phenomenal worlds are equally apparent in his discussion of motives. He
conceives the individual as phenomenal, to be determined solely by
pleasure and pain. The power of the moral law is manifest, therefore,
when its commands run counter to inclination, and the motive of respect
for the moral law conquers inclination. It is true to say that a man's
likes and dislikes in themselves are not to the point when we are asking
what he ought to do, but Kant sometimes speaks as though there could be
no moral value in an action which did not go against inclination. This
is perilously near that morbid theory of conscience which assumes that
the fact that an action would be very disagreeable to the agent is
itself proof that the proposal to perform it is the voice of conscience.
Here again we have to say that the fact that inclinations viewed merely
as inclinations have no moral value, does not show that, relatively to
the good will, one may not be better than another. There is nothing to
be proud of in the fact that we dislike doing our duty.
This sharp separation between the world of morality and science was
somewhat tempered in Kant's third _Critique_, which we shall examine in
the next chapter.
*CHAPTER VII*
*THE "CRITIQUE OF JUDGMENT"--AESTHETICS AND TELEOLOGY*
The _Critique of Judgment_ is at once the most interesting and the most
difficult of Kant's three _Critiques_. It seems to cover a much wider
ground than either of the two earlier _Critiques_. It concerns itself
with the relation of empirical investigation to the a priori principles
of understanding discussed in the first _Critique_, with an attempt to
bridge the gulf between the world of freedom and the world of nature as
described in the second _Critique_, with a discussion of the principles
of aesthetics and of the conflict between the rival claims of the
principles of mechanism and teleology, a conflict which, since the
discoveries of Darwin and the increasing interest taken in biology, is
becoming every day more important. On all these points Kant has much of
importance to say. Modern theories of aesthetic are mainly based on an
acceptance of the distinctions which he first laid down clearly. Much
modern philosophy of a type which is little in sympathy with the
doctrines of the first _Critique_--Pragmatism, for example--is an
elaboration of his account of the regulative principles which guide
empirical investigation, while speculation on the rival methods of
biology has hardly advanced beyond the solution suggested by Kant. Yet
the very suggestiveness of this book makes it hard to understand. It is
difficult to see the connection which Kant supposed to exist between
these very various problems. The form of the book, like the form of the
first _Critique_, is marked by subdivisions suggested by formal logic,
which seem to have little or no connection with the subjects discussed
under them, so that the whole is a curious combination of formal system
and discursive content. Kant himself regarded this _Critique_ as the
triumphant vindication of his whole system, in that it brought together
and reconciled subjects which he had previously distinguished too
sharply. Many later writers have thought rather that in it the
inconsistencies which they believe to exist in Kant's thought come to a
head.
We have not space here to vindicate the _Critique of Judgment_ as "the
crowning phase of the critical philosophy," as a recent writer has
called it, or to examine singly Kant's treatment of the various subjects
of interest with which it is concerned. It is important, however, to
follow the connection which Kant supposed to exist between these
different subjects. If we can understand that, we shall gain
considerable insight into Kant's system as a whole.
Kant names the book the _Critique of Judgment_, or, more exactly, the
_Critique of the Faculty of Judgment_. Judgment is distinguished from
understanding, whose principles are more peculiarly the subject of the
first _Critique_. The understanding, according to Kant, is the faculty
of rules. Judgment is shown in the application of rules to individual
instances. It is the element of individuality and spontaneity in all
thinking, for which no rules can be discovered. Judgment cannot be
taught, different men possess it in different degrees; it is akin to
genius. When, then, Kant turns to examine the faculty of judgment, he
is asking whether the mind, in dealing with individuals in all their
variety and difference, and in attempting to understand them, is guided
by any general rules or principles. The import of this question becomes
clear in his relation of it to the familiar question of causation. The
principle of causation, as we have seen, is, according to Kant, an a
priori principle of the understanding, and is assumed in all experience;
but it does not of itself enable us to determine in any particular case
what causes what. That is the task of empirical investigation, and
needs, as we know, the imagination and insight of the individual
investigator; in Kantian language, it is the work of the faculty of
judgment. Besides the a priori principle of causation, therefore, we
have an indefinite number of empirical causal laws. Kant asks whether
the scientist in investigating such laws, and more particularly in
considering their relation to one another, is guided by any principles.
He finds that the scientist assumes that this indefinite variety is
capable of being reduced to some kind of unity, assumes that there is
continuity in nature, that knowledge will not remain an aggregate of
disconnected rules. Chemistry, for example, has discovered that the
overwhelming variety of natural changes can be reduced to the action and
interaction of a small number of elements. The chemist proposes to go
on and see whether the different elements may not themselves be seen to
be forms of one substance.
These assumptions are, according to Kant, quite different from the
principles of the understanding. For the latter are grounds of the
possibility of experience. We cannot deny them without making experience
unmeaning. This cannot be said of the former. It obviously cannot be
essential to experience that the multiplicity of the laws of nature
should be reducible to unity, for such unity has never been discovered.
Experience has been quite possible without it. This distinction between
two kinds of principles Kant expresses by calling those with which we
are now concerned regulative. The purpose they serve is the regulation
and improvement of knowledge. They do not, like the principles of the
understanding, prescribe to nature. We assume in them that nature is,
in Kant's words, purposive to the understanding--that is, we first think
out what order of nature would be intelligible, and then look to see
whether we cannot discover in nature such an order. This assumption
does not prove that there is any such order, but in science we act as if
it were there to be found out.
This suggestion of Kant's has been elaborated in many modern writers on
philosophy, who have pointed out how much scientific method is governed
by the notion of the most easily intelligible theory, and they have
argued that science assumes, for the convenience of method, principles
which it never completely proves. These principles are called sometimes
methodological assumptions, sometimes postulates. The difference
between such modern writers and Kant is that the former think that all a
priori principles are of this nature, and that the principle of
causation, for example, is itself only a postulate.
The faculty of judgment, then, according to Kant, assumes for regulative
purposes that nature is purposive to our understanding. What does this
last phrase mean? We are often concerned to know the relation of things
to our purposes. It has been pointed out that very many of our
empirical concepts represent rather our practical interest in things
than our desire to understand them as they are. Kant's phrase implies
that, apart from any such relation to particular purposes, there is a
more general purpose of mere intelligibility, which some objects
obviously serve more than others.
Here we pass to the consideration of art, for in our judgments of beauty
Kant holds that we similarly disregard the relation of the beautiful
object to any particular purpose, and seem to be concerned with general
purposiveness. The judgment of beauty is, for Kant, the supreme act of
the faculty of judgment. It is reflection on an individual for its own
sake, without attempting to fit it to our desires or see it as an
instance of our concepts or rules. Kant therefore proceeds to examine
our judgments of beauty, which show how reflection on individual objects
may display general rules, and then proceeds, in the last part of the
_Critique_, to discuss the part played by the concept of purposiveness
in our understanding of nature.
It would seem at first sight that Kant is not interested in art for its
own sake, but for the light which it throws upon the nature of our
intellectual faculties. Nevertheless he is careful to insist on the
distinction between artistic and scientific judgments. The judgment of
beauty, he insists, is free, is not determined by a concept. We are not
concerned, in such judgments, with asking what an object is. In so far
as, in our appreciation of beauty, we bring in such considerations we
are wrong. He therefore rules out any theory that beauty is concerned
with faithful representation. Beauty consists in the form of an object,
and in nothing else. The judgment of beauty, besides being free, is
also disinterested. The relation of the beautiful object to our
purposes is irrelevant to its beauty. The judgment of beauty cannot,
therefore, be determined by rules of any kind. It is always individual
and immediate, and the immediate feeling of beauty counts for more than
any rules or canons of taste. Kant therefore vindicates art as
independent of either science or morality. Yet, once we realise its
independence, the nature of art throws light upon both science and
morality; for the judgment of beauty, although free and not determined
by concepts, claims universal validity. We might put Kant's point in
another way by saying that art is significant, and yet is not
significant of anything _in particular_. Its meaning cannot be reduced
to scientific statement nor abstracted from its form, and yet art has
meaning. Kant finds the explanation of the fact that the judgment of
beauty is free, and yet claims universal validity, in the suggestion
that a beautiful object is one the contemplation of which arouses and
enlivens the two faculties of the intelligence, the imagination and the
understanding, in their proper proportion or harmony. All knowledge
needs imagination, the power of seeing resemblances and differences in
objects, and understanding which by concepts gives unity and rules to
the imagination. In science the imagination is subordinate to the
understanding, for the aim of science is definiteness and precision. In
art the imagination is free, and yet art is not the mere seeing of
resemblances and differences; it also has its unity. It aims at the
best proportion of variety and unity. This is independent of the
varying natures of individual persons, and therefore the judgment of
beauty can claim to be universally valid.
Beautiful objects, then, are "purposive to the understanding," inasmuch
as their form stimulates in the most harmonious degree the two faculties
of intelligence, and in art we find proof that there is a principle of
general intelligibility, which may guide the work of the scientist. The
purpose of the scientist is quite different from that of the artist, but
if he is to reduce his facts to order and intelligibility he must be
guided by a principle which is seen in its pure form in the artist.
In the second place, an understanding of the nature of art has
significance for moral theory, because the judgment of beauty is
disinterested, and shows that pleasure may be independent of desire. In
aesthetic pleasure we are not merely determined by our inclinations, for
art is of all human activities free and creative. We enjoy art not
because it serves any of our individual desires and purposes, it is
enjoyed by something in us that is universal. Art, then, contradicts
the position which Kant assumes in the second _Critique_, that we cannot
follow pleasure without being slaves of our phenomenal nature. It is a
disinterested enjoyment, and is witness to the possibility of
disinterested pleasure in the good. Further, Kant held that in one kind
of aesthetic enjoyment, appreciation of the sublime, the contrast
between our weakness and the vast extent and overwhelming powers of
nature, calls forth in us a conviction accompanied by pleasure of the
yet greater might of the moral law within us. Art therefore may become
the symbol of morality, and the third _Critique_ does much to soften the
rigour of the teaching of the second.
In the last part of the _Critique of Judgment_ Kant applies his doctrine
of regulative principles to the understanding of nature. The faculty of
judgment, as we saw, is concerned with the attempt to give unity to the
detail of the natural world. In this work it has two regulative
principles, mechanism and teleology. Reality cannot be formed according
to both these principles; for mechanism assumes that reality can be
regarded as a pattern or complex of recurring or interchangeable parts
whose changes are necessitated, teleology that the world cannot be
explained without supposing purpose to be an operating agency in change.
Mechanism seeks to explain things as the necessary result of their
original condition, teleology in the light of their highest development.
The two principles have therefore been held to be inconsistent. The
scientist, jealous for the validity of his discovery of mechanism,
combats the very notion of purposive agency. The theologian thinks that
to admit mechanism anywhere is to give up his whole position.
Kant's solution of this antinomy is that both mechanism and teleology
are only regulative principles. They tell us nothing of the ultimate
nature of reality, except that we can explain much of it by regarding it
as if it were a machine, and much by regarding it as if it were the
field of purposive agency. Reality must be consistent with both these
facts, but more we cannot say. The moral is that we should continue to
treat them as regulative principles, and push each principle of
explanation as far as it will go.
Kant is here, as usual, the enemy alike of scientific and of theological
dogmatism. He will not allow any limit to be set to the work of
scientific investigation, and yet will not allow a principle of
scientific method to be converted from an explanation of perceived facts
into a theory of the universe.
Besides mediating between the conflicting claims of mechanism and
teleology, Kant also modifies the notion of teleology. When we think of
reality as purposive, we do not necessarily think of it as having a
definite purpose, as being subordinate, for example, to the well-being
of man. The principle of purposiveness arises properly, he holds, from
the contemplation of living things, from the perception of the
difference between an organism and a machine. An organism is purposive
in the sense in which a work of art is. In applying the principle we
are trying to understand reality as though the relation of all the
different things in it were like the relation of the parts of an
organism or a picture. But this principle, like the principle of
mechanism, does not carry us further than the facts we have examined,
for an organism or a work of art can only be understood by study of the
individual relations of all its parts. We can never know the universe
as an organism, for we can never know all its parts. We can understand
and put together more and more of them, but we never come to the end.
The third _Critique_, then, enforces the lesson of the first, that
knowledge is the work of individual finite minds, trying to understand
elements in a whole that transcends the limits of their experience,
pushing back the spatial and temporal limits which confine each
individual, but never removing them altogether. The critical philosophy
teaches the impossibility of absolute knowledge, but it does so not by
suggesting general scepticism of all knowledge, but by enforcing the
validity of scientific knowledge within its own limits.
*BIBLIOGRAPHY*
*TRANSLATIONS*
There are two accessible translations of the _Critique of Pure
Reason_--Meiklejohn (Bell & Co.) and Max Mueller (Macmillan).
Kant's ethical writings have been translated by Abbott (Longmans).
There is a translation of the _Critique of Pure Reason_ by Bernard
(Macmillan), and of the first part of it, the _Critique of AEsthetic
Judgment_, by Meredith (Clarendon Press). This last book has
introductory essays and notes.
The student beginning the study of Kant will find _Watson's Selections
from Kant_ (MacLehose & Sons) useful if he cannot read the _Critiques_
in full.
*COMMENTARIES*
The most useful small books on Kant are Adamson, _The Philosophy of
Kant_ (Blackwood), and Watson, _The Philosophy of Kant Explained_
(MacLehose). The best and most thorough work on Kant in English is
Caird, _The Critical Philosophy of Kant_, 2 vols. (MacLehose).
PRINTED IN GREAT BRITAIN