind which attends, connects, and bears in itself all representations and conceptions. This thinking is now falsely taken as a real thing; the being of the Ego as object is connected with the Ego as subject, and that which is affirmed analytically of the latter is predicated synthetically of the former. But in order to treat the Ego also as object, and to be able to apply to it categories, it must be given empirically, in an intuition, which is not the case. From all this it follows that the proofs for immortality rest upon false conclusions. I can, indeed, separate my pure thinking _ideally_ from the body; but obviously, it does not follow from this that my thinking can exist _really_ when separate from the body. The result which Kant derives from his critick of rational psychology is this, viz., there is no rational psychology as a _doctrine_ which can furnish us with any addition to our self-knowledge, but only as a _discipline_, which places impassable limits to the speculative reason in this field, in order that it may neither throw itself into the bosom of a soulless materialism, nor lose itself in the delusion of a groundless spiritualism. In this respect rational psychology would rather remind us, that this refusal of our reason to give a satisfactory answer to the questions which stretch beyond this life, should be regarded as an intimation of the reason for us to leave this fruitless and superfluous speculation, and apply our self-knowledge to some fruitful and practical use.

(2.) _The Antinomies of Cosmology._