KANT'S JUSTIFICATION OF THE REGULA.TIVE PRINCIPLES
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KANT'S JUSTIFICATION OF THE REGULA.TIVE PRINCIPLES
KANT'S JUSTIFICATION OF THE REGULATIVE PRINCIPLES:
WITH SPECIAL REFERENCE TO THE
INTERPRETATIONS OF NORMAN KEMP SMITH
AND NATHAN ROTENSTREICH
by
Patricia McGraw
A thesis
submitted to
the Faculty of Graduate Studies and Research McGill University
in partial fulfillment of the requirements for the degree of
Master of Arts
Department of Philosophy March, 1973
® Patricia McGraY! 1973
Kant·s Justification of the Regulat1ve Principles:
With Special Reference to the Interpretations of
Norman Kemp Smith and Nathan Rotenstreich
Patricia McGraw
Department of Philosophy
Mas ter of Arts
ABSTRACT
The topic to be discussed in this paper is Kant1s justification of the
regulative and reflective principles, with particular reference to the inter
pretations of Norman Kemp Smith and Nathan Rotenstreich. There .seem to be two
problems to which the justification gives rise: that of dogmatism (which Kemp
Smith considers) and the deficiency of subjectivism (with which both Kemp Smith
and Rotenstreich, especially, deal although for different reasons). The latter
difficulty leads to Kant1s problem of induction, which problem is considered in
both the Appendix to the Dialectic of the Critique of Pure Reason and the
introductions to the Critique of Judgement. The present work is an attempt
both to demonstrate the inadequacy of these two commentators· treatment of
Kant·s justification and to show that the incompetencies displayed in their
divers.e positions rest upon an identical mistake"
La justification des principes régu1atifs chez Kant
d'après 1 I interprétat:f.on de Norman Kemp Smith et de
Nathan Rotenstreich
Patricia McGraw
Département de la philosophie
Ma1trise en Philosophie
RESUME
Le sujet de ce travail e.st la justification des principes régu1atifs
et réflexifs chez Kant, surtout comme cela se présente dans les interpréta
tions de Norman Kemp Smith et de Nathan Rotenstreich. Cette justification
soulève deux problèmes; l·'un, c lest le dogmatisme (considéré par Kemp Smith),
l'autre, la déficience du subjectivisme (traitée par les deux, Kemp Smith et
surtout par Rotenstreich, bien que pour des raisons différentes). Cette
dernière difficulté mène au problème de l~induction chez Kant qui est traité
dans l'Appendice à la Dialectique a Critique de la Raison Pure, et dans les
introductions à la Critique du Jugement. Ce travail a pour but de démontrer
l'insuffisance de la thèse des deux interprètes, et de prouver qu'une erreur
initiale et identique est responsable, chez les deux auteurs, de l'interpréta
tion erronneuse.
CONTENTS
INTRODUCTION . . . • • • . . . • • • • • • . . • • . • • • • 1.
CHAPTER ONE:
CHAPTER TWO:
First Attempt at Justification: .•
The Critigue of Pure Reason
First Problem:
1. Kemp Smith and the Patchwork Theory.
2. Alternate Solution ••••
3. Criticism of Kemp Smith ••
CHAPTER THREE: Second Attempt at Justification: •
The Critigue of Judgement.
CHAPTER FOUR:
CONCLUSION:
Second Problem:
1. Rotenstreich and "Chance".
2. Alternate Solution •••.•
3. Criticism of Rotenstreich and Problem of Induction • •
The Identical Err or • • • • • . . • •
7
21
24
29
39
52
54
57
69
BIBLIOGRAPHY • . • . • . • . . • • • • • • . • • . • . • •• 78
INTRODUCTION
Metaphysics as Kant saw it had been until his time merely a random
groping,l since it had not yet entered upon the secure path of a science.
(Cf. Bvii; Bix; Bxiv.) Kant proposed a critique of pure reason that would
explain metaphysics' former lack of success and that would also resolve the
problem of how metaphysics is admissible as a science. (Cf. Axi-xii; Bxxii; 2
Bxxxvi; B22.)
In his eyes this critical inquiry does establish the legitimacy of
immanent metaphysics and the impossibility of all transcendent speculation:
for Kant a genuine and valid metaphysics is for the first time rendered
feasible by his Critique of Pure Reason. The positive content of this
metaphysics is expounded in the "Transcendental Aesthetic" and the
"Transcendental Analytic"; metaphysics in its first part, which is occupied
with the constitution of objects by a priori forms of intuition and concepts
of understanding, has now entered upon the sure path of science.
However, another factor involved in the inquiry seems to be prejudicial
to metaphysics in its second part in so far as Kant contends that we can
never transcend the limits of possible experience. (Cf. Bxviii-xix.) He
denies the possibility of metaphysics as it was traditionally under~tood.
Accordingly, theoretical knowledge of the subjects of speculative metaphysics
is unobtainable. Kant himself indicates that the fruitfulness of his critical
inquiry would be shown by the extent to which it could reconcile the
2
metaphysical positions of his predecessors. (Cf. Bxxx-xxxi; Bxxxiii-xxxiv;
B22-2S.)
Kant is presented with the problem of reconciling Humean sensism and
Leibnizian rationalism, since he is reluctant to reduce sensibility to 3
understanding as weil as the converse. To avoid scepticism he looks to
the structure of possible experience; to avoid dogmatic rationalism he limits
the metaphysical competence of this structure. To save himself from what he
regards as these two opposed errors, he attempts a precarious balance between
rationalism and empiricism4 in his synthesis of their valuable insights.
In this reconciliation of the two main trends of his time, Kantls
Critical Idealism is sometimes seen as wavering between dogmatism, on the
one hand, and scepticism, on the other; and one reason given for this seeming
vacillation 5s Kant's justification of the regulative principles. Certain
sections of Kant's critical works, particularly the Critique of Pure Reason1s
"Appendix to the Transcendental Dialectic," seem to alternate between, respec
tively, a subjectively empirical and a dogmatically objective Interpretation
of the justification and role of the regulative principles.
The view that these principles are necessary for the guidance of knowledge
without any determination of the understanding has been seen by Norman Kemp
Smith, in his commentary,S as alternating with the claim that the regulative
principles inform experience in so far as they are necessary conditions of the
understanding's use. Kemp Smith, however, does admit that the former, the
subjectivist position, seems to be Kant's prevailing view in the first Critique.
Nathan Rotenstreich, in his commentary on both the Critique of Pure Reason and
the Critique of JUdgement,6 interprets Kant as not merely a subjectivist but
also as a sceptic, since Rotenstreich thinks that there is no assurance that
the regulating principles can even guide knowledge.
Kemp Smith and Rotenstreich deal with Kant's notions of regulating
concepts in, respectively, the Appendix to the Dialectic and in the Appendix
3
and the Critique of Judgement (in which latter work these concepts are called
"reflective principles"). In more recent English-language Kantian scholarship,
only Kemp Smith comments in detail on the Dialectic as well as on both the 7
Aesthetic and Analytic of the first Critique. H.J. Paton, for instance, in his
excellent two volume commentary, considers only the Aesthetic and the Analytic.
Little attention has been paid to the Appendix to the Dialectic especially, 8 even by those commentators, such as T.D. Weldon, who analyze the Dialectic.
9 10 However, more recently, Gerd Buchdahl and J.D. McFarland deal with both the
reflective principles of judgement and the regulative principles of reason.
Heinrich Cassirer is a special case, since he has had published separately
h fi C · i 11 11 f h hi d a commentary on t e rst r1t que as we as an account 0 t e t r 12
Critigue. However the latter is more an exposition of Kant than it is a
critical analysis, whereas Cassirer's criticism of Kant's Critique of Pure
Reason, although it does attend to the Appendix to the Dialectic, is much less
detailed than that of Kemp Smith.
Since Kemp Smith is the pre-eminent English Kantian scholar for the first
Critigue as a whole, he has been chosen for this paper as the major commentator
for the Appendix to the Dialectic. Rotenstreich, who analyzes both the first
and the third Critiques (although his criticism of the former is much briefer
than that of Kemp Smith), has been selected as the major commentator for the
Critique of Judgement for the purposes of the present paper. His account of
Kant as becoming progressively more sceptical gives a side of Kant not considered
in the other interpretations and, further, sets Rotenstreich in opposition to
Kemp Smith's objectivist analysis as well as in juxtaposition with the latter
critic's subjectivist critique of the role of the regulating principles.
The topic to be discussed in this paper, then, is Kant's justification of
the regulative and reflective concepts, with pa.rticular reference to the
4
interpretations of Norman Kemp Smith and Nathan Rotenstreich. There seem to
be two problems to which the justification gives rise: that of dogmatism
(which Kemp Smith considers) and the deficiency of subjectivism (with which
both Kemp Smith and Rotenstreich, especially, deal although for different
reasons). The latter difficulty leads to Kant's problems of induction, which
problem is considered in both the Appendix to the Dialectic of the Critique
of Pure Reasou and the introductions to the Critique of Judgement. The present
paper is an attempt both to demonstrate the inadequacies of these two commen
tators,' treatment of Kant1s justification and to show that the incompetencies
displayed in their diverse positions rest upon an identical mistake.
The following procedure will be used in this paper: chapters one and
three concern Kant's attempts at justification of the regulating concepts in,
respectively, the Critique of Pure Reason (especially the Appendix to the
Dialectic) and the Critique of Judgement (the first introduction, in particular).
In chapters two and four, respectively, Kemp Smith's and Rotenstreich's criti
cisms of Kant's attempts are viewed and then analyzed.
Each of these two latter-mentioned chapters contains three sections.
Kemp Smith's evaluation of Kant is considered in the first part of chapter two;
that 9.f Rotenstreich is noted in the same section of chapter four. In the
second segment of these two chapters, an alternative approach is offered by refer
ence to a more intensive examination of Kant's Critical theory. The third
section of chapter two is a discussion of the flaws in Kemp Smith's account,
while that particular portion of chapter four is an analysis of the deficiencies
in Rotenstreich's critique. In this last section the present writer also shows
that~ granted the inaccuracies in Rotenstreich's criticism, the problem of
induction as Kant sees it must still be recognized. The conclusion is a summary
of the major points in this paper and, further, a consideration of the identical i
error made by both commentators.
5
FOOTNOTES TO INTRODUC TI ON
1 See Immanuel Kant, Critique of Pure Reason, transe Norman Kemp Smith, Second Impression (Toronto: The Macmillan Company of Canada Limited, 1963) Bvii and Bxv. From henceforth to be abbreviated as C.P.R. and all references will follow Kemp Smith's fashion and edition. However the references alone will be given in the texte
2 See a1so Immanuel Kant, Prolegomena to Any Future Metaphysics, ed. Lewis
White Beck (New York: The Bobbs-Merrill Company, 1950) pp.114-120 (365-372 and pp.120-l33 (372-383). From henceforth to be abbreviated as Pro1. and all references will follow Beck's fashion and edition. --
3 See C. P .R., "The Amphiboly of Concepts of Reflection." According to Kant intellectua1 knowledge is not given in the empirical data. The object of knowledge is a compound of what is received from without and what is provided by the knower. Sense-impressions initiate the process of knowledge although the y in no way terminate it. Cf. Al-2=Bl-2. Concept formation is crucial as a direct response to the empiricists' inability to fully distinguish idea from image, thought from representation. Although Kant insists on the importance of experience, he stresses that in knowing man is not purely passive or receptive, since the intellect does a priori have an active role.
4 See Henry Margenau's essay in Studies in the Philosophy of Kant, ed. Lewis
White Beck (Indianapolis: Bobbs-Merrill, 1965) p.164.
5 A Commentary to Kant's ''Critigue of Pure Reason" (New york: Humanities Press, 1962).
6 Experience and Its Systematization (The Hague: Martinus Nijhoff, 1965). For the sake of consistency, "judgement" will be spelled with the "e" throughout this present work even in direct quotations that do not contain the "e" in the original.
7 Kant's Metaphysic of Experience (New York: The Macmillan Company, 1961).
8 Kant's "Critique of Pure Reason" (Oxford: Clarendon Press, 1958).
9 Metaphysics and the Philosophy of Science (oxford: Basil Blackwell, 1969).
6
10 Kant's Concept of Te1eo1ogy (University of Edinburgh Press, 1970)0
11 Kantls First Critique (London: The Muirhead Library of Phi1oBophy, 1954)0
1938). 12 (A) J ''C i i f d fi _ _ Commentary on Kant s r t gue 0 Ju gement (London: Methuen and Co.,
ONE
First Attempt at Justification
The Critique of Pure Reason
In order to demonstrate what Norman Kemp Smith supposes to be a defect
in Kant's first attem?t at justification of regulative principles Cwhich
justification is contained in the first Critique' s Appendix to the, Dialectic),
it will first be necessary to elucidate in this chapter the background in
Critical thought for the justification itself. Thus it'must be indicated how
reason's principles fit into Kant's Critical philosophy, that is, the ways in
which such concepts differ from both the categories of ,the understanding and
the forms of intuition.
Norman Kemp Smith explains Kant' s so-c~.lled subjectivist standpoint as
the contention that reason's regulating principles cannot be transcendentally
deduced in the way the forms and the categories can be, for they are not
neces.sary constituents of experience as the forms and the categories are.
The regulative princip les are not necessary for knowledge of and constitution
of the abject; the forms and Lle categories, however, are necessary for this
basic experience.
To demonstrate that there are a priori forms of intuition, Kant makes
clear in the Aesthetic that appearances, if they are ta appear ta us, must
8
conform to certain forms of intuition. Appearances cannot even be given to
us unless they have been made subject to the a priori forms of space and
time, which are the formal and subjective conditions of all experience. Since
Kant accepts the validity and truth of mathematics and physics in so far as
he holds that they furnish knowledge which is a priori as well as synthetic,
he also maintains that space and time as the necessary forms of their objects
must be a priori. These two elements are necessary and a priori forms appli-1
cable only to appearances. (Cf. Prol., pp.29-30 281-283 .)
Our faculty of intuition receives objects as they are given to it.
However Kantian theory adds that basic knowledge of objects requires that we
possess another faculty which will combine our spatio-temporal representations.2
This combining faculty, our understanding, cannot produce these representa
tions; it can merely synthesize the ones given to us by intuition under one
common concept. (Cf.B129-l30.)
The pure forms of intuition are necessary and a priori conditions of
experience in so far as objects could not be given to uS as part of actual
experience unless they were fashioned by these elements. But Kant finds a
difficulty in establishing the objective validity of the understanding's
concepts not met with in the justification of the forms of intuition. The
Analytic indicates that it is not so obvious that the objects of sensible
intuition must also conform to the conditions which the understanding requires
for the synthetic unit y of thought. (Cf. A89-9l=Bl22-l23.)
However concepts of understanding are objectively valid a priori, be
cause the y are necessary to transform incoherent representations into the
concept of a real objecte Thus the fundamental justification is the same
for both forms and categories; it is "the possibil1ty of experience"
(A1S6=B19S) in both cases, despite the forms' relation to the given element,
on the one hand, and the categories' relation to the synthesis of the given,
on the other. (Cf. AlS; A62=B87.)
9
The transcendental deduction is the first step towards the solution
of how knowledge is obtainable if its different elements are heterogeneous,
because it proves for Kant that concepts can point to and be applicable to
intuition. Another step is necessary, however, in order to show the possi-
bility of intuitions to be subordinated to the concepts which are applied to
them. Kant's theory of schematism is the recognition that the sense-manifold
must be further synthesized so that it can acquire an affinity for some par-
3 ticular category. At the same time the category must be schematized to be
applied in a determinate way. 4
Productive imagination effects a more intimate mutual adaptation of
the sense-manifold (particularity, contingency, diversity) and the categories
(üniversality, necessity, unit y). As the capacity for constructing the object
in its medium, i.e. time, the imagination works with this form to provide
certain schematic patterns that are at once concrete and universal. The
schemata of imagination enable the categories to become clothed under the
concrete conditions of time and thus become adapted to the order of sensible
intuitions. (Cf. A137 a 147=B178-l87.) Simultaneously these schemata group the
sense-presentations together under certain concrete models which facilitate
the application of the categories to definite sense-contents.
This the ory of schematism points to the relationship between understand-
ing and sensibility. The ideas of reason, however, cannot be deduced or
schematized in the way the categories can be since strictly speaking a tran-
scendental deduction is a proof that a certain mode of representation can
10
yield synthetic a priori judgements and can relate a priori to ~bjects.
(Cf. A84-85=Bll6-ll7.) However, although no strict deduction of the
regulative ideas is possible, Kant's view is that they are genuine in so
far as they do really contrinute to the unification of our conceptual
knowledge of phenomena. To this extent, then, a subjective deduction of them
must be possible.
The ideas of the soul, the world, and God and the three principles of
homogeneity, specification, and continuity are purely regulative but are
justified to the extent that they are indispensable for the perfection of
experience. In the"Transcendental Analytic"Kant seems to assume that the
categorial principles (and the intuitional forms) specify the fundamental
conditions necessary for experience. However, on further consideration he
sees that our knowledge is as much bound up with certain assumptions about
the specific properties of objects as it is with the rules which determine
the basic constitution of experience but ignore its detail.
The understanding's concepts do not determine the particulars qua
particulars which have to be subsurned under thern. Rather these categorial
principles impose universal characteristics upon a given manifold of par tic
ulars but our understanding cannot also guarantee the unit y of nature accord
ing to particular laws. These ernpirical laws are not given a priori as are
the universal categorial principles but rather need to be discovered.
The rules of understanding apply to appearances prescribing the
11
conditions under which the unit y necessary to experience can be attained.
However the principles of reason do not apply directly to appearances but
only to the understanding, defining the standards to which the activities
of the understanding must conform in order to achieve a completely unified
experience. Kant sees the unit y of reason as ideal, while he considers
that of the understanding to be empirical since reason's principles are not
conditions of basic experience but are only justified in ~hat they scientif
ically systematize the knowledge of the understanding. (Cf. A302=B359; A306=
B363. )
Scientific knowledge is based on the assumption that guided by reason's
principles, we will find a systematic relationship among themany special
necessary laws of our experience. The principles necessary for all experi
ence, a priori universal laws of nature, are indeed grounded in our under
standing. Nevertheless we must also assume that nature will present us with
a system of empirical laws. This systematic unit y at which reason aims
transcends experience whereas that unit y which is effected by the understand-5 ing is an immanent one brought about in our basic experience.
No intuitional schema for the systematic unit y of the ideas can be
given. Rather the notion of a maximum expressed by the ideas might be
called the "analogon of a schema":
But although we are unable to find in intuition a schema for the complete systematic unit y of all concepts of the understanding, an analogon of such a schema must necessarily allow of being given. This analogon is the idea of the maximum in the division and unification of the knowledge of the understanding under one principle. (A665=B693)
But the acts of the understanding are, without the schemata of sensibility, undetermined; just as the unit! of reason is in itself 11ndetêrmined, as regards the conditions under which, and the extent to which, the understanding ought to combine its concepts in systematie fashion. (A664-665=B692-693)
Thus the idea of reason is an analogon of a schema of sensibility •••• (A665=B693)
12
~Jhe application of the concepts of the understanding to the schema of reason does not yield knowledge of the object itself ••• but only a rule or principle for the systematic unit y of aIl employment of the understanding. (A665=B693)
Rence the ideas relate to the objects of experience only in an
indirect manner since they determine nothing in these objects but only
show the way in which the procedure of the understanding, whose concepts
do constitute experience, can be made completely coherent. (Cf. A665-666=
B693-694; A651=B679; A305-307=B362-363.) The ideas differ from the dynam
ical as weIl as the mathematical principles in that no sensible schema can
be assigned to them. Their object transcends aIl possible experience so
in this sense they are incapable of being given a transcendental deduction.
(Cf. A663-666=B691-694.) They are not conditions necessary to the possibil~
ity of each and every experience but are only conditions necessary to experi~
ence as systematized in the interest of reason. (Cf. ~, pp.96-98
[ -6 ~349-350J; C.P.R., A647-649=B675-677.)
Rowever to show that they are not illusions or mere empty thoughts,
Kant deduces the ideas from this second sort of necessity. So their deduc
tion differs to this extent from that of the categories. Ideas are considered
valuable as heuristic principles and so have some objective validity although
it is an indeterminate one. They are derived not from the constitution of an
abject, but from the interest of reason in a certain possible perfection of 7 the knowledge of the objecte Rence they are to be treated as maxims only.
Only if reason, which seeks completeness of explanation, always acts in accord
with their regulative use can experience acquire its fullest possibl€ exten
sion. This is the transcendental deduction of the ideas which establishes
their necessity for the perfection of experience and their legitimacy as
regulative principles. (This deduction is given in the first Critigue at
(669-702=B697-730.)
The proper use of these ideas, then, 1s only to encourage the continuation
of scientific inquiry. The regulat1ve ideas give direction to knowledge and
enable us to treat the genuine objects of our inquiries as if they had certain
13
features to l~ich the ideas point, a1though we have no real knowledge of
such features.
In thiriking of the soul, the world, and God, Kant demonstrates that
men are thiriking of things which their knowledge can never reach. How
ever they continue to enter tain these beliefs and he argues that the ideas
may be useful in enlarging man's knowledge of nature but not for passing
beyond nature. (Cf. A67l=B699.)
In psychological research the ideal striven for but nsver reached is
the idea of a substantial soul that remains unchanged while the various
states of consciousness are constantly changing. As regulative this psychol
ogical idea requires us always to seek after greater unit y and never to
aSSume that this unit y has been reached. (Cf. A672=B7DO.)
Cosmological ideas also urge us to proceed from one condition to another
without ever recognizing any one of the series of conditions as an absolute
condition. The idea of the world as if it were an indefinite series of events
is a stimulus to further scientific unification of natural phenomena under
causal lal~. (Cf. A521-522=B549-550; AS6l=BS89; A672=B700; A684-685=
B712-713.) Science ought to proceed as if it were directed toward finding an
unconditioned or first condition. However experience can never disclose an
unconditioned and necessarily completed sequence of events (Cf. A5l0=B538.)
If we think of nature as if it were a systematic teleological unit y, we
are prompted to the scientific unification of investigation under causal laws.
Kant urges that it is useful for men to think of nature as if it had a single
cause and to regard this cause as a being of intelligence and will. The advan
tage of this regulative principle is that men will look for interdependence
among the la\~ of nature if these laws are considered to be the Legislation of
a single being. (Cf. A6l9=B647; A623=B6Sl; A678=B706; A692=B720; A700=B728;
A826=B854.)
14
By treating phenomena as connected in a purposive who1e, we look for
connections among them which ref1ect this purposiveness. (Cf. A685-686=
B713-7l4.)
This third idea shou1d be used on1y as a supplement to, not as a
substitute for, mechanica1 causa1ity. Natura1 science may enter tain the idea
of an intelligent originator of the universe but never try to deduce from
that idea the purposiveness in nature which it is stimu1ated to discover.
Whether or not science discovers such purposiveness the notion remains as
an ideal t~ich is both va1id and necessary in its regu1ative use. (Cf. A686-
688=B7l4-7l6.) In the exp1anation of nature we proceed as if everything in
nature had a definite funétion. Used regulative1y this idea does not give
rise to the assumption of something existing outside experience. Rather it
is used to better organize and understand what lies within experience.
(Cf. A670-67l=B698-699; A672-673=B700-701.)
'These three regulative princip1es can thus be considered semi-objective
in that they are necessary for the systematization of experience but. are not
determinative of experience. For examp1e, the supposition of a Supreme Being
is relative to the needs of reason in its empirical use; it is not abso1ute
since it does not indicate the existence of such a being in itself. (Cf. A679=
B707. For the distinction between suppositio relativa and suppositio
absoluta, see A676-677=B704-705.)
Rence reason continues to entertain its three ideas, even though they can
1ead to fal1acious results, because they are usefu1 as regu1ative principles.
The ideas cannot increase the objective content of experience since the y are
not at all constitutive of objects. (Cf. A643-644=B671-672; A665=B693.) Row
ever as regulative princip1es they stimu1ate the understanding to proceed as
if it would achieve abso1ute unity. This assumption enab1es us to increase
the comprehensiveness and consistency of the know1edge already in our possession.
(Cf. A644-648=B672-676.)
"
15
8 Its regulative use, however, does not always satisfy reason. The
absence of the sensible limitations provokes the sophistical 'uses which the
Dialectic exposes. Reason's urge for a system produces the idea of totality
but if the system becomes materialized in objects, this creates dialectic.
The fallacies which the Dialectic considers are also due to the mistaken
assumption that the system's convergence is complete. Reason aims at complete
systematization through the interrelation of parts in conformity with a single
principle. It presupposes the ideal form of a completed whole of knowledge
which precedes a constitutive knowledge of the parts. Reason demands that
knowledge gained by the understanding should be perfectly unified so as to
constitute a system and not a mere aggregate of propositions. 9 However this
systematic unit y must never be considered as given prior to detailed knowl
edge of the parts. It is simply a project to be carried out or a problem ta
be solved. (Cf. A647=B675; Prol., p.102[353-354].)lO
The transcendental illusion which confers reality on the ideas is inevita
ble without a criticai viewpoint; however this illusion need not be ailowed to
deceive us. (Cf. A644-645=B667~673.)11 Since the ideas are merely ideas they
do not yield the slightest concept of the necessity of any object corresponding
to them. The ideas only extend the empiricai unit y of experience; the y do not
carry our knowledge beyond the objects of possible experience. Through them
we gain maxims by which we advance our knowledge but we do not arrive at an
object of the idea. The ideas are schemata of regulative principles, not
constitutive principles for the determination of an object.12
The transcendent use of the ideas is rejected by Kant 'as an illusion
while their immanent use is seen as indispensable to the systematic char acter
of knowledge. When we consider that the ideas arise in us from the very nature
of our capacity to reason, it would seem that they must have a legitimate
employment. (Cf. A642-643=B670-67l.)
Reason's function 18 to order the categories and connect them by its
16
inferential process with one another. Understanding connects the manifold ,
of appearance through concepts and brings it under empirical 1aws while reason
systematizes the unit y of aIl possible empirical acts of the understanding.
(Cf. A664=B692.)
The paralogisms, antinomies, and ideal of pure reason show how each of
the key problematic concepts generates confusion by going beyond its limits.l3
Kant restricts these notions to a regulative role in which their immanent or
systematic function is quite removed from describing the world. The ideas
thus consider the conditions of intelligibility rather th an give the features
of sensible abjects. They are heuristic, not determinative; that is, they
define a program for inquiry rather than a way of representing an abject.
(Cf. A30S-306=B362-363; A499-S12=B527-40; A569-570=B597-598.)
17
FOOTNOTES TO CHAPTER ONE
1 Objects of knowledge cannot be things in themselves, completely independent of the mind that knows them, for to have any a priori knowledge of such things would be impossible. Although we must presuppose the existence of a world of things in themselves, such a world is independent of the subjective spatio-temporal conditions. Further, even if intuition could represent things as they are per se, it would be empirical, not a priori, intuition. See C.P.R., A20=B34.
2 Such a combination would have to be considered due to sorne activity of
the human mind different from intuition, for Kant maintains that can neither der ive this comb1nation from the appearance nor become aware of it by intuition. Cf. C.P.R., A67-68=B92-93
3. This synthesis is not produced haphazardly, since for each category the synthesis follows special laws which Kant calls "Synthetic Principles of Pure Understanding" (Al58 in the first Critique). These are the Axioms of Intuition, Anticipations of Perception, Analogies of Experience, and Postulates of Empirical Thought in General. Cf. A16l.
4 Nathan Rotenstreich (Experience and Its Systematization) pp.26-27; 33-34 is
very interested in whether the transcendental. deduction and the schematism do in fact bridge the gap between thought and intuition.
5 The immanent use of the understanding's concepts is objective but not dogma-
tic as is the objective transcendent use of reason's concepts or ideas. Cf.A327= B383; A308=B365; A330-33l=B386-387 in C.P.Ro Kant sometimes seems to identify the terms "transcendent" and Iltranscendental." Rowever there is a transcendent as well as an illegitimate transcendental use of the ideas and this difference is considered at A295-296=B352-353. Thare is also a legitimate transcendental use of the ideas which is that of their regulative or immanent employment.
6 Kemp Smith (Commentary) pp.551-552 considers this section of C.P.R. to be
--j
18
subjectiviste
7 Kant distinguishes between representing an object absolutely and representing an object in the idea at C.P.R., A670-67l=B698-699. The three transcendental ideas are not constitutive of an object absolutely but rather are regulat1ve as presupposing such an object in the idea. As such the y lead to systematic unit y of empirical knowledge.
8 There are two errors which arise from the constitutive use of the ideas. Kant explains the fault of ignava ratio at C.P.Ro, A689-692=B717-720 and A772-773-B800-801 and that of perverso ratio at A69Z-693=B720-72l.
9 For the difference between reasonls collective unit y (system) and the distributive unit y (aggregate) of the understanding, see C.P.R., A644=B672. For other further differences between the ideas and the categories, see Prol., p.77 (328-329) and C.P.R., A32l=B377; A334=B39l; A408-409=B435-436. -----
10 Every single experience is only a part of the domain of experience but the totality of aIl experience is not itself experience;~ The ideas of reason aim at the completeness or collective unit y of aIl possible experience and thereby transcend every given experience, whereas the categories of the understanding refer to experience so far as it can be given. Cf" Prol., po76(327-328). -----
Il Commenting on C.P.R., A669=B697, Kemp Smith, p.556 mentions that Kant holds that the ideas are not inherently dialectical for the form in which they come from the natural disposition of reason 1s "good and serviceable. n Transcendantal illusion is due to their misuse. Cf. A680=B708. At A34l=B399, considering the Paralogisms, Kant says that although the transcendental illusion cannot be avoided, it may be rendered harmless o Cf. Prolo, p o 77 (328-329); p.8l (332~333). However at A297=B353, "transcendental i11 usion therefore does not cease even after it has been detected and its invalid1ty clearly revealed by transcendental criticism (eog. the illusion in the proposition~ the world must have a beginning in time)!iQ
12 . Transcendental ideas express "the peculiar vocation of reason as a principle
of systematic unit y in the use of the understandingil (Prol., pp.97-98 C 349-350Ji. Yet if thla ideas, which are the "unity of the ~ of knowledge" are used to pertain to the object of knowledge and if we think we can use these
19
ideas to widen our knowledge transcendently (beyond all possible experience), we misunderstand reason's proper use and produce a dialectic, which"confuses the empirical use of reason and sets reason at variance with itse1fll (Prol., p.98 [35g). -----
13 The transcendent uses of the psycho1ogical idea constitute the paralogisme of pure reason; thoee concerning the cosmo1ogica1 idea 1ead to the antinomies of pure reason; and those of the theo1ogical idea generate the idea1 of pure reason. Cf. A407-408=B434-435. Regarding the paralogisms, see C.P.R., A34l-347=B399-406; B407-432; Prol., pp.8l-86(333-337). Regarding ~he antinomies, see C.P..R., A426-460=B454-488. Pro1., p.90 (342-343) defines the difference between mathematica1 and dynamica1 anttnomy. Regarding the ideal, see C.P.R., A583-630= B6ll-658.
TIlO
First problem
Kant 8s first attempt at justification of the regulative principles (in
the first Critigue's Appendix to the Dialectic) indicates that the ideas have
a legitimate and necessary role. Strictly as ideal, ideas and their associated
principles are genuine aids to investigation, but they are sometimes mistakenly
used as constitutive.
Each of the three fundamental heuristic maxims (to seek for systematic
unit y , diversity, and affinity) formulated by logic, for the direction of empi
rical research, postulates something about the phenomenal world. Such postu
lation, while required for the perfection of experience, is necessarily ideal.
However these principles have genuine objective validity used heuristicly. (Cfo
A663-668=B69l-696.)
The first problem seen with regard to justification of such principles is
that sometimes Kant seems to tend toward a more dogmatic justification. In
their dogmatic role the regulative concepts would express transcendental condi
tions upon which all use of the understanding rests.
Norman Kemp Smith thinks that such a use is indicated by Kant in contrast
to the role of regulat~ve principles as discussed in the first chapter of this
21
work. After, first, an examination of Kemp Smithls notion, an alternative
to his view is delineated in the second section of this present chapter. In
the third part a criticism of Kemp Smith based on this alternative is offered.
l. Kemp Smith and the Patchwork Theory
Kemp Smith's patchwork the ory attributes two attitudes to Kant in the
Critique of Pure Reason. What Kemp Smith cal1s Kantls "idealist (objectivist)"
position in regard to the regu1ative princip1es is found main1y in the introduc
tory portion of the Dia1ectic whereas his so-ca1led sceptical (subjectivist)
interpretation is found main1y in "The Ideal .of Pure Reason" and the Appendix
to the Dialectic.l
Kemp Smith contends that even the section in the Appendix on the regu1ative
use of the ideas is self-contradictory in that it wavers between a subjectivist
(A646-649=B674-678 and A663-668=B691-696) and an objectivist (A645=B673 and
A650-663=B678-691) int~rpretation of the regulative princip1es. Kemp Smith's
reasoning is that Kant, in recasting older materia1, 1eft in more of his ear1ier
solution than i8 consistent with his final conclusions. (Cf. N.K.S., p.547.)
Kant's supposed subjectivist orientation (that the regulative princip1es
are justified as necessary for the perfection of experience in the interests
of reason) has been referred to in the first chapter of this paper. In Kemp
Smith's interpretation of what he sees as the more dogmatic objectivist position,
Kant sets forth the view that the regulative princip1es can be transcendental1y
deduced in that they are necessary conditions of the understanding's use, hence
of the possibility of experience. (Cf., N.K.S., p.550.) Kemp Smith asserts
that Kant~s view of the regu1ative princip1es as Jlmerely" hypothetica1, deve10ped
in A646-649=B674-678, is rejected by Kant as over1y subjective in A653=B681.
(Cf. N.K.S., p.548 o See a1so C.P.R.,A661=B689.)
It might be supposed that this is merely an economica1 contrivance wnereby reason seeks to save itse1f a11 possible trouble, a hypothetica1 attempt,
But such a selfish purpose can very easi1y he distinguished from the idea. For in conformity with the idea everyone presupposes that this unit y of reason accords with nature itse1f ••••
... i
22
Kant points out that such principles claim objective reality and are
transcendental, for example, the idea of systematization upon which they are
based:
On passing, however, to the transcendental employment of understanding, we find that this idea ••• is not treated merely as a problem for the hypothetical use of reason, but claims to have objective reality •••• (A650=B678)
This idea and its principles condition the very possibility of the understand
ing (and thus of experience) and so are a priori necessary and objectively
valid. Kemp Smith uses the Analytic's notion of the possibility of experience
(by which the understanding's a priori principies had bean established) in
trying to show that these principles are objectively valide (Cf., N.K.S.,
p.549.) The transcendental principles, which are specialized forms of the idea
of thesystematization of knowledge, "are not derived from [the empirical
knowledge of] nature" (A645=B673) but are rather a priori principles for its
interrogation. We consider our knowledge defective uniess it embodies them.
(Cf.~ A645-646=B673-674. See N.K.S., pp.549-550.)
According to Kemp Smith, in direct opposition to the subjectivist view of
reason's function as hypothetical, Kant declares that the logical maxims of
reason are "without meaning and application" if they are not grounded in a
transcendental principle. (Cf. A656=B684, for example, the logical maxim to
seek for variety in nature.) It appears that reason cannot assume the logical
maxim of systematic unit y uniess at the same time it presupposes that nature
itself follows a principle of systematic unit y, which is cleariy an a priori
transcendental principle that cannot be derived from empirical knowledge of
objects. Reason compeis us before ail specific experience to look for this
unit y , since
without it we should have no reason at all, and without reason no coherent employment of the understanding, and in the absence of this no sufficient criterion of empirical truth. In order, therefore, to secure an empiricai criterion, we have no option save to presuppose the sys2ematic unit y of nature as objectively valid and necessary. (A65l=B679)
23
In this way the logical maxim to seek for systematic unit y rests
upon the transcendental principle of homogeneity. The possibility of the
use of concepts and so of the understanding itself rests upon this transcene
dental principle:
••• in the absence of [the transcendental principle of] homogeneity, no empirical concepts and therefore no experience would be possibleo (A654= B682)
It is balanced by another principle necessary for the possibility of the
understanding's use (and therefore of experience), the transcendental principle
of specification, which is the ground of the logical maxim to seek for system
atic diversity. It is only on the assumption that nature is so ordered as to
make this logical principle possible"that we can have any faculty of understand
ing whatsoever ll (A657=B685).
The third logical-maxim flows f~om the first two. It directs us to seek
for systematic affinity and presupposes the transcendental principle of conti
nuity. This third law is also a priori and transcendental since it has not
been derived from the prior discovery of system in nature but rather has itself
helped to produce our systematized knowledge:
This logical law ••• presupposes, however, a transcendental law ••• without which the former law would only lead the understanding astray, causing it to follow a path which is perhaps quite contrary to that prescribed by nature itself. This law must "therefore rest upon pure transcendental, not on empirical, grounds. For if it rested on empirical grounds, it would come later than the systems, whereas in actual fact it has itself given rise to aIl that is systematic in our knowledge of nature. (A660= B688)3
Kemp Smith implies that K~nt himself does not doubt that the three logical
laws of reason are grounded upon genuine transcendental principles, because the
latter are prior to experience and conditions of its possibility. At the sarne
time Kant also believes that as principles of reason they can be nothing more 4 than regulative of experience.
Kemp Smith tries to resolve this dilemma by suggesting that Kant's justi
fication of the regulative use of ideas does not do justice to what Kemp Smith
24
considers to be the true critical position; His commentary expresses the
view that it is possible to recognize that the ideas make US conscious of
the limitations of sense-experience as well as condition the possibility of
sense-experience. We conform to their demands by condemning alleged knowledge
Which does not fulfill the standards which they express. In other words they
are presuppositions necessarily involved in all consciousness. 5 Kemp Smith
thinks that some such restatement of the transcendental deduction of the ideas
is demanded by Kant 8s so-called objectivist position. Unfortunately, he adds,
the transcendental deduction ol the ideas is left in a semi-critical form
because the more sceptical view which Kant has been meantime developing remains
dominant. (Cf. N.K.S., p.554.) Whatever the reasons for these seemingly
different tendencies, the more dogmatic approach is not the predominant one in 6 Kant's critical works. It does not represent his prevailing view.
2. Alternate Solution
The difficulty seen in Kant with respect to the patchwork theory(regarded
in the first part of this chapter)might be clarified and perhaps resolved by a
more intensive examination of the Appendix to the Dialectic, in which Kant
explains the regulative use of reason's principles. This section of the first
Critique indicates that the differences between the approach of the Analytic
and that of the Dialectic toward experience depend on the distinct (although
complementary) functions assigned to understanding and reason with their respec
tive principles. These differences will be 'offered as support for an alterna-7 tive approach to that of Kemp Smith's patchwork theory.
Kant talks about two sorts of experience. We need further systematic
experience and not merely the ordinary expe.rience of the Analytic if the
empirical diversity of nature is to be unified. Kant looks at this second
type of experience in the Appendix to the Dialectic. The systematic character
of science is due to the activity of reason, while basic knowledge of objects
is a product of the understanding (and sensibility.) Kant assumes that there
i8 a "law of reason which requires us to seek for this unit y" (A65l=B679) by
reducing the diversity found in nature.
25
The essential nature of reason is the search for as complete a systema-
tic unit y of knowledge as possible. The ideas supply rules for bringing ordi
nary knowledge of the understanding to the unit y required to make it scientific.
With reason"s supposition of the systematic unit y of nature, we might have
ordinary knowledge as a mere aggregate of empirical concepts, but no scientific
knowledge. nSystematic unit y 1s what first ra1ses ord1nary knowledge to the
rart..k of science, that is, makes a system out of a mere aggregate" (A832=B860).
The first requirement for an aggregate of knowledge to qualify as a
science is, of course, that it be based ultimately on the absolutely certain
princ1ples of the Analytic. Without these categorial principles there would be
no nature to be investigated, sinee categorial unit y is constitutive. The
second requirement is that this ordinary knowledge of nature be systematical.~'
organized. The Appendix to the Dialectic (and the introductions to the Critique
of Judgement) deals with this further requirement in Kant's discussion of
empirical natural science. 8 The search for regularity in the empirical detail
of nature is fundamental to science, which thus needs i3. principle of procedure.
This d1recting principle is not constitutive of our experience in so far
as we could have (ordinary) experience which, although unified under categorial
rules, was so diverse in its detail that it would be impossible to systematize
it further. However if science is to be possible, the particular characteris
tics of phenomena must not be totally different from one another. If we search
for coherence in nature, we must assume that the empirical heterogeneity is
ultimately a unit y, that 1s, that empirical laws can be found and unified.
The systematic unit y of the manifold of knowledge, as prescribed by reason, 1s a logical principle. Its funct10n is to assist the understanding by means of ideas, in those cases in which the understanding cannot by itself establish rules, and at the sarne time to give to the numerous and diverse rules of the understand1ng unit y or system under a single pr1nciple, and thus to secure coherence in every possible way. (A648=B676)
This logical demand for uniformity is the result of our des ire to arrive
at the most convenient and economical classification of concepts and lawso
26
Still this logical ordering of concepts is not, in itse1f, sufficient to this
sys;;;ematic unit y of know1edge. Its interest is mere1y in economy and parsimony
in the unification of empirica1 concepts. It is an neconomica1 contrivance ll
(A653=B68l), the "economica1 requirement of reasonJl (A650-B679). So it must
be further presupposed that the unit y (required by this 10gica1 princip1e)
actua11y exists in the realm of the particu1ar and is awaiting discovery and
systematization.
The logica1 princip1e of systematization must immediate1y involve a
transcendenta1 princip1e (of the order of nature), according to which systematic
ordering and simp1icity of princip1es is not only an economica1 requirement of
reason but a1so one of nature's own 1aws. (Cf. A650-651=B678-679.) Through
the transcendenta1 deduction and the theory of schematism, Kant has justified
the objective constitution of nature by the schematized categoria1 princip1es.
However regulative princip1es relate to objects on1y mediately (but they
do not constitute objects directIy or mediately) by way of understanding and
its judgements. (Cf. A305-307=B362-363.) As 10gica1 principles their function
is to define the standards to which the understanding's activities must conform
in order to achieve systematic unity. (Cf o A302=B359.) They do not constitute
nature by directly referring to it as the categoria1 rules do. Kant holds that
there is no need for the regulative concepts to Ildetermine the application of
the categories [to natural phenomena] ••• since in dea1ing with corporeal
nature we are guided sole1y by sensible intuition" (A684=B712; cf. A670=
B698.).
As transcendenta1 these principles also do not constitute nature as such
but they do postulate that nature 1a lawful and orderly in its empirica1 detail;
that is, they assume the order of nature. Although scientists and philosophers
may not be conscious that they are supposing the systematic unit y of nature to
be objective1y valid and necessary, this assumption is "covert1y implied in
remarkable fasM.on, in the principles upon which they proceed" (A65l=B679).
mat nature corresponds to the logical maxim to look for and unify empirical
concepts is the claim of the transcendental principles of reason.
27
This transcendental idea of the systematic unit y of nature is not
itself derived from nature; however we have no option but to presuppose such
a regularity is in nature to be discovered. (Cfa A645-646=B673-674.) In
this respect the idea which directs the ~~derstanding to seek a system in
place of its initial aggregate (cf. A645=B673; A650-663=B67l-684) is a priori.
Rowever
we may not say that this idea is a concept of the object, but only of the thorough-going unit y of such concepts, in so far as that unit y serves as a rule for the understanding. (~645=B673)
This Hhypothetical employment of reasonlt is regulative of scientific
inquiry, not constitutive of nature or objects of nature. (Cf. A647=B675.)
In this sense the function of seeking the complete system of all possible knowl
edge(the unity of reason) is non-objective in character. The object or goal of
this idea, the systematic unit y of all empirical knowledge, transcends any
possible experience we might have. (Cf. A644-648=B672-676.)
Kant points out three principles (maxims) which he thiriks de pend on the
presupposition of the unit y of nature and which also help to regulate scientific
investigation 0 The procedural principles of genera (at A652=B680), species
(atA656=B684), and continuity (at A658=B686) are formulated by logic for the
direction of empirical investigation and postulate something about the detail
of phenomena as well, viz. that it is a coherent or systematic whole. Such
postulation, while required for the complete functioning of the understanding,
is necessarily ideal due to its transcendent character. (See A644=B672 which
deals with the notion of a focus imaginarius, the ideal of systematic unit y
which is not realizable but is to be approached asymptotically.)
If, however, the three maxims of speculative reason were to be taken as
constitutive, rather than directive, of experience, they would conflict. (Cf.
A666=B694.) In so far as they are regulative, they cannot conceivably conflict,
just because they do not determine objects in any way. (Cf. A65l=B679.) These
principles are mere maxims or rules of procedure but regarded as determinative
they w~uld conflict, since, for example, the principle of homogeneity makes
28
precisely the srume claim to absolute validity as does the principle of
specification which is based on the. very opposite assumption. From a purely
logical point of view, the sphere of the particular might be either completely
heterogeneous or completely homogeneous. (Cf. A65l=B679.)
Although they are capable of assisting us in our scientific research,
these maxims are incompetent to give us knowledge of nature in the strict
sense of objectivity. (Cf. A666-667=B695.) The regulative capacity of reason
does not determine anything in objects, nyet serves to mark out the path
toward systematic unit y" (A668=B696). Reason's principles have only an indeter
minate and indirect reference to ordinary experience. (Cf. A665 m 666=B693.)
Nevertheless they can be looked at as either ·subjective or objective.
They are subjective in so far as their fundamental source is reason's need to
regard nature as fully understandable and also because they presuppose concepts
(the ideas of reason) which are not concerned with existing objects but rather
with systems of objects. They are objective in the sense that they are neces
sary for empirical science. Nonetheless, mere ideas make their appearanee in . 1 9 these princip es of systématization. "Reas on unifies the manifold of
[empirical] concepts by means of ideas" (A644=B672). The ideas are objectively
valid as heur1stic principles although they do not contain the same kind of
validityas the categories sinee their object (aim, goal), a complete system,
transcends any sense-experienee (of individual objects or the aggregate of all
objects), making a strict deduction of them wholly impracticable. (Cf. A669-
670=B697-698.)
When he is talking about their objects, Kant would have to deny a deduc
tion to the ideas (cf. A336=B393) because, unlike the categories~ they do not
directly refer to objects of ordinary experience at all.
But if they are to have the least objective validity, no matter how indeterminate that validity may be, and are not to be mere empty thoughtentities ••• , a deduct10n of them must be possible, however greatly (as we admit) it may differ from that wh1ch we have been able to give of the categories. (A669-670=B697-698)
29
The transcendental deduction of the iàeas shows that they are
necessary for the possibility of a scientific system whereas that of the
categories guarantees that they are essent1al for the poss1b1lity of objects
in general. The notion of a systematic order of nature is entirely the result
of the activity of reason. So the transcendental deduction of reason's ideas
is only subjective whereas that of the categories is objective; these catego
ries make objects of experience possible. (Cf. A336=B393.)
This subjective deduction shows that the three transcendental ideas, as
procedures for organizing empirical knowledge, "contribute to the extension
of empirical knowledge, without ever being in a position to run counter to
it"(A67l=B699). Ideas are:
regulative principles of the systematic unit y of the manifold of empirical knowledge in general, whereby this empirical know1edge is more adequately secured within its own limits and more effectively improved than would be possible, in the absence of such ideas, through the employment merely of the principles of the understanding. (A67l= B699)
3~ Criticism of Kemp Smith
The nCltion that there is this complementary subjectivity and objectivity
in reason's principles 1s, of course, opposed to Kemp Smith's proposition
that these two aspects represent two diverse strains in Kant's thought: the
so-called subjectivist and objectivist (idealist) positions. With reference
to Append1x l of the Dialectic, Kemp Smith sees A646-649=B674-677 as subjec
tivist in orientation (empirical, even sceptical); A646=B673 and A650-663=B678-
691 as objectivist; and A663-668=B691-696 as subjective but improved over the
first subjectivist section. (Cf. N.K.S., pp.547-552)
The critic1sm of Kemp Smith's interpretation here will deal mainly with
his failure to sufficiently grasp or pay attention to first, the Clifferent
meanings of understanding and experience as seen in the Analytic and the
Dialectic (with their respectively related notions of the unit y of possible
experience and nature~ on the one hand, and the unit y of reason and the order
30
of nature, on the other), and second, the subjective (albeit necessary) 10 aspect of the transcendental principles of reason.
Transcendentally nature and natural objects are determined by the
categorial principles. The order of nature, the systematic ordering of
these objects, presupposes its "transcendental principle ••• [of] systematic
unit y" (A650=B678). Kemp Smith interprets this passage and those following
(A65l-663=B679-69l regarding the transcendental principles of procedure, to
which he devotes only one and one half pages of commentary: cf. N.K.S., pp.
549-551) as objectivist in intenta Re maintains that the three maxims of
reason's principle of .systematic unit y are indispensable conditions of the
understanding, henc~ of the possibility of anyexperience. (Cf. N.K.S., p.
550.)
Rowever, Kemp Smith should have specified the exact meanings of the
terms "understanding" and "experience" as used by Kant in these passages.
They do ~ have the same meanings as they do in the Analytic. Kant does not
say that without the presupposition of the systematic unit y of nature, we
would have no understanding but rather that we would have no coherent employ
ment of the understanding (cf. A648=B676); that is, without this presumption
we might have basic ordinary knowledge but no scientific knowledge.
Nonetheless Kant·ls statements in these passages are so si:rong that: chey
might be taken to indicate the same meanings of experience and understanding
as those found in the Analytic (for examples, at A654=B682 and A657=B685)0
Yet, despite its seeming exaggeration, it is evident that Kant's assertion in
A657=B685 at least does not apply to the understanding as the source of the
categories. An.earlier passage in the Dialectic has already established the
difference:
The unit y of reason is therefore not the unit y of a possible experience, but is essentially different from such unit y, which is that of the understanding. That everything that happens has a cause is not a principle known and prescribed by reason. That principle makes the unit y of
31
the experience possible and borrows nothing from reason, which apart from this [mediat~ relation to possible experience, would never, from mere concepts, have imposed any such synthetic unity. (A307=B363-364)
Even in the first passage cited (A654=B682), Kant tells us that he is talking
about understanding in regard to its empirical concepts (not in regard to its
categories).
It is equally clear that A654=B682 is not referring to the ordinary
experience of the Analytic. The unit y of reason is not the unit y already
introduced into experience by the categor1al principles but is rather the
further logical unit y of exper1ence in its detail. (Cf o B383.) Thus the
notion of experience used here is also different from that used in the Analy.
tic, this latter experience being made possible by the understanding"s consti
tutive principles. Kant denies in this passage (A654=B682) that the a priori
principles of reason are constitutive of experience. Reason does not directly
refer to objects as does the understanding (cf. B359) but rather concerns it
self with the systematic knowledge of these objects in their special character
istics. It bears an indirect relation to objects in so far as it provides
rules for the systematic organization of the empirical concepts of the objects.
The unit y of reason is indeterminate and not constitutive of objects at alla
We cannot de termine the limits of this unit y (cf. A653=B68l) sinee we are un
able to de termine a priori its degree. (Cf. A654=B682; A647=B675; A698-699=
B726-727.)
Furthermore the maxims expressed by the unit y of reason have no actual
object in so far as they are merely rules for increasing indefinitely our
knowledge of nature in 1ts particulars. Their ''objects'' (aims, goals) are
''mere ideas Jl , "to which no congruent object can be discovered in experiencell
(A66l=B689; cf. A652=B680.).
1)
The first introduction to the third Critique offers further support for
the distinction between the unit y of possible experience and that of reason.
32
Although Kant does refer to both unities as Ilsys tematic unit y" (for example,
in the first introduction to the Critique of Judgement, pp.14-l5: "unit y of
our possible experience fl in the earlier part of this passage and "experience
.... as a systemll in the middle);l the former belongs to the understanding (a
transcendental unit y), while the latter is an empirical unity. (Cf. First 12 ---
Introd., p.17, n.4.)
One reason Kant uses for sometimes calling the pri~clple of systematic
unit y "objectivetl is that it allows us "to furtJ::.er and strengthen in infinitum
(indeterminately) the empirical employment of reason, rthus] ••• at the same 1-
time opening out new paths which are not within the cognisance of the under
standing" (A680=B708). Although the changes in meaning and function of such
operative terms as "object" and "objective" constitute one of the greatest
stumbling blocks in attempting to analyze Kant IS theory, Kemp Smith can still
be faulted for not at least delineating these different functions.
His objectivist interpretation which fails to account for the distinct
meanings of understanding and experience as used, respectively, in the Anal Y tic
and the Dialectic also does not deal with the subjective (as wall as necessary)
character of the transcendental principles of reason. Kemp Smith fails with
respect to the objective reference of the idea of systematic unity. Kant's
doctrine that a transcendental, or a priori, principle is involved in the
logical assumption of systematizat!on requires to be interpreted with great
care, yet Kemp Smith gives no commentary on that part of the passage in A648=
B676 which distinguishes between logical and transcendental principles of
reason. His analysis of the very important role of the logical principles is
sketchy at best.
The relation betwaen these two sorts of principles, introduced in the
above-mentioned passage, is developed into the transcendental implications of
the logical principle of systematization~ (Cf. A650-65l=B678-679.) Kemp Smith
claims that if this merely logical unit y is taken to imply real [constitutive_7
33
unit y in the objects themse1ves [nature itse1f] , it is transformed into
a transcendenta1 princip1e of reason. (Cf. N.K.S., p.549.) Sorne of Kant's
assertions do seem to give support t~ Kemp Smithls objectivist interpretation.
For example, Kant ~ say, "the systematic unit y ris] necessary, not on1y
subjective1y and logically, as method, but objectively also lL (A648=B.676) and
"we have no option save to presuppose the systematic unit y of nature as
objectively vaUd and necessary" (A65l=B675).. Again Kant admits:
It is, indeed, difficult to understand how there can be a logica1 principle by which reason pres.cribes the unit y of rules, unless we also presuppose a transcendental principle whereby such a systematic unit y is a priori assumed ta be necessarily inherent in the objects. (A650-651=B678-679)
This objective reference is also suggested by the statement that the
principle of systematic unit y "c1aims to have objective reality .... as giving
expression to an apodeictic principle of reason" (A650=B678). Kemp Smith
notes this passage accordingly:
In A650=B678 Kant further points out that this Idea of Reason not merely directs the understanding to search for such unit y but also claims for itse1f objective reality. (N.K.S., p.547)
However by taking these statements out of their critical context through
his patchwork assumption, Kemp Smith has failed to notice that they do not
necessarily give Kant's own interpretation of the ro1e of reason's transcen
dental principles.
In fact these strong expressions do not express Kant's personal view.
They are, rather, de1iberate over-statements of the role of the transcendental
princip1es (as similar to the understanding's constitutive transcendental
principles), by reference to which Kant will exp1ain his own moderate position.
Indeed he has already referred to it in an earlier paragraph:
But to saythat the constitution of the objects or the nature of the understanding which knows them as such, is in itself determined to systematic unit y, and that we can in a certain measure postulate this unit y a priori, without reference to any such special LLogica1] interest of reason, ••• ~that would be to assert a transcendent al principle of
34
reason, and would make the systematic unit y necessary, not only subjectively and logically, as method, but objectively also. (A648= B676)
Kant always regarded the speculative interest of reason to be subjective,
not objective. The assumption that nature in its detai1 will conform to a
principle of systematic unit y is based on a priori princip1e, not in the
objective sense that it would enab1e us to know a priori the particular fea
tures but only in the subjective sense that it is necessary if these features
are to be noticed at al1. In the same way the maxims of reason are a1so quite
different from the a priori principles of the understanding. In another (later)
section which Kemp Smith interprets as objectivist, Kant adds that the important
point which "alone concerns us, is that they seem to be transcendental" (A663=
B691) [in the way the categorial principles are], but definitely are not so.
"These are therefore maxims of speculative reason, which rest entirely on its
speculative interest, although they may seem to be objective principles" (A666=
B694).
Kant's overall viewpoint must be considered; his argument must be taken
as a whole. Kantls point is that we must ascribe a specifie kind of objective
validity to these principles. If objective validity be attributed only to the
constitutive principles of the understanding, then the principles of reason
must be assigned a mere1y subjective status o However since regulative prin ..
cip1es are necessary in that they direct the understanding toward a complete
ness of possible empirical knowledge, they can be called "objective" in this
sense. As long as isolated statements are contrasted with one another, the
appearance of inconsistency in Kant' s justification of reason IS princip1es 13 persists.
Un1ike Kemp Smith, Kant lays equa1 stress on ~ the subjective ~ ~
priori character of reason's assumption that nature is regu1ar in its detai1.
This princip1e is a priori in so far as reason must demand the greatest possible
uniformity in the particu1ar characters of objects o However there is no
35
guarantee (as against the constitutive principles which do guarantee something
in the object) that this requirement will be met with in nature. This is the
problem of induction, that is~ the question as to whether or not we will be
able to discover any order in nature's detail and, if so, whether or not we
will be able to systematize the empirical concepts thus discovered.
Categorial principles, although they provide the universal conditions
necessary for an object to be given in experience, certainly do not guarantee
that we shall be able to discover, let alone systematize, the empirical charac
teristics of these objects. The argument of the Analytic, particularly that
of the Second Analogy,14 provides a sufficient guarantee for ordinary knowledge
but not for scientific knowledge. Natural science would never commence unless
the causal principle be valid, but this principle alone cannot pro'Ve that in
fact there will be scientific investigation.
But can the principles of reason offer a better guarantee? They can in so
far a.s Kant thinks that in their absence scientific experience would be
impossible. Positively expressed, they make such an experience possible.
Reason's principles are necessary since science needs a special principle of
inquiry to justify the search for su ch affinity as may be discovered among the
special features of objects. The more important question is whether or not this
principle, although necessary, is sufficient to justify the search. 15
It is difficult to discover any objective ground for reason's expectation
that nature in its detail will in fact be the way reason must expect it to be.
However Kant's solution is that there is also no bas~ for despairing of success.
There is a curious element in the presupposition that nature will be as orderly
as we necessarily assume it to be if science is to be possible. This a priori
assumption is expressed in the maxims which guide scientific efforts to syste-16 matize knowledge.
Nevertheless neither the discovery nor the systematization of empirical
36
laws, both of which are requirements for scientific explanation, can be
objectively justified by the transcendental principles of reason. The
problem of induction is still with Kant in the Dialectic. He deals further
with the problem, as he sees it, in the introductions to the Critique of
Judgement. "particular experience which is something thoroughly coherent
under invariable principles LÇategorial] stands in need of this systematic
connection of empirical laws as well" (First Introd o , pp.9 a lO).
37
FOOTNOTES TO CHAPTER TWO
1 Kemp Smith (Commentary) p.SS8. From henceforth abbreviated as N.K.S.
2 Kemp Smith's commentary on this section of C.PoR. is on p.547. On p.560 Kemp Smith asserts that according to the so-called sceptical interpretation, reason expresses what may be only our subjective preference for unit y and system in the ordering of experience~ The criteria of truth and validity are then not bound up with the ideas but rather with sense-experience, which is the standard by which the validity of the ideas as well must be judged.
3 Kemp Smith, pp.550-5Sl considers the sections on the transcendental ground of the logical maxims.
4 Heinrich Cassirer, (A) Commentary on Kant's Critique of Judgement", p.49 asserts these seemingly conflicting views in Kant's first Critique.
5 However in his commentary, p.554, note l, Kemp Smith adds that although the ideas in this sense would condition the experience which they regulate, Kant's fundamental distinction between the regulative and the constitutive realms is not annulled. Even in his so-called less sceptical position, Kant's views are radically distinct from those of Hegel. This writer agrees with Kemp Smith's latter statement but wonders what would be the exact difference between the regulative and the constitutive if Kemp Smith's resolution is accepted. Such a topic would require detailed exploration in another paper.
6 A.D. Lindsay, Kant (Ernest Benn L1mited: London, 1934) p.Z87 thinks, for example, that what""'Këmp Smith would caU the Itsceptical subjectivist" position is predominant and Kemp Smith himself on p.5S9 also implies this. However on p.56l, Kemp Smith says that the idealist solution is that to which Kant's teaching as a who le most decisively points~ Yet he adds that Kant is conscious of its difficulties and his so-called sceptical view is a tacit admission that the idealist doctrines, in the form in which he has so far been able to give to them, are not really adequate to the complexity of the problem.
7 In this section the writer is indebted to the following commentators (for
their help in enabling me to distinguish rather complex notions): Heinrich Cassirer (Kant's First Critique); Gerd Buchdahl (Metaphysics and the Philosophy
38
of Science); T.D. We1don (Kant's nCritique of Pure Reason"); and most particularly to J.D. McFar1and (Kant's Concept of Teleology, Chapter one especially).
8 McFar1and, p.14. On p.12 McFar1and mentions that Kant is we1l aware in the Dialectic (and in the introductions to the Critique of Judgement) of the distinction between pure science of nature, the system of a priori principles which underlies empirical science, and science as a system of empirical laws, Newtonian mechanics; categoria1 rules are the principles of Newtonian science. Cf. We1don, pp. 249-50.
9 Cassirer, Kant's First critique, p.342 states succinctly the factors involved in considering the subjective yet necessary elements in reason's ordering principles.
10 This writer gratefully acknowledges the assistance of Professor Cecil Currie,
MCGil1 University, in the preparation of this analysis of KemF Smith's patchwork interpretation of Appendix 1.
11 Immanuel Kant, First Introduction to the Critique of Judgement, trans.
James Haden (New York: The Bobbs-Merrill Company, 1965). From henceforth to be abbreviated as First Introd o and al1 references will follow Haden's translation.
12 Buchdahl gives this examp1e on pp.504-505 of Metaphysics and Philo8ophy of Science.
13 Cassirer, in his commentary on the third Critigue, pp.154-155 a1so suggests
this solution to the "di1emma" of the two opposing strands in Kant' s theory. See a1so Cassirer, Kant's First Critique, p.342. Cassirer' s point i8 welltaken but this w~iter still sees (as does Cassirer himse1f) rea1 prob1ems in KantBs subjective (not "subjectivist") justification of the regu1ati'le princip1es as subjective1y necessary. This prob1em of induction will be discussed brief1y in this chapter and more fu1ly in chapter four.
14 The full tit1e of th1s section is, "Second Ana10gy: Principle of Succession in Time, in accordance with the Law of Causality.::
15 McFar1and, p.10 criticizes Kant for assuming that a1though the empirica1 1aws can on1y be known as a resu1t of experience (a posteriori), there is no reason to doubt a priori that they can be discovered. Cf. A549=B577.
16 Cassirer, Kant's First Critique, pp.355-356 is a1so puzz1ed by the prob1em of inductioln witb. reference to the necessary (a priori) but subjective princip1e under1ying the procedure of science.
THREE
Second Attempt at Justification
The Critique of Judgement
The constructive doctrine of the Dialectic (Appendices l and II)
contains a preliminary discussion of the thought later developed in the
Critique of Judgement o In this latter work Kant makes another attempt at
justification of regulating principles. He insists that the third Critigue
completes the Critical philosophy for its aim is to show that there are a
priori principles at the basis of judgement, just as there are in the cases of
understanding and reason. Kant also intends to demonstrate that these prin
ciples, like the principles of reason, are only regulative of experience. l
In the introductions to this Critique, Kant reveals that his purpose is
to effect a synthesis between understanding and reason, as it is manifested in
morality, by means of judgement. He wishes to bridge the "immeasureable gulf
••• between the sensible realm of the concept of nature and the supersensible
realm of the concept of freedom" (C. of J., Second introduction, p.12). Kant
claims that he has found the mediating link in the notion of purposiveness. He
contends that this reflective judgement of a purposiveness of nature really
40
effects a synthesis between the natural and the moral orders. (Cf. C. of
~, Second introduction, pp.l2 and 34.)
The third Critique concerns judgement as exercised in aesthetic apprecia
tion and teleological inquiry. Although the pleasures in the two judgements
are different, in both the pleasure is derived from the reflection upon the
processes of the mind: in both cases the mind is not concerned with the defi
nition of the objecte In the aesthetic judgement the pleasure cornes from the
play of senuous representations; in the teleological from the play of concepts.
In other words, the purposiveness may be only formal and subjective or it may
be real and objective. (Cf. C. of J., Second introduction, pp.2S-29.) When
Kant speaks simply of the "teleological judgement", he means this objective 2
sort.
Reflective judgement's a priori regulative concept of the purposiveness
of nature serves as a connecting link between the domains of nature and freedom
in so far as it enables us to think nature as not being entirely alien to the
realization of ends. This is not a teleology inherent in nature but a subjec
tive principle of reflective judgement, which must derive a special principle
by which we are to assUme that appearances even so far as their special charac
teristics are concerned are subject to a principle of order. (Cf. C. of J.,
pp.2S3-2S8.)
Since reason demands this unit y of nature, we conceive the idea of a
systematic order of nature; that is, the principles of Kant's transcendental
philosophy allow us to ascribe to nature a purposiveness in respect of its
empirical laws. The reflective judgement enables us to regard nature in this
way, since its principle is applied to those ca~es in which we consider mecha
nical principles to be insufficient. Such a principle would conflict with the
principles of the understanding, which only govern mechanical causality, if
used constitutively. (Cf. C. of J., pp.20S-207.) Teleological judgements are
guides in the labyrinth of nature and clar.ify our attitude toward those aspects
41
of nature which do not seem susceptible to mechanical explanation.
The main question with which the third Critique is concerned is that of
the purposiveness of nature, the fundamental principle underlying the proce
dure of reflective judgement. The teleological principle enables us to proceed
scientifically as if there were given in nature the universal principle (idea
of design or plan) for subsuming the empirical detail of nature.
We impute this purpose to nature because in this connection the understan
ding cannot presc~ibe laws as it does in the case of the categories. Such a
presupposition is necessary since without it we could not make nature intelli
gible to ourselves. Were it not for the assumption that the principles of
reflective judgement enable us to regard individual aggregates of experience
as systems, there would be no unit y according to laws. (Cf. C. of J., Second
introduction, pp.16-l7; Section 61, pp.20S-207.) In other words, there would
be no scientific knowledge without this presumption.
In Kant's system constitutive laws are the minimum of laws in that they
are essential for the possibility of basic experience and nature but they must
be supplemented by the reflective laws for scientific experience and the dis
covery of the order of nature. We are to consider nature as though (or as if)
its empirical laws were not isolated and disparate but connected, deriving their
unit y in seeming diversity from an extrahuman intelligence at the source of
nature which disposed things for the sake of our own scientific investigation.
This purposiveness enables us to regard nature as an ordered and harmonious
whole. However this is a purposiveness which the refiective judgement ascribes
to nature as if naturels discrete multiplicity had had a unit y imposed upon it
by an understanding. Only by assuming such a principle ~an we construe nature
to ourselves, that is, make science possible.
The principle of teleology develops out of the regulative use of the idea
of God for the systematic study of nature. (Cf. A693=B721 and il699-701=B727-
729.) As a transcendental condition of judging, it is valid only for reflective
42
and not for determinant judgement. (Cf. C. of J., Second introduction, pp.
16-17.) The teleological judgement is a merely reflective judgement since
it cannot be used by us to determine any objecte The validity of this a
priori principle of reflective judgement is subjective because it is not a
necessary condition for there being objects of experience at all, but is rather
a necessary condition of the use of reflective judgement in investigating cer
tain objects and in attempting to know phenomena empirically as more than a
mere aggregate of empirical laws. If we find in empirica1 investigation that
nature fits in.with this necessary heuristic principle, this discovery is a
pure1y contingent fact for our know1edge of nature as determined by the prin
cip1es of understanding. (Cf. C. of J., Second introduction, pp.16-17.)
Thus the te1eo10gical principle is not constitutive for the determinant
judgement but regu1ative for the ref1ective judgement. Kant attacks the dog
matic use of the teleologica1 principle because this princip1e (like those of
reason) is prob1ematic only. It can be thought without contradiction but can
not be used dogmatical1y. We can on1y ref1ect upon the object in accordance
with this idea. The idea of God is here used simply in its regulative function.
(Cf. C. of J., pp.243-245.)
Nevertheless the highest ideal of rational knowledge is scientific unit y
in accordance with ideas of purpose. Ruman reason finds it fruitful and indis
pensible to look upon any organic system (whether that of organisms or empiri
cal laws) as if it were the product of an ordering inteHigence. Hence this
idea judging what is perceived. (Cf. C. of J., pp.227-228.) The teleological
princip1e, as a subjective1y necessary concept of reflection, is a guiding maxim
for our scientific investigation of nature; consequent1y it does not give an
objective explanation as does the mechanica1 causality of fundamental experie-
nce.
Kant argues that the distinction between the mechanical and teleological
43
principles depends for its validity upon the peculiar character of our
understanding, which is discursive and to this extent depends on sensible
intuition. A mechanical explanation of a natural phenomenon begins with its
parts and from what is known of them we can then explain the whole (the agg
regate of basic experience). On the other hand, in the case of organized sys
tems, we can only account for the parts by a reference to the whole (the sys
tem of scientific experience). Our understanding does not have a principle
which might actually reconcile the two although "in the unknown inner ground
of nature", they "may be united ••• in one principle" (s...~, p.235). To
supplement our inadequacy we conceive the possibility of an,understanding not
discursive like ours but intuitive. Therefore, although they must not be con
fused, mechanism and teleology must be considered as if they coalesced in a
single higher principle, incognizable by us. (Cf. C. of J., pp.253-258.)
This notion helps US reconcile the principles of mechanism and teleology.
Mechanical principles are constitutive of experience whereas the Critique of
Judgement's principle of teleology is similar to the regulative principles of
the Critique of Pure Reason. The reflective principles, as well as reasonls
principles, are all purely regulative of experience and necessary only for its
completion in the interests of reason.
Examination of both introductions to the third Critique, especially the
first introduction, shows that the problem of induction begun in the first
Critique's Appendix to the D{alectic continues into the Critigue of Judgement.
The different treatments of experience by the Analytic, on the one hand, and
the Dialectic and the Critique of Judgement, on the other, are based on the
different roles Kant assigns to understanding, reason, and judgement. The
functions of the first two have been discussed in the first two chapters of
this paper by distinguishing between the aim of the Analytic and that of the
Dialectic.
In the Dialectic Kant attributes to reason the activity of systematizing
44
the empirical detail of nature, but in the introductions to the third
Critique, he assigns this task and the assumption underlying it to reflec
tive judgement. Reflective judgement in its principle must now presuppose
that nature can be systematized in its particular features for our scientific
knowledge. 3 (Cf. First Introd., pp.l4-21.) Theoretical reason estimates the
empirical detail as "determined" by the idea of the whole. The third Critique
examines a special kind of idea, that of a purposiveness of nature (the teleo
logical idea). (Cf. First Introd., pp.2l-23.) This concept is used by the
faculty of (reflective) judgement as a merely reflective principle.
The faculty of judgement in general is the power of thinking the parti
cular as being contained in the universal. (Cf. C. of J., Second introduction,
p.lS.) But there are two types of judgement. The distinction between deter
mining or subsuming judgement and reflective judgement is suggested in the
Critique of Pure Reason (at A646=B674 where Kant speaks of the apodeictic and
hypothetical uses of reason) and is further developed in the Critique of
Judgement o (See C. of J., Section 69, pp.232-233 for a detailed discussion of
the differences between reflective and determining judgement.)
The Critique of Judgement makes a clear distinction within judgement
(which itself has been distinguished from the understanding at A132=B17l) bet
ween its determinant and reflective functions. The determinant role, con
sidered in the first Critique's chapters on schematism as subsuming sensible
intuition under categorial rules, is looked at again in the introductions to
the third Critique. (Cf. First Introd.,pp.8-ll; 16-21.)
The difference between judgementls two functions is based on whether the
universal is given or must be sought o If the universal is given then the
faculty of judgement which subsumes the particular under it is determinant.
In the Analytic of the theoretical Critique, judgement subsumes particulars
under the categorial principles. However there are also other laws, which are
not given as are the universal categorial rules, but have to be discovered o
45
These latter are the empirical laws. Reflective judgement is concerned with
particulars (the empirical detail of nature) which are given to it and for
which it has to find the proper universal (empirical law). (Cf. C. of J.,
Second introduction, pp.15-l6.) In or der to be able to find the suitable
universal, reflective judgement needs its own autonomous principle of unit y
as a guide. The concept of teleology is this principle.
In the case of determinant judgement the universal or categorial rule is
given a priori; with reflective judgement the universal or empirical concept
must be looked for in the sphere of the particular. Determinant judgement uses
the laws of another faculty, the understanding's constitutive principles, to
guide its subsumption (determination) of the particular sensible intuition
under the universal category. However reflective judgement originates its own
presupposition prior to actual experience, viz. that the empirical laws will
be intelligible to the human mind, so that these laws of nature in its detail
will constitute a purposive system. (Cf. First Introd., pp.14-l6.) Despite
the necessity of this a priori assumption for scientific research, it gives
no a priori guarantee that empirical concepts will be discovered and, even if
discovered, that they can be arranged into a system in which particular empirical 4
laws are subsumed under more general ones.
The logical principle of reflective judgement (like the systematic idea
of reason) rests on a transcendental a priori principle. It presupposes that
the purposive unit y to which we bring the empirical realm will be discovered
in nature itself. We must in the first instance assume that the empirical de
tail will not be so heterogeneous that it would be impossible for reflective
judgement to arrive at empirical concepts of its particular features (cf.
First Introd., pp.9 and 18); then further presuppose that these laws can be
arranged in a system. In this way reflective judgement's principle of reflec
tion is not a tautology of pure logic but a transcendental principle. (Cf.
First Introd., pp.16-l7, n.4.) Again judgement has in the introductions to
the Critique of Judgement taken over the role of reason in Appendix l from
46
both the logical and transcendental points of view.
S The transcendental principle of reflective judgement with its maxims is,
like the transcendental principles of reason, quite different from the prin
ciples of the understanding (given for the use of determinant judgement). It
cannot objectively determine or constitute objects in any way but can only
guide us (indeterminately and indefinitely) in our search for empirical con
cepts. However, in so far as we could never acquire scientific experience
without the discovery of particular natural laws, the principle which enables
us to look for them must be regarded as based on a priori principle. (Cf.
First Introd., pp.16-2l.)
The principle of logical reflection makes us conceive the transcendental
idea that there is a conformity to law in naturels detail (the order of natt~e)
which is objectively contingent (as compared to the categories), since this
unit y is not based on the objective concepts of the understanding; yet is at
the same time subjectively necessary, because we must attribute this unifor-
mit y to nature if we are to acquire scientific knowledge. (Cf. First Introd.,
pp.4S-Sl.) Due to the limitations of our discursive understanding, reason
needs this presupposition of an or der of nature. Basic experience or nature
itself, as determined by the categorial principles, does not need such a logical
systematic unity. (Cf. First Introd., pp.18-l9.)
The various maxims of reflective judgement are more specifie expressions
of its logical principle but gain their significance only in relation to the
fundamental transcendental principle. These principles of procedure (cf.
C. of J., Second introduction, pp.2l-22; First Introd., pp.19-20 and see also
the latter work, p.1S for an additional list) are "for the logical employment
of judgement" (First Introd.!) po19) but must also consider basic experience in
its detail as a system. Kant calls this latter "a necessary presupposition"
(First Introd., p.20) from the viewpoint of (merely) logical reflection. The
47
logical systematization of empirical laws presupposes the transcendental
principle of the purposiveness order of nature "in [the] origin" of this
"logical employment of judgement" (First Introd., p.19; cf. Second introduc
tion, p. 21.).
Kant asserts that it is evident from the maxims which are used a priori
in the investigation of naturels particular characteristics that the transcen
dental principle which is their ground must also be a priori, albeit only sub
jectively so. This "subjectively necessary transcendental presupposition" of
"experience as an empirical system" (First Introd., pp.14-l5) bears only on a
system (that of the order of nature or scientific experience), which itself
does not have the logical status of an empirical object (which is part of
nature or given in basic ordinary experience).
A system is never given in the way in which an object is, that is, at the
empirical level. Nonetheless the principle which underlies logical inquiry
into the systematization of empirical material must have a special kind of
objectivity (analogous once again to reason's transcendental principles). It
can be called an objective concept in so far as judgement necessarily assumes
it for scientific investigation and so must also assume that the realm of par
ticular contents will adapt itself to reflective judgement. On the other hand,
as a mere principle of reflection, it is subjective from the standpoint of the
understanding's objective transcendental principles used by determinant judge
ment to constitute objects. We cannot know a priori to what extent the empirical
detail will be orderable or if it will comply with reflective judgement's
expectations at all. 6
However, merely by virtue of its subjectivity, it does not follow that
the concept of purpose is an empirical principle. It is not induced from our
experience of the special features of objects but is rather what first makes
an investigation into the detailed nature of these objects possible, and so
l
48
must be assumed prior to aIl experience. (Cf. First Introd., p.16.) It is
subjective and objective at the same time, a subjective a priori principle.
(Cf. First Introd., p.20.)
Reflective judgement's a priori principle of teleology is transcenden
tal in that it is concerned with possible objects of empirical knowledge in
general (in their detail which is to be subsumed by reflective judgement under
the empirical laws to be discovered), although it itself does not rest on em
pirical observation. Since it cannot be derived empirically, this "principle
of the affinity of the special laws of nature" (First Introd., p.IS) requires
a transcendental deduction. (Cf. C. of J., Second introduction, pp.18-19.)?
Following the same general lines as he did in the Dialectic's transcenden
tal deduction of the ideas, Kant tries to demonstrate the legitimacy of reflec
tive judgement's fundamental concept by showing that although it is not neces
sary for the possibility of experience in general (basic or ordinary experience
as determined by the categories), it is an essential requirement for scientific
induction. (Cf. C. of J., Second introduction, pp.l?-23.) We must assume that
the contingent realm of particulars will allow of being unified, that nature in
its detail is purposive for our knowledge of it.
This subjective transcendental deduction, unlike the objective deduction
of the categories, is not very complicated. There are certain necessary forms,
the categories, which govern the structure of objects of experience in general
and nature. Nature also exhibits diversity in the particular laws which govern
these objects in their detail. Kant maintains that if a principle does not
govern this diveraity, it originates in chance and reason cannot realize the
systematie unit y of these empirical laws. Renee reason requires that they, l~ke
the permanent forms of nature (the categories), correspond to a principle. In
the scientific study of nature, reflective judgement must be guided by the tran
scendental principle that the empirical laws of phenomena are so made that they
can form a systematic totality or order of nature. (Cf. C. of.J., Second
49
introduction, pp.17-23.)
The maxims of reflective judgement also claim a priori validity and so
in this sense are, like their grounding principle, objective, but in them
selves they are concerned with no more than the possibility of scientific ex
perience and therefore with the possibility of acquiring a logically systematic
knowledge of nature. These maxims can only be considered tr~nscendental in
so far as the logical procedures of systematization require a transcendental
principle to give support (ground, reason) for their task.
50
FOOTNOTES TO CHAPTER THREE
l See J.H. Bernardls introduction to his translation of the Criti ue Judgement (Immanuel Kant, Critique of Judgement, tranSe J.H. Bernard ew York: Hafner Publishing Co., 196~) pp.xvi-xvii. From henceforth this work w~ll be abbreviated as C. of J. and aIl references will follow this edition unless otherwise noted.
2 The teleological judgement is objective so far as it proceeds according to concepts. This judgement is related to the reflective idea of an end, since the form of the object considered is judged to fulfill a conceived purpose of nature. Cf. C. of J., Second introduction, pp.29-31.
3 With McFarland, p.SO, this writer sees no real philosophical significance hidden in the change from reason to reflective judgement. Perhaps, as McFarland says, since reason has now a practical (vide Gritiquè of Practical Reason) as weIl as a theoretical function Cscientific activity), Kant wants to clearly distinguish between the two by giving another name to the latter activity. Again, this change might also be for architectonic reasons, for example, to show that each faculty has a pr-iori principles.
4 Cf. Immanuel Kant, Criti ue of Jud ement, tranSe James Creed Meredith (Oxford: Clarendon Press, 1952 rom henceforth to be abbreviated as J.C.M. with section and pagination]) IV: 179-180.
5 One is "nature takes the shortest way"; another is that it "makes no leaps"; yet another is that its empirical variety can be unified under a few principles. Cf. C. of J., Second introduction, pp.18-19.
6 Once again Cassirer, in hie commentary on the Critique of Judgement, p.lll, delineates the subjective and objective elements in non-determinative transcendental principles. Cf. pp.115; 121; 160-161; and his commentary on Kantls first Critique, p~342.
7 This subjective deduction is considered transcendental since it cannot be empirical if teleology is an a priori principle. And it cannot be psychological because this latter type of deduction would only show how we judge according to teleology, not how we ought to judge nature.
-.'<.
!
FOUR
Second Problem
As has been discussed in the previous three chapters, Kant points out
that from their logical utility we must not infer the objective reality of
the regulating principles of either reason or judgement. Indeed his subjec
tive justification of these principles has been criticized as leaving open the
possibility of a chance "correspondence" (relation) between regulative prin
ciples and phenomena. A claim is made by Nathan Rotenstreich in his Experience
and Its systematizationl that in fact this possibility of chance is the case:
The lawfulness of the ~ategorialJ principles is necessary, even though it is not the only lawfulness constructing knowledge. AlI other laws, even though they are necessary for us, are not thereby objectively necessary, ••• and it is only by chance that the infinite, variegated perceived multiplicity lends itsel~ to organization in determined forms [regulative or reflecting principlesJ. (Rotenstreich, p.98)
Rotenstreich sees Kant as much more of a sceptic than does Kemp Smithts
subjectivist standpoint although, to the extent that these two commentators
stress a subjecti7i~t crientation in Kant, these interpretations may be
placed in juxtaposition with one another. On the other hand, Kemp Smith's
objectivist analysis (considered in chapter two of thi~ paper) would of
course be opposed to Rotenstreich's version of Ifa sceptical innuendo in
[Kantts]system" (Rotenstreich, p.87). Nevertheless the ultimate (last)
· ~.~ .
52
conclusion of this present work will indicate the way in which these con
trasting views of Kemp Smith and Rotenstreich are based upon an identical
misinterpretation of Kant.
Analogous to the format of chapter two, this present chapter on the
second problem seen in Kant's justification of regulating concepttJ will
aIse contain three sections: Rotenstreich's analysis; an alternative to
Rotenstreich's view; and a criticism of Rotenstreich, which recognizes,
however, that the problem of induction (as Kant sees it) must still be
considered.
1. Rotenstreich and "Chance"
Rotenstreich's attribution of chance to Kant's use of regulative and
reflective principles (for the differences Rotenstreich perceives between
these concepts, see Rotenstreich, pp. 98-99) is based on the contrast between
the objectivity of the fundamental principles of understanding, on the one
hand, and the subjectivity of the principles of reason and reflective judge
ment, on the other.
Kant does admit, as Rotenstreich indicates in the first passage cited
in this chapter, that although the regulating principles are subjectively
necessary, they are not thereby objectively necessary for the possibility of
experience (a viewpoint Kemp Smith would consider as part of Kant's so-called
subjectivist orientation). However Rotenstreich thinks that even this sub
jective necessity asserted by Kant is too strong: "The theory of regulative
concepts is based on the assumption that subjective necessity must be
'subjective' only ••• " (Rotenstreich, p. 70) and "the other transcendental
laws [aside from the understanding's categorial principles], the reflective,
••• serve to construct a system of experience, the validity of which is sub
jective alone" (Rotenstreich, p. 100).
Regulative and reflective principles are seen by Rotenstreich as ~
'.
53
subjective ~ contingent. (Cf. Rotenstreich, p. 97.) These concepts are
awarded the activity, according to Rotenstreich, of "bridging the gap"
("hiatus", "chasm") between the understanding's constitutive principles and
the intuitional (sense) data. (Cf. Rotenstreich, p. 97. See also pp. 91-93;
95.) However due to their contingent subject ivity , they cannot overcome the
gap between understanding and intuition. (Cf. Rotenstreich: pp. 97 and 100.)
Kant himself, in considering the principles of reflective judgement,
callsthem contingent: "&lhe L?rinciples of reflective jUdgement's] con
ceived harmony of nature ••• must be judged as contingent ••• "; and "so far
as we can see, it is contingent that the order of nature ••• should be
actually conformable to these [iawsJ" (C. of J., Second introduction, p. 23.)
Rotenstreich uses the expression "happy chance" in regard to this connection
between nature and the laws of reflection:
The functional bridge, i.e., the introduction of reflective laws and the assertion that their validity is due to a "happy chance" [with reference to Kant f s expression "lucky chance" in C. of J., Second introduction, p. 20J2 can only permit us to try to construct knowledge despite the threat of a breach. (Rotenstreich, p. 100)
He adds that this element of contingency for our finite understanding
(cf. Rotenstreich, pp. 99-100) allows scepticism into the Critical system:
The domain of laws serving to help the constitutive domain to overcome its difficulty is itself not constitutive and the system established by these laws is contingent. This point features a good deal of scepticism, for while stating that we can bridge the gap between forms and data, it at the same time implies that there is no way of guaranteeing that the
. "bridging" will succeed. It is only a "happy chancetl that the bridge fulfills its function. (Rotenstreich, p. 97. See also pp. 87; 94-95; 100.)
Kant's particular problem of knowledge, stemming from his premise of
the duality of intuition and thought (he refuses to reduce either of the two
modes to the other), is that of co-ordinating these two poles. This problem
loJould be solved if complete co-ordination could be effected. Rotenstreich
54
thinks that such is not the case, hence Kant's (first) scepticismj however
he believes that a partial co-ordination is effected by the categories as
schematized. These principles are said by Rotenstreich to be necessary, but
not sufficient, conditions for making knowledge possible. The sufficiency
of conditions is, according to Rotenstreich, to be provided by the principles
of reflective judgement. These latter are to bridge the gap still remaining
between the two poles. They fail to do this, hence the "scepticism of the 3 Critique of Judgement."
Whether or not the subjectivity of reflective principles opens the door
to the scepticism that Rotenstreich says it does will be considered after an
examination of the notion of chance itself with reference to the Critical
philosophy. In the next section this notion is developed into a alternative
tQ Rotenstreich's analysis. Using this option as a base, the writer will
demonstrate in the third part of the present chapter that Rotenstreich's
interpretation of the function of reflective judgement is completely
erroneous, although Kant's problem of induction must nonetheless be recog
nized.
2. Alternate Solution
There are actually two sorts of chance involved in Kant's theory of
knowledge. These two different meanings are related to the two distinct
types of experience rendered understandable under the aegis of deter
minant judgement, on the one hand, and reflective judgement, on the other.
Without any faculty of judgement whatsoever, we could never relate particu
lars and universals.4
Determinant judgement is the agency Kant uses in the
Analytic (of Principles: the chapter on schematism) to subsume particulars
under a universal. This agency has first to decide (judge) whether a given
particular case stands under a given concept on the basis of the under
standing's constitutive principles. Since both the universal and the par
ticular are given, determinant judgement then only applies the universal
rules given by the understanding to sensibles given by intuition. Determi
nant judgement does not, need not, and cannot itself produce any universal
55
concepts. (Cf. First Introd., pp. 16-17. See also p. 15.)
With the reflective judgement the situation is quite different. It
must produce its own a_priori principle (sinee no rules are given it by any
other faculty) which makes us look for universal concepts since empirical laws
are also (unlike the understanding's universal concepts or the categorial
principles) not given a priori. (Cf. First Introd., pp. 9-11; 15.) Only
the (particular) empirical detail of nature is given, for which universal
empirical concepts must be sought by reflective judgement.
The objective transcendental deduction of the unschematized categories
and their schematism in the transcendental determination of time guarantee
the direct determinative reference of categories to objects of experience;
hence ordinary knowledge as an aggregate ia rendered possible (and actual).
The principle of the Second Analogy shows that there is this objectively
necessary mechanical order in nature. Thus this aggregate of knowledge is
impervious to the first sort of chance, which would imply the denial of any
causality whatsoever in nature. Universal mechanism, as transcendental
causality, is a necessary condition for the possibility of any experience,
ordinary or scientific, but alone is insufficient to bar the second sort of 5
chance from experience.
Blind mechanism produces only aggregates, not systems. Rence it cannot
serve to explain how nature can be conceived, in the sum of its empirically
knowable features, as a systematic unity. The operation of the categories
by blind mechanism i9 a matter of chance so far as the purposive "intelligent"
cau9ality expressed by reflective judgement's a priori principle is con
cerned. (Cf. First Introd., pp. 14; 15; 17. See a1so Sections VI and V~I.)
Blind mechanism cannot explain (give any reason for), especially, the
systematization of empirical 1awso Kant tries to guarantee scientific ex
perience (the discovery and systematization of empirica1 concepts) through
56
a transcendental deduction of the principle which underlies the search for
empirical laws in nature f s detail, thus attributing a necessary character to
this concept of purposiveness.
It can be seen then that there are two a priori conditions for scien
tific knowledge. The first is that nature must be determined by universal
causal laws (this assumption is guaranteed by the causal principle of the
Second Analogy). The second is the presupposition that empirical laws of
naturels detail are also intelligible to us. (Cf. First Introd., P. 15.)
If empirical concepts are to be considered as subject to laws at aIl,
they cannot be totally contingent (although they are considered such from
the reference point of the objectively necessary categorial principles).
(Cf. First Introd., p. 10 and C. of J., Second introduction, pp. 21, 23.)
They must be in some lvay necessary or there would be no rational (in the
sense of intelligent) explanation for their being as they are, that is, as
discoverable and organizable; hence the second sort of chance (blind mecha
nism as an ultimate flexplanation") would be allowed into Kant's system since
there would be no intelligent causality in nature. (Cf. First Introd., p. 9.)
Despite the lack of determination in empirical laws (their contingen
cy), reflective judgement assumes in its a priori principle of purposiveness
in nature that we will find determinative (non-contingent) empirical concepts
for all objects of experience (cf. First Introd., pp. 16-17) since flpurpo
siveness is conformity to law on the part of that which is in itself contin
gentil (First Introd., p. 22; cf. C. of J., p. 252); and further that we will
be able to order these empirical laws under ever-higher universal empirical
concepts. (Cf. First Introd., pp. 8-9.)
Unless there i9 some reason for nature being what it is, we cannot be
certain that the given detail, on the basis of which empirical laws are for
mulated, may not be sa diverse that it wauld be impossible ta discover any
57
order at aIl. (Cf. First Introd., pp. 9, 18.) The concept of purpose
gives a reason for making inductive inferences in so far as it assumes that
regularity in the detail may be discovered and that the empirical laws thus
formulated may be systematized. By presupposing that nature i8 purposively
lawful, that is, that there is intelligent causality at its core, reflective
judgement's transcendental principle denies that the second type of chance •• • • 6 wLll gaLn entrance Lnto experLence.
3. Criticism of Rotenstreich and Problem of Induction
Rotenstreich thinks that both the Kantian solutions to chance fail.
Rotenstreich denies that either the determinative or reflective judgement
with each one's associated principles will suffice against chance. In
regard to both sorts of chance, Rotenstreich says, "Kant assumes the possibil
ity that the datum will not conform to the universal laws of experience
[categories-j and science L' transcendental particular laws '.1 " (Rotenstreich,
pp. 94-95).
Indeed Rotenstreich claims that this possibility has been actualized in
both cases. The deduction and schematism only incompletely bridge the gap
between understanding and intuition, and the contingency of the principles
of reflective judgement does not allow this hiatus between thought and
intuition at another level to be overcome.
Following one of Kant's contemporaries, Solomon Maimon (cf. Rotenstreich,
pp. 101; 103-104) Rotenstreich maintains that there is no real transition
between the categories and sensible intuition despite the transcendental
deduction of the categories and their schematism in time:
Although the categorial laws, the principles, are the necessary minimum of lawfulness, this minimum in itself is not capable of fulfilling the function of law-in-general, i.e., the function of unifying, and assigning one meaning to, the manifold of data. (Rotenstreich, p. 96)
Rotenstreich places part. of the blame for this situation on Kant' s not
reducing the transcendental to the ~onstitutive realm:
58
As long as the constitutive domain is not identified with the transcendental domain as a whole, there is a possibility of a breach between the constitutive domain and the experiential data. Tœprincip~ of transcendentelity implied only the necessity of non-experiential conditions for experience. It does not, however, imply that a number of specifie conditions fulfills the function of the totality of conditions. (Rotenstreich, p. 97)
Kant of course would agree that the concepts of the understanding must be
schematized, but Rotenstreich adds that the schematism is also insufficient
to bar chance. (Cf. Rotenstreich, pp. 93-95.)
Thus Rotenstreich claims that Kant finds it necessary to apply reflective
principles directly onto intuition in an attempt to shore up the understanding's
role; that is, Kant tries to bridge the gap between tœ conceptual and the
sensory poles of knowledge by means of ideas.
If there arises a need to posit an additional type of transcendental law other than that of the framework of [categorial] principles, in order to safeguard the validity of tœ principles themselves, then this need bears witness to a tendency [in Kant] to doubt the validity of the [categorialj principles, or, more cautiously, their ability to fulfill their function. (Rotenstreich, p. 93)
However Rotenstreich has not been sufficiently cautious in interpreting
Kant. He thinks that Kant's "scepticism" in the third Critique (which work
N.K.S., p. 561 sees as "less sceptical" than the first Critique) is due to
the hiatus between universal laws and intuitional (sense) data. (Cf. Roten
streich, pp. 92; 92-95.)
This"Kantian scepticism" is manifest in the fact that Kant finds it necessary to posit particular transcendental laws as a midstage between the universal laws [of understanding] and the intuitional (sense) data. (Rotenstreich, p. 93)
And so the problem of "particular transcendental laws" is put forward in
the introductions to the Critique of Judgement. (Cf. Rotenstreich, p. 92.)
In positing a type of law at once particular and unconditional, the Critique of Judgement established a new transcendental level, a level
59
containing both poles - that of the transcendental status, and that of particularity. The laws of judgement, despite their reflective validity, are laws conditioning experience, for they constitute the philosophical expression of the hypothesis of the relatedness of nature. (Rotenstreich, p. 94)
Since Rotenstreich attributes both contingency and subjectivity to
these principles of reflective judgement, he cannot see them as even partially
bridging the prim.ordial gap between thought [Kant's empirical laws; Roten
streich's "particular transcendental laws lt] and intuition [Kant's emp1rical
detail; Rotenstreich's sense-data, which in the third Critique are identified
with Kant's empirical lawsJ , with this second, even more, haphazard unification
of [Kant'sJ empirical detail into [Kant's] empirical laws and the further
unification of the latter.
Rowever Rotenstreich sets up Kant's problem inaccurately and so produces 7
a misleading rendering of both sorts of chance. Re develops a peculiar
version of the matter of experience by identifying the sensible intuition of
the Analytic with the amorphous sense-data (cf. Rotenstreich, pp. 92-96),
which data Kant ~ think have been already organized by the forms of space
and time as well as the first step of the deduction. (Cf. A99-l00 = Bl60.)
Rotenstreich continues his error by then identifying the empiric& laws
of the Dialectic and the Critiqu~ of Judgement with these (to his mind) still
unrationalized data, since he doe~ not believe that these data were fully
ordered in the Analytic. 8 He compound~ his error by attributing tœ function
Kant gives to the empirical laws to Itparticular transcendental laws" (Kant's
logical maxims); thus these reflective laws are seen as both subjective and
contingent. Rotenstreich's problem of Ithappy chance" follows from his
attributing total contingency to the reflective principles.
Rotenstreich' s account of these logical modes of ordering nature' s detail
is misleading. He characterized the maxims of reflective judgement as
"particular transcendental lawslt (Rotenstreich, p. 93) in contrast to the
understanding's Ituniversal transcendental laws" (Rotenstreich, p. 94). More
60
basically Rotenstreich does not even mention the fundamental transcendental
principle of reflective judgement (the concept of purpose) at aIl. Of course,
then, he cannot consider its claim to necessity, thus paving the way for his
inaccurate attribution of chance to the relation between "particular tran
scendental laws" and intuitional (sense) data. (Cf. Rotenstreich, p. 93.)
Rotenstreich's infelicitous term (at least in this connection) is also
used by Kant but in quite a different application:
This transcendental concept of a purposiveness of nature is neither a natural concept [C.P.Ro] nor a concept of freedom [the Critique of Practical Reason] , because it ascribes nothing to the object (of nature), but only represents the peculiar way in which we must proceed in reflection upon the objects of nature in reference to a thoroughly connected experience, and is consequently a subjective principle (maxim) of the judgement. Rence, as if it were a lucky chance favoring our design, we are rejoiced (properly speaking, relieved of a want) if we meet with such systematic unit y under merely empirical laws, although we must necessarily assume that there is such a unit y without our com'prehending it or being able to prove it. (C. of J., Second introduction, p. 20. Italics are this writer's.)
The way the expression, "as if" is used in the above passage indicates
that the systematization of the (already discovered) empirical laws in
scientific experience is not at aIl due to chance.. Rather their discovery
and unification is due to the efforts of the scientist who searches for
empirical laws and is "rejoiced" if he finds them and systematizes them under
the concept of a purpose, by assuming that the detail of nature is amenable
to such ordering, that is, by presupposing that nature is purposive for our
reflective judgement.
Rotenstreich's discussion of chance is elliptical since his interpretation
of Kant here is so compressed. Ris version would have it that Kant first tries
to overcome the chasm between thought and intuition by the deduction and the
schematism of categories; that he realizes he has failed to completely do SO;
and thus attempts to circumvent the hiatus with the reflective principles. Kant
1
61
fails again since these principles are regarded by Rotenstreich as totally
subjective.
Rotenstreich ignores the (general) transcendental principle of reflective
judgement by reference to which his "particular transcendental laws" gain their
significance. He dismisses any characterization of the reflective principles
as necessary or a priori (cf. Rotenstreich, pp. 70, 97), although the term
"transcendental" could imply this necessity. Since he does not even mention
the over-riding teleological principle, Rotenstreich fails to discuss its ~
priori element, especially in relation to the issue of chance. Rather than
expounding and criticizing this a priori principle, Rotenstreich's brief inter
pretation immediately moves to chance. He apparently believes that where there
is contingency there can be no law (cf. Rotenstreich, p. 100), a doctrine con
trary to Kant's own:
The concept of the purposiveness of nature in its products [empirical detail] is ••• a subjective principle of reason for the judgement, which as regulative Lnot constitutive] is just as necessarily valid for our human iudgement as if it were an objective principle. (C. of J., pp. 252-253.)
Kant seems to be as much opposed to the second sort of chance with refer
ence to reason and reflective judgement (dealt with in the Appendix to the
first Critigue as weIl as in the introductions to the third) as he is to the
first kind with reference to determinant judgement (considered in the Analytic's
deduction and schematism):
For were we not entitled to assume this [i'that for all things in nature empirical concepts can be found'Q ••• aIl reflection would be carried on at random and blindly, and as a result with no sound expectation of its agreement with nature. (First Introd., pp. 16-17)9
Kant and most commentators assume (against Rotenstreich) that the threat
of the first type of chance (chaos) has been completely removed by the deduc
tion and the schematism of the categories. Perhpas Kant can be faulted in th~
solution (that the transcendental deduction and the schemata do bridge the gap
62
bet~oJeen the heterogeneous realms of concepts and intuitions). However, con
trary to what Rotenstreich says, Kant himself does think that this chasm has
been overcome (for exarnple, in the Second Analogy, the proof that the causal
concept has a valid application in experience) and so for him there is no chance
in the first sense. Kant himself has no sceptical doubts about the validity
of the causal principle in phenomenal nature, since he believes the basic
causality of blind mechanism has answered Hume's problem that "we can never
justly claim to apprehend necessary relations between real existences."IO
Since this paper deals mainly with Kantis justification of the regulative
and reflective concepts, it will be supposed here that the determinant judgement
and the constitutive principles have succeeded in unifying the breach between
concepts and sensible intuition. However even if it is assumed that Kant's
argument in the Analytic has quieted any Humean doubts as to the validity in
experience of the causal principle, this principle alone merely proves that
events have causes. Another factor is required (beyond justification by the
deduction and the doctrine of schematism) for scientific explanation. The
causal principle in itself is certainly not a sufficient explanation for any
event:
Special laws~mpirical concepts] ••• cannot in their specific char acteristics be derived from the categories, although they are one and aIl subject to them. To obtain any knowledge whatsoever of these special laws, we must resort to experience. (BI65)
We would not, however, "resort to experience" in the first place without
the assumption that we will be able to find these laws. Reflective judgement
gives us principles to enable us to search in experience for these "special
laws" and systematize them. Nevertheless there is still the question as to
whether or not Kant has answered Hume's sceptical doubts about induction. Does
judgement's a priori concept of purpose provide a sufficient bar against the
second sort of chance?
Even if Rotenstreich be properly criticized for attributing mere subjectiviw
63
to the reflective principles, the issue of the subjective (albeit necessary)
character of the transcendental principle upon which they rest remains. A
serious criticism of Kant's the ory of scientific knowledge would have to con
sider whether or not there is a sufficient basis in reflective judgement's
concept for the possibility of scientific experience, that is, whether or not
this principle is sufficient for the explanation of the logical system of
empirical concepts (for giving reasons why nature in its particulal~ contents can
be conceived as a purposive system). In other words, will we be allowed
inductive inferences?
If there be no guarantee that the empirical characteristics of nature
may not change tomorrow (aince they might be so heterogeneous as to preclude
any ordering) and if there be, further, no justification for assuming empirical
ordering can be systematized, then irrationality is allowed to thwart rational
investigation. If there is no purpose within nature, we are left with the
(blind) causality of non-purposive mechanism as an explanation for scientific
(as weIl as ordinary) experience.
As has been discussed previously, universal mechanism alone, although
sufficient to bar chaos from experience in general, is not sufficient to over
come the second sort of chance (non-intelligent causality) since it can only
deal with the aggregates of objects, not systems. Scientific experience demands
more than the objectively proven law that aIl phenomenal events have causes.
This very general unit y of nature is both necessary and sufficient for the unit y
of possible experience but is just one essential element for the possibility
of scientific experience; that ia, it is necessary but not sufficient for the
explanation of the latter sort of experience. A further presupposition is
required: the principle that nature can be systematized in its detail or
that empirical concepts can be found and organized.
Blind mechanism can give no reasons whatsoever for the way nature is
organized in aIl its specifie empirical characteristics. Indeed it offers no
64
justification that order will even be discovered in the particular material
of nature and that, if such regularity be comprehended, empirical laws (which
are "derived from" common empirical features) will repeat themselves so that
they can be systematized. By reference to only the objectively necessary
principles of the understanding, it is possible that the sphere of particulars
will be so diversified that it will not prove amenable to ordering. (Cf. ~
Introd., pp. 9; 14; 18.) That similar causes will have similar effects and
that past regularities in nature will repeat themse1ves in the future is an
additional supposition involved in scientific experience. ll
Ref1ective judgement's logical activity, under the aegis of its principle
of purpose, lies in trying to discover regu1arity in heterogeneous particulars
and in attempting to bring the empirical 1aws thus formulated to systematic
unity. Categorical principles, of course, are not explanatory in the sense of
giving reasons for this logical systematization. For this second sort of explan
ation, scientific knowledge needs a principle so that these particular events
can be explained intelligently. This principle is reflective judgement's own concept of the purposiveness of nature. Kant's examination of reflective
judgement is a more comprehensive continuation of the prob1em of induction
begun in the Appendix to the Dialectic. 12
The issue now is whether this second presupposition (that of the purpos
iveness of nature), which is necessary for scientific research to get started,
is also a sufficient grounding for science, that is, for giving reasons why
empirical laws can be discovered and then be organized systematically.
It cannot be doubted that the principle of reflective judgement is implicit
in scientific knowledge. Its denial would necessarily make scientific activity
futile. If it could not be supposed that there is not an unlimited diversity
in nature and further that empirical concepts are capable of being organized
into a system, scientific investigation would never begin.
LE]ither nature i8 or is not knowable: if it is, then we may be
65
successful in our attempt to know it, although even if we fail in the attempt, this does not prove that nature is ultimately ùnknowable but only that we have not succeeded so far. If nature is not knowable, then there is no sense making the attempt: so if we make the attempt, we must at least not deny that it is knowable. (McFarland, p. 87)
If nature is to be a systematic unit y, it must be assumed to de pend on
an intelligent causality or "antecedent representation" (F::'rst Introd., p. 20)
of what it is designed to be. (Cf. First Introd., pp. 20-22; J.C.M., IV:180~
Pusposiveness means that any organized system (as opposed to a mere aggregate)
could not be produced by blind chance or by an irrational (non-intelligent)
cause. Reflective judgement's principle deals with the empirical detail
technically or artificially, not mechanically or schematically. It is an
indeterminate principle (as opposed to the determinative categorial principles
used by determinant judgement) of a "purposive, systematic ordering of nature"
(First Introd., p. 18; cf. Sections II and IV.).
Without this a priori assumption of reflective judgement, empirical
concepts (judged from the point of view of the categorial principles) would
appear totally contingent (cf. First Introd., p. la; and see also C. of J.,
Second introduction, pp. 21, 23), hence non-discoverable and non-organizable.
In this (subjective) sense alone is scientific explanation rescued from blind
mechanism as an ultimate explanation, since we cannot know a priori that
nature is non-purposive in its detail. So far as our objecti.ve knowledge of
nature is concerned, however, the existence of systems and, more basically,
the discovery of empirical laws is merely contingent. Despite the categorial
bar against chaos, it is possible that the particular features of experience
~e so varied that it would be impossible to discover any regularity at aIl.
(Cf. C. of J., Second introduction, p. 21 and J.C.M., IV:180.)
Chance in its second onslaught is not ultimately overcome. The principle
of purposiveness is a priori, and necessary to that extent for natural science,
but it cannot assure us that our scientific efforts will not ultimately be in
66
vain. Kant himself characterizes these efforts as always necessarily incomplete.
Even if empirical laws be found and unified, their complete systematization
into a purposive whole is always a focus imaginarius.
Given Kant's arguments in the Analytic, a system is simply never given or
found in phenomenal nature (although the categorial principles constitutive
of nature are given and determinant judgement has merely to subsume data
observed under them). The perfection of experience which is the systematic
rendition of the particular features of nature, as weIl as and distinct from
the constitutive features, is always a projected unity. The perfection of
experience can itself never be experienced •. However: it LS an ideal for which
we must continuously seek, for the sake of science at least. We must believe
that this goal is somehow attainable although we can never ~ it.
67
FOOTNOTES TO CHAPTER FOUR
1 This work will be referred to from hereon in as Rotenstreich.
2 In referring to Kant's phrase here, Cassirer in his commentary on the third Critique, p.376 and James Collins (A History of Modern European Philosophy [Milwaukee: The Bruce Publishing Company, 1961]) p.537 also use such expressions as "matter of chance", "very surprising", and "happy chance". Karl Jaspers (Kant, transe Ralph Manheim, ed. Hannah Arendt [New York: Harcourt, Br~and World, Inc., 196~) pp.57 and 60 considers this business of chance in relation to the regulative principles.
3 Rotenstreich's chapter on the reflective judgement is entitled, "The Scepticism of the Critique of Judgement." He contrasts Kant's more moderate scepticism with complete or "absolute scepticism which categorically denies the possibility of constructing knowledge" (Rotenstreich, p.95).
4 Cassirer, in his commentary en the third Critique, pp.106-l07, thinks that the problem of the relation between particulars and universals is the central problem of transcendental philosophy. The theme of this paper is ju~t that: if there is no connection between particulars (either as sensible intuition or moreso as empirical detail) and universals (either as categories or, for purposes of this paper, empirical concepts), either subjectively or objectively, they are only haphazardly related, a point relevant to the analysis of both sorts of chance. This writer ia indebt~d to both Professor Cecil Currie, McGill University and McFar.land, in his Kant' s Concept of Teleology, for their analyses of these two meanings of chance.
5 An aggregate, whether of ordinary or scientific experience, needs in order to be systematized a principle of systematization. Reflective judgement's principle seems thus to be essential for the minimal systematic unit y of ordinary experience (Kant calls this unit y a "transcendental system" in lliê.! Introd.: p.17, n.4. Cf. pp.9; 14-15) as well as for systematizing in detail the aggregate of particular experiences (as against experience in general) and empirical laws into an empirical system. Cf. First Introd., pp.10-ll. The writer will only concern herself with the empirical system.
6 Mc Far land , pp.74-75 ff. gives a lucid explanation of chance in relation to the problem of induction. Cf. pp.88-89.
68
7 The writer is grateful to Professor Cecil Currie, McGill University for his criticism of Rotenstreich's interpretation of Kant.
8 Rotenstreich, p.93 has a good quotation from Kant in this connection. Unfortunately his misconception of this quote on p.94 could not be greater: the enormous "specifie variety of the empirical laws of nature ••• coming to hand in such.profusion l1
• (Kant's Critique of Aesthetic Judgement, tranSe J.C. Meredith LOxford, 1911] p.25) is taken by Rotenstreich to mean the inexhaustible content of intuition. However the function of reflective judgement has to do, not with sense-data, but with empirical laws.
9 In C. of J., Section 66, p.223 Kant gives the same status to the teleolo-
gical principle (or maxim), "nothing in ••• vain" (for the biological) as he does to the "universal physical proposition," "nothing happens by chance."
...
la Weldon (Kant's "Critique of Pure Reason") pp.28-29 phrases Hume's scepticism in this manner. McFarland, p.3 agrees that most commentators maintain that the argument of the Second Analogy contains Kant's final answer to this aspect of Hume's scepticisme (Cf. McFarland, pp.71-72.)
11 Notions from McFarland's Kant's Concept of Teleolo~y have been used frequently for the explanation of Kant's problem of induction. Cf. McFarland, pp. 9; 74; 80; 88-89 especially.
12 McFarland, p.80, thinks that Kant's way of carrying on the discussion of the problem of induction, in terms of whether reflective judgement has an a priori principle of its own, tends to obscure this examination as does Kant's faculty-talk in general. In regard to McFarland's first criticism, this writer assumes that he means to emphasize the "a priori principle of its own" (latter italics mine) aspect rather than the "a priori" element, since the latter characteristic is absolutely crucial for any discussion of the problem of induction as seen by Kant. With reference to his second criticism, the writec agrees with McFarland, especially after noting the ways in which Cassirer in hi,s commentary on the Critique of Judgement becomes encumbered by Kant's faculty-talk.
CONCLUSION
The Identical Error
Belief is on1y subjective1y sufficient whereas know1edge is both
subjective1yand objective1y so.1 Through the schematized categories
we can gain knowledge but we do not have such assurance in using the
regulating concepts. However both know1edge and belief can be
considered as part of the Critical philosophy. Dogmatism, by definition,
and mere opinion cannot be so considered. "Opining is su ch holding of a
judgment as is consciously insufficient, not only objective1y, but also
subjective1y" (A822=B850).
Neither a dogmatica11y objective nor a mere1y subjective justification
of regulative and reflective principles conforms to the Critical theory.
Kant's attempt at reconciling the one-sidedness of, respectively,
Leibnizian dogmatism and Humean scepticism also indicates ~his view.
However Norman Kemp Smith thinks that this attempt does not succeed ir. the
case of these regulating principles; thus he perceives the continuation
of two opposed strains in their justification as given in the Appendix to
the Dialectic. Nathan Rotenstreich, on the other hand, sees only a
subjectivist strain in Kant's justification, a perspective which
Rotenstreich deems to exist in the Analytic as well;"although not to the
extent that it does in the Dialectic and Critique of Judgment.
70
The fundamental point at issue in this paper is whether or not either
commentator is correct. The conclusion arrived at is that neither is.
Kemp Smith sees the subjective and objective aspects of the justification
as opposed rather than complementary, although he grants that the former
seems to be the predominant one in Kant's justification. Rotenstreich
thinks that the subjective justification is the only one Kant call and
does give, and goes further than does Kempt Smith's subjectivist stand
point by attributing chance to Kant's use of regulating concepts.
Both commentators fail because neither accounts for both (at the same
time) the subjective and objective elements in the principles of reason
and reflective judgement. In this sense the interpretations of these
dissimilar Kantian commentators are not unrelated. Indeed the incompet
encies indicated above in both treatments are based upon the same mistake;
that is, the inadequacies in the contrasting views can be seen to be
due to this identical misinterpretation of Kant. Nevertheless, although
Rotenstreich is criticized for overemphasizing the subjective aspect and
its deficiencies, this factor in regulating concepts does le ad to the
problem of induction and Kant does find it necessary to deal with this
problem in both the Appendix to the Dialectic of the first Critigue and
the introductions to the third Critigue.
~emp Smith's difficulties as weil as Rotenstreich's problem of chance
have been seen to be the result of a misguided approach to the Appendix
with reference to the former problem and confusion in the analyses of both
the Appendix and the Critigue of Judgement (as weil as the analysis of the
Analytic) with respect to the matter of chance. Kemp Smith's objectivist
position considers only the necessary element in reason's transcendental
concepts, since he fails to take into account their complementary (not
opposed as he would have it in his patchwork theory) subjective character.
On the other hand, Rotenstreich dismisses any necessary factor from the
71
realm of reflection, and presumably also dismisses a degree of necessity
from the constitutive principles, for the reflective principles are
suppoe c ' y him to be an attempt at remedying the failure of the
constitutive principles to do their job of completely bridging the gap
between thought and intuition.
In Kant's first attempt at justification (that of the Appendix to the
Dialectic, which justification is discussed in chapter one of the present
paper), Kemp Smith discerns a conflict between what the present writer has
shown to be the subjective and objective characteristics of regulative
concepts. Further, he attribut es what he views as Kant's non-resolution of
this perce:i.veo conflict to the philosopher's inability to ultimately
reconcile the dogmatic and sceptical strains in his attempted synthesis of
Critical Idealism.
Chapter two above concerns the first difficulty to which Kant's
justification seems to give rise, Kemp Smith's interpretation, and the
conclusion is that there is a problem here only if the patchwork theory
be accepted. Rowever this theory is seen to be unacceptable in the case of
reason's concepts anyway, since Kemp Smith contrasts isolated statements
with one another and, by so taking Kant's remarks in the Appendix out of
context, produces an impression of inconsistency in the justification of
such principles. Rence Kemp Smith cannot app~2ciate tb~t there are two
complementary aspects to these principles; ~hat is, he fails to see that
in fact there is no necessary dichotomy between the subjective and
objective factors.
To the extent that Kemp Smith's two standpoints give only a partial
rendering of the Appendix, each al one is misleading and is incongruent
with the other. Kemp Smith, th en , deems the regulative concepts'
72
subjective and objective components (which have been explicated in this
paper as equally co-existent) to be conflicting rather than compatible.
Indeed his objectivist exposition do es not disclose at all the subjective
(although, concurrently, the a priori) character in reason's transcendental
principles.
The patchwork theory, which imputes two diverse attitudes to Kant in
the Critique of 'Pure Reason, finds Kant wavering in the Appendix between
a subjective (even sceptical at times) position and a more dogmatic one.
Kemp Smith contrasts the conception of regulative principles as developed
in the first chapter of the present work, viz. their subjective
justification and role as necessary for the guidance of knowledge without
any determination of the understanding (although his subjectivist view
pûint does not distinguish between the understanding in, respectively, its
empirical laws and categorial principles) with what he supposes to be Kant's
claim that these principles are transcendental conditions upon which all
use of the understanding rests and so, to the extent that they are
necessary conditions of the understanding's use, they would also inform
experience.
Kemp Smith's theory obliterates the distinction Kant makes between
ordinary and scientific experience as well as the difference between the
two meanings Kant assigns to understanding in the Analytic (which refers
to the a priori given categorial concepts), on the one hand, and the
Dialectic (which concerns, rather, the empirical concepts), on the other.
He does not then distinguish, as Kant dces, between the respectively
related notions of the unit y of possible experience (nature) and the unit y
of reason (order of nature). By regarding the subjective and objective
ingredients in reason's concepts as representative of two irreconcilable
strains in Kant's thought, Kemp Smith gives an erroneous elucidation of
the justification.
73
However, criticism of Rotenstreich's also inaccurate interpretation
does not thereby remove another difficulty observed in Kant's justification,
namely, that of induction. This problem stays with Kant given even a
proper rendition of his justification of regulating principles. Rotenstreich,
as has been discussed, discerns only a subjective and progressively more
sceptical orientation in Kant's justification as developed in the intro
ductions to the Critique of Judgement.
Kant's second attempt at justification is considered in the third
chapter of the present work, while chapter four above is an account of,
first, Rotenstreich's critique of this attempt and, second, a consideration
of the present author's evaluation of two predicaments which have been
seen to arise as a result of the deficiencies in the subjective
justification: Rotenstreich's apparent problem of chance (the second
difficulty looked at in this paper) and Kant's real problem of induction.
Rotenstreich misapprehends Kant's problem with the reflective judge
ment. Rotenstreich errs not only with respect to the chance element which
he perceives in Kant's use of reflective concepts, but also with reference
to the whole context of Kant's theory about the proper function of
reflective judgement. Rotenstreich's argument that the role of this type
of judgement is to aid the determinant judgement in overcoming the hiatus
between the understanding's categorial principles and the intuitional
(sense) data is fallacious.
Briefly, Rotenstreich understands the reflective judgement to be
directed upon the primordial Kantian problem of uniting functionally
thought and intuition. Rotenstreich's idea is that this unification is
not effected by the universal constitutive concepts, since his theory
cons id ers these principles provided to determinant judgement by the
74
understanding as necessary but insufficient conditions for making know
ledge possible (although he admits that the partial unification effected
by the deduction and schematism do es save Kant from absolute scepticism).
However categorial principles are not seen as sufficient to the
unification of the two poles of knowledge (as knowledge is beheld by
Kant); hence the chasm between understanding and intuition is not
completely traversed. According to Rotenstreich, Kant thinks that the
sufficiency of conditions must be provided by reflective judgement's
principles in order to fill the gap still remaining; that is, Kant finds
it necessary to bring on the reflective judgement in order to assist the
constitutive principles given to determinant judgement.
The "scepticism of the Critique of Judgement" is due to the failure
of reflective principles as well to bridge the gap. These concepts fall
short of effecting unification in so far as Rotenstreich ascribes any sort
of necessity to the constitutive realm only.2 Herein lies the reason for
what Rotenstreich des cries as Kant's increasing scepticism due to the
admittance of an element of chance into the role of regulating principles.
(In Rotenstreich's eyes the merely partial unification effected by the
deduction and schematism do es not completely overcome the threat of the
first sort of chance.)
Rotenstreich's fallacy of imputing a merely subjective status to the
reflective principles is opposed, of course, to Kant's own assertion that
these concepts contain a necessary factor as well. Rotenstreich's
critique of Kant's justification of regulating principles must be found
wanting, since he assigns contingency as weIl as subjectivity to these
principles and so regards Kant's own proposition as overly strong.
75
Thus it can be seen that the criticisms of Kant's justification given
by both Rotenstreich and Kemp Smith are defective. Furthermore the
deficiencies in both commentaries are based on an identical mistake, since
both preclude the concurrence of subjective and objective characteristics
in regulating concepts. Kemp Smith isolates these two factors from one
another, hence his imputation of inconsistency (between a dogmatic and a
subjective strain) to Kant's justification. Rotenstreich notes only the
subjective aspect, having banished necessity from the realm of reflection,
hence his attribution of scepticism to Kant's use of reflecting concepts.
Kemp Smith's objectivist interpretation is in error, because Kant not
only recognizes the dangers of dogmatism (these are considered mainly in
the Dialectic), but he is also successful in avoiding it in his justification
of reason's principles. However Kant's subjective justification will not
be able to objectively guarantee that nature can be known at all in its
detail. This problem of induction is the issue involved in the subjective
(although still transcendental) deduction of reason's and reflective
judgement's concepts.
Rotenstreich's sceptical notion is also mistaken, since Kant himself
does not think that he falls into subjectivism in his justification of the
forms and the categories in so far as he refers to the structure of
possible experience, which he later sees as guaranteed against Hume's
scepticism (and the first sort of chance) by the doctrine of schematism.
Kant cannot, however, justify regulative and ~eflective principles as he
does categorial rules, because the former cannot be sensibly schematized.
Nevertheless he can and does give them a subjective deduction as essential
for the systematization of ordinary experience and hence for the possibility
of scientific knowledge.
76
Granted the deficiencies in Kemp Smith's and Rotenstreich's commentaries
and, further, the defectiveness of Rotenstreich's account of chance in Kant's
theory, a remaining problem is whether Kant's deduction (which is necessary
for the possibility of systematic knowledge) is sufficient to explain
scientific experience or the knowledge of nature as a systematic unity.
It must be concluded for Critical reasons that this subjective guarantee is
objectively insufficient. By proving that the only objectively necessary
principles we.possess operate by blind mechanism (and to this extent there
is no element of chance in the operation of the schematized categories),
Kant cannot bar chance in its second appearance from the Critical theory,
since regulating concepts are subjectively necessary but not objectively so.
Although we can never demonstrate that nature is ultimate~y mechanical,
we can no more prove that it is finally teleological (both such ultimate
explanations having been ruled out by the section on the antinomies); that
is, we can never guarant~e that in fact empirical laws will be either
discovered or systematized. Given the Critical grounding we not only
cannot prove but should not attempt to prove that nature is actually
purposive.
77
FOOTNOTES TO CONCLUSION
I Kant distinguishes between knowledge and belief in C.P.R., "The Canon of Pure Reason", at A822=B850. Weldon (Kant's "Critique of Pure Reason") pp. 238-239 asserts that only the belief that scientific investigations do somehow bring us nearer to understanding nature in its own right seems to give anything more than a pragmatic import to them.
2 Thus Rotenstreich interprets Kant as not merely a subjectivist but aiso as inclined to scepticism in so far as Rotenstreich thinks that there is no assurance that the regulating concepts can even guide knowledge; that is, these principles are not even subjectively necessary.
A1-Azm, Sadiko
Ard1ey, Gavin.
Beek, Lewis White, ed.
Bennett, Jonathan.
Bird, Graham.
Bochenski, I.M.
Buchdah1, Gerd.
Burre11, David B.
Caird, Edwardo
Cassirer, Ernst.
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