“An elastic ball which impinges on another similar ball in a straight line communicates to the latter its whole motion, and therefore its whole state (i.e. if we take account only of the positions in space). If, then, in analogy with such bodies, we postulate substances such that the one communicates to the other representations together with the consciousness of them, we can conceive a whole series of substances of which the first transmits its state together with its consciousness to the second, the second its own state with that of the preceding substance to the third, and this in turn the states of all the preceding substances together with its own consciousness and with their consciousness to another. The last substance would then be conscious of all the states of the substances, which had undergone change before its own change, as being its own states, because they would have been transferred to it together with the consciousness of them. And yet it would not have been one and the same person in all these states.”[1433]
The perversely Hegelian character of Caird’s and Watson’s manner of interpreting the Critique is especially evident in their treatment of the Paralogisms. They make not the least mention of this part of Kant’s teaching.
Kant employs a further argument which would seem to show that at the time when these paragraphs were written the general tendency of his thought was predominantly subjectivist in character. There are, he implies, as many different times as there are selves that represent time.[1434] The argument is as follows. As the “I think” is equivalent to “I am I,” we may say either that all time of which I am conscious is in me, or that I am conscious of myself as numerically identical in each and every part of it. In my individual consciousness, therefore, identity of my person is unfailingly present. But an observer, viewing me from the outside,[1435] represents me in the time of his own consciousness; and as the time in which he thus sets me is not that of my own thinking, the self-identity of my consciousness, even if he recognises its existence, does not justify him in inferring the objective permanence of my self.
The two concluding paragraphs seem to have been independently composed.[1436] They contribute nothing of importance.
Fourth Paralogism: of Ideality.[1437]—The main argument of this Paralogism, which contains the first edition refutation of idealism, has already been considered above.[1438] We require, therefore, only to treat of it in its connection with the other Paralogisms, and to note some few minor points that remain for consideration. Its argument differs from that of the other Paralogisms in that the fallacy involved is traced, in agreement with the requirements of the introductory sections of the Dialectic, to a failure to distinguish between appearances and things in themselves. Its connection with the table of categories is extremely artificial. In A 344 = B 402 the category employed is that of possibility, in A 404 and A 344 n. that of existence.[1439] Kant’s attempt to combine the problem here treated with that of the other Paralogisms can only be explained as due to the requirements of his architectonic.[1440] This Paralogism does not concern itself with the nature of the soul. It refers exclusively to the mode of existence to be ascribed to objective appearances. None the less, Kant contrives to bring it within the range of rational psychology in the following manner. He argues[1441] that rational psychologists are one and all adherents of empirical idealism. They confound appearances in space with things in themselves, and therefore assert that our knowledge of their existence is inferential and consequently uncertain. The errors of empirical idealism are thus bound up with the dogmatic assumptions of the rationalist position. They are traceable to its failure to distinguish between appearances and things in themselves. Such dogmatism may take the form of materialism or of ontological dualism, as well as of spiritualism.[1442] All three, in professing to possess knowledge of things in themselves, violate Critical principles. If the chief function of rational psychology consists in securing the conception of the soul against the onslaughts of materialism,[1443] that can be much more effectively attained through transcendental idealism.
“For, on [Critical] teaching, so completely are we freed from the fear that on the removal of matter all thought, and even the very existence of thinking beings, would be destroyed, that on the contrary it is clearly shown that if I remove the thinking subject the whole corporeal world must at once vanish, since it is nothing save appearance in the sensibility of our subject and a species of its representations.”[1444]
We do not, indeed, succeed in proving that the thinking self is in its existence independent of the “transcendental substrate”[1445] of outer appearances. But as both possibilities remain open, the admission of our ignorance leaves us free to look to other than speculative sources for proof of the independent and abiding existence of the self.
Reflection on the Whole of Pure Psychology.[1446]—This section affords Kant the opportunity of discussing certain problems which he desires to deal with, but is unable to introduce under the recognised rubrics of his logical architectonic.[1447] There are, Kant says, three other dialectical questions, essential to the purposes of rational psychology, grounded upon the same transcendental illusion (confusion of appearances with things in themselves), and soluble in similar fashion: (1) as to the possibility of the communion of soul and body, i.e. of the state of the soul during the life of the body; (2) as to the beginning of this association, i.e. of the soul in and before birth; (3) as to the termination of this association, i.e. of the soul in and after the death of the body. Kant treats these three problems from the extreme subjectivist standpoint, inner and outer sense being distinguished and related in the manner peculiar to the first edition. The contrast between mind and body is a difference solely between the appearances of inner and those of outer sense. Both alike exist only in and through the thinking subject, though the latter
“...have this deceptive property that, representing objects in space, they as it were detach themselves from the soul and appear to hover outside it.”[1448]
The problem, therefore, of the association of soul and body, properly understood, is not that of the interaction of the soul with other known substances of an opposite nature, but only