text large_stringlengths 15 18.5k | chunk_id large_stringlengths 9 78 | author large_stringlengths 2 107 | work large_stringlengths 4 73 | text_type large_stringclasses 6 values | tradition large_stringclasses 336 values | era large_stringclasses 17 values | genre large_stringclasses 14 values | favorite bool 1 class | read bool 1 class | chapter large_stringlengths 0 90 ⌀ | poem_title large_stringlengths 0 1.44k ⌀ | chunk_index int64 0 5.15k | prev_chunk_id large_stringlengths 0 78 | next_chunk_id large_stringlengths 0 78 | token_count int64 20 4.1k | quality_flags large_stringclasses 10 values |
|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|
[Illustration]
The Critique of Pure Reason
By Immanuel Kant
Translated by J. M. D. Meiklejohn
Contents
Preface to the First Edition (1781)
Preface to the Second Edition (1787)
Introduction
I. Of the difference between Pure and Empirical Knowledge
II. The Human Intellect, even in an Unphilosophical State, is in
Possession of Certain Cognitions “à priori”.
III. Philosophy stands in need of a Science which shall Determine the
Possibility, Principles, and Extent of Human Knowledge “à priori”
IV. Of the Difference Between Analytical and Synthetical Judgements.
V. In all Theoretical Sciences of Reason, Synthetical Judgements “à
priori” are contained as Principles.
VI. The Universal Problem of Pure Reason.
VII. Idea and Division of a Particular Science, under the Name of a
Critique of Pure Reason.
I. Transcendental Doctrine of Elements
First Part—TRANSCENDENTAL ÆSTHETIC
§ 1. Introductory
SECTION I. OF SPACE
§ 2. Metaphysical Exposition of this Conception.
§ 3. Transcendental Exposition of the Conception of Space.
§ 4. Conclusions from the foregoing Conceptions.
SECTION II. OF TIME
§ 5. Metaphysical Exposition of this Conception.
§ 6. Transcendental Exposition of the Conception of Time.
§ 7. Conclusions from the above Conceptions.
§ 8. Elucidation.
§ 9. General Remarks on Transcendental Æsthetic.
§ 10. Conclusion of the Transcendental Æsthetic.
Second Part—TRANSCENDENTAL LOGIC
Introduction. Idea of a Transcendental Logic
I. Of Logic in General
II. Of Transcendental Logic
III. Of the Division of General Logic into Analytic and Dialectic
IV. Of the Division of Transcendental Logic into Transcendental
Analytic and Dialectic
FIRST DIVISION—TRANSCENDENTAL ANALYTIC
BOOK I. Analytic of Conceptions. § 2
Chapter I. Of the Transcendental Clue to the Discovery of all Pure
Conceptions of the Understanding
Introductory § 3
Section I. Of the Logical Use of the Understanding in General. § 4
Section II. Of the Logical Function of the Understanding in
Judgements. § 5
Section III. Of the Pure Conceptions of the Understanding, or
Categories. § 6
Chapter II. Of the Deduction of the Pure Conception of the
Understanding
Section I. Of the Principles of a Transcendental Deduction in general
§ 9
Transition to the Transcendental Deduction of the Categories. § 10
Section II Transcendental Deduction of the pure Conceptions of the
Understanding.
Of the Possibility of a Conjunction of the manifold representations
given by Sense. § 11.
Of the Originally Synthetical Unity of Apperception. § 12
The Principle of the Synthetical Unity of Apperception is the highest
Principle of all exercise of the Understanding. § 13
What Objective Unity of Self-consciousness is. § 14
The Logical Form of all Judgements consists in the Objective Unity of
Apperception of the Conceptions contained therein. § 15
All Sensuous Intuitions are subject to the Categories, as Conditions
under which alone the manifold Content of them can be united in one
Consciousness. § 16
Observation. § 17 | kant-critique-of-pure-reason:0000 | Immanuel Kant | kant-critique-of-pure-reason | structured | Critical Philosophy | Enlightenment | philosophy | false | false | 0 | kant-critique-of-pure-reason:0001 | 782 | ||||
In Cognition, its Application to Objects of Experience is the only
legitimate use of the Category. § 18
Of the Application of the Categories to Objects of the Senses in
general. § 20
Transcendental Deduction of the universally possible employment in
experience of the Pure Conceptions of the Understanding. § 22
Result of this Deduction of the Conceptions of the Understanding. § 23
BOOK II. Analytic of Principles
INTRODUCTION. Of the Transcendental Faculty of judgement in General.
TRANSCENDENTAL DOCTRINE OF THE FACULTY OF JUDGEMENT OR, ANALYTIC OF
PRINCIPLES.
Chapter I. Of the Schematism at of the Pure Conceptions of the
Understanding.
Chapter II. System of all Principles of the Pure Understanding.
Section I. Of the Supreme Principle of all Analytical Judgements.
Section II. Of the Supreme Principle of all Synthetical Judgements.
Section III. Systematic Representation of all Synthetical Principles
of the Pure Understanding.
Chapter III Of the Ground of the Division of all Objects into
Phenomena and Noumena.
APPENDIX.
SECOND DIVISION—TRANSCENDENTAL LOGIC
TRANSCENDENTAL DIALECTIC. INTRODUCTION.
I. Of Transcendental Illusory Appearance.
II. Of Pure Reason as the Seat of Transcendental Illusory Appearance.
TRANSCENDENTAL DIALECTIC—BOOK I—OF THE CONCEPTIONS OF PURE REASON.
Section I—Of Ideas in General.
Section II. Of Transcendental Ideas.
Section III. System of Transcendental Ideas.
TRANSCENDENTAL DIALECTIC—BOOK II—OF THE DIALECTICAL PROCEDURE OF PURE
REASON.
Chapter I. Of the Paralogisms of Pure Reason.
Chapter II. The Antinomy of Pure Reason.
Section I. System of Cosmological Ideas.
Section II. Antithetic of Pure Reason.
Section III. Of the Interest of Reason in these Self-contradictions.
Section IV. Of the necessity imposed upon Pure Reason of presenting a
Solution of its Transcendental Problems.
Section V. Sceptical Exposition of the Cosmological Problems presented
in the four Transcendental Ideas.
Section VI. Transcendental Idealism as the Key to the Solution of Pure
Cosmological Dialectic.
Section VII. Critical Solution of the Cosmological Problem.
Section VIII. Regulative Principle of Pure Reason in relation to the
Cosmological Ideas.
Section IX. Of the Empirical Use of the Regulative Principle of Reason
with regard to the Cosmological Ideas.
I. Solution of the Cosmological Idea of the Totality of the
Composition of Phenomena in the Universe.
II. Solution of the Cosmological Idea of the Totality of the Division
of a Whole given in Intuition.
III. Solution of the Cosmological Idea of the Totality of the
Deduction of Cosmical Events from their Causes.
IV. Solution of the Cosmological Idea of the Totality of the
Dependence of Phenomenal Existences.
Chapter III. The Ideal of Pure Reason.
Section I. Of the Ideal in General.
Section II. Of the Transcendental Ideal (Prototypon Trancendentale).
Section III. Of the Arguments employed by Speculative Reason in Proof
of the Existence of a Supreme Being.
Section IV. Of the Impossibility of an Ontological Proof of the
Existence of God.
Section V. Of the Impossibility of a Cosmological Proof of the
Existence of God. | kant-critique-of-pure-reason:0001 | Immanuel Kant | kant-critique-of-pure-reason | structured | Critical Philosophy | Enlightenment | philosophy | false | false | 1 | kant-critique-of-pure-reason:0000 | kant-critique-of-pure-reason:0002 | 772 | |||
Section VI. Of the Impossibility of a Physico-Theological Proof.
Section VII. Critique of all Theology based upon Speculative
Principles of Reason.
Appendix. Of the Regulative Employment of the Ideas of Pure Reason.
II. Transcendental Doctrine of Method
Chapter I. The Discipline of Pure Reason.
Section I. The Discipline of Pure Reason in the Sphere of Dogmatism.
Section II. The Discipline of Pure Reason in Polemics.
Section III. The Discipline of Pure Reason in Hypothesis.
Section IV. The Discipline of Pure Reason in Relation to Proofs.
Chapter II. The Canon of Pure Reason.
Section I. Of the Ultimate End of the Pure Use of Reason.
Section II. Of the Ideal of the Summum Bonum as a Determining Ground
of the Ultimate End of Pure Reason.
Section III. Of Opinion, Knowledge, and Belief.
Chapter III. The Architectonic of Pure Reason.
Chapter IV. The History of Pure Reason.
PREFACE TO THE FIRST EDITION 1781
Human reason, in one sphere of its cognition, is called upon to
consider questions, which it cannot decline, as they are presented by
its own nature, but which it cannot answer, as they transcend every
faculty of the mind.
It falls into this difficulty without any fault of its own. It begins
with principles, which cannot be dispensed with in the field of
experience, and the truth and sufficiency of which are, at the same
time, insured by experience. With these principles it rises, in
obedience to the laws of its own nature, to ever higher and more remote
conditions. But it quickly discovers that, in this way, its labours
must remain ever incomplete, because new questions never cease to
present themselves; and thus it finds itself compelled to have recourse
to principles which transcend the region of experience, while they are
regarded by common sense without distrust. It thus falls into confusion
and contradictions, from which it conjectures the presence of latent
errors, which, however, it is unable to discover, because the
principles it employs, transcending the limits of experience, cannot be
tested by that criterion. The arena of these endless contests is called
_Metaphysic_.
Time was, when she was the _queen_ of all the sciences; and, if we take
the will for the deed, she certainly deserves, so far as regards the
high importance of her object-matter, this title of honour. Now, it is
the fashion of the time to heap contempt and scorn upon her; and the
matron mourns, forlorn and forsaken, like Hecuba:
Modo maxima rerum,
Tot generis, natisque potens...
Nunc trahor exul, inops.
—Ovid, Metamorphoses. xiii | kant-critique-of-pure-reason:0002 | Immanuel Kant | kant-critique-of-pure-reason | structured | Critical Philosophy | Enlightenment | philosophy | false | false | 2 | kant-critique-of-pure-reason:0001 | kant-critique-of-pure-reason:0003 | 603 | |||
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_[1]
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_. | kant-critique-of-pure-reason:0003 | Immanuel Kant | kant-critique-of-pure-reason | structured | Critical Philosophy | Enlightenment | philosophy | false | false | 3 | kant-critique-of-pure-reason:0002 | kant-critique-of-pure-reason:0004 | 676 | |||
[1] 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 are exempted, they become the subjects of just
suspicion, and cannot lay claim to sincere respect, which reason
accords only to that which has stood the test of a free and public
examination.
I do not mean by this a criticism of books and systems, but a critical
inquiry into the faculty of reason, with reference to the cognitions to
which it strives to attain _without the aid of experience;_ in other
words, the solution of the question regarding the possibility or
impossibility of metaphysics, and the determination of the origin, as
well as of the extent and limits of this science. All this must be done
on the basis of principles.
This path—the only one now remaining—has been entered upon by me; and I
flatter myself that I have, in this way, discovered the cause of—and
consequently the mode of removing—all the errors which have hitherto
set reason at variance with itself, in the sphere of non-empirical
thought. I have not returned an evasive answer to the questions of
reason, by alleging the inability and limitation of the faculties of
the mind; I have, on the contrary, examined them completely in the
light of principles, and, after having discovered the cause of the
doubts and contradictions into which reason fell, have solved them to
its perfect satisfaction. It is true, these questions have not been
solved as dogmatism, in its vain fancies and desires, had expected; for
it can only be satisfied by the exercise of magical arts, and of these
I have no knowledge. But neither do these come within the compass of
our mental powers; and it was the duty of philosophy to destroy the
illusions which had their origin in misconceptions, whatever darling
hopes and valued expectations may be ruined by its explanations. My
chief aim in this work has been thoroughness; and I make bold to say
that there is not a single metaphysical problem that does not find its
solution, or at least the key to its solution, here. Pure reason is a
perfect unity; and therefore, if the principle presented by it prove to
be insufficient for the solution of even a single one of those
questions to which the very nature of reason gives birth, we must
reject it, as we could not be perfectly certain of its sufficiency in
the case of the others. | kant-critique-of-pure-reason:0004 | Immanuel Kant | kant-critique-of-pure-reason | structured | Critical Philosophy | Enlightenment | philosophy | false | false | 4 | kant-critique-of-pure-reason:0003 | kant-critique-of-pure-reason:0005 | 680 | |||
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 _à priori_
grounds that it shall be held to be absolutely necessary; much more is
this the case with an attempt to determine all pure _à 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. | kant-critique-of-pure-reason:0005 | Immanuel Kant | kant-critique-of-pure-reason | structured | Critical Philosophy | Enlightenment | philosophy | false | false | 5 | kant-critique-of-pure-reason:0004 | kant-critique-of-pure-reason:0006 | 642 | |||
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 _à 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. | kant-critique-of-pure-reason:0006 | Immanuel Kant | kant-critique-of-pure-reason | structured | Critical Philosophy | Enlightenment | philosophy | false | false | 6 | kant-critique-of-pure-reason:0005 | kant-critique-of-pure-reason:0007 | 415 | |||
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 æsthetic 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. Abbé 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. | kant-critique-of-pure-reason:0007 | Immanuel Kant | kant-critique-of-pure-reason | structured | Critical Philosophy | Enlightenment | philosophy | false | false | 7 | kant-critique-of-pure-reason:0006 | kant-critique-of-pure-reason:0008 | 567 | |||
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 nôris 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_[2]. 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 _à 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.
[2] In contradistinction to the Metaphysic of Ethics. This work was
never published.
PREFACE TO THE SECOND EDITION 1787 | kant-critique-of-pure-reason:0008 | Immanuel Kant | kant-critique-of-pure-reason | structured | Critical Philosophy | Enlightenment | philosophy | false | false | 8 | kant-critique-of-pure-reason:0007 | kant-critique-of-pure-reason:0009 | 554 | |||
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 _à 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 _propædeutic_—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. | kant-critique-of-pure-reason:0009 | Immanuel Kant | kant-critique-of-pure-reason | structured | Critical Philosophy | Enlightenment | philosophy | false | false | 9 | kant-critique-of-pure-reason:0008 | kant-critique-of-pure-reason:0010 | 673 | |||
Now these sciences, if they can be termed rational at all, must contain
elements of _à 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 _à
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 _à priori_. The former is purely _à 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 _à priori construction;_ and that, in order to
arrive with certainty at _à 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. | kant-critique-of-pure-reason:0010 | Immanuel Kant | kant-critique-of-pure-reason | structured | Critical Philosophy | Enlightenment | philosophy | false | false | 10 | kant-critique-of-pure-reason:0009 | kant-critique-of-pure-reason:0011 | 663 | |||
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;[3] 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.
[3] I do not here follow with exactness the history of the
experimental method, of which, indeed, the first steps are involved in
some obscurity. | kant-critique-of-pure-reason:0011 | Immanuel Kant | kant-critique-of-pure-reason | structured | Critical Philosophy | Enlightenment | philosophy | false | false | 11 | kant-critique-of-pure-reason:0010 | kant-critique-of-pure-reason:0012 | 506 | |||
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 _à 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? | kant-critique-of-pure-reason:0012 | Immanuel Kant | kant-critique-of-pure-reason | structured | Critical Philosophy | Enlightenment | philosophy | false | false | 12 | kant-critique-of-pure-reason:0011 | kant-critique-of-pure-reason:0013 | 498 | |||
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 _à 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 _à
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 _à 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 _à
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,
_à priori_, I must presuppose in myself laws of the understanding which
are expressed in conceptions _à 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 _à
priori_ that which we ourselves place in them.[4] | kant-critique-of-pure-reason:0013 | Immanuel Kant | kant-critique-of-pure-reason | structured | Critical Philosophy | Enlightenment | philosophy | false | false | 13 | kant-critique-of-pure-reason:0012 | kant-critique-of-pure-reason:0014 | 725 | |||
[4] 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 _à
priori_, our only course will 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 _à 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 _à priori_
cognition, and, what is more, to demonstrate satisfactorily the laws
which lie _à 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
_à 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 _à 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.[5] | kant-critique-of-pure-reason:0014 | Immanuel Kant | kant-critique-of-pure-reason | structured | Critical Philosophy | Enlightenment | philosophy | false | false | 14 | kant-critique-of-pure-reason:0013 | kant-critique-of-pure-reason:0015 | 762 | |||
[5] 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 _à 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.[6]
[6] 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. | kant-critique-of-pure-reason:0015 | Immanuel Kant | kant-critique-of-pure-reason | structured | Critical Philosophy | Enlightenment | philosophy | false | false | 15 | kant-critique-of-pure-reason:0014 | kant-critique-of-pure-reason:0016 | 484 | |||
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 _à 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. | kant-critique-of-pure-reason:0016 | Immanuel Kant | kant-critique-of-pure-reason | structured | Critical Philosophy | Enlightenment | philosophy | false | false | 16 | kant-critique-of-pure-reason:0015 | kant-critique-of-pure-reason:0017 | 455 | |||
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.[7] 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. | kant-critique-of-pure-reason:0017 | Immanuel Kant | kant-critique-of-pure-reason | structured | Critical Philosophy | Enlightenment | philosophy | false | false | 17 | kant-critique-of-pure-reason:0016 | kant-critique-of-pure-reason:0018 | 728 | |||
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 _à 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. | kant-critique-of-pure-reason:0018 | Immanuel Kant | kant-critique-of-pure-reason | structured | Critical Philosophy | Enlightenment | philosophy | false | false | 18 | kant-critique-of-pure-reason:0017 | kant-critique-of-pure-reason:0019 | 769 | |||
[7] In order to _cognize_ an object, I must be able to prove its
possibility, either from its reality as attested by experience, or _à
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. | kant-critique-of-pure-reason:0019 | Immanuel Kant | kant-critique-of-pure-reason | structured | Critical Philosophy | Enlightenment | philosophy | false | false | 19 | kant-critique-of-pure-reason:0018 | kant-critique-of-pure-reason:0020 | 670 | |||
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. | kant-critique-of-pure-reason:0020 | Immanuel Kant | kant-critique-of-pure-reason | structured | Critical Philosophy | Enlightenment | philosophy | false | false | 20 | kant-critique-of-pure-reason:0019 | kant-critique-of-pure-reason:0021 | 594 | |||
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. | kant-critique-of-pure-reason:0021 | Immanuel Kant | kant-critique-of-pure-reason | structured | Critical Philosophy | Enlightenment | philosophy | false | false | 21 | kant-critique-of-pure-reason:0020 | kant-critique-of-pure-reason:0022 | 397 | |||
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 _à
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 _à priori_, to the complete
satisfaction of speculative reason, and must, therefore, be treated,
not popularly, but scholastically. In carrying out the plan which the
Critique prescribes, that is, in the future system of metaphysics, we
must have recourse to the strict method of the celebrated WOLF, the
greatest of all dogmatic philosophers. He was the first to point out
the necessity of establishing fixed principles, of clearly defining our
conceptions, and of subjecting our demonstrations to the most severe
scrutiny, instead of rashly jumping at conclusions. The example which
he set served to awaken that spirit of profound and thorough
investigation which is not yet extinct in Germany. He would have been
peculiarly well fitted to give a truly scientific character to
metaphysical studies, had it occurred to him to prepare the field by a
criticism of the _organum_, that is, of pure reason itself. That he
failed to perceive the necessity of such a procedure must be ascribed
to the dogmatic mode of thought which characterized his age, and on
this point the philosophers of his time, as well as of all previous
times, have nothing to reproach each other with. Those who reject at
once the method of Wolf, and of the Critique of Pure Reason, can have
no other aim but to shake off the fetters of _science_, to change
labour into sport, certainty into opinion, and philosophy into
philodoxy. | kant-critique-of-pure-reason:0022 | Immanuel Kant | kant-critique-of-pure-reason | structured | Critical Philosophy | Enlightenment | philosophy | false | false | 22 | kant-critique-of-pure-reason:0021 | kant-critique-of-pure-reason:0023 | 548 | |||
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 æsthetical 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,[8] 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. | kant-critique-of-pure-reason:0023 | Immanuel Kant | kant-critique-of-pure-reason | structured | Critical Philosophy | Enlightenment | philosophy | false | false | 23 | kant-critique-of-pure-reason:0022 | kant-critique-of-pure-reason:0024 | 530 | |||
[8] 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. | kant-critique-of-pure-reason:0024 | Immanuel Kant | kant-critique-of-pure-reason | structured | Critical Philosophy | Enlightenment | philosophy | false | false | 24 | kant-critique-of-pure-reason:0023 | kant-critique-of-pure-reason:0025 | 769 | |||
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. | kant-critique-of-pure-reason:0025 | Immanuel Kant | kant-critique-of-pure-reason | structured | Critical Philosophy | Enlightenment | philosophy | false | false | 25 | kant-critique-of-pure-reason:0024 | kant-critique-of-pure-reason:0026 | 263 | |||
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. | kant-critique-of-pure-reason:0026 | Immanuel Kant | kant-critique-of-pure-reason | structured | Critical Philosophy | Enlightenment | philosophy | false | false | 26 | kant-critique-of-pure-reason:0025 | kant-critique-of-pure-reason:0027 | 127 | |||
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
Propædeutic. 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.
KÖNIGSBERG, _April_ 1787.
Introduction | kant-critique-of-pure-reason:0027 | Immanuel Kant | kant-critique-of-pure-reason | structured | Critical Philosophy | Enlightenment | philosophy | false | false | 27 | kant-critique-of-pure-reason:0026 | kant-critique-of-pure-reason:0028 | 676 | |||
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 à priori, in
contradistinction to empirical knowledge, which has its sources à
posteriori, that is, in experience.
But the expression, “à 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 à 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 à priori
that it would have fallen;” that is, he needed not to have waited for
the experience that it did actually fall. But still, à 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 à 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 à
posteriori, that is, through experience. Knowledge à priori is either
pure or impure. Pure knowledge à priori is that with which no empirical
element is mixed up. For example, the proposition, “Every change has a
cause,” is a proposition à priori, but impure, because change is a
conception which can only be derived from experience. | kant-critique-of-pure-reason:0028 | Immanuel Kant | kant-critique-of-pure-reason | structured | Critical Philosophy | Enlightenment | philosophy | false | false | 28 | kant-critique-of-pure-reason:0027 | kant-critique-of-pure-reason:0029 | 649 | |||
II. The Human Intellect, even in an Unphilosophical State, is in
Possession of Certain Cognitions “à 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 priori. 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 à 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 à 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. | kant-critique-of-pure-reason:0029 | Immanuel Kant | kant-critique-of-pure-reason | structured | Critical Philosophy | Enlightenment | philosophy | false | false | 29 | kant-critique-of-pure-reason:0028 | kant-critique-of-pure-reason:0030 | 454 | |||
Now, that in the sphere of human cognition we have judgements which are
necessary, and in the strictest sense universal, consequently pure à
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 à
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 à 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
à 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 à
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 à priori. | kant-critique-of-pure-reason:0030 | Immanuel Kant | kant-critique-of-pure-reason | structured | Critical Philosophy | Enlightenment | philosophy | false | false | 30 | kant-critique-of-pure-reason:0029 | kant-critique-of-pure-reason:0031 | 568 | |||
III. Philosophy stands in need of a Science which shall Determine the
Possibility, Principles, and Extent of Human Knowledge “à 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 à 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. | kant-critique-of-pure-reason:0031 | Immanuel Kant | kant-critique-of-pure-reason | structured | Critical Philosophy | Enlightenment | philosophy | false | false | 31 | kant-critique-of-pure-reason:0030 | kant-critique-of-pure-reason:0032 | 638 | |||
Mathematical science affords us a brilliant example, how far,
independently of all experience, we may carry our à 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 à 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, à 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. | kant-critique-of-pure-reason:0032 | Immanuel Kant | kant-critique-of-pure-reason | structured | Critical Philosophy | Enlightenment | philosophy | false | false | 32 | kant-critique-of-pure-reason:0031 | kant-critique-of-pure-reason:0033 | 639 | |||
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. | kant-critique-of-pure-reason:0033 | Immanuel Kant | kant-critique-of-pure-reason | structured | Critical Philosophy | Enlightenment | philosophy | false | false | 33 | kant-critique-of-pure-reason:0032 | kant-critique-of-pure-reason:0034 | 407 | |||
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 à 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. | kant-critique-of-pure-reason:0034 | Immanuel Kant | kant-critique-of-pure-reason | structured | Critical Philosophy | Enlightenment | philosophy | false | false | 34 | kant-critique-of-pure-reason:0033 | kant-critique-of-pure-reason:0035 | 416 | |||
But to synthetical judgements à 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 à priori and from pure
conceptions. Upon such synthetical, that is augmentative propositions,
depends the whole aim of our speculative knowledge à 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. | kant-critique-of-pure-reason:0035 | Immanuel Kant | kant-critique-of-pure-reason | structured | Critical Philosophy | Enlightenment | philosophy | false | false | 35 | kant-critique-of-pure-reason:0034 | kant-critique-of-pure-reason:0036 | 396 | |||
V. In all Theoretical Sciences of Reason, Synthetical Judgements “à
priori” are contained as Principles. | kant-critique-of-pure-reason:0036 | Immanuel Kant | kant-critique-of-pure-reason | structured | Critical Philosophy | Enlightenment | philosophy | false | false | 36 | kant-critique-of-pure-reason:0035 | kant-critique-of-pure-reason:0037 | 26 | micro | ||
1. Mathematical judgements are always synthetical. Hitherto this fact,
though incontestably true and very important in its consequences, seems
to have escaped the analysts of the human mind, nay, to be in complete
opposition to all their conjectures. For as it was found that
mathematical conclusions all proceed according to the principle of
contradiction (which the nature of every apodeictic certainty
requires), people became persuaded that the fundamental principles of
the science also were recognized and admitted in the same way. But the
notion is fallacious; for although a synthetical proposition can
certainly be discerned by means of the principle of contradiction, this
is possible only when another synthetical proposition precedes, from
which the latter is deduced, but never of itself.
Before all, be it observed, that proper mathematical propositions are
always judgements à 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 à priori. | kant-critique-of-pure-reason:0037 | Immanuel Kant | kant-critique-of-pure-reason | structured | Critical Philosophy | Enlightenment | philosophy | false | false | 37 | kant-critique-of-pure-reason:0036 | kant-critique-of-pure-reason:0038 | 259 | |||
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. | kant-critique-of-pure-reason:0038 | Immanuel Kant | kant-critique-of-pure-reason | structured | Critical Philosophy | Enlightenment | philosophy | false | false | 38 | kant-critique-of-pure-reason:0037 | kant-critique-of-pure-reason:0039 | 535 | |||
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. | kant-critique-of-pure-reason:0039 | Immanuel Kant | kant-critique-of-pure-reason | structured | Critical Philosophy | Enlightenment | philosophy | false | false | 39 | kant-critique-of-pure-reason:0038 | kant-critique-of-pure-reason:0040 | 261 | |||
2. The science of natural philosophy (physics) contains in itself
synthetical judgements à 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 à 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 à priori, which I did not think in
it. The proposition is therefore not analytical, but synthetical, and
nevertheless conceived à priori; and so it is with regard to the other
propositions of the pure part of natural philosophy. | kant-critique-of-pure-reason:0040 | Immanuel Kant | kant-critique-of-pure-reason | structured | Critical Philosophy | Enlightenment | philosophy | false | false | 40 | kant-critique-of-pure-reason:0039 | kant-critique-of-pure-reason:0041 | 215 | |||
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 à priori. It is not
merely the duty of metaphysics to dissect, and thereby analytically to
illustrate the conceptions which we form à priori of things; but we
seek to widen the range of our à 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 à 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 à priori. | kant-critique-of-pure-reason:0041 | Immanuel Kant | kant-critique-of-pure-reason | structured | Critical Philosophy | Enlightenment | philosophy | false | false | 41 | kant-critique-of-pure-reason:0040 | kant-critique-of-pure-reason:0042 | 196 | |||
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 à 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 à 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 à
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 à 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 à
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.[9] 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.
[9] 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. | kant-critique-of-pure-reason:0042 | Immanuel Kant | kant-critique-of-pure-reason | structured | Critical Philosophy | Enlightenment | philosophy | false | false | 42 | kant-critique-of-pure-reason:0041 | kant-critique-of-pure-reason:0043 | 743 | |||
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. | kant-critique-of-pure-reason:0043 | Immanuel Kant | kant-critique-of-pure-reason | structured | Critical Philosophy | Enlightenment | philosophy | false | false | 43 | kant-critique-of-pure-reason:0042 | kant-critique-of-pure-reason:0044 | 641 | |||
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 à 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, à 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. | kant-critique-of-pure-reason:0044 | Immanuel Kant | kant-critique-of-pure-reason | structured | Critical Philosophy | Enlightenment | philosophy | false | false | 44 | kant-critique-of-pure-reason:0043 | kant-critique-of-pure-reason:0045 | 303 | |||
VII. Idea and Division of a Particular Science, under the Name of a
Critique of Pure Reason. | kant-critique-of-pure-reason:0045 | Immanuel Kant | kant-critique-of-pure-reason | structured | Critical Philosophy | Enlightenment | philosophy | false | false | 45 | kant-critique-of-pure-reason:0044 | kant-critique-of-pure-reason:0046 | 24 | micro | ||
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 à
priori.
Hence, pure reason is the faculty which contains the principles
of cognizing anything absolutely à priori.
An organon of pure reason
would be a compendium of those principles according to which alone all
pure cognitions à 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 propædeutic 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 à 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 à priori, but of our analytical à 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 à 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 à 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 à 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. | kant-critique-of-pure-reason:0046 | Immanuel Kant | kant-critique-of-pure-reason | structured | Critical Philosophy | Enlightenment | philosophy | false | false | 46 | kant-critique-of-pure-reason:0045 | kant-critique-of-pure-reason:0047 | 751 | |||
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. | kant-critique-of-pure-reason:0047 | Immanuel Kant | kant-critique-of-pure-reason | structured | Critical Philosophy | Enlightenment | philosophy | false | false | 47 | kant-critique-of-pure-reason:0046 | kant-critique-of-pure-reason:0048 | 71 | |||
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 à 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 à 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 à 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 à priori must be
completely pure. Hence, although the highest principles and fundamental
conceptions of morality are certainly cognitions à 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. | kant-critique-of-pure-reason:0048 | Immanuel Kant | kant-critique-of-pure-reason | structured | Critical Philosophy | Enlightenment | philosophy | false | false | 48 | kant-critique-of-pure-reason:0047 | kant-critique-of-pure-reason:0049 | 653 | |||
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 à 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. | kant-critique-of-pure-reason:0049 | Immanuel Kant | kant-critique-of-pure-reason | structured | Critical Philosophy | Enlightenment | philosophy | false | false | 49 | kant-critique-of-pure-reason:0048 | kant-critique-of-pure-reason:0050 | 216 | |||
I. TRANSCENDENTAL DOCTRINE OF ELEMENTS.
FIRST PART. TRANSCENDENTAL ÆSTHETIC.
§ 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
à posteriori; the form must lie ready à 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 à 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 à 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 à priori, I call
transcendental æsthetic.[10] 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. | kant-critique-of-pure-reason:0050 | Immanuel Kant | kant-critique-of-pure-reason | structured | Critical Philosophy | Enlightenment | philosophy | false | false | 50 | kant-critique-of-pure-reason:0049 | kant-critique-of-pure-reason:0051 | 700 | |||
[10] 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 à 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 æsthetic 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 à priori. From
this investigation it will be found that there are two pure forms of
sensuous intuition, as principles of knowledge à priori, namely, space
and time. To the consideration of these we shall now proceed.
SECTION I. Of Space.
§ 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 à priori. | kant-critique-of-pure-reason:0051 | Immanuel Kant | kant-critique-of-pure-reason | structured | Critical Philosophy | Enlightenment | philosophy | false | false | 51 | kant-critique-of-pure-reason:0050 | kant-critique-of-pure-reason:0052 | 742 | |||
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. | kant-critique-of-pure-reason:0052 | Immanuel Kant | kant-critique-of-pure-reason | structured | Critical Philosophy | Enlightenment | philosophy | false | false | 52 | kant-critique-of-pure-reason:0051 | kant-critique-of-pure-reason:0053 | 137 | |||
2. Space then is a necessary representation à 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 à priori, which necessarily supplies the basis for
external phenomena. | kant-critique-of-pure-reason:0053 | Immanuel Kant | kant-critique-of-pure-reason | structured | Critical Philosophy | Enlightenment | philosophy | false | false | 53 | kant-critique-of-pure-reason:0052 | kant-critique-of-pure-reason:0054 | 109 | |||
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 à 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 à priori, with apodeictic
certainty. | kant-critique-of-pure-reason:0054 | Immanuel Kant | kant-critique-of-pure-reason | structured | Critical Philosophy | Enlightenment | philosophy | false | false | 54 | kant-critique-of-pure-reason:0053 | kant-critique-of-pure-reason:0055 | 229 | |||
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 à priori, and not a conception.
§ 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 à 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 à 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
à 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 à
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 à 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.
§ 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 à priori. | kant-critique-of-pure-reason:0055 | Immanuel Kant | kant-critique-of-pure-reason | structured | Critical Philosophy | Enlightenment | philosophy | false | false | 55 | kant-critique-of-pure-reason:0054 | kant-critique-of-pure-reason:0056 | 683 | |||
(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 à 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. | kant-critique-of-pure-reason:0056 | Immanuel Kant | kant-critique-of-pure-reason | structured | Critical Philosophy | Enlightenment | philosophy | false | false | 56 | kant-critique-of-pure-reason:0055 | kant-critique-of-pure-reason:0057 | 678 | |||
But, with the exception of space, there is no representation,
subjective and referring to something external to us, which could be
called objective à priori. For there are no other subjective
representations from which we can deduce synthetical propositions à
priori, as we can from the intuition of space. (See § 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 à
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.
§ 5. Metaphysical Exposition of this Conception. | kant-critique-of-pure-reason:0057 | Immanuel Kant | kant-critique-of-pure-reason | structured | Critical Philosophy | Enlightenment | philosophy | false | false | 57 | kant-critique-of-pure-reason:0056 | kant-critique-of-pure-reason:0058 | 472 | |||
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 à 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. | kant-critique-of-pure-reason:0058 | Immanuel Kant | kant-critique-of-pure-reason | structured | Critical Philosophy | Enlightenment | philosophy | false | false | 58 | kant-critique-of-pure-reason:0057 | kant-critique-of-pure-reason:0059 | 79 | |||
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 à 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. | kant-critique-of-pure-reason:0059 | Immanuel Kant | kant-critique-of-pure-reason | structured | Critical Philosophy | Enlightenment | philosophy | false | false | 59 | kant-critique-of-pure-reason:0058 | kant-critique-of-pure-reason:0060 | 114 | |||
3. On this necessity à 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. | kant-critique-of-pure-reason:0060 | Immanuel Kant | kant-critique-of-pure-reason | structured | Critical Philosophy | Enlightenment | philosophy | false | false | 60 | kant-critique-of-pure-reason:0059 | kant-critique-of-pure-reason:0061 | 149 | |||
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. | kant-critique-of-pure-reason:0061 | Immanuel Kant | kant-critique-of-pure-reason | structured | Critical Philosophy | Enlightenment | philosophy | false | false | 61 | kant-critique-of-pure-reason:0060 | kant-critique-of-pure-reason:0062 | 113 | |||
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.
§ 6 Transcendental Exposition of the Conception of Time.
I may here refer to what is said above (§ 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) à 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 à priori, as is exhibited
in the general doctrine of motion, which is not a little fruitful.
§ 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 à 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 à 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. | kant-critique-of-pure-reason:0062 | Immanuel Kant | kant-critique-of-pure-reason | structured | Critical Philosophy | Enlightenment | philosophy | false | false | 62 | kant-critique-of-pure-reason:0061 | kant-critique-of-pure-reason:0063 | 752 | |||
(c) Time is the formal condition à priori of all phenomena whatsoever.
Space, as the pure form of external intuition, is limited as a
condition à 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 à priori of all phenomena whatsoever—the
immediate condition of all internal, and thereby the mediate condition
of all external phenomena. If I can say à priori, “All outward
phenomena are in space, and determined à 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 à priori. | kant-critique-of-pure-reason:0063 | Immanuel Kant | kant-critique-of-pure-reason | structured | Critical Philosophy | Enlightenment | philosophy | false | false | 63 | kant-critique-of-pure-reason:0062 | kant-critique-of-pure-reason:0064 | 511 | |||
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
(§ 4)
§ 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.[11] 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. | kant-critique-of-pure-reason:0064 | Immanuel Kant | kant-critique-of-pure-reason | structured | Critical Philosophy | Enlightenment | philosophy | false | false | 64 | kant-critique-of-pure-reason:0063 | kant-critique-of-pure-reason:0065 | 714 | |||
[11] 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. | kant-critique-of-pure-reason:0065 | Immanuel Kant | kant-critique-of-pure-reason | structured | Critical Philosophy | Enlightenment | philosophy | false | false | 65 | kant-critique-of-pure-reason:0064 | kant-critique-of-pure-reason:0066 | 347 | |||
Time and space are, therefore, two sources of knowledge, from which, à
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 à 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 à priori in reference to real things (for
example, in space)—at all events their apodeictic certainty. For such
certainty cannot be found in an à posteriori proposition; and the
conceptions à 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 à priori intuition, they can
neither furnish any basis for the possibility of mathematical
cognitions à 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. | kant-critique-of-pure-reason:0066 | Immanuel Kant | kant-critique-of-pure-reason | structured | Critical Philosophy | Enlightenment | philosophy | false | false | 66 | kant-critique-of-pure-reason:0065 | kant-critique-of-pure-reason:0067 | 745 | |||
In conclusion, that transcendental æsthetic 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 æsthetic cannot number the conception of change
among its data à 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.
§ 9. General Remarks on Transcendental Æsthetic. | kant-critique-of-pure-reason:0067 | Immanuel Kant | kant-critique-of-pure-reason | structured | Critical Philosophy | Enlightenment | philosophy | false | false | 67 | kant-critique-of-pure-reason:0066 | kant-critique-of-pure-reason:0068 | 201 | |||
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 à 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 à 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. | kant-critique-of-pure-reason:0068 | Immanuel Kant | kant-critique-of-pure-reason | structured | Critical Philosophy | Enlightenment | philosophy | false | false | 68 | kant-critique-of-pure-reason:0067 | kant-critique-of-pure-reason:0069 | 492 | |||
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. | kant-critique-of-pure-reason:0069 | Immanuel Kant | kant-critique-of-pure-reason | structured | Critical Philosophy | Enlightenment | philosophy | false | false | 69 | kant-critique-of-pure-reason:0068 | kant-critique-of-pure-reason:0070 | 518 | |||
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 æsthetic 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 § 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 à priori, but especially
space—and for this reason we shall prefer it for investigation at
present. As the propositions of geometry are cognized synthetically à
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? | kant-critique-of-pure-reason:0070 | Immanuel Kant | kant-critique-of-pure-reason | structured | Critical Philosophy | Enlightenment | philosophy | false | false | 70 | kant-critique-of-pure-reason:0069 | kant-critique-of-pure-reason:0071 | 678 | |||
There is no other way than through intuitions or conceptions, as such;
and these are given either à priori or à 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 à 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 à 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 à
priori in intuition, and upon that ground your synthetical proposition.
Now if there did not exist within you a faculty of intuition à priori;
if this subjective condition were not in respect to its form also the
universal condition à 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 à 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 à priori, whilst of the thing in itself,
which may lie at the foundation of these phenomena, it is impossible to
say anything. | kant-critique-of-pure-reason:0071 | Immanuel Kant | kant-critique-of-pure-reason | structured | Critical Philosophy | Enlightenment | philosophy | false | false | 71 | kant-critique-of-pure-reason:0070 | kant-critique-of-pure-reason:0072 | 732 | |||
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. | kant-critique-of-pure-reason:0072 | Immanuel Kant | kant-critique-of-pure-reason | structured | Critical Philosophy | Enlightenment | philosophy | false | false | 72 | kant-critique-of-pure-reason:0071 | kant-critique-of-pure-reason:0073 | 242 | |||
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. | kant-critique-of-pure-reason:0073 | Immanuel Kant | kant-critique-of-pure-reason | structured | Critical Philosophy | Enlightenment | philosophy | false | false | 73 | kant-critique-of-pure-reason:0072 | kant-critique-of-pure-reason:0074 | 599 | |||
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.[12] 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.
[12] 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. | kant-critique-of-pure-reason:0074 | Immanuel Kant | kant-critique-of-pure-reason | structured | Critical Philosophy | Enlightenment | philosophy | false | false | 74 | kant-critique-of-pure-reason:0073 | kant-critique-of-pure-reason:0075 | 765 | |||
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
à 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 æsthetical theory.
§ 10. Conclusion of the Transcendental Æsthetic.
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 à priori possible?” That is to say,
we have shown that we are in possession of pure à priori intuitions,
namely, space and time, in which we find, when in a judgement à priori
we pass out beyond the given conception, something which is not
discoverable in that conception, but is certainly found à 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. | kant-critique-of-pure-reason:0075 | Immanuel Kant | kant-critique-of-pure-reason | structured | Critical Philosophy | Enlightenment | philosophy | false | false | 75 | kant-critique-of-pure-reason:0074 | kant-critique-of-pure-reason:0076 | 690 | |||
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 à priori; the empirical only à
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, æsthetic,
from the science of the laws of the understanding, that is, logic. | kant-critique-of-pure-reason:0076 | Immanuel Kant | kant-critique-of-pure-reason | structured | Critical Philosophy | Enlightenment | philosophy | false | false | 76 | kant-critique-of-pure-reason:0075 | kant-critique-of-pure-reason:0077 | 595 | |||
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 propædeutic 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 à 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: | kant-critique-of-pure-reason:0077 | Immanuel Kant | kant-critique-of-pure-reason | structured | Critical Philosophy | Enlightenment | philosophy | false | false | 77 | kant-critique-of-pure-reason:0076 | kant-critique-of-pure-reason:0078 | 591 | |||
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. | kant-critique-of-pure-reason:0078 | Immanuel Kant | kant-critique-of-pure-reason | structured | Critical Philosophy | Enlightenment | philosophy | false | false | 78 | kant-critique-of-pure-reason:0077 | kant-critique-of-pure-reason:0079 | 42 | micro | ||
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 à 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. | kant-critique-of-pure-reason:0079 | Immanuel Kant | kant-critique-of-pure-reason | structured | Critical Philosophy | Enlightenment | philosophy | false | false | 79 | kant-critique-of-pure-reason:0078 | kant-critique-of-pure-reason:0080 | 288 | |||
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 æsthetic 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 à 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 à priori, but only those through which we cognize that and
how certain representations (intuitions or conceptions) are applied or
are possible only à priori; that is to say, the à priori possibility of
cognition and the à priori use of it are transcendental. Therefore
neither is space, nor any à 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 à 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 à 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 æsthetical 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 à 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 à priori
relation to objects. | kant-critique-of-pure-reason:0080 | Immanuel Kant | kant-critique-of-pure-reason | structured | Critical Philosophy | Enlightenment | philosophy | false | false | 80 | kant-critique-of-pure-reason:0079 | kant-critique-of-pure-reason:0081 | 718 | |||
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. | kant-critique-of-pure-reason:0081 | Immanuel Kant | kant-critique-of-pure-reason | structured | Critical Philosophy | Enlightenment | philosophy | false | false | 81 | kant-critique-of-pure-reason:0080 | kant-critique-of-pure-reason:0082 | 724 | |||
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. | kant-critique-of-pure-reason:0082 | Immanuel Kant | kant-critique-of-pure-reason | structured | Critical Philosophy | Enlightenment | philosophy | false | false | 82 | kant-critique-of-pure-reason:0081 | kant-critique-of-pure-reason:0083 | 642 | |||
IV. Of the Division of Transcendental Logic into Transcendental
Analytic and Dialectic.
In transcendental logic we isolate the understanding (as in
transcendental æsthetic 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.
FIRST DIVISION. TRANSCENDENTAL LOGIC. TRANSCENDENTAL ANALYTIC. § 1 | kant-critique-of-pure-reason:0083 | Immanuel Kant | kant-critique-of-pure-reason | structured | Critical Philosophy | Enlightenment | philosophy | false | false | 83 | kant-critique-of-pure-reason:0082 | kant-critique-of-pure-reason:0084 | 610 | |||
Transcendental analytic is the dissection of the whole of our à 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 à 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. Analytic of Conceptions. § 2
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 à 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
Introductory § 3 | kant-critique-of-pure-reason:0084 | Immanuel Kant | kant-critique-of-pure-reason | structured | Critical Philosophy | Enlightenment | philosophy | false | false | 84 | kant-critique-of-pure-reason:0083 | kant-critique-of-pure-reason:0085 | 619 | |||
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 à priori—both
which would otherwise have been dependent on mere choice or chance.
Section I. Of the Logical Use of the Understanding in General § 4 | kant-critique-of-pure-reason:0085 | Immanuel Kant | kant-critique-of-pure-reason | structured | Critical Philosophy | Enlightenment | philosophy | false | false | 85 | kant-critique-of-pure-reason:0084 | kant-critique-of-pure-reason:0086 | 315 | |||
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.
Section II. Of the Logical Function of the Understanding in Judgements
§ 5
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:
_Quantity of judgements_
Universal
Particular
Singular
2 3
_Quality Relation_
Affirmative Categorical
Negative Hypothetical
Infinite Disjunctive
_Modality_
Problematical
Assertorical
Apodeictical | kant-critique-of-pure-reason:0086 | Immanuel Kant | kant-critique-of-pure-reason | structured | Critical Philosophy | Enlightenment | philosophy | false | false | 86 | kant-critique-of-pure-reason:0085 | kant-critique-of-pure-reason:0087 | 767 | |||
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. | kant-critique-of-pure-reason:0087 | Immanuel Kant | kant-critique-of-pure-reason | structured | Critical Philosophy | Enlightenment | philosophy | false | false | 87 | kant-critique-of-pure-reason:0086 | kant-critique-of-pure-reason:0088 | 46 | micro | ||
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. | kant-critique-of-pure-reason:0088 | Immanuel Kant | kant-critique-of-pure-reason | structured | Critical Philosophy | Enlightenment | philosophy | false | false | 88 | kant-critique-of-pure-reason:0087 | kant-critique-of-pure-reason:0089 | 278 | |||
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 à priori cognition. | kant-critique-of-pure-reason:0089 | Immanuel Kant | kant-critique-of-pure-reason | structured | Critical Philosophy | Enlightenment | philosophy | false | false | 89 | kant-critique-of-pure-reason:0088 | kant-critique-of-pure-reason:0090 | 430 | |||
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. | kant-critique-of-pure-reason:0090 | Immanuel Kant | kant-critique-of-pure-reason | structured | Critical Philosophy | Enlightenment | philosophy | false | false | 90 | kant-critique-of-pure-reason:0089 | kant-critique-of-pure-reason:0091 | 512 | |||
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.[13] 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 à 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.
[13] 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.
Section III. Of the Pure Conceptions of the Understanding, or
Categories § 6 | kant-critique-of-pure-reason:0091 | Immanuel Kant | kant-critique-of-pure-reason | structured | Critical Philosophy | Enlightenment | philosophy | false | false | 91 | kant-critique-of-pure-reason:0090 | kant-critique-of-pure-reason:0092 | 632 | |||
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 à priori sensibility, which transcendental
æsthetic 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 à 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 à 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 à 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 à 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 à 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. | kant-critique-of-pure-reason:0092 | Immanuel Kant | kant-critique-of-pure-reason | structured | Critical Philosophy | Enlightenment | philosophy | false | false | 92 | kant-critique-of-pure-reason:0091 | kant-critique-of-pure-reason:0093 | 767 | |||
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 à
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 à 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
_Of Relation_
Of Inherence and Subsistence (substantia et accidens)
Of Causality and Dependence (cause and effect)
Of Community (reciprocity between the agent and patient)
_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 à 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. | kant-critique-of-pure-reason:0093 | Immanuel Kant | kant-critique-of-pure-reason | structured | Critical Philosophy | Enlightenment | philosophy | false | false | 93 | kant-critique-of-pure-reason:0092 | kant-critique-of-pure-reason:0094 | 712 | |||
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 à 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.
§ 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 à 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.[14] Here
follow some of these observations.
[14] In the “Metaphysical Principles of Natural Science.” | kant-critique-of-pure-reason:0094 | Immanuel Kant | kant-critique-of-pure-reason | structured | Critical Philosophy | Enlightenment | philosophy | false | false | 94 | kant-critique-of-pure-reason:0093 | kant-critique-of-pure-reason:0095 | 736 | |||
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. | kant-critique-of-pure-reason:0095 | Immanuel Kant | kant-critique-of-pure-reason | structured | Critical Philosophy | Enlightenment | philosophy | false | false | 95 | kant-critique-of-pure-reason:0094 | kant-critique-of-pure-reason:0096 | 137 | |||
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 à 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. | kant-critique-of-pure-reason:0096 | Immanuel Kant | kant-critique-of-pure-reason | structured | Critical Philosophy | Enlightenment | philosophy | false | false | 96 | kant-critique-of-pure-reason:0095 | kant-critique-of-pure-reason:0097 | 332 | |||
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.
§ 8 | kant-critique-of-pure-reason:0097 | Immanuel Kant | kant-critique-of-pure-reason | structured | Critical Philosophy | Enlightenment | philosophy | false | false | 97 | kant-critique-of-pure-reason:0096 | kant-critique-of-pure-reason:0098 | 465 | |||
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 à 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. | kant-critique-of-pure-reason:0098 | Immanuel Kant | kant-critique-of-pure-reason | structured | Critical Philosophy | Enlightenment | philosophy | false | false | 98 | kant-critique-of-pure-reason:0097 | kant-critique-of-pure-reason:0099 | 695 | |||
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 à
posteriori, what was cogitated synthetically and à 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. | kant-critique-of-pure-reason:0099 | Immanuel Kant | kant-critique-of-pure-reason | structured | Critical Philosophy | Enlightenment | philosophy | false | false | 99 | kant-critique-of-pure-reason:0098 | kant-critique-of-pure-reason:0100 | 189 |
Subsets and Splits
No community queries yet
The top public SQL queries from the community will appear here once available.