The antinomy of pure reason is based upon the following dialectical
argument: “If that which is conditioned is given, the whole series of
its conditions is also given; but sensuous objects are given as
conditioned; consequently...” This syllogism, the major of which seems
so natural and evident, introduces as many cosmological ideas as there
are different kinds of conditions in the synthesis of phenomena, in so
far as these conditions constitute a series. These ideas require
absolute totality in the series, and thus place reason in inextricable
embarrassment. Before proceeding to expose the fallacy in this
dialectical argument, it will be necessary to have a correct
understanding of certain conceptions that appear in it.
In the first place, the following proposition is evident, and
indubitably certain: “If the conditioned is given, a regress in the
series of all its conditions is thereby imperatively required.” For the
very conception of a conditioned is a conception of something related
to a condition, and, if this condition is itself conditioned, to
another condition—and so on through all the members of the series. This
proposition is, therefore, analytical and has nothing to fear from
transcendental criticism. It is a logical postulate of reason: to
pursue, as far as possible, the connection of a conception with its
conditions.
If, in the second place, both the conditioned and the condition are
things in themselves, and if the former is given, not only is the
regress to the latter requisite, but the latter is really given with
the former. Now, as this is true of all the members of the series, the
entire series of conditions, and with them the unconditioned, is at the
same time given in the very fact of the conditioned, the existence of
which is possible only in and through that series, being given. In this
case, the synthesis of the conditioned with its condition, is a
synthesis of the understanding merely, which represents things as they
are, without regarding whether and how we can cognize them. But if I
have to do with phenomena, which, in their character of mere
representations, are not given, if I do not attain to a cognition of
them (in other words, to themselves, for they are nothing more than
empirical cognitions), I am not entitled to say: “If the conditioned is
given, all its conditions (as phenomena) are also given.” I cannot,
therefore, from the fact of a conditioned being given, infer the
absolute totality of the series of its conditions. For phenomena are
nothing but an empirical synthesis in apprehension or perception, and
are therefore given only in it. Now, in speaking of phenomena it does
not follow that, if the conditioned is given, the synthesis which
constitutes its empirical condition is also thereby given and
presupposed; such a synthesis can be established only by an actual
regress in the series of conditions. But we are entitled to say in this
case that a regress to the conditions of a conditioned, in other words,
that a continuous empirical synthesis is enjoined; that, if the
conditions are not given, they are at least required; and that we are
certain to discover the conditions in this regress.
We can now see that the major, in the above cosmological syllogism,
takes the conditioned in the transcendental signification which it has
in the pure category, while the minor speaks of it in the empirical
signification which it has in the category as applied to phenomena.
There is, therefore, a dialectical fallacy in the syllogism—a sophisma
figurae dictionis. But this fallacy is not a consciously devised one,
but a perfectly natural illusion of the common reason of man. For, when
a thing is given as conditioned, we presuppose in the major its
conditions and their series, unperceived, as it were, and unseen;
because this is nothing more than the logical requirement of complete
and satisfactory premisses for a given conclusion. In this case, time
is altogether left out in the connection of the conditioned with the
condition; they are supposed to be given in themselves, and
contemporaneously. It is, moreover, just as natural to regard phenomena
(in the minor) as things in themselves and as objects presented to the
pure understanding, as in the major, in which complete abstraction was
made of all conditions of intuition. But it is under these conditions
alone that objects are given. Now we overlooked a remarkable
distinction between the conceptions. The synthesis of the conditioned
with its condition, and the complete series of the latter (in the
major) are not limited by time, and do not contain the conception of
succession. On the contrary, the empirical synthesis and the series of
conditions in the phenomenal world—subsumed in the minor—are
necessarily successive and given in time alone. It follows that I
cannot presuppose in the minor, as I did in the major, the absolute
totality of the synthesis and of the series therein represented; for in
the major all the members of the series are given as things in
themselves—without any limitations or conditions of time, while in the
minor they are possible only in and through a successive regress, which
cannot exist, except it be actually carried into execution in the world
of phenomena.
After this proof of the viciousness of the argument commonly employed
in maintaining cosmological assertions, both parties may now be justly
dismissed, as advancing claims without grounds or title. But the
process has not been ended by convincing them that one or both were in
the wrong and had maintained an assertion which was without valid
grounds of proof. Nothing seems to be clearer than that, if one
maintains: “The world has a beginning,” and another: “The world has no
beginning,” one of the two must be right. But it is likewise clear
that, if the evidence on both sides is equal, it is impossible to
discover on what side the truth lies; and the controversy continues,
although the parties have been recommended to peace before the tribunal
of reason. There remains, then, no other means of settling the question
than to convince the parties, who refute each other with such
conclusiveness and ability, that they are disputing about nothing, and
that a transcendental illusion has been mocking them with visions of
reality where there is none. The mode of adjusting a dispute which
cannot be decided upon its own merits, we shall now proceed to lay
before our readers.
Zeno of Elea, a subtle dialectician, was severely reprimanded by Plato
as a sophist, who, merely from the base motive of exhibiting his skill
in discussion, maintained and subverted the same proposition by
arguments as powerful and convincing on the one side as on the other.
He maintained, for example, that God (who was probably nothing more, in
his view, than the world) is neither finite nor infinite, neither in
motion nor in rest, neither similar nor dissimilar to any other thing.
It seemed to those philosophers who criticized his mode of discussion
that his purpose was to deny completely both of two self-contradictory
propositions—which is absurd. But I cannot believe that there is any
justice in this accusation. The first of these propositions I shall
presently consider in a more detailed manner. With regard to the
others, if by the word of God he understood merely the Universe, his
meaning must have been—that it cannot be permanently present in one
place—that is, at rest—nor be capable of changing its place—that is, of
moving—because all places are in the universe, and the universe itself
is, therefore, in no place. Again, if the universe contains in itself
everything that exists, it cannot be similar or dissimilar to any other
thing, because there is, in fact, no other thing with which it can be
compared. If two opposite judgements presuppose a contingent
impossible, or arbitrary condition, both—in spite of their opposition
(which is, however, not properly or really a contradiction)—fall away;
because the condition, which ensured the validity of both, has itself
disappeared.
If we say: “Everybody has either a good or a bad smell,” we have
omitted a third possible judgement—it has no smell at all; and thus
both conflicting statements may be false. If we say: “It is either
good-smelling or not good-smelling (vel suaveolens vel
non-suaveolens),” both judgements are contradictorily opposed; and the
contradictory opposite of the former judgement—some bodies are not
good-smelling—embraces also those bodies which have no smell at all. In
the preceding pair of opposed judgements (per disparata), the
contingent condition of the conception of body (smell) attached to both
conflicting statements, instead of having been omitted in the latter,
which is consequently not the contradictory opposite of the former.
If, accordingly, we say: “The world is either infinite in extension, or
it is not infinite (non est infinitus)”; and if the former proposition
is false, its contradictory opposite—the world is not infinite—must be
true. And thus I should deny the existence of an infinite, without,
however affirming the existence of a finite world. But if we construct
our proposition thus: “The world is either infinite or finite
(non-infinite),” both statements may be false. For, in this case, we
consider the world as per se determined in regard to quantity, and
while, in the one judgement, we deny its infinite and consequently,
perhaps, its independent existence; in the other, we append to the
world, regarded as a thing in itself, a certain determination—that of
finitude; and the latter may be false as well as the former, if the
world is not given as a thing in itself, and thus neither as finite nor
as infinite in quantity. This kind of opposition I may be allowed to
term dialectical; that of contradictories may be called analytical
opposition. Thus then, of two dialectically opposed judgements both may
be false, from the fact, that the one is not a mere contradictory of
the other, but actually enounces more than is requisite for a full and
complete contradiction.
When we regard the two propositions—“The world is infinite in
quantity,” and, “The world is finite in quantity,” as contradictory
opposites, we are assuming that the world—the complete series of
phenomena—is a thing in itself. For it remains as a permanent quantity,
whether I deny the infinite or the finite regress in the series of its
phenomena. But if we dismiss this assumption—this transcendental
illusion—and deny that it is a thing in itself, the contradictory
opposition is metamorphosed into a merely dialectical one; and the
world, as not existing in itself—independently of the regressive series
of my representations—exists in like manner neither as a whole which is
infinite nor as a whole which is finite in itself. The universe exists
for me only in the empirical regress of the series of phenomena and not
per se. If, then, it is always conditioned, it is never completely or
as a whole; and it is, therefore, not an unconditioned whole and does
not exist as such, either with an infinite, or with a finite quantity.
What we have here said of the first cosmological idea—that of the
absolute totality of quantity in phenomena—applies also to the others.
The series of conditions is discoverable only in the regressive
synthesis itself, and not in the phenomenon considered as a thing in
itself—given prior to all regress. Hence I am compelled to say: “The
aggregate of parts in a given phenomenon is in itself neither finite
nor infinite; and these parts are given only in the regressive
synthesis of decomposition—a synthesis which is never given in absolute
completeness, either as finite, or as infinite.” The same is the case
with the series of subordinated causes, or of the conditioned up to the
unconditioned and necessary existence, which can never be regarded as
in itself, and in its totality, either as finite or as infinite;
because, as a series of subordinate representations, it subsists only
in the dynamical regress and cannot be regarded as existing previously
to this regress, or as a self-subsistent series of things.
Thus the antinomy of pure reason in its cosmological ideas disappears.
For the above demonstration has established the fact that it is merely
the product of a dialectical and illusory opposition, which arises from
the application of the idea of absolute totality—admissible only as a
condition of things in themselves—to phenomena, which exist only in our
representations, and—when constituting a series—in a successive
regress. This antinomy of reason may, however, be really profitable to
our speculative interests, not in the way of contributing any
dogmatical addition, but as presenting to us another material support
in our critical investigations. For it furnishes us with an indirect
proof of the transcendental ideality of phenomena, if our minds were
not completely satisfied with the direct proof set forth in the
Trancendental Æsthetic. The proof would proceed in the following
dilemma. If the world is a whole existing in itself, it must be either
finite or infinite. But it is neither finite nor infinite—as has been
shown, on the one side, by the thesis, on the other, by the antithesis.
Therefore the world—the content of all phenomena—is not a whole
existing in itself. It follows that phenomena are nothing, apart from
our representations. And this is what we mean by transcendental
ideality.
This remark is of some importance. It enables us to see that the proofs
of the fourfold antinomy are not mere sophistries—are not fallacious,
but grounded on the nature of reason, and valid—under the supposition
that phenomena are things in themselves. The opposition of the
judgements which follow makes it evident that a fallacy lay in the
initial supposition, and thus helps us to discover the true
constitution of objects of sense. This transcendental dialectic does
not favour scepticism, although it presents us with a triumphant
demonstration of the advantages of the sceptical method, the great
utility of which is apparent in the antinomy, where the arguments of
reason were allowed to confront each other in undiminished force. And
although the result of these conflicts of reason is not what we
expected—although we have obtained no positive dogmatical addition to
metaphysical science—we have still reaped a great advantage in the
correction of our judgements on these subjects of thought.