A History of Philosophy in Epitome

by Albert Schwegler

(2.) The Antinomies of Cosmology.

The cosmological ideas cannot be fully attained without the aid of the categories. (1) So far as the quantity of the world is concerned, space and time are the original quanta of all intuition. In a quantitative respect, therefore, the cosmological idea must hold fast to something concerning the totality of the times and spaces of the world. (2) In respect of quality, the divisibility of matter must be regarded. (3) In respect of relation, the complete series of causes must be sought for the existing effects in the world. (4) In respect of modality, the accidental according to its conditions, or the complete dependence of the accidental in the phenomenon must be conceived. When, now, the reason attempts to establish determinations respecting these problems, it finds itself at once entangled in a contradiction with itself. Directly contrary affirmations can be made with equal validity in reference to each of these four points. We can show, upon grounds equally valid, (1) the thesis, the world has a beginning in time and limits in space; and the antithesis, the world has neither beginning in time nor limit in space. (2) The thesis: every compound substance in the world consists of simple parts, and there exists nothing else than the simple and that which it composes; and the antithesis: no compound thing consists of simple parts, and there exists nothing simple in the world. (3) The thesis: causality according to the laws of nature, is not the only one from which the phenomena of the world may be deduced, but these may be explained through a causality in freedom; and the antithesis: there is no freedom, but every thing in the world happens only according to natural laws. Lastly, (4) the thesis: something belongs to the world either as its part or its cause, which is an absolutely necessary being; and the antithesis: there exists no absolutely necessary being as cause of the world, either in the world or without it. From this dialectic conflict of the cosmological ideas, there follows at once the worthlessness of the whole struggle.

(3.) The ideal of the pure Reason or the idea of God.

Kant shows at first how the reason comes to the idea of a most real being, and then turns himself against the efforts of previous metaphysics to prove its valid existence. His critick of the arguments employed to prove the existence of a God, is essentially the following.

(a.) The Ontological proof.—The argument here is as follows: it is possible that there is a most real being; now existence is implied in the conception of all reality, and hence, existence necessarily belongs to the conception of the most real being. But, answers Kant, existence is not at all a reality, or real predicate which can be added to the conception of a thing, but it is the position of a thing with all its properties. A thing, however, may lose its existence, and still be deprived of none of its properties. Hence if it have any property, it does not at all follow that it possesses existence. Being is nothing but the logical copula, which, does not in the least enlarge the content of the subject. A hundred actual dollars, e. g. contain no more than a hundred possible ones; there is only a difference between them in reference to my own wealth. Thus the most real being may with perfect propriety be conceived of as the most real, while at the same time it should only be conceived of as possible, and not as actual. It was therefore wholly unnatural, and a simple play of school wit, to take an idea which had been arbitrarily formed, and deduce from it the existence of its corresponding object. Any effort and toil which might be spent upon this famous proof is thus only thrown away, and a man would become no richer in knowledge out of simple ideas than a merchant would increase his property by adding a number of ciphers to the balance of his accounts.

(b.) The Cosmological proof.—This, like the ontological, infers the existence of an absolute being from the necessity of existence. If any thing exist there must also exist an absolutely necessary being as its cause. But now there exists at least I myself, and there must hence also exist an absolutely necessary being as my cause. The last cosmological antinomy is here brought in to criticise the argument at this stage. The conclusion is erroneous, because from the phenomenal and the accidental a necessary being above experience is inferred. Moreover, if we allow the conclusion to be valid, it is still no God which it gives us. Hence the farther inference is made: that being can alone be necessary which includes all reality within itself. If now this proposition should be reversed, and the affirmation made that that being which includes all reality is absolutely necessary, then have we again the ontological proof, and the cosmological falls with this. In the cosmological proof, the reason uses the trick of bringing forth as a new argument an old one with a changed dress, that it might seem to have the power of summoning two witnesses.

(c.) The Physico-theological proof.—If thus neither conception nor experience can furnish a proof for the divine existence, there still remains a third attempt, viz., to start from a determinate experience, and endeavor to see whether the existence of a supreme being can not be inferred from the arrangement and condition of things in the world. Such is the physico-theological proof, which starts from the evidences of design in nature, and directs its argument as follows: there is evidently design in the universe; this is extraneous to the things of the world, and adheres to them only contingently; there exists therefore a necessary cause of this design which works with wisdom and intelligence; this necessary cause must be the most real being; the most real being has therefore necessary existence.—To this Kant answers: The physico-theological proof is the oldest, clearest, and most conformable to the common reason. But it is not demonstration (apodictic). It infers, from the form of the world, a proportionate and sufficient cause of this form; but in this way we only attain an originator of the form of the world, and not an originator of its matter, a world-builder, and not a world-creator. To help out with this difficulty the cosmological proof is brought in, and the originator of the form becomes conceived as the necessary being lying at the ground of the content. Thus we have an absolute being whose perfection corresponds to that of the world. But in the world there is no absolute perfection; we have therefore only a very perfect being; to get the most perfect, we must revert again to the ontological proof. Thus the teleological proof rests upon the cosmological, while this in turn has its basis in the ontological, and from this circle the metaphysical modes of proof cannot escape.

From these considerations, it would follow that the ideal of a supreme being is nothing other than a regulative principle of the reason, by which it looks upon every connection in the world as if it sprang from an all-sufficient and necessary cause; in order that, in explaining this connection, it may establish the rule of a systematic and necessary unity, it being also true that in this process the reason through a transcendental subreption cannot avoid representing to itself this formal principle as constitutive, and this unity as personal. But in truth this supreme being remains for the simply speculative use of the reason, a mere but faultless ideal, a conception which is the summit and the crown of the whole human knowledge, whose objective reality, though it cannot be proved with apodictic certainty, can just as little be disproved.

With this critick of the ideas of the reason there is still another question. If these ideas have no objective significance, why are they found within us? Since they are necessary, they will doubtless have some good purpose to subserve. What this purpose is, has already been indicated in speaking of the theological idea. Though not constitutive, yet are they regulative principles. We cannot better order the faculties of our soul, than by acting “as if” there were a soul. The cosmological idea leads us to consider the world “as if” the series of causes were infinite, without, however, excluding an intelligent cause. The theological idea enables us to look upon the world in all its complexity, as a regulated unity. Thus, while these ideas of the reason are not constitutive principles, by means of which our knowledge could be widened beyond experience, they are regulative principles, by means of which our experience may be ordered, and brought under certain hypothetical unities. These three ideas, therefore, the psychological, the cosmological, and the theological, do not form an organon for the discovery of truth, but only a canon for the simplification and systematizing of our experiences.

Besides their regulative significance, these ideas of the reason have also a practical importance. There is a sufficient certainty, not objective, but subjective, which is especially of a practical nature, and is called belief or confidence. If the freedom of the will, the immortality of the soul, and the existence of a God, are three cardinal principles, which, though not in any way contributing to our knowledge, are yet pressed continually upon us by the reason, this difficulty is removed in the practical field where these ideas have their peculiar significance for the moral confidence. This confidence is not logical, but moral certainty. Since it rests wholly upon subjective grounds, upon the moral character, I cannot say it is morally certain that there is a God, but only I am morally certain, &c. That is, the belief in a God and in another world is so interwoven with my moral character, that I am in just as much danger of losing this character as of being deprived of this belief. We are thus brought to the basis of the Practical Reason.