the subsumption of the latter under the former.
[Footnote 1: This determination is important for psychology. Since
the inner sense shows nothing constant, but everything in a continual
flux,--for the permanent subject of our thoughts is an identical activity
of the understanding, not an intuitable object,--the concept of substance
is not applicable to psychical phenomena.
Representations of a permanent
(material substances) exist, indeed, but not permanent representations. The
abiding self (ego, soul) which we posit back of internal phenomena is, as
the Dialectic will show, a mere Idea, which, or, rather, the object of
which, maybe "thought" as substance, it is true, but cannot be "given" in
intuition, hence cannot be "known."]
As a result of the fact that the schematism permits a presentation of the
categories in time intuition antecedent to all experience, the possibility
is given of synthetic judgments _a priori_ concerning objects of possible
experience. Such judgments, in so far as they are not based on higher
and more general cognitions, are termed "principles,"
and the system of
them--to be given, with the table of the categories as a guide, in
the _Analytic of Principles_ or the Doctrine of the Faculty of
Judgment--furnishes the outlines of "pure natural science." When thus
the rules of the subsumption to be effected have been found in the pure
concepts, and the conditions and criteria of the subsumption in the
schemata, it remains to indicate the principles which the understanding,
through the aid of the schemata, actually produces _a priori_ from its
concepts.
The principle of quantity is the _Axiom of Intuition_, the principle of
quality the _Anticipation of Perception_; the principles of relation
are termed _Analogies of Experience_, those of modality _Postulates
of Empirical Thought in General_. The first runs, "All intuitions are
extensive quantities"; the second, "In all phenomena sensation, and the
real which corresponds to it in the object, has an intensive quantity,
i.e., a degree." The principle of the "Analogies" is,
"All phenomena, as
far as their existence is concerned, are subject _a priori_ to rules,
determining their mutual relation in time" (in the second edition this is
stated as follows: "Experience is possible only through the representation
of a necessary connection of perceptions"). As there are three modes of
time, there result three "Analogies," the principles of permanence, of
succession (production), and of coexistence. These are: (1) "In all changes
of phenomena the substance is permanent, and its quantum is neither
increased nor diminished in nature." (2) "All changes take place according
to the law of connection between cause and effect"; or,
"Everything that
happens (begins to be) presupposes something on which it follows according
to a rule." (3) "All substances, in so far as they are coexistent, stand in
complete community, that is, reciprocity, one to another." And, finally,
the three "Postulates": "That which agrees with the formal conditions of
experience (in intuition and in concepts) is possible,"
"That which is
connected with the material conditions of experience (sensation) is actual"
(perception is the only criterion of actuality). "That which, in its
connection with the actual, is determined by universal conditions of
experience, is (exists as) necessary."
As the categories of substance and causality are specially preferred to the
others by Kant and the Kantians, and are even proclaimed by some as the
only fundamental concepts, so also the principles of relation have an
established reputation for special importance. The leading ideas in the
proofs of the "Analogies of Experience"--for in spite of their underivative
character the principles require, and are capable of, proof--may next be
noted.
The time determinations of phenomena, the knowledge of their duration,
their succession, and their coexistence, form an indispensable part of our
experience, not only of scientific experience, but of everyday experience
as well. How is the objective time-determination of things and events
possible? If the matter in hand is the determination of the particulars of
a fight with a bloody ending, the witnesses are questioned and testify:
We heard and saw how A began the quarrel by insulting B, and the latter
answered the insult with a blow, whereupon A drew his knife and wounded his
opponent. Here the succession of perceptions on the part of the persons
present is accepted as a true reproduction of the succession of the actual
events. But the succession of perceptions is not always the sure indication
of an actual succession: the trees along an avenue are perceived one after
the other, while they are in reality coexistent. We might now propose the
following statement: The representation of the manifold of phenomena is
always successive, I apprehend one part after another. I can decide whether
these parts succeed one another in the object also, or whether they
are coexistent, by the fact that, in the second case, the series of
my perceptions is reversible, while in the first it is not. I can, if I
choose, direct my glance along the avenue in such a way that I shall begin
the second time with the tree at which I left off the first time; if I wish
to assure myself that the parts of a house are coexistent, I cause my eye
to wander from the upper to the lower portions, from the right side to the
left, and then to perform the same motions in the opposite direction. On
the other hand, it is not left to my choice to hear the thunder either
before or after I see the lightning, or to see a passing wagon now here,
now there, but in these cases I am bound in the succession of my sensuous
representations. The possibility of interchange in the series of
perceptions proves an objective coexistence, the impossibility of this,
an objective succession. But this criterion is limited to the immediate
present, and fails us when a time relation between unobserved phenomena is
to be established. If I go at evening into the dining room and see a vessel
of bubbling water, which is to be used in making tea, over a burning spirit
lamp, whence do I derive the knowledge that the water began, and could
begin, to boil only after the alcohol had been lighted, and not before?
Because I have often seen the flame precede the boiling of the water, and
in this the irreversibility of the two perceptions has guaranteed to me the
succession of the events perceived? Then I may only assume that it is very
probable, not that it is certain, that in this case also the order of the
two events has been the same as I have observed several times before. As a
matter of fact, however, we all assert that the water could not have come
into a boiling condition unless the generation of heat had preceded; that
in every case the fire must be there before the boiling of the water can
commence. Whence do we derive this _must_? Simply and alone from the
thought of a causal connection between the two events.
Every phenomenon
_must_ follow in time that phenomenon of which it is the effect, and must
precede that of which it is the cause. It is through the relation of
causality, and through this alone, that the objective time relation of
phenomena is determined. If nothing preceded an event on which it must
follow according to a rule,[1] then all succession in perception would be
subjective merely, and nothing whatever would be objectively determined by
it as to what was the antecedent and what the consequent in the phenomenon
itself. We should then have a mere play of representations without
significance for the real succession of events. Only the thought of a rule,
according to which the antecedent state contains the necessary condition of
the consequent state, justifies us in transferring the time order of our
representations to phenomena.[2] Nay, even the distinction between
the phenomenon itself, as the object of our representations, and our
representations of it, is effected only by subjecting the phenomenon to
this rule, which assigns to it its definite position in time after another
phenomenon by which it is caused, and thus forbids the inversion of the
perceptions. We can derive the rule of the understanding which produces the
objective time order of the manifold from experience, only because we have
put it into experience, and have first brought experience into being by
means of the rule. We recapitulate in Kant's own words: The objective
(time) relation of phenomena remains undetermined by mere perception (the
mere succession in my apprehension, if it is not determined by means of a
rule in relation to an antecedent, does not guarantee any succession in
the object). In order that this may be known as determined, the relation
between the two states must be so conceived (through the understanding's
concept of causality) that it is thereby determined with necessity which of
them must be taken as coming first, and which second, and not conversely.
Thus it is only by subjecting the succession of phenomena to the law of
causality that empirical knowledge of them is possible.
Without the concept
of cause no objective time determination, and hence, without it, no
experience.
[Footnote 1: "A reality following on an empty time, that is, a beginning of
existence preceded by no state of things, can as little be apprehended as
empty time itself."]
[Footnote 2: "If phenomena were things in themselves no one would be able,
from the succession of the representations of their manifold, to tell how
this is connected in the object."]
That which the relation of cause and effect does for the succession[1] of
phenomena, the relation of reciprocity does for their coexistence, and that
of substance and accident for their duration. Since absolute time is not an
object of perception, the position of phenomena in time cannot be directly
determined, but only through a concept of the understanding. When I
conclude that two objects (the earth and the moon) must be coexistent,
because perceptions of them can follow upon one another in both ways, I
do this on the presupposition that the objects themselves reciprocally
determine their position in time, hence are not isolated, but stand in
causal community or a relation of reciprocal influence.
It is only on the
condition of reciprocity between phenomena, through which they form a
whole, that I can represent them as coexistent.
[Footnote 1: Against the objection that cause and effect are frequently,
indeed in most cases, simultaneous (_e.g._ the heated stove and the warmth
of the room), Kant remarks that the question concerns the order of time
merely, and not the lapse of time. The ball lying on a soft cushion is
simultaneous, it is true, with its effect, the depression in the cushion.
"But I, nevertheless, distinguish the two by the time relation of dynamical
connection. For if I place the ball on the cushion, its previously smooth
surface is followed by a depression, but if there is a depression in the
cushion (I know not whence) a leaden ball does not follow from it."]
Coexistence and succession can be represented only in a permanent
substratum; they are merely the modes in which the permanent exists. Since
time (in which all change takes place, but which itself abides and does not
change) in itself cannot be perceived, the substratum of simultaneity and
succession must exist in phenomena themselves: the permanent in relation
to which alone all the time relations of phenomena can be determined, is
substance; that which alters is its determinations, accidents, or special
modes of existing. Alteration, _i.e._, origin and extinction, is true of
states only, which can begin and cease to be, and not of substances, which
change (_sich verändern_), i.e., pass from one mode of existence into
another, but do not alter (_wechseln_), i.e., pass from non-existence into
existence, or the reverse. It is the permanent alone that changes, and
its states alone that begin and cease to be. The origin and extinction of
substances, or the increase and diminution of their quantum, would remove
the sole condition of the empirical unity of time; for the time relations
of the coexistent and the successive can be perceived only in an identical
substratum, in a permanent, which exists always. The law
"From nothing
nothing comes, and nothing can return to nothing," is everywhere assumed
and has been frequently advanced, but never yet proved, for, indeed, it is
impossible to prove it dogmatically. Here the only possible proof for it,
the critical proof, is given: the principle of permanence is a necessary
condition of experience. The same argument establishes the principle of
sufficient reason, and the principle of the community of substances,
together with the unity of the world to be inferred from this. The three
Analogies together assert: "All phenomena exist in one nature and must so
exist, because without such a unity _a priori_ no unity of experience,
and therefore no determination of objects in experience, would be
possible."--In connection with the Postulates the same transcendental proof
is given for a series of other laws of nature _a priori_, viz., that in the
course of the changes in the world--for the causal principle holds only for
effects in nature, not for the existence of things as substances--there
can be neither blind chance nor a blind necessity (but only a conditional,
hence an intelligible, necessity); and, further, that in the series of
phenomena, there can be neither leap, nor gap, nor break, and hence no
void--_in mundo non datur casus, non datur fatum, non datur saltus, non
datur hiatus_.
While the dynamical principles have to do with the relation of phenomena,
whether it be to one another (Analogies), or to our faculty of cognition
(Postulates), the mathematical relate to the quantity of intuitions and
sensations, and furnish the basis for the application of mathematics
to natural science.[1] An extensive quantity is one in which the
representation of the parts makes the representation of the whole possible,
and so precedes it. I cannot represent a line without drawing it in
thought, i.e., without producing all parts of it one after the other,
starting from a point. All phenomena are intuited as aggregates or as
collections of previously given parts. That which geometry asserts of
pure intuition (i.e., the infinite divisibility of lines) holds also of
empirical intuition. An intensive quantity is one which is apprehended only
as unity, and in which plurality can be represented only by approximation
to negation = 0. Every sensation, consequently every reality in phenomena,
has a degree, which, however small it may be, is never the smallest, but
can always be still more diminished; and between reality and negation there
exists a continuous connection of possible smaller intermediate sensations,
or an infinite series of ever decreasing degrees. The property of
quantities, according to which no part in them is the smallest possible
part, and no part is simple, is termed their continuity.
All phenomena
are continuous quantities, i.e., all their parts are in turn (further
divisible) quantities. Hence it follows, first, that a proof for an empty
space or empty time can never be drawn from experience, and secondly, that
all change is also continuous. "It is remarkable," so Kant ends his proof
of the Anticipation, "that of quantities in general we can know one
_quality_ only _a priori_, namely, their continuity, while with regard to
quality (the real of phenomena) nothing is known to us _a priori_ but their
intensive _quantity_, that is, that they must have a degree. Everything
else is left to experience."
[Footnote 1: In each particular science of nature, science proper (i.e.,
apodictically certain science) is found only to the extent in which
mathematics can be applied therein. For this reason chemistry can never
be anything more than a systematic art or experimental doctrine; and
psychology not even this, but only a natural history of the inner sense or
natural description of the soul. That which Kant's _Metaphysical Elements
of Natural Science_, 1786--in four chapters, Phoronomy, Dynamics,
Mechanics, and Phenomenology--advances as pure physics or the metaphysics
of corporeal nature, is a doctrine of motion. The fundamental determination
of matter (of a somewhat which is to be the object of the external senses)
is motion, for it is only through motion that these senses can be affected,
and the understanding itself reduces all other predicates of matter to
this. The second and most valuable part of the work defines matter as the
movable, that which fills space by its moving force, and recognizes two
original forces, repulsive, expansive superficial force or force of
contact, by which a body resists the entrance of other bodies into its own
space, and attractive, penetrative force or the force which works at a
distance, in virtue of which all particles of matter attract one another.
In order to a determinate filling of space the co-operation of both
fundamental forces is required. In opposition to the mechanical theory of
the atomists, which explains forces from matter and makes them inhere in
it, Kant holds fast to the dynamical view which he had early adopted (cf.
p. 324), according to which forces are the primary factor and matter is
constituted by them.]
The outcome of the Analytic of Principles sounds bold enough. _The
understanding is the lawgiver of nature_: "It does not draw its laws _a
priori_ from nature, but prescribes them to it"; the principles of the pure
understanding are the most universal laws of nature, the empirical laws of
nature only particular determinations of these. All order and regularity
take their origin in the spirit, and are put into objects by this.
Universal and necessary knowledge remained inexplicable so long as it was
assumed that the understanding must conform itself to objects; it is at
once explained if, conversely, we make objects conform themselves to the
understanding. This is a reversal of philosophical opinion which may justly
be compared to the Copernican revolution in astronomy; it is just as
paradoxical as the latter, but just as incontestably true, and just as rich
in results. The sequel will show that this strangely sounding principle,
that things conform themselves to our representations and the laws of
nature are dependent on the understanding, is calculated to make us humble
rather than proud. Our understanding is lawgiver within the limits of its
knowledge, no doubt, but it knows only within the limits of its legislative
authority; nature, to which it dictates laws, is nothing but a totality of
phenomena; beyond the limits of the phenomenal, where its commands become
of no effect, its wishes also find no hearing.
In the second edition the Analytic of Principles contains as a supplement a
"Refutation of Idealism," which, in opposition to Descartes's position that
the only immediate experience is inner experience, from which we reach
outer experience by inference alone, argues that, conversely, it is only
through outer experience, which is immediate experience proper, that inner
experience--as the consciousness of my own existence in time--is possible.
For all time determination presupposes something permanent in perception,
and this permanent something cannot be in me (the mere representation of an
external thing), but only actually existing things which I perceive without
me. There is, further, a chapter on the "Ground of the Distinction of all
Objects in general into Phenomena and Noumena," with an appendix on the
Amphiboly (ambiguity) of the Concepts of Reflection. The latter shows
that the concepts of comparison: identity and difference, agreement and
opposition, the internal and the external, matter and form, acquire
entirely different meanings when they relate to phenomena and to things in
themselves (in other words, to things in their relation to the sensibility,
and in relation to the understanding merely); and further, in a criticism
of the philosophy of Leibnitz, reproaches him with having intellectualized
phenomena, while Locke is said to have sensationalized the concepts of the
understanding.
The chapter on the distinction between phenomena and noumena very much
lessens the hopes, aroused, perchance, by the establishment of the
non-empirical origin of the categories, for an application of these not
confined to any experience. Although the categories, that is, are in their
origin entirely independent of all experience (so much so that they first
make experience possible), they are yet confined in their application
within the bounds of possible experience. They "serve only to spell
phenomena, that we may be able to read them as experience," and when
applied to things in themselves lose all significance.[1] Similarly the
principles which spring from them are "nothing more than principles of
possible experience," and can be referred to phenomena alone, beyond which
they are arbitrary combinations without objective reality. Things in
themselves may be thought, but they can never be known; for knowledge,
besides the empty thought of an object, implies intuitions which must be
subsumed under it or by which the object must be determined. In themselves
the pure concepts relate to all that is thinkable, not merely to that which
can be experienced, but the schemata, which assures their applicability in
the field of experience, at the same time limit them to this sphere. The
schematism makes the immanent use of the categories, and thus a metaphysics
of phenomena, possible, but the transcendent use of them, and consequently
the metaphysics of the suprasensible, impossible. The case would be
different if our intuition were intellectual instead of sensuous, or,
which is the same thing, if our understanding were intuitive instead of
discursive; then the objects which we think would not need to be given us
from another source (through sensuous intuition), but would be themselves
produced in the act by which we thought them. The divine spirit may be such
an archetypal, creative understanding (_intellectus archetypus_), which
generates objects by its thought; the human spirit is not such, and
therefore is confined, with its knowledge, within the circle of possible
perception.--The conception of "intellectual intuition"
leads to a
distinction in regard to things in themselves: in its negative meaning
noumenon denotes a thing in so far as it is _not_ the object of our
_sensuous_ intuition, in its positive meaning a thing which is the
object of a _non-sensuous_ intuition. The positive thing in itself is a
problematical concept; its possibility depends on the existence of an
intuitive understanding, something about which we are ignorant. The
negative thing in itself cannot be known, indeed, but it can be thought;
and the representation of it is a possible concept, one which is not
self-contradictory[2] (a principle which is of great importance for
practical philosophy). Still further, it is an indispensable concept, which
shows that the boundary where our intuition ends is not the boundary of
the thinkable as well; and even if it affords no positive extension of
knowledge[3] it is, nevertheless, very useful, since it sets bounds to the
use of the understanding, and thus, as it were, negatively extends our
knowledge. That which lies beyond the boundary, the "how are they possible"
_(Wiemöglichkeit)_ of things in themselves is shrouded in darkness, but the
boundary itself, _i.e._, the