The Development of Kantian Thought Vleeschauwer

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Originally published as
L'Evolution de fa pensee Kantienne
Presses Universitaires de France, 1939
English translation
A. R. C. Duncan 1962
Author's Preface
This book is not an original work in the strict sense of that
term. Between 1934 and 1937 I published an extensive
study of the Critical philosophy under the general title of
La Diduction transcendantale dans l' CEuvre de Kant. This three-
volume work had a dual purpose. First, it was intended to
offer a textual commentary on that part of the Critique of Pure
Reason known as the Transcendental Deduction of the Cate-
gories. Secondly, it sought to trace the development of the
whole Critical problem which comes to a central point in the
Transcendental Deduction. The kind reception accorded
to this work made it impossible for me to ignore the
suggestion made by several colleagues that I should give a
general account of the evolution of Kantian thought.
The use of the historical method makes an author
cautious about a priori schemas in any attempt to determine
historical reality; it also forbids him to be guided in his
researches by any preconceived idea of the nature of the
Critical philosophy. An almost religious respect for the
documentary evidence is for the historian a matter of pro-
fessional duty. Twelve years devoted to the study of the
Kantian corpus, to the comparison of Kant's letters with his
published works, to cautious use of his Nachlass, to inquiry
into the cultural state of Germany in the eighteenth century,
constituted a powerful defence against any temptation to a
priorism. Close personal study of the facts led the writer to
pay attention to the lesson of the facts themselves.
From my willing acceptance of the demands of tIle
historical method has come a new conception of some aspects
of Kant's intellectual career, and consequently I have been
forced to contradict some of the critical cliches to be found
in many of the textbooks. The interest in the exact sciel1ces
shown by Kant at the beginning of his career no longer
appears to have the mysterious and revealing cllaracter
commonly attributed to it. The recognition of the admir-
able unity which can be traced in Kant's thought, in spite of
vii
AUTHOR'S PREFACE
frequent deviations in the solution of special problems,
springs directly from a rutWess rejection of the Hegelian
kind of interpretation typified by Kuna Fischer. My
emphasis on the importance of the psychology of Tetens in
the structure ofth.e Critical philosopllY may also be attributed
to my use of the historical method. The same method led
me to the paradoxical, but none the less true, view that the
second edition of the Critique is not a reaction against
idealism itself, but a reaction against the subjectivity inherent
in some forms of idealism, which led Kant to a gradual
reinforcement of his own idealism by a more and more
pronounced constructivism. My atten1pt to deal with the
varied fortunes of the Kantian systen1, its reception both by
]1is disciples and his opponents, and my inclusion of a
consideration of the Opus Postumum in the story of his develop-
ment, are the natural outcome of my adoption of the
:historical method.
I am personally convinced that the account of Kant's
intellectual life, which I offer in this book, owes what
accuracy it has to the methodological principles employed
in it. The reader must judge for himself to what extent I
am correct in this opinion. For myself I can only express
my personal conviction. I certainly do not claim to have
said the last \vord in this matter-very far from it. My
earlier work, despite its size and the austere nature of the
argument, was given a favourable reception by the philo-
sophical public. This leads me to believe that, after a
period of Kantian philology which has been the source of a
multitude of special studies, my commentary served a
useful purpose and indeed came at an opportune moment.
The present work is a gesture of gratitude in response to
this sympathetic reception of my commentary and is intended
to give my readers wllat they themselves have asked for. No
one need look in tIlese pages for a close exposition of the
Critical teaching or for any detailed explanation of obscure
passages. I am not writing as a philosopher. My purpose
is more modest. I should like to be considered as the
historian of a great system and the biographer of a great
mind.
I have deliberately from any attempt to turn
Vlli
AUTHOR'S PREFACE
this historical sketch into a scholarly treatise. The reader is
expected to be familiar with the problems of the subject and
with the general structure of the Critical synthesis. Hence
the usual scholarly apparatus of notes, references, and quota-
tions has been ruthlessly omitted. I must reassure the
reader's professional conscience, however, by pointing out
that in tIle earlier work, of which this is an abbreviated
version, will be found everything which scientific integrity
demands of a writer. To Illake access to the sources easier,
I indicate at the l1ead of each chapter the relevant pages in
the earlier work, where the documents are quoted. I have
adopted the following abbreviations:
La Deduction (followed by volume and page number) refers to
La Deduction transcendantale dans l' (Euvre de Kant (Anvers-Paris-
La flaye).
Volume I The Deduction before the Critique (1934), pp. 332
Volume II The Deductionfrom I78I-7 (1936), pp. 597
'Volume III The Deductionfrom 1787 up to the Opus Postumunt
(1937), pp. 7
0
9
Revue BeIge refers to an article entitled ' L' Annee 177I dans
l'histoire de la pensee de Kant' in the Revue Beige de Philologie
et d'Histoire, Vol. XIII, nos. 3-4, pp. 713-32 and Vol. XIV,
no. I, pp. 49-
8
3 (1934-5).
Mind refers to another article entitled 'Les Alltinomies
kantiennes et la Clavis universalis d' Arthur Collier' in Mind,
Vol. XLVII, No.
18
7, pp. 33-20 (1938).
I-I.-J. de Vleeschauwer
IX
Writings by Kant
referred to by de Vleeschauwer
In his account of the development of Kant's thought, de Vleeschauwer
refers to three different classes of writings by Kant:
A. PUBLISHED WORI<S
In the following list the abbreviation or descriptive phrase usually adopted
by de Vleeschauwer is given first in italics: then follow the full German
or Latin title, date of publication and English translation of the title.
Where an English translation of the book, partial or complete, is avail-
able, this is added. The works are listed under the Chapter sections in
which they are either first n1entioned or explicitly discussed.
Chapter I Section 2
Lebendige f(riifte. Gedanken von den wahren Schatzung del' lebendigen
Krafte, 1747 (Thoughts on the True Estimation of Living Forces).
Selected passages translated by Handyside in Kant's Inaugural Dissertation
(Open Court, 1928).
Naturgeschichte. Allgemeine Naturgeschichte und Theorie des Himmels,
1755 (Universal Natural History and Theory of the Heavens).
Translated in part by W. Hastie in Kant's Cosmogony (Maclehose & Sons,
1900). This work also contains a translation of the article by Thomas
Wright.
De Igne. Meditationum quarundam de igne succincta delineatio, 1755
(A Brief Outline of Some Meditations on Fire).
Dilucidatio. Principiorum primorum cognitionis metaphysicae nova
dilucidatio, 1755 (A New Exposition of the First Principles of Meta-
physical Knowledge).
Translated in the Appendix to England's Kant's Conception of God (Allen
& Unwin, 1929).
Monadologia physica. Metaphysicae cum geometria junctae usus in
philosophia naturali cujus specimen I continet Monadologiam physicam,
1756 (The Use of Metaphysics in Combination with Geometry in Natural
Philosophy, the first section of which contains the Physical Monadology).
Neuer Lehrbegrijf. Neuer Lehrbegriff cler Bewegung und Ruhe und cler
damit verknupften Folgerungen in den ersten Grunden cler Naturwis-
senschaft, 1758 (A New Doctrine of Rest and Motion and its Implications
for Natural Science).
xu
WRITINGS BY KANT
Chapter I Section 3
The essay on the syllogism. Die falsche Spitzfindigkeit der vier syllo-
gistischen Figuren erwiesen, 1762 (The Mistaken Subtlety of the Four
Syllogistic Figures).
Translated by T. K. Abbott in Kant's Introduction to Logic (Longmans,
Green & Co., 1885).
/vegativen Grossen. Versuch den Begriff der Negativen Grossen in die
Weltweisheit einzufuhren, 1763 (An Attempt to Introduce Negative
Quantities into Philosophy).
Beweisgrund. Der einzig mogliche Beweisgrund zu einer Demonstration
fur das Dasein Gottes, 1763 (The only possible Foundation for a Proof of
the Existence of God).
Beobachtungen. Beobachtungen tiber das Gefuhl des Schonen und
Erhabenen, 1764 (Observations on the Feeling of the Beautiful and the
Sublime).
Deutlichkeit or Preisschrift (Prize Essay). Untersuchung tiber die Deut-
lichkeit der Grundsatze der naturlichen Theologie und der Moral, 1764
(An Inquiry into the Distinctness of the Principles of Natural Theology
and Morals).
Translated by L. W. Beck in Critique of Practical Reason and other writingS
in Moral Philosophy (University of Chicago Press, 1949).
Chapter I Section 4
Nachricht. Nachricht von der Einrichtung seiner Vorlesungen in dem
Winterhalbenjahre von 1765-66, 1765 (Programme of Lectures for
Winter Semester 1765-6).
Triiume. Traume eines Geistersehers erHiutert durch die Traume der
Metaphysik, 1766 (Dreams of a Spiritseer explained through the Dreams
of Metaphysics).
Translated by E. F. Goerwitz (Swan Sonnenschein & Co., London,
1900).
Chapter I Section 6
The little dissertation or essay on space. Von dem ersten Grunde des Unter-
schiedes der Gegenden im Raume, 1768 (On the First Ground of the
Distinction of Regions ~ n Space).
Sections translated by Handyside (in volume quoted above).
Dissertatio. De mundi sensibilis atque intelligibilis forma et principiis
dissertatio, 1770 (Inaugural Dissertation on the Form and Principles of
the Sensible and Intelligible World).
Translated by Handyside (in volume quoted above).
xiii
WRITINGS BY KANT
Chapter III Section I
The theoretical Critique. Kritik der reinen Vernunft. First edition, 1781.
Second edition, 1787 (Critique of Pure Reason).
Translated by Norman Kemp Smith (Macmillan, 1933).
Prolegomena. Prolegomena zu einer jeden kiinftigen Metaphysik die als
Wissenschaft wird auftreten kennen, 1783 (Prolegomena to any Future
Metaphysics) .
Translated by Lewis \Vhite Beck (Liberal Arts Press, 1951).
Anfangsgrunde. Metaphysische Anfangsgriinde der Naturwissenschaft,
1786 (Metaphysical Foundations of Natural Science).
Translated by E. B. Bax in Kant's Prolegomena and Metaphysical Foundations
of Natural Science (Bell & Sons, 1883) (This includes the important
footnote referred to on page I 14) .
Chapter III Section 2
Grundlegung. Grundlegung zur Metaphysik der Sitten, 1785 (Founda..
tions for the Metaphysics of Morals).
Translated by Lewis White Beck (in volume quoted above).
The practical Critique. Kritik der praktischen Vernunft (Critique of
Practical Reason).
Translated by Lewis White Beck (in volume quoted above).
Chapter III Section 3
The third Critique. Kritik cler Urteilskraft, 1790 (Critique ofJudgment).
1'ranslated by]. C. Meredith (Oxford, 191 I).
Chapter IV Section I
Entdeckung. Ueber eine Entdeckung nach der aIle neue Kritik der reinen
Vernunft durch eine altere entbehrlich gemacht werden soIl, 1790 (On
a discovery according to which any new critique of pure reason is
rendered unnecessary on account of an earlier one).
Chapter IV Section 2
Fortschritte. Welches sind die wirklichen Fortschritte die die Meta-
physik seit Leibnitz's und Wolff's Zeiten in Deutschland gemacht hat?
1804 (What real progress has been made by metaphysics in Germany
since the time of Leibniz and Wolff?).
The Declaration against Fichte. ErkHirung in Beziehung auf Fichte's
Wissenschaftslehre, 1799 (Declaration concerning Fichte's Doctrine of
Science).
xiv
WRITINGS BY KANT
Die Religion innerhalb der Grenzen der blossen Vernunft, 1793
(Religion within the Limits of Reason alone).
Translated by T. M. Greene and H. H. Hudson (Harper and Brothers,
New York, 1960).
Perpetual Peace. Zum ewigen Frieden, 1795. Translated by Lewis White
Beck (in volume quoted obove).
Die Metaphysik der Sitten, 1797 (The Metaphysics of Morals).
The first part of this work, the section on law, has been translated by
W. Hastie in Kant's Philosophy of Law. (T. and T. Clarke, 1887). Parts
of the second half, the section on ethics, have been translated by Lewis
White Beck (in the volume quoted above).
B. LETTERS
These include both letters written by Kant to his friends and letters
written to Kant. The page references are to Volumes X and XII of the
Prussian Academy edition. The letters are listed under the Chapter
sections and in the order in which they are referred to in the text.
Chapter I Section 5
Lambert to Kant
Kant to Garve
13 November 1765
Chapter I Section 6
21 September 17g8
Prussian Academy
Edition
Vol. X p. 48
Vol. XII p. 254
Chapter I Section 7
Lambert to Kant
13 October 1770 Vol. X p. g8
Sulzer to Kant
8 December 1770
"
p.l06
Mendelssohn to Kant
25 December 1770
"
p.l08
Kant to Herz
7 June 177
1
"
p. 116
Kant to Herz
21 February 1772
"
p. 123
Chapter II Section I
Kant to Herz
end of 1773 Vol. X p. 136
Kant to Herz
24 November 1775
"
p.
18
4
Kant to Herz
April 1778
"
p. 214
Kant to Herz
28 August 1778
"
p.224
Kant to Herz
15 December 1778
"
p. 228
Kant to Herz
January 1779
"
p. 230
XV
WRITINGS BY KANT
c. THE NACHLASS
Kant's personal papers not intended for publication are collectively
referred to as the Nachlass. These are largely made up of:
(a) marginal notes written by Kant either on textbooks which he was
using as a basis for his lectures or as corrections on works of his own.
(b) various personal papers, never intended for publication, which may
contain a mere phrase, a line, or a fairly lengthy argument.
The definitive edition is to be found in Volumes XIV to XIX of the
Prussian Academy edition of Kant's collected works. De Vleeschauwer
however refers to three in1portant works which appeared before the
Academy edition :
(i) Erdmann B., Reflexionen Kants, Leipzig, 1884 (2 vols.) (usually
referred to as Reflexionen).
(ii) Reicke R., Lose Bliitter aus Kants Nachlass, Konigsberg (3 vols., 1889,
1895, 1899) (usually referred to as Lose Bliitter).
(iii) Haering T., Der Duisburg'sche Nachlass und Kants Kritizismus um 1775.
Tubingen, 1910.
This work contains a special study of some of the more important
fragments already published by Reicke, and is usually referred to as
the Duisburg'sche Nachlass.
Under this general heading may also be included two other important
works:
(a) a compilation of notes taken at Kant's lectures between 1775 and
1780, referred to as the Vorlesungen tiber Metaphysik (Lectures on Meta-
physics). Two editions of these have been published. The first by
Politz in 182 I is incomplete and unreliable: the second is by Heinze
and is available in a volume entitled, Konigliche Sachsische Gesell-
schaft der Wissenschaften. Philosophische Historische Klasse.
Abhandlung v. 14. Published in Leipzig in 1894.
(b) Kants Opus Postumum dargestellt und beurteilt von Erich Adickes,
Berlin, 1920. Referred to as the Opus Postumum.
2,491)
XVI
Chapter I
The Preparation of the
Critical Synthesis
1
THE PHILOSOPI-IICAL CLIMATE
Praise for the superhuman genius of Kant conjoined with
the claim that he changed his mind every decade like a
dizzy fool who cannot master the direction of his own
thought is surely evidence of a fundamental contradiction.
The majority of biographies devoted to him, however,
appear content to accept a contradiction of this nature.
I-lis numerous publications, the hundreds of letters which
are still accessible, the resolutions which he formed through-
out an eventful career, make us realise to what extent
Kant was hostile to the type of intellectual flirtation which
charmed many of his contemporaries, and yet how sensi-
tive he was to signs of spiritual activity in. l1is in1nlediate
surroundings. This explains to a great extent the variety
of his rn.editations, the breadth of his interests, and the
encyclopedic character of his lectures. It is nevertheless
possible to detect certain unmistakable converging lines in
this disconcerting variety. Kant steadfastly pursued a
unique and precise objective which it is essential to clarify
before beginning a full study of the history of his thought.
Unfortunately this is not to be found where it has been
custon1ary to look for it. The nineteenth-century fashion
of allowing Cartesianism to take the place of the historical
Descartes has been matched by a tendency to substitute the
Critical philosophy and its later developments for the real
11istorical Kant. Positivism found it advantageous to claim
philosophical patronage for th.e scientific methodology
which resulted in a limitation of knowledge to the realm of
(2,491) I 2
THE DEVELOPMENT OF KANTIAN THOUGHT
phenomena, and it was not unaware that the Critique of Pure
Reason could be represented as its own justification avant la
lettre. There is indeed no real need to find fault with this
choice when it is remembered how Kant never ceased to over-
whelm metaphysics with biting sarcasm. It certainly cannot
be denied that Kant criticised many things, metaphysics
included. 011 the other hand, if we look a little more
closely, we see that a constructive effort accompanied the
activity of destruction. For fifty years Kant dreamed and
planned to establish the future of metaphysics, and for l1im
to proclaim its downfall amounted to discrediting it tem-
porarily in order to lay secure foundations for it. His
complaints are directed against a particular metaphysics
and a particular method. At the same time he himself
constructed, at least in rough outline, a different meta-
physics and elaborated another method. To discover
ultimately the correct philosophical method and by means
of it to construct an eternal metaphysics were the aims
cherished by Kant.
In seeking to achieve both these ends, however, Kant
did not follow a straight line. The constant search for the
methodological foundation of metaphysics gives his career
its unity and overall harmony, and reveals the intellectual
stability which continued to characterise him through the
vicissitudes of his life. This search, however, demanded the
destruction of a particular historical metaphysics as its pre-
liminary condition. The drama of Kant's intellectual life
lies in the fact that it was his painful duty to destroy the
Wolffian metaphysics so that he could construct an eternal
metaphysics. Kant never placed himself under the tutelage
of Hume. This is the first conclusion which will be drawn
from our investigation.
Our second general conclusion will also separate us from
our predecessors. Since Kant did not seek either his method
or his metaphysics in one uniform direction, we must trace
the curve which illustrates the developn1ent of the supreme
problem. The great caesura in this evolution is to be found
in 178I with the publication of the Critique of Pure Reason.
Nevertheless, when it is realised that this work itself marks
a stage on the way to the discovery of a possible foundation
2
THE PREPARATION OF THE CRITICAL SYNTHESIS
for metaphysics, the caesura is stripped of the revolutionary
character which historians have always attached to it. Kant,
as we have said, did not change his system with disconcerting
mobility. From the beginning he made no attempt to hide
his dislike of the compact mass of Wolffian doctrine. The
first life-buoy to which he clung consisted of direct criticism
of certain leading theses of this system, and his criticism is
admirably outlined against the background of current philo-
sophical and scientific discussions. He then sought for a
panacea in the Critical philosophy. This was not discovered
by a sudden stroke of intuitive genius but allowed slowly and
painfully to reach ripe elaboration. Absolute confidence in
this critical foundation of metaphysics merged, from 1781
onwards, with his conception of the future of metaphysics
itself.
If this viewpoint is adopted, a different pattern of the
facts ill the intellectual biography of Kant begins to emerge.
The twenty years which precede the Critique may be seen to
constitute a period of preparation when comparedpostfactum
with the Critical synthesis. Kant was seeking to find his
way through the labyrinth of the scientific activity of his
time and he participated in all its movements. 1'his appren-
tice period of learning is sustained by waves of optimism and
shot through with disappointmellts, but all the while the
fundamental Critical principles sort themselves out quietly
and steadily. From then on Kant has no other purpose than
to establish metaphysics by the thorough working out of the
Critical philosophy. This period, which is the least prob-
lematic, occupies the years 1781-9. This is the period
which gives us the Critical trilogy. It is therefore essentially
constructive. The third period, which begins in 1790, is
dominated by a growing confusion in Kant's mind between
the future of metaphysics and the future of his own system.
This period is defensive ill character and, although it is the
least known and the least studied up to the present, i,t is
peculiarly significant for the historian. Kant had to defend
the integrity of his patrimony both against the assault of the
Wolffians and against that defection of his followers which
formed the prelude to tIle rise of the Gernlan romantic philo-
sophy. I have called this period the' clash of two epochs'.
3
This is correct because it is really a matter of the clash
between the Aufklarung and Romanticism. Kant bore the
brunt of the historical transition. He was too deeply rooted
in the past to be able to abandon it without regret, but too
committed to the future not to be aware of what was happen-
ing. The Opus Postumum allows us to see Kant caught in the
meshes and wedged between the two, an easy target of
criticism.
It was on the first centenary of the death of Descartes
that Kant entered the scientific world. This was the age of
that majestic development of physics which in all countries
of advanced culture was to provoke one of the most pro-
found conflicts in the history of western ideas. Stemming
directly from Descartes there was a great flowering of philo-
sophical systems, of ,,yhich those of Spinoza, Malebranche,
and Leibniz were the most in1.portant. Their common origin
explains how both Jew and Christian, atheist and mystic,
were moved by the same pride in the achievement of physics
and why they were all excited by the unexpected efficacy of
the deductive method. If it is true that Descartes brought
a message to Europe, that message can only consist in the
illusion of method applied to the conduct of the mind. He
intended his method to fortify the mind against its discursive
imperfection and against a naIve belief in the information
provided by the senses. Starting from one original piece of
evidence (datum), the Cartesian method proposed to make
the whole deductive chain of knowledge flow with perfect
rational coherence from this first datum, after the manner
of mathematics which finds in the ratiollal connection of its
propositions its supreme certainty and its high intellectual
authority. From Descartes to Leibniz the human mind
sought to establish, more geometrico, a metaphysical and
physical system of the world. Faith in this procedure
inculcated a great respect for mathematics which, by means
of the Cartesian type of analysis, descended from the ideal
heights of pure quantity to the expression of physical values.
It was also Descartes who realised that the science of matter
and the science of space are so connected that the latter
sketches out the main lines of the former. Possessed of
a vivid imagination like all mathematicians, Descartes
4
projected his dreams and his mathematical boldness into
physical reality and reduced it to simple n1athematical
elements.
The reader is sufficiently aware of the course of history to
know that Cartesian physics was not able to stand up to the
test offact and to the lessons of experience. Some important
investigations by Chr. Huyghens made that clear, and from
that time doubt in regard to the certainty of the Cartesian
deductions in the domain of weight, in the calculus of forces
and of motion, and in the explanation of yet other pheno-
mena, grew steadily until Newton's Principia Mathematica
brought to an end the great li11e of physicists who used
the Galileo-Baconian method to arrive at a picture of the
physical world. The school of Newton, however, like that
of Descartes, en1phasised the primacy of method. This
is not surprising since the brilliant achievernents of New-
tonian physics, including the crowning conception ofgravita-
tion, depended upon the methodological discipline to which
Newton insisted on submitting himself. The natural out-
come was several substantial corrections in the great
Cartesian dream. Furthermore, this method could be
applied universally. It could be applied in the inorganic
as well as the organic realm, to historical, medical, and
chemical research, and in these different domains its applica-
tion yielded results which could be brought into line with
the gravitational physics of the English Galileo. The correct
ll1ethod i11 the field of concrete and observable facts was to
start from the observation of phenomena, to determine by
constant experin1ent the causal nexus which binds them, and
in this way to construct a general picture of the behaviour
ofthe things which make up the texture of the whole physical
world. This method sought to do more than to describe; it
sought to explain by means of causes, and this explanation
preserved the element of truth in the mathematical concep-
ti011 of matter, while rejecting the exaggerated mathe-
maticism of Descartes.
Newtonian induction, which is the reverse of the Carte-
sian method, was bound to clash with the Cartesian method,
for it forbade men to regard observable nature as a gigantic
geometrical system. For it, nature was composed ofsimple
5
elements discoverable only by experience, and was not
reducible to purely mathematical elements. Furthermore,
Newtonian induction was less audacious and nlore suited
to the human condition. Whereas metaphysics explains the
visible and observable by reference to the invisible (that is,
the fact by reference to its principle, where this principle,
if a cause at all, was not a secondary cause), tIle causal
regression followed by induction is 1110re modest, finding its
causal order in an observable chain of phenomena.
The Dutch physicists who set the tone of learned society
in Europe at the turn of the eighteenth century (men like
'8 Gravesande, Boerhaave, Mussenbroek), the Royal Society
of London which ruled the scientific life of the island and the
Continent, and all the positive scientists scattered throughout
Europe, ranged themselves around Newton and the method
which he had given to scientific research. The traditional
positions of philosophy were shaken by tIle rising scientific
movement; philosophy stood on the defensive and with
visibly weakening resistance. The interpenetration of these
physical and metaphysical discussions is not surprising in
view of the fact that a number of the nl0st important and
most widely canvassed problems in physics are also meta-
physical problems. It was nevertheless inevitable that com-
petition should develop between the metaphysics which
derived its inspiration from Descartes and the physics of
Newton.
Within the limits of logic, induction is incompatible with
the innate ideas of Descartes and with the occasionalism and
pre-established harmony substituted by Malebranche and
Leibniz. It was only to be expected that from the beginning
of his Essay Locke should rally the empiricists against the
laziest of the solutions to the problenl of the origin of our
ideas. In the field of metaphysics, the whole of Europe was
a prey to controversies about the concepts of matter, sub-
stance, and cause, and a ceaseless attempt was nlade to
reach an agreed account of the nature ofspace. The debates
about the absolutist and relativist conceptions of space were
conducted with a ferocity which is well known. These
debates were singularly complex and difficult to follow, partly
because of the number of protagonists, partly because the
6
THE PREPARAT10N OF THE CRITICAL SYNTHESIS
issues were difficult to isolate from other theological and
metaphysical questions, and partly because of the large
number of distinctions which must be made in the respective
positions of the different adversaries if historical reality is
not to be seriously misrepresented. TIle conflict broke out
in connection with the correspondence between Clarke and
Leibniz which was published in England in 1717 and in
GerIflany in 1720. When the original authors disappeared
from the scene, they were succeeded by numerous partisans
who rapidly divided themselves into rival schools. In
England Leibniz found allies among the adherents of
idealism, while Clarke recruited his from among the mystics
and scientists. In Germany the whole Wolffian pack fol-
lowed its national philosopher in serried battalions, while
the scientific world attached itself to the coat-tails of Newton,
releasing its grasp of them only very reluctantly. In the
face of such extremes it was natural that some writers, and
among them not the least important, should attempt to
harmonise the views about space held by Newton and
Leibniz. Euler, Beguelin, and others made this the main
purpose of their lives.
The question of metllodology, however, divided philo-
sophers and scientists much more sharply than did these
controversial topics. The long-standing antagonism between
the Cartesian and Newtonian methods simply developed
into a conflict between the sciences which made use of
them, namely mathematics and philosophy (the latter
including physics according to tIle contemporary use of
the term). In an endeavour to interpret th.e simple and
irreducible elements of matter ill purely quantitative terms
Cartesian physics invested pure thought with a power of
investigation by conceptual analysis. Leibnizian philosophy
is in the end simply a grandiose specimen of a physics and
a metaphysics in which reason discovers the simple con-
stituents of physical reality. Newtonian induction, which
became, the instrument of the empiricists, identified the
simple element which it also sought with the ultimate,
irreducible, and unanalysable empirical element. Hence-
forward, the relatively simple element found in experience
was opposed to the absolutely simple elen1ent of mathe-
7
matics. From then on it becan1e imperative to circun1-
scribe precisely the areas belonging to mathematics and to
physics. All the scientists saw the necessity, and all the
philosophers saw the danger, of such a demarcation of
boundaries, a fact which enables us to understand why this
topic should have been of such widespread interest. The
clearly conceived objective was to prohibit the philosopher
from using the Cartesian method in the science of reality.
We shall see that this prohibition was to become one of the
constant preoccupations of Kantian thought.
It can be said without hesitation that when Kant came
upon the scene towards 1750 Newton had won the field.
Philosophy and physics adopted the Newtonian canon in
England, in France, and in Germany. Furthermore, the
success of the new method in physics gave birth to a con-
fidence in its universal applicability, which in turn gave
rise to a widespread interest in descriptive research. Ethics,
psychology, sociology, and aesthetics benefited greatly by it.
This descriptive method, withi11 the competence of everyone
and applicable to practical affairs, was in harmony with the
democratic tendencies of the age of enlightenment. Culture
was to be put within the reach of an enlightened bourgeoisie
which expected from this practical and utilitarian culture a
future which would be progressive both n10rally and politi-
cally. This alliance with the democratic spirit enabled
scientific culture to escape more and more from its natural
environment, the university, and to flourish beyond the
sphere of influence of these backward and musty centres.
Knowledge became popular and, in. becoming popular,
changed its uniform. Its natural n1edium of expression
was no longer the learned treatise, dry and carefully para- .
graphed; it sought the newer and more opell forms pro-
vided by th.e short essay or the article after the birth of
the periodicals. Finally, whole systems of popular philo-
sophy, inspired by the ideas and the needs of this lively
bourgeoisie, which was generous in sentiment but thin in
ideas, grew up on the virgin soil of this enlightened demo-
cratism. T l ~ e close alliance between the new scientific
methodology and the pre-revolutionary ideology became
an accepted fact.
8
It was in this way that England, France, and Germany
came to form a single scientific and cultural community,
disciplined by the same method, inspired by the same
examples, and moved by the same hopes. For the last
time, common themes, methods, solutions, and objectives
made science the basis of a genuine international feeling in
Europe. The trade in books, the rise of periodicals, and
the existence of learned societies created a unified cosmo-
politan culture which survived more than one political and
military conflict. It is scarcely necessary to add that
each of the participating nations manifested peculiarities
arising from its own traditions and from its own special
situation.
TIle peculiarly national note sounded by Germany in
this cosmopolitan concert is the existence of a system of
metaphysics which was the first truly national metaphysical
system in the Germanic countries and the last system of
Cartesian inspiration in Europe: this was the metaphysics
of Leibniz reduced to handbook form and popularised by
the indefatigable activity of Chr. Wolff. The Leibnizian
system held all the winning cards quite apart from any
question of its philosophical validity. Solidly established in
the German system of higher education, it was taught from
all the university chairs, without any notable exceptions, to
ever-changing generations of students. It was strengthened
by the alliance between the official Protestantism, the
sobered pietism, and the modified liberalism of its defenders.
Moreover, in this period of intellectual uncertainty, spiritual
anarchy, and political and moral confusion, it respected the
values which formed the very essence of the old regime and
thus appeared as a conservative force tending to order and
traditionalism. The whole history of eighteenth-century
Germany can be epitomised in terms of the rivalry between
Leibnizian conservatism and the progressive internationalism
adopted by the scientists and abused by the discontented.
Frederick the Great, the prince who forged the future great-
ness of a great nation, furnishes the most astonishing
spectacle. In order to achieve his purpose, he became a
progressivist and, by means of regulations and patronage,
9
transformed the liberated spirit of the discontented into the
national spirit.
Almost without his compatriots being aware of what was
happening, Leibniz had given his country the first deductive
metaphysical system which Germany could claim as her own.
Wolff, to whom almost all means of propaganda were avail-
able, undertook to publicise it. Reality is completely
rational, that is, the clear knowledge which we find in
science corresponds exactly to the transcendent order of
things. The activity of thought under these conditions
consists in the intellectual operation w11ich leads from the
obscure awareness found in the realm of the sensible to the
clear ideas characteristic of intelligence. Sensibility and
understanding are conceived as faculties differing only in
degree but not generically distinct. Since the activity of
thought manifests itself always in the form of judgment, it
is an analytic activity: it explicates the concept of the
subject by expressly attributing to it one or more of its
constitutive marks with the result that a relation of identity
binds subject to predicate. The basis of the necessity of the
judgment, or the justification of the objective determina-
tions of the subject, lies always in the formal principles of
identity and of contradiction which, on account of the initial
postulate of the rationality of the real, immediately acquire
ontological significance. Such was Wolff's position. Leibniz
too had arrived at similar views but he had made use of the
principle of sufficient reason. The relation between our
knowledge and its objects is both necessary and apriori, and
can be known by pure reason. The formal principles of
thought are sufficient to procure for us all the guarantees
that we can desire in this connection.
The characteristics of this system, which illuminates the
history of German thought from 1720 to 1750, may be
described as follows. The system of Leibniz is distinguished
in the field of epistemology by the .introduction of the
principle of sufficient reason and in the field of metaphysics
by the monadology. The principle of sufficient reason
transforms Cartesian mechanism into a teleological systen1,
while the monadology transforms the static Cartesian system
into a dynamic one. The points at which the astonishing
10
imagination of the librarian at Hanover were bound to
clash with the solid convictions of the Newtonian scientists
can already be seen. The deductive procedure adopted by
Wolff in developing the metaphysical system contained in
his endless series of manuals was modelled on the Cartesian
mathematical method: he applied it without distinction to
the realms ofthe real and the ideal. Newton, and the Anglo-
French empiricists who were so set on induction, denied the
efficacy of deductioll in the realm of the real. The philo-
sophers who made this question the object of their reflections
imitated their foreign colleagues in marking off the areas in
which the method of nlathematics could be applied from
those in which the methods of philosophy could be applied.
This questioll, however, includes two distinct sub-questions:
first, the opposition between the methods in the two types of
sciences, and secondly, the inevitable interpenetration of
mathematics and physics. The solutions which de Mauper-
tuis and d' Alembert presented to the French-speaking public
were presented to the Gernlan public by Crusius, Lambert,
alld Kant.
The principle of sufficient reason, elevated by Leibniz to
the rank of leading principle in the science of things, seemed
to round off the deductive system of the rationalists and had
the good fortune to be adopted by the main body of Wolffians
from Bilfinger to Mendelssohn by way of Meier and Baum-
garten. This principle, to wllich causality was subordinated
as the sufficient reason of becoming, was an absolutely uni-
versal principle. It could not be otherwise in a rationalistic
systenl which granted to pure thought a power of investiga-
tiOll in the domain of the real or in that of existence. Finally,
the monadology transformed the mechanistic idea of sub-
stance characteristic of Cartesian thought by attaching to it
the notioll of force, while the pre-established harmony, its
indispensable adjunct, was to explain communication
between substances, first in the human being, and then in
tIle universal order of things.
Under the empirical Newtonian influence the scientific
spirit attacked the whole mass of doctrines characteristic of
Wolffianism with the result that these doctrines became
subjects of passionate discussion around the year 1750.
I I
Along with Keill in England, de Maupertuis and d' Alembert
in France, Rudiger, Beguelin, Lambert, and above all
Crusius, took part in the discussion of these doctrines. It
goes without saying that they anticipated Kant in marking
off the boundaries between mathematics and philosophy,
and the boundaries which they assigned to these subjects
do not differ essentially from those established by Kant.
Their common thesis was in effect that conceptual analysis
can never attain to existence and that in consequence the
synthetic Cartesio-Wolffian method is ineffective in the order
of existence. The discussion in which they all shared centred
around the detection of the simple and irreducible elen1ent
with which the pre-Critical works of Kant have made us
familiar. The simple elements of physical reality become,
not the residue of a purely logical analysis, but the irredu-
cible and unanalysable element of concrete experience.
It was again Crusius who anticipated Kant in his pro-
found discussion of Wolff's extension of the principle of
sufficient reason. In the strictly Wolffian school, the focal
point of the discussion was the reducibility of the principle
of reason to that of contradiction. Its opponents, however,
kept on raising objections against the way in which it was
related to causality. Crusius distinguished between logical
reason and real reason, and denied to logical reason any
true efficacy in the order of the real. Logical reasons and
real reasons, sufficient reason and causality, principles of
reason and principles of causality, are pairs of converging
ideal factors. This discussion was further stimulated when
Hume's criticism reached Germany, eve11 although it did not
bring about the minor revolution wllich the biographers of
Kant have written about. The fact that Hume was brought
into the discussion caused the Academy in Berlin to take an
interest in this quaestio disputata. This is shown by the
memoirs sent by Sulzer, Beguelin, and the Frenchman
de Maupertuis, in response to a competition set by the
Academy. Kant became interested in this general move-
ment of ideas and opinions. He was to find in it his point
of departure. He was to borrow from it, first of all his
own positions, and then his metl10d of going beyond them.
The third Leibnizian theme was the monadology. This
12
of course revived the great conflict which had arisen towards
the end of the seventeenth century about the paradoxes of
the infinite. The Frenchman P. Bayle in his Dictionary once
again raised the problem of these paradoxes under the head-
ing of his article ZENO. When real existence is attributed to
matter, he pointed out, it is necessary to affirm both that
matter is infinitely divisible, alld that nevertheless it is com-
posed of sinlple elements which in being simple must there-
fore be indivisible. He made this difficulty a groulld for
rejecting realism in favour of an idealisnl of the Male-
branchian type. A violent debate centred around this
article both in England and in Germany. The attention
of Leibniz had been drawn to the paradoxes of the con-
tinuous independently of his personal metaphysics, but as
soon as the monadology took shape they thrust themselves
more forcibly upon his attention. The monad is indeed a
simple element and an indivisible constituent of matter,
whereas mathematical considerations force us to believe that
space and matter are infinitely divisible. The direct con-
clusion drawn by Leibniz was tllat space is not absolute.
The English idealists, like Collier and Berkeley, deduced
from their examination of the same paradoxes the basic
soundness of the Malebranchian epistemology and also
rejected the absolute character of space. However, the
Newtonian school, which fought as one man against the
relativity of space, had to be reckoned with, as also had
the English Platonists, whose leaders, More, Cudworth, and
Clarke, took the side of Newton for metaphysical reasons.
It was this topic which stimulated the famous correspon-
dence between Leibniz and Clarke which was published in
Germany in 1720 at the instigation of Wolff. In a short
time this correspondence became a European affair. Ifwe
leave out of account the English writers and the Frenchmen
de Maupertuis and d'Alenlbert, it may be said that all the
Wolffians in GernlallY followed Leibniz in supporting the
relativity of space, while the physicists, like Plouquet and
Boscovitch, althougll more or less involved in Wolffianism,
were drawn in the opposite direction and dreamed of
developing a middle-of-the-road solution to this irritating
problem. The Kantian meditations on the problem of
13
space, and his later meditations on the antinomies, must
be placed within this historical framework. It is quite
evident, furthermore, that Kant was also inspired by the
example of Leonard Euler who for the last thirty years had
been working at the reconciliation dreamed of by Plouquet
and Boscovitch.
The related doctrines, the monadological theory of sub-
stance and the doctrine of the pre-established harmony in
the communication between substances, were doctrines
which had not passed with equal ease into the vVolffian
system. Wolff attached only a superficial importance to
them, and when the Leibnizian harmony became the
subject of attack by Foucher and Bayle the more sensible
Wolffians capitulated rapidly and replaced the harmony
by the system of physical influxion. Furthermore, the
adherents of mechanism were opposed to the introduction
into physics of a hypothesis which looked so t11eological,
and t11is discouraged the Newtonians from adopting it.
Konigsberg seems to have been a peculiarly active centre
of opposition to the pre-established harmony. It had been
attacked by two of Kant's teachers, Schultze and, above all,
M. Knutzen who claimed to close the debate by his own
special version of the idea of physical influxion.
Conflict between induction and deduction, or, in other
words, between the analytic and synthetic methods; con-
flict between mathematics and philosophy; conflict between
the principle of sufficient reason and that of causality; con-
flict between the logical and the real; conflict between
monadology and geometry; conflict between the absolute
and the relative conceptions of space; conflict between the
pre-established harmony and physical influxion: all these
conflicts arose from the clash between Newton's Principia
Mathematica and the Leibnizo-Wolffian metaphysics. It is
indeed the whole history of German thought which. is
summarised in these conflicts. It was in meditating upon
and discussing these conflicts over a period of twenty years
that Kant was to serve his apprenticesl1ip in philosophy.
2
THE FIRST PHYSICO-METAPHYSICAL
ESSAYS
cf. La Deduction I, 87-92, 105-8, 117-22, 130-4, 190-3
When Kant as a young man of sixteen placed himself in
the hands of his bellefactor Schultze, the University of
Konigsberg was going through a period of relative calm.
Schultze had conlbined in his own person elenlents of both
Wolffianism and Pietism, and Wolffian rationalism had
begun to undermine the weak Aristotelianism which had
so far reigned there. In 1734 he llad called Martin Knutzen
to the chair of philosophy and physics. Kant had the good
fortune to find in this young man of twenty-one a daring
teacher who was hard-working, well informed, and sym-
pathetic to the enthusiasms of the new generation. In 1735
Knutzen had defended a thesis entitled Systema causarum
e.fJicientium which was devoted to the refutation of the doctrine
ofpre-established harmony. Leibniz was very nluch attached
to this doctrine, Wolff very much less so, and !(nutzen not
at all. At Konigsberg he had in any case been anticipated
in this field by a man called Marqllardt. Just at the time
when Knutzen was attempting to bring the interminable
debate to an end, the last blows were directed at the Leib-
nizian myth by Reuss and by Gottschedt (who sometinles
dabbled in philosophy). However, Knutzen not merely
refuted it, but developed a new system of physical influxioll
which departed considerably from the Aristotelian notion of
the efficient cause to which the physicists had already givell
the coup de grace. It was not surprising that mechanism,
space, and idealism-Foucher had even objected that the
external world is unnecessary on the Leibnizian hypothesis-
were all to play some part ill the debate. The substance of
Knutzen's thesis had no doubt been passed on in his teaching,
and in 1756 Kant was to nlake use of it in the Monadologia
Physica.
It was th.is far-sighted and liberal Wolffian whose task it
was to teach Kant the first principles of Wolffian meta-
physics, and to introduce him to the teaching of Newton.
Both through personal instruction and the loan of books he
accorded Kant the generous support of his own youthful
enthusiasm. The teaching of Knutzen prepared Kant for
botll a philosophical and a scientific career. The degree of
maturity and the breadth of knowledge shown by Kant in
this double domain on the occasion of his first published
work indicate that his teaching must have been of a very
high quality. After following punctiliously a somewhat
curious plan of studies under the supervision of Schultze
with the willing collaboration of Knutzen, Kant left l'Alber- .
tine in 1746 with a dissertation On the Estimation of Living
Forces, which he was to publish ill 1749 with the help of
benefactors generous enough to ulldertake the cost of print-
ing. There we have Kant at the age oftwenty-two, launched
upon the world, burdened by the poverty of his material
circumstances yet possessed of great scientific ambitions. In
these days ambition could not easily be reconciled with
poverty. In order to secure that preliminary easing of his
circumstances, which was a condition of independence and
liberty, Kant resigned himself to the work of family tutor,
spending the years between 1747 and 1755 in several aristo-
cratic and upper-middle-class houses in East Prussia. This
self-chosen withdrawal, however, did not have the character
of a period of exile. On the contrary, the evidence shows
that Kant still maintained his connections with scientific
circles in his native town and that he remained in permanent
contact witll the scientific life of Germany. However, there
is some uncertainty about the kind of occupation which
engrossed him and about the objects which attracted his
attention during th.ese nine solitary years. If from what we
know took place in 1755 it is legitimate to draw any inference
about the immediately preceding years, we can form a
general, ifvague, idea about what was happening.
In all probability Kant followed first and foremost his
bent for physical studies. In 1749 he published his doctoral
dissertation on living forces, but immediately afterwards
decided to develop it in new directions. First, he included
16
THE PREPARATION OF THE CRITICAL SYNTliESIS
a discussion of the problem of the plurality of worlds, a
subject which had been passionately discussed by the
European public for about seventy-five years, and added
to it a discussion of plurality in types of space. Secondly,
he included a reconciliation of his personal views about
living forces with the universal harmony. His recollection
of the teaching of Knutzen is still clearly to be seen in this
project. In 175I the Hamburger freier Urteilen und Nachrichten
published an account of the cosmogony of the Englishman
Wright, and in 1752 Kant was able to read, in the
Hamburgischen Magazin, an account of a book by Bradley on
a sin1ilar subject. Under their stimulus he worked on his
Naturgeschichte, which he probably completed in 1754. At
the same time he decided to send to the Berlin Academy a
memoir on the rotation of the earth about its axis, but
instead of addressing it to the Acaden1Y he eventually pub-
lished his reflections in a weekly magazine in his native city.
rrhe same thing was to happen in September of the same
year with another memoir in which he discusses the question:
does physics allow us to say that the earth grows old?
In 1754-5 he decided the time was ripe to come back to
Konigsberg and to return to the University. In April 1755
he won the title of Magister by defending a physical thesis
composed in Latin and entitled De Igne, but as he wished to
qualify himself to give courses in philosophy he was obliged
to defend yet another thesis on a philosophical subject. This
thesis was entitled Principiorum primorum cognitionis metaphysicae
nova Dilucidatio and ,vas published in September 1755. His
desire to become a Privat Dozent in philosophy shows that his
interest in physical matters was not exclusive. The conflict
which he had perceived between his own theory of forces
and the universal harmony was in effect a philosophical
conflict, and we know in any case, thanks to Reicke, tllat
Kant had thought of taking part in a competition organised
by the Academy on the optimism of Pope. In general,
however, there is no doubt that Knutzen had oriented his
pupil towards the exact sciences, and this orientation was
to continue for quite some time. After having qualified as
Privat Doze11t Kant devoted himself to writing a number
of short popular works. In 1756 he discussed the Lisbon
(2,491) 17 3
earthquake which had left such a profound impression on the
whole of Europe. In the same year he expounded a theory
about the winds which was original and not without merit.
Again in 1756, with the intention of supporting his candida-
ture for a university chair, he published the Monadologia
physica. In 1757 he announced officially in a printed pro-
gramme his courses on physical geography and on philo-
sophy. Finally in 1758 he was to produce a Neuer Lehrbegrijf
der Bewegung und Ruhe.
Apart from his scientific work there is little to relate
about this period of his life. Kant was received favourably
by the student population and by the educated public of
the town. There are indications that Kant adapted himself
without difficulty to the successive military occupations by
the Russians and by the Prussians. In short, the son of the
humble couple in the Sattlergasse, despite the existing social
barriers, gradually became a public figure of some note.
Academic authority was less favourable towards him: flO
permanent chair was found for him until 1770. For the
rest-all is legend. The stories about the solitary Kant who
lived like a hermit and who never left his native city, the
Kant whose life was regulated like the mechanism of a clock,
the Kant who was stripped of everything and on the verge
of starvation, are all very romantic, but they suffer from the
disadvantage of being false.
Generally no man of sensibility fails to respond to the
charm or sadness of circumstances and a man's thought is
often coloured by the emotional elements in his environ-
ment. No such factors, however, seem to have directly
influenced the course of Kant's thought. It has often been
alleged that Kant was a physicist before he was a philo-
sopher, and even t l ~ a t he became a philosopher simply
through professional duty. This seems to me quite false.
The boundaries between physics a l ~ d philosophy were not
clearly marked and Kant always treated physics from a
philosophical standpoint. A predominating interest in
n1ethodology is characteristic of each of the Kantian dis-
sertations of this period. The Lebendige Kriifte discusses
principally, not the mathematical estimation of living
forces, but the modus cognoscendi of this estimation. The
18
Naturgeschichtereconciles nlechanical and teleological explana-
tion of the universe. The Monadologia physica bears as its
sub-title 'The Use of Metapllysics in conjunction with
Geometry in Natural Philosophy'. And although Kant
always discusses physics as a philosopher, it is with the
clearly avowed intention of showing how, both in physics
and metaphysics, everything depends on metllod.
In the light of these facts it is clear that far from being
an especially chosen field which he had to abandon because
of the hard exigencies of life, Kant's physico-mathematical
activity is blended with the great, and I should even say the
sale, Kantian problem: the method of metaphysics. A
rapid glance over the physical writings makes this quite
plain. It was at the instigation of IZnutzen that Kant in
his doctoral dissertation undertook to reconcile the Cartesian
formula (MV) for forces with the Leibnizian formula (MV
2
).
The solution which he gave to his problem is actually false,
but that is not what concerns us most. It is more important
to notice the ease with which the young man conducts him-
selfin a physical discussion which had occupied the attention
of the whole of Europe, and to see how well informed he is
about all the opinions which had been expressed, except,
unfortunately, that of d' Alembert, which was the only sound
solution. It is important also to trace the ramifications of
this pllysical problem through all his thinking. Attributing
the false Cartesio-Leibnizian calculations to an error of
meth.od, he was led to seek the true modus cognoscendi of these
tvvo thinkers. His real objective was the discovery of a
more appropriate method, which would take its point of
departure from a careful differentiation ofscientific domains.
Both nlathematics and physics and mathematics and philo-
sophy give answers to different questions and demand
different modes of treatment.
The confusion between the methods of mathematics and
the methods of physics was the real cause of the errors to
which deductive physics was exposed. The generalisation
of the mathematical method led necessarily to the false
Cartesian estimate; the physical method led to the formula
of Leibniz. The body of mathematics, alone accessible to
Descartes, knew nothing of living force: Leibniz on his
19
side knew about it through his dynamism, but he measured
its value falsely using the method of mathematics. Kant, in
establishing the value, saw how important it was to meta-
physics to distinguish carefully between two types offorce.
It was in the course of generalising the views on method
which he expounded on this occasion that he finally arrived
at metaphysics. He was not satisfied with the method of the
reigning metaphysics which, in its desire to be eine grosse
Weltweisheit, neglected to be at tIle same time thorough.
An ambition to examine current methods and to put a brake
on the tendency of metaphysics to extend its boundaries at
the expense of thoroughness is quite rightly selected by
Adickes as underlying the demands for thoroughness which
Kant directed towards contemporary metaphysics. How
very little of this can be called Wolffian !
Further review of his physical works sho,vs how every-
where there is a tendency to bring the methodological
problem to the fore. The Naturgeschichte provides the
earliest evidence of this tendency. Although in his dis-
sertation Kant had not advocated the Newtonian method
as the Inethod which in future would be sure not to lead,
to errors similar to those of Descartes and Leibniz, his
solitary meditations while acting as family tutor had never-
theless borne their fruits, and he undertook in his cosmogony
to give an account of the genesis of the universe by means
of the Newtonian method alone. Further, he had prefaced
it with a resume of Newtonian principles for the benefit of
those who were still unaware of then1. The history of the
world as determined by natural laws was therefore to be
described mechanistically. In this Kant followed Wright
and anticipated Laplace. But-and here the philosopher
quarrels with the physicist-physics goes no farther than
natural laws. These laws themselves remain unexplained
unless they are connected with a teleological principle, a
conclusion which makes it possible to reconcile Leibniz and
Newton. The theologians, seeing the finger of God every-
where, make nature out to be a perpetual miracle, and the
atheists see the operation of chance at the beginning of
everything. Kant, plotting a middle course, transcended
the Newtonian explanation of the world, which cannot be
20
applied to the order of laws (or, let it be said in passing, to
the organic realm). This transcendence again marks the
metaphysical orientation of a cosmogonical essay which is
not lacking in greatness.
All the other physical writings are also based on Newton.
In the De Igne an account of nature is given which is both
empirical and geometrical. The Monadologia physica, intended
to correct Leibniz by Newton, is perhaps the most remark-
able of Kant's smaller writings at this time. He no longer
aims sin1ply at a reconciliation of the Cartesian and New-
tonian methods in the constitution of physics, but at their
intimate collaboration. Their collaboration makes it pos-
sible to resolve certain difficulties (I am even tempted to
say certain antinomies) resulting fron1 their separate applica-
tion. The metaphysics of which Kant speaks is the mona-
dology with its simple and indivisible elements as ultimate
constituents: geometry on the other hand advocates the
infinite divisibility of n1atter. Kant had closely followed the
long debate about the paradoxes of the infinite and he was
going to offer a solution acceptable to both sides. The spirit
which had presided over the solution of the problem offorces
showed itself again. In the Critique Kant will find the two
sides 011ce again hostile, but he will keep them apart. Here,
on the contrary, both win their case on condition that com-
peting sciences and methods ren1ain within their respective
fields. In physics experience furnisl1es the point of departure
and its data are explained by geoll1etry, from which it follows
that in physical construction the experimental and mathe-
n1atical methods are of equal value because they are equally
i11dispensable. The role of metaphysics begins at the point
where the two methods have exhausted their usefulness. If
we refuse to go beyond them, legum originem et causas exponere
non possumus. Our little dissertation therefore is noteworthy
from more than one point of view. First, in that it furnishes
indisputable evidence of Kant's interest in the discussions
about the infinite. The antinomies of pure reason go back
to this work as to their distant and indirect origin. It is
noteworthy also in what it reveals of the significance of
Kantian physics which is in effect only a chapter of meta-
physics, the value of which is subordinated to the estimation
21
of the methods employed in it. Finally, it is noteworthy
because it throws a different light on the subject which he
treated in the only philosophical work belonging to this
period.
This philosophical work, presented in 1755 in order to
obtain the right to lecture (venia legendi) , is entitled Principiorum
Primorum Cognitionis l\;[elaplzysicae Nova Dilucidatio. In it Kant
does not discuss the question ofmethod exprofesso, but discusses
the foundations of metaphysical knowledge. These founda-
tions, however, are elucidated in the bright light of the
methodological debate. In this philosophical discussion
Kant found a precursor in Crusius who, along with nlany
others before Kant, had rebelled against the metaphysical
mathematicism of the Wolffians. Kant, still dazzled by the
prestige of this mathematicism, shared most of the convic-
tions which lay at its foundation: the rationality of the
real, the clarifying role of understanding (with the con-
sequent distinction of degree, not kind, between the faculties
involved in the structure of knowledge), the analytical
character of judgment, and the objectifying role of the
formal principles of identity and contradiction. His con-
viction, however, was shaken on two points. He detected
the paralogism in the Cartesio-Leibnizian version of the
ontological proof, and he saw that existence is not a con-
stitutive part of the essence of a thing. He also saw that
the principle of identity is the justifying norm of the rational
form of judgment, and tlIat the norm which justifies the
content is the principle of sufficient reason.
The Dilucidatio is a treatise devoted to the principle of
sufficient reason and Crusius is the dominating influence.
Like Crusius, Kant distinguishes two senses of sufficient
reason, the reason of being which determines the existence
of something and the reason of knowing which determines
our knowledge of it. Sufficient reason, understood in the
sense of a logical necessity, leads to the principle ofidentity.
Its objectifying role therefore scarcely goes fartller than that
of the formal principles of identity and contradiction. If the
relation in question is a relation between existing things the
discussion turns quite naturally to the problem of causality,
but Kant does not resolve it in the way we might well
22
anticipate from him. In spite of his assertions that the ratio
jiendi and the cause are identical, and that they are both
different from the ratio cognoscendi, he blunts the point of this
distinction when he claims to know causal relations by means
ofidentity. In this matter "\Ive must accept the fact that Kant
has a very long way to go before he n1asters this important
problem.
What in fact led Kant to the examination of causality
was a moral discussion about liberty, and a metaphysical
discussion about the existence of God. Crusius had denied
the universal applicability of the principle of causality since
our voluntary actions are not subject to it. Kant, on the
contrary, subjects these acts to its domination and con-
sequently maintains the universality of the principle in this
domain. The causal factor which determines the will is an
internal motive. This alone prevents the will from being
arbitrary and yet allows it to escape the natural determinism
which necessitates an external constraining factor. Here
again the conflict foreshadows, though in quite a different
dimension, the third Critical antinomy and signifies on
Kant's part a defence of the principle of causality against
the objection of Crusius. However, he was to abandon this
same universality when faced with the problem of the
existence of God, for he held that th.e principle is not appli-
cable to the supreme Being. If therefore it is universal, it is
universal only for contingent being. Necessary being escapes
it and its universality cannot be saved by saying that God
has his reason wit11in himself, because then a being would
be the cause of itself, th.at is, would exist before it existed,
which is absurd.
The same question don1inates the Kantian conception of
existence, his distinction between being and thought, between
the real and the logical. There is no question here-and it is
worth insisting on t11is point-of any problem of realism;
Kant never gives it a thought. It is simply a question of the
manner in which we know existing reality. He becomes.
aware oftwo ways inwhich this new problem can be attacked.
The first is that of the Dilucidatio. Kant discusses the distinc-
tion that must be made between logical reason and real
reason in the principle of sufficient reason. The other path,
23
which he follows only occasionally in this work, is the way
of natural theology. The second way is related to a great
debate which had occupied European thinking since the
Middle Ages. It is again Crusius who precedes Kant in
this path. Descartes had rehabilitated the ontological proof
of the existence of God: we construct the concept of a
being which contains the wl101e of reality, to which in con-
sequence it is necessary to attribute existence. However,
since this Ens realissimum is postulated as a concept, that is,
ideally, it is ideal existence and not real existence which
must be affirmed of it. In order to affirm real existence of
it, it would be necessary to prove the reality of the concept
of an Ens realissimum. But a concept is valid when its
opposite is absolutely impossible. Hence the impossibility
of the divine non-existence is equivalent to its necessary
existence. But this non-existence is absolutely impossible
because there is possibility, and possibility can be conceived
only througl1 the real. It is clear that the Kantian proof is
also a proof by concept and that he has not yet seen the
thesis which was to come, according to which existence
cannot be known by way of concepts.
The formal subject of the Dilucidatio leads to the same
problem. The distinction between logical reason and real
reason points towards that between the reason of truth and
the reason of existence. The reason of the truth. of a judg-
ment is revealed by the identity of the subject with the
predicate. The reason of existence does not determine
whether something exists but that by which it exists. The
reason of existence becomes confused with the cause. In
fact all the problems raised in the Dilucidatio are treated in
a confused manner, and all the solutions are equivocal. Let
us not forget, however, that this estimate of its value is
perhaps the result of a latent confusion of which we ourselves
are guilty, in imposing on this period, perhaps unconsciously,
the standard oflater solutions which were given to these same
problems. Ifwe were permitted to forget all that Kant wrote
after 1770, the Dilucidatio would undoubtedly appear to us to
be rationalist, but not self-contradictory as is often alleged.
The same is true of the problem of space, the last
Leibnizian theme bitterly discussed in the first half of the
24
eighteenth century. The cosmological orientation of his
thought led Kant quite naturally to tackle it. For Leibniz,
space is an ideal construction consisting in the obscure
knowledge of th.e order existing between monads, an order
which results from their simple coexistence. Newton, on
the contrary, preached the reality and substantiality of
space, the condition of all subordinate spatial relations.
For Leibniz, space is the consequence of things. For Newton,
it is the presupposition of things. It is erroneous to claim
that Kant followed J-Aeibniz in the period which we are
discussing, simply because like him he professed the rela-
tivity of space. Here again !(ant adopts an intermediate
position: he follows Leibniz in claiming that the relativity
of space is the order realised by substances, but he is no
less close to Newton in denying that this order is the con-
sequence of pure coexistence. As an adherent of the doctrine
of physical influxion, he conceives the monads to be capable
of transitive action and it is their interaction which deter-
mines spatial order and relations. Space is therefore the
consequence of the dynamical laws of n1atter.
This conception is invariably to be found on every
occasion that Kant happens to discuss space after the
Lebendige Kriifte. Kant never considers space after the
manner of l\Tewton, but every day he gets a little closer
to him. The problem plays a considerable role, as we
have seen, in the Monadologia physica, but !(ant had not
yet enrolled himself under the banner of the Englishman.
Adickes says quite rightly that Kant is for Leibniz and
against Newton in so far as relativity is concerned, but for
Newton and against Leibniz in so far as the reality of
space is concerned. On the same occasion he tackles the
antinomy, or the paradoxes of the infinite, about which
vve spoke above. Kant does 110t choose between the meta-
physical body composed of simple monads and geometrical
space which is infinitely divisible. He declares that between
these two conceptions there is no real contradiction because
the division of space does not necessarily imply the separa-
tion of parts.
In reality therefore Kant finds himself half-way between
Leibniz and Newton in the problem of space as in many
25
other problen1s which he discussed. This is the general tone
of Kant's first scientific efforts. It cannot be said that he is
a Wolffian; on the contrary, he is generally aware, even if
only vaguely, of the defects of rationalism. He approaches
Newton, not by any clear and indisputable act ofsubmission,
but by reconciling theses which try to overcome the sharp
divergencies between the two schools, of which Newton and
Leibniz were the acknowledged leaders. But in spite of these
uncertainties, these equivocations, these incomplete and pro-
visional solutions, and despite the physical subjects which he
prefers to discuss, it is undeniably true that Kant's activity is
philosophical in character.
3
A METAPHYSICS IN GESTATION
cf. La Deduction I, 92-100, 108-16, 119-30, 135-6,
139-4
1
, 142-6, 193-
201
After qualifying in 1755 as a university teacher, Kant took
no part in philosophical discussion until 1763. Here we
have a first period of silence, lasting for eight or nine years,
about which we know almost nothing. The only pointer
which we have, and it is vague enough, is to be found in
the Beweisgrund: 'I give here the outcome of long medita-
tions but their exposition is still imperfect and incomplete
because other preoccupations have not left me enough time'.
If this text is to be trusted-and there is no reason why we
should not trust it-Kant must have ruminated in silence
over the subject-matter of the Beweisgrund where, it is true,
we see coming to the surface all the problems which had
been left in suspense in the Dilucidatio of 1755. Hence it
seems pointless to search for foreign influences on his thought.
Having discovered, after Crusius, the error of Cartesian onto-
lagism, Kant owes to his continued reflection on this problem
what it is customary to call his empiricism. There is no
question then of revolution, but there is rather a slow and
in some ways even painful evolution. But the silence and
26
prolonged isolation bore fruit: oriented towards cosmology
in 1755, Kant's thought began to turn towards epistemology.
Slowly Kant extricated himselffrom the discussion ofspecial-
ised problems in philosophy. He became preoccupied with
a much more decisive problem: the possibility of meta-
physics.
The commentators have treated all the writings which
Kant published between 1762 and 1769 as belonging to one
single amorphous group. If the usual fault in this type of
discussion is an excess of separatism, the contrary has been
the case here. It is quite essential to distinguish between
three groups of writings in this decade. To the first group
there belong the essay on the syllogism, the essay on n e g a t ~ v e
magnitudes, the essay on the foundation of a den10nstratio11
of the existence of God and the Prize Essay on the clearness
of the principles of metaphysics. These are evidence of con-
siderable work done between 1762 and 1764, and they are
oriented towards the past both in the presentation of the
problems and in the general terms of their solution. A
second group contains only one actual publication, the
Triiume eines Geistersehers, and otherwise consists of a
programme of his lectures, commonly referred to as the
Nachricht seiner Vorlesungen, and the correspondence with
Mendelssohn. Finally, a third group is made up of the
correspondence with Lambert, the essay on the distinction
of regions within space, the Dissertatio, and the letters to
Marcus Herz up to 21 February 1772. In tb.e first group
Kant resolved the problem of the possibility of metaphysics
by means of the Newtonian meth.od. Th.e second group
seems at first sight to question the possibility of metaphysics,
but from 1766 onwards it is once again indubitably foremost
in Kant's mind. In tl1e present section only the first group
will be discussed.
The burning question of influences, which always arises
in any discussion of the evolution of Kant's thought, is partly
resolved by means of this grouping. It is astonishing that in
this connection no-one has ever invoked a text which could
give an accurate picture of the actual state of affairs. Herder
attended Kant's lectures from 1762 to 1764. Thirty years
later, in 1795, he described the teaching which he had
27
received in terms which are perhaps more exact than is
commonly believed. In any case they seem to be eminently
descriptive: 'Mit ebendem Geist, mit dem er Leibniz, Wolf,
Baumgarten, Crusius, Burne prtifte und die Naturgesetze
Keplers, Nevvtons, der Physiker verfolgte, nahm er auch die/
damals erscheinenden Schriften Rousseaus, seinen Emil und
sein Heloise, sowie jede ihm bekannt gewordene Naturent-
deckung auf, wurdigte sie und kam immer zurtick auf
unbefangene Kenntnis der Natur und auf moralischen Wert
des Menschen.'l Three verbs, priifte, verfolgte, wiirdigte. He
critically examines the Wolffians, Crusius, a l ~ d Hume; he
expounds Newton and the physicists as one of their fol-
lowers; he praises Rousseau. The reference to criticism
and to the intellectual acceptance of Newton's views expresses
exactly the spirit of the first group of writings. In the
second group we are going to encounter the intellectual
legacy of his enthusiasm for Rousseau. There is no question
ofscepticism, or ofI-Iume. Kant knows the writings ofHume,
because he critiCIses them, but they do not exercise any
perceptible influence on him. On the contrary, t l ~ e problems
discussed in 1755 are again brought to the fore; the solu-
tions which will be given are more unequivocal and are
more clearly freed from Wolffian influence. The solutions
which they receive are those which Newton would have
given if metaphysics had tempted him. They are in fact
the solutions given by Newtonians such as de Maupertuis,
d' Alembert, Euler, or Lambert and Beguelin. On th.e
other hand, the philosophical attitude which inspires the
solutions is not new either for Kant or for his contemporaries,
for, if we exclude the link with Newton, the problems and
their solutions are already anticipated in the Crusian criti-
cism of Wolffian rationalism. The quaestiones, disputatae are
the same as those engendered by the metaphysics of Leibniz
described above: the problem of method discussed by Kant
1 'In the same spirit in which he examined Leibniz, Wolff, Baum-
garten, Crusius, 'and Hume, and expounded the natural laws of the
physicists Kepler and Newton, he .?llso took up the works of Rousseau
which. were then appearing, his Emile and his HelOise, and any new
natural discovery known to him, and gave his appraisal of them, always
coming back to disinterested knowledge of nature and to the moral
worth of man.'
in the Preisschrijt, the distinction between being and thought
established in the Beweisgrund, the discussion of causality to
which the essay on negative magnitudes is devoted, the
conflict about th.e conception of space indicated in the
Preisschrijt or Deutlichkeit. Let us examine the nature of-
these soiutions, bearing in nlind the logical order governing
them.
The years 1755 to 1764 mark a general tendency on
Kant's part to align himself with Newton. The method of
metaphysics is not the synthetic, n1athematical, Cartesian
method of Wolff, but the analytic method of Newtonian
physics. This tendency is already evident in the little essay
on the syllogism, especially in the conclusion which alone is
of interest to us. Judgment analyses the concept given in
the subject. The analysis of the concept into its constituent
notes is intended to clarify it. This is the classical concep-
tion- ofjudgment which as yet shows nothing of the construc--
tive operation of 1787. Judgment does 110t enlarge the field
of knowledge; it is limited to clarifying knowledge which
has been acquired, and is therefore invariably the same
operation. However, judgment does not seem to be the
. whole of knowledge, for in knowing we add to our informa-
tion, we discover truths hitherto unknown. Because of its
analytical structure judgment does not fulfil this function.
Consequently a conflict arises betwee11 the analytical
(:haracter of the judging function and the real aims of
science. In the second place, all judgments are made in
the realm of concepts and have no transcendent import.
Judgment is not the organ which is capable of grasping
existing things. Knowing things therefore does not consist
in clarifying and developing a material content, but in the
recognition both of the nature of things and of the reaspn
for their existence.
It is therefore indispensable to distinguish clearly between
the judgment about a thing and the thing itself. There is
between these two the same distinction which exists between
the real and the logical, between being and thought. It is
in the Beweisgrund then that Kant is going to establish the
distinction in question with all the consequences which it
carries with it. Kant warns us that he meditated eight or
29
nine years on the problem of the existence of God and on
the problems which this mode of existence raises. This
problem had already been raised, accidentally and hence
imperfectly, in 1755, but in the present work the discussion
is firmer and more close-knit and the solution is one of
principle and definitive. It makes little difference whether
the causal problem led Kant to our distinction or whether
the very distinction between being and thougl1t gave rise to
a further treatment of the causal problem.
The ontological proof of tIle existence of God furnishes
the occasion and the theme of the debate which Kant is
going to institute. The concept of being includes two
distinct elements: first, the concept of an essence or a
purely ideal existence; secondly, the position of this
essence in the realm of the transcendent or real existence.
Transcendence adds nothing to essence. It is therefore not
a property of a thing and cannot constitute a predicate
which can be attributed in a judgment. The analysis of
the subject, the proper function ofjudgment, makes explicit
the essence from which existence is formally excluded.
Affirmation of real existence therefore never has the analysis
of the subject as a foundation. This amounts to saying that
real existence cannot be determined by pure reason. The
existence postulated in judgment will always be relative
existence, while transcendent existence is absolute. The
assertion' God is all-powerful' is equivalent to the assertion
, If God exists, he is all-powerful'. On the other hand, the
assertion' God exists' states that some existing thing is God,
and we have there the absolute positing of God.
This at once raises the problem: how mayan absolute
existence be known? It appears to be soluble in only one
way. If thought, that is, judgment, cannot grasp it, then
we must turn to experience and determine it empirically.
An exception must certainly be made for one absolute
existent, namely God. Kant does not conclude to it from
experience, but from the concept of the possible. If we
ignore the exceptional character of divine existence, we can
easily see that the Kantian suggestion can be extended
without difficulty to the whole domain of metaphysics. If
existence is a fact of experience, can any validity still be
3
attributed to this science which deliberately deprives itself
of the guarantee of experience? A question of this kind
will underlie the whole Kantian activity from this n1.oment
on. In the essay on the syllogism he tells us that only what
is included in the subject can be demonstrated. As the
subject does not include real existence, the latter cannot be
analytically demonstrated. A distinction between the
nlethods of the sciences dealing with the real and tIle ideal
was therefore inevitable. Here both the striking unity and
single-mindedness of Kantian thought and also his personal
character are evident. The empirical elenlent in his thought
has led his interpreters to connect him with Hume. This
interpretation seems to be false. Crusius furnished the
problem and Newton the solution. Although Kant con-
fessed much -later that he had been awakened from his
dogmatic slumber by Hume, his retrospective glance was
certainly riot fixed on this moment in his thought.
In any case, the problem of existence is not an isolated
problem but is closely connected with the problem of
causality. There Kant takes up again the theme of suffi-
cient reason which had been hotly debated ever since the
metaphysics of Leibniz disturbed the habits of thought of
the physicists. As early as 1755, we have seen, Kant made
a distinction between real reason and logical reason, but he
identified real reason with causality. In 1763 he saw that
the \'Volffiano-Crusian real reason is not synonymous with
causality. Hence the discussiol1. is not concerned with the
principle of causality but with tl1.e idea of causation and
with particular causal relations. The Kantian argument
takes first a plainly negative line, especially in the essay on
negative magnitudes. He wants to establish a radical dis-
tinction between logical opposition and real opposition. In
the first we affirm and deny something of the same subject.
There is therefore no substitution of one predicate for
another, but simply the negatio11 of the first predicate by
the second. The result of contradiction will in this case be
a nihil repraesentabile. Real opposition, on the other hand,
is not simple contradiction, but involves replacing one
predicate by another just as positive. Thus simultaneous
and equally intense movement in opposite directions does
3
1
not produce absolute zero, but a real state, namely, rest.
In logical opposition the result is nothing because in it the
formal principles of tll0ught are violated and this violation
can only produce something inconceivable. In real opposi-
tion no principle is violated since ,these principles govern
only the connections between representations. Under these
conditions the result will be something real which only
. experience allows us to determine.
It was not difficult to apply this distinction between types
of opposition to the special case of the opposition between
logical reason and real reason, and the one opposition clarifies
the other. The logical relation between ground and con-
sequence is understood and explained by identity; thus
divisibility is conceived to be a consequence of composition.
But we cannot understand or explain by way of identity
how one thing can be derived from another. There we
have the real notion of causation: how is it that one thing
exists because another thing exists? The negative solution
is already included in what has preceded; it cannot be
understood by means of the principles of identity or contra-
diction. The positive solution which Kant sketches is barely
articulated; it cannot be understood by means ofjudgment,
he says, but only by means of a concept. This is a really
enigmatic reply and a veritable crux for the commentators.
Judgment is the analysis of an indistinct concept with the
purpose ofnlaking it clear. Well, says Kant, it seems impos-
sible to clarify the concept of cause, and every causal relation
must therefore be deemed inexplicable. Causality seems to
take the shape of a datum, unanalysable and not capable of
clarification, which we meet in experience. Kant was
deluded about the novelty of his solution. He thinks he
invented the whole thing himself, but in fact it is to be found
complete in Leibniz. However that may be, the formula
for the causal problem is not borrowed from Runle even
although the solution given agrees with his views in more
than one respect. Kant owes the setting of the problem to
Crusius and his criticislll of sufficient reason, but the solution
which he gives has been greatly enriched by his discussion of
existence and of the ontological proof of God.
We have now before us two remarkable achievements
3
2
which show Kant's thought breaking out of the Wolffian
circle; real existence is not demonstrable by means of
judgment, by conceptual analysis, by pure thought, nor can
causality in its turn be demonstrated by these means. It is
experience which assures us of both existence and causality.
In the two cases we have data which, raised to the level of
knowledge, are ultimate unanalysable concepts. It follows
that metaphysics, the science of existing things, cannot be
constructed on the Wolffian pattern, which is based on the
synthetic mathematical method.
This will be the result at which Kant arrives in the (i
Preisschrift or the Deutlichkeit, the real treatise on method
belonging to the pre-Critical period. Up to the present, the
writings of Kant falling between 1762 and 1764 have told
us in connection with certain particular problems how meta-
physics cannot be constructed. In the Deutlichkeit he informs
us how it must be constructed and what is the true method
which governs it. Kant establishes the metaphysical method
by opposing it, like many of his colleagues at this time, to
the method of mathematics, and deals with this methodo-
logical problem without any reference to physical considera-
tions. Here Kant is uniquely and definitively a philosopher.
Mathematics is the science of pure thought. Its objects are
ideal existences and its leading principle is that of ground
and consequence. Metaphysics is not a science of the ideal;
its objects are real absolute existences and its principle is
that of causality. Mathematics is the model of a notional
science. The function of a notional science is to clarify a
concept, to establish its objective content, in a word, to
define it. The first necessity is therefore definition. Every-
thing may then be demonstrated because demonstration is
simply the attempt to bring out the necessity of a predica-
tive determination of the subject. Notional science knows
only one unanalysable element, identity. Did not Wolff try
to demonstrate the principle of contradiction?
Philosophy, on the other hand, starts from data, analyses
them faithfully by a work of reflection, and leads if possible
to a definition. The empirical point ofdepartu' '.
determination in the order of transcende loll.dJg)4i.e ;
into contact with existing things. Thi ~ r given, but thei ...,~
(2,491) 33 '-''''1''"\,4 li.
are given raw and indistinct, and experience gives no
information about the metasensible relations with which
they are invested. They must be clarified before they can
be assin1ilated by the understanding. This is the role of
reflection which proceeds by the same rationalistic method
of analysis. The work of reflection always takes the form
of ajudgment. The analysis however ends in a large number
of unanalysable elements. None of these elements has a
rational Begrundung because they are not susceptible of treat-
ment by identity. Descartes sought their Begrundung in
innate ideas. Kant, who was never at any time an adherent
of the t11eory of innate ideas, wanted to compensate for the
absence of a rational Begrundung by an appeal to determina-
tion in experience. Instead of beginning with the simple
and the clear, metaphysics has the indistinct and the com-
plex as its point of departure. Hence, it is out of the
question to proceed synthetically after the pattern of mathe-
maticians, or, in other words, it is forbidden to begin with
a definition of the given. On the contrary, that is precisely
the end to be attained and is in consequence the completion
of the demonstrative process characteristic of philosophy.
The only admissible point of departure is empirical deter-
mination and immediate judgment about the given. All
synthetic deduction is forbidden to metaphysics. However,
metaphysics, like other sciences, aims at clarifying what is
given indistinctly by breaking it up into simple elements,
following the procedure of the analytic method which seeks
the constitutive notes of any essence, an activity which is an
intellectual reflection on the given of experience.
This analysis corresponds to the Newtonian method; the
true method ofmetaphysics is t h e ~ ; a . m e method which Newton
introduced into physics. The/'final outcome of a faithful
application of this method is the simple elements of which
the given is composed. These simple elements are not further
analysable; they are the Elementarbegrijfe or Grundbegrijfe.
There are few of these in mathematics, but in metaphysics
they are very numerous and there will be just as many
immediate judgments as there are elementary concepts. The
ideal end set by the mind is a complete list of these material
indemonstrable judgments. The mind would find in this list
34
THE PREPARATioN OF THE CRITICAL S'YNTHES1S'
the complete plan of the real world just as later the table of
categories will constitute the con1plete schema of our think-
ing activity. There is no pOil1t in searching for the key to
this change of attitude in some foreign influence to be
detected in the Preisschrift. It should simply be noted that
Kant once again follows the line adopted by German
thought in the international conflict between Descartes and
Newton. With praiseworthy perspicacity Crusius had per...
ceived the role of definition in the structure of the different
sciences; he had posed the problen1 of the Elementarbegrijfe ;
he had seen the inevitability of some measure of empiri-
cism in any factual science with any claims to realism.
It is he vvho inspired K.. ant. And Crusius was not alone in
this. In 1755 the memoir of Beguelin on the first prin-
ciples of metaphysics (the very subject of the Kantian
treatise) distinguished the method of mathematics from that
of philosophy in a manner very similar to that of Kant.
The Neues Organon of Lambert (1764) discussed exactly the
same problems which Crusius had left to the meditations of
his successors, and his Architectonik of 1772 proceeds a little
farther along the same path just at the time when Kant was
preparing to exchange Newtonianism for Critical idealism.
There is really no need to invoke I-Iume in all this.
The whole affair would be simple and straightforward if
an embarrassing remark by Kant had not once again made
it necessary to reopen the whole problem. On the basis of
the indications in the Deutlichkeit we understand the distinc-
tion between the methods of mathematics and metaphysics
as well as the domain which circumscribes their application,
and we should reasonably conclude that they cannot be
assimilated nor in any way interchanged. But Kant takes
the ground from under our feet by adding that the analytic
method is provisional in character because the moment has
not yet arrived when we can proceed synthetically in meta-
physics. This means, if the words have any sense, that the
synthetic method will once again reclaim its rights when
analysis has completed its clarificatory work. The scientific
ideals envisaged by mathematicians and philosophers fuse
together and their destinies are common. The distinction
between them depends simply on the stage which they
35
happen to have reached. This amounts to saying that
despite the empiricism which is evident in Kant at this
moment, the ideal of an a priori construction of universal
science retains for him all its attraction and force. In spite
of everything, the ideal of Descartes and of Hegel remains
the Kantian ideal. And this dream, great both in hopes
and in disappointments, renloves Kant from the Newtonian
and positivist orbit. If we set aside this distant ideal, how-
ever, the actual condition of the science, and perhaps even
of man, demands that metaphysics should follow the path of
Newton. Kant is not an empiricist. For an empiricist,
experience is not only the point of departure but also forms
part of the very texture of science. Kant sees in experience
a point of departure but claims that science goes beyond
experience after the manner of a rational science. The
concepts of science do have objective validity owing to the
fact that they are given to us in experience. Their objective
character is indissolubly linked to the given character of
their objects.
It is quite understandable then that Kant is going to get
closer and closer to Newton in the last problem which formed
part of the Descartes-Newton dispute, namely, the problem
of space. In 1755, we have already pointed out, Kant was
exactly midway between. t11e two antagonists. In the writings
which constitute our first group, space is not explicitly dis-
cussed but Kant studies its nature and its principal pro-
perties, using them as examples to illustrate his researches
in the field of methodology. He based the ideas which he
was forming about space on his epistemological ideas. The
orientation of his epistemological ideas does not lead him to
any radical modification of the positions which he had earlier
adopted. In fact, the space discussed is geometrical space,
therefore mathematical space, and consequently not neces-
sarily affected by the movement towards experience charac-
teristic of this period. Despite that, his hesitation is pro-
nounced. In the Beweisgrund he forbids himself to give a
definition of it, and there is in its pages a powerful Ahnung
of its absolute character. Although in the treatise about
God no final position is sketched, it is quite different in the
treatise on method. Kant comes closer to Newtonian space.
3
6
He forbids mathematicians to define it or to give any account
of it. As early as the essay on negative magnitudes, he had
denied to mathematicians the right to concern themselves
with space, while granting that right to philosophers. But
philosophers are obliged to consider it as a given, as one of
those elementary and unanalysable concepts. The mathe-
matical mind is not equipped to seize its essence. The
philosopher in general and Kant in particular study space
without considering the substances which fill it. Therefore
it is separable from these substances, and, since it is separ-
able, it represents something other than the simple relation
of their coexistence or their co-operation. Without doubt
space is a concept, not yet an intuition, although the defini-
tive conception is already anticipated in two lines of the text
where Kant expresses himself in the following manner.
, Dergleichen Satze lassen sich wohl erHiutern indem man
sie in concreto betrachtet, urn sie anschauend zu erkennen.' 1
The question is about three-dimensional space.
We can say therefore by way of resume that Kant has
finally broken with Wolffianism. The silence of the years
1755-62 has been beneficial. It allowed Kant, once he had
emerged from it, to sketch the contours of a philosophy quite
unlike the academic philosophy of the day, but adequate as
a philosophy for thinkers-scientists and philosophers-who
had been influenced by the progressive spirit of Newton.
4
THE PSEUDO-SCEPTICISM OF THE TRAuME
cf. La Deduction I, 101-4, 200-2
It is indisputable that with the first group of writings belong-
ing to the period under review Kant seems to have reached a
stage which allowed him to call a halt. A rumour was also
circulating in Konigsberg (perhaps Kant himselfwas respon-
sible for it) that he was going to reduce his ideas to treatise
1 'Propositions of this kind can be explained by looking at them in
concreto in order to grasp them intuitively.'
37
form. He certainly found hin1self obliged to give the lie to
this rumour while writing to Lambert. Furthermore, his
teaching had undergone considerable development and the
Nachricht seiner Vorlesungen indicates not only its extent but
also the pedagogical method whicll he proposed to follow.
Kant began with a resume of the content of the Preissehrift
in brief and precise propositions which allow us to
appreciate how assured was his methodology. The analytic
method definitely overshadows the synthetic method. He
assures his public that in conformity with his theoretical
attitude it is no part of his intelltion in his philosophical
teaching to furnish a finished philosophy as if he were
unwinding a skein of thread, but rather to imitate Socrates
in his scientific and zetetic maieutic so that the teaching of
philosophy will follow the heuristic path by which it is
built up. His purpose is not to furnish the minds of his
auditors with a finished doctrine, but to give them a disci-
pline and a method of thought. This heuristic path begins
in the order of knowledge by an appeal to experience so
that from this point of departure it can move from the
simple to the composite. The programme of lectures for
the winter term of 1765-6 consequently confirms the
Newtonianism of this period.
It becomes all the more difficult to appreciate the
significance of tIle Triiume eines Geistersehers erliiutert durek die
Triiume der Metaphysik. This work had not been com-
missioned but was an occasional piece more or less forced
out of hinl, as he confessed to Mendelssohn, by the enthu-
siasm aroused by Swedenborg and his mysticism. It is a
pamphlet which very quickly goes beyond its original pur-
pose in order to pour sarcasm on metaphysics itself.
K. Fischer wanted to see a sceptical Kant in this pamphlet
and interpreted the sarcastic tone of its pages as a sign of
sceptical detachment on Kant's part towards metaphysics.
It is unnecessary to say that we refuse to subscribe to this
opinion. To put it briefly: Kant bears witness here to his
absolute certainty that the Wolffian metaphysics is false, and
at the same time, while professing his love for metaphysics,
he confesses to a certain hesitation about its possibility as a
science.
Kant recognised two things in the course of his medita-
tions: first, that knowledge of the real has experience as its
sole origin and that in consequence only ll1athematics can
claim the title of a pure a priori science; secondly, tl1at
theoretical metaphysics is not indispensable as a foundation
for morality. The first thesis is the outcome of the researches
undertaken between 1762 and 1764, the results of which
appear in the writings of that period. Kant owed the
second thesis to the influence ofJ. J. Rousseau. It must not
be forgotte11 that the spiritual life of Germany was violently
disturbed when the Sturm und Drang noisily announced the
advent of a new generation which was to be the precursor
of romanticism. Kant ventured into teaching with the
purpose of assuring a solid material foundation for his
future career, and in a text addressed to Lindner in 1759
he confessed that he was naturally curious, a professor by
nature, the living incarnation of the rationalist mentality of
the Aufkliirung. During the summer of 1762 the Kanter
bookshop had brought to Konigsberg the Social Contract
which had been thrown to the flames in Paris. Emile
followed in the course of the same year. It was at this
moment, according to the testimony of Herder, that Kant
acquired an enthusiasm for Rousseau, that he developed a
veritable cult of nature and of the idea of the moral value
of man. The consequences of this new infatuation are
discernible in all Kant's work up to 1766.
Kant corroborates the story of his pupil in an indisput-
able piece of evidence. He had added a series of extremely
important marginal notes to his working copy of the Beobach-
tungen aber das Schiine und das Erhabene (1764). These give a
broad general idea of the sort of influence exercised by
Rousseau. 'I am a seeker by nature', we read there,
, avid for knowledge. I sincerely thought that the greatness
of man lies there and that in this way the cultivated man
is to be distinguished from the plebs. Rousseau put me
back on the right road. Rousseau is another Newton.
Newton completed the science of external nature, Rousseau
that of the i11ternal universe or of man. Just as Newton
laid bare the order and regularity of the external world, so
Rousseau discovered the hidden nature of man. It was
39
imperative to recover a true conception of the nature of
man. Philosophy is nothing but the practical knowledge
of man'. When IZant, after 1770, recovered his spiritual
equilibrium, he was to criticise the sentimentalism and the
method of Rousseau. By that time the crisis was over. But
at its height, as in the Triiume, it is acute.
A metaphysical Newtonianism suggested by Crusius and
by contemporary is the state of mind revealed
by the writings of 1762-4. The fusion of this thesis with the
views of Rousseau was bound to perpetuate such distinctive
features as the sovereign contempt for the kind of speculation
which has no effect on the conduct of life. It is certainly
tempting to believe that his dislike for metaphysical specula-
tion was accentuated by his reading of Hume. To limit
science to experience is to admit the uselessness of meta-
physics. Its moral neutrality marks its evil character. It
is indisputable that references to Hume and his doctrine
become more numerous -and more precise from 1762 on-
wards. However, if the Triiume is read with the attention
which it demands, scarcely any traces will be found of a
scepticism which would suggest the influence of the Scottish
thinker. In fact, in the diatribe against Inetaphysics all
the indications are that we must distinguish its method
from its spirit.
The main object of metap11ysics is to show that its errors
spring directly from a vicious method. There is nothing
new in this because the vice of method noted by Kant is
the one which he had already brought to light in the
Preisschrift, namely the indiscriminate application of the
synthetic method of mathen1atics to a science of facts. It
follows that it is not metaphysics itself which is rejected,
but a special type of metaphysics, namely, that which rests
on the faulty methodology referred to. The method advo-
cated by Kant as the only acceptable one is always the
analytic method of Newtonian physics.
If the methodological position of the Triiume raises
scarcely any difficulties, it is a different matter when it
comes to determining the object of metaphysics, an object
which immediately becomes twofold. The classical object
of metaphysics was to know things by pure reason. On
4
this definition, said Kant, we can know nothing and every
alleged science can be nothing better tllan a doxa since we
cannot proceed synthetically (synthetisch verfahren) when we
wish to know an existing thing. Once again this global
condemnation does not touch metaphysics, but only syn-
thetic metaphysics. Having condenlned the classical con-
ception of metaphysics, Kant proceeds to assign it a new
object. It is the function of metaphysics to study what
nlan can know on the basis of the concepts of experience,
the only fOllndation of our real judgments. This amounts
to saying that the task of metaphysics is to determine the
area which can be explored by a reason which is organically
connected with experience or, in other words, to limit reason
to empirical knowledge. It follows that Kant has clearly
seen that reason, although formally unlimited as a cognitive
faculty, is materially limited by the given of experience.
Basically this does not differ from ,,,,hat he had said in
1762-4, but no very keen observation is required in order
to discern a change in tonality in Kant's thinking since that
tinle. The Triiume is dominated by a scarcely hidden
exasperation and in it Kant gives free rein to his feelings.
To what should this change in his attitude be attributed?
To nothing else, it seems to me, than his perception of the
uselessness of all metaphysical speculation in the moral
conduct of life. It is therefore much more Rousseau than
Hume who is responsible for Kant's alleged scepticism,
which is in the end notlling but a passing bout of pessimism.
When Kant sent hinl a complimentary copy of the Traume,
Mendelssohn claimed to be offended by the contemptuous
tone which dominated the book. Kant none the less con-
tinued to proclaim his hatred and contempt for the reigning
metaphysics. Objectively considered (objectiv erwogen) , he
nevertheless added, metapllysics is neither useless nor con-
temptible, but, as long as it proceeds by the deductive
method, it can only go on accumulating errors. If the
analytic method is employed, its proper object shifts; it
consists in determining the limits which the given of experi-
ellce imposes on our reason. It may be seen that, materially
considered, his teaching lias suffered little change since
the Preisschrift. The Triiume may be inserted without
4
1
difficulty into the methodological reflections of the pre-
Critical period.
If we now leave method and consider the doctrine of
causality, we reach an identical conclusion. Kant repeats
that no causal relations can be discerned by pure reason but
that all are to be found in experience. Reason is based on
the principles of identity and contradiction. The formal
principles, however, are not applicable in the case ofcausality
because there the question concerns how the existence of one
thing makes necessary the existence of another. Therefore
the notion of causality cannot be reduced to simpler rational
concepts: it is one of the Grundbegriffe which have to be
found, like those of force and action, in experience. After
showing the impossibility of a rational deduction of any
causal relation, Kant illustrates his thesis by the example of
'voluntary action exercised on our bodily organs. This is
the same example which Hume had used to support his
thesis. The origin of the Kantian doctrine has naturally
been seen in Hume's Enquiry, but it is none the less curious
to note that Kant had known of this work before 1762,
although it had no apparent influence. I do not think that
the awakening from dogmatic slumber, which Kant speaks
of later, can be referred to this period. Th.e account of
causality is an exact replica of that given by Hume, but it
is none the less curious to find it in the Negativen Griissen.
It may therefore be taken as established, let us say by
way of conclusion, that in 'I 763 Kant read the work of Hume
without his doctrine becoming the focal point of a striking
revolution in Kant's ideas. Newton and Crusius contributed
much more effectively to the breakdown of the Wolffianism
in his mind. It is nevertheless true that the noticeable change
of tone can be explained by one or the other method. I
believe that Rousseau must be held responsible for this
change of tone, for he revealed to Kant the superiority of
morality to knowledge. It would undoubtedly be going
too far to follow Cassirer in holding that Kant's metaphysical
work up to this point had no other raison d'etre than its
bearing on morality. No, metaphysics has a value in itself.
'I was an investigator', confessed Kant. However, he
never lost contact with ethics. The little work of 1759 on
4
2
optimism finds its place within the solid framework of
bourgeois optimism characteristic of enlightened Woffianisn1.
The Preisschrift studied metaphysical principles in theodicy
and ethics; the theoretical part was consequently a pre-
paration for the metaphysics of morals. The future forma-
lism is already evident, for Kant attempts to distinguish the
formal principles of morality: act in the most perfect way
you can. In the letter to Formey, which accompanied his
memoir, he is uncertain whether it is reason or feeling
which rules in the field of morality. According to the
Nachricht, Hutcheson, Shaftesbury, Hume, and Burke are his
models ill 1765. The Beobachtungen is more of a moral
psychological treatise than an essay in aesthetics. The
consciousness of moral feeling is the foundation of ethics.
In the Triiume metaphysics is impossible as a science as long
as it studies objects beyond the realm ofexperience; scientific
evidence gives way to moral faith. The blending of New-
tonianism and the sentimentalism of Rousseau therefore
affords some explanation of the difficulties which faced Kant
at this time.
5
INTIMATIONS OF SYSTEMATISATION
cf. La Deduction I, 100-4, I 16-17, 145-6
While the analytic method remained Kant's panacea, a
profound modification of the object of metaphysics may be
discerned in the Triiume. The object ofWolffian speculation
is mercilessly condemned, and the metaphysics which,
objectiv erwogen, retains its value, according to Kant, is that
which examines the limits inlposed on reason by the experien-
tial character of the given. The problem of the limitation
of reason is coming into view and for Newtonianism there
is imperceptibly substituted the theme which heralds pheno-
menalism. A kind of inventory of the pre-Critical period
can now be made under the three following heads:
(I) Things reveal their presence and their nature in the
43
given of experience; there is therefore no real knowledge
without such a given. (2) Real knowledge is limited to
the content of experience. (3) Reason is 110t lin'lited in
itself, but it is limited in its content by experience. A
science with any transcendent import is limited to the
content furnished by experience. It follows that there is
no ground for considering metaphysics as a source of real
or transcendent knowledge. In so far as it is a priori, it is
pure analysis of concepts. Can it have any object other
than the transcendent? If it does not discover the external
world, it can discover the conditions which a real science
must satisfy. These are reached as the result of an analysis
of the conditions imposed on reason by the demand that it
be limited to experience.
Hence there is no a priori knowledge of things; such
knowledge is always a posteriori. This raises a very grave
problem. The true foundation of objective science is a
posteriori. But this does not satisfy the demands of science,
which only becomes science when the necessity and uni-
versality of its constituent elements is made clear. But
experience is not the organ of the necessary and the uni-
versal. On the other h.and, the rationalist solution is also
deficient. It takes account of necessity but it cannot claim
any validity in reality. Kant did not know how to get out
of this difficulty. He did not even see it as clearly as we
might desire. '!\Then he did eventually see this difficulty,
it was going to be necessary for him to surmount it by
distinguishing in the datum of knowledge both a rational
and an irrational element. But we have not yet reached
that point.
The Critical philosophy connects phenomenalism with
the distinction between the analytic and the synthetic judg-
ment. It was consequently tempting to locate the discovery
of this distinction at just this point in Kant's development.
Adickes, followed by Cassirer, appealed to an impressive
number of Reflexionen to show that in his thinking about
causality Kant was converted to the equation: empirical
equals synthetic. I cannot accept this makeshift solution
because the texts and fragments are positively undatable.
In any case, in the Traurae, despite the opportunity it
44
afforded for such a discussion, there is no question of syn-
thetic judgment. It must not be forgotten th.at tIle terms
, analytic' and' synthetic' have quite a different meaning
when applied to judgments and to meth.ods. Furth.ermore,
we must not allow ourselves to be led astray. The change
of front which these scholars wish to locate at this moment
was more difficult than might be imagined. The work in
the domain of methodology to which Kant had devoted
himself from the beginning of his career converged towards
a radical distinction between mathematics and philosophy.
But the division of judgments into analytic and synthetic
amounts to a new classification under quite a different
principle. It was Lambert and Leibniz who started Kant
along the new line of development which ended in the
distinction between judgments.
Between I765 and I767 there was an exchange of letters
between Lambert and Kant, two men with minds of a
similar cast. In a letter expounding his ideas, Lambert
told Kant that in his view the future of metaphysics depended
on the distinction between form and matter: matter cannot
be deduced from form, and any talk of form which is not
applied to an objective content of knowledge is empty verba-
lism. This was the basis of the Neues Organon which he had
published in I764. 'In all knowledge', he said, 'it is
necessary to consider both the content or matter which is
supplied by perception and the form which is nothing but
the thought to be found in the laws of logic and mathe-
matics.' It must be noted that Lambert was a lone wolf
amid the philosophical movements of his time. It is all the
more significant that Kant immediately declared himself in
agreement with Lambert when the substance of his method
was condensed into one pregnant sentence.
The point of view adopted by Lambert was not perhaps
completely novel to Kant. In I765 Raspe had unearthed
the Nouveaux Essais of Leibniz. Windelband rightly insisted,
though possibly with some exaggeration, on the numerous
points of contact between the doctrine of the Dissertatio of
1770 and the Leibnizian work. In this posthumous work,
Leibniz defended a method analogous to that of Lambert :
the concepts and principles by which we represent the
45
THE DEVELOPMENT OF KANTIAN TROUGHT
material content of experience are the consciousness of intel-
lectuallaws or functions. There is therefore for Leibniz an
a priori knowledge of the laws of understanding and an a
posteriori knowledge of the content of experience. This con-
tent is represented by the sensible manifestations of things.
The intellectual operations; of which we become aware as
they take place, pass into Leibniz's doctrine in the shape of
cognitive forms.
But let no-one misunderstand our intentions. We want
to take note of a simple coincidence rather than to attribute
to the Nouveaux Essais a determining influence in the years
1765-7. It may very well be that this influence must be
placed later, provided that it be placed before 1770. How-
ever that may be, his alleged scepticism did little to prevent
Kant from pursuing his purpose of assuring the future of
metaphysics. On the contrary, the new object which he
assigned to it gave him new confidence. At least that is
what he says to Herder in 1767. From the moment when
Herder left l' Albertine (1764), a great change took place in
tIle thought of the master. Instead of directing his attention
on Newtonian empiricism as a means of saving metaphysics,
he began to think about the knowledge ofthe limits ofhuman
faculties and propensities. In this way the problem oflimita-
tion spread to the domain of knowledge and of morality.
Even his confidence in ethics seems greater; he believed
that he had found the true principles of this discipline as
well as the fruitful lnethod, and this allowed him to predict
that in the course of the year he would be able to work out
the Metaphysics of Morals. In the same way, the letters to
Lambert open a perspective from which to view the first
intimations of an integral systematisation of philosophy.
This project contains a division comparable to that of the
Critical project: one part is to pursue the Hauptziel and
discuss the method of metaphysics, and the other part is to
contain the metaphysics. The first part had to be postponed
because Kant, on his own admission, had worked out the
theory, but had not yet found examples which would enable
him to make it intelligible. He undertook instead the second
part which was to include the Anfangsgriinde of the
metaphysics of nature and the metaphysics of morals.
4
6
Unfortunately even this limited purpose remained a mere
project although the materials were ready.
6
FIRST SOLUTION OF THE PROBLEM OF
METAPHYSICS
cf. La Deduction I, 147-64, 202-10; Mind, 303-20
In 1766 a second period of silence began which lasted up to
178I, since the little essay on space is only a journal article
and the Dissertatio of 1770 owes its birth to a purely pro-
fessionalobligation. We do not know what made Kant give
to a local weekly the article on the distinction of regions in
space. In the Triiume there had indeed been a discussion of
the relation of God to space, and another discussion about
the localisation of the soul; there is also the declaration to
Mendelssohn, according to which the object of metaphysics
is to know how the soul is present in the world; those two
problems certainly deal with the relations between material
and spiritual substances and space. But neither the one nor
the other seems to have led to the little meditation about
space. On the other hand, the Newton-Leibniz dispute
started again in the course of the years 1760-70 and the
problem of space-time became again the centre of the
quarrel. The Theoria philosophiae naturalis of Boscovitch and
its supplement De Spatio et Tempore (1763), the Melanges de
Litterature et de Philosophie of de Maupertuis (I 763-70), the
De Substantiis et Phaenomenis by Plouquet (1764), the Theoria
motus corporum solidorum (1765) and the Lettres aune Princesse
allemande (1768) by Euler, the Anfangsgriinde der hiiheren
Meckanik by Kaestner (1776), and L' Essai d'une Conciliation
de la Metaphysique de Leibniz avec la Physique de Newton by
Beguelin (1776) provide unequivocal evidence of this
fact.
The littledissertation on space informs the mathematicians
that absolute space in the Newtonian sense is the necessary
47
condition ofthe possibility oftheir science. Space is therefore
independent of the existence of matter, but at the same time
it is the condition of the possibility of the order which is to
be found in the material world. Kant illustrates his total
conversion to Newtonian space by demonstrating that things
possess spatial characteristics which are not contained in their
concept as constitutive marks and which on the other hand
are not explicable in terms of relative space. He invokes
first of all the Raumgefiihl, that is, the fact that the position
of a body does not depend on the reciprocal relations of its
parts but on its relation to our own body. Relative space
cannot account for this fact. Secondly, he invokes the case
of symmetrical objects such as a spherical triangle, our image
reflected in a mirror, the two hands, etc. This symmetry
cannot be explained by the simple reciprocal relation of the
parts but only by means of the relation of these objects to
absolute space in so far as they occupy different sections of
this absolute space.
It is clear that this discovery was to reinforce Kant in his
Newtonianism. Euler had anticipated him on this point.
For Euler, absolute space is the absolute condition of the
principles of 111echanics. Kant, on the contrary, addresses
himself only to the geometers and points out to them that
this same space is the condition of geometry. However,
from this he goes on to draw epistemological conclusions
which go considerably beyond what Euler could have taught
him. Kant agrees with Euler in concluding t11at space
cannot be considered as a purely ideal being or as a being
of reason in the manner of Leibniz. Space is something
transcendent and for that reason is the condition of the
possibility of outer experience. The doctrine of the trans-
cendent nature of space was once again to throw doubt on
the rationalist hypothesis of the a priori necessity of mathe-
matics. If space is a real existent, and if geometry is the
real science of space, then, in keeping with the Newtonian
tone of this whole period, geometry had to be an empirical
science. This is a conclusion to which Kant never subscribed
and to which he could not have subscribed. But the con-
clusion to which he did come was that absolute space is not
an object of experience and that the relation of things to
4
8
49
absolute space is not directly perceptible. Since space is not
an object of experience, the science of space cannot be
empirical, even although space makes possible all experience
and all outer sensation. So, in the end, we see that Kant
recognised in space a real being, absolute but unique, the
knowledge of which contains the explanatory basis of all
sensatioll. It must be considered one of the Grundbegriffe,
but one of a special type because it does not seem to be
abstracted fronl experience. It is intuitive.
We are therefore faced with two theses of a very different
order: the Triiulne made the limitation of reason by experi-
ence the very object of metaphysics: the article on space
leads us towards a space which is absolute, substantial, and
concrete, thus having the character of an intuition. The
Dissertatio of 1770, which is a first exposition of the Critical
philosophy, must now be explained by means of these two
theses. It was undoubtedly the problem of space which set
the powder on fire. We read in Reflexio 537: 'Wenn ich
nur so viel erreiche dass ich tiberzeuge, man mtisse die
Bearbeitung dieser Wissenschaft so lange aussetzen, bis man
diesen Punkt ausgemacht hat, so hat diese Schrift ihren
Zweck erreicht. Ich sahe anfenglich diesen Lehrbegriff wie
in einer Danlmerung. Ich versuchte es gantz ernstlich,
Satze zu beweisen und ihr Gegenteil, nicht urn eine Zweifel-
lehre zu errichten, sondern weiI ich eine Illusion des
Verstandes vermuthete, zu entdecken, worin sie stacke. Das
Jahr 6g gab nlir grosses Licht.' 1 A further decisive piece of
evidence, a letter to Garve in 17g8, confirms this account.
'Nicht die Untersuchung worn Daseyn Gottes, der Unsterb-
lichkeit, etc. ist der Punck gewesen von clem ich ausge-
gangen bin, sonclern die Antinomie der reinen Vernunft.' 2
The Prolegomena informs us that the antinomies are the
1 , If I only succeed in persuading [readers] that work in the science
must be given up until this point has been settled, this work will have
served its purpose. At first I grasped this doctrine only obscurely. I
attempted quite seriously to prove both propositions and their opposites,
not in order to establish a doctrine of doubt, but, as I suspected that
there was an illusion of the understanding, in order to discover what
this illusion actually was. The year 1769 gave me great light.'
2 'It was not from any inquiry into the existence of God or the
immortality of the soul that I started, but from the antinomies of pure
reason.'
(2,491)
proper means of awakening the philosopher fronl his dog-
matic slumber and we are told that this awakening coincided
with the discovery of the Critical problem. The problem
referred to by both these texts is that of the antinomies. The
antinomies are divided in 1781 into two classes: a mathe-
matical and a dynamical class. The first concerns space,
the second metaphysics. The first class dealing with space
was the only one recognised in 1769. The fourfold division
of the categories which governs the grouping of the anti-
nonlies did not exist at this moment.
On tIle basis of our texts it might be concluded that the
problem of the antinomies was the cradle of the Critical
philosophy. Let us note however the remarkable prudence
shown by the texts. 'The year 1769 gave me great light "
says Kant. Although that could certainly mean tllat the
Critical philosophy found the reason for its existence in the
antinomies, there is nothing yet to prevent us from reading
these texts as meaning that the finding of the Critical philo-
sophy furnished the solution to the antinomies. In this case
the light would consist in the fact th.at the Critical philosophy
permits the resolution of the paradoxes of continuity and the
antinomies of infinity. However that may be, it is certainly
the adoption of a belief in absolute space that brought the
problem of antinomies to the fore. As long as Kant had not
openly taken part in the Leibniz-Clarke duel about the
nature of space, there was no reason for him to get upset
about the paradoxes of the infinite. But with the adoption
of the absolute view of space the question becanleurgent.
On the one hand absolute geometrical space is infinitely
divisible, while on the other the substances which fill it are
composed of simple, indivisible, atomic, or monadological
elements. In an article in Mind (1938) I have already
explained how the problem posed by Pierre Bayle had
excited passionate discussion throughout the whole
Europe.
This was not the only problem for Kant. In addition
to the endless discussions about the paradoxes which had
lasted for at least three-quarters of a century, there were
also the difficulties inherent in the part played by space in
his general philosophical position. Since our representation
5 _
l-- _
of space is not empirical, it is not an intuition: on the
other hand, being unique it is not a concept, and yet it is
the condition of the possibility of mathematics, and therefore
absolutely necessary. This means that we know prior to all
experience an absolute being which really exists. Such a
conception is scarcely reconcilable with the extreme New-
tonianism advocated in the Triiume and there is nothing in
Kant's past thinking which would permit the solution of the
enigma presented by absolute space. It is worth noting here,
I think, that the texts we have quoted in order to sl1.oW the
contribution of the antinomies to Kant's thinking do not give
us any assurance that they were the only elements in and
the only objects of Kant's meditations. On the contrary, I
have already shown how Kant found the true Leibnizian
epistemology in the Nouveaux Essais brought to light in 1767.
This discovery of Leibniz becomes very important from this
time on.
How are the difficulties inherent in the nature of space
to be resolved? In general, the Critical solution consists in
denying to space the character of an object, that is, in con-
sidering it not as a substantial being, but as an a priori form
ofknowledge. The ideality ofspace is the elld to be attained.
Kant is aware of the distinction between fornl and matter,
but he has just begun to envisage space as an existent being.
Was it going to be necessary to return to the relativist con-
ception of Leibniz? The Nouveaux Essais make space a pure
idea originating in the understarlding, which constructs this
concept out of sensible perceptions. Kant could have found
there the ideality of space as the form of knowledge of
perceptions, but a serious obstacle prevented him from
simply adopting the Leibnizian thesis. The difficulty is
that space, however it may be represented, is not a concept
or an abstract idea; its concrete unity makes it near
neighbour to intuition. If it is a concept, it is not an
abstract concept, but a peculiar kind of concept.
In the eyes of Leibniz the question of origin was not
primary. Intuition and concept, sensibility and under-
standing only indicated differences in degrees of clearness :
intuition was the obscure representation while the concept
was the clear representation of the object. This view is, of
51
course, quite incompatible with Kant's recent ideas about
space. Space is not a concept, and geometry, which is
founded on it, consists of theorems which are infinitely
clearer than those of metaphysics. The distinction between
representations and faculties therefore resides elsewhere. It
must be located in the very nature of those orders of know-
ledge which differ, not in degree of clearness, but in kind
and origin. Two orders are going to find themselves side
by side because two faculties, sensibility and understanding,
each sui generis, are going to be side by side, and both
originate types of knowledge which are not interchangeable.
Each of these orders has its own forms or laws and its own
matter. Sensibility therefore has its own matter and an
independent form. This latter is necessarily a priori. Space,
along with time, will be tIle apriori form of sensible intuition.
The sanle will be true of understanding: Kant looks for the
a priori form of understanding and, since it is too soon to
think of the categories, he takes up again the old idea of
unanalysable concepts which he now regards, it should be
noted, after the fashion of Leibniz, as laws or intellectual
principles.
The problem was solved as soon as Kant had determined
the nature of space with all the consequences that follow
from it. There remained the second problem, namely, the
object of metaphysics which, since the Triiume, consisted in
the limitation of reason by the immediately given of experi-
ence. I-Iowever, the situation was now completely reversed
by the distinction in kind between sensibility and under-
standing. Sensibility and its intuitions are made possible
by the a priori forms of space and time, the basis of mathe-
matics; understanding and its concepts are made possible
by the a priori forms of unanalysable concepts, the basis of
metaphysics. In the Nouveaux Essais perception was the
sensible manifestation of things, hence the representation of
their appearances, and to this Kant added that they are
received in space and time. Intuition tllerefore knows
things in their sensible appearances. 'The understanding',
said Leibniz, 'knows things as they are'. Therefore, by
the intellectual forms we know things as they are in them-
selves, in a manner beyond any sensible mode of reception.
52
Metaphysics therefore is given an infinitely more importallt
role than before. It is no longer the analytic science which
limits reason to experience, but it becomes the science of
things as they are in themselves. TIle object no longer
lleeds to be given to our senses in order to be known. It
is undoubtedly given to our senses, and the sensible reception
is real, but it is given as a manifestation of a manifold of
sensible phenomena. Beyond that, the object is still thought
by pure understanding in so far as its internal essence and
its metasensible properties escape the reach of sensibility.
Kant did not ask himself the question how we can know
things in their pure essence by means of pure understanding.
It looks as if the pleasure he took in the discovery of ideality
clouded for a moment his perspicacity.
Just at this moment, Kant, who was already known
throughout all Gernlany, saw the possibility of obtaining a
professorship. A chair of theology had become vacant. In
this connection he had to defend a thesis. Thus it was that
in 1770 he reduced to writing his epistemological ideas in
the De mundi sensibilis atque intelligibilis forma et principiis
dissertatio, a work whicll is always knOWll by the last word
in its title. This work, whose meaning has been violently
discussed, has a dual structure as the reference to the
sensible world and the intelligible world indicates. In
connection with the sensible world Kant expounds the
Critical theory of the a priori forms of sensibility which are
purely receptive: space and time are possible in so far as
they are a priori forms of intuition, which knows only the
appearances of things.
With regard to the theory of the intelligible world Kant
could only expound provisional and epllemeral ideas. He
had solved the problem of objectivity by limiting reason to
experience. The limiting condition has just been removed
through the influence of Leibniz; metaphysics is not the
formal science of reason, but a material science of things.
However, in formal opposition to Leibniz, Kant bases
the difference between the two worlds on the generic
distinction between the two opposing faculties and their
fornls and principles. The distinction in degree between
clear and obscure is replaced by a difference in kind
53
between receptivity and spontaneity. To one faculty
things are given, while the other thinks thenl in its own
right.
Metaphysics is going to be rooted in understanding and
its power of spontaneity. From this point of view it is
necessary to distinguish the double use which we can make
of our intellectual power according to tIle origin of the
matter which it invests with an a priori form. There is
first a logical llse, which originates sensible appearances
and universalises its object by submitting the material per-
cept to the natural law which governs it. The result is the
empirical concept whicll can never claim tIle dignity of a
pure idea because of the indelible imprint left on it by the
sensible origin of its nlatter.
The outcome of the logical or analytic use of understand-
ing is the concept of experience or of the empirical object,
which is therefore made up of material perceptions ordered
by the laws originating in intuition (space and time) and
brought to the concept. This use guarantees the knowledge
of empirical things but only so far as they are known as
sensible appearances. On this provisional construction of
empirical data in space and time it confers the character of
an empirical object. This part of Kant's thought is definitive
and will not be subject to further modification.
In the second or real use, understanding creates the
matter and form of its own concepts. Kant still holds that
behind all its sensible determinations tIle thing hides an
internal ontological essence which eludes all en1.pirical
investigation. Kant's rationalist temperament is clearly
revealed in this type of affirmation. Knowledge of the
essence of things must be attained by reason and in an
a priori manner. There we have the real use of reason.
Through it Kant claims to know things in their own essence
by the use of a priori concepts. Where do these concepts
come from? rrhey are not derived from the sensible like
abstract concepts, but they represent rational activity itself.
On the other hand they are not innate. They express the
general relations established by reason through the exercise
of its fundamental laws on the occasion of experience.
What are these laws? Kant does not tell us. They are
54
the concepts which constitute the matter of metaphysics and
of morality.
From now on these epistemological prolegomena will
allow Kant to elaborate a positive method for metaphysics.
In metaphysics we have the science of the principles which
govern the real use of understanding by means of which we
know the ontological essence of existing things. The general
principle of the method which n'lllst be followed consists in
freeing the understanding from any taint of sensible con-
ditioning. Is this to be interpreted then as contrary to the
teaching of the Triiunle and of l\Jewton? Undoubtedly it
must be. How is such a methodological principle to be
justified? In physics, the object is given, and the work of
intelligence consists in transforming the given phenomena
into experience by the logical use of understanding, through
which we subordinate them to a law and convert them into
an empirical object. In this operation the phenomenon
acquires greater clarity and perfection. In metaphysics, the
concept of things in themselves is given by understanding.
Ifin physics the method was imposed by the given character
of its matter, here the method necessarily precedes meta-
physics itself, because it expounds its intellectual laws and
in so doing determines the real use of understanding. The
principle of the metaphysical method consists in the auto-
nomy of reason understood in such a way that the sensible
forms do not constitute its necessary limits. The absolute
condition of the possibility of metaphysics lies in the recog-
nition that understanding has a wider domain than sensi-
bility. Metaphysics acquires its rational purity by carefully
avoiding all contamination by sensibility or, what amounts
to the same thing, by confining the sensible principles and
forms to their proper field of application. If understanding
is indeed automatically freed from the conditions under
which the sensible and en1.pirical is received, then there is
no reason why the schematism of rational forms should not
be ipso facto the schematisn1 of the ontological forms of a
world of transcendent things. The formal principle of the
sel1.sible is the principle of the subjective reception of the
given; its validity is subjective. If the pure concept were
subordinated to it, the subjectivity inherent in the sensible
55
would inevitably contaminate the concept. It is therefore
highly important for the validity of metaphysics that the
subjective conditions of its intuition should not be held to
be a condition of the object in itself.
Admittedly this is still limitation, but the nature of the
limitation has beell completely changed. In the Traume,
sensibility was the beneficiary of the limiting imperative;
in the Dissertatio, it is pure understanding. Intuition is sub-
jective; understanding is objective. Kant here adopts a
standpoint clearly opposed to the general conclusion of his
pre-Critical reflection and equally opposed to the Critical
standpoint which is to come. If, now as later, he employs
the same elements, he will keep changing the roles assigned
to them. These considerations must determine the meaning
of the Dissertatio and its position in the history of Kantian
thought. If the essence of the Critical philosophy is held
to be the subjective ideality of tIle forms of cognition, the
Dissertatio clearly anticipates the Critical philosophy. If, on
the contrary, its essence is held to lie in objectivity, the
Dissertatio is less important. I personally believe that the
problem of objectivity is the specifically Critical problem.
We see that Kant in 1770 came to believe unhesitatingly in
the objectivity ofa transcendent metaphysics because th.epure
concepts themselves have transcendent validity. Fronl this
it may be concluded that the genuinely Critical problem has
not yet been perceived. But it will not be long before it is.
All its constitutive elements are present, since all the factors
which determine the objectivity of transcendent metaphysics
in the Dissertatio are soon going to be used as grounds for
denying such objectivity. The fate which his colleagues
were preparing for the Dissertatio is going to open Kant's
eyes and annihilate in one blow all this fine but fruitless
attempt at dognlatic metaphysics.
7
THE POSING OF THE CRITICAL P R O B I ~ E M
cf. La Deduction I, 164-72, 250-6; Revue BeIge, 713-32, 49-83
Proud of his discovery, Kant sent a copy of his work to three
distinguished contemporaries, Lambert, Sulzer, and Mendels-
sohn. In tIle accompanying letter Kant maintained in all
their rigour the methodological principles of the Dissertatio
even although he was aware that his doctoral thesis had to
be corrected and added to. He had to clinlb down a little
when the replies reached him. Lambert accepted the dis-
tinction of kind between the faculties but objected to the
idealism of the forms of sensibility. The subjective ideality
of time necessarily implied that change itself is ideal, and
even an idealist cannot deny the reality of change. The
qualifications brought forward by Sulzer and Mendelssohn
happened to be of the sanle kind and the unanimity of their
criticism must have upset the author, and indeed with some
justification. Kant devoted a great deal of thought to their
criticisms, as he was to admit in 1772. Six months after the
three replies reached llim, he had not yet found a satisfactory
reply to the objection that his doctrine was a version of sub-
jective idealism, an objection which was based on the a priori
character and subjectivity of the forms of sensibility. Kant
himself thought that the objection was due to simple mis-
understanding, since he considered himself an empirical
realist in the logical use of pure reason, and a transcendent
realist in the pure use. The misapprehension, however, was
11011e the easier to dissipate.
These preoccupations oriented his meditations in another
direction. He turned away from the study of the forms of
knowledge with their troublesome subjective implications
and from the pursuit of the apriori. This change of direction
enabled him to concentrate his attention on that aspect of
knowledge by which it represents an object. This object is
a real being, a being in itself. 'It is very important', Kant
57
says to Herz in 177I, ' to make a distinction between all that
rests on the subjective principles of mind, both sensible and
intellectual, and that which belongs to objects'. Kant is
moving slowly but surely towards the problem of objectivity
and a new methodological principle: he abandons the effort
to avoid contamination of the intellectual by the sensible
and adopts the principle of distinguishing between formal
principles and the object of knowledge, or between the sub-
jective and the objective aspect of knowledge. This prin-
ciple, which represents an intermediate stage between the
Dissertatio (1770) and the Critique (178 I), was to dominate
his thinking while ""rorking out the con1plete system of philo-
sophy which he planned at this time. This was to include
metaphysics, ethics, and aesthetics, in accordance with the
programme conceived in 1766, by-passed in the Dissertatio,
and, in spite of the satisfactory progress n1ade in the .pre-
paratory works, postponed in its execution for fifteen to
twenty years.
The next document bears the date 2 I February 1772.
This second letter to Herz has very often been misunderstood.
It has generally been read as putting forward a programme,
whereas all the evidence suggests that it is the balance-sheet
of a past. It details exactly the course of Kant's thought
since the Dissertatio and especially since the preceding letter
of 177I. It presents two peculiarities: first, Kant's atten-
tion has been drawn to understanding; secondly, objectivity
occupies his attention to the exclusion of everything else.
The document begins with a retrospective account starting
from the Dissertatio: Kant reviews the plan of the Dissertatio
and finds the practical part of the plan which he had outlined
so satisfactory that he allows himself to elaborate an even
wider plan, the complete plan of his philosophy.
In the theoretical part, however, which comprises a
general phenomenology and the study of metaphysics from
the point of view of the method employed in it, there was
a very unfortunate omission which demanded urgent atten-
tion. This omission was extremely awkward since it is the key
to the whole problem of metaphysics. The essential point
which he had omitted was to inquire how our representations
can represent an object. Two kinds of representation can
58
be explained without difficulty: (I) sensible representa-
tion, where the object affects the subject; this is limited
to the object of the senses and the representation only
indicates the manner in which the subject has been affected
by the object; (2) the opposite type, where understanding
creates objects as in mathematics. Neither the one nor
the other, 110wever, satisfies the conditions of the problem.
Our ideas or concepts are pure, and sensible representation
is not pure in this sense; on the other hand, we do not
create objects by means of our concepts. The Dissertatio had
committed two errors or was guilty of two omissions in this
respect: first, affirming at th.e outset that the pure concept
is not produced by th.e object, it did not add to this negative
account any positive indication of its origin; secondly, it
neglected to inquire how our representations can relate to
an object when we are not affected by the object.
The proof that Kant meditated for a long time on these
weaknesses is again to be found in the document itself.
Kant adopts a position which is opposed both to the empiri-
cism of sensible affection and to the confusion of the present
metaphysical problem with the constructive nature of mathe-
matics. He also reacts against the ontolog-ism which is
hidden in idealism, in occasionalism, and in the pre-
established harmony between concept and object attributed
to Crusius. In spite of its novelty, the problem does not
mark a real break in the continuity of Kant's thinking. It
extends the line of thought adopted in the Dissertatio and
once again brings into question the solution which had
been given to the problem of intellectual knowledge. Kant
in no way doubts the conformity of concept to object, but
he asks for its rational justification. The concepts in question
are the laws of understanding; the object is the essence of
things in themselves. It is here that the full force of the
problem makes itself felt: an a priori idea which represents
something in itself! The masked Cartesianism, as it survives
in Wolffianism after the impact of Newtonianism, is once
again threatened by the new state of the problem.
Since the letter of 1772 is a balance-sheet and not a
programme, we should like to be correctly informed about
the solution which Kant himself was prepared to give. On
59
this point, however, he hedges, although he must have had
a rough idea of this solution since he promises the first part
of a work intended to expound it. The solution about
which we do have information is partial because it is nega-
tive. Kant knew very well that the problem which he was
posing could not be solved and he refutes opposing theories.
Many commentators are of the opinion that our letter
proves that Kant had settled the fate of the transcendental
deduction. It states its problem indeed, but that is all.
On the other hand, one of the actual conditions of the
problem is incompatible with the future deduction, namely,
the thing in itself. If a positive solution was taking shape
in Kant's mind, it does not appear as yet to have become
the limitation ofpure understanding to experience in Hume's
sense, despite what Erdmann and Paulsen say. It shows
sufficiently, I believe, that this time !(ant did not experience
any outside influence, whether from Hume or from anyone
else, in order to arrive at the central problem of the deduc-
tion and of the Critical philosophy. The avatars of the
Dissertatio put him on the track. Two characteristics of this
positio quaestionis confirm the view that he reached the
problem on his ovvn. These characteristics are the anti-
idealisnl and the anti-psychologism revealed in the very
. ~ conditions of the problem. There Kant maintains the
thing in itself and rejects all self-creation of the object.
On the otller hand, his problem is not directed at the
question of the origin of knowledge. In the Newtonian
period the origin decided the objectivity. Experience was
tIle origin of the objective determination of things. The
intellectual a priori origin of concepts was without doubt
one of the conditions of tIle problem, but not part of the
problenl itself. The problem poses the question of validity
and presupposes the question of origin.
Although the solution of the future transcendental deduc-
tion is not anticipated in the letter of 1772, Riehl and
Paulsen nevertheless concluded that Kant had nothing
further to look for concerning the metaphysical deduction,
that is, concerning the complete list of pure concepts with
respect to which the problem of validity had been posed. It
cannot be denied that Kant did indeed have this deduction
60
in mind. He rejected the categorial system of Aristotle
because of the arbitrary character and empirical nature of
its heuristic principle, and he asserted that he possessed
another system of categories, discovered by means of certain
principles, but he did not tell us what kind of principles he
had in mind. TIle only thing we know is that in the Critique
a single principle is invoked, namely, the correspondence of
the pure concept with the form of judgment. The multi-
plicity of principles mentioned in our letter therefore rules
out any elaboration of the deduction in the course of the
year 1771.
In short, the letter of 1772 is an admirable positio quaes-
tionis, admirable because of the retrospective account which
it offers of its discovery. To see anything more in it is to
strain the interpretation of the document. We know exactly
what Kant proposed to look for, but we do not know what
he found-if indeed he did find anything.
61
Chapter II
The Structure of the
Critical Synthesis
SYNOPSIS
cf. La Deduction I, 164-87
The problem which Kant proposed to solve by Critical
idealism had just been formulated in the celebrated letter
to Herz of 21 February 1772. We must now concentrate
our attention on studying the development and the solution
of the problem. Unfortunately, our information becomes
more and more scanty just at the point where our curiosity
begins to grow. As inevitably happens when documentary
evidence is lacking, speculative hypotheses luxuriate on all
sides. The state of our documentation is notoriously insuf-
ficient and does not allow us to retrace the progressive
development of the Critical standpoint with absolute con-
fidence and certainly not with anything like completeness.
In a case of this kind it is preferable to reduce to a mini-
mum all recourse to hypotheses, and I think that the reader
will be grateful if I reject all hypotheses which are not
themselves founded on some indubitable piece of evidence.
The sources consist of a series of letters, most of which are
more enigmatic than instructive, thereby multiplying rather
than solving the problems. In addition to these we are
fortunate in having in the Duisburg'sche Nachlass a document
of the first importance, which is an excellent source of
information about the stage which the Critical synthesis
had reached towards 1775. We have also the Vorlesungen
uber Metaphysik (not the course published by Politz, but the
manuscripts studied by M. Heinze), which throw a vivid
light on the period which comes immediately after the
62
THE STRUCTURE OF THE CRITICAL SYNTHESIS
Nachlass. That is all. We have already explained why we
rej ect the Reflexionen in a piece of research where chronology
is of the utmost importance.
In consequence we are for the most part short of docu-
mentary evidence just at the point where we want to
penetrate more deeply into Kant's thought at a time when
he was struggling with the new problem which faced him
after twenty years of preliminary studies. We can recon-
struct the first step in his thinking by meallS of a source
which at first it may seem strange to cite. Section 14 of
the Critique offers us, as an introduction to the deduction,
a positio quaestionis and a provisional reply which come close
to tIle very terms employed by Kant in the letter of 1772
and which. give us an approximate idea of the probable
direction of his first meditations. We find in this paragraph
the identical disjunction between the two cases where the
conformity of tIle concept and of the object is directly intelli-
gible: the enlpirical case and the case of self-creation. Both
of them are rejected because the first contradicts the origin
of the concept in question and the second surpasses the
capacity of the human intellect. Despite this faithful repeti-
tion, Section 14 goes beyond the contents of the letter of
1772 since Kant has now discovered that the earlier dis-
junction is not complete and that the possibility of a third
case must be envisaged. This is the case where the concept
does not produce the object dem Dasein nach, but where it
none the less produces it when it is found to be the necessary
condition of its recognition as an object. In this eventuality
it is not cOllstitutive of the object (in itself) but it is con-
stitutive of the object of knowledge.
Ifwe are not overestimating the value of our hypothesis,
we nlust conclude that Kant was directing his thougllt
towards the object and that cOllsequently he was conlpletely
changing the meaning of this epistemological factor. In
1772 the object manifestly meant a thing in itself or a trans-
cendent existent. In Section 14 it means no less clearly the
object of knowledge. Now, such all object necessarily COll-
forms to the conditions of knowledge, because if it did not,
it would not be known and it would not be an object of
knowledge. This object of knowledge is known under the
63
double condition of intuition and concept, and it is perfectly
consistent with the logical use of understanding found in the
Dissertatio. The necessity of a contribution from intuition
therefore leads Kant back to a point of view which he
thought he llad left behind in I770: objectivity is unavoid-
ably bound to an object of experience, that is, to a unified
body of empirical data which, according to the thesis which
he held since 1770, are subjected to the forms of space and
time and therefore correspond to the notion of the object-
phenomenon. The letter of I772 a parte ante and the
Duisburg'sche Nachlass a parte post reinforce the validity of
our hypothesis in this respect.
How are we to explain this sudden return to theses, such
as the phenomenalismofthe Triiume, which we h.ad presumed
to have been superseded? It is at this point that we must
call to our assistance a confession made by Kant in the
Prolegomena. We must remind ourselves that Kant llad
placed Hume at the very forefront of the Critical philo-
sophy. In a passage which is no doubt somewhat stylised,
but none the less in keeping with the facts and trustworthy
in its essence, Kant describes ill I783 the line followed by
his thinking. He was aware of the criticism which Hume
directed against the notion of causality. He agreed with
it in its negative aspects but did not admit the validity of
the positive psychological explanation offered by Hume.
He then tried to generalise tIle criticism of Hume and
found that causality is not the only concept in which under-
standing thinks in an apriori manner the connection between
things, but that, on the contrary, metaphysics is full of such
concepts. He wanted to make sure of their number by
means of a reliable principle of investigation which lay to
his hand at this moment. Pursuing this line of argument,
he then grappled with the problem of justifying their
objective validity and this allowed him to give form to a
project conceived quite a llumber of years earlier. The
stage we are discussing is the only point in all Kant's career
which fits this account. TIle first general solution for the
problem of objectivity was discovered through the stimulus
provided by Hume. Kant was certainly not ignorant of
Hume's criticism before this time, but its disintegrating effect
64
on metaphysics could only appear with such urgency at the
moment when Kant, having lost confidence in the dogmatism
of the real use of understanding, had clearly stated the
Critical problem of objectivity.
The first letter which tells us about what was happening
dates from the end of 1773. We seen that in 1771 Kant
had elaborated the plan of a complete system of philosophy.
This plan had just been upset by the form assumed by the
problem in 1772 which, by once again bringing everything
into question, proved fatal to the system which had barely
been conceived. In the letter of 1773 he announced to his
friend Herz that he was obliged to postpone the execution
of his plans, at least in so far as these concerned metaphysics,
ethics, and aesthetics, because the state of the Critical
problem made it necessary to suspend all otb.er work. By
way of compensation he worked feverishly at the Critique,
which was to be the propaedeutic to the three disciplines
included in tIle plan as a whole. He was now in possessiol1
of the general principle, which without doubt with
the principle of the general deduction where the problem of
1772 is solved, and which is perhaps the which we have
just borrowed from Section 14. We say' perhaps' because
nothing is to be found in the letter about the nature of the
principle.
With the next document we find ourselves transported to
the year 1775. This time the document, the Duisburg'sche
Nachlass, is of considerable importance. This Nachlass is
composed of a number of loose pages (Lose Blatter). One
of these is carefully dated, and the similarity between it and
others is so striking that we are forced to group all of them
around the year 1775. These pages show us Kant has
brought the essential point of his theory of experience into
clear focus. He shows us, partly by his silence and partly
by his use of his theory of experience, that the doctrine of
sensibility (or the Aesthetic) forms no part of the new
problematic and that he has mastered the doctrine of
understanding, which is divided in the Critique into the
Analytic of Concepts and the Analytic of Principles.
Although he does not insist on the detail, he makes it
clear that, with respect to the Critical problem, the
(2,491) 65 6
principle of the solution has been completely reversed
since the Dissertatio. He no longer finds it an imperative
necessity to avoid any contamination of understanding by
sensibility. On the contrary, the solution consists precisely
in considering these two faculties as complementary
one to another in the objectivisation of knowledge.
Separatism has therefore made way for an almost absolute
unIonIsm.
Furthermore, the same pages tell us about the profound
modification which the notion of the object has just under-
gone. From being an object in itself it has been transmuted
into a transcendental object, that is, into synthetic unity as
a trans-subjective element capable of avoiding the charge of
idealism. The solution of Section 14 seems from one angle
to have been superseded, from another to have becon1e even
more detailed. The real use of pure reason maintained in
1770 is counterbalanced by the transcendental use. The
connection of the concept with the object is made very clear
since the object, according to the Critical conception, is
constituted on the formal side by the transcendental subject
through the function of apperception of which the pure
concept is one of the determinate forms. We shall see in
the following section how !(ant succeeded in organising this
into a perfectly coherent doctrine.
The date of the manuscripts belonging to the course on
metaphysics studied by Heinze falls between 1775 and 1780.
These documents have the great advantage over the Nachlass
that they form an organised whole and are therefore the
systematic exposition of a doctrine. The part entitled Onto-
logy is the first brief and precise exposition of the Critical
philosophy. The other part contains a discussion of meta-
physics in the strict sense. Certain details force us to date
this course nearer 1775 than 178o: the constant use of the
term' exposition', which is common in the Duisburg'sche
Nachlass but always replaced in the Critique by the term
, experience', and also the complete absence of themes
which we are ourselves going to place at a later date would
be enough to justify this. This course marks, furthermore,
a sensible degree of progress in the business of editing the
material. The divisions of the future Critique into the
66
Aesthetic and the Logic, divided in its turn into an Analytic
and a Dialectic, are already fully settled. The Analytic
itself is subdivided into an Analytic of Concepts and an
Analytic of Principles. Furthermore, Kant has discovered
the clue for the metaphysical deduction which is to be
found in its entirety, even to details, in this course. The
general principle of the transcelldental deduction has not
been changed. Kant is aware of the possibility of a trans-
cendent use of reason but he recognises its illusory character
except in the field of morality. Objectivity can be explained
only for the object of experience. We can therefore say that
the theory of objectivity has hardly undergone any further
modifications. The subjective conditions of the knowledge
of the object are the objectivising conditions of this object.
Experience figures in these manuscripts as the Inbegriff of
objects and as the condition of the possibility of empirical
knowledge. There is even question of synthetic a priori
judgments, and this problem already exercises its well-
known and disastrous influence on the uniformity of the
problem and of the Critical solution. We can conclude that
Kant did not have very much more to learn about this
aspect of his subject.
And yet the Critique is still postponed as if some obstacle
stood in the way of its completion. We have some informa-
tion about this from some letters by Kant, one of 1776 and
four others from 1778 to 1779. The first tells us that in his
work at the Critique he has arrived at the last part, the
Methodology, but he is careful to add that he has just
managed to evade the obstacle which was holding every-
thing up and that henceforth there was nothing to prevent
him from going on to the writing of his work. The four
letters confirm his decision to proceed with the writing. This
information would raise no difficulty ifit was not surrounded
by details which are far from reassuring. The work he has
in mind is to be brief; it is to take the form of a convenient
manual, and Kant is clearly concerned to preserve the
popular character of the text. These suggestions bear little
resemblance to the Critique. Accepting these indications
Adickes put forward a very tempting hypothesis to the effect
that Kant actually compiled in the course of these years a
67
handbook or outline which kept on growing with the con-
tinual introduction of new material from different sources.
The four letters of 1778 to 1779 do indeed suggest that
something of this kind must have taken place, although I
have considerable reservations about the edition of the Critique
which Adickes produced on the basis of this hypothesis.
The completion of the Critique was held up for long years
yet, despite the degree of progress which is sl10wn by the
Duisburg'sche Nachlass. However, as far as the internal struc-
ture of the deduction is concerned, the Duisburg'sche Nachlass
and the Vorlesungen iiber Metaphysik are silent on the subject
of the imagination and the psychological deduction in three
syntheses, and Kant still expresses himselfin a very confused
manner with regard to the conception of reason. The first
two n1issing parts are those which Kant almost completely
cut out in the second edition of his work in 1787. It is
advisable to determine the approximate date at which !(ant
clearly perceived the use which he could make of these
doctrines (or his theory of objectivity. The Lose Blatter
edited by Reicke set us on the path. The sheet BI2, dated
in 1780, constitutes an outline of the theory of imaginatioll
as it was incorporated in the definitive deduction. The
sheet numbered E67 contains the first indication of the
deduction in three syntheses. It must also be placed in
the year 1780. The last problem which is imperfectly
present in the earlier sources concerns the distinction
between understanding and reason. In several of the
Lose Blatter this distinction is elaborated. They must be
assigned to the years 1779-80. The concillsion must there-
fore be drawn that these discussions were added fairly late
when the Critical philosophy had been completely thought
through, and that perhaps its codification in writing had
already been begun by this time.
On the other hand, the origin of these additions can be
completely determined. It will have been noticed that they
are all intimately related to psychology. It can be taken as
authentic fact, on the basis of his own statement as well as
on that of his compatriot Hamann, that Kant had made a
long and careful study of the Philosophische Versuche iiber die
Menschliche Natur und ihre Entwicklung (Philosophical Essays on
68
Human Nature and its Development) by N. Tetens. This work
appeared in two large volumes from 1776 to 1777; it was
intended to expound the psychological genesis of knowledge
and to analyse it into its constitutive factors. The problems
of Kant and of Tetens certainly do not cover exactly the
same ground but they are none the less related, and a brief
glance through the two large volumes of the German empiri-
cist is sufficient to reveal at once the close affinity between
their inquiries. Tetens distinguishes between matter and
form in knowledge. He is ahead of Kant in his thesis that
the subjective, through its formal character, is the deter-
mining reason of the objective. He foreshadows the pheno-
menalism which Kant was going to found on reason. He
is in agreement with Kant about the attitude to be adopted
with regard to the criticism of Hume. Tetens develops
themes analogous to those of Kant: even in the least
favourable case little change is required before Kant can
combine the psychological teaching of his contemporary
with his own transcendental inquiries. There is therefore
little difficulty in admitting that Kant's reading of Tetens,
and the consequences which this had for the growing Critical
philosophy, held up the vvriting of the Critique before fur-
nishing it with necessary complements. Finally the Critique
was written (or revised) in great haste and launched upon
an indifferent public at the Easter Fair in the year 1781.
2
THE STRUCTURE OF THE THEORY OF
EXPERIENCE
cf. La Deduction I, 173-80, 257-84
In the light of Section 14 of the Critique we have seen how
the problem of objectivity led to the following twofold thesis:
first, the transcendental object is from now on to replace the
transcendent object; secondly, the logical use is the sole
employment of pure reason which is objectively valid. The
69
Duisburg'sche Nachlass is entirely devoted to setting this double
thesis on a solid foundation. In expounding this we can
make use of the edition published by Haering. The outline
of the two theses, which we have endeavoured to construct
in accordance with Section 14, has given us only the general
theme which Kant was to develop in the solution of the
Critical problem of 1772, but the detail of the solution is
not to be found there. It is precisely the detailed discussion
to be found in the Nachlass which is peculiarly enlightening
concerning the Kantian positions towards 1775. The doc-
trine of sensibility and understanding seems to be completely
elaborated, though the disorganised state of the fragments
prevents us from seeing how Kant intended to develop it
systematically. We have already mentioned the missing
parts which we shall return to in the last section of this
chapter.
The problem, how does a concept represent an object, is
solved in the pages of the Nachlass by a special conception of
the object. The object is no longer the actually existing
thing with. ontological claims, which henceforth is called the
Ding an sich, but it is a pure mental construction which has
two characteristics; first, the relation of the understanding
to the extra-subjective given, and secondly, the intra-
subjective compulsion of thinking its unity. The whole
question is to find the source of the compulsion to unity,
the dominating character of the object. It comes, asserts
the Nachlass, from the exposition of the given by means of
the subjective functions of the understanding. Hence we
reach a result which at first sight is paradoxical, namely
that the subjective is the foundation of the objective because
the objective coincides precisely with the necessary unity of
phenomena. By n1eans of this unity, ,primitive perception is
transforn1.ed into experience.
Since the object is in this way the resultant of subjective
functions, the sources of these functions must be sought in
the cognitive faculties. What then is the situation with
t'regard to these? Objectivity is conceived only through the
interpenetration ofsensibility and understanding: sensibility
presents the given, but is incapable of furnishing the form of
its necessary unity, while understanding provides this form
7
0
without being able to produce on its own the given or the
matter. Although the nature and role of sensibility have
been definitely established-I(ant has not returned to this
theme since I77o-it is very different with understanding
which is as yet only very imperfectly distinguished from
reason in its functions. However, Kant anticipates to some
extent this distinction by a radical separation between the
analytic and the synthetic judgment, a distinction which
thus appears for the first time on the Critical horizon.
Later, reason will be the intellectual a priori function which
is exercised not on sensible matter but on apriori and rational
matter constituted by concepts. It realises therefore the
unity of concepts in allowing itself to be guided in this
operation by the principle of identity, and the judgment
which effects this unification of concepts by identity will
necessarily be a purely analytical operation. Reason ca11
also exercise its functions of unification in a matter of
sensible origin or among intuitions, in which case it is called
understanding. But i11 this case the judgn1ent which
expresses their unity can no longer correspo11d to analytic
identity, but must express synthetic functions realising the
unity of a given diversity by means of a synthesis. The
problem of objectivity arises exclusively with regard to this
last class of judgments. In these judgn1ents a given mani-
fold affects tl1e subject and the whole cognitive process is
set in motion by this affection from outside the subject.
Using the material in the Nachlass, let us now set out this
process in detail, starting from the primitive affection and
proceeding to its highest conditio11. The object of the affec-
tion raises in 1775 as in 1781 grave difficulties. Tl1e most
logical manner of conceiving the object of affection is cer-
tainly to see in it a thing in itself. In fact it often happens
that Kant does conceive it in this way. But there is also the
case where the object of affection is constituted by pheno-
mena, that is, by entities already structured by means of our
subjective a priori functions. This problem is all the more
serious at this time because Kant does not have ready the
solution represented by the doctrine of double affection
where a double self is affected by a double object. How-
ever, the transcendental affection is always invoked to
7
1
account for the initial movement given to our functions of
knowledge.
These sensible affections reach consciousness in being
received by inner sense which, as the Critical synthesis
reaches completion, loses its rationalist n1eaning where it
is confused with thought, in order to approach more and
more the empirical meaning which makes it the receptor
organ of our inner states. The influence of Locke is domi-
nant here. The Dissertatio made time its a priori form and
internal perceptions its a posteriori matter. In the Nachlass
inner sense is al1 intermediate function between the sensible
given and the intellectual concept in consequence of its con-
nection with the form of time and its three dimensions of
existence, simultaneity, and succession. Tl1e reception of
the given into one or other of these dimensions is the con-
dition of its exposition in one of the three concepts of
substance, reciprocity, and causality. Inner sense then
foreshadows the role which imagination will play in the
Critique. It should be noted that inner sense and imagina-
tion are found in the texts in inverse proportion: the one
factor tends to replace the other. But il1ner sense plays
this part only because time is conceived in the Nachlass
in two ways, sometimes co-ordinated with space as the
form of inner intuition and sometimes as the form of inner
experience, including then external intuition which has
become conscious.
Received by inner sense, the sensible given is carried to
the concept and thus objectivised. Another factor comes on
the scene here, for the concept designates the determination
of the given by understanding, a determination which carries
the name of' exposition of phenomena' . This term is going
to disappear in 178I where it will be replaced by the term
, experience'. It consists in the application of the functions
of synthetic unity to given perceptions. These functions
duplicate themselves into pure concepts and a priori prin-
ciples. Kant has 110W discovered, contrary to his earlier
conviction which was still deeply rooted in 1770, that the
intellectual function is not the analysis of a given, but the
function of a synthesis of unity on the basis of a given. He
has acquired this l1ew conviction, with all its incalculable
7
2
consequences, because of the idea that the given and the
phenomena contain no synthetic liaison in themselves, and
that in consequence wherever this unity is manifested it
must be mind which has furnished it. The synthesis which
understanding procures must be called a function in opposi-
tion to the form of intuition because the form is that in which
the unity of the given takes place while the function is that
by which it takes place. The synthesis is not the location,
but the act constitutive of synthetic unity.
It is in this way tllat the synthetic functions, concepts,
and principles are presented in the form of rules which,
when followed by perceptions, produce order and connec-
tion in the given. Kant repeatedly appeals to the necessity
of rules which are tIle absolute condition of the necessary
unity and hence of objectivity. This unity and the character
of all object which the given acquires are not interchange-
able: they are strictly determined and discernible one fron1.
the other. The rules of synthesis are therefore applied with
discernment and with perfect regularity. Where does this
discrimination in the effecting of the synthesis come from?
It is here that the constraining influence of the sensible given
reveals itself. In the Nachlass the given explains 11.0t only the
setting in motion of the functional apparatus of knowledge
but also tIle specification of the regulating function in its
concrete application. Indeed, the genesis of a rule is sub-
ordinated to the observation of three conditions: first of a
sensible given, secondly of the aptitude of this given to
submit to a rule (is this the affinity of the Critique ?), and
lastly the exllibiting of the rule. This exhibiting of the rule
is the synthesis considered as a function.
Here the Kantian theory conles back to th.e knowing
subject or the self as the last substratum of the functional
rules. The self in general expresses itself by an ' I think'
which by itself is not a rule for perceptions but the con-
dition of the possibility of the submission of perceptions to
rules in so far as it represents the absolute unity of the
thinking subject. The consciousness of self is indiscrimi-
nately called, in 1775, by a deplorable weakness in termino-
logy, apprehension, or apperception. We are conscious of
perceptions, said Kant, by their reception by inner sense :
73
this is the consciousness of the empirical self, wavering,
diverse, and changing according to passing contents. These
perceptions are then fastened and integrated into the unity
of the permanent and unvarying self: this is the trans-
cendental ego. This last apperception is defined as the
perception of self as thinking subject in general, or again,
as consciousness of thought. It is because of this that the
transcendental unity of the ego can be the last substratum
of the rules or synthetic functions and Kant can say in this
way that the ego is really the origin and the archetype of
all objects of knowledge. In this "vay the cognitive process
attains its completion.
Thus we can represent the first form which Critical
idealism took in its provisional sketches. It is possible to
recognise without difficulty the need for the sensible given,
for its reception by formal sensibility, for its entry into
inner sense through the double function of time, the
moments of which are the three ways of having conscious-
ness of the existence of perceptions in us. In conformity
with the relations of empirical consciousness, perceptions
are tied to the ego which is identical in all moments of
consciousness. By the recognition of the unity of the self
in transcendental apperception, perceptions are bound into
a single representation by the consciousness of the identity
of the synthesis according to which the self is conscious of
itself. This single representation coincides with the object.
The synthesis which produced it is the rule or a priori
function. A synthetic object expresses itself in the concept,
that is, in the representation of the necessary unity in the
perceptual given. Such is the doctrine which Kant reached
in 1775 as an answer to his problem of 1772. It can be
seen how the essential elements of the Critique are faithfully
reflected. It may be that the impression of similarity comes
in part from the reduction to system of the numerous
unsorted pages which comprise the Nachlass. But the
articulations of the system are none the less present at this
period. The Nachlass is made up of Vorarbeiten, all incom-
plete and subject to all the defects inherent in a provisional
outline. This does not however prevent us from concluding
that in 1775 the theory of experience or the theory Of
74
objectivity has fully achieved the Critical level, including
even the weaknesses which exegesis of the Critique meets all
along the line. Certain parts of the definitive Critical position
are still lacking. But six years still have to elapse before its
final writing. The revision of the materials of the Nachlass
with a view to publication was still to involve very hard
work, the more so as from another side new stresses were
about to develop which were going to affect the Critical
doctrine which had already been elaborated.
3
THE ELABORATION OF THE CATEGORIAL
SYSTEM
cf. La Deduction I, 2 10-50
The problen1. of objectivity is identical with the trans-
cendental deduction. The latter is conditioned by the
metaphysical deduction, the object of which is to make
the necessarily complete list of the original property of
pure reason before seeking the conditions of its objective
validity by the other deduction. The two problems are
thus closely bound together. In the metaphysical deduc-
tion what Kant has to do is not to prove the apriori character
of the pure concepts (which is not really in question), but
to make an exhaustive inventory of them and to arrange
this inventory by means of a principle. The principle is to
be a guarantee of the necessary completeness of the list.
Thus three problen1.s must occupy our attention: the search
for the guiding pril1ciple, the establishn1.ent of the table of
judgments, and finally the of tl1e table of
categories. These problems have here been enumerated in
a logical order, but the historical order in which they were
worked out is exactly the opposite. Kant first arranged the
table of categories, discovered a little later the heuristic
principle, and finally co-ordinated the list of judgn1ents
with that of the categories.
At the stage Kant had now reached, sucl1 a search for a
75
complete table of pure concepts could be undertaken in two
distinct ways. Fron1 1772 onward the pure ideas of the
Dissertatio could have been surreptitiously becoming the
categories of logical usage, but on the other hand it is not
impossible that the idea of such a search had fused with an
old rationalist conviction of Kant. Empirical concepts are
innumerable in quantity and only a divine intelligence
would be capable of en1bracing their totality. Pure con-
cepts on the other hand are but few in number and can
easily be discovered because reason is capable of knowing
itself. We do not know which way was actually adopted
by Kant. It rerrlains true that the problem itself had been
posed in 1772 but it is not necessary to infer from that that
it was resolved at that mon1ent. We are going to follow
the historical ordo invenienti rather than the order found in
the Critique.
The first task undertaken by Kant was the establishment
of the table of categories. In the Prolegomena he outlined the
path which he followed, a retrospective account which
though basically correct misleads by suppressing the
stages. In the pre-Critical period and in the Dissertatio a
project of this nature had always been in Kant's mind as
the ideal end of the analytic method, and it may be said in
general that he was the only philosopher in the eighteenth
century who understood the tren1endous philosophical signi-
ficance of the problem of tl1e categories. This was generally
thought to be merely a survival from an outdated scholasti-
cism. Alone in his appreciation of the problem, Kant
derived a first historical inspiration from his recollection of
Aristotle, from whom he takes over quality, quantity, and
relation, not as categories in the true sense but rather as
rubrics for categories. A second inspiration could have
come to him from Hume who enumerated in his Enquiry all
the possible relations which permit the binding together of
the various phenomena. The analogy between the cate-
gories of relation and the triad of primary concepts in
Newtonian physics (mass, force, and reaction) did not fail
to attract Kant's attention, more especially since the coinci-
dence between logic and general physics depends on the
solution of the problen1 of the metaphysical deduction.
7
6
Finally, Leibniz had defended the usefulness of a search for
categories against the criticism of this procedure made by
Locke. All these considerations prompted Kant to carryon
with the plan he had made in 1772.
However, the problem was greater and the drean1 was
bolder than Kant had thought. The documentary nlaterial
which survives consists of an unorganised mass of Reflexionen
which, to make matters worse, is absolutely undatable. The
Duisburg'sche Nachlass, which llelped us to reCOllstruct the
original outline of the transcendental deduction, ought to
have shown traces of the metaphysical deduction if Kant
had already elaborated it. But apart from a reference to
relational concepts nothing seems to have been done there
on this subject. We are therefore forced in spite of ourselves
to have recourse to th.e Reflexionen, taking very good care not
to introduce any chronological order. Adickes divides the
notes which relate to our problem into three groups. The
first group brings the pure concepts close to the abstract
concepts of the intellectual laws, an expression identical with
that of the Dissertatio. These laws consist of the functions of
comparison, connection, and separation of representations.
This is doubtless the first attempt which Kant made. The
last attempt is naturally founded on the Leitfaden or the
--critical principle which COllsists in the absolute parallelism
of judgments and categories. Between these two extremes
are to be found innumerable fragments which operate, with
some variations of secondary importance, with the triad,
thesis, antithesis, analysis.
Although an acceptance of Adickes's chronology involves
the belief that Kant made both successive and simultaneous
attempts to solve his problen1, there is undoubtedly much
that is sound in Adickes's results. All the information which
our sources offer show that Kant's efforts were concentrated
around 1772 on the problem of categories, but that when
after 1775 the fornls of judgment occupied a dominating
position, all the work had to be done again. The historical
evolution of the categorial schema may therefore be pre-
sented roughly as follows: having had his attention drawn
by Leibniz to the usefulness of a doctrine of categories as an
introduction to the transcendental deduction, Kant sought
77
some principle of organisation among them. In this he was
moved not only by his characteristic love of order and
system but also by the desire for that necessity which a
totality yields when it is guaranteed by a principle. Then
Kant tried successively and often even simultaneously several
heuristic principles and this explains the multiplicity and the
discordance of tIle abortive attempts in the course of the
years 1772-6. For the unsuccessful abandoned attempts are
not followed beyond 1775, the year when Kant noted the
parallelism between certain categories and certainjudgments
(the table of relation) without making this parallelism into
an absolute principle. But, a short time afterwards, he con-
cluded that the principle which he had sought for so long
was no other than the functional identity between logic and
science so that the logic of things became at one stroke a
transcendental logic. He can be said to have succeeded in
his endeavour to set up two parallel tables, since towards
1778 only one case did not seem to have been resolved.
The correctness of the preceding sketch is confirn1ed in
an absolute fashion by an examination of the Leitfaden or
guiding principle of the categories. The necessity of such a
principle had never been expressed by Kant before 1772,
but from that time it never left his mind. III 1772 Kant
hoped to find the abstract concepts of the laws of reason by
a few intellectual principles. We do not know what these
principles were but we can easily understand why this
position was rapidly abandoned as untenable. The deriva-
tion of the concepts from the formal laws of reason is without
doubt the sufficient criterion of their pure character and of
their a priori nature, but no derivation was valid until the
problem of their totality, the real problem of the meta-
physical deduction, had been solved. On the basis of many
Reflexionen we can guess what were the laws which Kant
hoped to find at this moment. They are not laws in the
true sense of the word, but functions, and in the fragments
of the Nachlass these functions are invariably expressed by
the verbs vergleichen, verbinden, trennen. If this is the case, it is
clear that the functions in question must be inadequate for
the task. They really correspond to the other problem
which the Critique calls reflection and the concepts of reflection
7
8
are not constitutive of objects but represent the states of
mind by which we prepare ourselves to find the subjective
conditions in which we can acquire concepts. Instead of a
table of categories the result of our first principle would
have led to the transcendental topic.
It is at this point that Kant turned to another principle.
Among the functions cited above was Verbindung, which
seemed to be involved in the very constitution of the object.
The progress made in the transcendental deduction could
even guarantee that liaison (let us not yet speak of synthesis)
is the transcendental function par excellence. This function of
liaison is the function which resolves the problem of objec-
tivity, that is, which constitutes and brings about the close
connection between sensibility and understanding. The
categories or pure concepts then represent all the diverse
ways in which the combination of the two faculties operate
when integrated in our k110wledge of an object. The theme
of co-ordination-subordination plays a dominating role in
the fragments which can be correlated with this stage, a
stage which represents two remarkable advances over the
earlier stage: first, Kant has got possession of the indisput-
able transcendental function, and secondly, the schema
which derives from it is more systematic than the earlier
scheme which always lacked order.
Since he abandoned it, we must c011clude that Kant had
seen the insufficiency of his second principle. Once more
the Leitfaden did not answer its purpose because ifit expresses
the general principle of the transce11dental deduction it can-
not be the systen1atising principle of the pure concepts. His
repeated failure led Kant to conclude that every effort would
be in vain as long as he did not possess a principle from
which a whole analytic of reason would flow of itself. He
had then to seek in our logical constitution for a principle
of which the different mon1ents, determinable a priori, would
correspond to the synthetic functions, essential functions
revealed by the transcendental deductio11. We do not know
what path Kant followed but we do know where he arrived:
the identification of the pure concept with the function of
judgment.
By means of an hypothesis we can perhaps make up for
79
our lack of knowledge here. The discovery of the definitive
Leitfaden could have followed two different paths. Kant
could have borrowed a method as direct as it is systematic.
The transcendental deduction revealed the ubiquity of syn-
thesis which is what corresponds to intellectual spontaneity.
It is not impossible that Kant reminded himself how in
1762-3 he had already related the whole intellectual function
to that of judgment, and he might have concluded that the
forms of judgment are at the same time synthetic functions
of the constitution of the concepts of an object. Some
Reflexionen and the definitive metaphysical deduction seem
to be following this path. There is however a second path,
this time indirect, which could have been followed by Kant
and the Duisburg'sche Nachlass leads us naturally to it. With-
out making a heuristic principle of it, Kant had noticed the
parallelism between the judgments and the categories of
relation. It may be assumed then that only chance led him
to note the striking analogy between certain judgments and
certain synthetic functions already recognised. If he
broadened the field of his investigations along these lines
and found them successful, he might have erected into a
principle what had originally been merely an empirical
fact. The Nachlass itselfwould occupy in this case a posito!n
exactly interlnediary between the empirical fact and the
extension of this fact into a principle. My own preference
is undoubtedly for the second path: less systematic than
the other, it fits more naturally into the historical process of
the elaboration of the Critical philosophy.
However that may be, it was a little after 1775 that the
true Leitfaden was found and the metaphysical deduction
given its definitive form. In the Vorlesungen fiber Metaphysik,
which are so close to the Duisburg'sche Nachlass, the die is
cast. Our final conclusion then is that the discovery which,
according to the Critique, was to open the way to the organisa-
tion of the Critical philosophy was a very late contribution.
There is one last problem to be dealt with: what is the
source of the table of judgments with which Kant co-
ordinated the table of categories? Kant himself gives a
very vague reply to this in the Critique when he says, ' In
this connection tl1ere was already work done by logicians.'
80
As a deduction this reference is a little inadequate, indeed
too inadequate to be satisfactory. This straightforward
appeal to an already established tradition, more or less
correct, resembles an avowal of inability rather than a
deduction. As it is posterior to the discovery of the Leitfaden,
Kant could not have thougIlt of this last table before 1775.
There is therefore no chronological problem. It is a dif-
ferent matter with tIle question: to which logicians did
Kant turn to determine the tradition of which he speaks?
Opinions differ hopelessly about this and almost all the
treatises on logic which appeared ill the eighteenth century
have been invoked. It is again Adickes, it seems to me,
who takes the right view by exercising a genuine eclecticism.
If we compare the table of judgments found in all the
manuals (and these are reproduced in my book on the
deduction) we see that Kant did not pose as a revolutionary
in this field. He could well have had the impression of
resting, not on the individual work of some one author but
on a collective work definitive in its essentials. Only the
modal judgments are taken from a particular work, the
Organon by Lambert. It is difficult to determine the manual
which was at the basis of the Kantian systematisation
because Kant seems to have condensed in one plan all the
current classifications of judgments. He no doubt took the
liberty of arranging his paradigm of judgments by elements
of different origin according as the correspondence with the
paradigm of categories seemed to dictate.
To cut a long story short, we conclude that while the
metaphysical deduction vvas part of Kant's original inten-
tions, it none the less belongs to those parts of his work
which demanded from him most time and care. The
intention dates from before 1772: the achievement after
1775. The historical path followed in the elaboration of
this Critical fragn1.ent is diametrically opposed to the logical
development of the problem in the Critique. He had traced
out the programme very early: to organise all the cate-
gories according to an absolutely necessary Leitfaden. In
fact he seen1.S to l1.ave followed his programn1e steadily.
Kant always tried to organise the categories according to a
Leitfaden, although this was not always the one found in the
(2,491) 81 7
Critique. Far from it! The successive attempts to organise
the pure concepts are the result of successive new Leitfaden.
The evolution of the metaphysical deduction corresponds
therefore to the evolution of his changing conception of a
Leitfaden. It seen1S important to note in conclusion that the
transcendental deduction, logically dependent in the Critique
on the metaphysical deduction, is not as dependent on it in
its historical elaboration. Kant worked on the two deduc-
tions at the same time, and did not await the conclusion of
the one before undertaking the other.
4
THE PSYCHOLOGY OF TETENS AND
ITS INFLUENCE ON THE
CRITICAL PHILOSOPHY
cf. La Deduction I, 284-329
All the early doctrinal or biographical sources outline in
1776 a fairly clear curve of the evolution of the Critical
philosophy despite some deficiencies and gaps. They reveal
the Critical th.emes which K a l ~ t had just reached, and
comparison of these with the Critique makes it easy to
enumerate the themes which are still absent. Among the
missing themes is the Dialectic, and no ransacking of the
sources yields any trace of it. It was referred to in the
lectures on metaphysics, but it may be doubted whether
Kant had yet elaborated any firm doctrine. To get the
necessary information about this massive criticism directed
against metaphysics we must exan1.ine a number .of Lose
Blatter dating from the end of the preparatory period. 1'he
examination can follow a less haphazard course and can
proceed in a more reliable and better-organised fashion than
was possible for the Analytic. The silence of our documents
can be explained in two ways. The form in which th.e
criticism of metaphysics is presented in 1781 depends on
the distinction between reason and understanding. A more
likely explanation of the silence, however, is that the
82
Dialectic scarcely offered any special difficulties to Kant. He
had discussed the problems of God and the soul since the
beginning of his career and these problems could easily be
integrated into the growing Critical philosophy. The anti-
nomies themselves are to be found at the very heart of this
criticism. It may well be that Kant's silence is to be
interpreted as a sign of acquiescence.
Quite apart from the Dialectic, however, a simple
examination of the Critique shows that certain articulations
of the theory of experience are still not represented in the
sources. For example, the part played by imagination in
the constitution of objective knowledge, the psychological
deduction with its three theses, and the distinction between
reason and understanding. It may be said in general that
these then1es came to Kant directly from contemporary
psychology. Chronological examination forces us to group
these tl1emes around the years 1779-80 so that the period
of preparation for the Critical philosophy can be clearly
divided into two branches: a first branch, with the analysis
of which we have finished, in which Kant debates the
problem of objectivity with the aid of a Critical conception
of the object and of the pure concepts of understanding:
a second branch, in which he attacks the same problem in
closer relationsh.ip with. the psychology of his day. The
first part ends with. the Duisburg'sche Jlachlass; the second
appears suddenly in a number of fragments dating from
1780 which certainly contain the rest of Kant's preparatory
meditations. The results of the two periods are to be seen
in the very structure of the deduction of 178I where they
appear in uneasy juxtaposition. Kant made it his duty in
rewriting his work in 1787 to prune away the traces of the
second.
The first factor which is absent from the sources is
imagination. The solution of the problen1 of objectivity
was found in 1775 by using simply two elements: the
sensible given and the concepts or synthetic rules. Kant
complicates the solution, so simple in its dualistic structure,
by introducing imagination as an intermediary and mediat-
ing factor. It is the third element between the two original
elements. It is capable of adopting this role because its
83
nature is itself uncertain: Kant brings it into relation
sometimes with sensibility, sometimes with understanding,
and the schematism erects this confusion into a principle
by making imagination participate both in sensibility and
in understanding. Because of its confused nature the func-
tion delegated to it is not everywhere the same and Kant is
forced to mark the differentiation between the functions by
designating them by corresponding names: it is in this way
that the theory of imagination is singularly complicated by .
the distinction between empirical and transcendental
imagination, between reproductive and productive imagina-
tion. The same confusion is to be traced in the result to
which these functions give rise. At one time they produce
either the analytic or the synthetic unit; at another time
it is Gestalten which are produced to which Kant expressly
denies the character of unity. All this is to be found with
remarkable fidelity in fragment BI2 of 1780, which Kant
must have had before him when he was writing the corre-
sponding part of the deduction which operates by preference
with the factor of inlagination.
The reader knows, in the second place, that Kant placed
alongside the solution of the problem of objectivity a deduc-
tion which is commonly called psychological, characterised
by its arrangement in three synthetic functions. These are
known as the synthesis of apprehension, of reproduction, and
of recognition. This deduction occupies first place in the
text of 178I where it clearly serves to introduce the objective
deduction. The silence of our sources on this subject up to
1775, and the fragment E67, which must be dated as of the
same period as BI2, show that this deduction is part of the
later additions which the text suffered under the influence of
contemporary psychology. The fragment E67 is not as
complete as that which treats of the imagination: it includes
the beginning of the paragraph devoted to apprehension and
a brief account of the three syntheses in question. It has
been alleged that Kant attached very little importance to
this part because he condemned it in 1787 with the second
edition of the Critique and the reorganisation of the deduc-
tion. The preface to the Critique states the situation exactly:
it grants to this introduction less demonstrative force than to
84
the objective deduction, but it insists, in spite of that, on the
importance which it can clain1. Like imagination, this
deduction in three syntheses has its roots deep in contenl-
porary psychology and it must have been conceived betweel1
1778 and 1780.
There is finally the clear distinction between reason and
understanding which constitutes the last operative factor at
the end of our preparatory period. In the middle of the
notes corresponding to the Dialectic, there is a fragnlent
C8 dated March 1780, where this distinction is unequivocally
brought out. As in the Critique, reason and understanding
do not differ organically. They represent the same function
but it is applied to different matter. Understanding is this
function applied to the matter of empirical sensibility, while
reason exercises its function on a matter beyond the limits of
sensibility which is represented by concepts. Kant does not
fail to point out that the absence of the sensible provokes the
many-sided sop:histical use which the Dialectic does its best
to expose.
Imagination, the psychological deduction, the distinction
between understanding and reason are all elelnents which
Kant owes to the psychology.of his day. Without being too
reckless I believe that an attempt can be made to deter-
mine still more precisely the nature of this influence. I
have already said above that it must be sought in the Philo-
sophische Versuche of Tetens. In my work on the deduction
I devoted fifteen pages to a resume of the ideas of this
logician and psychologist who published his psychological
summa in 1776-7. Even in this brief resume may be seen
all that Kant was able to glean usefully for his own tran-
scendentalism. If we glance through the Versuche of Tetens
with our attention fixed on the three factors which Kant
had not even suspected before 1776, we reach the same
conclusion every tin1e, a fact which gives the general tenor
of our thesis a high degree of probability if not of certainty.
There can hardly be any doubt that Kant borrowed from
him the factor of imagination. It is divided, in Tetells as in
Kant, into a reproductive and a productive function which
he calls Diclztkrajt. The reproductive function is naturally
examined-and this is Tetens's usual method-in its nature
85
and in its psychological exercise, and it is discussed without
any allusion to any kind of synthetic power, a fact which
marks it off from Kant's manner of treating it. Kant more-
over was quite right in pointing out that he was the first to
have noticed the role which imagination plays in perception
itself. The object of Dichtkraft or productive imagination is
the image which has no perceptual correlate and is in con-
sequence a free creation. Tetens relates it to understanding,
even although he has no idea of the specifically Kantian
synthetic function attributed to productive imagination,
which consists in an operation on the apriori spatia-temporal
intuitions.
The points of contact with the deduction in three syn-
theses are not quite so numerous but very significant in
their material content. In Tetens's work there are three
faculties: intuition, imagination, and concept, which he
often replaces by their respective functions: apprehension,
reproduction, and Auskennung. The latter, like the Kantian
term Rekognition, finds itself in the relation of a Germanic
term to a foreign. Therefore the correspondence is pushed
evel1 to the terminology. The analogies are multiplied when
the detail of the discussion devoted to each of these faculties
and functions is studied separately.
The synthesis of apprehension is characterised in Kant by
the phenomenalism of the given and above all by the peculiar
and quite personal thesis that perception coincides with the
indivisible unity of time. We may note that the pheno-
menalism is the same as in Tetens and that, to our great
astonishment, the second thesis is not at all peculiar to Kant,
but is clearly expressed in the Versuche of Tetens. While it
is true that Kant describes reproduction as the uninterrupted
recall of past perceptions on the basis of association, and that
he conceives this possibility by means of a constant Vbergang
of mind from one perception to another, it must be admitted
that Tetens anticipates Kant on all these points. It is only
with regard to Auskennung or recognition that our two authors
take different paths. Kant locates the nature of Rekognition
in tl1e recognition of the identity of what is reproduced with
what is apprehended, while for Tetens it gives the clear view
of the object in all its distinctness. The result of this last
86
functio11 is, as for Kant, the concept, and when he explains
the constitution of the concept he guides reasoning towards
the path of apperception whicl1 is the determination of the
unity of the self in all the acts which it has posited. Here
we recognise one of the great Kantian ideas which serve as a
foundation not only for the psychological deduction, but
even for his whole theory of objectivity. It can hardly be
doubted that Kant profited greatly from his study of the
psychological essays of his predecessor in this field.
The story is much the same with regard to the distinction
between reason and understanding. Tetens makes no
attempt to hide the pleasure he takes in discussing reason,
but he exhibits a rather cavalier scepticism on this subject.
In the first chapter dealing with it he opposes sensible
knowledge to rational knowledge. In the following chapter
he lays bare all the artifice that is to be found in the characters
of universality and necessity which are attached to rational
knowledge. Finally a third chapter is devoted to the distinc..
tion between understanding and reasoning reason. The
perfect analogy between this doctrine and that of Kant will
be 110ted not only in the method offormulating the questions
about reason which interest him and in the general solution
which. he reserves for them, but also in the dominating thesis
that an identical spiritual function is at work in reason and
in understanding which are distinguished one from the other
by the matter with which they are called on to deal. Tetens
suspects, just like !(ant, that an internal conflict menaces
reason itself, a point which Kant expounds in great detail
in the chapter on the antinomies.
We can therefore conclude that the reading of Tetens
must have made a very great impression on Kant, struggling
with the same problem although from a very different gel1eral
standpoint, when he noticed how the researches of Tetens
corroborated the ruling thesis of his own transcendental
epistemology. The impression was so great that he could
not resist the pleasure of making not only his work but his
readers benefit from it. He probably saw the support his
abstract demonstrations would gain when they could point
to the corresponding psychological account. Still under the
influence of his reading, Kant attests that Tetens had said
87
many profound things even although at this moment he
was fully aware of the different perspectives which charac-
terised their work. It is hardly necessary to say that the
psychological doctrines of Tetens underwent important
modifications during their integration into Kantian tran-
scendentalism and that there must have been an interplay
of action and reaction. But these modifications do not
prevent us from concluding that Kant made more than
one identifiable borrowing from Tetens after the theory of
objectivity had acquired its structure and its definitive
articulation. This is so striking that it does not seem possible
to give an account of the constitution of the Critical philo-
SOpllY without explicitly referring to the contribution of
Tetens. It is gratifying to be able to insist upon this
because the part played by Tetens has barely been n'len-
tioned by commentators and yet it is clearly an indispensable
addition to the intellectual biography of Kant which deserves
to be stressed. It is all the more importaIlt because Kant's
reading of Tetens at this time is no mere historian's hypo-
thesis but a fact attested by Kant hin1self.
88
Chapter III
The Completion of the Critical
Synthesis
CORRECTIONS TO TI-IE THEORETICAL
CRITIQUE
cf. La Deduction II, 39
0
-415, 419-594; III, 13-4I, 275-96
The approach to metaphysics had been cleared by the
working out of a propaedeutic which would serve as preface
to the metaphysics of nature and of morals. The important
problem which, omitted from the Dissertatio, had come to
his attention in 1772, had been solved by ten years of con-
tinuous effort. Kant now thought that there would be no
difficulty in resuscitating his fifteen-year-old plan. He could
settle to work on that eternal metaphysics which was the
great dream of his career. Circumstances, however, were
to decide otherwise. While it is true that from 1781 Kant
turned to ethics and that in 1785 the m.etaphysics of nature
was at least begun, the ten years which followed the publica-
tion of the Critique were largely devoted to reorganising the
theoretical aspect of the Critical philosophy and to com-
pleting the Critical synthesis by the twofold n10ral and
teleological propaedeutic. Let us see first wIlY the Critique
required to be revised and what that revision amounted to.
It is well known that after the publication of a11Y of his
important works Kant was never pleased with what he had
done. This was true of his doctoral thesis and also of l1is
inaugural dissertation. It was to be the same with the
Critique. However, it was never with his doctrine that
Kant was displeased, but rather with the manner of exposi-
tion or the Vortrag. Kant attributed his strong feelings of
dissatisfaction to his hasty writing, to his neglect of minor
89
popular touches and to faults in the construction both of
the deduction and of the paralogisms. And these feelings
could not fail to grow more intense when it became evident
to him that these genuine and clearly perceived faults were
responsible for the failure of his doctrine. The term' failure'
is indeed not too strong. Far from having been a success,
the Critique was received with general indifference. Even
although Kant himself had not counted on a quick victory
it is worth noting that the result greatly exceeded even his
most pessimistic expectations. The few readers who did not
recoil before the indigestible treatise which he had offered
them kept on complaining bitterly. His colleagues found
his teaching wellnigh unintelligible, despite the discursive
clarity which Kant had pursued with remarkable professional
honesty, to which indeed he had sacrificed so much. Things
would have been much better if they had been content with
a straightforward admission of their lack of understanding.
But they kept on talking and they kept on writing. They
even went so far as to identify the Critical philosophy with
the subjective idealism of Berkeley!
As long as only formal corrections occupied his attention,
Kant was convinced that he could extricate himselffrom his
difficulty by publishing a simple abbreviated version aimed
at the general educated public. He had thought of pre-
paring such an abbreviated version as early as the month
of May 178I. When the essential core of his teaching itself
was threatened by the superficial thinking of his critics, then
to his desire for popularity there was added the urgent duty
~ . of defending his doctrine. The Prolegomena to any Future
Metaphysics was born in 1783 out of the combination of
these two motives. It was composed after the appearance
of the sensational Garve-Feder review which reminded Kant
of the similar reception given to his Dissertatio by Lambert,
Mendelssohn, and Sulzer. The explanatory motif in this
work is very simple and has scarcely any repercussions on
the strict development of Kant's thought. Indeed his teach-
ing itself was not affected either by the attempt to restate it,
this time in very short paragraphs, or by his account of the
origin of the Critical problem. The change in method,
however, does bring new light to bear on the problem in
go
THE COMPLETION OF THE CRITICAL SYNTHESIS
question. The synthetic method adopted in the Critique
caused Kant to arrange his demonstration in the following
manner: first, analysis of the a priori elements in thought,
then by means of them a reconstruction of objective know-
ledge, and finally a reconstruction through objective know-
ledge of the objective sciences of the physico-mathematical
type. The analytic method of the Prolegomena follows the
opposite path: Kant presupposes the existence of the objec-
tive sciences, and by analysing them deduces their a priori
conditions. By this change in method the author could
flatter himself that he had given a more popular turn to
his difficult doctrine and one which would be more within
the range of the public for which he was writing. Despite
all his efforts, events 011ce again showed that in this respect
Kant was mistaken.
The polemical element, which is to be found combilled
with the explanatory element, concerns the subjectivist inter-
pretation of the Critique. The signal for this was given by
the Carve-Feder review which claimed that Kant denied all
transcendent existence. Kant's reply, in the Prolegomena,
which he had hoped would both. persuade the public to read
his work and also silence the prejudiced critics, had at first
only a very partial success. The explanatory text did not
appear to be better understood than the original, but
remained just as obscure for the ordinary reader, a judg-
ment which is still valid today despite all that Schopenhauer
has said. However, the book did succeed in creating a
current of interest in th.e Critical philosophy, which explai11s
why from 1785 the Critical philosophy gradually becan1e the
quaestio disputata throughout Cern1any. Kant then gathered
around himself a certain number ofsympathisers. In general
these were men of little note whose mediocrity was to some
extent balanced by their indefatigable zeal and vigorous
activity. In a comparatively short time they were able to
bring about Kant's triumph in spite of all opposition. His
fellow-countryman Scl1ultze brought hinl to the atte11tion of
the public by his famous Erliiuterungen; Schutz warn1ly and
devotedly embraced his cause in his popular review; Biester
gained for him the sympathies of the capital in his liberal
periodical; and Reinhold won over the general public and
9
1
the University with his skilful panegyric. His opponents,
however, were still much more powerful both in nun'1ber
and in quality. They controlled the institutions of higher
education and they had the ear of the cultivated public.
Certain of them, like the eclectic Feder and the Wolffian
Eberhard, proved intransigent from the beginning, but there
were others who were more hesitant. Mendelssohn, and
especially Professor Ulrich at lena, did not feel themselves
hostile to Kant in principle but were not prepared to go so
far as to embrace the whole of a doctrine which was the
subject of such bitter controversy.
Kant, finding himself at the centre of these currents
opinion, based his attitude on that of Ulrich who, visibly
shaken by the Critical philosophy, showed considerable
sympathy towards it. Certain main themes of a similar
general tendency appeared in the infinite variety of dif-
ferent criticisms put forward. The Wolffians, dogmatic in
general like their master, interpreted the limitation of our
knowledge to the world of phenomena as a -mere imitation
of the scepticism ofHume. The legend ofthe ' all-destroying
Kant' and of the' Prussian Hume' became magic words
which echoed round the four corners of Germany. More
annoying to Kant was the tendency to confuse the Critical
philosophy with subjective idealism. He refused point-blank
to figure as the satellite of Berkeley in the philosophical
world. Eclectics and Wolffians both interpreted the thesis
of limitation, which had been simply a matter of prudence
to its author, as the pure and simple negation of any trans-
cendent world. Kant protested in vain that he had in mind
only our knowledge of phenomena, but was unable to
persuade his critics to admit the distinction between these
two very different points of view.
More precise attacks against certain vital theses in the
Critical philosophy were beginning to develop. Ulrich,
commenting on the general solution to the Critical problem
in connection with causality, had just accused it of being
a carefully disguised vicious circle whose sophistic character
would disappear only by breaking the frame of the limita-
tion itself. His commentary had barely appeared when an
anonymous but friendly writer in Schutz's review attributed
9
2
Ulrich's errors to the unintelligibility of the deduction, and
pleaded extenuating circumstances for Ulrich on the basis
of the invincible obscurity surrounding this central doctrine
which, he clain1ed, ought to have been the most clearly
expounded. This pressure fronl without, added to his own
dissatisfaction with this part of his work, made Kant attribute
to the deduction full responsibility for all the misunderstand- '>0
ings to which his doctrine was exposed. In the long rlln it
was the deduction which caused his contemporaries to be
distrustful of the thesis oflimitation, and it was the deduction
also which led naturally to the subjective-idealist interpreta-
tion of the Critical philosophy.
The explanatory tendency and the defensive tendency,
which between 1782 and 1787 were reinforced from day to
day by various developments, combined in Kant's mind to
bring about some almost unconscious changes which were
central to his teaching. First of all, a new formulation of
the positio quaestionis was inevitable. In 178I this centred 1
around the problem of the objectivity of our a priori know-
ledge, a problem which had arisen in connection with the
conformity of the a priori concept to the object of experience.
This had been solved by the demonstration that the pure
concept is objectively valid because it is the condition of
experience and consequently also the condition of the objects
of experience. Now, in the Prolegomena the problem is
altered so that the true nervus probandi is the universal validity
of the judgment of experience. It was in 1785, in a note to
be found in the Anfangsgrunde der Naturwissenschajt, that Kant
suddenly and completely altered the situation and, by a
sharp return to t h ~ standpoint, of the Triiume, substituted
for the problem of objectivity that of the limitation of pure
reason to phenomena as the real Critical demonstrandum.
An element of the solution in 1781, the limitation became
the problem to be solved. In Kant's reorganisation of t h e ~
deduction in 1787, as we shall see, the limitation is treated
both as the problem to be solved and as the condition of
its solution. It is a condition in Sections 16-21 of the
deduction; it is a problem in Sections 22-6. This shows
that Kant had reached this positio quaestionis only by stages
and that it is the end of a fairly long evolution. It is
93
THE DEVELOPMENT OF KANTIAN THOU GHT
consequently a matter of importance to consider the stages
in some detail.
In 1781 Kant solved the enigma of the objectivity of the
pure concepts by showing that they are the conditions of
the objects of experience and that it is this which constitutes
their objectivity. They are therefore not only the ratio
cognoscendi of phenomena but at the same time their ratio
fiendi or structural principle. This meant that synthesis was
in essence the constructive act around which the wIlole
~ procedure of the deduction rotated. The latter therefore
represented a schematic construction of the intuitive world
at the moment of experience through the superposition of
synthetic operations by the subject upon the diversity of the
indeterminate given. Now, the pure concepts are precisely
these functions of synthetic unity applied to sensible matter
and in consequence the conditions of the intuitive world
even when considered as object of experience.
This simple and concise solution forms an integral part
of the Kantian conception of experience. To make it accep-
table it is certainly essential to distinguish between sensible
perception and experience. Experience is formal, and is to
be found in the necessary system of perceptions organised by
the a priori laws of reason or by the categories which the
subject elaborates in a mass of perceptions which, possessing
no structure of their own, await their form, their structure,
and their determination as representations from the subject.
In this way it is the mind which constructs experience .as a
necessary and objective process. This shows that percep-
tions must be submitted to the categories in the synthetic
act of tIle subject. This submission can be understood
either as a synthetic construction or as a process of logical
subsumption.
In 1781 Kant preferred the latter procedure: the sub-
mission required for the constitution of objective knowledge
in most cases takes the form of the subsumption of a parti-
cular diversity of perceptions under the universal forms of
apperception. Everything considered, such a procedure
explains nothing because, if it is really to have any force,
it is essential to explain how the subsumptive act takes
place, this great secret of the construction of the intuitive
94
world or of the object of experience. However that may
be, the general result is fairly clear. If the subsumption
of matter under the pure concept brings the object of
experience into being, matter has neither form nor deter-
minate structure in itself, but owes both the one and the
other to the synthetic activity of the subject. In itself
matter cannot be represented and therefore does not occur
as a factor in the analysis of knowledge in its autonomy
and in its ontological independence. Matter can only be
represented in the phenomenon, that is, in the structure
which emanates from the synthetic act effected by the know-
ing subject.
It is in synthesis therefore that the whole mystery of the
mechanism of objectification is to be found. Now, this syn- ..
thesis is also the direct cause of the erroneous interpretation
of those readers who saw in the Critique an exposition of
subjective idealism. Their error was indeed excusable. To
110ld that the subjective is the condition of the objective is
to maintain a thesis of a highly paradoxical nature. To
assert that synthesis determines the phenomenon surely
makes the latter a construction of the knowing subject
which has then no relation with the transcendent. The
subjectivity of phenomena could mean that the intuitive
world has cllanged into a tissue of appearances, and when
this thesis is extended to the knowledge of the s e l ~ this
knowledge in its turn becomes deceptive and illusory.
Synthesis, the psychological element which constitutes the
psychologico-transcendental process of knowledge, seems to
result in making the whole system of human knowledge
both subjective and relative, since Kant presents it as tIle
activity of a psychological subject whose purely logico-
transcendental nature has not yet been stressed.
Obviously it could only be to Kant's advantage to pro-
tect himself fronl such a misconception of his teaching. To;
achieve this he made two changes: to avoid having recourse
to synthesis he raised judgment to the rank of a fundamental
objectifying operation, and then decided to bring into focus
the real significance of the deduction. It is not surprising
that the Prolegomena, coming immediately after the Critique,
should still nlerely hint at these self-corrections, but the
95
Anfangsgriinde of 1785 shows that Kant had already full con-
fidence in the new orientation which the 1787 edition of the
Critique was to take. We have already pointed out that the
explanatory tendency in the Prolegomena produced changes
of a methodological character in the exposition ofthe Critical
philosophy. The Dlaterial changes which owe their origin to
the objection based on scepticism, as well as the explicit
mention of the necessity for the thing in itself, are faithfully
repeated in 1787, and will be discussed later.
However, the treatment of the Critical problem in the
second edition presents a very special aspect since synthesis
has been forced to abandon the role of objectifying principle.
Faithful to the analytic method, Kant presupposes, not as an
hypothesis but as incontestable fact, the validity of general
physics and its object, material nature, that is, the Inbegriff
of the objects of experience. This material nature has as
condition of its possibility complete submission to formal
nature, that is, to the Inbegriff of the a priori laws of experi-
ence. For an active as \vell as a substantive sense has
returned to the term 'experience'. At first this word
undoubtedly denoted not only the totality of the objects of
experience but also Erfalzren itself as spiritual act, often
called by Kant 'possible experience'. In these circum-
stances there is a profound difference between perception
and experience in the strict sense. Perception is a sensible
impression, contingent, particular, and concrete; it repre-
sents a simple state of n10mentary consciousness, the validity
of which is purely subjective, that is, limited to the subject
of the perception itself.
Henceforward experience is a reality of quite a different
nature. It has perceptions as matter. Therefore both con-
ceptions have the same material powers but different formal
structure. Experience is necessary and universal. It has its
own modality. Hence the connection which it establishes is
not limited, in its legitimacy and in its validity, to the subjec-
tive consciousness of the individual subject. It establishes a
connection with consciousness in general. This corresponds
to the consciousness which in 178I Kant had called trans-
cendental apperception, before his alarm at the charge of
idealism caused him to distrust the term. Experience
9
6
consequently presupposes the sensible percept outside the
individual and subjective frame of the subject of perception,
and this gives to it its ch,aracter of objectivity and its own
validity.
Perception and experience are both expressed on the
plane of discursive thought in the form of judgment. The
judgment of perception naturally bears all the characteristics
of perception, and the judgment of experience has the uni-
versality and necessity appropriate to experience. Only the
validity of the latter judgment is questioned in the Critical
framework and demands a deduction. The deduction could
not be developed from its original starting-point since it was
the psychological flavour of the earlier deduction which had
prevented readers from correctly understanding the Critical
philosophy. Something else must therefore be adopted to
raise the judgment of perception to the judgment of experi-
ence. This is achieved by again following the method of-
subsumption, but this time it is concrete perceptions which
are subsumed under the necessary laws of thought. In this
way they become integrated in the necessary order which
constitutes thought, and thus acquire universal validity,
since thought in general liberates them from the particular
concretions of the individual subject and converts them into
thoughts instead of mere states of consciousness. The Pro-
legomena is very cautious about the process of subsumption
itself. That is quite understandable because in detailing
this process Kant would inevitably have been brought back
to the jungle of synthetic functions of the early days. The
outcome is marked by a praiseworthy attempt at clarity and
shows consummate dialectical skill.
From the ideological point of view, however, the position
of this exegetical-polemical work could only be provisional
and the historical situation makes that easy to prove. Kant
had promised himself great things from his popular exposi-
tion. Disappointment awaited him, for his efforts were in
vain. He fell back on publications which were overdue.
He wrote articles on the philosophy of history which are
of Iittle importance for our subj ect, and he pursued his pro-
ject of establishing a twofold luetaphysics of morals and of
Ilature. However, deep within himself th.e fate of the tlleo-
(2,491) 97 8
retical Critique affected him profoundly. Constantly on the
look-out for any signs of discussion of his work, he held
himself ready to reply to contradiction and rejoiced in the
slightest success. A whole series of mental adjustments of
which we know only the result took place in silence. The
interest shown by his colleague Ulrich, gifted with quick
critical sense and obviously well disposed towards him,
moved him to action and probably made him recollect
earlier difficulties which were already growing blurred in
his memory. The fact that Ulrich singled out the problem
of the deduction, which had been considered unintelligible,
makes this all the n10re likely. Little by little the desire to
present the deduction in a simplified form took possession
of him. In the course of carrying out this purpose, his
teaching, consciously or unconsciously, inevitably suffered
a series of changes.
The real advance in this doctrine since the first edition
consists in the elevation of judgment to the rank of funda-
mental objectifying operation. The Prolegomena had posed
the problem of objectivity in such a manner as to avoid
making synthesis this operation, by making the centre of
the Critical problem the universalisation of our perceptions
in the judgment of experience. It was in 1785, in a foot-
note added at the last minute to the Anfangsgrunde, that Kant
succeeded in bringing the function of judgment right into
the foreground of the deduction. How was this substitution
effected? It had been alleged that the Critical system
depends upon the deduction. The defects in its actual
structure, although frankly admitted by Kant, make it
unnecessarily difficult and liable to rejection by the reader.
The deduction is therefore the source of a serious threat to
the Critical philosophy, especially as the Critical problem is
explicitly formulated as the problem of objectivity. Kant's
first move to meet this situation was to deflect attention
from objectivity as such: the Critical problem no longer
coincides with the question of objectivity, but becomes the
problem of the limitation of reason to phenomena, a problem
which had always haunted Kant's mind since the crisis of
the Triiume. What then can be invoked in order to set this
limitation on unshakable foundations? Apparently nothing
9
8
but the recognition that space and time are apriori forms of
intuition and that the categories are functions of judgment
applied to this intuition. It immediately follows that all
representations are knowledge of phenomena and that the
categories have no other function but to determine a sensible
content.
The very text of the note indicates why Kant decided on
such a change offront. The motive for it was the imperfect
state of the deduction. In 178I he had indeed takell great
pains to underline the inlportance of the deduction in which
the whole question of Critical objectivity is at stake. But
now, by placing the limitation thesis in the foreground, he
shows himself ready to modify his teaching and to diminish
the importance of the deduction. The problem of tIle limita-
tion really involves two sub-problenls, which he refers to as
the problem that and the problem how. In the problem that,
the plan was to show that the categories can have no objec-
tive use except when limited to phenomena. The problem
how concerns the manner or the process according to which
the categories make possible the object of experience. In
178I the whole deduction gave a detailed account of this
process. If the Critical philosophy is to be given a solid
foundation, this is both necessary and sufficient. To be able
to give an account of the second problem would undoubtedly
be most desirable, but it is not indispensable to the validation
of the Critical philosophy. Kant admits that he would like
to be able to solve the second problem, although he does not
see how this would be possible. The problem that is easily
solved by showing the relations between the categories and
the general form of sensible receptivity, nanlely, time.
Although the problem how was more complex, Kant had
just discovered an equally simple way of solving it through
the definition of judgment itself. He does not expatiate at
large on this discovery, a general master-key in the discus-
sion of objectivity, but simply substitutes this brief suggestion
for the original deduction. Th.is argument is too indeter-
minate to be clear, and we must await the recasting of the
deduction in 1787 before attempting to deal with it.
Kant's chief concern at this period, however, is not the
deduction. On the contrary, he developed the critique of
99
practical reason which we shall discuss in the next section.
In 1786 the first edition of the theoretical Critique was
rapidly becoming exhausted. The publisher wanted a new
edition. This provided an excellent occasion for Kant to
effect the changes which he himself wislled to make and
also those wllich his readers were pressing on him. The
second edition appeared in the course of the year 1787.
We are interested only in the additions made to the Critical
doctrine. These include the following points:
(I) To meet the charge of scepticism, Kant wrote a new
Preface intended to explain the positive value of the Critical
philosophy.
(2) Against the criticism of idealism he put forward the
doctrine of phenomenalism, and protested against any
confusion of an appearance with the ph.enomenon.
(3) He inserted in the Analytic of Principles a direct
refutation of idealism, the origin of which., it seems to me,
is sufficiently clear.
(4) He introduced in the body of his teaching a complete
doctrine of the ego dealing with its existence, with inner
sense, and with apperception.
(5) Finally, he rewrote the chapter on the deduction.
Let us glance briefly at the general tenor of these changes.
The Critique was bound to offend th.e empirical spirit of
the eclectics and the dogmatism of the Wolffians. As it
preached the unknowability of the transcendent world and
limited objective knowledge to phenomena, its opponents
were scandalised and vigorously opposed the new Pyrrhon-
ism, which seemed even more dangerous as it was presented
under the guise of a theory of science. In 1781 Kant had
stressed his view that the value of the Critical philosophy
was negative, that is, that it lay in the claim that reason
cannot transcend experience. Now in 1787, while still main-
taining this negative value in the new Preface, Kant added
a twofold positive value: namely, that the Critical philo-
sophy is the absolute condition of the metaphysics of morals
and the condition of the metaphysics of nature.
Let us not forget that by this time the moral Grundlegung
100
had found its way to the public and that the practical
Critique was ready to appear, so that Kant had firm views
about the possibility of the metaphysics of morals. In the
thesis of the dogmatists the rational a priori is considered to
be some kind of representation of the transcendent. The
Critical thesis on the other hand rests on the distinction
between thinking and knowing. In itself thought is freed
frOlll the limiting conditions imposed by experience. Know-
ledge however must conform to experience. Hence, if the
mind does not set itself to know an object, the path of
thought is free. Ethics aims not at scientific knowledge, but
at the a priori regulation of morality. Hence the condemna-
tion of moral knowledge amounts to saving moral thinking.
With regard to the metaphysics of nature, Kant insists on
the propaedeutic character of the Critical synthesis. The
latter studies the organic conditions of a scientific structure
of theoretical metaphysics, the supreme condition of which
is the limitation of knowledge to phenomena. Hence, by
condemning transcendent and dogmatic metaphysics, the
Critical philosophy saves the truly scientific part of meta-
physics.
The great Critical lesson seems to be embodied in the
phenomenalist empiricism. While in 1781 the transcendent
figured most ofte11 as a fundamental unexpressed postulate,
the recasting of his teaching is distinguished by direct and
frequent reminders of the necessity for the thing in itself as
the condition of the intelligibility of phenomena. Further-
more, in view of the claim in the Garve-Feder review, in
which Erscheinung is interpreted as Schein, that henceforward
knowledge must keep to the pure appearances of things,
Kant added a whole section to the Critique in order to
eliminate any such lamentable confusion. In a vigorous
ad hominem argument he accuses his opponent of committing
this same error in holding that space and time are both
conditions of things in themselves when considered as forms
and also that they are things in themselves when considered
as objective realities. He explains again how the Critical
philosophy saves the necessity of experimental knowledge.
A similar thesis dominates the structure of the reorganised
deduction, as we shall see presently.
101
Since phenomenalism was exposed to the danger of being
interpreted as a kind of disguised scepticism, the a priori
formalism was bound to raise a general cry of indignation
from the dogmatic realists who read it as subjective idealism,
and we know that Kant's teaching was commonly interpreted
in this way. To counteract this unjustified assimilation of his
teaching to that of a Berkeley, Kant had to take certain pre-
cautions which are evident in the new edition. In the
Analytic of Principles he added both an explicit Refutation
of Idealism and a General Remark with the same purpose.
Suppressing some parts and adding others, he also recast
the particularly dangerous passage dealing with noumena
and phenomena. In this cOl1nection the anti-idealist reply
takes in general two forrns: (I) the demonstration of the
existence of the transcendent, and (2) the delimitation of
the use of the categories.
The refutation of idealism, which demonstrates the
necessity of a transcendent existent, is not an absolutely
new section, bllt rather a section which has been moved
to a new place. The formal idealism professed by Kant
is not aimed at all at the transcendent. The debate must
therefore centre around material idealism, within which
two separate types must be distinguished: the dogmatic
type of Berkeley which denies the existence of the 'in
itself' since the very idea of it is false, and the Cartesian
or problematic form which simply doubts the existence of
an external 'in itself'. The Critical theory of sensibility
is itself a sufficient refutation of dogmatic idealism. The
Cartesian form Kant finds plausible and worthy of careful
treatment. The lines of his argument are well known: he
shows that the existence of the self, tll0Ught by Descartes
to be privileged, presupposes the existence of an external
transcendent. Knowledge of our existence is possible on
the basis of a permanent object of perception distinct from
the self. The second form of the Kantian reply consists in
limiting the employment of the categories to phenomena,
an employment which is determined by the distinction
between knowing and thinking. The doctrines of sensi-
bility and of understanding, Kant says, converge to a
single point: the necessary limitation of the a priori to
102
experience in the theoretical use of reason. The trans-
cendent use extends the employment of pure concepts to
things in themselves and does not therefore correspond to
the criteria of objectivity. Any incursion of reason into the
domain of the transcendent by n1.eans of the categories is
therefore to be condemned, if this is interpreted as a means
of knowing and of constructing a science of the transcendent.
The science of the a priori cannot be conceived as an onto-
logy: it is a pure analytic of reason, that is, a science which
makes a study of understanding in its formal aspects.
The united effect of these predominantly restrictive theses
was to lead to the denial of the knowability of the selfin itself,
a major scandal in the eyes ofthe Cartesian Wolffians and the
enlightened eclectics. All Kant's opponents, Garve, Feder,
Ulrich, Mendelssohn, etc., protested against this devaluation
of the self which was inevitable within the framework of the
Critical philosophy. In 1787 Kant reconstructed the doc-
trine of the self by first elaborating the doctrine of inner
sense and then by restating his teaching about the self in
itself. The Critical philosophy in its first form hardly men-
tioned inner sense because the attempt to incorporate con-
temporary psychology gave its functions to imagination, but
in 1787 the appeal to inner sense was to bring a very serious
problem in its train. A phenomenon presupposes a subject
of affection and an affecting matter. How can a subject
affect itself? Clearly Kant wished to achieve a complete
parallel between outer and inner sense despite the important
difference between them. He wanted to do so, because the
most important content of inner sense is represented by the
knowledge of external perceptions, and because external
experience has priority over inner experience. Despite
everything, it remains true that for inner sense the matter
is not foreign to the subject and that the subject is therefore
affected by itself. How is auto-affection to be explained?
By the distinction not of two subjects but of two moments
in the same subject. There is first an active moment: the
subject carries out certain activities in positing its representa-
tions; there is also a passive moment: the subject is capable
of apprehending the material diversity of its acts, which are
consequently data in relation to this apprehension. Since
13
this apprehension is sensible, the given matter is not matter
in itself but phenomenal matter. Hence the deduction
submits the knowledge ofthe selfto the normal and customary
conditions of objectivity.
Moreover, in the 1781 version oftlle Paralogisms of Pure
Reason Kant had launched a powerful offensive against
rational psychology, refuting one after the other the doc-
trines of the substantiality, simplicity, and identity of the
soul. In 1787 he was less prolix but proved in a single
unitary passage that the metaphysics of the soul is a tissue
of purely analytic judgments from which no objective know-
ledge of the self can be deduced. Knowing in fact consists
in the determination of intuition by the logical functions of
thought. Now, the unity of consciousness, the final analytic
reference of representation, is a pure thought with no corre-
sponding intuition. Its analysis therefore furnishes no know-
ledge of the self as object. The' I think' of apperception
does not guarantee the existence of the object-self. It is an
intellectual representation given on the occasion of an
empirical process, that is, it is only present if all empirical
representation furnishes a preliminary matter. The' I
think' depends therefore on the exercise of the thinking
activity, and guarantees only the existence of the thought
and not the existence of the self in itself. The latter must
be admitted as the correlative of internal phenomena, but
that amounts to a declaration of its unknowability. The
doctrine of the self in the two forms just cited may therefore
be said to confirm the general thesis of Critical pheno-
menalism.
Thus we come to the most important and decisive change
brought about by the recasting ofthe Critique, the reorganisa-
tion of the deduction in which culminate the feelings and
resentments which Kant converted into arguments in his
successive versions of the Critical problem between I 78I and
17
8
7. I need make no further reference to the elimination
of the subjective part of the deduction which brought about
the disappearance of synthesis as the centre of gravity of
, the argument. But the changes stimulated by his lack of
confidence in synthesis are still more profound. Synthesis,
displaced from the centre, had to be replaced, and this was
14
achieved by the notion of unity. Synthesis plays the part
of a provisional operation belonging to ilnagination, but the
true dominating function of understanding is unification.
The categories no longer represent synthetic functions, but
functions of synthetic unity. The definition of knowledge as
the synthetic unity of a sensible diversity gives to the deduc-
tion a direction different from that of 178I. Indeed, this
unity is constituted in and by the act of judgment so that
the intuitive world presents itself as inevitably drawn together
in the functions ofjudicative unity. However, the converse
is not true. The function of unity is not organically bound
to sensible intuition: a nleta-sensible use always remains
possible, although all objective and scientific validity must
be denied to it. It follows that the question of validity does
not coincide with the question of being. That is what the
new deduction is designed to explain.
In 178I the aim of the deduction was to set up the cate- ~
gories as the conditions of experience; in 1787 tIle purpose
was to demonstrate that the categories are th.e conditions of
the empirical use of reason. The return towards pheno-
menalism in the Anfangsgriinde has borne fruit. However,
there is no formal contradiction between these two objectives.
They clearly rest on the same tlleses: the necessity of
empirical data, the phenomenal nature of these data, tIle
reciprocal determination of the given and of consciousness,
objectivity limited to phenomena, the unknowability of the
thing in itself, and the absolute rejection of any ontological
claim on the part of the sensible and intellectual a priori.
Nevertheless, the demonstration of the new thesis is no longer
prepared by a psychological-transcendental exposition giving
a preliminary analysis of the logical structure of thought in
objective knowledge. It goes straight to its purpose with an
undeniably objective trend, and it gravitates around a theory
ofjudgment. Just as Kant expounded the original objective
deduction by beginlling first witll apperception as the highest
condition, and then by the given or the lowest condition, the
same procedure is found in 1787: in Sections 16-2 I the"
deduction is developed from apperception, in Section 26
from the given, while Sections 22-5 limit the objective
validity of the categories to their enlpirical use as a preface
10
5
to Section 26, where the limitation is inserted as one of the
conditions of reasoning.
The categories, so reasons Kant, are necessarily connected
with the object on condition that there is a corresponding
intuition: intuition is therefore an indispensable function.
Must this intuition be sensible? If so, being and validity
coincide; if not, being and validity pose two different
problems. Intellectual intuition is possible, but intuition
as it appears in the organic constitution of human know-
ledge is subject to spatio-temporal forms. We can therefore
think an object without taking into account the specific
nature of the intuition, but in order to kno"" it allowance
must be made for tIle fact that intuition is exclusively sen-
sible. Hence, a deduction which determines the use of the
categories for intuition in general is no longer sufficient.
This use must be determined according to the human given,
that is, it must be shown that the categories are the necessary
conditions of sensible intuition, or, in other words, that
perceptions themselves are constituted only by the cate-
gories. This is what Kant proves in Section 26.
This brief account of the deduction proves that it is
consistent with its predecessor of I 78I and that Schopen-.
hauer, Fischer, and company are wrong in taking exception
to it on the ground that there has been contradiction and
'" retraction. However, this fundamental unity in his teaching
is not inconsistent with the view that Kant's thought has
undergone an evolution, and that the deduction of 1 787
represents an independent stage which opens new perspec-
tives on the Critical problem for both Kant and his readers.
It was necessary first to modi.fy the classical notion ofjudg-
ment. While in 1781 judgment was a simple unification of
concepts, it was now necessary to see in it the unification
of concepts which had been categorially determined. Far
from finding a flagrant contradiction between these two
conceptions, . Kant simply bracketed them together in the
deduction. Since unity has been substituted for synthesis,
it becanle necessary to make apperception absolutely pre-
eminent as the dominating unity, as the act and the place
of unification. The category replaces synthesis in this func-
tion. In the third place, it was necessary to provide a third
106
intermediary between sensible receptivity and objective
knowledge. The link was assured in 1781 by imagination
in view of the fact that the unifying act was synthesis.
Imagination disappeared almost completely with the sub-
jective deduction in which it was the principal element, and
was replaced in 1787 by a more logical factor, formal
intuition.
Space and time are indeed the a priori forms of sensible
receptivity, but they are at the same time pure representa-
tions of determined spaces and times. For these latter, then, .
a spatio-temporal diversity had to be first categorially deter-
mined and unified. It is formal intuition as opposed to the
form of intuition. Hence Kant finds in this formal intuition
a ground of agreement between sensibility and understand-
ing. Formal intuition maintains a connection with recep-
tivity in the sense that the a priori spatio-temporal matter
is itself the form of receptivity; on th.e other h.and, it is
connected with intellectual unification, since this matter has
to be categorially determined in order to become actual.
Here again there is no contradiction as the theory of formal
intuition is limited to replacing the faculties of 1781 by their
products.
The obligation to protect his doctrine against false inter-
pretations produced the phenomenalist factor which has been
called empiricism. In 1781 the problem was set a11d solved
within a rationalist framework: objective knowledge, experi-
ence, and nature are possible through pure apriori concepts.
In 1787 the problem was set and solved in empirical terms:
the pure a priori concepts are objective through their neces-
sary correlation with the sensible factor. This return to
phenomenalism is well marked in three theses: in the
distinction between thinking and knowing which are similar
in their formal structure but different in their material
content; in the reduction of intuition in general to sensible
hllman intuition, which makes objectivity depend on an
intuitive given; in the application of this twofold thesis in
all its rigour to the knowledge of the self. We are entitled ,-
to conclude from this that the deduction of 1787 represents
an independent step and at the same time a new achieve-
ment on Kant's part in comparison with the results
17
previously reached. We believe that tIle independent nature
of the new deduction can be based on the view that in 1787
Kant did not wish to react principally against the charge of
idealism in general, but above all against the epithet of
, subjective' which accompanied the word' idealism'. The
new orientation does not, as tradition would have it, aim at
a return to realism, but establishes a Critical idealism in
which all traces of any affinity with psychological subjec-
tivism have been banished. This thesis is too revolutionary
to be put forward without a special attempt on my part to
justify it.
In 1781 realism appears to be the basic postulate. There
is a transcendent in itself, but the co,nstructive character of
Critical idealism rests essentially on the intellectual spon-
taneity which undertakes the setting up of the intuitive
world, the sole object of pllysico-mathematical science.
Concentrating on his discovery, Kant very carefully analyses
the psychological-transcendental mechanism of this con-
struction in the deduction. The constructive act is synthesis
which in consequence is the essence of knowledge itself.
The organic modes of synthesis or the categories thus repre-
sent the fundanlental articulations of the intuitive world
itself. By n ~ e a n s of the doctrine of affinity, this synthetic
construction brings about a first rationalisation among the
given in such a way that, tIle thing in itself being pre-
supposed, the synthetic act itself produces the general form
of the knowable world.
An exposition of this kind, even if correct, contains
dangerous elements because of its extreme idealism. Kant
could not be offended by the accusation of idealism; he
knew perfectly well that his thesis was idealist. He was
upset however when his thesis was mistaken for a denial
of the transcendent, or rather when it was thought that he
granted on the one hand a creative power to mind in the
realm of the transcendent while on the other he limited
".., objective science to mere fugitive arbitrary appearances.
The nature of Kant's twofold reaction is fully intelligible:
he 'emph.asises empirical realism or phenomenalism, and he
organises the constructivist theory in a firmer and more
intransigent manner, both by the sacrifice of certain themes
108
discussed in 1781 and by the introduction of new develop-
ments.
By the suppression of the psychological aspect Kant
wanted to get still closer to the purely logical essence of
all intellectual construction. This psychological element
had furnished him with the notion of the transcendental
object which had increased the danger of confusion with
idealism of the Berkleian type. Kant suppressed, or rather
concealed, this danger by getting rid of the term. The
functions formerly attributed to the transcendental object
are firmly passed to apperception in 1787, that is, to the
final act constructive of unity. Finally, Kant did away
with possible experience as an operativemediull1.. It had
been the source of the subsumptive process between matter
and form, between the a priori and the a posteriori, and
between sensibility and understanding. What the subsump-
tion loses in prestige, syntl1esis, or rather synthetic unity,
gains. The sacrifice of these three themes is motivated in
each case by a desire to avoid subjectivism by means of a
1110re assured constructive idealism.
Exactly the same thing happens "\rvith respect to the
alterations in the recast deduction. These are limited to
the following four points: (a) the ' I think', (b) the dis-
tinction between knowing and thinking, (c) the theory of
judgment, and (d) formal intuition. The' I think' takes
over the functions of the transcendental object. In 1781
the transcendental object oscillates ceaselessly between the
thing in itself and apperception, a fact which was respon-
sible for the mistaken view that apperception is creative in
the order of the transcendent. By means of the ' I think'
the function of this transcendental object is uniformly deter-
mined as apperception. Furthermore, the' I think' replaces
the very term' apperception '. The term was not to dis-
appear, but none the less Kant preferred to be careful and
to substitute' synthetic unity', a more logical expression for
the act of thought which is the ultimate reference for the
whole cognitive process.
The distinction between thinking and knowing could be
interpreted as the revenge of realism, but not necessarily so,
because it will be the basis, not of a thesis concerning the
109
existence of transcendent things, but of the empirical con-
struction of the empirical object by the subject. Indeed the
necessary convergence of the act of synthetic unification and
sensible forms rests on it in the construction of the spatio-
temporal framework, where the irrational given is com-
pletely stripped of every suggestion of transcendence.
Judgment reappears on Kant's horizon as the principle
of objectification. This means that Kant is abandoning the
subsun1ption of the empirical given under the categories as
conditions of experience. Judgment consists in the actual
positing of synthetic unity or in the fundamental act of
objective thinking, for thought actualises itself in its objec-
tifying moments in the form ofjudgn1.ent. Formal intuition
is destined in its turn, and I must repeat this, to replace
subsumption. Indeed, the subsumption of the sensible under
the intellectual, or of the given under the categories, was a
renewal of the modus vivendi concluded between the realism
which hinted at things and the idealism which constructed
,. knowledge. Space and time very nearly became categories,
that is, modalities of the constructive activity of thought.
The opposition between sensibility and understanding was
much less sharp because of formal intuition. Time and
space certainly maintained themselves as forn1s, but these
forms are transcendental potentialities which are actualised
and which become representations in the very act of intel-
lectual construction. By formal intuition Kant paves the
way to a universal constructivism which is the source of
mathematics and general physics. The constructivism of
formal intuition will be the basis from which will come the
Opus Postumum (the final but unrevised version of the Critical
philosophy) and then the objective idealisn1 of romanticism.
However, let there be no mistake about the nature of
our position. I recognise at once that there is something
paradoxical in seeing in the Critical philosophy of 1787 a
reinforced idealism. The whole tradition of past Kantian
scholarship sees there a more powerful realism, evidenced
by empirical realism or phenomenalism and by the incessant
t. appeal to the intuitive given. If thought is conceived as
the faculty which represents a determinate reality which
is ontologically independent, the!l realism is the natural
110
interpretation. But when thought is conceived as an
essentially constructive faculty in such a way that this
determinate and ontologically independent reality no longer
enters as a determining factor into this construction, realism
is no longer so easily understood. And this is assuredly
Kant's true position. But this certainly does not mean that
Kant denies the existence of the 'in itself', autonomous
and ontologically independent. Even Hegel never thought
of that. It is undeniable that in 1787, as in 1781, the
adoption of the postulate of transcendence surreptitiously
conditioned certain analyses and that a kind of silent
struggle took place between the transcendent principle and
the constructive principle. All organisation and all form
are not states of the real in itself, but on the contrary
creations of cOllstructive thought. Transcendent realism
can only obscure and taillt the purity alld clearness of
constructivism. This is clearly what takes place in the
autononlOUS stage which the second edition of the Critique
represents in the evolution of the Critical philosophy.
Thus, in tIle first place, the opposition between the
sensible and the intellectual was neither overcome nor
reabsorbed, so th.at the constructing subject finds itself
divided agail1st itself and th.e union of the two constituents
in the intellectual spontaneity scarcely rises above the level
of a kind of pre-established harmony with little explanatory
value. This reduplication presupposes at one end a matter
which can be, but is not yet, ordered. The possibility of
ordering this heteronomous matter, the condition ofrationali-
sation, is not logically derivable from intellectual functions.
Only a harmonisation, still too external to explain anything,
or the unity of the thinking activity invading the matter,
remain possible. Indeed both alternatives are to be found
side by side in our texts but are never united into a homo-
geneous and perfectly intelligible doctrine.
The second inconsistency in the constructivism which
conflicts with the realist postulate is the unsuppressed oppo-
sition between form and function. The purpose of the
deduction is to lay bare the a priori conditions which permit
a representation to become an object. These conditions
can be purely logical, and then we obtain forms. The
III
description of these forms will not reveal the origin of the
object and in consequence the real problem to be resolved
is evaded. A form indeed cannot be considered in isolation
from the source vvhich gives it its essence. It must be
brought to its principle. But this principle is unquestion-
ably an intellectual act. The form is certainly a reality but
it is the product of an act of the subject. Pure formalism
is unproductive. While Kant undoubtedly recognises the
essential constructivism of thought, it is no less true that
more tha11 one thesis supporting this constructivism carries
the imprint of hollow formalism. By the side of the intel-
lectual dynamism we often meet the static universal. Instead
of constructing the object, the deduction is frequently
deflected towards tIle problem of the hierarchisation of
knowledge which results from the imposition of forms, and
the connection between these two things is not made clear.
A similar hesitation before the constructive conception of
thought appears in the distinction between thinking and
knowing. I have no intention of claiming that the distinc-
tion lacks foundation, but it has perhaps been falsely pre-
sented. The representation of the object reveals a twofold
relation: the relation of the given to the unity of con-
sciousness, and the relation, arising from that, of the repre-
sentation to the object. This distinction is meaningful only
when. a certain conflict continues to exist between the act
and the form. Indeed the first relation furnishes the form
of representative unity and the second that of the object.
To unite and to objectify are the two corresponding functions
of these relations. Thus if unity and objectivity are two
distinct things, there is nothing to prove that the unity of
consciousness is the equivalent of objectivity. The one may
be inferred from the other, when unity is objectivity itself,
for then the relation is purely analytic. A rigorously logical
use of the deduction ought to have brought the two to the
absolute unity of the act of thinking. That would naturally
have brought about the suppression ofthe distinction between
the objective and subjective unity of consciousness. Fichte
did not hesitate. He suppressed the subjective unity, 'which
was more logical though less human. T11e same objection
could be raised against judgment. This is exact theory when
112
considered without any relation to logical formalism, but
Kant introduced into it the conflict between form and
function in th.e very originating act of thought. All these
inconsistencies and hesitations derive fronl a common source,
namely, the equivocal character of the theory of the subject.
When all connection with psychology is to be avoided,
the subject represents thought constituting the total a priori
conditioning of the object known, without relation to any
individual concretion. Subject and object therefore coincide
in this definition. N-ow, Kant is not happy with such an
interpretation even when the ontological and psychological
self is supposed to have been definitely put on one side.
The basic ambiguity in Kant's teaching is that between
the subject and thought. The' I think' or the unity of
consciousness is the element which totalises the a priori con-
ditions of the object. Now for thought he substitutes
consciousness. These are factors which are very different
one from the other. Thought is an act, consciousness is a
reflexive return on this act or on its product. Consciousness
has not the same immediacy as the act of thought. On the
other hand, the act of thought is indivisible and cannot be
analysed into subject-object, while consciousness is essentially
divided and dividing.
Consciousness is thus the discursive logical transposition
of the act which it presupposes. The subject considered as
the summit of transcendental reflection is only efficacious on
condition that it unequivocally signifies this originating act.
The subject conceived as consciousness is not an act; it is a
form or containing unity which by subsumption acquires a
content. Thus constructivism needs a subject, the unity of
"\tvhich is the very act of thought which is not yet conscious-
ness. The latter is in some sort a sensuous subject, reflexive
'and derivative. These are Kant's fundamental weaknesses
in relation to the generating principle of his Critical con-
structivism. In comparison witll the themes of 178I, the
second edition of 1787 clearly reveals an independent stage
in the Kantian Critical thought. It is independent because
it is marked by a tendency towards a more consistent
form of idealism vvhich is more objectively oriented than
the preceding stage. Most of the new themes which we
(2,491) I 13 9
have just met will reappear at the turn of the nineteenth
century, when Kant will find himself obliged to undertake
a general recasting of his theory of objectivity.
2
THE MORAL SYNTHESIS
cf. La Deduction III, 299-338
The Critique of Practical Reason was ready to go to the press
just at the time when Kant was engaged in producing a
second edition of the theoretical Critique at the invitation of
his publisher, Hartknoch. A popular exposition of his
moral teaching had preceded the practical Critique under
the title of Grundlegung zur Metaphysik der Sitten (Foundations
for the Metaphysics of Morals). The public certainly expected
something different. On the basis of the promises reiterated
by Kant over approximately twenty years, the ethical teach-
ing was expected to consist of a metaphysics of morals, and
yet here was Kant, both in 1785 and 1788, expounding, not
the expected metaphysics, but a critique of reason as it
judges in ethical matters. The theoretical Critique had been
presented as the unique critico-propaedeutic introduction to
the complete system of metaphysics. It included expressly a
passage dealing with the practical order in which the funda-
mental concept offreedom is deduced. It might l1ave been
concluded that in 1781 Kant did not think that a preparatory
critique in the moral field would be necessary. However,
nothing in the documents suggests that he devoted any time
to the preparation of a Metaphysik der Sitten (Metaphysics of
Morals). On the contrary, all the evidence we have cer-
tainly suggests that Kant was working on the Foundations,
which plays with regard to the practical Critique the same
role that the Prolegomena plays with respect to the theoretical
Critique. It prepares the reader, by means of an analytic
exposition, to penetrate into a new order of problems.
There can be 110 doubt that from the beginning Kant
114
wished to follow this popular introduction with a critique.
Indeed, the Foundations asserts, with an insistence which
must have been intended, that the auth.or is not developing
in the Foundations his full critique of morality. A preface to
the metaphysics of morals which presupposes a practical
critique, the Foundations gives a critique in a popular abbrevi-
ated form; it was to have been immediately followed by
the corresponding Metaphysics before the definitive Critique
saw the light of day. Indeed, Kant judged, rightly or
wrongly, that the moral critique is less urgent than the
theoretical critique and that in consequence it was sufficient
to give the reader a brief sketch of the main points by way
of introduction to the Metaphysics. The conclusion is that
Kant had originally intended to content himself with the
Foundations and then to pass immediately to the codification
of his Metaphysics. But instead of fulfilling this task, we see
that he postponed it for ten years, and with almost feverish
haste he worked out the practical Critique. If there is any
serious problerrl of origin about Kantian etllics, it is certainly
Kant's change of decision ,,,,ith regard to the Critique that has
to be explained.
At this point contemporary history comes to our assis-
tance. Kant's whole decision was taken from a purely
pragmatic standpoint. He thought that practical criticism
is more easily assimilated than theoretical criticism. The
history of the Foundations implies an important change in
these expectations. It provoked a violent protest from the
semi-Wolffians and Kant's optimism was to emerge con-
siderably shaken. He could only admit his error in having
trusted so completely in common sense: the public under-
stood the moral aspect of his Critical philosophy no more
easily than its theoretical aspect. It was then that he
changedhis mind and proceeded to write the moral Critique.
Although it had been planned as a work of apologetics,
Kant did not wish his work to be a polemical piece. He
left polemics to his friends. Although certain anonymous
polemical preoccupations can be traced in this Critique, we
find that its main characteristics are uniformly doctrinal.
In a brief account of his moral teaching, we must take
into consideration its twofold exposition. The Foundations
115
is presented under the form of a or popular
exposition of the Critique, but in a special sense which
makes this work rather different from the theoretical Prolego-
mena. Indeed it carries the reasoning up to just the point
from which the Critique will be able to take its start. The
Foundations sees in the problem a special case of syn-
thetic a priori judgment requiring a deduction to assure us
of its a priori possibility and of its objective validity. This
makes it possible to integrate it without difficulty into the
history of the Critical doctrine. The moral fact revealed in
the restrictive nature of the law of duty, a law which carries
the name of categorical imperative, is expressed in a synthetic
apriori judgment. Its apriori character calls for a demonstra-
tion by pure reason; the synthetic character arises from the
fact that the determination of the will by an objective moral
principle does not analytically coincide with the subjective
maxim of the will. Hence the determination of the will does
not result analytically from the notion of the will itself, but
is the result of a synthetic submission. In the theoretical
order, the problem of the synthetic judgment is resolved by
the of a third element in which the constituents
of the judgment are united. This element is intuition. Now,
the third element in the practical order is the positive con-
ception of freedom, is, a causality determined by its
own laws.
Will and autonomy are therefore reciprocal concepts. It
seems that in this case any deduction of the imperative
must necessarily involve a vicious circle and be unavoidably
sophistic. Indeed, if these concepts were absolutely univocal,
this would always be the case. However, the question is
whether the subject, when it appears as determined by a free
causality, conceives itselffrom exactly the same point of view
as when it appears to itself in the acts which it originates in
consequence of this causality. It seems that this is not the
case. The subject considered in the phenomenal order is
affected by objects and by their affections, therefore by
heteronomous laws, while the subject in itself is revealed
in the most complete spontaneity of reason free from every
natural pressure. Hence a twofold use of reason is called
for: a use in connection with the affections which will
116
conform to tIle laws of nature, and a free use uniquely
guided by its free spontaneity. It can then be seen that
spontaneous reason. can exercise a causal determination on
the will even if the natural causality of its actions takes
place entirely in the order of mechanical phenomena. It
is in this way that the vicious circle is avoided.
By this very fact the possibility of the moral principle as
an a priori judgment is conceivable. There is a possible
synthetic liaison between the subjective determination of the
will and the objective moral law, because the subject of the
will belongs to an intelligible world where it is freed from
the mechanical conditions of the intuitive world. As a
phenomenon it is seen to be subject to laws from which it
escapes when considered as a noumenon. Obviously this
whole reasoning is valid only in so far as the idea of free-
dom is presupposed. That is the idea which guarantees the
validity of the moral imperative. How is this freedom itself
possible? The Foundations finishes with the avowal of our
inability to understand this question. In this work, there-
fore, we are led up to the idea of freedom witll0ut being
able to justify it. It is from this idea that the practical
Critique will take its start.
Indeed, if the description and explanation of an a priori
moral given was the principal object of the Foundations, a
deduction of the objective validity of the moral principle
was going to be the focal point in the moral reflection con-
tained in the practical Critique. In the theoretical order
reason in its pursuit of knowledge is always exposed to the
danger of going beyond the limits which circumscribe objec-
tivity, because of the a priori character of its formal concepts.
A critical examination of reason is not so urgent in the
practical order where there is no question of knowledge.
Reasoll is there considered purely in its practical capacity
of determining a will and of bringing into existence objects
corresponding to its pure representations. The conformity of
reason to its object is evident in the practical order because
reason is itself the cause of its object. The only problem
to be solved and the true object of a practical Critique
therefore consists in asking if tllere really is a practical
reason, a reason which can determine the will in an a priori
117
manner. The new positio quaestionis leads naturally to a new
type of solution.
The theoretical Critique aimed at the explanation of the
a priori knowledge of objects. This presupposed sensible
intuition as matter, the pure concept as form, and certain
principles which apply the form to the matter. Practical
reason does not ainl at knowledge but at the realisation of
objects and that is achieved by means of a law or a practical
principle. The law is therefore the primary object of investi-
gation. It is clear that such a position leaves intact the
theoretical criticism, if only for the reason that these two
domains are not commensurable. It is not enough however
that the two Critiques should merely be consistent with one
another. A careful examination allows us to say that the
logical setting of the solution of the theoretical Critical
problem maintained itself intact in Kant's mind and that,
despite strong temptation, the great restrictive guarantees
with which it was surrounded are repeated without any
weakening. I repeat-ill spite of strong temptation.
Indeed, a summary inspection of the two domains seems
to reveal contradictory elements. On the one hand, no
penetration of the non-sensible world by the mind can be
permitted in the cognitive order. Therefore whatever
enlargement practical reason can procure, it will never
affect the system of knowledge which has been definitively
established. On the other hand, practical reason can be
conceived only as a rational penetration into the non-
sensible. Hence some enlargement must be held to be
possible since it is real. The theoretical Critique admitted
that reason is drawn by its very nature towards such an
extension; it did not forbid the continuation of the Critical
enterprise provided that the order of objective knowledge
and its limitations be respected. To refuse to this extension
the character of knowledge amounts to opening other per-
spectives from the side of faith. A legitimate field is thus
opened for practical criticism.
The principal aim of practical criticism is the deduction
of the practical use of reason. Objective necessity is always
the criterion of pure reason. In the practical domain, as
in the theoretical domain, a necessary rule, whether of
118
knowledge or of conduct, is called a law. Practical reason
is therefore manifested by the law or the moral principle.
The existence of this law or principle must first be estab-
lished, and then it must be recognised as the foundation of
the objectivity of the moral order. Now, the moral law is
for Kant the object of an immediate awareness; it is a fact
given by pure reason itself, a fact which is entirely inexpli-
cable. In this absolutely fundamental fact of the moral con-
sciousness we recognise an apriori principle whicll determines
the will. Since it cannot be grasped by sensible intuition,
the objective reality of this principle is not demonstrable by
means of intuition as had been the case with the categories.
The awareness of the principle is indissolubly bound up with
that of freedom because the moral principle simply affirms
freedom and the autonomy of practical reason. At this point
the practical Critique and the Foundations come together. The
moral principle, with which we come into contact in the
immediate awareness, consists in the rational principle which
determines the will a priori or which is autonomous in the
determination of the will.
At this point a very real difficulty comes to the fore. The
moral principle is a fact, something determined, an
immediate given of practical consciousness; hence any
deduction seen1S to be superfluous and useless. On the
other hand it is surely asking too nluch that such a prin-
ciple should be admitted without any attempt at deduction,
for this principle might be simply a subjective disposition on
our part which was making an unfounded claim to objective
validity. In the theoretical domain. experience constituted
a permanent guarantee, but this recourse is not available
to us in the practical domain. Therefore we are here in the
presence of a practical reason which cannot be detern1ined
by experience and which is inden10nstrable a priori. On the
whole, if Kant nevertheless proceeds to a deduction, this
deductiol1 will not be comparable to the process of reason-
ing which carried this name in 1781 and 1787. Indeed, the
demonstrandum of this deduction is not the moral principle
in the strict sense, but something else which is akin to the
principle, namely, freedom.
Theoretical reason was forced to deny objective validity
IIg
to a causality extended beyond the realm of sensible pheno-
mena. In spite of that, reason manifests an irresistible
tendency towards such a causality, and this tendency is so
strong that such a free causality must be allowed to be
conceivable. It seems now that the moral principle is
capable of transforn1ing the possibility of free causality into
a reality; first, by showing th.at the moral principle com-
pletes the system of theoretical reason in the order of free-
dom, and then by showing that by this means the agreement
of theoretical reason with. practical reason is possible in the
theoretical field. This deduction proceeds by successive
stages.
In the first stage Kant has to show that the negative
concept of freedom, or the non-dependence on foreign
determining causes, acquires a positive function i11 the
practical order, and that consequently it acquires the rank
of a positive concept instead of being a limiting c011cept.
Indeed the practical order grants to the concept of freedom
the proper function of determining the will directly by
the ideas of reason. The use which we make of reason
is not a transcendent but an immanent use; i11 other
words, it becomes possible to show how reason through
its ideas exercises causality in the field of experience
itself.
The second stage justifies this use, a use w11ich does not
violate the restrictive conditions of theoretical reason. The
category of cause has no determinable object except within
the limits of experience. In itself, however, by its a priori
character it can be made to function beyond th.ese limits on
condition that it does not claim objectivity, that is, does not
claim to represent an object. The practical use respects the
conditions under which the objective use is valid. The
coexistence of a rational tendency towards objective know-
ledge and a tendency towards the determination of the will
by ideas can be easily explained, because a rational being
must be considered under a double aspect which makes it
possible for his reason to be applied in two different ways.
If the subject is considered in so far as he is temporarily
conditioned, his acts are physically determined and hence
subject to the conditions of the kno,ledge of phenomena;
120
but when his acts are considered outside this temporal con-
ditioning, there is no reason why the causality exercised by
the subject in the order of phenomena should be any longer
physically conditioned. It can be free on condition that
this freedom is not taken to be a knowledge of the essence
of the subject, but simply the voluntary power of determining
the acts of a subject according to ideas.
The deduction of the moral principle is very brief despite
its double character. The principle is a basic undeniable
fact. Now this principle cannot be a fact except on the
condition that the will is supposed to have the power offree
causality. Therefore freedom shares in the factual nature
of the moral principle. However, the recognition offreedom
does not involve any positive determination of a transcendent
subject but is a pure condition of the intelligibility of the
moral act or of practical reason. An object of practical
reason is a representation in so far as it is the effect of a
free causality. But let us be clear about this. To perform
an act is a physical operation: only the willing of an act
can be the effect of this kind of causality. Therefore the
practical object is to will or not to will all act. Now, in
this case good and evil are the only objects of practical
reason, or the orlly practical categories as Kant sometimes
calls them. These categories subject the diversity of our
inclinations or of our desires to the unity of the practical
consciousness governed by the moral principle, and this is
the only deduction which we are capable of giving for it.
The category of the good is a necessary but abstract rule
which must be applied in concreto to sensible mechanical
actions. How is this application to be made? It is a
matter of determining the will to a concrete act made
possible by the rule of the good. We do not seek a schema
which permits the subsumption of a concrete case under
the general law, but rather the schema of the law itself, if
this improper expression may be allowed. The meeting of
the rule of the good and understanding in the practical
conditioning of an act is equivalent to asking the question:
can the maxim which inclines us towards this concrete act
be clothed with the form of a natural law? Natural
law does not determine the will, but, by the form of law
121
which it includes, it furnishes the type of judgment which
we direct on the motives of our conduct.
However, the problen1 is more complex. The moral law
is the sole foundation of the apriori detern1ination of the will.
However, this determination is not purely formal, does not
consist solely in conferring the form of a universal constraint
without any reference to matter. We find in ourselves a
collection of inclinations which all manifest the form of
happiness, but in varying degrees. The formal object of
the moral law is the good, wllile that of inclination is happi-
ness. As we belong to both the intelligible and the sensible
worlds, the unity of practical reason depends on the discovery
of a superior principle which goes beyond the regions
of the good and of happiness. This principle is called
the supreme good interpreted in the sense of the complete
good
How is this union of morality and happiness to be
realised? This union would be perfectly intelligible if the
notion of morality coincided with that of happiness or if
there were some synthetic bond between them. Now a
deduction is all the more necessary for the supreme good,
because practical reason seems to engender an internal
rational conflict in consequence of the difficulty of harmonis-
ing these two constituents of the practical order. Their
harmony is not in fact determined either by identity or by
a synthetic bond. Happiness does not determine moral
reason and moral reason does not produce happiness.
Hence the very notion of the supreme good is in doubt
unless we can find a means of overcoming this conflict.
Such a means seems to exist for Kant for, if the judgment
which expresses the subordination of the good to happiness
is false, the judgment which makes happiness depend on
the good is not false in an absolute manner. The autonomy
of the will forbids us to make an immediate synthetic con-
nection between the two constituents of the practical nature
of man. It does allow nevertheless a mediate synthetic
connection, an external connection between them, that is,
a connection which does not arise from the very nature of
man but from the intervention of another being who would
have nature within his power, a being which could be no
122
FfHE COMPLETION OF THE CRITICAL SYNTHESIS
other than God. Thus morality prepares the way for belief
in the existence of God.
It might be objected that the practical order, by making
a rneta-empirical use of the category of cause, runs counter
to the Critical tendency which so carefully limited that cate-
gory in the theoretical order. In order to maintain the two
Critiques side by side in a unified an.d unique synthesis, it is
necessary to find a satisfactory explanation for the apparent
divergence between their conclusions. Kant was obliged on
more than one occasion in his moral work to furnish this
explanation. It always comes back to a form of the argu-
ment which we have already come across in his writings.
Use of causality in the noumenal or meta-sensible dimension
is, objectively considered, impossible. However, reaSOll has
another task than that of knowing an object: it tends also
to realise objects by the will. A subject which exercises this
causality is a causa noumenon. Thus the concept of such a
cause is not cOlltradictory because the category is a form of
synthetic unity. The objective use of the category is limited
to phenomena but, organically speaking, it is not submitted
to this restriction. Its use may therefore be extended to
noumena 011 condition that there is no question of extend-
ing the boundaries of knowledge. If no attempt is made to
penetrate the essence of the being who exercises this causa-
lity, and if its existence is simply affirmed on the basis of
belief in the reality of a principle of a priori determination
of the will, then no obstacle arises from tIle side of the
theoretical restriction already referred to. The same is true
of the regulative Ideas of reason, freedom, inlmortality, and
the existence of God, although Kant has apparently just
given thenl corresponding objects. However, the postula-
tion of these three Ideas does not imply any intention to
enlarge the field of our knowledge. On the other hand,
while the Ideas were purely regulative for theoretical reason,
they are clearly constitutive of objects in the practical use.
But once again we are not trying to know their objects.
We limit ourselves simply to inquiring whether there are
such objects. Practical reason actually imposes the duty of
replying affirmatively to this question. The refusal to pene-
trate the secret of their essence saves the homogeneity of the
12
3
double Kantian doctrine. The categories are organically
bound up with knowing and with constructing the world of
phenomena on the basis of given intuitions; in addition
they have the function of enabling us to think the meta-
sensible in so far as it is postulated by practical reason.
The theoretical limitation of reason finds its counterpart in
the practical extension of the saUle reason. This is the real
meaning of the Kantian adage which is so often misunder-
stood: 'the suspension of knowledge is the condition of the
installation of moral faith'. Scientific kno"Vvledge and moral
faith form the two poles of the human spirit.
3
THE CRITIQUE OF TELEOLOGY
Let us go back to the years 1765-6. After publishing his
Essay on the Beautiful (1764) Kant incorporated aesthetics
into the programme of his lectures. When the Dissertatio
made it possible to look forward to the realisation of a plan,
conceived mucll earlier, which embraced a whole system of
philosophy, the great Critical programme established in
177I included the study of the beautiful under the title of
a critique of taste. This plan became more detailed in
1772: under the heading of metaphysics Kant intended to
follow the Critical propaedeutic with a metaphysics dealing
with nature, morals, and the principles of feeling, of taste,
and of the sensible appetites. Very little is known about
the earlier phases of this plan and the paucity of information
is itself a source of the most hazardous hypotheses. This is
especially the case with regard to the last Critique. To make
an a priori science out of a material earlier declared to be
purely empirical, to include under one heading things as
different as life and the beautiful, to recast the whole theory
ofjudgment-there we have a group of paradoxes more than
capable of arousing curiosity and stimulating speculation.
12
4
The Critique of Judgment, which in 1790 completed the
Critical synthesis, deals with the beautiful and witll organic
teleology. It is essential to make a provisional separation
between two objectives. We l1ave just recalled tllat a study
of the beautiful and even a critique of taste had formed part
of Kant's intentions ever since the conception of his general
philosophical plan, but that we know scarcely anything
about the stages by which this plan was realised. The first
Critique, in explaining the term 'aesthetic' as 'sensible
knowledge', makes a distinction between that and the
theory of beauty, which, declares the text, it would be
fruitless to treat by rational principles, since its sources and
principles are empirical. Organic teleology is excluded by
Kant from the list of categories; teleology does not figure
among the constitutive principles of nature. On the whole,
the situation does not appear to be too favourable towards
the projected critique of taste. However, while he was
rewriting the theoretical Critique and after he had written
the moral Critique, Kant corrected the note which I have
just cited and modified his views about the empirical
character of the critique of taste. Not all the sources, but
the principal sources, are now claimed to be empirical.
His earlier confidence seemed shaken. Kant saw that l1ere
was a field whicll might be explored successfully by Critical
thinking.
The few letters which belong to the period bet"\tveen 1787
and I 790 give very little help except one addressed to
Reinhold in the month of December 1787. They show,
however, that tIle correction made in 1787 had not been
mere empty words but ought to be considered as a very
timid announcenlent of a real revolution in his thinking
about a critique of taste. A Grundlegung for it had even
been begun in the course of this very year. The violent
polemic with Eberhard at the beginning of 1789 and the
emotions which it aroused in Kant's mind, together with
the duty of self-defence in connection with the E'ntdeckung,
interrupted the writing of it and delayed the completion of
the Critical synthesis until 1790.
The Critique of Judgment presents certain peculiarities :
(I) its double objective, the inclusion of both beauty and
12
5
teleology under one principle, (2) the submission of beauty
to a principle of subjective teleology, (3) the submission of
beauty and teleology to the faculty of judgment, and
(4) the rearrangement of this Critique in terms of the reflec-
tive judgment. In the absence of information it is impos-
sible to give an account of the genesis of these peculiarities
without resorting to hypotheses. It does seem certain that,
as early as 1787, the necessity of including both beauty and
teleology under one single explanatory principle had forced
itself on Kant. To be successful, any hypothesis about the
origin of these peculiarities must take account not only of
the intentions and ideas of Kant, but also of the cultural
environment of the period. The account which follows,
then, I repeat, makes no claim to be anything more than
an hypothesis.
At this time beauty and teleology were commonly thought
to be intimately connected. Their joint appearance in the
third Critique raised no suspicion or distrust on the part of
the public. Kant wanted to explain the aesthetic judgment
and to discover the a priori principles which govern this field.
Contemporary aesthetics treated this judgment in two ways,
as expressing a feeling of pleasure or of displeasure, and as
suggesting a teleological relation between man and the
organisation of his psychological faculties. According to
the scheme of the Franco-English psychology which was
universally adopted in Germany at this time, there are the
three distinct faculties of knowledge, will, and feeling. To
these faculties, Kant says to Reinhold, there correspond
three fields of study, namely, philosophy, ethics, and teleo-
logy. These three fields are governed by a priori principles
which must be found through the analysis of the mind.
The human mind is divided into the three functions of
understanding, judgment, and reason. Understanding con-
structs knowledge, as shown in the theoretical Critique, reason
deals with morality, as shown in the practical Critique.
Judgment will therefore be the function and the source of
a priori laws of teleology and feeling. In the theoretical
field, judgment played the part of an intermediary adjusting
the different needs of the other two faculties. Teleology
has the same role to play in the practical order. To all
126
this must be added the fact that from 1784 to 1790 Kant's
activity was principally concentrated on ethics, on philo-
sophy of history, and on the problems of organic life. These
preoccupations were all converging on the organisation by
a priori principles of the domains of the beautiful and the
organic. All the movements in contemporary cultural life
were uniting to test the strength of tIle Critical philosophy.
A possible explanation of the direction of the Kantian
meditations can be developed along these lines although it
will not of course throw light 011 the details. The state of
our information forbids further speculation.
The Critique of Judgment contains a long introduction
which was substituted for one originally even longer but
condemned for this reason. III it Kant defined exactly
the place which the Critique occupies in the whole scheme
of the Critical synthesis and then described the study of
aesthetic teleology and organic teleology. The introduc-
tion fixes the transcendental framework within which the
various forms of teleology are to be found. Its systematic
importance is therefore of the very first order. We know
that the cognitive power of man is divided between under-
standing which is provided with a priori principles govern-
ing the knowled,ge of objects, reason which is the repository
of principles in the order of the will, and judgment in
con11ectio11 with which the questio11 of a priori principles is
actually being raised. The analogy with the other legis-
lative psychological faculties in the order of knowledge and
in the order of will is to be taken as suggesting that the
same will hold for judgment. However, it is hardly neces-
sary to point out that the difficulties ill this case will be so
considerable that the suggestion will force us to undertake
a transcendental examination of judgment, but does not
guarantee in any way the success of this enterprise. The
analogies just cited include the most important of these
difficulties. Indeed, what will be the specific object of a
third faculty when understanding governs knowledge of
objective causes and reason determines their realisation by
a free causality? Moreover, what connection is there
between judgment, generally defined as the power of think-
ing the individual content under the general, and the faculty
12
7
of feeling? These two difficulties must be examined in the
light of the nature of judgment.
Understanding is the concept which comprehends the
general laws which, applied to intuitions, produce the
objective representation of phenomena. Judgment is the
function which subsumes impressions under the laws of
intellect. This function is determinating since the q u a l ~ t y
it confers is that of a deternlinate object. In this way
understanding includes general laws. Besides the schematic
figures of general objects which express its identical essence
and fundamental structure, the intuitive world also presents
us with an infinity of diverse objects, of particular forms, of
kinds and individualities. Now this infinite diversity cannot
be explained by the activity of the categories; the theo-
retical criticism had to limit itself to their determination
in experience. There is thus no doubt that the explanation
of nature is not perfect unless the specific diversity is
explained in the same sort of way as the generic identity,
and hence it is legitimate to suppose that the. diversity is
also governed by laws which have so far escaped trans-
cendental investigation.
However, judgment does not have the same role to play
in the present problem. In the theoretical criticism the laws
of subsumption were known a priori and it was the function
ofjudgment to find the intuitive diversity to subsume under
them. Here the specific diversity of nature is known a pos-
teriori and ifj udgment has a role to fulfil, this role will consist
in the detection of laws which will explain the diversity. In
the theoretical ord,er there was pre-knowledge of the general
or of laws, while here there is pre-knowledge of the parti-
cular. Kant entitles such a function ' the reflective use of
judgment '.
However, there must be no mistake about the true object
of this judgment. The particular forms of nature are not
explained by the teleological principle: only mechanical
causality contains this explanation. The purpose of the
principle is to guide the mind in the study of these forms.
The laws which govern the reflective judgment are not laws
constitutive of nature but laws of the faculty of judgment.
Kant explains this directive law as follows: we must assume
128
I THE COMPLETION OF TlIE CRITICAL SYNTlIESIS
Ithat the empirical and particular forms of nature are made
as if an understanding had established them with the purpose
of allowing the mind to construct the total system of experi-
ence by means of laws of nature. This tendency of the laws
towards the realisation of the systematic aspirations of the
mind is not an objective law of things but a constructive
law of the faculty of judgment. The latter has to represent
the diversity of nature as forming a systematic unity and it
thinks of the things of nature as having an essence similar
to the essence of those things which owe their reality to the
representation of an end.
What validity can one attribute to this postulation of an
apriori principle of teleology? The deduction of its validity
cannot be empirical because teleology is an apriori principle,
and it cannot be psychological because while that would cer-
tainly show how we judge according to teleology, it would
not show how we ought to judge nature. Since we must
seek for the principle capable of governing the logical neces-
sity of judgment, the deduction must be rigorously trans-
cendental, that is, we are required to disengage the principle
of nature itself from the faculties of knowledge. Such a
deduction is not very complicated. Nature manifests certain
necessary forms which govern the permanent structure of
the object as object of experience in general: these are the
categories. The same nature shows a specific diversity in
the particular forms of these same objects. Either this formal
diversity answers to laws or it does not. If a law does not
govern these forms, we make chance their origin and reason
is thereby forbidden to realise their systematic unity and its
own spiritual aspirations. Hence reason requires that the
particular forms, like the permanent forms of nature,
correspond to a law.
It may be seen, by this very deduction, that the postulate
of teleology is not required in order to understand the sen-
sible object, but is indeed required in order to construct the
science offormal diversity. The legitimacy ofsuch a diversity
is not a condition of nature, but of physical science. Hence,
the sale principle which can be invoked is this: in the study
of nature, jlldgment must be guided by the general law that
the forms of nature are so made that they can form a
(2,491)
12
9 10
systematic totality. The teleology recognised in nature is not
a teleology internal to nature itself, but a teleology of the
aspirations of the faculty of judgment which sets itself the
task of building the science of nature. The principle of
teleology is therefore a pure subjective principle, that is, it
involves only th.e exercise of the faculty of judgment. In
this way judgmeIlt appropriates for itself its own object.
While understanding studies the uniforn1. categorial struc-
ture which conditions the type of the object of experience,
judgment studies the diverse structure which conditions the
kinds contained under the type or the diversity of empirical
forms through the agency of the principle of teleology.
The first difficulty connected with judgment is then
resolved in that Kant has determined for it a specific object.
The second difficulty concerns the connection of the same
faculty with feeling. It is again the concept of teleology
which establishes the connection between knowledge and
feeling. The categories are necessary: their mechanism
comes into play auton1atically without understanding having
to set itself an end to realise by their activity. The particular
forms of nature are intelligible only on the supposition that
they exist because of their teleological adaptation to the
faculty of judgmellt. Thus in achieving any end a certain
sense of pleasure is always experienced. The agreement of
the percepts with the categories produces no pleasure and
evokes no feeling because no end is achieved by this agree-
ment. Establishing the agreement of empirical laws witll
the purpose which reason sets itself does provoke a feeling:
success is translated into an agreeable sentiment, failure into
chagrin. It is therefore again the supposition of teleology in
nature adapted to the rational constitution of the human
mind which permits judgment and sentiment, united in both
good and bad fortune, to enter into the subjective organisa-
tion of this mind.
Having established the legitimacy of an appeal to teleo-
logy, Kant had to set himself another problem: does the
faculty ofjudgment pursue an absolutely identical end in all
cases? No, replies Kant: there are two forms essentially
dissimilar, namely, aesthetic teleology and logical teleology.
The distinguishing feature of aesthetic teleology lies in
13
representation, but without any reference to anything
connected with the object. Therefore the subjective side is
alone important. Thus the subjective part, which can never
become the knowledge of an object, is the feeling of pleasure
or of displeasure which accompanies th.at knowledge,
although the pleasure does not Inake us know more fully
the object which evokes it. When perception of the form
of an object is accompanied by pleasure, and when the
pleasure is stimulated only by the perception of the form,
we must interpret this as an example of subjective teleology,
that is, the pleasure is the echo of an agreement between
the form of the object and the faculties engaged in its
perception.
These faculties, according to the teaching of the theo-
retical Critique, are imagination and understanding. If these
two faculties find themselves in a harmonious state in con-
sidering an object, we can say that this object is proportioned
to this faculty or that it manifests an external teleology
towards it. Thus the reflective judgment announces this
proportionality or this external teleology resting on the feel-
ing of harmony among the faculties engaged in the pure
and simple consideration of the form of the object. Thus
the form of the object, of which the pure representation
stimulates pleasure, is called ' beautiful'. I-Ience aesthetic
teleology is represented by beauty. Two tasks are set by
this new notion: its exposition or the analysis of the aesthetic
judgment; its deduction or the justification of the necessary
and universal cl1aracter which we attach to this judgment.
The table of categories includes all the moments in the
analysis of any transcendental factor whatsoever. Ka11t
therefore conducts the analysis of beauty by the categorial
tetrachotomy. The quality of the aesthetic judgment must
distinguish it from the logical judgn1ent and the moral
judgment. It differs from the first because it expresses not
an essence but a subjective pleasure, and it differs from the
second because the pleasure reveals no trace of an interest
inherent in the practical order. Considered according to
quantity, the aesthetic judgment is universal in the sense
that, contrary to all the other feelings which do not claim
to be more than purely subjective inclinations of an
13
1
individual subject, the aesthetic feeling claims acceptance by
all subjects without distinction. Its universality therefore
consists in the general communicability of the subjective state
which the consideration of tIle form stimulates. Knowledge
and everything connected with the exercise of the cognitive
functions are universally communicable. But knowledge is
excluded because it is a matter of a pleasure. The enigma
of its communicability is found therefore on the side of the
faculties. The determination of imagination by the cate-
gorial understanding produces the concept of the thing or
its representation. That presupposes between the two
faculties a preconceptual state where the two faculties find
themselves in reciprocal affinity, and this affinity is the
source of the pleasure represented by the sentiment of
beauty. This harmonious preconceptual state can be sh.ared
by all subjects: the universality of the causes implies that
of the effect. It is sufficient therefore to appeal to the idea
that the organisation of the cognitive faculties is constant in
the human race in order to comprehend the universality of
the aesthetic judgment. Teleology determines our judg-
ment on the side of reason. This teleology seems to pre-
suppose the priority of a concept and the aesthetic judgment
does not admit of any such priority. 1'he teleology in
question must therefore be a state which represents no
objective or subjective end determined in the consideration
of the object. The modality of the judgment consists in the
necessity of general acquiescence in the aesthetic judgment.
There we have the characteristics of the aesthetic judg-
ment. How is its claim to necessary universality to be justi-
fied? Basically Kant has already prejudged the question in
his very analysis when he posed the question of the general
comnlunicability of the conditions of the aesthetic judgment.
This judgment is a particular case of the synthetic a priori
judgment: synthetic because the predicate of pleasure goes
beyond the analytic constituents of the concept of the sub-
ject: a priori because it claims to be universal. On what
are we to base the universality of a pleasure connected with
the aesthetic judgment of beauty? In aesthetic pleasure we
experience only the teleology of an object adapted to the
faculty of judgment in order to create a state of harmony
13
2
between imagination and understanding. This faculty of
judgment corresponds to certain subjective conditions. We
have the right to presuppose in all men the same subjective
disposition to judge. It is clear in this case that the judg-
ment demands universal communicability of the general
conditioning of the faculty. In this way the aesthetic
sentiment is integrated in the transcendental organisation
of the human mind.
I - I ~ w e v e r , teleology does not always appear in the
aesthetic form. Vve are not content with finding a teleo-
logical affinity between the form of nature and our faculties
of knowledge. In order to become aware of the existence
of these forms we often make it appear that they exist as
the product of the ends of nature. That is, we impose on
our faculties the rule of considering these forms as if they
owed their existence and determinate essence to a principle
of teleology. Once again then in this case we follow not a
principle of nature but a principle governing our faculties
in the representation of nature. How can such ends exer-
cise a particular causality? Certainly not in the manner of
efficient causality which would exercise its activity through
the representation of an end to be achieved, since vve should
then interrupt the mechanical chain by introducing a com-
pletely heterogeneous causality. Therefore the explanation
of the particular essences of things by the idea of teleology
is to be utterly condemned. But that is not what we
claim. We claim to submit nature to certain norms of
observation and scientific inquiry, 110rms which are simply
rules of our faculty of judging nature in its particular
diversity.
The appeal to teleology is of a kind to provoke an
internal conflict in the consideration of nature. The
object of experience has as determining principle the
mechanical chain of causes and effects. On the other
hand, the intelligibility of this chain in its diverse parti-
cularisation depends on the recognition that the cause
itself has not been able to exercise its causal power with-
out the prior representation of the effect as the end to be
achieved. It does not seem possible to attribute a similar
representation to the things of nature since they are not
133
intelligent beings capable of representations. How there-
fore can the phenomenon in question be at the same time
cause, as the representation of the effect to be produced,
and effect, as the causality which produces the effect?
Kant limits the possibility and the thing to the one case
of the organic body. Such a body is distinguished from
inorganic bodies because it reproduces itself as a kind,
because it reproduces itself as an individual by growth,
and because it reproduces itself in its parts, since there is
indeed in the organism a causality of the part on the whole
and a causality of the whole on the part. The whole and
the part are reciprocally cause and effect.
This organic causality differs essentially from mechanical
causality. A phenomenon is determinable as cause through
its necessary antecedent, that is, through the non-reversibility
of antecedent and consequent. The only ground of connec-
tion between phenomena by the category of cause is the
irreversibility of their succession. Now organic causality is
quasi-circular. Such a causality is not mysterious in the
intelligent being because it is not strictly the effect, but the
representation of the effect by the understanding, which
makes this same being produce the effect and call it into
existence. But precisely because intelligence is excluded
from nature, it is difficult to conceive in it any analogue to
intelligent causality. Despite that, organic causality seems
in certain of its details even more perfect than intelligent
causality. In the intelligent being, the object caused is
external to the determination of the causality. In organic
nature the whole exists, conserves itself, and perpetuates
itself by the causality of parts on the whole and of the
whole on the parts.
Experience does not show that in organic nature reciprocal
causality is determined by the representation of a purpose, and
the transcendental analysis of knowledge of nature also gives
no such assurance. On what grounds then do we interpret
organic causality as analogous to the efficient causality of the
intelligent being? It is clear that the judgment which asserts
it cannot be a determining judgment: otherwise, teleology
would be a constitutive principle of nature and would rest on
a category of teleology irreconcilable with that of mechanical
134
causality. The judgment will then be purely reflective, that
is, teleology will be recognised 110t as a rule of nature but as
a rule of our judgment, so as to render nature intelligible and
assimilable to our cognitive faculties. Every judgment
amounts then to laying down the principle that we must
conceive first organic nature and then nature in general, as
if it had followed, by means of its particular objects, the
realisation of a purpose both in the whole and in detail.
This principle avoids both mechanism, which attributes all
the peculiarity of things to efficient causality, and also
dogmatism, which attributes the same peculiarities to divine
efficient causality. It is quite false to attribute these prin-
ciples to nature itself. They are a part of the logical struc-
ture of reason. Nature can be explained without then1 but
not in a manner satisfactory to reason. Reason indeed
wishes to do more than to explain experience. It wants
also to make it a unitary system. Subjective and objective
teleology are thus not principles constitutive of experience,
but principles which regulate systematising reaS011.
The general solution of the Critical problem entailed
nothing less than a total and complete philosophy as a
natural and indispensable preface to the total system of
metaphysics. This profound analysis of reason, which, in
its daring extensions as well as in its careful restrictions,
covers all the knowledge which man can attai11 without
the help of experience, is terminated by Kant, twenty years
after he had first conceived it, by the Critique of Judgment.
The domain of the a priori has been explored in all the
recesses accessible to the human mind, and it has been
circumscribed and limited, if not easily, at least without
encountering insoluble difficulties. All the problems which
kept appearing in this vast domain have been solved in
such a way that, while consistent with each other, they all
tend to support the transcendental edifice. This means
that Kant has solved the main problem of his life: he has
discovered the method of metaphysics. In doing so he has
taken into consideration the particular conditions assigned
to meta-sensible inquiry by the objective knowledge of
nature, by the objective belief in morality, and by the
analogical interpretation of the world in a teleological
135
order, thus satisfying all the legitimate aspirations of human
reason.
The success of this enterprise does not mean that it was
simple. One of the major obstacles to its success was the
heterogeneity of the demands to which reason itself is
exposed. Understanding governs nature by the categories;
reason governs morality by freedoffie Understanding con-
nects phenomena in the rigorous mechanical order of
efficient causality; reason introduces into this order the
explosive concept of freedom. Understanding constructs in
its formal laws the outline of the sensible world; reason
creates in the moral imperative the intelligible world. The
limitation of knowledge is such that each of th.ese worlds is
forbidden to trespass one upon the other. Transcendentalism
creates a profound abyss between the scientific aspirations of
the mind and the moral aspirations ofthe soul. The existence
of this abyss is difficult to accept. Is not this harsh break
between nature and reason a decisive weakness?
Kant certainly was well aware of the danger. The
Critique of Judgment is given the vital role of riveting and
soldering to one another the two separated braIlches of
human speculation. Science cannot admit free causality
but it must recognise its possibility, that is, tIle conceiva-
bility of the idea, in such a way that it is no longer absurd
to hold that a free causality produces effects even in the
order of phenomena. On the other hand, the exercise of
this free causality is stimulated by the representation of a
final purpose, the achievement of wh.ich. rests on the assur-
ance that our very nature contains the conditions of its
realisation. A meta-sensible substratum for the order of
phenomena is possible according to the teaching of the
Critical philosophy. This substratum is positively deter-
mined by the practical law. It might be claimed that this
is contradictory because this determination oversteps the
objective limits of the use of reason. The Critique ofJudgment
meets this objection by showing in what way a n1eta-
sensible substratumis determinable by an intellectual faculty.
It does this by resolving a theoretical problem by means of
the principle of teleology. Pure reason determines the theo-
retical given by teleology on condition that it is not illegi-
13
6
timately transposed into something constitutive of the world.
Since reason does not invoke this meta-sensible substratum
in order to achieve knowledge, but does so with a practical
purpose as regulative of free activity, there is no reason not
to conclude that the a priori domain forms an admirable
self-consistent unity and exhibits perfect coherence in its
diverse functions, and this is true despite the apparent
inconsistencies whicll are revealed by the critical review
of their respective provinces. The Critique of ]udg17'lent is
the mediator which resolves the conflicts and wins over
opponents to the systematic unity of reason. Kant had
good reason to clain1 that his propaedeutic work had been
completed, since the Critique of Judgment truly brings to
completion the whole Critical philosophy.
137
Chapter IV
The Defence of the Critical Synthesis
THE AWAKENING OF THE WOLFFIANS
The transcendental philosophy to which Kant had just
devoted twenty years of work ftlnctions at two levels. To
begin with, it examines the conduct of pure reason in all
the orders of a priori knowledge. Secondly, it claims to
construct on that basis the systen1 of pure reason under
the heading of a metaphysics of nature and a metaphysics
of n10rals. The Critical writings with their threefold struc-
ture play the part of a propaedeutic to a corresponding
systen1. They endeavour to give a preliminary detailed
elucidation of the method of acquiring metaphysical know-
ledge. It is not surprising, therefore, that the more per-
spicacious of his disciples should have interpreted the
well-attested declarations of their master along these lines
and should have endeavoured to erect the system which,
on his own admission, he had always postponed. From
about 1787 onwards the normal play of critical discussion
around his doctrine blurred the clarity of this distinction
between propaedeutic and system, and in the sequel it was
to disappear completely. From then on the Critical philo-
sophy slowly fused with the metaphysics and the two came
to share a kind of joint destiny. Because of this very con-
fusion, the defence of his system became for Kant the defence
of philosophy itself.
Historical circumstances played a great part in bringing
about this confusion. Because it had shaken German philo-
sophy out of its slumbers, the Critical philosophy rapidly
became its nerve centre. It was a centre of attraction for
13
8
THE DEFENCE OF THE CRITICAL SYNTHESIS
some, but also a target for a host of different kinds of oppo-
nents. The fortunes of the Critical philosophy eclipsed the
literary and scientific discussions, and the psychological,
moral, and aesthetic disagreements became much less sllarp.
In short, the number both of his disciples and of his rivals
made Kant the master of the day. This does not mean that
at one fell swoop the whole of Germany embraced his
teaching. On the contrary the critics, deriving their inspira-
tion from many varied sources, were far from idle. Some
had their eyes turned towards the past and were engaged
in defending their heritage against the threat represented
by the Critical philosophy; others fixed their gaze on the
future and misinterpreted the Critical philosophy. The
latter derived from it consequences which th.e master had
never had in mind and which did not have the good fortune
to please him overmuch. With his astonishing clearness of
vision he foresaw the dangers attendant 011 the bungling
strategy of his disciples. He had therefore to defend himself
simultaneously on two fronts: he had to defend th.e origina-
lity of his doctrine against his opponents and its integrity
against his own disciples.
The resistance against the Kantian threat was organised
on two fronts. The leaders were animated by either the
progressive English spirit or the conservatisn1. of the Wolffian
school. The Anglo-Saxon attitude first appeared in the form
of a benign eclecticism which concealed a mild empiricism
derived from a popularised Locke. Like all forms of eclecti-
cism it took refuge in a delicate synthesis of curious ideo-
logies. It denounced the would-be scepticism of a meta-
pl1.ysical method resting on the principle of the limitation of
knowledge to phenomena, and it attacked a priorism which
it claimed to be the result of sophistical reasoning in which
from the necessity of a subjective basis there was inferred
the exclusive sufficiency of this basis. These eclectics were
very numerous. Towards 1790 German scepticism took
shape under Platner, Schultze, and Maimon, a scepticism
which placed itself under the tutelage of Hume. But Kant,
despite his limiting thesis, had parted company with Hume
when he replaced psychological habit, to which Hume had
appealed, by the transcendental mechanism. By this means
139
he believed himself to have conquered Hume 011 his own
ground. The sceptics followed Kant in part as if he had
made common cause with Hume, but they tried to SllOW
how great was his illusion when he published urbi et orbi his
bulletin of victory. The IIpwTov 'P'EVOOS of the Critical
philosophy was detected and identified with the view that
objectivity is to be found exclusively in the fact tllat the
a priori concepts function as conditions of experience, but
of an experience whicll can never be identified with ordinary
perception and which is itself a purely rationalist construc-
tion. The problem posed by Hume, far from having been
solved, remained untouched. Furthermore, and here it may
be seen how friends and enemies were to merge in the mind
of Kant, the sceptics especially attacked the Vorstellungstheorie
invented by Reinhold and presented by him as an authorita-
tive commentary on the Critical system. Schultze in his
Enesidemus saw in this theory a prelude to a new dogmatism
and disposed of it with a masterly hand. Unfortunately, in
attacking Reinhold he could not avoid touching Kant. This
eclectic and sceptical criticism had an undoubted doctrinal
success which at the same time set Kant against his impru-
dent pupils. It was of very short duration, however, and
had no appreciable effect after 1794.
In any case it was eclipsed by the revival of Leibniz.
The sceptics could hardly be described as passionately
enthusiastic, but it was very different with the Wolffians
who had territory to defend and a tradition to preserve.
Apparently dull and lifeless during the build-up of the
Critical system, the Wolffian riposte came with great sud-
denness in 1789. The leader was Eberhard, who never
tired of pointing out that all the happier insights of the
Critical philosophy could be found in the philosophy of
Leibniz and that what could not be found in Leibniz was
the work of a sophist. Ulrich and Brastberger, two influen-
tial philosophers of the same persuasion, added weight to
this attack, but Eberhard was the warrior who accepted
and even provoked the combat. Himself the author of a
complete systenl of dogmatic philosophy, and a well-known
professor at the leading University of Germany, Halle a/s.,
he founded in 1789 a quarterly review, the Philosophisches
14
Magazin, witll the intention of crossing swords with the
Critical philosophy and measuring himself against its author.
The revievv had a short life, but that is of no importance as
only the first volume is of interest to us.
It must be admitted that Eberhard developed a very
clever strategy in his review. He wanted to defend the old
order against the new, Leibniz against Kant, and he did it
as an intelligent but prejudiced disciple. He protested
against the Kantian claim that his personal philosophy was
the sole possible critical philosophy, a claim wl1ich involved
the denial of all critical value to the philosophy of Leibniz
and Wolff. Not content with that, he tried to make out
that the Critical philosophy, in so far as it was true, was an
atrophied offshoot of dogmatism. Leibniz, he argued, had
all the a priorism of Kant, but Kant llad added to it the
thesis of limitation. A priorism was true, but the thesis of
limitation was false. Tllis amounted to a refutation of the
Critical philosophy by n1eans of the Nouveaux Essais. Wit}l
this in mind Eberhard subjected the whole of the Critique of
Pure Reason to severe criticism. In the first volume he left
to his colleague IvIaas the task of discussing the positions of
the Aesthetic and the Antinomies, that is, all the problems
relating to space and tinle, and he undertook to deal with
the theory of objectivity and indirectly with the possibility
of nletaphysics.
The Copernican revolution, a striking and widely
accepted image which had been used by Kant to announce
the Critical philosophy, consisted in holding that the object
models itself on the mind. The great defect of all previous
metaphysics resided in the fallacy of taking as objective
something which is in fact subjective. Eberhard claimed
that it was not true that the objective depends wholly on
the subjective. Objectivity was not a question of being,
but of validity, and in relation to validity it was essential
to distinguish between form and matter. The correctness
of the form of our knowledge depended wholly on con-
formity with the principles of contradiction and sufficient
reason, formal principles which govern the whole field of
knowledge. Eberhard established the objective validity of
these two principles. As to matter, Kant had reduced the
14
1
objective content of knowledge so as to include only the
sensible spatio-temporal given because he denied to man
the capacity of intellectual intuition. This meant that
understanding was inseparable from sensible intuition of
the given and from the pure discursiveness of concepts.
But, according to Eberhard, this limitation of the intuitive
capacity was purely arbitrary. Consequently understanding
and reason do have their own material: the universal
. essences of sensible things and the supersensible in general.
As long as the uniqueness of sensible intuition rested on a
gratuitous supposition, it could not be said that Leibniz had
been refuted by the Critique.
This general defensive attitude was supported and con-
stantly renewed by piecemeal examination of major Critical
theses. It was in the course of doing this that Eberhard
denied that Leibniz had distinguished sensibility from under-
standing only by the single logical criterion of clearness. He
did not define the phenomenon as that which is represented
confusedly, but as that which is represented confusedly by
the senses,. and this definition meets all the legitimate
demands of a transcendental definition such as Kant con-
ceived. He also denied the originality of the distinction
between analytic and synthetic judgments under the pretext
that in the Kantian sense the Wolffians knew it already but
had not however reduced the analytic judgment to a mere
tautology. Finally, he denounced the weakness of the
Critical philosophy in dealing with the problem of the
origin of since on Kant's view it con1pletely
escapes our powers of investigation. Empirical knowledge
rests on the percept; the object of this percept is in its
turn a representation: if it were not, the object of the
percept would be the thing in itself. Therefore empirical
knowledge has no foundation outside ourselves. Neither
does it have any foundation within us because there too it
would be necessary to reach the Ding an sich which Kant
claimed to be unknowable. Kant did not succeed in
making more than the simple point that the foundation
of knowledge is X, an indeterminable unknown. The
same holds good for a priori knowledge or the categories.
They do not come from the senses nor consequently fron1 any
14
2
external thing. They are not innate. Hence they come to
US, like our empirical knowledge, in some occult fashion.
All these arguments have the sole object of reducing the
claims of the Critical philosophy and of showing the critical
superiority of the Leibnizian metaphysics and epistemology.
That was the general line of Eberhard's strategy. How
would Kant parry this thrust? This was hardly the moment
for a vigorous counter-offensive because Kant had the Critique
of Judgment in hand and it absorbed all his energies. How-
ever, some sort of reply seemed essential, so, along with a
pretty set of insults directed against Eberhard, Kant sent
some observations to Reinhold with his authority to make
use of them at his discretion. Once he had finished with
the last Critique, Kant began to write an article directed
against the Magazin for Schutz's review. Between September
1789 and Easter 1790 this article took on the proportions of
a book which was actually published towards the end of
April of that year under the title Uber eine Entdeckung nach der
alle neue Kritik der reinen Vernunft durch eine altere entbehrlich
gemacht werden soll. In view of the fact that this work is
an act of revolt and a work of self-defence, we might well
expect not to have to deal with sensational new ideas. At
the most, we might hope to find some useful attempts at
clarification stimulated by the lack of comprehension shown
by his opponents.
The strategy of the Wolffian Eberhard, which was con-
ducted vvith undeniable skill, was a serious threat to the
originality of the Critical philosophy and Kant realised this
at once. Eberhard wanted to show that the Critical philo-
sophy was unnecessary. He based his arguments on the
claim that it depended on and was inferior to the work of
Leibniz. Setting himself up as the defender of Leibniz so
as to hit harder, Kant turl1ed the tables on Eberhard. He
followed l1is opponent step by step and conducted his
counter-offensive in three successive stages: first, he
attacked the meta-sensible use of reason, which Eberhard
wanted to save by means of his appeal to the principle
of sufficient reason and to the simple element; secondly,
he refuted the objections raised against the synthetic judg-
ment; and finally, he interpreted the doctrine of Leibniz
143
in such a way as to show that it foreshadows and even
demands completion by the Critical philosophy.
It is unnecessary to run over the whole content of a
purely polemical work which, compared with the earlier
expositions of the Critical philosophy, hardly shows any real
advance in doctrine. A few soundings at random will be
sufficient to give an idea of its contents. To begin with
the synthetic judgment, Kant rebels against the lack of
philosophical acumen shown by his opponent in trying to
diminish the importance of the difference between the two
types of judgment, which, in Kant's eyes, was really a
Hauptpunkt of his teaching. The real problem concealed in
this distinction is the problem of the possibility of the
extension of scientific knowledge, since the increase of
knowledge is the raison d'etre of hun1a11 science in general.
On what then is this extension based? In the field of
physics we attain to genuinely new knowledge (not merely
factors implicit in what is already known) by means of
a posteriori intuition. The problem becomes acute when
we seek a similar extension of knowledge without the con-
stant support of direct perception. The Critical philosophy
solved the problem by showing how we reach knowledge in
the mathematical order on the basis of an a priori intuition
which is spatio-temporal in character. It is clear that
transcendent metaphysics, which claims to furnish us with
the true science of being, is mistaken, since it refuses to pure
ideas the guarantee of limitation to corresponding intuitions.
Eberhard therefore only shows how little philosophical sense
he has when he reduces the problem of the synthetic judg-
ment to a simple question of formal logic.
Eberhard also refused to see that the scope of Kant's
Critical reflection transcends the logical dimension. His
mistaken attempt to reduce the Critique to logic exposed
the pointlessness of his argument. He constituted himself
the apostle of a dogmatism which preached the extension
of objective knowledge by pure reason without the restric-
tive constraint of intuition. In doing so he relied on the
principle of sufficient reason to which he attributed absurdly
extended powers. The Critical philosophy was certainly not
rendered useless by a Wolffianism which revolved around
144
THE DEFENCE OF THE CRI'l'IdAt. SYNTHESIS
an analytic metaphysics incapable of extending knowledge.
This type of dogmatism is essentially analytic and therefore
sterile when judged with reference to the true purpose of
science. Eberhard was mistaken with regard to the thesis
oflimitation, in which he detected a concealed and arbitrary
agnosticism. On the contrary, the thesis of limitation proves
that metaphysics as a science is possible but that metaphysics
is not necessarily dogmatic. It can be established by syn-
thetic judgments, vvhich do extend knowledge, on condition
that they are employed and deduced as necessary conditions
of the possibility of experience. The attentive reader will
readily note that Kant's defence is a powerful reaffirmation
of the originality of the Critical synthesis and goes beyond
the doctrines developed in the Critique and in the Prolego-
mena. Eberhard's attack rested on sheer equivocation. He
attempted to identify the Critical philosophy with Wolffi-
anism on the pretext that they resembled one another in
some of their modes of expression. The sharper focus given
to his position by Kant in his reply certainly makes any
attempt to identify the two positions much less easy.
An examination of the long diatribe and the tangled
dialectic indulged in by Kant when he discusses the validity
of the transcendent metaphysics which Eberhard took under
his protection, leads to the same result. Eberhard felt that
he had to safeguard the secular heritage of a doctrine which
had allowed Germany to take its place in European thought.
Th.e preservation of this heritage consisted for Eberhard in
defending the objective validity of our meta-sensible know-
ledge against the extravagant Kantian doctrine which
imprisoned objective science within the limits of experience.
Eberhard tried to pit Leibniz against Kant in a debate
around this question. The argument was conducted on
three levels: first, the principle of sufficient reason as the
key to our knowledge of things; secondly, simple being,
w h i c h ~ was the generally accepted object of any knowledge
freed from the conditions of the sensible; and thirdly, the
passage from the sensible to the meta-sensible which can be
achieved by reason.
Eberhard reasoned in the following manner. As know-
ledge has a form and a matter, it is necessary to show the
(2,491) 145 11
validity of the two elements. The objective validity of the
form lies in its conformity with the formal principles of
knowledge, which are the principles of contradiction and
of sufficient reason. Eberhard proves the validity of the
latter principle by deducing it directly from the former in
a syllogism which may still be seen in a number of manuals.
Furthermore, the principle of contradiction is absolutely
objective, for its negation entails the destruction of thought
itself, no matter whether it be about ideas or things. As to
matter, Kant is mistaken in saying that the only matter
which can be justified is sensible matter. Beyond it there
is another matter, made up of non-sensible elements without
which spatio-temporal images are not possible. Concrete
time is a complex of simple elements which are impercep-
tible when isolated. Therefore the absolutely simple is
found outside sensible intuition. Space in its turn is an
aggregate of simple substances although only their accidents
can be perceived. Therefore understanding is capable of
rising above the sphere of the sensible.
Kant owed it to himself to reply seriously to this aggres-
sive return to an outmoded Wolffianism. The appeal to the
principle of sufficient reason, says Kant, only proves
Eberhard's inability to understand the notion of the
transcendental. Aformal principle simply concerns the con-
ditions of the form of the judgment without any considera-
tion of the object; a transcendental principle concerns the
a priori possibility of the object. The principle of sufficient
reason includes, first, a formal principle, analogous to that
of contradiction, which may be stated as follows: 'every
proposition has a ratio cognoscendi '; and secondly, a trans-
cendental principle, ' every thing has its raison d' etre " which
cannot this time be derived from the principle of contradic-
tion. Thus the neutral formula employed by Eberhard is
the source of a regrettable confusion between the two
principles, and this vitiates the proof which he outlines.
But Eberhard wanted more. He did not claim only to
have shown the de jure objectivity of meta-sensible know-
ledge, but he also wanted to show by a concrete exan1ple
that this objectivity is de facto real. To do this he appealed
to simple being which is purely intelligible and even
14
6
underlies sensible being. To this Kant replied that t l ~ e meta-
sensible was a singularly equivocal term in Eberhard's n ~ i n d .
Sometimes it designates what can no longer be consciously
perceived in the sensible presentation, and sometimes it
denotes a being of which no sensible image is possible.
Because of tllis equivocation Eberhard can den10nstrate
that space and time are composed of simple elements, and,
since he is the victim of an incredible illusion, still go on
to show that these simple elements are intelligible. But it
is false that space and time are composed of simple beings.
What is given in them is divisible into as many parts as
space and time themselves. They are infinitely divisible,
in which case no simple element can be given to us. There-
fore the matter contained in them is likewise divisible to
infinity. The error to be found at the basis of Eberhard's
reasoning consists in conceiving space and time as if they
were abstract concepts, in thinking of space and time as
common notes belonging to a multiplicity of concrete times
and spaces. Actually it must be said not that they are
abstract, but that they are employed in abstracto, that is,
without any reference to an empirical condition. Eberhard
allowed himself to be misled by a false interpretation of
Leibniz. Leibniz did speak of matter, but in his matter
the simple element was the meta-sensible foundation and
certainly not one of its constitutive fragments. This thesis
is perfectly consistent with the Critical teaching.
Furthermore, it is contradictory to divide an intuition
into non-sensible elements. It is clear that if no constitutive
element can be perceived by the senses, then the total or th.e
composite intuition cannot be either. The fact that an in1age
does not correspond to an element is not enough to raise the
element to the rank of the meta-sensible: for that, there
must be a radical separation from intuition. In consequence,
the two bases which Eberhard adopted as starting-points are
shown to be deficient. The thesis about sufficient reason
is vitiated by an ignoratio elenchi: that about sin1ple being is
manifestly false.
What conclusion must be drawn from this about the
method of metaphysics, which Eberhard, opposing his con-
ception to that of the Criticaltnethod, regards as involving
147
a passage to the meta-sensible? The Critical method limits
the objective use of pure reason to the domain of the sen-
sible; Eberhard's n1ethod leads to an indefinite and indefin-
able extension of pure reason. Eberhard took his stand on
the two above-n1entioned tl1eses in trying to show that the
meta-sensible can be discerned even in the sensible. He
held that space and time, and consequently the sensible
phenomenon, have undoubtedly a subjective basis i11 the
knowi11g subject, but also an objective foundation in the
object. Kant recognised this. He makes a concession which
could be dangerously misleading, but which is too explicit
to be treated as a simple linguistic slip. Fortunately, how-
ever, the explanation which he gives makes the concession
relatively innocuous. What he does hold is that the objec-
tive foundation of phenomena, that is, the thing in itself,
does not enter into the phenomenon, but constitutes its
foundation outside space and time. It must be adn1itted,
however, that this text could be interpreted as if Kant
recognised a degree of knowability in the world in itself,
and in what followed Eberhard did not fail to interpret it
in this manner.
What is quite certain in any case is that this correction
brings the Kantian Aesthetic much closer to that of Leibniz.
They are not however identical, for Kant maintains in all its
rigour the objection that the whole Leibnizian position
depends finally on the false distinction between sensibility
and understanding. For Leibniz, the sensible "is the obscure,
and the intelligible is the clear representation of the object.
This means that the real problem, which is to discover
whether there is a knowledge to which no intuition can
correspond, is made to vanish. Kant replies to this question
in the negative, Eberhard in the affirn1ative. Kant denies
the possibility of such knowledge because the difference
between our faculties is more than a mere difference of
degree in the logical clarity of our presentations. OUf
faculties are distinguished botll by origin and by content.
There is therefore no fundamel1tal identity between them.
It follows that one type of"knowledge cannot be transmuted
into another merely by denying generic differences.
Theoretically there was a way of saving the transcendent
14
8
metaphysics of the Wolffians with all its claims, namely by
an appeal to an intellectual intuition producing a purely
intelligible matter. The Critical philosophy had admitted
the tlleoretical possibility of such an intuition, but main-
tained its unreality in the human order. We have only
sensible intuition. On the other hand, innate ideas, the
supreme hope at this point, must be rejected. I hope that
it is not necessary to examine again the justly celebrated
text where Kant categorically rejects this worst of all solu-
ti.ons to the transcendental problem. All our representations
are acquired: only the receptivity and the spontaneity of
our faculties of knowledge can be considered coexistential
with human thought. This receptivity consists in the human
capacity to have spatial representations; it never denotes a
representation of space. It follows that the method of saving
transcendent metaphysics attempted by Eberhard is funda-
mentally erroneous: it falsifies the nature of sensibility.
This is the point where the paths of Leibniz and of Kant
radically bifurcate. This is the one point where the most
ingenious interpretation of the texts is bound to fail. The
Critical philosophy cannot be contained within the strict
lin1its of Leibnizian thought.
Kant attempted the very opposite: in the last part of
his work, which is more picturesque than convincing, he
tried to bring Leibniz into the framework of the Critical
philosophy. Eberhard had spoken in the name of Leibniz
and had not concealed his belief that he was greater than
Kant. Kant thought that it was good politics to concede
to Leibniz as much as was compatible with his own thought
(without of course conceding anything to the Eberhardian
interpretation), with th.e intention of showing to the whole
world to what extent Eberhard's mind was closed to the
deeper meaning of Leibnizian thought. His task consisted
in showing how themes found in Leibniz can be considered
as timid anticipations of his own Critical themes. Kant
appealed successively to sufficient reason, to the monadology,
and to the pre-established harmony.
Leibniz, he says, cannot have seriously meant to erect
the principle of sufficient reason into an objective law of
nature. By the principle of contradiction we know only
149
what is already part of the content of a logical subject.
If we claim to know something which goes beyond it, there
must be a reason which will validate this additional informa-
tion. The principle of sufficient reason sanely interpreted is
simply the affirmation that in synthetic knowledge a special
ground beyond the logical content of a subject is necessary.
The principle therefore only opens perspectives on meta-
physical inquiries which extend beyond the domain of logic.
Leibniz did not carry out these inquiries. By the principle
of sufficient reason 11e postulated precisely the inquiries to
which Kant devoted himself.
The monadology, on the other hand, only obscures the
Critical philosophy by misunderstanding it. Leibniz was
too good a mathematician not to be aware that the view
that a body is composed of simple beings is i11compatible
with the clear teaching of mathematics. Therefore the
monadological conception does not apply to the body as a
sensible object, but relates uniquely to the unknowable
substratum of this body, that is, to the intelligible world.
The same is true of the pre-established harmony: body
and soul are distinct as unknowable substrata of pheno-
mena, but as phenomena they are not distinct. Since the
phenomenon is a representation and unites the faculties
which make it what it is, it is necessary to look for the
true meaning of the Leibnizian harmony in the nlode of
union of our faculties. Their harmony is easily discoverable
a priori through their collaboration in possible experience.
The schematism therefore constitutes the foundation of the
harmony of our faculties in view of the formal constitution
of experience. From this formal harmony there immediately
results harmony in its material constitution in virtue of the
Critical principle that the conditions of experience are also
the conditions of the object of experience. Therefore the
harmony seen by Leibniz in the objects of experience is the
natural consequence of the harmony of our faculties in
the constitution of experience. It is therefore probable that
Leibniz envisaged only this regulative role accorded to the
idea of harmony. It expresses the obligation of the mind to
understand ourselves and things as if they were adapted to a
teleology due to a supreme causality.
15
0
I should be the first to affirm that in the interests of his
cause Kant does manifest violence to the thought of his pre-
decessor and that Leibniz would have seen only a travesty of
his teaching in this appendix. This does not matter greatly,
for the Kantian tactics are clear. He wished to have the
great name of Leibniz on his own side in order to counter
the tactics of his opponent. Indeed, while reading Kant's
interpretation we feel that Leibniz was aware of the urgency
of the problem raised and solved by Kant. The originality
and validity of the Critical philosophy is skilfully exhibited to
its conten1.poraries by the demonstration that the Leibnizian
metaphysics itself is a kind of distant anticipation of the
Critical philosophy. The Critical philosophy thus loses a
great part of its revolutionary appearance. Kant had good
reasons for believing that the appeal wl1ich Eberhard
addressed to Leibniz would eventually turl1. into a solemn
homage to the Critical philosophy. For by examining the
basis of Leibnizian thought the Critical philosophy con-
stitutes a finer defence of that great philosopl1.er than does
the outmoded Wolffianism in terms of which Eberhard
wished to understand him. If we put accuracy of inter-
pretation aside, the Entdeckung shows us that Kant was able
to conduct a public debate, that he knew how to use vigorous
ad hominem arguments, and tl1at 11e could extricate himself
from a difficult situation with a skill which commands our
admiration.
2
VARIATION ON THE SAME THEME
The class of physics in the Academy of Berlin had set a
competition in 1788 on the question of the progress realised
in metaphysics since the death of Leibniz. By son1e n1is-
chance this question had been lost sight of until 1790, then
the time-limit was twice extended, first to 1792 and then to
1795. This scientific body gave first prize to the memoir
15
1
presented by the Wolffian Schwab, and gave second prizes
to two Kantians, Reinhold and Abicht. The Academy
stipulated that it would not be content with a mere list of
systems together with the nomenclature appropriate to them.
The essays were also to reflect as exactly as possible, in the
nature of the reasoning adopted, the actual state of philo-
sophy. Schwab, convinced that luetaphysics was at the end
of the century still in the state in whicll Leibniz had left it
when he died, saw no progress. The Kantians WilO dis-
tinguished themselves in the competition confined them-
selves to praising the excellence of their own ideas and
became, in fact, deeply involved in self-justification. The
question set for the competition was of a type which natu-
rally excited Kant's interest. Indeed it furnished him with
an unhoped-for occasion to set side by side the philosophy
which he had found prevalent in the middle of the century
and the Critical philosophy in the definitive and complete
form in which he bequeathed it to his contemporaries.
Furthermore, since the Critical philosophy was exposed
to cOITlbined attacks both from outmoded Wolffianisrn
and from the l1ascent romanticism, the competition pro-
vided too good an occasion to miss. A prize from the
Academy obtained under these conditions would have
signified more than a mere recognition of excellence. It
would have beell an occasion of considerable historical
significance and would have officially established the fact
that a philosophical period had come to an end and that
the Critical era had opened victoriously with the destruction
of its oppOl1ents.
Kant actually thought of taking part in the competition
some time in 1792, that is, after the second extension of the
time-limit, but he abandoned the project for reasons unknown
to us. They may have been purely personal reasons, SUCll as
difficulties of old age or fear of censure. Let us not attempt
to guess. In 1800 he sent to his old friend Rink three manu-
scripts intended for publication which. certainly showed that,
in his mind at any rate, the text was ready to be submitted
to public scrutiny as a work from his pen. The three manu-
scripts, as well as Rink's manl1er of editing them, naturally
give rise to a host of problems, of criticisms, of explanations,
15
2
and of attempts at reconstituting the text. I have tried to
deal with these elsewhere, but it is not appropriate, I think,
to undertake that task again here. Two of the manuscripts,
it may be noted in passing, do not form two independent
texts, but rather two parts belonging organically to the same
memoir : the third reopens the whole question, but abandons
it very quickly.
The incomplete text bears the title Welches sind die
wirklichen Fortschritte die die Metaphysik seit Leibnitz's und
Wolf's Zeiten in Deutschland gemacht hat? It may be taken
as certain that this memoir could well have been one of
the most interesting of Kant's works. The survey of the
past contained in it would have been doubly precious.
First, it throws light on his teaching, for Kant had the
whole of his system before his eyes; he was in a position
to compare it easily with Wolffianism and to give it the
place which he personally inte11ded for it. Secondly, this
incomplete work, such as it is, tells us about Kant's intel-
lectual preoccupations. It allows us to watch the reper-
cussions in his thinking brought about both by the aggressive
returll of WolffianislTI and by that apostasy of his pupils to
be discussed in the next section. It marks an important
stage in the process by wl1ich the distinction between the
Critical propaedeutic and the transcendental system became
obscured in Kant's mind. Kant at last comes down from
the abstract heights of pure speculation into the arena,
where ideas are seen in their temporal environment and
acquire historical significance. He clarifies the maill lines
of the gigantic effort lying behind an intellectual career
devoted entirely to the elucidation of one sole problem.
Kant had just contrasted the Critical philosophy with
Wolffianism in the Entdeckung: he takes up the same task
again in the Fortschritte, but in quite a different fashion.
This first work devoted to defence of his views stays on a
diplomatic plane of conciliation: it was politic for him to
bridge as far as possible the gulf which separated the two
systems. In the Fortschritte Kant abandoned polemics. It
was now to his advantage to exhibit in all its force the
originality of his Critical philosophy, which he interprets as
the unique advance achieved in the course of the eighteenth
153
century. At the same time, the occasion allowed him to
define more accurately the essential contours of this philo-
sophy and to introduce certain peculiarities which mark an
indubitable development in the content of his thought.
Among these may be mentioned the grouping of the whole
discussiol1 around the living kernel of the synthetic activity
of the subject, and the increasingly important part played
by formal intuition, which makes it possible for the Aesthetic
and the Analytic finally to fuse together in a single creative
synthesis. No other work shows so clearly how absurd is the
positivist interpretation of the Critical philosophy according
to which Kant is simply the grave-digger of metaphysics.
Kant sees metaphysics as the most powerful spring of the
human personality. He believes in the indestructibility of
the metaphysical disposition. He makes no attempt to
uproot it but tries to render it invulnerable. It is around
the notion of metaphysics that Kant arranged his whole
work. At first he defines it, tl1en he measures it against the
Critical philosophy (which he discusses once again in its
most important articulations), and he marks its progress by
detailing the three stages which he thinks can be distin-
guished in its evolution. By means of this plan it is easy
to orient oneself in this memoir.
Under the direct inffuence of Eberhard and the Entdeckung,
Kant defines metaphysics as the science of the passage from
the sensible to the meta-sensible, that is, as the science which
depicts for us the attempt of the mind to liberate itself from
the conditions of the sensible. This notion of metaphysics is
at once subdivided into a material and a formal. notion.
Considered materially, metaphysics corresponds to ontology
or to the study of the whole domain of a priori knowledge
without distinction of type, so that the distinction earlier
established between it and transcendental philosophy dis-
appears almost completely. This ontology can be applied
primarily to determinate objects, but it has never been
developed in this way because the apriori knowledge involved
in physics has never been clearly differentiated from physics
itself. Kant uses the term 'immanent' for a metaphysics
which codifies the a priori laws of physics. Another form of
this metaphysics deals with the non-sensible. This was
154
indeed his classical conception, which cannot simply be
rejected as false because Kant had recognised the positive
value of the Critique in 1787.
In addition to this first definition based on its avowed
purpose, Kant also defines metaphysics by its method and
its procedures. He sees in it the science of rational know-
ledge througll concepts which stresses those principles which,
taken as a whole, form the system of pure theoretical philo-
sophy. To this metaphysics falls the task of studying and
evaluating the capacity of the subjective functions involved
in knowing. It presupposes the preliminary critique of pure
reason which determines what reason can clainl when related
to experience or when freed from this relationship. A study
of the progress made by metaphysics since the death of
Leibniz must be a study ofmetaphysics in its double modality.
But these two modalities are not co-ordinate. The primary
concern is to concentrate on the nature and validity of meta-
physics as method and as system of theoretical knowledge.
This is the object of a critique of pure reason, and this
critique must, therefore be conceived as the general pro-
paedeutic to metaphysics.
However, an appreciation of the progress achieved by a
science presupposes some standard of measurement. In
a priori knowledge this will be the idea of what must be
done in this order, and such an idea allows us to appreciate
what has been done. It is the theoretical Critique which
states this ideal conception and Kant re-expounds the whole
section dealing with it. He arranges this exposition, as in
the Prolegomena, around the a priori synthetic judgment: he
establishes the reality of this type of judgment, then its
validity, and finally the synthetic extension of a priori know-
ledge. The postulation of such a judgment or even the
recognition of its reality carries us immediately outside the
field of fornlallogic within which the synthetic judgment is
unintelligible. Leibniz was completely unaware of it, and
the first advance made by nletaphysics since his death con-
sequently consists in tIle recognition of this type ofjudgment.
The otller advance consists in the solution of the problem
which it poses. The essence of the Critical philosophy, and
at the same time its value in the history of philosopllical
155
THE DEVELOPMENT OF KANTIAN THOU GHT
ideas, lies in its having accomplished this. As to the possi-
bility of this type of judgment, Kant repeats the argument
given in the Critique without any modifications. The real
originality of the exposition given in Kant's incomplete
memoir is to be found in the third object of inquiry, that
is, in the distinction between the synthetic judgment and
the a priori knowledge gained by the synthetic judgment.
This distinction can be interpreted in two different ways.
Indeed, it includes the question, not how mathematics is
possible, but how mathematics is applicable to physical
objects, and how this physics can be extended to the meta-
sensible. It includes also the question of its objective
validity. If knowledge is always objective, and if the syn-
thetic judgnlent is not always necessarily so, how can the
synthetic a priori, whose essence is purely formal in itself, be
objectified?
As in all the other expositions, this arrangement of the
memoir around the problem of the synthetic a priori is con-
stantly upset by the other positio quaestionis concerning the
possibility of experience. T"his is often represented as the
highest task of transcendental philosophy. The memory of
the sceptical reviewers wh,o criticised the arbitrary character
of his conception of experience is very much in Kant's mind
here. In spite of that, this twofold formulation of the Critical
problem does not appear self-contradictory here either,
although Kant continues to leave his flank open to the
sceptical objection since by extension of meaning Erfahrung
and Erkenntnis are synonyms. But it may be s"een that while
Kant prefers the formula of the synthetic judgment when
he discusses questions connected with the metaphysical
deduction, 11e prefers the formula of experience when he
discusses questions related to the transcendental deduction.
In this way the possibility of intuition and of the a priori
concept is resolved without recourse to experience, while
the objective validity of these elements is not deduced from
the analysis of the synthetic judgment itself.
It will be appreciated that in this essay I cannot again
discuss in detail all the arguments in the Critical philosophy
which deal with these two problems and particularly with
the problem of objectivity. Analysis by reason can explain
15
6
the thought of th.ese objects. But there is no immediate
inference from thought or from the concept to the real
possibility of the object. We must therefore look to another
procedure to show how the a priori concept functions in
connection with intuition, which is how objectivity is
explained. The manuscript entitled' No. I ' provides the
explanation following the inverse route. As in 1787 he
opens the debate with the Critical notion of Erkenntnis
which is made up of the concept and intuition; he studies
these elements from the point of view first of their possi-
bility and then of their validity, and this corresponds to the
metaphysical and the transcendental deductions. This plan,
which is the result of a clear and precise retrospective view
of the internal structure of the Critical philosophy, represents
a great advance over the Critique itself. At an earlier stage
I accused the Critique of making inevitable the distinction
between Aesthetic and Analytic, thus necessitating frequent
reciprocal corrections. But in the memoir the unity of the
two parts is shown clearly in Kant's reasoning. He was
doubtless made aware of the need for this when the doubts
and hesitations of men like Maimon, Beck, Schultze, and
Reinhold reached him. It is not without interest to note
that at the time of writing the fragments Kant was discussing
the vvhole matter with Beck. He took over from Beck the
proper principle with which to face the task of soldering
together and unifying the different parts of the Critique. Kant
in any case gave his unqualified approval in the middle of
1792 to the reorganisation of the Critical philosophy
attempted by Beck under the aegis of the principle of
Zusammensetzung.
The same purpose of unifying the two parts of the Critical
philosophy explains the growing importance assumed by the
thesis of forulal intuition. In the Fortschritte it is made to
imply the necessity of the existence of pure concepts and it
postulates the principal factor in the demonstration of their
objective validity. Time and space as determinate repre-
sentations are constructed by the subject, and the function
at work there is Zusammensetzung which is expressed by the
pure concept. Time and space derive their objective
validity from the very constructive process which exhibits
157
a concept in a priori intuition. It follows that the only non...
sensible factor to be encountered in the analysis of know-
ledge in general is Zusammensetzung. This confirms Section 15
of the Critique of 1787, for Zusamlnensetzung is to conjunctio what
a German term is to a foreign term. Kant abandoned his
earlier expressions under the influence of his pupil Beck.
There can be no doubt that Kant is now entering on the
path of an intellectual which leads logically to the
idealisation of matter, which is produced by the work of
understanding itself in the same manner as mathematical
constructions. For the origin of a priori matter can only be
found in understanding. The re-exposition of the doctrine
in the Fortschritte shows clearly the correctness of this inter-
pretation. The Aesthetic and the Metaphysical Deduction
are recast without modification. The first deepening of the
doctrine is to be found just at the point where Kant wants
to reconstruct a logical passage from this deduction to the
deduction of objectivity. A similar passage occurred in
1787, but in another place. The categories organically pre-
suppose a corresponding intuition but not necessarily a
spatio-temporal or sensible intuition. In themselves they
are therefore independent of the specific form which
intuition is clotlled, and that will be foundation of the
necessity of a deduction of their validity. If they were
always bound to sensible intuition they would always be
objective. Therefore the problem orlly arises when objec-
tivity is supposed to reside in the of the cate-
gories to the sensible. Formal illtuition furnishes the key to
this whole demonstration.
One of the original features of the Fortschritte is the way
in which the Critical problem par excellence is solved by the
opposition between and rationalism. This can-
not be found earlier. To the question whether pure know-
ledge presupposes sensible experience as the foundation of
its objective validity, empiricism replies yes, while rationalism
replies no. To adopt the empirical point of view is to fall
into a contradiction, since then the a priori rule of experience
would be itself empirical. Rationalism looks for a generating
principle of a priori rules beyond perception and finds it in
Zusammensetzung. The latter is the source of the a priori
15
8
factors involved in knowledge; it thus creates formal intui-
tion and clothes all sensible representations without distinc-
tion in the same way. The reciprocal relation manifested by
a priori intuition and the category in the constitution of
experience is raised to the rank of the supreme objectifying
element. Objectivity has a validity limited to the given
wherever this relation holds: when this relation does not
hold there is no ground for speaking of objectivity.
The function of exhibiting the category or the Zusammen-
setzung in the corresponding intuition amounts to what Kant
calls the schematism, and he takes advantage of the occasion
to reply to a very real criticism directed against this aspect
of the Critique. I have already said on more than one occa-
sion that the subsumptive procedure which characterises the
schematism is not calculated to express the intellectual
dynamism, stressed by Kant in this memoir, which allows
the pure concept to be brought close to intuition. Kant was
aware of this, for he appealed to the synthetic act to effect
the definitive unity of the two constituents. In addition, the
very principle invoked in the Fortschritte was to draw Kant's
attention to a doctrine which the Critique did not annOUl1ce.
The one unique a priori element is Zusammensetzung, he
declares, following Beck. Taken in this way it is difficult
to see how this function becomes differentiated, al1d yet it
is clear that this originally single function is broken up in
its concrete actualisation into a nun1ber of kinds of acts or
of categories. The origin of their differentiation cannot be
attributed to the llnique operation of this a priori element
which is essentially a source of identity. These differentia-
tions are required to correspond with the sensible presenta-
tions of objects in space and in time. That means, it seems
to me, that the a priori diversity, the foundation of formal
intuition, is the principle which differentiates the functions
which are distinct from Zusammensetzung in general. This
a priori diversity therefore acquires capital in1portance in
this development since it sets the whole transcendental
apparatus in action. Under these conditions it is highly
regrettable to have to report that Kant prudently abstained
from giving a clear and precise account of the origin of this
a priori diversity. Everything points to the conclusion that
159
at this juncture in Kant's thought it has no other origin
than the activity of the logical subject. This means that
after all it is Beck and Fichte who are right in their exegesis
of the Critical philosophy.
After being subjected to severe criticism Kant had recast
his teaching arId had brought it into line with the new
tendencies to which he was always sensitively alert. Do the
newly illtroduced articulations mean that Kant abjured his
earlier expositions? This conclusion is in no way necessary
since they are not contradictory. Kant was aware that" his
teaching had been enlarged and developed by his pupils
and he re-thought it in terms of their method of exegesis
and of their vocabulary. This explains why the Fortschritte
represents a useful additional text. Although it does not
develop any standpoints wh.ich are absolutely new, it opens
a perspective on elements in the Critical philosophy which
Kant had not explored in the constructive decade from 1781
to 1790, either from lack of opportunity or lack of courage.
This n1.ore or less accurate exposition of the Critical
philosophy was not introduced simply for the pleasure of
constantly re-hashing the same doctrine. On the contrary
it had a very precise role to play. It brings to light the
standard which makes it possible to exhibit the degree of
philosophical progress to be credited to the Critical philo-
sophy. After he had defined metaphysics and drawn out
further implications of the Critical philosophy, Kant com-
pleted his reply to the question which formed the subject
of the competition by studying the progress represented by
the Critical philosophy whe11' compared with the Wolffio-
Leibnizian philosophy. The exposition of the Critical
philosophy is not an end in itself but a means of demonstra-
tion. When it is necessary to appreciate the progress made
by the science of metaphysics, defined as a science of the
passage from the sensible to the meta-sensible, the Critical
philosophy appears as the standard, since it alone p e r m i t ~
us to determine the objective use and also the limits of
a priori knowledge and leads to the conclusion that objective
knowledge of the meta-sensible is illusory.
Is this a complete illusion or is it only relative? To
declare that it is complete is to fall into scepticism. Kant
160
was to hold to the view that it was a relative illusion and
was to discover in the critique of reason itself the elements
necessary to support the view that it is a relative illusion.
It also marks the only advance which Kant is able to detect.
He believed it essential to distinguish between two kinds of
progress in metaphysics: completely illusory progress where
metaphysics claims to knovv the meta-sensible, and genuine
progress. Unfortunately Kant keeps on obscuring the issue
because lle keeps on confusing the two kinds of progress.
The illusory progress is always worked out in three stages:
dogmatic progress, sceptical progress, and Critical progress,
with these terms understood in their COUlmon acceptation.
Real progress is subdivided into the same stages with the
same names, but this tilne understood in a quite peculiar
sense. It is therefore worth while attempting to distinguish
what each of them really amounts to.
The first, admittedly illusory, progress whose develop-
ment is sketched by I(ant, describes a curve going from
dogmatic illusion up to Critical prudence. Dogmatism
consisted in the elaboration of a science of the meta-sensible
without prior examination of the possibility of a priori
knowledge in general. It rested on one hand on the mis-
leading method of mathematics, and on the other 011 the
negative confirmation of experience which cannot contra-
dict SUCl1 a science. Scepticism then presents reason as
engaged in a retreat which cannot be halted. The uni-
versal doubt in regard to the possibility of apriori knowledge
is not significant in the case where the a priori is related to
the sensible; but it marks undoubted progress when it is
interpreted as an invitation addressed to dogmatism to
criticise its own a priori principles. Here the weakness of
dogmatism is clearly revealed; not because dogmatic meta-
physics conflicts with experience, but because the critical
examination counselled by scepticism places it before the
antinomies, thereby destroying all confidence in reason itself.
There is here an evident confusion between Pyrrhonian
scepticism and the criticism furnished by the transcendental
dialectic. Finally, the Critical philosophy is the last stage
covered by Kant in his celebrated trilogy. Its purpose is
to determine all the conditions governing the extension of
(2,491) 161 12
a priori knowledge to the sensible and to the meta-sensible.
These three stages could have perhaps settled the place
which the Critical philosophy occupies in the evolution of
philosophy and could have illuminated the curve of progress,
if Kant had really worked out the historical stages in the
manner required by the Academy of Berlin. However, he
was no historian and he quickly abandoned the first more
or less historical triad in order to sketch another doctrinal
triad which corresponded better to his systematic tenlpera-
mente
This new triad consists in a theoretical dogmatic stage
called Wissenschaftslehre, a second sceptical stage called
Zweifellehre and, finally, a third practico-dogmatic stage
called Weisheitslehre. The first stage constructs scientific
theoretical knowledge or a Critical system of knowledge;
the second represents a discipline of reason or of rational
knowledge; the third guides us in the use of practical
reason. However, far from simply developing these three
stages according to a uniform plan, Kant deligllts in the
accumulation of difficulties by confusing the points of
view contained within the framework of the new triad.
In tIle manuscripts there is a first form in which the doctrine
of science denotes the Aesthetic and the Analytic combined,
with scepticism corresponding to the Dialectic and wisdom
to practical reason. Another form is to be found, however,
in which science corresponds to ontology, scepticism to
cosn1.ology and psychology, and wisdom to theology. The
description of these three stages shows how the two forms
can be reconciled when their paths cross: the first is
modelled on the structure of the Critical philosophy, the
second follows more faithfully the classical divisions of
metaphysics. Dogmatism consists either in the exposition
of the Critique or in a critique ofWolffian ontology. Scepti-
cism denotes in both cases the Critical Dialectic, while the
Critical stage corresponds either to the practical Critique
or to a con1.bination of the Dialectic and the practical
Critique.
In the detail of his exposition Kant gives evidence of a
marked preference for the second form. In this way the
exposition of the dogmatic stage is generally transformed
162
into a close criticism of Wolffio-Leibnizian ontology. In
this Kant conducts the discussion along the lines of the
three principles mentioned in the last paragraph, but to
them 11e adds a fourth, namely, the principle of indis-
cernibles. Kant adopts a completely changed attitude
towards his predecessor. The demands of his polemic
forced Kant in the Entdeckung to reduce as far as possible
the distance between himself and Leibniz. Th.e Fortschritte
on the other hand shows that the backward movement of
the Entdeckung should not be taken too seriously. He
accuses Leibnizian dogmatism of moving exclusively in the
logical sphere, when, in order to explain the existence of
things, the formal principles of reaSOll are invoked; without
adding any new elements Kant criticises the conception of
intuition as a faculty of obscure knowledge, so that the true
progress nlade by the Critical philosophy consists in 11aving
liberated philosophy from this dogmatic leap into the realm
of the meta-sensihIe.
Scepticislll corresponds to the Dialectic, which takes
exception to any special metaphysics. Although it was
announced as a critique of cosmology and of rational
psycll0logy, it is linlited to calling attention to tIle anti-
nomies. The mobilisation of the antinomies always had
as its object the denunciation and disarming of cosmo-
logical dogmatisnl, but here it has also a positive subsidiary
purpose. The antinomies represent the hardest test to
which reason can be subjected, and from this springs the
necessity of th.e distinction between phenomena and nou-
mena. This recalls how tIle dynamic antinolllies had
established the reality of noumena and indicated a way of
access to the domain of the transcendent by anticipating the
practical solutioI:l which. this problem allows.
As might be expected, it is the Critical stage which is
treated with the most loving care. In keeping with the
desiderata of the competition, Kant underlines in a positive
section the possibility of the passage to the meta-sensible
through practical reason and in a negative section rejects
the Wolffian metaphysics. The Critique established beyond
doubt that, within the limits of theoretical reason, know-
ledge of the nleta-sensible must be formally rejected. Despite
16
3
the agnosticism ofthis position, it also indicated the expedient
by which reason can safely run the risk of a transcendent
metaphysics. To know nature and to understand it are
claimed to be two quite different things; to know it is to
apprehend its phenon1enal reality which is rigorously
mechanical; to understand it is to consider it as if it had
produced things according to a purpose. This hypothesis
is not justified by any scientific need but by a moral need.
Freedom is an indisputable fact which is intelligible only by
a final purpose to be found in the supreme good, which
itself cannot be understood without the postulates of imn10r-
tality and the existence of God. We do not know these
objects as they are in themselves, but as they must be if
the supreme good is to be realised. The necessary acqui-
escence in an idea, or the acceptance of a theoretical pro-
position because of the needs of practical reason, is called
faith. Therefore the theoretical path, or science, does not
reach the meta-sensible; there is therefore no true passage
from the sensible to the meta-sensible. On the other hand,
by faith we realise these meta-sensible ideas, that is, we give
them objects. Therefore, in the practical order the passage
is real, and that is the sole advance to which metaphysics
can lay claim.
It is th.e same with practical theology. The Critical
philosophy in its negative part challenges the vain attempts
of cosmological theology to prove apodeictically the existence
of God. There is never a true, direct proof of His existence,
but it is once again postulated on the basis of the final cause
of man. All argumentation is then always KaT'avOpw7ToV,
never Cosmological optimisn1, or the faith
that the creation advances indefinitely towards the better,
which results from cosmological theology, can never be the
object of a theoretical and scientific proof: it is a demand
of our moral nature. In consequence these concepts, which
are false and unjustifiable within the theoretical framework,
acquire validity and moral reality. The same is true of
psychological theology: to prove the immortality of the
soul is a wager; to find the necessity of immortality in the
prolonging and conditioning of the moral fact furnishes
practical certainty.
THE DEFENCE OF TI-IE CRITICAL SYNTHESIS
In the Fortschritte therefore we are confronted with a
rather peculiar conception of metaphysics. It is the science
in which the passage from the sensible to the meta-sensible
takes place. This passage is effected not by a philosophy
analogous to that of Leibniz, but directly by the Critical
trilogy. Thus the Critical pllilosophy, or in other words
transcendental philosophy, no longer appears as a simple
propaedeutic to a future system, but as an integral system
of metaphysics, and this metaphysics is preceded by a
Critique of pure reason which fixes the limits of its cognitive
capacities. Therefore the Critique is an integral part of a
transcendental philosophy and is not solely destined to
serve as a support for it. Gradually transcendental philo-
sophy merges with metaphysics itself. It includes ethics
and theology. The structure of this system, Kant says in
an appendix, is determined by two ideas, namely, the
ideality of space and time and the cOIlcept of freedom.
The ideality is the origin of phenon1enalism and it repre-
sents the main addition to the theoretical criticism. In
consequence the deduction is only indirectly the Critical
problem, so that the Fortschritte is closer to the note in the
Anfangsgriinde than to the Critique. The ideality must be
limited to opening perspectives on the meta-sensible. It is
freedom which opens the way by which we penetrate to the
meta-sensible.
It must be remembered in what is to come that the
Fortschritte in its Critical part is characterised by a progres-
sive tendency towards idealism through the factor of Zusam-
mensetzung, which is the constructive principle of knowledge.
The same essay is distinguished in its historico-systematic
part by a definite modification in the reciprocal relations
between the great divisions of the Critique. The position of
the Critique and also of transcendental philosophy has under-
gone considerable modification. The Critical whole in its
three parts is raised to the level of philosophy itself instead
of occupying, as in the tl1eoretical Critique, the modest place
of a preliminary study. These two tendencies are increas-
ingly to develop into the new axes of the master's thought,
for Kant will soon set himself to give the final retouches to
the eternal problem which filled his whole career.
16
5
3
THE APOSTATES
The Critical synthesis did not face criticisn1. only from men
like Eberhard, who were rooted in the Wolffian tradition.
Another surprise awaited Kant toward 1790, a surprise
which was to arouse painful echoes in his mind during the
last decade of his life. From the anonymous mass of his
disciples there emerged some outstanding figures who,
despite their admiration for their common n1aster, were
determined to restate the Critical doctrine in an irreproach-
able form. In the pursuit of formal correction, however,
they were unable to avoid making certain doctrinal correc-
tions. Reinhold, Beck, and Fichte are the most noteworthy.
Their bold alterations to the original Critical teaching pro-
duced a number of centrifugal movements. On each
occasion Kant experienced the painful shock of betrayal
and with some bitterness lle watched a wind of apostasy
shake his school.
The attitude of these men towards Kant was not hostile,
for they were his principal lieutenants. Kant had just rU11
up against the heavy opposition of the schools, and the struc-
ture of the Critical philosophy did p r e s ~ n t a certain number
of weaknesses which his enemies seized upon. The Kantians
in their turn did not expect the consolidation of the Critical
philosophy to come from the direct refutation of its oppo-
nents, but rather from a clearer focusing of the Critical
philosophy itself. The Critical philosophy, according to the
express desire of the master, was to form a rigorously deduc-
tive and perfectly coherent system. Now, Kant was still of
the opinion that the Critique did not constitute such a system,
but was simply a propaedeutic. This suggested that the
ren1edy for several of the weaknesses was to construct the
complete system of transcendental philosophy. The system-
atic search for the unique principle from which transcen-
dentalism in its entirety would be seen to flow, constitutes
166
the true motivating force of philosophy in this feverish fin de
siecle. Kant rarely intervened personally in the struggle,
but the two pages written against Fichte which brought
his working life to a resounding end, acquire their full
meaning within this framework, and their psycllological
resonance is so deep that their logical weaknesses may be
regarded with tolerance.
The source of all the difficulties is the doctrine of the
transcendent, which was the cause of the contradiction
between the agnosticism which he professed with regard
to it and the role which he assigned to it. The radical
dualism between sensibility and understanding carried the
germ of this contradiction which was fatal to the doctrinal
unity of the system. Jacobi set the tone for a whole genera-
tion when in 1787 he coined the famous slogan: without
the thing in itself one cannot enter into the Critical system;
with it, one cannot stay inside it. A consistent Kantian can
only be an idealist, because idealism is the only conclusion
which the Critique permits. That was the programme of the
exuberant philosophical activity w h i ~ h can be observed from
I 790 to 1800. A minority felt obliged to abandon the Critical
philosophy in favour of a radical scepticism, while the
majority deserted it in favour of romantic idealism.
The first apostate, malgre lui, was Reinhold, who had
paved the way for the Critical philosophy in the learned
world of Germany. In I789 he sent Kant his Versuch einer
neuen Theorie des menschlichen Vorstellungsvermogens (Essqy on a
New Theory of the Human Capacity of Representation). Kant
received it rather coldly because the success of the work
could not fail to upset Kantian orthodoxy. The Vorstellungs-
theorie had scarcely appeared when it was exposed to the
attacks of the orthodox. It is not a commentary but it
provides material from wllich it would be possible to con-
struct a system of philosophy on the Critical basis KaT'
JgoX1Jv Since the Critique was only the introduction, the
extension of the Critical plan alone permits us to realise this
end. The argument of the Critical philosophy was based
on the arbitrary postulation of the physico-mathen1atical
sciences as fact, and it argued regressively to the conditions
of their possibility. Reinll0ld started from the Cartesian
16
7
principle which implies its own evidence, l1.amely, the
existence in us of representations. The Critical philosophy
in consequence can accept a complement a parte ante.
Atten1.pting to deal with the most important things first,
Kant had neglected the true first principle. He developed
the doctrine of Erkenntnis or of the scientific knowledge of
the object, but this doctrine must be held to be arbitrary
as long as it is not preceded by a more elementary analysis
which goes right to the genus of which knowledge is only a
species. From the fact of consciousness Reinhold deduced
a whole episten1.ology by borrowing his modes of operation
fronl the storehouse of the Critical philosophy.
Reinhold had overestimated his strength. Instead of
being an olive branch his essay only succeeded in being a
brand of discord. The Kantians considered this well-meant
work to be that of an apostate, the Wolffians unmasked its
internal weaknesses, the sceptics dispatched it mercilessly,
and the Enesidemus of Schultze gave it the coup de grace.
Despite his obstinate silence, Kant noticed that what was
taking place was dangerous to him, because each blow
against Reinhold affected him indirectly. He saw that his
teaching would not emerge unharmed from the test to
which the tempestuous zeal of Reinhold vvas submitting it.
More firmly than ever the conviction grew in his mind
that the Critique alone was the law from which there must
be no deviation. This conviction explains the sort of
enslavement to the letter which he wished in future to
impose on his partisans. The curtain had barely fallen on
this first psychological drama when Beck's non pOJsumus was
to reproduce the painful experience of the Reinhold case.
Meanwhile the sceptics rapidly denl0lished Reinhold's
unfortunate essay. Maimon torpedoed tl1.e doctrine of the
transcendent and saved the unity of the Critical philosophy
by reabsorbing the matter of knowledge into the cognitive
activity of the subject. After the disastrous Enesidemus of
Schultze, Reinhold disappeared completely from the scene.
At this point Kant based his last hope on his most brilliant
pupil,]. S. Beck. He not only persuaded him into the path
of philosophy, but he encouraged him in the work which
was to be the source of grave dissension. The book was of
168
course an exegetical work on the Critical philosophy. The
first volume, which appeared in 1793, carried as its subtitle
Auf Anrathen Kants, as a kind of authorisation from the
master. However, the situation deteriorated in 1795 when
Beck wanted to add to it a third volume under the title of
'Einzig moglicher Standpunkt aus welchen die critische
Philosophie beurteilt werden muss' (' Only possible stand-
point from which the Critical philosophy can be judged ').
Everyone, it must be remembered, had taken a dislike
to the doctrine of the transcendent. Some held that the
Ding an sich was indispensable, while others took it to be
incompatible with Critical principles. It was this problem
which Beck proposed to resolve. It was true that Kant
referred to the thing in itself, he pointed out, but did he
not do that with the intention of accommodating himself to
the conceptions of the public? Did not all the false inter-
pretations of the Critical philosophy derive from the failure
to recognise the fact that Kant wished to place himself at
the level of his readers so as to lead them by measured
stages towards his personal positions? If the answer is yes,
all that is necessary is to correct the exposition of the Critical
philosophy and to rewrite the Critique. Kant did indeed,
said Beck, at first adopt the dogmatic level of his readers so
as to conduct them step by step to his own transcendental
level. To this source are to be traced all the equivocations
which were detected in his work. It is necessary therefore
to change the method. Kant went from the given to the
synthetic unity. Beck proposed to go from the synthetic
unity to the given, and therefore adopts a transcendental
point of view right from the start.
Beck was too much of a mathematician simply to follow
Reinhold, who had postulated the fact of consciousness so as
to seek out its constitutive acts. Beck wanted his readers to
adopt the transcendental point of view by a deliberate act.
The unique originative act is the act of representing, all act
which is not taken as a fact, but as an invitation to postulate
the fact. He sincerely believed that he was sacrificing
nothing of the Critical philosophy since the transcendental
deduction seemed to him to be the description in detail of
this constructive process of the act of knowing. Indeed,
16
9
Kant started from the synthesis not as from the product of
an act, but as from the very act which constructs our repre-
sentations. In the construction of the object by this origi-
nating act, three problems are set which are to be found
under other names in the Kantian Critique: (I) What is
there before the originating act? (2) What specifically
determines this first syntlletic act? (3) Wl1at specifically
determines the representation of the general object in a
representation of a determinate object?
Kant replied to the first question by asserting the relative
independence of the given diversity. It cannot be denied
that by his method of successive approaches Kant fell into
dogmatic realism. Instead of seeing in the diversity some-
thing which precedes the originating activity, Beck made it
the product of the synthesis and the final term of the process
of objective knowledge. Therefore a synthetic act is the
absolute incipit of this knowledge and no constraining force
either precedes or determines this act. This first act is never
given as generally undetermined: it always takes the fornl
of a determinate synthesis or of a category. Beck wanted to
avoid the logical conception of the category according to
which it is a concept. It is a function. It is the act itself,
but in its concrete determination. Now this conception
destroys in his mind the duality introduced by Kant between
sensibility and understanding, w l ~ i c h is also to be seen as an
attempt to adapt his doctrine to the mind of his readers.
Sensibility, indeed, is not to be taken as an independent
faculty: there is no radical opposition between intuition
and concept and the basis of their apparent dissimilarity
11as to be found in the synthetic act itself. Indeed Beck
explained it by saying that a representation can be con-
structed either by going from the parts to the whole or from
the whole to the parts. The first n1ethod yields the extensive
categories of space, the other the intensive categories of
reality. Intuition is the representation of a totality by the
movement of thought, a path which goes from part to part.
The mind in this way creates the spatial character of things.
To represent something by the movement of the thinking
activity going from the whole to the part is to determine its
character of reality or to determine an empirical real. It
17
0
follows that reality in all its aspects is produced by the
synthetic act itself.
Finally, Kant needed a schematism to achieve the sub-
sumptive union between the sensible and the intellectual.
Beck needed the same doctrine to resolve his third problem,
but he rejected, and rightly so, the subsumption, a procedure
too external to allow us to enter into the mechanisn1 of the
act constituting the unity. The act is determined, according
to him, vvhen concurrently with space it constructs time.
The representative act was a ll10vement of thought which,
in the case of spatial construction, goes from the parts to
the whole. To be aware of this movement is to fix it, or
to represent a determinate time. The representation of time
determines by that very fact the original act which has
produced it.
This summary description of Beck's position indicates
that it certainly diverged farther from Kant than he was
prepared to admit. Such a criticism could only come from
the mind of a mathematician aware that mathematics avoids
the thorny problem of the transcendent by the constructive
process which is its very foundation. Now in the second
edition of the Critique, the doctrine of objectivity had p r ~
sented striking analogies with this procedure in the notion
of synthesis which, freed from the psychological apparatus,
showed its objectifying function in the creation of the object.
By modelling the Critical synthesis on the n1ethod of mathe-
matical construction, Beck considerably simplified the pro-
cess of the deduction. In this way he elin1inated everything
which has to do with the given, and he rejected the sensitive-
intellectual duality and made the whole apparatus of given,
intuition, and concept proceed from the same synthetico-
constructive act. It cannot be said that Beck attempted to
conceal anything from his master. He kept Kant scrupu-
lously well informed once his personal conception of the
Standpunkt seemed to him well founded.
Nothing in Kant's attitude, as it appears in his letters to
Beck, gives any indication of the final disillusionment. He
made suggestions leading to greater precision and clarity of
exposition, but there is nothing which hints at the revolution
about to occur in the camp of the master. From 1794 on,
17
1
Kant locked himself up in the most absolute But
he became concerned when Schultze, his faithful fellow-
citizen, gave a very unfavourable review of Beck's work in
which he said that it eliminated tIle Aesthetic as useless and
that it constructed things by the understanding. Now these
novelties had been published virtually with Kant's permis-
sion, but his patronage became singularly equivocal when it
was made to cover contraband merchandise. Without inter-
vening personally he was quite pleased when a young man,
Tieftrunk by name, wished to undertake the task of making
the reply. Although the second transcendental affair thus
ended with Kant's silent displeasure, it a considerable
effect on his thought. I-lis tenacity ill retaining his own
expressions and conceptions should not mislead us. The
functionalism of Beck passed insensibly to Kant who,
perhaps without being aware of it, proceeded to integrate
it into the pages of the Opus Postumum.
Meanwhile, in the transcendentalist camp, J. G. Fichte
was carefully watching the trend of events. He had embarked
upon theoretical criticismfronl a sense ofobligation and upon
moral criticism from personal taste. The whole moral per-
sonality of Fichte can be summed up by saying that, with his
active temperament and moral disposition, his need for con-
viction clashed with the negativism of the theoretical Critique.
The latter could not have attracted the mind of the young
Fichte if he had not perceived that it was an indispensable
introduction to the amazing moral philosophy which had
brought about his suddell and total conversion to the Critical
philosophy. He enrolled in one of Kant's courses but was
received rather coldly. To get into the good graces of the
master he produced his Essay on Revelation. This so altered
Kant's opinioll about his pupil that he set himself to find a
publisher for it.
However, Fichte never felt narrowly dependent on Kant,
because he too had clearly seen the formal faults inherent in
the Critical system. As if the same spirit dominated this
whole period, Fichte was to reject, like Reinhold and Beck,
the exposition of the Critical philosophy and set out to seek
the true foundation of the transcendental philosophy, which
Kant had indeed guessed at but which he had not been able
17
2
to develop. He was to be encouraged in this decision when
he becan1e aware of the criticism which the sceptics directed
against Reinhold's Essay. Although Reinhold's authority
had been totally destroyed for him, this criticisn1 made him
more and more distrustful of the Kantian doctrine. His
faith in philosophy qua talis survived this crisis, and the
Wissenschaftslehre, which he developed between 1794 and
1797 in some youthful books and essays, carried traces both
of this faith and of his distrust of the comm011 master. The
doctrine of Fichte is the science of science. The latter
consists in a whole organised by a single principle which
resides in the act of pure thought. The whole of knowledge
thus begins with an absolutely first act in which the Kantian
duality of subject and object of knowledge is fused into one.
This act resolves itself into three subordinate acts: the thesis
of the subject by itself, the antithesis of the not-self to the
self, and their synthesis.
In this act the self reveals itself as an activity and the
not-self as a passivity. Contrary to Kant, who radically
separates receptivity and spontaneity, Fichte attached then1
to one sole indivisible act of the self which posits itself as
subject and as object. It is natural that this position should
be identified with idealism and we see Fichte eliminating
the thing in itself. One of the original features of his
doctrine of science consisted precisely in his account of
perception which, instead of being organically bound to a
foreign given matter, once again takes its place, even more
firmly than with Beck and Maimon, among the originating
activities of the thinking subject.
The Wissenschaftslehre in its turn started bitter contro-
versies. But Fichte was not a nlan to listen in silence to
this unfavourable concert. He published in quick succes-
sion two introductions to the Wissenschaftslehre, one addressed
to Schelling and the other a reply to the orthodox Kantians.
At this point the paths of Kant and of Fichte were about to
cross, because the Beck affair was connected in Kant's mind
with the Fichte affair. In 1797 Kant was challenged by a
certain Schlettwein to declare publicly who was to be con-
sidered the faithful commentator on his doctrine, Reinhold,
Beck, or Fichte. He pronounced himself as against all of
173
them and in favour of his amanuensis Schultze. With that
pronouncement the three critics were excommunicated. The
following year an anonymous critic repeated in a short article
in the Literatur Zeitung of Erlangen that Kant was the master,
Reinhold the propagator, and Fichte the transcendental
philosopher par excellence, and that it was more than desir-
able that Kant should explain himself clearly on the subject
of the doctrine of Fichte. In 1799, probably with the
collaboration of Schultze, Kant wrote the famous' Declara-
tion against Fichte' which constituted his last public con-
tribution to transcendental philosophy. The Literatur Zeitung
of Jena, still devoted to him, hastened to publish it on
28 August.
What apparently affected Kant most deeply in the
apostasy of his three disciples, and above all of Fichte,
was the accusation that he had failed to con1plete the
Critical philosophy. That wounded him deeply, since the
completio11 of the Critical synthesis had obscured the plan
sketched in the theoretical Critique, and twenty years of
constant reflection on transcendental philosophy had led
him to identify criticism and philosophy. It is quite intel-
ligible then that Fichte's claim should have appeared to
him to be a complete misunderstanding of his thought. It
is no less intelligible that his amour propre should have suf-
fered when he became aware that the public was deserting
the orthodox version of the Critical philosophy. Fichte
reacted with dignity to Kant's harsh public declaration
against him, but it contributed to his decline. However,
the one who benefited was not Kant but Schelling.
In the first part of his Declaration Kant protested
energetically against the identification of the Critical philo-
sophy with Fichte's Wissenschaftslehre. More important for
us is the other part. Fichte clainled that the Critical
philosophy in the Kantian version is simply a propaedeutic.
, Well,' replied Kant, ' in tIle Critique of Pure Reason I made
completeness the true criterion of a science of pure reason.'
It is therefore quite evident that in Kant's mind the Critical
philosophy was the complete system of transcendental philo-
sophy. It is unfortunately 110t Fichte but Kant who is here
the victim both of an illusion and of an unfortunate slip of
174
memory, since he himself had repeated ad nauseam that the
Critique is not the transcendental system but the introduction
to it. As the whole enterprise represented by the Critical
philosophy neared final completion, however, the Critiques
became identified with the transcendental philosophy itself.
It has already become apparent in Ollf study of the develop-
ment of Kant's thought that from 1787 onwards the original
simple plan sketched in the theoretical Critique (Critique-
metaphysics of nature-metaphysics of morals) underwent
considerable modification. The transcendental philosophy,
which includes the three Critiques, is as a whole the preface
to the twofold metaphysics referred to in the past. There-
fore if Fichte was in error Kant had only himself to blame.
The argument which he invokes, namely, that he has made
the completeness of his achievement into a criterion of its
truth as a science of pure reason, carries very little weight
in the discussioll. Indeed he nlade similar claims in the
Metaphysical Deduction and in the Methodology; but,
after only a few intervening pages, he w'as still referring to
the Critique as a propaedeutic.
When we cast a brief glance backwards we get the
impression of having witnessed a psychological drama, the
gravity and extent of which is revealed in the Declaration
against Fichte. We may speak even of a threefold drama
running through tile twilight of Kant's life: a drama of
the spirit, a drama of the heart, and the drama of an epoch.
Kant saw the defects and the weaknesses of his system
being bared to public view. His attempts to reconcile con-
flicting tendencies in his thinking prevent the system from
being straightforward. It is a system full of nuances which
are the results of his constant scruples. The resulting
system, containing within itself convictions based on diver-
ging sources ofinspiration, was packed with explosives which
at the first shock were to destroy the weak and narrow
framework of his ideas. Theses like that of the existence
of the transcendent, of the duality between our faculties,
and the simply provisional and introductory character of
the Critique, are to be found side by side with the idealist
phenomenalism, the tendency to unity, and the desire for
completeness. The internal conflict of these theses in the
175
Critique was destined to explode outside the work and was
bound to produce a profound schisrYl among its exponents,
men whon1 Kant had himself educated and trained in
Critical philosophy. The three apostates were simply
victims of the rectitude of their thought and of their desire
for consistency.
On the other hand the end of I<'ant's career coincides
with another epoch which is in sharp contrast, in all its
outward appearances, wit11 the rationalist and analytic
Aufkliirung represented by Kant in his Critical system.
The completion of the synthesis coincides with the change
from one epoch to the other. The Aufkliirung was succeeded
by a romanticism of which Fichte is one of the powerful
protagonists. Since Kant belonged to the century of the
Aufkliirung, he was not open to the influence of numerous
new tendencies which had just taken shape and which were
being noisily propagated throughout young Germany. Kant
and his apostates were the unconscious playthings of the
historic moira which led them ineluctably to the place
intended for them by destiny. The doctrinal lesson offered
in the years 1790 to 1800 is very slight: the historical lesson
on the contrary is considerable. The Critique and Wissen-
schaftslehre are not two books and two doctrines which con-
flict with one another; they are two epochs which face one
another. Kant and Fichte, the master and the pupil, are
the two actors who embody on the stage of history the
cultural and sentimental spirit which animates these two
epochs: the one silent like all ends, the other noisy like all
beginnings. The end of Kant and the rise of Ficllte sound
sin1ultaneously the retreat of the Aufkliirung and the advent
of Romanticism.
4
EPILOGUE
History has rarely seen an old man more studious than Kant.
From 1790 onwards he was constantly engaged in the task of
defending and perfecting his life's work despite the fact that
the end of the eighteenth century was a period of great poli-
tical upheaval. The accession to the throne of Frederick III
had indeed sounded the knell of his predecessor's liberalism.
The consistories were leading a violent counter-offensive
against the liberal peril, and were fighting it both by weeding
out the teaching profession and by a strict control of public
opinion. The crowned heads of all Europe, including
Germany, formed a coalition to protect themselves against
revolutionary expansion and were only too glad to support
the conservative campaign in defence of the spiritual and
political values of the ancien regime. Kant had been. too out-
spoken in the past not to have attracted attention, and, as
one of the spiritual leaders of liberal republicanism, he was
too well known to escape the heavy hand of the reaction.
Right in the centre of this Kulturkampf he was building up,
piece by piece, his doctrine of natural religion, all extra-
ordinarily dangerous doctrine at this moment in history.
His book Religion within the Limits of Reason Alone was a
public confession of deism which the authorities interpreted
at its face value, namely, as a cllallenge to the reactionary
forces in the government. It would really have been
evidence of great naivety on Kant's part if he had shown
any signs of astonishment when the royal thunderbolt
descended upon him in his peaceful retreat on the borders
of Prussia.
This work on religion after all owes its origin and its
strange composition simply to the political circumstances of
the period. However, Kant had a much too systematic
temperament not to seek to integrate it at once with the
(2,491) I 77 13
Critical synthesis in the strict sense. To the royal writ
which imposed silence on him in matters of religion, Kant
replied with his Streit der Fakultiiten (Conflict of the Faculties),
in which he clain1ed for philosophers absolute freedom of
thought. At the same time he gave evidence of his coura-
geous loyalty to liberal politics in his brief but extremely
well-known essay On Perpetual Peace, and in his Rechtslehre he
systematised the political philosophy of Frederick II. Mean-
while age began to weigh heavily on his shoulders and in
1796 the moment came for him to resign the teaching post
which he had occupied for about forty-five years. No longer
able to express his thought by word of mouth, he decided
to publish his lecture-courses. He himself undertook to edit
the course on Anthropology, while some friends and col-
leagues were asked to edit his courses on Geography, Logic,
and Pedagogy.
The only works of this period which form part of the
Critical system in the strict sense are the Metaphysics of Morals
(1797) and the Opus Postumum. A metaphysics of morals had
formed part of the original plan from the very beginning,
but the plan had never included the two-part arrangement
which Kant gave to it in 1797. He had th.ought of a meta-
physics of morals but he had had no intention of including
within it a section on natural law. We have l1ad to point
out more than once that after 1787 a different plan was
gradually substituted for the original one. In the inter-
vening years Kant had come to believe that he had furnished
an absolutely complete system of philosophy, in so far as
form is concerned, in the three Critiques, but that the system
was still incomplete from the point of view of its content.
The Metaphysics of Morals undeniably adds to the moral
Critique the matter which was missing from it. However,
the situation with regard to the matter required to complete
tIle theoretical Critique is not so clear. In the Anfangsgriinde
of 1785 Kant had produced not a metaphysics of nature,
but a metaphysics of corporeal nature. He was aware of
this, and for that reason he again promised in 1790 to pro-
duce a general metaphysics of nature. Immediately after
writing the final paragraph of the Critique of Judgment he
turned his thoughts to his metaphysics of morals.. It was
17
8
110t the ethical part, but the part dealing with natural law,
and especially the section on the problem of property, which
held up the con1pletion of this work until finally it did
appear in 1797.
Up to this point it may be said then that there are few
difficulties to be solved, but the situation is very different
w i t l ~ regard to the metaphysics of nature. Kant published
110tlling further under this actual title, but fron1 1795 to 1803
he worked ceaselessly on a book about which he himself
expressed very different opinions, calling it his masterpiece
one day and condemning it to the flames on tIle next. In
consequence the book has been even n10re severely judged
by historians. The pile of fragments knowl1 as tIle Opus
Postumum is not made up of a series of ran.dom speculations
attributable to the senility of the master and therefore excus-
able, but is rather the swan-song of a great logician. It is
simply the final stage of the theoretical aspect of the Critical
philosophy which Kant reached in the silence of his old age.
The Opus Postumum would have been a t l ~ i r d edition of the
Critique of Pure Reason if it had been properly edited and
reduced in size. Kant's new preoccupations are announced
for the first time in a letter to Kiesewetter in 1795, but the
text sends us back in all probability to the years 1788 to
1790 as the period in which !(ant discovered the problem
which was to occupy him for the rest of his days. He had
noticed a gap between the metaphysics of nature and physics.
It seems that around 1798 he had made considerable pro-
gress in the task of working out all Ubergang between the
two sciences which would permit their unification. Where
exactly did the gap lie? The theoretical Critique had studied
the general forms of experience but not the particular laws
and still less the infinite variety of particular forn1s to be
found among the things of nature. The Critique of Judgment,
as we have seen, had dealt with this problem. A similar
problem however must be faced in connection with matter;
the Anfangsgrunde is devoted to the general laws of the
behaviour of matter. At the empirical level however there
are further laws and many natural properties to be dis-
covered; matter reveals itself empirically as the source of
the various processes studied by physics. If science is to
179
reflect the systematic unity of nature it must be possible to
construct an a priori science of the particular forms and
properties of nature. This is precisely what Kant set
himself to do in the Ubergang.
At first sight then his intention concerns pure physics.
There is nothing so far to suggest any intention of rewriting
the theoretical Critique or transcendental philosophy. The
fragments of the manuscript however present two groups of
texts; one of these discusses the physical problem, while
the other clearly prepares .a complete transcendental doc-
trine. Furthermore, the two groups give the impression of
having been composed at different times. The two parts
do not interpenetrate but remain simply juxtaposed. With-
out wishing to undertake on my own account any attempt
to date the fragments after the manner of Adickes, it seems
to me beyond doubt that only the physical question inter-
ested Kant between 1790 and 1800 and there is no sign of
any desire to re-examine the Critical philosophy. From
1800 onwards however such a reassessn1ent almost completely
replaces the physical project with which he had started. In
the dozen groups of fragments, tl1erefore, there is no domin-
ating and unifying point of view. Some writers, of whom
Vaihinger is an example, extract from the heterogeneity of
the fragments a proof that Kant really meditated not one
but two distinct works: a physical work and a Critical
work. This does not seem to me to be the case. Indeed
the very text of the fragments of Critical origin reveals how
close were the points of connection between the physical
problem and the Critical problem. The fragments dating
from 1790 to 1799 (Sections 2 to 3,4,5 to 6, 8 to 9, and 12)
are undoubtedly concerned with the physical problem: the
fragments belonging to 1800 (Sections 10 to I I) do amal-
gamate the deduction of the physical problem with the
Critical process of the transcendental deduction: the frag-
ments belonging to 1800 to 1803 (Sections 7 and I) are of
a frankly epistemological nature. While all this is true, the
conclusion nevertheless seems to be that Kant envisaged
only one work which was to have been devoted to the
problem of the Ubergang. The solution of the problem
embodied a serious attempt to make use of Critical
180
procedures, and precisely those procedures which had been
rendered questionable by the attack which the Ronlalltics
directed against him. The employment of Critical methods
demanded a preliminary restatement of his position, and
that is the meaning of the latest sections. It seems likely
that Kant could not see any way of reducing these pages
to one clearly focused line of thought. Such as it is, this
voluminous and extremely valuable nlanuscript shows that
tIle discovery of a gap in the systematic .plan owing to the
absence of an Ubergang between metaphysics and physics
led Kant to re-examine the theoretical aspect of Critical
philosophy and the metaphysics of the transcendent, because
the Critical philosophy appeared to be the only way of con-
structing this Ubergang and therefore of closing the gap. The
problem of the Ubergang demanded a Critical solution. The
Critical solution was not offered simply in and by itself as it
had been in the earlier days of the Critical philosophy. On
the contrary, it was now necessary to defend it against the
sceptical movemellt and against the constrllctivism of the
Ronlantics. The Critical solution revised in this way was
bound to have a powerful effect on the solution of the strictly
physical problem.
If the fundamental unity of the Opus Postumum is to be
reconstructed, it must not be forgotten that what Kant gives
us is really only an outline sketch from which the true Opus
Postumum must be extracted. The fact that there are so
many points of connection between the original Critical
philosophy and the post-Kantian Critical philosophy of the
Romantics makes considerable caution necessary. This is
all the more essential because, if an accurate intellectual
biograpllY of Kant is to be given, a correct understanding
of this Opus Postumum is of the very greatest importance.
Let us then attempt to make this reconstruction on the
assumption that Kant himself did manage to construct the
epilogue to his career as a Critical philosopher. This epi-
logue would have constituted, if we can trust the fragments,
a complete transcendental philosophy having the character
of a vast theory of experience. Kant may therefore be said
to have returned to his early views. Indeed the reference
to experience in the Critical philosophy was absent only in
181
THE DEVELOPMENT OF KANT1AN THOUGHT
1787. Its eclipse was therefore only temporary. It held a
leading position in 178I and in I 783, and we have already
found it in the Fortschritte. The Opus Postumum will carry it
to the very peak of the Critical philosophy.
The experience referred to, however, cannot be identified
with actual perception nor with the totality of its objects. It
is now, as it always had been, a construction effected by
reason. It must therefore be constructed in accordance with
the principle insisted upon by Kant in the Opus Postumum :
the subject knows only what it has made itself. That experi-
ence must not be identified wifh perception is proved by its
absolute unity, which is opposed both to the multiplicity and
to the diversity of perceptions. Experience therefore con-
stitutes the synthetic unity of possible experience. It canll.ot
consequently be understood as a totality of perceived objects
but as a totality of the conditions imposed by th.e knowing
subject on the perception of objects. The collaboration of
the subject, as an epistemological and transceD.dental factor,
is then the determining character of this experience. How-
ever, the theory of experience, as it occurs in. the Opus
Postunzum, is not tIle same as that in the Critique because there
Kant's thought is not directed upon the same formal object.
In 1781 experience played the part of the ultimate point of
reference for the objectivity of perceptions: 011ly objectivity
seemed to be of interest to the Critical philosophy. From
1796 to 1800 it is the ultimate point of reference of the
determinate essence of perceptions and this is quite a dif-
ferent matter. There is no difficulty in understanding that
the principles of objective unification are subjective and
formal principles, but it is less easy to understand WIlY the
principles which govern the existence of materially deter-
mined perceptions should be in their turn subjective, a priori,
and formal. By all accounts their nature should be nlaterial.
Experience ill the Critique represents the general contours of
the object ilberhaupt: in the Opus Postumum it represents the
general contours of determined objects. The positio quaes-
tionis is therefore far from being the same, and the physico-
Critical developments which follow will show the marks
of this.
The subject under discussion therefore is the material
182
object or, in scientific language, body. Experience shows it
as an object moving in space. Motion is therefore part of
its essence. But motion can be studied ill two ways: it can
be studied in abstracto, that is, the reciprocal relations between
motions can be studied without paying attention to their
effective realisation in any empirical matter, therefore simply
as something moving in space. Now, Kant tll0ught that
he had conlpleted this mathenlatico-mechanical study in his
Anfangsgriinde. But ill0tion can also be studied as it is effec-
tively realised in some empirical matter. In that case nl0tion
appears to us as the effect of a physical cause called force,
and tIle laws and characteristics of these forces are given to
us in experience. The whole difficulty therefore lies in the
question: how can the mind pass from the matllematical to
the physical study of body wl1ile still satisfying the con-
ditions of science?
The conditions demanded by science, in Kant's rationalist
mind, are systematic unity and perfection. Now, physics as
an empirical science can give no assurance either ofthe neces-
sity of its total unity or of the necessary perfection of its
arrangement. It can indeed lead to an aggregate but not
to a system. So there remains only the following alterna-
tive: either the scientific character of physics must be sacri-
ficed, or it must be possible to reduce physics to systematic
form by systematising physical causes or the empirical forces
which determine the nature and the peculiar behaviour of
body in experience. Obviously Kant chose the second
alternative, but the matter is not so simple as it appears
to be. Indeed it is a matter of anticipating actual experi-
ence. Now, the Critique showed that only the general form
can be anticipated, and, in fact, the anticipation of experi-
ence in the categorial schema concerns only the form of the
object in general. The anticipation required by physics will
be very much more complicated. The question may well be
posed whether a formal schematism of all the forces which
constitute material body can be set up in an a priori manner.
It can, on condition that we can prove that the reach of
the cognitive function does not extend only to the general
form of the object but also to the more particular deter-
minate forms of perceived objects. The science which
18
3
mediates between the metaphysical mathematics of matter
and empirical physics will therefore necessarily be a trans-
cendental science finding in the structure of the functions
of knowledge the formal conditions of determinate bodies,
conditions allowing the discovery of the necessary schema
of all empirical forces.
There we have the demonstrandum. The demonstration
on the other hand develops after the classical manner dear to
Kant. The cognitive structure of the subject is analysed in
the table of categories. It is therefore necessary to derive
from the fourfold division of the categories a similar division
of corresponding forces. Actually, up to 1798 Kant limited
himself to affirming the perfect correspondence between the
intellectual categories and the system of forces. It was not
until the period from 1798 to 1800 that he was successful in
elaborating thejustifying deduction. He fixed first the apriori
system of possible forces; tl1en he deduced the general pro-
perties which matter manifests in experience; finally he
deduced the existence of the ether as the condition of the
unity of experience. No force, no property, we read in
many of the fragments, exists for us if it is not perceived,
that is, submitted to the receptive forms and to the synthetic
functions of the subject. Now, these last functions are neces-
sarily included in the table of categories. There can there-
fore be no forces or perceived properties which do not
conform to the synthetic moments or categories. It must
be made quite clear however that this somewhat naive
deduction does not claim to render actual experience useless
in the study of matter. By means of the deduction we are
not capable of predicting what concrete forces and what
empirical properties will appear to us hic et nunc, but the
deduction circumscribes and delimits the don1ain within
which the forces of nature must move. Consequently it
also limits the study of these forces. The categorial schema
will therefore serve simply as a guide in the exploration of
what is empirically real. Despite that, the deduction grants
to us the capacity of knowing in an a priori fashion the
general content of an empirical object, while the Critique
had held such a priori knowledge to be impossible. The
Opus Postumum therefore constructs not the form of the object
18
4
in general, but the fundamental marks of a material essence.
This extension of the power of reason already marks a step
towards the all-engulfing constructivism to which Kant was
being pushed by the Romantic criticism.
Kant took yet another step in the same direction on the
occasion of his deduction of the ether. In the preceding
deduction he had just laid down the laws governing the
forces and diverse properties of matter. To achieve the
absolute systematic unity of physics it was still necessary to
discover a unitary element coextensive with the unity of
matter and with the unity of experience. This element is
the ether. By ether Kant understands a kind of matter
which occupies absolutely all of space, which penetrates all
matter, which is identical in all its parts, and which is
animated by spontaneous and perpetual motion. The
reference to possible experience once again brings this kind
of matter within the spiritual constitution of the subject.
Physics adopts the ether as an hypothesis intended to explain
certain determinate phenomena. Kant's purpose goes very
much farther. He tries to prove the absolute necessity of
its existence. Kant followed three different paths: at one
time he based his idea on the law of attraction, at another
on the nature of empty space and empty time, and finally
on the notion of possible experience. This last argument is
the most characteristic. Possible experience is a unity
because its form or space is a unity. Now, the unity of
experience is a system of multiple perceptions constructed
formally by understanding and having its material source
in the activities of the forces of matter. These forces must
in their turn constitute a system if they are to conform to
the rational purpose of the unity of experience. Now, that
is possible only if in its turn there exists an object of experi-
ence, the properties of which correspond to those of the
ether. Therefore the existence of the ether, Kant concludes,
is the a priori condition of the system of experience. There
is no need to comment at length on the way in which
transcendentalisn1 invades the domain of the matter of
knowledge, nor on the absurdity of an a priori deduction
of the existence of real matter. The mind of Kant would
have reacted violently against any such deduction In the
(2,491)
18
5 14
period between 1781 and 1787, when he would have dis-
missed it quite rig11tly as sheer dogmatism. Nor need we
comment upon the doctrine of the simple or double affectio11
to which I have devoted a.long chapter in my large work
on the Deduction. It is not our task here to discuss the
arguments used by Kant. It is sufficient simply to record
them and to see how an entirely new epistemology is super-
imposed upon them.
This epistemology, which occupies I(ant's attention after
the conclusion of his examination of physics is contained in
Sections 7 and 1. It does not give the impression of having
beell brought about by the conscious abandonment of the
themes of the Ubergang, but, on the contrary, it is the logical
continuation of the physical deductions themselves. Sec-
tions 10 to 1 I no longer build up the system of forces and
properties, but assure their systematisation by the systematic
nature of subjective thought and thus throw a new light on
the role of thought in the system of the intuitive world
unfolded before us in experience. The deduction of the
forces and properties of matter set the mark of transcen-
dentalism on the Ubergang, and the physical problem is
given a perfect solution. But, although the physical prob-
lem is solved, the solution itself poses a supplementary
question of a purely Critical nature. Is it legitin1ate to
suppose that the deduction which solves the physical problem
is valid in itself? Section 7, which is essentially e p i s t e m ~
logical in nature, brings into the limelight Kant's effort to
secure foundations for the physical deduction. It provides
evidence that both it and the physical problem which called
it into existence derive their inspiration from the same source.
The rapprochement between physics and the categorial
system once again calls in question the whole structure of
the theoretical Critical philosophy because it gives to physics
a power hitherto unknown. In fact we see in innumerable
fragments that Kant re-examined the nature and the role of
the' I think' (which is the general copula of the universe),
the nature and the functions of space and time, and the
function of the transcendent. All this occupies Section 7,
while Section I, the last in the chronological order, returns
once again to full-blown Critical themes. It elaborates a
186
doctrine of theoretical metaphysics dealing with the Ideas
and with God and it develops for the last time a new
conception of transcendental philosophy.
Even in 1787 the part played by the self was not the
easiest to understand. The self has appeared under the
form of apperception and under tIle form of an object for
wllich the self had to posit its own material diversity. Now
Kant takes up this double function of the self again but by
deploying an apparatus of the purest Fichtean idealism.
There is no longer any question of the famous problem of
affection. Affection is replaced by the terms Setzung or
Position. In the self there reigns the most absolute spon-
taneity. The self is stripped of all ontological significance.
To posit the self is an act of thought. The self is not con-
sidered as a being, 110t even as a source of activities; the
self is pure act. The doctrine follows the change in termin-
ology and moves in its turn in the direction of Romantic
idealism. It is no use trying to save face by saying with
Adickes that only the terminology or the external apparatus
has joined the apostates. It is more than that, as the term
Setzung clearly shows.
The self actually posits itself both as subject and as object.
The positing of the self as subject occurs in apperception
where the subject announces itself as the formal act in which
the form of all consciousness resides. All the fragments treat
apperception as an act; the self does not posit itself as a res
but as the act of thought and as the subject of knowledge.
Evidently this self is purely formal without any determinate
content and cannot therefore be held to be knowledge of the
self. All cognitive progress takes place through a synthetic
act. The self-subject affirms itself in its permanent identity
but does so analytically. All knowledge is realised in judg-
ment. The self-subject precedes all judgment. Basically,
apart from some formulae, this is again the normal stand-
point of the Critique on the subject of apperception. This
act of positing coincides on the other hand with the primitive
act to which Fichte gave the name Tathandlung.
This analytic notion is not sufficient to determine the
self as object because a synthetic positing is necessary for
this stage. This new positing will be effected in another
18
7
constructive act, in another spolltaneOlls production, the
purpose of which is to provide the transcendental apparatus
which is necessary to construct the object in general, that is,
space-time, and the categories. Kant particularly stresses
the gellesis of space-tinle in the act of the self. The self-
subject at first posits its forms and a priori functions and so
constitutes itself an empirical self, that is, the self endowed
with the apparatus necessary to the construction of experi-
ence. Hence the first act does not have as its immediate
result the self-object, but rather the constitution of its formal
and functional apparatus. Also space and time are not given
but are constructed, gemacht. They are not things but func-
tions, and they make of the transcendental subject a dabile or
object. To express the self-positing of intuitive forms by the
self Kant forges the striking phrase: the self is their Inhaber
(owner) because it is their Urheber (originator). In the Opus
Postumum therefore the subject plays the part of this origi-
nating faculty which, according to the Entdeckung, was alone
innate.
Hovvever, space and time are the receptive and passive
forms destined to receive a sensible matter. Is there not an
inconsistency between their spontaneous origin and their
receptive nature? Kant replied negatively because these
forms have a receptive and passive character only in relation
to their further use, but are active and spontaneous in rela-
tion to their origin. Indeed the passivity of the self in intui-
tion is not a given, but, despite the appearance of paradox,
this receptivity is an activity to which the selfis spontaneously
determined: self is passive vis-a-vis matter. The Opus
Postumum thus presents an undeniable advantage over the
Critique. III the Critique the transcendental examination
stopped at tIle apparatus of knowledge; in the Opus
Postumum Kant explains this apparatus itself. It does not
matter whether the doctrine be true or absurd; the inten-
tion is clear and so is the connection of this doctrine with
Romantic criticisn1.
The positing of the self as object extends even farther.
The self again posits the whole empirical content of con-
sciousness, that is, all experience both internal and exterllal.
Indeed, in positing its intuitive forms and categories, the
188
self posits the determinate manner according to which the
impressions appear in experience and the manner in which
they are to be unified in the object. In consequence, in
positing space, time, and the categories, that is, the empirical
self, the self posits and produces at the same time tIle whole
intuitive world. It posits the order, the unity, and the
objectivity of phenomena, and in doing this it posits itself
as objective. That means that it objectifies its own unifying
functions. Seeing its own la,vs and its own unity involved
in the world of impressions, incorporated in material nature,
and realised in the objects of experience, the self sees before
itselfits laws and its unity as objective things. Kant employs
strong terms to express the positing of experience by the self.
It is not the transcendent which is the object of intuition, it
is the act of the understanding. It is a product of the self.
The world is uniquely in the self. The Ding an sick expresses
the activity of the subject. Thus the problem of the
Setzung leaves a very real impression of idealism. The mind
creates the sensible world in creating its spatia-temporal
forms. The forms are tllemselves the constructive rules of
intuition. The external transcendent does not co-operate in
this process; neither does the internal transcendent. Kant
has bowed before the spirit of the time. The transcendent
absolute disappears, but to replace it he foresees the absolute
of autonomous thought.
Adickes concludes that this is simply a trick on Kant's
part so that he may join h.ands with the renegade version
of the Critical philosophy by changing his terms without
changing his teaching. It might be said with greater pre-
cision perhaps that the infinite contortions of the Opus
Postumum serve to hide a conviction and basically to conceal
a defeat. Does this undoubted idealism really go beyond
that of the Critique? Only one element still moves outside
the orbit of the mind and that is the matter of perceptions.
It should be noted 110wever that the notion of the matter
of perceptions has itself become very relative, first because
Kant continually restricts its extension, and secondly because,
on account of the autonomous function of the empirical s e l ( ~
it is no longer very easy to determine exactly what matter
really signifies. I-Iowever, admitting that matter is not
18g
included in the constructive power of the subject, two
alternatives can still be presented: either this matter is
a given which cannot be included within the rational order
and we can know nothing of it, or else it will be referred
to a transcendent world and will thus carry the echo of the
transcendent into the immanent play of constructive thought.
The problem of Setzung in the Opus Postumum no longer
allows any choice between these two possibilities. It is quite
clear that the problem of the transcendent becomes more
and more urgent after the thesis of Setzung.
The Critique did not have any real doctrine of the trans-
cendent, and this fallit was one of the principal sources of
the confusions and conflicts which centred around it for
fifteen years. Now, the Opus Postumum does have such a
doctrine. Adickes has made this perfectly clear, but we
must interpret it in a slightly different manner. It is to be
found in three groups of texts: the first group operates
with the transcendental object, the second with the Ding
an sich reached by means of transcendental elements, the
third with the Ding an sich as the correlative of
Why does Kant suddenly experience this scruple and this
need of exactitude and precision? Basically, his new atti-
tude is determined not by his own theses but by those of
others. A great debate, in which the realist and idealist
were taking opposite sides, was raging around
the transcendents The realists had two sets of things:
set exists in royal independence outside the range of the
subject, the other set exists in the subject, duplicating the
first. Kant rejected vigorously this idea of a duplication of
things: there are not two distinct objects but two ways in
which the object is constituted. It is therefore the sanle
which is considered as Ding an sich and as pheno-
menon. These are two standpoints, two ways of represent-
ing the object. At one time the object is represented in the
and functions of the intuition which subjectifies it and
represents it as a real object; at another time it is
considered out of all connection with its forms and in this
case it is an empty indeterminate representation. The Ding
an sich therefore does not go beyond the stage of an idea of
the object. That does not mean that there are real
19
things, but they do not play any constitutive role in the
object known.
Kant's idealist friends had very little use for the trans-
cendent. They put it ruthlessly on one side and Kant
had to offer them a new exegesis mainly composed of con-
cessions, since, in opposition to sceptical objections, he
tended to prune the thing in itself while developing a
Critical doctrine within which its role became less and less
important. Originally Kant had expressed his faith in the
existence of the transcendent, in the theoretical necessity
of its participation in the Critical synthesis as a limiting
concept, but he had concluded that it was absolutely
unknowable in its determinate essence. Kant maintained
these positions in the Opus Postumum, adding to then1. the
theoretical indemonstrability of its existence. He maintains
the positions however by changing his line of argument on
more than one occasion. As in 1781, he identified tIle
Ding an sich with the transcendental object which expresses
the law of the objective unity of phenomena and which as
such is not distinct from the thought which is its origin.
The Ding an sich re-enters the scene in the Opus Postumum
under the designation of an ens rationis which, at first sight,
threatens the very reality of the transcendent. However,
the developments show that Kant sirnply meant that objec-
tive thought demands the idea of a thing in itself. Most
often this expression asserts the imperative imposed on
reason by the subject to discount the sensible conditions
of human intuition, and then the Ding an sich corresponds
perfectly to tIle negative noumenon of the Critique. Finally,
added Kant, the thing in itself is not a dabile but a cogitabile,
that is, the conclusion of an argument starting from the
phenomenon. We must therefore conclude from these
diverse determinations that the Ding an sich, as it appears
in the transcendental apparatus of knowledge, is not the
true transce11dent but rather the representation of something
which transcends the objects known.
On this matter we differ radically from the view expressed
by Adickes, who appeals to Kant's private beliefin the exist-
ence of the transcendent and th.e necessity of knowing it in
the practical order. We have paid no attention to Kant's
19
1
private convictions on this subject. Our concern has been
only with the question of the transcendent within the limits
of the transcendental epistemology. This philosophy is con-
centrated on two problems: the problem of objective know-
ledge already solved in the Critique by the doctrine of
complete immanence, and the problem of the constitution
of matter where the problem of the transcendent is most
acute. In spite of everything, and whatever his private
opinions may have been, Kant made the Ding an sich appear
in the Opus Postumum simply as something posited by the
subject or as a transcendental object towards which all the
determinable marks of objectivity retur11, a term which is
comparable to the constructive subject itself. Furthermore,
the problem of affection by the transcendent supports our
conclusion. All the dominant theses tend to enclose trans-
cendental philosophy in the mind without providing any
windows opening on the transcendent.
In a large number of fragments Ka11t reviewed and
developed the teaching of the Aesthetic and the Analytic
along these lines. If the Opus Postumum is to be considered
as a th.ird edition of the Critique in a preparatory stage,
Kant must also revise the Dialectic, that is, he must once
again undertake the examination of our highest rational
syntheses, the world, man, and God. Section I attacks
these problems. The conclusion of Section 7 leaves us
with. two doctrines strongly tainted with idealism: the
doctrine of Setzung and the doctrine of the transcendent.
By means of this same Setzung Section I expounds a strictly
idealist conception of reason, while the theme of trans-
cende11ce vanishes to merge in a doctrine of God.
The autonomous positing of the self is extended to the
Ideas of Reason in their theoretical transcendental role and
in their constitutive practical role. Basically the task was
easier for Kant in the domain of reason than anywhere else,
because the n1atter with which reason is concerned is
already in the rational order and presents from the begin-
ning the character of a representation which has not even
the appearance of passivity inherent in the representation
of sensible matter. As centre of the discussion we meet, for
the first tin1e from Kant's pen, the conception of man as
19
2
cosmotheoros, that is, man is on the one hand spectator and
creator of the sensible world through domination of the
order of phenomena by his supreme spiritual unities, and
on the other hand he is a moral being through freedom.
In this way man gathers into his spiritual being the intel-
ligible world by which he transcends the requirements of
science. In the first theoretical domain reason exercises a
definitely autocratic power in constructing the Ideas in an
autonomous fashion, in being in the full sense of the word
the Urheber of these Ideas. Reason is the ratio determinans of
the complete systematisation of theoretical knowledge, a
thesis which is in complete agreement with that of the early
Critique.
Reason has exactly the same character when its con-
structing power in the practical order is examined: it
makes man into a moral being and a person, that is, into
a being which has value as an end in itself. The ultimate
foundation of the personal character of man is his simul-
taneous membership in the sensible and the intelligible
worlds; the immediate foundatio11 is his consciousness of
freedom. This consciousness in its turn is constructed by
reason. It may therefore be said in general that the
examination of reason confirms the earlier Critical philo-
sophy, but that the accent and tone are distinctly different.
In the Opus Postumum reason has completely lost the
character of a given faculty: it has become a spontaneous
function. It does not represent the Ideas, it constructs
them. It does not recognise man in his moral essence, it
realises this essence. It is only the Inhaber of the Ideas
because it has been their Urheber.
Moreover, the omnipresence of the problem of God in
this section further reinforces the idealist constructivism of
the new Kantian exposition. The doctrine is directly
inspired by the Critical theses mentioned above and it is
clearly a particular adaptation of the agnostic attitude
adopted by Kant on the subject of the transcendent. In
any doctrine of God it is essential to distinguish clearly
the problem of essence from that of existence. From the
essence of God Kant forges the idea of a being who is a
person and the idea of a being who represents the supreme
193
unity of the universe. He never refers to God in His
city as creator or supreme good. Most often the idea of
God includes two constituents: the idea of the supremely
intelligible being and the idea of the moral person. The
essential Critical question however is to know wh.ether such
a being exists in reality. Of course it goes without saying
that Kant had never privately doubted the existence of God.
Even in the Opus Postumum God still exists for the philosopher.
The question however is whether the Critical epistemology
has not forced Kant to be more circumspect and to silence
his convictions before the demands of the Critical philosophy.
It cannot be denied that this is in fact the case. At first
Kant denies the possibility of demonstrating the existence of
God : transcendental philosophy only operates with the idea
of God, and from the idea of God there can be no inference
to the existence of a being corresponding to the idea. How-
ever, it is another matter to know God even if He cannot be
demonstrated. Indeed, real knowledge of an existent does
not necessarily coincide with the analytic demonstration of
it. Then the question arises whether the existence of God
is the object of certain knowledge within the framework of
transcendental philosophy. The negative reply cannot be
doubted when the doctrine of the transcendent in general is
recalled. The problem of God must therefore be posed as
entirely immanent. Instead of going back to a thing in
itself, the idea of God takes its reality from a construction
of Reason which perceives the absolute necessity of thought.
This necessity does not rest on the notion of substance but
on th.e categorical imperative.
An Idea of Reason does not bear any resemblance to a
discursive concept. It represents a singular object of pure
intuition. God is such an Idea, first because He is opposed
to the sensible object, and secondly because the Idea has
nothing corresponding to it in experience. Kant
calls it a Dichtung (a term which is certainly exposed to
misinterpretation), which is equivalent to a simple rational
construction. Indeed God takes His reality from such a con-
struction, but being in the theoretical order only a regulative
construction for ordering this domain, the objective reality
of the Idea of God is to be found in the practical domain.
194
At the time of the practical Critique the objective idea of Gad
was part of the elucidation of the notion of the supreme
good. This disappears completely in the Opus Postumum
because Kant, for reasons unknowl1 to us, severed the con-
nection between his moral theory and the principle of
happiness. The idea of God depends directly on the funda-
mental moral fact or the categorical imperative in such a
way that the co-operation of God in the practical work of
reason is a clearly immanent co-operation.
To sum up. Kant did not find as many things to change
in the Dialectic as in the other sections of the Critique. He
merely applied to it his new vocabulary and reinforced
certain theses. From the mass of sketches it is necessary to
extract the masterpiece which was going to be the final
message of the master adapted to the new orientations of
philosophy and to contemporary versions of the Critical
philosophy. What could this work be in such conditions?
To judge from the n1aterial accumulated over ten years it
was going to contain a physico-metaphysics of nature, a
complete Critical epistemology, and at least an outline of
the metaphysics of n10rals. To find a suitable title and a
definition comprehensive enough to include such l1etero-
geneous material was not easy. Section I plaintively notes
this insurmountable difficulty and reveals the old man of
eighty gallantly struggling with it. The title was found:
around him everyone was talking about the transcendental
philosophy. But to find a wide and accurate enough defini-
tion of this philosophy was beyond his powers. Reicke
counted the attempts and found in the 160 pages of Section I
at least 150 rough drafts of the definition.
Kant had rebelled against the claims of Ficl1te in 1799,
that is, just at the time when the physical problem was
almost resolved and when he was setting himself to re-
examine his attitude towards the Critical philosophy. Kant's
declaration 110wever did not put an end to t11e quarrel. On
the contrary, the Wolffian Schwab started it again and in
1800 provoked a minor avalanche of articles on the whole
subject of transcendental philosophy. Kant at once set
himself to provide his physical work with an episten1010gical
extension. Section 7 elaborates a version of the Critical
195
philosophystronglyinfluel1ced byBeck and byFichte. Section
I, where Kant applies his constructivism to the domain of
reason, again pursues, alongside his meditations on the
problems of the Dialectic, the systematisation in a single
work of the physical and the Critical problems. It seems
that Kant considered his work to be finished and that he
wanted to give it rigorous systematic unity. It was a question
offinding a scientific framework within which transcendental
philosophy, morality, and pllysics could be set side by side as
parts of one vvhole. Two titles are repeatedly suggested in
the pages of the fragments to cover this great variety of
content: Transcendental Philosophy and System of Pure
Philosophy. The first part was to explain what we do to
produce the object, the second part what nature does to
produce it. This interpretation decisively invalidates
Vaih.inger's opinion about the unity of the Opus Postumum :
it is certainly a single work wl1ich Kant intended to be his
philosophical testament for the German public.
Its comprehensive character, however, was to provoke an
adjustment of the frontiers within the schematism of philo-
sophical disciplines. The Critique foresaw a progression in
three stages, all of them theoretical: Critical philosophy,
transcendental philosophy, metaphysics. The Critical
philosophy analyses the forms, the concepts, and the funda-
mental principles of the intuitive world: transcendental
philosophy includes the exhaustive study of all formal factors
without exception: metaphysics studies the objective con-
tent of what is studied under its formal aspect in the first
two divisions. In the Opus Postumum a still more simple plan
is set out. The distinction between Critical philosophy and
transcendental philosophy has completely The
only problem which exists is the connection between trans-
cendel1tal philosophy and metaphysics. I-Iere again, although
their connection is not constant in the collection offragments,
it can be seen that it also has a tendency to disappear as the
last fragment reaches its end, and the two sciences there form
a single block set over against n1atllernatics. But where the
bipartite division is still maintained, it belongs to the first
to point out the ideal and constructive factors of objective
science, and to the second to study nature and morality in
19
6
their a priori forn1.. But I must insist that this distinction
disappears because of the invasion by subjective construction
of all dOluains which form part of a plan of philosophical
disciplines. The identification of transcendental philosophy
with metaphysics seems to have been I<'ant's last word on
this architectonic question.
The architectonic question, however, conceals important
aims. The disciple had had the audacity to criticise the
master, and the master wanted to prove that the Critical
synthesis did really touch upon all philosophical problems
worthy oftl1.e name. The Opus Postumum would indeed have
been a considerable work. It would 11.ave presupposed
physics and it would have detached in the Vbergang the
formal metaphysical part contained in it. This Ubergang
would have directed Kant towards transcendental pllilo-
sophy in the restricted sense of the word, that is, towards
the study of the constitution and synthetic functioning of
mind. Furnished with this apparatus, Kant would have
gone on to metaphysics in tIle strict sense, tllat is, the
metaphysics of nature or the purely mathematical study of
reality and the metaphysics of morals. This twofold meta-
physics would have been unified in a metaphysics of God,
the absolute peak of all pllilosoph.y. That would have been
the plan of the Opus Postumum-on. the supposition, that is,
that Kant would have included within it all that he had
just confided to the fragments.
Chance decided otherwise. Kant died before he was
able to complete his work, almost one year after having
committed to writing the last phrases of the manuscript.
These fragments are certainly not the ne plus ultra of the
thought of the master, but they do constitute the last stage
in the evolution of his Critical thinking. Despite its arnor...
phous state with all its ensuing faults, the Opus Postumum
gives biographers an important historical lesson, even if the
commentator, purely i11terested in the teaching, hesitates
before these more or less unorganised thoughts. In these
pages may be perceived the paths, often obscure and sinuous,
by which the spirit of an age insinuated itself slowly into the
thought of a mind in love with order and set within the rigid
structure of a system.
197
SO our biography comes to an end. It has not been the
biograpllY of a man, nor even of a mind, but rather of the
birth, growth to maturity, and disappearance of a living
problem. In writing the biography of the Critical problem
my intention has been to sho\v, first, how the pursuit of this
problem can almost be identified with the Kantian spirit
and, secondly, how well it unifies his career, a career whicll
was both. serene and outstanding. Unity does not neces-
sarily imply the absence of change. It has therefore been
necessary to trace this unity through a continuous process
of evolution and through the frequent changes of perspective
which took place during Kant's long and studious life. In
the interests of accuracy it has been very important to bring
to light the direction of this evolution, an evolution which
is not properly understood, in my opinion, unless it is seen
to involve a tendency towards an increasing idealisatio11 of
the problem of objective knowledge. The centralisation of
Kantian thought around a single problem, and the strength
of the tendency towards idealism in the evolution of the
solution, have been the dominant themes in my interpreta-
tion of the Critical philosophy. There are certainly a great
many other intellectual preoccupations connected with the
Critical problem which have not been discussed or which
have only been lightly touched upon in this volume. The
interpretation here offered has been givel1 only in outline:
the full detailed discussion is contained in my earlier work,
of which this volume is merely a resume. I assume that the
reader will understand that it was never my intention to
write a biography of Kant. My inte11tion has been the
more modest one of attempting to give an account of his
Critical preoccupations.
Ig8
Index of Proper Names
Abicht 152
Adickes 20, 25, 44, 67, 68, 77, 81,
180, 187, I8g, IgO, 191
Aristotle 61, 76
Baumgarten 1 I
Bayle 13, 50
Beck 157-60, 166, 168-73, Ig6
Beguelin 7, 12, 28, 35, 47
Berkeley 13, go, 92, 102, log
Biester gl
Bilfinger II
Boerhaave 6
Boscovitch IS, 14, 47
Bradley 17
Brastberger 140
Burke 43
Cassirer 42, 44
Clarke 7, 13, 50
Collier 13
Crusius I I, 12, 22-4, 26, 28, 3I, 32,
35, 40, 42, 59
Cudworth 13
d'Alembert 11,12, Ig, 28
de Maupertuis I I, 12, 28, 47
Descartes I, 4-6, 20, 24, 34, 36, 102
Eberhard 92, 125, 140-51, 154, 166
Erdmann 60
Euler 7, 14, 28, 47, 48
Feder 90, 91, 92, 101, 103
Fichte 112, 160, 166, 167, 172-6,
18
7, 195, Ig6
Fischer 38, 106
Formey 43
Foucher 14, 15
Frederick the Great 9
Frederick III 177
Garve 49, 90, gl, 101, 103
Gottschedt 15
Haering 70
Hamann 68
Hegel 36, 1 I I
Heinze 62, 66
Herder 27, 39, 46
Herz 27, 58, 62, 65
Hurne 2, 12, 28, 31, 32 , 35, 40,
42 , 43, 60, 64, 6g, 76, 92 , 139,
14
Hutcheson 43
Huyghens 5
Jacobi 167
Kaestner 47
Keill 12
Kiesewetter 179
Knutzen 14-17, 19
Lambert I I, 12, 27, 28, 35, 38, 45,
4
6
, 57, 90
Laplace 20
Leibniz 4, 6, 7, g, la, 13, 15, 19, 20,
21, 24-
6
, 28, 32, 45, 46, 48, 50, 52,
53, 77, 140, 14
1
-5
1
, 155,
16
5
Lindner 39
Locke 6, 72 , 77, 139
Maas 141
Maimon 139, 157, 168, 173
Malebranche 4, 6, 13
Marquardt 15
l\1eier I I
Mendelssohn I I, 27, 41, 47, 57, 90,
92, 13
More. 13
Mussenbroek 6
Newton 5-8, II, 13, 14, 20, 21, 25,
26, 28, 29, 3
1
, 34, 3
6
, 37, 39, 42,
4
8
, 51, 55
Paulsen 60
Platner 139
Plouquet 13, 14, 47
Politz 62
Pope 17
Pyrrhonism 100, 161
199
INDEX
Raspe 45
Reicke 17, 68, 195
Reinhold 91, 125, 126, 140 , 143,
152, 166-9, 172-4
Reuss 15
Riehl 60
Rink 152
Rousseau 28, 39, 40, 43
Royal Society of London 6
Rudiger 12
Schelling 173
Schlettwein 173
Schopenhauer 91, 106
Schultze 14, 15, 9
1
, 139, 140, 157,
168, 172, 174
Schutz 91, 92, 143
Schwab 152, 195
'8 Gravesande 6
Shaftesbury 43
Spinoza 4
Sulzer 12, 57, 90
Swedenborg 38
Tetens 69, 85-8
Tieftrunk I 72
Ulrich 92, 93, 98,
10
3, 140
Vaihinger 180, 196
Windelband 45
Wolff 9, 10-14, 15, 22, 26, 28, 29,
33, 14
1
Wright 17, 20
Printed in Great Britain by
Thomas Nelson and Sons Ltd, Edinburgh
200

The Development of Kantian Thought Vleeschauwer

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