Kant's Theory of Knowledge

by H. A. Prichard

THE ANALOGIES OF EXPERIENCE

Each of the three categories of relation, i. e. those of substance and accident, of cause and effect, and of interaction between agent and patient involves, according to Kant, a special principle, and these special principles he calls 'analogies of experience'. They are stated thus:[1] (1) In all changes of phenomena the substance is permanent, and its quantity in nature is neither increased nor diminished. (2) All changes take place according to the law of the connexion of cause and effect. (3) All substances, so far as they can be perceived in space as coexistent, are in complete interaction. The justification of the term analogy of experience is as follows. In mathematics an analogy is a formula which asserts the equality of two quantitative relations, and is such that, if three of the terms are given, we can discover the fourth, e. g. if we know that a : b = c : d, and that a = 2, b = 4, c = 6 we can discover that d = 12. But in philosophy an analogy is the assertion of the equality of two qualitative relations and is such that, if three of the terms are given, we can discover, not the fourth, but only the relation of the third to the fourth, though at the same time we are furnished with a clue whereby to search for the fourth in experience. In this philosophical sense, the principles involved in the categories of relation are analogies. For instance, the principles of causality can be stated in the form 'Any known event X is to some other event Y, whatever it be, as effect to cause'; so stated, it clearly informs us not of the character of Y but only of the fact that there must be a Y, i. e. a necessary antecedent, though at the same time this knowledge enables us to search in experience for the special character of Y.

The principles to be established relate to the two kinds of temporal relation apprehended in the world of nature, viz. coexistence and succession. The method of proof, which is to be gathered from the proofs themselves rather than from Kant's general remarks[2] on the subject, is the same in each case. Kant expressly rejects any proof which is 'dogmatical' or 'from conceptions', e. g. any attempt to show that the very conception of change presupposes the thought of an identical subject of change.[3] The proof is transcendental in character, i. e. it argues that the principle to be established is a condition of the possibility of apprehending the temporal relation in question, e. g. that the existence of a permanent subject of change is presupposed in any apprehension of change. It assumes that we become aware of sequences and coexistences in the world of nature by a process which begins with a succession of mere perceptions, i. e. perceptions which are so far not the perceptions of a sequence or of a coexistence or indeed of anything;[4] and it seeks to show that this process involves an appeal to one of the principles in question—the particular principle involved depending on the temporal relation apprehended—and consequently, that since we do apprehend this temporal relation, which, as belonging to the world of nature, must be distinct from any temporal relation of our perceptions, the principle appealed to is valid.

The proof of the first analogy is given somewhat differently in the first edition, and in a passage added in the second. The earlier version, which is a better expression of the attitude underlying Kant's general remarks on the analogy, is as follows:

"Our apprehension of the manifold of a phenomenon is always successive, and is therefore always changing. By it alone, therefore, we can never determine whether this manifold, as an object of experience, is coexistent or successive, unless there lies at the base of it something that exists always, that is, something enduring and permanent, of which all succession and coexistence are nothing but so many ways (modi of time) in which the permanent exists. Only in the permanent, then, are time relations possible (for simultaneity and succession are the only relations in time); i. e. the permanent is the substratum of the empirical representation of time itself, in which alone all time-determination is possible. Permanence expresses in general time, as the persisting correlate of all existence of phenomena, of all change, and of all concomitance.... Only through the permanent does existence in different parts of the successive series of time gain a quantity which we call duration. For, in mere succession, existence is always vanishing and beginning, and never has the least quantity. Without this permanent, then, no time relation is possible. Now, time in itself cannot be perceived[5]; consequently this permanent in phenomena is the substratum of all time-determination, and therefore also the condition of the possibility of all synthetic unity of sense-perceptions, that is, of experience, and in this permanent all existence and all change in time can only be regarded as a mode of the existence of that which endures and is permanent. Therefore in all phenomena the permanent is the object itself, i. e. the substance (phenomenon); but all that changes or can change belongs only to the way in which this substance or substances exist, consequently to their determinations."[6] "Accordingly since substance cannot change in existence, its quantity in nature can neither be increased nor diminished."[7] The argument becomes plainer if it be realized that in the interval between the two editions, Kant came to think that the permanent in question was matter or bodies in space.[8] "We find that in order to give something permanent in perception corresponding to the conception of substance (and thereby to exhibit the objective reality of this conception), we need a perception in space (of matter), because space alone has permanent determinations, while time, and consequently everything which is in the internal sense, is continually flowing."[9]

Kant's thought appears to be as follows: 'Our apprehension of the manifold consists of a series of successive acts in which we apprehend its elements one by one and in isolation. This apprehension, therefore, does not enable us to determine that its elements are temporally related either as successive or as coexistent.[10] In order to determine this, we must apprehend the elements of the manifold as related to something permanent. For a succession proper, i. e. a change, is a succession of states or determinations of something permanent or unchanging. A mere succession which is not a succession of states of something which remains identical is an unconnected series of endings and beginnings, and with respect to it, 'duration', which has meaning with regard to changes, i. e. successions proper, has no meaning at all. Similarly, coexistence is a coexistence of states of two permanents. Hence, to apprehend elements of the manifold as successive or coexistent, we must apprehend them in relation to a permanent or permanents. Therefore, to apprehend a coexistence or a succession, we must perceive something permanent. But this permanent something cannot be time, for time cannot be perceived. It must therefore be a permanent in phenomena; and this must be the object itself or the substance of a phenomenon, i. e. the substratum of the changes which it undergoes, or that of which the elements of the manifold are states or modifications.[11] Consequently, there must be a permanent substance of a phenomenon, and the quantity of substances taken together must be constant.'

Now, if Kant's thought has been here represented fairly, it is open to the following comments. In the first place, even if his position be right in the main, Kant should not introduce the thought of the quantity of substance, and speak of the quantity as constant. For he thereby implies that in a plurality of substances—if such a plurality can in the end be admitted—there may be total extinction of, or partial loss in, some, if only there be a corresponding compensation in others; whereas such extinction and creation would be inconsistent with the nature of a substance.[12] Even Kant himself speaks of having established the impossibility of the origin and extinction of substance.[13]

In the second place, it is impossible to see how it can be legitimate for Kant to speak of a permanent substratum of change at all.[14] For phenomena or appearances neither are nor imply the substratum of which Kant is thinking. They might be held to imply ourselves as the identical substratum of which they are successive states, but this view would be irrelevant to, if not inconsistent with, Kant's doctrine. It is all very well to say that the substratum is to be found in matter, i. e. in bodies in space,[15] but the assertion is incompatible with the phenomenal character of the world; for the sensations or appearances produced in us by the thing in itself cannot be successive states of bodies in space. In the third place, in spite of Kant's protests against any proof which is 'dogmatical' or 'from conceptions', such a proof really forms the basis of his thought. For if the argument is to proceed not from the nature of change as such but from the possibility of perceiving change, it must not take into account any implications of the possibility of perceiving change which rest upon implications of the nature of change as such. Yet this is what the argument does. For the reason really given for the view that the apprehension of change involves the apprehension of the manifold as related to a permanent substratum is that a change, as such, implies a permanent substratum. It is only because change is held to imply a substratum that we are said to be able to apprehend a change only in relation to a substratum. Moreover, shortly afterwards, Kant, apparently without realizing what he is doing, actually uses what is, on the very face of it, the dogmatic method, and in accordance with it develops the implications of the perception of change. "Upon this permanence is based the justification of the conception of change. Coming into being and perishing are not changes of that which comes to be or perishes. Change is but a mode of existence, which follows on another mode of existence of the same object. Hence everything which changes endures and only its condition changes.... Change, therefore, can be perceived only in substances, and absolute coming to be or perishing, which does not concern merely a determination of the permanent, cannot be a possible perception."[16] Surely the fact that Kant is constrained in spite of himself to use the dogmatic method is some indication that it is the right method. It is in reality impossible to make any discoveries about change, or indeed about anything, except by consideration of the nature of the thing itself; no study of the conditions under which it can be apprehended can throw any light upon its nature.[17] Lastly, although the supposition is not so explicit as the corresponding supposition made in the case of the other analogies, Kant's argument really assumes, and assumes wrongly, the existence of a process by which, starting with the successive apprehension of elements of the manifold in isolation, we come to apprehend them as temporally related.

The deduction of the second and third analogies argues that the principles of causality and reciprocal action are involved respectively in the processes by which we become aware of successions and of coexistences in the world of nature. From this point of view it would seem that the first analogy is a presupposition of the others, and that the process which involves the first is presupposed by the process which involves the others. It would seem that it is only upon the conclusion of a process by which, beginning with the successive apprehension of elements of the manifold in isolation, we come to apprehend them as either successive or coexistent elements in the world of nature, that there can arise a process by which we come to decide whether the specific relation is that of succession or of coexistence. For if the latter process can take place independently of the former, i. e. if it can start from the successive apprehension of the manifold, the former process will be unnecessary, and in that case the vindication of the first analogy will be invalid. It is necessary, however, to distinguish between Kant's nominal and his actual procedure. Though he nominally regards the first analogy as the presupposition of the others,[18] he really does not. For he does not in fact treat the process which involves the validity of the first analogy as an antecedent condition of the processes which involve the validity of the others. On the contrary, the latter processes begin ab initio with the mere successive apprehension of the manifold, i. e. they begin at a stage where we are not aware of any relation in the physical world at all; and Kant, in his account of them, nowhere urges that they involve the first analogy.[19]

Moreover, just because Kant does not face the difficulties involved in the thought of a process which begins in this way until he comes to vindicate causality, it is only when we come to this vindication that we realize the real nature of his deduction of the analogies, and, in particular, of that of the first.