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by
Immanuel Kant
translated
by J. M. D. Meiklejohn
Human
reason, in one sphere of its cognition, is called upon to consider questions,
which it cannot decline, as they are presented by its own nature, but which it
cannot answer, as they transcend every faculty of the mind.
It
falls into this difficulty without any fault of its own. It begins with
principles, which cannot be dispensed with in the field of experience, and the
truth and sufficiency of which are, at the same time, insured by experience.
With these principles it rises, in obedience to the laws of its own nature, to
ever higher and more remote conditions. But it quickly discovers that, in this
way, its labours must remain ever incomplete, because new questions never
cease to present themselves; and thus it finds itself compelled to have
recourse to principles which transcend the region of experience, while they
are regarded by common sense without distrust. It thus falls into confusion
and contradictions, from which it conjectures the presence of latent errors,
which, however, it is unable to discover, because the principles it employs,
transcending the limits of experience, cannot be tested by that criterion. The
arena of these endless contests is called Metaphysic.
Time
was, when she was the queen of all the sciences; and, if we take the will for
the deed, she certainly deserves, so far as regards the high importance of her
object-matter, this title of honour. Now, it is the fashion of the time to
heap contempt and scorn upon her; and the matron mourns, forlorn and forsaken,
like Hecuba:
Modo maxima rerum,
Tot
generis, natisque potens...
Nunc
trahor exul, inops.
·
Ovid,
Metamorphoses. xiii
At
first, her government, under the administration of the dogmatists, was an
absolute despotism. But, as the legislative continued to show traces of the
ancient barbaric rule, her empire gradually broke up, and intestine wars
introduced the reign of anarchy; while the sceptics, like nomadic tribes, who
hate a permanent habitation and settled mode of living, attacked from time to
time those who had organized themselves into civil communities. But their
number was, very happily, small; and thus they could not entirely put a stop
to the exertions of those who persisted in raising new edifices, although on
no settled or uniform plan. In recent times the hope dawned upon us of seeing
those disputes settled, and the legitimacy of her claims established by a kind
of physiology of the human understanding—that of the celebrated Locke. But
it was found that—although it was affirmed that this so-called queen could
not refer her descent to any higher source than that of common experience, a
circumstance which necessarily brought suspicion on her claims—as this
genealogy was incorrect, she persisted in the advancement of her claims to
sovereignty. Thus metaphysics necessarily fell back into the antiquated and
rotten constitution of dogmatism, and again became obnoxious to the contempt
from which efforts had been made to save it. At present, as all methods,
according to the general persuasion, have been tried in vain, there reigns
nought but weariness and complete indifferentism—the mother of chaos and
night in the scientific world, but at the same time the source of, or at least
the prelude to, the re-creation and reinstallation of a science, when it has
fallen into confusion, obscurity, and disuse from ill directed effort.
For
it is in reality vain to profess indifference in regard to such inquiries, the
object of which cannot be indifferent to humanity. Besides, these pretended indifferentists, however much they
may try to disguise themselves by the assumption of a popular style and by
changes on the language of the schools, unavoidably fall into metaphysical
declarations and propositions, which they profess to regard with so much
contempt. At the same time, this indifference, which has arisen in the world
of science, and which relates to that kind of knowledge which we should wish
to see destroyed the last, is a phenomenon that well deserves our attention
and reflection. It is plainly not the effect of the levity, but of the matured
judgement* of the age, which refuses to be any longer entertained with
illusory knowledge, It is, in fact, a call to reason, again to undertake the
most laborious of all tasks—that of self-examination, and to establish a
tribunal, which may secure it in its well-grounded claims, while it pronounces
against all baseless assumptions and pretensions, not in an arbitrary manner,
but according to its own eternal and unchangeable laws. This tribunal is
nothing less than the critical investigation of pure reason.
[*Footnote:
We very often hear complaints of the shallowness of the present age, and of
the decay of profound science. But I do not think that those which rest upon a
secure foundation, such as mathematics, physical science, etc., in the least
deserve this reproach, but that they rather maintain their ancient fame, and
in the latter case, indeed, far surpass it. The same would be the case with
the other kinds of cognition, if their principles were but firmly established.
In the absence of this security, indifference, doubt, and finally,
severe criticism are rather signs of a profound habit of thought.
Our age is the age of criticism, to which everything must be subjected.
The sacredness of religion, and the authority of legislation, are by many
regarded as grounds of exemption from the examination of this tribunal. But,
if they on they are exempted, they become the subjects of just suspicion, and
cannot lay claim to sincere respect, which reason accords only to that which
has stood the test of a free and public examination.]
I
do not mean by this a criticism of books and systems, but a critical inquiry
into the faculty of reason, with reference to the cognitions to which it
strives to attain without the aid of experience; in other words, the solution
of the question regarding the possibility or impossibility of metaphysics, and
the determination of the origin, as well as of the extent and limits of this
science. All this must be done on
the basis of principles.
This
path—the only one now remaining—has been entered upon by me; and I flatter
myself that I have, in this way, discovered the cause of—and consequently
the mode of removing—all the errors which have hitherto set reason at
variance with itself, in the sphere of non-empirical thought. I have not
returned an evasive answer to the questions of reason, by alleging the
inability and limitation of the faculties of the mind; I have, on the
contrary, examined them completely in the light of principles, and, after
having discovered the cause of the doubts and contradictions into which reason
fell, have solved them to its perfect satisfaction. It is true, these
questions have not been solved as dogmatism, in its vain fancies and desires,
had expected; for it can only be satisfied by the exercise of magical arts,
and of these I have no knowledge. But neither do these come within the compass
of our mental powers; and it was the duty of philosophy to destroy the
illusions which had their origin in misconceptions, whatever darling hopes and
valued expectations may be ruined by its explanations. My chief aim in this
work has been thoroughness; and I make bold to say that there is not a single
metaphysical problem that does not find its solution, or at least the key to
its solution, here. Pure reason is a perfect unity; and therefore, if the if
the principle presented by it prove to be insufficient for the solution of
even a single one of those questions to which the very nature of reason gives
birth, we must reject it, as we could not be perfectly certain of its
sufficiency in the case of the others.
While
I say this, I think I see upon the countenance of the reader signs of
dissatisfaction mingled with contempt, when he hears declarations which sound
so boastful and extravagant; and yet they are beyond comparison more moderate
than those advanced by the commonest author of the commonest philosophical
programme, in which the dogmatist professes to demonstrate the simple nature
of the soul, or the necessity of a primal being. Such a dogmatist promises to
extend human knowledge beyond the limits of possible experience; while I
humbly confess that this is completely beyond my power. Instead of any such
attempt, I confine myself to the examination of reason alone and its pure
thought; and I do not need to seek far for the sum-total of its cognition,
because it has its seat in my own mind. Besides,
common logic presents me with a complete and systematic catalogue of all the
simple operations of reason; and it is my task to answer the question how far
reason can go, without the material presented and the aid furnished by
experience.
So
much for the completeness and thoroughness necessary in the execution of the
present task. The aims set before us are not arbitrarily proposed, but are
imposed upon us by the nature of cognition itself.
The
above remarks relate to the matter of our critical inquiry. As regards the
form, there are two indispensable conditions, which any one who undertakes so
difficult a task as that of a critique of pure reason, is bound to fulfil.
These conditions are certitude and clearness.
As
regards certitude, I have fully convinced myself that, in this sphere of
thought, opinion is perfectly inadmissible, and that everything which bears
the least semblance of an hypothesis must be excluded, as of no value in such
discussions. For it is a necessary condition of every cognition that is to be
established upon a priori grounds that it shall be held to be absolutely
necessary; much more is this the case with an attempt to determine all pure a
priori cognition, and to furnish the standard—and consequently an example—
of all apodeictic (philosophical) certitude. Whether I have succeeded in what
I professed to do, it is for the reader to determine; it is the author’s
business merely to adduce grounds and reasons, without determining what
influence these ought to have on the mind of his judges. But, lest anything he
may have said may become the innocent cause of doubt in their minds, or tend
to weaken the effect which his arguments might otherwise produce—he may be
allowed to point out those passages which may occasion mistrust or difficulty,
although these do not concern the main purpose of the present work. He does this solely with the view of removing from the mind
of the reader any doubts which might affect his judgement of the work as a
whole, and in regard to its ultimate aim.
I
know no investigations more necessary for a full insight into the nature of
the faculty which we call understanding, and at the same time for the
determination of the rules and limits of its use, than those undertaken in the
second chapter of the “Transcendental Analytic,” under the title of “Deduction
of the Pure Conceptions of the Understanding”; and they have also cost me by
far the greatest labour—labour which, I hope, will not remain uncompensated.
The view there taken, which goes somewhat deeply into the subject, has two
sides, The one relates to the objects of the pure understanding, and is
intended to demonstrate and to render comprehensible the objective validity of
its a priori conceptions; and it forms for this reason an essential part of
the Critique. The other considers the pure understanding itself, its
possibility and its powers of cognition—that is, from a subjective point of
view; and, although this exposition is of great importance, it does not belong
essentially to the main purpose of the work, because the grand question is
what and how much can reason and understanding, apart from experience,
cognize, and not, how is the faculty of thought itself possible? As the latter
is an, inquiry into the cause of a given effect, and has thus in it some
semblance of an hypothesis (although, as I shall show on another occasion,
this is really not the fact), it would seem that, in the present instance, I
had allowed myself to enounce a mere opinion, and that the reader must
therefore be at liberty to hold a different opinion. But I beg to remind him
that, if my subjective deduction does not produce in his mind the conviction
of its certitude at which I aimed, the objective deduction, with which alone
the present work is properly concerned, is in every respect satisfactory.
As
regards clearness, the reader has a right to demand, in the first place,
discursive or logical clearness, that is, on the basis of conceptions, and,
secondly, intuitive or aesthetic clearness, by means of intuitions, that is,
by examples or other modes of illustration in concreto. I have done what I
could for the first kind of intelligibility. This was essential to my purpose;
and it thus became the accidental cause of my inability to do complete justice
to the second requirement. I have been almost always at a loss, during the
progress of this work, how to settle this question. Examples and illustrations
always appeared to me necessary, and, in the first sketch of the Critique,
naturally fell into their proper places. But I very soon became aware of the
magnitude of my task, and the numerous problems with which I should be
engaged; and, as I perceived that this critical investigation would, even if
delivered in the driest scholastic manner, be far from being brief, I found it
unadvisable to enlarge it still more with examples and explanations, which are
necessary only from a popular point of view. I was induced to take this course
from the consideration also that the present work is not intended for popular
use, that those devoted to science do not require such helps, although they
are always acceptable, and that they would have materially interfered with my
present purpose. Abbe Terrasson remarks with great justice that, if we
estimate the size of a work, not from the number of its pages, but from the
time which we require to make ourselves master of it, it may be said of many a
book that it would be much shorter, if it were not so short. On the other
hand, as regards the comprehensibility of a system of speculative cognition,
connected under a single principle, we may say with equal justice: many a book
would have been much clearer, if it had not been intended to be so very clear.
For explanations and examples, and other helps to intelligibility, aid us in
the comprehension of parts, but they distract the attention, dissipate the
mental power of the reader, and stand in the way of his forming a clear
conception of the whole; as he cannot attain soon enough to a survey of the
system, and the colouring and embellishments bestowed upon it prevent his
observing its articulation or organization—which is the most important
consideration with him, when he comes to judge of its unity and stability.
The
reader must naturally have a strong inducement to co-operate with the present
author, if he has formed the intention of erecting a complete and solid
edifice of metaphysical science, according to the plan now laid before him.
Metaphysics, as here represented, is the only science which admits of
completion—and with little labour, if it is united, in a short time; so that
nothing will be left to future generations except the task of illustrating and
applying it didactically. For this science is nothing more than the inventory
of all that is given us by pure reason, systematically arranged.
Nothing can escape our notice; for what reason produces from itself
cannot lie concealed, but must be brought to the light by reason itself, so
soon as we have discovered the common principle of the ideas we seek. The
perfect unity of this kind of cognitions, which are based upon pure
conceptions, and uninfluenced by any empirical element, or any peculiar
intuition leading to determinate experience, renders this completeness not
only practicable, but also necessary.
Tecum
habita, et noris quam sit tibi curta supellex.
·
Persius. Satirae
iv. 52.
Such
a system of pure speculative reason I hope to be able to publish under the
title of Metaphysic of Nature*. The content of this work (which will not be
half so long) will be very much richer than that of the present Critique,
which has to discover the sources of this cognition and expose the conditions
of its possibility, and at the same time to clear and level a fit foundation
for the scientific edifice. In the present work, I look for the patient
hearing and the impartiality of a judge; in the other, for the good-will and
assistance of a co-labourer. For, however complete the list of principles for
this system may be in the Critique, the correctness of the system requires
that no deduced conceptions should be absent.
These cannot be presented a priori, but must be gradually discovered;
and, while the synthesis of conceptions has been fully exhausted in the
Critique, it is necessary that, in the proposed work, the same should be the
case with their analysis. But this will be rather an amusement than a labour.
[*Footnote:
In contradistinction to the Metaphysic of Ethics. This work was never
published.]
PREFACE
TO THE SECOND EDITION, 1787
Whether
the treatment of that portion of our knowledge which lies within the province
of pure reason advances with that undeviating certainty which characterizes
the progress of science, we shall be at no loss to determine. If we find those
who are engaged in metaphysical pursuits, unable to come to an understanding
as to the method which they ought to follow; if we find them, after the most
elaborate preparations, invariably brought to a stand before the goal is
reached, and compelled to retrace their steps and strike into fresh paths, we
may then feel quite sure that they are far from having attained to the
certainty of scientific progress and may rather be said to be merely groping
about in the dark. In these circumstances we shall render an important service
to reason if we succeed in simply indicating the path along which it must
travel, in order to arrive at any results—even if it should be found
necessary to abandon many of those aims which, without reflection, have been
proposed for its attainment.
That
logic has advanced in this sure course, even from the earliest times, is
apparent from the fact that, since Aristotle, it has been unable to advance a
step and, thus, to all appearance has reached its completion. For, if some of
the moderns have thought to enlarge its domain by introducing psychological
discussions on the mental faculties, such as imagination and wit,
metaphysical, discussions on the origin of knowledge and the different kinds
of certitude, according to the difference of the objects (idealism, scepticism,
and so on), or anthropological discussions on prejudices, their causes and
remedies: this attempt, on the part of these authors, only shows their
ignorance of the peculiar nature of logical science. We do not enlarge but
disfigure the sciences when we lose sight of their respective limits and allow
them to run into one another. Now logic is enclosed within limits which admit
of perfectly clear definition; it is a science which has for its object
nothing but the exposition and proof of the formal laws of all thought,
whether it be a priori or empirical, whatever be its origin or its object, and
whatever the difficulties—natural or accidental— which it encounters in
the human mind.
The
early success of logic must be attributed exclusively to the narrowness of its
field, in which abstraction may, or rather must, be made of all the objects of
cognition with their characteristic distinctions, and in which the
understanding has only to deal with itself and with its own forms. It is,
obviously, a much more difficult task for reason to strike into the sure path
of science, where it has to deal not simply with itself, but with objects
external to itself. Hence, logic is properly only a propaedeutic—forms, as
it were, the vestibule of the sciences; and while it is necessary to enable us
to form a correct judgement with regard to the various branches of knowledge,
still the acquisition of real, substantive knowledge is to be sought only in
the sciences properly so called, that is, in the objective sciences.
Now
these sciences, if they can be termed rational at all, must contain elements
of a priori cognition, and this cognition may stand in a twofold relation to
its object. Either it may have to determine the conception of the object—which
must be supplied extraneously, or it may have to establish its reality. The
former is theoretical, the latter practical, rational cognition. In both, the
pure or a priori element must be treated first, and must be carefully
distinguished from that which is supplied from other sources. Any other method
can only lead to irremediable confusion.
Mathematics
and physics are the two theoretical sciences which have to determine their
objects a priori. The former is purely a priori, the latter is partially so,
but is also dependent on other sources of cognition.
In
the earliest times of which history affords us any record, mathematics had
already entered on the sure course of science, among that wonderful nation,
the Greeks. Still it is not to be supposed that it was as easy for this
science to strike into, or rather to construct for itself, that royal road, as
it was for logic, in which reason has only to deal with itself. On the
contrary, I believe that it must have remained long—chiefly among the
Egyptians—in the stage of blind groping after its true aims and destination,
and that it was revolutionized by the happy idea of one man, who struck out
and determined for all time the path which this science must follow, and which
admits of an indefinite advancement. The history of this intellectual
revolution—much more important in its results than the discovery of the
passage round the celebrated Cape of Good Hope—and of its author, has not
been preserved. But Diogenes Laertius, in naming the supposed discoverer of
some of the simplest elements of geometrical demonstration—elements which,
according to the ordinary opinion, do not even require to be proved—makes it
apparent that the change introduced by the first indication of this new path,
must have seemed of the utmost importance to the mathematicians of that age,
and it has thus been secured against the chance of oblivion. A new light must
have flashed on the mind of the first man (Thales, or whatever may have been
his name) who demonstrated the properties of the isosceles triangle. For he
found that it was not sufficient to meditate on the figure, as it lay before
his eyes, or the conception of it, as it existed in his mind, and thus
endeavour to get at the knowledge of its properties, but that it was necessary
to produce these properties, as it were, by a positive a priori construction;
and that, in order to arrive with certainty at a priori cognition, he must not
attribute to the object any other properties than those which necessarily
followed from that which he had himself, in accordance with his conception,
placed in the object.
A
much longer period elapsed before physics entered on the highway of science.
For it is only about a century and a half since the wise Bacon gave a new
direction to physical studies, or rather—as others were already on the right
track—imparted fresh vigour to the pursuit of this new direction. Here, too,
as in the case of mathematics, we find evidence of a rapid intellectual
revolution. In the remarks which follow I shall confine myself to the
empirical side of natural science.
When
Galilei experimented with balls of a definite weight on the inclined plane,
when Torricelli caused the air to sustain a weight which he had calculated
beforehand to be equal to that of a definite column of water, or when Stahl,
at a later period, converted metals into lime, and reconverted lime into
metal, by the addition and subtraction of certain elements; [Footnote: I do
not here follow with exactness the history of the experimental method, of
which, indeed, the first steps are involved in some obscurity.] a light broke
upon all natural philosophers. They learned that reason only perceives that
which it produces after its own design; that it must not be content to follow,
as it were, in the leading-strings of nature, but must proceed in advance with
principles of judgement according to unvarying laws, and compel nature to
reply its questions. For accidental observations, made according to no
preconceived plan, cannot be united under a necessary law. But it is this that
reason seeks for and requires. It is only the principles of reason which can
give to concordant phenomena the validity of laws, and it is only when
experiment is directed by these rational principles that it can have any real
utility. Reason must approach nature with the view, indeed, of receiving
information from it, not, however, in the character of a pupil, who listens to
all that his master chooses to tell him, but in that of a judge, who compels
the witnesses to reply to those questions which he himself thinks fit to
propose. To this single idea must the revolution be ascribed, by which, after
groping in the dark for so many centuries, natural science was at length
conducted into the path of certain progress.
We
come now to metaphysics, a purely speculative science, which occupies a
completely isolated position and is entirely independent of the teachings of
experience. It deals with mere conceptions—not, like mathematics, with
conceptions applied to intuition—and in it, reason is the pupil of itself
alone. It is the oldest of the sciences, and would still survive, even if all
the rest were swallowed up in the abyss of an all-destroying barbarism. But it
has not yet had the good fortune to attain to the sure scientific method. This
will be apparent; if we apply the tests which we proposed at the outset. We
find that reason perpetually comes to a stand, when it attempts to gain a
priori the perception even of those laws which the most common experience
confirms. We find it compelled to retrace its steps in innumerable instances,
and to abandon the path on which it had entered, because this does not lead to
the desired result. We find, too, that those who are engaged in metaphysical
pursuits are far from being able to agree among themselves, but that, on the
contrary, this science appears to furnish an arena specially adapted for the
display of skill or the exercise of strength in mock-contests— a field in
which no combatant ever yet succeeded in gaining an inch of ground, in which,
at least, no victory was ever yet crowned with permanent possession.
This
leads us to inquire why it is that, in metaphysics, the sure path of science
has not hitherto been found. Shall we suppose that it is impossible to
discover it? Why then should nature have visited our reason with restless
aspirations after it, as if it were one of our weightiest concerns? Nay, more,
how little cause should we have to place confidence in our reason, if it
abandons us in a matter about which, most of all, we desire to know the truth—and
not only so, but even allures us to the pursuit of vain phantoms, only to
betray us in the end? Or, if the path has only hitherto been missed, what
indications do we possess to guide us in a renewed investigation, and to
enable us to hope for greater success than has fallen to the lot of our
predecessors?
It
appears to me that the examples of mathematics and natural
philosophy,
which, as we have seen, were brought into their present
condition
by a sudden revolution, are sufficiently remarkable to fix
our
attention on the essential circumstances of the change which has
proved
so advantageous to them, and to induce us to make the
experiment
of imitating them, so far as the analogy which, as rational
sciences,
they bear to metaphysics may permit. It has hitherto been
assumed
that our cognition must conform to the objects; but all
attempts
to ascertain anything about these objects a priori, by
means
of conceptions, and thus to extend the range of our knowledge,
have
been rendered abortive by this assumption. Let us then make the
experiment
whether we may not be more successful in metaphysics, if
we
assume that the objects must conform to our cognition. This appears,
at
all events, to accord better with the possibility of our gaining
the
end we have in view, that is to say, of arriving at the
cognition
of objects a priori, of determining something with respect
to
these objects, before they are given to us. We here propose to do
just
what Copernicus did in attempting to explain the celestial
movements.
When he found that he could make no progress by assuming
that
all the heavenly bodies revolved round the spectator, he reversed
the
process, and tried the experiment of assuming that the spectator
revolved,
while the stars remained at rest. We may make the same
experiment
with regard to the intuition of objects. If the intuition
must
conform to the nature of the objects, I do not see how we can
know
anything of them a priori. If, on the other hand, the object
conforms
to the nature of our faculty of intuition, I can then
easily
conceive the possibility of such an a priori knowledge. Now
as
I cannot rest in the mere intuitions, but—if they are to become
cognitions—must
refer them, as representations, to something, as
object,
and must determine the latter by means of the former, here
again
there are two courses open to me. Either, first, I may assume
that
the conceptions, by which I effect this determination, conform
to
the object—and in this case I am reduced to the same perplexity
as
before; or secondly, I may assume that the objects, or, which is
the
same thing, that experience, in which alone as given objects they
are
cognized, conform to my conceptions—and then I am at no loss
how
to proceed. For experience itself is a mode of cognition which
requires
understanding. Before objects, are given to me, that is, a
priori,
I must presuppose in myself laws of the understanding which
are
expressed in conceptions a priori. To these conceptions, then,
all
the objects of experience must necessarily conform. Now there are
objects
which reason thinks, and that necessarily, but which cannot
be
given in experience, or, at least, cannot be given so as reason
thinks
them. The attempt to think these objects will hereafter furnish
an
excellent test of the new method of thought which we have adopted,
and
which is based on the principle that we only cognize in things
a
priori that which we ourselves place in them.*
[*Footnote:
This method, accordingly, which we have borrowed from the natural philosopher,
consists in seeking for the elements of pure reason in that which admits of
confirmation or refutation by experiment. Now the propositions of pure reason,
especially when they transcend the limits of possible experience, do not admit
of our making any experiment with their objects, as in natural science. Hence,
with regard to those conceptions and principles which we assume a priori, our
only course ill be to view them from two different sides. We must regard one
and the same conception, on the one hand, in relation to experience as an
object of the senses and of the understanding, on the other hand, in relation
to reason, isolated and transcending the limits of experience, as an object of
mere thought. Now if we find that, when we regard things from this double
point of view, the result is in harmony with the principle of pure reason, but
that, when we regard them from a single point of view, reason is involved in
self-contradiction, then the experiment will establish the correctness of this
distinction.]
This
attempt succeeds as well as we could desire, and promises to metaphysics, in
its first part—that is, where it is occupied with conceptions a priori, of
which the corresponding objects may be given in experience—the certain
course of science. For by this new method we are enabled perfectly to explain
the possibility of a priori cognition, and, what is more, to demonstrate
satisfactorily the laws which lie a priori at the foundation of nature, as the
sum of the objects of experience—neither of which was possible according to
the procedure hitherto followed. But from this deduction of the faculty of a
priori cognition in the first part of metaphysics, we derive a surprising
result, and one which, to all appearance, militates against the great end of
metaphysics, as treated in the second part. For we come to the conclusion that
our faculty of cognition is unable to transcend the limits of possible
experience; and yet this is precisely the most essential object of this
science.
The
estimate of our rational cognition a priori at which we arrive
is
that it has only to do with phenomena, and that things in
themselves,
while possessing a real existence, lie beyond its
sphere.
Here we are enabled to put the justice of this estimate to
the
test. For that which of necessity impels us to transcend the limits
of
experience and of all phenomena is the unconditioned, which reason
absolutely
requires in things as they are in themselves, in order to
complete
the series of conditions. Now, if it appears that when, on
the
one hand, we assume that our cognition conforms to its objects
as
things in themselves, the unconditioned cannot be thought without
contradiction,
and that when, on the other hand, we assume that our
representation
of things as they are given to us, does not conform
to
these things as they are in themselves, but that these objects,
as
phenomena, conform to our mode of representation, the contradiction
disappears:
we shall then be convinced of the truth of that which we
began
by assuming for the sake of experiment; we may look upon it as
established
that the unconditioned does not lie in things as we know
them,
or as they are given to us, but in things as they are in
themselves,
beyond the range of our cognition.*
[*Footnote:
This experiment of pure reason has a great similarity to that of the chemists,
which they term the experiment of reduction, or, more usually, the synthetic
process. The analysis of the metaphysician separates pure cognition a priori
into two heterogeneous elements, viz., the cognition of things as phenomena,
and of things in themselves. Dialectic combines these again into harmony with
the necessary rational idea of the unconditioned, and finds that this harmony
never results except through the above distinction, which is, therefore,
concluded to be just.]
But,
after we have thus denied the power of speculative reason to
make
any progress in the sphere of the supersensible, it still remains
for
our consideration whether data do not exist in practical cognition
which
may enable us to determine the transcendent conception of the
unconditioned,
to rise beyond the limits of all possible experience
from
a practical point of view, and thus to satisfy the great ends
of
metaphysics. Speculative reason has thus, at least, made room for
such
an extension of our knowledge: and, if it must leave this space
vacant,
still it does not rob us of the liberty to fill it up, if we
can,
by means of practical data—nay, it even challenges us to make
the
attempt.*
[*Footnote:
So the central laws of the movements of the heavenly bodies established the
truth of that which Copernicus, first, assumed only as a hypothesis, and, at
the same time, brought to light that invisible force (Newtonian attraction)
which holds the universe together. The latter would have remained forever
undiscovered, if Copernicus had not ventured on the experiment—contrary to
the senses but still just— of looking for the observed movements not in the
heavenly bodies, but in the spectator. In this Preface I treat the new
metaphysical method as a hypothesis with the view of rendering apparent the
first attempts at such a change of method, which are always hypothetical.
But in the Critique itself it will be demonstrated, not hypothetically,
but apodeictically, from the nature of our representations of space and time.
and from the elementary conceptions of the understanding.]
This
attempt to introduce a complete revolution in the procedure of metaphysics,
after the example of the geometricians and natural philosophers, constitutes
the aim of the Critique of Pure Speculative Reason. It is a treatise on the
method to be followed, not a system of the science itself. But, at the same
time, it marks out and defines both the external boundaries and the internal
structure of this science. For pure speculative reason has this peculiarity,
that, in choosing the various objects of thought, it is able to define the
limits of its own faculties, and even to give a complete enumeration of the
possible modes of proposing problems to itself, and thus to sketch out the
entire system of metaphysics. For, on the one hand, in cognition a priori,
nothing must be attributed to the objects but what the thinking subject
derives from itself; and, on the other hand, reason is, in regard to the
principles of cognition, a perfectly distinct, independent unity, in which, as
in an organized body, every member exists for the sake of the others, and all
for the sake of each, so that no principle can be viewed, with safety, in one
relationship, unless it is, at the same time, viewed in relation to the total
use of pure reason. Hence, too, metaphysics has this singular advantage—an
advantage which falls to the lot of no other science which has to do with
objects—that, if once it is conducted into the sure path of science, by
means of this criticism, it can then take in the whole sphere of its
cognitions, and can thus complete its work, and leave it for the use of
posterity, as a capital which can never receive fresh accessions. For
metaphysics has to deal only with principles and with the limitations of its
own employment as determined by these principles. To this perfection it is,
therefore, bound, as the fundamental science, to attain, and to it the maxim
may justly be applied:
Nil
actum reputans, si quid superesset agendum.
But,
it will be asked, what kind of a treasure is this that we propose to bequeath
to posterity? What is the real value of this system of metaphysics, purified
by criticism, and thereby reduced to a permanent condition? A cursory view of
the present work will lead to the supposition that its use is merely negative,
that it only serves to warn us against venturing, with speculative reason,
beyond the limits of experience. This is, in fact, its primary use. But this,
at once, assumes a positive value, when we observe that the principles with
which speculative reason endeavours to transcend its limits lead inevitably,
not to the extension, but to the contraction of the use of reason, inasmuch as
they threaten to extend the limits of sensibility, which is their proper
sphere, over the entire realm of thought and, thus, to supplant the pure
(practical) use of reason.
So
far, then, as this criticism is occupied in confining speculative
reason
within its proper bounds, it is only negative; but, inasmuch
as
it thereby, at the same time, removes an obstacle which impedes
and
even threatens to destroy the use of practical reason, it possesses
a
positive and very important value. In order to admit this, we have
only
to be convinced that there is an absolutely necessary use of pure
reason—the
moral use—in which it inevitably transcends the limits
of
sensibility, without the aid of speculation, requiring only to be
insured
against the effects of a speculation which would involve it
in
contradiction with itself. To deny the positive advantage of the
service
which this criticism renders us would be as absurd as. to
maintain
that the system of police is productive of no positive
benefit,
since its main business is to prevent the violence which
citizen
has to apprehend from citizen, that so each may pursue his
vocation
in peace and security. That space and time are only forms
of
sensible intuition, and hence are only conditions of the
existence
of things as phenomena; that, moreover, we have no
conceptions
of the understanding, and, consequently, no elements for
the
cognition of things, except in so far as a corresponding intuition
can
be given to these conceptions; that, accordingly, we can have no
cognition
of an object, as a thing in itself, but only as an object
of
sensible intuition, that is, as phenomenon—all this is proved in
the
analytical part of the Critique; and from this the limitation of
all
possible speculative cognition to the mere objects of
experience,
follows as a necessary result. At the same time, it must
be
carefully borne in mind that, while we surrender the power of
cognizing,
we still reserve the power of thinking objects, as things
in
themselves.* For, otherwise, we should require to affirm the
existence
of an appearance, without something that appears—which
would
be absurd. Now let us suppose, for a moment, that we had not
undertaken
this criticism and, accordingly, had not drawn the
necessary
distinction between things as objects of experience and
things
as they are in themselves. The principle of causality, and,
by
consequence, the mechanism of nature as determined by causality,
would
then have absolute validity in relation to all things as
efficient
causes. I should then be unable to assert, with regard to
one
and the same being, e.g., the human soul, that its will is free,
and
yet, at the same time, subject to natural necessity, that is,
not
free, without falling into a palpable contradiction, for in both
propositions
I should take the soul in the same signification, as a
thing
in general, as a thing in itself—as, without previous
criticism,
I could not but take it. Suppose now, on the other hand,
that
we have undertaken this criticism, and have learnt that an object
may
be taken in two senses, first, as a phenomenon, secondly, as a
thing
in itself; and that, according to the deduction of the
conceptions
of the understanding, the principle of causality has
reference
only to things in the first sense. We then see how it does
not
involve any contradiction to assert, on the one hand, that the will, in the
phenomenal sphere—in visible action—is necessarily obedient to the law of
nature, and, in so far, not free; and, on the other hand, that, as belonging
to a thing in itself, it is not subject to that law, and, accordingly, is
free. Now, it is true that I cannot, by means of speculative reason, and still
less by empirical observation, cognize my soul as a thing in itself and
consequently, cannot cognize liberty as the property of a being to which I
ascribe effects in the world of sense. For, to do so, I must cognize this
being as existing, and yet not in time, which—since I cannot support my
conception by any intuition—is impossible. At the same time, while I cannot
cognize, I can quite well think freedom, that is to say, my representation of
it involves at least no contradiction, if we bear in mind the critical
distinction of the two modes of representation (the sensible and the
intellectual) and the consequent limitation of the conceptions of the pure
understanding and of the principles which flow from them. Suppose now that
morality necessarily presupposed liberty, in the strictest sense, as a
property of our will; suppose that reason contained certain practical,
original principles a priori, which were absolutely impossible without this
presupposition; and suppose, at the same time, that speculative reason had
proved that liberty was incapable of being thought at all. It would then
follow that the moral presupposition must give way to the speculative
affirmation, the opposite of which involves an obvious contradiction, and that
liberty and, with it, morality must yield to the mechanism of nature; for the
negation of morality involves no contradiction, except on the presupposition
of liberty. Now morality does not require the speculative cognition of
liberty; it is enough that I can think it, that its conception involves no
contradiction, that it does not interfere with the mechanism of nature. But
even this requirement we could not satisfy, if we had not learnt the twofold
sense in which things may be taken; and it is only in this way that the
doctrine of morality and the doctrine of nature are confined within their
proper limits. For this result, then, we are indebted to a criticism which
warns us of our unavoidable ignorance with regard to things in themselves, and
establishes the necessary limitation of our theoretical cognition to mere
phenomena.
[*Footnote:
In order to cognize an object, I must be able to prove its possibility, either
from its reality as attested by experience, or a priori, by means of reason.
But I can think what I please, provided only I do not contradict myself; that
is, provided my conception is a possible thought, though I may be unable to
answer for the existence of a corresponding object in the sum of
possibilities. But something more is required before I can attribute to such a
conception objective validity, that is real possibility—the other
possibility being merely logical. We are not, however, confined to theoretical
sources of cognition for the means of satisfying this additional requirement,
but may derive them from practical sources.]
The
positive value of the critical principles of pure reason in relation to the
conception of God and of the simple nature of the soul, admits of a similar
exemplification; but on this point I shall not dwell. I cannot even make the
assumption—as the practical interests of morality require—of God, freedom,
and immortality, if I do not deprive speculative reason of its pretensions to
transcendent insight. For to arrive at these, it must make use of principles
which, in fact, extend only to the objects of possible experience, and which
cannot be applied to objects beyond this sphere without converting them into
phenomena, and thus rendering the practical extension of pure reason
impossible. I must, therefore, abolish knowledge, to make room for belief. The
dogmatism of metaphysics, that is, the presumption that it is possible to
advance in metaphysics without previous criticism, is the true source of the
unbelief (always dogmatic) which militates against morality.
Thus,
while it may be no very difficult task to bequeath a legacy to posterity, in
the shape of a system of metaphysics constructed in accordance with the
Critique of Pure Reason, still the value of such a bequest is not to be
depreciated. It will render an important service to reason, by substituting
the certainty of scientific method for that random groping after results
without the guidance of principles, which has hitherto characterized the
pursuit of metaphysical studies. It will render an important service to the
inquiring mind of youth, by leading the student to apply his powers to the
cultivation of. genuine science, instead of wasting them, as at present, on
speculations which can never lead to any result, or on the idle attempt to
invent new ideas and opinions. But, above all, it will confer an inestimable
benefit on morality and religion, by showing that all the objections urged
against them may be silenced for ever by the Socratic method, that is to say,
by proving the ignorance of the objector. For, as the world has never been,
and, no doubt, never will be without a system of metaphysics of one kind or
another, it is the highest and weightiest concern of philosophy to render it
powerless for harm, by closing up the sources of error.
This
important change in the field of the sciences, this loss of its fancied
possessions, to which speculative reason must submit, does not prove in any
way detrimental to the general interests of humanity. The advantages which the world has derived from the teachings
of pure reason are not at all impaired. The loss falls, in its whole extent,
on the monopoly of the schools, but does not in the slightest degree touch the
interests of mankind. I appeal to the most obstinate dogmatist, whether the
proof of the continued existence of the soul after death, derived from the
simplicity of its substance; of the freedom of the will in opposition to the
general mechanism of nature, drawn from the subtle but impotent distinction of
subjective and objective practical necessity; or of the existence of God,
deduced from the conception of an ens realissimum—the contingency of the
changeable, and the necessity of a prime mover, has ever been able to pass
beyond the limits of the schools, to penetrate the public mind, or to exercise
the slightest influence on its convictions. It must be admitted that this has
not been the case and that, owing to the unfitness of the common understanding
for such subtle speculations, it can never be expected to take place. On the
contrary, it is plain that the hope of a future life arises from the feeling,
which exists in the breast of every man, that the temporal is inadequate to
meet and satisfy the demands of his nature. In like manner, it cannot be
doubted that the clear exhibition of duties in opposition to all the claims of
inclination, gives rise to the consciousness of freedom, and that the glorious
order, beauty, and providential care, everywhere displayed in nature, give
rise to the belief in a wise and great Author of the Universe. Such is the
genesis of these general convictions of mankind, so far as they depend on
rational grounds; and this public property not only remains undisturbed, but
is even raised to greater importance, by the doctrine that the schools have no
right to arrogate to themselves a more profound insight into a matter of
general human concernment than that to which the great mass of men, ever held
by us in the highest estimation, can without difficulty attain, and that the
schools should, therefore, confine themselves to the elaboration of these
universally comprehensible and, from a moral point of view, amply satisfactory
proofs. The change, therefore, affects only the arrogant pretensions of the
schools, which would gladly retain, in their own exclusive possession, the key
to the truths which they impart to the public.
Quod
mecum nescit, solus vult scire videri.
At
the same time it does not deprive the speculative philosopher of his just
title to be the sole depositor of a science which benefits the public without
its knowledge—I mean, the Critique of Pure Reason.
This can never become popular and, indeed, has no occasion to be so;
for finespun arguments in favour of useful truths make just as little
impression on the public mind as the equally subtle objections brought against
these truths. On the other hand, since both inevitably force themselves on
every man who rises to the height of speculation, it becomes the manifest duty
of the schools to enter upon a thorough investigation of the rights of
speculative reason and, thus, to prevent the scandal which metaphysical
controversies are sure, sooner or later, to cause even to the masses. It is
only by criticism that metaphysicians (and, as such, theologians too) can be
saved from these controversies and from the consequent perversion of their
doctrines. Criticism alone can strike a blow at the root of materialism,
fatalism, atheism, free-thinking, fanaticism, and superstition, which are
universally injurious—as well as of idealism and scepticism, which are
dangerous to the schools, but can scarcely pass over to the public. If
governments think proper to interfere with the affairs of the learned, it
would be more consistent with a wise regard for the interests of science, as
well as for those of society, to favour a criticism of this kind, by which
alone the labours of reason can be established on a firm basis, than to
support the ridiculous despotism of the schools, which raise a loud cry of
danger to the public over the destruction of cobwebs, of which the public has
never taken any notice, and the loss of which, therefore, it can never feel.
This
critical science is not opposed to the dogmatic procedure of reason in pure
cognition; for pure cognition must always be dogmatic, that is, must rest on
strict demonstration from sure principles a priori—but to dogmatism, that
is, to the presumption that it is possible to make any progress with a pure
cognition, derived from (philosophical) conceptions, according to the
principles which reason has long been in the habit of employing— without
first inquiring in what way and by what right reason has come into the
possession of these principles. Dogmatism is thus the dogmatic procedure of
pure reason without previous criticism of its own powers, and in opposing this
procedure, we must not be supposed to lend any countenance to that loquacious
shallowness which arrogates to itself the name of popularity, nor yet to
scepticism, which makes short work with the whole science of metaphysics. On
the contrary, our criticism is the necessary preparation for a thoroughly
scientific system of metaphysics which must perform its task entirely a
priori, to the complete satisfaction of speculative reason, and must,
therefore, be treated, not popularly, but scholastically. In carrying out the
plan which the Critique prescribes, that is, in the future system of
metaphysics, we must have recourse to the strict method of the celebrated
Wolf, the greatest of all dogmatic philosophers. He was the first to point out
the necessity of establishing fixed principles, of clearly defining our
conceptions, and of subjecting our demonstrations to the most severe scrutiny,
instead of rashly jumping at conclusions. The example which he set served to
awaken that spirit of profound and thorough investigation which is not yet
extinct in Germany. He would have been peculiarly well fitted to give a truly
scientific character to metaphysical studies, had it occurred to him to
prepare the field by a criticism of the organum, that is, of pure reason
itself. That be failed to perceive the necessity of such a procedure must be
ascribed to the dogmatic mode of thought which characterized his age, and on
this point the philosophers of his time, as well as of all previous times,
have nothing to reproach each other with. Those who reject at once the method
of Wolf, and of the Critique of Pure Reason, can have no other aim but to
shake off the fetters of science, to change labour into sport, certainty into
opinion, and philosophy into philodoxy.
In
this second edition, I have endeavoured, as far as possible, to remove the
difficulties and obscurity which, without fault of mine perhaps, have given
rise to many misconceptions even among acute thinkers. In the propositions
themselves, and in the demonstrations by which they are supported, as well as
in the form and the entire plan of the work, I have found nothing to alter;
which must be attributed partly to the long examination to which I had
subjected the whole before offering it to the public and partly to the nature
of the case. For pure speculative
reason is an organic structure in which there is nothing isolated or
independent, but every Single part is essential to all the rest; and hence,
the slightest imperfection, whether defect or positive error, could not fail
to betray itself in use. I venture, further, to hope, that this system will
maintain the same unalterable character for the future. I am led to entertain
this confidence, not by vanity, but by the evidence which the equality of the
result affords, when we proceed, first, from the simplest elements up to the
complete whole of pure reason and, and then, backwards from the whole to each
part. We find that the attempt to make the slightest alteration, in any part,
leads inevitably to contradictions, not merely in this system, but in human
reason itself. At the same time, there is still much room for improvement in
the exposition of the doctrines contained in this work. In the present
edition, I have endeavoured to remove misapprehensions of the aesthetical
part, especially with regard to the conception of time; to clear away the
obscurity which has been found in the deduction of the conceptions of the
understanding; to supply the supposed want of sufficient evidence in the
demonstration of the principles of the pure understanding; and, lastly, to
obviate the misunderstanding of the paralogisms which immediately precede the
rational psychology. Beyond this point—the end of the second main division of
the “Transcendental Dialectic”—I have not extended my alterations,*
partly from want of time, and partly because I am not aware that any portion
of the remainder has given rise to misconceptions among intelligent and
impartial critics, whom I do not here mention with that praise which is their
due, but who will find that their suggestions have been attended to in the
work itself.
[*Footnote:
The only addition, properly so called—and that only in the method of proof—which
I have made in the present edition, consists of a new refutation of
psychological idealism, and a strict demonstration—the only one possible, as
I believe—of the objective reality of external intuition. However harmless
idealism may be considered—although in reality it is not so—in regard to
the essential ends of metaphysics, it must still remain a scandal to
philosophy and to the general human reason to be obliged to assume, as an
article of mere belief, the existence of things external to ourselves (from
which, yet, we derive the whole material of cognition for the internal sense),
and not to be able to oppose a satisfactory proof to any one who may call it
in question. As there is some obscurity of expression in the demonstration as
it stands in the text, I propose to alter the passage in question as follows:
“But
this permanent cannot be an intuition in me. For all the determining grounds
of my existence which can be found in me are representations and, as such, do
themselves require a permanent, distinct from them, which may determine my
existence in relation to their changes, that is, my existence in time, wherein
they change.” It may, probably, be urged in opposition to this proof that,
after all, I am only conscious immediately of that which is in me, that is, of
my representation of external things, and that, consequently, it must always
remain uncertain whether anything corresponding to this representation does or
does not exist externally to me. But I am conscious, through internal
experience, of my existence in time (consequently, also, of the
determinability of the former in the latter), and that is more than the simple
consciousness of my representation. It is, in fact, the same as the empirical
consciousness of my existence, which can only be determined in relation to
something, which, while connected with my existence, is external to me. This
consciousness of my existence in time is, therefore, identical with the
consciousness of a relation to something external to me, and it is, therefore,
experience, not fiction, sense, not imagination, which inseparably connects
the external with my internal sense. For the external sense is, in itself, the
relation of intuition to something real, external to me; and the reality of
this something, as opposed to the mere imagination of it, rests solely on its
inseparable connection with internal experience as the condition of its
possibility. If with the intellectual consciousness of my existence, in the
representation: I am, which accompanies all my judgements, and all the
operations of my understanding, I could, at the same time, connect a
determination of my existence by intellectual intuition, then the
consciousness of a relation to something external to me would not be
necessary. But the internal intuition in which alone my existence can be
determined, though preceded by that purely intellectual consciousness, is
itself sensible and attached to the condition of time. Hence this
determination of my existence, and consequently my internal experience itself,
must depend on something permanent which is not in me, which can be,
therefore, only in something external to me, to which I must look upon myself
as being related. Thus the reality of the external sense is necessarily
connected with that of the internal, in order to the possibility of experience
in general; that is, I am just as certainly conscious that there are things
external to me related to my sense as I am that I myself exist as determined
in time. But in order to ascertain to what given intuitions objects, external
me, really correspond, in other words, what intuitions belong to the external
sense and not to imagination, I must have recourse, in every particular case,
to those rules according to which experience in general (even internal
experience) is distinguished from imagination, and which are always based on
the proposition that there really is an external experience. We may add the
remark that the representation of something permanent in existence, is not the
same thing as the permanent representation; for a representation may be very
variable and changing—as all our representations, even that of matter, are—and
yet refer to something permanent, which must, therefore, be distinct from all
my representations and external to me, the existence of which is necessarily
included in the determination of my own existence, and with it constitutes one
experience—an experience which would not even be possible internally, if it
were not also at the same time, in part, external. To the question How?
we are no more able to reply, than we are, in general, to think the
stationary in time, the coexistence of which with the variable, produces the
conception of change.]
In
attempting to render the exposition of my views as intelligible as possible, I
have been compelled to leave out or abridge various passages which were not
essential to the completeness of the work, but which many readers might
consider useful in other respects, and might be unwilling to miss. This
trifling loss, which could not be avoided without swelling the book beyond due
limits, may be supplied, at the pleasure of the reader, by a comparison with
the first edition, and will, I hope, be more than compensated for by the
greater clearness of the exposition as it now stands.
I
have observed, with pleasure and thankfulness, in the pages of various reviews
and treatises, that the spirit of profound and thorough investigation is not
extinct in Germany, though it may have been overborne and silenced for a time
by the fashionable tone of a licence in thinking, which gives itself the airs
of genius, and that the difficulties which beset the paths of criticism have
not prevented energetic and acute thinkers from making themselves masters of
the science of pure reason to which these paths conduct—a science which is
not popular, but scholastic in its character, and which alone can hope for a
lasting existence or possess an abiding value. To these deserving men, who so
happily combine profundity of view with a talent for lucid exposition—a
talent which I myself am not conscious of possessing—I leave the task of
removing any obscurity which may still adhere to the statement of my
doctrines. For, in this case, the danger is not that of being refuted, but of
being misunderstood. For my own part, I must henceforward abstain from
controversy, although I shall carefully attend to all suggestions, whether
from friends or adversaries, which may be of use in the future elaboration of
the system of this propaedeutic. As, during these labours, I have advanced
pretty far in years this month I reach my sixty-fourth year—it will be
necessary for me to economize time, if I am to carry out my plan of
elaborating the metaphysics of nature as well as of morals, in confirmation of
the correctness of the principles established in this Critique of Pure Reason,
both speculative and practical; and I must, therefore, leave the task of
clearing up the obscurities of the present work—inevitable, perhaps, at the
outset—as well as, the defence of the whole, to those deserving men, who
have made my system their own. A philosophical system cannot come forward
armed at all points like a mathematical treatise, and hence it may be quite
possible to take objection to particular passages, while the organic structure
of the system, considered as a unity, has no danger to apprehend. But few
possess the ability, and still fewer the inclination, to take a comprehensive
view of a new system. By confining the view to particular passages, taking
these out of their connection and comparing them with one another, it is easy
to pick out apparent contradictions, especially in a work written with any
freedom of style. These contradictions place the work in an unfavourable light
in the eyes of those who rely on the judgement of others, but are easily
reconciled by those who have mastered the idea of the whole.
If a theory possesses stability in itself, the action and reaction
which seemed at first to threaten its existence serve only, in the course of
time, to smooth down any superficial roughness or inequality, and—if men of
insight, impartiality, and truly popular gifts, turn their attention to it—to
secure to it, in a short time, the requisite elegance also.
Konigsberg,
April 1787.
INTRODUCTION
I.
Of the difference between Pure and Empirical Knowledge
That
all our knowledge begins with experience there can be no doubt.
For how is it possible that the faculty of cognition should be awakened
into exercise otherwise than by means of objects which affect our senses, and
partly of themselves produce representations, partly rouse our powers of
understanding into activity, to compare to connect, or to separate these, and
so to convert the raw material of our sensuous impressions into a knowledge of
objects, which is called experience? In respect of time, therefore, no
knowledge of ours is antecedent to experience, but begins with it.
But,
though all our knowledge begins with experience, it by no means follows that
all arises out of experience. For, on the contrary, it is quite possible that
our empirical knowledge is a compound of that which we receive through
impressions, and that which the faculty of cognition supplies from itself
(sensuous impressions giving merely the occasion), an addition which we cannot
distinguish from the original element given by sense, till long practice has
made us attentive to, and skilful in separating it. It is, therefore, a
question which requires close investigation, and not to be answered at first
sight, whether there exists a knowledge altogether independent of experience,
and even of all sensuous impressions? Knowledge of this kind is called a
priori, in contradistinction to empirical knowledge, which has its sources a
posteriori, that is, in experience.
But
the expression, “a priori,” is not as yet definite enough adequately to
indicate the whole meaning of the question above started. For, in speaking of
knowledge which has its sources in experience, we are wont to say, that this
or that may be known a priori, because we do not derive this knowledge
immediately from experience, but from a general rule, which, however, we have
itself borrowed from experience. Thus, if a man undermined his house, we say,
“he might know a priori that it would have fallen;” that is, he needed not
to have waited for the experience that it did actually fall. But still, a
priori, he could not know even this much. For, that bodies are heavy, and,
consequently, that they fall when their supports are taken away, must have
been known to him previously, by means of experience.
By
the term “knowledge a priori,” therefore, we shall in the sequel
understand, not such as is independent of this or that kind of experience, but
such as is absolutely so of all experience. Opposed to this is empirical
knowledge, or that which is possible only a posteriori, that is, through
experience. Knowledge a priori is either pure or impure. Pure knowledge a
priori is that with which no empirical element is mixed up. For example, the
proposition, “Every change has a cause,” is a proposition a priori, but
impure, because change is a conception which can only be derived from
experience.
II.
The Human Intellect, even in an Unphilosophical State, is in Possession
of Certain Cognitions “a priori”.
The
question now is as to a criterion, by which we may securely distinguish a pure
from an empirical cognition. Experience no doubt teaches us that this or that
object is constituted in such and such a manner, but not that it could not
possibly exist otherwise. Now, in the first place, if we have a proposition
which contains the idea of necessity in its very conception, it is a if,
moreover, it is not derived from any other proposition, unless from one
equally involving the idea of necessity, it is absolutely priori. Secondly, an
empirical judgement never exhibits strict and absolute, but only assumed and
comparative universality (by induction); therefore, the most we can say is—so
far as we have hitherto observed, there is no exception to this or that rule.
If, on the other hand, a judgement carries with it strict and absolute
universality, that is, admits of no possible exception, it is not derived from
experience, but is valid absolutely a priori.
Empirical
universality is, therefore, only an arbitrary extension of validity, from that
which may be predicated of a proposition valid in most cases, to that which is
asserted of a proposition which holds good in all; as, for example, in the
affirmation, “All bodies are heavy.” When, on the contrary, strict
universality characterizes a judgement, it necessarily indicates another
peculiar source of knowledge, namely, a faculty of cognition a priori.
Necessity and strict universality, therefore, are infallible tests for
distinguishing pure from empirical knowledge, and are inseparably connected
with each other. But as in the use of these criteria the empirical limitation
is sometimes more easily detected than the contingency of the judgement, or
the unlimited universality which we attach to a judgement is often a more
convincing proof than its necessity, it may be advisable to use the criteria
separately, each being by itself infallible.
Now,
that in the sphere of human cognition we have judgements which are necessary,
and in the strictest sense universal, consequently pure a priori, it will be
an easy matter to show. If we desire an example from the sciences, we need
only take any proposition in mathematics. If we cast our eyes upon the
commonest operations of the understanding, the proposition, “Every change
must have a cause,” will amply serve our purpose. In the latter case,
indeed, the conception of a cause so plainly involves the conception of a
necessity of connection with an effect, and of a strict universality of the
law, that the very notion of a cause would entirely disappear, were we to
derive it, like Hume, from a frequent association of what happens with that
which precedes; and the habit thence originating of connecting representations—the
necessity inherent in the judgement being therefore merely subjective.
Besides, without seeking for such examples of principles existing a
priori in cognition, we might easily show that such principles are the
indispensable basis of the possibility of experience itself, and consequently
prove their existence a priori. For whence could our experience itself acquire
certainty, if all the rules on which it depends were themselves empirical, and
consequently fortuitous? No one, therefore, can admit the validity of the use
of such rules as first principles. But, for the present, we may content
ourselves with having established the fact, that we do possess and exercise a
faculty of pure a priori cognition; and, secondly, with having pointed out the
proper tests of such cognition, namely, universality and necessity.
Not
only in judgements, however, but even in conceptions, is an a priori origin
manifest. For example, if we take away by degrees from our conceptions of a
body all that can be referred to mere sensuous experience—colour, hardness
or softness, weight, even impenetrability—the body will then vanish; but the
space which it occupied still remains, and this it is utterly impossible to
annihilate in thought. Again, if we take away, in like manner, from our
empirical conception of any object, corporeal or incorporeal, all properties
which mere experience has taught us to connect with it, still we cannot think
away those through which we cogitate it as substance, or adhering to
substance, although our conception of substance is more determined than that
of an object. Compelled, therefore, by that necessity with which the
conception of substance forces itself upon us, we must confess that it has its
seat in our faculty of cognition a priori.
III.
Philosophy stands in need of a Science which shall Determine the
Possibility, Principles, and Extent of
Human
Knowledge “a priori”
Of
far more importance than all that has been above said, is the consideration
that certain of our cognitions rise completely above the sphere of all
possible experience, and by means of conceptions, to which there exists in the
whole extent of experience no corresponding object, seem to extend the range
of our judgements beyond its bounds. And just in this transcendental or
supersensible sphere, where experience affords us neither instruction nor
guidance, lie the investigations of reason, which, on account of their
importance, we consider far preferable to, and as having a far more elevated
aim than, all that the understanding can achieve within the sphere of sensuous
phenomena. So high a value do we set upon these investigations, that even at
the risk of error, we persist in following them out, and permit neither doubt
nor disregard nor indifference to restrain us from the pursuit. These
unavoidable problems of mere pure reason are God, freedom (of will), and
immortality. The science which, with all its preliminaries, has for its
especial object the solution of these problems is named metaphysics—a
science which is at the very outset dogmatical, that is, it confidently takes
upon itself the execution of this task without any previous investigation of
the ability or inability of reason for such an undertaking.
Now
the safe ground of experience being thus abandoned, it seems nevertheless
natural that we should hesitate to erect a building with the cognitions we
possess, without knowing whence they come, and on the strength of principles,
the origin of which is undiscovered. Instead of thus trying to build without a
foundation, it is rather to be expected that we should long ago have put the
question, how the understanding can arrive at these a priori cognitions, and
what is the extent, validity, and worth which they may possess? We say, “This
is natural enough,” meaning by the word natural, that which is consistent
with a just and reasonable way of thinking; but if we understand by the term,
that. which usually happens, nothing indeed could be more natural and more
comprehensible than that this investigation should be left long unattempted.
For one part of our pure knowledge, the science of mathematics, has been long
firmly established, and thus leads us to form flattering expectations with
regard to others, though these may be of quite a different nature. Besides,
when we get beyond the bounds of experience, we are of course safe from
opposition in that quarter; and the charm of widening the range of our
knowledge is so great that, unless we are brought to a standstill by some
evident contradiction, we hurry on undoubtingly in our course. This, however,
may be avoided, if we are sufficiently cautious in the construction of our
fictions, which are not the less fictions on that account.
Mathematical
science affords us a brilliant example, how far, independently of all
experience, we may carry our a priori knowledge. It is true that the
mathematician occupies himself with objects and cognitions only in so far as
they can be represented by means of intuition. But this circumstance is easily
overlooked, because the said intuition can itself be given a priori, and
therefore is hardly to be distinguished from a mere pure conception. Deceived
by such a proof of the power of reason, we can perceive no limits to the
extension of our knowledge. The light dove cleaving in free flight the thin
air, whose resistance it feels, might imagine that her movements would be far
more free and rapid in airless space. just in the same way did Plato,
abandoning the world of sense because of the narrow limits it sets to the
understanding, venture upon the wings of ideas beyond it, into the void space
of pure intellect. He did not reflect that he made no real progress by all his
efforts; for he met with no resistance which might serve him for a support, as
it were, whereon to rest, and on which he might apply his powers, in order to
let the intellect acquire momentum for its progress. It is, indeed, the common
fate of human reason in speculation, to finish the imposing edifice of thought
as rapidly as possible, and then for the first time to begin to examine
whether the foundation is a solid one or no. Arrived at this point, all sorts
of excuses are sought after, in order to console us for its want of stability,
or rather, indeed, to enable Us to dispense altogether with so late and
dangerous an investigation. But what frees us during the process of building
from all apprehension or suspicion, and flatters us into the belief of its
solidity, is this. A great part, perhaps the greatest part, of the business of
our reason consists in the analysation of the conceptions which we already
possess of objects. By this means we gain a multitude of cognitions, which
although really nothing more than elucidations or explanations of that which
(though in a confused manner) was already thought in our conceptions, are, at
least in respect of their form, prized as new introspections; whilst, so far
as regards their matter or content, we have really made no addition to our
conceptions, but only disinvolved them. But as this process does furnish a
real priori knowledge, which has a sure progress and useful results, reason,
deceived by this, slips in, without being itself aware of it, assertions of a
quite different kind; in which, to given conceptions it adds others, a priori
indeed, but entirely foreign to them, without our knowing how it arrives at
these, and, indeed, without such a question ever suggesting itself. I shall
therefore at once proceed to examine the difference between these two modes of
knowledge.
IV.
Of the Difference Between Analytical and Synthetical Judgements.
In
all judgements wherein the relation of a subject to the predicate is cogitated
(I mention affirmative judgements only here; the application to negative will
be very easy), this relation is possible in two different ways. Either the
predicate B belongs to the subject A, as somewhat which is contained (though
covertly) in the conception A; or the predicate B lies completely out of the
conception A, although it stands in connection with it. In the first instance,
I term the judgement analytical, in the second, synthetical.
Analytical judgements (affirmative) are therefore those in which the
connection of the predicate with the subject is cogitated through identity;
those in which this connection is cogitated without identity, are called
synthetical judgements. The former may be called explicative, the latter
augmentative judgements; because the former add in the predicate nothing to
the conception of the subject, but only analyse it into its constituent
conceptions, which were thought already in the subject, although in a confused
manner; the latter add to our conceptions of the subject a predicate which was
not contained in it, and which no analysis could ever have discovered therein.
For example, when I say, “All bodies are extended,” this is an analytical
judgement. For I need not go beyond the conception of body in order to find
extension connected with it, but merely analyse the conception, that is,
become conscious of the manifold properties which I think in that conception,
in order to discover this predicate in it: it is therefore an analytical
judgement. On the other hand, when I say, “All bodies are heavy,” the
predicate is something totally different from that which I think in the mere
conception of a body. By the addition of such a predicate, therefore, it
becomes a synthetical judgement.
Judgements
of experience, as such, are always synthetical. For it would be absurd to
think of grounding an analytical judgement on experience, because in forming
such a judgement I need not go out of the sphere of my conceptions, and
therefore recourse to the testimony of experience is quite unnecessary. That
“bodies are extended” is not an empirical judgement, but a proposition
which stands firm a priori. For before addressing myself to experience, I
already have in my conception all the requisite conditions for the judgement,
and I have only to extract the predicate from the conception, according to the
principle of contradiction, and thereby at the same time become conscious of
the necessity of the judgement, a necessity which I could never learn from
experience. On the other hand, though at first I do not at all include the
predicate of weight in my conception of body in general, that conception still
indicates an object of experience, a part of the totality of experience, to
which I can still add other parts; and this I do when I recognize by
observation that bodies are heavy. I can cognize beforehand by analysis the
conception of body through the characteristics of extension, impenetrability,
shape, etc., all which are cogitated in this conception. But now I extend my
knowledge, and looking back on experience from which I had derived this
conception of body, I find weight at all times connected with the above
characteristics, and therefore I synthetically add to my conceptions this as a
predicate, and say, “All bodies are heavy.” Thus it is experience upon
which rests the possibility of the synthesis of the predicate of weight with
the conception of body, because both conceptions, although the one is not
contained in the other, still belong to one another (only contingently,
however), as parts of a whole, namely, of experience, which is itself a
synthesis of intuitions.
But
to synthetical judgements a priori, such aid is entirely wanting. If I go out
of and beyond the conception A, in order to recognize another B as connected
with it, what foundation have I to rest on, whereby to render the synthesis
possible? I have here no longer the advantage of looking out in the sphere of
experience for what I want. Let us take, for example, the proposition, “Everything
that happens has a cause.” In the conception of “something that happens,”
I indeed think an existence which a certain time antecedes, and from this I
can derive analytical judgements. But the conception of a cause lies quite out
of the above conception, and indicates something entirely different from “that
which happens,” and is consequently not contained in that conception. How
then am I able to assert concerning the general conception—“that which
happens”—something entirely different from that conception, and to
recognize the conception of cause although not contained in it, yet as
belonging to it, and even necessarily? what is here the unknown = X, upon
which the understanding rests when it believes it has found, out of the
conception A a foreign predicate B, which it nevertheless considers to be
connected with it? It cannot be experience, because the principle adduced
annexes the two representations, cause and effect, to the representation
existence, not only with universality, which experience cannot give, but also
with the expression of necessity, therefore completely a priori and from pure
conceptions. Upon such
synthetical, that is augmentative propositions, depends the whole aim of our
speculative knowledge a priori; for although analytical judgements are indeed
highly important and necessary, they are so, only to arrive at that clearness
of conceptions which is requisite for a sure and extended synthesis, and this
alone is a real acquisition.
V.
In all Theoretical Sciences of Reason, Synthetical Judgements “a
priori” are contained as Principles.
1.
Mathematical judgements are always synthetical. Hitherto this fact,
though incontestably true and very important in its consequences, seems to
have escaped the analysts of the human mind, nay, to be in complete opposition
to all their conjectures. For as it was found that mathematical conclusions
all proceed according to the principle of contradiction (which the nature of
every apodeictic certainty requires), people became persuaded that the
fundamental principles of the science also were recognized and admitted in the
same way. But the notion is fallacious; for although a synthetical proposition
can certainly be discerned by means of the principle of contradiction, this is
possible only when another synthetical proposition precedes, from which the
latter is deduced, but never of itself which
Before
all, be it observed, that proper mathematical propositions are always
judgements a priori, and not empirical, because they carry along with them the
conception of necessity, which cannot be given by experience. If this be
demurred to, it matters not; I will then limit my assertion to pure
mathematics, the very conception of which implies that it consists of
knowledge altogether non-empirical and a priori.
We
might, indeed at first suppose that the proposition 7 + 5 = 12 is a merely
analytical proposition, following (according to the principle of
contradiction) from the conception of a sum of seven and five. But if we regard it more narrowly, we find that our
conception of the sum of seven and five contains nothing more than the uniting
of both sums into one, whereby it cannot at all be cogitated what this single
number is which embraces both. The conception of twelve is by no means
obtained by merely cogitating the union of seven and five; and we may analyse
our conception of such a possible sum as long as we will, still we shall never
discover in it the notion of twelve. We
must go beyond these conceptions, and have recourse to an intuition which
corresponds to one of the two—our five fingers, for example, or like Segner
in his Arithmetic five points, and so by degrees, add the units contained in
the five given in the intuition, to the conception of seven. For I first take
the number 7, and, for the conception of 5 calling in the aid of the fingers
of my hand as objects of intuition, I add the units, which I before took
together to make up the number 5, gradually now by means of the material image
my hand, to the number 7, and by this process, I at length see the number 12
arise. That 7 should be added to 5, I have certainly cogitated in my
conception of a sum = 7 + 5, but not that this sum was equal to 12.
Arithmetical propositions are therefore always synthetical, of which we may
become more clearly convinced by trying large numbers. For it will thus become
quite evident that, turn and twist our conceptions as we may, it is
impossible, without having recourse to intuition, to arrive at the sum total
or product by means of the mere analysis of our conceptions. just as little is
any principle of pure geometry analytical. “A straight line between two
points is the shortest,” is a synthetical proposition. For my conception of
straight contains no notion of quantity, but is merely qualitative. The
conception of the shortest is therefore fore wholly an addition, and by no
analysis can it be extracted from our conception of a straight line. Intuition
must therefore here lend its aid, by means of which, and thus only, our
synthesis is possible.
Some
few principles preposited by geometricians are, indeed, really analytical, and
depend on the principle of contradiction.
They serve, however, like identical propositions, as links in the chain
of method, not as principles—for example, a = a, the whole is equal to
itself, or (a+b) > a, the whole is greater than its part. And yet even these principles themselves, though they derive
their validity from pure conceptions, are only admitted in mathematics because
they can be presented in intuition. What causes us here commonly to believe
that the predicate of such apodeictic judgements is already contained in our
conception, and that the judgement is therefore analytical, is merely the
equivocal nature of the expression. We must join in thought a certain
predicate to a given conception, and this necessity cleaves already to the
conception. But the question is,
not what we must join in thought to the given conception, but what we really
think therein, though only obscurely, and then it becomes manifest that the
predicate pertains to these conceptions, necessarily indeed, yet not as
thought in the conception itself, but by virtue of an intuition, which must be
added to the conception.
2.
The science of natural philosophy (physics) contains in itself
synthetical judgements a priori, as principles. I shall adduce two
propositions. For instance, the proposition, “In all changes of the material
world, the quantity of matter remains unchanged”; or, that, “In all
communication of motion, action and reaction must always be equal.” In both
of these, not only is the necessity, and therefore their origin a priori
clear, but also that they are synthetical propositions. For in the conception
of matter, I do not cogitate its permanency, but merely its presence in space,
which it fills. I therefore really go out of and beyond the conception of
matter, in order to think on to it something a priori, which I did not think
in it. The proposition is therefore not analytical, but synthetical, and
nevertheless conceived a priori; and so it is with regard to the other
propositions of the pure part of natural philosophy.
3.
As to metaphysics, even if we look upon it merely as an attempted
science, yet, from the nature of human reason, an indispensable one, we find
that it must contain synthetical propositions a priori. It is not merely the
duty of metaphysics to dissect, and thereby analytically to illustrate the
conceptions which we form a priori of things; but we seek to widen the range
of our a priori knowledge. For
this purpose, we must avail ourselves of such principles as add something to
the original conception—something not identical with, nor contained in it,
and by means of synthetical judgements a priori, leave far behind us the
limits of experience; for example, in the proposition, “the world must have
a beginning,” and such like. Thus metaphysics, according to the proper aim
of the science, consists merely of synthetical propositions a priori.
VI.
The Universal Problem of Pure Reason.
It
is extremely advantageous to be able to bring a number of investigations under
the formula of a single problem. For in this manner, we not only facilitate
our own labour, inasmuch as we define it clearly to ourselves, but also render
it more easy for others to decide whether we have done justice to our
undertaking. The proper problem of pure reason, then, is contained in the
question: “How are synthetical judgements a priori possible?”
That
metaphysical science has hitherto remained in so vacillating a state of
uncertainty and contradiction, is only to be attributed to the fact that this
great problem, and perhaps even the difference between analytical and
synthetical judgements, did not sooner suggest itself to philosophers. Upon
the solution of this problem, or upon sufficient proof of the impossibility of
synthetical knowledge a priori, depends the existence or downfall of the
science of metaphysics. Among philosophers, David Hume came the nearest of all
to this problem; yet it never acquired in his mind sufficient precision, nor
did he regard the question in its universality. On the contrary, he stopped
short at the synthetical proposition of the connection of an effect with its
cause (principium causalitatis), insisting that such proposition a priori was
impossible. According to his conclusions, then, all that we term metaphysical
science is a mere delusion, arising from the fancied insight of reason into
that which is in truth borrowed from experience, and to which habit has given
the appearance of necessity. Against this assertion, destructive to all pure
philosophy, he would have been guarded, had he had our problem before his eyes
in its universality. For he would then have perceived that, according to his
own argument, there likewise could not be any pure mathematical science, which
assuredly cannot exist without synthetical propositions a priori—an
absurdity from which his good understanding must have saved him.
In
the solution of the above problem is at the same time comprehended the
possibility of the use of pure reason in the foundation and construction of
all sciences which contain theoretical knowledge a priori of objects, that is
to say, the answer to the following questions:
How
is pure mathematical science possible?
How
is pure natural science possible?
Respecting
these sciences, as they do certainly exist, it may with propriety be asked,
how they are possible?--for that they must be possible is shown by the fact of
their really existing.* But as to metaphysics, the miserable progress it has
hitherto made, and the fact that of no one system yet brought forward, far as
regards its true aim, can it be said that this science really exists, leaves
any one at liberty to doubt with reason the very possibility of its existence.
[*Footnote:
As to the existence of pure natural science, or physics, perhaps many may
still express doubts. But we have only to look at the different propositions
which are commonly treated of at the commencement of proper (empirical)
physical science—those, for example, relating to the permanence of the same
quantity of matter, the vis inertiae, the equality of action and reaction,
etc.—to be soon convinced that they form a science of pure physics (physica
pura, or rationalis), which well deserves to be separately exposed as a
special science, in its whole extent, whether that be great or confined.]
Yet,
in a certain sense, this kind of knowledge must unquestionably be looked upon
as given; in other words, metaphysics must be considered as really existing,
if not as a science, nevertheless as a natural disposition of the human mind
(metaphysica naturalis). For human reason, without any instigations imputable
to the mere vanity of great knowledge, unceasingly progresses, urged on by its
own feeling of need, towards such questions as cannot be answered by any
empirical application of reason, or principles derived therefrom; and so there
has ever really existed in every man some system of metaphysics. It will
always exist, so soon as reason awakes to the exercise of its power of
speculation. And now the question arises: “How is metaphysics, as a natural
disposition, possible?” In other words, how, from the nature of universal
human reason, do those questions arise which pure reason proposes to itself,
and which it is impelled by its own feeling of need to answer as well as it
can?
But
as in all the attempts hitherto made to answer the questions which reason is
prompted by its very nature to propose to itself, for example, whether the
world had a beginning, or has existed from eternity, it has always met with
unavoidable contradictions, we must not rest satisfied with the mere natural
disposition of the mind to metaphysics, that is, with the existence of the
faculty of pure reason, whence, indeed, some sort of metaphysical system
always arises; but it must be possible to arrive at certainty in regard to the
question whether we know or do not know the things of which metaphysics
treats. We must be able to arrive at a decision on the subjects of its
questions, or on the ability or inability of reason to form any judgement
respecting them; and therefore either to extend with confidence the bounds of
our pure reason, or to set strictly defined and safe limits to its action.
This last question, which arises out of the above universal problem, would
properly run thus:
“How
is metaphysics possible as a science?”
Thus,
the critique of reason leads at last, naturally and necessarily, to science;
and, on the other hand, the dogmatical use of reason without criticism leads
to groundless assertions, against which others equally specious can always be
set, thus ending unavoidably in scepticism.
Besides,
this science cannot be of great and formidable prolixity, because it has not
to do with objects of reason, the variety of which is inexhaustible, but
merely with Reason herself and her problems; problems which arise out of her
own bosom, and are not proposed to her by the nature of outward things, but by
her own nature. And when once Reason has previously become able completely to
understand her own power in regard to objects which she meets with in
experience, it will be easy to determine securely the extent and limits of her
attempted application to objects beyond the confines of experience.
We
may and must, therefore, regard the attempts hitherto made to establish
metaphysical science dogmatically as non-existent. For what of analysis, that
is, mere dissection of conceptions, is contained in one or other, is not the
aim of, but only a preparation for metaphysics proper, which has for its
object the extension, by means of synthesis, of our a priori knowledge. And
for this purpose, mere analysis is of course useless, because it only shows
what is contained in these conceptions, but not how we arrive, a priori, at
them; and this it is her duty to show, in order to be able afterwards to
determine their valid use in regard to all objects of experience, to all
knowledge in general. But little self-denial, indeed, is needed to give up
these pretensions, seeing the undeniable, and in the dogmatic mode of
procedure, inevitable contradictions of Reason with herself, have long since
ruined the reputation of every system of metaphysics that has appeared up to
this time. It will require more firmness to remain undeterred by difficulty
from within, and opposition from without, from endeavouring, by a method quite
opposed to all those hitherto followed, to further the growth and fruitfulness
of a science indispensable to human reason—a science from which every branch
it has borne may be cut away, but whose roots remain indestructible.
VII.
Idea and Division of a Particular Science, under the Name of a Critique
of Pure Reason.
From
all that has been said, there results the idea of a particular science, which
may be called the Critique of Pure Reason.
For reason is the faculty which furnishes us with the principles of
knowledge a priori. Hence, pure reason is the faculty which contains the
principles of cognizing anything absolutely a priori. An organon of pure
reason would be a compendium of those principles according to which alone all
pure cognitions a priori can be obtained. The completely extended application
of such an organon would afford us a system of pure reason. As this, however,
is demanding a great deal, and it is yet doubtful whether any extension of our
knowledge be here possible, or, if so, in what cases; we can regard a science
of the mere criticism of pure reason, its sources and limits, as the
propaedeutic to a system of pure reason. Such a science must not be called a
doctrine, but only a critique of pure reason; and its use, in regard to
speculation, would be only negative, not to enlarge the bounds of, but to
purify, our reason, and to shield it against error—which alone is no little
gain. I apply the term transcendental to all knowledge which is not so much
occupied with objects as with the mode of our cognition of these objects, so
far as this mode of cognition is possible a priori. A system of such
conceptions would be called transcendental philosophy. But this, again, is
still beyond the bounds of our present essay. For as such a science must
contain a complete exposition not only of our synthetical a priori, but of our
analytical a priori knowledge, it is of too wide a range for our present
purpose, because we do not require to carry our analysis any farther than is
necessary to understand, in their full extent, the principles of synthesis a
priori, with which alone we have to do. This investigation, which we cannot
properly call a doctrine, but only a transcendental critique, because it aims
not at the enlargement, but at the correction and guidance, of our knowledge,
and is to serve as a touchstone of the worth or worthlessness of all knowledge
a priori, is the sole object of our present essay. Such a critique is
consequently, as far as possible, a preparation for an organon; and if this
new organon should be found to fail, at least for a canon of pure reason,
according to which the complete system of the philosophy of pure reason,
whether it extend or limit the bounds of that reason, might one day be set
forth both analytically and synthetically. For that this is possible, nay,
that such a system is not of so great extent as to preclude the hope of its
ever being completed, is evident. For we have not here to do with the nature
of outward objects, which is infinite, but solely with the mind, which judges
of the nature of objects, and, again, with the mind only in respect of its
cognition a priori. And the object of our investigations, as it is not to be
sought without, but, altogether within, ourselves, cannot remain concealed,
and in all probability is limited enough to be completely surveyed and fairly
estimated, according to its worth or worthlessness. Still less let the reader
here expect a critique of books and systems of pure reason; our present object
is exclusively a critique of the faculty of pure reason itself. Only when we
make this critique our foundation, do we possess a pure touchstone for
estimating the philosophical value of ancient and modern writings on this
subject; and without this criterion, the incompetent historian or judge
decides upon and corrects the groundless assertions of others with his own,
which have themselves just as little foundation.
Transcendental
philosophy is the idea of a science, for which the Critique of Pure Reason
must sketch the whole plan architectonically, that is, from principles, with a
full guarantee for the validity and stability of all the parts which enter
into the building. It is the system of all the principles of pure reason. If
this Critique itself does not assume the title of transcendental philosophy,
it is only because, to be a complete system, it ought to contain a full
analysis of all human knowledge a priori. Our critique must, indeed, lay
before us a complete enumeration of all the radical conceptions which
constitute the said pure knowledge. But from the complete analysis of these
conceptions themselves, as also from a complete investigation of those derived
from them, it abstains with reason; partly because it would be deviating from
the end in view to occupy itself with this analysis, since this process is not
attended with the difficulty and insecurity to be found in the synthesis, to
which our critique is entirely devoted, and partly because it would be
inconsistent with the unity of our plan to burden this essay with the
vindication of the completeness of such an analysis and deduction, with which,
after all, we have at present nothing to do. This completeness of the analysis
of these radical conceptions, as well as of the deduction from the conceptions
a priori which may be given by the analysis, we can, however, easily attain,
provided only that we are in possession of all these radical conceptions,
which are to serve as principles of the synthesis, and that in respect of this
main purpose nothing is wanting.
To
the Critique of Pure Reason, therefore, belongs all that constitutes
transcendental philosophy; and it is the complete idea of transcendental
philosophy, but still not the science itself; because it only proceeds so far
with the analysis as is necessary to the power of judging completely of our
synthetical knowledge a priori.
The
principal thing we must attend to, in the division of the parts of a science
like this, is that no conceptions must enter it which contain aught empirical;
in other words, that the knowledge a priori must be completely pure. Hence,
although the highest principles and fundamental conceptions of morality are
certainly cognitions a priori, yet they do not belong to transcendental
philosophy; because, though they certainly do not lay the conceptions of pain,
pleasure, desires, inclinations, etc. (which are all of empirical origin), at
the foundation of its precepts, yet still into the conception of duty—as an
obstacle to be overcome, or as an incitement which should not be made into a
motive—these empirical conceptions must necessarily enter, in the
construction of a system of pure morality. Transcendental philosophy is
consequently a philosophy of the pure and merely speculative reason. For all
that is practical, so far as it contains motives, relates to feelings, and
these belong to empirical sources of cognition.
If
we wish to divide this science from the universal point of view of a science
in general, it ought to comprehend, first, a Doctrine of the Elements, and,
secondly, a Doctrine of the Method of pure reason. Each of these main
divisions will have its subdivisions, the separate reasons for which we cannot
here particularize. Only so much seems necessary, by way of introduction of
premonition, that there are two sources of human knowledge (which probably
spring from a common, but to us unknown root), namely, sense and
understanding. By the former, objects are given to us; by the latter,
thought. So far as the faculty of sense may contain representations a priori,
which form the conditions under which objects are given, in so far it belongs
to transcendental philosophy. The transcendental doctrine of sense must form
the first part of our science of elements, because the conditions under which
alone the objects of human knowledge are given must precede those under which
they are thought.
I.
TRANSCENDENTAL DOCTRINE OF ELEMENTS.
FIRST
PART. TRANSCENDENTAL AESTHETIC.
SS
I. Introductory.
In
whatsoever mode, or by whatsoever means, our knowledge may relate to objects,
it is at least quite clear that the only manner in which it immediately
relates to them is by means of an intuition. To this as the indispensable
groundwork, all thought points. But an intuition can take place only in so far
as the object is given to us. This, again, is only possible, to man at least,
on condition that the object affect the mind in a certain manner. The capacity
for receiving representations (receptivity) through the mode in which we are
affected by objects, objects, is called sensibility. By means of sensibility,
therefore, objects are given to us, and it alone furnishes us with intuitions;
by the understanding they are thought, and from it arise conceptions. But an
thought must directly, or indirectly, by means of certain signs, relate
ultimately to intuitions; consequently, with us, to sensibility, because in no
other way can an object be given to us.
The
effect of an object upon the faculty of representation, so far as we are
affected by the said object, is sensation. That sort of intuition which
relates to an object by means of sensation is called an empirical intuition.
The undetermined object of an empirical intuition is called phenomenon. That
which in the phenomenon corresponds to the sensation, I term its matter; but
that which effects that the content of the phenomenon can be arranged under
certain relations, I call its form. But that in which our sensations are
merely arranged, and by which they are susceptible of assuming a certain form,
cannot be itself sensation. It is, then, the matter of all phenomena that is
given to us a posteriori; the form must lie ready a priori for them in the
mind, and consequently can be regarded separately from all sensation.
I
call all representations pure, in the transcendental meaning of the word,
wherein nothing is met with that belongs to sensation. And accordingly we find
existing in the mind a priori, the pure form of sensuous intuitions in
general, in which all the manifold content of the phenomenal world is arranged
and viewed under certain relations. This
pure form of sensibility I shall call pure intuition. Thus, if I take away
from our representation of a body all that the understanding thinks as
belonging to it, as substance, force, divisibility, etc., and also whatever
belongs to sensation, as impenetrability, hardness, colour, etc.; yet there is
still something left us from this empirical intuition, namely, extension and
shape. These belong to pure intuition, which exists a priori in the mind, as a
mere form of sensibility, and without any real object of the senses or any
sensation.
The
science of all the principles of sensibility a priori, I call transcendental
aesthetic.* There must, then, be such a science forming the first part of the
transcendental doctrine of elements, in contradistinction to that part which
contains the principles of pure thought, and which is called transcendental
logic.
[Footnote:
The Germans are the only people who at present use this word to indicate what
others call the critique of taste. At the foundation of this term lies the
disappointed hope, which the eminent analyst, Baumgarten, conceived, of
subjecting the criticism of the beautiful to principles of reason, and so of
elevating its rules into a science. But
his endeavours were vain. For the said rules or criteria are, in respect to
their chief sources, merely empirical, consequently never can serve as
determinate laws a priori, by which our judgement in matters of taste is to be
directed. It is rather our judgement which forms the proper test as to the
correctness of the principles. On this account it is advisable to give up the
use of the term as designating the critique of taste, and to apply it solely
to that doctrine, which is true science—the science of the laws of
sensibility—and thus come nearer to the language and the sense of the
ancients in their well-known division of the objects of cognition into
aiotheta kai noeta, or to share it with speculative philosophy, and employ it
partly in a transcendental, partly in a psychological signification.]
In
the science of transcendental aesthetic accordingly, we shall first isolate
sensibility or the sensuous faculty, by separating from it all that is annexed
to its perceptions by the conceptions of understanding, so that nothing be
left but empirical intuition. In the next place we shall take away from this
intuition all that belongs to sensation, so that nothing may remain but pure
intuition, and the mere form of phenomena, which is all that the sensibility
can afford a priori. From this investigation it will be found that there are
two pure forms of sensuous intuition, as principles of knowledge a priori,
namely, space and time. To the consideration of these we shall now proceed.
SECTION
I. Of Space.
SS
2. Metaphysical Exposition of this Conception.
By
means of the external sense (a property of the mind), we represent to
ourselves objects as without us, and these all in space. Herein alone are
their shape, dimensions, and relations to each other determined or
determinable. The internal sense, by means of which the mind contemplates
itself or its internal state, gives, indeed, no intuition of the soul as an
object; yet there is nevertheless a determinate form, under which alone the
contemplation of our internal state is possible, so that all which relates to
the inward determinations of the mind is represented in relations of time.
Of time we cannot have any external intuition, any more than we can
have an internal intuition of space. What then are time and space?
Are they real existences? Or, are they merely relations or
determinations of things, such, however, as would equally belong to these
things in themselves, though they should never become objects of intuition;
or, are they such as belong only to the form of intuition, and consequently to
the subjective constitution of the mind, without which these predicates of
time and space could not be attached to any object? In order to become
informed on these points, we shall first give an exposition of the conception
of space. By exposition, I mean the clear, though not detailed, representation
of that which belongs to a conception; and an exposition is metaphysical when
it contains that which represents the conception as given a priori.
1.
Space is not a conception which has been derived from outward
experiences. For, in order that certain sensations may relate to something
without me (that is, to something which occupies a different part of space
from that in which I am); in like manner, in order that I may represent them
not merely as without, of, and near to each other, but also in separate
places, the representation of space must already exist as a foundation.
Consequently, the representation of space cannot be borrowed from the
relations of external phenomena through experience; but, on the contrary, this
external experience is itself only possible through the said antecedent
representation.
2.
Space then is a necessary representation a priori, which serves for the
foundation of all external intuitions. We never can imagine or make a
representation to ourselves of the non-existence of space, though we may
easily enough think that no objects are found in it. It
must, therefore, be considered as the condition of the possibility of
phenomena, and by no means as a determination dependent on them, and is a
representation a priori, which necessarily supplies the basis for external
phenomena.
3.
Space is no discursive, or as we say, general conception of the
relations of things, but a pure intuition. For, in the first place, we can
only represent to ourselves one space, and, when we talk of divers spaces, we
mean only parts of one and the same space. Moreover, these parts cannot
antecede this one all-embracing space, as the component parts from which the
aggregate can be made up, but can be cogitated only as existing in it. Space
is essentially one, and multiplicity in it, consequently the general notion of
spaces, of this or that space, depends solely upon limitations. Hence it
follows that an a priori intuition (which is not empirical) lies at the root
of all our conceptions of space. Thus, moreover, the principles of geometry—for
example, that “in a triangle, two sides together are greater than the third,”
are never deduced from general conceptions of line and triangle, but from
intuition, and this a priori, with apodeictic certainty.
4.
Space is represented as an infinite given quantity. Now every
conception must indeed be considered as a representation which is contained in
an infinite multitude of different possible representations, which, therefore,
comprises these under itself; but no conception, as such, can be so conceived,
as if it contained within itself an infinite multitude of representations.
Nevertheless, space is so conceived of, for all parts of space are equally
capable of being produced to infinity. Consequently, the original
representation of space is an intuition a priori, and not a conception.
SS
3. Transcendental Exposition of the Conception of Space.
By
a transcendental exposition, I mean the explanation of a conception, as a
principle, whence can be discerned the possibility of other synthetical a
priori cognitions. For this purpose, it is requisite, firstly, that such
cognitions do really flow from the given conception; and, secondly, that the
said cognitions are only possible under the presupposition of a given mode of
explaining this conception.
Geometry
is a science which determines the properties of space synthetically, and yet a
priori. What, then, must be our representation of space, in order that such a
cognition of it may be possible? It must be originally intuition, for from a
mere conception, no propositions can be deduced which go out beyond the
conception, and yet this happens in geometry. (Introd. V.) But this intuition
must be found in the mind a priori, that is, before any perception of objects,
consequently must be pure, not empirical, intuition. For geometrical
principles are always apodeictic, that is, united with the consciousness of
their necessity, as: “Space has only three dimensions.” But propositions
of this kind cannot be empirical judgements, nor conclusions from them.
(Introd. II.) Now, how can an external intuition anterior to objects
themselves, and in which our conception of objects can be determined a priori,
exist in the human mind? Obviously not otherwise than in so far as it has its
seat in the subject only, as the formal capacity of the subject’s being
affected by objects, and thereby of obtaining immediate representation, that
is, intuition; consequently, only as the form of the external sense in
general.
Thus
it is only by means of our explanation that the possibility of geometry, as a
synthetical science a priori, becomes comprehensible. Every mode of
explanation which does not show us this possibility, although in appearance it
may be similar to ours, can with the utmost certainty be distinguished from it
by these marks.
SS
4. Conclusions from the foregoing Conceptions.
(a)
Space does not represent any property of objects as things in
themselves, nor does it represent them in their relations to each other; in
other words, space does not represent to us any determination of objects such
as attaches to the objects themselves, and would remain, even though all
subjective conditions of the intuition were abstracted. For neither absolute
nor relative determinations of objects can be intuited prior to the existence
of the things to which they belong, and therefore not a priori.
(b)
Space is nothing else than the form of all phenomena of the external
sense, that is, the subjective condition of the sensibility, under which alone
external intuition is possible. Now, because the receptivity or capacity of
the subject to be affected by objects necessarily antecedes all intuitions of
these objects, it is easily understood how the form of all phenomena can be
given in the mind previous to all actual perceptions, therefore a priori, and
how it, as a pure intuition, in which all objects must be determined, can
contain principles of the relations of these objects prior to all experience.
It
is therefore from the human point of view only that we can speak of space,
extended objects, etc. If we depart from the subjective condition, under which
alone we can obtain external intuition, or, in other words, by means of which
we are affected by objects, the representation of space has no meaning
whatsoever. This predicate is only applicable to things in so far as they
appear to us, that is, are objects of sensibility. The constant form of this
receptivity, which we call sensibility, is a necessary condition of all
relations in which objects can be intuited as existing without us, and when
abstraction of these objects is made, is a pure intuition, to which we give
the name of space. It is clear that we cannot make the special conditions of
sensibility into conditions of the possibility of things, but only of the
possibility of their existence as far as they are phenomena. And so we may
correctly say that space contains all which can appear to us externally, but
not all things considered as things in themselves, be they intuited or not, or
by whatsoever subject one will. As to the intuitions of other thinking beings,
we cannot judge whether they are or are not bound by the same conditions which
limit our own intuition, and which for us are universally valid. If we join
the limitation of a judgement to the conception of the subject, then the
judgement will possess unconditioned validity. For example, the proposition,
“All objects are beside each other in space,” is valid only under the
limitation that these things are taken as objects of our sensuous intuition.
But if I join the condition to the conception and say, “All things, as
external phenomena, are beside each other in space,” then the rule is valid
universally, and without any limitation. Our expositions, consequently, teach
the reality (i.e., the objective validity) of space in regard of all which can
be presented to us externally as object, and at the same time also the
ideality of space in regard to objects when they are considered by means of
reason as things in themselves, that is, without reference to the constitution
of our sensibility. We maintain, therefore, the empirical reality of space in
regard to all possible external experience, although we must admit its
transcendental ideality; in other words, that it is nothing, so soon as we
withdraw the condition upon which the possibility of all experience depends
and look upon space as something that belongs to things in themselves.
But,
with the exception of space, there is no representation, subjective and
referring to something external to us, which could be called objective a
priori. For there are no other subjective representations from which we can
deduce synthetical propositions a priori, as we can from the intuition of
space. (See SS 3.) Therefore, to speak accurately, no ideality whatever
belongs to these, although they agree in this respect with the representation
of space, that they belong merely to the subjective nature of the mode of
sensuous perception; such a mode, for example, as that of sight, of hearing,
and of feeling, by means of the sensations of colour, sound, and heat, but
which, because they are only sensations and not intuitions, do not of
themselves give us the cognition of any object, least of all, an a priori
cognition. My purpose, in the above remark, is merely this: to guard any one
against illustrating the asserted ideality of space by examples quite
insufficient, for example, by colour, taste, etc.; for these must be
contemplated not as properties of things, but only as changes in the subject,
changes which may be different in different men. For, in such a case, that
which is originally a mere phenomenon, a rose, for example, is taken by the
empirical understanding for a thing in itself, though to every different eye,
in respect of its colour, it may appear different. On the contrary, the
transcendental conception of phenomena in space is a critical admonition,
that, in general, nothing which is intuited in space is a thing in itself, and
that space is not a form which belongs as a property to things; but that
objects are quite unknown to us in themselves, and what we call outward
objects, are nothing else but mere representations of our sensibility, whose
form is space, but whose real correlate, the thing in itself, is not known by
means of these representations, nor ever can be, but respecting which, in
experience, no inquiry is ever made.
SECTION
II. Of Time.
SS
5. Metaphysical Exposition of this Conception.
1.
Time is not an empirical conception. For neither coexistence nor
succession would be perceived by us, if the representation of time did not
exist as a foundation a priori. Without this presupposition we could not
represent to ourselves that things exist together at one and the same time, or
at different times, that is, contemporaneously, or in succession.
2.
Time is a necessary representation, lying at the foundation of all our
intuitions. With regard to phenomena in general, we cannot think away time
from them, and represent them to ourselves as out of and unconnected with
time, but we can quite well represent to ourselves time void of phenomena.
Time is therefore given a priori. In it alone is all reality of phenomena possible. These may
all be annihilated in thought, but time itself, as the universal condition of
their possibility, cannot be so annulled.
3.
On this necessity a priori is also founded the possibility of
apodeictic principles of the relations of time, or axioms of time in general,
such as: “Time has only one dimension,” “Different times are not
coexistent but successive” (as different spaces are not successive but
coexistent). These principles cannot be derived from experience, for it would
give neither strict universality, nor apodeictic certainty. We should only be
able to say, “so common experience teaches us,” but not “it must be so.”
They are valid as rules, through which, in general, experience is possible;
and they instruct us respecting experience, and not by means of it.
4.
Time is not a discursive, or as it is called, general conception, but a
pure form of the sensuous intuition. Different times are merely parts of one
and the same time. But the representation which can only be given by a single
object is an intuition. Besides, the proposition that different times cannot
be coexistent could not be derived from a general conception. For this
proposition is synthetical, and therefore cannot spring out of conceptions
alone. It is therefore contained
immediately in the intuition and representation of time.
5.
The infinity of time signifies nothing more than that every determined
quantity of time is possible only through limitations of one time lying at the
foundation. Consequently, the original representation, time, must be given as
unlimited. But as the determinate representation of the parts of time and of
every quantity of an object can only be obtained by limitation, the complete
representation of time must not be furnished by means of conceptions, for
these contain only partial representations.
Conceptions, on the contrary, must have immediate intuition for their
basis.
SS
6 Transcendental Exposition of the Conception of Time.
I
may here refer to what is said above (SS 5, 3), where, for or sake of brevity,
I have placed under the head of metaphysical exposition, that which is
properly transcendental. Here I shall add that the conception of change, and
with it the conception of motion, as change of place, is possible only through
and in the representation of time; that if this representation were not an
intuition (internal) a priori, no conception, of whatever kind, could render
comprehensible the possibility of change, in other words, of a conjunction of
contradictorily opposed predicates in one and the same object, for example,
the presence of a thing in a place and the non-presence of the same thing in
the same place. It is only in time that it is possible to meet with two
contradictorily opposed determinations in one thing, that is, after each
other. thus our conception of time explains the possibility of so much
synthetical knowledge a priori, as is exhibited in the general doctrine of
motion, which is not a little fruitful.
SS
7. Conclusions from the above Conceptions.
(a)
Time is not something which subsists of itself, or which inheres in
things as an objective determination, and therefore remains, when abstraction
is made of the subjective conditions of the intuition of things. For in the
former case, it would be something real, yet without presenting to any power
of perception any real object. In the latter case, as an order or
determination inherent in things themselves, it could not be antecedent to
things, as their condition, nor discerned or intuited by means of synthetical
propositions a priori. But all this is quite possible when we regard time as
merely the subjective condition under which all our intuitions take place. For
in that case, this form of the inward intuition can be represented prior to
the objects, and consequently a priori.
(b)
Time is nothing else than the form of the internal sense, that is, of
the intuitions of self and of our internal state. For time cannot be any
determination of outward phenomena. It has to do neither with shape nor
position; on the contrary, it determines the relation of representations in
our internal state. And precisely because this internal intuition presents to
us no shape or form, we endeavour to supply this want by analogies, and
represent the course of time by a line progressing to infinity, the content of
which constitutes a series which is only of one dimension; and we conclude
from the properties of this line as to all the properties of time, with this
single exception, that the parts of the line are coexistent, whilst those of
time are successive. From this it is clear also that the representation of
time is itself an intuition, because all its relations can be expressed in an
external intuition.
(c)
Time is the formal condition a priori of all phenomena whatsoever.
Space,
as the pure form of external intuition, is limited as a condition a priori to
external phenomena alone. On the other hand, because all representations,
whether they have or have not external things for their objects, still in
themselves, as determinations of the mind, belong to our internal state; and
because this internal state is subject to the formal condition of the internal
intuition, that is, to time—time is a condition a priori of all phenomena
whatsoever—the immediate condition of all internal, and thereby the mediate
condition of all external phenomena. If I can say a priori, “All outward
phenomena are in space, and determined a priori according to the relations of
space,” I can also, from the principle of the internal sense, affirm
universally, “All phenomena in general, that is, all objects of the senses,
are in time and stand necessarily in relations of time.”
If
we abstract our internal intuition of ourselves and all external intuitions,
possible only by virtue of this internal intuition and presented to us by our
faculty of representation, and consequently take objects as they are in
themselves, then time is nothing. It is only of objective validity in regard
to phenomena, because these are things which we regard as objects of our
senses. It no longer objective we, make abstraction of the sensuousness of our
intuition, in other words, of that mode of representation which is peculiar to
us, and speak of things in general. Time is therefore merely a subjective
condition of our (human) intuition (which is always sensuous, that is, so far
as we are affected by objects), and in itself, independently of the mind or
subject, is nothing. Nevertheless, in respect of all phenomena, consequently
of all things which come within the sphere of our experience, it is
necessarily objective. We cannot say, “All things are in time,” because in
this conception of things in general, we abstract and make no mention of any
sort of intuition of things. But this is the proper condition under which time
belongs to our representation of objects. If we add the condition to the
conception, and say, “All things, as phenomena, that is, objects of sensuous
intuition, are in time,” then the proposition has its sound objective
validity and universality a priori.
What
we have now set forth teaches, therefore, the empirical reality of time; that
is, its objective validity in reference to all objects which can ever be
presented to our senses. And as our intuition is always sensuous, no object
ever can be presented to us in experience, which does not come under the
conditions of time. On the other hand, we deny to time all claim to absolute
reality; that is, we deny that it, without having regard to the form of our
sensuous intuition, absolutely inheres in things as a condition or property.
Such properties as belong to objects as things in themselves never can
be presented to us through the medium of the senses. Herein consists,
therefore, the transcendental ideality of time, according to which, if we
abstract the subjective conditions of sensuous intuition, it is nothing, and
cannot be reckoned as subsisting or inhering in objects as things in
themselves, independently of its relation to our intuition. this ideality,
like that of space, is not to be proved or illustrated by fallacious analogies
with sensations, for this reason—that in such arguments or illustrations, we
make the presupposition that the phenomenon, in which such and such predicates
inhere, has objective reality, while in this case we can only find such an
objective reality as is itself empirical, that is, regards the object as a
mere phenomenon. In reference to this subject, see the remark in Section I (SS
4)
SS
8. Elucidation.
Against
this theory, which grants empirical reality to time, but denies to it absolute
and transcendental reality, I have heard from intelligent men an objection so
unanimously urged that I conclude that it must naturally present itself to
every reader to whom these considerations are novel. It runs thus: “Changes
are real” (this the continual change in our own representations
demonstrates, even though the existence of all external phenomena, together
with their changes, is denied). Now, changes are only possible in time, and
therefore time must be something real. But there is no difficulty in answering
this. I grant the whole argument. Time, no doubt, is something real, that is,
it is the real form of our internal intuition. It therefore has subjective
reality, in reference to our internal experience, that is, I have really the
representation of time and of my determinations therein. Time, therefore, is
not to be regarded as an object, but as the mode of representation of myself
as an object. But if I could intuite myself, or be intuited by another being,
without this condition of sensibility, then those very determinations which we
now represent to ourselves as changes, would present to us a knowledge in
which the representation of time, and consequently of change, would not
appear. The empirical reality of time, therefore, remains, as the
condition of all our experience. But absolute reality, according to what has
been said above, cannot be granted it. Time is nothing but the form of our
internal intuition.* If we take away from it the special condition of our
sensibility, the conception of time also vanishes; and it inheres not in the
objects themselves, but solely in the subject (or mind) which intuites them.
[*Footnote:
I can indeed say “my representations follow one another, or are successive”;
but this means only that we are conscious of them as in a succession, that is,
according to the form of the internal sense. Time, therefore, is not a thing
in itself, nor is it any objective determination pertaining to, or inherent in
things.]
But
the reason why this objection is so unanimously brought against our doctrine
of time, and that too by disputants who cannot start any intelligible
arguments against the doctrine of the ideality of space, is this—they have
no hope of demonstrating apodeictically the absolute reality of space, because
the doctrine of idealism is against them, according to which the reality of
external objects is not capable of any strict proof. On the other hand, the
reality of the object of our internal sense (that is, myself and my internal
state) is clear immediately through consciousness.
The former—external objects in space—might be a mere delusion, but
the latter—the object of my internal perception—is undeniably real.
They do not, however, reflect that both, without question of their
reality as representations, belong only to the genus phenomenon, which has
always two aspects, the one, the object considered as a thing in itself,
without regard to the mode of intuiting it, and the nature of which remains
for this very reason problematical, the other, the form of our intuition of
the object, which must be sought not in the object as a thing in itself, but
in the subject to which it appears— which form of intuition nevertheless
belongs really and necessarily to the phenomenal object.
Time
and space are, therefore, two sources of knowledge, from which, a priori,
various synthetical cognitions can be drawn. Of this we find a striking
example in the cognitions of space and its relations, which form the
foundation of pure mathematics. They are the two pure forms of all intuitions,
and thereby make synthetical propositions a priori possible. But these sources
of knowledge being merely conditions of our sensibility, do therefore, and as
such, strictly determine their own range and purpose, in that they do not and
cannot present objects as things in themselves, but are applicable to them
solely in so far as they are considered as sensuous phenomena.
The sphere of phenomena is the only sphere of their validity, and if we
venture out of this, no further objective use can be made of them. For the
rest, this formal reality of time and space leaves the validity of our
empirical knowledge unshaken; for our certainty in that respect is equally
firm, whether these forms necessarily inhere in the things themselves, or only
in our intuitions of them. On the other hand, those who maintain the absolute
reality of time and space, whether as essentially subsisting, or only
inhering, as modifications, in things, must find themselves at utter variance
with the principles of experience itself. For, if they decide for the first
view, and make space and time into substances, this being the side taken by
mathematical natural philosophers, they must admit two self-subsisting
nonentities, infinite and eternal, which exist (yet without there being
anything real) for the purpose of containing in themselves everything that is
real. If they adopt the second view of inherence, which is preferred by some
metaphysical natural philosophers, and regard space and time as relations
(contiguity in space or succession in time), abstracted from experience,
though represented confusedly in this state of separation, they find
themselves in that case necessitated to deny the validity of mathematical
doctrines a priori in reference to real things (for example, in space)--at all
events their apodeictic certainty. For such certainty cannot be found in an a
posteriori proposition; and the conceptions a priori of space and time are,
according to this opinion, mere creations of the imagination, having their
source really in experience, inasmuch as, out of relations abstracted from
experience, imagination has made up something which contains, indeed, general
statements of these relations, yet of which no application can be made without
the restrictions attached thereto by nature. The former of these parties gains
this advantage, that they keep the sphere of phenomena free for mathematical
science. On the other hand, these very conditions (space and time) embarrass
them greatly, when the understanding endeavours to pass the limits of that
sphere. The latter has, indeed, this advantage, that the representations of
space and time do not come in their way when they wish to judge of objects,
not as phenomena, but merely in their relation to the understanding. Devoid,
however, of a true and objectively valid a priori intuition, they can neither
furnish any basis for the possibility of mathematical cognitions a priori, nor
bring the propositions of experience into necessary accordance with those of
mathematics. In our theory of the true nature of these two original forms of
the sensibility, both difficulties are surmounted.
In
conclusion, that transcendental aesthetic cannot contain any more than these
two elements—space and time, is sufficiently obvious from the fact that all
other conceptions appertaining to sensibility, even that of motion, which
unites in itself both elements, presuppose something empirical. Motion, for
example, presupposes the perception of something movable. But space considered
in itself contains nothing movable, consequently motion must be something
which is found in space only through experience— in other words, an
empirical datum. In like manner, transcendental aesthetic cannot number the
conception of change among its data a priori; for time itself does not change,
but only something which is in time. To acquire the conception of change,
therefore, the perception of some existing object and of the succession of its
determinations, in one word, experience, is necessary.
SS
9. General Remarks on Transcendental Aesthetic.
I.
In order to prevent any misunderstanding, it will be requisite, in the
first place, to recapitulate, as clearly as possible, what our opinion is with
respect to the fundamental nature of our sensuous cognition in general. We
have intended, then, to say that all our intuition is nothing but the
representation of phenomena; that the things which we intuite, are not in
themselves the same as our representations of them in intuition, nor are their
relations in themselves so constituted as they appear to us; and that if we
take away the subject, or even only the subjective constitution of our senses
in general, then not only the nature and relations of objects in space and
time, but even space and time themselves disappear; and that these, as
phenomena, cannot exist in themselves, but only in us. What may be the nature
of objects considered as things in themselves and without reference to the
receptivity of our sensibility is quite unknown to us. We know nothing more
than our mode of perceiving them, which is peculiar to us, and which, though
not of necessity pertaining to every animated being, is so to the whole human
race. With this alone we have to do. Space and time are the pure forms
thereof; sensation the matter. The former alone can we cognize a priori, that
is, antecedent to all actual perception; and for this reason such cognition is
called pure intuition. The latter is that in our cognition which is called
cognition a posteriori, that is, empirical intuition. The former appertain
absolutely and necessarily to our sensibility, of whatsoever kind our
sensations may be; the latter may be of very diversified character. Supposing
that we should carry our empirical intuition even to the very highest degree
of clearness, we should not thereby advance one step nearer to a knowledge of
the constitution of objects as things in themselves.
For we could only, at best, arrive at a complete cognition of our own
mode of intuition, that is of our sensibility, and this always under the
conditions originally attaching to the subject, namely, the conditions of
space and time; while the question: “What are objects considered as things
in themselves?” remains unanswerable even after the most thorough
examination of the phenomenal world.
To
say, then, that all our sensibility is nothing but the confused representation
of things containing exclusively that which belongs to them as things in
themselves, and this under an accumulation of characteristic marks and partial
representations which we cannot distinguish in consciousness, is a
falsification of the conception of sensibility and phenomenization, which
renders our whole doctrine thereof empty and useless. The difference between a
confused and a clear representation is merely logical and has nothing to do
with content. No doubt the conception of right, as employed by a sound
understanding, contains all that the most subtle investigation could unfold
from it, although, in the ordinary practical use of the word, we are not
conscious of the manifold representations comprised in the conception. But we
cannot for this reason assert that the ordinary conception is a sensuous one,
containing a mere phenomenon, for right cannot appear as a phenomenon; but the
conception of it lies in the understanding, and represents a property (the
moral property) of actions, which belongs to them in themselves. On the other
hand, the representation in intuition of a body contains nothing which could
belong to an object considered as a thing in itself, but merely the phenomenon
or appearance of something, and the mode in which we are affected by that
appearance; and this receptivity of our faculty of cognition is called
sensibility, and remains toto caelo different from the cognition of an object
in itself, even though we should examine the content of the phenomenon to the
very bottom.
It
must be admitted that the Leibnitz-Wolfian philosophy has assigned an entirely
erroneous point of view to all investigations into the nature and origin of
our cognitions, inasmuch as it regards the distinction between the sensuous
and the intellectual as merely logical, whereas it is plainly transcendental,
and concerns not merely the clearness or obscurity, but the content and origin
of both. For the faculty of sensibility not only does not present us with an
indistinct and confused cognition of objects as things in themselves, but, in
fact, gives us no knowledge of these at all. On the contrary, so soon as we
abstract in thought our own subjective nature, the object represented, with
the properties ascribed to it by sensuous intuition, entirely disappears,
because it was only this subjective nature that determined the form of the
object as a phenomenon.
In
phenomena, we commonly, indeed, distinguish that which essentially belongs to
the intuition of them, and is valid for the sensuous faculty of every human
being, from that which belongs to the same intuition accidentally, as valid
not for the sensuous faculty in general, but for a particular state or
organization of this or that sense. Accordingly, we are accustomed to say that
the former is a cognition which represents the object itself, whilst the
latter presents only a particular appearance or phenomenon thereof. This
distinction, however, is only empirical. If we stop here (as is usual), and do
not regard the empirical intuition as itself a mere phenomenon (as we ought to
do), in which nothing that can appertain to a thing in itself is to be found,
our transcendental distinction is lost, and we believe that we cognize objects
as things in themselves, although in the whole range of the sensuous world,
investigate the nature of its objects as profoundly as we may, we have to do
with nothing but phenomena. Thus, we call the rainbow a mere appearance of
phenomenon in a sunny shower, and the rain, the reality or thing in itself;
and this is right enough, if we understand the latter conception in a merely
physical sense, that is, as that which in universal experience, and under
whatever conditions of sensuous perception, is known in intuition to be so and
so determined, and not otherwise. But if we consider this empirical datum
generally, and inquire, without reference to its accordance with all our
senses, whether there can be discovered in it aught which represents an object
as a thing in itself (the raindrops of course are not such, for they are, as
phenomena, empirical objects), the question of the relation of the
representation to the object is transcendental; and not only are the raindrops
mere phenomena, but even their circular form, nay, the space itself through
which they fall, is nothing in itself, but both are mere modifications or
fundamental dispositions of our sensuous intuition, whilst the transcendental
object remains for us utterly unknown.
The
second important concern of our aesthetic is that it does not obtain favour
merely as a plausible hypothesis, but possess as undoubted a character of
certainty as can be demanded of any theory which is to serve for an organon.
In order fully to convince the reader of this certainty, we shall select a
case which will serve to make its validity apparent, and also to illustrate
what has been said in SS 3.
Suppose,
then, that space and time are in themselves objective, and conditions of the—possibility
of objects as things in themselves. In
the first place, it is evident that both present us, with very many apodeictic
and synthetic propositions a priori, but especially space—and for this
reason we shall prefer it for investigation at present. As the propositions of
geometry are cognized synthetically a priori, and with apodeictic certainty, I
inquire: Whence do you obtain propositions of this kind, and on what basis
does the understanding rest, in order to arrive at such absolutely necessary
and universally valid truths?
There
is no other way than through intuitions or conceptions, as such; and these are
given either a priori or a posteriori. The latter, namely, empirical
conceptions, together with the empirical intuition on which they are founded,
cannot afford any synthetical proposition, except such as is itself also
empirical, that is, a proposition of experience. But an empirical proposition
cannot possess the qualities of necessity and absolute universality, which,
nevertheless, are the characteristics of all geometrical propositions.
As to the first and only means to arrive at such cognitions, namely,
through mere conceptions or intuitions a priori, it is quite clear that from
mere conceptions no synthetical cognitions, but only analytical ones, can be
obtained. Take, for example, the proposition: “Two straight lines cannot
enclose a space, and with these alone no figure is possible,” and try to
deduce it from the conception of a straight line and the number two; or take
the proposition: “It is possible to construct a figure with three straight
lines,” and endeavour, in like manner, to deduce it from the mere conception
of a straight line and the number three. All your endeavours are in vain, and
you find yourself forced to have recourse to intuition, as, in fact, geometry
always does. You therefore give yourself an object in intuition. But of what
kind is this intuition? Is it a pure a priori, or is it an empirical
intuition? If the latter, then neither an universally valid, much less an
apodeictic proposition can arise from it, for experience never can give us any
such proposition. You must, therefore, give yourself an object a priori in
intuition, and upon that ground your synthetical proposition. Now if there did
not exist within you a faculty of intuition a priori; if this subjective
condition were not in respect to its form also the universal condition a
priori under which alone the object of this external intuition is itself
possible; if the object (that is, the triangle) were something in itself,
without relation to you the subject; how could you affirm that that which lies
necessarily in your subjective conditions in order to construct a triangle,
must also necessarily belong to the triangle in itself?
For to your conceptions of three lines, you could not add anything new
(that is, the figure); which, therefore, must necessarily be found in the
object, because the object is given before your cognition, and not by means of
it. If, therefore, space (and time also) were not a mere form of your
intuition, which contains conditions a priori, under which alone things can
become external objects for you, and without which subjective conditions the
objects are in themselves nothing, you could not construct any synthetical
proposition whatsoever regarding external objects. It is therefore not merely
possible or probable, but indubitably certain, that space and time, as the
necessary conditions of all our external and internal experience, are merely
subjective conditions of all our intuitions, in relation to which all objects
are therefore mere phenomena, and not things in themselves, presented to us in
this particular manner. And for
this reason, in respect to the form of phenomena, much may be said a priori,
whilst of the thing in itself, which may lie at the foundation of these
phenomena, it is impossible to say anything.
II.
In confirmation of this theory of the ideality of the external as well
as internal sense, consequently of all objects of sense, as mere phenomena, we
may especially remark that all in our cognition that belongs to intuition
contains nothing more than mere relations.
(The feelings of pain and pleasure, and the will, which are not
cognitions, are excepted.) The relations, to wit, of place in an intuition
(extension), change of place (motion), and laws according to which this change
is determined (moving forces). That, however, which is present in this or that
place, or any operation going on, or result taking place in the things
themselves, with the exception of change of place, is not given to us by
intuition. Now by means of mere relations, a thing cannot be known in itself;
and it may therefore be fairly concluded, that, as through the external sense
nothing but mere representations of relations are given us, the said external
sense in its representation can contain only the relation of the object to the
subject, but not the essential nature of the object as a thing in itself.
The
same is the case with the internal intuition, not only because, in the
internal intuition, the representation of the external senses constitutes the
material with which the mind is occupied; but because time, in which we place,
and which itself antecedes the consciousness of, these representations in
experience, and which, as the formal condition of the mode according to which
objects are placed in the mind, lies at the foundation of them, contains
relations of the successive, the coexistent, and of that which always must be
coexistent with succession, the permanent. Now that which, as representation,
can antecede every exercise of thought (of an object), is intuition; and when
it contains nothing but relations, it is the form of the intuition, which, as
it presents us with no representation, except in so far as something is placed
in the mind, can be nothing else than the mode in which the mind is affected
by its own activity, to wit—its presenting to itself representations,
consequently the mode in which the mind is affected by itself; that is, it can
be nothing but an internal sense in respect to its form.
Everything that is represented through the medium of sense is so far
phenomenal; consequently, we must either refuse altogether to admit an
internal sense, or the subject, which is the object of that sense, could only
be represented by it as phenomenon, and not as it would judge of itself, if
its intuition were pure spontaneous activity, that is, were intellectual. The
difficulty here lies wholly in the question: How can the subject have an
internal intuition of itself? But
this difficulty is common to every theory. The consciousness of self
(apperception) is the simple representation of the “ego”; and if by means
of that representation alone, all the manifold representations in the subject
were spontaneously given, then our internal intuition would be intellectual.
This consciousness in man requires an internal perception of the manifold
representations which are previously given in the subject; and the manner in
which these representations are given in the mind without spontaneity, must,
on account of this difference (the want of spontaneity), be called
sensibility. If the faculty of self-consciousness is to apprehend what lies in
the mind, it must all act that and can in this way alone produce an intuition
of self. But the form of this intuition, which lies in the original
constitution of the mind, determines, in the representation of time, the
manner in which the manifold representations are to combine themselves in the
mind; since the subject intuites itself, not as it would represent itself
immediately and spontaneously, but according to the manner in which the mind
is internally affected, consequently, as it appears, and not as it is.
III.
When we say that the intuition of external objects, and also the
self-intuition of the subject, represent both, objects and subject, in space
and time, as they affect our senses, that is, as they appear—this is by no
means equivalent to asserting that these objects are mere illusory
appearances. For when we speak of things as phenomena, the objects, nay, even
the properties which we ascribe to them, are looked upon as really given; only
that, in so far as this or that property depends upon the mode of intuition of
the subject, in the relation of the given object to the subject, the object as
phenomenon is to be distinguished from the object as a thing in itself. Thus I
do not say that bodies seem or appear to be external to me, or that my soul
seems merely to be given in my self-consciousness, although I maintain that
the properties of space and time, in conformity to which I set both, as the
condition of their existence, abide in my mode of intuition, and not in the
objects in themselves. It would
be my own fault, if out of that which I should reckon as phenomenon, I made
mere illusory appearance.* But this will not happen, because of our principle
of the ideality of all sensuous intuitions. On the contrary, if we ascribe
objective reality to these forms of representation, it becomes impossible to
avoid changing everything into mere appearance. For if we regard space and
time as properties, which must be found in objects as things in themselves, as
sine quibus non of the possibility of their existence, and reflect on the
absurdities in which we then find ourselves involved, inasmuch as we are
compelled to admit the existence of two infinite things, which are
nevertheless not substances, nor anything really inhering in substances, nay,
to admit that they are the necessary conditions of the existence of all
things, and moreover, that they must continue to exist, although all existing
things were annihilated— we cannot blame the good Berkeley for degrading
bodies to mere illusory appearances. Nay, even our own existence, which would
in this case depend upon the self-existent reality of such a mere nonentity as
time, would necessarily be changed with it into mere appearance—an absurdity
which no one has as yet been guilty of.
[*Footnote:
The predicates of the phenomenon can be affixed to the object itself in
relation to our sensuous faculty; for example, the red colour or the perfume
to the rose. But (illusory) appearance never can be attributed as a predicate
to an object, for this very reason, that it attributes to this object in
itself that which belongs to it only in relation to our sensuous faculty, or
to the subject in general, e.g., the two handles which were formerly ascribed
to Saturn. That which is never to
be found in the object itself, but always in the relation of the object to the
subject, and which moreover is inseparable from our representation of the
object, we denominate phenomenon. Thus the predicates of space and time are
rightly attributed to objects of the senses as such, and in this there is no
illusion. On the contrary, if I ascribe redness of the rose as a thing in
itself, or to Saturn his handles, or extension to all external objects,
considered as things in themselves, without regarding the determinate relation
of these objects to the subject, and without limiting my judgement to that
relation—then, and then only, arises illusion.]
IV.
In natural theology, where we think of an object—God—which never
can be an object of intuition to us, and even to himself can never be an
object of sensuous intuition, we carefully avoid attributing to his intuition
the conditions of space and time—and intuition all his cognition must be,
and not thought, which always includes limitation. But with what right can we
do this if we make them forms of objects as things in themselves, and such,
moreover, as would continue to exist as a priori conditions of the existence
of things, even though the things themselves were annihilated? For as
conditions of all existence in general, space and time must be conditions of
the existence of the Supreme Being also. But if we do not thus make them
objective forms of all things, there is no other way left than to make them
subjective forms of our mode of intuition—external and internal; which is
called sensuous, because it is not primitive, that is, is not such as gives in
itself the existence of the object of the intuition (a mode of intuition
which, so far as we can judge, can belong only to the Creator), but is
dependent on the existence of the object, is possible, therefore, only on
condition that the representative faculty of the subject is affected by the
object.
It
is, moreover, not necessary that we should limit the mode of intuition in
space and time to the sensuous faculty of man. It may well be that all finite
thinking beings must necessarily in this respect agree with man (though as to
this we cannot decide), but sensibility does not on account of this
universality cease to be sensibility, for this very reason, that it is a
deduced (intuitus derivativus), and not an original (intuitus originarius),
consequently not an intellectual intuition, and this intuition, as such, for
reasons above mentioned, seems to belong solely to the Supreme Being, but
never to a being dependent, quoad its existence, as well as its intuition
(which its existence determines and limits relatively to given objects). This
latter remark, however, must be taken only as an illustration, and not as any
proof of the truth of our aesthetical theory.
SS
10. Conclusion of the Transcendental Aesthetic.
We
have now completely before us one part of the solution of the grand general
problem of transcendental philosophy, namely, the question: “How are
synthetical propositions a priori possible?” That is to say, we have shown
that we are in possession of pure a priori intuitions, namely, space and time,
in which we find, when in a judgement a priori we pass out beyond the given
conception, something which is not discoverable in that conception, but is
certainly found a priori in the intuition which corresponds to the conception,
and can be united synthetically with it. But the judgements which these pure
intuitions enable us to make, never reach farther than to objects of the
senses, and are valid only for objects of possible experience.
SECOND
PART. TRANSCENDENTAL LOGIC.
INTRODUCTION.
Idea of a Transcendental Logic.
I.
Of Logic in General.
Our
knowledge springs from two main sources in the mind, first of which is the
faculty or power of receiving representations (receptivity for impressions);
the second is the power of cognizing by means of these representations
(spontaneity in the production of conceptions). Through the first an object is
given to us; through the second, it is, in relation to the representation
(which is a mere determination of the mind), thought. Intuition and
conceptions constitute, therefore, the elements of all our knowledge, so that
neither conceptions without an intuition in some way corresponding to them,
nor intuition without conceptions, can afford us a cognition.
Both are either pure or empirical. They are. empirical, when sensation
(which presupposes the actual presence of the object) is contained in them;
and pure, when no sensation is mixed with the representation.
Sensations we may call the matter of sensuous cognition. Pure intuition
consequently contains merely the form under which something is intuited, and
pure conception only the form of the thought of an object. Only pure
intuitions and pure conceptions are possible a priori; the empirical only a
posteriori.
We
apply the term sensibility to the receptivity of the mind for impressions, in
so far as it is in some way affected; and, on the other hand, we call the
faculty of spontaneously producing representations, or the spontaneity of
cognition, understanding. Our nature is so constituted that intuition with us
never can be other than sensuous, that is, it contains only the mode in which
we are affected by objects. On the other hand, the faculty of thinking the
object of sensuous intuition is the understanding. Neither of these faculties
has a preference over the other. Without the sensuous faculty no object would
be given to us, and without the understanding no object would be thought.
Thoughts without content are void; intuitions without conceptions, blind.
Hence it is as necessary for the mind to make its conceptions sensuous (that
is, to join to them the object in intuition), as to make its intuitions
intelligible (that is, to bring them under conceptions). Neither of these
faculties can exchange its proper function. Understanding cannot intuite, and
the sensuous faculty cannot think. in no other way than from the united
operation of both, can knowledge arise. But no one ought, on this account, to
overlook the difference of the elements contributed by each; we have rather
great reason carefully to separate and distinguish them. We therefore
distinguish the science of the laws of sensibility, that is, aesthetic, from
the science of the laws of the understanding, that is, logic.
Now,
logic in its turn may be considered as twofold—namely, as logic of the
general, or of the particular use of the understanding.
The first contains the absolutely necessary laws of thought, without
which no use whatsoever of the understanding is possible, and gives laws
therefore to the understanding, without regard to the difference of objects on
which it may be employed. The logic of the particular use of the understanding
contains the laws of correct thinking upon a particular class of objects. The
former may be called elemental logic—the latter, the organon of this or that
particular science. The latter is for the most part employed in the schools,
as a propaedeutic to the sciences, although, indeed, according to the course
of human reason, it is the last thing we arrive at, when the science has been
already matured, and needs only the finishing touches towards its correction
and completion; for our knowledge of the objects of our attempted science must
be tolerably extensive and complete before we can indicate the laws by which a
science of these objects can be established.
General
logic is again either pure or applied. In the former, we abstract all the
empirical conditions under which the understanding is exercised; for example,
the influence of the senses, the play of the fantasy or imagination, the laws
of the memory, the force of habit, of inclination, etc., consequently also,
the sources of prejudice—in a word, we abstract all causes from which
particular cognitions arise, because these causes regard the understanding
under certain circumstances of its application, and, to the knowledge of them
experience is required. Pure general logic has to do, therefore, merely with
pure a priori principles, and is a canon of understanding and reason, but only
in respect of the formal part of their use, be the content what it may,
empirical or transcendental. General
logic is called applied, when it is directed to the laws of the use of the
understanding, under the subjective empirical conditions which psychology
teaches us. It has therefore empirical principles, although, at the same time,
it is in so far general, that it applies to the exercise of the understanding,
without regard to the difference of objects. On this account, moreover, it is
neither a canon of the understanding in general, nor an organon of a
particular science, but merely a cathartic of the human understanding.
In
general logic, therefore, that part which constitutes pure logic must be
carefully distinguished from that which constitutes applied (though still
general) logic. The former alone is properly science, although short and dry,
as the methodical exposition of an elemental doctrine of the understanding
ought to be. In this, therefore, logicians must always bear in mind two rules:
1.
As general logic, it makes abstraction of all content of the cognition
of the understanding, and of the difference of objects, and has to do with
nothing but the mere form of thought.
2.
As pure logic, it has no empirical principles, and consequently draws
nothing (contrary to the common persuasion) from psychology, which therefore
has no influence on the canon of the understanding.
It is a demonstrated doctrine, and everything in it must be certain
completely a priori.
What
I called applied logic (contrary to the common acceptation of this term,
according to which it should contain certain exercises for the scholar, for
which pure logic gives the rules), is a representation of the understanding,
and of the rules of its necessary employment in concreto, that is to say,
under the accidental conditions of the subject, which may either hinder or
promote this employment, and which are all given only empirically. Thus
applied logic treats of attention, its impediments and consequences, of the
origin of error, of the state of doubt, hesitation, conviction, etc., and to
it is related pure general logic in the same way that pure morality, which
contains only the necessary moral laws of a free will, is related to practical
ethics, which considers these laws under all the impediments of feelings,
inclinations, and passions to which men are more or less subjected, and which
never can furnish us with a true and demonstrated science, because it, as well
as applied logic, requires empirical and psychological principles.
II.
Of Transcendental Logic.
General
logic, as we have seen, makes abstraction of all content of cognition, that
is, of all relation of cognition to its object, and regards only the logical
form in the relation of cognitions to each other, that is, the form of thought
in general. But as we have both pure and empirical intuitions (as
transcendental aesthetic proves), in like manner a distinction might be drawn
between pure and empirical thought (of objects). In this case, there would
exist a kind of logic, in which we should not make abstraction of all content
of cognition; for or logic which should comprise merely the laws of pure
thought (of an object), would of course exclude all those cognitions which
were of empirical content. This kind of logic would also examine the origin of
our cognitions of objects, so far as that origin cannot be ascribed to the
objects themselves; while, on the contrary, general logic has nothing to do
with the origin of our cognitions, but contemplates our representations, be
they given primitively a priori in ourselves, or be they only of empirical
origin, solely according to the laws which the understanding observes in
employing them in the process of thought, in relation to each other.
Consequently, general logic treats of the form of the understanding only,
which can be applied to representations, from whatever source they may have
arisen.
And
here I shall make a remark, which the reader must bear well in mind in the
course of the following considerations, to wit, that not every cognition a
priori, but only those through which we cognize that and how certain
representations (intuitions or conceptions) are applied or are possible only a
priori; that is to say, the a priori possibility of cognition and the a priori
use of it are transcendental. Therefore neither is space, nor any a priori
geometrical determination of space, a transcendental Representation, but only
the knowledge that such a representation is not of empirical origin, and the
possibility of its relating to objects of experience, although itself a
priori, can be called transcendental. So
also, the application of space to objects in general would be transcendental;
but if it be limited to objects of sense it is empirical. Thus, the
distinction of the transcendental and empirical belongs only to the critique
of cognitions, and does not concern the relation of these to their object.
Accordingly,
in the expectation that there may perhaps be conceptions which relate a priori
to objects, not as pure or sensuous intuitions, but merely as acts of pure
thought (which are therefore conceptions, but neither of empirical nor
aesthetical origin)--in this expectation, I say, we form to ourselves, by
anticipation, the idea of a science of pure understanding and rational
cognition, by means of which we may cogitate objects entirely a priori. A
science of this kind, which should determine the origin, the extent, and the
objective validity of such cognitions, must be called transcendental logic,
because it has not, like general logic, to do with the laws of understanding
and reason in relation to empirical as well as pure rational cognitions
without distinction, but concerns itself with these only in an a priori
relation to objects.
III.
Of the Division of General Logic into Analytic and Dialectic.
The
old question with which people sought to push logicians into a corner, so that
they must either have recourse to pitiful sophisms or confess their ignorance,
and consequently the vanity of their whole art, is this: “What is truth?”
The definition of the word truth, to wit, “the accordance of the cognition
with its object,” is presupposed in the question; but we desire to be told,
in the answer to it, what is the universal and secure criterion of the truth
of every cognition.
To
know what questions we may reasonably propose is in itself a strong evidence
of sagacity and intelligence. For if a question be in itself absurd and
unsusceptible of a rational answer, it is attended with the danger—not to
mention the shame that falls upon the person who proposes it—of seducing the
unguarded listener into making absurd answers, and we are presented with the
ridiculous spectacle of one (as the ancients said) “milking the he-goat, and
the other holding a sieve.”
If
truth consists in the accordance of a cognition with its object, this object
must be, ipso facto, distinguished from all others; for a cognition is false
if it does not accord with the object to which it relates, although it
contains something which may be affirmed of other objects. Now an universal
criterion of truth would be that which is valid for all cognitions, without
distinction of their objects. But it is evident that since, in the case of
such a criterion, we make abstraction of all the content of a cognition (that
is, of all relation to its object), and truth relates precisely to this
content, it must be utterly absurd to ask for a mark of the truth of this
content of cognition; and that, accordingly, a sufficient, and at the same
time universal, test of truth cannot possibly be found.
As we have already termed the content of a cognition its matter, we
shall say: “Of the truth of our cognitions in respect of their matter, no
universal test can be demanded, because such a demand is self-contradictory.”
On
the other hand, with regard to our cognition in respect of its mere form
(excluding all content), it is equally manifest that logic, in so far as it
exhibits the universal and necessary laws of the understanding, must in these
very laws present us with criteria of truth. Whatever contradicts these rules
is false, because thereby the understanding is made to contradict its own
universal laws of thought; that is, to contradict itself. These criteria,
however, apply solely to the form of truth, that is, of thought in general,
and in so far they are perfectly accurate, yet not sufficient. For although a
cognition may be perfectly accurate as to logical form, that is, not
self-contradictory, it is notwithstanding quite possible that it may not stand
in agreement with its object. Consequently, the merely logical criterion of
truth, namely, the accordance of a cognition with the universal and formal
laws of understanding and reason, is nothing more than the conditio sine qua
non, or negative condition of all truth. Farther than this logic cannot go,
and the error which depends not on the form, but on the content of the
cognition, it has no test to discover.
General
logic, then, resolves the whole formal business of understanding and reason
into its elements, and exhibits them as principles of all logical judging of
our cognitions. This part of logic may, therefore, be called analytic, and is
at least the negative test of truth, because all cognitions must first of an
be estimated and tried according to these laws before we proceed to
investigate them in respect of their content, in order to discover whether
they contain positive truth in regard to their object. Because, however, the
mere form of a cognition, accurately as it may accord with logical laws, is
insufficient to supply us with material (objective) truth, no one, by means of
logic alone, can venture to predicate anything of or decide concerning
objects, unless he has obtained, independently of logic, well-grounded
information about them, in order afterwards to examine, according to logical
laws, into the use and connection, in a cohering whole, of that information,
or, what is still better, merely to test it by them. Notwithstanding, there
lies so seductive a charm in the possession of a specious art like this—an
art which gives to all our cognitions the form of the understanding, although
with respect to the content thereof we may be sadly deficient—that general
logic, which is merely a canon of judgement, has been employed as an organon
for the actual production, or rather for the semblance of production, of
objective assertions, and has thus been grossly misapplied. Now general logic,
in its assumed character of organon, is called dialectic.
Different
as are the significations in which the ancients used this term for a science
or an art, we may safely infer, from their actual employment of it, that with
them it was nothing else than a logic of illusion—a sophistical art for
giving ignorance, nay, even intentional sophistries, the colouring of truth,
in which the thoroughness of procedure which logic requires was imitated, and
their topic employed to cloak the empty pretensions. Now it may be taken as a
safe and useful warning, that general logic, considered as an organon, must
always be a logic of illusion, that is, be dialectical, for, as it teaches us
nothing whatever respecting the content of our cognitions, but merely the
formal conditions of their accordance with the understanding, which do not
relate to and are quite indifferent in respect of objects, any attempt to
employ it as an instrument (organon) in order to extend and enlarge the range
of our knowledge must end in mere prating; any one being able to maintain or
oppose, with some appearance of truth, any single assertion whatever.
Such
instruction is quite unbecoming the dignity of philosophy.
For these reasons we have chosen to denominate this part of logic
dialectic, in the sense of a critique of dialectical illusion, and we wish the
term to be so understood in this place.
IV.
Of the Division of Transcendental Logic into Transcendental Analytic
and Dialectic.
In
transcendental logic we isolate the understanding (as in
transcendental
aesthetic the sensibility) and select from our
cognition
merely that part of thought which has its origin in the
understanding
alone. The exercise of this pure cognition, however,
depends
upon this as its condition, that objects to which it may be
applied
be given to us in intuition, for without intuition the whole
of
our cognition is without objects, and is therefore quite void. That
part
of transcendental logic, then, which treats of the elements of
pure
cognition of the understanding, and of the principles without
which
no object at all can be thought, is transcendental analytic,
and
at the same time a logic of truth. For no cognition can contradict
it,
without losing at the same time all content, that is, losing all
reference
to an object, and therefore all truth. But because we are
very
easily seduced into employing these pure cognitions and principles of the
understanding by themselves, and that even beyond the boundaries of
experience, which yet is the only source whence we can obtain matter (objects)
on which those pure conceptions may be employed—understanding runs the risk
of making, by means of empty sophisms, a material and objective use of the
mere formal principles of the pure understanding, and of passing judgements on
objects without distinction—objects which are not given to us, nay, perhaps
cannot be given to us in any way. Now, as it ought properly to be only a canon
for judging of the empirical use of the understanding, this kind of logic is
misused when we seek to employ it as an organon of the universal and unlimited
exercise of the understanding, and attempt with the pure understanding alone
to judge synthetically, affirm, and determine respecting objects in general.
In this case the exercise of the pure understanding becomes dialectical. The
second part of our transcendental logic must therefore be a critique of
dialectical illusion, and this critique we shall term transcendental dialectic—
not meaning it as an art of producing dogmatically such illusion (an art which
is unfortunately too current among the practitioners of metaphysical
juggling), but as a critique of understanding and reason in regard to their
hyperphysical use. This critique will expose the groundless nature of the
pretensions of these two faculties, and invalidate their claims to the
discovery and enlargement of our cognitions merely by means of transcendental
principles, and show that the proper employment of these faculties is to test
the judgements made by the pure understanding, and to guard it from
sophistical delusion.
TRANSCENDENTAL
LOGIC. FIRST DIVISION.
TRANSCENDENTAL
ANALYTIC.
SS
I.
Transcendental
analytic is the dissection of the whole of our a priori knowledge into the
elements of the pure cognition of the understanding. In order to effect our purpose, it is necessary: (1) That the
conceptions be pure and not empirical; (2) That they belong not to intuition
and sensibility, but to thought and understanding; (3) That they be elementary
conceptions, and as such, quite different from deduced or compound
conceptions; (4) That our table of these elementary conceptions be complete,
and fill up the whole sphere of the pure understanding. Now this completeness
of a science cannot be accepted with confidence on the guarantee of a mere
estimate of its existence in an aggregate formed only by means of repeated
experiments and attempts. The
completeness which we require is possible only by means of an idea of the
totality of the a priori cognition of the understanding, and through the
thereby determined division of the conceptions which form the said whole;
consequently, only by means of their connection in a system. Pure
understanding distinguishes itself not merely from everything empirical, but
also completely from all sensibility. It is a unity self-subsistent,
self-sufficient, and not to be enlarged by any additions from without. Hence
the sum of its cognition constitutes a system to be determined by and
comprised under an idea; and the completeness and articulation of this system
can at the same time serve as a test of the correctness and genuineness of all
the parts of cognition that belong to it. The whole of this part of
transcendental logic consists of two books, of which the one contains the
conceptions, and the other the principles of pure understanding.
BOOK
I.
SS
2. Analytic of Conceptions.
By
the term Analytic of Conceptions, I do not understand the analysis of these,
or the usual process in philosophical investigations of dissecting the
conceptions which present themselves, according to their content, and so
making them clear; but I mean the hitherto little attempted dissection of the
faculty of understanding itself, in order to investigate the possibility of
conceptions a priori, by looking for them in the understanding alone, as their
birthplace, and analysing the pure use of this faculty. For this is the proper
duty of a transcendental philosophy; what remains is the logical treatment of
the conceptions in philosophy in general. We shall therefore follow up the
pure conceptions even to their germs and beginnings in the human
understanding, in which they lie, until they are developed on occasions
presented by experience, and, freed by the same understanding from the
empirical conditions attaching to them, are set forth in their unalloyed
purity.
CHAPTER
I. Of the Transcendental Clue to the Discovery of all Pure
Conceptions
of the Understanding.
SS
3. Introductory.
When
we call into play a faculty of cognition, different conceptions manifest
themselves according to the different circumstances, and make known this
faculty, and assemble themselves into a more or less extensive collection,
according to the time or penetration that has been applied to the
consideration of them. Where this process, conducted as it is mechanically, so
to speak, will end, cannot be determined with certainty. Besides, the
conceptions which we discover in this haphazard manner present themselves by
no means in order and systematic unity, but are at last coupled together only
according to resemblances to each other, and arranged in series, according to
the quantity of their content, from the simpler to the more complex—series
which are anything but systematic, though not altogether without a certain
kind of method in their construction.
Transcendental
philosophy has the advantage, and moreover the duty, of searching for its
conceptions according to a principle; because these conceptions spring pure
and unmixed out of the understanding as an absolute unity, and therefore must
be connected with each other according to one conception or idea. A connection
of this kind, however, furnishes us with a ready prepared rule, by which its
proper place may be assigned to every pure conception of the understanding,
and the completeness of the system of all be determined a priori—both which
would otherwise have been dependent on mere choice or chance.
SS
4. SECTION 1. Of defined above Use of understanding in General.
The
understanding was defined above only negatively, as a non-sensuous faculty of
cognition. Now, independently of sensibility, we cannot possibly have any
intuition; consequently, the understanding is no faculty of intuition. But
besides intuition there is no other mode of cognition, except through
conceptions; consequently, the cognition of every, at least of every human,
understanding is a cognition through conceptions—not intuitive, but
discursive. All intuitions, as sensuous, depend on affections; conceptions,
therefore, upon functions. By the word function I understand the unity of the
act of arranging diverse representations under one common representation.
Conceptions, then, are based on the spontaneity of thought, as sensuous
intuitions are on the receptivity of impressions. Now, the understanding
cannot make any other use of these conceptions than to judge by means of them.
As no representation, except an intuition, relates immediately to its object,
a conception never relates immediately to an object, but only to some other
representation thereof, be that an intuition or itself a conception. A
judgement, therefore, is the mediate cognition of an object, consequently the
representation of a representation of it. In every judgement there is a
conception which applies to, and is valid for many other conceptions, and
which among these comprehends also a given representation, this last being
immediately connected with an object. For example, in the judgement—
“All
bodies are divisible,” our conception of divisible applies to various other
conceptions; among these, however, it is here particularly applied to the
conception of body, and this conception of body relates to certain phenomena
which occur to us. These objects, therefore, are mediately represented by the
conception of divisibility. All judgements, accordingly, are functions of
unity in our representations, inasmuch as, instead of an immediate, a higher
representation, which comprises this and various others, is used for our
cognition of the object, and thereby many possible cognitions are collected
into one. But we can reduce all acts of the understanding to judgements, so
that understanding may be represented as the faculty of judging. For it is,
according to what has been said above, a faculty of thought. Now thought is
cognition by means of conceptions. But conceptions, as predicates of possible
judgements, relate to some representation of a yet undetermined object. Thus
the conception of body indicates something—for example, metal—which can be
cognized by means of that conception. It
is therefore a conception, for the reason alone that other representations are
contained under it, by means of which it can relate to objects. It is
therefore the predicate to a possible judgement; for example: “Every metal
is a body.” All the functions of the understanding therefore can be
discovered, when we can completely exhibit the functions of unity in
judgements. And that this may be effected very easily, the following section
will show.
SS
5. SECTION II. Of the Logical Function of the Understanding in
Judgements.
If
we abstract all the content of a judgement, and consider only the intellectual
form thereof, we find that the function of thought in a judgement can be
brought under four heads, of which each contains three momenta. These may be
conveniently represented in the following table:
1
Quantity
of judgements
Universal
Particular
Singular
2
3
Quality
Relation
Affirmative
Categorical
Negative
Hypothetical
Infinite
Disjunctive
4
Modality
Problematical
Assertorical
Apodeictical
As
this division appears to differ in some, though not essential points, from the
usual technique of logicians, the following observations, for the prevention
of otherwise possible misunderstanding, will not be without their use.
1.
Logicians say, with justice, that in the use of judgements in
syllogisms, singular judgements may be treated like universal ones.
For, precisely because a singular judgement has no extent at all, its
predicate cannot refer to a part of that which is contained in the conception
of the subject and be excluded from the rest. The predicate is valid for the
whole conception just as if it were a general conception, and had extent, to
the whole of which the predicate applied. On the other hand, let us compare a
singular with a general judgement, merely as a cognition, in regard to
quantity. The singular judgement relates to the general one, as unity to
infinity, and is therefore in itself essentially different. Thus, if we
estimate a singular judgement (judicium singulare) not merely according to its
intrinsic validity as a judgement, but also as a cognition generally,
according to its quantity in comparison with that of other cognitions, it is
then entirely different from a general judgement (judicium commune), and in a
complete table of the momenta of thought deserves a separate place—though,
indeed, this would not be necessary in a logic limited merely to the
consideration of the use of judgements in reference to each other.
2.
In like manner, in transcendental logic, infinite must be distinguished
from affirmative judgements, although in general logic they are rightly enough
classed under affirmative. General logic abstracts all content of the
predicate (though it be negative), and only considers whether the said
predicate be affirmed or denied of the subject. But transcendental logic
considers also the worth or content of this logical affirmation—an
affirmation by means of a merely negative predicate, and inquires how much the
sum total of our cognition gains by this affirmation. For example, if I say of
the soul, “It is not mortal”—by this negative judgement I should at
least ward off error. Now, by the proposition, “The soul is not mortal,” I
have, in respect of the logical form, really affirmed, inasmuch as I thereby
place the soul in the unlimited sphere of immortal beings. Now, because of the
whole sphere of possible existences, the mortal occupies one part, and the
immortal the other, neither more nor less is affirmed by the proposition than
that the soul is one among the infinite multitude of things which remain over,
when I take away the whole mortal part. But by this proceeding we accomplish
only this much, that the infinite sphere of all possible existences is in so
far limited that the mortal is excluded from it, and the soul is placed in the
remaining part of the extent of this sphere. But this part remains,
notwithstanding this exception, infinite, and more and more parts may be taken
away from the whole sphere, without in the slightest degree thereby augmenting
or affirmatively determining our conception of the soul. These judgements,
therefore, infinite in respect of their logical extent, are, in respect of the
content of their cognition, merely limitative; and are consequently entitled
to a place in our transcendental table of all the momenta of thought in
judgements, because the function of the understanding exercised by them may
perhaps be of importance in the field of its pure a priori cognition.
3.
All relations of thought in judgements are those (a) of the predicate
to the subject; (b) of the principle to its consequence;
(c)
of the divided cognition and all the members of the division to each
other. In the first of these three classes, we consider only two conceptions;
in the second, two judgements; in the third, several judgements in relation to
each other. The hypothetical proposition, “If perfect justice exists, the
obstinately wicked are punished,” contains properly the relation to each
other of two propositions, namely, “Perfect justice exists,” and “The
obstinately wicked are punished.” Whether these propositions are in
themselves true is a question not here decided. Nothing is cogitated by means
of this judgement except a certain consequence. Finally, the disjunctive
judgement contains a relation of two or more propositions to each other—a
relation not of consequence, but of logical opposition, in so far as the
sphere of the one proposition excludes that of the other.
But it contains at the same time a relation of community, in so far as
all the propositions taken together fill up the sphere of the cognition. The
disjunctive judgement contains, therefore, the relation of the parts of the
whole sphere of a cognition, since the sphere of each part is a complemental
part of the sphere of the other, each contributing to form the sum total of
the divided cognition. Take, for example, the proposition, “The world exists
either through blind chance, or through internal necessity, or through an
external cause.” Each of these propositions embraces a part of the sphere of
our possible cognition as to the existence of a world; all of them taken
together, the whole sphere. To take the cognition out of one of these spheres,
is equivalent to placing it in one of the others; and, on the other hand, to
place it in one sphere is equivalent to taking it out of the rest. There is,
therefore, in a disjunctive judgement a certain community of cognitions, which
consists in this, that they mutually exclude each other, yet thereby
determine, as a whole, the true cognition, inasmuch as, taken together, they
make up the complete content of a particular given cognition. And this is all
that I find necessary, for the sake of what follows, to remark in this place.
4.
The modality of judgements is a quite peculiar function, with this
distinguishing characteristic, that it contributes nothing to the content of a
judgement (for besides quantity, quality, and relation, there is nothing more
that constitutes the content of a judgement), but concerns itself only with
the value of the copula in relation to thought in general. Problematical
judgements are those in which the affirmation or negation is accepted as
merely possible (ad libitum). In the assertorical, we regard the proposition as real
(true); in the apodeictical, we look on it as necessary.* Thus the two
judgements (antecedens et consequens), the relation of which constitutes a
hypothetical judgement, likewise those (the members of the division) in whose
reciprocity the disjunctive consists, are only problematical.
In the example above given the proposition, “There exists perfect
justice,” is not stated assertorically, but as an ad libitum judgement,
which someone may choose to adopt, and the consequence alone is assertorical.
Hence such judgements may be obviously false, and yet, taken problematically,
be conditions of our cognition of the truth. Thus the proposition, “The
world exists only by blind chance,” is in the disjunctive judgement of
problematical import only: that is to say, one may accept it for the moment,
and it helps us (like the indication of the wrong road among all the roads
that one can take) to find out the true proposition. The problematical
proposition is, therefore, that which expresses only logical possibility
(which is not objective); that is, it expresses a free choice to admit the
validity of such a proposition—a merely arbitrary reception of it into the
understanding. The assertorical speaks of logical reality or truth; as, for
example, in a hypothetical syllogism, the antecedens presents itself in a
problematical form in the major, in an assertorical form in the minor, and it
shows that the proposition is in harmony with the laws of the understanding.
The apodeictical proposition cogitates the assertorical as determined by these
very laws of the understanding, consequently as affirming a priori, and in
this manner it expresses logical necessity. Now because all is here gradually
incorporated with the understanding—inasmuch as in the first place we judge
problematically; then accept assertorically our judgement as true; lastly,
affirm it as inseparably united with the understanding, that is, as necessary
and apodeictical— we may safely reckon these three functions of modality as
so many momenta of thought.
[*Footnote:
Just as if thought were in the first instance a function of the understanding;
in the second, of judgement; in the third, of reason. A remark which will be
explained in the sequel.]
SS
6. SECTION III. Of the Pure Conceptions of the Understanding, or
Categories.
General
logic, as has been repeatedly said, makes abstraction of all content of
cognition, and expects to receive representations from some other quarter, in
order, by means of analysis, to convert them into conceptions. On the
contrary, transcendental logic has lying before it the manifold content of a
priori sensibility, which transcendental aesthetic presents to it in order to
give matter to the pure conceptions of the understanding, without which
transcendental logic would have no content, and be therefore utterly void. Now
space and time contain an infinite diversity of determinations of pure a
priori intuition, but are nevertheless the condition of the mind’s
receptivity, under which alone it can obtain representations of objects, and
which, consequently, must always affect the conception of these objects. But
the spontaneity of thought requires that this diversity be examined after a
certain manner, received into the mind, and connected, in order afterwards to
form a cognition out of it. This Process I call synthesis.
By
the word synthesis, in its most general signification, I understand the
process of joining different representations to each other and of
comprehending their diversity in one cognition. This synthesis is pure when
the diversity is not given empirically but a priori (as that in space and
time). Our representations must be given previously to any analysis of them;
and no conceptions can arise, quoad their content, analytically. But the
synthesis of a diversity (be it given a priori or empirically) is the first
requisite for the production of a cognition, which in its beginning, indeed,
may be crude and confused, and therefore in need of analysis—still,
synthesis is that by which alone the elements of our cognitions are collected
and united into a certain content, consequently it is the first thing on which
we must fix our attention, if we wish to investigate the origin of our
knowledge.
Synthesis,
generally speaking, is, as we shall afterwards see, the mere operation of the
imagination—a blind but indispensable function of the soul, without which we
should have no cognition whatever, but of the working of which we are seldom
even conscious. But to reduce
this synthesis to conceptions is a function of the understanding, by means of
which we attain to cognition, in the proper meaning of the term.
Pure
synthesis, represented generally, gives us the pure conception of the
understanding. But by this pure synthesis, I mean that which rests upon a
basis of a priori synthetical unity. Thus, our numeration (and this is more
observable in large numbers) is a synthesis according to conceptions, because
it takes place according to a common basis of unity (for example, the decade).
By means of this conception, therefore, the unity in the synthesis of the
manifold becomes necessary.
By
means of analysis different representations are brought under one conception—an
operation of which general logic treats. On the other hand, the duty of
transcendental logic is to reduce to conceptions, not representations, but the
pure synthesis of representations. The first thing which must be given to us
for the sake of the a priori cognition of all objects, is the diversity of the
pure intuition; the synthesis of this diversity by means of the imagination is
the second; but this gives, as yet, no cognition. The conceptions which give
unity to this pure synthesis, and which consist solely in the representation
of this necessary synthetical unity, furnish the third requisite for the
cognition of an object, and these conceptions are given by the understanding.
The
same function which gives unity to the different representation in a
judgement, gives also unity to the mere synthesis of different representations
in an intuition; and this unity we call the pure conception of the
understanding. Thus, the same understanding, and by the same operations,
whereby in conceptions, by means of analytical unity, it produced the logical
form of a judgement, introduces, by means of the synthetical unity of the
manifold in intuition, a transcendental content into its representations, on
which account they are called pure conceptions of the understanding, and they
apply a priori to objects, a result not within the power of general logic.
In
this manner, there arise exactly so many pure conceptions of the
understanding, applying a priori to objects of intuition in general, as there
are logical functions in all possible judgements.
For there is no other function or faculty existing in the understanding
besides those enumerated in that table. These conceptions we shall, with
Aristotle, call categories, our purpose being originally identical with his,
notwithstanding the great difference in the execution.
TABLE
OF THE CATEGORIES
1
2
Of Quantity
Of Quality
Unity
Reality
Plurality
Negation
Totality
Limitation
3
Of Relation Of Inherence and Subsistence (substantia et accidens) Of Causality
and Dependence (cause and effect)
Of
Community (reciprocity between the agent and patient)
4
Of
Modality
Possibility—Impossibility
Existence—Non-existence
Necessity—Contingence
This,
then, is a catalogue of all the originally pure conceptions of the synthesis
which the understanding contains a priori, and these conceptions alone entitle
it to be called a pure understanding; inasmuch as only by them it can render
the manifold of intuition conceivable, in other words, think an object of
intuition. This division is made systematically from a common principle,
namely the faculty of judgement (which is just the same as the power of
thought), and has not arisen rhapsodically from a search at haphazard after
pure conceptions, respecting the full number of which we never could be
certain, inasmuch as we employ induction alone in our search, without
considering that in this way we can never understand wherefore precisely these
conceptions, and none others, abide in the pure understanding. It was a design
worthy of an acute thinker like Aristotle, to search for these fundamental
conceptions. Destitute, however, of any guiding principle, he picked them up
just as they occurred to him, and at first hunted out ten, which he called
categories (predicaments). Afterwards be believed that he had discovered five
others, which were added under the name of post predicaments. But his
catalogue still remained defective. Besides, there are to be found among them
some of the modes of pure sensibility (quando, ubi, situs, also prius, simul),
and likewise an empirical conception (motus)--which can by no means belong to
this genealogical register of the pure understanding. Moreover, there are
deduced conceptions (actio, passio) enumerated among the original conceptions,
and, of the latter, some are entirely wanting.
With
regard to these, it is to be remarked, that the categories, as the true
primitive conceptions of the pure understanding, have also their pure deduced
conceptions, which, in a complete system of transcendental philosophy, must by
no means be passed over; though in a merely critical essay we must be
contented with the simple mention of the fact.
Let
it be allowed me to call these pure, but deduced conceptions of the
understanding, the predicables of the pure understanding, in contradistinction
to predicaments. If we are in possession of the original and primitive, the
deduced and subsidiary conceptions can easily be added, and the genealogical
tree of the understanding completely delineated. As my present aim is not to
set forth a complete system, but merely the principles of one, I reserve this
task for another time. It may be easily executed by any one who will refer to
the ontological manuals, and subordinate to the category of causality, for
example, the predicables of force, action, passion; to that of community,
those of presence and resistance; to the categories of modality, those of
origination, extinction, change; and so with the rest. The categories combined
with the modes of pure sensibility, or with one another, afford a great number
of deduced a priori conceptions; a complete enumeration of which would be a
useful and not unpleasant, but in this place a perfectly dispensable,
occupation.
I
purposely omit the definitions of the categories in this treatise.
I shall analyse these conceptions only so far as is necessary for the
doctrine of method, which is to form a part of this critique. In a system of
pure reason, definitions of them would be with justice demanded of me, but to
give them here would only bide from our view the main aim of our
investigation, at the same time raising doubts and objections, the
consideration of which, without injustice to our main purpose, may be very
well postponed till another opportunity.
Meanwhile, it ought to be sufficiently clear, from the little we have
already said on this subject, that the formation of a complete vocabulary of
pure conceptions, accompanied by all the requisite explanations, is not only a
possible, but an easy undertaking. The compartments already exist; it is only
necessary to fill them up; and a systematic topic like the present, indicates
with perfect precision the proper place to which each conception belongs,
while it readily points out any that have not yet been filled up.
SS
7.
Our
table of the categories suggests considerations of some importance, which may
perhaps have significant results in regard to the scientific form of all
rational cognitions. For, that this table is useful in the theoretical part of
philosophy, nay, indispensable for the sketching of the complete plan of a
science, so far as that science rests upon conceptions a priori, and for
dividing it mathematically, according to fixed principles, is most manifest
from the fact that it contains all the elementary conceptions of the
understanding, nay, even the form of a system of these in the understanding
itself, and consequently indicates all the momenta, and also the internal
arrangement of a projected speculative science, as I have elsewhere shown.
[Footnote: In the Metaphysical Principles of Natural Science.] Here follow
some of these observations.
I.
This table, which contains four classes of conceptions of the
understanding, may, in the first instance, be divided into two classes, the
first of which relates to objects of intuition—pure as well as empirical;
the second, to the existence of these objects, either in relation to one
another, or to the understanding.
The
former of these classes of categories I would entitle the mathematical, and
the latter the dynamical categories. The former, as we see, has no correlates;
these are only to be found in the second class. This difference must have a
ground in the nature of the human understanding.
II.
The number of the categories in each class is always the same, namely,
three—a fact which also demands some consideration, because in all other
cases division a priori through conceptions is necessarily dichotomy. It is to
be added, that the third category in each triad always arises from the
combination of the second with the first.
Thus
totality is nothing else but plurality contemplated as unity; limitation is
merely reality conjoined with negation; community is the causality of a
substance, reciprocally determining, and determined by other substances; and
finally, necessity is nothing but existence, which is given through the
possibility itself. Let it not be supposed, however, that the third category
is merely a deduced, and not a primitive conception of the pure understanding.
For the conjunction of the first and second, in order to produce the third
conception, requires a particular function of the understanding, which is by
no means identical with those which are exercised in the first and second.
Thus, the conception of a number (which belongs to the category of totality)
is not always possible, where the conceptions of multitude and unity exist
(for example, in the representation of the infinite). Or, if I conjoin the
conception of a cause with that of a substance, it does not follow that the
conception of influence, that is, how one substance can be the cause of
something in another substance, will be understood from that. Thus it is
evident that a particular act of the understanding is here necessary; and so
in the other instances.
III.
With respect to one category, namely, that of community, which is found
in the third class, it is not so easy as with the others to detect its
accordance with the form of the disjunctive judgement which corresponds to it
in the table of the logical functions.
In
order to assure ourselves of this accordance, we must observe that in every
disjunctive judgement, the sphere of the judgement (that is, the complex of
all that is contained in it) is represented as a whole divided into parts;
and, since one part cannot be contained in the other, they are cogitated as
co-ordinated with, not subordinated to each other, so that they do not
determine each other unilaterally, as in a linear series, but reciprocally, as
in an aggregate--(if one member of the division is posited, all the rest are
excluded; and conversely).
Now
a like connection is cogitated in a whole of things; for one thing is not
subordinated, as effect, to another as cause of its existence, but, on the
contrary, is co-ordinated contemporaneously and reciprocally, as a cause in
relation to the determination of the others (for example, in a body—the
parts of which mutually attract and repel each other). And this is an entirely
different kind of connection from that which we find in the mere relation of
the cause to the effect (the principle to the consequence), for in such a
connection the consequence does not in its turn determine the principle, and
therefore does not constitute, with the latter, a whole—just as the Creator
does not with the world make up a whole.
The process of understanding by which it represents to itself the
sphere of a divided conception, is employed also when we think of a thing as
divisible; and in the same manner as the members of the division in the former
exclude one another, and yet are connected in one sphere, so the understanding
represents to itself the parts of the latter, as having—each of them—an
existence (as substances), independently of the others, and yet as united in
one whole.
SS
8.
In
the transcendental philosophy of the ancients there exists one more leading
division, which contains pure conceptions of the understanding, and which,
although not numbered among the categories, ought, according to them, as
conceptions a priori, to be valid of objects. But in this case they would
augment the number of the categories; which cannot be.
These are set forth in the proposition, so renowned among the schoolmen—“Quodlibet
ens est UNUM, VERUM, BONUM.” Now, though the inferences from this principle
were mere tautological propositions, and though it is allowed only by courtesy
to retain a place in modern metaphysics, yet a thought which maintained itself
for such a length of time, however empty it seems to be, deserves an
investigation of its origin, and justifies the conjecture that it must be
grounded in some law of the understanding, which, as is often the case, has
only been erroneously interpreted. These pretended transcendental predicates
are, in fact, nothing but logical requisites and criteria of all cognition of
objects, and they employ, as the basis for this cognition, the categories of
quantity, namely, unity, plurality, and totality. But these, which must be
taken as material conditions, that is, as belonging to the possibility of
things themselves, they employed merely in a formal signification, as
belonging to the logical requisites of all cognition, and yet most unguardedly
changed these criteria of thought into properties of objects, as things in
themselves. Now, in every cognition of an object, there is unity of
conception, which may be called qualitative unity, so far as by this term we
understand only the unity in our connection of the manifold; for example,
unity of the theme in a play, an oration, or a story. Secondly, there is truth
in respect of the deductions from it. The more true deductions we have from a
given conception, the more criteria of its objective reality.
This we might call the qualitative plurality of characteristic marks,
which belong to a conception as to a common foundation, but are not cogitated
as a quantity in it. Thirdly, there is perfection—which consists in this,
that the plurality falls back upon the unity of the conception, and accords
completely with that conception and with no other. This we may denominate
qualitative completeness. Hence it is evident that these logical criteria of
the possibility of cognition are merely the three categories of quantity
modified and transformed to suit an unauthorized manner of applying them. That
is to say, the three categories, in which the unity in the production of the
quantum must be homogeneous throughout, are transformed solely with a view to
the connection of heterogeneous parts of cognition in one act of
consciousness, by means of the quality of the cognition, which is the
principle of that connection. Thus the criterion of the possibility of a
conception (not of its object) is the definition of it, in which the unity of
the conception, the truth of all that may be immediately deduced from it, and
finally, the completeness of what has been thus deduced, constitute the
requisites for the reproduction of the whole conception. Thus also, the
criterion or test of an hypothesis is the intelligibility of the received
principle of explanation, or its unity (without help from any subsidiary
hypothesis)--the truth of our deductions from it (consistency with each other
and with experience)--and lastly, the completeness of the principle of the
explanation of these deductions, which refer to neither more nor less than
what was admitted in the hypothesis, restoring analytically and a posteriori,
what was cogitated synthetically and a priori. By the conceptions, therefore,
of unity, truth, and perfection, we have made no addition to the
transcendental table of the categories, which is complete without them. We
have, on the contrary, merely employed the three categories of quantity,
setting aside their application to objects of experience, as general logical
laws of the consistency of cognition with itself.
CHAPTER
II Of the Deduction of the Pure Conceptions of the Understanding.
SS
9. SECTION I Of the Principles of a Transcendental Deduction
in
general.
Teachers
of jurisprudence, when speaking of rights and claims, distinguish in a cause
the question of right (quid juris) from the question of fact (quid facti), and
while they demand proof of both, they give to the proof of the former, which
goes to establish right or claim in law, the name of deduction. Now we make
use of a great number of empirical conceptions, without opposition from any
one; and consider ourselves, even without any attempt at deduction, justified
in attaching to them a sense, and a supposititious signification, because we
have always experience at hand to demonstrate their objective reality. There
exist also, however, usurped conceptions, such as fortune, fate, which
circulate with almost universal indulgence, and yet are occasionally
challenged by the question, “quid juris?” In such cases, we have great
difficulty in discovering any deduction for these terms, inasmuch as we cannot
produce any manifest ground of right, either from experience or from reason,
on which the claim to employ them can be founded.
Among
the many conceptions, which make up the very variegated web of human
cognition, some are destined for pure use a priori, independent of all
experience; and their title to be so employed always requires a deduction,
inasmuch as, to justify such use of them, proofs from experience are not
sufficient; but it is necessary to know how these conceptions can apply to
objects without being derived from experience. I term, therefore, an
examination of the manner in which conceptions can apply a priori to objects,
the transcendental deduction of conceptions, and I distinguish it from the
empirical deduction, which indicates the mode in which conception is obtained
through experience and reflection thereon; consequently, does not concern
itself with the right, but only with the fact of our obtaining conceptions in
such and such a manner. We have already seen that we are in possession of two
perfectly different kinds of conceptions, which nevertheless agree with each
other in this, that they both apply to objects completely a priori. These are
the conceptions of space and time as forms of sensibility, and the categories
as pure conceptions of the understanding. To attempt an empirical deduction of
either of these classes would be labour in vain, because the distinguishing
characteristic of their nature consists in this, that they apply to their
objects, without having borrowed anything from experience towards the
representation of them. Consequently, if a deduction of these conceptions is
necessary, it must always be transcendental.
Meanwhile,
with respect to these conceptions, as with respect to all our cognition, we
certainly may discover in experience, if not the principle of their
possibility, yet the occasioning causes of their production. It will be found
that the impressions of sense give the first occasion for bringing into action
the whole faculty of cognition, and for the production of experience, which
contains two very dissimilar elements, namely, a matter for cognition, given
by the senses, and a certain form for the arrangement of this matter, arising
out of the inner fountain of pure intuition and thought; and these, on
occasion given by sensuous impressions, are called into exercise and produce
conceptions. Such an investigation into the first efforts of our faculty of
cognition to mount from particular perceptions to general conceptions is
undoubtedly of great utility; and we have to thank the celebrated Locke for
having first opened the way for this inquiry. But a deduction of the pure a
priori conceptions of course never can be made in this way, seeing that, in
regard to their future employment, which must be entirely independent of
experience, they must have a far different certificate of birth to show from
that of a descent from experience. This attempted physiological derivation,
which cannot properly be called deduction, because it relates merely to a
quaestio facti, I shall entitle an explanation of the possession of a pure
cognition. It is therefore manifest that there can only be a transcendental
deduction of these conceptions and by no means an empirical one; also, that
all attempts at an empirical deduction, in regard to pure a priori
conceptions, are vain, and can only be made by one who does not understand the
altogether peculiar nature of these cognitions.
But
although it is admitted that the only possible deduction of pure a priori
cognition is a transcendental deduction, it is not, for that reason, perfectly
manifest that such a deduction is absolutely necessary. We have already traced
to their sources the conceptions of space and time, by means of a
transcendental deduction, and we have explained and determined their objective
validity a priori. Geometry,
nevertheless, advances steadily and securely in the province of pure a priori
cognitions, without needing to ask from philosophy any certificate as to the
pure and legitimate origin of its fundamental conception of space. But the use
of the conception in this science extends only to the external world of sense,
the pure form of the intuition of which is space; and in this world,
therefore, all geometrical cognition, because it is founded upon a priori
intuition, possesses immediate evidence, and the objects of this cognition are
given a priori (as regards their form) in intuition by and through the
cognition itself. With the pure conceptions of understanding, on the contrary,
commences the absolute necessity of seeking a transcendental deduction, not
only of these conceptions themselves, but likewise of space, because, inasmuch
as they make affirmations concerning objects not by means of the predicates of
intuition and sensibility, but of pure thought a priori, they apply to objects
without any of the conditions of sensibility. Besides, not being founded on
experience, they are not presented with any object in a priori intuition upon
which, antecedently to experience, they might base their synthesis. Hence
results, not only doubt as to the objective validity and proper limits of
their use, but that even our conception of space is rendered equivocal;
inasmuch as we are very ready with the aid of the categories, to carry the use
of this conception beyond the conditions of sensuous intuition—and, for this
reason, we have already found a transcendental deduction of it needful. The
reader, then, must be quite convinced of the absolute necessity of a
transcendental deduction, before taking a single step in the field of pure
reason; because otherwise he goes to work blindly, and after he has wondered
about in all directions, returns to the state of utter ignorance from which he
started. He ought, moreover, clearly to recognize beforehand the unavoidable
difficulties in his undertaking, so that he may not afterwards complain of the
obscurity in which the subject itself is deeply involved, or become too soon
impatient of the obstacles in his path; because we have a choice of only two
things—either at once to give up all pretensions to knowledge beyond the
limits of possible experience, or to bring this critical investigation to
completion.
We
have been able, with very little trouble, to make it comprehensible how the
conceptions of space and time, although a priori cognitions, must necessarily
apply to external objects, and render a synthetical cognition of these
possible, independently of all experience. For inasmuch as only by means of
such pure form of sensibility an object can appear to us, that is, be an
object of empirical intuition, space and time are pure intuitions, which
contain a priori the condition of the possibility of objects as phenomena, and
an a priori synthesis in these intuitions possesses objective validity.
On
the other hand, the categories of the understanding do not represent the
conditions under which objects are given to us in intuition; objects can
consequently appear to us without necessarily connecting themselves with
these, and consequently without any necessity binding on the understanding to
contain a priori the conditions of these objects. Thus we find ourselves
involved in a difficulty which did not present itself in the sphere of
sensibility, that is to say, we cannot discover how the subjective conditions
of thought can have objective validity, in other words, can become conditions
of the possibility of all cognition of objects; for phenomena may certainly be
given to us in intuition without any help from the functions of the
understanding. Let us take, for example, the conception of cause, which
indicates a peculiar kind of synthesis, namely, that with something, A,
something entirely different, B, is connected according to a law. It is not a
priori manifest why phenomena should contain anything of this kind (we are of
course debarred from appealing for proof to experience, for the objective
validity of this conception must be demonstrated a priori), and it hence
remains doubtful a priori, whether such a conception be not quite void and
without any corresponding object among phenomena. For that objects of sensuous
intuition must correspond to the formal conditions of sensibility existing a
priori in the mind is quite evident, from the fact that without these they
could not be objects for us; but that they must also correspond to the
conditions which understanding requires for the synthetical unity of thought
is an assertion, the grounds for which are not so easily to be discovered. For
phenomena might be so constituted as not to correspond to the conditions of
the unity of thought; and all things might lie in such confusion that, for
example, nothing could be met with in the sphere of phenomena to suggest a law
of synthesis, and so correspond to the conception of cause and effect; so that
this conception would be quite void, null, and without significance. Phenomena
would nevertheless continue to present objects to our intuition; for mere
intuition does not in any respect stand in need of the functions of thought.
If
we thought to free ourselves from the labour of these investigations by
saying: “Experience is constantly offering us examples of the relation of
cause and effect in phenomena, and presents us with abundant opportunity of
abstracting the conception of cause, and so at the same time of corroborating
the objective validity of this conception”; we should in this case be
overlooking the fact, that the conception of cause cannot arise in this way at
all; that, on the contrary, it must either have an a priori basis in the,
understanding, or be rejected as a mere chimera. For this conception demands
that something, A, should be of such a nature that something else, B, should
follow from it necessarily, and according to an absolutely universal law. We
may certainly collect from phenomena a law, according to which this or that
usually happens, but the element of necessity is not to be found in it. Hence
it is evident that to the synthesis of cause and effect belongs a dignity,
which is utterly wanting in any empirical synthesis; for it is no mere
mechanical synthesis, by means of addition, but a dynamical one; that is to
say, the effect is not to be cogitated as merely annexed to the cause, but as
posited by and through the cause, and resulting from it. The strict
universality of this law never can be a characteristic of empirical laws,
which obtain through induction only a comparative universality, that is, an
extended range of practical application. But the pure conceptions of the
understanding would entirely lose all their peculiar character, if we treated
them merely as the productions of experience.
SS
10. Transition to the Transcendental Deduction of the
Categories.
There
are only two possible ways in which synthetical representation and its objects
can coincide with and relate necessarily to each other, and, as it were, meet
together. Either the object alone makes the representation possible, or the
representation alone makes the object possible. In the former case, the
relation between them is only empirical, and an a priori representation is
impossible. And this is the case with phenomena, as regards that in them which
is referable to mere sensation. In the latter case—although representation
alone (for of its causality, by means of the will, we do not here speak) does
not produce the object as to its existence, it must nevertheless be a priori
determinative in regard to the object, if it is only by means of the
representation that we can cognize anything as an object.
Now there are only two conditions of the possibility of a cognition of
objects; firstly, intuition, by means of which the object, though only as
phenomenon, is given; secondly, conception, by means of which the object which
corresponds to this intuition is thought. But it is evident from what has been
said on aesthetic that the first condition, under which alone objects can be
intuited, must in fact exist, as a formal basis for them, a priori in the
mind. With this formal condition of sensibility, therefore, all phenomena
necessarily correspond, because it is only through it that they can be
phenomena at all; that is, can be empirically intuited and given. Now the
question is whether there do not exist, a priori in the mind, conceptions of
understanding also, as conditions under which alone something, if not
intuited, is yet thought as object. If this question be answered in the
affirmative, it follows that all empirical cognition of objects is necessarily
conformable to such conceptions, since, if they are not presupposed, it is
impossible that anything can be an object of experience. Now all experience
contains, besides the intuition of the senses through which an object is
given, a conception also of an object that is given in intuition. Accordingly,
conceptions of objects in general must lie as a priori conditions at the
foundation of all empirical cognition; and consequently, the objective
validity of the categories, as a priori conceptions, will rest upon this, that
experience (as far as regards the form of thought) is possible only by their
means. For in that case they apply necessarily and a priori to objects of
experience, because only through them can an object of experience be thought.
The
whole aim of the transcendental deduction of all a priori conceptions is to
show that these conceptions are a priori conditions of the possibility of all
experience. Conceptions which afford us the objective foundation of the
possibility of experience are for that very reason necessary. But the analysis
of the experiences in which they are met with is not deduction, but only an
illustration of them, because from experience they could never derive the
attribute of necessity. Without their original applicability and relation to
all possible experience, in which all objects of cognition present themselves,
the relation of the categories to objects, of whatever nature, would be quite
incomprehensible.
The
celebrated Locke, for want of due reflection on these points, and because he
met with pure conceptions of the understanding in experience, sought also to
deduce them from experience, and yet proceeded so inconsequently as to
attempt, with their aid, to arrive it cognitions which lie far beyond the
limits of all experience. David Hume perceived that, to render this possible,
it was necessary that the conceptions should have an a priori origin. But as
he could not explain how it was possible that conceptions which are not
connected with each other in the understanding must nevertheless be thought as
necessarily connected in the object—and it never occurred to him that the
understanding itself might, perhaps, by means of these conceptions, be the
author of the experience in which its objects were presented to it—he was
forced to drive these conceptions from experience, that is, from a subjective
necessity arising from repeated association of experiences erroneously
considered to be objective— in one word, from habit. But he proceeded with
perfect consequence and declared it to be impossible, with such conceptions
and the principles arising from them, to overstep the limits of experience.
The empirical derivation, however, which both of these philosophers attributed
to these conceptions, cannot possibly be reconciled with the fact that we do
possess scientific a priori cognitions, namely, those of pure mathematics and
general physics.
The
former of these two celebrated men opened a wide door to extravagance--(for if
reason has once undoubted right on its side, it will not allow itself to be
confined to set limits, by vague recommendations of moderation); the latter
gave himself up entirely to scepticism—a natural consequence, after having
discovered, as he thought, that the faculty of cognition was not trustworthy.
We now intend to make a trial whether it be not possible safely to conduct
reason between these two rocks, to assign her determinate limits, and yet
leave open for her the entire sphere of her legitimate activity.
I
shall merely premise an explanation of what the categories are.
They are conceptions of an object in general, by means of which its
intuition is contemplated as determined in relation to one of the logical
functions of judgement. The following will make this plain.
The function of the categorical judgement is that of the relation of
subject to predicate; for example, in the proposition: “All bodies are
divisible.” But in regard to the merely logical use of the understanding, it
still remains undetermined to which Of these two conceptions belongs the
function Of subject and to which that of predicate. For we could also say: “Some
divisible is a body.” But the category of substance, when the conception of
a body is brought under it, determines that; and its empirical intuition in
experience must be contemplated always as subject and never as mere predicate.
And so with all the other categories.
SS
11. SECTION II Transcendental Deduction of the pure Conceptions of
the
Understanding.
Of
the Possibility of a Conjunction of the manifold representations given by
Sense.
The
manifold content in our representations can be given in an intuition which is
merely sensuous—in other words, is nothing but susceptibility; and the form
of this intuition can exist a priori in our faculty of representation, without
being anything else but the mode in which the subject is affected. But the
conjunction (conjunctio) of a manifold in intuition never can be given us by
the senses; it cannot therefore be contained in the pure form of sensuous
intuition, for it is a spontaneous act of the faculty of representation. And
as we must, to distinguish it from sensibility, entitle this faculty
understanding; so all conjunction whether conscious or unconscious, be it of
the manifold in intuition, sensuous or non-sensuous, or of several conceptions—is
an act of the understanding. To this act we shall give the general appellation
of synthesis, thereby to indicate, at the same time, that we cannot represent
anything as conjoined in the object without having previously conjoined it
ourselves. Of all mental notions, that of conjunction is the only one which
cannot be given through objects, but can be originated only by the subject
itself, because it is an act of its purely spontaneous activity. The reader
will easily enough perceive that the possibility of conjunction must be
grounded in the very nature of this act, and that it must be equally valid for
all conjunction, and that analysis, which appears to be its contrary, must,
nevertheless, always presuppose it; for where the understanding has not
previously conjoined, it cannot dissect or analyse, because only as conjoined
by it, must that which is to be analysed have been given to our faculty of
representation.
But
the conception of conjunction includes, besides the conception of the manifold
and of the synthesis of it, that of the unity of it also. Conjunction is the
representation of the synthetical unity of the manifold.* This idea of unity,
therefore, cannot arise out of that of conjunction; much rather does that
idea, by combining itself with the representation of the manifold, render the
conception of conjunction possible. This unity, which a priori precedes all
conceptions of conjunction, is not the category of unity (SS 6); for all the
categories are based upon logical functions of judgement, and in these
functions we already have conjunction, and consequently unity of given
conceptions. It is therefore evident that the category of unity presupposes
conjunction. We must therefore look still higher for this unity (as
qualitative, SS 8), in that, namely, which contains the ground of the unity of
diverse conceptions in judgements, the ground, consequently, of the
possibility of the existence of the understanding, even in regard to its
logical use.
[*Footnote:
Whether the representations are in themselves identical, and consequently
whether one can be thought analytically by means of and through the other, is
a question which we need not at present consider. Our Consciousness of the
one, when we speak of the manifold, is always distinguishable from our
consciousness of the other; and it is only respecting the synthesis of this
(possible) consciousness that we here treat.]
SS
12. Of the Originally Synthetical Unity of Apperception.
The
“I think” must accompany all my representations, for otherwise something
would be represented in me which could not be thought; in other words, the
representation would either be impossible, or at least be, in relation to me,
nothing. That representation which can be given previously to all thought is
called intuition. All the diversity or manifold content of intuition, has,
therefore, a necessary relation to the “I think,” in the subject in which
this diversity is found. But this
representation, “I think,” is an act of spontaneity; that is to say, it
cannot be regarded as belonging to mere sensibility.
I call it pure apperception, in order to distinguish it from empirical;
or primitive apperception, because it is self-consciousness which, whilst it
gives birth to the representation “I think,” must necessarily be capable
of accompanying all our representations. It is in all acts of consciousness
one and the same, and unaccompanied by it, no representation can exist for me.
The unity of this apperception I call the transcendental unity of
self-consciousness, in order to indicate the possibility of a priori cognition
arising from it. For the manifold representations which are given in an
intuition would not all of them be my representations, if they did not all
belong to one self-consciousness, that is, as my representations (even
although I am not conscious of them as such), they must conform to the
condition under which alone they can exist together in a common
self-consciousness, because otherwise they would not all without exception
belong to me. From this primitive conjunction follow many important results.
For
example, this universal identity of the apperception of the manifold given in
intuition contains a synthesis of representations and is possible only by
means of the consciousness of this synthesis. For the empirical consciousness
which accompanies different representations is in itself fragmentary and
disunited, and without relation to the identity of the subject. This relation,
then, does not exist because I accompany every representation with
consciousness, but because I join one representation to another, and am
conscious of the synthesis of them. Consequently, only because I can connect a
variety of given representations in one consciousness, is it possible that I
can represent to myself the identity of consciousness in these
representations; in other words, the analytical unity of apperception is
possible only under the presupposition of a synthetical unity.* The thought,
“These representations given in intuition belong all of them to me,” is
accordingly just the same as, “I unite them in one self-consciousness, or
can at least so unite them”; and although this thought is not itself the
consciousness of the synthesis of representations, it presupposes the
possibility of it; that is to say, for the reason alone that I can comprehend
the variety of my representations in one consciousness, do I call them my
representations, for otherwise I must have as many-coloured and various a self
as are the representations of which I am conscious.
Synthetical unity of the manifold in intuitions, as given a priori, is
therefore the foundation of the identity of apperception itself, which
antecedes a priori all determinate thought. But the conjunction of
representations into a conception is not to be found in objects themselves,
nor can it be, as it were, borrowed from them and taken up into the
understanding by perception, but it is on the contrary an operation of the
understanding itself, which is nothing more than the faculty of conjoining a
priori and of bringing the variety of given representations under the unity of
apperception. This principle is the highest in all human cognition.
[*Footnote:
All general conceptions—as such—depend, for their existence, on the
analytical unity of consciousness. For example, when I think of red in
general, I thereby think to myself a property which (as a characteristic mark)
can be discovered somewhere, or can be united with other representations;
consequently, it is only by means of a forethought possible synthetical unity
that I can think to myself the analytical. A representation which is cogitated
as common to different representations, is regarded as belonging to such as,
besides this common representation, contain something different; consequently
it must be previously thought in synthetical unity with other although only
possible representations, before I can think in it the analytical unity of
consciousness which makes it a conceptas communis. And thus the synthetical
unity of apperception is the highest point with which we must connect every
operation of the understanding, even the whole of logic, and after it our
transcendental philosophy; indeed, this faculty is the understanding itself.]
This
fundamental principle of the necessary unity of apperception is indeed an
identical, and therefore analytical, proposition; but it nevertheless explains
the necessity for a synthesis of the manifold given in an intuition, without
which the identity of self-consciousness would be incogitable. For the ego, as
a simple representation, presents us with no manifold content; only in
intuition, which is quite different from the representation ego, can it be
given us, and by means of conjunction it is cogitated in one
self-consciousness. An understanding, in which all the manifold should be
given by means of consciousness itself, would be intuitive; our understanding
can only think and must look for its intuition to sense.
I am, therefore, conscious of my identical self, in relation to all the
variety of representations given to me in an intuition, because I call all of
them my representations. In other words, I am conscious myself of a necessary
a priori synthesis of my representations, which is called the original
synthetical unity of apperception, under which rank all the representations
presented to me, but that only by means of a synthesis.
SS13
The Principle of the Synthetical Unity of Apperception
is
the highest Principle of all exercise of the Understanding.
The
supreme principle of the possibility of all intuition in relation to
sensibility was, according to our transcendental aesthetic, that all the
manifold in intuition be subject to the formal conditions of space and time.
The supreme principle of the possibility of it in relation to the
understanding is that all the manifold in it be subject to conditions of the
originally synthetical unity or apperception.* To the former of these two
principles are subject all the various representations of intuition, in so far
as they are given to us; to the latter, in so far as they must be capable of
conjunction in one consciousness; for without this nothing can be thought or
cognized, because the given representations would not have in common the act
Of the apperception “I think” and therefore could not be connected in one
self-consciousness.
[*Footnote:
Space and time, and all portions thereof, are intuitions; consequently are,
with a manifold for their content, single representations. (See the
Transcendental Aesthetic.) Consequently, they are not pure conceptions, by
means of which the same consciousness is found in a great number of
representations; but, on the contrary, they are many representations contained
in one, the consciousness of which is, so to speak, compounded. The unity of
consciousness is nevertheless synthetical and, therefore, primitive.
From this peculiar character of consciousness follow many important
consequences. (See SS 21.)]
Understanding
is, to speak generally, the faculty Of cognitions. These consist in the determined relation of given
representation to an object. But an object is that, in the conception of which
the manifold in a given intuition is united. Now all union of representations
requires unity of consciousness in the synthesis of them.
Consequently, it is the unity of consciousness alone that constitutes
the possibility of representations relating to an object, and therefore of
their objective validity, and of their becoming cognitions, and consequently,
the possibility of the existence of the understanding itself.
The
first pure cognition of understanding, then, upon which is founded all its
other exercise, and which is at the same time perfectly independent of all
conditions of mere sensuous intuition, is the principle of the original
synthetical unity of apperception. Thus
the mere form of external sensuous intuition, namely, space, affords us, per
se, no cognition; it merely contributes the manifold in a priori intuition to
a possible cognition. But, in order to cognize something in space (for
example, a line), I must draw it, and thus produce synthetically a determined
conjunction of the given manifold, so that the unity of this act is at the
same time the unity of consciousness (in the conception of a line), and by
this means alone is an object (a determinate space) cognized. The synthetical
unity of consciousness is, therefore, an objective condition of all cognition,
which I do not merely require in order to cognize an object, but to which
every intuition must necessarily be subject, in order to become an object for
me; because in any other way, and without this synthesis, the manifold in
intuition could not be united in one consciousness.
This
proposition is, as already said, itself analytical, although it constitutes
the synthetical unity, the condition of all thought; for it states nothing
more than that all my representations in any given intuition must be subject
to the condition which alone enables me to connect them, as my representation
with the identical self, and so to unite them synthetically in one
apperception, by means of the general expression, “I think.”
But
this principle is not to be regarded as a principle for every possible
understanding, but only for the understanding by means of whose pure
apperception in the thought I am, no manifold content is given. The
understanding or mind which contained the manifold in intuition, in and
through the act itself of its own self-consciousness, in other words, an
understanding by and in the representation of which the objects of the
representation should at the same time exist, would not require a special act
of synthesis of the manifold as the condition of the unity of its
consciousness, an act of which the human understanding, which thinks only and
cannot intuite, has absolute need. But this principle is the first principle
of all the operations of our understanding, so that we cannot form the least
conception of any other possible understanding, either of one such as should
be itself intuition, or possess a sensuous intuition, but with forms different
from those of space and time.
SS
14. What Objective Unity of Self-consciousness is.
It
is by means of the transcendental unity of apperception that all the manifold,
given in an intuition is united into a conception of the object. On this
account it is called objective, and must be distinguished from the subjective
unity of consciousness, which is a determination of the internal sense, by
means of which the said manifold in intuition is given empirically to be so
united. Whether I can be empirically conscious of the manifold as coexistent
or as successive, depends upon circumstances, or empirical conditions. Hence
the empirical unity of consciousness by means of association of
representations, itself relates to a phenomenal world and is wholly
contingent. On the contrary, the pure form of intuition in time, merely as an
intuition, which contains a given manifold, is subject to the original unity
of consciousness, and that solely by means of the necessary relation of the
manifold in intuition to the “I think,” consequently by means of the pure
synthesis of the understanding, which lies a priori at the foundation of all
empirical synthesis. The
transcendental unity of apperception is alone objectively valid; the empirical
which we do not consider in this essay, and which is merely a unity deduced
from the former under given conditions in concreto, possesses only subjective
validity. One person connects the notion conveyed in a word with one thing,
another with another thing; and the unity of consciousness in that which is
empirical, is, in relation to that which is given by experience, not
necessarily and universally valid.
SS
15. The Logical Form of all Judgements consists in the Objective
Unity
of Apperception of the Conceptions contained therein.
I
could never satisfy myself with the definition which logicians give of a
judgement. It is, according to them, the representation of a relation between
two conceptions. I shall not dwell here on the faultiness of this definition,
in that it suits only for categorical and not for hypothetical or disjunctive
judgements, these latter containing a relation not of conceptions but of
judgements themselves— a blunder from which many evil results have
followed.* It is more important for our present purpose to observe, that this
definition does not determine in what the said relation consists.
[*Footnote:
The tedious doctrine of the four syllogistic figures concerns only categorical
syllogisms; and although it is nothing more than an artifice by
surreptitiously introducing immediate conclusions (consequentiae immediatae)
among the premises of a pure syllogism, to give ism’ give rise to an
appearance of more modes of drawing a conclusion than that in the first
figure, the artifice would not have had much success, had not its authors
succeeded in bringing categorical judgements into exclusive respect, as those
to which all others must be referred—a doctrine, however, which, according
to SS 5, is utterly false.]
But
if I investigate more closely the relation of given cognitions in every
judgement, and distinguish it, as belonging to the understanding, from the
relation which is produced according to laws of the reproductive imagination
(which has only subjective validity), I find that judgement is nothing but the
mode of bringing given cognitions under the objective unit of apperception.
This is plain from our use of the term of relation is in judgements, in order
to distinguish the objective unity of given representations from the
subjective unity. For this term indicates the relation of these
representations to the original apperception, and also their necessary unity,
even although the judgement is empirical, therefore contingent, as in the
judgement: “All bodies are heavy.” I do not mean by this, that these
representations do necessarily belong to each other in empirical intuition,
but that by means of the necessary unity of appreciation they belong to each
other in the synthesis of intuitions, that is to say, they belong to each
other according to principles of the objective determination of all our
representations, in so far as cognition can arise from them, these principles
being all deduced from the main principle of the transcendental unity of
apperception. In this way alone can there arise from this relation a
judgement, that is, a relation which has objective validity, and is perfectly
distinct from that relation of the very same representations which has only
subjective validity—a relation, to wit, which is produced according to laws
of association. According to these laws, I could only say:
“When
I hold in my hand or carry a body, I feel an impression of weight”; but I
could not say: “It, the body, is heavy”; for this is tantamount to saying
both these representations are conjoined in the object, that is, without
distinction as to the condition of the subject, and do not merely stand
together in my perception, however frequently the perceptive act may be
repeated.
SS
16. All Sensuous Intuitions are subject to the Categories, as
Conditions
under which alone the manifold Content of them can be united in one
Consciousness.
The
manifold content given in a sensuous intuition comes necessarily under the
original synthetical unity of apperception, because thereby alone is the unity
of intuition possible (SS 13). But that act of the understanding, by which the
manifold content of given representations (whether intuitions or conceptions)
is brought under one apperception, is the logical function of judgements (SS
15). All the manifold, therefore, in so far as it is given in one empirical
intuition, is determined in relation to one of the logical functions of
judgement, by means of which it is brought into union in one consciousness.
Now the categories are nothing else than these functions of judgement so far
as the manifold in a given intuition is determined in relation to them (SS 9).
Consequently, the manifold in a given intuition is necessarily subject to the
categories of the understanding.
SS
17. Observation.
The
manifold in an intuition, which I call mine, is represented by means of the
synthesis of the understanding, as belonging to the necessary unity of
self-consciousness, and this takes place by means of the category.* The
category indicates accordingly that the empirical consciousness of a given
manifold in an intuition is subject to a pure self-consciousness a priori, in
the same manner as an empirical intuition is subject to a pure sensuous
intuition, which is also a priori. In the above proposition, then, lies the
beginning of a deduction of the pure conceptions of the understanding. Now, as
the categories have their origin in the understanding alone, independently of
sensibility, I must in my deduction make abstraction of the mode in which the
manifold of an empirical intuition is given, in order to fix my attention
exclusively on the unity which is brought by the understanding into the
intuition by means of the category. In what follows (SS 22), it will be shown,
from the mode in which the empirical intuition is given in the faculty of
sensibility, that the unity which belongs to it is no other than that which
the category (according to SS 16) imposes on the manifold in a given
intuition, and thus, its a priori validity in regard to all objects of sense
being established, the purpose of our deduction will be fully attained.
[*Footnote:
The proof of this rests on the represented unity of intuition, by means of
which an object is given, and which always includes in itself a synthesis of
the manifold to be intuited, and also the relation of this latter to unity of
apperception.]
But
there is one thing in the above demonstration of which I could not make
abstraction, namely, that the manifold to be intuited must be given previously
to the synthesis of the understanding, and independently of it. How this takes
place remains here undetermined. For
if I cogitate an understanding which was itself intuitive (as, for example, a
divine understanding which should not represent given objects, but by whose
representation the objects themselves should be given or produced), the
categories would possess no significance in relation to such a faculty of
cognition. They are merely rules for an understanding, whose whole power
consists in thought, that is, in the act of submitting the synthesis of the
manifold which is presented to it in intuition from a very different quarter,
to the unity of apperception; a faculty, therefore, which cognizes nothing per
se, but only connects and arranges the material of cognition, the intuition,
namely, which must be presented to it by means of the object. But to show
reasons for this peculiar character of our understandings, that it produces
unity of apperception a priori only by means of categories, and a certain kind
and number thereof, is as impossible as to explain why we are endowed with
precisely so many functions of judgement and no more, or why time and space
are the only forms of our intuition.
SS
18. In Cognition, its Application to Objects of Experience is
the
only legitimate use of the Category.
To
think an object and to cognize an object are by no means the same thing. In
cognition there are two elements: firstly, the conception, whereby an object
is cogitated (the category); and, secondly, the intuition, whereby the object
is given. For supposing that to the conception a corresponding intuition could
not be given, it would still be a thought as regards its form, but without any
object, and no cognition of anything would be possible by means of it,
inasmuch as, so far as I knew, there existed and could exist nothing to which
my thought could be applied. Now all intuition possible to us is sensuous;
consequently, our thought of an object by means of a pure conception of the
understanding, can become cognition for us only in so far as this conception
is applied to objects of the senses. Sensuous
intuition is either pure intuition (space and time) or empirical intuition—of
that which is immediately represented in space and time by means of sensation
as real. Through the determination of pure intuition we obtain a priori
cognitions of objects, as in mathematics, but only as regards their form as
phenomena; whether there can exist things which must be intuited in this form
is not thereby established. All mathematical conceptions, therefore, are not
per se cognition, except in so far as we presuppose that there exist things
which can only be represented conformably to the form of our pure sensuous
intuition. But things in space and time are given only in so far as they are
perceptions (representations accompanied with sensation), therefore only by
empirical representation. Consequently
the pure conceptions of the understanding, even when they are applied to
intuitions a priori (as in mathematics), produce cognition only in so far as
these (and therefore the conceptions of the understanding by means of them)
can be applied to empirical intuitions. Consequently the categories do not,
even by means of pure intuition afford us any cognition of things; they can
only do so in so far as they can be applied to empirical intuition. That is to
say, the, categories serve only to render empirical cognition possible. But
this is what we call experience. Consequently, in cognition, their application
to objects of experience is the only legitimate use of the categories.
SS
19.
The
foregoing proposition is of the utmost importance, for it determines the
limits of the exercise of the pure conceptions of the understanding in regard
to objects, just as transcendental aesthetic determined the limits of the
exercise of the pure form of our sensuous intuition. Space and time, as
conditions of the possibility of the presentation of objects to us, are valid
no further than for objects of sense, consequently, only for experience.
Beyond these limits they represent to us nothing, for they belong only to
sense, and have no reality apart from it. The pure conceptions of the
understanding are free from this limitation, and extend to objects of
intuition in general, be the intuition like or unlike to ours, provided only
it be sensuous, and not intellectual. But this extension of conceptions beyond
the range of our intuition is of no advantage; for they are then mere empty
conceptions of objects, as to the possibility or impossibility of the
existence of which they furnish us with no means of discovery. They are mere
forms of thought, without objective reality, because we have no intuition to
which the synthetical unity of apperception, which alone the categories
contain, could be applied, for the purpose of determining an object. Our
sensuous and empirical intuition can alone give them significance and meaning.
If,
then, we suppose an object of a non-sensuous intuition to be given we can in
that case represent it by all those predicates which are implied in the
presupposition that nothing appertaining to sensuous intuition belongs to it;
for example, that it is not extended, or in space; that its duration is not
time; that in it no change (the effect of the determinations in time) is to be
met with, and so on. But it is no proper knowledge if I merely indicate what
the intuition of the object is not, without being able to say what is
contained in it, for I have not shown the possibility of an object to which my
pure conception of understanding could be applicable, because I have not been
able to furnish any intuition corresponding to it, but am only able to say
that our intuition is not valid for it. But the most important point is this,
that to a something of this kind not one category can be found applicable.
Take, for example, the conception of substance, that is, something that can
exist as subject, but never as mere predicate; in regard to this conception I
am quite ignorant whether there can really be anything to correspond to such a
determination of thought, if empirical intuition did not afford me the
occasion for its application. But of this more in the sequel.
SS
20. Of the Application of the Categories to Objects of the
Senses
in general.
The
pure conceptions of the understanding apply to objects of intuition in
general, through the understanding alone, whether the intuition be our own or
some other, provided only it be sensuous, but are, for this very reason, mere
forms of thought, by means of which alone no determined object can be
cognized. The synthesis or conjunction of the manifold in these conceptions
relates, we have said, only to the unity of apperception, and is for this
reason the ground of the possibility of a priori cognition, in so far as this
cognition is dependent on the understanding. This synthesis is, therefore, not
merely transcendental, but also purely intellectual.
But because a certain form of sensuous intuition exists in the mind a
priori which rests on the receptivity of the representative faculty
(sensibility), the understanding, as a spontaneity, is able to determine the
internal sense by means of the diversity of given representations, conformably
to the synthetical unity of apperception, and thus to cogitate the synthetical
unity of the apperception of the manifold of sensuous intuition a priori, as
the condition to which must necessarily be submitted all objects of human
intuition. And in this manner the categories as mere forms of thought receive
objective reality, that is, application to objects which are given to us in
intuition, but that only as phenomena, for it is only of phenomena that we are
capable of a priori intuition.
This
synthesis of the manifold of sensuous intuition, which is possible and
necessary a priori, may be called figurative (synthesis speciosa), in
contradistinction to that which is cogitated in the mere category in regard to
the manifold of an intuition in general, and is called connection or
conjunction of the understanding (synthesis intellectualis). Both are
transcendental, not merely because they themselves precede a priori all
experience, but also because they form the basis for the possibility of other
cognition a priori.
But
the figurative synthesis, when it has relation only to the originally
synthetical unity of apperception, that is to the transcendental unity
cogitated in the categories, must, to be distinguished from the purely
intellectual conjunction, be entitled the transcendental synthesis of
imagination. Imagination is the faculty of representing an object even without
its presence in intuition. Now, as all our intuition is sensuous, imagination,
by reason of the subjective condition under which alone it can give a
corresponding intuition to the conceptions of the understanding, belongs to
sensibility. But in so far as the synthesis of the imagination is an act of
spontaneity, which is determinative, and not, like sense, merely determinable,
and which is consequently able to determine sense a priori, according to its
form, conformably to the unity of apperception, in so far is the imagination a
faculty of determining sensibility a priori, and its synthesis of intuitions
according to the categories must be the transcendental synthesis of the
imagination. It is an operation of the understanding on sensibility, and the
first application of the understanding to objects of possible intuition, and
at the same time the basis for the exercise of the other functions of that
faculty. As figurative, it is distinguished from the merely intellectual
synthesis, which is produced by the understanding alone, without the aid of
imagination. Now, in so far as
imagination is spontaneity, I sometimes call it also the productive
imagination, and distinguish it from the reproductive, the synthesis of which
is subject entirely to empirical laws, those of association, namely, and
which, therefore, contributes nothing to the explanation of the possibility of
a priori cognition, and for this reason belongs not to transcendental
philosophy, but to psychology.
We
have now arrived at the proper place for explaining the paradox which must
have struck every one in our exposition of the internal sense (SS 6), namely—how
this sense represents us to our own consciousness, only as we appear to
ourselves, not as we are in ourselves, because, to wit, we intuite ourselves
only as we are inwardly affected. Now this appears to be contradictory,
inasmuch as we thus stand in a passive relation to ourselves; and therefore in
the systems of psychology, the internal sense is commonly held to be one with
the faculty of apperception, while we, on the contrary, carefully distinguish
them.
That
which determines the internal sense is the understanding, and its original
power of conjoining the manifold of intuition, that is, of bringing this under
an apperception (upon which rests the possibility of the understanding
itself). Now, as the human understanding is not in itself a faculty of
intuition, and is unable to exercise such a power, in order to conjoin, as it
were, the manifold of its own intuition, the synthesis of understanding is,
considered per se, nothing but the unity of action, of which, as such, it is
self-conscious, even apart from sensibility, by which, moreover, it is able to
determine our internal sense in respect of the manifold which may be presented
to it according to the form of sensuous intuition. Thus, under the name of a
transcendental synthesis of imagination, the understanding exercises an
activity upon the passive subject, whose faculty it is; and so we are right in
saying that the internal sense is affected thereby. Apperception and its
synthetical unity are by no means one and the same with the internal sense.
The former, as the source of all our synthetical conjunction, applies, under
the name of the categories, to the manifold of intuition in general, prior to
all sensuous intuition of objects. The
internal sense, on the contrary, contains merely the form of intuition, but
without any synthetical conjunction of the manifold therein, and consequently
does not contain any determined intuition, which is possible only through
consciousness of the determination of the manifold by the transcendental act
of the imagination (synthetical influence of the understanding on the internal
sense), which I have named figurative synthesis.
This
we can indeed always perceive in ourselves. We cannot cogitate a geometrical
line without drawing it in thought, nor a circle without describing it, nor
represent the three dimensions of space without drawing three lines from the
same point perpendicular to one another. We cannot even cogitate time, unless,
in drawing a straight line (which is to serve as the external figurative
representation of time), we fix our attention on the act of the synthesis of
the manifold, whereby we determine successively the internal sense, and thus
attend also to the succession of this determination. Motion as an act of the
subject (not as a determination of an object),* consequently the synthesis of
the manifold in space, if we make abstraction of space and attend merely to
the act by which we determine the internal sense according to its form, is
that which produces the conception of succession. The understanding,
therefore, does by no means find in the internal sense any such synthesis of
the manifold, but produces it, in that it affects this sense. At the same
time, how “I who think” is distinct from the “I” which intuites itself
(other modes of intuition being cogitable as at least possible), and yet one
and the same with this latter as the same subject; how, therefore, I am able
to say: “I, as an intelligence and thinking subject, cognize myself as an
object thought, so far as I am, moreover, given to myself in intuition—only,
like other phenomena, not as I am in myself, and as considered by the
understanding, but merely as I appear”—is a question that has in it
neither more nor less difficulty than the question—“How can I be an object
to myself?” or this—“How I can be an object of my own intuition and
internal perceptions?” But that such must be the fact, if we admit that
space is merely a pure form of the phenomena of external sense, can be clearly
proved by the consideration that we cannot represent time, which is not an
object of external intuition, in any other way than under the image of a line,
which we draw in thought, a mode of representation without which we could not
cognize the unity of its dimension, and also that we are necessitated to take
our determination of periods of time, or of points of time, for all our
internal perceptions from the changes which we perceive in outward things. It
follows that we must arrange the determinations of the internal sense, as
phenomena in time, exactly in the same manner as we arrange those of the
external senses in space. And consequently, if we grant, respecting this
latter, that by means of them we know objects only in so far as we are
affected externally, we must also confess, with regard to the internal sense,
that by means of it we intuite ourselves only as we are internally affected by
ourselves; in other words, as regards internal intuition, we cognize our own
subject only as phenomenon, and not as it is in itself.*[2]
[*Footnote:
Motion of an object in space does not belong to a pure science, consequently
not to geometry; because, that a thing is movable cannot be known a priori,
but only from experience. But motion, considered as the description of a
space, is a pure act of the successive synthesis of the manifold in external
intuition by means of productive imagination, and belongs not only to
geometry, but even to transcendental philosophy.]
[*[2]Footnote:
I do not see why so much difficulty should be found in admitting that our
internal sense is affected by ourselves. Every act of attention exemplifies
it. In such an act the understanding determines the internal sense by the
synthetical conjunction which it cogitates, conformably to the internal
intuition which corresponds to the manifold in the synthesis of the
understanding. How much the mind
is usually affected thereby every one will be able to perceive in himself.]
SS
21.
On
the other hand, in the transcendental synthesis of the manifold content of
representations, consequently in the synthetical unity of apperception, I am
conscious of myself, not as I appear to myself, nor as I am in myself, but
only that “I am.” This representation is a thought, not an intuition. Now,
as in order to cognize ourselves, in addition to the act of thinking, which
subjects the manifold of every possible intuition to the unity of
apperception, there is necessary a determinate mode of intuition, whereby this
manifold is given; although my own existence is certainly not mere phenomenon
(much less mere illusion), the determination of my existence* Can only take
place conformably to the form of the internal sense, according to the
particular mode in which the manifold which I conjoin is given in internal
intuition, and I have therefore no knowledge of myself as I am, but merely as
I appear to myself. The consciousness of self is thus very far from a
knowledge of self, in which I do not use the categories, whereby I cogitate an
object, by means of the conjunction of the manifold in one apperception. In
the same way as I require, for the sake of the cognition of an object distinct
from myself, not only the thought of an object in general (in the category),
but also an intuition by which to determine that general conception, in the
same way do I require, in order to the cognition of myself, not only the
consciousness of myself or the thought that I think myself, but in addition an
intuition of the manifold in myself, by which to determine this thought. It is
true that I exist as an intelligence which is conscious only of its faculty of
conjunction or synthesis, but subjected in relation to the manifold which this
intelligence has to conjoin to a limitative conjunction called the internal
sense. My intelligence (that is, I) can render that conjunction or synthesis
perceptible only according to the relations of time, which are quite beyond
the proper sphere of the conceptions of the understanding and consequently
cognize itself in respect to an intuition (which cannot possibly be
intellectual, nor given by the understanding), only as it appears to itself,
and not as it would cognize itself, if its intuition were intellectual.
[*Footnote:
The “I think” expresses the act of determining my own existence. My
existence is thus already given by the act of consciousness; but the mode in
which I must determine my existence, that is, the mode in which I must place
the manifold belonging to my existence, is not thereby given. For this purpose
intuition of self is required, and this intuition possesses a form given a
priori, namely, time, which is sensuous, and belongs to our receptivity of the
determinable. Now, as I do not possess another intuition of self which gives
the determining in me (of the spontaneity of which I am conscious), prior to
the act of determination, in the same manner as time gives the determinable,
it is clear that I am unable to determine my own existence as that of a
spontaneous being, but I am only able to represent to myself the spontaneity
of my thought, that is, of my determination, and my existence remains ever
determinable in a purely sensuous manner, that is to say, like the existence
of a phenomenon. But it is because of this spontaneity that I call myself an
intelligence.]
SS
22. Transcendental Deduction of the universally possible employment
in
experience of the Pure Conceptions of the Understanding.
In
the metaphysical deduction, the a priori origin of categories was proved by
their complete accordance with the general logical of thought; in the
transcendental deduction was exhibited the possibility of the categories as a
priori cognitions of objects of an intuition in general (SS 16 and 17).At
present we are about to explain the possibility of cognizing, a priori, by
means of the categories, all objects which can possibly be presented to our
senses, not, indeed, according to the form of their intuition, but according
to the laws of their conjunction or synthesis, and thus, as it were, of
prescribing laws to nature and even of rendering nature possible. For if the
categories were inadequate to this task, it would not be evident to us why
everything that is presented to our senses must be subject to those laws which
have an a priori origin in the understanding itself.
I
premise that by the term synthesis of apprehension I understand the
combination of the manifold in an empirical intuition, whereby perception,
that is, empirical consciousness of the intuition (as phenomenon), is
possible.
We
have a priori forms of the external and internal sensuous intuition in the
representations of space and time, and to these must the synthesis of
apprehension of the manifold in a phenomenon be always comformable, because
the synthesis itself can only take place according to these forms. But space
and time are not merely forms of sensuous intuition, but intuitions themselves
(which contain a manifold), and therefore contain a priori the determination
of the unity of this manifold.* (See the Transcendent Aesthetic.) Therefore is
unity of the synthesis of the manifold without or within us, consequently also
a conjunction to which all that is to be represented as determined in space or
time must correspond, given a priori along with (not in) these intuitions, as
the condition of the synthesis of all apprehension of them. But this
synthetical unity can be no other than that of the conjunction of the manifold
of a given intuition in general, in a primitive act of consciousness,
according to the categories, but applied to our sensuous intuition.
Consequently all synthesis, whereby alone is even perception possible, is
subject to the categories. And, as experience is cognition by means of
conjoined perceptions, the categories are conditions of the possibility of
experience and are therefore valid a priori for all objects of experience.
[*Footnote:
Space represented as an object (as geometry really requires it to be) contains
more than the mere form of the intuition; namely, a combination of the
manifold given according to the form of sensibility into a representation that
can be intuited; so that the form of the intuition gives us merely the
manifold, but the formal intuition gives unity of representation. In the
aesthetic, I regarded this unity as belonging entirely to sensibility, for the
purpose of indicating that it antecedes all conceptions, although it
presupposes a synthesis which does not belong to sense, through which alone,
however, all our conceptions of space and time are possible. For as by means
of this unity alone (the understanding determining the sensibility) space and
time are given as intuitions, it follows that the unity of this intuition a
priori belongs to space and time, and not to the conception of the
understanding (SS 20).]
When,
then, for example, I make the empirical intuition of a house
by
apprehension of the manifold contained therein into a perception,
the
necessary unity of space and of my external sensuous intuition
lies
at the foundation of this act, and I, as it were, draw the form
of
the house conformably to this synthetical unity of the manifold
in
space. But this very synthetical unity remains, even when I
abstract
the form of space, and has its seat in the understanding,
and
is in fact the category of the synthesis of the homogeneous in
an
intuition; that is to say, the category of quantity, to which the
aforesaid
synthesis of apprehension, that is, the perception, must
be
completely conformable.*
[*Footnote:
In this manner it is proved, that the synthesis of apprehension, which is
empirical, must necessarily be conformable to the synthesis of apperception,
which is intellectual, and contained a priori in the category. It is one and
the same spontaneity which at one time, under the name of imagination, at
another under that of understanding, produces conjunction in the manifold of
intuition.]
To
take another example, when I perceive the freezing of water, I apprehend two
states (fluidity and solidity), which, as such, stand toward each other
mutually in a relation of time. But in the time, which I place as an internal
intuition, at the foundation of this phenomenon, I represent to myself
synthetical unity of the manifold, without which the aforesaid relation could
not be given in an intuition as determined (in regard to the succession of
time). Now this synthetical unity, as the a priori condition under which I
conjoin the manifold of an intuition, is, if I make abstraction of the
permanent form of my internal intuition (that is to say, of time), the
category of cause, by means of which, when applied to my sensibility, I
determine everything that occurs according to relations of time. Consequently
apprehension in such an event, and the event itself, as far as regards the
possibility of its perception, stands under the conception of the relation of
cause and effect: and so in all other cases.
Categories
are conceptions which prescribe laws a priori to phenomena, consequently to
nature as the complex of all phenomena (natura materialiter spectata). And now
the question arises— inasmuch as these categories are not derived from
nature, and do not regulate themselves according to her as their model (for in
that case they would be empirical)--how it is conceivable that nature must
regulate herself according to them, in other words, how the categories can
determine a priori the synthesis of the manifold of nature, and yet not derive
their origin from her. The following is the solution of this enigma.
It
is not in the least more difficult to conceive how the laws of the phenomena
of nature must harmonize with the understanding and with its a priori form—that
is, its faculty of conjoining the manifold—than it is to understand how the
phenomena themselves must correspond with the a priori form of our sensuous
intuition. For laws do not exist in the phenomena any more than the phenomena
exist as things in themselves. Laws do not exist except by relation to the
subject in which the phenomena inhere, in so far as it possesses
understanding, just as phenomena have no existence except by relation to the
same existing subject in so far as it has senses. To things as things in
themselves, conformability to law must necessarily belong independently of an
understanding to cognize them. But phenomena are only representations of
things which are utterly unknown in respect to what they are in themselves.
But as mere representations, they stand under no law of conjunction except
that which the conjoining faculty prescribes. Now that which conjoins the
manifold of sensuous intuition is imagination, a mental act to which
understanding contributes unity of intellectual synthesis, and sensibility,
manifoldness of apprehension. Now as all possible perception depends on the
synthesis of apprehension, and this empirical synthesis itself on the
transcendental, consequently on the categories, it is evident that all
possible perceptions, and therefore everything that can attain to empirical
consciousness, that is, all phenomena of nature, must, as regards their
conjunction, be subject to the categories. And nature (considered merely as
nature in general) is dependent on them. as the original ground of her
necessary conformability to law (as natura formaliter spectata). But the pure
faculty (of the understanding) of prescribing laws a priori to phenomena by
means of mere categories, is not competent to enounce other or more laws than
those on which a nature in general, as a conformability to law of phenomena of
space and time, depends. Particular laws, inasmuch as they concern empirically
determined phenomena, cannot be entirely deduced from pure laws, although they
all stand under them. Experience must be superadded in order to know these
particular laws; but in regard to experience in general, and everything that
can be cognized as an object thereof, these a priori laws are our only rule
and guide.
SS
23. Result of this Deduction of the Conceptions of the
Understanding.
We
cannot think any object except by means of the categories; we
cannot
cognize any thought except by means of intuitions corresponding
to
these conceptions. Now all our intuitions are sensuous, and our
cognition,
in so far as the object of it is given, is empirical. But
empirical
cognition is experience; consequently no a priori
cognition
is possible for us, except of objects of possible
experience.*
[Footnote:
Lest my readers should stumble at this assertion, and the conclusions that may
be too rashly drawn from it, I must remind them that the categories in the act
of thought are by no means limited by the conditions of our sensuous
intuition, but have an unbounded sphere of action. It is only the cognition of
the object of thought, the determining of the object, which requires
intuition. In the absence of intuition, our thought of an object may still
have true and useful consequences in regard to the exercise of reason by the
subject. But as this exercise of reason is not always directed on the
determination of the object, in other words, on cognition thereof, but also on
the determination of the subject and its volition, I do not intend to treat of
it in this place.]
But
this cognition, which is limited to objects of experience, is not for that
reason derived entirely, from, experience, but—and this is asserted of the
pure intuitions and the pure conceptions of the understanding—there are,
unquestionably, elements of cognition, which exist in the mind a priori. Now
there are only two ways in which a necessary harmony of experience with the
conceptions of its objects can be cogitated. Either experience makes these
conceptions possible, or the conceptions make experience possible. The former
of these statements will not bold good with respect to the categories (nor in
regard to pure sensuous intuition), for they are a priori conceptions, and
therefore independent of experience. The assertion of an empirical origin
would attribute to them a sort of generatio aequivoca. Consequently, nothing
remains but to adopt the second alternative (which presents us with a system,
as it were, of the epigenesis of pure reason), namely, that on the part of the
understanding the categories do contain the grounds of the possibility of all
experience. But with respect to the questions how they make experience
possible, and what are the principles of the possibility thereof with which
they present us in their application to phenomena, the following section on
the transcendental exercise of the faculty of judgement will inform the
reader.
It
is quite possible that someone may propose a species of preformation-system of
pure reason—a middle way between the two—to wit, that the categories are
neither innate and first a priori principles of cognition, nor derived from
experience, but are merely subjective aptitudes for thought implanted in us
contemporaneously with our existence, which were so ordered and disposed by
our Creator, that their exercise perfectly harmonizes with the laws of nature
which regulate experience. Now, not to mention that with such an hypothesis it
is impossible to say at what point we must stop in the employment of
predetermined aptitudes, the fact that the categories would in this case
entirely lose that character of necessity which is essentially involved in the
very conception of them, is a conclusive objection to it. The conception of
cause, for example, which expresses the necessity of an effect under a
presupposed condition, would be false, if it rested only upon such an
arbitrary subjective necessity of uniting certain empirical representations
according to such a rule of relation. I could not then say—“The effect is
connected with its cause in the object (that is, necessarily),” but only,
“I am so constituted that I can think this representation as so connected,
and not otherwise.” Now this is just what the sceptic wants. For in this
case, all our knowledge, depending on the supposed objective validity of our
judgement, is nothing but mere illusion; nor would there be wanting people who
would deny any such subjective necessity in respect to themselves, though they
must feel it. At all events, we could not dispute with any one on that which
merely depends on the manner in which his subject is organized.
Short
view of the above Deduction.
The
foregoing deduction is an exposition of the pure conceptions of the
understanding (and with them of all theoretical a priori cognition), as
principles of the possibility of experience, but of experience as the
determination of all phenomena in space and time in general—of experience,
finally, from the principle of the original synthetical unity of apperception,
as the form of the understanding in relation to time and space as original
forms of sensibility.
I
consider the division by paragraphs to be necessary only up to this point,
because we had to treat of the elementary conceptions.
As we now proceed to the exposition of the employment of these, I shall
not designate the chapters in this manner any further.
BOOK
II.
Analytic
of Principles.
General
logic is constructed upon a plan which coincides exactly with the division of
the higher faculties of cognition. These are, understanding, judgement, and
reason. This science, accordingly, treats in its analytic of conceptions,
judgements, and conclusions in exact correspondence with the functions and
order of those mental powers which we include generally under the generic
denomination of understanding.
As
this merely formal logic makes abstraction of all content of cognition,
whether pure or empirical, and occupies itself with the mere form of thought
(discursive cognition), it must contain in its analytic a canon for reason.
For the form of reason has its law, which, without taking into consideration
the particular nature of the cognition about which it is employed, can be
discovered a priori, by the simple analysis of the action of reason into its
momenta.
Transcendental
logic, limited as it is to a determinate content, that of pure a priori
cognitions, to wit, cannot imitate general logic in this division. For it is
evident that the transcendental employment of reason is not objectively valid,
and therefore does not belong to the logic of truth (that is, to analytic),
but as a logic of illusion, occupies a particular department in the scholastic
system under the name of transcendental dialectic.
Understanding
and judgement accordingly possess in transcendental logic a canon of
objectively valid, and therefore true exercise, and are comprehended in the
analytical department of that logic. But reason, in her endeavours to arrive
by a priori means at some true statement concerning objects and to extend
cognition beyond the bounds of possible experience, is altogether dialectic,
and her illusory assertions cannot be constructed into a canon such as an
analytic ought to contain.
Accordingly,
the analytic of principles will be merely a canon for the faculty of
judgement, for the instruction of this faculty in its application to phenomena
of the pure conceptions of the understanding, which contain the necessary
condition for the establishment of a priori laws. On this account, although
the subject of the following chapters is the especial principles of
understanding, I shall make use of the term Doctrine of the faculty of
judgement, in order to define more particularly my present purpose.
INTRODUCTION.
Of the Transcendental Faculty of judgement in General.
If
understanding in general be defined as the faculty of laws or rules, the
faculty of judgement may be termed the faculty of subsumption under these
rules; that is, of distinguishing whether this or that does or does not stand
under a given rule (casus datae legis). General
logic contains no directions or precepts for the faculty of judgement, nor can
it contain any such. For as it makes abstraction of all content of cognition,
no duty is left for it, except that of exposing analytically the mere form of
cognition in conceptions, judgements, and conclusions, and of thereby
establishing formal rules for all exercise of the understanding. Now if this
logic wished to give some general direction how we should subsume under these
rules, that is, how we should distinguish whether this or that did or did not
stand under them, this again could not be done otherwise than by means of a
rule. But this rule, precisely because it is a rule, requires for itself
direction from the faculty of judgement. Thus, it is evident that the
understanding is capable of being instructed by rules, but that the judgement
is a peculiar talent, which does not, and cannot require tuition, but only
exercise. This faculty is
therefore the specific quality of the so-called mother wit, the want of which
no scholastic discipline can compensate.
For
although education may furnish, and, as it were, engraft upon a limited
understanding rules borrowed from other minds, yet the power of employing
these rules correctly must belong to the pupil himself; and no rule which we
can prescribe to him with this purpose is, in the absence or deficiency of
this gift of nature, secure from misuse.* A physician therefore, a judge or a
statesman, may have in his head many admirable pathological, juridical, or
political rules, in a degree that may enable him to be a profound teacher in
his particular science, and yet in the application of these rules he may very
possibly blunder—either because he is wanting in natural judgement (though
not in understanding) and, whilst he can comprehend the general in abstracto,
cannot distinguish whether a particular case in concreto ought to rank under
the former; or because his faculty of judgement has not been sufficiently
exercised by examples and real practice. Indeed, the grand and only use of
examples, is to sharpen the judgement. For as regards the correctness and
precision of the insight of the understanding, examples are commonly injurious
rather than otherwise, because, as casus in terminis they seldom adequately
fulfil the conditions of the rule. Besides, they often weaken the power of our
understanding to apprehend rules or laws in their universality, independently
of particular circumstances of experience; and hence, accustom us to employ
them more as formulae than as principles. Examples are thus the go-cart of the
judgement, which he who is naturally deficient in that faculty cannot afford
to dispense with.
[*Footnote:
Deficiency in judgement is properly that which is called stupidity; and for
such a failing we know no remedy. A dull or narrow-minded person, to whom
nothing is wanting but a proper degree of understanding, may be improved by
tuition, even so far as to deserve the epithet of learned. But as such persons
frequently labour under a deficiency in the faculty of judgement, it is not
uncommon to find men extremely learned who in the application of their science
betray a lamentable degree this irremediable want.]
But
although general logic cannot give directions to the faculty of judgement, the
case is very different as regards transcendental logic, insomuch that it
appears to be the especial duty of the latter to secure and direct, by means
of determinate rules, the faculty of judgement in the employment of the pure
understanding. For, as a doctrine, that is, as an endeavour to enlarge the
sphere of the understanding in regard to pure a priori cognitions, philosophy
is worse than useless, since from all the attempts hitherto made, little or no
ground has been gained. But, as a critique, in order to guard against the
mistakes of the faculty of judgement (lapsus judicii) in the employment of the
few pure conceptions of the understanding which we possess, although its use
is in this case purely negative, philosophy is called upon to apply all its
acuteness and penetration.
But
transcendental philosophy has this peculiarity, that besides indicating the
rule, or rather the general condition for rules, which is given in the pure
conception of the understanding, it can, at the same time, indicate a priori
the case to which the rule must be applied. The cause of the superiority
which, in this respect, transcendental philosophy possesses above all other
sciences except mathematics, lies in this: it treats of conceptions which must
relate a priori to their objects, whose objective validity consequently cannot
be demonstrated a posteriori, and is, at the same time, under the obligation
of presenting in general but sufficient tests, the conditions under which
objects can be given in harmony with those conceptions; otherwise they would
be mere logical forms, without content, and not pure conceptions of the
understanding.
Our
transcendental doctrine of the faculty of judgement will contain two chapters.
The first will treat of the sensuous condition under which alone pure
conceptions of the understanding can be employed— that is, of the schematism
of the pure understanding. The second will treat of those synthetical
judgements which are derived a priori from pure conceptions of the
understanding under those conditions, and which lie a priori at the foundation
of all other cognitions, that is to say, it will treat of the principles of
the pure understanding.
TRANSCENDENTAL
DOCTRINE OF THE FACULTY OF JUDGEMENT OR, ANALYTIC OF PRINCIPLES.
CHAPTER
I. Of the Schematism at of the Pure Conceptions
of
the Understanding.
In
all subsumptions of an object under a conception, the representation of the
object must be homogeneous with the conception; in other words, the conception
must contain that which is represented in the object to be subsumed under it.
For this is the meaning of the expression: “An object is contained under a
conception.” Thus the empirical conception of a plate is homogeneous with
the pure geometrical conception of a circle, inasmuch as the roundness which
is cogitated in the former is intuited in the latter.
But
pure conceptions of the understanding, when compared with empirical
intuitions, or even with sensuous intuitions in general, are quite
heterogeneous, and never can be discovered in any intuition.
How then is the subsumption of the latter under the former, and
consequently the application of the categories to phenomena, possible?--For it
is impossible to say, for example: “Causality can be intuited through the
senses and is contained in the phenomenon.”—This natural and important
question forms the real cause of the necessity of a transcendental doctrine of
the faculty of judgement, with the purpose, to wit, of showing how pure
conceptions of the understanding can be applied to phenomena. In all other
sciences, where the conceptions by which the object is thought in the general
are not so different and heterogeneous from those which represent the object
in concreto—as it is given, it is quite unnecessary to institute any special
inquiries concerning the application of the former to the latter.
Now
it is quite clear that there must be some third thing, which on the one side
is homogeneous with the category, and with the phenomenon on the other, and so
makes the application of the former to the latter possible. This mediating
representation must be pure (without any empirical content), and yet must on
the one side be intellectual, on the other sensuous. Such a representation is
the transcendental schema.
The
conception of the understanding contains pure synthetical unity of the
manifold in general. Time, as the formal condition of the manifold of the
internal sense, consequently of the conjunction of all representations,
contains a priori a manifold in the pure intuition.
Now a transcendental determination of time is so far homogeneous with
the category, which constitutes the unity thereof, that it is universal and
rests upon a rule a priori. On the other hand, it is so far homogeneous with
the phenomenon, inasmuch as time is contained in every empirical
representation of the manifold. Thus an application of the category to
phenomena becomes possible, by means of the transcendental determination of
time, which, as the schema of the conceptions of the understanding, mediates
the subsumption of the latter under the former.
After
what has been proved in our deduction of the categories, no one, it is to be
hoped, can hesitate as to the proper decision of the question, whether the
employment of these pure conceptions of the understanding ought to be merely
empirical or also transcendental; in other words, whether the categories, as
conditions of a possible experience, relate a priori solely to phenomena, or
whether, as conditions of the possibility of things in general, their
application can be extended to objects as things in themselves. For we have
there seen that conceptions are quite impossible, and utterly without
signification, unless either to them, or at least to the elements of which
they consist, an object be given; and that, consequently, they cannot possibly
apply to objects as things in themselves without regard to the question
whether and how these may be given to us; and, further, that the only manner
in which objects can be given to us is by means of the modification of our
sensibility; and, finally, that pure a priori conceptions, in addition to the
function of the understanding in the category, must contain a priori formal
conditions of sensibility (of the internal sense, namely), which again contain
the general condition under which alone the category can be applied to any
object. This formal and pure condition of sensibility, to which the conception
of the understanding is restricted in its employment, we shall name the schema
of the conception of the understanding, and the procedure of the understanding
with these schemata we shall call the schematism of the pure understanding.
The
schema is, in itself, always a mere product of the imagination. But, as the
synthesis of imagination has for its aim no single intuition, but merely unity
in the determination of sensibility, the schema is clearly distinguishable
from the image. Thus, if I place
five points one after another .... this is an image of the number five. On the
other hand, if I only think a number in general, which may be either five or a
hundred, this thought is rather the representation of a method of representing
in an image a sum (e.g., a thousand) in conformity with a conception, than the
image itself, an image which I should find some little difficulty in
reviewing, and comparing with the conception. Now this representation of a
general procedure of the imagination to present its image to a conception, I
call the schema of this conception.
In
truth, it is not images of objects, but schemata, which lie at the foundation
of our pure sensuous conceptions. No image could ever be adequate to our
conception of a triangle in general. For the generalness of the conception it
never could attain to, as this includes under itself all triangles, whether
right-angled, acute-angled, etc., whilst the image would always be limited to
a single part of this sphere. The schema of the triangle can exist nowhere
else than in thought, and it indicates a rule of the synthesis of the
imagination in regard to pure figures in space. Still less is an object of
experience, or an image of the object, ever to the empirical conception. On
the contrary, the conception always relates immediately to the schema of the
imagination, as a rule for the determination of our intuition, in conformity
with a certain general conception. The conception of a dog indicates a rule,
according to which my imagination can delineate the figure of a four-footed
animal in general, without being limited to any particular individual form
which experience presents to me, or indeed to any possible image that I can
represent to myself in concreto. This schematism of our understanding in
regard to phenomena and their mere form, is an art, hidden in the depths of
the human soul, whose true modes of action we shall only with difficulty
discover and unveil. Thus much only can we say: “The image is a product of
the empirical faculty of the productive imagination—the schema of sensuous
conceptions (of figures in space, for example) is a product, and, as it were,
a monogram of the pure imagination a priori, whereby and according to which
images first become possible, which, however, can be connected with the
conception only mediately by means of the schema which they indicate, and are
in themselves never fully adequate to it.” On the other hand, the schema of
a pure conception of the understanding is something that cannot be reduced
into any image—it is nothing else than the pure synthesis expressed by the
category, conformably, to a rule of unity according to conceptions. It is a
transcendental product of the imagination, a product which concerns the
determination of the internal sense, according to conditions of its form
(time) in respect to all representations, in so far as these representations
must be conjoined a priori in one conception, conformably to the unity of
apperception.
Without
entering upon a dry and tedious analysis of the essential requisites of
transcendental schemata of the pure conceptions of the understanding, we shall
rather proceed at once to give an explanation of them according to the order
of the categories, and in connection therewith.
For
the external sense the pure image of all quantities (quantorum) is space; the
pure image of all objects of sense in general, is time. But the pure schema of
quantity (quantitatis) as a conception of the understanding, is number, a
representation which comprehends the successive addition of one to one
(homogeneous quantities). Thus, number is nothing else than the unity of the
synthesis of the manifold in a homogeneous intuition, by means of my
generating time itself in my apprehension of the intuition.
Reality,
in the pure conception of the understanding, is that which corresponds to a
sensation in general; that, consequently, the conception of which indicates a
being (in time). Negation is that the conception of which represents a
not-being (in time). The opposition of these two consists therefore in the
difference of one and the same time, as a time filled or a time empty. Now as
time is only the form of intuition, consequently of objects as phenomena, that
which in objects corresponds to sensation is the transcendental matter of all
objects as things in themselves (Sachheit, reality). Now every sensation has a
degree or quantity by which it can fill time, that is to say, the internal
sense in respect of the representation of an object, more or less, until it
vanishes into nothing (= 0 = negatio). Thus there is a relation and connection
between reality and negation, or rather a transition from the former to the
latter, which makes every reality representable to us as a quantum; and the
schema of a reality as the quantity of something in so far as it fills time,
is exactly this continuous and uniform generation of the reality in time, as
we descend in time from the sensation which has a certain degree, down to the
vanishing thereof, or gradually ascend from negation to the quantity thereof.
The
schema of substance is the permanence of the real in time; that is, the
representation of it as a substratum of the empirical determination of time; a
substratum which therefore remains, whilst all else changes. (Time passes not,
but in it passes the existence of the changeable. To time, therefore, which is
itself unchangeable and permanent, corresponds that which in the phenomenon is
unchangeable in existence, that is, substance, and it is only by it that the
succession and coexistence of phenomena can be determined in regard to time.)
The
schema of cause and of the causality of a thing is the real which, when
posited, is always followed by something else. It consists, therefore, in the
succession of the manifold, in so far as that succession is subjected to a
rule.
The
schema of community (reciprocity of action and reaction), or the reciprocal
causality of substances in respect of their accidents, is the coexistence of
the determinations of the one with those of the other, according to a general
rule.
The
schema of possibility is the accordance of the synthesis of different
representations with the conditions of time in general (as, for example,
opposites cannot exist together at the same time in the same thing, but only
after each other), and is therefore the determination of the representation of
a thing at any time.
The
schema of reality is existence in a determined time.
The
schema of necessity is the existence of an object in all time.
It
is clear, from all this, that the schema of the category of quantity contains
and represents the generation (synthesis) of time itself, in the successive
apprehension of an object; the schema of quality the synthesis of sensation
with the representation of time, or the filling up of time; the schema of
relation the relation of perceptions to each other in all time (that is,
according to a rule of the determination of time): and finally, the schema of
modality and its categories, time itself, as the correlative of the
determination of an object—whether it does belong to time, and how. The
schemata, therefore, are nothing but a priori determinations of time according
to rules, and these, in regard to all possible objects, following the
arrangement of the categories, relate to the series in time, the content in
time, the order in time, and finally, to the complex or totality in time.
Hence
it is apparent that the schematism of the understanding, by means of the
transcendental synthesis of the imagination, amounts to nothing else than the
unity of the manifold of intuition in the internal sense, and thus indirectly
to the unity of apperception, as a function corresponding to the internal
sense (a receptivity). Thus, the schemata of the pure conceptions of the
understanding are the true and only conditions whereby our understanding
receives an application to objects, and consequently significance. Finally,
therefore, the categories are only capable of empirical use, inasmuch as they
serve merely to subject phenomena to the universal rules of synthesis, by
means of an a priori necessary unity (on account of the necessary union of all
consciousness in one original apperception); and so to render them susceptible
of a complete connection in one experience. But within this whole of possible
experience lie all our cognitions, and in the universal relation to this
experience consists transcendental truth, which antecedes all empirical truth,
and renders the latter possible.
It
is, however, evident at first sight, that although the schemata of sensibility
are the sole agents in realizing the categories, they do, nevertheless, also
restrict them, that is, they limit the categories by conditions which lie
beyond the sphere of understanding— namely, in sensibility. Hence the schema
is properly only the phenomenon, or the sensuous conception of an object in
harmony with the category. (Numerus est quantitas phaenomenon—sensatio
realitas phaenomenon; constans et perdurabile rerum substantia phaenomenon—
aeternitas, necessitas, phaenomena, etc.) Now, if we remove a restrictive
condition, we thereby amplify, it appears, the formerly limited conception. In
this way, the categories in their pure signification, free from all conditions
of sensibility, ought to be valid of things as they are, and not, as the
schemata represent them, merely as they appear; and consequently the
categories must have a significance far more extended, and wholly independent
of all schemata. In truth, there does always remain to the pure conceptions of
the understanding, after abstracting every sensuous condition, a value and
significance, which is, however, merely logical. But in this case, no object
is given them, and therefore they have no meaning sufficient to afford us a
conception of an object. The notion of substance, for example, if we leave out
the sensuous determination of permanence, would mean nothing more than a
something which can be cogitated as subject, without the possibility of
becoming a predicate to anything else. Of this representation I can make
nothing, inasmuch as it does not indicate to me what determinations the thing
possesses which must thus be valid as premier subject. Consequently, the
categories, without schemata are merely functions of the understanding for the
production of conceptions, but do not represent any object. This significance
they derive from sensibility, which at the same time realizes the
understanding and restricts it.
CHAPTER
II. System of all Principles of the Pure Understanding.
In
the foregoing chapter we have merely considered the general conditions under
which alone the transcendental faculty of judgement is justified in using the
pure conceptions of the understanding for synthetical judgements. Our duty at
present is to exhibit in systematic connection those judgements which the
understanding really produces a priori. For this purpose, our table of the
categories will certainly afford us the natural and safe guidance.
For it is precisely the categories whose application to possible
experience must constitute all pure a priori cognition of the understanding;
and the relation of which to sensibility will, on that very account, present
us with a complete and systematic catalogue of all the transcendental
principles of the use of the understanding.
Principles
a priori are so called, not merely because they contain in themselves the
grounds of other judgements, but also because they themselves are not grounded
in higher and more general cognitions. This
peculiarity, however, does not raise them altogether above the need of a
proof. For although there could be found no higher cognition, and therefore no
objective proof, and although such a principle rather serves as the foundation
for all cognition of the object, this by no means hinders us from drawing a
proof from the subjective sources of the possibility of the cognition of an
object. Such a proof is
necessary, moreover, because without it the principle might be liable to the
imputation of being a mere gratuitous assertion.
In
the second place, we shall limit our investigations to those principles which
relate to the categories. For as to the principles of transcendental
aesthetic, according to which space and time are the conditions of the
possibility of things as phenomena, as also the restriction of these
principles, namely, that they cannot be applied to objects as things in
themselves—these, of course, do not fall within the scope of our present
inquiry. In like manner, the principles of mathematical science form no part
of this system, because they are all drawn from intuition, and not from the
pure conception of the understanding. The possibility of these principles,
however, will necessarily be considered here, inasmuch as they are synthetical
judgements a priori, not indeed for the purpose of proving their accuracy and
apodeictic certainty, which is unnecessary, but merely to render conceivable
and deduce the possibility of such evident a priori cognitions.
But
we shall have also to speak of the principle of analytical judgements, in
opposition to synthetical judgements, which is the proper subject of our
inquiries, because this very opposition will free the theory of the latter
from all ambiguity, and place it clearly before our eyes in its true nature.
SYSTEM
OF THE PRINCIPLES OF THE PURE UNDERSTANDING.
SECTION
I. Of the Supreme Principle of all Analytical Judgements.
Whatever
may be the content of our cognition, and in whatever manner our cognition may
be related to its object, the universal, although only negative conditions of
all our judgements is that they do not contradict themselves; otherwise these
judgements are in themselves (even without respect to the object) nothing. But
although there may exist no contradiction in our judgement, it may
nevertheless connect conceptions in such a manner that they do not correspond
to the object, or without any grounds either a priori or a posteriori for
arriving at such a judgement, and thus, without being self-contradictory, a
judgement may nevertheless be either false or groundless.
Now,
the proposition: “No subject can have a predicate that contradicts it,” is
called the principle of contradiction, and is a universal but purely negative
criterion of all truth. But it belongs to logic alone, because it is valid of
cognitions, merely as cognitions and without respect to their content, and
declares that the contradiction entirely nullifies them. We can also, however,
make a positive use of this principle, that is, not merely to banish falsehood
and error (in so far as it rests upon contradiction), but also for the
cognition of truth. For if the judgement is analytical, be it affirmative or
negative, its truth must always be recognizable by means of the principle of
contradiction. For the contrary of that which lies and is cogitated as
conception in the cognition of the object will be always properly negatived,
but the conception itself must always be affirmed of the object, inasmuch as
the contrary thereof would be in contradiction to the object.
We
must therefore hold the principle of contradiction to be the universal and
fully sufficient Principle of all analytical cognition. But as a sufficient
criterion of truth, it has no further utility or authority. For the fact that
no cognition can be at variance with this principle without nullifying itself,
constitutes this principle the sine qua non, but not the determining ground of
the truth of our cognition. As our business at present is properly with the
synthetical part of our knowledge only, we shall always be on our guard not to
transgress this inviolable principle; but at the same time not to expect from
it any direct assistance in the establishment of the truth of any synthetical
proposition.
There
exists, however, a formula of this celebrated principle—a principle merely
formal and entirely without content—which contains a synthesis that has been
inadvertently and quite unnecessarily mixed up with it. It is this: “It is
impossible for a thing to be and not to be at the same time.” Not to mention
the superfluousness of the addition of the word impossible to indicate the
apodeictic certainty, which ought to be self-evident from the proposition
itself, the proposition is affected by the condition of time, and as it were
says: “A thing = A, which is something = B, cannot at the same time be
non-B.” But both, B as well as non-B, may quite well exist in succession.
For example, a man who is young cannot at the same time be old; but the same
man can very well be at one time young, and at another not young, that is,
old. Now the principle of contradiction as a merely logical proposition must
not by any means limit its application merely to relations of time, and
consequently a formula like the preceding is quite foreign to its true
purpose. The misunderstanding arises in this way. We first of all separate a
predicate of a thing from the conception of the thing, and afterwards connect
with this predicate its opposite, and hence do not establish any contradiction
with the subject, but only with its predicate, which has been conjoined with
the subject synthetically— a contradiction, moreover, which obtains only
when the first and second predicate are affirmed in the same time. If I say:
“A man who is ignorant is not learned,” the condition “at the same time”
must be added, for he who is at one time ignorant, may at another be learned.
But if I say: “No ignorant man is a learned man,” the proposition is
analytical, because the characteristic ignorance is now a constituent part of
the conception of the subject; and in this case the negative proposition is
evident immediately from the proposition of contradiction, without the
necessity of adding the condition “the same time.” This is the reason why
I have altered the formula of this principle—an alteration which shows very
clearly the nature of an analytical proposition.
SECTION
II. Of the Supreme Principle of all Synthetical Judgements.
The
explanation of the possibility of synthetical judgements is a task with which
general logic has nothing to do; indeed she needs not even be acquainted with
its name. But in transcendental logic it is the most important matter to be
dealt with—indeed the only one, if the question is of the possibility of
synthetical judgements a priori, the conditions and extent of their validity.
For when this question is fully decided, it can reach its aim with perfect
ease, the determination, to wit, of the extent and limits of the pure
understanding.
In
an analytical judgement I do not go beyond the given conception, in order to
arrive at some decision respecting it. If the judgement is affirmative, I
predicate of the conception only that which was already cogitated in it; if
negative, I merely exclude from the conception its contrary. But in
synthetical judgements, I must go beyond the given conception, in order to
cogitate, in relation with it, something quite different from that which was
cogitated in it, a relation which is consequently never one either of identity
or contradiction, and by means of which the truth or error of the judgement
cannot be discerned merely from the judgement itself.
Granted,
then, that we must go out beyond a given conception, in order to compare it
synthetically with another, a third thing is necessary, in which alone the
synthesis of two conceptions can originate. Now what is this tertium quid that
is to be the medium of all synthetical judgements? It is only a complex in
which all our representations are contained, the internal sense to wit, and
its form a priori, time.
The
synthesis of our representations rests upon the imagination; their synthetical
unity (which is requisite to a judgement), upon the unity of apperception. In
this, therefore, is to be sought the possibility of synthetical judgements,
and as all three contain the sources of a priori representations, the
possibility of pure synthetical judgements also; nay, they are necessary upon
these grounds, if we are to possess a knowledge of objects, which rests solely
upon the synthesis of representations.
If
a cognition is to have objective reality, that is, to relate to an object, and
possess sense and meaning in respect to it, it is necessary that the object be
given in some way or another. Without this, our conceptions are empty, and we
may indeed have thought by means of them, but by such thinking we have not, in
fact, cognized anything, we have merely played with representation. To give an
object, if this expression be understood in the sense of “to present” the
object, not mediately but immediately in intuition, means nothing else than to
apply the representation of it to experience, be that experience real or only
possible. Space and time themselves, pure as these conceptions are from all
that is empirical, and certain as it is that they are represented fully a
priori in the mind, would be completely without objective validity, and
without sense and significance, if their necessary use in the objects of
experience were not shown. Nay, the representation of them is a mere schema,
that always relates to the reproductive imagination, which calls up the
objects of experience, without which they have no meaning. And so it is with
all conceptions without distinction.
The
possibility of experience is, then, that which gives objective reality to all
our a priori cognitions. Now experience depends upon the synthetical unity of
phenomena, that is, upon a synthesis according to conceptions of the object of
phenomena in general, a synthesis without which experience never could become
knowledge, but would be merely a rhapsody of perceptions, never fitting
together into any connected text, according to rules of a thoroughly united
(possible) consciousness, and therefore never subjected to the transcendental
and necessary unity of apperception. Experience has therefore for a
foundation, a priori principles of its form, that is to say, general rules of
unity in the synthesis of phenomena, the objective reality of which rules, as
necessary conditions even of the possibility of experience can which rules, as
necessary conditions—even of the possibility of experience—can always be
shown in experience. But apart from this relation, a priori synthetical
propositions are absolutely impossible, because they have no third term, that
is, no pure object, in which the synthetical unity can exhibit the objective
reality of its conceptions.
Although,
then, respecting space, or the forms which productive imagination describes
therein, we do cognize much a priori in synthetical judgements, and are really
in no need of experience for this purpose, such knowledge would nevertheless
amount to nothing but a busy trifling with a mere chimera, were not space to
be considered as the condition of the phenomena which constitute the material
of external experience. Hence those pure synthetical judgements do relate,
though but mediately, to possible experience, or rather to the possibility of
experience, and upon that alone is founded the objective validity of their
synthesis.
While
then, on the one hand, experience, as empirical synthesis, is the only
possible mode of cognition which gives reality to all other synthesis; on the
other hand, this latter synthesis, as cognition a priori, possesses truth,
that is, accordance with its object, only in so far as it contains nothing
more than what is necessary to the synthetical unity of experience.
Accordingly,
the supreme principle of all synthetical judgements is:
“Every
object is subject to the necessary conditions of the synthetical unity of the
manifold of intuition in a possible experience.”
A
priori synthetical judgements are possible when we apply the formal conditions
of the a priori intuition, the synthesis of the imagination, and the necessary
unity of that synthesis in a transcendental apperception, to a possible
cognition of experience, and say: “The conditions of the possibility of
experience in general are at the same time conditions of the possibility of
the objects of experience, and have, for that reason, objective validity in an
a priori synthetical judgement.”
SECTION
III. Systematic Representation of all Synthetical
Principles
of the Pure Understanding.
That
principles exist at all is to be ascribed solely to the pure understanding,
which is not only the faculty of rules in regard to that which happens, but is
even the source of principles according to which everything that can be
presented to us as an object is necessarily subject to rules, because without
such rules we never could attain to cognition of an object. Even the laws of
nature, if they are contemplated as principles of the empirical use of the
understanding, possess also a characteristic of necessity, and we may
therefore at least expect them to be determined upon grounds which are valid a
priori and antecedent to all experience. But all laws of nature, without
distinction, are subject to higher principles of the understanding, inasmuch
as the former are merely applications of the latter to particular cases of
experience. These higher principles alone therefore give the conception, which
contains the necessary condition, and, as it were, the exponent of a rule;
experience, on the other hand, gives the case which comes under the rule.
There
is no danger of our mistaking merely empirical principles for principles of
the pure understanding, or conversely; for the character of necessity,
according to conceptions which distinguish the latter, and the absence of this
in every empirical proposition, how extensively valid soever it may be, is a
perfect safeguard against confounding them. There are, however, pure
principles a priori, which nevertheless I should not ascribe to the pure
understanding—for this reason, that they are not derived from pure
conceptions, but (although by the mediation of the understanding) from pure
intuitions. But understanding is the faculty of conceptions. Such
principles mathematical science possesses, but their application to
experience, consequently their objective validity, nay the possibility of such
a priori synthetical cognitions (the deduction thereof) rests entirely upon
the pure understanding.
On
this account, I shall not reckon among my principles those of mathematics;
though I shall include those upon the possibility and objective validity a
priori, of principles of the mathematical science, which, consequently, are to
be looked upon as the principle of these, and which proceed from conceptions
to intuition, and not from intuition to conceptions.
In
the application of the pure conceptions of the understanding to possible
experience, the employment of their synthesis is either mathematical or
dynamical, for it is directed partly on the intuition alone, partly on the
existence of a phenomenon. But the a priori conditions of intuition are in
relation to a possible experience absolutely necessary, those of the existence
of objects of a possible empirical intuition are in themselves contingent.
Hence the principles of the mathematical use of the categories will
possess a character of absolute necessity, that is, will be apodeictic; those,
on the other hand, of the dynamical use, the character of an a priori
necessity indeed, but only under the condition of empirical thought in an
experience, therefore only mediately and indirectly. Consequently they will
not possess that immediate evidence which is peculiar to the former, although
their application to experience does not, for that reason, lose its truth and
certitude. But of this point we shall be better able to judge at the
conclusion of this system of principles.
The
table of the categories is naturally our guide to the table of principles,
because these are nothing else than rules for the objective employment of the
former. Accordingly, all principles of the pure understanding are:
1
Axioms
of
Intuition
2
3
Anticipations
Analogies
of Perception
of Experience
4
Postulates
of
Empirical
Thought
in
general
These
appellations I have chosen advisedly, in order that we might not lose sight of
the distinctions in respect of the evidence and the employment of these
principles. It will, however, soon appear that—a fact which concerns both
the evidence of these principles, and the a priori determination of phenomena—according
to the categories of quantity and quality (if we attend merely to the form of
these), the principles of these categories are distinguishable from those of
the two others, in as much as the former are possessed of an intuitive, but
the latter of a merely discursive, though in both instances a complete,
certitude. I shall therefore call the former mathematical, and the latter
dynamical principles.* It must be observed, however, that by these terms I
mean just as little in the one case the principles of mathematics as those of
general (physical) dynamics in the other. I have here in view merely the
principles of the pure understanding, in their application to the internal
sense (without distinction of the representations given therein), by means of
which the sciences of mathematics and dynamics become possible. Accordingly, I
have named these principles rather with reference to their application than
their content; and I shall now proceed to consider them in the order in which
they stand in the table.
[*Footnote:
All combination (conjunctio) is either composition (compositio) or connection
(nexus). The former is the synthesis of a manifold, the parts of which do not
necessarily belong to each other. For
example, the two triangles into which a square is divided by a diagonal, do
not necessarily belong to each other, and of this kind is the synthesis of the
homogeneous in everything that can be mathematically considered. This
synthesis can be divided into those of aggregation and coalition, the former
of which is applied to extensive, the latter to intensive quantities. The
second sort of combination (nexus) is the synthesis of a manifold, in so far
as its parts do belong necessarily to each other; for example, the accident to
a substance, or the effect to the cause. Consequently it is a synthesis of
that which though heterogeneous, is represented as connected a priori. This
combination—not an arbitrary one—I entitle dynamical because it concerns
the connection of the existence of the manifold.
This, again, may be divided into the physical synthesis, of the
phenomena divided among each other, and the metaphysical synthesis, or the
connection of phenomena a priori in the faculty of cognition.]
1.
AXIOMS OF INTUITION.
The
principle of these is: All Intuitions are Extensive Quantities.
PROOF.
All
phenomena contain, as regards their form, an intuition in space and time,
which lies a priori at the foundation of all without exception. Phenomena,
therefore, cannot be apprehended, that is, received into empirical
consciousness otherwise than through the synthesis of a manifold, through
which the representations of a determinate space or time are generated; that
is to say, through the composition of the homogeneous and the consciousness of
the synthetical unity of this manifold (homogeneous). Now the consciousness of
a homogeneous manifold in intuition, in so far as thereby the representation
of an object is rendered possible, is the conception of a quantity (quanti).
Consequently, even the perception of an object as phenomenon is possible only
through the same synthetical unity of the manifold of the given sensuous
intuition, through which the unity of the composition of the homogeneous
manifold in the conception of a quantity is cogitated; that is to say, all
phenomena are quantities, and extensive quantities, because as intuitions in
space or time they must be represented by means of the same synthesis through
which space and time themselves are determined.
An
extensive quantity I call that wherein the representation of the parts renders
possible (and therefore necessarily antecedes) the representation of the
whole. I cannot represent to myself any line, however small, without drawing
it in thought, that is, without generating from a point all its parts one
after another, and in this way alone producing this intuition. Precisely the
same is the case with every, even the smallest, portion of time. I cogitate
therein only the successive progress from one moment to another, and hence, by
means of the different portions of time and the addition of them, a
determinate quantity of time is produced. As the pure intuition in all
phenomena is either time or space, so is every phenomenon in its character of
intuition an extensive quantity, inasmuch as it can only be cognized in our
apprehension by successive synthesis (from part to part). All phenomena are,
accordingly, to be considered as aggregates, that is, as a collection of
previously given parts; which is not the case with every sort of quantities,
but only with those which are represented and apprehended by us as extensive.
On
this successive synthesis of the productive imagination, in the generation of
figures, is founded the mathematics of extension, or geometry, with its
axioms, which express the conditions of sensuous intuition a priori, under
which alone the schema of a pure conception of external intuition can exist;
for example, “be tween two points only one straight line is possible,” “two
straight lines cannot enclose a space,” etc. These are the axioms which
properly relate only to quantities (quanta) as such.
But,
as regards the quantity of a thing (quantitas), that is to say, the answer to
the question: “How large is this or that object?” although, in respect to
this question, we have various propositions synthetical and immediately
certain (indemonstrabilia); we have, in the proper sense of the term, no
axioms. For example, the propositions: “If equals be added to equals, the
wholes are equal”;
“If
equals be taken from equals, the remainders are equal”; are analytical,
because I am immediately conscious of the identity of the production of the
one quantity with the production of the other; whereas axioms must be a priori
synthetical propositions. On the other hand, the self-evident propositions as
to the relation of numbers, are certainly synthetical but not universal, like
those of geometry, and for this reason cannot be called axioms, but numerical
formulae. That 7 + 5 = 12 is not
an analytical proposition. For neither in the representation of seven, nor of
five, nor of the composition of the two numbers, do I cogitate the number
twelve. (Whether I cogitate the number in the addition of both, is not at
present the question; for in the case of an analytical proposition, the only
point is whether I really cogitate the predicate in the representation of the
subject.) But although the proposition is synthetical, it is nevertheless only
a singular proposition. In so far as regard is here had merely to the
synthesis of the homogeneous (the units), it cannot take place except in one
manner, although our use of these numbers is afterwards general. If I say: “A
triangle can be constructed with three lines, any two of which taken together
are greater than the third,” I exercise merely the pure function of the
productive imagination, which may draw the lines longer or shorter and
construct the angles at its pleasure. On the contrary, the number seven is
possible only in one manner, and so is likewise the number twelve, which
results from the synthesis of seven and five. Such propositions, then, cannot
be termed axioms (for in that case we should have an infinity of these), but
numerical formulae.
This
transcendental principle of the mathematics of phenomena greatly enlarges our
a priori cognition. For it is by this principle alone that pure mathematics is
rendered applicable in all its precision to objects of experience, and without
it the validity of this application would not be so self-evident; on the
contrary, contradictions and confusions have often arisen on this very point.
Phenomena are not things in themselves. Empirical intuition is possible
only through pure intuition (of space and time); consequently, what geometry
affirms of the latter, is indisputably valid of the former. All evasions, such
as the statement that objects of sense do not conform to the rules of
construction in space (for example, to the rule of the infinite divisibility
of lines or angles), must fall to the ground. For, if these objections hold
good, we deny to space, and with it to all mathematics, objective validity,
and no longer know wherefore, and how far, mathematics can be applied to
phenomena. The synthesis of spaces and times as the essential form of all
intuition, is that which renders possible the apprehension of a phenomenon,
and therefore every external experience, consequently all cognition of the
objects of experience; and whatever mathematics in its pure use proves of the
former, must necessarily hold good of the latter. All objections are but the
chicaneries of an ill-instructed reason, which erroneously thinks to liberate
the objects of sense from the formal conditions of our sensibility, and
represents these, although mere phenomena, as things in themselves, presented
as such to our understanding. But in this case, no a priori synthetical
cognition of them could be possible, consequently not through pure conceptions
of space and the science which determines these conceptions, that is to say,
geometry, would itself be impossible.
2.
ANTICIPATIONS OF PERCEPTION.
The
principle of these is: In all phenomena the Real, that which is an object of
sensation, has Intensive Quantity, that is, has a Degree.
PROOF.
Perception
is empirical consciousness, that is to say, a consciousness which contains an
element of sensation. Phenomena as objects of perception are not pure, that
is, merely formal intuitions, like space and time, for they cannot be
perceived in themselves. [Footnote:
They can be perceived only as phenomena, and some part of them must always
belong to the non-ego; whereas pure intuitions are entirely the products of
the mind itself, and as such are coguized IN THEMSELVES.—Tr] They contain,
then, over and above the intuition, the materials for an object (through which
is represented something existing in space or time), that is to say, they
contain the real of sensation, as a representation merely subjective, which
gives us merely the consciousness that the subject is affected, and which we
refer to some external object. Now, a gradual transition from empirical
consciousness to pure consciousness is possible, inasmuch as the real in this
consciousness entirely vanishes, and there remains a merely formal
consciousness (a priori) of the manifold in time and space; consequently there
is possible a synthesis also of the production of the quantity of a sensation
from its commencement, that is, from the pure intuition = 0 onwards up to a
certain quantity of the sensation. Now as sensation in itself is not an
objective representation, and in it is to be found neither the intuition of
space nor of time, it cannot possess any extensive quantity, and yet there
does belong to it a quantity (and that by means of its apprehension, in which
empirical consciousness can within a certain time rise from nothing = 0 up to
its given amount), consequently an intensive quantity. And thus we must
ascribe intensive quantity, that is, a degree of influence on sense to all
objects of perception, in so far as this perception contains sensation.
All
cognition, by means of which I am enabled to cognize and determine a priori
what belongs to empirical cognition, may be called an anticipation; and
without doubt this is the sense in which Epicurus employed his expression
prholepsis. But as there is in phenomena something which is never cognized a
priori, which on this account constitutes the proper difference between pure
and empirical cognition, that is to say, sensation (as the matter of
perception), it follows, that sensation is just that element in cognition
which cannot be at all anticipated. On the other hand, we might very well term
the pure determinations in space and time, as well in regard to figure as to
quantity, anticipations of phenomena, because they represent a priori that
which may always be given a posteriori in experience.
But suppose that in every sensation, as sensation in general, without
any particular sensation being thought of, there existed something which could
be cognized a priori, this would deserve to be called anticipation in a
special sense—special, because it may seem surprising to forestall
experience, in that which concerns the matter of experience, and which we can
only derive from itself. Yet such really is the case here.
Apprehension*,
by means of sensation alone, fills only one moment, that is, if I do not take
into consideration a succession of many sensations. As that in the phenomenon,
the apprehension of which is not a successive synthesis advancing from parts
to an entire representation, sensation has therefore no extensive quantity;
the want of sensation in a moment of time would represent it as empty,
consequently = 0. That which in the empirical intuition corresponds to
sensation is reality (realitas phaenomenon); that which corresponds to the
absence of it, negation = 0. Now every sensation is capable of a diminution,
so that it can decrease, and thus gradually disappear.
Therefore, between reality in a phenomenon and negation, there exists a
continuous concatenation of many possible intermediate sensations, the
difference of which from each other is always smaller than that between the
given sensation and zero, or complete negation. That is to say, the real in a
phenomenon has always a quantity, which however is not discoverable in
apprehension, inasmuch as apprehension take place by means of mere sensation
in one instant, and not by the successive synthesis of many sensations, and
therefore does not progress from parts to the whole. Consequently, it has a
quantity, but not an extensive quantity.
[*Footnote:
Apprehension is the Kantian word for preception, in the largest sense in which
we employ that term. It is the genus which includes under i, as species,
perception proper and sensation proper—Tr]
Now
that quantity which is apprehended only as unity, and in which plurality can
be represented only by approximation to negation = O, I term intensive
quantity. Consequently, reality in a phenomenon has intensive quantity, that
is, a degree. if we consider this reality as cause (be it of sensation or of
another reality in the phenomenon, for example, a change), we call the degree
of reality in its character of cause a momentum, for example, the momentum of
weight; and for this reason, that the degree only indicates that quantity the
apprehension of which is not successive, but instantaneous. This, however, I
touch upon only in passing, for with causality I have at present nothing to
do.
Accordingly,
every sensation, consequently every reality in phenomena, however small it may
be, has a degree, that is, an intensive quantity, which may always be
lessened, and between reality and negation there exists a continuous
connection of possible realities, and possible smaller perceptions. Every
colour— for example, red—has a degree, which, be it ever so small, is
never the smallest, and so is it always with heat, the momentum of weight,
etc.
This
property of quantities, according to which no part of them is the smallest
possible (no part simple), is called their continuity.
Space and time are quanta continua, because no part of them can be
given, without enclosing it within boundaries (points and moments),
consequently, this given part is itself a space or a time. Space, therefore,
consists only of spaces, and time of times. Points and moments are only
boundaries, that is, the mere places or positions of their limitation. But
places always presuppose intuitions which are to limit or determine them; and
we cannot conceive either space or time composed of constituent parts which
are given before space or time. Such quantities may also be called flowing,
because synthesis (of the productive imagination) in the production of these
quantities is a progression in time, the continuity of which we are accustomed
to indicate by the expression flowing.
All
phenomena, then, are continuous quantities, in respect both to intuition and
mere perception (sensation, and with it reality). In the former case they are
extensive quantities; in the latter, intensive. When the synthesis of the manifold of a phenomenon is
interrupted, there results merely an aggregate of several phenomena, and not
properly a phenomenon as a quantity, which is not produced by the mere
continuation of the productive synthesis of a certain kind, but by the
repetition of a synthesis always ceasing. For example, if I call thirteen
dollars a sum or quantity of money, I employ the term quite correctly,
inasmuch as I understand by thirteen dollars the value of a mark in standard
silver, which is, to be sure, a continuous quantity, in which no part is the
smallest, but every part might constitute a piece of money, which would
contain material for still smaller pieces. If, however, by the words thirteen
dollars I understand so many coins (be their value in silver what it may), it
would be quite erroneous to use the expression a quantity of dollars; on the
contrary, I must call them aggregate, that is, a number of coins. And as in
every number we must have unity as the foundation, so a phenomenon taken as
unity is a quantity, and as such always a continuous quantity (quantum
continuum).
Now,
seeing all phenomena, whether considered as extensive or intensive, are
continuous quantities, the proposition: “All change (transition of a thing
from one state into another) is continuous,” might be proved here easily,
and with mathematical evidence, were it not that the causality of a change
lies, entirely beyond the bounds of a transcendental philosophy, and
presupposes empirical principles. For
of the possibility of a cause which changes the condition of things, that is,
which determines them to the contrary to a certain given state, the
understanding gives us a priori no knowledge; not merely because it has no
insight into the possibility of it (for such insight is absent in several a
priori cognitions), but because the notion of change concerns only certain
determinations of phenomena, which experience alone can acquaint us with,
while their cause lies in the unchangeable. But seeing that we have nothing
which we could here employ but the pure fundamental conceptions of all
possible experience, among which of course nothing empirical can be admitted,
we dare not, without injuring the unity of our system, anticipate general
physical science, which is built upon certain fundamental experiences.
Nevertheless,
we are in no want of proofs of the great influence which the principle above
developed exercises in the anticipation of perceptions, and even in supplying
the want of them, so far as to shield us against the false conclusions which
otherwise we might rashly draw.
If
all reality in perception has a degree, between which and negation there is an
endless sequence of ever smaller degrees, and if, nevertheless, every sense
must have a determinate degree of receptivity for sensations; no perception,
and consequently no experience is possible, which can prove, either
immediately or mediately, an entire absence of all reality in a phenomenon; in
other words, it is impossible ever to draw from experience a proof of the
existence of empty space or of empty time. For in the first place, an entire
absence of reality in a sensuous intuition cannot of course be an object of
perception; secondly, such absence cannot be deduced from the contemplation of
any single phenomenon, and the difference of the degrees in its reality; nor
ought it ever to be admitted in explanation of any phenomenon. For if even the
complete intuition of a determinate space or time is thoroughly real, that is,
if no part thereof is empty, yet because every reality has its degree, which,
with the extensive quantity of the phenomenon unchanged, can diminish through
endless gradations down to nothing (the void), there must be infinitely
graduated degrees, with which space or time is filled, and the intensive
quantity in different phenomena may be smaller or greater, although the
extensive quantity of the intuition remains equal and unaltered.
We
shall give an example of this. Almost all natural philosophers, remarking a
great difference in the quantity of the matter of different kinds in bodies
with the same volume (partly on account of the momentum of gravity or weight,
partly on account of the momentum of resistance to other bodies in motion),
conclude unanimously that this volume (extensive quantity of the phenomenon)
must be void in all bodies, although in different proportion. But who would
suspect that these for the most part mathematical and mechanical inquirers
into nature should ground this conclusion solely on a metaphysical hypothesis—a
sort of hypothesis which they profess to disparage and avoid? Yet this they
do, in assuming that the real in space (I must not here call it
impenetrability or weight, because these are empirical conceptions) is always
identical, and can only be distinguished according to its extensive quantity,
that is, multiplicity. Now to this presupposition, for which they can have no
ground in experience, and which consequently is merely metaphysical, I oppose
a transcendental demonstration, which it is true will not explain the
difference in the filling up of spaces, but which nevertheless completely does
away with the supposed necessity of the above-mentioned presupposition that we
cannot explain the said difference otherwise than by the hypothesis of empty
spaces. This demonstration, moreover, has the merit of setting the
understanding at liberty to conceive this distinction in a different manner,
if the explanation of the fact requires any such hypothesis. For we perceive
that although two equal spaces may be completely filled by matters altogether
different, so that in neither of them is there left a single point wherein
matter is not present, nevertheless, every reality has its degree (of
resistance or of weight), which, without diminution of the extensive quantity,
can become less and less ad infinitum, before it passes into nothingness and
disappears. Thus an expansion which fills a space—for example, caloric, or
any other reality in the phenomenal world—can decrease in its degrees to
infinity, yet without leaving the smallest part of the space empty; on the
contrary, filling it with those lesser degrees as completely as another
phenomenon could with greater. My intention here is by no means to maintain
that this is really the case with the difference of matters, in regard to
their specific gravity; I wish only to prove, from a principle of the pure
understanding, that the nature of our perceptions makes such a mode of
explanation possible, and that it is erroneous to regard the real in a
phenomenon as equal quoad its degree, and different only quoad its aggregation
and extensive quantity, and this, too, on the pretended authority of an a
priori principle of the understanding.
Nevertheless,
this principle of the anticipation of perception must somewhat startle an
inquirer whom initiation into transcendental philosophy has rendered cautious.
We must naturally entertain some doubt whether or not the understanding can
enounce any such synthetical proposition as that respecting the degree of all
reality in phenomena, and consequently the possibility of the internal
difference of sensation itself—abstraction being made of its empirical
quality. Thus it is a question not unworthy of solution:
“How
the understanding can pronounce synthetically and a priori respecting
phenomena, and thus anticipate these, even in that which is peculiarly and
merely empirical, that, namely, which concerns sensation itself?”
The
quality of sensation is in all cases merely empirical, and cannot be
represented a priori (for example, colours, taste, etc.).
But the real—that which corresponds to sensation—in opposition to
negation = 0, only represents something the conception of which in itself
contains a being (ein seyn), and signifies nothing but the synthesis in an
empirical consciousness. That is to say, the empirical consciousness in the
internal sense can be raised from 0 to every higher degree, so that the very
same extensive quantity of intuition, an illuminated surface, for example,
excites as great a sensation as an aggregate of many other surfaces less
illuminated. We can therefore
make complete abstraction of the extensive quantity of a phenomenon, and
represent to ourselves in the mere sensation in a certain momentum, a
synthesis of homogeneous ascension from 0 up to the given empirical
consciousness, All sensations therefore as such are given only a posteriori,
but this property thereof, namely, that they have a degree, can be known a
priori. It is worthy of remark, that in respect to quantities in general, we
can cognize a priori only a single quality, namely, continuity; but in respect
to all quality (the real in phenomena), we cannot cognize a priori anything
more than the intensive quantity thereof, namely, that they have a degree. All
else is left to experience.
3.
ANALOGIES OF EXPERIENCE.
The
principle of these is: Experience is possible only through the representation
of a necessary connection of Perceptions.
PROOF.
Experience
is an empirical cognition; that is to say, a cognition which determines an
object by means of perceptions. It is therefore a synthesis of perceptions, a
synthesis which is not itself contained in perception, but which contains the
synthetical unity of the manifold of perception in a consciousness; and this
unity constitutes the essential of our cognition of objects of the senses,
that is, of experience (not merely of intuition or sensation). Now in
experience our perceptions come together contingently, so that no character of
necessity in their connection appears, or can appear from the perceptions
themselves, because apprehension is only a placing together of the manifold of
empirical intuition, and no representation of a necessity in the connected
existence of the phenomena which apprehension brings together, is to be
discovered therein. But as experience is a cognition of objects by means of
perceptions, it follows that the relation of the existence of the existence of
the manifold must be represented in experience not as it is put together in
time, but as it is objectively in time. And as time itself cannot be
perceived, the determination of the existence of objects in time can only take
place by means of their connection in time in general, consequently only by
means of a priori connecting conceptions. Now as these conceptions always
possess the character of necessity, experience is possible only by means of a
representation of the necessary connection of perception.
The
three modi of time are permanence, succession, and coexistence. Accordingly,
there are three rules of all relations of time in phenomena, according to
which the existence of every phenomenon is determined in respect of the unity
of all time, and these antecede all experience and render it possible.
The
general principle of all three analogies rests on the necessary unity of
apperception in relation to all possible empirical consciousness (perception)
at every time, consequently, as this unity lies a priori at the foundation of
all mental operations, the principle rests on the synthetical unity of all
phenomena according to their relation in time. For the original apperception
relates to our internal sense (the complex of all representations), and indeed
relates a priori to its form, that is to say, the relation of the manifold
empirical consciousness in time. Now this manifold must be combined in
original apperception according to relations of time—a necessity imposed by
the a priori transcendental unity of apperception, to which is subjected all
that can belong to my (i.e., my own) cognition, and therefore all that can
become an object for me. This synthetical and a priori determined unity in
relation of perceptions in time is therefore the rule: “All empirical
determinations of time must be subject to rules of the general determination
of time”; and the analogies of experience, of which we are now about to
treat, must be rules of this nature.
These principles have this peculiarity, that they do not concern phenomena, and the synthesis of the empirical intuition thereof, but merely the existence of phenomena and their relation to each other in regard to this existence. Now the mode in which we apprehend a thing in a phenomenon can be determined a priori in such a manner that the rule of its synthesis can give, that is to say, can produce this a priori intuition in every empirical example. But the existence of phenomena cannot be known a priori, and although we c