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The ontological ; a study in the transcendental of

Item Type text; Thesis-Reproduction (electronic)

Authors Hollis, William Heym, 1914-

Publisher The University of Arizona.

Rights Copyright © is held by the author. Digital access to this material is made possible by the University Libraries, University of Arizona. Further transmission, reproduction or presentation (such as public display or performance) of protected items is prohibited except with permission of the author.

Download date 04/10/2021 04:44:19

Link to Item http://hdl.handle.net/10150/553502 The OntolOjErlcal Argument? a Study In the Transcendental Dialectic of Immanuel Kant

by

Whi. H. H o llis

A Thesis submitted to the faculty of the

Department of end Psychology

in partial fulfillment of the requirements for the degree of

Master of

in the Graduate College University of Arizona

1940

Approved: x7-). /? . & ,9 y / . / $ <*4 n liejor Professor <7

^ 9 7 9 / f 9 < /o

Certe Id quo mejus coHtarl neqult, non potest esse in intellect* solo. Si enim vel in solo intellect* "9t, potest coritari esse et in re: quod majus est. Si ergo id quo majus coritari non potest, est in solo intellect*; id ipsum cuo majue cogitari non . potest, est quo raajus cogitari potest. Sed ^ certe hoc esse non potest. -

130753 Contents

Introduction 1 . The Contemporary Scene and 1 E. The Problem 6

I. !Rie Meaning of and the Ontological Argument 9 1* Etymology and Itefiniticms 9 2. Brief of Ontology 15 3. The Meaning of the Ontological Argument 27 4. The History of the Ontological Argument 34

II. Immanuel Kent and the Ontological Argument 57 1. The General Philosophy of Kant 57 2. The Transeendental D ia le c tic 66 3. The Impossibility of an Ontological Proof 77

III. Criticisms and Conclusions 97 1. Kant1 s General Conception of the Argument 97 2. Post-Kantian Criticism 105 3. of Kant1 s Analysis 116 4. The Fundamental Issue 126 ' •- •' ,• - “> Appendix I. and Meta^iysies 148 Appendix II. Wolff and Ontology 149 Appendix III. Augustine mi the Immortality of the 150 Appendix IV. Anselm and the Ontological Argument 151 Appendix V. Kant and 153

Bibliography 165 nfioroofies

Thm Gontem?o?ar:r Seen© end Metaphysics

The Enihjeet of this thesis, the ontological argument. Is a definitely metaphysical in . But it is hoped that the investigation of the argument is more exposi- ticmal end critical than metaphysical. With this hope and this purpose in , Kant has been selected as the philoso­ pher most capable as a guide in conducting the investigation. It is most difficult to approach a metaphysical subject with

■ ■ - - ■ . ■ ' - the simple, open-eyed of the thinkers, and still more difficult to avoid metaphysical speculation in any treatment of an argument ■which has proved to be a primary philosophical question par excellence since humans first at­ tempted to sound the depths of . It is hoped that the analysis and presentation of the argument in the follow­ ing pages has suffered from no great prejudice or . We moderns, with our distrust and , our hustle and bustle, find little or Interest in a question frankly metaphysical and speculative. The philosophic attempt to me things steadily and as a whole, the quest for a synoptic vi­ sion of tru th , , and goodness h a s become h ig h ly d i f f i ­ cult in what Sorokin calls this "overripe Sonsate *! 1

1 Sorokin. Social and Cultural Bynamics. II, 206-207. of ours.2 Perhaps nhe who has magnificence of mind and is the spectator of all time end all existence”,® the true phi­ losopher, has become rather a of the past. Then again, the human spirit, with its profound faith and abysmal ignorance, has often succeeded In shamefacedly de­ ceiving itself. The extravagant systems of the past are sur­ veyed with a skeptical eye. System upon system was erected with adolescent enthusiasm. The zealous metaphysician seized' his building-blocks of the and carefully put them in architectural order only to find that the house of dreams had fallen into complete ruin overnight. This, say many astute critics, has been the entire history of aetaphysleal . The cobwebs of the are swept ceaselessly by more rigor­ ous and less romantic housekeepers of . The business of living begins where nightmares pass from the scene. What is i t th a t the poet S c h ille r says somewhere a f te r the p u b licatio n of that Copernlcan in pure ideas, the Critique of Pur® ?:

Pa die Ifetaphyeik vor kurzem unbeerbt abging Worden die Binge an si eh morgen sub hasta verkauft. ,

It is interesting to note the recent remarks of the - ' . . * celebrated mathematician end writer, Bertrand . Bussell, concern­ ing hie attitude toward metaphysical theory. He writes: 23

2 ; . Book Six highly apropos here. 3 Plato. Bepuolle. 486A. - 3 -

Academic , ever since the time of , have 'believed that the world is a unity. This view has been taken over from them by clergymen and journalists, and its acceptance has been considered the touchstone of wisdom. The most fundamental of my intelloetual beliefs is that this is*rubbish, I think the universe is all spots and jumps, without unity, without continuity, without coherence or orderliness or any of the properties that governesses love. Indeed, there is little but prejudice and habit to.be said for the view that there is a world at all,*

We have here a modern representative of Sextus Bmplrleus without a of his urbanity and nothing of his malicious wit and refreshing humor. But Bus soil 1 s caustic criticism is hardly more pointed than the following words of Professor

■ ■ . * - ' ■ . Schlick, sworn enemy of a l l m etaphysical th eo ry .

The metaphysician not know things, he will them .. All our of is principally acquired throu^i the methods of the ; every other "ontology" is idle babbling ... "Metaphysics is impossible because contradictory. If the metaphysician seeks only experience, his demands may be fulfilled, through, poetry and and life itself, But if he wishes thoroughly to experience the tram- eeendent be mistakes experience for knowledge and, befogged by double ocmiradict 1 on, seeks empty shad­ ows Metaphysical systems c

But these gentlemen, and many others, find that the < ' " dreaded metaphysio, decently entombed and burled, raises its ‘ . • • ' Mostly appariti

4 Russell. The Scientific Outlook. 94-95. 5 Sehliek. ^Erleben, lirkennen, Metaphysik.' Kant Studlen, Band UU. 156-159. more often than not he "brings with him a new version of an incredibly old argument, the ontological argument. For ell these eon sclentIons objeetors to metaphysical theory Professor 7 . H. Bradley has proposed a singular and not unsatisfactory justiflostion of its pursuit. He writes:

All of us, I presume, more or less, are led beyond the region-of ordinary . Some in on® way and s€m© in o th ers, we seem to touch and have communion with what is beyond the visible world. In various manners we find something higher, which both supporte and humbles, both chastens and transports us. And, with certain persons, the effort to understand the universe is a principal way of thus experiencing the . Ho one, probably, who has not felt thi s, however differently he might &e scribe it, has ever cared much for metaphysics. And, where- ever it has been felt strongly, it has been its own justification . 6 .

On the o th er hand, when we consider the enormems range and astounding number of metaphysical systems proposed in the history of philosophy, we feel that much may be said In favor of the positivist, overcome with the subtleties of cerebral creation, attempting to grope toward a kind of clas­ sical with Ockham's laser or the of par simony or some similar methodological instrument. And our 4 " ' ' positivist may find, if he tread carefully on the analytic road, one of .the most subtle yet perfectly simple , capable of endless discussion and infinite confusion, near his destination. Ho will have discovered the ontological argument. It may not be found in its time-honored form as 6

6 Bradley. Appearance and . 5-6. - 5 - an attempt to prove the exlatenee of Goa, perhaps: it is an argument of many curious extensions and has appeared In many forms. From the time of Plato to the contemporary of it has "been invested with soph teal sig­ nificance and metaphysical or psychological attributes. And long before philosophers concerned themselves with the pecu­ liar aspects of the relationship between and existence, when simple men on a simple e a rth re fle c te d upon, th e ir , their words, end their , we find this fundamental argument, lacking the sophistication of dialectic, perhaps, but inevitable end. inexorable in its power to convince* Hot in that time, nor in this, does its power convince all nenf but its appearances have been somewhat regular and its ­ festations rather constant* The psychologist, William James, the defender of and foe of impractical dreamers asleep in the un­ conditioned bosom of the , divided all men into •tou^i- minded" and "tender^ainded* individuals on the basis of their particular faiths end beliefs. The tender-minded person was a believer in ideas and idols, a worshipper of fiction and fancy. The tough-minded person was realistic, scientific, and analytic, a believer like the man from the fabled lands of Missouri who had to be shown. If we accept Professor James* s distinction we could classify those who were convinced, by means of the ontological argument as tender-minded, while those who refused to be convinced by it as tou^i-mlnded. Thrcu#out the history of mankind, from the beginning of lan- guage and the descrlptiTe e^mbol to the present oomplexus of langtingca end s^mholio , the tonder-alnded end the touflh-inlnded hare been divided over the problem of the onto- logical statue of ideas. To simplify and clarify we shall call these opponents the realists end the Idealists. The major issu e "between the r e a l i s t s and the id e a lis tn re ­ volves about the meaning and significance of the ontological • ' ' ' ", ' argument. Surely, any argument such as thin one, restated # and refuted, criticised and refined, a major bone of conten­ tion throughout the philosophy end of a conscious mankind, must have a human significance of great Import, de­ spite its claims to authority or its pretensions to eternal tr u th .

- The Problem

The chief purpose of tills study is to reveal the nature and meaning of the ontological argument with cspools! reference to the philosophy of Immanuel Kant, In the prose­ cution of our purpose wo shell examine Kant * s treatment of the ontological argument as presented in his . Vie shall also consider other relevant philo­ sophical works and the of competent commentators. The f i r s t chapter of this study w ill examine the fundamental eharaeterlsties of ontology and the ontological argument In relation to-general metaphysical theory. This general examination will lead Into a brief consideration of the ontological argument in its intellectual "background and * historical form. Thus, chapter one will "briefly reveal the development of the ontological argument in the history of philosophy. With the "bases thus ostahl 1 shed, chapter two will present the ontological argument as understood in the of Immanuel Kant through the presenta­ tion of a critical analysis of pertinent selections of the Critique of Pure Reason. It is not the purpose of this study to present the complete philosophy of Kant, a task far "beyond the talents and nmhltion of the m’iter. KantT s writings are extensive and voluminous, covering aspects of and and other fields not strictly within the immediate confines of philosophical theory. This study will simply at­ tempt to reveal the meaning and implications of his "basic philosophical tenets with reference to the ontological ar­ gument. Consequently, chapter three will summarize the rele­ vant major contentions of his philosophical theory, present a few erlticjteis of his conception of the ontological argument ■ * " - Show the virtues of Ms analysis, and reveal the fundamental Issue of the ontological argument. It Is, of course, of great to examine the original words of any particular writer considered In this study. It i s somewhat outrageous to discover m isquotation or e a s ily avoided misinterpretation of the words or Ideas of a great philosophical thinker. The much-maligned, frequently mis­ understood, and unfortunately misinterpreted Aristotle is a classic example, despite the that original sources are - 8 - araila'ble. With the go fa c ts in m ind# there are given in the appendices selected portions of the original works which deal directly or indirectly with the pur pom of this study. The reader will find them selections of great value In considera­ tion of the historical vicissitudes of the ontological argu­ ment. The writer has at all attempted to adhere a® closely to original source material as possible in the hope that in this way he would not ’stray from the spirit and temper of the thinker under consideration. Quite often, in the words of Professor T. V. Saith, the philosophers speak for themselves. The page numbers in the footnote references to Kant1 s Critique of Pure Reason rafer to the translatim i of Max Mdller, revised second edition, puhlisiied "by Macmillan in 1907, unless othen?lse noted. Chapter I

THE MEAimiO OF CETCELOCT AHH THE OHTCELOOICAX iHGDHEST

Etymology ana.

The phllosoSiieal term ontology has had a long, then#! soraeehat undlstingulehed philological history. Mice the English words being and thing, words of great generality of meaning and conseqnently laeking in the vigor and eolomr of other philo- sophioal terms more assoolable with idiomatic usage and native

infrequently in , even In the work of academic circles possessing a hifdily technical vocabulary grounded in the classical languages. Perhaps these two facts, inconstant usage and odourless generality, have eoobined to retain the basic meaning of the terms. Ontology is an adaptation of the modern word ontologia (Jean le Clere, 1692), and is cen­

to speak. The word has been variously defined as the science or study of being; the doctrine of science do ento. that is, of being, in the general, or abstract; the science or syste­ matic study of real being; the science of the most general and 7

7 Some German philosophical terms illustrate the vigorous and picturesque qualities of native dialects, e.g*, grundlioh— h ei t , Weltanschauung, e tc . .—1.0—

fundamental involved in all " or existences emastituting the universe; andr the science or study of be­ ing - that department of meta#yei@s "which relates to the being w essence of things or to being in the abstract. As far back as 1724 in English literary history a named Watt® wrote in h is lo g ic :

In order to make due enquiries into all these and many ether vdiich go towards the complete and comprehensive of any being, the seienoe of ontology is exceeding necessary. This is what was wont to be called the first q part of metaphysics in the peripatetic schools. later, in 1733, Watts wrote a book which he entitled "A Brief Scheme of Ontology or the Science of Being in General*. Sal*

‘ ■’ • ' ' ley, in 1735, defined the term; "Ontology, on account of Be* ings [sic] in the Abstract". , in his of nations of 1776, does not fail to pay his respects to the term, respects that are hardly less caustic than certain criticisms of today. He writes: "Subleties and sophisms ... composed the whole of t h i s cobweb science of ontology, which was likewise sometimes called metaphysics.In Jeremy Ben- ; ...... • ' • than we find these surprising words, written ante 1832. "The field of ontology, or as it may otherwise he termed, the field l *1 of supremely abstract en tities, is a yet untrodden labyrinth." 891011

8 Watts, I. Bogie, vi. 9 Bailey, H. Etymological English Mctionarv. 10 Salth, A. Wealth of hat ions. II. 556. 11 Benthaa, J. Eragaenis of Ontology. Works. Till, 195. 11

But every age has its critie of these . In the Reader of 1865 we read the following words of a discovery oon- eerning certain phllosoidileal terms and dietinetioos made cur­ rent by Kant - a discovery following the publication of the Critique by nearly one hundred years! MWe cordially approve and admire ... not least, the signal demolition of ontology, in the form of the nouaenon. oar unknowable substratum of and aind.*^ In an early work of Bo Banquet, a translation of lotzeT s HetauhvsicB. made in 1884, we find lotze defending the older pre-Kantian meaning of ontology. "Ontology ... as a doc- . , - # trine of the being and of all reality, has precedence given to it over Cosmology and Psychology, the two branches of enquiry which follow the reality into its opposite distinctive form s.n*^ . - - ' • • Althou^i the wenrd is seldom soon today, even la the more technical philosophical literature, it has been, sur- * . •• ' ' '■ prisingly enough, one of the major topics of a recent article appearing In the Journal of Philosophy. She issue, of January 19, 1939, contains an essay, written by Kewton P. Stallknecht enti­ tled "In Defense of Ontology", in the oemrse of which the writer defends the metaphysical search for reality in attempting to show that "we perceive existence through some mode of aware­ ness prior to and Independent of the sophisticated thinking 1213

12 Reader, July 30, 1865. 8 . 13 Soemquet, B. IiOtzeTs Hetaphyslos. 22. by a scientific realm of discourse is deteraine&.ttl4r This defense is primarily aimed at the cmelati^hta of certain contemporary skeptical i&ilosoiiiere, notably lewis, Bramham, and Wheelwright. The of ontology given in the Catholic Encyclopaedia contains an Interesting comment:

Ontology is not a subjective science as Kant de­ scribes it, nor an winferential psychology”, as Hamilton conceives it; nor yet a knowledge of the absolute; nor of some ultimate reality, whether conceived of as matter or spirit, which Honiets suppose to underlie and produce individual real beings and their manifestations. Ontology is a fundamental interpretation of the ultimate con­ stituents of the world of experience. 1415 16

The definition appearing in the Encyclopaedia of Religion and gives a satisfactory traditional view of the meaning of the terms ,

Metaphysics is traditionally divided into ontology,. or the philosophy of being, cosmology, or the philosophy of nature, and psychology, or the . Ontology, dealing with the most general characteristics of , includes those subjects which as common to the other two branches cannot be dealt with exclusively by either; cosmology and psychology study. In a very general way, one or other of the concrete forms Mil oh real­ ity takes, while ontology is concerned only with the nature of the real" in from its specific embodiments.1®

It is interesting to note that among contemporary Soviet philosophers a new d is tin c tio n "between the term s ontology and metaphysics has arisen, a distinction not without

14 StalU m eoht, H. P . Journal of B iilosophy. 23X71, 42. 15 Siegfried, P. Catholic Encyclopaedia. 1%I. 258-259. 16 Encyclopaedia oT R eligion and I th lc s . . 1 3 -

Its merits in view of the indiseriolnate oncL degrading, use of m@ta#v@i@# to denote a dishonorable practice of **faith- healing*, a typical mental abortion of nuaerous paraeltieal charlatans preying upon the credulity of troubled . On­ tology has been restored to its old significance as "the study of being and the fundamental principles of all existence" by these new Soviet philosophers, according to the Haylaya Sovietshaya Sntsihlopedia. while the term metaphysics is un­ derstood to mean "a certain kind of ontology, namely,- that - - : ' ' . - ' * kind which is committed to theologieal, mystical, or ideal­ istic ccmceptions of a changeless, mipematural reality.” Qatology is here eoneemed id.th the basic problems of dla-

' ' ■- . ' ' ■ - loot leal , but the entire search ie professedly "anti-metaphysical" , 2'7 . ®ae term ontological, meaning of or pertaining to, ...... "...*...- ", ...... •* ' ' or of the nature of, ontology - metaphysical, has been used in some interesting connections, in Sngliefo. literature . T. Knox, attempting to explain the.mysteries of essence, wrote in 1782 concerning an unfortunate metaphysician "perplexing himself with ontological into the nature of angels." Coleridge used the term frequently In his works, something that might be expected in view of his German philosophical training and highly speculative temperament. In 1817 he wrote in his Blographla Llteraria that "any ontological or metaphysi- 17

17 Erom a presented at the meeting of the Eastern Divi­ sion of the American Ihilosophtoal Association, Princeton University, December, 1937.- The essay of J. II* Somerville • Jr, of Philos. AXXY, 252-236, will be found Interesting in this conneetion. - 1 4 - eal science not contained in such ... psychology wan "but a wet of at street 1ms. r3‘8 In a later work of 1825 he concerns M nself with the ontological argument, , "We pass out of the comologicsl proof, the proof a posteriori, and from . . ' - the facts, into the mtological, or the proof a priori, end from 19 ' ' the Idea." A religious gentleman named Dove, writing in 1856, used the term in a somewhat odd connection reminiscent of the third of Descartes. He writes that "I am is the " ' ■ on ' ' " indubitable of my ontological o

The ontological is an intangible reality .. * the ontological has been very richly but varyingly displayed ... the ontologi­ cal of things is one end indivisible, is necessary and eternal. The ontological truth of reality is not made by the mind ... [etc. ergo], • because is, our moral and religious obliga­ tions exist Towards Him. Ontology makes Being ultimate; it makes Being base and bottom of all thought and of all existence. Being, Absolute and Unconditioned, is the ground of all possible experience. 21 *192021

10 Coleridge. Biographic Literaria. I. 96 . 19 Coleridge. Aids to Uefleoii»r~lS9. 20 Dove. The dfjbtie Christian Faith. I, 255. 21 Lindsay, J. Great Philosophical Problems. 138-40. - 1 5 -

With this type of Moatologic&l consciousness” and cmtology of verbosity we shall have nothing to do. Bi 11 osophy may go far to convince, but it seeks first to clarify, not to confound.

Brief History of Ontology Parmenides In the history of philosophy the term ontology, used in the sense of a doctrine or science of being, became general In the philosophical works of the second half of the seven­ teenth and early part of the eighteenth centuries, but the essential meaning of the term appears in the earliest philos­ ophies. In one of the fragments of Parmenides, a poem called "On nature”, we find these words concerning truth. He writes:

l i s te n , and I w ill in s tru c t thee - and thou, when thou hearest, shelt ponder - What are the sole two paths of research that are open to thinking. < One path is: That Being doth be, and Eon-Being is n o t: * This is the way of Conviction* for Truth follows hard in her footsteps, Th' other path is: that Being is not, and Han- Being must bo; This one, I tell thee in truth, is an all- incredible pathway. ' For thou never canst know what is not (for none can conceive it), ' Hor const thou give it expression, for erne thing are Thinking and Being."®

Here we find in the writings of a jhilosopher of the ELeatlo school who flourished around 495 B. C. not only a thoroogh- 22

22 Bakewell, 0. H. Source Book in . 15. - 1 6 - goin& emtolofiy Trat one of tho earliest examples of the onto­ logical argument in the history of philosophy. We shall refer to Parmenides In this ooameotloh later in m r s t n ^ .

P la to . ' ' It is in the philosophy of Plato perhaps, that we find the first systematic statement of a doctrine of "being. In Plato’s works we find numerous references to the phrase S ifrtjf S m used to express the true nature and absolute real­ ity of the archetypal ideas. In the Republic uses the expression (TKias 72Dk to emphasize reality end truth as opposed to that tAiioh is not. 23 * The to rn 6vT£JSt the adverbial participle of €(-/*L (sun), meaning really, ac­ tually, verily, etc., is found in the in a conversa­ tion between the Stranger and Theaetetue concerning discourse • "When other, then, is asserted of you as the same, and not- being as being, such a. combination of nouns and verbs is real­ ly and truly false discourse."2* In the last book of the ■ V ■ - ' . . ■ ‘ - - - , • •• ;■ ' - • ... . _ - . Republic Plato uses u\/Ta)5 with the participle c3 v* o&aHK v ■ ■ ■■ • ■ ■ ■ ■ •• ■ ' ■ ' . OV to imply real existence. In one place Socrates says, "God, then, I take it, knowing this end wishing to be the reel author of the couch that has real being and not of some particular couch, nor yet a particular cabinet maker, produced it in nature ami cue." It is interesting to note that

23 P la to . Republic. 3320.y x ,, . 24 P la to . SophistT 263. OKT^JS 7& /Czt &d/70ct)$- really and truly. 25 P la to . ttepufelle. 597®. ' - 1 7 -

Arlstotlo did not use the term in tMc fashion* In another fCTioue passage, Socrates, In discussing the nature of the philosopher, aslcsi

Will it not he a fair plea in his defence to say that it was the nature of the real lover of knowl­ edge to strive enulously for true being end that he would not linger over the many particulars that are opined to he r e a l, hut would hold on b is way, end the edge of his passion would not he “blunted nor would his desire fall till he came into touch with the nature of each thing in itself hy that part of his soul to which it “belongs to lay hold on that kind of reality - the part akin to it, namely - end through that approaching it, and consorting vrith reality really, he would “beget and truth, attain to knowledge and truly live and grow; and so find surcease from his travail of soul, hut not “before?”6

1/ - In this passage we find yet another use of the term OkTZifSt ^ , - - namely, 0 y e oisnjf tp/Xojua&rj^t an expression closely allied to the meaning of the word ontology as used in the philoso­ phies of the Wolffian school and in the works of the major predecessor® of Kant. In the Phaedo Plato attempts to give the reader some Idea of what he means hy helngi - b Tt/y^dt^ec ov - always emphasizing the essence or true nature of the particular ^participating” in the idea or archetype. In. the Phaedrus w find a similar characterization of being as

Vfryfjs o fo /a i/ re .Kcu ) oy o / * Here probably, Plato ha® In mind the more formal end logical aspects of the ontologleally

■' * ■. • ■ “ . ■ ' P 7 real, the real as essence and definition, 2627

26 Hato,- Repuhlle, 400 A-3. 27 Plato. Phacdo, 65B$ Phaedrus, 2451. **10—

Although Plato vmo not hesitant In emphasizing this real "being or reality of the thing-ln-ltself, the ilea ( iS6a.t e£&0$ ), as oircr/a. or o r » the Greek language is far more rich than English in ferns an& meanings of the verb "to W" - yet he was not so much etmeemed with the characterization and metaphysical nature of real "being as he was with the method of discourse used with relation to the ideas. Plato did not use a term like our modern ontology to signify this method of discourse but introduced. Instead, the term dialectic, defined in the Phaedrus as the art of grasping conceptually that which is. Professor Paul Shorey, a great scholar of the works of Plato, makes an interesting remark with respect to the dialec­ tics. He writes:

The full meaning of in Plato would demand a treatise. It is almost the opposite of what Hegelians call by that name, which is represented in Plato hy the second part of the Parmenides. The characteristic Platonic dia- ieetie is the checking of the stream of thought by the necessity of securing the and assent" of an intelligent interlocutor at every step, and the habit of noting all relevant distinctions, divisions* and , in ideas and terms." 8

A ris to tle In the philosophy of Aristotle the doctrine of Ol/'O'/a. V V plays on important role, while the Platonic phrase OYTtJj orra seems to be avoided for a richer variety of finer shades of meaning. Aristotle seems to have drawn a multitude of dls- *

88 Shorey, P. Plato1s Republic. 'II. 201. tauctions In Ms ! doctrines which a careful read­ ing of Book Z of the Ifetaphyaica will abundantly illustrate. At times he uses oyo’/a. to signify the being, essence, or true ■ V ' ' / v > , i nature of a thing which he defines as 72? /rat 01/ tc o v a ) $ w

The divinest of sciences is to be prized most highly; and this is the only science which de­ serves the name, for two reasons. For that

29 Aristotle. Metaphysics. 6 . 1. 5. 30 See Appendix I . 31 Aristotle, Be Anima. 2. 1. 3. eoience is divine which • it would he most f it­ ting for God to'possess, and also that scienee, if there is one, which deals with divine things. And this is the only science which has both these attributes. For it is universally admitted that• God is a cause and a first principle ? and, again, God must he thought to possess this science, either alone or in a superlative degree. To he sure, ell the sciences are more Indispensable, hut none is n o b le r.32

Thus, Aristotle * s consideration of the supreme scienee of ultimate causes and first principles is what commentators have called "first philosophy” or "". Bit ff Gmar/jftfj y yi/tj/e/foirm. 725 ova/as certainly conveys the es­ sential meaning of the modem term ontology. Ancient philosophy, therefore, although concerning it self with the meaning of being, essence, true nature, species, definition, reality, substance, cause, principle, element, and

■ ■ ■ ' : ' ; ■ ...... similar metaphysical terms, designated the science devoted to ontological investigations indifferently as "wisdom", "first philosophy", "dialectic", or "theology*.

The Scholastics In the medieval period of the history of philosophy ontological doctrines followed a well-defined theological course

■ - ■ ' ’ ' ■ . ■ under the influence of A ristotle and hie numerous commentators. We find the Bdiolastlcs, in particular, adhering rather closely to the doctrine of Ot/O'/h as presented in the Metaphysics and the Categorise, this doctrine culminating in the great eoncep- 52

52 Aristotle. Hetaphysiea. A, 983a. - 2 1 - tMuLlElle ^sten in the Suaoa Theolofrion of toaias Aquinas. From the medieval period to eontcnpornry timon the tern has usually been translated as substance. The more Hat

Wolff : ■ The tera ontology come into proninenoe in the seven­ teenth century and Christian von Wolff (1679-1754) is usually considered to be the philosopher # 0 was responsible for mak­ ing the term current in philosophical literature. The word 3334

33 Aquinas, T ." Concerning Being and Essence. 8 . ' 34 Quintlllian. 8. 3.>3; 2. 14. 2. Prisclanus. 18. 8 . 75. had been used by Clauberg (1682-1665 >, however* In Its lite ra l sense, and indeed, was current in YfolffT s day, according to Brdaenn. The gaoielopedia Ihiiversal Illustrada contains ecn interesting remark In this ccmwetlwi

Bn 1681 apcrece tamhien el norabre Ontelogia en la obra de Hamel- Philo eophia vetue et nova. Bn ella oolloca ya ante s de la £'isica la Meta^isica, cuyas tres partes deaigna eon los noabres Cntoleyla. Aetlologia- y Teolofria. Per lo tanto, contra lo quo generalmente so dice, a Hamel mas M en qu® R Cristlan Wolf debe atribuirse la paternidad del nombre Ontelogia. y su introduceion en la ensenan- sb, ya que la parte de la obra do Wolf titulada Qntologia no aparecio hasta 1730. 35

At any rate, not to become involved in a dispute over - origins, Cleuberg may have given Wolff a suggestion since he • ... * ' • had championed several now name s for metaphysics, chiefly those of ontosophy and ontology. At Duisbourg, in 1656, the work of Glaubers appeared entitled Prineipia PhiloaotfilBe sive Ontosophia ot soientla prima de 11s quae Deo, ereatarisque suo modo comaunlo atrlbuunter in which volume there appears the phrase Qntologia vel Soientla eatholica . 56 Wolff divided "real philosophy* into four major studies which he called ontology, that department of general metaphysics • - - - devoted to the science of being, rational pomology, psychology, and theology, those departments of special metaphysics devoted to the world, the soul, and God, respectively. Ontology was. *36

&5 Enciclopedia Universal Illustrada. IXIX, 1325. 36 tilauborg, J. Prineipia .Philo soph lac, 1-2.

I therefore, the philosophy o f helm#; rational cosmology, the philosophy of nature; psychology, the philosophy of mind; and theology, the philosophy of God.3^ Erdmann* s discussion of the introduction of the term is probably quite close to the fa c ts . He w rite s:

The speculative part of philosophy, metaphysics, is divided, upon the basis of the three chief ob- jeets of human knowledge. Into cosmology, psychol­ ogy, and theology, the two latter of which he [Wolff] also classes together and designates by L eib n itz *3 name of *pneumatleB*, C learly, how­ ever, the of physical and intellectual existences must be preceded by a theory of exis­ tence in general. For this metaphysics &e enters] there was current in Wolff* s day the name (tetEoso- pfay applied to it by Clauberg, but also that of Ontology which was favored by o th e rs. Be selec te d the latter of these two, and he assigned to it the p osition of philosophia prlrta. or "fundamental science11, because what it discovers of the ons as such, naturally holds good of all entia. TESf these inquiries must exhibit a great number of points of resemblance to that the Schoolmen, f o l­ lowing on th e track of Aristotle, had said In re­ gard to predicables and categories, is for Wolff a matter neither for surprise nor for reproach*3"

Kant Under the influence of Wolff and the dogmatic sehool, Immanuel Kant became in te re s te d in the philosophical doctrines of his day. After being awakened from his "dogmatic slumber* by the tike pile, , Kant turned from the old ontolog­ ical principles of contradiction end as actual metaphysi­ cal principles relating to the objective existence of an inde- 373839

37 See Appendix I I . - • 38 A work written on ontology in 1673, by Xalgnsn, bore the t i t l e Philosophla entia. 39 Erdmann, ^. 2. A History of Philosophy. II, 223. —24 —

^nasnt external world and developed the view that ontology was a science of Illusion, Pretending to ho a science of ob­ jects, ontology had failed to consider In what way these ob­ jects wore presented to or represented In ccmsolonaiess. Iknt felt that the humble read a posteriori had been forsaken for the hlfdi road a priori, and that any attempt to investigate being aptnrb f*om i t s re p re se n ta tio n in consciousness was doomed to miserable failure. From the foregoing w Should . _ - x not conclude that Kant did not realise the ihllosophioal im­ plications of the a priori or fall to investigate the possi­ bility of metaphysical science, for he was quite aware of the lim itations of pure reason and much of his work in philosophy was devoted to an investigation of these limitations, a point we shall emphasize later in our study. Here we may say that Kant has been traditionally considered as both empirical rationalist and transcendental idealist. With the develop­ ment of the Kantian analysis, ontology, in the words of Williom Hamilton, became a pretended science which infers the proper­ t i e s of unknown being from i t s known m an ifestatio n s. Under K ant1 e influence the terms ontology and ontological became terms of doubtful. If not i^iolly illusory, meaning, From Kant’s day to the present, ontological doctrines have persisted in one.manner or another, largely under the influence of the post-Kantian German and English objective idealists. But after Kant, philosophical investigations tiiifted from the consideration of being per so. to more epistemological and methodological investigations of being - 2 5 - as ImoTin, Indeed, from one point of view* the e n tire C ritiq u e of Pure Reaeon may be ecmeidered a treatise in since Kent’s major problem vzas ecmoeraed with the possibility of Knowledge end the lim itations of Knowledge - the Imowledge of phenomena as represented in the process of consciousness. to u a a ry ' . Hence, two major periods in the history of philosophy may be distinguished with respect to ontological doctrines. The first period covers roughly the ancient and medieval phi­ losophies with their emphasis upon being qua being which, for laole of a better name, we may designate as pre-psychological. The second period covers the main currents of ontological doc­ trine from the time of Descartes, the period usually considered . - - ■- . ■ ■ - as modem, in which questions of being became subsidiary to questions of being as re predated in consciousness. This sec­ ond period we may designate as the post-psyehologioal. In the pre-psychologieal period being was considered to be "what it is Known as*, in the wmrde of William James, while, in the poet-

' . • . ' ' - , : psychological stage, being in itself is either unknown, as In ■ . ^ ’ • the Kantian nouaenal world, a point of view emphasized by Comte, * . Huxley, and Spencer; subsidiary to the process of Knowing and . . ' the validity of Knowledge, as In the epistemological theories . . - . - ' - - of critical realism and modern reslism, a point of view em- • ■ . * • ’ ' " - phasized by Whitehead, Bussell, Tmrrj, and Montague; or oon- ditimied by thou^it or the act of Knowing, as in the ideal­ istic doctrines of , a point of view emphasized by Bosmnouet, Bradley, Boyce, Croce, and Gentile. It is perhaps Janes F» Perrier (1808-1864), the English philosopher, to tihom we owe the nodem aistinetloh hetween the theory of knowing and the theory of /being; In his chief work of 1854 entitled, the Institutes of Metaphysics, he divides specnlatire philoso­ phy into Epistemology, or the theory of knowledge, Agnoiology, or the theory of ignorance, and Ontology, or theory of Being, His influence upon subsequent philosojhical terminology in England has been eonsiOerahle hut the term agnoiology has passed from use* America has not heen without philosophers adept in the art of coining words, Charles. Peirce (1839-1914) representing this tendency in the extreme. 40 . Sxcept for general Intellectual tendencies, ontologi­ cal doctrines have heen as variegated as the passions of men, and are often largely dependent up

40 laird, J, Recent Philosophy. 90. - 2 7 - ing of the argument in which we shall point out certain basic characteristics found in the reasoning of the various forms, and, from this point of vantage, we shall survey the history of the ontological argument.

The Meaning of the Ontological Argument

The ontological argument is a fundamental philosophi­ cal argument implicit in all metaphysical theory dedicated to the problem of the nature of being as real and existential, long before the appearance of academic philosophers with their technical terminology and categorical nomenclature, however, the argument appeared in primitive forms. The argument Is basic to most of the world1 s which claim existence for their objects of faith, and undoubtedly appeared in a simple and unsophisticated fashion in the reflections of pre­ historic man in connection with hie primitive religious ritual and doctrine. In the the argument did not appear in its substantial form before the distinction was made between thought and thing, the Tcnower and the known. It is perhaps safe to assume that this distinction was consciously made in naive philosophical fashion long before the earliest plot ©graphic and heiroglyphio inscriptions, since thought could hardly proceed, in an instrumental or operational sense at the very least, without differentiation that in seme way re­ ferred to the experience of a tacitly assumed independent and e x te rn a l world. Erom these shadowy end somewhat h y p o th e tic a lly dark days of husmn. thought to the perhaps brilliant days of modem philosophy, the ontological argument has remained the last refuge of the Idealists, especially those of the great tradition who have striven to find some rational demonstra­ tion for the existence of Sod. Modem thought, also, has Its distinctions of subject and , and the much more subtle distinction between the existent end the subeistent, around which ontological problems have revolved. In Professor Werner Jaeger’s excellent work on the intellectual development of Aristotle the following remarks are interesting. He writes:

He [Aristotle] had broken up the old ontologie - the only form of logic known to Pre-Arl®totelean philosophy - cnee and for .all into the elements Word (Ae/fs) and Thing ( & ). The bond between them had to be restored somehow, and this was done by means of the conception of formal cause, which was at once conception and thing, ground of knowing and ground of being. This may not seem a satisfactory solution - it was historically con­ ditioned by A ristotle’s realism - but it is very far from the projection of logical concept ion, judgment, and , into the real as Hegel teaches i t . 41

Although Aristotle had achieved this solution early in the history of metaphysics, thinkers who followed him in point of time, some of whom were fully conversant with his works, arrived at solutions to the problem of the ontological status of ideas apparently with no reference to the investi­ gations of the great Stagyrite. These solutions are diverse

41 Jaeger, W. Aristotle. 370. - 2 9 - and some of thorn endlessly ooaplioated, hut, at the heart of the se various conceptions of the real the ontological ar­ gument i s found.

The Basic Characteristic The ha si o characteristic of the ontological argument is the attempt of the mind to link thought and thing; to bridge the gap, understood or im plied to e x is t, "between th e subject and the object, the knower and the known. There are various criteria: assumed in this attempt to link the idea with the existent from the rather crude and vulgar pragmatic sanction, "it works", to the subtle pseudo-logical hypoetatization of the concept of God as a necessary being whose essence entails existence. There are various degrees, also, of the extent to which the thing and the idea are related, from the over-sim­ plified and somewhat unsatisfactory skeptical solution - that the relationship is vdiolly arbitrary and accidental in any metaphysical sense - to the complex end rather grandiose abso­ lutist contention that the act of thinking synthesises the re­ lationship of thought and thing into concrete unity, resulting in the "concrete universal" or identity of subject and object, and that this synthesis is necessary and inevitable to enjoy : - the status of the metaphysically real.

Metaphysical Moaning . In its widest metaphysical meaning theVjtmtologieal \ argument is a type of argument which attempts to-identify existence with definition and generalization, toj bring into concrete unity oscience onfi. existence. The as­ sume s at the M els of his argwent the terns of dialectic deduction as Inherent and priaary data of existen­ tial reality* This metaphysical assumption is not usually supported hy any cf demonstrable existence whatsoever, and, indeed, if we analyze the arguments of the major absolute idealists, we find that they consider empirical evidence concerning existence to be a l l shadows and smoke, and will accept only those concepts considered to have been reached through pure deductive or inferential reasoning - the time-honoured »a priori judgment". In this sense of the term the metaphysician argues from a particular content of an idea to its existence in objective reality. He may or may not seek empirical evidence to support M s argument, but most often the argument is so expressed that no empirical investigation could establish his contentions. Out of the consideration of the re­ lationship between thou^it and thing, and the more general philosophical tenets associated with and there arose two important theories of truth. The one theory maintains that truth consists of careful intellectual coher­ ence and systematic conceptual relationships, generally called the Coherence Theory, while the other theory maintains that truth consists of a correspondence between the external object r and the concept or representation of that object, generally called the Correspondence Theory. Discussions of truth with reference to these two major theories often entail the use of the ontological argument. - 3 1 -

T ra& itlonal P hilosophical M®anlag In Ito traditional phlloaophlcel meaning the onto­ logical argument I d an argument for the . In the of Plato, Augustine, Anselm, Descartes, Spinoza, and Hegel, to mention only a few of the greatest names In the history of philosophy, the argument is used in this connection - as an attempt to demonstrate the existence of God or a supreme Being whose essence entails existence. H. Wildon Carr writes:

It [the ontological argument] mo adopted by Descartes, end made by Spinoza the pivot of a complete system of mathematically deduced philosophical . It was rejected by Kant, and his refutation is not only one of the most important doctrines in the Critique of Pure Reason, and a notable in the history of , but it forms a kind of sign post pointing in two divergent directions in con­ structive philosophy. Hegel reinstated the argu­ ment. It lives today in the theoiyof the Abso­ lute of F. H. Bradley; in the argument so forcibly expounded by Bergson in Evolution Crlatrlee that the idea of nothing is a pseudo-idea; and it is adopted by Croce in his theory of the concrete universality of mind. On the other hand, it is generally rejected, or discarded, or despised, by all philosophies which rest on empirical no distinct from intuitive principles and by all who are realists in the modern epistemological mean­ ing. It has come therefore to be regarded as identical with one of two divergent philosophical methods. It is cherished by those who follow the a priori route, rejected by those who recognize only the a posteriori.

The ontological argument has been attacked and crit­ icized by men equally as great in the history of philosophy 42

42 Carr, H. W. A Theory of Monads. 105. as those who have proposed and defended it, and this contro­ versy concerning essence and existence has occupied many pages in that history with the attendant clarification and fortification of ., In the Logic of we read t .

Realism produced philosophic thought of hl#i Importance, as in the so-called ontological ar­ gument of Anselm of Aosta, which (though th ro u # i the myth of a personal God) asserts the unity of Essence and Existence, the reality of what is truly conceivable and conceived. Geunllo, who confuted and satirized that concept, "by employ­ ing the example of a "most perfect island", thinkable yet non-existent, seems an anticipa­ tion of Kant; at least the Kant who employed the example of a hundred dollars to illustrate the some case - if it is not more accurate to say that, Kant was, in that case, a late Geunllo. Anselm replied (as Hegel Aid to Kant) that is was not a question of an island (or of a hun­ dred dollars of something imaginable that is not at all a concept), but of the being than which It is impossible to conceive a greater and more . perfect (the true and proper concept).4&

By way of contrast it is extremely interesting to note the penetrating remarks of George Santayana concerning the same argument, .He writes:

But. have we not heard of an ontologleolly neces­ sary Being, the essence of which Involves exis­ tence? We have heard of it: and this typically metaphysical contention brings to a head, and exhibits boldly, the equivocation involved in the idea that any truth is necessarily true ... a non-existent essence would woefully lack moral greatness, perfection or dignity: it would be a contemptible ghost, a miserable nothing. Undoubt­ edly for a oare-laden mind seeking salvation - unless it sought salvation from existence - power, 45

45 Croce, B. Logic. 522. which certainly Involves existence, must he the mark of reality and value: vhat.is without power will he without importance. Granting this, the ontological proof is cogent: the most powerful of beings necessarily exists, because the.power is only another name for the which the existence of one thing makes in the existence of another. But a less religious and more practical investigator of power might well come to the con­ clusion that this greatest, most^formidable, and most real of beings was natter.44

What an unbridgeable gulf separates the thoughts of these two men I The one, Croce, points with emphasis to the con- ♦ cept as ultimate and real, while the other, the suave Sent ay~ ana, colors the radiance of his realms of being with a eon- tlngent and evanescent brush. Here is a fundament el diver­ gence In Ifeltanechanomr indeed! Professor Pringle-Pattison, in his Gifford lectures of 1913, soberly urges a recognition of the ontological argu­ ment. He writes:

We have most of us, I suppose, as good moderns and children of the light, had our gibe at the onto­ logical argument, and savoured Kant* s pleasantry of the hundred dollars. But this fundamental con­ fidence of reason in itself is just what the onto­ logical argument is really labouring-to express - the confidence, namely; th a t thought, when made consistent with itself, is true, that necessary implication in thought expresses a sim ilar- im­ plication in reality. In this large sens®, the truthfulness of'thought - its ultimate truthfulness - is certainly the pre supposition of all thinking. 45

We have here a rare coupled with a great faith. We 4445

44 Santayana, G. The Realm of T ruth. 7. 45 Pringle-Patt 1 son. The Idea of God. 240. -434- could endlessly nultlply example a of great cLiTergence in philosophical opinion with reference to the ontological argument. It Is a problem that many philosophers approach, few see with sure and certain eye,- and, as I believe, none has attacked with clear definition of the Issue. Paul Weiss of Princeton writes that for over eight hundred years this argument has been •refuted" time and again $ but during the same period it has been urged again and again by equally able men who were quite familiar with the reasons that had been offered for rejecting it,

The History of the Ontological Argument

Parmenides ' . " The history of the ontological argument is an inter­ esting one. It is perhaps Kant to whom we owe the honour of being the first philosopher to recognise the implications and assumptions of the argument, but Parmenides, the famous Greek pre-Socratic of the Sleatic School, seems to have been the first philosopher responsible for stating It in philosophical fashion.. • " • • ParmenidesT . statement is most " simple end • ■ direet and is, therefore, repeated here. In the philosophical fragment •On m ature" ho says:

... thou const not recognize not-belng (for this is impossible), nor oouldst thou speak of^it, for thou#t and being are the same thing. 4647

46 Weiss, P. Reality. 161. 47 Haha. Selections from Early Greek Philosophy. 115. - 3 5 -

In the statement "for thought and being ore the same thing*, we have wh&t is perhaps the most bald statement of the prin­ ciple of the ontological argument in the history of philosophy namely, that being and thought are a unity. In the entire history of philosophy this contention never again assumes the simplicity and directness with which Parmenides endowed it, nor is it ever again phrased in this perfectly unequivocal manner. It is, nevertheless, an assumption made implicitly by those who employ the ontological argument in its most b ril­ liant colors. When the ontological principle becomes devel­ oped in the hands of Hegel the complexity of argument and ter­ minology in hie metaphysical logic obscures the simplicity of the Parmenldeen assumption.

Plato .. , ■ ■ We any note this development of obscurity in one of

• . . Plato’s most famous dialogues, the Rtaefto. Indeed, the sag® here containing the ontological .contention is perhaps one of the more simple expressions of the argument in the works of Plato. He writes:

But there is no ha»any ... in ihe two prop- OEltions that knowledge is recollection, and that the soul Is a harmony. Which of them will you retain? I think ... that I have a much stronger faith, Socrates, in the first of the two, iftxieh has been fully demonstrated to me, than in the latter, which has not been demonstrated at oil, but rests only on probable and plausible grounds; and is th e re fo re believed by the many. I know too w ell that these arguments from probabilities are im­ posters, and unless great caution is observed in the use of them, they are apt to he aeeeptlvo - In geometry, and In other things too. Bit the doctrine of knowledge and recollection has heen proven to me on trustworthy grounds: and the proof was that the soul must have existed before she came into the body, because to her belongs the essence of which the very name implies exis­ te n c e .48

How often this last statement appears In the history of philosophy, and how many Ingenious arguments ore given to support it I The entire history of philosophy could be writ­ ten around the reasons advanced by the opponents and pro­ ponents of the basic ontological principle, essentia involvit exlstentlagu

Realism and During the Medieval period in the history of philo-

■ , - sophy, ontological principles became associated with two groups of sch o lastic philosophers of somewhat a n tith e tic a l d o ctrin e, the Realists and the Hominoliets, These schools of philoso­ phical thought may be traced back to the influences of Plato and Aristotle with reference to their metaphysical doctrines. Many criticisms directed against the Realists by the nominal­ ists reflect the arguments the great Stagyrite used in his criticism of Plato’s theory of ideas. The nominalists held generally to the Aristotelian views while the Realists fol­ lowed the Platonic and mysticiaa.. The Realists of the Platonic tradition included Augustine, , Proelus, Pseudo-Dionysius, Bonaventura, Anselm, and Boethius, the greater' part ■ of the • doctrines • of these men '48reflecting the

48 P la to . Phaedo, 92C-D ontolofTice.1 argument ipbloh, indeed, they magnified. The noalnallete, followere of Aristotle, ueaally rejected the ergment. The fundamental Issue, the nature of universals, was reso lv ed somewhat in the philosophy of Thomas Aquinas,

Augustine Aurelius Augustine (S5S-430), called the "Teaeher of a Thousand Years* hy Professor T. Y. Smith, used the ontologi­ cal argument in a nsyehologloal manner in arming from the existence of doubt to the existence of the doubter. He w rites;

Seeing that even if he doubts* he lives; if he doubts, he remembers why he doubts; if he doubts he understands what he doubts; if he doubts, he wishes to be certain; if he doubts, he tiilnks; if he doubts, he knows idiat he does not know; if he doubts* he judges that he*ought not to assent rash­ ly. IBosoever, therefore, doubts about anything else,

Pros this primary fact of doubt Augustine infers the reality of the self, a thinking end rational self whose doubt entails of being. Ke writes:

I fear not the academic arguments in these , that say, ”Siat if you err"? if I err, I am. For he that has no being cannot err; therefore mine error proves my being: which being so, how can I err in holding ray being? for though I bo one that may err; yet doubtless in* that I know ray being, I err not, and consequently, if I know that, I know ray being. 50 4950

49 Augustine. He Trinitate, X. - 50 August Ire. 'City of God. X, 26, Augustine then attempts to leap to the objective by. Insist- . ing that our judgments concerning truth, goodness, end beauty demend a principle of rational demonstration -which constitutes the of reason. Thus the idea of perfect truth involves the existence of perfect truth. Prom these considerations Augustine concludes that (kid exists. This argument, I doubt, therefore I cm (dublto ergo sum), becomes united with the logl- cal argument of Anselm, that, then which nothing greater can be conceived (allquid, quo nihil majus cogiterl posslt), to pro­ duce the dictum of Descartes, I think, therefore I cm (cogito ergo sum), with his consequent inference of the existence of God. Augustine also employs a very interesting argument for the immortality of the soul in his work De immortal it ate animae which proceeds in an entirely different fashion. Here he uses a peculiar combination of the tenets of medieval realism and ' ‘ - ge the logical principle of contradiction. ~ His dublto ergo sum, however, is the more celebrated argument.

Anselm . Perhaps the greatest name .in the history of the onto- logical argument is Anse3m of Aosta (1053-1109), to whom we usually turn as the originator of the ontological argument. This philosopher, moot intent in his search for a proof of God’s existence, presents the most elaborate version of the attempt to conclude that the existence of God is entailed in 5152

51 Augustine. De llbero arbltrio. II, 12-15. 52 Augustine, fle iraraortallta-fee animae. H I. See Appendix III. .5 9 - the idea of God in the history of . His most famous statement of the argument is found in his Proslo- gium. He states in that vzork that God is one than ■which nothing greater a an he conceived (quo nihil majus eogitari potest). But certainly, he proceeds, a being which exists in the understanding and in reality (esse, in intellectu et in re), must he greater than a being in the Intellect alone (esse in nolo intellectu). and, to conceive the greatest than which a greater cannot be conceived must involve the existence of that greatest since to deny its existence would involve a contradic­ tion, We must conclude, therefore, that that which can be con­ ceived not to exist is not God, or that Pens non potest eogl- tarl non esse. The substance of his long involved argument - ■ - " - - is perhaps, in other words, * Certainly that, than which nothing - - . . - greater can be thought, cannot be in the intellect alone. For even if it is in the intellect alone, it can also be thought to exist in fact; and that is the greater. If then that, than which nothing greater can be thought is in the intellect alone;

V • ' - - then the very thing, which is greater than anything which can be thought, can be exceeded in thought. But certainly this is impossible."53

In a translation of his own words the argument is stated in yet another fashion. He writes:

And it assuredly exists so truly, that it cannot be conceived not to exist. For, it is possible to conceive of a being which cannot be conceived not 53

53 See Appendix IT. - 4 0 -

to exist; and this is greater than one v/lileh can he conceived not to exist. Hence, if that, than which nothing greater can he conceived, can he conceived not to exist, it Is not that, than which nothin# greater can he conceived. Bit this is an irreooncilahle contradiction. There is, then, so truly a he in# than which nothin# greater can be conceived to exist, that it cannot even he conceived not to exist; and this he in# thou art, 0 lo rd , our God.54

The subtle simplicity of Anselm* s argument has never been surpassed. Anselm * e central thesis in his argmaent is the that that being, than which nothin# greater can be conceived, must he conceived to exist in reality, not simply in the intellect alone. The idea of God somehow guarantees Ills objective existence, or at least the necessity of con­ ceiving God as an existent being. The central problem of Anselm ' s statement of the ontological argument is Involved in his conception of the "greatest". He evidently thinks that "greatest", in its very nature, demands objective exis­ tence in the conceptual sense to be internally consistent. Whether Anselm i s attem pting to prove th a t God i s an e x is­ tent being in space and time apart from, conception or not is a question not easily answered and upon which much controversy might be directed. Whatever may have been Anselm* s , his argument has usually been considered as one which attempts to prove tho existence of God apart from the nature of con­ sciousness. It is interesting to note in this connection that Anselm later states in the Proslogium. XV. that God is 54

54 Anselm. P roslo#iun. I I I . - 4 1 - great er than can he conceived, since it can he conceived that there is such a being, which being mist be God. It is interesting to note that a contemporary of An­ selm, Gaunilo, a monk, contested the validity of the argument on the basis that it would prove tho existence of the most perfect island, Atlantis. Anselm retaliated that his thesis concerned the being than which a greater cannot be conceived (quo maju-g eogitarl neqult). not a thing greater than all other beings (quo mains omnibus est). With the work of Anselm the ontological argument was started on its long career, and not until Kant devoted his to it did it receive real clarification under his careful scrutiny and revealing analysis.

Aquinas Thomas Aquinas (1225-1274), perhaps the greatest of • • the scholastic philosophers, like his great teacher, , was opposed to all a priori arguments for the existence of God; yet, in the first part of the Summa Theologica be at­ tempts to present God's existence as proven. This is only an . » apparent contradiction, as the following passages illustrate. He w rite s:

We ore obliged to affirm that such terms [con­ cerning God] denote the substantial nature of *I,

55 There is some interesting literature on the Anselm-Gaunilo controversy, viz. Beane. St. Anselm; Erdmann. Hist, of H ill. I, 303-11; Be Wulf. Hist, of lied. &11. I, 122ff; Uoberweg. Hist, of Phil. I, 377m Hasse. An so Ira yon Canterbury. Rule, 11. The Life and Times of St. Anselm. —42 —

God, but that, at the enne tine, their repreeent- ative force la deficient. They express the knowl­ edge which our intellect has of God ... Our man­ ner of speech ... denotes the substance of God, yet denotes it imperfectly, beeauge creatures ore imperfect manifestations of Him.06

Professor Townsend’s remarks are interesting in this connection. He writes:

Passing to glance at the theology of Aquinas, he approximated, in* dealing with the question of the Existence of God, to the ontological argument of Anselm.' He said that the , ’’God . exists”, mifdit be taken as proved if considered in itself, as predicate and subject are in entire agreement. He adduced five proofs in defence of the proposition; (a) the great moving principle which is not itself moved by any other; (b) the First Great Cause; (c) that which Is necessary in itself; (d) the gradation of things, the argument rising from the imperfect to the perfect; (e) the adaptation of things.56 57

This approximation to the ontological argument of vdiich Professor Townsend writes is hot, however, a very close one. Aquinas was quite aware of the various arguments for the existence of God, and, in the Suama Contra Gentiles, examines and criticizes those of Anselm. His criticism Is in antici­ pation of Kant’s analysis. He writes:

... Granted that everyone understands this word God to signify something than which a greater cannot be thought of, it does not follow that something than which a greater cannot be thought of exists in reality. For we must needs allege a thing in the same way as we allege the signification of its name. How from the fact that we conceive mentally

56 Aquinas. Suraraa Theologlea. I. 57 Townsend, iV. J. The Groal’ Schoolmen of the Middle A/?es. 221 - 4 3 -

that which the word God Is intended to eonvej, it does not follow that tho thin#? than which a ^ eat­ er cannot he thmi^it of is otherwise than in the mind. And thence it does not follow that there exists in reality somethin# than which a greater cannot h® thought of* Hence this is no argument against those who assert that there is no God, since whatever he granted to exist, whether in reality or in the mind, there is nothin# to pro-' vent a person from thinking of somethin# greater, unless he grants that there is somethin# in reality than which a greater cannot he thought of. Again it does not follow-that if it is possible to think that God is not, it is possible to think of something greater than God. For that it he possible that He is not, is not tin account of the imperfection of His being ••• but is the result of the weakness of our mind ... It is most evident to those who see the very essence of God that God exists, since His essence is His existence. Bit because we are unable to see His essence, we come to know His existence not in Himself but in His e f f e c ts .58

From the final passages of this selection it is rather evi­ dent that although Aquinas rejected Anselm’s argument, he nevertheless maintained that essentia. Snvolvit existent jam in respect to God. This is brought out more fully in his De Sate et Sssentla.58 59 Thus the great theologian brings together elements of Platanisn and Aristotelian!sm, crlti- elses medieval realism and nominalism, and constructs the basic conceptual!stic Catholic philosophy which has served to our own day appearing in extended fopm in the work of Cardinal Heroier.

D escartes £ Descartes (1596-1650), the philosopher whose

58 Aquinas; Surama Contra Gentiles. X-XIII. 59 Aquinas. De 'Mate.et Essentia,. V. - 4 4 - name Is comiaoiily assoolated with the opening of the modern period In the history of philosophy, combines the Alignst- inian dtthlto ergo sura with the notians of and In­ finity and his coglto ergo sum to prove the existence of God. On the principle that the cause is at least equal to the ef­ fect, our idea of perfection must he caused b y en existent perfect being since wo are imperfect and God would not de­ ceive. Descartes also argues that since vm have the idea of the Infinite or God, and since we are finite, the idea of the Infinite, is a proof of God’s existence ns author of that idea. Descartes, quite aware of the contentions of Anselm and the criticisms of Aquinas, replied to one crltlo object­ ing to the argument cm the basis that it was merely another Anselmian one that Aquinas’s criticism did not affect his ar­ gument since m must not only think of God as existing but as existing necessarily. As Erdmann says, Descartes always places his deduction from what is contained in the idea of God side by side with that drawn fro® its necessary presence in us al­ most as if he intended the reader to combine the two and soy that the existence of God is certain, because God Himself testifies to Himself within us and demonstrates His existence. ■ • * At any rate, Descartes believed that the idea of God’s nature was such as to involve existence necessarily. He writes, for in sta n c e :

... Being aecumstoned in all other things to make a distinction between existence and essence, I easily persuade myself that existence may perhaps be separated from the essence of God, and thus God - 4 5 -

Tdo conceiTed be not existent actunlly. But nevertheless, When I think more attentively, I find that existence can no more he separated from the essence of God than from the essence of a rectilinear triangle oan ho separated the equality of its three angles to two right angles. ... From the fact alone that I cannot conceive God except as existent,'it follows that existence is inseparable from him, and, consequently, that he exists in reality; not that my thought can make it he so, or that it oan Impose any necessity upon things; hut on the contrary the necessity which is in the thing itself, that is to say, the necessity of the existence of God, determines me to hare this thought.GO

D escartes1 s onto lo g ical arguments are found In many of h is principal works, among them the Meditation®s de prime phi­ losophic and the later Principle phlloeophlae.

Iiocke 1 • (1632-1704) writes an interesting and some­ what amusing passage concerning the ontological argument which is quite characteristic of his practical attitude. He writes:

How far the idea of a most perfect being which a man may frame in his mind, does or does not prove the existence of God, I will not here ex­ amine, ■ For, in the different make of men,s tempers, and application of their thoughts, some arguments p re v a il more on one, and some on an­ other, for the confirmation of the same truth. But yet, I think this I may say, that it is an ill way of establishing this truth end silencing atheists, to lay the whole stress of so impor­ tant a point as this upon that sole foundation: and take some men’s having that idea of God in their minds (for it is evident'that some men have none, and some worse than none, and the most very d ifferen t) for the only proof of a Deity.6-*- 6061

60 Descartes. ^. T. 61 Locke, An ^ssay doneernlng Human Understanding. —46-

In another work I»ooke raado a careful examination of Deecartes1 s proof for the existence of God and concluded that the essential issue remained unsolved. The existence of a necessary beln^ is not proved, for "the putting together or separating ... any cm© or more ideas, out of any complex one in ray head, has no influence at all upon the being of things." Locke employs an argument for the existence of God of another type in his philosophy, however, and also introduces the on­ tological contention with respect to the thinking self ,6^

Spinoza In the first part of the Bthiea of Baruch do Spinoza (1632-1677) the ontological argument becomes n cornerstone in a rigid group of propositions like those of geometrical demon­ stration. The argument is condensed, however, into a defini­ tion of Substance in which substantia involvlt existentlan, while several other arguments are maintained to support the ontological contention. He writes:

Prop. XL - God, or substance consisting of in­ finite attributes, each one of which expresses eternal and infinite essentiality, necessarily e x is ts . • Demonstr. - If this be denied, concoivo, it if be possible, that God does not exist. Then it follows (Ax. 7) that His essence does not in­ volve existence. But this (Prop. 7) is absurd. Therefore God necessarily exists, - Q. B. D.

Axiom seven in Spinoza* s Bthlca is that the essence 62

62 Robinson, D. S. Anthology of Modem Philosophy. 334-338. - 4 7 - of that thins which can be concelvea as not existing does not involve existence. According to proposition seven it pertains to the nature of substance to exist. He -writes:

Demonstr. - There is nothing by-which substance can be produced (Corel. Prop. 6); It will therefore be the cause of itself, that is to say (Def. 1), its essence necessarily involves existence, or in other words it pertains to its nature to exist. - Q. 2. D.

From here we are led to the first definition: "By cause of Itself, I understand that, whoso essence involves existence; or that, whose nature cannot be conceived unless existing."^3 In the course of his discussion Spinoza also contends that besides God no substance can be, nor can be conceived. Spinoza* * s statement of the ontological principle is the most rigid in modern philosophy. His ideas of this omne esse or Substance anticipate the Unconditioned of Hegel.

L eibnitz The following remarks of Gottfried Wilhelm Leibnitz (1646-1716), reflecting quite Independent thinking, cast the shadows of the Critique of before them. Leibnitz writes:

Although I em for innate ideas, and in particular for that of God, I do not think that the demon­ strations of the Cartesians drawn from the idea of God are perfect. I have shown fully elsewhere* that what Descartes has borrowed from Anselm,

63 Spinoza. Sthloa, I. * In the Acte's "deT Lc ip sic and the Ueaolres do Trevoux - 4 8 -

ArchMshop of Canter'bury, in very beautiful and really very lngenlou.8, "but that there Is still a gap therein to he filled ... The Scholastics not excepting even their Sector' Angelicas, have misunderstood this argument, and have taken It as a paralogism; In ■which respect they are altogether -wrong ... It is not a paralogism, "bat it is an imperfect demon­ stration, -which assumes something that must still "be proved in order to render it mathe­ matically evident; that is, it is assumed that this idea of the all great or all-perfeet "be­ ing is possible, and implies no contradiction. And it is already something that "by this remark it is proved that, assuming that God is possible. he exists, which is the privilege of divinity alone.' We have the right to presume the pos­ sibility of every being, and especially that of God, until someone proves the contrary. So that this metaphysical argument already gives a morally demonstrative conclusion, which de­ clares that according to the present state of our knowledge we must judge that God exists, and act. in conformity thereto.6^

Here we may discover, the notions that presage the Moral or Categorical Imperative. The ontological argument used by . Leibnitz differs somewhat from the traditional arguments through his emphasis upon possibility. His argument in simple terms reduces to maintaining that if God is possible, he is eo ipso necessary.

ITewton . , In the great Hiilosophiae Haturalls Principle Math­ ematics of Isaac Hewton (1642-1727) we find in Book III, General Scholium to Proposition XLII, that "It is allowed by all that the Supreme God exists necessarily; and by the same 64

64 Leibnitz. Hew Essays Concerning Human "Understanding. - 4 9 - neoessity he exists elweys anti, everywhere.** The statement is strikingly similar to that of Aristotle In hie Metaphysics. Book Alpha, in which he says "For it is universally admitted that God is a cause end a first principle." Both statements have received much commentary and investigation "by scholars. In the first edition of the Principle no statement is made on the nature of God. Bishop Berkeley and Leibnitz Both criti­ cized the work on theological grounds, and finally after much controversy, Bewtooa, at the age of seventy-one, in 1713, pre­ pared the famous General Scholium which was placed at the end of the second edition of the P r in c ip le . G5

Hume The skeptic, David Hume (17U-177G), in his Dialogues Concerning Katural Religion quickly disposed of all a priori arguments for the existence of God. Cue of the characters of those dialogues speaks of "that simple and sublime argument a priori, which "by offering to us infallible, demonstration, cute off at once all doubt and difficulty. Such an argu­ ment is the ontological which Hume characterize s as the argu­ ment "to a necessarily existent Being who carries the Reason of his existence in himself, and who cannot be supposed not to exist without an express contradiction", and which he rejects with an anticipation of Kant1s Critique of Pure Reason in that he contenti.8 that existence is not an addition to the content of 6566

65 Cajori, F. Hewton1 s Mathematical Principles of Natural - - Philosophy. ' ,5'45ff. ■ . 66 Mum'e". Dialogues Ccmoernlng Hatural Religion. / - 5 0 - an idea. Hume held that the terns ’’necessary existence" had no meaning since there was no being whose non-existence im­ plied e contradiction.

Kant With the appearance of Immanuel Kent (1724-1804) on the stage of philosophical history an important chapter in the history of the ontological argument was written. Under the Influence of the Wolffian dogmatic school, Kant, in one of his early works, the IT ova Plluclds.tlo , accepts the ontological argu m en t.6^ His later analysis of the arguments for the exis­ tence of God in the Blnzlg mo^llche Bowelsgrund zu einor Demonstration des Paso Ins G-otte s. in vdiioh he attempts to ' • distinguish several forms, ends with his acceptance of one form and his rejection of others.6® Finally, in the Kritik der reinen Vernunft. Kant rejects the ontological argument on several grounds among which he attempts to show that existence can never be the predicate of a judgment. These later opin­ ions reflect Kant’s awakening from his dogmatic slumber under the influence of the genial skepticism of David Hum®. In the next part of our study wo shall present Kant’s analysis of the ontological argument more carefully. Here we may note that Kant was quite aware of the many former arguments pro­ posed by philosophers including those Intended to establish the existence of God, and he augments and am plifies former 6768

67 Kant. Nova D llu c ld a tlo . I I , v i i . 68 Kant, blnzlg mQgllehe Bewelsgnmd. ■ '-5 1 - ■ criticism while introducing many original criticisms of his own. We may also note that his views concerning the ontolog­ ical argument are roughly in agreement with his general in­ tellectual development which culminated in The Critique of Pare Reason, in which work he detects one of the major'doc­ trines of the rationalistic position - that thought as such can give us the facts of existence, which he criticises with masterly hand - and further insists upon the necessity of sense experience in the framing of any judgment of existence. Kant shows that although it is a contradiction to think of God as non-existent, it does not follow that God exists, and this objection, among others, makes up the content of the par­ ticular portion of the Critique entitled Ten Per Unraoglichkeit elnes Bewelses von Pasain Gottes which appears in the Tran­ scendental Dialectic section. This particular section con­ tains one of the most important theses in modern philosophy which we shall investigate later in our study.

H erel After Kant the ontological argument appeared in a variety of disguised forms. The first great philosopher after Kent, Georg Wilhelm Friedrich Hegel (1770-1831) attempted to reintroduce the argument fashioned after his metaphysical logic of dialectical triads. He insisted that the unity of being and thought was and is an underlying metaphysical as­ sumption of all philosophical method, and that the various ontological arguments, although Incomplete in expression. - 5 2 - anticipete the realisation of this unity.69 70

Sotze Rudolph , a philosopher of Hegelian back­ ground and tendencies, illustrates in his Hloroeoanus both the slow disintegration of the Hegelian dialectic system and meth­ od and the great development of obscurity with relation to the ontological argument. He writes:

To conclude that because the notion of a most perfect Being Includes reality as one of Its perfections, therefore a most perfect Being necessarily exists, is so obviously to conclude falsely, that" after Kant*s incisive refutation any attempt to defend such reasoning would be useless ... We do not from the perfection of that which is perfect immediately deduce its reality as a logical consequence; but without the circumlocution of a deduction we directly feel the impossibility of its non-existence, and all semblance of syllogistic proof only serves to make more clear the directness of this cer­ tainty. If what is greatest did not exist, then What is greatest wouldnot be, and it is not impossible that that which is greatest of all conceivable things should not be.”0

After Hegel the ontological argument m s usually asso ciated w ith the id e a lis ts in , , England, and America, and in many idealistic systems of the present day it assumes a central position. Various forms of the argument are found also in certain realistic systems, but the tendency to obscure the essential traditional issue, essentia involvit existentlam, results in a magnification

69 Hegel. L ectures on the H istory of Philosophy. I l l , 62 ©t aeq., 70 Lotze. tllcrbcoeaus. id, 669. - 5 3 - of difficulties vdien mm attempts to tmcorer the ontological . . argument In modern philo soph teal literature. Of ag.1 modern philosophers, however, George Santayana is without exception the thinker most free of ontological contentions, at least in the traditional metaphysical sense.

Weiss One thinker, Paul Weiss, a man rather Independent of contemporary winds of doctrine, has written in his recent work entitled Reality:

One can demonstrate that the most perfect neces­ sarily exists, if hy the most perfect me means the positive or real as the negation of the im­ possible ; hut If hy the most perfect one means some single unique being, no satisfactory proof of its existence has been or can he given.*!

In another place, after oonmient on the abstract symbolical signification of the argument in which Weiss says that the ontological argument maintains that there, is a p, which be­ cause possible, is itself necessary, which reduces to the equivalence, j> is possible a j> is necessary, where p Is some special object - for Weiss, the entire universe as a totality of distinct individuals - he writes:

Ingredient in the ontological argument is the supposition that because God must be necessarily what he is, he necessarily is. That consequence does not follow ... and if "it did it would ex­ press.. . an impossibility. If the inference could be justified it would permit of the deduc- 71

71 Weiss, P. R e a lity . 162. tlon of the existence of any entity from the "base of its understood internal nature, and it would then follow that I necessarily exist heoause I necessarily ea what I am. Bit only the whole of reality is such that it exists necessarily and necessarily is what It.Is .72 73

Contemporary The o n to lo g ical argument has appeared in many con­ temporary philosophies in more or less distinct forms. It is found in the theories of Tloyce, Hocking, Pringle-Patti son, H. Wildon Carr, Croce, Gentile, Russell, and Whitehead, to select only a few names from among many in contemporary and recent philosophy. Although all of these men are aware of the reasons for rejecting it, they attempt none the less to reinstate' it on grounds quite peculiar to their individual philosophical theories. Hr. Holmes, in his hook cm Giovanni Gentile, has perhaps detected the importance of the ontolog­ ical argument in modern philosophy. He writes that the crit­ ical realist agrees epistemologically with the doctrines of the actual Idealist, hut states that in addition to essence, existence must he predicated of the real in order that it he real. Holmes thinks that the issue, therefore, between the two is that of the ontological argument. "It is his [Gentile’s] point that a distinction between essence and existence can have no philosophic significance ... Every essence in the act of being thought Is existent.

72 Y/eiss, P. Reality. 170. 73 Holmes. The Idealism of Giovanni Gentile. 162 ff. - 5 5 -

Hoelclnf? In Professor EoeMng1 s book, The leaning of (W. to. Hman Experience, we finds "It is ,somo leap from idea to reality that constitutes the essential movement of the mind to God ... Yet this come ontological argument is the only one which is wholly faithful to the history* the anthropology, 74 of religion. It is the only proof of God."

Croce Benedetto Croce employs the ontological argument de­ spite the fact that he has a clear knowledge of the issue. He writes that the concept gives the essence of things, and in the concept essence involvos existence. "That this propo­ sition has sometimes been contested is due solely to the con­ fusion between the essence, which is existence and therefore concept, and the existence which is not essence and therefore is representation ... If the concept of God be conceivable, God i s . To the most perfect concept the perfection of exis­ tence cannot be wanting without being itself non-existent.^ Inasmuch as the concept is "equal only to Itself and cannot be resolved into another or explained by another," the concept approaches what Santayana means by "essence" with an all im­ portant difference, however. Santayana1 s essence does not * exist necessarily, while Croce *s concept is understood to be ontologieally necessary end existentially real. 7475

74 Hocking, 17. 3. The Meaning of God in Human Experience. 306 75 Croce, B. lo g ic . 116-118. - 5 6

From this rather brief history of the ontological argument we shall pass to Kant’s examination of its impli­ cations ana assumptions. From the foregoing pages we nay conclude that the ontological argument has been a lire Issue in the history of philosophy, and in contemporary times there seems to be no cessation of its appeal. It may be considered a pivotal point from which one begins his philosophical in­ vestigation of phenomena. V/e may expect to find the onto­ logical argument lurking in the recesses of the doctrines of a philosopher who emphasizes the powers of the human mind in grappling with the vicissitudes of metaphysical existence. We do not expect to find it in the doctrines of those who em­ phasize the existence of an external world independent of the mind, sometimes called the modern realistic approach, but alas, we sometimes .encounter it there also. Ho philosopher except Santayana, perhaps, seems to be able to avoid the halls of metaphysic; and the ontological argument has stalked at its portals from the beginnings of human conception. Al­ though we may not chase the demon from the doorways, we can at least attempt to understand why he is there, and with that understanding we may enter where others fear to tread with the humor and gracious light of self-consciousness. Chapter I I BCZAimXL O M AZB TIES 0U2C&0CICAL ABCDKE2TS

9he General ZhHosophy of gent

The philosophy of Icacmuol Kant is \7i t h 0ut doubt ono of the greatest monuments testifying to the. grandeur of the human I n te lle c t, Indeed, i t s very system atic m agnificence and extensive theoretical field defy any attempts to condense the major philosophical doctrines involved with any satisfac­ tory degree of technical accuracy. Despite this fact there have been many w riters who have, in rather courageous hut highly inadequate fashion, briefly indicated the Important doctrinal tenet® of the Kantian critical philosophy. A casual observation of many of the introductory essays or condensed • . - * - • articles on Kant indirectly reveal, through their very incest- pie tone ss end forced simplicity, the gigantic intellectual stature of the of Konlgsberg. To grasp entire the phi­ losophy of Kent is the work of n lifetime of painstaking anal­ ysis and, even then, one despairs of attaining any semblance of apostolic finality. The following remarks of Professor Hoyco express an experience uhleh is perhaps common to many students of Kent $

The thorough student of Kant io, so to speak, a Tnnnhauser, close shut In his Venusberg. You

-5T- . -BS*

hunt for him fruitlessly in ell the outer r/orld. n’orcc than Tamdi&user he is, for you eon never /rot him out. Pilrrlnc* choruses Ghent, and izolt- im? SliSEheths nourn for him, in vain. As for ne, I, as you perceive, an no reader of Kent, in tho strict sense, at all. I vron a doctor’s degree, years since, in part hy writing a course of lec­ tures upon tho "Critique*. X have since cone to see that those lectures rare founded upon a ser­ ious, X night say cm ontiro, niointerpretsbiea of Kant’s ncaning ... But then, after d l, Kant, you see. I s Kant; and the lo rd made him, and many other wondrous works hcsldoe; end it takes tine to find such things out./6

The Critique of Pure Reason Unny presentations of Kant’s philosophy fasten upon the Critique of Pure Reason alone as the entire statement of Kent’s intellectual trensuron. The Critique has "boon con­ sidered, end with good reason, the major philosophical pro- duetlon of a mature thinker, "but it is not tho whole of Kant.

CM® eon enter here only b plea that the serious student of critical philosophy "become thoroughly acquainted with the intellectual development of Kant from the early influences of the Xelbnltzo-uolfflsn dogmatic school, the so-colled pre-critloel poriod, throu/di tho careful scrutiny and critl- ...... , eel consideration of the scope, powers, and limitations of human reason, tho critical poriod proper, to the somewhat neglected ethical and aesthetic doctrines of tho storm old professor of the Categorical Imperative, the final period of ethical . Tho name Kant represents a lifetime 76

76 Boyce, J. Tho Spirit of Ito&ora Biilosoplxv. 105. - 5 9 - of philosophy, not a single hrllliem t philosophical work. In th is th e s is xic shall U nit our study, in tho main, to the Crltlcuo of Pure Reason (which w ill hero aft or ho referral to as Critique simply), in which work appearo Kant’s most im­ port imt oxemlnstlon of tho ontological cn-ginont. The Critique is a long and Involved investigation of the possibilities end lim itations of human knowledge and may he oonsidorod tho f i r s t g re a t work o f vrl&e epistemologi­ cal signlflesnoe* Kent had n moot difficult problem to solve as mediator of M storioal philonophicol doctrines, CM th e one hand, h is e a rly rationalistic training and influences gave him great respect far the a priori and tho powers of hu­ man reason; on. the other hand, his knowledge of the investiga­ tions of locks end Eune made clear the necessity of including empirical elements in tmy well-reasoned system o f philosophy. Although mowing greet respect for rntionalim , ho disliked in ten sely th e Wolffian dogmatism, but, m purely empirical phi­ losophy, he recognised, would load one to rm ultimate skeptlolaa ^blch indeed was tho final outcome of the Humien principles* - - , He was faced, then, vdth the problem of bringing rational end empirical principles into harmony and, at the same time, ho wished to avoid. tho escosses of either position. Ho had to save knowledge from those who declared it impossible, the

% . - . ... ■ . - {Sceptics, and he had to lim it knowledge for those who extrav­ agantly declared its unconditioned possibility, the rational­ ists, Hot only this great problem faced Kent* he felt that • 60. be bad to justify philosophy horeolf! B?ofccsor 2. II. Grceno w rites: ■ - ■ ■ ^. .

?ho C ritique of-Bare Xleasoo oponn v/ith a In n e n t. • Biilosophy, onco hulled the quoen of tho ccioncon, is in dire ctrnitc, for tihe has failod to cub. stent late her conturio£>old oltdn of being able to diccovor end portray tho truth regarding tho nature of ronlity. Tho story of hor endeavours is a sad ehronlelo of disputec end dlnngrconontc aamg hor disciples, of cveivrenen-ed beginnings and of conclusions coon nbmdonod, of vain and unjustified assurance alternating with prenature and unprofitable despair. As a result sho has now fallen into disrepute end her proud none has be. cone a tern of reproach, for honest non have lost faith in her empty promises end look upon her with . indifference and eenteapt.TT . .

Hero is the noot distressing problem of then nil, tho problem which led to the birth of tho Critical philosophy end tho Cepemlean revolution in epistemology. Hont ozplalns that f earner philosophers, ocmoeralng them solves with tho nature of reality, had overlooked tho nooesslty of ostablicliing tho scope nnd lim itations of the cognitive process of the human mind# He reveals tho noeossity of on eshaustivo investigs- tiem of the subjective eonditlcms of tho possibility of knowl. edge. From the nnturo of occo :to must retrace our in justified stops to -tho nature of cogito; we must rotum to the subject before determining the nature of tho object, Kant’s loading question was then formulated . How do wo fora synthetic a priori judgments and what ore tho oondl. tim e of tiielr possibility? . and from this question he slowly 77

77 Orocno, T. II. Kent Soloctlons. sxviii • zuiz. an! laboriously disoeverb the rntional end a priori olcnenta which impart validity end formal cogency to empirical Jud®- neats. He analyzes in itiort the cognitive experience into its rational and empirical foundations.

Spistecology * Hot many - years ngo, when interested in the epistemo­ logical doctrines of Kent* end impressed with hie renarl: "Thou^its without contents are empty, intuitions (Anschau- ungen) without concepts are ‘blind. ” the writer constructed b chart vhlch attempts to present the definitive steps in the knowledge process seeordinf! to the doctrines of the - Critique. She dhart is oonetruotod on the basis of concepts end definitions presented by Krmt, with ospecial reference to the assumed polarity of the object and the etooept, and presents in rather formal fashion, the elements of the cog­ nitive experience. It will probably be of value here.

Orrcnlsatlon of the Critiouo The Critique gey be divided Into tliree major sections. The first, the Transcendental Aesthetic, is concerned with the exposition of space and tine; the second, the Transcendental Analytic, is concerned vrfLth the exposition of the categories; - ' and the third, the Transcendental Dialectic, is concerned with the exposition of pure reason end its lim itations. Professor Kemp-Smith has analysed the neening of the title of the work in a thorough manner end concludes that if a really adequate definition of the purpose end scope of the Critique is sought PJJJBCS

Sensibility (Faculty or capacity i*or rccoptiTity - object is riven) ‘Tine (Fare ferns of Sensible Intuition - Categories of Sensibility I Appearance (Chacflned object of ^api

■ ' better • - __ w -,» (that carro- (that p EIcH cim "b© 'arrange 1 spends to oonsatimi) * tm&er certain relaticms) • TJnderstnndinfr (Faculty of Bales, I ^ Faculty of caking Judg- thouGht Is given -j sente. Categories) (Puro conceptual fomD^of^tho Understanding as s tifle d "by Space and Time) I Isarlnatlon ; S^nthosls (Faculty of spontene ously producing ’ropre cent at ions) (Spwt^mlty of Cognltlw) ■

(dud jWG3gnt Sect - re:

Thow^t ■. (Cognition by noono of conceptions)

C o n 2 S 3 & to lyr the reader, he must It for himself. Ho then continues:

The folloxvinf? noy perhaps servo. Tl:o Critique Is an enquiry into the sources; conditions, scope end lim its of our knowledge* both a priori and empirical, resulting: in the construction of n new system of Imnnent metaphysics; in tho light of the oonclueione thus reached, it also yields an analysis and of tho transcendental illusion to tshidb transcendent metaphysics, hoth as n natural disposition and ns a professed science, is duo.'8

In the introduction Itent states that we form syn­ thetic Judgments a priori in anthomatioal, physical, and metaphysical science. In the Aesthetic he proposes to in­ vestigate the Judgments of mathematical science, in tho Analytic those of physical science, and in the Dialectic those of metaphysical science.

Srperience- and Knowledge A highly significant distinction is made in the Introduction which aoooepanios Kant's reasoning throu^iout the v/ork. He states that there can ho no doubt of tho fact that all our knowledge begins with experience. In rospoct to time, in other words, no knowledge of ours is antecedent to experience hut begins with it. And hero ho Introduces an Important consideration. "But though all our knowledge begins with experience, it by no moans follows that all arises out of experience." This distinction at once discards the notaphyoi-

7B Kemp-Smith# Commentary to K an t's C ritiq u e of Pure Reason. 56. -64- col contentions of onpiriolsn each ao those of the Xochlon ntfi’oala rasa” nlnd or the Eunien "hun&lo or collection of different ”, and cafaas possible the introduction of n priori elements found in the course of osrpericnee hut act erieing thcroArm. In thin way. Ecat removed an inportant * • • a priori principle of the Understanding, that of causality, from the empirical renin to the conceptual realm, and explic­ itly denloo the enplrieiste* ocnt«itim that oil our knowledge * - is caused hy oxperionco, on assertion quite common in English philosophy* 'Shis distinction is basic in Eantts philoseshy*

The Transcendental Aesthetic . In the Transcendental Aesthetic Kant introduces the phendnenaliotic element by shov-dng th a t tin e and space, pure forms of sensible intuition, are the conditions of tho possi­ bility of cognizing an object o f experience. Thcw categories of , or pare form© of sensibility, are involved In . . the cognition of every empirical object, that is, an object of the phenomenal world. Wo can haw no cognition of on object as a thing in itself, the nounenen, since all objects of oen- sible Intuition are determined by the ooaaditlme of space end time* Space end tine ore thus not properties of things in themselves; they are a priori conditions of the possibility o f any experience of the phenomenal world whatsoever. Them fundamental categories posmes, therefore, transcendental ideal­ ity end empirical reality* They are metaphysically subjective Imt are also epistemologically objective. -65-

The Trenaoendental' AnnlTtic : In the Tl’nnBcondontnl Annlytio Kent pyoceodo to tho , ; - : ' _ / - dlooonmry of the categories.'of the u'naerstending, discusses their trcnscondontcl deduction, and tabulates then under the - " ’ fom of sensibility* tine, as schemata, or conceptual forms modified by the faculty of representation, Theee eatogoriea of the Understanding are forms of thoufiit xvMch orgnnlco tho phenenena presented to then. The objects given ore always presented in senco-pcrcoptioa end hence under tho forms of space end time, Ao the eatogorlcs of ssnoible intuition are ecaiditione of tho possibility of omporionco, so also the a»s$cewd6K|a l Tke. Id ^ a o f a Sou-1 - Rafib^l ffyckofogy Tke. Idea oF. N&facr& — R&flonal C onnalofty firfi Reaxow V^efe^jW ______MQEL l T Y 1Bxlrhvit<, — Bkcje*^*- ft- PnOn w pos^ikUily — p cat iV»‘) /fy ftirciplv o4 — .. R £ L ATI ON > e__LiynlfeK^^ \ G noyt; f U f L IT Y ^ y l Htai'+V ..... 1 ...... __ UmHv______Categoric QW N T I T Y ! t PLrtl-.fy /< - To+w 1 Time — Comprokenfiaw Tranaceyidenidl T m e — O rder

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f l/€cL Vy ^ Ih':6 /jk ro w ^ 'Ric 4 ^ g e *&;;*** .^.JDr._ i f_ ly_1Xc» . A.*c4&i*yL!Ld6:lke._ pnreii^el^kH^Kj^, ITKlf mliCes/ih AT Ordlnary ^njc $kj£cf (*f®'kk).%l, ^ jkt^lt^y IL i^_ ^t£-%“pUcheHt£kti/ _u9vr-id/Ltr ma J*y.. kuwa*^ kc probably imravel seny of the Kantian nyctorlos. It vdll ho of use here with rogard to tho cate/rorloc of the tmcLcrstond- Ing. Kent ecmeidoro no:

3io Transcendental Dialectic The faculty of Ho a non In the Transcendental Dialectic Kent investigates the field of metaphysical science. It Is hors that m are * • ■ ccnfrcmted with, the faculty of reason, the source of trea- ■ - ...... ecendental illusion. Reason, as tho faculty of principles, can never obtain synthetic knmlcdgo through the puro con- cept. tSie principles of reasem ore applicable only as con­ ditions of the unity of possible experience among tho rules ■ ■ . ' • of the Understanding; they arc not, end cannot be, things in thorn solves, since they are merely concepts devoid of content. The Understanding applies to tho experience of tho phenomenal world; the forms of thought nro conditions of objective exis- tenco in space end tine* The principles of reason, deter- sined ’by the inhcront nature of reason, cool: to co ’beyond their hypothetical hrrriers to the objective dotemination of things In them wives* The Transcendental Dialectic xtIII xmocrmr these Illusions and illic it postulates of fomnlim and movent any further deception arising In the forauiatlcm of transcendental judgments*- Kent recognises that although we nay guard againct the oentrcdlctions into which pure reason * inevitably falls, we say never succeed in removing the tren- . Beendontal illusion altogether:

For m have here to deal with a natural and in- evitable illusion, *whic^'itself re etc .on sub- . jeotivo principles, representing then to us as objective ... There cuiots, thorefero, a natural and inevitable Dialectic of pure reneon, not one in which a aero bungler night get entangled from want of tcnowlodgo, or which ct sophist night ar­ tificially devise to eeanfuso rational people, but one that 1® inherent in, end inseparable from human roason, and which, even after its illuoien has been exposed, w ill never cease to fascinate our reason, and to precipitate it into momentary e rro rs . .Eftudi be require to be removed again md .

He aeon attempt e to ' transcond the phcncncnnl world In its search for an unconditicmed basic in the idea of on abso­ lute nounena.1 unity. It is true that the IMderstanding reaches fo r such a unity in the phenomenal sphere, a unity which it will never reach since the determinations of space end time , . . . • • allow no completed synthesis of judgment, but rather, an in­

79 Kant. Critique of Pore Henson. £41-242. e»€8«» f in ite rocreoGU-e of ro latl« i® * T$io roeeon, on the o th er head, strive o to go heyontl the xhonononnl Into a T o g im of eoBplete unity or totality. In x?!iich cam It attenpto to transform a "boro prlnolplo of pure reason Into on object of ...... '• ' . hnoulodee. men this idea of unity, tlio uneondltionea, is talcen as a basis for the detcmlnation of objects, or is it­ self oonsldered cm object of Imorrlol^, m are confronted with weln uferlocoG Ifeor”; we have pluncod Into the sea of Illu sio n *

Rational Payoholopy and Cosnology Kant critlolsoG the traditional netaphyslec of Ms mm Amy. Ho follows, with original organisation, the old Wolffian division of notaphyolos into pcyohology, comolog7, end thedloGy, He points out that the objects of those sci­ ences, the soul, the universe, end Cod, ero concepts of ob­ jects which lie beyond the sphere of possible experience. In ooneidercti one of the soul Kent dice overs the pnrnlogisns of rational psyoholoc;r. In like nnimer ho discovers that investi­ gations concerning the universe as a whole lend to the inevi­ table antinomies o f rational cocaology, tlie contradictions of reason resulting when we attenpt to prove that the world is lim ited in time and space, is composed of simple ports, admits of i*oo will, or has a nooeGsnry ground, or th eir antitheses, propositions which transcend the realm of possible experience. Rational Thoology The ®rltloim of Rational ShoologF* tho portion of the Crltlgno in vMch Kant inirostigatco tho proofs for the ■ O3d.otonoo of Code has a unique placo in the history of ihl- leso^iy, Kant conslclorn tho hasio argunonts for the exis­ tence of God to ho tho coEnolosieai, tho phycioo-thcolofrlcol or teleological, end tho ontological* He dhovs that none of these prodfs is logically valid v/ith tho consequent denial of any possible theoretical den on stm t ion of the existence of God# Kant concludes freo the entire investigations of the Cran- scon&sntel Pialoctie that notapliyeicol science cannot he shorn to ho possihlo within tho lim its of tho pure reason. The Critique is concluded with a Transcendental Doctrine of llothode, tho formal conditions of a nothodology of pure rea­ son, much of which is repetitive of principles foraorly enun­ ciated in the work#8®

The Ideal of Dure Reason - Zh tho second hook of the Transcendental Dialectic, chapter throe, Kant discusses the meaning of the Idoal of Bar© Reason. He recalls that without the conditions of sen­ sibility it would he impossible to roprosont ohjccts by neons of the categories of tho Understanding. Ideas ere further re­ moved from reality -tiien the cEtegorlee,. M t the Ideal# the idea in ooncroto and in individuo. is the most distant frea 80

80 See Appendix V for further material* otijoctivo reality, uo have to aOnlt that the lianas, roaeoa • 1 • » » oontalao Ideals, ICant explains, end they are such like vfnat Plato osiiBt "by his archetypal ideas • Intellieihlo perfection in v&iich the isdlvldaol phescaoson participates ~ hut, nrltli- out soaring so hl^i", the Ideal of Pare Hoason suet hero ho mdoretood only, in relation to its practical power as a rega~ latlro principle for Imowlectfo 5 it is not the Platonic Idea as constitutive of xhoncooas* The reason, as the gintlldengc- hr alt. Is produhtlv. hut It is in no way cchopforlsch or crea­ tive. me ideal of Eeaeon nay regulate Imoeloage hut it does not possess crootivo power. ,r2heco ideals, thou^i they cannot olein objective reality Cexistence), are not to he considered no nero chlneras, hut supply reason with on Indispensable ston- derd.w Kent goes on to Introduce the principle of doterainn- tiffii. wIn its ideal ... reason nino at a perfect deteraina- tiem, according to rales a priori, end it conceived an object throughoit dotorainahlo according to principles, though with­ out the sufficient conditions of experience, so that tho con­ cept itself Is transcendent.nQ3* Every concept Is subject to tho principle of daternlsahlllty vdiltii, according to tho law of 0 ontracliciion, states that of every two ecmtredictcrlly op­ posite predicatee, only one can belong to the concept* But ovorything, with relation of possibility, is also subject to the principle of eoaplete detominatiem.. m is provides #mt of all possible predicates of a thing, as caapcrod with their

81 Kant, Critique of ?uro - Reason. 462, opposited, one taunt "bo applicable to It# This principle of complete detemlnstion contains a trnnsconclontGl prosuppool- tion » the totality of all possible predicates - all possi­ bility must oontain a priori the data of a particular possi­ bility. Stated in another way, with reference to determina­ tion, the proposition that everythin?? which exists is com­ pletely deternlnod noons that to know a thing1 completoly we aust know everything possible* Obviously complete determina­ tion Is conceptual; Founded on an idea of pure reason which can never be totally represented in concrete, complete deter­ mination can only prescribe to the btefteretandlng ao an Ideal to be approached. It is a regulative ideal, Professor. Keny­ an ith makes an interesting comment concerning this section of #ie Criticue. He writes*

Section II ... is quite the most archaic piece of r a tio n a listic argument in the en tire Critique. It Is not merely loibnizinn, but Wolffian in charnc- tc r . For Kant the Wolffian lo g ic had an old tin e flavor and familiarity that rendered it' lyr no moans distasteful; and he is hero, sc it were, rocalling, not altogether without synpathy, the lessons of his student yenre.8^ : -

The troneoendemtal presupposition of the sum total of all possible'predicates in which every particular content of possibility ie contained, so for as it forms the complete determination of ovorythiag, considered with relation to transcendental negation, becomes associated with the idea of 82

82 Kemp-Salth. Commentary to Kent*s Crltiguo. 522. n trmi®0©Raent al m itstratm for ell flo term Inst leme. The trensrondentel cahotretun contains within it coif tho totality of aeteminetlanc, the cun total of posalhle prodicatoc, throdifh Which any particular possibility is determined. The totality Is throwdxmt ef tramscondontally affim ative charae- tor since through it alone do pooslhlc objects eontain tran­ scendental content or real determination. The cun total o f all possible iTredioates Is not Indeterminate for, since it of necessity relates to real' or transcendental determination and must therefore exclude transcendental and derived negative concepts. It becomes a priori determinate through the demands o f the Ideal of Pure Reason, and is transformed Into the con­ cept of an individual existence. In other words, the idea of the am total of all reality (canltudo realltatl® ) becomes in­ dividualised as the concept of cm ons reallssimon. All this is good Wolffian rationalism reflecting the arguments of Baum gar ten1 s Metaphysics, a textbook Kent used in his student days. We ere plunged into Kant *8 initial consideration of the ontological argument, a consideration which, in its bare out­ line, seeks to explain tho origin of rational theology through the Ideal of Pure Reason, the Prototypen Transcendental#. Kant w rite s:

By thin complete possession of all reality we represent the concept*of a thine by itself ao completely determined, and "the concept of sn ons reallsslaum is the eeneept of an individual '^e'lng. "because of all possible opposite p red i­ cates one, namely, that which absolutely belongs to being, is found in its determination. It I s therefore c trensoeRdontal ideal \7hieh fomn the foun&otloaG of the eoaploto' dotornination which is Baeeecory for nil that crictn, and ^ieh constitute g at the name time the hifdiont and complete condition cf itn pocsibilltp, to which ell thought of object e, with regard to their content, must be traced bach. It in at the some time the only true ideal of which human reason ic capable, because it is in this cane alone that a concept of a thin#?, which in itself* is general, in completely determined by itself, and recognised ae the roprocontetlon. of an individual.93

Beacon, when it attempts to represent the necossary and complete determination of things, does not at first pre­ suppose the existence of a being that should correspond to the ideal, but sees in the ideal the prototypon from which , ■ all iaperfeot copies (eetypa) derive the material of their possibility. "Thus all the possibility of things is consid­ ered as derivative, end the possibility of that only which includes in itself ell reality as original." Hence, the ob­ ject of the Ideal of Henson is colled the original Being (ens orlgianritaa). and for similar reasons, the highest .Being (ens Baagaa). and the Being of all beings (ensentim ). All this is in tmtleipatlon of tlie criticism of the ontological argument. Throughout this entire discussion Sant has urged nothing concerning the objective existence of sn objective Being, giving ear©, at many points in the development of the Ideal of Pur© Heason, to emphasise the idem ae traneeemdental- ly understood, the Ideal as conceptual. Again ho warns us:

83 Kent. Critinue of Pure Hoason. 465-66. 74.

•All this however docs not nonn tho o’bjcctive relation of any real thing to other things, hut of the idea to concepts, and leavea ue In perfect Ignorance ao to the esistance of a being 84 of such aaparlatiTO excellence.” Khnt goes on to dhou that the ideal of an original hoing oust he conceived ns simple end ne a eeu». He then writes:

I f vo follow up this idea of ours and hypostasis© It, wo shall ho able to dctomlno the original he- ing hy* moans of tho concept of'the hi^iost reality as one, simple, nil sufficient, eternal, etc., in one word, determine it in its unconditioned con- pleteneee throu# all predienmonte. Tho concept of each a being is tho concept of God in Its tran­ scendental sense, and thus, ...“the ideal of cure reason is the object of a transcendental theology.05

Armm&nts of National Theology ' From the Ideal of Biro Beacon wo have passed to tho ' 1 « ideal of the Being of d l ho Inge, end now, illusion and natu- * . - - . - • ral disposition aiding us, m easily realino, hypostatiso, and personify tho ideal. But tho Understanding dimly recog­ nises the dubious and devious character of an unwarranted route, and, conscious of a feeling of deception, do vices nr- guaents to prove the existence of God, Eont euanarisoo tho stops in this unwarranted path toward illusion*

Since no other objects can bo given to us but those of the , end nowhere but in the content of a • poesiblo experlenoc, nothing can bo an object to ue, if it does not pro suppose that wliolo of all empiri­ cal reality, as tho condition of its poeelMlity. Owing to a natural illusion, v/e are led to consider 8485

84 Eont, Critique of Pore Reason. 466. 85 Kant. Crltiruo of itn'o Bensoh. 443-69, - 7 5 -

d principle v/liich applies only to tlio objects of our senses, as a principle valid for all things, 'arid thus to teloe the onpirical yainciplc of our concepts of the possibility of things as phcno- ' sene, by omitting this linitation, as a transcen­ dental principle of the possibility of things in .. gen eral, . ' ...... If afterwards we hypostasise this idea of the whole of all roolity, this is owing to our chang­ ing dialectically the distributive unity of the enpirical use of oar understanding into the col­ lective unity of on onpirical tdiole, and then re­ present to our solves this vzholo of phencraena se sn individual thing, containing in It coif all en- Plrienl reality. AfterwnrdD, by ncane of the tran­ scendental oubroptitHu this is tdlcen for the con­ cept o f b thing standing at the head of the pos­ sibility of nil things, and supplying the real conditions for their complete determination**

A footnote to the above sunnary indicates the rcnarlc- able organisation and architectonic of the Critique:

fliis ideal of the cost real of oil things, although merely, a representation, is first realised* that is, tiianged in to an object, then Iiypogt~asi¥e'd7 and last­ ly, by the natural or! reason tevrardc unity, #.. personified; because tho regulative unity of cr- uerienoe does not rest on tho phononena then solves (sensibility alone), but .on the connection of tho manifold; through the understanding (in on appor- eeptitin), se -feat fee unity of the highest reality, and the complete d©torminaoility (possibility) of ell'things, soon to reside in a su^ene understand­ ing, end themforo on Intelligence*

fhe principles of the erganent & contin

36 Kent; Critique of Pure Benson; 470-71« 37 East, ^ritinue ■ of !ruro heaaon* 471. dltiono, fastens up«a tho concept of an unconditionally neces­ sary Being as the ground of all relative conditions. Tills ar­ gument Is based upon the Internal insufficiency of empirical reality, the incomplete character of the contingent• Sere, again. I d another way in which pursues an illusory object. This material will b© incorporated by Kant in his criticism of the phyeico-theological and cosmological arguments. After this short digression Kent assumes his primary taslc. "There arc only three kinds of proofs of the existence of God from speculative reason." He will show that neither the empirical nor the transcendent approach con soar beyond the phenomenal to the nouaenal with the power of reason. The first argument starts from a definite experience of the order of the empirical world with respect to purpose, ascending ac­ cording to the principle of eausallty to a highest cause; it is called the physico-theolo/rical or teleological argument. The second starts from indefinite experience, any existence empirically given; it in called tho cosmological argument or argument from design. Tho third, argument leaveo experience out of account altogether, and, with the aid of a priori prin­ ciples, attempts to prove the existence of a highest Being from a mere concept. This is the ontological argument. Kant re­ verses the order given above in M s examination of the argu­ ments stating that although experience no doubt gives tho first impulse in the proof, the transcendental concept really guides the reason, and, indeed, Kent later shows that the on- tologloal nrguncmt v o o lly supports. In tho last analysis, the nBnkneesoe of tho other too argunento. Kent oxanlnes tho on- tdlo^ioal ergonent first end then sees if it con ho strongthonol with Hie addition of empirical olencnts found In tho toloolegl- cnl end cotoologionl.

The ImiooslMllty of an Ontological Proof

A nalysis The title of this section. Of the Impossibility of an Ontolorlonl Proof of Hie E%lsteneo of God, anticipates Kant’s eoncluslaie. It is evident that tho concept of an abeolutoly neeeemry Doing is an idem of puro reason* Idea® of pure rea­ son are far removed froa the condition# of a possible experience* They are, indeed, nero ideas; ideas without the eantont of sen­ suous perception os notified by the Schcnntc of the Uhderetemd- ing. Just beeauso reason night require ozlstenco of on idea does not in the least prove that the idea exists, nueh loss does it prove that its object exists* The requirements of reason do not In any trey necessitate the ontological existence of the ob­ jects of concepts. 7?e nay forn tho inpl lent ion "p implies q” but we In no vmy assert the existence o f a p or a q* Because reason requires that p imply q does not neon that a real (exis­ tential) p Implies q. Via have hero the form of reasoning, the tru th of which I d independent of its validity in judgment, logical judgment nay correct Its propositional objects but it does not create them* Wo may thttir what m like provided \tq avoid contradiction, MS the requirementc of those thou^its are for fron fraarnntcoa of their ohjectivo reality. The propo­ sition "wine is rod” in no tmy requires that a real tdno osict, nor does it require. If v?o rrant the possibility of its e:dn- tcnco, that it should bo rod. In the coiontlfic pursuit of our lo^loal contentions tro may dicoovor that our objoot violated throughout #mt v/o had predicated of it a priori. In other words, tho conditions of conception are nuch d ifferen t fron the oondl- tlons of existence. An idea is not so much a sonewhat as it Is a U nit. The idea points to en unattainable ccaplotonoss, en ideal to be approxiraatod, it in no way extends our Imowlo&ro of th e en p irlcal v/orld. If v/e diould consider the natter more closely we shall find that the condition# of the TJb&orctending seen to defy at every point the nere possibility of concoiving* an ab- so lu to ly necessary Being, or absolute necessity of existence, f r m any given and indefinite existence in general. Kont re­ v ea ls M e in terest in epistemology* It Is on historical fact that philosophers have devoted a greet mount of their time in attempted demonstratims of tho existence of on absolutely nec­ essary Being, overlooking quite thoroughly how the human mind over conceives such en idea. A v erb al definition of necessary being is not diffi­ cult to frm®. It Is simply "a something the non-existence o f which i s impossible," M t this certainly says very little, if anything. It tells us nothing of the conditions of its noB-exlstence as inconceivable, much less does it give us any WzLizig of tho conaltionG of ezi stance to note that tlirou^iant tho history of rhilooophy tho con­ cept of tho aboolute or unconditionod has hocn conaidorcd nost often In negative terns irlth relation to cn undefined . saporlatlvee The Undorstanding requires conditions to facili­ ta te i t s operation* To renovo all these conditions t/ith the t?ord unconditioned in order to achieve a Idnd of nococcity does not in any trsy sho*,? that tre have a concept of any intel­ ligible content whatsoever* Uo nay he thinking nothing at all* In the history of philosophy re have else not with these viio onmernte oncnplec which they accept as analogous to or osplenatory of tho idea of a necessary existence, in tho course of which thoy Golden attempt to justify the intel­ ligibility of tho analogy or explanation. Tho cuanplcs of propositions in gecaetry have been proposed to illustrate absolute noeocsity, such as a triangle has throe angles, and thon, with the help of nuch confusion, the proposition has boon related to o:d.ctc.nco and a necessary Being. r;c nay enumerate czcnples to illustrate a particular ccmcoptual necessity or necessity by dofinition, but we nast always guard against oflnfaeing the distinction between this necessity of thoutdrfc and tho nocossity of onlotenoe. Hero wo have one of tho nost fruitful sources of illusion in philosophy* . In our thinking we arc prone to confound logical with ontological necoscity and reaeon on tho ascunption that tho unconditioned necessity of judgments is the cane as the absolute necessity of things. Is the case of the trien&Lo there is no douht that three angles are necessary to its concept - hut tre have said ah- eolutely nothing concoming the ©ziotonco of a trinnglo. Shat person ha® not glihly tslhocL of the trienglo as thoa^i ■ ■ . it wore completely determined in the nature of things - as though It wore detornined hy the categories of sensibility end understanding? Tho ezistenco of tho triangle is a hypo­ th e tic a l oonsideration; it certainly does not follow from the fact that it has throe angles nocossarily, or any other logi­ cal necessity of Its internal nature* All of these cron pies of necessity are token from judgments and no ostablidhaont of things and their ezlstonco has taken place. tTacn we ar­ bitrarily impose some logical nccosoity upon a particular judgnent we ere net justified in the least to consider this logical necessity in any way represent at ivo of things and th e ir re la tio n s* Purely logical necessity hue, nevertheless, exerted such a powerful influence upon the mind, that the idea was tremelated fro® the nocoseity of judgnont into tho determina­ tion of things - the realm of ontological necessity - end the lo g ic a l object become on eststcntial one* Tno object of the concept* instead of remaining merely possible as a concept including ezlstonco a priori* became an object in \7lilch oxio- tenco T/as suppoaod to bo necessarily included. ®mc the Be­ in g of the concept was considorod absolutely nocescary because its exiotenee was implied in the concept, with the further do- ncud that \vo gocopt the object o f the concept gg riven. In other t/orae, fron a concept which a priori Includec enlGtonco ? we cro euppoeed to admit that ozlctcnco nocooenrlly belongs to the object of the concept without Questioning vSiother a con- copt could include onietonce a priori, whether such a concept has on object, end whether necessity could be applied to the object of such a concept, fo insist that existence io implied in the concept of a necessary Being does not In the loaet make the object of that concept noocscary. The proposition tixat on idea of reason gives us the unconditionod necessity of things is entirely erroneous. % nay attach this of cn abstract concept in another way with reference to judgments. Any identical judgment nay bo rejected in tote* with­ out any reference to actual objects. It Is true that In an idontlcal judgment, for instaaco, A io A, wo cannot reject. ' - * ‘ ' ■ the predicate and retain the subject without contradiction since A is considered to be necessarily what it is, but, we need not accept the entire judgnont at all. t7o can reject botii subject and predicate without in the least suffering contradiction to arise. To accept the triangle and reject its three angles is certainly contradictory, but to reject the triangle and its three angles does not entail any contra­ diction whatsoever. ' TZc can apply this to the idea of a nec­ essary Being. If in a Judgment in which existence is predi­ cated of an absolutely necessary Being wo remove the entire judgment of its existence, wo also remove the thing itself • aM no contradiction results* If xx} accept a deity, then *0od lo amipotant" is en identical end necessary judgment, tat t?o neither have to accept a deity nor the necessary judgr- nent. If vm reject the identical judgment in toto no contra­

diction is possible for tto have rejected “both subject and predicate and nothing remains* Many of the prominent nciaphysicisno of Kant’s day had argued in true scholastic stylo that there is a subject uhieh cannot be ronovod out of existence* Bit this is just another way of posing the contention of the argument not; under consideration - that there exists an absolutely ticcoscary sub­ ject. There is no necessity of retaining the subject of a Beceeaery judgment as cm. absolutely necessary existential en~ tity . There wore other rationalists, however, who maintained that thcro Is one concopt v;hose object could never bo removed . . - \ ccmtradiction, the concept of the most real Being or the cam reallsslauz. 5mt feels that vo are justified in eon- sidering such a Being possible, although the absence of self- contradiction In a concopt does not prove the possibility of its object. He xTritos: ^

A concept io always possible, if it is not colf- oontradlctory* Tills is the logical characteristic of possibility, end by it the object of the concept is dlstlnculGhod fren tho niliil negativun. Bit it say nevertheless bo an empty concept', unless tho objective reality of the synthesis, by which tb# concept Is generated, has been distinctly dliOTm, This, however, ... must always rest on principles of possible experience, end not on the principle of analysis (the principle of contradiction). This is a warning against inferring at onco from the possibility of oonoeptc (logical) possibility of things (real).83

trim no v,ho support tho idea of an cne roallssinun crguo thet since ozlctonco in contained in the ccncopt of a tiling possible* the rcnoval of that thing fron tho realm of existence would enmil its internal possibility end rem it in an unjustifiable cantra&iction. But we m et note at once that the introduction of the concept of existence into the concept of a tiling Is a miserable tautological performance wertby of no consideration. %o dliould never admit that exis­ tence can bo inoluflea in the concept of a possible being. Somethin^ possible and something actual are entirely die- - . ' ' ■ i : ' ‘ t in e t . Here we face the oesonce of the whole problem. Kant writes: «I simply otSr you, whether the proposi­ tion, that this or that thing (which, whatever it nay be, I ' ■ - * ■ ■ ■ grant you as possible) exists, is on analytical or a spnthot-

/ - • ■ . , . . leal proposition,R An analytical judgment, one in which the ecEmeetion o f the predicate and subject in cogitated through id en tity * i s explicative i tho predicate adds nothing to the concept of the subject. A synthcticol judgment* cm the other hand* one in which id en tity does not exist and in itoitii the predicate adds sm othlng n o t contained, in tho subject, in augmentative. If tho proposition ’’this thing exists” in mi analytical judgment them*

88 Kent, ^ritloue of Pure Heason. 481. •-34**

. . . by i t a GD'irstcnco you. nM nothing to your thought of tho thing; but In that coco, either the thought within you vrould ho the thing It- coif, or you have proeappoeed existence, ao ho- Icmfdng to possibility* cntl imvo according to year osn blowing deduced oxistcnce feon internal possibility, ’dilch is nothing but a nisorahlc tautology.89

Certainly m emmot draw existonco out of a thing fren the ♦ * basis of its understood internal nature, or, to state tho sane'fact in another way, v:c cannot discover existence by defining It. Kent then establlclics M s contention that ell existential judgments arc synthetical ** every proposition which predicates existence is a synthetical judgment which brings the subject Into relation with cur experience. We aust recognise that the subtle Illusion of sub­ stituting a logical predicate for a real one resists correc­ tion and makes necessary our careful attention* For anything may becosae a lo/rioal predicate, even the subject can be pred­ icated of itself, logic is a formal discipline for our eon- oepto end propositions, it does not consider the contents of our knowledge in the least. "Determination. hoiTcvor, is a predicate, added to the concept of the subject, and enlarg­ ing it, and It must not therefore bo contained in it.” In Kent’s examination of the ontological argument he presents one of his major philosophical theses in the con­ tention that all existential judgments arc synthetical. There is no possible way in which ua ccn infer the being of a thing

89 Kant. Crltlouo of Pure Henson. 482. fro% I t a aero ccmoopt. Boln^r In n o t a r e a l proOIcato* To employ the concept of existence in the predicate of a judr- nent adds nothing to the subject. Existence, external to our ocmooptlons, m et be established or discovered* Being in not a concept of sonothing viiiich con bo added to the con­ cept In a judgment. In the logical senco being is merely the eopala of a proposition, a formal factor \fnich serves only to bring into relation the subject and predicate. Should vre say •God io”, we do not add a now.predicate with the word "is”. The subject, “God*, is merely .cot ever against the concept of God, end that concept is then token for on object* 0ie

only relation xtq have expressed is that of the subject end ell its predicates with our concept. ¥o add nothing to this concept by saying it is or thinking Its object as simply given Professor Kenp-Saith sums up th is portion of Kent1 c argument. Ee %'itOG:

In order tliet the proposition be true, the content of the object end of tho concept must be one ana the some. If the object contained mere than the - concept, the concept would hot express tho object, and the proposition would assert a relation that does not hold* Or to state tho some point in an­ other 'way, the real must not contain more content than the * possible. Otherwise it would not be tho * possible, but something different from the possible, which would then be taken es existing* A hundred real thalers do not contain the' least, coin more than, a hundred possible thalers. Though my finan­ cial position is very differently affected by a • hundred thalers then by the thought of then only, n conceived hundred thalers arc not in the least increased through acquiring existence outside my concept.90 90

90 Kemp-Smith. A Commentary to ICant1 b Critique. 530. 1©thing Is adSea to our thouriit of a thing "by saying it existB, for tho addition to tho concept vrould adnit of no - ooiroBpondlng o tjeet* i f i t v;oro a ro a l a d d itio n . % may att&oTc this predication of exist once on an­ other hasis. T/o nay think in a thing every hind of reality except one. To say that this dofeetive thing exists does not ■ - remove its imperfection* On tho contrary, this defective thing exists is the some vmy .as \to had thought it, without the one missing reality; otherwise its existence would he different from what \tq thought of itj the object would not be represented by the concept* then we conceive a perfect being, n ■ being without defect, wo still must establish its existence, w© cannot merely think its existence* Ho doubt wo can think of some perfect being of the hiehost reality the concept of which lacks nothing of the possible reel con­ tent of a thing in general* nevertheless, in relation to our whole state of thinking, there is the conspicuous absence of our knowledge of its existence* And hero Kent returns to one of the most Important contentions of the Critique - hnowlodro of existence is a posteriori. This theme lo found throughout the work fr

If wo wore concerned with an object of our senses, I could not mistake the existence of a thing for the more concept of it* for by tho concept the object is thought of as only in harmony with the general conditions of n possible empirical knowl­ edge, while by its existence it Is thought as contained in the whole content of experience ... With objects of pure thought ,.. * there is no means of knowing their existence, because it would have to be known entirely a priori, while our con­ sciousness of every kind of existence ... belongs entirely to the unity of experience and eny ex­ perience outside that field, though it cannot he dcolarod to ho ahsolutely lopossiblo. Is a 9remp||©ltian that ccnnot ho justified hy any-

Here x?o arc face to faee v/ith the crux of the ontological prohlen. In overy case of the deterainaiion of oxistenco x?o must go to experience, net to oxistonoo. Bxistenoe is a hy­ pothetical something sad the conceptual expresses acre pos­ sibility* The object of a concept may or nay not exist; its determination is a matter of empirical investigation. Possi­ bility is never independent of the actual. Its definition end determination rest upon the formal and material conditions : * of experience and the logical laws of conception, notably that

... * of contradiction and causality. Possibility, like actuality, is found in the observation of causal sequences in nature, the care­ ful determination of events in tho flux of time and space. Exis­ tence, for u®, is not a something- in itself, a transcendental idea or noooenon: it Is a relative and contingent group of phenomena related to our thought, a something given in experience through sensation. But the ontological argument attempts to establish a necessary existence, a kind of superlative being, vdioco very idea is not grounded in tho conditions of tho possibility of judgment, much less in the conditions of the possibility of . experl«ace. Since existence belongs entirely to the unity of experience, there is little need to pursue illusion into the indsterminate where the Ideal of Pure Reason is transformed

91 Kent. Critique of Pure Reason. 484-495* ' ■■V v nt taeetotl ect ed rir te egul or func­ ry to la u g re the vrliore end t, c je b o tranecentlontal a to In d en tal s iitstra tu n . Kent does not deny the p o s s ib ility o f f o ility ib s s o p the - cn deny sc trcn not does general Kent a f o . n e tu tiv titu iitstra s s n o c tal "boconos en d reason f o n tio i d eal us o i erpret u sronig? ht ­ i t s u j %hot surroundings? our t e r p r te in to s u enable ed n ­ tio i t s u j cone Do of ity s s e c e n experience. e th enphneisoo lie t tu nbunonal t2ie fic a tio n fo r stepping "beyond the "boundaries o f a p o ssib le le ssib o p a f o "boundaries the "beyond stepping r fo n tio a fic he el psil eprec? at e r t to con­ tho t a th s ark t, u h ren Kant experience? possible f o realm e th fic a tio n have vo to pro suppose i t xiien i t i s e n tir e ly out side side out ly e tir n e s i t i xiien t i uncondi­ e suppose pro th f o to vo concept have n tho tio Does a fic # n tio o n transcendent f o id ea, a judgment not imll3:o th a t o f aany nodem p ra g n a tis ts , , ts tis a n g ra p l fu se nodem u aany f very o a t a , th ts c e sp imll3:o re army not in judgment a , in ea, Being id Supremo a of cept n etnin f u mrldo oxitnce. isten x o f o Imor/ledgo our of extension any ytcal biiy gve us o nvog of h possi lt ility ib s s o p the f o knovlo&ge no s u es giv ility ib s s o p l a tic ly n, f biiy. h asne contadi i it t i , n tio ic d tra n o c f o absence Tho . ility ib s s o p o t i of any, f i b i l i t y cannot bo judged a p r io r i since the o b ject I s n o t so so t o n s I ject b o the since i r io r p a judged bo cannot y t i l i b r cno b dne of h cnet bt rl ana­ erely m s i h t but concept, the f o denied be cannot , e tru s i o realy ahee n nesadn of hi deal en with w Being l a e id is th f o understanding sn achieve lly a e r not te et or ocpin Or nweg of ssi­ o p s t i f o knowledge Our conception. our f o ject b o the f o opostons ny ad ee noniosl mpsil t to possible im stly ifo n o n s i t i here and only, s n sitio o p ro p ie, n, vn h obet ee o ie, e ee l l i t s ere re given, so vere bject o the f I even and, given, fin d the o b ject o f cn id ea o f pure reaso n . D elim its does does its elim D . n reaso pure f o ea id cn f o ject b o the d fin biiy o kolde n t mpiia r ti s hetcal a tic e th n sy f o in t re irical p em e th in knowledge of ility ib s s o p naal o t etcal uget ocrig i the d fin % . t i concerning judgment l a tic re o e th of Incapable \7Q n uet ronenhor th a t i t i s an Idea only, incapable of of incapable only, Idea an s i t i t a th ronenhor uet n The oonoopt o f a Suprcao Being giv es u s l i t t l e in s ig h t, t, h ig s in e l t t i l s u es giv Being Suprcao a f o oonoopt The ito disoover c a u s a lity in pihenonona "by noons "by noons pihenonona in lity a s u a c disoover - —90- hlo oelolgatefl. r 'Priori arguments. nt2ino and latour there­ fore are loot on the fen on s ontological (Certs slcn) proof of the existence of a Supremo Being fron aero concepts.n A non nay inaglno that his hnov/lodgo hoc ones richer throu^ii the ad­ dition of more ideas or delude lain self into thinking ho has added capital to his cadh account through the addition of a few nougats, hut Mo error in thiriring of concepts ns objec­ tive things vm can quietly coaprehend.

Soar ary - I'/b are now in a position to suanarlso the major con- tentions in KatitTs oritiolsa of the ontological arguaent. The following propositions are not intended to ho either exhaus­ tive or mutually exclusive. 1. A requirement of pure reason does not prove the reality of the object of our conception, 2. The conditions of existence sro different froa the conditions of concepticsi, 3. The unconditioned nooocsity of judgments is not analogous to the absolute necessity of things, 4. An identical and necessary judgment can be rojoo- tod ln toto iTithout contradiction. 5. An idea of reason does not give us the uncondi­ tioned necessity of things. 6. %ero is no necessity of retaining the subject of a sooossory judgment as en absolutely necessary existential entity. -9L .

7 . 2Iiq d'oeojicg of contrnfiletlon, la a. test of the logical ponalhmty of a concept; It la no .cner-. nniee of tiio real posalM llty of a thing. . 3. flie tetroauetlon of .exiotoheo Into tho concept of & poeslhle thing Is contradictory. 9. Being Is not a real prcdlcnto. 10. A proposition t&lch prodlcatos existence la o^eitbetie. 11. Determination is a predicate, added to the concept of tho satjeet and is not emtained in it. IS. Ehowlodgo of existonco is a posteriori. 13. Jndgaonts are hypothetical and define a reality . only cwtingently given. 14. The actual is cltmys the accidental end its assertion is synthetic. 15. Our eenselousB### of every hind of cxistonee "be­ longs entirely to the unity of experience. 16. Tho existence of a Supreme Being is an unjustifi­ able presupposition incapabio of theoretical demonstration within the Unit® of pure reason,

. The ontological problen, end indeed, the entire group of problems ?Mch Kant discusses In the Critique, nay bo traced to the central problem of the synthetic a priori judgaent, a distinctive contribution of Kent’s critical philosophy. Tho amorous negative conclusions of the Critique are not, however, the entire substance of Kent’s philosophy. In tho Critique Kant had sought to defend not only .93. tho cciontiflc approach in the ntudy of nature Wt clLoo to rolooso from the protonsiono of a transcen­ dental act&pbyslos* He trlod to diov/ that rensan -liaa a nat­ ural Inclination to stop heyona t3ie field of possible esper- ionoo and that only the severest criticim - wold avoid the il­ lusions into *,Mch no could fall. He tried to dhov that on idea of pare reason cannot refer to an object but only to the • onpiricnl nso of tiie concepts of tho Understanding. Reason inparts arrangement and order to the concepts, it does not create then. The function of reason is eninently fitted for the regulation and syntenatlnation of our hnovlodgo; as soon, ns it becomes constitutive of phenomena It is neither useful nor valuable. Tlio principles of Knntf o crltloicn of tho on­ tological argument "are found thrmirdiout M g numerous philo­ sophical writings.

The Prolegomena The Critique of Rare Reason vab first published in

1781. Tvto years after that Kent published a work entitled Prolegcaena to Any Ptiture Hotaphysics. cone of the naterlal o f ■which m s subsequently incorporated into the second edi­ tion of the Critique of 1787. The Rrolegcstena. as its nme indioates, is a group of "preparatory exercises" primarily concerned with Kent *8 views eenoernlng netephysics, and, un- like the Critique, is written in a less formidable style. It is scoethlng like the history of hie own and, • ■ . • as such, it offers less difficulty than tho strict architcc- tonic of the Critique> Hero Kent again nokos a distinction hetwcon a n a ly tic a l end s^m thotloal 3udgn

... we can easily expose the dialectical illusion which arises f r m oar making the subjective con­ ditions of our thinking objective conditions of objects themselves, and an hypothesis necessary for the satisfaction of our reason, a .92

Metaphysics natural theology sets o boundary for the province of human reason. So may desire to go beyond to the idea of a Supreme Being or an in te llig ib le w orld, n o t in order to de­ termine anything concerning the fundamental nature of moumona beyond the world of sense, but rather as a search for a guide - . * . for the use of reason, b guide which will serve to unify our

92 Kent. Prolegomena. 117. disposition, but, as a transcendental science, it is oil il­ lusion and fantasy. Kent considers critical philosophy to hear the cone relation to netaxSiysion bo ehoniotry does to clcheny. HetarhyolcD of the schools is on "old end sophis­ tical psQU&o-scicnco.n He w rites:

This nuch is cortain, that v^iooror has once tasted Critique will he ever after dismasted with all dopnatical ttTnddle whidi he fornerly put up with, hoeause M s reason m ot have occo- thing, and could find nothing hotter for its mppert.^

Kant fools sure that the human mind w ill never give up notaphysies, however, "Shore w ill always ho metaphysics in the world," end each nan w ill shape it after hio own . In a short t?orh of Kent’s of 1791 rro find the follow- ins definition of metaphysics:

M#Mr' Stdswsch,''--anf-den dio gonne Tlctaphysilr angelegt 1st, 1st loicht su entdcolcen, and kesn in dioser HClchsicht cine Definiticn dcrsclhen hegrunden: "sio 1st die Wisseneclmffc' von dor Ibrkeantnise dss Sinelielisn, su der dec TTaer- slnnllohen durch die Vemunft fortsasohrelten,n J^=

This definition is not so characteristic of KantTs general attitude toward a pseudo-nclcnoe ms the following remarks:

Aber die so Wiocenschaft 1st IXotaphysih, end das Enderi die Sachs sans and gar, Bios lo t elm ufor- 9394

93 Kant. Prolegomena. 140, 94 BoGcnhrans. Kent'* s Klelno logicch-Ketaphyeiecho Schrifton, 488. 95-

lo se s M@er» la dcr hlnterlnsst, end do Been H orieont k eln slch tb o ro s Slel onthelt, cti den mva vie viol non sich iha gonabert bate, wabrgsa

The OrItlone of Practical Reason Bat If we renounce oil netophyelcal contentions end the false preteneoo of kno?;lodgo there is n rational faith v/hich wo nay adopt in its place • As in the Critic no of Pure Reason and the Prolo/ronena. so in other works of Kant there ere hints of the Critique of Brmetieal Reason. The nerc ex­ perience of the phenomenal world of sense can never provide a basis for a positive in a reoln of vnlno. It may bo true that Codfs ex isten ce cannot be proven, but, on the same principles of reason in its theoretical aspect, the ex­ istence of God cszmot be disproved. We accept voluntarily the assumption of the existence of a Supreme Being on the grounds of practical reason. Kant destroys the pretensions of theoretical or speculative reason to make way for faith. The * ought* of the Categorical imperative, which serves with­ in th e realm o f experience as a demand o f a c tiv e duty, a moral obligation, is the only unconditioned. The Ideas of pure rea­ son ore thus disposed of as data of existential reality for speculative cognition, the untenebleneae of , fatal­ ism, and is demonstrated, and natural theology be­ comes a teleological of the p ractical obligatory rea- ♦ • ■ son, the ideal as an object of fa ith . 95

95 Roserikrens. Kant’s Fortschrltte dor Ketaphyslk. 407-480. Hem. nay accept, in&occl, ho tihould accept, those general prlnoipleo of reason In the sphere of Ms activ­ ity as a basis fo r the noral life, but the theoretical pretensiono of reason must be discarded. Reason makes possible moral action under principles or mertas which . • - can boccno universal. !7o nay believe in, presuppose, or have faith In the exist once of a Supremo Being, but know it we cannot. Chapter III CRITICIStlS AHD CCKTCLUSIOITS

KentTs General Conception of the Argument

R eallm Kant’s general eoneeptldn of Oh© ontological argument, in m far as it ccmeems the lim its and field of human laaowl- . edge, is realistic. Realism, not an original contribution of Kant, v/as nevertheless considerably extended throu^i the re­ sults of his labors. One of the most important contentions in his criticism of the ontological argument is the basic propo­ sition that there is something beyond the world of experience in to which the human mind cannot go and to which human fac­ ulties cannot be applied without contradiction and illusion. This something beyond the powers of the human mind i s n o t an existential substratum nor does it possess any of the charac­ teristics applicable to the realm of experience. For Kant, this something was the unknowable or thing In itself, the , a concept devoid of relations. It was neither de­ termined nor determinable. Characterless and without intel­ ligible content, it was intended to be devoid of any metaphy­ sical significance whatsoever. Reason was limited in its knowledge to the events within the unity of experience. A l­ though Kant had defined reason as the faculty of the unoon- dltioned, the unemdltioned was considered to ‘be entirely ■beyond the problems of existence, the sphere of scientific investigation. The unconditioned, it was Kant * s contention, was a problem of value, not a problem for the pure theoreti­ cal reason. Throughout his philosophy the distinction be­ tween the noumene! and phenomenal, the knowable and the un­ knowable, is found. As a fundamental distinction in philo- sophy it is not only a principle of realism, but it finds a place also in other philosophical doctrines. But with real­ ism, the idea of an objective external world as a basis for rational investigation, is a first principle, and so it is w ith Kent. • - ' - ' - - • In the ontological argument, as we have pointed out, the mind attempts to bridge the gap* implied or understood, between the knower and the known, the subject and the object. Kant avoids the ontological argument through the introduction of further distinctions. He not only separates the knower from the known, but assigns to the knower three faculties, the faculty of representation, the faculty of rules, arid the : ... .. ' • ' faculty of principles, associated with the sensibility, the ■ ■ . ' • : . ‘ understanding, and the reason, respectively. The sources of ©or knowledge are those of the faculty of representation . . . ■ ' . through which an object is given - an intuition, and the faculty of rules through which on object is thought - a con­ ception. The faculty of principles, reason, serves as a reg­ ulative function for the under standing, but through it alone, or in conjunction with the concepts of the understanding, we cen oMain no kncmlcdeo of objects . The hnovm is also sepa­ rated Into *hat Kant culls the phenraenal and the nbuncnnl, the former hnowahle, the latter unknowahle in a metaphysical • eonse. All of our Imowledse is restricted to phenomena re­ ceived through the sensihility, categorised "by the schemata of the understending, and regulated hy the reason. The nou- nenal, on, the other hand, eezmot be received through, the sen­ sibility, cannot be eategori^d by #&e understanding, and can­ not be made its own object by the reason. The phentnenal be­ comes the material for experimental science, while the nou- menol becomes the material for a pretended metaphysical sci­ ence, The categories of the hnower are not things in them­ selves, they cannot be made objects, nor are they subjective in the epistemological sense. They are the indispensable con­ ditions of the possibility of any. experience of an intelligible world in which they possess objective validity. They are the objective foundations of possible experience4 Subjective, in the metaphysical sense only, they are necessary objective con- - - . " • ■" ' ; ' *• dlticnB of phenomena. Human knowledge, then, is restricted to tM objects of possible experi^ce. Thcm^t, however, is not so restricted. . With regard to this Kant writes the following si^ifieiait paragraph.

In order to cognise an object, I must be able to prove its possibility, • either from its reality as attested by experience, or a -priori, by means of reason. Bit I can think what 1 please, provided only I do not contradict myself; that is provided my conception is a possible thou^it* though I may be unable to answer for the existence of a cor- 130753 -100-

respmidlng object in the oum of possibilities. B it sane thing: more is required "before I can attribute to such a conception objective validity, that is reel possibility - the other possibility being merely logical.96

The given represented by the sensibility is an ex­ periential quantity. It has no knowoble cause or cub strati®. Any question related to the background of the phenomenal is a metaphysical question incapable.of solution, hence it is . ■' ' ' ;r v:;^ - . not even a problem for science - it is a question in which the

.96 Kant. Critique of Pure Reason. 698. rationalist, he is also an empirieist. He is ratl

Metaphysical Dualism • But this realise!, so critical and so careful in its presentation, is also dualistio. Metaphysical dualism would not in any serious way disturb Kant* Indeed, he would prob­ ably prefer a ; if he were1 given to metaphysical speculation, for his assumption of the unity of experience was not based so much

Crltiguo. Some oomnentators have asserted, however, that its inelusion made possible tiie Airther considerations of the practical reason end a metaphyaio of ethics. But we have seen that this transcendental etmcept of the unknow­ able removed the possibility of an cmtologleel argument, and, in removing this, Kant is preeminently justified in including it, regardless of its metaphysical consequences.

Epistemological Dualisn There is another dualism in the Critique, however, which Kant does not completely justify. This is tho epis­ temological dualism of sense and understanding, and his at­ tempt to "bring the two into relation through the schemata of the productive imagination. We have pointed * out that the on­ tological argument, as understood in this study, is the at­ tempt of the human mind to "bridge the gap, understood or implied, "between the subject and the object, the hnower and the known. Since Kant maintains that the noumenal is beyond the possibility of cognition he avoids the ontological argu- . , ...... : . * ■ ' ; . _ ' ment metaphysically, but epistemologically he faces a diffi­ cult problem. Kant must bridge an epistemological gap be­ tween the objects given in experience and the categories necessary for their intelligibility. On critical principles he can do this without the risk of committing the ontological , for his problem is an epistemological one, and only if we violate critical principles can it be considered-a X"' . . . , metaphysical me. Professor Kemp-Salth remarks that the problem of the productive Imagination results in a hesi­ tating and variable account in both editlcms of the Critique.

In several passages the understanding is spoken of ns simply imagination which has attained to consciousness of its activities. Elsewhere he explicitly states that they are distinct end separate, from this second point of view Kent regards imagination as mediating between sense and understanding, and, though reducible to neither, akin to both. 'Only on one point Is Kant clear and definite, namely, that it is to productive imagination that the generation of unified experience is primarily due.97

An example of what Kemp-Smith calls Kant's "vasoil- lating attitude" concerning the problem is found in the fol­ lowing remarks with reference to the schemata of the under­ standing. "This schematism of our understanding applied to phenomena and their mere form is an art (Konst) hidden in the depth of the human soul, the true secrets of which we Oft shall hardly over be able to guess and reveal." In Kant1 e attempt to find the common ground for the objects of sense and the categories of the understanding in the productive imagination, he comes upon a problem he does not solve satisfactorily. The doctrine of objective affinity, for instance, with its distinction between empirical and tren- . . soendental activities of the mind, with the consequent notion of the mind1 e Introduction of regularity and order into phenom­ ena in the epistemological situation, or, again, the entire 9798

97 Kemp-3a 1th . Commentary to K an t's C ritiq u e. 264-265. 98 Kant. Critique of ^ure Reason! - 1 0 4 - pro’blem of the transcendental unity of apperception, of which we have said nothing heretofore. Introduces many difficulties, Kemp-anlth a sics, ’♦Is not Kant practically assuming a pre- established harmony in asserting that as the mind creates the form of nature it can legislate a priori for all possible experience?”99 These are problems of the second analogy of experience in the analytic of principles. But the main point for our purpose is to note that Kant avoids the ontological argument, for, on critical principles, he can show that the subjective category is in no way contradictory to the accept­ ance of an imposed order of the given. Here again we may note the of Kant rather than the . He brings the object and subject into relation as an event of the phenomenal world, the epistemological situation. He introduces, wherever necessary, those elements compatible with the possi­ bility of an orderly experience. True, his attempt to relate the s e n s ib ility and the under standing are somewhat u n sa tis­ factory, but his strongest defense for the introduction of this distinction is in showing the dualism to be a condition of the possibility of "knowledge, which he does admirably. This dualism provided fertile ground for the criticism of the post-Kantlan idealists and was one of the contributing factors which led to the reintroduction of an idealistic metaphysics based upon the terminological material supplied by Kant with no reference to his original critical principles.

99 Kemp-Smith. Commentary to Kant*s C ritiq u e . 267. We find, this disregard of critical principles in our mm. day. Professor Maeintoslv concludes, for instance, that "Kant’s doctrine is an epistemological dualism so ahsolute as to leave the sphere of reality and the sphere of knowledge coincident at not a single point,a conclusion, together with the re­ maining discussion in his Problem of Knowledge, hardly in the spirit of the essentials of Kent’s philosophy.

Post-Kantlan Criticism

Kant’s acceptance of the correspcmdence theory with its emphasis upon the concept and the object as separate en­ titles related within the unity of experience provided ade­ quate material for his criticism of the ontological argument. Immediately following his great reconstruction of philosophy and criticism of metaphysics numerous commentators, disciples, interpreters, and critics arose. The tremendous influence of Kant upon subsequent philosophical thinking may be found in even the greatest of his critics* Fichte, Schelllng, and Hegel, for instance, built upon the terminology and distinc­ tions of their great predecessor and ignored with astonishing felicity the fundamental realism of the Critique. Thus the ontological argument again appeared, clothed in a mass of abstruse speculation. We shall now consider some of these criticism s of Kant’s conception of the ontological argument 100

100 Macintosh. Problem of Knowledge. 22, , • • - 106« ■ coincident with its re introduction. After Kent we find little unanimity in the numerous conslderatiCBis of the meta­ physical problem end even less recognition of the fundamental issue - essentia involvlt exi stent lam.

Hegel and Hegrellanlsm In the first great systematic philosophy after that of Kant, the of Hegel, the ontological ar­ gument is employed as a basic proposition of the entire dialectic. Hegel* s rationalistic idealism and dialectical pan-logism led to the reintroduction of the argument, and it is to hie rationalistic influence that practically all subse­ quent Idealistic speculation may be traced. His denunciation of what he calls the "petty stricture" of the Critique, that between being and thought, is vigorous and effective, but it must be admitted, with oil due regard for the great idealist, that his frequent attacks upon Kant contain more than laborious rational criticism. Hegel and Kant differ so funda­ mentally in emphasis and spirit that the two philosophies are practically antithetical both in their assumptions and in their conclusions. Hegel*s virulent criticism is sometimes unfair, nay, even at times unjustifiable, but, on the other hand, he was eminently fitted as a champion of the ontological ' . _ - . . . - - ; argument, as Kant was its critic. The above remarks are well substantiated in the following passage from Hegel Ts Xegie. He w rite s: -107-

The uniformly faTorahl© reception and aceeptance which attended Kent’s criticism of the Ontologi­ cal proof was undoubtedly due to the illustration which he made use of. To explain the difference between thought and being he took the instance of a hundred sovereigns which for anything it matters to the notion, are the same hundred whether they are real or only possible, though the difference of the two cases is very perceptible in their ef­ fect on a men’s purse, nothing can be more ob­ vious than that anything wo only conceive or think is not on that account actual: that , and even notional comprehension always falls short of being. Still It may not u n fa irly be sty led a barbarism in language, when the name of notion is given to things like a hun­ dred sovereigns. And putting that mistake aside, those who perpetually urge against the philosophic idea the difference between Being and thought, might have admitted that philosophers were not wholly ignorant of the fact. Can there be any proposition more trite'than this? But, after all, it is well to remember, when we speak of God, that we have an* object of another kind than any hundred sovereigns, and unlike any one particular notion, representation, or however it may be styled. It is in fact this and this alone which marks every­ thing finite; - its being in time and space is discrepant from its notion. God* on the contrary, expressly has to be what ean only be ’thought as existing’ ; His notl

Thus Eegel insists upon the absolute inseparability of the thought of God from Eis being, and introduces the old prin­ ciple that Kant had striven to abolish, namely, essentia in- volvit exlstentlam, the basic contention of the ontological argument. In his Lectures on the History of Philosophy Hegel devotes a section to the ontological argument. H® remarks that the opposition between thought and being began to appear 101

101 Wallace. Hegel’s Logic, 108. -108- wlth Anselm. After some criticIsn of the argument as pre­ sented "by Anseln he turns to Kant. He writes:

Kant ... attached and rejected Anselmproof - which rejection the whole world afterwards fol­ lowed up - on the ground of its ‘being’ an as­ sumption that the unity of. Being and thought is the hifdiest perfection. What Kant thus demon­ strated in the present day - that Being is different from thought and that Being is not by any means posited xdLth thought - was a c rit­ icism offered even in that time by a monk named Gaunilo. ... Thus Kant says: If we think a hundred dollars, this conception does not in­ volve existence. That is certainly true: what is only a conception does not exist, but it is likewise not a true content, for what does not exist, is merely an untrue conception. Of such we do not however here speak, but of pure thought; it is nothing new to say they are different - Anseln knew this just as well as we do. God is the infinite, just as body and soul. Being and thou^it• are eternally united; .this is the spec­ ulative, true definition of God. To the proof which Kant criticises in a manner vhlch it is the fashion to follow now-a-days, there is thus lacking only the i^reeptlmi of the unity of thou^it and of existence in the infinite; and this alone must form the commencement ,1°*

We find Hegel defending the argument in his doctrine of the notion, the closing portion of the Logic, also. After some consideration of various ontological argtaients appearing in the history of philosophy and discussion of tho theory of immediate certitude and faith, he write e:

It does no good to pit on airs against the Onto­ logical proof, ... and against Anselm thus de­ fining the Perfect. The argument is one latent in every sophisticated mind, and it recurs in every philosophy, even against its wish and with­ out i t s knowledge.108 102103

102 Hegel. Lectures on the History of Philosophy. 111.62 et seq.. 103 W allace. The Logic of Hegel. 3551 109

The Influence of Hegel is well illustrated in the volume entitled The Rrltilc of the Pure Season Explained and Defended, written hy J. P. Mohaffy end J. H. Bernard, and puhliriied in 1889. This work was one of the first commentar­ ies on the Critique in the English language. In the section devoted to Kant’s treatment of the ontological argument, Hegel’s criticism of Kant, taken from Wallace’s Xogio of Hegel, is given. The following remarks reveal the general tenor of thie erltlelsm of Kant.

What Kent has shown is that on the supposition that Sensihility is different in source from Xhiderstanding, you emmot infer existence In space and time from a mere concept. But Hegel saw that this supposed difference in source was a fiction; Sensibility as well as Understanding is but a phase of Thou#t, and so Kant’s labor­ ious argumentation here is not worth mu.eh.104

The domination of Hegelianism in the latter half of the nineteenth century in England and America is well known, and it colored much of the consideration of Kant’s philosophy, a fact particularly pronounced in the commentary of Caird and . . . . ' ' the writings of Green. These English Hegelians often consider Kent the half-way house, so to speak, on the philosophical road to Hegel.

Sohutzo In our own day the controversy concerning the onto­ logical argument has not subsided. An ardent and adroit critic 104

104 Mohaffy and Bernard. 'Kant*s K rltlk of the Pure Reason Ex­ plained and Defended. 2440-341. -110- of emteaporary thought. Hart In Sohtltze, wh© calls Kant’s E^rstem ttan absolutism of verbal dialectic concepts to vftiieh a pious v/ish of existentiality is superaddedn, writes a forceful criticism of the tmtologieal argument which, strange- ' : * . . ' ■ ■ - ■ ly enofu^i, is in substantial agreement with, the criticism of Kent, He writes*

The ontological fallacy ... which in its meet general meaning is the doctrine of the depen­ dence of the predicate' of reality upon dialectic- absolutist ic deduction. Should have no place * in serious thought. A reality in whatever form, ho matter how attenuated or generalized, ie., what­ ever In some way is, emmet be conditioned by a which by Inherent definition in no way Is. but performs a strictly hypothetical function only. The dialeotlo terms of universals and par­ ticulars . are intelleetual legal tender to the extent only to which they arc ultimately validated item for item by primary real ngoods” or particular data of reality. Inflation, by first intention un­ limited, annihilates the currency of dialectic terms as completely as it would do that of any financial system.105

Whitehead and Russell A lfred Hearth Whitehead and B ertrand R u ssell, th e authors of the monumental work in mathematical logic, the • ■ , : ■ . . ‘ , Principle Matheaatloa (1910) have several interesting pas­ sage b in that work with reference to existenee and truth. In the Prinolpia Hathematlca we find that the primitive prop- o sit ions, that is, propositiems assumed without proof for the purposes of inferenoe,„do not require the existence of more than one individual.105 106 S itin g in 1919, ,

105 Sohtttze. Academlo I llu s io n s . 41. 106 Whitehead, and Russell, ferlnclpia Hathematioa. I, 230. - I l l -

In noting that the primitive propositions wore suoh as to allow the inference that at least on® Individual exists, considered this a ’’defect in logieel parity". He writes:

There does not even seem sriy logical necessity #iy there should he even one individual - why, in fact, there should he any world at all. The ontological proof of the existence of Sod, if it were valid, would establish the .logical necessity of at least one individual. But it is generally recognized as invalid, mid in fact rests upon a mistaken view of existence - i.e. it fails to realize that existence can only he asserted of something described, not of something named, so that it is meaningless to argue from "this is the so-and-so" and "the so-and-so exists" to "this * exists". If we reject the ontological argument, v/e seem driven to conclude that the existence of a world is an aooident - i.e. i-t is not logically necessary. If that be so, no principle of logic can assert ’’existence" except under a hypothesis, I.e. none can be of the form "the propositional function so-and-so is sometimes true."107

And all this from the man who wrote in 1927 that "Kant deluged the philosophic world with muddle and mystery,, from which it is only now beginning to emerge. Kant has the reputation of being the greatest of modem philosophers, but to my mind he was a mere m isfortim e."2107 108 109 . Professor Ihitehead has since developed a distinctly original philosophy of organism in which the "principle of oonoretion", emergent evolution, , and are curlouriy blended.

107 Russell. Introduction to Matheoatieal Philosophy. 203-204. 108 Russell. An . ' “ “ 109 Ihitehead"! Process and keallty. —112—

Professor Rol#i Barton Perry, an American a®©-realist and capable critic of idealism, has written an interesting volume entitled Present Philosophical Tenaenoies in W idi he attempts to lay hare the cardinal principles of various phi­ losophical points of view. According to Professor Perry, the cardinal principle of neo-realism is that things are what they are, Independent of any relation. Knowledge of being, for instance, makes no difference in that being. In the on- tological argument of idealism,. mi the other hand, the em- phasis upon the knowing subject and the idea reveals the adoption of a certain initial standpoint, i.o., "the world must be viewed under the form of knowledge,” Perry examines various historical Ideal!ess and finds that idealism, the philosophical theory most closely allied with the ontological argument, rests upon a theory of knowledge. The cardinal principle of idealism is that being is dependent on the know­ ing of it. The assertion of the priority: of the cognitive consciousness leads the: idealist to the of "exclu­ sive particularity” and "definition by initial predicati

JtOJjjC©— ; . -- - - Josiah Royee, a defender of idealistic doctrines and critic of American neo-realism, remarked in his lectures

I don11 think you get a fair view of Idealism if you think of its issue with realism merely in taims of Professor Porryfs egooMitric pre­ dicament. It is not the most important feature of idealism that it appears to be committed to an insistence ... th at the being of things,' whether of God or man or the physical world, is a being in the mind of some thinker ... The really most important feature is exactly the issue here concerned! does the existence of anything make any difference to its existence? is it any part of the essence of a thing that

110 Perry. Present Philosophical Tendencies. -114-

I t e x is t loyee eodsidered the mtologiesl argument to he a haste argument of Idealism and the most Important issue between realism and idealism. Els criticism of Santayana's Some Meanings of the Word Is.3^-2 with reference to existence end essence revolves about the point that Santayana's wsuccess in making the distinction between existence and essence an . ' . • - ' - understood dlstincticm, is the substance of his failure.” Professor Booking, in writing about the ontological argument in Royee, asks, "How could we understand that essence is not existence without knowing what we .mean by existence? And to find a meaning for existence, is this not to find its essence?" Mr. Hocking points out that realism is still faced with Plato's problOTt of p artlcip atlcm , transform ed by Santayana in to the notion of the exemplification of - "things catch the dye of essence end become illustrated in existence." Professor Royce notices the sim ilarity between Kant's ■ . : ■■■ •. ■ ■ ; ' ; : ' ' '■ ; ■ - ■, • • "Being is evidently no real predicate" and Santayana's phrase, "existence adds no new character ... since the essence of a thing is its full character." fbe short casings of the onto­ logical argument were appreciated by Royee. With reference to Anselm * s argument he remarks $

If it were possible to define the createst possible amount that one could write out on a 'check, th a t." :111

111 Barrett. Owtwporary Ideallmi in America. 45. 112 Santayana. Journal of Philosophy. XII. -115-

would hardly guarantee that the check would be hcmored ... The ontologleal argument appeare to have this fundamental absurdity about It, and has been-repeatedly thrown out as utterly insignifi­ cant, yet It has a fashion of returning.

An Illustration of this absurdity is given, A Haine farmer, having exchanged his good greenbacks for counterfeit gold, exclaims, NI thought gold was so precious that it couldn’t be counterfeited." He thought the essence entailed the ex­ iste n c e .

Over against these obvious objections, we are using something like the ontological argroaent all the time. Aren11 you using at the moment some­ thing like the ontological" argument for supposing that there is a real world, and answering the question why there isn*t rather nothing at all? You reply that something has to exist ... you know thero is a world from _the nature of the case. from the very definition of the world. 11!$'.

Professor Hooking smmarizes Boyce1 e consideration of the antologieal argument:

Boyce has established his general thesis that thero is a close ecuneotion between essence and existence. The central element of logical force in his discussion is the dialectical lowing that whoever undertakes to make a ratim ial distinction between essence and existence unites them, pre­ cisely in proportion to the vigor end definition of his thou^it. * Existence, for such a thinker, _ . must be thought, and thus .takm.up into essence.

It is at once apparent that the foregoing remarks emphasize the thinking subject and the knowledge of existence.

113 Barrett. Contemporary Idealism in America; 53. 114 Barrett. Contemporary Ideal!sa in America. 58. ■ —13 .6 — .

The Insistence upon the cognitive situation and the meta­ physical aspects of 02clstone® and essence is tim raeteristio of idealim . Professor Boyce, like the majcnrlty of modem idealists, emphasizes th® existence of a thing only as rela­ ted to the knowing mind and the cognitive situation. The issue of the ontological argument remains a lively subject in the history of cento® per ary philo sojfey, but, despite the analysis of Kant, the recognition of the basic problem is not clear, the function of philosophy becomes' forgotten, and the issue is clouded with individual philosophical prejudices and temperamental Idiosyncrasies. Xet us return to Kent.

. . Virtues of K^itTs Analysis

K ant1 s analysis of the ontological argument has many virtues which cannot be found in any subsequant analysis of the argument. These virtues are in great measure the result of a systematic and laboriously reasoned general philosophy, but they also spring from d

Clarification of the Issue The vigor and achievement in the clarification of the issu e i s one of the virtues of Kant1 s analysis. He devotes . countless pages to the careful unfolding and exposition of his problem. He attributes function and importance to the reason but he critically stifles its unconditioned pretensions, surveying its assigned province with a skeptical eye. The rea­ son, mighty and sublime as it is, must admit the unknown with- out any reservatlo final!s. And even in the realm of possible knowledge, objects must be given before experience is fruitful. The existence of an independent external world as a condition of the possibility o f mgr knowledge whatsoever, a proposition idiioh any sensible man must accept, is continually before Kant’s consideration. And be does not confound the object with what we might say about it. He recognizes immediately the fr u it­ le s s tautological devices inherent in the mere development of the content of a conception. He does not so much distrust the reason or doubt the appearane® in the sensible manifold as he does th eir mutual operation. Realism, not always a philoso­ phical , is the cornerstone of Kent’s excellence as an analyst and critic. He does not confound the subject with -118- the oTajeot, nor does he give then a single referenoe in an ell- Ineluslve mental totality. Kant laboriously searches for rela­ tions uhleh make possible judgments linking subjects muL ob­ jects in a structure of scientific knowledge. In the problem of the existence of God there is little doubt that the notion, has conceptual possibility, that is, it does not lack mental ccmsistency, but, here again v/e find that knowledge of bolng makes no difference in that being. Existence is a synthetic Jud^ent, and a denial of conceptual possibility in a synthetic judgment is not self-contradictory. The necessity of God's

■ ■ , • ■ ■■■' " ■■ ■' ■ • " " ' existence may, indeed, be implied in the concept of God, but something more is required before the concept possesses real possibility. It must have possible experiential content, its form being merely logical. Although our judgments must con­ form to the analytical law of possibility, the law of contra­ diction, there is no objective necessity for the conformity of nature to the laws of tho possibility of knowledge. Be­ cause knowledge requires logical consistency is no groomd fo r supposing that nature must also be logical. The logical neces­ sity of God* s existence cannot require His objective necessity. Reason cannot require that nature bo what is logically implied by its demands. The thought of God, in other words, cannot demand the existence of God in the realm of possible experience The logic of the concept of God may be such as to Insist upon the principle essentia Involvit existent lam, but God remains, if at all possible, a concept in solo intalleetu. not a being -119-

l a to. For Kent the mln& is fomid la nature, not nature la the mind. And with mhllme diBorliainatlmi he insists that finding the mind In our experienee of nature does not neon that the mind eonelsts of experlene®, Beeause the two are found In conjunctlcm does not Imply that one is the souroe of the other. The virtues of distinction and contrast, M ill's , . ■ . ■ ..... • . method of difference, so to speak, accompany Kant1 s analysis. The subject remains the subject, the object, the object. Sod remains an ideal of pure reason, a concept whose object tran­ scends the realm of possible experience. Here is a corre­ spondence theory which has an added virtue, intellectual co­ herence. He may define God as we like but we cannot claw his objective existence out of our definition. Ho nay so define the concept that it necessarily exists, if this were possible, but our definition of "dog" does not create or guarantee the existence of our canine pet. '

Fhenomenali sn Another virtue of Kant's analysis is the fact that for him existence is phenomenal end scientifically established, if at all. The phenomenal has content and fora. The cogni­ tive consciousness and the given are elements of the experience of particular entities. But tbo existence of n partieular thing is not exclusively cognitive nor is it exclusively giv­ en. Existence is explored, determined, and discovered. The mind is active in the process but it does not constitute the process. It regulates, sifts, compares, and analyzes the ob- 120-

Jeets of sen sltle intuition. The as cert ion of the existence > of any particular entity in the process is not only synthetic, but it is also problematical. We explore the experienced under hypothesis. We do not explore our minds under cate­ g o rie s.

Bein/r and Being Known . Instances could be multiplied illustrating Kant * s clarification of the ontological problem with his consistent and careful presentation of realism. He has shown that onto­ logical necessity end logical necessity are quite distinct. His distinction between being and thought, in the words of Descartes, is clear and distinct. He never confounds the two. Knowledge does not result from the operation of the mind upon its own mental constructs; it springs from two sources, the intuition, and the conception; the operation of the categories of the mind upon the given sensuous material. Kant recognizes the difference between the world as it is, the world as given, and the world as it is known. The fundamental dualism of his epistemology is both desirable and commensurate with the - ' " range and nature of hie problems. The basic problem of the great classical philosophies, being and being known, remains basic in Kant. We may not like his solution but we cannot deny the extraordinary facility and profundity of his thought concerning the problem. The distinctions between the nou- menal and the phenomenal, the sensibility, the understanding, and the reason, all display not only a great regard for the knowledge of the investigations of his predecessors, but also a genuine love of philosophy In that ho recognizee M b prob­ lem* appreciates the significance of his prohlen, does not temporarily neglect the philosophical passion for order, system, and organization, and "builds upon the philosophical heritage of the past.

Extension of Argument ' - ' ' : ’ This "brings us to another virtue of Kant’s analysis of the ontological argument. He extends the implicatimis of the argument from the tradltim al theological and religious realm to the entire problem of knowledge, and, in doing this, he removes the pretensions of argument not exclusively dis­ interested nor intellectual in character. He does this, sur­ prisingly enoughs without abandoning the old notions of the ens realissimua. rational theology, and the other more tradi­ tional characteristics of the ontological argument. He ex­ tends the problem of the existence of God to the problem of the existence of concepts and the possibility of knowledge in general. ' " V ' ' ■ ' '

Objectivism never emphasizes mere cognition to the exclusion of important non-mental factors. There is a resolute objec­ tivity in his exposition accompanied by a keen appreciation of the a priori. But he preserves a careful balance through­ out the Critique. The given never becomes a form of the mind, and the mind never becomes the sole vehicle of nature. Mature or all that is, remains for Kant just exactly what it is, re- 122 gar die ee of categories, human or divine thought, and rocmntie egoiao. .

Bpistemological Definition of Terms Another outstanding virtue of Kent's analysis of the ontological argument is the epistemological approach with its careful definition of terms. Only too often in the history of philosophy have the various points of view, clouded with religious and metaphysical speculation, prevented any clear presentation of the problem of the existence of God. Kant does not wrestle with the metaphysical problem of God so much as he does with our knowledge of phenomena and the validity of, that knowledge. In his exploration of the province and possibility of knowledge he carefully defines his terms with ' ' ' ■ : reference to his central problem, the synthetic a priori judg­ ment. He does not assume, indeed he quickly denies, that the mind is sovereign in its soar oh for metaphysical reality. He continually emphasizes the epistemological situation and the possibility of knowledge within the empirical realm of exper­ ience* There is a continuous prosentation of the rational critical activity with its careful scrutiny of relationships available in the process of knowledge. Kant's is not a metaphysical one, it is epistemological. He desires an objective consideration of the events of the world in which we .■ .v ■ - • ;• " ■■ live, the phenomenal and experienced, not the world which we , - * • ' - ' ■ ' ■ create, the noumenal, moral, and aesthetic. The latter world is not dismissed, but its recognition and significance are here subsidiary to the problems of the pure speculative reason.

Grltieim ' . - The skeptic!ea and a^iostioim of tiio Critique is a virtue from the point of view of critical philosophy. Kent knew about the multitudinous previous efforts of philosophers in search of a single substance or ground which Imparted ex­ planation to the entire realm of the contingent. But he realized that, rather than march for these final causes, an examination of their validity as epistemological data was the crying need. Thus we have the Coperaieah revolution in philosophy. We no longer ask what being is, but rather, what is knowing? Kant a^ke this question v/ith reference to the wholegroup of philosophical problems from space and time to the prot otypon transcendent ale. In his discussion of the on­ tological argument he seeks for the conditions of the possi­ b i l i t y of the conception o f a Supreme Being ra th e r than a t­ tempt to establish its existence or non-existence. In his development and definition of the elements of the epistemo­ logical situation he gives recognition to both the a priori and a posteriori. He recognizes that these elements, although requisite in the process of knowledge, do not constitute knowl­ edge. The elements of the possibility of rational and ordered experience, in other words, were not experience. The whole

, ■ ’ ■ . . transcendental approach was recognized for what it was, a critical into the basic concepts of human knowledge with regard to their rational relationships .exemplified in ,1 2 4 -

experlenee. But Kant knew that human eiperience could not legislate for metaphysical reality. The epistemological ap­ proach did not guarantee metaphysical entrance. Rational theology was a speculative realm "beyond the possibility of experience, God, as a concept in the epistemological situa­ tion, whether so defied as requiring existence or not, lacked an object of empirical intuition. For knowledge, the concept of God was useless in the explanation of phenomena. In metaphysics the question was not solvable.

Imminent Metaphysics ... ■ Kant was Interested in the and discovery, our knowledge of the phenomenal world in which vre live. It is a source of never-ending wonder that the mind ©an organize its knowledge with such a high degree of approxima­ tion and correspondence to the experience of phenomena, and so it: probably was with Kent. But in the realm of rational theology, where oonoepts have no such discoverable relation­ ship, It is not surprising that its signifloanee has beecme subsidiary to scientifio observation and predlctitm. Kant in­ vestigates a now eclenee, epistemology, a soienoe of the ele- monts and materials of knowledge. He organizes concepts of the mind and shows their operation in the apprehension and systematization of experience. But his epistemology cannot be considered a metaphysics.- Metaphysics is concerned with the nouraonal - the unknowable - and the epistemological quest forbids any speculation beyond experience. Epistonolo^ must 1 2 5 -

BBmme th e tmknown bs Booetiilng absolutely different from that which becomes the material for epistemological investi­ gation. If this is not done the method of science becomes o

The Fmammeatal Issue

lie ere now in a position to ocmsider the fundamental issue of the omtologioal argument. The ontological argument is the metaphysical armment par excellence in that its prem­ ises contain two basic metaphysical concepts, those of essence and existence. Thus from the earliest considerations of the nature of the soul and God we find the traditional principle essontla inTolvit existent lam. The basic metaphysical conten­ tion of the argument, existence as definition, underlies prac- tlcally all ontologleal doctrines. With respect to the form of the argument the concept of necessity and the logical laws of contradiction, and identity play prominent roles. With the exception of the greater jhiloBophicel ^sterns, notably that of Kant, the notion of exlstonoe does not receive adequate /...... ' definition and clarification, and, idien the ontological argu­ ment is used, it is somewhat difficult to discover exactly Where it is, or what it attempts to prove. This is particu­ larly true of those philosophies which accept it as the prius of a system of dialectical concepts, or in contemporary ideal­ istic philosophy in ihidh the Introduotion of experience in many forms cmplicates the logical structure of the argument.

Basic concepts In the Argument The ontological argument is associated wite four '' * ■» * * basic concepts of philosophy, existence, essence, necessity, and the law of contradiction, and variations in the employ­ ment of these concepts may be found in all oases where it is used. 187

Existence The first concept, and perhaps the most Important to those who use the ontological argument, existence, seems to suffer from the greatest misconception. The certain shrewd philosophy which may he found in the reflections of ordinary men does not lend itself to the extravagancies of those phi­ losophers who emphasize the mental character of existence. And granting existence to he something sophisticated and psy­ chical, doesn’t it still remain mysterious and intangible, a something entirely different from what wo say about it? But those who use the ontological argument confuse logic with data

V ■■■■■':■ ■ ■ ' , ■ . \ and the defined cdiaraeter of existence with existence. To de­ fine existence is a perilous undertaking, and as Kierkegaard ...... says, the difficulty is such that fame scarcely awaits those who undertake the venture, nevertheless, when existence is defined in such a way as to admit of no undefined residue, no unknown, no aspect completely beyond the powers of human de­ scription, we can safely assume that the definition is not that of existence. For in a definition of existence, where the definition usurps the throne of the thing defined, and the logical term is substituted for objective characters, the ontological argument has appeared. To insist that a distinction between essence and existence is an understood distinction does not alter the facts. Existence must remain exactly what it is regardless of the definitions and understood distinctions used with regard to it. This does not mean that

■ ■...... ' ' . • - ■ ■ ■ ‘ . the philosopher cannot define existence, even in extenso. but 128-

It does mean that the aeflnitlon i s suTiJeot to omslflorotion. and analysis as a group of teras In logical 11 scour so before it is introlucea as hypothetical material for eclentifle In­ vestigation. To substitute definition for objectivity is to 9 + - reduce external reality to concept e, and to theoretically pre- ' " * vent any progress in scientific research. Existence, then, to be exactly what it is, must not be confused with what we may say about it. Existence, if nothing else, is what it is, not what it is known or defined to be. In the ontological argument the gap between essence and existence, the subject and the ob­ ject, cannot be bridged by simply removing the difference be­ tween the two notions. To insist that the distinction between the subject and object is artificial is simply to misunderstand the function of philosophy. When existence is considered as , ' : - • ; . " . • ... * . . ■...... ' , . independent and external, a something accidental and foreign in which the mind finds itself, a something to be investigated, analysed, and partially determined, the ontological argument

: ' ' : ■ . - : ■ ■ ■ ■ ■ ' will relinquish its more extravagant claims.

Essence - The second, concept, that of essence, has had a long and distinguished career in philosophy. More than two thou­ sand years ago it was equated with being. At present it has been considered as precisely what docs not exist. Most often essence has been assumed a mental construct, the fundamental idea or meaning of an entity. It has also been considered as analogous to substance and sometimes equated with the inner -129- naturo of mbstanco; In the ontological argument it appears as the subject of the old principle essentia lavolTit exls- tentiam and, as we have seen, means simply that the essence or essential meaning, traditionally the idea of God, involves the objective existence of that essence or meaning, tradi­ tionally the existence of God. Although w© need not go so far as Santayana, it is certainly-apparent that essence, as the ■ - • understood internal nature of an entity, does not necessarily, nor in some cases even accidentally. Involve objective exis­ tence. There is no necessity for the assertion that an idea must have being to be consistent, significant, or meaningful. Most often essences have been such as to relieve the world of the rigors or disappointments of objective existence. The 6x1s- tence of some essences would certainly rob those very essences of their substantial character and significance. If a fiction involves its fact, then certainly the fiction becomes quite commonplace. And so with the traditional argument for the existence of God. Is there any justifiable reason why a phi- losopher should insist upon dragging God out of the essence or concept into the mundane realm of the existent? The anthro­ pocentric character of existence certainly would add no new . . • • . ; ' * glory or honor to the concept of God, or, as Kant would say, existence would add no new to the subject. If an essence involves anything at all, it involves its own meaning and nothing elm . If it involves existence in every instance it is not essence. since essence Is a term that transcends, axis- im - tence end Includes it end the possible. We nay safely assume that essence as a mental eonstnict does net imply the exis­ tence of an object corresponding to it. That there should be meh an object is a matter to be Investigated, a matter of rorprise or discovery* not a natter of a priori necessity. necessity' • This brings us to the third concept, that of neces­ sity, Early in the history of philosophy the concept of ne­ cessity became associated with the ontological argument. In the concept of necessity has been re­ duced to an extremely formal notion or has disappeared alto­ gether. All of the various types of necessity found in phi­ losophy may be reduced to the fundamental conceptions of . .. - . . ■ • . - ontological necessity and logical necessity, the two concep­ tions often found associated, with the empirical law of cau­ sality and the logical law of contradiction. In the ontologr leal argument the logical necessity of Judgment is confused with the ontological necessity of things. The introduction of modifications of the law of contradiction and the law of causality further complicate the problem. Strictly speaking, the concept of ontological or metaphysical necessity is fraught with contradiction and misconception. The world as given, the pleasing arrangement or chaotic disorder of things, has no in­ herent necessity. We may Impose logical necessity upon phenom- ena with a certain minor error and abundant mental reservations, but there is no possibility of discovering necessity in the m world, of objects alone. notion of necessary existence, such as the concept of God found In the mit©logical argument. Is self-c ontradlct ory g The oat ©logical argument, if it were valid, would prove only that the totality of things is neces- # • sarily real, 'which, as a "bare tautology, states nothing more than that the real is necessarily the real. .Necessary exis- 1 / • - ■■ • - ■ ; tence, therefore, resolves into the rationalistic law of con­ tradiction. Before considering this law it might he well to notice Kant’s treatment of necessity. By necessity Kant means, reducing the conception to utter simplicity, existence given hy possibility. To understand this further we may note the third postulate of empirical thought in the Critique. Kant states that "that which is determined, in its connection with the actual, according to universal conditions of experience is (that Is, exists as) necessary." Kemp-Sn 1th makes the following remarks concerning this hi^ily significant postulate:

As existence cannot he determined completely a priori, necessity can never he known from owZ eopis; hut only hy reference to the actually given, in accordance with the universal principles that ocmditlon experience. Further, since such empirical necessity does not concern the existence of suhstances, hut only the existence of their states, viewed as dynamically caused, the criterion of em­ pirical necessity reduces to the second Analogy, viz. that everything which happens is determined hy an antecedent empirical cause. This criterion does not extend heyond the field of possible exper­ ience, and even within the field applies only to

115 As Kant has I t - "lessen Zustuamenhang n i t den W irklichen : zmoh allgmaeinen Bedingungen der Erfahrung he at lam t 1st, i-et (existiert) notwendig." Krltik der relnen Vemunft. 266. -132-

thooe existencee which can he viewed as effect* i.e . as events which cose into existence in. time, and of which there fore the causes are of the same temporal and conditioned character. The necessity is a hypothetical necessity; given an empirical event, it can always he legitimately viewed as_ necessitated hy an antecedent empirical cause.

The law of Contradiction The fourth otmeept associated with the ontological argument, the logical law of contradiction, is perhaps the - one most often abused, and, when used in conjunction with the law of identity, gives the illusion of knowledge arising from faultless for® in judgments. The law as it stands merely in­ sists that whatever is considered must he exactly whet is ■ . considered, it cannot both he and not he whatever it happens to be at the same time In the same sense. This is a logical law used with reference to concepts and judgments. We expect the law to he applicable in the cognitive situation to facili­ tate the progress of reason. Its assertion as a condition of nature is quite another matter. In the ontological argument from the point of view of the law of contradiction we argue in substance that since a particular essence must he necessa­ rily what it is, it therefore necessarily exists. The lack of contradiction in a particular essence does not guarantee its objective possibility. Every essence or subject of a proposition must be what it is, indeed, the nature of real.

116 Kerop-fifalth. Commentary to E a n t's C ritiq u e . 400. - 1 3 3 - totallty muBt be identical with itself, hut the objective existence of this identity, the actuality of the object as­ serted, still remains to be established. The law of contra­ diction gives character to the entire realm of logic, but its application in questions of existence and nature is hypothetical. The law does not insist that the idea of real totality is real or existent; it merely requires that the idea of real totality be exactly what it is, real totality all over again, Whatever we conceive may be conceived as existence or non-existent. To satisfy the demands of the law of contradiction we cannot assert both the existence end the non-existence of a particular thing simultaneously. But to assert that there is a conception which necessarily involves existence is to deny the. operation of the law of contradiction. We rule out negative instances in the postulate that the non­ existence of a particular being is contradictory. When the analytical nature of -the law of contradiction is grasped we Immediately recognize the tautological argument from logical necessity to objective existence. We merely transform objec­ tive existence into an extension of logical necessity and re­ late the two according to the demands of the law of contradic­ tion. This highly questionable procedure may yield a certain mental satisfaction but it imparts no knowledge of phenomena. We may safely assume then, that the law of contradict ion does not impose any kind of ontological necessity upon objecte but rather imparts formal validity to our hypothetical judgments of existence. - 1 3 4 -

The jhinflaraental Issm of the ontological argument - t \ eesentia Inyolvlt oxlstentiem - depends up

Santayana • ■ ■ . - • • -y George Santayana, a brilliant and original contemporary philosopher, disposes of all static rationalist conceptions of existence for the notion that it Is a flux and surd, a contra­ diction. In the chapter entitled "nothing Given Exists? In Skepticism and Anlma-l Faith he characterizes existence as "such being as is in flux, determined by external relations and Jostled by Irrelevant events.”^ 7 "This is no definition," he hastily adds, for existence is only a name, a name doubtful to the skeptic and odious to the true logician. The realm of matter is considered the seat and principle of existence, Exis­ tence is, so to speak, the life of matter. It is "what it hap­ pens to be, showing such a form, energy, intensity, or consclous-

117 Santayana. Skeptlolsm and Animal Faith. 42. - 1 3 6 - ness as it happens to show." Every eher&oterietle of existence is- equally arbitrary, fictitious, contingent, and logically un­ necessary. Existence has Infinite alternatives open to it in its irrational moanderings, none of which is necessary. San­ tayana* s resolute realism and objectivity are highly evident in his later works. He writes that all "the axioms of phi­ losophers declaring the world to be necessarily infinite or everlasting or rational or conscious must be received as apply­ ing to their respective systems: the world meantime is just whet it is, has been what it has been, and will be what it will 1,6.-118

Although Santayana * s colorful literary style sometimes interferes with his meaning, the reader cannot escape the real- . - ' - ' '' • ' ism and naturalism of his philosophy. Above all, he is care­ ful to separate essence and existence in such a way as to avoid undue emphasis upon the psychical and metaphysical. The realm of essence is the "unwritten catalogue, prosaic and in­ finite, of all the characters possessed by such things as hap­ pen to exlst, together with the characters which all different things would possess if they existed." The realm of essence comprehends existence and essences are "illustrated" or "ex­ emplified" in it. An essence is an absolute identity which has no existence. necessity is considered as logical only and, like , must be.considered with relation to relevant exploration of the accidents of existence. Santayana*s

118 Santayana. Realm of H a tte r. 85f. — 136”

somiary of the contention of the ontologleal ergmsent Is Interesting. He writes: ,

The existence of God is therefore not a neces­ sary truth: for If the proposition is necessary, its terms cay. only he essences; and the word God Itself would then designate a definable idea, and would not he a proper name indicating an ac­ tual power. If, on the contrary, the word is such a proper name, and God is a psychological moral being energizing in space and time, then hie existence can be proved only by the of these natural manifestations, not by dialectical reasoning upon the meaning of terms.119

Here Santayana is in substantial agreement with the conclusions of Kent although the emphasis is different. As Mr. G. Vf. How- gate writes:

There is, of course, in this later elaboration of Santayana's materialism a resemblance to that agnostic tradition of modern philosophy which began with Kant and found its fullest expression in . It is not mere accident that Santayana's first sketch of the realm of matter _ was entitled The Unknowable in tribute to Spencer.1^0

Mr. Kowgate makes this interesting observation with reference to the realm of truth.

There is a realm of truth though no human being should ever discover it; and no human being from his immersion in the flux of existence could ever survey in its entirety something as austere and comprehensive as the realm of truth, or any seg­ ment of it sub specie aeternltatls. Truth is the marriage of essence and existence, end such holy nuptials are veiled to the profane eye of human­ ity. The realm of truth is thus seen to be Oath-

119 Santayana. He aim of Truth. 10. 120 Howgate. George Santayana. . 241. - 1 M -

olic, scholastic. All it needs is a God to preside orer it. and it would he Steint Thomas ■ all over agaih.lSl «

Eron these few selected remarks we may conclude that featayana develops the "basic conceptions associated with the ontological argument in such, a way as to reduce greatly any cf the efficacy of\the argument. His intellectual emphasis is austere, Pormexiideani Berio, his realism is unequivocal, and his distinctions* like those of Kant, remove the preten­ sions of the ontological argument.

Kierkegaard ... - " • ;. - In the philosophy of Sorcn Kierkegaard (1815-1855), an original and profound Danish philosopher who has heen some­ what neglected in America, we find a highly interesting dis­ cussion of the problem of the existence of God. Kierkegaard, although quite religious and speculative in temperament, did not approve of the numerous Hegelian attempts to reconcile thought and existence current in his day. Throughout his phi­ losophy we find the dualism of thought and reality, the two separated hy a great chaan, the absolute paradox. The supreme paradox of all thought, he believe c, is the attempt to discover something that thought cannot think. "This passion is at bot­ tom present in all thinking, even in the thinking of the indi­ vidual, in so far as in thinking, he participates in something transcending h i m s e l f . sjhe Reason seems to be bent upon its

1??1 Howgate. George S antayana250. 122 Kierkegaard Philosbpnlcal Eragments. 29. 138- om downfall, Ito own destructim, in the searoh for the mthirikable. At this curious paradox Kierkegaard intro­ duces the cmcept of God, He m ites $

Bat what i s th is unknown something w ith which the Reason collides when inspired hy its paradoxical passim ? . . . I t i s the Hnknmm, I t i s n o t a human being, in so far as we know what man is; nor is it any, oth er known th in g . So l e t u s c a ll th is unknown something: God. It is nothing more than a name we assign to it. The idea of demonstrating lhat this unknown something (God) exists, could scarcely sug­ gest itself to the Reason. For if God does not exist it would of course be Impossible to prove it; and if he does exist it would be folly to attempt it. For at the very outset, in beginning my proof, I will have presupposed it, not as doubtful but as certain (a presupposition is never doubtful, for the very reason that it is a presupposition), since otherwise I would not begin, readily understanding that the whole would be impossible if he did not exist. But if when I speak of proving God's exis­ tence I mean th a t I propose to prove th a t the Un­ known, which exists, is- God, then I express myself un­ fortunately. For in that’case I do not prove anything, least of all an existence, but merely develop the con­ tent of a conception."123

Thus we see that Kierkegaard is quite aware of the distinc­ tion between a conception and existence. He does not believe that existence is subject to demonstration; wo reason, rather, in every ease, from existence, not toward existence. For ex­ ample, we do not attempt to prove this object, a stone, exists; we reason that this existing object is a stone. In a proof of God* s existence the continuance of demonstration fails to yield His existence, but when the proof is discontinued, the existence is there. "For the fool says in his heart that there is no God,

123 Kierkegaard. Philosophical Fragments. 31. ■ _ • ; - 139- but whoever Bays la his heart or to neat Wait jast a little and'I.will prove it - idiat a rare nan of wisdom is Kierkegaard emphasizes the absolute paradox. Be w rite s:

fhe paradoxical passion of the Reason thus* cones repeatedly into collision with the Unknown, which does indeed exist* but is unknown, and in so far does not exist. The Reason cannot advance beyond this point, and yet it cannot refrain from its paradoxlealneas from arriving at th is lim it and oc­ cupying itself therewith. 1*5

It is Kierkegaard's contention that the region beyond * this paradox, beyond the limit of Reason, must be recognized as the Unknown and absolutely different, an "unlikeness” de­ fying all subtle variatim s In the dialectics of rationalism. If this Uhknom becomes associated with a dialectical opposite it suffers the fate of all Hegelian verbal antitheses, lik e and unlike are finally identified with one another, and con­ fu sio n or "System” results. This inevitable confusion of th e unlike and like arising out of the passion and self-irony of the Reason is recognized by Kierkegaard. "The unlikeness clin g s to the Reason mid confounds i t , so th a t the Reason no longer knows itself and quite consistently confuses itself with the unlikeness. On th is point pagan!ra has been sufficiently prolific in fantastic invention®. *2.26 The Reason cannot tran-

124 Kierkegaard. Philosophical Fragments. 34. 126 Ibid., 35. 126 I b id ., 36. >140- soend itself, it ctmnot "bring the absolute xmlilceneas within its sshero; indeed, the absolute unllkeiiees is often of itself so offensive and Ineonceivahle to the Reason that we ere con­ strained to invoke and Invent numerous fantastic formulae with which to cloak our ” offended coaseieumess”. And 11 deep­ est down in the heart of piety lurks the mad caprice which knows it has itself produced Its God ... Thus God bseemes the most terrible of deceivers, because the Reason has deceived Itself. The Reason has brougit God as near as possible, and y e t he i s as fa r away as e v e r . Whatever may be the merits of Kierkegaard1 s with its emphasis upon faith and the consciousness of sin, it is abundantly clear that he has attacked, in an en-

:• • % ■ • ' • * • • tlrely different fashion from that of Santayana, the propon­ ents of the ontological argument in striking at the very foun­ dations of any attempted rational proof of the existence of God. And let no one suppose that Kierkegaard is ignorant of dialectic. Ho writes, for instances

At bottom it is an immovable firmness with respect to the absolute, and with respect to absolute distinctions, that makes a man a good dialectician. This is something our age has altogether overlooked, in and by its repudia­ tion of the principle of contradiction, failing to perceive what Aristotle nevertheless pointed out, namely that the proposition: the principle of contradiction is annulled, itself rests upon the principle of contradiction, since otherwise the opposite proposition, that it is not an­ nulled, is equally t r u e . 128

127 Kierkegaard. Philosophical Fragments. 36. 128 Ibid., 91-92. -141-

Thus w find two distinctly original philosophers, Santayana and Kierkegaard, thinkers exhibiting wide tempera­ mental differences, both men possessing profound scholarship, . * and both opponents of the Hegelian philosophy, who have rather skillfully removed the familiar pretensions of the ontological argument. Ho two philosophers in recent philosophy have been so disparate in general Weltanschauung and yet so unanimous in their rejection of the argument. Evora the evidence presented in this study we can now formulate a few generalizations and indicate some of the re­ quirements desirable for considerations of the ontolog­ ical argument.

Definition of Terms Throughout the history of the ontological argument we find much variation in the meaning of the basic terms as­ sociated with the argument. Although Kant brought about a certain terminological standardization, contemporary philosophy has again developed a diffuse vocabulary which has resulted in much confusion. A great lack of uniformity, although highly desirable for the constant revision and progress of philosoph­ ical thought, when extended to the meaning of terms, fails to yield satisfactory intellectual results. Billosophy does not have to be uniform, but considerations of the meaning of terras, existence, essence, and necessity, for instance, should at the very least show points of . A consciousness of the meaning of terras is requisite for the high order of great phi- loBophieal egrstems. Wo have seen that one of Kant1 a v irtu e s la hie aiscassion of the ontological argument m s his careful and c cm si stent definition of terns, and this wiH certainly he the first requirement of any future discussion of the argu- a®at. This is nothing more nor less than the Socratie plea for more careful definition. It is not unusual to find ter- mlnologioal cmfusion in contemporary philosophy. The meaning of "object", for Instance, has been associated with everything from the rigourously realistic of the external world to the metaphysical object of a proposition. At one time the object is physical, again it is a mental construct, . ■ ’ ; or perhaps a mental representation, then a thing in space and time, and finally, precisely that i*iieh has no existence in space and time. Any cursory examination of some of the recent metaphysical arguments cannot fail to lead the reader to the

■ ■■ ■,.: - ^ ...... - • . . . ' - . . ocmcluslcn that, if any uniform terminology had been developed, many ordinary dilemmas might have been avoided. This is par­ ticularly true of the terms of the ontological argument, terms Inadequately defined and ambiguously employed from Kant to the present day. A concise and complete knowledge of the meaning of terms is indispensable for any future discussion of the ontological argument.

Scholarship -,. Scholarship in philosophy is, perhaps more than that

• . . ■ ■' ■' ■ - of any other field, the first general requirement to Insure philosophical thought of any real value. It is the writer’s 143

conviction that Buch of contemporary philosophy, particular­ ly with regard to metaphysical questions, suffers from a serious vrant of careful study of the. eontributions of former thinkers. This is particularly true with reference to the ; ' ... ; . . - ' . ■ , , ontological argument, an argiment sometimes naively or even " - - .. . . * - - . ; unconsciously accepted hy some writers, and upon ^hich their whole structure of metaphysics rises or falls. An unclear recognition of the fundamental issue of the argument has often resulted in much impossible and thoroughly ridiculous sets- , excellent as psychological studies in adolescent free- aseoeiation, but quite worthless as documents of human reason­ ing. A clear recognition of the ontological issue, such as • - . * - that found in the philosophy of Kant, prevents any immature and naive development of a m aterialistic «r idealistic meta­ physics based upon a few unexamined propositions and in itial fallacies. Kant has certainly shown that the confusion as­ sociated with the uncritical acceptance of the ontological argument can only re suit in numerous illusions which only thoughtful diligence can prevent. The ontological argument will probably remain, even as the innocent progenitor of need- less confusion, in the future history of philosophy, but its issue must be understood, and the Kantian distinctions tran­ scended, if a rationalistic metaphysics is to have any real value and significant in sist. This is nothing more nor less than a plea for profound scholarship in the history of phi­ losophy. As the basis of much misconception the ontological -144- argmaent has littlo 5ustlfleatl

The S c ie n tific A ttitu d e ' In the philosophy of Gentile we find an * actual ideal­ ism** of the extreme variety in which the ontological argument plays a decisive port. Have we not returned to Parmenides in the Gentlleen definition of reality as the “totality of the thinkable*? Certainly any philosophy which proceeds upon this basis has given up the simple quest of the reasonable men in search of an explanation and description of nature. Granted : ; •• ' • ...... that the aseurapticm. may be true, it is nevertheless a rather complete and unnecessary alteration of the traditional fune- * = . tion of philosophy. Whatever else a rationalized experience me& reveal, it certainly exhibits the genuine and evident dis-

■ " , ■ * ■ • ■ ■ ■■ :: * tlnction between subject and object, the knovrer and the known. Our attmapts to discover relations i&ich serve to characterize this distinction coupled with a resolute intellectual consis­ tency are commendable, but a complete annihilation, and obli­ teration of the distinction, based upon the ontological assump tion and devoid of evidence either verbal or experimental, is an extremely questionable procedure unworthy of a sober phi- ...... - ■ • t • losopher. Uncritical raticaialistic assumptiems of this type only serve to further alienate soienee and philosophy, two ■ ' - realms of human endeavour which should go hand in hand, in ■-145- both oetood and spirit, in their search for ImoTrlod^e. The intellectual desire for knowledge of the nature of things #m ld be stimulated by the asmrtions and inrestigatlaas of both fields, unhindered with assumptions that are designed to preelude the ateisslon of farther evidence. To insist upw the identification of subject and object as the initial starting-point of a methodology, scientific or philo sophical, is the most unjustifiable of oil assumptions, particularly Mien supported with little real evidence and much wishful thinking. This wo might characterise as the hl#i philosoph­ ical crime, the epitone of intellectual treason, the true ontological fallacy. Thus it is of the utmost Import wee that future considerations of the ontological argument be based upon a correspondence theory Milch has, as in Kent, the added virtue of intellectual coherence end consistency. The correspondence theory mny prove inadequate in lieu of further evidence, but the possibility of further evidence will not be removed, and farther dialectical consideration will not suffer a predestined conclusion. A frank recognition of a dualist 1c metaphysics or the acceptance of a is much more preferable than an "immature monistic metaphysics based upon a perfectly emotional presupposition from Milch the data of phenomena ore discarded as "mere appearance9. This is nothing more nor less than a plea for in speculative problems. It should not be confused, however, with , , pragmatism, or • ^ " * ■ > operationallsm• It is, in essence, an attitude toward sub- -146- stance, what Aristotle means of science, namely, Ha sure a»d evident Imowledge obtained free deoonetratlons,n a rc- quireo«it not only limited to imreatigatiana of nature hut also applicable to theoretioal problems. The legitimacy of speculative problems is urged by Professor A. C. Benjamin. He w rites!

The inference to a* realm beyond that which is obviously given is, in a certain sense, unavoid­ able. Though science - and even philosophy - professes to be satisfied with a pure phenome­ nalism, it has not often remained long in this unstable position. As Bacon long ago pointed out, the mind is prone to soar into flights of the Imagination, and can be restrained only with difficultyi there is so little difference between ‘ the disciplined imagination which is reasoning, and the undisciplined imagination which is specu­ lation that the mind passes almost imperceptibly .. . from cm© to the other. But the instability of phenomenalisn lies not merely in the character of the mind; tho given itself offers hints of something beyond. Bo phenomenalism can fa ll to recognize the distinction between appearance and reality, yet the distinction, cnee admitted, com­ pels one to abandon phenomenalism. Bven though reality is defined to be merely alternative ap­ pearances. positivism must be forsaken; for the ■given--then becomes not that which is actually given, but that which is potentially given as well, i.e ., that which auv''-1bc "'inferred to be irilven on the b a s is o f th a t which i s given. To assert this, however, is to 'abandon' 'the' phenome- nalistie position and td g&slt the legitimacy of the speculative problem.1^9

The B ocratle Bictim The extraordinary extension of scientific knowledge in recent times has, it seems, not only prevented, but pre-

129 Benjamin. An Introduction to the Philosophy of Science. ' 459-440.. : ~ ~~ : “ " -147- cluded the possibility of a ©mppohmslTe ^nthesle of "knowledge, fo rc in g us to become sp ecial le t s and condemning to disappointment those that take all knowledge for tiielr province. But it may be that our emphasis upon the event® of nature has darkened our vision with respect to the Sooratic dictum. Besieged with the facts and data of a highly developed culture, driven relentlessly before the of time end the machine, wo have perhaps failed to organize our experience, to weigh our values, to define our terms, and to strive for the life of reason. This possi­ bility has not escaped attention and a few great scientists, philosophers, end historians, have turned from the complex manifold of data with its many problems to the stupendous

' ■ ■ ' ■ ... - ' task of synthesis, the orgenlzatlcoi of knowledge with respect to man. Thus the terms of the ontological argument are again considered in the light of the scientific meaning of conoepts, and scientists become philosophers, philosophers ■■■■■■ - - ' once more mindful of man, the knower. "But, after a ll,w the reader may ask, as it has been reported old lamps asked of his master, "confidentially, doe® God exist or no?" We can reply only with a question for a ■ ■ ' ■ - . ■■■■ : ■ ‘ ' ' new Bible token frm the spirit of the old - *0 Man, Mtiiat is God that thou are mindful of Him?*

Cl -148-

Appendlx I

Aristotle and Metaphysics

A rist., Met. Gemma, I, 1003a 18-20: "There is a science “which investigates being as being end the a ttri­ butes which belong to this in virtue of its own nature." Ibid., 2, 1005a 12-5: "Obviously then it is the work of the one science to examine being qua being , and the at­ tributes which belong to it qua being ..." That Aristotle conceived the first philosophy to be a non-diseursive and non-demonstrative science, is in­ dicated frequently in the Metaphysics, as in the following passages: Met. X, 1, 1059a 16-6: "That wisdom i s a science of first principles is evident ..."; and 29-34: "Further, does it deal with substances only or also with their attri­ butes? If in the case of attributes demonstration is pos- . Bible, in that of substances it is not ... If we think of it as demonstrative, the science of the attributes is Wis­ dom, but if as dealing with what is primary, the scienee of i sub stances claims the title ." Met. lambda, I, 1069a 18: "The subject of our Inquiry is substance; for the princi­ ples and the causes v/e are seeking are those of substances." Substance is that which is "in the unqualified sense" (cf. for example A rist., An. Post. II, 2, 90a 8); metaphysios, which considers being in the unqualified sense, qua being, can therefore bo called the science of substance. : The transcendental attributes of ens are not demon­ strable of it, since there cannot "bo" a middle terra dis­ tinct-from being, by which an.attribute might be demonstrated of being. And this is* why dialectic, when conceived as a discursive metaphysics, has to make use of Mon-Being as a principle - for discourse requires distinct things, and hence, if being as sueh is taken as one thing (the subject of discursive signification), non-being is all that remains to serve as the other principle. While the transcendental terms are convertible with, though not demonstrable of, "being",' there are no other at­ tributes predicable of being as such, since all other attri­ butes are of limited universality, and can be predicated com- mensurately and' per se only of terms that signify determinate kinds of beings, as in the natural sciences or mathematics. Hence metaphysics, since it deals with being qua being and with the attributes of being qua being, cannot be a demon­ strative nor a discursive science - consequently it consists simply in the grasp of ens and its commensurate attributes, which make up the six transcendental terms or concepts. Metaphysics, understood in this way, is the intel­ ligence of the indemonstrable, for being as such is indemon­ strable . The first principles and primary concepts of a -149-

netural science • arc indemonstrable principle s of that sci­ ence ; and hence, though they cannot be demonstrated by meta­ physics (because, they ere indemonstrable end because meta­ physics is not a demonstrative science), it is by metaphys­ ics that they are recognized or ,fsebnw as first principles. This is why metaphysics is called the science of first prin­ ciples - i.e., of first principles qua first principles and not cua middle terms of deenmstration as in the discursive sciences. Moody, B. A. The IiOfrlc of . 120.

Appendix II

Wolff and Ontology

Charakterlstische fur soine ganse Auffassung let gleich der erste Satz seiner logit, or wolle dio gesomte v Philosophic zu einer Ttsicheren” und itndtslichen” Wissen- schaft maohen, und zwar dureh dsutliche Begriffe und grBndliche Bsweise. Ihr Gegenstand ist ihm olios nDenk- bare” Oder nMBgliche”. Alio Erkenntnls ist philosoi^ilsober, ; h let or i sober, Oder mathemat 1 sober Art. Die philosophisohe oder rationale imtersuoht die MBgllchkelt der Dingo; die historistiie Oder erapirische• weist sie als vilrklich naeh und gibt ihr so Ihren stoff, wihrend der mathemat 1 schen die GrBszenbestimmung zufSlit. Heben dieser Binteilung . steht die aus den be 1 den unserer Seale innewohenden Ver- mogen&es Brkennens und Wollens st amende in theoretische und prslctieohe Philosophic (Weltp&sheit). So ergibt sich deim ein ganzes System von W1 ssensohaften, das jahrzehn- telang die Kompendien beherrsoht hat; die wichtigsten Bind 1. die raticmalen oder Vermmftwissensohaften: a) theoretische: Ontologie oder herste Philosophie", Kosmol- ogie,'Psychologic, natSrliehe Theologie; b) prattische: Moral, Politlk, Dkonomit. : 2, die empirischen oder Erfshrungsrfiesenschaften: a) theoretische: empirische PEyehologle, Teleblcgie, dogmatische Physlk; b) Tecdmologie, Experimental#iyslk. Torlander, Karl. Geschichte der Philosophie. Band II. 232-233. ■ "" " : “ * .150-

Ontology

- — Ontologio, celt dor Hitte des 17; Jahrli. COlaaWrg, 1656) Bezeichimnp: fur die lehrcvom So In, fur denjenlgen fell der Ihlloeoiihle, der elne Wlssonstiieft ran den allge- metneten Selne’beBtiaanngsein w ill; ndie: W1 esensofaaft der Binge aus ^grlffro” (Eant). . : Bel Kant durch die Transsendentalphilosophle alge- l8st, 1st die Qntologle lei H e^l elne ICntegorlenlehre, elne nlehrevon den al otr akrfc en Bestinnungen des We sons. Bel Husserl 1st die Cntologie keine Metaphysilc, sondem die Wiesensehaft, vrelche die Strukturen der Simegehalte • neinender Akte erforscht (s. B. der Begriffs-Hogion Breieek, die von sGntllclien Breleek-Satzon geMldet wird). Indem sie das hWeson” eoloher Bogrlffe und die Hoglichkelten Innerball Ihrer lest lima t, lie lit sie nber rc Ine M5gliehke itf or sokurg. Husserl lehnt es at, die so nWe sen” als existent misunebsien. Haeh Heidegger hot die Ontologle als elne auf die Erf or- eelrang des Konkreten gerlehtete Ihcinraenologie die Wesen- stru k tu ren , die* a lie n formenden le le n inne<7ohnen, in ihrer lelnheit herauezustellen. aCtotologie als lehrs voa So in ken nur noeh zu dea He suit at komaen, das Sc in als die deni Behken Torkoomenaen und legegnenden Weisen des Seins le- wusst %u Bttchen. Sie. wird heute nlcht mehr Ontologic als HetaphgoiTt. sondern Qntologie als Kntegorlenlehre sein” (Jasimrs). . . . '■ v . ■ . ■' -;; Vgl .Jac ohy, All gene ine Qntologie der W irkliahkeit, I» 1925; Mur, Ontologie, 1920$ OeA lehmenh, Bie Cntdlogie der Ge^nwart in ?bren ©randgestalten, 1^3. Schmidt, E. Hillosophiechos Worterhuch. 460?

Appendix III Augustine on the ^m ortality of the Soul

! If ;there'is no contrary to SB^ essmiee inasmuch as it is en essence, then much less is there a contrary to that first essence Inasmuch as it is essence. Moreover, the an­ tecedent is true. For no essence exists for any other reason than that It exists. Being,. moreover,, has mo contrary except non-being; hence nothing is the contrary of e ssenoe. . fh e re - fesre, in no way can anythlng exist as a cmitrary to that sub- stance which exists first end in hipest degree. If the mind has its very essence from that essence (for since it does not have It from itself [ex se] It cannot have i t . otherwise than from that thing -which Is superior to the mind Itself); then there Is no thing by which It may lose its existence (being), beeause there Is nothing contrary to that thing from which It has it. Hence the mind cannot cease to exist. Be immortelite animae. XII. .151-.

Appendix IT

The Ontological Argument of Anselm

Demine Dens, Qhi dns fidei intollectm , da nihl nt; quantum scis expediret intelligmn quia es, sicut, credinus, et hoc 'es quod eredlmus. 5t gulden eredlous, te esse honum quo majUG honua oogitari nequit. An ergo non est allqua tails nature, quia dixit inslpiene in cord® suo: non est ? Sod carte'idem ipse inslpiene qum audit hoc ipsun quod dieo$ honua, quo* am jus nihil cogitari potest, in telli- glt utique quod audit, et quod intclligit utique in ojus intelleotu eat, etiam si non intelligat illud eese. (Aliud est rem esse in intelleotu, et aliud intelligere rem esse, Hem quma plot or prase ogit at Imagine® quern facturus est, habet earn quidem jam in intelleotu, eed nonduza esse intel- lig it quod nondum fecit; quum vero jam pinxit. et habet in intelleotu et intelllglt jam esse quod fecit.) Oonvineltur ergo Insipimas osee vel in intelleotu elit^ld beram quo oaju® cogitari nequit, quia hoc quum audit intclligit, et quidquld intelligitur in intelleotu set. Ad certe id quo aajus cogi­ tari nequit, n

Hegel give s on abbreviated form of Anselm1 s argument. Gerte id ; quo mejus cogitarl nequit, non potest esse in intelleotu solo. Si cnlm vel in solo intelleetu est, potest cogitari esse et in re: quod majus est. Si ergo id quo isajus cogltari non potest, est In solo intelleetu; id ip sun quo raajus'eogitari non potest, est quo majus dogitarl potest. Sec e e rte hoe © s^ non p o te s t. Wallace^ W. The logic of Hegel. , 558. . . ■ . ■

Proelogiun. Chapter XV. . He is greater than can bo conceived. Therefore, 0 lord, thou art not only that than which a greater cannot be conceived, but tliou art a being greater than can be conceived; For, since it eaa be conceived that there is such a being,if thou art not this very being, a greater than thou can be .conceived. Bit this is impossible. -15S

Appu&ix ▼ Kent

Bes 8rltt«i Hauptettlcke Tlerter AtWmltt Von derU iin o f€L i it einos ontolocischcn lev/elses Ton Casein Doties ' '

• ' Hen sieht ans den bldherlgen leicht: dass der Be griff elnes absolut notnendlgen We sens ein relnor Vernunftbegriff, d. i; elne bloaze Idee sei, deren objelctlre Realltat a&dmro$i, dato die Vermmft ihrer bedarf, noch Image nleht bewleeon let, welehe aneh nor anf eine gewisse obzwar xmerelchbare Veiletindigkeit Anweisung glbt* %md elgentlitii nehr dasu dient, den Verst and wi beg^nzen, ols ihn auf new Qegem- ctande zu erwoitern. Be- findet sicb hler nun das Befrend- llche and Widerelnnische, 1 dass der Schlusz von einen gege- benen Base in uberhaupt auf irgendoin sohleehthin notwendigee Ifesein, dr intend and rlehtig zu Bein' seheint, and wir gleich- wdhl alle Be dingangen des Ver standee, • sidi einen Be griff von ciner solehen 5etwendlgke it zu naohen, g&tzlldi wider one haben. . " ' Man hat * su allor Zeit von den absolut not^ndigen We sen geredet, and sidh n ic h t oowohl Huhe gegeben, zu v e r- stehen, ob and tyie nan sidi ein Mng von dieeer Art aneh nor denken tonne, als violnehr des sen Base in zu bev/e i sen* Son let zwar eine ITaiaenerklarong von' die sen Begriffo guns leioht, dasz os nSmlieh a© etwas sei, dessen Michtsein un- nBglioh let; aber man nird hiorduroh ura nichts Iddger, in Ansehung der Bedingongen, die es unn’dglich nachen, das Mieht- sein elnes Binges als schledhterdings andsnkllohB anzusehen, and dio olgentlieh dasjenlge Bind, was nan T/iasen w ill, nan- 11 eh, ob wir one doreh die son Be griff Gborall etwas denken, Oder nicht,: Itenn alle Bedingungen, die der Verst and jeder- zelt bedarf, urn etwas al s notwendig misusehen, veralttelst dee Worts: Unbedlngt, wegwerfen, naeht a ir noch langc nicht verst andlieh, ob leh nledami doreh einen Be griff elnes TJn- bedlngtnotwen&igen noch etwas, odor viellcitiit gar nicht3 d en k e.. ' % - ■ ' ' ; Wooh nehr: die sen auf da© blosze Geratewohl gevragten and endlioh gsnz geltufig gewordenon Be griff hat men.' noch dazu doreh eine Menge Beispiele zu erkliren geglaubt, so, dasz alle witere Maohfrage vegan seiner Vorstandlichkelt 12

1 Valentiner: Wldersinnlge, 2 Soir£: Hotwendig ... undenkliehi Adlckes: umbglich derikbar. 1 5 4 - eranz manotlg erschelnen. Bin jocler Satz 4®r Gecmetrle, z. B. 4asz eln Trlan^el 4re 1 Wiiikel hate, 1st oehlechthin netwndig, und so redst® man Ton einon Gegenatlnde, dsr ganz auszerhallD der Sphare imeeres Verstand®s lie # , ala ob men genz wohl Ter- stande, ws mari alt dem Ycm 11m s'a'gen'wdlle, Alle vorgege'benen Be 1 eplele sind ohne An snahme nur von Urtellen, aber nitiit von Bingen und der on Base in hergenonmen. Die unbedingte Botwendiglceit .der'Urteile aber i^nieht elne a'bsolu.t Botwendi#:eit der Saehen. Demn die absolute Hetwendig- koit dos Urteil® 1st nur eine bedingte Sotv/endlfkeit der Sache, Oder dcs Pradikats im Ur telle. Der vorige Satz* sagte nieht, dasz dre 1 winkel schlechterdings notwendig oind, smdern, unter der Bedlngung, daez eln Triangel da 1st, (gegeben 1st) sind aueh drei Winkel (in ihm) notwendigerweise da. Glelehwokl hat die se loglsche Botwendigkeit eine so grosze Maeht ihrer Illu ­ sion bewie sen, dasz, indem man oioh einen Be griff a priori vm einem Dinge gemacht hatte, der so ge stellt , dasz man seiner Meinung nach das Basein mit in seinen Umfang be griff, mandar- aus glaubte sloher achlieszen zu kBnnen, dasz, well dem Objekt dieses Begrlffs das notwendig zukcraat, d. 1. unter der Bedingung, da sz leh dieses Ding als gegeben (exlstlerend) seize, auch sein Dasein notwendig (haeh der Regel der Identitat ) ge- setzy werde, imd dieses Wesen daher selbst schleehterdlng® not- imndig sei, well seln Dasein in einem naeh Belieben sngeaee- raenen Begriffe und unter der Bedlngung, dasz ich den Gegen- stsnd deswlben seize, mitgedseht wlrd. Wenn ich das Pradikat in oinen identisohen Urteilo auf- hebe und l^halte das Skibjokt, so entspringt ein Widerspraeh, und daher sage ich: Jencn koamt diesea notwehdlgerwo 1 se zu. Eebe leh aber das Sabiekt zueemt dem Pradikate auf, so ent- springt koin Widersprueh; denn es ,ist niohts mehr, welehea widereproohen vmrden kBnnte. Blnen Triongel sotzen und doeh die drei Winkel desselben aufheben, 1st widerspreebend; aber den Triangel mat seinen drei Wlnkeln aufhaben, 1st kein Wider- spruoh. Gerade ebenso 1st es a lt dem Begriffe eines absolut notwendigen Weses bewandt. Wem ihr das Dasein desselben auf- hebt, so hebt ihr das Ding selbst alt alien seinen Pradlkaten auf; wo soil alsdann der Wider sprueh herkommenf jfuszerlieh 1st nicditB, dem widersproohen wBrde, dean das Ding soil nioht Suezerlich notwendig sein; innorlieh aueh niehts, denn Ihr habt, durcli Aufhebimg des Binges selbst* alien inner® sugleleh aufgehoben. Gott ist nHnachtig; das 1st oin notwendlges Ur- te li. Die Allmacht kenn.nioht aufgehobcn v/ordon, wonn ihr eine Gottheit, d. 1. ein unendlichesl "Wesen, setzt, nit dessen Begriff jener ident Ieoh 1st. VVehri ihr aber sagt: Gott 1st nitdit, so 1st weder die Allmacht, noeh irgendeln andcroo seiner Pradikate" gegeben; denn sie sind alle zusamt dem Sub- jekte aufgehoben, und es seigt sich. in die sen Gedanken nieht der mindeste Wider sprueh. 1

1 A; unendlieh. - 1 5 5 -

Ihr halit also gesehen, dasz, wenn ich das Pradika| eines Ur to ils zusant dem SnUjekte BUfhe*be» nieaals ein in- neror ,Widersprach entepringen IcBnne, das Pradikat mag aucn eein, welehes es wolle. Him bloiUt eueh keine Aueflueht ttbrig, sis, ihr muszt sagon; es giUt SatjeTcbe, die gar nicht aufgeho'ben werden TcSnnen, die also "bleiten nussen. Das w8rd@ a'ber ebensoviel sagen, als: es g ilt sclileehterdings notwndige Satjekte; eine Vorauesetzmig, an deren Richtiglceit, idh. e"ben gezweifelt hate, and deren HBgllehkeit ihr air zelgen w dltet. Denn ieh kean air nieht den goringsten Be griff ron einem Binge aachen, welches, wean es rait alien seinen* Pridikaten aufgehohen wurde, einen' Widersprcu* zuruox lieeze, tmd ohne den Mderspmeh habe leh, dtxreh blosze rcine Begriffe a priori, keln Merkmal der Utaa5gii

' ..... r-\, - ' - -- ' . Ber ^ g riff 1st allemal mBglleh, wem er sich nicht vrldor- spricht. Bas 1st das logieehe Meriatal der Moglichkeit, tmd dadurch wird sein Gegenatend vom nihil negatiTua xintersdtiied- en. Allein or kann niehtsdestoweniger ein leorer Begrlff sein, wenn die objelctiTo Bealitat der Synthesis, dadurch der Begrlff erzeugt wird, nicht be senders darge ten. wird; welches aber jederzeit, wle oben gezeigt worden, auf Prlnclpien MBglioher Brfehnmg tmd nicht auf dem Grundsatze der Analy­ sis (dem Satze des Widere^uch®) beruht. Bas 1st clno War­ ming, Ton der MBglichkelt der Begriffe (logische) nicht sofort auf die Moglichkeit der Binge (reale) zu schlieszen. frage eutii, 1st der Satz: dieses Oder jenes Ding Ctrelches Itii euoh bI s mogLlch elnrSume, os nag sein, welches es wolle,) exlstlert, 1st, sage ieh, dleser Satz ein analyti- seher Oder ^nthetlscher Satz? Wenn er das erstere 1st, so tut ihr duroh das Dasein des Dingo s zu euoren Gedaaken Ton. . den Dlnge nlchts hlnzu, aher alsdam mSszte entweder der Gedanke, der In eueh 1st, das Ding selh-ir sein, Oder thr haht eln Dasein, als zur MSgllelikdit gehorlg,' vcrnusg©- setzt, und alsdann das Dasein'don Vorgehen naeh bus der. timeren MBglichkeIt geechloeeen, welofces niehts als elne elend® Tautologl® 1st, Das Wort: Re&lltBt, welches in Eegriff des Dlnges anders klingt, nls Existenz in Begriffe des P ra d lk a ts, raaeht es n io h t aus. Denn, wenn ih r auch alios Setzen (unhestjnnt was ihr setzt) Realitat nennt, so haht ihr das Ding eehon nit alien soincn Pradikaten in Be­ g riff e des SahjeTcts g ese tz t und a le w irk lich angenctamcn, und in Pradikate wiederhold ihr es nur, Gesteht ihr dagegen, wle es hllllgeraaszmi jeder Vorntlnftige gestehen zausz, dasz ein jeder Xxistenzlaleatiz synthetisehe sei, wie wollt ihr dann beheupten, dasz das PrK&ikat der Existenz sich ohne Widerepruch nicht aufhehen lasse? da dleser Vorsug nur den anelytlsehen, 1 eJ.g deren Gharakter ehen darauf heruht, eigent&illeh zukoemt* 1 . > Ich wErde zwar hoffen, die se grtihleri sche irgutat 1 on,1 2 ohne alien Umschweif darch elne genaue Bestimung des Be- grlffs der Exist enz zunlohte suraachen, wenn ich nioht ge- fonden hatte^ dasz die Illusion, in Vervmchslung eines logisohen Prddlkats nit einem realen, (d.i, der Bostlnraung olnes Dingesfc) belnehe olle Belehrung' aueeehlage, toe logischen Dredik&t® kann Giles dienen, was man ed lls eojptr das Suhjekt kenn rcm doh eelbst pradiziert werden; denn 6 le Logik ahstrahlert von" Etllem Inhalte, Aher die Be- etlmmung 1st eln PrM lkat, ^lehem ttber den Begrlff dec Sihjekts hinzukmmt und ihn vergroszert, Sie nusz also nioht In Ihn sehoa enthslten min, Seln 1st offenhar keln reales Pradlkat, d.l. eln %- griff von irgend etwas, was zu dsn Begriffe cines Dingo s hinzukcrotien k&n@,3 Bs ist hlosz die Position cines Binges, Oder gewieser Be otinmungen an sich selhst. Im logischen Oehrauehe 1st es lediglich die Copula eines Xhrteils. Ji&r 3e,tzx Gott 1 st a lln a c h tlg , e n th a lt zvmi B eg riffe, die ihr® Ohjekte hahen: Gott und Allmacht ; das V/Brtehen: 1st, 1st " nioht noch ein PrBdikat oheneln, sondem nur das, was das. Pridikat heziehungsweise aufs Suhjekt setzt, Eehme ich nun das 8ubjekt (Gott) nit alien soinen PrSlikaten (woruater auch die Allmacht gehSrt) zusonnen, und sage: Gott let, Oder es 1st ein Gott, so mtze ich keln neues PrSdlkat zum

1 Erdmann: "Analyt i sdimi #tzen^. 2 Hartenstein: "Argumentation”; Valentiner Spltzfindlgkeit” 5 Erdmann. "EBnnte". -157-

Be griff Ton Cott, seaderh nnr das Sabjekt an sich selbst nit alien seinen Pradikaten, end zwar dsn Os^Bnstand in Beziehung' auf melnen Begrlff. Beide ndseen genan elnerlel enthalten, end as kman daher zn dma Begrlffe, dsr blosz die Hoglichkeit ansdrttekt, dama, dass ich dessen Go genet and • als sehleohthin gegebsn (dnreh den Auedruck: er 1st) desks, niehts welter hinzuktmen. ' TJnd so enthalt das Wirkliche nltiits mehr als das blosze Hbgllehe. Hundert wirkllohe Taler enthalten* nicht das nindeste mehr, als hundert mBglleh® . Benn, da die se den Eegriff, jene aber den Ge gen- stand and dessen Position an sleh selbst bedeuten, so tmrde, in Fall dieser mehr onthielte als joner, nein Be griff nieht den ganzen Gegenstand auedrdoken, xmd also auoh nieht def angeaeeeene Begriff von ihn so in. Aber in melnen Termbgens- zustande 1st mehr bel hundert wirkliehen Talern, als bei den bloezen Be griffs dereelben, Cd.i. Hirer MBgllchkeit). Bonn der Ge genet and 1st bei der Wirkliohkeit nieht bloets in melmea Begriffe anolytiseh enthalten, sondem koamit zu melnen Be­ griff e (der eine Bestlsmung melnes Zusteuades let) aynthetlseh hinzu, ohne dam; dnreh dieses Sein auszeihalb melnen Begrlffe die so gadaehten hundert Taler selbst im ralndesten Termehrt werden. ; . WOnn loh a lso e ln Bing, dnreh weleh® und wl® riel Prid- ikate ieh w ill, (selbst* in der durehgEngigen Bestismung) derike, so kommt dadnreh, dasz ieh noeh hinzusetze, dieses Bing 1st, nieht das mindeste zu. den Binge hinzu. Denn sonst wfirde nieht eben daseelbe; sondem mehr ezistieron, als ich im Begrlffe gedacht hatte, und ieh kthmts nieht * sagen, das gerade der Ge genet and melnes Be griffs exist lore. Berike ieh mlr such sogar in einea Binge alle Eealitlt auszer einer, so kmmt dadnreh, dasz ieh sage, eln seiches oangelhaftes Bing existiert, die fehlende Realitat nieht hinzu, sondem es. existiert gerade mit denselben Mangel behaftet, als ich * es gedacht habe, senet wErde etwas snderes, als ich dachte, exlstieren. Beak® ieh* mlr mm eln We sen als die hBehst# Realit&t (ohne Mangel), so bleibt noeh inner die Erage, ob es existiere, oder nicht. Bonn, obgleich an ceinea Begrlffe, T

1 A: ”ln«. S Vorlander: ttabgestrltten”; Talentlner; "bestritten”. 3 A*. ”w l l * . 4 Adi eke s: * spekulat iTfl; Brdaann: ^raelnt slnd die spezifiachen HealltEteh der realen Elgensohafton; Gorlandt *ln eonereto”. 5 Wille: ’’stattfande*. 4.59

eelma 2ust®ad ra verbssaeim, seinea Kassonbestaade ©lalge lullen aahioeen wollto. Kant, Kritlk der roinen Vermmft. 5G7-575* :

Kent, Heasm and Dh&erstending*

In the Wolflan School (e,g. In Bauafwrten*a Hetaphysllc. 468). the term intellect (Terstand) is used of the general faculty of higher cognition, While ratio (Yernunft) specially denotes the power of seeing distinctly the" coimexions of things. So Wolff (Teradnftige Qedenken von Gott. etc, 277.) defines Terstand as *tke faculty of distinctly representing the possible, ’ and Temunft (568) as ’the faculty of seeing into the connexion of truths,1 It Is on this use of Reason as the faculty of Inference that Kant’s use of the tern is founded! though It soon widely departs from Its origin. For upon the ’formal’ use of reason as the faculty of syllogiz­ ing, Kant superinduces a transcendental use as a ’faculty of principles, ’ while the understanding is only a ’faculty of rules. 1 “^Reason. ’ in other wwds, ’itself begets ocmceptlons, ’ and 'maxims, ’ which it borrows neither from the senses nor from the understanding. (Kritik d. r. Tern*. Plalektlk. Binleit. 11. A.) And the essent'lal aim of Reason is to give unity to the various cognitions of. understanding. v/Iiile the unity given by understanding is ’unity of a possible exper­ ience, ’ that sought by reason is the discovery of an uncon­ ditioned which will complete the unity of the former (M ai. Binleit. iv), or.of ’the totality Of the conditions to a given oemditiemea. ’ (M ai, vii. ) ..* One is tempted to connect the modern distinction with an older one which goes back in its origin to Plato and Aristotle, but takes form in the Heo-Pldtonlst school," and enters the -Xatln world through BoSthius. Cgstsol* Phil, iv. 6: Igitur uti est ad" intellects ratiocinatlo* ad id quod est id quod gjgnitur. ad aeterhitatom- tempos, and in v. 4 there is a full distinction of sensus. Imaginatio. ratio and intelligent la in ascending "order. ■ Ratio is thedi's- curslve knowledge of the idea (unlver sail c ! intelllgentla approhends it at once, and se a simple forma (pura mentis ncie contuetur): cf; Stob. Eel. 1. 886-58£: Porphyr. Sentent. lb. Reasoning belongs the human species, just as intelligence to the divine alone. Yet it is assumed - in an attempt to explain divine fore­ knowledge and defend - that man may in some measure place himself on the divine standpoint (v. 5). This contrast between a higher mental faculty (mens) and a lower (ratio ) which even Aquinas adopts from the in­ terpretation of Aristotle (Sanaa The cl. 1. 79, 9) is the favorite weapon in the hande of mysticism. After the exaaple of Dionysius Areop*, Sleolaue of Cuea, Reutiilin, and oth«r thinkers of the Renaissanoe depreeiato mere discursive thought and logical reasoning. It is the inner mens - like a simple ray of light - penetrating hy an immediate and indivisible act to the divine - which gives us access to the supreme science. This simplex intelligentia. - superior to imagina­ tion or reasoning - as Gerscm %rs."' Consld.de Th. 10, is seme- time s' named mens, sometimes spiritus. "the" li^ it of in te lli­ gence, the shadow of the angelical intellect, the divine light. From Scotus Erigena to ITicolaus of Cusa one tradition is handed down: it is thken up hy men like Everard Mghy (in his Theorla Analytloa) and the group of Cambridge Platonists and hy Spinoza In the seventeenth century, and it reappears, profoundly modified, in the German idealisa between 1790 and 1820.' W allace. W. The lo g io o f Hegel. 401-402.

Understanding - faculty of producing representations, spontaneity of knowledge - faculty of judgments - faculty of rules - faculty of laws. Conditions of the Possibility of Knowledge - sense, synopsis of manifold a priori - imagination, synthesis - unity of synthesis, transcendental unity of apperception Spontaneity of Synthesis — sense, perception - imagination,1 association • - apperception, recognition, understanding - apprehension; intuition - reproduction, imagination - recognition, concepts

Understanding -concepts - logical possibility ti*oblematical judgments - affirmation or negation merely possible Judgment - judgment s - logical reality - Assert oriel judgments - proposition is real (true) Reason - syllogisms - logical necessity - Apodictical judgments - proposition is necessary -161

f logical: equivalent to absence of contradiction \ Empirical: in the wider sense, equivalent to \ agreement with the formal conditions of ) experience; in the stricter sense, involving Possibility < in addition the eapeeity of bein# presented A in sense-experience. / Metaphysical: equivalent to absolute possi- 1 blllty, aconception of Reason, not understand- X. inf?«

I. Kantianism: The features of Kant * s philosophy, which have given name to later-thought as Kantian, are 1. the critical method, which consists in a criticism of reason (Vermmftsvermorxm) with a view to dis­ covering the n. uriori, elements in Imowledge;- 2. The doctrine of a priori mental forms, which, a® a theory of knowledge, is characterised as formalim. 3. The resulting antithesis between the phenomenal, or that world of things or appearances to which these forms applied, and the noumenal, or that world of ; things in them solve s, the transcendental thought- postulates, to which the forms do not apply, end ' # .lo h . ’ ’ ■ . - • - 4. are eonsequently unknowable; this is the agnostic element in Kantianism, especially as developed with reference to the ideas of reason - God, Freedom, and Immortality of the Soul - and in the theory of the antinomies or contradictions which reason falls - into in applying the category of infinity. 5. ' The recognition of the validity of the ideas of reason as postulates of the moral life (practical . .reasrni), . . . ■. - ' - . r.:-. ' " ' . . . . " _ - . - ' / . -' II. The lawful connectedness of our thought is due to the unity of apperception, to the synthetic work of the Blnb ildungskr aft. to the activity of the Verst and.' to the spontaneity of our thought (penken) in general, and . not to our knowledge of any absolute or eternal truth ... The Intellect, or the Einbildungskraft in particular, is indeed produlctiv but not creative (schBpferisch). The material is furnished to it by the"'Sihnlichkeft. passive forms of th e Ansehauung-. or p ercep tio n . fHoso forms, especially time, predetermine what schemes, or general types of objects (Schemata), the Zinblldungs- kraft can weave, when it applies the forms of Yerstand to the facts of sens®. Two general forms or CQn&itidns of knowledge - forms of the Verst and, and the forms of the Sinnlichkeit or of the Anschauung. The doctrine of sense. Anschauung. Aesthetilc; the doctrine of Verst and. Understanding. jCnalytilcI III. 1. We can know only phenomena (Erscheinimgeii). not things in themselveG (binge an 'ileh). or iTSSaenn. hut 2. We can know, a priori or aus relnor Yernunft, that the Ersoheinungen nro subject' 'to" vmiTorsai an^'necos- sary laws {Regcln), so that s priori Grunas&tze. upon which all empirical science depends, are possible, and can he exhaustively stated, on the basis of a com­ plete enumeration of all the categories of the under­ standing or of the fundamental concepts or B e g riffe . 5 . The f i e l d of human in s i^ it can he defined a s Srfahrung. Brfehruy constitutes one whole. The Bin- belt dev aSgiTehe'n' Erfahnmg. or unity of possible experience, is assured In advance, by virtue of the relation of all special facts of experieme to toi® Ich _denke or to the original unity of Apperception. 4. The "knowledge of this- whole theory is transcendental knowledge. Applied to-problems of philosophy, it frees us from the Antinomien, illusions, the dialectic of the Vemunft, ' and so at onee sets the due lim its to our knowledge, and assures us of the sovereignity of ra- tlonality within the sphere that is open to our science. Hereby the possibility (IToglichkeit) of experience, of science# and of synthetic judgments a priori is estab­ lished.:- , ; "*~i ~*“ IT. The Analytlk of Kant* s Eritik is devoted to the develop- ment” of the theory of Sh^fahrimg. The BiaLektik is de­ voted to an examination oi the inevitable claims and efforts of the Vemunft. our organ of principles, to transcend all experience by attempting to weave the • provisional unities of the Ter stand into absolute unities. These efforts of the Vemunft are as neces­ sary as they are doomed to failure • Vie cannot avoid the illusions of reason, but we can detect them. We deal with the Antlnoalen or neeeemry eonlliots between contradictory propositions, to which the Terstand is led, but solution is possible by Slowing the principles of reason apply only to phenomena, Baldwin. Dictionary of Philosophy and Bsyohology. - 163-

Kent. Outline of the Contents of the Critique of Pore Hesson

I. Inti‘oaneti@a 1* We do ftma e^nthetio a priori 2. In '.That vmy? S . In science 4. The th re e k in d s of science: a; Mathematical Science "b; Physical Science ©» M etajfcysical &$l®ncc II. Transcendental Aesthetic (Mathematical Science) 1, Miat s^mthetic a priori judgments are possible : Mathematical Sciezwef • : 5. Those connected with lumber and Hagnitu.de; whieh involves Time mid Spsc© 15. The Metaphysical Exposition of Time and %ac® Trm ieoendental Im position c f Time and Space IH . Transcendental Analytic (Physical Science) : - v:. l.'.v'Emt synthetic a priori judgments ore uosslble ■ - :v-:-;.in-Physie©!; ^iencef" • '■ . 2. The d isc every o f th e c a te g o ries A. Q uantity a. Angular b. Particular (plural) :i>v .■ • e. Universal . - ; - " ■ 3. Quality . - • y ■ . a. Affirmative b. negative c. Infinite C. Relation a. Categorical b. Hypothetical c. Disjunctive D. Hodolli^ . a. Problematical b. Assertorial ' ^ .' c. Apodlctical (Demonstrative) S . Transcendental Deduoticm. of th e C ategories. a. First part of the deduction, . The Categories shown to be necessary fo r the determ ination " of objects b. Second part of the deduction. The objects determined by those c a te g o rie s shown to be these given in impressions of sense 4. The Schematism of the Categories , 1. The categories must be expressed under the form of time, beeause time alone applies to all possible-thou^its 2, Table of the Categories as Schematized in Time •164-

A. Quantity a. Affirmative EchenatiEed as Unity K Particular ...... P lu r a lity e. U niversal ...... T o ta lity B. Q uality a; Affirmative ... Reality t. Negative »*» leg a tio n c . Infinite .. ... i... limitation C. Relation a; Categories! ...... m tsta n e e t . Hypothetical ...... C ausality o. Disjunctive ...... Reciprocity 2). Modality a. Prohlematlcal ...... • Possibility K Assert orical ...... A ctu a lity a. Apodictioal ...... n e c e ssity 4. Prlncliles of the Pure Understanding a . Axioms of In tu itio n (Q uantity) , b. Antlclpaticn of Perceptim (Quality) c. Analogies of Experience (Relation) d. Postulates of Baplrical Thmi^it (Modality) Transcendental Dialectic (Metaphysical Science) 1. Is metaphysical science possible? £. The Ideas of Reason ' a . The Soul b. The Universe c. Cod 5. Rational Psychology (the Soul) a. The peralogisn of rational psychology 4. R ational Cosmology (the U niverse) a. The Antinomies of Rational Psychology , First Antinomy ...... Q uantity : , Second Antinomy ...... Quality • Third Antinomy ...... R elatio n Fourth Antinomy ...... Modality . 5. Rational Theology . . a. The value of the proofs of the being of Cod a. Ontological Argument : bi Cosmological Argument - c. 13ie Physico-Theological Argument C>. Conclusion. Within the U nits of Pure Reason metaphysical science cannot be shorn to be possible T. Tlie Transcendental Method l i The Discipline of Pure Reason 2. The Canon of Pure Reason Z', The A rchitectonic of Pure Reason 4. The H istory o f Pure Reason. Wenley. An Outline Introductory to Montts Critlcue of Pure . . leason. ~~ r-r .. ' -465-

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