THE CRITIQUE OF PURE REASON by Immanuel Kant (1c)

4. THE POSTULATES OF EMPIRICAL THOUGHT.

  1. That which agrees with the formal conditions (intuition and

conception) of experience, is possible.

  2. That which coheres with the material conditions of experience

(sensation), is real.

  3. That whose coherence with the real is determined according to

universal conditions of experience is (exists) necessary.

                       Explanation.

  The categories of modality possess this peculiarity, that they do

not in the least determine the object, or enlarge the conception to

which they are annexed as predicates, but only express its relation to

the faculty of cognition. Though my conception of a thing is in itself

complete, I am still entitled to ask whether the object of it is

merely possible, or whether it is also real, or, if the latter,

whether it is also necessary. But hereby the object itself is not more

definitely determined in thought, but the question is only in what

relation it, including all its determinations, stands to the

understanding and its employment in experience, to the empirical

faculty of judgement, and to the reason of its application to

experience.

  For this very reason, too, the categories of modality are nothing

more than explanations of the conceptions of possibility, reality, and

necessity, as employed in experience, and at the same time,

restrictions of all the categories to empirical use alone, not

authorizing the transcendental employment of them. For if they are

to have something more than a merely logical significance, and to be

something more than a mere analytical expression of the form of

thought, and to have a relation to things and their possibility,

reality, or necessity, they must concern possible experience and its

synthetical unity, in which alone objects of cognition can be given.

  The postulate of the possibility of things requires also, that the

conception of the things agree with the formal conditions of our

experience in general. But this, that is to say, the objective form of

experience, contains all the kinds of synthesis which are requisite

for the cognition of objects. A conception which contains a

synthesis must be regarded as empty and, without reference to an

object, if its synthesis does not belong to experience- either as

borrowed from it, and in this case it is called an empirical

conception, or such as is the ground and a priori condition of

experience (its form), and in this case it is a pure conception, a

conception which nevertheless belongs to experience, inasmuch as its

object can be found in this alone. For where shall we find the

criterion or character of the possibility of an object which is

cogitated by means of an a priori synthetical conception, if not in

the synthesis which constitutes the form of empirical cognition of

objects? That in such a conception no contradiction exists is indeed a

necessary logical condition, but very far from being sufficient to

establish the objective reality of the conception, that is, the

possibility of such an object as is thought in the conception. Thus,

in the conception of a figure which is contained within two straight

lines, there is no contradiction, for the conceptions of two

straight lines and of their junction contain no negation of a

figure. The impossibility in such a case does not rest upon the

conception in itself, but upon the construction of it in space, that

is to say, upon the conditions of space and its determinations. But

these have themselves objective reality, that is, they apply to

possible things, because they contain a priori the form of

experience in general.

  And now we shall proceed to point out the extensive utility and

influence of this postulate of possibility. When I represent to myself

a thing that is permanent, so that everything in it which changes

belongs merely to its state or condition, from such a conception alone

I never can cognize that such a thing is possible. Or, if I

represent to myself something which is so constituted that, when it is

posited, something else follows always and infallibly, my thought

contains no self-contradiction; but whether such a property as

causality is to be found in any possible thing, my thought alone

affords no means of judging. Finally, I can represent to myself

different things (substances) which are so constituted that the

state or condition of one causes a change in the state of the other,

and reciprocally; but whether such a relation is a property of

things cannot be perceived from these conceptions, which contain a

merely arbitrary synthesis. Only from the fact, therefore, that

these conceptions express a priori the relations of perceptions in

every experience, do we know that they possess objective reality, that

is, transcendental truth; and that independent of experience, though

not independent of all relation to form of an experience in general

and its synthetical unity, in which alone objects can be empirically

cognized.

  But when we fashion to ourselves new conceptions of substances,

forces, action, and reaction, from the material presented to us by

perception, without following the example of experience in their

connection, we create mere chimeras, of the possibility of which we

cannot discover any criterion, because we have not taken experience

for our instructress, though we have borrowed the conceptions from

her. Such fictitious conceptions derive their character of possibility

not, like the categories, a priori, as conceptions on which all

experience depends, but only, a posteriori, as conceptions given by

means of experience itself, and their possibility must either be

cognized a posteriori and empirically, or it cannot be cognized at

all. A substance which is permanently present in space, yet without

filling it (like that tertium quid between matter and the thinking

subject which some have tried to introduce into metaphysics), or a

peculiar fundamental power of the mind of intuiting the future by

anticipation (instead of merely inferring from past and present

events), or, finally, a power of the mind to place itself in community

of thought with other men, however distant they may be- these are

conceptions the possibility of which has no ground to rest upon. For

they are not based upon experience and its known laws; and, without

experience, they are a merely arbitrary conjunction of thoughts,

which, though containing no internal contradiction, has no claim to

objective reality, neither, consequently, to the possibility of such

an object as is thought in these conceptions. As far as concerns

reality, it is self-evident that we cannot cogitate such a possibility

in concreto without the aid of experience; because reality is

concerned only with sensation, as the matter of experience, and not

with the form of thought, with which we can no doubt indulge in

shaping fancies.

  But I pass by everything which derives its possibility from

reality in experience, and I purpose treating here merely of the

possibility of things by means of a priori conceptions. I maintain,

then, that the possibility of things is not derived from such

conceptions per se, but only when considered as formal and objective

conditions of an experience in general.

  It seems, indeed, as if the possibility of a triangle could be

cognized from the conception of it alone (which is certainly

independent of experience); for we can certainly give to the

conception a corresponding object completely a priori, that is to say,

we can construct it. But as a triangle is only the form of an

object, it must remain a mere product of the imagination, and the

possibility of the existence of an object corresponding to it must

remain doubtful, unless we can discover some other ground, unless we

know that the figure can be cogitated under the conditions upon

which all objects of experience rest. Now, the facts that space is a

formal condition a priori of external experience, that the formative

synthesis, by which we construct a triangle in imagination, is the

very same as that we employ in the apprehension of a phenomenon for

the purpose of making an empirical conception of it, are what alone

connect the notion of the possibility of such a thing, with the

conception of it. In the same manner, the possibility of continuous

quantities, indeed of quantities in general, for the conceptions of

them are without exception synthetical, is never evident from the

conceptions in themselves, but only when they are considered as the

formal conditions of the determination of objects in experience. And

where, indeed, should we look for objects to correspond to our

conceptions, if not in experience, by which alone objects are

presented to us? It is, however, true that without antecedent

experience we can cognize and characterize the possibility of

things, relatively to the formal conditions, under which something

is determined in experience as an object, consequently, completely a

priori. But still this is possible only in relation to experience

and within its limits.

  The postulate concerning the cognition of the reality of things

requires perception, consequently conscious sensation, not indeed

immediately, that is, of the object itself, whose existence is to be

cognized, but still that the object have some connection with a real

perception, in accordance with the analogies of experience, which

exhibit all kinds of real connection in experience.

  From the mere conception of a thing it is impossible to conclude its

existence. For, let the conception be ever so complete, and containing

a statement of all the determinations of the thing, the existence of

it has nothing to do with all this, but only with thew question

whether such a thing is given, so that the perception of it can in

every case precede the conception. For the fact that the conception of

it precedes the perception, merely indicates the possibility of its

existence; it is perception which presents matter to the conception,

that is the sole criterion of reality. Prior to the perception of

the thing, however, and therefore comparatively a priori, we are

able to cognize its existence, provided it stands in connection with

some perceptions according to the principles of the empirical

conjunction of these, that is, in conformity with the analogies of

perception. For, in this case, the existence of the supposed thing

is connected with our perception in a possible experience, and we

are able, with the guidance of these analogies, to reason in the

series of possible perceptions from a thing which we do really

perceive to the thing we do not perceive. Thus, we cognize the

existence of a magnetic matter penetrating all bodies from the

perception of the attraction of the steel-filings by the magnet,

although the constitution of our organs renders an immediate

perception of this matter impossible for us. For, according to the

laws of sensibility and the connected context of our perceptions, we

should in an experience come also on an immediate empirical

intuition of this matter, if our senses were more acute- but this

obtuseness has no influence upon and cannot alter the form of possible

experience in general. Our knowledge of the existence of things

reaches as far as our perceptions, and what may be inferred from

them according to empirical laws, extend. If we do not set out from

experience, or do not proceed according to the laws of the empirical

connection of phenomena, our pretensions to discover the existence

of a thing which we do not immediately perceive are vain. Idealism,

however, brings forward powerful objections to these rules for proving

existence mediately. This is, therefore, the proper place for its

refutation.

                 REFUTATION OF IDEALISM.

  Idealism- I mean material idealism- is the theory which declares the

existence of objects in space without us to be either () doubtful

and indemonstrable, or (2) false and impossible. The first is the

problematical idealism of Descartes, who admits the undoubted

certainty of only one empirical assertion (assertio), to wit, "I

am." The second is the dogmatical idealism of Berkeley, who

maintains that space, together with all the objects of which it is the

inseparable condition, is a thing which is in itself impossible, and

that consequently the objects in space are mere products of the

imagination. The dogmatical theory of idealism is unavoidable, if we

regard space as a property of things in themselves; for in that case

it is, with all to which it serves as condition, a nonentity. But

the foundation for this kind of idealism we have already destroyed

in the transcendental aesthetic. Problematical idealism, which makes

no such assertion, but only alleges our incapacity to prove the

existence of anything besides ourselves by means of immediate

experience, is a theory rational and evidencing a thorough and

philosophical mode of thinking, for it observes the rule not to form a

decisive judgement before sufficient proof be shown. The desired proof

must therefore demonstrate that we have experience of external things,

and not mere fancies. For this purpose, we must prove, that our

internal and, to Descartes, indubitable experience is itself

possible only under the previous assumption of external experience.

                        THEOREM.

    The simple but empirically determined consciousness of

       my own existence proves the existence of external

       objects in space.

                         PROOF

  I am conscious of my own existence as determined in time. All

determination in regard to time presupposes the existence of something

permanent in perception. But this permanent something cannot be

something in me, for the very reason that my existence in time is

itself determined by this permanent something. It follows that the

perception of this permanent existence is possible only through a

thing without me and not through the mere representation of a thing

without me. Consequently, the determination of my existence in time is

possible only through the existence of real things external to me.

Now, consciousness in time is necessarily connected with the

consciousness of the possibility of this determination in time.

Hence it follows that consciousness in time is necessarily connected

also with the existence of things without me, inasmuch as the

existence of these things is the condition of determination in time.

That is to say, the consciousness of my own existence is at the same

time an immediate consciousness of the existence of other things

without me.

  Remark I. The reader will observe, that in the foregoing proof the

game which idealism plays is retorted upon itself, and with more

justice. It assumed that the only immediate experience is internal and

that from this we can only infer the existence of external things.

But, as always happens, when we reason from given effects to

determined causes, idealism bas reasoned with too much haste and

uncertainty, for it is quite possible that the cause of our

representations may lie in ourselves, and that we ascribe it falsely

to external things. But our proof shows that external experience is

properly immediate,* that only by virtue of it- not, indeed, the

consciousness of our own existence, but certainly the determination of

our existence in time, that is, internal experience- is possible. It

is true, that the representation "I am," which is the expression of

the consciousness which can accompany all my thoughts, is that which

immediately includes the existence of a subject. But in this

representation we cannot find any knowledge of the subject, and

therefore also no empirical knowledge, that is, experience. For

experience contains, in addition to the thought of something existing,

intuition, and in this case it must be internal intuition, that is,

time, in relation to which the subject must be determined. But the

existence of external things is absolutely requisite for this purpose,

so that it follows that internal experience is itself possible only

mediately and through external experience.

  *The immediate consciousness of the existence of external things is,

in the preceding theorem, not presupposed, but proved, by the

possibility of this consciousness understood by us or not. The

question as to the possibility of it would stand thus: "Have we an

internal sense, but no external sense, and is our belief in external

perception a mere delusion?" But it is evident that, in order merely

to fancy to ourselves anything as external, that is, to present it

to the sense in intuition we must already possess an external sense,

and must thereby distinguish immediately the mere receptivity of an

external intuition from the spontaneity which characterizes every

act of imagination. For merely to imagine also an external sense,

would annihilate the faculty of intuition itself which is to be

determined by the imagination.

  Remark II. Now with this view all empirical use of our faculty of

cognition in the determination of time is in perfect accordance. Its

truth is supported by the fact that it is possible to perceive a

determination of time only by means of a change in external

relations (motion) to the permanent in space (for example, we become

aware of the sun's motion by observing the changes of his relation

to the objects of this earth). But this is not all. We find that we

possess nothing permanent that can correspond and be submitted to

the conception of a substance as intuition, except matter. This idea

of permanence is not itself derived from external experience, but is

an a priori necessary condition of all determination of time,

consequently also of the internal sense in reference to our own

existence, and that through the existence of external things. In the

representation "I," the consciousness of myself is not an intuition,

but a merely intellectual representation produced by the spontaneous

activity of a thinking subject. It follows, that this "I" has not

any predicate of intuition, which, in its character of permanence,

could serve as correlate to the determination of time in the

internal sense- in the same way as impenetrability is the correlate of

matter as an empirical intuition.

  Remark III. From the fact that the existence of external things is a

necessary condition of the possibility of a determined consciousness

of ourselves, it does not follow that every intuitive representation

of external things involves the existence of these things, for their

representations may very well be the mere products of the

imagination (in dreams as well as in madness); though, indeed, these

are themselves created by the reproduction of previous external

perceptions, which, as has been shown, are possible only through the

reality of external objects. The sole aim of our remarks has, however,

been to prove that internal experience in general is possible only

through external experience in general. Whether this or that

supposed experience be purely imaginary must be discovered from its

particular determinations and by comparing these with the criteria

of all real experience.

  Finally, as regards the third postulate, it applies to material

necessity in existence, and not to merely formal and logical necessity

in the connection of conceptions. Now as we cannot cognize

completely a priori the existence of any object of sense, though we

can do so comparatively a priori, that is, relatively to some other

previously given existence- a cognition, however, which can only be of

such an existence as must be contained in the complex of experience,

of which the previously given perception is a part- the necessity of

existence can never be cognized from conceptions, but always, on the

contrary, from its connection with that which is an object of

perception. But the only existence cognized, under the condition of

other given phenomena, as necessary, is the existence of effects

from given causes in conformity with the laws of causality. It is

consequently not the necessity of the existence of things (as

substances), but the necessity of the state of things that we cognize,

and that not immediately, but by means of the existence of other

states given in perception, according to empirical laws of

causality. Hence it follows that the criterion of necessity is to be

found only in the law of possible experience- that everything which

happens is determined a priori in the phenomenon by its cause. Thus we

cognize only the necessity of effects in nature, the causes of which

are given us. Moreover, the criterion of necessity in existence

possesses no application beyond the field of possible experience,

and even in this it is not valid of the existence of things as

substances, because these can never be considered as empirical

effects, or as something that happens and has a beginning.

Necessity, therefore, regards only the relations of phenomena

according to the dynamical law of causality, and the possibility

grounded thereon, of reasoning from some given existence (of a

cause) a priori to another existence (of an effect). "Everything

that happens is hypothetically necessary," is a principle which

subjects the changes that take place in the world to a law, that is,

to a rule of necessary existence, without which nature herself could

not possibly exist. Hence the proposition, "Nothing happens by blind

chance (in mundo non datur casus)," is an a priori law of nature.

The case is the same with the proposition, "Necessity in nature is not

blind," that is, it is conditioned, consequently intelligible

necessity (non datur fatum). Both laws subject the play of change to

"a nature of things (as phenomena)," or, which is the same thing, to

the unity of the understanding, and through the understanding alone

can changes belong to an experience, as the synthetical unity of

phenomena. Both belong to the class of dynamical principles. The

former is properly a consequence of the principle of causality- one of

the analogies of experience. The latter belongs to the principles of

modality, which to the determination of causality adds the

conception of necessity, which is itself, however, subject to a rule

of the understanding. The principle of continuity forbids any leap

in the series of phenomena regarded as changes (in mundo non datur

saltus); and likewise, in the complex of all empirical intuitions in

space, any break or hiatus between two phenomena (non datur hiatus)-

for we can so express the principle, that experience can admit nothing

which proves the existence of a vacuum, or which even admits it as a

part of an empirical synthesis. For, as regards a vacuum or void,

which we may cogitate as out and beyond the field of possible

experience (the world), such a question cannot come before the

tribunal of mere understanding, which decides only upon questions that

concern the employment of given phenomena for the construction of

empirical cognition. It is rather a problem for ideal reason, which

passes beyond the sphere of a possible experience and aims at

forming a judgement of that which surrounds and circumscribes it,

and the proper place for the consideration of it is the transcendental

dialectic. These four propositions, "In mundo non datur hiatus, non

datur saltus, non datur casus, non datur fatum," as well as all

principles of transcendental origin, we could very easily exhibit in

their proper order, that is, in conformity with the order of the

categories, and assign to each its proper place. But the already

practised reader will do this for himself, or discover the clue to

such an arrangement. But the combined result of all is simply this, to

admit into the empirical synthesis nothing which might cause a break

in or be foreign to the understanding and the continuous connection of

all phenomena, that is, the unity of the conceptions of the

understanding. For in the understanding alone is the unity of

experience, in which all perceptions must have their assigned place,

possible.

  Whether the field of possibility be greater than that of reality,

and whether the field of the latter be itself greater than that of

necessity, are interesting enough questions, and quite capable of

synthetic solution, questions, however, which come under the

jurisdiction of reason alone. For they are tantamount to asking

whether all things as phenomena do without exception belong to the

complex and connected whole of a single experience, of which every

given perception is a part which therefore cannot be conjoined with

any other phenomena- or, whether my perceptions can belong to more

than one possible experience? The understanding gives to experience,

according to the subjective and formal conditions, of sensibility as

well as of apperception, the rules which alone make this experience

possible. Other forms of intuition besides those of space and time,

other forms of understanding besides the discursive forms of

thought, or of cognition by means of conceptions, we can neither

imagine nor make intelligible to ourselves; and even if we could, they

would still not belong to experience, which is the only mode of

cognition by which objects are presented to us. Whether other

perceptions besides those which belong to the total of our possible

experience, and consequently whether some other sphere of matter

exists, the understanding has no power to decide, its proper

occupation being with the synthesis of that which is given.

Moreover, the poverty of the usual arguments which go to prove the

existence of a vast sphere of possibility, of which all that is real

(every object of experience) is but a small part, is very

remarkable. "All real is possible"; from this follows naturally,

according to the logical laws of conversion, the particular

proposition: "Some possible is real." Now this seems to be

equivalent to: "Much is possible that is not real." No doubt it does

seem as if we ought to consider the sum of the possible to be

greater than that of the real, from the fact that something must be

added to the former to constitute the latter. But this notion of

adding to the possible is absurd. For that which is not in the sum

of the possible, and consequently requires to be added to it, is

manifestly impossible. In addition to accordance with the formal

conditions of experience, the understanding requires a connection with

some perception; but that which is connected with this perception is

real, even although it is not immediately perceived. But that

another series of phenomena, in complete coherence with that which

is given in perception, consequently more than one all-embracing

experience is possible, is an inference which cannot be concluded from

the data given us by experience, and still less without any data at

all. That which is possible only under conditions which are themselves

merely possible, is not possible in any respect. And yet we can find

no more certain ground on which to base the discussion of the question

whether the sphere of possibility is wider than that of experience.

  I have merely mentioned these questions, that in treating of the

conception of the understanding, there might be no omission of

anything that, in the common opinion, belongs to them. In reality,

however, the notion of absolute possibility (possibility which is

valid in every respect) is not a mere conception of the understanding,

which can be employed empirically, but belongs to reason alone,

which passes the bounds of all empirical use of the understanding.

We have, therefore, contented ourselves with a merely critical remark,

leaving the subject to be explained in the sequel.

  Before concluding this fourth section, and at the same time the

system of all principles of the pure understanding, it seems proper to

mention the reasons which induced me to term the principles of

modality postulates. This expression I do not here use in the sense

which some more recent philosophers, contrary to its meaning with

mathematicians, to whom the word properly belongs, attach to it-

that of a proposition, namely, immediately certain, requiring

neither deduction nor proof. For if, in the case of synthetical

propositions, however evident they may be, we accord to them without

deduction, and merely on the strength of their own pretensions,

unqualified belief, all critique of the understanding is entirely

lost; and, as there is no want of bold pretensions, which the common

belief (though for the philosopher this is no credential) does not

reject, the understanding lies exposed to every delusion and

conceit, without the power of refusing its assent to those assertions,

which, though illegitimate, demand acceptance as veritable axioms.

When, therefore, to the conception of a thing an a priori

determination is synthetically added, such a proposition must

obtain, if not a proof, at least a deduction of the legitimacy of

its assertion.

  The principles of modality are, however, not objectively

synthetical, for the predicates of possibility, reality, and necessity

do not in the least augment the conception of that of which they are

affirmed, inasmuch as they contribute nothing to the representation of

the object. But as they are, nevertheless, always synthetical, they

are so merely subjectively. That is to say, they have a reflective

power, and apply to the conception of a thing, of which, in other

respects, they affirm nothing, the faculty of cognition in which the

conception originates and has its seat. So that if the conception

merely agree with the formal conditions of experience, its object is

called possible; if it is in connection with perception, and

determined thereby, the object is real; if it is determined

according to conceptions by means of the connection of perceptions,

the object is called necessary. The principles of modality therefore

predicate of a conception nothing more than the procedure of the

faculty of cognition which generated it. Now a postulate in

mathematics is a practical proposition which contains nothing but

the synthesis by which we present an object to ourselves, and

produce the conception of it, for example- "With a given line, to

describe a circle upon a plane, from a given point"; and such a

proposition does not admit of proof, because the procedure, which it

requires, is exactly that by which alone it is possible to generate

the conception of such a figure. With the same right, accordingly, can

we postulate the principles of modality, because they do not

augment* the conception of a thing but merely indicate the manner in

which it is connected with the faculty of cognition.

  *When I think the reality of a thing, I do really think more than

the possibility, but not in the thing; for that can never contain more

in reality than was contained in its complete possibility. But while

the notion of possibility is merely the notion of a position of

thing in relation to the understanding (its empirical use), reality is

the conjunction of the thing with perception.

           GENERAL REMARK ON THE SYSTEM OF PRINCIPLES.

  It is very remarkable that we cannot perceive the possibility of a

thing from the category alone, but must always have an intuition, by

which to make evident the objective reality of the pure conception

of the understanding. Take, for example, the categories of relation.

How (1) a thing can exist only as a subject, and not as a mere

determination of other things, that is, can be substance; or how

(2), because something exists, some other thing must exist,

consequently how a thing can be a cause; or how (3), when several

things exist, from the fact that one of these things exists, some

consequence to the others follows, and reciprocally, and in this way a

community of substances can be possible- are questions whose

solution cannot be obtained from mere conceptions. The very same is

the case with the other categories; for example, how a thing can be of

the same sort with many others, that is, can be a quantity, and so on.

So long as we have not intuition we cannot know whether we do really

think an object by the categories, and where an object can anywhere be

found to cohere with them, and thus the truth is established, that the

categories are not in themselves cognitions, but mere forms of thought

for the construction of cognitions from given intuitions. For the same

reason is it true that from categories alone no synthetical

proposition can be made. For example: "In every existence there is

substance," that is, something that can exist only as a subject and

not as mere predicate; or, "Everything is a quantity"- to construct

propositions such as these, we require something to enable us to go

out beyond the given conception and connect another with it. For the

same reason the attempt to prove a synthetical proposition by means of

mere conceptions, for example: "Everything that exists contingently

has a cause," has never succeeded. We could never get further than

proving that, without this relation to conceptions, we could not

conceive the existence of the contingent, that is, could not a

priori through the understanding cognize the existence of such a

thing; but it does not hence follow that this is also the condition of

the possibility of the thing itself that is said to be contingent. If,

accordingly; we look back to our proof of the principle of

causality, we shall find that we were able to prove it as valid only

of objects of possible experience, and, indeed, only as itself the

principle of the possibility of experience, Consequently of the

cognition of an object given in empirical intuition, and not from mere

conceptions. That, however, the proposition: "Everything that is

contingent must have a cause," is evident to every one merely from

conceptions, is not to be denied. But in this case the conception of

the contingent is cogitated as involving not the category of

modality (as that the non-existence of which can be conceive but

that of relation (as that which can exist only as the consequence of

something else), and so it is really an identical proposition: "That

which can exist only as a consequence, has a cause." In fact, when

we have to give examples of contingent existence, we always refer to

changes, and not merely to the possibility of conceiving the

opposite.* But change is an event, which, as such, is possible only

through a cause, and considered per se its non-existence is

therefore possible, and we become cognizant of its contingency from

the fact that it can exist only as the effect of a cause. Hence, if

a thing is assumed to be contingent, it is an analytical proposition

to say, it has a cause.

  *We can easily conceive the non-existence of matter; but the

ancients did not thence infer its contingency. But even the

alternation of the existence and non-existence of a given state in a

thing, in which all change consists, by no means proves the

contingency of that state- the ground of proof being the reality of

its opposite. For example, a body is in a state of rest after

motion, but we cannot infer the contingency of the motion from the

fact that the former is the opposite of the latter. For this

opposite is merely a logical and not a real opposite to the other.

If we wish to demonstrate the contingency of the motion, what we ought

to prove is that, instead of the motion which took place in the

preceding point of time, it was possible for the body to have been

then in rest, not, that it is afterwards in rest; for in this case,

both opposites are perfectly consistent with each other.

  But it is still more remarkable that, to understand the

possibility of things according to the categories and thus to

demonstrate the objective reality of the latter, we require not merely

intuitions, but external intuitions. If, for example, we take the pure

conceptions of relation, we find that (1) for the purpose of

presenting to the conception of substance something permanent in

intuition corresponding thereto and thus of demonstrating the

objective reality of this conception, we require an intuition (of

matter) in space, because space alone is permanent and determines

things as such, while time, and with it all that is in the internal

sense, is in a state of continual flow; (2) in order to represent

change as the intuition corresponding to the conception of

causality, we require the representation of motion as change in space;

in fact, it is through it alone that changes, the possibility of which

no pure understanding can perceive, are capable of being intuited.

Change is the connection of determinations contradictorily opposed

to each other in the existence of one and the same thing. Now, how

it is possible that out of a given state one quite opposite to it in

the same thing should follow, reason without an example can not only

not conceive, but cannot even make intelligible without intuition; and

this intuition is the motion of a point in space; the existence of

which in different spaces (as a consequence of opposite

determinations) alone makes the intuition of change possible. For,

in order to make even internal change cognitable, we require to

represent time, as the form of the internal sense, figuratively by a

line, and the internal change by the drawing of that line (motion),

and consequently are obliged to employ external intuition to be able

to represent the successive existence of ourselves in different

states. The proper ground of this fact is that all change to be

perceived as change presupposes something permanent in intuition,

while in the internal sense no permanent intuition is to be found.

Lastly, the objective possibility of the category of community

cannot be conceived by mere reason, and consequently its objective

reality cannot be demonstrated without an intuition, and that external

in space. For how can we conceive the possibility of community, that

is, when several substances exist, that some effect on the existence

of the one follows from the existence of the other, and

reciprocally, and therefore that, because something exists in the

latter, something else must exist in the former, which could not be

understood from its own existence alone? For this is the very

essence of community- which is inconceivable as a property of things

which are perfectly isolated. Hence, Leibnitz, in attributing to the

substances of the world- as cogitated by the understanding alone- a

community, required the mediating aid of a divinity; for, from their

existence, such a property seemed to him with justice inconceivable.

But we can very easily conceive the possibility of community (of

substances as phenomena) if we represent them to ourselves as in

space, consequently in external intuition. For external intuition

contains in itself a priori formal external relations, as the

conditions of the possibility of the real relations of action and

reaction, and therefore of the possibility of community. With the same

ease can it be demonstrated, that the possibility of things as

quantities, and consequently the objective reality of the category

of quantity, can be grounded only in external intuition, and that by

its means alone is the notion of quantity appropriated by the internal

sense. But I must avoid prolixity, and leave the task of

illustrating this by examples to the reader's own reflection.

  The above remarks are of the greatest importance, not only for the

confirmation of our previous confutation of idealism, but still more

when the subject of self-cognition by mere internal consciousness

and the determination of our own nature without the aid of external

empirical intuitions is under discussion, for the indication of the

grounds of the possibility of such a cognition.

  The result of the whole of this part of the analytic of principles

is, therefore: "All principles of the pure understanding are nothing

more than a priori principles of the possibility of experience, and to

experience alone do all a priori synthetical propositions apply and

relate"; indeed, their possibility itself rests entirely on this

relation.

    CHAPTER III Of the Ground of the Division of all Objects

                 into Phenomena and Noumena.

  We have now not only traversed the region of the pure

understanding and carefully surveyed every part of it, but we have

also measured it, and assigned to everything therein its proper place.

But this land is an island, and enclosed by nature herself within

unchangeable limits. It is the land of truth (an attractive word),

surrounded by a wide and stormy ocean, the region of illusion, where

many a fog-bank, many an iceberg, seems to the mariner, on his

voyage of discovery, a new country, and, while constantly deluding him

with vain hopes, engages him in dangerous adventures, from which he

never can desist, and which yet he never can bring to a termination.

But before venturing upon this sea, in order to explore it in its

whole extent, and to arrive at a certainty whether anything is to be

discovered there, it will not be without advantage if we cast our eyes

upon the chart of the land that we are about to leave, and to ask

ourselves, firstly, whether we cannot rest perfectly contented with

what it contains, or whether we must not of necessity be contented

with it, if we can find nowhere else a solid foundation to build upon;

and, secondly, by what title we possess this land itself, and how we

hold it secure against all hostile claims? Although, in the course

of our analytic, we have already given sufficient answers to these

questions, yet a summary recapitulation of these solutions may be

useful in strengthening our conviction, by uniting in one point the

momenta of the arguments.

  We have seen that everything which the understanding draws from

itself, without borrowing from experience, it nevertheless possesses

only for the behoof and use of experience. The principles of the

pure understanding, whether constitutive a priori (as the mathematical

principles), or merely regulative (as the dynamical), contain

nothing but the pure schema, as it were, of possible experience. For

experience possesses its unity from the synthetical unity which the

understanding, originally and from itself, imparts to the synthesis of

the imagination in relation to apperception, and in a priori

relation to and agreement with which phenomena, as data for a possible

cognition, must stand. But although these rules of the understanding

are not only a priori true, but the very source of all truth, that is,

of the accordance of our cognition with objects, and on this ground,

that they contain the basis of the possibility of experience, as the

ensemble of all cognition, it seems to us not enough to propound

what is true- we desire also to be told what we want to know. If,

then, we learn nothing more by this critical examination than what

we should have practised in the merely empirical use of the

understanding, without any such subtle inquiry, the presumption is

that the advantage we reap from it is not worth the labour bestowed

upon it. It may certainly be answered that no rash curiosity is more

prejudicial to the enlargement of our knowledge than that which must

know beforehand the utility of this or that piece of information which

we seek, before we have entered on the needful investigations, and

before one could form the least conception of its utility, even though

it were placed before our eyes. But there is one advantage in such

transcendental inquiries which can be made comprehensible to the

dullest and most reluctant learner- this, namely, that the

understanding which is occupied merely with empirical exercise, and

does not reflect on the sources of its own cognition, may exercise its

functions very well and very successfully, but is quite unable to do

one thing, and that of very great importance, to determine, namely,

the bounds that limit its employment, and to know what lies within

or without its own sphere. This purpose can be obtained only by such

profound investigations as we have instituted. But if it cannot

distinguish whether certain questions lie within its horizon or not,

it can never be sure either as to its claims or possessions, but

must lay its account with many humiliating corrections, when it

transgresses, as it unavoidably will, the limits of its own territory,

and loses itself in fanciful opinions and blinding illusions.

  That the understanding, therefore, cannot make of its a priori

principles, or even of its conceptions, other than an empirical use,

is a proposition which leads to the most important results. A

transcendental use is made of a conception in a fundamental

proposition or principle, when it is referred to things in general and

considered as things in themselves; an empirical use, when it is

referred merely to phenomena, that is, to objects of a possible

experience. That the latter use of a conception is the only admissible

one is evident from the reasons following. For every conception are

requisite, firstly, the logical form of a conception (of thought)

general; and, secondly, the possibility of presenting to this an

object to which it may apply. Failing this latter, it has no sense,

and utterly void of content, although it may contain the logical

function for constructing a conception from certain data. Now,

object cannot be given to a conception otherwise than by intuition,

and, even if a pure intuition antecedent to the object is a priori

possible, this pure intuition can itself obtain objective validity

only from empirical intuition, of which it is itself but the form. All

conceptions, therefore, and with them all principles, however high the

degree of their a priori possibility, relate to empirical

intuitions, that is, to data towards a possible experience. Without

this they possess no objective validity, but are mere play of

imagination or of understanding with images or notions. Let us take,

for example, the conceptions of mathematics, and first in its pure

intuitions. "Space has three dimensions"- "Between two points there

can be only one straight line," etc. Although all these principles,

and the representation of the object with which this science

occupies itself, are generated in the mind entirely a priori, they

would nevertheless have no significance if we were not always able

to exhibit their significance in and by means of phenomena

(empirical objects). Hence it is requisite that an abstract conception

be made sensuous, that is, that an object corresponding to it in

intuition be forthcoming, otherwise the conception remains, as we say,

without sense, that is, without meaning. Mathematics fulfils this

requirement by the construction of the figure, which is a phenomenon

evident to the senses. The same science finds support and significance

in number; this in its turn finds it in the fingers, or in counters,

or in lines and points. The conception itself is always produced a

priori, together with the synthetical principles or formulas from such

conceptions; but the proper employment of them, and their

application to objects, can exist nowhere but in experience, the

possibility of which, as regards its form, they contain a priori.

  That this is also the case with all of the categories and the

principles based upon them is evident from the fact that we cannot

render intelligible the possibility of an object corresponding to them

without having recourse to the conditions of sensibility,

consequently, to the form of phenomena, to which, as their only proper

objects, their use must therefore be confined, inasmuch as, if this

condition is removed, all significance, that is, all relation to an

object, disappears, and no example can be found to make it

comprehensible what sort of things we ought to think under such

conceptions.

  The conception of quantity cannot be explained except by saying that

it is the determination of a thing whereby it can be cogitated how

many times one is placed in it. But this "how many times" is based

upon successive repetition, consequently upon time and the synthesis

of the homogeneous therein. Reality, in contradistinction to negation,

can be explained only by cogitating a time which is either filled

therewith or is void. If I leave out the notion of permanence (which

is existence in all time), there remains in the conception of

substance nothing but the logical notion of subject, a notion of which

I endeavour to realize by representing to myself something that can

exist only as a subject. But not only am I perfectly ignorant of any

conditions under which this logical prerogative can belong to a thing,

I can make nothing out of the notion, and draw no inference from it,

because no object to which to apply the conception is determined,

and we consequently do not know whether it has any meaning at all.

In like manner, if I leave out the notion of time, in which

something follows upon some other thing in conformity with a rule, I

can find nothing in the pure category, except that there is a

something of such a sort that from it a conclusion may be drawn as

to the existence of some other thing. But in this case it would not

only be impossible to distinguish between a cause and an effect,

but, as this power to draw conclusions requires conditions of which

I am quite ignorant, the conception is not determined as to the mode

in which it ought to apply to an object. The so-called principle:

"Everything that is contingent has a cause," comes with a gravity

and self-assumed authority that seems to require no support from

without. But, I ask, what is meant by contingent? The answer is that

the non-existence of which is possible. But I should like very well to

know by what means this possibility of non-existence is to be

cognized, if we do not represent to ourselves a succession in the

series of phenomena, and in this succession an existence which follows

a non-existence, or conversely, consequently, change. For to say, that

the non-existence of a thing is not self-contradictory is a lame

appeal to a logical condition, which is no doubt a necessary condition

of the existence of the conception, but is far from being sufficient

for the real objective possibility of non-existence. I can

annihilate in thought every existing substance without

self-contradiction, but I cannot infer from this their objective

contingency in existence, that is to say, the possibility of their

non-existence in itself. As regards the category of community, it

may easily be inferred that, as the pure categories of substance and

causality are incapable of a definition and explanation sufficient

to determine their object without the aid of intuition, the category

of reciprocal causality in the relation of substances to each other

(commercium) is just as little susceptible thereof. Possibility,

existence, and necessity nobody has ever yet been able to explain

without being guilty of manifest tautology, when the definition has

been drawn entirely from the pure understanding. For the

substitution of the logical possibility of the conception- the

condition of which is that it be not self-contradictory, for the

transcendental possibility of things- the condition of which is that

there be an object corresponding to the conception, is a trick which

can only deceive the inexperienced.*

  *In one word, to none of these conceptions belongs a corresponding

object, and consequently their real possibility cannot be

demonstrated, if we take away sensuous intuition- the only intuition

which we possess- and there then remains nothing but the logical

possibility, that is, the fact that the conception or thought is

possible- which, however, is not the question; what we want to know

being, whether it relates to an object and thus possesses any meaning.

  It follows incontestably, that the pure conceptions of the

understanding are incapable of transcendental, and must always be of

empirical use alone, and that the principles of the pure understanding

relate only to the general conditions of a possible experience, to

objects of the senses, and never to things in general, apart from

the mode in which we intuite them.

  Transcendental analytic has accordingly this important result, to

wit, that the understanding is competent' effect nothing a priori,

except the anticipation of the form of a possible experience in

general, and that, as that which is not phenomenon cannot be an object

of experience, it can never overstep the limits of sensibility, within

which alone objects are presented to us. Its principles are merely

principles of the exposition of phenomena, and the proud name of an

ontology, which professes to present synthetical cognitions a priori

of things in general in a systematic doctrine, must give place to

the modest title of analytic of the pure understanding.

  Thought is the act of referring a given intuition to an object. If

the mode of this intuition is unknown to us, the object is merely

transcendental, and the conception of the understanding is employed

only transcendentally, that is, to produce unity in the thought of a

manifold in general. Now a pure category, in which all conditions of

sensuous intuition- as the only intuition we possess- are

abstracted, does not determine an object, but merely expresses the

thought of an object in general, according to different modes. Now, to

employ a conception, the function of judgement is required, by which

an object is subsumed under the conception, consequently the at

least formal condition, under which something can be given in

intuition. Failing this condition of judgement (schema), subsumption

is impossible; for there is in such a case nothing given, which may be

subsumed under the conception. The merely transcendental use of the

categories is therefore, in fact, no use at all and has no determined,

or even, as regards its form, determinable object. Hence it follows

that the pure category is incompetent to establish a synthetical a

priori principle, and that the principles of the pure understanding

are only of empirical and never of transcendental use, and that beyond

the sphere of possible experience no synthetical a priori principles

are possible.

  It may be advisable, therefore, to express ourselves thus. The

pure categories, apart from the formal conditions of sensibility, have

a merely transcendental meaning, but are nevertheless not of

transcendental use, because this is in itself impossible, inasmuch

as all the conditions of any employment or use of them (in judgements)

are absent, to wit, the formal conditions of the subsumption of an

object under these conceptions. As, therefore, in the character of

pure categories, they must be employed empirically, and cannot be

employed transcendentally, they are of no use at all, when separated

from sensibility, that is, they cannot be applied to an object. They

are merely the pure form of the employment of the understanding in

respect of objects in general and of thought, without its being at the

same time possible to think or to determine any object by their means.

  But there lurks at the foundation of this subject an illusion

which it is very difficult to avoid. The categories are not based,

as regards their origin, upon sensibility, like the forms of

intuition, space, and time; they seem, therefore, to be capable of

an application beyond the sphere of sensuous objects. But this is

not the case. They are nothing but mere forms of thought, which

contain only the logical faculty of uniting a priori in

consciousness the manifold given in intuition. Apart, then, from the

only intuition possible for us, they have still less meaning than

the pure sensuous forms, space and time, for through them an object is

at least given, while a mode of connection of the manifold, when the

intuition which alone gives the manifold is wanting, has no meaning at

all. At the same time, when we designate certain objects as

phenomena or sensuous existences, thus distinguishing our mode of

intuiting them from their own nature as things in themselves, it is

evident that by this very distinction we as it were place the

latter, considered in this their own nature, although we do not so

intuite them, in opposition to the former, or, on the other hand, we

do so place other possible things, which are not objects of our

senses, but are cogitated by the understanding alone, and call them

intelligible existences (noumena). Now the question arises whether the

pure conceptions of our understanding do possess significance in

respect of these latter, and may possibly be a mode of cognizing them.

  But we are met at the very commencement with an ambiguity, which may

easily occasion great misapprehension. The understanding, when it

terms an object in a certain relation phenomenon, at the same time

forms out of this relation a representation or notion of an object

in itself, and hence believes that it can form also conceptions of

such objects. Now as the understanding possesses no other

fundamental conceptions besides the categories, it takes for granted

that an object considered as a thing in itself must be capable of

being thought by means of these pure conceptions, and is thereby led

to hold the perfectly undetermined conception of an intelligible

existence, a something out of the sphere of our sensibility, for a

determinate conception of an existence which we can cognize in some

way or other by means of the understanding.

  If, by the term noumenon, we understand a thing so far as it is

not an object of our sensuous intuition, thus making abstraction of

our mode of intuiting it, this is a noumenon in the negative sense

of the word. But if we understand by it an object of a non-sensuous

intuition, we in this case assume a peculiar mode of intuition, an

intellectual intuition, to wit, which does not, however, belong to us,

of the very possibility of which we have no notion- and this is a

noumenon in the positive sense.

  The doctrine of sensibility is also the doctrine of noumena in the

negative sense, that is, of things which the understanding is

obliged to cogitate apart from any relation to our mode of

intuition, consequently not as mere phenomena, but as things in

themselves. But the understanding at the same time comprehends that it

cannot employ its categories for the consideration of things in

themselves, because these possess significance only in relation to the

unity of intuitions in space and time, and that they are competent

to determine this unity by means of general a priori connecting

conceptions only on account of the pure ideality of space and time.

Where this unity of time is not to be met with, as is the case with

noumena, the whole use, indeed the whole meaning of the categories

is entirely lost, for even the possibility of things to correspond

to the categories is in this case incomprehensible. On this point, I

need only refer the reader to what I have said at the commencement

of the General Remark appended to the foregoing chapter. Now, the

possibility of a thing can never be proved from the fact that the

conception of it is not self-contradictory, but only by means of an

intuition corresponding to the conception. If, therefore, we wish to

apply the categories to objects which cannot be regarded as phenomena,

we must have an intuition different from the sensuous, and in this

case the objects would be a noumena in the positive sense of the word.

Now, as such an intuition, that is, an intellectual intuition, is no

part of our faculty of cognition, it is absolutely impossible for

the categories to possess any application beyond the limits of

experience. It may be true that there are intelligible existences to

which our faculty of sensuous intuition has no relation, and cannot be

applied, but our conceptions of the understanding, as mere forms of

thought for our sensuous intuition, do not extend to these. What,

therefore, we call noumenon must be understood by us as such in a

negative sense.

  If I take away from an empirial intuition all thought (by means of

the categories), there remains no cognition of any object; for by

means of mere intuition nothing is cogitated, and, from the

existence of such or such an affection of sensibility in me, it does

not follow that this affection or representation has any relation to

an object without me. But if I take away all intuition, there still

remains the form of thought, that is, the mode of determining an

object for the manifold of a possible intuition. Thus the categories

do in some measure really extend further than sensuous intuition,

inasmuch as they think objects in general, without regard to the

mode (of sensibility) in which these objects are given. But they do

not for this reason apply to and determine a wider sphere of

objects, because we cannot assume that such can be given, without

presupposing the possibility of another than the sensuous mode of

intuition, a supposition we are not justified in making.

  I call a conception problematical which contains in itself no

contradiction, and which is connected with other cognitions as a

limitation of given conceptions, but whose objective reality cannot be

cognized in any manner. The conception of a noumenon, that is, of a

thing which must be cogitated not as an object of sense, but as a

thing in itself (solely through the pure understanding), is not

self-contradictory, for we are not entitled to maintain that

sensibility is the only possible mode of intuition. Nay, further, this

conception is necessary to restrain sensuous intuition within the

bounds of phenomena, and thus to limit the objective validity of

sensuous cognition; for things in themselves, which lie beyond its

province, are called noumena for the very purpose of indicating that

this cognition does not extend its application to all that the

understanding thinks. But, after all, the possibility of such

noumena is quite incomprehensible, and beyond the sphere of phenomena,

all is for us a mere void; that is to say, we possess an understanding

whose province does problematically extend beyond this sphere, but

we do not possess an intuition, indeed, not even the conception of a

possible intuition, by means of which objects beyond the region of

sensibility could be given us, and in reference to which the

understanding might be employed assertorically. The conception of a

noumenon is therefore merely a limitative conception and therefore

only of negative use. But it is not an arbitrary or fictitious notion,

but is connected with the limitation of sensibility, without, however,

being capable of presenting us with any positive datum beyond this

sphere.

  The division of objects into phenomena and noumena, and of the world

into a mundus sensibilis and intelligibilis is therefore quite

inadmissible in a positive sense, although conceptions do certainly

admit of such a division; for the class of noumena have no determinate

object corresponding to them, and cannot therefore possess objective

validity. If we abandon the senses, how can it be made conceivable

that the categories (which are the only conceptions that could serve

as conceptions for noumena) have any sense or meaning at all, inasmuch

as something more than the mere unity of thought, namely, a possible

intuition, is requisite for their application to an object? The

conception of a noumenon, considered as merely problematical, is,

however, not only admissible, but, as a limitative conception of

sensibility, absolutely necessary. But, in this case, a noumenon is

not a particular intelligible object for our understanding; on the

contrary, the kind of understanding to which it could belong is itself

a problem, for we cannot form the most distant conception of the

possibility of an understanding which should cognize an object, not

discursively by means of categories, but intuitively in a non-sensuous

intuition. Our understanding attains in this way a sort of negative

extension. That is to say, it is not limited by, but rather limits,

sensibility, by giving the name of noumena to things, not considered

as phenomena, but as things in themselves. But it at the same time

prescribes limits to itself, for it confesses itself unable to cognize

these by means of the categories, and hence is compelled to cogitate

them merely as an unknown something.

  I find, however, in the writings of modern authors, an entirely

different use of the expressions, mundus sensibilis and

intelligibilis, which quite departs from the meaning of the

ancients- an acceptation in which, indeed, there is to be found no

difficulty, but which at the same time depends on mere verbal

quibbling. According to this meaning, some have chosen to call the

complex of phenomena, in so far as it is intuited, mundus

sensibilis, but in so far as the connection thereof is cogitated

according to general laws of thought, mundus intelligibilis.

Astronomy, in so far as we mean by the word the mere observation of

the starry heaven, may represent the former; a system of astronomy,

such as the Copernican or Newtonian, the latter. But such twisting

of words is a mere sophistical subterfuge, to avoid a difficult

question, by modifying its meaning to suit our own convenience. To

be sure, understanding and reason are employed in the cognition of

phenomena; but the question is, whether these can be applied when

the object is not a phenomenon and in this sense we regard it if it is

cogitated as given to the understanding alone, and not to the

senses. The question therefore is whether, over and above the

empirical use of the understanding, a transcendental use is

possible, which applies to the noumenon as an object. This question we

have answered in the negative.

  When therefore we say, the senses represent objects as they

appear, the understanding as they are, the latter statement must not

be understood in a transcendental, but only in an empirical

signification, that is, as they must be represented in the complete

connection of phenomena, and not according to what they may be,

apart from their relation to possible experience, consequently not

as objects of the pure understanding. For this must ever remain

unknown to us. Nay, it is also quite unknown to us whether any such

transcendental or extraordinary cognition is possible under any

circumstances, at least, whether it is possible by means of our

categories. Understanding and sensibility, with us, can determine

objects only in conjunction. If we separate them, we have intuitions

without conceptions, or conceptions without intuitions; in both cases,

representations, which we cannot apply to any determinate object.

  If, after all our inquiries and explanations, any one still

hesitates to abandon the mere transcendental use of the categories,

let him attempt to construct with them a synthetical proposition. It

would, of course, be unnecessary for this purpose to construct an

analytical proposition, for that does not extend the sphere of the

understanding, but, being concerned only about what is cogitated in

the conception itself, it leaves it quite undecided whether the

conception has any relation to objects, or merely indicates the

unity of thought- complete abstraction being made of the modi in which

an object may be given: in such a proposition, it is sufficient for

the understanding to know what lies in the conception- to what it

applies is to it indifferent. The attempt must therefore be made

with a synthetical and so-called transcendental principle, for

example: "Everything that exists, exists as substance," or,

"Everything that is contingent exists as an effect of some other

thing, viz., of its cause." Now I ask, whence can the understanding

draw these synthetical propositions, when the conceptions contained

therein do not relate to possible experience but to things in

themselves (noumena)? Where is to be found the third term, which is

always requisite PURE site in a synthetical proposition, which may

connect in the same proposition conceptions which have no logical

(analytical) connection with each other? The proposition never will be

demonstrated, nay, more, the possibility of any such pure assertion

never can be shown, without making reference to the empirical use of

the understanding, and thus, ipso facto, completely renouncing pure

and non-sensuous judgement. Thus the conception of pure and merely

intelligible objects is completely void of all principles of its

application, because we cannot imagine any mode in which they might be

given, and the problematical thought which leaves a place open for

them serves only, like a void space, to limit the use of empirical

principles, without containing at the same time any other object of

cognition beyond their sphere.

APPENDIX

                         APPENDIX.

   Of the Equivocal Nature or Amphiboly of the Conceptions of

     Reflection from the Confusion of the Transcendental with

     the Empirical use of the Understanding.

  Reflection (reflexio) is not occupied about objects themselves,

for the purpose of directly obtaining conceptions of them, but is that

state of the mind in which we set ourselves to discover the subjective

conditions under which we obtain conceptions. It is the

consciousness of the relation of given representations to the

different sources or faculties of cognition, by which alone their

relation to each other can be rightly determined. The first question

which occurs in considering our representations is to what faculty

of cognition do they belong? To the understanding or to the senses?

Many judgements are admitted to be true from mere habit or

inclination; but, because reflection neither precedes nor follows,

it is held to be a judgement that has its origin in the understanding.

All judgements do not require examination, that is, investigation into

the grounds of their truth. For, when they are immediately certain

(for example: "Between two points there can be only one straight

line"), no better or less mediate test of their truth can be found

than that which they themselves contain and express. But all

judgement, nay, all comparisons require reflection, that is, a

distinction of the faculty of cognition to which the given conceptions

belong. The act whereby I compare my representations with the

faculty of cognition which originates them, and whereby I

distinguish whether they are compared with each other as belonging

to the pure understanding or to sensuous intuition, I term

transcendental reflection. Now, the relations in which conceptions can

stand to each other are those of identity and difference, agreement

and opposition, of the internal and external, finally, of the

determinable and the determining (matter and form). The proper

determination of these relations rests on the question, to what

faculty of cognition they subjectively belong, whether to

sensibility or understanding? For, on the manner in which we solve

this question depends the manner in which we must cogitate these

relations.

  Before constructing any objective judgement, we compare the

conceptions that are to be placed in the judgement, and observe

whether there exists identity (of many representations in one

conception), if a general judgement is to be constructed, or

difference, if a particular; whether there is agreement when

affirmative; and opposition when negative judgements are to be

constructed, and so on. For this reason we ought to call these

conceptions, conceptions of comparison (conceptus comparationis).

But as, when the question is not as to the logical form, but as to the

content of conceptions, that is to say, whether the things

themselves are identical or different, in agreement or opposition, and

so on, the things can have a twofold relation to our faculty of

cognition, to wit, a relation either to sensibility or to the

understanding, and as on this relation depends their relation to

each other, transcendental reflection, that is, the relation of

given representations to one or the other faculty of cognition, can

alone determine this latter relation. Thus we shall not be able to

discover whether the things are identical or different, in agreement

or opposition, etc., from the mere conception of the things by means

of comparison (comparatio), but only by distinguishing the mode of

cognition to which they belong, in other words, by means of

transcendental reflection. We may, therefore, with justice say, that

logical reflection is mere comparison, for in it no account is taken

of the faculty of cognition to which the given conceptions belong, and

they are consequently, as far as regards their origin, to be treated

as homogeneous; while transcendental reflection (which applies to

the objects themselves) contains the ground of the possibility of

objective comparison of representations with each other, and is

therefore very different from the former, because the faculties of

cognition to which they belong are not even the same. Transcendental

reflection is a duty which no one can neglect who wishes to

establish an a priori judgement upon things. We shall now proceed to

fulfil this duty, and thereby throw not a little light on the question

as to the determination of the proper business of the understanding.

  1. Identity and Difference. When an object is presented to us

several times, but always with the same internal determinations

(qualitas et quantitas), it, if an object of pure understanding, is

always the same, not several things, but only one thing (numerica

identitas); but if a phenomenon, we do not concern ourselves with

comparing the conception of the thing with the conception of some

other, but, although they may be in this respect perfectly the same,

the difference of place at the same time is a sufficient ground for

asserting the numerical difference of these objects (of sense).

Thus, in the case of two drops of water, we may make complete

abstraction of all internal difference (quality and quantity), and,

the fact that they are intuited at the same time in different

places, is sufficient to justify us in holding them to be

numerically different. Leibnitz regarded phenomena as things in

themselves, consequently as intelligibilia, that is, objects of pure

understanding (although, on account of the confused nature of their

representations, he gave them the name of phenomena), and in this case

his principle of the indiscernible (principium identatis

indiscernibilium) is not to be impugned. But, as phenomena are objects

of sensibility, and, as the understanding, in respect of them, must be

employed empirically and not purely or transcendentally, plurality and

numerical difference are given by space itself as the condition of

external phenomena. For one part of space, although it may be

perfectly similar and equal to another part, is still without it,

and for this reason alone is different from the latter, which is added

to it in order to make up a greater space. It follows that this must

hold good of all things that are in the different parts of space at

the same time, however similar and equal one may be to another.

  2. Agreement and Opposition. When reality is represented by the pure

understanding (realitas noumenon), opposition between realities is

incogitable- such a relation, that is, that when these realities are

connected in one subject, they annihilate the effects of each other

and may be represented in the formula 3 - 3 = 0. On the other hand,

the real in a phenomenon (realitas phaenomenon) may very well be in

mutual opposition, and, when united in the same subject, the one may

completely or in part annihilate the effect or consequence of the

other; as in the case of two moving forces in the same straight line

drawing or impelling a point in opposite directions, or in the case of

a pleasure counterbalancing a certain amount of pain.

  3. The Internal and External. In an object of the pure

understanding, only that is internal which has no relation (as regards

its existence) to anything different from itself. On the other hand,

the internal determinations of a substantia phaenomenon in space are

nothing but relations, and it is itself nothing more than a complex of

mere relations. Substance in space we are cognizant of only through

forces operative in it, either drawing others towards itself

(attraction), or preventing others from forcing into itself (repulsion

and impenetrability). We know no other properties that make up the

conception of substance phenomenal in space, and which we term matter.

On the other hand, as an object of the pure understanding, every

substance must have internal determination and forces. But what

other internal attributes of such an object can I think than those

which my internal sense presents to me? That, to wit, which in

either itself thought, or something analogous to it. Hence Leibnitz,

who looked upon things as noumena, after denying them everything

like external relation, and therefore also composition or combination,

declared that all substances, even the component parts of matter, were

simple substances with powers of representation, in one word, monads.

  4. Matter and Form. These two conceptions lie at the foundation of

all other reflection, so inseparably are they connected with every

mode of exercising the understanding. The former denotes the

determinable in general, the second its determination, both in a

transcendental sense, abstraction being made of every difference in

that which is given, and of the mode in which it is determined.

Logicians formerly termed the universal, matter, the specific

difference of this or that part of the universal, form. In a judgement

one may call the given conceptions logical matter (for the judgement),

the relation of these to each other (by means of the copula), the form

of the judgement. In an object, the composite parts thereof

(essentialia) are the matter; the mode in which they are connected

in the object, the form. In respect to things in general, unlimited

reality was regarded as the matter of all possibility, the

limitation thereof (negation) as the form, by which one thing is

distinguished from another according to transcendental conceptions.

The understanding demands that something be given (at least in the

conception), in order to be able to determine it in a certain

manner. Hence, in a conception of the pure understanding, the matter

precedes the form, and for this reason Leibnitz first assumed the

existence of things (monads) and of an internal power of

representation in them, in order to found upon this their external

relation and the community their state (that is, of their

representations). Hence, with him, space and time were possible- the

former through the relation of substances, the latter through the

connection of their determinations with each other, as causes and

effects. And so would it really be, if the pure understanding were

capable of an immediate application to objects, and if space and

time were determinations of things in themselves. But being merely

sensuous intuitions, in which we determine all objects solely as

phenomena, the form of intuition (as a subjective property of

sensibility) must antecede all matter (sensations), consequently space

and time must antecede all phenomena and all data of experience, and

rather make experience itself possible. But the intellectual

philosopher could not endure that the form should precede the things

themselves and determine their possibility; an objection perfectly

correct, if we assume that we intuite things as they are, although

with confused representation. But as sensuous intuition is a

peculiar subjective condition, which is a priori at the foundation

of all perception, and the form of which is primitive, the form must

be given per se, and so far from matter (or the things themselves

which appear) lying at the foundation of experience (as we must

conclude, if we judge by mere conceptions), the very possibility of

itself presupposes, on the contrary, a given formal intuition (space

and time).

    REMARK ON THE AMPHIBOLY OF THE CONCEPTIONS OF REFLECTION.

  Let me be allowed to term the position which we assign to a

conception either in the sensibility or in the pure understanding, the

transcendental place. In this manner, the appointment of the

position which must be taken by each conception according to the

difference in its use, and the directions for determining this place

to all conceptions according to rules, would be a transcendental

topic, a doctrine which would thoroughly shield us from the

surreptitious devices of the pure understanding and the delusions

which thence arise, as it would always distinguish to what faculty

of cognition each conception properly belonged. Every conception,

every title, under which many cognitions rank together, may be

called a logical place. Upon this is based the logical topic of

Aristotle, of which teachers and rhetoricians could avail

themselves, in order, under certain titles of thought, to observe what

would best suit the matter they had to treat, and thus enable

themselves to quibble and talk with fluency and an appearance of

profundity.

  Transcendental topic, on the contrary, contains nothing more than

the above-mentioned four titles of all comparison and distinction,

which differ from categories in this respect, that they do not

represent the object according to that which constitutes its

conception (quantity, reality), but set forth merely the comparison of

representations, which precedes our conceptions of things. But this

comparison requires a previous reflection, that is, a determination of

the place to which the representations of the things which are

compared belong, whether, to wit, they are cogitated by the pure

understanding, or given by sensibility.

  Conceptions may be logically compared without the trouble of

inquiring to what faculty their objects belong, whether as noumena, to

the understanding, or as phenomena, to sensibility. If, however, we

wish to employ these conceptions in respect of objects, previous

transcendental reflection is necessary. Without this reflection I

should make a very unsafe use of these conceptions, and construct

pretended synthetical propositions which critical reason cannot

acknowledge and which are based solely upon a transcendental

amphiboly, that is, upon a substitution of an object of pure

understanding for a phenomenon.

  For want of this doctrine of transcendental topic, and

consequently deceived by the amphiboly of the conceptions of

reflection, the celebrated Leibnitz constructed an intellectual system

of the world, or rather, believed himself competent to cognize the

internal nature of things, by comparing all objects merely with the

understanding and the abstract formal conceptions of thought. Our

table of the conceptions of reflection gives us the unexpected

advantage of being able to exhibit the distinctive peculiarities of

his system in all its parts, and at the same time of exposing the

fundamental principle of this peculiar mode of thought, which rested

upon naught but a misconception. He compared all things with each

other merely by means of conceptions, and naturally found no other

differences than those by which the understanding distinguishes its

pure conceptions one from another. The conditions of sensuous

intuition, which contain in themselves their own means of distinction,

he did not look upon as primitive, because sensibility was to him

but a confused mode of representation and not any particular source of

representations. A phenomenon was for him the representation of the

thing in itself, although distinguished from cognition by the

understanding only in respect of the logical form- the former with its

usual want of analysis containing, according to him, a certain mixture

of collateral representations in its conception of a thing, which it

is the duty of the understanding to separate and distinguish. In one

word, Leibnitz intellectualized phenomena, just as Locke, in his

system of noogony (if I may be allowed to make use of such

expressions), sensualized the conceptions of the understanding, that

is to say, declared them to be nothing more than empirical or abstract

conceptions of reflection. Instead of seeking in the understanding and

sensibility two different sources of representations, which,

however, can present us with objective judgements of things only in

conjunction, each of these great men recognized but one of these

faculties, which, in their opinion, applied immediately to things in

themselves, the other having no duty but that of confusing or

arranging the representations of the former.

  Accordingly, the objects of sense were compared by Leibnitz as

things in general merely in the understanding.

  1st. He compares them in regard to their identity or difference-

as judged by the understanding. As, therefore, he considered merely

the conceptions of objects, and not their position in intuition, in

which alone objects can be given, and left quite out of sight the

transcendental locale of these conceptions- whether, that is, their

object ought to be classed among phenomena, or among things in

themselves, it was to be expected that he should extend the

application of the principle of indiscernibles, which is valid

solely of conceptions of things in general, to objects of sense

(mundus phaenomenon), and that he should believe that he had thereby

contributed in no small degree to extend our knowledge of nature. In

truth, if I cognize in all its inner determinations a drop of water as

a thing in itself, I cannot look upon one drop as different from

another, if the conception of the one is completely identical with

that of the other. But if it is a phenomenon in space, it has a

place not merely in the understanding (among conceptions), but also in

sensuous external intuition (in space), and in this case, the physical

locale is a matter of indifference in regard to the internal

determinations of things, and one place, B, may contain a thing

which is perfectly similar and equal to another in a place, A, just as

well as if the two things were in every respect different from each

other. Difference of place without any other conditions, makes the

plurality and distinction of objects as phenomena, not only possible

in itself, but even necessary. Consequently, the above so-called law

is not a law of nature. It is merely an analytical rule for the

comparison of things by means of mere conceptions.

  2nd. The principle: "Realities (as simple affirmations) never

logically contradict each other," is a proposition perfectly true

respecting the relation of conceptions, but, whether as regards

nature, or things in themselves (of which we have not the slightest

conception), is without any the least meaning. For real opposition, in

which A - B is = 0, exists everywhere, an opposition, that is, in

which one reality united with another in the same subject

annihilates the effects of the other- a fact which is constantly

brought before our eyes by the different antagonistic actions and

operations in nature, which, nevertheless, as depending on real

forces, must be called realitates phaenomena. General mechanics can

even present us with the empirical condition of this opposition in

an a priori rule, as it directs its attention to the opposition in the

direction of forces- a condition of which the transcendental

conception of reality can tell us nothing. Although M. Leibnitz did

not announce this proposition with precisely the pomp of a new

principle, he yet employed it for the establishment of new

propositions, and his followers introduced it into their

Leibnitzio-Wolfian system of philosophy. According to this

principle, for example, all evils are but consequences of the

limited nature of created beings, that is, negations, because these

are the only opposite of reality. (In the mere conception of a thing

in general this is really the case, but not in things as phenomena.)

In like manner, the upholders of this system deem it not only

possible, but natural also, to connect and unite all reality in one

being, because they acknowledge no other sort of opposition than

that of contradiction (by which the conception itself of a thing is

annihilated), and find themselves unable to conceive an opposition

of reciprocal destruction, so to speak, in which one real cause

destroys the effect of another, and the conditions of whose

representation we meet with only in sensibility.

  3rd. The Leibnitzian monadology has really no better foundation than

on this philosopher's mode of falsely representing the difference of

the internal and external solely in relation to the understanding.

Substances, in general, must have something inward, which is therefore

free from external relations, consequently from that of composition

also. The simple- that which can be represented by a unit- is

therefore the foundation of that which is internal in things in

themselves. The internal state of substances cannot therefore

consist in place, shape, contact, or motion, determinations which

are all external relations, and we can ascribe to them no other than

that whereby we internally determine our faculty of sense itself, that

is to say, the state of representation. Thus, then, were constructed

the monads, which were to form the elements of the universe, the

active force of which consists in representation, the effects of

this force being thus entirely confined to themselves.

  For the same reason, his view of the possible community of

substances could not represent it but as a predetermined harmony,

and by no means as a physical influence. For inasmuch as everything is

occupied only internally, that is, with its own representations, the

state of the representations of one substance could not stand in

active and living connection with that of another, but some third

cause operating on all without exception was necessary to make the

different states correspond with one another. And this did not

happen by means of assistance applied in each particular case (systema

assistentiae), but through the unity of the idea of a cause occupied

and connected with all substances, in which they necessarily

receive, according to the Leibnitzian school, their existence and

permanence, consequently also reciprocal correspondence, according

to universal laws.

  4th. This philosopher's celebrated doctrine of space and time, in

which he intellectualized these forms of sensibility, originated in

the same delusion of transcendental reflection. If I attempt to

represent by the mere understanding, the external relations of things,

I can do so only by employing the conception of their reciprocal

action, and if I wish to connect one state of the same thing with

another state, I must avail myself of the notion of the order of cause

and effect. And thus Leibnitz regarded space as a certain order in the

community of substances, and time as the dynamical sequence of their

states. That which space and time possess proper to themselves and

independent of things, he ascribed to a necessary confusion in our

conceptions of them, whereby that which is a mere form of dynamical

relations is held to be a self-existent intuition, antecedent even

to things themselves. Thus space and time were the intelligible form

of the connection of things (substances and their states) in

themselves. But things were intelligible substances (substantiae

noumena). At the same time, he made these conceptions valid of

phenomena, because he did not allow to sensibility a peculiar mode

of intuition, but sought all, even the empirical representation of

objects, in the understanding, and left to sense naught but the

despicable task of confusing and disarranging the representations of

the former.

  But even if we could frame any synthetical proposition concerning

things in themselves by means of the pure understanding (which is

impossible), it could not apply to phenomena, which do not represent

things in themselves. In such a case I should be obliged in

transcendental reflection to compare my conceptions only under the

conditions of sensibility, and so space and time would not be

determinations of things in themselves, but of phenomena. What

things may be in themselves, I know not and need not know, because a

thing is never presented to me otherwise than as a phenomenon.

  I must adopt the same mode of procedure with the other conceptions

of reflection. Matter is substantia phaenomenon. That in it which is

internal I seek to discover in all parts of space which it occupies,

and in all the functions and operations it performs, and which are

indeed never anything but phenomena of the external sense. I cannot

therefore find anything that is absolutely, but only what is

comparatively internal, and which itself consists of external

relations. The absolutely internal in matter, and as it should be

according to the pure understanding, is a mere chimera, for matter

is not an object for the pure understanding. But the transcendental

object, which is the foundation of the phenomenon which we call

matter, is a mere nescio quid, the nature of which we could not

understand, even though someone were found able to tell us. For we can

understand nothing that does not bring with it something in

intuition corresponding to the expressions employed. If, by the

complaint of being unable to perceive the internal nature of things,

it is meant that we do not comprehend by the pure understanding what

the things which appear to us may be in themselves, it is a silly

and unreasonable complaint; for those who talk thus really desire that

we should be able to cognize, consequently to intuite, things

without senses, and therefore wish that we possessed a faculty of

cognition perfectly different from the human faculty, not merely in

degree, but even as regards intuition and the mode thereof, so that

thus we should not be men, but belong to a class of beings, the

possibility of whose existence, much less their nature and

constitution, we have no means of cognizing. By observation and

analysis of phenomena we penetrate into the interior of nature, and no

one can say what progress this knowledge may make in time. But those

transcendental questions which pass beyond the limits of nature, we

could never answer, even although all nature were laid open to us,

because we have not the power of observing our own mind with any other

intuition than that of our internal sense. For herein lies the mystery

of the origin and source of our faculty of sensibility. Its

application to an object, and the transcendental ground of this

unity of subjective and objective, lie too deeply concealed for us,

who cognize ourselves only through the internal sense, consequently as

phenomena, to be able to discover in our existence anything but

phenomena, the non-sensuous cause of which we at the same time

earnestly desire to penetrate to.

  The great utility of this critique of conclusions arrived at by

the processes of mere reflection consists in its clear demonstration

of the nullity of all conclusions respecting objects which are

compared with each other in the understanding alone, while it at the

same time confirms what we particularly insisted on, namely, that,

although phenomena are not included as things in themselves among

the objects of the pure understanding, they are nevertheless the

only things by which our cognition can possess objective reality, that

is to say, which give us intuitions to correspond with our

conceptions.

  When we reflect in a purely logical manner, we do nothing more

than compare conceptions in our understanding, to discover whether

both have the same content, whether they are self-contradictory or

not, whether anything is contained in either conception, which of

the two is given, and which is merely a mode of thinking that given.

But if I apply these conceptions to an object in general (in the

transcendental sense), without first determining whether it is an

object of sensuous or intellectual intuition, certain limitations

present themselves, which forbid us to pass beyond the conceptions and

render all empirical use of them impossible. And thus these

limitations prove that the representation of an object as a thing in

general is not only insufficient, but, without sensuous

determination and independently of empirical conditions,

self-contradictory; that we must therefore make abstraction of all

objects, as in logic, or, admitting them, must think them under

conditions of sensuous intuition; that, consequently, the intelligible

requires an altogether peculiar intuition, which we do not possess,

and in the absence of which it is for us nothing; while, on the

other hand phenomena cannot be objects in themselves. For, when I

merely think things in general, the difference in their external

relations cannot constitute a difference in the things themselves;

on the contrary, the former presupposes the latter, and if the

conception of one of two things is not internally different from

that of the other, I am merely thinking the same thing in different

relations. Further, by the addition of one affirmation (reality) to

the other, the positive therein is really augmented, and nothing is

abstracted or withdrawn from it; hence the real in things cannot be in

contradiction with or opposition to itself- and so on.

  The true use of the conceptions of reflection in the employment of

the understanding has, as we have shown, been so misconceived by

Leibnitz, one of the most acute philosophers of either ancient or

modern times, that he has been misled into the construction of a

baseless system of intellectual cognition, which professes to

determine its objects without the intervention of the senses. For this

reason, the exposition of the cause of the amphiboly of these

conceptions, as the origin of these false principles, is of great

utility in determining with certainty the proper limits of the

understanding.

  It is right to say whatever is affirmed or denied of the whole of

a conception can be affirmed or denied of any part of it (dictum de

omni et nullo); but it would be absurd so to alter this logical

proposition as to say whatever is not contained in a general

conception is likewise not contained in the particular conceptions

which rank under it; for the latter are particular conceptions, for

the very reason that their content is greater than that which is

cogitated in the general conception. And yet the whole intellectual

system of Leibnitz is based upon this false principle, and with it

must necessarily fall to the ground, together with all the ambiguous

principles in reference to the employment of the understanding which

have thence originated.

  Leibnitz's principle of the identity of indiscernibles or

indistinguishables is really based on the presupposition that, if in

the conception of a thing a certain distinction is not to be found, it

is also not to be met with in things themselves; that, consequently,

all things are completely identical (numero eadem) which are not

distinguishable from each other (as to quality or quantity) in our

conceptions of them. But, as in the mere conception of anything

abstraction has been made of many necessary conditions of intuition,

that of which abstraction has been made is rashly held to be

non-existent, and nothing is attributed to the thing but what is

contained in its conception.

  The conception of a cubic foot of space, however I may think it,

is in itself completely identical. But two cubic feet in space are

nevertheless distinct from each other from the sole fact of their

being in different places (they are numero diversa); and these

places are conditions of intuition, wherein the object of this

conception is given, and which do not belong to the conception, but to

the faculty of sensibility. In like manner, there is in the conception

of a thing no contradiction when a negative is not connected with an

affirmative; and merely affirmative conceptions cannot, in

conjunction, produce any negation. But in sensuous intuition,

wherein reality (take for example, motion) is given, we find

conditions (opposite directions)- of which abstraction has been made

in the conception of motion in general- which render possible a

contradiction or opposition (not indeed of a logical kind)- and

which from pure positives produce zero = 0. We are therefore not

justified in saying that all reality is in perfect agreement and

harmony, because no contradiction is discoverable among its

conceptions.* According to mere conceptions, that which is internal is

the substratum of all relations or external determinations. When,

therefore, I abstract all conditions of intuition, and confine

myself solely to the conception of a thing in general, I can make

abstraction of all external relations, and there must nevertheless

remain a conception of that which indicates no relation, but merely

internal determinations. Now it seems to follow that in everything

(substance) there is something which is absolutely internal and

which antecedes all external determinations, inasmuch as it renders

them possible; and that therefore this substratum is something which

does not contain any external relations and is consequently simple

(for corporeal things are never anything but relations, at least of

their parts external to each other); and, inasmuch as we know of no

other absolutely internal determinations than those of the internal

sense, this substratum is not only simple, but also, analogously

with our internal sense, determined through representations, that is

to say, all things are properly monads, or simple beings endowed

with the power of representation. Now all this would be perfectly

correct, if the conception of a thing were the only necessary

condition of the presentation of objects of external intuition. It is,

on the contrary, manifest that a permanent phenomenon in space

(impenetrable extension) can contain mere relations, and nothing

that is absolutely internal, and yet be the primary substratum of

all external perception. By mere conceptions I cannot think anything

external, without, at the same time, thinking something internal,

for the reason that conceptions of relations presuppose given

things, and without these are impossible. But, as an intuition there

is something (that is, space, which, with all it contains, consists of

purely formal, or, indeed, real relations) which is not found in the

mere conception of a thing in general, and this presents to us the

substratum which could not be cognized through conceptions alone, I

cannot say: because a thing cannot be represented by mere

conceptions without something absolutely internal, there is also, in

the things themselves which are contained under these conceptions, and

in their intuition nothing external to which something absolutely

internal does not serve as the foundation. For, when we have made

abstraction of all the conditions of intuition, there certainly

remains in the mere conception nothing but the internal in general,

through which alone the external is possible. But this necessity,

which is grounded upon abstraction alone, does not obtain in the

case of things themselves, in so far as they are given in intuition

with such determinations as express mere relations, without having

anything internal as their foundation; for they are not things of a

thing of which we can neither for they are not things in themselves,

but only phenomena. What we cognize in matter is nothing but relations

(what we call its internal determinations are but comparatively

internal). But there are some self-subsistent and permanent, through

which a determined object is given. That I, when abstraction is made

of these relations, have nothing more to think, does not destroy the

conception of a thing as phenomenon, nor the conception of an object

in abstracto, but it does away with the possibility of an object

that is determinable according to mere conceptions, that is, of a

noumenon. It is certainly startling to hear that a thing consists

solely of relations; but this thing is simply a phenomenon, and cannot

be cogitated by means of the mere categories: it does itself consist

in the mere relation of something in general to the senses. In the

same way, we cannot cogitate relations of things in abstracto, if we

commence with conceptions alone, in any other manner than that one

is the cause of determinations in the other; for that is itself the

conception of the understanding or category of relation. But, as in

this case we make abstraction of all intuition, we lose altogether the

mode in which the manifold determines to each of its parts its

place, that is, the form of sensibility (space); and yet this mode

antecedes all empirical causality.

  *If any one wishes here to have recourse to the usual subterfuge,

and to say, that at least realitates noumena cannot be in opposition

to each other, it will be requisite for him to adduce an example of

this pure and non-sensuous reality, that it may be understood

whether the notion represents something or nothing. But an example

cannot be found except in experience, which never presents to us

anything more than phenomena; and thus the proposition means nothing

more than that the conception which contains only affirmatives does

not contain anything negative- a proposition nobody ever doubted.

  If by intelligible objects we understand things which can be thought

by means of the pure categories, without the need of the schemata of

sensibility, such objects are impossible. For the condition of the

objective use of all our conceptions of understanding is the mode of

our sensuous intuition, whereby objects are given; and, if we make

abstraction of the latter, the former can have no relation to an

object. And even if we should suppose a different kind of intuition

from our own, still our functions of thought would have no use or

signification in respect thereof. But if we understand by the term,

objects of a non-sensuous intuition, in respect of which our

categories are not valid, and of which we can accordingly have no

knowledge (neither intuition nor conception), in this merely

negative sense noumena must be admitted. For this is no more than

saying that our mode of intuition is not applicable to all things, but

only to objects of our senses, that consequently its objective

validity is limited, and that room is therefore left for another

kind of intuition, and thus also for things that may be objects of it.

But in this sense the conception of a noumenon is problematical,

that is to say, it is the notion of that it that it is possible, nor

that it is impossible, inasmuch as we do not know of any mode of

intuition besides the sensuous, or of any other sort of conceptions

than the categories- a mode of intuition and a kind of conception

neither of which is applicable to a non-sensuous object. We are on

this account incompetent to extend the sphere of our objects of

thought beyond the conditions of our sensibility, and to assume the

existence of objects of pure thought, that is, of noumena, inasmuch as

these have no true positive signification. For it must be confessed of

the categories that they are not of themselves sufficient for the

cognition of things in themselves and, without the data of

sensibility, are mere subjective forms of the unity of the

understanding. Thought is certainly not a product of the senses, and

in so far is not limited by them, but it does not therefore follow

that it may be employed purely and without the intervention of

sensibility, for it would then be without reference to an object.

And we cannot call a noumenon an object of pure thought; for the

representation thereof is but the problematical conception of an

object for a perfectly different intuition and a perfectly different

understanding from ours, both of which are consequently themselves

problematical. The conception of a noumenon is therefore not the

conception of an object, but merely a problematical conception

inseparably connected with the limitation of our sensibility. That

is to say, this conception contains the answer to the question: "Are

there objects quite unconnected with, and independent of, our

intuition?"- a question to which only an indeterminate answer can be

given. That answer is: "Inasmuch as sensuous intuition does not

apply to all things without distinction, there remains room for

other and different objects." The existence of these problematical

objects is therefore not absolutely denied, in the absence of a

determinate conception of them, but, as no category is valid in

respect of them, neither must they be admitted as objects for our

understanding.

  Understanding accordingly limits sensibility, without at the same

time enlarging its own field. While, moreover, it forbids

sensibility to apply its forms and modes to things in themselves and

restricts it to the sphere of phenomena, it cogitates an object in

itself, only, however, as a transcendental object, which is the

cause of a phenomenon (consequently not itself a phenomenon), and

which cannot be thought either as a quantity or as reality, or as

substance (because these conceptions always require sensuous forms

in which to determine an object)- an object, therefore, of which we

are quite unable to say whether it can be met with in ourselves or out

of us, whether it would be annihilated together with sensibility,

or, if this were taken away, would continue to exist. If we wish to

call this object a noumenon, because the representation of it is

non-sensuous, we are at liberty to do so. But as we can apply to it

none of the conceptions of our understanding, the representation is

for us quite void, and is available only for the indication of the

limits of our sensuous intuition, thereby leaving at the same time

an empty space, which we are competent to fill by the aid neither of

possible experience, nor of the pure understanding.

  The critique of the pure understanding, accordingly, does not permit

us to create for ourselves a new field of objects beyond those which

are presented to us as phenomena, and to stray into intelligible

worlds; nay, it does not even allow us to endeavour to form so much as

a conception of them. The specious error which leads to this- and

which is a perfectly excusable one- lies in the fact that the

employment of the understanding, contrary to its proper purpose and

destination, is made transcendental, and objects, that is, possible

intuitions, are made to regulate themselves according to

conceptions, instead of the conceptions arranging themselves according

to the intuitions, on which alone their own objective validity

rests. Now the reason of this again is that apperception, and with

it thought, antecedes all possible determinate arrangement of

representations. Accordingly we think something in general and

determine it on the one hand sensuously, but, on the other,

distinguish the general and in abstracto represented object from

this particular mode of intuiting it. In this case there remains a

mode of determining the object by mere thought, which is really but

a logical form without content, which, however, seems to us to be a

mode of the existence of the object in itself (noumenon), without

regard to intuition which is limited to our senses.

  Before ending this transcendental analytic, we must make an

addition, which, although in itself of no particular importance, seems

to be necessary to the completeness of the system. The highest

conception, with which a transcendental philosophy commonly begins, is

the division into possible and impossible. But as all division

presupposes a divided conception, a still higher one must exist, and

this is the conception of an object in general- problematically

understood and without its being decided whether it is something or

nothing. As the categories are the only conceptions which apply to

objects in general, the distinguishing of an object, whether it is

something or nothing, must proceed according to the order and

direction of the categories.

  1. To the categories of quantity, that is, the conceptions of all,

many, and one, the conception which annihilates all, that is, the

conception of none, is opposed. And thus the object of a conception,

to which no intuition can be found to correspond, is = nothing. That

is, it is a conception without an object (ens rationis), like noumena,

which cannot be considered possible in the sphere of reality, though

they must not therefore be held to be impossible- or like certain

new fundamental forces in matter, the existence of which is

cogitable without contradiction, though, as examples from experience

are not forthcoming, they must not be regarded as possible.

  2. Reality is something; negation is nothing, that is, a

conception of the absence of an object, as cold, a shadow (nihil

privativum).

  3. The mere form of intuition, without substance, is in itself no

object, but the merely formal condition of an object (as

phenomenon), as pure space and pure time. These are certainly

something, as forms of intuition, but are not themselves objects which

are intuited (ens imaginarium).

  4. The object of a conception which is self-contradictory, is

nothing, because the conception is nothing- is impossible, as a figure

composed of two straight lines (nihil negativum).

  The table of this division of the conception of nothing (the

corresponding division of the conception of something does not require

special description) must therefore be arranged as follows:

                      NOTHING

                        AS

                        1

                As Empty Conception

                 without object,

                  ens rationis

           2                               3

     Empty object of               Empty intuition

      a conception,                without object,

     nihil privativum              ens imaginarium

                        4

                   Empty object

                 without conception,

                  nihil negativum

  We see that the ens rationis is distinguished from the nihil

negativum or pure nothing by the consideration that the former must

not be reckoned among possibilities, because it is a mere fiction-

though not self-contradictory, while the latter is completely

opposed to all possibility, inasmuch as the conception annihilates

itself. Both, however, are empty conceptions.  On the other hand,

the nihil privativum and ens imaginarium are empty data for

conceptions. If light be not given to the senses, we cannot

represent to ourselves darkness, and if extended objects are not

perceived, we cannot represent space. Neither the negation, nor the

mere form of intuition can, without something real, be an object.

INTRO

           TRANSCENDENTAL LOGIC. SECOND DIVISION.

           TRANSCENDENTAL DIALECTIC. INTRODUCTION.

         I. Of Transcendental Illusory Appearance.

  We termed dialectic in general a logic of appearance. This does

not signify a doctrine of probability; for probability is truth,

only cognized upon insufficient grounds, and though the information it

gives us is imperfect, it is not therefore deceitful. Hence it must

not be separated from the analytical part of logic. Still less must

phenomenon and appearance be held to be identical. For truth or

illusory appearance does not reside in the object, in so far as it

is intuited, but in the judgement upon the object, in so far as it

is thought. It is, therefore, quite correct to say that the senses

do not err, not because they always judge correctly, but because

they do not judge at all. Hence truth and error, consequently also,

illusory appearance as the cause of error, are only to be found in a

judgement, that is, in the relation of an object to our understanding.

In a cognition which completely harmonizes with the laws of the

understanding, no error can exist. In a representation of the

senses- as not containing any judgement- there is also no error. But

no power of nature can of itself deviate from its own laws. Hence

neither the understanding per se (without the influence of another

cause), nor the senses per se, would fall into error; the former could

not, because, if it acts only according to its own laws, the effect

(the judgement) must necessarily accord with these laws. But in

accordance with the laws of the understanding consists the formal

element in all truth. In the senses there is no judgement- neither a

true nor a false one. But, as we have no source of cognition besides

these two, it follows that error is caused solely by the unobserved

influence of the sensibility upon the understanding. And thus it

happens that the subjective grounds of a judgement and are

confounded with the objective, and cause them to deviate from their

proper determination,* just as a body in motion would always of itself

proceed in a straight line, but if another impetus gives to it a

different direction, it will then start off into a curvilinear line of

motion. To distinguish the peculiar action of the understanding from

the power which mingles with it, it is necessary to consider an

erroneous judgement as the diagonal between two forces, that determine

the judgement in two different directions, which, as it were, form

an angle, and to resolve this composite operation into the simple ones

of the understanding and the sensibility. In pure a priori

judgements this must be done by means of transcendental reflection,

whereby, as has been already shown, each representation has its

place appointed in the corresponding faculty of cognition, and

consequently the influence of the one faculty upon the other is made

apparent.

  *Sensibility, subjected to the understanding, as the object upon

which the understanding employs its functions, is the source of real

cognitions. But, in so far as it exercises an influence upon the

action of the understanding and determines it to judgement,

sensibility is itself the cause of error.

  It is not at present our business to treat of empirical illusory

appearance (for example, optical illusion), which occurs in the

empirical application of otherwise correct rules of the understanding,

and in which the judgement is misled by the influence of

imagination. Our purpose is to speak of transcendental illusory

appearance, which influences principles- that are not even applied

to experience, for in this case we should possess a sure test of their

correctness- but which leads us, in disregard of all the warnings of

criticism, completely beyond the empirical employment of the

categories and deludes us with the chimera of an extension of the

sphere of the pure understanding. We shall term those principles the

application of which is confined entirely within the limits of

possible experience, immanent; those, on the other hand, which

transgress these limits, we shall call transcendent principles. But by

these latter I do not understand principles of the transcendental

use or misuse of the categories, which is in reality a mere fault of

the judgement when not under due restraint from criticism, and

therefore not paying sufficient attention to the limits of the

sphere in which the pure understanding is allowed to exercise its

functions; but real principles which exhort us to break down all those

barriers, and to lay claim to a perfectly new field of cognition,

which recognizes no line of demarcation. Thus transcendental and

transcendent are not identical terms. The principles of the pure

understanding, which we have already propounded, ought to be of

empirical and not of transcendental use, that is, they are not

applicable to any object beyond the sphere of experience. A

principle which removes these limits, nay, which authorizes us to

overstep them, is called transcendent. If our criticism can succeed in

exposing the illusion in these pretended principles, those which are

limited in their employment to the sphere of experience may be called,

in opposition to the others, immanent principles of the pure

understanding.

  Logical illusion, which consists merely in the imitation of the form

of reason (the illusion in sophistical syllogisms), arises entirely

from a want of due attention to logical rules. So soon as the

attention is awakened to the case before us, this illusion totally

disappears. Transcendental illusion, on the contrary, does not cease

to exist, even after it has been exposed, and its nothingness

clearly perceived by means of transcendental criticism. Take, for

example, the illusion in the proposition: "The world must have a

beginning in time." The cause of this is as follows. In our reason,

subjectively considered as a faculty of human cognition, there exist

fundamental rules and maxims of its exercise, which have completely

the appearance of objective principles. Now from this cause it happens

that the subjective necessity of a certain connection of our

conceptions, is regarded as an objective necessity of the

determination of things in themselves. This illusion it is

impossible to avoid, just as we cannot avoid perceiving that the sea

appears to be higher at a distance than it is near the shore,

because we see the former by means of higher rays than the latter, or,

which is a still stronger case, as even the astronomer cannot

prevent himself from seeing the moon larger at its rising than some

time afterwards, although he is not deceived by this illusion.

  Transcendental dialectic will therefore content itself with exposing

the illusory appearance in transcendental judgements, and guarding

us against it; but to make it, as in the case of logical illusion,

entirely disappear and cease to be illusion is utterly beyond its

power. For we have here to do with a natural and unavoidable illusion,

which rests upon subjective principles and imposes these upon us as

objective, while logical dialectic, in the detection of sophisms,

has to do merely with an error in the logical consequence of the

propositions, or with an artificially constructed illusion, in

imitation of the natural error. There is, therefore, a natural and

unavoidable dialectic of pure reason- not that in which the bungler,

from want of the requisite knowledge, involves himself, nor that which

the sophist devises for the purpose of misleading, but that which is

an inseparable adjunct of human reason, and which, even after its

illusions have been exposed, does not cease to deceive, and

continually to lead reason into momentary errors, which it becomes

necessary continually to remove.