第57章 Appendix: On What Can Be Done To Make Metaphysics

Accordingly it has been translated "physical." -- Ed.] 14 The three following paragraphs will hardly be understood unless reference be made to what the Citique itself says on the subject of the Principles; they will, however, be of service in giving a general view of the Principles, and in fixing the attention of the main points. 15 [Kant uses here the equivocal term Wechsetwirkung. --Ed.] 16 Heat and light are in a small space just as large as to degree as in a large one; in like manner the internal representations, pain, consciousness in general, whether they last a short or a long time, need not vary as to the degree. Hence the quantity is here in a point and in a moment just as great as in any space or time however great. Degrees are therefore capable of increase, but not in intuition, rather in mere sensation (or the quantity of the degree of an intuition). Hence they can only be estimated quantitatively by the relation of 1 to 0, viz, by their capability of decreasing by infinite intermediate degrees to disappearance, or of increasing from naught through infinite gradations to a determinate sensation in a certain time. Quantitas qualitatis est gradus [i.e., the degrees of quality must be measured by equality.] 17 We speak of the "intelligible world," not (as the usual expression is) "intellectual world." For cognitions are intellectual through the understanding, and refer to our world of sense also; but objects, so far as they can be represented merely by the understanding, and to which none of our sensible intuitions can refer, are termed " intelligible." But as some possible intuition must correspond to every object, we would have to assume an understanding that intuits things immediately; but of such we have not the least notion, nor have we of the things of the understanding [Verstandes wasen], to which it should be applied. 18 Crusius alone thought of a compromise: that a Spirit, who can neither err nor deceive, implanted these laws in us originally. But since false principles often intrude themselves, as indeed the very system of this man shows in not a few examples, we are involved ill difficulties as to the use of such a principle in the absence of sure criteria to distinguish the genuine origin from the spurious as we never can know certainly what the Spirit of truth or the father of lies may have instilled into us. 19 The definition of nature is given in the beginning of the Second Part of the " Transcendental Problem," in Sect. 14. 20 1. Substantia, 2. Qualitas 3, Quamtitas, 4. Relatio, 5. Actio, 6. Passio, 7. Quando, 8. Ubi, 9. Situs, 10. Habitus. 21 Oppositum, Prius, Simul, Motus, Habere. 22 See the two tables in the chapters Von den Paralogismen der reinen Verunft and the first division of the Antinomy of Pure Reason, System der kosmologischen Ideen. 23 On the table of the categories many neat observations may be made, for instance (1) that the third arises from the first and the second joined in one concept (2) that in those of Quantity and of Quality there is merely a progress from unity to totality or from something to nothing (for this purpose the categories of Quality must stand thus: reality, limitation, total negation), without correlata or opposita, whereas those of Relation and of Modality have them; (3) that, as in Logic categorical judgments are the basis of all others, so the category of Substance is the basis of all concepts of actual things; (4) that as Modality in the judgment is not a particular predicate, so by the modal concepts a determination is not superadded to things, etc., etc. Such observations are of great use. If we besides enumerate all the predicables, which we can find pretty completely in any good ontology (for example, Baumgarten's), and arrange them in classes under the categories, in which operation we must not neglect to add as complete a dissection of all these concepts as possible, there will then arise a merely analytical part of metaphysics, which does not contain a single synthetical proposition. which might precede the second (the synthetical), and would by its precision and completeness be not only useful, but, in virtue of its system, be even to some extent elegant. 24 See Critique of Pure Reason, Von der Amphibolie der Reflexbergriffe. 25 If we can say, that a science is actual at least in the idea of all men, as soon as it appears that the problems which lead to it are proposed to everybody by the nature of human reason, and that therefore many (though faulty) endeavors are unavoidably made in its behalf, then we are bound to Fay that metaphysics is subjectively (and indeed necessarily) actual, and therefore we justly ask, how is it (objectively) possible. 26 In disjunctive judgments we consider all possibility as divided in respect to a particular concept. By the ontological principle of the universal determination of a thing in general, I understand the principle that either the one or the other of all possible contradictory predicates must be assigned to any object. This is at the same time the principle of all disjunctive judgments, constituting the foundation of our conception of possibility, and in it the possibility of every object in general is considered as determined. This may serve as a slight explanation of the above proposition: that the activity of reason in disjunctive syllogisms is formally the same as that by which it fashions the idea of a universal conception of all reality, containing in itself that which is positive in all contradictory predicates. 27 See Critique of Pure Reason, Von ded Paralogismen der reinen Verunft. 28 Were the representation of the apperception (the Ego) a concept, by which anything could be thought, it could be used as a predicate 'of other things or contain predicates in itself. But it is nothing more than the feeling of an existence without the least definite conception and is only the representation of that to which all thinking stands in relation (relative accidentis). 29 Cf. Critique, Von den Analogien der Erfahrung. 30 It is indeed very remarkable how carelessly metaphysicians have always passed over the principle of the permanents of substances without ever attempting a proof of it; doubtless because they found themselves abandoned by all proofs as soon as they began to deal with the concept of substance. Common sense, which felt distinctly that without this presupposition no union of perceptions in experience is possible, supplied the want by a postulate. From experience itself it never could derive such a principle, partly because substances cannot be so traced in all their alterations and dissolutions, that the matter can always be found undiminished, partly because the principle contains Necessity. which is always the sign of an a priori principle. People then boldly applied this postulate to the concept of soul as a substance, and concluded a necessary continuance of the soul after the death of man (especially as the simplicity of this substance, which is interred from the indivisibility of consciousness, secured it from destruction by dissolution). Had they found the genuine source of this principles discovery which requires deeper researches than they were ever inclined to make -- they would have seen, that the law of the permanence of substances has place for the purposes of experience only, and hence can hold good of things so far as they are to be known and conjoined with others in experience, but never independently of all possible experience, and consequently cannot hold good of the soul after death. 31 Cf. Critique, Die antinomie der reinen Vernunft. 32 I therefore would be pleased to have the critical reader to devote to this antinomy of pure reason his chief attention, because nature itself seems to have established it with a view to stagger reason in its daring pretensions, and to force it to self-examination. For every proof, which I have given, as well of the thesis as of the antithesis, I undertake to be responsible, and thereby to show the certainty of the inevitable antinomy of reason. When the reader is brought by this curious phenomenon to fall back upon the proof of the presumption upon which it rests, he will feet himself obliged to investigate the ultimate foundation of all the cognition of pure reason with me more thoroughly. 33 The idea of freedom occurs only in the relation of the intellectual, as cause, to the appearance, as effect. Hence we cannot attribute freedom to matter in regard to the incessant action by which it fills its space. though this action takes place from an internal principle. We dan likewise find no notion of freedom suitable to purely rational beings, for instance, to God, so far as his action is immanent. For his action, though independent of external determining causes, is determined in his eternal reason, that is, in the divine nature. It is only, if something, is to start by an action, and so the effect occurs in the sequence of time, or in the world of sense (e.g., the beginning of the world), that we can put the question, whether the causality of the cause must in its turn have been started, or whether the cause can originate an effect without its causality itself beginning.