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

by Norman Kemp Smith

Before passing to consideration of the extensive alterations made in this chapter in the second edition, it is advisable to take account of the two passages dealing with this problem in the first edition section on Amphiboly: namely, A 277-280 = B 333-6, and A 285-9 = B 342-6. The first of these passages is of great interest in other connections;[1302] its chief importance in reference to the present problem lies in its concluding paragraph. Kant there declares that the representation of an object “as thing in general” is not only, in the absence of specific data, insufficient for the determination of an object, but is self-contradictory. For we must either abstract from all reference to an object, and so be left with a merely logical representation; or, in assuming an object, we must postulate a special form of intuition which we do not ourselves possess, and which therefore we cannot employ in forming our concept of the object. Here again Kant is substituting the concept of a noumenon for the less definite concept of the thing in itself. This is still more explicitly done in the second passage. The pure categories are, Kant there declares, incapable of yielding the concept of an object. Apart from the data of sense they have no relation to any object. As purely logical functions, they are altogether lacking in content or meaning. By objects as things in themselves we must therefore mean objects of a non-sensuous intuition.[1303] Kant still, indeed, continues to maintain that to them the categories do not apply, and that we cannot, therefore, have any knowledge of them, either intuitional or conceptual.

“Even if we assume a non-sensuous form of intuition, our functions of thought would still have no meaning in reference to it.”[1304]

But Kant now insists that the notion of noumena, viewed in the above manner, differs from the notion of “objects in general” (transcendental = x) in being a legitimate non-contradictory conception; and he also insists that though more positive in content, it is for that very reason less open to misunderstanding. Its function is not to extend our knowledge, but merely to limit it.

“For it merely says that our species of intuition does not extend to all things, but only to objects of our senses; that its objective validity is consequently limited; and that a place therefore remains open for some other species of intuition, and so for things as its objects.”[1305]

The concept of a noumenon, as thus employed to signify the objects of a non-sensuous intuition, is, Kant proceeds, merely problematic. As we have neither intuition nor (it may be) categories fitted for its apprehension, it represents something upon the possibility or impossibility of which we are quite unable to pronounce.

“...as the problematic concept of an object for a quite different intuition and a quite different understanding than ours, it is itself a problem.”

We may not therefore assert the existence of noumena, but we must none the less form to ourselves the concept of them. This concept is indispensably involved in the constitution of our empirical knowledge, and is demanded for its proper interpretation. Only when viewed as a self-sufficient representation of an absolute existence does it become dogmatic and therefore illegitimate. In its Critical aspects it stands for a problem which human reason is constrained by its very nature to propound.

“The concept of the noumenon is, therefore, not the concept of an object, but is a problem unavoidably bound up with the limitation of our sensibility—the problem, namely, as to whether there may not be objects entirely disengaged from our sensuous species of intuition. This is a question which can only be answered in an indeterminate manner, by saying that, as sense intuition does not extend to all things without distinction, a place remains open for other different objects; and consequently that these latter must not be absolutely denied, though—since we are without a determinate concept of them (inasmuch as no category can serve that purpose)—neither can they be asserted as objects for our understanding.”[1306]