SECOND PART. TRANSCENDENTAL LOGIC.
INTRODUCTION. Idea of a Transcendental Logic.
I. Of Logic in General.
Our knowledge springs from two main sources in the mind, first of
which is the faculty or power of receiving representations
(receptivity for impressions); the second is the power of cognizing by
means of these representations (spontaneity in the production of
conceptions). Through the first an object is given to us; through
the second, it is, in relation to the representation (which is a
mere determination of the mind), thought. Intuition and conceptions
constitute, therefore, the elements of all our knowledge, so that
neither conceptions without an intuition in some way corresponding
to them, nor intuition without conceptions, can afford us a cognition.
Both are either pure or empirical. They are. empirical, when sensation
(which presupposes the actual presence of the object) is contained
in them; and pure, when no sensation is mixed with the representation.
Sensations we may call the matter of sensuous cognition. Pure
intuition consequently contains merely the form under which
something is intuited, and pure conception only the form of the
thought of an object. Only pure intuitions and pure conceptions are
possible a priori; the empirical only a posteriori.
We apply the term sensibility to the receptivity of the mind for
impressions, in so far as it is in some way affected; and, on the
other hand, we call the faculty of spontaneously producing
representations, or the spontaneity of cognition, understanding. Our
nature is so constituted that intuition with us never can be other
than sensuous, that is, it contains only the mode in which we are
affected by objects. On the other hand, the faculty of thinking the
object of sensuous intuition is the understanding. Neither of these
faculties has a preference over the other. Without the sensuous
faculty no object would be given to us, and without the
understanding no object would be thought. Thoughts without content are
void; intuitions without conceptions, blind. Hence it is as
necessary for the mind to make its conceptions sensuous (that is, to
join to them the object in intuition), as to make its intuitions
intelligible (that is, to bring them under conceptions). Neither of
these faculties can exchange its proper function. Understanding cannot
intuite, and the sensuous faculty cannot think. in no other way than
from the united operation of both, can knowledge arise. But no one
ought, on this account, to overlook the difference of the elements
contributed by each; we have rather great reason carefully to separate
and distinguish them. We therefore distinguish the science of the laws
of sensibility, that is, aesthetic, from the science of the laws of
the understanding, that is, logic.
Now, logic in its turn may be considered as twofold- namely, as
logic of the general, or of the particular use of the understanding.
The first contains the absolutely necessary laws of thought, without
which no use whatsoever of the understanding is possible, and gives
laws therefore to the understanding, without regard to the
difference of objects on which it may be employed. The logic of the
particular use of the understanding contains the laws of correct
thinking upon a particular class of objects. The former may be
called elemental logic- the latter, the organon of this or that
particular science. The latter is for the most part employed in the
schools, as a propaedeutic to the sciences, although, indeed,
according to the course of human reason, it is the last thing we
arrive at, when the science has been already matured, and needs only
the finishing touches towards its correction and completion; for our
knowledge of the objects of our attempted science must be tolerably
extensive and complete before we can indicate the laws by which a
science of these objects can be established.
General logic is again either pure or applied. In the former, we
abstract all the empirical conditions under which the understanding is
exercised; for example, the influence of the senses, the play of the
fantasy or imagination, the laws of the memory, the force of habit, of
inclination, etc., consequently also, the sources of prejudice- in a
word, we abstract all causes from which particular cognitions arise,
because these causes regard the understanding under certain
circumstances of its application, and, to the knowledge of them
experience is required. Pure general logic has to do, therefore,
merely with pure a priori principles, and is a canon of
understanding and reason, but only in respect of the formal part of
their use, be the content what it may, empirical or transcendental.
General logic is called applied, when it is directed to the laws of
the use of the understanding, under the subjective empirical
conditions which psychology teaches us. It has therefore empirical
principles, although, at the same time, it is in so far general,
that it applies to the exercise of the understanding, without regard
to the difference of objects. On this account, moreover, it is neither
a canon of the understanding in general, nor an organon of a
particular science, but merely a cathartic of the human understanding.
In general logic, therefore, that part which constitutes pure
logic must be carefully distinguished from that which constitutes
applied (though still general) logic. The former alone is properly
science, although short and dry, as the methodical exposition of an
elemental doctrine of the understanding ought to be. In this,
therefore, logicians must always bear in mind two rules:
1. As general logic, it makes abstraction of all content of the
cognition of the understanding, and of the difference of objects,
and has to do with nothing but the mere form of thought.
2. As pure logic, it has no empirical principles, and consequently
draws nothing (contrary to the common persuasion) from psychology,
which therefore has no influence on the canon of the understanding. It
is a demonstrated doctrine, and everything in it must be certain
completely a priori.
What I called applied logic (contrary to the common acceptation of
this term, according to which it should contain certain exercises
for the scholar, for which pure logic gives the rules), is a
representation of the understanding, and of the rules of its necessary
employment in concreto, that is to say, under the accidental
conditions of the subject, which may either hinder or promote this
employment, and which are all given only empirically. Thus applied
logic treats of attention, its impediments and consequences, of the
origin of error, of the state of doubt, hesitation, conviction,
etc., and to it is related pure general logic in the same way that
pure morality, which contains only the necessary moral laws of a
free will, is related to practical ethics, which considers these
laws under all the impediments of feelings, inclinations, and passions
to which men are more or less subjected, and which never can furnish
us with a true and demonstrated science, because it, as well as
applied logic, requires empirical and psychological principles.
II. Of Transcendental Logic.
General logic, as we have seen, makes abstraction of all content
of cognition, that is, of all relation of cognition to its object, and
regards only the logical form in the relation of cognitions to each
other, that is, the form of thought in general. But as we have both
pure and empirical intuitions (as transcendental aesthetic proves), in
like manner a distinction might be drawn between pure and empirical
thought (of objects). In this case, there would exist a kind of logic,
in which we should not make abstraction of all content of cognition;
for or logic which should comprise merely the laws of pure thought (of
an object), would of course exclude all those cognitions which were of
empirical content. This kind of logic would also examine the origin of
our cognitions of objects, so far as that origin cannot be ascribed to
the objects themselves; while, on the contrary, general logic has
nothing to do with the origin of our cognitions, but contemplates
our representations, be they given primitively a priori in
ourselves, or be they only of empirical origin, solely according to
the laws which the understanding observes in employing them in the
process of thought, in relation to each other. Consequently, general
logic treats of the form of the understanding only, which can be
applied to representations, from whatever source they may have arisen.
And here I shall make a remark, which the reader must bear well in
mind in the course of the following considerations, to wit, that not
every cognition a priori, but only those through which we cognize that
and how certain representations (intuitions or conceptions) are
applied or are possible only a priori; that is to say, the a priori
possibility of cognition and the a priori use of it are
transcendental. Therefore neither is space, nor any a priori
geometrical determination of space, a transcendental Representation,
but only the knowledge that such a representation is not of
empirical origin, and the possibility of its relating to objects of
experience, although itself a priori, can be called transcendental. So
also, the application of space to objects in general would be
transcendental; but if it be limited to objects of sense it is
empirical. Thus, the distinction of the transcendental and empirical
belongs only to the critique of cognitions, and does not concern the
relation of these to their object.
Accordingly, in the expectation that there may perhaps be
conceptions which relate a priori to objects, not as pure or
sensuous intuitions, but merely as acts of pure thought (which are
therefore conceptions, but neither of empirical nor aesthetical
origin)- in this expectation, I say, we form to ourselves, by
anticipation, the idea of a science of pure understanding and rational
cognition, by means of which we may cogitate objects entirely a
priori. A science of this kind, which should determine the origin, the
extent, and the objective validity of such cognitions, must be
called transcendental logic, because it has not, like general logic,
to do with the laws of understanding and reason in relation to
empirical as well as pure rational cognitions without distinction, but
concerns itself with these only in an a priori relation to objects.
III. Of the Division of General Logic into Analytic and Dialectic.
The old question with which people sought to push logicians into a
corner, so that they must either have recourse to pitiful sophisms
or confess their ignorance, and consequently the vanity of their whole
art, is this: "What is truth?" The definition of the word truth, to
wit, "the accordance of the cognition with its object," is presupposed
in the question; but we desire to be told, in the answer to it, what
is the universal and secure criterion of the truth of every cognition.
To know what questions we may reasonably propose is in itself a
strong evidence of sagacity and intelligence. For if a question be
in itself absurd and unsusceptible of a rational answer, it is
attended with the danger- not to mention the shame that falls upon the
person who proposes it- of seducing the unguarded listener into making
absurd answers, and we are presented with the ridiculous spectacle
of one (as the ancients said) "milking the he-goat, and the other
holding a sieve."
If truth consists in the accordance of a cognition with its
object, this object must be, ipso facto, distinguished from all
others; for a cognition is false if it does not accord with the object
to which it relates, although it contains something which may be
affirmed of other objects. Now an universal criterion of truth would
be that which is valid for all cognitions, without distinction of
their objects. But it is evident that since, in the case of such a
criterion, we make abstraction of all the content of a cognition (that
is, of all relation to its object), and truth relates precisely to
this content, it must be utterly absurd to ask for a mark of the truth
of this content of cognition; and that, accordingly, a sufficient, and
at the same time universal, test of truth cannot possibly be found. As
we have already termed the content of a cognition its matter, we shall
say: "Of the truth of our cognitions in respect of their matter, no
universal test can be demanded, because such a demand is
self-contradictory."
On the other hand, with regard to our cognition in respect of its
mere form (excluding all content), it is equally manifest that
logic, in so far as it exhibits the universal and necessary laws of
the understanding, must in these very laws present us with criteria of
truth. Whatever contradicts these rules is false, because thereby
the understanding is made to contradict its own universal laws of
thought; that is, to contradict itself. These criteria, however, apply
solely to the form of truth, that is, of thought in general, and in so
far they are perfectly accurate, yet not sufficient. For although a
cognition may be perfectly accurate as to logical form, that is, not
self-contradictory, it is notwithstanding quite possible that it may
not stand in agreement with its object. Consequently, the merely
logical criterion of truth, namely, the accordance of a cognition with
the universal and formal laws of understanding and reason, is
nothing more than the conditio sine qua non, or negative condition
of all truth. Farther than this logic cannot go, and the error which
depends not on the form, but on the content of the cognition, it has
no test to discover.
General logic, then, resolves the whole formal business of
understanding and reason into its elements, and exhibits them as
principles of all logical judging of our cognitions. This part of
logic may, therefore, be called analytic, and is at least the negative
test of truth, because all cognitions must first of an be estimated
and tried according to these laws before we proceed to investigate
them in respect of their content, in order to discover whether they
contain positive truth in regard to their object. Because, however,
the mere form of a cognition, accurately as it may accord with logical
laws, is insufficient to supply us with material (objective) truth, no
one, by means of logic alone, can venture to predicate anything of
or decide concerning objects, unless he has obtained, independently of
logic, well-grounded information about them, in order afterwards to
examine, according to logical laws, into the use and connection, in
a cohering whole, of that information, or, what is still better,
merely to test it by them. Notwithstanding, there lies so seductive
a charm in the possession of a specious art like this- an art which
gives to all our cognitions the form of the understanding, although
with respect to the content thereof we may be sadly deficient- that
general logic, which is merely a canon of judgement, has been employed
as an organon for the actual production, or rather for the semblance
of production, of objective assertions, and has thus been grossly
misapplied. Now general logic, in its assumed character of organon, is
called dialectic.
Different as are the significations in which the ancients used
this term for a science or an art, we may safely infer, from their
actual employment of it, that with them it was nothing else than a
logic of illusion- a sophistical art for giving ignorance, nay, even
intentional sophistries, the colouring of truth, in which the
thoroughness of procedure which logic requires was imitated, and their
topic employed to cloak the empty pretensions. Now it may be taken
as a safe and useful warning, that general logic, considered as an
organon, must always be a logic of illusion, that is, be
dialectical, for, as it teaches us nothing whatever respecting the
content of our cognitions, but merely the formal conditions of their
accordance with the understanding, which do not relate to and are
quite indifferent in respect of objects, any attempt to employ it as
an instrument (organon) in order to extend and enlarge the range of
our knowledge must end in mere prating; any one being able to maintain
or oppose, with some appearance of truth, any single assertion
whatever.
Such instruction is quite unbecoming the dignity of philosophy.
For these reasons we have chosen to denominate this part of logic
dialectic, in the sense of a critique of dialectical illusion, and
we wish the term to be so understood in this place.
IV. Of the Division of Transcendental Logic into Transcendental
Analytic and Dialectic.
In transcendental logic we isolate the understanding (as in
transcendental aesthetic the sensibility) and select from our
cognition merely that part of thought which has its origin in the
understanding alone. The exercise of this pure cognition, however,
depends upon this as its condition, that objects to which it may be
applied be given to us in intuition, for without intuition the whole
of our cognition is without objects, and is therefore quite void. That
part of transcendental logic, then, which treats of the elements of
pure cognition of the understanding, and of the principles without
which no object at all can be thought, is transcendental analytic, and
at the same time a logic of truth. For no cognition can contradict it,
without losing at the same time all content, that is, losing all
reference to an object, and therefore all truth. But because we are
very easily seduced into employing these pure cognitions and
principles of the understanding by themselves, and that even beyond
the boundaries of experience, which yet is the only source whence we
can obtain matter (objects) on which those pure conceptions may be
employed- understanding runs the risk of making, by means of empty
sophisms, a material and objective use of the mere formal principles
of the pure understanding, and of passing judgements on objects
without distinction- objects which are not given to us, nay, perhaps
cannot be given to us in any way. Now, as it ought properly to be only
a canon for judging of the empirical use of the understanding, this
kind of logic is misused when we seek to employ it as an organon of
the universal and unlimited exercise of the understanding, and attempt
with the pure understanding alone to judge synthetically, affirm,
and determine respecting objects in general. In this case the exercise
of the pure understanding becomes dialectical. The second part of
our transcendental logic must therefore be a critique of dialectical
illusion, and this critique we shall term transcendental dialectic-
not meaning it as an art of producing dogmatically such illusion (an
art which is unfortunately too current among the practitioners of
metaphysical juggling), but as a critique of understanding and
reason in regard to their hyperphysical use. This critique will expose
the groundless nature of the pretensions of these two faculties, and
invalidate their claims to the discovery and enlargement of our
cognitions merely by means of transcendental principles, and show that
the proper employment of these faculties is to test the judgements
made by the pure understanding, and to guard it from sophistical
delusion.
Transcendental Logic. FIRST DIVISION.
TRANSCENDENTAL ANALYTIC.
SS I.
Transcendental analytic is the dissection of the whole of our a
priori knowledge into the elements of the pure cognition of the
understanding. In order to effect our purpose, it is necessary: (1)
That the conceptions be pure and not empirical; (2) That they belong
not to intuition and sensibility, but to thought and understanding;
(3) That they be elementary conceptions, and as such, quite
different from deduced or compound conceptions; (4) That our table
of these elementary conceptions be complete, and fill up the whole
sphere of the pure understanding. Now this completeness of a science
cannot be accepted with confidence on the guarantee of a mere estimate
of its existence in an aggregate formed only by means of repeated
experiments and attempts. The completeness which we require is
possible only by means of an idea of the totality of the a priori
cognition of the understanding, and through the thereby determined
division of the conceptions which form the said whole; consequently,
only by means of their connection in a system. Pure understanding
distinguishes itself not merely from everything empirical, but also
completely from all sensibility. It is a unity self-subsistent,
self-sufficient, and not to be enlarged by any additions from without.
Hence the sum of its cognition constitutes a system to be determined
by and comprised under an idea; and the completeness and
articulation of this system can at the same time serve as a test of
the correctness and genuineness of all the parts of cognition that
belong to it. The whole of this part of transcendental logic
consists of two books, of which the one contains the conceptions,
and the other the principles of pure understanding.
BOOK I.
Analytic of Conceptions. SS 2
By the term Analytic of Conceptions, I do not understand the
analysis of these, or the usual process in philosophical
investigations of dissecting the conceptions which present themselves,
according to their content, and so making them clear; but I mean the
hitherto little attempted dissection of the faculty of understanding
itself, in order to investigate the possibility of conceptions a
priori, by looking for them in the understanding alone, as their
birthplace, and analysing the pure use of this faculty. For this is
the proper duty of a transcendental philosophy; what remains is the
logical treatment of the conceptions in philosophy in general. We
shall therefore follow up the pure conceptions even to their germs and
beginnings in the human understanding, in which they lie, until they
are developed on occasions presented by experience, and, freed by
the same understanding from the empirical conditions attaching to
them, are set forth in their unalloyed purity.
CHAPTER I. Of the Transcendental Clue to the Discovery of all Pure
Conceptions of the Understanding.
Introductory. SS 3
When we call into play a faculty of cognition, different conceptions
manifest themselves according to the different circumstances, and make
known this faculty, and assemble themselves into a more or less
extensive collection, according to the time or penetration that has
been applied to the consideration of them. Where this process,
conducted as it is mechanically, so to speak, will end, cannot be
determined with certainty. Besides, the conceptions which we
discover in this haphazard manner present themselves by no means in
order and systematic unity, but are at last coupled together only
according to resemblances to each other, and arranged in series,
according to the quantity of their content, from the simpler to the
more complex- series which are anything but systematic, though not
altogether without a certain kind of method in their construction.
Transcendental philosophy has the advantage, and moreover the
duty, of searching for its conceptions according to a principle;
because these conceptions spring pure and unmixed out of the
understanding as an absolute unity, and therefore must be connected
with each other according to one conception or idea. A connection of
this kind, however, furnishes us with a ready prepared rule, by
which its proper place may be assigned to every pure conception of the
understanding, and the completeness of the system of all be determined
a priori- both which would otherwise have been dependent on mere
choice or chance.
SECTION 1. Of defined above Use of understanding in General. SS 4
The understanding was defined above only negatively, as a
non-sensuous faculty of cognition. Now, independently of
sensibility, we cannot possibly have any intuition; consequently,
the understanding is no faculty of intuition. But besides intuition
there is no other mode of cognition, except through conceptions;
consequently, the cognition of every, at least of every human,
understanding is a cognition through conceptions- not intuitive, but
discursive. All intuitions, as sensuous, depend on affections;
conceptions, therefore, upon functions. By the word function I
understand the unity of the act of arranging diverse representations
under one common representation. Conceptions, then, are based on the
spontaneity of thought, as sensuous intuitions are on the
receptivity of impressions. Now, the understanding cannot make any
other use of these conceptions than to judge by means of them. As no
representation, except an intuition, relates immediately to its
object, a conception never relates immediately to an object, but
only to some other representation thereof, be that an intuition or
itself a conception. A judgement, therefore, is the mediate
cognition of an object, consequently the representation of a
representation of it. In every judgement there is a conception which
applies to, and is valid for many other conceptions, and which among
these comprehends also a given representation, this last being
immediately connected with an object. For example, in the judgement-
"All bodies are divisible," our conception of divisible applies to
various other conceptions; among these, however, it is here
particularly applied to the conception of body, and this conception of
body relates to certain phenomena which occur to us. These objects,
therefore, are mediately represented by the conception of
divisibility. All judgements, accordingly, are functions of unity in
our representations, inasmuch as, instead of an immediate, a higher
representation, which comprises this and various others, is used for
our cognition of the object, and thereby many possible cognitions
are collected into one. But we can reduce all acts of the
understanding to judgements, so that understanding may be
represented as the faculty of judging. For it is, according to what
has been said above, a faculty of thought. Now thought is cognition by
means of conceptions. But conceptions, as predicates of possible
judgements, relate to some representation of a yet undetermined
object. Thus the conception of body indicates something- for
example, metal- which can be cognized by means of that conception.
It is therefore a conception, for the reason alone that other
representations are contained under it, by means of which it can
relate to objects. It is therefore the predicate to a possible
judgement; for example: "Every metal is a body." All the functions
of the understanding therefore can be discovered, when we can
completely exhibit the functions of unity in judgements. And that this
may be effected very easily, the following section will show.
SECTION II. Of the Logical Function of the Understanding in
Judgements. SS 5
If we abstract all the content of a judgement, and consider only the
intellectual form thereof, we find that the function of thought in a
judgement can be brought under four heads, of which each contains
three momenta. These may be conveniently represented in the
following table:
1
Quantity of judgements
Universal
Particular
Singular
2 3
Quality Relation
Affirmative Categorical
Negative Hypothetical
Infinite Disjunctive
4
Modality
Problematical
Assertorical
Apodeictical
As this division appears to differ in some, though not essential
points, from the usual technique of logicians, the following
observations, for the prevention of otherwise possible
misunderstanding, will not be without their use.
1. Logicians say, with justice, that in the use of judgements in
syllogisms, singular judgements may be treated like universal ones.
For, precisely because a singular judgement has no extent at all,
its predicate cannot refer to a part of that which is contained in the
conception of the subject and be excluded from the rest. The predicate
is valid for the whole conception just as if it were a general
conception, and had extent, to the whole of which the predicate
applied. On the other hand, let us compare a singular with a general
judgement, merely as a cognition, in regard to quantity. The
singular judgement relates to the general one, as unity to infinity,
and is therefore in itself essentially different. Thus, if we estimate
a singular judgement (judicium singulare) not merely according to
its intrinsic validity as a judgement, but also as a cognition
generally, according to its quantity in comparison with that of
other cognitions, it is then entirely different from a general
judgement (judicium commune), and in a complete table of the momenta
of thought deserves a separate place- though, indeed, this would not
be necessary in a logic limited merely to the consideration of the use
of judgements in reference to each other.
2. In like manner, in transcendental logic, infinite must be
distinguished from affirmative judgements, although in general logic
they are rightly enough classed under affirmative. General logic
abstracts all content of the predicate (though it be negative), and
only considers whether the said predicate be affirmed or denied of the
subject. But transcendental logic considers also the worth or
content of this logical affirmation- an affirmation by means of a
merely negative predicate, and inquires how much the sum total of
our cognition gains by this affirmation. For example, if I say of
the soul, "It is not mortal"- by this negative judgement I should at
least ward off error. Now, by the proposition, "The soul is not
mortal," I have, in respect of the logical form, really affirmed,
inasmuch as I thereby place the soul in the unlimited sphere of
immortal beings. Now, because of the whole sphere of possible
existences, the mortal occupies one part, and the immortal the
other, neither more nor less is affirmed by the proposition than
that the soul is one among the infinite multitude of things which
remain over, when I take away the whole mortal part. But by this
proceeding we accomplish only this much, that the infinite sphere of
all possible existences is in so far limited that the mortal is
excluded from it, and the soul is placed in the remaining part of
the extent of this sphere. But this part remains, notwithstanding this
exception, infinite, and more and more parts may be taken away from
the whole sphere, without in the slightest degree thereby augmenting
or affirmatively determining our conception of the soul. These
judgements, therefore, infinite in respect of their logical extent,
are, in respect of the content of their cognition, merely
limitative; and are consequently entitled to a place in our
transcendental table of all the momenta of thought in judgements,
because the function of the understanding exercised by them may
perhaps be of importance in the field of its pure a priori cognition.
3. All relations of thought in judgements are those (a) of the
predicate to the subject; (b) of the principle to its consequence; (c)
of the divided cognition and all the members of the division to each
other. In the first of these three classes, we consider only two
conceptions; in the second, two judgements; in the third, several
judgements in relation to each other. The hypothetical proposition,
"If perfect justice exists, the obstinately wicked are punished,"
contains properly the relation to each other of two propositions,
namely, "Perfect justice exists," and "The obstinately wicked are
punished." Whether these propositions are in themselves true is a
question not here decided. Nothing is cogitated by means of this
judgement except a certain consequence. Finally, the disjunctive
judgement contains a relation of two or more propositions to each
other- a relation not of consequence, but of logical opposition, in so
far as the sphere of the one proposition excludes that of the other.
But it contains at the same time a relation of community, in so far as
all the propositions taken together fill up the sphere of the
cognition. The disjunctive judgement contains, therefore, the relation
of the parts of the whole sphere of a cognition, since the sphere of
each part is a complemental part of the sphere of the other, each
contributing to form the sum total of the divided cognition. Take, for
example, the proposition, "The world exists either through blind
chance, or through internal necessity, or through an external
cause." Each of these propositions embraces a part of the sphere of
our possible cognition as to the existence of a world; all of them
taken together, the whole sphere. To take the cognition out of one
of these spheres, is equivalent to placing it in one of the others;
and, on the other hand, to place it in one sphere is equivalent to
taking it out of the rest. There is, therefore, in a disjunctive
judgement a certain community of cognitions, which consists in this,
that they mutually exclude each other, yet thereby determine, as a
whole, the true cognition, inasmuch as, taken together, they make up
the complete content of a particular given cognition. And this is
all that I find necessary, for the sake of what follows, to remark
in this place.
4. The modality of judgements is a quite peculiar function, with
this distinguishing characteristic, that it contributes nothing to the
content of a judgement (for besides quantity, quality, and relation,
there is nothing more that constitutes the content of a judgement),
but concerns itself only with the value of the copula in relation to
thought in general. Problematical judgements are those in which the
affirmation or negation is accepted as merely possible (ad libitum).
In the assertorical, we regard the proposition as real (true); in
the apodeictical, we look on it as necessary.* Thus the two judgements
(antecedens et consequens), the relation of which constitutes a
hypothetical judgement, likewise those (the members of the division)
in whose reciprocity the disjunctive consists, are only problematical.
In the example above given the proposition, "There exists perfect
justice," is not stated assertorically, but as an ad libitum
judgement, which someone may choose to adopt, and the consequence
alone is assertorical. Hence such judgements may be obviously false,
and yet, taken problematically, be conditions of our cognition of
the truth. Thus the proposition, "The world exists only by blind
chance," is in the disjunctive judgement of problematical import only:
that is to say, one may accept it for the moment, and it helps us
(like the indication of the wrong road among all the roads that one
can take) to find out the true proposition. The problematical
proposition is, therefore, that which expresses only logical
possibility (which is not objective); that is, it expresses a free
choice to admit the validity of such a proposition- a merely arbitrary
reception of it into the understanding. The assertorical speaks of
logical reality or truth; as, for example, in a hypothetical
syllogism, the antecedens presents itself in a problematical form in
the major, in an assertorical form in the minor, and it shows that the
proposition is in harmony with the laws of the understanding. The
apodeictical proposition cogitates the assertorical as determined by
these very laws of the understanding, consequently as affirming a
priori, and in this manner it expresses logical necessity. Now because
all is here gradually incorporated with the understanding- inasmuch as
in the first place we judge problematically; then accept
assertorically our judgement as true; lastly, affirm it as inseparably
united with the understanding, that is, as necessary and apodeictical-
we may safely reckon these three functions of modality as so many
momenta of thought.
*Just as if thought were in the first instance a function of the
understanding; in the second, of judgement; in the third, of reason. A
remark which will be explained in the sequel.
SECTION III. Of the Pure Conceptions of the Understanding, or
Categories. SS 6
General logic, as has been repeatedly said, makes abstraction of all
content of cognition, and expects to receive representations from some
other quarter, in order, by means of analysis, to convert them into
conceptions. On the contrary, transcendental logic has lying before it
the manifold content of a priori sensibility, which transcendental
aesthetic presents to it in order to give matter to the pure
conceptions of the understanding, without which transcendental logic
would have no content, and be therefore utterly void. Now space and
time contain an infinite diversity of determinations of pure a
priori intuition, but are nevertheless the condition of the mind's
receptivity, under which alone it can obtain representations of
objects, and which, consequently, must always affect the conception of
these objects. But the spontaneity of thought requires that this
diversity be examined after a certain manner, received into the
mind, and connected, in order afterwards to form a cognition out of
it. This Process I call synthesis.
By the word synthesis, in its most general signification, I
understand the process of joining different representations to each
other and of comprehending their diversity in one cognition. This
synthesis is pure when the diversity is not given empirically but a
priori (as that in space and time). Our representations must be
given previously to any analysis of them; and no conceptions can
arise, quoad their content, analytically. But the synthesis of a
diversity (be it given a priori or empirically) is the first requisite
for the production of a cognition, which in its beginning, indeed, may
be crude and confused, and therefore in need of analysis- still,
synthesis is that by which alone the elements of our cognitions are
collected and united into a certain content, consequently it is the
first thing on which we must fix our attention, if we wish to
investigate the origin of our knowledge.
Synthesis, generally speaking, is, as we shall afterwards see, the
mere operation of the imagination- a blind but indispensable
function of the soul, without which we should have no cognition
whatever, but of the working of which we are seldom even conscious.
But to reduce this synthesis to conceptions is a function of the
understanding, by means of which we attain to cognition, in the proper
meaning of the term.
Pure synthesis, represented generally, gives us the pure
conception of the understanding. But by this pure synthesis, I mean
that which rests upon a basis of a priori synthetical unity. Thus, our
numeration (and this is more observable in large numbers) is a
synthesis according to conceptions, because it takes place according
to a common basis of unity (for example, the decade). By means of this
conception, therefore, the unity in the synthesis of the manifold
becomes necessary.
By means of analysis different representations are brought under one
conception- an operation of which general logic treats. On the other
hand, the duty of transcendental logic is to reduce to conceptions,
not representations, but the pure synthesis of representations. The
first thing which must be given to us for the sake of the a priori
cognition of all objects, is the diversity of the pure intuition;
the synthesis of this diversity by means of the imagination is the
second; but this gives, as yet, no cognition. The conceptions which
give unity to this pure synthesis, and which consist solely in the
representation of this necessary synthetical unity, furnish the
third requisite for the cognition of an object, and these
conceptions are given by the understanding.
The same function which gives unity to the different
representation in a judgement, gives also unity to the mere
synthesis of different representations in an intuition; and this unity
we call the pure conception of the understanding. Thus, the same
understanding, and by the same operations, whereby in conceptions,
by means of analytical unity, it produced the logical form of a
judgement, introduces, by means of the synthetical unity of the
manifold in intuition, a transcendental content into its
representations, on which account they are called pure conceptions
of the understanding, and they apply a priori to objects, a result not
within the power of general logic.
In this manner, there arise exactly so many pure conceptions of
the understanding, applying a priori to objects of intuition in
general, as there are logical functions in all possible judgements.
For there is no other function or faculty existing in the
understanding besides those enumerated in that table. These
conceptions we shall, with Aristotle, call categories, our purpose
being originally identical with his, notwithstanding the great
difference in the execution.
TABLE OF THE CATEGORIES
1 2
Of Quantity Of Quality
Unity Reality
Plurality Negation
Totality Limitation
3
Of Relation
Of Inherence and Subsistence (substantia et accidens)
Of Causality and Dependence (cause and effect)
Of Community (reciprocity between the agent and patient)
4
Of Modality
Possibility - Impossibility
Existence - Non-existence
Necessity - Contingence
This, then, is a catalogue of all the originally pure conceptions of
the synthesis which the understanding contains a priori, and these
conceptions alone entitle it to be called a pure understanding;
inasmuch as only by them it can render the manifold of intuition
conceivable, in other words, think an object of intuition. This
division is made systematically from a common principle, namely the
faculty of judgement (which is just the same as the power of thought),
and has not arisen rhapsodically from a search at haphazard after pure
conceptions, respecting the full number of which we never could be
certain, inasmuch as we employ induction alone in our search,
without considering that in this way we can never understand wherefore
precisely these conceptions, and none others, abide in the pure
understanding. It was a design worthy of an acute thinker like
Aristotle, to search for these fundamental conceptions. Destitute,
however, of any guiding principle, he picked them up just as they
occurred to him, and at first hunted out ten, which he called
categories (predicaments). Afterwards be believed that he had
discovered five others, which were added under the name of post
predicaments. But his catalogue still remained defective. Besides,
there are to be found among them some of the modes of pure sensibility
(quando, ubi, situs, also prius, simul), and likewise an empirical
conception (motus)- which can by no means belong to this
genealogical register of the pure understanding. Moreover, there are
deduced conceptions (actio, passio) enumerated among the original
conceptions, and, of the latter, some are entirely wanting.
With regard to these, it is to be remarked, that the categories,
as the true primitive conceptions of the pure understanding, have also
their pure deduced conceptions, which, in a complete system of
transcendental philosophy, must by no means be passed over; though
in a merely critical essay we must be contented with the simple
mention of the fact.
Let it be allowed me to call these pure, but deduced conceptions
of the understanding, the predicables of the pure understanding, in
contradistinction to predicaments. If we are in possession of the
original and primitive, the deduced and subsidiary conceptions can
easily be added, and the genealogical tree of the understanding
completely delineated. As my present aim is not to set forth a
complete system, but merely the principles of one, I reserve this task
for another time. It may be easily executed by any one who will
refer to the ontological manuals, and subordinate to the category of
causality, for example, the predicables of force, action, passion;
to that of community, those of presence and resistance; to the
categories of modality, those of origination, extinction, change;
and so with the rest. The categories combined with the modes of pure
sensibility, or with one another, afford a great number of deduced a
priori conceptions; a complete enumeration of which would be a
useful and not unpleasant, but in this place a perfectly
dispensable, occupation.
I purposely omit the definitions of the categories in this treatise.
I shall analyse these conceptions only so far as is necessary for
the doctrine of method, which is to form a part of this critique. In a
system of pure reason, definitions of them would be with justice
demanded of me, but to give them here would only bide from our view
the main aim of our investigation, at the same time raising doubts and
objections, the consideration of which, without injustice to our
main purpose, may be very well postponed till another opportunity.
Meanwhile, it ought to be sufficiently clear, from the little we
have already said on this subject, that the formation of a complete
vocabulary of pure conceptions, accompanied by all the requisite
explanations, is not only a possible, but an easy undertaking. The
compartments already exist; it is only necessary to fill them up;
and a systematic topic like the present, indicates with perfect
precision the proper place to which each conception belongs, while
it readily points out any that have not yet been filled up.
SS 7
Our table of the categories suggests considerations of some
importance, which may perhaps have significant results in regard to
the scientific form of all rational cognitions. For, that this table
is useful in the theoretical part of philosophy, nay, indispensable
for the sketching of the complete plan of a science, so far as that
science rests upon conceptions a priori, and for dividing it
mathematically, according to fixed principles, is most manifest from
the fact that it contains all the elementary conceptions of the
understanding, nay, even the form of a system of these in the
understanding itself, and consequently indicates all the momenta,
and also the internal arrangement of a projected speculative
science, as I have elsewhere shown.* Here follow some of these
observations.
*In the Metaphysical Principles of Natural Science.
I. This table, which contains four classes of conceptions of the
understanding, may, in the first instance, be divided into two
classes, the first of which relates to objects of intuition- pure as
well as empirical; the second, to the existence of these objects,
either in relation to one another, or to the understanding.
The former of these classes of categories I would entitle the
mathematical, and the latter the dynamical categories. The former,
as we see, has no correlates; these are only to be found in the second
class. This difference must have a ground in the nature of the human
understanding.
II. The number of the categories in each class is always the same,
namely, three- a fact which also demands some consideration, because
in all other cases division a priori through conceptions is
necessarily dichotomy. It is to be added, that the third category in
each triad always arises from the combination of the second with the
first.
Thus totality is nothing else but plurality contemplated as unity;
limitation is merely reality conjoined with negation; community is the
causality of a substance, reciprocally determining, and determined
by other substances; and finally, necessity is nothing but
existence, which is given through the possibility itself. Let it not
be supposed, however, that the third category is merely a deduced, and
not a primitive conception of the pure understanding. For the
conjunction of the first and second, in order to produce the third
conception, requires a particular function of the understanding, which
is by no means identical with those which are exercised in the first
and second. Thus, the conception of a number (which belongs to the
category of totality) is not always possible, where the conceptions of
multitude and unity exist (for example, in the representation of the
infinite). Or, if I conjoin the conception of a cause with that of a
substance, it does not follow that the conception of influence, that
is, how one substance can be the cause of something in another
substance, will be understood from that. Thus it is evident that a
particular act of the understanding is here necessary; and so in the
other instances.
III. With respect to one category, namely, that of community,
which is found in the third class, it is not so easy as with the
others to detect its accordance with the form of the disjunctive
judgement which corresponds to it in the table of the logical
functions.
In order to assure ourselves of this accordance, we must observe
that in every disjunctive judgement, the sphere of the judgement (that
is, the complex of all that is contained in it) is represented as a
whole divided into parts; and, since one part cannot be contained in
the other, they are cogitated as co-ordinated with, not subordinated
to each other, so that they do not determine each other
unilaterally, as in a linear series, but reciprocally, as in an
aggregate- (if one member of the division is posited, all the rest are
excluded; and conversely).
Now a like connection is cogitated in a whole of things; for one
thing is not subordinated, as effect, to another as cause of its
existence, but, on the contrary, is co-ordinated contemporaneously and
reciprocally, as a cause in relation to the determination of the
others (for example, in a body- the parts of which mutually attract
and repel each other). And this is an entirely different kind of
connection from that which we find in the mere relation of the cause
to the effect (the principle to the consequence), for in such a
connection the consequence does not in its turn determine the
principle, and therefore does not constitute, with the latter, a
whole- just as the Creator does not with the world make up a whole.
The process of understanding by which it represents to itself the
sphere of a divided conception, is employed also when we think of a
thing as divisible; and in the same manner as the members of the
division in the former exclude one another, and yet are connected in
one sphere, so the understanding represents to itself the parts of the
latter, as having- each of them- an existence (as substances),
independently of the others, and yet as united in one whole.
SS 8
In the transcendental philosophy of the ancients there exists one
more leading division, which contains pure conceptions of the
understanding, and which, although not numbered among the
categories, ought, according to them, as conceptions a priori, to be
valid of objects. But in this case they would augment the number of
the categories; which cannot be. These are set forth in the
proposition, so renowned among the schoolmen- "Quodlibet ens est UNUM,
VERUM, BONUM." Now, though the inferences from this principle were
mere tautological propositions, and though it is allowed only by
courtesy to retain a place in modern metaphysics, yet a thought
which maintained itself for such a length of time, however empty it
seems to be, deserves an investigation of its origin, and justifies
the conjecture that it must be grounded in some law of the
understanding, which, as is often the case, has only been
erroneously interpreted. These pretended transcendental predicates
are, in fact, nothing but logical requisites and criteria of all
cognition of objects, and they employ, as the basis for this
cognition, the categories of quantity, namely, unity, plurality, and
totality. But these, which must be taken as material conditions,
that is, as belonging to the possibility of things themselves, they
employed merely in a formal signification, as belonging to the logical
requisites of all cognition, and yet most unguardedly changed these
criteria of thought into properties of objects, as things in
themselves. Now, in every cognition of an object, there is unity of
conception, which may be called qualitative unity, so far as by this
term we understand only the unity in our connection of the manifold;
for example, unity of the theme in a play, an oration, or a story.
Secondly, there is truth in respect of the deductions from it. The
more true deductions we have from a given conception, the more
criteria of its objective reality. This we might call the
qualitative plurality of characteristic marks, which belong to a
conception as to a common foundation, but are not cogitated as a
quantity in it. Thirdly, there is perfection- which consists in
this, that the plurality falls back upon the unity of the
conception, and accords completely with that conception and with no
other. This we may denominate qualitative completeness. Hence it is
evident that these logical criteria of the possibility of cognition
are merely the three categories of quantity modified and transformed
to suit an unauthorized manner of applying them. That is to say, the
three categories, in which the unity in the production of the
quantum must be homogeneous throughout, are transformed solely with
a view to the connection of heterogeneous parts of cognition in one
act of consciousness, by means of the quality of the cognition,
which is the principle of that connection. Thus the criterion of the
possibility of a conception (not of its object) is the definition of
it, in which the unity of the conception, the truth of all that may be
immediately deduced from it, and finally, the completeness of what has
been thus deduced, constitute the requisites for the reproduction of
the whole conception. Thus also, the criterion or test of an
hypothesis is the intelligibility of the received principle of
explanation, or its unity (without help from any subsidiary
hypothesis)- the truth of our deductions from it (consistency with
each other and with experience)- and lastly, the completeness of the
principle of the explanation of these deductions, which refer to
neither more nor less than what was admitted in the hypothesis,
restoring analytically and a posteriori, what was cogitated
synthetically and a priori. By the conceptions, therefore, of unity,
truth, and perfection, we have made no addition to the
transcendental table of the categories, which is complete without
them. We have, on the contrary, merely employed the three categories
of quantity, setting aside their application to objects of experience,
as general logical laws of the consistency of cognition with itself.
CHAPTER II Of the Deduction of the Pure Conceptions of the
Understanding.
SECTION I Of the Principles of a Transcendental Deduction
in general. SS 9
Teachers of jurisprudence, when speaking of rights and claims,
distinguish in a cause the question of right (quid juris) from the
question of fact (quid facti), and while they demand proof of both,
they give to the proof of the former, which goes to establish right or
claim in law, the name of deduction. Now we make use of a great number
of empirical conceptions, without opposition from any one; and
consider ourselves, even without any attempt at deduction, justified
in attaching to them a sense, and a supposititious signification,
because we have always experience at hand to demonstrate their
objective reality. There exist also, however, usurped conceptions,
such as fortune, fate, which circulate with almost universal
indulgence, and yet are occasionally challenged by the question, "quid
juris?" In such cases, we have great difficulty in discovering any
deduction for these terms, inasmuch as we cannot produce any
manifest ground of right, either from experience or from reason, on
which the claim to employ them can be founded.
Among the many conceptions, which make up the very variegated web of
human cognition, some are destined for pure use a priori,
independent of all experience; and their title to be so employed
always requires a deduction, inasmuch as, to justify such use of them,
proofs from experience are not sufficient; but it is necessary to know
how these conceptions can apply to objects without being derived
from experience. I term, therefore, an examination of the manner in
which conceptions can apply a priori to objects, the transcendental
deduction of conceptions, and I distinguish it from the empirical
deduction, which indicates the mode in which conception is obtained
through experience and reflection thereon; consequently, does not
concern itself with the right, but only with the fact of our obtaining
conceptions in such and such a manner. We have already seen that we
are in possession of two perfectly different kinds of conceptions,
which nevertheless agree with each other in this, that they both apply
to objects completely a priori. These are the conceptions of space and
time as forms of sensibility, and the categories as pure conceptions
of the understanding. To attempt an empirical deduction of either of
these classes would be labour in vain, because the distinguishing
characteristic of their nature consists in this, that they apply to
their objects, without having borrowed anything from experience
towards the representation of them. Consequently, if a deduction of
these conceptions is necessary, it must always be transcendental.
Meanwhile, with respect to these conceptions, as with respect to all
our cognition, we certainly may discover in experience, if not the
principle of their possibility, yet the occasioning causes of their
production. It will be found that the impressions of sense give the
first occasion for bringing into action the whole faculty of
cognition, and for the production of experience, which contains two
very dissimilar elements, namely, a matter for cognition, given by the
senses, and a certain form for the arrangement of this matter, arising
out of the inner fountain of pure intuition and thought; and these, on
occasion given by sensuous impressions, are called into exercise and
produce conceptions. Such an investigation into the first efforts of
our faculty of cognition to mount from particular perceptions to
general conceptions is undoubtedly of great utility; and we have to
thank the celebrated Locke for having first opened the way for this
inquiry. But a deduction of the pure a priori conceptions of course
never can be made in this way, seeing that, in regard to their
future employment, which must be entirely independent of experience,
they must have a far different certificate of birth to show from
that of a descent from experience. This attempted physiological
derivation, which cannot properly be called deduction, because it
relates merely to a quaestio facti, I shall entitle an explanation
of the possession of a pure cognition. It is therefore manifest that
there can only be a transcendental deduction of these conceptions
and by no means an empirical one; also, that all attempts at an
empirical deduction, in regard to pure a priori conceptions, are vain,
and can only be made by one who does not understand the altogether
peculiar nature of these cognitions.
But although it is admitted that the only possible deduction of pure
a priori cognition is a transcendental deduction, it is not, for
that reason, perfectly manifest that such a deduction is absolutely
necessary. We have already traced to their sources the conceptions
of space and time, by means of a transcendental deduction, and we have
explained and determined their objective validity a priori.
Geometry, nevertheless, advances steadily and securely in the province
of pure a priori cognitions, without needing to ask from philosophy
any certificate as to the pure and legitimate origin of its
fundamental conception of space. But the use of the conception in this
science extends only to the external world of sense, the pure form
of the intuition of which is space; and in this world, therefore,
all geometrical cognition, because it is founded upon a priori
intuition, possesses immediate evidence, and the objects of this
cognition are given a priori (as regards their form) in intuition by
and through the cognition itself. With the pure conceptions of
understanding, on the contrary, commences the absolute necessity of
seeking a transcendental deduction, not only of these conceptions
themselves, but likewise of space, because, inasmuch as they make
affirmations concerning objects not by means of the predicates of
intuition and sensibility, but of pure thought a priori, they apply to
objects without any of the conditions of sensibility. Besides, not
being founded on experience, they are not presented with any object in
a priori intuition upon which, antecedently to experience, they
might base their synthesis. Hence results, not only doubt as to the
objective validity and proper limits of their use, but that even our
conception of space is rendered equivocal; inasmuch as we are very
ready with the aid of the categories, to carry the use of this
conception beyond the conditions of sensuous intuition- and, for
this reason, we have already found a transcendental deduction of it
needful. The reader, then, must be quite convinced of the absolute
necessity of a transcendental deduction, before taking a single step
in the field of pure reason; because otherwise he goes to work
blindly, and after he has wondered about in all directions, returns to
the state of utter ignorance from which he started. He ought,
moreover, clearly to recognize beforehand the unavoidable difficulties
in his undertaking, so that he may not afterwards complain of the
obscurity in which the subject itself is deeply involved, or become
too soon impatient of the obstacles in his path; because we have a
choice of only two things- either at once to give up all pretensions
to knowledge beyond the limits of possible experience, or to bring
this critical investigation to completion.
We have been able, with very little trouble, to make it
comprehensible how the conceptions of space and time, although a
priori cognitions, must necessarily apply to external objects, and
render a synthetical cognition of these possible, independently of all
experience. For inasmuch as only by means of such pure form of
sensibility an object can appear to us, that is, be an object of
empirical intuition, space and time are pure intuitions, which contain
a priori the condition of the possibility of objects as phenomena, and
an a priori synthesis in these intuitions possesses objective
validity.
On the other hand, the categories of the understanding do not
represent the conditions under which objects are given to us in
intuition; objects can consequently appear to us without necessarily
connecting themselves with these, and consequently without any
necessity binding on the understanding to contain a priori the
conditions of these objects. Thus we find ourselves involved in a
difficulty which did not present itself in the sphere of
sensibility, that is to say, we cannot discover how the subjective
conditions of thought can have objective validity, in other words, can
become conditions of the possibility of all cognition of objects;
for phenomena may certainly be given to us in intuition without any
help from the functions of the understanding. Let us take, for
example, the conception of cause, which indicates a peculiar kind of
synthesis, namely, that with something, A, something entirely
different, B, is connected according to a law. It is not a priori
manifest why phenomena should contain anything of this kind (we are of
course debarred from appealing for proof to experience, for the
objective validity of this conception must be demonstrated a
priori), and it hence remains doubtful a priori, whether such a
conception be not quite void and without any corresponding object
among phenomena. For that objects of sensuous intuition must
correspond to the formal conditions of sensibility existing a priori
in the mind is quite evident, from the fact that without these they
could not be objects for us; but that they must also correspond to the
conditions which understanding requires for the synthetical unity of
thought is an assertion, the grounds for which are not so easily to be
discovered. For phenomena might be so constituted as not to correspond
to the conditions of the unity of thought; and all things might lie in
such confusion that, for example, nothing could be met with in the
sphere of phenomena to suggest a law of synthesis, and so correspond
to the conception of cause and effect; so that this conception would
be quite void, null, and without significance. Phenomena would
nevertheless continue to present objects to our intuition; for mere
intuition does not in any respect stand in need of the functions of
thought.
If we thought to free ourselves from the labour of these
investigations by saying: "Experience is constantly offering us
examples of the relation of cause and effect in phenomena, and
presents us with abundant opportunity of abstracting the conception of
cause, and so at the same time of corroborating the objective validity
of this conception"; we should in this case be overlooking the fact,
that the conception of cause cannot arise in this way at all; that, on
the contrary, it must either have an a priori basis in the,
understanding, or be rejected as a mere chimera. For this conception
demands that something, A, should be of such a nature that something
else, B, should follow from it necessarily, and according to an
absolutely universal law. We may certainly collect from phenomena a
law, according to which this or that usually happens, but the
element of necessity is not to be found in it. Hence it is evident
that to the synthesis of cause and effect belongs a dignity, which
is utterly wanting in any empirical synthesis; for it is no mere
mechanical synthesis, by means of addition, but a dynamical one;
that is to say, the effect is not to be cogitated as merely annexed to
the cause, but as posited by and through the cause, and resulting from
it. The strict universality of this law never can be a
characteristic of empirical laws, which obtain through induction
only a comparative universality, that is, an extended range of
practical application. But the pure conceptions of the understanding
would entirely lose all their peculiar character, if we treated them
merely as the productions of experience.
Transition to the Transcendental Deduction of the
Categories. SS 10
There are only two possible ways in which synthetical representation
and its objects can coincide with and relate necessarily to each
other, and, as it were, meet together. Either the object alone makes
the representation possible, or the representation alone makes the
object possible. In the former case, the relation between them is only
empirical, and an a priori representation is impossible. And this is
the case with phenomena, as regards that in them which is referable to
mere sensation. In the latter case- although representation alone (for
of its causality, by means of the will, we do not here speak) does not
produce the object as to its existence, it must nevertheless be a
priori determinative in regard to the object, if it is only by means
of the representation that we can cognize anything as an object. Now
there are only two conditions of the possibility of a cognition of
objects; firstly, intuition, by means of which the object, though only
as phenomenon, is given; secondly, conception, by means of which the
object which corresponds to this intuition is thought. But it is
evident from what has been said on aesthetic that the first condition,
under which alone objects can be intuited, must in fact exist, as a
formal basis for them, a priori in the mind. With this formal
condition of sensibility, therefore, all phenomena necessarily
correspond, because it is only through it that they can be phenomena
at all; that is, can be empirically intuited and given. Now the
question is whether there do not exist, a priori in the mind,
conceptions of understanding also, as conditions under which alone
something, if not intuited, is yet thought as object. If this question
be answered in the affirmative, it follows that all empirical
cognition of objects is necessarily conformable to such conceptions,
since, if they are not presupposed, it is impossible that anything can
be an object of experience. Now all experience contains, besides the
intuition of the senses through which an object is given, a conception
also of an object that is given in intuition. Accordingly, conceptions
of objects in general must lie as a priori conditions at the
foundation of all empirical cognition; and consequently, the objective
validity of the categories, as a priori conceptions, will rest upon
this, that experience (as far as regards the form of thought) is
possible only by their means. For in that case they apply
necessarily and a priori to objects of experience, because only
through them can an object of experience be thought.
The whole aim of the transcendental deduction of all a priori
conceptions is to show that these conceptions are a priori
conditions of the possibility of all experience. Conceptions which
afford us the objective foundation of the possibility of experience
are for that very reason necessary. But the analysis of the
experiences in which they are met with is not deduction, but only an
illustration of them, because from experience they could never
derive the attribute of necessity. Without their original
applicability and relation to all possible experience, in which all
objects of cognition present themselves, the relation of the
categories to objects, of whatever nature, would be quite
incomprehensible.
The celebrated Locke, for want of due reflection on these points,
and because he met with pure conceptions of the understanding in
experience, sought also to deduce them from experience, and yet
proceeded so inconsequently as to attempt, with their aid, to arrive
it cognitions which lie far beyond the limits of all experience. David
Hume perceived that, to render this possible, it was necessary that
the conceptions should have an a priori origin. But as he could not
explain how it was possible that conceptions which are not connected
with each other in the understanding must nevertheless be thought as
necessarily connected in the object- and it never occurred to him that
the understanding itself might, perhaps, by means of these
conceptions, be the author of the experience in which its objects were
presented to it- he was forced to drive these conceptions from
experience, that is, from a subjective necessity arising from repeated
association of experiences erroneously considered to be objective-
in one word, from habit. But he proceeded with perfect consequence and
declared it to be impossible, with such conceptions and the principles
arising from them, to overstep the limits of experience. The empirical
derivation, however, which both of these philosophers attributed to
these conceptions, cannot possibly be reconciled with the fact that we
do possess scientific a priori cognitions, namely, those of pure
mathematics and general physics.
The former of these two celebrated men opened a wide door to
extravagance- (for if reason has once undoubted right on its side,
it will not allow itself to be confined to set limits, by vague
recommendations of moderation); the latter gave himself up entirely to
scepticism- a natural consequence, after having discovered, as he
thought, that the faculty of cognition was not trustworthy. We now
intend to make a trial whether it be not possible safely to conduct
reason between these two rocks, to assign her determinate limits,
and yet leave open for her the entire sphere of her legitimate
activity.
I shall merely premise an explanation of what the categories are.
They are conceptions of an object in general, by means of which its
intuition is contemplated as determined in relation to one of the
logical functions of judgement. The following will make this plain.
The function of the categorical judgement is that of the relation of
subject to predicate; for example, in the proposition: "All bodies are
divisible." But in regard to the merely logical use of the
understanding, it still remains undetermined to which Of these two
conceptions belongs the function Of subject and to which that of
predicate. For we could also say: "Some divisible is a body." But
the category of substance, when the conception of a body is brought
under it, determines that; and its empirical intuition in experience
must be contemplated always as subject and never as mere predicate.
And so with all the other categories.
SECTION II Transcendental Deduction of the pure Conceptions of
the Understanding. SS 11
Of the Possibility of a Conjunction of the manifold representations
given by Sense.
The manifold content in our representations can be given in an
intuition which is merely sensuous- in other words, is nothing but
susceptibility; and the form of this intuition can exist a priori in
our faculty of representation, without being anything else but the
mode in which the subject is affected. But the conjunction
(conjunctio) of a manifold in intuition never can be given us by the
senses; it cannot therefore be contained in the pure form of
sensuous intuition, for it is a spontaneous act of the faculty of
representation. And as we must, to distinguish it from sensibility,
entitle this faculty understanding; so all conjunction whether
conscious or unconscious, be it of the manifold in intuition, sensuous
or non-sensuous, or of several conceptions- is an act of the
understanding. To this act we shall give the general appellation of
synthesis, thereby to indicate, at the same time, that we cannot
represent anything as conjoined in the object without having
previously conjoined it ourselves. Of all mental notions, that of
conjunction is the only one which cannot be given through objects, but
can be originated only by the subject itself, because it is an act
of its purely spontaneous activity. The reader will easily enough
perceive that the possibility of conjunction must be grounded in the
very nature of this act, and that it must be equally valid for all
conjunction, and that analysis, which appears to be its contrary,
must, nevertheless, always presuppose it; for where the
understanding has not previously conjoined, it cannot dissect or
analyse, because only as conjoined by it, must that which is to be
analysed have been given to our faculty of representation.
But the conception of conjunction includes, besides the conception
of the manifold and of the synthesis of it, that of the unity of it
also. Conjunction is the representation of the synthetical unity of
the manifold.* This idea of unity, therefore, cannot arise out of that
of conjunction; much rather does that idea, by combining itself with
the representation of the manifold, render the conception of
conjunction possible. This unity, which a priori precedes all
conceptions of conjunction, is not the category of unity (SS 6); for
all the categories are based upon logical functions of judgement,
and in these functions we already have conjunction, and consequently
unity of given conceptions. It is therefore evident that the
category of unity presupposes conjunction. We must therefore look
still higher for this unity (as qualitative, SS 8), in that, namely,
which contains the ground of the unity of diverse conceptions in
judgements, the ground, consequently, of the possibility of the
existence of the understanding, even in regard to its logical use.
*Whether the representations are in themselves identical, and
consequently whether one can be thought analytically by means of and
through the other, is a question which we need not at present
consider. Our Consciousness of the one, when we speak of the manifold,
is always distinguishable from our consciousness of the other; and
it is only respecting the synthesis of this (possible) consciousness
that we here treat.
Of the Originally Synthetical Unity of Apperception. SS 12
The "I think" must accompany all my representations, for otherwise
something would be represented in me which could not be thought; in
other words, the representation would either be impossible, or at
least be, in relation to me, nothing. That representation which can be
given previously to all thought is called intuition. All the diversity
or manifold content of intuition, has, therefore, a necessary relation
to the 'I think," in the subject in which this diversity is found. But
this representation, "I think," is an act of spontaneity; that is to
say, it cannot be regarded as belonging to mere sensibility. I call it
pure apperception, in order to distinguish it from empirical; or
primitive apperception, because it is self-consciousness which, whilst
it gives birth to the representation" I think," must necessarily be
capable of accompanying all our representations. It is in all acts
of consciousness one and the same, and unaccompanied by it, no
representation can exist for me. The unity of this apperception I call
the transcendental unity of self-consciousness, in order to indicate
the possibility of a priori cognition arising from it. For the
manifold representations which are given in an intuition would not all
of them be my representations, if they did not all belong to one
self-consciousness, that is, as my representations (even although I am
not conscious of them as such), they must conform to the condition
under which alone they can exist together in a common
self-consciousness, because otherwise they would not all without
exception belong to me. From this primitive conjunction follow many
important results.
For example, this universal identity of the apperception of the
manifold given in intuition contains a synthesis of representations
and is possible only by means of the consciousness of this
synthesis. For the empirical consciousness which accompanies different
representations is in itself fragmentary and disunited, and without
relation to the identity of the subject. This relation, then, does not
exist because I accompany every representation with consciousness, but
because I join one representation to another, and am conscious of
the synthesis of them. Consequently, only because I can connect a
variety of given representations in one consciousness, is it
possible that I can represent to myself the identity of
consciousness in these representations; in other words, the analytical
unity of apperception is possible only under the presupposition of a
synthetical unity.* The thought, "These representations given in
intuition belong all of them to me," is accordingly just the same
as, "I unite them in one self-consciousness, or can at least so
unite them"; and although this thought is not itself the consciousness
of the synthesis of representations, it presupposes the possibility of
it; that is to say, for the reason alone that I can comprehend the
variety of my representations in one consciousness, do I call them
my representations, for otherwise I must have as many-coloured and
various a self as are the representations of which I am conscious.
Synthetical unity of the manifold in intuitions, as given a priori, is
therefore the foundation of the identity of apperception itself, which
antecedes a priori all determinate thought. But the conjunction of
representations into a conception is not to be found in objects
themselves, nor can it be, as it were, borrowed from them and taken up
into the understanding by perception, but it is on the contrary an
operation of the understanding itself, which is nothing more than
the faculty of conjoining a priori and of bringing the variety of
given representations under the unity of apperception. This
principle is the highest in all human cognition.
*All general conceptions- as such- depend, for their existence, on
the analytical unity of consciousness. For example, when I think of
red in general, I thereby think to myself a property which (as a
characteristic mark) can be discovered somewhere, or can be united
with other representations; consequently, it is only by means of a
forethought possible synthetical unity that I can think to myself
the analytical. A representation which is cogitated as common to
different representations, is regarded as belonging to such as,
besides this common representation, contain something different;
consequently it must be previously thought in synthetical unity with
other although only possible representations, before I can think in it
the analytical unity of consciousness which makes it a conceptas
communis. And thus the synthetical unity of apperception is the
highest point with which we must connect every operation of the
understanding, even the whole of logic, and after it our
transcendental philosophy; indeed, this faculty is the understanding
itself.
This fundamental principle of the necessary unity of apperception is
indeed an identical, and therefore analytical, proposition; but it
nevertheless explains the necessity for a synthesis of the manifold
given in an intuition, without which the identity of
self-consciousness would be incogitable. For the ego, as a simple
representation, presents us with no manifold content; only in
intuition, which is quite different from the representation ego, can
it be given us, and by means of conjunction it is cogitated in one
self-consciousness. An understanding, in which all the manifold should
be given by means of consciousness itself, would be intuitive; our
understanding can only think and must look for its intuition to sense.
I am, therefore, conscious of my identical self, in relation to all
the variety of representations given to me in an intuition, because
I call all of them my representations. In other words, I am
conscious myself of a necessary a priori synthesis of my
representations, which is called the original synthetical unity of
apperception, under which rank all the representations presented to
me, but that only by means of a synthesis.
The Principle of the Synthetical Unity of Apperception
is the highest Principle of all exercise of
the Understanding. SS 13
The supreme principle of the possibility of all intuition in
relation to sensibility was, according to our transcendental
aesthetic, that all the manifold in intuition be subject to the formal
conditions of space and time. The supreme principle of the possibility
of it in relation to the understanding is that all the manifold in
it be subject to conditions of the originally synthetical unity or
apperception.* To the former of these two principles are subject all
the various representations of intuition, in so far as they are
given to us; to the latter, in so far as they must be capable of
conjunction in one consciousness; for without this nothing can be
thought or cognized, because the given representations would not
have in common the act Of the apperception "I think" and therefore
could not be connected in one self-consciousness.
*Space and time, and all portions thereof, are intuitions;
consequently are, with a manifold for their content, single
representations. (See the Transcendental Aesthetic.) Consequently,
they are not pure conceptions, by means of which the same
consciousness is found in a great number of representations; but, on
the contrary, they are many representations contained in one, the
consciousness of which is, so to speak, compounded. The unity of
consciousness is nevertheless synthetical and, therefore, primitive.
From this peculiar character of consciousness follow many important
consequences. (See SS 21.)
Understanding is, to speak generally, the faculty Of cognitions.
These consist in the determined relation of given representation to an
object. But an object is that, in the conception of which the manifold
in a given intuition is united. Now all union of representations
requires unity of consciousness in the synthesis of them.
Consequently, it is the unity of consciousness alone that
constitutes the possibility of representations relating to an
object, and therefore of their objective validity, and of their
becoming cognitions, and consequently, the possibility of the
existence of the understanding itself.
The first pure cognition of understanding, then, upon which is
founded all its other exercise, and which is at the same time
perfectly independent of all conditions of mere sensuous intuition, is
the principle of the original synthetical unity of apperception.
Thus the mere form of external sensuous intuition, namely, space,
affords us, per se, no cognition; it merely contributes the manifold
in a priori intuition to a possible cognition. But, in order to
cognize something in space (for example, a line), I must draw it,
and thus produce synthetically a determined conjunction of the given
manifold, so that the unity of this act is at the same time the
unity of consciousness (in the conception of a line), and by this
means alone is an object (a determinate space) cognized. The
synthetical unity of consciousness is, therefore, an objective
condition of all cognition, which I do not merely require in order
to cognize an object, but to which every intuition must necessarily be
subject, in order to become an object for me; because in any other
way, and without this synthesis, the manifold in intuition could not
be united in one consciousness.
This proposition is, as already said, itself analytical, although it
constitutes the synthetical unity, the condition of all thought; for
it states nothing more than that all my representations in any given
intuition must be subject to the condition which alone enables me to
connect them, as my representation with the identical self, and so
to unite them synthetically in one apperception, by means of the
general expression, "I think."
But this principle is not to be regarded as a principle for every
possible understanding, but only for the understanding by means of
whose pure apperception in the thought I am, no manifold content is
given. The understanding or mind which contained the manifold in
intuition, in and through the act itself of its own
self-consciousness, in other words, an understanding by and in the
representation of which the objects of the representation should at
the same time exist, would not require a special act of synthesis of
the manifold as the condition of the unity of its consciousness, an
act of which the human understanding, which thinks only and cannot
intuite, has absolute need. But this principle is the first
principle of all the operations of our understanding, so that we
cannot form the least conception of any other possible
understanding, either of one such as should be itself intuition, or
possess a sensuous intuition, but with forms different from those of
space and time.
What Objective Unity of Self-consciousness is. SS 14
It is by means of the transcendental unity of apperception that
all the manifold, given in an intuition is united into a conception of
the object. On this account it is called objective, and must be
distinguished from the subjective unity of consciousness, which is a
determination of the internal sense, by means of which the said
manifold in intuition is given empirically to be so united. Whether
I can be empirically conscious of the manifold as coexistent or as
successive, depends upon circumstances, or empirical conditions. Hence
the empirical unity of consciousness by means of association of
representations, itself relates to a phenomenal world and is wholly
contingent. On the contrary, the pure form of intuition in time,
merely as an intuition, which contains a given manifold, is subject to
the original unity of consciousness, and that solely by means of the
necessary relation of the manifold in intuition to the "I think,"
consequently by means of the pure synthesis of the understanding,
which lies a priori at the foundation of all empirical synthesis.
The transcendental unity of apperception is alone objectively valid;
the empirical which we do not consider in this essay, and which is
merely a unity deduced from the former under given conditions in
concreto, possesses only subjective validity. One person connects
the notion conveyed in a word with one thing, another with another
thing; and the unity of consciousness in that which is empirical,
is, in relation to that which is given by experience, not
necessarily and universally valid.
The Logical Form of all Judgements consists in the Objective
Unity of Apperception of the Conceptions
contained therein. SS 15
I could never satisfy myself with the definition which logicians
give of a judgement. It is, according to them, the representation of a
relation between two conceptions. I shall not dwell here on the
faultiness of this definition, in that it suits only for categorical
and not for hypothetical or disjunctive judgements, these latter
containing a relation not of conceptions but of judgements themselves-
a blunder from which many evil results have followed.* It is more
important for our present purpose to observe, that this definition
does not determine in what the said relation consists.
*The tedious doctrine of the four syllogistic figures concerns
only categorical syllogisms; and although it is nothing more than an
artifice by surreptitiously introducing immediate conclusions
(consequentiae immediatae) among the premises of a pure syllogism,
to give ism' give rise to an appearance of more modes of drawing a
conclusion than that in the first figure, the artifice would not
have had much success, had not its authors succeeded in bringing
categorical judgements into exclusive respect, as those to which all
others must be referred- a doctrine, however, which, according to SS
5, is utterly false.
But if I investigate more closely the relation of given cognitions
in every judgement, and distinguish it, as belonging to the
understanding, from the relation which is produced according to laws
of the reproductive imagination (which has only subjective
validity), I find that judgement is nothing but the mode of bringing
given cognitions under the objective unit of apperception. This is
plain from our use of the term of relation is in judgements, in
order to distinguish the objective unity of given representations from
the subjective unity. For this term indicates the relation of these
representations to the original apperception, and also their necessary
unity, even although the judgement is empirical, therefore contingent,
as in the judgement: "All bodies are heavy." I do not mean by this,
that these representations do necessarily belong to each other in
empirical intuition, but that by means of the necessary unity of
appreciation they belong to each other in the synthesis of intuitions,
that is to say, they belong to each other according to principles of
the objective determination of all our representations, in so far as
cognition can arise from them, these principles being all deduced from
the main principle of the transcendental unity of apperception. In
this way alone can there arise from this relation a judgement, that
is, a relation which has objective validity, and is perfectly distinct
from that relation of the very same representations which has only
subjective validity- a relation, to wit, which is produced according
to laws of association. According to these laws, I could only say:
"When I hold in my hand or carry a body, I feel an impression of
weight"; but I could not say: "It, the body, is heavy"; for this is
tantamount to saying both these representations are conjoined in the
object, that is, without distinction as to the condition of the
subject, and do not merely stand together in my perception, however
frequently the perceptive act may be repeated.
All Sensuous Intuitions are subject to the Categories, as
Conditions under which alone the manifold Content of
them can be united in one Consciousness. SS 16
The manifold content given in a sensuous intuition comes necessarily
under the original synthetical unity of apperception, because
thereby alone is the unity of intuition possible (SS 13). But that act
of the understanding, by which the manifold content of given
representations (whether intuitions or conceptions) is brought under
one apperception, is the logical function of judgements (SS 15). All
the manifold, therefore, in so far as it is given in one empirical
intuition, is determined in relation to one of the logical functions
of judgement, by means of which it is brought into union in one
consciousness. Now the categories are nothing else than these
functions of judgement so far as the manifold in a given intuition
is determined in relation to them (SS 9). Consequently, the manifold
in a given intuition is necessarily subject to the categories of the
understanding.
Observation. SS 17
The manifold in an intuition, which I call mine, is represented by
means of the synthesis of the understanding, as belonging to the
necessary unity of self-consciousness, and this takes place by means
of the category.* The category indicates accordingly that the
empirical consciousness of a given manifold in an intuition is subject
to a pure self-consciousness a priori, in the same manner as an
empirical intuition is subject to a pure sensuous intuition, which
is also a priori. In the above proposition, then, lies the beginning
of a deduction of the pure conceptions of the understanding. Now, as
the categories have their origin in the understanding alone,
independently of sensibility, I must in my deduction make
abstraction of the mode in which the manifold of an empirical
intuition is given, in order to fix my attention exclusively on the
unity which is brought by the understanding into the intuition by
means of the category. In what follows (SS 22), it will be shown, from
the mode in which the empirical intuition is given in the faculty of
sensibility, that the unity which belongs to it is no other than
that which the category (according to SS 16) imposes on the manifold
in a given intuition, and thus, its a priori validity in regard to all
objects of sense being established, the purpose of our deduction
will be fully attained.
*The proof of this rests on the represented unity of intuition, by
means of which an object is given, and which always includes in itself
a synthesis of the manifold to be intuited, and also the relation of
this latter to unity of apperception.
But there is one thing in the above demonstration of which I could
not make abstraction, namely, that the manifold to be intuited must be
given previously to the synthesis of the understanding, and
independently of it. How this takes place remains here undetermined.
For if I cogitate an understanding which was itself intuitive (as, for
example, a divine understanding which should not represent given
objects, but by whose representation the objects themselves should
be given or produced), the categories would possess no significance in
relation to such a faculty of cognition. They are merely rules for
an understanding, whose whole power consists in thought, that is, in
the act of submitting the synthesis of the manifold which is presented
to it in intuition from a very different quarter, to the unity of
apperception; a faculty, therefore, which cognizes nothing per se, but
only connects and arranges the material of cognition, the intuition,
namely, which must be presented to it by means of the object. But to
show reasons for this peculiar character of our understandings, that
it produces unity of apperception a priori only by means of
categories, and a certain kind and number thereof, is as impossible as
to explain why we are endowed with precisely so many functions of
judgement and no more, or why time and space are the only forms of our
intuition.
In Cognition, its Application to Objects of Experience is
the only legitimate use of the Category. SS 18
To think an object and to cognize an object are by no means the same
thing. In cognition there are two elements: firstly, the conception,
whereby an object is cogitated (the category); and, secondly, the
intuition, whereby the object is given. For supposing that to the
conception a corresponding intuition could not be given, it would
still be a thought as regards its form, but without any object, and no
cognition of anything would be possible by means of it, inasmuch as,
so far as I knew, there existed and could exist nothing to which my
thought could be applied. Now all intuition possible to us is
sensuous; consequently, our thought of an object by means of a pure
conception of the understanding, can become cognition for us only in
so far as this conception is applied to objects of the senses.
Sensuous intuition is either pure intuition (space and time) or
empirical intuition- of that which is immediately represented in space
and time by means of sensation as real. Through the determination of
pure intuition we obtain a priori cognitions of objects, as in
mathematics, but only as regards their form as phenomena; whether
there can exist things which must be intuited in this form is not
thereby established. All mathematical conceptions, therefore, are
not per se cognition, except in so far as we presuppose that there
exist things which can only be represented conformably to the form
of our pure sensuous intuition. But things in space and time are given
only in so far as they are perceptions (representations accompanied
with sensation), therefore only by empirical representation.
Consequently the pure conceptions of the understanding, even when they
are applied to intuitions a priori (as in mathematics), produce
cognition only in so far as these (and therefore the conceptions of
the understanding by means of them) can be applied to empirical
intuitions. Consequently the categories do not, even by means of
pure intuition afford us any cognition of things; they can only do
so in so far as they can be applied to empirical intuition. That is to
say, the, categories serve only to render empirical cognition
possible. But this is what we call experience. Consequently, in
cognition, their application to objects of experience is the only
legitimate use of the categories.
SS 19
The foregoing proposition is of the utmost importance, for it
determines the limits of the exercise of the pure conceptions of the
understanding in regard to objects, just as transcendental aesthetic
determined the limits of the exercise of the pure form of our sensuous
intuition. Space and time, as conditions of the possibility of the
presentation of objects to us, are valid no further than for objects
of sense, consequently, only for experience. Beyond these limits
they represent to us nothing, for they belong only to sense, and
have no reality apart from it. The pure conceptions of the
understanding are free from this limitation, and extend to objects
of intuition in general, be the intuition like or unlike to ours,
provided only it be sensuous, and not intellectual. But this extension
of conceptions beyond the range of our intuition is of no advantage;
for they are then mere empty conceptions of objects, as to the
possibility or impossibility of the existence of which they furnish us
with no means of discovery. They are mere forms of thought, without
objective reality, because we have no intuition to which the
synthetical unity of apperception, which alone the categories contain,
could be applied, for the purpose of determining an object. Our
sensuous and empirical intuition can alone give them significance
and meaning.
If, then, we suppose an object of a non-sensuous intuition to be
given we can in that case represent it by all those predicates which
are implied in the presupposition that nothing appertaining to
sensuous intuition belongs to it; for example, that it is not
extended, or in space; that its duration is not time; that in it no
change (the effect of the determinations in time) is to be met with,
and so on. But it is no proper knowledge if I merely indicate what the
intuition of the object is not, without being able to say what is
contained in it, for I have not shown the possibility of an object
to which my pure conception of understanding could be applicable,
because I have not been able to furnish any intuition corresponding to
it, but am only able to say that our intuition is not valid for it.
But the most important point is this, that to a something of this kind
not one category can be found applicable. Take, for example, the
conception of substance, that is, something that can exist as subject,
but never as mere predicate; in regard to this conception I am quite
ignorant whether there can really be anything to correspond to such
a determination of thought, if empirical intuition did not afford me
the occasion for its application. But of this more in the sequel.
Of the Application of the Categories to Objects of the
Senses in general. SS 20
The pure conceptions of the understanding apply to objects of
intuition in general, through the understanding alone, whether the
intuition be our own or some other, provided only it be sensuous,
but are, for this very reason, mere forms of thought, by means of
which alone no determined object can be cognized. The synthesis or
conjunction of the manifold in these conceptions relates, we have
said, only to the unity of apperception, and is for this reason the
ground of the possibility of a priori cognition, in so far as this
cognition is dependent on the understanding. This synthesis is,
therefore, not merely transcendental, but also purely intellectual.
But because a certain form of sensuous intuition exists in the mind
a priori which rests on the receptivity of the representative
faculty (sensibility), the understanding, as a spontaneity, is able to
determine the internal sense by means of the diversity of given
representations, conformably to the synthetical unity of apperception,
and thus to cogitate the synthetical unity of the apperception of
the manifold of sensuous intuition a priori, as the condition to which
must necessarily be submitted all objects of human intuition. And in
this manner the categories as mere forms of thought receive
objective reality, that is, application to objects which are given
to us in intuition, but that only as phenomena, for it is only of
phenomena that we are capable of a priori intuition.
This synthesis of the manifold of sensuous intuition, which is
possible and necessary a priori, may be called figurative (synthesis
speciosa), in contradistinction to that which is cogitated in the mere
category in regard to the manifold of an intuition in general, and
is called connection or conjunction of the understanding (synthesis
intellectualis). Both are transcendental, not merely because they
themselves precede a priori all experience, but also because they form
the basis for the possibility of other cognition a priori.
But the figurative synthesis, when it has relation only to the
originally synthetical unity of apperception, that is to the
transcendental unity cogitated in the categories, must, to be
distinguished from the purely intellectual conjunction, be entitled
the transcendental synthesis of imagination. Imagination is the
faculty of representing an object even without its presence in
intuition. Now, as all our intuition is sensuous, imagination, by
reason of the subjective condition under which alone it can give a
corresponding intuition to the conceptions of the understanding,
belongs to sensibility. But in so far as the synthesis of the
imagination is an act of spontaneity, which is determinative, and not,
like sense, merely determinable, and which is consequently able to
determine sense a priori, according to its form, conformably to the
unity of apperception, in so far is the imagination a faculty of
determining sensibility a priori, and its synthesis of intuitions
according to the categories must be the transcendental synthesis of
the imagination. It is an operation of the understanding on
sensibility, and the first application of the understanding to objects
of possible intuition, and at the same time the basis for the exercise
of the other functions of that faculty. As figurative, it is
distinguished from the merely intellectual synthesis, which is
produced by the understanding alone, without the aid of imagination.
Now, in so far as imagination is spontaneity, I sometimes call it also
the productive imagination, and distinguish it from the
reproductive, the synthesis of which is subject entirely to
empirical laws, those of association, namely, and which, therefore,
contributes nothing to the explanation of the possibility of a
priori cognition, and for this reason belongs not to transcendental
philosophy, but to psychology.
We have now arrived at the proper place for explaining the paradox
which must have struck every one in our exposition of the internal
sense (SS 6), namely- how this sense represents us to our own
consciousness, only as we appear to ourselves, not as we are in
ourselves, because, to wit, we intuite ourselves only as we are
inwardly affected. Now this appears to be contradictory, inasmuch as
we thus stand in a passive relation to ourselves; and therefore in the
systems of psychology, the internal sense is commonly held to be one
with the faculty of apperception, while we, on the contrary, carefully
distinguish them.
That which determines the internal sense is the understanding, and
its original power of conjoining the manifold of intuition, that is,
of bringing this under an apperception (upon which rests the
possibility of the understanding itself). Now, as the human
understanding is not in itself a faculty of intuition, and is unable
to exercise such a power, in order to conjoin, as it were, the
manifold of its own intuition, the synthesis of understanding is,
considered per se, nothing but the unity of action, of which, as such,
it is self-conscious, even apart from sensibility, by which, moreover,
it is able to determine our internal sense in respect of the
manifold which may be presented to it according to the form of
sensuous intuition. Thus, under the name of a transcendental synthesis
of imagination, the understanding exercises an activity upon the
passive subject, whose faculty it is; and so we are right in saying
that the internal sense is affected thereby. Apperception and its
synthetical unity are by no means one and the same with the internal
sense. The former, as the source of all our synthetical conjunction,
applies, under the name of the categories, to the manifold of
intuition in general, prior to all sensuous intuition of objects.
The internal sense, on the contrary, contains merely the form of
intuition, but without any synthetical conjunction of the manifold
therein, and consequently does not contain any determined intuition,
which is possible only through consciousness of the determination of
the manifold by the transcendental act of the imagination (synthetical
influence of the understanding on the internal sense), which I have
named figurative synthesis.
This we can indeed always perceive in ourselves. We cannot
cogitate a geometrical line without drawing it in thought, nor a
circle without describing it, nor represent the three dimensions of
space without drawing three lines from the same point perpendicular to
one another. We cannot even cogitate time, unless, in drawing a
straight line (which is to serve as the external figurative
representation of time), we fix our attention on the act of the
synthesis of the manifold, whereby we determine successively the
internal sense, and thus attend also to the succession of this
determination. Motion as an act of the subject (not as a determination
of an object),* consequently the synthesis of the manifold in space,
if we make abstraction of space and attend merely to the act by
which we determine the internal sense according to its form, is that
which produces the conception of succession. The understanding,
therefore, does by no means find in the internal sense any such
synthesis of the manifold, but produces it, in that it affects this
sense. At the same time, how "I who think" is distinct from the "I"
which intuites itself (other modes of intuition being cogitable as
at least possible), and yet one and the same with this latter as the
same subject; how, therefore, I am able to say: "I, as an intelligence
and thinking subject, cognize myself as an object thought, so far as I
am, moreover, given to myself in intuition- only, like other
phenomena, not as I am in myself, and as considered by the
understanding, but merely as I appear"- is a question that has in it
neither more nor less difficulty than the question- "How can I be an
object to myself?" or this- "How I can be an object of my own
intuition and internal perceptions?" But that such must be the fact,
if we admit that space is merely a pure form of the phenomena of
external sense, can be clearly proved by the consideration that we
cannot represent time, which is not an object of external intuition,
in any other way than under the image of a line, which we draw in
thought, a mode of representation without which we could not cognize
the unity of its dimension, and also that we are necessitated to
take our determination of periods of time, or of points of time, for
all our internal perceptions from the changes which we perceive in
outward things. It follows that we must arrange the determinations
of the internal sense, as phenomena in time, exactly in the same
manner as we arrange those of the external senses in space. And
consequently, if we grant, respecting this latter, that by means of
them we know objects only in so far as we are affected externally,
we must also confess, with regard to the internal sense, that by means
of it we intuite ourselves only as we are internally affected by
ourselves; in other words, as regards internal intuition, we cognize
our own subject only as phenomenon, and not as it is in itself.*[2]
*Motion of an object in space does not belong to a pure science,
consequently not to geometry; because, that a thing is movable
cannot be known a priori, but only from experience. But motion,
considered as the description of a space, is a pure act of the
successive synthesis of the manifold in external intuition by means of
productive imagination, and belongs not only to geometry, but even
to transcendental philosophy.
*[2] I do not see why so much difficulty should be found in
admitting that our internal sense is affected by ourselves. Every
act of attention exemplifies it. In such an act the understanding
determines the internal sense by the synthetical conjunction which
it cogitates, conformably to the internal intuition which
corresponds to the manifold in the synthesis of the understanding. How
much the mind is usually affected thereby every one will be able to
perceive in himself.
SS 21
On the other hand, in the transcendental synthesis of the manifold
content of representations, consequently in the synthetical unity of
apperception, I am conscious of myself, not as I appear to myself, nor
as I am in myself, but only that "I am." This representation is a
thought, not an intuition. Now, as in order to cognize ourselves, in
addition to the act of thinking, which subjects the manifold of
every possible intuition to the unity of apperception, there is
necessary a determinate mode of intuition, whereby this manifold is
given; although my own existence is certainly not mere phenomenon
(much less mere illusion), the determination of my existence* Can only
take place conformably to the form of the internal sense, according to
the particular mode in which the manifold which I conjoin is given
in internal intuition, and I have therefore no knowledge of myself
as I am, but merely as I appear to myself. The consciousness of self
is thus very far from a knowledge of self, in which I do not use the
categories, whereby I cogitate an object, by means of the
conjunction of the manifold in one apperception. In the same way as
I require, for the sake of the cognition of an object distinct from
myself, not only the thought of an object in general (in the
category), but also an intuition by which to determine that general
conception, in the same way do I require, in order to the cognition of
myself, not only the consciousness of myself or the thought that I
think myself, but in addition an intuition of the manifold in
myself, by which to determine this thought. It is true that I exist as
an intelligence which is conscious only of its faculty of
conjunction or synthesis, but subjected in relation to the manifold
which this intelligence has to conjoin to a limitative conjunction
called the internal sense. My intelligence (that is, I) can render
that conjunction or synthesis perceptible only according to the
relations of time, which are quite beyond the proper sphere of the
conceptions of the understanding and consequently cognize itself in
respect to an intuition (which cannot possibly be intellectual, nor
given by the understanding), only as it appears to itself, and not
as it would cognize itself, if its intuition were intellectual.
*The "I think" expresses the act of determining my own existence. My
existence is thus already given by the act of consciousness; but the
mode in which I must determine my existence, that is, the mode in
which I must place the manifold belonging to my existence, is not
thereby given. For this purpose intuition of self is required, and
this intuition possesses a form given a priori, namely, time, which is
sensuous, and belongs to our receptivity of the determinable. Now,
as I do not possess another intuition of self which gives the
determining in me (of the spontaneity of which I am conscious),
prior to the act of determination, in the same manner as time gives
the determinable, it is clear that I am unable to determine my own
existence as that of a spontaneous being, but I am only able to
represent to myself the spontaneity of my thought, that is, of my
determination, and my existence remains ever determinable in a
purely sensuous manner, that is to say, like the existence of a
phenomenon. But it is because of this spontaneity that I call myself
an intelligence.
Transcendental Deduction of the universally possible
employment in experience of the Pure Conceptions
of the Understanding. SS 22
In the metaphysical deduction, the a priori origin of categories was
proved by their complete accordance with the general logical of
thought; in the transcendental deduction was exhibited the possibility
of the categories as a priori cognitions of objects of an intuition in
general (SS 16 and 17).At present we are about to explain the
possibility of cognizing, a priori, by means of the categories, all
objects which can possibly be presented to our senses, not, indeed,
according to the form of their intuition, but according to the laws of
their conjunction or synthesis, and thus, as it were, of prescribing
laws to nature and even of rendering nature possible. For if the
categories were inadequate to this task, it would not be evident to us
why everything that is presented to our senses must be subject to
those laws which have an a priori origin in the understanding itself.
I premise that by the term synthesis of apprehension I understand
the combination of the manifold in an empirical intuition, whereby
perception, that is, empirical consciousness of the intuition (as
phenomenon), is possible.
We have a priori forms of the external and internal sensuous
intuition in the representations of space and time, and to these
must the synthesis of apprehension of the manifold in a phenomenon
be always comformable, because the synthesis itself can only take
place according to these forms. But space and time are not merely
forms of sensuous intuition, but intuitions themselves (which
contain a manifold), and therefore contain a priori the
determination of the unity of this manifold.* (See the Transcendent
Aesthetic.) Therefore is unity of the synthesis of the manifold
without or within us, consequently also a conjunction to which all
that is to be represented as determined in space or time must
correspond, given a priori along with (not in) these intuitions, as
the condition of the synthesis of all apprehension of them. But this
synthetical unity can be no other than that of the conjunction of
the manifold of a given intuition in general, in a primitive act of
consciousness, according to the categories, but applied to our
sensuous intuition. Consequently all synthesis, whereby alone is
even perception possible, is subject to the categories. And, as
experience is cognition by means of conjoined perceptions, the
categories are conditions of the possibility of experience and are
therefore valid a priori for all objects of experience.
*Space represented as an object (as geometry really requires it to
be) contains more than the mere form of the intuition; namely, a
combination of the manifold given according to the form of sensibility
into a representation that can be intuited; so that the form of the
intuition gives us merely the manifold, but the formal intuition gives
unity of representation. In the aesthetic, I regarded this unity as
belonging entirely to sensibility, for the purpose of indicating
that it antecedes all conceptions, although it presupposes a synthesis
which does not belong to sense, through which alone, however, all
our conceptions of space and time are possible. For as by means of
this unity alone (the understanding determining the sensibility) space
and time are given as intuitions, it follows that the unity of this
intuition a priori belongs to space and time, and not to the
conception of the understanding (SS 20).
When, then, for example, I make the empirical intuition of a house
by apprehension of the manifold contained therein into a perception,
the necessary unity of space and of my external sensuous intuition
lies at the foundation of this act, and I, as it were, draw the form
of the house conformably to this synthetical unity of the manifold
in space. But this very synthetical unity remains, even when I
abstract the form of space, and has its seat in the understanding, and
is in fact the category of the synthesis of the homogeneous in an
intuition; that is to say, the category of quantity, to which the
aforesaid synthesis of apprehension, that is, the perception, must
be completely conformable.*
*In this manner it is proved, that the synthesis of apprehension,
which is empirical, must necessarily be conformable to the synthesis
of apperception, which is intellectual, and contained a priori in
the category. It is one and the same spontaneity which at one time,
under the name of imagination, at another under that of understanding,
produces conjunction in the manifold of intuition.
To take another example, when I perceive the freezing of water, I
apprehend two states (fluidity and solidity), which, as such, stand
toward each other mutually in a relation of time. But in the time,
which I place as an internal intuition, at the foundation of this
phenomenon, I represent to myself synthetical unity of the manifold,
without which the aforesaid relation could not be given in an
intuition as determined (in regard to the succession of time). Now
this synthetical unity, as the a priori condition under which I
conjoin the manifold of an intuition, is, if I make abstraction of the
permanent form of my internal intuition (that is to say, of time), the
category of cause, by means of which, when applied to my
sensibility, I determine everything that occurs according to relations
of time. Consequently apprehension in such an event, and the event
itself, as far as regards the possibility of its perception, stands
under the conception of the relation of cause and effect: and so in
all other cases.
Categories are conceptions which prescribe laws a priori to
phenomena, consequently to nature as the complex of all phenomena
(natura materialiter spectata). And now the question arises-
inasmuch as these categories are not derived from nature, and do not
regulate themselves according to her as their model (for in that
case they would be empirical)- how it is conceivable that nature
must regulate herself according to them, in other words, how the
categories can determine a priori the synthesis of the manifold of
nature, and yet not derive their origin from her. The following is the
solution of this enigma.
It is not in the least more difficult to conceive how the laws of
the phenomena of nature must harmonize with the understanding and with
its a priori form- that is, its faculty of conjoining the manifold-
than it is to understand how the phenomena themselves must
correspond with the a priori form of our sensuous intuition. For
laws do not exist in the phenomena any more than the phenomena exist
as things in themselves. Laws do not exist except by relation to the
subject in which the phenomena inhere, in so far as it possesses
understanding, just as phenomena have no existence except by
relation to the same existing subject in so far as it has senses. To
things as things in themselves, conformability to law must necessarily
belong independently of an understanding to cognize them. But
phenomena are only representations of things which are utterly unknown
in respect to what they are in themselves. But as mere
representations, they stand under no law of conjunction except that
which the conjoining faculty prescribes. Now that which conjoins the
manifold of sensuous intuition is imagination, a mental act to which
understanding contributes unity of intellectual synthesis, and
sensibility, manifoldness of apprehension. Now as all possible
perception depends on the synthesis of apprehension, and this
empirical synthesis itself on the transcendental, consequently on
the categories, it is evident that all possible perceptions, and
therefore everything that can attain to empirical consciousness,
that is, all phenomena of nature, must, as regards their
conjunction, be subject to the categories. And nature (considered
merely as nature in general) is dependent on them. as the original
ground of her necessary conformability to law (as natura formaliter
spectata). But the pure faculty (of the understanding) of
prescribing laws a priori to phenomena by means of mere categories, is
not competent to enounce other or more laws than those on which a
nature in general, as a conformability to law of phenomena of space
and time, depends. Particular laws, inasmuch as they concern
empirically determined phenomena, cannot be entirely deduced from pure
laws, although they all stand under them. Experience must be
superadded in order to know these particular laws; but in regard to
experience in general, and everything that can be cognized as an
object thereof, these a priori laws are our only rule and guide.
Result of this Deduction of the Conceptions of the
Understanding. SS 23
We cannot think any object except by means of the categories; we
cannot cognize any thought except by means of intuitions corresponding
to these conceptions. Now all our intuitions are sensuous, and our
cognition, in so far as the object of it is given, is empirical. But
empirical cognition is experience; consequently no a priori
cognition is possible for us, except of objects of possible
experience.*
*Lest my readers should stumble at this assertion, and the
conclusions that may be too rashly drawn from it, I must remind them
that the categories in the act of thought are by no means limited by
the conditions of our sensuous intuition, but have an unbounded sphere
of action. It is only the cognition of the object of thought, the
determining of the object, which requires intuition. In the absence of
intuition, our thought of an object may still have true and useful
consequences in regard to the exercise of reason by the subject. But
as this exercise of reason is not always directed on the determination
of the object, in other words, on cognition thereof, but also on the
determination of the subject and its volition, I do not intend to
treat of it in this place.
But this cognition, which is limited to objects of experience, is
not for that reason derived entirely, from, experience, but- and
this is asserted of the pure intuitions and the pure conceptions of
the understanding- there are, unquestionably, elements of cognition,
which exist in the mind a priori. Now there are only two ways in which
a necessary harmony of experience with the conceptions of its
objects can be cogitated. Either experience makes these conceptions
possible, or the conceptions make experience possible. The former of
these statements will not bold good with respect to the categories
(nor in regard to pure sensuous intuition), for they are a priori
conceptions, and therefore independent of experience. The assertion of
an empirical origin would attribute to them a sort of generatio
aequivoca. Consequently, nothing remains but to adopt the second
alternative (which presents us with a system, as it were, of the
epigenesis of pure reason), namely, that on the part of the
understanding the categories do contain the grounds of the possibility
of all experience. But with respect to the questions how they make
experience possible, and what are the principles of the possibility
thereof with which they present us in their application to
phenomena, the following section on the transce
