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versal, but propositions concerning Matters of Fact, being synthetical, are not necessary and universal. But since both mathematical and Matter-of-Fact truths are synthetical there is no reason to assume any difference in the nature of their evidence.

We can distinguish different stages of this synthesis, this putting together.

1. We have a putting together of mere impressions to form perceptions, of stimulations to form the consciousness of being stimulated. Stimulations would be

chaotic, and therefore never perceptions, if there were not forms of reason' which make cosmos out of this chaos, which give Objectivity and orderly Existence to this unintelligible mass; first of these are the forms of perception, Time and Space. Space is the form of mind which gives a stimulus locality, makes it to be right or left, up or down; whilst Time makes it possible for us to perceive a stimulus as existing now, before or after another-Succession and Duration.

Time and Space are not themselves things without, perceived by us, as we perceive a house or a block of wood; but they are the necessary mental conditions of all perception. This Kant enlarges upon and demonstrates in his Transcendental Esthetic (Esthetic in its original sense of Science of Sensation).

But Perception is not the only faculty of the mind. We also reason, remember, connect, compare these perceptions. Time and Space are the forms of mind that 'put together' the single impressions; impressions are the material of Perception. But Perceptions again form the material for our higher Reasoning; we can put

together perceptions to form judgments, and judgments to form syllogisms. This we do by what Kant calls the Categories, or pure Concepts of the Understanding, which he divides into four classes: Categories of Quantity, Quality, Relation, and Modality. Each of these has three sub-classes, according to the Scholastic Logic. The most important are the Categories of Relation, which deal with Substance, Causality, and Reciprocity (Interaction). These Categories, as we have already shown with regard to Causation, are not results of Experience, but are necessary conditions of all Reasoning; though he seems to have been driven more by a sense of system and architecture than by motives of true simplification. This Kant treats of in the first part of his Transcendental Logic, the Transcendental Analytic.

In the second part of his Transcendental Logic, the Transcendental Dialectic, Kant shows that there is no Cognition of the Supra-Sensible (Uebersinnliche), since all Perception is limited to impressions, and all Experience is made up of perceptions, put together to proposition by means of the Categories. There is no knowledge of things-in-themselves, i.e. things independent of impressions, perceptions, etc.,-things independent of our consciousness. We cannot descend lower down in our analysis than to impressions. The absolute source of these impressions is to us an x, an unknown something of which we cannot predicate anything.1

1 Whatever may be the difference on this point between the first and second edition of Kant's Critique, which has caused so much contention

Finally, let us review the main feature of Kant's philosophy, those points which distinguish it as a whole from other systems.

The Dogmatic philosopher assumes the fact of human Cognition, and immediately proceeds to practise it. He finds truth either in thought itself, in 'clear and distinct thoughts,' or in things themselves, in our Experience concerning them. The former is the Rationalist, the latter the Realist. Whether we are capable of cognising at all, and how much we can cognise, is a question he does not put-he proceeds to speculate.

The Sceptic also presumes unlimited Cognising power, transcends the limits of our possible knowledge, and then concludes with elaborate, and, as he must believe, truthful arguments that there is no cognition at all. Or he finds one of the limitations of human cognition, and jumps to the conclusion that therefore there is no cognition. In truth the Sceptic is a reversed Dogmatic. The Dogmatic says ' Ay,' the Sceptic ‘Nay.

The Critic does not give an unqualified ay or nay; but before philosophising he examines the limits and powers of human cognition, marks out the field of among philosophers; however much Kant himself has elsewhere transcended the sensible world, e.g. in his theory of the 'Intelligible Character of the Will;' I must hold this view as the correct rendering of the relation in which Kant stands to the question of Things per se. Kant may have become 'uncritical;' but as long as we recognise 'criticism' as the leading feature of his philosophy, we make criticism' the main point of our judgment. The philosopher of Criticism does not say ay or nay concerning things-in-themselves, he acknowledges his incompetency to predicate anything concerning their existence, he is agnostic as to this point. Call this Scepticism who will; only then he cannot apply the same name to Pyrrho !

possible knowledge, limited by the Things-in-itself and the Supra-Sensible, and then proceeds to philosophise within these limits. He first asks what is cognition, and how is it possible. He is conscious that all subsequent apprehensions only are valid within these limits of human knowledge. He is not like the philosophers who say: 'We must contemplate the world as if we were demigods, just hurled down from above;' but 'No, we cannot cognise the world as demigods, but merely as men, i.e. beings with such and such power of cognition.' Furthermore, the Critic does not remain contented with the mere indication of errors in other thinkers; but he lays open the sources of errors, and shows how they spring from certain tendencies or habits of mind.

Those philosophers are transcendent, they transcend possible Experience and their own human nature. The critical philosopher is transcendental, i.e. he holds that higher point from which he perceives all objects of cognition, but at the same time sees the bounds beyond which nothing is visible.

I have given the leading traits of Kant's Philosophy, which will live as long as men think about these matters, whatever changes of detail it may undergo.1

1 For fuller knowledge the reader must be referred to Kant's own writings, or, as these are exceedingly difficult reading, to Kuno Fischer's Kant; or the English version of Fischer's Commentary of Kant's Critik of Pure Reason, by J. P. Mahaffy; or Professor Edward Caird's work.

CHAPTER XIV.

A GLIMPSE INTO THE NINETEENTH CENTURY.

SECTION I.-GERMANY.

KANT'S teaching was further developed by Carl Reinhold in his Elementary Philosophy. But it contained numerous problems, which could not let the philosophical spirit rest. One of these vexing points was the Thing-in-itself. Kant himself had given occasion for a debate upon this matter in the difference between the first and second editions of his Critique of Pure Reason: in the latter of which he affirms the existence of the thing-in-itself, and thereby becomes uncritical. As soon as anything is predicated concerning the thingin-itself as existing, the question follows, if it is, it must be somewhere, i.e. in Space, then Space is not a mere form of the mind, and the Transcendental Esthetic, the main pillar of the Critique, falls. A sceptical warfare was carried on against the Critical Philosophy by G. E. Schulze (known as Ænesidemus Schulze, from his having adopted the name of the old Sceptic, Ænesidemus, on the title-page of his book) and by Salomon Maimon, an extremely subtle opponent. Maimon's theory is

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