CHAPTER I. Of the Paralogisms of Pure Reason.
The logical paralogism consists in the falsity of an argument in
respect of its form, be the content what it may. But a
transcendental paralogism has a transcendental foundation, and
concludes falsely, while the form is correct and unexceptionable. In
this manner the paralogism has its foundation in the nature of human
reason, and is the parent of an unavoidable, though not insoluble,
mental illusion.
We now come to a conception which was not inserted in the general
list of transcendental conceptions. and yet must be reckoned with
them, but at the same time without in the least altering, or
indicating a deficiency in that table. This is the conception, or,
if the term is preferred, the judgement, "I think." But it is
readily perceived that this thought is as it were the vehicle of all
conceptions in general, and consequently of transcendental conceptions
also, and that it is therefore regarded as a transcendental
conception, although it can have no peculiar claim to be so ranked,
inasmuch as its only use is to indicate that all thought is
accompanied by consciousness. At the same time, pure as this
conception is from empirical content (impressions of the senses), it
enables us to distinguish two different kinds of objects. "I," as
thinking, am an object of the internal sense, and am called soul. That
which is an object of the external senses is called body. Thus the
expression, "I," as a thinking being, designates the object-matter
of psychology, which may be called "the rational doctrine of the
soul," inasmuch as in this science I desire to know nothing of the
soul but what, independently of all experience (which determines me in
concreto), may be concluded from this conception "I," in so far as
it appears in all thought.
Now, the rational doctrine of the soul is really an undertaking of
this kind. For if the smallest empirical element of thought, if any
particular perception of my internal state, were to be introduced
among the grounds of cognition of this science, it would not be a
rational, but an empirical doctrine of the soul. We have thus before
us a pretended science, raised upon the single proposition, "I think,"
whose foundation or want of foundation we may very properly, and
agreeably with the nature of a transcendental philosophy, here
examine. It ought not to be objected that in this proposition, which
expresses the perception of one's self, an internal experience is
asserted, and that consequently the rational doctrine of the soul
which is founded upon it, is not pure, but partly founded upon an
empirical principle. For this internal perception is nothing more than
the mere apperception, "I think," which in fact renders all
transcendental conceptions possible, in which we say, "I think
substance, cause, etc." For internal experience in general and its
possibility, or perception in general, and its relation to other
perceptions, unless some particular distinction or determination
thereof is empirically given, cannot be regarded as empirical
cognition, but as cognition of the empirical, and belongs to the
investigation of the possibility of every experience, which is
certainly transcendental. The smallest object of experience (for
example, only pleasure or pain), that should be included in the
general representation of self-consciousness, would immediately change
the rational into an empirical psychology.
"I think" is therefore the only text of rational psychology, from
which it must develop its whole system. It is manifest that this
thought, when applied to an object (myself), can contain nothing but
transcendental predicates thereof; because the least empirical
predicate would destroy the purity of the science and its independence
of all experience.
But we shall have to follow here the guidance of the categories-
only, as in the present case a thing, "I," as thinking being, is at
first given, we shall- not indeed change the order of the categories
as it stands in the table- but begin at the category of substance,
by which at the a thing a thing is represented and proceeds
backwards through the series. The topic of the rational doctrine of
the soul, from which everything else it may contain must be deduced,
is accordingly as follows:
1 2
The Soul is SUBSTANCE As regards its quality
it is SIMPLE
3
As regards the different
times in which it exists,
it is numerically identical,
that is UNITY, not Plurality.
4
It is in relation to possible objects in space*
*The reader, who may not so easily perceive the psychological
sense of these expressions, taken here in their transcendental
abstraction, and cannot guess why the latter attribute of the soul
belongs to the category of existence, will find the expressions
sufficiently explained and justified in the sequel. I have,
moreover, to apologize for the Latin terms which have been
employed,instead of their German synonyms, contrary to the rules of
correct writing. But I judged it better to sacrifice elegance to
perspicuity.
From these elements originate all the conceptions of pure
psychology, by combination alone, without the aid of any other
principle. This substance, merely as an object of the internal
sense, gives the conception of Immateriality; as simple substance,
that of Incorruptibility; its identity, as intellectual substance,
gives the conception of Personality; all these three together,
Spirituality. Its relation to objects in space gives us the conception
of connection (commercium) with bodies. Thus it represents thinking
substance as the principle of life in matter, that is, as a soul
(anima), and as the ground of Animality; and this, limited and
determined by the conception of spirituality, gives us that of
Immortality.
Now to these conceptions relate four paralogisms of a transcendental
psychology, which is falsely held to be a science of pure reason.
touching the nature of our thinking being. We can, however, lay at the
foundation of this science nothing but the simple and in itself
perfectly contentless representation "I which cannot even be called
a conception, but merely a consciousness which accompanies all
conceptions. By this "I," or "He," or "It," who or which thinks,
nothing more is represented than a transcendental subject of thought =
x, which is cognized only by means of the thoughts that are its
predicates, and of which, apart from these, we cannot form the least
conception. Hence in a perpetual circle, inasmuch as we must always
employ it, in order to frame any judgement respecting it. And this
inconvenience we find it impossible to rid ourselves of, because
consciousness in itself is not so much a representation distinguishing
a particular object, as a form of representation in general, in so far
as it may be termed cognition; for in and by cognition alone do I
think anything.
It must, however, appear extraordinary at first sight that the
condition under which I think, and which is consequently a property of
my subject, should be held to be likewise valid for every existence
which thinks, and that we can presume to base upon a seemingly
empirical proposition a judgement which is apodeictic and universal,
to wit, that everything which thinks is constituted as the voice of my
consciousness declares it to be, that is, as a self-conscious being.
The cause of this belief is to be found in the fact that we
necessarily attribute to things a priori all the properties which
constitute conditions under which alone we can cogitate them. Now I
cannot obtain the least representation of a thinking being by means of
external experience, but solely through self-consciousness. Such
objects are consequently nothing more than the transference of this
consciousness of mine to other things which can only thus be
represented as thinking beings. The proposition, "I think," is, in the
present case, understood in a problematical sense, not in so far as it
contains a perception of an existence (like the Cartesian "Cogito,
ergo sum"),* but in regard to its mere possibility- for the purpose of
discovering what properties may be inferred from so simple a
proposition and predicated of the subject of it.
*["I think, therefore I am."]
If at the foundation of our pure rational cognition of thinking
beings there lay more than the mere Cogito- if we could likewise
call in aid observations on the play of our thoughts, and the thence
derived natural laws of the thinking self, there would arise an
empirical psychology which would be a kind of physiology of the
internal sense and might possibly be capable of explaining the
phenomena of that sense. But it could never be available for
discovering those properties which do not belong to possible
experience (such as the quality of simplicity), nor could it make
any apodeictic enunciation on the nature of thinking beings: it
would therefore not be a rational psychology.
Now, as the proposition "I think" (in the problematical sense)
contains the form of every judgement in general and is the constant
accompaniment of all the categories, it is manifest that conclusions
are drawn from it only by a transcendental employment of the
understanding. This use of the understanding excludes all empirical
elements; and we cannot, as has been shown above, have any
favourable conception beforehand of its procedure. We shall
therefore follow with a critical eye this proposition through all
the predicaments of pure psychology; but we shall, for brevity's sake,
allow this examination to proceed in an uninterrupted connection.
Before entering on this task, however, the following general
remark may help to quicken our attention to this mode of argument.
It is not merely through my thinking that I cognize an object, but
only through my determining a given intuition in relation to the unity
of consciousness in which all thinking consists. It follows that I
cognize myself, not through my being conscious of myself as
thinking, but only when I am conscious of the intuition of myself as
determined in relation to the function of thought. All the modi of
self-consciousness in thought are hence not conceptions of objects
(conceptions of the understanding- categories); they are mere
logical functions, which do not present to thought an object to be
cognized, and cannot therefore present my Self as an object. Not the
consciousness of the determining, but only that of the determinable
self, that is, of my internal intuition (in so far as the manifold
contained in it can be connected conformably with the general
condition of the unity of apperception in thought), is the object.
1. In all judgements I am the determining subject of that relation
which constitutes a judgement. But that the I which thinks, must be
considered as in thought always a subject, and as a thing which cannot
be a predicate to thought, is an apodeictic and identical proposition.
But this proposition does not signify that I, as an object, am, for
myself, a self-subsistent being or substance. This latter statement-
an ambitious one- requires to be supported by data which are not to be
discovered in thought; and are perhaps (in so far as I consider the
thinking self merely as such) not to be discovered in the thinking
self at all.
2. That the I or Ego of apperception, and consequently in all
thought, is singular or simple, an;3 cannot be resolved into a
plurality of subjects, and therefore indicates a logically simple
subject- this is self-evident from the very conception of an Ego,
and is consequently an analytical proposition. But this is not
tantamount to declaring that the thinking Ego is a simple substance-
for this would be a synthetical proposition. The conception of
substance always relates to intuitions, which with me cannot be
other than sensuous, and which consequently lie completely out of
the sphere of the understanding and its thought: but to this sphere
belongs the affirmation that the Ego is simple in thought. It would
indeed be surprising, if the conception of "substance," which in other
cases requires so much labour to distinguish from the other elements
presented by intuition- so much trouble, too, to discover whether it
can be simple (as in the case of the parts of matter)- should be
presented immediately to me, as if by revelation, in the poorest
mental representation of all.
3. The proposition of the identity of my Self amidst all the
manifold representations of which I am conscious, is likewise a
proposition lying in the conceptions themselves, and is consequently
analytical. But this identity of the subject, of which I am
conscious in all its representations, does not relate to or concern
the intuition of the subject, by which it is given as an object.
This proposition cannot therefore enounce the identity of the
person, by which is understood the consciousness of the identity of
its own substance as a thinking being in all change and variation of
circumstances. To prove this, we should require not a mere analysis of
the proposition, but synthetical judgements based upon a given
intuition.
4. I distinguish my own existence, as that of a thinking being, from
that of other things external to me- among which my body also is
reckoned. This is also an analytical proposition, for other things are
exactly those which I think as different or distinguished from myself.
But whether this consciousness of myself is possible without things
external to me; and whether therefore I can exist merely as a thinking
being (without being man)- cannot be known or inferred from this
proposition.
Thus we have gained nothing as regards the cognition of myself as
object, by the analysis of the consciousness of my Self in thought.
The logical exposition of thought in general is mistaken for a
metaphysical determination of the object.
Our Critique would be an investigation utterly superfluous, if there
existed a possibility of proving a priori, that all thinking beings
are in themselves simple substances, as such, therefore, possess the
inseparable attribute of personality, and are conscious of their
existence apart from and unconnected with matter. For we should thus
have taken a step beyond the world of sense, and have penetrated
into the sphere of noumena; and in this case the right could not be
denied us of extending our knowledge in this sphere, of establishing
ourselves, and, under a favouring star, appropriating to ourselves
possessions in it. For the proposition: "Every thinking being, as
such, is simple substance," is an a priori synthetical proposition;
because in the first place it goes beyond the conception which is
the subject of it, and adds to the mere notion of a thinking being the
mode of its existence, and in the second place annexes a predicate
(that of simplicity) to the latter conception- a predicate which it
could not have discovered in the sphere of experience. It would follow
that a priori synthetical propositions are possible and legitimate,
not only, as we have maintained, in relation to objects of possible
experience, and as principles of the possibility of this experience
itself, but are applicable to things in themselves- an inference which
makes an end of the whole of this Critique, and obliges us to fall
back on the old mode of metaphysical procedure. But indeed the
danger is not so great, if we look a little closer into the question.
There lurks in the procedure of rational Psychology a paralogism,
which is represented in the following syllogism:
That which cannot be cogitated otherwise than as subject, does not
exist otherwise than as subject, and is therefore substance.
A thinking being, considered merely as such, cannot be cogitated
otherwise than as subject.
Therefore it exists also as such, that is, as substance.
In the major we speak of a being that can be cogitated generally and
in every relation, consequently as it may be given in intuition. But
in the minor we speak of the same being only in so far as it regards
itself as subject, relatively to thought and the unity of
consciousness, but not in relation to intuition, by which it is
presented as an object to thought. Thus the conclusion is here arrived
at by a Sophisma figurae dictionis.*
*Thought is taken in the two premisses in two totally different
senses. In the major it is considered as relating and applying to
objects in general, consequently to objects of intuition also. In
the minor, we understand it as relating merely to
self-consciousness. In this sense, we do not cogitate an object, but
merely the relation to the self-consciousness of the subject, as the
form of thought. In the former premiss we speak of things which cannot
be cogitated otherwise than as subjects. In the second, we do not
speak of things, but of thought all objects being abstracted), in
which the Ego is always the subject of consciousness. Hence the
conclusion cannot be, "I cannot exist otherwise than as subject";
but only "I can, in cogitating my existence, employ my Ego only as the
subject of the judgement." But this is an identical proposition, and
throws no light on the mode of my existence.
That this famous argument is a mere paralogism, will be plain to any
one who will consider the general remark which precedes our exposition
of the principles of the pure understanding, and the section on
noumena. For it was there proved that the conception of a thing, which
can exist per se- only as a subject and never as a predicate,
possesses no objective reality; that is to say, we can never know
whether there exists any object to correspond to the conception;
consequently, the conception is nothing more than a conception, and
from it we derive no proper knowledge. If this conception is to
indicate by the term substance, an object that can be given, if it
is to become a cognition, we must have at the foundation of the
cognition a permanent intuition, as the indispensable condition of its
objective reality. For through intuition alone can an object be given.
But in internal intuition there is nothing permanent, for the Ego is
but the consciousness of my thought. If then, we appeal merely to
thought, we cannot discover the necessary condition of the application
of the conception of substance- that is, of a subject existing per se-
to the subject as a thinking being. And thus the conception of the
simple nature of substance, which is connected with the objective
reality of this conception, is shown to be also invalid, and to be, in
fact, nothing more than the logical qualitative unity of
self-consciousness in thought; whilst we remain perfectly ignorant
whether the subject is composite or not.
Refutation of the Argument of Mendelssohn for the
Substantiality or Permanence of the Soul.
This acute philosopher easily perceived the insufficiency of the
common argument which attempts to prove that the soul- it being
granted that it is a simple being- cannot perish by dissolution or
decomposition; he saw it is not impossible for it to cease to be by
extinction, or disappearance. He endeavoured to prove in his Phaedo,
that the soul cannot be annihilated, by showing that a simple being
cannot cease to exist. Inasmuch as, be said, a simple existence cannot
diminish, nor gradually lose portions of its being, and thus be by
degrees reduced to nothing (for it possesses no parts, and therefore
no multiplicity), between the moment in which it is, and the moment in
which it is not, no time can be discovered- which is impossible. But
this philosopher did not consider that, granting the soul to possess
this simple nature, which contains no parts external to each other and
consequently no extensive quantity, we cannot refuse to it any less
than to any other being, intensive quantity, that is, a degree of
reality in regard to all its faculties, nay, to all that constitutes
its existence. But this degree of reality can become less and less
through an infinite series of smaller degrees. It follows,
therefore, that this supposed substance- this thing, the permanence of
which is not assured in any other way, may, if not by decomposition,
by gradual loss (remissio) of its powers (consequently by
elanguescence, if I may employ this expression), be changed into
nothing. For consciousness itself has always a degree, which may be
lessened.* Consequently the faculty of being conscious may be
diminished; and so with all other faculties. The permanence of the
soul, therefore, as an object of the internal sense, remains
undemonstrated, nay, even indemonstrable. Its permanence in life is
evident, per se, inasmuch as the thinking being (as man) is to itself,
at the same time, an object of the external senses. But this does
not authorize the rational psychologist to affirm, from mere
conceptions, its permanence beyond life.*[2]
*Clearness is not, as logicians maintain, the consciousness of a
representation. For a certain degree of consciousness, which may
not, however, be sufficient for recollection, is to be met with in
many dim representations. For without any consciousness at all, we
should not be able to recognize any difference in the obscure
representations we connect; as we really can do with many conceptions,
such as those of right and justice, and those of the musician, who
strikes at once several notes in improvising a piece of music. But a
representation is clear, in which our consciousness is sufficient
for the consciousness of the difference of this representation from
others. If we are only conscious that there is a difference, but are
not conscious of the difference- that is, what the difference is-
the representation must be termed obscure. There is, consequently,
an infinite series of degrees of consciousness down to its entire
disappearance.
*[2] There are some who think they have done enough to establish a
new possibility in the mode of the existence of souls, when they
have shown that there is no contradiction in their hypotheses on
this subject. Such are those who affirm the possibility of thought- of
which they have no other knowledge than what they derive from its
use in connecting empirical intuitions presented in this our human
life- after this life bas ceased. But it is very easy to embarrass
them by the introduction of counter-possibilities, which rest upon
quite as good a foundation. Such, for example, is the possibility of
the division of a simple substance into several substances; and
conversely, of the coalition of several into one simple substance.
For, although divisibility presupposes composition, it does not
necessarily require a composition of substances, but only of the
degrees (of the several faculties) of one and the same substance.
Now we can cogitate all the powers and faculties of the soul- even
that of consciousness- as diminished by one half, the substance
still remaining. In the same way we can represent to ourselves without
contradiction, this obliterated half as preserved, not in the soul,
but without it; and we can believe that, as in this case every.
thing that is real in the soul, and has a degree- consequently its
entire existence- has been halved, a particular substance would
arise out of the soul. For the multiplicity, which has been divided,
formerly existed, but not as a multiplicity of substances, but of
every reality as the quantum of existence in it; and the unity of
substance was merely a mode of existence, which by this division alone
has been transformed into a plurality of subsistence. In the same
manner several simple substances might coalesce into one, without
anything being lost except the plurality of subsistence, inasmuch as
the one substance would contain the degree of reality of all the
former substances. Perhaps, indeed, the simple substances, which
appear under the form of matter, might (not indeed by a mechanical
or chemical influence upon each other, but by an unknown influence, of
which the former would be but the phenomenal appearance), by means
of such a dynamical division of the parent-souls, as intensive
quantities, produce other souls, while the former repaired the loss
thus sustained with new matter of the same sort. I am far from
allowing any value to such chimeras; and the principles of our
analytic have clearly proved that no other than an empirical use of
the categories- that of substance, for example- is possible. But if
the rationalist is bold enough to construct, on the mere authority
of the faculty of thought- without any intuition, whereby an object is
given- a self-subsistent being, merely because the unity of
apperception in thought cannot allow him to believe it a composite
being, instead of declaring, as he ought to do, that he is unable to
explain the possibility of a thinking nature; what ought to hinder the
materialist, with as complete an independence of experience, to employ
the principle of the rationalist in a directly opposite manner-
still preserving the formal unity required by his opponent?
If, now, we take the above propositions- as they must be accepted as
valid for all thinking beings in the system of rational psychology- in
synthetical connection, and proceed, from the category of relation,
with the proposition: "All thinking beings are, as such,
substances," backwards through the series, till the circle is
completed; we come at last to their existence, of which, in this
system of rational psychology, substances are held to be conscious,
independently of external things; nay, it is asserted that, in
relation to the permanence which is a necessary characteristic of
substance, they can of themselves determine external things. It
follows that idealism- at least problematical idealism, is perfectly
unavoidable in this rationalistic system. And, if the existence of
outward things is not held to be requisite to the determination of the
existence of a substance in time, the existence of these outward
things at all, is a gratuitous assumption which remains without the
possibility of a proof.
But if we proceed analytically- the "I think" as a proposition
containing in itself an existence as given, consequently modality
being the principle- and dissect this proposition, in order to
ascertain its content, and discover whether and how this Ego
determines its existence in time and space without the aid of anything
external; the propositions of rationalistic psychology would not begin
with the conception of a thinking being, but with a reality, and the
properties of a thinking being in general would be deduced from the
mode in which this reality is cogitated, after everything empirical
had been abstracted; as is shown in the following table:
1
I think,
2 3
as Subject, as simple Subject,
4
as identical Subject,
in every state of my thought.
Now, inasmuch as it is not determined in this second proposition,
whether I can exist and be cogitated only as subject, and not also
as a predicate of another being, the conception of a subject is here
taken in a merely logical sense; and it remains undetermined,
whether substance is to be cogitated under the conception or not.
But in the third proposition, the absolute unity of apperception-
the simple Ego in the representation to which all connection and
separation, which constitute thought, relate, is of itself
important; even although it presents us with no information about
the constitution or subsistence of the subject. Apperception is
something real, and the simplicity of its nature is given in the
very fact of its possibility. Now in space there is nothing real
that is at the same time simple; for points, which are the only simple
things in space, are merely limits, but not constituent parts of
space. From this follows the impossibility of a definition on the
basis of materialism of the constitution of my Ego as a merely
thinking subject. But, because my existence is considered in the first
proposition as given, for it does not mean, "Every thinking being
exists" (for this would be predicating of them absolute necessity),
but only, "I exist thinking"; the proposition is quite empirical,
and contains the determinability of my existence merely in relation to
my representations in time. But as I require for this purpose
something that is permanent, such as is not given in internal
intuition; the mode of my existence, whether as substance or as
accident, cannot be determined by means of this simple
self-consciousness. Thus, if materialism is inadequate to explain
the mode in which I exist, spiritualism is likewise as insufficient;
and the conclusion is that we are utterly unable to attain to any
knowledge of the constitution of the soul, in so far as relates to the
possibility of its existence apart from external objects.
And, indeed, how should it be possible, merely by the aid of the
unity of consciousness- which we cognize only for the reason that it
is indispensable to the possibility of experience- to pass the
bounds of experience (our existence in this life); and to extend our
cognition to the nature of all thinking beings by means of the
empirical- but in relation to every sort of intuition, perfectly
undetermined- proposition, "I think"?
There does not then exist any rational psychology as a doctrine
furnishing any addition to our knowledge of ourselves. It is nothing
more than a discipline, which sets impassable limits to speculative
reason in this region of thought, to prevent it, on the one hand, from
throwing itself into the arms of a soulless materialism, and, on the
other, from losing itself in the mazes of a baseless spiritualism.
It teaches us to consider this refusal of our reason to give any
satisfactory answer to questions which reach beyond the limits of this
our human life, as a hint to abandon fruitless speculation; and to
direct, to a practical use, our knowledge of ourselves- which,
although applicable only to objects of experience, receives its
principles from a higher source, and regulates its procedure as if our
destiny reached far beyond the boundaries of experience and life.
From all this it is evident that rational psychology has its
origin in a mere misunderstanding. The unity of consciousness, which
lies at the basis of the categories, is considered to be an
intuition of the subject as an object; and the category of substance
is applied to the intuition. But this unity is nothing more than the
unity in thought, by which no object is given; to which therefore
the category of substance- which always presupposes a given intuition-
cannot be applied. Consequently, the subject cannot be cognized. The
subject of the categories cannot, therefore, for the very reason
that it cogitates these, frame any conception of itself as an object
of the categories; for, to cogitate these, it must lay at the
foundation its own pure self-consciousness- the very thing that it
wishes to explain and describe. In like manner, the subject, in
which the representation of time has its basis, cannot determine,
for this very reason, its own existence in time. Now, if the latter is
impossible, the former, as an attempt to determine itself by means
of the categories as a thinking being in general, is no less so.*
*The "I think" is, as has been already stated, an empirical
proposition, and contains the proposition, "I exist." But I cannot
say, "Everything, which thinks, exists"; for in this case the property
of thought would constitute all beings possessing it, necessary
being Hence my existence cannot be considered as an inference from the
proposition, "I think," as Descartes maintained- because in this
case the major premiss, "Everything, which thinks, exists," must
precede- but the two propositions are identical. The proposition, "I
think," expresses an undetermined empirical intuition, that perception
(proving consequently that sensation, which must belong to
sensibility, lies at the foundation of this proposition); but it
precedes experience, whose province it is to determine an object of
perception by means of the categories in relation to time; and
existence in this proposition is not a category, as it does not
apply to an undetermined given object, but only to one of which we
have a conception, and about which we wish to know whether it does
or does not exist, out of, and apart from this conception. An
undetermined perception signifies here merely something real that
has been given, only, however, to thought in general- but not as a
phenomenon, nor as a thing in itself (noumenon), but only as something
that really exists, and is designated as such in the proposition, "I
think." For it must be remarked that, when I call the proposition,
"I think," an empirical proposition, I do not thereby mean that the
Ego in the proposition is an empirical representation; on the
contrary, it is purely intellectual, because it belongs to thought
in general. But without some empirical representation, which
presents to the mind material for thought, the mental act, "I
think," would not take place; and the empirical is only the
condition of the application or employment of the pure intellectual
faculty.
Thus, then, appears the vanity of the hope of establishing a
cognition which is to extend its rule beyond the limits of experience-
a cognition which is one of the highest interests of humanity; and
thus is proved the futility of the attempt of speculative philosophy
in this region of thought. But, in this interest of thought, the
severity of criticism has rendered to reason a not unimportant
service, by the demonstration of the impossibility of making any
dogmatical affirmation concerning an object of experience beyond the
boundaries of experience. She has thus fortified reason against all
affirmations of the contrary. Now, this can be accomplished in only
two ways. Either our proposition must be proved apodeictically; or, if
this is unsuccessful, the sources of this inability must be sought
for, and, if these are discovered to exist in the natural and
necessary limitation of our reason, our opponents must submit to the
same law of renunciation and refrain from advancing claims to dogmatic
assertion.
But the right, say rather the necessity to admit a future life, upon
principles of the practical conjoined with the speculative use of
reason, has lost nothing by this renunciation; for the merely
speculative proof has never had any influence upon the common reason
of men. It stands upon the point of a hair, so that even the schools
have been able to preserve it from falling only by incessantly
discussing it and spinning it like a top; and even in their eyes it
has never been able to present any safe foundation for the erection of
a theory. The proofs which have been current among men, preserve their
value undiminished; nay, rather gain in clearness and
unsophisticated power, by the rejection of the dogmatical
assumptions of speculative reason. For reason is thus confined
within her own peculiar province- the arrangement of ends or aims,
which is at the same time the arrangement of nature; and, as a
practical faculty, without limiting itself to the latter, it is
justified in extending the former, and with it our own existence,
beyond the boundaries of experience and life. If we turn our attention
to the analogy of the nature of living beings in this world, in the
consideration of which reason is obliged to accept as a principle that
no organ, no faculty, no appetite is useless, and that nothing is
superfluous, nothing disproportionate to its use, nothing unsuited
to its end; but that, on the contrary, everything is perfectly
conformed to its destination in life- we shall find that man, who
alone is the final end and aim of this order, is still the only animal
that seems to be excepted from it. For his natural gifts- not merely
as regards the talents and motives that may incite him to employ them,
but especially the moral law in him- stretch so far beyond all mere
earthly utility and advantage, that he feels himself bound to prize
the mere consciousness of probity, apart from all advantageous
consequences- even the shadowy gift of posthumous fame- above
everything; and he is conscious of an inward call to constitute
himself, by his conduct in this world- without regard to mere
sublunary interests- the citizen of a better. This mighty,
irresistible proof- accompanied by an ever-increasing knowledge of the
conformability to a purpose in everything we see around us, by the
conviction of the boundless immensity of creation, by the
consciousness of a certain illimitableness in the possible extension
of our knowledge, and by a desire commensurate therewith- remains to
humanity, even after the theoretical cognition of ourselves bas failed
to establish the necessity of an existence after death.
Conclusion of the Solution of the
Psychological Paralogism.
The dialectical illusion in rational psychology arises from our
confounding an idea of reason (of a pure intelligence) with the
conception- in every respect undetermined- of a thinking being in
general. I cogitate myself in behalf of a possible experience, at
the same time making abstraction of all actual experience; and infer
therefrom that I can be conscious of myself apart from experience
and its empirical conditions. I consequently confound the possible
abstraction of my empirically determined existence with the supposed
consciousness of a possible separate existence of my thinking self;
and I believe that I cognize what is substantial in myself as a
transcendental subject, when I have nothing more in thought than the
unity of consciousness, which lies at the basis of all determination
of cognition.
The task of explaining the community of the soul with the body
does not properly belong to the psychology of which we are here
speaking; because it proposes to prove the personality of the soul
apart from this communion (after death), and is therefore transcendent
in the proper sense of the word, although occupying itself with an
object of experience- only in so far, however, as it ceases to be an
object of experience. But a sufficient answer may be found to the
question in our system. The difficulty which lies in the execution
of this task consists, as is well known, in the presupposed
heterogeneity of the object of the internal sense (the soul) and the
objects of the external senses; inasmuch as the formal condition of
the intuition of the one is time, and of that of the other space also.
But if we consider that both kinds of objects do not differ
internally, but only in so far as the one appears externally to the
other- consequently, that what lies at the basis of phenomena, as a
thing in itself, may not be heterogeneous; this difficulty disappears.
There then remains no other difficulty than is to be found in the
question- how a community of substances is possible; a question
which lies out of the region of psychology, and which the reader,
after what in our analytic has been said of primitive forces and
faculties, will easily judge to be also beyond the region of human
cognition.
GENERAL REMARK
On the Transition from Rational Psychology to Cosmology.
The proposition, "I think," or, "I exist thinking," is an
empirical proposition. But such a proposition must be based on
empirical intuition, and the object cogitated as a phenomenon; and
thus our theory appears to maintain that the soul, even in thought, is
merely a phenomenon; and in this way our consciousness itself, in
fact, abuts upon nothing.
Thought, per se, is merely the purely spontaneous logical function
which operates to connect the manifold of a possible intuition; and it
does not represent the subject of consciousness as a phenomenon- for
this reason alone, that it pays no attention to the question whether
the mode of intuiting it is sensuous or intellectual. I therefore do
not represent myself in thought either as I am, or as I appear to
myself; I merely cogitate myself as an object in general, of the
mode of intuiting which I make abstraction. When I represent myself as
the subject of thought, or as the ground of thought, these modes of
representation are not related to the categories of substance or of
cause; for these are functions of thought applicable only to our
sensuous intuition. The application of these categories to the Ego
would, however, be necessary, if I wished to make myself an object
of knowledge. But I wish to be conscious of myself only as thinking;
in what mode my Self is given in intuition, I do not consider, and
it may be that I, who think, am a phenomenon- although not in so far
as I am a thinking being; but in the consciousness of myself in mere
thought I am a being, though this consciousness does not present to me
any property of this being as material for thought.
But the proposition, "I think," in so far as it declares, "I exist
thinking," is not the mere representation of a logical function. It
determines the subject (which is in this case an object also) in
relation to existence; and it cannot be given without the aid of the
internal sense, whose intuition presents to us an object, not as a
thing in itself, but always as a phenomenon. In this proposition there
is therefore something more to be found than the mere spontaneity of
thought; there is also the receptivity of intuition, that is, my
thought of myself applied to the empirical intuition of myself. Now,
in this intuition the thinking self must seek the conditions of the
employment of its logical functions as categories of substance, cause,
and so forth; not merely for the purpose of distinguishing itself as
an object in itself by means of the representation "I," but also for
the purpose of determining the mode of its existence, that is, of
cognizing itself as noumenon. But this is impossible, for the internal
empirical intuition is sensuous, and presents us with nothing but
phenomenal data, which do not assist the object of pure
consciousness in its attempt to cognize itself as a separate
existence, but are useful only as contributions to experience.
But, let it be granted that we could discover, not in experience,
but in certain firmly-established a priori laws of the use of pure
reason- laws relating to our existence, authority to consider
ourselves as legislating a priori in relation to our own existence and
as determining this existence; we should, on this supposition, find
ourselves possessed of a spontaneity, by which our actual existence
would be determinable, without the aid of the conditions of
empirical intuition. We should also become aware that in the
consciousness of our existence there was an a priori content, which
would serve to determine our own existence- an existence only
sensuously determinable- relatively, however, to a certain internal
faculty in relation to an intelligible world.
But this would not give the least help to the attempts of rational
psychology. For this wonderful faculty, which the consciousness of the
moral law in me reveals, would present me with a principle of the
determination of my own existence which is purely intellectual- but by
what predicates? By none other than those which are given in
sensuous intuition. Thus I should find myself in the same position
in rational psychology which I formerly occupied, that is to say, I
should find myself still in need of sensuous intuitions, in order to
give significance to my conceptions of substance and cause, by means
of which alone I can possess a knowledge of myself: but these
intuitions can never raise me above the sphere of experience. I should
be justified, however, in applying these conceptions, in regard to
their practical use, which is always directed to objects of
experience- in conformity with their analogical significance when
employed theoretically- to freedom and its subject. At the same
time, I should understand by them merely the logical functions of
subject and predicate, of principle and consequence, in conformity
with which all actions are so determined, that they are capable of
being explained along with the laws of nature, conformably to the
categories of substance and cause, although they originate from a very
different principle. We have made these observations for the purpose
of guarding against misunderstanding, to which the doctrine of our
intuition of self as a phenomenon is exposed. We shall have occasion
to perceive their utility in the sequel.
