of science, of true knowledge, are so Kant claims objectively 

 real. Now what does Kant mean by this objective reality? In 

 other words wherein lies the distinction between subjectivity and 

 objectivity? In the transcendental dialectic, he says that, in 

 order to escape from the "false appearances", or the deceptions, 

 due to illusions of imagination or to faulty judgments, "one has 

 to follow the rule that, whatever is connected according to em- 

 pirical laws with a perception, is real". 1 It is in such a connection 

 that objectivity is to be found. In imaginations, where errors 

 may arise, objects may be represented without their presence in 

 perception, 2 but when we follow the rule just stated we escape 

 error and illusion. It is, then, a connection of objects according to 

 empirical laws with a perception which constitutes the reality and 

 objectivity that distinguish knowledge from imaginations, these 

 latter being purely subjective. Such a connection, however, is 

 not imposed by extra-experiential things upon consciousness, 

 but is, on the contrary, the essential function of the understanding 

 itself. All connecting, all synthesis is an act of the understanding, 

 and "can never enter into us through the senses". 3 "Connection 

 . . . does never lie in the objects . . . but is always an act of the 

 understanding, which itself is ... a faculty of connecting a priori, 

 and of bringing the manifold of given representations under the 

 unity of apperception." 4 It was in this respect that Kant sug- 

 gested that his work meant a Copernican revolution in the history 

 of thought. Knowledge does not conform to things-in-themselves, 

 but "objects, or what is the same, the experience in which alone 

 they are known (as given objects), must conform to those con- 

 cepts" 5 which are referred by Kant to the understanding. It 

 is these concepts which, according to the critique, make experience 

 possible, as we have seen, and, because they possess objective 

 validity, 6 they give to real knowledge its objectivity. In imagin- 

 ation, on the contrary, there may be no object given in perception, 

 and we have merely subjective and not objective validity. Thus 



1 Op. Cit. P. 305. 



2 Op. Cit. Cf. P. 757. 



3 Op. Cit. P. 744. 



4 Op. Cit. P. 747. 

 6 Op. Cit. P. 693. 



6 Op. Cit. Cf. P. 78. 



116 



