CHAPTER III Of the Ground of the Division of all Objects
into Phenomena and Noumena.
We have now not only traversed the region of the pure
understanding and carefully surveyed every part of it, but we have
also measured it, and assigned to everything therein its proper place.
But this land is an island, and enclosed by nature herself within
unchangeable limits. It is the land of truth (an attractive word),
surrounded by a wide and stormy ocean, the region of illusion, where
many a fog-bank, many an iceberg, seems to the mariner, on his
voyage of discovery, a new country, and, while constantly deluding him
with vain hopes, engages him in dangerous adventures, from which he
never can desist, and which yet he never can bring to a termination.
But before venturing upon this sea, in order to explore it in its
whole extent, and to arrive at a certainty whether anything is to be
discovered there, it will not be without advantage if we cast our eyes
upon the chart of the land that we are about to leave, and to ask
ourselves, firstly, whether we cannot rest perfectly contented with
what it contains, or whether we must not of necessity be contented
with it, if we can find nowhere else a solid foundation to build upon;
and, secondly, by what title we possess this land itself, and how we
hold it secure against all hostile claims? Although, in the course
of our analytic, we have already given sufficient answers to these
questions, yet a summary recapitulation of these solutions may be
useful in strengthening our conviction, by uniting in one point the
momenta of the arguments.
We have seen that everything which the understanding draws from
itself, without borrowing from experience, it nevertheless possesses
only for the behoof and use of experience. The principles of the
pure understanding, whether constitutive a priori (as the mathematical
principles), or merely regulative (as the dynamical), contain
nothing but the pure schema, as it were, of possible experience. For
experience possesses its unity from the synthetical unity which the
understanding, originally and from itself, imparts to the synthesis of
the imagination in relation to apperception, and in a priori
relation to and agreement with which phenomena, as data for a possible
cognition, must stand. But although these rules of the understanding
are not only a priori true, but the very source of all truth, that is,
of the accordance of our cognition with objects, and on this ground,
that they contain the basis of the possibility of experience, as the
ensemble of all cognition, it seems to us not enough to propound
what is true- we desire also to be told what we want to know. If,
then, we learn nothing more by this critical examination than what
we should have practised in the merely empirical use of the
understanding, without any such subtle inquiry, the presumption is
that the advantage we reap from it is not worth the labour bestowed
upon it. It may certainly be answered that no rash curiosity is more
prejudicial to the enlargement of our knowledge than that which must
know beforehand the utility of this or that piece of information which
we seek, before we have entered on the needful investigations, and
before one could form the least conception of its utility, even though
it were placed before our eyes. But there is one advantage in such
transcendental inquiries which can be made comprehensible to the
dullest and most reluctant learner- this, namely, that the
understanding which is occupied merely with empirical exercise, and
does not reflect on the sources of its own cognition, may exercise its
functions very well and very successfully, but is quite unable to do
one thing, and that of very great importance, to determine, namely,
the bounds that limit its employment, and to know what lies within
or without its own sphere. This purpose can be obtained only by such
profound investigations as we have instituted. But if it cannot
distinguish whether certain questions lie within its horizon or not,
it can never be sure either as to its claims or possessions, but
must lay its account with many humiliating corrections, when it
transgresses, as it unavoidably will, the limits of its own territory,
and loses itself in fanciful opinions and blinding illusions.
That the understanding, therefore, cannot make of its a priori
principles, or even of its conceptions, other than an empirical use,
is a proposition which leads to the most important results. A
transcendental use is made of a conception in a fundamental
proposition or principle, when it is referred to things in general and
considered as things in themselves; an empirical use, when it is
referred merely to phenomena, that is, to objects of a possible
experience. That the latter use of a conception is the only admissible
one is evident from the reasons following. For every conception are
requisite, firstly, the logical form of a conception (of thought)
general; and, secondly, the possibility of presenting to this an
object to which it may apply. Failing this latter, it has no sense,
and utterly void of content, although it may contain the logical
function for constructing a conception from certain data. Now,
object cannot be given to a conception otherwise than by intuition,
and, even if a pure intuition antecedent to the object is a priori
possible, this pure intuition can itself obtain objective validity
only from empirical intuition, of which it is itself but the form. All
conceptions, therefore, and with them all principles, however high the
degree of their a priori possibility, relate to empirical
intuitions, that is, to data towards a possible experience. Without
this they possess no objective validity, but are mere play of
imagination or of understanding with images or notions. Let us take,
for example, the conceptions of mathematics, and first in its pure
intuitions. "Space has three dimensions"- "Between two points there
can be only one straight line," etc. Although all these principles,
and the representation of the object with which this science
occupies itself, are generated in the mind entirely a priori, they
would nevertheless have no significance if we were not always able
to exhibit their significance in and by means of phenomena
(empirical objects). Hence it is requisite that an abstract conception
be made sensuous, that is, that an object corresponding to it in
intuition be forthcoming, otherwise the conception remains, as we say,
without sense, that is, without meaning. Mathematics fulfils this
requirement by the construction of the figure, which is a phenomenon
evident to the senses. The same science finds support and significance
in number; this in its turn finds it in the fingers, or in counters,
or in lines and points. The conception itself is always produced a
priori, together with the synthetical principles or formulas from such
conceptions; but the proper employment of them, and their
application to objects, can exist nowhere but in experience, the
possibility of which, as regards its form, they contain a priori.
That this is also the case with all of the categories and the
principles based upon them is evident from the fact that we cannot
render intelligible the possibility of an object corresponding to them
without having recourse to the conditions of sensibility,
consequently, to the form of phenomena, to which, as their only proper
objects, their use must therefore be confined, inasmuch as, if this
condition is removed, all significance, that is, all relation to an
object, disappears, and no example can be found to make it
comprehensible what sort of things we ought to think under such
conceptions.
The conception of quantity cannot be explained except by saying that
it is the determination of a thing whereby it can be cogitated how
many times one is placed in it. But this "how many times" is based
upon successive repetition, consequently upon time and the synthesis
of the homogeneous therein. Reality, in contradistinction to negation,
can be explained only by cogitating a time which is either filled
therewith or is void. If I leave out the notion of permanence (which
is existence in all time), there remains in the conception of
substance nothing but the logical notion of subject, a notion of which
I endeavour to realize by representing to myself something that can
exist only as a subject. But not only am I perfectly ignorant of any
conditions under which this logical prerogative can belong to a thing,
I can make nothing out of the notion, and draw no inference from it,
because no object to which to apply the conception is determined,
and we consequently do not know whether it has any meaning at all.
In like manner, if I leave out the notion of time, in which
something follows upon some other thing in conformity with a rule, I
can find nothing in the pure category, except that there is a
something of such a sort that from it a conclusion may be drawn as
to the existence of some other thing. But in this case it would not
only be impossible to distinguish between a cause and an effect,
but, as this power to draw conclusions requires conditions of which
I am quite ignorant, the conception is not determined as to the mode
in which it ought to apply to an object. The so-called principle:
"Everything that is contingent has a cause," comes with a gravity
and self-assumed authority that seems to require no support from
without. But, I ask, what is meant by contingent? The answer is that
the non-existence of which is possible. But I should like very well to
know by what means this possibility of non-existence is to be
cognized, if we do not represent to ourselves a succession in the
series of phenomena, and in this succession an existence which follows
a non-existence, or conversely, consequently, change. For to say, that
the non-existence of a thing is not self-contradictory is a lame
appeal to a logical condition, which is no doubt a necessary condition
of the existence of the conception, but is far from being sufficient
for the real objective possibility of non-existence. I can
annihilate in thought every existing substance without
self-contradiction, but I cannot infer from this their objective
contingency in existence, that is to say, the possibility of their
non-existence in itself. As regards the category of community, it
may easily be inferred that, as the pure categories of substance and
causality are incapable of a definition and explanation sufficient
to determine their object without the aid of intuition, the category
of reciprocal causality in the relation of substances to each other
(commercium) is just as little susceptible thereof. Possibility,
existence, and necessity nobody has ever yet been able to explain
without being guilty of manifest tautology, when the definition has
been drawn entirely from the pure understanding. For the
substitution of the logical possibility of the conception- the
condition of which is that it be not self-contradictory, for the
transcendental possibility of things- the condition of which is that
there be an object corresponding to the conception, is a trick which
can only deceive the inexperienced.*
*In one word, to none of these conceptions belongs a corresponding
object, and consequently their real possibility cannot be
demonstrated, if we take away sensuous intuition- the only intuition
which we possess- and there then remains nothing but the logical
possibility, that is, the fact that the conception or thought is
possible- which, however, is not the question; what we want to know
being, whether it relates to an object and thus possesses any meaning.
It follows incontestably, that the pure conceptions of the
understanding are incapable of transcendental, and must always be of
empirical use alone, and that the principles of the pure understanding
relate only to the general conditions of a possible experience, to
objects of the senses, and never to things in general, apart from
the mode in which we intuite them.
Transcendental analytic has accordingly this important result, to
wit, that the understanding is competent' effect nothing a priori,
except the anticipation of the form of a possible experience in
general, and that, as that which is not phenomenon cannot be an object
of experience, it can never overstep the limits of sensibility, within
which alone objects are presented to us. Its principles are merely
principles of the exposition of phenomena, and the proud name of an
ontology, which professes to present synthetical cognitions a priori
of things in general in a systematic doctrine, must give place to
the modest title of analytic of the pure understanding.
Thought is the act of referring a given intuition to an object. If
the mode of this intuition is unknown to us, the object is merely
transcendental, and the conception of the understanding is employed
only transcendentally, that is, to produce unity in the thought of a
manifold in general. Now a pure category, in which all conditions of
sensuous intuition- as the only intuition we possess- are
abstracted, does not determine an object, but merely expresses the
thought of an object in general, according to different modes. Now, to
employ a conception, the function of judgement is required, by which
an object is subsumed under the conception, consequently the at
least formal condition, under which something can be given in
intuition. Failing this condition of judgement (schema), subsumption
is impossible; for there is in such a case nothing given, which may be
subsumed under the conception. The merely transcendental use of the
categories is therefore, in fact, no use at all and has no determined,
or even, as regards its form, determinable object. Hence it follows
that the pure category is incompetent to establish a synthetical a
priori principle, and that the principles of the pure understanding
are only of empirical and never of transcendental use, and that beyond
the sphere of possible experience no synthetical a priori principles
are possible.
It may be advisable, therefore, to express ourselves thus. The
pure categories, apart from the formal conditions of sensibility, have
a merely transcendental meaning, but are nevertheless not of
transcendental use, because this is in itself impossible, inasmuch
as all the conditions of any employment or use of them (in judgements)
are absent, to wit, the formal conditions of the subsumption of an
object under these conceptions. As, therefore, in the character of
pure categories, they must be employed empirically, and cannot be
employed transcendentally, they are of no use at all, when separated
from sensibility, that is, they cannot be applied to an object. They
are merely the pure form of the employment of the understanding in
respect of objects in general and of thought, without its being at the
same time possible to think or to determine any object by their means.
But there lurks at the foundation of this subject an illusion
which it is very difficult to avoid. The categories are not based,
as regards their origin, upon sensibility, like the forms of
intuition, space, and time; they seem, therefore, to be capable of
an application beyond the sphere of sensuous objects. But this is
not the case. They are nothing but mere forms of thought, which
contain only the logical faculty of uniting a priori in
consciousness the manifold given in intuition. Apart, then, from the
only intuition possible for us, they have still less meaning than
the pure sensuous forms, space and time, for through them an object is
at least given, while a mode of connection of the manifold, when the
intuition which alone gives the manifold is wanting, has no meaning at
all. At the same time, when we designate certain objects as
phenomena or sensuous existences, thus distinguishing our mode of
intuiting them from their own nature as things in themselves, it is
evident that by this very distinction we as it were place the
latter, considered in this their own nature, although we do not so
intuite them, in opposition to the former, or, on the other hand, we
do so place other possible things, which are not objects of our
senses, but are cogitated by the understanding alone, and call them
intelligible existences (noumena). Now the question arises whether the
pure conceptions of our understanding do possess significance in
respect of these latter, and may possibly be a mode of cognizing them.
But we are met at the very commencement with an ambiguity, which may
easily occasion great misapprehension. The understanding, when it
terms an object in a certain relation phenomenon, at the same time
forms out of this relation a representation or notion of an object
in itself, and hence believes that it can form also conceptions of
such objects. Now as the understanding possesses no other
fundamental conceptions besides the categories, it takes for granted
that an object considered as a thing in itself must be capable of
being thought by means of these pure conceptions, and is thereby led
to hold the perfectly undetermined conception of an intelligible
existence, a something out of the sphere of our sensibility, for a
determinate conception of an existence which we can cognize in some
way or other by means of the understanding.
If, by the term noumenon, we understand a thing so far as it is
not an object of our sensuous intuition, thus making abstraction of
our mode of intuiting it, this is a noumenon in the negative sense
of the word. But if we understand by it an object of a non-sensuous
intuition, we in this case assume a peculiar mode of intuition, an
intellectual intuition, to wit, which does not, however, belong to us,
of the very possibility of which we have no notion- and this is a
noumenon in the positive sense.
The doctrine of sensibility is also the doctrine of noumena in the
negative sense, that is, of things which the understanding is
obliged to cogitate apart from any relation to our mode of
intuition, consequently not as mere phenomena, but as things in
themselves. But the understanding at the same time comprehends that it
cannot employ its categories for the consideration of things in
themselves, because these possess significance only in relation to the
unity of intuitions in space and time, and that they are competent
to determine this unity by means of general a priori connecting
conceptions only on account of the pure ideality of space and time.
Where this unity of time is not to be met with, as is the case with
noumena, the whole use, indeed the whole meaning of the categories
is entirely lost, for even the possibility of things to correspond
to the categories is in this case incomprehensible. On this point, I
need only refer the reader to what I have said at the commencement
of the General Remark appended to the foregoing chapter. Now, the
possibility of a thing can never be proved from the fact that the
conception of it is not self-contradictory, but only by means of an
intuition corresponding to the conception. If, therefore, we wish to
apply the categories to objects which cannot be regarded as phenomena,
we must have an intuition different from the sensuous, and in this
case the objects would be a noumena in the positive sense of the word.
Now, as such an intuition, that is, an intellectual intuition, is no
part of our faculty of cognition, it is absolutely impossible for
the categories to possess any application beyond the limits of
experience. It may be true that there are intelligible existences to
which our faculty of sensuous intuition has no relation, and cannot be
applied, but our conceptions of the understanding, as mere forms of
thought for our sensuous intuition, do not extend to these. What,
therefore, we call noumenon must be understood by us as such in a
negative sense.
If I take away from an empirial intuition all thought (by means of
the categories), there remains no cognition of any object; for by
means of mere intuition nothing is cogitated, and, from the
existence of such or such an affection of sensibility in me, it does
not follow that this affection or representation has any relation to
an object without me. But if I take away all intuition, there still
remains the form of thought, that is, the mode of determining an
object for the manifold of a possible intuition. Thus the categories
do in some measure really extend further than sensuous intuition,
inasmuch as they think objects in general, without regard to the
mode (of sensibility) in which these objects are given. But they do
not for this reason apply to and determine a wider sphere of
objects, because we cannot assume that such can be given, without
presupposing the possibility of another than the sensuous mode of
intuition, a supposition we are not justified in making.
I call a conception problematical which contains in itself no
contradiction, and which is connected with other cognitions as a
limitation of given conceptions, but whose objective reality cannot be
cognized in any manner. The conception of a noumenon, that is, of a
thing which must be cogitated not as an object of sense, but as a
thing in itself (solely through the pure understanding), is not
self-contradictory, for we are not entitled to maintain that
sensibility is the only possible mode of intuition. Nay, further, this
conception is necessary to restrain sensuous intuition within the
bounds of phenomena, and thus to limit the objective validity of
sensuous cognition; for things in themselves, which lie beyond its
province, are called noumena for the very purpose of indicating that
this cognition does not extend its application to all that the
understanding thinks. But, after all, the possibility of such
noumena is quite incomprehensible, and beyond the sphere of phenomena,
all is for us a mere void; that is to say, we possess an understanding
whose province does problematically extend beyond this sphere, but
we do not possess an intuition, indeed, not even the conception of a
possible intuition, by means of which objects beyond the region of
sensibility could be given us, and in reference to which the
understanding might be employed assertorically. The conception of a
noumenon is therefore merely a limitative conception and therefore
only of negative use. But it is not an arbitrary or fictitious notion,
but is connected with the limitation of sensibility, without, however,
being capable of presenting us with any positive datum beyond this
sphere.
The division of objects into phenomena and noumena, and of the world
into a mundus sensibilis and intelligibilis is therefore quite
inadmissible in a positive sense, although conceptions do certainly
admit of such a division; for the class of noumena have no determinate
object corresponding to them, and cannot therefore possess objective
validity. If we abandon the senses, how can it be made conceivable
that the categories (which are the only conceptions that could serve
as conceptions for noumena) have any sense or meaning at all, inasmuch
as something more than the mere unity of thought, namely, a possible
intuition, is requisite for their application to an object? The
conception of a noumenon, considered as merely problematical, is,
however, not only admissible, but, as a limitative conception of
sensibility, absolutely necessary. But, in this case, a noumenon is
not a particular intelligible object for our understanding; on the
contrary, the kind of understanding to which it could belong is itself
a problem, for we cannot form the most distant conception of the
possibility of an understanding which should cognize an object, not
discursively by means of categories, but intuitively in a non-sensuous
intuition. Our understanding attains in this way a sort of negative
extension. That is to say, it is not limited by, but rather limits,
sensibility, by giving the name of noumena to things, not considered
as phenomena, but as things in themselves. But it at the same time
prescribes limits to itself, for it confesses itself unable to cognize
these by means of the categories, and hence is compelled to cogitate
them merely as an unknown something.
I find, however, in the writings of modern authors, an entirely
different use of the expressions, mundus sensibilis and
intelligibilis, which quite departs from the meaning of the
ancients- an acceptation in which, indeed, there is to be found no
difficulty, but which at the same time depends on mere verbal
quibbling. According to this meaning, some have chosen to call the
complex of phenomena, in so far as it is intuited, mundus
sensibilis, but in so far as the connection thereof is cogitated
according to general laws of thought, mundus intelligibilis.
Astronomy, in so far as we mean by the word the mere observation of
the starry heaven, may represent the former; a system of astronomy,
such as the Copernican or Newtonian, the latter. But such twisting
of words is a mere sophistical subterfuge, to avoid a difficult
question, by modifying its meaning to suit our own convenience. To
be sure, understanding and reason are employed in the cognition of
phenomena; but the question is, whether these can be applied when
the object is not a phenomenon and in this sense we regard it if it is
cogitated as given to the understanding alone, and not to the
senses. The question therefore is whether, over and above the
empirical use of the understanding, a transcendental use is
possible, which applies to the noumenon as an object. This question we
have answered in the negative.
When therefore we say, the senses represent objects as they
appear, the understanding as they are, the latter statement must not
be understood in a transcendental, but only in an empirical
signification, that is, as they must be represented in the complete
connection of phenomena, and not according to what they may be,
apart from their relation to possible experience, consequently not
as objects of the pure understanding. For this must ever remain
unknown to us. Nay, it is also quite unknown to us whether any such
transcendental or extraordinary cognition is possible under any
circumstances, at least, whether it is possible by means of our
categories. Understanding and sensibility, with us, can determine
objects only in conjunction. If we separate them, we have intuitions
without conceptions, or conceptions without intuitions; in both cases,
representations, which we cannot apply to any determinate object.
If, after all our inquiries and explanations, any one still
hesitates to abandon the mere transcendental use of the categories,
let him attempt to construct with them a synthetical proposition. It
would, of course, be unnecessary for this purpose to construct an
analytical proposition, for that does not extend the sphere of the
understanding, but, being concerned only about what is cogitated in
the conception itself, it leaves it quite undecided whether the
conception has any relation to objects, or merely indicates the
unity of thought- complete abstraction being made of the modi in which
an object may be given: in such a proposition, it is sufficient for
the understanding to know what lies in the conception- to what it
applies is to it indifferent. The attempt must therefore be made
with a synthetical and so-called transcendental principle, for
example: "Everything that exists, exists as substance," or,
"Everything that is contingent exists as an effect of some other
thing, viz., of its cause." Now I ask, whence can the understanding
draw these synthetical propositions, when the conceptions contained
therein do not relate to possible experience but to things in
themselves (noumena)? Where is to be found the third term, which is
always requisite PURE site in a synthetical proposition, which may
connect in the same proposition conceptions which have no logical
(analytical) connection with each other? The proposition never will be
demonstrated, nay, more, the possibility of any such pure assertion
never can be shown, without making reference to the empirical use of
the understanding, and thus, ipso facto, completely renouncing pure
and non-sensuous judgement. Thus the conception of pure and merely
intelligible objects is completely void of all principles of its
application, because we cannot imagine any mode in which they might be
given, and the problematical thought which leaves a place open for
them serves only, like a void space, to limit the use of empirical
principles, without containing at the same time any other object of
cognition beyond their sphere.
