KANT, IMMANUEL. 



KANT, IMMANUBL. 



632 



versally and necessarily. Now all speculative a priori knowledge 

 ultimately rests upon such synthetic or extending j udgmeuts ; for 

 though the analytical are highly important and requisite for science, 

 still their importance is mainly derived from their being indispensable 

 to a wide and legitimate synthesis, whereby alone a new acquisition 

 in science can be made. The proper problem therefore of the pure 

 reason is contained in the question how are synthetic judgments A 

 priori possible ? 



With a view to resolve this problem of the pure reason Kant begins 

 with an exposition of the transcendental elements of knowledge 

 (transcendental elementarlehre). By transcendental he understood 

 original or primary, or whatever is determined a priori in reference 

 not only to human cognition but also to man's collective activity, and 

 which consequently is the basis of the empirical, or that which is 

 determined d posteriori. In short, all pure knowledge makes up the 

 transcendental philosophy, and on it rest the authority and possibility 

 of cognition. The elementarlehre is divided into the transcendental 

 aesthetic and the transcendental logic. In the former Kant investigates 

 the d priori elements of the lowest cognitive faculty sensation ; in 

 the latter, those of the understanding and of the reason. In the 

 aesthetic he shows that the sensuous faculty receives the matter of its 

 intuitions and sensations from without by means of certain affections 

 or excitements of the sense, whereas the forms according to or by 

 means of which this matter is shaped into representations or concep- 

 tions of determinate objects are given originally and by itself. These 

 forms are the pure intuitions of space and time, because in them nothing 

 else is intuitively viewed than the unity of that which is multiple 

 either in succession or in co-existence. On this account he calls 

 time and space forms of intuition, and designates the objects which 

 we so intuitively view by the name of phenomena. Of the ground of 

 these phenomena, or, aa Kant termed it, the thing in and by itself, 

 it is left doubtful and undetermined whether it ia anything actual or 

 not, notwithstanding that Kant ascribes to phenomena themselves a 

 certain objectivity or reality, on the ground that from their constancy 

 and regularity they cannot be a mere semblance or illusion of the 

 Kenses. On this account his theory has been called a transcendental 

 idealism, as being in nowise inconsistent with that system of empirical 

 realism which by our conduct in life we practically maintain. 



Transcendental logic is divided into analytic and dialectic, of which 

 the former i the critic, or investigation of the understanding, as the 

 faculty of notions ; the latter, of the reason, as the facul ty of ideas, 

 lu the analytic we are taught that it is only when objects have been 

 conceived by the understanding agreeably to its laws, that they can 

 become an object of knowledge. The operations of the understand- 

 ing are confined to analysis and synthesis, where however every 

 analysis presupposes a synthesis. A combination of the multiple 

 into unity constitutes a notion (begriff ), and the understanding is 

 therefore the faculty of notions. The law of the forms of these 

 notions, irrespective of their contents, is investigated by logic in 

 general, whereas tho investigation of these notions in reference to 

 their contents is the proper office of transcendental logic. Notions 

 are either pure or empirical : the former indicating merely the nature 

 and the manner of their combination : the latter, the multiple matter 

 presented by experience. Both are equally necessary to knowledge, 

 for the pure notion is an empty thing apart from the representations, 

 and the latter without the former are blind (' Kritik d. rein. Vern, 

 p. 55). As sensation only receives matter upon the affection of the 

 senses, it is a mere receptivity, whereas the understanding, which 

 subsumes the given multiple into unity, is a spontaneity. The con- 

 sciousness of the individual in this multiplicity is effected by the 

 imagination, which combines them into a whole ; whereas the unity, 

 by which the multiplicity, as sensuously perceived, is recognised as 

 an object, is a work of the understanding. Now this unity constitutes 

 the form of the notion, which therefore is the peculiar creation of the 

 understanding. As these forms are different, a complete enumeration 

 of them conformable to some stable principle is necessary in order to 

 ti discovery of the laws of knowledge by the understanding. Now all 

 the primary modes of the operations of the understanding, whereby 

 objective unity is imparted to the perceived matter, may be reduced 

 to one of these four : quantity, quality, relation, and modality. These 

 with their subordinates, Kant denominates categories after Aristotle, 

 as determining in and by themselves what in general and antecedently 

 (d priori) may be predicated of objects. 



The three categories of quantity are unity, multitude, and totality ; 

 those of quality, reality, negation, and limitation. Those of relation 

 are double and are paired together, as substance and accident, cause 

 and effect, action and re-action. Lastly, the subordinates of modality 

 are possibility, existence, and necessity. 



The process by which these twelve categories, or pure notions of the 

 understanding, are combined with space and time, the pure intuitions 

 of sensation, and thereby presented to knowledge in their possible 

 application to the objects of sense, Kant calls schematism (axji/*aT'<rn6s). 

 For instance, the notion of substance is said to be schematised, when 

 it is not conceived of absolutely as a self-subsisting thing, but as one 

 which persists in time, and therefore as a constant and persisting sub- 

 strate of certain variable qualities or det.'rmiuations. Notions thus 

 rendered sensible are called schematised, in opposition to the pure 

 categories. In this process the imagination co-operates with the 



understanding, and its action is original and necessary, since its 

 activity is inseparably bound up with the primary images of space 

 and time. Out of this schematism of notions and the judgments 

 which arise from their combination, the grand principles which regu- 

 late the operations of the understanding result. These judgments are 

 either analytical or synthetical. The grand principle of the former, 

 in which identity affords the connection between the subject and the 

 predicate, is the principle of contradiction. The mere absence how- 

 ever of contradiction ia not sufficient to legitimate the object-matter 

 of any proposition, since there may easily be a synthesis of notions 

 which is not grounded in objects, notwithstanding that it is not incon- 

 sistent to conceive. In synthetic judgments, on the other hand, we 

 go beyond the notion which forms the subject, and we ascribe to it a 

 predicate, the connection of which with the subject does not appear 

 immediately from the judgment itaelf. The possibility of this syn- 

 thesis implies a medium on which it may rest, and this is the unity of 

 the synthesis in truth, d priori. The following is the ultimate prin- 

 ciple of synthetic judgments : All objects are subject to the neces- 

 sary conditions of the synthetic unity of the multiple objects of 

 intuition in a possible experience. As this unity is established 

 according to the table of categories, there must be as many pure 

 synthetic principles as categories, and the different characters of their 

 application must depend upon the different characters of the latter. 

 These are either mathematical, and relate to the possibility of intuition, 

 or dynamical, and relate to the existence of phenomena. Accordingly, 

 the principles of the understanding are, relatively to their use, either 

 mathematical or dynamical. The former are unconditionally neces- 

 sary, since the possibility of intuition depends upon them ; the latter 

 only conditionally necessary, for so far as concerns the existence of 

 phenomena, which for a possible experience ia contingent, they imply 

 the condition of empirical thought, notwithstanding that in their 

 application to it they invariably maintain their a, priori necessity. 



By these principles of the pure understanding the possibility of 

 mathematics and of a pure science of nature may be fully and satis- 

 factorily explained. The matter of mathematics is the multiple 

 object of space and time, which are given as the forms of a priori 

 intuition. This multiple matter is elaborated by the understanding 

 according to the rules of logic, and as the phenomena must be in 

 accordance with the conditions of space and time, or the forms under 

 which they are intuitively viewed, that is, the relations of space and 

 time must be discoverable in phenomena themselves. The possibility 

 of mathematics therefore rests simply on this, that objects cannot be 

 conceived of except in space and time, from which however it follows 

 at the same time that mathematics do not admit of application beyond 

 the sphere of sensible phenomena. The pure science of nature like- 

 wise cannot have any other object than the system of d priori laws. 

 It is only under the forms of sensation that individual objects can be 

 intuitively viewed, and their mutual connection cannot be thought of 

 otherwise than under the forms of the understanding. If then the 

 system of phenomena are to be aa object of knowledge, they must 

 correspond to the pure synthetical principles of the understanding, 

 and it is only by these d priori laws that a science of nature is possi- 

 ble. But the principles of this pure science of nature do not admit 

 of being applied beyond the domain of experience. 



The important result of the transcendental logic is that the ope- 

 rations of the understanding are only legitimate in reference to 

 experience, and that consequently the use of the understanding is 

 empirical, and not transcendental. It would be the latter if it could 

 apply itself to objects not as phenomena merely, but as things abso- 

 lutely. But such a use of the understanding is obviously invalid, 

 since the objective matter of a notion, or begriff, is given by intuition 

 alone, and it is only by means of the empirical that the pure intuition 

 itself comes to the object of which it is the form. These forms are 

 simply representations of the object according as it conceived under 

 them. To the sulmumtion of an object under a category, a schema, 

 'time,' is indispensable, and, apart from all sensation, this schema 

 itself does not subsist ; and the subsumtion, or arrangement of an 

 object under the categories, is impossible. There may undoubtedly 

 be a logical use of the categories beyond the domain of experience, 

 but this, notwithstanding that it has its ground in the nature of 

 human reason, is either altogether idle, or else involved in contra- 

 dictions (antinomic) which the transcendental dialectic investigates. 



But besides phenomena there are other objects presented to the 

 understanding, by a non-sensuous intuition of which consequently it 

 can take cognisance. These Kant calls noutnena (voii/ieva). The dis- 

 tinction between noumena and phenomena does not consist merely in 

 a logical difference of the greater or less distinctness of their cognosoi- 

 bility, but in a specific difference of the objects themselves. A nou- 

 menon is not the thing in and by itself, for the thing in and by itself 

 becomes evanescent for knowledge when conceived of independently 

 of all sensuous forms. Nevertheless, as experience invariably refers 

 back to something independent of and prior to sensation, the noume- 

 non may be considered as an object which is presented to the 

 understanding by an uusensuous intuition. The general possibility 

 of such a species of intuition is undeniable, notwithstanding that its 

 objects are impossible to be known by man, whose knowledge is 

 dependent on sensation. In a positive sense Kant applies the term of 

 noumenon to the notion of God, and generally to all supra-sensible 



