作者：Hon, Savio 韩大辉
AN INITIAL CRITICO-INTEGRAL ESSAY ON KANT'S APPROACH TO THE POSSIBILITY OF METAPHYSIC
1. INTRODUCTION
The problem of metaphysics, dressed in whatever form, is as old as human history, and yet it is an ever new problem which must somehow or other be confronted by anyone who reflects in depth on the vital issues of human life. The literature on the issue is amazingly abundant and this fact affords ample evidence that it is still in vogue. Many great thinkers have racked their brains in an attempt to find, once and for all, a definite solution, but more often than not they discovered more its mysteriousness than revealed the mystery itself.
Kant has certainly contributed a great deal to the history of reflection upon one fundamental issue, whether Metaphysics can be a Science. The Critique of Pure Reason, he says, "was intended to discuss the possibility of metaphysics". (1)
The title of this essay, hence, may appear at first sight to be immensely vast, for it almost includes the major part, if not the whole, of Kant's philosophy. However, what I want to stress here is his approach, by which I mean his initial preoccupation or disposition towards metaphysics and the way he adopted the primary assumptions for establishing the doctrine of the unknowability (of the thing-in-itself). With this new epistemological paradigm, Kant concludes that no metaphysics can attain to the status of Science. Such a claim, as I shall demonstrate, is grounded in his transcendental faith that the mind cannot even reach the existence of the thing-in-itself. This is to destroy every possibility of ontology, the study of being as being. I shall criticize the tenability of his agnostic position to see If any affirmation of being-in-itself is possible. This is crucial to the point at issue, for metaphysics without a solid ontology would be precarious. Thus at the end I try to show that his transcendental method (or approach) can be somehow integrated and lends itself to a sort of intuition of being which is a key to open the mysterious realm of beings-in-themselves.
Hundreds of commentators have made long and detailed comments on Kant's philosophy but the disputes among them show no guarantee that they understand him perfectly. There is still room for further clarification. Hence this essay, with its accent more on a synthetic than analytic presentation, aims at providing an initial step into the discussion of the point at issue.
2. KANT'S INITIAL PREOCCUPATION
In order to understand Kant's approach properly, we have to determine what sort of problem he has in mind to deal with. "A search for truth" would be far too general an answer. In the present context, I would confine myself to his initial preoccupation: The Critique "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" (Axii) (2). This implies that Kant actually starts with an epistemological inquiry about the possibility of validly establishing some true metaphysical claims.
2.1 The Difficulty in Distinguishing between Metaphysical and Epistemological Inquiries
It is often said that everyone has his own view of metaphysics. William James, for example, regards it as an unusual obstinate effort to think clearly.(3) Not many people think likewise. Aristotelian metaphysicians would say that it is the science of being as being. Kant himself uses the term "metaphysics" in different senses. In a wider sense, it means the Transcendental Philosophy itself, while in a stricter sense it is understood as a Transcendental Science with objects of its own beyond the possibility of sense-experience (cf. B869-B870). Kant identifies the latter with Baumgarten's metaphysics, which Is defined as "Scientia prima cognitionis humanae principia continens''(4) It is the Science which contains the first principles of that which is within the comprehension of our knowledge. The chief objects of such a speculative metaphysics, for Kant, are the things-in-themselves and in particular, God, freedom and the immortality of the soul (cf. R874).
Now there arises immediately another problem: to what extent can we attain the truth from an inquiry into what-things-in-themselves-are? This at once becomes an epistemological problem which is concerned with the justification of our knowledge of what-things-are. In other words, the epistemologists are anxious to inquire about "what can I know?". This question, in its turn, arouses at once the metaphysical inquiry about "what is the foundation of the real?". Unless the latter inquiry is answered, we cannot even pose the question "to what extent do I know what is real?". However if I am not sure of this, how can I claim to know the foundation of the real? The vicious circle, as it were, seems to trap us into a perpetual self-closed skepticism. The distinction is not easy to draw between metaphysical and epistemological inquiries. They are so inextricably interwoven that in the discussion of one the other is bound to enter. Kant wants to find a breakthrough of this impasse.
2.2 The Disputes among Metephysicians
Kant shows that, throughout its history, philosophy has been onesidedly concerned with the metaphysical problem of what-things-are and keeps neglecting the problem of their knowability. Men have always been absorbed in the perennial wonder about what the universe as a whole is like. They have looked to speculative reason for light on this and each one has arrived at his own conclusion. There is not a single metaphysical view, as Kant points out, which all unanimously accept. Hence metaphysics appears to be an arena for endless combats, whereas Mathematics and Physical Sciences have, by and large, advanced more smoothly. However hard the metaphysicians try to replace the systems of others with what they think is genuine knowledge, such attempts, for Kant, have been doomed to failure, because the source of the disputes is still very problematic, especially regarding the assessment of the nature of genuine knowledge.
Knowledge in Kant's context is something more than mere beliefs.
"If our holding of the judgment be only subjectively sufficient, and is at the same time taken as being objectively insufficient, we have what is termed believing…when the holding of a thing to be true is sufficient both subjectively and objectively, it is knowledge" (B850).
In the Prolegomena, he further states that "everything to be known a priori (must be) apodictically certain", …and hence ought not contain probable but perfectly certain judgments'. (5)
According to Kant, never has there been any metaphysics that contains judgments so perfect that it is not challenged by the skeptics or can be completely exempted from doubt.
2.3 Kant's Aim of Settling the Disputes
However, the skeptics have also been unable to prevent philosophers from attempting metaphysics anew, because skepticism itself is incapable of being established authoritatively (cf. B388ff). Hence the combat between dogmaticism (metaphysical theories) and skepticism would seem to have been unending until Kant's criticism appeared.
Kant divides his philosophical development into three stages; dogmaticism, skepticism and criticism, as he sees these phases exemplified not only in the historical process in general but also in his own mental evolution. He begins with the dogmatic rationalism of Leibniz and Wolff, then calls this doctrine in question with the aid of Hume's empirical skepticism and gradually arrives at his own critical standpoint.:
Metaphysics, Kant holds, after having for so many centuries been nothing but a process of merely random groping, has not yet had the good fortune to enter upon the secure path of a science (cf. Bxivf).
For Kant, the best way to settle the disputes among metaphysicians is to determine the limits of knowledge beyond which the human mind cannot go. Hence he sets forth the problem in question in the Critique as: "How is metaphysics, as science, possible?" (B22). Note that his primary concern is not only with the truth or falsity of a particular system of metaphysics but also with the possibility of discovering how the truth or falsity of any metaphysical claim whatsoever can be sustained.
NOTES:
1.KANT, I., Prolegomena to Any Future Metaphysics, transl. By L. W. BECK (New York 1961), Appendix p. 121.
2.KANT, I., Critique of Pure Reason, transl. by N. KEMP SMITH (London 1964) Axii. This number refers to the original pagination of the Kritik der reiner Vernunft. "A" is for the first edition and "B" for the second. I will use this pagination for references to the Critique.
3.Cf. JAMES, W., Some problems of Philosophy: A Beginning of an Introduction to Philosophy, (New York 1911).
4.BAUMGARTEN, A. G., Metaphysics, (Halle 2nd ed. 1743) #1. Baumgarten's method is to start with general definitions and proceed to more particular propositions. This is along the line of Leibniz-Wolffian methodology.
5.Prolegomena, #369-370.
3. KANT'S PRIMARY ASSUMPTIONS
In order to tackle the above-mentioned problem, Kant sets out his first Critique on a twofold logical basis. In fact it is only one basis considered from two different aspects. First of all, Kant transforms the hylomorphic structure of individual things held by Aristotelian metaphysicians into the hylomorphic structure of knowledge; that is, he distinguishes matter and form in knowledge. The external objects constituting the matter are to be conformed to the mental forms of the knower. Secondly, another aspect of the same assumption can also be traced in the logical characteristics of judgments which are synthetic and a priori. The synthetic element is the matter whereas the a priori elements are mental forms. The first aspect is derived from the Copernican Revolution and the second from the theory of judgment.
3.1 Conpernican Revolution
In order to determine the truth or falsity of any metaphysical claim, Kant deliberately sets out to bring about a revolution in our way of thinking about the relationship between mind and thing. It has been assumed in the traditional realistic thesis that truth simply consists in the conformity of mind to thing. Hence the thing is taken as the standard, and the mind is denominated "true", when it submits to this standard and really does describe the independent nature of the thing. Such a thesis is, of course, a plausible one but, Kant contends, it cannot escape the force of Hume's skepticism.
For Hume, if the mind in order to know must conform itself to objects, then it cannot discover any necessary connection between the objects. It thus becomes impossible to explain how we can make any necessary and universal judgments. However it is not merely that we find, for instance, that experienced events have causes, we also know in advance (a priori) that every event must have a cause. An event may happen with an unknown cause but it is surely not causeless. If everything is reduced to the merely empirically given, we cannot discover that there exists a causal relation. Hence, it is impossible to explain the knowledge of causality on the hypothesis that knowledge consists in the mind's conforming to objects. If the mind stands to the objects as the measured to the measure, it is impossible to determine the a priori conditions that govern the objectivity of knowledge. The a priori portion of the cognition cannot be derived from mere sense-experience.
Hume, then, denies the a priori elements in knowledge but explains the discovery of the causal connection in terms of the subjective association of ideas due to some sort of habit. Experience shows A to have been frequently followed by B and never to have occurred without B. The idea of B is therefore associated with A in a way in which no other idea is. It is by a customary association reinforced evermore by repetition that one has the "feeling" of the necessary connection between A and B. This is the origin of the idea of causality.
Kant is not satisfied with this and critizes Hume's emprical premise insofar as the latter does not distinguish well enough the two distinct functions of human cognitive faculties, namely, sensibility and understanding. Kant's distinction is a sort of combination of rationalism and empiricism. He locates the difference between the two faculties not merely in their operative stages but also in the origin of their presentations. Granted that the sensibility is the faculty of receiving impressions, sensation consists In the mind's being-affected-through-senses and the diversity of the sensations is due to the "stuff" given In experience. Kant, then, finds no other way of saving the distinct a prior element In knowledge than by attributing its origin to the faculty of understanding itself. In Kant's terminology, the sense-manifold of intuition is a posteriori, contingent and derived from experience whereas the subsumption of the intuitional data under the a priori categories provided by understanding renders our knowledge a priori, necessary and underived from experience. However It is noteworthy that Kant also assigns the a priori elements not only to the understanding but also to sensibility; hence the a priori forms of space and time also constitute pure sense intuitions which are not contingent.
This compels Kant to reverse the relation between mind and thing so that scientific truth may depend, somehow, upon the conformity of the thing with the mind. In other words, reliable knowledge is restricted to things as they appear, in conformity with our mental forms. Kant, therefore makes the Copernican Revolution:
"Hitherto it has been assumed that all our knowledge must conform to objects. But all attempts to extend our knowledge of objects by establishing something in regard to them a priori, by means of concepts, have, on this assumption, ended in failure. We must therefore make trial whether we may not have more success in the tasks of metaphysics, if we suppose that objects must conform to our knowledge. This would agree better with what is desired, namely, that it should be possible to have knowledge of objects a priori, determining something in regard to them prior to their being given. We should then be proceeding precisely on the lines of Copernicus ' primary hypothesis (mit den erten Gedanken des Kopernikus)" (Bxvi).
3.2 The Theory of Judgment
This Is the other aspect of Kant's assumption. In the philosophy of Leibniz, the principle of sufficient reason is considered the grandest axiom of the entire rationalistic system. The principle, in its most general logical form, states that "the content of the subject must always include that of the predicate in such a way that if one understands perfectly the concept of the subject, he will know that the predicate appertains to it also''.(7)
Kant, in his pre-critical period, is puzzled with this analytical requirement for all true propositions or judgments, especially when they state something about fact and existence. This leads Kant eventually to revise the theory of judgment.
He follows rationalism in making a distinction between a posteriori and a priori judgments, and empricism in making one between synthetic and analytic judgments. The distinction of the first pair is in view of their derivation from experiences. The a posteriori judgments are derived from experience, whereas the a priori are not. The distinction of the second pair is in view of the subject-predicate relation: a judgment is synthetic when the concept of the predicate is not contained in the concept of subject, and is called analytic when the predicate is so contained,. On finding that some recognized general scientific propositions are necessary and universal, Kant concludes that we do possess a pure, a priori element of knowledge.
Concerning the a priori characteristic of knowledge, Kant radically diverges from the traditional realistic thesis which states that "universality" and "necessity" are found to be real traits in the essential structure of nature and that our intellect cooperating with senses can penetrate into the essence of things. However Kant's new conformity-theory of knowledge compels him to deny such penetration. He attributes all the epistemologically warranted, formal and determinate elements in knowledge to the cognitive faculty of the knower.
Within the framework of a priori knowledge, Kant finds difficulty, not with the analytic a priori judgments, but with the synthetic a priori ones. The latter are used to extend our scientific knowledge. Now metaphysics, if it be science at all and can yield true knowledge, ought to contain synthetic a priori knowledge.
"For its business is not merely to analyze concepts which we make for ourselves a priori of things, and thereby to clarify them analytically, but to extend our a priori knowledge" (Bl8).
Thus metaphysics consists, at least in intention, entirely in the task of searching for synthetic a priori judgments. Since Kant holds that the direct object of our knowledge consists in the mind's being-affected-through-senses, the chasm between things-in-themselves and mental contents becomes insurmountable. On this premise, Kant has already undermined the possibility of metaphysics.
3.3 The Bearings of the Assumptions
Just as Copernicus attributes observed movements, not to the heavenly bodies, but to the condition of the observer, so Kant attributes certain ways in which objects appear to the knower to his subjective a priori conditions or mental forms (cf. Bxxii and the note). This is similar to a man who sees the world as red because he is wearing a pair of red-tinted spectacles. The world which presents itself to him in the sense-experience is a red world but whether the world outside of his experience is red ot not is another question. The man knows the red-colour only insofar as he encounters something in the experience of vision.
Space and time, for example, are not pertinent to the thing-in-itself but are a priori forms of sensibility. Whenever the external objects appear to us, they must have been temporalized and spatialized. They constitute the framework, as it were, in which the manifold of sensation is ordered and arranged. This is an example concerning the level of sensibility.
Another example concerns the understanding. Kant holds that we certainly do know a priori that every event must have a cause. Why? Objects must be subjected to the a priori concepts of categories of the human understanding of which causality is one.
However the Copernican Revolution does not imply that the entire reality is reduced to a mental construction or our thinking of them. Kant is not an idealist (at least not in this sense). It means rather that the mind imposes, as it were, on the material or the "stuff" of experience its own focus of cognition, determined by the structure of human sensibility and understanding and that objects cannot be known except through the medium of these forms.
NOTES:
6.Cf. DRYER, D. P., Kant ' s Solution for Verification in Metaphysics, (London 1966) p. 17.
7.LEIBNIZ, G.W., Discourse on Metaphysics, (Wiener 1961) p.93.
. THE REJECTION OF METAPHYSICS
It is not difficult to see how Kant, with the above-mentioned premises, comes to the conclusion of a doctrine of unknowability which pre-determines the fate of metaphysics.
4.1 The Doctrine of Unknowability (of Things-in-themselves)
4.l.l The "Reference" of Appearance
Kant distinguishes the matter and the form of knowledge. The matter is said to be the object of representation given from without and is received passively through the senses, whereas that which so determines the manifold of the representation that it allows of being ordered in certain relations is called the form of appearance (cf. B34).
At the end of the Transcendental Doctrine of Elements in the Critique he concludes that categories of understanding, taken by themselves, yield no knowledge, and that the schematized categories can yield knowledge only insofar as they are applied to the data of intuition, namely, the appearances (cf. A568 B596). Hence appearances are naturally described as sense-representations which are the modifications of the subject's mind but not as objects independent of the mind. Paradoxically, appearances are often called objects and regarded as external, spatially distinct from the knowing subject and his ideas (cf. B34; A109).
It seems that Kant makes a distinction between the object and the representation of the object. Appearances are referred to both the objects and representations. In order to reconcile this twofold reference, we have to resort to his Transcendental-Empirical distinction.
4.l.2 Transcendental-Empirical Distinction
Kant makes a distinction between transcendental and empirical objects, transcendental and empirical selves. The central issue of this distinction is to separate two kinds of inquiry or claim. Neither of them is supposed to refer to two different entities but to two different ways of talking about one and the same thing.
The transcendental inquiries concern the a priori possibility of knowledge or its employment. For instance, the transcendental logic concerns the scope, the origin and objective validity of "the laws of understanding and reason solely in so far as they relate a priori to objects''. (B81f). Transcendental philosophy concerns the mode of knowledge, especially regarding its combination of matter and form; as Kant says, "I entitle transcendental all knowledge which is occupied not so much with objects as with the mode of our knowledge of objects insofar as this mode of knowledge is to be possible a priori" (B25). Hence the transcendental claims are about the a priori elements in the knowing subject and method of his pure reason. With this in mind, Kant concludes that our knowledge of objects holds valid only within the appearances, namely, within the sphere in which we are being-affected-through-senses in cooperation with our a priori elements in the mind.
Kant also allows empirical inquiries to be admitted in the appearances in which the objects of experience are considered spatially distinct, external to the inquirers. Hence we can treat all external objects in the field of experience as things-in-themselves, insofar as appearances are concerned, without troubling ourselves about the primary ground of their possibility as appearances.
By virtue of this distinction, Kant is able to make different claims on the following statements: first, that there are external objects of which we have knowledge; second, that we are immediately aware of our ideas, or representations. The first is a transcendental falsity but an empirical truth, whereas the second is a transcendental truth but an empirical falsity. Transcendentally speaking, knowledge of objects is subject to a priori conditions on the part of the knowing subject, and thus is only applicable to representational objects or contents given in experience. In other words, appearances are contents of our mental representations in the transcendental sense. Empirically speaking, the objects of experience are considered as external objects spatially distinct from the knower. (8)
The most obvious exemplification is that of space and time. They are regarded as transcendentally ideal because they are the a priori forms of intuitions. Since the sense-manifold is given in the inner experience of succession and the outer experience of space, we can be certain that they are our a priori forms with which we spatialize and temporalize the given "stuff" or the "sense-manifold" in a specific arrangement. But the question whether they, in fact, belong to the realm of the thing-in-itself is entirely beyond our sensibility and hence our a priori forms cannot be applied to that realm. On the other hand, they are empirically real because they always hold good for the experienced objects which are spatially distinct from and external to us.
Up to here Kant has only made this distinction between the two inquiries, but to advance beyond the limit or bound of sensuous intuitions and to ask the ground for the possibility of appearances in the transcendental sense, the concept of a transcendental object would be required. Note that Kant says that the concept, not the existence, of transcendental objects is required. In point of fact, Kant has simply inserted it Into the world of Noumenon and the concept of Noumenon is a limiting concept (Grenzbegriff) demanded by the concept of Phenomenon as the correlate of the latter.
4.1.3 The Transcendental Object and Noumenon
First of all Kant explicitly mentions that the idea of appearances involves the idea of something that appears (cf. Al04). In other words, if we try to abstract from all that which in the object has reference to the a priori conditions of knowledge, namely, the possibility of objects of knowledge, we arrive at the idea of Transcendental Object, "the completely indeterminate thought of something in general" (A253).
Since all sense manifold representations are related by the understanding to the transcendental object which signifies only a something-X, the transcendental object cannot be insulated in thought.
However, not satisfied with this substrate of sensibility (cf. A251), Kant proceeds to transform the notion of transcendental object into the concept Noumenon In view of the latter's etymological significance. Noumenon means objects of thought or of understanding, namely, as intuited or apprehended in a non-sensuous fashion. In order to form the positive concept of Noumenon, Kant assumes the possibility of an intellectual intuition in which the thing-in-itself is directly apprehended.
By way of hypothesis, Kant attributes this intellectual intuition to the "Intellectus Archetypus" (cf. A695 B723) which belongs to the Divine Mind. It is also called creative intuition, for it is wholly active and productive source of creation. Hence God directly apprehends the real essence of the thing-in-itself without the aid of sensuous intuition because God has created all this. Sensuous intuition is ascribed to "Intellectus Ectypus" which belongs to human finite minds in the sense that finite minds are affected by extra-mental things (through senses) whose existence is supposed rather than created by them. All cognition worked out through the human mind, therefore, has to begin with sensuous intuition. The Noumenon in its positive notion, thus, means the object of intellectual intuition and hence things-in-themselves are objects of God's creation and knowledge and not objects of human cognition. In its negative sense, it is not-the-object-of-sensuous-intuition and in point of fact the entire Transcendental Doctrine of Elements is entertaining the negative concept of Noumenon. The introduction of Noumenon, Kant insists, is meant to keep a strict hold of the critical teaching, namely, that both sensibility and understanding are only applicable to the Phenomenon.
Therefore, the concept of Noumenon is only a problematic one not assertoric (cf. A254 B310), because Kant believes that we have no means of asserting its objective reality for the very thought of its real existence involves the existence-category. Hence it is a limiting concept for its function is only to limit the pretensions of sensibility.(9)
4.2 The Failure of Every Metaphysics (as Transcendent Science)
With the above doctrine in mind, we can see easily that the general ground for Kant's own rejection of metaphysics is not difficult to state. The Transcendental Aesthetic and the Transcendental Analytic taken together can lead to the conclusion of the unknowability of the thing-in-itself which destroys every possibility of speculative and transcendent metaphysics.
Kant has first argued that the objects of speculative metaphysics are basically transcending from sense-intuition. Secondly metaphysicians, at least in intention, have to establish the possibility of synthetic a priori judgments in metaphysics. However the very question of how such judgments are possible yields the transcendental (matter-form) theory of knowledge. No knowledge of objects is possible except insofar as it is related to the a priori conditions on the part of the knowing subject. Hence knowledge is only restricted to things as they appear, in conformity with our mental forms, and does not reach things-in-themselves. This claim is fatal to all metaphysical theories.
Furthermore, Kant makes it perfectly clear that the principles of understanding can have a very limited application, namely, their objective reference is confined to phenomena alone. If there were any metaphysical doctrines, they would have been supposed to be independent of sensuous intuition altogether and to be established by intellectual intuition which we unfortunately do not possess. In the absence of intellectual intuition, the doctrine of unknowability is founded. In any case, it appears that, whether in fact or in principle, speculative metaphysics cannot be made up of synthetic a priori truths. Thus Kant rejects every possibility of metaphysics as a transcendent science.
NOTES:
8.Cf. BIRD, G., Kant's Theory of Knowledge, (London 2nd Impression 1965) p. 44f.
9.Cf. PATON, H. J., Kant’s Metaphysics of Experience, (London 1951) Vol. 2, chs. LV & LVI, pp. 442, 450ff.
5. EVALUATION
My evaluation of Kant's approach will proceed as follows. We shall first see whether the doctrine of unknowability is tenable within Kant's context. Consequently, is Kant able to do away with all the possibility of metaphysics? If not, then in the second point we shall see whether Kant's assumption, the Copernican Revolution, needs any further modification. Can it yield another insight different from that of Kant?
5.1 Criticism of the Tenability of the Doctrine of Unknowability
It seems that Kant wishes to remain in an agnostic position. For he believes that we can neither assert nor deny the existence of any object in the Noumenal world and a fortiori, cannot speak of the knowledge of its nature or essence.
However Kant does not seem to me consistent in remaining in such an agnostic position. For, concerning the problems of the transcendental self and the transcendental object, Kant has not been able to give a satisfactory account. Furthermore, his "Refutation of Idealism" confirms my belief that Kant cannot help but retain the existence of the thing-in-itself.
5.l.l The Paradox of the Transcendental Self and Transcendental Object
In the Transcendental Analytic, Kant claims that the sense-manifold of the intuition is to be subsumed under the a priori categories provided by the understanding through the schemata of imagination; and that only the schematized categories can yield knowledge.
However the relation between sensation and intellection presupposes a principle of unification which is the unity of the Consciousness-in-general: the Ultimate a priori ground for the sense-manifold being synthesized and brought into an intelligible unity under the categories of understanding. Kant puts it this way:
"It must be possible for the 'I think' to accompany all my representations" (B131).
Thus the "I think" constitutes the "Transcendental unity of Apperception" to which Kant attributes the framework of objectivity and the possibility of experience in general (cf. Bl32). Now the subject of the unity must be capable of self-consciousness so that the knowing subject can be aware of his own unity between the perceiving and thinking subject. In other words, the self-consciousness enables the subject to be aware of the fact that the self is the source of the unity. Hence on the occasion of experience, the existence of a transcendental ego reveals itself to the subject. As a pure and original unity, the self, in some way precedes experience precisely because it is the a priori condition for the possibility of experience. In this way the "Self" cannot be referred to an empirical self. For the empirical self is only what is known in appearance, it cannot be the bearer of the appearance(10). Kant, then, admits the existence of the transcendental self, at least implicitly. For he puts it this way:
"Certainly, the representation 'I am', which expresses the consciousness that can accompany all thought, immediately includes in itself the existence of a subject" (B277).
On the other hand Kant is aware that such addmittance would be an illicit inference. Hence in B422 he warns us not to mistake the subject as if it were an object of thought under its process of caterigorization. He wants, therefore, to maintain that its existence cannot be asserted for such an assertion would involve the categorization of the understanding. Kant's position seems to be this: one thing is that we have to think of the transcendental self as existing; another is that we do not know whether this ought-to-think-it-as-existing entails its objective existence.
This position is agnostic on one hand but paradoxical on another. I do not know how it is possible that Kant, on the one hand, asserts transcendentally that the "possibility of the experience" Is grounded in the transcendental unity of apperception while, on the other hand, holding that existence of the transcendental self that constitutes the transcendental unity of apperception is entirely unknown. For me it is, at least, co-known or co-affirmed though in an unthematical way. We shall dwell on this point later.
As we have observed in connection with B277, Kant's early doctrine of the transcendental object has developed in somewhat a close parallelism with that of the transcendental unity of apperception(11). The concept of transcendental object is used to account for the diversity of sensations and for the objects of representations. By this, Kant means that the thing-in-itself is the object which appears to us but it never appears to us as it is in itself. Its appearance has already been re-organized by the a priori elements of our cognitive faculties. The existence of the thing-in-itself seems to be inevitable, but Kant wants to remain agnostic, again, about this transcendental object, for the same reason as that mentioned above. Hence he runs into the same inconsistency as with the transcendental self(12).
There is another similar reason to explain why Kant cannot remain consistent in his agnostic position. The first Critique (as well as the doctrine of unknowability)is intended to set a limit to the validity of human knowledge. Within the area of this limit, namely, within the phenomena, our knowledge, such as that of Mathematics and Physical Sciences, is proved to be valid and reliable, whereas beyond this limit we, in principle, cannot claim any knowledge. However one cannot draw such a limit, unless one presumably knows (a priori) that there exists something noumenal which is beyond the limit. On the other hand, if we claim to know that there exists a noumenal world, the thing-in-itself, the knowledge of this claim will no longer be valid because this claim is mediated by our a priori catergories.
Kant, says P. F. Strawson, "seeks to draw the bounds of sense from a point outside them, a point which, if they are rightly drawn, cannot exist"(13). Indeed, F. H. Jacobi, the contemporary of Kant, has well remarked that without the idea of the thing-in-itself, we cannot enter the world of the Critique of Pure Reason, but with it neither can we remain inside(14).
5.1.2 Kant's Refutation of Idealism
Kant's refutation of Idealism provides further evidence to confirm my belief that Kant cannot remain agnostic but is, at heart, a realist who asserts the existence of the thing-in-itself. He puts the argument this way:
"I am conscious of my own existence as determined in time. All determination of time presupposes something permanent in perception…Thus perception of this permanent is possible only through a thing outside me and not through the mere representation of a thing outside me; and consequently the determination of my existence in time is possible only through the existence of actual things which I perceive outside me…In other words, the consciousness of my existence is at the same time an immediate consciousness of the existence of other things outside me" (B276).
There is a great dispute among the commentators whether Kant is here referring the existence of the actual things outside oneself to the thing-in-itself, even though in his introduction (cf. Bxxxix and the note) Kant has explicitly maintained that the independent existence of the object is to be understood in the empirical sense(15). I also doubt whether this argument in such an emphatic form does not constitute a Transcendental Realism. For, if the consciousness of my existence is referred to the transcendental ego which reveals itself to the subject on the occasion of experience, the object of experience must be in some way the non-ego of the non-empirical reality. Of course, this does not rule out the possibility that the non-ego, the object of experience, is, after all, a mere construction of the mind. But does Kant possibly mean this? Definitely not! He certainly thought it absurd to reduce all reality to mere mental construction of the subject, else he would have been no better than Berkeley whose idealism maintains that only the mind and what the mind perceives exist. Therefore, Kant has to look on the retention of the existence of the thing-in-itself as a matter of common sense. Besides, if the thing-in-itself is totally eliminated, the phenomena would be identified with the thing-in-itself; and consequently Kant's philosophy would, at once, have become full-blown metaphysical system.
Granted that he has retained the thing-in-itself, does it follow that his rejection of metaphysics is automatically self-invalidated? Not necessarily, although the strength of his rejection is now much reduced. For, at least, it is, in principle, possible for man to know the existence of the thing-in-itself.
However the Copernican Hypothesis can still enable Kant to remain subjectivistic regarding the nature or essence of the thing-in-itself. He can still possibly deny that the human mind can ever penetrate into the essence of the natural things themselves. Now it is time to discuss his assumptions.
5.2 Criticism of the Copernican Revolution
I think I have explained earlier why Kant opts for this assumption, hence I do not want to repeat myself here. What I wish to point out here Is that Copernicus' doctrine of motion (cf. Bxxii), taken in itself as a scientific theory, does not confirm Kant's philosophical conclusion.
Copernicus explained that the observation of motions of the heavenly bodies must be in view of the motion of the observer on earth. This actually is derived from the Aristotelian principle of relative motion. For Copernicus holds that if the observed objects are moving in the same direction with equal velocity, no motion can be observed. If any movement is ascribed to the earth, that notion will generate appearance of itself In all things which are external to it, though as occurring in the opposite direction, as if everything were passing across the earth.(16)
Now Kant employs the same analogy in his theory of knowledge that the apparent characteristic of reality is due to the mind of the knower(17). If the knowledge of objects is due to the structure of the cognitive faculty, then the mind can never penetrate into reality beyond its appearances. Consequently no transcendent metaphysics is possible.
I think the key-point is that our observation of the external world, at least insofar as motion is concerned, is always relative to the situation of the observer. The relativity can be further confirmed by Einstein's theory about the simultaneity of time. According to him, when events happen at different places, they can be called simultaneous only in a relative sense. For it is empirically possible that according to one observer event A happens before event B; according to another, B may precede A; whereas a third observer may call them simultaneous., There seems, therefore, to be no universal "before" and "after" in time, insofar as observers are concerned. Hence observations, as far as motion and time are concerned, are always relative to the observers.
However does this consequently confirm Kant's belief that knowledge consists in the conformity of objects to the situation (mental forms) of the knower? Does it follow that we can observe objects in space and time owing to our a priori forms of sensibility with which we spatialize and temporalize the sense-manifold? Does it further entail that it is our mind that imposes the principle of causality on the phenomenal world rather than penetrates into the real nature of the world by abstraction? I do not think that it is necessarily so.
The presence of this relativity does not entail the non-penetrability of things in themselves by the mind, and the awareness of the relativity just presupposes the contrary. The very possibility of detecting the relativity and subjectivity of our sense-perception reveals to us that we are some way given an absolute datum in our experience against which we can pinpoint the fact of relativity. The consciousness of this absolute datum vindicates the penetrability of the thing-in-itself by the mind. To what extent? I do not know, but it is, in principle, possible.
Of course such a remark would not by itself necessitate an abandonment of the general standpoint represented by Kant's theory of experience because his new conformity-theory of knowledge may serve him as an absolute datum, a point of departure, which taken as vindication does not require any demonstrated proof and consequently be rationally defensible.
Besides, Kant's Copernican Revolution is an initial asumption designed to explain the possibility of synthetic a priori judgments on the supposition that they could not be explained otherwise. However to postulate the assumption in this way is not uncontroversial. For example, it is still relevant to ask if there is in fact any synthetic a priori knowledge. Secondly, if we agree that there is, we can still ask whether its possibility cannot be explained in ways other than Kant's.
The above remark indicates there is a certain amount of arbitrariness, if not bias, in Kant's initial option with which he has already undermined a priori the possibility of transcendent metaphysics at the very outset. I doubt whether this is the best option, if there is any, to settle the dispute among the metaphysicians.
Two important remarks can be made here. First, with his epistemology Kant has not succeeded in remaining consistently in the agnostic position. I am inclined to think that he, at heart, belongs to Transcendental Realism which, at least in principle, concedes a sort of immediate, intuitive or unthematic co-knowledge of the objective existence of thing-in-itself. This arouses a certain hope for the revival of metaphysics. Secondly, granted that Kant has full right to opt for his initial assumption (Copernican Revolution) and the transcendental method, he can arrive at the awareness of relativity which, indeed, tames every wild dogmaticism. However he cannot ignore that this awareness precisely presupposes something absolute concomitantly given there in the cognitive experience.
Now I would like to dwell on, at some length, this absolute datum to see if it can bridge the chasm between the thing-in-itself and the so-called "mental contents" of the knower, and to see if it can furnish a new insight for an alternative approach to the possibility of metaphysics.
NOTES:
10.Cf. KEMP SMITH, N., A Commentary to Kant's Critique of Pure Reason, (New York 2nd edition 1962) pp. 321-331.
11.Cf. IBID.
12.Some commentators would not consider Kant's agnostic position as inconsistent. For, on the part of the subject, one can be certain of or experience the existence of the thing-in-itself, but it does not follow that one knows that it objectively exists. The concept of Noumenon is demanded as the correlate of the concept of Phenomenon, The word "correlate" is used just to avoid asserting the cause-effect relation between two concepts. The term "correlate" simply means that the concept cannot be insulated in thought insofar as we have the concept of phenomenon.
In my view, this position is not tenable. For, as soon as one grasps the existence of something one should not remain agnostic about its objectivity. This is an intuitive knowledge and not merely a subjective certainty. I will dwell on this point later.
13.STRAWSON, P. F., The Bounds of Sense, (London 1966) p.12.
14.Cf. WALSH, W.H., Kant Immanuel, In P.EWARDS (ed.), The Encyclopedia of Philosophy (London 1976) Vol. 4, p.315.
15.Cf. EWING, A. C., A Short Commentary on Kart's Critique of Pure Reason, (London reprinted 1961) pp. 176-187.
16.Cf. KEMP SMITH, N., op. cit., pp.23-25.
17.Cf. PATON, H. J., op. cit., Vol. 1, pp. 75-76.
6. PERSPECTIVES AND CONCLUSION
6.1 The Awareness of Relativity Presupposes the Intuition of Being
The "awareness of relativity", for Kant, is a clue discovering the limitation of human knowledge. It restricts whatever we know to appearances. He says very well that knowledge must begin with sense-experience, at the same time that sense-experience will not be possible unless it is submitted to the a priori forms of sensibility. Hence these two premises taken jointly make it impossible for man to attain any knowledge beyond the so-called senseintuition. Note that the abandonment of the speculative use of reason is due to the absence of the intellectual intuition on the part of man rather than the objects of this intuition, namely, the transcendental self and the transcendental object.
In my opinion, the objects of this intuition should be not considered things out of which we, as it were, try hard to dig the essence. On the contrary, as Fichte has pointed out, the said object, the transcendental ego, is an act rather than a things(18). According to him, to ascribe the transcendental ego to the ultimate ground of the unity of consciousness implies that the pure ego, namely, the transcendental ego is considered an activity within consciousness. For example, I am now thinking an object A. Then, I can think the "me" that thinks an object A. Obviously I objectify the "me" that thinks an object A, in the sense that I make it object-for-subject. Hence the process can go on infinitely, namely, that I think the "me" that thinks the "me" that thinks…ad infinitum. However hard I try, the Ego transcends objectification and is itself the condition of all objectifiability and of the unity of consciousness(19). Fichte, hence, insists that we must have the intellectual intuition of the transcendental ego as an act within consciousness and that this is not a mystic experience for the privileged few. Nevertheless Fichte has taken this primordial intuition as his first principle or truth in philosophy and develops a system of Idealistic Metaphysics.
I am not interested in his idealism but rather in his primordial intellectual intuition. Its central issue is: what is intuited is not an objectified essence but an act. The mentioning of Fichte shows that in spite of Kant's denial of intellectual intuition, a Kantian philosopher could also preserve the validity of the intellectual intuition of the pure ego as an activity within consciousness. This could be a starting point for the possibility of metaphysics.
Some Neo-Thomists actually follow a similiar line of thought regarding the so-called Intuition of Being. They distinguish a simple apprehension of the "essences of things" from an intuition of Being (namely, Actus Essendi or act of existing). The former can be explained in terms of an essential judgment that describes the essence of the object concerned, for example, "This is so-and-so", whereas the latter is to be explained in terms of an existential judgment concerning the act of existing, namely, "This IS". The former judgment presupposes the latter, for the former would be meaningless if we cannot affirm the latter a priori.
Moreover, we need to make another distinction between the concept of existence and the intuition of hems (an immediate affirmation of Actus Essendi ). When we say that “A is being” in the former sense, we mentally attribute the concept of existence to A; when “A is being” in the latter sense, we affirm a pure Actus Essendi disregardins what A is, whether it be my mental product or what-not.
In fact, when Kant says that “existence” is one of the a priori categories, he uses “existence” as a concept with which we think. Hence in an existential statement like "God, as a necessary being, exists, (ontological argument), we, in Kant, s context, are objectifying the necessary being as object of thought and in the meantime we can’t help but think the necessary being as existing, insofar as a necessary being is conceiveable. In this case, we are just passing from one concept (of existence) to another (of necessary being) or the other way round, but we cannot leap from the conceptual order to existential order. The leap is illicit. Kant, indeed, is right in refuting the ontological argument but is wrong in neglecting that apart from the concept of existence we still have the intuition of being. I do not mean we can intuit directly God’s existence but rather mean that we are able to affirm intuitively the Actus Essendi, no matter what this Actus Essendi may be. That is to say the intuition that “something exists” is it is primarily given disregarding what this something is. We simply encounter the Actus Essendi which is delivered to us as an absolute datum in the experience.
However Kant was not completely unaware of this. For example, his desperate effort of insisting on the unity of apperception as a fundamental experience is precisely a confirmation of the apprehension of something existent as an unity. Kant’s denial of intellectual intuition does not exclude the intuition of being. Indeed the “awareness of relativity” presupposes it.
6.2 The Transcendental Method and the Intuition of Being
A thorough and attentive study of Kant’s position shows that his transcendental method is by no means restricted to the concrete conclusion of the Critique.
The interesting study of O. Muck on the transcendental method reveals that "during the last forty years the numbers of neo-scholastics have grown who consider the so-called ‘transcendental method’ the way to reach the goal set by contemporary neo-scholasticism, viz., a response of the scholastic tradition to the contemporary philosophical problemtic”,(20). Joseph Marechal for instance, was one of the first pioneers who deliberately adopted the transcendental method as a fruitful tool for the aims of scholastic philosophy(21).
However I would like to have recourse to Emerich Coreth, one of the most prominent contemporary transcendental Thomists, who has succeeded in showing the richness of the intuition of being by means of the transcendental method. His investigation of the condition of possibility of the act of knowledge leads to a dialectical development of philosophy which is in essential agreement with Thomism in terms of its results, but which goes deeper with respect to its foundation(22).
For him the task of metaphysics is provided by the transcendental method, which he defines in the words of Kant, "I call every knowledge transcendental, which occupies itself not so much with objects, but rather with our way of knowing objects, insofar as this is to be possible a priori"(23).
The method refers to inquiries into the a priori conditions under which metaphysical claims may be true. It starts with the inquirer's experience of being conscious (in Coreth's case, it is the questioning itself). Within this horizon, a twofold constant and interactive movement of thought, namely, reduction and deduction, is employed so as to uncover thematically the immediate, unthematized and pre-philosophical data in the initial awareness which furnish the a priori conditions of the total reality of being conscious (as this reality presents itself in the act of knowing) and then "from this previous datum, uncovered reductively, (there is deduced) a priori the empirical act of consciousness, its nature, its possibility and its necessity. Whereas reduction proceeds from a particular experience to the conditions of its possibility, deduction goes from these conditions to the essential structures of the same experience''. This is to mediate the immediate knowledge, from the unthematic to the themtic. Thus it reverses the process of universal doubt by going beyond the merely factual state-of-affairs pointing to the vindication of something unquestionably absolute which is being as the foundation and horizon of metaphysics in germ.(24)
As B. Lonergan remarks, in his critique of Coreth's original German work(25) under the significant title "Metaphysics as Horizon"(26), for Coreth the basis of transcendental method, applied to any judgment, lies not in the content of the judgment but in its possibility and its functions by reductio ad absurdum;
"The main task of the metaphysician is not to reveal or prove what is new and unknown; it is to give scientific expression to what already is implicitly acknowledged without being explicitly recognized"(27).
The trouble with Kant, Coreth says, is that:
"…he did not go far back enough when looking for the conditions of possibility of human knowledge. He stopped at the finite subject, he did not reach an absolute horizon of validity, and thus he eliminated all possibility of metaphysical knowledge. Only if we can, against Kant and proceeding beyond him, show that our a priori knowledge is metaphysical knowledge of being, which opens for us the absolute horizon of being as such, shall we be able to validate metaphysics critically and methodically. This task has been clearly recognized within the neo- Scholastic school, especially since the pioneering work of Joseph Marechal''(28).
His starting point is the conscious, concrete activity of the human mind asking a question. Lonergan remarks that to doubt questioning is to involve oneself in a counterposition, and so questioning is beyond the doubter’s capacity to doubt coherently(29).
"When we question the question, our attention is forced to proceed beyond the explicit knowledge presented by the content into the implicit knowledge contained in the act of questioning itself. Thus when I ask what things I can question, the very act of asking this question supplies an answer to it. For I can ask questions about absolutely everything. Should somebody suggest that there might be limits to my power of questioning, I shall ask questions about these limits, and by this very fact proceed beyond them. The fact that I can question absolutely everything is unthematically contained in the very act of questioning. If I inquire what this "absolutely everything" about which I can ask questions really is, the answer to this question is likewise unthematically or implicitly contained in the question itself. For I always ask what everything IS. Hence I know that everything about which I ask questions IS and that the range of my inquiring is the unlimited horizon of being.
We have here a continual interaction, a dialectic between concept and act, between pensee pensee and pensee pensante, between the conceptualized, explicit, thematic content of our knowledge and the unthematic, pre-reflexive, implicit knowledge that is co-affirmed with the act of knowing itself. The interaction results in what the German language calls Volizugswissen" (30).Therefore the co-affirmation or co-knowledge of being is concomitant to every act of consciousness though in an unthematic way. A rejection of the possibility of metaphysics implies a contradiction between the denial and the act by means of which one denies, between the thematic content of the act and the unthematically co-affirmed and presupposed conditions of its possibility(31).
The very possibility of questioning, as Lonergan remarks, (or of any conscious activity, we may add) is being, and this being is being (Actus Essendi) in its unqualified sense, being-in-itself (An-sich-Sein). The process of bringing out this intuition of being is a process of a mediated immediacy (vermittelte Unmittelbarkeit), through the transcendental method that points to the interaction between "concept" and "act" (Vollzug, or "performance" in Lonergan's translation)., Kant failed to get hold of the intuition of being, because his use of the transcendental method consists in the dialectic between concept and concept (categorized) and not between concept and act. His contradiction, as Lonergan remarks, lies not in the formal entity (Ich denke) that merely thinks thoughts, but in a concrete intelligence that by its performance means and by its uttered contents denies that we know what really and truly is so (32).
6.3 An Alternative Approach to Metaphysics: The Intuition of Being
I have reason for the preference of this intution of being as a new approach to metaphysics. I am convinced that a good approach should not be located merely in the epistemological inquiry, as Kant located it. For we will have difficulty In bridging the chasm between the thing-in-itself (the uncategorized stuff) and the mental contents (categorized concepts). This actually re-echoes the difficulty of drawing the distinction between epistemological and metaphysical inquiries mentioned earlier. For they are so interwoven that it is difficult to decide which should take the precedence. The intuition serves precisely as a primordial datum that transcends and precedes both inquiries. In other words, if you do not start with "something exists", then you start with a nought. And nothing comes from nothing!
Coreth would also consider that the intuition of being is something to be presupposed by an inquiry:
"Questioning or inquiring presupposes some knowledge about being. But this knowledge…is not a knowledge which possesses that which is known, but a knowledge which projects that which can be known. This presupposes that we already know about being or about the meaning of being. The origin of this knowledge lies in the act of questioning itself. Whenever we question, we know that we question, that we are the inquirer, that we perform the act of inquiring. In every act of inquiring or knowing, some being is given which coincides immediately with knowing, which knows itself as being. The act knows itself as being. Being knows itself as act. We have an immediate unity of being and knowing in the very act of knowing"(33).
Following the same line of reason, Muck remarks also:
"Since the act of questioning knowledge has shown itself to be finite and conditioned by pointing beyond itself to the absolute, we ask again how the finite act stands with respect to the finite subject and how it is made possible by it. This leads to the development of being and acting, being and essence, and the universal laws of being. However, not every act is a question. This leads us to the conditions of the act of intellection in which being as such is disclosed, and to the immanent exposition of being according to its transcendental determinations (in the classical sense). However, this step does not explain why the intellectual act of man is questioning and not simply the possesion of knowledge. This void leads to the foundation of a metaphysics of the material world and of sense experience, as well as of human being in the world (including interpersonal relationships and the moral order of human activity). It also leads to the determination of the relations of questioning to the absolute as religion, and this absolute as God"(34).
This intuition of being, as many thinkers confirm, is always present in our experience whether it be sensible, intellectual, moral, mystic or religious etc. provided that we make a reflection upon it. I think that Kant also had a similiar intuition in his moral experience. The moral agent is conscious of the "duty", the "ought", the "categorical imperative"! How, Kant asks, is this categorical imperative possible? In reply to this, he finds that its possibility is grounded in the idea of freedom of the will. If freedom were illusory, the entire moral experience would be deceptive. But since moral experience, for Kant, is incontrovertible, "Freedom", though belonging to the noumenal world, is necessarily required as the a priori ultimate ground for the possibility of moral experience and categorical imperative. As a consequence the categorical imperative is not possible, unless the moral agent, man himself, is at once a member both of the phenomenal and noumenal world. This is the theory of Two Standpoints. The empirical self belongs to the former world, hence its action follows the law of causality that governs the phenomena, and it is also liable to deviate from the way in which it would act as a member of the noumenal world. And the moral law is legislated by the free will of the transcendental self upon the empirical self as Imperative.(35) The Two Standpoints theory presupposes the intuition of the moral activity within the consciousness. The moral experience demands or "posits" an Ego as a member of the two worlds. This leads to the bi-polarity of the intuition of being, namely, man (as moral subject) being-in-the-world. This strikes the same tone of the intuition of being.
Hence the intuition is a good starting point for the journey to metaphysics for it opens a new possibility to the thing-in-itself. If this intuition imposes an ineluctable urge on us, an urge that urges for self-openness to the real and absolute, then we must admit that it is an intuitive knowledge. If this is knowledge, it follows that our mind, to a certain extent, has the possibility of attaining to the knowledge of the thing-in-itself. It assures us of the fact that our mind is open to truth.
In conclusion, I admire Kant's effort and seriousness in tackling the possibility of metaphysics but I disagree with his way of adopting the initial assumptions that lead him to an agnostic position (for his inconsistency). His intention of settling the metaphysical disputes is good but leads him to the extreme position of denying every possibility of metaphysics. I am conscious that there are still many difficulties in the attempt to build metaphysical system(s), but Kant's transcendental method is very highlighting in this regard. Finally, if metaphysics has as its object the fundamental explanation of all things, considered in their entirety, such an inquiry must be grounded in the intuition of being as an absolute datum. Hence the reinstatement of the possibility of metaphysics depends on whether or not one has the experience of the Actus Essendi and whether one considers it an intuitive knowledge. This is the initial option we have to decide upon, just as we have to decide whether man is rational, and whether he is able to philosophize with his rationality.
NOTES:
18.Cf. Sammtliche Werk, ed. by I. H. FICHTE, 8 Vols. (Berlin 1845-46) Vol. 1, pp. 463ff.
19.Cf. IBID.
20.MUCK, O., The Transcendental Method, transl. By W. D. SEIDENSTICKER (New York 1968) p. 19.
21.Cf. van RIET, G., Thomistic Epistemology, transl. by G.FRANKS, 2 Vols. (London 1963) Vol. 1, pp. 236-271.
22.Cf. MUCK, O., op. cit., pp.285-306.
23.CORETH, E., Metaphysics, transl. by J.DONCEEL, with a critique by B. J. F. LONERGAN (London 1968) p. 35.
24.Cf. IBID., pp.31-44. The exact quotation is from p. 37.
25.It appeared in Gregorianum 44(1963) pp.307-318 and as an appendix to J. Donceel's translation, pp. l97-219. The quotation used is according to the latter.
26.Lonergan explains that "a horizon is a maximum field of vision from a determinate standpoint. In a generalized sense, a horizon is specified by two poles, one objective and the other subjective, with each pole conditioning the other. Hence, the objective pole is taken, not materially, but like the formal object sub ratione sub qua attingitur (under that aspect which the activity specifically regards); similiarly the subjective pole is considered, not materially, but in its relation to the objective pole. Thus, the horizon of Pure Reason is specified when one states that its objective pole is possible being as determined by relations of possibility and necessity obtaining between concepts, and that its subjective pole is logical thinking as determining what can be and what must be. Similarly, in the horizon of critical idealism, the objective pole is the world of experience as appearance, and the subjective pole is the set of a priori conditions of the possibility of such a world. Again, in the horizon of the expert, the objective pole is his restricted domain as attained by accepted scientific methods, and the subjective pole is the expert practising those methods; but in the horizon of the wise man, the philosopher of the Aristotelian tradition, the objective pole is an unrestricted domain, and the subjective pole is the philosopher practising transcendental method, namely, the method that determines the ultimate and so basic whole" (IBID., pp.211f).
27.LONERGAN, B. J. F., IBID., p.200.
28.CORETH, E., op. cit., p. 36f.
29.Cf. LONERGAN, B. J. F., op. cit., p. 210.
30.CORETH. E., op. cit., pp. 39f.
31.Cf. IBID., p. 35.
32.Cf. LONERGAN, B. J. F., op. cit., p. 205.
33.CORETH, E., op. cit., p. 69f.
34.MUCK, O., op. cit., pp. 304f.
35.Cf. PATON, H. J., Kant's Groundwork of the Metaphysics of Morals (New York 1964) pp. 114-131.