IMMANUEL KANT: Philosophical Books, Critiques & Essays. Immanuel Kant

Чтение книги онлайн.

СКАЧАТЬ data of given sense, or the particular element of experience. Thus experience presents itself as the organic combination of the particular of sense with the individual unity of the ego through the universal forms of the categories. Reference of representations to the unity of the object, synthetic unity of apperception, and subsumption of data of sense under the categories, are thus three sides or aspects of the one fundamental fact.

      In this deduction of the categories, as Kant calls it, there appears for the first time an endeavour to connect together into one organic whole the several elements entering into experience. It is evident, however, that much was wanting before this essential task could be regarded as complete. Kant has certainly brought together self-consciousness, the system of the categories and data of sense. He has shown that the conditions of self-consciousness are the conditions of possible experience. But he has not shown, nor did he attempt to show, how it was that the conditions of self-consciousness are the very categories arrived at by consideration of the system of logical judgments. He does endeavour to show, but with small success, how the junction of category and data of sense is brought about, for according to his scheme these stood, to a certain extent at least, apart from and independent of one another. The failure to effect an organic combination of the several elements was the natural consequence of the false start which had been made.

      The mode in which Kant endeavours to show how the several portions of cognition are subjectively realized brings into the clearest light the inconsistencies and imperfections of his doctrine. Sense had been assumed as furnishing the particular of knowledge, understanding as furnishing the universal; and it had been expressly declared that the particular was cognizable only in and through the universal. Still, each was conceived as somehow in itself complete and finished. Sense and understanding had distinct functions, and there was wanting some common term, some intermediary which should bring them into conjunction. Data of sense as purely particular could have nothing in common with the categories as purely universal. But data of sense had at least one universal aspect, — their aspect as the particular of the general forms, space and time. Categories were in themselves abstract and valueless, serviceable only when restricted to possible objects of experience. There was thus a common ground on which category and intuition were united in one, and an intermediate process whereby the universal of the category might be so far individualized as to comprehend the particular of sense. This intermediate process — which is really the junction of understanding and sense — Kant calls productive imagination, and it is only through productive imagination that knowledge or experience is actually realized in our subjective consciousness. The specific forms of productive imagination are called schemata, and upon the nature of the schema Kant gives much that has proved of extreme value for subsequent thought.

      Productive imagination is thus the concrete element of knowledge, and its general modes are the abstract expression of the a priori laws of all possible experience. The categories are restricted in their applicability to the schema, i.e. to the pure forms of conjunction of the manifold in time, and in the modes of combination of schemata and categories we have the foundation for the rational sciences of mathematics and physics. Perception or real cognition is thus conceived as a complex fact, involving data of sense and pure perceptive forms, determined by the category and realized through productive imagination in the schema. The system of principles which may be deduced from the consideration of the mode in which understanding and sense are united by productive imagination is the positive result of the critical theory of knowledge, and some of its features are remarkable enough to deserve attention. According to his usual plan, Kant arranges these principles in conformity with the table of the categories, dividing the four classes, however, into two main groups, the mathematical and the dynamical. The mathematical principles are the abstract expression of the necessary mode in which data of sense are determined by the category in the form of intuitions or representations of objects; the dynamical are the abstract expression of the modes in which the existence of objects of intuition is determined. The mathematical principles are constitutive, i.e. express determinations of the objects themselves; the dynamical are regulative, i.e. express the conditions under which objects can form parts of real experience. Under the mathematical principles come the general rules which furnish the ground for the application of quantitative reasoning to real facts of experience. For as data of sense are only possible objects when received in the forms of space and time, and as space and time are only cognized when determined in definite fashion by the understanding through the schema of number (quantity) or degree (quality), all intuitions are extensive quantities and contain a real element, that of sense, which has degree. Under the dynamical principles, the general modes in which the existence of objects are determined, fall the analogies of experience, or general rules according to which the existence of objects in relation to one another can be determined, and the postulates of experience, the general rules according to which the existence of objects for us or our own subjective existence can be determined. The analogies of experience rest upon the order of perceptions in time, i.e. their permanence, succession or coexistence, and the principles are respectively those of substance, causality and reciprocity. It is to be observed that Kant in the expression of these analogies reaches the final solution of the difficulty which had so long pressed upon him, the difficulty as to the relation of the pure connective notions to experience. These notions are not directly applicable to experience, nor do we find in experience anything corresponding to the pure intellectual notions of substance, cause and reciprocity. But experience is for us the combination of data of sense in the forms of productive imagination, forms determined by the pure intellectual notions, and accordingly experience is possible for us only as in modes corresponding to the notions. The permanent in time is substance in any possible experience, and no experience is possible save through the determination of all changes as in relation to a permanent in time. Determined sequence is the causal relation in any possible experience, and no experience is possible save through the determination of perceived changes as in relation to a determined order in time. So with coexistence and reciprocity.

      The postulates of experience are general expressions of the significance of existence in the experience of a conscious subject. The element of reality in such experience must always be given by intuition, and, so far as determination of existence is assumed, external intuition is a necessary condition of inner intuition. The existence of external things is as certain as the existence of the concrete subject, and the subject cannot cognise himself as existing save in relation to the world of facts of external perception. Inner and outer reality are strictly correlative elements in the experience of the conscious subject.

      Throughout the positive portion of his theory of cognition, Kant has been beset by the doctrine that the categories, as finished, complete notions, have an import or significance transcending the bounds of possible experience. Morever, the manner in which space and time had been treated made it possible for him to regard these as contingent forms, necessary for intelligences like ours, but not to be viewed as absolutely necessary. The real meaning of these peculiarities is hardly ever expressed by him, though it is clear that the solution of the matter is to be found in the inadequacy of the positive theory to meet the demands of reason for completed explanation. But the conclusion to which he was led was one of the greatest importance for the after development of his system. Cognition is necessarily limited. The categories are restricted in their application to elements of possible experience to that which is presented in intuition, and all intuition is for the ego contingent. But to assert that cognition is limited and its matter contingent is to form the idea of an intelligence for whom cognition would not be limited and for whom the data of intuition would not be given, contingent facts, but necessarily produced along with the pure categories. This idea of an intuitive understanding is the definite expression for the complete explanation which reason demands, and it involves the conception of a realm of objects for such an understanding, a realm of objects which, in opposition to the phenomena of our relative and limited experience, may be called noumena or things-in-themselves. The noumenon, therefore, is in one way the object of a non-sensuous intuition, but more correctly is the expression of the limited and partial character of our knowledge. The idea of a noumenon is thus a limiting notion.

      Assuredly, the difficult section of the Kritik, on the ground of the distinction between phenomena and noumena, would СКАЧАТЬ