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{34} Cf. Critique, Die Antinomie der reinen Vernunft.
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§ 50. This product of pure reason in its transcendent use is its most
remarkable curiosity. It serves as a very powerful agent to rouse
philosophy from its dogmatic slumber, and to stimulate it to the
arduous task of undertaking a Critique of Reason itself.
I term this idea cosmological, because it always takes its object only
from the sensible world, and does not use any other than those whose
object is given to sense, consequently it remains in this respect in
its native home, it does not become transcendent, and is therefore so
far not mere idea; whereas, to conceive the soul as a simple
substance, already means to conceive such an object (the simple) as
cannot be presented to the senses. Yet the cosmological idea extends
the connexion of the conditioned with its condition (whether the
connexion is mathematical or dynamical) so far, that experience never
can keep up with it. It is therefore with regard to this point always
an idea, whose object never can be adequately given in any experience.
§ 51. In the first place, the use of a system of categories becomes
here so obvious and unmistakable, that even if there were not several
other proofs of it, this alone would sufficiently prove it
indispensable in the system of pure reason. There are only four such
transcendent ideas, as there are so many classes of categories; in
each of which, however, they refer only to the absolute completeness
of the series of the conditions for a given conditioned. In analogy to
these cosmological ideas there are only four kinds of dialectical
assertions of pure reason, which, as they are dialectical, thereby
prove, that to each of them, on equally specious principles of pure
reason, a contradictory assertion stands opposed. As all the
metaphysical art of the most subtile distinction cannot prevent this
opposition, it compels the philosopher to recur to the first sources
of pure reason itself. This Antinomy, not arbitrarily invented, but
founded in the nature of human reason, and hence unavoidable and never
ceasing, contains the following four theses together with their
antitheses:
1.
Thesis.
The World has, as to Time and Space, a Beginning (limit).
Antithesis.
The World is, as to Time and Space, infinite.
2.
Thesis.
Everything in the World consists of [elements that are] simple.
Antithesis.
There is nothing simple, but everything is composite.
3.
Thesis.
There are in the World Causes through Freedom.
Antithesis.
There is no Liberty, but all is Nature.
4.
Thesis.
In the Series of the World-Causes there is some necessary Being.
Antithesis.
There is Nothing necessary in the World, but in this Series All is
incidental.
§ 52.a. Here is the most singular phenomenon of human reason, no
other instance of which can be shown in any other use. If we, as is
commonly done, represent to ourselves the appearances of the sensible
world as things in themselves, if we assume the principles of their
combination as principles universally valid of things in themselves
and not merely of experience, as is usually, nay without our Critique,
unavoidably done, there arises an unexpected conflict, which never can
be removed in the common dogmatical way; because the thesis, as well
as the antithesis, can be shown by equally clear, evident, and
irresistible proofs—for I pledge myself as to the correctness of all
these proofs—and reason therefore perceives that it is divided with
itself, a state at which the sceptic rejoices, but which must make the
critical philosopher pause and feel ill at ease.
§ 52.b. We may blunder in various ways in metaphysics without any
fear of being detected in falsehood. For we never can be refuted by
experience if we but avoid self-contradiction, which in synthetical,
though purely fictitious propositions, may be done whenever the
concepts, which we connect, are mere ideas, that cannot be given (in
their whole content) in experience. For how can we make out by
experience, whether the world is from eternity or had a beginning,
whether matter is infinitely divisible or consists of simple parts?
Such concept cannot be given in any experience, be it ever so
extensive, and consequently the falsehood either of the positive or
the negative proposition cannot be discovered by this touch-stone.
The only possible way in which reason could have revealed
unintentionally its secret Dialectics, falsely announced as Dogmatics,
would be when it were made to ground an assertion upon a universally
admitted principle, and to deduce the exact contrary with the greatest
accuracy of inference from another which is equally granted. This is
actually here the case with regard to four natural ideas of reason,
whence four assertions on the one side, and as many counter-assertions
on the other arise, each consistently following from
universally-acknowledged principles. Thus they reveal by the use of
these principles the dialectical illusion of pure reason which would
otherwise forever remain concealed.
This is therefore a decisive experiment, which must necessarily expose
any error lying hidden in the assumptions of reason.{35} Contradictory
propositions cannot both be false, except the concept, which is the
subject of both, is self-contradictory; for example, the propositions,
"a square circle is round, and a square circle is not round," are both
false. For, as to the former it is false, that the circle is round,
because it is quadrangular; and it is likewise false, that it is not
round, that is, angular, because it is a circle. For the logical
criterion of the impossibility of a concept consists in this, that if
we presuppose it, two contradictory propositions both become false;
consequently, as no middle between them is conceivable, nothing at all
is thought by that concept.
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{35} I therefore would be pleased to have the critical reader to devote
to this antinomy of pure reason his chief attention, because nature
itself seems to have established it with a view to stagger reason in
its daring pretentions, and to force it to self-examination. For every
proof, which I have given, as well of the thesis as of the antithesis,
I undertake to be responsible, and thereby to show the certainty of
the inevitable antinomy of reason. When the reader is brought by this
curious phenomenon to fall back upon the proof of the presumption upon
which it rests, he will feel himself obliged to investigate the
ultimate foundation of all the cognition of pure reason with me more
thoroughly.
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§ 52.c. The first two antinomies, which I call mathematical, because
they are concerned with the addition or division of the homogeneous,
are founded on such a self-contradictory concept; and hence I explain
how it happens, that both the Thesis and Antithesis of the two are
false.
When I speak of objects in time and in space, it is not of things in
themselves, of which I know nothing, but of things in appearance, that
is, of experience, as the particular way of cognising objects which is
afforded to man. I must not say of what I think in time or in space,
that in itself, and independent of these my thoughts, it exists in
space and in time; for in that case I should contradict myself;
because space and time, together with the appearances in them, are
nothing existing in themselves and outside of my representations, but
are themselves only modes of representation, and it is palpably
contradictory to say, that a mere mode of representation exists
without our representation. Objects of the senses therefore exist only
in experience; whereas to give them a self-subsisting existence apart
from experience or before it, is merely to represent to ourselves that
experience actually exists apart from experience or before it.
Now if I inquire after the quantity of the world, as to space and
time, it is equally impossible, as regards all my notions, to declare
it infinite or to declare it finite. For neither assertion can be
contained in experience, because experience either of an infinite
space, or of an infinite time elapsed, or again, of the boundary of
the world by a void space, or by an antecedent void time, is
impossible; these are mere ideas. This quantity of the world, which is
determined in either way, should therefore exist in the world itself
apart from all experience. This contradicts the notion of a world of
sense, which is merely a complex of the appearances whose existence
and connexion occur only in our representations, that is, in
experience, since this latter is not an object in itself, but a mere
mode of representation. Hence it follows, that as the concept of an
absolutely existing world of sense is self-contradictory, the solution
of the problem concerning its quantity, whether attempted
affirmatively or negatively, is always false.
The same holds good of the second antinomy, which relates to the
division of phenomena. For these are mere representations, and the
parts exist merely in their representation, consequently in the
division, or in a possible experience where they are given, and the
division reaches only as far as this latter reaches. To assume that an
appearance, e.g., that of body, contains in itself before all
experience all the parts, which any possible experience can ever
reach, is to impute to a mere appearance, which can exist only in
experience, an existence previous to experience. In other words, it
would mean that mere representations exist before they can be found in
our faculty of representation. Such an assertion is
self-contradictory, as also every solution of our misunderstood
problem, whether we maintain, that bodies in themselves consist of an
infinite number of parts, or of a finite number of simple parts.
§ 53. In the first (the mathematical) class of antinomies the
falsehood of the assumption consists in representing in one concept
something self-contradictory as if it were compatible (i.e., an
appearance as an object in itself). But, as to the second (the
dynamical) class of antinomies, the falsehood of the representation
consists in representing as contradictory what is compatible; so that,
as in the former case, the opposed assertions are both false, in this
case, on the other hand, where they are opposed to one another by mere
misunderstanding, they may both be true.
Any mathematical connexion necessarily presupposes homogeneity of what
is connected (in the concept of magnitude), while the dynamical one by
no means requires the same. When we have to deal with extended
magnitudes, all the parts must be homogeneous with one another and
with the whole; whereas, in the connexion of cause and effect,
homogeneity may indeed likewise be found, but is not necessary; for
the concept of causality (by means of which something is posited
through something else quite different from it), at all events, does
not require it.
If the objects of the world of sense are taken for things in
themselves, and the above laws of nature for the laws of things in
themselves, the contradiction would be unavoidable. So also, if the
subject of freedom were, like other objects, represented as mere
appearance, the contradiction would be just as unavoidable, for the
same predicate would at once be affirmed and denied of the same kind
of object in the same sense. But if natural necessity is referred
merely to appearances, and freedom merely to things in themselves, no
contradiction arises, if we at once assume, or admit both kinds of
causality, however difficult or impossible it may be to make the
latter kind conceivable.
As appearance every effect is an event, or something that happens in
time; it must, according to the universal law of nature, be preceded
by a determination of the causality of its cause (a state), which
follows according to a constant law. But this determination of the
cause as causality must likewise be something that takes place or
happens; the cause must have begun to act, otherwise no succession
between it and the effect could be conceived. Otherwise the effect, as
well as the causality of the cause, would have always existed.
Therefore the determination of the cause to act must also have
originated among appearances, and must consequently, as well as its
effect, be an event, which must again have its cause, and so on; hence
natural necessity must be the condition, on which effective causes are
determined. Whereas if freedom is to be a property of certain causes
of appearances, it must, as regards these, which are events, be a
faculty of starting them spontaneously, that is, without the causality
of the cause itself, and hence without requiring any other ground to
determine its start. But then the cause, as to its causality, must not
rank under time-determinations of its state, that is, it cannot be an
appearance, and must be considered a thing in itself, while its
effects would be only appearances.{36} If without contradiction we can
think of the beings of understanding [Verstandeswesen] as exercising
such an influence on appearances, then natural necessity will attach
to all connexions of cause and effect in the sensuous world, though on
the other hand, freedom can be granted to such cause, as is itself not
an appearance (but the foundation of appearance). Nature therefore and
freedom can without contradiction be attributed to the very same
thing, but in different relations—on one side as a phenomenon, on
the other as a thing in itself.
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{36} The idea of freedom occurs only in the relation of the
intellectual, as cause, to the appearance, as effect. Hence we cannot
attribute freedom to matter in regard to the incessant action by which
it fills its space, though this action takes place from an internal
principle. We can likewise find no notion of freedom suitable to
purely rational beings, for instance, to God, so far as his action is
immanent. For his action, though independent of external determining
causes, is determined in his eternal reason, that is, in the divine
nature. It is only, if something is to start by an action, and so the
effect occurs in the sequence of time, or in the world of sense (e.g.,
the beginning of the world), that we can put the question, whether the
causality of the cause must in its turn have been started, or whether
the cause can originate an effect without its causality itself
beginning. In the former case the concept of this causality is a
concept of natural necessity, in the latter, that of freedom. From
this the reader will see, that, as I explained freedom to be the
faculty of starting an event spontaneously, I have exactly hit the
notion which is the problem of metaphysics.
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We have in us a faculty, which not only stands in connexion with its
subjective determining grounds that are the natural causes of its
actions, and is so far the faculty of a being that itself belongs to
appearances, but is also referred to objective grounds, that are only
ideas, so far as they can determine this faculty, a connexion which is
expressed by the word ought. This faculty is called reason, and, so
far as we consider a being (man) entirely according to this
objectively determinable reason, he cannot be considered as a being of
sense, but this property is that of a thing in itself, of which we
cannot comprehend the possibility—I mean how the ought (which
however has never yet taken place) should determine its activity, and
can become the cause of actions, whose effect is an appearance in the
sensible world. Yet the causality of reason would be freedom with
regard to the effects in the sensuous world, so far as we can consider
objective grounds, which are themselves ideas, as their determinants.
For its action in that case would not depend upon subjective
conditions, consequently not upon those of time, and of course not
upon the law of nature, which serves to determine them, because
grounds of reason give to actions the rule universally, according to
principles, without the influence of the circumstances of either time
or place.
What I adduce here is merely meant as an example to make the thing
intelligible, and does not necessarily belong to our problem, which
must be decided from mere concepts, independently of the properties
which we meet in the actual world.
Now I may say without contradiction: that all the actions of rational
beings, so far as they are appearances (occurring in any experience),
are subject to the necessity of nature; but the same actions, as
regards merely the rational subject and its faculty of acting
according to mere reason, are free. For what is required for the
necessity of nature? Nothing more than the determinability of every
event in the world of sense according to constant laws, that is, a
reference to cause in the appearance; in this process the thing in
itself at its foundation and its causality remain unknown. But I say,
that the law of nature remains, whether the rational being is the
cause of the effects in the sensuous world from reason, that is,
through freedom, or whether it does not determine them on grounds of
reason. For, if the former is the case, the action is performed
according to maxims, the effect of which as appearance is always
conform able to constant laws; if the latter is the case, and the
action not performed on principles of reason, it is subjected to the
empirical laws of the sensibility, and in both cases the effects are
connected according to constant laws; more than this we do not require
or know concerning natural necessity. But in the former case reason is
the cause of these laws of nature, and therefore free; in the latter
the effects follow according to mere natural laws of sensibility,
because reason does not influence it; but reason itself is not
determined on that account by the sensibility, and is therefore free
in this case too. Freedom is therefore no hindrance to natural law in
appearance, neither does this law abrogate the freedom of the
practical use of reason, which is connected with things in themselves,
as determining grounds.
Thus practical freedom, viz., the freedom in which reason possesses
causality according to objectively determining grounds, is rescued and
yet natural necessity is not in the least curtailed with regard to the
very same effects, as appearances. The same remarks will serve to
explain what we had to say concerning transcendental freedom and its
compatibility with natural necessity (in the same subject, but not
taken in the same reference). For, as to this, every beginning of the
action of a being from objective causes regarded as determining
grounds, is always a first start, though the same action is in the
series of appearances only a subordinate start, which must be preceded
by a state of the cause, which determines it, and is itself determined
in the same manner by another immediately preceding. Thus we are able,
in rational beings, or in beings generally, so far as their causality
is determined in them as things in themselves, to imagine a faculty of
beginning from itself a series of states, without falling into
contradiction with the laws of nature. For the relation of the action
to objective grounds of reason is not a time-relation; in this case
that which determines the causality does not precede in time the
action, because such determining grounds represent not a reference to
objects of sense, e.g., to causes in the appearances, but to
determining causes, as things in themselves, which do not rank under
conditions of time. And in this way the action, with regard to the
causality of reason, can be considered as a first start in respect to
the series of appearances, and yet also as a merely subordinate
beginning. We may therefore without contradiction consider it in the
former aspect as free, but in the latter (in so far as it is merely
appearance) as subject to natural necessity.
As to the fourth Antinomy, it is solved in the same way as the
conflict of reason with itself in the third. For, provided the cause
in the appearance is distinguished from the cause of the appearance
(so far as it can be thought as a thing in itself), both propositions
are perfectly reconcilable: the one, that there is nowhere in the
sensuous world a cause (according to similar laws of causality), whose
existence is absolutely necessary; the other, that this world is
nevertheless connected with a Necessary Being as its cause (but of
another kind and according to another law). The incompatibility of
these propositions entirely rests upon the mistake of extending what
is valid merely of appearances to things in themselves, and in general
confusing both in one concept.
§ 54. This then is the proposition and this the solution of the whole
antinomy, in which reason finds itself involved in the application of
its principles to the sensible world. The former alone (the mere
proposition) would be a considerable service in the cause of our
knowledge of human reason, even though the solution might fail to
fully satisfy the reader, who has here to combat a natural illusion,
which has been but recently exposed to him, and which he had hitherto
always regarded as genuine. For one result at least is unavoidable. As
it is quite impossible to prevent this conflict of reason with
itself—so long as the objects of the sensible world are taken for
things in themselves, and not for mere appearances, which they are in
fact—the reader is thereby compelled to examine over again the
deduction of all our a priori cognition and the proof which I have
given of my deduction in order to come to a decision on the question.
This is all I require at present; for when in this occupation he shall
have thought himself deep enough into the nature of pure reason, those
concepts by which alone the solution of the conflict of reason is
possible, will become sufficiently familiar to him. Without this
preparation I cannot expect an unreserved assent even from the most
attentive reader.