Solution of its Transcendental Problems
To avow an ability to solve all problems and to answer all questions
would be a profession certain to convict any philosopher of extravagant
boasting and self-conceit, and at once to destroy the confidence that
might otherwise have been reposed in him. There are, however, sciences
so constituted that every question arising within their sphere must
necessarily be capable of receiving an answer from the knowledge
already possessed, for the answer must be received from the same
sources whence the question arose. In such sciences it is not allowable
to excuse ourselves on the plea of necessary and unavoidable ignorance;
a solution is absolutely requisite. The rule of right and wrong must
help us to the knowledge of what is right or wrong in all possible
cases; otherwise, the idea of obligation or duty would be utterly null,
for we cannot have any obligation to that which we cannot know. On the
other hand, in our investigations of the phenomena of nature, much must
remain uncertain, and many questions continue insoluble; because what
we know of nature is far from being sufficient to explain all the
phenomena that are presented to our observation. Now the question is:
Whether there is in transcendental philosophy any question, relating to
an object presented to pure reason, which is unanswerable by this
reason; and whether we must regard the subject of the question as quite
uncertain, so far as our knowledge extends, and must give it a place
among those subjects, of which we have just so much conception as is
sufficient to enable us to raise a question—faculty or materials
failing us, however, when we attempt an answer.
Now I maintain that, among all speculative cognition, the peculiarity
of transcendental philosophy is that there is no question, relating to
an object presented to pure reason, which is insoluble by this reason;
and that the profession of unavoidable ignorance—the problem being
alleged to be beyond the reach of our faculties—cannot free us from the
obligation to present a complete and satisfactory answer. For the very
conception which enables us to raise the question must give us the
power of answering it; inasmuch as the object, as in the case of right
and wrong, is not to be discovered out of the conception.
But, in transcendental philosophy, it is only the cosmological
questions to which we can demand a satisfactory answer in relation to
the constitution of their object; and the philosopher is not permitted
to avail himself of the pretext of necessary ignorance and impenetrable
obscurity. These questions relate solely to the cosmological ideas. For
the object must be given in experience, and the question relates to the
adequateness of the object to an idea. If the object is transcendental
and therefore itself unknown; if the question, for example, is whether
the object—the something, the phenomenon of which (internal—in
ourselves) is thought—that is to say, the soul, is in itself a simple
being; or whether there is a cause of all things, which is absolutely
necessary—in such cases we are seeking for our idea an object, of which
we may confess that it is unknown to us, though we must not on that
account assert that it is impossible.[58] The cosmological ideas alone
posses the peculiarity that we can presuppose the object of them and
the empirical synthesis requisite for the conception of that object to
be given; and the question, which arises from these ideas, relates
merely to the progress of this synthesis, in so far as it must contain
absolute totality—which, however, is not empirical, as it cannot be
given in any experience. Now, as the question here is solely in regard
to a thing as the object of a possible experience and not as a thing in
itself, the answer to the transcendental cosmological question need not
be sought out of the idea, for the question does not regard an object
in itself. The question in relation to a possible experience is not,
“What can be given in an experience in concreto” but “what is contained
in the idea, to which the empirical synthesis must approximate.” The
question must therefore be capable of solution from the idea alone. For
the idea is a creation of reason itself, which therefore cannot
disclaim the obligation to answer or refer us to the unknown object.
[58] The question, “What is the constitution of a transcendental
object?” is unanswerable—we are unable to say what it is; but we can
perceive that the question itself is nothing; because it does not
relate to any object that can be presented to us. For this reason, we
must consider all the questions raised in transcendental psychology as
answerable and as really answered; for they relate to the
transcendental subject of all internal phenomena, which is not itself
phenomenon and consequently not given as an object, in which,
moreover, none of the categories—and it is to them that the question
is properly directed—find any conditions of its application. Here,
therefore, is a case where no answer is the only proper answer. For a
question regarding the constitution of a something which cannot be
cogitated by any determined predicate, being completely beyond the
sphere of objects and experience, is perfectly null and void.
It is not so extraordinary, as it at first sight appears, that a
science should demand and expect satisfactory answers to all the
questions that may arise within its own sphere (questiones domesticae),
although, up to a certain time, these answers may not have been
discovered. There are, in addition to transcendental philosophy, only
two pure sciences of reason; the one with a speculative, the other with
a practical content—pure mathematics and pure ethics. Has any one ever
heard it alleged that, from our complete and necessary ignorance of the
conditions, it is uncertain what exact relation the diameter of a
circle bears to the circle in rational or irrational numbers? By the
former the sum cannot be given exactly, by the latter only
approximately; and therefore we decide that the impossibility of a
solution of the question is evident. Lambert presented us with a
demonstration of this. In the general principles of morals there can be
nothing uncertain, for the propositions are either utterly without
meaning, or must originate solely in our rational conceptions. On the
other hand, there must be in physical science an infinite number of
conjectures, which can never become certainties; because the phenomena
of nature are not given as objects dependent on our conceptions. The
key to the solution of such questions cannot, therefore, be found in
our conceptions, or in pure thought, but must lie without us and for
that reason is in many cases not to be discovered; and consequently a
satisfactory explanation cannot be expected. The questions of
transcendental analytic, which relate to the deduction of our pure
cognition, are not to be regarded as of the same kind as those
mentioned above; for we are not at present treating of the certainty of
judgements in relation to the origin of our conceptions, but only of
that certainty in relation to objects.
We cannot, therefore, escape the responsibility of at least a critical
solution of the questions of reason, by complaints of the limited
nature of our faculties, and the seemingly humble confession that it is
beyond the power of our reason to decide, whether the world has existed
from all eternity or had a beginning—whether it is infinitely extended,
or enclosed within certain limits—whether anything in the world is
simple, or whether everything must be capable of infinite
divisibility—whether freedom can originate phenomena, or whether
everything is absolutely dependent on the laws and order of nature—and,
finally, whether there exists a being that is completely unconditioned
and necessary, or whether the existence of everything is conditioned
and consequently dependent on something external to itself, and
therefore in its own nature contingent. For all these questions relate
to an object, which can be given nowhere else than in thought. This
object is the absolutely unconditioned totality of the synthesis of
phenomena. If the conceptions in our minds do not assist us to some
certain result in regard to these problems, we must not defend
ourselves on the plea that the object itself remains hidden from and
unknown to us. For no such thing or object can be given—it is not to be
found out of the idea in our minds. We must seek the cause of our
failure in our idea itself, which is an insoluble problem and in regard
to which we obstinately assume that there exists a real object
corresponding and adequate to it. A clear explanation of the dialectic
which lies in our conception, will very soon enable us to come to a
satisfactory decision in regard to such a question.
The pretext that we are unable to arrive at certainty in regard to
these problems may be met with this question, which requires at least a
plain answer: “From what source do the ideas originate, the solution of
which involves you in such difficulties? Are you seeking for an
explanation of certain phenomena; and do you expect these ideas to give
you the principles or the rules of this explanation?” Let it be
granted, that all nature was laid open before you; that nothing was hid
from your senses and your consciousness. Still, you could not cognize
in concreto the object of your ideas in any experience. For what is
demanded is not only this full and complete intuition, but also a
complete synthesis and the consciousness of its absolute totality; and
this is not possible by means of any empirical cognition. It follows
that your question—your idea—is by no means necessary for the
explanation of any phenomenon; and the idea cannot have been in any
sense given by the object itself. For such an object can never be
presented to us, because it cannot be given by any possible experience.
Whatever perceptions you may attain to, you are still surrounded by
conditions—in space, or in time—and you cannot discover anything
unconditioned; nor can you decide whether this unconditioned is to be
placed in an absolute beginning of the synthesis, or in an absolute
totality of the series without beginning. A whole, in the empirical
signification of the term, is always merely comparative. The absolute
whole of quantity (the universe), of division, of derivation, of the
condition of existence, with the question—whether it is to be produced
by finite or infinite synthesis, no possible experience can instruct us
concerning. You will not, for example, be able to explain the phenomena
of a body in the least degree better, whether you believe it to consist
of simple, or of composite parts; for a simple phenomenon—and just as
little an infinite series of composition—can never be presented to your
perception. Phenomena require and admit of explanation, only in so far
as the conditions of that explanation are given in perception; but the
sum total of that which is given in phenomena, considered as an
absolute whole, is itself a perception—and we cannot therefore seek for
explanations of this whole beyond itself, in other perceptions. The
explanation of this whole is the proper object of the transcendental
problems of pure reason.
Although, therefore, the solution of these problems is unattainable
through experience, we must not permit ourselves to say that it is
uncertain how the object of our inquiries is constituted. For the
object is in our own mind and cannot be discovered in experience; and
we have only to take care that our thoughts are consistent with each
other, and to avoid falling into the amphiboly of regarding our idea as
a representation of an object empirically given, and therefore to be
cognized according to the laws of experience. A dogmatical solution is
therefore not only unsatisfactory but impossible. The critical
solution, which may be a perfectly certain one, does not consider the
question objectively, but proceeds by inquiring into the basis of the
cognition upon which the question rests.