KANT[53]
=The Convergence of Philosophical Influences in Germany.= The
intellectual thoroughfare from the past into our modern times does
not pass in the eighteenth century through England, nor yet through
France, but by way of Germany. Traditional France ended with the French
political revolution, while the English empirical movement proved its
own inconsistency in the phenomenalism of Hume. In Germany alone, at
the close of the eighteenth century, there was a renewed and brilliant
intellectual life. In its creative productions it has been compared by
the Germans to the Systematic Period of Greek thought (from the death
of Socrates to that of Aristotle). Both periods appeared when the
political fortunes of the respective countries were at their lowest ebb.
There were six large influences that converged upon this epoch, some of
which we have already noted as beginning even as far back as the period
introductory to the Enlightenment (1648–1740) (see pp. 217 ff.). Some
are later in their origin or come from a foreign source. Let us merely
enumerate them here.
(1) Pietism, the religious influence that began with Spener (1635)
and swept Germany in the eighteenth century; (2) The sentimentalism
of Rousseau; (3) The empirical psychology of Locke among the younger
Germans; (4) The Rationalism of the Leibnitz-Wolffian philosophy, which
was most powerful in academic circles; (5) The mathematical rigorism of
the nature-philosophy of Newton; (6) The new literary writers in their
insistence upon subjectivity and intuition.
=The Three Characteristics of German Philosophy.= German philosophy
will be seen to have three characteristics. (1) It is scholastic or
academic. It is the philosophy of the professors of universities.
At the same time it must be said to be the expression of the social
genius of the German people. Napoleon testified to this when he said,
“The English inhabit the sea, the French the land, the Germans the
air.” (2) This German philosophy is mystical. It is profound rather
than external. It is not founded upon external experience, but upon a
questioning of the inner and spiritual life. It is inward, religious,
and spiritual, like the philosophy of Plato. One of the most accurate
interpreters of Kant has pointed out the many similarities between
Kant and Plato (see Paulsen, _Immanuel Kant_). (3) German philosophy
was nevertheless cosmic, or a description of the world. These men
whom we are now to study were not ignorant of the world or of science.
Political life offered them no attractions. The soul of man was
regarded by them as too noble to be engrossed in external things.
As Madame De Staël said of the time, “There was nothing to do save
for him whose concern was with the universe.” Men, however, took the
inner point of view, and regarded all things with reference to it.
The Germans tried to humanize the universe. They looked upon nature as
working out unconsciously those processes which consciously took place
in man. The contemplation of beauty is not that of an external world,
but of the inmost nature of reality. Thus individuality and cosmic
reality are one and the same. Life has a joyful outlook, not because
our tasks are easy, but because our strength is equal to them; for is
not God in us?
=The Two Periods of German Philosophy.= German philosophy is divided
into two epochs: (1) the period of the formation of the critical theory
of knowledge by Kant; (2) the period of the metaphysical development
of Fichte, Schelling, Hegel, Herbart, and Schopenhauer. Kant belongs
both to the Enlightenment and to German idealism. He is the point
of convergence of the intellectual forces that preceded him and the
point of departure of the idealists who followed him. For this reason
historians differ as to the period in which he is to be placed. In one
sense he is the transition from the Enlightenment, in another sense
he is the introduction of German idealism. But in reality he forms
an epoch between the two. Although the dualism, which was always the
background of the philosophy of the Enlightenment, formed too the
background of his thought, although he on the other hand looked upon
his _Critique of Pure Reason_ as only an introduction to a metaphysics,
which he never wrote, nevertheless he occupies a unique place in
drawing up for his time and for the future a new conceptual standard by
which the new problems might be criticised. The problem that Kant set
before himself was epistemological and not one of metaphysics.
After Kant there appeared a growth of metaphysics. The great
German idealistic systems appeared. At first the Kantian theory
was misunderstood, but at Jena, then the chief intellectual centre
in Germany, there was formed a little group of Kantians under the
leadership of Rheinhold. Jena is near Weimar (see map p. 280), which
was the main literary city of Germany, and the residence of Goethe.
The poetry of Weimar and the philosophy of Jena stimulated each
other. Schiller is a notable example of the influence of Kant upon the
literature of the time. In philosophy Kant was followed by the various
systems of Fichte, Schelling, Hegel, Herbart, and Schopenhauer, which
built a metaphysical superstructure upon the Kantian foundation.
=The Influences upon Kant.= The development of Kant’s thought was
modified by influences from at least five different sources.
1. _Pietism._ This was the earliest influence upon his life, and
was due to his parents and to F. A. Schultze, the teacher of the
high school of Königsberg. It will be remembered that this ethical
Puritanism was a moral reaction against the formalism of the churches
in the period after the Thirty Years’ War. Kant never lost his
attachment for the Pietists; and his later rigoristic ethical theory,
as well as his own personal life, sprang from his early Pietistic
training. Schiller wrote to Goethe, “There is always something about
Kant, as about Luther, which reminds one of the monk, who has indeed
quitted his cloister, but who can never quite rid himself of its
traces.”
2. _The Leibnitz-Wolffian Philosophy._ This influence came during his
academic training in the University of Königsberg, which he entered
upon at the age of sixteen years. This was in 1740, the same year in
which Frederick was crowned and Wolff was recalled to Halle,――the time
when the Leibnitz-Wolffian philosophy was at the fullness of control
of Germany. It must not be forgotten that this philosophy remained
dominant in German academic circles until Kant’s own theory supplanted
it in the nineties. Kant was an avowed disciple of the Wolffian school
for the next twenty years (until 1760), and he never shook off the
Wolffian metaphysical dualism.
3. _The Physics of Newton._ To his university training Kant was
indebted also for his acquaintance with Newton. The antagonism between
the metaphysics of Wolff and the physics of Newton was, at least at the
beginning of Kant’s career, of decisive importance in his development.
One of Kant’s teachers at the university was Martin Knutzen, whose
lectures included philosophy, mathematics, and natural science. Through
personal intercourse with Knutzen, the young Kant was introduced to the
Wolffian philosophy, and also to the Newtonian mathematics and physics.
During his activity as a teacher Kant showed, even into his later
period, a predilection for natural science, especially for physical
geography and anthropology. The same year in which he entered upon his
career as teacher in the University of Königsberg (1755), he published
his celebrated _Theory of the Heavens_, in which he anticipated Laplace
by forty years in the formulation of the nebular hypothesis.
4. _The Humanitarianism of Rousseau._ Kant got from Rousseau a new
evaluation of man. Kant had the advantage of a prolonged youthful
development. He was well into his thirties when the movement,
begun by Lessing, became a social force in Germany. A new political
consciousness appeared among the German people, due to the influence
of Frederick the Great and to that of the Frenchmen, Voltaire and
Rousseau. Kant was thirty-eight (in 1762) when he read Rousseau’s
_Emile_. Kant had been brought up in the common teaching of the early
part of the Enlightenment to despise the ignorant masses of people.
Through Rousseau he received in words of authority the conception of
the inherent dignity of the individual man. Through this conception
science and speculation came to have a new value to Kant. They were
no longer ends in themselves, but the means for moral development.
The moral in its primacy over the intellectual came to be a permanent
feature in Kant’s doctrine. His early Pietism was confirmed, and
Rousseau replaced Newton in his regard.
5. _The Skepticism of Hume._ The influence of Hume’s skepticism
was felt by Kant just before his eleven years of silence, when he
became engaged in his construction of his critical problem. But
Hume influenced Kant in a negative way. The classic and oft-quoted
expression of Kant, that Hume awoke him from his “dogmatic slumber,”
refers to the dogmatism of the empirical school to which Hume belonged,
and not to that of the rationalistic school of Wolff. To Kant both
empiricism and rationalism were dogmatic; the one because it assumed
the validity of sensations, the other because it assumed the existence
of innate ideas. Thus Hume effected a reaction in Kant against Hume’s
own doctrine. But in thus reacting from Hume, Kant saw that the answer
was to be found not in the rationalism of Wolff, but in an ideal
conception of space and time. Hume’s influence was the last before Kant
firmly established his theory of knowledge in his _Critique of Pure
Reason_.
=The Life and Writings of Kant= (1724–1804). The external changes in
the life of Immanuel Kant were the fewest possible. He was born at
Königsberg in 1724; he went to the school of that city and then to its
university, and then acted in the capacity of tutor in families in the
province of Königsberg. He became privat-docent in the university at
the age of thirty-one, and professor of logic and metaphysics at the
age of forty-four. He was called to the University of Halle in 1778,
but he refused to leave Königsberg. In fact, Kant never went outside
the province, and but little outside the city. Nevertheless, in the
eighties he saw himself become the most important figure in Königsberg,
and in the nineties the most important power in German academic circles.
In 1794 he came under the censure of the reactionary government of
Frederick William II and “was obliged to refrain in the future from
all public addresses on religion.” This was the only outer conflict in
his life. In 1804, at the age of eighty, he died. The externals of his
life were from the beginning to the end an undeviating routine,――his
lectures, his daily walk, his dinner with friends, his hours of
reflection upon his great problem. These have been made the subject
of many descriptions.[54]
The life of Kant is notable because it is the history of an unusual
singleness of devotion to the solution of a speculative problem. His
youthful point of departure was the rationalism of Wolff; his point of
attainment was the _Critique of Pure Reason_. Between these two points
his history was a series of mental reversals. Kant spoke of his life
as divided into two parts at the year 1770; his pre-critical and his
critical periods. At that time there was a change in the form as well
as the content of his writings. His pre-critical writings possess a
graceful, flowing style; his critical works are heavy and artificial in
their structure, and reveal the labor with which his thought tried to
reconcile contending _motifs_. So far as the content of Kant’s thought
is concerned the pre-critical period will be seen to fall into two
subdivisions at the year 1760. Kant’s life may therefore be divided
into three epochs: (1) 1724–1760, the period when he was a Wolffian
rationalist; (2) 1760–1770, the period when he was an empirical skeptic;
(3) 1770–1804, the period when he was a critical epistemologist.
In the first period he accepted the rationalism of Wolff, but his main
interest, as shown by his writings, was in natural science. He was
inspired by the natural philosophy of Newton, which, in the latter part
of this period, led him to mistrust the metaphysics of Wolff. That is
to say, he began to suspect that the mere logical operation of concepts
by the “pure reason” could not be a statement about things in the real
world. In the next ten years――his second period――he became convinced
that the metaphysics of the rationalists was impossible, and yet that
the metaphysics of the empirical school of the English was equally
absurd. His writings during this time are more strictly devoted to
questions of metaphysics and epistemology. Then came his critical
period. This was inaugurated by his celebrated Dissertation of 1770,
followed by a period of eleven years of literary silence, a silence
broken by the publication of his _Critique of Pure Reason_ in 1781.
Between 1781 and 1790 appeared the more mature works from Kant’s pen.
Among them were the _Critique of Practical Reason_ (1788) and the
_Critique of Judgment_ (1790), formed on the model of the _Critique
of Pure Reason_. Besides these, his minor writings were very numerous,
and one notes an essay by him in the last year of his life. But the
writings of Kant after 1790 treat in the main of the philosophy of law
and conduct, and show themselves to be the writings of his declining
years.
=The Problem of Kant.= The problem which Kant placed before himself
was that of epistemology. Epistemology is the theory of knowledge,
and Kant set to work to investigate the knowing process. The peculiar
significance of Kant rests upon the fact that out of the various
influences converging upon him and his time he matured a new conception
of the problem and of the method of procedure of philosophy. He was
convinced that the problem of his time was not one of metaphysical
speculation, although he felt the value of such speculation in the
regions of religion and morals. Yet he saw that the metaphysical
rationalism of Wolff had proved itself inadequate because it was
merely the logical operation of concepts, and had not dealt with
real relations. He was equally sure that the empirical metaphysics
of the Englishmen was inadequate because it was never certain of any
truth. Rational metaphysics was logically true, but not real; empirical
metaphysics was real enough, but never true. So Kant determined to find
out the relation between the logical process of thought and the reality
of things. He felt that the first problem in his time to be faced and
settled was the problem of knowledge,――the epistemological problem.
He planned to face later the metaphysical problem, but he delayed this
until too late in his old age. The problem of Kant can be put in the
simple question, What can we know? The metaphysical problem that he
deferred was, What is real? Yet his problem was not nearly so simple as
this statement would seem to make it; for the epistemological problem
which he set himself was complicated by the Wolffian metaphysical
dualism which he always presupposed. Since Kant agreed with the
Wolffian dualism――the theory that a great gulf separates mind and
matter――his query about knowledge was not the simple question, What can
we know? but the longer question, What can we know about the external
world?
=The Method of Kant.= There is bound up with the epistemological
problem a new method of procedure in solving it. How shall we find
out what we can know? Kant calls his method the critical method. It is
not only a criticism in a general sense, in that it weighs carefully
the conditions of knowledge. It is also criticism in the special
sense of confining itself to a restricted field. Kant pointed out that
two methods may be employed, the dogmatic and the transcendental. He
asserted that the dogmatic method had been employed in the past and had
proved itself fallacious. What is the dogmatic method? All philosophy
was dogmatic to Kant which sought to find out what knowledge is true
by showing how it originated and developed. Dogmatism is no solution;
it is merely a psychological tracing of ideas to their sources.
These sources will be either innate ideas, if we are rationalists,
or sensations, if we are empiricists. _The true method is the
transcendental or critical method._ What is this method? It is a study
of the nature of the reason itself. It is an examination of the “pure
reason” to see if its judgments have in any instance a universality
beyond human experience, and yet are necessary to human experience.
The logic of such judgments must be absolutely reliable; and yet at
the same time the judgments must be applicable to the world of things.
The method being transcendental, such judgments are transcendental; not
because they transcend our experience, but because they are necessary
to experience. The transcendental is not what is chronologically but
what is rationally _prior_. The transcendental is the indispensable
to knowledge. The critical method is the finding of this indispensable
condition. Kant would search the whole field of the reason for this.
Since to Kant thinking, feeling, and willing are the fundamental forms
of the reason, he sought the realm of thought for the transcendental
principles of knowledge, that of the will for the transcendental
principles of morality, that of feeling for the transcendental
principles of beauty.
=The Threefold World[55] of Kant――Subjective States,
Things-in-Themselves, and Phenomena.= In his search for those
indispensable conditions of knowledge of the external world, Kant
unfolds the threefold character of the realm of human life. To Wolff
the world had been twofold. In other words, Wolff had conceived the
world as dual, in which there was a correspondence, part by part, of
independent reality to the states of consciousness. To Wolff reality is
independent of consciousness, and yet we are conscious of that reality.
Now Kant never gave up entirely the Wolffian dualism, but he came to
see that in such a situation there could be no knowledge. For how can
we be conscious of what is absolutely independent of us? Consequently
Kant plundered the Wolffian worlds of independent realities to build
up an intermediate world,――a world of phenomena. He dissolved the
sharpness of Wolff’s dualism into a world with three divisions; and he
gave to each division a new epistemological value. These were the realm
of the subjective states or the inner consciousness of the individual,
the world of phenomena or the realm of knowledge, and the world of
absolute reality or that of things-in-themselves. The value of the
world of phenomena consists in its being the realm of knowledge. The
other two realms have values of their own, which we shall describe
below.
Wolff’s twofold world may be thus compared with Kant’s threefold
world:――
Wolff. Kant.
1. Mind. 1. Subjective states.
2. Phenomena――the realm of knowledge.
2. Matter. 3. Things-in-themselves.
1. The realm of subjective states evidently is not a realm of knowledge.
For it is the realm of intuition and immediate apprehension of the
individual’s own ideas and sensations; and this is not what we mean by
knowledge. This subjective world is that in which I live alone. It is
a realm of which nobody else is conscious, a realm which gives to me
my individuality. The only connecting linkage between my various purely
subjective states is the accidental order of time in which, empirically
or by association, they occur. Animal intelligence possesses only
such sense-perceptions and sensations, and these are modifications of
its subjective consciousness. Such a mental constitution has not the
capacity for knowledge, but only the haphazard association of ideas.
Kant looked upon the content of subjective consciousness as the object
only of psychological investigation.
2. The realm of things-in-themselves is not to Kant the realm of
knowledge. By things-in-themselves Kant distinctly does not mean
things-for-us, not material bodies, not nature objects. It must be
remembered that Kant has plundered the material realm of the dualist.
The things-in-themselves which are left behind as a residuum lie
outside all sense-perception and so beyond all knowledge. A divine
intelligence might have the things-in-themselves as objects of
knowledge, but not we human beings. The thing-in-itself is the unknown
and unknowable. But if this realm of things-in-themselves is so
absolutely independent of us that we cannot in any way know it, how
can we say that it exists? Kant replies to this: while we cannot say
_what_ a thing-in-itself is, we are obliged to say _that_ it is. For
although beyond even our sense-perception, it stands as a necessary
postulate to perception, as a mere “problem.” Kant also calls
things-in-themselves Noumena, and regards them as “limiting concepts”
to the divine non-sensuous intelligence. Their reality is as little to
be denied as affirmed.
3. Kant pointed out that between or beside the realm of subjectivity
and that of the things-in-themselves lies the realm of human knowledge,
which we in our every-day speech call physical nature, and to which he
gave the name “the world of phenomena” or “the world of experience.”
The subjective world is apprehended by the individual alone, the world
of things-in-themselves is known by no human being, but the world of
phenomena is the common object of knowledge of humanity. Phenomena are
not things-in-themselves, but things-for-us; they are physical nature,
an interrelated totality for us. They constitute not absolute reality,
but a reality relative to us. Phenomena are experiences in their
relations; such related experiences are objects of knowledge, and in
their thoroughly organized and systematic form they constitute nature.
Thus the dualism which we ordinarily meet, like the “two world” theory
of Wolff, has many differences from this critical theory of Kant with
its threefold divisions of one world. One of the most important is that
in Kant’s theory the correspondence between states of consciousness
and reality has disappeared. Reality touches consciousness only at
one point,――at that point where sensations arise. Sensations mark
the boundary between unknown reality and conscious life. On the side
of reality all is darkness; on the side of conscious life all is the
creation of our complex synthetic activity. With the boundary line of
sensation as a base, the two realms extend in opposite directions. In
value the realm of our conscious life is only relative; that of reality
or things-in-themselves is absolute.
=The World of Knowledge.= There is this to be observed about the
threefold realm of Kant: the realm of subjectivity and that of
knowledge together make up our conscious life. One is the realm of
the conscious individual, and the other the realm of the consciousness
of humanity. Kant conceived this further distinction between the two
realms: in a purely subjective state the mind is entirely passive
and its content is without control; in a state of knowing the mind is
actively engaged in collecting and relating its ideas. This is called
by Kant synthesis.
When Kant was formulating his problem, there gradually came to him
in clearer outline the synthetic nature of the activity of the human
reason. He felt more and more that the secret of the knowing process
was to be explained by its function of combining many experiences into
a unity. This conception of synthesis is what separates the _Critique
of Pure Reason_ from all the previous writings of Kant. Furthermore,
the three books of the _Critique_ are expositions of the different
stages in which mental synthesis completes itself: in (1) perception,
(2) understanding, and (3) reason. The knowing activity of man develops
in these three different forms of synthesis, in which each lower stage
is the content of the higher.
What, then, is the central factor in knowledge? It is the synthetic
power of the mind. The mind is not merely passively aware of its
sensations as they come _seriatim_, but it actively relates them
and holds them together. The mind is a dynamic agent whose activity
consists in synthesizing in the present moment its experiences of the
past. The human mind is not like a curtain upon which stereopticon
pictures appear and then disappear in turn. It retains its pictures,
although they are no longer being thrown upon the screen. Suppose we
hear the ticking of a clock. Now if we had no synthetic power, all we
should apprehend would be one, one, one,――and so on. But we do have
synthetic power, and we say one, two, three, and so on. We count in
a series in which each term includes the preceding term. Two includes
one, and three includes two, etc. This is knowledge. It is cumulative
experience. The experience of twenty animals, each having one
experience, is not the same as the experience of one man having twenty
experiences. In vain would nature act on man if the mind of man through
memory and imagination did not carry over experiences. So the important
thing is not what happens, but what power the human mind has. Knowledge,
then, to Kant is the unifying of the manifold.
There are, therefore, two aspects to knowledge; the passive sensations
and the active power of synthesis. Sensations, on the one hand, are the
raw material out of which reason through its various forms creates the
finished fabric of knowledge. Sensations are the content of knowledge.
On the other hand, there is the active unifying power of the reason.
_Knowledge consists of sensations and synthesis in conjunction._ Reason
alone deals with “thought relations” or imaginations, whenever it
tries to treat objects of which sensations are not the raw material.
Sensations alone, however, are only subjective states. The oft-quoted
sayings of Kant, that “Only in experience is the truth,” and that
“Conception without perception is empty, perception without conception
is blind,” refer to the restriction of knowledge to the sense-materials
and to the synthetic function of the reason.
=The Place of Synthesis in Knowledge.= What position does synthesis
occupy in the total process of knowledge? Is synthesis one of the
factors or elements of knowledge? Is synthesis on the same level
with the sensations, the feelings, the imaginations? No, it is very
different. The synthesis that Kant is describing is not the product
or conclusion from an inference. Kant does not mean by synthesis the
combination of facts as a result, such as a biologist might make in
framing the law of the habits of animals from his observation of them.
The synthesis that Kant is talking about is not so much the result of
combining experiences _as the act of combining them_. The frame of the
unified manifold, the law of its unification, the act of binding the
isolated experiences together is synthesis. Synthesis occupies a higher
level than the elements of knowledge or knowledge itself. Synthesis is
the knowing process rather than the known product. It is constitutive;
it is creative; it conditions experience and puts the material of
experience together. It must not be thought to be a voluntary act of
the mind, which the mind will or will not do, as it pleases. When the
mind acts, it synthesizes.
Furthermore, the synthetic functioning of all human minds everywhere
is the same. However much their sensations differ, they combine
and orderly arrange their sense-materials in the same ways. The
synthesis of the human mind is the source of the universality belonging
to knowledge; the sensations, the “given,” are the source of the
difference in knowledge. Knowledge is the result of minds that function
in absolutely the same ways; and we should never have knowledge if the
order and linkage of the world depended on the accident of experience.
Take, for example, such laws as those of mathematics or the physical
law of cause. These are the same for everybody. They are universal
laws. The ordinary conception of them as independent principles of
an independent nature world will not account for their necessity for
everybody and their universality. As independent principles they would
differ for different peoples just as sensations differ. In that case we
should have no knowledge. Human beings could not then think about the
same things, nor reason under the same guiding principles. However, we
do think alike, we have the same geometry, the same physical laws, the
same time-estimates; and simply because we function alike synthetically.
Knowledge is thus the common possession of humanity because the
synthetic functioning of the different individual men is identically
the same.
A very good way to get at Kant’s central principle of synthesis is to
draw this picture. Suppose that besides the race of human beings with
its own peculiar way of ordering its world, there were a race of angels
endowed with its own powers, another of hobgoblins likewise endowed
with its own powers, and so on to x, y, and z races――any number you
please. What would be the situation? In the first place, each one of
the groups would be absolutely isolated from each of the others. No
one would have the power to know even the existence of the others. No
one race would even have anything in common with the others. The world
of each would be different. In the next place each would be trying
to interpret reality, and in doing so, each would construct and order
a world of reality of its own. The members of each race would have a
world in common and the members would know one another. But that is
all. The members of each race would not be able to get outside their
own powers of synthesis. In Holy Writ the home of the angels has been
sometimes described as having no time and space, but this means only
that space and time are aspects of our mental synthesis and not of
theirs. We live in our world of our interpretative construction of
reality, and they in theirs. The same would have to be said of x,
y, and z. None would live in a world of absolute reality. But each
would live in a world made different from all the other worlds by the
differing mental powers of each race. Yet the members of each race
would inhabit a world in common because the individuals of each had
common mental powers. The particular world that human beings inhabit
is called physical nature, whose laws are known as the laws of science.
How can it be _one_ world in which so many millions of different human
beings live? Because these millions of human beings are under the same
fundamental rational laws, and they construct the world in a common
fashion. The laws of nature are, after all, the laws of our own minds.
They are the laws of reason. The laws of nature are not the laws of
absolute reality, but the laws of the human interpretation of reality.
All the linkage of facts, all the law and order of our universe, all
the combination of the variety of objects of knowledge――in a word,
the entire body of science or the world of physical nature is a human
mental synthesis. Does independent absolute reality exist? Yes; but
it exists behind the scenes for us as for the angels. Mental synthesis
is constitutive of the world in which we are actually engaged――mental
synthesis is shot through and through all our experiences. Mental
synthesis is the framework of the universe, and therefore Kant says,
“The world is my representation.”
=The Judgments Indispensable to Human Knowledge.= It will be seen
from the above discussion that Kant does not believe that an idea or a
sensation taken by itself constitutes knowledge. Knowledge consists of
sensations framed together in a synthesis. That is, ideas must be taken
together with other ideas. This is called in grammar a proposition,
having a subject and a predicate. In logic it is called a judgment.
The only way a human being can express knowledge is in the form of
judgments, but all judgments of human beings are not necessarily
knowledge.
Judgments are divided by Kant into two large classes,――analytic and
synthetic. The large class of analytic judgments are not expressions
of knowledge. What is an analytic judgment? An analytic judgment merely
expresses in the predicate something that is contained in the usual
meaning of the subject. Such a judgment articulates the meaning of
an idea by emphasizing some of its well-known attributes. Thus we
say, “Gold is yellow.” Such a statement about “gold” does not show
any knowledge. It is called sometimes an explicative statement. It
is tautologous, but not on that account trivial. Let us look then to
synthetic judgments to see if they express knowledge. But first, what
is a synthetic judgment? A synthetic judgment is one in which the
predicate is not contained in the usual meaning of the subject. It is
a statement of something new about the subject in hand. For example,
the judgment, “The watch is yellow” is a synthetic judgment because the
predicate “yellow” is not a necessary part of the meaning of “watch.”
A synthetic judgment therefore brings two ideas together in a new
relation. It thereby enriches knowledge and is the expression of
discovery. The synthetic judgment is often called ampliative. (The
double meaning which Kant gives the term “synthetic” need not confuse
us. Synthesis is used by Kant to mean the framing constitution of
the mind, and also as one of the results of the activity of the mind,
_i. e._ a class of judgments. In the first sense all judgments, both
analytic and synthetic, are expressions of synthesis.)
Are all synthetic judgments expressions of knowledge? Kant replies
that they certainly are not. He points out that there are two classes
of synthetic judgments: one class he calls _a posteriori_ and the
other _a priori_. By _a posteriori_ he means judgments founded in some
sense-perception, which are particular judgments or judgments that
are inferences from a greater or less induction of sense-perceptions.
For example, if I say, “To-day is warm,” or that “Swans, so far
as I have observed, are white,” I am making a synthetic judgment,
because I am joining two ideas in a new relation, and I am also
making an _a posteriori_ judgment, because it is a statement founded
upon sense-perception. Now Kant rules such judgments out from those
that constitute true knowledge. This would rule out even empirical
generalizations of high probability, such as “The sun rises in the
east.” _A posteriori_ judgments, or those founded on experience,
however large, do not give us knowledge, but merely probability. The
cases upon which such judgments are founded are always limited, and
there may be exceptions beyond our observation.
The only kind of judgments that are the expression of true knowledge
must, therefore, be synthetic judgments that are _a priori_. That
is to say, they must express some new relation between ideas that
is also universally and necessarily true. By _a priori_ Kant means
the universal and necessary; and, furthermore, he maintains that the
universal and necessary, and nothing else, constitutes knowledge. He
points out that we make such judgments. When we say that the three
angles of a triangle equal two right angles, or that every event has
a cause, we are saying something universal and necessary, something not
founded on experience. No one would admit that there were exceptions
to these propositions. The question, then, that Kant tries to answer
in his _Critique of Pure Reason_ is, How are synthetic judgments _a
priori_ possible? Or since to Kant knowledge consists of synthetic
judgments _a priori_, under what conditions is knowledge possible?[56]
For the sake of clearness, let us state this problem of Kant in another
way. It is the nature of man to try by mere thinking to discover the
nature of reality. The dogmatic school of Rationalists had attempted,
without calling in experience to its aid, to weave out of pure thought
answers to the questions about God, immortality, and nature. It had
maintained that clear and distinct notions have a reality corresponding
to them, and are therefore real. Judgments formed in this way are
analytic _a priori_; but it is evident that while such analyses of
thought have a cogency for thought, they do not necessarily have
a corresponding reality. On the other hand, conclusions based on
experience have a kind of validity for the real world, but they yield
no certain truth about it. These are synthetic judgments _a posteriori_.
If Hume is right in saying that these are the only judgments dealing
with nature, then we have no certain truth about nature. They give
generalizations that are useful on the whole, but their conclusions
range only from possibility to high probability, and never reach
certainty. Besides (1) conceptual knowledge and (2) “knowledge of
matters of fact,” Kant pointed out that there is a third kind. This
is the only valid kind. This knowledge is based on synthetic judgments
_a priori_. Such knowledge arises independently of experience, _i. e._
is _a priori_, and yet is valid for experience, _i. e._ is synthetic.
Hume’s statement that such knowledge is synthetic _a posteriori_ is
not accepted by Kant. Kant is, therefore, bound to show how this third
class of synthetic judgments _a priori_ is possible, and how pure
thought can be binding on experience.
=The Proof of the Validity of Human Knowledge.= If we turn now to
review what we have said about Kant, we find that he undertakes to
solve the problem, _How can we know?_ by a critical study of the
forms of the reason. We have found that the reason is essentially a
synthetic power, and is the framework of the world of phenomena to
which knowledge is limited. Knowledge is the complex thing, consisting
of sensations as its woof and synthesis as its warp. To answer the
question, Under what conditions is knowledge possible? we must study
not sensations, but synthesis in its several forms. If Kant can show
that the mind furnishes the _a priori_, that is, the universal and
necessary forms to knowledge, he thinks he has proved his case. He
has then explained why human knowledge is valid and thus proved that
human knowledge _is_ valid. Now Kant tries to show what the special
_a priori_ forms of knowledge are and in what the validity of such
forms consists. In the first book of the _Critique of Pure Reason_,
the _Æsthetic_, he undertakes to show what the _a priori_ forms of
mathematics are and how they make knowledge valid by being forms of
mental synthesis. In the next part of the _Critique_, the _Analytic_,
he tries to show what the _a priori_ forms of the knowledge of physical
science are and how they make physical science valid and objective.
In the last part, the _Dialectic_, he discusses the _a priori_ forms
of the reason and shows why they have no validity in knowledge. These
are three stages in which the knowing activity develops as three
different forms of synthesis. The stages are perception, understanding,
and reason. Each higher stage has the lower as its content. Finished
knowledge involves perceptions, reproductions in the understanding,
and a recognition of the whole by a thinking subject. Perception,
understanding, and reason are not separate acts, but different levels
of one consciousness. These will be taken up in succession.
=1. In What does the Validity of Sense-Perception Consist?= Kant points
out:
(1) Sense-perception has (a) a content of sense qualities, like sound,
color, etc., and (b) the relations of space and time.
(2) Space and time originally belong to the subject as its forms of
sense-perception, and are not introduced from without by experience.
(3) By means of space and time _a priori_ knowledge is possible.
If there is any validity in perceptual knowledge, it depends upon
the constitution of space and time; not upon the character of the
empirical content, or the sensations. The question about the validity
of sense-perception, then, is a question about the reliability of
mathematics.
There are two elements in sense-perception: a necessary and constant,
and a changing and accidental. Space and time are the constant element.
They are homogeneous, and always one and the same in quality. They are
unities, for there is only one space and one time, and the many spaces
and times are only divisions of this oneness. All the differences in
space and time are due to the relation and movements of bodies, and
are not inherent in space and time themselves. How is this unity and
homogeneity of space and time to be explained? By assuming that space
and time are original and uniform functions of perception, the forms
of perception, the ways of apprehension, the “prehensile organs of our
sensibility.” They are the ways in which we synthesize on the lower
level of consciousness. If they were given in experience, there is no
reason why the several spaces and times should not be intrinsically
different, like different bodies with different qualities. However,
by conceiving them to be mental syntheses in the level of perception,
they explain the universality of the laws of mathematics. They are
the colored spectacles that all human beings wear; or, to use another
figure, they are the mould into which all sensations are run. Being the
unchangeable forms of our sensuous receptivity, they have a validity
for the entire compass of perception. They are universal because one
experience of space and time is valid for all spaces and times; they
are necessary because we cannot think of objects apart from them; they
are perceptual syntheses because they increase knowledge. Of course we
are unconscious of this perceptual synthesis of the sensory elements
in space and time. The process takes place automatically. We can
nevertheless analyze the process after it has taken place, and speak
of the sensations as the materials of knowledge, and the forms of
space and time as the _a priori_ elements. But in actual conscious
experience, sensations never come to us in their rawness. They are
never turned over to the understanding unless they bear the stamp
of space and time. The process of knowledge, therefore, starts with
complex material――complex because it has been synthesized below
consciousness. In other words, perceptions come into the process of
knowledge with two aspects: (1) their permanent and necessary form;
and (2) their accidental and changing content.
=2. In What does the Validity of the Understanding Consist?= Kant’s
discussion of the synthesis of the understanding is given in the
_Analytic_, the second part of his _Critique_. His treatment of the
understanding is similar to that of perception. The understanding, be
it remembered, is regarded by Kant as the second stage in the process
of a complete synthesis of knowledge. It is synthesis on a higher
level than perception. Indeed, perception is the material which the
understanding synthesizes. As in the _Æsthetic_ Kant seeks to show:
(1) the _a priori_ factors of the understanding and (2) that these _a
priori_ factors give to knowledge its validity. The unifying principle
of perception is the mathematical; but physical nature, which is
the subject-matter of the study of the understanding, is more than
mathematical, more than an aggregate of space and time forms, more than
shapes and motions. Nature exists as a connected system of substances,
causes, etc. Natural science possesses besides its mathematical basis
a number of general _a priori_ principles for the validity of its
conclusions.
Kant’s task was therefore only begun by showing that perception
possesses the universal and synthetic principles of space and time.
Perception is only the beginning of knowledge. It is not knowledge, but
only subjective consciousness. On the other hand, the understanding is
the faculty of knowledge, and therefore Kant seeks to point out its _a
priori_ or universal elements, and by their presence prove its validity.
Since the days of Aristotle the general terms used in reasoning
have been called categories. Any class-term or genus may be called a
category. There are certain _summa genera_, the most extensive classes
or classes with the lowest connotation, that have been traditionally
known as categories, because everything that can be affirmed in
a judgment must come under some one or other of them. Aristotle
names ten,――substance, quality, quantity, etc. But these Aristotelian
categories are classes of analytical relations, such as formal logic
treats. They are the classes of the attributes and relations into
which objects may be analyzed. These evidently are not what Kant
is seeking. He is in search of synthetic categories. He is looking
for the synthetic forms of the understanding itself, which transform
perceptions into objects of knowledge. He is not looking merely for
abstract conceptions. For ideas become nature objects only when they
are thought as things with qualities universal to every human mind.
The understanding creates out of the perceptions the objects of thought
which form the nature-world; and the categories of the understanding
are the constitutive principles of such objects. The categories are
the relating forms of synthesis through which objects arise. The
most difficult part of the _Critique_ is called the “Deduction of
the Categories,” in which Kant attempts to derive the synthetic forms
of the understanding from the various kinds of judgment. Kant’s list
is curious but unimportant, and only two of these categories are
useful,――substance and cause. He divides the categories into four
general kinds and enumerates three categories of each of these kinds,
as follows:――
Categories of Quantity,――Unity, Plurality, Totality.
Categories of Quality,――Reality, Negation, Limitation.
Categories of Relation,――Substance, Cause, Reciprocity.
Categories of Modality,――Possibility, Existence, Necessity.
These categories occupy the same position in the understanding
that space and time do in the perception,――they are the _a priori_
principles. In respect to them the perceptions are the _a posteriori_
material. The categories are pure, innate, and transcendental. They
are the inner nature of the understanding. Thus the objects of the
understanding contain both _a priori_ and _a posteriori_ factors, and
are syntheses of manifolds. Perception synthesizes sensations, while
the understanding synthesizes perceptions, and states the synthesis in
the form of a judgment.
Having named the _a priori_ forms of the understanding, how does
Kant show that by their means our knowledge of nature has validity?
Because when the understanding functions, it prescribes these forms
to perception. Impressions would remain vague and formless, if we did
not think them; by means of thought we weld impressions into objects
and give them a coherent reality. This is exactly what is meant by
understanding. If nature were an independent thing and prescribed
laws to the understanding, the laws would never be universal and
necessary. The universality of the laws of nature can be explained
only by supposing that the understanding prescribes its laws to nature,
not to nature as a Thing-in-Itself, but only so far as it appears
in sense-perception. Universal and necessary knowledge of nature
is possible only if the connections and relations of nature are
absolutely identical with the modes of thought. The categories of the
understanding have objective validity, therefore, because the laws of
the understanding are the fundamental laws of nature. The understanding
has given such laws to nature. _A priori_ and therefore universal and
necessary, synthetic and therefore creative, the world consists of
objects under laws of the understanding. There are as many kinds of
natural objects as there are categories of the understanding.
If we will examine what we call the world of nature, we shall find
that many of its objects have never been perceived. Man has only
partly explored the earth, and there are vast regions in space that
he has never seen. He has never seen the South Pole, and the North
Pole only recently; he has never seen the other side of the moon, and
there are myriads of stars beyond even the reach of his telescope.
These are not perceptible things, and yet they are the objects of
the understanding――objects of knowledge. How is it possible? It would
not be possible if the laws of nature were limited to the empirically
perceived facts. It is possible because the laws of the understanding
are the laws of nature and apply everywhere, whether the thing is
actually perceived or not. The moon must have another side because the
human understanding conceives all substances in this way; the law of
cause and effect obtains beyond the stars, and at the South Pole, even
though they have never been perceived. The world of physical objects,
or in other words the world of objects of the understanding, consists
of both possible and actually perceived objects. If the laws of nature
were prescribed by nature to the mind, then the world of objects would
consist only of actually perceived objects.
But look at the world of nature a little more closely. It is one whole
world with very many things in it. Why is this the case? Would it
ever be so if our knowledge of the world was simply a reproduction of
what the world presented to us? Of course not. There would be as many
different worlds as there are human beings. The wholeness, the oneness
of our world of many things to many individuals indicates not only that
the understanding is the source of the laws of the world, but also that
the faculties of understanding in all the millions of human beings have
a transcendental unity. Knowledge has therefore a stronger proof of its
validity, since what is knowledge for one human being is knowledge for
all. Every individual man is conscious of the contrast between his own
subjective world and the world of knowledge which he shares with other
men. His own ideas have a movement of their own and have no validity
beyond themselves; the ideas which he shares with others, however, are
valid for all others because these ideas are beyond the control of any
one man. Each individual man has to acknowledge this control of his
knowledge as residing in something beyond himself. The categories of
each man’s understanding coöperate exactly with those of every other
man. The individual man is not actually conscious of this process of
coöperation in experience, but he accepts the objective necessity of it.
The individual consciousness is not therefore the creator of
the objects of knowledge; rather consciousness in general――the
consciousness of humanity――is the creator. Kant is not a solipsist,
but an idealist. A higher consciousness, a super-conscious Self, must
be assumed to explain the compactness of human knowledge. Kant does
not call this super-conscious Self the “soul” or “spirit,” but the
“I think” or the “transcendental ego,” or by the more clumsy phrase
“the transcendental unity of apperception.” He contrasts it with what
he calls the “empirical ego” on the ground that it is the ego always
identical with itself, rather than the Self at this or that particular
moment. It is the Self as thinker rather than the Self as thought about.
The super-conscious Self is always self-active and never dependent
upon empirical conditions. It must be accepted as the postulate of all
knowledge. It is the universal Self, and through it the categories of
the human understanding become universalized. Just as space and time
are the unifying forms of synthetic consciousness on its lower level;
just as the categories of the understanding are the unifying forms of
the synthetic consciousness on a higher level; so the universal Self
must be postulated to explain the universality of the categories. It is
a postulate only because it, not known in experience, is necessary to
explain the unity of knowledge. This theoretical conception of the Self
by Kant is thus very different from the traditional notion of the soul.
=Has the Reason by Itself any Validity?= When Kant calls his criticism
the _Critique of Pure Reason_, he uses the term “Reason” in a wide
sense as the whole knowing process. In the _Dialectic_ he treats the
Reason in a narrow sense, as if it were a special faculty like the
perception or understanding. This is, of course, a confusing use of
terms, like his use of the term “Synthesis”; but it should cause no
difficulty provided the two uses are known beforehand. The term “Ideas”
is also used in two senses. In this place it has a special use. While
usually an idea means any thought, here it means the synthetic form of
the special faculty of the reason, just as the categories are the form
of the understanding, and space and time the form of sense-perception.
The synthetic forms of the Reason are the three Ideas, viz., God, the
soul, and the totality of the universe.
What is the office of this special faculty of the Reason and its
Idea-forms? They represent Kant’s way of stating the natural tendency
of the human mind to get from its knowledge the greatest possible unity
with the greatest possible extension. Consciousness is a synthesis
which is never satisfied in being partial and incomplete. The partial
syntheses of its faculties of perception and understanding do not
satisfy it. Perception and understanding tell us nothing about God,
about the soul, and about the totality of the universe, for these
faculties are fettered to experience. Yet God, the soul, and the
totality of the universe are very important matters. So the Reason
leaps over the boundaries of experience, and thinks it is justified
in poaching in the territory forbidden to knowledge. The Reason is
not content with the partial and relational knowledge of mathematics
and of physical science, but it would deal with the unrelated and the
unconditioned. Indeed, we need only search our own minds to see how
true Kant is to fact. We find that we ourselves are not satisfied with
conditioned things, which must be explained by other conditioned things.
On the contrary, we long to know the absolutely unconditioned, which
alone will explain all conditions. We are forever seeking to make our
synthesis complete, and to render a rational and complete account of
what is nevertheless impossible to our knowledge.
Now it is evident that the Ideas of the Reason are not indispensable
to knowledge in the sense that the categories of the understanding and
the forms of sense perception are indispensable. Cause, time, and space
enter into all knowledge. Physical and mathematical laws exist as facts,
and need no proof for their existence. Kant asked about them, “How are
synthetic _a priori_ judgments possible?” But concerning the judgments
of the Reason, he asks a different question: not _How_ are they
possible, but _Are_ they possible?
The Reason and its three Ideas give what Kant calls transcendent
knowledge in distinction from the transcendental knowledge of the
understanding and its categories. By transcendent knowledge he
means that which is beyond the limits of possible experience; while
transcendental knowledge refers to knowledge about the necessary
principles of experience. Kant, however, is willing to acknowledge that
the Ideas of the Reason have a legitimate use. They are “regulative
principles” in that, by showing what our limitations are, they also
show that human knowledge is not the final goal. Their illegitimate
use appears when they make a show of being true knowledge. Both science
and theology will be the gainers when the Ideas are no longer used
illegitimately. Kant says that he has destroyed knowledge of God and
the soul “in order to make room for faith.”
=The Idea of the Soul.= Rational psychology had taught that the soul
had direct and intuitive knowledge of itself. From the time when
Descartes formulated his famous “_Cogito ergo sum_,” this conception
of self-consciousness has been popular. I can have myself as the direct
object of my own thought. Upon the basis of such assumed intuitive
knowledge that each soul has of itself, the Rationalists had ascribed
the qualities of simplicity, substantiality, spirituality, and
immortality to the soul.
Kant denies that we have any such self-knowledge. If we turn back to
his definition of knowledge we find it to be a synthesis of a manifold.
Knowledge, to be knowledge, must (1) be based upon sensations, and on
that account (2) consist only of phenomena. The soul is not phenomenal,
but the deepest kind of reality. How can I have knowledge of my
soul? The soul is spiritual and not phenomenal, even according to the
Rationalistic philosophy. Therefore the soul is precluded from being
an object of knowledge. Furthermore the Rationalists’ conception of
the soul as simple and immortal would make it an impossible object of
knowledge. An object of knowledge is not simple, but is the unity of
a manifold. The unifying or synthesizing function is not an object to
itself. Sensations are synthesized by space and time into perceptions;
but space and time are not objects for the sensations. In understanding,
therefore, the “I think,” which synthesizes the perceptions into
judgment, cannot be an object for the understanding.
Kant points out that we must be careful to distinguish between
the transcendental and the empirical ego. We have referred to this
distinction already. In Kant’s criticism of knowledge he maintained
that there must be postulated a “synthetic unity of apperception,”
if knowledge is possible. But such an ego is only a postulate; we
can have no knowledge of it nor can we say what it is. We know that
the immediacy of experience or the sameness of knowledge from moment
to moment demands this. This is the transcendental ego, a kind of
universal synthetic background.
But this is different from the empirical ego, which I can know as an
object of experience. The empirical ego is what I can know of myself at
any time――a group of sensations, feelings, or thoughts. Now such groups
change from moment to moment. My knowledge of myself consists only of
my momentary, changing self. This changing self is not the immortal,
simple, and identical soul of which the Rationalists have been speaking.
The empirical self is complex and transitory; it is an object of
knowledge, and it is not therefore the same as the immortal soul. “I
think I” is impossible. “I think me” is possible. To make the “I” an
object is to commit a fallacy.
=The Idea of the Universe.= The contradiction in reasoning about
matters beyond the test of experience appears sharply with reference to
problems about the world as a totality. The inherent self-contradiction
of the reason attracted Kant’s attention very early with reference
to the problems of infinity. Such self-contradictions were put into
final shape by Kant in the _Critique_ in the four following so-called
antinomies:――
(1) The antinomy of creation. Thesis: The world must have a beginning
in time and be inclosed in finite space. Antithesis: The world is
eternal and infinite.
(2) The antinomy of immortality (or the simple). Thesis: The world is
ultimately divisible into simple parts which cannot be further divided.
Antithesis: The world is composed of parts subject to further division,
and no simple thing exists in the world.
(3) The antinomy of freedom. Thesis: There is freedom; there are
phenomena that cannot be accounted for by necessity. Antithesis: There
is no freedom, but everything takes place entirely according to the
necessary laws of nature.
(4) The antinomy of theology. Thesis: There is a necessary being either
as part or as cause of the world. Antithesis: There exists neither
within nor without the world an absolutely necessary being.
Critics have pointed out that these problems as thus stated by Kant are
not altogether cosmological problems, but include the contradictions of
psychology and theology; that is, all the contradictions of the Reason
when it is used dialectically. They show how both Rationalism and
Empiricism, as metaphysical theories, are in their nature contradictory.
When the universe is treated as an object of knowledge, contradictory
propositions can be maintained. The contradictories are both proved
and refuted. In respect to the first two antinomies, both theses and
antitheses are false; in respect to the last two, both theses and
antitheses may be true, if they refer to different worlds. If the Ideas
are applied only to the world of phenomena, they involve inexplicable
contradiction. The Idea of free will and unconditioned being may apply
to the world of Noumena; while the Idea of necessity and conditioned
being may apply to the world of phenomena.
=The Idea of God.= The Idea of the soul involves us in a
paralogism, the Idea of the universe as a whole involves us in
inextricable difficulties and contradictions; the Idea of God cannot be
demonstrated. Kant does not deny that God exists. He merely maintains
that we cannot make God an object of knowledge. The Idea of God is to
Kant the expression of the need of the Reason for a perfect unity.
In one of his earlier writings Kant had constructed a conception of
God, which is the same as appears in the _Critique_. God, purely as
a conception, is constructed by Kant as the sum total of reality, the
_ens realissimum_, who so includes all finite qualities in Himself that
they do not limit Him. He is the primal cause of the possibility of
all being. Now, can such an Idea have objective validity? No; the Idea
of a sum total of all that is conceivable is not an object of possible
experience. Only particular things or phenomena are realities for
us. God as the transcending total of particular things can have only
a conceptual reality and a validity for thought. The total has the
reality that any idea has. This is Kant’s general criticism of the
dialectic Idea of God.
But the general conception of God had played so important a part in
traditional philosophy that Kant felt it necessary to examine the three
important intellectual proofs for His existence in order to show their
falsity.
He takes up first _the ontological proof_ of God’s existence, which
originated with St. Anselm and had been accepted by the Rationalists.
The Idea of God is the idea of a perfect being. A being would not be
perfect who did not exist. Therefore the Idea of a perfect being must
include the quality “existence” among its predicates. The essence
of God must involve His existence, because the unreality of the _ens
realissimum_ cannot be thought. Kant replies thus: “Being is no real
predicate.” It is not a quality like love, power, or goodness, for it
adds nothing to the content of the subject. “A hundred dollars contains
no more content than a hundred possible or conceptual dollars.” We
cannot reason from the concept of the actual to its existence. The only
test of actuality is perception.
_The cosmological proof_, which Kant examines next, is an argument
from the existence of contingent phenomena to the existence of an
unconditioned reality. There must be some uncaused cause of existing
caused phenomena. Kant’s reply is this: Cause has no meaning if it
is applied beyond the bounds of experience. Within experience all
causes are the results of causes, and therefore an uncaused cause is a
contradiction in terms. Every existing thing is contingent. A necessary
being can be only a thought, and would not be powerful. It would not be
as powerful as a very great finite being which had existence.
_The physico-teleological argument_ comes next under Kant’s criticism.
This argument is based upon the inference that intelligent design found
in nature implies an intelligent designer of nature. Kant replies as
follows: Even granting that the world exhibits the design of beauty,
goodness, and purpose in its construction, such a beautiful, good, and
purposeful world would only prove the existence of an architect and
not the existence of a creator. Kant points out, however, that this
proof is the oldest, clearest, and the most popular; and he thinks it
deserves to be treated with respect on that account. The wonder and
magnificence of nature must free man from the oppression of any subtle
argument against the significance of nature. Nevertheless Kant feels
that this proof lacks intellectual cogency; for it is possible that
nature is freely acting and has power within itself.
The conclusion of the _Dialectic_, in which the Reason attempts through
its Ideas to soar beyond experience, is that such speculation has never
added to our knowledge. Mere conceptual thought cannot be knowledge of
the reality of the soul, God, and the world. Still, the Ideas of the
reason are an integral part of the human mind, and they must have their
purpose. They cannot be verified by experience, in which alone is truth,
but they can regulate experience. They are “regulative Ideas” in that
our experience is better governed if we act as if there were a soul,
as if God existed, and as if the world were a totality of related
things. Moreover, while speculation cannot prove the existence of God,
the immortality of the soul, and the freedom of the will, atheistic
speculation is unable to prove the contrary of all these propositions.
The Ideas of the Reason clear the way for faith based on morality.
=Conclusion.= The _Critique of Pure Reason_ is what its name
implies,――a criticism of our conscious powers. It points out the limits
and extent of human knowledge. In one sense, it is constructive; for
it establishes against skepticism the conclusion that knowledge has a
validity within its own limits. In another sense, it is destructive;
for it shows against dogmatism how futile our intellectual striving is
to explore many regions that have been considered the proper realm of
knowledge. No knowledge is possible that is transcendent――no knowledge
beyond the limits of experience. Experience ties our mental powers to
itself. Experience is the boundary of the understanding. Reality, the
Things-in-Themselves, are unknown and unknowable. But transcendental
knowledge is possible. Within experience there are the transcendental
factors that on the one hand transform sensations into phenomena, and
on the other give to these phenomena a validity for all mankind. These
transcendental factors make knowledge reliable, but they add not one
whit to its content. On account of these transcendental factors we
can be rational with one another and members of one world of humanity.
The value of knowledge is not lessened, but is defined. Our world of
phenomenal existence is now accurately assessed as a world of relative
reality. It is placed in its proper perspective. It is seen as our own
_interpretation_ of what is really real. This is very important; for
although the restricted form of our mental powers withholds us from
knowing reality, we may nevertheless think it. The pure intellection
of reality will be of value, if in some other way its contents can be
assured. Kant now points out that this assurance is found in the moral
will.
=The Problem of the Critique of Practical Reason: The Ethics of Kant.=
“Two things fill the mind with ever new and increasing admiration
and awe, the oftener and the longer we reflect upon them: the starry
heavens above and the moral law within.” In this classic sentence
Kant showed that he had no desire to humiliate the theoretical
reason, which is the understanding. He was merely assigning it to its
place among the powers of man, in order that it might do its proper
work more efficiently. The world of morality and the starry heaven
impressed Kant equally. Kant would not have the understanding chasing
will-o’-the-wisps. After his criticism of the understanding he turned
to the will, or as he calls it the practical reason, and criticized
its functions and scope. This ethical teaching of Kant appears in his
_Metaphysic of Morality_ and in the _Critique of Practical Reason_.
His early Pietistic education, his reading of Rousseau, his study
of the English moralists, influenced his theory of morals; while
his investigations into the history of civilization, his theoretical
philosophy, and his independent analysis of the ethical feeling marked
the route which his ethical development took. The world of morality
to Kant has primacy. In his theory it is the real world, for compared
to it the world of scientific phenomena, the world of the theoretical
reason, is relative.
The central idea in Kant’s theory of morals is that rational
spontaneity is exactly the same as freedom. This contrasts his
theory with Hedonism. The value of man’s life depends on what he does
spontaneously, not on what happens to him. This idea of freedom is the
central thought in all Kant’s discussions of society. In his theory
of government the republic is to be preferred to the monarchy, because
of the opportunity to its citizens of spontaneous freedom; in religion
the true church is composed of free beings worshiping God freely; in
education self-activity is the sole principle of growth. Ethics is
a system of the pure rational laws of freedom, just as science is a
system of the pure rational laws of nature. If ethics has real validity
its laws must be, as in science, _a priori_ or derived from the reason
itself, and synthetic or applicable to experience everywhere. If the
moral law be valid it must be indifferent as to its content, and yet
valid for all content irrespectively. The source of the principle
of morals is thus the same as that of science: it is _a priori_. The
principle of morals is universal in its application to experience,
just as the _a priori_ synthesis of knowledge is. However, just at that
point the difference is to be seen between the foundation of science
and that of morals――between the reason as pure and the reason as
practical. Reason in the form of knowledge is restricted to experience;
but reason in the form of the will, while applicable to experience,
is not restricted to experience. If the understanding is without the
content of experience, it is empty and useless. The understanding must
always be a synthesis of a manifold. On the other hand, the practical
reason needs no content. It is sufficient in itself. It need not be
obeyed anywhere nor have any concrete content in the phenomenal world.
It has no reference to what is but to what _ought to be_. The world
of morality and the world of phenomena are different worlds. The world
of morality is absolute reality, while the world of knowledge is only
relative. The world of morality is the unconditioned, while that of
knowledge is conditioned by experience. Morality applies not only
to human beings, but to all rational beings, if any other rational
beings exist. Knowledge, however, belongs to human beings alone. The
moral law has not its home in the empirical, but in the transcendent,
intelligible world, which to knowledge would be the world of
Things-in-Themselves.
=The Moral Law and the Two Questions concerning It.= The questions
of the _Critique of Practical Reason_ are the same as those of the
_Dialectic_: (1) Is there any _a priori_ synthesis? This is not the
question of the _Analytic_, which is, How is an _a priori_ synthesis
possible? (2) Can the human being be moral and still be a part of the
world of phenomena and necessity? We shall now comment on the first of
these problems. If the will has validity, it must be the expression of
some universal and necessary principle. Can we find any such _a priori_
principle in our consciousness?
1. _The First Question concerning the Moral Law._ If we search our
consciousness, we shall find that there are two classes of incentives
to action. The first are called the inclinations, or perhaps better
the impulses. We may will because we desire to gain something, of use,
pleasure, perfection, etc. Such an act of will is dependent upon the
object that arouses it. Such an act of will would not be an example
for any one else; for the circumstances that called it forth would be
likely to be different in each case. For example, there is no consensus
as to pleasure among individual men; and what is pleasant to one
is unpleasant to another. The same is true about objects of use and
ambition. In all these matters judgment does not help us in making our
selection, for people who are the most discriminating often are the
most unhappy and useless. All these things are indeed goods, but they
are goods for the moment――goods that are dependent on something else,
and not goods in themselves. They are legitimate ends enough, but they
are so transitory that they cannot be valid. It is evident that when
the will is governed by inclination, it is governed by an empirical
(_a posteriori_), and not by a universal and necessary (_a priori_)
principle. Such empirical principles are called by Kant hypothetical
imperatives.
Let us look to the reason itself to see if the principle of its
practice lies there; for it is certain that we shall not find the
principle of universal validity for our will among our impulses.
The reason is a spontaneous synthesis. It is a fact that any one
may verify who will search his consciousness――that man may will from
reason. The will may be impelled from within, and need not be compelled
from without. The will may be an imperative in itself, proclaiming
its right because it is reasonable, justifying itself because it is
reasonable, functioning because it is the function of reason. Then
is the will the expression of reason. It is the reason in practice.
The will is unconditioned and free because it is the unconditioned
reason acting. It is then autonomous. It has then validity because the
reason is universal and necessary. This kind of willing Kant calls the
categorical imperative. It is the moral law. It is a law unto itself,
and it is the only basis for morality because it is the universally
valid reason.
The categorical imperative is unique――there is nothing like it in
human nature. It is the one kind of willing that has absolute validity;
and that is because it is unique in having itself for its own end. The
conscience may be said to be its expression in the individual. Kant
formulates the valid command of the moral law as, “Act as if the maxim
from which you act were to become through your will a universal law
of nature.” The various maxims of morality, like “Thou shalt not lie,”
occupy the same position to the will that the categories do to the
understanding. They are the forms of the moral will. Actions should
proceed from maxims rather than from impulses, and the moral maxims are
adapted for all beings who act rationally. A specific act may become
good because the moral law, that inspires it, is good. Nevertheless
“nothing can possibly be conceived in the world or even out of it,
which can be called good without qualification, except a good will.”
The virtues or the gifts of fortune may be good and desirable; they
may also be evil and mischievous, if they are not the expression of the
moral will.
2. _The Second Question concerning the Moral Law._ This leads us to
the answer to the second question, How can such a purely necessary and
universal principle be effective in human life? Of what service to man
is a principle so formal that if the inclinations coöperate with it,
the act is no longer moral? The moral law is not only transcendental,
but it is transcendent, for it does not have experience as its content.
It is its own content. It is independent of all experience in three
ways: (1) In origin, it contains only a formal principle; (2) In
content, it contains only a formal principle; (3) In validity, it is
not concerned as to whether it is obeyed or not; it declares what ought
to be, even if what ought to be is never done. The question always
arises about Kant’s ethics, Of what service can such a remote and
formal principle be? Morality takes place in the world of experience;
and here is Kant’s principle of morality existing in the world of
unconditioned reality. Of the usefulness of such a principle Kant’s
explanation is not fully satisfactory. His ethics is fundamentally a
rigorism, from which he is unable to escape. Duty and inclination are
in antagonism. Only those acts of will are moral which are performed
solely from the sense of duty. In themselves the natural inclinations
are indifferent; when they oppose the moral will, they become bad; only
when they are inspired by the moral will are they of ethical service.
Moral action is therefore narrowed to that in which the imperative of
duty is consciously paramount.
“The friends whom I love, I gladly would serve, but to this
inclination incites me;
And so I am forced from virtue to swerve, since my act through
affection delights me.
The friends, whom thou lovest, thou must first seek to scorn,
for to no other way can I guide thee;
’Tis alone with disgust thou canst rightly perform the acts to
which duty would lead thee.”[57]
=The Moral Postulates.= Kant’s ethical theory points away from the
phenomenal world rather than toward it. To be sure, the natural
inclinations take the color of the moral law when they are inspired
by it; but the moral law tells us of the world of reality rather than
of the world of phenomena. The moral law shows to man that he is more
a resident of the world of reality than of that of phenomena. Man’s
nature is dual. Of its two sides――the theoretical and the moral――the
moral is primary. Fundamentally man is a willing agent rather than
a thinking being. He is a phenomenal being, bound to the laws of
natural necessity; but he is also a real unconditioned being, because
the unconditioned reason is his real self. What was implicated in
the _Critique of Pure Reason_ becomes explicit in the _Critique of
Practical Reason_. The understanding hints at what the will makes
plain. Human knowledge is a mixture of transcendental understanding and
empirical sensations. God’s knowledge would be pure understanding; the
knowledge of the brutes is pure sensations. Human morality, however,
contains a dualism; for the practical morality of man consists of
the formal moral law inspiring the sensibilities although not heeding
them. The will as pure reason is the activity of God; the will as pure
impulses is the activity of brutes. But the true realm of man is this
world of reason in which he is one with God, although he is at the same
time hampered by being part of the world of phenomena.
=1. The Postulate of Freedom.= The unconditioned moral law is the
basis of freedom for which all scientific knowledge seeks in vain. An
unconditioned will is a free will. The will based upon the reason is
based upon itself and is therefore free. The consciousness of the moral
law within us implies freedom in its exercise. The “I ought” implies
“I can.” We can have no knowledge of freedom, for in the eye of the
understanding only causal necessity rules. But the reason commands
as well as knows. It states what ought to be as well as what is. Its
mandate implies freedom, as its knowledge states existence. When we
will, we act as if we were free, and our freedom is a postulate which
cannot be proved to the understanding. Freedom is not an object of
knowledge, but an act of faith. Freedom as a postulate is the condition
of morality, and the primacy of the will over the pure reason is shown
in the fact that it can guarantee what the understanding cannot prove.
=2. The Postulate of the Immortality of the Soul.= The goal of the
inclinations is happiness. The goal of the will is virtue. There is
no relation or correspondence between the two in this world. A man
may be happy and still not virtuous; he may be virtuous and not happy.
Since a man belongs to both the world of free spirits and the world of
necessity, he is thwarted in reaching for his highest good in this life.
His highest good is the union of virtue and happiness. If this is to be
attained, another life must be guaranteed. Yet this is only a postulate
and not a proof. When man wills, he wills as if he were an immortal
being.
=3. The Postulate of the Existence of God.= Faith in reaching forward
must postulate God, as alone able to vouchsafe future harmony between
goodness and happiness and alone able to distribute justly the rewards
and punishments that are so disproportionate in this world. When I
will, I will _as if_ God existed. When I will, I create by my willing
my freedom, my immortality, and God’s existence. But because my will is
an unconditioned law of my real being, my faith in these things is well
founded.[58]