how are these judgments, which are actually operating in science, 

 possible? This is Kant's question. There is no difficulty about 

 the possibility of the analytic judgment. It is simply a making 

 clearer that which is already known. There is no difficulty about 

 the possibility of synthetic a posteriori judgments. Sense-experi- 

 ence supplies the ground of such judgments. But the statement, 

 every effect must have its cause, is not, for Kant, analytical. 

 The concept, cause, is not included in that of effect. Neither is 

 the judgment based upon sense-experience. Sense-experience can 

 never supply the generality and necessity implied in such a judg- 

 ment. How then are these judgments possible? This is tanta- 

 mount to saying, how is science itself possible. Kant bases his 

 reply upon his view of knowledge as consisting of two factors, 

 sensibility, by which objects are given, and understanding, by 

 which thought is given, and it is the understanding which supplies 

 the concepts by means of which the synthetic a priori judgments 

 are made. 



Those empiricists who would make sensations the only con- 

 stituents of knowledge, who would identify knowledge with sense- 

 experience are then incorrect. There are other factors than sen- 

 sations. Even in sensibility there are space and time. These 

 two pure forms of sense-perception, as Kant calls them, are not 

 derived from sensations but are rather conditions of sensations, 

 and should be thought of as brought to experience by the mind. 

 But knowledge consists not only of sensibility, there is likewise 

 the understanding with its categories. These categories twelve 

 in number, according to Kant, consisting of those of quality, 

 quantity, relation and modality, are pure concepts of synthesis 

 and necessarily belong to the understanding, and it is because of 

 these, as said above, that synthetic a priori judgments are possible. 

 But, though Kant has made this division of knowledge into sensi- 

 bility and understanding, he is careful to emphasize the fact that 

 these two stems of human knowledge are mutually complementary. 

 As he himself puts it, "Gedanken ohne Inhalt sind leer, Anschau- 

 ungen ohne Begriffe sind blind. . . . Der Verstand vermag nichts 

 anzuschauen, und die Sinne vermogen nichts zu denken. Nur 

 daraus, dasz sie sich vereinigen, kann Erkenntnisz entspringen". 1 



1 Kritik der reinen Vernunft, Transc. Logik., Einleitung. I. 



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