Category Archives: Philosophy

KANT: On Politics and Eternal Peace

May 23, 2019 – 10:59 AM

Reference: The Story of Philosophy

This paper presents Chapter VI, Immanuel Kant and German Idealism, Section 6 from the book THE STORY OF PHILOSOPHY by WILL DURANT. The contents are from the 1933 reprint of this book by TIME INCORPORATED by arrangement with Simon and Schuster, Inc.

The paragraphs of the original material (in black) are accompanied by brief comments (in color) based on the present understanding.  Feedback on these comments is appreciated.

The heading below is linked to the original materials.

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On Politics and Eternal Peace

The Prussian government might have pardoned Kant’s theology, had he not been guilty of political heresies as well. Three years after the accession of Frederick William II, the French Revolution had set all the thrones of Europe trembling. At a time when most of the teachers in the Prussian universities had rushed to the support of legitimate monarchy, Kant, sixty-five years young, hailed the Revolution with joy; and with tears in his eyes said to his friends: “Now I can say like Simeon, ‘Lord, let now Thy servant depart in peace; for mine eyes have seen Thy salvation.’” [Wallace, p. 40.]

Kant hailed the French revolution with joy.

He had published, in 1784, a brief exposition of his political theory under the title of “The Natural Principle of the Political Order considered in connection with the Idea of a Universal Cosmopolitical History.” Kant begins by recognizing, in that strife of each against all which had so shocked Hobbes, nature’s method of developing the hidden capacities of life; struggle is the indispensable accompaniment of progress. If men were entirely social, man would stagnate; a certain alloy of individualism and competition is required to make the human species survive and grow. ‘Without qualities of an unsocial kind . . . men might have led an Arcadian shepherd life in complete harmony, contentment, and mutual love; but in that case all their talents would have forever remained hidden in their germ.” (Kant, therefore, was no slavish follower of Rousseau.) “Thanks be then to nature for this unsociableness, for this envious jealousy and vanity, for this insatiable desire for possession and for power. . . . Man wishes concord; but nature knows better what is good for his species; and she wills discord, in order that man may be impelled to a new exertion of his powers, and to the further development of his natural capacities.”

According to Kant, struggle is the indispensable accompaniment of progress. It is nature’s method of developing the hidden capacities of life. A certain alloy of individualism and competition is required to make the human species survive and grow.

The struggle for existence, then, is not altogether an evil. Nevertheless, men soon perceive that it must be restricted within certain limits, and regulated by rules, customs, and laws; hence the origin and development of civil society. But now “the same unsociableness which forced men into society becomes again the cause of each commonwealth’s assuming the attitude of uncontrolled freedom in its external relations, i.e., as one state in relation to other states; and consequently, any one state must expect from any other the same sort of evils as formerly oppressed individuals and compelled them to enter into a civil union regulated by law.” [Eternal Peace and Other Essays; Boston, 1914; p. 14.] It is time that nations, like men, should emerge from the wild state of nature, and contract to keep the peace. The whole meaning and movement of history is the ever greater restriction of pugnacity and violence, the continuous enlargement of the area of peace. ‘The history of the human race, viewed as a whole, may be regarded as the realization of a hidden plan of nature to bring about a political constitution, internally and externally perfect, as the only state in which all the capacities implanted by her in mankind can be fully developed.” [Eternal Peace and Other Essays; Boston, 1914; p. 19.] If there is no such progress, the labors of successive civilizations are like those of Sisyphus, who again and again “up the high hill heaved a huge round stone,” only to have it roll back as it was almost at the top. History would be then nothing more than an endless and circuitous folly; “and we might suppose, like the Hindu, that the earth is a place for the expiation of old and forgotten sins.” [P.58.]

The struggle for existence is not an evil but it must be restricted within certain limits, and regulated by rules, customs, and laws. It is time that nations, like men, should emerge from the wild state of nature, and contract to keep the peace.

The essay on “Eternal Peace” (published in 1795, when Kant was seventy-one) is a noble development of this theme. Kant knows how easy it is to laugh at the phrase; and under his title he writes: “These words were once put by a Dutch inn-keeper on his sign-board as a satirical inscription, over the representation of a church-yard” cemetery. [P. 68.] Kant had before complained, as apparently every generation must, that “our rulers have no money to spend on public education . . . because all their resources are already placed to the account of the next war.” [P. 21.] The nations will not really be civilized until all standing armies are abolished. (The audacity of this proposal stands out when we remember that it was Prussia itself which, under the father of Frederick the Great, had been the first to establish conscription.) “Standing armies excite states to outrival one another in the number of their armed men, which has no limit. Through the expense occasioned thereby, peace becomes in the long run more oppressive than a short war; and standing armies are thus the cause of aggressive wars undertaken in order to get rid of this burden.” [P. 71.] For in time of war the army would support itself on the country, by requisitioning, quartering, and pillaging; preferably in the enemy’s territory, but if necessary, in one’s own land; even this would be better than supporting it out of government funds.

Nation’s resources are usually earmarked for war and little is left for public education. According to Kant, the nations will not really be civilized until all standing armies are abolished.

Much of this militarism, in Kant’s judgment, was due to the expansion of Europe into America and Africa and Asia; with the resultant quarrels of the thieves over their new booty. “If we compare the barbarian instances of inhospitality . . . with the inhuman behavior of the civilized, and especially the commercial, states of our continent, the injustice practiced by them even in their first contact with foreign lands and peoples fills us with horror; the mere visiting of such peoples being regarded by them as equivalent to a conquest. America, the negro lands, the Spice Islands, the Cape of Good Hope, etc., on being discovered, were treated as countries that belonged to nobody; for the aboriginal inhabitants were reckoned as nothing. . . . And all this has been done by nations who make a great ado about their piety, and who, while drinking up iniquity like water, would have themselves regarded as the very elect of the orthodox faith.” [P. 68.] The old fox of Konigsberg was not silenced yet!

Much of this militarism, in Kant’s judgment, was due to the expansion of Europe into America and Africa and Asia; with the resultant quarrels of the thieves over their new booty.

Kant attributed this imperialistic greed to the oligarchical constitution of European states; the spoils went to a select few, and remained substantial even after division. If democracy were established, and all shared in political power, the spoils of international robbery would have to be so subdivided as to constitute a resistible temptation. Hence the “first definitive article in the conditions of Eternal Peace” is this: “The civil constitution of every state shall be republican, and war shall not be declared except by a plebiscite of all the citizens.” [Pp. 76-77.] When those who must do the fighting have the right to decide between war and peace, history will no longer be written in blood. “On the other hand, in a constitution where the subject is not a voting member of the state, and which is therefore not republican, the resolution to go to war is a matter of the smallest concern in the world. For in this case the ruler, who, as such, is not a mere citizen, but the owner of the state, need not in the least suffer personally by war, nor has he to sacrifice his pleasures of the table or the chase, or his pleasant palaces, court festivals, or the like. He can, therefore, resolve for war from insignificant reasons, as if it were but a hunting expedition; and as regards its propriety, he may leave the justification of it without concern to the diplomatic corps, who are always too ready to give their services for that purpose.” [Pp. 76-77.] How contemporary truth is!

Kant attributed this imperialistic greed to the oligarchical constitution of European states; the spoils went to a select few, and remained substantial even after division. Kant suggested that the civil constitution of every state shall be republican, and war shall not be declared except by a plebiscite of all the citizens.

The apparent victory of the Revolution over the armies of reaction in 1795 led Kant to hope that republics would now spring up throughout Europe, and that an international order would arise based upon a democracy without slavery and without exploitation, and pledged to peace. After all, the function of government is to help and develop the individual, not to use and abuse him. “Every man is to be respected as an absolute end in himself; and it is a crime against the dignity that belongs to him as a human being, to use him as a mere means for some external purpose.” [In Paulsen, p. 340.] This too is part and parcel of that categorical imperative without which religion is a hypocritical farce. Kant therefore calls for equality: not of ability, but of opportunity for the development and application of ability; he rejects all prerogatives of birth and class, and traces all hereditary privilege to some violent conquest in the past. In the midst of obscurantism and reaction and the union of all monarchical Europe to crush the Revolution, he takes his stand, despite his seventy years, for the new order, for the establishment of democracy and liberty everywhere. Never had old age so bravely spoken with the voice of youth.

According to Kant, the function of government is to help and develop the individual, not to use and abuse him. Kant therefore calls for equality: not of ability, but of opportunity for the development and application of ability; he rejects all prerogatives of birth and class, and traces all hereditary privilege to some violent conquest in the past.

But he was exhausted now; he had run his race and fought his fight. He withered slowly into a childlike senility that came at last to be a harmless insanity: one by one his sensibilities and his powers left him; and in 1804, aged seventy-nine, he died, quietly and naturally, like a leaf falling from a tree.

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Final Comments

Individualism arises from struggle amongst individual ideas and not people. Kant’s are powerful ideas. Kant is not against struggle but any struggle must be regulated to ensure peaceful evolution.

Militarism has been due to the expansion of Europe into America and Africa and Asia to acquire resources by force. The greed has come from the few in power who take advantage of even their general population.

Kant, therefore, suggests a republican constitution where the public has a say in declaring war. According to Kant, the function of government is to help and develop the individual, not to use and abuse him. Kant therefore calls for equality: not of ability, but of opportunity for the development and application of ability; he rejects all prerogatives of birth and class, and traces all hereditary privilege to some violent conquest in the past.

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KANT: On Religion and Reason

May 23, 2019 – 9:09 AM

Reference: The Story of Philosophy

This paper presents Chapter VI, Immanuel Kant and German Idealism, Section 5 from the book THE STORY OF PHILOSOPHY by WILL DURANT. The contents are from the 1933 reprint of this book by TIME INCORPORATED by arrangement with Simon and Schuster, Inc.

The paragraphs of the original material (in black) are accompanied by brief comments (in color) based on the present understanding.  Feedback on these comments is appreciated.

The heading below is linked to the original materials.

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On Religion and Reason

Does this appear trite, and timid, and conservative? But it was not so; on the contrary, this bold denial of “rational” theology, this frank reduction of religion to moral faith and hope, aroused all the orthodox of Germany to protests. To face this “forty-parson-power” (as Byron would have called it) required more courage than one usually associates with the name of Kant.

Kant’s bold denial of “rational” theology, and frank reduction of religion to moral faith and hope, required a lot of courage.

That he was brave enough appeared in all clarity when he published, at sixty-six, his Critique of Judgment, and, at sixty-nine, his Religion within the Limits of Pure Reason. In the earlier of these books Kant returns to the discussion of that argument from design which, in the first Critique, he had rejected as an insufficient proof of the existence of God. He begins by correlating design and beauty; the beautiful he thinks, is anything which reveals symmetry and unity of structure, as if it had been designed by intelligence. He observes in passing (and Schopenhauer here helped himself to a good deal of his theory of art) that the contemplation of symmetrical design always gives us a disinterested pleasure; and that “an interest in the beauty of nature for its own sake is always a sign of goodness.” [Critique of Judgment, sect 29.] Many objects in nature show such beauty, such symmetry and unity, as almost to drive us to the notion of supernatural design. But on the other hand, says Kant, there are also in nature many instances of waste and chaos, of useless repetition and multiplication; nature preserves life, but at the cost of how much suffering and death! The appearance of external design, then, is not a conclusive proof of Providence. The theologians who use the idea so much should abandon it, and the scientists who have abandoned it should use it; it is a magnificent clue, and leads to hundreds of revelations. For there is design, undoubtedly; but it is internal design, the design of the parts by the whole; and if science will interpret the parts of an organism in terms of their meaning for the whole, it will have an admirable balance for that other heuristic principle—the mechanical conception of life—which also is fruitful for discovery, but which, alone, can never explain the growth of even a blade of grass.

Kant argued that there is the beautiful symmetry and unity of design, but there are also many instances of waste and chaos. There is the appearance of external design; but there is also internal design, the design of the parts by the whole, that is mechanical in its conception. Alone, neither external nor inter design provide a conclusive proof of Providence. 

The essay on religion is a remarkable production for a man of sixty-nine; it is perhaps the boldest of all the books of Kant. Since religion must be based not on the logic of theoretical reason but on the practical reason of the moral sense, it follows that any Bible or revelation must be judged by its value for morality, and cannot itself be the judge of a moral code. Churches and dogmas have value only in so far as they assist the moral development of the race. When mere creeds or ceremonies usurp priority over moral excellence as a test of religion, religion has disappeared. The real church is a community of people, however scattered and divided, who are united by devotion to the common moral law. It was to establish such a community that Christ lived and died; it was this real church which he held up in contrast to the ecclesiasticism of the Pharisees. But another ecclesiasticism has almost overwhelmed this noble conception. “Christ has brought the kingdom of God nearer to earth; but he has been misunderstood; and in place of God’s kingdom the kingdom of the priest has been established among us.” [Quoted in Chamberlain, Immanuel Kant; vol. i, p. 510.] Creed and ritual have again replaced the good life; and instead of men being bound together by religion, they are divided into a thousand sects; and all manner of “pious nonsense” is inculcated as “a sort of heavenly court service by means of which one may win through flattery the favor of the ruler of heaven.” [In Paulsen,366.]—Again, miracles cannot prove a religion, for we can never quite rely on the testimony which supports them; and prayer is useless if it aims at a suspension of the natural laws that hold for all experience. Finally, the nadir of perversion is reached when the church becomes an instrument in the hands of a reactionary government; when the clergy, whose function it is to console and guide a harassed humanity with religious faith and hope and charity, are made the tools of theological obscurantism and political oppression.

Kant boldly argued that religion must be based not on the logic of theoretical reason but on the practical reason of the moral sense. Bible or any revelation must be judged by its value for morality, and cannot itself be the judge of a moral code. When mere creeds or ceremonies usurp priority over moral excellence as a test of religion, religion has disappeared. Miracles cannot prove a religion, for we can never quite rely on the testimony which supports them; and prayer is useless if it aims at a suspension of the natural laws that hold for all experience.

The audacity of these conclusions lay in the fact that precisely this had happened in Prussia. Frederick the Great had died in 1786, and had been succeeded by Frederick William II, to whom the liberal policies of his predecessor seemed to smack unpatriotically of the French Enlightenment. Zedlitz, who had been Minister of Education under Frederick, was dismissed; and his place was given to a Pietist, Wollner. Wollner had been described by Frederick as “a treacherous and intriguing priest,” who divided his time between alchemy and Rosicrucian mysteries, and climbed to power by offering himself as “an unworthy instrument” to the new monarch’s policy of restoring the orthodox faith by compulsion. [Encyclopaedia Britannica, article “Frederick William II”] In 1788 Wollner issued a decree which forbade any teaching, in school or university, that deviated from the orthodox form of Lutheran Protestantism; he established a strict censorship over all forms of publication, and ordered the discharge of every teacher suspected of any heresy. Kant was at first left unmolested, because he was an old man, and as one royal adviser said only a few people read him, and these did not understand him. But the essay on religion was intelligible; and though it rang true with religious fervor, it revealed too strong a strain of Voltaire to pass the new censorship. The Berliner Monatsschrift, which had planned to publish the essay, was ordered to suppress it.

According to Kant, the nadir of perversion is reached when the church becomes an instrument in the hands of a reactionary government. The audacity of these conclusions lay in the fact that precisely this had happened in Prussia. Kant was at first left unmolested, because he was an old man, and as one royal adviser said only a few people read him.

Kant acted now with a vigor and courage hardly credible in a man who had almost completed three score years and ten. He sent the essay to some friends at Jena, and through them had it published by the press of the university there. Jena was outside of Prussia, under the jurisdiction of that same liberal Duke of Weimar who was then caring for Goethe. The result was that in 1794 Kant received an eloquent cabinet order from the Prussian King, which read as follows: “Our highest person has been greatly displeased to observe how you misuse your philosophy to undermine and destroy many of the most important and fundamental doctrines of the Holy Scriptures and of Christianity. We demand of you immediately an exact account, and expect that in future you will give no such cause of offense, but rather that, in accordance with your duty, you will employ your talents and authority so that our paternal purpose may be more and more attained. If you continue to oppose this order you may expect unpleasant consequences.” [In Paulsen, p. 49.] Kant replied that every scholar should have the right to form independent judgments on religious matters, and to make his opinions known; but that during the reign of the present king he would preserve silence. Some biographers who can be very brave by proxy, have condemned him for this concession; but let us remember that Kant was seventy, that he was frail in health, and not fit for a fight; and that he had already spoken his message to the world.

But, at the age of 70, Kant got his essay on religion published outside Prussia. This essay was relatively intelligible, and the Prussian government threatened to prosecute him. Kant offered to preserve silence during the reign of the present king. He had already spoken his message to the world.

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Final Comments

Kant’s bold denial of “rational” theology, and frank reduction of religion to moral faith and hope, required a lot of courage. He argued that the appearance of external design is not a conclusive proof of Providence. There is also internal design that follows mechanical principles. 

To Kant, the practical reason of the moral sense made most sense. Churches and dogmas have value only in so far as they assist the moral development of the race. But when they become the tools of theological obscurantism and political oppression in the hands of a reactionary government the nadir of perversion is reached.

Kant lived in Prussia. The situation under the Prussian Government had reached that nadir of perversion. When, at the age of 70, Kant got his essay on religion published outside Prussia, the Prussian government threatened to prosecute him. Kant defended his judgements on religious matters, but he offered to preserve silence during the reign of the present king.

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KANT: The Critique of Practical Reason

May 23, 2019 – 6:36 AM

The Critique of Practical Reason by Immanuel Kant (ebook)

Reference: The Story of Philosophy

This paper presents Chapter VI, Immanuel Kant and German Idealism, Section 4 from the book THE STORY OF PHILOSOPHY by WILL DURANT. The contents are from the 1933 reprint of this book by TIME INCORPORATED by arrangement with Simon and Schuster, Inc.

The paragraphs of the original material (in black) are accompanied by brief comments (in color) based on the present understanding.  Feedback on these comments is appreciated.

The heading below is linked to the original materials.

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The Critique of Practical Reason

If religion cannot be based on science and theology, on what then? On morals. The basis in theology is too insecure; better that it should be abandoned, even destroyed; faith must be put beyond the reach or realm of reason. But therefore the moral basis of religion must be absolute, not derived from questionable sense-experience or precarious inference; not corrupted by the admixture of fallible reason; it must be derived from the inner self by direct perception and intuition. We must find a universal and necessary ethic; a priori principles of morals as absolute and certain as mathematics. We must show that “pure reason can be practical; i.e., can of itself determine the will independently of anything empirical,” [Critique of Practical Reason, p. 31.] that the moral sense is innate, and not derived from experience. The moral imperative which we need as the basis of religion must be an absolute, a categorical, imperative.

Religion cannot be based on science, because science deals with the phenomenal world; and it cannot be based on theology; because theology tries to apply reason to the noumenal realm. The moral imperative which we need as the basis of religion must be an absolute imperative. The faith of religion must be derived from the inner self by direct perception and intuition. 

Now the most astounding reality in all our experience is precisely our moral sense, our inescapable feeling, in the face of temptation, that this or that is wrong. We may yield; but the feeling is there nevertheless. Le matin je fais des projets, et le soir je fais des sottises; [“In the morning I make good resolutions; in the evening I commit follies.”] but we know that they are sottises [nonsense], and we resolve again. What is it that brings the bite of remorse, and the new resolution? It is the categorical imperative in us, the unconditional command of our conscience, to “act as if the maxim of our action were to become by our will a universal law of nature.” [Practical Reason, p. 139.] We know, not by reasoning, but by vivid and immediate feelings, that we must avoid behavior which, if adopted by all men, would render social life impossible. Do I wish to escape from a predicament by a lie? But “while I can will the lie, I can by no means will that lying should be a universal law. For with such a law there would be no promises at all.” [Practical Reason, p. 19.] Hence the sense in me, that I must not lie, even if it be to my advantage. Prudence is hypothetical; its motto is, Honesty when it is the best policy; but the moral law in our hearts is unconditional and absolute.

There is a moral sense within us. We know, not by reasoning, but by vivid and immediate feelings, that we must avoid behavior which, if adopted by all men, would render social life impossible. The moral law in our hearts is unconditional and absolute.

And an action is good not because it has good results, or because it is wise, but because it is done in obedience to this inner sense of duty, this moral law that does not come from our personal experience, but legislates imperiously and a priori for all our behavior, past, present, and future. The only thing unqualifiedly good in this world is a good will—the will to follow the moral law, regardless of profit or loss for ourselves. Never mind your happiness; do your duty. “Morality is not properly the doctrine how we may make ourselves happy, but how we may make ourselves worthy of happiness.” [Practical Reason, p. 227.] Let us seek the happiness in others; but for ourselves, perfection whether it bring us happiness or pain. [Preface to The Metaphysical Elements of Ethics.] To achieve perfection in yourself and happiness in others, “so act as to treat humanity, whether in thine own person or in that of another, in every case as an end, never only as a means”: [Metaphysics of Morals, London, 1909; p. 47.]—this too, as we directly feel, is part of the categorical imperative. Let us live up to such a principle, and we shall soon create an ideal community of rational beings; to create it we need only act as if we already belonged to it; we must apply the perfect law in the imperfect state. It is a hard ethic, you say, this placing of duty above beauty, of morality above happiness; but only so can we cease to be beasts, and begin to be gods.

The only thing unqualifiedly good in this world is the will to follow the moral law. Let us seek the happiness in others; but for ourselves, perfection whether it brings us happiness or pain. It is done in obedience to an inner sense of duty.

Notice, meanwhile, that this absolute command to duty proves at last the freedom of our wills; how could we ever have conceived such a notion as duty if we had not felt ourselves freer. We cannot prove this freedom by theoretical reason; we prove it by feeling it directly in the crisis of moral choice. We feel this freedom as the very essence of our inner selves, of the “pure Ego”; we feel within ourselves the spontaneous activity of a mind moulding experience and choosing goals. Our actions, once we initiate them, seem to follow fixed and invariable laws, but only because we perceive their results through sense, which clothes all that it transmits in the dress of that causal law which our minds themselves have made. Nevertheless, we are beyond and above the laws we make in order to understand the world of our experience; each of us is a center of initiative force and creative power. In a way which we feel but cannot prove, each of us is free.

This absolute command to duty proves at last the freedom of our wills. We feel this freedom as the very essence of our inner selves. In a way which we feel but cannot prove, each of us is free.

And again, though we cannot prove, we feel, that we are deathless. We perceive that life is not like those dramas so beloved by the people—in which every villain is punished, and every act of virtue meets with its reward; we learn anew every day that the wisdom of the serpent fares better here than the gentleness of the dove, and that any thief can triumph if he steals enough. If mere worldly utility and expediency were the justification of virtue, it would not be wise to be too good. And yet, knowing all this, having it flung into our faces with brutal repetition, we still feel the command to righteousness, we know that we ought to do the inexpedient good. How could this sense of right survive if it were not that in our hearts we feel this life to be only a part of life, this earthly dream only an embryonic prelude to a new birth, a new awakening; if we did not vaguely know that in that later and longer life the balance will be redressed, and not one cup of water given generously but shall be returned a hundred-fold?

And again, though we cannot prove, we feel, that we are deathless. If mere worldly utility and expediency were the justification of virtue, it would not be wise to be too good. And yet, knowing all this, we still feel the command to righteousness. How could this sense of right survive if it were not that in our hearts we feel this earthly dream only an embryonic prelude to a new birth.

Finally, and by the same token, there is a God. If the sense of duty involves and justifies belief in rewards to come, “the postulate of immortality . . . 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.” [Practical Reason, p. 220.] This again is no proof by “reason”; the moral sense, which has to do with the world of our actions, must have priority over that theoretical logic which was developed only to deal with sense-phenomena. Our reason leaves us free to believe that behind the thing-in-itself there is a just God; our moral sense commands us to believe it. Rousseau was right: above the logic of the head is the feeling in the heart. Pascal was right: the heart has reasons of its own, which the head can never understand.

The moral sense, which has to do with the world of our actions, must have priority over that theoretical logic which was developed only to deal with sense-phenomena. Our reason leaves us free to believe that behind the thing-in-itself there is a just God.

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Final Comments

Kant is correct in saying that the moral imperative which we need as the basis of religion must be an absolute imperative. It would lie at the interface between the Unknowable and the knowable. It would apply to all that is knowable. It would lead to a feeling of fulfillment and freedom.

KHTK identifies this moral imperative to be the Principle of Oneness. It defines righteousness. It acts as the criterion for truth. It lies at the core of our moral sense. It is innate.

Oneness does not imply sameness. Oneness means that all that is known is continuous, consistent and harmonious. This Principle of Oneness underlies the very concept of the universe. It also underlies the Scientific method. This principle gives us the ideal scene for logic, because its violation gives us anomalies.  

The Principle of Oneness provides the sense that God is One.

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KANT: Transcendental Dialectic

May 22, 2019 – 3:23 PM

Reference: The Story of Philosophy

This paper presents Chapter VI, Immanuel Kant and German Idealism, Section 3 (part 3) from the book THE STORY OF PHILOSOPHY by WILL DURANT. The contents are from the 1933 reprint of this book by TIME INCORPORATED by arrangement with Simon and Schuster, Inc.

The paragraphs of the original material (in black) are accompanied by brief comments (in color) based on the present understanding.  Feedback on these comments is appreciated.

The heading below is linked to the original materials.

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Transcendental Dialectic

Nevertheless, this certainty, this absoluteness, of the highest generalizations of logic and science, is, paradoxically, limited and relative: limited strictly to the field of actual experience, and relative strictly to our human mode of experience. For if our analysis has been correct, the world as we know it is a construction, a finished product, almost one might say a manufactured article, to which the mind contributes as much by its moulding forms as the thing contributes by its stimuli. (So we perceive the top of the table as round, whereas our sensation is of an ellipse.) The object as it appears to us is a phenomenon, an appearance, perhaps very different from the external object before it came within the ken of our senses; what that original object was we can never know; the “thing-in-itself” may be an object of thought or inference (a “noumenon”), but it cannot be experienced, for in being experienced it would be changed by its passage through sense and thought. “It remains completely unknown to us what objects may be by themselves and apart from the receptivity of our senses. We know nothing but our manner of perceiving them; that manner being peculiar to us, and not necessarily shared by every being, though, no doubt, by every human being.” [Critique, p. 37. If Kant had not added the last clause, his argument for the necessity of knowledge would have fallen.] The moon as known to us is merely a bundle of sensations (as Hume saw), unified (as Hume did not see) by our native mental structure through the elaboration of sensations into perceptions, and of these into conceptions or ideas; in result, the moon is for us merely our ideas. [So John Stuart Mill, with all his English tendency to realism, was driven at last to define matter as merely “a permanent possibility of sensations.”]

The stimulus is unknowable. We only know its manifestation through our senses (which are peculiar to us) as sensation. Furthermore, It is our manner of perceiving, which turns these sensations into perceptions. Thus, it is our native mental structure, which moulds unknowable into sensations, perceptions, conceptions, science and philosophy. 

Therefore, this certainty and absoluteness of the highest generalizations of mathematics, logic and science are limited to our human mode and the field of actual experience.

Not that Kant ever doubts the existence of “matter” and the external world; but he adds that we know nothing certain about them except that they exist. Our detailed knowledge is about their appearance, their phenomena, about the sensations which we have of them. Idealism does not mean, as the man in the street thinks, that nothing exists outside the perceiving subject; but that a goodly part of every object is created by the forms of perception and understanding: we know the object as transformed into idea; what it is before being so transformed we cannot know. Science, after all, is naive; it supposes that it is dealing with things in themselves, in their full-blooded external and uncorrupted reality; philosophy is a little more sophisticated, and realizes that the whole material of science consists of sensations, perceptions and conceptions, rather than of things. “Kant’s greatest merit,” says Schopenhauer, “is the distinction of the phenomenon from the thing-in-itself.” [The World as Will and Idea; vol. ii, p. 7.]

We know nothing about the world except that it exists. We know it as a phenomenon. Our observation and understanding is a part of that phenomenon. This phenomenon is not absolute even when we may think it to be so. What can said to be absolute is the distinction between knowable and Unknowable.

It follows that any attempt, by either science or religion, to say just what the ultimate reality is, must fall back into mere hypothesis; “the understanding can never go beyond the limits of sensibility.” [Critique, p. 215.] Such transcendental science loses itself in “antinomies,” and such transcendental theology loses itself in “paralogisms.” It is the cruel function of “transcendental dialectic” to examine the validity of these attempts of reason to escape from the enclosing circle of sensation and appearance into the unknowable world of things “in themselves.”

The understanding of reality can never go beyond the limits of sensibility. Therefore, any ultimate reality promulgated by religion or science must be examined closely for validity.

Antinomies are the insoluble dilemmas born of a science that tries to overleap experience. So, for example, when knowledge attempts to decide whether the world is finite or infinite in space, thought rebels against either supposition: beyond any limit, we are driven to conceive something further, endlessly; and yet infinity is itself inconceivable. Again: did the world have a beginning in time? We cannot conceive eternity; but then, too, we cannot conceive any point in the past without feeling at once that before that, something was. Or has that chain of causes which science studies, a beginning, a First Cause? Yes, for an endless chain is inconceivable; no, for a first cause uncaused is inconceivable as well. Is there any exit from these blind alleys of thought? There is, says Kant, if we remember that space, time and cause are modes of perception and conception, which must enter into all our experience, since they are the web and structure of experience; these dilemmas arise from supposing that space, time and cause are external things independent of perception. We shall never have any experience which we shall not interpret in terms of space and time and cause; but we shall never have any philosophy if we forget that these are not things, but modes of interpretation and understanding.

It is difficult to conceive of antinomies, such as, infinite space, eternal time and first cause. According to Kant, space, time and cause are modes of perception and conception, which must enter into all our experience; they are not external things independent of perception. 

So with the paralogisms of “rational” theology which attempts to prove by theoretical reason that the soul is an incorruptible substance, that the will is free and above the law of cause and effect, and that there exists a “necessary being,” God, as the presupposition of all reality. Transcendental dialectic must remind theology that substance and cause and necessity are finite categories, modes of arrangement and classification which the mind applies to sense-experience, and reliably valid only for the phenomena that appear to such experience; we cannot apply these conceptions to the noumenal (or merely inferred and conjectural) world. Religion cannot be proved by theoretical reason.

Similarly, the paralogisms of soul, free will and God cannot be proved by theoretical reason as the presupposition of all reality. According to Kant, these are modes of arrangement and classification which the mind applies to sense-experience. We cannot apply it to the noumenal world.

So the first Critique ends. One could well imagine David Hume, uncannier Scot than Kant himself, viewing the results with a sardonic smile. Here was a tremendous book, eight hundred pages long; weighted beyond bearing, almost, with ponderous terminology; proposing to solve all the problems of metaphysics, and incidentally to save the absoluteness of science and the essential truth of religion. What had the book really done? It had destroyed the naive world of science, and limited it, if not in degree, certainly in scope,—and to a world confessedly of mere surface and appearance, beyond which it could issue only in farcical “antinomies”; so science was “saved”! The most eloquent and incisive portions of the book had argued that the objects of faith—a free and immortal soul, a benevolent creator—could never be proved by reason; so religion was “saved”! No wonder the priests of Germany protested madly against this salvation, and revenged themselves by calling their dogs Immanuel Kant. [Wallace, p. 82.].

Kant’s book “saved” science by limiting it to a world of mere surface and appearance. And, it “saved” religion by arguing that that the objects of faith, such as, an immortal soul and a benevolent creator, could never be proved by reason.

And no wonder that Heine compared the little professor of Konigsberg with the terrible Robespierre; the latter had merely killed a king, and a few thousand Frenchmen which a German might forgive; but Kant, said Heine, had killed God, had undermined the most precious arguments of theology. ‘What a sharp contrast between the outer life of this man, and his destructive, world-convulsing thoughts! Had the citizens of Konigsberg surmised the whole significance of those thoughts, they would have felt a more profound awe in the presence of this man than in that of an executioner, who merely slays human beings. But the good people saw in him nothing but a professor of philosophy; and when at the fixed hour he sauntered by, they nodded a friendly greeting, and set their watches.” [Heine, Prose Miscellanies, Philadelphia, 1876; p. 146.]

Was this caricature, or revelation?

Kant was a man of formidable intellect.

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Final Comments

KHTK views Kant’s “thing-in-itself” as the Unknowable. We cannot categorize the Unknowable because that would be introducing knowingness into it. So we associate the concept of Oneness with the Unknowable.

The antinomies of cause, space and time in Science are recognized through subject clearing as the substance, extent and duration of phenomena. The paralogisms of soul, free will and God in Religion are recognized through subject clearing as the ability to postulate phenomena. The postulated phenomena becomes real as it complies with the Principle of Oneness.

According to Kant, “It is the cruel function of ‘transcendental dialectic’ to examine the validity of these attempts of reason to escape from the enclosing circle of sensation and appearance into the unknowable world of things ‘in themselves’.”  This is akin to resolving anomalies.

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KANT: Transcendental Analytic

May 22, 2019 – 8:21 AM

Reference: The Story of Philosophy

This paper presents Chapter VI, Immanuel Kant and German Idealism, Section 3 (part 2) from the book THE STORY OF PHILOSOPHY by WILL DURANT. The contents are from the 1933 reprint of this book by TIME INCORPORATED by arrangement with Simon and Schuster, Inc.

The paragraphs of the original material (in black) are accompanied by brief comments (in color) based on the present understanding.  Feedback on these comments is appreciated.

The heading below is linked to the original materials.

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Transcendental Analytic

So we pass from the wide field of sensation and perception to the dark and narrow chamber of thought; from “transcendental esthetic” to “transcendental logic.” And first to the naming and analysis of those elements in our thought which are not so much given to the mind by perception as given to perception by the mind; those levers which raise the “perceptual” knowledge of objects into the “conceptual” knowledge of relationships, sequences, and laws; those tools of the mind which refine experience into science. Just as perceptions arranged sensations around objects in space and time, so conception arranges perceptions (objects and events) about the ideas of cause, unity, reciprocal relation, necessity, contingency, etc.; these and other “categories” are the structure into which perceptions are received, and by which they are classified and moulded into the ordered concepts of thought. These are the very essence and character of the mind; mind is the coordination of experience.

Perception comes about as the sensations are arranged around objects and events in space and time. Conception comes about as the perceptions are arranged around “categories,” such as, cause, unity, reciprocal relation, necessity, contingency, etc. Mind is the coordination of experience.

And here again observe the activity of this mind that was, to Locke and Hume, mere “passive wax” under the blows of sense-experience. Consider a system of thought like Aristotle’s; is it conceivable that this almost cosmic ordering of data should have come by the automatic, anarchistic spontaneity of the data themselves? See this magnificent card-catalogue in the library, intelligently ordered into sequence by human purpose. Then picture all these card-cases thrown upon the floor, all these cards scattered pell-mell into riotous disorder. Can you now conceive these scattered cards pulling themselves up, Munchausen-like, from their disarray, passing quietly into their alphabetical and topical places in their proper boxes, and each box into its fit place in the rack,–until all should be order and sense and purpose again? What a miracle-story these sceptics have given us after all!

Prior to Kant, it was assumed that the sensations arranged themselves into a remarkable order automatically somehow. No ordering agency was postulated.

Sensation is unorganized stimulus, perception is organized sensation, conception is organized perception, science is organized knowledge, wisdom is organized life: each is a greater degree of order, and sequence, and unity. Whence this order, this sequence, this unity? Not from the things themselves; for they are known to us only by sensations that come through a thousand channels at once in disorderly multitude; it is our purpose that put order and sequence and unity upon this importunate lawlessness; it is ourselves, our personalities, our minds, that bring light upon these seas. Locke was wrong when he said, “There is nothing in the intellect except what was first in the senses”; Leibnitz was right when he added,–“nothing, except the intellect itself.” “Perceptions without conceptions,” says Kant, “are blind.” If perceptions wove themselves automatically into ordered thought, if mind were not an active effort hammering out order from chaos, how could the same experience leave one man mediocre, and in a more active and tireless soul be raised to the light of wisdom and the beautiful logic of truth?

Sensation is unorganized stimulus, perception is organized sensation, conception is organized perception, science is organized knowledge, wisdom is organized life: each is a greater degree of order, and sequence, and unity. There has to be some agency to bring this order about.

The world, then, has order, not of itself, but because the thought that knows the world is itself an ordering, the first stage in that classification of experience which at last is science and philosophy. The laws of thought are also the laws of things, for things are known to us only through this thought that must obey these laws, since it and they are one; in effect, as Hegel was to say, the laws of logic and the laws of nature are one, and logic and metaphysics merge. The generalized principles of science are necessary because they are ultimately laws of thought that are involved and presupposed in every experience, past, present, and to come. Science is absolute, and truth is everlasting.

There is thought that knows the world is itself an ordering. It orders itself from sensations into perceptions, conceptions, science and philosophy. The laws of thought underlie all things. The universe is a conscious, living thing. 

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Final Comments

There are laws of thought that order sensations into perceptions, conceptions, science and philosophy. These laws lie deep into the core of all things and influence them through all stage of their evolution.

Subject clearing identifies these laws to be emerging from the Principle of Oneness. The Principle of Oneness, which was described in the previous section, also gives us the ideal scene for logic, because its violation gives us anomalies, such as, discontinuity (missing data), inconsistency (contradictory data), or disharmony (arbitrary data).

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