ON CHAPTER XVII
(31) In order that the reader may form a perfect conception of Kant's opinion of space, and judge for himself whether there is or not the contradiction which we have intimated, I extract a few passages from his works.
"The transcendental conception of phenomena64 in space is a critical observation that, in general nothing perceived in space is any thing in itself; that space is, moreover, a form of things, and would belong to them if considered in themselves; but that objects in themselves are wholly unknown to us, and those things which we call external objects, are only the pure representations of our sensibility, whose form is space, and whose true correlative, that is to say, the thing in itself, is for this reason wholly unknown, and will always remain so; for experience can tell us nothing of it.
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"It is altogether certain, and not merely possible or probable, that space and time, as the necessary conditions of all experience, both internal and external, are purely subjective conditions of all our intuitions. It is therefore equally certain that all objects in relation with space and time, are only simple phenomena and not things in themselves, if considered according to the manner in which they are given us. Much may be said a prior of the form of objects, but nothing of the thing in itself, which serves as the ground of these phenomena." —Transc. Æsth. I.
This doctrine of Kant's brought upon him the charge of idealism, and drew from the German philosopher explanations which some look upon as a manifest contradiction.
Here is how Kant defends himself from idealism: "When I say that in space and time the intuitions of external objects, and of the mind, represent these two things as they affect our senses, I do not mean to say that objects are a pure appearance; for in the phenomenon, the objects, and even the properties which we attribute to them, are always considered as something really given; but that as this quality of being given depends only on the manner of perception of the subject in its relation with the object given, this object as phenomenon, is different from what it is as object in itself. I do not say that bodies merely seem to be external, or that my soul merely seems to have been given me in consciousness. When I assert that the qualities of space and time (in conformity to which I place the body and the soul as the condition of their existence) exist only in my mode of intuition, and not in the objects themselves, I should do wrong to convert into a mere appearance what I must take for a phenomenon; but this does not occur, if my principle of the ideality of all our sensible intuitions is admitted. On the contrary, if an objective reality is given to all these forms of sensible representations, every thing is inevitably converted into a pure appearance; for, if space and time are considered as qualities which, as to their possibility, must be found in the things themselves, and we reflect on the absurdities which follow, since two infinite things, which can neither be substances, nor any thing inherent in a substance, but which are still something existent, and even the necessary condition of the existence of all things would still subsist, though all the rest were annihilated, we cannot blame Berkeley for reducing bodies to a mere appearance." —Ibid. 2d Edition.
In the Transcendental Logic there is also a reputation of idealism. There Kant establishes this theorem:
"The mere consciousness of my own existence, empirically determined, proves the existence of objects outside of me in space."
It is not possible for me to give here the doctrines of Kant's Transcendental Logic; it is enough to have given his remarks on the reality of objects; others call them retractations or contradictions, and give various causes for them, which, however, do not belong to the field of philosophy.
ON CHAPTER XIX
(32) The scholastics always carefully separated the sensible order from the intelligible. Kant was not the first to discover the limits which divide the intelligible from the sensible, things in themselves as objects of the understanding, noumena, as he calls them, from things as represented in sensible intuition, phenomena. The scholastics were so far from regarding sensible representations as sufficient for intelligence, that they denied that they were intelligible. The intellect might know sensible things, but it was necessary for it to abstract them from material conditions. On account of its limitation, it required the intuition of objects in sensible representation, conversio ad phantasmata; but these intuitions were not the intellectual act, they were only its necessary conditions. Hence proceeded the theory of the intellectus agens, which some have laughed at, because they did not understand it. This hypothesis has strong reasons in its favor, whatever may be its intrinsic value, if, setting aside the form in which it is expressed, we attend only to its ideological profoundness.
In reading some passages in Kant's Transcendental Logic on phenomena and noumena, on the necessity of sensible intuition in pure conceptions, and the distinction of the intuition from the conception, and on the sensible and intelligible worlds corresponding to the sensitive and intellective faculties, we might suppose that the German philosopher had read the scholastics. True, he departed from their doctrines, but what of that? The authors from whom we learn the most, are not always those whose opinions we follow.
In the treatise on ideas, I shall have occasion to explain my opinion on this point; for the present I shall only make a few extracts from St. Thomas, the most illustrious representative of the scholastic philosophy. The reader will find that he clearly explains our necessity of sensible representations, (phantasmata,) and the line which divides these representations from the purely intellectual order.
"(Pars 1, Q. LXXIX., art. 3.) Sed quia Aristoteles non posuit formas rerum naturalium subsistere sine materia, formæ autem in materia existentes non sunt intelligibiles actu; sequebatur, quod naturæ, seu formæ rerum sensibilium, quas intelligimus, non essent intelligibiles actu. Nihil autem reducitur de potentia in actum, nisi per aliquod ens actu: sicut sensus fit in actu per sensibile in actu. Oportet igitur ponere aliquam virtutem ex parte intellectus, quæ faceret intelligibilia in actu per abstractionem specierum a conditionibus materialibus. Et hæc est necessitas ponendi intellectum agentem.
"(P. 1, Q. LXXIX., art. 4). Ad cujus evidentiam considerandum est, quod supra animam intellectivam humanam, necesse est ponere aliquem superiorem intellectum, a quo anima virtutem intelligendi obtineat.
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"Nihil autem est perfectius in inferioribus rebus anima humana. Unde oportet dicere, quod in ipsa sit aliqua virtus derivata a superiori intellectu, per quam possit phantasmata illustrare. Et hoc experimento cognoscimus, dum percipimus nos abstrahere formas universales a conditionibus particularibus, quod est facere actu intelligibilia.
"(P. 1. Q., LXXXIV., art. 1.) Hoc autem necessarium non est: quia etiam in ipsis sensibilibus videmus, quod forma alio modo est in uno sensibilium, quam in altero; puta cum in uno est albedo intensior, in alio remissior, ut cum in uno est albedo cum dulcedine, in alio sine dulcedine. Et per hunc etiam modum, forma sensibilis alio modo est in re, quæ est extra animam, et alio modo in sensu, qui suspicit formas sensibilium absque materia, sicut colorem auri sine auro. Et similiter intellectus species corporum, quæ sunt materiales et mobiles, recipit immaterialiter, et immobiliter, secundum modum suum, nam receptum est in recipiente per modum recipientis. Dicendum est ergo, quod anima per intellectum cognoscit corpora, cognitione immateriali, universali et necessaria.
"(P. I, Q. LXXXIV., art. 6.) Et ideo ad causandam intellectualem operationem secundum Aristotelem non sufficit sola impressio sensibilium corporum, sed requiritur aliquid nobilius, quia agens est honorabilius patiente, ut ipse dicit. Non autem quod intellectualis operatio causetur ex sola impressione aliquarum rerum superiorum, ut Plato posuit, sed illud superius, et nobilius agens, quod vocat intellectum agentem, de quo jam supra diximus quod facit phantasmata a sensibus accepta intelligibilia in actu, per modum abstractionis cuiusdam. Secundum hoc ergo, ex parte phantasmatum intellectualis operatio a sensu causatur. Sed quia phantasmata non sufficiunt immutare intellectum possibilem, sed oportet quod fiant intelligibilia actu per intellectum agentem, non potest dici quod sensibilis cognitio sit totalis, et perfecta causa intellectualis cognitionis, sed magis quodammodo est materia causæ."