Page:Catholic Encyclopedia, volume 8.djvu/683

 KANT

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KANT

ances, the ground of which is an unknowable material something; and the best way to organize and systema- tize all our knowledge of reality is to represent every- tliiiis; MS springing from one source, governed by one l:iw,:in.l tending towards one end, the law, the source, Hiid ilie iMid lioing an unknown and (speculatively) unknuwahle God. It is very easy to see how this negative phase of Kant's philosophy affected the subsequent course of philosophic thought in Europe. The conclusions of the first "Critique" are the prem- ises of contemporary Agnosticism. We can know nothing except the appearances of things; the senses reach only phenomena; judgment does not go any deeper than the senses, so far as the external world is concerned; science and philosophy fail utterly in the effort to reach a knowledge of substance (noumenon), or essence, and the attempts of metaphysics to teach us what the soul is, what matter is, what God is, have failed and are doomed to inevitable failure. These are the conclusions which Kant reaches in the "Criti- que of Pure Reason"; they are the assumptions of the Agnostic and of the Neo-Kantian opponent of Scholas- ticism.

(2) Kant, it has often been said, tore down in order to build up. What he took away in the first " Critique" he gave back in the second. In the "Critique of Pure Reason" he showed that the truths which have always been considered the most important in the w'hole range of human knowledge have no foundation in metaphysical, that is, purely speculative, reasoning. In the "Crit'.que of Practical Reasoning" he aims at showing that these truths rest on a solid moral basis, and are thus placed above all speculative contention antl the clamour of metaphysical dispute. He has o\'('rthrown the imposing edifice which Cartesian dogmatism had built on the foundation "I think"; he niiw sets about the task of rebuilding the temple of truth on the foundation "I ought." The moral law is supreme. In point of certainty, it is superior to any deliverance of the purely speculative conscious- ness; I am more certain that "I ought" than I am that "I am glad", "I am cold", etc. In point of in- sistence, it is superior to any consideration of interest, pleasure or happiness; I can forego what is for my interest, I can set other considerations above pleasure and happiness, but if my conscience tells me that " I ought" to do something, nothing can gainsay the voice of conscience, though, of course, I am free to obey or disobey. This, then, is the one unshakable foundation of all moral, spiritual, and higher intellec- tual truth. The first peculiarity of the moral law is that it is universal and necessary. When conscience tleclares that it is wrong to tell a lie, the voice is not merely intended for here and now, not for "just this once", but for all time and for all space; it is valid always and everywhere. This quality of universality and necessity shows at once that the moral law has no foundation in pleasure, happiness, the perfection of self, or a so-called moral sense. It is its own foun- dation. Its voice reaches conscience immediately, commands unconditionally, and need give no reason for its behests. It is not, so to speak, a constitutional monarch amenable to reason, judgment, or any other faculty. It exacts unconditional, and in a sense unreasoned, obedience. Hence the " hollow voice" of the moral law is called by Kant " the categorical im- perative". This celebrated phrase means merely that the moral law is a command (imperative), not a form of advice or invitation to act or not to act; and it is an unconditional (categorical) command, not a command in the hypothetical mood, such as "If you wish to lie a clergyman you must study theology." One should not, however, overlook the peculiarly empty character of the categorical imperative. Only in its most universal "hollow" utterances does it possess those qualities which render it unique in human experience. But as soon as the contingent

data, or contents of a spjecific moral precept, are presented to it, it imposes its universality and neces- sity on them and lifts them to its own level. The contents may have been good, but they could not have been absolutely good; for nothing is absolutely good except good will — the acceptance, that is, of the moral law.

We know the moral law not by inference, but by immediate intuition. This intuition is, as it were, the primum philosophicum. It takes the place of Des- cartes' primary intuition of his own thought. From it all the important truths of philosophy are deduced, the freedom of the will, the immortality of the .soul, and the existence of God. The freedom of the will follows from the existence of the moral law, because the fact that " I ought " implies the fact that "I can. " I know that I ought to do a certain thing, and from this I infer that I can. In the order of things, of course, freedom precedes obligation. In the order of knowledge, I infer freedom from the fact of oliligation. Similarly, the immortality of the soul is implied in the moral law. The moral law demands complete fulfil- ment of itself in absolute human perfection. But the highest perfection that man can attain in this life is only partial or incomplete perfection, because, so long as the soul is united with the body, there is always in our nature a mixture of the corporeal with the spirit- ual; the striving towards holiness is accompanied by an inclination towards unholiness, and virtue implies a struggle. There must, therefore, be a life beyond the grave in which this "endless progress", as Kant calls it, will be continued. Finally, the moral law implies the existence of God. And that in two ways. The authoritative "voice" of the law implies a lawgiver. Moreover, the nature of the moral law implies that there be somewhere a good which is not only supreme, but complete, which embodies in its perfect holiness all the conditions which the moral law implies. This supreme good is God.

(3) Intermediate between the speculative reason, which is the faculty of knowledge, and practical reason, which is the faculty of voluntary action, is the faculty which Kant calls judgment, and which is the faculty of aesthetic appreciation. As the true is the object of knowledge, and as the good is the object of action, the beautiful and purposive is the object of judgment. By this peculiar use of the word judgment Kant places himself at once outside the ranks of the sensists, who refer all the constituents of beauty to sense-perceived qualities. He is an intellectualist in aesthetics, reduc- ing the beautiful to elements of intellectuality. The beautiful, he teaches, is that which universally and necessarily gives disinterested pleasure, without the concept of definite design. It differs, consequently, from the agreeable and the useful. However, Kant is careful to remark that the enjoyment of the beautiful is not purely intellectual, as is the satisfaction which we experience in contemplating the perfect. The i)i'r- fect appeals to the intellect alone, while the beautiful appeals also to the emotions and to the ajstlietic fac- ulty. Closely allied to the beautiful is the purposive. The same faculty, judgment, which enables us to per- ceive and enjoy the cesthetic aspect of natvire and of art, enables us also to perceive that in the manifold v-ariety of our experience there is evidence of purpose or design. Kant introduced in his "Critique" of the teleological judgment an important distinction between external and internal adaptation. External adaptation, he taught, exists between the organism and its environ- ment, as, for instance, between the plant and the soil in which it grows. Internal adaptation exi.sts among the structural parts of the organism, or between the organism and its function. The former, he lielieved, could be explained by merely mechanical causes, liut the latter necessitates the introduction of tin- coiiei'pt of final cause. Organisms act as though llicy were produced liy a cau.se which had a purpose in view. We