The terms Analytic and Dialectic do not occur in these Reflexionen, and their adoption may therefore be inferred to synchronise with Kant’s later decision to include the treatment of the metaphysical sciences within his Logic; and that decision was probably an immediate result of his having developed meantime a doctrine of transcendental illusion. The new scheme in its final form is therefore as follows:
| Transcendental Philosophy or Critique of Pure Reason | Doctrine of Elements | Aesthetic. Logic. | Analytic | of Concepts. of Judgement. |
| Dialectic—of Reason. | ||||
| Doctrine of Methods (Methodology) | Discipline (retained but given a new and more general content). | |||
| Canon. Architectonic. History. | ||||
In thus transferring Dialectic from the Methodology to the Doctrine of Elements, Kant stands committed to the view that it contains positive teaching of a character analogous to that of the Analytic, with which it is now co-ordinated. As we have already noted, the fundamental opposition which runs through the entire Dialectic is due to the conflict between the older view of Reason as merely understanding in its transcendent employment, and this later view of it as a distinct faculty, yielding concepts with a positive and indispensable function, different from, and yet also analogous to, that exercised by the categories of the understanding.
Adickes, to whom students of Kant are indebted for a convincing demonstration of the constant influence of Kant’s logical architectonic upon the content of the Critical teaching, would seem at this point to rely too exclusively upon that method of explanation. He contends that Kant’s deduction of the Ideas of Reason from the three species of syllogism is entirely traceable to this source, and is without real philosophical significance. That is perhaps in the main true. But it need not prevent us from appreciating the importance of the doctrines which Kant contrives to expound under guise of this logical machinery. We have already observed that prior to the discovery of this deduction Kant had recognised the connection between the concept of the unconditioned and the three Ideas through which it finds expression. As the forms of syllogism are differentiated in terms of the three categories of relation, the deduction does not interfere with Kant’s retention of this classification of Ideas; while in connecting Reason as a faculty with reasoning as a logical process, an excellent opportunity is found for explaining the grounds and significance of the demand for unconditionedness, i.e. for completeness of explanation. This demand, as he has also come to recognise, lies open to question, and therefore calls for more precise definition.
The artificial character of the metaphysical deduction lies not so much in this derivation of the three Ideas of the unconditioned—unconditioned substance, unconditioned causality, unconditioned system—from the categorical, hypothetical, and disjunctive forms of syllogism respectively, as in the further equating of them with the Ideas of the Self, the World, and God. The Idea of unconditioned substance has many possible applications besides the use to which it is put in rational psychology. The Idea of an unconditioned causality may be conceived in psychological and theological as well as in cosmological terms; and as a matter of fact Kant himself frequently identifies it with the concept of freedom, as in the third and fourth antinomies, or when he enumerates the Ideas as being those of God, Freedom, and Immortality.[1362] Similarly, the Idea of system is the inspiring principle of materialism, and also finds in such philosophies as that of Spinoza much more adequate expression than in the Ens realissimum of the Wolffian School. But further comment is not, at this stage, really profitable. These are questions which can best be discussed as they emerge in the course of the argument.[1363]
Kant carried his logical architectonic one stage further. Not satisfied with connecting the three Ideas of Reason with the categories that underlie the three species of syllogism, he also attempted to organise the various particular applications of each Idea in terms of the fourfold division of the table of categories. By the use of his usual high-handed methods he succeeded in doing so in the case of the psychological and cosmological Ideas. There are four paralogisms and four antinomies. But when the attempt failed in regard to the theological Idea, he very wisely abstained from either apology or explanation. That the failure was not due to lack of desire or perseverance appears from Reflexion ii. 1573, which would seem to be the record of an unavailing attempt to obtain a satisfactory articulation of the theological Ideal. Doubtless, had he been sufficiently bent upon it, he could have worked out some sort of fourfold division; but there were limits even to Kant’s devotion to the architectonic scheme. It is difficult to see how any such arrangement could have been followed without serious perversion of the argument.
Adickes has suggested[1364] that the distinction between the faculty of understanding and the faculty of judgment is subsequent to, and suggested by, Kant’s successful tracing of the Ideas to a separate faculty of Reason. Some such distinction was demanded in order that the parallelism of transcendental and formal logic might be complete. This conjecture of Adickes is probably correct. It would seem to be supported by the internal evidence of the Analytic of Principles. As we have had occasion to note,[1365] the doctrine of schematism, in terms of which the distinction between understanding and judgment is formulated, is late in date of origin.[1366] This distinction is of the same artificial character as that between understanding and Reason; and though, like the latter distinction, it supplies Kant with a convenient framework for the arrangement of genuine Critical material, it also tends to conceal the simpler and more inward bonds of true relationship.
TRANSCENDENTAL DIALECTIC
INTRODUCTION
I. Transcendental Illusion