III.

THE PERIOD 1762-1781.

1. The main problems of Kant's teleology had nearly all been approached in the Sole Proof, though one, that of formal purposiveness is not discussed under that name, and moral teleology does not appear at all. It will be most convenient for this and the following periods to trace separately the development of each of the important aspects of the teleology, and we begin with the problem which appears later under the title of Formal Purposiveness. This is in brief the problem of the adaptation of nature to our knowing faculties, and of these faculties to each other, whereby unity of experience is secured, so far as it is not already acquired through the formal relations in time and space. Unity in time and space is provided for by the categories, but science is very far from being satisfied with this and demands a classification of objects, a subordination of species under genera, a simplicity and unity of laws, and makes progress in explaining nature in proportion as she can make nature submit to these demands of the intellect. How is this to be explained?

(a.) The corresponding problem as stated earlier by Kant was of course not, "How is this aspect of scientific experience to be explained?" but "How is the unity in nature to be explained?" In the History of the Heavens and the Sole Proof the unity of nature was explained by the dependence of all nature, its general laws as well as its particular existences, upon God. This general position is maintained' in the Dissertation of 1770 and in the Lectures on Metaphysics edited by Pölitz, and given, according to Erdmann, about the year 1773-74. The aspect prominent in the Dissertation is that of the unity of phenomena in space, and the answer, as shown more fully in the Reflections3 337 f. and in the

2

1Cf. Paulsen, op. cit. p. 112.

2 Phil. Monatshefte Bd XIX. p. 148.

Reflexionen Kants zur Kritik d. r. Vernunft. herausg. von B. Erdmann. Leipzig, 1884.

22

corresponding parts of the Metaphysik,' shows a close affiliation with the view of Newton. When we ask more particularly how this unity of the world in God and dependence on him is conceived the answer is not so simple. In the Nova Dilucidatio3 of 1755 Kant declares that a commercium of substances is possible only in so far as they are sustained by a common principle of existence, namely, the divine intellect. This includes a mutual dependence of substances, but excludes a physical influence properly so called, and is a universal harmony, but not the pre-established harmony of Leibniz which involves only agreement not dependence between substances. The Dreams of a Ghost Seer shows no inclination for the Leibnizian view and in the Dissertation again we have what Kant calls a "harmony established generally, and on a basis of physical influence" (in a clarified sense) as opposed to the particular, ideal, pre-established harmony of Leibniz." Nevertheless it is doubtless true that his thought at the time of the Dissertation is not so essentially different from that of Leibniz as might appear from his distinction, and at some time, whether before or after the Dissertation is not altogether evident, the preestablished harmony is accepted as the only solution for the commercium of substances in the mundo noumenon or intelligibili, while physical influence holds in the mundo sensibili.5 Other Reflections show that various solutions of the problem were considered until from the standpoint of criticism he finally declared the problem to be outside the field of knowledge."

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(b) An aspect of the problem of unity which lies nearer the later problem of purposiveness is noticed in a Scholion of the Dissertation. If we inquire into the possibility of knowledge we must conclude that the human mind is not affected by externals. Mundusque ipsius adspectui non patet in infinitum nisi quatenus ipsa cum omnibus aliis sustentatur ab eadem vi infinita unius.” ī

66

1 Vorlesungen über die Metaphys. herausg. von Pölitz, 1823, p. 112 f.

2 See Erdmann's note in Reflexionen, p. 105 f.

3 H. I. 395-399.

4Cf. Riedel, Die Monadologischen Bestimmungen in Kant's Lehre von Ding an sich, Hamburg, 1884.

5 Reflexionen No. 769, Cf. 767 f, 1120, 1131.

B. 428. Cf. Erdmann, Reflexionen, p. 219 f, note.

'H. II. 416.

This however, with the whole problem of unity must yield to the principle announced in 1772 that it was really the use of a Deus ex Machina to try to explain knowledge, or the unity in our world of experience by any external principle. The synthetic unity of apperception takes the place of an external unity as explanation of knowledge. Unity of objects in space is still in the Critique of Pure Reason explained through the principles of reciprocal interaction of all substances, but instead of seeking the ground for this interaction in God, it is shown that without this no experience of objects as existing together would be possible. Unity and harmony of nature become an Idea of reason, and the problem of the relation of the mind to its object is in part answered in the Critique of Pure Reason through the doctrine of the categories and in part left for the Critique of Judgment.

(c.) A third aspect of the problem of Formal Purposiveness is that presented in the unity which reason supplies in systematizing our knowledge. "This unity of reason always presupposes an Idea namely that of the form (or norm) of the whole of knowledge, preceding the definite knowledge of its parts and containing the conditions according to which we are to determine a priori the place of every part and its relation to the rest. This Idea postulates accordingly the complete unity of the knowledge of the understanding by which that knowledge becomes not merely an accidental aggregate but a system according to necessary laws.2 The concepts of reason by which this systematization is brought about are those of homogeneousness, specification, and continuity. All philosophers have used these, though unconsciously, and have expressed them in their maxims, which we cannot regard as borrowed from nature since we rather "observe nature according to these Ideas and regard our knowledge as defective so long as it is not adequate to them."

Of these Ideas the first, homogeneousness or unity under principles, meets us in the Sole Proof where it is recognized but not criticised. Riehl and Paulsen have called attention to its treatment in the fifth section of the

1 See H. VI. 67.

2 A. 645; B. 673.

H. II. 155 f.

Dissertation; but I am not aware that emphasis has been laid on the good company in which this maxim (principia non esse multiplicanda praeter necessitatem) here finds itself in its characterization as a subjective rule falsely treated as objective. It is placed between the laws of Uniformity of Nature (called Natürlichkeit by Riehl, Causalität by Paulsen) viz: "omnia in universo fieri secundum ordinem naturae," and that of substance, viz: "nihil omnino materiae oriri aut interire." This shows that the distinction between the determining and regulative use of the Judgment was yet to be made. They are all three alike principia convenientiae "to which we freely submit ourselves, and to which we adhere as to axioms for this sole reason, that if we leave them our intellect can make almost no judgment concerning a given object." From the nature of the case neither of them can be proved, but it is as essential for science to trust one as the other. As the doctrine of the categories worked itself out however, two of these are given a much more important place. They are put beside the principle of reciprocity as making the Analogies of Experience, and fall under the province of the determining Judgment, parting company from the principle of generalization. It may be noticed that this separation is not absolute. The three analogies are not constitutive of objects. They are only modes of connecting objects after the analogy of the mind's own acts in judgment. "They present the unity of nature in analogy to the unity of the Understanding. Our knowledge is the knowledge of Analogies of the Understanding with the actual relation of things themselves."3 Hence they may be said to occupy an intermediate position between the constitutive or mathematical principles and the regulative Ideas, for the Ideas themselves might be called "analogies of reason," performing for systematic knowledge the function which the analogies of understanding perform for experience.

4

The maxim of continuity meets us earlier than that of homo

1H. V. 191.

2 Provided we assume, with Paulsen, that the maxim of Uniformity is equivalent to that of Causality. As a matter of fact, it includes Causality, and in any case the "maxim of substance" becomes later the "analogy."

Riehl, Der Philosophische Kriticismus, I. 445.

4 B. 692.

3

geneousness, as it is found in the History of the Heavens. The comets form no distinct species but vary through all grades of eccentricity from the planetary orbit. Nature here as everywhere working through imperceptible variations, binds together the remotest qualities with a chain of intermediate links, and embraces all grades and species from perfection to zero.1 From the most exalted class of thinking beings down to the most despised insect no member is without importance, and none can fail without marring the beauty of the whole which consists in the connection. "The infinity of the creation embraces with like necessity all natures which her overflowing wealth produces." The Leibnizian principle is here accepted in its full extent and reinforced by the new and broader cosmology, is made to support the conclusions of optimism. In the Sole Proof on the other hand, where so much is repeated from the History of the Heavens, the principle is not referred to, so far as I know, although there is an excellent opportunity for its introduction.* Somewhere then in this general period may fall the Reflection No: 1737. "Lex continui in natura, die continuität der specierum oder Affinität mittelbare oder unmittelbare ist ein blosses Witzspiel." With the period of the Dissertation would seem to agree the thought in Ref. 1741, that every part is possible only through limitation of the power which is in the whole, and from this the progress 18 easy to the thought which seems to have been a favorite speculation at the time of the Metaphysik, that though there may be no actual continuity of forms in the world of phenomena, there may yet be a potential continuity if matter organize itself, from the mineral kingdom through the vegetable and animal world to man. In fact this continuity through pro creation is the only true continuity," and in this is to be sought

1H. I. 261, 319, 328.

2 H. I. 332 and 343.

5

3Cf. the fragment on "Optimism" (Lose Blätter, p. 298), in which the principal rule of the perfection of the world is that it be complete, and that everything which is possible to exist should exist. In view of the analogy which Reflexion No. 1687, offers to this passage, may it not probably belong to this rather than to the following period?

4H. II. 194 ff.

"Reflexionen, 1742-1746: Met. 98 f.

"Reflexionen, 1744.