## 1. Preliminary Remarks: The Rejection of Ontology (general metaphysics) and the Transcendental Analytic



Despite the fact that Kant devotes an entirely new section of the
*Critique* to the branches of special metaphysics, his
criticisms reiterate some of the claims already defended in both the
Transcendental Aesthetic and the Transcendental Analytic. Indeed, two
central teachings from these earlier portions of the *Critique*
-- the transcendental ideality of space and time, and the
critical limitation of all application of the concepts of the
understanding to "appearances" -- already carry with
them Kant's rejection of "ontology (*metaphysica
generalis*)." Accordingly, in the Transcendental Analytic
Kant argues against any attempt to acquire knowledge of "objects
in general" through the formal concepts and principles of the
understanding, taken by themselves alone. In this connection, Kant
denies that the principles or rules of either general logic (e.g., the
principle of contradiction), or those of his own "transcendental
logic" (the pure concepts of the understanding) *by
themselves* yield knowledge of objects. These claims follow from
Kant's well-known "kind distinction" between the
understanding and sensibility, together with the view that knowledge
requires the cooperation of both faculties. This position, articulated
throughout the Analytic, entails that independently of their
application to intuitions, the concepts and principles of the
understanding are mere forms of thought which cannot yield knowledge
of objects.



> 
> For if no intuition could be given corresponding to the concept, the
> concept would still be a thought, so far as its form is concerned, but
> would be without any object, and no knowledge of anything would be
> possible by means of it. So far as I could know, there would be
> nothing, and could be nothing, to which my thought could be applied.
> B146
> 



We thus find one general complaint about efforts to acquire
metaphysical knowledge: the use of formal concepts and principles, in
abstraction from the sensible conditions under which objects can be
given, cannot yield knowledge. Hence, the "transcendental"
use of the understanding (its use independently of the conditions of
sensibility) is considered by Kant to be dialectical, to involve
erroneous applications of concepts in order to acquire knowledge of
things independently of sensibility/experience. Throughout the
Analytic Kant elaborates on this general view, noting that the
transcendental employment of the understanding, which aims towards
knowledge of things independently of experience (and thus knowledge of
"noumena"), is illicit (cf. A246/B303). It is in this
connection that Kant states, famously, in the Analytic, that
"...the proud name of ontology, which presumes to offer
synthetic *a priori* cognitions of things in general...
must give way to the more modest title of a transcendental
analytic" (cf. A247/B304). Filling this out, Kant suggests that
to take ourselves to have unmediated intellectual access to objects
(to have "non-sensible" knowledge) correlates with the
assumption that there are non-sensible objects that we can know. To
assume this, however, is to conflate "phenomena" (or
appearances) with "noumena" (or things in themselves). The
failure to draw the distinction between appearances and things in
themselves is the hallmark of all those pernicious systems of thought
that stand under the title of "transcendental realism."
Kant's transcendental idealism is the remedy for these.


## 2. The Rejection of Special Metaphysics and the Transcendental Dialectic



Kant's rejection of the more specialized branches of metaphysics
is grounded in part on this earlier claim, to wit, that any attempt to
apply the concepts and principles of the understanding independently
of the conditions of sensibility (i.e., any transcendental use of the
understanding) is illicit. Thus, one of Kant's main complaints
is that metaphysicians seek to deduce *a priori* synthetic
knowledge simply from the unschematized (pure) concepts of the
understanding. The effort to acquire metaphysical knowledge through
concepts alone, however, is doomed to fail, according to Kant, because
(in its simplest formulation) "concepts without intuitions are
empty" (A52/B76).



Although this general charge is certainly a significant part of
Kant's complaint, the story does not stop there. In turning to
the specific disciplines of special metaphysics (those concerning the
soul, the world, and God), Kant devotes a considerable amount of time
discussing the human interests that nevertheless pull us into the
thorny questions and controversies that characterize special
metaphysics. These interests are of two types, and include theoretical
goals of achieving completeness and systematic unity of knowledge, and
practical interests in securing the immortality of the soul, freedom,
and the existence of God. Despite their contributions to metaphysical
illusion, Kant tells us that the goals and interests in question are
unavoidable, inevitable, and inherent in the very nature of human
reason. In the Introduction to the Transcendental Dialectic Kant thus
introduces "reason" as the locus of these metaphysical
interests.


### 2.1 The Theory of Reason and Transcendental Illusion



The emphasis on reason in this connection is important, and it links
up with the project of Kant's "critique" of pure
reason. A major component of this critique involves illuminating the
basis in reason for our efforts to draw erroneous metaphysical
conclusions (to employ concepts "transcendentally"),
despite the fact that such use has already been shown (in the
Transcendental Analytic) to be illicit. What emerges in the Dialectic
is a more complex story, one in which Kant seeks to disclose and
critique the "transcendental ground" that leads to the
misapplications of thought which characterize specific metaphysical
arguments. In developing the position that our metaphysical
propensities are grounded in the "very nature of human
reason," Kant (in the Introduction to the Dialectic) relies on a
conception of reason as a capacity for syllogistic reasoning. This
logical function of reason resides in the formal activity of subsuming
propositions under ever more general principles in order to
systematize, unify, and "bring to completion" the
knowledge given through the real use of the understanding
(A306/B363-A308/B365). Kant thus characterizes this activity as one
which seeks "conditions" for everything that is
conditioned. It is therefore central to this Kantian conception of
reason that it is preoccupied with the "unconditioned which
would stop the regress of conditions by providing a condition that is
not itself conditioned in its turn."



The demand for the unconditioned is essentially a demand for ultimate
explanation, and links up with the rational prescription to secure
systematic unity and completeness of knowledge. Reason, in short, is
in the business of ultimately accounting for all things. As Kant
formulates this interest of reason in the first *Critique*, it
is characterized by the logical maxim or precept: "*Find for
the conditioned knowledge given through the understanding the
unconditioned whereby its unity is brought to completion*"
(A308/B364). It is central to Kant's Dialectic that this
requirement for systematic unity and completeness of knowledge is
inherent in the very nature of our reason. Controversially, Kant does
not take it that this demand for the unconditioned is something we can
dismiss, nor does he take the interests we have in metaphysics to be
*merely* products of misguided enthusiasm.



Although the demand for the unconditioned is inherent in the very
nature of our reason, although it is unavoidable and indispensably
necessary, Kant nevertheless does not take it to be without problems
of a unique sort; for the very same demand that guides our rational
scientific inquiries and defines our (human) reason is also the locus
of error that needs to be curbed or prevented. In connection with this
principle, then, Kant also identifies reason as the seat of a unique
kind of error, one that is essentially linked up with metaphysical
propensities, and one which he refers to as "transcendental
illusion [*transzendentale Illusion*]." Kant identifies
transcendental illusion with the propensity to "take a
subjective necessity of a connection of our concepts...for an
objective necessity in the determination of things in
themselves" (A297/B354). Very generally, Kant's claim is
that it is a peculiar feature of reason that it unavoidably takes its
own subjective interests and principles to hold
"objectively." And it is this propensity, this
"transcendental illusion," according to Kant, that paves
the way for metaphysics. Reason plays this role by generating
principles and interests that incite us to defy the limitations of
knowledge already detailed in the Transcendental Analytic. The
Introduction to the Transcendental Dialectic is therefore interesting
for Kant's presentation of reason as a presumably distinct
capacity for cognizing in a way that, as Kant puts it, incites us to
tear down the boundaries already enforced in the Analytic (cf.
A296/B352). Kant refers to this capacity of reason as one that leads
to the specifically *transcendent* judgments that characterize
metaphysics. Thus, the Transcendental Dialectic is said to be
concerned "to expose the illusion in transcendent
judgments" (A297/B354). Indeed, Dialectic is defined as
"the logic of illusion [*Schein]*" (A293/B350).



The central problem is that the above *prescription to seek*
the unconditioned presents to reason as a metaphysical principle that
tells us that the unconditioned is *already given*, and is (as
it were) "there" to be found. This problematic principle
is formulated by Kant as follows*: "If the conditioned is
given, the absolutely unconditioned... is also given"*
(A308/B366). This "supreme principle of pure reason"
provides the background assumption under which the metaphysician
proceeds. These claims set the agenda for Kant's project, which
involves showing not simply that the metaphysical arguments are
fallacious, but also exposing their source in reason's more
general illusions.



Kant has been traditionally taken to be offering a method of avoiding
the insidious "transcendental illusion" that gives rise to
metaphysics. Read in this way, Kant's Dialectic offers a
criticism not only of the specific arguments of metaphysics, but also
of transcendent, metaphysical (speculative or theoretical)
*interests and propensities themselves*. This certainly accords
with much in the Dialectic, and specifically with Kant's
well-known claim that knowledge has to be limited to possible
experience. Kant, however, complicates things somewhat by also stating
repeatedly that the illusion that grounds metaphysics (roughly, that
the unconditioned is already given) is unavoidable. Moreover, Kant
sometimes suggests that such illusion is somehow necessary for our
epistemological projects (cf. A645/B673). In this connection, Kant
argues that the transcendent ideas and principles of reason do have a
positive role to play in knowledge acquisition, so long as they are
construed "regulatively" and not
"constitutively." He thus suggests that rather than
jettison the ideas of metaphysical objects (something, it seems, he
does not think we are in a position to do), it is best to identify the
proper use and function of these ideas and principles. This critical
reinterpretation involves the claim that the ideas and principles of
reason are to be used "regulatively," as devices for
guiding and grounding our empirical investigations and the project of
knowledge acquisition. What the ideas do not do, according to Kant, is
provide the concepts through which we might access objects that could
be known through the speculative use of reason.



The need for this critical reinterpretation stems from the fact that
reason's demand for the unconditioned cannot be met or
satisfied. The absolutely "unconditioned," regardless of
the fact that it presents to reason as objective, is not an object or
state of affairs that could be captured in any possible human
experience. In emphasizing this last point, Kant identifies
metaphysics with an effort to acquire knowledge of
"objects" conceived, but in no wise given (or giveable) to
us in experience. In its efforts to bring knowledge to completion,
that is, reason posits certain ideas, the "soul," the
"world" and "God." Each of these ideas
represents reason's efforts to think the unconditioned in
relation to various sets of objects that are experienced by us as
conditioned.



It is this general theory of reason, as a capacity to think (by means
of "ideas") beyond all standards of sense, and as carrying
with it a unique and unavoidable demand for the unconditioned, that
frames the Kantian rejection of metaphysics. At the heart of that
rejection is the view that although reason is unavoidably motivated to
seek the unconditioned, its theoretical efforts to achieve it are
inevitably sterile. The ideas which might secure such unconditioned
knowledge lack objective reality (refer to no object), and our
misguided efforts to acquire ultimate metaphysical knowledge are led
astray by the illusion which, according to Kant, "unceasingly
mocks and torments us" (A339/B397).



The Dialectic is concerned to undermine three distinct branches of
special metaphysics in the philosophical tradition: Rational
Psychology, Rational Cosmology and Rational Theology. Each of these
disciplines seeks to acquire knowledge of a particular metaphysical
"object" -- the "soul," the
"world," and "God," respectively. This being
stated, the Dialectic proceeds systematically to undermine the
arguments specific to each of these disciplines--arguments about,
for example, the nature of the soul and the world, and the existence
of God. Despite the difference in their objects, however, there are a
number of problems shared by all the disciplines of special
metaphysics. In its most general terms, the central problem with each
of these attempts has to do with the fact that the alleged
"objects" under consideration are
"transcendent." Although we think the soul, the world, and
God (necessarily) *as* objects, these ideas actually lack
objective reality (there is no object corresponding to the ideas that
is or could be given to us in any intuition). It is thus not uncommon
to find Kant referring to these alleged metaphysical entities as
"mere thought entities," "fictions of the
brain," or "pseudo objects." Although the Dialectic
does not presume to prove that such objects do not or could not exist,
Kant is committed by the strictures of his own transcendental
epistemology to the claim that the ideas of reason do not provide us
with concepts of "knowable" objects. For this reason
alone, the efforts of the metaphysicians are presumptuous, and at the
very least, an epistemological modesty precludes the knowledge that is
sought.



For more on Kant's theory of illusion, see Allison (2004), Butts
(1997), Grier (2001, forthcoming), Neiman (1994), Theis (1985), Bird (2006).
See also Ameriks (2006), Dyck (2014).


### 2.2 Hypostatization and Subreption



There are two noteworthy themes implicit in Kant's criticism of
metaphysics. First, Kant offers an account and critique of the ideas
of reason specific to each discipline. In relation to this, the
general theory of reason plays a role in Kant's efforts to argue
against the "hypostatization" of each of the ideas. More
specifically, Kant's criticism of the metaphysical disciplines
centers on his efforts to show that the ideas of reason (the soul, the
world and God), which are thought in accordance with the demand for an
unconditioned that could unify the relevant domain of conditions, get
erroneously "hypostatized" by reason, or thought as
mind-independent "objects" about which we might seek
knowledge. In the same way, that is, that the prescription to seek the
unconditioned appears to reason as an objective principle, so too, the
subjective ideas appear to reason as objects existing in a
mind-independent way. Kant's aim is to secure the subjective
ideas while enforcing their subjective status, and thereby defusing
the metaphysics that attends to them.



Thus, Kant's criticism of metaphysics simultaneously involves
denying the pure use of theoretical reason as an instrument for
*knowledge* of transcendent objects, *and* defending
reason's ideas as projections or goals that have some
significant role to play in the overall project of knowledge
acquisition. As we shall see, Kant unfortunately is not as clear as we
might like on this issue. Sometimes, he seems to argue that the ideas
and principles of reason play a merely heuristic role in guiding and
systematizing the knowledge already obtained. Other times, he suggests
that these ideas are deeply essential to the project of knowledge
acquisition, and that their presupposition is utterly necessary if we
are to acquire knowledge. Regardless of how the matter is to be
resolved, it is clear that Kant's criticism of metaphysics does
not entail any straightforward rejection of the ideas and principles
of reason. Indeed, it appears to be precisely the rational constraint
to move to the ideas of reason that binds us to our metaphysical
propensities and which thus demands a critique of the kind offered by
Kant.



In addition to criticizing the "hypostatization" of the
ideas of reason, Kant seeks to expose the "subreptions"
involved in the use of the ideas. The term "subreption"
refers to a fallacy that specifically involves the surreptitious
substitution of different *kinds* of terms and concepts. Kant
usually uses the term to refer to the error of confusing or
substituting concepts and principles meant for use in experience
(those which properly apply to appearances) with principles of
"pure reason." By this means, a concept or principle which
is a condition of our experience (e.g., the principle of apperception)
is used in a way that assumes its applications to "objects in
general" or things in themselves. Alternatively, a most general,
formal, principle that would only hold for things in general is taken,
by itself alone, to yield knowledge about appearances. This second
kind of criticism found throughout the Dialectic thus pertains to
Kant's efforts to expose the subreptions that ground the
illusory metaphysical arguments. Ultimately, Kant will *also*
seek to reveal the very specific formal fallacies that vitiate the
metaphysical arguments, to demonstrate that (although they have the
appearance of soundness) the positions in each case are implicitly
grounded in, or deploy, dialectical uses of terms and concepts,
misapplications of principles, and conflations of appearances with
things in themselves. What we find in Kant's criticism of
metaphysics, in other words, is a complex account, one grounded in a
fairly robust theory of human reason. Accordingly, he identifies
reason as the locus of certain principles and propensities, and
certain "illusions," which cooperate with misapplications
of concepts and principles to create the errors already exposed in the
Transcendental Analytic. Although this variety of aims and complaints
certainly complicates Kant's discussions in the Dialectic, it
also makes for a richer and more penetrating criticism of
metaphysics.


## 3. The Soul and Rational Psychology



One historically predominant metaphysical interest has to do with
identifying the nature and the constitution of the soul. Partly for
practical reasons, partly for theoretical explanation, reason forms
the idea of a metaphysically simple being, the soul. Such an idea is
motivated by reason's demand for the unconditioned. Kant puts
this point in a number of ways, suggesting that the idea of the soul
is one to which we are led necessarily insofar as we are constrained
by reason to seek the "totality" of the "synthesis
of conditions of a thought in general" (A397), or insofar as we
seek to represent "the unconditioned unity" of
"subjective conditions of representations in general"
(A406/B433). More straightforwardly, Kant states that a metaphysics of
the soul is generated by the demand for the "absolute
(unconditioned) unity of the thinking subject itself"
(A334/B391). The branch of metaphysics devoted to this topic is
Rational Psychology. Rational psychologists, among whom Descartes or
Leibniz would serve as apt historical examples, seek to demonstrate,
for example, the substantiality, simplicity, and personal identity of
the soul. Each such inference, however, involves concluding
"from the transcendental concept of the subject, which contains
nothing manifold, the absolute unity of this subject itself, of which
I possess no concept whatsoever" (A340/B398). In other words,
Kant takes the rational psychologist to slide (mistakenly) from formal
features of our self concept to material or substantive metaphysical
claims about an alleged (super-sensible) object (the soul).



An essential aspect of all these arguments, according to Kant, is
their attempt to derive conclusions about the nature and constitution
of the "soul" *a priori*, simply from an analysis
of the activity of thinking. A classic example of such an attempt is
provided by Descartes, who deduced the substantiality of the self from
the proposition (or, perhaps better, the activity) "I
think." This move is apparent in the Cartesian inference from
"I think" to the claim that the "I" is
therefore "a thing" that thinks. For Descartes, this move
is unproblematic: thought is an attribute, and thus presupposes a
substance in which it inheres. Kant emphasizes the *a priori*
basis for the metaphysical doctrine of the soul by claiming that in
rational psychology, the "I think" is supposed to provide
the "sole text" (A343-4/B401-02). It is this
feature of the discipline that serves to distinguish it from any
empirical doctrine of the self (any empirical psychology), and which
secures its status as a "metaphysics" that purports to
provide synthetic *a priori* knowledge.



Kant's criticisms of rational psychology draw on a number of
distinct sources, one of which is the Kantian doctrine of
apperception, or transcendental self-consciousness (often formulated
in terms of the necessary possibility of attaching the "I
think" to all my representations (B132)). Kant denies that the
metaphysician is entitled to his substantive conclusions on the
grounds that the activity of self-consciousness does not yield any
object for thought. Nevertheless, reason is guided by its projecting
and objectifying propensities. In accordance with these,
self-consciousness is "hypostatized," or objectified. Here
again, Kant claims that a "natural illusion" compels us to
take the apperceived unity of consciousness as an intuition of an
object (A402). The ineliminably subjective nature of
self-consciousness, and the elusiveness of the "I" in the
context of that activity, are thus the well known bases for
Kant's response to rational psychology, and the doctrine of
apperception plays an important role in Kant's rejection. For in
each case, Kant thinks that a feature of self-consciousness (the
essentially subjectival, unitary and identical nature of the
"I" of apperception) gets transmuted into a metaphysics of
a self (as an object) that is ostensibly "known" through
reason alone to be substantial, simple, identical, etc. This slide
from the "I" of apperception to the constitution of an
object (the soul) has received considerable attention in the secondary
literature, and has fueled a great deal of attention to the Kantian
theory of mind and mental activity.



The claim that the 'I' of apperception yields no object of
knowledge (for it is not itself an object, but only the
"vehicle" for any representation of objectivity as such)
is fundamental to Kant's critique of rational psychology. Kant
thus spends a considerable amount of time arguing that no object is
given in transcendental self-consciousness, and thus that the rational
psychologist's efforts to discern features of the self,
construed as a metaphysical entity, through reason alone are without
merit. To elucidate the ways in which the rational psychologist is
nevertheless seduced into making this slide from formal
representations of self consciousness to a metaphysics of the self,
Kant examines each of the psychological arguments, maintaining that
all such arguments about the soul are dialectical. He refers to the
arguments designed to draw such conclusions, "transcendental
paralogisms", and hence the chapter of the Critique that
criticizes rational psychology goes by the name "The Paralogisms
of Pure Reason." A transcendental paralogism, according to Kant,
is a "syllogism in which one is constrained, by a transcendental
ground, to draw a formally invalid conclusion" (A341/B399).
Kant's subsequent efforts are thus directed towards
demonstrating the paralogistic (fallacious) nature of the arguments
about the soul.



Kant's diagnosis of the fallacies has received considerable
attention, and has generated considerable controversy. In each case,
Kant tells us, the argument is guilty of the fallacy of *sophisma
figurae* *dictionis*, or the fallacy of
equivocation/ambiguous middle. Kant suggests that in each of the
syllogisms, a term is used in different senses in the major and minor
premises. Consider the first paralogism, the argument that allegedly
deduces the substantiality of the soul. In the A edition, Kant
formulates the argument as follows:



> 
> 
> That the representation of which is the absolute subject of our
> judgments and cannot be employed as determination of any other thing,
> is substance.
> 
> 
> 
> I, as thinking being, am the absolute subject of all my possible
> judgments and this representation of myself cannot be employed as
> determination of any other thing.
> 
> 
> 
> Therefore, I, as thinking being (soul), am substance. (A349)
> 
> 
> 



Kant locates the equivocation contained in the argument in the use of
the term "substance." According to Kant, the major premise
uses this term "transcendentally" whereas the minor
premise and conclusion use the same term "empirically."
(A403). What Kant appears to mean is this: the major premise deploys
the term "substance" in a very general way, one which
abstracts from the conditions of our sensible intuition (space and
time). As such, the major premise simply offers the most general
definition of substance, and thus expresses the most general rule in
accordance with which objects might be able to be thought as
substances. Nevertheless, in order to apply the concept of substance
in such a way as to determine an object, the category would have to be
used empirically. Unfortunately, such an empirical use is precluded by
the fact that the alleged object to which it is being applied is not
empirical. Even more problematically, on Kant's view, there is
*no object given at all*. In Kantian jargon, the category only
yields knowledge of objects if it is "schematized,"
applied to given objects under the conditions of time.



This same kind of complaint is lodged against each of the paralogistic
syllogisms that characterize Rational Psychology. Thus, Kant argues
against the inference to the simplicity of the soul, by remarking that
the psychologist surreptitiously deduces the actual simplicity of a
metaphysical object simply from the formal features of subjectivity
(the fact that the "I" is unitary in our representational
economy). The personal identity of the soul is attacked on similar
grounds. In each case the metaphysical conclusion is said to be drawn
only by an equivocation in the use or meaning of a concept of the
understanding.



This illustrates Kant's efforts to demonstrate the fallacious
nature of the arguments that characterize metaphysics, as well as his
interest in identifying the sources of such errors. Given this,
Kant's criticisms of rational psychology are not as
straightforward as one might expect, for embedded in his criticisms of
rational psychology are actually a number of distinct charges: 1) The
idea of the soul, although it is one to which we are naturally led in
our quest for the unconditioned ground of thought, does not correspond
to any object that is (or could be) *actually given* to us in
intuition. The hypostatization of this idea, therefore, although it
may be natural, is deeply problematic. 2) Because the idea of the soul
does not yield, by itself alone, any knowable object, the arguments
about it, although they may have the appearance of being legitimate,
in fact involve dialectical applications of concepts. The arguments,
in other words, involve fallacies that vitiate their conclusions. 3)
The arguments are traceable back to certain features of human reason
that may not be eradicated, but that can and ought to be curbed and
critically reinterpreted. More specifically, the demand for the
unconditioned, and the idea of the soul to which it gives rise, may be
construed regulatively as devices for guiding inquiries, but never
constitutively -- never, that is, as yielding grounds for any a
priori synthetic knowledge of a metaphysical self given immediately to
pure reason.



Kant's Paralogisms have received considerable and focused
attention in the secondary literature. See Ameriks (1992), Brook
(1994), Kitcher, Patricia (1990), Powell (1990), Sellars (1969, 1971),
Wolff, R. P. (1963). There are also excellent discussions to be found
in Allison (1983, 2004), Bennett (1974), Buroker (2006), Grier (2001,
forthcoming), Guyer (1987), Wuerth (2010, 2021) (2010), Bird (2006), Ameriks
(2006), Melnick (2006), Dyck (2014), Proops (2010), Willaschek (2018)


## 4. The World and Rational Cosmology



The second discipline of rationalist metaphysics rejected by Kant is
Rational Cosmology. Rational cosmology is concerned with the arguments
about the nature and constitution of the "world,"
understood as the sum-total of all appearances (objects and events in
space and time) (A420/B448). The arguments about the world occupy an
especially important place in Kant's rejection of metaphysics.
Not only does Kant address himself to the task of discounting the
metaphysical arguments in cosmology, but the resolution to some of
these conflicts provides, he claims, an indirect argument for his own
transcendental idealism.



The arguments about the world are referred to by Kant as
"antinomies" because in the field of cosmology, reason
gives rise to sets of opposing arguments (the "thesis" and
the "antithesis") with respect to each issue. Thus, the
case here differs from the paralogisms (and, as we shall see, from the
Ideal). The reason for this difference resides in the nature of the
idea of reason in question. The idea of the "world"
purports to be an idea of an unconditioned but somehow still sensible
object (cf. A479/B509). Unlike the soul and God, which are clearly
supposed to be non-sensible metaphysical entities, the sum total of
all appearances refers specifically to spatio-temporal objects or
events. Kant highlights this unique feature of the idea of the world
by noting that whereas the ideas of the soul and God are
"pseudo-rational," the idea of the world is
"pseudo-empirical." It is precisely this feature of the
idea (that it both purports to refer to a somehow sensible object AND
that it involves thinking that object as already given in its
unconditioned totality) that leads to the two opposed sets of
arguments. For with respect to each problem addressed (the finitude
vs. the infinitude of the world, freedom vs. causality, etc.), one can
either adopt a broadly "dogmatic" (Platonic) or broadly
"empiricist" (Epicurean) approach, each reflecting a
different way of thinking the totality of conditions (See
A471-2/B499-500). More specifically, one can either think
the unconditioned as an intelligible ground of appearances, or as the
total (even if infinite) set of all appearances. Unfortunately, each
of these conceptual strategies is unsatisfying. To accommodate the
thesis interest in ultimate (intelligible) beginnings is to posit
something "too big" for the understanding, something that
is never to be met with empirically (e.g., freedom, ultimately simple
substances). Thus, although the thesis positions satisfy
reason's demand for the unconditioned, they do so by fleeing
(however unwittingly) into an intelligible realm, by providing
explanations that abstract from that which is or could be given in any
spatio-temporal experience. But adopting the empiricist approach is no
more rewarding, in the final analysis; although the antithesis
positions remain securely lodged within "nature's own
resources," they can never measure up to the demands of
reason's ideas. Such a strategy is "too small" for
reason which, even despite its capacity to think beyond all standards
of sense and by its demand for more thorough explanation. Worse, the
antithesis arguments, in refusing to go beyond the spatio-temporal
realm, end up being just as dogmatic as their opposites, for the
assumption is that whatever holds within space and time also holds
generally. To assume this is to take what are for Kant merely
subjective features of our intuition (forms of sensibility, space and
time) to be universal ontological conditions holding of everything
whatsoever. 



Because both sides to the cosmological disputes seem to be able to
argue successfully against the opposite, Kant finds in the antinomies
a dramatic exhibition of the "conflict" into which reason
inevitably falls (and in which it will remain) so long as it fails to
adopt his own transcendental distinction between appearances and
things in themselves. The historical debacle of reason's
conflict with itself provides Kant with a dramatic exhibition of the
vacillation of reason between two alternatives, neither of which it
can accept (or dismiss) without dissatisfaction. Left unresolved, this
conflict leads to the "euthanasia of pure reason"
(A407/B434), in the sense of provoking skeptical despair.


### 4.1 The Mathematical Antinomies



There are four "antinomies" of pure reason, and Kant
divides them into two classes. The first two antinomies are dubbed
"mathematical" antinomies, presumably because in each
case, we are concerned with the relation between what are alleged to
be sensible objects (either the world itself, or objects in it) and
space and time. An important and fundamental aspect of Kant's
rejection of each of these sets of arguments rests on his view that
each of these conflicts is traceable back to a fundamental error, an
error that can be discerned, according to Kant, in the following
dialectical syllogism:



> 
> 
> If the conditioned is given, then the whole series of conditions, a
> series which is therefore itself absolutely unconditioned, is also
> given
> 
> 
> 
> Objects of the senses are given as conditioned
> 
> 
> 
> Consequently, the entire series of all conditions of objects of the
> senses is already given. (cf. A497/B525).
> 
> 
> 



There are a number of problems with this argument, according to Kant.
Obviously, one problem is located in the major premise, in the
assumption that the unconditioned is "already given." The
problem, maintains Kant, is that such a totality is never to be met
with in experience. The rational assumption that the total series of
all conditions is already given would hold only for things in
themselves. In the realm of appearances, the totality is never given
to us, as finite discursive knowers. The most we are entitled to say,
with respect to appearances, is that the unconditioned is *set as a
task*, that there is a rational prescription to continue to seek
explanations (A498/B526-A500/B528). As finite (sensible) cognizers,
however, we shall never achieve an absolute completion of knowledge.
To assume that we can do so is to adopt the theocentric model of
knowledge characteristic of the dreaded transcendental realist.



This hypostatization of the idea of the world, the fact that it is
taken to be a mind-independent object, acts as the underlying
assumption motivating both parties to the two mathematical antinomies.
The first antinomy concerns the finitude or infinitude of the
spatio-temporal world. The thesis argument seeks to show that the
world in space and time is finite, i.e., has a beginning in time and a
limit in space. The antithesis counters that it is infinite with
regard to both space and time. The second antinomy concerns the
ultimate constitution of objects in the world, with the thesis arguing
for ultimately simple substances, whereas the antithesis argues that
objects are infinitely divisible. In this, the thesis positions are
each concerned to bring the explanatory effort to a close, by arguing
for ultimate or, as Kant says, "intelligible beginnings"
(cf. A466/B494). The claim that there is a "first
beginning" or an ultimately simple substance is sustained only
by abstracting from the spatio-temporal framework. The alleged
proponent of the antithesis arguments, on the other hand, refuses any
conclusion that goes beyond the sensible conditions of space and time.
According to the antithesis arguments, the world is infinite in both
space and time (these being infinite as well), and bodies are (in
accordance with the infinite divisibility of space) also infinitely
divisible.



In each of these antinomial conflicts, reason finds itself at an
impasse. Satisfying the demands placed by our rational capacity to
think beyond experience, the thesis arguments offer what appears to be
a satisfying resting-place for explanation. The antithesis charges
that such a strategy fails to find any confirmation, and, citing the
unjustified flight into an intelligible realm, lodges itself squarely
in the domain of "experience." In each of these cases, the
conflicts are resolved by demonstrating that the conclusions drawn on
both sides are false.



How does Kant demonstrate this? Both the thesis and antithesis
arguments are apagogic, i.e., that they constitute indirect proofs. An
indirect proof establishes its conclusion by showing the impossibility
of its opposite. Thus, for example, we may want to know, as in the
first antinomy, whether the world is finite or infinite. We can seek
to show that it is finite by demonstrating the impossibility of its
infinitude. Alternatively, we may demonstrate the infinitude of the
world by showing that it is impossible that it is finite. This is
exactly what the thesis and antithesis arguments purport to do,
respectively. The same strategy is deployed in the second antinomy,
where the proponent of the thesis position argues for the necessity of
some ultimately simple substance by showing the impossibility of
infinite divisibility of substance, etc.



Obviously, the success of the proofs depends on the legitimacy of the
exclusive disjunction agreed to by both parties. Both parties, that
is, assume that "there is a world," and that it is, for
example, "either finite or infinite." Herein lies the
problem, according to Kant. The world is, for Kant, neither finite nor
infinite. The opposition between these two alternatives is merely
dialectical. In the cosmological debates, each party to the dispute
falls prey to the ambiguity in the idea of the world.



Kant thus structures his analysis of the mathematical antinomies by
appealing to the general dialectical syllogism presented at the end of
section 4.0 (If the conditioned is given, the unconditioned is given,
Objects of the senses are given as conditioned....etc.). Problems stem
from the application of the principle expressed in the first premise
to the objects of the senses (appearances). Here again, Kant diagnoses
the error or fallacy contained in this syllogism as that of ambiguous
middle. He claims that the major premise uses the term "the
conditioned" transcendentally, as a pure concept, whereas the
minor premise uses the term 'empirically' - that is
as a "concept of the understanding applied to mere
appearances" (cf. A499-500/B527-528). What Kant
means is that the major premise uses the term "the
conditioned" in a very general way, one that considers things in
abstraction from the sensible conditions of our intuition. The minor
premise, however, which specifically refers to objects in space and
time (appearances), is committed to an empirical use of the term.
Indeed, such an empirical use would have to be deployed, if the
conclusion is to be reached. The conclusion is that the entire series
of all conditions of appearances is actually given. Put in other
terms, the conclusion is that there is a world, understood as the sum
total of all appearances and their conditions (A420/B448).


## 4.2 The Dynamical Antinomies



In the dynamical antinomies, Kant changes his strategy somewhat.
Rather than arguing (as in the mathematical antinomies) that both
conclusions are *false*, Kant suggests that both sides to the
dispute might turn out to be correct. This option is available here,
and not in the two mathematical antinomies, because the proponents of
the thesis arguments are not committing themselves solely to claims
about spatio-temporal objects. In the third antinomy, the thesis
contends that in addition to mechanistic causality, we must posit some
first uncaused causal power (Transcendental Freedom), while the
antithesis denies anything but mechanistic causality. Here, then, the
debate is the standard (though in this case, the specifically
cosmological) dispute between freedom and determinism. Finally, in the
fourth antinomy, the requirement for a necessary being is pitted
against its opposite. The thesis position argues for a necessary
being, whereas the antithesis denies that there is any such being.



In both cases the thesis opts for a position that is abstracted from
the spatio-temporal framework, and thus adopts the broadly Platonic
view. The postulation of freedom amounts to the postulation of a
non-temporal cause, a causality outside the series of appearances in
space and time (A451/B479). Similarly, in its efforts to argue for a
"necessary being," reason is forced (against its own
argument) into a non-sensible realm. If there is a necessary being, it
will have to be "outside" the series of appearances:
"Either, therefore, reason through its demand for the
unconditioned must remain in conflict with itself, or this
unconditioned must be posited outside the series, in the
intelligible" (A564/B592). The rational necessity of postulating
such a necessary being or a causality of freedom satisfies the
rational demand for intelligible explanation. Against this, the
antithesis rightly notes that the conception of transcendental
freedom, or a necessary being, again represents an attempt to abstract
from "nature's own resources"
(A451-2/B479-80). Insofar as the antithesis denies the
justification for doing this, of course, it is said to adopt a broadly
Epicurean standpoint. The problem here, however, is that in refusing
to move beyond "nature's own resources," the
antithesis surreptitiously smuggles in spatio-temporal conditions as
the basis for a universal ontological claim that nevertheless
transcends all experience. If space and time were things in
themselves, then of course the application of the demand for this
unconditioned would be warranted. Kant's view, however, is that
space and time are not conditions of things in themselves.



The resolution to these antinomies here consists in giving each side
its due, but simultaneously limiting the domain over which the claims
hold. The thesis demand for an absolute causal beginning or a
necessary being might well be allowed to stand, but certainly not as
"part of" or as an explication of appearances in nature.
Similarly, the antithesis conclusions can stand, but only in relation
to objects in nature, considered as appearances. Here, the conflict
seems irresolvable only on the assumption that appearances are things
in themselves. If appearances were things in themselves, for example,
then it would certainly seem true that either they are one and all
subject to mechanistic causality, or not. In such a case, it makes
sense both to argue for a non-temporal beginning and to deny such a
beginning. Left unresolved, then, this antinomy leaves us wit the
following dilemma: on the assumption of transcendental realism, both
nature and freedom seem to be undermined. To avoid this, Kant appeals
to transcendental idealism, which is supposed to rescue reason from
the conflict. Given transcendental idealism (with its distinction
between appearances and things in themselves) it remains possible that
in addition to the mechanism of nature, or contingent existence, there
is an intelligible causal power, or a necessary being.



Detailed discussions of Kant's antinomies can be found in Al-Azm
(1972), Bennett, (1974), Grier (2001, 2006, forthcoming), Guyer (1987),
Heimsoeth (1967), Strawson (1966), Thiel (2006), Watkins (1998, 2000),
Van Cleve (1984). See also Allison (1983), and Walsh (1975). See also
Bird (2006), Wood (2010), Wuerth (2021), Willaschek (2018).


## 5. God and Rational Theology



The metaphysical drive, and the demand for the unconditioned, seem to
find their natural resting place in the idea of God, an absolutely
necessary and supremely real being, the concept of which
"contains a therefore for every wherefore" (A585/B613). It
is here, in the concept of God, that the demands for systematic unity
and completeness of knowledge find their "objective
correlate." Kant refers to this idea as an Ideal, suggesting it
defines itself as a "concept of an individual object which is
completely determined through the mere idea" (A574/B602). The
Ideal represents the highest singular manifestation of reason's
demand for the unconditioned.



The last area of metaphysics under attack, then, is Rational Theology.
Kant's criticism of rational theology is complicated by his
desire to elucidate the *sources* of the dialectical errors,
which he will expose in relation to the specific arguments for
God's existence. ("...Merely to describe the
procedure of our reason and its dialectic does not suffice; we must
also endeavor to discover the sources of this dialectic, that we may
explain...the illusion to which it has given rise"
(A581/B607).) Kant thus spends a considerable amount of time tracing
the idea of God back to its rational, speculative, sources. According
to Kant, "....the Ideal ...is based on a natural, not
a merely arbitrary idea" (A581/B607). On this score, Kant wants
to tell us that we are compelled to think the idea of God (the *ens
realissimum*) when pursuing certain speculative or philosophical
interests. More specifically, the idea of a supremely real being (the
*ens realissimum*) is one to which we are inevitably led during
our attempts to account for the pure possibility of things in general.
The upshot that the idea of the *ens realissimum* is not an
arbitrary or easily dispensable one. Instead, Kant suggests that
reason is philosophically constrained to move to such an idea in its
efforts to thoroughly determine every thing. Such efforts require
thinking the totality, or "All" of reality (the
*omnitudo realitatis*). Such an idea is philosophically
required because, in our efforts to thoroughly determine each thing
(to know it completely, specify it exhaustively), we must be able to
say, of every possible predicate and its contradictory (*p* v
 *p*) which of the two holds of the thing in question.
(For every object, it is either *A* or not *A*, either
*B* or not *B*, etc., and this process is iterated until
each predicate pair (each positive reality) is exhausted -- Kant
clearly has a Leibnizian procedure of complete determination in mind
here.) This process is parasitic upon the idea of "sum total of
all predicates of things in general." Or, put in another way, we
represent "every thing as deriving its own possibility from the
share it has in the whole of possibility" (A572/B600). Such an
idea, the All of reality, however, defines itself as an individual
thing, and leads us to the representation of the "supremely real
being." The problem seems to come in, according to Kant, when
the "All" of reality gets hypostatized, and (eventually)
personified, thus yielding the *ens realissimum* (cf.
A583/B611n). Here again, Kant thinks that this idea itself gets
transmuted into the notion of a given object by virtue of a unique
subreption, whereby we dialectically substitute for a principle that
is only meant for empirical employment one which holds of things in
general. The argument Kant offers is excruciating, but the essential
point is that, just as the idea of the soul involved the subreption of
the hypostatized consciousness, so too, the idea of the *ens
realissimum* is generated by both a subrepted principle and a
hypostatization.



As in the cases of both rational psychology and rational cosmology,
then, one central problem thus has to do with the assumption that pure
(speculative) reason yields any access to a transcendent object (in
this case, God) about which it is entitled to seek *a priori*
knowledge. Despite his insistence that the idea of God is
indispensable and "inescapable" (cf. A584/B612), Kant
again denies that we can acquire any theoretical knowledge of the
alleged "object" thought through such an idea. On the one
hand, then, the idea of God is "the crown of our
endeavors." On the other, as in the cases of both rational
psychology and cosmology, the idea answers to no given and
theoretically knowable object (A339/B397). Indeed, according to Kant,
the idea of God should not lead us to "presuppose the existence
of a being that corresponds to this ideal, but only the idea of such a
being, and this only for the purpose of deriving from an unconditioned
totality of complete determination the conditioned totality. i.e., the
limited..." (A578/B606). As in the other disciplines of
metaphysics, Kant suggests that we are motivated (perhaps even
constrained) to represent the idea as a real object, to hypostatize
it, in accordance the demand for the unconditioned:



> 
> Notwithstanding this pressing need of reason to presuppose something
> that may afford the understanding a sufficient foundation for the
> complete determination of its concepts, it is yet too easily conscious
> of the ideal and merely fictitious character of such a presuppostion
> to allow itself, on this ground alone, to be persuaded that a mere
> creature of its own thought is a real being -- were it not that
> it is impelled from another direction to seek a resting place in the
> regress from the conditioned, which is given, to the unconditioned
> (A584/B612)
> 



This demand for the unconditioned, according to Kant, links up with a
demand for some ultimately necessary being. Reason, that is,
ceaselessly demands the ground of all the contingent beings in
existence, and will not rest until it settles on the absolutely
necessary being which grounds them. The idea of the *ens
realissimum* plays a singular role in satisfying this desire of
reason, for of all concepts, it is that "which best squares with
the concept of an unconditionally necessary being" (A586/B614).
In fact, according to Kant rational theology is based on the
coincidence of the rational demands for a supremely real being and for
a being with absolutely necessary existence. If the movement to the
idea of God, as the unconditioned ground, is inevitable, it is
nevertheless as troublesome as the other rational ideas:



> 
> This unconditioned is not, indeed, given as being in itself real, nor
> as having a reality that follows from its mere concept; it is,
> however, what alone can complete the series of conditions when we
> proceed to trace these conditions to their grounds. This is the course
> which our human reason, by its very nature, leads all of us
> (A584/B612; cf. A584/B612n).
> 



Thus, although Kant is most well known for his attacks on the specific
arguments for God's existence, his criticisms of rational
theology are in fact more detailed, and involve a robust critique of
the idea of God itself. This account of the rational origin and the
importance of the idea of God clears the way for Kant's
rejection of the metaphysical arguments about God's existence.
Kant identifies three traditional arguments, the ontological, the
cosmological, and the physico-theological (the argument from design).
What all such arguments do is attempt to wed the idea of the *ens
realissimum* with the notion of necessary existence. Whereas the
Ontological argument moves *from* the concept of the *ens
realissimum* *to* the claim that such a being exists
necessarily, the Cosmological and physico-theological arguments move
from some *necessary being* to the conclusion that such a being
must be the *ens realissimum*.


### 5.1 The Ontological Argument



Kant's formulation of the ontological argument is fairly
straightforward, and may be summarized as follows:


1. God, the *ens realissimum*, is the concept of a being that
contains all reality/predicates.
2. Existence is a reality/predicate.
3. Therefore God exists.



Kant's identification of the errors involved in this argument
are so varied that it seems surprising that he is so often simply said
to have argued against the use of "existence" as a
predicate. His first complaint is that it is
"contradictory" insofar as it introduces
"existence" into the "concept of a thing which we
profess to be thinking solely in reference to its possibility"
(A597/B625). This suggests that he thinks that in taking "all
reality" to mean or include "existence," the
rational theologist begs the question, and already posits the analytic
connection between the concept of the *ens realissimum* and
necessary existence.



At the heart of this complaint is a more general one, to wit, that
there is a problem with the attempt to infer *anything* as
necessarily existing. Although, according to Kant, reason is
unavoidably led to the notion of an absolutely necessary being, the
understanding is in no position to identify any candidate answering to
the idea. (cf. A592/B620). Clearly, the ontological argument is
designed to show that, in fact, there *is* one (and only one)
candidate answering to this idea, namely, the *ens
realissimum*. But it does so by deducing the necessary existence
from the concept of the *ens realissimum* (a being that
contains all reality or predicates) only via the minor premise that
"existence" is a predicate or reality. Kant, however,
famously denies that existence is a "real predicate," or
determination. Thus, one criticism is that the argument conflates
merely logical with real (determining) predicates. A real
(determining) predicate is one that enlarges the concept to which it
is attached. It seems clear that the locus of the error here, as in
the other metaphysical disciplines, is the view that the idea of the
*ens realissimum* provides us with a concept of an
"object" to which it would be appropriate to apply
categories or concepts in a determining way. Thus, included in
Kant's criticism is the claim that the category of existence is
being subject to a transcendental misemployment (A598/B626). This
misapplication of the category is problematic precisely because,
according to Kant, we are dealing only with an object of pure thought,
whose existence cannot be known (A602/B630).


### 5.2 The Other Proofs



If the ontological argument seeks to move from the concept of the
*ens realissimum* to the concept of an absolutely necessary
being, both the cosmological and physicotheological proofs move in the
opposite direction. Each, that is, argues that there is something that
must exist with absolute necessity and concludes that this being is
the *ens realissimum*. Because these proofs aim to identify the
*ens realissimum* with the necessary being, and because the
attempt to do this requires an *a priori* argument (it cannot
be demonstrated empirically), Kant thinks that they are both
(ultimately) vitiated by their reliance on the ontological proof. More
specifically, they are both mitigated by their assumption that the
*ens realissimum* is the only object or candidate that can do
the job of existing necessarily. Since he thinks that the ontological
argument is in some sense implicitly relied upon in making such a
claim, these arguments stand or fall with it. On Kant's view, as
we shall see, they fall.



The *cosmological proof* has, according to Kant, two parts. As
above, the proponent of the argument first seeks to demonstrate the
existence of an absolutely necessary being. Second, the rational
cosmologist seeks to show that this absolutely necessary being is the
*ens realissimum*.



As Kant formulates it, the cosmological argument is as follows:



> 
> 
> If something exists, then an absolutely necessary being must also
> exist.
> 
> 
> 
> I myself, at least, exist.
> 
> 
> 
> Therefore an absolutely necessary being exists.
> 
> 
> 



As above, the theist will ultimately want to identify this necessary
being with the *ens realissimum*, an identification which Kant
thinks surreptitiously smuggles in the (dialectical) ontological
argument. The claim here is that the proponent of the cosmological
argument is committed ultimately to accepting the ontological
argument, given her attempt to identify the necessary being with the
*ens realissimum*. Although this suggests that the cosmological
argument relies on the ontological, Kant also indicates that the
effort to produce a purely *a priori* argument for God's
existence (the ontological argument) itself gets momentum from
reason's need to find the necessary ground for existence in
general, a need expressed in the cosmological argument (cf.
A603-04/B631-32). This suggests that Kant takes the
ontological and cosmological arguments to be complementary expressions
of the one underlying rational demand for the unconditioned.



Even aside from its alleged commitment to the ontological argument,
Kant has a number of complaints about the cosmological argument.
Indeed, according to Kant, the cosmological argument is characterized
by an "entire nest of dialectical presumptions" which must
be illuminated and "destroyed" (A609/B637). These
dialectical presumptions include the attempt to infer from the
contingent (within experience) to some cause lying outside the world
of sense altogether, an effort involving a transcendental
misapplication of the categories. It also includes, Kant claims, the
dialectical effort to infer from the *conceptual* impossibility
of an infinite series of causes to some *actual* first cause
outside of sense. Such efforts involve a "false
self-satisfaction" according to which reason feels itself to
have finally landed on a truly necessary being. Unfortunately,
according to Kant, this is only achieved by conflating the merely
*logical possibility* of a *concept* (that it is not
self-contradictory) with the *transcendental* (real)
possibility of a *thing*. In short, the cosmological argument
gets its momentum by confusing rational or subjective necessities with
real or objective ones, and thus involves transcendental illusion (cf.
A605/B633).



We come finally to the *physicotheological proof*, which argues
from the particular constitution of the world, specifically its
beauty, order, and purposiveness, to the necessary existence of an
intelligent cause (God). Such an argument goes beyond the cosmological
one by moving not from *existence in general* but from some
*determinate experience* in order to demonstrate the existence
of God (A621/B649). Although this might seem to be a strength, this
strategy is doomed to fail, according to Kant. No experience could
ever be adequate to the idea of a necessary, original being:
"The transcendental idea of a necessary all-sufficient original
being is so overwhelmingly great, so sublimely high above everything
empirical, which is at all times conditioned, that partly one can
never even procure enough material in experience to fill such a
concept, and partly if one searches for the unconditioned among
conditioned things, then one will seek forever and always in
vain" (A621/B649).



Kant's claim is that even if we could grant that the order and
purposiveness of nature gives us good reason to suppose some
intelligent designer, it does not warrant the inference to an *ens
realissimum*. At most, Kant tells us, the proof could establish a
"highest architect of the world...., but not a creator of
the world." (A627/B655). The last inference, that to the *ens
realissimum*, is only drawn by moving far away from any
consideration of the actual (empirical) world. In other words, here
too, Kant thinks that the rational theologist is relying on a
transcendental (*a priori*) argument. Indeed, according to
Kant, the physicotheological proof could never, given its empirical
starting point, establish the existence of a highest being by itself
alone, and must rely on the ontological argument at crucial stages
(cf. A625/B653). Since, according to Kant, the ontological argument
fails, so does the physicotheological one.



Although Kant rejects the physiciotheological argument as a
theoretical proof for God's existence, he also sees in it a
powerful expression of reason's need to recognize in nature
purposive unity and design (cf. A625/B651). In this, the
physicotheological argument's emphasis on the purposiveness and
systematic unity of nature illuminates an assumption that Kant takes
to be essential to our endeavors in the natural sciences. The
essential role played by the assumption of purposive and systematic
unity, and the role it plays in scientific inquiries, is taken up by
Kant in the Appendix to the Transcendental Dialectic. To this topic we
now turn.



For some discussions of the Ideal of Pure Reason and Rational
Theology, see Caimi (1995). England (1968), Grier (2001, forthcoming),
Henrich (1960), Longuenesse (1995, 2005), Rohs (1978), Walsh (1975),
and Wood (1978), Chignell (2009), Grier (2010), Chignell (2014), Wuerth
(2021), Willaschek (2018)


## 6. Reason and the Appendix to the Transcendental Dialectic



The criticisms of the metaphysical arguments offered in the
Transcendental Dialectic do not bring Kant's discussion to a
close. Indeed, in an "Appendix" to the Transcendental
Dialectic, Kant returns to the issue of reason's positive or
necessary role. The curious "Appendix" has provoked a
great deal of confusion, and not without reason. After all, the entire
thrust of the Dialectic seemed to be directed at
"critiquing" and curbing pure reason, and undermining its
pretense to any real use. Nevertheless, Kant goes on to suggest that
the very reason that led us into metaphysical error is also the source
of certain necessary ideas and principles, and moreover, that these
rational postulations play an essential role in scientific theorizing
(A645/B673; A671/B699). Exactly what role they are supposed to play in
this regard is less clear.



The Appendix to the Transcendental Dialectic is divided into two
parts. In the first, "On the Regulative Use of the Ideas of Pure
Reason," Kant attempts to identify some proper
"immanent" use for reason. In its most general terms, Kant
is here concerned to establish a necessary role for reason's
principle of systematic unity. This principle was first formulated by
Kant in the Introduction to the Transcendental Dialectic in two forms,
one prescriptive, and the other in what sounded to be a metaphysical
claim. In the first, prescriptive form, the principle enjoins us to
"Find for the conditioned knowledge given through the
understanding the unconditioned whereby its unity is brought to
completion." The complementary metaphysical principle assures us
that the "unconditioned" is indeed given and there to be
found. Taken together, these principles express reason's
interests in securing systematic unity of knowledge and bringing such
knowledge to completion.



Kant is quite clear that he takes reason's demand for
systematicity to play an important role in empirical inquiry. In
connection with this, Kant suggests that the coherent operation of the
understanding somehow requires reason's guiding influence,
particularly if we are to unify the knowledge given through the real
use of the understanding into scientific theory (cf.
A651-52/B679-80). To order knowledge systematically, for
Kant, means to subsume or unify it under fewer and fewer principles in
light of the idea of one "whole of knowledge" so that its
parts are exhibited in their necessary connections (cf. 646/B674). The
idea of the form of a whole of knowledge is thus said to postulate
"complete unity in the knowledge obtained by the understanding,
by which this knowledge is to be not a mere contingent aggregate, but
a system connected according to necessary laws" (A646/B676).
Having said this, it should be noted that Kant's position is, in
its details, difficult to pin down. Sometimes Kant suggests merely
that we ought to *seek* systematic unity of knowledge, and this
merely for own theoretical convenience (A771/B799-A772/B800). Other
times, however, he suggests that we must assume that the *nature
itself* conforms to our demands for systematic unity, and this
necessarily, if we are to secure even an empirical criterion of truth
(cf. A651-53/B679-81). The precise status of the demand
for systematicity is therefore somewhat controversial.



Regardless of these more subtle textual issues Kant remains committed
to the view that reason's proper use is always only
"regulative" and never constitutive. The distinction
between the regulative and the constitutive may be viewed as
describing two different ways in which the claims of reason may be
interpreted. A principle of reason is constitutive, according to Kant,
when it is taken to supply a concept of a real object (A306/B363;
A648/B676). Throughout the Dialectic Kant argued against this
(constitutive) interpretation of the ideas and principles of reason,
claiming that reason so far transcends possible experience that there
is nothing in experience that corresponds with its ideas. Although
Kant denies that reason is constitutive he nevertheless, as we have
seen, insists that it has an "indispensably necessary"
regulative use. In accordance with reason's demand, the
understanding is guided and led to secure systematic unity and
completion of knowledge. In other words, Kant seeks to show that
reason's demand for systematic unity is related to the project
of empirical knowledge acquisition. Indeed, Kant links the demand for
systematicity up with three other principles -- those of
homogeneity, specification and affinity -- which he thinks
express the fundamental presumptions that guide us in theory
formation. The essential point seems to be that the development and
expansion of empirical knowledge is always, as it were,
"already" guided by the rational interests in securing
unity and completion of knowledge. Without such a guiding agenda, and
without the assumption that nature conforms to our rational demands
for securing unity and coherence of knowledge, our scientific pursuits
would lack orientation. Thus, the claim that reason's principles
play a necessary "regulative" role in science reflects
Kant's critical reinterpretation of the traditional rationalist
ideal of arriving at complete knowledge.



It is connection with this that Kant argues, in the second part of the
Appendix ("On the Final Aim of the Natural Dialectic of Human
Reason" (A669/B697)), that the three highest ideas of reason
have an important *theoretical* function. More specifically, in
this section Kant turns from a general discussion of the important
(regulative) use of the principle of systematicity, to a consideration
of the three transcendental ideas (the Soul, the World, and God) at
issue in the Dialectic. As examples of the unifying and guiding role
of reason's ideas, Kant had earlier appealed to the ideas of
"pure earth" and "pure air" in Chemistry, or
the idea of a "fundamental power" in psychological
investigations (cf. A650/B678). His suggestion earlier was that these
ideas are implicit in the practices governing scientific
classification, and enjoin us to seek explanatory connections between
disparate phenomena. As such, reason's postulations serve to
provide an orienting point towards which our explanations strive, and
in accordance with which our theories progressively achieve systematic
interconnection and unity. Similarly, Kant now suggests that each of
the three transcendental ideas of reason at issue in the Dialectic
serves as an imaginary point (*focus imaginarius*) towards
which our investigations hypothetically converge. More specifically,
he suggests that the idea of the soul serves to guide our empirical
investigations in psychology, the idea of the world grounds physics,
and the idea of God grounds the unification of these two branches of
natural science into one unified Science (cf. A684/B712-A686/B714). In
each of these cases, Kant claims, the idea allows us to represent
(problematically) the systematic unity towards which we aspire and
which we presuppose in empirical studies. In accordance with the idea
of God, for example, we "consider every connection in the world
according to principles [*Principien*] of a systematic unity,
hence **as if** they had all arisen from one single
all-encompassing being, as supreme and all-sufficient cause"
(A686/B714). Such a claim, controversial as it is, illuminates
Kant's view that empirical inquiries are one and all undertaken
in light of the rational goal of a single unified body of knowledge.
It also points towards the Kantian view, later emphasized in the
Transcendental Doctrine of Method, that reason's theoretical and
practical interests ultimately form a higher unity.



For discussions on the Appendix and the role of reason and
systematicity, see Allison (2004), Brandt (1989), Buchdahl (1967),
Britton (1978), Forster (2000), Friedman (1992), Ginsborg (1990),
Grier (2001, forthcoming), Guyer (1990a, 1990b), Horstmann (1989),
O'Neill (1992), Patricia Kitcher (1991), Philip Kitcher (1984),
Nieman (1994), MacFarland (1970), Walker (1990), Walsh (1975),
Wartenberg (1979, 1992), Rauscher (2010), Willaschek (2018).



For an important discussion on the "unity" of theoretical
and practical reason, see again Forster (2000). See also Velkley
(1989).