PARCHMENT BOND

[N]

## Introduction

The nature of Kant's philosophy can not be made intel-
ligible without a discussion of the doctrines that preceded
him. The 17th century witnessed the final disintegration of
the two pillars of the medieval concepts of universality:
the Catholic Church and the Holy Roman Empire. Under the
impact of the Reformation, through the religious wars and
settlements of the 16th century, the Catholic Church had split
up and given rise to several Protestant sects. The Holy
Roman Empire, growing steadily weaker ever since the collapse
of the Hohenstauffen dynasty, rent violently by the Refor-
mation, was ruined in everything but name by the Thirty Years'
War. A new era was dawning in Europe, an era of absolute
sovereignty, dynastic monarchy and nationalism.

This era needed philosophic justification. No longer
were medieval doctrines of teleology, in which Man and the
universe were understandable only through an end, interpreted
by the Church, sufficient. The scientific discoveries of the
early 17th century gave rise to a belief in the feasibility of
an inquiry into causes. Thus there arose a new concept of
Absoluteness, an Absolute determined by its essence, not by
its end and moreover discoverable by anybody by the mere
application of the mathematical method to metaphysical prob-
lems. The pilot of nature was no longer God, but Reason. It

[N]

2

was generally assumed that intuition, properly trained, would
yield self-evident premises from which all problems could
be resolved deductively.

With premises self-evident method became of paramount
concern. This is probably best expressed in Descartes, the
founder of modern philosophy, who laid down the following four
rules for abstract speculation: (1) To accept nothing but
what is self-evident. (2) To resolve each problem into parts
small enough to be individually examined. (3) To advance by
a series of steps from self-evident premise to certain deduc-
tion. (4) To linger on each problem until all its possi-
bilities are examined.

His central problem can be defined as an inquiry into
the very possibility of knowledge. What relation exists be-
tween objective reality and our ideas about it? There is
daily proof of the fallibility of sense-impressions and it
is possible that some malignant demon might so warp the cog-
nitive faculties that a rational knowledge of reality becomes
ILLUSTRY.
Descartes escapes from this total solipsism by
first asserting that, whatever the power of the deceiver,
thought implies a thinking substance and the reality of the "I"
who thinks and doubts is thereby assured. Moreover the inter-
vention of an omnipotent God, who by definition can not be a
deceiver, guarantees the reality of the physical world. The
Cartesian dualism posits two finite substances, thinking and
extended both of objective reality, with God, the Infinite

3

PARCHMENT BOND

Substance, as the middle ground and the assurance of certainty.

Descartes' attempt to attain knowledge through methodology raised many difficulties, however. God's existence was demonstrated by the very faculty the validity of which had been seriously brought into question. Moreover, if the Deity guarantees objective reality, Cogito ergo sum becomes a meaningless dialectic exercise. The unsatisfactoriness of the Cartesian dualism led to two strands of thought each more consistent than Descartes, each utilizing one of Descartes' substances as the basis of its philosophy: Spinozistic Pantheism and British Empiricism.

Spinoza opted for the God. He denied that different substances of thought and matter existed. The universe in all its manifestations merely reveals God as the unity of all nature and its immanent cause. Matter and Mind disclose but attributes of the Divine, one viewed under the aspect of extension, the other as thought. In such a scheme the experience of freedom becomes the emanation of the Deity as the only source of all motivation. Causality in the Universe, purposiveness in events can never, for Spinoza, serve as explanatory principles. There are no actions, only happenings. Everything occurs by inward necessity, expressed by conatus, the tendency to persevere in one's own being. Moral sanction attaches to actions that support this effort, no other connotation of

4

[Y]

good and evil can be conceived.¹

Virtue as the capacity for self-maintenance at the highest level is attained by man under the aegis of Reason which reveals God as the unity of all existence. The wise man will therefore realize that his advantage can best be served by surrounding himself with an atmosphere of peace, by repaying violence with kindness. An inner reconciliation ensues, a realization that nothing divine deserves contempt, but equally, that sympathy is not required as a source of motivation.

Acting with enlightened egoism, the sage masters the passions which testify to his existence in nature and attains the power of self-determination in the bliss of a resignation into God.

Virtue is thus attained by knowledge, by understanding the inexorability of events and by the correct evaluation of one's true advantage.

But beyond this conception of ethics as a technical mastery Spinoza had a profounder vision. As man grows in wisdom, a vision of a higher world-order opens before him. Intuition based on Reason views reality under the aspect of eternity and becomes at one with the Infinite mind of God. The more man knows by this kind of knowledge, the more truly can he be said to act and the more fully does he participate in the divine. This, the intellectual love of God, contains the hope

1 Friedrich in Inevitable Peace, p. 149 et seq. has characterized Spinoza as the logical philosophy of Calvinism.

[N]

5

for blessedness, mankind's real liberty. Knowledge of an external reality has developed into the intuition of an inward acceptance. Freedom for Spinoza ultimately resides in a mystic relationship to the Infinite, which would however have been impossible without the guidance of Reason, in a resignation that gives peace, in the tranquillity of perfect knowledge.

Yet the difficulties of a concept that required intuitive insight were too great. An era of new scientific discovery, particularly in physics, seemed to demonstrate that the true source of knowledge was not the mind but nature, indeed that the mind is instructed by nature. Locke, founding the school of British Empiricists, conceived of the mind as a blank tablet endowed with a wax-like capacity of receiving sense impressions. Thus the other implication of Descartes was developed into an assertion of the primacy of the physical substance, into a rejection of any innate ideas.

Carried to its ultimate conclusion by Hume, this led to a total metaphysical scepticism. Knowledge was based on sense experience, reasoning revealed the habitual expectation of recurrent situations. Cause and effect constituted but the representation of a constant conjunction of events, so that the appearance of event A, leads to the anticipation of event B. Yet one can not postulate a necessary connection between A and B. Space and time merely exhibit the result of certain irregularities or juxtapositions of empirical entities. Thus

6

innate ideas do not exist; the concept of ultimate reality is meaningless.

Hume's ethics reflect his metaphysical assumptions. Morality was based on a pleasing sensibility, the faculty of benevolence whereby humane impulses receive inward approbation. Social institutions depend in part on habit, in part on the pleasure derived from their utility. Thus morality became an attribute of external reality, however conceived, pleasure the only source of motivation. The similarity in the conclusions of the empiricists Toynbee and Hume illustrates the structuring effect of their assumptions.² In each case survival is given moral sanction, conceived as an indication of utility by Hume, as an emanation of Divine grace by Toynbee. But where Hume's metaphysical scepticism shrinks from ascribing ultimate purposes to phenomena, Toynbee's theological convictions enable him to find a divine imprint in historical events.

Kant then was confronted with the following dilemma: The rationalists had asserted the supremacy of reason, limiting freedom to the recognition of a naturalistic necessity, conceiving manipulatory knowledge as the only ethical criterion. Their theory of knowledge was based on analytic a priori judgments, intuitively derived, which contained the whole truth within themselves and claimed their self evidence as the objec-

2 See post "Appendix A" The Concepts of Meaning.

7

tive pattern of reality.³ Yet the attempt to achieve certainty by an analysis of innate ideas was doomed to failure, despite many great achievements of internal consistency. The judgments of the rationalists were analytic and therefore empty. They could provide no clue to the evaluation of new experience; indeed they tended to deny its possibility. The problem of the objective existence of external reality and its relation to innate ideas was in this formulation insoluble. The difficulty of the rationalist position is best expressed by their ultimate recourse to an inward experience, subjective certainty, as the final criterion of the objective validity of their judgments.

Empiricism, on the other hand, faced the dilemma that despite the acuteness of its analysis of ordinary thought, its judgments lacked universality. To base cognition on experience is to risk the overthrow of one's concepts with each new experience. In the field of ethics, conduct could obtain sanction only through a cataloguing of pleasing perceptions.

Kant was thus faced with the alternatives of freedom as a function of a mechanistic naturalism or morality as an enlightened hedonism. How in a world obeying well-understood laws of causality can reason give effect to the transcendental experience of freedom? What impact can moral maxims have on

3 Kant calls this a determinative judgment in his "Critique of Judgment."

8

the unfolding of political events? What is the relation of
history to man's experience of morality?

Kant decided that the problem was insoluble until the
boundaries of the realm of necessity and freedom were defined.
He asserted that a mechanistic description of nature did not
preclude a conception of its transcendental immanence, to be
derived, however, as a datum of inward experience not as a
category of reason. He limited knowledge to make room for
belief. His political theory and philosophy of history repre-
sent applications of his moral philosophy. Kant's meta-
physics, expressed in his Critique of Pure Reason, thus serve
as the basis for an understanding of his philosophy.

Kant's Metaphysical Theory

Kant addressed himself to his central problem of the
implication of the transcendental experience of freedom by re-
examining the metaphysical presuppositions of both the
rationalists and the empiricists. The rationalists had re-
duced knowledge to an analysis of innate ideas because their
analytic judgments a priori had made impossible recourse to
experience. The empiricists had approached it as a problem of
classifying constant conjunctions or pleasing perceptions be-
cause their synthetic judgments a posteriori had denied the
possibility of universal validity. Yet experience without
concepts is blind, while concepts without precepts are meaning-
less.

9

Kant solved this dilemma by what he termed his Copernican revolution. Perhaps the problem of how to achieve a relation between ideas and external reality, which had led Descartes and Spinoza to invoke God as the connecting link, one in the sense of guaranteed reliability and the other in the sense of all-pervasiveness, and which, on the other hand, had forced Hume into total scepticism, perhaps this problem was so intractable because its basic epistemological assumptions were incorrectly stated. Just as Copernicus when he could not account for certain physical phenomena on the assumption that the sun revolved around the earth was finally forced to reverse this formulation, so Kant restated the dilemma of how the mind which is abstract can conform to concrete external reality.

He revolutionized epistemology by insisting that instead of the mind conforming to external reality, physical objects can only be understood by means of patterns and rules imposed by the mind. However, reality in its entirety can never be known by pure reason. Man's empirical knowledge is confined to phenomena; ultimate reality, the things-in-themselves, are not disclosed to the cognitive faculties. If this is true, then Critical philosophy by analyzing the essential structure of the process of thought can attempt a definition of the forms by which external reality is apprehended by pure reason and synthetic a priori judgment which are both universal and instructive, will be possible. These judgments state nothing less than that all phenomenal experience must conform to

10

certain patterns for the constitution of the human mind pre-
vents cognition in any other context.

The distinction of reality into phenomenal (apprehended
by pure theoretic reason) and noumenal does not, however, mean
that knowledge of noumenal reality is impossible. Though pure
reason is confined to phenomenal appearances, the noumena may
reveal themselves to man by way of an inward experience. The
realms of freedom appear as the transcendental condition of
the realm of necessity. Thus Kant limits knowledge to make
room for belief and establishes the possibility of a purpose-
ful morality in a world of determined causality.

The validity of Kant's Critique of Pure Reason depends
on his analysis of the frame-work within which phenomenal
experience occurs. Time and Space, in this sense, are not
empirical entities nor properties of objects but patterns im-
posed by the mind on nature. Space is an absolute requirement
to enable us to refer experiences to objects outside ourselves.
The non-existence of space can not even be imagined, though
space without objects to fill it is conceivable. Similarly,
substance constitutes a category to account for the possibility
of change, for unless a permanence in some respects is
postulated each modification would involve a new object.

Causality, again, reveals the condition which estab-
lishes the difference between objective and subjective cognition,
between perception and imagination. When events occur in a
certain order the mind attempts by an effort of will to reverse

11

this sequence. If it fails the objective reality of the ex-
perience is assumed, its fitness for causal analysis estab-
lished.

Kant thus transcended Hume's scepticism by limiting man's
field of knowledge to the world of natural occurrences, forced
into patterns by pure reason. He affirmed, however, that the
phenomenal world may only represent an inadequate portion of
a reality the further reaches of which can never be appre-
hended by pure reason, but the existence of which speculative
reason allows and practical reason postulates.

The Critique of Pure Reason ends with a series of anti-
nomies relating to the finite and infinite, to freedom and God
versus causality. How can one speak of human freedom in a
world of causal necessity? How is it possible to speak of
God as a first cause, in the face of phenomena which require
an antecedent cause for every other? Kant resolves this
dilemma by invoking his earlier distinction between phenomenal
and noumenal reality. If the phenomenal world exhausts reality
then indeed human freedom is meaningless and God as a first
cause a logical inconsistency. If, on the other hand, there
exists a noumenal reality beyond the phenomenal manifestations,
then insofar as man is noumenal (a thing in itself) he may
achieve freedom, though as a physical phenomena he remains
subject to phenomenal requirements.

Pure reason can go no further than making room in its
metaphysical scheme for the ultimate reality which may reveal

12

itself to man in his theological, esthetic and moral experiences.
On the other hand, pure reason can show the weakness in the
assumptions of both the Rationalists and the Empiricists. If
phenomenal reality does not exhaust the totality of man's
experiences, freedom can not be derived from a recognition of
naturalistic necessity. If sensuous experience is confined
to the appearances of a profounder level of existence, the
empirical world can not contain a moral sanction. On the other
hand, our judgments about the phenomenal world are both
universal and necessary for they correspond to the constitution
of the mind.

The rigorousness and symmetry of Kant's method can not
be over-emphasized. He fully recognized the importance of
metaphysics and epistemology for the understanding of a reality,
which is not however exhausted by the categories of pure reason.
Kant's metaphysics while tracing the boundaries of human
knowledge serve at the same time as the condition for moral
ethics that give a profound expression to the intrinsic worth
of the moral personality, and to the dignity of the individual.

## Moral Philosophy

Two things fill the mind with ever new and
increasing awe and admiration, the more frequently
and continuously reflection is occupied with them;
the starry heaven above me and the moral law within
me. I ought not to seek either outside my field of
vision as though they were either shrouded in
obscurity or visionary. I see them confronting me

[Y]

13

and link them immediately with the consciousness
of my existence. The first (the starry heaven)
begins with the place I occupy in the external world
of sense and expands the connection in which I find
myself in the incalculable vastness of worlds upon
worlds, systems within systems over endless ages
of periodic motion, their beginnings and per-
petuations. The second (the moral law) starts from
my invisible self, my moral personality and depicts
me in a world of true infinitude which can be sensed
only by the intellect. With this I recognize my-
self to be in a necessary and general connection
not just accidentally as appears to be the case
with the physical world. Through this recognition
I also see myself linked to all visible worlds.
The first view of a numberless quantity of worlds
destroys my importance, since I am an animal-like
being who must return to its matter from whence it
came to the planet (a mere speck in the universe)....
The second view raises my value infinitely as an
intelligence, through my personality; for in this
personality the moral law reveals a life indepen-
dent on animality and even of the entire world of
sense. This is true at least as far as one can
infer from the purposeful determination of my exis-
tence according to this law. This is not restricted
to the conditions of life but radiates into the
infinite.

In this manner begins Kant's Critique of Practical
Reason. Noumenal reality which the Critique of Pure Reason
could only postulate is now revealed to man in his moral ex-
periences. It is "practical," not in the sense of expediency,
but by providing a direct relationship between the will and the
action. It transforms the maxims of personal conduct into laws
of general validity. It testifies to our "autonomy" for it
presupposes a direct relationship to the Infinite. But how
can a personal experience provide rules of universal appli-
cability? In what manner is the will determined to action?

As in his first Critique, Kant rejects the views of both

14

the Rationalists and the Empiricists. External reality, naturalistically conceived, can not contain the sanction of ethical conduct. Analytic judgments a priori would prescribe, not the form, but the content of ethical activity; they would express not commands but descriptions and reduce freedom to a mode of causality. Ethical hedonism -- like synthetic a posteriori judgments -- can only catalogue motivations and lacks the necessity of a universal rule. The Epicurean concept of higher [mental] and lower [physical] pleasures represents a logical inconsistency. Hedonism does not possess the conceptual framework to order perceptions into a hierarchy except by noting their intensity.

If neither rationalism nor empiricism provide a foundation for a universal law, how can humanity give effect to its experience of morality? Kant finds the answer in the very constitution of man. If everything in nature is created with a maximum of economy and the means chosen most apt, then happiness conceived as desire-satisfaction can not represent the purpose of a rational being.⁴ Instinct would suffice for the achievement of pleasure in the hedonistic sense. But man is endowed with reason and above all a practical reason that issues forth into action, and seemingly multiplies motivations. The faculty of rationality must consequently be designed to implement the moral experience.

4 This teleological concept depends on Kant's Critique of Judgment. See post.

15

But how can a personal experience contain a universal
obligation? Just as the resolution of the metaphysical dilemma
made meaningful synthetic a priori judgments, so man's ex-
perience of freedom becomes practical through a priori prin-
ciples that provide the necessary forms for determining the
will. Moral sanction consequently does not attach to such
laudable qualities as moderation, self-control, or calm
deliberation for in villains these very qualities tend to ac-
centuate evil. The merit of conduct is determined solely by
the disposition of a will which acts out of a concept of duty
expressed as respect for the moral law. This precludes
inclination as a guide to action but prevents equally the
definition of morality as a technical knowledge of naturalistic
relations.

How then is the will determined by reason? In a holy
will which acts of necessity according to the moral law such
a determination is unnecessary. The human will, however, torn
by desires, which testify to man's existence in the world of
causality, requires an imperative, a representation of a ground
of action expressed by the word 'ought.' It is a hypothetical
imperative if represented as a means to an end, a categorical
imperative if an end in itself. But the moral law stems from
a transcendental experience, from a recognition of an ultimate
reality beyond phenomenal appearances. It can therefore be
implemented only by the categorical imperative, the maxims of
which assure universality.

16

Kant's first formulation of the categorical imperative derives from the conception of the moral law determining the will directly from a priori principles. It states: "Act as if the maxims of thy action could become by thy will, universal laws of nature." Kant uses the example of borrowing with the knowledge that repayment is impossible as an illustration of this distinction between morality and expediency, between the inward compulsion of duty and the mediate power of inclination. Whatever the expediency of this action it is impossible to will it as a universal law of nature.⁵

Though we can not but recognize the validity of the moral law, we act immorally whenever we are prepared to make an exception in favor of a momentary inclination.

Kant's second formulation relies on the distinction between the categorical imperative as an end in itself and the hypothetical imperative in which the motivation is but a means: "So act, as to treat humanity whether in your own person or in that of others as an end only and never as a means." This formulation expresses Kant's belief in the ultimacy of man's moral personality, and in a tolerance which sets limits to one's activity out of respect for the divine in humanity. Its goal is the kingdom of ends in which the autonomy of the wills makes every man both legislator of

5 For the discussion of this argument see post. It is not, of course, impossible to will this, but it is impossible to secure a reciprocal recognition of this volition.

17

universal maxims and subject to the rules created by the
autonomy of others. The recognition by each individual of
his responsibility to mankind provides the condition for a
heteronomy of wills based on the experience of freedom and
of the moral law.

But how can the categorical imperative furnish a con-
ception of its possibility? If man forms part of nature --
as all experience indicates -- he is ruled by causality. This
raises a series of other antinomies. Man attempts to achieve
a morality seemingly unattainable in a finite existence. He
longs for the Summum Bonum -- happiness commensurate with
virtue but the phenomenal world offers no assurance of such
a connection.

Again Kant returns to the distinction in the Critique
of Pure Reason between noumenal and phenomenal reality. In
so far as man participates in the realm of necessity -- as a
phenomena -- he is determined. But morality does not describe
an order of nature, but has its origins in an attitude within
us. It testifies to an experience which raises man above him-
self out of the world of the senses, into the noumenal reality
of the Divine design. Freedom, the possibility of which
speculative reason asserted, is now postulated by practical
reason. The striving for perfection induced by the moral law
implies immortality to give effect to an endeavor impossible
of fulfillment in a finite time. God appears as the guarantor

18

of the Summum Bonum.⁶ So pervasive is the moral experience that Kant invokes the postulates of God, freedom and immortality to overcome all obstacles offered by the physical world. Theory and practice are united in the categorical imperative, the possibility of whose implementation derives from its very conception.

This enables Kant to connect his ethics with Christian doctrine without attempting -- like Toynbee -- to claim the sanction of external reality for this effort. The moral law is holy and presupposes a will directly determined by its commands. Yet all man can achieve in this life is a rightful disposition arising out of respect for the law. The yearning for the bliss of holiness therefore postulates eternity. The order of nature can offer no happiness as an inducement for the performance of the moral law. But the Christian concept of the Kingdom of God opens vistas of a profounder plane, in which terrestrial striving dissolves in the blessedness of inward peace. In the same sense Kant understands the biblical command of loving God and of loving one's neighbor as oneself. Physical love can not be commanded. But a feeling of respect for the experience of the moral law, a liking to do one's duty based on a priori conception expressed in the categorical

6 N. Kemp Smith - A Commentary to Kant's Critique of Pure Reason, p. 608, points out that in later life Kant considered this an overly theoretical proof of God's existence and asserted instead that God speaks directly through the categorical imperative.

19

[N]

imperative, an approach to man as an end, these constitute
the true meaning of ethical love.

Kant has come full cycle. His Critique of Pure Reason
by establishing the limits of knowledge, by the distinction
between phenomenal and noumenal reality left room for a sig-
nificant moral experience. The transcendental experience of
freedom gave meaning to the concept of a will determined to
action by a priori considerations. The kingdom of ends emerged
and an affirmation of man's dignity as the goal of ethical
activity.

The rationalistic formulation of Kant's ethical philo-
sophy tends to obscure its profound visions. Morality is found
to derive from a direct relationship to a supersensuous world-
order, from a personal experience which alone makes the
categorical imperative possible. For the necessity of the
categorical imperative applies only to a specific attitude, its
universality presupposes the prior experience of the moral law.
This must be kept in mind in considering the criticism of
Kant's ethics by Schweitzer and Satre. Though they differ in
their point-of-view their arguments are remarkably alike.
Schweitzer maintains that the validity of ethics issues from
the necessity attending their thought.⁷ Kant's moral philosophy
achieves universality at the cost of vitality, according to

⁷ Schweitzer - The Philosophy of Civilization, p. 182 et seq.

20

Schweitzer. The content of the categorical imperative becomes so vague as to lose all meaning.

Sartre restates this argument in practical terms.⁸ He cites the case of a young Frenchman torn between the desire of joining De Gaulle's forces and thereby exposing his mother to possible German retaliation or staying and losing his self-respect. Kant's categorical imperative offers no solution to this dilemma according to Sartre. Whatever the lad's decision, he would treat somebody, either himself or his mother as but a means.

Despite the impreciseness of the example it illustrates well the confusion involved in this interpretation of Kant's moral philosophy. Both Schweitzer and Sartre argue as if moral philosophy should be a manual of action supplying technical solutions to all the problems of existence. Their criticism seems based on a profound misunderstanding of Kant's purpose. For Kant was not concerned with prescribing the content of morality but its form; nor with the definition of ethical maxims but with their significance. The categorical imperative can only give effect to a prior moral experience, it can not, however, serve as substitute for or provide that experience.

It remains to be asked what precisely is involved in a "necessity of thought." This necessity can be achieved only by analytic a priori principles, judgments which contain their

8 Sartre - Existentialism, p. 28 et seq.

21

whole truth within themselves and that are therefore definitions,
not maxims. It can be approximated by deductive inferences
but only in terms of a criterion of significance. Thus
Sartre's problem is soluble -- though not from a priori con-
siderations of the categorical imperative. It presupposes a
conception of the nature of ultimate ends, of which both the
young Frenchman and his mother might represent merely instances.
This is no more than saying that the categorical imperative
presupposes and expresses a moral experience which sets the norms;
it is not itself the moral experience. To require of ethics to
lay down specific rules for each contingency would not only
deny the whole tendency of Kant's thought but could be accom-
plished but by an infinite mind.

But Schweitzer offers another fundamental criticism.⁹
The union of ethical and epistemological idealism in Kant,
implies -- according to Schweitzer -- that the noumenal reality
which reveals itself as the moral law in man operates as the
objective principle in the physical world as well. If the
phenomenal world discloses but the manifestation of a transcen-
dental reality then the events brought about by causation are
merely parallel appearances of occurrences which the intellect
produces under the conception of freedom. Freedom and ethics
thus become but a mode of necessity; an immanence rules exis-
tence, only the apprehension of which differs, but not its
operation.

⁹ Schweitzer, op. cit., p. 186 et seq.

22

This is a profound analysis, though not a necessary one. The causality of the physical world represents a mode of apprehending phenomena, not a property of their occurrence. Similarly the experience of freedom constitutes man's apprehension of noumenal reality, but not necessarily the objective representation of its operation. Nevertheless, the tendency to equate man's experience of the moral law with the objective meaning of occurrences and thereby attributing an ethical sanction to phenomenal manifestations exists in Kant. It comes to expression in his philosophy of history, in which the duty to work for peace appears first as an emanation of the categorical imperative, only to stand revealed as the objective principle governing historical events.

The next section will deal with the problems raised by such a conception, and by the attempt to equate History with man's experience of morality.

## The Philosophy of History - Derived from the Categorical Imperative

Just as Kant's metaphysical theory had given meaning to the experience of freedom, so the categorical imperative determines man's political duties. "Morals when conceived as the totality of absolutely binding laws according to which we ought to act is in itself practice in the objective sense. It is therefore a paradox to say that one can not do (what one ought to do) once the authoritativeness of this concept of duty

23

is acknowledged." With this assertion of the absolute per-
vasiveness of the moral law begins the Appendix to Kant's
Essay on Eternal Peace.¹⁰ No conflict can exist between theory
and practice in the political realm any more than in the moral.
The categorical imperative applies to all activity, in every
field; its possibility is postulated by its very conception.¹¹

But what is the nature of the duty which the categorical imperative commands from a priori considerations? Kant finds the answer in the second formulation of the categorical imperative, that man must always be treated as an end, never as a means. In the domestic field this implies the creation of a republican constitution, in which the categorical imperative is institutionalized in a General will.¹² In relations between the states this makes the attainment of eternal peace the statesman's noblest duty.

What validity can be ascribed to a duty, which seems
negated by all experience? The practical man will be ready to
point out that the moral law rarely coincides with the volition
for its performance. Yet empirical reality can never supply
a criterion for motivated activity in Kant's scheme. If man
denies his moral experience public law is meaningless and
eternal peace a chimera. If on the other hand, the moral law

10 Kant (Eternal Peace), Friedrich, The Philosophy of Kant, p. 454.

11 Friedrich, Inevitable Peace, p. 53 offers a different interpretation. For my discussion see post.

12 For Kant's criteria of a republican constitution see post.

24

constitutes man's connecting link with noumenal reality then
the realm of necessity appears as but a manifestation of the
realm of freedom and no opposition between Theory and Practice
is possible.

Thus politics becomes a task of giving effect to man's
experience of noumenal reality and history records that effort.
The categorical imperative emerges as the norm of all political
endeavor, prescribing the achievement of a republican con-
stitution and the attainment of eternal peace. Peace repre-
sents the goal of human striving and the final purpose of
history.

Kant's Essay on Eternal Peace contains nine articles
for a hypothetical treaty among nations for the assurance of
universal peace. The first six -- the preliminary articles --
are frankly remedial, directed at specific abuses in contemporary
diplomacy. Though addressed to technical problems, their
obligation derives in each case from the a priori conception
of the moral law. They are:

1. "No treaty of peace shall be held such with the secret reservation of the material for a future war.

2. No state having an independent existence whether it be small or great may be acquired by another state through inheritance, exchange, purchase or gift.

3. Standing armies shall gradually disappear.

4. No debt shall be contracted in connection with the foreign affairs of the state.

25

5. No state shall interfere by force in the con-
   stitution and government of another state.

6. No state at war with another shall permit such acts of warfare as must make mutual confidence impossible in time of future peace such as the employment of assassins, of poisoners, the violation of articles of surrender, the instigation of treason in the state against which it is making war, etc.

The preliminary articles express Kant's application of
the categorical imperative to politics and to history .
If the categorical imperative commands eternal peace, any
mental reservations which leave open the possibility of future
conflicts violate the moral law. If the state is a moral
person whose sanction resides in its conception of man as an
end -- then a ruler may not treat it as a personal possession.
Since professional soldiers are mere tools, no consideration of
utility can make standing armies morally acceptable. War is
absolutely enjoined by the categorical imperative, even against
states who violate its maxims. The very existence of oppression
should serve as a stimulus to others to implement the moral law.
Man's noblest duty is to work for peace, to be disregarded only
in self-defense.

The pervasiveness of the moral law in Kant's philosophy
of history now becomes apparent. The categorical imperative
expresses the moral sanction of the political world and its
ultimate meaning. In this sense, the formulation of diplomatic
documents, the maintenance of armies, the utilization of economic
means for foreign policy, the employment of force all reveal
violations of a moral law, of which even the command for

26

eternal peace represents but a particular instance. Man's experience of freedom in a determined world issues into ethical activity and furnishes humanity's guide through history.

The six preliminary articles are, however, directed only at specific abuses; they are almost rules of prudences and applications of a more general principles. But what is the meaning of a moral imperative in politics and as a normative principle of historical events? How can the command for peace be shown to represent more than a philosopher's preference? Above all, who is the object of the command for eternal peace? It is to these problems that Kant's three definitive articles for eternal peace address themselves.

Kant argues that since the attainment of peace is a moral law, it can be given effect only by a moral personality. But how can the dictates of the categorical imperative operate in social institutions? Just as the moral law contains the objective principle of all private actions, so the republican constitution represents the norm of political institutions. What, however, is a republican constitution? Kant applies three criteria:¹³ The principle of the freedom of all members of the society as men; the principle of the dependence of all upon a single common legislation as subjects; the principle of equality for all as citizens.

13 Friedrich, The Philosophy of Kant, p. 437 (Eternal Peace).

27

The republican constitution thus institutionalizes Kant's categorical imperative. A political community based on its command to treat man as an end achieves a synthesis of liberty expressed in the righteousness of the will and equality exemplified by the universal applicability of its laws. ¹⁴ In this manner the state becomes a moral person and as such subject to the maxims derived from the experience of freedom. Therefore, Kant's first definitive article states: "The civil constitution in each state should be republican." ¹⁵

With the state a moral person, the categorical imperative can operate as the normative principle of international relations. Law can replace the violence of the state of nature, harmony the insecurity of constant strife. The federation of free states contains Kant's vision of the reconciliation of all conflicts. Kant sways between the conception of a union of nations and a federation of states with republican constitutions. Though he inclines towards the first alternative, his awareness of political realities makes him accept the latter. He can do so, moreover, without sacrificing the independent validity of his moral maxims, since his first definitive article has already assured the conformity of the state to the categorical imperative. Thus Kant's second definitive article states: "The law of nations should be

14 This is institutionalized by Rousseau's general Will.

15 Kant, Eternal Peace (Friedrich, op. cit., p. 431).

28

based upon a federalism of free states."¹⁶

Finally, the imperative to treat man as an end involves the encouragement of contacts among nations, but also implies a denial of the right of conquest. Kant argues that men have the right to visit everywhere as long as they don't assert their right by force and as long as they are bound by the principle of hospitality. The Law of Nations must therefore guarantee the treatment of all foreigners as ends, while preventing the exploitation of the indigenous population.

Kant's third definitive article of eternal peace states: "The cosmopolitan or World Law shall be based on conditions of universal hospitality."

The Essay on Eternal Peace continues the symmetrical edifice of Kant's philosophy. The Critique of Pure Reason had affirmed the possibility of the experience of freedom, the moral philosophy had given it meaning. In the Essay on Eternal Peace, the moral law stands revealed as the normative principle governing political events. No conflict between theory and practice is possible. On the contrary, the categorical imperative represents practice in the objective sense. Humanity's aspirations disclose history's meaning, because the moral experience represents man's only connection with noumenal reality.

The achievement of eternal peace is man's noblest task and

16 Kant, Eternal Peace (Friedrich, op. cit., p. 441).

[Y]

29

history's ultimate purpose.

Yet there are other aspects of Kant's philosophy of history which seem to support Schweitzer's contention that the erection of a moral philosophy on the base of epistemological idealism is doomed to failure. Since ethics become meaningful only if they can affect the noumenal reality, a dangerous confusion of the ethical and the natural arises. ¹⁷ If the moral law discloses the noumena which govern all appearances, than either everything that occurs is ethical or the moral law has no meaning. Ethics and natural law, the purpose of man and the design of the universe stand equated.

Though this is by no means a necessary conclusion, the further developments of Kant's philosophy of History lends considerable force to Schweitzer's criticism. ¹⁸ For Peace which the categorical imperative had commanded as humanity's duty, is suddenly revealed as the objective principle of historical events. The moral law realizes itself not only through the determination of the will, but as an aspect of a hidden plan of nature. Man's volition can assist in producing the inevitable, but in its absence humanity would still be forced to achieve harmony "albeit with much inconvenience." ¹⁹ Freedom appears as but a mode of causality, peace as the consequence of

17 Since phenomena obey natural laws. Schweitzer, op. cit., p. 186 et seq.

18 See ante for discussion of this point.

19 Kant, Eternal Peace (Friedrich, op. cit., p. 483).

30

[Y]

an immanent inexorability, harmony as an emanation of nature's mechanism. The moral law is not a duty, but an aspect of the mechanism of nature.

We must now consider Kant's Idea for a Universal History.<sup>20</sup>

**The Philosophy of History - Conceived as a Teleological System**

Kant poses three possible modes for the apprehension of historical events: History can be conceived as the unfolding of a plan (either natural or divine depending on the point-of-view) to develop humanity from the lowest state of animality to the highest level of human freedom. On the other hand it may reveal no more than constellations of power which will remain in flux until an accident produces a stable configuration. Finally, one can deny any pattern in history, leaving merely a senseless alternation of peace and war, of the rise and decline of empires.<sup>21</sup> Kant opts for the first alternative. Just as synthetic a priori principles provided the condition for the universality of moral maxims and for the cognition of phenomena, so may history be understood by their aid. It is only necessary to analyze the real nature of historical knowledge to find the forms which explain the meaning of events.

But how is one to conceive such a philosophy of history?
How is one to reconcile man's experience of freedom with the un-
folding of an ultimate purpose? Kant utilizes the argument of

20 See post for discussion. The subsequent section is an amali-
gamation of Kant's Idea for a Universal History and his
Appendix to Eternal Peace. Since the latter sharpens the
former's implications it forms the core of the analysis.

21 For the three alternatives see Friedrich, op. cit., p. 125 (Idea for a Universal History).

31

his Critique of Judgment<sup>22</sup> that a teleological principle must inhere in nature as a condition for the regularity of phenomena. Just as the population statistics of major countries reveal a regularity according to stable natural laws despite the accidents of individual fortunes, so history considered as a totality contains a pattern apart from the incidental purposes of human beings. Mankind promotes an end unknown to them which moreover "they would care little for if they knew."<sup>23</sup> This end is nothing less than peace through law, achieved by states with republican constitutions. Kant derives this, however, not from the universal obligation of a moral law, but from an analysis of the mechanism of nature. Peace becomes a technical task of reconciling empirical conditions with the purpose of history.<sup>24</sup> The meaning of history is identical with man's aspirations; moral norms constitute but a means for the achievement of an immanent aim, expressed in the nine principles for a Universal History.<sup>25</sup>

22 See post discussion of this argument.

23 Friedrich, op. cit., p. 117 (Idea for Universal History).

24 See Kant, op. cit., p. 452 (Eternal Peace) and post.

25 Kant's nine principles are:

1. All natural aptitudes of a creature are destined to unfold themselves completely and purposefully.

2. As for man (the only rational creature on earth), those natural aptitudes which are directed toward the use of his reason will develop fully in the species, but not in the individual.

3. Nature has willed that man should develop completely by himself everything which goes beyond the mechanical ordering of his animal existence, and that he should not (cont.)

32

Schweitzer's criticism is thus validated by Kant's "Idea for a Universal History." The meaning of history derived from the categorical imperative is identical with the design of nature. The moral law emerges as the tool of a hidden mechanism. The confusion of the ethical and the natural is complete. It makes little difference whether morality claims the sanction of history or vice versa, in this scheme both are reduced to parallel appearance of the same inexorability.

(note 25 cont.)

partake of any happiness or perfection except such as he has secured by and for himself through his own reason, independent of instinct.

4. The means which nature employes to produce the development of all man's aptitudes is the antagonism in society, since this antagonism becomes in the end the cause of a lawful order of society.

5. The greatest problem for the species man, the solution of which nature forces upon him, is the establishment of a civil society which generally administers the law.

6. This problem is mankind's most difficult problem and will be the last solved by the species.

7. The problem of the establishment of a perfect civil constitution is dependent upon a lawful external relation between states and cannot be solved without it.

8. It is possible to look upon the history of the human species in the large as the execution of a hidden plan of nature - to bring about a constitution which is perfect internally, and for this purpose also externally - because this is the only state in which nature can develop all aptitudes of mankind fully.

9. A philosophical attempt to treat general world history according to a plan of nature which aims at the perfect civil association of the human species must be considered possible and as itself promoting this purpose of nature.

33

Kant's moral philosophy derived from his conception that ethics depended on a direct relation to the infinite, a transcendental experience that sets its own conditions. The distinction between noumena and phenomena represented a resolve to escape the determined inevitability of the physical world and to make room for purposiveness in the causal unfolding of events. The postulates of God, freedom and immortality insisted that the empirical world offered no obstacles to the experience of noumenal reality. The nine articles of the essay on Eternal Peace apply this moral experience to the political realm and to history.

The Idea for a Universal History derives the sanction for its political maxims from an inexorable development, however. In its view peace results not from the determination of the will by the moral law, but from the proper evaluation of technical requirements. The vision of universal reconciliation arises as but the revolt of a frustrated soul against the dark uncertainties of constant warfare. Discord may produce harmony, but only through an analysis of its conditions, not from a conception of duty. Experience now produces morality, instead of the categorical imperative supplying norms to experience. This becomes very apparent in the following quotation from the Appendix to Eternal Peace:

> The problem of establishing a state is solvable even for a people of devils, if only they have intelligence though this may sound harsh. It may be stated thus. (Then Kant formulates a hypothetical

34

technical problem on the proper balancing of selfish tendencies.) Such a problem must (Author's italics) be solvable. For it is not the moral perfection of mankind, but merely the mechanism of nature, which this task seeks to know how to use in order to arrange the conflict of unpacific attitudes in a given people in such a way that they impel each other to compulsory laws and thus bring about the state of peace in which such laws are enforced.... In short we can say that nature wants irresistibly that law achieve superior force. If one neglects to do this, it will be accomplished anyhow, albeit with much inconvenience. 26

The transcendental experience of morality has disappeared as a guide to action. A mechanism replaces the categorical imperative as a motive force. Freedom becomes a mode of causality. Volition operates as a tool of an inexorable necessity.

It can be maintained, of course, that Kant formulates this teleology, as a thought one adds to, but does not really find in nature.²⁷ But this distinction is more apparent than real. The tentativeness of a hypothesis applies only to its conclusions, not to the possibility of solving the problem. Its very existence testifies to a belief in the efficacy of its endeavor. The hypothetical nature of Kant's teleology can not hide the fact that he considered a knowledge of specific purposes in the mechanical course of nature both possible and

26 Friedrich, op. cit., p. 452 (Eternal Peace). In view of Kant's sharp criticism of merely technical solutions in the Appendix one would be inclined to consider this statement as in the vein of gentle irony which permeates Eternal Peace. The correspondence of this view to the Idea for a Universal History makes this impossible, however.

27 Friedrich, op. cit., p. 448 (Inevitable Peace).

35

necessary. The tentativeness of the formulation allows a
criticism of the specific purpose which Kant finds in history.
It can not affect, however, the basic argument of this dis-
cussion that an ascription of any purpose is neither necessary
nor possible, if Kant's original analysis is valid.

If the categorical imperative derives from an experience
of freedom that lifts man above the determined inevitability
of phenomena, the mechanical course of nature can have no
bearing on its applicability. If the necessary unfolding of
events automatically produces the proper disposition of the
will, the experience of freedom becomes meaningless and the
categorical imperative a mere technical problem. No compromise
between these two positions is possible. Either ethical ac-
tivity can be meaningful out of an apprehension of its prin-
ciple or it is reduced to a function of nature's mechanism.
Though a contemplation of the regularity of phenomena may
yield an intuition of a design as the very condition of appear-
ances, purposiveness can not be equated with specific purposes.
One can grant the existence of a higher world-order, in which
one participates through the experience of freedom, without at
the same time defining its conditions.²⁸

Again, in order to resolve these difficulties one might
draw the inference that the physical world did contain a
limiting condition to the universal applicability of the cate-

28 See post for distinction between purposiveness and purposes.

36

gorical imperative from the following statement in the Meta-
physics of Morals. "It is our duty to act according to the
idea of such an end which reason commands (namely peace) even
if there is not the least probability that it can be achieved,
provided its impossibility can not be demonstrated." This is
Professor Friedrich's view who considers Kant's qualifying
clause a fundamental condition of his moral philosophy, an
important connecting link between the realm of freedom and the
realm of necessity: "No one was more clearly aware...of the
necessity of testing hypothetical judgment by experience than
Kant. No work of Kant's shows this more conclusively than
Eternal Peace. In the Appendix he insisted (as of course he
had often done before) that only what is possible can be morally
required and he recites the dictum of the law ultra posse nemo
obligatur. This is precisely the reason for showing the pos-
sibility that in peace-making, as in other human affairs, we
learn by doing."²⁹ Thus fact and norm are reconciled, the
course of history reveals man's aspirations.

This solution is not completely satisfactory, however.
Its validity depends on what Kant meant by a proof of impos-
sibility. Professor Friedrich implies that the applicability
of Kant's moral law depends on its attainability in the empirical
realm. But the whole tendency of Kant's philosophy denies this.
Throughout his Critique of Practical Reason and in innumerable
essays (e.g. Theory and Practice), Kant insisted that the

29 Friedrich, Inevitable Peace, p. 52.

38

But God speaks to man through the categorical imperative.³¹ It commands through a priori considerations and by its own inward necessity. Wherever its maxims seem to be in conflict with the empirical world, Kant invokes postulates which override all considerations of phenomenal reality -- God, freedom and immortality. To be sure, Kant often discusses the question of the "possibility" of his moral maxims. But this feasibility did not depend on an evaluation of phenomenal reality. On the contrary, Kant repeatedly asserts that the possibility of the categorical imperative is given in its very conception. It is a logical, not an empirical possibility.³²

(note 30 cont.)

conditions are previously defined, the situation is, of course, different. A demonstration of possibility, on the other hand, involves only the evaluation of a particular set of circumstances. But Kant specifically required a proof of impossibility.

31 This is based on Kant's later writings. See N. Kemp Smith, op. cit., p. 608.

32 Two quotations will illustrate this point. The first is from Theory and Practice. Friedrich, The Philosophy of Kant, p. 429.

"...There exists a concept which may be expressed by the words constitutional law. If this concept has binding force ...it has objective practical reality without our considering what good or ill may result; for the knowledge of these results is based purely on experience. If this be so, then constitutional law is based purely on experience. If this be so, then constitutional law is based upon principles a priori since what is right can not be taught by experience. A theory of constitutional law exists with which practice must agree in order to be valid."

(cont.)

39

Professor Friedrich draws the inference from Kant's philosophy that we learn by experience. This undoubtedly exhibits the implications of the Idea for a Universal History, and the Appendix to Eternal Peace. But this raises the question of what it is that man learns by experience? If the analysis of the critiques is valid, it can not be the formulation of the categorical imperative for that which derives from a priori considerations. It can not be the cognition of phenomena, since a priori judgments prescribe their form. We may learn the technical implementation of moral laws but only as a counsel of prudence, not as a criterion of validity. Moreover, even granting the need for demonstrating possibility it would still hardly support an inevitable historical development.³³

(note 32 cont.)

The second quotation is from the Critique of Practical Reason: Friedrich, op. cit., p. 262: "The second view (the moral experience) raises my value infinitely, as an intelligence, through my personality; for in this personality the moral law reveals a life independent of animality and even of the entire world of sense.... This is not restricted to the conditions and limits of this life but radiates into the infinite."

33 The following quotation from Eternal Peace illustrates these remarks:

"In order to harmonize practical philosophy within itself, it is necessary first to decide the question whether in tasks of practical reason we should start from the material i.e. substantive) principle, from its end, or from its formal one...which states: Act in such a way that you could want your maxim to become a general law (whatever its purpose might be). Without a doubt the (cont.)

40

The incommensurability of Kant's critical philosophy and his teleological philosophy of history can not be overcome by considering the latter a demonstration for the possibility of the moral law. It may be argued however that Kant's Idea for a Universal History merely reveals another aspect of a methodology which attempts to attain knowledge by means of a priori principles. But again the similarity is misleading. The categories represent forms that explain the process of cognition. The categorical imperative derives from a moral experience and reconciles a personal experience with universal applicability. The content of both the categories and the categorical imperative depends, however, upon subsequent experience. This is the very quality which makes them synthetic.

But the conception of a definite purpose in the unfolding of events goes beyond these limits. It does not reveal

(note 33 cont.)

latter principle must take precedence; for as a principle of right it possesses absolute necessity, whereas the material principle is compelling only on condition that the empirical conditions for its realization exist.... The first principle (which conceives peace as a material end), that of the political moralist is a mere technical task; the second which is the principle of the moral politician as an ethical task....which is now decided not merely as a physical good, but as a condition resulting from the recognition of duty. Much knowledge of nature is required for the solution of the first problem of political prudence, in order to utilize its mechanism for this purpose and yet it is all rather uncertain as far as the result, eternal peace is concerned....By contrast the solution of the second problem of political wisdom readily presents itself, is evident to everyone, confounds all artifice and leads directly to the end...."

41

a frame-work for apprehending phenomena, but prescribes their essence. Peace or a Civic Constitution is not analogous as an a priori principle to either the categories or the moral law. The categories are truly a priori because they merely provide the structure for subsequent experience. The categorical imperative furnishes only the condition of moral action. But peace or a civic constitution constitutes the application of a general principle, not an a priori mode of historical knowledge. As specific purposes they enjoy no greater standing than any other postulation of hypothetical goals. One can accept the assumption of a general teleology, but Kant's previous analysis leaves no room for the knowledge of a particular design.

What then is a general teleological principle? The Critique of Judgment addresses itself to this problem. Kant argues that the regularity exhibited by phenomena implies a design in nature. Just as the appearance of a hexagonal on a deserted island could not be explained by an accidental constellation of events, but would involve a principle of purposiveness, so we can postulate a teleology in the unfolding of phenomena as the condition for their regularity and for the consistency of natural laws.³⁴ But a general principle of

34 Bernard, Critique of Judgment, p. 28.

42

purposiveness does not necessarily imply a knowledge of
specific purposes. Kant admits this and draws a sharp distinc-
tion between a determinative and a reflective purposiveness,
between a derivative and a constitutive design.³⁵ A deter-
minative purposiveness attempts to impose its aspirations as
a pattern of objective reality. A constitutive design invokes
its principles as the objective immanence of phenomenal oc-
currences. Kant, on the other hand, obtains his teleology
from the reflective judgment which is led to this conclusion
through an intuition that a mechanistic conception of the
universe can not account for the organic aspects of growth.
The design he postulates is derivative because it conceives
the world as a process of becoming only to make meaningful the
reality revealed by pure reason.

Kant's Critique of Judgment thus completes his meta-
physics and his moral philosophy. The noumena for the cog-
nition of which the Critique of Pure Reason provided necessary
forms and whose pervasiveness was affirmed by the moral
philosophy, are now further apprehended by a teleological
principle which makes causal knowledge meaningful. Kant calls
attention to the fact that a mechanistic conception of the
universe can not suffice for its understanding and that reason
must add a teleology, not indeed known by the methods of the
first two Critiques but nonetheless certain. Yet this judgment

35 Bernard, op. cit., p. 259 et seq.

43

limits itself to ascribing an intrinsic purposefulness, the embodiment of which in specific purposes remains a mystery. ³⁶

Causality explains the incidental appearances, teleology the underlying unity of organic growth. ³⁷

But the consistency of Kant's philosophy begins to be destroyed by his subsequent introduction of the concept of extrinsic purposefulness. ³⁸ Since man, he argues, is the only creature capable of forming an idea of teleology he is

36 The following quotation illustrates Kant's distinction between purposiveness and purposes between an intrinsic and an extrinsic teleology. Bernard, op. cit., p. 2772.

"We can see that external purposiveness can be regarded as an external natural purpose only under the condition that the existence of that being to which it is immediately or distantly advantageous is in itself a purpose of nature. Since that can never be completely determined by a mere contemplation of nature it follows that relative purposiveness, although it hypothetically gives indications of natural purposes yet justifies no absolute teleological judgment. Snow in cold countries protects the crops from the frost; it makes human inter-course easier by means of sleighs. (Here follows an enumeration of conditions that make existence in arctic countries possible.) Here is a wonderful concurrence of many references of nature to one purpose.... But then we do not see why generally men must live there at all. Therefore to say that vapour falls out of the atmosphere in the form of snow, that the sea has its currents which float down the wood which has grown in warmer lands, and that there are in it great sea monsters filled with oil, because (author's italics) the idea of advantage for certain poor creatures is fundamental for the cause which collects all these natural products would be a very venturesome and arbitrary judgment." It is interesting to note that despite this refutation Kant uses almost exactly the same argument in his *Essay for Eternal Peace* (see Friedrich, op. cit., p. 449 et seq.)

37 Note similarity to Spengler's morphology.

38 Bernard, op. cit., p. 361 et seq.

44

also the final purpose of the universe. Yet this mistakes a
mode of apprehending reality for the objective principle of
its operation. The categories of reason prescribe the form
of our cognition of phenomena but not a property of their
occurrence. Causality is a mode of comprehension, not an
attribute of "reality"; it is explanatory, not descriptive.
The moral experience represents our intuition of the noumena;
but it is not itself the nouminon. Finally the teleological
judgment makes intelligible the regularity of phenomena by a
principle of purposiveness. But this principle is again ex-
planatory and not descriptive; it is not identical with the
meaning of occurrences any more than the categories are iden-
tical with the phenomena.

Thus Kant argues a priori only when he invokes an
intrinsic purposiveness, a formal moral law and the categories.
An inevitable historical development or a specific purpose
of the universe can not be reconciled with this view. The
noumena which produce appearances are approached through a
personal experience of freedom, not by way of historical law.
Though this may leave an area of indeterminacy in our existence
it makes possible Kant's vision of the dignity of the in-
dividual whose will gives maxims of universal validity despite
his insignificance as but a speck in a determined system. Kant's
Essay on Eternal Peace testifies to this, to the norms which man
gives to himself and to the meaning which humanity may impart
to the inexorability of events.

45

## Conclusions

Western philosophy has been stated in its most inclusive form by Kant. All the strands of previous centuries seem to converge in his philosophy, only to separate again as succeeding generations found new foci of significance. Thus Kant is the father both of the idealism of Hegel, the Romanticism of Schopenhauer and even of the materialism of positivism.

He found metaphysics and epistemology at an impasse and if he did not answer all its problems at least indicated tendencies of possible development. He was confronted with the problem of "reality" and our ideas about it. Rationalism could not transcend its analytic judgments a priori because it had made the "self-evidence" of innate ideas its criterion for truth. Empiricism had been unable to achieve universality because its synthetic judgments a posteriori denied the possibility of general validity. In these terms, morality had become either a technical mastery of natural relations or a pleasing feeling of benevolence, while freedom appeared either as meaningless or as a mode of causality.

Kant's most profound intuition was perhaps not the apprehension of the moral law, nor even of the cognition of phenomena by the categories, but the insistence that meta-physics had to trace the area of the knowable as the condition for any experience, even empirical, and that an analysis of the nature of these experiences had to precede the determination

46

of the mode of their cognition. This led Kant to his distinction between phenomenal and noumenal reality which while limiting knowledge to make room for belief also pointed the way towards the resolution of the paradox of an external reality and innate ideas. By confining empirical knowledge to the world of phenomena and by reversing the epistemological assumptions of his predecessors, Kant could develop synthetic a priori principles which were both universal and instructive, for knowledge conceived as dependent on the structure of the mind makes "laws" explanatory not descriptive, and leaves room for significant new experiences.

Kant's analysis of the nature of moral experiences yielded the categorical imperative as a guide not only to private actions but also to political institutions and to the meaning of history. If his moral fervor sometimes led Kant to equate the course of history with man's experience of morality and thereby impaired the consistency of his philosophy, we must not let that detract too much from its imposing symmetry. The interrelationship of metaphysics, epistemology, moral philosophy, political theory and philosophy of history has rarely been more imposingly presented -- and the very inconsistencies merely serve to point up the greater harmony.

BIBLIOGRAPHY

Kant, Immanuel, Critique of Judgment (translated by J. H. Bernard, MacMillan Co., 1914).

The Fundamental Principles of a Metaphysics of Morals

Critique of Practical Reason (both translated by T. K. Abbott - Kant's Theory of Ethics - Longmans, Green and Co., 1909).

Critique of Pure Reason (translated by Max Muller, MacMillan Co., 1927).

Idea for a Universal History (translated by C. J. Friedrich, The Philosophy of Kant, Modern Library, 1949).

Eternal Peace (translated by C. J. Friedrich, The Philosophy of Kant, Modern Library, 1949).

Bibliography on Kant

Caird, Edward, The Critical Philosophy of Kant. Macmillan, 1889.

Cassirer, Ernst, Rousseau, Kant, Goethe, Essays by Ernst Cassirer translated by James Gutman and Oscar Kristetten. Princeton University Press, 1940.

Friedrich, C. J., Inevitable Peace. Harvard University Press, 1948.

Lindsay, A. D., The Philosophy of Immanuel Kant. Ernest Benn, Ltd.

Smith, Norman K., A Commentary to Kant's Critique of Pure Reason. MacMillan Co., 1918.

## Introduction

2

With premises self-evident, method became of paramount
concern. This is probably best expressed in Descartes, the
founder of modern philosophy, who laid down the following four
rules for abstract speculation. (1) To accept nothing but
what is self-evident. (2) To resolve each problem into parts
small enough to be individually examined. (3) To advance by
a series of steps from self-evident premise to certain deduc-
tion. (4) To linger on each problem until all its possi-
bilities are examined.

His central problem can be defined as an inquiry into
the very possibility of knowledge. What relation exists be-
tween objective reality and our ideas about it? There is
daily proof of the fallibility of sense-impressions and it
is possible that some malignant demon might so warp the cog-
nitive faculties that a rational knowledge of reality becomes
illusory. Descartes escapes from this total solipsism by
first asserting that, whatever the power of the deceiver,
thought implies a thinking substance and the reality of the "I"
who thinks and doubts is thereby assured. Moreover the inter-
vention of an omnipotent God, who by definition can not be a
deceiver, guarantees the reality of the physical world. The
Cartesian dualism posits two finite substances, thinking and
extended both of objective reality, with God, the Infinite

3

Spinoza opted for the God. He denied that different substances of thought and matter existed. The universe in all its manifestations merely reveals God as the unity of all nature and its immanent cause. Matter and Mind disclose but attributes of the Divine, one viewed under the aspect of extension, the other as thought. In such a scheme the experience of freedom becomes the emanation of the Deity as the only source of all motivation. Causality in the Universe, purposiveness in events can never, for Spinoza, serve as explanatory principle. There are no actions, only happenings. Everything occurs by inward necessity, expressed by conatus, the tendency to persevere in one's own being. Moral sanction attaches to actions that support this effort, no other connotation of

4

5

for blessedness, mankind's real liberty. Knowledge of an
external reality has developed into the intuition of an in-
ward acceptance. Freedom for Spinoza ultimately resides in a
mystic relationship to the Infinite, which would however have
been impossible without the guidance of Reason, in a resignation
that gives peace, in the tranquillity of perfect knowledge.

Yet the difficulties of a concept that required in-
tuitive insight were too great. An era of new scientific dis-
covery, particularly in physics, seemed to demonstrate that
the true source of knowledge was not the mind but nature, in-
deed that the mind is instructed by nature. Locke, founding
the school of British Empiricists, conceived of the mind as a
blank tablet endowed with a wax-like capacity of receiving
sense impressions. Thus the other implication of Descartes
was developed into an assertion of the primacy of the physical
substance, into a rejection of any innate ideas.

Carried to its ultimate conclusion by Hume, this led to
a total metaphysical scepticism. Knowledge was based on sense
experience, reasoning revealed the habitual expectation of
recurrent situations. Cause and effect constituted but the
representation of a constant conjunction of events, so that the
appearance of event A, leads to the anticipation of event B.
Yet one can not postulate a necessary connection between A and
B. Space and time merely exhibit the result of certain regularities or juxtapositions of empirical entities. Thus

6

7

tive pattern of reality.³ Yet the attempt to achieve certainty by an analysis of innate ideas was doomed to failure, despite many great achievements of internal consistency. The judgments of the rationalists were analytic and therefore empty. They could provide no clue to the evaluation of new experience; indeed they tended to deny its possibility. The problem of the objective existence of external reality and its relation to innate ideas was in this formulation insolvable. The difficulty of the rationalist position is best expressed by their ultimate recourse to an inward experience, subjective certainty, as the final criterion of the objective validity of their judgments.

8

Kant's Metaphysical Theory

9

10

The validity of Kant's Critique of Pure Reason depends
on his analysis of the frame work within which phenomenal
experience occurs. Time and Space, in this sense, are not
empirical entities nor properties of objects but patterns im-
posed by the mind on nature. Space is an absolute requirement
to enable us to refer experiences to objects outside ourselves.
The non-existence of space can not even be imagined, though
space without objects to fill it is conceivable. Similarly,
substance constitutes a category to account for the possibility
of change, for unless a permanence in some respects is
postulated each modification would involve a new object.

11

12

The rigorousness and symmetry of Kant's method can not
be over-emphasized. He fully recognized the importance of
metaphysics and epistemology for the understanding of a reality,
which is not however exhausted by the categories of pure reason.
Kant's metaphysics while tracing the boundaries of human
knowledge serve at the same time as the condition for a moral
ethics that give a profound expression to the intrinsic worth
of the moral personality, and to the dignity of the individual.

## Moral Philosophy

13

14

15

16

17

But how can the categorical imperative furnish a con-
ception of its possibility? If man forms part of nature --
as all experience indicates -- he is ruled by causality. This
raises a series of other antinomies. Man attempts to achieve
a morality seemingly unattainable in a finite existence. He
longs for the Summum Bonum -- happiness commensurate with
virtue-but the phenomenal world offers no assurance of such
a connection.

18

This enables Kant to connect his ethics with Christian doctrine without attempting -- like Toynbee -- to claim the sanction of external reality for this effort. The moral law is holy and presupposes a will directly determined by its commands. Yet all man can achieve in this life is a rightful disposition arising out of respect for the law. The yearning for the bliss of holiness therefore postulates eternity. The order of nature can offer no happiness as an inducement for the performance of the moral law. But the Christian concept of the Kingdom of God opens vistas of a profounder plane, in which terrestrial striving dissolves in the blessedness of inward peace. In the same sense Kant understands the biblical command of loving God and of loving one's neighbor as oneself. Physical love can not be commanded. But a feeling of respect for the experience of the moral law, a liking to do one's duty based on an a priori conception expressed in the categorical

19

7 Schweitzer - The Philosophy of Civilization, p. 182 et seq.

20

21

whole truth within themselves and that are therefore definitions,
not maxims. It can be approximated by deductive inferences
but only in terms of a criterion of significance. Thus
Sartre's problem is soluble -- though not from a priori con-
siderations of the categorical imperative. It presupposes a
conception of the nature of ultimate ends, of which both the
young Frenchman and his mother might represent merely instances.
This is no more than saying that the categorical imperative
presupposes and expresses a moral experience which sets the norms;
it is not itself the moral experience. To require *of* ethics to
lay down specific rules for each contingency would not only
deny the whole tendency of Kant's thought but could be accom-
plished but by an infinite mind.

But Schweitzer offers another fundamental criticism.⁹
The union of ethical and epistemological idealism in Kant,
implies -- according to Schweitzer -- that the noumenal reality
which reveals itself as the moral law in man operates as the
objective principle in the physical world as well. If the
phenomenal world discloses but the manifestation of a transcen-
dental reality then the events brought about by causation are
merely parallel appearances of occurrences which the intellect
produces under the conception of freedom. Freedom and ethics
thus become a mode of necessity; an immanence rules exis-
tence, only the apprehension of which differs, but not its
operation.

9 Schweitzer, op. cit., p. 186 et seq.

22

23

is acknowledged." With this assertion of the absolute per-
vasiveness of the moral law begins the Appendix to Kant's
Essay on Eternal Peace. ¹⁰ No conflict can exist between theory
and practice in the political realm any more than in the moral.
The categorical imperative applies to all activity, in every
field; its possibility is postulated by its very conception. ¹¹

But what is the nature of the duty which the categorical imperative commands from a priori considerations? Kant finds the answer in the second formulation of the categorical imperative, that man must always be treated as an end, never as a means. In the domestic field this implies the creation of a republican constitution, in which the categorical imperative is institutionalized in a General will. ¹² In relations between the states this makes the attainment of eternal peace the statesman's noblest duty.

24

25

26

The six preliminary articles are, however, directed only
at specific abuses; they are almost rules of prudence and
applications of a more general principles. But what is the
meaning of a moral imperative in politics and as a normative
principle of historical events? How can the command for peace
be shown to represent more than a philosopher's preference?
Above all, who is the object of the command for eternal peace?
It is to these problems that Kant's three definitive articles
for eternal peace address themselves.

27

15 Kant, *Eternal Peace* (Friedrich, op. cit., p. 431).

28

29

history's ultimate purpose.

30

We must now consider Kant's Idea for a Universal History.<sup>20</sup>
<u>The Philosophy of History - Conceived as a Teleological System</u>

Kant poses three possible modes for the apprehension of
historical events: History can be conceived as the unfolding of
a plan (either natural or divine depending on the point-of-view)
to develop humanity from the lowest state of animality to the
highest level of human freedom. On the other hand it may reveal
no more than constellations of power which will remain in flux
until an accident produces a stable configuration. Finally, one
can deny any pattern in history, leaving merely a senseless al-
ternation of peace and war, of the rise and decline of empires.<sup>21</sup>
Kant opts for the first alternative. Just as synthetic a priori
principles provided the condition for the universality of moral
maxims and for the cognition of phenomena, so may history be
understood by their aid. It is only necessary to analyze the
real nature of historical knowledge to find the forms which
explain the meaning of events.

31

32

(note 25 cont.)

33

34

technical problem on the proper balancing of selfish tendencies.) Such a problem *must* (Author's italics) be solvable. For it is not the moral perfection of mankind, but merely the mechanism of nature, which this task seeks to know how to use in order to arrange the conflict of unpacific attitudes in a given people in such a way that they impel each other to compulsory laws and thus bring about the state of peace in which such laws are enforced.... In short we can say that nature wants irresistibly that law achieve superior force. If one neglects to do this, it will be accomplished anyhow, albeit with much inconvenience. 26

35

36

37

empirical world could offer no obstacles to a moral law which directly determines the will. This is precisely Kant's meaning of "practical." Moreover, the quoted passage does not insist on a proof of the feasibility of the moral law. This indeed would make the empirical world the determining principle of the categorical imperative. On the contrary, it affirmed the obligation of the categorical imperative even if there is not the slightest probability of its being achieved. But how can a law be binding in the face of all probability and still not be obligatory if its impossibility is demonstrated?

The apparent contradiction is resolved if we consider that Kant was quite aware of the fact that an absolute proof of impossibility is out of the question. For what methodology could such an effort utilize? If the particular constellation of political circumstances does not suffice to negate the duty to work for eternal peace, if it is commanded against "all probability" (and probability implies an evaluation of existing relations), then no proof for the impossibility of moral maxims is conceivable. Only an infinite mind, encompassing all possible conditions, could make this demonstration.³⁰

30 Though it may well be that a methodology that disproves impossibility affirms possibility, a psychological difference, exists nevertheless. A strict proof of impossibility in the empirical world and particularly in the political realm seems out of the question since it would involve a grasp of all possible conditions. In the case of logical constructions such as mathematics in which all (cont.)

39

Professor Friedrich draws the inference from Kant's
philosophy that we learn by experience. This undoubtedly
exhibits the implications of the Idea for a Universal History,
and the Appendix to Eternal Peace. But this raises the ques-
tion of what it is that man learns by experience? If the
analysis of the critiques is valid, it can not be the formu-
lation of the categorical imperative for that derives from
a priori considerations. It can not be the cognition of
phenomena, since a priori judgments prescribe their form. We
may learn the technical implementation of moral laws but only
as a counsel of prudence, not as a criterion of validity.
Moreover, even granting the need for demonstrating possibility
it would still hardly support an inevitable historical develop-
ment.³³

(note 32 cont.)

The second quotation is from the Critique of Practical
Reason: Friedrich, op. cit., p. 262: "The second view (the
moral experience) raises my value infinitely, as an in-
telligence, through my personality; for in this per-
sonality the moral law reveals a life independent of
animality and even of the entire world of sense.... This
is not restricted to the conditions and limits of this
life but radiates into the infinite."

40

(note 33 cont.)

41

42

43

36 The following quotation illustrates Kant's distinction between purposiveness and purposes between an intrinsic and an extrinsic teleology. Bernard, op. cit., p. 272.

"We can see that external purposiveness can be regarded as an external natural purpose only under the condition that the existence of that being to which it is immediately or distantly advantageous is in itself a purpose of nature. Since that can never be completely determined by a mere contemplation of nature it follows that relative purposiveness, although it hypothetically gives indications of natural purposes yet justifies no absolute teleological judgment. Snow in cold countries protects the crops from the frost; it makes human inter-course easier by means of sleighs. (Here follows an enumeration of conditions that make existence in arctic countries possible.) Here is a wonderful concurrence of many references of nature to one purpose.... But then we do not see why generally men must live there at all. Therefore to say that vapour falls out of the atmosphere in the form of snow, that the sea has its currents which float down the wood which has grown in warmer lands, and that there are in it great sea monsters filled with oil, because (author's italics) the idea of advantage for certain poor creatures is fundamental for the cause which collects all these natural products would be a very venturesome and arbitrary judgment." It is interesting to note that despite this refutation Kant uses almost exactly the same argument in his Essay for Eternal Peace (see Friedrich, op. cit., p. 449 et seq.)

44

45

## Conclusions

46

BIBLIOGRAPHY

Bibliography on Kant