Dialectic is thus interpreted in a merely negative sense. It is, Kant says, a catharticon. So far from being an organon, it is not even a canon. It is merely a discipline.[664] By this manner of defining dialectic Kant causes some confusion. It does not do justice to the scope and purpose of that section of the Critique to which it gives its name.[665]
IV. Concerning the Division of Transcendental Logic into Transcendental Analytic and Dialectic.—The term object[666] is used throughout this section in two quite distinct senses. In the second and third sentences it is employed in its wider meaning as equivalent to content or matter. In the fourth sentence it is used in the narrower and stricter sense, more proper to the term, namely, as meaning ‘thing.’ Again, in the fifth sentence content (Inhalt) would seem to be identified with object in the narrower sense, while in the sixth sentence matter (Materie, a synonym for content) appears to be identified with object in the wider sense. Transcendental Dialectic, in accordance with the above account of its logical correlate, is defined in a manner which does justice only to the negative side of its teaching. Its function is viewed as merely that of protecting the pure understanding against sophistical illusions.[667]
THE TRANSCENDENTAL LOGIC
Division I
THE TRANSCENDENTAL ANALYTIC
The chief point of this section[668] lies in its insistence that, as the Analytic is concerned only with the pure understanding, the a priori concepts with which it deals must form a unity or system. Understanding is viewed as a separate faculty, and virtually hypostatised. As a separate faculty, it must, it is implied, be an independent unity, self-containing and complete. Its concepts are determined in number, constitution, and interrelation, by its inherent character. They originate independently of all differences in the material which they are employed to organise.
BOOK I
THE ANALYTIC OF CONCEPTS
Introductory Paragraph.—Kant’s view of the understanding as a separate faculty is in evidence again in this paragraph.[669] The Analytic is a “dissection of the faculty of the understanding.” A priori concepts are to be sought nowhere but in the understanding itself, as their birthplace. There “they lie ready till at last, on the occasion of experience, they become developed.” But such statements fail to do justice to Kant’s real teaching. They would seem to reveal the persisting influence of the pre-Critical standpoint of the Dissertation.
CHAPTER I
THE CLUE TO THE DISCOVERY OF ALL PURE CONCEPTS OF THE UNDERSTANDING
That the understanding is “an absolute unity” is repeated. From this assertion, thus dogmatically made, without even an attempt at argument, Kant deduces the important conclusion that the pure concepts, originating from such a source, “must be connected with each other according to one concept or idea (Begriff oder Idee).” And he adds the equally unproved assertion:
“But such a connection supplies a rule by which we are enabled to assign its proper place to each pure concept of the understanding and by which we can determine in an a priori manner their systematic completeness. Otherwise we should be dependent in these matters on our own discretionary judgment or merely on chance.”