Concluding Remarks on the Antinomy of Pure Reason.
So long as the object of our rational conceptions is the totality of
conditions in the world of phenomena, and the satisfaction, from
this source, of the requirements of reason, so long are our ideas
transcendental and cosmological. But when we set the unconditioned—
which is the aim of all our inquiries— in a sphere which lies out of
the world of sense and possible experience, our ideas become
transcendent. They are then not merely serviceable towards the
completion of the exercise of reason (which remains an idea, never
executed, but always to be pursued); they detach themselves completely
from experience and construct for themselves objects, the material
of which has not been presented by experience, and the objective
reality of which is not based upon the completion of the empirical
series, but upon pure a priori conceptions. The intelligible object of
these transcendent ideas may be conceded, as a transcendental
object. But we cannot cogitate it as a thing determinable by certain
distinct predicates relating to its internal nature, for it has no
connection with empirical conceptions; nor are we justified in
affirming the existence of any such object. It is, consequently, a
mere product of the mind alone. Of all the cosmological ideas,
however, it is that occasioning the fourth antinomy which compels us
to venture upon this step. For the existence of phenomena, always
conditioned and never self—subsistent, requires us to look for an
object different from phenomena— an intelligible object, with which
all contingency must cease. But, as we have allowed ourselves to
assume the existence of a self—subsistent reality out of the field
of experience, and are therefore obliged to regard phenomena as merely
a contingent mode of representing intelligible objects employed by
beings which are themselves intelligences— no other course remains for
us than to follow an alogy and employ the same mode in forming some
conception of intelligible things, of which we have not the least
knowledge, which
nature taught us to use in the formation of empirical
conceptions. Experience made us acquainted with the contingent. But we
are at present engaged in the discussion of things which are not
objects of experience; and must, therefore, deduce our knowledge of
them from that which is necessary absolutely and in itself, that is,
from pure conceptions. Hence the first step which we take out of the
world of sense obliges us to begin our system of new cognition with
the investigation of a necessary being, and to deduce from our
conceptions of it all our conceptions of intelligible things. This
we propose to attempt in the following chapter.
