Critique of Pure Reason

by Immanuel Kant

  The regulative principle of reason, with regard to our present problem, is therefore this, that everything in the world of sense has an empirically conditioned existence, and that in it there is never any unconditioned necessity with reference to any quality; that there is no member in the series of conditions of which one ought not to expect, and as far as possible to seek, the empirical condition in some possible experience; and that we are never justified in deriving any existence from a condition outside the empirical series, or in considering it as independent and self-subsistent in the series itself; without however denying in the least that the whole series may depend on some intelligible being, which is free therefore from all empirical conditions, and itself contains rather the ground of the possibility of all those phenomena.

  By this we by no means intend to prove the unconditionally necessary existence of such a being, or even to demonstrate the possibility of a purely intelligible condition of the existence of the phenomena of the world of sense. But as on the one side we limit reason, lest it should lose the thread of the empirical condition and lose itself in transcendent explanations incapable of being represented in concreto, thus, on the other side, we want to limit the law of the purely empirical use of the understanding, lest it should venture to decide on the possibility of things in general, and declare the intelligible to be impossible, because it has been shown to be useless for the explanation of phenomena. What is shown by this is simply this, that the complete contingency of all things in nature and of all their (empirical) conditions, may well coexist with the arbitrary presupposition of a necessary, though purely intelligible condition, and that, as there is no real contradiction between these two views, they may well both be true. Granted even that such an absolutely necessary being, as postulated by the understanding, is impossible in itself, we still maintain that this cannot be concluded from the general contingency and dependence of all that belongs to the world of sense, nor from the principle that we ought not to stop at any single member so far as it is contingent, and appeal to a cause outside the world. Reason follows its own course in its empirical, and again a peculiar course in its transcendental use.

  The world of sense contains nothing but phenomena, and these are mere representations which are always sensuously conditioned. As our objects are never things by themselves, we need not be surprised that we are never justified in making a jump from any member of the several empirical series, beyond the connection of sensibility, as if they were things by themselves, existing apart from their transcendental ground, and which we might leave behind in order to seek for the cause of their existence outside them. This, no doubt, would have to be done in the end with contingent things, but not with mere representations of things, the contingency of which is itself a phenomenon, and cannot lead to any other regressus but that which determines the phenomena, that is, which is empirical. To conceive, however, an intelligible ground of phenomena, that is, of the world of sense, and to conceive it as freed from the contingency of the latter, does not run counter either to the unlimited empirical regressus in the series of phenomena, nor to their general contingency. And this is really the only thing which we had to do in order to remove this apparent antinomy, and which could be done in this wise only. For if every condition of everything conditioned (according to its existence) is sensuous, and therefore belongs to the series, that series is again conditioned (as shown in the antithesis of the fourth antinomy). Either therefore there would remain a conflict with reason, which postulates the unconditioned, or this would have to be placed outside the series, i.e. in the intelligible, the necessity of which neither requires nor admits of any empirical condition, and is therefore, as regards phenomena, unconditionally necessary.

  The empirical use of reason (with regard to the conditions of existence in the world of sense) is not affected by the admission of a purely intelligible being, but ascends, according to the principle of a general contingency, from empirical conditions to higher ones, which again are empirical. This regulative principle, however, does not exclude the admission of an intelligible cause not comprehended in the series, when we come to the pure use of reason (with reference to ends or aims). For in this case, an intelligible cause only means the transcendental, and, to us, unknown ground of the possibility of the sensuous series in general, and the existence of this, independent of all conditions of the sensuous series, and, in reference to it, unconditionally, necessary, is by no means opposed to the unlimited contingency of the former, nor to the never-ending regressus in the series of empirical conditions.

  Concluding Remark on the Whole Antinomy of Pure Reason

  So long as it is only the totality of the conditions in the world of sense and the interest it can have to reason, that form the object of the concepts of our reason, our ideas are no doubt transcendental, but yet cosmological. If, however, we place the unconditioned (with which we are chiefly concerned) in that which is entirely outside the world of sense, therefore beyond all possible experience, our ideas become transcendent: for they serve not only for the completion of the empirical use of the understanding (which always remains an idea that must be obeyed, though it can never be fully carried out), but they separate themselves entirely from it, and create to themselves objects the material of which is not taken from experience, and the objective reality of which does not rest on the completion of the empirical series, but on pure concepts a priori. Such transcendent ideas have a merely intelligible object, which may indeed be admitted as a transcendental object, of which, for the rest, we know nothing, but for which, if we wish to conceive it as a thing determined by its internal distinguishing predicates, we have neither grounds of possibility (as independent of all concepts of experience) nor the slightest justification on our side in admitting it as an object, and which, therefore, is a mere creation of our thoughts. Nevertheless that cosmological idea, which owes its origin to the fourth antinomy, urges us on to take that step. For the conditioned existence of all phenomena, not being founded in itself, requires us to look out for something different from all phenomena, that is, for an intelligible object in which there should be no more contingency. As, however, if we have once allowed ourselves to admit, outside the field of the whole of sensibility, a reality existing by itself, phenomena can only be considered as contingent modes of representing intelligible objects on the part of beings which themselves are intelligences,23 nothing remains to us, in order to form some kind of concept of intelligible things, of which in themselves we have not the slightest knowledge, but analogy, applied to the concepts of experience. As we know the contingent by experience only, but have here to deal with things which are not meant to be objects of experience, we shall have to derive our knowledge of them from what is necessary in itself, that is, from pure concepts of things in general. Thus the first step which we take outside the world of sense, obliges us to begin our new knowledge with the investigation of the absolutely necessary Being, and to derive from its concepts the concepts of all things, so far as they are intelligible only; and this we shall attempt to do in the next chapter.

  1 The absolute total of a series of conditions of anything given as conditioned, is itself always unconditioned; because there are no conditions beyond on which it could depend. Such an absolute total of a series is, however, an idea only, or rather a problematical concept, the possibility of which has to be investigated with reference to the mode in which the unconditioned, that is, in reality, the transcendental idea with which we are concerned, may be contained in it.

  2 Nature, if taken adjective (formaliter), is meant to express the whole complex of the determinations of a thing, according to an inner principle of causality; while, if taken substantive (materialiter), it denotes the totality of phenomena, so far as they are all held together by an internal principle of causality. In the former meaning we speak of the nature of liquid matter, of fire, etc., using the word adjective; while, if we speak of the objects of nature, or of natural objects, we have in our mind the idea of a subsis
ting whole.

  3 The antinomies follow each other, according to the order of the transcendental ideas mentioned before.

  4 We may perceive an indefinite quantum as a whole, if it is included in limits, without having to build up its totality by means of measuring, that is, by the successive synthesis of its parts. The limits themselves determine its completeness, by cutting off everything beyond.

  5 The concept of totality is in this case nothing but the representation of the completed synthesis of its parts, because, as we cannot deduce the concept from the intuition of the whole (this being in this case impossible), we can conceive it only through the synthesis of its parts, up to the completion of the infinite, at least in the idea.

  6 Space is merely the form of external intuition (formal intuition) and not a real object that can be perceived by external intuition. Space, as prior to all things which determine it (fill or limit it), or rather which give an empirical intuition determined by its form, is, under the name of absolute space, nothing but a mere possibility of external phenomena, so far as they either exist already, or can be added to given phenomena. Empirical intuition, therefore, is not a compound of phenomena and of space (perception and empty intuition). The one is not a correlate of the other in a synthesis, but the two are only connected as matter and form in one and the same empirical intuition. If we try to separate one from the other, and to place space outside all phenomena, we arrive at a number of empty determinations of external intuition, which, however, can never be possible perceptions; for instance, motion or rest of the world in an infinite empty space, i.e. a determination of the mutual relation of the two, which can never be perceived, and is therefore nothing but the predicate of a mere idea.

  7 This quantum contains therefore a multitude (of given units) which is greater than any number; this is the mathematical concept of the infinite.

  8 It is easily seen that what we wish to say is that empty space, so far as limited by phenomena, that is, space within the world, does not at least contradict transcendental principles, and may be admitted, therefore, so far as they are concerned, though by this its possibility is not asserted.

  9 Rosenkranz thinks that atomus is here used intentionally by Kant as a masculine, to distinguish it from the atomon, translated by scholastic philosophers as inseparable, indiscernible, simplex, etc., while with the Greek philosophers atomus is feminine. Erdman, however, has shown that Kant has used atomus elsewhere also as masculine.

  10 Antithesis is a misprint.

  11 As formal condition of the possibility of changes, time is no doubt objectively prior to them (read dissen instead of disser); subjectively, however, and in the reality of our consciousness the representation of time, like every other, is occasioned solely by perceptions.

  12 The word to begin is used in two senses. The first is active when the cause begins, or starts (infit), a series of states as its effect. The second is passive (or neuter) when the causality begins in the cause itself (fit). I reason here from the former to the latter meaning.

  13 It is, however, doubtful whether Epicurus did ever teach these principles as objective assertions. If he meant them to be no more than maxims for the speculative use of reason, he would have shown thereby a truer philosophical spirit than any of the philosophers on antiquity. The principles that in explaining phenomena we must proceed as if the field of investigation were enclosed by no limit or beginning of the world; that the material of the world should be accepted as it must be, if we want to learn anything about it from experience; that there is no origination of events except as determined by invariable laws of nature; and, lastly, that we must not appeal to a cause distinct from the world, all these are still perfectly true, though seldom observed in enlarging the field of speculative philosophy, or in discovering the principles of morality, independently of foreign aid. It is not permissible that those who wish only to ignore those dogmatical propositions, while still engaged in mere speculation, should be accused of wishing to deny them.

  14 Though we cannot answer the question, what kind of quality a transcendental object may possess, or what it is, we are well able to answer that the question itself is nothing, because it is without an object. All questions, therefore, of transcendental psychology are answerable, and have been answered, for they refer to the transcendental subject of all internal phenomena, which itself is not phenomenal, and not given as an object, and possesses none of the conditions which make any of the categories (and it is to them that the question really refers) applicable to it. We have, therefore, here a case where the common saying applies, that no answer is as good as an answer, that is, that the question regarding the quality of something which cannot be conceived by any definite predicates, being completely beyond the sphere of objects, is entirely null and void.

  15 Read keine in original, not eine.

  16 See Supplement XXVIII.

  17 This cosmical series can therefore be neither greater nor smaller than the possible empirical regressus on which alone its concept rests. And as this can give neither a definite infinite, nor a definite finite (absolutely limited), it becomes clear that we cannot accept the quantity of the world, either as finite or as infinite, because the regressus (by which it is represented) admits of neither the one nor the other.

  18 It will have been observed that the argument has here been carried on in a very different way from the dogmatical argument, which was presented before, in the antithesis of the first antinomy. There we took the world of sense, according to the common and dogmatical view, as a thing given by itself, in its totality, before any regressus: and we had denied to it, if it did not occupy all time and all space, any place at all in both. Hence the conclusion also was different from what it is here, for it went to the real infinity of the world.

  19 Mathematical, omitted in the First and Second Editions.

  20 The understanding admits of no condition among phenomena, which should itself be empirically unconditioned. But if we might conceive an intelligible condition, that is to say, a condition, not belonging itself as a link to the series of phenomena, of something conditioned (as a phenomenon) without in the least interrupting the series of empirical conditions, such a condition might be admitted as empirically unconditioned, without interfering with the empirical continuous regressus.

  21 It seems better to read noumenon instead of phenomenon.

  22 The true morality of actions (merit or guilt), even that of our own conduct, remains therefore entirely hidden. Our imputations can refer to the empirical character only. How much of that may be the pure effect of freedom, how much should be ascribed to nature only, and to the faults of temperament, for which man is not responsible, or its happy constitution (merito fortunae), no one can discover, and no one can judge with perfect justice.

  23 After anzusehen, sind may be added for the sake of clearness, but it is often omitted in Kant's style.

  | Go to Table of Contents |

  The Second Book of Transcendental Dialectic

  Chapter III

  The Ideal of Pure Reason

  Section I

  Of the Ideal in General

  WE have seen that without the conditions of sensibility, it is impossible to represent objects by means of the pure concepts of the understanding, because the conditions of their objective reality are absent, and they contain the mere form of thought only. If, however, we apply these concepts to phenomena, they can be represented in concreto, because in the phenomena they have the material for forming concepts of experience, which are nothing but concepts of the understanding in concrete. Ideas, however, are still further removed from objective reality than the categories, because they can meet with no phenomenon in which they could be represented in concreto. They contain a certain completeness unattainable by any possible empirical knowledge, and reason aims in them at a systematical unity only, to which the empirically possible unity is to approximate, without ever fully reaching it.

  Still further removed from objective reality than
the Idea, would seem to be what I call the Ideal, by which I mean the idea, not only in concreto, but in individuo, that is, an individual thing determinable or even determined by the idea alone.

  Humanity (as an idea), in its complete perfection, implies not only all essential qualities belonging to human nature, which constitute our concept of it, enlarged to a degree of complete agreement with the highest aims that would represent our idea of perfect humanity, but everything also which, beside this concept, is required for the complete determination of the idea. For of all contradictory predicates one only can agree with the idea of the most perfect man. What to us is an ideal, was in Plato's language an Idea of a divine mind, an individual object present to its pure intuition, the most perfect of every kind of possible beings, and the archetype of all phenomenal copies.