第 15 页

taken together, the whole sphere. To take the cognition out of one

of these spheres, is equivalent to placing it in one of the others;

and, on the other hand, to place it in one sphere is equivalent to

taking it out of the rest. There is, therefore, in a disjunctive

judgement a certain community of cognitions, which consists in this,

that they mutually exclude each other, yet thereby determine, as a

whole, the true cognition, inasmuch as, taken together, they make up

the complete content of a particular given cognition. And this is

all that I find necessary, for the sake of what follows, to remark

in this place.

4. The modality of judgements is a quite peculiar function, with

this distinguishing characteristic, that it contributes nothing to the

content of a judgement (for besides quantity, quality, and relation,

there is nothing more that constitutes the content of a judgement),

but concerns itself only with the value of the copula in relation to

thought in general. Problematical judgements are those in which the

affirmation or negation is accepted as merely possible (ad libitum).

In the assertorical, we regard the proposition as real (true); in

the apodeictical, we look on it as necessary.* Thus the two judgements

(antecedens et consequens), the relation of which constitutes a

hypothetical judgement, likewise those (the members of the division)

in whose reciprocity the disjunctive consists, are only problematical.

In the example above given the proposition, "There exists perfect

justice," is not stated assertorically, but as an ad libitum

judgement, which someone may choose to adopt, and the consequence

alone is assertorical. Hence such judgements may be obviously false,

and yet, taken problematically, be conditions of our cognition of

the truth. Thus the proposition, "The world exists only by blind

chance," is in the disjunctive judgement of problematical import only:

that is to say, one may accept it for the moment, and it helps us

(like the indication of the wrong road among all the roads that one

can take) to find out the true proposition. The problematical

proposition is, therefore, that which expresses only logical

possibility (which is not objective); that is, it expresses a free

choice to admit the validity of such a proposition- a merely arbitrary

reception of it into the understanding. The assertorical speaks of

logical reality or truth; as, for example, in a hypothetical

syllogism, the antecedens presents itself in a problematical form in

the major, in an assertorical form in the minor, and it shows that the

proposition is in harmony with the laws of the understanding. The

apodeictical proposition cogitates the assertorical as determined by

these very laws of the understanding, consequently as affirming a

priori, and in this manner it expresses logical necessity. Now because

all is here gradually incorporated with the understanding- inasmuch as

in the first place we judge problematically; then accept

assertorically our judgement as true; lastly, affirm it as inseparably

united with the understanding, that is, as necessary and apodeictical-

we may safely reckon these three functions of modality as so many

momenta of thought.

*Just as if thought were in the first instance a function of the

understanding; in the second, of judgement; in the third, of reason. A

remark which will be explained in the sequel.

SECTION III. Of the Pure Conceptions of the Understanding, or

Categories. SS 6

General logic, as has been repeatedly said, makes abstraction of all

content of cognition, and expects to receive representations from some

other quarter, in order, by means of analysis, to convert them into

conceptions. On the contrary, transcendental logic has lying before it

the manifold content of a priori sensibility, which transcendental

aesthetic presents to it in order to give matter to the pure

conceptions of the understanding, without which transcendental logic

would have no content, and be therefore utterly void. Now space and

time contain an infinite diversity of determinations of pure a

priori intuition, but are nevertheless the condition of the mind's

receptivity, under which alone it can obtain representations of

objects, and which, consequently, must always affect the conception of

these objects. But the spontaneity of thought requires that this

diversity be examined after a certain manner, received into the

mind, and connected, in order afterwards to form a cognition out of

it. This Process I call synthesis.

By the word synthesis, in its most general signification, I

understand the process of joining different representations to each

other and of comprehending their diversity in one cognition. This

synthesis is pure when the diversity is not given empirically but a

priori (as that in space and time). Our representations must be

given previously to any analysis of them; and no conceptions can

arise, quoad their content, analytically. But the synthesis of a

diversity (be it given a priori or empirically) is the first requisite

for the production of a cognition, which in its beginning, indeed, may

be crude and confused, and therefore in need of analysis- still,

synthesis is that by which alone the elements of our cognitions are

collected and united into a certain content, consequently it is the

first thing on which we must fix our attention, if we wish to

investigate the origin of our knowledge.

Synthesis, generally speaking, is, as we shall afterwards see, the

mere operation of the imagination- a blind but indispensable

function of the soul, without which we should have no cognition

whatever, but of the working of which we are seldom even conscious.

But to reduce this synthesis to conceptions is a function of the

understanding, by means of which we attain to cognition, in the proper

meaning of the term.

Pure synthesis, represented generally, gives us the pure

conception of the understanding. But by this pure synthesis, I mean

that which rests upon a basis of a priori synthetical unity. Thus, our

numeration (and this is more observable in large numbers) is a

synthesis according to conceptions, because it takes place according

to a common basis of unity (for example, the decade). By means of this

conception, therefore, the unity in the synthesis of the manifold

becomes necessary.

By means of analysis different representations are brought under one

conception- an operation of which general logic treats. On the other

hand, the duty of transcendental logic is to reduce to conceptions,

not representations, but the pure synthesis of representations. The

first thing which must be given to us for the sake of the a priori

cognition of all objects, is the diversity of the pure intuition;

the synthesis of this diversity by means of the imagination is the

second; but this gives, as yet, no cognition. The conceptions which

give unity to this pure synthesis, and which consist solely in the

representation of this necessary synthetical unity, furnish the

third requisite for the cognition of an object, and these

conceptions are given by the understanding.

The same function which gives unity to the different

representation in a judgement, gives also unity to the mere

synthesis of different representations in an intuition; and this unity

we call the pure conception of the understanding. Thus, the same

understanding, and by the same operations, whereby in conceptions,

by means of analytical unity, it produced the logical form of a

judgement, introduces, by means of the synthetical unity of the

manifold in intuition, a transcendental content into its

representations, on which account they are called pure conceptions

of the understanding, and they apply a priori to objects, a result not

within the power of general logic.

In this manner, there arise exactly so many pure conceptions of

the understanding, applying a priori to objects of intuition in

general, as there are logical functions in all possible judgements.

For there is no other function or faculty existing in the

understanding besides those enumerated in that table. These

conceptions we shall, with Aristotle, call categories, our purpose

being originally identical with his, notwithstanding the great

difference in the execution.

TABLE OF THE CATEGORIES

1 2

Of Quantity Of Quality

Unity Reality

Plurality Negation

Totality Limitation

3

Of Relation

Of Inherence and Subsistence (substantia et accidens)

Of Causality and Dependence (cause and effect)

Of Community (reciprocity between the agent and patient)

4

Of Modality

Possibility - Impossibility

Existence - Non-existence

Necessity - Contingence

This, then, is a catalogue of all the originally pure conceptions of

the synthesis which the understanding contains a priori, and these

conceptions alone entitle it to be called a pure understanding;

inasmuch as only by them it can render the manifold of intuition

conceivable, in other words, think an object of intuition. This

division is made systematically from a common principle, namely the

faculty of judgement (which is just the same as the power of thought),

and has not arisen rhapsodically from a search at haphazard after pure

conceptions, respecting the full number of which we never could be

certain, inasmuch as we employ induction alone in our search,

without considering that in this way we can never understand wherefore

precisely these conceptions, and none others, abide in the pure

understanding. It was a design worthy of an acute thinker like

Aristotle, to search for these fundamental conceptions. Destitute,

however, of any guiding principle, he picked them up just as they

occurred to him, and at first hunted out ten, which he called

categories (predicaments). Afterwards be believed that he had

discovered five others, which were added under the name of post

predicaments. But his catalogue still remained defective. Besides,

there are to be found among them some of the modes of pure sensibility

(quando, ubi, situs, also prius, simul), and likewise an empirical

conception (motus)- which can by no means belong to this

genealogical register of the pure understanding. Moreover, there are

deduced conceptions (actio, passio) enumerated among the original

conceptions, and, of the latter, some are entirely wanting.

With regard to these, it is to be remarked, that the categories,

as the true primitive conceptions of the pure understanding, have also

their pure deduced conceptions, which, in a complete system of

transcendental philosophy, must by no means be passed over; though

in a merely critical essay we must be contented with the simple

mention of the fact.

Let it be allowed me to call these pure, but deduced conceptions

of the understanding, the predicables of the pure understanding, in

contradistinction to predicaments. If we are in possession of the

original and primitive, the deduced and subsidiary conceptions can

easily be added, and the genealogical tree of the understanding

completely delineated. As my present aim is not to set forth a

complete system, but merely the principles of one, I reserve this task

for another time. It may be easily executed by any one who will

refer to the ontological manuals, and subordinate to the category of

causality, for example, the predicables of force, action, passion;

to that of community, those of presence and resistance; to the

categories of modality, those of origination, extinction, change;

and so with the rest. The categories combined with the modes of pure

sensibility, or with one another, afford a great number of deduced a

priori conceptions; a complete enumeration of which would be a

useful and not unpleasant, but in this place a perfectly

dispensable, occupation.

I purposely omit the definitions of the categories in this treatise.

I shall analyse these conceptions only so far as is necessary for

the doctrine of method, which is to form a part of this critique. In a

system of pure reason, definitions of them would be with justice

demanded of me, but to give them here would only bide from our view

the main aim of our investigation, at the same time raising doubts and

objections, the consideration of which, without injustice to our

main purpose, may be very well postponed till another opportunity.

Meanwhile, it ought to be sufficiently clear, from the little we

have already said on this subject, that the formation of a complete

vocabulary of pure conceptions, accompanied by all the requisite

explanations, is not only a possible, but an easy undertaking. The

compartments already exist; it is only necessary to fill them up;

and a systematic topic like the present, indicates with perfect

precision the proper place to which each conception belongs, while

it readily points out any that have not yet been filled up.

SS 7

Our table of the categories suggests considerations of some

importance, which may perhaps have significant results in regard to

the scientific form of all rational cognitions. For, that this table

is useful in the theoretical part of philosophy, nay, indispensable

for the sketching of the complete plan of a science, so far as that

science rests upon conceptions a priori, and for dividing it

mathematically, according to fixed principles, is most manifest from

the fact that it contains all the elementary conceptions of the

understanding, nay, even the form of a system of these in the

understanding itself, and consequently indicates all the momenta,

and also the internal arrangement of a projected speculative

science, as I have elsewhere shown.* Here follow some of these

observations.

*In the Metaphysical Principles of Natural Science.