SECT. III. — System of Transcendental Ideas.
WE are not at present engaged with a logical dialectic, which
makes complete abstraction of the content of cognition and aims only
at unveiling the illusory appearance in the form of syllogisms. Our
subject is transcendental dialectic, which must contain, completely
a priori, the origin of certain cognitions drawn from pure reason, and
the origin of certain deduced conceptions, the object of which
cannot be given empirically and which therefore lie beyond the
sphere of the faculty of understanding. We have observed, from the
natural relation which the transcendental use of our cognition, in
syllogisms as well as in judgements, must have to the logical, that
there are three kinds of dialectical arguments, corresponding to the
three modes of conclusion, by which reason attains to cognitions on
principles; and that in all it is the business of reason to ascend
from the conditioned synthesis, beyond which the understanding never
proceeds, to the unconditioned which the understanding never can
reach.
Now the most general relations which can exist in our
representations are: 1st, the relation to the subject; 2nd, the
relation to objects, either as phenomena, or as objects of thought
in general. If we connect this subwork with the main work, all
the relations of our representations, of which we can form either a
conception or an idea, are threefold:
1. The relation to the
subject; 2. The relation to the manifold of the object as a
phenomenon; 3. The relation to all things in general.
Now all pure conceptions have to do in general with the
synthetical unity of representations; conceptions of pure reason
(transcendental ideas), on the other hand, with the unconditional
synthetical unity of all conditions. It follows that all
transcendental ideas arrange themselves in three classes, the first of
which contains the absolute (unconditioned) unity of the thinking
subject, the second the absolute unity of the series of the conditions
of a phenomenon, the third the absolute unity of the condition of
all objects of thought in general.
The thinking subject is the object—matter of Psychology; the sum
total of all phenomena (the world) is the object—matter of
Cosmology; and the thing which contains the highest condition of the
possibility of all that is cogitable (the being of all beings) is
the object—matter of all Theology. Thus pure reason presents us with
the idea of a transcendental doctrine of the soul (psychologia
rationalis), of a transcendental science of the world (cosmologia
rationalis), and finally of a transcendental doctrine of God
(theologia transcendentalis). Understanding cannot originate even
the outline of any of these sciences, even when connected with the
highest logical use of reason, that is, all cogitable syllogisms—
for the purpose of proceeding from one object (phenomenon) to all
others, even to the utmost limits of the empirical synthesis. They
are, on the contrary, pure and genuine products, or problems, of
pure reason.
What modi of the pure conceptions of reason these transcendental
ideas are will be fully exposed in the following chapter. They
follow the guiding thread of the categories. For pure reason never
relates immediately to objects, but to the conceptions of these
contained in the understanding. In like manner, it will be made
manifest in the detailed explanation of these ideas— how reason,
merely through the synthetical use of the same function which it
employs in a categorical syllogism, necessarily attains to the
conception of the absolute unity of the thinking subject — how the
logical procedure in hypothetical ideas necessarily produces the
idea of the absolutely unconditioned in a series of given
conditions, and finally— how the mere form of the disjunctive
syllogism involves the highest conception of a being of all beings:
a thought which at first sight seems in the highest degree
paradoxical.
An objective deduction, such as we were able to present in the
case of the categories, is impossible as regards these
transcendental ideas. For they have, in truth, no relation to any
object, in experience, for the very reason that they are only ideas.
But a subjective deduction of them from the nature of our reason is
possible, and has been given in the present chapter.
It is easy to perceive that the sole aim of pure reason is the
absolute totality of the synthesis on the side of the conditions,
and that it does not concern itself with the absolute completeness
on the part of the conditioned. For of the former alone does she stand
in need, in order to preposit the whole series of conditions, and thus
present them to the understanding a priori. But if we once have a
completely (and unconditionally) given condition, there is no
further necessity, in proceeding with the series, for a conception
of reason; for the understanding takes of itself every step
downward, from the condition to the conditioned. Thus the
transcendental ideas are available only for ascending in the series of
conditions, till we reach the unconditioned, that is, principles. As
regards descending to the conditioned, on the other hand, we find that
there is a widely extensive logical use which reason makes of the laws
of the understanding, but that a transcendental use thereof is
impossible; and that when we form an idea of the absolute totality
of such a synthesis, for example, of the whole series of all future
changes in the world, this idea is a mere ens rationis, an arbitrary
fiction of thought, and not a necessary presupposition of reason.
For the possibility of the conditioned presupposes the totality of its
conditions, but not of its consequences. Consequently, this conception
is not a transcendental idea— and it is with these alone that we are
at present occupied.
Finally, it is obvious that there exists among the transcendental
ideas a certain connection and unity, and that pure reason, by means
of them, collects all its cognitions into one system. From the
cognition of self to the cognition of the world, and through these
to the supreme being, the progression is so natural, that it seems
to resemble the logical march of reason from the premisses to the
conclusion.* Now whether
there lies unobserved at the foundation of
these ideas an analogy of the same kind as exists between the
logical and transcendental procedure of reason, is another of those
questions, the answer to which we must not expect till we arrive at
a more advanced stage in our inquiries. In this cursory and
preliminary view, we have, meanwhile, reached our aim. For we have
dispelled the ambiguity which attached to the transcendental
conceptions of reason, from their being commonly mixed up with other
conceptions in the systems of philosophers, and not properly
distinguished from the conceptions of the understanding; we have
exposed their origin and, thereby, at the same time their
determinate number, and presented them in a systematic connection, and
have thus marked out and enclosed a definite sphere for pure reason.
[*]
The science of Metaphysics has for the proper object of its
inquiries only three grand ideas: GOD, FREEDOM, and IMMORTALITY, and
it aims at showing, that the second conception, conjoined with the
first, must lead to the third, as a necessary conclusion. All the
other subjects with which it occupies itself, are merely means for the
attainment and realization of these ideas. It does not require these
ideas for the construction of a science of nature, but, on the
contrary, for the purpose of passing beyond the sphere of nature. A
complete insight into and comprehension of them would render Theology,
Ethics, and, through the conjunction of both, Religion, solely
dependent on the speculative faculty of reason. In a systematic
representation of these ideas the above—mentioned arrangement— the
synthetical one— would be the most suitable; but in the
investigation which must necessarily precede it, the analytical, which
reverses this arrangement, would be better adapted to our purpose,
as in it we should proceed from that which experience immediately
presents to us— psychology, to cosmology, and thence to theology.
