Kantian Philosophy

In this deduction of the categories there appears for the first time an endeavour to connect together into one organic whole the several elements entering into experience. It is evident, how ever, that much was wanting before this essential task could be regarded as complete. Kant has certainly brought together self consciousness, the system of the categories and data of sense. He has shown that the conditions of self-consciousness are the condi tions of possible experience. But he has not shown, nor did he at tempt to show, how it was that the conditions of self-consciousness are the very categories arrived at by consideration of the system of logical judgments. He does endeavour to show, but with small success, how the junction of category and data of sense is brought about, for according to his scheme these stood, to a certain extent at least, apart from and independent of one another.

Kantian Imperfections.

The mode in which Kant endeav ours to show how the several portions of cognition are subjectively realized brings into the clearest light the inconsistencies and im perfections of his doctrine. Sense had been assumed as furnishing the particular of knowledge, understanding as furnishing the uni versal; and it had been expressly declared that the particular was cognizable only in and through the universal. Still, each was con ceived as somehow in itself complete and finished. Sense and understanding had distinct functions, and there was wanting some common term, some intermediary which should bring them into conjunction. Data of sense as purely particular could have nothing in common with the categories as purely universal. But data of sense had at least one universal aspect—their aspect as the par ticular of the. general forms, space and time. Categories were in themselves abstract and valueless, serviceable only when restricted to possible objects of experience. There was thus a common ground on which category and intuition were united in one, and an intermediate process whereby the universal of the category might be so far individualized as to comprehend the particular of sense. This intermediate process—which is really the junction of under standing and sense—Kant calls productive imagination, and it is only through productive imagination that knowledge or experience is actually realized in our subjective consciousness. The specific forms of productive imagination are called Schemata, and upon the nature of the schema Kant gives much that has proved of extreme value for subsequent thought.

Productive imagination is thus the concrete element of knowl edge, and its general modes are the abstract expression of the a priori laws of all possible experience. The categories are restricted in their applicability to the schema, i.e., to the pure forms of con junction of the manifold in time, and in the modes of combination of schemata and categories we have the foundation for the rational sciences of mathematics and physics. Perception or real cognition is thus conceived as a complex fact, involving data of sense and pure perceptive forms, determined by the category and realized through productive imagination in the schema. The system of

principles which may be deduced from the consideration of the mode in which understanding and sense are united by productive imagination is the positive result of the critical theory of knowl edge, and some of its features are remarkable enough to deserve attention. According to his usual plan, Kant arranges these prin ciples in conformity with the table of the categories, dividing the four classes, however, into two main groups, the mathematical and the dynamical.

The mathematical principles are the abstract expression of the necessary mode in which data of sense are determined by the cate gory in the form of intuitions or representations of objects ; the dynamical are the abstract expression of the modes in which the existence of objects of intuition is determined. The mathematical principles are constitutive, i.e., express determinations of the ob jects themselves ; the dynamical are regulative, i.e., express the conditions under which objects can form parts of real experience. Under the mathematical principles come the general rules which furnish the ground for the application of quantitative reasoning to real facts of experience. For as data of sense are only possible objects when received in the forms of space and time, and as space and time are only cognized when determined in definite fash ion by the understanding through the schema of number (quan tity) or degree (quality), all intuitions are extensive quantities and contain a real element, that of sense, which has degree.

Under the dynamical principles, the general modes in which the existence of objects are determined, fall the analogies of experi ence, or general rules according to which the existence of objects in relation to one another can be determined, and the postulates of experience, the general rules according to which the existence of objects for us or our own subjective existence can be determined. The analogies of experience rest upon the order of perceptions in time, i.e., their permanence, succession or coexistence, and the principles are respectively those of substance, causality and reci procity. Kant in the expression of these analogies reaches the final solution of the difficulty as to the relation of the pure connective notions to experience. These notions are not directly applicable to experience, nor do we find in experience anything corresponding to the pure intellectual notions of substance, cause and reciprocity. But experience is for us the combination of data of sense in the forms of productive imagination, forms determined by the pure intellectual notions, and accordingly experience is possible for us only as in modes corresponding to the notions. The permanent in time is substance in any possible experience, and no experience is possible save through the determination of all changes as in rela tion to a permanent in time. Determined sequence is the causal relation in any possible experience, and no experience is possible save through the determination of perceived changes as in relation to a determined order in time. So with coexistence and reciprocity.