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

by Norman Kemp Smith

But the Critique is not merely defective in clearness or popularity of exposition. That is a common failing of metaphysical treatises, especially when they are in the German language, and might pass without special remark. What is much more serious, is that Kant flatly contradicts himself in almost every chapter; and that there is hardly a technical term which is not employed by him in a variety of different and conflicting senses. As a writer, he is the least exact of all the great thinkers.

So obvious are these inconsistencies that every commentator has felt constrained to offer some explanation of their occurrence. Thus Caird has asserted that Kant opens his exposition from the non-Critical standpoint of ordinary consciousness, and that he discloses the final position, towards which he has all along been working, only through repeated modifications of his preliminary statements. Such a view, however, cannot account either for the specific manner of occurrence or for the actual character of the contradictions of which the Critique affords so many examples. These are by no means limited to the opening sections of its main divisions; and careful examination of the text shows that they have no such merely expository origin. The publication of Kant’s Reflexionen and Lose Blätter, and the devoted labours of Benno Erdmann, Vaihinger, Adickes, Reicke and others, have, indeed, placed the issue upon an entirely new plane. It can now be proved that the Critique is not a unitary work, and that in the five months in which, as Kant tells us, it was “brought to completion” (zu Stande gebracht), it was not actually written, but was pieced together by the combining of manuscripts written at various dates throughout the period 1772-1780.

Kant’s correspondence in these years contains the repeated assertion that he expected to be able to complete the work within some three or six months. This implies that it was already, at least as early as 1777, in great part committed to writing. In 1780 Kant must therefore have had a large body of manuscript at his disposal. The recently published Lose Blätter are, indeed, part of it. And as we shall have constant occasion to observe, the Critique affords ample evidence of having been more or less mechanically constructed through the piecing together of older manuscript, supplemented, no doubt, by the insertion of connecting links, and modified by occasional alterations to suit the new context. Kant, it would almost seem, objected to nothing so much as the sacrifice of an argument once consecrated by committal to paper. If it could be inserted, no matter at what cost of repetition, or even confusion, he insisted upon its insertion. Thus the Subjective and Objective Deductions of the first edition can, as we shall find, be broken up into at least four distinct layers, which, like geological strata, remain to the bewilderment of the reader who naturally expects a unified system, but to the enlightenment of the student, once the clues that serve to identify and to date them have been detected. To cite another example: in the Second Analogy, as given in the first edition, the main thesis is demonstrated in no less than five distinct proofs, some of which are repetitions; and when Kant restated the argument in the second edition, he allowed the five proofs to remain, but superimposed still another upon them. Kant does, indeed, in the second edition omit some few passages from various parts of the Critique; but this is in the main owing to his desire to protect himself against serious misunderstanding to which, as he found, he had very unguardedly laid himself open. The alterations of the second edition are chiefly of the nature of additions.

Adickes’ theory[5] that Kant in the “four to five months” composed a brief outline of his entire argument, and that it was upon the framework of this outline that the Critique was elaborated out of the older manuscript, may possibly be correct. It has certainly enabled Adickes to cast much light upon many textual problems. But his own supplementary hypothesis in regard to the section on the Antinomies, namely, that it formed an older and separate treatise, may very profitably be further extended. Surely it is unlikely that with the expectation, continued over many years, of completion within a few months, Kant did not possess, at least for the Aesthetic, Dialectic, and Methodology, a general outline, that dated further back than 1780. And doubtless this outline was itself altered, patched, and recast, in proportion as insight into the problems of the Analytic, the problems, that is to say, which caused publication to be so long deferred, deepened and took final form.

The composite character of the Critique is largely concealed by the highly elaborate, and extremely artificial, arrangement of its parts. To the general plan, based upon professedly logical principles, Kant has himself given the title, architectonic; and he carries it out with a thoroughness to which all other considerations, and even at times those of sound reasoning, are made to give way. Indeed, he clings to it with the unreasoning affection which not infrequently attaches to a favourite hobby. He lovingly elaborates even its minor detail, and is rewarded by a framework so extremely complicated that the most heterogeneous contents can be tidily arranged, side by side, in its many compartments. By its uniformity and rigour it gives the appearance of systematic order even when such order is wholly absent.

But we have still to consider the chief reason for the contradictory character of the contents of the Critique. It is inseparably bound up with what may perhaps be regarded as Kant’s supreme merit as a philosophical thinker, especially as shown in the first Critique,—namely, his open-minded recognition of the complexity of his problems, and of the many difficulties which lie in the way of any solution which he is himself able to propound. Kant’s method of working seems to have consisted in alternating between the various possible solutions, developing each in turn, in the hope that some midway position, which would share in the merits of all, might finally disclose itself. When, as frequently happened, such a midway solution could not be found, he developed his thought along the parallel lines of the alternative views.

“You know that I do not approach reasonable objections with the intention merely of refuting them, but that in thinking them over I always weave them into my judgments, and afford them the opportunity of overturning all my most cherished beliefs. I entertain the hope that by thus viewing my judgments impartially from the standpoint of others some third view that will improve upon my previous insight may be obtainable.... Long experience has taught me that insight into a subject which I am seeking to master is not to be forced, or even hastened, by sheer effort, but demands a fairly prolonged period during which I return again and again to the same concepts, viewing them in all their aspects and in their widest possible connections, while in the intervals the sceptical spirit awakens, and makes trial whether my conclusions can withstand a searching criticism.”[6] “In mental labour of so delicate a character nothing is more harmful than preoccupation with extraneous matters. The mind, though not constantly on the stretch, must still, alike in its idle and in its favourable moments, lie uninterruptedly open to any chance suggestion which may present itself. Relaxations and diversions must maintain its powers in freedom and mobility, so that it may be enabled to view the object afresh from every side, and so to enlarge its point of view from a microscopic to a universal outlook that it adopts in turn every conceivable standpoint, verifying the observations of each by means of all the others.”[7] “I am not of the opinion of the well-meaning writer who has recommended us never to allow doubts in regard to a matter upon which we have once made up our minds. In pure philosophy that is not feasible. Indeed the understanding has in itself a natural objection to any such procedure. We must consider propositions in all their various applications; even when they may not seem to require a special proof, we must make trial of their opposites, and in this way fight for delay, until the truth becomes in all respects evident.”[8]

That these are no mere pious expressions of good intention, but represent Kant’s actual method of working, is amply proved by the contents of the Critique. We find Kant constantly alternating between opposed standpoints, to no one of which he quite definitely commits himself, and constantly restating his principles in the effort to remove the objections to which, as he recognises, they continue to lie open. The Critique, as already stated, is not the exposition of a single unified system, but is the record of Kant’s manifold attempts to formulate and to solve his many-sided problems. Even those portions of the Critique which embody his latest views show that Kant is still unwilling to sacrifice insight to consistency. When he is guilty of special pleading—for he cannot be altogether absolved even from that charge—it is in the interests of his logical architectonic, for which, as I have said, he cherishes a quite unreasoning affection, and not of his central principles. So far from concealing difficulties, or unduly dwelling upon the favouring considerations, Kant himself emphasises the outstanding objections to which his conclusions remain subject. If his teaching is on certain points very definite, it is in other hardly less important respects largely tentative.

The value of Kant’s Critique as an introduction to modern philosophy is greatly enhanced by this method of procedure. The student who has steeped himself in the atmosphere of the Critique, however dissatisfied he may perhaps be with many of its doctrines, has become familiar with the main requirements which a really adequate metaphysics must fulfil, or at least will have acquired a due sense of the complexity of the problems with which it deals.

Recognition of the composite nature of the text will safeguard us in two ways. In the first place, citation of single passages is quite inconclusive. Not only must all the relevant passages be collated; they must be interpreted in the light of an historical understanding of the various stages in Kant’s development. We must also be prepared to find that on certain main questions Kant hesitates between opposed positions, and that he nowhere definitively commits himself to any quite final expression of view.