THE DIRECT JUSTIFICATION OF ENTELECHY 299 



I feel convinced that there would be no experience about 

 Nature at all without my possessing this system. And yet 

 so-called " psychologism," as the ultimate foundation of the 

 categories, it seems to me, is wrong. 1 



It is wrong, but not (as Kant himself supposed in 

 the second edition of the Kritik of Pure Reason, and as 

 many of his modern followers say) because on a mere 

 psychological basis of apriorism the character of objective 

 and universal validity would be wanting to our aprioristic 

 statements. Objective and universal validity in an absolute 

 form is in fact quite unattainable by the human mind, to 

 which " universal " validity will always remain a question 

 of its subjective conviction controlled by what the majority 

 agree to. 2 The categories therefore, though they " objectify," 

 do not guarantee " objectivity " in an absolute sense ; these 

 two derivates of the word " objective " have been very often 

 confused. But any " psychological " basis of apriorism, 

 that is to say, any foundation of the categories that rested 

 upon ordinary " psychology ' in any sense is in fact not 

 sufficient ; nay, more, it is illogical throughout, because all 

 ordinary psychology itself rests upon the categories. To say 

 that a something called " my Ego ' : is forced to apply its 



1 Here and later on, when referring to absoluteness, the reader will find 

 my epistemological point of view changed to a certain extent, as compared 

 with the epistemological chapters of my Naturbegriffe und Natururteile (1904). 



2 I fully agree with those of Kant's critics who maintain that Kant himself 

 regarded his "transcendental deduction" as sufficient to refute "psycho- 

 logism." But it is another question whether Kant was right to think so. 

 It seems to me that the ultra-psychological foundation of the categories can 

 only be demonstrated by the argument in the text and not by means of 

 Kant's transcendental deduction, and that absolute objectivity can only be 

 introduced by a certain other argument that will interest us in the last 

 part of this book. Absolute objectivity is quite certainly unattainable by 

 means of Kant's "deduction"; the Bewusstsein iiberhaupt is nothing but 

 "my" fiction. 



