No More Learning

Now as all possible perception depends on the syn thesis of apprehension, and this empirical synthesis itself on the transcendental, consequently on the categories, evident that all possible perceptions, and therefore everything that can attain to empirical consciousness, that all phenomena of nature, must, as regards their conjunction, be subject to the categories. And nature (considered merely as raiture in general) dependent on them as the original ground of her necessary con formability to law (as natura formaliter tpectata). But the pure faculty (of the understanding) of prescribing laws
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101
d priori to phenomena by means of mere categories, is not competent to enounce other or more laws than those on which a nature in general, as a conformability to law of phenomeua of space and time, depends. Particular laws, inasmuch as they concern empirically determined phsenomena, cannot be entirely deduced from pure laws, although they all stand under them. Experience must be superadded in order to know these particular laws ; but in regard to experience in
{general, and everything that can be cognized as an object I hereof, these <i priori laws arc our only rule and guide.
? 23.
Result of this Deduction of the Conceptions of the Under standing.
We cannot think any object except by means of the catego ries ; we cannot cognize any thought <<xcept by means of in tuitions corresponding to these conceptions. Now all our in tuitions are sensuous, and our cognition, in so far as the object of it is given, is empirical. But empirical cognition is expe rience ; consequently no h priori cognition is possible for us, except of objects of possible experience. *
But this cognition, which is limited to objects of experience, is not for that reason derived entirely from experience, but-- and this is asserted of the pure intuitions and the pure con ceptions cf the understanding -- there are, unquestionably, elements of cognition, which exist in the mind a priori. Now there are only two ways in which a necessary harmony of ex perience with the conceptions of its objects can be cogitated. Either experience makes these conceptions possible, or the conceptions make experience possible. The former of these
* Lest my readers should stumble tt this assertion, and the conclusions that may be too rashly drawn from it, I must remind them that the categories in the act of thought are by no means limited by the conditions of our sensuous intuition, but have nn unbounded sphere of action. It is only the cognition of the object of thought, the determining of the object, which requires intuition. In the absence of intuition, our thought of an object may still have true and useful consequences in regard to the exer. cise of reason by the subject. Hut as this exercise of reason is not always directed on the determination of the object, in other words, on cognition thereof, but also on the determination of the subject and its volition, I do not intend to treat of it in this place,
? ? ? ? 102 TRAJTBOOTDBWTAL LOCRO.
statements will not hold good with respect to the categories (nor in regard to pure sensuous intuition), for they are ctprion
conceptions, and therefore independent of experience. The assertion of an empirical origin would attribute to them a sort of generatio eequivoea. Consequently, nothing remains but to adopt the second alternative (which presents us with a system, as it were, of the Epigenesis of pure reason), namely, that on the part of the understanding the categories do contain the grounds of the possibility of all experience. But with respect to the questions how they make experience possible, and what are the principles of the possibility thereof with which they pre
sent us in their application to phsenomena, the following sec tion on the transcendental exercise of the faculty of judgment
? will inform the reader.
It is quite possible that some one may propose a species of
preeformation-system of pure reason --a middle way between the two--to wit, that the categories are neither innate and
first & priori principles of cognition, nor derived from expe rience, but are merely subjective aptitudes for thought implanted in us contemporaneously with our existence, which were so ordered and disposed by our Creator, that their exercise perfectly harmonizes with the laws of nature which
Now, not to mention that with such an hypothesis it is impossible to say at what point we
must stop in the employment of predetermined aptitudes, the fact that the categories would in this case entirely lose that character of necessity which is essentially involved in the very conception of them, is a conclusive objection to it. The conception of cause, for example, which expresses the necessity of an effect under a presupposed condition, would be false, if it rested only upon such an arbitrary subjective necessity of uniting certain empirical representations" according to such a rule of relation. 1 could not then say-- The effect is connected with its cause in the object (that necessarily)," but only, " am so constituted that can think this representa tion as so connected, and not otherwise. " Now this just what the sceptic wants. For in this case, all our knowledge,
depending on the supposed objective validity of our judg ment, nothing but mere illusion nor would there be want
ing people who would deny any such subjective necessity respect to themselves, though they must feel it. At all events,
regulate experience.
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we could not dispute with any one on that which merely de pends on the manner in which his subject is organized.
Short view of the above Deduction.
The foregoing deduction is an exposition of the pure con
ceptions of the understanding (and with them of all theo
and space as original forms of sensibility. *****
I consider the division by paragraphs to be necessary only up to this point, because we had to treat of the elementary
retical a priori cognition), as principles of the possibility of
experience, but of experience as the determination of all phe-
nomena in space and time in general-- of experience, finally,
from the principle of the original synthetical unity of apper
ception, as the form of the understanding in relation to time
? As we now proceed to the exposition of the em ployment of these, I shall not designate the chapters in this manner any further.
TRANSCENDENTAL ANALYTIC
BOOK II. ANALYTIC OF PRINCIPLES
General logic is constructed upon a plan which coincides exactly with the division of the higher faculties of cognition. These are, Underttanding, Judgment, and Reason. This science, accordingly, treats in its analytic of Conceptions, Judgments, and Conclusions in exact correspondence with the functions and order of those mental powers which we include generally under the generic denomination of understanding.
As this merely formal logic makes abstraction of all con tent of cognition, whether pure or empirical, and occupies itself with the mere form of thought (discursive cognition), it must contain in its analytic a canon for reason. For the form of reason has its law, which, without taking into consi deration the particular nature of the cognition about which it is employed, can be discovered a priori, by the simple analysis of the action of reason into its momenta.
Transcendental logic, limited as it is to a determinate con tent, that of pure d priori cognitions, tc wit, cannot imitate general logic in this division. For it u evident that the
conceptions.
? ? ? 104 TRAN8CEITDENTAL LOGIC.
transcendental employment of reason is not objectively valid, and therefore does not belong to the logic of truth (that
to analytic), but as logic of illusion, occupies particular department in the scholastic system under the name of tran scendental Dialectic.
Understanding and judgment accordingly possess in tran scendental logic canon of objectively valid, and therefore true exercise, and are comprehended in the analytical depart ment of that logic. But reason, in her endeavours to arrive
priori means at some true statement concerning objects, and to extend cognition beyond the bounds of possible expe rience, altogether dialectic, and her illusory assertions cannot be constructed into canon such as an analytic ought to contain.
Accordingly, the analytic of principles will be merely canon for the faculty of judgment, for the instruction of this
faculty in its application to phenomena of the pure concep tions of the understanding, which contain the necessary con dition for the establishment of priori laws. On this account, although the subject of the following chapters the especinl principles of understanding, shall make use of the term " Doctrine of the faculty judgment," in order to define more particularly my present purpose.
INTRODUCTION.
OF THE TRANSCEXBXNTAL FACULTY OF JUDGMENT IS GENEKAL.
If understanding in general be defined as the faculty of laws or rules, the faculty of judgment may be termed the faculty of subsumption under these ruin that of dis tinguishing whether this or that does or does not stand under
given rule (casus data; legis). General logic contains no directions or precepts for the faculty of judgment, nor can contain any such. For as makes abstraction of alt con tent cognition, no duty left for except that of ex posing analytically the mere form of cognition in conceptions, judgments and conclusions, and of thereby establishing formal rules for all exercise of the understanding. Now this logic
wished to give some general direction how we should sub sume under these rules, that how we should distinguish
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whether this or that did or did not stand under them, thia again, could not be done otherwise than by means of a rule. But this rule, precisely because it is a rule, requires for itself direction from the faculty of judgment. Thus, it is evident, that the understanding is capable of being instructed by rules, but that the judgment is a peculiar talent, which does not, and cannot require tuition, but only exercise. This faculty is therefore the specific quality of the so-called mother- wit, the want of which no scholastic discipline can compen sate. For although education may furnish, and, as it were, ingraft upon a limited understanding rules borrowed from other minds, yet the power of employing these rules cor rectly must belong to the pupil himself; and no rule which we can prescribe to him with this purpose, is, in the absence or deficiency of this gift of nature, secure from misuse. * A physician therefore, a judge or a statesman, may have in his head many admirable pathological, juridical, or political rules, in a degree that may enable him to be a profound teacher in his particular science, and yet in the application of these rules, he may very possibly blunder,--either because he is wanting in natural judgment (though not in understand ing), and whilst he can comprehend the general in abstracto, cannot distinguish whether a particular case in concreto ought to rank under the former ; or because his faculty of judgment has not been sufficiently exercised by examples and real practice. Indeed, the grand and only use of ex amples, is to sharpen the judgment. For as regards the correctness and precision of the insight of the understand ing, examples are commonly injurious rather than other wise, because, as casus in terminis, they seldom adequately fulfil the Conditions of the rule. Besides, they often weaken the power of our understanding to apprehend rules or laws in their universality, independently of particular circum stances of experience ; and hence, accustom us to employ
* Deficiency in judgment is properly that which is called stupidity ; and for such a failing we know 110 remedy. A dull or narrow-minded person, to whom nothing is wanting but a proper degree of understand ing, may be improved by tuition, even so far as to deserve the epithet of learned. But as such persons frequently labour under a deficiency in the faculty of judgment, it is not uncommon to find men extremely learned, who in the application of their science betray to a lamentable degree this U remediable want.
? ? ? ? 106 TRANSCEJTDEKTAX ANALTTIC.
them more as formula: than a<< principles. Examples an thus the go-cart of the judgment, which he who is naturally deficient in that faculty, cannot afford to dispense with.
But although general logic cannot give directions to the faculty of judgment, the case very different as regards trans cendental logic, insomuch that appears to be the especial duty of the latter to secure and direct, means of determinate rules, the faculty of judgment in the employment of the pure
faculty of judgment (lapsus judicii) the employment of the few pure conceptions of the understanding which we possess, although its use in this case purely negative, philosophy
called upon to apply all its acuteness and penetration.
But transcendental philosophy has this peculiarity, that besides indicating the rule, or rather the general condition for rules, which given in the pure conception of the understand ing, can, at the same time, indicate priori the case to which the rule must be applied. The cause of the superiority which, in this respect, transcendental philosophy possesses above all other sciences except mathematics, lies in this -- treats of conceptions which must relate priori to their objects, whose objective validity consequently cannot be demonstrated posteriori, and at the same time, under the obligation of presenting in general but sufficient tests, the conditions under which objects can be given in harmony with those con ceptions otherwise they would be mere logical forms, without content, and not pure conceptions of the understanding.
Our transcendental doctrine of the faculty of judgment will contain two chapters. The first wild treat of the sensuous condition under which alone pure conceptions of the under standing can be employed, --that of the schematism of the pure understanding. The second will treat of those synthetical judgments which are derived priori from pure conceptions of the understanding under those conditions, and which lie
priori at the foundation of all other cognitions, that
to say, will treat of the principles of the pure understanding,
For, as doctrine, that as an endeavour to
understanding.
enlarge the sphere of the understanding in regard to pure priori cognitions, philosophy worse than useless, since from all the attempts hitherto made, little or no ground has been gained. But, as critique, order to guard against the mistakes of the
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? OT THE SCHEMATISM OF THE CATEGORIES.
107
TRANSCENDENTAL DOCTRINE OF THE FACULTY OF JUDGMENT,
On, Analytic of Principles.
CHAPTER I.
Of the Schematism of the Pure Conceptions of the Understanding.
In all subsumptions of an object under a conception, the representation of the object must be homogeneous with the conception ; in other words, the conception must contain that which is represented in the object to be subsumed under it. For this is the meaning of the expression, An object is con tained under a conception. Thus the empirical conception of a plate is homogeneous with the pure geometrical conception of a circle, inasmuch as the roundness which is cogitated in the former is intuited in the latter.
But pure conceptions of the understanding, when compared with empirical intuitions, or even with sensuous intuitions in
general, are quite heterogeneous, and never can be discovered in any intuition. How then is the tubsumption of the latter under the former, and consequently the application of the cate gories to phenomena, possible 1 -- For it is impossible to say, for example, Causality can be intuited through the senses, and is contained in the phsenomenon. --This natural and important question forms the real cause of the necessity of a transcen dental doctrine of the faculty of judgment, with the purpose, to wit, of shewing how pure conceptions of the understand ing can be applied to phenomena. In all other sciences, where the conceptions by which the object is thought in the general are not so different and heterogeneous from those which represent the object in eoncreto--as it is given, it is quite unnecessary to institute any special inquiries concerning the application of the former to the latter.
Now it is quite clear, that there must be some third thing, which on the one side is homogeneous with the category, and with the phsenomenon on the other, and so makes the applica tion of the fo rmer to the latter possible. This mediating repre
? ? ? ? 108 &KAXYTI0 Or PBIHOTPLBS.
eentation must be pure (without any empirical content), and yet must on the one side be intellectual, on the other sensuous. Such a representation is the transcendental schema.
The conception of the understanding contains pure syn thetical unity of the manifold in general. Time, as the formal condition of the manifold of the internal sense, oonsequently of the conjunction of all representations, contains a priori a manifold in the pure intuition. Now a transcendental deter mination of time is so far homogeneous with the category, which constitutes the unity thereof, that it is universal, and rests upon a rule a priori. On the other hand, it is so far ho mogeneous with the phenomenon, inasmuch as time is con tained in every empirical representation of the manifold. Thus an application of the category to phenomena becomes possible. by means of the transcendental determination of time, which, as the schema of the conceptions of the understanding, mediates the subsumption of the latter under the former.
After what has been proved in our deduction of the catego ries, no one, it is to be hoped, can hesitate ns to the proper de cision of the question, whether the employment of these pure conceptions of the understanding ought to be merely empirical or also transcendental ; in other words, whether the categories, as conditions of a possible experience, relate h priori solely to phenomena, or whether, as conditions of the possibility of things in general, their application can be extended to objects as things in themselves. For we have there seen that con ceptions are quite impossible, and utterly without signification, unless either to them, or at least to the elements of which they consist, an object be given ; and that, consequently, they cannot possibly apply to objects as things in themselves without re gard to the question whether and how these may be given to us ; and further, that the only manner in which objects can be given to us, is by means of the modification of our sensibility ; and finally, that pure h priori conceptions, in addition to tli? function of the understanding in the category, must contain a priori formal conditions of sensibility (of the internal sense, namely), which again contain the general condition under which alone the category can be applied to any oliject. This formal and pure condition of sensibility, to which the conception of tho understanding is restricted in its employment, we shall name the schema of the conception of th-' understandinij, and thf
? ? ? ? Or THJS SCHEMATISM Or THE CATEGORIES. 109
procedure of the understanding with these schemata, we shall oull the Schematism of the pure understanding.
The Schema is, in itself, always a mere product of the ima
gination. * But as the synthesis of imagination has for its aim no single intuition, but merely unity in the determination of sen
sibility, the schema is clearly distinguishable from the image. Thus, if I place five points one after another, this is an image of the number five. On the other hand, if I only think a number in general, which may be either five or a hun dred, this thought is rather the representation of a method of representing in an image a sum g. thousand) in con formity with conception, than the image itself, an image which should find some little difficulty in reviewing, and comparing with the conception. Now this representation of general procedure of the imagination to present its image to conception, call the schema of this conception.
In truth, not images of objects, but schemata, which lie at the foundation of our pure sensuous conceptions. No image could ever be adequate to our conception of triangle general. For the geueralness of the conception never could attain to, as this includes under itself all triangles, whether
right-angled, acute-angled, &c. , whilst the image would always be limited to single part of this sphere. The schema of the triangle can exist nowhere else than in thought, and indi cates rule of the synthesis of the imagination in regard to pure figures in space. Still less an object of experience, or an image of the object, ever adequate to the empirical concep tion. On the contrary, the conception always relates imme diately to the schema of the imagination, as rule for the de termination of our intuition, in conformity with certain ge neral conception. The conception of dog indicates rule, according to which my imagination can delineate the figure of
four-footed animal in general, without being limited to any particular individual form which experience presents to me, or indeed to any possible image that can represent to myself in eoncreto. This schematism of our understanding in regard to phenomena and their mere form, an art, hidden in the depths of the human soul, whose true modes of action we shall only with difficulty discover and unveil. Thus much only enii
Sec note at 34. -- IV.
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we say : --The image is a product of the empirical faculty of the productive imagination, --the schema of sensuous conceptions (of figures in space, for example) is a product, and, as it were, a monogram of the pure imagination a priori, whereby and according to which images first become possible, which, however, can be connected with the conception only mediately by means of the schema which they indicate, and are in themselves never fully adequate to it. On the other hand, the schema of a pure conception of the understanding is something that cannot be reduced into any image, --it is nothing else than the pure synthesis expressed by the category, con formably to a rule of unity according to conceptions. It is a transcendental product of the imagination, a product which concerns the determination of the internal sense,
? according to conditions of its form (time) in respect to all representa
tions, in so far as these representations must be conjoined H priori in one conception, conformably to the unity of apper
ception.
Without entering upon a dry and tedious analysis of the
essential requisites of transcendental schemata of the pure conceptions of the understanding, we shall rather proceed at once to give an explanation of them according to the order of the categories, and in connection therewith.
For the external sense the pure image of all quantities (quantorum) is space ; the pure image of aU objects of sense in general, is time. But the pure schema of quantity (quantila- tis) as a conception of the understanding, is number, a re presentation which comprehends the successive addition of one to one (homogeneous quantities). Thus, number is no thing else than the unity of the synthesis of the manifold in a homogeneous intuition, by means of my generating time* it self in my apprehension of the intuition.
Reality, in the pure conception of the understanding, is that
which corresponds to a sensation in general ; that, conse
quently, the conception of which indicates a being (in time). Negation is that the conception of which represents a not-
The opposition of these two consists there fore in the difference of one and the same time, as a time filled or a time empty. Now as time is only the form of intuition,
>> I generate time because I generate succession, namely, in the sue- ecMive addition of one to one. -- Tr.
being (in time).
? ? ? Ill
consequently of objects as plienomena, that which in objects corresponds to sensation is the transcendental matter of all objects as things in themselves {Sachheit, reality). Now every sensation has a degree or quantity by which it can fill time, that is to say, the internal sense in respect of the representation of an object, more or less, until it vanishes into nothing (=0= negatio). Thus there is a relation and connection between reality and negation, or rather a transition from the former to the latter, which makes every reality representable to us as a quantum ; and the schema of a reality as the quantity of something in so far as it fills time, is exactly this continuous and uniform generation of the reality in time, as we descend in time from the sensation which has a certain degree, down to the vanishing thereof, or gradually ascend from negation to the quantity thereof.
The schema of substance is the permanence of the real in time ; that the representation of as substratum of the empirical determination of time substratum which there fore remains, whilst all else changes. (Time passes not, but in
passes the existence of the changeable. To time, therefore,
which itself unchangeable and permanent, corresponds that which in the phenomenon unchangeable in existence, that
substance, and only by that the succession and co existence of phsenomena can be determined in regard to time. ) The schema of cause and of the causality of thing the
real which, when posited, always followed by something else. consists, therefore, in the succession of the manifold, in so
far as that succession subjected to rule.
The schema of community (reciprocity of action and re
action), or the reciprocal causality of substances in respect of their accidents, the co-existence of the determinations of the one with those of the other, according to general rule.
The schema of possibility the accordance of the synthesis
of different representations with the conditions of time in ge
neral (as, for example, oppopites cannot exist together at the same time in the same thing, but only after each other), and therefore the determination of the representation of thing
at any time.
The schema of reality* existence in determined time.
WWklichkeit. Id the table of categoric! called Bxiitenc* (Dueyn). -- Tr.
OF TlIE SCHEMATISM Of THE CATESORIEB.
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? 112 Of ASAltflO tiltUCIPLES.
The schema of necessity is the existence of an object in All time.
It is clear, from all this, that the schema of the category of
quantity contains and represents the generation (synthesis) of time itself, in the successive apprehension of an object ; the schema of quality the synthesis of sensation with the repre sentation of time, or the filling up of time ; the schema of relation the relation of perceptions to each other in all time (that according to rule of the determination of time) and finally, the schema of modality and its categories, time itself, as the correlative of the determination of an object --whe ther does belong to time, and how. The schemata, there fore, are nothing but priori determinations of time according to rules, and these, in regard to all possible objects, following the arrangement of the categories, relate to the series in time,
the content in time, the order in time, and finally, to the com
plex or totality in time.
Hence apparent that the schematism of the under
standing, by means of the transcendental synthesis of the ima gination, amounts to nothing else than the unity of the mani fold of intuition in the internal sense, and thus indirectly to the
dimity of apperception, as function corresponding to the in ternal sense receptivity). Thus, the schemata of the pure conceptions of the understanding are the true and only condi tions whereby our understanding receives an application to objects, and consequently significance. Finally, therefore, the categories are only capable of empirical use, inasmuch as they serve merely to subject phenomena to the universal rules of synthesis, means of an u priori necessary unity (on account of the necessary union of all consciousness in one original ap
? and so to render them susceptible of complete connection in one experience. But within this whole of pos sible experience lie all our cognitions, and in the universal re lation to this experience consists transcendental truth, which antecedes all empirical truth, and renders the latter possible.
however, evident at first sight, that although the schemata of sensibility are the sole agents in realizing the categories, they do, nevertheless, also restrict them, that they limit the categories by conditions which lie beyond the
sphere of . understanding --namely, in sensibility. Hence the bchcma properly only the phenomenon, or the sensuous
perception)
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? SYSTEM OV ALL FRINOIPLES. 113
conception of an object in harmony with the category. (Au- merus est quantitas phenomenon,* --sensatio realitas phseno- menon ; constant et perdurabile rerum substantia phenomenon --mternitas, neeetsitas, phsenomena, &c. ) Now, if we re move a restrictive condition, we thereby amplify, it appears,
the formerly limited conception. In this way, the categories in their pure signification, free from all conditions of sensibi lity, ought to be valid of things as they are, and not, as the schemata represent them, merely as they appear, and consequently the categories must have a significance far more extended, and wholly independent of all schemata. In truth, there does always remain to the pure conceptions of the under standing, after abstracting every sensuous condition, a value and significance, which however, merely logical. But in this case, no object given them, and therefore they have no meaning sufficient to afford us conception of an object. The notion of substance, for example, we leave out the sensuous determination of permanence, would mean nothing more than
something which can be cogitated as subject, without the possibility of becoming predicate to anything else. Of this representation can make nothing, inasmuch as does not indicate to me what determinations the thing possesses which must thus be valid as premier subject. Consequently, the categories, without schemata, are merely functions of the un
derstanding for the production of conceptions, but do not represent any object. This significance they derive from sensibility, which at the same time realizes the understanding and restricts it.
TRANSCENDENTAL DOCTRINE OF JUDGMENT, OB ANALYTIC OF PRINCIPLES.
CHAPTER II.
System of all Princifles of the Pure Understanding.
In the foregoing chapter we have merely considered the ge neral conditions under which alone the transcendental faculty of judgment justified in using the pure conceptions of the
onderstanding for synthetical judgments. Our duty at pre- Phenomenon heie an adjective. --Tram,
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sent is to exhibit in systematic connection those judgments which the understanding really produces d priori. For this purpose, our table of the categories will certainly afford us the
natural and safe guidance. For it is precisely the categories whose application to possible experience must constitute all pure & priori cognition of the understanding ; and the rela tion of which to sensibility will, on that very account, pre sent us with a complete and systematic catalogue of all the transcendental principles of the use of the understanding.
Principles <k priori are so called, not merely because they contain in themselves the grounds of other judgments, but also because they themselves are not grounded in higher and more general cognitions. This peculiarity, however, does not raise them altogether above the need of a proof. For although there could be found no higher cognition, and therefore no objective proof, and although such a principle rather serves as the foundation for all cognition of the object, this by no means hinders us from drawing a proof from the subjective sources of the possibility of the cognition of an object. Sucb a proof is necessary moreover, because without it the prin ciple might be liable to the imputation of being a mere gratu itous assertion.
In the second place, we shall limit our investigations to those principles which relate to the categories. For as to the principles of transcendental esthetic, according to which space and time are the conditions of the possibility of things as phenomena, as also the restriction of these principles, namely, that they cannot be applied to objects as things in themselves ; -- these, of course, do not fall within the scope of our present enquiry. In like manner, the principles of ma thematical science form no part of this system, because they are all drawn from intuition, and not from the pure concep tion of the understanding. The possibility of these principles, however, will necessarily be considered here, inasmuch as they are synthetical judgments h priori, not indeed for the purpose of proving their accuracy and apodeictic certainty, which is unnecessary, but merely to render conceivable and deduce the possibility of such evident << priori cognitions.
But we shall have also to speak of the principle of analy tical judgments, in opposition to synthetical judgments, which is the proper subject of our enquiries, because this very oppo
? ? ? ? SYSTEM O1 PRINCIPLES. 113
<<ition will free the theory of the latter from nll ambiguity, ami place it clearly before our eyes in its true nature.
Ststem of the Principled or the Pure Under standing.
SECTION FIRST.
Of the Supreme Principle of all Analytical Judgments.
Whatever may be the content of our cognition, and in whatever manner our cognition may be related to its object, the universal, although only negative condition of all our judgments is that they do not contradict themselves ; other wise these judgments are in themselves (even without respect to the object) nothing. But although there may exist no contradiction in our judgment, it may nevertheless connect conceptions in such a manner, that they do not correspond to the object, or without any grounds either a priori or a pos teriori for arriving at such a judgment, and thus, without being self-contradictory, a judgment may nevertheless be either false or groundless. "
Now, the proposition, No subject can have a predicate that contradicts it," is called the principle of contradiction, and is an universal but purely negative criterion of all truth. But it belongs to logic alone, because it is valid of cognitions, merely as cognitions, and without respect to their content, and declares that the contradiction entirely nullifies them. We can also, however, make a positive use of this princi ple, that not merely to banish falsehood and error (in bo far as rests upon contradiction), but also for the cog nition of truth. For the judgment analytical, be affirmative or negative, its truth must always be recognizable
means of the principle of contradiction. For the contrary of that which lies and cogitated as conception in the cogni tion of the object will be always properly negatived, but the conception itself must always be affirmed of the object, inas much as the contrary thereof would be in contradiction to the object.
We must therefore hold the principle contradiction to be the universal and fully sufficient principle all analytical tocnitiox. But as sufficient criterion of truth, has no further
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? 116 ANALYTIC Of 1'BINCIPLES.
utility or authority. For the fact that no cognition can be at variance with this principle without nullifying itself, consti tutes this principle the sine qua non, but not the determining ground of the truth of our cognition. As our business at present is properly with the synthetical part of our knowledge only, we shall always be on our guard not to transgress this inviolable principle ; but at the same time not to expect from it any direct assistance in the establishment of the truth of any synthetical proposition.
There exists, however, a formula of this celebrated principle --a principle merely formal and entirely without content -- which contains a synthesis that has been inadvertently and quite unnecessarily mixed up with it. It is this : -- " It is impossible for a thing to be and not to be at the same time. " Not to mention the superfluousness of the addition of the word impossible to indicate the apodeictic certainty, which ought to be self-evident from the proposition itself, the propo sition is affected by the condition of time, and as it were says :
? " A thing-- A, which is something=J? , cannot at the same time be non-B. " But both, B as well as non-B, may quite well exist in succession. For example, a man who is young cannot at the same time be old ; but the same man can very well be at one time young, and at another not young, that old. Now the principle of contradiction as merely logical propo sition must not any means limit its application merely to relations of time, and consequently formula like the pre ceding quite foreign to its true purpose. The misunder standing arises in this way. We first of all separate predicate of thing from the conception of the tiling, and afterwards connect with this predicate its opposite, and hence do not establish any contradiction with the subject, but
only wit'. i its predicate, which 1ms been conjoined with the
? ubject synthetically, --
contradiction, moreover, which ob tains only when the first and second predicate are affirmed in the same time. If say " man who ignorant not
learned," the condition "at the same time" must be added, for he who at one time ignorant, may at another be learned. But say "No ignorant man learned man," the pro position analytical, because the characteristic ignorance now constituent part of the conception of the subject and in this case the negative proposition evident immediately
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? BTSTEM OT PBnCCIFLES.
117
from the proposition of contradiction, without the necessity of adding the condition " at the same time. " --This is the reason why I have altered the formula of this principle, --an alteration which shows very clearly the nature of an analytical proposition.
TnE System of the Pbincifi-es O1 the Pubs Uhdeb- STAlTDING.
SECTION SECOND.
Of the Supreme Principle of all Synthetical Judgments.
The explanation of the possibility of synthetical judgments is a task with which general Logic has nothing to do ; indeed she needs not even be acquainted with its name. But in trans cendental Logic it is the most important matter to be dealt with, -- indeed the only one, if the question is of the possibility of synthetical judgments a priori, the conditions and extent of their validity. For when this question is fully decided, it can reach its aim with perfect ease, the determination, to wit, of the extent and limits of the pure understanding.
In an analytical judgment I do not go beyond the given conception, in order to arrive at some decision respecting it.
If the judgment is affirmative, I predicate of the conception only that which was already cogitated in it ; if negative, I merely exclude from the conception its contrary. But in syn thetical judgments, I must go beyond the given conception, in order to cogitate, in relation with something quite dif ferent from that which was cogitated in relation which consequently never one either of identity or contradiction, and
means of which the truth or error of the judgment cannot be discerned merely from the judgment itself.
Granted then, that we must go out beyond given concep tion, in order to compare synthetically with another, third thing necessary, in which alone the synthesis of two con ceptions can originate. Now what this tertium quid, that
to be the medium of all synthetical judgments It only complex,* in which all our representations are contained,
? the internal sense to wit, and its form priori, Time*
The synthesis of our representations rests upon the imagi nation their synthetical unity (which requisite to judg
ment), upon the unity of apperception. In this, therefore, u lnbcgriff
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to be sought the possibility of synthetical judgments, and at all three contain the sources of a priori representations, the
possibility of pure synthetical judgments also ; nay, they are necessary upon these grounds, if we are to possess a know ledge of objects, which rests solely upon the synthesis of re presentations.
If a cognition is to have objective reality, that to relate to an object, and possess sense and meaning in respect to
necessary that the object be given in some way or ano ther. Without this, our conceptions are empty, and we may indeed have thought bymeans of them, but such thinking, we have not, in fact, cognized anything, we have merely played with representation. To give an object, this expression be understood in the sense of to present the object, not mediately but immediately in intuition, means nothing else than to apply the representation of to experience, be that experience real or only possible. Space and time themselves, pure as these conceptions are from all that empirical, and certain as
that they are represented fully priori in the mind, would be completely without objective validity, and without sense and significance, their necessary use in the objects of experi ence were not shewn. Nay, the representation of them
mere schema, that always relates to the reproductive imagina tion, which calls up the objects of experience, without which they have no meaning. And so with all conceptions without distinction.
The possibility 'experience then, that which gives objective reality to all our priori cognitions. Now experience depends upon the synthetical unity of phsenomena, that upon synthesis according to conceptions of the object of pheno mena in general, synthesis without which experience never could become knowledge, but would be merely rhapsody of perceptions, never fitting together into any connected text, according to rules of thoroughly united (possible) conscious ness, and therefore never subjected to the transcendental and necessary unity of apperception. Experience has therefore for foundation, priori principles of its form, that to say, general rules of unity in the synthesis of phenomena, the objective reality of which rules, as necessary conditions -- even of the possibility of experience --can always shewn experience. But apart from this relation, prion synthetical
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? AYETEM OF P&INCil'LES. 119
propositions are absolutely impossible, because they have no third term, that no pure object, in which the synthetical
unity can exhibit the objective reality of its conceptions. Although, then, respecting space, or the forms which pro
ductive imagination describes therein, we do cognize much priori in synthetical judgments, and are really in no need
of experience for this purpose, such knowledge would never theless amount to nothing but a busy trifling with mere chimera, were not space to be considered as the condition of the phsenomena which constitute the material of ex ternal experience. Hence those pure synthetical judgments do relate, though but mediately, to possible experience, or rather to the possibility of experience, and upon that alone
founded the objective validity of their synthesis.
While then, on the one hand, experience, as empirical syn thesis, the only possible mode of cognition which gives reality to all other synthesis on the other hand, this latter synthesis, as cognition priori, possesses truth, that ac cordance with its object, only in so far as contains nothing more than what necessary to the synthetical unity of ex perience.
Accordingly, the supreme principle of all synthetical judg ments Every object subject to the necessary conditions of the synthetical unity of the manifold of intuition in possible experience.
A priori synthetical judgments are possible, when we ap ply the formal conditions of the priori intuition, the synthe sis of the imagination, and the necessary unity of that syn thesis in transcendental apperception, to possible cognition of experience, and say The conditions of the possibility of ex perience in general, are at the same time conditions of the pos sibility of the objects of experience, and have, for that reason, objective validity in an priori synthetical judgment.
Mental synthesis. --Jr.
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? 120 ASATiTTIC Or PMWCIPLER.
STSTEM O1 THE PRINCIPLES OF THE PrjBB UhDIR- ST>>Nnrso,
SECTION THIRD.
Systematic Representation of all Synthetical Principles thereof.
That principles exist at all is to be ascribed solely to the pure understanding, which is not only the faculty of rules in regard to that which happens, but is even the source of principles ac cording to which every thing that can be presented to us as an object is necessarily subject to rules, because without such rules we never could attain to cognition of an object. Even the laws of nature, if they are contemplated as principles of the empirical use of the understanding, possess also a charac teristic of necessity, and we may therefore at least expect thera to be determined upon grounds which are valid a priori and antecedent to all experience. But all laws of nature, without distinction, are subject to higher principles of the under standing, inasmuch as the former are merely applications of the latter to particular cases of experience. These higher principles alone therefore give the conception, which contains the necessary condition, and, as it were, the exponent of a rule ; experience, on the other hand, gives the case which comes under the rule.
There is no danger of our mistaking merely empirical prin ciples for principles of the pure understanding, or conversely ; for the character of necessity, according to conceptions which distinguishes the latter, and the absence of this in every em pirical proposition, how extensively valid soever it may be, is a perfect safeguard against confounding them. There are, how ever, pure principles a priori, which nevertheless I should not ascribe to the pure understanding -- for this reason, that they are not derived from pure conceptions, but (although by the mediation of the understanding) from pure intuitions. But understanding is the faculty of conceptions. Such principles mathematical science possesses, but their application to ex
? their objective validity, nay the possi bility of such a priori synthetical cognitions (the deduction
thereof) rests entirely upon the pure understanding.
On this uccoint, I shall not reckon among my principl. ?
perience, consequently
? ? ? PRINCIPLES OF PUItE UNDERSTANDING. 121
? . hose of mathematics ; though I shall include those upon the possibility and objective validity a priori, of principles of the mathematical science, which, consequently, are to be looked upon as the principle of these, and which proceed from con ceptions to intuition, and not from intuition to conceptions.
In the application of the pure conceptions of the under standing to possible experience, the employment of their syn thesis is either mathematical or dynamical, for it is directed partly on the intuition alone, partly on the existence of a pheno menon. But the d priori conditions of intuition are in relation
to a possible experience absolutely necessary, those of the ex istence of objects of a possible empirical intuition are in them selves contingent. Hence the principles of the mathematical use of the categories will possess a character of absolute necessity, that will be apodeictic those, on the other hand, of the dynamical use, the character of an priori necessity indeed, but only under the condition of empirical thought in nn experience, therefore only mediately and indirectly. Con sequently they will not possess that immediate evidence which peculiar to the former, although their application to experience does not, for that reason, lose its truth and certitude. But of this point we shall be better able to judge at the conclusion of this system of principles.
The table of the categories naturally our guide to the table of principles, because these are nothing else than rules
? for the objective employment of the former. all principles of the pure understanding are--
Axioms of Intuition.
Accordingly,
3. Analogies
of Experience.
have chosen advisedly, in order that we might not lose sight of the distinctions in respect of tht
2. Anticipations
of Perception.
These appellations
4. Postulates of Empirical Thought in general.
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? 122 TRANSCENDENTAL DOCTRINE.
evidence and the employment of these principles. It will, however, soon nppear that --a fact which concerns bcth the evidence of these principles, and the a priori determination of phenomena -- according to the categories of Quantity and Quality (if we attend merely to the form of these), the prin ciples of these categories are distinguishable from those of the two others, inasmuch as the former are possessed of an intui tive, but the latter of a merely discursive, though in both instances a complete certitude. I shall therefore call the former mathematical,* and the latter dynamical principles. f It must be observed, however, that by these terms I mean,
just as little in the one case the principles of mathematics, as those of general (physical) dynamics, in the other. I have
here in view merely the principles of the pure understanding, in their application to the internal sense, (without distinction of the representations given therein), by means of which the sciences of mathematics and dynamics become possible. Ac cordingly, I have named these principles rather with reference to their application, than their content ; and I shall now pro ceed to consider them in the order in which they stand in the table.
I.
Axioms of Intuition.
The principle of these "All Intuitions are Extensive Quantities. "
Mathematically, in the Kantian sense. -- 7V.
All combination (conjunctio) either composition {composilio) or connection (nexus). The former the synthesis of manifold, the parts of which do not necessarily belong to each other. For example, the two triangles into which square divided by diagonal, do not necessarily belong to each other, and of this kind the synthesis of the homogeneous in every thing that can be mathematically considered. This synthesis can be divided into those of aggregation and coalition, the former of which
applied to extensive, the latter to intensive quantities. The second sort of combination {nexus) the synthesis of manifold, in so far as its parti do belong necessarily to each other for example, the accident to sub stance, or the effect to the causa. Consequently synthesis of that which, though heterogineous, represented as connected, priori. This combination -- not an arbitrary one -- entitle dynamical, because con cerns the connection of the existence of the manifold. This, again, may be divided into the physical synthesis of the phenomena among each other, and the mitaphysical synthesis, or the connection of phenomena a priori in the faculty of cognition.
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? AXIOMS Of INTUITIOIC. 123
Pboof.
All phenomena contain, as regards their form, an intuition in space and time, which lies a priori at the foundation of all with out exception. Phenomena, therefore, cannot be apprehended, that received into empirical consciousness otherwise than through the synthesis of manifold, through which the repre sentations of determinate space or time are generated that
to say, through the composition
the consciousness of the synthetical unity of this manifold
(homogeneous). Now the consciousness of homogeneous manifold in intuition, so far as thereby the representation of an object rendered possible, the conception of quan tity (quanti).