Fundamental Philosophy. Jaime Luciano Balmes

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      CHAPTER XXIX.

      ARE THERE TRUE SYNTHETIC JUDGMENTS A PRIORI IN THE SENSE OF KANT?

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      278. The great importance attributed by the German philosopher to his imaginary discovery, requires us to examine it at length. This importance may be estimated from what he himself says: "If any of the ancients had only had the idea of proposing the present question, it would have been a mighty barrier against all the systems of pure reason down to our days, and would have saved many vain attempts which were blindly made without knowing what was treated of."[23] This passage is quite modest and naturally excites our curiosity to know what is the problem which needed only to be proposed in order to avoid all the aberrations of pure reason.

      Here are his words: "All empirical judgments, as such, are synthetic. For it would be absurd to ground an analytic judgment on experience, since I am not obliged to go out of the conception itself in order to form the judgment, and therefore can have no need of the testimony of experience. That a body is extended, is a proposition which stands firm a priori. It is no empirical judgment; for, prior to experience, I have all the conditions of forming it in the conception of body, from which I deduce the predicate, extension, according to the principle of contradiction, by which I at once become conscious of its necessity, which I could not learn from experience. But, on the other hand, I do not include, in the primitive conception of body in general, the predicate, heaviness; yet this conception of body in general indicates, through experience of a part of it, an object of experience, to which I may add from experience other parts also belonging to it. I can attain to the conception of body beforehand, analytically, through its characteristics extension, impenetrability, form, etc., all of which are included in the primary conception of body. But I now extend my cognition, and, as I recur to experience, from which I have obtained the conception of body in general, I find along with these characteristics the conception of heaviness. I therefore add this, as a predicate, to the conception of body. The possibility of this synthesis therefore rests on experience; for both conceptions, although one does not contain the other, yet belong as parts to a whole, that is to say, to experience, which is itself a union of synthetic, though contingent intuitions. But in the case of synthetic judgments a priori we have not this assistance. Here we have not the advantage of returning and supporting ourselves on experience. If I must go out of the conception A in order to find another conception B, which is to be joined to it, on what am I to rely? and by what means does the synthesis become possible?"[24]

      279. The reason of this synthesis is found in the faculty of our mind of forming total conceptions, in which the relation of the partial conceptions composing it is discovered; and the legitimacy of the same synthesis is founded on the principles on which the criterion of evidence is based.

      The synthesis of the schoolmen consists in the union of conceptions, and does not refuse to admit as analytical the total conceptions, from the decomposition of which results the knowledge of the relations of the partial conceptions.

      If Kant had stopped with the judgments of experience, there would be no objection to his doctrine. But extended to the purely intellectual order, it is either inadmissible, or at least expressed without much exactness.

      260. Kant says all mathematical judgments are analytic, and that this truth which in his opinion "is certainly incontestible and important on account of its consequences, seems to have hitherto escaped the sagacity of the analysts of human reason, causing very contrary opinions." We think it is the sagacity of his Aristarchus, and not that of the analysts, that is at fault.

      "One would certainly think at first sight that the proposition, 7 + 5 = 12, is a purely analytic proposition, which follows from the conception of a sum of seven and five, according to the principle of contradiction. But if we examine it more closely, we find that the conception of the sum of seven and five contains nothing farther than the union of both numbers in one, from which it cannot by any means be inferred what this other number is which contains them both."[25]

      Were we to say that whoever hears seven plus five, does not always think of twelve, because he does not see clearly enough that one conception is the same as the other, although it is under a different form, it would be true. But from this it does not follow that the conception is not purely analytic. The mere explanation of both suffices to show their identity.

      That this may be better understood, we will invert the equation thus: 12 = 7 + 5. It is evident that if any one does not know that 7 + 5 = 12, he will not know that 12 = 7 + 5. Now, in examining the conception 12, we certainly see 7 + 5 contained in it. Therefore, the conception of 12 is identical with the conception of 7 + 5; and just as, because he who hears 12, does not always think of 7 + 5, we cannot thence infer that 12 does not contain 7 + 5; so, also, we cannot, because he who hears 7 + 5, does not always think of 12, thence infer that the first conception does not contain the second.

      The cause of the equivocation is, that the two identical conceptions are presented to the intellect under different forms; and until we have the form, and look to what is under it, we shall not discover the identity. This is not, strictly speaking, reasoning but explanation.

      What Kant adds concerning the necessity of recurring, in this case, to an intuition, with respect to one of the numbers, adding five to seven on the fingers, is exceedingly futile. First, in whatever way he adds the five, there will never be anything but the five that is added, and it will neither give more nor СКАЧАТЬ