THE REGULATIVE PRINCIPLE OF PURE REASON IN REGARD TO THE COSMOLOGICAL
IDEAS[1562]
The principle of pure Reason, correctly formulated, is that when the
conditioned is given a regress upon the totality of its conditions is
_set as a problem_. As such it is valid,
“...not indeed as an _axiom_ ... but as a _problem_ for the
understanding ..., leading it to undertake and to continue,
according to the completeness in the Idea, the regress in the
series of conditions of any given conditioned.”[1563]
It does not anticipate, prior to the regress, what actually exists as
object, but only postulates, in the form of a rule, how the
understanding ought to proceed. It does not tell us whether or how the
unconditioned exists, but how the empirical regress is to be carried out
under the guidance of a mere Idea. Such a rule can be regulative only,
and the Idea of totality which it contains must never be invested with
objective reality. As the absolutely unconditioned can never be met with
in experience, we know, indeed, beforehand that in the process of the
regress the unconditioned will never be reached. But the duty of seeking
it by way of such regress is none the less prescribed.
Kant proceeds to give a somewhat bewildering account of the familiar
distinction between _progressus in infinitum_ and _progressus in
indefinitum_, and to draw a very doubtful distinction between the series
in division of a given whole and the series in extension of it.[1564]
The illustration from the series of human generations is an unfortunate
one; the discovery that it began at some one point in the past would not
necessarily violate any demand of Reason. Such a series is not
comparable with those of space, time, and causality.[1565] The only
important result of this digression is the conclusion that whatever
demand be made, whether of regress _in infinitum_ or of regress _in
indefinitum_, in neither case can the series of conditions be regarded
as being given as infinite in the object.
“The question, therefore, is no longer how great this series of
conditions may be in itself, whether finite or infinite, for it is
nothing in itself; but how we are to carry out the empirical
regress, and how far we should continue it.”[1566]
We have already noted[1567] Kant’s ambiguous suggestion in A 499 = B
527, that in the empirical regress there can be no lack of given
conditions. The statement, thus interpreted, is illegitimate. The most
that he can claim is that, were further sensations not forthcoming, we
should still have to conceive those last obtained as being preceded by
empty space and time, and as lacking in any experienced cause. Under
such circumstances we should experience neither finitude nor
unconditionedness, but only incapacity to find a content suitable to the
inexhaustible character of the spatial and temporal conditions of
experience, or in satisfaction of our demand for causal antecedents. In
A 514-15 = B 542-3 Kant shows consciousness of this difficulty, but in
dealing with it adopts a half-way position which still lies open to
objection. He recognises that, since no member of a series can be
empirically given as absolutely unconditioned, a higher member is always
_possible_, and that the search for it is therefore prescribed; none the
less he asserts that in regard to _given wholes_ we are justified in
taking up a very different position, namely, that the regress in the
series of their internal conditions does not proceed, as in the above
case, _in indefinitum_, but _in infinitum_, _i.e._ that in this case
more members _exist and are empirically given_ than we can reach through
the regress. In given wholes we are commanded to _find_ more members; in
serial extension we are justified only in _inquiring_ for more. This
half-way position is a makeshift, and is in no respect tenable. The
evidence for the infinite extensibility of space and time is as
conclusive as for their infinite divisibility. And when we consider
sensuous existence under these forms, it is just as possible that the
transcendental object may, beyond a certain point, fail to supply
material for further division, as that it may fail to yield data for
further expansion. What Kant asserts of the latter, that further advance
must always remain as a possibility, and for that Reason must always
call for the open mind of further inquiry, without any attempted
anticipatory assertion either _pro_ or _contra_, alone represents the
true Critical standpoint. The cessation of data may really, however, be
due to an increase in the subtlety of the conditioning processes that
incapacitates them from acting upon our senses;[1568] by indirect means
this disability may be overcome. Reason, in its conception of an
unconditioned, prescribes to us a task that is inexhaustible in its
demands. We have no right to lay down our intellectual arms before any
barrier however baffling, or to despair before any chasm however empty
and abrupt.