Page:Philosophical Review Volume 2.djvu/179

No. 2.] from its empirical constituents, the definition of these forms, and their union with one another are, he says, "pure a priori acts, although in the order of time experience has preceded them." But this does not obviate the difficulty. For the acts described are all acts of reflection; they belong, therefore, in Kant's phraseology, to the inner sense, and are as much a posteriori as the perception of colors or sounds.

But how else could the investigations of the Critique have been made? What other way is there for the discovery of the a priori? None, absolutely none. The fact is that Kant, if waked from his dogmatic slumber, is still dallying with the sweet dreams of rationalism. Mere experience, whether outer or inner, could not furnish that certainty which, as he postulated for a priori knowledge, he also required for any theory of a priori knowledge. Reason itself, therefore, without the aid of observation or reflection, should supply him with the materials of his investigation! When, however, he came to the fulfillment of his task, it was not of course this imaginary faculty that carried him through, but, though he was never conscious of the difference, the common gift of reflection with which in an unusual degree nature had endowed him. Kant's system is in reality a philosophy of a posteriori reflection, though in intention and pretention a philosophy of a priori demonstration. The question of the possibility of a priori synthetic judgments was to be decided by the presence or the absence of the conditions of them in the human mind; and whether these conditions were there or not was a matter to be settled by reflection alone. The Critique, therefore, is at once psychological and epistemological. Its problem, it is true, is formulated without reference to psychology, but its solution is effected, not only by way of psychological reflection, but by liberal appropriation of psychological facts and theories. Kant's criticism of the a priori is itself a posteriori. The critical philosophy has a psychological basis. As a theory of knowledge, what other could it have? It is one thing to say that experience cannot produce the a priori forms. It is quite