§ 39. Of the System of the Categories.
There can be nothing more desirable to a philosopher, than to be able
to derive the scattered multiplicity of the concepts or the
principles, which had occurred to him in concrete use, from a
principle a priori, and to unite everything in this way in one
cognition. He formerly only believed that those things, which remained
after a certain abstraction, and seemed by comparison among one
another to constitute a particular kind of cognitions, were completely
collected; but this was only an Aggregate. Now he knows, that just so
many, neither more nor less, can constitute the mode of cognition, and
perceives the necessity of his division, which constitutes
comprehension; and now only he has attained a System.
To search in our daily cognition for the concepts, which do not rest
upon particular experience, and yet occur in all cognition of
experience, where they as it were constitute the mere form of
connexion, presupposes neither greater reflexion nor deeper insight,
than to detect in a language the rules of the actual use of words
generally, and thus to collect elements for a grammar. In fact both
researches are very nearly related, even though we are not able to
give a reason why each language has just this and no other formal
constitution, and still less why an exact number of such formal
determinations in general are found in it.
Aristotle collected ten pure elementary concepts under the name of
Categories.{23} To these, which are also called predicaments, he found
himself obliged afterwards to add five post-predicaments,{24} some of
which however (prius, simul, and motus) are contained in the former;
but this random collection must be considered (and commended) as a
mere hint for future inquirers, not as a regularly developed idea, and
hence it has, in the present more advanced state of philosophy, been
rejected as quite useless.
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{23} 1. Substantia. 2. Qualitas. 3. Quantitas. 4. Relatio, 5. Actio.
6. Passio. 7. Quando, 8. Ubi. 9. Situs. 10. Habitus.
{24} Oppositum. Prius. Simul. Motus. Habere.
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After long reflexion on the pure elements of human knowledge (those
which contain nothing empirical), I at last succeeded in
distinguishing with certainty and in separating the pure elementary
notions of the Sensibility (space and time) from those of the
Understanding. Thus the 7th, 8th, and 9th Categories had to be
excluded from the old list. And the others were of no service to me;
because there was no principle [in them], on which the understanding
could be investigated, measured in its completion, and all the
functions, whence its pure concepts arise, determined exhaustively and
with precision.
But in order to discover such a principle, I looked about for an act
of the understanding which comprises all the rest, and is
distinguished only by various modifications or phases, in reducing the
multiplicity of representation to the unity of thinking in general: I
found this act of the understanding to consist in judging. Here then
the labors of the logicians were ready at hand, though not yet quite
free from defects, and with this help I was enabled to exhibit a
complete table of the pure functions of the understanding, which are
however undetermined in regard to any object. I finally referred these
functions of judging to objects in general, or rather to the condition
of determining judgments as objectively valid, and so there arose the
pure concepts of the understanding, concerning which I could make
certain, that these, and this exact number only, constitute our whole
cognition of things from pure understanding. I was justified in
calling them by their old name, Categories, while I reserved for
myself the liberty of adding, under the title of "Predicables," a
complete list of all the concepts deducible from them, by combinations
whether among themselves, or with the pure form of the appearance,
i.e., space or time, or with its matter, so far as it is not yet
empirically determined (viz., the object of sensation in general), as
soon as a system of transcendental philosophy should be completed with
the construction of which I am engaged in the Critique of Pure Reason
itself.
Now the essential point in this system of Categories, which
distinguishes it from the old rhapsodical collection without any
principle, and for which alone it deserves to be considered as
philosophy, consists in this: that by means of it the true
significance of the pure concepts of the understanding and the
condition of their use could be precisely determined. For here it
became obvious that they are themselves nothing but logical functions,
and as such do not produce the least concept of an object, but require
some sensuous intuition as a basis. They therefore only serve to
determine empirical judgments, which are otherwise undetermined and
indifferent as regards all functions of judging, relatively to these
functions, thereby procuring them universal validity, and by means of
them making judgments of experience in general possible.
Such an insight into the nature of the categories, which limits them
at the same time to the mere use of experience, never occurred either
to their first author, or to any of his successors; but without this
insight (which immediately depends upon their derivation or
deduction), they are quite useless and only a miserable list of names,
without explanation or rule for their use. Had the ancients ever
conceived such a notion, doubtless the whole study of the pure
rational knowledge, which under the name of metaphysics has for
centuries spoiled many a sound mind, would have reached us in quite
another shape, and would have enlightened the human understanding,
instead of actually exhausting it in obscure and vain speculations,
thereby rendering it unfit for true science.
This system of categories makes all treatment of every object of pure
reason itself systematic, and affords a direction or clue how and
through what points of inquiry every metaphysical consideration must
proceed, in order to be complete; for it exhausts all the possible
movements (momenta) of the understanding, among which every concept
must be classed. In like manner the table of Principles has been
formulated, the completeness of which we can only vouch for by the
system of the categories. Even in the division of the concepts,{25}
which must go beyond the physical application of the understanding, it
is always the very same clue, which, as it must always be determined a
priori by the same fixed points of the human understanding, always
forms a closed circle. There is no doubt that the object of a pure
conception either of the understanding or of reason, so far as it is
to be estimated philosophically and on a priori principles, can in
this way be completely cognised. I could not therefore omit to make
use of this clue with regard to one of the most abstract ontological
divisions, viz., the various distinctions of "the notions of something
and of nothing," and to construct accordingly (Critique, p. 207) a
regular and necessary table of their divisions.{26}
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{25} See the two tables in the chapters Von den Paralogismen der reinen
Vernuuft and the first division of the Antinomy of Pure Reason, System
der kosmologischen Ideen.
{26} On the table of the categories many neat observations may be made,
for instance: (1) that the third arises from the first and the second
joined in one concept; (2) that in those of Quantity and of Quality
there is merely a progress from unity to totality or from something to
nothing (for this purpose the categories of Quality must stand thus:
reality, limitation, total negation), without correlata or opposita,
whereas those of Relation and of Modality have them; (3) that, as in
Logic categorical judgments are the basis of all others, so the
category of Substance is the basis of all concepts of actual things;
(4) that as Modality in the judgment is not a particular predicate, so
by the modal concepts a determination is not superadded to things,
etc., etc. Such observations are of great use. If we besides enumerate
all the predicables, which we can find pretty completely in any good
ontology (for example, Baumgarten's), and arrange them in classes
under the categories, in which operation we must not neglect to add as
complete a dissection of all these concepts as possible, there will
then arise a merely analytical part of metaphysics, which does not
contain a single synthetical proposition, which might precede the
second (the synthetical), and would by its precision and completeness
be not only useful, but, in virtue of its system, be even to some
extent elegant.
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And this system, like every other true one founded on a universal
principle, shows its inestimable value in this, that it excludes all
foreign concepts, which might otherwise intrude among the pure
concepts of the understanding, and determines the place of every
cognition. Those concepts, which under the name of "concepts of
reflexion" have been likewise arranged in a table according to the
clue of the categories, intrude, without having any privilege or title
to be among the pure concepts of the understanding in Ontology. They
are concepts of connexion, and thereby of the objects themselves,
whereas the former are only concepts of a mere comparison of concepts
already given, hence of quite another nature and use. By my systematic
division{27} they are saved from this confusion. But the value of my
special table of the categories will be still more obvious, when we
separate the table of the transcendental concepts of Reason from the
concepts of the understanding. The latter being of quite another
nature and origin, they must have quite another form than the former.
This so necessary separation has never yet been made in any system of
metaphysics for, as a rule, these rational concepts all mixed up with
the categories, like children of one family, which confusion was
unavoidable in the absence of a definite system of categories.
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{27} See Critique of Pure Reason, Von der Amphibolie der Reflexbegriffe.
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