Critique of Pure Reason (Paralogisms of Pure Reason -B)

Immanuel Kant's
Critique
trans. by Norman Kemp Smith
P 368
THE PARALOGISMS OF PURE REASON
SINCE the proposition 'I think' (taken problematically)
contains the form of each and every judgment of understanding
and accompanies all categories as their vehicle, it is evident
that the inferences from it admit only of a transcendental
employment of the understanding. And since this employment
excludes any admixture of experience, we cannot, after what
has been shown above, entertain any favourable anticipations
in regard to its methods of procedure. We therefore propose to
follow it, with a critical eye, through all the predicaments of
pure psychology. But for the sake of brevity the examination
had best proceed in an unbroken continuity.
The following general remark may, at the outset, aid us in
our scrutiny of this kind of argument. I do not know an object
merely in that I think, but only in so far as I determine a given
intuition with respect to the unity of consciousness in which all
thought consists. Consequently, I do not know myself through
being conscious of myself as thinking, but only when I am
conscious of the intuition of myself as determined with respect
to the function of thought. Modi of self-consciousness in
thought are not by themselves concepts of objects (categories),
but are mere functions which do not give thought an object
to be known, and accordingly do not give even myself as
object. The object is not the consciousness of the determining
self, but only that of the determinable self, that is, of my
inner intuition (in so far as its manifold can be combined in
accordance with the universal condition of the unity of
apperception in thought).
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(1) In all judgments I am the determining subject of that
relation which constitutes the judgment. That the 'I', the 'I'
that thinks, can be regarded always as subject, and as something
which does not belong to thought as a mere predicate, must be
granted. It is an apodeictic and indeed identical proposition;
but it does not mean that I, as object, am for myself a self-
subsistent being or substance. The latter statement goes very far
beyond the former, and demands for its proof data which are
not to be met with in thought, and perhaps (in so far as I have
regard to the thinking self merely as such) are more than I
shall ever find in it.
(2) That the 'I' of apperception, and therefore the 'I' in
every act of thought, is one, and cannot be resolved into a
plurality of subjects, and consequently signifies a logically
simple subject, is something already contained in the very
concept of thought, and is therefore an analytic proposition.
But this does not mean that the thinking 'I' is a simple
substance. That proposition would be synthetic. The concept of
substance always relates to intuitions which cannot in me be
other than sensible, and which therefore lie entirely outside
the field of the understanding and its thought. But it is of
this thought that we are speaking when we say that the 'I' in
thought is simple. It would, indeed, be surprising if what in
other cases requires so much labour to determine -- namely,
what, of all that is presented in intuition, is substance, and
further, whether this substance can be simple (e.g. in the
parts of matter) -- should be thus given me directly, as if by
revelation, in the poorest of all representations.
(3) The proposition, that in all the manifold of which I am
conscious I am identical with myself, is likewise implied in the
concepts themselves, and is therefore an analytic proposition.
But this identity of the subject, of which I can be conscious in
all my representations, does not concern any intuition of the
subject, whereby it is given as object, and cannot therefore
signify the identity of the person, if by that is understood the
consciousness of the identity of one's own substance, as a
thinking being, in all change of its states. No mere analysis of
the proposition 'I think' will suffice to prove such a proposition;
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for that we should require various synthetic judgments,
based upon given intuition.
(4) That I distinguish my own existence as that of a
thinking being, from other things outside me--among them
my body -- is likewise an analytic proposition; for other things
are such as I think to be distinct from myself. But I do not
thereby learn whether this consciousness of myself would be
even possible apart from things outside me through which
representations are given to me, and whether, therefore, I
could exist merely as thinking being (i.e. without existing in
human form).
The analysis, then, of the consciousness of myself in
thought in general, yields nothing whatsoever towards the
knowledge of myself as object. The logical exposition of
thought in general has been mistaken for a metaphysical
determination of the object.
Indeed, it would be a great stumbling-block, or rather
would be the one unanswerable objection, to our whole critique,
if there were a possibility of proving a priori that all
thinking beings are in themselves simple substances, and that
consequently (as follows from this same mode of proof)
personality is inseparable from them, and that they are conscious
of their existence as separate and distinct from all matter.
For by such procedure we should have taken a step beyond
the world of sense, and have entered into the field of noumena;
and no one could then deny our right of advancing yet further
in this domain, indeed of settling in it, and, should our star
prove auspicious, of establishing claims to permanent possession.
The proposition, 'Every thinking being is, as such, a
simple substance', is a synthetic a priori proposition; it is
synthetic in that it goes beyond the concept from which it starts,
and adds to the thought in general [i.e. to the concept of
a thinking being] the mode of [its] existence: it is a priori,
in that it adds to the concept a predicate (that of simplicity)
which cannot be given in any experience. It would then follow
that a priori synthetic propositions are possible and admissible,
not only, as we have asserted, in relation to objects of
possible experience, and indeed as principles of the possibility
of this experience, but that they are applicable to things in
general and to things in themselves -- a result that would make
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an end of our whole critique, and would constrain us to
acquiesce in the old-time procedure. Upon closer consideration
we find, however, that there is no such serious danger.
The whole procedure of rational psychology is determined
by a paralogism, which is exhibited in the following syllogism:
That which cannot be thought otherwise than as subject
does not exist otherwise than as subject, and is therefore
substance.
A thinking being, considered merely as such, cannot be
thought otherwise than as subject.
Therefore it exists also only as subject, that is, as substance.
In the major premiss we speak of a being that can be
thought in general, in every relation, and therefore also as it
may be given in intuition. But in the minor premiss we speak
of it only in so far as it regards itself, as subject, simply in
relation to thought and the unity of consciousness, and not as
likewise in relation to the intuition through which it is given
as object to thought. Thus the conclusion is arrived at
fallaciously, per sophisma figurae dictionis.
That we are entirely right in resolving this famous argument
into a paralogism will be clearly seen, if we call to mind
what has been said in the General Note to the Systematic
Representation of the Principles and in the Section on
Noumena.
++ 'Thought' is taken in the two premisses in totally different
senses: in the major premiss, as relating to an object in general and
therefore to an object as it may be given in intuition; in the minor
premiss, only as it consists in relation to self-consciousness. In
this latter sense, no object whatsoever is being thought; all that is
being represented is simply the relation to self as subject (as the
form of thought). In the former premiss we are speaking of things
which cannot be thought otherwise than as subjects; but in the latter
premiss we speak not of things but of thought (abstraction being
made from all objects) in which the 'I' always serves as the subject
of consciousness. The conclusion cannot, therefore, be, 'I cannot
exist otherwise than as subject', but merely, 'In thinking my
existence, I cannot employ myself, save as subject of the judgment
[therein involved]'. This is an identical proposition, and casts no
light whatsoever upon the mode of my existence.
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For it has there been proved that the concept of a thing
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which can exist by itself as subject and never as mere predicate,
carries with it no objective reality; in other words, that we
cannot know whether there is any object to which the concept
is applicable -- as to the possibility of such a mode of existence
we have no means of deciding -- and that the concept therefore
yields no knowledge whatsoever. If by the term 'substance' be
meant an object which can be given, and if it is to yield
knowledge, it must be made to rest on a permanent intuition, as
being that through which alone the object of our concept can
be given, and as being, therefore, the indispensable condition
of the objective reality of the concept. Now in inner intuition
there is nothing permanent, for the 'I' is merely the consciousness
of my thought. So long, therefore, as we do not go beyond
mere thinking, we are without the necessary condition for
applying the concept of substance, that is, of a self-subsistent
subject, to the self as a thinking being. And with the objective
reality of the concept of substance, the allied concept of
simplicity likewise vanishes; it is transformed into a merely
logical qualitative unity of self-consciousness in thought in
general, which has to be present whether the subject be
composite or not.
REFUTATION OF MENDELSSOHN'S PROOF OF THE
PERMANENCE OF THE SOUL
This acute philosopher soon noticed that the usual argument
by which it is sought to prove that the soul -- if it be
admitted to be a simple being -- cannot cease to be through
dissolution, is insufficient for its purpose, that of proving the
necessary continuance of the soul, since it may be supposed
to pass out of existence through simply vanishing. In his
Phaedo he endeavoured to prove that the soul cannot be
subject to such a process of vanishing, which would be a
true annihilation, by showing that a simple being cannot
cease to exist. His argument is that since the soul cannot
be diminished, and so gradually lose something of its
existence, being by degrees changed into nothing (for since it
has no parts, it has no multiplicity in itself), there would be
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no time between a moment in which it is and another in which
it is not -- which is impossible. He failed, however, to observe
that even if we admit the simple nature of the soul, namely,
that it contains no manifold of constituents external to one
another, and therefore no extensive quantity, we yet cannot
deny to it, any more than to any other existence, intensive
quantity, that is, a degree of reality in respect of all its
faculties, nay, in respect of all that constitutes its existence, and
that this degree of reality may diminish through all the
infinitely many smaller degrees. In this manner the supposed
substance -- the thing, the permanence of which has not yet
been proved -- may be changed into nothing, not indeed by
dissolution, but by gradual loss (remissio) of its powers, and
so, if I may be permitted the use of the term, by elanguescence.
For consciousness itself has always a degree, which always
allows of diminution, and the same must also hold of the
faculty of being conscious of the self, and likewise of all the
other faculties. Thus the permanence of the soul, regarded
merely as object of inner sense, remains undemonstrated, and
indeed indemonstrable. Its permanence during life is, of course,
evident per se, since the thinking being (as man) is itself
likewise an object of the outer senses. But this is very far from
satisfying the rational psychologist who undertakes to prove
from mere concepts its absolute permanence beyond this life.
++ Clearness is not, as the logicians assert, the consciousness of
a representation. A certain degree of consciousness, though it be
insufficient for recollection, must be met with even in many obscure
representations, since in the absence of all consciousness we should
make no distinction between different combinations of obscure
representations, which yet we are able to do in respect of the characters
of many concepts, such as those of right or equity, or as when the
musician in improvising strikes several keys at once. But a representation
is clear, when the consciousness suffices for the consciousness
of the distinction of this representation from others. If it suffices
for distinguishing, but not for consciousness of the distinction, the
representation must still be entitled obscure. There are therefore
infinitely many degrees of consciousness, down to its complete
vanishing.
++ Some philosophers, in making out a case for a new possibility,
consider that they have done enough if they can defy others to show
any contradiction in their assumptions.
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 If we take the above propositions in synthetic connection,
as valid for all thinking beings, as indeed they must
be taken in the system of rational psychology, and proceed
from the category of relation, with the proposition, 'All
thinking beings are, as such, substances', backwards through the
series of the propositions, until the circle is completed, we
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come at last to the existence of these thinking beings.
P 374n
++This is the procedure of all
those who profess to comprehend the possibility of thought -- of
which they have an example only in the empirical intuitions of our
human life -- even after this life has ceased. But those who resort to
such a method of argument can be quite nonplussed by the citation
of other possibilities which are not a whit more adventurous. Such
is the possibility of the division of a simple substance into several
substances, and conversely the fusing together (coalition) of several
into one simple substance. For although divisibility presupposes a
composite, it does not necessarily require a composite of substances,
but only of degrees (of the manifold powers) of one and the same
substance. Now just as we can think all powers and faculties of the soul,
even that of consciousness, as diminished by one half, but in such a
way that the substance still remains, so also, without contradiction,
we can represent this extinguished half as being preserved, not in
the soul, but outside it; and we can likewise hold that since everything
which is real in it, and which therefore has a degree -- in other
words, its entire existence, from which nothing is lacking -- has been
halved, another separate substance would then come into existence
outside it. For the multiplicity which has been divided existed
before, not indeed as a multiplicity of substances, but as the multiplicity
of every reality proper to the substance, that is, of the quantum
of existence in it; and the unity of substance was therefore only
a mode of existence, which in virtue of this division has been transformed
into a plurality of subsistence. Similarly, several simple substances
might be fused into one, without anything being lost except
only the plurality of subsistence, inasmuch as the one substance
would contain the degree of reality of all the former substances
together. We might perhaps also represent the simple substances which
yield us the appearance [which we entitle] matter as producing -- not
indeed by a mechanical or chemical influence upon one another, but
by an influence unknown to us, of which the former influence would
be merely the appearance -- the souls of children, that is, as
producing them through such dynamical division of the parent souls,
considered as intensive quantities, and those parent souls as making
good their loss through coalition with new material of the same kind.
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Now in
this system of rational psychology these beings are taken not
only as being conscious of their existence independently of
outer things, but as also being able, in and by themselves, to
determine that existence in respect of the permanence which
is a necessary characteristic of substance. This rationalist
system is thus unavoidably committed to idealism, or at least to
problematic idealism. For if the existence of outer things is
not in any way required for determination of one's own
existence in time, the assumption of their existence is a
quite gratuitous assumption, of which no proof can ever be
given.
If, on the other hand, we should proceed analytically,
starting from the proposition 'I think', as a proposition that
already in itself includes an existence as given, and therefore
modality, and analysing it in order to ascertain its content,
and so to discover whether and how this 'I' determines its
existence in space or time solely through that content, then
the propositions of the rational doctrine of the soul would not
begin with the concept of a thinking being in general, but with
a reality, and we should infer from the manner in which this
reality is thought, after everything empirical in it has been
removed, what it is that belongs to a thinking being in general.
This is shown in the following table:
++ I am far from allowing any serviceableness or validity to such fancies;
and as the principles of our Analytic have sufficiently demonstrated,
no other than an empirical employment of the categories (including
that of substance) is possible. But if the rationalist is bold enough,
out of the mere faculty of thought, without any permanent intuition
whereby an object might be given, to construct a self-subsistent being,
and this merely on the ground that the unity of apperception in thought
does not allow of its being explained [as arising] out of the composite,
instead of admitting, as he ought to do, that he is unable to explain
the possibility of a thinking nature, why should not the materialist,
though he can as little appeal to experience in support of his
[conjectured] possibilities, be justified in being equally daring, and in
using his principle to establish the opposite conclusion, while still
preserving the formal unity upon which his opponent has relied.
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1. I think,
2. as subject, 3. as simple subject,
4. as identical subject
in every state of my thought.
In the second proposition it has not been determined
whether I can exist and be thought as subject only, and not
also as a predicate of another being, and accordingly the concept
of a subject is here taken in a merely logical sense, and it
remains undetermined whether or not we are to understand
by it a substance. Similarly, the third proposition establishes
nothing in regard to the constitution or subsistence of the subject;
none the less in this proposition the absolute unity of
apperception, the simple 'I' in the representation to which all
combination or separation that constitutes thought relates, has its
own importance. For apperception is something real, and its
simplicity is already given in the mere fact of its possibility.
Now in space there is nothing real which can be simple; points,
which are the only simple things in space, are merely limits
not themselves anything that can as parts serve to constitute
space. From this follows the impossibility of any explanation
in materialist terms of the constitution of the self as a
merely thinking subject. But since my existence is taken in
the first proposition as given -- for it does not say that every
thinking being exists, which would be to assert its absolute
necessity and therefore to say too much, but only, 'I exist
thinking' -- the proposition is empirical, and can determine
my existence only in relation to my representations in time.
But since for this purpose I again require something permanent,
which, so far as I think myself, is in no way given to me
in inner intuition, it is quite impossible, by means of this simple
self-consciousness, to determine the manner in which I exist,
whether it be as substance or as accident. Thus, if materialism
is disqualified from explaining my existence, spiritualism is
equally incapable of doing so; and the conclusion is that in no
way whatsoever can we know anything of the constitution of
the soul, so far as the possibility of its separate existence is
concerned.
How, indeed, should it be possible, by means of the unity
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of consciousness -- which we only know because we cannot
but make use of it, as indispensable for the possibility of
experience -- to pass out beyond experience (our existence in
this life), and even to extend our knowledge to the nature of
all thinking beings in general, through the empirical, but in
respect of every sort of intuition the quite indeterminate
proposition, 'I think'?
Rational psychology exists not as doctrine, furnishing an
addition to our knowledge of the self, but only as discipline.
It sets impassable limits to speculative reason in this field, and
thus keeps us, on the one hand, from throwing ourselves into
the arms of a soulless materialism, or, on the other hand, from
losing ourselves in a spiritualism which must be quite
unfounded so long as we remain in this present life. But though
it furnishes no positive doctrine, it reminds us that we should
regard this refusal of reason to give satisfying response to our
inquisitive probings into what is beyond the limits of this
present life as reason's hint to divert our self-knowledge from
fruitless and extravagant speculation to fruitful practical
employment. Though in such practical employment it is directed
always to objects of experience only, it derives its principles
from a higher source, and determines us to regulate our actions
as if our destiny reached infinitely far beyond experience, and
therefore far beyond this present life.
From all this it is evident that rational psychology owes
its origin simply to misunderstanding. The unity of consciousness,
which underlies the categories, is here mistaken for an
intuition of the subject as object, and the category of
substance is then applied to it. But this unity is only unity in
thought, by which alone no object is given, and to which,
therefore, the category of substance, which always presupposes
a given intuition, cannot be applied. Consequently, this
subject cannot be known. The subject of the categories cannot
by thinking the categories acquire a concept of itself as an
object of the categories. For in order to think them, its pure
self-consciousness, which is what was to be explained, must
itself be presupposed. Similarly, the subject, in which the
representation of time has its original ground, cannot thereby
determine its own existence in time. And if this latter is
impossible, the former, as a determination of the self (as a
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thinking being in general) by means of the categories is
equally so.
 Thus the expectation of obtaining knowledge which while
extending beyond the limits of possible experience is likewise
to further the highest interests of humanity, is found,
so far as speculative philosophy professes to satisfy it, to
be grounded in deception, and to destroy itself in the attempt
at fulfilment. Yet the severity of our criticism has rendered
reason a not unimportant service in proving the impossibility
of dogmatically determining, in regard to an object of experience,
anything that lies beyond the limits of experience. For in
so doing it has secured reason against all possible assertions of
the opposite. That cannot be achieved save in one or other of two ways.
++ The 'I think' is, as already stated, an empirical proposition,
and contains within itself the proposition 'I exist'. But I cannot say
'Everything which thinks, exists'. For in that case the property of
thought would render all beings which possess it necessary beings.
My existence cannot, therefore, be regarded as an inference from
the proposition 'I think', as Descartes sought to contend -- for it
would then have to be preceded by the major premiss 'Everything
which thinks, exists' -- but is identical with it. The 'I think'
expresses an indeterminate empirical intuition, i.e. perception (and
thus shows that sensation, which as such belongs to sensibility, lies
at the basis of this existential proposition) But the 'I think'
precedes the experience which is required to determine the object
of perception through the category in respect of time; and the
existence here [referred to] is not a category. The category as
such does not apply to an indeterminately given object but only to
one of which we have a concept and about which we seek to know
whether it does or does not exist outside the concept. An indeterminate
perception here signifies only something real that is given, given
indeed to thought in general, and so not as appearance, nor as thing
in itself (noumenon), but as something which actually exists, and
which in the proposition, 'I think', is denoted as such. For it must
be observed, that when I have called the proposition, 'I think', an
empirical proposition, I do not mean to say thereby, that the 'I' in
this proposition is an empirical representation. On the contrary,
it is purely intellectual, because belonging to thought in general.
Without some empirical representation to supply the material for
thought, the actus, 'I think', would not, indeed, take place; but the
empirical is only the condition of the application, or of the
employment, of the pure intellectual faculty.
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Either we have to prove our proposition apodeictically;
or, if we do not succeed in this, we have to seek out
the sources of this inability, which, if they are traceable to the
necessary limits of our reason, must constrain all opponents
to submit to this same law of renunciation in respect of all
claims to dogmatic assertion.
Yet nothing is thereby lost as regards the right, nay, the
necessity, of postulating a future life in accordance with the
principles of the practical employment of reason, which is
closely bound up with its speculative employment. For the
merely speculative proof has never been able to exercise any
influence upon the common reason of men. It so stands upon
the point of a hair, that even the schools preserve it from
falling only so long as they keep it unceasingly spinning round
like a top; even in their own eyes it yields no abiding foundation
upon which anything could be built. The proofs which are
serviceable for the world at large all preserve their entire value
undiminished, and indeed, upon the surrender of these dogmatic
pretensions, gain in clearness and in natural force. For
reason is then located in its own peculiar sphere, namely, the
order of ends, which is also at the same time an order of nature;
and since it is in itself not only a theoretical but also a practical
faculty, and as such is not bound down to natural conditions,
it is justified in extending the order of ends, and therewith our
own existence, beyond the limits of experience and of life. If
we judged according to analogy with the nature of living
beings in this world, in dealing with which reason must
necessarily accept the principle that no organ, no faculty, no
impulse, indeed nothing whatsoever is either superfluous or
disproportioned to its use, and that therefore nothing is
purposeless, but everything exactly conformed to its destiny in
life -- if we judged by such an analogy we should have to
regard man, who alone can contain in himself the final end of
all this order, as the only creature that is excepted from it.
Man's natural endowments -- not merely his talents and the
impulses to enjoy them, but above all else the moral law within
him -- go so far beyond all the utility and advantage which he
may derive from them in this present life, that he learns thereby
to prize the mere consciousness of a righteous will as being,
apart from all advantageous consequences, apart even from the
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shadowy reward of posthumous fame, supreme over all other
values; and so feels an inner call to fit himself, by his conduct
in this world, and by the sacrifice of many of its advantages,
for citizenship in a better world upon which he lays hold in
idea. This powerful and incontrovertible proof is reinforced
by our ever-increasing knowledge of purposiveness in all that
we see around us, and by contemplation of the immensity of
creation, and therefore also by the consciousness of a certain
illimitableness in the possible extension of our knowledge, and
of a striving commensurate therewith. All this still remains to
us, but we must renounce the hope of comprehending, from
the merely theoretical knowledge of ourselves, the necessary
continuance of our existence.
CONCLUSION, IN REGARD TO THE SOLUTION OF THE
PSYCHOLOGICAL PARALOGISM
The dialectical illusion in rational psychology arises from
the confusion of an idea of reason -- the idea of a pure
intelligence -- with the completely undetermined concept of a
thinking being in general. I think myself on behalf of a possible
experience, at the same time abstracting from all actual
experience; and I conclude therefrom that I can be conscious of
my existence even apart from experience and its empirical
conditions. In so doing I am confusing the possible abstraction
from my empirically determined existence with the supposed
consciousness of a possible separate existence of my
thinking self, and I thus come to believe that I have knowledge
that what is substantial in me is the transcendental subject.
But all that I really have in thought is simply the unity of
consciousness, on which, as the mere form of knowledge, all
determination is based.
The task of explaining the communion of the soul with
the body does not properly belong to the psychology with
which we are here dealing. For this psychology proposes to
prove the personality of the soul even apart from this communion
(that is, after death), and is therefore transcendent in
the proper sense of that term. It does, indeed, occupy itself
with an object of experience, but only in that aspect in which
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it ceases to be an object of experience. Our teaching, on the
other hand, does supply a sufficient answer to this question.
The difficulty peculiar to the problem consists, as is generally
recognised, in the assumed heterogeneity of the object of inner
sense (the soul) and the objects of the outer senses, the formal
condition of their intuition being, in the case of the former, time
only, and in the case of the latter, also space. But if we consider
that the two kinds of objects thus differ from each other, not
inwardly but only in so far as one appears outwardly to the other,
and that what, as thing in itself, underlies the appearance of
matter, perhaps after all may not be so heterogeneous in
character, this difficulty vanishes, the only question that
remains being how in general a communion of substances is
possible. This, however, is a question which lies outside the
field of psychology, and which the reader, after what has been
said in the Analytic regarding fundamental powers and faculties,
will not hesitate to regard as likewise lying outside the
field of all human knowledge.
GENERAL NOTE ON THE TRANSITION FROM RATIONAL
PSYCHOLOGY TO COSMOLOGY
The proposition, 'I think' or 'I exist thinking', is an empirical
proposition. Such a proposition, however, is conditioned
by empirical intuition, and is therefore also conditioned by the
object [that is, the self] which is thought [in its aspect] as
appearance. It would consequently seem that on our theory
the soul, even in thought, is completely transformed into
appearance, and that in this way our consciousness itself, as
being a mere illusion, must refer in fact to nothing.
Thought, taken by itself, is merely the logical function,
and therefore the pure spontaneity of the combination of the
manifold of a merely possible intuition, and does not exhibit
the subject of consciousness as appearance; and this for the
sufficient reason that thought takes no account whatsoever of
the mode of intuition, whether it be sensible or intellectual. I
thereby represent myself to myself neither as I am nor as I
appear to myself. I think myself only as I do any object in
general from whose mode of intuition I abstract. If I here
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represent myself as subject of thoughts or as ground of thought,
these modes of representation do not signify the categories of
substance or of cause. For the categories are those functions
of thought (of judgment) as already applied to our sensible
intuition, such intuition being required if I seek to know myself.
If, on the other hand, I would be conscious of myself simply as
thinking, then since I am not considering how my own self
may be given in intuition, the self may be mere appearance to
me, the 'I' that thinks, but is no mere appearance in so far as
I think; in the consciousness of myself in mere thought I am
the being itself, although nothing in myself is thereby given
for thought.
The proposition, 'I think', in so far as it amounts to the
assertion, 'I exist thinking', is no mere logical function, but
determines the subject (which is then at the same time object)
in respect of existence, and cannot take place without inner
sense, the intuition of which presents the object not as thing in
itself but merely as appearance. There is here, therefore, not
simply spontaneity of thought, but also receptivity of intuition,
that is, the thought of myself applied to the empirical
intuition of myself. Now it is to this intuition that the thinking
self would have to look for the conditions of the employment
of its logical functions as categories of substance, cause, etc. ,
if it is not merely to distinguish itself as object in itself, through
the 'I', but is also to determine the mode of its existence, that
is, to know itself as noumenon. This, however, is impossible,
since the inner empirical intuition is sensible and yields only
data of appearance, which furnish nothing to the object of
pure consciousness for the knowledge of its separate existence,
but can serve only for the obtaining of experience.
Should it be granted that we may in due course discover,
not in experience but in certain laws of the pure employment
of reason -- laws which are not merely logical rules, but which
while holding a priori also concern our existence -- ground for
regarding ourselves as legislating completely a priori in
regard to our own existence, and as determining this existence,
there would thereby be revealed a spontaneity through which
our reality would be determinable, independently of the
conditions of empirical intuition. And we should also become
P 383
aware that in the consciousness of our existence there is
contained a something a priori, which can serve to determine our
existence -- the complete determination of which is possible
only in sensible terms -- as being related, in respect of a certain
inner faculty, to a non-sensible intelligible world.
But this would not be of the least service in furthering
the attempts of rational psychology. In this marvellous faculty,
which the consciousness of the moral law first reveals to me, I
should indeed have, for the determination of my existence, a
principle which is purely intellectual. But through what
predicates would that determination have to be made? They could
be no other than those which must be given to me in sensible
intuition; and thus I should find myself, as regards rational
psychology, in precisely the same position as before, namely,
still in need of sensible intuitions to confer meaning on my
concepts of understanding (substance, cause, etc. ), through
which alone I can have knowledge of myself; and these
intuitions can never aid me in advancing beyond the field of
experience. Nevertheless, in respect of the practical
employment, which is always directed to objects of experience, I
should be justified in applying these concepts, in conformity
with their analogical meaning when employed theoretically,
to freedom and the subject that is possessed of freedom. In so
doing, however, I should understand by these concepts the
merely logical functions of subject and predicate, of ground
and consequence, in accordance with which the acts or effects
are so determined conformably to those [moral] laws, that
they always allow of being explained, together with the laws
of nature, in accordance with the categories of substance and
cause, although they have their source in an entirely different
principle. These observations are designed merely to prevent
a misunderstanding to which the doctrine of our self-intuition,
as appearance, is particularly liable. We shall have occasion
to make further application of them in the sequel.