4. THE REJECTION OF METAPHYSICS
It is not difficult to see how Kant, with the above-mentioned premises, comes to the conclusion of a doctrine of unknowability which pre-determines the fate of metaphysics.
4.1 The Doctrine of Unknowability (of Things-in-themselves)
4.l.l The "Reference" of Appearance
Kant distinguishes the matter and the form of knowledge. The matter is said to be the object of representation given from without and is received passively through the senses, whereas that which so determines the manifold of the representation that it allows of being ordered in certain relations is called the form of appearance (cf. B34).
At the end of the Transcendental Doctrine of Elements in the Critique he concludes that categories of understanding, taken by themselves, yield no knowledge, and that the schematized categories can yield knowledge only insofar as they are applied to the data of intuition, namely, the appearances (cf. A568 B596). Hence appearances are naturally described as sense-representations which are the modifications of the subject's mind but not as objects independent of the mind. Paradoxically, appearances are often called objects and regarded as external, spatially distinct from the knowing subject and his ideas (cf. B34; A109).
It seems that Kant makes a distinction between the object and the representation of the object. Appearances are referred to both the objects and representations. In order to reconcile this twofold reference, we have to resort to his Transcendental-Empirical distinction.
4.l.2 Transcendental-Empirical Distinction
Kant makes a distinction between transcendental and empirical objects, transcendental and empirical selves. The central issue of this distinction is to separate two kinds of inquiry or claim. Neither of them is supposed to refer to two different entities but to two different ways of talking about one and the same thing.
The transcendental inquiries concern the a priori possibility of knowledge or its employment. For instance, the transcendental logic concerns the scope, the origin and objective validity of "the laws of understanding and reason solely in so far as they relate a priori to objects''. (B81f). Transcendental philosophy concerns the mode of knowledge, especially regarding its combination of matter and form; as Kant says, "I entitle transcendental all knowledge which is occupied not so much with objects as with the mode of our knowledge of objects insofar as this mode of knowledge is to be possible a priori" (B25). Hence the transcendental claims are about the a priori elements in the knowing subject and method of his pure reason. With this in mind, Kant concludes that our knowledge of objects holds valid only within the appearances, namely, within the sphere in which we are being-affected-through-senses in cooperation with our a priori elements in the mind.
Kant also allows empirical inquiries to be admitted in the appearances in which the objects of experience are considered spatially distinct, external to the inquirers. Hence we can treat all external objects in the field of experience as things-in-themselves, insofar as appearances are concerned, without troubling ourselves about the primary ground of their possibility as appearances.
By virtue of this distinction, Kant is able to make different claims on the following statements: first, that there are external objects of which we have knowledge; second, that we are immediately aware of our ideas, or representations. The first is a transcendental falsity but an empirical truth, whereas the second is a transcendental truth but an empirical falsity. Transcendentally speaking, knowledge of objects is subject to a priori conditions on the part of the knowing subject, and thus is only applicable to representational objects or contents given in experience. In other words, appearances are contents of our mental representations in the transcendental sense. Empirically speaking, the objects of experience are considered as external objects spatially distinct from the knower. (8)
The most obvious exemplification is that of space and time. They are regarded as transcendentally ideal because they are the a priori forms of intuitions. Since the sense-manifold is given in the inner experience of succession and the outer experience of space, we can be certain that they are our a priori forms with which we spatialize and temporalize the given "stuff" or the "sense-manifold" in a specific arrangement. But the question whether they, in fact, belong to the realm of the thing-in-itself is entirely beyond our sensibility and hence our a priori forms cannot be applied to that realm. On the other hand, they are empirically real because they always hold good for the experienced objects which are spatially distinct from and external to us.
Up to here Kant has only made this distinction between the two inquiries, but to advance beyond the limit or bound of sensuous intuitions and to ask the ground for the possibility of appearances in the transcendental sense, the concept of a transcendental object would be required. Note that Kant says that the concept, not the existence, of transcendental objects is required. In point of fact, Kant has simply inserted it Into the world of Noumenon and the concept of Noumenon is a limiting concept (Grenzbegriff) demanded by the concept of Phenomenon as the correlate of the latter.
4.1.3 The Transcendental Object and Noumenon
First of all Kant explicitly mentions that the idea of appearances involves the idea of something that appears (cf. Al04). In other words, if we try to abstract from all that which in the object has reference to the a priori conditions of knowledge, namely, the possibility of objects of knowledge, we arrive at the idea of Transcendental Object, "the completely indeterminate thought of something in general" (A253).
Since all sense manifold representations are related by the understanding to the transcendental object which signifies only a something-X, the transcendental object cannot be insulated in thought.
However, not satisfied with this substrate of sensibility (cf. A251), Kant proceeds to transform the notion of transcendental object into the concept Noumenon In view of the latter's etymological significance. Noumenon means objects of thought or of understanding, namely, as intuited or apprehended in a non-sensuous fashion. In order to form the positive concept of Noumenon, Kant assumes the possibility of an intellectual intuition in which the thing-in-itself is directly apprehended.
By way of hypothesis, Kant attributes this intellectual intuition to the "Intellectus Archetypus" (cf. A695 B723) which belongs to the Divine Mind. It is also called creative intuition, for it is wholly active and productive source of creation. Hence God directly apprehends the real essence of the thing-in-itself without the aid of sensuous intuition because God has created all this. Sensuous intuition is ascribed to "Intellectus Ectypus" which belongs to human finite minds in the sense that finite minds are affected by extra-mental things (through senses) whose existence is supposed rather than created by them. All cognition worked out through the human mind, therefore, has to begin with sensuous intuition. The Noumenon in its positive notion, thus, means the object of intellectual intuition and hence things-in-themselves are objects of God's creation and knowledge and not objects of human cognition. In its negative sense, it is not-the-object-of-sensuous-intuition and in point of fact the entire Transcendental Doctrine of Elements is entertaining the negative concept of Noumenon. The introduction of Noumenon, Kant insists, is meant to keep a strict hold of the critical teaching, namely, that both sensibility and understanding are only applicable to the Phenomenon.
Therefore, the concept of Noumenon is only a problematic one not assertoric (cf. A254 B310), because Kant believes that we have no means of asserting its objective reality for the very thought of its real existence involves the existence-category. Hence it is a limiting concept for its function is only to limit the pretensions of sensibility.(9)
4.2 The Failure of Every Metaphysics (as Transcendent Science)
With the above doctrine in mind, we can see easily that the general ground for Kant's own rejection of metaphysics is not difficult to state. The Transcendental Aesthetic and the Transcendental Analytic taken together can lead to the conclusion of the unknowability of the thing-in-itself which destroys every possibility of speculative and transcendent metaphysics.
Kant has first argued that the objects of speculative metaphysics are basically transcending from sense-intuition. Secondly metaphysicians, at least in intention, have to establish the possibility of synthetic a priori judgments in metaphysics. However the very question of how such judgments are possible yields the transcendental (matter-form) theory of knowledge. No knowledge of objects is possible except insofar as it is related to the a priori conditions on the part of the knowing subject. Hence knowledge is only restricted to things as they appear, in conformity with our mental forms, and does not reach things-in-themselves. This claim is fatal to all metaphysical theories.
Furthermore, Kant makes it perfectly clear that the principles of understanding can have a very limited application, namely, their objective reference is confined to phenomena alone. If there were any metaphysical doctrines, they would have been supposed to be independent of sensuous intuition altogether and to be established by intellectual intuition which we unfortunately do not possess. In the absence of intellectual intuition, the doctrine of unknowability is founded. In any case, it appears that, whether in fact or in principle, speculative metaphysics cannot be made up of synthetic a priori truths. Thus Kant rejects every possibility of metaphysics as a transcendent science.
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