Page:History of Modern Philosophy (Falckenberg).djvu/344

 322 KANT. fundamental question of the possibility of knowledge Human intelligence, which the dogmatist had approached with unreasoned trust and the skeptic with just as unrea- soned distrust, is subjected, according to the plan of the critical philosopher, to a searching examination. For this reason Kant termed his standpoint "criticism," and his undertaking a " Critique of Reason." Instead of assert- ing and denying, he investigates how knowledge arises, of what factors it is composed, and how far it extends. He inquires into the origin and extent of knowledge, into its sources and its limits, into the grounds of its existence and of its legitimacy. The Critique of Reason finds itself con- fronted by two problems, the second of which cannot be solved until after the solution of the first. The investiga- tion of the sources of knowledge must precede the inquiry into the extent of knowledge. Only after the conditions of knowledge have been established can it be ascertained what objects are attainable by it. Its sphere cannot be deter- mined except from its origin. Whether the critical philosopher stands nearer to the skeptic or to the dogmatist is rather an idle question. He is specifically distinct from both, in that he summons and guides the reason to self-contemplation, to a methodical examination of itscapacity for knowledge. Where the one had blindly trusted and the other suspected and denied, he investigates ; they overlook, he raises the question of the possibility of knowledge. The critical problem does not I mean, Does a faculty of knowledge exist ? but. Of what f powers is it composed ? are all objects knowable which I have been so regarded ? Kant does not ask whether, but how and by what means, knowledge is possible. Everyone who gives himself to scientific reflection must postulate that knowledge is possible, and the demand of the noetica* theorists of the day for a philosophy absolutely without assumptions is quite incapable of fulfillment. Nay, in order to be able to begin his inquiry at all, it was necessary for Kant to assume still more special postulates ; for that a cognition of cognition is possible, that there is a critical, self-investigating reason could, at first, be only a matter of belief. This would not have excluded a supplementary