[15] These Hume had himself pointed out both in the Treatise and in the Enquiry; and because of them he rejects scepticism as a feasible philosophy of life. Kant’s statement above quoted that Hume’s critics (among whom Beattie is cited) “were ever assuming what Hume doubted, and demonstrating with eagerness and often with arrogance what he never thought of disputing,” undoubtedly refer in a quite especial degree to Beattie.
[16] Werke, x. p. 123 ff. It is dated February 21, 1772. Cf. below, pp. 219-20.
[17] In Prolegomena, p. 6 (above quoted, p. xxviii, n. 1), and p. 8 (trans. p. 6): “I should think Hume might fairly have laid as much claim to sound sense as Beattie, and besides to a critical understanding (such as the latter did not possess).”
[18] Cf. Prolegomena, p. 8: “I honestly confess that my recollection of David Hume’s teaching (die Erinnerung des David Hume) was the very thing which many years ago [Kant is writing in 1783] first interrupted my dogmatic slumber, and gave my investigations in the field of speculative philosophy quite a new direction.” Kant’s employment of the term Erinnerung may perhaps be interpreted in view of the indirect source of his knowledge of Hume’s main position. He would bring to his reading of Beattie’s quotations the memory of Hume’s other sceptical doctrines as expounded in the Enquiry.
[19] Kant, it should be noted, classifies philosophies as either dogmatic (= rationalistic) or sceptical. Empiricism he regards as a form of scepticism.
[20] Quoted by Beattie (op. cit., sixth edition, p. 295), who, however incapable of appreciating the force of Hume’s arguments, was at least awake to certain of their ultimate consequences.
[21] For a more detailed statement of Kant’s relation to his philosophical predecessors, cf. below, Appendix B, p. 583 ff.
[22] The term “recognition” is employed by Kant in its widest sense, as covering, for instance, recognition of the past as past, or of an object as being a certain kind of object.
[23] Consciousness of time, consciousness of objects in space, consciousness of self, are the three modes of experience which Kant seeks to analyse. They are found to be inseparable from one another and in their union to constitute a form of conscious experience that is equivalent to an act of judgment—i.e. to be a form of awareness that involves relational categories and universal concepts.
[24] As we have noted (above, pp. xxvi-xxvii), it was Hume’s insistence upon the synthetic, non-self-evident character of the causal axiom that awakened Kant from his dogmatic slumber. Cf. below, pp. 61 ff., 593 ff.