Читать книгу Fichte's Science of Knowledge - Charles Carroll Everett - Страница 9

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Another point in regard to which the work of Kant needed completion, is his teaching in regard to what he called the Thing-in-itself. As is well known, according to the philosophy of Kant, all objects of sensuous perception are mere phenomena. The Categories of the understanding, being bound up with the forms of perception, have no use to us apart from these. Thus, the world in which we live, and all the objects and relations that constitute it, are in the mind alone. With this phenomenal world, which is in and for the mind only, Kant contrasted, or has been generally understood to contrast, the thing which is behind and beyond all phenomena, and which manifests its being, though not its nature, through them. This Thing-in-itself is rather assumed than taught by Kant. He takes it for granted, as something in regard to which there can be neither doubt nor discussion. This Thing-in-itself he contrasts not merely with the phenomena, but also with what, in any real and positive sense, may be called Noumenon. By the Noumenon, properly so called, he understands that which may be an object for the understanding, taken apart from any relation to perception. In his discussion of the Noumenon, he means chiefly to rebuke the use of expressions that would suggest the thought of a noumenal or intelligible world. This intelligible world, as contrasted with the sensible world, he insists has no meaning for us, and the use of phrases implying such a distinction is, he maintains, wholly vicious and misleading. In a negative sense, indeed, the Thing-in-itself may be called a Noumenon, and was so called by Kant, but in a negative sense only.^[3] The understanding must recognize it, but must admit that the Categories have no application to it. We have in the Thing-in-itself only the limit at which our thought must stop. This Thing-in-itself, shut out from the realm of phenomena, and not fairly admitted into that of noumena, may well be said, in the phrase of Hegel, to hover like a pale ghost outside the system of Kant.

When we look at the matter more closely, we see that the whole account of this foreign element is illogical, and the assumption of it without ground. This has been, indeed, one of the earliest and most often repeated, as it is one of the most obvious, criticisms of the system of Kant. If the Categories, it is said, do not apply to it, how do we reach any idea of its existence? If it does not stand related to the world of phenomena, either as substance or cause, what is the relation in which it stands to it? The very word Relation expresses a Category. Relation in general, as well as any particular relation, is, according to Kant, for and of the mind alone. The Thing-in-itself can be considered to stand, then, in absolutely no relation to the phenomenon. If it stood in any relation to it, it would thereby become embraced in our system of Categories, from which it has been absolutely excluded. What leads us then to assume the existence, outside the mind, of something that has absolutely no relation to anything that is in the mind? It is assumed as a point of unity for the perception, as the I is assumed as the principle of unity in thought. But the term Unity itself designates one of these omnipresent Categories. Kant, then, would seem to have preserved this bit of natural realism in his system, and to have uttered it with a naïve unconsciousness as something so much a matter of course as to require neither thought nor justification.

In all this, however, Fichte maintains that Kant has been wholly misunderstood. He maintains that by the Thing-in-itself, Kant meant nothing extra mentem; that he meant merely the unity and absolute objectivity which the mind gives in perception to its own creations. The difficulty of using any term in regard to this matter, that may be absolutely free from any ambiguity, may make the interpretation given by Fichte seem less extravagant than it might at first sight appear. The terms Objects and Objective are often used under the impression that they express something wholly foreign to the mind. The terms Subjective and Objective are often used as if they meant the same as Inner and Outer. But the Object implies the Subject, and thus may be considered as wholly bound up with it. That the Object need not be considered as foreign to the Subject may be seen from the fact that in consciousness the self is objective to itself. Thus the term Object, however strongly emphasized, does not necessarily—strictly speaking, it does not possibly—take us beyond the limits of the mind. Even the term Thing in-itself, though apparently invented for this very purpose, does not take us necessarily beyond the mind; for, if there is no other world than the mental world, then the Thing-in-itself will have its being in this. If our ultimate fact be sensation, the Thing-in-itself will be sensation; if it be thought, the Thing-in-itself will be thought; if it be spirit, the Thing-in-itself will be spirit. No form of speech occurs to me as being wholly unambiguous in this connection, except that which I have used in this discussion. The words In mente and Extra mentem, or their equivalents, seem free from any possible ambiguity. Kant, however, did not use these words, and thus there is always space for discussion as to his real meaning.

Fichte defends his view of Kant’s system by appealing to this ambiguity. He affirms that so long as Kant does not expressly say that, in philosophy, sensation must be explained by a transcendental object, which is external to us, so long he will not believe that Kant had the view that is so often ascribed to him. He adds that if Kant ever does make such a statement, he shall consider the “Critique of Pure Reason” to be rather a work of the strangest chance than of a mind.^[4]

The fact remained, however, that the “Kantians” not only understood Kant to take the position which Fichte regarded as so absurd, but also that they frankly accepted it at his hands. They held Kant’s view of the Categories, of their inapplicability beyond the mind, and of the Thing-in-itself that was held to be beyond their reach though really it was simply an embodiment of them. This fact was urged against Fichte: You say that no mind can hold a position so self-contradictory; but here you have, before you, minds that really do hold this position; consequently, you have no right to interpret Kant’s writings by any argument based upon such a theoretical impossibility. To this, Fichte replied in effect, that we must distinguish between the minds that accept a system at second hand, and the mind that originally thought it out. Many an inconsequence could be accepted by the former that would be impossible to the latter. The man who had first framed a system, who had himself explored all its relations, who had logically developed it from its inception, must hold it as a unity. He must be able to think of it as a whole. He could not thus fail to be sensible to any self-contradiction so obvious as that under consideration; while those who had accepted the system from without might hold it mechanically, with no sense of this living unity, and thus might naturally be less sensitive to any contradiction existing in the system as they held it. If a boy repeats by rote, or with a partial comprehension, a mathematical demonstration, we are not surprised at any confusion that may exist among the figures. Such a confusion existing, undetected, in the work of the master who originated the demonstration would surprise us.

If, however, we accept the commonly received interpretation of Kant’s language in regard to the Thing-in-itself, and at the same time see the contradiction which this interpretation introduces into his work, how can we meet the difficulty that is urged by Fichte? How can we suppose it possible for a master who has wrought out the idealistic philosophy, as we find it embodied in Kant’s Critique, to admit into his view of things such a wholly foreign and irreconcilable element? Would it seem too bold to suggest that this result may have been more easy because Kant received the fundamental position of his system from without? It was Hume who reached the conception of a purely idealistic view of the universe. It was he who considered the processes of the mind as complete in themselves; in whose system we find no hint of any influence from the world outside the mind, nor any hint of a permanent ego behind the mind. This was with him an original thought, and the clearness of its utterance satisfies entirely the claim that Fichte makes for such originality. But Hume by the use of the word, impression, to represent the more vivid perceptions of the mind, prepared a dangerous pitfall for those who should come after him. He posted, it is true, a warning as distinctly and conspicuously as seemed necessary, by stating in a note that he uses the term Impression not to express the manner in which our lively perceptions are produced, but merely the perceptions themselves.^[5] In spite of this warning, many students of Hume, who might have been supposed to keep a better watch over their steps, have stumbled and fallen into the pitfall. Can it be that Kant himself is of the number? With such questions, and even with the interpretation of Kant’s statements in regard to the Thing-in-itself, we have here nothing to do. Our business is simply to emphasize the fact that here is a portion of Kant’s work that needs completion.

It may help us to follow with a clear understanding the reasoning of Fichte, to ask, in advance, in what ways it is possible to complete the thought of the Thing-in-itself, while remaining wholly within the sphere of Kant’s system. In other words, we have to ask what methods of treatment recognized by Kant may be applied to it, or into what classifications adopted by him it may be introduced. It is obvious that there are in the system of Kant two methods of procedure, either of which may be employed. By this, I affirm simply the formal possibility of such procedure; whether either method would be found practicable, is a question that is not here raised. Two classes of beings are recognized by Kant. The first class includes phenomenal existences—those which exist in the mind itself. We have, here, the whole objective world in the strict sense of this term. We have the Objects of perception filled out and bound together by the Categories of the understanding. These Objects are given directly in consciousness. The Thing-in-itself could be put into the same division with them. It could be regarded as a product of the Categories, embodying them, and placed, by the mind, behind the objects of its creation to give them unity, solidity, and permanence. In other words, instead of placing the Thing-in-itself outside the mind, it would be inclosed within the mind; the Categories of the understanding being stretched so as to receive it.

Over against the phenomenal existences, here described, is the Absolute Being, or, God. Those are the product of the intellectual or theoretical powers; this is a postulate of the practical reason. It is reached only by an act of faith. Its reality is postulated, not proved. We cannot say that it is; we can only say that it must be. It would be at least formally possible to look upon the Thing-in-itself, from a similar point of view, to accept it as real, but to regard it also as a postulate, as something held by a practical necessity, without logical grounds, and without comprehension.

Either of these methods could be followed without introducing any new element into the system of Kant. Any fundamentally different method would take us out of the sphere of Kant’s philosophy. Whether Fichte adopted either of these methods, whether he did not incline to both, as he looked at the matter in one aspect or another, and how true he remained to the Kantian tradition, we shall see as we advance.