Kant: The Architectonic and Development of His Philosophy

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Library of Congress Cataloging in Publication Data Werkmeister, William Henry, 1901Kant, the architectonic and development of his philosophy. Includes bibliographical references. 1. Kant, Immanuel, 1724-1804. I. Title. B2798.W62 193 79-15814 ISBN 0-87548-354-3

"Human Reason is by nature architectonic.... It regards all our knowledge as belonging to a possible system." I. Kant, Critique of Pure Reason, A474/B502 "Keine Interpretation ist wertlos, die neue Seiten Kants erschliesst." Gerhard Lehmann

INTRODUCTION

There is a unity in Kant's thinking which escapes us when we read the Critique ofPure Reason (and see Kant as an epistemologist) or read The Foundations of the Metaphysics of Morals and the Critique ofPractical Reason (and see him as an ethicist) or read Part I of the Critique of Judgment (and see him as an aesthetician). But we also fail to understand Kant when we regard the published works of his "critical period," taken together, as the explicit formulation of a well-integrated philosophical system. Unity there is in Kant's thinking, I say again, but it is the unity of a problem-determined development in his thinking, not that of a preconceived or static system. Seen in proper perspective, this unity of development can be traced from the time of Kant's first publication in 1747 to the projection of "the highest form of transcendental philosophy" with which he was concerned in the final Sections of the Opus postumum (1800/1803). This development I shall here try to trace. Frederick F. Van De Pitte has argued quite effectively that, in a real sense, "Kant's Critical Philosophy is the pure philosophical core of his fully developed conception of man."1 And Kant himself wrote in a letter to Carl Friedrich Staudlin (dated May 4, 1793): "My plan, made some time ago, of the treatment (obligatory to me) of the field of pure philosophy aimed at the solution of the three problems: 1. What can I know? (Metaphysics). 2. What ought I to do? (Morality). 3. What may I hope? (Religion): to which there was to follow a fourth: What is man? (Anthropology, concerning which I have given courses for more than 20 years). With the enclosed book: Religion within the Bounds etc. I have attempted to fulfill the third part of my plan."2 And in a letter to Jacob Sigismund Beck, dated

INTRODUCTION

September 27, 1791, Kant wrote: "What can be more suitable [as nourishment for the soul] and for the whole of a life-time than the occupation with that which concerns the whole destiny of man?"3 Kant's interest in man and in man's place in the universe is thus beyond dispute; but it was by no means his only interest. The Metaphysical Foundations of Natural Science (1786) and major parts of the Opus postumum, as well as some letters written in 1788 and later, prove otherwise. We shall see in due time how Kant's diverse interests become basic to the architectonic of his philosophy as a whole. Commentaries on Kant's philosophy are, of course, legion. The most comprehensive interpretation of its development is de Vleeschauwer's three-volume work La Deduction transcendentale dans I 'Oeuvre de Kant. 4 Vleeschauwer sees Kant, the man of the Enlightenment, caught in the unsettling development of Romanticism: "Kant bore the brunt of the historical transition.... The Opus postumum allows us to see Kant caught in the meshes and wedged between the two, an easy target of criticism."5 As de Vleeschauwer points out, this thesis also throws light upon Kant's developing thought, and in this respect its significance should not be minimized. However, we stress external influences upon Kant's thinking to the detriment of its inner dynamics, its intrinsic problem-determined development. It may therefore not be amiss to try to understand that development in terms of the problems which Kant faced initially and of the solutions he found for them. These solutions, however, entailed ever new problems and compelled Kant to move on through various stages to the final attempt in the Opus postumum to develop what he himself must have regarded as his definitive position. In presenting my thesis of the architectonic and inner development of Kant's thinking, I shall rely almost exclusively upon Kantian texts, Le., upon published works, letters, Reflections, Notes, and finally, the Opus postumum. This does not mean, however, that I have not familiarized myself with the wide-ranging literature about Kant and his philosophy.6 It is my hope that the chapters which follow will at least in some instances cast a new light upon Kant's work.

CHAPTER I

THE BEGINNINGS OF KANT'S PHILOSOPHY

When Kant entered the University of Konigsberg in 1740, h was interested primarily in the humanities. Although he never lost this interest, he was soon attracted to physics and mathematics by "the truly outstanding" lectures of Professors Knutzen and Teske, respectively. In private talks Knutzen encouraged him to major in physics and lent him Newton's works. "From that time on, philosophy, mathematics, and especially astronomy were always and throughout his whole life, of greatest interest to him. Chemistry became important to him only in his later years."1 "Theological investigations of whatever kind ... did not interest him. In this field his knowledge did not go beyond the time of the dogmatic lectures by D. Schultz of the years 1742/43."2 Kant received his degree of doctor of philosophy in 1755, and thereafter lectured at the university in the fields of logic, metaphysics, physics, and mathematics. In 1770, he was appointed professor of mathematics, but soon exchanged this position for a professorship in logic and metaphysics. 3 I mention this fact because I believe it to be relevant to our understanding of Kant, indicating as it does an objective appraisal of his achievements and his own changing interests.

I In 1747, Kant published his first treatise, Gedanken von der wahren Schatzung der lebendigen Krafte und Beurteilung der Beweise, deren sich Herr von Leibniz und andere Mathematiker in

THE BEGINNINGS OF KANT'S PHILOSOPHY

dieser Streitfrange bedient haben. 4 In the Preface to this work, Kant stated frankly that it was his intention to "repudiate" (verwerfen) the views of Leibniz, Wolff, Hermann, Bernoulli, Bulfinger, "and others"; that he would not hesitate to discard any proposition even of the most famous men if it seemed to him to be false. 5 He added: "I have already chalked out (vorgezeichnet) the course I shall follow. I shall start my run and nothing shall prevent me from continuing it. "6 The topic of this first publication is an evaluative response to the then prevailing controversy over the conception of "living forces. "7 Kant saw the problem basically as an issue involving the philosophies of Leibniz and Descartes. His analyses led to conclusions which, as we shall see, became determining factors in the development of Kant's own philosophy. Kant starts by taking note of the generally accepted fact that a body in motion produces observable effects. It overcomes obstacles, moves other bodies, compresses springs, etc. The moving body, therefore, may be said to possess a force. Direct observation, however, indicates that it does not possess such force while at rest, and that the force which it possesses while moving is imparted to it from outside itself by other moving bodies. 8 Leibniz, on the other hand, taught that the body possesses "an essential force which belongs to it even prior to its extension" in space. 9 And to this thesis Kant responds by arguing that to ascribe to a body "an essential moving force (vim motricem) in order to account for the cause of its motion is as arbitrary a procedure (Kunstgriff) as to attribute the warmth or coldness of a body to a vi ca/orifica or frigifaciente. "10 What Kant does concede is that "neither space nor extension would exist if substances did not possess a force capable of producing effects outside themselves." 11 This theme Kant developed in detail in Chapter II of Die metaphysischen Anfangsgrunde der Naturwissenschaft of 1786. Proposition I there reads: "Matter fills space, not by its mere existence, but by a special moving force." 12 In 1747, however, Kant goes on to say that "it is somewhat more difficult to see how the number of dimensions of space follows from the law in accordance with which the force of substances produces external effects";13 and he confesses that his own attempt to justify a fourth dimension of space arithmetically failed because,

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so far as we can imaginatively represent space, a fourth dimension is an "Unding," an impossible thing. The three-dimensionality of space depends not only on the fact that, given the meaning of dimensions as extensions at right angles to one another, any assumed fourth dimension would merely coincide with one of the other three, but more importantly, it depends "upon a certain other necessity which I am not yet able to explain."14 He argues, however, that "the impossibility, which we notice in ourselves, of representing to ourselves a space of more than three dimensions" seems to stem from this: that "our soul receives external impressions in accordance with the inverse square law of distances" and, by its very nature, acts in external relations according to the same law. 1s Should there be other worlds in which some other law prevails, then their spaces might also be other than three dimensional. But if such worlds were possible, "it is also highly probable that God had actually created them somewhere."16 Such worlds, however, could have no relation to ours, and the question would arise "why God has separated one world from the other when the combination of them would have given his creation (seinem Werke) a greater perfection." 17 Kant concludes: "It is therefore not probable that many worlds exist (although it is in itself possible) unless many different kinds of space ... are possible"; and he adds that "these thoughts can be the project of a meditation which I reserve for myself." 18 His solution of the problem of space is part of "the great light" which dawned upon him in 1769. It was first presented in the inaugural dissertation of 1770, and was from there taken over into the Critique of Pure Reason.

II Turning now specifically to the problem of "dead" and "living" forces, Kant proceeds on the assumption that, where metaphysics has failed to provide a solution, a mathematical approach may at least help clarify the situation. Descartes had argued that the measure of the force of a body in actual motion is the velocity imparted to it by other moving bodies. This "principle of mechanics" had been widely accepted. Leibniz,

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however, discarded the Cartesian principle "absolutely and without restriction" and "put his own in its place." According to the Leibnizian principle, the measure of a force is "the square of the velocity" of the moving bodies. 19 As far as Kant is concerned, the crucial question now is: When is a body in motion? When is its motion rean Kant replies: a motion is real not simply at the moment of its beginning but as it continues in time. In fact, it is "the elasped time between the beginning of the motion and the moment when the body produces an effect ... that makes the motion genuinely real," no matter how short or how long that interval may be. 20 It is time, therefore, which gives living force its "true and unique character."21 A body at rest, merely exerting a pressure upon some other body, has a "dead" force only.22 Leibniz had argued, in effect, that "a very short duration of a motion is not distinguishable from the beginning of the motion." Therefore, if a body has a "living force" when it has moved for some time (no matter how short a time), it must have a "living force" even when it first begins to move. This is simply a consequence of Leibniz's law of continuity.23 Kant, however, refuses to accept it: "It is impossible to persuade oneself that a body which, at point A, has a dead force, has a living force, which is infinitely greater than the dead force, when it has moved from that point by an unnoticeably small distance. This leap of thought is too sudden; there is no way which can lead us from the one determination to the other."24 To be sure, the integral calculus (which Kant calls Leibniz's law of continuity) provides a mathematical solution of the problem. However, so Kant points out, mathematics sees motion as nothing but velocity, mass, and time; and none of these is in itself (or even in conjunction with the others) the ground or cause of a "living force."25 Mathematics, therefore, allows no force in a moving body other than that which is imparted to it by the external causes of its motion; and this is in essence the Cartesian principle of mechanics.26 The distinction between "dead pressure" and a "living force" must thus be made on other than mathematical grounds. As Kant sees it, a body in nature may well have "a capacity for increasing within itself the force which was awakened in it externally by the cause of its motion" ;27 and therefore, as far as bodies in

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nature are concerned, there may well occur infinitely many intermediate degrees which lead from "completely dead" to "completely living" force. 28 Kant's argument rests upon his stipulations that a body in nature which maintains its velocity undiminished in free and uniform motion possesses a living force; that this force is not derived from an external cause but originates in the body itself in response to an external stimulus; and that the force is generated in the body in a finite time. 29 "The living forces which have been banished from mathematics have thus been admitted into nature."30 "The free and everlasting motions of the planets, as also uncountable other experiences ... are warranty for the existence of living forces in na ture. "31 Mathematics does not allow for what is necessary to make a motion free and everlasting, namely, how external causes can generate an inner force of a body.32 Leibniz's law of continuity indicates, however, how such "vivification" may take place. Briefly put, Kant's argument is this: A body at rest exerts only a "dead pressure," which is radically different from a "living force." But a body whose velocity is infinitely small really does not move at all, and thus possesses only the force of a body at rest. If such a body is set in motion by an external cause" a certain velocity must be attained before it can maintain itself in free and undiminished motion. 33 The transition from the rest-position to the attainment of self-sustained free motion, brief as it may be as far as elapsed time is concerned, is understandable in terms of the law of continuity. After that, the free motion is subject entirely to the laws of mechanics. The views of Leibniz and Descartes have thus been reconciled. Neither philosopher can be accused of error. Their views are partial truths only.34 In his very first publication, Kant thus came to grips with Leibniz and Descartes on the basic issue of the power and limitations of a mathematical interpretation of nature; and he was well aware -of the importance of the issue. In time, it led to his clear distinction between the mathematical and the philosophical approach to cognition. Even in 1749, in a letter to Albert von Haller, Kant wrote: "I have a continuation of these thoughts in preparation which, in addi-

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tion to a further confirmation of them, will include other contemplations aiming at the same thoughts."35

III In the meantime, however, Kant published his second major work, the Allgemeine Naturgeschichte und Theorie des Hinlmels (1755).36 In the preface to this book, Kant defined his task as an attempt to discover "the system which binds together the great bodies of creation" and "to derive the formation of the heavenly bodies themselves, as well as the origin of their movements, from the first [i.e., the most primitive] state of nature by mechanical laws."3? In carrying out this project, Kant assumed that, in the beginning, the matter of the whole world is in a state of general dispersion; that, in fact, it is a complete chaos. But Kant also assumed (a) the validity of Newton's law of gravitation and (b) that matter is bound to certain necessary laws and therefore has no freedom. "Give me matter," he exclaimed, "and I will build a world out of it!" That is, he added, "I will show you how a world shall arise out of it. "38 What Kant attempted and actually accomplished in this respect depends entirely on the objective validity of the laws of Newtonian mechanics and therefore, and most significantly for the development of Kant's thinking, on the objective and absolute validity of the principle of causality, a fact which must be remembered when, later on, Kant's concern is with the grounds of validity of the principle itself. Having reduced the world to "the simplest chaos," and having recourse to no other forces than attraction and repulsion (both of which he found in Newtonian physics), Kant "deduced" the structure and the dynamics not only of our solar system but of the universe as a whole. 39 All so-called fixed stars, of which "countless numbers swarm through infinite space," he regarded as centers of systems similar to our solar system. If we now assume, Kant argues, that the gravitational attraction of our sun extends to the nearest star; and if we assume also that all fixed stars, being themselves suns, exercise a similar attraction; then all the stars attract one another and all the solar systems of the universe are bound together by gravitation. Of course, if there were no force opposing their mutual 6

THE BEGINNINGS OF KANT'S PHILOSOPHY

approaches, they all would sooner or later collide and the universe would collapse into one mass. The centrifugal force prevents this, in the universe as a whole as it does in our solar system. The combination, therefore, of gravitational attraction and centrifugal force keeps the whole from destroying itself. That is to say, the combination of forces which causes the perpetual revolutions of the heavenly bodies also preserves the whole system in endless duration. But Kant takes a further step, enamored (as he says) by the "charm of a sublime idea" involving the "plan of creation." The idea is this: If there be a system of fixed stars so far removed from the Milky Way that the individual stars can no longer be discerned, not even by means of the most powerful telescope, then "that world will appear under a smail angle as a patch of space whose figure will be circular if its plane is presented directly to the eye, and elliptical if it is seen from the side or obliquely."40 In 1742, Maupertius (President of the Prussian Academy of Science) had given the name "nebulous stars" to such "luminous patches," and someone whom Kant calls "the author of astrotheology" had referred to them as "openings in the firmament through which he claimed to have seen the fire of the highest heaven," the Enlpyrian. 41 Kant, however, argues that it is far more natural to regard these luminous patches not as single stars but as stellar systems comparable to the one in which we find ourselves; and to believe that they are "universes and, so to say, Milky Ways, like the one whose constitution we have just unfolded."42 "It may now be conjectured," Kant continues, that even these universes "are not without relation to one another, and that because of this mutual relationship they constitute again a still more immense system."43 And, if the grandeur of a planetary world in which the earth, as a grain of sand which is scarcely perceived, fills the understanding with wonder, with what astonishment are we transported when we behold the infinite multitude of worlds and systems which fill the extension of the Milky Way! But how is this astonishment increased when we become aware of the fact that all these immense orders of star-worlds again form but one of a number whose termination we do not know; ... when we become aware of the fact that we live in a World of worlds; ... that our solar 7

THE BEGINNINGS OF KANT'S PHILOSOPHY

system is but the first member of a progressive relationship of worlds and systems of worlds. 44 When later, in the Critique of Practical Reason, Kant said: "Two things fill the mind with ever new and increasing admiration and awe, the oftener and more steadily they are reflected on: the starry heaven above me and the moralla\v within me," he no doubt had this system of worlds in mind; for he added: "The former begins from the place I occupy in the external world of sense, and it broadens the connection in which I stand into an unbounded magnitude of worlds beyond worlds and systems of systems and into the limitless times of their periodic motion, their beginning and continuance."45 The passages published in 1755 and 1788, respectively, clearly indicate a continuity of thought which is important for the development of Kant's philosophy as a whole, and one to which I shan return later. That Kant was the first to conceive the vast World of worlds is beyond question. He himself stressed it. In a letter to Johann Friedrich Gensichen, dated April 19, 1791, he claimed as his "property": (1) That the conception of the Milky Way as a system of moving suns, comparable to our planetary system, had been published (geliefert) six years before Lambert made a similar idea known in his "Cosmological Letters." (2) That the conception of the nebulous stars as a like number of Milky Ways ... is a thought not ventured by Lambert. He regarded them as dark bodies illuminated by nearby suns. 46 And in a letter to Johann Erich Biester, dated June 8, 1781, Kant explains why his Natural History and Theory ofthe Heavens cannot be regarded as "the product of Lambert's spirit."47 Lambert's letter to Kant, dated November 13, 1765, bears this out, although Lambert "wondered why it had never occurred to Newton."48 La Place's Exposition du Systeme du Monde was not published until 1796.

THE BEGINNINGS OF KANT'S PHILOSOPHY

IV From a philosophical point of view two aspects of the Natural History and Theory of the Heavens are especially important. The first Kant himself states succinctly. His success in showing how the physical universe of interacting systems of worlds could arise in strict conformity with purely mechanical laws did not entail a similar success in accounting for living organisms, including man. Kant asks, Are we in a position to say: "Give me matter, and I will show you how a caterpillar can be produced?" His answer is an emphatic No! In fact, he adds: It should not be regarded as strange if I dare to say that the formation of all heavenly bodies, the cause of their movements and, in short, the origin of the whole present structure of the universe will become intelligible before the production, by mechanical causes, of a single plant or a caterpillar is clearly and completely understood. 49 This problem of the organism troubled Kant at all stages in the development of his philosophy. He refers to it in the Critique ofPure Reason and in the Metaphysical Foundations of Natural Science. He found an "as if' solution for it in Part II of the Critique ofJudgment and attempted a final solution in the Opus postumum. The second aspect of the Natural History and Theory of the Heavens which is of special significance to our understanding of Kant's philosophy is his conception of man's place in the universe. In his vanity, we are told, man believes that his existence is of infinite value to nature; that everything in nature is in vain which is not specifically related to him as the center of the purposes of creation. 50 But, Kant continues, among all creatures man is the one who attains least the purpose of his existence because he exhausts his excellent abilities in the pursuit of such ends as all other creatures with less ability attain much more surely and properly. And he would be the most despicable among all, at least in the eyes of true wisdom, if not hope of the future elevated him, and if he had not ahead of himself a period in which all powers latent within him could be fully developed. 51 9

THE BEGINNINGS OF KANT'S PHILOSOPHY

In the scale of being, therefore, man occupies a middle position between two extreme limits. "On the one hand, we see thinking beings among whom ... a Hottentot would be a Newton; and on the other hand, we see beings who would admire Newton as merely an ape"-Kant quoting Pope: " ... and showed a Newton as we show an ape. "52 It is significant for an understanding of Kant's overall view as stated in the philosophical part of the Natural History and Theory of the Heavens, that it is in all essentials but a prose version of Pope's Essay on Man. Kant thus argues that, in its simplest state, matter strives, through a natural development, to form itself into a perfect structure;53 and he quotes Pope (in Brock's translation): See plastic nature working to this end, The single atoms each to other tend, Attract, attracted to, the next in place Formed and impelled its neighbor to embrace, See matter next, with various life endued, Press to one center still, the general good. 54 And again Kant quotes Pope: He who through vast immensity can pierce, See worlds on worlds compose one universe, Observe how system into system runs, What other planets circle other suns, What varied being peoples every star, May tell why Heaven made us as we. are. "The one conclusion is quite correct," Kant points out: "If in the composition of the world order and beauty shine forth, then there is a God. But the other [conclusion] is not less justified: If this order could flow from universal laws of nature, then the whole of nature is necessarily an effect of the highest wisdom."55 And so, Kant continues, "everything within the whole compass of nature hangs together in an uninterrupted sequence of degrees through the eternal harmony, which makes all links relative to one another. The perfections of God have revealed themselves in stages and are not less magnificent in the lowest classes than in the most sublime."56 And again Kant quotes Pope: 10

THE BEGINNINGS OF KANT'S PHILOSOPHY

Vast chain of being! which from God began, Natures ethereal, human, angel, man, Beast, bird, fish, insect, what no eye can see, No glass can reach; from infinite to thee, From thee to nothing. It is Kant's contention that "creation is never finished." "It started once but will never cease. It is always active to produce more events (Auftritte) in nature, new things and new worlds."57 "The inevitable tendency of every world structure which has reached perfection, and now gradually declines, can be counted among the reasons which bring it about that, against this decline, the universe will in other places be fruitful of other worlds in order to compensate for the deficiency it has suffered in another place."58 In this connection Kant might have quoted Pope again. Their ideas are essentially the same: All forms that perish other forms supply, (By turns we catch the vital breath, and die) Like bubbles on a sea of matter born, They rise, they break, and to the sea return. He did quote other lines of Pope: Who sees with equal eye, as God of all, A hero perish, or a sparrow fall, Atoms or systems into ruin hurled, And now a bubble burst, and now a world. I have dwelled upon this parallelism of ideas in Kant and Pope at such length for two reasons: One is to stress Kant's commitment to the conception of the great chain of being. The other is to emphasize Kant's basic teleological point of view. It is the latter in particular which plays so vital a part in Kant's thinking that without it his ethics cannot be truly understood.

v When, in the Natural History and Theory ofthe Heavens, Kant had shown how a universe of worlds can develop out of dispersed matter in accordance with purely mechanical laws, he fully expected

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that objections would be raised to his views from the point of view of religion. He tried to meet them in advance by pointing out that "the more perfect nature is in its development; the better its universal laws lead to order and harmony: the more secure is the proof that there is a God from Whom [nature] borrows these characteristics."59 And: "When in the structure of the world order and beauty shine forth, then there is a God. "60 But the problem of the existence of God could not be dealt with in so simple a way. Kant had to face it again and again. He did so for the first time in 1763, in Der einzig mogliche Beweisgrund zu einer Demonstration des Dasein Gottes. Kant was fully aware of the inadequacy of this early effort, for in the preface to the book he wrote: "The contemplations which I present here are the result of long meditation, but the manner of presentation shows the traits of an incomplete composition."61 And his concluding sentence is: "It is absolutely necessary to convince oneself of the existence of God; but it is not equally necessary to demonstrate it."62 Still, we must note that in this work Kant condemns "the prevailing rage (Modesucht) of imitating on the slippery grounds of metaphysics the mathematician who moves securely upon wellprepared roads. "63 This, of course, is a direct slap at Christian Wolff. Kant proposes on his part to "proceed as one who is seeking the definition after first having made sure as to what can be said with certainty, either affirmatively or negatively, about the object to be explained."64 That is to say, Kant here raises for the first time the question of method in philosophy. He deals with it more specifically on various occasions from 1764 on, convinced that only a dependable method can guide us to the solution of ultimate problems. We must also note for future reference that in Der einzig mogliche Beweisgrund Kant discusses in great detail why existence is not a predicate of anything whatsoever. "Take any object of your choice [he argues], e.g., Julius Caesar. Combine all of his conceivable attributes, even time and place not excluded, and you will soon discover that with all these attributes he can exist or not exist." That is to say, Julius Caesar (or any "thing" whatsoever) with all its attributes taken together and none left out, could be regarded "as a merely possible thing which does not exist. "65 What is true in the case of all ordinary things is true also in the

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case of God. "When I say: God is omnipotent, only the logical relation between God and omnipotence is being thought, since the latter is an attribute of the former. Nothing else is being posited here. Whether God exists, Le., whether he is posited absolutely, is not contained in the statement:"66 In developing his own proof for the existence of God, Kant makes a distinction which is crucial for an understanding of some of his later works also. It is the distinction between "logical possibility" and "real possibility." The former means that something can be thought without contradiction. That is to say, the sole ground of logical possibility is the principle of non-contradiction. In the second case, however, "something is possible only because something else is real, Le., its inner possibility is given as a consequence through some other existent."67 Here we deal with a "real ground" (Realgrund) of the possibility, not a merely logical ground. Entailed in all this is the further distinction which Kant makes between nominal explanation and real explanation,68 a distinction which dominates his thinking throughout the years. When, in the Critique of Pure Reason, he speaks of causality as constitutive of nature, he quite obviously means to give a real explanation. He would strenuously object to recent attempts to identify the principle of causality with the logical principle of sufficient reason. Letters written at that time confirm this. Thus, in a letter to Carl Leonard Reinhold, dated May 12, 1789 (or two years after the publication of the second edition of the first Critique), Kant states that many misconceptions concerning "synthetic judgments a priori" have arisen from an initial "confusion of ... the logical relation of ground and consequence with the real,"69 adding that, "as a logical principle, the principle of sufficient reason ... is analytic,"70 whereas the principle of the real ground-Le., the principle of causality-must be synthetic because "real beings" (Realwesen) are synthetic.71 In a second letter to Reinhold, dated May 19, 1789, Kant again insists that the principle of causality ought not to be confused with the principle of sufficient reason, for the latter is a logical principle and therefore analytically true, whereas the former refers to a real ground "whose relation to its sequel is by no means that of a logical ground to its consequence," a relation "which can be conceived according to the principle of contradiction."72 13

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If we accept Kant's conception of real possibility as depending upon a real ground, and also his contention that existence is not a predicate, then to deny the existence of a thing is not to deny one of its predicates but to deny its real ground. To affirm its existence is to affirm its real ground. However, something which itself depends on something else as its real ground cannot be the ultimate real ground of all real possibilities, and therefore cannot be absolutely necessary. From this it follows (so Kant's argument continues) that the ultimately necessary real ground of all that exists must be one. 73 And, "since the ensuing result cannot surpass its ground, understanding and will must belong as predicates to the necessary first substance, that is, the substance is spirit."74 Similarly, "order, beauty, perfection in everything that is possible presupposes a Being in whose attributes these relationships are either grounded or through which as their supreme ground the things having these attributes are possible."75 That Being is God. Kant's first proof of God's existence thus depends entirely on the fact that whatever exists must have "real possibility" (Realmoglichkeit), which, in turn, must have a "real ground" (Realgrund) upon which it depends. Our own existence, being actual and therefore really possible, thus depends ultimately upon an absolutely necessary ground of all real possibilities and, therefore, of all that exists. That is to say (as Kant himself points out), this proof does not depend on the contingency of my existence or the existence of any other particular thing. It is a proof that depends simply on "something having real possibility," and thus "can be given entirely

a priori. "76 However, as we shall see in due time, this proof came into irreconcilable conflict with other basic conceptions of Kant's developing philosophy and had to give way to a different approach. One other point must be noted at this time as essential to the development of Kant's philosophy. Briefly stated, it is this: In a letter dated "End of December, 1759," Johann Georg Hamann had enclosed a Bei/age in which the following passage occurred: "He who presumes a best world, as does Rousseau, and denies an individual, atomistic and immediately present providence contradicts himself. If small things are accidental, the world can no

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longer be good, nor can it exist. . . . It is providence which in the smallest parts makes the whole good."77 As far as we know, this is probably the first time that the name of Rousseau came to Kant's attention. However, during the summer of 1762 Rousseau's Social Contract became available in Konigsberg, and a year later his Emile was also carried by the Kanter bookshop.78 Borowski reports that Kant knew all of Rousseau's works, and that when Kant obtained a copy of Emile he discontinued "his usual walks for a few days. "79 That Rousseau made a deep and lasting impression upon Kant we know from Kant himself: "Newton was the first to discern order and regularity in combination with great simplicity where before him men had encountered disorder and unrelated diversity.... Rousseau was the first to discover, beneath the varying forms human nature assumes, the deeply concealed essence of man. . . . After Newton and Rousseau, the ways of God are justified-and Pope's thesis is henceforth true. "80 Let us note not only the parallel positions of Newton and Rousseau in Kant's thinking, but also, and perhaps even more so, the reference to Pope's thesis of the Great Chain of Being and the teleological conception of the universe which it entails. Here we have in condensed form the complexus of ideas which is the basis for all further development of Kant's philosophy. We shall have various occasions later on to make this clear.

15

CHAPTER II

MATHEMATICS AND THE CONSTRUCTION OF CONCEPTS

In a letter to Lambert, dated December 31, 1765, Kant wrote: For a number of years now I have directed my philosophical contemplations upon all conceivable aspects and, after various changes of mind in connection with which I always looked for the sources of error or insight in the mode of procedure, I finally came to the conclusion that I had to make sure of the method which one must follow if one wants to escape the delusions of knowledge, ... from which also derives the disastrous discord among philosophers because there is no common standard by which to unify their efforts. Since that time I always determined from the nature of every investigation before me what I must know in order to achieve the resolution of a particular problem, and what degree of cognition is determined by what is given. 1 And Kant added: "All of these efforts pertain primarily to the particular method of metaphysics and thus to the whole of philosophy. "2

I As it turned out, Kant's interest in method led him to a sharp distinction between the method of mathematics and that of philosophy. He first made this distinction in the Untersuchung uber die Deutlichkeit der Grundsatze der naturlichen Theologie und der Moral, written in 1763 as prize-essay for the Konigliche Akademie der Wissenschaften in Berlin, and published in 1764. But the distinction, once made, was retained by Kant throughout his long career.

MATHEMATICS AND THE CONSTRUCTION OF CONCEPTS

He discusses it at some length in his Vor/esungen uber Logik of 1772, dwells upon it in the Critique ofPure Reason. refers to it in the Prolegomena. and returns to it again and again in the Opus postumum. It is quite obviously a distinction that is crucial for Kant's whole philosophy. In the Untersuchung Kant wrote: "Mathematics attains all its definitions synthetically, but philosophy [does so] analytically."3 That is to say, "in mathematics I have no concept of an object until the definition creates it; in metaphysics I have a concept that is already given, although confusedly, and I am to seek its clear, detailed, and determinate meaning."4 In the Critique of Pure Reason he puts it this way: "All knowledge arising out of reason is derived either from concepts or from the construction of concepts. The former is called philosophical, the latter mathematical."5 And: "Philosophical knowledge is the knowledge gained by reason from concepts; mathematical knowledge is the knowledge gained by reason from the construction ofconcepts."6 For reasons which will become clear in the next chapter I shall at this time bypass Kant's statements in the Critique and shall try to clarify his meaning as developed in the Lectures on Logic. Because of the continuity of these ideas in his thinking, and because of his firm and lasting commitment to them, the chronological sequence of his expression of them is irrelevant to the argument.

II In the Lectures Kant starts from the premise that concepts are eith'er given or they are made. If they are given, they are given "either a posteriori through experience, or a priori through pure reason."7 Every concept not given is a "constructed concept."8 When a concept is given through experience, its "material content" consists of sense impressions, and its generality is the result of an abstraction, i.e., it is "a result of many impressions taken together and considered as one."9 While abstraction generalizes concepts, it adds nothing to their cognitive significance. "All cognition must be there prior to the abstraction. Through abstraction only the form is changed."lo The concept of a particular thing becomes the concept of a genus. I I 18

f·

MATHEMATICS AND THE CONSTRUCTION OF CONCEPTS

But there are also "pure concepts of reason." They are given a priori and "do not originate in what comes to us through the sense's." 12 We encounter them when, in the analysis of experience, our understanding contemplates its own function. These concepts are "the subject matter of pure philosophy, Le., of metaphysics and morals."13 The concepts of cause and effect, and of right and wrong exemplify what is meant; and so do the concepts of possibility, impossibility, and necessity; for we can have experience only of what is real. 14 "Constructed concepts all originate either in the free and deliberate (willkiirliche) combination of what is separate in experience, or in the free and deliberate separation of what is conlbined in exp~rience."ls Concepts of this type are idea prototypa. 16 Fictitious characters in a novel exemplify such construction; and so do, on purely rational grounds, the crucial concepts of mathematics and phys'ics. . But whatever the nature of the concepts, be the concepts given or constructed, we inevitably face the problem of definition; and here Kant insists upon a further distinction-the distinction between nominal and real definitions. The former are definitions whose enumeration of attributes is adequate for the recognition or identification of the objects to which the concepts refer. That is to say, nominal definitions serve the purpose of determining the meaning of a word as much as is nec~ssary for ready communication, but not necessarily any more. They are essentially grammatical. 17 Real definitions, on the other hand (I suggest that we retain the German word Realdefinition as a technical term), "must contain everything that is possible in the thing itself." They must "define the thing, not the name."18 "All definitions of empirical concepts are nominal only. Here Realdefinitionen are not possible." However, "in the case of intellectual concepts Realdefinitionen are possible because the concept contains everything the thing is. My concept constitutes the thing (macht die Sache aus)." 19 The thing "has no other reality than what my invention (Erdichtung) wills it to have. "20 Mathematical definitions are of this kind. To be sure, the mathematician also has a few concepts that are given. These are, in modern terminology, his metamathematical con-

19

MATHEMATICS AND THE CONSTRUCTION OF CONCEPTS

cepts. "These he cannot define [mathematically], and he should not attempt to do so, for if he did, he would be philosophizing."21 In mathematics proper, "all objects are given through the concepts."22 They all originate through the synthetic act of the constructive definition. 23 This mode of definition has the advantage of making all mathematical concepts precise; and the concepts are all "true" because the mathematical objects are identical with the stipulations of the definitions. Objects of sense perceptions corresponding to mathematical concepts may of course, and usually do, lack precision; but this does not affect in the least the objects as defined and created (by definition) in mathematics, nor the demonstrations based upon those concepts. It raises the problem, however, of the applicability of mathematical concepts to a world of empirical facts; and this is one of the problems with which Kant had to deal at some future time. After all, while mathematical concepts can be constructed a priori,24 the material content of cognition is given only a posterfort.

III It is evident from what has been said-and this is Kant's thesis-that the construction of concepts and, therefore, the definitions in mathematics all involve a synthetic act. "The definitions of empirical concepts [on the other hand] are never other than nominal and by analysis." Here we must always ask, What is given?,25 for the definitions do not determine the nature of the objects but only how we think of them; and, in this respect, Kant holds, "opinions may not always agree, for one person has an experience of an object which is quite different from the experience of another."26 This means that an analysis of empirical concepts does not give us an understanding of the objects but only a clarification of the meaning of words; and "there is a difference between making a concept clear and making a clear concept."27 This distinction entails a crucial difference in the procedures of mathematics and philosophy. "The mathematician must never explain through analysis, and the philosopher must never try to explain

20

MATHEMATICS AND THE CONSTRUCTION OF CONCEPTS

through synthesis."28 By following the method of the mathematician, so Kant argues, Christian Wolff and his followers have turned away from analysis and have "forgotten what true philosophy is."29

IV As previously indicated, once Kant had become convinced that mathematics proceeds through the construction of concepts and therefore depends upon synthetic acts rather than upon an analysis of concepts, he never abandoned this thesis but reaffirmed it again and again. Even in the Opus postumum he wrote: "Pure mathematics contains synthetic principles a priori through the construction of the concepts."30 However, Kant was also aware of the fact that his interpretation of mathematical propositions as synthetic was not generally shared at the time. In the Critique of Practical Reason, for example, he wrote: "Hume thought that [the] propositions [of mathematics] were analytic.... This, however, is false; they are all synthetical."31 But misunderstandings of Kant's position persist to this day. Moltke S. Gram, for example, states: "To argue, as [Kant] does, that we define a concept by constructing figures in space and reading off their properties ... does not imply that a definition in mathematics is any less an analysis of a complex concept into its component parts than a definition, say in moral philosophy."32 Professor Gram's contention that, according to Kant, we first construct a figure and then, when we come to the definition of the concept, we "read off' the properties of that figure and incorporate them in our definition, is precisely the reverse of Kant's thesis. That thesis is that in and through the construction of the concept we create its object; or, as Lewis White Beck puts it somewhat ambiguously: "Construction is the presentation of a concept through the spontaneous production of its corresponding and verifying intuition."33 Bertrand Russell was also mistaken when he wrote: "Kant, having observed that the geometers of his day could not prove their theorems by unaided arguments, but required an appeal to the figure, invented a theory of mathematical reasoning to which the inference is never strictly logical, but always requires the support of

21

MATHEMATICS AND THE CONSTRUCTION OF CONCEPTS

what is called 'intuition.' "34 Jaakko Hintikka is quite right when he states that "there does not seem to be a scrap of evidence for attributing to Kant the 'observation' Russell mentions."35 Russell may have been led astray by Kant's discussion of the proof that the sum of the interior angles of a triangle is always equal to two right angles. 36 Kant argued that, confronted with this problem, the philosopher "has nothing but the concept of a figure enclosed by three straight lines, and possessing three angles." All he can do now is "analyze and clarify the concept of a straight line or of an angle or of the number three, but he can never arrive at any properties not already contained in these concepts." The geometrician, however, is not so restricted. Since he derives his knowledge not from concepts but from the construction of them and of their corresponding objects, "he at once begins by constructing a triangle" as the object of his concept. He knows from other demonstrations that "the sum of two right angles is exactly equal to the sum of all the adjacent angles which can be constructed from a single point on a straight line, he prolongs one side of his triangle ..."; and so on. "In this fashion, through a chain of inferences guided throughout by intuition (Anschauung), he arrives at a fully evident and universally valid solution of the problem." The "chain of inferences" is a sequence of interrelated theorems, all of which are synthetic propositions grounded in the construction of concepts and ultimately dependent upon axioms which, Kant argues, are "synthetic principles a priori" derived 110t through an analysis of concepts but "by means of the construction of concepts."37 Kant concedes that some principles assumed in mathematics are "indeed actually analytic and depend solely on the law of contradiction"; but these, he maintains, "serve only as a method of concatenation," not as principles of mathematics proper. "a = a, the whole is equal to itself, or (a + b) > a, the whole is greater than any of its parts," exemplifies the type of propositions Kant has in mind. 38 But he again insists that "pure mathematical cognition ... cannot at all proceed from concepts, but only by means of the construction of concepts,"39 and that "mathematics alone contains demonstrations, since it derives its knowledge not from concepts but from the construction of them. "40

22

MATHEMATICS AND THE CONSTRUCTION OF CONCEPTS

v What Kant also recognizes is that mathematics constructs concepts not only in geometry, but does so in algebra as well; and that here "it abstracts completely from the properties of the object that is to be thought in terms of a concept of magnitude. "41 It may be helpful to our discussion to consider Kant's thesis of the construction of concepts more fully in this connection. But again, since Kant never wavered in his adherence to that thesis after its inception in 1763, the chronological sequence of specific expressions of his view is irrelevant to the problem. In a letter to Johann Schultz,42 dated November 25, 1788, Kant wrote: "Of one and the same magnitude I can construct a concept in various ways of addition and subtraction ... which are objectively identical ... but subjectively quite different depending on the kind of synthesis I think in order to obtain the concept. ... Thus I can obtain identical magnitude = 8 through 3 + 5, through 12 - 4, through 2 · 4, through 23. But my thought of 3 + 5 does not at all contain the thought of 2 · 4; and just as little [does it contain] the concept 8, which has the same value as the other tWO."43 Again: In an arithmetical equation, such as 3 + 4 = 7, "both concepts, 3 + 4 and 7, must be absolutely conceptus reciproci and objectively completely identical. But the number 7 cannot have arisen from the concept of the problem to combine 3 and 4 into a number through an analysis of that concept, but only through a construction which represents the combination of the two nunlbers ... in one single enumeration, Le., synthetically."44 This is, of course, the very same argument which we find in the Critique of Pure Reason, where Kant argues that the number 12 cannot be derived analytically from the concept of a sum of 7 and 5,45 or, better, from the concept "to combine 7 and 5." In a letter to Kant, August Wilhelm Rehberg took exception to Kant's statement in the Critique of Pure Reason (A149/B188) that "mathematical propositions are derived solely from intuition, not from the pure concepts of the understanding," and maintained that, while there might be no doubt about this in respect to geometrical propositions, it is otherwise with respect to "arithmetical truths."

23

MATHEMATICS AND THE CONSTRUCTION OF CONCEPTS

"For example, the impossibility of V2is clearly seen not from the pure perception of the schema 2 ... but from the number itself. "46 On September 25, 1790, Kant replied: The problem is: Why cannot the understanding, which brings forth numbers through free choice (willkiirlich), think ffin numbers? ... (1) I can view every number as the product of two factors, even though these are not given and also can never be given in numbers. Let the given number be = 15, then I can assume the one factor be = 3; the other factor is in that case = 5.... Or, let the given factor be = 2; the factor we seek will then be 15/2. If the first is a fraction = 1/7, the other factor is 105, and so on. It is thus possible to find to every number, taken as a product, the other factor when one is given. (2) But if neither one of the two factors is given, but only a proportionality of the two, for example, that they should be equal, so that the given factor is = a and the factor sought = x, then the equation is l:x = x:a, Le., the factor sought is the middle geometrical proportional number between 1 and a, and since according to a = x 2, x = va, i.e., it is the square root of the given magnitude. For example, V1" is expressed by the number of the middle proportionality between 1 and the given number = 2. It is therefore possible to think such a number. The diagonal of a square shows that the magnitude of the middle proportionality between one number = 1 and another number = 2 can be found and thus is not an empty concept (one without object). The question therefore is only why for this quantum no number can be found .... From the fact that every number can be conceived as the square of some other number as its root it does not follow that the latter must be a real number, Le., that it must have a denumerable relation to unity.47 "But it follows from (1) above that this root must nevertheless be a number of the sequence of numbers in which between every two of its members there is always an intermediate member.... If the understanding forms the concept iff [through a process other than counting], it must rest satisfied in this respect with entering upon an infinite approximation to a number."48 Although va makes no reference to time, the moment a is replaced by the number of which

24

MATHEMATICS AND THE CONSTRUCTION OF CONCEPTS

it is the symbol, as is the case in arithmetic, Le., when it not merely indicates a square root (as in algebra), then it indicates the task of finding the square root and time is now an indispensable condition-as it is in all generation of numbers. "That not only the rational concept of a number but a synthesis in time, as a pure intuition, must be the ground of the concept of a square of a determinate number, e.g., the number 15, is evident from the fact that from the mere concept of a number alone we can never judge whether its root is rational or irrational."49 Nevertheless, v2 is not only thinkable but "can be geometrically constructed and therefore . . . can be adequately indicated in intuition (Anschauung) ... even though the understanding has no insight into this." It "does not comprehend the ground, and is not even justified in assuming the possibility of an object VI."sO Whether or not one agrees (either in detail or in its over-all orientation) with Kant's thesis that mathematics proceeds by means of the construction of concepts, there can be no doubt as to what he means. Even V2 is thinkable as a schema for the construction of a concept, as is the right-hand side of the equation Xl = X - vt

vI -.Y:... c2

VI The construction of concepts in mathematics, although freely creative, is not arbitrary. It depends upon, and is guided by, principles which themselves are synthetic; for they, too, are obtained by means of construction. Schultz points out that the basic principles are either axioms or they are postulates. In either case, however, they are "propositions of such immediate certainty that they require no proof, nor can they be proven."SI But, since "no problem can be solved without recourse to a postulate, [and] no theorem can be proven without an axiom, and often not without a postulate,"52 the whole of elementary and higher arithmetic depends upon them, as does geometry. They are, therefore, not only synthetic but a priori as well.53 On this point Schultz fully supports Kant, defending him against criticisms advanced by Feder,s4 Reimarus,ss Tiedemann,s6 Tittel,S? Weishaupt,S8 and others, S9 coming to the conclusion that "pure geometry is a

25

MATHEMATICS AND THE CONSTRUCTION OF CONCEPTS

science which, independently of all perceptions, consists entirely of synthetic propositions a priori. "60 Kant had stated that "geometry is a science which determines the properties of space synthetically and yet a priori";61 and that all mathematics depends upon synthetic principles a priori which the mathematician obtains by means of the construction of concepts. 62 Kant also distinguished between axioms and postulates. Of the axioms he said (as previously noted) that they are synthetic principles a priori; that "mathematics can have axioms, since by means of the construction of concepts in the intuition of the object it can combine the predicates of the object both a priori and imnlediately, as, for instance, in the proposition that three points always lie in a plane."63 The postulates he carefully distinguishes from assumptions. "If it is indubitably certain [he maintains] that something is or that something ought to happen, but this certainty is at the same time only conditional, then a certain determinate condition of it can be absolutely necessary, or can be an optional and contingent presupposition. In the former case the condition is postulated (per thesin); in the latter case it is assumed (per hypothesin)."64 As Kaulback has pointed out, in his conception of postulates and the reasons for positing them, Kant is not far removed from modern developments in mathematics. 65 Kant, however, extends the employment of postulates to all branches of philosophy as stipulating absolutely necessary conditions of something of which it is indubitably certain that it is or ought to be. This interpretation of postulates is indispensable to a proper understanding of the cognitive significance of the synthetic a priori in his philosophy. And let it be understood at once that, for Kant, the employment of the term a priori is always adverbial, never adjectival.66

VII I have dwelt upon Kant's concern with problems of mathematics at such length because his conception of unprovable propositions and of the role they playas axioms and postulates in mathematics contributes materially to the development of his philosophy-even if that development is not simply "a consequence of the system of 1762/63," as Dieter Henrich maintains. 67 There is 26

MATHEMATICS AND THE CONSTRUCTION OF CONCEPTS

no doubt about it: Kant saw mathematics as "a shining example of how far, independently of experience, we can progress a priori in knowledge. "68 Or, as he says in another place: "The very dignity of mathematics (that pride of human reason) rests upon this, that it guides reason to knowledge of nature in its order and regularity ... and in the extraordinary unity of its moving forces rises to a degree of insight far beyond what any philosophy based on ordinary experience would lead us to expect. "69 It was Hume's basic mistake, so Kant believed, to have "heedlessly severed" pure mathematics from synthetic cognitions a priori-a mistake which had "a decidedly injurious effect upon his whole conception." But for this mistake, Hume would have extended his question concerning the origin of our synthetic judgments far beyond the metaphysical concept of Causality, and would have included in it the possibility of mathematics a priori also, for this latter he must have assumed to be equally synthetic. And then he could not have based its metaphysical judgments on mere experience without subjecting the axioms of mathematics equally to experience, a thing which he was far too acute to do. The good company into which his metaphysics would thus have been brought would have saved it from the danger of a contemptuous ill-treatment, for the thrust intended for it must have reached mathematics, which was not and could not have been Hume's intention. Thus, that astute man would have been led into considerations which must needs be similar to those that now occupy us, but which would have gained inestimably by his inimitably elegant style. 70 With this tribute to Hume, we conclude the discussion of Kant's concern with problems of mathematics.

27

CHAPTER III

A PERIOD OF TRANSITION

We now know that two themes remained constant in Kant's thinking from their inception on to the very end of his philosophical interests. One was the conception of the great chain of being and its inherent purposiveness in the realm of existents, including man as the culmination of the cosmic development. The other is the thesis of the construction of concepts (as in mathematics) versus the analysis of concepts as practised in philosophy. Both themes provide a general and unchanging basis for the development of Kant's thinking. But there were other problems with which Kant was concerned fronl the time of his first publication on. His attempts at solving them are indicative of the inner dynamics of his own philosophical development and are characteristic of a period of transition that culminates in the "new insight" of 1769. One of these problems concerns the nature of space.

I In his first publication, Gedanken von der wahren Schatzung der /ebendigen Krafte (1747), Kant faced the problem of the possibility of multidimensional spaces and, by .implication, the problem of non-Euclidean geometries. l He there argued (1) that there would be no space and no extension, if substances did not have the force to be externally effective, and (2) that space must of necessity be three-dimensional. We know this, he said, not only because, when we posit more than three dimensions, we merely

A PERIOD OF TRANSITION

repeat one of the others, but also because of "a certain other necessity, which as yet I am unable to explain."2 Kant briefly considered the possibility of the existence of worlds other than ours, in which the effective forces of substances act in conformity with laws other than those of the substances and laws we know, and those spaces might therefore be different from ours. "The impossibility, which we observe in ourselves, of imagining a space of more than three dimensions appears to stem from the fact that our soul receives external impressions also in accordance with the law of the inverse square of the distances, and because its nature itself was made, not only to receive, but also to be externally effective in this way."3 Kant concludes this line of reasoning by stating that "it is not probable that many worlds exist (although it is in itself possible), unless many different kinds of space ... are possible." And he adds: "These thoughts can be the project of a meditation which I reserve for myself . . . but which I am willing to discard as soon as a more mature judgment reveals to me their weakness."4

II The problem of space is more complicated than Kant realized in 1747. It has several aspects which must be dealt with separately but may touch the basic problem only tangentially. One of these is the problem of rest and motion. Both involve space and may have a bearing on our knowledge of the nature of space. Kant dealt with this problem for the first time in 1758, in an essay entitled Neuer Lehrbegriff der Bewegung und Ruhe und der damit verknupften Fo/gerungen in den ersten Grunden der Naturwissenschaft. His argument begins with the proposition that the place which a body occupies is known to us as the body's position relative to other bodies near it, and that motion is change of that position. Now it is possible, Kant's argument continues, that, when we consider only the bodies near a given body A, A does not change its position with respect to the bodies near it and, in this perspective, is at rest. But, when we consider other and more distant bodies, it is quite possible that A and the bodies near it change their positions with respect to them and must therefore be regarded as being in mo30

A PERIOD OF TRANSITION

tion. Since we are free to enlarge our horizons as much as we want to, and can therefore view A in relation to ever more distant bodies, our judgment as to the rest or motion of A is always subject to change. A particular object may thus be at rest relative to other objects in, let us say, the cabin of a ship; but, relative to the shoreline, it and the ship may both be moving. Suppose that, relative to the earth, they move in a westerly direction. But, since the earth itself rotates towards the east with respect to the stars and, in addition, revolves around the sun (which also moves as part of the Milky Way with respect to other -galaxies), in what direction and with what velocity is the original object in our cabin moving?5 We no longer have an ultimate or absolute answer to this question. Kant therefore concludes that the terms rest and motion are inadequate in their simplicity. We ought never to use them in an absolute but only in a relative sense; and so seen, they tell us nothing about space itself. If we were to imagine a space empty of all bodies, how could we then distinguish various positions and changes in positions? The answer, of course, is that we couldn't. 6 This theme of the relativity of rest and motion remains a constant factor in Kant's thinking. He deals with it definitively in Chapter I of the Metaphysical Foundations of Natural Science (1786).

III Another problem which Kant faced early and the solution of which remains a constant ingredient in his philosophical thinking is: What does it mean to occupy space? Kant answered the question for the first time in the Untersuchung uber die Deutlichkeit der Grundsatze der naturlichen Theologie und der Moral (1764). This is the way he put it: A space is occupied when there is something which resists a moving body when the latter endeavours to penetrate that same space. This resistance is impenetrability ... [and] impenetrability is a force.... Now, the force which belongs to a body must belong also to its simplest parts. The elements of every body therefore also fill their space through the force of

31

A PERIOD OF TRANSITION

impenetrability.... But since the application of the force of impenetrability against any external thing is the cause of the element's occupying space, I comprehend that out of this flows indeed a manifold of external actions but not a manifold in respect of inner parts; and therefore it is not extended. 7 What this amounts to is not only an indirect repudiation of the Leibnizian conception of space, but a direct repudiation of the atomism of Newtonian mechanics as well. With this there emerges in Kant's thinking still another thesis which henceforth remains a permanent part of his philosophy. He gives it its final form in Chapter II of the Metaphysical Foundations of Natural Science, but its implications and consequences are the subject-matter of the so-called transition theme of the Opus postumum.

IV The three essays so far considered contain no solution to the problem of the nature of space as such. Kant appears to have favored the Newtonian conception of absolute space; but in 1768 he was still struggling with the problem,s and the Leibnizians and the Newtonians were still at loggerheads. What troubled Kant in particular was Leibniz's relational interpretation of space. In one of the key passages Leibniz had argued: Let us suppose that among co-existing phenomena there is a sufficient number of things which have not changed their positions; then we may say that those objects which have to the fixed things a relation'such as that which others formerly had to them, occupy the same place which the latter occupied. And that which includes all these places is called space; which shows that in order to have an idea of place, and consequently of space, it is sufficient to consider these relations and the rules of their changes; it is not necessary to imagine any absolute reality outside the things whose situations we consider. . . . Space is that which results when we take the places together. In other words, for Leibniz, space was but a relation of things, "an order of co-existence."9

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Against this position Kant argues that a region in space "consists not in the relation of one thing in space to another, which, properly speaking, is the concept of position, but in the relation of the system of these positions to absolute space."'IO What Kant wishes to examine is "whether or not in the intuitive judgments of extension . . . a convincing proof might be found [for the thesis] that, independently of the existence of all matter and even as the first ground of the possibility of its composition, absolute space has its own reality."ll If this reality could be proven, then Newton's conception of space would be justified. But, as Kant sees it, all attempts of the metaphysicians and of Newton himself to demonstrate the reality of space a posteriori have failed. 12 Kant begins his argument by showing that the first ground for the determination of regions in space is the threedimensionality of our own bodies which leads us to distinguish above and below, right and left side, and in front and behind us. "Even our judgments concerning the regions of the earth are subordinate to the conception we have of regions in general as determined relative to the sides of our body."13 Whatever else we observe in the heavens and on earth as independent of this basic conception of relationships are but positions of the objects among themselves. The second step in Kant's argument is his demonstration that "the complete ground of determination of a bodily configuration (Gestalt) is not simply the relation and position of its parts with respect to one another" but also "a relation to the universal absolute space ... but in such a way that this relation cannot be immediately perceived."14 It is revealed rather in that difference of bodies which depends solely upon it. The commonest and clearest example of the difference is the incongruity of our hands, right and left. 15 It is evident from such incongruity, Kant argues, that, although "the figure of one body can be completely similar to that of another, and the magnitude of the extension can be the same, there yet remains an inner difference, namely this: the surface which encloses the one cannot possibly enclose the other," no matter how we turn and twist them. The difference, therefore, nlust have its inner ground;16 and this conception of space, accepted by "many recent philosophers, especially in Germany" (Le., the Leibnizians), cannot be accounted for. l ?

A PERIOD OF TRANSITION

What the facts of incongruence prove, so Kant continues, is not only that "the determinations of space are not the consequence of the positions of parts of matter relative to one another, but also that in the nature (Beschaffenheit) of bodies there can be found differences, Le., genuine and not merely apparent differences, which are related exclusively to absolute and primordial space, for only through such space is the relationship of bodily things possible." However, the differences prove that, "because absolute space is no object of external perception but a basic concept (Grundbegriff) which first makes all perceptions possible, we can perceive only through the contrast with other bodies what in the configuration (Gestalt) of a body pertains exclusively to the relation to pure space."18 -Kant had found, or believed he had found, sufficient proof that the Leibnizian conception of space as an abstraction from the relative positions of material bodies with respect to one another is untenable. He hoped that a reflective reader would not regard absolute space as a mere thought-object (Gedankending), "although there is no lack of difficulties surrounding this concept when one attempts to comprehend its reality through ideas of reason (Vernunftideen)." The difficulties remain although the reality of absolute space is "intuitively evident to the inner sense." 19 Kant had disproven the Leibnizian conception of space but had found no adequate proof for the Newtonian view, and Newton's own arguments in favor of absolute space were less than convincing.20 In 1768, the problem of space thus remained unsolved for Kant; but it demanded a solution. Kant's insight into how it might be solved is unquestionably one factor in "the great light" that dawned upon him in 1769. Proof of this assertion may be seen in the fact that his very next publication, the inaugural dissertation of 1770, gives us his solution. In 1768 Kant still spoke of space as a basic concept (ein Grundbegriff); and he realized that some of the difficulties he had with the problem arose from this fact. They were the kind of difficulties which we encounter whenever we attempt "to philosophize concerning the primary data of cognition," but they are "never so decisive ... as when the implications of an accepted concept contradict the most obvious experience."21

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v There were, of course, other problems which troubled Kant during the period of transition prior to 1770. For example, in 1759, in a letter dated July 27, Johann Georg Hamann brought Hume to Kant's attention with the remark that, despite all his errors, this "Attic philosopher" is "as Saul among the prophets."22 In support of this evaluation Hamann quoted from the Enquiry Concerning Human Understanding, Section X, Part 2. Although we have no evidence that Kant read Hume himself during this period, the conflict of scepticism and dogmatism became an issue for him. His lengthy discussion of "the only possible ground for a demonstration of the existence of God" (1763), culminating in the conclusion that "it is certainly necessary that one convince oneself of the existence of God, but [that] it is not equally necessary that one demonstrate it,"23 together with his concern with the method of metaphysics in the second and third Meditations of the Untersuchung of 1764, is evidence of this. 24 In addition, Kant felt that "the first grounds of morality are in their present condition not capable of all required evidence. "25 As Kant saw it in 1763, the formula which expresses every type of obligation is simply that "one ought to do this or that and not do the other."26 However, every ought which thus expresses the necessity of an action may be interpreted in two different ways: "I ought to do something (as a means) if I want to attain son1ething else (as an end), or I directly ought to do something (as an end) and bring it about. The first [ought] may be called necessity of the means ... , the second the necessity of ends. "27 The first type entails no obligation, only the directive (for the solution of a problem) as to which of the means I ought to employ if I desire to reach a certain end. But it is not possible, says Kant, to infer from a concept or even from a thing what one ought to do if that which is presupposed is not an end or goal and the action is not a means to its realization. Having contemplated the problem "for a long time," Kant had "become convinced that the rule, 'Do the most perfect that is possible through you,' is the first formal ground of all obligation to act, as the proposition, Abstain from what would prevent the greatest perfec-

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tion possible through you, [is the ground] for abstaining from doing it as a matter of duty."28 The stress here placed on the formal ground of any obligation whatever is significant, for it points toward the essentially formal character of the categorical imperative. That formulation, however, still lies far in the future. Kant admits ·that "the immediate highest principles of all obligations [are] absolutely unprovable."29 But we must realize, he adds, that, "just as no cognition can be derived from the ultimate formal principles of our judgments of truth alone, so no specific obligation can be derived from those two principles of the good when no material maxims of practical cognition are combined with them."30 This last statement suggests (if it does not actually imply) that the moral imperative would remain a purely formal and empty principle which could not serve as a guide to action were it not for the fact that, somehow, a material content is subsumable under the moral imperative. But, as to the question of the nature of this content, Kant's position shifts. In 1763, Kant was still holding that the faculty of perceiving the good (Le., the material content) is feeling. But, when we reduce the complexly composite and confused concept of the good to the simpler feelings of the good, then the judgment, 'This is good,' is completely unprovable and is but "an immediate effect of the consciousness of the feeling of pleasure engendered by the representation of the object." And, since it is quite certain that we experience many simple feelings of the good, there occur many similarly irreducible representations of it. Hence, says Kant, when "an action is represented directly as good, without being related in some hidden way to a certain other good ... for the sake of which it is called perfect, then the necessity of that action is the unprovable material principle of obligation."31 At this time Kant still believed that Hutcheson and others had made important contributions to ethics in terms of moral feelings, and he was sure that it had not as yet been settled whether the faculty of cognition alone or "feeling (as the ultimate ground of the faculty of desire)" actually provided a firm basis for morals. 32 It was this indecision, no doubt, which led Kant to take a closer look at the nature of feelings. He did so in the Beobachtungen uber

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das Gefuhl des Schonen und Erhabenen. It would be a mistake to assume, however, that the analyses here presented were meant to establish definitively the ultimate grounds of morality. For Kant himself tells us in the Introduction to the essay that his intention was merely to clarify important aspects of various types of feelingdispositions, and this he in fact did.

VI Kant's starting-point is this: "The diverse feelings of pleasure or displeasure depend not so much on the nature of the external things which arouse them as on the specific feelings of each human being affected by them."33 It is this subjective ground of response that accounts for the fact that some people experience joy where others feel disgust; it accounts also for the fact that "a human being is happy only insofar ... as he satisfies any inclination."34 Thus, "a lazy man who loves being read to out of books because this lets one fall asleep easily; the merchant to whom all pleasures are childish except the one which a shrewd man enjoys when he calculates his profits; he who loves the other sex only insofar as he counts it among enjoyable things ...; all of these have a feeling which enables them to enjoy pleasures in their own way."35 However, Kant continues, there is also "a feeling of a more refined kind," be it so called because it can be enjoyed "longer without satisfaction and exhaustion" or because it "presupposes, so to say, a sensitivity which, at the same time, makes the soul fit for virtuous impulses or reveals talents and intellectual excellences, whereas, by contrast, the other feelings can be experienced despite the complete absence of thought."36 These finer feelings, Kant holds, are essentially of two kinds: "the feeling of the sublime and that of the beautiful. " The experience of both is pleasing, but in very different ways. "The view of mountain ranges whose snow-covered peaks rise above the clouds, ... Milton's description of the realm of Hell-these arouse pleasure, but with an admixture of awe. By contrast, the view of flower-covered meadows, of valleys with their meandering brooks ..., Homer's description of the Girdle of Venus-these cause a pleasing experience which is joyous and cheerful (Uichelnd)."37 Kant adds: "The

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sublime moves us; the beautiful entices."38 "The sublime must always be great; the beautiful may also be small."39 Kant's further discussion of the sublime and the beautiful per se belongs to the field of aesthetics, and I shall therefore disregard it here. However, it is Kant's contention that, among moral qualities, true virtue, and it alone, is sublime. To be sure, there are good moral qualities which are lovable and beautiful and which, insofar as they are in harmony with virtue, can be regarded as noble, even though they are not part of a "virtuous disposition," but the problem respecting them is complex and difficult of solution.40 In any case, so Kant continues, true virtue can be based only upon principles which, "the more general they are, the more sublime and the nobler they are." "These principles are not speculative rules, but the consciousness of a feeling that lives in every human heart." They are "the feeling of the beauty and the dignity of human nature," the former being "the ground of universal benevolence," the latter that of "universal respect. "41 If the feeling of respect attains "the greatest perfection in any human heart, then the man having this feeling could still also love and respect himself, but only insofar as he is one of all those to whom this noble feeling is extended." "Only if one thus subordinates one's special inclination to an enlarged one can one's benevolent impulses be proportionally applied and bring about that noble behavior which is the beauty of virtue."42 The feeling of respect for the dignity of the human being is therefore the ground for the beauty of virtue. However, Kant's basic realism led him to recognize the fact that "selfishness is the great axis around which [most people] seek to turn everything." Not only are these people the most numerous, they are also "the most industrious, the most orderly, and the most careful"; "they give support and stability to the whole [of society] by the very fact that, without the intention of becoming generally useful (gemeinniitzig), they provide the necessities of life and the basis over which finer souls can spread beauty and harmony."43 Kant carries this argument one step further. Love of honor, he says, is deeply rooted in man's heart, although it is rooted in various degrees; and, although the ambitious striving after honor is a foolish

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delusion (especially when it becomes the rule to which all other inclinations are made subservient), it is, nevertheless, a most excellent drive when held in bounds; for, "insofar as everybody upon the great stage [of life] pursues his actions in conformity with his predominant inclinations, he is at the same time moved by a secret impulse to take, in thought, a point of view outside himself in order to evaluate the impression his conduct makes, how it looks to others." Through this adoption of the point of view of a spectator "the various groups combine into a portrait of magnificent expression in which, in the midst of a great manifoldness [of actions], a unity shines forth, and the whole of moral nature reveals in itself beauty and dignity."44 What this amounts to is that the effective practical principles of morality are indeed more than the consciousness of a universal feeling. The stress placed on the beauty and dignity of moral nature reveals as much, and the projection of the point of view of the critical spectator underscores it. But the question concerning the relationship of the moral feeling to the principle of obligation has as yet found no answer. And it was the principle of obligation which Kant had stressed all along. He could therefore not rest here in his thinking about moral problems. We shall see later that, for Kant, respect for the moral law is the sole motive for moral action.

VII The marginalia in Kant's own copy of the Beobachtungen give us additional information concerning the problems Kant faced after 1764. During this period he became increasingly critical of Rousseau's point of view. To be sure, he gave Rousseau credit for having been "the first to discover underneath the manifoldness of the acquired human configurations the deeply concealed nature of man"45 and of having taught Kant himself "to honor men."46 But he also pointed up a basic difference between them: "Rousseau proceeds synthetically, beginning with natural man; I proceed analytically and begin with moral man. "47 In the chronologically earliest "Bemerkungen," Kant still stresses feeling as basic to all morality, but he now tries to clarify the nature of moral feeling and its relation to the will. 39

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The feelings of pleasure and displeasure, he maintains, pertain "either to that which we suffer or to ourselves as an active principle through freedom with respect to good and evil." There is, in other words, a significant difference in the pleasure we take in the good that befalls us and the pleasure we take in that which we do. "The latter is the moral feeling. "48 Kant elaborates: "We take pleasure in some of our perfections, but much more so when we ourselves are the cause and by far the most when we are the freely effective cause; for to subordinate everything to free choice is the greatest perfection."49 In fact, "the feeling of the goodness of the will" is directly experienced as "quite different and greater than all the good consequences which are made actual through it."50 Kant will say later that there is nothing in the world that can be called good without qualification except a good will. But he now gives a reason for holding this view: free choice (Willkiir) involves not only our merely subjective will but the general will as well; and insofar as this will is "the ground of the good in general in accordance with the laws of freedom," it is perfect. What it comes to, then, is that "the moral feeling is the feeling of the perfection of the will."51 "Applied to its own actions, that feeling is conscience."52 Reason does not engender the moral feeling, nor does it increase or diminish it. Reason and feeling are quite distinct, although interdependent. The certainty of amoral judgment therefore depends on its harmony with the moral feeling. When that harmony is complete, the certainty of the moral judgment is just as great as is that of a cognitive judgment when the latter is in harmony with sense impressions. Deception in the case of a moral judgment occurs in the same way in which it occurs in the case of cognitive judgments, but the latter is more frequent. Kant had previously maintained that moral feeling impels us to bring our purely subjective will into harmony with broader considerations. He now maintains that it is will itself which forces us to strive towards harmony with the general will. A will that is to be regarded as good "must not contradict itself when taken as universal and reciprocal."53 Since man is by nature a social being, the general will is inherent in every individual; and this will contradicts itself

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"when the individual wants what, according to the general will, he ought not to want." The basic law of the moral will is thus selfconsistency; and the will is perfect insofar as, in accordance with the laws of freedom and self-consistency, "it is the absolute ground for the good as such."54 One can see here the beginnings of a development in Kant's thinking which would culminate some twenty years later in the thesis that "we must be able to will that a maxim of our action become a universal law." Kant in fact defends the thesis by again stressing the need for consistency: "Some actions are of such nature that their maxim cannot even be thought as a universal law of nature without contradiction.... In others this internal impossibility is not found, though it is still impossible to will that their maxim should be raised to the universality of a law of nature, because such a will would contradict itself'; and its actions would, for this reason, not be moral actions. 55 Kant's use of the term "general will" is, of course, reminiscent of Rousseau's volunte generale; but there is a crucial difference. Kant's conception is obviously metaphysical, whereas Rousseau's is essentially socio-political or legislative. But in other respects Kant would agree with Rousseau. He tells us, for example, that, because of his needs, man always depends on external things and that, although "he is the viceregent of nature," he is "not its master." "He must adjust himself to its compulsion because he does not find that nature will always adjust itself to his wishes. But what is much harsher and more unnatural than this yoke of necessity is the subordination of a man under the will of another man."56 By virtue of his free will, man has "a hint from nature" that he should adjust his actions so as to follow his own inclinations in the pursuit of generally benevolent actions; and "nothing could be more horrible than that the actions of a man should be controlled by the will of another. No abhorrence can therefore be more natural than that which men have with respect to slavery."57 Subservience to others is "not only something externally dangerous" but is in itself "loathsome" and "a contradiction which at once discloses its illegitimacy."58 A man who is dependent upon the will of another is no longer a human being. "He has lost this rank and is nothing but an

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appendage of another man."59 Kant will say later in a nlore restrained form that we ought to respect humanity in every person as an end in itself and never use anyone as a means only. "The greatest concern of man," Kant therefore concludes, is "to know how to fill completely his place in creation" within the Great Chain of Being and to understand "what one must be in order to be a human being."60 But this, in the last analysis, is a metaphysical problem; and, as we shall see, nletaphysical problems and metaphysics itself were Kant's major interest during his period of transition.

VIII In a letter to Lambert, dated December 31, 1765, Kant mentioned that, "after various changes of mind (Umkippungen)," he felt sure he had found the method one must follow if he wants to escape the delusions of metaphysics. 61 Kant intended in fact to publish a work entitled Methode der Metaphysik ("perhaps by next Easter"). But he encountered various difficulties which induced him to postpone that publication and to publish instead several smaller items, first among them being "die metaphysischen Anfangsgriinde der natiirlichen Weltweisheit, und die metaphysischen Anfangsgriinde der praktischen Weltweisheit."62 Although he did not publish these items either, the suggested titles clearly foreshadow the Metaphysical Foundations of Natural Science and the Foundations of the Metaphysics of Mora/s. In a letter to Moses Mendelssohn (dated April 8, 1766), Kant spoke of the repugnance and "even some hate" which he felt when he saw how current fashions in metaphysics tended to "increase infinitely delusion and error." He was convinced, however, that metaphysics itself, objectively considered, should not be discarded lightly; that, in fact, "even the true and lasting well-being of the human race depends upon it."63 As preparation for the development of a truly useful metaphysics, he added, there is nothing that is more needed than to "pull off the dogmatic garment" and to regard with scepticism what "currently" masquerades as metaphysics. And Kant stated again that he had "come to important insights in this discipline [metaphysics], which establish its method and consist not

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merely in general perspectives but are useful in application as the proper standard."64 What Kant did publish is Traume eines Geistersehers Er/autert durch Traume der Metaphysik (1766). Although this is not one of the works projected in his letter to Lambert, its publication marks an important advance in his philosophical development. Keith Ward has called the Traume "the strangest and most tortured of Kant's writings. "65 "Visionary speculation and rational scepticism seem to be equally strong, if competing, forces in Kant's mind at this time," he adds. In support of his thesis, Ward quotes one brief sentence from Kant's letter to Mendelssohn of April 8, 1766. He might better have quoted from Mendelssohn's review of the work: "The jesting profundity with which this little work has been written leaves the reader at times in doubt as to whether Mr. Kant intended to make metaphysics ridiculous or spiritism (Geisterseherei) plausible."66 But, surely, the passages I have quoted from Kant's letters to Lambert and Mendelssohn can leave no doubt about his intention in the Traume. In the dogmatic first part of the work, Kant states that he does not know whether spirits exist or not; and, what is more, he does not even know what the word spirit means. 67 But he hopes to discover its meaning by applying the concept to various cases and observing where it is appropriate and where it is not. Having discovered the meaning of the term, he will still be left with the question: Are spirits real or even possible?68 And here, Kant confesses, he is "very much inclined to affirm the existence of immaterial beings in the world and to place [his] own soul into the class of such beings."69 But to assert or believe in the existence of immaterial beings is not the same as proving that they actually exist. This is true even with respect to the existence of God. With specific reference to Swedenborg's reports of seeing and communicating with spirits, Kant holds that such tales "have noticeable weight only in the scale of hope, but in that of speculation they appear to consist of nothing but air."70 They merely show how far one can proceed in fanciful fabrications when the facts are miss-

ing. 7l What is the answer to all these misguided speculations? First of all, Kant argues, philosophy must determine what we can know 43

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when we confine ourselves to judgments based on experience. Metaphysics then becomes "a science concerning the limits of human reason."72 We may then at least "find ourselves again upon the lowly ground of experience and common sense," where we encounter "everything that can satisfy us as long as we concern ourselves with what is useful."73 As thus expressed, Kant's philosophical position appears to be empiricistic. It appears markedly so as he continues his argument: Our rules of reason concern only a comparison according to identity and contradiction. But insofar as something is a cause, through which something else is being posited, no connection according to [the law of] identity can be found here; as also there is no connection if I do n.ot wish to regard the very same thing as cause, for when something is posited it is not contradictory to annul (aufheben) something else. It follows that the basic concepts of things as causes, of forces and actions, when not obtained from experience, are completely arbitrary and can be neither proven nor disproven. I know very well that my thinking and willing move my body, but this phenomenon, which is a simple experience, I can never reduce to something else through analysis. I can recognize it [as a fact], but I cannot understand it. 74 Kant continues: It is easy to provide the foundation of everything when one is justified in inventing activities and causal laws as one pleases.... But, since in such cases rational grounds are of the least possible significance for either the invention or the confirmation of the possibility or impossibility, one can concede the right of decision only to experience.... And, if certain alleged experiences can be subsumed under no law of perception common to most men, and thus prove only an irregularity in the testimony of the senses, ... it is advisable to discontinue them, because the lack of unanimity and uniformity ... makes them unsuitable to serve as basis for any law of experience concerning which the understanding could judge. 75

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Three comments seem to be in order: 1. In 1766, Kant was convinced that metaphysical speculations are worthless and, in effect, a waste of time,76 unless we first develop an adequate epistemological basis and a dependable method for metaphysical inquiries. 2. The passages I have quoted from the Traume seem to imply that Kant would agree with Hume on the interpretation of causality. Closer reading shows, however, that there is a basic difference. While Kant insists merely upon the importance of empirical reference in matters of causality, Hume made causality itself a problem. It may well have been Kant's realization of this fact which awoke him from his "dogmatic slumber." After all, it is not likely that Kant could forget that only the objective validity of causal relations made possible his demonstration (in 1755) that the whole universe could have evolved from an initial state of chaos by means of mechanical causation alone. 3. In raising questions concerning God, Freedom, and Immortality as problems of metaphysics, the Traume sets up the key issues of the Second Division of the Critique of Pure Reason: the Transcendental Dialectic. A new approach to metaphysics was in the making. And so we can agree with Borowski's statement in the Kantapproved part of his biography of Kant that "\generally, the attentive reader found already here [Le., in the TraumeJ the seeds of the Critique of Pure Reason and of that which Kant gave us later."77 The Traume was published in 1766. Kant's next pUblication was Von dem ersten Grunde des Unterschiedes der Gegenden im Raume in 1768, which has been referred to earlier. Then, after another pause, came the Inaugural Dissertation of 1770: De Mundi Sensibilis atque Inte/ligibi/is Forma et Principiis. Towards the end of this fouryear interval, more specifically in 1769, the "great light" dawned upon Kant. 78 What this "great light" amounted to we learn from a letter of September 2, 1770, in which Kant told his friend Lambert: "I flatter myself that, since about a year ago, I have obtained that concept which I don't expect ever to have to change but only to expand, and through which every kind of metaphysical questions can be examined according to secure and easy criteria, and it can be decided with certainty whether or not they are solvable."79 Kant

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went on to say: "The most general laws of sensibility play falsely an important role in metaphysics. It appears necessary that a very special, although merely negative, science (phaenomenologia generalis) must precede metaphysics-a science in which the principles of sensibility and their validity and limitation are determined so that they do not muddle up (verwirren) the judgments concerning the objects of our reason, what so far has almost always happened."80 What had dawned upon Kant was the possibility and the necessity of a transcendental philosophy. A first and partial formulation of this new philosophy was the Inaugural Dissertation.

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CHAPTER IV

THE INAUGURAL DISSERTATION AND AFTER

As we have seen in the preceding chapter, Kant was caught in the dilemma between the Newtonian and the Leibnizian interpretations of space and time. He solved the problem to his own satisfaction in the Inaugural Dissertation of 1770 by agreeing with Newton that absolute space and time are pure intuitions (intuitus puri) and by agreeing, in part at least, with Leibniz that they are forms of intuition. He held, however, that they are forms of human rather than divine intuitions. What this amounts to is that, in the Dissertation, space and time are regarded as transcendentally ideal but that, as forms of human intuition, they are empirically real. They are the absolute formal principles which make the mathematical explanation of events in nature possible. This interpretation, however, provides no answer to the question: What objects or things can we come to know under the pure forms of space and time? The answer to this question can, of course, not be given in terms of the forms of our sensible intuitions alone but depends upon an interpretation of what is given under those forms. That is to say, Kant now faces the distinction between a sensible world (mundus sensibilis) and an intelligible world (mundus intelligibilis). Hence the title of the Dissertation: De Mundi Sensibilis atque Intel/igibi/is Forma et Principiis. 1

I Before turning to an analysis of De Mundi itself, let us briefly consider some of the Reflections which Kant jotted down prior to writing the Dissertation, especially Reflections 3955 to 3981. They

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clearly show that Kant attempted to clarify in his own mind some of the ideas which, in the end, were determinative of the development of his whole philosophy. That the Reflections are often repetitive and express with but slight verbal changes the same ideas is in itself proof, I believe, of his struggle with evolving new conceptions. But, when allowance is made for this fact, there emerges a complexus of ideas that is suggestive indeed. We can see how his thinking begins to take on its definitive direction. We become witnesses, as it were, of the first dawning of "the great light." To begin with, Kant tried to clarify in various formulations what is essential to cognition. "All cognitions [he wrote] are either empirical (insofar, namely, as they presuppose sense impressions), or they are pure cognitions (insofar as they do not have sense impressions as their basis)."2 That is to say, "all cognitions are either empirical or rational";3 and "all concepts are either sensory or rational concepts."4 While empirical cognitions "presuppose sense impressions"s or "originate in the senses,"6 pure cognitions have "no basis in sense impressions"7 and are "not obtained through the senses" but "have their source in the persistent nature of the thinking faculty of the soul."8 But let it be noted at this time that, as yet, Kant has not differentiated between the understanding and reason-a distinction which is crucial to his whole critical, as distinguished from his precritical, philosophy. Kant goes on to state more specifically that "the empirical cognitions are sense impressions, appearance, and empirical concept. From the first of these the matter [Le., the material content] of all cognition is derived; the second adds the form of intuition; the third brings both under a universal concept."9 "Since all material content of thinking must necessarily be given through our senses, it follows that the material content of all cognition is empirical."'o The form which appearance adds to our sense impressions is "grounded entirely in space and time" 11 and is "thought in accordance with space and time."12 At this time, however, Kant was by no means sure as to how space and time themselves were to be understood. He speaks of them as concepts that "originate through no sense impression but depend upon the nature of the mind, according to which the various impressions can be presented only in [certain] relations" but not in other~.13 But he also speaks of them as "pure 48

THE INAUGURAL DISSERTATION AND AFTER

concepts of intuition"14 or "intuitive concepts"15 and as "pure concepts ... of understanding, of coordination."16 To make matters worse, he also asserts that "the concept of space and time is a pure concept of intuition and . .. a concept of the understanding." 17 In the end, however, he realizes that space and time are themselves particulars and therefore cannot be concepts at all. Is It is this realization, I submit, that is the first breakthrough to Kant's critical philosophy.

II In De Mundi, Kant begins his argument with the distinction between analysis, which breaks down a given complex into its component "simples," and synthesis, which culminates in a whole that is no part of anything else and ultimately is the world. When dealing with this synthesis, he says, we must consider not only the characteristics of the parts or objects involved, but also the dual nature of the synthesis itself, which, starting from sense impressions, ends only with the conception of the world as a whole; for it is one thing, given the parts, to think of the composition as an abstract notion of the intellect, and it is something quite different to take that notion as a problem set by reason and to carry it through in the concrete by means of a synthesis which is subject to the laws of intuition.I 9 The elements (momenta) to be considered in the integrative view or definition of the world are: (1 ) Matter (in a sense which transcends experience) as parts of the world of which it is assumed that they are substances. 2o (2) Form, which consists in the coordination, not the subordination, of substances. 21 (3) The all-inclusive whole (universitas) or absolute totality of all conjoint parts. In any attempt to come to know this totality, we depend (a) on "sensibility" or "receptivity," which makes it possible for a subject to be affected by an object in some specific way, and (b) on "intelligence" or rationality as the faculty through which the subject is able to represent to itself what, because of its particular nature, cannot act upon the senses. Objects known through the senses have in the past been called phenomena. Objects known only through intelligence have been called noumena. Cognitions of the former are 49

THE INAUGURAL DISSERTATION AND AFTER

subject to the laws of sensibility; cognitions of the latter are subject to the laws of intelligence or reason. 22 It is noteworthy that in the use of the terms phenomena and noumena Kant is here following a well-established tradition. The conception of the Ding-an-sich is as yet foreign to his philosophy. Also, he here speaks of intelligence or reason, thus identifying the two. He has as yet not made the crucial distinction between the understanding and the reason upon which depend all the constructive innovations of his transcendental philosophy.

III But let us return to the argument of the Dissertation. Since everything in cognition that is given through the senses depends on the specific conditions of sensibility (which may be different for different subjects), all sensory knowledge is knowledge only of the appearance of things, whereas the concepts of the understanding give us knowledge of how things really are. In all sensible representations there is present what Kant calls the "matter" of experience, namely sensation (sensatio). But there is present also the "form" of the sensible, which indicates the extent to which the manifold of sense impressions has been coordinated through "a kind of law of the nature of the soul."23 The sensory impressions being given, the intellect, in its logical function, subordinates them to common concepts and, as phenomena, subordinates them also to generallaws. 24 But, since the real function of the intellect is the construction of concepts (as in mathematics), empirical concepts, formed in connection with sense impressions, do not become intellectual in the real sense by being brought to greater generality. No matter how high they ascend in abstraction, they remain empirical concepts. The objects of "intelligence" in the strict sense are given through concepts that are not derived by abstraction, but are created through construction and therefore contain no elements of sensible experience. 25 Concepts of this type are "possibility, existence, necessity, substance, cause, etc., with their opposites or correlatives."26 Since there are no sensory representations of such concepts, we have no intuition of things in-

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tellectual, but only a symbolic knowledge. Human intuition is sensory or, as Kant says, sensible only.27 The forms of sensory experience, Le., the forms of our sensibilitv are space and time as ground of a universal connection of all tl~i~gs insofar as they are phenomena. 28 And, Kant adds, he intends to demonstrate that the two "absolutely primary and universal formal principles of the phenomenal world . . . and, as it were, the schemata and conditions of human sensory cognition are space and tirne. "29 Time, we are told, is not an idea that originates in the senses. Rather, it is presupposed in all sensory experience, for the very fact that sense impressions can be represented either as simultaneous or as successive assumes that there is given a time in which simultaneity and succession are possible. This time must be singular, for "no part of time is apprehended except as part of one and the same immense time"30 which is neither substance nor accident nor relation, but a subjective condition necessary for the coordination of all sensory experiences according to a fixed law, and in pure intuition. 31 As such, it is "an absolutely primary, formal principle of the sensible [Le., the phenomenal] world";32 for anything that can be thought of as perceivable is either simultaneous or successive and is thus involved in time. Similarly, space is not abstracted from sensation, outer or otherwise;33 neither is it something objective and real. It is "neither substa.nce nor accident nor relation," but it is subjective and ideal-a schema for the coordination of all outer sense impressions (sensa) in accordance with a law. 34 Although the concept of space is imaginary, relative to all sensory objects it is not only altogether "true," but it is "the foundation of all truth of our external sensory inlpressions." That is to say, things of the outer world cannot appear to us in sense experience except as we coordinate all sensory impressions in conformity with the primary axioms of space and with the derived theorems as expounded in geometry. 35 Space and time are thus the two principles of sensory knowledge which make that knowledge at all possible. They are not general concepts, but singular and pure intuitions. Their primary properties are beyond the jurisdiction of reason and therefore cannot be explained

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or accounted for. They are simply there as forms of sense experience. Reason presupposes them whenever it draws conclusions from the primary data of intuition with the greatest possible certainty, as in geometry and physics. Space, however, is more specifically the form of the intuition of objects, whereas time is more specifically that of states and events. 36

IV I have dwelled upon these discussions of space and time at such length because they are taken over (at times verbatim) into the Critique of Pure Reason. 37 We thus need not refer to them again. However, Kant discusses in the Dissertation two other matters which are significant for his philosophical development. One pertains to the nature of human knowledge; the other pertains to the problem of the proper method to be followed in metaphysics. Kant begins his discussion of the nature of human knowledge by stating that it is a mistake to regard all sensory cognition as confused and all intellectual cognition as clear and distinct. In fact, it is easy to show that what is sensory (sensitiva) may be quite clear and what is intellectual (intellectualia) may be extremely confused. The former is demonstrated by geometry, the prototype of all sensory cognition; the latter is demonstrated by metaphysics, the organum for the comprehension of all things intellectual.38 But, if this is the case, then a preliminary study (propaedeutica) is needed for a critical discrimination between sensory and intellectual cognition. The Dissertation was meant to be such a study.39 But it was more than this, for Kant here breaks with Christian Wolff, whose particular version of Leibniz's philosophy had become a well-established tradition in Germany. As Kant puts it: "I fear that, by means of the distinction between the sensible (sensitiva) and the intelligible (intellectualia), which for him is merely logical, the illustrious Wolff may, to the great detriment of philosophy, have completely destroyed the noblest achievement of antiquity, the discernment of the nature of phenomena and noumena."40 What Kant had come to realize is that the distinction between the sensible (sensitiva) and the intelligible (intellectualia), between

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sense data and rational concepts, is not a matter of logical discernment (as Wolff maintained), but is rooted in the very nature of experience itself. The modes of knowledge, therefore, differ in principle. In intellectual matters we have no intuition; we have only symbolic cognition by means of universal concepts. Our intuition is bound to the formal principle of space and time as the condition under which alone anything can become an object of our senses, and no noumena are thus known to US. 41 It is otherwise with phenomena. Properly speaking, they are appearances (not ideas) of things. But, although they do not express the internal and absolute quality of objects, they do give us true knowledge. As perceptions, they testify to the presence of an object which causes them and thus contradict idealism. The truth of perceptual judgments, on the other hand, consists in agreement with the perceived qualities, and in this sense genuine knowledge is also possible. 42 The realism which Kant affirms here is reaffirmed in the Critique of Pure Reason. Two quotations (out of a number that might be given) will establish this point: Empirical realism is beyond question; that is, there corresponds to our outer intuitions something real in space."43 And: "The empirical truth of appearances in space and time is sufficiently secured."44 But a new question begins to haunt Kant-a question concerning the principle of the form of the intelligible world: "How is it possible that a number of substances stand in a relation of mutual interaction and thus belong to one and the same whole, called world?"45 The question, Kant tells us, is not one concerning the nature of the substances involved, whether they, are material or immaterial; it pertains rather to the form of the whole. It is the question of how a connection of many substances, irrespective of their specific nature, is possible at all and how the unity of the whole is brought about. This question, I submit, inevitably becomes the central problem of the Critique of Pure Reason. There is no solution of the problem in the Dissertation, but Kant briefly considers two possibilities, namely: (a) that all substances interact because they have a common cause, and (b) that they are interrelated because of a preestablished harmony. Of the two, Kant prefers the first, for, although it is not proven, it is for various reasons rather persuasive. 46 We can then at least, with Malebranche, 53

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see everything in God, he says.47 But, be that as it may, once he had raised the question concerning the form and unity of the world, he could not remain within the confines of his philosophical position as formulated in 1770.

v The concluding section of the Dissertation deals with "the method concerning the sensible (sensitiva) and the intellectual (intellectualia) in metaphysics." In the sciences which obtain their principles either from experience or from pure intuition, i.e., in natural science and mathematics, use determines the method to be followed. Experiment and invention guide the progress in knowledge. 48 In pure philosophy (of which metaphysics is a branch), however, where we are concerned with the original concepts of things and relations and with the prin- . ciples originating in the pure understanding itself, a consideration of method ought to precede the science itself; for otherwise whatever is done in the field is premature and must be regarded as empty trifling with words. Since here the proper use of reason itself constitutes the principles as well as the objects to be known, the exposition of the laws of pure reason is itself the genesis of the science and the criterion of truth for all subordinate laws. But, Kant continues, this is at present realized only in logic, the laws of which are valid for all sciences. It is completely unrealized in metaphysics, and it is therefore not astonishing that metaphysicians "eternally roll their stone of Sisyphus" without getting anywhere. 49 As Kant sees it, the whole method of metaphysics, insofar as it pertains to what is given through the senses and to what is known through the intellect, comes to this: that one carefully prevent the principles proper to sensory cognition from passing beyond their boundaries and adversely affecting rational cognition,sO More specifically, if concerning any concept of the understanding something is asserted which properly pertains to the relations of space and time, then this must not be asserted absolutely, for it designates only the condition without which the object of the given concept could.not be known in sensory experience. sl That we easily become confused here, Kant points out, depends on another rule 54

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(which in itself is quite proper), namely, that what cannot be known by means of an intuition cannot be known at all. 52 Since we have no intuition other than under the forms of space and time and cannot even conceive of one, we are led to believe, mistakenly, that what is not subordinate to our forms of intuition is in itself impossible. 53 In order to escape such mistakes in reasoning, Kant suggests three "principles of convenience" or rules of judgment, which we accept as if they were axioms because, if we gave them up, hardly any judgment concerning a given object would be possible. These principles are: S4 1. "Everything in the universe happens according to the order of nature." If we did not accept this principle, we would deprive ourselves of the only dependable basis for deciding between rival interpretations and would be diverted from "the light of experience" to "the shadows of forms and causes unknown to us." 2. "Principles must not be multiplied beyond what is absolutely necessary." We accept this principle because our intellect is satisfied with an explanation of phenomena only when we can derive the greatest number of consequences from one and the same principle~ 3. "Nothing material comes into being or perishes; all changes in the world are changes of form only." We accept this principle, not because it states an empirically ascertained fact or because it can be demonstrated to be true by a priori arguments, but because, if matter itself were perishable or came into being spontaneously, it would be impossible for us to explain phenomena in terms of universal and constant laws. And this, so Kant concludes the argument of the Dissertation, is all that can be said at the moment concerning method and especially concerning the distinction between sensory and intellectual cognition. 55 It is obvious, however, that Kant cannot rest here. There are too many problems left or newly encountered which demand consideration, if not solution. I have already mentioned the problem of the principle of the form of the intelligible world and of that world as a whole. Kant could not solve this problem until he made the crucial distinction between the understanding and reason and their respective functions in cognition. And this problem, in turn, could not be dealt with until reason itself was subjected to a searching criticism.

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It may be well, however, to mention at this time that the first of Kant's principles of convenience, i.e., the principle of the objective order of nature, is the basis for his objection to Hume's empiricism. The second principle is foundational to Kant's conception of the function of reason. And the third principle is, in effect, the first Analogy of Experience in the Critique of Pure Reason.

VI Keith Ward has spoken of "the collapse of the Dissertation view" and has argued that "the metaphysics of the Dissertation was ... totally destroyed by a fatal incoherence it contained," namely this: "The forms of sensibility are beyond the jurisdiction of intellect; they do not conform to what the laws of intellect prescribe. Yet they alone must form the basis of nature, in so far as nature is empirically known." There is thus "an element of irreducible sheer factuality in human cognition of nature which cannot be comprehended by means of the principle of sufficient reason." And: "The 'two worlds' doctrine of the Dissertation," too, is but "a dream of metaphysics."56 This criticism, it seems to me, is based upon a radical misunderstanding of Kant's position and arguments in the Dissertation. Kant says, to be sure, that, as pure forms of our sensibility, space and time are inexplicable by reason; but nowhere does he say that "they alone must form the basis of nature," not even "in so far as nature is empirically known." What Kant does say is that all sense impressions must conform to the forms of space and time; but sense impressions are not nature. Nor does Kant say that our cognition of nature depends on "the principle of sufficient reason." For him it depends on the principle of causality, and this is quite a different thing from the principle of sufficient reason. More to the point is de Vleeschauwer's charge that "the Dissertation ... was guilty of two omissions ...; affirming at the outset that the pure concept is not produced by the object, it did not add to this negative account any positive indication of its origin; secondly, it neglected to inquire how our representations can relate to an object when we are not affected by the object."57 But Kant was well aware of these deficiencies and tried to deal with them. They were, in fact, the strongest motive for the further development of his transcendental philosophy. 56

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Although we cannot trace this development in detail, Kant's letters to Marcus Herz give us at least· a glimpse of his struggle with recalcitrant ideas; and Kant, no doubt, described his own experience when, in the Critique of Pure Reason, he refers to the "sophistications . . . of pure reason itself," from which "even the wisest of men cannot free himself': "After long effort he perhaps succeeds in guarding himself against actual error; but he will never be able to free himself from the illusion, which unceasingly mocks and torments him."58 In a letter to Herz, dated June 7, 1771, Kant speaks of "the great influence" which "the certain and clear insight in the difference between what depends upon subjective principles . . . of sensibility ... and the understanding" and what "pertains to the objects" has upon philosophy (Weltweisheit) and "even upon the most inlportant aims of men generally." For this reason (daher), Kant continues, "I am now engaged in composing a work which, under the title The Limits ofSensibility and ofReason, will deal with the relation of the fundamental concepts and laws of the sensible world (Sinnenwelt), together with the project of what constitutes the nature of a theory of taste, of metaphysics, and of morals. During the winter I have gone through all the relevant materials, have examined and evaluated them, and have fitted them together; but only recently have I completed the plan for [the book]."59 And for the first time Kant nlentions that his health has "noticeably suffered." The title of the projected work indicates quite clearly a continuity of Kant's thoughts with the themes and problems of the Dissertation. His next letter to Herz, dated February 21, 1772, perhaps the most revealing of all the letters, is even stronger evidence of this basic continuity:60 In the distinction of the sensible and the intelligible in morals, and the principles which spring therefrom, I already had previously made considerable progress.... Now I was making the plan for a work that might perhaps have the title: The Limits of Sensibility and of Reason. I conceived it to have two parts, one theoretical and one practical. The first contained, in two Sections, (1) phenomenology in general, (2) metaphysics, but this only with respect to its nature and method. The second [part], also in two Sections, [would contain] (1) universal prin-

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ciples of feeling, of taste, and of sensuous desire, and (2) the first grounds of morality.61 But [Kant continues] as I thought through the theoretical part in its whole scope and the reciprocal relations of all parts, I noticed that I still lacked something essential which I (and others) in my protracted metaphysical investigations had omitted from consideration and which, indeed, is the key to the whole secret of a metaphysics which, up to that time, was still hidden. I asked myself, namely: Upon what grounds rests the relation of that which is called representation to the object? If the representation contains merely the manner in which the subject is affected by the object, then it is easy to see how [the representation], as an effect, is conformable to its cause, and how this determination of our mind can represent something, i.e., have an object. The passive or sensory representations thus have an understandable relation to objects, and the principles, derived (entiehnt) from the nature of our soul, have an understandable validity for all things insofar as these are supposed to be sensory objects (Gegenstande der Sinne). Likewise, if that which in us is called representation were active with respect to the object, i.e., if through it the object itself were brought forth (as one conceives the Divine cognition as the prototype of things) then the conformity of the representations with the objects could be understood. . .. But neither is our understanding through its representations the cause of the object (except in the case of a morally good end), nor is the object the cause of the representations of the understanding (in any real sense). The pure concepts of the understanding, therefore, must not be abstracted from the impressions of the senses, nor must they express the receptivity of the representations through the senses. They have their source in the nature of the soul, but neither insofar as they are brought about by the object nor themselves bring forth the object. In the Dissertation I was content to express merely negatively the nature of intellectual representations, namely, that they are not modifications of the soul through the object. But I passed over in silence how otherwise a representation which refers to an object is possible without being affected by that object in some way. I had said that the sensory represen-

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tations represent the things as they appear, the intellectual representations represent them as they are. But how are these things given to us, if not by the way in which they affect us? And if such intellectual representations depend upon our inner activity, whence comes the agreement which they are supposed to have with objects which are not thereby produced? And how do the axioms of pure reason about these objects agree with the objects without this agreement having been borrowed (entlehnt) fronl experience?62 Kant was here facing the basic dilemma of the ultimate grounds of the validity of empirical cognition, and it was in this connection, no doubt, that Hume awoke him out of his "dogmatic slumber." In the Critique ofPure Reason Kant specifically refers to Hume in connection with the dilemma which he himself faced in 1772: David Hume [he states there] recognized that, in order to be able to [obtain knowledge which far transcends all limits of experienceJ it was necessary that these concepts should have an a priori origin. But since he could not explain how it can be possible that the understanding must think concepts, which are not in themselves connected in the understanding, as being necessarily connected in the object, and since it never occurred to him that the understanding might itself, perhaps, through these concepts, be the author of the experience in which its objects are found, he was constrained to derive them from experience, namely, from a subjective necessity (that is from custom), which arises from repeated association in experience, and which comes mistakenly to be regarded as objective. But from these premises he argued quite consistently. 63 But Kant approached the problem via the field of mathematics. In mathematics, he wrote, "the axioms of pure reason agree with their objects" because the objects before us are magnitudes only, or can be represented as magnitudes, because we can create their representation by taking unity several times. . . . But ... how my understanding may form for itself completely a priori concepts of things ... and how it may project actual principles concerning their

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possibility with which experience must be in exact agreement and which yet are independent of experience-this question leaves an obscurity with respect to the origins of the conformity of our faculty of the understanding with the things.... Kant goes on to say: While I was searching in such manner for the sources of intellectual cognition (without which one cannot determine the nature and limitations of metaphysics) I divided this science in essentially different parts and sought to reduce the transcendental philosophy, namely all concepts of completely pure reason, to a certain number of categories, ... as through a few basic laws of the understanding they arranged themselves into classes.... I can say that, so far as the essential aspect of my purpose is concerned, I succeeded, and that I now am in a position to bring out a Critique of Pure Reason which will deal with the nature of theoretical as well as practical cognition insofar as this is merely intellectual. The first Part will contain the sources of metaphysics, its method and limits. After that I will work out pure principles of morality.64

VII I need hardly say more in defense of my thesis that (a) Kant was fully aware of the incompleteness of his view as formulated in the Dissertation and (b) the problems arising in connection with that incompleteness were a decisive factor in the further development of his philosophy. But there are several other letters to Marcus Herz which deserve consideration. In one of them (dated "toward the end of 1773"), Kant reports that, in his intention to "transform" (umzuschaffen) the whole of philosophy, "[he] sees himself now in possession of a system (Lehrbegriff) which completely solves what hitherto has been a riddle, and which brings the procedure of self-isolating reason under secure and, in application, easy rules.... I do not believe that many have attempted to project in idea an entirely new science and, at the same time, to realize it completely."65 Kant hopes to have given philosophy "a lasting turn (Wendung)" which is "more favorable for religion and morals,"66 and he

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now speaks of his position as "my transcendental philosophy ... which actually is a critique of pure reason," adding that, when this work has been brought to a conclusion, he intends to deal with metaphysics, "which has only two parts: the metaphysics of nature and the metaphysics of morals; of these I shall publish the latter first. "67 As yet, the Critique of Practical Reason has not been projected as a separate work. On November 24, 1776, Kant reports to Herz that "the materials ... pile up under my hands, as is usually the case when one has come into possession of several fruitful principles. But all of them are held back, as by a dam, through one main object," by the removal of which he "hopes to earn lasting honor. "68 During the preceding summer, Kant continues his report, he has "encountered the last obstacles. ,., But, he adds: It takes stubbornness; if I may say so, to follow unswervingly a plan like this. Often I have been tempted by difficulties encountered to devote myself to other matters, from which faithlessness, however, from time to time the surmounting of some difficulties, and in part also the importance of the work itself, held me back. You know that it must be possible to survey the field of pure reason-of a reason which judges independently of all empirical principles-because it lies a priori within ourselves, and that it must expect no disclosure from experience. Now, in order to record the whole scope of it, the divisions, the boundaries, the whole content of then1 in accordance with secure principles, and to place the benchmarks so that in future one might know with certainty whether one finds oneself upon the grounds of reason or of sophistication-for all this there is needed a critique, a discipline, a canon, and an architectonic of pure reason, and thus a formal science. It is this that Kant hopes to achieve. 69 In still another letter, dated August 20, 1777, Kant tells Herz that "what I now call the Critique of Pure Reason" "lies like a boulder in the road" to the achievement of the ultimate goal and that "its removal alone now occupies me." What retards his work is "solely the effort to give everything complete clarity."70 The Critique was finally published in 1781. But it is clear from Kant's letters that internal problems of the all-inclusive project were 61

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responsible for the delay and that the problems were the determining factors in the development of his philosophy. Proof of this is found (among other places) in his letter to Christian Garve, dated August 7, 1783. There Kant writes: What I present in the Critique is not a metaphysic at all, but an entirely new and thus far a never attempted science, namely, the critique of a reason which judges a priori. 71 In time, several points will become clear (perhaps my Prolegomena will contribute to this). From these points light will be cast upon other parts, for which, however, an explanatory contribution on my part may from time to time be necessary, and so, finally, the whole will be surveyed and understood when one examines the work by starting with the main question, upon which everything else depends (and which I have presented clearly enough). 72 Kant often responded to criticisms of his work. See, for instance, his letters to Moses Mendelssohn, dated August 16, 1783, and to Johann Schultz, dated February 17, 1784. 73 More specifically, he states in a letter to Johann Bering (dated April 7, 1786) that, "in a new and very much revised edition of the Critique," he is going to "take into consideration all misinterpretations and incomprehensibilities which I have come to know" since the first publication of the work. But, he adds, "I shall not have to make changes in the essentials, for I had thought through the subject-matter long enough ... and have repeatedly examined and tested all statements belonging to the system, and have always found them confirmed, both in themselves and in their retation to the whole."74

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CHAPTER V

THE ARGUMENT IN THE THREE CRITIQUES

In a letter to Carl Leonhard Reinhold, dated December 28 and 31, 1787, Kant wrote: The capacities of the mind (Gemiit) are three: the cognitive capacity, the feeling of pleasure and displeasure, and desire. For the first [of these] I have principles a priori in the Critique ofthe Pure (Theoretical) Reason; for the third in the Critique of Practical Reason. I now seek [such principles] also for the second.... So that I now recognize three parts of philosophy, each of which has its principles a priori. These one may count; and one may thus determine with certainty the scope of the possibility of cognition .. in theoretical philosophy, in teleology, and in practical philosophy. Of these, however, the second will be found to be poorest in a priori grounds of determination. 1 fI

In this manner Kant stressed the intrinsic unity of the three Critiques as a search for a priori principles, and it is this fact which I take as justification for my attempt to discuss "the argument" of the three Critiques.

I I turn first to the Critique of Pure Reason, but it is not my intention to discuss in detail every specific problem encountered in this work. Numerous commentators have done this already with varying success. Among the first were Jacob Abel,2 Johann Feder,3 Adam Weishaupt,4 Benedikt Stattler, 5 and Ulrich Brastenberger,6 all of whom published their commentaries during Kant's lifetime. I shall deal

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with them in another context. More recently there are, of course, the commentaries of Hans Vaihinger,7 Hermann Cohen,8 Norman Kemp Smith,9 H. J. Paton,1O Felix Grayeff,11 Heinz Heimsoeth,12 and others. Of the commentaries readily available, some, unfortunately, deal only with the early parts of the Critique. This is true, for example, of Vaihinger's two formidable volumes,13 as it is also true of Paton's equally impressive work. It is true, in effect, even of Kemp Smith's Commentary and of De Vleeschauwer's great work (previously referred to). Heimsoeth, on the other hand, has gone to a different extreme, his four-volume work being devoted entirely to the Transcendental Dialectic of the Critique. I am not interested in either of these extremes, but would like rather to view the Critique of Pure Reason in its entirety as one sustained argument for a position which remains incomplete unless we also take into consideration the Critique of Practical Reason and the Critique of Judgment. The problem of the Critique of Pure Reason arose out of two developments in Kant's thinking: (1) As I have shown in Chapter III, his analysis of "the dreams of metaphysics" led him to the conclusion that metaphysics ought to abandon its dogmatic speculations about God, the life hereafter, and similar topics, and become "a science concerning the limits of human reason": 14 that it ought "to institute a tribunal which will assure to reason its lawful claims, and dismiss all groundless pretensions."15 (2) And, as I have shown in Chapter II, Kant was convinced that mathematics, "this most splendid example of the successful extension of pure reason,"16 derives its knowledge, not from concepts, but from the construction of them, 17 and that it does so "without the help of experience." 18 Only by means of the construction of concepts can "universal synthetic propositions"'9 or "synthetic principles [known] a priori" (such as the axioms of geometry) be obtained. 20 But, as Kant himself realized, the possibility of mathematics and of its applicability to nature must itself be demonstrated in transcendental philosophy.21 And, when he turned to this problem, he found that an analysis of concepts (as practiced in traditional philosophy) would not do; that what was needed was "the hitherto rarely attempted dissection ofthe faculty of the understanding itself, in order to investigate the possibility of concepts a priori by looking 64

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for them in the understanding alone, as their birthplace, and by analyzing the pure use generally of this faculty; for this is the proper task of a transcendental philosophy."22 This is the task which Kant set himself and meant to complete in the three Critiques.

II But before Kant could complete the required analysis of our faculty of cognition, he had to make a distinction which he had not hitherto made. In the Dissertation he had distinguished between sensibility and intelligence; but he now found it necessary to view intelligence itself as twofold: as understanding and as reason, each playing a unique role in cognition. It is only when we clearly understand the function of each that we can fully appreciate his sustained argument in the Critique and what he meant by saying that "we do not have experience, we make it,"23 and that "there can be only one experience in which all perceptions are represented as in thoroughgoing connection in accordance with law";24 that every object must be thought of "as belonging to the context as a whole."25 This "context as a whole" is not given, but is a never-completed "project." It is the ideal of a system which we approach as we progressively subsume sense impressions under concepts and rules in accordance with principles which we accept and employ a priori. As Kant puts it: "Basic to experience [as here conceived] are ... universal rules of unity in the synthesis of appearances whose objective validity as necessary conditions can always be shown in experience and in its possibility."26 That is to say, as far as Kant is concerned, experience is an ultimately all-inclusive synthesis of elementary sense impressions. But if this is so, then it is obvious that the rules and principles which make that synthesis possible cannot themselves be derived from experience. To argue that they are involves a vicious circle. In view of this fact, we can at least appreciate Kant's thesis that it is the understanding which "prescribes a priori ... the rules which alone make experience possible."27 Or, as Kant otherwise states it, reason, aiming at the systematic unity which alone is experience, "presupposes at all times an idea-the idea, namely, of the form of a whole of knowledge which is prior to the determinate knowledge of the 65

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parts and contains the conditions which determine a priori for every part of its position and relation to all others."28 And now we can also understand the weight of Kant's question: "How is synthetic cognition possible a priori?"29 His answer to this question is, of course, the very essence of the three Critiques.

III Before proceeding with the argument, I need to clear up the sense in which Kant uses the phrases "synthetische U rteile a priori," "synthetischer Satz a priori," and "synthetische Grundsatze a priori." Much confusion has resulted from Kemp Smith's generally accepted translation of these and similar phrases as "a priori synthetic judgments,"30 "synthetic a priori judgments,"31 "a priori synthetic propositions,"32 "synthetic a priori propositions,"33 and as "synthetic a priori principles."34 Kemp Smith's own interpretation of the first Critique follows, of course, the direction implied in these misleading translations. But the confusion extends further. Moltke S. Gram, for example, also speaks of "synthetic a priori judgments";35 and, in an otherwise quite helpful discussion of Kant's conception of the a priori, A. C. Ewing makes extensive use of the same mistaken translation. He speaks of "using a synthetic a priori proposition" (which is perhaps the worst possible misunderstanding of Kant); he asserts that "no synthetic a priori propositions are possible," that "there can be no synthetic a priori propositions."36 Stephan Korner picks up the theme, speaking of Kant's "inquiry into the nature and function of synthetic a priori judgments."37 And, although H. J. Paton barely touches upon the problem, whenever he does touch upon it, he, too, accepts Kemp Smith's mistranslation. 38 The problem of the synthetic propositions a priori was the subject of wide-ranging discussions from about 1920 to 1950. 39 In 1947, Herbert Feigl could report that "all forms of empiricism agree in repudiating the existence of synthetic a priori knowledge,"40 and C. I. Lewis found that the problem of synthetic judgments is "a dead, or nearly dead, issue."41

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But the issue is not settled in favor of the empiricist contention, for most of the arguments against Kant's position involve a basic confusion stemming from faulty translations. Such phrases as 'synthetic 0 priori proposition," 'synthetic a priori judgment,'" and 'synthetic 0 priori principles' seem to imply that 'a priori' is an adjective, as is 'synthetic,' denoting a quality of the thing named, be that a proposition, a judgment, or a principle. In the German text, however, '0 priori' is an adverb, characterizing the way in which a proposition is formed, a judgment made, or a principle asserted. 42 Consider, for example, Kant's searching question which Kemp Smith translates as: "How are a priori synthetic judgments possible?" The German text reads: "Wie sind synthetische U rteile a priori moglich?"43 This means: "How are synthetic judgments possible 0 priori?", and not what Kemp Smith makes it to mean. Or consider the sentence which Kemp Smith translates: "Ontology . . . claims to supply . . . synthetic a priori knowledge of things "in general."44 But the German text reads: "Ontologie, welche sich anmasst, von Dingen iiberhaupt synthetische Erkenntnis 0 priori . .. zu geben." The adverbial character of the a priori is surely here quite obvious. It is odd that Kemp Smith should make such errors, for at times he does acknowledge the adverbial character of the a priori. Thus we get: "... known and intuited a priori by means of synthetic propositions";46 " concepts can thus relate a priori to objects";47 and especially" those synthetic propositions that can be known a priori. "48 In repudiating the idea of a synthetic 0 priori, C. I. Lewis had argued that, "through failure of analysis, the appearance of synthetic judgments a priori can arise."49 To illustrate his point, he examined the proposition, Whatever happens has a cause. "If [he said] 'whatever happens' connotes temporality of what is spoken of, and if being a temporal happening entails being caused, then 'whatever happens has a cause' is an analytic proposition. But ... if being a temporal event does not entail being caused, then no ground for holding this proposition to be a priori is revealed." 50 To be sure, if the two conditions stated in the "if' clauses of the first sentence are fulfilled, then the statement 'Whatever happens has

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a cause' is indeed an analytic proposition. But, surely, the "if' clauses themselves are synthetic rather than analytic. This means that even analytic propositions presuppose synthetic acts. Kant's thesis, however, is much more profound and far-reaching than this. It is keyed to the question, How is experience at all possible? The answer to this question depends, of course, on what is meant by experience. Here Kant is emphatic on one point: experience is not to be identified with sense impressions or with the manifold of perceptions, Le., it is not to be identified with what is "given."51 Experience is rather "the synthetic unity of the manifold of perceptions."52 Or, as Kant states it more fully: "There is one single experience in which all perceptions are represented as in thoroughgoing and orderly connection.... When we speak of different experiences, we can refer only to the various perceptions, all of which, as such, belong to one and the same general experience."53 Experience so conceived is possible only through the representation of necessary connections which integrate the perceptions. 54 The basis for this integration is the principle of apperception. 55 And it is "a demand of reason" to achieve the highest possible unity of experience.56 This demand cannot be derived from the mere association of sense data or from any system which is to be constructed under its guidance. It is and must be a principle asserted a priori. 57 As far as Kant is concerned, this demand for the systemic integration of sense data and perceptions is intrinsic to the very nature of apperception and reason, and it is therefore an analytic proposition.58 Although the demand for systemic integration, as such, is analytic, the specific rules and principles making the integration possible are not, although they too must be asserted a priori. What is important here is that the mere succession of sense impressions and perceptions which I observe does not justify me in believing that this subjective sequence has objective validity. Turning my head, for example, produces a sequence of sense impressions, but does not imply a change in the objective order of things. As Kant put it: "I render my subjective synthesis of apprehension objective only by reference to a rule in accordance with which the appearances in their succession, that is, as they happen, are determined by the preceding state."59 68

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The required objectification involves two interrelated steps. (1) By subsuming sense data and perceptions under the categories of the understanding in judgments, we integrate and delimit them as objects. 60 (2) By subsuming the succession and alterations of objects under the principle of causality, we establish connections between them as the objective basis for the systemic integration which (in Kant's sense) is experience. 61 The resultant order and regularity in the interrelations of the objects, viewed as a dynamic whole, Kant calls nature. 62 Although the principle of causality merely states that in the dynamic whole which we call nature all events follow from antecedent conditions "according to a rule,"63 the specific rules or laws determining the events cannot be derived from the categories or from the general principle of causality.64 They are not discernible a priori, but must be discovered empirically.65 The principle of causality determines a priori merely the type of laws that are constitutive of nature. In this sense, it is "a legitimate and excellent regulative principle of reason" and "serves to mark out the path towards systemic unity. "66 But the principle of causality is not the only synthetic and a priori element in our interpretation of nature. In physics and mathematics, so Kant points out, we have recourse to more specific principles or laws which are synthetic and universal but are not empirically grounded generalizations. They, too, are asserted a priori. Kant cites two examples from physics: (1) "In all changes of the material world the quantity of matter remains unchanged." This, of course, is the principle of the conservation of matter, the validity of which for the world as a whole cannot be proven empirically. (2) "In all communication of motion, action and reaction must always be equal" (Newton's Second Law of Motion).67 Without these laws, together with Newton's First Law of Motion (which, in effect, is the principle of causality), classical mechanics would be impossible. The laws are synthetic and must be accepted a priori, Le., prior to the development of the science itself, since that development depends upon them.

IV We know from the letter to Carl Leonhard Reinhold, referred to at the beginning of this chapter, that Kant meant to uncover all

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principles that can be known a priori in the realms of knowledge, morality, and teleology and that this task defined his critical philosophy as a whole. But the realm of knowledge in itself involves three areas: mathematics, natural science, and metaphysics. And the question is: What principles are known a priori in each? Also this question 'engenders two others: How is knowledge of these principles possible? And: What are the limits, if there are any limits, of knowledge grounded in principles so known? Putting it bluntly: How is pure mathematics possible? How is pure science of nature possible, and what does it tell us about reality? How and in what sense is metaphysics possible?68 Kant develops his answers to these questions in the three great segments of the Critique of Pure Reason: the Transcendental Aesthetic, the Transcendental Analytic (including the Analytic of Concepts and the Analytic of Principles), and the Transcendental Dialectic. Since this fact is well known, I shall not dwell upon it at any length. Still, a few points need to be mentioned. (1) Kant's conception of space and time, as developed in the Transcendental Aesthetic, is identical with that first presented in the Dissertation of 1770: space and time are neither entities nor rela1ions, 'but fortnsof our sensibility. However, in the Critique of Pure Reason, Kant goes beyond the Dissertation by pointing out that the construction of concepts upon which mathematics depends for its precision and universal validity is possible only in an intuition which it presents a priori and "in which whatever follows from the universal conditions of the construction must be universally valid of the object of the concept thus constructed."69 For geometry that ba.sic condition is our intuition of space. 'For arithmetic itis the intuition of time. 70 It follows from this that geometry and arithmetic refer "to no other objects than those of the senses. "71 (2) However, what is given us through the senses only are sense inlpressions rather than objects. In order to be able to speak ofobjects at all, it is necessary to subsume the manifold of sense inlpressions under the unity of concepts; and doing so is the function of the understanding. 72 What such subsumption amounts to is that we take qualities and configurations which are merely associated with

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one another in our sense impressions as combined in the object. i.e., we take their relations as objectively valid. 7) The integrative subsumption of sense impressions under concepts is possible because the impressions themselves "must conform to the conditions under which alone they can stand together in one universal self-consciousness, for otherwise they would not all without exception belong to me."74 Hence the unity of consciousness is "the principle of the original synthetic unity of apperception"75 and thus is "an objective condition of all knowledge."76 (3) If the objects of experience result from a subsumption of the sensory manifold under concepts, then, so Kant argues, the conditions which make our experience of objects possible must also be the conditions of the possibility of the objects of experience. 77 This means that the understanding itself must contain the forms, not of some particular object, but of "object in general" 78 or of a "transcendental object"79 which, as Paton puts it, "must be identified with that necessary unity which is the only assignable and universal mark of objectivity, a unity which is itself imposed upon the manifold of intuition by the understanding."80 The conditions under which alone an object in general can be thought are the categories of the understanding. Their objective validity as a priori concepts rests upon "the fact that, so far as the form of thought is concerned, through them alone does experience become possible.... Only by means of them can any object whatsoever of experience be thought."81 (4) Since many searching analyses of Kant's metaphysical and transcendental deductions of the categories are available,82 I shall say nothing here on that score; and the patchwork theory of the Transcendental Deduction is of no significance. 8) What is of significance is that, as far as Kant is concerned, knowledge depends on the unity of a thinking subject and that the categories are "rules for an understanding whose whole power consists . . . in the act whereby it brings the synthesis of a manifold, given to it from elsewhere in intuition, to the unity of apperception."84 Hence, to apply a category is to unify given sense impressions in a certain respect and to confer upon them an objective reference. 85 The categories themselves are merely forms of thought which

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obtain reality in their application. 86 This application is possible in "the figurative synthesis (synthesis speciosa)" which Kant calls "the transcendental imagination"87 and is the result (Wirkung) of the action of the understanding upon what is given to us in sense impressions. (5) The conclusion which Kant draws from all this is what he himself calls "the highest principle of all synthetic judgments," namely, that "the conditions of the possibility ofexperience in general are likewise conditions of the possibility ofthe objects ofexperience, and that for this reason they have objective validity in a synthetic judgment [rendered] a priori. "88

v Concluding a brief discussion of Kant's conception ofjudgment, H. J. Paton states: "Whether Kant is right or wrong, a failure to see that he at least professes to describe all judgments without exception is bound to lead-and has indeed too often led-to a complete distortion of his argument."89 While this is unquestionably so, we also fail to understand Kant when we overlook his distinction between "logic of the general and of the special employment of the understanding."90 "The former [Kant argues] contains the absolutely necessary rules of thought without which there can be no employmentwhatsoever of the understanding." That is to say, it is logic as generally understood and as discussed in our textbooks. "The logic of the special employment of the understanding [on the other hand] contains the rules of correct thinking with respect to a certain kind of objects." It is, in effect, "the organon of this or that science, "91 whereas "pure general logic" contains only "what is formal" in the employment of the understanding and of reason, "be the content what it may."92 General logic, in other words, deals only with the form of thought in general. 93 Although its rules are valid a priori, it has no transcendental significance; for, as Kant defines his terms, only that which "concerns the a priori possibility of knowledge" can be called "transcendental."94 In this sense, the "logic of the special employment of the understanding" is transcendental logic; for, "unlike general logic, ... it concerns itself with the laws of the understanding and of reason solely insofar as they relate a priori to objects."95 Since a knowledge of objects requires sensible intuitions as

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well as the integrative function of the understanding,96 then, when we depend on the understanding alone in general and unlimited employment in judging synthetically and with regard to objects in general, "the employment of the pure understanding becomes dialectical," and we become enmeshed in dialectical illusion. 97 When we keep in mind Kant's distinction between general and transcendental logic, we can readily understand his assertion that "the same understanding, through the same operations by which in concepts, by means of analytical unity, it produced the logical form of judgment, also introduces a transcendental content into its representations, by means of the synthetic unity of the manifold in intuition in general,"98 and how the pure concepts of the understanding, i.e., the categories, can apply a priori to Objects. That is, we can see the relation of the Table of Categories to the Table of Judgments. 99 This is true in particular when we keep in mind that the categories are given under four headings of judgment: quality, quantity, relation, modality. What other aspects of the objects of experience are subject to judgment? Moreover, since it is the function of the understanding in any knowledge situation to subsume sense impressions under concepts, thereby converting the given manifold into objects, we can also understand that things-in-themselves, i.e., things as they are, separated from, and independent of, the forms of our sensibility and understanding, are not objects of experience. We cannot know them outside the relation to our sensibility, but we can think them, for "the categories [being the forms of the understanding for thinking objects in general] extend further than sensible intuitions."loo What we actually know, or ever come to know, are appearances (in the specific Kantian sense) or phenomena. IOI The phenomena, however, are empirically real things in space. I02 They "exist as well as I myself,",o3 and "empirical realism is beyond question." 104 But a distinction must be made, Kant maintains, "between things as objects of experience and those same things as things in themselves." 105 Kant's conception of things in themselves has, of course, been widely discussed. There is also much confusion concerning the "things in themselves" and their relation to the phenomena which alone are or can become objects of our experience. The most comprehensive study of the problem is Adickes's Kant und das Ding an 73

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sich. Adickes was correct in stating that the thing in itself and the appearance or phenomenon in our experience are not two different things but are only one entity which, "on the one hand, is given in our experience as an appearance," but which, "on the other hand, has for itself an existence quite independent of that fact."106 I say, Adickes was correct in making this statement; but the statement is not correct in the sense in which Adickes intended it. Let us consider the problem. Norman Kemp Smith obviously misreads Kant when he writes that "not only are the categories regarded as valid for things in themselves, they are also declared to have no possible application to phenomena."107 H. A. Prichard also does not do justice to the Kantian position by maintaining that "we know what things are, and not merely what they appear [to be] but are not";108 for it is not clear precist!ly what he means here by "things." But the real confusion begins when references to "things-in-themselves" enter the picture. Oscar W. Miller's assertion that "the 'Thing-in-itself is, in essence, like, or similar to, the Moral Will" 109 need not be taken seriously. But confusion concerning the problem is increased by Alfred C. Ewing's explicit denial that "the thing-in-itself and its appearance [are] the same thing in different aspects, the former being the thing as it is and the latter the thing as it appears."110 George Schrader states as Kant's thesis that "the thing-in-itself is given in its appearance; [that] it is the object which appears"; III and then he finds a "fundamental inconsistency" in Kant's "conception of the thing-in-itself as the cause of appearances" and his "critical distinction between appearances and things themselves."112 And one wonders where Kant ever said that the thing-in-itself is the cause of appearance. In view of such disagreements and confusions-and more could be added l13 -it may not be amiss to refer more extensively to Kant's own formulations. When we do so, we find that despite some variations in formulation Kant himself uses the terms "thing in itself' and "things in themselves" in the overwhelming number of relevant passages as abbreviations of the expression "things viewed (or contemplated) in themselves"-tes per se spectata or res per se considerata. 114 Typical of this fact is Kant's reference to "things when they are considered in themselves through reason."IIS Or when

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he says: "When I view all things not as phenomena but as things in themselves.... "116 What this means is that the phrases "in itself' and "in themselves" are adverbial and not adjectival determinations, and should always be read as "thing, considered in itself," or as "things, considered in themselves." Nowhere does Kant speak of "thing-initself' or of "things-in-themselves"-hyphenated. He is not hypostatizing things-in-themselves but has in mind only a specific mode of philosophical reflection. As he himself put it: "Appearance ... always has two sides, the one by which the object is viewed in itself, without regard to the mode of intuiting it [as it is in the empirical sciences] ..., the other when the form of the intuition of this object is taken into consideration [as in transcendental phi10sophy]."117 It is in this sense that Kant can say: "Our Critique ... [teaches] that the object is to be taken in a twofold sense, namely, as appearance and as thing in itself." 118 To be sure, Kant was not always clear in his statements; but a crucial passage in the Critique ofPure Reason leaves no doubt about his intention. There he states: We commonly distinguish in appearances that which is essentially inherent in their intuition and holds for sense in all human beings, from that which belongs to their intuition accidentally only, and is valid not in relation to sensibility in general but only in relation to a particular standpoint or to a peculiarity of structure in this or that sense. The former kind of knowledge is then declared to represent the object in itself, the latter its appearance only. But this distinction is merely empirical. If, as generally happens, we stop at this point and do not proceed, as we ought, to treat the empirical intuition as itself mere appearance in which nothing that belongs to a thing in itself can be found, our transcendental distinction is lost. We then believe that we know things in themselves, and this in spite of the fact that in the world of sense, however deeply we inquire into its objects, we have to do with nothing but appearances. I 19 Kant here distinguishes clearly between "appearances" and "things in themselves" on the empirical level, where our natural sciences operate-he distinguishes, for example, between "rain75

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bows" as "appearances" and "raindrops" as "things in themselves"-and "appearances" and "things in themselves" in the transcendental sense in which the empirical things are but "phenomena." As Kant put it: "Appearances [Le., empirical things], so far as they are thought as objects according to the unity of the categories [Le., in so far as they are considered from the transcendental point of view], are called phenomena." 120 Again we read in Kant: "Through observation and analysis of [the empirical things as] appearances we penetrate to nature's inner senses, and no one can say how far this knowledge may in time extend. [It is the realm of the empirical sciences.] But with all this knowledge, and even if the whole of nature were revealed to us [in the sciences], we would still never be able to answer those transcendental questions [which Kant raised in the first Critique] that go beyond nature."121 Although our sciences deal directly with empirical things, Kant's transcendental-philosophical analysis of cognition makes it clear that "no object can be represented through pure concepts of the understanding, apart from the conditions of sensibility." 122 But by applying its pure concepts, Le., its categories, a priori to objects of intuition in general, the understanding forms that "non-empirical object" or "object in general,"123 the "transcendental object = X" .124 However, this conception of a transcendental object can serve only as a conception of unity "by means of which the understanding combines the manifold [of sense impressions] into the concept of an object."12S In other words, the transcendental object is not itself an existing object, and least of all a thing-in-itself. It is "only the representation of appearances under the concept of an object in general"-a concept, that is, which finds specific determinations as empirical objects in and through the manifold sense impressions that are subsumable under it. 126 Hence, "when we say that the senses represent objects as they appear, and the understanding as they are, the latter statement is to be taken not in the transcendental, but in the merely empirical sense of the terms, namely as meaning that the objects must be represented as objects of experience."127 However, viewing the empirical objects of actual experience means to see them also as concretizations of "the transcendental ob-

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ject in general" which is but the projection of an object as such. It is in this sense that Kant, "the transcendental idealist," is and remains "an empirical realist": "External things exist as well as I myself and both, indeed, upon the immediate witness of my selfconsciousness." 128 If this is so, can we say on rational grounds that things affect our sensibility in such a way as to cause or generate in some way the sense impressions of our experience? Kant himself was by no means always clear on this point, and subsequent Kant interpretations reflect the confusion. As early as 1787, F. H. Jacobi wrote: "Without the presupposition [of the affection] I could not enter into the [Kantian] system, and with that presupposition I could not remain in it."129 But it was Adickes who, presumably, developed the final solution of the problem in his well known thesis of the "double affection" according to which "the things in themselves stand in purely internal, logico-teleological relations. Of these relations my ego in itself becomes aware through a non-temporal affection on the part of the other things in themselves, and it then represents these relations, on the basis of an internal compulsion and by means of a priori synthetic functions, for its empirical self in the form of spatio-temporal orders as dynamic, continuous matter (complexes of force) of such and such forces, properties and grouping in the different parts of space, among them also my body, as free from the secondary sensory qualities. Thus is created what the realism of the natural sciences presupposes. Within this world of 'appearances in themselves', created by the subject in itself but encountered by the empirical subject, the play of motions begins. These latter affect the sense organs of my empirical subject as stimuli; this subject responds to the affection with sense impressions which then are combined to the sounding, luminous, touchable, etc. objects of perception through the categories as functions of unification." 130 Is this really what Kant had in rr:ind? To be sure, Kant's own formulations often give th~ impression that Adickes's thesis finds full support in Kantian texts. But another, and in my opinion the correct, interpretation of those texts is also possible. Nowhere does Kant say that we are affected by things-inthemselves or by noumena. Perhaps the clearest understanding of his 77

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position we obtain when we consider at least part of his argument as developed in the Prolegomena. There he states: "Long before Locke's time, 'but assuredly since then, it has been generally assumed and granted without detriment to the actual existence of external things that many of their predicates may be said to belong, not to the [empirical]131 things in themselves, but to their appearances, and to have no proper existence outside our representation. Heat, color, and taste, for instance, are of this kind. Now, if I go farther and, for weighty reasons, rank as mere appearances the remaining qualities 'of bodies also no one in the least can adduce a reason of its being inadmissible I find that ... all the properties which constitute the intuition of a body belong merely to its appearance. The existenceof the thing that appears is thereby not destroyed, ... but it is only shown that we cannot possibly know it by the senses as it is in itself."132 Add to this Kant's affirmation: "I ... say that things as objects of our senses existing outside us are given ... things which ... we know by the representations which their influence on our sensibility procures for US."l33 And: "Sensuous perception represents ... only the mode in which [things] affect our senses." 134 Finally: "insofar as perception contains sensation, a degree of influence upon the senses must be ascribed to all objects of perception."135 In no respect has Kant here gone beyond the realm of empirical things and therefore of the empirical sciences-of physics, physiology, and psychology. And on this level we do speak freely of things affecting us. But how is such influence upon our senses to be understood from the point of view of Kant's transcendental, i.e., non-empirical, philosophy, according to which objects of experience are but our interpretations in terms of categories of the given sense data? The empirical sciences themselves, of course, have no solution for the problem of how physical and physiological stimuli can generate sense impressions in empirical subjects. How, for instance, are electro-magnetic waves transformed into colors, or compression waves in air into sound? It is precisely at this point that Kant is forced into his transcendental-philosophical analysis of the elements intrinsic to empirical experience. As he put is: "It is first necessary to remind the reader that we are discussing, not the origin of experience, but that which lies in experience. The former belongs to

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empirical psychology and would even then never be adequately explained without the latter, which belongs to the critique of knowledge." 136 Since transcendental philosophy has a meaningful beginning only when experience at the empirical level is already given, the problem of affection-a genuine problem at the empirical level-simply does not arise at the transcendental level. Adickes's theory of "double affection" is thus without basis in Kant's transcendental philosophy.

VI The connection of things-in-themselves with appearances has sometimes been interpreted as a causal relation,137 but t4is interpretation is obviously not justified at all. For one thing, as has already been shown, Kant nowhere speaks of things-in-themselves; for another thing, Kant's position as just indicated is not a theory of "double affection"; and, finally, such a theory is irreconcilable with Kant's conception of causality. , In order to understand fully what is involved here, we must see the category causality in its relation to other categories, notably the categories substance and reciprocity. Only when taken together do these categories determine the "unity of experience" which Kant calls "nature in the empirical sense" and which alone makes possible the "determination of objects in it."138 To be sure, all categories are concepts "by means of which the intuition of ,an object is regarded as determined in respect of one of the logical functions of judgment."139 "We cannot think of an object save through categories." 140 Nevertheless, as is evident from the analogies of experience, the categories substance, causality, and reciprocity play a special role in Kant's philosophy. 141 It is they which determine that unity of experience which Kant calls "nature in the empirical sense." In his discussion of the First Analogy, Kant seeks to establish· the principle of permanence of substance: "In all change of appearances substance is permanent; its quantum in nature is neither increased nor diminished."142 Substance is thus "the substratum of all determinations in time."143 Its permanence is "a necessary condition un-

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der which alone appearances are determinable as things or objects in a possible experience." 144 This principle of permanence is, of course, but a generalized version of the Newtonian principle of the conservation of matter. The principle of the Second Analogy Kant states thus in B: "All alterations take place in conformity with the law of the connection of cause and effect."14s A slight modification of his formulation as given in A seems clearer to me, however. In A we read: "Everything that happens ... presupposes something upon which it follows according to a rule," i.e., upon which it follows according to an empirically determinable law. 146 This, in effect, is a generalized version of Newton's First Law of Motion. Kant here maintains that only insofar as we subject the succession of appearances to the law of a cause and effect relationship can we regard it as an objective sequence of events or as something occurring in nature. 147 As he puts it: "The objective succession will therefore consist in that order of the manifold of appearance according to which, in conformity with a rule [i.e., in conformity with an empirically determinable law], the apprehension of that which happens follows upon the apprehension of that which precedes."148 That is, the law "compels us to observe this order of perceptions rather than any other." Or stating it the other way around: "Only insofar as our representations are necessitated in a certain order as regards their time-relation do they acquire objective meaning."149 But, Kant points out, "it is the order of the time, not the lapse of time," which is crucial. The causal relation, therefore, remains even if no time has elapsed and cause and effect occur simultaneously.150 "Causality [so Kant continues his argument] leads to the concept of action, this in turn to the concept of force, and thereby to the concept of substance." That is to say, "wherever there is action-and therefore activity and force-there is also substance, and it is in substance alone that the seat of this fruitful source of appearances must be sought."lsl Substance and causality are thus significantly linked together. As we shall see in Chapters VI and VII, two distinct aspects of substance are ultimately involved, each manifesting itself in a specific mode of action. There has been much debate about Kant's conception of causality and his Second Analogy. 152 I shall refrain from participating in that debate here. For, keeping in mind that Kant meant

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in the three analogies to provide a dependable basis for a science of (physical) nature, I an1 convinced that he has attained his goal in all essentials. The crux of the matter, it seems to me, is contained in these statements: If any event "were to follow upon an empty time," Le., if there were "nothing antecedent to the event upon which [it] follows according to some law," then the event would be as incomprehensible as empty time itself1 53 or as a creation out of nothing; and we would be aware only of "a play of ideas" 154 that has no objective validity whatever. There is, however, one point that needs clarification. I refer to Kant's statement that "the principle of sufficient reason is the ground of possible experience, that is, of objective knowledge of appearances in respect of their relation in the succession of time." 155 The wording may seem to imply that the principle of causality is nothing but the principle of sufficient reason; but to maintain this would be to overlook Kant's distinction between pure logic and a transcendental apprehension of nature. In two lengthy letters to Carl Leonhard Reinhold, dated May 12 and May 19, 1789, respectively, Kant himself explains what he has in mind. As he puts it: "It is quite commonly the case that, before one realizes it, the conjurers of metaphysics) .. jump from the logical principle of sufficient reason to the transcendental principle of causality and assume that the latter is already contained in the former."156 But as logical principle the principle of sufficient reason is analytically true and merely asserts that every hypothesis must have its logical justification or its logical ground. However, the principle that "every event has its cause" implies "an entirely different conception of ground," namely, that of a real ground (Realgrund) whose relation to the sequel (Folge) is by no means simply a matter of noncontradiction. Thus, if the proposition, "The air moves towards the east," is to have any empirical significance, it must be "grounded in experience as a cognition through connected (verkniipfte) perceptions." That is, the logical principle of sufficient reason is simply not concerned with "the synthetic relation of cause and effect of the objects themselves." 157

VII I now turn briefly to the category of reciprocity and Kant's Third Analogy. Here also Kant has slightly changed the formulation 81

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of the principle in B; and again I suggest that a small change in both the formulations would make his intention clearer. The Principle of Reciprocity would then read: "All substances, insofar as they can be perceived to coexist in space, mutually interact."158 And this, I submit, is a generalization of Newton's Third Law of Motion. Kant's point is that, through their interaction (or, as Kant calls it, their commercium), "the appearances, so far as they stand outside one another and yet in connection, constitute a composite whole (compositum reale)."1.59 Remembering his familiarity with Newtonian mechanics and the use he made of it in his Universal Natural History and Theory of the Heavens. we need not be astonished that he used the basic Newtonian laws as models for the synthetic Principles which provide the a priori basis for his conception of nature. Thus the overall picture we get at the end of Kant's arguments in the Analogies is this: The manifold of perceived qualities is related to substance as its accidents. The same manifold is connected in causal sequences so that every change in the accidents of a substance is the effect of a cause. Finally, interaction on the basis of reciprocity is the causal connection of all substances among themselves. As Kant puts it: "Our analogies really portray the unity of nature in the connection of all appearances. . . . Taken together [they] declare that all appearances lie, and must lie, in one nature, because without this a priori unity no unity of experience, and therefore no determination of objects in it, would be possible."160 But this a priori portrayal of the unity of nature does not in itself assure us of the reality of nature. For this it is necessary that perception supply the content to the concept; for "perception, in accordance with the analogies of experience," is "the sole mark of actuality." The existence of things in nature and therefore of nature itself is disclosed only in perceptions, in a possible experience. Our knowledge of things reaches no farther than our perception "and what it entails in accordance with empirical laws."161 And, if the whole of nature were revealed to us through observation and the analysis of its principles and laws, we should still not be able to answer any questions that go beyond nature. 162 We must note, however, that, when Kant here speaks of nature and of a universal science of nature, he is speaking of physical nature onlyl63 and is identifying natural science with physics. 164 But he can82

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not rest here, for there is more to nature as we know it than what can be accounted for in terms of the laws of physics and especially the laws of Newtonian mechanics. There are "all those ends [or purposes] which are exhibited in nature,"165 and they, too, must be accounted for. What we may do, Kant suggests, is to regard "the order and purposiveness observable everywhere ... as a completely contingent arrangement"166 and "to follow out the physicomechanical connections in accordance with universal laws, in the hope of discovering what the teleological connection actually is."167 This procedure is possible, he believes, on one condition-the condition, namely, that "we regard it as a matter of indifference whether it be asserted that divine wisdom has disposed of all things in accordance with its supreme ends, or that the idea of supreme wisdom is a regulative principle in the investigation of nature,"168 merely prescribing that "we should study nature as if systematic and purposive unity, combined with the greatest possible manifoldness were everywhere to be met with."169 If we approach the problem in this way, then "all investigation of nature tends to take the form of a system of ends."170 Here we encounter again, but in critically refined form, the idea of the Great Chain of Being; at the same time, we have at hand the determinative problem of Part II of the Critique of Judgment.

VIII It will be remembered that, as far as Kant's theory of cognition is concerned, "the possibility of a thing cannot be determined from the categories alone.... So long as intuition is lacking, we do not know whether through the categories we are thinking an object, and whether indeed there can anywhere be an object suited to them"; for the categories "are merely forms of thought for the making of knowledge from given intuitions."171 In fact, in order that there be real cognition, "we need, not merely intuitions, but intuitions that are in all cases outer intuitions." 172 However, since, through the employment of the categories, the understanding can think objects in general, we may transcend the limits of sensibility and delude ourselves into believing that cognition

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is possible even for pure reason alone; and this, Kant holds, has been the delusion of traditional metaphysics. He had become convinced of this when he wrote the Traume eines Geistersehers, Erlautert durch Traume der M etaphysik; and it was then (in 1766) that he suggested that metaphysics be transformed into "a science concerning the limits of human reason." Although he did not at that time set out to determine those limits, he felt that he had at least "destroyed the delusion and the vain knowledge which but inflate the understanding"173 whenever it transcends the limits of empirical cognition. Beginning with the Transcendental Dialectic, he now attempts to define those limits; and this effort, I submit, is the real thrust of the Critique of Pure Reason, forced upon him as a result of his analyses in the Traume. The Critique ofPure Reason is, very properly speaking, the critique of pure reason.

IX At the very beginning of the discussion, Kant finds it necessary to make a distinction which he had not hitherto made in quite the same way. It is the distinction between understanding and reason, and he now makes it in this manner: "All our knowledge starts with the senses, proceeds from there to understanding, and ends with reason."174 In the Transcendental Analytic, including the discussion of the Analogies, the theme was "the principles of the understanding, strictly so called." 175 Kant now argues that reason, like the understanding, but different from it, "contains within itself the source of certain concepts and principles, which it does not borrow either from the senses or from the understanding."'76 Thus, while the understanding "secures the unity of appearances by means of rules," reason establishes "the unity of the rules of the understanding under principles."I77 That is to say, "reason endeavors to reduce the varied and manifold knowledge obtained through the understanding to the smallest number of principles (universal conditions) and thereby to achieve in it the highest possible unity."'78 This means, however, that "there can never be any adequate empirical employment of the principle," 179 and reason, transcending experience, tends to be speculative. Its conclusions are therefore acceptable only when its 84

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power and limitations have first been determined. To determine its power and limitations is the sole purpose of a critique of pure reason, but the result of the determination may well be basic to a total reconstruction of metaphysics.

x The crucial part of Kant's critique of pure reason is the Transcendental Dialectic, with its paralogisms of pure reason}SO By dialectic Kant means a "logic of illusion," of Schein. Ordinarily this means that an error in reasoning is brought about by "the unobserved influence of sensibility on the understanding"ISI (as when a stick, partly immersed in water and therefore looking bent, is taken to be bent in actuality) or by the influence of imagination upon our faculty of judgment. ls2 In the case of the transcendental dialectic, however, and therefore as far as transcendental illusion is concerned, we have to do with a natural and inevitable illusion grounded in reason itself. This illusion arises whenever reason foists its own subjective principles upon us as objective}S3 More specifically, the principle peculiar to reason "in its logical employment" is: ·"To find for the conditioned knowledge obtained through the understanding the unconditioned whereby its unity is brought to completion." IS4 To put it differently, reason aims at finding the unconditioned upon which some given conditioned ultimately depends. But, in pursuit of this task, reason transcends, and must transcend, all appearances; i.e., "there can never be any adequate empirical employment" of the principle of pure reason." IS5 Just as, in its task of bringing sense impressions under concepts, the understanding employs categories through which objects in general can be thought, so reason employs special concepts in terms of which it integrates the knowledge obtained by the understanding. These concepts of pure reason Kant calls transcendental ideas. ls6 They are "the concepts of the totality of the conditions for any given unconditioned," of a totality, that is, which itself is always unconditioned. I8 ? But, since these transcendental concepts have no corresponding empirical object, they "have no other utility than that of so directing the understanding that, while it is extended to the uttermost, it is also at the same time brought into complete consistency 85

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with itself."188 The objective employment of the pure concepts of reason, on the other hand, is always transcendent. 189 This means that these concepts are "only ideas. "190 When they are taken for anything else, we are involved in metaphysical illusion. There are three such ideas, their number being determined by their relation (1) to the subject, (2) to the manifold of appearances, and (3) to "all things in general."191 But no objective deduction of these ideas, comparable to the deduction of the categories, is possible. 192 Moreover, "the transcendental ideas serve only for ascending in the series of conditions to the unconditioned,"193 although ultimately we may discern "a certain connection" among the transcendental ideas themselves, and reason may thus bring all its modes of knowledge into one system. "The advance from the knowledge of oneself (the soul) to the knowledge of the world, and by means of this to the original Being, is so natural that it seems to resemble the logical advance of reason from premises to conclusion." 194

XI Since there are only three transcendental ideas, there are also only three dialectical syllogisms. In the first, we infer from the transcendental concept of the subject the absolute unity of the subject itself. In the second, we infer from the transcendental concept of the absolute totality of the series of conditions for any given appearance the reality of that totality. And, in the third, we infer the existence of an ens entium, of a Being of all beings, from "the absolute synthetic unity of all conditions of the possibility of things in general."195 In each case we become involved in a transcendental paralogism; Le., we become involved in a syllogism in which a transcendental ground constrains us to "draw a formally invalid conclusion." The fallacy is grounded in the very nature of human reason and "gives rise to an illusion which cannot be avoided."196 The importance which Kant attached to the problem of the paralogism is underscored by the fact that he rewrote the section of the Critique of Pure Reason when he issued the second edition, the only other major revision having been the restatement of the Transcendental Deduction of the categories. However, since the revi-

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sion of his discussion of the paralogism involves the" form of statement rather than the substance of the matter, I shall here consider only the revised version, the version presented in B. The problem centers around the meaning of the 'I think,' which must accompany all our experience. Earlier in the Critique of Pure Reason, Kant had called it pure apperception. 197 He now calls it a vehicle of all concepts, including the transcendental ideas; and, as this vehicle, the 'I think' is itself transcendental and therefore free of any empirical admixture; i.e., it is free of sense impressions. It serves merely to introduce all our thoughts as belonging to consciousness. 198 As vehicle, it is indeterminate as being an "lor he or it which thinks." Nothing further is represented by it than a "transcendental subject of thought = X."199 When we take the 'I' as "an object of inner sense" and the 'I think' to be an empirical proposition, then the 'I' becomes itself an object, a "thinking being," subsumable under the categories of the understanding. When so taken, it is "the sole text of rational psychology," according to which "the soul [read: the '1'] exists as a substance," is "simple," is "unity" with respect to different times, and stands "in relation to possible objects in space."200 But with respect to all four theses we get into trouble when we take them as implied by the purely apperceptive meaning of 'I think.' In the mere fact that I think, I do not refer to any object; for the 'I' which thinks is always subject and in itself does not justify the assertion that I am a substance. To be sure, "the 'I' of apperception" is always one and "signifies a logically simple subject." But this does not mean that it is a simple substance. The proposition, "I am a simple substance," is synthetic, whereas the 'I think' as simple apperception is analytic. And that the 'I,' as the 'I' which 'thinks' them, is distinguished from the objects or things thought, is also an analytic truth and does not tell me whether or not 'I' would "even be possible apart from things outside me" so that I could come into relation with them. Kant concludes that the analysis of the 'I think' as vehicle of experience yields nothing whatsoever towards the knowledge of myself as an object,20! for the 'I think' precedes any experience that is required for the determination of an object of perception through the employment of categories. "From all this it is evident that rational psychology owes its origin simply to a misunderstanding"202 which arises from a con-

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fusion of the vehicle of experience with an object of that experience. As directly intuited vehicle of experience, the 'I think' "does not exhibit the subject of consciousness as appearance."203 But, when we take the 'I think' to mean "I exist thinking," then its function is not simply a logical one, but "determines the subject (which is then at the same time object) in respect of existence";204 and in that case we have here "not simply spontaneity of thought, but also receptivity of intuition, i.e., the thought of myself applied to the empirical intuition of myself." Should we then discover "in certain laws of the pure employment of reason ... grounds for regarding ourselves as legislatively completely a priori" with respect to the determination of our existence (as we do in matters of morals), then our reality would be determinable independently of the conditions of empirical intuition, such as the law of causality.205 We would then be free in our actions.

XII In a letter to Christian Garve, dated September 21, 1798, Kant wrote: "It was not the investigation concerning the existence of God, the immortality of the soul, etc., which was the point from which I proceeded, but the antinomy of pure reason: 'The world had a beginning-it had no beginning, etc., on to the fourth: Man is free-against: there is no freedom in him, only the necessity of nature'; this was what first awakened me out of the dogmatic slumber and drove me to the critique of reason itself in order to eliminate the scandal of an apparent contradiction of reason itself."206 Reacting to Kant's Critique of Pure Reason, Christian Garve had written to Kant on July 13, 1783, with specific reference to the antinomy of pure reason: "I am convinced that there are limits to our cognition; that these limits reveal themselves when from our sense impressions such contradictory propositions can be developed with equal evidence. I believe that it is very useful to come to know these limits and regard it as one of the most useful aims of your work that you have explained them more clearly and more completely than has ever been done before. But I do not see how your Critique ofPure Reason contributes to an elimination of these difficulties."207 88

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To this letter Kant had replied on August 7, 1783: The key is nevertheless given here, although an initial use of it is unaccustomed and therefore difficult. It consists in this: that one can take all objects that are given us in accordance with two kinds of concepts, one as appearances and also as things-inthemselves. When one takes appearances for things-inthemselves and demands of them the absolutely unconditioned in the sequence of conditions, then one gets into nothing but contradictions; these, however, disappear when one shows that the absolutely unconditioned does not appear among appearances but only in the case of things-in-themselves. But when one accepts, contrariwise, as appearance what as thing-initself can contain the condition of anything in the world, one gets into contradiction where none would be necessary, e.g., in the case of freedom; and this contradiction vanishes as soon as the differentiated meaning of the objects is taken into consideration. 208 It is in the light of these letters, I submit, that one ought to read Kant's discussion of the antinomy of pure reason.

XIII In his analysis of the paralogism of pure reason, Kant had shown that all transcendental illusions of pure reason rest upon a basic confusion in our interpretation of the meaning and function of the 'I think.' A completely different situation arises, he now tells us, "when reason is applied to the objective synthesis of appearances";209 for it then soon falls into such contradictions that it is constrained to desist from all pretense to knowledge in the field of "pure rational cosmology."210 In order to understand what is involved here, we must remember that the pure and transcendental concepts, the categories, can issue only from the understanding and that these concepts have cognitive significance only in conjunction with what is given in sense impressions. The most that reason can do is "to free a concept of the understanding from the unavoidable limitations of possible experience, and so to endeavor to extend it beyond the limits of the em89

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pirical."211 In attempting to find the absolute totality of the conditions, or the unconditioned, for a given conditioned, reason (as we have seen earlier) employs a transcendental idea; but the unconditioned is never encountered in experience. It is, and always remains, but a transcendental idea. Moreover, such an extension of categories to the unconditioned is possible in the case of some categories only. Those which can be so extended (in conformity with the principle that, "if the conditioned is given, the entire sum of conditions, and consequently the absolutely unconditioned ... is also given") are "those in which the synthesis constitutes a series of conditions subordinated to, not co-ordinated with, one another."212 More specifically, the cosmological ideas are concerned only with the totality of the regressive synthesis and thus refer to past time only.213 That is to say, "the present can be regarded only as conditioned in past time," and "this past time, as condition of the given moment, is necessarily thought as being given in its entirety."214 Space, on the other hand, "does not in itself constitute a series." Only our apprehension of things in space is successive, is taking place in time. However, with respect to this advance from one place in space to another, "the transcendental idea of the absolute totality of the synthesis in the series of conditions likewise applies to space." In other words, we can as legitimately inquire about the absolute totality of appearances in space as we can of that in time. 215 The real in space is, of course, matter; and this is what is actually conditioned in space and time. But matter consists of parts, which in turn also consist of parts, which in turn consist of still smaller parts; and so on to "a complete division," which is attained only when we reach "the simple." This means, however, that in the case of matter we also have "a series of conditions and an advance to the unconditioned. "216 As to relations, only the category of causality presents a series such that we can ascend from the conditioned to the condition, from effect to cause. Reason's demand for the "absolute completeness of a series" of conditions determinative of a given conditioned thus yields four and only four cosmological ideas: completeness in composition, in division, in origination, and in dependence of existence. 217

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"Completeness" here means "absolute totality in the exposition of appearances." It does not refer to a totality of things as such (iiberhaupt). That is to say, "appearances are here regarded as given; what reason demands is the absolute completeness of the conditions of their possibility, insofar as these conditions constitute a series."218 What reason is seeking in the regressive series of conditions is the absolutely unconditioned. This unconditioned, however, is never given in experience, and to think it is not the same as to cognize it. Moreover, it is possible to conceive the unconditioned in two ways. It may be seen (1) as "consisting of the entire series in which all members without exception are conditioned and only the totality of them is absolutely unconditioned"; or it may be conceived (2) as only that part of the series to which all other members are subordinated. 219 "On the first view, the series a parte priori is without limits or beginning"; Le., it is infinite. At the same time, however, it is presumed to be given in its entirety. According to the second view, there is always a final element in the series, be it the beginning (in time), the limit (in space), the simple (as part of a whole), or either selfactivity or natural necessity (in respect of causes).220 But, whether we accept (1) or (2), the demands of reason for the unconditioned, although beginning the integrative process with our knowledge of appearances, "carry the synthesis to a degree which transcends all possible experience" ;221 and in this fact are rooted the dialectical conflicts "which human reason must necessarily encounter in its progress."222 Since experience can neither confirm nor disprove the validity of the cosmological ideas of pure reason, the only hope is that reason itself may ultimately bring its various assertions into harmony with one another. But, before it can do so, it is necessary to let the conflicts into which reason falls "develop free and untrammeled";223 and this Kant does in his presentation of the four antinomies.

XIV It is not necessary to recapitulate Kant's statements of the arguments in support of the theses and the antitheses, respectively, of the four antinomies. In each case the proof is given in terms of a disproof of their contradictories. This is a perfectly acceptable

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procedure, and the arguments are sufficient to undermine "the proud pretensions of reason" whenever reason "strives to extend its domain beyond all limits of experience. "224 Moreover, the interest of reason in thus extending its domain is "ultimately practical" rather than cognitive, as our consciousness of the moral law shows. And if the theoretical arguments are not sufficient to justify the transcendent employment of reason, our practical purposes are. 225 Or, better, it is the combination of pure speculative with pure practical reason in one cognition which justified the transcending of experience itself. 226 In the purely speculative field, however, reason "finds itself so compromised by the conflict of opposing arguments" that nothing remains for it but to consider whether or not the conflict within reason itself may not have arisen from a mere misunderstanding. 227 A closer examination of the antinomies shows that in each one the thesis is upheld by dogmatism in philosophy, whereas the antithesis represents empiricism. 228 But, Kant concludes, "when empiricism itself, as frequently happens, becomes dogmatic in its attitude towards ideas, and confidently denies whatever lies beyond the sphere of its intuitive knowledge, it betrays the same lack of modesty [which characterizes the dogmatism of speculative metaphysics]; and this is all the more reprehensible owing to the irreparable injury which is thereby caused to the practical interests of reason."229 Reason, Kant argues, is "by nature architectonic." "It regards all our knowledge as belonging to a possible system"230 and therefore can allow nothing which makes impossible the realization in knowledge of such a system. The architectonic interests of reason ( thus "form a natural recommendation for the assertions of the thesis."231 We know that appearances demand explanation. But we know also that their total explanation cannot be given in terms of appearances only. It requires the absolute whole of all the conditions which determine the given conditioned. 232 That whole, however, although asserted by the dogmatic thesis, transcends all possible experience; and so there may well arise the suspicion that "the cosmological ideas, and with them all the mutually conflicting pseudo-rational assertions, may perhaps rest on an empty and merely fictitious concept of the manner in which the object of these ideas is given to US."233 This suspicion itself may, however, give us a clue as to what the solution of the problem might be. According to Kant, the

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solution is a transcendental idealism 234 which regards the cosmological ideas as merely regulative ideas that set the regress in the series of all conditions as a task for us. 235 Stated differently, "the antinomy of pure reason in its cosmological ideas vanishes" when we realize that it is merely dialectical. That is, when we realize that the conflict arises when we apply to appearances "an idea of absolute totality which holds only as a condition of things in themselves. "236 The antinomy vanishes when we take the cosmological ideas to be nothing but regulatory principles of reason, which prescribe rules which we ought to follow in the progressive synthesis of the conditions of what is given in experience. 237 Seen in this perspective, "the series are not things in themselves, but only appearances which, as conditions of one another, are given only in the regress itself. "238 However far we may carry the regress, we encounter only such conditions as "mayor may not become known to us through experience. "239

xv Kant's solution of the antinomy of causality is of special importance in its relation to what he calls his practical philosophy. The major premise of Kant's argument here is that, "when we are dealing with what happens, there are only two kinds of causality conceivable to us": a causality according to nature or a causality of freedom. The former is the connection in the sensible world of one state with a preceding state upon which it follows according to a rule. 240 The latter is the power of bringing about spontaneously a state or situation. This freedom, however, is "a pure transcendental idea" which "contains nothing borrowed from experience." "Reason creates for itself the idea of a spontaneity which can begin to act of itself." Or, to put it differently, "freedom in the practical sense is the will's independence of coercion through sensuous impulses." It is "a power of self-determination" in man. 241 We must be clear on one point, however. Freedom thus understood is transcendental rather than physiological freedom. Its possibility can be conceived only when appearances are not identified with things in themselves, but are taken to be merely "represen93

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tations connected according to empirical laws," which, as appearances, "must themselves have grounds that are not appearances."242 Although appearances are causally determined in their relation to other appearances, the intelligible ground of them lies outside the series of such relationships and is therefore not subject to the same form of causality.243 There is no contradiction, Kant maintains, in holding that, as appearance, any subject must "conform to all the laws of causal determination"; whereas, in its intelligible character, "this same sUbject must be considered to be free from all influence of sensibility and from all determination through appearances."244 In the world of appearances, no events can begin of themselves: "they are always predetermined through antecedent empirical conditions." But, Kant argues, this fact is not in any way denied when we assume that some of the natural causes have a faculty for action which is grounded solely in the intelligible realm, not in empirical conditions, the sole requirement being that the action of such causes in the realm 0/ appearances conform to the laws of empirical causation. 245 It so happens that "man, who knows all the rest of nature solely through the senses, knows himself also through pure apperception.... He is thus to himself, on the one hand phenomenon, and on the other hand, in respect of certain faculties the action of which cannot be ascribed to the receptivity of sensibility, a purely intelligible object."246 As appearance in the world of sensible objects, he is thus under nature's causal laws; but, as intelligible being, he transcends those laws. His reason has a causality which imposes upon his active powers a necessity which manifests itself as an Ought. 247 So understood, freedom is not simply a freedom/rom empirical causal conditions. It is rather, in the positive sense, "the power of originating a series of events." It is "the unconditioned condition of every voluntary act, [and] admits no conditions antecedent to itself in time."248 Kant's arguments here do not in themselves establish the reality of freedom, but Kant himself realized this. All he purports to have shown is that "causality through freedom is at least not incompatible with nature. "249

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XVI The distinction between a causality in nature and a causality of freedom clearly suggests that, in the further development of his philosophy, Kant must consider more specifically the foundations of natural science and the foundations of morals. I shall deal with both topics in the next two chapters. In the meantime, it will be necessary (a) to follow his architectonic of reason to its transcendental conclusion and (b) to show how the topics of his Critique of Practical Reason and his Critique of Judgment complete his critical endeavors. As to the first of these topics, Kant himself tells us that "the legislation of human reason (philosophy) has two objects, nature and freedom, and therefore contains not only the law of nature, but also the moral law, presenting them at first in two distinct systems, but ultimately in one single philosophical system."250 In order to accomplish this task, reason projects for itself an Ideal in terms of which the ultimate integration is possible in accordance with a priori rules. 251 What is thus projected is an Ideal rather than an Idea because the complete integration involves not merely the logical form, but the content; Le., it involves "all possible predicates of things" as well.252 "The concept: of what possesses all reality is the concept of a thing in itself as'" completely determined." It is the concept of an ens rea/issimum" of"a transcendental Ideal" which is "the supreme and complete materiahcondition of the possibility of all that exists." It is also the only Ideal which; though universal in scope, is "completely determined in and. through itself' and is "known as,the representation of an individual."253' Reason does not ~ presuppose the existence of a Being corresponding to this Ideal, but proceeds to hypostatize it as "the highest reality, as a Being that is one, simple, all-sufficient, eternal, etc." "The concept of such 'a Being is the concept of God."254 Speculative reason attempts in various ways to prove the existence of this Supreme Being. In pursuing his critical task, Kant examines what he regards as the only possible proofs: the ontological, the cosmological, and the physico-theological,255 and finds that all are deficient: He finds that "all merely speculative proofs in the end

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bring us always back to one and the same proof, namely, the ontological. "256 And, as for this proof, "there is already a contradiction in introducing the concept of existence (no matter in what guise) into the concept of a thing which we profess to be thinking solely in reference to its possibility."257 Although for speculative reason the Supreme Being remains a mere Ideal, "it is yet an Ideal without a flaw, a concept which completes and crowns the whole of hun1an knowledge." Reason cannot prove its reality, but it can also not disprove it as an Ideal. 258 Although only afocus imaginarius, the Ideal serves to give the concepts of the understanding their greatest possible unity, combined with their greatest possible extension. 259 It "postulates a complete unity in the knowledge obtained by the understanding," through which that knowledge attains the coherence of an all-inclusive system in accordance with necessary laws. 26o The method of looking for order in nature in accordance with such an Ideal is certainly legitimate and "an excellent regulative principle of reason. "261 As we have seen, Kant calls this Ideal God. But is he justified in doing so? We shall see in Chapter IX that, for good and valid reasons, he takes a different position in the Opus postumum; and this change marks one of the major modifications of his transcendental philosophy as a whole.

XVII With respect to problem (b) stated above-the problem, namely, of how the Critique of Practical Reason and the Critique of Judgment are related to the Critique of Pure Reason-Kant himself says: "It is hun1iliating to human reason that it achieves nothing in its pure employment, and indeed stands in need of a discipline to check its extravagances." But, he continues, "there must be son1e source of positive modes of knowledge which belong to the domain of pure reason...' . How else can we account for our inextinguishable desire to find firm footing somewhere beyond the limits of experience?"262 Such "positive modes of knowledge" we may perhaps find in the "practical employment" of reason; and that we do indeed find them there is the theme of the Critique ofPractical Reason. We must keep in mind, however, that the architectonic of reason

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demands that "our diverse modes of knowledge must not be permitted to be a mere Rhapsody; they must form a system" which includes all the manifold under one idea. 263 In the Critique ofPure Reason, Kant had distinguished between the realm of nature and the realm of freedom; and, while for speculative reason the concept of freedom remained problematic, it was at least thinkable without contradiction. 264 Beyond this, however, the moral law reveals to us a priori that there really is freedom. We do not know how freedom is possible, but we know it as the indispensable presupposition of the moral law which we do know 265 as the expression of an Ought,266 Le., as "a practical principle" which, in a purely formal sense, is the determining ground of our wil\,267 Or, to put it differently: "Freedom and unconditional practical law reciprocally imply each other. "268 Our consciousness of this fact entails the fundamental principle of reason in its practical concerns-a principle which is valid not only for human beings, but for all beings having a rational will: 269 "So act that the maxim of your will could always hold at the same time as the principle of a universal legislation."27o This principle must be seen in contrast with the principles of happiness, self-love, and prudence, which merely advise; "for the law of morality commands."271 To it "all our maxims are subject as though through our will a natural order must arise."272 In the perspective of this employment of reason, the categories (previously considered only as pure theoretical concepts) must now be reinterpreted as "elementary practical concepts which determine the free faculty of choice"273 between what is good and what is evil. Such reinterpretation is possible when freedom is regarded as a kind of causality. The result is then as follows: 1. Categories of Quantity a. Subjectively: the intentions of an individual's will (according to maxims) b. Objectively: precepts (according to principles) c. A priori principles of freedom, including both the subjective and the objective laws 2. Categories of Quality a. Practical rules of commission (precepts)

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b. Practical rules of omission (prohibitions) c. Practical rules of exceptions 3. Categories of Relation a. Relation to personality b. Relation to the condition of the person c. Reciprocal relation of one person to the condition of another 4. Categories of Modality a. The permitted and the not permitted b. Duty and that which is contrary to duty c. Perfect and imperfect duty.274 Of these categories the last group is of special significance, for "the categories of modality initiate the transition ... from practical principles in general to those of morality. "275 The rule of application of the specifically moral laws is stated by Kant in this way: "Ask yourself whether, if the action which you propose should take place by a law of nature of which you yourself were a part, you could regard it as possible through your will." If the maxim of an action cannot stand this test, then it is "morally impossible."276 Moreover, "what is essential to the moral worth of actions is that the moral law should directly determine the will,"277 that respect for the law be the "sole and undoubted moral incentive."278 In this respect for the moral law, we respect the humanity in ourselves and in others. 279 And it is as a free and morally responsible being that man rises above mere animality and transcends the limits of nature, of "the whole world of sense."280 As "lawgiver" in the realm of freedom, he is the ultimate purpose of all creation. 281 It is also the moral law, Kant maintains, which justifies the "postulate of immortality"282 and the "assumption of the existence of God" as the "supreme cause of nature" and the necessary ground of all obligations. 283 As he puts it: "Practical reason inexorably requires the existence of freedom, immortality, and God for the possibility of its practically and absolutely necessary object, the highest good."284 In all of these respects, the Critique of Practical Reason supplements the position taken in the Critique of Pure Reason. We shall see in Chapter IX, however, that the thesis of the second Critique also is modified in the Opus postumum.

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XVIII In his introduction to the Critique ofJudgment, Kant points out that "all faculties or capacities of the soul can be reduced to three": "the faculty of knowledge, the feeling of pleasure and pain, and the faculty of desire. "285 The cognitive faculty (including the understanding and reason) he had discussed at length in the first Critique. The faculty of desire, Le., reason in its practical employment, was the topic of the second Critique. The feeling of pleasure and pain he takes to be basic to judgment, and this he discusses in the third Critique. Hence he can say with some justification at the end of the preface to that work that "with this, then, I bring my entire critical undertaking to a close." The ground will have been prepared for a "metaphysics of nature and of morals. "286 The architectonic of reason, however, demands that both realms, that of nature and that of freedom, be included in one all-embracing metaphysical system. As matters stand at this point in the argument, a "great gulf' exists between the two realms, so that it is not possible to pass from one to the other "by means of the theoretical employment of reason." The concept of freedom, however, is meant to have an influence upon the concept of nature. "There must, therefore, be a ground of the unity of the supersensible, which lies at the basis of nature, with that which the concept of freedom contains in its practical significance"-a ground which makes possible the transition from the principles of one realm to those of the other. 287 The search for this, principle is the topic of the third Critique. Kant proceeds from the premise that "between the faculties of knowledge and desire there is the feeling of pleasure, just as judgment mediates between the understanding and reason"; and "we may assume, provisionally at least, that judgment also contains an a priori principle of its own. "288 Since judgnlent in general is "the faculty of thinking the particular under the universal, "289 its principle can only be this: "Since universal laws of nature have their ground in our understanding, which prescribes them to nature, ... particular empirical laws, in respect of what in them is left undetermined by these universal laws, must be regarded as in accordance with such a unity as they would have if an understanding (although not ours) had supplied them to our cognitive faculties in such a way

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as to make possible a system of experience according to particular laws of nature." This principle ofjudgment, however, is simply the principle of "the purposiveness of nature in all its manifoldness." That is to say, as Kant sees it now, "the purposiveness of nature is a particular concept a priori, which has its origin solely in reflective judgment."29o As such it is a transcendental principle. 291 But "the transcendental concept of purposiveness of nature" is "neither a concept of nature nor a concept of freedom," for "it ascribes nothing to an object." It merely represents the unique way in which we must proceed in our reflection upon the objects of nature with a view of obtaining a thoroughly interconnected experience. It is, therefore, a merely subjective principle or maxim of judgment. 292 It prescribes a law, not to nature, but only to itself for the purpose of reflecting upon nature. 293 There are two ways in which purposiveness may be represented in our experience of nature. It may be taken to be purely subjective, or "it may be represented objectively as the harmony of the form of the object with the possibility of the thing in itself ... containing the ground of this form."294 When taken subjectively only, purposiveness is aesthetic; and, with respect to nature, it is the recognition of natural beauty. When taken in the objective sense, pur.posiveness is regarded as inherent in nature itself. That is, nature is taken to be in itself teleological. But, as Kant sees it, the aesthetic judgment is essential to his argument, for it alone contains as a principle the a priori ground of all reflection upon nature. 295 How this is to be understood we shall see in Chapter VIII. In the meantime we must take a closer look at the "metaphysical foundations of natural science" and the "metaphysical foundations of morals," at the "realm of nature" and the "realm of freedom."

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Essential to the whole of Kant's philosophy is the idea of integration, of synthesis, which alone constitutes experience. l We have already seen that, in his view, it was not sufficient to bring the manifold of sense perceptions under the unity of concepts and to view nature as appearances in space and time in strict conformity with laws;2 and we have seen further that his conception of the architectonic of reason led him to a unitary conception of philosophy as an all-embracing system of principles and laws. Although the basic principles are inherent in reason itself and are therefore known a priori, the special laws of nature can be discovered empirically only. But they, too, must be integrated into the system; for such is the demand of reason. 3 It should therefore come as no surprise to us when, in Metaphysische Anfangsgrunde der Naturwissenschaft, Kant states that "all natural science proper requires a pure part, upon which the apodictic certainty sought by reason can be based,"4 and that, having developed this pure part, he then attempts to show how the specific laws of physics can be derived from it. In the preface to the first edition of the Critique ofPure Reason, Kant had expressed the hope of producing "such a system of pure reason under the title Metaphysics of Nature."5 And, in the second edition of the Critique, he had spoken of the Table of Categories as "supplying the complete plan of a science," adding in a footnote that he had developed such a science in the Metaphysische Anfangsgrunde. 6 I mention these facts merely to stress once again the systemic unity of his thinking.

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I But, before we turn to the Metaphysische Anfangsgrunde, we must remind ourselves of what Kant means by metaphysics. In the preface to A he said: "On the view which we are adopting, metaphysics ... is nothing but the inventory of all our possessions through pure reason, systematically arranged."? And in B he said: Metaphysics "has to do only with principles and with the limitations of their employment as these are determined by the principles themselves."8 That is to say, "in intention at least, metaphysics consists entirely of synthetic propositions a priori";9 and it is "either metaphysics of nature or metaphysics of morals. The former contains all the principles of pure reason that are derived from mere concepts ... and are employed in the theoretical knowledge of all things. "10 Let us remember also, however, Kant's often repeated statement that by "nature, in the empirical sense," he means "the connection of appearances in respect of their existence . . . according to law" and that "there are certain laws"-laws that are valid a priori-which first "make nature at all possible." 11 One point of great importance for later discussions ought to be noted here. It is this: In saying that metaphysics, as he understands the term, is either metaphysics of nature or metaphysics of morals, Kant places the two branches of metaphysics in parallel. This fact must not be overlooked when we later turn to a discussion of his metaphysics of morals. But is it not also apparent that a completely unified and well-integrated system of human experience must transcend even the metaphysics of nature and of morals and combine them in an overarching total system? I shall return to this question in Chapter VIII. That Kant was fully aware of the limitations of his metaphysics of nature and of morals is evident from a letter to Johann Heinrich Lambert, dated December 31, 1765, in which he refers to them as essentially preliminary to a major work on metaphysics which he hopes to write soon. 12 Still, it cannot well be denied that the Metaphysical Foundations of Natural Science occupies a key position within his system as a whole. The evidence is clear. Kant was contemplating writing the Metaphysical Foundations 102

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as early as 1765, and we have already seen what its connection is with the Critique of Pure Reason. Kant stresses this connection even more in a lengthy note to the preface of the A nfangsgrunde. 13 In that note he not only repeats his earlier statements that (1) "the Table of Categories completely contains all the pure concepts of the understanding"; that (2) "the understanding by its nature carries with it a priori [certain] principles by means of which it subordinates to the categories all objects that might be given to it"; that (3) "no employment of pure reason can ever concern anything but objects of experience"; but, most importantly, he promises (4): "1 shall take the earliest opportunity to make up" what remained an "obscurity" in the first edition of the Critique ofPure Reason: "the problem, namely, as to how experience is possible by means of the categories, and only by means of them." I take this to be a reference to the completely rewritten Transcendental Deduction (BI29-69). The change here reflects the role which the Metaphysische Anfangsgrunde played in his thinking and cannot really be understood without this background. Let it be noted in passing that Erich Adickes declined on principle to attribute great value to the Anfangsgrunde. 14 But Adickes completely misunderstood the nature of metaphysical statements, as Kant conceived it, and placed them in competition with empirical statements, insisting that only "men who employ an empiricoinductive [method] are imbued with the true spirit of natural science." 15 In a different spirit, Ralph C. S. Walker asked: "Are the metaphysical principles of natural science as pure as the principles of pure understanding, or are they only required for experience which happens, in fact, to contain matter as defined at the beginning of the sections" in the Metaphysical Foundations? Walker concluded that Kant "did not mean at least to exclude the possibility of proving that any self-conscious being with spatio-temporal experience must have the idea of movable ,matter."16 If it now be argued that, in developing the a priori basis of natural science,:Kant exeeeded the principle of the pure concepts of theunderstandingunderl,ying the Table of Categories, we must not forget that he specifically distinguished between predicables and categories, regarding the former as pure but derivative concepts of 103

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the understanding; that he maintained that the predicables can readily be added to the categories so as "to give a complete picture of the family tree of the [concepts of] pure understanding"; and that he "reserved this supplementary work for another occasion." 17 That other occasion came, I submit, when he wrote the Metaphysical Foundations of Natural Science, regarding it as an integral part of his transcendental idealism. The evidence clearly indicates that he regarded the Metaphysical Foundations as but an explication of the Table of Categories with respect to any scientific understanding of corporeal nature.

II When we examine the text of the Foundations itself, we must remember that Kant specifically identified natural science with physics. As he put it: "The science of nature (Naturwissenschaft) is called physics; . . . it is also called doctrine or theory of nature (Naturlehre)"18-the science of "corporeal nature."19 Of this nature he said that, "taken substantivally (materialiter), it is the sum-total of appearances insofar as, by virtue of an inner principle of causality, they stand in thoroughgoing interconnection."20 And he had argued that the construction of a system is "what first raises ordinary knowledge to the rank of science. "21 In 'the Anfangsgrunde Kant expressed the same thought when he said: "Only that can be called science proper whose certainty is apodictic." That is, it can be called science "only when the laws of nature that underlie it are cognized a priori. "22 And such cognition is possible only when those laws can be derived from the a priori principles underlying all explanations of nature 23 and thus are part of a well-integrated system. This means that "all natural science proper must have a pure part upon which the apodictic certainty sought by reason in such a science can be based." "Natural science proper, therefore, presupposes a metaphysics of nature," which "contains nothing but the principles that are not empirical."24 But Kant now asserts that "in every special theory of nature (Naturlehre) only so much science proper can be found as there is mathematics in it."25 "In order to make possible the application of 104

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mathematics to the theory of corporeal nature ..., principles of the construction of those concepts which belong to the possibility of matter generally must first be stated (miissen vorangeschickt werden)"; and to do this is the task of "a real metaphysics of corporeal nature,"26 the basic schema of which Kant had given in the Table of Categories. 27 There the "pure concepts of the understanding" had been grouped under four headings: quantity, quality, relation, and modality. And no others, Kant insists, can pertain to the nature of things. 28 The interpretation of corporeal nature must therefore be carried through in those four respects. That is to say, everything concerning matter generally that "can be thought of it a priori, that can be presented in mathematical construction or can be given in experience as determinate object" must be capable of being brought under those four headings. 29 The fundamental characteristic of anything that is "an object of the external senses must be motion; for only through motion can those senses be affected." All other predicates which belong to the nature of matter must be traced back to it. "And so the science of nature is throughout either a pure or an applied theory ofmotion. "30 The Metaphysical Foundations of Natural Science are, of course, the pure fornl of that theory; and this thesis is developed in four chapters: Phoronomy, in which motion is considered as pure quantity; Dynamics, which deals with motion as belonging to the quality of matter; Mechanics, where matter, imbued with the quality described in the chapter on Dynamics, is viewed as being by its own motion in relation with other matter;31 Phenomenology, where matter in motion and/or at rest is considered as an appearance in the external senses. 32 In carrying through his task, Kant tells us, he has "followed the mathematical method, if not in all strictness ... at least imitatively."33 We have seen in Chapter II what he meant by the mathematical method. As he now puts it, it is "the work of reason through construction of concepts."34 And so, in the Metaphysical Foundations of Natural Science, he proceeds to construct the concept of matter in four distinct steps, each adding a further characteristic to the first. In the end, there emerges a constructed definition of matter which contains everything necessary for a foundation of physics, but not more.

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III Let us now take a brief look at the metaphysical foundations themselves, beginning with the foundations of phoronomy.35 Matter is here taken to be movable in space, but no property other than movability is attributed to it. So conceived, matter can be taken as merely a movable point. 36 Its motion is "the change of its external relations to a given space."37 That space, however, "must be indicated by what can be sensed"; or we could not determinethe motion, of anything with respect to it. The space, therefore, relative to which the point moves is "the sum-total of all objects of experience and [thus is] itself an object of experience." It is "empirical space." As such, it is a relative space and, as defined by objects of experience, is itself movable. That is to say, the space in which motion occurs may itself be said to move, "perhaps in an opposite direction," with respect to a larger space. And this larger space may again be conceived as moving relative to a still larger one, and so on and so on, without terminating in motion relative to an absolute or completely empty space. "Absolute space is in itself nothing and is no object at all." Motion with resp~ct to it simply cannot be observed. 38 What all this amounts to is formulated by Kant as a Principle: "Every motion as object of a possible experience can be viewed at will either as motion of a body in a space that is at rest, or as rest of the body and motion of the space in the opposite direction with equal velocity."39 This, of course, is simply Kant's version of Galileo's classical principle of relativity; and we have already seen that Kant stood committed to it from the beginning (Chapter III, Section II). In order to leave no doubt about his meaning, Kant restates the principle in the "Observation": "For all experience and for every inference from experience it must be all the same (einerlei) whether I want to consider a body as moving, or else consider it as at rest and the space as moving in the opposition direction with equal velocity."40 Having stated that a composite motion would be "the representation of the motion of a point as identical with two or more motions of that point combined,"41 Kant goes on to show that all simultaneous motions of one and the same point are reducible to the combination of only two motions: motions in the same direction or

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motions in different directions. Actually, three cases must be distinguished: (1) If the motions (be they of equal or unequal velocities) are motions in the same direction, then the result is a composite motion in that direction. (2) If the two motions (be they of equal or unequal velocities) are motions in opposite directions, then they "constitute through their composition a third motion in the same direction." (3) If the two motions are motions in different directions, they form an angle. 42 But all of this is true only in the case of rectilinear motions. 43 In this limited sphere, however, the mathematical conceptions of quantity are readily applicable to the motions in space.

IV It has thus far been assumed that matter is movable in space. But, Kant now points out, matter is not simply a point movable in space; "it fills space." And "to fill space means to resist everything movable that, by its motion, strives to press into a certain space. "44 This resistance to any intrusion is not the result of matter already occupying a certain space, but of "a special moving force" which "causes the motion of the intruding matter in the opposite direction. "45 At this point Kant distinguishes between an attractive force, whereby "matter can be the cause of the approach of other matter to itself," and a repulsive force, "whereby a matter can be the cause of making other matter withdraw from itself. "46 His thesis is that "matter fills space by the repulsive forces of all its parts. "47 "The impenetrability of matter ... increases proportionally to the degree of compression." It is therefore relative. 48 But, "in a space filled with matter, every part of the space contains repulsive force to counteract on all sides all remaining parts, and hence to repel them and likewise be repelled by them. "49 But, if matter possessed repulsive force only, it would "disperse itself to infinity"; and,"strictly speaking, there would then be no matter at all. "50 Hence there must be an attractive force to counteract the repulsive one. But by mere attraction alone "no matter is possible" either, for without the repulsive force all matter would "coalesce in a mathematical point, space would be empty and

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thus without any matter at all." The result is, as Kant puts it, "repulsive force belongs just as much to the essence of matter as does attractive force; one cannot be separated from the other in the concept of matter."51 Stated succinctly: "Since all given matter must fill its space with a determinate degree of repulsive force in order to constitute a determinate material thing, only an original attraction in conflict with the original repulsion can make a determinate degree of the filling of space, Le., matter, possible."52 Since the endeavor to move in the direction of greater attractive force (or gravitation) is weight, and the repulsive force of the parts of any given rnatter is elasticity, elasticity and weight "constitute the only universal characteristics of matter that are comprehensible a priori. "53 And so, Kant concludes, "all that is real in the objects of our external senses and is not merely a determination of space . . . must be regarded as moving force. . . . The so-called solid . . . is banished from natural science as an empty concept. "54 "The concept of matter is reduced to nothing but moving forces."55 This conclusion is, of course, a flat contradiction of any ultimately atomistic view of matter-such as Newton's. But Kant justifies his thesis by arguing that, since space is "mathematically divisible to infinity," matter occupying that space must be equally, but "physically," "divisible to infinity."56 As he puts it in the Critique of Pure Reason: The divisibility of a body is "grounded in the divisibility of space, which constitutes the possibility of the body as an extended whole. A body is therefore infinitely divisible, but without consisting of infinitely many parts."57 Even so, Kant confesses, we have no complete understanding of n1atter, for the very possibility of the two fundamental forces "can never be comprehended."58 Moreover, at this time (1786) Kant found himself "unable to furnish an adequate explanation," in terms of the two fundamental forces, of the specific varieties of n1atter. 59 Although he hints at possible interpretations of body, cohesion, fluidity, solidity, and elasticity, the problem (known as the problem of transition from the metaphysics of natural science to physics proper) was to become a major theme only in the Opus postumum. I shall return to it shortly.

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v Having defined matter as the movable in space and as the movable insofar as it fills space, Kant now defines it more fully as "the movable insofar as it is something having a moving force."6o This leads him into a discussion of M echanics-a discussion which is clearly related to his exposition of the Analogies of Experience in the Critique of Pure Reason. When Kant now speaks of matter as having a moving force, he does not mean that it has an attractive force. He means rather that it produces effects by impact,61 and his intention is to present the metaphysical foundations of Newtonian mechanics. This is evident from his Propositions 2, 3, and 4. The first of these (which he calls the First Law of Mechanics) is but a reformulation of the Principle of the Conservation of Matter and thus of the First Analogy of Experience: "With respect to all changes of corporeal nature the quantity of matter as a whole [Le., the total amount of matter] remains the same, unincreased and undiminished. "62 The Second Law of Mechanics, corresponding to the Second Analogy, Kant states in this way: "Every change of matter has an external cause." And then, in order to leave no doubt about what he has in mind, he adds in parentheses what in all essentials is Newton's First Law of Motion: "Every body remains in its state of rest or rectilinear motion with the same velocity unless compelled by an external force to leave this state."63 Matter so understood is "lifeless," for "life is the capacity of a substance to determine itself to act from an inner principle"-such as desire, thought, feeling, appetite, or will. 64 Insofar as the living organism has anyone or several of these capacities, it is not subject to the laws of mechanics, but belongs to an aspect of nature which requires other forms of interpretation. This fact is perfectly in line with Kant's statement in the Universal History and Theory of the Heavens that the whole material universe may become intelligible to us before we can understand in terms of mechanical laws the existence of even a single caterpillar. And, because of this fact, it was inevitable that the problem of the living organism compelled him to go beyond the conceptual framework of the first Critique and return

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once more to the conception of the Great Chain of Being. I shall deal with this matter in Chapter VIII. At this time we must note that Kant formulates the Third Law of Mechanics in this way: "In all communication of motion, action and reaction are always equal to each 'other."65' This is, of course, identical with Newton's Third Law of Motion: ,"For every action there is an equal and opposite reaction." And it is also identical with the Third Analogy of Experience as given in the Critique of Pure Reason. The Critique, therefore, (together with the Metaphysical Foundations of Natural Science) provides us with an a priori and objectively valid basis for the whole of Newtonian mechanics.

VI Kant further stipulates that "matter is the movable insofar as that [movable] can bean object of experience."66 That is to say, he places matter into the position of the "movable point," with which alone he was concerned in the chapter on Phoronomy. Everything he said there can now be applied to matter (rather than to a mere point) in motion-provided, and this is an important restriction, the motion is rectilinear. A problem arises, however, when we consider curvilinear or circular motion. This problem did not arise in phoronomy, for to say that a nondimensional point has circular motion is simply meaningless. But in actual experience nonrectilinear motions are clearly in evidence. And this, Kant admits, leads to a paradox which must be resolved. The paradox is this: "Every body in circular motion manifests by its motion a moving force"-the centrifugal force or a form thereof. The motion of space, however, as considered in phoronomy, has no moving force and generates none. Hence, while the circular motion of a material body is "an actual predicate of matter," the opposite motion of a relative space has in itself no moving force and is therefore not an actual motion. To regard it as such is to fall victim to an illusion. 67 Must we then conclude that circular motion, at least, is absolute motion? According to Kant, the answer is no. Such a conclusion is unwarranted. Kant defends his position by arguing thus: Absolute motion, by (Newtonian) definition, is motion with respect to absolute or empty 110

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space. Empty space, however, is never given in experience. Newton assumed its reality; Kant called it "ein Unding"-an impossible thing. All motions encountered in experience-and these include circular as well as rectilinear motions-are motions "only in relation to matter and never with respect to mere space without matter." "Absolute motion, Le., motion thought of without any relation of one matter to another, is simply impossible. "68 So-called absolute space is not a "real object" in our experience, but "an idea that serves as a rule for considering all motion in it as relative only. "69 Since circular motion (such as "the rotation of the earth with respect to the fixed stars") can be given in experience as actual motion without translatory change of the body's position with respect to a relative space, this kind of motion "might be assumed to be absolute." It assuredly differs from mere illusion. But this, Kant argues, is just the point: the issue is "true motion" versus the illusion of motion; it is not absolute versus relative motion. 70 Even circular or rotary motion is relative to other matter in space (such as the fIXed stars, referred to by Kant himself): it is not relative to a:t>solute or completely empty space. Kant's argument on this point is quite specific. Although circular motion does not involve a change in the body's location in space, "it exhibits a continuous'dynamic change in the relation of matter within its space" by lessening the attraction between opposite particles of the rotating body.7! The observable effect of circular motion is thus again one of the relation of material particles to one another, not one of a changing relation relative to empty space. It is therefore also a relative motion. Absolute motion could only be "the rectilinear motion of the universe, Le., of the system of all matter";72 and this we do not encounter in human experience. With this line of reasoning, Kant had clearly abandoned Newton's position and had moved towards a conception of universal relativity which found its culmination in Einstein's general theory.73

VII At the beginning of the present chapter, I quoted Kant as saying that "all natural science proper requires a pure part, upon which the apodictic certainty sought by reason can be based." We have just 111

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seen that he developed this pure part in the Metaphysical Foun.. dations of Natural Science. But Kant knew that every science of nature must also have an empirical part, or it would be merely a play with concepts. He maintained, however, that this empirical part must itself be a manifestation of the two fundamental forces by virtue of which matter fills space. In 1786, he expressed the hope that some day he would be able to show that such actually is the case by accounting for all the "specific varieties of matter" in terms of those two forces. This hope became the moving factor behind his strenuous efforts to solve the problem-efforts which form part of the Opus

postumum. When we examine the Opus postumum, we encounter difficulties of an extraordinary kind; for the two impressive volumes (a total of 1,269 pages of text) are not a well-organized work, but "a comprehensive documentation of the genesis of a work that never was completed."74 In fact, it is the genesis of two works, neither of which was completed. In addition, the diplomatic text of the Akademie-Ausgabe gives us the order of the pages as found in the N achlass, but does not at all follow the tinle sequence in which the fragments were jotted down. And the fragments were written during a period when a gradual deterioration of Kant's faculties finally culminated in a complete mental collapse, associated with what at the time was diagnosed as Pachymeningitis interna. By means of an incredibly meticulous analysis of paper, ink, handwriting, and other external factors, Adickes succeeded in reestablishing the approximate chronological order;75 and this order is now generally accepted. But, even so, great difficulties remain because of the many repetitions and new starts which frequently obscure the progression of Kant's thinking. The most coherent parts of the Opus are Convolutes 10, 11, 7, and 1. But difficulties in interpretation arise even here. Kant himself regarded what would have been the finished Opus as his most important work;76 and in a very specific sense he was right, for what emerges as "the highest form of transcendental philosophy" (as he himself calls it) involves a major revision of the position set forth in the Critique ofPure Reason. But this will be the topic of Chapter IX. For the present I shall consider only that part of the Opus which Kant called the "transition to physics." 112

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VIII In a letter to Christian Garve, dated September 21, 1798, Kant wrote: "The problem I am working on at present pertains to the 'transition from the metaphysical foundations of natural science to physics.' It must be solved, for otherwise there would remain a gap [in my system]. The demands of reason for [the solution] do not diminish: neither does the consciousness of the ability to [solve] it: but the satisfaction of the demands [of reason] is postponed to the point of highest impatience, not because of a complete paralysis of vital energy but because of ever recurring restraints on it."77 This statement quite clearly defines one of the primary themes of the Opus postumum, characterizing it as a demand of reason, and provides at least a partial explanation of the fragmentary character of the Opus: Kant's deteriorating health. In a very real sense the philosophically significant core of the Opus must be extracted from an overwhelming mass of material which in itself lacks systemic coherence. To be sure, Convolute IV, the Oktaventwurf, is entitled "Transition from the Metaphysical Foundations of Natural Science to Physics";78 but this does not mean that all relevant material is gathered together here. In fact, it is not, but is widely scattered throughout both volumes of the Opus. We must note also that organic nature is not included in the projected "transition"; for, as Kant puts it, "physics does not contain an additional special transition from merely mechanical to organic nature ... [reality] itself makes here a leap into a nature which must be thought of as possible only through purpose."79 The "transition from the metaphysical foundations of natural science to physics," referred to in the letter to Garve, Kant now maintains "must be only a step (passus), not a leap (saltus)," "a transition ... from concepts of nature which are given a priori to empirical [concepts] which empirical cognition provides."80 This transition "cannot consist entirely of concepts a priori concerning matter, for in that case it would be merely metaphysics ... ; but neither [can it consist] entirely of empirical conceptions (Vorstellungen), for if it did it would belong to physics.... It mus1 belong to the principles a priori of the possibility of experience and therefore of scientific research (Naturforschung), Le., [it must 113

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belong] to the subjective principle of schematism of the faculty of judgment," making possible "the transition from physics [as a mere aggregate] to physics as a system."81 The transition, we are told, "consists in this: a priori concepts of motion in general become conn~cted with the empirical [concepts] of moving forces, in accordance with the principles of the possibility of experience within physics as a system."82 What this amounts to is that the transition here at issue "constitutes in itself a special system, namely, that of the moving forces of matter-[a system] which, being connected above (oberwerts) with the metaphysical foundations of natural science and below (niederwerts) with physics (the rational principle with the empirical), forms a bridge across a gap (hiatus) without which the tendency [toward transition, Le., the demand of reason] could not achieve its goal."83 Lest there should be any misunderstanding, Kant specifically points out that by physics he means the science of "inorganic matter,"84 "based on experience," "its object being matter in general insofar as it possesses moving force in accordance with empirical law."85 That is, "physics is empirical cognition in a system"86-"the system of moving forces of matter as an empirical cognition."87 However, as a system of moving forces, physics "cannot emerge from mere experience," for experience "results in aggregates only, and these lack the completeness of an [integrated] whole," which, as a system, physics unquestionably has. 88 What Kant is suggesting is that "the form of the system [of physics] must be given a priori; the matter, i.e., the moving forces, must come to be known empirically through experimentation"89-through "observation and experimentation," as Kant says in other places. 9o If there is to be a transition from the metaphysical foundations of natural science to physics proper, it must be "ein Drittes" that has something in common with both-with the metaphysical foundations and with physics itself; and this "third" Kant identifies as the "doctrine (doctrien) of scientific research (Naturforschung)," which "subjectively, Le., in how and according to what principles research is to be conducted," determines a priori the relation of physics to its metaphysical foundations. 91 But, I repeat, it does so only sUbjectively; for it is "restricted to the principles of scientific research and is not intended to present the objects of nature completely."92 In other

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words, as "the principles a priori of scientific research," the transition concerns only "the subject and its analysis of the concept of physics, and thus [pertains only to] the formal conditions of research."93 It provides "the schematism of the concepts of composition"94 by means of which "physics systematically orders the content of empirical cognition" in "accordance with the a priori concepts of the metaphysical foundations of natural science. "95 Since the principle of transition is that of scientific research, we can readily understand Kant's contention that "natural science (philosophia naturalis)" includes not only the metaphysical foundations of natural science and "physics as a system of empirical concepts and laws of nature," but the principle of transition from one to the other as well. 96 The metaphysical foundations can find their actualization only in physics proper; and physics needs the foundations for the purpose of changing "empirical intuitions" into the "systematic unity of experience" and transforming "perception and its fragmentary aggregates ... into a system which, in its form, is not merely intuited but is being thought. "97

IX From what has been said so far, the general idea of transition should be clear. But, unfortunately, Kant himself wavered about its meaning at times. Thus he says in one place: "The metaphysical foundations of natural science must determine the transition to physics, and the transcendental philosophy must make the transition to the metaphysical foundations. "98 This is quite clear in itself. But he also says that there must be "a transition from the metaphysical foundations of natural science to transcendental philosophy";99 that, in fact, there is "progress and transition from the metaphysical foundations ... to transcendental philosophy."100 Statements such as these are of course perfectly reconcilable with his contention that "one can descend to the metaphysical foundations of natural science, but also ascend to transcendental philosophy." 101 But then he says, too, that "transcendental philosophy begins with the metaphysical foundations of natural science [and] contains the a priori principles of the transition of the latter to physics,"102 And perhaps more confusing: "From the metaphysical foundations of natural science the

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principle goes to the higher position of transcendental philosophy, and from there finally to physics."103 He does admit, however, that the transition from the metaphysical foundations of natural science is "quite different" from the transition from it to transcendental philosophy as an autonomous system of sensory objects that is foundational to "the possibility of experience."104 Despite these ambiguities, it remains a fact that the transition with which Kant was primarily concerned was that from the metaphysical foundations of natural science to physics. He even used it as the title for what was presumably to be a coherent presentation of the theme: "Transition from the Metaphysical Foundations to Physics" 105 "Up to now," he pointed out, "there has been n1issing in natural science a special part which deserves to have its place between the metaphysical foundations of natural science and physics, namely, that of the transition from one territory to the other ... as a bridge which spans a chasm-a bridge upon which one must tarry (verweilen) so that one can cross into the territory of physics in good order and in accordance with a secure principle."106 That is, "there must be a part of natural science which lies in the middle between its metaphysical foundations and physics, for without this in-betweenpart there is .no continuity between those two parts but a rupture, dangerous to the system, that would tear off the guidance of philosophy and would surrender its propositions to the play of opinions and hypotheses."107 In his most elaborate statement of the idea of transition, Kant puts it this way: The metaphysical foundations of natural science have been developed with respect to physics as their goal; one therefore expects quite rightly a progress (progressus) to the latter. It is merely a question of whether one may turn immediately from the former to the latter (from principles a priori to empirical ones) or whether the transistion (transitus) requires a special philosophically preparatory work, based a priori, which mediates between the two ... ; whether, therefore, there exists a 116

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special part of natural science called transition, which necessarily belongs to its system.-This much is certain: Physics, be it as the empirical science ever so rich in perceptions and grounds of explanation of appearances, can never be more than a fragmentary aggregate of [the findings ofJ scientific research which, [not guided byJ concepts a priori, strings the laws of nature it has discovered together according to [accidentalJ relationships without being able to group them in the conception of a whole; so that this science can never be presented with certainty as a system in which no part is missing-unless an all-comprehensive plan of the whole can be made foundational to it a priori. 108 And Kant adds: "The concept of a transition from the metaphysical foundations of natural science to physics is contained in that [aspectJ of scientific research which, objectively, relates those metaphysical concepts to what is empirical in our cognition of nature (Naturerkenntnis) but which, subjectively, Le., in the manner and according to what principles scientific research is to be carried on, follows principles which are a priori determinative in accordance with concepts of the understanding." That is, "in all empirical research in the proper sense, which is called scientific research, it is first of all necessary to be instructed as to how and according to what principles one ought to look for the many different (mannigfaltigen) moving forces of matter. This can be done in no way other than in accordance with an a priori principle ... by explicitly presenting the formal aspect of all moving forces through concepts of relationships which are thought a priori as [belonging toJ the moving force."109 Finally: "Here is the key for opening the gate to the transition from the metaphysical foundations of natural science to physics given in the elementary system of the moving forces; namely, not from experience empirically, but for experience a priori, to comprehend the manifold appearances through the understanding ... not fragmentarily but according to concepts of a whole which [the understanding itself] makes."110 But "the transition must not meddle in physics. It merely anticipates the moving forces which are thought a priori as to form, and classifies what is empirically general in order to regulate the conditions of the scrutiny of experience for the purpose of a system of scientific research." 111 It is clear from other references to the transition that the stress

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is always on the formal aspect 112 and on "the purpose of forming a system of experience."113

x Basic to the whole of Kant's argument in support of the idea of a transition from the metaphysical foundations of natural science to physics is his firm belief that, as a science, physics must be a wellintegrated system. As he puts it: "Without a system there is no physics."114 And: "Physics is the system of moving forces."IIS It is "empirical cognition in a system."116 Furthermore, Kant is convinced (and I believe he is right) that "it is impossible to fabricate (zimmern) a system out of merely empirical concepts."117 "For the possibility of physics as a system, empirical principles are insufficient because they entail, and then only fragmentarily, an aggregate but never a system, not even an approximation to one, yet that is intended by physics."l1s He puts it quite bluntly: "the very idea of an empirical system is a contradictio in adjecto."119 It is selfcontradictory because every system presupposes a principle according to which the given manifold of perceptions is to be integrated. 120 As Kant sees it, therefore, "physics is the system of the moving forces which can be given only a posteriori but whose systematic combination requires principles a priori. "121 If this seems strange, we must remember that, for Kant, Newtonian mechanics was the model for physics as a science. He admitted that chemistry also belongs to the field of natural science, that, in fact, it "belongs to physics";122 but, "with its solutions and precipitations,"123 it is "the purely empirical part of physics"124 to which as yet no bridge can be constructed that connects it with the metaphysical foundations of natural science. Stated briefly, Kant's thesis is that "natural science generally consists of the following three divisions: (1) Metaphysical foundations which represent matter merely as the movable in space. (2) The enumeration of the primary forces of matter (which serves as transition from the metaphysical foundations to physics). (3) Physics itself as a system."125 And physics itself is "the science of the moving forces of matter" 126 insofar as matter comes to be known empirical-

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ly, i.e., insofar as it comes to be known through "observation and experimentation." 127 To view matter in this way means (a) to subsume it under the categories 128 and (b) to account for all its manifestations in terms of moving forces alone. No atomism can accomplish these ends, for it "contains no principle of the possibility of bodies" and "can give no explanation of the density of bodies"-and this for two reasons: "On the one hand, there are no atoms" (since all bodies and all of their parts are infinitely divisible), and, "on the other hand, empty space is no object of possible experience" ("for non-being cannot be perceived"). With indivisible bodies (such as atoms) and non-existent spaces as components, "the concept of a whole of moving forces becomes an untenable empirical concept."129 One cannot make even "the concept of a stone intelligible without the concept of the moving forces, which are: repulsion and attraction." 130 Here, then, is one link with the Metaphysical Foundations and in particular with the chapter on Dynamics. But Kant continues the theme of connection between the Foundations and physics by holding that "the moving forces of matter are best classified in accordance with the order of the categories: Le., according to quantity, quality, relation, and modality."131 One preliminary remark may be in order before I turn to Kant's classification of the moving forces and their specific manifestations. As Kant sees it, "the moving forces of matter are either intrinsic to it by nature, or they are impressed upon it. The latter are simply consequences of real motions, such as the centrifugal force of a rotating· body, which exists merely as effect of a real motion and continues only as long as that motion continues."132 For purposes of further analysis, we can neglect the impressed forces and consider only the intrinsic or primary ones: attraction and repulsion.

XI The first concept that must be considered is that of a body as "the coherent whole of a [given] matter in specific form."133 As a coherent whole it "limits itself (through inner attraction)" and is

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"movable and capable of moving other matter." 134 Or, briefly, it is "a quantity of matter of specific form (figure) insofar as it is moving in bulk (als Masse)."13S So understood, every body can itself be accounted for in terms of moving forces, be these internal or external to it, or both. Now, "the quantity of matter presupposes movement in bulk against another matter in contact."136 It is specifically determinable through the momentum of that motion. 137 More particularly, it is "weight that indicates the quantity of matter," and weight is "a pressure which matter exerts by virtue of the fact that it is being attracted by the earth."138 That is to say, the measure of the quantity of matter is here "the moving force of a body through the n10mentum of falling at the very beginning [of falling, Le., we might say when it is only potentially falling] insofar as this is identical everywhere at equal distances from the center of the earth." 139 Of course, "if all matter were of the same kind, the estimation of the quantity of a body consisting of it could also be carried out geometrically." 140 In respect of quality, matter is "either liquid or rigid."141 But this difference appears to be "merely a difference in state, not in the inner nature, of the moving forces of matter." 142 That is, "n1atter is liquid when it does not inwardly resist the displacement of its parts."143 "Liquidity is [thus] not the absence of all attraction of the parts of matter but is attributable to their displaceability (Verschiebbarkeit), and this can be total no matter how strongly the parts attract one another in contact."144 "All1iquid matter is liquid through warmth."14s But, as we shall see shortly, warmth itself is, for Kant, merely a moving force. "Rigidity is the property of matter for resisting the displacement of its parts." 146 We encounter it in all cases of material bodies of such nature that, "when one part [of a body] is being moved in a certain direction, then all [its parts] are being moved in the same [direction]." 147 "All formation of matter into rigid bodies is preceded by a state of liquidity (thus at least, and thus only, can one explain the origin of this quality; Le., of rigidity)." 148 In other words, the moving forces of matter "bring about the state Of liquidity (materia fluida)" and the "state of rigidity (materia rigida)" as well. 149 120

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The interrelations of the forces causing liquidity and rigidity account for a variety of qualities of matter. Thus, Kant tells us, with respect to its extension in space [which, as we have seen earlier, is the result of the interaction of repulsion and attraction], matter (which is moving force) is either a) prehensible (merely in contact) ... or imprehensible, Le., (potentially) moving in space that is not filled; ... as in the case of gravitational attraction; b) coercible or incoercible in filling space as an expansive moving force, Le., coercible or incoercible with respect to its own motion ... ; c) cohesible or incohesible, Le., resisting the separation of two surfaces of a body that are in contact, or repulsing each other as surfaces; d) exhaustible or inexhaustible, Le., the possibility or impossibility of emptying a certain space of the quantity of nlatter that fills it. ISO As to the quality of "coercibleness," Kant states more specifically that the extension of a body in space "can be limited by other matter" which is in contact with it when there is "an expansive force of the other matter." Matter is incoercible when all other bodies are for it permeable. I 51 Of cohesion Kant says repeatedly that it is "the attraction of rigid matter in the contact of its parts. "152 That is, cohesion is "the active relationship in which not only the internal parts of a [given] matter resist displacement but also form themselves from a liquid state into a solid body. Its measure is weight." 153 And, being a contact-attraction, cohesion "cannot be changed except through the tearing of it through [the weight of] the body itself." 154 Rigid matter has texture when "the coherence is not equally firm in all directions."lss It has mass "insofar as all its parts move simultaneously" 156 and thus "can be effective as one whole." 157 When "matter resists the displacement [of its parts] only on the surface," its liquidity is in drops. It is "tropfbarfliissig."ls8 When there is "a sudden transition from the liquid state of certain materials into the solid state," the process is one of "crystallizations." 159 But "the problem of the specific kinds of

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crystals formed in the process belongs to the empirical part of physics, not to the transition from the metaphysical foundations to physics."160

XII Returning briefly to the sUbsumption of matter upder the categories, we find that relation is encountered in "the repulsion and attraction of matter as rigid bodies."161 And it may well be "the context of [parts of] rigid matter among themselves." 162 When "moving forces [are] in relation of conflict," that conflict is not to be taken as merely logical (in the sense of a and non-a). It must be taken as real. It is a real conflict of real forces (in the sense of +a and _a).163 And we must also refer (if ever so briefly) to the problem of modality. Of interest here is the mode of necessity which, together with "its empirical foundation," pertains to "the permanence of the moving forces."164 It is "necessity in the appearance," as against logical necessity. "Perpetuitas est necessitas phaenomenon."165 More specifically, in the three modes modality means "motion at one moment: a) as possible but obstructed motion; b) as real motion, either accelerated or retarded ...; c) as necessary in the motion of falling from a determined height." But modality also pertains to "the unchangeability of weight, that is, to the necessity in the case of the same quantity of matter to retain the same degree of motion."166 This last statement can also be taken as implying a reference to Newton's First Law of Motion.

XIII The interpretations of the various states and conditions of matter in terms of moving forces do indeed relate the material content of physics to its metaphysical foundations. Kant had found the transition he was looking for .167 The interpretations are all grounded in the a priori content of the Metaphysical Foundations of Natural Science while at the same time they pertain to the empirical content of physics. But Kant could not rest here; for what he had on his hands was a mere aggregate of facts specifically interpreted, not a well-integrated

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system of physics. Yet that system had been his goal, and he was still interested in it. Not only did he again assert (and repeatedly) that, "objectively, there is but one experience"; 168 that "the synthetic unity of the whole of possible experience has objective reality"; and that "the concept of that whole must precede all experience as a formal principle a priori."169 He made it clear, too, that "the forces of matter which affect the senses" provide the material content of that integrated experience. 17o Moreover, he tells us again and again, that, as the science which integrates "under one formal principle all possible perceptions and therefore also all the forces of matter which affect the senses," physics is "objectively the elementary system." 171 But, while the principle of the system is an idea a priori of the understanding, its objective reality depends upon "the existence of a substance ... which, as the primordially moving force, is the basis of all moving forces of matter."I72 In perusing the Opus postumum we encounter numerous titles of sections. such as: "Concerning The System of the Moving Forces of Matter First Part The Elementary System of the Moving Forces of Matter"173 This does not mean that these section headings are followed by lengthy and coherent discussions of the topic. The Opus postumum is much more fragmentary than that, and we must still deal with essentially isolated fragments and try to fit them together as best we can. We must keep in mind in doing so that Kant distinguished between "the elementary system of matter in general" (which is "the system of the moving forces of matter in accordance with what belongs to the various kinds" of matter) and the "world system" (in which we view "all matter unified in one whole: the universe"), including living organisms and man. 174 Kant now poses the question: "How is the elementary system of the sensory objects (of matter) in its completeness possible for the physicist?"175 His answer, in the abstract, is what we might expect: "The understanding must start with the form of a system ... in order to bring the fragmentary aggregate of perceptions into the subjective unity of experience."176 That is, despite the fact that the sub123

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ject matter of physics is empirical, the "elementary system" of physics does not simply "emerge" from observations and experimentation, but "must be placed into scientific research." 177 Like any other system, "it must be constructed in conformity with an objectively valid and a priori principle of connection." 178

XIV Before dealing specifically with Kant's efforts to solve the problem of the elementary system, it may be well to remind ourselves of the fact that, during the period when Kant jotted down the notes and reflections which we know as the Opus postumum, chemists faced a veritable revolution in their own field. In 1697, Stahl had introduced into chemistry an hypothetical element, the phlogiston, as the principle of fire which, in combination with a body, rendered that body combustible; and his view had been generally accepted. The so-called old chemistry was based upon it. As late as 1774, Priestley called the oxygen which he had discovered "dephlogisticated air." To be sure, a few years later Lavoisier's experiments disproved the existence of phlogiston; and a "new" chemistry was born. But, in 1786, the Copenhagen Academy announced as contest topic the question: "Whether the warmth of a body is the effect of a warmth-giving matter present in warm bodies but not as an essential part of them, or whether warmth alone is a certain motion in the particles of the bodies and therefore a mere modification?"179 And the number of publications which resulted kept the issue alive for a number of years. The debate between the "old" and the "new" was still going on in 1795. On August 22 of that year, Samuel Thomas Soemering wrote Kant that he had not yet made up his mind about phlogiston and that "the controversy over the antiphlogistic chemistry is here [i.e., in Frankfurt] carried on with much vehemence and passion."180 There is no reference to phlogiston in the Opus postumum. But, since Kant was obviously aware of the controversy, is it not possible that his conception of the Warmestoff or calorique was modeled after it?

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xv Let us now take a look at Kant's argument, insofar as we can reconstruct it from the multitude of fragments at our disposal. Kant's thesis is that the elementary system of the moving forces of matter, if it is to be more than a purely subjective invention, depends upon the existence of a material something which, as the primordial moving force, is the basis of all moving forces of nlatter. At first Kant identified that "primordial something" with the calorique or Warmestoff. Throughout both volumes of the Opus, we find such statements as these: "The basis of the whole unification of all moving forces of matter is the calorique."181 The calorique is "postulated as principle of the possibility of our experience of moving forces. Its concept is the basis of the connection a priori of all moving forces of matter."182 But other statements in the Opus postumum indicate a much more restrained commitment to the calorique as ultimate. Thus Kant asks: "Does the calorique exist as a special substance or is warmth merely a capacity to perceive the forces of repulsion of matter?"183 And he refers to the "primordial matter" as that which "tentatively (provisionally) may be called calorique."184 In the end Kant is convinced that the "so-called calorique" is already a derivative; for it "appears to be merely a property of the material of which light consists (Lichtstoff) and thus is not itself a special substance."185 From here to the conception of ether as primordial matter is but a small step, for the ether was even then generally assumed to be the medium in which light is transmitted and which, as that medium, was said to fill all space. Basic to Kant's whole argument here is the conclusion, reached in the Metaphysical Foundations of Natural Science, that "motion of matter in empty space is no object of possible experience" and that therefore moving forces also cannot be encountered "except in a space filled with matter." 186 This ultimate and "all-pervasiye matter," which Kant now calls ether, fills "the whole of worldspace." In other words, he now holds that "there exists in the whole of world-space, spread out as a continuum and uniformly penetrating all bodies and therefore subject to no change of location, a primordial matter": the ether}87 "Although the idea of a first

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beginning of motion is in itself incomprehensible," there is "motion in world-space"; and therefore "a primordial beginning of it" and of the moving forces of matter "must necessarily be postulated."18s )Jut let us be clear on one point. The ether is not introduced as "a merely hypothetical substance"189 like the calorique; for then it would be only a part of physics. "As principle of the possibility of experience it is an unavoidably necessary presupposition a priori," which alone makes possible "the unity of the moving forces in a system that is in harmony with the principle of the possibility of experience."19o "Without such matter [i.e., without the ether] as the basis of all moving forces which together constitute the real principle (reales Prinzip) of one possible experience we would have nothing but perceptions and no whole of experience totally determined (omnimode determinirt) by moving forces."191 In other words, it is Kant's thesis that the ether is "necessary as formal principle of the possibility of the whole of experience in a system of moving forces and that, as substance given a priori, it serves as the basis for all moving forces of matter in an elementary system."192 The existence of this substance [the ether] and the necessity of presupposing it a priori [Kant says in one of the longer coherent passages] I prove in the following way: Of empty space there can be no experience.... To be informed of the existence of matter I require the influence of some matter upon my senses. Hence, the proposition, there exist empty spaces, can never be an empirical proposition, neither directly nor indirectly.... The proposition, Physical bodies exist, presupposes that there exists matter whose moving forces and motion precede in time the formation of a body.... But the forming [of a body] which is to be accomplished through matter itself must have a first beginning of which the possibility may be incomprehensible but whose primordialness (Urspriinglichkeit) as self-acting cannot be doubted. There must therefore exist a matter capable of permeating all bodies and yet persistently moving, which in itself constitutes a whole which, existing in itself as a worldsystem and moving in itself internally, serves everything else as basis of all moving forces of matter. 193

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If no such substance existed, then "the first beginnings of all motion ... would be preceded by empty time and would be an effect without a cause"194 and thus would be quite inconceivable. But, with the ether as basis, "the universe as object of the senses is a system of forces of matter which, objectively in space through motions and subjectively ... as objects of perception, affect us. "195 It is the world we live in. And in this sense Kant has brought unity into experience on an objective basis and has established physics as a system-the goal he had set his heart on.

XVI But, in accomplishing all this, Kant discovered that the mathematical approach to physics (so effective in Newtonian mechanics and highly esteemed by Kant himself) is ultimately inadequate, for it deals ~ith the "moving forces of matter" only insofar as matter is in motion. It is not concerned with the origin of those forces. 196 As Kant himself puts it: The mathematical approach can never lead to "a satisfactory whole of physics-not even in conception." 197 At this point, too, Kant has clearly gone beyond the position presented in the Metaphysical Foundations of Natural Science. It was there that he had said (in the preface): "I maintain that in every special doctrine of nature only so much science proper can be found as there is mathematics in it"; and "rational cognition through the construction of concepts is mathematics."198 It is a fact, however, that in the Opus postumum Kant developed ideas that are strikingly similar to principles and conceptions of modern physics and quantum n1echanics. I have dealt with them in another context. 199 Whether or not Kant's new position is tenable or his arguments are valid is not now the question. I have been interested only in presenting as coherently as possible that part of the Opus postumum usually considered as involving the transition from the metaphysical foundations of natural science to physics proper. Whatever else there is in the Opus-and there is very much more-I shall consider later. In fact, the whole problem of physics as elementary system will then appear in a new perspective.

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CHAPTER VII

THE FOUNDATIONS OF MORALS

Kant's distinction between the "realm of nature" and the "realm of freedom" places the realms in parallel and suggests that they ought to be considered in essentially the same way; and this, in fact, is how Kant did treat them. Thus, corresponding to the Metaphysical Foundations of Natural Science, he wrote the Foundations of the Metaphysics ofMorals; and, corresponding to the unfinished "Transition to Physics," we have the published M etaphysik der Sitten. The Critique of Practical Reason may then be seen as merely an extension of the Critique of Pure Reason 1 (as I have tried to show in Chapter V). In this perspective, Kant's work in the field of ethics becomes an integral part of the architectonic of reason, which indeed dominates the whole of his philosophy and its gradual unfolding.

I For my present purpose, references to Kant's predecessors in the field of ethics 2 and even to his own precritical ethics 3 are essentially irrelevant. More to the point are his Reflexionen zur Moralphi/osophie,4 jotted down between 1771 and 1779, for these reveal subtle shifts in the development of his thinking without entailing significant changes in his basic position. This is especially evident when we compare the Reflexionen of 1776/79 with earlier ones and with his later publications in the field of ethics. A few examples will prove the point. In a Reflexion of 1771, Kant states: "The whole difficulty in the dispute over the principle of morality is over how an (apodictic)

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categorical imperative, one which is not conditional, is possible."5 The problem arises, he was to write in the Critique of Pure Reason, because "nothing is more reprehensible than to derive the laws prescribing what ought to be done from what is being done."6 Attempts to resolve the difficulty have been numerous in the history of philosophy; but, so Kant holds, the results have generally been unsatisfactory. "The most pernicious [attempt] is to transform the theory of morals into a theory of religion, or to base it upon religion; for in that case man abandons the true moral disposition and seeks to win, to earn, or to obtain surreptitiously the divine favor, and lets all impulses for the good die under the maxims of fear."7 But neither can the moral ought be derived from the conception of happiness; for it is not happiness, but "the worthiness of being happy that is the ultimate condition of whatever constitutes the good";8 and "there is nothing anywhere that is absolutely good except a good will."9 More specifically, being worthy of happiness is "grounded in the conformity [of our actions] with those laws under which, if they were universally observed, everyone would partake of happiness to the highest degree that is possible only through freedom"; for "this conformity with universally valid laws of the free will is, according to reason, a necessary ground of our self-approbation and satisfaction with ourselves despite what others may say."IO "That which cannot be brought under a universal rule of the free will is morally wrong."ll "The intention to subordinate oneself in his actions to the universal principle to act in accordance with the rule is moral"; and it is so "when the will is subordinate to the form of the understanding itself,"12 for universally valid "commands" are possible only when "all obligation is grounded in the formal aspects of the maxims [of actions]; the material content cannot raise the maxim to a universal rule, for it is accidental. Even the idea of perfection presupposes an accidental feeling of pleasure." 13 "The dignity of humanity in man's own person," Kant holds, "is personality itself-i.e., it is freedom, for man is an end in himself in'sofar as he is a being which sets itself goals."14 This implies, as far as Kant is concerned, that "there is nothing holy in the world except the rights of humanity in our own person, and the rights of human 130

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beings in general. This holiness consists in the fact that we can never use [human beings] merely as means. The prohibition Qf such use of them is grounded in [r:tan's] freedom and personality."ls "Our own perfection and the happiness of others," "the interests of mankind in our own person and the interests of all"-these are "valid purposes for US."16 I have quoted the Reflexions so extensively in order to show the essential consistency of Kant's thinking throughout the years prior to, and including, the Grundlegung der M etaphysik der Sitten of 1785. The consistency is even more evident when we take into consideration Kant's letter to Marcus Herz, dated "gegen Ende 1773." Kant indicates in this letter that, as soon as he has completed his "transcendental philosophy, which actually isa critique of pure reason," he intends to develop his metaphysics, "which has only two parts: Metaphysics of nature and metaphysics of morals."I? This passage, it will be noted, is identical in effect with Kant's statement (some eight years later) in the Critique of Pure Reason: "Metaphysics is ... either metaphysics of nature or metaphysics of morals."18 His conception of the two parallel realms thus antedates the later formulations by quite a number of years.

II In the vast literature about Kant's ethics,19 the Critique of Practical Reason is usually regarded as "one of the three great Critiques"; and in a sense this evaluation is justified. However, as I have tried to show in Chapter V, the second Critique is, in effect, an essential part of the Critique of Pure Reason; and it should be regarded as such. It then fits best into the architectonic of the Kantian system. Actually, Kant· originally intended to incorporate it in the revised ,edition of the first Critique. An advance notice of the forthcoming revised edition of that work, published in the Jenaer Allgemeine Zeitung on November 21, 1786, makes this quite clear. Moreover, in a letter to Christian Gottfried Schutz, dated June 25, 1787, he speaks of the Critique of Practical Reason (which by now was to be published separately) as "Erganzung" to the first Critique, supplying "what I denied speculative reason. "20 What Kant had denied speculative reason was, of course, "ab131

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solute self-activity,"21 the "power of self-determination," of '''beginning a state spontaneously."22 Still, he had shown that "freedom is at least not incompatible with nature";23 that "freedom and nature, in the full sense of these terms, can exist together without any conflict."24 We can, therefore, proceed "as if' there were freedom. 25 In fact, Kant confesses, the two Critiques fit together so well that it is "as if every step had been carefully thought out merely to provide this confirmation of the critique of theoretical reason."26 There is one difference, however. Whereas speculative reason could think the concept of freedom "only as problematic," as "not impossible," practical reason asserts the reality of freedom (without purporting to understand it) as the necessary presupposition of the moral law, "which we do know."27 Or, as Kant also states it, the apodictic moral law of practical reason and freedom "reciprocally imply each other," reason being the ultimate ground of both. But this means that freedom implies independence from all material content as determining ground of the moral will (freedom in the negative sense) and that its autonomy is self-legislation (freedom in the positive sense); i.e., it is "the legislative form of its own generalized maxims of action."28 Free will is "determined only by the [moral] law."29 This is possible, Kant argues in the Foundations of the Metaphysics of Morals, because the morally responsible will is "nothing other than practical reason ... , Le., the faculty of choosing only what reason, independently of inclination, declares to be praktisch notwendig (Le., necessary from the practical point of view) or good."30 This freedom makes man a member of the intelligible world who can impose his will upon the sensory world. 3l By thus holding to a possible imposition of reason's own laws upon the sensory world, Kant abandons the narrowly Newtonian conception of nature which he had accepted in his Metaphysical Foundations of Natural Science. He now points out that "nature in the widest sense of the term is [simply] the existence of things under laws," the "fundamental law of supersensuous nature" being the moral law "whose counterpart ought to exist (solI existieren) in the world of sense (Sinnenwelt) without rupturing (obne Abbruch) the laws of that world." If the maxim of an action does not stand the test of being given the form of a "law of nature in general," then it is also "morally impossible."32 In the case of a "supremely self-sufficient

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intelligence" or a "perfect being," the maxim of action always meets this test, and "the moral law is a law of holiness." For the will of a finite rational being, however, it is "a law of duty, of moral restraint."33 In any case, the conception of a basic law of practical reason implies the ultimate unity of the realm of nature and the realm of freedom. Therein lies its systemic importance for the architectonic of Kant's philosophy.

III When we now examine the Foundations of the Metaphysics of Morals,34 we must keep in mind Kant's own statement that "the present foundations are nothing more than the search for and establishment of the supreme principle of n10rality."35 This does not mean, of course, that there is general agreement among commentators on the meaning and significance of Kant's approach and argument. On the contrary, as Robert Paul Wolff has said in his introduction to the Beck translation, "even the experts disagree vigorously on how to interpret central passages"36 of the work. I submit, however, that much of the difficulty in interpreting the Foundations arises from the fact that Kant's method and approach are generally overlooked. 37 Actually, Kant is quite explicit about his method and approach. He means, he says, "to proceed analytically from common knowledge to the determination of its supreme principle, and then synthetically from the examination of this principle and its sources back to common knowledge where it finds its application."38 His goal is "to develop the concept of a will which is to be esteemed as good in itself without regard to anything else, as it is intrinsic to sound common sense"39 and is experienced by us in the compelling nature of duty. Kant means in short to "investigate the idea and principle of a possible pure will and not the actions and conditions ofhuman v()lition as such. "40

IV Kant begins with an examination of "ordinary reason" or common sense in moral matters because, as he puts it, common

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sense "may have as much hope as any philosopher of hitting the mark. "41 If, nevertheless, ordinary reason is "impelled to go outside its sphere" and to enter the field of philosophy, it is only in order to understand better the source and correct determination of the basic principle of moral action. 42 Having satisfied himself in the First Section of the Foundations of the Metaphysics of Morals that "all moral concepts have their seat and origin entirely a priori in reason,"43 Kant then proceeds in the Second Section to show how the concept of duty arises from "the universal rules ofdetetmination" of the "practical faculty of reason."44 He believes he has shown that the categorical imperative, Le., the very essence of the idea of duty, is deeply rooted in "the concept of an unconditionaHy good will": that, in fact, it is "the formula of an a.bsolutely good will."45 What induced Kant to follow this procedure was a desire to show that, even for common sense, morality is an aspect of human existence that is independent of natural science; for in the Third Section he st~tes explicitly that "the idea of freedom makes me a member of an intelligible world"46 and that, .as a member of that . world, I find myself "in a different order of things and in a relationship to determining grounds of an altogether different kind" compared to my situation in the sensible world of Newtonian mechanics. 47 I shall here assume that Kant has made his point: that morality is indeed in crucial respects independent of natural science; that the "ought" of morality cannot be reduced to, or explained in tern1S of, the "is" of science. ln my interpretation of the Foundations of the Metaphysics of Morals, however, I shall reverse K'ant's procedure. Even so, we dare not overlook Kant's opening statement: Nothing anywhere in the world-indeed nothing even beyond the world-can possibly be conceived which could be regarded as good without restriction (Einschrankung) except a goodwill. Intelligence, wit, judgment, and what else the talents of mind may be called, or courage, resoluteness, perseverance in a resolve, as qualities of temperament, are without doubt in many respects good and desirable. But they can also become extremely bad and harmful if the will which is to make use of these gifts

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of nature and whose specific quality (Beschaffenheit) is called character, is not good. It is the same with the gifts of fortune. Power, wealth, honor, even health and the whole well-being and contentment with one's condition called happiness make for pride and often even arrogance if there is not a! good will that corrects their influence on the mind and on the whole principle of action, and makes them conformable to universal ends. 48 Nature could have endowed us with a sure instinct in the pursuit of such ends and in the employment of means to those ends. 49 But this is not the situation in which we find ourselves. Instead of being guided in all actions by instinct,weare confronted with a freedom of choice and, therefore, with the problem of self-determination that is deeply rooted in the autonomy of our wil1. 50 This freedom, however, must not be confused. with lawlessnes·s. It means rather that the rational will, I.e., the will of a rational being, is itself the author of its principles in action: that it is "self-legislative." As Kant sees it, the principles of action of this autonomous will are the constitutive laws of l"the intelligible world. " They are the moral laws. 51 But only the actions of a being who is exclusively a member of the intelligible world "would completely accord with the prin'ciples of the autonomy of the pure 'will." And, as human beings, we exist not only in the intelligible world (Verstandeswelt), but in the sensible world (Sinnenwelt) also. We are members of both worlds·. "But since the intelligible world contains the ground of the world of sense and of its .laws, the intelligible world is, and must be thought of as, directly legislative for my will which [as autonomous] belongs wholly to the intelligible world."52 And so, being a member of both worlds, I find myself even as member of the sensible world still subject to the laws of the intelligible world which, in respect of the autonomy of my will, are imperatives for me in the sensible world. Actions in accord with them are duties. 53 "Categorical imperatives are thus possible because the idea of freedo'm makes me a member of an intelligible world"54 in which they are the prevailing laws. But this can mean only that "the idea of an intelligible world is itself the incentive (Triebfeder) or is that in which reason takes primary interest."55 How this is possible we do not understand any more than we understand how our will can be autonomous. We know

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only that it is so: that "a lively interest in the moral law" can be awakened in us "through the glorious ideal of a universal realm of ends-in-themselves (Le., of rational beings) to which we can belong as members only when we carefully conduct ourselves according to maxims of freedom as if they were laws of nature."56

v If in this perspective we reread Part II of the Foundations ofthe Metaphysics of Morals, we find that Kant's position can hardly be identified with formalism in ethics. 57 In order to see this clearly, we must distinguish more sharply than Kant hinlself usually does between the basic "principle of morality" and "moral laws." The distinction is clearly implied in Kant's statement that "the will is thought of as a faculty of determining itself to action in accordance with the conception of certain laws."58 The principle, I submit, is the statement that the will determines itself in accordance with certain laws. Kant continues: "That which serves the will as the oQjective ground of its self-determination is an end, and, if this is given by reason alone, it must hold alike for all rational beings." 59 Much has been written about Kant's
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one principle that is constitutive of the intelligible world. What does it demand? It demands, objectively, that all maxims which are to become laws of the intelligible world be universal inform (universality being characteristic of all laws of nature). It demands, subjectively, that the maxims have as their material content the rational being as end-in-itself. And it demands, as a combination of the first two demands, the harmony ofthe maxims of action among themselves so that they may serve as laws for "a possible realm of ends as part of [an expanded] realm of nature."64 It is significant that Kant explicitly states that respect for the law is the sole incentive for accepting and obeying the law. But why should I have this respect for the law? Simply because the law is selfimposed, a fact which entails three crucial aspects of Kant's philosophy: (1) The possibility of self-imposition is grounded in our inherent freedom. (2) The self-imposition of a universal law is a manifestation of our own rationality. And (3) such freedom and rationality together constitute the very humanity in us (and in others) which Kant's categorical imperative commands us to treat always as an end and never as a mere means only. But let us also note that this conception of the categorical imperative is subsumable under the categories of the understanding; for it implies the unity of the form of the will (universality), the manyness of the material content in the maxims, and the totality of the system of maxims serving as laws of the intelligible world. Obviously, the "unity of form" alone is a priori, and it determines what is and what is not to be a moral law. 65

VI Kant had pointed out earlier that, because of "its subjective constitution," a perfectly good or holy will would always act in accordance with the laws that are constitutive of the realm of ends. "The 'ought' is here out of place because volition is of itself necessarily in harmony with the law."66 That is, the "ought" (das Sollen) is here actually a "volition" (ein Wollen);67 and "obligation cannot be applied to the holy will."68 For us, however, who, though rational beings, are also members of a "sensible nature" and are therefore susceptible to "sensuous incentives" (Triebfedern der 137

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Sinnlichkeit), the principle of moral actions becomes moral imperatives. 69 What all this amounts to, I submit, is that, stripped of their imperatival character, the three formulations of the categorical imperative are but progressive definitions of the "perfectly good" or "holy" will. So understood, they are completely analogous to the progressive definitions of matter as given in the Metaphysical Foundations of Natural Science. The only noteworthy difference is that Kant recognized four steps in the definition of matter, whereas there are only three steps in the corresponding definitions of the holy will. But this difference is readily accounted for by the fact that matter is foundational of the world of sense and that it was therefore defined, in the fourth place, as that which affects our senses. Since the good will is foundational to the intelligible world only and since that world does not affect our senses, what was necessary as the fourth step in the definition of matter became irrelevant here. Seen in the perspective of the thesis just stated, the usual interpretations of Kant's views on ethics, informative and significant as they may be, are in important respects deficient and irrelevant. This is so, for example, in the case of most of the "Critical Essays" attached to Robert Paul Wolfrs ,edition of Lewis White Beck's translation of the Foundations of the Metaphysics of Morals;70 and it is so even in the case ofH. J. Paton's and Sir David Ross's detailed and sensitive analyses of the categorical imperative.

VII What remains to be examined is Kant's conception of the intelligible world as a realm of ends and of man's place in that world. Kant's basic thesis is that "every rational being" (and this includes man, at least in certain respects) "exists as an end-in-itself."71 I said "man in at least certain respects" because Kant has in mind primarily not the individual human being, but "the humanity in our person" with its "capacities for greater perfection as part of the end or purpose of nature."72 Sharing in that end or purpose gives the individual "an intrinsic worth, Le., a dignity, "73 which transforms his status into that of an end-in-himself. Thus transformed, "he is destined to be legislative in the realm of ends, free from all laws of

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[physical] nature and obedient only to those which he himself gives."74 As Kant also puts it: "All rational beings stand under the law that each of them should treat himself and all others never merely as means but always also as an end-in-himself." In such an interaction of rational beings, "there arises a systematic union" of them under "common objective laws."7s That is, there arises the conception of "a world of rational beings (mundus intelligibilis)"76 as a "realm of ends"-even if "only as an ideal." "Such a realm of ends would actually be realized if the maxims whose rule is prescribed by the categorical imperative for all rational beings were universally obeyed."77 As rational being, man belongs to that realm of ends and, as self-legislative, is subject to its laws,?8 Insofar, however, as man is also a member of the "sensible world" of nature, those laws are moral imperatives for him. Kant concludes his argument thus: "Through the glorious ideal of a universal realm of ends-inthemselves (rational beings) a lively interest in the moral law can be awakened in us. To that realm we can belong as members only when we carefully conduct ourselves according to maxims of freedom as if they were laws of nature."79 Pepita Haezrahi has argued that Kant's reasoning in support of the thesis that "rational nature exists as an end-in-itself' and that man necessarily thinks of his own existence in this way "begs the question at the crucial point."80 And this may well be so. But Miss Haezrahi, convinced that "some sort of objective justification and vindication" of Kant's contention is "desperately needed," thereupon discusses the problem in the perspectives of the views of Rousseau, John Stuart Mill, and Sartre, only to find that the arguments of these philosophers are but "a barrage of words designed to hide the mental jump performed under their cover."81 Her conclusion is that Kant's assertion, "Now I say that man exists as an end-in-himself," can only be a postulate, whose significance "must be obscured or diminished by would-be and impossible proofs of its validity."82 In the end she agrees with Rudolf Otto's "somewhat sentimental annotation," which she quotes, but does not quote far enough: It is only with great inner emotion that one can read this erup-

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tion (Hereinbruch) of a great and completely independent intuition. We are here honored to witness the birth of the mightiest and in its consequences the most fertile (forlgenreichsten) insight in the field of ethical inquiry in general, namely, the discovery of the idea of a positive and concrete value-in-and-foritself (Eigen- und Selbstwert) which reason apprehends and which, without doubt, provides a "material content" for the will. Kant himself is thus the discoverer of the true "value ethics"; and he grasps this thought with greater purity and clarity than many of his critics. 83 I shall return to this problem in the next chapter.

VIII My immediate concern is once more the parallelism of the Metaphysical Foundations of Natural Science and the Foundations of the Metaphysics of Morals. In the Critique of Pure Reason, Kant had stated that "metaphysics is either metaphysics of nature or metaphysics of morals."84 I have argued that the two Foundations were conceived and developed in this perspective and have maintained that, for Kant, matter and autonomous will are analogous conceptions. Actually, Kant himself says as much in the Opus postumum: "Newtonian attraction through empty space and the freedom of man are concepts analogous to each other."85 But the parallelism is evident in another respect also. As we have seen in the preceding chapter, Kant found it necessary to try to develop a transition from the Metaphysical Foundations of Natural Science to physics proper. He never quite succeeded in doing so although much of the Opus postumum is devoted to the problem. As far as the Foundations of the Metaphysics of Morals is concerned, Kant did achieve a parallel transition to morality proper in the formidable M etaphysik der Sitten of 1797; and he himself acknowledged the parallelism in the demand ·for the transitions. Thus he said: "Just as there is demanded of the metaphysics of nature a transition (Uberschritt) to physics which has its own rules, so a similar transition (ein Ahnliches) is justly required

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of the metaphysics of morals, namely, the application of the pure principle of duty to experiential situations (Falle der Erfahrung) in order to schematize [those principles] and make them ready for a morally practical use (moralisch-praktischen Gebrauch). "86 When this fact is overlooked, a misunderstanding of Kant's work is inevitable. Keith Ward, for example, wrote: "The whole of the Metaphysics of Morals is almost unimaginably absurd, since it sets out to derive the system of human duties in general from the one supreme principle."87 The misunderstanding here lies in Ward's confusion of a transition from a general principle to an existing field of morality with a deduction of moral rules or practices from the principle. Kant was concerned with the former. He never intended or attempted the latter. As we saw in Chapter VI, the transition from the Metaphysical Foundations of Natural Science to physics proper centered on the conception of matter and its various forms, states, and conditions, all of which are known empirically only, through "observation and experiment." In an analogous way the transition from the Foundations of the Metaphysics of Morals to morality proper centers on "the special nature of man, known to us only through experience," without, however, calling the a priori origin of the universal moral principle into question. 88 With this in mind, let us now take a brief look at the M etaphysik der Sitten itself.

IX In the Critique ofPractical Reason, Kant distinguished between actions done "merely according to duty" and actions done "from duty." The latter, he argued, "must be the true goal of all moral cultivation."89 He now makes the same distinction, speaking of actions of the first type as juridical and those of the second type as moral. 90 This distinction between legality (Gesetzmassigkeit) and morality (Sittlichkeit) entails the division of the Metaphysics of M orals into two parts: Jurisprudence (Rechtslehre) and Theory of Virtues (Sittenlehre). Basic to it all, however, is his conception of the freedom of the will as self-legislative autonomy91 and, with this, the

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categorical imperative as the "supreme principle of morality." But this is not all. I mentioned a moment ago that the transition from the Foundations to morality proper is centered on an empirically obtained conception of man. We must keep this in mind when we examine Kant's development of the transition from the Foundations to morality proper. By way of a general introduction, Kant defines a "person" as any subject to whom an action can be imputed. A "thing," by contrast, is any object to which nothing can be imputed. 92 Imputation in its moral and/or legal significance is the judgment that the subject of an action is its originator and is therefore responsible for it. If such a judgment is rendered with "juridical validity" (rechtskdiftig), it is the judgment of a judge or of a court of law (Gerichtshof).93 The presupposition of imputation is, of course, that the subject to which the judgment refers was free to act in a given situation. The basis for the juridical judgment is the sum total (lnbegriff) of all the laws "for which an external legislation (Gesetzgebung) is possible." When that legislation is actual, it constitutes positive law 94 and stipulates the conditions under which the free will of one person can be brought into harmony with the equally free will of another person, "in accordance with the universal law offreedom." The decisive principle here is that "every action is right if its maxim is such that the freedom of all can co-exist in accordance with a law applicable to all."95 This principle pertains, first of all, to matters of "private rights" (Privatrecht). That is, it pertains to the external meaning of "what is mine" and "what is thine."96 The principle here is that "legally mine" is everything with which I am so connected that its use by others without my permission would injure me. But what is "mine" and what is "thine" cannot be determined empirically, for ownership is not a matter of physical possession. It is rather a legally imposed obligation that others have to respect what is "mine" and a corresponding obligation I have to respect the possession of others. 97 In this sense, ownership is possible only in a "civil state"; or, as Kant puts it: "A civil constitution is the only juridical condition under which what is his is made secure for everyone."98 But the constitution does not specify what that is which a citizen may possess. Only the empirical situation determines this. Also, if laws make my possession secure for me, they must

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determine in addition how I may acquire what is to be "mine." Laws governing such acquisition must of necessity differ in accordance with the nature of what is to be acquired,99 and this again is determined by the empirical situation in which I find myself. All of this means that there must be specific laws determining a person's relation to things, to other persons, and to a combination of things and other persons. IOO The legally assured right I have with respect to a thing includes the conditions under which I may acquire the thing, the right to my private use of it, and the right to dispose of it Of transfer it to other persons. IOl Laws governing my relations to other persons include the right of contract, be it a contract pertaining to the transfer of property, a contract of marriage, or any other contract, such as a wage contract, a mandate or P9wer of attorney, a loan contract, a last will or testament, etc. Kant discusses all of these and several others. I02 But we need to note only that in each case his point is that the specific content of the laws is always empirically (and this may mean historically) determined to meet the requirements of a given situation, but that the basic principle (stated above) determines which proposal is unacceptable as a law. It is unacceptable when, as a law, it would not preserve the freedom of all in the domain of its application.

x Positive law also includes "public law" and does so in a threefold sense: (1) Public law is a system of laws based upon a constitution which assures a number of people standing in reciprocal relations to one another as members of a state (civitas) of their mutual rights. Here Kant quotes with approval: "The best constitution is that where not men but laws rule."lo3 (2) Public law also governs the relations of states among themselves. In this sense it is international law (VOIkerrecht, ius gentium). And, transcending this form of international law, there are (3) laws which regulate the rights of individuals as citizens of the world (WeltbUgerrecht, ius cosmopoliticum). Where laws of this last type do not exist or do not adequately safeguard the rights of individuals as ends-in-themselves, they ought to be developed. There are echoes here of the teachings of Rousseau. For Kant argues that man must leave behind the state of nature in which 143

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everyone follows his own inclinations and must enter a civil society in which his rights and interests are determined by law and protected by the power of the state.t°4 The state has three kinds of power: (1) One is legislative, expressing the "unified will of the people."lo5 As expression of that will, the power assumes the "legal freedon1" and "civil equality" of all citizens and in this respect is "irreproachable." (2) There is also the power of the executive. In this form the power of the state is "irresistible." Reform of a "faulty constitution," which "may at times be necessary," can come only through the action of the sovereign, not through revolution. 106 A revolution, if it should occur, can be directed only against the executive, not against the legislative power; and, if it is successful, the good citizens cannot refuse to obey the executive power which now is in control. 10 ? Although no citizen has a right to rebel, every citizen has a right to emigrate, for he is not a property of the state. Above the legislative and executive powers, there is (3) the judiciary power, the judgment of the highest court (supremi iudicis); and this is "inappellable." Justice ceases, however, when a judgment can be bought for a price; and, "when justice succumbs, there is no longer any value in man's existence on earth."108 As a member of a state (as defined by the constitution), each person has the dignity of a citizen except when he has deprived himself of it by commission of a crime. As citizen each person has (1) the innate right to freedom fron1 the arbitrary acts of others; (2) the acquired rights of equality with other citizens to advance within the state as far as his talents permit, nobody having the hereditary right to hold certain positions; and (3) the right to independence as a citizen under laws in the promulgation of which he shares. 109 Again, it is not necessary to go into greater detail; for the general thesis is clear: Specific laws dealing with concrete empirical situations must be subsumable under the broad principle of universality. They derive their juridical validity from that principle. Maxims of action which do not meet this condition are simply unacceptable as laws in a civil community.

XI So-called international law (Volkerrecht), Kant holds, might better be called "law of states" (Staatenrecht, ius publicum

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civitatum). For this law determines the relations of states to one another, each state being "regarded as a moral person"110 capable of making free decisions. In the spirit of Rousseau, Kant argues that the "lawless state of nature" is a state of warfare. The "right of the stronger" prevails. Although the perpetual hostility may not always lead to actual warfare, it always implies a threat to neighboring states. In order to eliminate this threat, a compact among nations is needed which, in the spirit of the "original social contract" and patterned after it, leads to the formation of a "league of nations." There is to be one difference, however. In the league there should be no "sovereign power" (such as there is in a state). The league should rather be a confederacy (Genossenschaft),lll which can be dissolved at any time and "must be renewed from time to time."112 As far as actual warfare is concerned, the question arises: "What right does the state have to use its own subjects (Untertanen) in a war against other states; to place their possessions and even their lives in jeopardy?" A "mere jurist" might reply, Kant tells us, that the right follows from the "right to do with one's own as one pleases."113 But this argument is repudiated because, according to Kant, no citizen is the property of the state. He is rather a participant in the decision-making and law-giving process and is therefore entitled to have a voice in the free determination of the conditions under which alone the state can require of him "such dangerous service."114 Since in the legal sense no nation is superior to any other, no war is justified if it is either a "punitive war" (bellum punitivum), a "war of extermination" (bellum internecinum), or a "war of subjugation" (bellum subiugatorium) that would amount to the moral destruction of a state. 115 But, when a state is attacked, it has the right to resort to "means of defense of all sorts" so long as their employment does not make it impossible for its own subjects to function as citizens or does not destroy the chances of a lasting peace after the war.116 Lasting peace is, after all, "the ultimate goal of internationallaw." While it may not be realizable at present or in the near future, the "political principles which aim at it" make a "continuing approximation to it" possible and impose upon us as a duty the task of pursuing that ideal. 117 In the concluding paragraph of his essay Zum Ewigen 145

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Frieden,118 Kant reiterates this idea: "If it is our duty, and if at the same time there is well-grounded hope, to realize the state of public law (even if only by an endless progress in approximation), then eternal peace, as the condition which will follow what hitherto has falsely been called treaties of peace (Friedensschliisse) but actually are only armistices (Waffenstillstande), is no empty idea but a task (Aufgabe) which, being gradually solved, brings us ever closer to its goal (because the time intervals in which equal progress is being made will, we hope, become shorter and shorter)."119 As Kant looked at the historical scene in Europe (its past and present), he could not help but observe certain practices which always contributed to renewed warfare. These observations furnish the material content of his essay. The moral ideal of "eternal peace," on the other hand, provided the principle for the selection of those maxims of action and therefore of international law which might lead to the realization of the ideal. I20 The transition from broad principles-in this case actually from the final formulation of the categorical imperative-is thus clearly in evidence and underscores <most effectively the unity of his moral philosophy.

XII The transition from the Foundations of the Metaphysics of

Morals leads not only to the basic conceptions of jurisprudence and public law, but to a theory of morals (Sittenlehre) as well. The transition is required and p0ssible whenever morality is taken to be a matter of duties rather than a matter of sentiment. In fact, morality itself would be destroyed, so Kant maintains, if it were taken to be merely a matter of sentiment.t 21 In line with his earlier relevant statements, he now explicitly identifies the "theory of morals" (Sittenlehre) with a "theory of duties" (Pflichtenlehre). But the duties here are not those imposed by external laws: they are rather self.. imposed. 122 Jurisprudence deals only with the formal conditions of "external freedom"; Le., it deals only with juridical law. A theory of duties, however, adds content to that form, for it adds a purpose or end (Zweck) of pure reason which, as objectively necessary, is conceived by man as a duty for him.t 23 Ethics, as theory of virtue (doctrina af.. 146

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ficiorum virtutis) thus becomes "the system of ends (Zwecke) of pure practical reason." 124 The question is: How is it possible to set oneself a goal or purpose or end (Zwe(;k) which, at the same time, becomes one's duty?125 Kant maintains that the relationship of an end or goal to duty may be conceived in two different ways: (1) We start with the end or goal and try to determine by means of it the maxim of action; or (2) conversely, we begin with the maxim and try to discover the end or goal. Jurisprudence proceeds in the first manner; ethics proceeds in the second. This means that in ethics the concept of duty leads to ends or goals and, in respect of the goals which we ought to set for ourselves, justifies the maxims of actions according to moral principles. 126 There are two goals, according to Kant, which at the same time are also duties: One's own perfection and the happiness of others. The two are not interchangeable. 127 The ability to posit an end or goal for itself is what characterizes mankind (as distinguished from animals); and, with this ability, i.e., with this rational will, in our own person, there is also given the duty to serve mankind through the development of one's native capacities,128 in accordance with the principle: "Act according to a maxim of ends the having of which can be a universal law for everyone." In living according to this maxim, "a person is for himself as well as for others an end."129 The maxim is obviously subsumable under the more abstract categorical imperative: "So act as to treat humanity, whether in your own person or in that of any body else, always as an end and never as a mere means only." In other words, the newly formulated maxim is the bridge in the transition from the categorical imperative to the specifics of morality. Kant's argument goes further. If the individual is to serve mankind, he must serve it in his own person. He therefore has duties towards himself. What the specific content of these duties is depends in each case on the empirically given aspects of a man's existence. Thus, if a person is to serve mankind, he must first of all preserve his existence. Hence suicide, being an act against the humanity within him, is a vice. 130 Gluttony or intemperance is another vice, for "man in a sodden state of drunkenness must be regarded as an animal rather than as a human being."131

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Man also has duties to himself as a moral being, and a violation of them is a moral deficiency. Lying, miserliness, and servility illustrate what Kant has in mind. 132 In all of these cases conscience, as "the subjective manifestation of a responsibility before God," is the "inner court of law."133 The first commandment of all duties to oneself is therefore: "Know (search, fathom) yourself ... in relation to your duties." "This moral self-knowledge ... is the beginning of all human wisdom." And "only the descent into the hell of selfknowledge prepares the way to deification." 134 Of the duties to others Kant discusses the duties of love and good will-respect, neighborly love, benevolence, gratitude, compassion-and the corresponding vices, such as envy, malicious joy, and disrespect. 135

XIII By way of a summary of his lengthy discussion of all the virtues and vices, Kant states: "All moral relationships of rational beings which contain a principle of the harmony of the will of one with that of the other can be traced back to love and respect and, insofar as this principle is practical, to the ground of determination of the will, which is an end with respect to oneself and a right with respect to the other." 136 One need not agree with the details of Kant's interpretation of virtures and vices, but it is difficult to see how in view of these discussions he can be accused of being a mere formalist in ethics. To be sure, his M etaphysik der Sitten is usually neglected in studies of his ethics. Still Kant himself said emphatically: "Just as one demands a transition from the metaphysics of nature to physics, so a sinlilar transition is justly expected of the metaphysics of morals: namely, to schematize the pure principles of duty through their application to all cases of experience.... Actually, this application belongs to the completeness of the presentation of the system of ethics." 137

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CHAPTER VIII

AN "AS IF" SOLUTION

In the preceding two chapters I have dealt with the parallelism of Kant's interpretation of the sensible and supersensible worlds. But Kant could not rest here. As he himself put it in the Introduction to the Critique of Judgment: Even if a great gulf is fixed between the realm of nature as the sensible and the realm of freedom as the supersensible, so that no transition is possible from the first to the second (by means of the theoretical use of reason), ... still, the second is meant to have an influence upon the first, namely this: The concept of freedom is meant to actualize (wirklich machen) in the sensible world (Sinnenwelt) the purpose given it as a task through its own laws.... There must, therefore, be a ground of the unity of the supersensible., which lies at the basis of nature, with that which the concept of freedom contains as practical; and the concept of this ground, although it does not yield either theoretically or practically a cognition of the ground, ... must yet make possible the transition from the mode of thinking according to principles of the one [world] to that according to principles of the other. 1 This new problem of transition places man in a peculiar situation;2 for he is a member of both worlds and, as living organism, exists as the mediator between them, imposing maxims of his rational will upon nature itself. And with him there exist plants and animals which, though transcending in significant respects the realm of the merely sensible world (as defined by the laws of Newtonian mechanics), do not fully share man's membership in the intelligible

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world. They are a particular species of beings which must also be accounted for if any system of philosophy is to be all-inclusive. The problem was not, however, new for Kant. In his Natural History and Theory of the Heavens (1755), he had asserted that "the origin of the whole present structure of the universe will become intelligible before the production, by mechanical means, of a single plant or caterpillar is clearly and completely understood." 3 In the Metaphysical Foundations ofNatural Science (1786), he had argued that "life means the capacity of a substance to determine itself to act from an internal principle," and "we know of no other internal principle of a substance to change its state but desire, and no other internal activity whatever but thought, along with what depends upon desire, namely feeling of pleasure and displeasure, and appetite or will."And he had added: Not one of these characteristics can be attributed to "matter as matter," for "all matter as such is lifeless";4 and natural science is concerned exclusively with lifeless matter. Thus, carrying over the basic problem of 1755, he could (and did) say in the third Critique (1790): "It is absurd for men ... to hope that another Newton will arise in the future who will make comprehensible the production of even a blade of grass according to the laws of nature which no intention or purposiveness (Absicht) has arranged." 5 Here then is Kant's problem: To interpret the existence of living creatures and the facts of organic nature as a whole within the framework of his critical philosophy and at the same time to provide a transition from the sensible to the intelligible world. This problem was meant to be solved by the third Critique. To be sure, the Critique of Judgment consists of two parts: A "Critique of the Aesthetic Judgment" and a "Critique of the Teleological Judgment." Of these two parts, Part I has received most attention. The reason is obvious: it presents Kant's theory of aesthetics. 6 But Part II has also received independent attention. 7 Indeed one gets the impression from most of the commentaries that each Part of the Critique is independent of the other and a complete work in itself. The fact that the Meredith translation was originally published in two completely separated volumes may have given support to this notion. However, the "two-works" thesis stems from a total misunderstanding of the work as a whole and of Kant's inten150

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tion and argument. Even the few commentators who seem to realize this factS fail to see the third Critique as an integral part of the architectonic of Kant's philosophy as a whole. 9 To view it as such is the purpose of the present chapter.

I The problems of aesthetic and teleological judgments had been of major interest to Kant for a number of years. 10 What is new in the Critique ofJudgment is that he employs both types of judgment in order to develop a transition from the sensible to the intelligible world. Kant's argument is complex but essentially clear. Kant begins by raising a question: Since "no other cognitive faculty but the understanding can furnish constitutive principles of cognition a priori" II and since reason provides such principle only for the faculty of desire, does the faculty of judgment, as "the mediating link between understanding and reason," also have principles a priori? I 2 The answer to this question, he tells us, will complete his "whole critical undertaking."13 And the answer is, of course, the subject matter of the Critique of Judgment. Of the Introduction to this work, two versions exist, the printed version and an earlier draft. It may be helpful to consider both versions and to note what changes Kant made prior to publication. For one thing, he now made it clear, as he had not done with equal precision in the first draft, that "judgment in general is the faculty of thinking the particular as contained under the universal" 14 and that, for this task of "ascending from the particular in nature to the universal," a transcendental principle is required which "the reflective judgment can only give to itself as a law."15 In the first draft Kant started with the proposition that the "original" (urspriingliche) and "specific" (eigentiimliche) concept of the faculty of judgment is "the concept of nature as art,"16 Le., "the concept of the technique of nature in respect of its special laws." This concept, however, is not foundational to any theory and in itself "gives us no knowledge of objects and their constitution"; it simply provides a principle for the search for "empirical laws through which the investigation of nature becomes possible." 17

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In the Critique ofPure Reason, Kant had argued that, although "transcendental ideas never allow of any constitutive employment,"18 their subjective employment as "regulative principles of reason" is "certainly legitimate."19 In a similar manner he now maintains that "the conception of nature as art is a mere idea which serves the subject as a principle by means of which, wherever possible, to bring the aggregate of empirical laws into the coherence of a system by ascribing to nature a relationship to our own need for a system."20 Thus there arises "the concept of a purposiveness of nature [Le., its relation to "our need for a system"] as a specific concept of reflective judgment, though not of reason; for the purpose is posited [gesetzt], not in the object, but only in the subject, Le., in the faculty of reflection."21 In the published version Kant states it this way: "The principle of judgment, in respect of the form of things of nature under empirical laws generally, is the purposiveness of Nature in its variety. That is, nature is represented by means of this concept as if an understanding contained the ground of the unity of the variety of its empirical laws. The purposiveness of nature is therefore a particular concept a priori which has its origin solely in the reflective judgment."22 It is "neither a concept of nature (Naturbegriff) nor a concept of freedom (Freiheitsbegriff), for it ascribes nothing to the object (nature), but only represents the peculiar way in which we must proceed in reflection upon the objects of nature in reference to a thoroughly integrated (zusammenhangende) experience." It is therefore a "subjective principle only."23 Kant had said in the first draft: "Once we have reason for considering a principle of purposiveness as foundational to nature and its specific laws, it is always possible and permitted, when experience reveals to us purposive forms of nature's products, to ascribe [to nature itself] a purpose. "24 And, he had added: "The first question which now arises is this: How can we perceive the technique [Le., the purposiveness] of nature in its products?"25 Before answering this question, Kant made a significant distinction: When purposiveness in nature is regarded as merely subjective, the judgment asserting it is "an aesthetic judgment of reflection"; when it is said to be objective or to be the purposiveness of nature itself, then the judgment is "a teleological judgment." That is, "it is a judgment of cognition,

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but only of the reflective, not of the constitutive faculty of judgment."26 Although an aesthetic judgment "relates a given image to an object," it is determinative of the subject and its feelings rather than of the object.27 As Kant states it in the published version: "The object is then called purposive for the sole reason that its representation (Vorstellung) is immediately cOlTlbined with the feeling of pleasure." The object so experienced is itself "an aesthetic representation of purposiveness in nature."28 To put it differently: When an object of experience arouses a feeling of pleasure, the object "must be regarded as purposive for the reflective judgment."29 However, in both versions of the Introduction, Kant insists that it is not the sensory content of experience, but its formal aspect which, in reflective judgment, is judged to be purposive. 30 When such judgments concern "natural forms" (Naturformen) given in perception, then the objects of nature themselves may be said to be purposive, but "only in relation to the subjective conditions of the faculty of judgment."31 It is in this sense, and in this sense only, that we may speak of objects or aspects of nature not only as beautiful, but also as sublime. 32 In the published version Kant continues: "If we ascribe to nature ... a regard to our cognitive faculty according to the analogy of purpose," then "we can regard the beauty of nature (Naturschonheit) as presentation of the concept of the formal (purely subjective) purposiveness, and the purposes of nature (Naturzwecke) as the presentation of real (objective) purposiveness."33 This idea had been elaborated in the first draft, and the elaboration is important. It puts the whole argument of the Critique of Judgment into proper perspective. The matter at issue is how to account for real purposiveness in nature, provided there is any. In the case of products of art (Produkte der Kunst), Kant points out, we are (or can become) a\vare of their cause as a "causality of reason" (Kausalitat der Vernunft), for we know that there is an artist who has produced them; that they are therefore the result of purposive action and are themselves the purpose of that action. This action, being the "rational causation" for all art products, Kant calls technical. 34 It is a fact, of course, that certain objects of nature give us 153

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aesthetic pleasure and thus are "purposive" in the subjective sense spoken of above. But, when we ascribe to them objective purposiveness as well, we mean either (a) that such purposiveness is "spontaneously natural" (forma finalis naturae spontanae) or (b) that it is "intentional" (intentionalis). "Mere experience justifies only the first interpretation (Vorstellungsart); the second is a hypothetical type of explanation added to the conception of things as purposes of nature (Naturzwecke)."35 Even the latter interpretation does not alter Kant's basic thesis (developed in the Critique ofPure Reason) that as far as possible we ought to account for all events in nature in terms of mechanical laws, "for in these lie the true physical grounds of explanation." However, among the products of nature we find particular ones, and large species of them, which contain in themselves such combinations of effective causes that we must resort to the concept of a purpose if we want to explore or understand their "inner possibility in accordance with an appropriate principle," for "the parts are the cause of their own visible effects" only because they have a common ground in their own possibility. As Kant puts it: Since it is completely contrary to the nature of physicomechanical causation that the whole be the cause of the possibility of the causality of the parts; that, on the contrary, the parts must be given first in order to understand from them the possibility of the whole; and since, furthermore, the special possibility of the parts is but an idea which, when taken to be the ground of the causality, is called purpose: therefore, it is clear that, if such products exist in nature, it is impossible to investigate them (not to speak of explaining them rationally) without conceiving them, their form and causality, as determined according to a principle of purpose. 36 Even so, however, it must be understood that "the concept of an objective purposiveness of nature serves only for the purpose of reflection (zum Behuf der Reflexion), not for the determination (Bestimmun) of the object through the concept of a purpose." No "intentionally operative cause" is here ascribed to nature; for to ascribe it to nature would transcend our knowledge "by suggesting a causality that lies beyond the boundaries of nature (Naturgrensen)."37 In

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other words, "It is left undetermined whether the purposiveness [in nature] ... is intentional or unintentional. "38 Even a reflective teleological judgment nevertheless compares "a product of nature as it is with what it ought to be." Such an evaluation of the possibility of the product is based upon the concept of a purpose which is a priori to the object as such. When we deal with products of art, the possibility of so interpreting the objects is readily seen; for, as I indicated a moment ago, we can discern the intention of the artist behind his work. "But to think of a product of nature that it was meant to be and then to evaluate it as to whether or not it really is so" presupposes "a principle which cannot be derived from experience (for experience shows only what things are)."39 In the first draft Kant continues: Concerning the eye [for example] I judge that it was meant to be suitable for seeing. Although the characteristics of all its parts and their combination (Zusammensetzung), judged merely by mechanical laws of nature, are for my faculty of judgment only accidental, I nevertheless think in their form and structure a necessity of having been formed in a certain way, namely, in accordance with a concept which is antecedent to the formative causes of this organ without which the possibility of this product of nature is not comprehensible to me in terms of the mechanical laws of nature (mechanische Naturgesetze), as that of a stone is. 40 Whenever the idea of such purposiveness, conceived in imagination, is "in agreement with the understanding, as the faculty of concepts, ... a feeling of pleasure is aroused in us"; and the reflective judgment pertaining to the experience is an "aesthetic judgment." The form of the object is taken to be "the ground of the pleasure" and, being "bound up" with the representation (Vorstellung) of the object, is judged to be necessary "for every judging being in general." "The object is then called beautiful, and the faculty of judging by means of such a pleasure (and, consequently, with universal validity) is called taste. "41 Although the judgment of taste is "empirical and singular," it "justly claims the agreement of all men, because the ground of the pleasure is found in the universal, although subjective, condition of reflective judgment. "42 And it is this judg-

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ment which alone contains a principle which reflective judgment "places quite a priori at the basis of [our] reflection upon nature. "43 That is (I repeat), in ascribing to nature "a regard for our cognitive faculty according to the analogy of purpose," we can now speak of the beauty of nature as formal but purely subjective purposiveness and of the purpose ofnature as the concept of a real or objective purposiveness. But no reason can be given a priori why there should be objective purpose in nature. 44 The crux of the matter, however, is this: "The understanding ... gives a proof that nature is cognized by us only as phenomenon and implies, at the same time, that it has a supersensible substrate, though it leaves this quite undetermined. The judgment ... makes that substrate (both in us and outside us) determinable by means of the intellectual faculty; and reason, by its practical a priori law, determines it. It is thus that judgment makes possible the transition from the realm of the concept of nature to that of the concept of freedom."45 "The concept formed by judgment of a purposiveness of nature belongs to the concepts of nature, but only as a regulative principle of the cognitive faculty. "46 The outline and ultimate goal of f(ant's argument in the Critique ofJudgment are now clear. The details of the argument are a different matter. They must still be considered.

II I turn first to Part I, the "judgment of taste"; and here I shall be brief. This brevity, however, must not be construed as a negative valuation on my part; for I am in fact convinced that Kant's theory of the beautiful and the sublime is one of the really important contributions to the field of aesthetics. But my present concern is that of a metaphysician rather than that of an aesthetician; and despite all its significance Part I of the Critique of Judgment is only incidental to Kant's efforts to establish a transition from the realm of nature to the realnl of freedom. Problems of the beautiful and the sublime had troubled Kant for a good many years. As early as 1764 he had published an essay entitled "Beobachtungen fiber das Gefiihl des Schonen und Erhabenen." In it he pointed out that, "because man finds himself to 156

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be happy only when he satisfies an inclination, the feeling which makes him capable of enjoying great pleasures, without requiring a special talent for it, is by no means a trivial matter."47 Men experience, of course, all sorts of pleasures; but "the finer feeling ... is primarily of a twofold nature: the feeling of the sublime and of the beautiful."48 The difference between the feelings lies in this: "The sublime stirs; the beautiful charms";49 and "the sublime must at all times be large; the beautiful may also be small. "50 But in 1764 Kant related these aesthetic conceptions more specifically to "the beauty and dignity of human nature," regarding "the first as a ground of universal affection (allgemeine Wohlgewogenheit), and the second as the ground of universal respect (allgemeine Achtung)."51 A deep feeling for the beauty and dignity of human nature may thus well serve as a "universal ground of man's actions. "52 The remainder of the essay elaborates this theme and includes even an attempt to analyze the national characteristics of various people (English, French, German, Spanish, Dutch, Negro, American Indian, Chinese, etc.) insofar as differences depend upon "the differentiated feelings of the sublime and the beautiful."53 At this early stage in the development of his philosophy, Kant sin1ply took the beautiful and the sublime as something encountered in experience; he did not yet attempt to find an a priori basis for them. That task was reserved for Part I of the Critique ofJudgment..

III In the Critique ofJudgment Kant defines the beautiful as "that which pleases universally without [being subsumed under] a concept."54 In contemplating the beautiful we may well "observe a purposiveness of form" without, however, "placing the cause of this form in a will." In this sense we may here speak of "purposiveness without purpose."55 We can do this because the determining ground of an aesthetic judgment is not a concept, but a "feeling ... of harmony in the play of mental powers, insofar as this [harmony] can be felt in sensation. "56 In fact, "the consciousness of the n1ere formal purposiveness in the play of the cognitive powers of the subject ... is the pleasure itself."57 Every interest beyond this enjoyment spoils the aesthetic judgment.58 And "to seek for ... a universal criterion of

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the beautiful [in terms of concepts] is fruitless effort because what is thus sought is impossible and self-contradictory." 59 Whatever transsubjective necessity there may be is grounded in the fact that human beings share in a comnl0n responsiveness. 6o That is, the feeling at the basis of the aesthetic experience is not simply a private feeling: it is a common feeling. "It does not mean that everyone will agree with my judgment," but that I have a "right to make into a rule for everyone a judgment that accords with [my] ideal norm"61 and that everyone ought to agree with my judgment. The necessity inherent in this ought is nevertheless intrinsic to our common responsiveness (Gemeinsinn) rather than to the object involved. It pertains to "a subjective agreement of the imagination and the understanding" which is (,'the peculiar feature of a judgment of taste," Le., of an aesthetic judgment.62 "The beautiful and the sublime agree in this that both please in themselves."63 But there is also an important difference. As Kant puts it: "The beautiful in nature is connected with the form of the object, which consists in having [definite] boundaries. The sublime, on the other hand, is to be found in a formless object, insofar as in it or occasioned by it boundlessness itself is represented."64 This difference entails another: The beautiful object (be it in art or in nature) "brings with it a purposiveness in its form by which the object seems to be, as it were, preadapted to our judgment." The feeling of the sublime, on the other hand, "may appear to violate purpose in respect of the judgment" and "to do violence to the imagination"; but it is judged "to be only the more sublime" on this account. 65 Neither the beautiful nor the sublime belongs to "nature in its purposeless mechanism." As encountered in nature, both must be judged as "belonging to something analogous to art." Both, therefore, "actually extend (not our cognition of natural objects) but our concept of nature."66 Although both beauty and sublinlity reside, not in nature, but "only in the mind,"67 at least the beautiful formations in the realm of organized nature speak loudly for the realism of the aesthetic purposiveness of nature, since we would like to assume that behind the production of the beautiful there is an idea of it in the producing cause, namely, a

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purpose in favor (zu Gunsten) of our imagination. Flowers, blossoms, even the shapes (Gestalten) of whole plants; the grace and fineness (Zierlichkeit) of animal forms of many different species, unneeded for their own use but, as it were, chosen for our taste; especially the charming variety and harmonious arrangement of colors so pleasing to the eye (in pheasants, shellfish, insects, down to the commonest flower) which, since it concerns only the surface and even then not the figure of these creatures ... appears to be designed entirely for external contemplation (Beschauung). All of these facts give great weight to the mode of explanation which assumes actual purposes of nature for our aesthetic judgment. 68 But Kant was enough of a realist to see also that "nature everywhere shows an extensive mechanical proclivity in producing forms which seem, as it were, made for the aesthetic employment of our faculty of judgment, without providing the least support for the supposition that there is a need for anything more than the mechanism [of nature] to account for them. "69 The results of a process of crystallization may thus be very beautiful. Snowflakes, for example, "often seem very artistic and are extremely beautiful."70 We are thus left with an ambiguity in our interpretation of nature. "There would be an objective purposiveness in nature if nature had fashioned its forms for our satisfaction";71 but the aesthetic judgment does not and cannot prove that such is the case.

IV Since Kant's aesthetics is not at issue here, I turn at once to Part II of the Critique ofJudgment, i.e., to the "Critique of Teleological Judgment." The problem which Kant now faces and which is of special importance for the architectonic and development of his philosophy as a whole is this: According to transcendental principles we have good ground for the assumption of a subjective purposiveness of nature, in its particular laws, in reference to its comprehensibility by the human faculty of judgment and the possibility of the connection of experiences in a system.... But that things of nature serve

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one another as means to ends and that their possibility is completely intelligible only through this kind of causality-for this we have absolutely no ground in the universal idea of nature as totality (Inbegriff) of the objects of sense. . . . We have no reason at all for presuming a priori that purposes which are not our own and which also do not belong to nature ... could or should constitute a special kind of causality, one having its own specific laws. What is more, even experience cannot prove to us its reality. 72

"N evertheless, the teleological evaluation (Beurteilung) is rightly, even if only problematically, brought to bear upon the investigation of nature.... The concept of combinations and forms of nature in accordance with purposes is then at least one principle more for bringing its phenomena under rules where the laws of simple mechanical causality do not suffice."73 The problem which here arises must be seen in the overall perspective of Kant's philosophy. We can then appreciate what role it played in his thinking. As early as 1755, in his Natural History and Theory of the Heavens, Kant said: "After having contemplated and admired so much beauty and excellence [in the world], reason is justly outraged over the bold foolishness which dares to ascribe all of this to chance and a lucky accident."74 In the same work, it will be ren1embered, Kant, quoting Alexander Pope extensively, firmly committed himself to the conception of the Great Chain of Being: "Everything in the whole realm of nature hangs together in an uninterrupted sequence of degrees through the eternal harmony which relates all members to one another."75 And in a similar vein he wrote in the first Critique that "the powerful and incontrovertible proof' of man's destiny as "a citizen in a better world" is "reinforced by our ever-increasing knowledge of purposiveness in all that we see around US."76

The problem of purposiveness and of a teleological interpretation of nature became the special topic of Kant's essay "Uber den Gebrauch Teleologischer Prinzipien in der Philosophie" (1788). There he argued that, "if by nature one understands the totality of everything which exists as determined by laws, Le., the world (as socalled nature) taken together with its supreme cause, then the in-

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vestigation of nature (Naturforschung) ... can proceed in two ways: either in the merely theoretical way [relying exclusively on the principle of mechanical causation], or in the teleological way." But, he adds, "in all investigations of nature reason rightly demands first the theoretical approach (Theori) and only later a determination according to purposes (Zweckbestimmung). Lack of the former can be compensated for neither by teleology nor by practical purposiveness. We always remain ignorant in respect of the effective cause, even though we can make perfectly convincing (einleuchtend) the appropriateness of our presupposition with final causes, be these of nature or of our Will."77 Kant's argument culminates in this instance in the thesis that an organism (organisiertes Wesen) is "a material being which is possible only through the reciprocal relations of all it contains.... A basic force through which [such] an organization would be brought about (gewirkt) must therefore be thought of as a cause that is effective in accordance with purposes in such a way that the purposes are the ground of the possibility of the effects." Such a force we know "only in ourselves, namely, as our understanding and will as cause of the possibility ... of works of art. "78 Although we understand a priori that, in nature, there must be connections of causes and effects (for without causal connections among its parts there would be no nature), we cannot know a priori that there are also ends or purposes in nature. The Table of Categories given in the Critique ofPure Reason does not provide for them. The employment of the teleological principle in the interpretation of nature is, therefore, "always empirically conditioned. "79 "But since a pure practical teleology, i.e., morality, is destined to realize its ends (Zwecke) in the world, it cannot disregard their possibility in the world, either as far as the final causes encountered in the world or the appropriateness of the supreme cause of the world as the whole of all ends as effects are concerned."80

v Part II of the Critique ofJudgment may now be seen as taking up the argument at this point. Here Kant tells us: "Experience leads our faculty of judgment to the concept of an objective and material purposiveness, i.e., to the concept of a purpose in nature, only when 161

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we assume that, in the relationship of cause and effect, the idea ofthe effect is itself the basic condition of the possibility of the cause."81 This assumption is made whenever we regard the object either as an end in itself or as a means to an end. In the first case, we deal with "an intrinsic purposiveness (innere Zwechmassigkeit) of an object of nature." In the second case, purposiveness is the same as usefulness (Nutzbarkeit) and is "not an objective purposiveness of the things themselves."82 "It can be regarded as an external natural purpose only under the condition that the existence of that to which it is immediately or distantly a means is in itself a purpose of nature."83 Our problem, therefore, reduces to cases in which we can regard some particular object as an end in itself; and this is possible whenever an object is "both cause and effect of itself."84 Kant illustrates his point by referring to a tree and its development: "A tree generates another tree in conformance with a well-known law of nature." The new tree, though not identical with the first, is, however, of the same species. The first tree may therefore be said to "produce itself generically." Through the process of growth, each tree also generates itself individually. It takes up matter from its surroundings and transforms it qualitatively into its own tissues and structures. Although the separation and recombination of the materials here involved take place according to mechanical laws, there also occurs an organization of the materials which far transcends our ability to duplicate the chemical processes. Moreover, every part of the living organism is generated in such a way that its development and preservation depend reciprocally on the development and preservation of other parts. In fact, "the parts (as regards their presence and their form) are possible only through their relation to the whole"; and in this relationship "they are reciprocally cause and effect of each other."85 The tree is thus "an organized and selforganizing being" and, as product of this self-organization, can be called a "purpose of nature" (Naturzweck). It differs in essential respects from such a product of human ingenuity as a watch; for no part of a watch reciprocally produces other parts: "No wheel produces other wheels," and "even less does one watch produce other watches." It follows from this, Kant argues, that "an organized being [in nature] (an organism) is not a mere machine," but "possesses in itself for162

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mative powers ... of a self-propagating kind ... which cannot be explained by the mere mechanism of motion."86 But we also say of nature "far too little if we describe it as an ana/ogon of art; for this suggests an artist (a rational being) as external to it." The fact is, Kant maintains, that "the organization of nature has in it nothing analogous to any causality we know."87 It may be the case that "in an animal body many parts can be conceived as concretions according to merely mechanical laws"; yet "the cause which brings together the required matter, modifies it, forms it, and puts it in its appropriate place, must always be judged teleologically."88

VI But now a different question arises. To regard a thing as a natural purpose because of its internal form and self-directed process of development is something quite different from taking its existence to be a purpose of nature; for "the purpose of nature must itself be sought outside of, or beyond, nature."89 And, since what lies beyond nature cannot be known from experience, "its objective reality can in no way be assured,"90 and "teleology finds the consummation of its investigations only in theology."91 "It is [consequently] absurd for men ... to hope that another Newton will arise in the future who shall make comprehensible by us the production of a blade of grass according to natural laws which no design has arranged. "92 To be sure, "we do not know how far the mechanical method of explanation that is possible for us may extend";93 and we should push it to its limits. At the same time we must never disregard facts which may not yield to this method; for "the mechanism of nature alone does not enable us even to think the possibility of an organized being," Le., of an organism. 94 Moreover, to recognize the purposiveness of the constituent parts of an organism with respect to one another and therefore with respect to the whole is one thing; to regard the organism itself as a purpose of nature is quite another; and to regard it as such also is ultimately and perhaps primarily at issue when we speak of the purposiveness of nature. Kant was fully aware of the difference and made the most of it. 163

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While "it is quite certain," Kant says, "that, from mechanistic principles alone, we cannot obtain an adequate knowledge of organisms and their intrinsic possibility," we are also not helped in this respect if we assun1e that "a highest architect has directly created the forms of nature," for "we know nothing about the mode of action of such a Being." And, if we wish to explain the purposiveness which we believe to be present in living beings by "appealing to a cause working in accordance with purposes," our explanation is "simply tautological," and "we deceive reason with words."95 There is therefore nothing left for us but to carry the mechanistic explanation of events in nature as far as possible, keeping in mind, however, that there may be objects of nature which, if we are to understand them at all, "must in the end be subsumed under the causality of ends and purposes (Kausalitat nach Zwecken)."96 Comparative anatomy, for example, reveals in many genera of animals a "con1mon schema" which "appears to be foundational not only to the structure of their bones' but to the arrangement of their other parts also." There is here "an admirable simplicity of a blueprint (Grundriss) from which a great variety of species has been produced by shortening one and lengthening another part, and by the involution (Entwicklung) and evolution (Auswicklung) of still others." The analogy of forms, which despite all their differences seem to have been produced according to the basic pattern, strengthens the supposition that there is an actual relationship, "as from a common Ancestral Mother (Urmutter)," in the gradual approximation of one species to another. "The whole technique of nature, so incomprehensible to us in organized beings, ... seems here to depend only on matter and its forces acting according to mechanical laws, as it does in the formation of crystals. "97 The archaeologist, studying the remains of "nature's earliest revolutions," can "trace the genesis of that great family of living things" which now inhabit our earth. He can suppose the womb of Mother Earth ... to have given birth in the beginning to creatures of less purposive form; that these again gave birth to others which formed themselves with greater adaptation to their place of birth and their relations to each other, until this womb, becoming torpid and ossified,

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limited its births to definite species not further modifiable, and the manifoldness remained as it was at the end of the operation of that fruitful formative power. Only he must still in the end ascribe to this Universal Mother an organization purposive in respect of all creatures; otherwise it would not be possible to think the possibility of the purposive form of the products of the animal and vegetable kingdoms. In other words, in the end even the archaeologist must ascribe to the ultimate ground of all living forms "an organization without reference to which the purposive forms of the products of the realms of animal and plant life is quite unthinkable."98 What all this comes to is that neither "the mechanism of nature" by itself nor the "merely teleological ground" by itself fully accounts for an organism as a product of nature. What is needed, Kant points out, is a combination of the two such that the mechanism serves as a tool for the "teleological principle." But "the possibility of such unification of two quite different kinds of causality ... our reason does not comprehend. It lies in the supersensible ground (Substrat) of nature. "99 Still, once we realize that it is necessary to regard the intrinsic possibility of an organism as grounded in a teleological causation, we cannot conceive its existence other than as effect of an "intelligent efficient cause." And in this perspective the existence of an organism is either in itself the ultimate purpose or end of creation, or it is a necessary means to some other end which is acceptable as ultimate. But, when we now examine the whole of nature, we find no organism which can be considered to be the ultimate purpose of creation. To be sure, even in plants we encounter an "indescribably wise organization"; but for what purpose do plants exist? Do they exist for the sake of the plant-eating animals? If they do, then "why are there plant-eating animals?" Do they exist for the sake of the beasts of prey that feed upon them? If so, then why are there any beasts of prey? Why is there this whole chain of dependencies of living forms? Does it exist for the sake of man? Is he "the ultimate purpose of creation here on earth because he is the only being upon it that is able to form a conception of ends and, by virtue of his reason, to construct a system of ends from the aggregate of things which are purposively fashioned"?lOO

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On the other hand, Kant continues, one might reverse the order and argue that the herbivorous animal exists for the purpose of checking the luxuriant growth of plant life which, when left unchecked, would soon smother many of its own species; that the carnivorous animal exists for the purpose of "setting limits to the voracity of herbivora"; and that man exists for the sake of providing a check on the carnivora and thus establishing "a certain equilibrium of the productive and the destructive forces of nature." In this perspective, man would be seen as essentially a means to some nonhuman end and would be so seen despite his distinctively human characteristics which, in a sense, place him above nature. 101 And, one wonders: Could not a balance of nature (if that were intended) be achieved in some other manner? In short, the facts in the case can be accounted for in a number of ways and therefore do not prove some specific purpose in nature.

VII Kant, however, saw man as the ultimate purpose, the "final end of nature" (der letzte Zweck der Natur). In man, he declared, "must be found that which is to be furthered as a purpose by virtue of his connection with nature." 102 In his"Anthropologie in Pragmatischer Hinsicht" (1798), Kant gives us a detailed, extensive, and highly perceptive analysis of a great many human traits and capacities in their development. He concludes the analysis: "One may therefore say: The first character of the human species is the capacity as a rational being actually (iiberhaupt) to obtain (verschaffen), for his own person as well as for the society into which nature has placed him, a [specific] character; but this already presupposes in him a favorable disposition (Naturanlage) and an inclination toward the good."I03 And we must assume as a principle (Grundsatz) for the teleological interpretation of nature that nature "wills that every creature fulfill its destiny by developing all its natural dispositions toward that end so that, if not every individual, at least the species fulfill its destiny."104 Earlier, in his "Mutmasslicher Anfang der Menschengeschichte" of 1786, Kant had been more specific on this, distinguishing the following five steps in the development: 166

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1. "In the beginning, this novice [i.e., man] must have been guided by instinct alone.... But soon reason began to stir."los 2. Man "discovered in himself a power of choosing for himself a way of life, of not being bound without alternative to a single way, like animals."106{fe stood, as it were, "at the brink of an abyss." It was impossible for him to return to a life completely determined by instinct. But he also did not know the effects of his own choices. 3. In his refusal to follow instincts blindly came "a first hint at his development as a moral being."107 4. Now reason took another step: Instead of remaining wholly absorbed in the world as he found it, man looked to the future and often to the "very distant future." This "enabled him to prepare himself for distant aims suitable to his role as a human being." But this concern with the future also became "an inexhaustible source of cares and troubles because of the uncertainty of man's future."108 5. In the final step in his development, man "came to understand, however dimly, that he is the true end or goal of nature." 109 But nature, which had thus driven him from "the safe and harrrlless state" of his earliest existence, had also placed his destiny in his own hands; for it is he himself who sets mankind's goals. It is he who must strive to realize them. "Nature has given everyone the vocation of contributing as much to that progress as may be within his power."110 Whether man has won or lost in the transition from "the tutelage of nature to the state of freedom" is no longer an open question, for the transition is "nothing less than progress toward perfection. "111 Moreover, so Kant continues in the third Critique, nature is not so constituted as to let man rest or be satisfied in idle pleasure. She has not taken him for her special darling and favored him with benefit above all animals. In her destructive actions, in plague, hunger, threat of floods, frost, assault of other animals, great and small, etc., in all of these she has spared him as little as any other animal; but even more, the paradoxical (widersinnige) character of his own endowments drives hinl into selfconceived torments and [into efforts] (by oppression, the barbarism of wars, etc.) to place others into such misery and to contribute so much to the destruction of his own species that

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even the most beneficent external nature could not attain its goal if that were the happiness of our species. 112 As the only rational being on earth, man may be the master of nature (Herr der Natur); but the claim to this title is conditional only, the condition being that "he knows how to give nature and himself a relation to such a purpose as, independently of nature and in itself, could be an ultimate purpose not to be sought in nature, and that he have the will to do SO."113 An ultimate purpose in this sense, Kant informs us, can only be culture and not even all culture. It must be a culture that liberates man's will from the tyranny of desires. That is, it must be a culture errlbodied in a civil community. Only then "can the greatest development of natural capacities take place." And, since no particular civil community can long exist in isolation, man's aim must be the creation of a "cosmopolitan whole, Le., of a system of all states which are in danger of acting injuriously upon one another."114 Kant developed this theme n10re specifically in two essays: "Idee zu einer Allgemeinen Geschichte in Weltbiirgerlicher Absicht" (1784) and "Zum Ewigen Frieden" (1795).115 In the first of these essays, he sets forth his ideas in the form of nine theses, of which only eight need to be considered here: 1. "All natural capacities of a creature are destined to evolve completely to their natural end." 2. "In man (as the on!y rational being on earth) those natural capacities which are directed to the use of his reason are to be fully developed only in the race, not in the individual." 3. "Nature has willed that man should, by himself, produce everything that transcends the mechanical arrangement of his animal existence." 4. "The means employed by Nature in the realization of all its potentialities (Anlagen) is their conflict (Antagonismus) in society insofar as this conflict is, in the end, the cause of a lawful order [among men]." 5. "The greatest problem for mankind, to the solution of which nature drives man, is the achievement of a universal civil society which administers law [among all men]." 6. "The problem of establishing a perfect civic constitution

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depends upon the problem of a lawful external relation among states and cannot be solved without [a solution of] the latter." 7. "The history of mankind on the whole can be seen as the realization of Nature's hidden plan to bring forth a perfect constitution of nations as the only condition under which all the potentialities inherent in mankind can be fully developed." 8. "A philosophical attempt to work out a universal world history in accordance with a plan of nature, which aims at the perfect civic unification of mankind, must be regarded as possible and, indeed, as advantageous to the intention of nature (Naturabsicht)." I 16 In the second essay, "Zum Ewigen Frieden," Kant spells out the conditions under which the ultimate goal of an international civic community might be achieved. Only a few of these conditions need be mentioned here: "No treaty of peace shall be regarded as valid which was made with secret reservations leading to future wars." "Standing armies shall in time be abolished." "No state shall by force interfere with the constitution and government of another state." "The civil constitution of every state should be republican." "The law of nations (Volkerrecht) shall be founded on a federation of free states." Kant concludes: "This then is the truth of the matter: Nature inexorably wills that right should finally triumph."Il? It is fairly obvious that the constructive theses set forth in Kant's "Idee zu einer Allgemeinen Geschichte" and "Zum Ewigen Frieden" could have been justified without reference to an intrinsic purposiveness of nature, Le., as in themselves reasonable. But Kant did not see it that way. For him, the topics of both essays were but an extension of Part II of the Critique ofJudgment; and there he put it in this manner: "We cannot mistake the purpose of nature, ever aiming to win us away from the rudeness and violence ... that belong to our animality ..., and to make way for the development of our humanity," the implication being that "only as a moral being can man be a final purpose (Endzweck) of creation." I18

VIII But now, somewhat unexpectedly, Kant reverses the perspective. Because we acknowledge man to be the final purpose of

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creation only insofar as he is a moral being, we have a sufficient ground "for regarding the world as a whole as connected according to purposes and as a system of final causes," linking it to "an intelligent world cause." And "we have at least one principle enabling us to think the nature and properties of this first cause as the supreme ground in the realm of ends."119 "Moral teleology here augments the deficiency of physical teleology." It "supplies the condition which is wanted in the latter" and "thus establishes theology. "120 That is to say, "in order to be able to project (vorsetzen) a final purpose consistent with the moral law, we must assume a moral world cause ..., Le., we must admit that there is a God." This argument, however (as Kant points out in a footnote to the second edition of the Critique ofJudgment), is "not an objectively valid proof of the existence of God," but only "a subjective argument sufficient for moral beings."121 In other words, the conception of a final purpose belongs, strictly speaking, to the sphere of practical reason only. It "cannot be inferred from any data of experience for the theoretical evaluation (Beurteilung) of nature, nor can it be related (bezogen) to our cognition of nature."122 It is "sufficiently established only for the practical use of our reason"123 and enables us to "see our duties as divine commands."124 Kant elaborates this theme in Religion lnnerhalb der Grenzen der Blossen Vernunft (1793, the year of the second edition of the Critique of Judgment). 125 "Man himself," he states there, "must make or have made himself into whatever, in a moral sense, whether good or evil, he is or is to become." 126 But, so Kant's argunlent runs, "when the moral law commands that we ought to be better men, it follows inevitably that we must be able to be better men";127 and, being thus able, we have the duty "to elevate ourselves" to the ideal of moral perfection: Le., we have the duty "to become the sons of God," of the "archetype" of moral perfection. But only mankind-and mankind only "in its complete moral perfection"-can be regarded as "the end of creation."128 It alone constitutes an "ethical commonwealth." Although the idea of such "a realm of virtue" has its "wellgrounded objective reality in human reason,"129 "the people, as people," cannot be the lawgiver for it. 130 "An ethical commonwealth

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can be thought of only as a people under divine commands, i.e., as a people of God."131 And this "requirement of practical reason" involves "belief in God (1) as the omnipotent Creator of heaven and earth, i.e., morally as holy Legislator, (2) as Preserver of the human race, its benevolent Ruler and moral Guardian, (3) as Administrator of His own holy law, i.e., as righteous Judge."132 When we now ask why the theological interpretation is necessary, Kant's answer in the Critique of Judgment is that "it is not needed for the extension or correction of our cognition of nature, or in general for any theory." It is simply "a subjective point of view" for "the practical or moral use of our reason."133 But, if this is so, then Kant has not gone beyond an "as if' solution of the problem with which he started at the beginning of the third Critique. The basic dualism of the sensible and the intelligible worlds, of the realm of deterministic nature and the realm of moral freedom, remains unresolved. Kant himself could not be satisfied with this outcome of his arguments. He had to find another way to a solution. His groping attempts to find a new, a "highest form of transcendental philosophy" form the main theme of the Opus postumum. I shall deal with these attempts in the next chapter.

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The title of the present chapter is Kant's own characterization of the integrative position in philosophy he was aiming at in essential parts of the Opus postumum. As previously indicated (Chapter VI, Section VII), the notes and fragments which we now know as the Opus postumum, jotted down over a period of years when disabilities of old age began to interfere with Kant's work, are in my judgment the record of the genesis of two major works in philosophy, neither of which Kant completed. l One of these works was to provide the transition from the Metaphysical Foundations ofNatural Science to physics proper. I have dealt with this in Chapter VI. The remainder of the Opus postumum is the projection of a new approach to transcendental philosophy itself; and with this I shall be concerned here. As before, I accept Adickes's suggested sequence in time of the pages and convolutes that are the Opus postumum. 2 The new approach, briefly stated, is this: In the Critique of Judgment Kant had attempted to reconcile the causal determinism of nature with the freedom of a morally responsible will and, at the same time, to deal with the problem of organismic existence. He had been able, however, to develop only an "as if' solution. Within the framework of the Critique of Pure Reason, no other solution was possible. But an "as if' solution is in an ultimate sense no solution at all. He was therefore forced to reexamine and to modify the epistemological position of the first Critique, and this became the central problem of the Opus postumum. 3

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I Before turning to the Opus itself, it may be helpful to remind ourselves briefly of some of Kant's ideas that are antecedent to it. Thus we read in the Critique ofPure Reason that "the synthetic unity of the manifold of intuitions ... is the ground of the identity of apperception itself, which precedes a priori all my determinate thought," and that this principle of apperception is "the highest principle in the whole sphere of human knowledge."4 Moreover, Kant had argued that "the laws of appearances" do not exist in the appearances, but in the understanding which combines the manifold of sense impressions according to its own a priori form and thereby first establishes them as object of cognition. 5 In the architecture of the first Critique, "the understanding unifies the manifold in the object by means of concepts [and] reason unifies the manifold of concepts by means of ideas, positing a certain collective unity as the goal of the activities of the understanding, which otherwise are concerned solely with distributive unity."6 Kant added: "Everyone presupposes that this unity of reason accords with nature itself."7 However, in the Critique of Pure Reason "the unity of reason is left undetermined,"8 and "the ideas of pure reason do not admit of the kind of deduction that is possible in the case of the categories."9 Even so, "the unity of reason is the unity of the system" which serves "subjectively as a maxim that extends its application to all possible empirical knowledge of objects."IO But "ideas cannot form the basis of any objectively valid synthetic judgment," and knowledge of objects is possible "only indirectly through relation of the concepts of the understanding to something altogether contingent, namely, possible experience."ll What this amounts to is that the Critique of Pure Reason, dealing (as it does) with the conditions of the possibility of experience in general, leaves unexplained the empirical elements given in experience. 12 The Opus postumum deals with them rather effectively. As the first Critique dealt with reason in its theoretical employment, so the second Critique and the Foundations of the Metaphysics of Morals dealt with its practical employment. However, in the preface to the Foundations, Kant said: "I require of a critique of pure practical reason, if it is to be complete, that its unity with the [pure] speculative [reason] can be represented under one

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common principle, because in the final analysis it can be only one and the same reason which must be differentiated only in application."13 This ultimate unity of reason Kant aims at in the Opus postumum. But something else must be remembered. As Kant puts it in the preface to the Critique of Judgment: "Here, then, I end my whole critical undertaking. I shall proceed without delay to the doctrinal [part] in order to profit, as far as possible, by the more favorable moments of my increasing years." 14 This passage is significant not merely because it signals the end of Kant's "critical period," but because, more importantly, it suggests an entirely new approach to the problems of philosophy. Of this new approach the Opus postumum, fragmentary. and disjointed as it is, is indisputable proof.

II In dealing with the Opus, I shall concentrate on those pages and convolutes which in my judgment give us the most coherent picture of Kant's approach or point of view. This may mean that quite frequently I shall have to select the relevant passages from widely separated pages. But then I am here attempting to reconstruct Kant's ultimate philosophical position; I am not translating the present diplomatic text of the Opus as such. The most systematic part of the text, convolutes 10 and 11, gives us in effect a new transcendental deduction. Convolutes 7 and 2 are attempts to formulate a theory of "self-positing." But the really new orientation in Kant's thinking is found in convolute 12. Since no translation of the Opus postumum is available or perhaps ever will be available, I' shall here translate as much of the text as is necessary for my presentation. And, since the Akademie-Ausgabe, Volumes XXI and XXII, is the only available text of the Opus, I shall refer exclusively to it and shall identify specific references only by volume and page.

III In the Critique ofPure Reason, Kant stated in various contexts an idea which has not always been given full weight. Thus he says in

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the first edition: "There is one single experience in which all perceptions are represented as in thoroughgoing and orderly connection, just as there is only one space and one time in which all modes of appearance and all relations of being and not being occur." 15 And, in the discussion of the Analogies of Experience, he says: "The principle of the analogies is: Experience is possible only through the representation of a necessary connection of perceptions."16 And: "Taken together the analogies declare that all appearances lie, and must lie, in one nature, because without this a priori unity no unity of experience, and therefore no determination of objects in it, would be possible." 17 He then raises the question of "whether things as appearances one and all belong to the sum and context of one single experience, of which every given perception is a part ... or whether my perceptions can belong, in their general connection, to more than one possible experience."IB His answer at that tinle was "that yet another series of appearances in thoroughgoing connection with that which is given in perception, and consequently that more than one all-embracing experience is possible, cannot be inferred from what is given; and still less can any such inference be drawn independently of anything being given."19 His final conclusion was that "our consciousness of all existence ... belongs exclusively to the unity of experience; and [alleged] existence outside this field, while not indeed such as we can declare to be absolutely impossible, is of the nature of an assumption which we can never be in a position to justify."20 What Kant here enunciates, and what is frequently overlooked in the interpretation of the first Critique, is the thesis that experience is one and that it is made rather than given. This thesis, I submit, is the basic premise of the Opus postumum. If we do not accept it as the foundation of his whole argument, we misunderstand the work. Kant made this fact quite clear through exhaustive repetitions. In over sixty passages, scattered throughout the volunles of the Opus, Kant states that there is "only one experience";21 "only one experience, not experiences";22 "not experiences in the plural, but ex.. perience."23 "There is only one experience. When one speaks of ex.. periences, one understands thereby merely perceptions ... which yet lack much for their elevation to the validity of an experience."24 "Experience is absolute subjective unity of the manifold of sense perceptions. One does not speak of experiences, but of experience 176

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only."25 "Experience (objectively only one) is absolute unity, and .when there is talk of experiences the reference is only to perceptions which presuppose the unity of the form [of experience]."26 It must be noted that the quotations come from both volumes of the Opus and that many more could have been given. There are also numerous elaborations of the basic theme. Thus Kant states (again repeatedly): "For the subject there is only one experience, i.e., all perceptions merge (vereinigen sich) into a system."27 "Viewed objectively, there is only one experience, and if, subjectively, one speaks of experiences, the latter are nothing but parts and aggregates, interrelated according to laws (gesetzlich verkniipft) within a synthetic universal experience."28 This experience is "the totality of all possible perceptions in the absolute unity of the totality of their manifoldness so far as their thoroughgoing determination is concerned."29 "Experience, therefore, contains the form of a system which cannot be derived from or out of experience, but must for the sake of experience as a whole proceed from an a priori concept in accordance with principles."30 "Experience itself, which is only one, can emerge as a system only in conformity with principles."31 "Experience is always a system, and only as a system which is possible in conformity with a priori principles is it a unique and single whole (ein Einiges)."32 We must note, too, Kant's often repeated statement that "experience is only one, and the approach to it through perceptions is asymptotic,"33 that "experiences are the asymptotic approach to experience."34 "Experience is the whole of the sequence of the empirical consciousness in constant approximation [to it]."35 Experience is "not simply an aggregate of perceptions but the tendency toward a complete but never completed system of them."36 After all this, it can come as no surprise that Kant states again and again: "Experience is not given but made";37 that "one cannot speak of having an experience but of making it";38 that "experience does not come about by itself as the effect (Einfluss) of moving forces upon the senses, but must be made."39 "The faculty for making an experience is the understanding."40 And: "In order to make an experience, the understanding must form the elements of sensory cognition synthetically into a system of moving forces."41 That is, experience "must be made by the subject" "in

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accordance with a formal principle of composing the empirical representations" into one whole. 42 Or, more specifically: "Experience is not (empirically given) but is made through combining sense perceptions in accordance with the principle for assembling them in a system for the purpose of experience."43 "To make experience (not experiences) out of the materials (Materialien) obtained from observation and experimentation presupposes a principle"44 which only the understanding can furnish. "In order to think of all empirical data of external sensory representations as belonging to one experience, they cannot be thought of otherwise than as necessarily connected (verbunden) in one system."45 And: "Transcendental philosophy is the idea of the whole of the objects of the senses considered as in one system according to the formal aspect under the principle of the possibility of experience."46 This raises another question, which I shall deal with shortly. I should like first to consider another aspect of the situation.

IV As Kant puts it: "The unity of the manifold ... for the purpose of the possibility of experience conceived as a system of empirical representations [is] the subjective aspect (das Subjektive) of the composition of these empirical [elements] through the concept of a whole of the manifold as objective in the form of a system of perceptions."47 Or, as he also puts it: "All experience is problematic; through perception as an aggregate it becomes assertoric. But it is never apodictic."48 This means that "the concept of the whole of external experience presupposes all possible moving forces of matter as connected in a collective unity.... And it presupposes also a steady motion of all matter which affects the subject as a sensory object, for without this movement, Le., without the stimulation (Erregung) of the sensory objects ... no perception of any sensible object takes place, and therefore also no experience."49 "External experience itself depends upon the moving forces of matter [that affect] the subject (as physical body) ..., thought of as necessary according to the form of the unity (totality) of the whole of experience."50 That is to say, "the whole of experience is under a formal principle of a system which is basic to the elementary system of the moving forces of

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matter; and this form is a priori antecedent to the [integrated] whole of the empirical concepts. "51 "The whole as object of possible experience ... must emerge dynamically as a combination of external forces which act upon one another reciprocally."52 In other words, "the object of the one allinclusive experience contains within itself as basis all the subjectively moving forces of matter which affect the senses and produce perceptions. "53 We know from Kant's Metaphysical Foundations of Natural Science that "the concept of matter is reduced to nothing but moving forces": "the repulsive forces in general and the attractive forces in general (which counteract the repulsive ones)."54 In that context Kant confessed: "I am unable to furnish an adequate explication of the possibility of matter and its specific varieties from the fundamen, tal forces."55 In the Opus postumum, however, where he faced the problem anew, he came up with a solution. Although we may not agree with it, the solution satisfied him. In his opinion, the problem was finally solved.

v The "principle of the unity of experience" is "a basis for all forces which set in motion the matter in the whole of world-space; but it is this only in idea. It does not prove the existence of such material which, therefore and to this extent, remains a merely hypothetical [something]. ... For the sake of a system of experience, however, it must, subjectively, be assumed to be the prime mover (primum mobile et movens)."56 Kant, of course, could not rest his case with a merely hypothetical basis of the perceptual content of experience. He therefore shifted his argument: "The unity of possible experience ..., represented a priori, is a principle which contains the basis of the combined forces of it, not hypothetically, but as analytically derived from the concept of the unity of experience in accordance with the principle of identity."57 "In the concept of the unity of experience there already lies a priori (prior to everything empirical as an aggregate of perceptions) the concept of a system of acting forces of matter as necessarily belonging to experience. The existence of this 179

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matter is here not inferred from experience but is given a priori for the purpose (zum Behuf) of the concept of the unity of possible experience. "58 Put differently, Kant's argument is now this: Viewed objectively, there is but one experience and all perceptions belong to one system of the absolute totality of them which is not invented but given, Le., there exists an absolute totality (Ganzes) as system of the moving forces of nlatter, for the concept of it is objectively a concept of experience, and an object thus thought is therefore real. (Here, but only in this unique case, can it be said a posse ad esse valet consequentia.) This concept is unique in its kind (unicus) because its object also is only one (conceptus singularis); for "the All of Matter" designates not a distributive but a collective universality of the objects which belong to the absolute unity of all possible experience. 59 And so, Kant concludes, matter is real as that in space which is endowed with moving forces without whose effect upon the senses (be it perceptible or imperceptible) [no experience is possible]. The existence of moving forces of matter which fill the whole space of the world must be presupposed; ... otherwise empty space would be an object of the possibility of experience.... [And] there is no absolutely empty space. However, matter must also be in a continuous state of motion because repulsion of the moving forces of matter and attraction of its parts are uniform and, internally in its place, continually changing and therefore also externally self-moving, otherwise it [matter] would be no object of possible experience. 60 "But since the moving forces are subordinate one to the other insofar as one is the [cause] of the motion of the other, there must exist a primary moving matter which, penetrating every body, is primordially and continually nloving, and which may be called Warmestoff,"61 whose moving forces "never weaken or vanish, but always renew and preserve themselves. "62

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VI Four comments are in order to help us understand what follows. (1) References to the "primordially and continually moving" forces

of repulsion and attraction reflect the continuity of Kant's thinking with his conception of matter as developed in the Metaphysical Foundations of Natural Science. 63 In fact, the introduction of the "primary moving matter" is the continuation and completion of the transition from the Metaphysical Foundations to physics and is at the same time an integral part of transcendental philosophy.64 (2) For the term "Wlirmestoff," calorique, Kant gradually substituted the term "Ether" as designating the primordial matter consisting of nothing but moving forces. For brevity's sake I shall disregard the variations in terminology65 and henceforth shall use the term "Ether" (capital E) exclusively when reference is made to the primordial matter underlying all sense perceptions. (3) The introduction of the Ether is not to be taken as an hypothesis in physics, but as a postulate of transcendental philosophy. As Kant puts it: "One can accept a priori the existence of an Ether, i.e., one can postulate it because without it ... no perceptions would occur."66 (4) If the conception of an Ether which consists of nothing but the pulsations of repulsive and attractive forces should cause the reader difficulties in comprehension, I suggest, at least as an analogy, the electromagnetic fields determined by Maxwell's equations. The Ether, says Kant, is, "as it were, the hypostatized space itself, in which everything moves."67 Its existence is other than that of any other existing thing, for "it is not an object of possible experience but the concept of the only possible means of having experience. "68 To his own satisfaction Kant has thus brought unity into experience and has established physics as a system. But, in accomplishing this end, he discovered that the mathematical approach to physics (so effective in Newtonian mechanics and highly esteemed bfKant himself up to this time) is ultimately inadequate; for it deals with the "moving forces of matter" only insofar as matter is in motion. It is not concerned with the origin of those forces. 69 In Kant's

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words, the mathematical approach can never lead to "a satisfactory whole of physics-not even in conception."10

VII Kant's main argument, stated briefly once more, is this: "what is necessary as determining ground for experience (which can be only one) is also given objectively, Le., it is real. Therefore, there exists a matter as an absolute whole having the attributes [of affecting the senses] as basis of its moving forces insofar as these are moving."11 "We should never have a unity of external experience if we did not presuppose the existence of an Ether and make it implicitly basic to our concept of experience, i.e., if we did not tacitly assume a system of moving forces of matter as the efficient cause even of the possibility of the experience as its effect."12 In short, the unity of experience and the Ether are simply two aspects of one and the same experiential situation. When we examine the material aspect of experience more closely, we find Kant's thesis to be that "matter, insofar as it is movable in space, has at the same time and in itself also a moving force."13 But a distinction must be made between the moving forces intrinsic to the very nature of matter, i.e., to the Ether, and "the moving forces engendered by real movement, e.g., the centrifugal force of materials (Materien) moved in a circle, which is not a property of matter (Materie-Ether) but only a state (Zustand) of it."14 Or, as Kant puts it on other occasions: The moving force of matter is twofold: It is either the motion of a body as it forces another body out of its place in space, i.e., it is change of position in space (vis locomotiva), or it is inner motion (vis interne motiva).15 "It is either the motion of matter which results in another motion, or it is primordial movement"16 as the inner nature of matter itself. Once this distinction is made, we readily understand Kant's thesis that "the moving forces of matter, i.e., motions considered with respect to their causes l'tnd effects, belong, on the one hand, to metaphysics and concepts a priori. and, on the other hand, to physics as a system based upon principles of experience."l1 We also understand his further statement that "the moving forces are movable and moving either mechanically as bodies, or dynamically as mere matter for the formation of bodies."18

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Now, "if the primordial matter (Urstoff) of the world of bodies is to be uniformly and unceasingly moving, the internally selfmoving Ether must be thought of as being in constant oscillating movement, for all primordially active movement [being selfmovement] originates as agitation through attraction and repulsion" within the Ether itself. 79 This primordial inner motion of attraction and repulsion, or, as Kant calls it, this "intermittent pulsation"80 of the Ether, precedes all motions of bodied matter and its parts as the primum movum, and is basic to the whole of physical reality.81 "The mechanically, i.e., externally, moving forces (machines) are themselves possible only through the dynamic forces inherent in matter as such."82 That is, "every mechanical effect of force presupposes a dynamic effect of force which is a priori and antecedent to it. "83

VIII As far as Kant is concerned, "the doctrine of the laws of moving forces of matter, insofar as they are known a priori, is called metaphysics. Insofar as they can be derived from experience only, it is called physics."84 The metaphysics of the moving forces we shall consider shortly. In the meantime we must deal with physics as "the science of moving forces of matter insofar as these are derived from experience."85 Or, as Kant puts it: "Physics is natural science based upon experience; its object is matter in general insofar as it has moving force in accordance with empirical laws. "86 "Special systems for special classes of moving forces will be presented by special branches of physics (physica specialissima)."87 In physics, be it physics in general or one of its special branches, "we search for the moving forces of matter that are the cause of the appearances which nature presents."88 That is, "physics aims at comprehending the empirical laws of all corporeal things in one system";89 it is "the doctrine of the appearances of the objects of the senses as moving forces of matter insofar as their totality is subjectively an object of possible experience. "90 But, since physics is a "doctrinal system," it must presuppose certain "principles a priori"; and "we cannot borrow from physics itself what is required for the possibility ofphysics."91 To be sure, the "sensible external objects or appearances" are encountered in obser183

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vation and experimentation. They are the material content of physics. However, "the formal aspect of their connection in a system" depends upon those principles a priori which make experience (in the Kantian sense of an integrated whole) possible at all. 92 This means that "physics as the concept ... of the whole of [comes under] the principle of their the moving forces of matter unity in respect of causal connection ... because only through the concept of a system of the manifold can the manifold be investigated and found to belong to nature."93 This reference to causality must be viewed in the light of Kant's more than one hundred references to Newton, who, according to Kant, introduced "the moving forces of attraction a priori before the bodies are given to which they are ascribed."94 But here, as anywhere else, "we must advance from subjective principles of appearances to what is objective in experience."95 What is objective is the fact that "a system of moving forces of matter is possible only because, in accordance with the system of categories, the appearances are brought into those relationships upon which rests the possibility of having an experience of them."96 That is to say, "physics itself must make its object as a system of perceptions."97 Without such a system "there is no physics."98 However, the system which is physics is never complete. It remains "a task. "99 It is "only an idea of a science which is never completely attained but is constantly in progress. We have the principle for the investigation of elementary cognitions [to guide us] but we never comprehend [those cognitions] together in a completed system."100 As Kant says elsewhere: "This much seems certain that physics, as a theory of experience and as rich as it may be in perceptions and grounds of explanation of appearances, is nevertheless nothing more than a fragmentary aggregate of natural research (Naturforschung)." 101 Still, "the moving forces of matter are to be represented in a system";102 and this system, as projected and as a task, Kant calls "the elementary system of matter in general."103 "The thought of such an elementary system of the moving forces of matter (cogitatio) necessarily precedes the perception (perceptio) and, as subjective principle of this combination of the elementary parts of them in one whole, is given a priori in the subject through reason."104 "The

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elementary system of the moving forces of matter thus depends upon the existence of a matter (perhaps called Ether) which is the basis (the primordially moving force) of all moving forces of matter."105 It is a system in which all moving forces of matter are "systematically classified a priori in accordance with principles of attraction and repulsion under which the empirical concepts of the moving forces in space are completely represented in a doctrinal system, and in which the moving forces together (universum) ..., reciprocally interrelated, constitute one whole." 106 Physics, in other words, is the projected "elementary system of the moving forces of matter insofar as [these forces J are the causes of perceptions." 107 It includes the primordial forces inherent in the Ether as ultimate basis, and all derivative forces involved in the motions of corporeal things in space, Its unifying principle is th'at of causality.

IX Not only is physics incomplete as a system of causally interrelated corporeal things, it is deficient in another respect; for it does not include organismic existence. To be sure, when "viewed directly," an organism is "a merely empirically knowable mechanism,"108 It is "the form of a body viewed as a machine [or "in analogy" with a machine J,109 i.e., as an instrument of motion for a specific purpose.""0 As "natural machines," "organic bodies, like other moving forces, must be viewed according to their mechanical relationships, and their appearances must accordingly be explained without sliding into the system of forces of matter which are efficacious as final causes."lll In fact, however, matter as such contains no final causes, nor does it give rise to any. The very concept "organic matter is a contradiction, because matter is not yet a body of a certain form of the combination (Vereinigung) of moving forces," II 2 and because the concept "organic matter takes the material for organization to be the organized subject." 113 Although the statement that "an organic body is alive is an analytical proposition, living matter does not exist, only a living body. The principle of life in it is immaterial." 114 And, when we view an organism in analogy to a machine, we must not overlook an essential difference between the two: machines are man-made;

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"an organism [however] is a machine which creates itself as to its form and whose moving forces are at the same time means and end."115 An organism is a body which is efficacious as a machine "by virtue of its own forces."116 In the organism "matter is organized as in the art product (Kunstprodukt) of a rational being."ll7 Hence Kant defines an organism, as he had defined it in the Critique ofJudgment, 118 in this way: "It is a whole whose every part exists for the sake of all other parts,"1l9 one "whose parts are reciprocally and at the same time ends and means."120 But, he adds, "one can define an organic body also in this way: It is that body of which the idea of the whole precedes the concept of its parts as ground of its own possibility."121 "It is a body in which the inner form of the whole precedes the concept of the composition of all its parts."122 Or, put differently, "an organic body is that in which the idea of the whole is antecedent to the possibility of its parts in respect of their moving forces."123 "The possibility of such bodies cannot be known a priori, and the concept of them can enter physics only through experience."124 Hence "organized bodies of which experience alone can prove that they can exist are merely ideas."l25 But "we experience in our own body the organic forces and, by means of an analogy of them to a part of their principle, we obtain a concept [even] of plants by omitting the animality of them."126 What all this amounts to is that "an organic body is one whose originating (hervorbringende) cause must lie in a being which is efficacious through purposes. These, however, can proceed (ausgehen) only from a simple being."127 That is to say, "an organic body and its possibility presuppose a principle of purposes (Zweckprinzip) or final cause (causa finalis) and therefore an immaterial and not a sensible being."'28 "The principle of life in [a body] is immaterial."129 This principle of life, being somewhat "akin to a soul," "must be thought of as a rational being (Vernunftwesen), even if it is thought of as not real."130 In any case, "the possibility of an organic body presupposes an immaterial principle containing absolute unity (which therefore cannot be thought of as atomistic)."'31 "Whether the immaterial principle which is the cause of the organic body can be thought of only as a principle of purposes or is a thinking being and has personality as well as absolute unity and thus has the 186

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predicate of divinity (Gottheit) can be determined only by transcendental philosophy." 132 We shall return to this problem later. But, if we assume for the time being that there is some such immaterial being which shapes the moving forces of matter into the integrated and functional wholeness of a living organism, then "this principle of life can be related from plants to animals and their relations to one another as connected a priori in a whole and can be related to the whole of our world through their reciprocal needs."133 One can [thus] think of classes of specifically organized organic bodies [as existing] for one another, e.g., the realm of plants (Gewachsreich) for the realm of animals (Tierreich), and this for the human species as necessary for the existence and preservation of [the different realms], and therefore, taken as a whole, as organic of a first, a second, and a third degree. The highest level of this classification would then be that at which the human species, with various levels of its own nature, is organized for the sake and the perfection of the species. This is an occurrence (Begebenheit) which may have happened several times because of the evolutions of the earth, and of which we do not know whether or not a new one is imminent for our earth and' its inhabitants. [In brief,] nature organizes matter in a manifold way not only as to species, but also as to levels (Stufen).134 Kant elaborates this idea in various ways. He says, for example: The soil, as the formless basis of all formations [of organized bodies] is first formed into plants which carry with them an inner purposiveness of matter in their formation (Bildung). The class of the realm of plants (Pflanzenreich) ... exists in its great manifoldness for animals of various species (of living bodies), e.g., the moss of the icy deserts (EiswUsten) for reindeer: finally the non-rational species of animals for men, and these perhaps purposively determined even to individualities of races (of which many may have perished in order to make room for the presently existing), so that underlying Linne's nominal system of characteristics is a universal inner system of organization, and basic to it is an active principle aiming at it. 135

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Kant states more pointedly: Nature organizes matter in a manifold way not only as to [individual] species but also according to levels (Stufen) [of the samel-We need not consider (gedenken) the fact that in strata of the earth and in rocky mountain ranges (Steingebirgen) specimens of animal and plant species, now extinct, are evidence (Beweistiimer) of former and now foreign products of our lifegiving globe, but that the organizing force of them has also organized the whole of the plant and animal species, which are created for one another in such a way that they, man not included, form a circle as links of a chain not only as far as their nominal character (of similarity) is concerned but also as far as through their real character (of causality) they are in need of one another for their existence, which points to a world organization (for unknown purposes) including even the system of stars. 136 The phrase "links in a chain" is one of anumber of references to the Great Chain of Being,13? all of them reminiscent of Kant's earlier con1mitment to that idea. 138 The continuity of his thinking is thus again apparent. Although the "great light" of 1769 brought about a profound change in his epistemological point of view, it had little effect on his metaphysics.

x Kant now acknowledges the fact that the elementary system of matter (which is physics) is in itself not sufficient to account for an the facts in the world we live in, and so he projects a "world system" (Weltsystem) which is to include living organisms as well as the phenomena of purely physical reality. "The world," he says, "is the concept of the totality (Inbegrift) of things in one space and one time. Since neither of these is something objectively given, the world is [the totality of things] as appearances."139 It is "the whole of all objects of the senses," 140 and these are "things in contrast to persons."141 Also the world does not "contain God."142 However, just as there is only one space and one time, so "there

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is also only one world."143 This world is nature considered as "absolute unity."144 "When one speaks of worlds, these can be only different systems in one absolute whole of the one world."145 If taken in any other sense, the concept "worlds" (plural) is "a contradiction in itself."146 Now, "this whole which is the world (Weltganze) is not atomistic but dynamic";147 and it is not an aggregate, but "the whole of nature taken as a system."148 Although it includes the elementary system of moving forces,149 it includes much more; for it includes organismic existence as well. What Kant calls "the world" begins with the primordially moving forces of the Ether, includes the elementary system, and from there leads to a "world system." "The Ether ... connects the elementary system of moving forces with the world system through concepts a priori, without straying into physics."lso More clearly stated perhaps, the Ether, whose existence can be confirmed neither by observation nor by experiment, is entailed by "the concept of the possibility of experience and constitutes the transition from the elementary system to the world system."ISI It "gives direction for the transition from the elementary system to the world system." 152 That is, "the elementary system is antecedent to the world system"153 and "contains an objective tendency toward the world system (even in accordance with purposes)."154 Although this creates a new problem, Kant faces it squarely: "Organized beings," Le., plants and animals, as we know even from the Critique of Judgment, are bodies in which every part exists for every other part, and all exist for the sake of the whole. I55 The moving forces of the Ether, being merely repulsion and attraction, cannot account for the integrated wholeness of living forms. As Kant puts it: "An organic body cannot have its organization from the moving forces of matter only. There must exist something simple and therefore immaterial, be it part of the world of sensible objects or a mover distinguished from them, for matter does not organize itself, nor is it efficacious in accordance with purposes. Whether this being (a world soul, as it were) is an understanding (Verstand) or, according to its effects, a capacity analogous to the understanding is a problem the solution of which lies beyond the limits of our insight."156 In any case, "the principle of the possibility of organic bodies must be immaterial, for it [Le., the principle] is possible only throughpurposes."157 "Matter

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does not organize itself but is being organized through something immaterial." 158 This idea is basic, and Kant stresses it again and again: "Organized bodies (not mere matter) reveal an immaterial principle. Insofar as the organization is extended through all parts of the world, modifying bodies and replacing dead ones through newer formations, it is an anima mundi which, however, must not be conceived as a thinking being (spiritus) but at most as anima bruta; without it, the purposive generating [of organic forms] cannot only not be explained, it cannot even be thought." 159 Kant thus finds that the moving forces of matter, the primordial pulsations of the Ether, must be augmented by the conception of something immaterial which organizes those forces into the integrated wholeness of organisms. This immaterial "son1ething" may well be called "world soul" (Weltseele);160 but it must not be confused with God. "The world is an animal; but its soul is not God,"161 for God is not "a subordinate architect of the world (Weltbaumeister)."162 The "productive force" of this "immaterial something," the "world soul," is life; and "this principle of life [Kant now argues] can be extended a priori from plants to animals, and because of the relations of these to one another . . . and because of their reciprocal needs, the principle of life can also be extended a priori to the whole of the world."163 That is, the world itself may be regarded as "an organic whole"164 in which "one species of creatures exists for the sake of others. This [fact] one might call the progressive world organization within the system of purposes."165 The idea of the Great Chain of Being is obviously again in evidence; for, as previously noted, "nature organizes matter in manifold ways not only as to species but according to stages also": from plants to animals to man; from the elementary system to the world system. Kant points out, however, that "we cannot conceive the interlinkage (Verkettung) of things as causes and effects, and the world organized accordingly, otherwise than by establishing (konstituieren) such a system ourselves through our own reason. Only thus is it possible even to acknowledge the interlinkage as real."166 190

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That is to say, the world is "the totality of the objects ofperception," but "it is not itself an object of possible experience. It is an idea, Le., it is a thought-object (Gedankending) which we ourselves have created a priori and which includes the principle of thinking the systematic unity of objects."167 In other words, "the world is an Idea of the technically-practical reason based upon representations of the senses (Sinnesvorstellungen)." 168 "It contributes nothing to the material content but only to the principle of the form."169

XI But it is also a fact that in this world we encounter man and man's moral obligations. That is to say, "to the effective causes in the world as a whole (Weltganzen) there belongs also the morallypractical reason with its categorical imperative of lawful duties, Le., of the unconditional ought. "170 Or, as Kant also puts it: "The system of cognition which ... contains the conditions of the possibility of experience in general divides itself into two main branches: nature and freedom. [These are, respectively,] the products of technicallypractical and morally-practical reason."·7! As we know from Kant's earlier writings,172 "in the morallypractical reason is grounded the categorical imperative to view all duties of man as divine commandments."173 That is, "the morallypractical reason compels [our human reason] dutifully to make the idea of God an object of investigation." 174 And so Kant returns once more to the moral argument for the existence of God. Theoretically"one cannot prove the existence of God, but [such is Kant's thesis] one cannot help but proceed in accordance with the principle of such an idea and accept duties as divine commandments."175 In other words, "the concept of God is the idea which man himself, as a moral being, makes of a highest moral being in relation to the principles of right by viewing all duties [entailed by] the categorical imperative as commandments of the same," Le., of God. 176 "There [thus] is a God, namely in the idea of the morallypractical reason." 177 Indeed, "the very idea of Him is at the same time proof of His existence." 178 Or, as Kant also puts it: "The mere idea of God is at the same time a postulate of his existence. To think Him and to believe is an analytical proposition."179

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This is so, Kant argues, because "it is the morally-practical reason itself which postulates the existence (Dasein) of God."180 In fact, "God is the morally-practical reason which gives itselflaws."181 "The proposition, There is a God, says nothing more than: There exists in the morally self-determinative human reason a highest principle which determines itself and feels obligated to act irremissibly in accordance with such a principle."182 That is, "God is not a substance outside of me, but merely a moral relationship (Verhaltnis) within me."183 The proposition, There is a God, is thus "not objectively but subjectively grounded."184 "God is not an object of intuition (Anschauung) ... but one of the necessity of thinking such a being."18s "He is not something that exists outside me, but is my thought. It makes no sense to ask whether God exists."186 His existence "can be proven neither through pure reason nor from empirical sources of knowledge." 187 It is but "a necessary hypothesis of pure practical reason."188 More specifically, "the proposition, There is a God, ... is an axiom of pure practical reason to posit itself as the principle of actions" in moral matters. 189 It is the extension of the categorical imperative "to all rational beings in the world through which all of them are unified." 190 "In the categorical imperative God reveals Himself."191

XII It is evident from the passages quoted (and there could have been many more) that Kant's conception of God and of God's existence is in a state of flux. We are told, for example, that God is man's idea of a highest moral being, that His existence is a postulate of morally practical reason, that it is the highest principle of the morally self-determinative human reason, that God is merely a moral relationship within me, that His existence is a necessary hypothesis of pure practical reason, and that God reveals Himself in the categorical imperative. The fluidity of Kant's thinking about God is even more in evidence when we consider his characterizations of God. Here we are told: "The idea of God is (1) that of a highest Being (ens summum); (2) that of the highest rational being, i.e., of a person (summa intelligentia); (3) that of the primordial origin (Urquell) of everything 192

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that may unconditionally be a purpose (summum bonum), i.e., the Ideal of the morally-practical reason and of everything that may serve this [reason] as a rule."192 Stated more briefly, God is "a Being who knows everything, is capable of anything, and wills what is good (ens summum, summa intelligentia, summum bonum). The highest wisdom."193 But Kant also states, and states repeatedly, that "the highest ideal as a person is God."194 What this means becomes clear when we keep in mind that, for Kant, "a person is a moral being who has rights."195 "If [such a being] has rights and not duties, it is God."196 Put the other way around: "God possesses rights without being limited by duties."197 He is "a Being having rights against which no one else has rights."198 He is a person "possessing law-giving power over all rational beings."199 Kant's meaning here seems clear, but we run into trouble when Kant asserts pointedly that "personality cannot be attributed to God"200 yet also maintains that "the concept of God is that of a personality ... as an ideal being which reason creates for itself."20I The contradiction may not vanish altogether when we consider that Kant was not always consistent in the employment of his terms. But, behind the verbal difficulties, we can at least discern a progression in his thinking which is intrinsically coherent and selfconsistent. Thus he speaks at times of personality as a substance;202 and it is in this sense that "personality" cannot be attributed to God, since God is Idea, not substance. As Kant puts it: "The Idea God (not of God)."203 When we keep this fact in mind, we can at least understand and appreciate Kant's repeated argument that "to think God is to believe," that the mere Idea is "the postulate of God's existence."204 However, at other times Kant writes: "Personality is the attribute of a being which has rights, and is therefore a moral quality."205 As we have seen, this is essentially Kant's definition of a person, and so some confusion does persist. One can say only that it is of no great significance because Kant also distinguishes quite clearly between "person" and "personality" and in all essential respects adheres to this distinction. By "person" Kant means a being having rights. By "personality" he means "the sublime quality of freedom to be itself an 193

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originating cause,"206 Le., "the spontaneity of causality to determine by itself; and, with respect to effects, to be primordially determinative over nature. "207 Personality thus involves "the unity of freedom and law"; and through it "man, as a moral being, is distinguished from all creatures of nature (Naturwesen)."208 God, conceived as personality, is "the highest cause [in] spontaneity."209 In this perspective, however, God is not an entity "which exists independently of my thinking." He is rather "the Idea (ens reationis) of a reason which constitutes itself as an object of thought."2lo It is this reason which we experience in ourselves as spontaneity in action. To speak of God as "personality" is thus perfectly reconcilable with Kant's basic thesis that the concept of God is "merely an Idea" but "an Idea [projected] for the sake of certain basic principles."211 As such an Idea, i.e., "conceived as the rule of the highest perfection of a being (as ens a priori omnimodo determinatum),"212 God is "of the greatest inner and outer practical reality."213

XIII And so we find that "both, God and the World, are not objects of possible experience but Ideas."214 They are "Ideas of the morallypractical and the technically-practical reason," respectively.215 "All concepts come together (vereinigen sich) in the conjunctive judgment: God and the World."216 "Each of the two is singular in species":217 "One God and One World."218 Lest there be a misunderstanding at this point, Kant states: "The World is not God, nor is God a being in the World (world sou1)."219 "Each in its own quality is a particular whole."220 "Each is absolute unity, although according to different principles: the technically-practical and the morally-practical."221 The two are "correlates," but "not empirical correlates."222 They are correlates in the sense that they are "necessarily thought of' when we think "the totality of all beings." They are correlates, therefore, which "constitute a system of Ideas"223 "of the theoretically-speculative and the morally-practical Reason. "224 But, since God and the World are so obviously "heterogeneous Ideas," they cannot in themselves form a unified system. Such formation is possible only "through a mediating concept

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(Mittelbegriff)" ;225 and this is man,226 "who, as a creature of nature, also possesses personality and [thus] combines the sensible with the supersensible."227 It is significant that, for Kant, the mediating link between God and the World is not the abstract conception of man in general; for that would be merely another concept, a mere thought-object. Man as mediator between God and the World is the individual subject. 228 It is I. It is "I, the thinking being in the World, who combines them."229 It is "I, man, a being in the World, who relates both."230 It is "I who combines both objects in one subject"231 by "thinking both in real relation to one another."232 But, in the act of thinking God and the World, I "posit myself'233 and "determine my own existence a priori. "234 In fact, "all cognition begins with the consciousness of myself, Le., with representing myself, the thinking subject, at the same time as object of the thinking. At first this act of apperception (sum cogitans) is no judgment (iudicium) concerning an object; Le., it is not a relating of a predicate to a subject through which cognition is founded; I am simply an object to myself'235 in immediate self-consciousness. More specifically, "I posit myself as object in an intuition according to the formal principles of the determination of the subject as selfconsciousness, and of the combination into a unity of the object.... I am the cogitabile according to a principle, and at the same time the dabile as object of my concept: the representation of the thing-initself and then in appearance."236 Put briefly: As subject I "posit myself for the purpose of possible experience a priori, and constitute [myself] as an object."237 I am thus "the originator of myself' as the subject of cognition. 238 This autonomy in the first act of cognition enables me "to determine myself in accordance with principles a priori, and to progress from here to experience as a system. "239 "God above me, the World outside me, and the free [creative] will within me, represented in one system."240 Or, as Kant puts it in a variant form: "God above me, the World outside me, the human spirit within me-combined in one all-inclusive system of transcendental philosophy."241 I submit that, when writing the notes and fragments which we know today as the Opus postumum, Kant had in mind as his ultimate goal the development of this projected new version of

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transcendental philosophy and that the real significance of the Opus postumum lies in this fact.

XIV That Kant intended to write a book setting forth his new insights is evident from the number of strikingly similar "title pages" in the notes. The following are fair samples. The arrangement of the lines is Kant's own. In the first instance, I have merely added his name. Titelblatt Der Transcendentalphilosophie hOchster Standpunkt im System der Ideen: Gott, die Welt und der durch Pflichtgesetze sich selbst beschrankende Mensch in der Welt vorgestellt von I. Kant 242 In the second instance, I have added Kant's name and have translated the text: THE HIGHEST FORM OF TRANSCENDENTAL PHILOSOPHY God, the World, and the Bearer of Both, Man in the World Represented in one Unifying System of Pure Reason which includes the totality (das All) of all beings by I. Kant 243 It is unfortunate that Kant did not complete this work, that he left only disjointed fragments of what it might have been. But at least the fragments give us some indication of his intention.

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xv In the Critique ofPure Reason, Kant had said: "Transcendental philosophy is only the idea of a science for which the critique of pure reason has to lay down the complete architectonic plan."244 Such a critique will therefore "contain all that is essential in transcendental philosophy."245 The latter in turn "has the advantage and also the duty of proceeding according to a single principle. "246 In transcendental philosophy, therefore, "no question which concerns an object given to pure reason can be insoluble for this same human reason."247 This pertains to the problem of freedom no less than to the problem of causality.248 The task thus set for transcendental philosophy can be completed because we are here concerned exclusively with "a system of concepts and principles which relate to objects in general but take no account of objects that may be given. "249 The "transcendental object," in other words, is conceived "merely in order to have something corresponding to sensibility as receptivity." It has no other reality. But to it "we can ascribe the whole extent and connection of our possible perceptions, and can say that it is given in itself prior to all experience."25o As far as the subject is concerned, the "I" which accompanies all experience is "a bare consciousness." "Through this I or he or it (the thing) which thinks, nothing further is represented than a transcendental subject of the thoughts = X. It is known only through the thoughts which are its predicates."251 Kant is emphatic on this point, regarding any other interpretation as "dialectical illusion": I think myself on behalf of a possible experience, at the same time abstracting from all actual experience; and I conclude therefore that I can be conscious of my existence even apart from experience and its empirical conditions. In so doing I am confusing the possible abstraction from my empirically determined existence with the supposed consciousness of a possible separate existing of my thinking self, and I thus come to believe that I have knowledge that what is substantial in me is the transcendental subject. But all that I really have in thought is simply the unity of consciousness, on which, as the mere form of knowledge, all determination is based. 252 197

THE HIGHEST FORM OF TRANSCENDENTAL PHILOSOPHY

It is "only as we ascend from the empirical object to the transcendental [that] we find that this subject ... has in its noumenon certafn conditions which must be regarded as purely intelligible."253 And, when this noumenal subject now employs reason in an analysis of experience, it encounters immanent and transcendent elements. The interpretation of the former yields "transcendental knowledge of the World"; the interpretation of the latter yields "transcendental knowledge of God."254 Further than this recognition of a bifurcation in experience the first Critique could not go. The problem of transcending it became, as we have seen, Kant's major concern in the Opus postumum. The approach in the Opus postumum is in his words "doctrinal" rather than "critical," and the whole outlook changes.

XVI The Opus postumum gives us at least seventy-five definitions of transcendental philosophy. The sheer number indicates that Kant was at this time very much occupied with the problem. That many of his formulations are identical in content is only to be expected, for there is much repetition throughout the Opus postumum. Still, we can also discern changes in nuances, some subtle and some not so subtle; and these changes are of special significance. Let me present a few examples. "Transcendental philosophy is the science of pure synthetic cognition a priori from concepts."255 It is "the system of synthetic cognitions from concepts a priori insofar as it is foundational to itself."256 It is "not a science which has its own special object, but is a universal principle of reason for the founding of a science."257 Formulations such as these can still be regarded as being essentially in harmony with Kant's basic position in the first Critique. But other formulations indicate that his conception of transcendental philosophy was undergoing profound changes. For instance: "Transcendental philosophy begins with the metaphysical foundations of natural science, contains the principles a priori of the transition to physics and the formal aspect of the latter, ... and moves on (schreitet iiber) to physics as a principle of the possibility of experience through which the whole of cognition becomes an aggregate

198

THE HIGHEST FORM OF TRANSCENDENTAL PHILOSOPHY

of perceptions. "258 "That which contains, unified in one system of cognition a priori, the principles of logic, metaphysics, moral physiology and the transition to physics is called transcendental philosophy."259 , But also: "Transcendental philosophy is the subjective principle of the combined theoretically-speculative and morally-practical . reason in a system of the Ideas of one all-inclusive whole of all beings under one principle of synthetic propositions a priori. "260 It is "the system of reason which unites the theoretically speculative and morally-practical reason in one principle": 26 I "the system of the Ideas in one absolute whole. "262 And with a shift in meaning: it is "the highest concept of reason of a synthetic cognition a priori of the possibility of experience in general":263 "the all-inclusive concept of the principles of reason which completes itself a priori in a system."264 It is "pure philosophy as a system of the ideas of speculative and morally-practical reason insofar as this systenl is an unconditional whole."265 Its "objects are God, the World and man in the World subject to the concept of duty."266 There now occurs what I regard as the final and most crucial turn in Kant's thinking. Kant put it succinctly: "Transcendental philosophy is an idealism; for the subject constitutes itself. "267 Lest this statement be dismissed as unimportant, I must say at once that there are at least twenty definitions of transcendental philosophy in the Opus postumum which, in one way or another, support it. Let me cite a few exampIes: "Transcendental philosophy is the absolute principle for determining oneself idealistically as a system of synthetic cognitions a priori ... in respect of the fornl of self-consciousness."268 If this is a bit obscure, let me try another: "Transcendental philosophy is the principle of the system of Ideas for constituting oneself (me) a priori as an object of pure reason ([ of the Ideas, that is] which are the originator [Urheber] of their own subject)."269 Kant's parenthetical reference to "nle" seems to me of particular significance. But consider other passages: "Transcendental philosophy contains ... the formal principles of the unity of the principles of the subject for it to be its own originator (Urheber)."270 It is "the formal principle for constituting oneself systematically as the object of cognition."271 It is "the capacity to constitute oneself as an object 199

THE HIGHEST FORM OF TRANSCENDENTAL PHILOSOPHY

through Ideas of pure reason under a principle of synthetic cognition a priori in accordance with concepts, and to present oneself in relation to oneself and to other beings outside oneself. Autonomy of freedom."272 In brief, it is "the capacity of the subject ... to make itself. '.'273 Or consider this: "Transcendental philosophy is the doctrine of the totality of the Ideas which contain the whole of synthetic cognition a priori from concepts in one system of the theoreticallyspeculative as well as the morally-practical reason under one principle through which the thinking subject constitutes itself in idealism, not as a thing but as a person, and is itself the originator of that system of Ideas. "274 "Transcendental philosophy is the consciousness of the capacity to be originator (Urheber) of its Ideas in theoretical as well as in practical respect."275 And it is "the synthetic determination of a rational being through itself synthetically as material content of intuition within an empirical manifold in thoroughgoing determination as an object."276 Although in quotations given earlier a reference to the human subject "(me)" is clearly indicated, Kant points out that "this allcomprehensive principle of synthetic cognition a priori of human reason" is "grounded in reason itself':277 that reason, being autonomous, is "the originator of itself."278 He states the same idea in somewhat different form: "Transcendental philosophy is the selfcreation (autocracy) of the Idea into a complete system of the objects of pure reason"279 It is "the system of Ideas which, independently of all given objects, creates for itself ... a necessary and determinate whole as the totality of the beings (Wesen) of reason."280

XVII Still other definitions might be quoted, but nothing is gained from mere repetition. I shall therefore add only one final passage. The reason for adding this passage will be readily apparent: "Transcendental philosophy is the system of all Ideas of pure reason through which the subject constitutes itself, synthetically and a priori. as object of thinking and [thus] becomes originator of its own existence. Spinoza's God who contains no external object, no object of perception at all."281 200

THE HIGHEST FORM OF TRANSCENDENTAL PHILOSOPHY

The reference to Spinoza seems to me extremely important as far as Kant's final position, his "highest form of transcendental philosophy," is concerned. We must nevertheless be cautious, for Ka,nt's position is not identical with Spinoza's, and Kant does not mean to assert that it is. That there are affinities between the views of Kant and Spinoza cannot well be denied. Kant himself was aware of it: "Transcendental philosophy is the totality (Inbegriff) of the Ideas of all principles of the theoretical-speculative and the morally-practical reason in one unconditional (absolute) whole in which reason first (urspriinglich) posits itself in synthetic cognition a priori (making the subject into an object, like Spinoza)."282 "Spinoza's idea to intuit all objects in God means as much as to comprehend in one system and under one principle all concepts which comprise the formal aspect of cognition."283 "Reason proceeds with the projection of its forms (forma dat esse rei) because it alone carries necessity with it. Spinoza: ... to see everything in God. "284 Kant characterizes Spinoza's position more specifically in such statements as the following: "A system of the acknowledgment of all things in God."285 "To see all objects in God in accordance with the formal principle ofunity."286 "To see in God (according to Spinoza's concept) what is subjective."287 "To see oneself in God as the totality of allbeings."288 "I see myself (according to Spinoza) in God who is the law-giver within me."289 But Kant objects to "Spinoza's transcendental idealism which, when taken literally, is transcendent, i.e., it is an object without concept: it represents what is subjective as being objective."29o To be sure, Kant says, "there is a God; for there is a categorical imperative of duties before which all knees are bent in heaven and on earth, and whose name is holy; but we are not allowed to assume a substance as representative of this being ... as Spinoza did, ... for that would be a reverie. "291 What Kant objects to fundamentally is Spinoza's reversal of the relationship of God and man: "Not that we, as Spinoza surmises, intuit [everything] in the divinity, but, conversely, that we carry our concept of God into the objects of pure intuition, into our concept of transcendental philosophy."292 "Ideas are images (intuitions) created a priori by pure reason which, prior to the cognition of 201

THE HIGHEST FORM OF TRANSCENDENTAL PHILOSOPHY

things, are but subjective objects of thought. ... They are the prototypes according to which Spinoza thought that all things must be seen in God as to form, i.e., [they are] the formal aspects of the elements out of which we make God. "293 "The spirit of man [so Kant holds] is Spinoza's God. "294 "Spinoza's concept of God and man, according to which the philosopher sees all things in God, is [simply] fanaticism (conceptus fanaticus). "295 "We see all objects in God (according to Spinoza); but equally we can say that, in their reality, they [the objects] must be encountered in the World."296 "God and the World .,. are not analytically the same but can be thought in synthetic unity according to the principles of transcendental philosophy."297 "Together they constitute the universe, the sum total of all beings. "298 As Kant also puts it: "The universe contains God and the World."299 And, as we have seen, it is the subject, as rational being, it is We, who, in the highest form of transcendental philosophy, project this unity of Ideas in primordial self-determination. It is the "I" which, in positing itself, also posits the "non-I"-i.e., the whole of Reality, including God and the World-over against itself. If this sounds Fichtean rather than (traditionally) Kantian, so be it. It is precisely what Kant was coming to in the Opus postumum.

202

NOTES

NOTES FOR INTRODUCTION 1. Frederick Van De Pitte, Kant as Philosophical Anthropologist (The Hague: Martinus Nijhoff, 1971), p. 5. 2. Immanuel Kant: Briefwechsel, selected and annotated by Otto Schondorfer, with an Introduction By Rudolf Malter and Joachim Kopper (Hamburg: Felix Meiner, 1972), p. 634. Although the Meiner edition of the Briefwechsel is a selection, it contains all letters written by Kant. 3. Briefwechsel, p. 528. 4. H. J. de Vleeschauwer, La Deduction transcendentale dans I'Oeuvre de Kant (Paris: LaHaye): Vol. I (1934): The Deduction Prior to the [first] Critique (332 pages); Vol. II (1936): The Deduction from 1781 to 1787 (597 pages); Vol. III (1937): The Deduction from 1787 up to the Opus postumum (709 pages). A summary of this work was published in 1939 under the title L'Evolution de la Pensee Kantienne. This "summary" is available in a translation by A. R. C. Duncan: The Development of Kantian Thought (London-New York: Thomas Nelson and Sons, 1961). Hereafter cited as de Vleeschauwer-Duncan. See also: Kuno Fischer, Immanuel Kant: Entwicklungsgeschichte und System der Kritischen Philosophie, 2 volumes (Mannheim: F. Bassermann, 1860); and Konrad Dietrich, Die Kant'sche Philosophie in ihrer inneren Entwicklungsgeschichte (Freiburg: J. C. B. Mohr, 1885). 5. de Vleeschauwer-Duncan, p. 4. In general, de Vleeschauwer stresses the external influences and circumstances in the development of Kant's thinking. But his detailed study of the transition from the first to the second edition of the Critique of Pure Reason is of special significance, giving us a sentence by sentence analysis of both versions of the Transcendental Deduction. See also Paton's commentary in this respect. H. J. Paton, Kant's Metaphysics of Experience (New York: Macmillan, 1936), especially Vol. II, Chapters XXXVII, XXXVIII, XXXIX, and XLI. 6. It is, of course, impossible to refer specifically to every publication in the field; Kant literature is much too voluminous for that. During the years 1965-69 alone more than 400 articles and books dealing with some aspect of Kant's philosophy were published. For the titles see Rudolf Malter, "KantBibliography," in Proceedings of the Third International Kant Congress, ed. Lewis White Beck (New York: Humanities Press, 1972), pp. 16-46.

NOTES NOTES FOR CHAPTER I 1.

2. 3.

4.

5. 6. 7. 8. 9. 10. 11. 12. 13. 14. 15. 16. 17. 18. 19. 20. 21. 22. 23. 24. 25. 26. 27. 28. 29.

Ludwig Ernst Borowski, Darste//ung des Lebens und Charakters Immanuel Kant's (Konigsberg: Nicolovius, 1804; Aetas Kantiana reprint volume 23), pp. 28, 33, 163. The passage quoted is from page 164. Borowski became one of Kant's students in 1755 and remained his friend. Kant himself read, corrected, and approved the first part of this biography, including the passages referred to. Ibid., p. 171. Reinhold Bernhard Jachmann, Immanuel Kant Geschildert in Briefen an einen Freund (Konigsberg: Nicolovius, 1804; Aetas Kantiana reprint volume 114), p. 14. Jachmann was for many years one of Kant's closest friends and gives us a remarkable account of Kant's personality. Kants Gesammelte Schriften, edition of the Preussische Akademie der Wissenschaften, 1902-, Vol. I, pp. 3-181. Unless otherwise indicat\ed, all references to Kant's works will be to this edition and will be given in the customary manner, including pages and lines of the text, thus: AA I 156, 25-31. The first nine volumes of the Akademie-Ausgabe are now available as photomechanical reprints under the title Kants Werke, Akademie Textausgabe (Berlin: Walter de Gruyter, 1968). Selected passages of the Gedanken von der wahren Schatzung have been translated by John Handyside and are included in Handyside's Kant's Inaugural Dissertation and Early Writings on Space (La Salle, Ill.: Open Court, 1929), pp. 3-15. AA I 7, 19-21; 9, 14-16. AA I 10, 25-27. AA I 14, 1-3. AA I 17, 9-14. AA I 17, 20-22. AA I 18, 10-16. AA I 23,5-7. AA IV 497. Translation by James Ellington, Metaphysical Foundations of Natural Science (Indianapolis, Ind.: Bobbs-Merrill Co., Library of Liberal Arts, 1970), p. 41. AA I 23, 9-12. AA I 23, 17-33. AA I 24, 33-25, 2. AA I 25, 4-6. AA I 25, 20-22. AA I 25, 25-29. AA I 33, 1-17,26-29; 34, 19-21. AA I 35, 1-13. AA I 35, 16-17. AA I 30, 1-9. AA I 37, 21-30; 37, 2. AA I 38, 3-8. AA I 40, 24-36. AA I 140, 10-19. AA I 140, 19-23. AA I 145, 23-26. AA I 148, 10-24.

204

NOTES 30. 31. 32. 33. 34. 35. 36.

AA I 149, 1-3. AA I 149, 17-22. AA I 149, 23-32; 152, 1-5. AA I 154, 11-155, 18. AA I 149, 3-5. iJriefwechsel, p. 1. AA I 215-368. An English translation of this work by Milton K. Munitz is available under the title Universal Natural History and Theory ofthe Heavens (Ann Arbor: University of Michigan Press, 1969). Unfortunately, this translation omits the philosophically important Chapter VIII of Part II. 37. AA I 221, 5-9. 38. AA I 230, 1-3. 39. AA I 247-306. 40. AA I 253, 23-254, 3. 41. AA I 254, 19-21. 42. AA I 254, 34-255, 9. 43. AA I 255, 21-24. 44. AA I 256, 2-12. 45. Immanuel Kant, Critique of Practical Reason, trans. Lewis White Beck (Chicago: University of Chicago Press, 1949, 2d imprint 1950), p. 258. 46. Briefwechsel, p. 506. 47. Ibid., pp. 200f. 48. Ibid., pp. 37-39. 49. AA I 230, 16-26. 50. AA I 353, 32-35. This must not be confused with Wright of Durham's thesis that (in Kant's words) "a strong Being of the nature of a divinity" is at the spatial center of the whole of nature"-a thesis which Kant specifically repudiated. AA I 328, 18-329, 19. 51. AA I 356, 17-24. 52. AA I 359, 37-360, 10. 53. AA I 263, 34-36. 54. All quotations from Pope's "Essay on Man" are from Eighteenth Century Poetry and Prose, ed. Louis I. Bredvold, Alan D. McKillop, and Lois Whitney (New York: The Ronald Press, 1939), pp. 370-73. 55. AA I 346, 18-23. 56. AA I 365, 10-14. 57. AA I 314, 27-30. 58. AA I 316, 36-317, 5. 59. AA I 334, 8-11. 60. AA I 346, 19-20. 61. AA II 66, 23-25. 62. AA II 163, 4-6. 63. AA II 71, 22-25. 64. AA II 71, 7-10. 65. AA II 72, 5-23. 66. AA II 74, 6-9. 67. AA II 79, 25-28. 68. AA II 81, 21-24. 69. Briefwechsel, p. 380. 70. Ibid., p. 381. 71. Ibid., p. 382.

205

NOTES 72. Ibid., p. 390. 73. AA II 83, 33-84, 2. 74. AA II 88, 12-15. 75. 'AA II 88, 16-20. 76. AA II 91, 3-11. 77. Briefwechsel, p. 27. 78. de Vleeschauwer-Duncan, p. 13. 79. Borowski, p. 170. 80. Immanuel Kant, Fragmente in I. Kants samtliche Werke in Chronologischer ReihenfoIge, ed. G. Hartenstein (Leipzig: L. Voss, 1867-69), Vol. VIII, p. 630.

NOTES FOR CHAPTER II 1. 2. 3. 4. 5. 6. 7.

8. 9. 10. 11. 12. 13. 14. 15. 16. 17. 18. 19. 20.

21. 22. 23.

Briefwechsel, p. 41. Ibid., p. 42. AA II 276, 5-6. AA II 283, 29-33. Critique of Pure Reason, trans. Norman Kemp Smith (New York: The Humanities Press, 1950 reprint), A837 / B865. All references to this work will be given to the A and B editions of the Critique, as just indicated. A713 / B741. AA XXIV 452, 14-15. To be sure, what we know as the Vorlesungen are student notes of Kant's lectures. However, with respect to the problem under discussion they are entirely consistent with Kant's own formulations and may therefore be accepted as reliable. AA XXIV 256, 8-10. AA XXIV 451, 32-34. AA XXIV 452, 8-10. AA XXIV 452, 17-18. AA XXIV 452, 26-28. AA XXIV 542, 25-26. AA XXIV 255, 2-4. AA XXIV 453,26-28; 256, 14-17. AA XXIV 253, 32. AA XXIV 457,9-10. cr. Lewis White Beck, "Kant's Theory of Definition," in Kant: A Collection of Critical Essays, ed. Robert Paul Wolff (Garden City: Doubleday & Co., 1967), pp. 23-36. AA XXIV 456,24-25. AA XXIV 457, 1-2. AA XXIV 268, 25-27. This is, of course, what Kant had in mind when, in the Critique of Pure Reason, he said: "A new light flashed upon the mind of the first man ... who demonstrated the properties of the isosceles triangle. The true method, so he found, was ... that he must not ascribe to the figure anything save what necessarily follows from what he has himself set into it in accordance with his concept." BxiL AA XXIV 268,43-269, 1. AA XXIV 457, 29-30. AA XXIV 269, 35-36: "Through analysis no concept comes into being; through it the concept can only be clarified."

206

NOTES 24.

25. 26. 27.. 28. 29. 30.

31. 32. 33. 34. 35. 36. 37. 38.

39. 40. 41. 42.

43. 44.

45. 46. 47. 48.

49. 50. 51.

See Lewis White Beck, Studies in the Philosophy ofKant (Indianapolis & New York: Bobbs-Merrill, The Liberal Arts Press, 1965), p. 68: "Mathematics is the only science able to construct its concepts a priori, and only by construction can achieve completeness and precision in knowledge." AA XXIV 270, 18-20. AA XXIV 271, 8-10. AA XXIV 456, 5-6. AA XXIV 460, 13-14. AA XXIV 463, 31-32. AA XXII 72, 8-9, and various other places in both volumes. This statement seems to me to be especially significant, for it shows that, in Kant's sense, synthetic a priori principles are grounded in the construction of concepts. AA V 52; Practical Reason, Beck translation, p. 161. Moltke S. Gram, Kant, Ontology and the A Priori (Evanston: Northwestern ,University Press, 1968), p. 46. Beck, Studies, p. 67. Bertrand Russell, Introduction to Mathematical Philosophy (London: George Allen & Unwin, 1919), p. 145. Jaakko Hintikka, "Kant on the Mathematical Method," in Kant Studies Today, ed. Lewis White Beck (La Salle: Open Court, 1969), p. 119n. A716f / B744f. A732 / B760. Paul Carus, ed., Kant's Prolegomena to Any Future Metaphysics (La Salle, Ill.: Open Court, 1961 ed.), p. 18; Lewis White Beck, ed., Prolegomena to Any Future Metaphysics (Indianapolis: Bobbs-Merrill Co., 1950), p. 17. Prolegomena, Carus, p. 21; Beck, p. 17. A734 / B762. A717 / B745. Johann Schultz (1739-1805) was professor of mathematics at the University of Konigsberg. Kant referred to him as "the best philosophical mind I know in our region" (Briefwechsel, p. 104) and as his "admirable friend" (ibid., p. 740). They saw eye to eye on matters mathematical and were in frequent contact. See Johann Schultz, Prufung der Kantischen Kritik der Reinen Vernunft (Konigsberg: Hartung, Vol. I, 1789; Vol. II, 1792), Aetas Kantiana reprint No. 248. Briefwechsel, p. 356. Ibid., p. 357. See also Gerhard Knaus, "Extensional-Intensional Interpretation of the Synthetic Propositions A Priori," in Proceedings of the Third International Kant Congress, ed. Lewis White Beck (New York: Humanities Press, 1972), pp. 356-61. B15f. Briefwechsel, pp. 472f. Ibid., p. 475. Ibid., p. 476. See also W. H. Werkmeister, A Philosophy ofScience (Lincoln, Neb.: University of Nebraska Press, Bison Books reprint, 1969), pp. 163-69. Briefwechsel, p. 477. Ibid., p. 478. Schultz, Vol. I, p. 71. Schultz gives as an example of axioms in arithmetic the "law of association": c + (a + b) = (c + a) + b; and as an example of postulates or "practical principles": "It shall be possible to increase or decrease

207

NOTES

52. 53. 54. 55.

56. 57. 58. 59. .60. 61.

62. 63. 64.

65.

66.

67. 68. 69.

70.

any given quantity by as much as one pleases, i.e., infinitely." (Ibid., pp. 219 and 221, respectively) For geometry he gives as an example of axioms: "Only one plane passing through a straight line and a point not on that line is possible"; and as an example of postulates: "It shall be possible to draw a straight line between any two points." (Ibid., pp. 65-72) Ibid.,' p. 73. Ibid., p. 225. Johann Georg Heinrich Feder, Ueber Raum und Causalitat: Zur Prufung der Kantischen Philosophie (Gottingen, 1787), Aetas Kantiana No. 70, §§ 9-13; pp. 170, 178,260. Paul Albrecht Friedrich Reimarus, Ueber die Grunde der menschlichen Erkenntnis und der naturlichen Religion (Hamburg, 1787), Aetas Kantiana No. 208, pp. 42-45. Dietrich Tiedemann, "Geist der spekulativen Philosophie/' in H essische Beitrage (Marburg, Vol. I, 1784), Aetas Kantiana No. 274, pp. 116-23. Gottlob August Tittel, Kantische Denkformen oder Kategorien (Frankfurt, 1787), Aetas Kantiana No. 284, pp. 88ff. Adam Weishaupt, Zweifel uber die Kantischen Begriffe von Zeit und Raum (Niirnberg, 1788), Aetas Kantiana No. 303. Schultz, pp. 79-211 . Ibid., p. 211. B40. Paton comments: "The method of Euclid is ... explained correctly by the theory of Kant." H. J. Paton, Kant's Metaphysic of Experience (New York: Macmillan, 1936), Vol. I, p. 159. See also Wilhelm Meinecke, "Die Bedeutung" der Nicht-Euklidischen Geometrie in ihrem Verhaltnis zu Kants Theorie der mathematischen Erkenntnis," Kant-Studien, 11 (1906), pp. 209-32; and Gottfried Martin, Immanuel Kant, Ontologie und Wissenschaftslehre (Berlin: Walter de Gruyter, 4th edition, 1969), pp. 30-31. A732 / B760; A734 / B762. A732 / B760. A633 / B662. Friedrich Kaulbach, "Die Entwicklung des Synthesis-Gedanken bei Kant," in Studien zu KanIs Philosphischer Entwicklung, ed. Heinz Heimsoeth, Dieter Henrich, and Giorgio Tonelli (Hildesheim: Georg Olms Verlagsbuchhandlung, 1967), p. 75. For further discussion of this problem see Lewis White Beck, "On the MetaSemantics of the Problem of the Synthetic a Priori," in Beck, Studies, Chapter V, pp. 92-98. . Dieter Henrich, "Ueber denUrsprung der Unterscheidung Analytischer und Synthetischer Urteile," in Studien, p. 32n. A4/ D8. A464 /B492. Prolegomena, Carus, pp. 21-22; Beck, pp. 17-18.

NOTES FOR CHAPTER III 1. The problem of non-Euclidean geometries had been discussed in mathematical circles ever since the Italian mathematician G. Saccheri demonstrated in 1733 that it was possible to develop a self-consistent system of theorems when one assumes, contrary to Euclidean geometry, that the sum of the interior angles of

208

NOTES

2. 3. 4. 5. 6. 7. 8.

9.

10. II.

12.

13. 14. 15. 16. 17. 18. 19. 20. 21. 22. 23. 24. 25.

a triangle is less than two right angles. (See W. H. Werkmeister, A Philosophy ofScience [Lincoln, Neb.: University of Nebraska Press, Bison Books reprint, 1969], pp. 190-98.) Although in all probability Kant did not know Saccheri's work directly, his close friend, the mathematician and philosopher Johann Heinrich Lambert, was quite familiar with it. In fact, he was one of the leading advocates of the new approach. For the whole problem of non-Euclidean geometry see Wilhelm Meinecke, Kanl-Studien. II (1906), pp. 207-32; and Gottfried Martin, Immanuel Kant. Ontologie und Wissenschaftslehre (Berlin: Walter de Gruyter, 4th edition, 1969), p. 20. AA I 23, 28-34. AA I 24, 19-25, 2. AA I 25, 25-34. AA II 16,8-17, 17. AA II 17, 17-27. AA II 287, 7-35. Von dem ersten Grunde des Unterschiedes der Gegenden im Raume. AA II 213-301. A translation of this essay by John Handyside is included in Handyside, Kant's Inaugural Dissertation and Early Writings on Space (La Salle, Ill.: Open Court, 1929). Oeuvres Philosophique de Leibniz, Janet edition, Vol. III, pp. 776, 743. See also Christopher Browne Garnett, The Kanlian Philosophy of Space (New York: Columbia University Press, 1939), Chapter Ill; and Werkmeister, Philosophy of Science. p. 65. AA II 377, 24-26. AA II 378, 7-11. AA II 378, 12-27. Werkmeister, Philosophy of Science. pp. 52-60. Garnett, Chapter II. Garnett's Chapter IV, "Kant's Theory of Space About 1768," is inaccurate in several respects. For example, we are told (p. 132) that in 1768 Kant "realized for the first time the specific nature of truths in mathematics," that "truth in mathematics is a priori and synthetic." As I have shown, Kant realized it in 1763. We are told also (p. 133) that, in 1769, Kant "used his doctrine of space to explain" that "truth in mathematics is a priori and synthetic." This just is not so. Kant's position ever since 1763 was that propositions in mathematics are synthetic and a priori because they are obtained by means of a construction of concepts. AA II 379, 22-27. AA II 381, 14-20. AA II 381, 24-382, 21. AA II 382, 24-32. AA II 383, 4-12. AA II 383, 13-24. AA II 383, 24-29. Werkmeister, Philosophy of Science. pp. 53-60. See also Garnett, Chapter II, "Newton's Theory of Space." AA II 383, 29-34. Briefwechsel. pp. 14f. AA II 70-163. The passage quoted is on p. 163. AA II 283, 11-296, 10. AA II 298, 2-3. I am here not interested in tracing the sources of Kant's precritical ethics. For this the reader is referred to Paul Menser's pioneering work, "Der Entwicklungsgang der Kantischen Ethik in den Jahren 1760-1785,"

209

NOTES

26. 27. 28. 29. 30. 31. 32. 33. 34. 35. 36. 37. 38. 39. 40. 41. 42. 43. 44. 45. 46. 47. 48. 49. 50. 51. 52. 53. 54. 55. 56. 57. 58. 59. 60.

in Kant-Studien. 2 (1898): 290-322, and 3 (1899): 41-104; to Josef Schmucker's Die Ursprunge der Ethik Kants (Meisenheim: Anton Hain, 1961); and to Paul Arthur Schilpp's Kant's Pre-Critical Ethics (1938; 2d ed., Evanston: Northwestern University Press, 1960). In his "Foreword" to the second edition, H. J. Paton says of Schilpp's book that it is "without a rival in the English language"; and this is no doubt so. Schilpp himself said in the Preface to the first edition (pp. xxii) that it is his purpose "to furnish both the factual data and the interpretative intimations upon which a new and more rational interpretation of Kant's ethical thought might be based." My own study of Kantian texts has revealed additional data and, as a consequence, has led me to an interpretation of Kant's precritical views which, in essential respects, differs markedly from Schilpp's. For a critical evaluation of Schilpp's work see Schmucker, especially pp. 271-77. AA II 298, 8. AA II 298,11-19. AA II 299, 8-13. AA II 299, 1-2. AA II 299, 13-18. AA II 299, 34-300, 2. AA II 300, 23-33. AA II 207,4-7. AA II 207, 17-18. AA II 207, 24-208, 7. AA II 208, 10-15. AA II 208, 23-32. AA 11209, 7. See also Kant's discussion of the sublime and the beautiful in the Critique of Judgment. in particular AA V 245-55, 268. AA II 210, 4. AA II 215, 24-28. AA II 217, 11-19. AA II 217, 19-25. AA II 227, 15-23. AA II 227, 25-36. AA XX 58, 12-59, 3. AA XX 44, 12-14. AA XX 145, 5-6. AA XX 145, 6-8. AA XX 144, 17-20. AA XX 145, 18-20. AA XX 137, 1-2. AA XX 135, 10-11. AA XX 67, 5-6. AA XX 136, 6-137, 2. Foundations of the Metaphysics of Morals. trans. Lewis White Beck, with critical essays edited by Robert Paul Wolff (Indianapolis: Bobbs-Merrill Co., 1969), pp. 47-48. AA XX 91, 10-92, 4. AA XX 88, 3-7. AA XX 93, 14-16. AA XX 94, 1-3. AA XX 41. 19-21.

210

NOTES &1. 62. 63. 64. 65.

66. 67. 68. 69. 70. 71. 72. 73. 74. 75. 76. 77. 78. 79. 80.

Briefwechsel, p. 41. Ibid., p. 42. Ibid., p. 52. Ibid., p. 53. Keith Ward, The Development of Kant's View of Ethics (New York: Humanities Press, 1972), pp. 34, 35. Allgemeine deutsche Bibliothek, 4 (1767): 281. AA II 320, 4-5. AA II 322, 1-3. AA II 327, 12-14. AA II 350, 2-6. Briefwechsel, p. 54. AA II 368, 1-2. AA II 368, 26-31. AA II 370, 13-26. AA II 371, 16-372, 7. Stephan Korner, Kant (Baltimore: Penguin Books, 1935), p. 16. Ludwig Ernst Borowski, Darste/lung des Lebens und Charakters Immanuel Kant's (Konigsberg: Nicolovius, 1804), Aetas Kantiana No. 23, p. 59. AA XVIII 69: 5037. . Briefwechsel, pp. 69-70. Ibid., p. 71.

NOTES FOR CHAPTER IV

1.

2. 3. 4. 5. 6. 7. 8. 9. 10. 11. 12. 13.

AA II 387-419. An English translation is available in John Handyside, Kant's Inaugural Dissertation and Early Writings on Space (La Salle, Ill.: Open Court, 192~), pp. 35-85. A detailed discussion of Kant's conception of space and time just prior to 1770 can be found in Christopher Browne Garnett, The Kantian Philosophy of Space (New York: Columbia University Press, 1939), Chapter VI. AA XVII 364: 3955. AA XVII 367: 3960. AA XVII 371: 3974. AA XVII 364: 3955. AA XVII 365: 3957. AA XVII 364: 3955. AA XVII 365: 3957. AA XVII 364: 3955. AA XVII 365: 3957. AA XVII 365: 3957. AA XVII 366: 3958. AA XVII 365: 3957. Kant's thesis that space and time do not originate through sense impression was by no means shared universally. Even as late as 1787, Gottlob August Tittel maintained that "the representations of body and space both spring from experience, although in entirely different ways. The felt resistance gives rise to the concept of something solid (a body). From the absence of resistance, in so far as this is perceptible in vision and touch, the idea of expansion (space) is formed. I press my hand against a wall ... and notice resistance: here is a body. I stretch my arm into the air and see and feel nothing

211

NOTES

14. 15. 16. 17. 18. 19. 20. 21. 22.

23. 24. 25. 26. 27. 28. 29. 30. 31.

32. 33. 34.

35. 36. 37. 38. 39. 40.

which restrains or hinders me: here is space." (Gottlob August Tittel, Kantische Denkformen oder Kategorien [Frankfurt, 1787J, Aetas Kantiana No. 284, pp. 88f.) See also Ernst Platner, Phi/osophische Aphorismen, 2d ed. (Leibzig, 1784), pp. 3OOff. To this argument Schultz (with Kant's approval) replied: "It is too bad that this argument is circular and already presupposes the representation of space, the origin and possibility of which it is intended first to disclose.... The feeling of resistance merely shows me that space is filled, and the feeling of no resistance that it is empty." (Johann Schultz, Prufung der Kantischen Kritik der Reinen Vernunft [Konigsberg: Hartung, Vol. I, 1789; Vol. II, 1792J, Aetas Kantiana No. 248, pp. 92, 181-91.) AA XVII 366: 3958. AA XVII 364: 3957. AA XVII 367: 3961. AA XVII 364: 3957. AA XVII 450: 4187. AA II 387; Handyside, p. 35. See also the German translation of De Mundi in Karl VorHinder, Immanuel Kant, Zur Logik und Metaphysik (Leibzig: Felix Meiner, Philosophische Bibliothek, no date), Vol. 40, p. 89. AA II 389f. AA II 390f. AA II 392. AA II 392. AA II 393. AA II 394. AA II 395. AA II 396. AA II 398. AA II 398. This, of course, is in effect the position of the "Transcendental Aesthetic" of the Critique of Pure Reason, A19 / B33-B73. AA II 398. AA II 400. At this point Kant takes issue specifically with "the English philosophers" (the Newtonians) who take time to be a real flux and with the Leibnizians who regard it as real but abstracted from a succession of internal states (AA 11400-401). Time as conceived by the Newtonians Kant regards as an Unding, "a most egregious fiction." The Leibnizian View, he argues, involves "a vicious circle in the definition of time." AA II 402. But let it be noted that, for Kant, time is not an innate idea. AA II 402. AA 11403. Here Kant again takes issue with the Newtonians who regard space as an "absolute and immeasurable receptacle of possible things" and with the Leibnizians who held that space is a relation of existing things which vanishes when the things are annihilated. (AA 11403-404) His arguments are essentially the same which he used in the case of time. Their validity is not now at issue. AA II 404. Space, also, is not an innate idea. AA II 405. See the "Transcendental Aesthetic." AA II 394f. AA II 395. AA II 395; Handyside, p. 48.

212

NOTES 41. 42. 43. 44. 45. 46. 47. 48. 49. 50. 51. 52. 53. 54. 55. 56. 57. 58. 59. 60.

61.

62.

63. 64.

65. 66. 67. 68. 69. 70. 71. 72. 73. 74.

AA II 396. AA II 397. A375. A492 / B520. AA II 407. AA II 409. AA II 410. AA II 410. AA II 411. AA II 411. AA II 412f. AA II 413. AA II 413-17. AA II 418f. AA II 419. Keith Ward, The Development of Kant's View of Ethics (N ew York: Humanities Press, 1972), pp. 47 and 50, respectively. de Vleeschauwer-Duncan, p. 59. A339/ B397. Briefwechsel, pp. 94f. Ina translation by Arne Unhjem this letter is included in Lewis White Beck, Studies in the Philosophy of Kant (Indianapolis: Bobbs-Merrill, The Liberal Arts Press, 1965), pp. 230-37. Beck himself provides a commentary on the letter (ibid., pp. 54-60) in which he indicates what role it has played in connection with what has been called the "patchwork theory" of the genesis of the Critique of Pure Reason. See Studies, pp. 59-60. My own translation is based upon Briefwechsel, pp. 99-103. This passage ('4In the distinction ... one practical"), it seems to me, is of special importance, for it indicates that, from the beginning, Kant considered as essentially one work what he later presented in the form of his three Critiques. I shall return to this fact in Chapter V. Briefwechse/, pp. l00f. B127. Kant, by the way, had been acquainted with Hume's philosophy at least since 1768. See his letter to Herder, dated May 9, 1768, Briefwechse/, p. 56. Briefwechse/, pp. 102f. Ibid., pp. 113f. Ibid., p. 114. Ibid., p. 115. Ibid., p. 149. Ibid. Ibid., p. 157. Ibid., p. 228. Let it be noted that Kant here, as always, uses a priori adverbially, not adjectivally. Ibid., p. 227. Ibid., pp. 235 and 247f, respectively. Ibid., p. 291.

NOTES FOR CHAPTER V 1. Briefwechse/, p. 335. 2. Jacob Friedrich Abel, Versuch uber die Natur der specu/ativen Vernunft: Zur

213

NOTES

Prufung des kantischen Systems (Frankfurt und Leibzig, 1787), Aetas Kantiana No.2. 3. Johann Georg Heinrich Feder, Ueber Raum und Causalitat. Zur Priifung der Kantischen Philosophie (Gottingen, 1787), Aetas Kantiana No. 70. 4. Adam Weishaupt, Ueber die Grunde und Gewissheit der menschlichen Erkenntnis (Niirnberg, 1788), Aetas Kantiana No. 300. 5. Benedikt Stattler, Anti-Kant, 2 vols. (Miinchen, 1788), Aetas Kantiana No. 260. 6. Gebhard U1rich Brastenberger, Untersuchungen uber Kants Critik der reinen Vernunft (Halle, 1790), Aetas Kantiana No. 48. 7. Hans Vaihinger, Kommentar zu Kants Kritik der reinen Vernunft, 2 vols. (1881, 1892; 2d ed., Stuttgart: Union Deutsche Verlagsgesellschaft, 1922; reprint ed., Aalan, Stuttgart: Scientia Verlag, 1970). 8. Hermann Cohen, Kommentar zu Immanuel Kants Kritik der reinen Vernunft 3d ed. (Leibzig: Felix Meiner, 1920). See also Hermann Cohen, Kants Theorie der Erfahrung (Berlin: Diimmler, 1871); Johann Volkelt, Immanuel Kants Erkenntnistheorie nach ih,en Grundprinzipien Analisiert (Leibzig: L. Voss, 1879); and Max Apel, Kanis Erkenntnistheorie und seine Stellung zur Metaphysik (Berlin: Mayer und Miiller, 1895). 9. Norman Kemp Smith, A Commentary to Kant's 'Critique of Pure Reason' (London, 1923; reprint ed., New York: Humanities Press, 1950). 10. H. J. Paton, Kant's Metaphysic ofExperience, 2 vols. (New York: Macmillan, 1936). 11. Felix Grayeff, Deutung und Darstellung der theoretischen Philosophie Kants (Hamburg: Felix Meiner, 1951). English translation by David Walford, Kant's Theoretical Philosophy (New York: Barnes & Nobel, 1970). See also T. D. Weldon, Introduction to Kant's Critique of Pure Reason (Oxford: Clarendon Press, 1946); Heinrich Cassirer, Kant's First Critique (New York: Macmillan, 1954); P. F. Strawson, The Bounds of Sense: An Essay on Kant's 'Critique of Pure Reason' (London: Methuen & Co., 1966); and Justus Hartnack, Kant's Theory of Knowledge (New York: Harcourt & Brace, 1967). 12. Heinz Heimsoeth, Transzendentale Dialektik. Ein Kommentar zu Kants Kritik der reinen Vernunft, 4 volumes (Berlin: Walter de Gruyter, 1969). 13. Vaihinger had planned two additional volumes, which would deal with the rest of the Critique. However, he got sidetracked by the founding and editing of the Kant-Studien, the organising of the Kantgesellschaft, and the development of his Phi/osophie des Als Db. In the end, much impaired vision prevented further work on the Kommentar. 14. AA II 368, 1-2. 15. Axi. 16. A712/ B740. 17. A713 / B74., A837 / B865, and elsewhere. 18. A712/ B740. 19. A718 / B747. 20. A732 / B760. 21. See Prolegomena, first and second Parts of "The Main Transcendental Problem," Carus, pp. 32-84; Beck, pp. 28-69. 22. A65f / B90f. 23. AA XXII 103, 107, 392, 405, 484, 497, and other places. See also Helmut Holzhey, Kants Erfahrungsbegriff(Basel/Stuttgart: Schwabe & Co., 1970), p. 13: "An investigation of Kant's concept of experience leads indisputably into

214

NOTES

24. 25. 26. 27.

28. 29. 30. 31. 32. 33. 34. 35. 36. 37. 38. 39. 40. 41. 42.

43.

the center (ins Innere) of Kant's philosophy." Despite its title, Paton's commentary does not really come to terms with this problem; and A. C. Ewing does not deal at all with Kant's conception of experience. See A. C. Ewing, A Short Commentary on Kant's Critique of Pure Reason (Chicago: University of Chicago Press, 1938, Phoenix edition, 1967). A110. A601 / B629. B196. A230/ B282. That this conception of experience differs radically from Hume's is obvious. For a detailed study of this difference see Henri Lauener, Hume und Kant: Systematische Gegenuberste/lung einiger Hauptpunkte ihrer Lehren (Bern/Miinchen: Francke Verlag, 1969). See also Henry E. Allison, "Transcendental Affinity-Kant's Answer to Hume," in Proceedings of the Third International Kant Congress, ed. Lewis White Beck (New York: Humanities Press, 1972), pp. 209f: "Hume was right in pointing to the contingency of particular associations within experience, but he was wrong in generalizing from this to the contingency of the principle of uniformity or lawfulness itself." See also E. W. Schipper, "Kant's Answer to Hume's Problem," Kant-Studien 53 (1961/62): 74: "If experience is a knowledge of nature as connected by law, its sequences are necessary and invariant. They are known because they are presupposed by the scientist formulating the laws of nature," and in this sense Kant did indeed answer Hume's challenge. A645 / B673. AA VIII 227. A9 / B13. B73. A382. B410, and other places. A248 / B305. Moltke S. Gram, Kant, Ontology and the A Priori (Evanston: Northwestern University Press, 1968), p. 115. Ewing, pp. 22f, 26f, 40, and elsewhere. S. Korner, Kant (Baltimore: Penguin Books, 1955), p. 22. See, for instance, Paton, Kant's Metaphysic, Vol. I, p. 87. Oliver A. Johnson, "Denial of the Synthetic A Priori," Philosophy 35 (July 1960): 1-10. Herbert Feigl, "Logical Empiricism," Twentieth Century Philosophy, ed. D. D. Runes (New York: Philosophical Library, 1947), p. 387. C. l. Lewis, An Analysis of Knowledge and Valuation (La Salle, Ill.: Open Court, 1946), p. 158. As far as I know, only Robert Paul Wolff has pointed out this fact in a footnote: "The terms 'a priori' and 'a posteriori' do not refer to types of judgments but rather to ways of knowing a judgment.... Kant never writes 'synthetische a priori Urteile'.... 'A priori' and 'a posteriori' are adverbs." Robert Paul Wolff, "A Reconstruction of the Argument of the Subjective Deduction," in Wolff, ed., Kant: A Collection of Critical Essays (Garden City: Doubleday & Co., 1967), p. 98, n. 16. Beck calls the 'a priori' "an epistemological concept." Lewis White Beck, "On the Meta-Semantics of the Problem of the Synthetic A Priori," in Lewis White Beck, Studies in the Philosophy ofKant (Indianapolis: Bobbs-Merrill, 1965), p. 94. B19. Other examples: " ... liegt a priori allen Begriffen zugrunde" (A107);

215

NOTES

44. 45. 46. 47. 48.

49. 50. 51. 52. 53.

54. 55. 56. 57. 58. 59. 60. 61. 62.

63. 64. 65. 66. 67. 68. 69. 70.

" ... als a priori notwendig angesehen" (AI09); "die Bedingungen ... haben a priori ibjective Giiltigkeit" (A Ill); " ... die a priori auf Regeln gegriindet sind" (AI23); " ... was er nach Begriffen a priori hineindachte" (Bxj) " ... urn etwas a priori zu wissen" (ibid.); and so on and on. A247/ B303. A2 / B2. A33 / B49. A85 / B117f. A718 / B746. See also: A56/ B80: " ... the a priori employment of cognition"; B409: " ... a possibility of proving a priori that ..."; B430: " ... as legislating completely a priori"; A634/ B662: " ... is itself known a priori"; and other places. Lewis, Analysis, p. 163. For a discussion of the problem see Lewis White Beck, "Can Kant's Synthetic Judgments Be Made Analytic?" in Beck, Studies, Chapter IV. Lewis, Analysis, p. 161. A493 / B521. B219, A764 / B792. AII0. See also B218; A230 / B282; A495 / B514; A582 / B610; A764 / B792. Although in the Critique ofPure Reason Kant is not consistent in his use of the term 'experience', he stresses the idea of the systemic unity of experience in the Opus postumum. In that work he also states emphatically that we do not have experience but that we make it. I shall discuss this fact more fully in Chapter IX. B218. B139; A156 / B195. A305 / B362. A660/ B688. B135; A299/ B355. A195 / B240. B165; B161; A158 / B197, A494/ B522. B234. A418/ B446; A693 / B72l; A126; 8446n. "By nature, in the empirical sense, we understand the connection of appe~rances as regards their existence according to necessary rules, that is, according to laws." A216/ B263. And A542 / B570: "All events are empirically determined in an order of nature. Only in virtue of this law can appearances constitute nature." A532/ B56O, and elsewhere. B165; A127. A216/ B263; A206f / B252. A668 / B696; A651 / B679. B16. Cf. Prolegomena, Carus, p. 31; Beck, p. 27. A716/ B744. Prolegomena, Carus, p. 36; Beck, p. 30: "Geometry is based upon the pure intuitions of space. Arithmetic achieves its concepts of number by the successive addition of units in time." In relation with Kant's view that space is pure intuition see Wilhelm Meinecke, "Die Bedeutung der Nicht-Euklidischen Geometrie in ihrem Verhaltnis zu Kants Theorie der mathematischen Erkenntnis," Kant-Studien, 11 (1906): 290-32.

216

NOTES 71. 72. 73. 74. 75. 76. 77. 78.

79. 80. 81. 82.

83.

84. 85. 86. 87. 88.

89.

Prolegomena, Carus, p. 36; Beck, p. 30. A51 / B75. B142. B132. B137. B138. AlII. AI08. A51 / B75: "The pure concept [containsJ only the form of the thought of an object in general (iiberhaupt)." A25I. Paton, Metaphysic of Experience, VoL II, p. 443. A93 / B126. See, for example, Paton, Metaphysic of Experience, Vol. II, pp. 245-585; Grayeff, Deutung und Darste//ung, pp. 131-204; Graham Bird, Kant's Theory of Knowledge (New York: Humanities Press, 1962), pp. 110-48; Friedrich Delekat, Immanuel Kant: Historisch-Kritische Interpretation der Hauptschriften, 3d rev. ed. (Heidelberg: Quelle und Meyer, 1969). But the literature dealing with Kant's deductions of the categories and with the categories themselves, collectively and individually, is so immense that it is impossible to present here even a gist of the conflicting interpretations and arguments. That Kant himself regarded the "Deduction of the Pure Concepts of the Understanding" as crucial for his point of view is shown by the fact that he rewrote his Deduction completely without, however, changing his point of view. Paton, incidentally, gives us an almost sentence by sentence comparison of the two versions. See also Robert Paul Wolff, "A Reconstruction of the Argument of the Subjective Deduction," in Wolff, Kant, pp. 88-133. Vaihinger was the first to suggest it. Kemp Smith elaborated and defended it (Kemp Smith, Commentary, pp. 219-70). Paton, it seems to me, has demolished it: "To my mind the whole discussion is a monument of wasted ingenuity, rendered the more pathetic by the learning and clarity of the exposition." (Paton, Metaphysic ofExperience, Vol. I, pp. 38-40; quotation on p. 40.) "This is one of the many cases in which Kant is blamed because he does not write the whole of his philosophy on every page. There could be no better illustration of the perverseness of the whole patchwork theory." (Ibid., pp. 328-29; quotation on p. 329.) B145. A70/ BI04f. B150. BlSI. And this Kant carefully distinguished from a purely intellectual synthesis (synthesis intellectualis). In this connection see Hermann Morchen, Die Einbildungskraft bei Kant, 2d ed. (Tiibingen: Max Niemeyer, 1970). A158/ B197. Although Nicolai Hartmann repudiates Kant's idealism, even he maintains that only if this principle is accepted can "synthetic judgments have a priori validity for a real object." (Nicolai Hartmann, Grundzuge einer Metaphysik der Erkenntnis, 2d ed. [Berlin: Walter de Gruyter, 1925J, p. 340.) For an evaluation of Hartmann's criticism of Kant see Lewis White Beck, "Nicolai Hartmann's Criticism of Kant's Theory of Knowledge," in Beck, Studies in the Philosophy of Kant (Indianapolis & New York: Bobbs-Merrill, The Liberal Arts Press, 1965), pp. 125-57. Paton, Metaphysic of Experience, Vol. I, p. 256. See also H. J. Paton, The

217

NOTES

90. 91. 92. 93. 94. 95. 96. 97. 98. 99. 100. 101. 102. 103. 104.

Modern Predicament (New York: Macmillan, 1955), p. 279: "Many of the elementary blunders imputed to the sage of Konigsberg have been blunders on the part of his interpreters." Jonathan Bennett is rather critical of Kant's Tables of Categories, stating that "this favored dozen serves throughout the rest of the Critique only as a Procrustian bed on which he hacks and wrenches his philosophical insights into a grotesque 'system'." (Jonathan Bennett, Kant's Analytic [Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 1966J, pp. 71-125; quoted from p. 89.) For a parallel statement see Gottfried Marin, Immanuel Kant: Ontologie und Wissenschaftslehre, 4th ed. (Berlin: Walter de Gruyter, 1969), p. 96: "Es ist kummervoll zu sehen, wie Kant spater in der Kritik der praktischen Vernunft, in der Kritik der Urteilskraft, in den Metaphysischen Anfangsgriinden der Naturwissenschaften aIle Probleme in dies Prokrustesbett der zwolf Kategorien hineinzwangt." K. Reich, discussing the problem at length, maintains that Kant himself has given no proof of the completeness of the Table. (K. Reich, Die Vo//standigkeit der kantischen Urteilstafel, 2d ed. [Berlin: R. Schoetz Verlag, 1948].) But Reich seems to be unaware of the fact that Kant has a second Table of twelve "Categories of Freedom with Reference to the Concepts of Good and Evil." AA V, p. 67. J ames Ellington, on the other hand, points out that "within the province of pure general logic no more additions can be made to [theJ list of the logical functions of judgment," and that therefore the Table "as given at B95," is complete. James Ellington, "The Unity of Kant's Thought in His Philosophy of Corporeal Nature," in I. Kant, Metaphysical Foundations ofNatural Science, trans. James Ellington (Indianapolis: Bobbs-Merrill Co., The Library of Liberal Arts, 1970), p. 172. Minimizing the significance of the problem of completeness of Kant's Table of Categories, Gottfried Martin shows rather convincingly that "the ontological point of view of transcendental idealism does not depend on whether there are twelve or twenty-four [or any other number ofJ categories." (Martin, p. 103) But this means at most that Kant's is not the only transcendental idealism conceivable. A52/ B76. Ibid. A53 / B77. A55 / B79. A56 / B80. A57 / B82. A51 / B75: "The Understanding can intuit nothing, the senses can think nothing. Only through their union can knowledge arise." A63 / B88. As we shall see later, the fate of Dletaphysics is here at stake. A78/ BI05. For a detailed discussion of this problem see Paton, Metaphysic ofExperience, Vol. I, pp. 187-242; Grayeff, pp. 78-119. B309. For Kant's own detailed discussion of the problem and of what it entails see 235-60 / B294-315. A277/ B333, A42/ B59, B164, A239/ B298. A373. A371. A375.

218

NOTES 105. 106. 107. 108. 109. 110. Ill. 112. 113.

114. 115. 116. 117. 118. 119. 120. 121. 122. 123. 124. 125. 126. 127. 128. 129. 130. 131. 132. 133. 134. 135. 136. 137.

Bxxvii (Italics added). Erich Adickes, Kant und das Ding an sich (Berlin: Pan Verlag Rolf Heise, 1924), pp. 20, 44. Norman Kemp Smith, Commentary, pp. 217f. H. A. Prichard, Kant's Theory of Knowledge (Oxford: Oxford University Press, 1909), p. 93. Oscar W. Miller, The Kantian Thing-in-itselJ or the Creative Mind (New York: Philosophical Library, 1956), p. xix. Ewing, op. cit., p. 194. George Schrader, "The Thing in Itself in Kantian Philosophy," in Wolff, op. cit., pp. 172f. Ibid., p. 174. See, for example, Gisela Shaw, "Das Problem des Dinges an sich in der englischen Kantinterpretation," Kant-Studien, Erganzungsheft 97 (1969). And A. Wornicke, Die Theorie des Gegenstandes und die Lehre vom Ding-an-sich bei Immanuel Kant (Braunschweig, 1904). Cf. Gerold Prauss, Kant und das Problem der Dinge an sich (Bern: Bouvier Verlag Herbert Grundmann, 2nd edition, 1973), pp. 13-20. A28 / B44. A206/ B251. A38 / B55. Bxxvii. A45 / B63. Italics added. A248f. A278 / B334. Italics added. A567 / B595. A108. AI09. A250. A251. A258 / B313. A371. F. H. Jacobi, David Bume uber den Glauben oder Idealismus und Realismus (Breslau, 1787), p. 223. Erich Adickes, Kants Lehre von der doppe/ten Affektion unseres Ich (Tiibingen, 1929). Surely, Locke did not talk about anything but empirical things. I. Kant, Prolegomena, Carus translation as revised by Lewis White Beck (New York: Library of Liberal Arts, Bobbs-Merrill Company, 1950), pp. 36f. Ibid., p. 36. Ibid., p. 38. B208. Prolegomena, p. 51. George Schrader, for instance, has argued that Kant "sometimes refers to the thing-in-itself as the cause of appearances" (Schrader, op. cit., p. 173). He submits as evidence A37, A190 / B235, A288 / B344, A494 / B523, A617 / B642, and Prolegomena, Paragraph 32. However, I find no reference to causality at A37. At A 190 / B235, Kant does not say that "things-in-themselves" are the cause of appearances; he says instead that things "affect us through perception." And this, I submit, is an entirely different matter. At A288 / B344,

219

NOTES

138. 139. 140. 141. 142. 143. 144. 145. 146. 147. 148. 149. 150. 15 I. 152.

A494/ B523, and A614 / B642 the reference is not to things-in-themseives but to "the transcendental object," and this "merely in order to have something corresponding to sensibility viewed as receptivity." Finally, in Paragraph 32 of the Prolegomena, Kant does not speak of a thing-in-itself as the cause of appearance. He says instead that "appearances ... are based upon a thing in itself," and the context makes it clear that the "thing" meant is an empirical thing. The related thesis of a "double affection" has at last been revealed as what it is-the creation of a myth. See Moltke, S. Gram, "The Myth of Double Affection," in Immanuel Kant: Reflections on His Philosophy, edited by W. H. Werkmeister (Tallahassee: Florida State University Press, 1974). A216 / B263. For an analysis of the whole of Kant's Analytic see Bennett, op. cit. B128. B165. They are the dynamic categories as distinguished from such mathematical categories as unity, plurality, and totality, which have no empirical correlates. Cf. BIIO. B224. AI88 / B231. AI89 / B232. B232. See W. A. Suchting, "Kant's Second Analogy of Experience," in Kant Studies Today, edited by Lewis White Beck (La Salle, III.: Open Court, 1969), pp. 322-40. A190. B234. AI93 / B238. A197/ B240. A203 / B248. A204 / B249f. The literature dealing with Kant's conception of causality is perhaps even more extensive than that which is concerned with the problem of the thing-in-itself, and is more diversified in points of view and in approach. Most of the arguments center on Kant's Second Analogy. Robert Paul Wolff says of this part of the Critique of Pure Reason that it is "undoubtedly one of the most powerful pieces of philosophy ever written." (Robert Paul Wolff, Kant's Theory of Mental Activity: A Commentary on the Transcendental Analytic of the Critique of Pure Reason [Cambridge, Mass.: Harvard University Press, 1963], p. 260.) Jonathan Bennett, on the other hand, tells us that the four aspects of Kant's opposition to Hume are "miserable bases for the claim that empiricist analyses of cause are bound to fai1." (Bennett, pp. 159f.) But when Bennett asks (ibid., p. 161): "Is [Kant] really saying that we have 'a priori knowledge' of causal laws?," with the implication that this is indeed what Kant does, he completely misreads Kant; for the latter most assuredly. holds that all causal laws must be discovered empirically, and that only the principle of causality is valid a priori. Kant would agree with Hume that any "lawlike statement which proves false in even a single instance ought to be dropped." H. J. Paton has devoted more than 70 pages to an analysis of Kant's arguments pertaining to causality (Metaphysic of Experience, Vo1. II, pp. 22193). He has examined what he calls Kant's six proofs of causality in the Second Analogy, pointing out various difficulties and obscurities, but stating correctly

220

NOTES Kant's thesis that "in the total state of affairs preceding any event there is to be found something, 'some as yet indeterminate correlate', which is the cause." (Ibid., p. 270. See also A199 / B244.) G. J. Warnock has argued that the statement that every event has a cause is a speCial sort of statement. It differs from factual assertions but is not analytic. It is empty, because it cannot be falsified. (G. J. Warnock, "Every Event Has a Cause," in Essays in Logic and Language, 2d series, ed. A. G. N. Flew [Oxford: Oxford University Press, 1955], pp. 95f.) Kant, I am sure, would readily agree that the principle of causality is a special sort of statement and that it is empty of any material content because, in itselft it is not a causal law but only the assertion that there nlust be causal laws if nature is to be understood as a realm of connected events. P. F. Strawson finds that, from a certain point on, Kant's argument in the Second Analogy "proceeds by a non sequitur of numbing grossness." As he puts it: "Here comes the step-to conceive order of perception as necessary is equivalent to conceiving the transition or change from A to B as itself necessary, as falling, that is to say, under a rule or law of causal deter· mination.... Hence the Law of Universal Causality is valid for all possible experience." (Strawson, pp. 137f.) Strawson evidently overlooks the fact that, for Kant, the principle of causality is one of the transcendental principles which "can not exhibit a priori anyone of their concepts in a specific instance; they can do so only ... by means of experience, which itself is possible only in conformity with these principles" (A721 / B749), and that the order of our perceptions is not identical with the objective order of events.. Also,. as Moltke S. Gram has pointed out, the standard attacks on the Analogies miss' the mark because the critics overlook the crucial fact that, as far as Kant is concerned, the principles of the Analogies, including the principle of causality, are synthetic because of the relation they have to the forms of sensory intuition; and it is the content of that intuition which instantiates them. (Gram, Ontology, p.

166.) W. A. Suchting believes that the real issue with respect to the principle of causality is not: Is it synthetic?, but: Ca.n it be shown to be also necessary? In arguing for the affirmative, Suchting distinguishes between six steps which lead to the conclusion: "Necessarily, if A and B are constituents of a certain event perception, then A and B are causally related (directly or indirectly)-which was to be demonstrated.'" (Suchting, in'Beck, Studies Today, pp. 324, 329f, respectively.) Step number six in the argument (based upon B234) is this: "Necessarily, if A and B are the constituents of a certain eventperception, then the temporal order of perceptibility of A and B is,what may be variously described as 'determined', 'determinate', 'in conformity with a rule', 'necessary' ." Against this conclusion Jonathan Bennett had argued that we can reverse the temporal order of perceptibility at will, and that therefore this order does not provide an argument in support of Kant's thesis of causal relations. (Bennett, p. 222) But Bennett obviously ignores the crucial distinction Kant makes between a subjective and an objective sequence of A and B. Reversal of the subjective order is indeed but a matter of shifting our attention; but, as Suchting points out (p. 331), we can reverse an objective order "only by causally influencing the state of affairs itself." Bennett's criticism, therefore, does not invalidate Kant's argument at this point. Lothar Schafer has called attention to the fact that the principle of causali-

221

NOTES

153. 154. 155. 156. 157. 158. 159. 160. 161. 162. 163. 164. 165. 166. 167. 168. 169. 170. 171. 172. 173. 174. 175. 176. 177. 178. 179. 180. 181. 182. 183. 184. 185. 186. 187. 188. 189. 190. 191.

ty must be viewed in closest connection with the principle of substance (Third Analogy). (Lothar Schafer, Kant's Metaphysik der Natur [Berlin: Walter de Gruyter, 1964J, p. 106.) This, I believe, is what Kant himself intended (A216 / B263). See also W. H. Werkmeister, "The Critique of Pure Reason and Physics," Kant-Studien (1977): 33-45. A192 / B237. A194/ B239, A193 / B238, A196 / B241. See also Prolegomena, Carus, p. 69; Beck, p. 57. A201 / B246. Briefwechsel, p. 381. Ibid., p. 390. B256. A215 / B262. A216/ B263. A226/ B273. "What it entails" seems to me to be a fair translation of Kant's term Anhang and avoids Kemp Smith's arbitrary substitution of Fortgang for Anhang. A278 / B334. B446n: "By nature ... is meant the sum of appearances in so far as they stand, in virtue of an inner principle of causality, in thoroughgoing interaction." B17. A691 / B719. A627 / B655. A692/ B720. A699 / B727. A700 / B728. A816/ B844. B288, B294. B291, B308. AA II, p. 368 A298 / B355. A132 / B171. A299 / B355. A302/ B359. A305 / B361. A308 / B365. A293-704 / B349-732. A294/ B351. A294/ B352. A298 / B354. A307 / B364. A308 / B365. A311 / B368, A320/ B377. A322/ B379. A323 / B380. A327 / B383. A329 / B385. A334 / B391.

222

NOTES 192. 193. 194. 195. 196. 197. 198. 199. 200. 201. 202. 203. 204. 205. 206.

207. 208. 209. 210. 211. 212. 213. 214. 215. 216. 217. 218. 219. 220. 221. 222. 223. 224. 225.

226. 227. 228.

A336/ B393. See also A669 / B697: "The ideas of pure reason do not, indeed, admit of the kind of deduction that is possible in the case of the categories." A336/ B393. Ibid. A340 / B398. A341 / B399. B131. A341 / B399f. A346/ B404. A343f / B401f. B409. B421. B428. B429f. B430. Briefwechsel, p. 780. To be sure, in the Prolegomena Kant said: "I openly confess my recollection of David Hume was the very thing which many years ago first interrupted my dogmatic slumber and gave my investigations in the field of speculative philosophy a quite new direction." (Carus, p. 7; Beck, p. 8. See also Beck's note on p. 8.) I find these two statements to be supplementary rather than mutually contradictory; for the problem was in any case the validity and the limitations of pure reason as a cognitive faculty. According to his own statement in the Prolegomena, Kant generalized Hume's problem. In doing this, he became involved in the problem of the antinomies. Briefwechsel, p. 223. Ibid., p. 230. A407 / B433. See also Sadik J. AI-Azm, The Origins of Kant's Arguments in the Antinomies (Oxford: The Clarendon Press, 1972). A408 / B435. A408f / B435f. A409/ B436. A411f / B438f. A412/ B439. A413 / B440. Ibid. A415 / B443. A416/ B443. A417/ B445. A418 / B446. A420/ B447. A422 / B449. A435 / B453. A462 / B490. See Kant's statement: "I have therefore found it necessary to deny knowledge in order to make roonl for faith." Bxxx. Critique of Practical Reason, AA V, p. 121; Beck's translation, p. 225. Cf. A464 / B492. A464 / B492. A466-71 / B494-99.

223

NOTES 229. 230. 231. 232. 233. 234. 235. 236. 237. 238. 239. 240. 241. 242. 243. 244. 245. 246. 247. 248. 249. 250. 251. 252. 253. 254. 255. 256. 257. 258. 259. 260. 261.

262.

A471 / B499. A474 / B502, A839-51 / B861-79: "Architectonic of Pure Reason." A475 / B503. A484 / B512. A490/ B518. A491-97 / B518-25. A498 / B526. See also Lothar Schafer, "Zur 'Regulativen Funktion' der Kantischen Antinomien," in Synthesis, 23, No.1 (1971), special issue: Kant and Modern Science: 96-120. A506 / B534. A509f / B537f. A514 / B542. A518 / B546, A519f / B547f. Cf. Traugott Konstantin Oesterreich, Kant und die M etaphysik (Berlin: Reuther und Reichard, 1905). A532 / B560. A532f / B561f. A537 / B565. A538f / B566f. A540f / B568f. A545 / B573. A546f/ B574f. A547 / B575. "Whenever we have the course of nature alone in view, 'ought' has no meaning whatsoever." A553f / B581f. A558 / B586. A840/B868. A571 / B599. AS71-3 / B599-601. A576/ B604. A578-80 / B606-8. A590-630 / B618-58. Literature dealing with the proofs, and in particular with the ontological proof, is extensive but is also so well known and readily accessible that I need not refer to specific titles here. A638 / B666. A597 / B625. A641 / B669. A644 / B672. A645 / B673. Cf. A668 / B696, A674 / B702, A679 / B707: "The supposition which reason makes of a Supreme Being, as the highest cause, is relative only; it is devised solely for the sake of systematic unity in the world of sense, and is a mere something in idea, of which, as it may be in itself, we have no concept." And A682 / B710: "This transcendental thing is only the schema of the regulative principle by which reason, so far as lies in its power, extends systematic unity over the whole field of experience." Also A687 / B715: "The assumption of a Supreme Intelligence, as the one and only cause of the universe, though in the idea alone, can always benefit reason and can never injure it." But A688 / B716: "If this assumption be treated as constitutive it goes much further than observation has thus far been able to justify." A795f / B823f.

224

NOTES 263. 264. 265. 266. 267. 268. 269. 270.

271. 272.

A832 / B86O. AA V, p. 4. Immanuel Kant, Critique ofPractical Reason, Lewis White Beck trans. (Chicago: University of Chicago Press, 1949; 2d reprint ed., 1950), p. 118. AA V, p. 5; Beck, p. 119. AA V, p. 20; Beck, p. 131. AA V, p. 27; Beck, p. 138. AA V, p. 29; Beck, p. 140. AA V, p. 32; Beck, p. 143. AA V, p. 31; Beck, p. 142. Kant is arguing in effect that only what reason, qua reason, wills is rational, and is therefore binding for all rational beings. The universal principle basic to all morality may therefore be stated simply as: "Always act in accordance with the dictates of reason." The object of the will, Le., of practical reason, when the latter is acting in conformity with this universal principle is "the idea of an object as an effect possible through freedom" (AA V, p. 57; Beck, p. 166). Such objects are "the good" (as "a necessary object of desire") and "the evil" (as "a necessary object of aversion") (AA V, p. 60; Beck, p. 167). Both are "properly referred to actions and not to the sensory state of the person" (AA V, p. 60; Beck, p. 169). Neither is "defined prior to the moral law." Both "must be defined after and by means of the law" (AA V, p. 62; Beck, p. 171); for both are "consequences of the a priori determination of the will" and presuppose "a causality of pure reason." They are objects of actions under "a law of freedom" rather than "a natural law" (AA V, p. 64; Beck, p. 173). For a detailed discussion of the interrelations of the "radical evil in human nature" and man's "predisposition toward the good" see Kant's Religion Innerha/b der Grenzen der Blossen Vernunft (1793) which is available in a translation by Theodore M. Greene and Hoyt H. Hudson as Religion within the Limits ofReason A/one, with a new introductory essay by John R. Silber (New York: Harper Torchbook edition, 1960). Once we acknowledge the causative freedom of a rational will, we also realize that, in the case of practical reason, Le., in "the idea of the law of causality which, as the law of freedom, reason gives itself," we transcend the realm of nature; and the categories, which in their theoretical employment are only forms of thought through which we integrate into objects of experience what is given through our senses, now, as "categories of freedom," are "elementary practical concepts which determine the free faculty of choice" and "themselves produce the reality of that to which they refer (the intention of the will)." (AA V, p. 65; Beck, 174.) The categories of modality initiate the transition from the empirical employment of the categories of the understanding to the categories. of freedom. A schematization of the latter is not possible because they pertain to the ideas of the morally good and the morally evil which, as objects of pure practical reason, have no sensuous correlate. Still, it is possible to "use the nature of the sensuous world as the type of an intelligible nature so long as we do not carryover to the latter intuitions [of space and time] and what depends upon them, but apply to it only the form of lawfulness in general." (AA V, p. 70; Beck, p. 178) AA V, p. 36; Beck, p. 147f. AA V, p. 44; Beck, p. 154.

225

NOTES 273. 274.

AA V, p. 65; Beck, p. 174. AA V, p. 67; Beck, p. 175. I have taken the liberty of rewording some of Kant's formulations slightly in the interest of clarity. 275. Ibid. 276. AA V, p. 17; Beck, p. 178. 277. AA V, pp. 72f; Beck, pp. 180f. 278. AA V, pp. 75-78; Beck, pp. 183-86. 279. AA V, pp. 86-88; Beck, 193f. 280. AA V, p. 162; Beck, p. 259. 281. Critique of Judgment, trans. J. H. Bernard (1892; reprint ed., New York: Hafner Publishing Co., 1968), p. 286: "Only in man, and only in him as subject of morality, do we meet with unconditioned legislation in respect of purposes, which therefore alone render him capable of being a final purpose, to which the whole of nature is teleologically subordinated." See also the translation by James Creed Meredith (1928; reprint ed. in 1 vol., Oxford: The Clarendon Press, 1969), Part II, p. 100. 282. AA V, p. 123; Beck, p. 227. 283. AA V, pp. 125f; Beck, pp./228f. 284. AA V, p. 135; Beck, p. 237. See Religion within the Limits, pp. 90f: "The concept of an ethical commonwealth is the concept of a people of God under ethical laws." 285. AA V, p. 177; Bernard, p. 13; Meredith, Part I, pp. 15f. 286. AA V, p. 170; Bernard, p. 6; Meredith, Part I, p. 7. 287. AA V, p. 176; Bernard, p. 12; Meredith, Part I, p. 14. 288. AA V, p. 178; Bernard, p. 15; Meredith, Part I, p. 17. 289. AA V, p. 179; Bernard, p. 18; Meredith, Part I, p. 15. 290. AA V, pp. 180f; Bernard, pp. 16f; Meredith, Part I, pp. 19f. 291. AA V, p. 181; Bernard, p. 18; Meredith, Part I, p. 21. 292. AA V, p. 184; Bernard, p. 20; Meredith, Part I, p. 23. 293. AA V, p. 185; Bernard, p. 22; Meredith, Part I, p. 25. 294. AA V, p. 192; Bernard, p. 29; Meredith, Part I, p. 33. 295. AA V, p. 193; Bernard, p. 30; Meredith, Part I, p. 35.

NOTES FOR CHAPTER VI 1.

2. 3. 4.

5. 6. 7. 8. 9.

B132f: The "transcendental unity of apperception," as "an act of spontaneity," is basic to all cognition. Upon it, as "the principle of the original synthetic unity of apperception," depends the objective validity of all our knowledge. B137f. B165. The architectonic of pure reason would be incomplete were the special laws of natural science not included in the all-inclusive system of human experience. AA IV, p. 469; Metaphysical Foundations of Natural Science, trans. James Ellington (Indianapolis, Ind.: Bobbs-Merrill Co., Library of Liberal Arts, 1970), p. 5. All references to the translation will be identified as Ellington. Axxi. BI09f. Axx. Bxxiv. B18.

226

NOTES 10. 11. 12. 13. 14. 15. 16. 17.

18. 19. 20.

21. 22. 23. 24. 25. 26. 27. 28. 29. 30. 31.

32. 33. 34.

35.

A841 / B869. A216/ B263; B159f; A536 / B564; Prolegomena, Carus, p. 80; Beck, pp. 65f; and elsewhere. Briefwechsel, p. 42. See also Kant's letter of September 2, 1770, pp. 7f. AA IV, pp. 474-76; Ellington, pp. 11-14. Erich Adickes, Kant a/s Naturforscher, 2 vols. (Berlin: Walter de Gruyter; Vol. I, 1924; Vol. II, 1925). Ibid., Vol. I, p. 59. Ralph C. S. Walker, "The Status of Kant's Theory of Matter," in Proceedings of the Third International Kant Congress, ed. Lewis White Beck (New York: Humanities Press, 1975), pp. 591-96. A82/ BI08. See also Peter Plaass, Kants Theorie der Naturwissenschaft (Gottingen: Vanderhoek und Ruprecht, 1965), Chapters IV and V. Heinrich Kaestner, "Kant und die Moderne Naturwissenschaft," in Zeitschrift fiir Philosophische Forschung, 18 (1964): 119-25; W. H. Werkmeister, "Kant and Modern Science," in Immanuel Kant: Reflections on His Philosophy, ed. W. H. Werkmeister (Tallahassee: Florida State University Press, 1975). AA IV, p. 387. AA IV, p. 472; Ellington, p. 9. B446n. Cf. AA IV, p" 476; Ellington, p. 3, where Kant states the same idea. See also A653 / B681: "This unit:y. of reason accords with nature itself ... reason-although indeed unable to determine the limits of this unity-does not here beg but command." A832 / B860. AA IV, p. 468; Ellington, p. 5. AA IV, p. 469; Ellington, p. 5. AA IV, p. 469; Ellington, pp. 5f. AA IV, p. 470; Ellington, p. 6. See also A726 / B754: In natural science "mathematics and philosophy ... go hand in hand." AA IV, p. 472; Ellington, p. 9. See also A712-38 / B740-66. AA IV, pp. 473f; Ellington, p. 11. AA IV, pp. 474f; Ellington, p. 12. AA IV, p. 476; Ellington, p. 12. AA IV, pp. 476f; Ellington, pp. 13f. In the Opus postumum Kant puts it this way: "As object of the senses the universe is a system of forces of matter which affect one another objectively in space through motion, and subjectively ... as objects of perception." AA XXII, p. 518. AAIV, p. 477; Ellington, pp. 14f. AA IV, p. 478; Ellington, pp. 16f. A725 / B753. Cf. A713 / B741. Adickes's criticism of Kant's use of the method of construction misses the point because he does not really understand the meaning of the term 'construction' in Kant's philosophy. Also see Plaass, p.32n. For a detailed exposition of the four chapters of the Metaphysical Foundations see Lothar Schafer, Kants Metaphysik der Natur (Berlin: Walter de Gruyter, 1964), pp. 43-150. For a more general discussion of Kant's philosophy of science see Gottfried Martin, Kant's Metaphysics and Theory of Science (Manchester: University of Manchester Press, 1955), which is a translation by

227

NOTES

36. 37. 38.

39.

40. 41. 42. 43. 44. 45. 46. 47. 48. 49. 50. 51. 52.

53. 54. 55. 56. 57. 58. 59. 60. 61. 62.

P. G. Lucas of Martin's Immanuel Kant. Ontologie und Wissenschaftslehre, 4th enl. ed. (Berlin: Walter de Gruyter, 1969). There is no reference to the Opus postumum in Martin's book. And neither is there such a reference in Gordon G. Brittan lr.'s Kanfs Theory of Science (Princeton: Princeton University Press, 1978). AA IV, p. 480; Ellington, p. 18. The question of existence is irrelevant for phoronomy. See A719 / B747. AA IV, p. 482; Ellington, p. 21. AA IV, p. 481; Ellington, pp. 19f. When Kant does mention absolute space, he says that it is "the space in which all motions must in the end be thought (and which itself is therefore unmovable)." AA IV, p. 480; Ellington, p. 18. But this "thought or' space is not an object of experience. It is a mere concept which, "apart from the objects of experience, would be devoid of meaning." A156 / B195. AA IV, p. 487; Ellington, p. 28. See Kant's statement of 1758: "I now begin to understand that in the conception of motion and rest something is lacking. I must never use them in an absolute but always in a relative sense." AA II, p. 16. AA IV, p. 488; Ellington, pp. 28f. AA IV, p. 489; Ellington, p. 30. AA IV, pp. 489f; Ellington, p. 31. AA IV, p. 495; Ellington, p. 38 AA IV, p. 496; Ellington, p. 40. See also A 618 / B646: Extension and impenetrability, "which betweeen them make up the concept of matter." AA IV, p. 497; Ellington, pp. 41f. AA IV, p. 498; Ellington, p. 43. AA IV, p. 499; Ellington, p. 43. AA IV, p. 501; Ellington, p. 47. AA IV, p. 503; Ellington, pp. 49f. AA IV, p. 508; Ellington, p. 57. AA IV, p. 511; Ellington, p. 60. AA IV, p. 518; Ellington, p. 69. One is reminded here of the nature and function of subatomic forces as interpreted by modern quantum physics. See Carl Friedrich von Weizacker, Zum Welthi/d der Physik (Leibzig: S. Hirzel, 3d ed. 1945): "Das Verhaltnis der Quantenmechanik zur Philosophie Kants." See also Hansgeorg· Hoppe, Kants Theorie der Physik (Frankfurt: Vittorio Klostermann, 1969); Werner Kroebel, "Kant und die moderne Physik," in Studium Generale, 7 (1954): 524-33; and Werkmeister, "Kant and Modern Science." AA IV, p. 518; Ellington, p. 70. AA IV, p. 524; Ellington, p. 77. AA IV, p. 524; Ellington, p. 78. AA IV, p. 504; Ellington, p. 50. A525 / B553. AA IV, p. 524; Ellington, p. 79. AA IV, pp. 525-30; Ellington, pp. 80-87. AA IV, p. 536; Ellington, p. 95. AA IV, p. 537; Ellington, p. 96. AA IV, p. 541; Ellington, p. 102. See also Carl Friedrich von Weizacker, "Kant's 'First Analogy of Experience' and Conservation Principles of Physics," in Synthesis: An International Journal of Epistemology,

228

NOTES

63. 64. 65. 66. 67. 68. 69. 70.

71. 72. 73. 74. 75.

76. 77.

78.

Methodology and Philosophy of Science, Vol. 23, No.1, 1971, special issue: Kant and Modern Science, pp. 75-95. "As long as we remain in the domain of existing physics, we will find Kant's results sustained.... In the development of a unified physics, which is now beginning, argumentation of the Kantian sort will be directly relevant. ... Unified physics is no longer 'empirical' in the old sense." (p. 93). AA IV, p. 543; Ellington, p. 104. See also K. Dietrich, Kant und Newton (Tiibingen: H. Kaupp, 1876). AA IV, p. 544; Ellington, p. 105. AA IV, p. 544; Ellington, p. 106. AA IV, p. 554; Ellington, p. 118. AA IV, pp. 556f; Ellington, pp. 122f. AA IV, p. 559; Ellington, p. 126. AA IV, p. 560; Ellington, p. 127. Cf. AA IV, pp. 481f; Ellington, p. 20. AA IV, p. 561; Ellington, p. 128. Newton had not made this distinction but had identified "true" motion with "absolute" motion. See W. H. Werkmeister, A Philosophy of Science (Lincoln, Ne.: University of Nebraska Press, Bison Books reprint, 1969), pp. 53-60. Adickes maintained that Newton's position is "much more realistic" than Kant's (Adickes, Kant als Naturforscher, Vol. I, p. 365). Kant's position, however, is here in fundamental agreement with Einstein's and therefore with modern science. I myself have shown the inadequacies of Newton's arguments in support of his position. (Werkmeister, Philosophy ofScience, pp. 51-60). Robert Palter, it seems to me, misunderstood Kant's argument (AA IV, p. 561, Ellington, pp. 128f). See Robert Palter, "Absolute Space and Absolute Motion," in Beck, Proceedings, p. 184. AA IV, pp. 561f; Ellington, pp. 128f. AA IV, p. 562; Ellington, p. 131. Werkmeister, "Kant and Modern Science." Burkhard Tuschling, Metaphysische und Transzendentale Dynamik in Kants Opus postumum (Berlin: Walter de Gruyter, 1971), p. 13. See Gerhard Lehmann's Einleitung to the Opus postumum (AA XXII, pp. 76989) and the Chronological Table (AA XXII, pp. 826-27), both at the end of Vol. II. For an analysis of the content of the Opus see Lehmann's Beitrage zur Geschichte und Interpretation der Philosophie Kants (Berlin: Walter de Gruyter, 1969), Part III: "Zur Analyse des Nachlasswerkes," pp. 247-408. See also Tuschling, pp. 3-215. My own interpretation of the Opus postumum as consisting of two distinctly different works is independent of the interpretations of Lehmann and Tuschling and is based entirely upon a close reading of the Opus itself. AA XXII, p. 754. Briefwechsel, p. 778. See also Kant's letter to Kiesewetter, dated October 19, 1798 (Ibid., p. 780.) Kant here reports that he now has a work in process which, he hopes, will fill "one remaining Gap" in his system, namely, "the transition from the metaphysical foundations of natural science to physics" as a. proper part of philosophia generalis, which "must not be allowed to be absent from the system." Since all references to the Opus postumum will be to the two-volume edition of the A kademie-A usgabe (AA XXI and AA XXII), I shall here refer to them simply as I and II. For the convenience of the reader I shall add line references to the page numbers: I, p. 373, 1-2.

229

NOTES 79.

I, p. 388, 11-21. But see II, pp. 548, 25-549, 2. I shall return to the problem of organic nature in Chapter VIII. 80. I, pp. 387, 1-6; 163,7-8; 164,24-25; 387, 1-2; II, pp. 381, 18-21; 167,7-9, and other places in both volumes. 81. I, pp. 362, 27-363, 9. Kant often expresses the same idea in various places. Although I may refer to all or some of them (as I have done here), I shall translate only that formulation which in my judgment expresses his thoughts more clearly. If there are changes in his ideas, I shall indicate that fact as I have done in Note 79. 82. I, pp. 305, 2-5; 359, 14-18. 83. I, pp. 617, 25-30; 630, 14-26; 636, 9-18; 641, 5-17. 84. I, p. 487, 23-24. 85. I, p. 307, 24-26; II, p. 369, 15-16. 86. II, pp. 339, 13; 395, 25-27; 368, 15-16. 87. II, pp. 333, 21-22; 136, 18-21. 88. We must remember that, for Kant, physics as a system of moving forces is simply Newtonian mechanics. 89. II, p. 136, 18-21. 90. II, pp. 330, 1-3; 331, 20-22; 359, 26-27; I, pp. 79, 23-24; 82, 18-19; 85, 3-4; 90, 27-29; II, pp. 50, 10; 66, 4-5; 92, 1-2; 104, 5; 128, 12-13; 298, 10; and many other places in both volumes. 91. I, p. 168, 15-20; II, p. 312, 3-4; I, p. 360, 28-29. Naturforschung = scrutatio naturae. 92. II, p. 281, 10-13. 93. II, pp. 294, 5-9; 244,9-13; I, pp. 506, 11-16; 631, 4-8; 640, 1-2. 94. I, pp. 402, 21-24; 169, 5-9; 363, 5-8; 369, 15-20; II, p. 263, 10-12. 95. I, p. 402, 21-24. 96. II, pp. 166, 10-16; 164; 10-20; I, p. 407, 29-30. 97. II, 390, 8-17; 394, 28-30. 98.I,p.117,6-8. 99. I, pp. 85, 14-15; 45, 1-2; 61, 15-16. 100. I, pp. 79, 22-23; 84, 8. 101. I, p. 101, 29-30. 102. I, p. 59, 20-23. 103. I, p. 72, 20-22. 104. I, p. 102, 14-15. 105. I, p. 174, 15-20. Since the Opus postumum is not, and probably never will be, available in translation, I shall quote extensively and thus provide in effect a substitute for the translation of the whole. 106. I, p. 163, 2-11. 107. I, p. 177,21-26. 108. I, pp. 163, 14-164, 7. 109. I, pp. 168, 15-169,4; 161, 3-7. 110. II, pp. 393, 26-394, 2. 111. II, p. 263, 1-6. 112. I, pp. 87, 4-10; 125, 17-20. 113. I, pp. 359, 14-16; 305, 25-27; II, p. 265, 1-6. 114. II, p. 182, 29. 115. I, p. 306, 6. 116. II, pp. 339,3; 327,12-15; 314, 6-12; I, p. 293,11-13, and other places.

230

NOTES 117. 118. 119. 120. 121. 122. 123. 124.

125. 126. 127. 128. 129. 130. 131. 132. 133. 134. 135. 136.

137. 138. 139. 140. 141. 142. 143. 144. 145. 146. 147. 148. 149. 150. 151. 152. 153. 154. 155. 156. 157. 158. 159.

I, p. 161, 15-16. I, p. 287, 8-12. II, p. 297, 23. II, pp. 328, 7-10; 329, 29. I, pp. 306, 6-7; 288, 17-18. I, p. 288, 5. II, p. 165, 24-26. I, pp. 625,14-16; 369,17. We must keep in mind that Kant was speaking of the chemistry of his time. Modern chemistry may well be considered as having a priori principles of its own and as in itself approaching the ideal of a system. See Werkmeister, Philosophy of Science, Chapter IX: "Problems of Chemistry," in particular pp. 311-16. I, p. 290, 20-24. II, p. 328, 2; I, pp. 483, 15-16; 527, 18-19, and other places. II, p. 331, 20-21. I, p. 291, 11-14. I, pp. 579, 10-14; 590, 14-21. I,p. 162, 6-8. I, p. 291, 11-14. I, pp. 171, 18-23; 173, 11-25. I, p. 188, 24-25. I, p. 347, 5-8. I, p. 409, 14-15. I, p. 307, 16-17. There is in the Opus postumum a wearisome repetition of quite similar formulations with respect to the application of this and all other categories. I shall refrain from referring to them all. Anyone interested in all of them may consult the extensive and detailed Index to Volunle II of the Opus. I, p. 353, 10-11; II, p. 135, 19-21. I, p. 408, 15-17, and many other places. I, p. 267, 6-9. I, pp. 267,9-10; 341, 26-31; 312, 20-29; II, pp. 268,4-269,3, and other places. I, pp. 269, 26; 317, 5; 162, 25-26, and other places. I, p. 364, 14-16; II, p. 180, 12-16. I, p. 254, 28-30. I, p. 364, 25-28. I, p. 301, 22-25. I, pp. 382, 9-10; 254, 30; 272, 6-7, and other places. I, p. 126, 27-29. II, p. 141, 5-9. II, p. 158, 18-21. I, pp. 201, 24-202, 15. I, p. 203, 8-13, and other places. II, p. 266, 2-3. II, p. 146, 7-10. II, p. 563, 15-17. II, p. 153, 9-10. I, p. 343, 9-11. I, p. 379, 16-19. II, p. 263, 24-25. I, pp. 279, 20-21; 323, 17-19.

231

NOTES 160. 161. 162. 163. 164. 165. 166. 167. 168. 169. 170. 171. 172. 173. 174. 175. 176. 177. 178. 179. 180. 181. 182. 183. 184. 185. 186. 187. 188. 189. 190. 191. 192. 193. 194. 195. 196. 197. 198. 199.

I, p. 321, 28-31. I, p. 324, 19; II, pp. 146, 3-5; 150, 23-26, and other places. I, p. 309, 13-14. I, p. 291, 25-27. I, p. 303, 18-19. II, p. 188, 6-9. I, p. 404, 15-23. I am here not interested ina critical evaluation of Kant's achievement but only in giving the reader a fair description of his position. I, pp. 576, 20; 564, 22-24. I, p. 574, 25-29. I, p. 395, 6-11. I, pp. 595,7-10; 510,26-31. I, p. 593, 7-12. I, pp. 181, 6-10; 234, 2-6, and other places. I, pp. 510, 29-511, 2; II, p. 485, 2-7. What role the "elementary system" plays as part of Kant's "reconstituted" transcendental philosophy I shall discuss in Chapter IX. II, p. 348, 2-4. II, pp. 403, 25-30; 391, 3-9; I, p. 552, 18-22. II, pp. 195,27-196, 3. II, pp. 354,2-7; 292, 4-9; I, p. 507, 1-8. Tuschling, p. 44. Briefwechsel, p. 707. I, p. 110, 4-6. The reader may be interested in the fact that there are close to 200 references to the calorique in the index of the Opus postumum. I, p. 229, 23-30. I, p. 110, 4-6. I, p. 215, 24. Kant himself uses both terms: 'tentative' and 'provisionally'-the latter in parentheses. Cf. I, p. 236, 22. I, p. 381, 13-15. I, pp. 223, 10-15; 219, 1-4. I, pp. 218, 10-12; 236, 15-20. I, pp. 222, 21-25; 226, 25-27. I, p. 217, 12-15. I, p. 231, 1-7. I, pp. 600, 5-8; 579, 1-2. I, pp. 543, 8-11; 222, 14-19; 221, 10-13. I, pp. 216, 10-217,2; 192, 15-18; 236, 15-20. I, p. 232, 14-17. II, p. 518, 26-29. I, p. 622, 17-21. I, p. 527, 1-6. AA IV, p. 470; Ellington, p. 6. W. H. Werkmeister, "Kant's Philosophy and Modern Science," Kant-Studien (1975): 35-37.

NOTES FOR CHAPTER VII 1.

The "practical reason" is but "pure reason in its practical applications" and an extension of it beyond the limits of cognition. Kant stressed this fact again and

232

NOTES

2. 3. 4. 5. 6. 7. 8. 9. 10. 11. 12. 13. 14. 15. 16. 17.

18. 19.

20. 21. 22. 23. 24. 25. 26. 27. 28. 29.

again. See, for instance, Kritik der praktischen Vernunft, Akademie-Ausgabe, Vol. V, pp. 134f, trans. by Lewis White Beck, Critique of Practical Reason (Chicago: University of Chicago Press, 1949), pp. 236f. As Caird put it: "Just because reason cannot find its ideal realized in the world, it seeks to realize that ideal for itself." Edward Caird, The Critical Philosophy of Kant (New York: Macmillan, 1889, 2d ed., 1909), Vol. II, p. 164. In the Introduction to his translation of the Critique ofPractical Reason, Lewis White Beck discusses various aspects of this problem. Interested readers should consult Paul Arthur Schilpp's still unsurpassed Kant's Pre-Critical Ethics (Evanston: Northwestern University Press, 1938; 2d. ed. 1960). For a detailed study of the Reflexionen see Josef Schmucker, Die Ursprunge der Ethik Kants (Meisenheim: Verlag Anton Hain, 1961) especially pp. 278394. AA XIX, p. 141:6725. I follow here the usual practice of referring to the Reflexionen by page and number. A381f / B375. AA XIX, p. 201:6903. AA XIX, p. 195:6890. AA XIX, p. 194:6889. AA XIX, p.196:6892. AA XIX, p. 152:6762. AA XIX, p. 154:6765. AA XIX, p. 290:7229. AA XIX, p. 307:7305. AA XIX, p. 308:7308. Ibid. See also the Rejlexionen zur Anthropologie (written prior to 1781), AA XV, pp. 494-899. Briefwechsel, p. 115. Optimist that he was in such matters, Kant expected "almost certainly" to publish the work "a short time after Easter" of 1774. (Ibid., p. 114.) What prevented this publication, Kant speaks of in another letter to Herz (dated August 20, 1777). It was his work on the Critique ofPure Reason which, "like a boulder in the way," had to be removed first. (Ibid., p. 157.) A841 / B869. Books and articles in this field are so numerous that it is simply impossible to become acquainted with them all. A good example of what is involved is Lewis White Beck's "A Bibliography on Kant's Ethics, 1924-44," Delaware Notes (University of Delaware) 18 (1945): 23-43. Briefwechsel, p. 320. A418 / B446. A533f / B561 f. A557 / B585. A541 / B569. A685 / B713, A558 / B586, A552/ B580, A544/ B572. AA V, p. 106; Beck, Practical Reason, p. 211. AA V, p. 4; Beck, Practical Reason, p. 119. AA V, p. 29; Beck, Practical Reason, p. 140. AA V, p. 72; Beck, Practical Reason, p. 181. For a detailed study of the relationship between free will and the moral law see Hans Willi Zwingelberg, Kants Ethik und das Problem der Einheit von Freiheit und Gesetz (Bonn: H. Bouvier und Co., 1969).

233

NOTES 30.

31.

32. 33. 34.

35. 36. 37.

38.

Grundlegung zur Metaphysik der Sitten, AA IV, p. 412. A translation of this work by Lewis White Beck is available in three publications: (1) It is included in Beck's Critique of Practical Reason and Other Writings in Moral Philosophy (Chicago: University of Chicago Press, 1949); (2) it is included in Robert Paul Wolff, ed., Kant: Foundations of the Metaphysics of Morals, together with "Critical Essays" (Indianapolis: Bobbs-Merrill Co., 1969); (3) and it is published separately in The Library of Liberal Arts series (Indianapolis: Bobbs-Merrill Co., 1959). All my references to this work will be to the Akademie-Ausgabe and the Wolff edition of Beck's translation. In this case the reference is to Beck, Foundations, p. 34. For a discussion of Kant's conception of freedom of the will and its significance for the problem of moral imputation see Morris Stockhammer, "Kelsens Analyse der Freiheitslehre Kants" and "Zurechnung und Freiheit," in Morris Stockhammer, Kant-Essays (Koln: Kolner UniversiHitsverlag, 1965), pp. 67-88 and 89-98, respectively. For a detailed discussion of the problem of evil in Kant's philosophy see Olivier Reboul, Kant et Ie Probleme du Mal (Montreal: Les Presses de l'Universite, 1971). Reboul's basic thenle is that "evil is radical" because it perverts the principle of all maxims (p. 118), and "is so profound that it can be surmounted only by a radical conversion." (p.211). AA IV, pp. 453f; Beck, Foundations, pp. 82f. Cf. AA IV, p. 457; Beck, Foundations, pp. 86f. See also Wilhelm Teichner, Die Intelligible Welt: Ein Problem der Theoretischen und Praktischen Philosophie Kants (Meisenheim: Verlag Anton Hain, 1967), especially pp. 114-38. AA V, p. 70; Beck, Practical Reason, p. 178. AA V, p. 82; Beck, Practical Reason, p. 189. The first translation into English of the Grundlegung zur M etaphysik der Sitten was by Thomas K. Abbott: Fundamental Principles of the Metaphysics of Morals. It was edited by Marvin Fox for the Liberal Arts Press (New York, 1949); but it is a poor translation. There is, secondly, the translation by H. J. Paton, The Moral Law or Kant's Groundwork of the Metaphysics of Morals (New York: Barnes and Noble, Inc., 1950). More recently there was published a new translation by Brenden E. A. Liddell, Kant on the Foundation of M orality (Bloomington: Indiana University Press, 1970). This is a unique edition since the translator's commentary is interwoven with, although clearly separated from, Kant's text. I find the Beck translation to be better than all the others and therefore shall refer to it exclusively. AA IV, p. 392; Beck, Foundations, p. 9. Robert Paul Wolff, ed., Kant: A Collection of Critical Essays (Garden City: Doubleday & Co., 1967), p. xviii. A recently published commentary on the Foundations devotes some 300 pages (out of 342) to a detailed analysis of Chapter I of Kant's work without referring even once to the broader perspective within which that work must be seen. I refer to P. A. E. Hutchings, Kant on Absolute Value (Detroit: Wayne State University Press, 1972). The gist of this commentary is that "ultimate irrelevancies and categorical confusions" beset Kant's doctrine throughout and "show how far Kant went down the wrong fork of the two paths that he sketched." (p. 328) AA IV, p. 392; Beck, Foundations, pp. 9f. We must keep in mind that, as we

234

NOTES

39. 40. 41. 42. 43. 44. 45.

46. 47. 48. 49. 50. 51. 52. 53. 54. 55. 56. 57.

58. 59. 60.

61. 62. 63. 64. 65.

have seen in earlier chapters, Kant means by a synthetic procedure the method of definitional construction. AA IV, pp. 396f; Beck, Foundations, p. 15. Italics added. AA IV, p. 390; Beck, Foundations, pp. 7f. Italics added. AA IV, p. 404; Beck, Foundations, p. 24. AA IV, p. 405; Beck, Foundations, p. 25. AA IV, p. 411; Beck, Foundations, p. 32. AA IV, p. 412; Beck, Foundations, p. 33. AA IV, p. 437; Beck, Foundations, p. 63. When Kant speaks of "respect for the moral law" as incentive to do one's duty, what he really means is respect for the holy will, "the conception of a value that shatters my self-love." AA IV, p. 401; Beck, Foundations, p. 21n. AA IV, p. 454; Beck, Foundations, p. 83. AA IV, p. 457; Beck, Foundations, pp. 86£. AA IV, p. 393; Beck, Foundations, pp. 11f. AA IV, p. 395; Beck, Foundations, p. 14. AA IV, p. 446; Beck, Foundations, p. 73. Cf. W. T. Jones, Morality and Freedom in the Philosophy of Immanuel Kant (London: Oxford University Press, 1940). AA IV, p. 447; Beck, Foundations, p. 74. AA IV, p. 453; Beck, Foundations, p. 82. AA IV, p. 454; Beck, Foundations, p. 82. AA IV, p. 454; Beck, Foundations, pp. 82f. AA IV, p. 462; Beck, Foundations, p. 93. AA IV, pp. 462£; Beck, Foundations, p. 93. The charge is, of course, a well-known one. A classic in the field is Max Scheler's Der Formalismus in der Ethik und die M ateriale Wertethik (Halle: Niemeyer, 1916). For a critical evaluation of the charge against Kant's ethics as an "empty formalism" see H. H. Schroeder's "Some Common Misinterpretations of the Kantian Ethics," Philosophical Review 49 (1940): 424-46. AA IV, p. 427; Beck, Foundations, p. 51. Ibid. H. J. Paton, The Categorical Imperative (Chicago: University of Chicago Press, 1948), pp. 129-206. See also Sir David Ross, Kant's Ethical Theory: A Commentary on the GRUNDLEGUNG ZUR METAPHYSIK DER SITTEN (Oxford: The Clarendon Press, 1954). Keith Ward, Kant's View on Ethics (New York: Humanities Press, 1972), pp.99-130. Ibid., p. 101. AA IV, p. 436; Beck, Foundations, p. 62. See also Kant's statement that "only by analogy with a realm of nature" is "a realm of ends possible at all." AA IV, p. 438; Beck, Foundations, p. 64. AA IV, p. 436; Beck, Foundations, p. 62n. It is in this sense that Kant is justified in saying that "all moral concepts have their seat and origin entirely a priori in reason." AA IV, p. 411; Beck, Foundations, p. 32. From an empirical point of view some proposed maxims are selfcontradictory and "cannot even be thought as a universal law of nature." Others may not be self-contradictory but might well be in conflict with one another. A Will that would make all of them laws of "nature" would contradict itself in the attempt. AA IV, p. 424; Beck, Foundations, pp. 47f.

235

NOTES 66. 67. 68. 69.

70.

71. 72. 73. 74. 75. 76.

77.

78. 79.

80.

AA IV, p. 414; Beck, Foundations, p. 35. AA IV, p. 449; Beck, Foundations, p. 76; AA IV, p. 439; Beck, Foundations, p.66. AA IV, p. 449; Beck, Foundations, p. 76. See in particular: "As a member of the intelligible world only, all my actions would completely accord with the principle of the autonomy of the pure will.... But since I intuit myself at the same time as a meIuber of the world of sense, my actions ought to conform to it." AA IV, pp. 453f; Beck, Foundations, pp. 82f; AA IV, p. 456; Beck, Foundations, p. 86. The essays here referred to are: Julius Ebbinghaus, "Interpretation and Misinterpretation of the Categorical Imperative"; George A. Schrader, "Autonomy, Heteronomy, and Moral Imperative"; Lewis White Beck, "Apodictic Imperatives"; Paul Dietrichson, "Kant's Criteria of Universalizability"; Jonathan Harrison, "Kant's Example of the First Formulation of the Categorical Imperative"; J. Kemp, "Kant's Examples of the Categorical Imperative"; Jonathan Harrison, "The Categorical Imperative"; and Robert S. Shope, "Kant's Use and Derivation of the Categorical Imperative." AA IV, p. 427; Beck, Foundations, p. 52. AA IV, p. 430; Beck Foundations, p. 55. I shall discuss this theme fully in the next chapter. AA IV, p. 435; Beck, Foundations, p. 60. AA IV, p. 435; Beck, Foundations, p. 61. AA IV, p. 433; Beck, Foundations, p. 59. AA IV, p. 437; Beck, Foundations, p. 63. See also Heinz Heimsoeth, "Plato in Kants Werdegang," in Studien zu Kants Philosophischer Entwicklung (Hildesheim: Georg DIms Verlagsbuchhandlung, 1967), especially pp. 132fT; and W. P. Esterhuyse, "From Plato to Kant: The Problem of Truth," Proceedings of the Third International Kant Congress, ed. Lewis White Beck (New York: Humanities Press, 1972), pp. 281-87. Esterhuyse, however, missed the real significance of Kant's argument. AA IV, p. 438; Beck, Foundations, p. 65. See also Wilhelm Teichner, Die Intelligible Welt (Meisenheim: Verlag Anton Hain, 1967), p. 138. For a somewhat different view see Thomas Hill, "The Kingdom of Ends," in Beck, Proceedings, pp. 307-15. AA IV, p. 434; Beck, Foundations, p. 59. AA IV, pp. 462f; Beck, Foundations, p. 93. With Kant's admiration for Rousseau it is not ,at all astonishing to find that his conception of the "realm of ends" bears a striking resemblance to Rousseau's conception of "the voluntary cooPeration of free men in an ideal state." (Frederick P. Van De Pitte, Kant as Philosophical Anthropologist [The Hague: Martinus Nijhoff, 1971J, p. 55.) In the Contrat Social (Book I, Chapter VIII) Rousseau had argued that "the mere impulse of appetite is slavery, while obedience to a law which we prescribe to ourselves is freedom." And in La Nouvelle Heloise (Part V, Letter 2) Rousseau had written, in striking similarity to Kant's third formulation of the categorical imperative: "Man is too noble a being to serve simply as the instrument for others. He must not be used for what suits them without consulting also what suits himself." See also K. Dietrich, Kant und Rousseau (Tiibingen: H. Laupp, 1878). Pepita Haezrahi, "The Concept of Man as End-in-himself," in Wolff, Kant, pp. 291-92.

236

NOTES 81. 82. 83.

84. 85. 86.

87. 88. 89. 90. 91. 92. 93. 94. 95. 96. 97. 98. 99. 100. 101. 102. 103. 104. 105.

106. 107. 108.

Ibid., p. 312. Ibid., pp. 316ff. See also Hardy E. Jones, Kant's Principle of Personality (Madison: University of Wisconsin Press, 1971). Rudolf Otto, "Erorterungen" in his edition of Kant's Grundlegung zur Metaphysik der Sitten (Gotha: Leopold Klotz Verlag, 1930), p. 199. See also A. C. Field, "Kant's First Moral Principle," Mind, n. s. 41 (1932): 17-36, for an evaluation of various criticisms of Kant's notion of the Categorical Imperative. A841 / B869; A840/ B868. AA XXI, p. 35, 4-6. AA VI, p. 468, 27-31. Part I of the kfetaphysik der Sitten, "Rechtslehre," is available in translations by W. Hastie (Edinburgh: T. Clark, 1887), and John Ladd, The Metaphysical Elements of Justice (Indianapolis: Bobbs-Merrill, Library of Liberal Arts, 1965). Part II of the Metaphysik der Sitten, "Tugendlehre," is available in translations by Mary Gregor (New York: Harper Torchbooks, 1964) and by James Ellington, The Metaphysical Principles of Virtue (Indianapolis: Bobbs-Merrill, Library of Liberal Arts, 1964). However, I shall here refer only to the Akademie-Ausgabe, Vol. VI. Incidentally, the problem of a "transition" was for Kant a familiar one. He had faced it for the first time in the Critique ofPure Reason, when he dealt with the problem of the application of categories to sense perceptions in the chapter on "the Schematism of the Pure Concepts of Understanding." A13747 / BI76-87. Ward, p. 127. AA VI, p. 217, 1-8. AA V, p. 117; Beck, Practical Reason, p. 221. See also AA IV, pp. 399f; Beck, Foundations, p. 19. AA VI, pp. 219, 2-221, 3. AA VI, p. 214, 13-30. AA VI, p. 223, 24-25, 32. AA VI, p. 227, 21-29. AA VI, p. 229, 5-8. AA VI, pp. 230, 29-30; 232, 2-5. AA VI, p. 245, 5. AA VI, p. 253, 34-36. AA VI, pp. 255,23-25; 256, 27-29. AA VI, pp. 258ff. AA VI, p. 260,1-4. AA VI, pp. 260-308. AA VI, pp. 284, 7-286, 23. AA VI, p. 355, 20-21. AA VI, p. 312, 14-21. AA VI, pp. 313,29-314,3. Kant states it emphatically: "The legislative power can belong only to the unified will of the people." For a discussion of Kant's conception of the "liberal state" see Gunter Ellscheid, Das Problem von Sein und Sol/en in der Phi/osophie Immanuel Kants (Koln: Carl Heymanns Verlag, 1968), pp. 115-21. AA VI, pp. 321, 1-322, 3. AA VI, pp. 322, 16-323, 5. AA VI, p. 332, 1-3.

237

NOTES 109.

110. Ill. 112. 113. 114. 115. 116. 117. 118.

119. 120.

121. 122. 123. 124. 125. 126. 127. 128. 129. 130. 131. 132. 133. 134. 135. 136. 137.

AA VI, pp. 329, 36-330, 1. We must note, however, that during Kant's lifetime citizenship was limited in various ways in all European countries, and that this fact is reflected in Kant's discussions. See AA VI, pp. 314, 17-315, 22; and his "Vorarbeiten zu Uber den Gemeinspruch: Das mag in the Theorie richtig sein, taugt aber nicht flir die Praxis." AA XXIII, pp. 137, 26-138, 5. A translation of this essay, together with translations of "Perpetual Peace," "The Contest of the Faculties," and other relevant material, is included in Kant's Political Writings, ed. Hans Reiss, trans. H. H. Nisbet (Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 1970). AA VI, p. 343, 17-24. AA VI, p. 344,17-19. AA VI, p. 344, 19-21. AA VI, p. 344, 27-34. AA VI, pp. 345, 30-346, 7. AA VI, p. 347, 10-17. AA VI, p. 347, 24-34. AA VI, p. 350, 16-22. This essay is readily available in two translations, each entitled Perpetual Peace, both published by the Liberal Arts Press. One is a translation by Mary Campbell Smith, edited by A. Robert Caponigri, 1948. The other is a translation by Lewis White Beck and a revised version of his earlier translation, 1957. I am using both translations but am checking them against the Kehrbach edition (Leibzig: Verlag Reclam) which combines the texts of editions A (1795) and B (1796). Perpetual Peace, Caponigri, p. 52; Beck, p. 53; Kehrbach, p. 56. For varying interpretations of Zum Ewigen Frieden see John Bourke, "Kant's Doctrine of 'Perpetual Peace'," Philosophy 17 (1942): 324-33; C. J. Friedrich, "The Ideology of the United Nations Charter and the Philosophy of Kant," Journal of Politics, 9 (1947): 10-30; H. J. Paton, In Defence of Reason (London: Macmillan, 1951), the Chapters on "Justice Among Nations" and "Kant's Views on International Law"; J. Shawcross, "Kant and the League of Nations," Contemporary Review (1939): 566-72. But let it be noted that Rousseau also wrote on Jugement sur la Paix Perpetuelle. That Kant was aware of this cannot well be doubted. Cf. AA VI, pp. 376, 18-377,5. AA VI, pp. 379, 3-12; 380, 1-6. AA VI, p. 380, 19-25. AA VI, p. 381, 18-19. AA VI, pp. 381, 35-382, 1. AA VI, p. 382, 8-26. AA VI, pp. 385, 32-386, 14. AA VI, p. 392, 1-9. AA VI, p. 395, 15-21. AA VI, pp. 421, 7-424, 8. AA VI, pp. 427, 2-428, 26. AA VI, pp. 428, 28-437, 26. AA VI, pp. 438, 10-440, 34. AA VI, p. 441, 4-19. AA VI, pp. 448, 3-474, 14. AA VI, p. 488. AA VI, pp. 468,26-469, 12.

238

NOTES NOTES FOR CHAPTER VIII 1.

2.

3. 4. 5. 6.

7. 8.

9. 10. 11. 12. 13. 14. 15.

16.

Kritik der Urteilskraft, AA V, p. 176; Bernard, p. 12. Two translations of this work are available. One is by James Creed Meredith, The Critique ofJudgment (1928; reprint ed., Oxford: The Clarendon Press, 1969). The other is by J. H. Bernard, Critique of Judgment (1892; reprint ed., New York: Hafner Publishing Co., 1968). All references will be given to the Akademie-Ausgabe and the readily available Bernard translation, although the Meredith translation has also been consulted. For discussions of this fact see Edward G. Ballard, "The Kantian Solution of the Problem of Man within Nature," Tulane Studies in Philosophy, 3 (1954): 740; and Georg Antonopoulos, Der Mensch als Burger Zweier Welten (Bonn: H. Bouvier & Co, 1958), pp. 1-17, 34-40. AA I, p. 230, 16-26. AA IV, p. 544; Beck, Foundations, p. 105. AA V, p. 400; Beck, Practical Reason, p. 248. Of the voluminous literature dealing with Part I, I mention only a few representative examples: Herman Cohen, Kants Begrundung der Aesthetik (Berlin: B. Cassirer, rev. ed. 1910); Israel Knox, The Aesthetic Theories of Kant, Hegel, andSchopenhauer(New York: Columbia University Press, 1936); Theodore M. Greene, "A Reassessment of Kant's Aesthetic Theory," in The Heritage of Kant, ed. G. T. Whitney and D. F. Bowers (Princeton: Princeton University Press, 1939); Barrows Dunham, "Kant's Theory of Aesthetic Form," ibid.; Theodore E. Uehling, The Notion of Form in Kant's Critique of Aesthetic Judgment (The Hague: Mouton, 1971); and Friedrich Delekat, Immanuel Kant: Historisch-Kritische Interpretation der Hauptschriften, 3d rev. ed. (Heidelberg: QueUe und Meyer, 1969), pp. 402-53. See, for example, J. H. Tufts, The Sources and Development of Kant's Teleology (Chicago: University of Chicago Press, 1892). See, for example, Alfred Baumler, Kants Kritik der Urteilskraft: Ihre Geschichte und Systematik (Halle: M. Niemeyer, 1923); Robert A.C. Macmillan, The Crowning Phase of the Critical Philosophy: A Study in Kant's Critique of Judgment (London: MacMillan & Co., 1912); most recently, K. Kuypers, Kants Kunsttheorie und die Einheit der Kritik der Urteilskraft (Amsterdam: Elsevier Excerpta Media, 1972); and Delekat, Part III. I refer, for example, to Kuypers, Kants Kunsttheorie, and to H. W. Cassirer, Commentary on Kant's Critique ofJudgment (London: Methuen & Co., 1938). In 1764, Kant published an essay entitled "Beobachtungen ~per das Gefiihl des Schonen und Erhabenen" (AA II); and in 1788, an essay "Uber den Gebrauch teleologischer Prinzipien in der Philosophie" (AA VIII). AA V, p. 167; Bernard, p. 3. AA V, p. 168; Bernard, p. 4. AA V, p. 170; Bernard, p. 6. AA V, p. 179; Bernard, p. 15. AA V, p. 180; Bernard, p. 16. See Kant's statement in his letter to Carl Leonhard Reinhold, dated December 28 and 31, 1787: "So beschaftige ich mich jetzt mit der Kritik des Geschmacks, bei welcher Gelegenheit eine neue Art von Prinzipien a priori endeckt wird." (Briefwechsel, p. 335.) We must note the striking similarity of this phrase, and of Kant's development of its theme, with Alexander Pope's line: "All nature is but art unknown to thee." In the light of Kant's early and profound interest in Pope's Essay on

239

NOTES

17. 18. 19. 20. 21. 22. 23. 24. 25. 26. 27. 28. 29. 30. 31. 32. 33. 34. 35. 36. 37. 38. 39. 40. 41. 42. 43. 44. 45. 46. 47. 48. 49. 50. 51. 52. 53. 54. 55.

56. 57. 58.

Man (see Chapter II), this identity of phrase and theme in Pope and Kant is surely more than coincidental. AA XX, pp. 204, 12-205, 1. A644 / B672. A668 / B696. AA XX, p. 205, 5-12. AA XX, p. 216, 4-8. AA V, pp. 181f; Bernard, p. 17. AA V, p. 184; Bernard, p. 20. AA XX, p. 218, 17-32. AA XX, p. 219, 29-30. AA XX, p. 221, 5-9. AA XX, p. 223, 5-8. AA V, p. 189; Bernard, p. 26. AA V, p. 190; Bernard, p. 26. AA XX, p. 224, 29-30; AA V, p. 190; Bernard, p. 27. AA XX, p. 233, 28-32. AA V, p. 192; Bernard, p. 29. AA V, p. 193; Bernard, p. 30. AA XX, p. 234, 30-34. AA XX, p. 235, 7-11. AA XX, pp. 235, 19-236, 10. AA XX, pp. 236, 10-15; 236, 25-29. AA XX, p. 236, 34-35. AA XX, p. 240, 9-10 AA XX, p. 240, 25-33. AA V, p. 190; Bernard, pp. 26-27. AA V, p. 191; Bernard, pp. 27-28. AA V, p. 193; Bernard, p. 30. AA V, p. 194; Bernard,p. 31. AA V, p. 196; Bernard, p. 33. AA V, p. 196; Bernard, p. 34. AA II, p. 207, 17-20. AA II, p. 208, 23-24. AA II, p. 209, 7. AA II, p. 210,4. AA II, p. 217, 16-19. AA II, p. 219, 1-13. AA II, pp. 243-56. AA V, p. 219; Bernard, p. 54. AA V, p. 220; Bernard, p. 55; AA V, p. 236; Bernard, p. 73: "Beauty is the form of the purposiveness of an object, so far as this is perceived in it without any representation of a purpose." In a footnote Kant adds: "If we regard a thing as a work of art, that is enough to make us admit that its shape has reference to some design and definite purpose. And hence there is no immediate satisfaction in the contemplation of it. On the other hand a flower, e.g., a tulip, is regarded as beautiful because in perceiving it we find a certain purposiveness which, in our judgment, is referred to no purpose at all." AA V, p. 228; Bernard, p. 65. AA V, p. 222; Bernard, pp. 57f. AA V, p. 223; Bernard, p. 58; AA V, p. 228; Bernard, pp. 64f.

240

NOTES 59. 60. 61. 62. 63. 64. 65. 66. 67. 68. 69. 70. 71. 72. 73. 74. 75. 76. 77. 78. 79 80. 81. 82. 83. 84. 85. 86. 87. 88. 89. 90. 91. 92. 93. 94. 95. 96.

97. 98.

AA V, p. 231; Bernard, p. 68. AA V, p. 239; Bernard, p. 76. Ibid. AA V, p. 241; Bernard, p. 78. AA V, p. 244; Bernard, p. 82. Ibid. AA V, p. 245; Bernard, p. 83. AA V, p. 246; Bernard, p. 84. AA V, p. 264; Bernard, p. 104. AA V, pp. 347f; Bernard, p. 193. AA V, p. 348; Bernard, p. 193. AA V, p. 349; Bernard, p. 195. AA V, p. 350; Bernard, p. 195. AA V, pp. 359f; Bernard, p. 205. AA V, p. 360; Bernard, p. 206. AA I, p. 331. AA I, p. 365. B426. AA VIII, p. 159. AA VIII, p. 181. AA VIII, p. 182. AA VIII, p. 183. AA V, pp. 366f; Bernard, pp. 212f. AA V, p. 368; Bernard, p. 214. AA V, p. 368; Bernard, p. 215. AA V, p. 371; Bernard, p. 217. AA V, p. 373; Bernard, p. 219. AA V, p. 374; Bernard, pp. 220f. See also K. Roretz, Zur Analyse von Kants Philosophie des Organischen (Vienna: A. Holder, 1922). AA V, p. 375; Bernard, p. 221. AA V, p. 377; Bernard, p. 224. AA V, p. 378; Bernard, pp. 224f. AA V, p. 397; Bernard, p. 245. AA V, p. 399; Bernard, p. 246. AA V, p. 400; Bernard, p. 248. AA V, p. 415; Bernard, p. 263. AA V, p. 421; Bernard, p. 271. AA V, p. 410; Bernard, p. 259. AA V, p. 415; Bernard, p. 264. For a discusion of this problem outside the framework of Kant's philosophy see W. H. Werkmeister, A Philosophy of Science (Lincoln, Neb.: University of Nebraska, Bison reprint, 1969), Chapter X: "Interpretations of Life" (pp. 317-65). Extensive bibliographical references to works in the biological sciences are included in the footnotes. AA V, pp. 418f; Bernard, pp. 267f. This Kantian theme of the "common schema" is well recognized and has been newly affirmed in modern biology. See Werkmeister, Philosophy of Science, pp. 490-92. AA V, p. 419; Bernard, p. 268. In a footnote Kant added: "Certain water animals transform themselves gradually into marsh animals and from them, after some generations~ into land animals. A priori, in the judgment of reason alone, there is no contradiction here. Experience, however, gives no example of this."

241

NOTES 99. AA V, pp. 412f; Bernard, p. 261. 100. AA V, pp. 426f; Bernard, p. 276. 101. AA V, p. 427; Bernard, pp. 276f. 102. AA V, p. 429; Bernard, p. 279. Also see Ballard, "The Kantian Solution," pp. 7-40. Ballard's key point: "Kant's solution ... presents us with a semiempirical self united to an unknowable noumenal self.... And Kant's solution, I suspect, is as good as, or better than, others we have." (p. 30) 103. AA VII, p. 329, 7-11. 104. AA VII, p. 329, 16-19. 105. This essay, included in AA VIII, is readily available in a translation by Emil L. Fackenheim as "Conjectural Beginnings of Human History," in Kant on History, ed. Lewis White Beck (Indianapolis: Bobbs-Merrill, The Library of Liberal Arts, 1963). All references will be to both texts: AA VIII, p. 111; Fackenheim, p. 55. 106. AA VIII, p. 112; Fackenheim, p. 56. 107. AA VIII, p. 113; Fackenheim, p. 57. 108. AA VIII, p. 113; Fackenheim, p. 58. 109. AA VIII, p. 114; Fackenheim, p. 58. 110. AA VIII, p. 123; Fackenheim, p. 68. Ill. AA VIII, p. 115; Fackenheim, p. 60. Rousseau's conception of man's transition from a mere state of nature to a state of civilized existence provides here unmistakably the background for Kant's view. 112. AA V, p. 430; Bernard, p. 280. 113. AA V, p. 431; Bernard, p. 281. 114. AA V, p. 432; Bernard, p. 282. Also see Paul Menzer, Kants Lehre von der Entwicklung in Natur und Geschichte (Berlin: G. Reimer, 1911); and Fritz Georg Adolf Medicus, Kants Philosophie der Geschichte (Halle: E. Karras, 1901). 115. Both essays are in AA VIII and are available in translations by Lewis White Beck: (1) "Idea for a Universal History from a Cosmopolitan Point of View" and (2) "Perpetual Peace," in Kant on History. Both essays are available also in other translations; thus: H. B. Nisbet, "Idea for a Universal History with a Cosmopolitan Purpose," and "Perceptual Peace," both in Kant's Political Writings, ed. Hans Reiss (Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 1970). "Zum Ewigen Frieden" is also available in translation by Mary Campbell Smith: Perpetual Peace, ed. A. Robert Caponigri (New York: The Liberal Arts Press, 1948). Although I have collated all translations with the German text, all references here will be to AA VIII and, for convenience's sake, to the Beck translation only. 116. AA VIII, pp. 18, 19, 20, 22, 24, 27, 29; Beck, Kant on History, pp. 12, 13, 15, 16, 18, 21, 29, respectively. The first two theses correspond to what, in his "Anthropologie in Pragmatischer Hinsicht" (1798; AA VII) Kant was to call the Grundsatz required for a teleological interpretation of nature. 117. AA VIII, pp. 343, 345, 346, 349, 353, 367; Beck, Kant on History, pp. 85, 87, 89, 93, 98, 113, respectively. 118. AA V, p. 433; Bernard, p. 283. See also Heinrich Rickert, Kant als Philosoph der modernen Kultur (Tiibingen: Mohr, 1924). 119. AA V, p. 443; Bernard, p. 294. 120. AA V, p. 444; Bernard, p. 295; AA V, p. 478; Bernard, p. 331. 121. AA V, p. 450; Bernard, p. 301. 122. AA V, p. 454; Bernard, p. 305.

242

NOTES 123. 124. 125.

126. 127. 128. 129. 130. 131. 132. 133.

AA V, p. 456, Bernard, p. 307. AA V, p. 481; Bernard, p. 334. All references to this work will be to the translation by Theodore M. Greene and Hoyt H. Hudson, Religion Within the Limits of Reason Alone, 2d ed., edited with an Introduction by John R. Silber (New York: Harper Torchbooks, 1960). Religion, p. 40. Religion, p. 46. Religion, p. 54. Religion, p. 86. Religion, p. 90. Religion, p. 91. Religion, p. 131. AA V, p. 483; Bernard, p. 335.

NOTES FOR CHAPTER IX 1.

2.

3.

4. 5. 6. 7. 8. 9. 10.

See Chapter VI, Section- VI, above. For the convenience of the reader I mention again as significant contributions to an interpretation of the Opus postumum Gerhard Lehmann's Einleitung to the work (AA XXII, pp. 769-89) and his Beitrage zur Geschichte und Interpretation der Philosophie Kants (Berlin: Walter de Gruyter, 1969), Part III: "Zur Analyse des Nachlasswerkes," pp. 247-408. A more detailed discussion of the issues involved is found in Burkhard Tuschling, M etaphysische und Transzendentale Dynamik in Kants Opus Postumum (Berlin: Walter de Gruyter, 1971). This book is a must for all who wish to analyze the whole Opus. My own interpretation of the Opus postumum is independent of the interpretations by Lehmann and Tuschling and is, in fact, a completely new approach. Erich Adickes, Kants Opus Postumum (Berlin: Reuther & Reichard, 1920). His "time-table" is appended to the second volume of the Opus postumum, AA XXII, and in a somewhat simplified form is included in Tuschling, pp. 6-7. de Vleeschauwer puts it this way: "In the [first] Critique the transcendental examination stopped at the apparatus of knowledge; in the Opus postumum Kant explains the apparatus itself." (de Vleeschauwer-Duncan, p. 188.) See also Vittorio Mathieu, "Ather und Organismus in Kant's 'Opus Postumum'," in Studien zu Kants Philosophischer Entwicklung, ed. Heinz Heimsoeth, Dieter Henrich, and Giorgio Tenelli (Hildesheim: Georg Olms Verlagsbuchhandlung, 1967), pp. 184-91; and Gerhard Lehmann, "Das philosophische Grundproblem in Kants Nachlasswerk," in Dei/rage, pp. 272-88. Of special interest is Lehmann's essay "Kants Nachlasswerk und die Kritik der Urteilskraft" in Beitrage, pp. 295-373. Here Lehmann also presents an extensive list of books and articles dealing with the Opus postumum. B134-35. BI64. A644 / B672. A653 / B681. A665 / B693. A669/ B697. A680 / B708.

243

NOTES 11. A736f / B764f. 12. See H. Hoppe, Kants Theorie der Physik. Eine Untersuchung uber das Opus postumum von Kant (Frankfurt: Vittorio Klostermann, 1969) and W. H. Werkmeister, "Kant and Modern Science," in Immanuel Kant: Reflections on His Philosophy, ed. W. H. Werkmeister (Tallahassee: Florida State University Press, 1975), Chapter VI. 13. AA IV, p. 391; Beck, Foundations, pp. 8f; AA V, p. 121; Beck, Practical Reason, p. 225. 14. AA V, p. 170; Beck, Practical Reason, p. 6. 15. AI10. 16. B218. 17. A216/ B263. ·18. A230/ B282. 19. A231f / B284; A494f / B523. 20. A601 / B629. 21. II, p. 21, 8. 22. II, p. 49, 15. 23. I, p. 90, 9. 24. II, p. 280, 21-25. 25. II, p. 97, 25-27. 26. I, p. 564, 22-24. 27. I, p. 45, 22-23. 28. I, p. 247, 5-8. 29. II, pp. 8, 19-23; 611, 2-6; and elsewhere. 30. II, p. 314, 1-6. 31. I, p. 138, 16-17. 32. I, p. 101, 22-24. 33. I, p. 46, 18-20. 34. I, p. 85, 1-2. 35. II, pp. 104, 2-6; 108, 2-5. 36. I, p. 99, 9-10. 37. II, pp. 107, 10-11; 405, 27-28; 497, 9-10. 38. II, p. 103, 7. 39. II, p. 320, 19-21. 40. II, p. 497, 16-17. 41. II, pp. 316,27-317, 1. 42. II, pp. 391, 9-10; 362, 23. 43. II, pp. 392, 19-21; 401, 3-5. 44. II, pp. 444, 11-13; 484, 16-18 and other places. 45. II, p. 344, 1-4. 46. I, pp. 124, 25-27; 104, 3-6. 47. II, p. 349, 1-13. 48. II, p. 448, 9-13. 49. I, pp. 572, 16-573, 13; 577, 16-578, 2. 50. I, 579, 5-12. 51. II, pp. 346, 27-347, 3 52. I, pp. 552, 22-553, 1. 53. I, p. 578, 3-5. 54. AA IV, p. 524; Ellington, pp. 78, 79. 55. AA IV, p. 523; Ellington, p. 80. 56. I, p. 553, 6-17.

244

NOTES 57. 58. 59. 60. 61. 62. 63. 64. 65.

66. 67. 68. 69. 70. 71. 72. 73. 74. 75. 76. 77. 78. 79. 80. 81. 82. 83. 84. 85. 86. 87. 88. 89. 90. 91. 92. 93. 94. 95. 96.

I, p. 605, 14-23. I, pp. 595, 19-596, 10; 543, 7-11; and elsewhere. I, pp. 592, 5-15; 540, 12-541, 10; 552, 4-8; and elsewhere. I, pp. 535, 10-536, 3. I, pp. 536, 5-9; 227, 5-9; and other places. I, p. 519, 10-13. In this sense the reference to the moving forces of matter confirms Ellington's thesis of "The Unity of Kant's Philosophy of Nature," which is appended to his translation of the Metaphysical Foundations ofNatural Science (pp. 137-218). I, pp. 218,15-17; 616,1-7; 616, 21-617,3; II, pp. 98,12-15; 239, 24-340,4; 241, 7-19; 243, 27-244, 2; 244, 15-23; 453, 15-18; and numerous other places. For an indication of the variations see: I, pp. 192, 218, 221, 401, 404, 423; II, pp. 84, 129, 215, 520, 594, 605, to give but a few references out of a very large number that might have been given. To my knowledge, Kant never used the term phlogiston. It is quite possible, however, that Kant's change in terminology from calorique to Ether (with a Capital E) reflects the increasing controversy over, and final disproof of, the existence of phlogiston. II, pp. 110, 9-11; 475, 1-2; I, pp. 227, 19-22; 229, 25-30; I, p. 567, 7-9; and elsewhere. I, p. 224, 11-12. II, p. 606,23-25. For further detail see above: Chapter VI, Section XIII. I, p. 622, 17-21. I, p. 527, 1-6. I, p. 601, 18-22. I, p. 592, 23-27; II, p. 445, 16-21; and elsewhere. I, p. 162, 31-32. I, p. 165, 23-25. II, pp. 195, 1-2; 429, 32-430, 4; I, pp. 171, 18-23; 305, 6-9. II, pp. 161, 28-29; 135, 13-15; 159, 28-29; 163, 14-15; 164, 6-8; and elsewhere. I, p. 299, 9-11. II, p. 555, 15-17. I, p. 561, 7-11, and elsewhere. I, p. 62, 2. Again the propagation of electromagnetic waves in accordance with Maxwell's equations could be used as an analogy. II, pp. 195, 13-196, 6, and elsewhere. II, p. 245, 5-7. II, p. 236, 10-11, and elsewhere. I, p. 310, 24-26. I, p. 491, 5-6. I, p. 307, 24-26, and elsewhere. I, p. 293, 13-15. I, p. 505, 5-7, and numerous other places. I, p. 361, 7-8; II, pp. 313,20-21; 361,11-22; and elsewhere. II, pp. 380,23-25; 398,26-30; 470, 15-17; 497, 2-3. II, p. 231, 8-9. II, pp. 282, 22-24; 281, 21-25; and elsewhere. II, pp. 307,6-12; 313, 16-27; 325,24-326,4. I, p. 60, 1-3. II, p. 49, 21-22; and elsewhere. II, p. 483, 8--484, 1.

245

NOTES 97. II, p. 405, 17-19. 98. II, p. 182, 28-29. 99. II, p. 174, 3-4; II, p. 178, 27. 100. II, pp. 309, 27-310, 3. 101. I, pp. 163, 26-164, 1. 102. I, p. 507, 1-4. 103. I, pp. 510, 26; 539, 5; and elsewhere. 104. I, p. 552, 18-22. 105. I, p. 593, 7-15; II, pp. 539, 27-540, 3; 348, 2-15; 354, 2-16. 106. I, p. 507, 1-8; II, p. 348, 1-4; and elsewhere. 107. II, pp. 371,17-18; 378,17-24; 464,24-29 and numerous other places. See also W. H. Werkmeister, "Kant's Philosophy and Modern Science," Kant-Studien (1975): 35-57. 108. I, p. 213, 5-6. 109. I, p. 187, 18. 110. I, p. 185, 20-22. 111. I, p. 186,7-11. 112. I, p. 193, 8-10; II, pp. 38, 16-17; 271, 8-9. The distinctive meaning of "organic compounds" in modern chemistry is, of course, not what Kant was talking about when he spoke of "organic bodies." 113. II, p. 283, 18-2C 114. I, p. 66, 1-3, and numerous other places. 115. I, p. 196,29-31. Cf. AA V, p. 374; Bernard, pp. 220f. 116. I, p. 194, 12-13. 117. I, p. 187,21. 118. AA V, p. 376; Bernard, p. 222. 119. I, pp. 189, 6-8; 190, 4-5; and numerous other places. 120. I, pp. 210, 13; 184, 11-12; 188, 9-11; 558, 15-17; and other places in both volumes. 121. I, p. 196, 16-18. 122. I, pp. 210. 16-18; 213, 1-5. Cf. AA V, p. 373; Bernard, p. 220. 123. I, p. 569, 3-5; II, pp. 283, 5-9; 548, 8-11; and other places. 124. II, p. 356, 3-5. 125. II, pp. 396, 1-2; 510, 10-14; 505, 22-24; and other places. 126. II, p. 373, 18-23. 127. II, p. 291,4-7. 128. I, p. 57, 23-25. 129. I, pp. 66, 3; 122, 9-12; II, p. 59, 11-17; and elsewhere. 130. I, p. 122, 10-11. 131. I, p. 95, 3-5. 132. I, p. 100, 15-19. 133. I, p. 211, 4-7. 134. I, pp. 211, 28-212, 27, and elsewhere. 135. I, p. 567, 13-22. Cf. AA V, pp. 418f; Bernard, pp. 267f. 136. I, p. 570, 13-23. A verbatim repetition of this statement may be found II, p. 549, 18-30. See also AA V, p. 426; Bernard, p. 276. 137. II, p. 505, 25-30. 138. See Chapter I. 139. I, pp. 24, 1-3; 42, 12-14; and other places. 140. II, p. 49, 32; I, pp. 143, 29-31; 22, 17-18.

246

NOTES 141. 142. 143. 144. 145. 146. 147. 148. 149. 150. 151. 152. 153. 154. 155. 156. 157. 158. 159. 160. 161. 162. 163. 164. 165. 166. 167. 168. 169. 170. 171. 172. 173. 174. 175. 176. 177. 178. 179. 180. 181. 182. 183. 184. 185. 186. 187. 188. 189.

I, p. 30, 18-20. I, p. 43, 27, and elsewhere. II, pp. 109, 1-2; 49, 9-11; I, pp. 90, 16; 21, 15-19, 22-23. I, pp. 47, 6; 145, 22. I, pp. 96, 18-20; 53, 13-14. I, p. 33, 27-29. I, p. 89, 25-26. II, p. 485, 1-5; I, p. 62, 22-25. II, pp. 193, 14-16; 550, 16-17. II, p. 599, 6-10. II, p. 598,9-13. II, p. 550, 12-17. II, p. 201, 1. II, pp. 193, 14-16; 197, 16-18; I, p. 572, 11-15. But see also II, p. 179, 13-14, and other places. II, p. 548, 17-25; I, pp. 569, 11-570, 6. II, pp. 100, 7-8; 307, 26-27. II, p. 507, 2-3. II, p. 504, 8-15. II, p. 97, 20-23; and elsewhere. I, p. 137, 1. I, p. 33, 15-17. I, p. 211, 4-8. II, pp. 59, 12-13; 301, 1-3, 5-8. I, pp. 566, 24-26; 567, 1-29; and elsewhere. I, p. 146, 15-18. I, p. 43, 18-21. I, pp. 21, 25-26; 82, 26-29; 42, 12-14; and numerous other places. I, pp. 84, 28-29; 86, 27-87, 2; and elsewhere. II, p. 114, 12-14. I, p. 16, 8-13, and numerous other places. See, for example, the Critique of Practical Reason, AA V, pp. 124-150; Beck, Practical Reason, pp. 227-49. I, p. 12, 1-2, and over 30 other places. I, p. 47, 23-25. I, p. 15, 23-25. II, pp. 105, 6-9; 130, 1-3; 127, 1-4. I, p. 4, 11-12. I, p. 14,6-7; and elsewhere. II, p. 109, 12-13. II, p. 10,6-7. I, p. 145, 4. I, p. 146, 25-28. I, p. 149, 10-12. I, p. 147, 15-18. I, pp. 148, 6-8; 151, 11-12. I, p. 153, 11-13; II, p. 55, 9-11; and elsewhere. I, p. 150, 7-9. I, p. 151, 11-12; II, p. 60,4-6; and elsewhere. II, p. 108, 14-18.

247

NOTES 190. 191. 192. 193. 194. 195. 196. 197. 198. 199.

200. 201. 202. 203. 204. 205. 206. 207. 208.

209. 210. 211. 212. 213. 214. 215. 216. 217. 218. 219. 220. 221. 222. 223. 224. 225. 226. 227. 228. 229. 230. 231. 232. 233. 234.

II, pp. 105, 1-3; 120, 24-26. II, p. 92, 15-16. I, I, I, I,

p. 33, 7-11. pp. 50,4-5; 33, 17-19; 54, 13-15; 144, 12-15; and other places. p. 30, 15-16; and elsewhere. p. 14, 16; and elsewhere. II, pp. 49, 24; 51, 14-15; 53, 8-9; I, p. 43, 29. I, pp. 10, 19-21; 54, 12-13. I, pp. 9, 22-23; 14,9; 17, 5. II, p. 35, 24-25. II, p. 48, 24. I, p. 48, 4-5. I, p. 154, 10. I, p. 153, 9-10. II, p. 109, 12-13; I, p. 14, 16-17; and elsewhere. I, pp. 12, 15-16; 71, 12-15. I, p. 20, 17-18. II, p. 63, 9-12; I, pp. 55,9; 70, 24; and elsewhere. II, p. 124 17-19. It will be well to remind ourselves of what was said (Chapter VII, Section V) about the self-imposition of the categorical imperative which reveals the individual person as free and rational, and therefore in his true humanity. I, p. 55,9. I, pp. 27, 16-18; 32, 16; 58, 9-10; 113, 10; and elsewhere. I, p. 48, 2; II, p. 118, 14-15. I, p. 140, 9-11. I, p. 142, 11-12. I, p. 43, 18-19. I, p. 21, 25-26; and numerous other places. I, p. 11, 8-9. II, pp. 49, 28; 55, 16; I, p. 10,9. I, p. 11, 22. I, p. 18, 16-17. II, p. 66, 17. II, p. 63, 13-15. II, p. 60, 10-11. I, p. 144, 8-9. I, p. 55, 16-17; and many other places. I, p. 38, 5-7. This thought is, of course, not new for Kant. See for example Georg Antanopoulos, Der Mensch als Burger Zweier Welten (Bonn: H. Bouvier & Co., 1958). I, pp. 31,2-5; 31, 18-20; 34, 13-14; and elsewhere. I, p. 34, 13-14. I, p. 36, 27-28. I, p. 37, 5-6. I, p. 22, 8; and elsewhere. I, p. 27, 8-9. II, p. 20, 27. I, p. 39, 16-17; II, p. 85, 24-26.

248

NOTES 235. II, pp. 89, 23-90, 2; 85, 24-26; and elsewhere. 236. II, pp. 32,6-13; 28,3-8; 39, 11-16; 47,23-26. 237. II, pp. 71, 22-23; 70, 20-22. 238. II, pp. 54, 3-4; 94, 23. 239. I, p. 103, 1-3. 240. I, p. 41, 13-14. 241. I, p. 39, 8-10. 242. I, p. 59, 2-9. 243. I, pp. 38, 21-26; 38, 27-32; 39, 11-15; 39, 21-24; 53, 29-30; and other places. 244. A13 / B27. 245. A14/ B28. 246. A67 / B92. 247. A477 / B505. 248. A535 / B563. 249. A846/ B874. 250. A494 / B522. 251. A 346 / B404. 252. B426f. 253. A545 / B573. 254. A845f / B873f. 255. I, pp. 52, 28-29; 60, 16-17. 256. I, p. 40, 2-3. 257. I, p. 73, 11-13. 258. I, p. 59, 20-25. 259. I, p. 69, 26-29. 260. I, pp. 67, 18-21; 69, 12-14. 261. I, p. 112, 27-28. 262. I, p. 80, 26. 263. I, p. 105, 6-7. 264. I, p. 3, 2-3. 265. I, p. 77, 22-25. 266. I, p. 81, 7-9. 267. I, p. 85, 29-30. Italics added. 268. I, p. 97, 27-29. 269. I, p. 98, 2-4. 270. I, p. 96, 8-11. Italics in the original. 271. I, p. 97, 23-24. 272. I, p. 103, 4-8. 273. I, p. 93, 26-30. Italics in the original. 274. I, p. 91, 16-21. Italics added. 275. I, p. 93, 1-2. 276. I, p. 122, 14-17, and other places. 277. I, p. 104, 8-12. 278. I, p. 106, 20. 279. I, p. 84,10-11. 280. I, p. 84, 3-5. 281. I, p. 100, 32-101, 4. 282. I, p. 89, 21-25. 283. II, p. 64, 8-11. 284. I, p. 15, 19-22.

249

NOTES 285. 286. 287. 288. 289. 290. 291. 292. 293. 294. 295. 296. 297. 298. 299.

II, p. 55, 1-2. II, p. 61, 2-3. I, p. 13, 13-14. I, p. 98, 14-15. II, p. 54, 7-8. I, p. 22, 11-13. I, p. 64, 9-13. II, p. 59, 21-24. I, p. 51, 12-17. I, p. 99, 20; and elsewhere. I, p. 19, 14-15. I, p. 43, 22-24. I, p. 22, 14-16. I, p. 43, 27-28. I, pp. 22, 18; 43, 18; and elsewhere.

250