Page:Mind (New Series) Volume 12.djvu/472

 458 c. M. WALSH : KANT'S TEANSCENDENTAL for transcendental objects to us niay be attributes or de- terminations, whether modal or formal, of, or residing in, things-in-themselves. Thus if Kant succeeded in proving his complete doctrine about the nature of our times and spaces,, he would have proved their transcendental ideality, if not relatively merely to us, yet relatively to all percipient beings, that is, absolutely. He would have proved the nothingness of time and space outside percipient beings or things-in- themselves the non-reality of any absolute time and space the falsity of the opinion that time and space are inde- pendent, or self-dependent, existences. It is incumbent upon us, therefore, to show that he did not succeed in proving his complete doctrine. In the " Metaphysical Exposition " Kant gives four argu- ments purporting to prove his doctrine. These fall short of proving his complete doctrine ; for the last two aim only at proving that time and space are intuitions, and the first two only at proving that they are a priori which two are also very defective. At proving the formativeness of time and space, or their prescriptiveness concerning the nature of the objects appearing in them, no argument is directed except the " Transcendental Exposition " in the Aesthetik, which corresponds to the " Transcendental Deduction " in the Analytik. These together form the epistemological argu- ment, to the effect that the hypothesis of their formativeness- is necessary for the possibility of our sciences of applied mathematics and physics, on the ground that in no other way than' by the existence in us of the forms and principles prescriptive of the nature of our objects could we have cer- tain knowledge of them, such as we claim to have ; whereby also is involved the conclusion that the objects dealt with must also be in us, for only in this case could their forms and principles or laws be in us. There are many defects in this argument. To enter into a criticism of it in detail is beside the purpose of this paper, which is expositive. But a destruction of it will be attempted by pointing out an inconsistency in the doctrine which this doctrine prepares ; for Kant's Transcendental Idealism is nothing without sup- plementation by his Empirical Realism. The inconsistency here alluded to is not in two out of the three branches of Kant's metaphysical system. The doc- trine of Transcendental Idealism in respect to Time and Space and the Sensible Objects in them is a perfectly self- consistent and conceivable doctrine. We can perfectly well think that there is no time or space apart from the intuitive faculty in percipient beings that time and space are neither