A Commentary to Kant's 'Critique of Pure Reason'

by Norman Kemp Smith

“In so far as I know matter in terms of its empirical properties as the substance of outer experiences, I do not gain knowledge of the nature of matter but only of its relation to my thinking. In all judgments upon outer things I employ matter as the subject. That knowledge is therefore nothing but an analogy to the conceptual relation of a subject to its predicates. Matter is related to its properties and effects in the realm of appearance as the subject of a categorical judgment is related to its predicates. In so far as an antecedent is entitled the cause of an event, we do not gain knowledge of its nature but only of the analogy of the relation of cause and effect with that of antecedent and consequent in a hypothetical proposition; the connection of the changes is analogous to the conceptual relation of ground and consequence; the principle of the sufficient ground of changes is an analogy of experience.”[1164]

This explanation may at first sight seem to be supported by Kant’s own statement in the concluding paragraph of the section before us.

“Through these principles we are justified in combining appearances only according to an analogy with the logical and general unity of concepts ...”[1165]

This assertion is, however, incidental to Kant’s explanation that the analogies are not principles of “transcendental” (i.e. transcendent), but only of empirical application—an explanation itself in turn occasioned by his desire to connect his present argument with the chapter on Schematism. This interpretation of the term analogy is probably, therefore, of the nature of an afterthought. Having adopted the term on the grounds above stated in A 179-80 = B 222, he finds in it an opportunity to reinforce his previous assertion of the restricting character of the time condition through which categories are transformed into schemata. The entire paragraph is probably, as Adickes remarks, a later interpolation. But there are further reasons why we cannot accept this passage as representing the real origin of the term analogy. It would involve adoption of the subjectivist standpoint from which Riehl, despite his otherwise realistic reading of Kant, interprets Kant’s phenomenalist doctrines. For it implies that it is only in the noumenal, and not also in the phenomenal sphere, that substantial existences and genuinely dynamical activities are to be found.[1166] It would also seem to imply, what is by no means Kant’s invariable position, the absolute validity of the logical forms. And lastly, it would involve the priority of the logical to the real use of the categories, a violation of Critical principles of which Kant is himself occasionally guilty, but never, as it would seem, in this exaggerated form.

A. First Analogy.—All appearances contain the permanent (substance) as the object itself, and the changeable as its mere determination, i.e. as a mode in which the object exists. Or as in the second edition: In all change of appearances substance is permanent; its quantum in Nature neither increases nor diminishes.

The second paragraph[1167] is of composite character. Its first part (consisting of the first three sentences) and its second part give separate proofs, involving assertions directly contradictory of one another. The one asserts change and simultaneity to be modes of time; the other denies this. They cannot, therefore, be of the same date. The first would seem to be the later; it connects with the first paragraph of the preceding section.

In the first edition the principle is defined as expressing the schema of the dual category of substance and attribute. In the second edition it is reformulated in much less satisfactory form, as being the scientific principle of the conservation (i.e. indestructibility) of matter. This second formulation emphasises the weaker side of the argument of the first edition, and is largely due to the perverting influence of Kant’s method of distinguishing between the Analytic of Concepts and the Analytic of Judgments. It reveals Kant’s growing tendency to contrast the two divisions of the Analytic, as dealing, the one with ordinary experience, and the other with its scientific reorganisation.[1168]

The first proof in the first edition gives explicit expression to a presupposition underlying this entire section, namely, that all apprehension is necessarily successive, or in other words that it is impossible to apprehend a manifold save in succession.[1169] From this assumption it follows that if such succession is not only to occur but is to be apprehended as occurring, and if we are to be able to distinguish between the successive order of all our apprehensions and the order of coexisting independent existences, a permanent must be thought into the succession, that is to say, the successive experiences must be interpreted into an objective order in terms of the category of abiding substance and changing attributes. Kant neither here nor elsewhere makes any attempt to explain how this position is to be reconciled with his doctrine that space can be intuited as well as time; and there is equal difficulty in reconciling it with the doctrine developed in his second proof (in the second division of this same paragraph) that time itself does not change but only the appearances in it.

As above shown,[1170] there are two tendencies in Kant’s treatment of time, each of which carries with it its own set of connected consequences. There is the view that consciousness of time as a whole preconditions consciousness of any part of it. This tends to recognition of simultaneity as a mode of time and of the simultaneous as apprehended in a single non-successive act of apprehension. On the other hand, there is the counter-view that consciousness of time is only possible through the successive combination of its parts. This leads to the assertion that simultaneity is not a mode of time, and that time itself cannot be apprehended save as the result of synthesis in accordance with unifying categories. Through the categories there arises consciousness of objectivity, and so for the first time consciousness of a distinction between the subjective which exists invariably and exclusively in succession, and the objective which may exist either as successive or as permanent, and in whose existence both elements are, indeed, inseparably involved.

To turn now to Kant’s second[1171] proof of the principle;[1172] it is as follows. All our perceptions are in time, and in time are represented as either coexistent or successive. Time itself cannot change,[1173] for only as in it can change be represented. Time, however, cannot by itself be apprehended. As such, it is the mere empty form of our perceptions. There must be found in the objects of perception some abiding substrate or substance which will represent the permanence of time in consciousness, and through relation to which coexistence and succession of events may be perceived. And since only in relation to this substrate can time relations be apprehended, it must be altogether unchangeable, and may therefore[1174] be called substance. And being unchangeable it can neither increase nor diminish in quantity. Kant, without further argument, at once identifies this substance with matter.