SECTION III. — Of the Pure Conceptions of the Understanding,
or Categories.
SS 6.
General logic, as has been repeatedly said, makes abstraction of all
content of cognition, and expects to receive representations from some
other quarter, in order, by means of analysis, to convert them into
conceptions. On the contrary, transcendental logic has lying before it
the manifold content of a priori sensibility, which transcendental
æsthetic presents to it in order to give matter to the pure
conceptions of the understanding, without which transcendental logic
would have no content, and be therefore utterly void. Now space and
time contain an infinite diversity of determinations* of pure a
priori intuition, but are nevertheless the condition of the mind's
receptivity, under which alone it can obtain representations of
objects, and which, consequently, must always affect the conception of
these objects. But the spontaneity of thought requires that this
diversity be examined after a certain manner, received into the
mind, and connected, in order afterwards to form a cognition out of
it. This Process I call synthesis.
[*]
Kant employs the words Mannigfaltiges, Mannigfaltigkeit, indifferently, for the infinitude
of the possible determination of matter, of an intuition (such as that of space), &c. — Tr.
By the word synthesis, in its most general signification, I
understand the process of joining different representations to each
other and of comprehending their diversity in one cognition. This
synthesis is pure when the diversity is not given empirically but a
priori (as that in space and time). Our representations must be
given previously to any analysis of them; and no conceptions can
arise, quoad their content, analytically. But the synthesis of a
diversity (be it given a priori or empirically) is the first requisite
for the production of a cognition, which in its beginning, indeed, may
be crude and confused, and therefore in need of analysis— still,
synthesis is that by which alone the elements of our cognitions are
collected and united into a certain content, consequently it is the
first thing on which we must fix our attention, if we wish to
investigate the origin of our knowledge.
Synthesis, generally speaking, is, as we shall afterwards see, the
mere operation of the imagination— a blind but indispensable
function of the soul, without which we should have no cognition
whatever, but of the working of which we are seldom even conscious.
But to reduce this synthesis to conceptions is a function of the
understanding, by means of which we attain to cognition, in the proper
meaning of the term.
Pure synthesis, represented generally, gives us the pure
conception of the understanding. But by this pure synthesis, I mean
that which rests upon a basis of a priori synthetical unity. Thus, our
numeration (and this is more observable in large numbers) is a
synthesis according to conceptions, because it takes place according
to a common basis of unity (for example, the decade). By means of this
conception, therefore, the unity in the synthesis of the manifold
becomes necessary.
By means of analysis different representations are brought under one
conception— an operation of which general logic treats. On the other
hand, the duty of transcendental logic is to reduce to conceptions,
not representations, but the pure synthesis of representations. The
first thing which must be given to us for the sake of the a priori
cognition of all objects, is the diversity of the pure intuition;
the synthesis of this diversity by means of the imagination is the
second; but this gives, as yet, no cognition. The conceptions which
give unity to this pure synthesis, and which consist solely in the
representation of this necessary synthetical unity, furnish the
third requisite for the cognition of an object, and these
conceptions are given by the understanding.
The same function which gives unity to the different
representation in a judgement, gives also unity to the mere
synthesis of different representations in an intuition; and this unity
we call the pure conception of the understanding. Thus, the same
understanding, and by the same operations, whereby in conceptions,
by means of analytical unity, it produced the logical form of a
judgement, introduces, by means of the synthetical unity of the
manifold in intuition, a transcendental content into its
representations, on which account they are called pure conceptions
of the understanding, and they apply a priori to objects, a result not
within the power of general logic.*
[*]
Only because this is beyond the sphere of logic proper. Kant's remark is unnecessary. — Tr.
In this manner, there arise exactly so many pure conceptions of
the understanding, applying a priori to objects of intuition in
general, as there are logical functions in all possible judgements.
For there is no other function or faculty existing in the
understanding besides those enumerated in that table. These
conceptions we shall, with Aristotle, call categories, our purpose
being originally identical with his, notwithstanding the great
difference in the execution.
This, then, is a catalogue of all the originally pure conceptions of
the synthesis which the understanding contains a priori, and these
conceptions alone entitle it to be called a pure understanding;
inasmuch as only by them it can render the manifold of intuition
conceivable, in other words, think an object of intuition. This
work is made systematically from a common principle, namely the
faculty of judgement (which is just the same as the power of thought),
and has not arisen rhapsodically from a search at haphazard after pure
conceptions, respecting the full number of which we never could be
certain, inasmuch as we employ induction alone in our search,
without considering that in this way we can never understand
wherefore
precisely these conceptions, and none others, abide in the pure
understanding. It was a design worthy of an acute thinker like
Aristotle, to search for these fundamental conceptions.
* Destitute,
however, of any guiding principle, he picked them up just as they
occurred to him, and at first hunted out ten, which he called
categories (
predicaments). Afterwards be believed that he had
discovered five others, which were added under the name of
post
predicaments. But his catalogue still remained defective. Besides,
there are to be found among them some of the modes of pure sensibility
(
quando, ubi, situs, also prius, simul), and likewise an empirical
conception (
motus)— which can by no means belong to this
genealogical register of the pure understanding. Moreover, there are
deduced conceptions (
actio, passio) enumerated among the original
conceptions, and, of the latter, some are entirely wanting.
[*]
"It is a serious error to imagine that, in his Categories, Aristotle proposed, like Kant,
'an analysis of the elements of human reason.' The ends proposed by the two philosophers were different,
even opposed. In their several Categories, Aristotle attempted a synthesis of things in their multiplicity, —
a classification of objects real, but in relation to thought; Kant, an analysis of mind in its unity, — a
dissection of thought, pure, but in relation to its objects. The predicaments of Aristotle are thus objective,
of things as understood; those of Kant subjective, of the mind as understanding. The former are results a
posteriori — the creations of abstraction and generalisation; the latter, anticipations a priori — the
conditions of those acts themselves. It is true, that as the one scheme exhibits the unity of thought
diverging into plurality, in appliance to its objects, and as the other exhibits the multiplicity of these
objects converging towards unity by the collective determination of thought; while, at the same time, language
usually confounds the subjective and objective under a common term; — it is certainly true, that some
elements in the one table coincide in name with some elements in the other. This coincidence is, however,
only equivocal. In reality, the whole Kantian categories must be excluded from the Aristotelic list, as
entia rationis, as notiones secundæ — in short, as determinations of thought, and not genera of real things;
while the several elements would be specially excluded, as partial, privative, transcendent," &c. —
Hamilton's (Sir W.) Essays and Discussions
With regard to these, it is to be remarked, that the categories,
as the true primitive conceptions of the pure understanding, have also
their pure deduced conceptions, which, in a complete system of
transcendental philosophy, must by no means be
passed over; though
in a merely critical essay we must be contented with the simple
mention of the fact.
Let it be allowed me to call these pure, but deduced conceptions
of the understanding, the predicables* of the pure understanding, in
contradistinction to predicaments. If we are in possession of the
original and primitive, the deduced and subsidiary conceptions can
easily be added, and the genealogical tree of the understanding
completely delineated. As my present aim is not to set forth a
complete system, but merely the principles of one, I reserve this task
for another time. It may be easily executed by any one who will
refer to the ontological manuals, and subordinate to the category of
causality, for example, the predicables of force, action, passion;
to that of community, those of presence and resistance; to the
categories of modality, those of origination, extinction, change;
and so with the rest. The categories combined with the modes of pure
sensibility, or with one another, afford a great number of deduced a
priori conceptions; a complete enumeration of which would be a
useful and not unpleasant, but in this place a perfectly
dispensable, occupation.
[*]
The predicables of Kant are quite different from those of Aristotle and ancient and
modern logicians. The five predicables are of a logical, and not, like those of Kant, of a metaphysico—ontological
import. They were enounced as a complete enumeration of all the possible modes of predication. Kant's predicables,
on the contrary, do not possess this merely formal and logical character, but have a real or metaphysical
content. — Tr.
I purposely omit the definitions of the categories in this treatise.
I shall analyse these conceptions only so far as is necessary for
the doctrine of method, which is to form a part of this critique. In a
system of pure reason, definitions of them would be with justice
demanded of me, but to give them here would only bide from our view
the main aim of our investigation, at the same time raising doubts and
objections, the consideration of which, without injustice to our
main purpose, may be very well postponed till another opportunity.
Meanwhile, it ought to be sufficiently clear, from the little we
have already said on this subject, that the formation of a complete
vocabulary of pure conceptions, accompanied by all the requisite
explanations, is not only a possible, but an easy undertaking. The
compartments already exist; it is only necessary to fill them up;
and a systematic topic like the
present, indicates with perfect
precision the proper place to which each conception belongs, while
it readily points out any that have not yet been filled up.
SS 7.
Our table of the categories suggests considerations of some
importance, which may perhaps have significant results in regard to
the scientific form of all rational cognitions. For, that this table
is useful in the theoretical part of philosophy, nay, indispensable
for the sk&ching of the complete plan of a science, so far as that
science rests upon conceptions a priori, and for dividing it
mathematically, according to fixed principles, is most manifest from
the fact that it contains all the elementary conceptions of the
understanding, nay, even the form of a system of these in the
understanding itself, and consequently indicates all the momenta,
and also the internal arrangement of a projected speculative
science, as I have elsewhere shown.* Here follow some of these
observations.
[*]
In the "Metaphysical Principles of Natural Science."
I. This table, which contains four classes of conceptions of the
understanding, may, in the first instance, be divided into two
classes, the first of which relates to objects of intuition— pure as
well as empirical; the second, to the existence of these objects,
either in relation to one another, or to the understanding.
The former of these classes of categories I would entitle the
mathematical, and the latter the dynamical categories. The former,
as we see, has no correlates; these are only to be found in the second
class. This difference must have a ground in the nature of the human
understanding.
II. The number of the categories in each class is always the same,
namely, three— a fact which also demands some consideration, because
in all other cases work a priori through conceptions is
necessarily dichotomy. It is to be added, that the third category in
each triad always arises from the combination of the second with the
first.
Thus totality is nothing else but plurality contemplated as unity;
limitation is merely reality conjoined with negation; community is the
causality of a substance, reciprocally determining, and determined
by other substances; and
finally, necessity is nothing but
existence, which is given through the possibility itself.
* Let it not
be supposed, however, that the third category is merely a deduced, and
not a primitive conception of the pure understanding. For the
conjunction of the first and second, in order to produce the third
conception, requires a particular function of the understanding, which
is by no means identical with those which are exercised in the first
and second. Thus, the conception of a number (which belongs to the
category of totality) is not always possible, where the conceptions of
multitude and unity exist (for example, in the representation of the
infinite). Or, if I conjoin the conception of a cause with that of a
substance, it does not follow that the conception of
influence, that
is, how one substance can be the cause of something in another
substance, will be understood from that. Thus it is evident that a
particular act of the understanding is here necessary; and so in the
other instances.
[*]
Kant's meaning is: A necessary existence is an existence whose existence is given in the
very possibility of its existence. — Tr.
III. With respect to one category, namely, that of community,
which is found in the third class, it is not so easy as with the
others to detect its accordance with the form of the disjunctive
judgement which corresponds to it in the table of the logical
functions.
In order to assure ourselves of this accordance, we must observe
that in every disjunctive judgement, the sphere of the judgement (that
is, the complex of all that is contained in it) is represented as a
whole divided into parts; and, since one part cannot be contained in
the other, they are cogitated as co—ordinated with, not subordinated
to each other, so that they do not determine each other
unilaterally, as in a linear series, but reciprocally, as in an
aggregate— (if one member of the work is posited, all the rest are
excluded; and conversely).
Now a like connection is cogitated in a whole of things; for one
thing is not subordinated, as effect, to another as cause of its
existence, but, on the contrary, is co—ordinated contemporaneously and
reciprocally, as a cause in relation to the determination of the
others (for example, in a body— the parts of which mutually attract
and repel each other). And
this is an entirely different kind of
connection from that which we find in the mere relation of the cause
to the effect (the principle to the consequence), for in such a
connection the consequence does not in its turn determine the
principle, and therefore does not constitute, with the latter, a
whole— just as the Creator does not with the world make up a whole.
The process of understanding by which it represents to itself the
sphere of a divided conception, is employed also when we think of a
thing as divisible; and in the same manner as the members of the
work in the former exclude one another, and yet are connected in
one sphere, so the understanding represents to itself the parts of the
latter, as having— each of them— an existence (as substances),
independently of the others, and yet as united in one whole.
SS 8.
In the transcendental philosophy of the ancients there exists one
more leading work, which contains pure conceptions of the
understanding, and which, although not numbered among the
categories, ought, according to them, as conceptions a priori, to be
valid of objects. But in this case they would augment the number of
the categories; which cannot be. These are set forth in the
proposition, so renowned among the schoolmen— "Quodlibet ens est UNUM,
VERUM, BONUM." Now, though the inferences from this principle were
mere tautological propositions, and though it is allowed only by
courtesy to retain a place in modern metaphysics, yet a thought
which maintained itself for such a length of time, however empty it
seems to be, deserves an investigation of its origin, and justifies
the conjecture that it must be grounded in some law of the
understanding, which, as is often the case, has only been
erroneously interpreted. These pretended transcendental predicates
are, in fact, nothing but logical requisites and criteria of all
cognition of objects, and they employ, as the basis for this
cognition, the categories of quantity, namely, unity, plurality, and
totality. But these, which must be taken as material conditions,
that is, as belonging to the possibility of things themselves, they
employed merely in a formal signification, as belonging to the logical
requisites of all cognition, and yet most unguardedly changed these
criteria of thought into properties of objects, as things in
themselves. Now, in every cognition of an object, there is
unity of
conception, which may be called
qualitative unity, so far as by this
term we understand only the unity in our connection of the manifold;
for example, unity of the theme in a play, an oration, or a story.
Secondly, there is
truth in respect of the deductions from it. The
more true deductions we have from a given conception, the more
criteria of its objective reality. This we might call the
qualitative plurality of characteristic marks, which belong to a
conception as to a common foundation, but are not cogitated as a
quantity in it. Thirdly, there is
perfection— which consists in
this, that the plurality falls back upon the unity of the
conception, and accords completely with that conception and with no
other. This we may denominate
qualitative completeness. Hence it is
evident that these logical criteria of the possibility of cognition
are merely the three categories of quantity modified and transformed
to suit an unauthorized manner of applying them. That is to say, the
three categories, in which the unity in the production of the
quantum must be homogeneous throughout, are transformed solely with
a view to the connection of heterogeneous parts of cognition in one
act of consciousness, by means of the quality of the cognition,
which is the principle of that connection. Thus the criterion of the
possibility of a conception (not of its object) is the definition of
it, in which the unity of the conception, the truth of all that may be
immediately deduced from it, and finally, the completeness of what has
been thus deduced, constitute the requisites for the reproduction of
the whole conception. Thus also, the criterion or test of an
hypothesis is the intelligibility of the received principle of
explanation, or its unity (without help from any subsidiary
hypothesis)— the truth of our deductions from it (consistency with
each other and with experience)— and lastly, the completeness of the
principle of the explanation of these deductions, which refer to
neither more nor less than what was admitted in the hypothesis,
restoring analytically and
a posteriori, what was cogitated
synthetically and
a priori. By the conceptions, therefore, of unity,
truth, and perfection, we have made no addition to the
transcendental table of the categories, which is complete without
them. We have, on the contrary, merely employed the three categories
of quantity, setting aside their application to objects of experience,
as
general logical laws of the consistency of cognition with itself.
*
[*]
Kant's meaning in the foregoing chapter is this: — These three conceptions of unity,
truth, and goodness, applied as predicates to things, are the three categories of quantity under a
different form. These three categories have an immediate relation to things as phænomena; without them
we could form no conceptions of external objects. But in the above—mentioned proposition, they are changed
into logical conditions of thought, and then unwittingly transformed into properties of things in themselves.
These conceptions are properly logical or formal, and not metaphysical or material. The three categories are quantitative;
these conceptions, qualitative. They are logical conditions employed as metaphysical conceptions, — one of the
very commonest errors in the sphere of mental science. — Tr.
