Kant-studien Volume 49 Issue 1 1958 [Doi 10.1515%2fkant.1958.49.1-4.245] Paton, h. j. -- Formal and...

7/29/2019 Kant-studien Volume 49 Issue 1 1958 [Doi 10.1515%2fkant.1958.49.1-4.245] Paton, h. j. -- Formal and Transcend

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FORMAL A N D T RA N S CE N D E N T A L LOGIGby H. J. Paton, Oxford

; . Ii| It is good for the soul of man tha t M s error or his alleged e r r o r s! i should f rom t ime to time be pointed out to him. Sir Winston Churchill,it is t rue, once reinarked, am always willing to lea rn , but I am notalways willing to be taught'. Such unregenerate reservations would,however, be unseemly in a philosopher; and I am genuinely gra te fu l toProfessor Harold R. S m a r t - o f C o r n e l l University fo r having discussed,politely yet forcefully, some of the mistak.es I am supposed to have madein Kant's Metaphysic of Experience. This he has done in an article entitled'Two Views on Kant and Formal Logic', which he published in a recentissue of the American Journal, Philosophy and PhenomenologicalResearch1). H e contrasts my Interpretation o f Kants fo rmal and t r an-scendental logic with an alternative view which he ascribes to Professor.Kemp Smith and i s inclined with soine quali f ications to accept. He thusgives me a welcome opportunity to correct my previous errors, to clearup some misunderstandingsr and also to defend such o f my doctrines sI may still believe to be defensible. Furthermore, he gives me a hope ofdiscovering what is the view that may be acceptable s an alternativeto my own.From the very nature of the starting point it will be necessary to treatthis topic m o r e personally than I should ordinarily wish to d o ; but in orderto reduce the personal f ac to r s much s possible I will re fe r to my ownview s the P-interpretation and will contrast it with the S-interpreta t ion.This does not mean tiiat I wish to hold Kemp Smith responsible for theS-interpretation ? fo r he, like myself , may not always have been rightlyunderstood by his critic. By a happy chance, however, the letter S maystand, not only for Smith, but also for Smart.It should not be inferred f rom the use of this terminology that I amhere concerned only with minor disagreements between Pro fesso r Smartand myself. The question to be discussed is perhaps the mos t fund-a men t a l one that oan be raised about the Interpretation of the Critiqueci Pore Reason s a whole,

IIBefore considering these two contrasted interpretations Professor Smartf i rst remarks on the two divergent attitudes f rom which he supposes theml) VoL XVI; No..2. December 1955. All unaccompanied page numbers willre fer to this article/ * .

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to spring. According to him, the P-interpretation arises from an attemptto get an 'inside1 view of Kant, while the S-interpretation is the resultof 'trying to see Kant in an historical perspective, 'backward and forward' that is, in relation, not only to 'his predecessors, but also to hissuccessors down to the recent past.Now it is certaily possible to write about an laorthor in two differentways that is, either by concentrating on his own work or by rangingmore widely over his historical background. But the tw o kinds of bookthus produced would seem to be complemen/tary rather than opposed. Thecommentator who seeks to understand and expound an author willattempt, if he knows his Job, to linderstand, though not necessarily toexpound, that author's predecessors and contemporaries and perhapsalso his successors. On the other hand, a commentator concerned withthe author's historical setting will presumably try to get -an 'inside'understanding of his predecessors and contemporaries and successors;and it would be strnge if the only person to be excluded from this kindof understanding were the original author himself.The sharp cleavage found here b y Smart seems to spring from hisInterpretation of what is meant by the phrase 'an inside view'. Heapparently takes it to mean .a view Which adheres, and perhaps evenadheres 'slavishly', to the letter s opposed to the genuine spirit of aphilosophy2).This, if I may say so, is a curiously external Interpretation of 'in-sidedness'? -and it is s nearly s possible the precise opposite of whatI mean. The primary aim of a oommentator is, I take it, to understandan -author .and to help others to a like understanding. But t understandan -author is not merely to know and to remernber his actual words orto adhere slavishly to < t h e letter of his philosophy. On the contrary, it isto re-think that philosophy -7- to try to s-ee things from th-e auithor's pointof view and to look at them through his eyes. In the case of a difficult, writer like Kant this can be done, so far < a s it can be done at all, onlyby a most assiduous study of the letter; but this by itself is relativelyuselessf unless accompanied by a power to re-think the philosophy s - awhole. It is to this need for re-thinking that I refer when I speak of aninternal understanding or an inside view.An inside view in this sense by no means excludes, it may evenrequire, an exainination of the author's historical background < a s well ofhis philosophical developmisnt. The only restriction upon this is the ines-capable brevity of human life.The difference, s I see it, between Smart's views on this matter andm y own is so far mainly one of emphasis. Whilst I attach most importanceto the sfcudy of Kant's predecessors, and conitemporaries, Smart stressesthe need to study his successors. The advantages of the latter course areby no means negligible either fo r


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of his successors may .draw attention to Strands in his thinking whichmight otherwise have been overlooked. Nevertheless' caution is necessary,s Smart himself recognizes, Subsequent history may be a chronicle ofthe ways in which a great man can be misunderstood by his successors,s happened,'on Kant's view, to David Hume. When these misunder-standings are repeated and elaborated, s they too of ten are, by onethinker after another, they beoome a kind of smoke-cloud or smoke-screen between the reader < a n d the original author. It seems to me notimpossible that some of this smoke may have got into the eyes ofProfessor Smart himself.

IIILet us now turn briefly to the P-interpretation of the difference be-tween f o rmal and transcendental logic.As we must look at the problem in its simplest possible terms, wemay ignore complications and agree straigiht away witii Smart that formallogic s depicted in the P-interpretation is not only more general ormore abstract than transzendental logic it is also what he calls 'basic'to transcendental logic. By this I take him to mean-that transcendentallogic is logically dependent on formal logic, while formal logic is logicallyindependent of transcendental logic. To accept this view, we may add r isto hold also and here we come to the main crux that for Kant thecategories are dependent, at least in part, on the forms of judgementstudied in fo rmal logic, while the forms o f judgement are independento fthe categories.Smaxt holds this P-interpretation to be mistaken and proposes to puta better one, namely, the S-interpretation, in its place.There are initial diffioulties in grasping the S-interpretation because

it has to be approached through what Smart considers to be the imperfectformulations of it given by Kemp Smith. First of all it is suggested3)that according to Kemp Smith 'there is an imporlant sense in which thetwo logics are properly speaking not related at all!' This paradoxicalutterance isf however, translated into a very different thesis, whidi isstill attributed to Kemp Smith and is given the fll force of italics'4)'Accept the principles underlying the transcendental logic, and traditionalformal logic, s such, must groVThe puzzle here is to know where it isto go to. Is it to be abandoned altogether or is it to be merged intranscendental logic or is it to be continued in some improved form?Smart's answer to these questions perhaps it is not meant to be adirect answer^ appears.to be found in a doctrine which-he thinks' KempSmith has failed to grasp'.and affirm with all the clarity and emphasis itdeserves. The S-interpretation, in its corrected Version, ought apparentlyto be expressed s follows;6) It is a plain implication of Kant's new

* * %* ) P. 159.4) P. 161. ' ) P. 163.

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transcendental logic, that logical forme, s such, must be construed andinterpreted in consonance with the metaphysical fonns or categories, -andnot vice versa. O rf to generalize this thesis, one may say that what kindof -a logic formal or other 'a philosopher subscribes to, is a functionof, and derives from, that philosopher's 'metaphysics'. Perhaps we mayadd to this a further quotat ion 6) : f l t were absurd to say that the logicalforms of judgement were basic to the transcendental or metaphysicalforms immanent in the objects of knowledge, rather than the reverse'.Special commendation is given by Smart to Aristotle on the ground thathis syllogistic logic faithfully reflects the ontological or metaphysicalimport of the Aristotelian categories7) a Statement which I shouldlike to see expanded further.The S-interpretation, although not .too clearly expressed, appears tohold that formal logic, if it can have any separate existence, is logicallydependent on transcendental logic, while transcendental logic is logicallyindependent of formal logic. If this is correct, the P-interpretation andthe S-interpretation are at opposite poles. So far s Kant is concerned,the S-interpretation has all the appearance of a counter-Copernicanrevolution.IV

Smart himself recognizes that the S-interpretation does not adhereslavishly to the letter of Kant's philosophy. He does, however, claimlhat it adheres to the spirit, and he proposes to offer a justification forthis claim.Most of thi justification, so far s it is founded on the text, appearsto rest on one well-known passage about judgement in the second editionof the Critique of Pure Reason.s) There Kant expresses dissatisfactionwith the definition of judgement given by formal logicians namely,that judgement is 'the representation of a relation between two concepts1.He points out two defects in it. In the first place, it covers only cate-gorical judgements, since hypothetical and disjunctive judgements asserta relation, not between concepts, but between judgements. In the secondplace and this is the more important point it does not specify whatthe relation in question is.In order to overcome these tw o defects Kant proceeds to offer his owndefinition of judgement. According to him a judgement is nothing butthe way of bringing given cognitions. to the objective unity of anper-ception'. He here substitutes the vaguer word 'cognitions' (Erkenntnisse)for 'concepts1 (Begriffe), and by this means he is able to cover theelements united in hypothetical and disjunctive, s well s those unitedin categorical, judgements. Anc} he introduces the objective unity ofapperception in 'Order to distinguish the objective relation affirmed in

e) P. 165.7) P. 163.8) 19, B 140-2.248 Brought to you by | Fordham University LibraryAuthenticated | 150.108.161.71Download Date | 12/27/12 7:19 AM


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judgement from a mere subjectiye association o f ideas. Every judgementasserts that a relation is objectively valid. This is what we mean byoising the copula 'is'.So general a Statement might, one would have thought, be acceptedby any logician of any sdiool, at least if he were acquainted with Kant'stechnical terminology -and recognized that a judgement must be true orfalse. Kant illustrates his doctrine by the judgememt 'This body is heavy'.When I say this, I am not


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The less fundamental defects of the P-interpretation may be dealt withmore briefly.One defectf we are told, is that the categories are treated s' if theycould be predicates of possible judgements and could even be genericooncepts, whereas their real function is to articulate the judgement sa whole.11)The fact that this Charge was originally brought by Kexnp Smithagainst Kant himself may suggest that the P-interpretation is likely tobe correct, but oertain misunderstandings require to be cleared away.Every one agrees th'at there is a sense in which.the categories can besaid to articulate the judgemenit s a whole. Thus we can say, 'If thereis' fixe, there must be smoke'; and in so saying we rightly or wronglyapply th e category of cause -and effect. But ;this in no way prevents usfrom using the category -s the predicate of a possible judgement. Weare entitled to say f for example, that fire is a cause of smoke and smokean effect of fire. We are even entitled to say that all changes happen inaccordance with th e law of the conjunotion of caiutse and effect. This ishow Kant himself formultes the Second Analogy. Furthermore, a cate-gory could not be a concept of the undersitanding unless it could be useds the predicate of a possible judgement; for to be a concept is r on Kant'sview, to be the predicate of a possible judgement.The word Oategory' is commonly used nowadiays in the vaguestpossible senses, but for Kant its meaning is precise. Thfe categories areconcepts of what every object must be if it is to be -an object of e x -perience - eve.ry object of experience must, for example, be subjectto causal.law. 'I n this sense a category may be regarded s a genericconcept; for although ,an priori concept, it is nevertheless' a conceptunder which every member of the genus Object of experience1 must fall th e categories are concepts of an object s such (Gegenstand ber-haupt). Smart's repeated criticisms 12) all rest on the mis'taken assumptionthat the P-interpretation regards a category s a generic concept in atotally different sense namely, s an empirical class concept such scan be derived by comparison and labstraction from perceptoal objects.Since the whole point of the P-interpretation is that the categories cannotbe derived empirically by abstraction froni objects, but inust be derivedpriori from the forms of judgement, it is hard to see what can giverise to so strnge a misunderstanding. Yet this misunderstanding appearto be Smart's ground for holding that the meaning ascribed to the cate-gories by the P-interpretation is one which few indeed among othercommentators would a c c e p t l z) . It appears. also to be his '. ground formaintaining . that on the P-interpretation Kant must reduce sciientificthinking .to. mere classification14). So easily does one misunderstandin-glead. to another. . . . .

u) P. 164.12) Pp. 159, 164, 165, 167.13) P. 160. :14) P. 163-4.

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Curiously enough, Smart finds in the P-interpretation a fur ther defectwhich seems to be the precis'e opposite of the one just considered. Heobjects to its fonnulation of the Copernican revolution to the doctrinethat oategories which have their origin in the fo rms of judgement, andso in the understanding, tare 'imposed' by ithe mind on all objects ofexperience15).

It is possible to have some sympathy with his objection to the useof the word 'imposed1. As he says, this may suggest that a pre-deter-inined form is forced on a more or less recalcitrant mater iaL Here, s sooften, it would be better to use Kant's own terminology, and to say thatthe categories 'determine' the given material; or iagain ithat the mind'combines' the given material in accordance with the categories. If weexpress this by saying that the mind 'imposes' forms of necessary syn-thetic unity on the manifold given to sense, we do not mean that thegiven is recalcitrant.Whatever we may think about its choice of langu


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and (3) that soidi an analogy is mistaken, Perhaps we are to supposealso/ although Smart does not say so , that discursive thinking is studiedby formal logic, while the new creative thinking is studied by tran-scendental logic.My'Own objection to this doctrine of Kemp Smith is that Kant nowheremakes such a distinction and nowhere asserts such ;an analo


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ledge'20). Once we abandon the old formal logic for the new tran-scendental logic, there is no place for Kemp Smith's sharp didiotomy the distinction s'eems to be merely a qoiestion of degree. And -apparently,in spite of -abandoning formal logic, we shall be able to salvage whateveris of vahie in it, although not without modifying and xeinterpreting itsdetails.What Professor Kemp Smith would think of this revised version san attempt to defend or improve his1 doctrine I have no means of knowing;but I must confess that it does not offer to me an Interpretation ofKant which I should be tempted to prefer to my own.The function of formal and transcendental logic alike has become

obscure. Is the first a study of low^grade thinking and the second a studypf advanced scientific method? If so, how does transcendental logic dis-jcover the categories, and how can they be basic to the forms of judge-ment s described by any formal logic that is permitted to siurvive? [Transcendental logic is not merely a study of the rul-es of thinking insome developed science or sciences this would be a special, s opposedto a general, logic21). Its aim according to Kant is to determine theorigin, extent, and objective validity of synthetic a priori knowledge and in particular to justify the contention that the categories, in virtueof their origin in the very nature of human thinking s such, mustnecessarily apply to all objects of possible experience, and to nothingthat is not an object of possible experience. Unless Smart proposes toadopt this aim and method, his transcendental logic is not transcendentalat all. If, on the other hand, he proposes to justify the universal appli-cation of the categories by an appeal to the practice of modern sciencehis argument would be an empirical one which could never bear theweight of such a conclusion. It would also be directly opposed to Kant'sargument; for Kant holds that the categories must be universally applic-able to all objects (including those of science) becajus'e they (or theprinciples in which they are applied) set forth the conditions of thepossibility of ordinary experience, that is if I may borrow a phrasefrom Professor Ebbinghaus22) of the experience that any man canattain 'so wie er steht und geht9.Smart supports his improved version of the S-interpretation by appeal-ing to one passage in the Critique of Pure Reason, to which I willreturn later. But we mayhere notean indirect support, which, in accordancewith his method, he f inds in the later developments of logic, both formaland non-formal

23).As to the formal logicians, they would, -Smart argueS, be favourable

to Kant if the P-interpretation were correct in holding that Kant attadiedso much importance to formal logic? but in fact they are indifferent orhostile, This is a strnge argument. Their coolness or hostility is

20 ) P. 169.21) Compare K. r. V., A 52 = B 76.2* ) .Hermann Cohen als Philosoph und Publizist1, Archiv f r Philosophie, Band6, Heft 1/2.M ) P. 170.253

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sufficiently explained by the fact 'that they have abandoned Kant's formallogic for a very different one and have n o use for his transcendentallogic at all. In any oase few f if any of them, can claim expert knowledgeof Kant. The inost distinguished of them all was under the Impressionthat Kant derived his categories from the forms of the syllogism!24)Non-formal logicians, according to Smart, must also reject the P-interpretation; for they all acknowledge a debt to Kant because they havelearned from him, among other things, that the form and content ormatter of thought are inseparable. I should like more evidence for this?but if his Statement is correct, they m u s t have learned from Kantprecisely the opposite of what he says perhaps they confused them-selves by looking at Kant throoigh the eyes of Hegel. Smart himself,strangely enough, takes this inseparability of form -and content to beestablished by Kant's' assertion that 'concepts without percepts areempty1.25) What Kant said was that 'thoughts without content are empty 1 26 );but, apart from this verbal correction, his Statement is pari of an angumentto show that the forms of thought haive to be studied separately in logicjust s the forms of intuition had to be studied separately in theAesthetic. On Kant's view it is the very emptiness of the forms of thoughtwhich makes it easy to study them separately that is, without referenceto the countless differences in the objeots that may be thought.27)Hence the indirect support sought by Smart does not seem to be verysitrong. Those w ho accept the P-interpretation s possible or even certainhave no need to assume, s he suggests, that 'both formalists and non-formalists are all mad together so far s their reading of K a n t isconcerned'.28)

VIIf we maintain that the S-interpretation is not only to say the

least unsupported by Kant's writings, but is also obscure in itselfiit may.be retorted that the P-inteipretation is equally obscure. In answerlo this we must try to stte Kant's argument, difficult s this admittedlyis, in the'simplest possible terms.If anything is to be an object bf exiperience, it must first of all begiven to sense (or at least be oapable of being given to sense). It m ust ,therefore, be given under th e forms of time and space, whose origin,according to Kant, is to be found in human sensibility. In ithe secondplace, in order to be an object, it must also be thought or jiudged meresense, even when siupplemented by the association of ideas, can neverconstitute experience of an object. But if an object must be thought orjudged, i t must conform to the form of thought or judgement. The ultimate

24) Russell. A History of Western Philosophy, p. 734.** ) P. 165.2e) K. r. V., A 51 =B 75. Or has Smart some other passage in m i n d ?") K. r. V., A 54=B 78, et passim.28) P. 170.254 Brought to you by | Fordham University LibraryAuthenticated | 150.108.161.71Download Date | 12/27/12 7:19 AM


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form of thought is to be found in the synthetic unity of appercept ion 2 9) in the spontaneous think1 whidi miust be able to , accompany all m yideas if they are to be ideas of an objeot. The think' necessarily arti-culates itself into certain fo rms of judgement whidi are also fo rms ofsynthesis the synthesis, fo r example, of subject and predicate, ofground and consequent, a n d so on, The task of setting out these necessaryfo rms of judigement belongs to formal logic. The task of transcendentallogic is to take a fuither step and to show that what is given to sense,besides conforming to time and space, nuust also conlorm to thesenecessary forms of judgement or fo rms of synthesis if we are to have

:experience of objects. The fo rms of judgement s thus determining objects;bf expenence are the pure categories, and these categories are studiedtranscendental logic -and in transcendental logic ahme.This, it need hardly be said, is only the beginning of the work ofr transcendental logic; fo r i n^o rde r to display the connexion between the! categories and objects we must go beyond fo rmal logic and take into; a ccoun t the transcendental synthesis of imagination whidi combines thegiven manifold in one time and perhaps in one space the pure cate-gories have to be schematized. The argument s so far outlined is onlyan incomplete skeleton; but it is alr-eady obvious that unless the think'does articulate itself necessarily into fo rms of judgement whidi are alsofonns of synthesis, then this skeleton must be broken-backed.Here we come to a most controversial topic. Many able thinkershave objected (1) that the think1 does not articulate itself necessarilyinto certain forms of judgement, and (2 ) that the f o rms of judgementare only fo rms o f analytic judgement and so cannot possibly be formsof synthesis. This controversy has a long history, whidi -an advocateof the historical approadi might be interested to study. He will find itin a book by Professor Klaus Reich Die Vollstndigkeit der kantischenUrteilstafeL The fact that Professor Reich came to conclusions no t unlikem y own conf irms m e in my heresy. Here I cannot do justice to a topicin whidi Smart seems to cast m e fo r th e flat tering role o f Athanasiuscontra mundum. l can only attempt to toudi on some of the points hisarticle raises about th e xelation between th e forms' of judgement on theone hand and the judgements distinguished s analytic and syntheticon th e other. Let us confine ourselves to the form o f categoricaljudgements.There is no difficulty that I can see in as'serting that every categoricaljudgement , whether analytic or synthetic, is a synthesis o f subject andpredicate.30) This form of synthesis is pres'erit alike in the analytic judge-m e n t 'All bodies are extended' and in the synthetic judgement 'All bodiesare heavy1. In both judgements the objects of experience in question aredetermined in accordance with the category of substance and accident.

* 9 ) This is the same s the objective unity of apperception in KanVs dfinitionof j udgement qiven above.* ) Compare K. r. Vv B 131 n.

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If we look at the question more generally, every judgement, whetheranalytic or synthetic, must have the form of judgement: otherwise itwould not be a judgement at all,Now if there is anything clear in all this complicated exposition, itis this: there is for Kant only one set of forms of judgement those thatare studied in formal logic; and sbject to certain qualifications whichmust here be ignored it is precisely the same set of forms of judge-ment that is studied in transcendental logic, only there these forms arestudied, not for their own ake, but s determining objects of possibleexperience and consequently s categories.In spite of this Smart criticizes the P-interpretation on the groundthat it involves iw o parallel sets of forms of judgement, those of tran-

scendental logic s well s those of formal logic.31) This he finds veryconfusing, and no wonder. But the confusion has been introduced byhimself.In th e first place, he assumes 32j that synthetic judgements 'speci-fically so called' have a special form of their own besides the form whichthey share with all judgements, including analytic judgements. Sucii anassumption is wholly groundless and.is explicitly rejected by the P-inter-pretation. The distinction between analytic and synthetic judgements isnot a formal, but a material, one: it manifestly depends in each case onthe content of the subject-concept - e i n d the predicate-concept. This iswhy Kant holds that it can have no place whatsoever in a purely formallogic.In the second place, Smart assiumes that the supposed special formsof synthetic'judgements specifically so called must be the categories.But this again t is precisely what the P-interpretation denies. Hence itis unnecessary to discuss the alleged nonsense which this assumptionintroduces into the P-interpretation.In the third place, he assumes that formal logic is concerned withthe forms of one kind of thinkinig, and that1 transcendental logic isconcerned with the forms -o f another kind of thinking, It is true thattranscendental logic endeavours to show the objective validity of syn-thetic priori Knowledge; but it does so, at least in part, by findingthe origin of the categories in the forms of thinking or judgement ssuch that is, in the forms established by formal logic, the only formsthat are recognized by Kant. Hence there cannot be, s Smart holds,tw o parallel sets of forms.If you insist on introducing into the P-interpretation the very assump-tions of the S-interpretation which it rejects, there is no difficulty inproducing confusion; but since these confusions have nothing to do withthe P-interpretation itself, it should be unnecessary to follow themfurther. PerhapsJ should add that I am not certain whether Smart alwayssuppprts these arguments himself .or merely attributes them to the S-interpretation in the version of Kemp Smith.

31) P. 158.82) P. 160.256 Brought to you by | Fordham University LibraryAuthenticated | 150.108.161.71Download Date | 12/27/12 7:19 AM


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In all these arguments, if I follow him, Smart is struggling to maintain(1 ) that formal logic in studying one kind of thinking discovers the formsof judgement, while transcendental logic by studying another kind ofthinking discovers the categories, and (2) that transcendental logic is'basic' to formal logic or in other words1 ithat the categories are'basic' to the forms of judgement The second contention is the more^fundamental.

i In support of this view he appeals once more to the text of theCrifique33) the difficult passage in section 10:'The same understanding through the s'ame operations by which inj concepts, by means of analytic unity, it has produced the logical formof a judgement, introduces, by means of the synthetic unity of the mani-fold of Intuition in general, a transcendeintal element into its represen-tations.'

The passge from whidj this sentence is taken is one of the mostcrucial in the whole Critique, but unfortainately it is also one of themost obscure. It has misled many commentators, wiho have taken theanalytic unity to be the unity of analytic jiudgements, whereas it isreally the unity which attadies to all common concepts a sncii;34) andthey have taken the synthetic unity to be the unity.of synthetic judge-ments, whereas it is really the synthetic unity whidi is to be found inall judgements ;as such. This syntiietic unity I -take to be bound up withthe synthetic unity of apperception whicii is I quote Kant 'thehighest point to which we must attacii every oise of the understanding,even the whole of logic, and alter logic the transcendental philosophy.35)This quotation from Kant himself may be regarded s the shortest possiblesummary of the P-interpretation; and a failure to -distinguish betweenanalytic and synthetic unity on the 4o ne band, and analytic and syntheticjudgements on the other, is one of tthe main reasons why formal logichas been supposed to study analytic thinking < a n d transcendental logic toetudy synthetic thinking. I speak here .with feeling since it took me yearsof painful effort to escape from this misunderstanding.Smart himself takes1 the passage very simply. He attributes to Kantthe assertion that understanding introduces a transcendental element intothe judgement, and that this transcendental element is a category. Hefails to observe that Kant does not mention judgement: the transcendentalelement is introduced into representations, -and it wcxuld be much morenatural to take these s concepts or intuitions toan s judgements ultimately they must, I think, be intuitions. Neverlheless, the Substitutionof the word 'judgement' for the word representations'' seems to beSmart's only ground for going on to say that it is precisely this tran-scendental element which ultimately determines the logical forms oi thejudgement. Even if we were to accept his improbable emendation of thelextf this inference would be quite unwarranted. I take Kant to mean

A 79 = B 105.K. r. V., B 133 n.LK. r. V., B 134 n. L The italics are mine.257Brought to you by | Fordham University LibraryAuthenticated | 150.108.161.71Download Date | 12/27/12 7:19 AM


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here the exact opposite namely, that it is tihe logical form of thejudgement whidi is the basis of the category; I believe this to be theonly Interpretation which accords with Kant's argument throughout; andI see no way of reconciling Smart 's view with the whole paragraph fromwhich he extracts the main part of one sentenoe or with the paragraphwhich immediately follows.One further point is still more clear. It is the same understanding byprecisely the same operations, which I take to be acts of judging, thatproduces both the forms of judgement .and the categories. There is noquestion here of analogies, true or false, between creative and discursivethinking, or between synthetic and analytic thinking, or again betweenadvanced scientific thinking and ordinary common sense. It is this lastdistinction which Smart appears to find in his chosen passage, but whyhe does so remains to me a mystery which I am unable to fathom.

VIIhope I have shown that Smart's major criticisms of the P-inter-pretation rest on misfimderstanding -and that his valiant efforts to findtextual support for the S-interpretation have failed. But perhaps he would

claim that my arguments are still following slavishly the Jetter of Kant'sphilosophy to the neglect of its spirit and so miss the point that is indispute. In their appeals to the text, it may be said, they fail to drawout the implieations, and to grasp the fll import, of seminal ideas andtheories which could only be sketdied ooit inadequately and inconsistentlyby their author.56)It still seems to me dangerous to draw out the implieations of state-ments which we have failed to understand. But if this scruple is to bedismissed s narrow-minded, . perhaps we should try to get behind theletter of Smart's arguments to the spirit by which they are inspired. Thisis admittedly a hazardous Operation, especially s it has to be based onone short article, and I hope its author will forgive me if I have failedto understand him aright. Wh^at little I can say miust in any case be fartoo summary.In spirit, it seems to m e r Smart is genuinely anxious to do what hecan for Kant's reputation, and also for the advancement of philosophy,by separating out what is living from what is dead in the Critique of PureReason. This he thinks can best be judged in the light of better philo-sophies which have come out of it or can be extracted from it. His centralargument .would seem to nun something like this. Kant would have beenblind and reactionary if he had taught that transcendental logic is basedon formal logic and that th e categories are based on the forms of judge-ment. But since' Kant was not blind and reactionary, he cannot havetaught this, but must have taugth the precise opposite namely, thatformal logic is based on transcendental logic and the forms of judgementare based on the categories. Although it is recognized that Kant may have

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failed to grasp this completely, an attempt is made, however aHisuccess-Mly, to read back this improved doctrine into some of the utteranoes ofKant himself.Whatever we may think of Smart's method, we can have no quarrelwith his spirit. We may even agree with him that an Interpretation whichmakes Kant talk nonsense is likely to be mistaken. Hampered s he nodoubt is by limitations of space, we ougiht not to expect to o much fromhim. His great merit is that he writes clearly and so makes it easier todetect any possible errors.If he had confined himself to telling us what he thinks to be dead inKant and why, ,and had then proceeded to indicate and develop what hethinks is living, no one could have any cause of complaint. Unfortunately,his high regard for Kant leads him into a curioaisly ambiguous position:

, while half admitting thad the dead matter xeally is there, he half wantsto deny its presence, His reinterpretation is conceived partly s an alter-native Interpretation, for which he seeks to find soipport in tlie text; butpartly it is an attempt to turn Kant's doctrines into better ones which hesupposes Kant would have accepted if he had been able to think moreclearly. Thus exegesis is based on evaluation rather than evaluation onexegesis. This can lead only to misunderstanding, a in fact it does.If Kant's doctrines have further implications which he failed to see,by all means let us have the logical evidence reqjuired to prove this; butit is hard to believe, unless perhaps if one is a Hegelian, that a philo-sphy can imply ithe precise opposite of what it says.Besides appealing to logical implication Smart seeks to find soipportin the subsequent history of philosophy. This miust, I think, be a subor-dinate argument, and in a short article we can hardly expect to find thehistorical evidence that is required for his immediate thesis. Thinkers ofmany types have been stimulated or provoked by Kant, and not a few

have borrowed some of > h i s ideas or claimed his support for their ow ndoctrines. His influence in varied forms is to be found in rationalistsand empiricists, in pragmatists and positivists, in theologians and agno-stics, but perhaps most of all in German and British idealists, with whomSmart's sympathies may seem to lie. Even existentialists borrow wholechunks of his doctrine abut freedom. By concentrating on one aspect ofKant's philosophy it is easy enough to find support for the doctrines wefavour especially if we say that the other aspects are unfortunateaberrations which do not 'xlequately express the genuine epirit of histhinking. But so simple a device does not entitle us to claim that ourfavoured doctrine has a monopoly of KanVs spirit and represents it betterthan he did himself.If we carry this method to extremes, we shall produce a history inwhidi all the lines become blurred. I have no wish to deny that if Kanthad abandoned some of his fundamental presuppositions and adoptedothers, he might have produced a coherence theory of truth. Even if hehad, it seems to me that its spirit would still have been worlds awayfrom the spirit of Joachim, however much we may admire the latter. Thefact, however, remains that Kant did not; and it is hard to see ' the.



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advantage of giving him credit which may be due to Hegel. You mights well, according'to your predilections, credit Locke with the philo-sophy of Berkeley, or Berkeley with the philosophy of Hume. Nor is iteasy to believe that such, interpretations or reinterpretations will eitheradd to Kant's stature or improve our own philosophies. It may be pos-sible to defend these methods from a Hegelian point of view, though Ido not think that Hegel was very iuccessful s an Interpreter of Kant.From a -Hegelian point of view they seem to me indefensible.I have no means of knowing whether Smart is a Hegelian or not, butthere is nothing in the P-interpretation which need prevent him fromtrying to improve Kant's philosophy in any way tie pleases; and indeedI wish him all success in 'that endeavour. Were it not for considerationsof space, I s'hould have liked to dis'ouss some of his more general doc-trines. In partieular, I should have been tempted to examine at greaterlength the relations between Kant and Newton, Kant's views on conicsections, and above all his treatment of the notion of System in the Dia-lectic and the Critique of Judgement. Within th e framework of Kant'sthought I believe I could show that the views supposed by Smart to benecessary implications of the P-interpretation are, on the contrary, di-rectly opposed to it. On the other hand, we are free to abandon thatframework altogether and to start afresh. We can do this most -eas'ily ifwe assert with Smart that it is impossible to separate the form from thematter of thooight. If so, we must reject th e very idea of formal logic,whether in Kant's sense or in any other. It would then become impos-sible, s Kant would have been the first to agree, to speci fy . the formalconditions of knowing an object s such and so to specify th e neces-sary formal conditions of being an object of experience. To hold thisis to abandon the very idea of oategories in Kant'e sense. We shouldthen be entitled to regard the notion of System s a category in somelooser sense or even to absorb all the categories into the notion ofSystem and perhape to commit ourselves to a coherence theory of truth.Indeed we could in Kantian terminology replace understanding byreason and set aside the wftiole Critical ^analysis without which reason is,according to Kant, so dangerous' a giuide. We could even revive thespeculative metaphysics which Kant set himself to destroy. I am happy toagree with Smart in holding .all tiiis to be a possible line of philosophicalargument at least I hope I am agreeing with him. But such -an improve-ment , if it is one, would better be described, not s an Interpretationnor even s a reinterpretation, but s a revolution. It would have shockedKant to the core.Althoiugh I have no wish to argue that Kant has produced a finalphilosophy in philosophy there are 110 last words I do maintainthat th e Critique of Pure Reason mut be treated s th e systematicwhole that it professes to be, if our criticisms of it are to haveany value. As regardsi th e list of the forms of judgement, ithas always seemed to me reasonable to suppose that Kantmust have been more systematic about this than he appears to be atfirst sight otherwise he would, have been blind not to see that his260 Brought to you by | Fordham University LibraryAuthenticated | 150.108.161.71Download Date | 12/27/12 7:19 AM


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list of categories must be s .rhapsodical' .s those of Aristotle. ProfessorReidi, in the book to whidi I have already referred, has attempted toshow by diapter and vers-e what Kant's logical System was and has alsocontended that it is sound. If, however, we accept the common view thatKan t merely took over aincritically the logic of his time iand toudied itup a little to suit his own purposes, then it is fa r better to recognizethat in this respect he was blind and consequently that his list of cate-gories cannot have the systematic diaracter whidi beyond doubt heclaiined fo r it. Great thinkers do have blind patdies, and we must beprepare'd to recognize the doctrines of a master in philosophy even ifwe iare n ot prepared to defend them. If K an t went wrong in detail, itstill remains a great revolutionary doctrine that th e pure forms ofthought, if these can be found, must determine the formal conditionsunder whidi an y object oam be known s an object of experience;and oncewe understand his assumptions, even if we think thein mistaken, we oanhardly fail to see that the Critical System is at the very least a marvel ofingenuity. I can see no warrant whatever for rejecting the P-interpreta-tion on the ground that an intelligent man like Kant could not have beenso blind s to propound any doctrine of the sort. Sudi a content ion , Imust say frankly, steems to m e to abandon philosophical sdiolarship andto make Kant's spirit contradict flatly, not only his own express and re-peated Statements, but even the very principles whidi are at the rootof his whole philosophy.To Interpret the spirit of a thinker is a more hazardous task thanto determine the meaning, 'and assess' the value, of his doctrines: wehave to abandon logic fo r something like feeling or Intuition or even in extreme cases divination. My own feeling is that Kant 's spirit isvery different from the spirit of his immediate successors. They were ro-mant ic Genrian idealists inclined to loose thinking -and vague emo.tion.He was a man of the Eighteenth Century, who prized exact thinking andprecise definition an d perhaps a too rigid System, even if he did notalways attain his ideal. His spirit, I should surmise, is remote from ap-peals to the spirit in the sense advocated by Smart. Although he does inone cas'e -refer to the spirit, s opposed to the letter, of philosophicalnomenclature, this is only in order to protest that his philosophy is notto be identified with that of Descartes or Berkeley merely because it toohas been called idealism. * * )In fur therance of his Claims Smart makes a final appeal/ s othershave done before, to Kant's own assertiori that it is not unusual to under-stand an author better than he understands himself.38) Whether K a n tis right or not in claiming to understand Plato better than Plato under-stood himself, he does at least,recognize that understanding has to beat ta ined by comparing the thoughts whidi the author has expressed.

87) ProL S. 13 Anmerkung III, Ak. IV, p. 293, The reference is to the editionof the Berlin Academy.*8) K. r. V.f A 314 = B 370.Brought to you by | Fordham University LibraryAuthenticated | 150.108.161.71Download Date | 12/27/12 7:19 AM


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W e need not, however, go so far afield. Claims of the type Smartfavours were already put forward in Kant's life-time, and he reacted inno ambiguous terms. I hope it will not be considered slavish if I supportmy intuitions by quoting Kant's actual words. 'First of all, there is his reply to the egregious Schlettwein. This gentle-man r with an unpleasing combination of dieap insult ;and moral omction,challenged Kant to a public correspondence in which he proposed tooverthrow the entire System of the Critical Philosophy. Kant not unnatur-ally. declined, but s he had been asked which of his Interpreters under-stood him best, he referred his challenger to the writings of Professor,Schulz. He hastened to add, however, that he takes the Professor's* words'according to the Je f f er (Buchstabe) and not according to a spirit (Geist)alleged to be contained in it (by which one can drag in anything onelikes)'. 39)Still m-ore pertinent is Kant's declaration of his attitude to Fichte'sWissenscha/fs/ehre.40) It was already being preached that Kant's workwas a mere propaedeutic and that it was really Fichte who had producedthe System of transcendental philosophy. One enthusiast, in tactfully pro-posing that Kant should publish his own views on this preposterousclaim, had averred that the Crique of Pure Reason is not to be takenaccording to the letter, but is to be understood only by first masteringthe appropriate standpoint (o f Becfc or of Fichte) 'because the Kantianletter like the Aristotelian kills the spirit1. To this Kant replies once againthat 'the. Critique is certainly to be understood by the letter and solelyfrom the standpoint of common understanding provided this is suf-ficiently trained for euch abstract investigations'. He indicates ratherdisdainfully that-the question whether he takes the spirit of Fichte to begenuine Criticism is one that requires no answer. can defend myselfagainst my enemies, but God save me from my friends'.

If it be urged that at this stage Kant in spite of being manifestlyright about Fichte was too old to be a judge of matters pertaining tothe spirit, w e may find a general description of his attitude which datesfrom his middle age. In a letter written to Hamann in 1774 he had setout what he took to be the meaning of a recent book by Herder. Hegoes on s follows 41): 'If, my good friend, you find that my idea of theauthor's main purpose can be improved, please let me have your viewin a few lines but where possible in the speech of human beings. Asa poor child of earth I am not at all organized for the divine speecih ofan intuitive reason. But I follow pretty well what can be speit out to me(was man mir ... vorbuchstabieren kann) from common concepts accord-ing to logical rule. B esides, I ask no more than to understand what isthe theme of the authorj for to recognize it in its total worth with intui-tive certainty is ah affair to which I make no claim'. Here admittedly heis dealing with romantic insight in its extremest form, but his wordsoffer an example of his down-to-earth spirit s understood by himself.

39) Ak., XII, pp. 3934.40)'A/cv XII, pp. 396-7.41) Ak., X f p. 148.262

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I will make one last point. The claim of any Interpretation to be ac-cepted rests ultimateily on its power to rnake a philosophy, so to speak,click together into place s a consistent whole or at least s a n in-geniously constructed whole. This is the claim made by the P-interpre-tation: it does not require to be 'bolstered up1 to borrow Smart'sphras'e by appealing to isolated passages torn from their context Asimilax claim can hardly be made for the S-interpretation; for it breaks

v up Kant's expressed philosophy into a patchwork of inconsistent theoriesand offers in its place - a doctrine whidif to me at least, seems neitherconsistent nor clear. Consider only one example. The kind of Statementtranscendental logic seeks to establish by reference to the formal con-ditions of experience is that -every event must hiappen in accordancewith causal law. Is there iany plansibility in saying that a logic of thiskind if we 'agree to call it logic must snpplant or absorb, or at thevery least, reconstitute'any kind of formal logic? It -appears to nie, withall respect to Professor Smart, that there is none; and this opinion is con-firmed by the fact that the advocates of the S-interpretation seem unableto make up their minds whidi of these three very different possibilitiesthey would recommend us to adopt.In short, I would soiggest that the P-interpretationf whatever its de-fects, is to be preferred, whether we let ouxselves be guided by theletter or by the spirit or best of all by both.

Kant-studien Volume 49 Issue 1 1958 [Doi 10.1515%2fkant.1958.49.1-4.245] Paton, h. j. -- Formal and...

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Transcript of Kant-studien Volume 49 Issue 1 1958 [Doi 10.1515%2fkant.1958.49.1-4.245] Paton, h. j. -- Formal and...