Concluding Remark on the Solution of the Transcendental
Mathematical Ideas— and Introductory to the Solution of
the Dynamical Ideas.
We presented the antinomy of pure reason in a tabular form, and we
endeavoured to show the ground of this self—contradiction on the
part of reason, and the only means of bringing it to a conclusion—
znamely, by declaring both contradictory statements to be false. We
represented in these antinomies the conditions of phenomena as
belonging to the conditioned according to relations of space and time—
which is the usual supposition of the common understanding. In this
respect, all dialectical representations of totality, in the series of
conditions to a given conditioned, were perfectly homogeneous. The
condition was always a member of the series along with the
conditioned, and thus the homogeneity of the whole series was assured.
In this case the regress could never be cogitated as complete; or,
if this was the case, a member really conditioned was falsely regarded
as a primal member, consequently as unconditioned. In such an
antinomy, therefore, we did not consider the object, that is, the
conditioned, but the series of conditions belonging to the object, and
the magnitude of that series. And thus arose the difficulty— a
difficulty not to be settled by any decision regarding the claims of
the two parties, but simply by cutting the knot— by declaring the
series proposed by reason to be either too long or too short for the
understanding, which could in neither case make its conceptions
adequate with the ideas.
But we have overlooked, up to this point, an essential difference
existing between the conceptions of the understanding which reason
endeavours to raise to the rank of ideas— two of these indicating a
mathematical, and two a dynamical synthesis of phenomena. Hitherto, it
was necessary to signalize this distinction; for, just as in our
general representation of all transcendental ideas, we considered them
under phenomenal conditions, so, in the two mathematical ideas, our
discussion
is concerned solely with an object in the world of
phenomena. But as we are now about to proceed to the consideration
of the
dynamical conceptions of the understanding, and their
adequateness with ideas, we must not lose sight of this distinction.
We shall find that it opens up to us an entirely new view of the
conflict in which reason is involved. For, while in the first two
antinomies, both parties were
dismissed, on the ground of having
advanced statements based upon false hypothesis; in the present case
the hope appears of discovering a hypothesis which may be consistent
with the demands of reason, and, the judge completing the statement of
the grounds of claim, which both parties had left in an unsatisfactory
state, the question may be settled on its own merits, not by
dismissing the claimants, but by a
comparison of the arguments on both
sides. If we consider merely their
extension, and whether they are
adequate with ideas, the series of conditions may be regarded as all
homogeneous. But the conception of the understanding which lies at the
basis of these ideas, contains either a
synthesis of the homogeneous
(presupposed in every quantity— in its composition as well as in its
work) or of the
heterogeneous, which is the case in the
dynamical synthesis of cause and effect, as well as of the necessary
and the contingent.
Thus it happens that in the mathematical series of phenomena no
other than a sensuous condition is admissible— a condition which is
itself a member of the series; while the dynamical series of
sensuous conditions admits a heterogeneous condition, which is not a
member of the series, but, as purely intelligible, lies out of and
beyond it. And thus reason is satisfied, and an unconditioned placed
at the head of the series of phenomena, without introducing
confusion into or discontinuing it, contrary to the principles of
the understanding.
Now, from the fact that the dynamical ideas admit a condition of
phenomena which does not form a part of the series of phenomena,
arises a result which we should not have expected from an antinomy. In
former cases, the result was that both contradictory dialectical
statements were declared to be false. In the present case, we find the
conditioned in the dynamical series connected with an empirically
unconditioned, but non—sensuous condition; and thus satisfaction is
done to the understanding on the one hand and to the reason on the
other.
* While, moreover, the dialectical arguments for unconditioned
totality in mere phenomena fall to the ground,
both propositions of
reason may be shown to be true in their proper signification. This
could not happen in the case of the cosmological ideas which
demanded a mathematically unconditioned unity; for no condition
could be placed at the head of the series of phenomena, except one
which was itself a phenomenon and consequently a member of the series.
[*]
For the understanding cannot admit among phenomena a condition
which is itself empirically unconditioned. But if it is possible to
cogitate an intelligible condition— one which is not a member of the
series of phenomena— for a conditioned phenomenon, without breaking
the series of empirical conditions, such a condition may be admissible
as empirically unconditioned, and the empirical regress continue
regular, unceasing, and intact.
