Page:Philosophical Review Volume 1.djvu/139

No. 1.]

The title of this article connects it with Paulsen's Was uns Kant sein kann (V. f. W. Ph. Bd. V). There it was asserted that "the abstract schematic method of the transcendental deduction is not essential to the establishment of the fundamental thoughts of the K. d. r. V." Further, in the practical philosophy and in the teleology, this only serves to force the real thoughts into an artificial form. There is, moreover, an almost universal agreement of opinion as to the one-sidedness of the Kantian Ethics, and the moral impossibility of its demands. So far Paulsen. Wundt, however, maintains that so long as we hold fast to Kant's point of view, the functions a priori must be brought into relation with one another, and also into connection with sense perception. That is, we must have a 'Deduction of the Categories,' and a doctrine of the Schematism. Again, it is often supposed that the most important result of Kant's philosophy has been the limitation of knowledge to experience; but the establishment of the a-priority of the moral law is equally important. In fact, Fichte's Wissenschaftslehre, and not Positivism, is the real continuation of Kant. The real importance of Kant for our time lies in the penetrating force and caution of his thinking, and in the loftiness of his ethical conceptions. He must, however, be regarded in an historical light, and we must not imagine that the presuppositions under which his system arose are valid for us to-day. We must not submit ourselves to his authority. This would be to fall into the error which he himself characterized as Dogmatism.

Wundt claims that his own "System" has not been understood by critics, because he has not put himself at the Kantian standpoint. Here he shows his relation to Kant, in treating of the forms of perception and the categories. Under the first heading the questions are, What are the logical motives which induce us to separate (1) the form and matter of perception, and (2) the space and time forms from each other? (Kant doubtless thought of this latter separation as given; but to-day, we regard all experience as at once spatial and temporal.) The answer to the first question W. finds in the fact that "the formal elements of perception . . . cannot be thought as changing without a change in the matter of sensation; while the matter may change when the forms remain constant." The motive which leads to the separation of the space and time forms from each other is that time changes are thinkable without spatial changes; on the other hand, space can be regarded in its merely formal qualities without reference to time, while time as a merely formal event involves a reference to space. Again, Kant deduces the a-priority of time and space from their constancy.