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Reference: The Story of Philosophy

This paper presents Chapter VI, Immanuel Kant and German Idealism, Section 7 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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Criticism and Estimate

And now how does this complex structure of logic, metaphysics, psychology, ethics, and politics stand today, after the philosophic storms of a century have beaten down upon it? It is pleasant to answer that much of the great edifice remains; and that the “critical philosophy” represents an event of permanent importance in the history of thought. But many details and outworks of the structure have been shaken.

Kant’s “critical philosophy” has stood up to the test of time. It represents an event of permanent importance in the history of thought.

First, then, is space a mere “form of sensibility,” having no objective reality independent of the perceiving mind? Yes and no. Yes: for space is an empty concept when not filled with perceived objects; “space” merely means that certain objects are, for the perceiving mind, at such and such a position, or distance, with reference to other perceived objects; and no external perception is possible except of objects in space; space then is assuredly a “necessary form of the external sense.” And no: for without doubt, such spatial facts as the annual elliptical circuit of sun by earth, though statable only by a mind, are independent of any perception whatever; the deep and dark blue ocean rolled on before Byron told it to, and after he had ceased to be. Not is space a “construct” of the mind through the coordination of spaceless sensations; we perceive space directly through our simultaneous perception of different objects and various points as when we see an insect moving across a still background. Likewise: time as a sense of before and after, or a measurement of motion, is of course subjective, and highly relative; but a tree will age, wither and decay whether or not the lapse of time is measured or perceived. The truth is that Kant was too anxious to prove the subjectivity of space, as a refuge from materialism; he feared the argument that if space is objective and universal, God must exist in space, and be therefore spatial and material. He might have been content with the critical idealism which shows that all reality is known to us primarily as our sensations and ideas. The old fox bit off more than he could chew. [The persistent vitality of Kant’s theory of knowledge appears in its complete acceptance by so matter-of-fact a scientist as the late Charles P. Steinmetz: “All our sense-perceptions are limited by, and attached to, the conceptions of time and space. Kant, the greatest and most critical of all philosophers, denies that time and space are the product of experience, but shows them to be categories—conceptions in which our minds clothe the sense perceptions. Modern physics has come to the same conclusion in the relativity theory, that absolute space and absolute time have no existence, hut time and space exist only as far as things or events fill them; that is, they are forms of perception.”—Address at the Unitarian Church, Schenectady, 1923.]

Kant relates space to the perceiving mind, and so the objective reality of space can be dependent or independent of perception. But KHTK relates space to the extents of manifestation. In this case, the objective reality of space is not independent of the manifestation. The “emptiness” of space between two objects is a part of the manifestation.

Similarly, Kant relates time to the perceiving mind. But KHTK relates time to the duration of the manifestation. The smaller is the duration the faster is the motion. Therefore, the objective reality of time is not independent of the manifestation either. Neither space nor time exist in the absence of manifestation.

The concept of matter as separate from thought is flawed. Both matter and thought are part of the same spectrum of substance. This spectrum of substance forms the knowable universe as opposed to the Unknowable. God lies in the unknowable realm. All ideas about God are part of thought that belongs to the knowable universe.

He might well have contented himself, too, with the relativity of scientific truth, without straining towards that mirage, the absolute. Recent studies like those of Pearson in England, Mach in Germany, and Henri Poincare in France, agree rather with Hume than with Kant: all science, even the most rigorous mathematics, is relative in its truth. Science itself is not worried about the matter; a high degree of probability contents it. Perhaps, after all, “necessary” knowledge is not necessary?

All science deals with the knowable (manifested) universe of substance. The substance is manifested as thought, energy and matter. In the background of the knowable universe is the Unknowable. As long as the Unknowable is there, science is not absolute.

The great achievement of Kant is to have shown, once for all, that the external world is known to us only as sensation; and that the mind is no mere helpless tabula rasa, the inactive victim of sensation, but a positive agent, selecting and reconstructing experience as experience arrives. We can make subtractions from this accomplishment without injuring its essential greatness. We may smile, with Schopenhauer, at the exact baker’s dozen of categories, so prettily boxed into triplets, and then stretched and contracted and interpreted deviously and ruthlessly to fit and surround all things. [Op. cit., vol. ii, p. 23.] And we may even question whether these categories, or interpretive forms of thought, are innate, existing before sensation and experience; perhaps so in the individual, as Spencer conceded, though acquired by the race; and then, again, probably acquired even by the individual: the categories may be grooves of thought, habits of perception and conception, gradually produced by sensations and perceptions automatically arranging themselves, first in disorderly ways, then, by a kind of natural selection of forms of arrangement, in orderly and adaptive and illuminating ways. It is memory that classifies and interprets sensations into perceptions, and perceptions into ideas; but memory is an accretion. That unity of the mind which Kant thinks native (the “transcendental unity of apperception”) is acquired and not by all; and can be lost as well as won in amnesia, or alternating personality, or insanity. Concepts are an achievement, not a gift.

It is true that the external world (Unknowable) first manifests as sensations. Sensations upon assimilation become perceptions. Such assimilation is guided by the inherent makeup of the mind, which may be described as a set of postulates. Reason applied to perceptions then generates further considerations, ideas, etc. Underlying this assimilation and reasoning is the active Principle of Oneness. Any violation of the Principle of Oneness generates anomalies.

Kant contributed much to this understanding. He describes the postulates referenced above as categories. The development of these categories is assisted by the Principle of Oneness. This Principle of Oneness fills in what was left out by Kant.

The nineteenth century dealt rather hardly with Kant’s ethics, his theory of an innate, a priori, absolute moral sense. The philosophy of evolution suggested irresistibly that the sense of duty is a social deposit in the individual, the content of conscience is acquired, though the vague disposition to social behavior is innate. The moral self, the social man, is no “special creation” coming mysteriously from the hand of God, but the late product of a leisurely evolution. Morals are not absolute; they are a code of conduct more or less haphazardly developed for group survival, and varying with the nature and circumstances of the group: a people hemmed in by enemies, for example, will consider as immoral that zestful and restless individualism which a nation youthful and secure in its wealth and isolation will condone as a necessary ingredient in the exploitation of natural resources and the formation of national character. No action is good in itself, as Kant supposes. [Practical Reason, p. 31.]

Kant’s theory of an innate and absolute moral sense has mostly been ignored. Instead the theory of evolution has been favored, according to which the sense of duty is mostly acquired through social conditions. No action is good in itself, as Kant supposes. This anomaly is resolved when one accepts the Principle of Oneness as the ultimate criterion.

His pietistic youth, and his hard life of endless duty and infrequent pleasure, gave him a moralistic bent; he came at last to advocate duty for duty’s sake, and so fell unwittingly into the arms of Prussian absolutism. [Cf. Prof. Dewey: German Philosophy and Politics.] There is something of a severe Scotch Calvinism in this opposition of duty to happiness; Kant continues Luther and the Stoic Reformation, as Voltaire continues Montaigne and the Epicurean Renaissance. He represented a stern reaction against the egoism and hedonism in which Helvetius and Holbach had formulated the life of their reckless era, very much as Luther had reacted against the luxury and laxity of Mediterranean Italy. But after a century of reaction against the absolutism of Kant’s ethics, we find ourselves again in a welter of urban sensualism and immorality, of ruthless individualism untempered with democratic conscience or aristocratic honor; and perhaps the day will soon come when a disintegrating civilization will welcome again the Kantian call to duty.

Kant’s sense of duty and moralistic bent may be contrasted against the free thinking and happy bent of Voltaire. Again, the apparent anomaly disappears as one accepts the Principle of Oneness as one’s ultimate criterion.

The marvel in Kant’s philosophy is his vigorous revival, in the second Critique, of those religious ideas of God, freedom, and immortality, which the first Critique had apparently destroyed. “In Kant’s works,” says Nietzsche’s critical friend, Paul Ree, “you feel as though you were at a country fair. You can buy from him anything you want freedom of the will and captivity of the will, idealism, and a refutation of idealism, atheism and the good Lord. Like a juggler out of an empty hat, Kant draws out of the concept of duty a God, immortality, and freedom, to the great surprise of his readers.” [In Untermann, Science and Revolution, Chicago, 1905; p. 81.] Schopenhauer too takes a fling at the derivation of immortality from the need of reward: “Kant’s virtue, which at first bore itself so bravely towards happiness, loses its independence later, and holds out its hand for a tip.” [In Paulsen, p. 317.] The great pessimist believes that Kant was really a sceptic who, having abandoned belief himself, hesitated to destroy the faith of the people, for fear of the consequences to public morals. “Kant discloses the groundlessness of speculative theology, and leaves popular theology untouched, nay even establishes it in a nobler form as a faith based upon moral feeling.” This was afterwards distorted by the philosophasters into rational apprehension and consciousness of God, etc. . . . ; while Kant, as he demolished old and revered errors, and knew the danger of doing so, rather wished through the moral theology merely to substitute a few weak temporary supports, so that the ruin might not fall upon him, but that he might have time to escape.” [The World as Will and Idea, vol. ii, p. 129.] So too Heine, in what is no doubt an intentional caricature, represents Kant, after having destroyed religion, going out for a walk with his servant Lampe, and suddenly perceiving that the old man’s eyes are filled with tears. “Then Immanuel Kant has compassion, and shows that he is not only a great philosopher, but also a good man; and half kindly, half ironically, he speaks: ‘Old Lampe must have a God or else he cannot be happy, says the practical reason; for my part, the practical reason may, then, guarantee the existence of God.’” [Quoted by Paulsen, p. 8.] If these interpretations were true we should have to call the second Critique a Transcendental Anesthetic.

Kant first destroys religion from the viewpoint of reason and then builds it back up from the viewpoint of faith. Thus, he appears self-contradictory. However, as we substitute faith by the Principle of Oneness, it starts to make sense.

But these adventurous reconstructions of the inner Kant need not be taken too seriously. The fervor of the essay on ”Religion within the Limits of Pure Reason” indicates a sincerity too intense to be questioned, and the attempt to change the base of religion from theology to morals, from creeds to conduct, could have come only from a profoundly religious mind. “It is indeed true,” he wrote to Moses Mendelssohn in 1766, “that I think many things with the clearest conviction, . . . which I never have the courage to say; but I will never say anything which I do not think.” [In Paulsen, p. 53.] Naturally, a long and obscure treatise like the great Critique lends itself to rival interpretations; one of the first reviews of the book, written by Reinhold a few years after it appeared, said as much as we can say today: “The Critique of Pure Reason has been proclaimed by the dogmatists as the attempt of a sceptic who undermines the certainty of all knowledge;—by the sceptics as a piece of arrogant presumption that undertakes to erect a new form of dogmatism upon the ruins of previous systems;—by the supernaturalists as a subtly plotted artifice to displace the historical foundations of religion, and to establish naturalism without polemic;—by the naturalists as a new prop for the dying philosophy of faith;—by the materialists as an idealistic contradiction of the reality of matter;—by the spiritualists as an unjustifiable limitation of all reality to the corporeal world, concealed under the name of the domain of experience.” [In Paulsen, p. 114,] In truth the glory of the book lay in its appreciation of all these points of view; and to an intelligence as keen as Kant’s own, it might well appear that he had really reconciled them all, and fused them into such a unity of complex truth as philosophy had not seen in all its history before.

Kant has been criticized alike by dogmatists, skeptics, supernaturalists, naturalists, materialists, and spiritualists. In truth, Kant’s work appreciates all these points of view; and really reconciles them all, and fuses them into a unity of complex truth. The Principle of Oneness makes Kant’s approach much clearer.

As to his influence, the entire philosophic thought of the nineteenth century revolved about his speculations. After Kant, all Germany began to talk metaphysics: Schiller and Goethe studied him; Beethoven quoted with admiration his famous words about the two wonders of life “the starry heavens above, the moral law within”; and Fichte, Schelling, Hegel and Schopenhauer produced in rapid succession great systems of thought reared upon the idealism of the old Konigsberg sage. It was in these balmy days of German metaphysics that Jean Paul Richter wrote: “God has given to the French the land, to the English the sea, to the Germans the empire of the air.” Kant’s criticism of reason, and his exaltation of feeling, prepared for the voluntarism of Schopenhauer and Nietzsche, the intuitionism of Bergson, and the pragmatism of William James; his identification of the laws of thought with the laws of reality gave to Hegel a whole system of philosophy; and his unknowable “thing-in-itself” influenced Spencer more than Spencer knew. Much of the obscurity of Carlyle is traceable to his attempt to allegorize the already obscure thought of Goethe and Kant that diverse religions and philosophies are but the changing garments of one eternal truth. Caird and Green and Wallace and Watson and Bradley and many others in England owe their inspiration to the first Critique; and even the wildly innovating Nietzsche takes his epistemology from the “great Chinaman of Konigsberg” whose static ethics he so excitedly condemns. After a century of struggle between the idealism of Kant, variously reformed, and the materialism of the Enlightenment, variously redressed, the victory seems to lie with Kant. Even the great materialist Helvetius wrote, paradoxically: “Men, if I may dare say it, are the creators of matter.” [In Chamberlain, vol. i, p. 86.] Philosophy will never again be so naive as in her earlier and simpler days; she must always be different hereafter, and profounder, because Kant lived.

After Kant, all Germany began to talk metaphysics. After a century of struggle between the idealism of Kant, variously reformed, and the materialism of the Enlightenment, variously redressed, the victory seems to lie with Kant. Philosophy will never again be so naive as in her earlier and simpler days; she must always be different hereafter, and profounder, because Kant lived.

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Final Comments

Empty space is no less a phenomena than solid objects. The smaller is the duration in terms of time the faster is the motion. Space and time are, therefore, characteristics of the manifested phenomena than the mode of perception as Kant believed. Perception depends on how the sensations are assimilated with the inherent makeup of the mind (the a priori postulates). The criterion for this assimilation is the Principle of Oneness.

Any reasoning arising from the perception, which then results in further considerations of evolution, morality, duty, free will, happiness, faith, etc., resolve nicely when viewed through the Principle of Oneness.

The model of philosophy proposed by Kant has stood the test of time. It is robust. It becomes more robust when the Principle of Oneness is added to it.

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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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