Kant | Modern Philosophy: Essential Selections

IMMANUEL KANT

From Modern Philosophy: Essential Selections, by James Fieser

CONTENTS

Introduction

Need for a Critique of Pure Reason

Hume and the Need to Re-Evaluate Metaphysics

Unique Feature of all Metaphysical Knowledge

How is Cognition from Pure Reason Possible

How is Pure Mathematics Possible?

How is the Science of Nature Possible?

How is Metaphysics in General Possible?

Enlightenment and Free Thought on Religious Issues

The Categorical Imperative

Freedom, Immortality and God as Postulates

Beauty as Disinterested, Universal, Necessary, and Seemingly Purposeful

Perpetual Peace through a Federation of Peace

Study Questions

INTRODUCTION

German philosopher Immanuel Kant (1724-1804) was born in Königsberg, the capital of what was then East Prussia. He studied at the University of Königsberg, became a lecturer there in 1755, and in 1770 was appointed Professor of Logic and Metaphysics. Although Kant spent virtually all his life in and around his home city, he was an avid reader of philosophical and scientific authors from other countries, especially France and England, which gave his own prolific writings a cosmopolitan feel. He gained international fame for his original and revolutionary ideas, and he inspired a Kantian school of philosophy that is still influential today. Kant retired from teaching in 1797 and died in 1804. The selections below are from seven of his publications.

In 1781 he published his most influential philosophical work, the Critique of Pure Reason, which is lengthy, technical, and, by his own confession, somewhat dry. To help readers follow its basic themes, he wrote a summary which appeared two years later under the title Prolegomena to Any Future Metaphysics (1783). Kant's aim in the Critique of Pure Reason is bold: to reject older systems of metaphysics and solve all metaphysical problems with a new system. His targets are the modern metaphysical systems of both Leibniz and Locke and how they each explained the relation between, for example, (a) my sensation of a drop of water and (b) the concept that I mentally form of that drop of water. Leibniz, he argues, went one extreme by "intellectualizing" appearances (considering the drop itself as only a concept), while Locke went the other extreme by "sensitizing" concepts of the understanding (considering the concept of a drop only as derived from sense experience). Kant aimed to bridge the gap between Leibniz's rationalism and Locke's empiricism.

In his Preface to the first edition of the Critique of Pure Reason, he argues that the older metaphysics of Leibniz and Locke lead to stubborn metaphysical problems. The only solution to these, he says, can be found in a new understanding, or "critique" of the faculty of reason. He proposes to do this here and, in the process, seeks to solve every metaphysical problem there is. In the Prolegomena he describes how Hume's skeptical analysis of causality awakened him to the pitfalls of modern metaphysics. Hume argued that our experience alone (and not our a priori reasoning) gives rise to our notion of causality. Hume's critics, such as Thomas Reid, argued that causality was a truth that we know through common sense. Kant argued that these critics missed Hume's point, and ultimately Kant concluded that the notion of causality springs from special concepts in the pure understanding. Kant then used his solution to Hume's problem of causality as a template for explaining other metaphysical concepts.

The heart of Kant's solution to metaphysical problems is a distinction between these two types of statements:

• Analytic statement (true by definition): "all bachelors are unmarried men", "all bodies are extended".

• Synthetic statement (not true by definition): "John is a bachelor", "all bodies have weight".

Analytic statements are true by definition, since, for example, the predicate "unmarried" is contained in the subject "bachelor". Further, it is contradictory to deny analytic statements, as when we say, "it is not the case that all bachelors are unmarried men". Analytic statements thus do not amplify knowledge, but only repeat what we already know. Synthetic statements, though, are the reverse: the predicate is not contained in the subject, no contradiction arises when denying them, and new knowledge is added. Consider next the following distinction between two ways that we know things about the world:

• A priori knowledge (prior to experience): "all bachelors are unmarried men", "all bodies are extended".

• A posteriori knowledge (through experience): "John is a bachelor", "all bodies have weight".

At issue here is the mechanism by which we gain knowledge, which is either through sense experience, or some type of rational intuition that does not involve sense experience. Note how the same examples apply to the a priori/a posteriori distinction as with the analytic/synthetic distinction. This might suggest that the two sets of distinctions always refer to the same things. Kant disagrees: there is a special set of concepts that are "synthetic a priori", that is, concepts that give us new information without coming from sense experience:

• Synthetic a priori (not true by definition, known prior to experience): "the substance in all things is permanent".

In this case, the metaphysical claim that "the substance in all things is permanent" is synthetic, since the predicate "permanence" is not contained in the subject "substance", yet it is also a priori since we could not know this through experience. Kant's big discovery is that we are all born with synthetic a priori mental structures that organize raw experience. Causality is one such synthetic a priori mental structure, as when we say, for example, "billiard ball A caused the movement of billiard ball B". The concept of a causal relation is embedded within us, and this concept organizes our sense experience when we stand in front of a billiard table. For Kant, true metaphysics is the study of those synthetic a priori structures, and false metaphysics occurs when we attempt to reason beyond those structures. Further, he argues that mathematical statements like "7+5=12" are also synthetic a priori mental structures. First, this statement is not analytic, since the subject "7+5" does not contain the predicate "12." That is, when we think "7+5," the result "12" is not already included in that thought, we must go beyond it. Second, we do not know that 7+5=12 through sensory experience (a posteriori); rather, we know it through mental intuition (a priori).

Kant develops his theory by answering a series of questions, the first of which is "How is pure mathematics possible?" His answer is that mathematics is grounded in our synthetic a priori mental structures of space and time. Geometry is clearly about space, and arithmetic is about time, as when we, for example, first take 7, then after that add it to 5, and then after that get 12. He refers to the two mental structures of space and time specifically as "pure intuitions". These intuitions are not there merely for the benefit of mathematicians, but they are the foundation of everything that we experience. I look out the window, my eyes are flooded with visual data and my mind intuitively interprets that data as, for example, what appears to be a three-dimensional dog walking down the road at 5 miles per hour.

Throughout his discussion, Kant relies on an important distinction between what he calls "phenomena" and "noumena". Phenomena involve what I actually experience, and noumena involve things as they are in themselves apart from how I might experience them. For example, as I look at the dog walking down the road, its physical features appear to my five senses, such as its color and texture. Apart from this list of sensory phenomena, though, there remain features about the dog that I have no way of investigating or even describing. These hidden features are the noumena of the dog, and I am permanently prevented from knowing them. Kant argues here that our experience of the physical world is in general restricted to the phenomena, and cannot reveal anything about noumenal things in themselves. The point here is that the synthetic a prior mental structures that shape our experiences are about the phenomenal world that lies within our experience, not the noumenal world of things in themselves outside of our experience.

Kant next presents an argument called the "transcendental deduction" to prove his main point that synthetic a priori mental structures are needed to explain the universal judgments that we make about our experiences. From what I personally see when looking out the window, I make the "judgment of perception" that a dog is walking down the road. This, though, isn't just true for me, but for everyone: it is a "judgment of experience" that is true for everyone. It is only through synthetic a priori mental structures that my individual experience becomes universal. Otherwise, each of us would have an entirely different way of judging the world.

Next, he asks "how is the science of nature possible?", that is, what enables me to make judgments about events that happen in the physical world"? His answer is that our understanding of the physical world is shaped by 12 other synthetic a priori mental structures that he calls "pure concepts", also "categories". These fall into four groups of three:

1. Quantity: unity, plurality, totality.

2. Quality: reality, negation, limitation.

3. Relation: substance, cause, community (reciprocity).

4. Modality: possibility, existence, necessity.

When, for example, I stand in front of a billiard table and see ball A strike and move ball B, at least four categories are triggered. First, I see the "unity" of ball A (it is a single thing), second, I see the "reality" that ball A strikes ball B, third, I see that ball A causally moves ball B, and, forth, we see that of "necessity" this will happen every time that ball A hits ball B in the same way. Thus, in response to the question "how is the science of nature possible," he answers that the categories constitute "universal laws of nature," which allow us to investigate and make universal claims about the natural world, such as claims about how billiard balls move. Again, Kant argues, the categories shape our experiences about the phenomenal world of what we can perceive, not the noumenal world of things in themselves.

Lastly, Kant asks "how is metaphysics in general possible?" His answer is that metaphysics is restricted to the phenomenal world, and not to the noumenal. True metaphysics is an examination into the synthetic a priori mental structures that we have, that is, of our pure intuitions (space and time) and our pure concepts (the 12 categories). Any attempt to go beyond these into the realm of things in themselves will result in an irresistible illusion. There are three main illusory notions, which he calls "transcendental ideas": the self, the world, and God. Regarding the first, he argues that we cannot prove the permanence of the thinking self after death. The only permanence that I introspectively experience about myself involves me as I am alive, and none of us have such an experience about ourselves after death. Regarding the world as the second transcendental idea, he argues that any speculations about the world beyond our experience will lead to inevitable contradictions. He argues that there are four such contradictions or "antinomies" (one for each of the four main divisions of the categories):

(1) Quantity: the world as finite-infinite.

(2) Quality: the world as simple-complex.

(3) Relation: people being free-unfree.

(4) Modality: causal events requiring a necessary being or not.

Despite our best arguments on either side of these issues, contradictions will inevitably arise. However, Kant does attempt to resolve all four. He rejects each of the theses and antitheses in the first two antinomies, since they are self-contradictory. However, he accepts each of the theses and antitheses in the final two antinomies since he believes that we can hold these compatibly. The third of the illusory transcendent ideas is that of God. He argues there are only three arguments for Gods existence, and they each fail for going beyond the phenomenal world of the senses. While the idea of God cannot be proven or disproven, it is still a speculative idea that he believes is faultless and valuable.

In the Critique of Practical Reason (1788), Kant argues for the practical necessity of postulating the immortality of the soul, the existence of God, and human free will. These are metaphysical notions that are beyond the boundaries of human experience and cannot be proven, and, further, are not required for scientific knowledge. However, they are nevertheless concepts that we need to assume for morality to be meaningful, and thus have pragmatic value. Regarding immortality, he argues that, for us to achieve the highest moral good, we must progress towards perfection. Since this is not possible in our limited earthly lives, we must have immortal souls that can continue this progression in an afterlife. Regarding God, he argues that achieving the highest moral good is linked with achieving ultimate happiness. However, this link is not possible for us in the physical world alone, thus a cause of nature is necessary to bring that about, either in this life or the next. Finally, regarding free will, he argues that morality requires that we submit ourselves to the moral law, and such submission requires that we do so of our own free will.

In his Groundwork of the Metaphysics of Morals (1785), Kant presents his influential theory of the categorical imperative, which is a single moral principle like the Golden Rule, which reveals for any action whether it is right or wrong. He argues that, when I make a moral choice, my willful decision should only be influenced only by rational considerations, and not by subjective considerations such as one's emotions, or appeals to beneficial consequences. The rational consideration that influences the will must be a single principle of obligation, since only principles can be purely rational considerations. Further, the principle must be a command (i.e., an imperative) since morality commands us to perform a particular action. Imperatives are of two types: hypothetical and categorical. Hypothetical imperatives are commands that depend on my preference for a particular end, and they are worded as logically conditional statements, such as, "If I want to lose weight, then I should eat less." Moral principles, he argues, cannot be hypothetical since morality involves commands that are absolute, not conditional. Thus, they must be categorical (absolute and unqualified) and not dependent upon one's preferences.

According to Kant, the single categorical imperative of morality is this: "act only on that maxim by which you can at the same time will that it should become a universal law". Although there is only one categorical imperative, he says, there can be four formulas of it containing different insights which all lead to the same moral conclusion:

• Formula of the Law of Nature: "Act as though the maxim of your action were by your will to become a universal law of nature."

• Formula of the End in Itself: "So act as to treat humanity, whether in your own person or in that of any other, in every case as an end and never as merely a means."

• Formula of Autonomy: "So act that your will can regard itself at the same time as making universal law through its maxims."

• Formula of the Kingdom of Ends: "So act as if you were through your maxims a law-making member of a kingdom of ends."

Only the first two formulas are covered in the selections here. The formula of the law of nature offers a step-by-step procedure for determining whether an action is right or wrong. We take a particular action, construe it as a general maxim, and then see if it can be willed consistently as a law of nature. If it can be willed consistently, then the action is moral. If not, then it is immoral. Kant uses four examples to illustrate the range of morally significant situations that arise. These include committing suicide, making false promises, failing to develop one's abilities, and refusing to be charitable. In each case, the action is deemed immoral since a contradiction arises when trying to will the maxim as a law of nature. The formula of the end in itself presents a different procedure: an action is morally right if when performing that action we do not use people as a means to achieve some further benefit, but instead treat people as something which is intrinsically valuable. Again, Kant illustrates this principle with the above four examples, and in each case performing the action would involve treating a person as a means, and not an end.

In the Critique of Judgment (1790), Kant analyzes the concept of beauty and argues that aesthetic judgments have four unique features. First, the judgment is disinterested. For example, I may look at a palace and make objective judgments that it is well built, that it suitable for inhabitants' needs, and even that it is a pretentious display of vanity. However, I may also make a purely subjective aesthetic judgment that the palace is beautiful, and this subjective judgement stands independently of my previous objective judgments. In Kant's words, my subjective aesthetic judgment is "disinterested" in all my previous objective judgments. Second, the aesthetic judgement must be universal. If my aesthetic judgment about the palace is truly disinterested, then everyone should feel the same about it. He then raises the question: when I judge that an object is beautiful, does that judgment come before or after my experience of pleasure? He argues that the judgment must come prior to such pleasure, otherwise my judgment would only be valid for me. This judgement involves a "harmony" or a "free play" of my faculties of imagination and understanding, which is then followed by pleasure. Third, the aesthetic object is seemingly purposeful (i.e., has an "end" or a "finality"). To use a more modern expression, it has "purposiveness without purpose". For example, an objective purpose of a palace is its usefulness and what it was constructed to accomplish. However, beauty, for Kant, is not the same as usefulness. Still, he argues, the palace conveys some sense of purpose (end, finality), independent of any objective purpose like utility. Fourth, the aesthetic judgment must be necessary. Since my judgment of the palace's beauty is experienced universally by others, this regularity gives it a kind of necessity. While this may have the appearance of objective necessity (like mathematics) it is still only a subjectively-based necessity since it is grounded in my subjective feelings.

In Kant's short essay, "What is Enlightenment" (1784), he argues for the expansion of intellectual freedom, particularly in religious matters. Enlightenment, he says, is freedom from self-inflicted ignorance and subservience to guardians who tell us what we should think and believe. Commitments in our daily lives typically require us to follow established sets of rules, such as with soldiers, taxpayers and clergy; he calls this the "private use of reason" and we need to simply obey. However, even in these cases, there is a "public use of reason" which entitles us in our scholarly capacity to publicly debate the flaws of such policies and systems. Within religious institutions, ministers cannot pledge to enforce an unchangeable doctrine upon their guardians in perpetuity, and such institutions should provide a mechanism for doctrinal reform. Governments, he says, should stay out of religious debates, and the enlightened ruler should encourage people to argue on intellectual matters but obey on civic matters.

Finally, in his essay "Perpetual Peace" (1795), Kant proposes the idea of a World Federation of Peace that would bring about an end to all wars. Modern societies, he says, consider the lawless liberty of warring savages to be barbarous, and we might think that civilized nations would have immediately moved beyond this for themselves, but they haven't. The best way of securing permanent peace, he argues, is through a world government, but such a universal federation of all countries is unlikely. A more realistic alternative is a Federation of Peace that would start small and eventually expand around the world. He believes that such a state of peace may even be inevitable. For, nature itself exhibits a design that brings order out of disorder, which we commonly call "fate" or "providence", and we can view this as the wisdom of a higher cause moving humanity to its final purpose.

For reference, here are the main terms that Kant uses in the selections below, in the order they appear in the texts.

analytic–synthetic distinction: with analytic propositions the predicate is contained in the subject, a contradiction arises when denying them, and they do not add new knowledge. Synthetic propositions have the opposite characteristics.

a priori–a posteriori distinction: a priori knowledge is gained prior to experience through rational intuition; a posteriori knowledge is gained through experience.

synthetic a priori principles: pure intuitions of space and time and the 12 categories.

phenomena: something that appears to the senses; includes only appearances, which are things that exist only in being apprehended, reliant in part on cognitive apparatus.

noumena: not knowable by sensible means; includes only things in themselves, things that exist independently of human cognition.

transcendental idealism: Kant's general theory that the world as it appears to us depends on our minds, and we cannot have any knowledge of the world as it is in itself.

unity of apperception: the faculty of understanding itself which brings all appearances into one experience.

pure intuitions (sensible intuitions): two synthetic a priori mental structures that interpret sensory perceptions in space and time.

pure concepts (categories): 12 synthetic a priori mental structures that interpret sensory experience, e.g., causality, unity, necessity.

transcendental deduction: arguments showing that the pure intuitions and pure concepts are necessary for our experience because, as structures of our sensibility, nothing could even be imagined to be given to us without them.

transcendental ideas (ideas of pure reason): three main areas of metaphysical speculation, that is, the self as the thinking subject, the world as a whole, and God as a being of all beings.

categorical imperative: an unconditional (non-hypothetical) moral command of the general form, "Act only on that maxim by which you can at the same time will that it should become a universal law.".

hypothetical imperatives: non-moral obligations that are of the form "If you want some thing, then you must do some act"; this is in contrast to the categorical imperative.

postulates of pure practical reason: three unprovable ideas that are requirements for morality, namely, immortality of the soul, the existence of God, and free will.

NEED FOR A CRITIQUE OF PURE REASON (Critique of Pure Reason, Preface, First Edition)

Human Reason asks Questions that Cannot be Answered

Human reason has this unique fate, that in one region of its knowledge it is burdened by questions which, as given by the very nature of reason itself, it is not able to ignore, but which, as transcending all its powers, it is also not able to answer.

The perplexity into which it thus falls is not due to any fault of its own. It begins with principles, which cannot be dispensed with in the course of experience, and the truth and sufficiency of which are, at the same time, insured by experience. With these principles it rises, in obedience to the laws of its own nature, to ever higher and more remote conditions. But it quickly discovers that, in this way, its labors must remain ever incomplete, because new questions never cease to present themselves. It therefore finds itself compelled to resort to principles which overstep all possible use, and which yet seem so unobjectionable that even common sense easily accepts them. But by this procedure human reason falls into darkness and contradictions; and while it may indeed conjecture that these must be in some way due to concealed errors, it is not in a position to be able to detect them. For since the principles of which it is making use transcend the limits of experience, they are no longer subject to any empirical test. The battlefield of these endless controversies is called metaphysics.

Rise and Persistence of Dogmatic Metaphysics

Time was when metaphysics was called the Queen of all the sciences; and if we take the will for the deed, she certainly deserves this title of honor, so far as regards the high importance of her task. Now, however, the changed fashion of the time brings her only scorn; and the matron mourns outcast and forsaken, like Hecuba: Modo maxima rerum tot generis natisque potens nunc trahor exul, inops ["Greatest of all by race and birth, I now am cast out, powerless" Ovid, Metamorphosis, 13:508-510].

At first, her government, under the administration of the dogmatists [i.e., Plato and Aristotle], was an absolute despotism. But, as her legislation continued to show traces of ancient barbaric rule, her empire gradually broke up, and internal wars introduced the reign of anarchy [i.e., Epicureans and Stoics]. While the skeptics, like nomadic tribes who hate a permanent habitation and settled type of living, broke up from time to time all civil society. But fortunately, they were few in number, and thus they could not prevent the dogmatists [e.g., Leibniz] from raising new buildings, although on no settled or uniform plan. In more recent times, it has seemed as if an end might be put to all these controversies and the claims of metaphysics receive final judgment, through a certain physiology of the human understanding that of the celebrated Locke. But it has turned out quite otherwise. For however the attempt is made to cast doubt upon the pretensions of the supposed Queen by tracing her lineage to lowly origins in common experience [e.g., Thomas Reid], this genealogy has, as a matter of fact, been wrongly invented, and she has still continued to uphold her claims. Metaphysics has accordingly lapsed back into the same old and decayed dogmatism, and so again suffers that contempt from which it was to have been rescued. Now, after all paths, so it is believed, have been tried and found lacking, the prevailing mood is that of weariness and complete indifferentism, the mother of chaos and night in all sciences, although fortunately in this case the source, or at least the prelude, of their approaching reform and restoration. For it at least puts an end to that ill applied industry through which it has become dark, confused, and useless.

Dislike of Illusory Knowledge calls for a Critique of Pure Reason

But it is pointless to pretend indifference to such inquiries, the object of which can never be indifferent to our human nature. Indeed, these pretended indifferentists, however they may try to disguise themselves by substituting a popular style for the language of the [medieval metaphysical] Schools, inevitably fall back, in so far as they think at all, into those very, metaphysical assertions which they profess so greatly to despise. Still, this indifference, showing itself in the midst of flourishing sciences, and affecting precisely those sciences, the knowledge of which, if attainable, we should least of all care to dispense with, is a phenomenon that calls for attention and reflection. It is obviously the effect, not of thoughtlessness of our time, but of the matured judgment, which refuses to be any longer put off with illusory knowledge. It is demand for reason to undertake anew the most difficult of all its tasks, namely, that of self-knowledge, and to institute a tribunal which will assure to reason its lawful claims, and dismiss all groundless pretensions, not by despotic decrees, but in accordance with its own eternal and unalterable laws. This tribunal is no other than the critique of pure reason.

I do not mean by this a critique of books and systems, but of the faculty of reason in general, with respect to all knowledge after which it may strive independently of all experience. It will therefore decide as to the possibility or impossibility of metaphysics in general, and determine its sources, its extent, and its limits all in accordance with principles.

Kant's Discovery of a Solution to All Metaphysical Problems

I have entered upon this path the only one that has remained unexplored and flatter myself that in following it I have found a way of guarding against all those errors which have previously set reason, in its non-empirical employment, in conflict with itself. I have not evaded its questions by pleading the insufficiency of human reason. On the contrary, I have specified these questions exhaustively, according to principles; and after locating the point at which, through misunderstanding, reason comes into conflict with itself, I have solved them to its complete satisfaction. The answer to these questions has not, indeed, been such as a dogmatic and visionary insistence upon knowledge might lead us to expect that can be catered for only through magical devices, in which I am no adept. Such ways of answering them are, indeed, not within the intention of the natural constitution of our reason. Inasmuch as they have their source in misunderstanding, it is the duty of philosophy to counteract their deceptive influence, no matter what prized and cherished dreams may have to be disowned. In this inquiry I have made completeness my chief aim, and I venture to assert that there is not a single metaphysical problem which has not been solved, or for the solution of which the key at least has not been supplied. Pure reason is, indeed, so perfect a unity that if its principle were insufficient for the solution of even a single one of all the questions to which it itself gives birth, we should have no alternative but to reject the principle, since we should then no longer be able to place implicit reliance upon it in dealing with any one of the other questions.

While I am saying this, I can imagine that I detect in the face of the reader an expression of indignation, mixed with contempt, at pretensions seemingly so arrogant and vain. Yet they are incomparably more moderate than the claims of all those writers who on the lines of the usual program profess to prove the simple nature of the soul or the necessity of a first beginning of the world. For while such writers pledge themselves to extend human knowledge beyond all limits of possible experience, I humbly confess that this is entirely beyond my power. I have to deal with nothing except reason itself and its pure thinking. To obtain complete knowledge of these, there is no need to go far afield, since I come upon them in my own self. Common logic itself supplies an example, how all the simple acts of reason can be enumerated completely and systematically. The subject of the present inquiry is the [related] question, how much we can hope to achieve by reason, when all the material and assistance of experience are taken away.

So much as regards completeness in our determination of each question, and exhaustiveness in our determination of all the questions with which we have to deal. These questions are not arbitrarily selected; they are prescribed to us, by the very nature of knowledge itself, as being the subject-matter of our critical inquiry.

HUME AND THE NEED TO RE-EVALUATE METAPHYSICS (Prolegomena, Introduction)

Hume's Rejection of A priori Knowledge of Causality

Since the Essays of Locke and Leibniz, or rather since the origin of [modern] metaphysics so far as we know its history, nothing has ever happened which was more decisive to its fate than the attack made upon it by David Hume. He threw no light on this area of knowledge, but he certainly struck a spark from which light might have been obtained, had it caught some inflammable substance and had its smoldering fire been carefully nursed and developed.

Hume started from a single but important concept in Metaphysics, i.e., that of cause and effect (including its derivatives force and action, etc.). He challenges reason, which pretends to have given birth to this idea from herself, to answer him by what right she thinks anything to be so constituted, that if that thing be posited, something else also must necessarily be posited; for this is the meaning of the concept of cause. He demonstrated irrefutably that it was perfectly impossible for reason to think a priori and by means of concepts a combination involving necessity. We cannot at all see why, in consequence of the existence of one thing, another must necessarily exist, or how the concept of such a combination can arise a priori. Hence he inferred, that reason was altogether deluded with reference to this concept, which she erroneously considered as one of her children, whereas in reality it was nothing but an illegitimate product of imagination, impregnated by experience, which included certain representations under the Law of Association, and mistook the subjective necessity of habit for an objective necessity arising from insight. Hence, he inferred that reason had no power to think such combinations, even generally, because her concepts would then be purely fictitious, and all her pretended a priori cognitions nothing but common experiences marked with a false stamp. In plain language there is not, and cannot be, any such thing as metaphysics at all.

However hasty and mistaken Hume's conclusion may appear, it was at least founded upon investigation, and this investigation deserved the concentrated attention of the brighter spirits of his day as well as determined efforts on their part to discover, if possible, a happier solution of the problem in the sense proposed by him, all of which would have speedily resulted in a complete reform of the science.

Kant's Rejection of Common Sense as a Foundation of Metaphysics

But Hume suffered the usual misfortune of metaphysicians, of not being understood. It is positively painful to see bow utterly his opponents, Reid, Oswald, Beattie [i.e., defenders of common sense philosophy], and lastly Priestley, missed the point of the problem. For while they were ever taking for granted that which he doubted, and demonstrating with zeal and often with rudeness that which he never thought of doubting, they so misconstrued his valuable suggestion that everything remained in its old condition, as if nothing had happened.

The question was not whether the concept of cause was right, useful, and even indispensable for our knowledge of nature, for this Hume had never doubted; but whether that concept could be thought by reason a priori, and consequently whether it possessed an inner truth, independent of all experience, implying a wider application than merely to the objects of experience. This was Hume's problem. It was a question concerning the origin, not concerning the indispensable need of the concept. Were the former decided, the conditions of the use and the sphere of its valid application would have been determined as a matter of course.

But to satisfy the conditions of the problem, the opponents of the great thinker [i.e., Reid, Oswald and Beattie] should have penetrated very deeply into the nature of reason, so far as it is concerned with pure thinking, a task which did not suit them. They found a more convenient method of being defiant without any insight, i.e., the appeal to common sense. It is indeed a great gift of God, to possess right, or (as they now call it) plain common sense. But this common sense must be shown practically, by well-considered and reasonable thoughts and words, not by appealing to it as an oracle, when no rational justification can be advanced. To appeal to common sense, when insight and science fail, and no sooner-this is one of the subtle discoveries of modern times, by means of which the most superficial ranter can safely enter the lists with the most thorough thinker, and hold his own. But as long as a particle of insight remains, no one would think of having recourse to this subterfuge. For what is it [i.e., common sense] but an appeal to the opinion of the multitude, of whose applause the philosopher is ashamed, while the popular charlatan glories and confides in it? I should think that Hume might fairly have laid as much claim to common sense as Beattie, and in addition to a critical reason (such as the latter did not possess), which keeps common sense in check and prevents it from speculating, or, if speculations are under discussion restrains the desire to decide because it cannot satisfy itself concerning its own arguments. By this means alone can common sense remain sound. Chisels and hammers may suffice to work a piece of wood, but for steel-engraving we require an engraver's needle. Thus common sense and speculative understanding are each serviceable in their own way, the former in judgments which apply immediately to experience, the latter when we judge universally from mere concepts, as in metaphysics, where sound common sense, so called in spite of the inapplicability of the word, has no right to judge at all.

Hume's Problem of Causality just one Example of a Larger Metaphysical Problem

I openly confess, the suggestion of David Hume was the very thing which many years ago first interrupted my dogmatic slumber, and gave my investigations in the field of speculative philosophy quite a new direction. I was far from following him in the conclusions at which he arrived by regarding, not the whole of his problem, but a part, which by itself can give us no information. If we start from a well-founded, but undeveloped, thought, which another has bequeathed to us, we may well hope by continued reflection to advance farther than the acute man, to whom we owe the first spark of light.

I therefore first tried whether Hume's objection could not be put into a general form, and soon found that the concept of the connection of cause and effect was by no means the only idea by which the understanding thinks about the connection of things a priori, but rather that metaphysics consists altogether of such connections. I sought to ascertain their number, and when I had satisfactorily succeeded in this by starting from a single principle, I proceeded to the deduction of these concepts, which I was now certain were not deduced from experience, as Hume had apprehended, but sprang from the pure understanding. This deduction (which seemed impossible to my acute predecessor, which had never even occurred to anyone else, though no one had hesitated to use the concepts without investigating the basis of their objective validity) was the most difficult task ever undertaken in the service of metaphysics; and the worst was that metaphysics, such as it then existed, could not assist me in the least, because this deduction alone can render metaphysics possible. But as soon as I had succeeded in solving Hume's problem, not merely in a particular case, but with respect to the whole faculty of pure reason, I could proceed safely, though slowly, to determine the whole sphere of pure reason completely and from general principles, in its circumference as well as in its contents. This was required for metaphysics in order to construct its system according to a reliable method.

UNIQUE FEATURE OF ALL METAPHYSICAL KNOWLEDGE (Prolegomena, Preamble)

Metaphysics deals with A priori Knowledge

Sect. 1. If it becomes desirable to formulate any cognition as science, it will be necessary first to determine accurately those unique features which no other science has in common with it, constituting its characteristics; otherwise the. boundaries of all sciences become confused, and none of them can be treated thoroughly according to its nature.

The characteristics of a science may consist of a simple difference of object, or of the sources of cognition, or of the kind of cognition, or perhaps of all three conjointly. On this, therefore, depends the idea of a possible science and its territory.

First, as concerns the sources of metaphysical cognition, its very concept implies that they cannot be empirical. Its principles (including not only its maxims but its basic notions) must never be derived from experience. It must not be physical but metaphysical knowledge, i.e., knowledge lying beyond experience. It can therefore have for its basis neither external experience, which is the source of physics proper, nor internal [experience through introspection], which is the basis of empirical psychology. It is therefore a priori knowledge, coming from pure Understanding and pure Reason.

But so far Metaphysics would not be distinguishable from pure Mathematics; it must therefore be called pure philosophical cognition; and for the meaning of this term I refer to the Critique of Pure Reason (II. "Method of Transcendentalism," Chap. I., Sec. 1), where the distinction between these two employments of the reason is sufficiently explained. So much for sources of metaphysical cognition.

Analytic Judgments do not Amplify Knowledge, they Create a Contradiction when Denied, and the Predicate is contained in the Subject

Sect. 2.a. Of the Distinction between Analytic and Synthetic judgments in general.

The uniqueness of its sources demands that metaphysical cognition must consist of nothing but a priori judgments. But whatever be their origin, or their logical form, there is a distinction in judgments, as to their content, according to which they are either merely explicative, adding nothing to the content of the cognition, or expansive, increasing the given cognition: the former may be called analytic, the latter synthetic, judgments.

Analytic judgments express nothing in the predicate but what has been already actually thought in the concept of the subject, though not so distinctly or with the same (full) consciousness. When I say: "All bodies are extended," I have not amplified in the least my concept of body, but have only analyzed it, as extension was really thought to belong to that concept before the judgment was made, though it was not expressed, this judgment is therefore analytic. On the contrary, this judgment, "All bodies have weight," contains in its predicate something not actually thought in the general concept of the body; it amplifies my knowledge by adding something to my concept, and must therefore be called synthetic.

Sect. 2.b. The Common Principle of all Analytic Judgments is the Law of Contradiction.

All analytic judgments depend entirely on the law of Contradiction, and are in their nature a priori cognitions, whether the concepts that supply them with matter be empirical or not. For the predicate of an affirmative analytic judgment is already contained in the concept of the subject, of which it cannot be denied without contradiction. In the same way its opposite is necessarily denied of the subject in an analytic, but negative, judgment, by the same law of contradiction. Such is the nature of the judgments: all bodies are extended, and no bodies are unextended (i. e., simple).

For this very reason all analytic judgments are a priori even when the concepts are empirical, as, for example, Gold is a yellow metal; for to know this I require no experience beyond my concept of gold as a yellow metal: it is, in fact, the very concept, and I need only analyze it, without looking beyond it elsewhere.

Synthetic Judgments Amplify Knowledge, They do not contain a Contradiction when Denied, and the Predicate is not contained in the Subject

Sect. 2.c. Synthetic judgments require a different Principle from the Law of Contradiction.

There are synthetic a posteriori judgments of empirical origin; but there are also others which are proved to be certain a priori, and which spring from pure Understanding and Reason. Yet they both agree in this, that they cannot possibly spring from the principle of analysis, i.e., the law of contradiction, alone. They require a quite different principle, though, from whatever they may be deduced, they must be subject to the law of contradiction, which must never be violated, even though everything cannot be deduced from it. I will first classify synthetic judgments.

1. Empirical judgments are always synthetic [a posteriori]. For it would be absurd to base an analytic judgment on experience, as our concept suffices for the purpose without requiring any testimony from experience. That body is extended, is a judgment established a priori, and not an empirical judgment. For before appealing to experience, we already have all the conditions of the judgment in the concept, from which we have but to elicit the predicate according to the law of contradiction, and thereby to become conscious of the necessity of the judgment, which experience could not even teach us.

Mathematical and Metaphysical Judgments are Synthetic A Priori: Amplify Knowledge, but are Non-Empirical

2. Mathematical judgments are all synthetic [a priori]. This fact seems until now to have altogether escaped the observation of those who have analyzed human reason; it even seems directly opposed to all their conjectures, though incontestably certain, and most important in its consequences. For as it was found that the conclusions of mathematicians all proceed according to the law of contradiction (as is demanded by all apodictic certainty), men persuaded themselves that the fundamental principles were known from the same law. This was a great mistake, for a synthetic proposition can indeed be comprehended according to the law of contradiction, but only by presupposing another synthetic proposition from which it follows, but never in itself. ...

It might at first be thought that the proposition 7+5= is a mere analytic judgment, following from the concept of the sum of seven and five, according to the law of contradiction. But on closer examination it appears that the concept of the sum of 7+5 contains merely their union in a single number, without its being at all thought what the particular number is that unites them. The concept of twelve is by no means thought by merely thinking of the combination of seven and five; and analyze this possible sum as we may, we will not discover twelve in the concept. We must go beyond these concepts, by calling to our aid some concrete image, i.e., either our five fingers, or five points (as Segner has it in his Arithmetic), and we must add successively the units of the five, given in some concrete image, to the concept of seven. Hence our concept is really amplified by the proposition 7+5=12, and we add to the first a second, not thought in it. Arithmetical judgments are therefore synthetic, and the more plainly according as we take larger numbers; for in such cases it is clear that, however closely we analyze our concepts without calling visual images to our aid, we can never find the sum by such mere dissection.

3. Metaphysical judgments, properly so called, are all synthetic. We must distinguish judgments pertaining to metaphysics from metaphysical judgments properly so called. Many of the former are analytic, but they only afford the means for metaphysical judgments, which are the whole end of the [metaphysical] science, and which are always synthetic. For if there are concepts pertaining to metaphysics (as, for example, that of substance), the judgments springing from simple analysis of them also pertain to metaphysics, as, for example, substance is that which only exists as subject; and by means of several such analytic judgments, we seek to approach the definition of the concept. But as the analysis of a pure concept of the understanding pertaining to metaphysics, does not proceed in any different manner from the dissection of any other, even empirical, concepts, not pertaining to metaphysics (such as: air is an elastic fluid, the elasticity of which is not destroyed by any known degree of cold), it follows that the concept indeed, but not the analytic judgment, is properly metaphysical. This science has something unique in the production of its a priori cognitions, which must therefore be distinguished from the features it has in common with other rational knowledge. Thus, the judgment, that all the substance in things is permanent, is a synthetic and properly metaphysical judgment. ...

The conclusion drawn in this section, then, is that metaphysics is properly concerned with synthetic propositions a priori, and these alone constitute its end, for which it indeed requires various dissections of its concepts, i.e., of its analytic judgments, but wherein the procedure is not different from that in every other kind of knowledge, in which we merely seek to render our concepts distinct by analysis. But the generation of a priori cognition by concrete images as well as by concepts, ultimately of synthetic propositions a priori in philosophical cognition, constitutes the essential subject of Metaphysics. . . .

HOW IS COGNITION FROM PURE REASON POSSIBLE (Prolegomena, General Question)

Metaphysics' Success requires Showing how Synthetic A Priori Judgments are Possible

Sect. 5. We have above learned the significant distinction between analytic and synthetic judgments. The possibility of analytic propositions was easily understood, being entirely founded on the law of Contradiction. The possibility of synthetic a posteriori judgments, of those which are gathered from experience, also requires no particular explanation; for experience is nothing but a continual synthesis of perceptions. There remain therefore only synthetic propositions a priori, of which the possibility must be sought or investigated, because they must depend upon principles other than the law of contradiction.

But here we need not first establish the possibility of such propositions so as to ask whether they are possible. For there are enough of them which indeed are of undoubted certainty, and as our present method is analytic, we will start from the fact, that such synthetic but purely rational cognition actually exists. But we must now inquire into the reason of this possibility, and ask, how such cognition is possible, in order that we may from the principles of its possibility be enabled to determine the conditions of its use, its sphere and its limits. The proper problem upon which all depends, when expressed with scholastic precision, is therefore: How are Synthethetic Propositions a priori possible? [i.e., how do differing synthetic a priori judgments arise within the human mind] ...

Metaphysics stands or falls with the solution of this problem: its very existence depends upon it. Let anyone make metaphysical assertions with ever so much plausibility, let him overwhelm us with conclusions, if he has not previously proved able to answer this question satisfactorily, I have a right to say this is all vain baseless philosophy and false wisdom. You speak through pure reason, and claim, as it were to create cognitions a priori by not only dissecting given concepts, but also by asserting connections which do not rest upon the law of contradiction, and which you believe you conceive quite independently of all experience; how do you arrive at this, and how will you justify your pretensions? An appeal to the consent of the common sense of mankind cannot be allowed; for that is a witness whose authority depends merely upon rumor. Says Horace: "To all that which you prove me in this manner, I refuse to give credence." . . .

HOW IS PURE MATHEMATICS POSSIBLE? (Prolegomena, Main Transcendental Question, First Part)

Intuitions of Space and Time underlie Mathematics

Sect. 10. Now, the intuitions which pure mathematics lays at the foundation of all its cognitions and judgments which appear both apodictic and necessary are Space and Time. For mathematics must first have all its concepts in intuition, and pure mathematics in pure intuition, that is, it must construct them. If it proceeded in any other way, it would be impossible to make any progress, for mathematics proceeds, not analytically by dissection of concepts, but synthetically, and if pure intuition is lacking, there is nothing in which the matter for synthetic judgments a priori can be given. Geometry is based upon the pure intuition of space. Arithmetic accomplishes its concept of number by the successive addition of units in time; and pure mechanics especially cannot attain its concepts of motion without employing the representation of time. Both representations, however, are only intuitions; for if we omit from the empirical intuitions of bodies and their alterations (motion) everything empirical, or belonging to sensation, space and time still remain, which are therefore pure intuitions that lie a priori at the basis of the empirical. Hence they can never be omitted, but at the same time, by their being pure intuitions a priori, they prove that they are mere forms of our sensibility, which must precede all empirical intuition, or perception of actual objects, and conformably to which objects can be known a priori, but only as they appear to us.

Sect. 11. The problem of the present section is therefore solved. Pure mathematics, as synthetic cognition a priori, is only possible by referring to no other objects than those of the senses. At the basis of their empirical intuition lies a pure intuition (of space and of time) which is a priori. This is possible, because the latter intuition is nothing but the mere form of sensibility, which precedes the actual appearance of the objects, insofar as it, in fact, makes them possible. Yet this faculty of intuiting a priori affects not the matter of the phenomenon (that is, the sense-element in it, for this constitutes that which is empirical), but its form, i.e., space and time. Should any man attempt to doubt that these are determinations adhering not to things in themselves, but to their relation to our sensibility, I should be glad to know how it can be possible to know the constitution of things a priori, i.e., before we have any acquaintance with them and before they are presented to us. Such, however, is the case with space and time. But this is quite comprehensible as soon as both count for nothing more than formal conditions of our sensibility, while the objects count merely as phenomena; for then the form of the phenomenon, i.e., pure intuition, can by all means be represented as proceeding from ourselves, that is, a priori. . . .

Transcendental (Critical) Idealism: Knowledge of the World Depends on our Minds, not on Things in Themselves

Remark 3. . . . I have myself given this my theory the name of transcendental idealism, but that cannot authorize any one to confuse it either with the empirical idealism of Descartes, (indeed, his was only an insoluble problem, owing to which he thought everyone at liberty to deny the existence of the corporeal world, because it could never be proved satisfactorily), or with the mystical and visionary idealism of Berkeley, against which and other similar phantasms our Critique contains the proper antidote. My idealism concerns not the existence of things (the doubting of which, however, constitutes idealism in the ordinary sense), since it never came into my head to doubt it, but it concerns the sensory representation of things, to which space and time especially belong. Of these [i.e., space and time], consequently of all appearances in general, I have only shown, that they are neither things (but mere modes of representation), nor determinations belonging to things in themselves. But the word "transcendental," which with me means a reference of our cognition, i.e., not to things, but only to the cognitive faculty, was meant to avoid this misconception. Yet rather than give further occasion to it by this word, I now retract it, and desire this idealism of mine to be called critical. But if it be really an objectionable idealism to convert actual things (not appearances) into mere representations, by what name will we call him who conversely changes mere representations to things? It may, I think, be called "dreaming idealism," in contradistinction to the former, which may be called "visionary," both of which are to be refuted by my transcendental, or, better, critical idealism. . . .

HOW IS THE SCIENCE OF NATURE POSSIBLE? (Prolegomena, Main Transcendental Question, Second Part)

Knowledge of Nature Cannot be about Things in Themselves (Noumena)

Sect. 14. Nature is the existence of things, so far as it is determined according to universal laws. If nature signified the existence of things in themselves, we could never know it either a priori or a posteriori. Not a priori, for how can we know what belongs to things in themselves, since this never can be done by the dissection of our concepts (in analytic judgments)? We do not want to know what is contained in our concept of a thing (for the [concept describes what] belongs to its logical being), but what is in the actuality of the thing superadded to our concept, and by what the thing itself is determined in its existence outside the concept. Our understanding, and the conditions on which alone it can connect the determinations of things in their existence, do not prescribe any rule to things themselves; these do not conform to our understanding, but it must conform itself to them; they must therefore be first given us in order to gather these determinations from them, thus they would not be known a priori.

A cognition of the nature of things in themselves a posteriori would be equally impossible. For, if experience is to teach us laws, to which the existence of things is subject, these laws, if they regard things in themselves, must belong to them of necessity even outside our experience. But experience teaches us what exists and how it exists, but never that it must necessarily exist so and not otherwise. Experience therefore can never teach us the nature of things in themselves. . . .

Transcendental Deduction: Universally Valid Judgments of Experience require Pure A Priori Concepts of the Understanding

Sect. 19. . . . When we say, "the room is warm, sugar sweet, and wormwood bitter," we have only subjectively valid judgments, I do not at all expect that I or any other person will always find it as I now do. Each of these sentences only expresses a relation of two sensations to the same subject, to myself, and that only in my present state of perception. Consequently, they are not valid of the object. Such are judgments of perception. Judgments of experience are of quite a different nature. What experience teaches me under certain circumstances, it must always teach me and everybody, and its validity is not limited to the subject nor to its state at a particular time. Hence, I pronounce all such judgments as being objectively valid. For instance, when I say the air is elastic, this judgment is so far only a judgment of perception: I do nothing but refer two of my sensations to one another. But, if I would have it called a judgment of experience, I require this connection to stand under a condition, which makes it universally valid. I desire therefore that I and everybody else should always connect necessarily the same perceptions under the same circumstances.

Sect. 20. We must consequently analyze experience in order to see what is contained in this product of the senses and of the understanding, and how the judgment of experience itself is possible. The foundation is the intuition of which I become conscious, i.e., perception, which pertains merely to the senses. But in the next place, there are acts of judging (which belong only to the understanding). But this judging may be twofold: first, I may merely compare perceptions and connect them in a particular state of my consciousness; or, secondly, I may connect them in consciousness generally. The former judgment is merely a judgment of perception, and of subjective validity only: it is merely a connection of perceptions in my mental state, without reference to the object. Hence it is not, as is commonly imagined, enough for experience to compare perceptions and to connect them in consciousness through judgment; there arises no universality and necessity, for which alone judgments can become objectively valid and be called experience.

Quite another judgment therefore is required before perception can become experience. The given intuition must be subsumed under a concept, which determines the form of judging in general relatively to the intuition, connects its empirical consciousness in consciousness generally, and thereby procures universal validity for empirical judgments. A concept of this nature is a pure a priori concept of the Understanding, which does nothing but determine for an intuition the general way in which it can be used for judgments. Let the concept be that of cause, then it determined the intuition which is subsumed under it, e.g., that of air, relative to judgments in general, viz., the concept of air serves with regard to its expansion in the relation of antecedent to consequent in a hypothetical judgment. The concept of cause accordingly is a pure concept of the understanding, which is totally disparate from all possible perception, and only serves to determine the representation subsumed under it, relatively to judgments in general, and so to make a universally valid judgment possible.

Before, therefore, a [subjective] judgment of perception can become a judgment of experience, it is necessary that the perception should be subsumed under some such a concept of the understanding. For instance, air belongs under the concept of causes, which determines our judgment about it in regard to its expansion as hypothetical. Thereby the expansion of the air is represented not as merely belonging to the perception of the air in my present state or in several states of mine, or in the state of perception of others, but as belonging to it necessarily. The judgment, "the air is elastic," becomes universally valid, and a judgment of experience, only by certain judgments preceding it, which subsume the intuition of air under the concept of cause and effect: and they thereby determine the perceptions not merely as regards one another in me, but relatively to the form of judging in general, which is here hypothetical, and in this way they make the empirical judgment universally valid. . . .

Twelve Judgments of the Understanding that Depend upon Twelve Categories (i.e., Pure Synthetic A Priori Concepts of the Understanding)

Sect. 21. To prove, then, the possibility of experience so far as it rests upon pure concepts [i.e., categories] of the understanding a priori, we must first represent what belongs to judgments in general and the various functions of the understanding, in a complete table. For the pure concepts of the understanding must run parallel to these functions [i.e., judgments of the understanding], as such concepts are nothing more than concepts of intuitions in general, so far as these are determined by one or other of these functions of judging, in themselves, that is, necessarily and universally. Hereby also the a priori principles of the possibility of all experience, as of an objectively valid empirical cognition, will be precisely determined. For they are nothing but propositions by which all perception is (under certain universal conditions of intuition) subsumed under those pure concepts of the understanding.

Logical Table of Judgments [of the Understanding]

1. As to Quantity

Universal

Particular

Singular

2. As to Quality

Affirmative

Negative

Infinite

3. As to Relation

Categorical

Hypothetical

Disjunctive

4. As to Modality

Problematic

Assertoric

Apodictic

Transcendental Table of the Pure Concepts of the Understanding [i.e., metaphysical categories]

1. As to Quantity

Unity (the measure)

Plurality (the quantity)

Totality (the whole)

2. As to Quality

Reality

Negation

Limitation

3. As to Relation.

Substance

Cause

Community

4. As to Modality

Possibility

Existence

Necessity

The Categories are Universal Rules of Possible Experience that underlie the Science of Nature

Sect. 22. The sum of the matter is this: the business of the senses is to intuit – that of the understanding is to think. But thinking is uniting representations in one consciousness. . . .

Sect. 23. Judgments, when considered merely as the condition of the union of given representations in a consciousness, are rules. These rules, so far as they represent the union as necessary, are rules a priori, and so far as they cannot be deduced from higher rules, are fundamental principles. But in regard to the possibility of all experience, merely in relation to the form of thinking in it, no conditions of judgments of experience are higher than those which bring the phenomena, according to the various form of their intuition, under s of the understanding, and render the empirical judgment objectively valid. These concepts are therefore the a priori principles of possible experience.

The principles of possible experience are then at the same time universal laws of nature, which can be known a priori. Thus the problem in our second question, "How is the pure Science of Nature possible?" is solved. For the system which is required for the form of a science is to be met with in perfection here, because, beyond the above-mentioned formal conditions of all judgments in general offered in logic, no others are possible, and these constitute a logical system. The concepts grounded thereupon, which contain the a priori conditions of all synthetic and necessary judgments, accordingly constitute a transcendental system. Finally the principles, by means of which all phenomena are subsumed under these concepts, constitute a physical system, that is, a system of nature, which precedes all empirical cognition of nature, makes it even possible, and hence may in strictness be called the universal and pure science of nature.

The Pure Intuitions of Space-Time and the Categories involve only Appearances (Phenomena), not Things in Themselves (Noumena)

Sect. 30 ... This is therefore the result of all our foregoing inquiries: "All synthetic principles a priori are nothing more than principles of possible experience, and can never be referred to things in themselves, but to appearances as objects of experience. Hence pure mathematics as well as a pure science of nature can never be referred to anything more than mere appearances, and can only represent either that which makes experience generally possible, or else that which, as it is derived from these principles, must always be capable of being represented in some possible experience."

Sect. 31. Thus we have at last something definite, upon which to depend in all metaphysical enterprises, which have hitherto, boldly enough but always at random, attempted everything without discrimination. That the aim of their exertions should be so near, struck neither the dogmatical thinkers nor those who, confident in their supposed sound common sense, started with concepts and principles of pure reason (which were legitimate and natural, but destined for mere empirical use) in quest of fields of knowledge, to which they neither knew nor could know any determinate bounds, because they had never reflected nor were able to reflect on the nature or even on the possibility of such a pure understanding.

HOW IS METAPHYSICS IN GENERAL POSSIBLE? (Prolegomena, Main Transcendental Question, Third Part)

The Categories Cannot Extend beyond Experience to Metaphysical Objects in the Noumenal Realm

Sect. 45. We have above shown ... that the purity of the categories from all mixture of sensory determinations may mislead reason into extending their use, quite beyond all experience, to things in themselves; though as these categories themselves find no intuition which can give them meaning or sense in concrete, they, as mere logical functions, can represent a thing in general, but not give by themselves alone a determinate concept of anything. Such hyperbolical objects are distinguished by the term noumena, or pure beings of the understanding (or better, beings of thought), such as, for example, "substance," but conceived without permanence in time, or "cause," but not acting in time, etc. Here predicates, that only serve to make the conformity-to-law of experience possible, are applied to these concepts, and yet they are deprived of all the conditions of intuition, on which alone experience is possible, and so these concepts lose all significance.

There is no danger, however, of the understanding spontaneously making an excursion so very wantonly beyond its own bounds into the field of the mere creatures of thought, without being driven by foreign laws. But when reason, which cannot be fully satisfied with any empirical use of the rules of the understanding, as being always conditioned, requires a completion of this chain of conditions, then the understanding is forced out of its sphere. Then it partly represents objects of experience in a series so extended that no experience can grasp, partly even (with a view to complete the series) it seeks entirely beyond it noumena, to which it can attach that chain, and so, having at last escaped from the conditions of experience, make its attitude as it were final. These are then the transcendental ideas [i.e., the self, the world, and God], which, though according to the true but hidden ends of the natural determination of our reason, they may aim not at extravagant concepts, but at an unbounded extension of their empirical use, yet seduce the understanding by an unavoidable illusion to a transcendent use, which, though deceitful, cannot be restrained within the bounds of experience by any resolution, but only by scientific instruction and with much difficulty.

Transcendental Idea 1 (Self): Cannot Prove the Permanence of the Thinking Self after Death

Sect. 46. People have long since observed, that in all substances the proper subject, that which remains after all the accidents (as predicates) are abstracted, consequently that which forms the substance of things remains unknown, and various complaints have been made concerning these limits to our knowledge. . . . Now we appear to have this substance in the consciousness of ourselves (in the thinking subject), and indeed in an immediate intuition. For all the predicates of an internal sense refer to the ego, as a subject, and I cannot conceive myself as the predicate of any other subject. Hence completeness in the reference of the given concepts as predicates to a subject -- not merely an idea, but an object-that is, the absolute subject itself, seems to be given in experience. But this expectation is disappointed. For the ego is not a concept, but only the indication of the object of the internal sense, so far as we know it by no further predicate.

Sect. 47. We may call this thinking self (the soul) substance, as being the ultimate subject of thinking, which cannot be further represented as the predicate of another thing. Nevertheless, it remains quite empty and without significance, if permanence (the quality which makes the concept of substances in experience useful) cannot be proved of it.

But permanence can never be proved of the concept of a substance, as a thing in itself, except for the purposes of experience only. This is sufficiently shown by the first Analogy of Experience, and whoever will not yield to this proof may try for himself whether he can succeed in proving, from the concept of a subject which does not exist itself as the predicate of another thing, that its existence is thoroughly permanent, and that it cannot either in itself or by any natural cause original or be annihilated. These synthetical a priori propositions can never be proved in themselves, but only in reference to things as objects of possible experience.

Sect. 48. If therefore from the concept of the soul as a substance, we would infer its permanence, this can hold good as regards possible experience only, not [of the soul] as a thing in itself and beyond all possible experience. But life is the subjective condition of all our possible experience; consequently we can only infer the permanence of the soul in life. For the death of man is the end of all experience which concerns the soul as an object of experience, except if the contrary is proved, which is the very question in hand.

Transcendental Idea 2 (World): Improper Reasoning about the World produces Four Antinomies

Sect. 51. In the first place, the use of a system of categories becomes here so obvious and unmistakable, that even if there were not several other proofs of it, this alone would sufficiently prove it indispensable in the system of pure reason. There are only four such transcendent ideas, since there are so many classes of categories; in each of which, however, they refer only to the absolute completeness of the series of the conditions for a given conditioned. In analogy to these cosmological ideas there are only four kinds of dialectical assertions of pure reason, which, as they are dialectical, thereby prove, that to each of them, on equally superficially plausible principles of pure reason, a contradictory assertion stands opposed. As all the metaphysical art of the most subtle distinction cannot prevent this opposition, it compels the philosopher to recur to the first sources of pure reason itself. This Antinomy, not arbitrarily invented, but founded in the nature of human reason, and hence unavoidable and never ceasing, contains the following four theses together with their antitheses:

Thesis: The World has, as to, Time and Space, a Beginning (limit).

Antithesis: The World is, as to Time and Space, infinite.

Thesis: Everything in the World consists of [elements that are] simple.

Antithesis: There is nothing simple, but everything is composite.

Thesis: There are in the World Causes through Freedom.

Antithesis: There is no Liberty, but all is Nature.

Thesis: In the Series of the World-Causes there is some necessary Being.

Antithesis: There is Nothing necessary in the World, but in this Series All is incidental.

Sect. 52. Here is the most unusual phenomenon of human reason, no other instance of which can be shown in any other use. If we, as is commonly done, represent to ourselves the appearances of the sensible world as things in themselves, if we assume the principles of their combination as principles universally valid of things in themselves and not merely of experience, as is usually, nay without our Critique, unavoidably done, there arises an unexpected conflict, which never can be removed in the common dogmatical way; because the thesis, as well as the antithesis, can be shown by equally clear, evident, and irresistible proofs – for I pledge myself as to the correctness of all these proofs – and reason therefore perceives that it is divided with itself, a state at which the skeptic rejoices, but which must make the critical philosopher pause and feel ill at ease. ...

Transcendental Idea 3 (God): Incapable of Proof, but Practically Valuable (Critique of Pure Reason, 2.3.3 and 8)

All the paths conducting to this end [to prove God's existence] begin either from determinate experience and the unique constitution of the world of sense, and rise, according to the laws of causality, from it to the highest cause existing apart from the world (or from a purely indeterminate experience, that is, some empirical existence) or abstraction is made of all experience, and the existence of a supreme cause is concluded from a priori conceptions alone. The first is the physico-theological [i.e., design] argument, the second the cosmological, the third the ontological. There are no more and cannot be any more. I will show it is as unsuccessful on the one path (the empirical) as on the other (the transcendental) and that it stretches its wings in vain, to soar beyond the world of sense by the mere might of speculative thought. . . .

Transcendental theology, notwithstanding its objective insufficiency, is still therefore of importance in a negative respect. It is useful as a test of the procedure of reason when engaged with pure ideas, only a transcendental standard being in this case admissible. For if, from a practical point of view, the hypothesis of a Supreme and All-sufficient Being is to maintain its validity without opposition, it must be of the highest importance to define this conception in a correct and rigorous manner, as the transcendental conception of a necessary being, to eliminate all phenomenal elements (anthropomorphism in its widest sense), and at the same time to avoid all contradictory assertions, be they atheistic, deistic, or anthropomorphic. This is of course very easy, since the same arguments which demonstrated the inability of human reason to affirm the existence of a Supreme Being must be alike sufficient to prove the invalidity of its denial. For it is impossible to gain by pure speculation of reason a demonstration that there exists no Supreme Being, as the ground of all that exists, or that this being possesses none of those properties which we regard as analogical with the dynamical qualities of a thinking being, or that, as the anthropomorphists would have us believe, it is subject to all the limitations which sensibility imposes upon those intelligences which exist in the world of experience.

Therefore, for merely speculative use of reason, a Supreme Being is only an ideal, though a faultless one. It is a conception which perfects and crowns the system of human cognition, but the objective reality of which can neither be proved nor disproved by pure reason. If this defect is ever supplied by a moral theology, the problematic transcendental theology which has preceded, will have been at least serviceable as demonstrating the mental necessity existing for the conception, by the complete determination of it which it has furnished, and the ceaseless testing of the conclusions of a reason often deceived by sense, and not always in harmony with its own ideas. The attributes of necessity, infinitude, unity, existence apart from the world (and not as a world soul), eternity (free from conditions of time), omnipresence (free from conditions of space), omnipotence, and others, are pure transcendental predicates; and thus the accurate conception of a Supreme Being, which every theology requires, is furnished by transcendental theology alone.

ENLIGHTENMENT AND FREE THOUGHT ON RELIGIOUS ISSUES ("An Answer to the Question: What is Enlightenment" 1784)

Freedom from Self-inflicted Ignorance and Subservience to Guardians

Enlightenment is the emergence of man from his self-inflicted immaturity. Immaturity is the inability to use one's mind without the guidance of another. This immaturity is self-inflicted, if the cause of it is not due to the lack of understanding, but to the lack of resolution and the courage to use it without the guidance of another. The motto of the Enlightenment is therefore Sapere aude [i.e., dare to know]! Have the courage to use your own understanding!

Laziness and cowardice are the reasons why such a large part of the population happily remain immature for life, even after nature has long since freed them from outside guidance, . It is why it becomes so easy for others to become their guardians. It's so comfortable to be immature! If I have a book that gives meaning to me, a pastor who has conscience for me, a doctor who judges my diet, and so on, then I do not need to make any effort myself. I do not need to think. If only I can pay, others will take over the miserable business for me. The guardians, who have kindly taken over supervision, have already ensured that by far the greater part of people (including the whole fairer sex) consider the step to maturity, besides being cumbersome, also very dangerous.

After making their livestock stupid at first, and carefully guarding that these docile creatures were not allowed to attempt a step beyond the reigns which restrain them, the guardians then show them the danger that threatens them if they try to go it alone. Now, this danger is not so great, for they would eventually learn to walk after falling a few times. But an example of this kind intimidates and generally deters people from all further attempts

It is therefore difficult for the individual person to work himself out of his immaturity, which has almost become natural to him. He even likes it and is then really unable to use his own mind because they never let him try it. Dogmas and formulas, these mechanical tools of reasonable use (or rather misuse) of his natural gifts, are the footsteps of perpetual immaturity. Anyone who nevertheless throws them off would make an insecure leap over the narrowest ditch because he is not used to such free movement. Therefore, there are only a few who have managed to evolve out of immaturity and walk securely, through cultivating their own minds.

However, it is quite possible for the public to enlighten itself, indeed, it is almost inevitable, if you just give them freedom. For there will always be some independent thinkers, even among the self-appointed guardians of the great masses, who, having cast off the yoke of immaturity themselves, will disperse around them a rational appreciation of one's own worth and the duty of thinking for oneself. It is noteworthy that the public, which had previously been brought under this yoke by the guardians, afterwards forced the guardians themselves to remain under it, especially when it was stirred up by some of its guardians, who themselves are incapable of any enlightenment. It is thus damaging to implant prejudices because they eventually avenge themselves on those people (or their predecessors) who were their authors. Therefore, the public can only slowly reach Enlightenment. A revolution may well bring about a decline of personal despotism, and of profit-making or domineering oppression, but never true reform of the mind. Rather, new prejudices, just like the old ones, will serve as the guiding reins of the large and unthinking masses.

Nothing is required for this enlightenment but freedom: indeed, the most harmless of all that may be called freedom, that is, to make public use of one's reason in all areas. But now I hear the cry from all sides: do not argue! The military officer says: do not argue, but practice! The tax collector: do not argue, but pay! The clergyman: do not argue, but believe! (Only one ruler in the world [i.e., Fredrich the Great] says: argue as much as you want, and about what you want, but obey!) Restriction of freedom is everywhere. But which restriction obstructs enlightenment? Which does not, but is instead beneficial? I answer: the public use of his reason must always be free, and this alone can bring enlightenment to everyone. However, the private use of reason may often be very narrowly restricted without hindering the progress of the Enlightenment.

Public Use of Reason: Scholars Speaking on Behalf of Citizens of the World

By the phrase "public use of his own reason," I mean that which someone such as a scholar, makes of it in front of the world's reading public. I call "private use" that which he is allowed to do of his reason in a certain civic position or office entrusted to him. Now, with some situations which are in the interest of the community, a certain [institutional] machinery is necessary, by means of which some members of the community must merely behave passively. This brings about an artificial unanimity directed by the government for public purposes, or at least it prevents the destruction of these purposes. Here, of course, one is not allowed to argue, and one must obey. However, as far as a person within this machinery is at the same time regarded as a member of a whole community, and even of world society (that is, a person sees himself in the quality of a scholar who addresses an audience in the true sense of the word), he can, of course, argue about the business to which he is in part employed as a passive member. Thus, it would be very damaging for an officer on duty, who is commanded by his superiors, to argue about the usefulness or appropriateness of his orders. He must obey. However, it cannot be denied to him, as a scholar, to make remarks about the mistakes in the military service and to present them to the public for evaluation. The citizen cannot refuse to pay the taxes imposed upon him; even a defiant denouncement of such taxes, if they are made against them, can be punished as a scandal that might cause general disobedience. In spite of the duty of a citizen, it is not the same when, as a scholar, he publicly expresses his thoughts against the impropriety or injustice of such taxes.

Similarly, a clergyman is obligated to instruct his pupils and his congregation according to the doctrine of the church which he serves because he had been accepted upon this condition. But as a scholar he has complete freedom, even the obligation, to communicate to the public all his carefully considered and well-intentioned thoughts about the flaws in that doctrine and suggestions for a better institution of religion and church matters. There is nothing here which could cast blame on his conscience. For what he teaches as a result of his job as authorized by the church, he presents as something in view of which he does not have freedom to teach at his own discretion. He is employed under the order and in the name of another. He will say: our church teaches this or that; these are the reasons that it uses. He then draws all the practical benefits for his community from statutes that he himself would not agree to with full conviction. He can commit to teaching them because it is not altogether impossible that they contain hidden truth. But in any case, he has at least found nothing in it that contradicts the inner core of religion. For if he believed that he would find such contradictions, he would not be able to administer his office in good conscience, and he would have to resign. The use that an employed teacher makes of his reason before his church is merely a private use, because his audience, though great, is only a domestic one [in contrast to a global one]. In view of this, as a priest he is not free and may not be, because he is arranging a foreign assignment. On the other hand, as a scholar who speaks by writing to the actual public (namely the world), and consequently the clergyman in the public use of his reason, has an unlimited freedom to use his own reason and to speak in his own person. For it is absurd to say that the guardians of the people (in spiritual matters) should themselves be immature, since that amounts to perpetuation of the absurdities.

Problem with a Church creating an Unchangeable Doctrine

But should not a society of ministers, such as a church council (or the "venerable classis" as the Dutch call it) be entitled to pledge themselves to each other on a certain unchangeable doctrine, and so ensure a perpetual guardianship over each of their members and by means of this over the people? I say that is impossible. Such a contract, which would always block all further enlightenment of the human race, is absolutely null and void, even if it was also confirmed by the supreme authority through parliament and the most solemn peace treaties. An era cannot unite and conspire to put the following era into a state where it becomes impossible for them to broaden their most important insights, to remove their errors, and progress towards Enlightenment. That would be a crime against human nature whose original purpose consists precisely in this progress. Successive eras are completely entitled to reject such decisions as unauthorized and outrageous. The test of everything that can be decided upon as a law for a people lies in the question: could a people impose such a law on themselves?

Now it might be possible to introduce a certain [new] order for a short period of time with the expectation of a better order. But while this temporary order is in place, it must be freely available to every citizen (chiefly the minister in the role of a scholar) to present his observations, that is, through writings, concerning the faults of the prevailing institutions. Meanwhile, the established order would still continue, until the public insight into the nature of these things had come so far that, by uniting their voices (albeit not all), one proposal could be brought before the sovereign to protect those congregations, which had agreed according to their best judgment on their terms of a modified religious institution, but without hindering those who want to stay with the old institution. But it is absolutely impermissible to agree to a permanent religious constitution, even for a single lifetime, which is not publicly debated. It would, in a word, annihilate a period in the progress of human improvement, thus making it fruitless and even injurious to future generations.

It is true that a person can postpone enlightenment for himself regarding what he should know, but only for a short time. However, to renounce enlightenment, whether for himself or his offspring, is to violate and trample the sacred rights of humanity. But what a people may not decide for themselves, even less a sovereign may decide for the people since his legislative reputation rests upon the uniting of the will of the people in his. If the sovereign only sees to it that all true or alleged improvement is in harmony with the civil order, then he should simply let his subjects do what they need to do for the sake of their salvation. This is none of his business. He should only make sure that one person does not forcefully prevent another from determining and promoting his own salvation as he can. In fact, it detracts from the sovereign if he intervenes in these affairs by submitting to governmental supervision the writings by which his subjects seek to clarify their religious ideas. If he does so from his own supreme insight, he thereby submits himself to the criticism: Caesar non est supra Grammaticos [Caesar is not above grammarians]. It is even worse if he degrades his highest power by supporting the spiritual despotism of some tyrants in his country against the rest of his subjects.

The Current Age of Enlightenment and the Need for Some Restrictions

When asked: Are we living in an enlightened age now? the answer is no, but probably in an age of enlightenment [i.e., becoming enlightened]. As things stand now, we are still very much lacking before people on the whole are capable of (or could even be in a position of) using their own intellect confidently and effectively in religious matters without guidance of another. But it is clear that the field is in fact now open to them to work freely there, and the obstacles of general enlightenment, or of people's emergence from their self-inflicted immaturity, are gradually decreasing. In this view, this age is the Age of Enlightenment, or the century of Friedrich [the Great].

A prince should not feel it is beneath him to say that he considers it his duty to avoid imposing anything on people in religious matters, but instead to give them full freedom in such issues, and thus even reject the presumptuous name of "tolerant". Such a prince, then, is himself enlightened. He deserves to be praised by the grateful world and its posterity as the one who first rid the human race of its immaturity, at least on the part of the government, and left it open to everyone to use his own reason in all matters of conscience. Under him, venerable clergy, regardless of their official duty, may freely and publicly present their judgments and insights to the world for consideration, doing so in their capacity as scholars and deviating from the accepted doctrine here and there. This applies even more so for everyone else who is not restricted by any official duty. This spirit of freedom is spreading abroad, even where it must contend with the external obstacles imposed by a government that misunderstands its own role. For this one shining example shows that freedom in public discussion poses no risk to the stability and unity of the community. People will gradually work their way out of barbarism, if one simply avoids creating artificial means of keeping them down.

I have thus presented my main point about the Enlightenment, that is, the emergence of men out of their self-inflicted immaturity, chiefly in matters of religion. For, in regard to the arts and sciences, our rulers have no interest in playing the guardian over their subjects. Further, such immaturity in matters of religion is the most injurious, and thus the most dishonorable of all. But the mindset of a sovereign ruler favoring the freedom in the arts and sciences goes even further. He recognizes that there is no danger, even to his own legislation, by allowing his subjects to make public use of their own reason and their thoughts on a better formulation of the laws. This is so even with outspoken criticism of current laws. We have a shining example of this [with Fredrich the Great], and no other sovereign can match this one whom we venerate.

But only he who is enlightened is not afraid of phantoms, but at the same time has at his disposal a well-disciplined army to secure public peace. Only he can say what [an otherwise unenlightened ruler of] a free state must not dare: argue as much as you like and about what you want, but obey! Thus a surprising and unexpected course of human events is revealed here, as elsewhere, and if you look at it broadly it is almost paradoxical. A greater degree of civic freedom seems advantageous to people's intellectual freedom, but creates insurmountable barriers to it. By contrast, a lesser degree of civic freedom provides sufficient space for intellectual freedom to expand to its capacity. Thus, nature has cherished the seed within a hard shell, namely, the inclination towards and vocation of free thought. This gradually works back into the minds of the people, which makes them increasingly more capable of acting on this freedom. Finally, free thought even affects the principles of the government, whereby it finds that the government itself benefits from treating humanity, which is now more than a machine, according to its dignity.

THE CATEGORICAL IMPERATIVE (Groundwork of the Metaphysics of Morals, 1785)

Morality not Based on Virtue, Happiness, or Consequences

… Nothing can possibly be conceived in the world, or even out of it, which can be called good, without qualification, except a good will. Intelligence, wit, judgment, and the other talents of the mind, however they may be named, or courage, resolution, perseverance, as qualities of temperament, are undoubtedly good and desirable in many respects. But these gifts of nature may also become extremely bad and harmful if the will which is to make use of them, and which, therefore, constitutes what is called character, is not good. It is the same with the gifts of fortune. Power, riches, honor, even health, and the general well-being and contentment with one's condition which is called happiness, inspire pride, and often presumption, if there is not a good will to correct the influence of these on the mind, and with this also to rectify the whole principle of acting and adapt it to its end. The sight of a being who is not adorned with a single feature of a pure and good will, enjoying unbroken prosperity, can never give pleasure to an impartial rational spectator. Thus a good will appears to constitute the indispensable condition even of being worthy of happiness.

There are even some qualities which are of service to this good will itself and may facilitate its action, yet which have no intrinsic unconditional value, but always presuppose a good will, and this qualifies the esteem that we justly have for them and does not permit us to regard them as absolutely good. Moderation in the affections and passions, self-control, and calm deliberation are not only good in many respects, but even seem to constitute part of the intrinsic worth of the person; but they are far from deserving to be called good without qualification, although they have been so unconditionally praised by the ancients. For without the principles of a good will, they may become extremely bad, and the coolness of a villain not only makes him far more dangerous, but also directly makes him more abominable in our eyes than he would have been without it.

A good will is good not because of what it performs or effects, not by its suitability for the attainment of some proposed end, but simply because of the volition. That is, it is good in itself, and considered by itself it is to be esteemed much higher than all that can be brought about by it in favor of any inclination, nay even of the sum total of all inclinations. Even if it should happen that, owing to special disfavor of fortune, or the stingy provision of a step-motherly nature, this will should wholly lack power to accomplish its purpose, if with its greatest efforts it should yet achieve nothing, and there should remain only the good will (not, to be sure, a mere wish, but the summoning of all means in our power), then, like a jewel, it would still shine by its own light, as a thing which has its whole value in itself. Its usefulness or fruitfulness can neither add nor take away anything from this value. It would be, as it were, only the setting to enable us to handle it the more conveniently in common commerce, or to attract to it the attention of those who are not yet good judges, but not to recommend it to true experts, or to determine its value. . . .

Hypothetical and Categorical Imperatives

Types of Imperatives

The conception of an objective principle, in so far as it is obligatory for a will, is called a command (of reason), and the formula of the command is called an imperative. …

Now all imperatives command either hypothetically or categorically. The former represent the practical necessity of a possible action as means to something else that is willed (or at least which one might possibly will). The categorical imperative would be that which represented an action as necessary of itself without reference to another end, that is, as objectively necessary.

Every practical law represents a possible action as good and, on this account, necessary for a subject who is practically determinable by reason. Thus, all imperatives are formula determining an action which is necessary according to the principle of a will that is good in some respects. If now the action is good only as a means to something else, then the imperative is hypothetical. If it is conceived as good in itself and consequently as being necessarily the principle of a will which of itself conforms to reason, then it is categorical.

Thus the imperative declares what possible action by me would be good. It presents the practical rule in relation to a will which does not immediately perform an action simply because it is good, whether because the subject does not always know that it is good, or because, even if it knows this, yet its maxims might be opposed to the objective principles of practical reason. . . .

Categorical Imperative as a Synthetic A Priori Practical Law

The question "How the imperative of morality is possible?" is undoubtedly one–the only one–demanding a solution. For it is not at all hypothetical, and the objective necessity which it presents cannot rest on any hypothesis, as is the case with the hypothetical imperatives. Only here we must never leave out of consideration that we cannot make out by any example, in other words empirically, whether there is such an imperative at all. But it is rather to be feared that all those which seem to be categorical may yet be at bottom hypothetical. Take, for instance the precept "Do not promise deceitfully." Assume that the necessity of this is not merely advice to avoid some other evil such as this: "Do not make a lying promise, in case if it becomes known you would destroy your credit." Assume instead that an action of this kind must be regarded as evil in itself, so that the imperative of the prohibition is categorical. However, we cannot show with certainty in any example that the will was determined merely by the law, without any other spring of action, although it may appear to be so. For it is always possible that fear of disgrace, perhaps also obscure dread of other dangers, may have a secret influence on the will. Who can prove by experience the non-existence of a cause when all that experience tells us is that we do not perceive it? But in such a case the so-called moral imperative, which as such appears to be categorical and unconditional, would in reality be only a pragmatic precept, drawing our attention to our own interests and merely teaching us to take these into consideration.

We will therefore have to investigate a priori the possibility of a categorical imperative. For, we have not in this case the advantage of its reality being given in experience, so that [the clarification of] its possibility should be essential only for its explanation, not for its establishment. In the meantime, it may be determined beforehand that the categorical imperative alone has the significance of a practical law; all the rest may indeed be called principles of the will but not laws, since whatever is only necessary for the attainment of some arbitrary purpose may be considered as in itself contingent, and we can at any time be free from the precept if we give up the purpose; on the contrary, the unconditional command leaves the will no liberty to choose the opposite. Consequently it alone carries with it that necessity which we require in a law.

Secondly, in the case of this categorical imperative or law of morality, the difficulty of discerning its possibility is a very profound one. It is a a priori synthetic practical proposition. Since there is so much difficulty in discerning the possibility of speculative propositions of this kind, it may readily be supposed that the difficulty will be no less with the practical.

In this problem we will first inquire whether the mere conception of a categorical imperative may not perhaps supply us also with the formula of it, containing the proposition which alone can be a categorical imperative. For even if we know the tenor of such an absolute command, yet how it is possible will require further special and laborious study, which we postpone to the last section.

When I conceive a hypothetical imperative, in general I do not know beforehand what it will contain until I am given the condition. But when I conceive a categorical imperative, I know at once what it contains. Besides containing the law, the imperative contains only the necessity that the maxims shall conform to this law, while the law contains no conditions restricting it. Thus, there remains nothing but the general statement that the maxim of the action should conform to a universal law, and it is this conformity alone that the imperative properly represents as necessary.

There is therefore but one categorical imperative, namely, this: Act only on that maxim whereby you can at the same time will that it should become a universal law.

Now if all imperatives of duty can be deduced from this one imperative as from their principle, then, although it should remain undecided what is called duty is not merely a vain notion, yet at least we will be able to show what we understand by it and what this notion means.

The Formula of the Law of Nature

The universality of the law according to which effects are produced constitutes what is properly called nature in the most general sense (as to form), that is the existence of things so far as it is determined by general laws. Thus, the imperative of duty may be expressed thus: Act as though the maxim of your action were by your will to become a universal law of nature.

Four Examples

We will now itemize a few duties, adopting the usual division of them into duties to ourselves and to others, and into perfect and imperfect duties.

1. A man reduced to despair by a series of misfortunes feels wearied of life, but is still so far in possession of his reason that he can ask himself whether it would not be contrary to his duty to himself to take his own life. Now he inquires whether the maxim of his action could become a universal law of nature. His maxim is: "From self-love I adopt it as a principle to shorten my life when its longer duration is likely to bring more evil than satisfaction." It is asked then simply whether this principle founded on self-love can become a universal law of nature. Now we see at once that a system of nature of which it should be a law to destroy life by means of the very feeling whose special nature it is to impel to the improvement of life would contradict itself and, therefore, could not exist as a system of nature. Hence that maxim cannot possibly exist as a universal law of nature and, consequently, would be wholly inconsistent with the supreme principle of all duty.

2. Another finds himself forced by necessity to borrow money. He knows that he will not be able to repay it, but sees also that nothing will be lent to him unless he promises stoutly to repay it in a definite time. He desires to make this promise, but he has still so much conscience as to ask himself: "Is it not unlawful and inconsistent with duty to get out of a difficulty in this way?" Suppose, however, that he resolves to do so: then the maxim of his action would be expressed thus: "When I think myself in want of money, I will borrow money and promise to repay it, although I know that I never can do so." Now this principle of self-love or of one's own advantage may perhaps be consistent with my whole future welfare. But the question now is, "Is it right?" I change then the suggestion of self-love into a universal law, and state the question thus: "How would it be if my maxim were a universal law?" Then I see at once that it could never hold as a universal law of nature, but would necessarily contradict itself. For supposing it to be a universal law that everyone when he thinks himself in a difficulty should be able to promise whatever he pleases, with the purpose of not keeping his promise, the promise itself would become impossible, as well as the end that one might have in view in it, since no one would consider that anything was promised to him, but would ridicule all such statements as vain pretenses.

3. A third finds in himself a talent which with the help of some culture might make him a useful man in many respects. But he finds himself in comfortable circumstances and prefers to indulge in pleasure rather than to take pains in enlarging and improving his happy natural capacities. He asks, however, whether his maxim of neglect of his natural gifts, besides agreeing with his inclination to indulgence, agrees also with what is called duty. He sees then that a system of nature could indeed subsist with such a universal law although men (like the South Sea islanders) should let their talents rest and resolve to devote their lives merely to idleness, amusement, and propagation of their species— in a word, to enjoyment. But he cannot possibly will that this should be a universal law of nature, or be implanted in us as such by a natural instinct. For, as a rational being, he necessarily wills that his faculties be developed, since they serve him and have been given to him for all sorts of possible purposes.

4. A fourth, who is in prosperity, while he sees that others have to contend with great wretchedness and that he could help them, thinks: "What concern is it of mine? Let everyone be as happy as Heaven pleases, or as he can make himself. I will take nothing from him nor even envy him, only I do not wish to contribute anything to his welfare or to his assistance in distress!" Now no doubt if such a mode of thinking were a universal law, the human race might very well subsist and doubtless even better than in a state in which everyone talks of sympathy and good-will, or even takes care occasionally to put it into practice, but, on the other side, also cheats when he can, betrays the rights of men, or otherwise violates them. But although it is possible that a universal law of nature might exist in accordance with that maxim, it is impossible to will that such a principle should have the universal validity of a law of nature. For a will which resolved this would contradict itself, inasmuch as many cases might occur in which one would have need of the love and sympathy of others, and in which, by such a law of nature, sprung from his own will, he would deprive himself of all hope of the aid he desires.

Willing a Maxim

These are a few of the many actual duties, or at least what we regard as such, which obviously fall into two classes on the one principle that we have laid down. We must be able to will that a maxim of our action should be a universal law. This is the canon of the moral appreciation of the action generally. Some actions are of such a character that their maxim cannot without contradiction be even conceived as a universal law of nature, far from it being possible that we should will that it should be so. In others this intrinsic impossibility is not found, but still it is impossible to will that their maxim should be raised to the universality of a law of nature, since such a will would contradict itself. It is easily seen that the former violate strict or rigorous (inflexible) duty; the latter only laxer (meritorious) duty. Thus it has been completely shown how all duties depend as regards the nature of the obligation (not the object of the action) on the same principle.

If now we attend to ourselves on occasion of any transgression of duty, we shall find that we in fact do not will that our maxim should be a universal law, for that is impossible for us. On the contrary, we will that the opposite should remain a universal law, only we assume the liberty of making an exception in our own favor or (just for this time only) in favor of our inclination. Consequently if we considered all cases from one and the same point of view, namely, that of reason, we should find a contradiction in our own will, namely, that a certain principle should be objectively necessary as a universal law, and yet subjectively should not be universal, but admit of exceptions. As, however, we at one moment regard our action from the point of view of a will wholly conformed to reason, and then again look at the same action from the point of view of a will affected by inclination, there is not really any contradiction, but an antagonism of inclination to the precept of reason, whereby the universality of the principle is changed into a mere generality, so that the practical principle of reason will meet the maxim half way. Now, although this cannot be justified in our own impartial judgment, yet it proves that we do really recognize the validity of the categorical imperative and (with all respect for it) only allow ourselves a few exceptions, which we think unimportant and forced from us.

We have thus established at least this much: that if duty is a conception which is to have any import and real legislative authority for our actions, it can only be expressed in categorical and not at all in hypothetical imperatives. We have also, which is of great importance, exhibited clearly and definitely for every practical application the content of the categorical imperative, which must contain the principle of all duty if there is such a thing at all. …

The Formula of the End in Itself

Humans as Ends in Themselves

The will is conceived as a faculty of determining oneself to action in accordance with the conception of certain laws. Such a faculty can be found only in rational beings. Now that which serves the will as the objective ground of its self-determination is the end, and, if this is assigned by reason alone, it must hold for all rational beings. On the other hand, that which merely contains the ground of possibility of the action of which the effect is the end, this is called the means. The subjective ground of the desire is the spring, the objective ground of the volition is the motive; hence the distinction between subjective ends which rest on springs, and objective ends which depend on motives valid for every rational being. Practical principles are formal when they abstract from all subjective ends; they are material when they assume these, and therefore particular springs of action.

The ends which a rational being proposes to himself at pleasure as effects of his actions (material ends) are all only relative. For it is only their relation to the particular desires of the subject that gives them their worth, which therefore cannot furnish principles universal and necessary for all rational beings and for every volition, that is to say practical laws. Hence all these relative ends can give rise only to hypothetical imperatives.

Supposing, however, that there were something whose existence has in itself an absolute worth, something which, being an end in itself, could be a source of definite laws; then in this and this alone would lie the source of a possible categorical imperative, that is, a practical law.

Now I say: man and generally any rational being exists as an end in himself, not merely as a means to be arbitrarily used by this or that will, but in all his actions, whether they concern himself or other rational beings, must be always regarded at the same time as an end. All objects of the inclinations have only a conditional worth, for if the inclinations and the wants founded on them did not exist, then their object would be without value. But the inclinations, themselves being sources of want, are so far from having an absolute worth for which they should be desired that on the contrary it must be the universal wish of every rational being to be wholly free from them. Thus the worth of any object which is to be acquired by our action is always conditional. Beings whose existence depends not on our will but on nature's, have nevertheless, if they are irrational beings, only a relative value as means, and are therefore called things. Rational beings, on the contrary, are called persons, because their very nature points them out as ends in themselves, that is as something which must not be used merely as means, and so far therefore restricts freedom of action (and is an object of respect). These, therefore, are not merely subjective ends whose existence has a worth for us as an effect of our action, but objective ends, that is, things whose existence is an end in itself. Moreover, it is an end for which no other can be substituted, which they should serve merely as means, for otherwise nothing whatever would possess absolute worth; but if all worth were conditioned and therefore contingent, then there would be no supreme practical principle of reason whatever.

If then there is a supreme practical principle or, in respect of the human will, a categorical imperative, it must be one which, being drawn from the conception of that which is necessarily an end for everyone because it is an end in itself, constitutes an objective principle of will, and can therefore serve as a universal practical law. The foundation of this principle is: rational nature exists as an end in itself. Man necessarily conceives his own existence as being so; so far then this is a subjective principle of human actions.

But every other rational being regards its existence similarly, just on the same rational principle that holds for me: so that it is at the same time an objective principle, from which as a supreme practical law all laws of the will must be capable of being deduced. Accordingly the practical imperative will be as follows: So act as to treat humanity, whether in your own person or in that of any other, in every case as an end and never as merely a means.

We will now inquire whether this can be practically carried out.

Four Examples

To follow the previous examples:

First, under the heading of necessary duty to oneself: He who contemplates suicide should ask himself whether his action can be consistent with the idea of humanity as an end in itself. If he destroys himself in order to escape from painful circumstances, he uses a person merely as a means to maintain a tolerable condition up to the end of life. But a man is not a thing, that is to say, something which can be used merely as means, but must in all his actions be always considered as an end in himself. I cannot, therefore, dispose in any way of a man in my own person so as to mutilate him, to damage or kill him. (It belongs to ethics proper to define this principle more precisely, so as to avoid all misunderstanding, for example, as to the amputation of the limbs in order to preserve myself, as to exposing my life to danger with a view to preserve it, etc. This question is therefore omitted here.)

Second, as regards necessary duties, or those of strict obligation, towards others: He who is thinking of making a lying promise to others will see at once that he would be using another man merely as a means, without the latter containing at the same time the end in himself. For he whom I propose by such a promise to use for my own purposes cannot possibly assent to my mode of acting towards him and, therefore, cannot himself contain the end of this action. This violation of the principle of humanity in other men is more obvious if we take in examples of attacks on the freedom and property of others. For then it is clear that he who transgresses the rights of men intends to use the person of others merely as a means, without considering that as rational beings they ought always to be esteemed also as ends, that is, as beings who must be capable of containing in themselves the end of the very same action.

Third, as regards contingent (meritorious) duties to oneself: It is not enough that the action does not violate humanity in our own person as an end in itself, it must also harmonize with it. Now there are in humanity capacities of greater perfection, which belong to the end that nature has in view in regard to humanity in ourselves as the subject: to neglect these might perhaps be consistent with the maintenance of humanity as an end in itself, but not with the advancement of this end.

Fourth, as regards meritorious duties towards others: The natural end which all men have is their own happiness. Now humanity might indeed subsist, although no one should contribute anything to the happiness of others, provided he did not intentionally withdraw anything from it. But after all this would only harmonize negatively not positively with humanity as an end in itself, if every one does not also endeavor, as far as in him lies, to forward the ends of others. For the ends of any subject which is an end in himself ought as far as possible to be my ends also, if that conception is to have its full effect with me. …

Three Formulas, One Principle

The three ways of presenting the principle of morality that have been adduced are at bottom only so many formula of the very same law, and each of itself involves the other two. There is, however, a difference in them, but it is rather subjectively than objectively practical, intended namely to bring an idea of the reason nearer to intuition (by means of a certain analogy) and thereby nearer to feeling. All maxims, in fact, have:

1. A form, consisting in universality; and in this view the formula of the moral imperative is expressed thus, that the maxims must be so chosen as if they were to serve as universal laws of nature.

2. A matter, namely, an end, and here the formula says that the rational being, as it is an end by its own nature and therefore an end in itself, must in every maxim serve as the condition limiting all merely relative and arbitrary ends.

3. A complete characterization of all maxims by means of that formula, namely, that all maxims ought by their own legislation to harmonize with a possible kingdom of ends as with a kingdom of nature. There is a progress here in the order of the categories of unity of the form of the will (its universality), plurality of the matter (the objects, that is, the ends), and totality of the system of these. In forming our moral judgment of actions, it is better to proceed always on the strict method and start from the general formula of the categorical imperative: Act according to a maxim which can at the same time make itself a universal law. If, however, we wish to gain an entrance for the moral law, it is very useful to bring one and the same action under the three specified conceptions, and thereby as far as possible to bring it nearer to intuition.

We can now end where we started at the beginning, namely, with the conception of a will unconditionally good. That will is absolutely good which cannot be evil—in other words, whose maxim, if made a universal law, could never contradict itself. This principle, then, is its supreme law: "Act always on such a maxim as you can at the same time will to be a universal law"; this is the sole condition under which a will can never contradict itself; and such an imperative is categorical. Since the validity of the will as a universal law for possible actions is analogous to the universal connection of the existence of things by general laws, which is the formal notion of nature in general, the categorical imperative can also be expressed thus: Act on maxims which can at the same time have for their object themselves as universal laws of nature. Such then is the formula of an absolutely good will.

Rational nature is distinguished from the rest of nature by this, that it sets before itself an end. This end would be the matter of every good will. But since in the idea of a will that is absolutely good without being limited by any condition (of attaining this or that end) we must abstract wholly from every end to be effected (since this would make every will only relatively good), it follows that in this case the end must be conceived, not as an end to be effected, but as an independently existing end. Consequently it is conceived only negatively, that is, as that which we must never act against and which, therefore, must never be regarded merely as means, but must in every volition be esteemed as an end likewise. Now this end can be nothing but the subject of all possible ends, since this is also the subject of a possible absolutely good will; for such a will cannot without contradiction be postponed to any other object. The principle: "So act in regard to every rational being (yourself and others), that he may always have place in your maxim as an end in himself," is accordingly essentially identical with this other: "Act upon a maxim which, at the same time, involves its own universal validity for every rational being." For that in using means for every end I should limit my maxim by the condition of its holding good as a law for every subject, this comes to the same thing as that the fundamental principle of all maxims of action must be that the subject of all ends, that is, the rational being himself, be never employed merely as means, but as the supreme condition restricting the use of all means, that is in every case as an end likewise. …

FREEDOM, IMMORTALITY AND GOD AS POSTULATES (Critique of Practical Reason, 1788, 2.2.4-5)

Achieving the Highest Moral Good Requires a Progression towards Perfection, which Requires an Immortal Soul

4. The realization of the summum bonum [i.e., highest good] in the world is the necessary object of a will determinable by the moral law. But in this will the perfect accordance of the mind with the moral law is the supreme condition of the summum bonum. This then must be possible, as well as its object, since it is contained in the command to promote the latter. Now, the perfect accordance of the will with the moral law is holiness, a perfection of which no rational being of the sensible world is capable at any moment of his existence. Since, nevertheless, it is required as practically necessary, it can only be found in a progress in infinitum towards that perfect accordance, and on the principles of pure practical reason it is necessary to assume such a practical progress as the real object of our will.

Now, this endless progress is only possible on the supposition of an endless duration of the existence and personality of the same rational being (which is called the immortality of the soul). The summum bonum, then, practically is only possible on the supposition of the immortality of the soul; consequently this immortality, being inseparably connected with the moral law, is a postulate of pure practical reason (by which I mean a theoretical proposition, not demonstrable as such, but which is an inseparable result of an unconditional a priori practical law. . . .

Achieving the Highest Moral Good Requires the Highest Happiness which requires God to Bring that About

5. In the foregoing analysis, the moral law led to a practical problem which is prescribed by pure reason alone, without the aid of any sensible motives, namely, that of the necessary completeness of the first and principle element of the summum bonum, viz., morality; and, as this can be perfectly solved only in eternity, to the postulate of immortality. The same law must also lead us to affirm the possibility of the second element of the summum bonum, viz., happiness proportioned to that morality, and this on grounds as disinterested as before, and solely from impartial reason; that is, it must lead to the supposition of the existence of a cause adequate to this effect. In other words, it must postulate the existence of God, as the necessary condition of the possibility of the summum bonum (an object of the will which is necessarily connected with the moral legislation of pure reason). We proceed to exhibit this connection in a convincing manner.

Happiness is the condition of a rational being in the world with whom everything goes according to his wish and will; it rests, therefore, on the harmony of physical nature with his whole end and likewise with the essential determining principle of his will. Now the moral law as a law of freedom commands by determining principles, which ought to be quite independent of nature and of its harmony with our faculty of desire (as springs). But the acting rational being in the world is not the cause of the world and of nature itself. There is not the least ground, therefore, in the moral law for a necessary connection between morality and proportionate happiness in a being that belongs to the world as part of it, and therefore dependent on it, and which for that reason cannot by his will be a cause of this nature, nor by his own power make it thoroughly harmonize, as far as his happiness is concerned, with his practical principles. Nevertheless, in the practical problem of pure reason, i.e., the necessary pursuit of the summum bonum, such a connection is postulated as necessary: we ought to endeavour to promote the summum bonum, which, therefore, must be possible. Accordingly, the existence of a cause of all nature [i.e., God], distinct from nature itself and containing the principle of this connection, namely, of the exact harmony of happiness with morality, is also postulated. . . .

Hence also morality is not properly the doctrine how we should make ourselves happy, but how we should become worthy of happiness. It is only when religion is added that there also comes in the hope of participating some day in happiness in proportion as we have endeavoured to be not unworthy of it.

Morality Requires Submission to the Moral Law which requires Freedom

It now follows of itself that, in the order of ends, man (and with him every rational being) is an end in himself, that is, he can never be used merely as a means by any (not even by God) without being at the same time an end also himself, and that therefore humanity in our person must be holy to ourselves. For he is the subject of the moral law, in other words, of that which is holy in itself, and on account of which and in agreement with which alone can anything be termed holy. For this moral law is founded on the autonomy of his will, as a free will which by its universal laws must necessarily be able to agree with that to which it is to submit itself. We proceed to exhibit this connection in a convincing manner.

Postulates as Practically Necessary Suppositions

6. These postulates all proceed from the principle of morality, which is not a postulate but a law, by which reason determines the will directly. This will, because it is so determined as a pure will, requires these necessary conditions of obedience to its precept. These postulates are not theoretical dogmas but, suppositions practically necessary; while then they do [not] extend our speculative knowledge, they give objective reality to the ideas of speculative reason in general (by means of their reference to what is practical), and give it a right to concepts, the possibility even of which it could not otherwise venture to affirm.

These postulates are those of immortality, freedom positively considered (as the causality of a being so far as he belongs to the intelligible world), and the existence of God. The first results from the practically necessary condition of a duration adequate to the complete fulfilment of the moral law; the second from the necessary supposition of independence of the sensible world, and of the faculty of determining one's will according to the law of an intelligible world, that is, of freedom; the third from the necessary condition of the existence of the summum bonum in such an intelligible world, by the supposition of the supreme independent good, that is, the existence of God.

BEAUTY AS DISINTERESTED, UNIVERSAL, NECESSARY, AND SEEMINGLY PURPOSEFUL (Critique of Judgement, 1790)

First Moment: Beauty as Disinterested

§1. The judgement of taste is aesthetic [i.e., it is subjective and aesthetic, not objective and rational]

If we wish to decide whether anything is beautiful or not, we do not refer the representation of it to the object by means of understanding with a view to cognition, but by means of the imagination (acting perhaps in conjunction with understanding) we refer the representation to the subject and its feeling of pleasure or displeasure. The judgement of taste, therefore, is not a cognitive judgement, and so not logical, but is aesthetic—which means that it is one whose determining ground cannot be other than subjective. Every reference of representations is capable of being objective, even that of sensations (in which case it signifies the real in an empirical representation). The one exception to this is the feeling of pleasure or displeasure. This denotes nothing in the object, but is a feeling which the subject has of itself and of the manner in which it is affected by the representation. To apprehend a regular and appropriate building with one's cognitive faculties, be the manner of representation clear or confused, is quite a different thing from being conscious of this representation with an accompanying sensation of delight. Here the representation is referred wholly to the subject, and what is more to its feeling of life—under the name of the feeling of pleasure or displeasure—and this forms the basis of a quite separate faculty of discriminating and estimating, that contributes nothing to knowledge. All it does is to compare the given representation in the subject with the entire faculty of representations of which the mind is conscious in the feeling of its state. Given representations in a judgement may be empirical, and so aesthetic; but the judgement which is pronounced by their means is logical, provided it refers them to the object. Conversely, be the given representations even rational, but referred in a judgement solely to the subject (to its feeling), they are always to that extent aesthetic.

§2. The delight which determines the judgement of taste is independent of all interest

The delight which we connect with the representation of the real existence of an object is called interest. Such a delight, therefore, always involves a reference to the faculty of desire, either as its determining ground, or else as necessarily implicated with its determining ground. Now, where the question is whether something is beautiful, we do not want to know, whether we, or anyone else, are, or even could be, concerned with the real existence of the thing, but rather what estimate we form of it on mere contemplation (intuition or reflection). If anyone asks me whether I consider that the palace I see before me is beautiful, I may, perhaps, reply that I do not care for things of that sort that are merely made to be gaped at. Or I may reply in the same strain as that Iroquoissachem who said that nothing in Paris pleased him better than the eating-houses. I may even go a step further and inveigh with the vigour of a Rousseau against the vanity of the great who spend the sweat of the people on such superfluous things. Or, in short, I may quite easily persuade myself that if I found myself on an uninhabited island, without hope of ever again coming among men, and could conjure such a palace into existence by a mere wish, I should still not trouble to do so, so long as I had a but there that was comfortable enough for me. All this may be admitted and approved; only it is not the point now at issue. All one wants to know is whether the mere representation of the object is to my liking, no matter how indifferent I may be to the real existence of the object of this representation. It is quite plain that in order to say that the object is beautiful, and to show that I have taste, everything turns on the meaning which I can give to this representation, and not on any factor which makes me dependent on the real existence of the object. Everyone must allow that a judgement on the beautiful which is tinged with the slightest interest, is very partial and not a pure judgement of taste. One must not be in the least prepossessed in favor of the real existence of the thing, but must preserve complete indifference in this respect, in order to play the part of judge in matters of taste. This proposition, which is of the utmost importance, cannot be better explained than by contrasting the pure disinterested delight which appears in the judgement of taste with that allied to an interest—especially if we can also assure ourselves that there are no other kinds of interest beyond those presently to be mentioned. . . .

Definition of the Beautiful derived from the First Moment: Taste is the faculty of estimating an object or a mode of representation by means of a delight or aversion apart from any interest. The object of such a delight is called beautiful. . . .

Second Moment: Beauty as Universal

§6. The beautiful is that which, apart from concepts, is represented as the Object of a universal delight.

This definition of the beautiful is deducible from the foregoing definition of it as an object of delight apart from any interest. For where any one is conscious that his delight in an object is with him independent of interest, it is inevitable that he should look on the object as one containing a ground of delight for all men. For, since the delight is not based on any inclination of the subject (or on any other deliberate interest), but the subject feels himself completely free in respect of the liking which he accords to the object, he can find as reason for his delight no personal conditions to which his own subjective self might alone be party. Hence he must regard it as resting on what he may also presuppose in every other person; and therefore he must believe that he has reason for demanding a similar delight from everyone. Accordingly he will speak of the beautiful as if beauty were a quality of the object and the judgement logical (forming a cognition of the object by concepts of it); although it is only aesthetic, and contains merely a reference of the representation of the object to the subject; because it still bears this resemblance to the logical judgement, that it may be presupposed to be valid for all men. But this universality cannot spring from concepts. For from concepts there is no transition to the feeling of pleasure or displeasure (save in the case of pure practical laws, which, however, carry an interest with them; and such an interest does not attach to the pure judgement of taste). The result is that the judgement of taste, with its attendant consciousness of detachment from all interest, must involve a claim to validity for all men, and must do so apart from universality attached to objects, i.e., there must be coupled with it a claim to subjective universality. . . .

Definition of the Beautiful drawn from the Second Moment: The beautiful is that which, apart from a concept, pleases universally. . . .

§ 9. Investigation of the question whether in the judgement of taste the feeling of pleasure precedes or follows the judging of the object. [i.e., the judgment comes before the pleasure]

The solution of this question is the key to the Critique of Taste, and so is worthy of all attention.

If the pleasure in the given object precedes, and it is only its universal communicability that is to be acknowledged in the judgement of taste about the representation of the object, there would be a contradiction. For such pleasure would be nothing different from the mere pleasantness in the sensation, and so in accordance with its nature could have only private validity, because it is immediately dependent on the representation through which the object is given.

Hence, it is the universal capability of communication of the mental state in the given representation which, as the subjective condition of the judgement of taste, must be fundamental, and must have the pleasure in the object as its consequent. . . .

The subjective universal communicability of the mode of representation in a judgement of taste, since it is to be possible without presupposing a definite concept, can refer to nothing else than the state of mind in the free play of the Imagination and the Understanding (so far as they agree with each other, as is requisite for cognition in general). We are conscious that this subjective relation, suitable for cognition in general, must be valid for everyone, and thus must be universally communicable, just as if it were a definite cognition, resting always on that relation as its subjective condition.

This merely subjective (aesthetical) judging of the object, or of the representation by which it is given, precedes the pleasure in it, and is the ground of this pleasure in the harmony of the cognitive faculties; but on the universality of the subjective conditions for judging of objects is alone based the universal subjective validity of the satisfaction bound up by us with the representation of the object that we call beautiful.

Third Moment: Beauty as Seemingly Purposeful (Purposiveness without Purpose)

§10. Finality in general [an end is what a thing was meant to accomplish, finality may exist apart from the end]

Let us define the meaning of "an end" in transcendental terms (i.e., without presupposing anything empirical, such as the feeling of pleasure). An end is the object of a concept so far as this concept is regarded as the cause of the object (the real ground of its possibility); and the causality of a concept in respect of its object is finality (forma finalis). Where, then, not the cognition of an object merely, but the object itself (its form or real existence) as an effect, is thought to be possible only through a concept of it, there we imagine an end. The representation of the effect is here the determining ground of its cause and takes the lead of it. The consciousness of the causality of a representation in respect of the state of the subject as one tending to preserve a continuance of that state, may here be said to denote in a general way what is called pleasure; whereas displeasure is that representation which contains the ground for converting the state of the representations into their opposite (for hindering or removing them).

The faculty of desire, so far as determinable only through concepts (i.e., so as to act in conformity with the representation of an end) would be the will. But an object, or state of mind, or even an action may, although its possibility does not necessarily presuppose the representation of an end, be called final simply on account of its possibility being only explicable and intelligible for us by virtue of an assumption on our part of fundamental causality according to ends, i.e., a will that would have so ordained it according to a certain represented rule. Finality, therefore, may exist apart from an end, in so far as we do not locate the causes of this form in a will, but yet are able to render the explanation of its possibility intelligible to ourselves only by deriving it from a will. Now we are not always obliged to look with the eye of reason into what we observe (i.e., to consider it in its possibility). So we may at least observe a finality of form, and trace it in objects—though by reflection only— without resting it on an end (as the material of the nexus finalis).

§11. The sole foundation of the judgement of taste is the form of finality of an object (or mode of representing it)

Whenever an end is regarded as a source of delight, it always imports an interest as determining ground of the judgement on the object of pleasure. Hence the judgement of taste cannot rest on any subjective end as its ground. But neither can any representation of an objective end, i.e., of the possibility of the object itself on principles of final connection, determine the judgement of taste, and, consequently, neither can any concept of the good. For the judgement of taste is an aesthetic and not a cognitive judgement, and so does not deal with any concept of the nature or of the internal or external possibility, by this or that cause, of the object, but simply with the relative bearing of the representative powers so far as determined by a representation. Now this relation, present when an object is characterized as beautiful, is coupled with the feeling of pleasure. This pleasure is by the judgement of taste pronounced valid for everyone; hence an agreeableness attending the representation is just as incapable of containing the determining ground of the judgement as the representation of the perfection of the object or the concept of the good. We are thus left with the subjective finality in the representation of an object, exclusive of any end (objective or subjective)—consequently the bare form of finality in the representation whereby an object is given to us, so far as we are conscious of it, as that which is alone capable of constituting the delight which, apart from any concept, we estimate as universally communicable, and so of forming the determining ground of the judgement of taste. . . .

Definition of the Beautiful derived from this Third Moment: Beauty is the form of the purposiveness of an object, insofar as it is perceived in it without representation of an end [i.e., purposiveness without purpose].

Fourth Moment: Beauty as Necessary

§19. The subjective necessity attributed to a judgement of taste is conditioned

The judgement of taste demands agreement from everyone; and a person who describes something as beautiful insists that everyone ought to give the object in question his approval and similarly follow in describing it as beautiful. The ought in aesthetic judgements, therefore, despite an accordance with all the requisite data for passing judgement, is still only pronounced conditionally. We are suitors for agreement from everyone else, because we are fortified with a ground common to all. Further, we would be able to count on this agreement, provided we were always assured of the correct subsumption of the case under that ground as the rule of approval.

§22. The Necessity of the universal assent that is thought in a judgement of taste, is a subjective necessity which, under the presupposition of a common sense, is represented as objective

In all judgements by which we describe anything as beautiful, we tolerate no one else being of a different opinion, and in taking up this position we do not rest our judgement upon concepts, but only on our feeling. Accordingly, we introduce this fundamental feeling not as a private feeling, but as a public sense. Now, for this purpose, experience cannot be made the ground of this common sense, for the latter is invoked to justify judgements containing an "ought." The assertion is not that everyone will fall in with our judgement, but rather that everyone ought to agree with it. Here I put forward my judgement of taste as an example of the judgement of common sense, and attribute to it on that account exemplary validity. Hence common sense is a mere ideal norm. With this as presupposition, a judgement that accords with it, as well as the delight in an object expressed in that judgement, is rightly converted into a rule for everyone. For the principle, while it is only subjective, being yet assumed as subjectively universal (a necessary idea for everyone), could, in what concerns the consensus of different judging subjects, demand universal assent like an objective principle, provided we were assured of our subsumption under it being correct. . . .

Definition of the Beautiful drawn from the Fourth Moment: The beautiful is that which, apart from a concept, is cognized as object of a necessary delight.

PERPETUAL PEACE THROUGH A FEDERATION OF PEACE (Perpetual Peace, 1795, 2)

The Natural Condition as a Condition of War

A condition of peace among men who live side by side with each other is not the natural condition. Rather, the condition of nature is a condition of war; for although it may not always present the outbreak of hostilities, it is nevertheless continually threatened with them. The condition of peace must, therefore, be established. For, the mere cessation of hostilities furnishes no security against their recurrence, and where there is no guarantee of peace between neighboring States (which can only be furnished under conditions that are regulated by law) the one may treat the other, when proclamation is made to that effect, as an enemy. . . .

It is well known that savages are attached to the lawless liberty of being engaged in incessant conflict with each other, rather than submitting to a legal constraint constituted by themselves. Hence, their preference of wild freedom to rational liberty is looked upon by us with profound contempt, and characterized as barbarism, coarseness, and a brutal degradation of humanity. Thus it might be thought that civilized nations, being each united into a State, would of necessity quickly advance as soon as possible out of any appearance to a condition that is so much condemned. Instead of this, however, we instead find that every State founds its majesty on not being subject to any external legal coercion; and the glory of its ruler or head is made to consist in the fact that without his requiring to encounter any danger himself, many thousands stand ready to be sacrificed at his command for a cause which may be no concern of theirs. . . .

Federation of Peace Compact

The state of peace cannot be founded or secured without a compact of the nations with each other. Hence there must be a compact of a special kind which may be called a Federation of Peace, and which would be distinguished from a mere treaty or Compact of Peace in that the latter merely puts an end to one war whereas the former would seek to put an end to all wars forever. This Federation will not aim at the acquisition of any of the political powers of a State, but merely at the preservation and guarantee for itself, and likewise for the other confederated States, of the liberty that is proper to a State. This would not require these States to subject themselves for this purpose—as is the case with men in the state of nature—to public laws and to coercion under them. The practicability and objective realization of this idea of federalism, inasmuch as it has to spread itself over all States and thereby lead to perpetual peace, may be easily shown. Suppose that happy circumstances bring it about that a powerful and enlightened people form themselves into a republic, which by its very nature must be disposed in favor of perpetual peace. This, then, will furnish a center of federative union for other States to attach themselves to, and thus to secure the conditions of liberty among all States, according to the idea of the right of nations. In the course of time, such a Union would extend wider and wider by the addition of further connections of this kind. . . .

For States viewed in relation to each other, there can be only one way, according to reason, of emerging from that lawless condition which contains nothing but opportunities for war. Just as in the case of individual men, reason would drive them to give up their savage lawless freedom, to accommodate themselves to public coercive laws, and thus to form an ever-growing state of nations, such as would at last embrace all the nations of the earth. But as the nations, according to their ideas of international right, will not have such a positive rational system, and consequently reject in fact what is right in theory, it cannot be realized in this pure form. Hence, instead of the positive idea of a Universal Republic—if all is not to be lost—we will have as result only the negative surrogate of a Federation of the States averting war, subsisting in an external union, and always extending itself over the world. Thus, the current of those inclinations and passions of men which are antagonistic to Right and productive of war, may be checked, although there will still be a danger of their eventually breaking. . . .

Nature's Guarantee of Perpetual Peace

The guarantee of perpetual peace is furnished by no less a power than the great artist nature herself: "nature, the inventor of all things". The mechanical course of Nature visibly exhibits a design to bring forth order out of the disorder of men, even against their will. This power as a cause working by laws which are unknown to us, is commonly called fate. But in view of the design manifested in the course of the world, it is to be regarded as the deep wisdom of a higher cause directed towards the realization of the final purpose of the human race, and predetermining the course of the world by relation to it, and as such we call it providence. Indeed, we do not perceive this power externally in the artistic formations of nature, nor can we even infer from them to it. But as in all referring of the form of things to final causes generally, we not only can, but must conjoin this thought with them in order to make their possibility conceivable after the analogy of the operations of human art. The relation and accord of these things to the moral purpose which reason immediately prescribes to us, can only be represented by an idea which theoretically indeed transcends our experience, but which is practically determinable and is well founded in reality. Such for example is the idea of a perpetual peace being a duty when the mechanism of nature is regarded as conducing to its realization. The employment of the term "nature" rather than "providence" for the designation of this power, is more proper and more modest in view of the limits of human reason, when we are dealing with it merely from the theoretical and not from the religious point of view. For human reason, when dealing with the relation of effects to their causes, must keep within the limits of possible experience; and to speak of providence as knowable by us in this relation, would be putting on Icarian wings with presumptuous rashness in order to approach the mystery of His unfathomable purposes.

STUDY QUESTIONS

Please answer all of the following questions.

1. In the section from, the Critique of Pure Reason on the "Need for a Critique of Pure Reason," describe the rise of metaphysics, the problems with it, and Kant's proposed solution.

2. In the section from the Prolegomena on "Hume and the Need to Re-Evaluate Metaphysics," what is the central question raised by Hume's problem of causality and why did Kant reject the suggestion that causality derives from common sense?

3. In the section from the Prolegomena on "Unique Feature of All Metaphysical Knowledge," explain what a "synthetic a priori" proposition is, and why Kant believes that mathematical statements like 7+5=12 are of this type rather than an "analytic a posteriori" proposition.

4. In the section from the Prolegomena on "How is pure mathematics possible?" explain how the pure intuitions of space and time are synthetic a priori and how they underlie mathematics.

5. In the section from the Prolegomena on "How is the science of nature possible?" explain the distinction between the phenomenal and noumenal worlds, and what the transcendental deduction is.

6. In the section from the Prolegomena on "How is the science of nature possible?" explain how the categories underlie a science of nature.

7. In the section from the Prolegomena on "How is metaphysics in general possible?" explain the problem of the transcendental idea of the self and immortality.

8. In the section from the Prolegomena on "How is metaphysics in general possible?" explain the four antinomies that result from the transcendental idea of the world.

9. In the section from the Critique of Pure Reason on "transcendental idea 3 (God)" explain why proofs for God's existence fail.

10. In "What is Enlightenment?" explain how a clergyman should behave with both his private and public uses of reason.

11. In "What is Enlightenment?" explain the problem with a church creating an unchangeable doctrine, and how a religious institution might devise a mechanism that allows for change.

12. In the section from the Grondwork of the Metaphysics of Morals on "Morality not Based on Virtue," according to Kant, why is morality not based on our virtues, that is, good character traits?

13. In the section from the Groundwork of the Metaphysics of Morals on "Hypothetical and Categorial Imperatives," explain Kant's distinction between the two.

14. In the section from the Groundwork of the Metaphysics of Morals on the "Formula of the Law of Nature," what is that formula and what for Kant are the specific contradictions that arise with suicide and neglecting one's talents?

15. In the section from the Groundwork of the Metaphysics of Morals on the "Formula of the End in Itself," what is that formula and how for Kant does that show the immorality of suicide and neglecting one's talents?

16. In the section from the Groundwork of the Metaphysics of Morals on "Three Formulas, One Principle," What three points are in common to all formulas of the categorical imperative?

17. In the section of the Critique of Practical Reason on "Freedom, Immortality and God as Postulates," what are Kant's arguments for postulating these three ideas?

18. In the Critique of Judgment, what is Kant's reasoning for why subjective aesthetic judgments are disinterested?

19. In Critique of Judgment, why, according to Kant, are subjective aesthetic judgments both universal and necessary?

20. In the section on "Perpetual Peace", explain how a Federation of Peace might form, and Kant's reasoning behind nature's guarantee of perpetual peace.

21. Short essay: please select one of the following and answer it in a minimum of 100 words.

a. Schopenhauer makes the following criticism of Kant's effort to mediate between Leibniz's rationalism and Locke's empiricism: "He objects to Leibnitz and Locke that the former reduced everything to abstract ideas, and the latter everything to ideas of perception. But yet he arrives at no distinction; and although Locke and Leibnitz really committed these errors, Kant himself is burdened with a third error which includes them both—the error of having so mixed up knowledge of perception and abstract knowledge that a monstrous hybrid of the two resulted, a chimera of which no distinct idea is possible, and which therefore necessarily only confused and stupefied students, and set them at variance" (Critique of the Kantian Philosophy, 1818). Discuss Schopenhauer's criticism and how Kant might respond.

b. Hegel makes the following criticism of Kant's view that space and time are only features of our mental processes, and not features of the external world: "As a priori, space and time are universal and necessary [for experience of external objects], that is to say we find this to be the case. But it does not follow that they must be previously present as conceptions. They are fundamental indeed, but they are likewise an external universal. Kant however places the matter somewhat in this fashion: there are things-in-themselves outside, but devoid of time and space; consciousness now comes, and it has time and space beforehand present in it as the possibility of experience, just as in order to eat it has mouth and teeth, etc., as conditions necessary for eating. The things which are eaten have not the mouth and teeth, and as eating is brought to bear on things, so space and time are also brought to bear on them; just as things are placed in the mouth and between the teeth, so is it with space and time" (Lectures on the History of Philosophy, 1805, 3.3.B). Discuss Hegel's criticism and how Kant might respond.

c. Nietzsche makes the following criticism of Kant's distinction between the phenomena and the noumenal thing in itself: "As may be conjectured, it is not the opposition between subject and object with which I am here concerned: I leave that distinction to the epistemologists who have remained entangled in the toils of grammar (popular metaphysics). I am still less concerned with the opposition of "thing in itself" and phenomenon, for we do not "know" enough to be entitled even to make such a distinction. Indeed, we have not any organ at all for knowing or for "truth"; we "know" (or believe, or imagine) just as much as may be of use in the interest of the human herd, the species; and even what is here called "usefulness" is ultimately only a belief, a fiction and perhaps precisely the most fatal stupidity by which we will one day be ruined" (Joyful Wisdom, 1887, 5.354). Discuss Nietzsche's criticism and how Kant might respond.

d. Schopenhauer makes the following criticism of Kant's theory of the categories: "The meaning of the expressions denoted by the titles, forms of judgment and categories, is entirely set aside and forgotten, and the expressions alone are retained. These have their source partly in Aristotle's Prior Analytics, but are arbitrarily chosen. . . . Even the word quality has obviously been chosen on account of the custom of opposing quality to quantity; for the name quality is certainly taken arbitrarily enough for affirmation and negation" (Critique of the Kantian Philosophy, 1818). Discuss Schopenhauer's criticism and how Kant might respond.

e. Hegel makes the following criticism of Kant's theory of the categories: "On their own account, the categories are void and empty, they only have meaning through their union with the given, manifold material of perception, feeling, etc. Such connection of sensuous material with categories now constitutes the facts of experience, i.e., the matter of sensation after it is brought under the categories; and this is knowledge generally" (Lectures on the History of Philosophy, 1805, 3.3.B). Discuss Hegel's criticism and how Kant might respond.

f. Schopenhauer makes the following criticism of Kant's theory of the antinomies: "I find and assert that the whole antinomy is a mere delusion, a sham fight. . . . the proofs which Kant adduced of the individual theses are sophisms, while those of the antitheses are quite fairly and correctly drawn from objective grounds" (Critique of the Kantian Philosophy, 1818). Discuss Schopenhauer's criticism and how Kant might respond.

g. Kant writes in his Groundwork that "the coolness of a villain not only makes him far more dangerous, but also directly makes him more abominable in our eyes than he would have been without it." Explain how this constitutes a criticism of virtue theory, and discuss whether it is a successful criticism.

h. Philippa Foot argued that many moral philosophers today blindly accept Kant's view that genuine moral principles cannot be hypothetical imperatives. Foot proceeds by describing how a system of morals could be effectively based on only hypothetical imperatives: "The conclusion we should draw is that moral judgments have no better claim to be categorical imperatives than do statements about matters of etiquette [i.e., hypothetical imperatives]. People may indeed follow either morality or etiquette without asking why they should do so, but equally well they may not. They may ask for reasons and may reasonably refuse to follow either if reasons are not to be found" ("Morality as a System of Hypothetical Imperatives," 1972). Is Kant or Foot right? Explain.

i. Nietzsche makes the following criticism of Kant's emphasis on moral rules: "All rules have this effect: they distract our attention from the fundamental aim of the rule, and make us more thoughtless. But to what heights of immoderation and destruction would men have risen if ever they had completely and honestly left everything to the Godhead as to their physician [whose treatment instructions they strictly follow], and acted in accordance with the words "as God will" (Dawn of Day, 1881, 322). Discuss Nietzsche's criticism and how Kant might respond.

j. In his discussion of the formula of the law of nature" in his Groundwork, Kant tells us that we begin by discovering the maxim, or rule, that underlies the action that we are investigating. He gives us the impression that it is easy to discover the underlying maxim. Are there different ways of wording the underlying maxim, and will these differences in wording impact whether the maxim can be successfully universalized? Explain and give an example.

k. Christine Korsgaard argues that there are three ways of understanding the notion of "contradiction" in Kant's formula of the law of nature. First, the universalization of a maxim might be a logical contradiction, where the proposed action would be inconceivable. Second, it might be a teleological contradiction insofar as the maxim could not operate as a law within a purposeful and arranged system of nature. Third, it might be a practical contradiction where my action would become unsuccessful for reaching my aim if everyone tried to use it for that aim ("Kant's Formula of Universal Law," 1985). Which of these three interpretations is the best?

l. In his discussion of the formula of the end itself, Kant states that we should treat people "in every case as an end and never as merely a means." Consider that final part that says that we should never treat a person "as merely a means." Is he suggesting that we can indeed use people so long as we treat them as ends at the same time? Explain.

m. In the conclusion, Kant tries to explain how the various formulas of the categorical imperative tie together and really express only one basic and underlying principle. Is Kant's explanation convincing? Explain.

n. Hegel makes the following comment about Kant's moral argument for God's existence: "To Kant God cannot on the one hand be found in experience ; He can neither be found in outward experience as Lalande discovered when he swept the whole heavens and found no God nor can He be discovered within ; though no doubt mystics and enthusiasts can experience many things in themselves, and amongst these God, i.e., the Infinite. On the other hand Kant argues to prove the existence of God, who is to him an hypothesis necessary for the explanation of things, a postulate of practical reason. But in this connection another French astronomer made the following reply to the Emperor Napoleon: 'Ah, it is a fine hypothesis; it explains so many things.' According to this the truth underlying the Kantian philosophy is the recognition of freedom" (Lectures on the History of Philosophy, 1805, 3.3.B). Hegel likely meant this as a complement, but explain how this can be taken as a criticism and how Kant might respond.