"Teaghlach a' Pheantair" le Giorgio de Chirico 1926
§ 4 - AN T-ANTÌNOMI EADAR IDÈAL AN T-SAIDHEINS AGUS IDÈAL NA PEARSANTACHD ANN AN CRITÌG AN REUSAIN FHÌOR-GHLAIN.
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§ 4 - THE ANTINOMY BETWEEN THE IDEAL OF SCIENCE AND THAT OF PERSONALITY IN THE CRITIQUE OF PURE REASON
Actually KANT's "Copernican deed", i.e. his critical reversal of the relation between the knowing subject and empirical reality, his fundamental break with dogmatical metaphysics, in short the whole content of his Critique of Pure Reason, acquires its essential significance only in the light of the new relationship between the ideal of science and that of personality, in the basic structure of his transcendental ground-Idea.
If one isolates KANT's epistemology from the latter, KANT's Copernican deed, which is usually considered to be a radical revolution in modern philosophy, is, in itself, in no wise radical.
It is quickly forgotten that since the time of DESCARTES, Humanist philosophical thought had been characterized by the tendency to seek the foundations of reality in the knowing subject only. HUME had with extreme acuteness tried to show that our experience is limited to sense phenomena. In distinction to the "objective" metaphysics of Greek and medieval philosophy, the Cartesian adage "cogito, ergo sum," signified the very proclamation of the sovereignty of subjective thought. Insofar as the Humanist ideal of science, with its logicistic principle of continuity, developed without a real synthesis with medieval or ancient metaphysics, its deepest tendency was the elevation of mathematical-logical thought to the throne of cosmic ordainer. If any one doubts this, he may return to the sources of the Humanistic science-ideal and behold once again the cleft which separates modern Humanist thought, with its essentially nominalistic concept of substance, from the old objective metaphysics of substantial forms. He may examine once again the experiment of HOBBES, as presented in the preface to his "De Corpore", according to which the entire given world of experience is theoretically demolished, in order that it may be reconstructed by the creative activity of mathematical thought (1).
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(1) Cf. p. 197 of this volume.
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If indeed KANT had done no more than to proclaim the sovereign transcendental-logical subject as lawgiver of empirical reality, his Copernican deed would have been nothing more than the realization of the basic tendency of the Humanistic science-ideal restricted to sense phenomena and his Criticism would have never become a true "transcendental idealism".
The deepest tendencies of KANT's Copernican revolution in epistemology are brought to light by the ascription of primacy to the ideal of personality resulting in a new form of the Humanistic ground-Idea.
KANT's withdrawal of the "Ding an sich" from the domination of the mathematical ideal of science, and his limitation of all theoretical knowledge to sense-phenomena is only to be understood from the dialectical turn of Humanist thought to its religious freedom-motive, embodied in the ideal of personality.
Henceforth, the transcendent root of human existence is no longer sought in limited mathematical and natural scientific categories but rather in the rational moral function of sovereign personality, as it is expressed in the transcendental Idea of human freedom. This is the real cause of KANT's aversion to LEIBNIZ' logicistic cosmonomic Idea of harmonia praestabilita, by which free personality was included in a continuous mathematically construed cosmic order, and in which, in the last analysis, the distinction between sensibility and rational freedom was relativized by the ideal of science.
In KANT's epistemology the postulate of the sovereignty of mathematical thought remains in full force with respect to knowledge of nature, but the ideal of science (essentially pertaining only to the domination of nature) cedes its primacy to the ideal of personality. KANT had become fully aware of the polar tension between both of these ideals.
The (sit venia verbo!) naturalistic idealism of the mathematical concept is replaced by a normative freedom-idealism of the transcendental Idea which — in pointing to the root of human personality — transcends the limits of logical understanding.
The neo-Kantian idealism of the Marburg school, in its first critical enthusiasm, thought it could correct KANT by abolishing his limitation of the sovereignty of theoretical thought to sensory phenomena. Thus it wished to extend the logicized ideal of knowledge to the normative world. Meanwhile, we have observed in an earlier context that, in so doing, this school was simply not conscious of the fact that it violated the typical structure of KANT's transcendental ground-Idea. It supposed it could elaborate KANT's critical method more consistently by eliminating the epistemological function of sensibility. It was unaware that in so doing it substituted a new type of Humanist ground-Idea for the Kantian one!
The very transcendental critical meaning of KANT's epistemology is indissolubly linked up with the binding of the mathematical and the natural scientific categories to the sensory function of experience. For this restriction of the Humanist science-ideal was strictly commanded by KANT's critical insight into the definitive antithesis between the nature- and the freedom-motives in the religious root of Humanistic thought.
The transcendental Ideas of reason point theoretical thought regulatively to the totality of the determinations of empirical reality without logical understanding ever being able to encompass this totality. At the same time these Ideas point beyond the logical function of theoretical thought to the supra-sensory root of reality, which the Humanistic ideal of personality henceforth, in an increasing degree, would identify with the practical Idea of autonomous moral freedom.
Here the deepest tendency in KANT's proclamation of the "primacy of practical reason" manifests itself. This proclamation signified the first step in the process of concentrating philosophical thought in the Idea of autonomous moral personality.
As we observed in an earlier context, it was still only the first step which KANT's critical philosophy took in this direction. For the sharp line of demarcation between both of the basic factors in his transcendental ground-Idea, for the present, prevented the drawing of the full consequences of freedom-idealism.
The dualistic type of the Kantian transcendental ground-Idea.
The Critique of Pure Reason and its counterpart the Critique of Practical Reason break the cosmos asunder into two spheres, that of sensory appearance and that of super-sensory freedom. In the former, the ideal of science is the lord and master, the mind is the law-giver of nature, since it constitutes empirical reality as "Gegenstand". But the ideal of science with its mechanical principle of causality is in no way deemed competent in the super-sensory sphere of moral freedom. It is not permitted to apply its categories outside of the domain of sensory experience. In the realm of moral freedom the "homo noumenon" (the humanistic ideal of personality in the hypostatized rational-moral function) maintains its own sovereignty.
KANT severed all cosmic connections of meaning which bind the normative moral function to the sensory. This hypostatization of the moral function of personality, as a self-sufficient metaphysical reality, avenges itself by a logical formalism in the treatment of ethical questions.
Here it clearly appears how the meaning of the normative functions of reality is disturbed by the attempt to loosen them from their coherence with all other modal aspects in cosmic time.
The dualism between the ideal of science and that of personality in KANT's conception of the Humanist cosmonomic Idea comes
sharply to the fore in the relationship between the "transcendental unity of apperception" and the hypostatized Idea of the absolutely autonomous moral freedom. This relationship was in KANT essentially unclarified and antinomical. On the one hand the freedom-motive expresses itself in the "transcendental thinking ego", conceived of as the necessary pre-requisite for all objective experience of nature and as the apriori form of logical unity of the autonomous knowing subject. Whereas, on the other hand, opposite to it was posited the Idea of autonomous freedom of "pure will".
In KANT's transcendental dualistic ground-Idea the basic antinomy between the ideals of science and of personality assumes a form which was to become the point of departure for all the subsequent attempts made by post-Kantian idealism to conquer this dualism.
Are we confronted here with two distinct roots in human reason? If this question were to be answered affirmatively, the unity of human selfhood (which from the outset had been sought in human reason) would be destroyed. This, however, cannot be KANT's true meaning, for he denied emphatically that the logical form of the "transcendental cogito" has any "metaphysical" meaning.
Must we then conclude that the "transcendental logical ego" itself belongs to the phenomenon? This supposition, too, appears to be untenable, because, in this case, this transcendental subject could never be conceived of as the formal origin of the world of natural phenomena.
So the basic antinomy between the ideal of science and that of personality discloses itself in the transcendental Idea of the autonomous human ego itself. This was to become the point of departure in the development of post-Kantian idealism. In FICHTE the Idea of autonomous freedom was in a radical fashion elevated as the all inclusive root and origin of the entire cosmos.
For we have seen in an earlier context, that, just as the classical ideal of science implies a postulate of continuity which requires a methodical levelling of the modal aspects, in similar fashion the ideal of personality possesses its proper tendency to continuity which soon was to contest the self-sufficiency of the science-ideal.
KANT conceived of the "transcendental cogito" neither as a substance nor as a phenomenon, but as a merely logical function, as pure spontaneity of the uniting act synthesizing the multiplicity of a possible sensory intuition (2).
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(2) Kr. d. r. V. Allgemeine Anmerkung den Übergang von der rationalen Psychologie zur Kosmologie betreffend [General remark concerning the transition from rational psychology to cosmology], p. 322/3: "Das Denken, für sich genommen, ist blosz die logische Funktion, mithin lauter Spontaneität der Verbindung des Mannigfaltigen einer blosz möglichen Anschauung... Dadurch stelle ich mich mir selbst weder wie ich bin, noch wie ich mir erscheine, vor, sondern ich denke mich nur wie ein jedes Objekt überhaupt" (sic), "von dessen Art der Anschauung ich abstrahiere." ["Thought, taken in itself, is merely the logical function, consequently pure spontaneity of the uniting activity synthesizing the multiplicity of a merely possible sensory intuition... Through it I represent myself neither as I am, nor as I appear to myself, rather I think myself only as an object in general, abstracted from the mode in which it is perceived."]
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He tried to represent this "cogito" as a spontaneous activity, and as a final logical unity in consciousness which is ever elevated above all logical multiplicity in concepts (3).
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(3) Kr. d. v. V. Transsz. Logik, 2e Abschn. §§ 15 and 16.
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When we deal with the problem of knowledge in the second volume of this work, we shall more closely analyze the intrinsic antinomy which lies hidden in this concept of the "unity of pure consciousness". Nevertheless, we can note in passing, that KANT cannot recognize the real unity of self-consciousness, because his hidden transcendental ground-Idea requires an unbridgeable gulf between the so-called theoretical and practical reason.
The expression of this dualism in the antithesis of natural laws and norms.
The transcendental logical subject is lawgiver of "nature"; the transcendent subject of autonomous moral freedom is lawgiver of human action (or rather is the logical form of the moral law itself)!
Natural necessity and freedom, causal law and norm, in their relationship to each other become antinomic species of laws which cannot find any deeper reconciliation in KANT's dualistic cosmonomic Idea.
If natural necessity cannot itself find its root in the Idea of free sovereign personality, it remains a counter force against the declaration of the absoluteness of the moral Idea of freedom, and this fundamental antithesis cannot be resolved by a mere axiological subordination of theoretical to practical reason.
If philosophical thought is to avoid becoming constantly involved in intrinsic antinomies, the Archimedean point of philosophy cannot be as a house divided against itself.
The form-matter schema in KANT's epistemology as an expression of the inner antinomy of his dualistic transcendental ground-Idea.
In KANT's epistemology, too, an inner antinomy is concealed by the fact that sensibility and logical understanding are dualistically set in opposition to each other. And this antinomy is dangerous to both the ideal of science and that of personality.
In spite of the proclamation of logical understanding as the lawgiver for nature, the sovereignty of theoretical thought is seriously threatened, because sensibility as a purely receptive instance, imposes insurmountable limits upon it. The understanding ("Verstand") is the sovereign lawgiver only in a formal sense. Only the universally valid form of natural reality originates in the "transcendental cogito".
The material of knowledge, remains deeply a-logical, so that at this point the problem of the "Ding an sich" behind the phenomena of nature arises again in a dangerous fashion. In the traditional metaphysical way, KANT permits the purely receptive sensibility to be affected by the "Ding an sich".
This "Ding an sich" is obviously again thought of as a natural substance and cannot be compatible with the Idea of the "homo noumenon" as a free and autonomous supra-temporal being. In consequence, post-Kantian transcendental idealism necessarily must consider this to be an insult to sovereign reason. The a-logical "natural substance" threatened both the ideal of science and that of personality.
Pre-Kantian rationalism had actually conceived of the substance of nature as the creation of absolute mathematical thought, and thereby it had made the latter to be the deepest root and the origin of the cosmos. In so doing, however, it had disregarded the proper claims of the Humanistic ideal of personality.
In his dualistic delimitation of the ideal of science and that of personality, KANT permitted an a-logical "Ding an sich" to remain behind the phenomena of nature, a "Ding an sich" which destroys the sovereignty of thought (4) and gives rise to the problem of a deeper root behind both logical thought and the metaphysical natural substance, and which on the other hand is not compatible with the postulate of continuity of the Humanistic ideal of personality; the acceptance of a metaphysical "substance of nature" did not permit the Idea of free and autonomous personality to be recognized as the deepest root of empirical (natural) reality.
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(4) KRONER rightly observes op. cit. I, p. 103: "In den so gedachten Dingen an sich tritt dem Subject ein gleichwertiges, gleichmächtiges, ja übermächtiges Prinzip entgegen, zwischen beiden aber wird keine gedankliche Vermittlung festgestellt (denn die "Affection" ist ein völlig dunkeles Wort, das nur die Stelle eines fehlenden Begriffs vertritt." ["In the things in themselves thought of in this manner, the subject is confronted with an equivalent, equipotent, nay predominant principle; but there is not established in thought a mediation between both (because "affection" is an entirely mysterious word, which only takes the place of a concept that is lacking").]
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KANT himself felt the antinomy in his delimitation of the science-ideal by a natural "Ding an sich". He tried, therefore, to avoid this antinomy by his construction of an intellectus archetypus, an intuitive divine mind, that creatively produces its "Gegenstand" in direct non-sensory intellectual intuition. This Idea is essentially derived from LEIBNIZ' notion of infinite analysis which is to be completed only in divine thought. KRONER rightly observes from the Humanist point of view: "The consequence of epistemological thought compels us to transcend the separation and to arrive at the unity of the intuitive understanding; with regard to the latter, however, the opposition between the "Gegenstand" and the ego can no longer be maintained. In the Idea both are identical, and such not as "Gegenstand", because the understanding is not produced by that which is viewed, but as understanding, since the latter produces that which is viewed... The Idea of the understanding producing its "Gegenstand" leads beyond logic as epistemology: it is a limiting concept, — a concept which limits epistemology" (5).
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(5) KRONER, Op. cif. I, p. 109: "Die Konsequenz des erkenntnistheoretischen Denkens zwingt dazu, über die Trennung hinauszugehen bis zur Einheit des intuitiven Verstandes; für ihn kann dann aber auch der Gegensatz von Gegenstand und Ich nicht länger fortbestehen. In der Idee sind beide identisch, und zwar nicht als "Gegenstand", denn der Verstand wird nicht vom Angeschauten erzeugt, sondern als Verstand, denn er erzeugt das Angeschaute... Die Idee des seinen "Gegenstand" erzeugenden Verstandes führt über die Logik als Erkenntnistheorie hinaus: sie ist ein Grenzbegriff, — ein Begriff, der die Erkenntnistheorie begrenzt."
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The function of the transcendental Ideas of theoretical reason.
In spite of all this, it cannot be denied that in the transcendental dialectic, by introducing the transcendental Ideas of theoretical reason, KANT took an important step in the direction later taken by FICHTE. The latter completely eliminated the natural "Ding an sich" and proclaimed practical reason, as the seat of the ethical ideal of personality, to be the deepest root of the entire cosmos.
With the synthetic determination of the "Gegenstand" by the mathematical categories of quantity and quality, and by the physical (categories) of relation, substance, causality and interaction, the logical understanding is set on an endless path; in this way alone the totality of the conditions can never be thought of as the "unconditioned" itself.
The very limitation and the restriction of the categories to the sensory phenomenon makes it impossible for the intellect to conceive of the "Ding an sich" in a positive sense as the absolute. The "absolute" can never be given in experience, since the latter is itself determined by the mathematical and dynamical (natural scientific) categories.
For this very reason the mind can conceive of the "noumena" is "Dinge an sich" only in a negative sense. In his remarkable explanation "Von dem Grunde der Unterscheidung aller Geganstände überhaupt in Phaenomena und Noumena," KANT wrote: "The concept of a noumenon is also merely a limiting concept, in order to fence in the presumption of sensibility, and it is also only to be used in a negative sense. Nevertheless, it has not been arbitrarily invented, but is connected with the limitation of sensibility, without, however, being able to set anything positive in addition to its extent" (6).
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(6) Kr. der reinen Vernunft (W.W. Bud. III) p. 243: "Der Begriff eines Noumenon ist also blosz ein Grenzbegriff, um die Anmaszung der Sinnlichkeit einzuschränken, und also nur von negativem Gebrauche. Er ist aber gleichwohl nicht willkührlich erdichtet, sondern hängt mit der Einschränkung der Sinnlichkeit zusammen, ohne doch etwas Positives auszer dem Umfange derselben setzen zu können." In the present connection I am quoting exclusively from the second edition. In Vol. II when we take up the problem of Epistemology I will consider the differences between the first and second edition.
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It was from this point of view that KANT began his destructive criticism of the rationalist metaphysics of the Leibnizian-Wolffian school. This criticism was pregnantly expressed by KANT in the statement that concepts without sensory intuitions are empty, as vice versa intuitions without concepts are blind. It began with the famous Appendix: "Concerning the amphiboly [Amphiboly: Ambiguous discourse -1913 Webster] of the concepts of reflection by means of mistaking the empirical use of the understanding for the transcendental one" and reached its culminating point in the "Antinomies of Pure Reason".
Yet, KANT simultaneously tried to show that no contradiction is implied in the acceptance of the concept of a "noumenon" as the "Gegenstand" of an infinite intuitive intellect, even though the reality of the "things in themselves" is only secured by "practical reason" in apriori faith.
By recognizing the infinity of its task in the determination of the "Gegenstand", the intellect subordinates itself to "theoretical reason", which with its transcendental Ideas — as mere regulative principles for the use of the understanding — indicates to the latter the direction to follow in order to bring unity to its rules (7).
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(7) Kr. d. r. Vern., p. 276: "Der Verstand mag ein Vermögen der Einheit der Erscheinungen vermittelst der Regeln rein, so ist die Vernunft das Vermögen der Einheit der Verstandesregeln unter Prinzipien. Sie geht also niemals zunächst auf Erfahrung oder auf irgend einen Gegenstand, sondern auf den Verstand, um den mannigfaltigen Erkenntnissen desselben Einheit a priori durch Begriffe zu geben, welche Vernunfteinheit heiszen mag und von ganz anderer Art ist, als sie von dem Verstande geleistet werden kann." ["The understanding may be a faculty of bringing unity to the phenomena by means of rules: Reason, on the other hand, is the faculty of creating the unity of the rules of understanding under principles. Consequently, the latter is never directly related to experience or to a "Gegenstand", but rather to the understanding, in order to furnish the manifold cognitions of the latter with unity a priori by means of concepts; a unity which may be called unity in the sense of Reason and is of a quite different nature from that which can be produced by the understanding"]
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The transcendental idea presents to the understanding the unattainable goal: the "unconditioned", as totality of categorical determinations; so theoretical reason subjects logical thought to an infinite task. Consequently, in KANT the theoretical transcendental Idea is viewed as nothing but the logical category extended to the "absolute". This extension is made possible in pure reason by freeing the category from the inevitable limitations of possible experience and by so extending the concept beyond the limits of the sensory empirical, although still in contact with it (8).
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(8) Kritik der r. Vern., p. 327.
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The transcendental Idea is a necessary concept of reason to which no corresponding objects can be given in the sensory aspect of experience. "Pure reason" is never related to "Gegenstände", but only to the apriori concepts of "Gegenstände", to the logical categories.
As KANT tried to derive his table of pure concepts or categories of the understanding from the forms of logical propositions according to the viewpoints of quantity, quality, relation and modality (9),
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(9) KANT's list of the logical forms of proposition is as follows:
I - Quantity of propositions: universal, particular, singular propositions.
II - Quality of propositions: affirmative, negative, infinite propositions.
III - Relation-propositions: categorical, hypothetical, disjunctive propositions.
IV - Modality of propositions: problematical, assertoric, apodictic propositions.
To this table corresponds that of the categories:
I - Categories of quantity: unity, plurality, totality.
II - Categories of quality: reality, negation, limitation.
III - Categories of relation: substance and accident, cause and effect, interaction.
IV - Categories of modality: possibility, actuality, necessity.
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so he also tried to construct a table of transcendental Ideas of pure reason patterned after the form of the judgments of relation: the categorical, the hypothetical, and the disjunctive.
Thus he divided these Ideas into three classes:
1 - the first is that of the absolute unity of the thinking subject as the absolute substratum of all subjective psychical phenomena;
2 - the second is that of the absolute unity of the series of synthetical determinations of the objective sensory phenomena;
3 - the third is that of the absolute unity of determinations of all the objects of thought in general or the Idea of a supreme Being, a "Wesen aller Wesen" (10).
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(10) Kritik der r. V., p. 297 ff.
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The first point of view furnishes the Idea of the soul as absolute unity of the thinking subject, the second the Idea of the world or that of the universe as totality of all objective phenomena in the external world. The third furnishes the Idea of Deity as the being which includes all reality within itself (ens realissimum).
None of these transcendental Ideas are related to experience. Since in KANT's system all science is limited to the sensory aspect of experience, it is impossible to acquire scientific knowledge from such Ideas. In their speculative use, in which we conclude from the mere "Idea" to the absolute reality of its content, there arises the "dialectical illusion": theoretical thought transcends the boundaries of experience and supposes that in this way it can attain to knowledge of the "supra-empirical".
The task of the "Critique of Pure Reason" is to dispel this dialectical illusion and to keep theoretical thought within its boundaries, while, at the same time, it must furnish us with an insight into the fact that the speculative "dialectical conclusions" are not arbitrary, but rather spring necessarily from the very nature of pure reason itself (11).
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(11) Kritik der r. V., p. 302.
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Thereby the three metaphysical sciences are discarded in which idealistic pre-critical rationalism had attempted to carry through the primacy of the ideal of science over the ideal of personality, namely rational (metaphysical) psychology, cosmology (more exactly called: metaphysics of nature) and natural theology.
KANT's shifting of the Archimedean point of Humanist philosophy is clearly evident from his critique of metaphysical psychology, in which self-consciousness had identified itself with mathematical thought.
In his doctrine of the "Paralogisms of Pure Reason" in which the rationalist psychology, as theoretical metaphysics, is reduced to absurdity, KANT struck at the very core of the Cartesian conclusion drawn from the intuitive self-consciousness in the cogito, to the esse (12).
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(12) Ibid., p. 321: "Der dialektische Schein in der rationalen Psychologie beruht auf die Verwechselung einer Idee der Vernunft (einer Intellegenz) mit den in allen Stücken unbestimmten Begriffe eines denkenden Wesens überhaupt... Folglich verwechsele ich die mögliche Abstraktion von meiner empirisch bestimmten Existenz mit dem vermeinten Bewustztsein einer abgesondert möglichen Existenz meines denkenden Selbst und glaube das substantiale in mir als das transzendentale Subject zu erkennen, indem ich blosz die Einheit des Bewusztseins, welche allem Bestimmen als der bloszen Form der Erkenntnis zum Grunde liegt, im Gedanken habe." ["The dialectical illusion in rational psychology arises from mistaking an Idea of Reason (of an intelligence) for the concept of a thinking being in general, which is undetermined in all respects... Consequently, I mistake the possible abstraction from my empirically determined existence for the supposed consciousness of a separate possible existence of my thinking self, and I believe I know the substantial in myself as the transcendental subject, while I have nothing in mind but the unity of consciousness which as mere form of knowledge lies at the foundation of all determining acts of thought".]
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From this appears most clearly the shift in the Archimedean point which the Humanistic transcendental ground-Idea underwent in KANT's criticism.
The basic theses of metaphysical psychology: the substantiality, immateriality, simplicity, immortality and personality of the "thinking" ego and the different metaphysical conceptions concerning its relation to the things of the "external world", were pulled to bits by KANT's critique. According to him, they only rest on an unjustifiable relating of the empty logical form of transcendental self-consciousness to a supra-empirical "Gegenstand". And this is done by means of the logical categories. "All modi of self-consciousness in thought as such, are therefore not yet logical concepts of objects (categories), but mere logical functions which neither give to thought any "Gegenstand", nor any knowledge of myself as a "Gegenstand". The object is not the consciousness of the determining but only of the determinable self, that is of my intuition (in so far as its multiplicity can be synthetized according to the general condition of the unity of apperception in thought)" (13).
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(13) Kritik der r. Vernunft, Transsz. Dialektik 2es Buch: "Beschlusz der Auflösung des Psych. Paralogism", p. 322: "Alle modi des Selbstbewusztseins im Denken an sich sind daher noch keine Verstandesbegriffe von Objecten (Kategorien), sondern blosze logische Functionen, die dem Denken gar keinen Gegenstand, mithin mich selbst auch nicht als Gegenstand zu erkennen geben. Nicht das Bewusztsein des bestimmenden, sondern nur des bestimmbaren Selbst, d.i. meiner Anschauung (so fern ihr Mannigfaltiges der allgemeinen Bedingung der Einheit der Apperzeption im Denken gemäsz verbunden werden kann), ist das Object."
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As soon as the ideal of personality had freed itself from the stifling grasp of the science-ideal, Humanism could no longer seek the metaphysical root, the "substance" of personality, in sovereign mathematical thought.
Thus, even the basic problem of Humanistic theoretical metaphysics, namely, the relation of the material substance to the soul substance (in its three pre-Kantian solutions, viz. the naturalistic acceptance of an influxus physicus, occasionalism, and the Leibnizian doctrine of the pre-established harmony between material and spiritual monads), became null and void to KANT.
For him the entire problem is reduced to the relation between the subjective-psychical phenomena of the "inner sense" and the objective-psychical phenomena of the "outer sense"; in other words, to the question how these phenomena can be joined in the same consciousness (14).
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(14) See note 1 p. 366.
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In fact, this is the problem which concerns the relation between logical thought and psychical sensibility in the same consciousness, which problem KANT deemed to be insoluble in a psychological sense. For him the transcendental Idea of the soul has no other theoretical function than that of a regulative principle of pure reason for all psychological knowledge whose final goal, though never attainable, lies in the insight into the absolute unity of the functions of sensibility and logical understanding.
Nevertheless, as limiting concept, the Idea of the soul possesses an actually transcendental significance. In his "General remark concerning the transition from rational psychology to cosmology" KANT indicated the practical use of the transcendental Idea, in which it directs theoretical thought toward the homo noumenon, as the autonomous law-giver in the supra-sensory realm of freedom.
A principle of the supra-sensory determination of human existence is really found "through the admirable faculty that first reveals to us the consciousness of the moral law". Metaphysical psychology had vainly sought this principle in theoretical thought (15).
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(15) Kritik der r. Vern., pp. 324/5.
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Thus in its practical trend, within the limits set for the Humanist science-ideal by the "Critique of Pure Reason", the Kantian idea of the soul displayed itself as a transcendental foundation, even of this science-ideal itself. But KANT's dualistic transcendental ground-Idea prevented him from drawing the consequences through which the cleft between "theoretical" and "practical" reason could be bridged.
KANT's criticism of "rational cosmology" (natural metaphysics) in the light of the transcendental trend of the cosmological Ideas.
In the analysis of the antinomies of pure reason KANT reduced to absurdity rational cosmology, in the sense of the natural metaphysics of the mathematical science-ideal.
According to him the paralogisms of metaphysical psychology cause a completely one sided dialectical illusion with respect to the Idea of the subject of our thought, since there is not to be acquired the least evidence for the affirmation of the contrary through a speculative ratiocination from the pure transcendental Idea of the soul. It is entirely different, however, in the case of the "cosmological ideas of the universe". If reason desires to draw theoretical conclusions from these Ideas with respect to the "Dinge an sich", it necessarily involves itself in antinomies.
If with respect to a supposed metaphysical object, one can prove with the same logical right the thesis as well as the antithesis of a speculative proposition, and consequently the logical principle of contradiction is violated, then it is evident that the supposed object cannot be a real "object of experience".
Now in the first place, KANT developed the system of all possible cosmological Ideas in accordance with the table of categories. These Ideas are nothing but the pure concepts of understanding elevated to the rank of the absolute, viz. the totality of the determinations performed by the logical function of thought, insofar as the synthesis contained in the categories forms a series of determinations (16).
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(16) Kritik der r. Vernunft, p. 328.
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Thus KANT arrived at four transcendental Ideas, which, when speculatively misused, lead to a corresponding number of theoretical antinomies.
In these four cosmological Ideas the Idea of the universe is related to the categorical points of view of quantity, quality, relation and modality.
The antinomies, which arise in the speculative application of these transcendental Ideas, were accordingly divided by KANT into two mathematical and two dynamical (natural metaphysical) ones.
According to him, it can be proved with equal logical stringency that the world with respect to quantity is both limited and infinite in time and space. And, with respect to quality, the world can be shown to consist of absolutely single parts, while at the same time the opposite can be proved with equal logical force. With respect to relation (causality) it can be demonstrated, that causality through freedom in the sense of a first cause is possible. And, with seemingly the same force of argument it can be demonstrated, that such a metaphysical cause cannot exist and everything occurs in the world according to a fixed mechanical necessity. Finally, with respect to modality, the existence of an absolutely necessary supreme Being can be both proved and disproved.
The actual transcendental trend which the theoretical Idea acquired in KANT is, nevertheless, also evident at this point. Here, too, the "Critique of Pure Reason" discloses itself only as a preparation for the "Critique of Practical Reason".
The intervention of the ideal of personality in KANT's solution of the so-called dynamical antinomies and the insoluble antinomy in KANT's dualistic transcendental ground-Idea.
KANT's Humanist ideal of personality has as its foundations causality through freedom, that is, the autonomous self-determination of personality as "homo noumenon", and the existence of God as the final hypostasis of the moral Idea of freedom. In the treatment of the so-called dynamic antinomies which are related to the categorical points of view of relation (causality) and modality (the absolute necessity), both of these foundations are called into play.
Here, in a positive sense, KANT chooses the side of the theses, in so far as they are related to the "Dinge an sich", and he grants validity to the antitheses only with respect to the sensory world of appearance.
There is at this point, indeed, no longer any question of a natural "Ding an sich", but rather of the intelligible root and origin of the cosmos, in the sense of KANT's conception of the ideal of personality. Thus KANT's ideal of personality is actually involved in the case that "theoretical reason" conducts with itself in the dialectic.
As soon as KANT gives to his theoretical thought this really critical transcendental turn towards the religious root of his entire critical philosophy, the insoluble antinomy in its dualistic transcendental ground-Idea is again immediately in evidence.
At every point this ground-Idea implies "purity" in the sense of the unconditionedness of "theoretical reason". Consequently, the cleft between the ideal of science and that of personality may not be eradicated in an actual transcendental self-reflection. But it must be eradicated, since actually the Idea of the autonomy of pure theoretical thought, in the deepest sense, is entirely dependent upon the Idea of the autonomous freedom of personality!
In the treatment of both mathematical antinomies KANT had resigned in an equal rejection of thesis and antithesis insofar as both in an untenable manner treat a mere transcendental Idea as a thing of experience.
But in the treatment of the interest that reason has in the antinomies, he gives evidence of having clearly seen the stimulus of the Humanistic ideal of personality behind the rationalist-idealistic metaphysics: "That the world has a beginning (17), that my thinking self has a simple and therefore undestructable nature, that this self at the same time is free in its volitional acts and elevated above the coercion of nature, and that finally the whole order of things in the world originates from a first Being, from which everything derives its unity and appropriate connection: these are so many fundamentals of morals and religion. The antithesis deprives us of all these supports, or at least it appears to deprive us of them" (18) (I am italicizing).
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(17) This thesis is also orientated to the attempt of Christian scholasticism to prove rationally the creation of the world with the aid of the metaphysically applied principle of causality, although the Thomistic demonstration did not imply a temporal beginning of the universe. Naturally in itself this proof has nothing to do with the Humanistic ideal of personality. KANT directs one and the same blow against all rationalistic metaphysics, and in the case of "Christian" rationalistic metaphysics his task was lightened all the more, since in origin it is in nowise more Christian than Humanistic metaphysics. In fact, in the long run, Christian metaphysics joined hands with the Humanistic!
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(18) Kritik der reinen Vernunft, p. 373: "Dasz die Welt einen Anfang babe, das mein denkendes Selbst einfacher und daher unverweslicher Natur, dasz dieses zugleich in seinen willkürlichen Handlungen frei und über den Naturzwang erhoben sei, und dasz endlich die gauze Ordnung der Dinge, welche die Welt ausmachen, von einem Urwesen abstamme, von welchem alles seine Einheit und zweckmäszige Verknüpfung entlehnt: das sind so viele Grundsteine der Moral und Religion. Die Antithesis raubt uns alle diese Stützen, oder scheint wenigstens sie uns zu rauben." (I am italicizing).
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The question arises why in the solution of the dynamic antinomies the appeal may be made to the supra-sensory sphere of human personality in favour of the thesis, whereas in the solution of the mathematical antinomies such an appeal to a "noumenon" behind the phenomena, in support of the thesis, must be excluded. KANT answers this question in the following way: "The series of conditions to be sure are all similar insofar as one considers only their extent with respect to the question whether they correspond to the Idea, or that they are too great or too small for it. But the concept of understanding which lies at the foundation of these Ideas, contains either merely a synthesis of the similar (which is pre-supposed with every quantity both in its composition and in its division) or also of the dissimilar, which at least can be allowed in the dynamical synthesis of the causal connection as well as in that of the necessary with the contingent. This is the reason why into the mathematical connection of the series of phenomena there cannot enter any other condition than a sensory one, that is such a one which itself is a part of the series; the dynamical series of sensory conditions, on the contrary, still allows a dissimilar condition, which is not a part of the series, but as merely intelligible lies outside the latter; thereby Reason is satisfied and the unconditioned is placed at the head of the phenomena, without thereby disturbing the series of the latter, which is always conditioned, and without interrupting it contrary to the principles of understanding"
(19).
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(19) Kr. d. r. V., pp. 416/7: "Die Reihen der Bedingungen sind freilich in so fern alle gleichartig, als man lediglich auf die Erstreckung derselben sieht; ob sie der Idee angemessen sind, oder ob diese für jene zu grosz oder zu klein sind. Allein der Verstandesbegriff, der diesen Ideen zum Grunde liegt, enthält entweder lediglich eine Synthesis des Gleichartigen (welche bei jeder Grösze in der Zusammensetzung sowohl als Teilung derselben vorausgesetzt wird) oder auch des Ungleichartigen, welches in der dynamischen Synthesis der Kausalverbindung sowohl, als der des Notwendigen mit dem Zufälligen wenigstens zugelassen werden kann.
"Daher kommt es, dasz in der mathematischen Verknüpfung der Reihen der Erscheinungen keine andere als sinnliche Bedingung hinein kommen kann, d.i. eine solche, die selbst ein Teil der Reihe ist; da hingegen die dynamische Reihe sinnlicher Bedingungen doch noch eine ungleichartige Bedingung zuläszt, die nicht ein Teil der Reihe ist, sondern als blosz intelligibel auszer der Reihe liegt, wodurch denn der Vernunft ein Genüge getan und das Unbedingte den Erscheinungen vorgesetzt wird, ohne die Reihe der letzteren, als jederzeit bedingt, dadurch zu verwirren und den Verstandes Grundsätzen zuwider abzubrechen."
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One cannot say, that this argument is very convincing. Consider for example the second mathematical antinomy (20): the Leibnizian monadology affirmed, that the monad is spaceless, and insofar as it made this affirmation, it taught that the infinite series of spatial analysis has its metaphysical origin in a noumenon which is dissimilar to the parts of space. So it can be said with respect to the thesis of the first mathematical antinomy (the world has a beginning in time and is spatially limited) that cosmic time originates in eternity as timelessness, and with that is likewise accepted a heterogeneous "noumenon" outside the "synthetical series of temporal moments".
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(20) The thesis reads here as follows: "Eine jede zusammengesetzte Substanz in der Welt besteht aus einfachen Teilen und es existiert überall nichts als das Einfache oder das, was aus diesem zusammengesetzt ist." ["Every composite substance in the world consists of simple parts and there exists nowhere anything but the simple or what is composed of it."]
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Within the cadre of KANT's transcendental ground-Idea the natural "Ding an sich" can no longer be maintained. The depreciation of the theoretical Idea of God.
The truth of the matter is, that in the deepest ground of his transcendental ground-Idea, KANT had to reject the natural "Ding an sich" and could only accept the normative ethical function of personality as the very root of natural reality. This is also true in respect to KANT's theoretical Idea of God, which as "Transzendentales Ideal" (Prototypon transcendentale), only had to pave the way for the practical Idea of the deity as a "postulate of practical reason", an idea, which in this practical function is nothing but the idol of the Humanistic ideal of personality.
The entire theologia naturalis with its speculative rational proofs for the existence of God must be destroyed by the "Critique of Pure Reason", because the ideal of personality can no longer find its veritable Idea of God in absolutized mathematical thought, but only in the hypostatized moral function of free and autonomous personality. To this end even the theoretical Idea of God must be depreciated. As long as it concerns the "merely speculative reason", one had better speak of the "nature of the things of the world" than of a "divine creator of nature" and better of the "wisdom and providence of nature" than of the divine wisdom, since the first mode of expression "abstains from the presumption of an assertion which exceeds our competency and at the same time points our reason back to its proper field, viz. nature" (21).
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(21) Ibid., p. 533: "die Anmaszung einer gröszeren Behauptung, als die ist, wozu wir befugt sind, zurück hält and zugleich die Vernunft auf ihr eigentümliches Feld, die Natur, zurückweiset."
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(Herman Dooyeweerd, New Critique of Theoretical Thought, Vol I/ Part 2/ Chapt 4/§4 pp 354-372)
Actually KANT's "Copernican deed", i.e. his critical reversal of the relation between the knowing subject and empirical reality, his fundamental break with dogmatical metaphysics, in short the whole content of his Critique of Pure Reason, acquires its essential significance only in the light of the new relationship between the ideal of science and that of personality, in the basic structure of his transcendental ground-Idea.
If one isolates KANT's epistemology from the latter, KANT's Copernican deed, which is usually considered to be a radical revolution in modern philosophy, is, in itself, in no wise radical.
It is quickly forgotten that since the time of DESCARTES, Humanist philosophical thought had been characterized by the tendency to seek the foundations of reality in the knowing subject only. HUME had with extreme acuteness tried to show that our experience is limited to sense phenomena. In distinction to the "objective" metaphysics of Greek and medieval philosophy, the Cartesian adage "cogito, ergo sum," signified the very proclamation of the sovereignty of subjective thought. Insofar as the Humanist ideal of science, with its logicistic principle of continuity, developed without a real synthesis with medieval or ancient metaphysics, its deepest tendency was the elevation of mathematical-logical thought to the throne of cosmic ordainer. If any one doubts this, he may return to the sources of the Humanistic science-ideal and behold once again the cleft which separates modern Humanist thought, with its essentially nominalistic concept of substance, from the old objective metaphysics of substantial forms. He may examine once again the experiment of HOBBES, as presented in the preface to his "De Corpore", according to which the entire given world of experience is theoretically demolished, in order that it may be reconstructed by the creative activity of mathematical thought (1).
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(1) Cf. p. 197 of this volume.
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If indeed KANT had done no more than to proclaim the sovereign transcendental-logical subject as lawgiver of empirical reality, his Copernican deed would have been nothing more than the realization of the basic tendency of the Humanistic science-ideal restricted to sense phenomena and his Criticism would have never become a true "transcendental idealism".
The deepest tendencies of KANT's Copernican revolution in epistemology are brought to light by the ascription of primacy to the ideal of personality resulting in a new form of the Humanistic ground-Idea.
KANT's withdrawal of the "Ding an sich" from the domination of the mathematical ideal of science, and his limitation of all theoretical knowledge to sense-phenomena is only to be understood from the dialectical turn of Humanist thought to its religious freedom-motive, embodied in the ideal of personality.
Henceforth, the transcendent root of human existence is no longer sought in limited mathematical and natural scientific categories but rather in the rational moral function of sovereign personality, as it is expressed in the transcendental Idea of human freedom. This is the real cause of KANT's aversion to LEIBNIZ' logicistic cosmonomic Idea of harmonia praestabilita, by which free personality was included in a continuous mathematically construed cosmic order, and in which, in the last analysis, the distinction between sensibility and rational freedom was relativized by the ideal of science.
In KANT's epistemology the postulate of the sovereignty of mathematical thought remains in full force with respect to knowledge of nature, but the ideal of science (essentially pertaining only to the domination of nature) cedes its primacy to the ideal of personality. KANT had become fully aware of the polar tension between both of these ideals.
The (sit venia verbo!) naturalistic idealism of the mathematical concept is replaced by a normative freedom-idealism of the transcendental Idea which — in pointing to the root of human personality — transcends the limits of logical understanding.
The neo-Kantian idealism of the Marburg school, in its first critical enthusiasm, thought it could correct KANT by abolishing his limitation of the sovereignty of theoretical thought to sensory phenomena. Thus it wished to extend the logicized ideal of knowledge to the normative world. Meanwhile, we have observed in an earlier context that, in so doing, this school was simply not conscious of the fact that it violated the typical structure of KANT's transcendental ground-Idea. It supposed it could elaborate KANT's critical method more consistently by eliminating the epistemological function of sensibility. It was unaware that in so doing it substituted a new type of Humanist ground-Idea for the Kantian one!
The very transcendental critical meaning of KANT's epistemology is indissolubly linked up with the binding of the mathematical and the natural scientific categories to the sensory function of experience. For this restriction of the Humanist science-ideal was strictly commanded by KANT's critical insight into the definitive antithesis between the nature- and the freedom-motives in the religious root of Humanistic thought.
The transcendental Ideas of reason point theoretical thought regulatively to the totality of the determinations of empirical reality without logical understanding ever being able to encompass this totality. At the same time these Ideas point beyond the logical function of theoretical thought to the supra-sensory root of reality, which the Humanistic ideal of personality henceforth, in an increasing degree, would identify with the practical Idea of autonomous moral freedom.
Here the deepest tendency in KANT's proclamation of the "primacy of practical reason" manifests itself. This proclamation signified the first step in the process of concentrating philosophical thought in the Idea of autonomous moral personality.
As we observed in an earlier context, it was still only the first step which KANT's critical philosophy took in this direction. For the sharp line of demarcation between both of the basic factors in his transcendental ground-Idea, for the present, prevented the drawing of the full consequences of freedom-idealism.
The dualistic type of the Kantian transcendental ground-Idea.
The Critique of Pure Reason and its counterpart the Critique of Practical Reason break the cosmos asunder into two spheres, that of sensory appearance and that of super-sensory freedom. In the former, the ideal of science is the lord and master, the mind is the law-giver of nature, since it constitutes empirical reality as "Gegenstand". But the ideal of science with its mechanical principle of causality is in no way deemed competent in the super-sensory sphere of moral freedom. It is not permitted to apply its categories outside of the domain of sensory experience. In the realm of moral freedom the "homo noumenon" (the humanistic ideal of personality in the hypostatized rational-moral function) maintains its own sovereignty.
KANT severed all cosmic connections of meaning which bind the normative moral function to the sensory. This hypostatization of the moral function of personality, as a self-sufficient metaphysical reality, avenges itself by a logical formalism in the treatment of ethical questions.
Here it clearly appears how the meaning of the normative functions of reality is disturbed by the attempt to loosen them from their coherence with all other modal aspects in cosmic time.
The dualism between the ideal of science and that of personality in KANT's conception of the Humanist cosmonomic Idea comes
sharply to the fore in the relationship between the "transcendental unity of apperception" and the hypostatized Idea of the absolutely autonomous moral freedom. This relationship was in KANT essentially unclarified and antinomical. On the one hand the freedom-motive expresses itself in the "transcendental thinking ego", conceived of as the necessary pre-requisite for all objective experience of nature and as the apriori form of logical unity of the autonomous knowing subject. Whereas, on the other hand, opposite to it was posited the Idea of autonomous freedom of "pure will".
In KANT's transcendental dualistic ground-Idea the basic antinomy between the ideals of science and of personality assumes a form which was to become the point of departure for all the subsequent attempts made by post-Kantian idealism to conquer this dualism.
Are we confronted here with two distinct roots in human reason? If this question were to be answered affirmatively, the unity of human selfhood (which from the outset had been sought in human reason) would be destroyed. This, however, cannot be KANT's true meaning, for he denied emphatically that the logical form of the "transcendental cogito" has any "metaphysical" meaning.
Must we then conclude that the "transcendental logical ego" itself belongs to the phenomenon? This supposition, too, appears to be untenable, because, in this case, this transcendental subject could never be conceived of as the formal origin of the world of natural phenomena.
So the basic antinomy between the ideal of science and that of personality discloses itself in the transcendental Idea of the autonomous human ego itself. This was to become the point of departure in the development of post-Kantian idealism. In FICHTE the Idea of autonomous freedom was in a radical fashion elevated as the all inclusive root and origin of the entire cosmos.
For we have seen in an earlier context, that, just as the classical ideal of science implies a postulate of continuity which requires a methodical levelling of the modal aspects, in similar fashion the ideal of personality possesses its proper tendency to continuity which soon was to contest the self-sufficiency of the science-ideal.
KANT conceived of the "transcendental cogito" neither as a substance nor as a phenomenon, but as a merely logical function, as pure spontaneity of the uniting act synthesizing the multiplicity of a possible sensory intuition (2).
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(2) Kr. d. r. V. Allgemeine Anmerkung den Übergang von der rationalen Psychologie zur Kosmologie betreffend [General remark concerning the transition from rational psychology to cosmology], p. 322/3: "Das Denken, für sich genommen, ist blosz die logische Funktion, mithin lauter Spontaneität der Verbindung des Mannigfaltigen einer blosz möglichen Anschauung... Dadurch stelle ich mich mir selbst weder wie ich bin, noch wie ich mir erscheine, vor, sondern ich denke mich nur wie ein jedes Objekt überhaupt" (sic), "von dessen Art der Anschauung ich abstrahiere." ["Thought, taken in itself, is merely the logical function, consequently pure spontaneity of the uniting activity synthesizing the multiplicity of a merely possible sensory intuition... Through it I represent myself neither as I am, nor as I appear to myself, rather I think myself only as an object in general, abstracted from the mode in which it is perceived."]
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He tried to represent this "cogito" as a spontaneous activity, and as a final logical unity in consciousness which is ever elevated above all logical multiplicity in concepts (3).
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(3) Kr. d. v. V. Transsz. Logik, 2e Abschn. §§ 15 and 16.
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When we deal with the problem of knowledge in the second volume of this work, we shall more closely analyze the intrinsic antinomy which lies hidden in this concept of the "unity of pure consciousness". Nevertheless, we can note in passing, that KANT cannot recognize the real unity of self-consciousness, because his hidden transcendental ground-Idea requires an unbridgeable gulf between the so-called theoretical and practical reason.
The expression of this dualism in the antithesis of natural laws and norms.
The transcendental logical subject is lawgiver of "nature"; the transcendent subject of autonomous moral freedom is lawgiver of human action (or rather is the logical form of the moral law itself)!
Natural necessity and freedom, causal law and norm, in their relationship to each other become antinomic species of laws which cannot find any deeper reconciliation in KANT's dualistic cosmonomic Idea.
If natural necessity cannot itself find its root in the Idea of free sovereign personality, it remains a counter force against the declaration of the absoluteness of the moral Idea of freedom, and this fundamental antithesis cannot be resolved by a mere axiological subordination of theoretical to practical reason.
If philosophical thought is to avoid becoming constantly involved in intrinsic antinomies, the Archimedean point of philosophy cannot be as a house divided against itself.
The form-matter schema in KANT's epistemology as an expression of the inner antinomy of his dualistic transcendental ground-Idea.
In KANT's epistemology, too, an inner antinomy is concealed by the fact that sensibility and logical understanding are dualistically set in opposition to each other. And this antinomy is dangerous to both the ideal of science and that of personality.
In spite of the proclamation of logical understanding as the lawgiver for nature, the sovereignty of theoretical thought is seriously threatened, because sensibility as a purely receptive instance, imposes insurmountable limits upon it. The understanding ("Verstand") is the sovereign lawgiver only in a formal sense. Only the universally valid form of natural reality originates in the "transcendental cogito".
The material of knowledge, remains deeply a-logical, so that at this point the problem of the "Ding an sich" behind the phenomena of nature arises again in a dangerous fashion. In the traditional metaphysical way, KANT permits the purely receptive sensibility to be affected by the "Ding an sich".
This "Ding an sich" is obviously again thought of as a natural substance and cannot be compatible with the Idea of the "homo noumenon" as a free and autonomous supra-temporal being. In consequence, post-Kantian transcendental idealism necessarily must consider this to be an insult to sovereign reason. The a-logical "natural substance" threatened both the ideal of science and that of personality.
Pre-Kantian rationalism had actually conceived of the substance of nature as the creation of absolute mathematical thought, and thereby it had made the latter to be the deepest root and the origin of the cosmos. In so doing, however, it had disregarded the proper claims of the Humanistic ideal of personality.
In his dualistic delimitation of the ideal of science and that of personality, KANT permitted an a-logical "Ding an sich" to remain behind the phenomena of nature, a "Ding an sich" which destroys the sovereignty of thought (4) and gives rise to the problem of a deeper root behind both logical thought and the metaphysical natural substance, and which on the other hand is not compatible with the postulate of continuity of the Humanistic ideal of personality; the acceptance of a metaphysical "substance of nature" did not permit the Idea of free and autonomous personality to be recognized as the deepest root of empirical (natural) reality.
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(4) KRONER rightly observes op. cit. I, p. 103: "In den so gedachten Dingen an sich tritt dem Subject ein gleichwertiges, gleichmächtiges, ja übermächtiges Prinzip entgegen, zwischen beiden aber wird keine gedankliche Vermittlung festgestellt (denn die "Affection" ist ein völlig dunkeles Wort, das nur die Stelle eines fehlenden Begriffs vertritt." ["In the things in themselves thought of in this manner, the subject is confronted with an equivalent, equipotent, nay predominant principle; but there is not established in thought a mediation between both (because "affection" is an entirely mysterious word, which only takes the place of a concept that is lacking").]
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KANT himself felt the antinomy in his delimitation of the science-ideal by a natural "Ding an sich". He tried, therefore, to avoid this antinomy by his construction of an intellectus archetypus, an intuitive divine mind, that creatively produces its "Gegenstand" in direct non-sensory intellectual intuition. This Idea is essentially derived from LEIBNIZ' notion of infinite analysis which is to be completed only in divine thought. KRONER rightly observes from the Humanist point of view: "The consequence of epistemological thought compels us to transcend the separation and to arrive at the unity of the intuitive understanding; with regard to the latter, however, the opposition between the "Gegenstand" and the ego can no longer be maintained. In the Idea both are identical, and such not as "Gegenstand", because the understanding is not produced by that which is viewed, but as understanding, since the latter produces that which is viewed... The Idea of the understanding producing its "Gegenstand" leads beyond logic as epistemology: it is a limiting concept, — a concept which limits epistemology" (5).
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(5) KRONER, Op. cif. I, p. 109: "Die Konsequenz des erkenntnistheoretischen Denkens zwingt dazu, über die Trennung hinauszugehen bis zur Einheit des intuitiven Verstandes; für ihn kann dann aber auch der Gegensatz von Gegenstand und Ich nicht länger fortbestehen. In der Idee sind beide identisch, und zwar nicht als "Gegenstand", denn der Verstand wird nicht vom Angeschauten erzeugt, sondern als Verstand, denn er erzeugt das Angeschaute... Die Idee des seinen "Gegenstand" erzeugenden Verstandes führt über die Logik als Erkenntnistheorie hinaus: sie ist ein Grenzbegriff, — ein Begriff, der die Erkenntnistheorie begrenzt."
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The function of the transcendental Ideas of theoretical reason.
In spite of all this, it cannot be denied that in the transcendental dialectic, by introducing the transcendental Ideas of theoretical reason, KANT took an important step in the direction later taken by FICHTE. The latter completely eliminated the natural "Ding an sich" and proclaimed practical reason, as the seat of the ethical ideal of personality, to be the deepest root of the entire cosmos.
With the synthetic determination of the "Gegenstand" by the mathematical categories of quantity and quality, and by the physical (categories) of relation, substance, causality and interaction, the logical understanding is set on an endless path; in this way alone the totality of the conditions can never be thought of as the "unconditioned" itself.
The very limitation and the restriction of the categories to the sensory phenomenon makes it impossible for the intellect to conceive of the "Ding an sich" in a positive sense as the absolute. The "absolute" can never be given in experience, since the latter is itself determined by the mathematical and dynamical (natural scientific) categories.
For this very reason the mind can conceive of the "noumena" is "Dinge an sich" only in a negative sense. In his remarkable explanation "Von dem Grunde der Unterscheidung aller Geganstände überhaupt in Phaenomena und Noumena," KANT wrote: "The concept of a noumenon is also merely a limiting concept, in order to fence in the presumption of sensibility, and it is also only to be used in a negative sense. Nevertheless, it has not been arbitrarily invented, but is connected with the limitation of sensibility, without, however, being able to set anything positive in addition to its extent" (6).
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(6) Kr. der reinen Vernunft (W.W. Bud. III) p. 243: "Der Begriff eines Noumenon ist also blosz ein Grenzbegriff, um die Anmaszung der Sinnlichkeit einzuschränken, und also nur von negativem Gebrauche. Er ist aber gleichwohl nicht willkührlich erdichtet, sondern hängt mit der Einschränkung der Sinnlichkeit zusammen, ohne doch etwas Positives auszer dem Umfange derselben setzen zu können." In the present connection I am quoting exclusively from the second edition. In Vol. II when we take up the problem of Epistemology I will consider the differences between the first and second edition.
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It was from this point of view that KANT began his destructive criticism of the rationalist metaphysics of the Leibnizian-Wolffian school. This criticism was pregnantly expressed by KANT in the statement that concepts without sensory intuitions are empty, as vice versa intuitions without concepts are blind. It began with the famous Appendix: "Concerning the amphiboly [Amphiboly: Ambiguous discourse -1913 Webster] of the concepts of reflection by means of mistaking the empirical use of the understanding for the transcendental one" and reached its culminating point in the "Antinomies of Pure Reason".
Yet, KANT simultaneously tried to show that no contradiction is implied in the acceptance of the concept of a "noumenon" as the "Gegenstand" of an infinite intuitive intellect, even though the reality of the "things in themselves" is only secured by "practical reason" in apriori faith.
By recognizing the infinity of its task in the determination of the "Gegenstand", the intellect subordinates itself to "theoretical reason", which with its transcendental Ideas — as mere regulative principles for the use of the understanding — indicates to the latter the direction to follow in order to bring unity to its rules (7).
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(7) Kr. d. r. Vern., p. 276: "Der Verstand mag ein Vermögen der Einheit der Erscheinungen vermittelst der Regeln rein, so ist die Vernunft das Vermögen der Einheit der Verstandesregeln unter Prinzipien. Sie geht also niemals zunächst auf Erfahrung oder auf irgend einen Gegenstand, sondern auf den Verstand, um den mannigfaltigen Erkenntnissen desselben Einheit a priori durch Begriffe zu geben, welche Vernunfteinheit heiszen mag und von ganz anderer Art ist, als sie von dem Verstande geleistet werden kann." ["The understanding may be a faculty of bringing unity to the phenomena by means of rules: Reason, on the other hand, is the faculty of creating the unity of the rules of understanding under principles. Consequently, the latter is never directly related to experience or to a "Gegenstand", but rather to the understanding, in order to furnish the manifold cognitions of the latter with unity a priori by means of concepts; a unity which may be called unity in the sense of Reason and is of a quite different nature from that which can be produced by the understanding"]
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The transcendental idea presents to the understanding the unattainable goal: the "unconditioned", as totality of categorical determinations; so theoretical reason subjects logical thought to an infinite task. Consequently, in KANT the theoretical transcendental Idea is viewed as nothing but the logical category extended to the "absolute". This extension is made possible in pure reason by freeing the category from the inevitable limitations of possible experience and by so extending the concept beyond the limits of the sensory empirical, although still in contact with it (8).
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(8) Kritik der r. Vern., p. 327.
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The transcendental Idea is a necessary concept of reason to which no corresponding objects can be given in the sensory aspect of experience. "Pure reason" is never related to "Gegenstände", but only to the apriori concepts of "Gegenstände", to the logical categories.
As KANT tried to derive his table of pure concepts or categories of the understanding from the forms of logical propositions according to the viewpoints of quantity, quality, relation and modality (9),
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(9) KANT's list of the logical forms of proposition is as follows:
I - Quantity of propositions: universal, particular, singular propositions.
II - Quality of propositions: affirmative, negative, infinite propositions.
III - Relation-propositions: categorical, hypothetical, disjunctive propositions.
IV - Modality of propositions: problematical, assertoric, apodictic propositions.
To this table corresponds that of the categories:
I - Categories of quantity: unity, plurality, totality.
II - Categories of quality: reality, negation, limitation.
III - Categories of relation: substance and accident, cause and effect, interaction.
IV - Categories of modality: possibility, actuality, necessity.
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so he also tried to construct a table of transcendental Ideas of pure reason patterned after the form of the judgments of relation: the categorical, the hypothetical, and the disjunctive.
Thus he divided these Ideas into three classes:
1 - the first is that of the absolute unity of the thinking subject as the absolute substratum of all subjective psychical phenomena;
2 - the second is that of the absolute unity of the series of synthetical determinations of the objective sensory phenomena;
3 - the third is that of the absolute unity of determinations of all the objects of thought in general or the Idea of a supreme Being, a "Wesen aller Wesen" (10).
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(10) Kritik der r. V., p. 297 ff.
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The first point of view furnishes the Idea of the soul as absolute unity of the thinking subject, the second the Idea of the world or that of the universe as totality of all objective phenomena in the external world. The third furnishes the Idea of Deity as the being which includes all reality within itself (ens realissimum).
None of these transcendental Ideas are related to experience. Since in KANT's system all science is limited to the sensory aspect of experience, it is impossible to acquire scientific knowledge from such Ideas. In their speculative use, in which we conclude from the mere "Idea" to the absolute reality of its content, there arises the "dialectical illusion": theoretical thought transcends the boundaries of experience and supposes that in this way it can attain to knowledge of the "supra-empirical".
The task of the "Critique of Pure Reason" is to dispel this dialectical illusion and to keep theoretical thought within its boundaries, while, at the same time, it must furnish us with an insight into the fact that the speculative "dialectical conclusions" are not arbitrary, but rather spring necessarily from the very nature of pure reason itself (11).
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(11) Kritik der r. V., p. 302.
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Thereby the three metaphysical sciences are discarded in which idealistic pre-critical rationalism had attempted to carry through the primacy of the ideal of science over the ideal of personality, namely rational (metaphysical) psychology, cosmology (more exactly called: metaphysics of nature) and natural theology.
KANT's shifting of the Archimedean point of Humanist philosophy is clearly evident from his critique of metaphysical psychology, in which self-consciousness had identified itself with mathematical thought.
In his doctrine of the "Paralogisms of Pure Reason" in which the rationalist psychology, as theoretical metaphysics, is reduced to absurdity, KANT struck at the very core of the Cartesian conclusion drawn from the intuitive self-consciousness in the cogito, to the esse (12).
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(12) Ibid., p. 321: "Der dialektische Schein in der rationalen Psychologie beruht auf die Verwechselung einer Idee der Vernunft (einer Intellegenz) mit den in allen Stücken unbestimmten Begriffe eines denkenden Wesens überhaupt... Folglich verwechsele ich die mögliche Abstraktion von meiner empirisch bestimmten Existenz mit dem vermeinten Bewustztsein einer abgesondert möglichen Existenz meines denkenden Selbst und glaube das substantiale in mir als das transzendentale Subject zu erkennen, indem ich blosz die Einheit des Bewusztseins, welche allem Bestimmen als der bloszen Form der Erkenntnis zum Grunde liegt, im Gedanken habe." ["The dialectical illusion in rational psychology arises from mistaking an Idea of Reason (of an intelligence) for the concept of a thinking being in general, which is undetermined in all respects... Consequently, I mistake the possible abstraction from my empirically determined existence for the supposed consciousness of a separate possible existence of my thinking self, and I believe I know the substantial in myself as the transcendental subject, while I have nothing in mind but the unity of consciousness which as mere form of knowledge lies at the foundation of all determining acts of thought".]
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From this appears most clearly the shift in the Archimedean point which the Humanistic transcendental ground-Idea underwent in KANT's criticism.
The basic theses of metaphysical psychology: the substantiality, immateriality, simplicity, immortality and personality of the "thinking" ego and the different metaphysical conceptions concerning its relation to the things of the "external world", were pulled to bits by KANT's critique. According to him, they only rest on an unjustifiable relating of the empty logical form of transcendental self-consciousness to a supra-empirical "Gegenstand". And this is done by means of the logical categories. "All modi of self-consciousness in thought as such, are therefore not yet logical concepts of objects (categories), but mere logical functions which neither give to thought any "Gegenstand", nor any knowledge of myself as a "Gegenstand". The object is not the consciousness of the determining but only of the determinable self, that is of my intuition (in so far as its multiplicity can be synthetized according to the general condition of the unity of apperception in thought)" (13).
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(13) Kritik der r. Vernunft, Transsz. Dialektik 2es Buch: "Beschlusz der Auflösung des Psych. Paralogism", p. 322: "Alle modi des Selbstbewusztseins im Denken an sich sind daher noch keine Verstandesbegriffe von Objecten (Kategorien), sondern blosze logische Functionen, die dem Denken gar keinen Gegenstand, mithin mich selbst auch nicht als Gegenstand zu erkennen geben. Nicht das Bewusztsein des bestimmenden, sondern nur des bestimmbaren Selbst, d.i. meiner Anschauung (so fern ihr Mannigfaltiges der allgemeinen Bedingung der Einheit der Apperzeption im Denken gemäsz verbunden werden kann), ist das Object."
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As soon as the ideal of personality had freed itself from the stifling grasp of the science-ideal, Humanism could no longer seek the metaphysical root, the "substance" of personality, in sovereign mathematical thought.
Thus, even the basic problem of Humanistic theoretical metaphysics, namely, the relation of the material substance to the soul substance (in its three pre-Kantian solutions, viz. the naturalistic acceptance of an influxus physicus, occasionalism, and the Leibnizian doctrine of the pre-established harmony between material and spiritual monads), became null and void to KANT.
For him the entire problem is reduced to the relation between the subjective-psychical phenomena of the "inner sense" and the objective-psychical phenomena of the "outer sense"; in other words, to the question how these phenomena can be joined in the same consciousness (14).
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(14) See note 1 p. 366.
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In fact, this is the problem which concerns the relation between logical thought and psychical sensibility in the same consciousness, which problem KANT deemed to be insoluble in a psychological sense. For him the transcendental Idea of the soul has no other theoretical function than that of a regulative principle of pure reason for all psychological knowledge whose final goal, though never attainable, lies in the insight into the absolute unity of the functions of sensibility and logical understanding.
Nevertheless, as limiting concept, the Idea of the soul possesses an actually transcendental significance. In his "General remark concerning the transition from rational psychology to cosmology" KANT indicated the practical use of the transcendental Idea, in which it directs theoretical thought toward the homo noumenon, as the autonomous law-giver in the supra-sensory realm of freedom.
A principle of the supra-sensory determination of human existence is really found "through the admirable faculty that first reveals to us the consciousness of the moral law". Metaphysical psychology had vainly sought this principle in theoretical thought (15).
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(15) Kritik der r. Vern., pp. 324/5.
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Thus in its practical trend, within the limits set for the Humanist science-ideal by the "Critique of Pure Reason", the Kantian idea of the soul displayed itself as a transcendental foundation, even of this science-ideal itself. But KANT's dualistic transcendental ground-Idea prevented him from drawing the consequences through which the cleft between "theoretical" and "practical" reason could be bridged.
KANT's criticism of "rational cosmology" (natural metaphysics) in the light of the transcendental trend of the cosmological Ideas.
In the analysis of the antinomies of pure reason KANT reduced to absurdity rational cosmology, in the sense of the natural metaphysics of the mathematical science-ideal.
According to him the paralogisms of metaphysical psychology cause a completely one sided dialectical illusion with respect to the Idea of the subject of our thought, since there is not to be acquired the least evidence for the affirmation of the contrary through a speculative ratiocination from the pure transcendental Idea of the soul. It is entirely different, however, in the case of the "cosmological ideas of the universe". If reason desires to draw theoretical conclusions from these Ideas with respect to the "Dinge an sich", it necessarily involves itself in antinomies.
If with respect to a supposed metaphysical object, one can prove with the same logical right the thesis as well as the antithesis of a speculative proposition, and consequently the logical principle of contradiction is violated, then it is evident that the supposed object cannot be a real "object of experience".
Now in the first place, KANT developed the system of all possible cosmological Ideas in accordance with the table of categories. These Ideas are nothing but the pure concepts of understanding elevated to the rank of the absolute, viz. the totality of the determinations performed by the logical function of thought, insofar as the synthesis contained in the categories forms a series of determinations (16).
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(16) Kritik der r. Vernunft, p. 328.
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Thus KANT arrived at four transcendental Ideas, which, when speculatively misused, lead to a corresponding number of theoretical antinomies.
In these four cosmological Ideas the Idea of the universe is related to the categorical points of view of quantity, quality, relation and modality.
The antinomies, which arise in the speculative application of these transcendental Ideas, were accordingly divided by KANT into two mathematical and two dynamical (natural metaphysical) ones.
According to him, it can be proved with equal logical stringency that the world with respect to quantity is both limited and infinite in time and space. And, with respect to quality, the world can be shown to consist of absolutely single parts, while at the same time the opposite can be proved with equal logical force. With respect to relation (causality) it can be demonstrated, that causality through freedom in the sense of a first cause is possible. And, with seemingly the same force of argument it can be demonstrated, that such a metaphysical cause cannot exist and everything occurs in the world according to a fixed mechanical necessity. Finally, with respect to modality, the existence of an absolutely necessary supreme Being can be both proved and disproved.
The actual transcendental trend which the theoretical Idea acquired in KANT is, nevertheless, also evident at this point. Here, too, the "Critique of Pure Reason" discloses itself only as a preparation for the "Critique of Practical Reason".
The intervention of the ideal of personality in KANT's solution of the so-called dynamical antinomies and the insoluble antinomy in KANT's dualistic transcendental ground-Idea.
KANT's Humanist ideal of personality has as its foundations causality through freedom, that is, the autonomous self-determination of personality as "homo noumenon", and the existence of God as the final hypostasis of the moral Idea of freedom. In the treatment of the so-called dynamic antinomies which are related to the categorical points of view of relation (causality) and modality (the absolute necessity), both of these foundations are called into play.
Here, in a positive sense, KANT chooses the side of the theses, in so far as they are related to the "Dinge an sich", and he grants validity to the antitheses only with respect to the sensory world of appearance.
There is at this point, indeed, no longer any question of a natural "Ding an sich", but rather of the intelligible root and origin of the cosmos, in the sense of KANT's conception of the ideal of personality. Thus KANT's ideal of personality is actually involved in the case that "theoretical reason" conducts with itself in the dialectic.
As soon as KANT gives to his theoretical thought this really critical transcendental turn towards the religious root of his entire critical philosophy, the insoluble antinomy in its dualistic transcendental ground-Idea is again immediately in evidence.
At every point this ground-Idea implies "purity" in the sense of the unconditionedness of "theoretical reason". Consequently, the cleft between the ideal of science and that of personality may not be eradicated in an actual transcendental self-reflection. But it must be eradicated, since actually the Idea of the autonomy of pure theoretical thought, in the deepest sense, is entirely dependent upon the Idea of the autonomous freedom of personality!
In the treatment of both mathematical antinomies KANT had resigned in an equal rejection of thesis and antithesis insofar as both in an untenable manner treat a mere transcendental Idea as a thing of experience.
But in the treatment of the interest that reason has in the antinomies, he gives evidence of having clearly seen the stimulus of the Humanistic ideal of personality behind the rationalist-idealistic metaphysics: "That the world has a beginning (17), that my thinking self has a simple and therefore undestructable nature, that this self at the same time is free in its volitional acts and elevated above the coercion of nature, and that finally the whole order of things in the world originates from a first Being, from which everything derives its unity and appropriate connection: these are so many fundamentals of morals and religion. The antithesis deprives us of all these supports, or at least it appears to deprive us of them" (18) (I am italicizing).
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(17) This thesis is also orientated to the attempt of Christian scholasticism to prove rationally the creation of the world with the aid of the metaphysically applied principle of causality, although the Thomistic demonstration did not imply a temporal beginning of the universe. Naturally in itself this proof has nothing to do with the Humanistic ideal of personality. KANT directs one and the same blow against all rationalistic metaphysics, and in the case of "Christian" rationalistic metaphysics his task was lightened all the more, since in origin it is in nowise more Christian than Humanistic metaphysics. In fact, in the long run, Christian metaphysics joined hands with the Humanistic!
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(18) Kritik der reinen Vernunft, p. 373: "Dasz die Welt einen Anfang babe, das mein denkendes Selbst einfacher und daher unverweslicher Natur, dasz dieses zugleich in seinen willkürlichen Handlungen frei und über den Naturzwang erhoben sei, und dasz endlich die gauze Ordnung der Dinge, welche die Welt ausmachen, von einem Urwesen abstamme, von welchem alles seine Einheit und zweckmäszige Verknüpfung entlehnt: das sind so viele Grundsteine der Moral und Religion. Die Antithesis raubt uns alle diese Stützen, oder scheint wenigstens sie uns zu rauben." (I am italicizing).
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The question arises why in the solution of the dynamic antinomies the appeal may be made to the supra-sensory sphere of human personality in favour of the thesis, whereas in the solution of the mathematical antinomies such an appeal to a "noumenon" behind the phenomena, in support of the thesis, must be excluded. KANT answers this question in the following way: "The series of conditions to be sure are all similar insofar as one considers only their extent with respect to the question whether they correspond to the Idea, or that they are too great or too small for it. But the concept of understanding which lies at the foundation of these Ideas, contains either merely a synthesis of the similar (which is pre-supposed with every quantity both in its composition and in its division) or also of the dissimilar, which at least can be allowed in the dynamical synthesis of the causal connection as well as in that of the necessary with the contingent. This is the reason why into the mathematical connection of the series of phenomena there cannot enter any other condition than a sensory one, that is such a one which itself is a part of the series; the dynamical series of sensory conditions, on the contrary, still allows a dissimilar condition, which is not a part of the series, but as merely intelligible lies outside the latter; thereby Reason is satisfied and the unconditioned is placed at the head of the phenomena, without thereby disturbing the series of the latter, which is always conditioned, and without interrupting it contrary to the principles of understanding"
(19).
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(19) Kr. d. r. V., pp. 416/7: "Die Reihen der Bedingungen sind freilich in so fern alle gleichartig, als man lediglich auf die Erstreckung derselben sieht; ob sie der Idee angemessen sind, oder ob diese für jene zu grosz oder zu klein sind. Allein der Verstandesbegriff, der diesen Ideen zum Grunde liegt, enthält entweder lediglich eine Synthesis des Gleichartigen (welche bei jeder Grösze in der Zusammensetzung sowohl als Teilung derselben vorausgesetzt wird) oder auch des Ungleichartigen, welches in der dynamischen Synthesis der Kausalverbindung sowohl, als der des Notwendigen mit dem Zufälligen wenigstens zugelassen werden kann.
"Daher kommt es, dasz in der mathematischen Verknüpfung der Reihen der Erscheinungen keine andere als sinnliche Bedingung hinein kommen kann, d.i. eine solche, die selbst ein Teil der Reihe ist; da hingegen die dynamische Reihe sinnlicher Bedingungen doch noch eine ungleichartige Bedingung zuläszt, die nicht ein Teil der Reihe ist, sondern als blosz intelligibel auszer der Reihe liegt, wodurch denn der Vernunft ein Genüge getan und das Unbedingte den Erscheinungen vorgesetzt wird, ohne die Reihe der letzteren, als jederzeit bedingt, dadurch zu verwirren und den Verstandes Grundsätzen zuwider abzubrechen."
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One cannot say, that this argument is very convincing. Consider for example the second mathematical antinomy (20): the Leibnizian monadology affirmed, that the monad is spaceless, and insofar as it made this affirmation, it taught that the infinite series of spatial analysis has its metaphysical origin in a noumenon which is dissimilar to the parts of space. So it can be said with respect to the thesis of the first mathematical antinomy (the world has a beginning in time and is spatially limited) that cosmic time originates in eternity as timelessness, and with that is likewise accepted a heterogeneous "noumenon" outside the "synthetical series of temporal moments".
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(20) The thesis reads here as follows: "Eine jede zusammengesetzte Substanz in der Welt besteht aus einfachen Teilen und es existiert überall nichts als das Einfache oder das, was aus diesem zusammengesetzt ist." ["Every composite substance in the world consists of simple parts and there exists nowhere anything but the simple or what is composed of it."]
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Within the cadre of KANT's transcendental ground-Idea the natural "Ding an sich" can no longer be maintained. The depreciation of the theoretical Idea of God.
The truth of the matter is, that in the deepest ground of his transcendental ground-Idea, KANT had to reject the natural "Ding an sich" and could only accept the normative ethical function of personality as the very root of natural reality. This is also true in respect to KANT's theoretical Idea of God, which as "Transzendentales Ideal" (Prototypon transcendentale), only had to pave the way for the practical Idea of the deity as a "postulate of practical reason", an idea, which in this practical function is nothing but the idol of the Humanistic ideal of personality.
The entire theologia naturalis with its speculative rational proofs for the existence of God must be destroyed by the "Critique of Pure Reason", because the ideal of personality can no longer find its veritable Idea of God in absolutized mathematical thought, but only in the hypostatized moral function of free and autonomous personality. To this end even the theoretical Idea of God must be depreciated. As long as it concerns the "merely speculative reason", one had better speak of the "nature of the things of the world" than of a "divine creator of nature" and better of the "wisdom and providence of nature" than of the divine wisdom, since the first mode of expression "abstains from the presumption of an assertion which exceeds our competency and at the same time points our reason back to its proper field, viz. nature" (21).
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(21) Ibid., p. 533: "die Anmaszung einer gröszeren Behauptung, als die ist, wozu wir befugt sind, zurück hält and zugleich die Vernunft auf ihr eigentümliches Feld, die Natur, zurückweiset."
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(Herman Dooyeweerd, New Critique of Theoretical Thought, Vol I/ Part 2/ Chapt 4/§4 pp 354-372)
