Kant And His Influence

KANT AND HIS INFLUENCE Edited by George MacDonald Ross and Tony McWalter

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KANT AND HIS INFLUENCE Edited by George MacDonald Ross and Tony Me Walter

continuum

This edition published by Continuum International Publishing Group, 2005 Continuum International Publishing Group The Tower Building 15 East 26th Street 11 York Road New York, NY 10010 London SE1 7NX © Continuum International Publishing Group 2005 Introduction and editorial selection © George MacDonald Ross and Tony McWalter and contributors, 1990

British Library Cataloguing-in-Publication Data A catalogue record for this book is available from the British Library. ISBN: 0-8264-8853-6 (paperback) Previously published in hardback by Thoemmes Press Library of Congress Cataloging-in-Publication Data A catalog record for this book is available from the Library of Congress. Printed and bound in Great Britain by MPG Books Limited, Cornwall

CONTENTS

INTRODUCTION

vii

'OUGHT' IMPLIES 'CAN': KANT AND LU fHER, A CONTRAST Roger M. White CONFUSED PERCEPTIONS, DARKENED CONCEPTS: SOME FEATURES OF KANT'S LEIBNIZ-CRITIQUE Catherine Wilson

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THOUGHT AND SENSIBILITY IN LEIBNIZ, KANT AND BRADLEY Guy Stock

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'ORIGINAL NONSENSE': ART AND GENIUS IN KANT'S AESTHETIC Peter Lewis

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FICHTE, BECK AND SCHELLING IN KANT'S OPUS POSTUMUM Eckart Fdrster

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Contents

IMAGINATION AS A CONNECTING MIDDLE IN SCHELLING'S RECONSTRUCTION OF KANT John Llewelyn

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THE EARLY RECEPTION OF KANT'S THOUGHT IN ENGLAND 1785-1805 Giuseppe Micheli

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HAMILTON'S READING OF KANT: A CHAPTER IN THE EARLY SCOTTISH RECEPTION OF KANT'S THOUGHT Manfred Kuehn

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ASPECTS OF KANT'S INFLUENCE ON BRITISH THEOLOGY Donald MacKinnon

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NOTES ON CONTRIBUTORS

367

INDEX OF NAMES

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INTRODUCTION George MacDonald Ross and Tony McWalter

The papers in this volume were originally delivered at a conference held at the University of Leeds in April 1990. The conference was organized by the British Society for the History of Philosophy, one of the aims of which is to promote a broader and more scholarly approach to the study of the history of philosophy than has generally been'characteristic of philosophers in the analytic tradition. In particular, it was felt that, at least in England, too little attention was being paid to Kant and the postKantian philosophy of the nineteenth century; and it is no accident that nearly all the contributors are from Scotland or abroad. The first four papers are primarily concerned with the interpretation of various aspects of Kant's philosophy, but setting him firmly in a historical context. The order in which they appear represents a gradual shift in emphasis from his connections with earlier thinkers to comparisons with subsequent developments. Roger M. White's paper, '"Ought" implies "Can": Kant and Luther, a Contrast', is untypical of the collection as a whole, in as much as his stance on this particular issue is unrepentantly anti-Kantian. White argues that although Kant does not explicitly mention Luther, he must have been aware of the opposition between his own position and Luther's a debere ad posse vn

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Introduction

non valet consequentia ('ought' does not imply 'can') but to have made this explicit would have brought him into conflict with the ecclesiastical authorities. White provides a detailed and critical analysis of what Kant may have meant by 'Ought' implies 'Can\ and of how he might have argued for his position. He lays particular stress on the paradoxical consequences of Kant's complete divorce between the absolutely free rational will, and the causally determined empirical self. He then compares Kant's approach with that of Luther, and concludes that Kant, like Erasmus before him, made the mistake of putting the question of praise or blame before that of the nature of the good life and how, if at all, it can be attained. Two authors concerned with Kant's metaphysics have focused on his relations with Leibniz. If it was Hume who awoke Kant from his dogmatic slumbers, it was Leibniz who provided the main starting-point for his critical philosophy. Catherine Wilson's paper, 'Confused Perceptions, Darkened Concepts: Some Features of Kant's Leibniz-critique', will prove a useful corrective for those in the Anglo-American tradition who think of the Leibnizian strains in Kant's work as an embarrassment or an unnecessary encumbrance. It helps us to ascertain how ambivalent Kant's position was, and how crucial it is for us to recognize this ambivalence if we are to understand the critical philosophy properly. Wilson focuses on Kant's criticisms of Leibniz's notion of confused perception. She maintains that it is by no means clear that Leibniz saw concepts and perceptions as differing only in degree (the former being 'distinct', the latter 'confused'), and that it is paradoxical to accuse him of failing to distinguish phenomena and noumena - although some of his followers were indeed guilty of such confusions. In his later writings, Kant acknowledged the possibility of a

Introduction

ix

Platonic interpretation of Leibniz, in which phenomena and noumena are sharply distinguished; and Wilson suggests that Kant himself was troubled by the claims of noumena to be over or behind the appearances in some way. In 'Thought and Sensibility in Leibniz, Kant and Bradley', Guy Stock starts out from Whitehead's dictum that 'Kant, in his final metaphysics, must either retreat to Leibniz, or advance to Bradley'. He concentrates on the connected problems of the relation between thought and individual reality, and of the distinction between the actual and the merely possible. Leibniz resolved the former through his privative account of sensibility and his doctrine of the individual as an infima species, but he failed to distinguish adequately between the actual and merely possible worlds. Kant, on the other hand, made a sharp separation between thought and sensibility, and maintained that the actual world is the one which is given in empirical intuition. Bradley rejected both Leibniz's account of sensibility, and Kant's epistemological dualism, together with the consequential doctrine of the thing-in-itself. However, the resultant metaphysical system was closer to Leibniz's than to Kant's. Peter Lewis's paper, '"Original Nonsense": Art and Genius in Kant's Aesthetic', aims to identify what Kant means by 'original nonsense' in the context of his discussion of art and genius in The Critique of Aesthetic Judgment. Lewis argues that Kant's great insight is that works of artistic genius, in virtue of being original and exemplary, are essentially embedded in traditions constituted by works of art. Works of genius provide rules to be followed in the work of non-genius, and set standards of excellence for the work of future genius. In the course of the paper, Lewis draws attention to significant similarities between the views of Kant and Wittgenstein on genius and taste in art.

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Introduction

The remainder of the papers in the volume are concerned more historically with Kant's direct influence on subsequent thinkers in various disciplines and countries first, with his early influence in Germany. Eckart Forster is currently preparing an English edition of Kant's Opus postumum, a much-neglected work in which Kant deals with the transition from the metaphysical foundations of natural science to physics. In 'Fichte, Beck and Schelling in Kant's Opus postumum\ Forster describes the aim and content of the work, and argues that it constitutes a significant revision of Kant's critical position. In the Opus postumum there are references to Fichte, Beck and Schelling, who were all followers of Kant. Some scholars have claimed that the changes in Kant's position were due to their influence. After examining the evidence, Forster concludes that Kant may have been influenced by Schelling and Beck (though not by Fichte), but that his thoughts were in any case going in much the same direction as theirs. In his paper, 'Imagination as a Connecting Middle in Schelling's Reconstruction of Kant', John Llewelyn concentrates on Schelling's development of the Kantian concept of imagination as the 'connecting middle' between theory and practice. After describing Kant's account of imagination, Llewelyn analyses the difference made to Kant's critical idealism by Schelling's claim that we have non-discursive intellectual constructive intuition as well as empirical intuition. The focus shifts from the relationship between philosophy and mathematics to that between philosophy and art; and Schelling is seen as the connecting middle between Kant and Heidegger. To turn to Britain, it is remarkable how small a role Kant's thought has played in the intellectual life of the English-speaking philosophical world. The last three papers tell part of the story of this neglect.

Introduction

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However, any discussion of the history of philosophical thought in eighteenth- and nineteenth-century Britain needs to preserve a sharp distinction between England and Scotland. In England, philosophy was virtually extinct as an academic discipline, returning only gradually during the second half of the nineteenth century. Such philosophical debate as there was existed largely outside the university world, in literary clubs and journals. In Scotland, by contrast, philosophical discussion among the educated laity was underpinned by a university curriculum which had philosophy at its very core (see Davie, The Democratic Intellect). In his exhaustive study, 'The Early Reception of Kant's Thought in England 1785-1805', Giuseppe Micheli has had to rely mainly on reviews and articles in literary journals, and the few translations and commentaries that appeared between those years. The picture he paints is a bleak one indeed: there was little interest in Kant's philosophy, and even less understanding of his central ideas. He was perceived mainly as a political writer, and a subversive one at that - encouraging his followers to reject the established political order, religious belief, and moral values. By the turn of the century increasing repression, and censorship of ideas emanating from the Continent, put a virtual stop to the study of Kant's work. With the exception of Coleridge, Kant remained a closed book to English thinkers until the 1830s. As for the early reception of Kant in Scotland, Manfred Kuehn, in his 'Hamilton's Reading of Kant: A Chapter in the Early Scottish Reception of Kant's Thought', shows that, despite the widespread interest in metaphysics, Kant's ideas were at first understood hardly any better than they were in England. The conventional wisdom is that Sir William Hamilton (1788-1856) was the earliest Scottish philosopher to be substantially

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Introduction

influenced by Kant. Kuehn argues that, although Hamilton had an intimate knowledge of Kant's texts, he was in fact quite hostile to his ideas, and much less influenced by him than has generally been supposed. Finally, in his paper 'Aspects of Kant's Influence on British Theology', Donald MacKinnon stresses that the pivot of Kant's influence lies in his doctrine of the primacy of practical reason. He criticizes the view of Kant as the 'philosopher of Protestantism', and he displays his influence on a wide range of British theologians from different denominations. MacKinnon concludes that Kant's influence did not take the form of slavish imitation, but of conversion of his insights to uses he could not have foreseen, and of which he might not have approved. The papers in this volume give only a taste of Kant's range of interests and of his influence. There is ample scope for a series of conferences and accompanying volumes covering his influence at different periods, in different countries, and in different disciplines. In particular, there is the issue of the revival of interest in his philosophy in Britain in the 1830s, and the subsequent decline in any fundamental influence of his thought during the twentieth century. This raises the question of whether Kant's philosophy deserves to be more influential. The Europe of 1989 shared with the Europe of 1789 the distinction of heralding a new political order. The year 1989 was one of progressive and democratically orientated revolution, and the influence of German culture is an issue for us in the latter part of the twentieth century as it was an issue in the latter part of the eighteenth. What Kant offers is the prospect of a worldview which portrays the ethical as fundamental to politics; and he provides an account of human nature

Introduction

xiii

which at least makes possible an ethical commonwealth. These concerns are relevant not merely to the politics of the late twentieth century, but to political theory in general. Kant's thesis that human nature is so constituted that an ethical commonwealth is possible is itself grounded on metaphysics. He sought to produce a Weltanschauung in which 'epistemology is logically prior to ethics in that it must prepare the ground for a philosophically defensible ethics, but [in which] ethics itself is practically prior to epistemology, because the development of an adequate epistemology is a task set by the highest good' (Van der Linden, p. 10). For Kant, epistemology and ethics, or more generally philosophical theory and praxis, are inextricably intertwined. It has long been fashionable for intellectuals in the British tradition to hold what one can call a modest view of philosophy. Integral to this view is the idea that, while once all knowledge was the province of philosophy, the history of its subsequent development is a history of subjects emancipating themselves from their parent disciplines. Ever greater specialization and ever greater expertise is required for work at the frontiers of knowledge. The modest view has it that, as subjects split from philosophy, as they develop their own methods, and as the knowledge-base becomes ever greater, so the field for philosophy contracts and becomes more focused. Some have felt that the philosophical residuum for the twentieth century has been the analysis of linguistic expressions, while others have gone so far as to maintain that linguistic analysis can itself be hived off, so that nothing remains for the philosophers to study other than the thesis that philosophers have nothing to study. If such conceptions of philosophy were to remain ascendant, then there would be no serious future for the subject.

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Introduction

There is, however, a brighter prospect. While it is true that the knowledge industry grows ever more voluminous, it is also true that we have become ever more conscious of the limitations which the fragmentation of knowledge has engendered. Often the most exciting work, the search for solutions to pressing theoretical and practical problems, involves thinking at the frontier between two or more disciplines. What is needed is just the sort of overview of a whole problem area which philosophers have traditionally sought to attain. Reflection on the limitations of the methods used to acquire knowledge in particular disciplines can make us humble about the attainability of absolute truth; but it can also make us realize the importance of approaching problems from a different direction, or of setting up new forms of enquiry. Prominent English-speaking philosophers have maintained that philosophy provides no answers: but to adopt this as a motto for general philosophical practice is a recipe for the long-term decay of philosophy. It is entirely reasonable for the public to ask what sorts of problems a philosophical training enables one to tackle. We should not be seduced by the frequent demand for yes-or-no answers where these are inappropriate; but we must be willing at least to say what kinds of judgement are cultivated by a philosophical training. If we believe that the philosopher's judgement is more widely informed, more objective, based on sounder reasoning, and less bound by the presuppositions of particular disciplines than that of the non-philosopher, then we must emphasize that philosophy is not just a pleasant, abstract pastime, but a practical and useful activity, the diminution or absence of which would impoverish society in multifarious ways. The claim that philosophy must be practical as well as

Introduction

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theoretical is a thoroughly Kantian ideal; and it is testimony to the limited influence Kant has had in Britain that it should still be necessary to plead the case. If the case is accepted, it follows that philosophy should play a far more central role in the educational curriculum - a role it used to play in Scotland, and which it still plays in most of the continent of Europe. Kant himself regarded the whole of human knowledge as the province of the philosopher, and in presenting this book we hope to do something to rehabilitate the view that philosophers should be concerned with the full range of intellectual and practical problems facing mankind. His life's work is not simply an episode in the history of philosophy, but a rich resource from which we can derive inspiration for the future development of philosophy as an academic discipline.

Bibliography Davie, George E., The Democratic Intellect: Scotland and her Universities in the Nineteenth Century (Edinburgh University Press: Edinburgh, 1961). Van der Linden, Harry, Kantian Ethics and Socialism (Hackett: Indianapolis, 1988).

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'OUGHT' IMPLIES 'CAN': KANT AND LUTHER, A CONTRAST Roger M. White

The aim of this essay is to examine a central idea of Kant's moral philosophy by setting it in the context of a radically opposed set of ideas - the ideas which inform the thinking of Martin Luther; in particular, the early Luther of The Disputation against Scholastic Theology and The Heidelberg Disputation, together with the positions that he develops in the famous controversy with Erasmus. For, if the idea that 'Ought' implies 'Can' (that we may infer from the fact that we ought to do something that we are able to do it) has central structural significance in Kant's whole moral thought, the directly opposed idea a Debere ad Posse non valet consequentia is equally fundamental in Luther's thought. How far, in doing this, I am setting Kant in a historical context is impossible to determine. For in those places where one would most naturally look for a discussion of Luther - Religion Within the Limits of Reason Alone and The Dispute of the Faculties - Luther is not explicitly referred to, and even if that which Kant calls 'ecclesiastical faith' has distinctly Lutheran features at many points, its named representatives - above all, Spener and others from the Lutheran pietist tradition 1

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Kant and His Influence

are closer to Kant than to Luther on many of the key issues that confront us here. Given the sheer extent of Kant's writings, I cannot say for certain that he never explicitly discusses Luther, or even that he was conscious of Luther's theological positions other than through the frequently distorting glass of pietism. But, in view of Kant's religious background and upbringing, he must clearly have been familiar, if not with Luther's own writings, at least with texts such as the Heidelberg Catechism with its formative influence on the pietist movement, and therefore, it seems, would have to be conscious of the extent to which he was putting forward positions that were in direct conflict with the theologians of the classical Reformation. For instance, in the Heidelberg Catechism we find: Question 8: Are we then so depraved that we are utterly incapable of performing any good work and are inclined to all that is evil? Yes: unless it be that we are born again by the spirit of God. Question 9: Does not God then act unfairly by man, in that in His law He requires of him what he cannot perform? No: for God has so created man that he is capable of performing the good; but, by the instigation of the devil and through wilful disobedience, man has deprived himself and all his posterity of these gifts. This gives a clear statement of the complex of ideas to which Kant is reacting in works such as The Dispute of the Faculties and Religion Within the Limits of Reason Alone. But when Kant arraigns ecclesiastical faith before the bar of reason, he does not cite the figures of the classical Reformation, not even Ursinus and Olevianus

'Ought' implies 'Can': Kant and Luther

3

let alone Luther himself. The representatives of ecclesiastical faith come from a generation later (Spener, Franck and Count Zinzendorf). But despite their close historical proximity to the Reformation and, indeed, their working within a framework directly given to them by the Reformers, these authors seem to me already to share many assumptions with Kant which are not to be found in the Heidelberg Catechism and which would be explicitly rejected by Luther himself. As a result, in the confrontation between 'ecclesiastical faith' and 'moral religion', Kant has a surprisingly easy victory. If we wish to test Kant's conception, we must leave Kant's chosen battlefield and confront him with a wholly different range of issues from those we find within the confines of pietism. We shall then find many of the questions are far more subtle than they appear when we allow the terms of the debate to be dictated by the confrontation between Kant and Spener. The historical story leading from Luther to Kant is an enormously complicated one, and, as I have said, it is in any case impossible to determine how much of that story was known to Kant. A reading of his writings in the Philosophy of Religion suggests that it might in crucial respects have been quite sketchy. In any case, Kant was well aware of the extent to which his religious writings were sailing close to the wind with the ecclesiastical authorities, and trouble with the censors was a real difficulty he had to contend with: to criticize Luther directly, or to comment on the divergence between what Kant was himself saying and what Luther had said, might well have seemed needlessly provocative. What I propose in this paper is a direct confrontation between Kant's key positions and the antithetical positions argued for by Luther. This is not in a direct sense a historical confrontation, but an attempt at a

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Kant and His Influence

confrontation between two radically opposed conceptions of the good life. In an indirect sense this is a historical confrontation, since one of the results of such a confrontation is to highlight a series of assumptions which Kant makes, assumptions which appear selfevident to Kant only because of the particular moment in the history of thought within which he is writing, but the particular nature of which only emerges fully if you confront him with a thinker who is not working within the confines that Kant takes for granted. It is, perhaps, worth emphasizing finally that whatever the precise historical relation of Kant to Luther, comparing him with Luther is the right kind of context in which to discuss his ethical thought. That is to say, despite Kant's theoretical agnosticism, it is clear not only that Kant's starting point is within the Christian tradition but also that the question of ethics remained for him a religious question. Kant would have understood what was meant if the question of ethics had been put in the form 'What shall I do to inherit eternal life?', in a way in which that question would be unintelligible to many of his twentieth-century followers.

I Although the slogan, in the form in which it is usually cited, 'Ought' implies 'Can\ does not seem to occur in Kant's writings, the idea is omnipresent in the ethical writings: most fundamentally and famously in Kant's proof of the existence of freedom. Here there is a clear progression, at least in Kant's presentation of his conception. In the first Critique, the concern is the negative one of showing that theoretical reason, with its insistence on complete causal determination within the world as phenomenon, was still incompetent to rule out the

'Ought' implies 'Can': Kant and Luther

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possibility of a transcendental freedom. Then, in the Foundations, freedom is presented as one of the three Ideas which practical reason must postulate in making sense of Man's moral endeavour. But in the second Critique, Kant marks off freedom from the other two Ideas God and immortality - as the only one which is known to have application, morality having become not merely a reason for adopting an 'as if hypothesis of freedom, but the ratio cognoscendi of freedom (second Critique, p. 119). (All citations, where appropriate, refer to Lewis White Beck's translation of the second Critique and other ethical writings of Kant.) It is, however, in the first Critique that Kant's argument is first adumbrated where, for example, we find that, in commenting on the third Antinomy, he writes: practical freedom presupposes that although something has not happened, it ought to have happened, and that its cause, as found in the field of appearance, is not, therefore, so determining that it excludes a causality of our will . . . (first Critique, A 534). and, most explicitly, in the Canon of Pure Reason: since reason commands that such actions should take place, it must be possible for them to take place. Consequently, a special kind of systematic unity, namely the moral, must likewise be possible, (first Critique, A 807) In the second Critique, the argument is illustrated as follows: Suppose that someone says his lust is irresistible when the desired object and opportunity are present. Ask him whether he would not control his passion if, in front of the house where he has this opportunity, a

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gallows were erected on which he would be hanged immediately after gratifying his lust. We do not have to guess very long what his answer would be. But ask him whether he thinks it would be possible for him to overcome his love of life, however great it may be, if his sovereign threatened him with the same sudden death unless he made a false deposition against an honourable man whom the ruler wished to destroy under a plausible pretext. Whether he would or not he perhaps will not venture to say; but that it would be possible for him he would certainly admit without hesitation. He judges, therefore, that he can do something because he knows he ought, and he recognizes that he is free - a fact which, without the moral law, would have remained unknown to him (p. 141f). Taken in isolation, this last passage could be misleading, suggesting some kind of argument from moral experience, an argument that depended upon the empirical phenomena of choice, decision-making and conscience. But that would be to mistake Kant's intentions completely, in a number of respects. (1) For Kant, all empirical phenomena are, as such, susceptible to full deterministic explanations, and that will include all the phenomena of willing and deciding. (2) Any argument which took as its starting point the empirical phenomena of willing could only have as its conclusion empirical freedom, whereas Kant wishes to establish the existence of transcendental freedom - a freedom in which I am the ultimate origin of my action. Kant's fundamental position here is, 'it is useless to endeavour to prove transcendental propositions by examples' (first Critique, A 554).

'Ought' implies 'Can': Kant and Luther

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(3) Kant, at a number of points, explicitly reckons with the case where I indeed find within myself no capacity to obey the categorical imperative, and yet, in that I still say that I ought to do so, I ipso facto acknowledge that I am able to. (See, for instance, the way Kant treats the example of a malicious lie in the first Critique, A 554ff and, in particular, 'When we say that in spite of his whole previous course of life the agent could have refrained from lying, this only means that the act is under the immediate power of reason, and that reason in its causality is not subject to any conditions of appearance or of time', or, most clearly, where Kant discusses Man as fallen Man in Religion 'Within the Limits of Reason Alone, Bk. I, General Observation. How it is possible for a naturally evil man to make himself a good man wholly surpasses our comprehension . . . despite the fall the injunction that we ought to become better men resounds unabatedly in our souls; hence this must be within our power. . . . But does not this restoration through one's own exertions directly contradict the postulate of the innate corruption of man which unfits him for all good? Yes, to be sure, as far as the conceivability, i.e., our insight into the possibility, of such a restoration is concerned. . . . For when the moral law commands that we ought to be better men, it follows inevitably that we must be able to be better men. In this discussion, it becomes clear that Kant holds that 'Ought' implies 'Can' establishes human freedom to obey the moral law, even where empirically we detect no capacity to do so.) (4) Kant intends his proof of freedom to be valid for

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all rational agents, qua rational agents, not merely for Man. So that, even if Man is the only rational agent we encounter, we are still to regard this proof as one that would be valid for any other rational agent, if there were such. As such, the proof is intended as one which derives its validity purely from an examination of the notion of a rational agent, without reference to particular facts of human nature or experience. The proof must be understood in the following way: We know that we ought to act in certain ways, act on some maxims rather than others. What is more, we know that this is so even when we do not behave in those ways. This premise is to be regarded as established not on the basis of a supposed moral sense or conscience, at least as popularly understood. We know this on the basis of reason alone: our reason itself inexorably proposes to us a course of action as the right one for us to follow. If something ought to happen, then it must be possible for it to happen. Therefore, we must be free to follow the dictates of reason. The general picture Kant is trying to present here is clear, even if the notion of transcendental freedom is fraught with paradox and difficulty: considered as an empirical being, I must be regarded as subject to the conditions of space and time, and, as such, my actions, as phenomenal actions, susceptible to full causal explanation within the phenomenal world. There will be nothing I do, think or feel, no decision I make, that cannot, in principle, be causally explained in terms of my earlier history. From this point of view, I must be regarded purely as the slave of my environment, nature and passions. However, in addition to considering myself as

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an empirical being - that is to say an object of empirical observation, of scientific study - I have to regard myself as an agent, confronted by decisions to be made. I have to decide what to do. As an agent, deciding what to do, I am aware not only of what I am inclined to do, but also of what my reason tells me I ought to do. Since that is so, it is possible for me to follow not the inclinations of my nature, but the dictates of my reason. I am capable of an act of self-transcendence, in which I translate myself into a supersensible realm and become the ultimate author of what I do. A. Although Kant was of course aware of the difficulties that beset this picture, it is not clear whether he fully realized how close to complete incoherence it is. The central difficulty is that the action that morality dictates will be an action within the phenomenal world. If I do something, whether or not I do it because I ought to do it, that will be an empirical event: so that even when I do my duty, on Kant's own terms, what I do will still be susceptible to a full causal explanation. Kant writes: Inasmuch as it (the acting subject) is noumenon, nothing happens in it; there can be no change requiring dynamical determination in time, and therefore no causal dependence upon appearances. And consequently, since natural necessity is to be met with only in the sensible world, this active being must be independent of, and free from all such necessity. No action begins in this active being itself; but yet we may quite correctly say that the active being of itself begins its effects in the sensible world (first Critique, A 541). This serves to bring out the difficulty, rather than to alleviate it. It may well be that this 'positive' use of the concept of the noumenon is the unhappiest aspect of

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Kant's development of transcendental idealism: it always seems to place an intolerable strain upon the tenability of his contrast between the phenomenal and noumenal, rather than rendering intelligible his concept of man as a free agent. Kant's own attitude to these difficulties was twofold: (1) We are here within the sphere of practical reason, concerned with the question, 'What ought I to do?' To that extent, for Kant, the theoretical question, 'Do I know that I am free?' was less important than the practical question, 'Ought I to regard myself as free?' Here, the crucial idea would be the idea that if I regard myself as unfree, as not ultimately responsible for my actions, this would threaten to expose morality itself as an illusion. Since, therefore, the moral precept is at the same time my maxim (reason prescribing that it should be so) I inevitably believe in the existence of God and in a future life, and I am certain that nothing can shake this belief, since my moral principles would thereby be themselves overthrown, and I cannot disclaim them without becoming abhorrent in my own eyes (first Critique, A 828). What Kant says here about God and immortality will clearly, a fortiori, apply to the third, and most fundamental, postulate of Practical Reason. From this point of view, the important point was not so much proving that we are free, as establishing the possibility of believing ourselves to be so. Knowledge is to be removed so as to create a space for faith. From this standpoint, even if we could not form to ourselves a clear picture of human freedom, that would not matter if we could establish the bare possibility of our being so, without any precise knowledge of how we are so.

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(2) However, as Kant's thought progresses, he does not content himself with thinking of freedom as no more than a postulate of Practical Reason. Morality becomes the ratio cognoscendi of freedom. Whereas we do not know there to be a God, or that we are immortal, Kant claims that we know we are free: the basis for this knowledge being the proof with which we are concerned. Here, even if we find it impossible to form for ourselves an adequate conception of what it is like for us to be free, if the argument for freedom is valid, then we can know that we are free, even without a coherent account of how we are free. Is our knowledge really widened in such a way by pure practical reason, and is that which was transcendent for speculative reason immanent in practical reason? Certainly, but only from a practical point of view. . . . But how freedom is possible, and how we should think theoretically and positively of this type of causality, is not thereby discovered. All that is comprehended is that such a causality is postulated through the moral law and for its sake. It is the same with the remaining ideas, whose possibility cannot be fathomed by human understanding, though no sophistry will ever wrest from the conviction of even the most ordinary man an admission that they are not true (second Critique, p. 216). B. A few comments about the concept of freedom at stake are in order here. First, there is a minor inconsistency in Kant's way of speaking: am I only free when I obey the categorical imperative, or am I always free to obey the categorical imperative? And, if I do not but succumb to my inclinations, do I freely do wrong - so that I can be justly censured for so doing? This seems

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Kant and His Influence

largely a terminological matter, but Kant's preferred terminology here is undoubtedly to think of the free man as the man who is acting morally. On this use of the concept, freedom is not to be thought of primarily as the ability to do otherwise but as freedom stemming from the fact that I myself am the author of the principles of my action. Moral freedom is a freedom under law, but the moral law is one 'in whose service is perfect liberty'. The main point here is that, for Kant, completely arbitrary, random action is a nonsense notion: all action is explicable, is action for a reason. Where it is correct to describe someone as acting, it is always appropriate to ask why they did what they did. The difference between free action and unfree action is not that the former is lawless and the latter bounded by causal law, but that the laws to which my free action conforms have been proposed by me myself. I am capable of escaping the tyranny of my inclinations, and animal instincts, because my reason itself proposes to me laws to which I may subject myself: I am the author of the laws of my own action. As free, I am still subject to law, but / subject myself to the law which my own reason commends to me. It is, finally, worth mentioning explicitly that it is part of Kant's conception that although I can know, can indeed know a priori, that I am free, I can never know whether I have, on a particular occasion, acted freely, acted not merely in conformity with the moral law but acted in that way because doing so was acting in conformity with the moral law. This is not merely because of the treachery of the human heart, the endless possibilities of self-deception, but precisely because the freedom at stake is transcendental freedom, concerning the 'intelligible character' of our action, which, as such, is not an object of empirical observation:

'Ought' implies 'Can': Kant and Luther

13

The real morality of our actions, their merit or guilt, even that of our own conduct, thus remains entirely hidden from us. Our imputations can refer only to the empirical character. How much of this character is ascribable to the pure effect of freedom, how much to mere nature, that is, to faults of temperament for which there is no responsibility, or to its happy constitution (merito fortunae), can never be determined; and upon it therefore no perfectly just judgments can be passed (first Critique, A 551). Thus I can know that I am a free agent, I can know what constitutes acting freely, but never know whether I am, in fact, acting freely (or, indeed have ever done so). C. In the light of all I have said so far, it is clear that the crucial step in Kant's argument for freedom is the principle ''Ought' implies 'Can\ Despite an initial, intuitive plausibility which this principle undoubtedly has for us, it turns out to be remarkably difficult to see what in the end it amounts to, or why Kant holds it true: (1) It does not seem to be self-evident, and does indeed fly in the face of a great deal that we also wish to say in concrete moral debate: it, in part, gains its initial plausibility from leading us to think of certain aspects of our moral thinking at the expense of others. (2) Despite this, Kant never gives a detailed defence of the principle. He does, indeed, make several scattered remarks that lend support to it, but these invariably turn out to be suggestive rather than a properly worked out defence. Kant at most can be said to sketch out lines along which a defence of the principle is to be sought. (3) The different things that are said in support of the

14

Kant and His Influence

principle by no means amount to the same thing. I will spend the next section of this paper assembling the different defences which may be found at different points in Kant's ethical writings. The main point to stress here is the extreme variety of these defences. What is more, these different defences seem frequently to lead to very different ways of regarding Kant's claim, to very different interpretations of it. The main difficulty here stems from the bewildering variety of ways we may use the key words 'ought' and 'can'. In particular the language of human ability is extremely ill-explored and ill-understood territory. What I will have in mind when I say that someone can or cannot do something, will vary enormously from context to context. At one extreme, we have cases in which we say 'A can \ meaning thereby that the description 'A is -ing^ is logically possible, or that A is the kind of being which it makes sense to describe as -ing, and, at the other, cases in which I say I cannot do something, meaning thereby that I am inhibited in such a way that I find it emotionally impossible to bring myself to do it (shyness, fear of authority, etc.), with a huge range of very different cases between these extremes. It should also be remarked that what may be described as the logic of ability is opaque and not well understood: ordinarily self-evident principles of modal logic turn out to be treacherous here. Thus, it is true to say of me that I cannot throw a dart at a dartboard and hit the bull's eye: I lack the relevant skill. Nevertheless, I may throw the dart and by chance, or luck, it lands in the bull's eye. So that in many uses of 'I can <j>\ it does not follow from the fact that I have -ed, that I could have 4>-ed. Luther is characteristically more careful than Kant in attempting to bring out how his denial of 'Ought' implies

'Ought' implies 'Can': Kant and Luther

15

'Can' is to be understood. It is worth stressing before going any further, something which Luther stresses against Erasmus: even if he wishes to insist on a human inability to obey the Law of God, this must not be taken as though God were commanding things which it would be absurd to imagine a man actually doing: God's Law is addressed to men, and not to stones or geese, and what is commanded is to that extent a genuine human possibility: the idea of someone actually obeying God's Law is a perfectly intelligible idea. It is not as though Man is being commanded to fly or carry a ten-ton weight. Perhaps the best way to bring out the dominant use of 'can' in this controversy is to use a gloss that Kant sometimes adopts - 'is a possible subject of a command': so that I may, or may not, like someone else, but if there is someone I dislike, a command for me to like them would for Kant be pointless and void of significance, Prima facie at least, if I don't like them there may well be nothing I can do about it: certainly, even if there are steps I may take of an indirect nature - trying to view them in a favourable light, for instance - 1 cannot directly obey the command 'Like X\ Liking X is not the kind of thing that I can do, simply at will; and, to that extent it is something which 'cannot be commanded'. This explanation by no means fits everything that Kant says in this connection, but it may serve as an introduction to an understanding of what he is trying to say. There is, however, one interpretative principle that we may clearly adopt in making sense of the apparent uncontrolled variety of Kant's detailed remarks here: any interpretation of what Kant means by 'Ought' implies 'Can' must bear in mind the conclusion that is drawn from this principle: that is to say, it must clearly yield a sense of 'can' that is strong enough to support the conclusion that man is transcendentally free.

16

Kant and His Influence

II How, then, did Kant understand the principle, and how did he seek to justify it? The trouble in interpretation here is twofold: the great variety in the remarks Kant makes in this connection, and the brevity of those remarks. Rather than force them into a single uniform account, which is, I suspect, in any case impossible, I shall examine in turn the different defences which are to be found scattered throughout Kant's writings. But first I shall look at a defence of the principle which cannot in any direct way be Kant's own, but that was crucial in the debate between Luther and Erasmus. Although there are clear reasons why Erasmus' objection to Luther cannot be Kant's thought, it is, I believe, in the end a secularized version of what Erasmus is urging against Luther that may well form the real basis for Kant's insistence that 'Ought' implies 'Can'. If the particular remarks Kant offers in support of the principle turn out to be inconclusive, it may be that the real reason for his passionate insistence on it is that his belief is sustained by ideas derived from Erasmus' argument, even if the context of Kant's thought is one in which this argument strictly has no place. A. The debate between Luther and Erasmus was of course not a debate in moral philosophy, but a theological debate. When the question, whether it was possible for man to obey the law, was raised, the law at stake was the law of God. Because of this, the principle 'Ought' implies 'Can' has a particular purchase that it cannot have within Kant. Luther's opponents, both the scholastic authors like Gabriel Biel, whom he was reacting against, and writers like Erasmus, who were reacting against him, were concerned with the picture of God that

'Ought' implies 'Can': Kant and Luther

17

seemed to emerge if you denied that 'Ought' implies 'Can'. It is in their writings that the Kantian principle may well emerge explicitly for the first time. The issue here is simple: if you deny 'Ought' implies 'Can', can God be just? A Being who enacted laws for his subjects which it was impossible for them to obey, and then punished them for disobedience, would be a monster. The world would then be like a dictatorship in the hands of a capricious tyrant who deliberately frames the laws of the land in such a way that everyone is guilty of breaking the law, so that it is impossible to be a law-abiding citizen. He could then punish whom he chose, and reward whom he chose, purely according to his whim. Such a land would have the form of law, but not the reality: if a master were to free a slave who had merited nothing, he might have reason perhaps to say to the other servants who murmured against him 'You are no worse off if I am kinder to this one; you have your due'. But anyone would deem a master cruel and unjust who flogged his slave to death because his body was too short or his nose too long or because of some other inelegance in his form. Would not the slave rightly call out 'Why am I punished for what I cannot help?' and he would say this with more justice if it were in the master's power to alter the bodily blemish of his slave, as it is in the power of God to change our will, or if the lord had himself given the slave this deformity which had offended, as for example by cutting off his nose or making his face hideous with scars. In this same way God, in the view of some, works even evil in us. Again, as concerns the precepts, if a lord were constantly to order a slave who was bound by the feet in a treadmill, 'Go there, do that, run, come back', with frightful threats if he disobeyed

18

Kant and His Influence

and did not meanwhile release him, and even made ready the lash if he disobeyed, would not the slave rightly call the master either mad or cruel who beat a man to death for not doing what he was unable to do? and: Furthermore, when God burdens man with so many commandments that serve for no other purpose than to make him hate God more and be more terribly damned, do not they make him worse than the tyrant Dionysius of Sicily, who deliberately made many laws that he suspected the majority would not keep in the absence of restraint, and at first took no notice, and then when he saw that everybody was breaking them, he began to summons them to punishment, in this way bringing everyone into his power (Erasmus, Diatribe, Epilogue). The basis for the principle 'Ought' implies 'Can' is easy to understand here: it is a matter of theodicy. If God is conceived as both the lawgiver, and the one who punishes if the law is disobeyed, then he becomes an insane and capricious monster, if it is thought that the laws he enacts are ones which it is impossible for Man to obey. But, at least in any straightforward way, this simple train of thought cannot be Kant's: for Kant, God is not the author of the moral law, nor are we to obey it out of fear of punishment by God. We ourselves are the authors of the moral law; it is our own reason that commands us to obey it. The framework within which Erasmus' arguments have immediate purchase would be, for Kant, a purely heteronomic framework, and as such the antithesis of true morality. Without a divine Lawmaker and Judge, no issue of the

'Ought' implies 'Can': Kant and Luther

19

justice of God can arise, so that the train of thought we find here can at most be considered as a remote ancestor of the ideas that we find in Kant. Yet, this train of thought seems to me to be far from irrelevant to an understanding of Kant. At some level, ways of thinking about morality that only made immediate sense within the context within which Erasmus and Luther were disputing, continue to inform Kant's whole conception of morality. And, at the end of this paper, I shall return to this first defence of 'Ought' implies 'Can', which at least has the merit of being a clear defence. B. In the first Critique, when Kant first adumbrates the principle 'Ought' implies 'Can', he writes: 'Ought' expresses a kind of necessity and of connection with grounds which is found nowhere else in the whole of nature. The understanding can know in nature only what is, what has been, or what will be. We cannot say that anything in nature ought to be other than what in all these time relations it actually is. When we have the course of nature alone in view 'ought' has no meaning whatsoever. It is as absurd to ask what ought to happen in the natural world as to ask what properties a circle ought to have. All that we are justified in asking is: what happens in nature? What are the properties of a circle? (first Critique, A 547). If we regard this preliminary introduction of the principle 'Ought' implies 'Can' as also an attempted justification of it, what it amounts to is obscure. Kant is claiming that where we regard things as necessarily the way they are, it is meaningless to say that they ought to be otherwise. But this is infected with all the ambiguity that I have already noted surrounding the words 'ought' and

20

Kant and His Influence

'necessarily'. On several understandings of the words, this is simply untrue. A doctor may certainly point to a diseased or deformed organ and describe how it ought to be - and so, indeed, with a deformed animal or plant without claiming that there is any real possibility of ever curing or rectifying the deformity. A dog handler may have clear views as to how his dogs ought to behave and train them so to do, without his activity only making sense if he supposes his dogs to be free. Equally, I may have in mind goals that I want to achieve in this paper and, as a result, clear views as to how it ought to be. If I am then guided by these goals in constructing the paper, success is certainly not guaranteed a priori. The fact that I hold that the paper ought to be a certain way - even justly hold it ought to be that way - in no way implies it is necessarily within my power to produce a paper of the required sort, that I can produce such a paper. The most that can be said on the basis of the alleged meaninglessness of asking what the properties of a circle ought to be, is that if we say things ought to be thus and so, we are implying the logical possibility of their being so. But it is a huge step from there to what Kant requires - that there must be a real possibility of bringing the desired goal about. Hence, Kant must be taken to be making a claim that attaches peculiarly to the moral sense of 'ought': but, to that extent, I do not think this preliminary observation can, in its generality, offer any justification for the claim, and, at most, it only serves to introduce it. C. The other support for the principle 'Ought' implies 'Can', to be found in the first Critique rests on a contrast between a categorical imperative and a hypothetical one. This, unlike the first passage, is unequivocally intended

'Ought' implies 'Can': Kant and Luther

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as a justification of the principle, and one which, moreover, explicitly ties the principle to the moral 'ought': I assume that there really are pure moral laws which determine completely a priori (without regard to empirical motives, that is, to happiness) what is and what is not to be done, that is, which determine the employment of freedom of a rational being in general; and that these laws command in an absolute manner (not merely hypothetically, on the supposition of other empirical ends), and are therefore in every respect necessary (first Critique, A 807). Clearly, the contrast between a categorical imperative and a hypothetical imperative (together with the related notion of a rule of prudence or happiness) is fundamental to Kant's whole presentation of his moral philosophy, and, at a number of points, he will claim that as a consequence of the contrast, whereas it will not always be possible to implement a rule of prudence or to follow the path which leads to happiness, we can always obey the categorical imperative. This claim seems to have two different sources, one of which I will examine later but now I will concentrate on what is perhaps the more natural reading: does the fact that a law is to be regarded as unconditionally binding, of itself imply that it must necessarily be possible to obey it? As it stands, it looks as if Kant is guilty of confusion here, of running together different ways in which a command could be 'absolutely binding'. Suppose I make a promise to you, which I subsequently fail to keep; there are a number of possibilities here, e.g. (1)1 make the promise, because I want your good will,

22

Kant and His Influence

or friendship. Later, under altered circumstances, these, no longer matter to me, so I disregard the promise. (2) I make the promise, but fail to foresee the disastrous consequences of keeping it. When these become clear, I break the promise. (3) I make the promise. Circumstances that I could not have foreseen, and wholly beyond my control, make it impossible to do what I said. We may assume here that, in each case, at the time at which I make the promise, I fully intend to do what I say: it is because of subsequent, unforeseeable changes in circumstances that I do not do what I said. The main point to stress here is that these are three very different cases, and that Kant, by his uses of the notions of absolutely or unconditionally binding, tends to assimilate them, ignoring morally relevant considerations: (1) Here Kant would say I am treating a categorical imperative as if it were hypothetical: this is not quite right, but it is near enough. (I do not do the thing, in order to keep your friendship: I still do it, because I have promised you. It is rather, that in the case envisaged, when your friendship ceased to matter to me, the fact that I have promised ceased to serve as a reason for me. But this is a very fine distinction.) This is the case where Kant is clearly right to maintain that, if I regard the promise as morally binding, I ought to regard breaking the promise as ruled out. (2) I do not wish to dispute this second case with Kant at this stage, beyond commenting on the fact that it is the kind of case where Kant's 'rigorism' continually leads him to maintain quite preposterous positions.

'Ought' implies 'Can': Kant and Luther

23

Suppose I promise to meet you at a certain time 'without fail'. As I am setting out someone has a heart attack, necessitating urgent medical attention. The meeting, although of some importance to you, is scarcely a matter of life or death. I consequently skip the meeting, ensuring instead that the appropriate assistance is given to the victim of the heart attack, 'knowing you will understand'. To do otherwise here strikes me as a form of insanity, part of what led Freud to dismiss Kant's conception of the categorical imperative as not genuine, but taboo, morality. But, for Kant, 'knowing you will understand' is neither here nor there - my obligation is not to you, but to the promise. What is of immediate concern to me is that this is already a very different case from (1). In no sense whatsoever am I treating a categorical imperative as if it were hypothetical - in Kant's sense of a hypothetical imperative. The fact that I behave in the way envisaged in no way shows that if the unforeseen accident had not occurred and I had kept the promise, I would only have kept the promise to secure some desirable end. But, even so, in (2) as in (1), rightly or wrongly, I may be said to have bargained the rigour out of the promise. So that, even if in very different ways, I have treated a promise as not unconditionally binding. (3) I promise to intervene on your behalf; before I have a chance to do so, and in a way that I could not have envisaged, I lose the status that would enable me to intervene. This case is completely different from (1) and from (2) above. Here, in no sense whatsoever, need I cease to regard the promise as unconditionally binding: if the promise is overridden by events, I have no part in the overriding. The only blame that could

24

Kant and His Influence conceivably be attached to me would be one of rashness in making the promise, and, clearly, if I knew my position to be precarious, you might justly censure me for promising, thereby entitling you to rely on my promise. But, it need not be like that. I might have every reason to suppose that keeping the promise will be unproblematic, and yet. . . . If it were then said, you ought only to make promises in circumstances in which you can absolutely guarantee delivery, then given our limited control on the future, that is tantamount to abandoning the practice of promising. Every promise to <j> is to be taken, and will naturally be taken, as a commitment, if at all possible, to . Now, does this make the practice of promising conditional, so that there is no absolute obligation to keep a promise? Not at all: it certainly does not, as Kant sometimes seems to think, convert the imperative to keep the promise into a hypothetical one. The difference between the hypothetical and the categorical imperative is that, in the former case, a condition has to be satisfied before the imperative comes into force. Here, the imperative to keep your promise, if at all possible is and remains unconditionally binding. Kant may simply be guilty here of confusing two different logical forms, represented by the same surface grammatical structure:

If P, 0! might mean, either, as in the hypothetical imperative, that a certain condition had to be satisfied, before any imperative came into force, or, that what was (unconditionally) commanded was, 'If p, 4>V.

'Ought' implies 'Can': Kant and Luther

25

But, and this is the point, it is only if one runs together these three very different cases, (l)-(3), that considerations of the unconditional validity of the moral law lend any support to the principle 'Ought' implies 'Can'. Only if the thought, that we should regard the demands our reason makes of us as unconditionally binding, leads to the idea that our reason may not demand of us something that turns out to be impossible to do, may we infer from the fact that there is a categorical imperative, that it must be possible to carry it out. There is perhaps here the further thought that if I am really unable to execute a demand my reason makes of me, then I cannot be blamed for failure: but that thought is powerless to prove the existence of freedom. It is at this point that the principle 'Ought' implies 'Can' threatens to become utterly empty, as follows: Suppose I were to say: when you are (morally) commanded to 0, the most that can be expected of you is that you do all that is in your power to <j>, and if you do

that you will be morally blameless. Hence, from a moral point of view, the commands, '0!', and, 'Do all that is in your power to !', come to the same thing: so that not only do you necessarily do precisely the same thing in obeying the command, but you will be appraised as having obeyed or disobeyed the command, not according as you did, or did not, 0, but as you did, or did not, do all in your power to <j>. On this interpretation, moral commands can always be obeyed, it being the merest tautology that it is always in your power to do all in your power to do something. But on this, minimalist, interpretation of 'Ought' implies 'Can\ the principle is powerless to prove anything, let alone the idea that Man is transcendentally free. Kant's position is only to be rescued from complete vacuity at this point by his insistence that there is one

26

Kant and His Influence

thing which is and remains necessarily under my control, namely good and bad willing, and that this must be simultaneously regarded as the true locus of human freedom and of moral appraisal. But that development lies ahead of us (see section E, below), and leads on to different aspects of Kant's thought from any which can be derived from a simple reflection on the difference between the categorical and hypothetical imperative: in itself, that difference is powerless to give Kant what he wants. D. There is a strand in Kant that suggests that the principle 'Ought' implies 'Can' follows from the fact that the moral law consists in commands: that what can be commanded, must be possible. This strand has been followed up by Professor Hare in Freedom and Reason, Chapter 4. Hare's discussion turns out to be elusive, and often he seems to be saying: 'Ought' implies 'Can', except when it doesn't. It is 'ought' 'with its full force' which implies 'can'; but it is difficult to see what exactly this 'full force' is, other than that it is the force which attaches to it when it implies 'can'. (1) The crucial point here is that Hare is wishing to maintain that imperatives, as such, in some way imply the possibility of carrying them out: so that his considerations will apply as much to advice, or other non-moral imperatives, as to morality. For this reason alone, the considerations to be adduced here cannot be central to Kant's position, where he clearly wishes us to see his principle as saying something that has purchase for the categorical imperative, as opposed to other imperatives. (2) Hare's key point is the relation between ought and what he calls 'Practical questions' ('What am I to do?'):

'Ought' implies 'Can': Kant and Luther

27

unless the practical question arises, the 'ought' question cannot arise, if 'ought' has its full force. . . . And the reason for this is that, when the word is being used in this way, its function is to offer help and guidance in answering this practical question . . . and so, naturally, there is no point in asking the 'ought' question when the practical question does not arise {Freedom and Reason, p. 36). (3) Of course, if the considerations Hare wishes us to take into account derive from reflections on practical questions as such, they are bound to be impotent to establish Kant's principle 'Ought' implies 'Can': for such questions arise with respect to the phenomena of acting and deciding, and reflections upon such phenomena will from the very outset be incapable of settling the question whether Man is transcendentally free. On Kant's conception, the phenomena of acting, including choosing and deciding, will all be compatible with a thorough determinism: indeed, Kant himself accepts such a determinism with respect to them. The most that Hare's arguments could establish would be the empirical phenomena of choosing and deciding, whose existence Kant would not dispute, but which Kant would not see, as such, to be incompatible with a metaphysical determinism: if we could investigate exhaustively all the appearances of men's wills, there would not be a single human action which we could not predict with certainty, and recognise as proceeding necessarily from its antecedent conditions (first Critique, A 550). (4) It should be noticed, quite independently of the particularities of transcendental psychology, that the sense of 'can' that is at stake in the main thrust of Hare's remarks is very weak: I can only order someone to 0, if

28 Kant and His Influence 'the question of their -ing arises'. If we consider practical questions, we typically have two concerns in mind: we consider what needs doing, and what we are able to do. In considering what needs doing, although we will characteristically not consider what it is obviously absurd to suppose that human beings could do, we may well consider much that we subsequently have to work out how to do, and whether it can be done at all. The only things that could be ruled out from such considerations would be things that we already know to be impossible, but many things will be included for which we will have then to seek to find out whether they are possible. Positing ideals, where we then have to see whether or not it is possible to realize them, is an important part of the business of reflecting on practical questions. Maybe 'the question of our realizing those ideals must arise', but that does not imply that they may not, in the event, prove impossible to realize. The language of 'ought' moves between setting ideals of conduct and presenting the practical steps to realize those ideals; frequently, it will, as a result, present ideals prior to knowing whether or not they may be possible to realize. Indeed, sometimes the use of 'ought' to posit an ideal of behaviour may be put uppermost, so that we explicitly posit an impossible ideal; as, for example, when a patient is told by their doctor 'What you really ought to do is avoid all situations that create stress: I realize that will not be possible; so, what you should do instead is . . . .' I may summarize the result of this examination of Hare's position - and those elements in Kant that suggest it by saying that this train of thought, considered as supporting Kant's principle 'Ought' implies 'Can', would be truly feeble. And it would be truly feeble for one

'Ought' implies 'Can': Kant and Luther

29

simple reason: the most they could possibly establish is that it is inappropriate to say 'You ought to ' if it is known to be impossible that you should 0. So that if it is not known whether or not it is possible to , we certainly cannot infer from the fact that it is correct to say that we ought to 0, that we can <j>. Although the positions I have considered in the last three sections all appear to be operative at various points in the Kantian texts, it is the remaining sections which give interpretations of the principle 'Ought' implies 'Can' that relate most particularly to Kant's own ethical theory: E. If we consider the following passage from the second Critique, we arrive at another interpretation of 'Ought' implies 'Can', different in kind from any I have looked at so far: It is always in everyone's power to satisfy the commands of the categorical command of morality; this is but seldom possible with respect to the empirically conditioned precept of happiness, and it is far from being possible, even in respect to a single purpose, for everyone. The reason is that in the former it is only a question of the maxim, which must be genuine and pure, but in the latter it is also a question of capacity and physical ability to realize a desired object (second Critique, p. 148). Here, the categorical and the hypothetical imperative are sharply contrasted, in the respect which interests us: for the hypothetical imperative as explained here, 'ought' does not imply 'can'. This is Kant's clearest passage concerning the relation of 'ought' and 'can', but the thought moves in a different direction: now, the reason that 'Ought' implies 'Can'

30

Kant and His Influence

is that the moral 'ought' is seen as restricted in its scope to that which I am seen as necessarily having within my power: issues concerning the maxim that I choose to adopt, and the 'purity' of that maxim 'Do I choose the right maxim?' and 'Do I choose the maxim that I do, because it is the morally acceptable maxim?' But the thought here should not be regarded as a justification of the principle 'Ought' implies 'Can', so much as a consequence of it. The thought is not so much ''because morality only concerns the purity of the will, it is necessarily within the power of everyone to be moral', as 'because being moral is necessarily within the power of everyone, it must be conceived as being restricted in its scope to what must be within their power'. We may perhaps see best what has happened here if we anticipate the next section of the paper by looking at a case I shall reconsider there: one of the first kinds of counter-example to Kant's claims that will occur to anyone is the case in which someone does the wrong thing under extreme duress. Suppose someone is tortured to betray a solemn confidence and reveal the whereabouts of their colleagues, thereby putting their lives in jeopardy. Here is a case in which we may clearly wish to say that, regardless of the severity of the torture and distress of the agent, they ought not to betray their friends. But it seems a monstrous claim to suppose that, quite regardless of the severity of the torture, everyone will necessarily be able to resist it indefinitely. It could well be that, at a certain point, their will is overridden and as an almost physiological reflex they blurt out the required information: that possibility does not seem to be one that could be ruled out a priori. The rejoinder to this example suggested by the passage we are now considering is as follows. Let us suppose someone does indeed blurt out the words. There will still

'Ought' implies 'Can': Kant and Luther

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be a morally significant difference between two cases: between, on the one hand, the person who at some stage in the proceedings adopts the maxim 'If the pain threatens to become intolerable, do whatever is in your power to stop it', and as a result betrays the whereabouts of the colleagues, whether they adopt this maxim prior to the torture or under the stress it induces; and, on the other hand, the person who never adopts any such maxim, even though, in the end, they too ejaculate the words. Even if the latter case cannot be ruled out a priori^ it is only the former case in which the agent is to be regarded as morally culpable. From a moral point of view, the traitor is not ipso facto the person who betrays the confidence, but the person whose will at the same time consents to the betrayal. Because Kant unfortunately never considers this kind of case, we cannot say for certain that he would have adopted the defence of his position just envisaged, although the passage we are considering means that it is clearly consistent with his thought, and does, indeed, seem the only defence to rescue his position from obvious absurdity. What must be stressed is that here we see the full importance of a transcendental psychology for Kant's ethics: here it emerges clearly that it will depend upon a conception of the will which is exempt from all empirical conditioning; the transcendental will is and remains in Olympian isolation above and unconditioned by the empirical rough and tumble of the situation in which I find myself. So that regardless of the vicissitudes of my life - both my passions and the external constraints to which I find myself subjected - there is a capacity for choice that remains wholly under my control. F. The third chapter of the second Critique can yield another, totally different, reading of 'Ought' implies

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'Can'. Here it could be read as saying 'Ought' enables. One of the questions that dominates the early parts of the second Critique is the question, 'What makes moral reasons, reasons for me? Kant's empirical determinism, as far as human beings are concerned, is not simply the general argument for strict universal causation of the second Analogy, but a reflection on the notion of human action as such; if an action is to count as an action of mine, I will have made a decision, and have a reason for my decision - in Kant's terminology, I will be acting upon a maxim. This does not imply that I necessarily do the reasonable thing, but it does imply I can give some form of answer to the question, 'Why did you do that?' A purely gratuitous action would not be an action at all. If that is so, there will be some things that serve for me as reasons for action, and other things that do not. It will be a matter of quite contingent empirical fact that I have certain desires, drives and wants which lead certain proposed courses of action to be open to me and not others. We may call the sum total of such drives, 'my nature'. Kant rather naively develops his account of such a nature in terms of a narrow psychological egoism: All inclinations taken together (which can be brought into a fairly tolerable system, whereupon their satisfaction is called happiness) constitute self-regard {solipsismus). This consists either of self-love, which is a predominant benevolence toward oneself (philautia) or of self-satisfaction (arrogantia). The former is called, more particularly, selfishness; the latter, selfconceit (second Critique, p. 181). Given the existence of such a system, it will be intelligible that certain reasons for action are reasons for me: quite simply, to show why I do something will be to show why it appears to me to be in my interest that it

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should be done. One should not be deceived by the naivety of the psychology here. Kant may well have been confused at this point - together with a large number of his contemporaries and predecessors - into thinking that psychological egoism was some kind of necessary theory of human motivation; but this does not affect the picture which ultimately concerns him here. We could substitute for the psychological egoism of this quotation, some other theory of human motivation which was not necessarily self-regarding - such as, for instance, a Freudian theory of the Instincts where the instincts are ultimately to be explained in biological terms, in terms of the value of precisely these instincts to the survival of the human species. Either way, I will have an empirical system that makes it intelligible that certain reasons are reasons for me: I will have a theory of the springs of my action. There need not be anything particularly 'rational' about the way I behave, and certainly nothing morally to be commended in my behaving in this way - it is just the way I am. But, alongside this system - the sum total of my empirical drives - my reason will commend to me a way of life as the way things ought to be, how I ought to behave, where there will be a discontinuity between the ways I am naturally inclined to act and the way my reason advocates. What my reason tells me I ought to do may, or may not, coincide with what I am, in any case, inclined to do. How then do I have any incentive to do what my reason tells me ought to be done? Kant is fully aware of the difficulty he confronts here. He has to show the existence of a moral motive and yet make out that it is not simply one motive alongside other motives; and, above all, not simply find a place for the moral motive within the empirical system of my motives. The moment I make the moral motive simply one among

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the diverse motives I, as a matter of fact, have, then it ceases to have for him any moral value. There is nothing particularly commendable about having moral reasons for action if it is just as much a brute fact about me that these reasons serve as reasons for me as it is that I have other natural dispositions. Kant's attempted answer may be put in the form: it is the 'ought' which makes it possible. How successful this answer is I leave to the reader to judge, but it is at this point we may find the Achilles' Heel of Kant's ethical theory. He wants the moral motive both to be an inclination and not an inclination. It must be an inclination, since it must be that it should motivate, but not an inclination in such a way that someone might protest 'There's nothing commendable in your acting that way, you are merely acting in accordance with your inclinations: my inclinations lead me in- the direction of my self-interest, yours in the direction of duty. It's just a difference of temperament.' So we seem close to having to talk of an 'inclining noninclination'. The difficulty here is not with the idea that human beings are filled with respect for the moral law, or that there are objective features of the law which engender that respect, but that the respect thus engendered is different in kind from the other feelings that may motivate me. Kant will reply here: 'Although there obviously has to be a psychological story to tell here, and we must be concerned with genuine human incentives, there is a big difference here in that it is my reason that commends this course of action to me, tells me that it is the right path to follow, that I ought to do it, quite independently of whether I otherwise want to do or it is in my interest to do it.' My reason does not commend my duty to me by making the way of life that it presents to me as my duty attractive to me, but by telling me: That is how things ought to be.

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Perhaps Kant wishes us to see an analogy here with having reasons for believing: if I believe something, then a psychological investigation can seek to find out why I do so. Such an investigation will include an investigation of my temperament and include a description of emotional factors that incline me to believe it. But if my reason tells me it is so - if I have, for instance, followed a mathematical proof that it is so - then a correct explanation of why I believe it need go no further than explaining why it is objectively right for me to do so. So here, if my reason tells me that I am to do something, I escape the subjective realm of my empirical nature into a realm where it is objectively the right thing to do. Just as in the one case, I believe something because my reason shows me that I ought to believe it, so in the other I do something because my reason shows me that I ought to do it. But this appears no more than a somewhat remote, and not wholly convincing, analogy. My reason is seen by Kant here as functioning in a twofold way: it humiliates me, and it fills me with respect for the ideal which it presents to me. Sensuous feeling, which is the basis of all our inclinations, is the condition of the particular feeling we call respect, but the cause that determines this feeling lies in the pure practical reason; because of its origin, therefore, this reason cannot be said to be pathologically effected; rather, it is practically effected. Since the idea of the moral law deprives self-love of its influence and self-conceit of its delusion, it lessens the obstacle to pure practical reason and produces the idea of the superiority of its objective law to the impulses of sensibility; it increases the weight of the moral law by removing, in the judgment of reason, the counterweight to the moral law which bears on a will

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affected by the sensibility. Thus respect for the law is not the incentive to morality; it is morality itself, regarded subjectively as an incentive, inasmuch as pure practical reason, by rejecting all the rival claims of self-love, gives authority and absolute sovereignty to the law (second Critique, p. 183f). It is this aspect of Kant's thought that may be summarized by the slogan 'Ought' enables: to the question, 'How is it possible for me to be moral?', that is to say, 'What makes a moral reason for action, a reason for me?', Kant wishes to say that it is because my reason not only presents me with an ideal way of life, it confronts me with that ideal as the one I ought to adopt: humiliating me for not doing so, and filling me with respect for the ideal it presents. Hence, it is because my reason itself shows a course of action as the one I ought to adopt, that that course of action becomes a live option for me - even if that course of action contradicts my natural impulses: it is because I can see that I ought to do it, that I can do it. G. I have left to last what I suspect may have been for Kant the most basic reason for his principle, and the one that also explains the emotional pathos surrounding it: and perhaps, also, his frequent claim that to deny 'Ought' implies 'Can' is to threaten to expose morality as an illusion. This is the quite fundamental significance which the notions of merit and the meritorious have in Kant's whole ethical outlook. As everyone knows, Kant begins the Foundations by claiming that the only thing that is good without qualification is the good will, but his initial explanations of this claim are unconvincing, even self-refuting. Kant begins by saying that if you take other humanly desirable

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traits, such as intelligence or resoluteness, if they are dissociated from a good will, they can become harmful in their consequences. But (a) this is irrelevant if the claim is that the good will is good in itself and not to be commended for something else, such as its good consequences; and (b) if it is true that intelligence only serves to make the villain more dangerous, it can be equally true that a good will detached from other qualities can be destructive in its effects. A nincompoop with a good will may behave like a bull in a china shop. If we are concerned with truly creative human action, 'being wellmeaning' may be a necessary condition, but it is certainly far from a sufficient condition. Without other qualities such as empathy, an awareness of your own limitations and a capacity for an imaginative understanding of the situation that confronts you, the person who has 'a good will', but no more, may well be a menace. But Kant's real thought is not captured by his opening remarks; he is not really thinking of the consequence of having certain traits at all. What he is thinking is more closely captured by what he goes on to say: Moderation in emotions and passions, self-control, and calm deliberation not only are good in many respects, but even seem to constitute a part of the inner worth of the person. But however unconditionally they were esteemed by the ancients, they are far from being good without qualification. For, without the principles of a good will, they can become extremely bad, and the coolness of a villain makes him not only far more dangerous but also more directly abominable in our eyes than he would have seemed without it (Foundations, p. 56). Now Kant is saying: 'Forget about the consequences: imagine someone censuring someone else's wickedness. If

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they receive the reply "But, don't you admire their ingenuity, their resourcefulness, daring . . . " then the appropriate thing to say is, "That only makes it worse!" - even if, in some curious quasi-aesthetic way, we may continue to "admire the ingenuity"'. Given any human trait, with the sole exception of the good will, it can be seen that in the wrong context the presence of that trait will detract from, rather than enhance, our estimate of the person. Is this true, and why does Kant insist it must be true? Pritna facie, Kant makes things easy for himself by his choice of examples. Suppose that instead of choosing a skill or an ability such as ingenuity, we had considered a disposition such as being naturally compassionate would his remarks hold? Consider a Falstaff - much that he does is monstrous, and it is undoubtedly right to censure much of what he does. But if we, nevertheless, are made by Shakespeare not simply to condemn him but even to feel affectionately disposed towards him, it is by virtue of his other personality traits - his spontaneous warmth, his generosity towards friends, his capacity for self-mockery. Here, we do not simply say 'That only makes it worse!', we regard these as mitigating, even 'redeeming', traits; despite the fact that these qualities have no obvious connection with the Kantian good will, with reverence for the moral law. Can we actually imagine circumstances in which someone, having censured someone else's villainy, could justly say - when we had retorted 'But still, they are capable of great spontaneous and natural compassion' - 'That only makes it worse!' The most that would be appropriate to say would be 'That still doesn't excuse it!' Kant seems to be wanting to convict us of a kind of incoherence if we insist on regarding a trait such as being

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naturally and spontaneously compassionate as of any ultimate value, as 'good without qualification'. What he has said so far has not brought out why. To see why he held this attitude we have to consider the distinction he draws between admiration {Bewunderung) and respect {Achtung). We may clearly be moved to admire (or have affection, love or even fear of) a wide variety of different human beings, for a wide variety of different reasons, including some quite trivial ones. We may admire someone's intelligence, fortitude, strength and even their good looks or special talents - and they may feel proud of these traits. We may even, as Kant remarks, admire someone for their social status, including factors such as their aristocratic blood over which they have no control whatsoever. The existence of such admiration is not disputed by Kant, but he sees it as not different in kind from the feelings we may have for certain purely natural phenomena such as the strength, agility or beauty of an animal, or even an inanimate phenomenon such as a lofty mountain. 'All of this however is not respect' (second Critique, p. 185). Despite the ludicrousness of some of these phenomena (admiration for rank), Kant is not wishing to say that these feelings are simply inappropriate but that they are different in kind from the respect that is evoked in us by morally good action. Kant says that in the latter case the respect is really respect for the moral law itself, as exemplified in the action: I am not sure that I fully understand his thought here, but this does not seem quite right. The point is that a crucial element in respect is that I myself feel humbled by the action, and that is not simply being humbled by the difference between me and another human being but by the consciousness this prompts of the disparity between my own behaviour and that demanded by the

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moral law: so that I am not really humbled by them, but really by the moral law itself. However, it still seems important to say here that I do respect the person as well. But, even if I did feel humbled by the prospect of a person with talents far greater than my own, that would be an inappropriate and irrational response. I ought, rather, to say simply that it takes all sorts to make a world. To the extent that the admiration is directed towards what must be regarded as no more than a brute fact about its object, it would be absurd, even if the admiration is in place, to look on what is admired as though it were meritorious. To take an extreme case, we talk of 'venerable age', and it may well be appropriate to show deference to those whose age has given them a wider and deeper experience of life than our own. But it would be a kind of insanity to reproach myself for not being as old as they are. It is only to the extent that I can represent to myself the difference between myself and someone else as other than a brute fact, that 'reproaching myself for the difference would make sense; but that means representing the difference as an achievement, something for which they are responsible, something under their control. Certainly great talents and activity proportionate to them can occasion respect or an analogous feeling, and it is proper to accord it to them; then it seems that admiration is the same as this feeling. But if one looks more closely it is noticed that it is always uncertain how great a part of the ability must be ascribed to innate talent and how much to cultivation through one's own diligence. Presumably reason represents it to us as a fruit of cultivation, and therefore as merit which perceptibly diminishes our self-conceit and

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therefore either reproaches us or else imposes it upon us as an example to be followed in a suitable manner. This respect which we have for a person (really for the law, which his example holds before us) is, therefore, not mere admiration (second Critique, p. 185). Kant draws from this train of thought the startling conclusion that the sum total of what may be called natural philanthropic feelings are without moral value. It is a very beautiful thing to do good to men because of love and a sympathetic good will, or to do justice because of a love of order. But this is not the genuine moral maxim of our conduct . . . (second Critique, p. 189). At this point, Kant develops the second element in his thought which he presents by the striking metaphor that we do not confront morality as 'volunteers'. If I am confronted by, let us say, a great piece of philosophical writing that fills me with admiration, it is inappropriate for me to reproach myself if I lack the natural abilities necessary to emulate the achievement. I may also refuse to reproach myself simply on the grounds that I have chosen not to dedicate myself to philosophy - and I am none the worse for that. If I do reproach myself, it is for failure to achieve a goal that I have chosen to set myself, whereas moral self-reproach is for failure to achieve a goal that my reason presents to me as one that I ought necessarily to aim for. The picture to emerge from this is of morality as a task that is necessarily set to every rational agent, and one where it is appropriate to reproach oneself for failure. To the extent that I am bound to represent a feature of myself, or my behaviour, as a brute fact about myself that is not under my ultimate control, the notions of

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ultimate praise and blame, and of merit lose coherence. Even if a dog-handler does train dogs using in part not only rewards and punishments but also praise and blame, there is a kind of absurdity in taking this praise and blame with acny ultimacy: its force is exhausted by the extent to which it can profitably change the dog's behaviour. But to represent a feature of myself as not simply a brute fact about myself, as under my ultimate control, is to represent myself as free. This seems to me the real core of Kant's insistence that 'Ought' implies 'Can'. If the denial of this principle is said to threaten to expose morality as an illusion, it is not so much because it undermines the possibility of serious reflection on what is the good life, which is the life worth living; what it threatens to undermine is the ultimate significance of the practices of praise and blame. It is these notions which had fundamental importance for Kant's whole ethical outlook and which were put in jeopardy if 'ought' did not imply 'can'. The whole pathos of Kant's position is captured by the following passage: if nature has put little sympathy in the heart of a man and if he, though an honest man, is by temperament cold and indifferent to the sufferings of others perhaps because he is provided with special gifts of patience and fortitude, and expects or even requires that others should have the same - and such a man would certainly not be the meanest product of nature would not he find in himself a source from which to give himself a far higher worth than he could have got by having a good-natured temperament? This is unquestionably true even though nature did not make him philanthropic, for it is just here that the worth of

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the character is brought out, which is morally and incomparably the highest of all: he is beneficent not from inclination but from duty [Foundations, p. 60). Here we have a picture of a man of high moral integrity, even if not a particularly likeable man, and Kant is wishing to commend precisely such a man as this as worthy of the highest possible respect, quite on a par with the respect we, perhaps more automatically and ungrudgingly, give to someone of great personal warmth and compassionate self-giving to others (and, moreover, by whom most of us would prefer to be helped). The thought here is the same as Christ's on 'the widow's mite': Of a truth I say unto you, that this poor widow hath cast more in than they all: For all these have of their abundance cast in unto the offerings of God: but she of her penury hath cast in all the living that she had (Luke 22.3-4). The moral 'ought' demands 'all we have', and no more. But that it does demand, and if it is not vacuous, there must be something that we do have: we must be free.

Ill Periculosa est haec oratio: lex praecepit, quod actus praecepti fiat in gratia dei. Contra card, et Gab. (DST, 57, Weimar Ausgabe, I, p. 227) If 'Ought' implies 'Can' could be taken as at the centre of Kant's whole moral vision, this antithetical thesis could equally be taken as close to the centre of the moral vision

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of Martin Luther. The terseness of the Latin creates difficulties for translation, and, indeed, the two standard translations make Luther say something very different. In The American Edition, Vol. 31, H.J. Grimm translates this: It is dangerous to say that the law teaches that its performance takes place in the grace of God. This in opposition to the Cardinal and Gabriel; whereas in The Library of Christian Classics XVI, James Atkinson renders it: It is dangerous to believe that the existence of a law implies that it can be obeyed, for the law is fulfilled by the grace of God (against Peter d'Ailly and Gabriel Biel). Of these two, undoubtedly the somewhat free rendering by Atkinson is the one that comes close to Luther's meaning. Grimm's, indeed, is close to gobbledegook, and whatever it is meant to mean does not fit the sequence of Luther's thoughts in this Disputation. I would render it, again somewhat freely: It is misleading to say that the Law is prescriptive (action-guiding) [and hence, with Hare, that 'Ought' implies 'Can'], since the action it prescribes only occurs by the grace of God . . . . Despite the fact that the opposition between the two visions is immediate, it is difficult to organize an appropriate confrontation. For, not only is Luther writing exclusively as a theologian and Kant as a philosopher, but that difference is to be taken strictly. Whereas Luther presents his thought to be judged only by its fidelity to the scriptural witness to divine revelation, Kant equally wishes his thought to be judged exclusively at the bar of

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pure reason. What I propose then, in this - which is intended in the first instance as a philosophical essay - is to set Kant's position in relief by asking whether his concentration on the principle 'Ought' implies 'Can' does not by implication carry with it a severe truncation or distortion of much that we also wish to say in ethics; illustrating this, as appropriate, by the elements in Luther's thought that, by doing justice to those elements within a Christian framework, constantly led him to the apparently paradoxical denial of the principle that Kant treats as axiomatic. Although my sympathies here undoubtedly lie in the end with Luther, and I shall make no attempt to disguise them, my purpose is not the absurdly ambitious one of adjudicating the confrontation. It is to see more clearly the precise nature of the two fundamentally opposed visions of the good life, and what is involved in choosing one side or other of the confrontation. A. Kant's picture of Man is like a Pre-Raphaelite morality painting - we always stand like an Arthurian knight at a crossroads, with our inclinations as a houri beckoning seductively down one road while our reason is a grim matriarch sternly pointing along the other. This picture, as we have seen, is not based on any empirical study of Man, but is a product of 'transcendental psychology', a piece of a priori reasoning. Essential to this picture is that (a) even if I were always to be seduced down the wrong path, the other one is always open to me, and that (b) the crossroads is permanently manned: my reason always tells me what I ought to do. Luther's objection to this whole picture is that it failed to take sin radically enough. The complexities of Luther's conception of the Fall, and Man as sinful, are such that I can at most sketch what is at stake in what is already

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a long paper. Kant, indeed, is far from an absurd optimist about human nature and talks of a Radical Evil in Man. However, he writes: It must indeed be presupposed throughout that a seed of goodness still remains in its entire purity, incapable of being extirpated or corrupted; and this seed certainly cannot be self-love which, when taken as the principle of all our maxims, is the very source of evil {Religion Within, p. 41). The crossroads is permanently doubly manned. There is 'Radical Evil' in me, in that there is a perpetual seduction down the wrong path to which I perpetually succumb, but still I remain in a state of permanent internal conflict between reason and inclination. If Luther contests this account, it is not because he has a more 'pessimistic' or 'cynical' assessment of Man than Kant: anyone reading Religion Within the Limits of Reason Alone will be struck by the extent to which, in contrast with the overwhelming majority of his contemporaries, there is a pervasively pessimistic view of the phenomena of the human. Despite the obvious differences, part of the substance of Luther's opposition to 'Scholastic Theology' translates well into the Kantian debate, and the picture that emerges from transcendental psychology. Luther was opposed to any picture of the Fall and Sin in which Man, as fallen Man, was seen in terms of Man having a 'higher' nature (his rationality) and a 'lower' nature (his sensuality), and the Fall was seen to consist in some form of displacement of the higher nature by the lower - with the higher nature remaining intact as 'an image of God in Man'. Sin involved the whole man, his reason and capacity for decision making every bit as much as his animal passions. Man was in rebellion against God, and this involved a disorientation of the whole person so

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that you could not isolate within Man a faculty or part that was and remained exempt from corruption. This is, of course, precisely what Kant does, and indeed insists on a priori grounds must be possible. It is not my concern here to become involved in the theological debate but to ask how credible is the conception of Man on which Kant is insisting here. The point is that to maintain the connection between 'ought' and 'can', Kant is led to assume a power of reason, of decision making, that must remain exempt from all empirical conditioning, intact throughout the emotional vicissitudes of life. In section II of this paper I looked at a possible Kantian defence against the counter-example of someone breaking under torture: the core of the defence was the idea that even if under duress the person snapped, their reason might nonetheless refuse at every point to cooperate with the betrayal. It was always possible, no matter how severe the torture, to refuse to adopt a morally corrupt maxim. It is clear that the defence sketched here would have to apply, mutatis mutandis, to a wide variety of situations in which someone, under emotional or physical stress, does the wrong thing; if we say they ought not to have done what they did, it remained within their control whether they did or did not do it, at least to the extent that they need never decide to adopt the wrong maxim. This at least seems grotesquely implausible; only to be held as a dogma of transcendental psychology in splendid isolation from Man as we actually encounter him. Let us consider Othello here. If anything is clear, it is that a series of moral judgements is in order. He ought not to have killed Desdemona; he ought not to have judged and sentenced her without confronting her with his suspicion and allowing her to speak in her own defence. What is

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more, these judgements stand with full moral rigour. One will only hesitate over saying this if one insists on hearing it as saying the same as 'he was fully to be blamed for what he did'. But 'being wrought, perplexed in the extreme', however adequate or inadequate to the situation the remainder of what Othello says at the end of the play may be, this can clearly be allowed to stand. He has been subjected to a complex emotional manipulation directed at his most basic insecurities and vulnerabilities, and thereby plunged into a horrible confusion of thought and feeling. To suppose here that Othello retained throughout the process an ability for clear thought about what was right and wrong, and that the decisions he made were deliberate flouting of what his reason was telling him he should do, is clearly absurd. Confronted by an extreme case like this, Kant is surely forced into giving a perverse description of what occurs. In fact, when we look at the actual complexity of the situations within which people make moral decisions, Kant's account seems only preserved from instant falsification by being transposed to a noumenal realm. In the first Critique, he writes: The action to which the 'ought' applies must indeed be possible under natural conditions. These conditions, however, do not play any part in determining the will itself, but only in determining the effect and its consequences in the field of appearance. No matter how many natural grounds or how many sensuous impulses impel me to will, they can never give rise to an 'ought', but only to a willing which, while being very far from necessary, is always conditioned; and the 'ought' pronounced by reason confronts such willing with a limit and an end - nay more, forbids it or authorizes

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it. Whether what is willed be an object of mere sensibility (the pleasant) or of pure reason (the good), reason will not give way to any ground which is empirically given (first Critique, A 548). Kant is saying here that, in human action, there may indeed be a number of constraints, both physical and psychological, which influence my capacity for doing what I set out to do, and also a number of emotional factors that influence the choice I make, but that there is one thing which must remain immune to all external influence, namely my reason, that will continue to confront my action with an account of what it ought to be. It is difficult to make sense of this, save on the assumption that Kant is guilty of a confusion here: a confusion which perhaps stands out more clearly if we transpose his remarks to the sphere of theoretical reason. If I follow a valid piece of reasoning, then this will provide an objective check on by belief, so that whatever I may feel, for whatever reason, 'inclined to believe' must give way to what here confronts me as what must be the case. But to infer from this that my reasoning processes are not subject to empirical conditioning, that I may not simply fail to follow the proof because I am tired, or that I may not become confused, or that my judgement of the strength of the argument I am considering may not be warped by prejudice, self-deception or other emotional factors, would be absurd. There is a sort of equivocation here involved in the phrase 'the "ought" pronounced by reason'. If Othello is persuaded that he ought to kill Desdemona, we might well say that it is not his reason which thus persuades him. We would then mean no more than that this is an irrational conviction. But we are certainly not

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entitled to say that no process of reasoning has led him to this conviction: it is just a bad one, which has been distorted and corrupted by his emotional confusion. Is the 'ought' of 'I ought to kill Desdemona' 'pronounced by reason' or not? Not by 'pure reason', but by Othello's process of reasoning. When Luther inveighs against reason as 'the Devil's whore', he is not indulging in irrationalism, or the kind of enthusiastic celebration of feeling at the expense of reason before which Kant had such evident horror and of which he was justly suspicious. If by 'reason' you mean embodied reason, the actual thinking processes of people in concrete situations, these are every bit as subject to distortion and corruption as any other aspect of the mental life, and someone can be every bit as much persuaded by 'their reason' in this sense to embark on a wicked project as they can be seduced by their animal passions into doing what they know to be wrong. What both Luther and Kant saw clearly was that to talk in this way had profound repercussions for the principle 'Ought' implies 'Can'. If our reason can persuade us to do great evil, so that it is with 'righteous indignation' that we do it, we are far more radically enmeshed in evil than Kant could ever permit. When Othello kills Desdemona, with pathetic sincerity he is portraying himself to himself as wielding 'the sword of justice'. If he had simply been tempted to do something which he could see all along was wrong, then the Kantian picture, that he could nevertheless have turned aside from his evil project, has purchase. But if what it is right for him to do has here become inaccessible to his mind, then it becomes almost meaningless to insist that, since he ought not to have killed Desdemona, it must have been possible for him not to have done so. For Luther, the Crucifixion would clearly have central

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significance: '. . . the wisdom of God . . . which none of the princes of this world knew; for had they known it, they would not have crucified the Lord of glory' (1 Corinthians 2.8). If, on any understanding, the Crucifixion was an act of great human wickedness, the men who conspired to bring it about would nonetheless have included those who were not just firmly persuaded that they were doing what was morally permissible, but, indeed, were acting out of moral indignation, conceiving themselves to be doing their religious duty. Now, if that is how it can be with Man, then Man is clearly not in a situation from which he can extricate himself by his own efforts, by 'doing what in him lies', but only by the intervention of divine grace. B. Closely connected with the train of thought we have just developed is the question of our knowledge of what we ought and ought not to do. Kant makes the astonishing claim that we always know what we ought to do. This is not just a naive assumption about the powers of human reason, but is presented as a consequence of the claim that 'Ought' implies 'Can'-. But the moral law commands the most unhesitating obedience from everyone; consequently the decision as to what is to be done in accordance with it must not be so difficult that even the commonest and most unpractised understanding without any worldly prudence should go wrong in making it (second Critique, p. 148). This must be wrong. It is perfectly clear that if there are objective answers to questions of right and wrong, these answers are not automatically available to all people, at all times and at all places. This follows quite simply from the fact that there are considerable divergences in the moral practices and beliefs of people.

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To take an extremely simple case: in many societies, the practice of buying, selling and owning slaves was regarded as morally unproblematic. We would now say, and Kant would unhesitatingly agree, that they had simply missed something of fundamental moral significance. But what are we to say of the slave-owners in such societies? There is no reason to suppose that these would not include some who regarded themselves as decent morally upright people. We certainly do not wish to say anything other than that they ought not to have owned slaves, but, is there any force here to saying that they could have done the morally right thing? It is only if we are in the grip of a dogma that we insist here 'They must have known they were doing wrong. They must have been insincere if they claimed to see nothing wrong with what they were doing.' There are clearly extensive areas of moral disagreement in which, however much the protagonists may insist on seeing their opponents as insincere, there is no reason whatever to dispute the sincerity of the two opposed parties. Thus, Kant is perfectly clear in the Metaphysic of Morals that I cannot have duties to irrational animals, even if I can have duties in respect of them (that is to say, an apparent duty to an animal must always be regarded as an indirect duty to myself). Any duty I have to another always stems from their rationality. Many today would vehemently dispute this, seeing the fact that the animals are sentient as generating a duty towards them that is the same in kind as the duty I have towards human beings. This is not a merely verbal disagreement; there are many situations in which the two views would lead to very different accounts of what was morally permissible or obligatory. Consider, for instance, the following:

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Vivisectionists, who use living animals for their experiments, certainly act cruelly, although their aim is praiseworthy, and they can justify their cruelty, since animals must be regarded as man's instruments {Lectures on Ethics, p. 240). There is no reason whatever to doubt the sincerity of either party in such a disagreement. But if, say, Kant were wrong here, does it have any purchase whatever to say he could do the right thing, when he is firmly persuaded it is no such thing? It is also clear that a disagreement such as this is a radical disagreement: that is it will not be resolved by one side pointing out to the other some minor oversight, or clear inconsistency in their position. In the case of slavery, we might think that it would be possible to convict the slave-owners of an ethical inconsistency - that what they would say on other ethical issues would conflict with what they had to say about the practice of keeping slaves. But, in the case before us, if either side were to adopt the ethical perspective of the other, it would seem to involve a conversion, a change of fundamental moral beliefs, since both sides in the debate have prima facie internally consistent and yet incompatible positions. This may serve to introduce the second major disagreement between Kant and Luther. In The Dispute of the Faculties, Kant takes issue with Spener and Zinzendorf over conversion (op. cit., p. 95ff) and seems to have a surprisingly easy victory. What obviously fills him with horror in their accounts is what he sees as a kind of irrationalism, of 'a mysticism which kills reason' (ibid., p. 107). There is for him only one tolerable answer to the question: 'How is it possible for someone to be awakened again to a new life? The moral predisposition in

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us'. The aim of his discussion is to reject the 'supernatural' accounts given by Spener, Franck and Zinzendorf. We do not wonder at the fact that we are beings subject to moral laws and destined by our reason to obey them, even if this means sacrificing whatever pleasures may conflict with them. , . . But we do wonder at our ability so to sacrifice our sensuous nature to morality that we can do what we quite readily and clearly conceive we ought to do. This ascendancy of the supersensible man in us over the sensible, such that (when it comes to a conflict between them) the sensible is nothing, though in its eyes it is everything, is an object of the greatest wonder; and our wonder at this moral predisposition in us, inseparable from our humanity, only increases the longer we contemplate this true (not fabricated) ideal. Since the supersensible in us is inconceivable and yet practical, we can well excuse those who are led to call it supernatural - that is, to regard it as the influence of another and higher spirit, something not within our power and not belonging to us as our own {The Dispute, p. 106f). That is to say, the only legitimate answer for Kant to the religious question of conversion is the idea that I have put in the form 'It is the 'Ought' that enables1: Even the Bible seems to have nothing else in view: it seems to refer, not to supernatural experiences and fantastic feelings which should take reason's place in bringing about this revolution, but to the spirit of Christ, which he manifested in teaching and examples so that we might make it our own - or rather, since it is already present in us by our moral predisposition,

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so that we might simply make room for it (ibid., p. 107). What are we to say to this? The main point to stress, which is indeed stressed by Kant, is that both sides in the dispute - both Kant's opponents with their supernatural agency in conversion, and Kant with his insistence that our own reason is the only legitimate agent in any morally tolerable process of renewal - agree on one central point: we know what the good life is: This radical change [according to the pietists], therefore begins with a miracle and ends with what we would ordinarily consider natural, since reason prescribes it: namely morally good conduct (ibid., p. 99). and According to the Moravian view, as man becomes aware of his sinful state he takes the first step toward his improvement quite naturally, by his reason; for as his reason holds before him, in the moral law, the mirror in which he sees his guilt, it leads him, using his moral disposition to the good, to decide that from now on he will make the law his maxim. But his carrying out of this resolution is a miracle (ibid., p. 100). Once the matter is conceived in either of these ways the whole process of conversion is necessarily seen in non-cognitive terms: we learn nothing new. Instead, the only problem that could remain would be one of weakness of will, a will which already knows what it ought to do. In this context, Kant recoils from the prospect of a purely emotional manipulation of the will, leaving room, at most, for the example of Christ to encourage our reason to do what it already knows it

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ought. Although not strictly relevant to my purposes, there clearly also runs through these pages in The Dispute, 2L considerable scepticism about the actual moral efficacy of such emotional experiences (cf. the delightful footnote on p. 103, where he scarcely disguises his hostility towards 'the sects' whose teaching he is here attacking). What we find here is part of Kant's general attack on the possibility of a revealed theology, which if correct would be far more subversive of traditional Christianity than his more famous refutation of natural theology in the first Critique. The core of the critique of the possibility of revealed theology is to be found in the famous sentence from The Foundations of the Metaphysic of Morals: Even the Holy One of the Gospel must be compared with our ideal of moral perfection before He is recognized as such; even He says of Himself, 'Why do you call Me (Whom you see) good? None is good (the archetype of the good) except God only (Whom you do not see)'. But whence do we have the concept of God as the highest good? Solely from the idea of moral perfection which reason formulates a priori and which it inseparably connects with the concept of a free will. Imitation has no place in moral matters, and examples serve only for encouragement (p. 68). That is to say, let us suppose that we are confronted by an alleged revelation of God. If we are not to sacrifice our moral integrity and rationality, we must test the claim by seeing how far it accords with what our reason tells us is good. If it does not accord, we must reject the alleged revelation as spurious, but if it does accord, then we learn nothing that we could not have already known on the basis of our reason alone. The argument here is,

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of course, not peculiar to divine revelation but to anyone confronting us with a 'new' moral view. What is said here is just as applicable to protagonists of 'animal rights' as to 'the Holy One of the Gospels'. Within the sphere of morals, we are and ought to be locked within the confines of our own reason. The suppositions that arise here are: Suppose we do not know what is right. Suppose we have warped or corrupted views of the good life. These suppositions are ones which, as we have seen, Kant simply rules out of court, but they are the questions with which Luther begins. Through sin comes ignorance of the law {Against Latomus, p. 195); and

35. It is not true that an invincible ignorance excuses one completely (all scholastics notwithstanding). 36. For ignorance of God and oneself and good works is by nature always invincible {DST, p. 11); and

Notice how simple the words are: 'Through the law comes knowledge of sin': yet they alone are powerful enough to confound and overthrow free choice. For if it is true that when left to its own devices it does not know what sin and evil are - as Paul says both here and in Romans 7: 'I should not have known that covetousness is sin if the law had not said "You shall not covet"' - how can it ever know what righteousness and goodness are? And if it does not know what righteousness is, how can it strive toward it? If we are unaware of the sin in which we were born, in which we live, move and have our being, or rather, which

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lives, moves and reigns in us, how should we be aware of the righteousness that reigns outside of us in heaven? These statements make complete and utter nonsense of that wretched thing, free choice {Bondage, p. 306f). Now the questions raised above have to be posed in more radical terms than they were in the Kant-Spener debate: conversion cannot be construed purely noncognitively: 'Except a man be born again, he cannot see the kingdom of God' (John 3.3). One obvious fact about the Bible which Kant signally omitted in his account of what it has to say in the debate with Spener, is the extent to which it confronts us with natural man as 'blinded'. Such an idea will necessarily be ruled out of court by him, if nothing else because it instantly puts in jeopardy the idea that 'Ought' implies 'Can'. If the idea is once allowed that fallen men might not know what the good life was, that their reason might have become incompetent, that their '. . . foolish heart was darkened. Professing to be wise, they became fools . . .' (Romans 1.21f), the possibility of a radical incapacity to do good emerges. Now we have to reckon with the possibility that we cannot do the right thing, simply because whether through our own fault or not, we no longer know what it is. Now our reason can no longer pull itself up by its own bootstraps. Luther is as aware as Kant of the paradoxical situation that emerges at this point. Confronted by a putative divine revelation all we can and ought to do is, of course, to judge it by our own moral standards: to allow our judgement to be submerged here would be to open the floodgates to the most vicious fanaticism. But if our own moral standards are themselves far from infallible, are indeed corrupt - so that there is the possibility of a gulf

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between the dictates of our reason and the truth - then, prima facie, such subjection of the alleged revelation to our own reason would seem to imply that we were for ever irredeemably locked in error. What we have now to reckon with is the possibility that in the process of judging Christ (necessarily by our own standards), we find that we ourselves, and those standards themselves, are judged: that we find 'our wisdom' convicted of folly by a higher wisdom. However difficult it may be to work this out, it is clear that we are not reckoning with a possibility that we can ourselves engineer. If it occurs at all, it can only be by divine initiative, subject to the rule 'The wind bloweth where it listeth, and thou nearest the sound thereof, and canst not tell where it comes from or whither it goeth: so is everyone that is born of the Spirit' (John 3.8). Here we find a radical limit to the principle 'Ought' implies 'Can'. If we have to reckon with the possibility of an ignorance of the good life on the part of natural man, then for Luther the possibility of leading the good life only comes about, if at all, as a result of a revelation that Man could not himself bring about but which occurred only by the grace of God. Obviously, this paper is not the context to argue through the question of the conceivability of revelation seen in these terms. But what clearly emerges from the confrontation between Kant and Luther is that even leaving the issue of the possibility of divine revelation on one side, Kant's picture cannot be sustained without the, to me, incredible assumption that we are infallible in moral matters, that we always know what is the right thing to be done. Without such an assumption, we must always reckon with the possibility that I am simply unable to do what is right because I have radical misconceptions of what my duty is. But if anything is a moral of a study

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of the history of mankind, it must surely be that men have done some of their most evil deeds under the firm conviction that they were doing their duty. C. But I have not yet touched on what I believe to be the real core of the disagreement between Luther and Kant, which issues in their equally passionate, but violently opposed, attitude to the principle 'Ought' implies 'Can'. This concerns the central question, 'What is a possible subject of a moral command?' Luther's theology undoubtedly takes its roots in his own experience as a young monk, filled with a zealous concern to dedicate his life to the service of God and who, by all accounts, was punctilious in the observation of the monastic rule. But what confronted him in his most scrupulous endeavours to observe the law as the Law of God, was that the Law seemed to command the impossible. That is to say, that if it were a matter of the observation of the rules of a monastic order, he could observe them to the letter, but the Christian commandments talked in quite other terms. Above all, at their centre there was a twofold command to love. Here, prima facie, was a straightforward impossibility. How can there be a command to love} The terms in which the Bible talked about the good life involves at every turn notions which are by no stretch of the imagination under our control. When he expressed his worries, he was given the popular Aristotelian psychology of the day: that a virtue was a sort of skill, and you acquired a virtue by practising it. Just as you become a good chess player by playing chess, so you become a compassionate man by performing acts of compassion. All his experience convinced him that this was simply bad psychology, that, indeed, all the religious acts of service to God, far from leading towards

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loving God, led him to hate God - precisely for setting him such a fantastical task. His wrestling with the problem that emerged here, and his ultimate resolution of it, was to form the basis of all Reformation theology. I must try here to pick out the salient points which lead into direct conflict with Kant, and, above all for our purposes, two points are crucial: (1) Luther never compromised with the idea that the Law included at its very centre much that simply could not be construed as lying within the power of man to do at will: it included much that, in Kantian terms, 'could not be commanded'. (2) As a result, if there were such a thing as a man being acceptable to God, it could not be as a result of his having merited such acceptance by obedience to the Law. And, equally, if there were actual acts of obedience to God, this could only be by the grace of God, and not the product of Man's efforts. I shall return to this in the final section of this paper. As is well known, Luther and Kant take diametrically opposed positions on (1): Luther: There is also 1 Corinthians 13.2: 'If I have not love, I am nothing.' . . . For it is strictly true that a man is nothing in the sight of God if he is without love. And that is precisely what we teach about free choice {Bondage, p. 286). Kant:

The possibility of such a command as, 'Love God above all and thy neighbour as thyself agrees very well with this. For as a command, it requires respect for a law which orders love and does not leave it to arbitrary choice to make love the principle. But love to God as an inclination

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(pathological love) is indeed impossible, for He is not an object of the senses. The latter is indeed possible toward men, but it cannot be commanded, for it is not possible for man to love someone merely on command. It is therefore practical love which can be understood in that kernel of all laws. To love God means in this sense to like to do His commandments, and to love one's neighbour means to like to practise all duties toward him. The command which makes this a rule cannot require that we have this disposition, but only that we endeavour after it (second Critique, p. 190). Now, leaving aside the oddity of Kant's actual formulation of what practical love is here (I simply do not know what is meant to be involved in 'endeavouring to like to practise all duties toward' someone), the spirit of his proposal here is clear - in so far as there is a command to love, it must be interpreted in such a way that what is thereby commanded is something I can simply decide to do. The question is, is this reupholstered love, love at all? Part of the trouble is that Kant not only gives an odd account of practical love, but his remarks seem to betray a faulty conception of the 'pathological' love with which it is contrasted. He seems to confound it with the different notion of 'liking someone'. Let us consider here an indisputable case of an act of love: And he said unto them, Come ye yourselves apart into a desert place, and rest a while: for there were many coming and going, and they had no leisure so much as to eat. And they departed into a desert place by ship privately. And the people saw them departing, and many knew him, and ran afoot thither out of all cities, and outwent them, and came together unto

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him. And Jesus, when he came out, saw much people, and was moved with compassion toward them, because they were as sheep not having a shepherd: and he began to teach them many things (Mark 6.31ff). It is clear that we have here a description of a simple act of goodness, a manifestation of love. It is equally clear that this description contains much that would necessarily lie outside the scope of Kantian 'practical love'. The situation here is clear. Jesus has through his ministry to the people reached the point where he needs rest and to be alone; but they are insatiable and refuse to allow him to have that time alone, (i) On any understanding, he would clearly have been justified simply to try to avoid them: whatever he does here is 'beyond the call of duty'. Christ is a 'volunteer', (ii) What is shown here clearly involves the emotions: it is essential to the account that 'he is moved with compassion', (iii) What we have is an act of pure spontaneity, clearly not part of a pre-planned policy of action: indeed, he has gone into the desert precisely to be away from the people, (iv) The act of love is an act directed towards this specific group of people, not the carrying out of some universal maxim of action: he acts 'because they are as sheep not having a shepherd'. It is clear that it is precisely features such as those four which lead us to think of this as a simple act of goodness. The question is: How far can Kant accommodate this into his account of the good life? To answer that we must clearly take into account not merely the earlier formulations of the Foundations and the second Critique, but also the far more nuanced, if somewhat convoluted, discussion of love which we find in the Metaphysic of Morals. Here, at least, we have a more

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sensible version of what he means by 'practical love' than the frankly silly account in the second Critique: 'The duty of love for one's neighbour can also be expressed as the duty of making others' ends my own (in so far as these ends are only not immoral)' (M., p. 117). In that later discussion, Kant is far from wishing to deny the value of what he calls there 'sympathetic feelings', culminating in saying: Hence we have an indirect duty to cultivate the sympathetic natural (aesthetic) feelings in us and to use them as so many means to participating from moral principles and from the feeling appropriate to those principles. . . . For this is one of the impulses which nature has implanted in us so that we may do what the thought of duty alone would not accomplish (M., p. 126). There are two questions here: Is what Kant says consistent with his basic ethical position? And, secondly: Is what Kant says adequate in itself? He is clearly wanting to acknowledge a value to love, to gratitude, to generosity, to compassion, even in so far as these notions go beyond the notions of 'performing acts of generosity' and the like: 'there is a value in the generous disposition as such. The basic ethical position confronting us at every point in the earlier writings was that the morally good act was not only the act in which I did the right thing, but the act in which I did the right thing 'because it was my duty'. The thought of duty was seen there as the only morally acceptable motive, the only motive that conferred moral value on the act: To be kind where one can is a duty, and there are, jnoreover, many persons so sympathetically constituted

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that without any motive of vanity or selfishness they find an inner satisfaction in spreading joy and rejoice in the contentment of others which they have made possible. But, I say that, however dutiful and amiable it may be that kind of action has no true moral worth {Foundations, p. 59). Here he is vehemently maintaining a position which is at least on the surface in considerable tension with the later discussion. However, a detailed reading of the later passages may, for the most part, be reconciled with the earlier one: most of the time he may be read as saying in the later passages that the feelings are themselves of no true moral worth. It is the cultivation of those feelings as an aid to doing our duty that is morally commendable. However, he culminates the discussion in The Metaphysic of Morals: Would it not be better for the welfare of the world in general if human morality were limited to juridical duties and these were fulfilled with the ultimate conscientiousness, while benevolence were considered morally indifferent? It is not so easy to see what effect this would have on man's happiness. But at least a great moral ornament, love of man, would then be missing from the world. Accordingly benevolence is required for its own sake, in order to present the world in its full perfection as a beautiful moral whole, even if we do not take into account what advantage it brings (in the way of happiness) (M., p. 126f). 'Moral ornament'? 'A beautiful moral whole'? Here he finally uses the word 'moral' in a way that is not only wholly unprepared by the earlier discussion but, if taken seriously, would threaten to explode its most fundamental presuppositions and introduce a use of the word

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'moral' that was no longer governed by the principle 'Ought implies 'Can'. Perhaps the best way to confront Luther and Kant at this point is to compare the famous passage about Love in 1 Corinthians 13, with the opening paragraphs of the Foundations. Here Paul and Kant are in different ways concerned to single out one element in human life and subordinate in importance every other aspect of human life to it. But Paul, throughout the passage, is clearly describing love in such terms that it does not lie in Man's power whether he loves or not, and yet seeing the performing of those acts which are within one's power as worthless without love ('And though I give all my goods to feed the poor, and though I give my body to be burned, and have not charity, it profiteth me nothing'). Kant, by contrast, is explicitly limiting his celebration to 'the good will' in a way in which that notion is deliberately restricted to what is within Man's power: and it is thus restricted precisely because 'Ought' implies 'Can'. Luther, confronted by such passages as 1 Corinthians 13, refused to compromise in his interpretation of them. Here we are confronted by a picture of the good life, the life acceptable to God, and demanded of Man by God. If that is so, then any adequate basis for Christian ethics would have to begin precisely by repudiating 'Ought' implies 'Can', refusing to restrict his account of what the good life was if it was restricted to the idea of 'doing what in one lies'. But then a fundamental contrast emerges between 'doing the works of the Law' and 'fulfilling the Law' (see, for example, Bondage, p. 302f). One could, and should, 'do all the works of the Law': become a model citizen, obey the categorical imperative . . . and yet even when one had done all that one would not have 'fulfilled

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the Law'. To fulfil the Law one would have not merely to perform acts of generosity but be generous. A text to which Luther recurs is Matthew 7.16ff: Do men gather grapes of thorns, or figs of thistles? Even so every good tree bringeth forth good fruit; but a corrupt tree bringeth forth evil fruit. A good tree cannot bring forth evil fruit, neither can a corrupt tree bring forth good fruit. The problem was not just to do good but to be good: So a man must first be good or wicked before he does a good or wicked work, and his works do not make him good or wicked, but he himself makes his works either good or wicked [Freedom of a Christian, p. 361). and: Why therefore do we yield to an invincible evil lust? Do what is in you and do not lust. But you cannot do that. Therefore you also do not by nature fulfil the law. But if you do not fulfil it, much less will you fulfil the law of love. Likewise, do what is within you and do not become angry with him who offends you. Do what is in you and do not fear danger [Heidelberg Disputation, p. 69). It is clear by now that the difference between Luther and Kant runs deep, but its roots seem to lie in a basic difference of approach. Luther starts by considering two things - the nature of the good life, the life for which God created Man, which made Man acceptable to God, and the nature of sin. Only then, working out from that point, he argues in a number of ways that the nature of sin was such that man had rendered himself incapable of fulfilling the Law, and

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hence that it could only be by divine grace liberating Man that such a thing as obeying the Law of God could ever occur. Kant, by contrast, always proceeds the other way round: starting by considering what Man can do, he allows that to define the scope of what could count as a legitimate account of the good life. It is because 'Ought' implies 'Can' that 'nothing is good without qualification, save only a good will'. The question is: if we adhere rigidly to Kant's programme, will we not be led, from the very outset, to give a truncated account of the good life? Is there not a great deal that we consider to be of fundamental value in human life, which, if duty is construed in Kant's terms as governed by 'Ought' implies 'Can', simply has to be regarded as lying beyond the scope of duty? We have a simple intuitive contrast between a good man and a moral man, and to my ear at least there is no contradiction in saying 'He's a highly moral man, but scarcely a good man'. Of course, being a moral man matters, but someone may do all that in him lies, and yet not be a good man. But to say this is to attach a great deal of fundamental significance to the good life that simply cannot be regarded as a human achievement.

IV Let us try to draw together the somewhat disparate threads of this paper. When I examined the principle 'Ought' implies 'Can\ I began with an argument from Erasmus and ended with an argument from Kant which I believe to be Kant's real argument for the principle - in any case it seems the only one of the arguments to be found in Kant which does not seem badly flawed when you try to think it through. The others seem at best

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suggestive, and at worst muddled. I described the argument in Erasmus as a distant ancestor of Kant's, and now we have looked at Luther's antithetical position. I wish briefly to comment on what I had in mind. Erasmus' argument rested on the notion of a God who commanded, and who rewarded or punished Man for obedience or disobedience. He then wanted us to contemplate the morally outrageous picture that emerged if the commands were impossible for Man to fulfil: as though life became an insane obstacle race in which the obstacles were deliberately set to trap every competitor. When Luther replies to Erasmus, one feels that despite the fact that both men are arguing well and making good points, the debate really gets nowhere; that in the end they are simply talking past one another. The reason for this is that Luther and Erasmus brought such different presuppositions to the debate, that they simply were unable to hear what each other was saying, and that Luther had in particular questioned a whole range of assumptions which were for Erasmus simply axiomatic to his whole way of thinking. What Luther was breaking completely with was thinking in terms of merit. It is not by chance that the first really public act of the Reformation was his attack on the system of indulgences, which is the sick outworking of a theology conceived in terms of merit. What makes the Erasmus argument seem at first so attractive is that it is presented as though the purpose of God, in issuing his commands, is to set Man a task and reward or punish Man for his success and failure in that task; so that the whole history of the Universe was a history of crime and punishment. If crime then was inevitable, the history became a black comedy. The task had at least to be a possible one, and, however difficult it may be, Man could merit the reward. But this picture is certainly not the only possible one

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of God and his relation to Man. There is, indeed, something already perverse in viewing life as no more than this kind of obstacle race - whether or not the race is a possible one. One may, for instance, think instead of God's commandments as simply the Law of life: that living according to the Law of love will be the life for which God has created Man, and according to which man will find life and fulfilment. If Man through his own perversity rejects that life, turns his heart in upon itself, he may radically cut himself off from the possibility of the good life so that, thereafter, if freedom, love and even happiness are to be available to him it will only be by an act of divine grace, which is based entirely on a divine, initiative. This is a crude sketch of Luther's picture. But seen in this way, Erasmus' argument has no purchase at all. It is only when we think of the whole purpose of the Law of God to be a complex system of tasks set to us purely for us to be rewarded or punished that it can appear so strong. Now of course, as I stressed, this is not the context of Kant's thought: he is not thinking of God as the author of the moral law, but of the law as dictated by reason alone. But the notions which are implicit in Erasmus' argument are the notions of reward and punishment, and consequently merit. Kant is taking the notions of that which is praiseworthy and that which is blameworthy as the crucial notions in approaching the fundamental questions of ethics. These are, as it were, the secular analogues of the notions with which Erasmus is working, Now, of course, notions of moral praise and blame, of guilt and worthiness, are important moral notions, but they are not the only fundamental moral concepts. It is, I believe, only because Kant insists in giving to these notions absolutely decisive weight from the very outset of his enquiry that he is led to claim that the only thing that

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is good without qualification is a good will; a simple act of true compassion is worth every bit as much, even if not everyone can at will be compassionate. It is only because we at some level all agree with Kant in assigning the fundamental role that he does to the notions of the praiseworthy and the blameworthy, that we find his insistence that 'Ought' implies 'Can' so plausible. An alternative approach to ethics would be to begin by enquiring into the question: 'What is the life which is truly valuable, which is truly worth living?' Only then to raise the question: 'How, if at all, can we attain that life?' We shall then, I suspect, be led to see a large number of the questions of ethics in very different terms from Kant. Questions of praise, blame and guilt will still have their place, but only to be raised after other questions have been raised: and there are whole areas of ethical enquiry in which these questions can become almost irrelevant. Shakespeare, in a play like Othello is engaged in a profound ethical exploration of Othello and his relationships, but it is an enquiry in which the question whether we blame Othello or not is of hardly any interest whatever, even if it remains an exploration of the question: 'How has Othello got human life and human relationships wrong?' The fact that he may not have been able to help doing so, does not in any way mean that he has not gone radically astray. But to begin to explore that question as an ethical question, we have to do what Luther did and dethrone the concept of merit from the centre of our moral thinking.

Bibliography The following translations of Kant and Luther have been used in this paper. Page references are to the editions cited, and abbreviations are as given.

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Kant Critique of Pure Reason, trans N. Kemp Smith (London, 1929) [first Critique]. Critique of Practical Reason, and other ethical writings, trans L.W. Beck (Chicago, 1949) [second Critique and Foundations]. Metaphysic of Morals, part II, trans M.J. Gregor (New York, 1964) [M.]. Lectures on Ethics, trans L. Infield (New York, 1963). The Dispute of the Faculties, trans M.J. Gregor (New York, 1979) [The Dispute]. Religion Within the Limits of Reason Alone, trans T.M. Greene and H.H. Hudson (New York, 1960) {Religion Within].

Luther and Erasmus For Luther, I have generally cited from The American Edition of Luther's Works, Vols 31-3 (Philadelphia, 1957), referring as appropriate to The Library of Christian Classics, Vol. XVI (London, 1962): Disputation against Scholastic Theology [DST]. For the Luther-Erasmus debate, I have used The Library of Christian Classics, Vol. XVII (London, 1969): Erasmus [Diatribe], Luther [Bondage].

CONFUSED PERCEPTIONS, DARKENED CONCEPTS: SOME FEATURES OF KANT'S LEIBNIZ-CRITIQUE Catherine Wilson

This paper describes a route to Kant's rejection of the metaphysics of the monadology, one which proceeds not by way of the antinomies and the associated claims about the limits of knowledge, but by way of Kant's often repeated claim that Leibniz treated perception and cognition as higher and lower degrees of a single faculty, perception being a mode of confused cognition. Although this criticism, which appears in the Amphiboly section of the first Critique and in many other locations, has certainly received its share of attention, there is a well-founded uneasiness about it. While a few scholars just state their all around endorsement, as though there were obviously a mistake here and it was good of Kant to have seen it, Leibniz scholars have long recognized that it is very difficult to pin this single faculty theory on to the historical Leibniz. This seems to reduce the value of Kant's criticism, for if there is no evidence that it ever related to any real position, its historical significance cannot be very great. Here I would like to try to show that Kant's accusation really is at the centre of his Leibniz-critique. It does, in 73

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fact, touch its intended object with one arm, as it were, while reaching with the other into the interior of Kant's own scheme of things. On this interpretation, Kant's reassessment begins with a point of what he calls 'logic' - what we would call a point of epistemology - and becomes a point of metaphysics; the attack on Leibniz's epistemological notion of a confused intellectual apprehension becomes an attack on the system of monads. We have here a definite shift of levels: for what begins as an internal, theoretical criticism ends as a metatheoretical criticism of the ability of any philosophical subject to apprehend sensibly the noumenal world. If a subject cannot apprehend the noumenal world cognitively either - there being no such thing as a 'cognitive apprehension' - the end result is that the philosophical subject Leibniz is effectively cut off from his doctrines; he has no right to them. By way of discussing the relation between Kant's internal and external criticisms, I will try to provide a more accurate account of Leibniz's own view; and to show to what extent the Leibnizian doctrine was mediated for Kant by the Leibnizians. I begin, however, with the problem of extracting the confusion doctrine from Leibniz himself.

I 'Leibniz intellectualised appearances', Kant says, just as Locke . . . sensualised all concepts of the understanding. . . . Instead of seeking in understanding and sensibility two sources of representations, which, while quite different, can supply objectively valid judgements of things only in conjunction with each other, each of these two great men holds to one

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only, viewing it as in an immediate relation to things in themselves. The other faculty is then regarded as serving only to confuse or order the representations which this selected faculty yields.1 This criticism is often taken as bearing wholly on the problem of space, and as reaching out only through the problem of the identity of indiscernibles to more general features of Leibniz's metaphysics. This interpretation is supported by the close proximity of the famous passage talking about comparing and distinguishing objects: Leibniz, Kant says, 'compared all things with each other by means of concepts alone, and naturally found no differences save those only through which the understanding distinguishes its pure concepts from one another'.2 So he is supposed to have arrived as a result at the view that spatial relations and orientations are intellectually known properties of things-in-themselves, confusedly perceived, for 'appearance was, on his view, the representation of the thing in itself. Now, although it is right to see in these passages echoes of the NewtonLeibniz controversy and to read Kant as endorsing a nonrelational theory of space, this does not settle the question of the justice or appropriateness of Kant's accusation; in fact, it is a somewhat strange accusation, for Leibniz assuredly did not hold, could not have held, that righthandedness and left-handedness were properties of 1 Critique of Pure Reason, A 271/B 327, trans N. Kemp Smith (St Martin's: New York, 1965). 2 Ibid., A 270/B 326. This criticism was already in finished form in the 'pre-critical' essay 'On the Form and Principles of the Sensible and Intelligible World' (1770), 'The sensitive should not be described as what is more confusedly cognized and the intellectual as that of which there is a distinct cognition. For these things are only logical distinctions, which do not touch at all the things given', trans and edited by G.B. Kerferd and D.E. Walford, in Selected pre-Critical Writings (Manchester University Press: Manchester, 1968), p. 58.

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simple substances. (Moreover, Kant seems to have known that Leibniz did not hold this view while he was composing the B version if not the A version of the Critique.)3 What kind of general view of perception as confused cognition is it right, then, to pin on to him? From what basis was Kant actually working? These are the first questions we have to investigate, and by appeal only to works of Leibniz which formed the basis of commentary in the eighteenth century.

1

The 'Authentic' Version of the Confusion Doctrine

Leaving aside, for a moment, the question of whether perception and cognition are two faculties or one, let us note that the claim that normal perceptions are, or may be, thoroughly or somewhat confused enters into Leibniz's philosophy in three different ways. First, it is an internal feature of Leibniz's logic, where it is one of a cluster of terms that qualitatively differentiate 'ideas' or items of 'knowledge'. Second, it occurs as an internal term in Leibniz's descriptive psychology: lower monads or bare monads, resembling people in a swoon or a deep sleep, are said to have more confused perceptions than higher monads. Finally, and here we really do shift levels, confusion is said in some texts to characterize our human perception of sensible things in general; they are really, as intellectual analysis reveals, aggregates of monads, which we perceive confusedly as matter. I will take up each of these broader notions and consider Kant's reaction to it in turn.

1

See p. 100, n. 47.

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(a) 'Confused cognition' and the mind-body link Leibniz seemed to be motivated by three main sets of problems in his elaboration of the logical-epistemological theory of confused perceptions. The first was the problem posed by the Cartesian account of sensory experience. It is supposed a desideratum in theories of perception that the object of my perception and its cause should coincide. If I am seeing a piece of wax, for instance, my visual experience should be caused by a piece of wax. But the Cartesian theory dispensed with this desideratum in a bold and deliberate way: the cause of my perception of wax - whether we understand here 'real, interactive cause' or 'occasional cause' - is the motion of tiny particles with only the primary qualities of shape and size. My perceived object with its colours, smell, warmth, etc. fails to coincide with it.4 Now, Leibniz has not one but two ways of dealing with this problem. The exoteric solution (of which Leibniz was nevertheless inordinately proud) is the theory of pre-established harmony. On this theory, coincidence is still sacrificed but, by designating the relation between object and cause as 'pre-established', it achieves a kind of legitimacy; and by describing it as 'harmonious', the failure to achieve coincidence is somewhat mitigated. The esoteric solution is the theory of confused perception: object and cause do actually coincide, on this view; the relation is not arbitrary because one is a true mapping of

4

See, for example, the discussion in the 'Principles of Philosophy', Part IV, section 198 in The Philosophical Writings of Descartes, 2 vols, J. Cottingham et al. (eds) (Cambridge University Press: Cambridge, 1985), 1: 284-5.

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the other, a 'confused' version of it.5 The perception of colour is just the confused perception of colourless moving particles. So Leibniz anticipates the answer to an argument of Berkeley against the corpuscularians which goes something like this: cherries are coloured, so if we can't perceive colours, we can't perceive cherries either. Our text is the 'Meditations on Knowledge, Truth and Ideas'. Here Leibniz says that when we perceive colours or odours 'we are having nothing but a perception of figures and motions, but of figures and motions so complex and minute that our mind in its present state is incapable of observing each distinctly and therefore fails to notice that its perception is compounded'.6 The emergence of a new, apparently 'simple', quality yellow, the scent of violets, the taste of pineapple - is secured to its cause by a striking analogy: unresolved, indistinct, confused figures and motions produce colour, just as unresolved, indistinct, confused blue and yellow particles seem to produce a new simple quality of green. Note that a perfect theory of colour which showed why blue and yellow make green would reduce the arbitrariness to the point where lack of coincidence was no longer a difficulty. This is, by the way, the solution Leibniz indicates to the mind-body problem in general; a perfect theory of mind reduces the arbitrariness of its connection 5 So Leibniz attacks Locke for his resigned acceptance of Cartesian arbitrariness; see the New Essays, trans P. Remnant and J. Bennett (Cambridge University Press: Cambridge, 1981), p. 381f. (In an interesting passage discovered by Parkinson, however, he adopts a more resigned attitude; see G.H.R. Parkinson, 'The Intellectualization of Thought and Appearances' fn. 26 in M. Hooker (ed.), Leibniz: Critical and Interpretive Essays (University of Minnesota Press: Minneapolis, 1982), pp. 3-20.) * 'Meditations', L: 294 ('L' references are to L.E. Loemker, trans and ed. of G.W. Leibniz, Philosophical Papers and Letters, 2nd edn (Reidel: Dordrecht, 1969); G IV: 426 ('G' references are to C.I. Gerhardt (ed.), Die Philosophische Schriften von G. W. Leibniz, 7 vols; reprinted by Olms: Hildesheim, 1962).

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to the body by considering smaller and smaller units (perhaps individual cells), or more and more refined theoretical constructions (perhaps information networks), to the point where coincidence is achieved. (Sometimes his despair of doing so, or his fear of the materialistic consequences, seem to push him back towards pre-established harmony with its acceptance of 'arbitrariness'.)7 (b)

Degrees of confusion

The second problem concerned the distribution and grades of consciousness. If the soul is essentially res cogitans, as Descartes maintained, what is it when the person is asleep, mad, raving, knocked out, drugged, or, equally important, unborn or dead? Descartes said that the body was the instrument of the soul; when it was diminished, affected, or not all there yet, the soul could not express itself properly even though the soul itself thought as perfectly as ever.8 Add to this somewhat doubtful solution the general dubiousness of the beastmachine hypothesis, and the need for a notion of grades of consciousness is clear. In the 'Monadology' Leibniz divides souls into three main groups: simple monads (regular), souls and spirits. The simple monads have no distinguishable or memorable perceptions; they experience something like our swoons and dreamless sleeps; souls have distinct perceptions because they belong to 7

See, for example, the famous 'mill' pas«?ge at 'Monadology' 17, L: 644; G VI: 609. Solomon Maimon, who saw confused perceptions as 'merely bridges with which to cross from soul to body and back again' registered this tension (though Leibniz had good reason to prohibit this passage). See his letter to Kant of 20 September 1791 in Kant's Philosophical Correspondence 1759-1799, trans and edited by A. Zweig (University of Chicago Press: Chicago, 1967), p. 177. 8 See the 'Reply to Gassendi' in The Philosophical Works of Descartes, 2 vols, trans E.S. Haldane and G.R.T. Ross, 2nd edn (Cambridge University Press: London, 1931), II: 208-9.

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animals with better developed sensory organs, for example, eyes and ears, which make perceptions more distinct. Spirits are, in addition, self-aware and can grasp necessary truths.9 Observe that our human perceptions are characterized as 'distinct' in this context even though, according to the theory of perception we considered a moment ago, they are also thoroughly confused. The context we are considering is phenomenological and has nothing to do with an analysis of perception. Nor does this notion of distinctness seem to have much to do with consciousness or apperception.10 I can apperceive myself in a swoony state where everything is a blur, or apperceive my hearing when my ears are stuffed with wax and I cannot hear the articulation of words. And animals, which do not apperceive, have distinct sensations in so far as they have well developed sensory organs. Sensory organs concentrate and collect, Leibniz thinks, and that is how they make perceptions distinct. The connection between the physical and the phenomenological is, I believe, afforded by the optical notion of 'resolution': a lens does not just magnify, it resolves a blurry region into two distinct points. The experience of lower beings presumably is indistinct in something of the way that the world is to creatures who do not see different colours, who cannot distinguish speech sounds, or who see only patterns of light and dark, rather than definite contours and edges. (c)

Confused cognition and aesthetic perception

The third subject requiring its own notion of confusion was aesthetics and the problem of the grounding for judgements of beauty. It is commonplace in the history of "Monadology', 19-30; L: 644-6; G VI: 610-12. 10

But cf. R. McRae, Perception, Apperception and Thought (University of

Toronto Press: Toronto 1976), p. 36.

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aesthetics that the subject shifts in Leibniz's period from a concern with the rules for producing aesthetically correct objects, correctly proportioned and appropriately decorated, to a concern with accounting for the experience of the observer, his idiosyncratic response to what may be a unique work. Alfred Baeumler, in his study of the theory of irrationality in the eighteenth century, has pointed to the significance of Father Bouhours, a writer mentioned by Leibniz, who wrote, in opposition to Port Royal, an aesthetics - what he described as a 'logic without thorns'.11 Bouhours thinks that beauty depends on something unique, resistant, and intellectually impenetrable in the work of art: it is not a matter of clarity and distinctness, but of indistinctness. Its appreciation calls for a particular fineness - a delicatesse - in the observer: a sense for half-tones and nuances, a receptiveness for sudden unexpected revelations following long confusing searches, and so on.12 'Confusion' enters into this general conception in several ways. In the 'Meditations' Leibniz draws a parallel between aesthetic perception and ordinary perception; just as seemingly simple perceptual qualities like 'red' are composite and can be resolved into their underlying causes by moving to the physical level of analysis, so aesthetic qualities such as beauty are composite, and judged to be unanalysable. 'We sometimes see painters and other artists correctly judge what has been done well or done badly; yet they are often unable to give a reason for their judgement, but tell the inquirer that the work 11 A. Baeumler, Das Irrationalitaetsproblem in der Aesthetik und Logik des 18. Jahrhunderts (1923) (Wissenschaftliche Buchgesellschaft: Darmstadt, 1967), p. 29. 12 Ibid., p. 32. On Leibniz's interest in D. Bouhours' La maniere de bien penser dans les ouvrages d'esprit (1687), see the editors' note in the New Essays, p. xxix.

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which displeases them lacks "something, I know not what".'13 A second example is from the 'Principles of Nature and of Grace', and here Leibniz makes the connection between perception and confused cognition stunningly explicit. 'Even the pleasures of the senses are reducible,' he says, to intellectual pleasures, known confusedly. Music charms us, although its beauty consists only in the agreement of numbers and of counting, which we do not perceive but which our soul nevertheless continues to carry out, of the beats and vibrations of sounding bodies which coincide at certain intervals.14 Certain pictures look like confused blurs until they are seen in a spherical mirror, when it is suddenly apparent what they represent, e.g. Julius Caesar.15 So much then, for the sources and main points of the theory of confused perceptions. The reader will note that, just on the basis of what has been said so far, it would be difficult to assign to Leibniz the view that we possess only a single basic faculty of apprehension, or that perception is the lowest grade of cognition. To see whether he has any such systematic view, we need to look at some other theoretical statements; I will not cite the evidence on both sides here, but rather point out the very different constructions that can be placed on the same alleged pieces of evidence. The single most suggestive text comes from the 'Principles of Nature and of Grace': it reads Each soul knows the infinite, knows everything, but "'Meditations', L: 291; G IV: 423. L: 641; G V I : 605-6. 15 New Essays, p. 257. 14

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confusedly. Thus when I walk along the seashore and hear the great noise of the sea, I hear the separate sounds of each wave but do not distinguish them: our confused perceptions are the result of the impressions made on us by the whole universe. It is the same with each monad. Only God has a distinct knowledge of everything for he is the source of everything.16 This passage, which expounds a doctrine of confused omniscience, seems at first to support the single faculty view. For God's knowledge, our knowledge, and the knowledge of every other creature seem to lie on a continuum. We are all granted a certain omniscience, only our human and animal omniscience is confused while God's is distinct. Assuming that God's knowledge is intellectual knowledge, then, we would have to say that our knowledge is intellectual knowledge too; otherwise it would not be the same kind of omniscience in our case and God's case and the passage would be pointless. So, on this reading, when we hear the waves, we have some confused intellectual knowledge of the waves. However, a thought is cutting across this one: the thought that we know passively, where God knows actively. He knows everything because he is the source of everything - that is what the passage says. If so, there is no continuum. God does not soak up or receive impressions from every part of the universe as I soak up the sound of the ocean; nothing impresses itself on him. He is not there being reached by everything as the creatures are. So the passage could just as well be said to point to a categorical difference between perception and intellection, between the kind of knowledge that "L: 640; G VI: 604.

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depends upon having sensory organs that are impressed upon, and the kind of knowledge that does not. Here is a second ambiguous piece of evidence for the unity of the apprehending faculty, which depends upon an analogy between the fineness of the natural world and our confused apprehension of it, and the beauty of the moral world and our confused intellectual understanding of it: We also find order and wonders in the smallest whole things when we are capable of distinguishing their parts and at the same time seeing the whole, as we do in looking at insects and other small things in the microscope. . . . This is also true when one looks at the brain, which must undoubtedly be one of the greatest wonders of nature . . . yet one finds there only a confused mass in which nothing unusual appears, but which nevertheless conceals some kind of filaments of a fineness much greater than that of a spider's web. . . . We may say that it is the same in the government of intelligent substances under the kingship of God, in which everything seems confused to our eyes. To try to perceive immediately the beauty of the world is 'like wishing to take a novel by the tail and to claim to have deciphered the plot from the first book; the beauty of a novel, instead, is great in the degree that order emerges from the very great apparent confusion'.17 Note the progression of ideas: the undifferentiated speck or blob of the insect body is resolved by the lens into limbs and organs which give us an intellectual understanding of the insect body; so the undifferentiated mass of the human brain could be resolved into a system of fibres and filaments which would help us understand its 17

'Reflections on the Common Concept of Justice', L: 565.

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functioning; so the moral confusion of the world could be resolved, enabling us to see that it is a system after all. We have moved from peering intently at something with a microscope to 'looking' at the world from a religious perspective, that is to say, from a particular intellectual perspective. Does this mean that clearing up perceptual indistinctness is a Way of acquiring knowledge? Is an inadequate intellectual grasp much the same thing as an inadequate perceptual grasp? That is what the passage and its internal dynamics might suggest. But one might also say that the three cases are simply related to each other by analogy - that there is a rhetorical, rather than a logical, relation between the three cases. If so, then no assimilation of perception and cognition is necessarily implied. My third piece of ambiguous evidence is Leibniz's seemingly direct statement that there are only two fundamental faculties possessed by 'simple substances': perception and appetition. 'The passing state which enfolds and represents a multitude in unity or in the simple substance is merely what is called perception.'18 No separate description of the state of 'cognition' or 'intellectual apprehension' of an object is given. This suggests that a single faculty of representation must embrace both. There is, however, some discrepant information, which suggests that Leibniz recognizes a difference between perception and intellection; that they are, at any rate, clearly defined subcategories. For in the 'Monadology' we also find the claim advanced that the intellectual apprehension of necessary and eternal truths is a reflexive action in which the soul does not merely mirror or reflect the universe, but turns back to look at 18

'Monadology', 14, L: 644; G V I : 608f.

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itself. In spirits 'the knowledge of necessary and eternal truths . . . gives us reason and the sciences, lifting us to the knowledge of ourselves and of God . . . we rise to reflective acts'.19 In the New Essays, Leibniz comes close to Locke's formulation, arguing that, besides ideas which are acquired through the senses, there are ideas like those of substance, being, unity, etc., which the mind achieves by reflection on itself. We might as well be talking about a higher faculty here: Kant, if he had taken a mind to it, might as well have accused Leibniz in these contexts of having sensualized cognitions, by supposing that these ideas and truths can be, as it were, seen on the soul, or inscribed on our inner tablets. What of our original text, the 'Meditations'? Here, despite the usual loose seventeenth-century handling of words like 'idea' and 'knowledge', Leibniz implicitly distinguishes between an idea in the sense either of an image or of an immediate impression, later called an Anschauung or a Vorstellung, and an idea in the sense of a concept, a Begriff. Each can be indistinct in its own way, and his whole exposition seems indeed directed precisely toward a separation of experiential and analytical elements. The vividness and simplicity of an impression - an immediate sensory experience - are something other than a discursive or analytical understanding of an object. That is why colours, flavours, odours, and, surprisingly perhaps, beauty are all clear ideas (and, usually, clear impressions), while they are neither distinctly sensed nor distinctly conceptualized. We do not perceive their causes distinctly, nor do we know, discursively, what their causes are. That intellectualized concepts are different from perceived or imagined objects is plain from the fact that, although I "Ibid., 29-30, L: 645-6; G VI: 611.

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cannot imagine or see a thousand-sided figure except confusedly, and I cannot understand the individual terms of the definition of the word 'chiliagon' distinctly, my concept is nevertheless distinct.20 Still, we should have to say that Leibniz does not always hold ideas in the sense of Vorstellungen or presentations, and ideas in the sense of Begriffe or concepts, apart, and that this opens the door to the perception-asconfused-cognition theory. In his discussion of 'obscure concepts', Leibniz explains that: A concept is obscure, which does not suffice for recognizing the thing represented, as when I merely remember some flower or animal which I have once seen but not well enough to recognize it when it is placed before me and to distinguish it from similar ones, or when I consider some term which the Scholastics had defined poorly, such as Aristotle's entelechy.21 In this case my idea, in the sense of my Vorstellung, is poorly defined and so is my idea in the sense of my Begriff. My mental image is not sufficiently distinct to enable me to give defining criteria. The implication is that if my Vorstellung were sharper, clearer, a better picture, my Begriff would be in better shape too. While happily allowing that to get a better Begriff of a chiliagon I do not need a better Vorstellung, Leibniz fails, perhaps, to be sufficiently interested in the fact that to get a better Begriff of, say, an ash-tree, I do seem to need a better Vorstellung. And sometimes Leibniz does suggest that what we see confusedly is identical with the discursive analysis of the thing we see. What we see confusedly 20 21

'Meditations', L: 292; C IV: 423. Ibid., L: 291; G IV: 422.

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when we see red is whirling corpuscles of a certain description; 'whirling corpuscles of a certain description' is also part of the discursive analysis of red. There seems to be, in other words, a use-mention confusion.22

2

Kant's Reception of 'Confused Cognition'

While a reading of the Critique might make anyone wonder how much Kant actually knew of Leibniz, and while we have surprisingly little evidence of much firsthand study of Leibniz's works, there can be no doubt that Kant was seriously concerned with Leibnizian themes - from monadology, pre-established harmony and theodicy, to forces, space and time in his early essays, and indeed throughout the course of his life. He did not, at least at first, need to return to the original, as Leibniz was well-furnished with interpreters and systematizes in C.F. Wolff (1679-1754); A.G. Baumgarten (1714-1767); and C.F. Meier (1718-1777). Kant's lectures in metaphysics, for example, were a critical exposition of the Metaphysica of Baumgarten, a monadologist and aesthetician, which he studied and annotated thoroughly. His lectures on logic were a critical exposition of Meier, author of the Vernunftlehre, Baumgarten's pupil, and both Baumgarten and Meier looked back to Wolff, who rightly and wrongly was seen as the explicator and systematizer of Leibniz. In the course of this transformation of Leibniz's writings into a system, the confusion doctrine is clearly articulated. For Wolff and Baumgarten, there is, dogmatically stated, one faculty of representatio with perception 22 Kant seems to have taken Leibniz as saying that there are properties which would be mentioned if we were conceptually distinguishing between a right-handed object and a left-handed object; and that the properties themselves are actually dimly apprehended when we see those objects.

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and cognition corresponding to its 'lower' and 'higher' parts.23 And, to make matters worse, we see, in Wolff's work especially, the thorough confusion of Begriff and Anschauung, concept and intuition, that so provoked Kant. So, for example, Wolff defines a concept {Begriff) as 'a presentation in our thoughts'. 'I have a concept of the sun,' he says, when I represent it to myself in my thoughts, either through a picture, as though I were to see it before me, or through mere words, with which I would make it clear that I had seen the sun, e.g. that it is the blazing body in the sky by day which blinds the eyes and make it warm and light on the earth; or through another symbol, such as the astrological sign. The same goes for marriage. I have a concept, when I either see in my mind an image of two people getting married or again through mere words: linguistic signs.24 Our concepts, he goes on to say, may be more or less 'dark', darkness being opposed to clarity of perception. For example, he says, drawing on Leibniz, I see a plant in the garden and can't quite remember whether I have seen this plant before, or know its name. Most people, he thinks, have this kind of dark concept of philosophical terms and mathematical ones, and that is why they have 23 See Baumgarten, Metaphysica, 7th edn (1779; reprinted by Olms: Hildesheim, 1963): 'Anima mea quaedam cognoscit obscure quaedam confuse cognoscit. . . . Unde FACULTAS obscure confuseque seu indistincte aliquid cognoscendi COGNOSCITIVA INFERIOR est. . . .' (#520); 'Repraesentatio non distincta sensitiva vocatur' (#521); 'Anima mea cognoscit quaedam distincte . . . facultas distincte quid cognoscendi est FACULTAS COGNOSCITIVA SUPERIOR' (#624). 2A Vernunfftigen Gedancken von den Kraeften des Menschlichen Verstands (1713; reprinted by Olms: Hildesheim, 1965), Chapter 1, section 4. Otherwise known as the Deutsche Logik, this work was directly inspired by Leibniz's 'Meditations on Knowledge, Truth and Ideas' as well as by Locke and Tschirnhaus.

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difficulties with those subjects. Note that because of the indiscriminate treatment of Begriff in both its pictorial and its verbal sense, darkness of concepts describes any less-than-ideal perceptual situation as well as any lessthan-ideal epistemological situation. I also have a dark concept, Wolff thinks, when what I experience is too far away or too small - or even when it is just too dark outside - to distinguish its features clearly 'as when we see something white in the twilight lying far away in a field' or when a discursive gardener is explaining plants to me, but I am distracted by the person accompanying me through the garden.25 Perceptual indistinctness, indistinct cognition, and darkness of concepts are blended together here in an unfortunate way. And Wolff also associates clear-sightedness with theoretical improvements when he says that microscopes and telescopes help us to refine our concepts. What he means is quite innocent; a microscopical examination of Brennessel shows us that its irritating power really involves tiny points on the leaf; that sparks are really glowing bits of steel or stone; that the milky way is a collection of individual stars and that the moon is mountainous.26 There is nothing 'dark' or 'confused', Kant protests in his own logic lectures, about failing to distinguish the individual parts of an object. For example, if you look at a house, you must take in its parts: doors, windows, etc. 'For if we did not see the parts we should not see the house itself.'27 We are not individually conscious of the plurality of parts, but this does not darken or confuse the perception. And this is his stance in general. The 25

Ibid., section 23. Ibid., section 22. 27 Kant's Introduction to Logic, trans R.S. Hartman and W. Schwartz (Bobbs-Merrill: Indianapolis and New York, 1974), p. 38. 26

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telescope, he says, changes the white band of the milky way into a host of individual stars: the stars were indistinct, but my perception was not confused.28 In making this substitution he is effectively redefining confusion as a lack of order. It has nothing to do with a failure to recognize, identify or define a perceptual object, or with a failure to note or distinguish its parts. Confusion is not the antonym of 'distinctness' but the antonym of 'order'. Throw some coins on the table in any old way and they are confused; put them in neat piles and you have order. It follows that our impression of red cannot be, as Leibniz stated, 'confused' for it has no parts to become disordered. In the case of the impression or even the idea of beauty, we cannot, Kant admits, state its 'parts' i.e. its analysis or the cause of the impression to ourselves in detail. But our inability to give a conceptual analysis of beauty does not imply that the experience of beauty is something involving confusion. Now, it is worth pointing out that Leibniz, at any rate, did not make the inference he is being accused of here. And it is probable that Kant's own theory of aesthetics does without the notion of confused perception because he is concerned with a different kind of aesthetic object. His focus is, as a result, no longer on the aesthetic experience of the observer, but on his exercise of a faculty of judgement or taste. The typical aesthetic objects of the baroque, the trompe I'oeil painting, the complicatedly plotted novel, the formalistic musical pieces - examples, one might say, of 'court art' - lend themselves to Leibniz's treatment in a way in which Kant's aesthetic objects, with their somewhat stifling air of bourgeois domesticity, do 28

Ibid., p. 3 9 .

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not.29 The activity of connoisseurship, with its picking, choosing, and comparing, with its judgements, is suited to those objects; there is correspondingly nothing mysterious or intriguing about how they are experienced: certainly no need for the Leibnizian multiplicity of levels. Note as well that Kant is able to redefine confusion as a problem of orderliness because he is not at all concerned with something which preoccupied Leibniz: the coincidence of cause and object in perception. The problem of primary and secondary qualities or visual impressions and their corpuscular causes that so perplexed his predecessors either does not register with him or he has seen beyond it: Transcendental Idealism is perhaps a way of putting the question about the relation between cause and object in perception out of bounds. For what Kant introduces in place of this truthguaranteeing coincidence is the notion that two faculties co-operate to produce our perceptions, each of which guarantees objectivity in a different way. There are two sources of representation, he maintains, 'which, while quite different, supply objectively valid conceptions of things by working in conjunction'.30 Sensibility delivers to us the matter of knowledge, the understanding brings sensibility under rules. This distinction, as he says, is not 'logical' but metaphysical: It has, in other words, nothing to do with concept formation, with introspectively identifiable differences in our thoughts and experiences; it is not part of 'empirical psychology' or epistemology: it has to do with metaphysics, and that is to say with origins. 29 'Porzellandosen und - Figuren, Stockknoepfe, Spitzen, Tapetenmuster und derartige Dinge waren die Gegenstaende, von denen Kant seine Geschmackslehre abstrahierte.' Quoted by Baeumler, Das Irrationalitaetsproblem, p. 254, from Schlapp, Kants Lehre vom Genie, p. 181, fn. 5. 10 Critique, A 271/B 327.

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And it is evident that this point is specifically meant against Baumgarten.31 The co-operation of two faculties, passive and active, one which delivers, one which organizes, then, replaces the Leibnizian picture which veers to odd extremes. Sometimes Leibniz suggests that all experience in the sense of representatio is wholly passive. Every creature is a mirror of the world: it mirrors some things distinctly, some confusedly. And sometimes he suggests that experience is wholly active, that every mind produces or draws up from within itself all its thoughts, which are clear or confused depending on the type of mind it is. When Kant splits the faculty of representation to derive separate active and passive features in perception, he reminds the reader that it is part of the human character of knowledge that it is so divided. Were I to think an understanding which is itself intuitive (as, for example, a divine understanding which should not represent to itself given objects, but through whose representation the objects should themselves be given or produced) the categories would have no meaning whatsoever in respect of such a mode of knowledge. They are merely rules for an understanding whose whole power consists in thought. An archetypic intelligence would not contain a formal 31

See Kant's 'Reflexion' # 2 2 0 to Baumgarten's 'Metaphysica' # 5 2 0 : 'Der Unterschied der Sinnlichkeit vom Verstande ist 1. formal, da die erste Erkenntnis intuitive, die zweite discursive ist . . . In jeder diesen beyden Formen kann Deutlichkeit oder Undeutlichkeit statt finden, nemlich in der Anschauung oder im Begriff. Deutlichkeit der Anschauung findet statt wo gar kein Begriff ist . . . Man muss auch nicht zur Unvollkommenheit der einen Form als der Anschaung das rechnen, was eigentlich nur die Form des Verstandes angeht. Der Unterschied des Verstandes beruhet also nicht auf Verwirrung und Deutlichkeit, wohl aber der Form nach, auf Anschauung und Begriff. In Kants Werke, 19 vols (Walter de Gruyter: Berlin and Leipzig, 1917-28), 15: 84.

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component working on the matter as a given; it would produce both.32 There is, then, no continuum of representations from the divine to the dim; instead the archetypal, creating intelligence and the passive receptive intelligence seem to work together.33

3

The Confused Apprehension of the Noumenal World

I now come to the last section of the paper with its question, how did Kant's refusal to treat sensibility and cognition as higher and lower grades of the single faculty of representatio give him a point of departure for criticizing the 'Monadology' qua philosophical document? Kant sometimes presents his criticisms in a single breath, sweeping epistemology and metaphysics together. So he tells us early in the work that his whole teaching with regard to sensibility would be rendered empty and useless if we were to accept the view that our entire sensibility is nothing but a confused representation of things, containing only what belongs to them in themselves, but doing so under an aggregation of characters and partial representations which we do not consciously distinguish. The representation of a body in intuition, he continues,

32

Critique, A 271/B 327. In the logician Meier we get a possible route by which the split into the material and the workman might emerge from the Leibnizian theory of confused perception. In Meier, dark knowledge is the matter, which the craft of the soul shapes into clear knowledge: 'When God made the world, he made something dark and empty: a chaos and out of it he built this splendid worldedifice. Dark knowledge is the chaos in the soul, the raw lumps of matter which creative force works upon and out of which she gradually assembles all her knowledge. Without dark knowledge, we could not have any clear knowledge at all'. Auszug aus der Vernunftlehre (Halle, 1752), p. 131. 33

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'contains nothing that can belong to an object in itself, but merely the appearance of something'.34 But what we experience is not, in Leibnizian fashion, an appearance of a thing-in-itself: 'With their theory of a single cognitive faculty', Kant thinks, Leibniz and Wolff 'abolished the distinction between phenomena and noumena to the great detriment of philosophy'.35 Now, that Kant should have accused Leibniz of taking appearances for things-in-themselves and so confusing phenomena and noumena seems at first even more incredible than that he should have accused him of treating perception as a variety of cognition. Are not the monads noumenal objects par excellence} Are they not, as incorporeal, non-spatial, spontaneous minds, unaffected and unaffecting, utterly different from the persons, animals, and material things that appear to us, and that act upon us and are acted upon? Kant at some points takes Leibniz as asserting that an ideally clear cognition of a body would reveal it as an ensemble of monads - immaterial simples - while our ordinary, indistinct perceptions show a continuous extension. Phenomena and noumena are thus confused, for the monad is a noumenal object only in so far as it exists below the threshold of distinct perception. And this interpretation is less arbitrary than it might seem, for Leibniz, though distressingly vague on the question of how to derive the continua of experience from the discrete unextendeds of metaphysical reality, did at times suggest that matter is the result of a perceptual blurring and confusion of monads.36 Supernaturally clear perception, for example of a divine being, which would be no different * Critique A 44/B 61. 35 Ibid. 16 See, for example, Leibniz's 'Letter to Sophie', G V I 1 : 564.

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than that being's cognition, would then resolve the continuum into discrete parts revealing units - monads. Which view was adopted by Leibniz's eighteenthcentury interpreters? Wolff says that space is that thing which we imagine when we imagine some arrangement of things;37 but he also says that many simple substances can be gathered together, whereby they fill up space together 'though indeed each individual one actually fills up no space, but simply occupies its particular place within it'.38 He argues from a logical 'Verknupfung' or 'bond' of the cause-effect type (the earth and the sun, being, for example, verknupft), which implies their spatial distinctness, to the possibility of their spatial Verknupfung and so extension in length, breadth and thickness.39 But it is not simply the case that Wolff leaps from the possibility of logical relations to the possibility of spatial relations: what he seems to have in mind here, surprisingly enough, is something like the dynamical occupation of space by repulsive point-forces.40 After stressing that simple things cannot be stuck together as ordinary objects of experience are, he states that 'Just as they are grasped only through the understanding, so their Verknupfung with each other is also only intelligible'.41 Thus no direct claim is made to the effect that a confused perception of monads yields the appearance of continuous matter. In Baumgarten's work, however, we get a more suggestive statement. Though he, too, seems to have both logical and dynamical ideas of monadic bonding,42 he does state in the context of a 17 'Deutsche Metaphysik', #46. "Ibid., #602. "Ibid., #603. 40 'die Puncte der Natur . . . auch eine in ihnen bestaendig wuerckende Kraft haben, und daher ein jedes ausser dem andere seyn muss', ibid., #604. 41 Ibid., #604. 42 'Metaphysica', #402 ff.

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discussion on monads, atoms, and corpuscles, that observabilia or phenomena are the things which we can know through the senses, that is, confusedly.43 We explain those phenomena by means of corpuscles, which are not, however, to be identified with monads. Thus, confused perception is at least introduced into the discussion of aggregation, though both Wolff and Baumgarten seem determined to maintain a categorical distinction between simple substances and the seemingly simple objects of experience, one which cannot be effaced by confused perception. We get a much stronger link, however, in the later Leibnizian, J.A. Eberhard: Concrete time, or the time which we feel, is nothing other than the succession of our representations; . . . [it] is therefore something composite; its simple elements are representations. Since all finite things are in a continual flux, these simple elements can never be sensed; inner sense can never sense them separately. . . . Furthermore since the flux of alterations of all finite things is a continual unbroken flux, no sensible part of time is the smallest, or a fully sensible part. The simple elements of concrete time therefore lie completely outside the sphere of sensibility. . . . The understanding therefore raises itself beyond the sphere of sensibility as it discovers the unimageable simples without which the sensible images, even in respect to time, are not possible.44 Thus we have an example of at least one Leibnizian 43 Ibid., #425: and he seems to allow, like Leibniz, that 'material atoms' can be used to explain phenomena, though the notion is actually a 'contradictio in adjecto'. Cf. ibid., #429. 44 J.A. Eberhard, Pkilosophisches Magazin, quoted H.E. Allison (trans and ed.), The Kant-Eberhard Controversy (Johns Hopkins: Baltimore, 1973), p. 23.

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though the dating of this passage is too late to suppose that it was an initial stimulus to Kant - who believes that intelligibility is a matter of lying below sensory thresholds. And the account being offered here seems distinctly different from the relational theory of Wolff. The experience of time is said to be a blur of tiny insensible intervals between tiny, atomic imperceptible experiences, too brief for us to apprehend singly. Now, for Kant, as we know, time could not be the cumulative experience of successive atomistic subsensible experiences. Experiences are, as such, temporalized; they cannot be built out of temporal atoms. The error of Leibnizians like Eberhard is that they regard something of which we can form no image, something which we cannot recognize or identify in intuition, as a nonsensible object. The objects of understanding, they say, are 'unimageable'. But this unimageability concerns, Kant points out, only the limits of perception, not a metaphysical uniqueness. According to Kant, the result is that Eberhard has reproduced the error of Wolff; if the difference between the sensible and the intelligible is a matter of degree and has to do with human capacities and thresholds, then a nine-sided figure is 'more than half-way from the sensible to the supersensible' and a chiliagon is an entirely intelligible object.45 We have now reached the point where the full weight of Kant's epistemological distinction is thrown against the monad. Mr Eberhard wants the monads to be known as nonsensible objects, either insofar as they are too small for the degree of sharpness of our sense, or the number of them in intuition is too large . . . about which we 45

Ibid., p. 127.

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should be able to know a great deal through the understanding.46 Kant forces a parting of the ways: if microscopes could enable us to see monads by resolving the confusion of the aggregate into distinct beings, seeing those beings would not give us a distinct understanding of simple substances. If, by contrast, the concept of simple substance can be arrived at by a priori reflection, those substances cannot be apprehended, even confusedly, as objects. To sum up, for a Leibnizian like Eberhard, there are two ways of apprehending the monad-world; directly, though confusedly, through perception, and indirectly, though clearly, by reflection on the necessary properties of simple substances. On the interpretation I have been proposing, Kant's attack on the internal logic of 'confused perception' culminates in his cutting off of the direct route to the monad-world. Other portions of the Critique are of course dedicated to cutting off the other possible mode of access.

4

The 'Platonic' Approach to Noumena

In his later writings, particularly in his reply to Eberhard, Kant tried to reclaim Leibniz from the Leibnizians. In the Metaphysische Anfaengsgruende of 1786, he had already criticized his own understanding of Leibniz, as well as the interpretations of commentators, as insufficiently Platonistic: space was always thought of as adhering to things outside of our power of representation, but the mathematician thought of this quality only according to common concepts, i.e., confusedly (for appearance 46

Ibid., p. 128.

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is commonly explained in this way). By the same foregoing misinterpretation one attributed the mathematical proposition of the infinite divisibility of matter, . . . to a confused representation of space. . . . In this way it remained open to the metaphysician to compound space of points and matter of simple parts and thus (according to his opinion) to bring clarity into the concept of space. This ground of this aberration lies in a badly understood monadology, which does not at all belong to the explication of natural appearances but is a platonic concept of the world carried out by Leibniz.47 On Kant's view, then, Leibniz, a proto-Kantian, had really wanted to say that space belongs only to the appearance of external things. Reclaiming Leibniz from the textbook writers who had made him a systematist and a dogmatist, especially by overextending his confusion theory, meant 'Platonizing' Leibniz, and showing that he was also a proto-Kantian in regarding phenomena and noumena as belonging to separate realms. And this leaves us with an historical question. As we have seen, there does not appear to be a straightforward claim to the effect that monads are confusedly perceived as extended matter in either Wolff or Baumgarten. The discussion of monadic 'V'erknupfung or '' composition is separate from the discussion of the order of the cognitive faculties. Did persons who are unnamed but whose existence is indicated in the passage from the Metaphysical Foundations really promulgate the 'wrong' Leibnizinterpretation? Or was this doctrine simply extracted from time to time, by Kant among others, from the 47 Metaphysical Foundations of Natural Science (1786), trans J.W. Ellington (Bobbs-Merrill: Indianapolis and New York, 1970), p. 55.

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known Leibnizian writings? I have tried to show that pertinent passages from Leibniz's more popular writings such as the 'Principles of Nature and of Grace' do not seem to support the doctrine in question very consistently. In looking for a source of the 'wrong' interpretation, we might find it necessary to bypass Wolff and Baumgarten and look to the material published in 1768 in Dutens' edition. The 'Letter to Hansch' might be promising in this respect, as the source of Kant's own initial misreading and the grounds of his self-confessed correction. For it is in this letter that Leibniz, in the space of a few lines, claims that sensible or composite things are in flux and do not really exist, that the mind contains an intelligible world within itself and also represents a sensible world to itself, and that 'God sees all things adequately and at once, while very few things are known distinctly by us; the rest lie hidden confusedly as it were in the chaos of our perceptions'.48 It would be difficult to blame anyone for concluding from this passage that sensible things are composites confusedly perceived where divinely clear perception would be an intelligible representation of substances. In rejecting this conception, Kant assigned priority to the Newtonian world of objects located in space and time and forming together a system of dynamical interactions; the Newtonian world is riot a degraded appearance, a confused representation of a higher, purer world of metaphysically real but non-spatial, non-temporal, noninteracting entities. But validating the Newtonian picture was not Kant's only concern, and it is still worth wondering how Kant's own preoccupation with the supersensible was furthered by his encounter with Leibniz. How far did Kant really approve of the reconstructed Tlatonizing' <8 'Letter to Hansch', 25 July 1707, L: 592-3.

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Leibniz - the Leibniz who did not mix up phenomena and noumena by conceiving them as passing over into one another? I have suggested that Kant repudiates the scholastic idea of a graded series of cognitions ranging from the ideally dear and comprehensive to the dim and restricted. At the same time he was not prepared to do away with the notion of the 'intelligible world' or even with certain noumenal force-bearing objects, for the purposes of morality if not of physics. Understanding his Leibniz-critique does not itself show what he means by his intelligible world or what his own noumenal objects come to. But it does cast some light: we know both that they are not possible objects of perception and that they are not objects restricted to divine cognition. They are, just as Kant is always stressing, objects of our own cognition, though our own cognition when it assumes, if not the impossible capacity for cognitive affections, something of the dictating power that went with the vacated perspective of Leibniz's God.

Bibliography Baeumler, A., Das Irrationalitaetsproblem in der Aesthetik und Logik des 18. Jahrhunderts (Wissenschaftliche Buchgesellschaft: Darmstadt, 1967). Baumgarten, A.G., Metaphysica, 7th edn (1779) (Olms: Hildesheim, 1963). Eberhard, J.A., Philosophisches Magazin quoted Allison, H.E. (trans and ed.), The Kant-Eberhard Controversy (Johns Hopkins: Baltimore, 1973). Gerhardt, C.I. (ed.), Die Philosophische Schriften von G.W. Leibniz, 7 vols (Olms: Hildesheim, 1962). Haldane, E.S. and G.R.T. Ross (eds), The Philosophical Works of Descartes, 2 vols (Cambridge University Press: London, 1931). Hartman, R.S. and Schwartz, W. (trans), Kant's Introduction to Logic (Bobbs-Merrill: Indianapolis and New York, 1974). Hooker, M. (ed.), Leibniz: Critical and Interpretive Essays (University of Minnesota Press: Minneapolis, 1982).

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Kant, I., Critique of Pure Reason, trans N. Kemp Smith (St Martin's: New York, 1965). Kant, I., Metaphysical Foundations of Natural Science (1786), trans J.W. Ellington (Bobbs-Merrill. Indianapolis and New York, 1970). Kant, I., 'Reflexionen' in Kants Werke, 19 vols (Walter de Gruyter: Berlin and Leipzig, 1917-28). Leibniz, G.W., 'On the Form and Principles of the Sensible and Intelligible World' (1770), trans and edited by G.B. Kerferd and D.E. Walford in Selected pre-Critical Writings (Manchester University Press: Manchester, 1968). Leibniz, G.W., 'Principles of Philosophy' in The Philosophical Writings of Descartes, J. Cottingham et al. (eds), 2 vols (Cambridge University Press: Cambridge, 1985). Leibniz, G.W., Philosophical Papers and Letters, L.E. Loemker (trans and ed.), 2nd edn (Reidel: Dordrecht, 1969). Leibniz, G.W., New Essays, trans P. Remnant and J. Bennett (Cambridge University Press: Cambridge, 1981). McRae, R., Perception, Apperception and Thought (University of Toronto Press: Toronto, 1976). Maimon, Solomon, 'Letter to Kant', 20 September 1791 in Kant's Philosophical Correspondence 1759-1799, trans and edited by A. Zweig (University of Chicago Press: Chicago, 1967). Meier, C.F., Auszug aus der Vernunftlehre (Halle, 1752). Wolff, C.F., Vernunfftigen Gedancken von den Kraeften des Menschlichen Verstands (Olms: Hildesheim, 1965).

THOUGHT AND SENSIBILITY IN LEIBNIZ, KANT AND BRADLEY Guy Stock

Kant, in his final metaphysics, must either retreat to Leibniz, or advance to Bradley. Alfred North Whitehead1 I do not know why Whitehead made this claim. However, I thought it might be interesting, without further reference to Whitehead, to compare Leibniz, Kant and Bradley with Whitehead's assertion in mind. The very suggestion that one could be forced from a Kantian position back to a Leibnizian one or forwards to a Bradleian one implies the existence of intelligible links between them. Such links are particularly obvious between Leibniz and Kant. A natural way of approaching Kant's account of our knowledge of time and space, and the phenomena that exist in them, is to see it as prompted by the difficulties he found in Leibniz's account of thought and sensibility.2

1 A.N. Whitehead, Process and Reality (Cambridge University Press: Cambridge, 1929), IX p. 269. 1 I. Kant, Critique of Pure Reason, trans N. Kemp Smith (Macmillan: London, 1964); see, for example, A 44/B 61-2; 1 B 316-49/A 260-92.

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I For Leibniz individual substances, or monads, are orderable along two interrelated continua. They are orderable according to their activity and passivity, and according to the clarity and distinctness, as opposed to the confusion and obscurity, with which they represent or express the Universe. The more active an individual substance and the more clear and distinct its perceptions of the Universe the more perfect it will be: the nearer, so to speak, will it be to God, the purely active, omniscient and all perfect substance. No substance will be utterly passive. As Leibniz puts it: '. . . not only is everything that acts an individual substance but also every individual substance acts without interruption'. 3 Passivity, for Leibniz, is simply a relative lack of activity in a substance. It is merely a privation. Further Leibniz argues that in metaphysical strictness individual substances must be construed as windowless. Given the kind of independence essential to a genuinely individual substance it cannot depend on things outside itself for its nature. As he puts it: From the notion of an individual substance it . . . follows . . . that all operations of substances both actions and passions, are spontaneous, and that with the exception of the dependence of creatures on God, no real influx from one to the other is intelligible.4 The perceptions, or inner states, of a substance must change simply from an inner principle of appetition. 5 1 G.W. Leibniz, Philosophical Papers and Letters, L. Loemker (ed.) (Reidel: Dordrecht, 1976), 'On Nature Itself (1698) section 9, p. 502. 4 G.W. Leibniz, Philosophical Writings, G.H.R. Parkinson (ed.) (Dent: London, 1979), 'A Specimen of Discoveries about Marvellous Secrets', p. 79. ' See, for example, 'Monadology' section 15, Loemker p. 644.

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Hence, in metaphysical strictness, the influence of any individual substance on another must be ideal only: one individual, A, will act in a certain way on another, B, (which will in consequence be, in a certain respect, passive) in so far as in the ultimately original ordering of things A's state provided the reason for B's being in the state it is.6 Let us now concentrate on Leibniz's account of the experience of a rational monad dominant within a set of substances providing the foundation of a particular living human body: in other words, on the experience of a normal adult human being with, like ourselves, a power of apperception and the mastery of the dating-andplacing vocabulary of a natural language.7 The Universe will be presented in our waking perceptions and thoughts from a unique viewpoint. Physical objects will, at any waking moment, appear as spatially arrayed at various distances around our bodies and we will be able to think, at any moment, of our bodies as occupying a determinate position in a three-dimensional spatial system of unlimited extent. Analogously, we shall be able to locate ourselves in a one-dimensional time series and particular events, which are not present will appear, when at any moment we ponder them, as at determinate amounts of time in the past and future (e.g. the last degree exams will appear as having occurred X months ago and the next ones will appear as occurring in Y months time). This perspectival nature of our experience, and the uniqueness of each individual's viewpoint, which is an irreducible feature of the Universe on Leibniz's account, 6

See, for example, ibid., sections 51-2, Loemker p. 648. For the notion of apperception see 'Principles of Nature and of Grace based on Reason' (1714) sections 4-5, Loemker pp. 637-8; for that of expression or representation see 'Letter to Arnauld 9th Oct 1687', Loemker pp. 33940; also "What is an Idea?' (1678), Loemker pp. 206-7. 7

Thought and Sensibility in Leibniz, Kant and Bradley 107

is explained within his epistemology and metaphysics in terms of the idea of a unique degree of confusion attending the individual's representation of the Universe.8 It is the unique degree of confusion with which a substance expresses the Universe which will individuate it and determine its position in relation to all other individuals or, in other words, will determine its position on the continuum of perfection in relation to God (to the all perfect individual). Leibniz defines this notion of confusion in contrast to the notions of clarity, distinctness and obscurity. An individual's idea or concept is, Leibniz maintains, obscure when it 'does not suffice for recognizing the thing represented'.9 Leibniz gives two different kinds of example to illustrate what he means; the first concerns a perceptible particular, the second an abstract object. If a person remembers seeing a flower but did not 'see it well enough' to know, when it is presented to him again, whether it is the very same flower of just a similar one, then his idea of that flower would be obscure. Also if a person understood an ambiguous general term without being aware of its ambiguities he would have an obscure idea of the thing in question. To adapt Leibniz's example: if a person had a sufficient grasp of the meaning of the word 'cause' to apply it correctly in everyday contexts but was not aware that he was using it on some occasions to refer to efficient causes and on others to refer to final causes he would have an obscure idea of cause.10 The notion of clarity is then introduced by contrast to that of obscurity. 'Knowledge is' Leibniz says 'clear . . . 8

See, for example, 'Monadology' section 60, Loemker pp. 648-9. 'Meditations on Knowledge, Truth and Ideas' (1684), Loemker p. 291; see also 'Discourse on Metaphysics' (1686) section 24, Loemker pp. 318-19; 'An Introduction to a Secret Encyclopaedia', Parkinson pp. 5-9. 111 'Meditations on Knowledge, Truth and Ideas', Loemker p. 291. 9

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when it makes it possible for me to recognize the thing represented.'11 A person will have a clear and distinct idea if he can not only recognize the thing presented but also 'enumerate one by one the marks sufficient to distinguish the thing from others'.12 So a clear and distinct idea will be, for example, 'the kind of notion which assayers have of gold; one, namely, which enables them to distinguish gold from all other bodies by sufficient marks and observations'.13 It follows that having clear and distinct ideas of things, since this will involve an ability to frame explicit definitions of general terms, will presuppose use of a language. So we can take it that on Leibniz's view the gradual acquisition of language by a child will place it in a position to bring to clarity and distinctness progressively more of the ideas which it previously had obscurely and confusedly. At this juncture we can begin to see how logical and epistemological themes connect in Leibniz's thought. It is a basic premise for Leibniz's view of thought and language that all human thinking of the kind that can be either true or false must involve a basic alphabet or vocabulary of simple ideas. There must, in other words, be a series of attributes which are, as he puts it, simple 'in their own natures', or simple 'to the intellect', and thus can be 'conceived through themselves'.14 Leibniz's vision is that a language is in principle possible having a vocabulary of primitive terms standing for such simple attributes or, as he also calls them, 'ultimate '• Ibid. '- Ibid. u Ibid., Loemker p. 292. " See, for example, 'On the Elements of Natural Science' (1682-4), Loemker pp. 285-7; 'On Universal Synthesis and Analysis' (1679?), Loemker pp. 229-30; 'Of an Organum or Ars Magna of Thinking' (c. 1679), Parkinson pp. 1-4.

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genera'.15 By means of such a vocabulary, the complex general terms of any language could in principle be defined. Such definition would give a complete analysis of the more or less confused ideas possessed in understanding the complex general terms in any language and thus would enable a complete analysis of any proposition, formulated by means of complex general terms, to be given. Such a language would enable its possessor to have what Leibniz calls adequate ideas or knowledge of things: '. . . when every ingredient that enters into a distinct concept is itself known distinctly, or when analysis is carried through to the end, knowledge is adequate'.16 However, Leibniz is doubtful whether any actual example of such knowledge can be given although he thinks 'our concept of numbers approaches it closely'.17 In other areas of knowledge, although we can achieve distinct ideas of things, at some point in the process of analysis we inevitably come to a level where our knowledge of the characteristics constituting the distinguishing marks of the definiendum will be confused. At such a level of analysis a person's thinking or knowledge will be, what Leibniz calls, blind or symbolic, it will of necessity involve the use of terms 'whose meaning appears obscurely and imperfectly in the mind'.18 Such blind or symbolic thinking or knowledge is contrasted with what Leibniz calls intuitive knowledge. Intuitive knowledge is what one must have when one has an absolutely simple idea, i.e. when one has an idea of an attribute conceived through itself. 15

'On Universal Synthesis and Analysis', Loemker p. 229. 'Meditations on Knowledge, Truth and Ideas', Loemker p. 292. 17 Ibid. 18 Ibid. 16

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The content of our thinking and knowledge in empirical spheres, on Leibniz's view, inevitably remains blind or symbolic because it involves what he calls 'confused attributes'. In other words, it involves attributes which are 'composite in themselves or by intellectual principles but are simple to the senses and whose definitions cannot therefore be explained'.19 Thus general terms standing for such empirically simple attributes can be defined by us only ostensively. The fact that in the area of contingent truths we are in this way confined to symbolic or blind knowledge explains, in the context of Leibniz's system, how error or false judgement is possible for us. Given Leibniz's predicate-in-subject view of truth20 the only way in which false judgement can, in fact, occur is by the meanings of the words we use to formulate our empirical propositions outrunning our understanding of those meanings. That is what inevitably happens when our thinking is symbolic or blind. Our languages give us the power to construct propositions which, unbeknown to us, involve contradictions.21 In any sphere in which we had a notation meeting the criteria of Leibniz's perfect language this would be impossible. We would be able to have intuitive knowledge in such a sphere and thus, given such a language, false judgement would be impossible. This, of course, is precisely the position that an omniscient creator would be in with regard to the Universe as a whole: his knowledge of the Universe, in all its infinite complexity, would be totally adequate and intuitive, i.e. non-symbolic. For finite individuals, the capacity to 1<(

'On the Elements of Natural Science', Loemker p. 285. See 'Meditations on Knowledge, Truth and Ideas', Loemker p. 293; 'Discourse on Method' section 8, Loemker pp. 307-8; 'First Truths' (1680-4), Loemker pp. 267-8; 'On the Nature of Truth' (1686), Parkinson pp. 93-4. :i 'Meditations on Knowledge, Truth and Ideas', Loemker p. 292. 20

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master the use of linguistic symbols is a necessary condition of being able to achieve clarity and distinctness in knowledge, but in the limiting case of perfection knowledge would once again become non-symbolic. It would, nevertheless, on Leibniz's view, at the limit of perfection, remain a capacity essentially homogeneous with our symbolic thinking. It is this that marks the crucial point of difference between Leibniz's account of the relation between thought and sensibility and Kant's. To grasp this difference clearly it is necessary to look more closely at Leibniz's notion of a perfect language. In his 'Dialogue' of 167722 Leibniz introduces two ideas which in the history of philosophy have become essential to the notion of a perfect language. Firstly, he introduces the idea that in so far as different languages can be employed to formulate the same propositions, and can be used as vehicles for the same processes of reasoning, they must involve an underlying, non-arbitrary, universal grammar. Secondly, he introduces the idea that some notations can be better constructed, and thus less misleading as to the underlying grammar of the propositions formulated within it, than others. It is the former idea which is the more important for understanding the difference between Leibniz and Kant. On Leibniz's view, there is a single essentially homogeneous grammar (or faculty of synthesis) spontaneously exercised in the generation of any experience capable of yielding knowledge of the Universe (i.e. of any experience capable of being veridical, or non-veridical, of anything whatsoever inner or outer, self or not-self). A finite individual's possession of the grammar, or faculty of synthesis, must involve having ideas (albeit more or less confused) of the very same series of ultimate genera, 11

'Dialogue' (August 1677), Loemker pp. 182-5.

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or simple attributes, as would be exercised nonsymbolically by an omniscient creator in creating the Universe. We can see Leibniz as arguing that it has got to be like this if our sense experiences and thoughts are to be capable of being true of a Universe which is such that (not to beg the question with respect to the existence of God) it could have been created by a rational, omniscient and benevolent being. In other words, it has got to be like this if epistemological realism is to be preserved.

II Moving now to Kant, a rather different picture emerges. Of course Kant argues, within the framework of his epistemology, that we must give up Leibniz's transcendental realism. But at what point does the argument for that epistemology come? Kant can be seen as taking over from Leibniz the task of giving an account of the nature of a subject, the essence of which is to represent things - things other than itself as well as itself. But Kant's fundamental thesis is that the passive faculty of sensibility cannot be portrayed as a function of a degree of inadequacy or confusion in a single homogeneous and essentially active representative faculty. Sensibility must, Kant maintains, be construed as a radically passive faculty for the mere reception of given cognitive matter (of sensations).13 It must be construed as a faculty for immediate or intuitive cognitions of things that could, as a matter of logical possibility, be possessed by a sentient subject in the complete absence of any active representative or synthetic faculty. 23

Critique of Pure Reason, A 19-21/B 33-6.

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Kant agrees with Leibniz that there must be a spontaneous and original active representative faculty and he agrees that the grammar of that faculty must be strictly universal. It must be possessed by any finite subject whatsoever as a condition of the possibility of the subject having experiences of a kind capable of being veridical or non-veridical of anything whatsoever, inner or outer, self or not-self. But, given the independent function of sensibility, on Kant's view, the active synthetic faculty must be construed as purely general. The active faculty is in essence simply the set of pure concepts which we exercise when we understand the propositional formulae constructed by formal logicians, and when we follow through inference patterns between such formulae.24 If we posit the canonical status of formal logic, the interconnected set of concepts in question must be spontaneously exercised in the consciousness of any subject whatsoever - no matter what the character of the sensorily given data - if (i) it is to be able to have experiences the contents of which have truth-values and (ii) it is to be able to make inferences from the contents of such experiences. Hence the active faculty by itself, on Kant's view, is taken as quite unable to relate to any particular, or individual, existent. Thus, even a perfect instantiation of the active faculty would, by itself, be quite incapable of yielding knowledge of any existent thing. The joint operation of both active and passive representative faculties is necessary if any experiences (veridical or non-veridical) of any existent thing whatsoever, inner or outer, self or not-self, are to be generated in a finite subject.25 Moreover it follows, according to Kant's line of 24

Ibid., A 66-83/B 91-109. " Ibid., A 50-2/B 74-6.

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reasoning, that the passive faculty itself must have a dual function if a subject is to be able to have knowledge of the existence not only of things other than itself but also of itself. Given that a subject could not have knowledge of the existence of things other than itself if it did not have a capacity to receive data from those things (i.e. if it did not have a faculty of outer intuition) by parity of reasoning, it could not have knowledge of the existence of itself if it did not have a capacity to receive data from itself (i.e. if it did not have a faculty of inner intuition).26 This dual function of the faculty of sensibility plays a role in Kant's account of space and time and our knowledge of them. The spatio-temporality of the objects of human beings' sense experiences is to be construed as resulting from the intrinsic nature of human inner and outer sense. The nature of our inner sense is such that any matter received by it will appear as successive states of a self locatable in, and merely in, time; and the nature of our outer sense is such that any matter received by it will appear as states of objects locatable in threedimensional space. Hence time and space are ex hypothesi nothing but subjective conditions but, in consequence, it can be known in advance of experience, or a priori^ (i) that any possible object as it appears to inner sense will be locatable in time and stand in temporal relations of certain general sorts and (ii) that any possible object as it appears to outer sense will be locatable in space and stand in spatial relations of certain general sorts. Objects as they appear to outer sense are not as such 26

Ibid.; see B 152-6; also B 67-70: inner sense or intuition is not to be confused with apperception which is a specific exercise of the active faculty of representation on the matter of inner sense.

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subject to the form of inner sense but since any intuition or representation whatsoever, outer or inner, must itself be an inner state of some subject, objects of outer sense will of necessity appear in a subject's experiences not merely as in space but also as subject to temporal determinations.27 Apart from the well-known argument from the synthetic a priori nature of geometrical propositions28 the motivation for Kant's account of space and time, and our knowledge of it, it seems to me, comes primarily from the difficulties he located in Leibniz's account of the relation between thought and sensibility. These difficulties he recounts explicitly in 'The Amphiboly of Concepts of Reflection'.29 But it is very difficult to sort out the real difficulties in this section since the very notion of an amphiboly of a concept of reflection {if I understand it correctly) just presupposes the structure of Kant's epistemological theory. Transcendental reflection is concerned with the relations which objects have to one another in virtue of the relation they have to our dual cognitive faculties, i.e. to sensibility and to understanding construed as radically disparate faculties. A transcendental amphiboly consists in the 'confounding of an object of pure understanding with appearance'.30 So the source of Leibniz's errors is in general his confounding appearances, or objects of sensibility, with objects of pure understanding, with intelligibilia. It seems impossible to evaluate the force of Kant's detailed criticisms of Leibniz when they are formulated -Mbid., A 34/B 50-1. Ibid., A 46-9/B 63-6. It might also be noted that Kant's absolute account of space and time was, in a sense, in conformity with Newtonian science in a way in which Leibniz's relativistic account was not. "Ibid., A 260/B 316ff. 1(1 Ibid., A 270/B 326. 28

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within the framework of Kant's own epistemology. However, there does appear to be an internal incoherence in Leibniz's system which in a general way Kant's criticisms point toward. It is in essence the well-known problem which Leibniz himself at times was worried about namely that of giving a satisfactory account of contingency and freedom.31 This also relates to the problem of giving an account of the difference between the actual and the merely possible. Leibniz himself concluded that each individual substance, like Aquinas' angels, must be a species infima.11 Moreover, even possible individuals must have complete concepts, i.e. concepts sufficient to determine all their characteristics and their positions in infinitely complex possible Universes. The constituents of these possible Universes, as Leibniz puts it, all tend toward existence according to the degree of their perfection.33 However, merely possible Universes do not depend for their natures on God's will. Ex hypothesi God exercised his will simply in choosing to create, from the infinity of possible Universes, the best of them. But what difference could God's act of creation conceivably have made to that possible Universe? On Leibniz's account there is no room for a sensible, or non-intelligible, difference between the actual and the merely possible (as there is for Kant's actual phenomenal world and his merely possible Universes; the actual is the one given in empirical intuition). Of course, as just pointed out, there is, for Leibniz, an intelligible difference between the actual and the possible - namely its degree of perfection - but, unfortunately, that is not the kind of difference that can conceivably depend on God's will. •" See 'On Freedom' (c. 1679), Loemker pp. 263-6. ! - 'Discourse on Method', Loemker p. 308. •'•' See 'On the Radical Origination of Things' (1697), Loemker p. 487.

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III The incoherence of Kant's notion of a thing-in-itself provides Bradley with a sufficient reason for rejecting Transcendental Idealism. It would be much as if we said, 'Since all my faculties are totally confined to my garden, I cannot tell if the roses next door are in flower.' And this seems inconsistent. . . . If the theory were really true, then it must be impossible. There is no reconciling our knowledge of its truth with that general condition which exists if it is true.34 For Bradley it is a fundamental precept that no satisfactory metaphysics can divide appearance - what we experience and know in the activities of our everyday lives - from reality. What we know and experience exists and what exists must belong to reality. As he puts it: 'The assertion of a reality falling outside knowledge, is quite nonsensical'.35 At least Leibniz is not guilty of that error. But, of course, Bradley would not accept Leibniz's account of how appearances belong to reality: namely, by courtesy of a creator God and an infinite plurality of essentially active individual substances which represent the Universe with varying degrees of adequacy and confusion. There are three features of Bradley's account of thought that I wish to draw attention to. Firstly, like Kant but unlike Leibniz, for Bradley sentient experience is not to be seen as merely privative: it plays a quite fundamental role.36 If anything, for Bradley, thought is 14 F.H. Bradley, Appearance and Reality (Clarendon: Oxford, 1968), XII, p. 111. "Ibid., XII, p. 114. 16 F.H. Bradley, Essays on Truth and Reality (Clarendon: Oxford, 1914), VI, 'On Our Knowledge of Immediate Experience', pp. 159-61.

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the inadequate partner. Secondly, Bradley rejects what might be called 'the determinateness of sense': in other words, for Bradley there are ultimately no judgemental contents, or propositions, which are unconditionally true or unconditionally false.37 Leibniz's realism would have required this possibility, and Kant's empirical realism would have required it to be possible with respect to our judgements about phenomenal objects. This second point, although very important, I will simply mention here. What it can be seen as ruling out is a radically truth-functional account of the relation between thought and reality of the kind posited in logical atomism. Thirdly, Bradley admits that our thought when exercised, for example, in relation to objects in space and time, necessarily proceeds by means of the 'machinery of terms and relations'.38 In other words, it will of necessity involve an application of those concepts which Kant regards as categories. However, Bradley argues that, because these concepts are internally incoherent, the metaphysician cannot allow that reality could be as it necessarily appears in our empirical thought. A grasp of this argument is, of course, essential to understanding Bradley's metaphysics. However, for present purposes, I wish to concentrate on the role of immediate experience and its relation to discursive thought in Bradley's philosophy. As is well known, Bradley, as much as Frege, was an anti-psychologist with respect to logic.39 So far as logic is concerned there is nothing psychological about the ideal contents that we refer to, or (to use Bradley's 17 F.H. Bradley, Principles of Logic (Clarendon: Oxford, 1967), I, chapter II, section 71, pp. 99-100. '* Appearance and Reality, III, p. 28. 19 A. Manser and G. Stock, The Philosophy of F.H. Bradley (Clarendon: Oxford, 1984), VII, 'Bradley's Theory of Judgment' (G. Stock), pp. 135-7.

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alternative expression) predicate of, reality in our acts of judgement. The ideal contents that we predicate of reality and which we understand when people communicate their judgements to one another by means of declarative sentences must be what Bradley calls 'universal meanings' or, 'universals'.40 And although Bradley is well aware of the necessity of syntactical, or synthetic, complexity in the ideal contents of our judgements he nevertheless argues that in a sense any judgement is to be regarded as having but one idea.41 Even if we take for example an analytic judgement of sense (i.e. a judgement expressed by a declarative sentence containing indexical demonstratives like 'I have toothache now')42 the ideal content of the judgement must be a universal. The sentence can, in effect, be regarded as a single general term since identically the same ideal content, or meaning, can be used on indefinitely many different occasions, in indefinitely many different judgements, in relation to indefinitely many different facts. However, Bradley argues that the ultimate logical subject of which the ideal content in a judgement is predicated, and in virtue of which, in so far as it is true, the judgement is true (in other words that which he uses the dummy name 'R' to refer to in his formulae for the general form of a judgement, *R is such that S is P') cannot itself be an ideal content.43 Here we might see a version of the problem that Kant saw in Leibniz's system arising again. If the ideal or communicable content of any possible judgement is 40

See Principles of Logic, I, chapter I, section 9, p. 9. Ibid., I, section 11, p. 11. Ibid., II, section 7, p. 49. 43 See ibid., II, section 3, pp. 43-4 and section 5, pp. 45-6; also section 10, p. 51. 41

42

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universal and yet the ultimate subject of predication of any judgement, i.e. reality, is necessarily individual, how can our thought succeed in relating unambiguously to reality? Bradley gives a version of what seems to be the only kind of answer possible to this question - a version of the kind of answer supplied, in very different ways, by Kant's notion of empirical intuition and (to use an example from a theory of knowledge contemporary with Bradley's) Russell's notion of acquaintance in sensation. If the ideal, or conceptual, content of our judgements is to be able to relate unambiguously to the individual it must somehow be underpinned by an immediate, i.e. non-ideal, non-conceptual, mode of cognition. In other words, it must be underpinned by a mode of immediate experience. Now the question arises: how is this mode of immediate experience to be construed? Clearly, for Bradley, it cannot be interpreted as Kant construed it: namely a relation between a subject (qua thing-in-itself) and objects (qua things-in-themselves); nor as Russell came to construe sensation in the atomism of his Lectures on Logical Atomism, namely as a relation between a momentary subject and momentary sense-data.44 Bradley's positive account of the nature of immediate experience is not easy to characterize briefly. I will do my best. In Bradley's epistemology our waking sense perceptions play a fundamentally important role in our knowledge. For convenience at this point we can again concentrate on the waking experience of normal adult human beings who, like ourselves, have mastery of a natural language like English. Also, for ease of exposition, I will use - as 44 B. Russell, Logic and Knowledge, R.C. Marsh (ed.) (Allen and Unwin: London, 1956), 'On the Nature of Acquaintance', pp. 165-8.

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Bradley often does in similar contexts - the first person singular form of expression. But for Bradley this should not be taken to imply privacy of a Cartesian sort in the objects of knowledge. The world that I will regard in a fundamental way as my real world (or the world of actual fact), Bradley argues, will be the world that I can, at each waking moment, think of as a unique spatio-temporal system of unlimited extent containing my body and the objects I can currently perceive around it.45 I will think of this world as, for example, containing not only every presently existing human being but every actual human being who ever has, or ever will, exist. This world, as I make it an object of my thought at any moment, will be, what Bradley calls, an ideal construction. It will, in other words, be an intentional object identified in terms of a complex ideal content predicated of reality in judgement. Or, to put it another way, reality will appear, or be present, in ideal form in the contents of my present thoughts and sense perceptions as an object of a certain sort - namely a spatio-temporally extended system containing (among indefinitely much else) all actual human beings. Now, with what justification do I think of my real world (i.e. this world containing my body and the indexically demonstrable objects I can see and point to around my body now) as being, as it surely must be, unique? Bradley argues that there is nothing in the idea of a spatio-temporally extended system which excludes the logical possibility of the existence of an indefinite series of qualitatively similar spatio-temporally extended series spatio-temporally unrelated to one another.46 The ideal "s Essays on Truth and Reality, III, 'On Floating Ideas and the Imaginary', pp. 30; 44-5; XVI, 'On My Real World', pp. 461-9. 46

See Appearance and Reality, XVIII, pp. 186-9.

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content that I predicate of reality when I think of objects existing in my real world is like any other ideal content universal and as such cannot guarantee its own uniqueness of application. So Bradley is arguing that we have no right to take our ideas of space and time to have (in Kantian fashion) a special cognitive status - to be pure intuitions - and thus to be guaranteed, by definition, uniqueness in their objects. As Bradley concludes in a very important passage from the Principles of Logic:

It is not by its quality as a temporal event or phenomenon of space, that the given is unique. It is unique, not because it has a certain character, but because it is given. It is by the reference of our series to the real, as it appears directly within this point of contact, or indirectly in the element continuous with this point, that these series become exclusive.47 Bradley's point is as follows. If I employ the framework of ideas in terms of which I think of my real world I will necessarily, and for ordinary purposes quite properly, think of my sense perceptions, thoughts and so on, themselves as dateable events or, as successive states, in my personal psychical history. But I will then be prone to think of the uniqueness of my perceptions, thoughts and so on, as being a function of their occurrence - their being caused - at determinate positions in a unique spatio-temporal series. However, to do this within the context of epistemology and metaphysics, according to Bradley, is a mistake. To think of the uniqueness of my perceptions and thoughts, as being a function of their positions in a unique spatio-temporal series is to get it the wrong way round. On Bradley's view it is the uniqueness 47

Principles of Logic, II section 22, p. 64.

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of these perceptions now as immediate experiences (not as items existing in a uniquely actual spatio-temporal and causally interrelated nexus) which enables me to identify in thought my real world and distinguish it from other, non-actual, spatio-temporal series of which I can think.48 Reality is present in ideal form in the contents of these perceptions now, and in my logically interrelated thoughts, as a unique spatio-temporally extended system of objects and events. But these perceptions and thoughts do not merely have communicable ideal contents. They will be items in an indefinitely complex centre of immediate, non-relational experience or feeling. On Bradley's view, such centres of immediate experience are to be taken as epistemologically basic. And it is in virtue of my present perceptions being unique items in such a centre that I am able to distinguish in thought my real world (i.e. the one containing the intentional objects of these immediately felt perceptions and thoughts) from other thinkable non-actual series. According to Bradley's epistemology and metaphysics it is in such finite centres of experience, which cannot be thought of as locatable in any particular spatio-temporal series, that reality (i.e. the ultimate genuinely individual subject of our judgements) is immediately present; moreover, it is in virtue of being items in such a centre of immediate experience that my present perceptions and thoughts themselves are (a) unique and (b) provide, through their ideal contents, my fundamental point of cognitive contact with reality. Thus characterized, the notion of a finite centre is no 48 Bradley can be seen as giving an indexical account of actuality; for such an account cf. D. Lewis, 'Anselm and Actuality', Nous, Vol. 4 (1970), p. 184.

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doubt a difficult one to grasp.49 But, as T.S. Eliot suggested, finite centres can be thought of as in many ways analogous to Leibniz's monads.50 Like monads they are 'gradable' - from merely sentient to rational and self-conscious - non-relational centres of experience. And at least part of what the latter means is that they are not to be construed as deriving their individuality from being externally related, and in particular from being causally interrelated, within a spatio-temporally extended system of existents. So a finite centre of experience is (i) that within which the ultimate, genuinely individual, subject of all our judgements (true and false) is immediately present and (ii) that within which the genuinely individual can appear more or less adequately in ideal form (and thus be known more or less adequately depending on the coherence and comprehensiveness of the ideal contents exercised)51 as a spatio-temporally extended system of causally interrelated and enduring objects, animate and inanimate. However, finite centres are not themselves to be construed as ultimate subjects of predication. They are that in which the genuinely individual is present both immediately and in ideal form and thus they are not themselves to be construed as genuinely individual. Reality, then, for Bradley, is not to be construed (like Kant's things-in-themselves are) as something other than, or transcendent to, an indefinite multiplicity of finite centres of sentient experience.52 But the finite centres of 49 For the best characterization of the notion of a finite centre see Essays on Truth and Reality, XIV, 'What is the Real Julius Caesar?'. 50 'Leibniz's Monads and Bradley's Finite Centres', The Monist, XXVI (October 1916), pp. 566-76. 51 See Essays on Truth and Reality, VII, 'On Truth and Coherence' and VIII, 'Coherence and Contradiction'. 52 See ibid., IX, 'On Appearance, Error and Contradiction', pp. 245-50.

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experience themselves are not to be construed (like Leibniz's monads) as genuine individuals. Their mode of existence can ultimately be merely adjectival. But it is in and through the activities of finite centres of experience alone that the genuinely individual (the Absolute) can exist and realize itself.

Bibliography Bradley, F.H., Essays on Truth and Reality (Clarendon: Oxford, 1914). Bradley, F.H., Principles of Logic (Clarendon: Oxford, 1967) Vols I and II. Bradley, F.H., Appearance and Reality (Clarendon: Oxford, 1968). Kant, I., Critique of Pure Reason, trans N. Kemp Smith (Macmillan: London, 1964). Lewis, D., 'Anselm and Actuality', Nous, Vol. 4 (1970). Loemker, L. (ed.), Philosophical Papers and Letters (Reidel: Dordrecht, 1976). Manser, A. and Stock, G., The Philosophy of F.H. Bradley (Clarendon: Oxford, 1984). Parkinson, G.H.R. (ed.), Philosophical Writings (Dent: London, 1979). Russell, B., Logic and Knowledge, R.C. Marsh (ed.) (Allen and Unwin: London, 1956). Whitehead, A.N., Process and Reality (Cambridge University Press: Cambridge, 1929).

'ORIGINAL NONSENSE': ART AND GENIUS IN KANT'S AESTHETIC Peter Lewis

The words 'original nonsense' are taken from §46 of the Critique of Aesthetic Judgment in which Kant examines the nature of genius in relation to art. Kant offers no explanation of his use of the term 'nonsense'; at least, he does not in the immediate context of its first appearance. He uses it again in §50, almost at the end of the discussion of genius, but again without any definite elucidation. Most commentators, though not all, tend to repeat Kant's usage without comment, while subjecting almost every other concept in Kant's argument to exhaustive scrutiny. This practice suggests that what Kant means strikes most people as obvious, though so far as I can tell 'unsinn' is an unusual term for Kant to use at all, let alone in the third Critique. Of course, it cannot be understood without considering the other terms in Kant's discussion of art and genius: my hope is that it will be enlightening to confront them with questions about nonsense. According to Ernst Cassirer, Kant's account of genius stands 'at the crossroads of all aesthetic discussions in the eighteenth century'.1 Two of the roads in question here 1

Kant's Life and Thought (Yale University Press: New Haven, 1981), p. 320.

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are the neo-classical emphasis on the rules of art and the romantic notion of genius as 'a power of producing excellencies, which are out of the reach of the rules of art'.2 Kant's presentation of the problem in §46 reflects his view of judgements of taste argued for earlier, that the judgement that something is beautiful is an aesthetic rather than a logical judgement (§1); that is, it concerns an individual's response to an object as opposed to an attribution of a property to an object. In judging that something is beautiful, I do not subsume the object under a concept, I do not apprehend the object in accordance with a rule for the application of a predicate. Rather, the determining ground of such a judgement is a feeling of pleasure resulting from the harmonious free play of the cognitive faculties of imagination and understanding. Judgements of taste, then, are not determinable by concepts (§35); or, as Kant sometimes puts it, 'There can . . . be no rule according to which any one is to be compelled to recognize anything as beautiful' (§8).3 This analysis runs into a problem when Kant considers the nature of art. For works of art are artefacts, which means to Kant that they are made in accordance with rules for the achievement of an end or goal specified in terms of a concept, and that in our appreciation of them we must recognize them as such, as works made for some end or goal. This leads to a dilemma: either we estimate works of art as works, in which case we violate the conditions for judging things to be beautiful, or we judge artworks to be beautiful, in which case we violate the conditions for estimating them as artefacts, as works of 1 J. Reynolds in Discourses on Art, Robert R. Wark (ed.) (Yale University Press: New Haven, 1981), VI, p. 96. 3 Unless stated otherwise, translations are from J.C. Meredith's edition of The Critique of Judgment (Clarendon: Oxford, 1969).

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art. Kant resolves the dilemma by employing the notion of genius. Works of fine art are products of genius, and 'genius is the innate mental aptitude through which nature gives the rule to art' (§46). Having introduced this definition, Kant raises the question whether it is adequate to the concept usually associated with the word 'genius'. I think it is clear that it is not, for it is not the case that everything we are prepared to call a work of art is a work of genius. Ordinarily, we think of genius as producing very special works of art, great works as opposed to merely good or mediocre works. This is how I will employ the expression 'product of genius', taking for granted that Kant has established a necessary connection between the concept of genius and the concept of fine art. Kant proceeds to elucidate his notion of genius in four numbered points, the first two of which are as follows. Genius (1) is a talent for producing that for which no definite rule can be given: and not an aptitude in the way of cleverness for what can be learned according to some rule; and . . . consequently originality must be its primary property. (2) Since there may also be original nonsense, its products must at the same time be models, i.e. be exemplary; and, consequently, though not themselves derived from imitation, they must serve that purpose for others, i.e. as a standard or rule of estimating. The combination of these two sentences seems to me to be a sufficient justification for Schopenhauer's reference in the first sentence of his doctoral thesis to 'the marvellous Kant'. They indicate the way in which Kant resolves the eighteenth century's conflict over genius and

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rules in art. The products of genius are not the result of the application of rules, no matter how ingenious the rules or their applications: this means that the judgement of artistic beauty is not constrained by rule. However, the product of genius, the work of fine art, is not thereby arbitrary or accidental, for it must serve as a rule in relation to future work; that is, the artefact cannot count as a work of genius, as a work of fine art, if it cannot function as a rule within the arts. The notion of originality is itself a richly complex one, but at least part of what Kant means when he says that it must be the primary property of genius is novelty. 'Everyone is agreed', says Kant, 'on the point of the complete opposition between genius and the spirit of imitation' (§47). A work of genius is not an imitation of any existing work, it is something new, an invention, an innovation. Given this, then Kant's second point, that there can be original nonsense, seems eminently plausible. Being novel or new is certainly not a guarantee of being good or great. But I am intrigued by the fact that Kant does not say just this. He chooses to say that something new or novel may be nonsense. My question is, with what right does Kant employ such a term in this setting? What justifies him in saying this? One commentator who does not ignore this question is Timothy Gould, in his essay 'The Audience of Originality'.4 Gould explores a suggestion made by Ted Cohen that 'a metaphor may be the best available example of what Kant called products of genius'. Thus, a successful metaphor is to be construed as a new way of making sense: it cannot be made sense of according to 4

Timothy Gould, 'The Audience of Originality' in Essays in Kant's Aesthetics, T. Cohen and P. Guyer (eds) (University of Chicago Press: Chicago, 1985).

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existing rules and yet it does make sense, and in doing so extends our resources for making sense. Gould puts the point as follows: 'The provision of a sense not guaranteed by old rules is either exemplary - and followed, as though it were a new rule - or else it fails' (p. 185). An unsuccessful metaphor is, then, a failure in the attempt to create a new sense, and so is a candidate for the title of original nonsense: though, because of the associations with Lewis Carroll and errant metaphysicians, Gould prefers to talk of original senselessness (p. 186). He goes on: For reasons which I take to be internal to the category, it is hard to give examples. . . . The most conspicuous might be drawn from recent times, from the works or effects of Dada, of some surrealists, or of certain of the so-called minimalists {loc. cit.). Despite his sensitive treatment of the matter, Gould concludes that metaphor is not the best example of the products of genius, for a bad metaphor, in being banal or forced, is a less radical failure in making sense than failure in art (p. 187). I am in agreement with Gould on this point, but I also want to go further in rejecting the example of metaphor. Take a much-used illustration, Romeo's remark, 'Juliet is the sun'. Taken metaphorically, it is pregnant with sense; taken literally, it is a kind of nonsense, it is like a category mistake. On some theories, its being literal nonsense is a condition of its success as a metaphor. But this structure does not fit Kant's analysis of the products of genius. Kant's view is that, since there can be original nonsense, then the products of genius must be exemplary as well as novel. That is, as I read it, being exemplary excludes being nonsense, and vice versa. I see no ground here, at least, for thinking Kant would accept that from one point of

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view works of fine art are nonsense and that, at the same time, from some other point of view they are exemplary. What is more, I do not believe that the example of metaphor, as elaborated by Gould, actually throws much light on the crucial question of what determines sense and nonsense in this context. Thus, we are told that a successful metaphor does not make sense in terms of existing rules. But this is also true of nonsense. The difference is that metaphor yields a new sense by providing a new rule, whereas nonsense does not. What needs answering here is what it is that enables us to establish this distinction, how we identify sense as opposed to nonsense. And one thing seems clear, which is that it is not by reference to rules of sense that we make this identification. But in that case we have not been given anything in this example of metaphor which advances our understanding of Kant's view of genius. Finally, I want to maintain that the example of metaphor draws attention away from what seems to me to be one of Kant's great insights about the nature of art. Metaphors do not, normally, relate to one another in the way that works of art do. Ordinary, everyday metaphors, as opposed to metaphors in works of art, are embedded in conversational contexts, taking as their point of departure the literal and non-metaphorical conventions of the language. Works of art, however, relate to one another within various artistic traditions. A new work of art takes as its point of departure previous achievements within the art form. It is precisely this which I think Kant expressed in the passage I have quoted about originality and exemplarity. Every work of art which is the product of genius stands in a twofold relation to other works - being original relates a work to its predecessors; being exemplary relates a work to its successors. Works of art, then, are essentially embedded

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in traditions constituted by works of art. This seems to be very different from the case of metaphor. Indeed, it would surely be extraordinary if Cohen's claim were correct; if, that is, metaphors, and not works of art, provided the best examples of Kant's account of the products of genius. Although in §49 Kant does employ figures of speech in illustration of the nature of aesthetic ideas, the generation of which is distinctive of artistic genius, this, as we shall see, is not to allow that metaphor constitutes a product of genius in the relevant sense. I now want to look more closely at Kant's idea that nature gives the rule to art. He points out in §47 that the artist cannot formulate a rule to serve as a precept for the construction of the work, for this would undermine the autonomy of the work and of the judgement of taste upon the work. 'Rather', says Kant, 'the rule must be abstracted from what the artist has done, i.e. from the product, which others may use to test their own talent, letting it serve them as their model, not to be copied but to be imitated. How that is possible is difficult to explain'.5 That there is a difficulty here can be seen from the clause 'not to be copied but to be imitated' - this appears to conflict with a point mentioned earlier, that genius is completely opposed to the spirit of imitation. In fact, Kant's difficulty here is mirrored in a curious muddle in the manuscript.6 Initially, the manuscript read 'not to be imitated but to be imitated (nicht der Nachahmung, sondern der Nachahmung)', being subsequently corrected to read 'not to be copied (Nachmachung) but to be imitated (Nachahmung)'. This is the reading adopted by the s 6

Critique of Judgment, Pluhar's translation (Hackett: Indianapolis, 1987). Ibid., p. 177, n. 43.

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translators Bernard7 and Pluhar.8 However, Meredith introduces a conjecture at this point, his translation reading 'not for imitation (Nachahmung), but for following (Nachfolge)'. This brings the passage into line with what Kant says elsewhere in the Critique. At §32, he says, ''Following (Nachfolge) which has reference to a precedent, and not imitation (Nachahmung), is the proper expression for all influence which the products of an exemplary author may exert upon others. . .' At §49, \ . . the product of a genius . . . is an example, not for imitation . . . but to be followed by another genius . . .' I think this textual muddle partly reflects the complexity of the story Kant has to tell about the relationship of works of genius to future works, but also partly a lack of clarity in his thinking about that relationship. The complexity concerns the difference between the way in which works of genius relate to future geniuses and the way in which works of genius relate to future artists who lack genius. The lack of clarity concerns the numerous notions Kant employs to describe these differing relationships. He talks of abstracting (or gathering) a rule or rules from the products of genius, but whereas it makes sense to talk of following rules, it makes no sense to talk of imitating rules: that would explain the clause 'not for imitation but for following'. Kant also talks about the product of genius serving as a model, but whereas it makes sense to talk of imitating a model, it does not make much sense to talk of following a model: that would help to explain the clause, 'not to be copied but to be imitated'. Kant talks, too, about the product of genius being an example for others, and it makes sense to talk of following someone's example as well as 7 8

Critique, trans J.H. Bernard (Hafner Press: New York, 1951). Op. cit.

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imitating someone's example, though these perhaps do not necessarily amount to the same thing. It is with respect to this latter pair of expressions that we can begin to appreciate the difference between artistic genius and artistic non-genius. Given that genius is opposed to the spirit of imitation, we can say that genius follows the example of another genius whereas the non-genius imitates the example, the product of genius. Of course, neither goes in for slavish copying of previous artistic products, though the nongenius will imitate the style or the plot or the composition, and so on, found in earlier work. In this way, when a particular work or the work of a particular group of artists is taken as the example for imitation, there arises something like a movement or school. 'That is to say', says Kant, 'a methodical instruction according to rules, collected, so far as the circumstances admit, from such products of genius and their peculiarities. And, to that extent, fine art is for such persons a matter of imitation, for which nature, through the medium of a genius, gave the rule' (§49). One might question Kant's emphasis on rules extracted from the works themselves; not that I deny the possibility - the rules of harmony dictated in music schools would be one instance of the phenomenon. Nevertheless, imitation does not require the formulating or fixing of rules in that sense. Here, Kant's other notions - exemplars, models - come into play. Particular works of art can assume a normative function in so far as a teacher, or apprentice, refers to them as a guide in the making of his own work. 'Do it like thisV might be a typical command, accompanied by a pointing gesture. In this way, a work of art can serve as a rule without a rule having to be abstracted or extracted from it. The genius, qua genius, is supposed to be above or beyond all this. His work is brought about neither by

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imitation nor by following rules. And yet he does follow the example set by previous products of genius. It is just this which, not surprisingly, Kant found difficult to describe. At one point he puts it like this: the product of a genius . . . is an example . . . to be followed by another genius - one whom it arouses to a sense of his own originality in putting freedom from the constraint of rules so into force in his art, that for art itself a new rule is won . . . (§49). The work of genius, then, inspires - to use a word familiar in this context (and one that Kant himself uses in §§48 and 50) - another artist to create another work of genius. In this respect, the work of genius plays a different role from that which it does for the non-genius. It is still exemplary, but what it exemplifies is not a rule or a style but an achievement. In Kant's term, it is a standard, a standard of excellence, a benchmark, a yardstick by reference to which subsequent achievements are measured. This is the position Beethoven's nine symphonies hold in the symphonic tradition. There is an interesting correspondence between the views just outlined and Wittgenstein's views as expressed in his 1938 lectures on aesthetics. Having talked about rules in art and about judgements of correctness, Wittgenstein says: When we talk of a Symphony of Beethoven we don't talk of correctness. Entirely different things enter. One wouldn't talk of appreciating the tremendous things in Art. In certain styles in Architecture a door is correct, and the thing is you appreciate it. But in the case of a Gothic Cathedral what we do is not at all to find it correct - it plays an entirely different role with us. The entire game is different. It is as different as to judge a

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human being and on the one hand to say 'He behaves well' and, on the other hand, 'He made a great impression on me.'9 It seems to me that these remarks, in themselves somewhat puzzling, are illuminated by Kant's account of works of genius which set standards of correctness but which themselves are not assessed in terms of correctness. Wittgenstein's analogy of the rules of etiquette emerges again in his reflections on his capacities as an artist. 'In my artistic activities,' he writes, 'I really have nothing but good manners'-™ and again, '. . . the house I built for Gretl is the product of a decidedly sensitive ear and good manners. . .' u Wittgenstein's etiquette analogy does suggest a potential difficulty for the Kantian account of genius. For it might well appear that the person who makes a great impression on us need pay no attention to the rules of etiquette - behaving well, conforming to the rules, is a matter for the meek, the faint-hearted. The great man, the genius, creates his own rules. This is a difficulty Kant explicitly confronts: his solution to it brings us closer to an understanding of what he might mean by original nonsense. Kant writes seeing that originality of talent is one (though not the sole) essential factor that goes to make up the character of genius, shallow minds fancy that the best evidence they can give of their being full-blown geniuses is by emancipating themselves from all academic constraint of rules, in the belief that one cuts 9

Lectures and Conversations on Aesthetics, Psychology and Religious Belief (Basil Blackwell: Oxford, 1966). 10 Culture and Value, trans P. Winch (Basil Blackwell: Oxford, 1980), p. 25. 11 Ibid., p. 38.

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a finer figure on the back of an ill-tempered than of a trained horse' (§47; cf. §49). Kant's image of cutting a fine figure nicely parallels Wittgenstein's analogy of a person making a great impression: neither amounts to mere conformity but equally neither can be achieved by disregarding all rules. As Wittgenstein put it in reply to an objection, '. . . every composer changed the rules, but the variation was very slight; not all the rules were changed. The music was still good by a great many of the old rules . . .'12 (The context of this remark makes clear that Wittgenstein would have been prepared to accept the qualification, 'every great composer'.) Here we need to remember a point I made at the beginning, that works of art are works, hence, in Kant's view, made in accordance with rules. He endorses this in §47: Even though mechanical and fine art are very different from each other, since the first is based merely on diligence and learning but the second on genius, yet there is no fine art that does not have as its essential condition something mechanical, which can be encompassed by rules and complied with, and hence has an element of academic correctness (Pluhar's translation). To accommodate this, Kant makes two crucial distinctions, the first between the material and the form of art. 'Genius can do no more than furnish rich material for products of fine art; its elaboration and its form require a talent academically trained, so that it may be employed in such a way as to stand the test of judgment' (§47). Corresponding to this distinction, there is the further 12

Lectures and Conversations, p. 6.

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distinction between genius and taste. Genius is a productive faculty or ability, creating new ideas; whereas taste is a critical rather than a productive faculty (§48). Taste . . . is the discipline of genius. It severely clips its wings, and makes it orderly and polished . . .' (§50). We can unite these two distinctions by recognizing that taste is the ability, which may be acquired by learning, to mould the form of the work of art in accordance with the academic constraint of rules. There is a remarkable similarity between Kant and Wittgenstein on this topic of genius and taste. In Culture and Value Wittgenstein thinks of genius in terms of originality, of inventiveness,13 and contrasts this with taste. The faculty of 'taste' [says Wittgenstein] cannot create a new structure, it can only make adjustments to one that already exists. Taste loosens and tightens screws, it does not build a new piece of machinery. . . . Giving birth is not its affair. Taste makes things ACCEPTABLE. . . . Even the most refined taste has nothing to do with creative power.14 And in an image reminiscent of Kant's trained horse, Wittgenstein says that 'within all great art there is a WILD animal: tamed'.15 This seems to imply that for Wittgenstein great art involves both originality and taste, but this is explicitly denied in a later entry, '. . . I believe that a great creator has no need of taste; his child is born into the world fully formed'.16 If Wittgenstein is equivocal on this issue, Kant is not. 13

Op. cit., p. 36; pp. 18-19. Ibid., pp. 59-60. 15 Ibid., p. 37. " Ibid., p. 59. 14

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[Ilnsofar as art shows genius it does indeed deserve to be called inspired, but it deserves to be called fine art only in so far as it shows taste. Hence what we must look to above all, when we judge art as fine art, is taste, at least as an indispensable condition (§50; Pluhar's translation). This makes clear that when talking of the products of genius as exemplary, Kant has in mind works which possess both genius and taste, genius in the context of this latter contrast being understood more narrowly as the material of the work (or the soul of the work, as Kant says at one point, §49). Figures of speech, such as metaphor, occurring within works of art, would count as products of genius in this narrow sense in so far as they exhibit aesthetic ideas; but it is only to the work of fine art as a whole, to the product of genius in the wider or fuller sense, that Kant attributes the tradition-embedded features of originality and exemplarity. As we have seen, not all works of art are works of genius; thus, Kant allows that 'in order [for a work] to be beautiful, it is not strictly necessary that it be rich and original in ideas' (§50; Pluhar's translation). There may, then, be works which exhibit taste but not genius. Since taste is a necessary condition of fine art, it seems that there cannot be works which exhibit genius but not taste. In §48, Kant appears to confirm that this is so when he says that 'in a would-be work of fine art we may frequently recognize genius without taste and in another taste without genius'. In fact, 'genius without taste' is a possible candidate for what is meant by 'original nonsense' - a soul without a body, as it were (see §43). It appears to complete the categorization which Kant employs - that is, works of

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genius, works of non-genius, and original nonsense. Broken down into 'faculties', that yields 'genius and taste', 'taste without genius', and 'genius without taste'. But this is too simple: there is another kind of work which Kant refers to and which is also a candidate for what is meant by 'original nonsense', viz. the work of a bungler (Pluhar) or tyro (Meredith) which exhibits neither genius nor taste (see §§47 and 49). Such work is marked by idiosyncrasy and eccentricity in consequence of the maker's attempt to ape the originality of genius. But whereas in the product of genius 'a deviation from the common rule' is a merit, and shows 'courage', since it . is demanded of the artist in making something 'appropriate' or 'adequate' to his idea (§49), in the work of the bungler it is merely ridiculous, empty-headed (§47), attention-seeking (§49). Equally, though an action which in one context may show courage, an outwardly similar action in a different context may be simply foolhardy. There is a strong case for taking the work of a bungler to be what Kant means by 'original nonsense'. Nevertheless, there is also a case to be made for 'genius without taste' in view of the fact that Kant uses the distinctive word 'nonsense' once more, and only once more, at just the point where he should if this is what he meant by 'original nonsense'. In §50, having claimed that taste is indispensable, he goes on to say that 'in lawless freedom imagination, with all its wealth, produces nothing but nonsense; the power of judgement, on the other hand, is the faculty that makes it consonant with the understanding'. If taste, exercised in judgement, is what brings lawfulness into the ideas of imagination and so makes possible a work of fine art, a product of genius in the full sense, then the absence of taste will result in a work potentially rich in ideas but disorganized to the

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point of unintelligibility. The proposal here is intuitively appealing. It is the notion of an artist whose work is imaginative and full of invention, though too full, exhibiting no evident consistency or coherence, or it is arbitrary and whimsical, or it is one in which we might think of the artist as having lost control of his material, as being overwhelmed by it all. 'If only', we think, 'he had the discipline, the strength of character and will to bring order out of this chaos.' ('One might say', wrote Wittgenstein, '"Genius is talent exercised with courage"?)17 To quote again a sentence I used earlier, now continuing the passage: Taste, like judgment in general, is the discipline (or corrective) of genius. It severely clips its wings, and makes it orderly or polished; but at the same time it gives it guidance, directing and controlling its flight, so that it may preserve its character of purposiveness. It introduces a clearness and order into the plenitude of thought, and in so doing gives stability to the ideas, and qualifies them at once for permanent and universal approval, for being followed by others, and for a continually progressive culture (§50). Without the discipline of taste, the work may be original but nonsensical. If, as I have suggested, there are two plausible candidates for the title of 'original nonsense', I see no need to eliminate one in favour of the other. The distinction between different kinds of nonsense - paradoxical as that sounds - corresponds to a distinction between different kinds of artistic failure. One is irredeemably vacuous, the result of naive incompetence or outrageous effrontery; the other is a matter of unrealized potential, r

Culture and Value, p. 38.

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a genuine attempt at artistic innovation which can be taken seriously and from which something can be learned - in short, an exemplary failure. Earlier, I quoted Timothy Gould to the effect that it is hard to give examples of original nonsense for reasons which are internal to the category. I am not sure what is meant by this, unless it is just that what we need to look for are examples of failures, albeit perhaps heroic failures, whereas it tends to be successful works which are deposited on, and not submerged by, the sands of time. Gould's own examples of artistic nonsense are controversial, and inevitably so; though it seems to me that the works of Dada, surrealism and minimalism all too often lack the kind of complexity and potential which I have characterized as belonging to genius without taste. As an example of that latter category, no less controversial, I offer Joyce's Finnegan's Wake. If there is a shortage of examples of original nonsense, there is, ironically, no shortage of works which appear, or did once appear, to be original nonsense. It was in these terms that people, critics as well as the general public, reacted to artistic innovations throughout the nineteenth century - to Turner's paintings for instance, to the first impressionist exhibitions, to the post-impressionists, etc. These works often struck their first spectators to be the work of bunglers, patternless, pointless, unruly and chaotic displays of colour. Even if it is not the fate of genius to be misunderstood, on Kant's view it is not surprising that it often is, at least to begin with. The appearance of nonsense is dissipated, if at all, through the exercise of taste, the critical faculty. This involves not merely discerning some kind of order or pattern in the work there is a fine illustration of this in relation to a Jackson Pollock painting in David Bell's recent paper,

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The Art of Judgment'18 - but also seeing the work as continuous with accepted examples of the relevant kinds of art. Thus, Turner was made sense of by Ruskin's placing him within the landscape tradition running from seventeenth-century Dutch painting to Constable. I have reverted to talking, as I did at the beginning of this paper, of taste as exercised by the audience of art, whereas in the middle of the paper I talked of taste as an aspect of artistic capability. This reflects the variation in Kant's way of talking about taste as between the Analytic of the Beautiful and the sections on genius in the Analytic of the Sublime. If this looks like inconsistency, then it needs to be remembered that in estimating works of art we are involved in making judgements of dependent beauty rather than judgements of free beauty (§§16 and 45; cf. §48). This means that in judging a work to be beautiful, to be a work of fine art, 'A concept of what the thing is intended to be must . . . be laid at its basis' (§48), a concept which guided the production of the work. At its most general, that concept is 'work of fine art', but that in turn will supervene on more specific concepts such as 'painting', 'literary work', 'sculpture', 'piece of music'; and, more specifically still, 'poem', 'novel', 'landscape', 'portrait', and so on. These concepts do not fully determine our judgement of the work, any more than they do its production: '. . . a mode, as it were, of execution, in respect of which one remains to a certain extent free, notwithstanding being otherwise tied down to a definite end' (§48). The explanation of this is that our grasp of such concepts, both for the artist and the audience, is given through examples. . . .[T]he artist, [says Kant] having practised and II

Mind (1987), pp. 236-7.

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corrected his taste by a variety of examples from nature or art, controls his work and, after many, and often laborious attempts to satisfy taste, finds the form which commends itself to him (§48). Similarly, the exercise of taste in judging art will involve coming to see a work as a further example, congruent with the old, in which the achieved form is 'adequate' or 'appropriate' (§48) to the rich and original play of the artist's ideas. Our inability to see a work in this way, to see how it can fit in, leaves us with the judgement of original nonsense. My emphasis on seeing a work of art in relation to past works might appear to be in conflict with Kant's view of a work art as exemplary, serving as a rule for future following. But there is no real conflict. A rule points forward in virtue of the way it organizes (our sense of) the past. And it is entirely characteristic of great art that it changes the ways in which we appreciate the art of the past. The point is made superbly by F.R. Leavis in his comments on Jane Austen: She not only makes tradition for those coming after, but her achievement has for us a retroactive effect: as we look back beyond her we see in what goes before, and see because of her, potentialities and significances brought out in such a way, that for us, she creates the tradition we see leading down to her.19 It is as if Jane Austen's work provides a rule for a new ordering of 'the existing monuments' (to use Eliot's famous phrase), an ordering which itself will influence, and be modified by, future literary innovations. Now it might seem that Kant's notion of genius giving 19

The Great Tradition (Penguin: Harmondsworth, 1977), p. 14.

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the rule to art could be undermined by Kripkean rulescepticism. After all, it might be said, any one work can be thought of as following or fitting in with any other; and, if this is so, then the distinction between artistic sense and nonsense would appear to be arbitrary. However, the ground of this distinction in Kant's aesthetic is his account of the human cognitive faculties and of their harmonious interplay. Not just anything can count as a beautiful work of art; although, crucially, what is and what is not cannot be specified in advance of particular human responses. In the last analysis, Kant's 'continually progressive culture' (§50) rests on 'agreement in judgments'.

Bibliography Bell, David, The Art of Judgment', Mind (1987). Cassirer, Ernst, Kant's Life and Thought (Yale University Press: New Haven, 1981). Gould, Timothy, 'The Audience of Originality' in Essays in Kant's Aesthetics, T. Cohen and P. Guyer (eds) (University of Chicago Press: Chicago, 1985). Kant, I., Critique of Judgment, trans J.H. Bernard (Hafner Press: New York, 1951); trans Werner S. Pluhar (Hackett: Indianapolis, 1987). Kant, I., Critique of Aesthetic Judgment, trans J.C. Meredith (Clarendon: Oxford, 1969). Leavis, F.R., The Great Tradition (Penguin: Harmondsworth, 1977). Reynolds, J. in Discourses on Art, Robert R. Wark (ed.) (Yale University Press: New Haven, 1981). Wittgenstein, L., Lectures and Conversations on Aesthetics, Psychology and Religious Belief (Basil Blackwell: Oxford, 1966). Wittgenstein, L., Culture and Value, trans P. Winch (Basil Blackwell: Oxford, 1980).

FICHTE, BECK AND SCHELLING IN KANT'S OPUS POSTUMUM Eckart Forster

I have taken the title of the conference - 'Kant and His Influence' - quite literally. That is to say, I have taken the 'and' in the title as a conjunctive, not as a disjunctive. Consequently, I want to raise the question: how did Kant respond philosophically to the way others reacted to his philosophy? For while others were struggling with the implications of the critical philosophy he had initiated, Kant was too, virtually until his death. When he died, Kant left behind a voluminous manuscript of several hundred pages - the so-called Opus postumum - on which he had worked for more than a decade. This is, of course, the same period during which disciples and critics, such as Reinhold, Fichte, Beck, Schelling, Maimon, and others, subjected the critical philosophy to a careful examination. Interestingly, we encounter references to Fichte and Beck as well as Schelling in Kant's Opus postumum. To what extent was Kant, in his last work, aware of, or even influenced by, these philosophers? I must begin by saying a few things about the Opus postumum itself. Although the manuscript is virtually complete, Kant did not live to edit it. Ignoring Kant's repeated assertion that the text would be his most important work, and that it would fill 'a gap' in his critical 146

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philosophy, his literary executor thought the text not fit for publication, with the result that it soon disappeared in the possession of Kant's heirs. When it resurfaced half a century later, influential philosophers like Kuno Fischer thought they could dismiss it without inspection as a product of senility - after all, had Kant not himself completed the critical philosophy with his Critique of Judgment} But more sympathetic thinkers, too, found it difficult to make sense of Kant's text, for the various sheets and fascicles of the manuscript were not preserved in the order of their composition, making it seemingly impossible to determine the chronological (and logical) order of Kant's reasoning. Eventually, in 1936-8, the complete text was published. When the war was over, Kant's last work slowly began to attract the philosophical attention one would expect, with translations of it being published in French, Italian, Spanish, and an English translation forthcoming. What did Kant hope to achieve in his last work, a work which he initially planned to call 'Transition from the Metaphysical Foundations of Natural Science to Physics'? Why did he think, so late in his life, that another critical work was needed? I will offer an answer to these questions and then give an overview of the content of the Opus postumum, before turning to the discussion of Fichte, Beck and Schelling.1 1 In section I, I am summarizing what I have developed in more detail in a number of publications, including 'Is There "A Gap" in Kant's Critical System?', Journal of the History of Philosophy, XXV, 4 (1987), pp. 533-55; 'Kant's Selbstsetzungslehre in Kant's Transcendental Deductions. The Three Critiques and the Opus postumum, Eckart Forster (ed.) (Stanford University Press: Stanford, 1989), pp. 217-38; 'Kant's Notion of Philosophy', The Monist, 72, 2 (1989), pp. 285-304; 'Die Idee des Ubergangs. Uberlegungen zum Elementarsystem der bewegenden Krafte', in Ubergang. Beitrage zur Spdtphilosophie Immanuel Kants, Siegfried Blasche (ed.) (Vittorio Klostermann: Frankfurt, forthcoming); and in the Introduction to my English edition of Kant's Opus postumum (Cambridge University Press: Cambridge, forthcoming).

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I We may take our clue from a well-known passage in the Preface to the second edition of the Critique of Pure Reason. It describes the conceptual revolution that set the study of nature 'on the secure path of a science': When Galileo caused balls, the weights of which he had himself previously determined, to roll down an inclined plane . . . a light broke upon all students of nature. They learned that reason has insight only into that which it produces after a plan of its own, and that it must not allow itself to be kept, as it were, in nature's leading-strings, but must itself show the way with principles of judgment based upon fixed laws, constraining nature to give answer to questions of reason's own determining (B xii-xiii). The light that broke upon the students of nature was the realization that nature does not by itself reveal its laws to the observer. No unaided observation suggests that all bodies fall with the same constant acceleration. To discover a law like this, it is necessary to isolate in an experiment certain features from their natural environment, as Galileo had done when he let balls roll down an inclined plane. The experiment, the observer's interference with nature's processes, is a condition under which a scientific study of nature is possible. But more is required for a genuine science of nature. [P]hysics . . . owes the beneficent revolution in its point of view entirely to the happy thought, that while reason must seek in nature, not fictitiously ascribe to it, whatever as not being knowable through reason's own resources has to be learnt, if learnt at all, only from nature, it must adopt as its guide, in so seeking, that which it has itself put into nature (B xiii-xiv).

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Any science worthy of the name must exhibit, or guarantee, a systematic connection of its various laws and propositions, and it must do so in accordance with determinate principles. Such systematic unity cannot be gained empirically; it is of a priori origin and presupposes a systematic activity of the subject. No aggregate of perceptions, no mere collection of empirical data, can yield the systematicity we seek in a science. Reason 'must itself show the way with principles of judgement based upon fixed laws'. Hence, if physics is to be possible as a science, philosophy must provide principles for the investigation of nature that yield a priori topoi for the systematic classification of those specific forces of matter that can only be given empirically. The subject must 'adopt as its guide' in seeking to learn from nature 'that which it has itself put into nature'. More specifically, the systematicity of physics rests on two requirements: (1) that we bring together in a systematic way the various laws of nature; (2) that nature permit such classification, in other words, that nature can be regarded as systematic. Now, (1) presupposes (2), for, as Kant had put it in the first Introduction to the third Critique: it is clear that the nature of the reflective judgment is such that it cannot undertake to classify the whole of nature by its empirical differentiation unless it assumes that nature itself specifies its transcendental laws by some principle.2 The Critique of Judgment provided the a priori justification for the assumption that nature specifies its universal laws to empirical ones, according to the form of a 2 Academy edition of Kant's Works (Berlin, 1900-), Vol. 20, p. 215; trans J. Haden (The Bobbs-Merrill Company: Indianapolis, 1965), p. 20.

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system.3 But it remained silent as to (1). What still needed to be elucidated, then, was exactly how the physicist must initially approach nature in order to be instructed by it, or what kind of a priori principles one must 'put into nature' in order to achieve a systematic understanding of its laws. For this task, the categories and Analogies of the first Critique do not suffice; nor is it enough to analyse the concept of matter in accordance with the table of categories, as the Metaphysical Foundations of Natural Science had done. Physics does not deal with nature uberhaupt, nor with the 'separated (although in itself empirical) concept of matter',4 but with the specific corporeal nature of outer sense. Hence a new work was required, a 'Transition from the Metaphysical Foundations of Natural Science to Physics': The transition from the metaphysical foundations of natural science to physics consists in a method of bringing about the systematic knowledge of physics; this cannot be done simply by collecting experiences, for here the outline [Vorriss] of a system is missing, which must be given a priori.5 If the transition project is relatively clear, its solution certainly is not. Kant's manuscript reveals his long and painful struggle with the problem; in a letter of 1798 to Christian Garve he even writes of 'a pain like that of Tantalus' of seeing before him 'the unpaid bill of my uncompleted philosophy'. What, exactly, is the source of the problem? To account for its systematicity (possibility), physics ' Ibid. Vol. 4, p. 472. 'Vol. 21, p. 492.

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must be preceded by a special a priori science, the 'science of transition'. But this science of transition, in turn, requires an idea or a plan according to which it is to be carried out, for, as Kant had put it in the first Critique, 'No one attempts to establish a science unless he has an idea upon which to base it' (A 834). But what could function as such an idea for the science of transition? This idea cannot be derived from physics itself, as the transition is supposed to account for the very possibility of physics. Nor can it be derived from the Metaphysical Foundations of Natural Science, from which the transition commences: the concepts of attraction and repulsion, as Kant wrote later, furnish no specifically determined, empirical properties, and one can imagine no specific [forces], of which one could know whether they exist in nature, or whether their existence be demonstrable.6 For a while, Kant hoped to achieve the desired systematic result by 'following the clue given by the categories and bringing into play the moving forces of matter according to their quantity, quality, relation and modality'. But, as the early parts of Kant's manuscript show clearly, the system of categories cannot compensate for the lack of a proper idea on which to base the transition; it cannot itself determine which moving forces of matter must be connected a priori in order to advance to physics as a system. After several years, in 1799, a solution eventually suggested itself. It is reflected in the unique status Kant now assigned to the concept of an ether, which had initially been introduced in the Opus postumum to explain a number of physical phenomena. For example, ' Vol. 22, p. 282.

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Kant had realized that the dynamical theory of matter of the Metaphysical Foundations of Natural Science, which explains matter in terms of an interplay of attractive and repulsive forces, cannot explain the formation of material bodies. It may explain the differences in density in different types of matter, but it cannot account for cohesion and hence for matter of a particular form - a body (hence it cannot account for mechanics). The possibility of cohesion requires the impact of an all-penetrating, internally moving material, which Kant calls the 'caloric', or 'ether'. But eventually Kant also realized that empirical space, in order to be sensible, has to be thought of as being filled with a continuum of forces which 'as it were . . . hypostatizes' space.7 The ether is thus also referred to as 'hypostatized space'. The space known from the first Critiquey by contrast, the mere form of outer intuition, was 'neither positively empty nor positively full, [hence] not an object existing outside me at all'.8 Finally, Kant argued, since perceptions must be thought of as the effects of moving forces on my subject, the unity of experience, which reason demands a priori and unequivocally - there is only 'one experience' (A 110) - is thinkable only on condition of a unitary basis of all moving forces, or an ether. Kant's ether, in the Opus postumum, thus eventually becomes a necessary concept of reason, a transcendental ideal. But if it is a concept of reason, if it is an ideal of reason, it must be possible to determine analytically, and in accordance with the table of categories, those attributes that necessarily pertain to the ether in virtue of its function (cf. A 580/B 610f). To put it briefly, since the ether can only be one, it must be universally distributed (quantity). 7 8

Vol. 2 1 , p. 224. Vol. 2 1 , p. 232.

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In order to function as the basis for the connection of all the moving forces of matter, it must be all-penetrating (quality). Since its internal vibrations are to be the condition of the formation of material bodies (cohesion), it must be all-moving (relation). Finally, since the 'unity of experience' permits no interruptions, the internal motions of the ether must be permanent (modality).9 Expressed negatively, the ether must be imponderable, incoercible, incohesible, and inexhaustible. And this, Kant realized, can yield a basic principle for the systematic apprehension of the moving forces of matter, for 'ponderability, coercibility, cohesion, and exhaustibility presuppose moving forces which act in opposition to the latter and cancel their effect'.10 For there to be an object of experience in space, then, we must presuppose a priori such limitations of the ether - limitations, that is, which make possible the constitution of an object of outer sense. We thus have an 'idea' or principle for the elementary system of the transition, and an a priori topic for the empirical forces: as regards quantity, all matter must be either ponderable or imponderable; as regards quality, either coercible or incoercible; as regards relation, cohesible or incohesible; as regards modality, exhaustible or inexhaustible. The forces themselves remain 'problematic' at this level, as Kant emphasizes repeatedly: they can only be given empirically. The systematic account of them, if it is to be a priori, must thus be expressed in the form of disjunctions. At virtually the same time at which Kant finds this solution, he realizes its inadequacy. He had indeed found a principle for the elementary system of the moving "Cf. Vol. 21, p. 584. Vol. 22, p. 610.

111

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forces of matter, but the question, 'How are these forces to be experienced?' had thus far been left unaddressed. Specific empirical forces cannot be known through reflection, nor are they simply given to a passive subject. Empirical forces are recognized only by way of an active interference with them: We would not know through experience the moving forces of matter in bodies, if we were not conscious of our own activity to exercise ourselves the acts of repulsion and attraction through which we apprehend these appearances. The concept of originally moving forces is not derived from experience but must lie a priori in the activity of the mind of which we are conscious when moving.11 To experience the moving forces of matter, then, the subject of experience must itself exist as a corporeal subject in space and in time; it must first constitute itself as an object or, as Kant prefers to say in the Opus postumum, the subject must first posit itself (as an object). How is this to be understood from the point of view of his transcendental idealism? We can only be affected by moving forces of matter if we exist as corporeal beings in space. And only because we ourselves exercise acts of attraction and repulsion do we apprehend the appearances of moving forces upon us. On the other hand, it is only in the process of such apprehension of moving forces that we appear to ourselves as corporeal. Only in so far as I can represent myself as affected do I appear to myself as sensuous and corporeal, that is, as an object of outer sense. Selfpositing and affection through outer objects must therefore really be two sides of the same coin: 11

Vol. 21, p. 490.

Fichte, Beck and Schelling in Kant's 'Opus postumum' 155

Positing and perception, spontaneity and receptivity, the objective and the subjective relation, are simultaneous, because they are identical as to time, as appearances of how the subject is affected - thus [they are] given a priori in the same actus}1 Hence it is from this original actus of the subject that there emerges the duality of empirical self and material world surrounding it, of observer and observed. Only because I apprehend the undetermined given manifold and, in the process of apprehension, insert or put into this manifold certain fundamental forces, can I represent the manifold as the appearance of an external cause of my perception, and at the same time represent myself as being affected, hence as corporeal: The subject affects itself and becomes an object in appearance for itself in the composition of the moving forces. . . . the moving forces of matter are what the subject does with its body to [other] bodies. The reactions corresponding to these forces are contained in the simple acts by which we perceive the bodies themselves.13 In these simple acts, in what it puts into nature, the subject is guided by the principle of the elementary system of forces, as established in the analysis of the idea of the ether as the unitary material ground of all outer experience. The determination of my own existence in space and time, the transition from pure apperception to knowledge of myself as an empirical being, thus takes place for Kant within the context of the ideal of a single, all-embracing experience. This experience itself depends on the collective unity of the moving forces of matter, 12 11

Vol. 22, p. 466. Vol. 22, p. 364; Vol. 22, p. 326.

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which the subject investigates, progressing to a thoroughgoing determination of all phenomena, a process never completed but inevitably given as a task: The understanding begins with the consciousness of itself {apperceptio) and performs thereby a logical act. To this the manifold of outer and inner intuition attaches itself serially, and the subject makes itself into an object in a limitless sequence . . . I am an object of myself and of my representations. That there is something else outside me is my own product. I make myself . . . . We make everything ourselves.14 Before proceeding to Fichte, Beck and Schelling, I want to mention briefly that the position sketched here is not yet Kant's final one. Rather, the last fascicles of the Opus postumum contain an extension of the theory of selfpositing to the moral-practical realm. For thoroughgoing determination of my existence in space and time is not the only thoroughgoing determination of myself. As a person, I am also endowed with a will which must be determined in accordance with the moral law of reason, a will, that is, which is subject to the categorical imperative. It is thus appropriate to speak of a moralpractical self-positing, analogous to the theoretical, technical-practical one. 'Man himself must make or have made himself into whatever, in a moral sense, he is or is to become'. Thus Kant had already written several years earlier, in the Religion Within the Limits of Reason Alone. He now expands on this. His main concern, however, is with the idea which practical reason generates in the process of moral-practical self-positing: the idea, or ideal, of God. Practical reason inevitably creates this ideal, 14

Vol. 22, p. 82.

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Kant argues, in order to constitute itself as a moral person - just as theoretical reason creates for itself the idea of a world (the ether) as a collective, not merely distributive, unity in the light of which it constitutes itself as a corporeal being in space and time. This, finally, allows Kant to unify the two fundamental branches of his philosophy, namely nature and freedom, in the new theory of transcendental philosophy as Selbstsetzungslehre: Transcendental-philosophy is the subjective principle of the united theoretical-speculative and moralpractical reason in one system of ideas . . . through which the subject constitutes itself into an object.15 Not surprisingly, at this stage the original title, 'Transition from the Metaphysical Foundations of Natural Science', no longer seemed appropriate to Kant for the text at hand. Thus, in the last fascicle of the Opus postumum he tries out various new titles for his last work. Here are three such versions: 'System of Transcendental Philosophy in three Divisions: God, the world (universum) and I myself (man) as a moral being' 'The Highest Standpoint of Transcendental Philosophy in the System of the Two Ideas (God, the World, and the thinking Subject that connects both)' 'Philosophy as Wissenschaftslehre in a Complete System, by I. Kant'. Anyone vaguely familiar with the thoughts of Schelling, Beck and Fichte will immediately recognize the allusion, 15

Vol. 2 1 , p. 67.

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in these titles, to the main works of these three philosophers: to Schelling's System of Transcendental Idealism, to Beck's The Only Possible Standpoint, and to Fichte's Wissenschaftslehre. And it is interesting that we also encounter other references to Fichte, Beck and Schelling in the Opus postumum. To what extent was Kant influenced, in his last work, by these philosophers?

II Fichte Fichte had studied with Kant in 1791, and it was Kant who had recommended Fichte's first manuscript to his own publisher. The resulting book made Fichte famous overnight. Fichte remained loyal to Kant for quite some time, and for years he continued to send his books to Kant. It would be natural to expect Fichte to have had an influence on Kant's thinking especially in connection with his theory of self-positing. E. Adickes, H J . de Vleeschauwer, and others have thought that this very theory on Kant's part was a concession to Fichte, and a desperate attempt to unify and consolidate his disintegrating school. I think this is mistaken. In fact, I think this theory has roots that are quite independent of Fichte, and that in fact pre-date Fichte's own philosophical beginnings.16 When Kant discusses self-positing in the Opus postumum, there is no mention of Fichte. Fichte is, indeed, not mentioned by name at all in this work, but there is a passage in the second fascicle (sheet VI, page 1) that is a draft for Kant's Open Letter on Fichte's Wissenschaftslehre: A Wissenschaftslehre in general, in which one abstracts " Cf. my 'Kant's Selbstsetzungslehre", op. cit., p. 217f.

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from its matter (the objects of knowledge), is pure logic; and to imagine beyond it another, higher and more general Wissenschaftslehre (which, however, can itself contain nothing other than the scientific element of knowledge in general - its form) is, conceptually, to chase one's own tail. In the Open Letter, this passage becomes: I hereby declare that I regard Fichte's Wissenschaftslehre as a totally indefensible system. For the pure science of knowledge is nothing more nor less than mere logic, and the principles of logic cannot lead to any material knowledge. Since logic, that is to say, pure logic, abstracts from the content of knowledge, the attempt to cull a real object out of logic is a vain effort and therefore a thing that no one has ever done.17 This declaration against Fichte is often treated as Kant's general dismissal of his idealistic successors, but this, I think, cannot be right. There are too many peculiarities in the Open Letter to permit us to take it at face value. It was initiated by a review, in the Erlanger Literatur Zeitung, of Johann Gottlieb Buhle's Entwurf der Transcendental Philosophie, in which the reviewer states that Kant, in his Critique, had only sketched the plan for a transcendental philosophy, and that Fichte was the first to have carried out this plan systematically, and hence was the first transcendental philosopher. Kant is challenged to express his opinion of Fichte's Wissenschaftslehre. I have always found it extremely puzzling that Kant 17 I. Kant, Philosophical Correspondence 1759-1799, A. Zweig (ed.) (University of Chicago Press: Chicago, 1967), p. 253.

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should have written this Open Letter at all. Firstly, it took him a long time to respond. The Open Letter was written more than half a year after the review. Secondly, Kant had admitted in a letter to Tieftrunk that he had not read the Wissenschaftslehre\ what he knew of the book he knew from a review of it in the Jena Allgemeine LiteraturZeitung. Thirdly, what are we to make of Kant's claim, in his Open Letter, that i took the completeness of pure philosophy within the Critique of Pure Reason to be the best indication of the truth of my work'? What completeness? For shortly before the reviewer of Buhle's book issued his challenge, Kant had written to Christian Garve that he felt 'a pain like that of Tantalus' of seeing before him 'the unpaid bill of my uncompleted philosophy. . . . The project on which I am now working [the Opus postumum] must be completed . . . or else a gap will remain in the critical philosophy'.18 One can hardly take the Open Letter at face value. Is there another way in which it might be interpreted? It is important to note that Kant had received a similar challenge two years earlier, in May 1797, this time from the German physiocrat Johann August Schlettwein. Schlettwein insisted that Kant take a side in the ongoing dispute as to who among Kant's followers had best understood the spirit of the critical philosophy, 'whether it is Reinhold, or Fichte, or Beck, or whoever'.19 On 29 May 1797, Kant published an open letter to Schlettwein. In response to the question as to who had understood Kant's texts the way he wanted them to be understood, Kant here wrote: I answer without hesitation: it is the local court 18

Vol. 12, p. 257, my italics (Zweig, p. 251). " Vol. 12, p. 364.

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chaplain and professor of mathematics, Herr Schulz, whose writings about the critical system, entitled: Prufung etc., Mr Schlettwein should consult. But I request that he bear the following in mind: that the court chaplain's words are to be taken according to the letter, not according to a spirit allegedly lying in them (since one can read into words whatever one pleases).20 The distinction between the spirit and the letter of the Kantian system, to which both Kant and Schlettwein allude, had been brought into the contemporary philosophical discussion by Fichte. It had quickly gained notoriety as a means of distinguishing Kantians into rival groups. Fichte himself, of course, belonged to those who followed the spirit, rather than the letter, of the Kantian system. To the latter group belonged - allegedly - Kant's colleague Johann Schulz, whom Kant had once described as the best mind in the area, and whose two volumes of Prufung der Kantischen Critik der reinen Vernunft (1789, 1792) had met with Kant's highest approval. Himself too old and too busy to engage in public disputes about his philosophy, Kant was eager to see Schulz take on that role for him, and above all to continue his Prufungen of the Kantian system. Yet, it seems, Schulz was reluctant to do so; especially, the charge of being a Buchstabenphilosoph seems to have dampened his enthusiasm. So, when Kant was challenged again to express his views of those who proclaimed to have continued in the spirit of the critical philosophy, he may have chosen the opportunity to say a stronger word than was warranted by the situation. That this might be the right interpretation of the Open Letter against Fichte, is 20

Vol. 12, p. 367f.

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suggested by a little-known communication of Kant's colleague Rink to Villers, written a year and a half later, on 18 April 1801: Schulz is now actually working on the continuation of his Priifung, but age, ill health, and various official duties are creating many obstacles for him. For quite some time he was unwilling to proceed with the work, not wanting to be saddled with the label, made fashionable by Fichte, of literalist [Buchstabler], and this circumstance then provided an occasion for Kant's well-known declaration against Fichte. Since that time Schulz,has once again taken pen to hand.21 I conclude, then, that in spite of terminological similarities, there is no noticeable influence of Fichte on Kant's late philosophy. On the other hand, however, the declaration against Fichte cannot be regarded as the definitive expression of Kant's assessment of Fichte's thinking.

Beck The case is quite different with Jacob Sigismund Beck, a mathematician and former pupil of Kant's. He is mentioned by name in the Opus postwnum and, so it seems, approvingly, for Kant writes: '[W]e have insight into nothing except what we can make ourselves. First, however, we must make ourselves. Beck's original representing'.22 First some background information. Early in the 1790s, Kant had suggested to Beck that he write Erlduternde Ausziige - explanatory excerpts or abstracts 21 22

Altpreussische Monatsschrift, 17 (1880), p. 288f. Vol. 22, p. 353.

Fichte, Beck and Schelling in Kant's 'Opus postumum' 163 - of the main critical writings. Beck complied with Kant's wish in a highly successful way; the first volume appeared in 1793, the second in the following year (Erlduternder Auszug aus den kritischen Schriften des Herrn Prof Kant, auf Anrathen desselben). In 1796, however, Beck published a third volume that went beyond what Kant had expected. Its subtitle is: 'The Only Possible Standpoint from which Critical Philosophy Is to Be Judged'. Beck had come to believe that the structure of the first Critique - especially the sharp separation of Transcendental Aesthetic and Transcendental Analytic - promotes a false view of the text. It suggests that sensibility has a content prior to any synthesizing activity of the subject, which is subsequently subjected to readymade concepts or categories. This view, Beck was convinced, is bound to lead to insurmountable difficulties. In order to avoid the common misunderstanding that Kant really meant to speak of 'given concepts' and of 'objects that affect us', Beck insisted that one begins with the productive activity of the understanding, what he calls the 'original representing'. For sensibility and understanding, according to Beck, have a common root in the original act of representing, an act from which space, time, and the categories originally emerge, not as concepts of objects but rather as ways of representing, and as ways of achieving the original synthetic unity of consciousness through which I can apprehend an object in the first place. From this 'standpoint' of original representing, Beck proceeded to give his own presentation of the main results of the first Critique. As we know, Kant took Beck's efforts very seriously. This is reflected not only in his correspondence,23 but also in several 'Reflexionen' 2J

Cf., for instance, Kant's letter to Tieftrunk, 11 December 1797.

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(R 6353, 6358). And, of course, Kant himself was very much aware of the problems posed by the structure of the Critique. The book had hardly left the press when he wrote to Marcus Herz that he had 'a plan in mind according to which even popularity might be gained for this study',24 a plan Kant immediately carried out in the Prolegomena. Yet in spite of his sympathies for Beck, Kant could not see any advantage in Beck's plan to begin with the categories, and then to introduce the forms of intuition as being required for the categories to be meaningful. For the argument would first have to establish the necessity of certain forms of intuition to give meaning to the categories, and then proceed to a Transcendental Aesthetic that shows which forms we actually have available to us. And Kant believed that this method 'did not have the clarity and facility' of the synthetic method he had himself adopted in the Critique. But Beck's account looks more plausible (and more Kantian) from the point of view of self-positing that Kant developed in the Opus postumum. No doubt Kant himself realized this. It is perhaps best simply to quote a few passages from Beck's The Only Possible Standpoint, and then to compare them with some typical passages from the Opus postumum. Here is what Beck writes: Original representing consists in the categories. These are nothing else but modes of representation. Accordingly, we have no intention of viewing them here as concepts of objects at all. . . . The reader must transpose himself into this original mode of representation by himself, since our principle is a postulate and not a representation through concepts. . . . [T]here 24

Vol. 10, p. 269.

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really is no original representing 'of an object', but simply an original representing. For whenever we have the representation of an object, it is already every time a concept, that is, it is already always the attribution of certain determinations by means of which we fix for ourselves a point of reference. . . . Accordingly, space itself is original representing, namely, the original synthesis of the homogeneous. Before this synthesis there is no space; we generate it, rather, in the synthesis. Space or this synthesis is pure intuiting itself.25 Compare this with a typical passage from Kant: The understanding begins with the consciousness of itself and performs thereby a logical act. To this the manifold of outer and inner intuition attaches itself serially, and the subject makes itself into an object in a limitless sequence. This intuition is not empirical. It is not perception, that is, not derived from a sense-object, but determines the object by the subject's a priori act, [through which] it is the owner and originator of its own representations. . . . Space and time are pure intuitions, not perceptions, that is, contained a priori as intuition in representation. . . . The subject makes this manifold of representations, namely its complex as an object in appearance, be it inner or outer, according to the principle of transcendental philosophy.26 Or take the following passage from Beck: [T]he transcendental statement, 'The understanding posits a something originally', is what first of all gives sense and meaning to the empirical statement, 'The 25

Trans George di Giovanni in Between Kant and Hegel (SUNY Press: Albany, 1985), p. 220f. " Vol. 22, pp. 82-7.

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object affects me'. For the first statement is the concept of the original representing itself in which all the meaning of our concepts has to be grounded. Indeed, the concept I have of my understanding as a faculty in me, even the concept of my ego, receives its sense and meaning in the first instance from this original positing.27 Again, compare this with Kant: The representations of sense-objects do not enter the subject; rather, they and the principles of their mutual connection emerge [wirken hinaus] for the purpose of knowledge of the subject, and to think objects as appearances. . . . The function of the categories [is] to constitute oneself (the subject) as an object. These forms of synthesis in appearance are original, not derivative. . . . Existence in space and time, which stems solely from the subject's power of representation . . . is contained in a system according to the principle of transcendental philosophy.28 There is enough terminological difference in these passages to make it unlikely that Kant had Beck's text in front of him when writing these passages. But that he had him in mind, and that he saw their efforts converge, is borne out by the passage quoted earlier. Here it is again: '[W]e have insight into nothing except what we can make ourselves'. Of this much they had been in agreement previously; new is the following - 'First, however, we have to make ourselves. Beck's original representing'. From the point of view of the Opus postumum, Kant seems both to agree with, and to correct or amend Beck. 27

Between Kant and Hegel, op. cit., p. 229. « Vol. 22, p. 86.

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Schelling Finally, let us move on to Schelling. From him we would perhaps expect the least influence on Kant. More than fifty years younger than Kant, he was a mere twenty-one at the time when Kant began to work systematically on the Opus postumum. Yet, as is so often the case, first appearances may deceive here too. Schelling was a child prodigy; at twenty he had already published two books. The second one, Of the I as the Principle of Philosophy, was in Kant's library. In 1797, Schelling published Ideas for a Philosophy of Nature, which contains a critical exposition and development of Kant's own theory of matter. In it, Schelling tackles the very same problems that were at the forefront of Kant's attention during this period. I do not know whether Kant read the book or not, but he certainly was familiar with Schelling from the glorious reviews Schelling's books received in the Erlanger Literatur Zeitung, one of Kant's favourite literary journals at the time (which also published the challenge to Kant that lead to the Open Letter against Fichte). There, Schelling was celebrated as a new genius, and as the most promising representative of the (Kantian) dynamical theory of matter. On various occasions, Kant and Schelling are named together as the key representatives of the same philosophy. Kant at least knew that Schelling was a co-labourer in the attempt to secure victory for the dynamical theory of matter. But there are passages in the Opus postumum itself that suggest a familiarity with Schelling's writings. Kant's repeated reference to, and criticism of, the concept of a 'world-soul' is only intelligible, I believe, against the background of Schelling's book On the World-Soul, which was published at the same time (1798). And there is the following notorious passage:

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'System of transcendental idealism by Schelling, Spinoza, Lichtenberg, and, as it were, three dimensions: present, past, and future'. Whether this enigmatic passage shows that Kant finally acknowledged Schelling as another genuine representative of transcendental philosophy (as most commentators believe), or whether Kant is here simply referring to Schelling's book System of Transcendental Idealism (as I believe) is perhaps impossible to confirm. (The problem being that in German, book titles are not italicized, so that there is no direct way of telling whether Kant is referring to the book, or generally to a system of transcendental idealism.) I believe, however, that Kant is here thinking of Schelling's book, since only a few pages later he refers explicitly to a review of Schelling's System of Transcendental Idealism in - again - the Erlanger Literatur Zeitung. This review contains a lengthy discussion of the emergence of the three temporal dimensions in Schelling's theory of selfpositing. A careful examination of this review strongly suggests (to me at least) that Kant's phrase 'and, as it were, three dimensions: present, past, and future' alludes to this discussion, rather than to three stages of transcendental idealism. Be that as it may, it seems clear to me that Schelling was very much on Kant's mind when he wrote the last parts of the Opus postumum - perhaps even more so than Beck. This is not necessarily to say that Kant was directly influenced by either of them; we cannot establish this with any certainty. But there is no need for that either: what we can deduce is that Kant's own thoughts were going very much in the same direction as both Schelling's and Beck's. At the very least, the Opus postumum puts an end to the myth that Kant was too feeble in his old age to take notice of what was going on around him, or that he globally dismissed the efforts of his idealist successors as nonsense.

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Bibliography Beck, J.S., Explanatory Abstract of the Critical Writings of Prof. Kant, Vol. 3: The Only Possible Standpoint from which Critical Philosophy Is to Be Judged (1796), trans George di Giovanni in Between Kant and Hegel (SUNY Press: Albany, 1985). Fichte, J.G., The Science of Knowledge (1794), trans P. Heath and J. Lachs (Cambridge University Press: Cambridge, 1982). Forster, Eckart, 'Is There "A Gap" in Kant's Critical System?', Journal of the History of Philosophy, XXV, 4 (1987); 'Kant's Selbstsetzungslehre1 in Kant's Transcendental Deductions. The Three Critiques and the Opus postumum, Eckart Forster (ed.) (Stanford University Press: Stanford, 1989); 'Kant's Notion of Philosophy', The Monist, 72, 2 (1989); 'Die Idee des Ubergangs. Uberlegungen zum Elementarsystem der bewegenden Krafte' in Ubergang. Beitrdge zur Spdtphilosophie Immanuel Kants, Siegfried Blasche (ed.) (Vittorio Klostermann: Frankfurt, forthcoming). Kant, I., Kants gesammelte Schriften, Herausgegeben von der Koniglich Preussischen Akademie der Wissenschaften (Walter de Gruyter: Berlin, 1900-); Critique of Pure Reason, trans N. Kemp Smith (The Macmillan Press: London, 1929); Prolegomena to Any Future Metaphysics, trans Paul Carus, revised Lewis White Beck (Bobbs-Merrill: Indianapolis, 1950); Metaphysical Foundations of Natural Science, trans J.W. Ellington (Bobbs-Merrill: Indianapolis, 1970); The Critique of Judgment, trans J.G. Meredith (Oxford University Press: Oxford, 1952); The First Introduction to the Critique of Judgment, trans J. Haden (Bobbs-Merrill: Indianapolis, 1965); Religion Within the Limits of Reason Alone, trans T.M. Greene and H.H. Hudson (Harper & Row: New York/Evanston, 1960); Opus postumum, Eckart Forster (ed.), trans Eckart Forster and Michael Rosen (Cambridge University Press: Cambridge, forthcoming); Philosophical Correspondence 1759-1799, trans and edited by A. Zweig (University of Chicago Press: Chicago, 1967). Schelling, F.W.J., Of the I as the Principle of Philosophy (1795) in The Unconditional in Human Knowledge: Four Early Essays (17941796), trans F. Marti (Lewisburg, Pa., 1980); Ideas for a Philosophy of Nature (1797), trans E.E. Harris and P. Heath (Cambridge University Press: Cambridge, 1988); Von der Weltseele; eine Hypothese der hoheren Physik zur Erkldrung des allgemeinen Organismus (F. Perthes: Hamburg, 1798), no translation available; System of Transcendental Idealism (1800), trans P. Heath (University Press of Virginia: Charlottesville, 1978). Schulz, J., Prufung der Kantischen Critik der reinen Vernunft, 2 vols (Hartung: Konigsberg, 1789 and Nicolovius: Konigsberg, i792), no translation available.

IMAGINATION AS A CONNECTING MIDDLE IN SCHELLING'S RECONSTRUCTION OF KANT John Llewelyn

In a footnote to the ninth edition of his Philosophical Letters on Dogmatism and Criticism composed in 1795 Schelling writes: 'It is to be hoped that time, the mother of all development, will . . . foster and eventually develop, unto the completion of the whole science, those seeds of great disclosures about this wondrous faculty which Kant has sown in his immortal work.1 The wondrous faculty in question is the imagination, the Einbildungskraft. If this hope for the development of this seed is realized it is because the mothering is supplemented by not a little husbandry at the hand of Schelling himself. No one contributes more than he to explain in what way the imagination is, as he puts it, 'the connecting middle' between theory and practice and, by implication, to explain in what way the third Critique mediates between the other two. 1 F.W.J. Schelling, The Unconditional in Human Knowledge: Four Early Essays (1794-1796), trans Fritz Marti (Bucknell University Press: Lewisburg/Associated University Presses: London, 1980), p. 190; K.F.A Schelling (ed.), Sdmtliche Werke (J.G. Cotta: Stuttgart and Augsburg, 185661), hereafter SW. 170

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Imagination . . . is analogous with theoretical reason inasmuch as this is dependent upon cognition of the object, and analogous with practical reason insofar as this produces its object, itself. Imagination actively produces an object by putting itself in complete dependence on that object, into full passivity. What the creature of imagination lacks in objectivity, imagination itself supplies by the passivity which, through an act of spontaneity, it voluntarily assumes toward the idea of that object. Thus imagination could be defined as the faculty of putting oneself into complete passivity by full self-activity.2 If, following the cue of the words Schelling stresses here, we consider the polarity of the theoretical and the practical within the architectonic of the three Critiques, we are struck by the thought that imagination is already involved in the first Critique qua concerned primarily with theoretical knowledge and that it is arguably involved in the second Critique qua concerned primarily with practice. The argument for this latter claim would turn on whether one understands the role of the Type {Typik) to be primarily practical or indistinguishable from the imagination's role as a connecting middle between theory and practice. But it can be a connecting middle only if it partakes of both the theoretical and the practical through being their common root. One reason for saying that the Type is a product of the practical imagination is that, according to Kant, the imagination is the faculty which produces an example or model for the application of a law. In so far as the law to be applied is a rule of skill or counsel of prudence it reduces to a falsifiable theoretical statement about the empirical 2 Ibid.

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world. Only the moral law is irreducibly practical. Nevertheless, our understanding of its universal applicability in the intelligible world of ends can be assisted by the thought of a world in which everyone in the world of ends and means behaves according to the principle of prudence or self-love. Here, however, it is only the universal form of the moral law that is modelled by the law of self-love. Since the moral law is a law of pure reason prescribing with regard only to the form of subjective maxims, hence not grounded in sensibility, the law of the system of nature which typifies it does so only in respect of form. 'Consequently the moral law has no faculty but the understanding to aid its application to physical objects (not the imagination)'.3 'Not the imagination'. These words seem to settle once and for all that there is no place in Kant's thinking for pure practical imagination. This may indeed be so, unless in the second Critique a place can be found for the ambiguity to be found in the first, for example at B 162 note b, between imagination contrasted with and imagination identified with understanding or regarded as the understanding performing one of its roles. Whether or not a place can be found in the second Critique for this ambiguity and thereby for the notion of a properly practical imagination, one of the lessons to be drawn from some of the writings of Schelling seems to be that a place for such a notion must be found, and that the way to find it is along a path which reconstructs each Critique in terms of the others with the help of an intellectual intuitus originarius which Kant denies to man. In attempting in this essay to follow Schelling's first steps along this path let us set out from the theory of transcendental imagination of the first Critique. 1

Kant's Critique of Practical Reason and Other Works on the Theory of Ethics, trans T.K. Abbott, 6th edn (Longman: London, 1909), p. 161.

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I On a simple reading of Kant's theory of theory, the transcendental imagination occupies a Zwischenland between sensibility and understanding defined as the faculty of pure a priori concepts and principles. It is the faculty of judgement where judgement is taken to mean the subsumption of particular cases under concepts and principles. Here the simple reading encounters the complication of the ambiguity announced in the footnote to B 162 which we have already mentioned and will have occasion to mention once more: 'It is one and the same spontaneity, which in the one case, under the title of imagination, and in the other case, under the title of understanding, brings combination into the manifold of intuition'. Kant's movement between an account which contrasts and an account which assimilates imagination and understanding is sometimes said to be a symptom of his partial realization that the capacity to apply a concept or principle is part of understanding it. Indeed, there is no reason why Kant should be said to reject this inclusive notion of understanding so long as we recognize what it includes. If we fail to recognize this, we shall fail to recognize that there is a sense in which someone can be in possession of a concept theoretically and be able to define it yet still be hopeless at picking out instances of it. He may have an understanding of the kind that can be learned by rote yet lack the so-called mother wit which at B 172 Kant calls 'so-called' perhaps because however innate this intelligence may be it still requires practice if the fluent exercise of it is to be possible. In that case, Kant's distinction between a more and a less abstractly intellectual understanding of concepts is preserved at any rate for empirical concepts through the concession that the

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capacity to apply them in practice, which is part of the fuller understanding, is itself acquired through practice. If Kant nevertheless wishes to distinguish also between, on the one hand, the particularity of a dog or of a physical or mental picture of a dog and, on the other hand, the schema intermediate between the abstract universal concept of it and the particular, the empirical schema appears to end up being nothing other than the acquired capacity to pick out dogs and pictures of dogs rather than something that enables us to acquire that capacity. All it will enable is an improvement in that capacity. Nevertheless, where pure non-empirical concepts are concerned, there is a role for the schema to perform which, does not reduce to that of an acquired expertise. Hence, the acquisition of empirical concepts would not be explicable solely in the terms of an empiricist theory of learning. For empirical concepts presuppose pure schemata, namely mathematical ones in the narrower sense, that is to say, geometrical, arithmetical or algebraic ones, and transcendental ones, that is to say, mathematical and dynamic ones in the sense in which Kant employs these terms to separate each of the quadruples of pure categories, pure schemata and pure principles into two pairs. Although in calling these categories, schemata and principles pure, Kant is rejecting genetic empiricism, this does not prevent his sometimes arguing for a variety of logical empiricism along the lines of the logically behaviourist account of understanding we have just been discussing, according to which the understanding of a concept is the ability to cash it by referring to specific instances that do and don't fall under it. Just what variety of logical empiricism Kant subscribes to will depend on what he would count as a specific instance.

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Take, for instance, the concepts of mathematics, considering them first of all in their pure intuitions. Space has three dimensions; between two points there can be only one straight line, etc. Although all these principles, and the representation of the object with which this science occupies itself, are generated in the mind completely a priori, they would mean nothing, were we not always able to present their meaning in appearances, that is, in empirical objects (B 299). The mathematical principles and concepts in question would have no meaning or sense without this reference to empirical instantiation. Furthermore, we cannot define any of the categories and principles, meaning by that not just the specially mathematical ones but the transcendental ones as well, 'without at once descending to the conditions of sensibility'. By sensibility here he means not solely pure sensibility but empirical sensibility. Without that there is no Sinn. This word is translated by Kemp Smith on at least one occasion as 'sensible meaning'. This translation receives support not only from etymology but also from the adverbal phrase in Kant's remark that without 'relation to the object' we cannot define any of the categories 'in any real sense'. But we have seen that in the passage cited from the previous paragraph, mathematical concepts 'mean nothing' {gar nichts bedeuten) unless their meaning can be laid before us (ihre Bedeutung darlegen) in empirical objects. That, we are then told, is how it is with all the categories and principles tabled in the Transcendental Analytic. Without pretending that the paragraphs here in question pose no problems, it must be said that they do not compel us to draw the embarrassing inference that a pure concept can have a purely empirical, so to speak purely 'impure', instance. If there are empirical instances of the

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pure concept triangle they are instances in the literal sense of the word Bei-spielen: they are instances falling under the concept only in the mode of standing in for, and playing alongside, it. Pure concepts can have real meaning, as Kant says, only if they are able to present their meaning in empirical objects. Their meaning and the empirical presentability of it are two stages. Thus, the pure concept of magnitude 'seeks its support and meaning [Sinn) in number, and this in turn in the fingers, in the beads of the abacus, or in the strokes and points which can be placed before the eyes'. The 'in turn' {diese aber) here makes it clear that Kant is not saying that the science of arithmetic is a counting of fingers, beads or of mental images of any such things. That cannot be right if mental images of beads are as particular as beads, for that would lead to an infinite regress which he seeks to avoid by stating quite explicitly that counting particulars presupposes schemata which are not particular things because they are not things but procedures or methods for identifying things. The four fingers of a particular empirically perceivable hand exemplify magnitude, a universal intellectual concept of the understanding, thanks to the schema of number, a sensuous concept constructed in the imagination. The purely intellectual concept is introduced to the empirical objects of sense, presented to them, not directly, but through the mediation of a construct, the construct of the number four and of number as such. In calling the schema a construct, we seem to be calling it a thing. But the schema as construct is inseparable from the process of constructing. The numbers four and five are unities at which we arrive. They are totalities built up in time by the combination of a plurality of units: the category of quantity temporalized. Number in general is 'the unity of the synthesis of the manifold of a homogeneous intuition in

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general, a unity due to my generating time itself in the apprehension of the intuition' (B 182). Similarly, the undetermined concept of ground becomes determined as the concept of mechanical cause, and the purely logical sequence {Folge) of hypothetical judgement becomes determined as causal sequence through the mediation of the schema of temporal sequence according to a rule. Since sensible intuition is the only intuition available to human beings according to Kant, construction is restricted to time and along with it the real meaning of the categories of the understanding. These pure concepts have only a purely logical meaning. They have no objective reference unless they are given it by the schemata. What difference would it make to the critical idealism of Kant, we may now ask, when it is argued, as it is argued by Schelling, that sensible intuition is not the only intuition available to human beings, and that we have access to non-discursive intellectual constructive intuition as well? II A convenient point of departure from which to move toward an answer to this question is the piece 'On Construction in Philosophy' published anonymously in the Critical Journal of Philosophy in 1802. Although some commentators have attributed this to Hegel and others have suggested that it is a joint production by the co-editors of the journal, most authorities now agree that it is by Schelling. 'On Construction in Philosophy' is a review of Carl H. Hover's Treatise on Philosophical Construction published in the previous year. These two titles indicate that what is at stake is Kant's assertion in the Transcendental Doctrine of Method of the first Critique that philosophical knowledge is discursive or

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acroamatic, i.e. knowledge gained by reason from the analysis of concepts, whereas mathematical knowledge is knowledge reached by reason through pure temporal or temporo-spatial synthesis, i.e. the construction of concepts in intuition which as such is concrete and individual rather than abstractly or otherwise discursive (B 741, B 758). Schelling maintains against this that there is a place for construction in philosophy. So are we going to find that whereas Kant, because he believes that there is no place for construction in philosophy, rejects Spinoza's and Wolff's assumption that the method of philosophy can begin with definitions, Schelling will allow the possibility of this, even though the construction allowing it will not be one of pure time or space? Schelling makes five main points. (1) The first critical point Schelling makes against Kant in his article turns, if I read his intention correctly, on the fact that mathematics, on Kant's account, employs schemata and these are each a unity of a given pure intuition or form of intuition which is particular and is the product of an act (Handlung) of construction. It is this act which brings the concept of unity to the pure sensible datum. It is the conceptual partner in the constitution of the schema. Now, since the schema is a unity of this with a sensible datum, the intellectuality of the schema as a whole dominates the pure sensibility which is offered as, so to speak, the temporal receptacle in which the constructing takes place. In this interpretation of Schelling's first objection to Kant a distinction is made between the intuitive and the constructive aspects of the schema. Strictly speaking, therefore, we should have to say that it is the constructing which is intellectual. Schelling, however, considers that his objection entitles him to claim to have found an

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opening for intellectual intuition. This locution can be justified on the grounds that it is with distinguishable but inseparable aspects of schematism that we are concerned, as the constructing is distinguished from the construct produced. Unless we insist on this, the notion of schematism will be open to the objection that a second order schema is required to bridge the gap between its two parts and a third and fourth to bridge the gap between their sub-parts, and so on. Kant's insistence that the schema is a process or procedure (Verfahren) puts his reader on guard against this regress. Further, a reason for protesting against Schelling's talk of intellectual intuition or intellectual intuiting would be a reason for protesting against Kant's reference to the schema as a sensible concept. (2) Schelling writes: 'Space as according to Kant it grounds geometry and time as according to him it grounds arithmetic, is wholly intellectual intuition, but expressed there in the finite and here in the infinite'. (Der Rawn, wie er der Geometrie, und die Zeit, wie sie der Arithmetik nach Kant zu Grunde liegt, ist die ganze intellectuale Anschauung; aber dort im Endlichen, bier im Unendlichen ausgedruckt.) Does 'there' mean in the case of space and 'here' in the case of time, as seems likely? Or does 'there' refer to the case of the mathematician and 'here' to the case of the philosopher which are mentioned in that order in the preceding sentence? In the preceding sentence, Schelling says that the absolute difference between mathematics and philosophy cannot lie for Kant in the fact that there is non-empirical intuition in the latter but not in the former, since Kant argues that geometry does call for non-empirical intuition. The difference must therefore lie in the fact that whereas for the mathematician intellectual intuition is reflected in

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sensibility, for the philosopher it is reflected in itself, in sich selbst. This would be a reason for saying that in philosophy intellectual intuition is infinite, for it is not limited by something other than itself as is the case with intellectual intuition in mathematics, where it is limited by sensibility. This does not exclude the possibility that philosophy's intellectual intuition is temporal. And, indeed, Schelling maintains that it is. His way of maintaining it, furthermore, brings together into one story the two interpretations of the words 'here' and 'there' in the sentence in question. For philosophy's intellectual intuition is an intuition of pure time. Here the purity of time is its independence of spatiality and its closer kinship with arithmetic as against geometry. True, on Kant's account the representation of the arithmetical continuum depends upon the spatial continuum as a (for humans) contingently necessary auxiliary. Even time itself we cannot represent, save in so far as we attend, in the drawing of a straight line (which has to serve as the outer figurative representation of time), merely to the act of the synthesis of the manifold whereby we successively determine inner sense, and in so doing attend to the succession of this determination in inner sense (B 155). So the notion of succession, presupposed in counting, is a notion of pure active motion, Bewegung, regarded as an act, Handlung, presupposed both by the representation of time which, Kant elsewhere tells us, cannot itself be perceived, and by the representation of space: their connecting middle or common root which explains why Kant says that the schema is not a thing but a Verfahren. This of the word Bei-spielen: they are instances falling under which as striving, presupposes the resistance, the objection, of the spatio-temporally real. This opposition is

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the origin of the feeling of self-awareness, that is to say, of the self's awareness of its own temporality. Schelling asks: ''how, then, does the self become an object to itself as inner sense?'; that is to say, how does it become an object for itself as sensation combined with consciousness? He answers: 'Simply and solely through the fact that time arises {entsteht) for it', not of course time as already externally intuited but, he says, in words that relay Kant's reflections on time back to Augustine and forward to Bergson, Husserl and Heidegger, 'time as mere limit, mere point (blosse Grenze, blosse Punkt)\ that is to say, 'as pure intensity, as activity which can expand itself only in one dimension, but is now concentrated at a single point'.4 The intensio of time as limit or point is not yet time itself. It is how time arises for the self. It is time when the unidimensionally extensible activity becomes an object to itself. This is entailed by the first principle that the self is self-consciousness, activity conscious of itself, from which it follows that the self itself is time conceived of in activity, in Thdtigkeit gedacht. The intensio of time as the tension of a spring or as source is inconceivable in isolation from the idea of, respectively, expansibility or flow {distensio). Since this idea of the subject being a temporally extended object to itself implies that of the subject's being conscious of an object in space, we can say that the intensio or intensity of the self implies the interitionality of consciousness, and vice versa. So we could formulate Schelling's second objection against Kant by saying that the latter fails to see that a corollary of his own argument is that without intellectual intuition sensible intuition is blind. The origin 4 F.W.J. Schelling, System of Transcendental Idealism (1800), trans Peter Heath (University Press of Virginia: Charlottesville, 1978), hereafter STI, p. 103; SW III, p. 466.

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of geometry, and of arithmetic and algebra, the origin of mathematics is the origin of philosophy. (3) Schilling's third objection, or perhaps a strong reformulation of the one we have just considered, is that Kant contradicts himself. For, as we have indeed confirmed, Kant maintains that philosophy is the analysis of concepts. But concepts will be empty unless there is some object to which they can be referred. Since he denies that in philosophy they are independent of intuition of sensible objects, whether empirical or pure, they must on pain of vacuity be given determinacy of meaning by being referred to intellectual intuition. Hence intellectual intuition is presupposed by transcendental imagination and its schematism, by the pure synthesis of transcendental selfconsciousness. Provided this alleged intellectual intuition of the 'I am' is temporal despite not being spatial, a refutation of subjective idealism analogous to Kant's is available to Schelling, as we have just seen. (4) From our discussion of Schelling's first objection against Kant it is clear that in mathematics intuition has two aspects, a universal and a particular. According to Kant mathematics treats of the universal in the particular, whereas philosophy treats the particular only in the universal (B 742). Schelling doubts the validity of both of these characterizations. He casts doubt on the first by citing Kant against Kant. Kant does indeed say that in geometry the concept of a figure, for example a triangle, is expressed in a particular pure or empirical intuition; he also says however: the evident propositions of numerical relation are indeed synthetic, but are not general like those of geometry, and cannot, therefore, be called axioms but only numerical formulas. The assertion that 7 + 5 is

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equal to 12 is not an analytic proposition. . . . But although this proposition is synthetic, it is also only singular. So far as we are here attending merely to the synthesis of the homogeneous (of units), that synthesis can take place only in one way, although the employment of these numbers is general (B 205). Schelling does not cite or refer to these sentences explicitly, but it must be on them that he bases his statement that Kant himself concedes that arithmetic treats of particular numerical formulae stating a relation between individual magnitudes which are expressed in the universal. That would make arithmetic a part of philosophy on Kant's definition of this. Schelling does not, however, share this definition of philosophy. Because the opposition between philosophy and mathematics cannot be based on whether the particular is expressed in the universal or vice versa, and because, in either case, a true identification of the universal with the particular is as such an intuition, the difference between mathematics and philosophy is a difference of intuition or construction. In mathematics, construction is distinguished by having two aspects, the universal and the particular, the former expressing or presenting the latter or vice versa. In philosophical construction what in mathematics is distinguished is united in a point of absolute indifference or identity which is an identity of identity and difference. (5) With this notion of constructive intuition in which the opposition of the two kinds of expression is overcome, a new notion of particularity emerges and with it a new notion of universality, concrete universality, universality concresced from the expression of the metaphysical in the physical and the physical in the metaphysical. This concrescence of visible spirit and invisible nature is, in the language of Spinoza, the identity of Thought and Extension,

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the point of indifference between the sive of Deus sive Natura and the sive of Deus sive Spiritus. In the language of Hegel and of the Critique of Judgment (section IV), it is a resultant of the joint expression of a determinate and a reflective judgement. This absolute universality is the universality not of a discursive concept but of a concrete Idea that is the object of intellectual intuition. Whereas Kant cannot maintain both the difference between mathematics and philosophy and secure real sense through reference for the concepts of philosophy, Schelling does both by distinguishing two kinds of intuitional object. If Kant had recognized that he is committed to admitting intellectual intuition in both mathematics and philosophy but that the particularity and generality in each case are of two absolutely different kinds, he would have recognized too that to ask a philosopher to work out the sum of the angles of a triangle from the concept of a triangle is like asking a sculptor to make a statue out of musical notes or a musician to perform a sonata with pigments. Ill In the System of Transcendental Idealism Schelling endorses Fichte's partial endorsement of Descartes' Discourse on Method and Meditations. Up to a point this is also another endorsement of Kant's deduction from the 'I think'. The beginning of the system set out philosophically is the end of the method of discovery, and the structure of the end is reflected in that of the beginning. The identity of intuitive construct and constructing, of thought and thinking, in the Absolute Idea is reflected in the 'I am' which is 'the first, absolutely unconditioned principle' which Schelling takes over from Fichte's Science of Knowledge, as illustrated by Fichte's statement that in the act of positing 'I am', the self 'is at

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once the agent (das Handelnde) and the product of action (der Handlung); the active (das Thatige), and what the activity [die Thdtigkeit) brings about'.5 For this identity of the producing and product or constructing and construct, acting (Handlung) and act performed (That) Fichte adopts the word Thathandlung. This word is commonly used of violent deeds and is therefore appropriate to describe what Schelling and Fichte say is for human beings a unique coincidence through imagination of product and producing or, as we might alternatively say, of constative and non-constative performance, such as might be supposed to be reserved for a divine causa sui. Einbildungs-kraft is a craft, a quiet force, and in writings of Schelling later than those with which we are here immediately concerned it becomes a name for the creativity of God. Schelling observes: In becoming an object of myself through self-consciousness, there arises for me the concept of the self, and conversely, the concept of the self is merely the concept of becoming-an-object-to-oneself. . . . Thus we have here that original identity of thought and object, appearance and reality, for which we were searching, and which is nowhere else to be found. . . . That this identity between being-thought and coming-to-be, in the case of the self, remains hidden from so many, is due solely to the fact that they neither perform the act of self-consciousness in freedom, nor are able to reflect in so doing upon what arises therein.6 5 J.G. Fichte, Science of Knowledge (Wissenschaftslehre), with the First and Second Introductions, trans and edited by Peter Heath and John Lachs (Appleton/Century/Crofts: New York, 1970), hereafter SK, p. 97; Gesanttausgabe, I, 2, Reinhard Lauth and Hans Jacob (eds) (Stuttgart-Bad Cannstatt: Friedrich Frommann Verlag, 1965), p. 259 (I, 96). 6 STI, p. 25; cp p. 43, SW III, p. 366, cp p. 389.

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So pure consciousness, self-consciousness, usually gets hidden by empirical consciousness. Our consciousness is normally directed to things around us or to the feelings to which they give rise. Because such empirical consciousness is not unchallengeably veridical on any specific occasion it cannot supply the supreme principle of knowledge. This is why Fichte and Schelling begin their search for that principle with a principle of logic, the principle of identity A = A which is usually taken to be presupposed by any synthetic proposition. They agree, however, that an identical proposition conveys no knowledge. They agree with Kant that it is purely formal and that for a proposition to convey real knowledge objective content must be provided in some way. The only proposition that fulfils the requirements of absolute priority is one which like A = A is identical, but which is, at the same time, synthetic. That proposition is 'I = I* or 'I am'. From this synthetic identical proposition in which form and content are one, Fichte sets out, in the wake of Augustine, Descartes and Kant, to construct a science of the world. Our main interest here is in the method of construction which Schelling employs. Having now acquainted ourselves with some of the workings of this method first at the end and now at the beginning of his version of what Fichte calls the 'pragmatic history of the human mind or spirit'7 let us return to the end.

IV Marking out the ground for Hegel's history of spirit, Geisfs Geschehen, and Heidegger's history of the concealment and advent of being, Sein's Ereignis, Schelling 7

SK, pp. 198-9; Gesamtausgabe, I, 2, p. 365 (I, 222).

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conceives philosophy as 'the free recapitulation {Wiederholung) of the series of acts into which the one act of self-consciousness evolves'.8 As the science of science, the knowledge of knowledge, philosophy is the one science with a double seriality, that of the reflective and specifically philosophical series and that of the reflected series of ordinary consciousness which in the end coincide. Seven years before the publication of the Phenomenology of Spirit a pre-echo can be heard in Schelling's System when we read: 'subject and object which are absolutely united in the absolute act of selfconsciousness - must be constantly kept distinct for purposes of philosophizing, that is, in order to allow this unification to take place before our eyes'.9 So, as Hegel says in the Introduction of the Phenomenology 'all that is left for us to do is simply to look on'.10 Philosophy is a pragmatic history because it is a repetition of deeds analogous to the procedure in a law-court through which the necessity of those deeds is brought out. As the words pragma, Tatsache and 'fact' remind us, an act may be the doing and what is brought about, whether the doing be praxis or poiesis. This two-in-one reflected in the language of ordinary consciousness is matched by the philosophical term of art 'point of indifference' which Schelling introduces for the identity of constructing and the intuited object whose transfigurations evolve from original self-consciousness and whose so-called indifference therefore is far from the indeterminacy of a night in which all cows are black or a 'formless whiteness' like that of the blank page purporting to portray the Absolute in a certain burlesque of the philosophical journal Mind 8

STI, p. 49; SW III, p. 397. ' STI, p. 42, cp p. 73, SW HI, p. 389, cp p. 427. 10 Hegel, Phenomenology of Spirit, trans A.V. Miller (Clarendon: Oxford, 1977), p. 54, cp pp. 36, 57.

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entitled Mind!.11 Schelling complains that when he refers to his 'real idealism' as a system of absolute identity the word identity has been misinterpreted when it has been taken to imply that the system suppresses the distinctions between matter and spirit, good and evil, truth and error.12 Likewise, indifference is not sheer emptiness, nothing or night.13 More like the polemos of darkness and light to which Heraclitus and Holderlin allude, it is a 'conflict of absolutely opposed activities . . . one that originally reaches out into infinity . . . the real, objective, limitable activity; the other, the tendency to intuit oneself in that infinity, . . . the ideal, subjective, illimitable activity'. In the System of Transcendental Idealism the genesis of the figures of consciousness follows approximately the order of the Transcendental Doctrine of Elements of the Critique of Pure Reason and the order of the three Critiques. Apart from a disagreement over the doctrine of the things-in-themselves, the chief difference is that from the deduction of the absolute synthesis of self-consciousness, the movement of the deductions takes the form of graduated resolutions of contradictions by transition to some third thing common to each of the opposites. The main body of the book is divided into the three major transitions which Schelling calls epochs: from original sensation to productive intuition, from productive intuition to reflection and from reflection to the absolute act of will, this last being the transition from theory to practice of which, as we noted, Schelling undertakes to trace the common root. Given the already evident similarities in many respects of Schelling's System of Transcendental " Hegel, Phenomenology, p. 31. 12 SW X, p. 107. " SW IV, p. 403; cp Martin Heidegger, Beitrdge zur Philosophie, Gesamtausgabe, 65 (Klostermann: Frankfurt am Main, 1989), p. 199.

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Idealism to the transcendental idealism of Kant, we are primed to expect agreement between them as to this common root of theory and practice. Given the ubiquity in Schelling's System of constructive intuition, how could this common root fail to be the imagination where schematism performs its 'art concealed in the depths of the human soul' and 'whose real modes of operation {Handgriffe) nature is hardly likely ever to allow us to discover, and to have open to our gaze' (B 180)? How can this fail to be in one guise or another the imagination which as productive imagination it is not unreasonable to identify with the 'common, but to us unknown, root' of sensibility and understanding' (B 29 )?14 Yet in the discussion of what he calls productive intuition, that is to say in the section dealing with the construction of objects, Schelling is coy about using the word 'imagination'. The word is very rarely used there. The simplest explanation for this is one that sheds some light also on the fact that in classical lists of the powers of the mind sometimes both memory and imagination are mentioned, but sometimes the former is subsumed under the latter. The importance Schelling attributes to construction leads him to think of imagination primarily as constructive and his decision to keep more or less in step with the first Critique in his ordering of the treatment of topics means that imagination will not receive the full treatment until his System reaches the stage equivalent to that of Kant's pages on schematism. The System's section on productive intuition is roughly equivalent to Kant's transcendental deduction of the conditions of objectivity. So any mention it makes of 14

Cp Heidegger, Kant and the Problem of Metaphysics, trans James S. Churchill (Indiana University Press: Bloomington, 1962), p. 41; Kant und das Problem der Metaphysik (Klostermann: Frankfurt am Main, 1951), p. 41.

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imagination will be such as is licensed by the fact that in the Critique of Pure Reason imagination has been considered at this stage only in its capacity as the reproductive component of the threefold synthesis where it is in synergy with recognition in concepts and apprehension in intuition. Kant's phrase 'apprehension in intuition' may well have suggested the phrase 'productive intuition' to Schelling. A productive intuition is a productive image, where the reference to image must be read as a reference to Kant's teaching that 'The pure image (Bild) of all magnitudes {quantorum) for outer sense is space; that of all objects of the senses in general is time' (B 182). This statement is made in the section on Schematism where it is argued, as we have seen, that the application of magnitude (quantitas), a general concept of the understanding, to these pure particular objects of intuition is managed by the schema of number. That productive intuition is another name for the imagination is suggested by the fact that we have found Schelling referring to the imagination as 'this wondrous faculty' in 1795 and now find him speaking in 1800 of 'the marvel [das Wunder) of productive intuition'.15 Its marvellous art, notwithstanding its being an art that conceals art, is discovered by Schelling, with Fichte's aid, to be that of effecting a suspension of the oscillation (Schweben) between, on the one hand, the restriction imposed upon the self by, for example, sensation - when the self senses itself opposed to itself - and, on the other hand, the self's infinite striving to pass beyond this real opposition to its ideal activity, and to overcome this difference, which can neither persist nor be simply done away with {aufgehoben), in the identity of a third activity. The fact that this 'third thing' is still an activity and 15

STI, p. 70, SW HI, p. 423.

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destined to give rise to a higher level oscillation or wavering may explain why the imagination is here described as the resolution of a conflict whereas in the Science of Knowledge Fichte says imagination is itself an oscillation. Phantasia in the De Anima is a kinesis (429al). This idea of movement is implied in the etymology of pha which conveys the idea of emerging or coming to light, phainesthai. It is what Merleau-Ponty would call the 'good ambiguity' of the imagination that moves the mind from each of its epochs to the next. This is why it crops up not only in Schelling's first and second epochs, that is to say, not only in the transition from feeling to productive intuition and from its unconscious operation there to reflection. It emerges also in the transition from reflection on objects to the conscious willing of objects as ends, those produced when the art concealed in the depths of the soul emerges in objets d'art. The methodological way-making {Bewegung) from Schelling's second epoch to his third is a shift from reflection to schematism. In other words, it is a transition from what in the third Critique Kant calls reflective judgement to what he there calls determinative judgement. If, in ascending from one epoch to another the structure of the less complex is refigured but retained in the next, then the highest flight of imagination will be symbolic in the special sense defined by Schelling in the lectures on the Philosophy of Art first delivered in 1802. There schematism is defined as a presentation {Darstellung) in which the universal signifies (bedeutet) the particular or in which the particular is intuited through {angeschaut durch) the universal. The allegorical is defined as presentation in which the particular signifies the universal or in which the universal is intuited through the particular. The symbolic is the logical product of

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these, or, as he says, their synthesis, in which neither does the general signify the particular nor does the particular signify the general, but in which these signifyings are absolutely one.16 Although in making these distinctions Schelling must have had the third Critique open before him at §59 - for his modes of Darstellung are what Kant there calls kinds of hypotyposes and exhibitiones - his definition of the symbolic is slightly but significantly more articulated than Kant's. Although, like Schelling, Kant contrasts the symbolic explicitly with the schematic (the determinative), he does not, unlike Schelling, contrast the symbolic explicitly with the allegorical (the reflective). The symbolic, on Kant's definition, is a variety of what Aristotle calls analogy. It is an analogy with a double function. It functions as a schema, applying a concept to an intuited object; but the rule of procedure it applies to that intuited object is applied also to another object, as when a living body is taken to represent a monarchical state governed by constitutional laws. Here symbolism is similation by simile made possible by a structural rather than an intuitional resemblance between a constitutional monarchy and a living body. A symbol thus defined is a metaphor and corresponds to what Schelling rates as a lesser form of art. For Schelling, symbolism is imagination at its most developed. And although there are some forms of art which are schematic and others which are allegorical, the highest form of art is symbolic. It may be that in symbolism, as defined by Kant, both schematism and allegorism are at work, but they have not fused as they are in symbolism as defined by Schelling. We have just seen that although Schelling says that symbolism is a synthesis of the other two modes of presentation, he also says that neither of them 16

SW V, p. 407.

'Imagination' in Schelling's Reconstruction of Kant 193

operates as such. Their becoming one is to be understood in the way that in the triads of categories deduced by Kant the third, though a synthesis of the first and the second, is something entirely new. That schematism and allegory achieve an Indifferenzpunkt in the symbolic is neatly encompassed in the German word for symbol, Sinnbild, which mirrors the unity of meaning and form.17 Schelling evinces his wish to ensure that this mirroring be not confused with a one-sided dependency relation of copying or causing subsumed under the principle of sufficient reason when the phrase 'mere speculation' in the Introduction to the first edition of the Philosophy of Nature (1793) is replaced in the second edition (1803) by the phrase 'mere reflection', thereby enabling 'speculation' to be retained for a nobler role, as it is also by Hegel.18 Perhaps the conjunction of his belief that the imagination is fully developed in art with his belief that it is in the sphere of art that the imagination is usually thought to be most at home explains Schelling's reservations over using the word 'imagination' for the earlier stages of the history of the mind. Coleridge begins Chapter X of Biographia Literaria as follows: 'Esemplastic. The word is not in Johnson, nor have I met with it elsewhere'. Neither have I. I constructed it myself from the Greek words, eis en plattein^ to shape into one; because having to convey a new sense, I thought that a new term would both aid the recollection of my meaning, and prevent its being 17

SW V, p. 412. See K. Diising, 'Spekulation und Reflexion: Zur Zusammenarbeit Schellings und Hegels in Jena', Hegel-Studien, V (1969), pp. 95-127, and JeanFrancois Courtine, 'Le deploiement schellingien de 1'unite: de Yuniversio a Yuniversitas1, Les etudes philosophiques (1978), p. 351, note 12. 18

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confounded with the usual import of the word, imagination. To 'shape into one' is also a translation of ln-eins-bildung which is the power of Einbildungskraft on Schelling's account of imagination.19 Schelling does not want this to be confounded with the merely associative reproductive imagination of the empiricists. Hence, when he is treating the oscillation between the infinite will and the finite reality which opposes it and makes it possible he acknowledges that he has not yet shown his right to employ the word imagination of this oscillation between and ultimate unification of the finite and infinite. A similar caution is expressed by Fichte when of a certain activity he has found it necessary to postulate in the course of the argument of the Science of Knowledge he writes in parentheses 'its name is imagination, as will appear in due course'.20 If the imagination is most fully developed in art and art is most fully developed in symbolism, symbolism is most fully developed in mythology. Schelling's most favoured cases among extant mythologies are those presented in Homer, where the individual is the universal and the universal is the individual; the Sinn is the Bild and the Bild the Sinn rather than either signifying (bedeuten) the other, which is what happens once mythology gives way to allegory, as Homer's mythologies do for a later age, or when his myths are succeeded by such allegories as that of Eros and Psyche. That Homer's Odyssey should be accorded such a privileged place is in keeping with the pragmatic history of the human spirit being described as spirit's Odyssey.21 It is the history of a " SW V, p. 306. -"SK, p. 150; Gesamtausgabe, I, 2, p. 314 (I, 160). -' STI, p. 232, SW III, p. 629.

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homecoming in that the end of that history is the fulfilment of its beginning. The original judgement, the Ur-teil, of that beginning is the simple twofold root of self-consciousness from which grows the highest form of self-consciousness, the aesthetic imagination which is 'the productive intuition reiterated to its highest degree' {die in der hochsten Potenz sich wiederbolende produktive Anschauung)11 and whose expression in the work of art is the objective organon of philosophy. Let us retrace more closely the path followed by this return.

V Schelling's statement that productive intuition of objects reiterated to its highest degree is the poiesis of aesthetic intuition becomes more comprehensible when it is set alongside certain statements made by Kant. In the section of the Critique of Pure Reason dealing with the transition from the table of forms of judgement to the table of categories, Kant writes: 'The same function which gives unity to the various representations in a judgement also gives unity to the mere synthesis of various representations in an intuition* (B 104). We have already noted more than once that this function which gives unity to the mere synthesis of various representations in an intuition is sometimes called 'imagination' by Kant and sometimes 'understanding'. 'It is one and the same spontaneity, which in the one case, under the title of imagination, and in the other case, under the title of understanding, brings combination into the manifold of intuition' (B 162 note b). Schelling must surely intend his reader to recognize that he is repeating this sentence

11

STI, p. 230, SW V, p. 626.

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when he writes, with reference to poetic intuition and to productive intuition, that is, intuition productive of the space in which real objects appear, 'it is one and the same capacity that is active in both, the only one whereby we are able to think and to couple together even what is contradictory {das Widersprechende) - and its name is imagination'.23 If Schelling and Kant are agreed that this capacity, spontaneity or function, may sometimes be entitled imagination and sometimes understanding, how does this agreement stand in relation to the sentence cited from the Critique of Practical Reason at the beginning of this essay: 'the moral law has no faculty but the understanding to aid its application to physical objects (not the imagination)'? Kant says this because the moral law is purely formal and the order of a moral realm of free agents can have as an analogy in nature only the formality of a system of natural laws, that is to say, an order of understanding whose laws are not exhibited in concrete spatio-temporal reality by schematism. This does not mean that the moral idea of reason cannot be exhibited in an aesthetic idea, an ideal type or archetype constructed by the poetic imagination. When Schelling writes that an Idea of reason is not a concept of the understanding, he is thinking of the antinomies which Kant has shown to arise if this is forgotten; for example, if it is forgotten that freedom is not a concept of the understanding, but an Idea of reason. Remembering the distinction between the practical employment of Ideas of reason and the theoretical employment of concepts of the understanding makes it possible to couple together, to construe, to construct, 21

STI, p. 230, SW III, p. 625.

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what would otherwise be contradictory, for example the infinitude of the will and the finitude of resistant reality without which there can be no willing. Remembering this distinction allows not only for this overcoming of contradiction. Since contradiction is overcome by 'the connecting middle' entitled imagination we can now see that the ambiguity between imagination and the schematized understanding to be found in the first Critique is matched in Schelling's reading of the threefold Critical synthesis by the further ambiguity on the possibility of which we touched in our opening paragraphs. There is an ambiguity between fully fledged imagination and unschematized understanding in that the fully fledged form of the latter, the Idea of freedom presupposed by the categorical imperative, is practical reason whose application is guided by the former, that is to say, by an aesthetic Idea. The constructions of aesthetic intuition are the fulfilment of the constructions of mathematical and intellectual intuition of which philosophy becomes conscious when it reflects on the self-consciousness of the 'I am'. So philosophy's becoming conscious of this is its becoming conscious of its own limitations. In the final section of this essay we shall examine in a little more detail why this is so and indicate in broad terms where the philosophy of philosophy which emerges from Schelling's reconstruction of Kant stands in relation to philosophy's past and future.

VI The aesthetic intuition of the poetic faculty (Dichtungsvermogen) objectifies in a work of art the intellectual intuition which operates unconsciously in the production of objects and in our movement among them in action. It is the document and organon which

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philosophy needs to make manifest the absolutely simple identity of the conscious and the unconscious which, because it is prior to predication, cannot be fully described and must therefore be otherwise presented, exhibited or performed (dargestellt). However, if philosophy can make this manifest only through art, the idea of philosophy as the science of sciences will have to be revised. If Schelling wishes to say both that art is the ancilla of philosophy, is paramount for philosophy, and that it is paramount over philosophy, as might seem to be indicated if, as he says, philosophy returns to poetry, logos to mythos, philosophical constructing and mythopoietic intuition fuse in what we shall have to think of as the heir to what used to be called philosophy. That this is so is suggested by the following sentences from the last pages of the System where it seems that both the poetic and the philosophical genius become absorbed into the political community: What intellectual intuition is for the philosopher, aesthetic intuition is for his object. The former, since it is necessary purely for purposes of that special direction of mind which it takes in philosophizing, makes no appearance at all in ordinary consciousness; the latter, since it is nothing else but intellectual intuition given universal currency, or become objective, can at least figure in every consciousness. But from this very fact it may also be understood that, and why, philosophy as philosophy can never become generally current. The one field to which absolute objectivity is granted, is art. Take away objectivity from art, one might say, and it ceases to be what it is, and becomes philosophy; grant objectivity to philosophy, and it ceases to be philosophy, and becomes art. Philosophy attains, indeed, to the highest, but it brings

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to this summit only, so to say, the fraction {ein Bruchstiick) of man. Art brings the whole man, as he is, to this point, namely to knowledge of the highest, and this is what underlies the eternal difference and the marvel of art.24 Now for Schelling, as we have seen, the most marvellous marvel of art is mythology. Mythology is accorded this pre-eminence because at the end of its history philosophy, the 'whole science' referred to in the quotation from Schelling with which we began, returns to the mythological source from which it sprang. Philosophy was born and nourished by poetry in the infancy of knowledge, and with it all those sciences it has guided toward perfection; we may thus expect them on completion, to flow back like so many individual streams into the universal ocean of poetry from which they took their source. Nor is it in general difficult to say what the medium for this return of science to poetry will be; for in mythology such a medium existed, before the occurrence of a breach (Trennung) now seemingly beyond repair. But how a new mythology is itself to arise, which shall be the creation, not of some individual author, but of a new race, impersonating, as it were, one single poet - that is a problem whose solution can be looked for only in the future destinies of the world, and in the course of history to come.25 That is a problem we cannot pursue here beyond observing that the future destinies of the world and the course of history will see this idea of philosophy realized 24 STI, p. 233, SW III, p. 629. * STI, pp. 232-3, SW III, p. 629.

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less in the conceptual thinking of the author of the Science of Logic than in the denkendes Dichten of the third of the three Tubingen friends, Holderlin, and in the dichtendes Denken to which Holderlin provoked Heidegger at a time when talk of mythology and race was once more in the air. Heidegger, following Schelling and Kant, is much given to delving for hidden roots, in particular the root shared by theory and practice. We have been examining why, in the paragraph from the Philosophical Letters on Dogmatism and Criticism which we cited at the outset, Schelling believes this root to be imagination. When in that paragraph Schelling writes with reference to imagination, whose Schweben can mean oscillation but also suspense, that it voluntarily assumes a state of passivity toward an object, it is not difficult to hear his words as an expression of the belief that the common root is less likely to be disclosed by grasping (Begreifen) than by letting be [Seinlassen). In the Further Expositions of my System of Philosophy (1802) Schelling distinguishes ratiocinative Begreifen which explains by subordination, from the non-hierarchic thinking of identity, where the 'of signifies a genitive which is both subjective and objective, a 'speculative' genitive we could perhaps say, where the equal right and value of opposites is acknowledged, and where each thing is allowed to be {seynlassen) in its power the same as the other is in its.26 In learning how imagination is a connecting middle for Schelling and Kant we learn how Schelling is a connecting middle between Kant and Heidegger.

26

SW IV, p. 344.

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201

Bibliography Abbott, T.K. (trans), Kant's Critique of Practical Reason and Other Works on the Theory of Ethics, 6th edn (Longman: London, 1909). Fichte, J.G., Science of Knowledge (Wissenschaftslehre), with the First and Second Introductions, trans and edited by Peter Heath and John Lachs (Appleton/Century/Crofts: New York, 1970). Fichte, J.G., Gesamtausgabe, I, 2, Reinhard Lauth and H. Jacob (eds) (Stuttgart-Bad Cannstatt: Fredrich Frommann Verlag, 1965). Hegel, G.W.F., Phenomenology of Spirit, trans A.V. Miller (Clarendon: Oxford, 1977). Heidegger, Martin, Beitrdge zur Philosophie, Gesamtausgabe, 65 (Klostermann: Frankfurt am Main, 1989). Heidegger, Martin, Kant and the Problem of Metaphysics, trans James S. Churchill (Indiana University Press: Bloomington, 1962) [Kant und das Problem der Metaphysik (Klostermann: Frankfurt am Main, 1951)). Hoyer, Carl H., Treatise on Philosophical Construction (Silverstolpen: Stockholm, 1801; German version, F. Perthes: Hamburg, 1801). Kant, I., Critique of Pure Reason, trans N. Kemp Smith (Macmillan: London, 1964). Schelling, F.W.J., System of Transcendental Idealism (1800), trans Peter Heath (University Press of Virginia: Charlottesville, 1978). Schelling, F.W.J., The Unconditional in Human Knowledge: Four Early Essays (1794-1796), trans Fritz Marti (Bucknell University Press: Lewisburg/Associated University Presses: London, 1980). Schelling, F.W.J., 'On Construction in Philosophy', Critical Journal of Philosophy (1802). Schelling, F.W.J., Sdmtliche Werke, K.F.A. Schelling (ed.) (J.G. Cotta: Stuttgart and Augsburg, 1856-61).

THE EARLY RECEPTION OF KANT'S THOUGHT IN ENGLAND 1785—1805 Giuseppe Micheli

1

Introduction

It is only from around 1830 that one can speak of any substantial influence of Kant's thought in England and of its reception in an adequate way, that is from the time of the change which took place in English culture in connection - if not always directly - with the renewal of society and of the educational institutions and also with the political battles of that period. The only outstanding exception was represented by Coleridge, who was one of the few who had any direct knowledge of the Kantian texts and of the first idealists, in particular Fichte and Schelling; he was to use Kant's thought to work out, especially from 1818 onwards, his own personal, although not systematic, philosophical outlook of a Platonic type (cf. especially Chinol, pp. 37-44); but his writings which can be more strictly described as philosophical remained mostly unpublished, and his influence, while it was important in the field of Anglican theology, was conversely insignificant in that of philosophy, at least for some considerable time (cf. Muirhead, Coleridge, p. 256; Chinol, p. 121). 202

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However, Kant was already being spoken of in England from the last decade of the eighteenth century. Opinions about Kant, about his philosophy and, in general, about German thought and culture, developed and began to circulate, linked to elements of the earlier philosophical tradition, in the context of the very widespread cultural and political debate of the time. The area in which this impression was formed, affecting the reception of Kant's thought in English society at that period, was educated public opinion which had its most important sources in the cultural and political circles of London. The first reception of Kant's ideas in England took place completely outside the sphere of the universities, since at that time and at least until the end of the 1820s, - when a slow process of renewal of the English university system began with the foundation of Imperial College (1826), the first nucleus of the new University of London - the universities of Oxford and Cambridge were, as far as philosophy was concerned, closed environments, especially Oxford, and exerted relatively negligible influence on the cultural debate and on the development of educated public opinion (cf. Sidgwick, pp. 235-43; Pattison, pp. 83-97). There was a different situation in Scotland, where the universities, more closely linked to continental models, had already, throughout the eighteenth century, played a much more direct role in the process of the development of culture (cf. Veitch, especially pp. 83-4, 207-23). At Cambridge Kant's thought was to be introduced in the 1830s by William Whewell whose epistemology, at least in its first formulation (we refer to the first editions of the History of the Inductive Sciences of 1837 and of the Philosophy of the Inductive Sciences of 1840) derived in many aspects from Kant's first Critique. Whewell's

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attempt to introduce Kant to Cambridge was substantially to fail, in as much as it was too far from the tradition of English thought which was more alive at that time. As far as Oxford was concerned, it would have to wait for the teaching of Henry L. Mansel who, with the aim of combating both utilitarianism and idealism, was to develop, with a theological and religious emphasis, Hamilton's philosophy of the 'conditioned', referring extensively, even if in somewhat extrinsic ways as, indeed, did his master himself, to the teachings of Kant. At Oxford a second factor in the revival of German philosophy, though Hegelian more than Kantian, was signalled by the renewal of classical studies, thanks to the teaching of Benjamin Jowett, which led, by way of the study of ancient thought, to an encounter with Hegel and with the historiographical tradition of German idealism. Among Jowett's pupils were Thomas Hill Green, Edward Caird and William Wallace, who in the second half of the century produced monographs on Kant which had a wide circulation and contributed towards the strengthening of an idealistic interpretation of Kant in England (cf. Robbins, pp. 42-9). Thus, in order to have a picture of the first reception of Kant's thought in England, one must look not to the two universities, of Oxford and Cambridge, but to the cultural life of the capital. It will be found, somewhat surprisingly, that for a brief period at the turn of the century Kant was known, explained, discussed and even translated in England more than in other European countries such as France and Italy. However, this period of Kant's popularity was interrupted quite suddenly and rather abruptly at the beginning of the new century. In truth, the reception of Kantianism in England immediately encountered an obstacle in the dominance of the development of Lockian empiricism and, in the ethical field, in

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the spread of the utilitarianism of Paley and Bentham. But what impeded the reception of Kantianism in England in the first place was the sudden, very strong and violent reaction against ideas originating from the Continent, and in particular from Germany, a reaction which took place at the end of the century. Fear of Jacobin contagion and the long war with France finished by isolating England from the Continent, and from that moment, for more than thirty years, Kant's thought, and more generally German philosophy, no longer had any part in the English cultural debate.

2

The Journals and the Spread of Ideas in the Age of Enlightenment

The origin of the picture of Kant held by English public opinion cannot easily be traced, for the same reasons that make it difficult to reconstruct the origin and spread of many opinions about philosophical doctrines which were widespread during the Age of the Enlightenment. The birth and diffusion of literary journals, in particular of reviews, had led to an impressive growth in printed matter and an increase in the speed of its circulation, which produced a change in the ways in which ideas were transmitted and received. A different public, larger, certainly less qualified, but equally eager for literary curiosities, was formed. As a consequence, this ensured a certain trivialization in the reports, due both to the increasing amount of information available and also to the simplification of its content in order to make it enjoyable and comprehensible to the new public. The public wanted to be informed by means of the literary journal of everything that was being published in every field of knowledge. Thus, a philosophical doctrine would be transmitted through the channel of literary information

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together with innumerable other items of news culled from the world of the arts, letters and science: not only that, but the literary journals of the period also gave much space to political events of the day, both at home and abroad. Information about philosophy was presented within a context that affected the way in which it was received. The importance of the literary journals as instruments for the diffusion of ideas in the Age of Enlightenment has been fully emphasized. Not infrequently, many works, especially of philosophy and theology, were known, abroad in particular, more through the reviews published in the journals than by direct reading of the texts. The role of the literary journals increased in importance even more from the middle of the century, with the birth of a new sort of literary journal. In London in 1749 The Monthly Review, of Whig leanings, began publication on the initiative of Ralph Griffiths (cf. Sullivan, I, pp. 2317). It was followed in 1756 by The Critical Review, of Tory leanings except for the period 1791-1803, the period we are considering, during which it took a definitely liberal position (Sullivan, I, pp. 72-7). Here we are speaking of journals of a new type compared with their predecessors - review everything and promptly: this was the main distinctive characteristic of the new literary journals compared with the more academic ones of the first half of the century (cf. Roper, especially pp. 19-49). The new journals completed their literary survey with periodical reviews of the state of literary and scientific culture in the other European countries: under appropriate headings notice was given of foreign books which were imported and available from the main booksellers in London. Often the issue concluded with a report of the principal political, cultural and scientific events of the moment, in the country and abroad.

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Nicolai's Allgemeine Deutsche Bibliothek appeared in

Germany, on the model of Griffiths' journal, followed by very many others, both in England and on the Continent. The exchange of information was helped by the links between journals of similar political outlook. For example, the main English radical journal, Joseph Johnson's Analytical Review, between 1785 and the end of the century systematically used for information on Germany the reviews published in the Allgemeine Literatur-Zeitung of Jena, which had first appeared in 1785 and had immediately become the organ of the diffusion of Kantianism or, rather, of what was understood as Kantianism at that time at Jena. For the present research, about fifteen English journals have been examined (together with three Scottish periodicals). Some had a relatively short life while others lasted for much longer periods and allow the researcher to have a comprehensive impression of English cultured life and of the transformations it underwent in the course of time. We possess also the data about the number of copies sold for each of the principal English journals at the time. In 1797 these ranged from 5,000 copies of The Monthly Magazine and The Monthly Review to 1,500 copies of The Analytical Review, giving a total of 31,000 copies sold per month of the main London journals (cf. Timperley, p. 795); the figures relating to 1806 are more or less the same (cf. ScotsMag, LXVIII, 1806, p. 691). The systematic examination of this material makes it possible to assess the characteristics and the extent of the relationship between English and German culture and, within this relationship, to examine in detail the origin of the picture of Kant which people had in England, the connections established at that time between Kant's philosophy and elements of the previous philosophical tradition and, finally, the change in ideas about Kant in

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relation to the evolution of the cultural and political situation in England.

3

German Culture and the English Public

The educated English public does not seem to have shown a particularly strong interest in Germany until the end of the 1770s. For dynastic reasons, there were privileged connections with Hanover and with the university of Gottingen, but until the end of the 1780s it was thought of almost solely for scientific studies, in particular in the field of medicine and biology, and for Biblical scholarship. Even in 1798 when Coleridge would decide to travel to Germany, it would be in order to pursue medical and Biblical studies (cf. Chinol, pp. 256). Where philosophy was concerned, Gottingen, on the contrary, performed a function in the opposite direction, contributing not a little to the diffusion of British, English, and especially Scottish, philosophy on the Continent (cf. Kuehn, pp. 70-85). The English public began to display greater interest in Germany from the 1770s, but it was only with the new German literature, starting with Goethe, that the English public suddenly discovered Germany. The phenomenon assumed striking dimensions during the 1780s and then, above all, in the last decade of the century. Goethe's The Sorrows of Werther was first translated into English in 1779; twenty years later in 1799, at least twenty-four editions of Werther can be counted including translations and reprints (Morgan, pp. 156-7). In the two years 1798-9 alone, there were about one hundred English editions of the plays of Kotzebue which are today universally considered to be of little merit (Morgan, pp. 2809). The phenomenon can be explained only by the fact that the new German literature, whether good or

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mediocre, succeeded in expressing better than any other at that time the feelings of the English reader, and the expectations, widespread among the middle class which made up the readership of the journals, of radical changes in the political, social and religious field (cf. Morgan-Hohlfeld, pp. 37-42). During the last two decades of the century, English society was in a state of excitement and deep crisis. In 1789 the centenary of the Glorious Revolution was celebrated in England, and not only in radical circles but also in the opposition Whig sector the anniversary was considered an opportunity for developing the political system in a more liberal direction. The events in France served to kindle the fire of debate even further. In public opinion the celebration of the centenary was linked with the memory of the recent American revolution and with the news that was coming from Paris. In his famous speech, delivered on 4 November 1789 to the Society for the Commemoration of the Glorious Revolution, Richard Price advised them 'that though the [English] Revolution was a great work, it was by no means a perfect work' (Price, p. 35). He urged them to consider 'the favourableness of the present times to all exertions of the cause of public liberty'; and concluded: what an eventful period is this! . . . After sharing in the benefits of one Revolution, I have been spared to be a witness to two other Revolutions, both glorious. And now, methinks, I see the ardour for liberty catching and spreading, a general amendment beginning in human affairs, the dominion of kings changed for the dominion of laws, and the dominion of priests giving way to the dominion of reason and conscience (Price, pp. 49-50). The conviction that the time was now ripe for a decisive

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change of direction in the history of mankind was widespread in the radical and liberal sectors of public opinion. The same situation was noted on the Continent also, especially in Germany; what Kroner (I, p. 2), speaking about Germany at that same period, defines as 'the eschatological state of mind' {die eschatologische Stimmung) was observed also in England. The reception of Kantianism in England and everywhere in Europe was to be profoundly affected by it. On the philosophical level, English culture was not in a very favourable condition for receiving Kant's philosophy. Unlike the situation in Scotland, the dominant tradition in England was that of Locke in the version of Hartleyan associationism. In 1775 Joseph Priestley, with his book Hartley's Theory of Human Mind (2nd edn 1790; 3rd edn 1794) had, with notable success, brought back into circulation the teachings of Hartley whose best known work, Observations on Man, first published without much success in 1749, was reprinted in 1791 and then republished several times. The rediscovery of Hartley brought back into prominence a thinker who had been outside the development of thought in his time; although he was writing in 1749 it seems that he knew only Locke and Newton. Hartley's teaching was received with approval by a large part of English cultural circles. The success of Hartley can, in fact, be recorded as part of a vast European phenomenon; on the Continent, the success of Condillac (and of Bonnet) corresponded with that of Hartley. Hartley himself was translated into German in 1772-3, into French in 1802 and into Italian in 1809. In the field of ethics, utilitarianism was predominant. In 1785 William Paley published his Principles of Moral and Political Philosophy, a work destined to be the textbook on morals at Cambridge for more than half a

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century. Four years later, in 1789, Jeremy Bentham published his Introduction to the Principles of Morals and Legislation. Utilitarianism, which Paley reconciled with religious orthodoxy, was taken in the direction of political radicalism by Bentham and Priestley. In place of the dogma of natural rights, common to other radical thinkers of the time, they postulated the maxim of the greatest happiness of the greatest number as the criterion for choice in political questions. If it had not been for the attitude of expectation of a change of direction in the social, religious and political field, which made educated public opinion watchful towards anything in the area of politics as in that of knowledge that could seem to announce the new world, English philosophy at the end of the century, like much of European culture, would not have provided any chance of a favourable reception of the originality of Kant's thought.

4

The First News of Kant

The first references to Kant appeared in the English periodical press in this more generalized context. In 1787 two periodicals of liberal tendency, The English Magazine (IX, January 1787, pp. 66-7) and The Political Magazine (February 1787, pp. 94-5), published 'a letter from a temporary resident of Weimar' which attempted to provide a firsthand account of German culture at that time. To the English traveller Germany seemed more interesting than France, and full of new things: the German taste is more akin to ours than the French. France can boast of no such poet as Klopstock, who may, in many respects, be put on a level with Milton. Gessner is all sweetness and simplicity. . . . Their dramatic compositions are but moderate. Pretending

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to imitate Shakespeare, many of their writers have mistaken extravagance for genius, and unintelligible absurdity for the sublime {EnglRev, IX, 1787, p. 67). The letter went on to speak about Goethe and Wieland. Towards the end, the English traveller inserted a brief reference to Kant: the metaphysics of professor Kant, at Konigsberg, gain ground. A parson in Brandeburg has been suspended from his office for endeavouring to prove to his peasants, that, upon Kant's principles, there exists no God {EnglRev, IX, p. 67). The text indicates something more than a simple curiosity: it bears witness to the beginning of a change of attitude towards German culture. Not only does it contain, in all probability, the first reference to Kant to appear in an English journal, but it links the name of Kant with opinions which were often to be repeated later. The new German literature was appreciated but it was accused of, at times, mistaking unconventionality for cleverness; Kant's philosophy was linked, though in very vague terms, with the metaphysical topic of the existence of God, and with the problem of irreligion. A little earlier the writer of the letter had spoken of the obscure terminology of the German philosophers, which was to be another recurrent theme in opinion about Kant: in their philosophical writings, they have adopted an arrangement of phrases so complicated and unwieldy, that, without long practice, a stranger can never understand them {EnglRev, IX, p. 66). From 1787 onwards Kant was referred to with increasing frequency. For the period 1780-1820 more than a hundred references, obviously very varied in their length

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and relevance, can be found to Kant and to his philosophy. Between 1787 and 1795 references were still infrequent and, apart from four reviews in The Monthly Review, of little significance. The period of greatest interest in Kant was in the two years between the end of 1795 and the beginning of 1798, a period which coincided with the publication of the essays on Kant, of very varying worth, by O'Keeffe (November 1795), Nitsch (1796), Richardson (1797) and Willich (January 1798), with the translation of Kant's essay on Perpetual Peace (1796), and with the interest in Kant shown by the journals with a liberal and radical orientation. This period was followed by a second, which went from the middle of 1798 to the early months of 1801 and which was characterized by the violent polemic conducted against German philosophy by the conservative and reactionary journals, in particular The Anti-Jacobin Review. After 1801, references to Kant rapidly decreased and few journals recorded Kant's death in 1804. From 1806 onwards hardly anything was said about Kant nor about German idealistic philosophy. It was only after 1820 that Kant began to be mentioned again in English journals.

5

Kantianism in Holland and its Echoes in England: 1790-1794

The most widely circulated and authoritative English literary journal, The Monthly Review, had already had the means to provide occasional, but nonetheless significant, information about Kant's philosophy to its own readers before the period of maximum interest on the part of public opinion which covered the years between 1796 and 1800. Holland had become a centre of study of Kant's philosophy of some importance, first with Paulus van Hemert

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and then with Hans Kinker (cf. Land, pp. 98-9; Groenewegen, pp. 304-15; Wielema, pp. 450-61; see also the letter of Johannes Glover to Kant, Ak., XII, pp. 337-40). Difficulties due to language had to some extent reduced the influence of these Dutch centres. Kinker's work would become an important vehicle for spreading knowledge about Kantian philosophy in the whole of Europe only when it was translated into French, in 1801, by Jean Le Fevre, and taken up, on the basis of this translation, by Destutt de Tracy in a paper read in 1802 to the Institut National. However, Holland still had close ties with Great Britain, which were expressed also in frequent contacts and exchanges on the level of culture. On the religious level there were links not only with the Scottish Presbyterians but also with English dissenting groups, whose ministers and most prominent leaders, being excluded from Oxford and Cambridge - although by this time they had their own academies - continued not infrequently to make use of the Dutch universities, in particular that of Ley den, in order to complete their studies. Griffiths' journal, because of its liberal tendency in politics and its openness towards and support for English dissenters and, moreover, because of the editor's vast network of friendships, took advantage of the presence of these English people in Holland so as to have reviews of Dutch literary output in all fields of knowledge. Often these correspondents, because of their good understanding of German, provided reviews of German texts also. The French occupation of Holland in 1795 was to interrupt these contacts. 5.1

Cogan on Allard Hulshoff: Kant and Scottish philosophy

In December 1790 Thomas Cogan, minister of a presbyterian congregation and physician, sent to Griffiths'

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journal a long review of four dissertations on the subject of the immateriality of the soul which had been awarded prizes by Teyler's Society of Haarlem. The author of the first dissertation, the Mennonite pastor Allard Hulshoff (cf. Ak., XI, pp. 188, 196), who was later to contribute to the spreading of Kantianism in Holland (cf. Wielema, pp. 452-3, who however does not mention this dissertation), had approached the subject by taking it, according to Cogan, from the point of view of the philosophy of Thomas Reid and, as a premise, had devoted the whole of the first part of his dissertation to the classification of the various theories concerning the matter in relation to the problem of the origin of knowledge (cf. Hulshoff, pp. 1-11). Among the philosophers quoted by Hulshoff (the reviewer mentioned) was Kant, whom he placed among the 'idealists', that is to say those philosophers who, with Berkeley, rejected the Lockian distinction between primary and secondary qualities, and assert that neither impenetrability nor extension can have place, independently of our conceptions (MonthRev, III, p. 483). Kant's idealism was, however, of a much more moderate kind compared with that of Berkeley: Kant, who derives no sensations from the attention of the soul to real existences, though he acknowledges that our ideas are in some other manner excited, by something existing out of the mind, is placed [by Hulshoff] under the idealists; as, according to him, all our observations and determinations are founded on appearances {MonthRev, III, p. 484). In his classification, the author of the dissertation seemed to be suggesting some kind of analogy between the position of Kant and that of Reid: both rejected the Lockian

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explanation of the distinction between primary and secondary qualities but they did not go on from there to maintain, with Berkeley, that material objects do not exist outside the mind. According to both of them, there is within us a subjective principle which makes us believe in the existence of something outside ourselves. The author of the dissertation does not seem to have developed the subject any further, and the author of the review restricted himself to noting it in these general terms. Nevertheless, the brief mention is not without significance, and this for two reasons. It represents an early associating of Kant's philosophy with that of Reid, on the part of an author described as a convinced adherent of the Scottish school. Through the review this possible interpretation of Kantian thought was suggested to the English reader, and it was presented to him linked, even though in very vague terms, with elements of the philosophical tradition that must have been familiar to him, that is Reid's polemic against Locke, the reasons underlying Berkeley's idealism and the foundation of belief in the existence of the corporeal world. 5.2

Benjamin Sowden: the first English exposition of Kant's system

In the issue of April 1793 a second and fuller reference to Kant's thought was published (MonthRev, X, pp. 523-31; cf. Wellek, pp. 5-7). The author in this case also was an English dissenter in Holland, the Presbyterian Benjamin Sowden, minister of the English congregation in Amsterdam and a chemist, who provided a review of three essays presented for a competition arranged by the philosophical society of Haarlem on the subject: What is the validity of the moral demonstration of the existence of the Deity, and particularly of that which

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professor Kant has proposed as the only one? {MonthRev, X, p. 524). The three essays which were awarded prizes and published were by, respectively Johann Christian Schwab, collaborator of Eberhard and Feder and an anti-Kantian, Friedrich Daniel Behn of Liibeck, also definitely antiKantian, and Ludwig Heinrich Jakob, who was the only one to defend Kant's position {Verh. Holl. Maatschappye, XXVIII, pp. 1-50 [Schwab], pp. 51-175 [Behn], pp. 177-325 [Jakob]; cf. Adickes, Nos 352 and 938; Wielema, pp. 451-2 and the letter of Hulshoff to Kant, Ak., XI, pp. 259-61). From the beginning of his review the author did not hide his surprise at the fact that the Haarlem Society, which since 1754 had always been concerned with scientific and technical themes, had announced a competition on a metaphysical question. He did not disguise his opinion about research being done in the field of metaphysics: we are sorry to find that this society seems at present to have forsaken the delightful and fertile field of practical philosophy and useful science, for the barren and disgusting desert of speculative metaphysics, in which the mind . . . is perplexed with scholastic subtilties. . . . In no pursuit are men more apt to deceive themselves by mistaking words for things; they invent a new technical language, and, because they express themselves differently from others, imagine that they have found a more certain road to the sanctuary of truth, while, perhaps, they are only bewildering themselves in a labyrinth of their own construction, in which they fancy that they are approaching the object of their search, by paths which really conduct them away from it, and lead them into uncertainty and confusion (MonthRev, X, p. 523).

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There is no doubt that in Benjamin Sowden's opinion, Kant was the representative of such a type of metaphysics, the rapid spread of which in Germany he noted with some anxiety: these observations may, we think, be applied to the system of metaphysics and moral philosophy which was published, about twelve years ago, by Professor Kant of Konigsberg, which is at present much in vogue among the German literati, and is extolled by its adherents as one of the most sublime efforts of human genius {MonthRev, X, p. 523). The reviewer concentrated his attention on the essays of the two anti-Kantians, Schwab and Behn, and in particular, for reasons of space, on that of the former, which contained comments on the moral proof formulated by Kant which he at once declared he shared entirely. Nevertheless in order to enable our readers to enter more fully into the merits of the question, as well as to gratify the curiosity of the learned concerning a philosophical system, which . . . is very little known in England, it may not be improper to premise a brief view of some of M. Kant's fundamental principles of metaphysics and morals, on which the validity of his argument for the existence of the Deity in a great measure depends. To do this, we are obliged to have recourse to the works of this philosopher, entitled Critik der Reinen und der Praktischen Vernunft, in consulting which, we are much assisted by a very judicious account of his sentiments, published in a kind of Dutch magazine, which, we believe, was drawn up by the ingenious Professor van Hemert of Amsterdam {MonthRev, X, p. 524).

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In a footnote Sowden made it clear that he had at hand both the second edition of the Critique of Pure Reason and the first edition of the Critique of Practical Reason. The text of Paulus van Hemert to which he referred must have been his first article on Kant published in a Dutch journal (cf. Groenewegen, p. 309; Wellek, pp. 6, 266; Ak., XIII, p. 524). The premises for a good exposition of Kantian thought did exist: the reviewer had access to texts in the original language and we know that he understood German well. The exposition of Kant's thought occupies about three pages and is accurate enough even if synthetic, given that it had to serve as an introduction to the subject of the moral proof of the existence of God which was discussed in the texts which he had to review. 5.2.1 Kant's theoretical philosophy In his opinions about the theoretical part of Kant's philosophy, Sowden was probably influenced by suggestions that came from Schwab who, like Eberhard and Feder, interpreted Kant's thought in the Berkeleian idealistic sense, as he denied all objective reality. Nevertheless, when expounding the thesis of the Aesthetic, Sowden seems to have been aware of the Kantian distinction between 'transcendental idealism' and 'empirical realism': for Kant all men have a certain innate faculty, by which they become capable of the knowledge of those things which fall under the cognizance of their senses, and are conceived under the forms of time and space . . ., which, when abstractedly considered, Kant calls pure perceptions, are only forms of perception, and not real existences; they are not essential to the absolute existence of things, nor even to those relations of external things that are independent of our knowledge. As

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space is nothing more than the form of our knowledge within our own minds, so the objects, which we perceive in space, exist not externally, but only internally; they are mere phenomena, but cannot be said to be only ideal, nor to have no objective reality, because they depend on established laws and real principles. When, therefore, they are said to exist, no more is meant than that they are perceived in space, or in the form of external organization {MonthRev, X, pp. 524-5). Also when he went from the Aesthetic to the Analytic, his explanation of Kant's thought, although extremely synthetic, is not without accuracy: as the nature and mode or form of our perception are determined by the nature of our sensible faculty, so the form of our thoughts, or the manner in which we judge concerning phenomena, or arrange our perceptions, is determined by the nature of our theoretical reason; and . . . that by which we determine the connection of our observations, and form a judgment concerning them, is called a pure notion or category. Those pure notions, which are discoverable by an analysis of the judgment, may be reduced to notions of quantity, quality, relation, and modification [sic]. These categories, considered abstractedly, are not deduced from our perceptions and experience, but exist in the mind prior to these latter, and experience is the result of their combination with our perceptions; - but it is only in connection with our perceptions, that these pure notions can be the source of knowledge; for in themselves they are mere forms, without any independent existence. They serve to direct us in the use of our observations, but they cannot extend our knowledge beyond the limits of perception and experience [MonthRev, X, p. 525).

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Sowden did not discuss the Dialectic: he would refer to the subject of God later when expounding Kant's practical philosophy. The examination of the theoretical part of Kant's philosophy concluded with a brief reference to the relationship between experience, synthetic propositions and science: there are . . . two kinds of propositions, concerning which our minds may be employed, analytical and synthetical. The former are those in which we only explain or illustrate that of which we have already some idea; whereas, in the latter, we increase our knowledge, by adding something new to our former idea of the subject. . . . Without experience, we cannot form any synthetical proposition concerning the objects or matter of our knowledge: but, as the forms of our knowledge are independent of and prior to our experience, we may, with respect to the pure notions already mentioned, conceive synthetical propositions, or acquire pure science; and indeed it is only when we have pure perceptions [space and time! and pure notions [categoriesl for our objects, that we can arrive at universal and necessary certainty; . . . in pure mathematics and philosophy . . . we consider truth, abstracted from matter, with respect only to the forms or laws of knowledge and volition {MonthRev, X, pp. 525-6). Here- the text becomes definitely ambiguous; the conciseness of the exposition leads to misunderstanding. The Kantian distinction between sensibility and understanding, and between the receptivity of the former and the spontaneity of the latter, is not clear; the categories, set beside the pure intuitions, could easily have been interpreted as preconstituted forms rather than, as in Kant, as dispositions of unifying activity.

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Kantian philosophy, in such a way, lent itself to being interpreted in an innatistic sense. 5.2.2 Kant's practical philosophy The reference to practical philosophy was very brief, serving as a direct introduction to the moral proof of the existence of God which was discussed in the texts which Sowden had to review. Beside theoretical reason, Kant ascribes to man another faculty, which he calls practical reason, endued with power sufficient to impel and direct the will . . .; if this faculty were not granted, . . . practical laws would not be universal moral precepts, but only particular maxims, which individuals might prescribe to themselves as the rule of their conduct. To these universal moral laws, practical reason commands our implicit obedience, without any regard to our inclinations or views of advantage. These are indeed sometimes at variance with the dictates of duty, but, in order to diminish their influence as obstacles to virtue, our practical reason must determine us firmly to believe the existence of the Deity, and of a future state in which our happiness will be proportioned to our internal worth. This is what our philosopher calls rational faith, as it is independent of all knowledge of its object (MonthRev, X, p. 526). Here Sowden, who reduced the exposition of practical philosophy to the theme of the existence of God, as a postulate of practical reason, and to the connected theme of the highest good as a perfect balance between happiness and virtue, in substance a summary of §V of the second chapter of the Dialectic of practical reason (cf. Ak., V, pp. 124-32), seemed to interpret faith in God as an instrument of reason in order to oppose the

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inclinations which are hostile to morality. The theme of God and of the highest good, if expounded separately from the totality of the problems of the second Critique, could easily be linked to the speculative agnosticism of the first Critique, but it also lent itself to an interpretation of a fideistic type and particularly, as in fact was to happen, to misunderstanding of the Kantian concept of practical reason. In Kant's view the principles of religion can be neither demonstrated nor disproved by theoretical reason, but are mere postulates of practical reason; and the only theology, that is really founded on our understanding, is moral theology, which depends on moral principles (MonthRev, X, p. 526). Sowden was not clear about what Kant meant by 'postulate' and, more generally, by practical reason. It seemed to him to be a new term, a distinction to which no 'definite, or at least distinct' idea corresponded: what is meant by practical reason, as distinguished from that which is called speculative or theoretical? Is it the faculty of reason in general applied to objects of volition, or is it something entirely different from theoretical reason, of which we become conscious in consequence of some peculiar sense? (MontRev, X, p. 527). 5.2.3 Sowden's assessment of Kant's system At the end of this 'short account of the principles of the Kantian philosophy', and before going on to examine in detail the moral demonstration of the existence of God, Sowden anticipated his general assessment of Kant's system, taking up the thesis, which he had started at the beginning of the review, of the merely terminological differences which gave rise to an appearance of originality

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in metaphysics. In its theoretical part, the Kantian system seemed to him to reiterate the idealism of Berkeley; where ethics was concerned, it appeared to him to introduce a distinction that was completely meaningless and which did not avoid scepticism. The system of Kant in its entirety seemed to him a mass of obscurity and confusion, which instead of assisting the mind in the acquisition of true science, tends to sink it in doubt and scepticism. . . . His partisans, indeed, speak of him in the most extravagant style of commendation, as one who has demolished all the systems of the best and most celebrated philosophers, and they attribute his not being fully understood by others, to their prejudices and want of capacity to comprehend the whole of his extensive plan . . . but we confess we are inclined to suspect this declamatory language, especially when we find that they who hold it have not rendered the matter more clear than their master. A great part of this system is far from being original, and seems to be not unlike the ingenious sophistry of Dr. Berkeley {MonthRev, X, pp. 526-7). 5.2.4 The moral proof Sowden went on to examine in detail the moral proof of the existence of God provided by Kant in the second Critique, using Schwab's text for both the explanatory and the critical part. He recalled that Kant had previously believed that he had discovered an a priori demonstration of the existence of God which he then asserted was the only one that was valid; but, on farther examination, finding it to be unsatisfactory, he now affirms that theoretical reason has not the faculty of demonstrating the existence of an

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infinite intelligent Being. . . . In consequence, he endeavoured to overturn all the arguments which for this purpose have been advanced by various philosophers, and he substituted the following theory, which he calls practical or moral, and which he assures us is the only satisfactory one that can possibly be discovered {MonthRev, X, pp. 527-8). Here followed the exposition of Kant's proof which Sowden, following Schwab, set out in eight points. (1) To that important question, how must we act? pure reason answers, act so as to become worthy of happiness. This is a pure moral law, which must be known to pure reason a priori, and must determine an intelligent Being in the use of his liberty; (2) This law would require what is impossible, and thus be without efficacy, if we had not the most sure and certain hope of being happy in proportion to our worth; for pure reason connects, in the most intimate manner, the system of happiness with that of morality, as the mere beauty of moral ideas can only excite admiration, being insufficient to produce action; (3) This necessary connection and exact proportion between morality and happiness cannot take place, except in the intellectual or moral world, in which every individual performs his duty . . .; (4) As, in this sensible world, all do not thus accurately obey the moral law, we must suppose that there must be another and future world, in which this exact proportion between happiness and morality will take place; (5) The nature of things, however, does not tend to promote such a connection between happiness and morality . . .; neither does the causality of our actions

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determine that relation which prevails between their consequences and our happiness; (6) We must therefore admit the existence of a supreme reason, or intelligent Being . . . which effects this connection, and directs every thing in the universe so as to promote this final end; (7) This Being must be one . . ., almighty, omniscient, omnipresent, and eternal; (8) Hence there is, and must be, a God (MonthRev, X, p. 528; cf. Schwab, pp. 3-9). After setting out the argument, Sowden went over Schwab's criticisms of the Kantian proof point by point, adding now and again, however, his comments which confirm that he was personally acquainted with the texts and which recall an attempt of his to read Kant in the light of the theories of the Scots. We are not going into the details of the discussion of the proposition which occupy a little more than two pages of the review but which sufficed to give the English reader some idea of the problems raised by Kant. In the first place, Schwab had remarked that he did not understand why Kant should have considered the moral imperative to act in such a manner as to become worthy of happiness to be the principle known a priori by pure reason; if it is admitted that such principles exist, other precepts, such as that 'to render ourselves more perfect' seemed to him to have a 'greater priority'. Sowden does not seem to have accepted Schwab's criticism at once; in order to try to understand better he took up Kant's text: on consulting Kant we find that he asserts that this moral law is known and approved by pure reason, independently of all empirical motives, or notions of happiness; by which we are inclined to think that he

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[Kant] means by it a kind of innate sense of right and wrong {MonthRev, X, p. 529). For a moment, the Kantian formula of the moral law seemed to remind him of something like Reid's moral sense, in the new meaning of a law of conscience, of a law of duty, independent of self-interest; but this was an analogy which must have appeared somewhat remote and which the language used by Kant that he considered obscure and vague, did not allow him to verify: his expressions are so obscure and indefinite, that every passage of his work increases the confusion; and the more we read, the less we understand {MonthRev, X, p. 529). The second basic criticism which Schwab had directed at Kant on several occasions, concerned the supposed necessity of an exact proportion between morality and happiness. . . . How can there be a necessary connection and an exact proportion, known a priori, between things which, according to Kant's system, are entirely heterogeneous? {MonthRev, X, p. 529). The observation is not unimportant: the question affects a controversial point in the second Critique. The misunderstanding that both Schwab and Sowden fell into was to consider Kant's so-called moral proof on the same level as a theoretical demonstration. In fact, Jakob had in his essay drawn attention to the point that 'the so-called Kantian moral proof is an explanation of our faith [Erkldrung unseres Glaubens) rather than a real demonstration, a term which Kant himself rejected in more than one place, for which reason he coined the expression moral or subjective proof (Jakob, p. 296).

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Jakob suggested integrating the Kantian proof with the observations on moral teleology developed in §91 of the third Critique (Jakob, pp. 264-6; cf. Ak., V. pp. 47880); but Sowden showed no sign of recollecting Jakob's arguments. His opinion of the Kantian proof was negative; it was not a real proof: from the utility of the Divine existence, we cannot necessarily conclude its reality. The moral feelings of mankind may also be addressed, in evidence of this fundamental doctrine, but these, and several other arguments which we might mention, when considered singly, amount to no more than strong presumption; though, when they are united, and combined with that grand proof deduced from the order and harmony of creation, they afford a demonstration of the being and attributes of the Deity, so clear and forcible, that he must be a fool in the most contemptible sense of the word, who can say in his heart, there is no God (MonthRev, X, pp. 530-1). 5.3 Further remarks on ethico-theology: Kant and 'moral sense' The same careful study of Kant's ethics is found in a second review which Benjamin Sowden sent to Griffiths' journal a year later, in August 1794 (MonthRev, XIV, pp. 541-5). This was a review of the Dutch translation, published at Utrecht in 1794, of a brief essay by Johann Ludwig Ewald on Kantian ethics and ethico-theology (Ueber die Kantische Philosophie, mit Hinsicht auf die Bedurfnisse der Menschheit. Briefe an Emma, Berlin 1790; cf. Adickes, No. 763). Sowden noted the ever wider spread of Kantianism, but continued to reject its abstract terminology. In this he agreed with Ewald, but did not entirely share his criticisms of Kant. On the subject of the moral proof, he repeated the arguments

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which had already been explained - that taken on its own it does not have demonstrative force; united with other arguments it can be of some use. The moral law, in the way that it was expressed by Kant, was considered by Ewald to be too rigid. To Sowden it appeared rather too abstract, a purely intellectual formula, suitable only for those who 'have destroyed their relish for the plain dictates of common sense' {MonthRev', XIV, p. 545). Only four months later, in December 1794, Sowden returned once more to the argument about Kantian ethics with reference to 'moral sense', this time reviewing the dissertation of the Dutchman, Henryk Constantyn Cras, written in response to a new problem proposed by the philosophical society of Haarlem - 'Does a first and universal principle exist in morality? If so, can it be identified with the principle of moral sense? Or with that proposed by Kant?' {Verh. Holl. Maatschappye, XXX, pp. 1-174). The review of Cras's essay was very detailed {MonthRev, XV, pp. 539-44) and Sowden did not hide his approval. According to Cras, it was not at all necessary, just because ethics was a science, that all the moral precepts should be deduced from a first and universal principle. The geometrical model was not applicable to morality, and in any case, even in geometry, theorems are not deduced from one single principle but from a plurality of axioms. As to the 'moral sense', if by principles we mean simple truths, or axioms, it is evident that the moral sense, which is not a truth, but a faculty by which certain truths are perceived, cannot with propriety be called a principle of moral obligation {MonthRev, XV, p. 543). As for the principle of Kantian ethics, 'act as if you wished the rule of your actions to be universal law',

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according to Cras, and with the full agreement of the reviewer, it was a matter of a principle devoid of content and hence useless: of what service this law would be in doubtful cases; or to a person who, with sincere goodness of heart, is likely to be misled by an error of judgment? . . . we have read of nations which thought it right to offer human sacrifices, or to put their aged and infirm parents to death, and which must hence wish that all mankind would do the same . . .; consequently, if their actions be tried by professor Kant's principles, they are perfectly right {MonthRev, XV, p. 543). Sowden seems to have been no longer in any doubt; the reasons for his disagreement referred to the formalism of Kantian ethics; he accepted entirely Cras's criticisms of Kant on this point, criticisms which would be repeated innumerable times. Moreover, Kantian ethics seemed intellectualistic to Sowden: there was only one way to grasp the first principles of moral obligation, to examine ourselves with attention, and to take an accurate view not merely of some parts, but of the whole of our nature and constitution {MonthRev, XV, p. 543). A certain impression of Kant, in particular of his ethics and theology, reached the English public by way of Sowden's reviews. This impression could easily be linked with elements of philosophical background which would already have been fairly familiar to the reader; their development could lead in the direction of a deepening of the relationship between Kant and the Scottish school, which in fact was to happen on the Continent. Finally it should not be forgotten that the summary of Kantian philosophy outlined by Sowden in April 1793 is more

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important than it may appear to be at first sight: English readers were referred back to it in order to obtain information about Kant again in later years, for example in 1797 and then again in January 1799 (cf. MonthRev, XXII, p. 16; XXVIII, p. 63). The French occupation of Holland in 1795 broke off abruptly the contacts between Dutch and English culture; most of the correspondents returned home; and this put an end to the possibility of encounters between the centres of study of Kantianism in Holland and English men of culture who were for the most part under the influence of Scottish thought, more open to the Continent.

6

Between Radicalism and Reaction: The Debate on Kant between 1796 and 1798

A more general and widespread interest in the philosophy of Kant was shown in England from the last months of 1795. The opportunity was offered, as has already been mentioned at the beginning, by the publication within the brief space of time between the end of 1795 and the early months of 1798, of as many as four volumes, of very different size and value, on Kant's philosophy. The authors of these works were Germans who had emigrated to England, such as Friedrich August Nitsch and Anthony Florian Madinger Willich, or Britons who had studied or were still studying in Germany, such as the Irishman O'Keeffe, who had just arrived in London from Leipzig where he had studied medicine, and the Scot, John Richardson, who had been a pupil of Jacob Sigismund Beck and was continuing his studies in Germany in touch with the Kantian Ludwig Heinrich Jakob, mentioned above, and with Kant himself (on these authors see Wellek, pp. 3-21; Muirhead, Hegel, pp. 430-1; Stuckenberg, pp. 393-5).

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In particular, O'Keeffe's pamphlet and Nitsch's essay, published respectively in October 1795 and May 1796, in which, in different ways, they tackled the ethical, political and religious aspects of the Kantian revolution in philosophy, had a notable reverberation in the press; they were not only reviewed but also provoked discussions and controversies which were reported and enlarged on in the periodical press, and led to further interventions about Kant among which were, in fact, the essays of Richardson and Willich. Discussion about Kant developed intensely throughout 1796 and in the early months of the following year. In the same period there was discussion in the English press of the political ideas formulated by Kant in his work Zum ewigen Frieden, a text which had a European resonance especially because of its direct references to the international political situation of the moment which it contained. The first edition of Kant's text was published in 1795, the second in 1796; to these must be added at least four illegal German editions published between 1795 and 1797, and two French translations in 1795 and 1796 (Adickes, p. 23). Kant's work, already known and discussed in England since the appearance of the German edition, was translated into English in October 1796 and this contributed further to the concentration of attention on the political aspects of Kant's thought. English radical journals had already put the emphasis on these aspects as early as 1796 by giving information about German philosophical publications. 6.1 The radical journals The journal which from as early as 1790 seems to have shown the most interest in Kantian philosophy and more generally in German culture, was The Analytical Review, a journal of radical tendencies edited by the bookseller

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Joseph Johnson (see Tyson, pp. 95-106, 140-1; Sullivan, I, pp. 11-14). This did not imply a specific interest in Kant so much as rather a general attitude of openness towards new things which came from the Continent. From its birth in July 1788 the journal was linked with the Allgemeine Literatur-Zeitung of Jena, from which it took many reviews every month, adapting them for the English public. Through the journal, the English reader could have a picture, at least in quantitative terms, of the discussions provoked in Germany by the new philosophy. Besides writings about Kant's philosophy by numerous minor authors, there were also reviews of important works such as Versuch, Beytra'ge, Briefe and the essay Uber das Fundament by Reinhold {AnalytRev, VI, March 1790, p. 362; X, May 1791, p. 118; XI, September 1791, p. 116; XIII, July 1792, pp. 354-5); Versuch einer Kritik aller Offenbarung by Fichte {AnalytRev, XIII, August 1792, pp. 469-70; XVIII, February 1794, p. 225); and Aenesidemus by Schulz {AnalytRev, XIX, August 1794, p. 440). The journal also reprinted reviews of writings by Kant himself such as Religion, the essay Zum ewigen Frieden and Rechtslehre {AnalytRev, XIX, July 1794, pp. 331-6; XXIII, May 1796, pp. 558-9; XXVI, July 1797, pp. 85-6). The reviews expressed the point of view of the Kantianism of Jena, that is to say Reinhold's interpretation, and after 1795 that of Fichte. It was only with some difficulty that the English reader could form some idea of Kant's philosophy from these very numerous, and always positive, reviews because in reality he lacked the frame of reference available to the German reader for whom they had originally been written. The adaptation of the German text of the reviews for the English public consisted for the most part in extracts, summaries of sections, and the occasional interpolation referring to

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present-day events. The English reader could indeed derive from them the conviction that this was a philosophical system which was said to be epoch-making and which was certainly causing much discussion; but much more than this he was not able to understand. The references to Kant's political thought would be easier for the average reader to understand especially if he were in sympathy with the radical direction of the journal; and this was obviously true also for those of the editorial staff of the journal who were responsible for the choice of reviews to publish; here also the extracts taken from the original text of the German review had a precise significance. As a result of the cuts made in the German text, the review of the essay Zutn ewigen Frieden, in the form in which it was published in the English journal, ended up by emphasizing most strongly in Kantian thought (cf. AnalytRev, XXIII, pp. 558-9, and ALZ, 8 April 1796, No. 112, col. 57-60) the thesis of the necessity which should govern the historical process in the direction of peace and the idea that the time was already ripe for a radical change in the history of humanity: Kant is far from expecting the approach of perpetual peace from a sudden change in the opinions of mankind, and a decisive propensity to good; but he is persuaded that it will necessarily arrive; and that men need only see their own interest more clearly, to unite for bringing it about; and that, though it might be rash to speak of one age as superior to another in point of morals, yet never was there a time when more persons turned their thoughts to substantial and practical improvements, and tracing the sources of evil, than the present {AnalytRev, XIII, pp. 558-9). The review concluded by quoting the Kantian principle

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of publicity as the infallible criterion for determining what is unjust in the political field: We cannot take leave of this work, without quoting the following proposition, which the author lays down as an infallible criterion of unjust policy. 'Every action which has reference to the rights of other men, if its principles do not admit of being made public, is unjust. For a principle which I cannot publish without frustrating my own purpose, . . . and which I cannot openly avow, without exciting the opposition of all people to my design, necessarily presupposes injustice to be essential to it; since I could on no other ground expect general opposition' (AnalytRev, XXIII, p. 559; cf. Ak., VIII, p. 381). The passages were all to be found in the German review and were propositions which were found in the Kantian text, but for the English reader they assumed a significance which was immediately linked to the contemporary political situation, not only abroad but also at home. The political propositions thus came to seem more radical than they really were. A somewhat different judgement of the Kantian text was to be made, as we shall see later, by Thomas Beddoes, one of the few English radical exponents capable of reading the German text in the original, and with sufficient detachment; but the picture of Kant formed by the average English reader was that of a politically radical thinker. The same can be said about the review of Rechtslehre published in the issue of July 1797. The English editor declared that he would have liked to discuss Kant's work in more detail if he had not been prevented for reasons of space. From the text of the review in the Allgemeine Literatur-Zeitung (29 May 1797, No. 169, and 30 May 1797, No. 170, col. 529-44) he restricted himself to

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reporting the theory of the representative and republican form of the state as the only one consistent with reason and the thesis of the illegitimacy not only of revolution but also of counter-revolution: Kant holds the representative form of government the only mode consistent with right reason; and is altogether a republican, allowing the chief magistrate no authority, but merely to execute the will of the people . . .; he would have this perfect form attained, where it does not exist, by reform, not by revolution: though when a revolution has taken place, he deems equally wrong to employ force to restore the former order of things {AnalytRev, XXVI, p. 85). The references to the Kantian text were accurate, but from the complete work to which the German review referred at length, he limited himself to quoting those propositions which did indeed lend themselves best to exposition for the general reader but also those which could immediately be connected by the reader to those topical themes, such as reform of the English electoral system and opposition to the war against republican France, which characterized the political line of the journal. 6.2 O'Keeffe's essay on Kant and progress (October 1795) Of the texts on Kant's philosophy mentioned above, the first to be published, at the end of 1795, was An Essay on the Progress of Human Understanding by J.A. O'Keeffe, a young man about whom the only thing that is known is that he had just returned from Germany where he had studied medicine. The work traced a brief and somewhat confused history of the progress of the human spirit in the moral, political and religious fields.

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The young author, with the ardour of the neophyte, supported the proposition that progress had been impeded, after the first steps taken by the classical Greek world, by the state of ignorance in which the people, beginning from the Christian age, had deliberately been kept by the alliance between the throne and the altar, between political despotism and 'priestcraft'. The first part of the pamphlet (pp. 5-43) was a fierce attack on the.Christian religion, which was identified with superstition, fanaticism, and political and social oppression; the liberation of man, which had begun in a very timid form, and in the face of strong opposition, with the Reformation, had shown itself to be irresistible with the fall of the monarchy in France (p. 42). The second part of the essay (pp. 43-58) was dedicated to Kant who could provide a clear and unitary conception of philosophy in such a way that it could constitute a sure sense of direction for social and personal life: The Kantean plan and definition [of philosophy] lead us direct to the fountain of knowledge, shew us its contents, its limits, the purport of the science. Philosophy should have no other occupation or purport than to lay before our eyes the character of mankind, and make man acquainted with his own destiny, by the means of absolute and necessary truths and facts which lie within the limits of his own mind, and through the study of which man could acquire a satisfactory knowledge of himself (pp. 44-5). The author of the essay did not provide an exposition of Kant's thought but limited himself to setting out the concept and tasks of philosophy, expressing the hope that a translation would be made of Kant's principal writings. However, judging by what little one can deduce, the author was taking up the propositions

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formulated by Reinhold in the essay Uber den Begriff der Philosophie, published at the end of 1790 in Beytrdge (I, pp. 3-90; O'Keeffe, pp. 46-7). In any case, not only the terminology used but, in general, the total attitude - the conviction that Kant's philosophy, by resolving once for all the problem of the foundation of knowledge would make it possible to have a radical solution to moral, political and religious problems; and the same interpretation of the historical development of humanity, from classical Greece to the present day, as a liberation from the yoke of tradition and as an overcoming of the Christian religion - all bear witness to the influence of Reinhold. O'Keeffe's text was reviewed in Johnson's journal in the issue of December 1795. The author of the review expressed a frankly positive judgement on the historicalpolitical part of the pamphlet, but when it came to expressing an opinion on the reference to Kant's philosophy, he displayed some embarrassment and perplexity: The author gives his reader a glimpse, but in our apprehension a very faint and obscure glimpse, of the system of the celebrated German philosopher Kant . . .; to confess the truth, we do not clearly understand it (AnalytRev, XXII, p. 607). Somewhat similar, only a little more prudent, was the review published in The Critical Review (XVIII, December 1796, pp. 442-5), a journal at that time of definitely liberal tendency. The author appreciated the historical part, the criticism of the prejudices and errors of tradition, and the condemnation of the interested use of religious superstition by the powerful, even though, as he also pointed out, this was a short essay, superficial on some points and in need of greater depth. But when he

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reached Kant, the reviewer declared openly that he did not understand the reasons for preferring this philosophy: How far the principles of the Kantean school may be preferable to those of other new schools which profess to enlighten mankind and assist the progress of human understanding, we cannot from experience at present determine {CritRev, XVIII, p. 445). The radicalism of the religious and political theses upheld by the author, while they made the pamphlet appreciated by the more radical readers, forced the other journals to pronounce a severely condemnatory judgement. Given the opinions expressed about the Christian religion, the savage review of the pamphlet in The British Critic, which expressed the opinions of the most conservative tendencies in the Church of England (cf. Roper, pp. 23, 180-1; Sullivan, II, pp. 57-62), could hardly cause surprise. The journal did not refer to Kant and concentrated its criticism on the religious and political ideas (BritCrit, VII, August 1796, p. 693). But even The Monthly Review, the official organ of Whig liberalism, in a brief review by the young Arthur Aikin, defined the essay as 'a virulent attack on Religion and monarchy in general, and on Christianity in particular'. The reference to Kant was mentioned; however, it was considered too imprecise to allow of a judgement of the new system of moral philosophy {MonthRev, XVIII, December 1795, p. 477). Somewhat similar and probably by the same author, but more articulate, was an assessment which appeared in The Gentleman's Magazine where the attack on Christianity was explicitly linked with the new Kantian moral philosophy. At the conclusion of the review, an analogy was noted between the radical novelty of Kant's philosophy and the political radicalism of revolutionary France. The essay, remarked the author,

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terminatets] with a sketch of the literature of new philosophy, especially that of Professor Kant . . . Mr O'Keeffe is one of those scribblers who shew their teeth without being able to bite; for, we will venture to pronounce that the Kantean system is almost as unintelligible as that of Jacob Behmen [sicl. All we learn from it is, that, like the French, all first principles are to be done away, and we are to begin with a new set {GentMag, LXVI, February 1796, p. 137). O'Keeffe's brief essay was the occasion for other contributions about Kant's philosophy and was a stimulus to the publication of other works on Kant, as, for example, that of Nitsch, which had probably been ready for some time. Although today it may be considered to have very little value (yet, at the time even Allgemeine Literatur-Zeitung [IntBl, No. I l l , 17 August 1796, col. 945] mentioned it), because of the particular moment at which it was published and because of the extent of the discussion which it provoked, it contributed not a little not only towards the increasing interest in critical philosophy but also towards spreading in English public opinion the picture of Kant as a radical, Jacobin, irreligious thinker. 6.3 The debate on Kant in The English Review (December 1795-June 1796) Between December 1795 and June 1796, following the publication of O'Keeffe's pamphlet, The English Review published several contributions about Kant's philosophy which are worth examining. Here we are in the presence of an attempt to understand Kant by an English journal, leaving on one side, as far as possible, the prejudices of the moment. This journal, of liberal tendencies, although not consistently (Roper, p. 179; Sullivan, I, pp. 102-6), has already been mentioned in connection with the first

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reference to Kant's philosophy in early 1787. After that date no references appeared in the journal, either direct or indirect, to Kant or to German philosophy. The publication of O'Keeffe's essay offered the opportunity to speak of Kant again. The journal introduced the work immediately, providing an exceptionally long review as early as the issue of December 1795: a space . . . that might appear wholly disproportionate to our limits in the eyes of those who measure the importance of publications by their contents, not speculative, but solid and physical (EnglRev, XXVI, p. 444). The author of the review was not particularly enthusiastic about the work of the young Irishman; he criticized its tone and its excessive political sympathy for Paine and Godwin. But he added: we would not have given so particular an account of this passionate publication, if the author had not professed himself to be a great admirer of the Kantean philosophy, and even an advocate, and a kind of apostle, of that system {EnglRev, XXVI, p. 451). The journal, although it did not give regular space to foreign publications, having had the opportunity to mention Kant with the review of O'Keeffe's essay, proposed to return to the subject and [to] endeavour to communicate to our readers some idea of that Kantean system, which, at present, is so much talked of in Germany; although we do not pretend perfectly to comprehend it, or, in every instance, to annex clear and precise ideas to all the terms with which Professor Kant has crowded and

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darkened a science, if it may yet be called a science, abstruse in itself, and previously obscured by a confusion of language {EnglRev, XXVI, p. 451); but it was not only because Kant was so much talked of on the Continent that the editors of the journal proposed to give the English reader an idea of his philosophy: there was a more fundamental reason, linked to the gravity of the historical moment, which called for an assessment of critical philosophy, in particular of ethics: The grand end that Professor Kant has in view, in all his writings, is, a grand system of moral reformation; a work that shall lay down for all posterity new fundamental principles for the exercise and use of intellectual powers, both in theory and practice, which, supported by true science, and therefore accessible to every intelligent mind, should for ever secure to mankind at large the art of seeing with their own eyes, and standing on their own feet. It is the opinion of Professor Kant, that the moral science is, at present, just in the same state as mathematics were before Euclid, or whoever he was, that first discovered and pointed out the road to pure mathematics, and secured both the method and the principles of that science for ever. . . . After Socrates, the father of moral philosophy, after the Christian, which is a moral religion, a third epoch, according to the followers of Kant, seems to be at hand in moral science - the more necessary that the horizon of individual duty, and the moral superficies of social contact, with the communicative or conducting power of social sympathy and imitation, whether good or evil, is so fast increasing. Professor Kant thinks that one, and perhaps the greatest, reason why moral truth, till now, seems to have had so little effect on mankind,

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is, that the teachers never applied those truths in their original purity. It is the concentrated rays of the purest light only, that will take fire in the human breast. . . . Such, and similar, are the ideas of Kant and his pupils on the interesting subject of morals and social life. The endeavours of Kant on this subject, they consider as particularly useful in our times, when empiricism in politics is the predominant spirit: a spirit not detrimental, but, in some respects, useful in natural philosophy, but totally subversive of good morals and social order, and which, therefore, must be brought to the bar of speculative reason (EnglRev, XXVI, pp. 451-3). Kant's philosophy was not simply presented as a new philosophy, but as one promising to resolve a crisis not only in thought but also extending into all fields in which thought has influence, in particular of ethics (and of religion, since religion is reduced to morality) and that of justice and politics. In this text, which we have quoted at length because it expresses very well the complex expectations with which critical philosophy was welcomed, we find again Reinhold's conviction that critical philosophy was the solution to the crisis of civilization, the beginning of a new historical epoch, the dawn of a new humanity. This picture of the philosophy of Kant, in particular of its role in the 'critical' foundation of morality, of justice and of religion, can be found also in O'Keeffe's essay and above all in Nitsch's book which was shortly to be published. Nitsch was also to write articles published by the journal in the issues of February and April. The text which we have quoted was probably also by Nitsch, even though certain expressions bear witness to the intervention of the editors, who wished to maintain a kind of objective detachment in the face of the very controversial material.

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For the reasons mentioned in the passage quoted above, the editors of the journal decided to present their readers with a sketch . . . of Professor Kant's Moral System, of his Religious System, of his Principles of Natural Philosophy, and of his Critic of speculative Reason {EnglRev, XXVI, p. 453). Interest seemed to be concentrated primarily on topics of morals and religion, while topics more properly described as speculative came second. In the issue of February 1796 the journal published its promised 'sketch of the philosophy of Kant'. The author was introduced as a 'disciple of Kant'. As had been announced, the article dealt with Kant's ethics and was entitled 'Fundamental Principles of Pure Practical Reason'. The text was simply an English translation of §§1-8 (omitting the Anmerkungen but with the table of all the material principles of morality). The text was accompanied by some explanatory notes and in particular, the statement of the moral law which opened §7 was illustrated in a note with a comparison with the law of nature which Kant described in the Typic (Ak., V, pp. 67-71). In substance, the journal presented an English translation of the central nucleus of the first chapter of the Analytic, with few cuts, but still sufficient to give an idea of Kantian ethics. The translation is good; strangely enough, no mention was made anywhere that it was an extract from the second Critique, nor even that it was a text from Kant; to the reader it would appear that the text was an exposition of Kant's ethics written by one of his pupils. Who this disciple might be was not mentioned, but certain elements of the second article, published by the journal two months later, indicate that it was Nitsch. The editor merely added a simple final

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note, brief but significant for the appearance of detachment which he wished to make clear: This sketch of Professor Kant's Moral Philosophy, will probably be thought, by most of our readers, to need illustration. A greater multiplicity of words might, perhaps, serve only to render the subject more obscure. We do not pretend, in this place, to give any comment on Dr. Kant's philosophy. The notes subjoined to this sketch are all of them written by the author of that sketch. After finishing the abridgement or analysis of Kant's system, in his own terms, we shall make some remarks on it of our own. In the mean time, we have to say to our readers, that this system has gained enthusiastic admirers in Germany {EnglRev, XXVI, p. 111). The 'sketch' of Kant's philosophy continued in the issue of April 1796, dealing not, as previously announced, with Kant's philosophy of religion but with what was defined as 'a summary view of Kant's Criticism of speculative reason'. This time the text fulfilled much less of what had been promised but it was equally interesting. Its general tenor was that which would be found in Nitsch's volume, published two months later. In two short pages he stated, in a way that was deliberately elementary but not lacking a certain clarity, the problems to which Kant had tried to give an answer in the Critique of Pure Reason-, these are the psychological-gnoseological rather than epistemological problems (according to Reinhold's reading of Kant) of the nature of knowledge and of the mind, and the metaphysical problems of liberty, of the world, and of God: Kant's object, is, to answer the following questions: first, what is the nature and extent of the knowledge

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which we can acquire of the mind? Is the mind material or not? secondly, what can we know of the nature of will? Is it free or not? thirdly, what can we know of the nature of those objects which daily surround us? Are they merely appearances of things, or do they discover something of the things themselves of which the world is composed? fourthly, what, how much, and with what degree of certainty, can we, by the natural and uninspired strength of our mental faculties, know of the Deity, immortality of the soul, and a future state? (EnglRev, XXVII, p. 354-5). Materialists, spiritualists and sceptics have always tried to provide different and opposing answers to these problems: Kant tried to provide a definitive answer, analysing these philosophical disagreements in their smaller details and trying to discover their origin. Kant's work endeavours to shew, that the dissensions of the materialists, spiritualists, and sceptics, though at present softened by mutual indulgence, and not so warlike as in the preceding centuries, are yet evidently derived from certain contradictions that continue to lie quietly and deeply concealed in the fundamental notions and principles of their respective systems {EnglRev, XXVII, p. 355). The differences of opinion between the philosophers which the history of philosophy records have their first source in the nature of reason, and for Kant they had a positive significance, because of the state of crisis which they produced and also of the solution towards which they showed the way. The Critique of Pure Reason endeavours to prove, that these contradictions cannot reflect any discredit on the understandings of those

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philosophers, because they originate in certain delusions of reason, which are as natural and unavoidable as those of the eye, with regard to the motion of the sun and the colours of bodies; and because, without their labour, those natural delusions of reason could never have been detected. It farther endeavours to shew, that those contradictions, although they are in some measure excusable in the present state of philosophy, yet must inevitably spread a degree of confusion and inconsistency over all the departments of theoretical knowledge, mathematics only excepted; that they have a tendency to enlarge the empire of scepticism, to weaken our belief in God and the immortality of the soul, to corrupt that standard by which man ought to measure the worth of his actions, and to suggest a pretext for excusing almost all sorts of wickedness {EnglRev, XXVII, pp. 355-6; the same passage is found in Nitsch, p. 43). The 'sketch' went no further than this. Unlike what had been written on ethics in February's issue, this article was limited to stating the problem which the first Critique was intended to solve; the article seems to have gone only as far as arousing curiosity about Kant's thought. It was no accident that it concluded with an announcement of the imminent publication in London of Nitsch's book (which was to be published in the following month) and with the information that Nitsch himself was giving a course of lessons on the Critique of Pure Reason in London. The address at which the lessons were being given was published, together with the Prospectus of the course. The article concluded with a promise to continue the examination of Kant's philosophy in subsequent issues (EnglRev, XXVII, pp. 356-7). But this was not to be, for in June 1796 the journal

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was forced to suspend publication and was absorbed by The Analytical Review, itself also destined to close soon afterwards. It may be of some significance, and not merely interesting, to note that the last issue of the journal dedicated its two final pages again to Kant; a reader had sent a letter of protest, accusing the editors of the journal [of bringing] forward books against religion and [of throwing] others in defence of it in the shade, and as proof of the truth of his accusation he noted that the journal had reviewed, with seeming approbation, such poisonous trash as Dr. O'Keeffe's Essay, and Kant's Philosophy. The editor's reply was a kind of embarrassed defence; he declared that he had not expressed any opinion on Kant's philosophy and referred to the critical reservation expressed in the February issue at the end of the first article on Kant (EnglRev, XXVII, June 1796, pp. 599600). It is impossible to know what would have been said if the journal had continued publication. However, the episode is significant. For political reasons, the cultural climate in England was changing rapidly, and it could be compromising to dedicate too much space to a philosopher who smelt of Jacobinism as Kant did. 6.4 The Monthly Magazine: Thomas Beddoes on Kant In February 1796, on the initiative of a journalist of overt radical sympathies, Richard Phillips (Timperley, p. 771) - openly encouraged and supported by Joseph Johnson, a bookseller and publisher of the radical Analytical Review - The Monthly Magazine began publication (Sullivan, II, pp. 314-19; Tyson, p. 166). It

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was not a journal of reviews but a magazine, a monthly periodical with articles on cultural and topical subjects together with items giving notice of the latest books both from Britain and from abroad. The periodical began publication with the declared object of lending aid to the propagation of these liberal principles respecting some of the most important concerns of mankind, which have been either deserted or virulently opposed by other periodical miscellanies (MonthMag, I, June 1796, p. iii). The beginning of the publication of the journal coincided with the beginning of the period of greatest interest in Kant's philosophy, and the journal at first dedicated generous space to Kant. Examination of the periodical presents more than one point of interest: it was not limited to the usual information, with brief notes, about what was published on Kant in Germany, and in general on the Continent (cf., for example, MonthMag, I, pp. 48, 406, 415; II, pp. 813, 892), but also contained articles. In June 1796 Nitsch launched an appeal for financial support for his project of an English translation of the work of Kant (MonthMag, I, p. 407) and again, in October of the same year, Nitsch published in the journal a lengthy introduction to his volume on Kant which had just come out {MonthMag, II, pp. 702-5). The most original contribution, however, was that of May 1796. In this issue there was published an article by Thomas Beddoes on Kant's philosophy, the author inviting unprejudiced discussion of the new philosophy and urging that the writings of Kant be translated. Beddoes frankly acknowledged that the language of Kant was new, obscure and difficult, but said that this always happened when something truly new was produced in the field of knowledge. Watching from outside, Beddoes

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observed, one could not help noticing that the fate that had befallen Kant's doctrines has been similar to that of most great discoveries. They have been much misunderstood, and much opposed. But while the established doctors of speculation appeared in the field of controversy, as adversaries, many of the younger inquirers professed themselves converts. These two circumstances you may, perhaps, allow to be presumptions in the author's favour {MonthMag, I, p. 265). What had happened to Locke, as to many innovators in the field of knowledge, was not very different from what was happening to Kant today: were you to take down the neglected volumes of Locke's Answerers, they would not furnish you with a catalogue of more inconsistent charges than the following, which have been brought, by different persons, against Kant. By his dogmatic opponents, he has been represented as a sceptic, trying to subvert the foundations of all knowledge; by sceptics as aiming to build up a new dogmatic system out of the ruins of all the preceding. The supernaturalist regards his labours as a crafty attempt to do away the idea of the indispensable necessity of the historical documents of religion, and to establish naturalism, without leaving room for controversy; the naturalist treats him as a supporter of the sinking credit of faith. The materialist ranks him with the disciples of Berkeley; the spiritualist, among those who limit every thing real to the material world, which he veils under the specious title of the territory of experience {MonthMag, I, p. 265). This did not mean that Beddoes embraced the Kantian

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system but, as an intellectual alert to what was new, he was interested in it. The best example, among those which he knew, to provide English readers with 'an idea of the essential part of this new philosophy' was found in Reinhold ('who is . . . the most perspicuous expositor of the philosophy of Kant' [MonthMag, I, p. 266]). He did not cite the text of Reinhold's from which he took this, but the source could be either a brief article published on 25 September 1788 in the Allgemeine Literatur-Zeitung, or a passage taken from the first part of Versuch, of a historical nature, as also is a passage, identical in content, taken from the Briefe (cf. ALZ, No. 231, col. 831-2; Versuch, pp. 80-2; Briefe, I, pp. 131-5). Kant's philosophy seemed to promise to resolve once for all the conflicts of metaphysics: metaphysicians have divided into four sects, each characterised by a fundamental tenet, which is combatted by the remaining three; and the propositions, contradictory of these tenets, are found to be maintained, each by three sects against one. The propositions, which have the plurality of voices, happen to be the very results of Mr Kant's examination of our faculties. They may be thus distinctly stated: 1. The doctrine which characterises the dogmatic atheist, is that the non-existence of the Deity may be proved. This is denied by the other sects. 2. According to the dogmatic sceptic, the question concerning the existence of the Deity admits of no satisfactory answer. 3. According to the supernaturalist (of which sect there are few eminent writers in England, but several in Germany, as Mr Jacobi, the adversary of Moses Mendelssohn) the answer to that question

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lies beyond the boundary of reason, and is to be sought, exclusively in revelation. 4. According to the dogmatic theist, the being of a God may be demonstrated. The contradictory propositions are these: 1. The question concerning the existence of a God is not to be answered negatively: maintained against the atheist by the three other sects. 2. This question may be answered satisfactorily: maintained against the sceptic by the rest. 3. This question cannot be answered from revelation: maintained against the supernaturalist by the others. 4. The affirmative answer to the question concerning the existence of a Deity, does not admit of demonstration: maintained by the rest against the dogmatic theist (MonthMag, I, pp. 265-6). The inability of philosophy to reach a satisfactory solution to the theological problem which was presented here as an example of the inability of philosophy in general to resolve every great philosophical problem, was not to be sought, for Kant, in obstacles of an incidental kind but in the very nature of the cognitive faculty. Setting out the different opinions of the philosophers in a logical order, as Reinhold's scheme suggested, seemed to Beddoes, if not a confirmation of the Kantian theory, at least an interesting and suggestive piece of data which could put to the test. Beddoes proposed an English translation of Kant's works; he did not hide the difficulty of the undertaking ('nothing can be conceived more harsh, obscure, and involved, than Kant's style') and yet the technical language of Kant served to express precise doctrines. Beddoes concluded his article with the translation of a text by Kant: it was part of §54 of the Critique

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of Judgment (on the subject of laughter and the comic) chosen not so much for its content as to provide a sample of translation: what follows, will hardly give an idea of the subjects generally treated by the philosopher of Konigsberg, nor of his manner of treating them. I have been obliged to break and unsheathe his sentences; and so must the translator of his works, and this without mutilating or changing the sense (MonthMag, I, p. 266). The sample of translation occupied about two pages. Beddoes concluded his article with the wish that someone - who should, however, be 'master of the two languages' - might accept his invitation and that Kant's work should have a worthy English translation so that 'its pretensions may be examined in the country of Locke and Home Tooke' {MonthMag, I, p. 267). Beddoes' article is significant in many respects. Apart from anything else, it confirms again the role of Reinhold in the spreading of Kant's thought. We shall speak later of Beddoes in connection with his prompt and positive review of the German edition of the text Zum ewigen Frieden in Griffiths' journal. A physician and chemist very well known at the time, he had studied at Edinburgh, then in London and lastly at Oxford where from late 1787 he was the first holder in the university of the post of Reader in Chemistry (Levere, pp. 61-2). He was obliged to leave Oxford in 1792 under the accusation of Jacobinism. Politically he took a radical position and as well as pursuing his studies in the field of chemistry and medicine, he contributed to the principal journals of the time. He was a friend of Coleridge and played an important role in the culture of the period. Beddoes had a very good knowledge of German and, like many chemists and

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doctors, knew German literature, especially scientific literature. During his time at Oxford he had had a lively controversy with the Librarian of the Bodleian, which had caused a stir and led to an inquiry; among the many accusations which Beddoes levelled at the Librarian was that of not acquiring foreign books and journals (Bodleian Library, Library records c. 4). Beddoes was one of the few people in England to have read the first Critique in the original as early as the beginning of the 1790s. In 1793, in an essay on the nature of demonstration in geometry, which he had written, however, during his years at Oxford, he presented in translation §11 of the Introduction to the Critique of Pure Reason, on necessity and strict universality as the pure distinctive signs of a priori knowledge and on the actual existence in human knowledge of similar judgements (Ak., Ill, pp. 28-30; B 3-6); he discussed Kant's text at length (Beddoes, Observations, pp. 89-130; the reviews do not pay much attention to this part of Beddoes' work; see especially MonthRev, XIII, 1794, pp. 1-7; EnglRev, XXVI, 1795, p. 452). His convinced adherence to a rigid form of Lockian empiricism prevented him from accepting the Kantian concept of necessary knowledge and his criticism of induction; however, he did discuss it and he recognized its importance. The position of Beddoes with regard to Kant's thought was indicative of fairly common attitudes. From a philosophical point of view, Beddoes, with a large proportion of the cultured men of the time, was to remain faithful to the tradition of Lockian empiricism; nevertheless, he appreciated Kant's political liberalism and, in particular, his philosophical radicalism. He did not accept his doctrines but shared his initial project, the idea of a revolution in the field of knowledge. Finally, like some other scholars of chemistry but also of biology and geology, sciences which were at that period in a

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phase of rapid development, he was more open and better acquainted with the culture of the Continent, particularly that of Germany, and hence succeeded in grasping the aspects of what was new even when he did not share them, more and better than did others who were attached to a rooted tradition. Beddoes' article did not have much result. Nitsch, as has already been said, intervened on several occasions, declaring that he was ready, should a financial sponsor appear, to undertake the English translation of Kant, but his inadequate knowledge of English hardly made him the most suitable person for the enterprise. On the whole, the invitation launched by Beddoes to discuss Kant's philosophy remained unanswered. A year and a half later, in December 1797, a twentyfive-year-old painter, Henry James Richter, who took a radical position in politics and who in 1817 was to publish a curious work on Kant, renewed the invitation to study Kant. Richter presented a short article on Hume's criticism of the principle of causality. He did not offer a solution but considered both that Hume's thesis was unacceptable and that the replies offered by the English philosophers were inadequate. He concluded with an invitation to consider Kant's thought also, giving up the typically English habit of treating 'the philosophy of other nations with contempt' {MonthMag, IV, p. 536). For some time the article remained unanswered and only in May 1799 was a brief intervention on the subject published {MonthMag, VII, pp. 375-8). The author, who signed himself with the pseudonym Sinborne, challenged Richter on the point that he first identifies Hume's theory with the whole body of our national metaphysics, and thence determines

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that as our own nation contains no 'reasonable and consistent theory' of the origin of ideas, we should have recourse to the system of the famous German professor Kant [MonthMag, VII, p. 376); but according to the anonymous author, who in a footnote referred to Beddoes' essay of 1793, the Kantian system was nothing more than a renewed form of innatism, a theory definitively refuted by Locke: when I consider the general character of Kant's philosophy, and that is expressly established on the notion of innate ideas, I am anxious to shew that we are not driven to the necessity of reviving the buried controversies of the last century, and that we need not raise the spirit of ancient metaphysics which the powerful wand of Locke has been thought to have for ever laid {MonthMag, VII, p. 376). The article continued, taking up the arguments of the English associational school on the origin of the idea of cause. In the same journal, some months earlier, in the issue of February 1799, a brief reference to Kant had appeared in an article on the state of literature in Europe (published in part also in NLondRev, I, May 1799, pp. 519-20), of some interest because it upheld the thesis of a close analogy between Kant's philosophy and the theories of the Scots: Kant perceived the reasonings of Malebranche, Berkeley, and Hume to have rendered the belief of the reality of things, material or spiritual, incompatible with the old metaphysical doctrine - that ideas are the only medium of communication between the human mind and all other things. He was anxious to give a new stability to the first principles of human knowledge. For

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this end, he distinguished all our knowledge into two classes of (1) primary, original, perhaps innate knowledge, which must be possessed and believed before we can make any progress in observation and reasoning; and (2) experimental knowledge, founded upon that which is primary, and discoverable by reasoning and observation. The former it is, in his opinion, an indispensable law of our existence, to believe, without demanding those proofs, of which it is, by its nature, unsusceptible. The latter is never to be received by the mind without the most rigorous discussions of reasoning. Kant's primary knowledge is equivalent to the knowledge of sentiment in the Savoyard Curate's Confession of Faith, by Rousseau; to the First Truths of Buffier; to the Common Sense of Reid, Beattie, and Oswald; to those instincts and senses which are so multiplied in the writings of Lord Kames {MonthMag, VII, p. 152). In substance, both the point of departure and the solutions proposed were the same as those of the Scots, whose positions the author of the article shared. Certainly, there were differences between Kant and the Scots both in language and in content: Kant, in expressing his doctrines, was led to use the technical language of Wolff . . . and hence arises the greater part of his obscurity. . . . He has certainly often erred in ranking among the primary principles of knowledge, truths, which are but secondary and experimental, nor are those reasonings always just, from which he deduces those which he accounts to be truths of experiment. But he is, undeniably, a great man, and the first metaphysician in Germany {MonthMag, VII, p. 152).

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However, it was necessary to distinguish Kant's philosophy from the 'extravagancies of his pupils' and to relate Kant - in the light of those same problems that had been posed by Locke, and more generally by the philosophers who were developing the modern doctrine of ideas, from Descartes to Hume - to the critical reflection of the Scots: it is in this light that Kant's philosophy is now viewed among his fellow-countrymen. Those who would understand his work ought to be, first, familiarly conversant with the metaphysical writings of Locke, Hume, Reid, Condillac, Leibniz, Wolff, and Bacon, otherwise they will read Kant in vain {MonthMag, VII, p. 152). The discussions of Kant's philosophy in the Monthly Magazine turn out to be of some interest because they make it possible to observe the ways in which Kantian thought was received in English radical circles. In fact, a certain amount of interest in Kant can be noted, and, in general, the radicalism of Kant's project, in full harmony with the spirit of the time, was found attractive. But when it came down to a valuation, more strictly philosophical, of the system, Kant's thought was brought back to the question which dominated English culture of the time. On one side was the philosophy of Locke and of the Lockian tradition to which radical circles were still strongly attached; on the other was the opposition to Locke of the Scottish school, philosophically more receptive and open to the continental influences but politically more conservative. The novelty of Kant's philosophy was not generally understood. What remained was interest in the political aspect of his thought - his liberalism and his sympathies with the French Revolution, which were emphasized from more or less interested motives by

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opponents or by sympathizers. But this was an aspect of Kant's thought most linked, in its acceptance by public opinion, with present political events, and it was easily affected by repercussions due to changes in the political situation. 6.5

Friedrich August Nitsch's book on Kant (May 1796)

In May 1796 a. second work on Kant was published in London: this was a work by Nitsch {A General and Introductory View of Professor Kant's Principles Concerning Man, the World, and the Deity), a German from Konigsberg who had spent about three years in London, where he gave courses of lessons on Kant's philosophy, which were mentioned also by O'Keeffe in his essay (O'Keeffe, pp. 51-2). Of the four works published in England in this period, that of Nitsch was certainly the most important. It was a volume of 234 pages, in which the author expounded Kant's system in its two parts, the theoretical and the practical, according to the method of exposition derived from Reinhold, in particular from Versuch but also from the Briefe. His dependence on Reinhold's Versuch is evident also in the content. Nitsch himself admitted this both in the introduction to the book (p. 7) and also in a letter of 25 July 1794 to Kant, the only one that has been preserved from an exchange of letters which covered a period of more than four years, in which, as well as informing him of the efforts that he was making to spread the critical system in England, he let him know that he was writing, in English, an 'Einleitung' to the Kantian system 'according to Reinhold' (Ak., XII, p. 518). The expression should not cause surprise: Reinhold was universally considered to be the official interpreter of critical philosophy, to the spreading of which he had made a powerful contribution

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with the Briefe, and this had not been without results for the reception of Kantianism in Germany itself. For Reinhold, critical philosophy appeared to be the point of arrival of the historical process, and, at the same time, the result from which it was possible to determine the significance of the process by which it had been attained. Reinhold distinguished between progress toward science [das Fortschreiten zur Wissenschaft] and progress in science [in der Wissenschaft]. The former precedes entirely determined fundamental concepts and gradually introduces to them; the latter initiates from entirely determined fundamental concepts and applies them. The former is by its nature finite and must cease with the discovery and the acknowledgement of the ultimate and only true principles of science; the latter is by its nature infinite; it can, however, only begin with it. . . . In the former there are philosophies, positive and negative dogmatic ones, empirical, rationalistic, sceptical ones - but there is no philosophy, there are all sorts of hypotheses . . ., but there is no science . . .: in the latter there is a single philosophy without epithets [eine einzige Philosophie ohne Beynamen], but which is proper, strict science. The period of transition from the former of these two opposite states of philosophizing reason to the latter, is the period of Kantian or critical philosophy (Reinhold, Briefe, II, pp. 177-8). This conviction was the source of the expository method used by Reinhold, who began his essays with an introduction in which he intended to demonstrate that the multiplicity of positions taken up relative to the philosophical problem which he was discussing could be brought back to the positions which were logically possible relative to that same problem, which were different

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from and opposed to each other because they were unilateral: their unilaterality could be explained by the indeterminateness of their principle, which could be overcome only by taking a critical point of view. Traces of a method of this kind can be found in the work of Kant himself, for example in certain historiographical schemes which are found in his major works, and to some extent theorized in §72 of the third Critique (on Kant as historian of philosophy cf. Micheli, passim; Santinello, pp. 879-957). But it is Reinhold's works, especially the Briefe, that express the conviction that 'after Kant' a whole type of philosophy had been once for all overcome by a new philosophy able to give a definitive answer to the problems of humanity (cf. Verra, pp. 1-31). In saying this, Reinhold was expressing a view widely held in those years, that civilization had reached a decisive turning point, that is the coming of the rule of reason «ince which, first with the Reformation and then with the Enlightenment, it had shaken off the yoke of tradition and had begun to recognize in itself the supreme origin not only of knowledge but also of every human value. 6.5.1 Nitsch: criticism and the history of philosophy In his work on Kant, which he had intended should be a first introduction to critical philosophy for the English people, Nitsch followed an identical plan. His exposition of Kant's theoretical philosophy began with a list of metaphysical problems. These are the problems of the simplicity or otherwise of substances, of the temporal beginning of the world, of its limitation as regards space, of the existence or not of a first cause, of the freedom or lack of freedom of man's will (pp. 10-17). The various schools of philosophy provided different and opposing answers relative to each of these problems. Nitsch, like

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Reinhold and other followers of Kant, made use of the doctrine of antinomies in order to introduce order into the variety of philosophical systems, deriving from it a sort of history of philosophy by types, which made it possible on the one hand to demonstrate the stalemate in which philosophical thought found itself and, on the other hand, to suggest the need for a different approach to the eternal problems of philosophy which would make it possible to bring 'a lasting peace to the regions of speculative philosophy' (pp. 19-27). The different answers to the problems of metaphysics depended on the various theories of knowledge professed by the various schools of philosophy (pp. 28-63). Materialists, idealists, spiritualists, and sceptics had provided different solutions to the problems of metaphysics because the doctrines of knowledge professed by these four schools were different. Nitsch did not give the name of any thinker and spoke in general about philosophical schools or sects; in fact he was thinking of Hartley (and Locke), Berkeley, Wolff and Hume. In particular, Nitsch seemed concerned to clarify for the English reader the distinction between the physiological research on the nature of the mind of a Hartley (and of a Locke), and the Kantian research on the nature and limits of knowledge. Kant upheld the idea that in explaining the power of knowledge . . . it would be erroneous to derive it from our pretended knowledge of the nerves, the brain, the visible and invisible worlds, and that we ought first of all to enquire into the true nature and constitution of this power, before we can possibly ascertain what the nature and extent of that knowledge is, which we are able to acquire of the nerves, the brain, the visible and invisible worlds (p. 61). The physiology of human understanding of Hartley (and

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of Locke), not unlike the doctrines of knowledge upheld by the other schools, in fact presupposed, as though it were already metaphysically established, a theory of knowledge. Materialists, idealists, spiritualists, and sceptics all held that the best way to determine the power and extent of human knowledge, was to penetrate as deeply as possible into the essence or nature of things, and to see how far we could proceed in our knowledge of them. But this was the most perverted method they could have possibly chosen. . . . They indeed analyze the powers of the human mind with great . . . ingenuity . . .; but these great men could not give any description of those powers, without deriving it, at least in part, from their supposed knowledge of material or immaterial objects (pp. 63-4). The investigation set in motion by Kant had nothing to do with objects, whether spiritual or material, but was to do with the faculty by means of which we recognize objects: these faculties are objects of consciousness, and must be considered separately and independently of the qualities of those things which are known by means of them (p. 64). Nitsch tried to clarify for the English reader, to whom the doctrines of Locke and Hartley were familiar, and who could observe that it was not possible to understand a power without examining the effects produced by it, the transcendental level of the Kantian investigation: Kant by no means denies, that we know powers only by means of their effects . . . but he is totally against all accurate and minute examination of any single . . .

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object, as far as it respects our present purpose. An individual and minute knowledge of one or more individual bodies or spirits, is perfectly useless towards ascertaining the power of knowledge in general. To find out the true nature of this power, we must abstract from all particular knowledge of particular objects, and examine the properties of knowledge in general, or the common nature of all our knowledge (p. 66). This diffuse introduction, the outline of which had already been anticipated by Nitsch in his article published a month earlier in The English Review, was followed by an exposition of Kant's theoretical philosophy. In practice, Nitsch limited himself to a faithful summary of the third book of Reinhold's Versuch in 101 principles, which in many cases proposed a thesis without giving those explanations which the English reader would have needed in order to understand Kant's theories (pp. 71-140). However, he gave a complete framework of the doctrines of the first Critique. There followed a section devoted to the 'influence of Kant's principles on the improvement of the philosophy of the human mind'. Nitsch was concerned to show how Kant's doctrines made it possible to understand what was true, and at the same time the limitations in the doctrines of the different schools (pp. 153-68), according to the basic idea derived from Reinhold, for whom 'the results of critical philosophy are in harmony with the results of the history of philosophy in general' (Reinhold, Briefe, I, p. 269). Nitsch devoted the final part of his book to an exposition of Kant's practical philosophy. This too was preceded by a historical introduction, again with the intention of demonstrating the unilaterality of earlier

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philosophies and the possibility of explaining this if it was set in the critical perspective. There followed a summary of Kantian ethics, treated from Reinhold's viewpoint (pp. 173-218). The volume concluded with several pages devoted to the influence of Kant's philosophy on religion, in which Nitsch took up Kant's arguments relative to the immortality of the soul and the existence of God, comparing the theses of the second Critique with those of the first. After having clarified the difference, from the Kantian point of view, between 'to be of opinion', 'to believe', 'to be certain', and 'to have demonstrative certainty', he observed that, as far as the immortality of the soul and the existence of God were concerned, there is no demonstration possible, either for or against the existence of any of these important objects . . . of both objects we have no knowledge, but only notions; from mere notions of things we can derive no certainty that the things really exist. Moreover, by thus destroying improper arguments, which never fail to produce scepticism, room is made for a rational belief, which, although it be not the highest degree of conviction, yet is perfectly sufficient to make us strive after virtue, and to leave us an opportunity of becoming virtuous from disinterested motives (pp. 232-3). It should be noted that Nitsch always translated 'Glaube\ which Kant used in the double sense of ''belief (cf. Ak., Ill, pp. 531-8, B 848-59) and 'faith' (cf., for example, Ak., Ill, p. 19, B xxx), with the English term 'belief \ even when, as in the passage quoted here, it referred to the Kantian concept of 'reiner praktischer Vernunftglaube' (Ak., V, pp. 142-6) which should preferably be translated by the expression 'pure rational practical faith' or 'rational faith'. Earlier, Jacobi in his David Hume (1787)

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and then again later, had translated the German term 'Glaube' by the English word 'belief in the technical sense given to this term by both Hume and Reid, in order to make a polemical defence of his philosophy of faith against the accusation that it debased reason (cf. Jacobi, II, pp. 146-7 [on Reid], pp. 152-63 [on Hume]; on the discussions in Germany at that time cf. Verra, Jacobi, pp. 166-7, 188; on the difficulty which the English reader had in grasping the precise technical meaning of the term iVernunftglaubey in Kantian ethics when it was translated with the English expression 'a belief of reason1 see, for example, SuppEB, pp. 356 note E, 359). The problem of translation is noteworthy because it could suggest that Kant was close to the Scots and to Jacobi's philosophy of faith. 6.5.2 The debate on Nitsch's book Nitsch's book on Kant had been awaited. For nearly three years he had been teaching courses on Kant's critical philosophy in London and his presence in London had been mentioned in O'Keeffe's pamphlet which described him as an apostle of Kantianism in the land of the English (O'Keeffe, pp. 51-2). The imminent publication of the book had been announced in April 1796 {EnglRev, XXVII, p. 356). The debate on Kant's philosophy, already encouraged by the discussions on O'Keeffe's essay in the first half of 1796, had in the past few months begun to occupy space in some of the principal literary journals, as has been seen above. The first review of Nitsch's book was published, with surprising promptness, as early as August 1796, only three months after its publication, in the conservative journal, The British Critic, and it was totally negative. The review was very long and carefully constructed. The author looked at Nitsch's work exclusively from the

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point of view of the relation between reason and revelation and discussed the aspect of Kant's doctrine which held that no foundation, whether historical or metaphysical, was possible for religion because of the implicit heteronomy, and hence dissolution of morality, which would result from this. The proposition was found in Kant, had been taken up strongly by Reinhold (see, for example, Briefe, I, pp. 164-84) and could be read also in Nitsch's text. The English reader could find the proposition also in the text of the long review of Religion, translated from German and published in July 1794, in Johnson's journal, which concluded with the affirmation that for Kant 'all historical faith, without reference to morals, is in itself dead' (AnalytRev, XIX, 1794, p. 336). The author of the review used this Kantian doctrine as a key to the reading of the entire work of Nitsch. In the first part of the review the author referred to and discussed a passage taken from the introductory historical framework in which Nitsch appeared to accept as valid the argument according to which reason is the presupposition of revelation in the sense that the contents of the latter, as also the very concept of revelation, must first be submitted to the examination by reason {BritCrit, VIII, pp. 137-8; cf. Nitsch, p. 34). The account continued with an exposition and discussion of the principal theses of Kantian philosophy; the limitation of man's understanding to the object of experience, the principle of morality, the moral proofs of the existence of God and the immortality of the soul. With regard to all of these questions, the author observed that on the one hand Kant denied the possibility of a metaphysical demonstration towards these objects, while on the other hand, however, he excluded also the possibility of a historical proof of positive religion, putting rational faith as a condition of the same positive religion (BritCrit, VIII,

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pp. 139-49). In the judgement of the journal, which represented the opinions of the most conservative part of the Church of England, Kant's philosophy undermined the basis of positive religion and thus the very foundations of the social order on which this basis rested (BritCrit, VIII, p. 149). The other journals were slow to take up their positions. In October 1796 Nitsch himself intervened with an article in The Monthly Magazine in which he introduced his book on Kant, defending himself against various accusations which must have been made against him. In particular, he defended Kant against the accusation of being an obscure philosopher, of having coined new terms and of upholding propositions which were opposed to common sense, and lastly, he emphasized the need for an English translation of the Kantian text {MonthMag, II, pp. 702-5). In January 1797 Nitsch's book was reviewed simultaneously in journals of both radical and liberal leanings. The judgement in the radical and liberal journals was not enthusiastic especially where Kant's philosophy was concerned. In Phillips' magazine, although it had, as has been noted, published an article by Nitsch a few months before, there was only a brief note: the work contains a masterly retrospect of former opinions in philosophy, and such an account of the method of philosophizing adopted by professor Kant, as may serve to give the reader a glimpse of his abstract and difficult theory {MonthMag, III, p. 41). The review in Johnson's journal was more detailed; the author of the review displayed some interest in a system of philosophy little known in England but much more studied on the Continent and 'pretty generally adopted' in Germany:

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the philosophy of Kant . . . in this country is but partially known. . . . The celebrity, which its author has acquired, as a moralist and metaphysician, is unquestionably very great . . . The principles of Kant form a subject almost entirely new . . . By discussion only can their truth or falsity be ascertained . . . In the present work, the author's sole object is to enable the reader to form some previous judgement of what he may expect from a complete exhibition of Mr. Kant's philosophy; but Nitsch's text greatly disappointed him: the terms employed are new, the matter is purely abstract and metaphysical, without illustration, without proof, in short, destitute of every thing which can relieve the fatigued attention even for a moment . . . No man, who is not an enthusiast for abstruse speculations, will have patience to read one half of this introductory view. This is a circumstance, which we mention with regret, convinced that the matter in this work deserves attention. . . . The science of metaphysics, in its most inviting form, is but forbidding . . . We would not, however, be understood to insinuate, that the obscurity to be here met with is imputable to Mr. Nitsch . . . It arises, as he observes, partly from the want of illustration and argument . . . and partly from the novelty of Kant's language, to which Mr. Nitsch thought it proper to adhere {AnalytRev, XXV, pp. 11-12). The review published in Griffiths' journal, also in January 1797, was not totally favourable. The author was William Enfield, a student of philosophy very well known at the time (Roper, pp. 256-7), an expert in German culture, and author of a well-received English

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version of Brucker's Historia critica philosophiae

(cf.

Santinello, pp. 573-81). He insisted that Kant's philosophy deserved to be examined carefully. If there was some prejudice weighing against it because of its obscurity, often inevitable when one tried to communicate something new on abstract subjects, a good translation of Kant's works would allow the English to benefit from the new philosophy. If, on the other hand, as had been maintained in the same journal several years earlier - and here Enfield referred, without however mentioning the name, to Sowden's review of 1793 which has been referred to above and as we are still inclined to suspect, this philosopher, like many of his predecessors, has bewildered himself in a labyrinth of words, and, instead of presenting the world with a new discovery, has given to old metaphysical ideas a new appearance, in a technical language of his own, it may be of great importance that the fallacy of his principles should be detected {MonthRev, XXII, p. 15); nevertheless the public ought to be grateful to Nitsch, formerly a pupil of Kant's and an attentive student of his thought, for undertaking to introduce the English reader to a more intimate acquaintance with the Kantian philosophy, than could hitherto be obtained without an accurate knowledge of the German tongue {MonthRev, XXII, p. 15). Enfield, as a historian of philosophy, showed that he greatly appreciated the fact that Nitsch commences with an examination of that series of philosophical opinions which has given occasion to

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Kantian principles. A concise but distinct comparative view is exhibited for the variety of philosophical opinions . . . The manner in which these several systems operated on the mind of Professor Kant, to prompt his inquiries concerning the nature and extent of the human faculties and the bounds of human knowledge, is well described. The essential difference between him and former philosophers . . . is this: they endeavoured to ascertain the possible extent of human knowledge from the nature and properties of the things to be known; he directed his inquiries immediately to the powers of the human mind, and, abstractedly from all particular knowledge, and individual objects, examined the properties of knowledge in general, or the common characteristics of all our knowledge (MonthRev, XXII, p. 16). Enfield did not set out the contents of Kant's theoretical philosophy: the reader could refer to the summary which had appeared in the journal a little more than three years earlier. While postponing any definitive assessment of the Kantian system until Kant's texts were translated, or until further works promised by Nitsch appeared, he nevertheless anticipated these by making a first judgement which confirmed the negative impression of the value of the first Critique which he had expressed at the beginning: we shall at present only remark that we are not without apprehension that the system may, after all, be found to be rather a new metaphysical vocabulary, than a more perfect discovery of the process of the human intellect in its operation {MonthRev, XXII, p. 16). The second part of the review dealt with Kant's practical philosophy, which occupied the final part of Nitsch's

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book. Here Enfield, after recalling that in Nitsch's text the exposition of Kant's ethics was preceded by a historical description of the other systems, quoted long extracts including the formula of the moral law and the Kantian propositions on the relationship between virtue and happiness in the concept of the highest good. Enfield did not discuss Kant's ethical doctrine: the high opinion which Nitsch had of it seemed to him, however, frankly excessive: 'the attachment of the pupil may have in some measure biased the judgment of the philosopher' {MonthRev, XXII, p. 18). Another substantially negative review, quite short, was published more than a year later, in December 1797, in the other important journal at that time of a liberal outlook, The Critical Review. Here, too, appreciation was expressed for the intention which had prompted Nitsch, that is to explain a philosophical theory which had been received enthusiastically but which 'contains many things hard to be understood"; on the other hand, no one could do this better than Nitsch 'who had been initiated in his mysteries by Kant himself (CritRev, XXI, p. 436). But the result was very disappointing. The author restricted himself to expounding and discussing the central thesis of the theoretical part that in order to answer the question of whether man can understand objects which transcend experience, one must first ask 'what can be known by man in general, or what is the nature and extent of human knowledge in general' seemed to him a sophistical way of proceeding: the process of the professor, in thus laying the basis of his system, appears to have been suggested by the love of hypothesis, rather than by a solicitude to develop the truth, which can never be obtained from a general proposition converted into one more

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complex and ambiguous {CritRev, XXI, p. 437). The discussion on Nitsch's text was not pursued. The work was mentioned in Scottish journals also (cf. EdinbMag, VIII, 1796, pp. 51-2; ScotsMag, LIX, 1797, p. 122) and was discussed in Germany {ALZ, intBl, 17/7/1796, p. 945; NADB, IntBl, XXXI, No. 25, pp. 198-200; see also the book, published anonymously, Kantische Philosophie in England in 1797), but it certainly had very little success in England. The book was difficult to read. Kant's thought was rendered even more obscure by the exterior systematic form, derived from Reinhold, in which it had been expressed in the central section, and Nitsch's knowledge of the English language was not yet very good. The reasons for its failure were however more basic - they were to do with the ability of English culture to receive Kantianism. To conservatives it was an irreligious and politically dangerous system. Liberals and radicals, all firmly following in the wake of the tradition of Locke despite their interest in new things which came from the Continent, were repelled by a form of language and by a type of problem which they considered abstract, remote from experience and intellectualistic. 6.6 The essay on Perpetual Peace: discussions and translation (August 1796-March 1797) An important event in the discussion on Kant's thought in England between 1796 and 1797 was represented by the discussions on the essay about Perpetual Peace and by its translation into English. The European reverberations of this essay have already been mentioned. As well as being reviewed in Johnson's journal, which, as has been said, published in May 1796 part of the review from the Allgemeine Literatur-Zeitung, the German edition had been reviewed by Thomas Beddoes in Griffiths' journal in

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August 1796 {MonthRev, XX, pp. 486-90). The contribution by this radical intellectual, the second on Kant within the space of a few months, was published at the same time as the unbridled attack in the pages of the conservative journal, The British Critic, against Kant's philosophy, which it judged to be contrary to religion and dangerous politically. Little more than a month later the English translation of Kant's text was published. 6.6.1

Thomas Beddoes on the essay on Perpetual Peace Beddoes' review summarized Kant's text with great clarity. He grasped the basic theses very lucidly and did not hesitate to underline those aspects of the Kantian doctrine which could be compared with the politics of the time. The first section of Kant's text contained the six preliminary articles for perpetual peace among states and of these, Beddoes simply quoted the first three and the sixth, while he quoted the text and also parts of Kant's comment on the fourth and fifth articles, which contained more immediate reference to the political debate of the moment. In the fourth article Kant condemned the system of public debts, introduced for the first time, in fact in England, in order to finance the wars against France ('an ingenious invention' - so one can read in Kant's text but the aside did not appear in the review - 'made by a nation of tradesmen in this century'). In the fifth article, Kant condemned all outside interference in the internal policy of another state (with reference to the stance of the European powers towards Republican France). From the second section of Kant's text, which contained the three definitive articles, Beddoes quoted the declaration of the first, on the republican character of the constitution of the state, making it clear however that Kant 'defines republicanism to be the separation of the

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executive from the legislative power', and the second, on international law as the foundation of a federation of free states. He quoted the third article on the law of hospitality, and beside the text quoted part of Kant's comment which contained a condemnation of the colonial policy of the European states, especially that of England, not only for their systematic robbery of lands outside Europe but also because this policy seemed to have no other use than that of financing wars in Europe (MonthRev, XX, pp. 486-8; cf. Ak., VIII, pp. 343-60). The first part of Kant's text contained propositions that Beddoes entirely agreed with; his exposition was faithful to Kant's text, and a wise use of quotations made it possible for Beddoes to convey precise political messages to the reader while using always only Kant's words and maintaining an appearance of absolute objectivity. Beddoes went on to examine the second part of Kant's text, pausing especially at the first supplement which dealt with the guarantee of perpetual peace which Kant placed, as is well known, in the very mechanism of nature. Here the radical Beddoes only partly agreed with Kant's proposition; he was not satisfied with the pessimistic conception of man which Kant managed to reconcile with an optimistic conception of historical development, attributing a providential role, thanks to the regulative idea of provident nature, to discord, antagonism and war. Beddoes summarized Kant's wellknown propositions carefully and precisely: that while a people may not be forced to submit itself to the compulsion of public laws by internal discord, it would be obliged to do so by the danger of external war; that each state tends to obtain peace for itself by, if possible, subduing the whole world, but that nature makes use of differences of language and religion in order to impede

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the mixing of nations and to keep them distinct and to force them into agreement in a peace 'which is not brought about and secured, like universal despotism, by a general reduction of powers, but by a balance, in which they oppose to each other the most lively counter-action'; nature unites nations 'by means of their mutual selfishness - the bond is the spirit of commerce, which cannot co-exist with war', which sooner or later takes command of every nation; for this motive, not for moral reasons, states find themselves obliged . . . to prevent war by mediation wherever a quarrel threatens to break out, as if they were leagued in a perpetual covenant for this purpose. Thus does Nature, by the mechanism of the inclinations of mankind, guarantee perpetual peace, with a security which indeed does not enable us to predict its arrival theoretically, but which is sufficient in a practical view, and makes it a duty to contribute to this (not purely chimerical) purpose (MonthRev, XX, pp. 488-9; cf. Ak., VIII, pp. 360-8). The exposition was followed by Beddoes' critical observations: he was disappointed by the prudence of Kant who entrusted the achievement of such a high aim to the mechanism of nature and to the means which it used - egoism, greed, the threat of war - and not to man's conscious action: we were disappointed, because we allowed the title to raise expectations of a splendid project; but the author has been prudent in trusting to the operation of Nature, rather than to positive institutions, for the accomplishment of the great consummation of which he treats. We regret, however, that it should require an indefinite time, and the continuance of so dreadful

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a process as war. We add that, according to our foresight, a sense of justice, and not the spirit of commerce, is to tranquillize the dissensions of mankind. In the middle classes of society, there already prevails a suspicion that, even in affairs of state, honesty is the best policy, and that powerful nations become the victims of the wrongs which they perpetrate. The suspicion, we imagine, will ripen into conviction, and spread by degrees to both extremes; and, this being once settled as a practical maxim, perpetuity of peace - an undisturbed succession of serene days - is secured to the harassed race of man {MonthRev, XX, pp. 489-90). Beddoes' review not only provided the reader with a very accurate picture of Kant's political thought, but also placed it within the framework of English cultural and political debate. Many of the themes developed by Beddoes in his conclusion were to be at the centre of the bitter and heated debates on German philosophy which, as will be seen later, were to develop through the initiative of the conservative journals at the turn of the century. 6.6.2

The English translation of the essay on Perpetual Peace The English translation of Kant's text was published in October 1796, little more than a month after Beddoes' review. The author is not known but a comparison with the text of the review gives justification for believing it was not by Beddoes. It is, in any case, a good translation. There is no introduction to the text, nor are there explanatory notes. The reviews of the translation which appeared soon afterwards in the principal journals, expressed contrasting judgements on Kant's political philosophy, and in all of them it was noted that by this

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time it was difficult, perhaps dangerous, to discuss these subjects in the English press. The first reviews were published in January 1797. Griffiths' journal, which five months previously had published Beddoes' article which was exemplary for its clarity, this time entrusted the task to its expert in German matters, William Taylor (Roper, pp. 258-60). The text was very short and the tone very detached: we are happy in announcing . . . a well executed translation of the pamphlet by Kant . . . His scholastic dialectic certainly conceals the deep thinker and the bold philanthropist . . . Some passages glance with disapprobation at the British system of policy; others partially, as we think, favour the views of the France [MonthRev, XXII, p. 114). Taylor made several remarks of a technical nature about the translation, but nothing more. The review published in The Critical Review, also in January 1797, was decidedly more courageous. To tell the truth, the author did not devote much space to presenting and discussing Kant's work, but rather denounced the difficulties and dangers which confronted anyone who at that time wished to deal with the subjects discussed in Kant's work: though the temper of our country is not very favourable to political discussions, we are persuaded that there are still left among us men of candour and enlarged minds, who can read, without flying into a passion, the theory of a philosopher enjoying the patronage of one of the most despotical courts in Europe {CritRev, XX, p. 89). As has been mentioned, very little was said about Kant's text, and that only in a very disconnected way. The

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preliminary articles for peace were listed, but without any word of explanation, and then came the first definitive article, the thesis that the constitution of the state ought to be republican. Before setting out this latest doctrine of Kant, the author of the review, evidently referring to the numerous trials of booksellers and printers, observed: many of our readers will be startled with our author's first requisite for the government of states. Nay, if the author were an Englishman, we do not know whether he would be safe from the wisdom or the folly of some of our attorney-generals . . . At the same time we must warn . . . that the word republican does not in Germany convey the precise idea which it does in England; . . . a limited kingly power is not inconsistent with the theory of a republican government (CritRev, XX, p. 91). The review did not say much more. It does, nevertheless, bear witness to the political climate of England at that time, and to the link made, at the level of public opinion, of the image of Kant with radical, if not revolutionary, positions in politics. Other reviews were restricted to a notification of the work in very general terms, accompanying this with cautious and prudent judgements. The oldest established English magazine limited itself to a simple notice, a few lines long, in the issue of February 1797 (GentMag, LXVII, 1, p. 136). In March 1797 The Monthly Mirror published a brief review, which in reality neither illustrated nor discussed any of the arguments in the text; and it concluded by clearly distancing itself from Kant: we do not entirely agree with him in all his projects, because we think many of them untenable, and the

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grand argument, wherein he endeavours to prove the practicability of the perpetual peace, is very far from being established {MonthMir, HI, p. 166). In February 1797 Johnson's journal also published a brief review of Kant's text; the subject was its topicality, when several of the nations of Europe are engaged in a war, which all sides allow to be calamitous, and one party affirms to have been equally unnecessary and unjust (AnalytRev, XXV, p. 211). It merely listed the articles of the project and summarized the appendix on the relation between morality and politics. The radical review expressed appreciation of Kant's project but also drew attention to the fact that it was not a new idea, reminding readers of the writings of the abbot of St Pierre. 6.7

Developments in the debate on Kant: Richardson and Willich (June 1797-June 1798)

Both the drying up of any discussion of Nitsch's book and the fate which befell two other books on Kant published some time later, The Principles of Critical Philosophy by John Richardson, published in mid-1797 (cf. MonthMag, III, p. 386) and the Elements of the Critical Philosophy by Anthony Florian Madinger Willich, published in January 1798, proved that the period favourable to Kant, which mainly coincided with the year 1796, was by now past. Richardson's work, a translation of Beck's Erlduternder Auszug (cf. Adickes, No. 1030), was actually printed in Germany, as were the subsequent writings of this British scholar of Kantianism. The work, which was very little circulated in England, had only one review, and that brief and negative, in January 1798 {CritRev, XXII, pp. 82-4).

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The fate of Willich's work, published in January 1798 (cf. MonthMag, IV, p. 300, and V, p. 60; EdinbMag, X, p. 386) was more complicated. The book was produced as a volume of a good 332 pages, of which, however, only the first 183 were about Kant, while the second part of the volume, which could also be purchased separately, contained the translation of three essays on philological subjects by Adelung. The book consisted of a Historical Introduction (pp. 1-33), a brief Synopsis, including a division of the concept of philosophy according to Kant and a synthesis of the first Critique (pp. 34-53), a list of all Kant's works with a summary of their contents (pp. 53-138), and a glossary of Kantian terminology (pp. 139-83). The work is of little value. There is very little of Willich and heterogeneous texts by German authors, Kantians such as Staudlin and Johann Schulz but also anti-Kantians such as Eberhard and Weishaupt, were translated and presented to the English public without the logical order which would have made it easier to understand them. Probably the intention of the work was only commercial. A few unfortunately chosen references to Kant's political thought, in particular to the Idea, and to Weishaupt, who had been at the centre of the controversy about the secret society of the Illuminati, were to be used shortly afterwards to accuse Kant of atheism and Jacobinism. The first review appeared in May 1798 in one of the last issues of Johnson's journal {AnalytRev, XXVII, pp. 498505), and was the only one to be partly favourable. Rather than expressing an assessment, the author quoted long extracts from Willich's text and at the end he expressed a desire that there should be an English translation of the first Critique which he considered more useful for the purpose of understanding Kant. In July 1798 a second review of Willich's text

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appeared, and it was the occasion for the pronouncement of a clear condemnation of Kantian thought, judged from the point of view of Locke's empiricism: the system [of Kant] is founded upon this principle, that there is a free reason independent of all experience and sensation . . . This doctrine is opposite to that which we have imbibed from Locke, importing that our ideas are derived from sensation and reflection (CritRev, XXIII, p. 446). In January 1799 the work was reviewed in Griffiths' journal (MonthRev, XXVIII, pp. 62-9) by William Taylor, who was at that time the most diligent and certainly the most influential expert on German literature (Roper, pp. 258-60), and its tone was strongly negative. Taylor, although very knowledgeable about German culture and language, did not discuss Willich's text in detail and devoted a large part of his review to Adelung's three philological essays. As to Kant, he merely expressed a general opinion: his scholars, like the disciples of Plotinus, seem only in doubt whether to revere him as a sage or to worship him as a divinity . . . If we inquire among his followers for the general drift of his system, we are answered only in negations. It is not atheism; for he affirms that practical reason is entitled to infer the existence of a supreme Intelligence. It is not theism, for he denies that theoretical reason can demonstrate the existence of an infinite intelligent Being. It is not materialism; for he maintains that time and space are only forms of our perception, and not attributes of extrinsic existences. It is not idealism; for he maintains that noumena are independent of phaenomena; that things perceptible are prior to perception. It is not

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libertinism; for he allows the will to be determined by regular laws. It is not fatalism; for he defines this to be a system in which the connection of purposes in the world is considered as accidental. It is not dogmatism; for he favours every possible doubt. It is not scepticism; for he affects to demonstrate what he teaches . . . Were we, however, to describe the impression made on ourselves by the writings of this Professor . . . we should call his doctrine an attempt to teach the sceptical philosophy of Hume in the disgusting dialect of scholasticism (MonthRev, XXVIII, pp. 62-3). The reader desirous of more detailed information on Kant's system was referred by Taylor to the exposition of the system in the journal several years earlier, on the occasion of the discussions about Kant in Holland. Moreover, he mentioned that a Latin version of Kant's works had been in existence since 1797 and that since that date greater attention to the Kantian system had been shown in France. Finally, he made a brief reference to Nitsch's book, as 'tending to popularize in Great Britain this dogmatic scepticism*. The reference to France is of some interest: Taylor's judgement of Kant, which offers some analogies with that which Degerando was to pronounce in his Histoire comparee in 1804, may have come from French sources. Taylor's review concluded the brief but intense period of debate on Kantianism in England, which had begun at the end of 1795 with the publication of O'Keeffe's pamphlet, and had developed intensively during the whole of 1796, only to die out in the course of the two following years. In 1798 the debate on Kant appeared to be closed. To the conservatives Kant was an irreligious and politically dangerous thinker. Radicals and liberals appreciated his political ideas, and in some case they

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were interested in the project of a radical new direction in the field of philosophy, but most often, and more frequently as the Kantian system was gradually elucidated, their firmly rooted empiricist convictions prevented them from understanding its significance.

7

The New Direction at the End of the Century: The Anti-German Reaction

From an examination of English literary periodicals, irrespective of their cultural or political tendency, it is evident that, at the turn of the century, between 1799 and the early months of 1801, the attitude of English public opinion towards German culture changed abruptly. The reason was primarily political and reflected the fear of contagion by liberal ideas from the Continent. The repression of radical groups, which had already become severe throughout England round the middle of the last decade of the century, achieved its purpose especially because the long war with France, the fear of an invasion and patriotic and nationalistic pressure gave greater solidarity to English society and enabled the most conservative section of the ruling class to become dominant also over culture. A long period of introversion began for England in the area of internal politics, coinciding with the latter part of the reign of George III, which was also a period of cultural stagnation as Dugald Stewart himself was to recognize some twenty years later (cf. Stewart, p. 474). The changing situation emerges very clearly if one looks at just a few facts. At the beginning of the decade, four major journals {The Monthly Review, The Critical Review, The Analytical Review, The English Review) all took liberal positions, supporting reforms and displaying more or less marked and open sympathies towards the

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French Revolution. They had a very considerable influence on public opinion (cf. Roper, pp. 23, 182-3). The first change occurred with the birth in May 1793 of The British Critic (cf. Roper, p. 23) which succeeded in its attempt to woo the more conservative readers away from the rival journals. But again, early in 1796, as has already been recorded, a radical editorial initiative, the publication of The Monthly Magazine, encountered immediate public favour. After less than a year it was confirmed that it was the journal with the highest circulation (cf. Timperley, p. 795). Nevertheless, the effects of government repression began to be felt. From 1792 trials of printers and booksellers became ever more frequent, especially as an effect of a law of May 1792 'against seditious writings' which was applied with increasing severity (cf. Timperley, pp. 778-9; for the trials of booksellers and printers during the decade cf. pp. 771-806). The most famous of those trials, held in July 1798, was that of the most influential of the radical booksellers, Joseph Johnson, who was found guilty and sent to prison for having sold copies of the pamphlet by the Revd Gilbert Wakefield, against the interference of Great Britain with the French Revolution (cf. Timperley, p. 798; Tyson, pp. 135-75). Johnson's journal had to cease publication. In April 1799, moreover, a new law was approved 'for more effectual suppression of societies established for seditious and treasonable purposes, and for better preventing treasonable and seditious practices', which contained numerous clauses directed against printers and booksellers. These clauses remained substantially in force until the end of Castlereagh's administration in December 1819 (cf. Timperley, pp. 800-1).

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7.1

The conservative attack on liberal cultural supremacy

In those years the policy of the groups in power was not purely and simply the repression of the radical press from the final years of the century, they tried also to smash the cultural supremacy which those of liberal and democratic inclinations had wielded for so long. The main conservative arm of attack was a journal, supported financially by Pitt's government, The AntiJacobin Review and Magazine, which began publication in July 1798 following a brief but very successful experiment, between 1797 and 1798, as a weekly journal of political satire {The Anti-Jacobin, or Weekly Examiner). The journal, which consisted mostly of reviews, but also had articles, engravings and caricatures, entered forcefully the ranks of English culture of the time (cf. Roper, pp. 181-3; Tyson, pp. 166-70; Sullivan, II, pp. 12-21; de Montluzin, especially pp. 2 52, 199-200). As far as philosophy was concerned, the periodical played an essential role in the spreading of a generalized attitude of prejudiced narrow-mindedness, of suspicion and of strong hostility towards German philosophy, bringing about a real change of direction at the level of public opinion compared with the attitude of the previous decade. The journal was a mouthpiece for the extreme conservative opinions of the most reactionary section of the English governing class at that time, which saw German culture, not without some justification, as a vehicle for the diffusion of revolutionary ideas and regarded Kantian philosophy as having been the starting point for new cultural developments in the field of philosophy and religion. Unlike the other conservative periodical, The British Critic which was linked to traditional models, the new journal was characterized by the

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extreme harshness of its attacks and by the continual use of sarcasm and scorn. However, the fierceness of the attack was also the reason for its success. 7.1.1 German philosophy and Jacobinism The new journal, from its very first issues, attacked German culture en bloc, considering it as a means of diffusing Jacobin, republican and radical ideas, and as a cause of immorality and irreligion. The situation in Germany, and especially in the universities and among young people, was described in sombre tones. In particular, the journal denounced the situation that had come about in Jena and, in fact, the reference was not out of place, in as much as the University of Jena had become the centre for the spread of Kantianism first through Reinhold and then, especially, through Fichte: in some of the Universities not a single professor is to be found who dares admit the existence of a God . . . The Elector of Saxony has lately been obliged to suppress a periodical publication, written by [a] professor [of] Jena, entitled the Philosophical Journal in which atheism was openly recommended . . . There are a great number of almanacks printed in Germany, which are used as instruments for the propagation of revolutionary maxims, among all descriptions of people {Antijac, I, December 1798, pp. 729-31). In the Preface to Volume IV published in the issue of December 1799 the importing of books and journals was condemned and a wish was expressed that this traffic should be forbidden by law {Antijac, IV, p. vii). In the same article the situation in the German universities was spoken of again, and the new philosophy was held responsible for the moral, religious and political crisis which now prevailed there:

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in the Universities, the paths of the true science are forsaken for the labyrinths of the new philosophy, which has become the primary object of study. That species of false metaphysics which has been attended with such wonderful consequences in Republican France, . . . in eradicating from the public mind every principle of religion and morality, is here cultivated with the same industry, and evidently in the hope of producing the same effect {Antijac, IV, p. viii). The accusation examined closely both the fact that the new philosophy had become, in particular at Jena, the principal area of study, extending its influence to all the other faculties, and also the content of the new philosophy, to define which a new term, 'philosophism', was coined: the University of Jena . . . contains from two to three hundred students, who are, almost to a man, republicans . . . they are all formed into secret clubs, which are the scenes of perpetual boils, riots, and disorders. Some of the liberal minded Professors of this University . . ., aiming at originality, have invented new principles of science. At the head of these, preeminent in infamy, stands Furchte [sic], professor of philosophy, or, rather of philosophism. The notable discoveries of this enlightened man may be reduced to the three leading principles: 1. that there is no God, but that we have been led from prejudice or ignorance, to give this most absurd title to - the Relations of Nature; 2. that a sense of duty is (and ought to be) the only rule of conduct consistent with human dignity; that each individual man stands single and unconnected in the world, without any tie to bind him to others; that he must act only from a sense of duty without a thought of his fellow-men, without the

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expectation of reward present or future; that immortality is, on no account, to be believed, as such belief would tend to destroy the source of all virtue; but that, although the soul be material, the relations of nature may continue after what is called death; 3. that civil society is in a progressive state of improvement; that each individual (especially the illuminati or enlightened) is promoting its improvement; and that every Government in the world is favouring and contributing to its own dissolution, since the time is fast approaching, and will infallibly arrive, when man and nature will be perfect in all their relations, and the former will be able to live without Government, without laws, and without submission (Antijac, IV, pp. viii-ix). It seems that the author of this and of the other passages quoted was the editor of the journal, John Gifford, himself, but the information about German philosophy must have come to him from James Walker, who was then at Weimar, for reasons which will be given below. The doctrines listed in the passage were attributed to Fichte but could equally well have referred to Kant, and in other texts, as will be seen, they were. However, in Germany itself, not only public opinion but also philosophers such as Herder at that period did not make a distinction between Kant and Fichte. In the text quoted the arguments already used against Kantian ethics were repeated; the same could be said about the criticism of the idea of the necessary progress of civil society, a recurrent theme in controversy against Kant. At that very time, that is the months at the turn of 1799-1800, a bitter dispute had developed between Abbe Barruel, a French refugee, and Willich about the political doctrine and the related conception of man which should be

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attributed to Kant on the basis of the Idea, a text which was quite well known because it was available in a French translation. In the final volume of his history of Jacobinism, which had just been translated into English, Barruel had taken some quotations from the Idea and used them to show that Kant said that there was no personal immortality of the soul, that history proceeds inevitably towards a world federation of the nations in which the final purpose of the human species would be attained; that the attainment of this end would have as its result a perfect harmony between the rational capacities of man and nature, such as would signify, on the political level, the end of the state and of authority, and, in so far as it affected man, such a perfecting of his own nature as would represent a sort of deification (cf. Barruel, Memoirs, pp. 523-8). The dispute between Willich and Barruel, which had as its object not so much the exegesis of a passage from Kant but rather his presumed atheism and Jacobinism, received much space in many journals throughout the first half of 1800 (BritMag, I, pp. 34-6, 125-7; EuropMag, XXXVII, pp. 3 1 5, 284-5, 363-4; MonthMag, IX, p. 104; GerMus, I, pp. 57, 353-9). In the journals of reviews, similar opinions were circulated, thanks also to the debate on another work about German culture, published anonymously but attributed to Abbe Barruel (Barruel, Lettres, pp. 52-9; cf. Antijac, III, 1799, pp. 550-7; BritCrit, XIV, 1799, pp. 53-5). These same doctrines about God, about the principle of morality, and about political progress, were attributed to Kant and the Kantians in two letters, particularly in the second (Antijac, V, August 1800, p. 570), which were published with the title 'The literati and literature of Germany' in The Anti-Jacobin Review between April and August 1800 (Antijac, V, pp. 568-80; VI, pp. 562-80;

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cf. also V, pp. 348-50; VI, pp. 342-9; VII, pp. 504-8), when the offensive against German culture reached the highest point of bitterness and violence. From the manuscript note on the copy of the journal in the British Library it is clear that the author of these letters, who signed himself 'an honest Briton' was actually James Walker, an important figure in the Scottish Episcopal Church (cf. de Montluzin, pp. 157-8), collaborator of George Gleig on the third edition of the Encyclopaedia Britannica. The almost word-for-word correspondence between the passage quoted above and Walker's text forces one to the conclusion that in the first case also it was Walker who provided Gifford with the material about German philosophy. In the second of these letters, Walker took up again the old point of disagreement with Kant which, in a different form, had already been argued by Herder (Ak., VIII, p. 61). His starting point was the conclusion of the third proposition of the Idea where Kant maintained that the complete development of the natural capacities in man is not granted to the individual but is the destiny of the species 'as a class of rational beings each of whom dies while the species is immortal' (Ak., VIII, p. 20). To Walker this signified the attribution to humanity understood as a whole of a primacy over separate individuals which could be used to justify every sort of arbitrary action. Modern 'philanthropists', said Walker, maintained that in the progressive perfectionment of man, nature, forgetful of the individual, attends only the species that individuals perish, but species continues, and, of consequence that true philosophy comprises the whole species, compared to which a few individuals go for nothing. Thus Robespierre was a philanthropist and laboured for the good of the species, to which the

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insulated individuals, whom he murdered for the good of the whole, bear no kind of proportion. This position has been seriously maintained by a German philosophist {Antijac, VI, p. 572). But that was not all: some of these doctrines, formulated in almost the same terms, were attributed to Kant in the second part of the article 'Critical Philosophy' published in the Supplements to the third edition of the Encyclopaedia Britannica {SuppEB, pp. 353-9). The first part of the article had already been published in the March 1800 issue of The Anti-Jacobin Review (V, pp. 339-47) and from the copy of the journal in the British Library it can be seen that it was the work of a French emigre^ Jean Joseph Mounier. On the other hand, the annotations and the second part of the article {SuppEB, II, pp. 353, 357-9) were the work of Walker, who repeated, though in a more muted form, the opinions of Kant which had already been expressed in the journal. What we find here is a veritable press campaign. Between the end of 1799 and the early months of 1801 it projected a particular image of Kantian philosophy, always the same one, picking out certain themes with obsessive insistence - irreligion, individualism and subjectivism in morality, Jacobinism and a sort of eschatologicalism in politics. This image was offered on several occasions in The Anti-Jacobin Review, in the majority of journals, thanks to the controversy between Willich and Barruel and the reviews of Barruel's books, and finally in the Encyclopaedia Britannica itself, and it was then taken up again in the reviews of the latter publication (cf. BritCrit, XVIII, 1801, p. 271; Antijac VII, 1800, p. 508). 7.1.2 German philosophy and the English Jacobins A further purpose of the denunciation of the devastating effects of Kantian philosophy on university teaching and

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on young people in Walker's two letters, was to undermine the picture which the English general public had of the admirers of German culture and to put an end to the criticism directed towards the universities of Oxford and Cambridge. Walker observed that among the English Jacobins 'it has been more than insinuated that learning and virtue are only to be acquired in Dissenting Academies or German Universities' {Antijac, VI, p. 568). Nothing could be more untrue. The English students whom he had met in Germany, for example at Gottingen, had all been transformed into enthusiastic admirers of the new German metaphysics and had totally lost every sense of delicacy, every notion of morality and religion, and every emotion of patriotism . . . there is nothing more certain than that a German University is in every possible respect the worst school for Englishmen (Antijac, VI, p. 574; cf. also p. 570). According to Walker, educational visits to Germany were often a cover for contacts between English and German Jacobins {Antijac, VI, p. 373). On this point he referred explicitly to the journey of Coleridge and Wordsworth in Germany. He did not mention the two by name and attributed to Wordsworth some episodes which, on the contrary, concerned Southey, but the references must have been clear to the reader. He spoke of 'two gentlemen, formerly well known at Cambridge', who had earlier thought of founding a community in America, putting their philosophy into practice; and here he mentioned the choice of the women who were to follow the group and the fact that 'those women should be common to the whole'. After the failure of the project of a journey to America, two of these gentlemen, who were . . . the projectors

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of this admirable colony for America, and who are writers for The Morning Chronicle, and other publications of Jacobinal notoriety, came afterwards to Germany, to enable themselves, by acquiring the language and philosophy of this favoured country, to enlighten more completely the ignorant people of England {Antijac, VI, p. 574). To Walker, Coleridge and Wordsworth were examples of the young men of England who had surrendered to the fascination of Germany - immoral, radical, Jacobin, and followers of the new German philosophy. The journal had on other occasions also attacked Coleridge who was then close to radical circles {AntiJacW, 9 July 1798, No. 36). A reference had already been made to Coleridge's journey to Gottingen in December 1799, in the Preface to the first volume: one [Coleridge] of the associates of the twin-bards . . . was, not long since, at the University of Gottingen, where he has passed a considerable time with another Englishman [Wordsworth], ejusdem farinae, for the express purpose of becoming an adept in the mysteries of philosophism, and of qualifying himself for the task of translating such of the favourite productions of the German school as are the best calculated to facilitate the eradication of British prejudices (Antijac, IV, p. xiii). The attack on Coleridge was part of the general plan of the journal, among whose objectives was the denigration of radical intellectuals in the eyes of English public opinion. One argument which they made use of was the denunciation of their relations with the German universities and their sympathy with the new Kantian and idealistic philosophy, even though in Coleridge's case, at

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least at that period, his interest in Germany was more literary than philosophical and had more to do with Goethe, Lessing and Schiller than with Kant and Fichte (cf. Winkelmann, pp. 34-40; Chinol, pp. 25-8; Deschamps, pp. 455-8; Orsini, pp. 43-7). 7.2

The anti-German reaction in England and Herder's attack on Kantianism at Jena

The accusations directed towards the new German philosophy, identified with Kantianism, although formulated in a crude way which seems astonishing to the modern reader were not entirely unfounded and can be explained if one looks at the cultural climate in Germany, in particular at Jena, at that precise moment, of which The Anti-Jacobin Review was the certainly very partial but not wholly unfaithful interpreter. The conquest of the university of Jena by the Kantians, which had made it, first with Reinhold and then with Fichte, a powerful centre for the diffusion of the new philosophy, did in fact have disturbing results. From 1787 onwards Herder had refrained from commenting on Kant's philosophy, but from Weimar he had followed the effects on the young men of Fichte's teaching at Jena with increasing concern until he decided to intervene in 1799. The Metakritik was born in this cultural climate, as Caroline Herder recalled to Miiller, when 'the new philosophy, at least at Jena, dominated all the other faculties, and no professor dared to teach any more without using the terminology of philosophy', and the moral and religious crisis had reached its climax when Fichte had pronounced 'in funf Jahren ist keine christliche Religion mehr!' (von Miiller, p. 259; cf. also p. 194). At the end of August 1799 Kant himself intervened, publicly disowning Fichte's interpretation of critical philosophy (Ak., XII, pp. 370-1; ALZ, IntBl,

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28 August 1799, No. 109, col. 876-8): But the general public did not make 'any distinction between Kant's doctrine as taught in the Critiques and the doctrine preached by Fichte in Jena'; not even Herder distinguished between Kant and Fichte, and when he did decide to intervene his attack was made 'on what he regarded as the source of Fichte's philosophy, namely, the first Critique of Kant'. Metakritik, published in 1799, was followed in the following year by Kalligone, a metacritique of the third Critique (Clark, p. 396; cf. also Verra, pp. 157-60). Thus the picture of Kantianism spread by The AntiJacobin Review, in particular through Walker's writings, should not cause too much surprise. The interpretation of Kantian philosophy spread by Reinhold in the Briefe, the flaring up of controversy over Fichte's atheism, the cultural and political climate of Jena at that particular moment - all of this explains the origin of this picture. At that period Walker was at Weimar and he must have had ways of observing from there the heated situation at Jena and of knowing Herder's reactions. Many of his arguments, although in a rough and imprecise form, took up the ideas of Herder himself and of the circles close to him. 7.3

The consequences of the reaction against German culture

The campaign against German culture, of which The Anti-Jacobin Review had been the principal though not the only weapon, achieved immediate results. The liberal and radical dominance of culture which had been absolute in the previous decade began to decline rapidly. Two journals, The English Review and The Analytical Review, first amalgamated and then suspended publication. The other periodicals quickly changed their cultural

Early Reception in England 1785-1805 297 stance; The Critical Review, The Monthly Review, and The Monthly Mirror became more cautious in their opinions and the attention given to literature produced in Germany diminished rapidly (cf. Morgan-Hohlfeld, pp. 42-9). Interest in Kant and in German philosophy gradually declined, while Herder achieved some success in England: his Metakritik and Kalligone were favourably reviewed (cf. MonthMag, IX, 1800, p. 671, and X, 1800, p. 617; BritCrit, XVI, 1800, pp. 460-1) and in 1800 his Ideen were translated into English, with a second edition in 1803 (cf. CritRev, XXX, 1800, pp. 1-10, 169-75; BritCrit, XXI, 1803, pp. 154-9; MonthRev, XLI, 1803, pp. 403-20; Antijac, XVIII, 1804, pp. 402-16, and XIX, 1804, pp. 82-96, 491504; ScotsMag, LXII, 1800, p. 114). In 1801, under the title of Oriental Dialogues, part of the work Vom Geist der Ebrdischen Poesie was translated {Antijac, XIV, 1803, pp. 353-63); the text influenced many English and American theologians (cf. Clark, p. 295; however, he is unaware of the existence of the translation). In addition to Herder, Jacobi and his anti-idealistic polemic left their mark on the journals of the period. This was a matter of exceptions which confirmed the more general direction. The mainstream of German philosophical culture, which went from Kant to postKantian idealism, no longer found space in the English philosophical debate of the time, and when it was discussed it was only to be condemned en bloc. 7.3.1

Opinions about the idealistic developments of Kantian philosophy The only periodical which unwaveringly maintained a radical position on politics and dissident positions on religion, while at the same time being successful with the public, was The Monthly Magazine. But the continuity

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of its editorial line was more evident in the field of politics and religion than in that of philosophy and literature. Unlike most of the other periodicals, it continued to give notice of works which referred to Kant and to the debate on Kantianism and it was among the few periodicals to announce Kant's death immediately {MonthMag, XVII, 1804, p. 403; Litjourn, III, 1804, p. 446) and to commemorate him with an article {MonthMag, XIX, 1805, pp. 354-61; EuropMag, XLVIII, 1805, pp. 2578). But opinion about Kantianism and, above all, about its developments became ever more critical. In December 1802 a negative picture of the idealistic outcome of Kantian philosophy in Germany was presented: The doctrine of . . . Kant had occasioned a general revolution in the reigning ideas. A German has called philosophy the chemistry of reason. If this definition be correct, Kant's critical method of philosophy may almost be considered as the great universal menstruum, which has not yet been found out by the experiments of physical chemistry. The systems of his predecessors . . . vanished before the irresistible force of his conclusions. The unavoidable consequence of this was a general anarchy and confusion . . . Kant himself, when he had grown old, seemed terrified at the effects of his doctrines . . . Kant's former scholars applied his principles to the probation of his own system; and it could not stand the test. His authority now vanished; and a host of younger literati . . . hatched systems of their own, several of which, as, for instance, that of a certain Fichte, and that of a certain Schelling, taught the most absurd idealism . . . Unfortunately they were seated in the professoral chairs of the Universities. Hundreds of youths . . . adopted the most ridiculous opinions as the revelations of profound

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wisdom . . . What they had learned while attending the idealistical lectures, they applied to the other sciences; and Germany suddenly had to witness the equally scandalous and ridiculous farce - a troop of beardless boys schooling the men - and asserting, with the greatest confidence, that whatever had hitherto been done in any of the sciences (the mathematics only excepted) was nothing but wretched patchwork: they would first introduce sense and order {MonthMag, XIV, pp. 646-7). The journal continued to give information about developments in German philosophy in its twice-yearly review of the state of literature in the various European countries, but the space allotted to philosophy became more and more curtailed. In June 1803 the author of the article once again began the review with the works published in the field of philosophy, because, in exhibiting a view of the branches of German literature, we shall be obliged to presuppose a knowledge of the philosophical department. The reform proposed by Kant . . . had given so powerful a charm of novelty to the study of philosophy and metaphysics, that even the friends of the positive sciences, especially Divinity and Jurisprudence, . . . transfused much from it into their writings. The same thing happened with respect to Fichte's system . . . Schelling . . . invented a new system, which he calls the philosophy of nature, emanating indeed from the doctrine of Kant, considerably extended by flights of the imagination. This philosophy of nature was adopted by the Brunonian [sc. the followers of the Scottish physician John Brown] sect of physicians, who endeavoured to engraft upon it the hypothesis of their master . . . The influence of the new philosophy, on

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the manner of treating all the other branches of science, becomes daily more visible, in proportion as these speculative studies become more fashionable at the German universities (MonthMag, XV, pp. 667-8). But the influence of metaphysics on the positive sciences could not be appreciated by the English reader. The introduction of the predominance of the new philosophy into all the faculties had been one of the accusations levelled at the Kantianism of Jena both by Walker and by the circles close to Herder. In subsequent years the reviews ceased to appear regularly; they became briefer and the part dedicated to philosophy became purely informative, often being reduced to mere lists of titles {MonthMag XVII, June 1804, pp. 669-71; XVIII, December 1804, pp. 624-5; XXI, June 1806, p. 650). The idealistic developments of German philosophy were no longer followed by English literary journals. 7.3.2

Kant between idealism and fideism: Jacobi as interpreter of Kantianism In October 1804 an article was published in Phillips' journal 'On the present state of philosophy in Germany' {MonthMag, XVIII, pp. 204-8). It deserves to be noted as an example of the inversion of the trend then current by which, while there was no lack of interest in German philosophy, attention was directed to the enemies of Kant and of idealism, for example to Herder who has already been mentioned, or even to Jacobi who more than any other German thinker could be linked with the Scottish philosophical tradition (on the relation between Jacobi and Scottish philosophy, cf. Kuehn, pp. 51-2, 158-66, 242-3). The author of the article, who signed himself M.G. Schweighauser (in reality Jean-Geoffroy Schweighauser, afterwards Professor of Greek at Strasbourg), presented a

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well-constructed picture of the development of German philosophy from Kant to the idealists; the article was to be used again about twenty years later by Stewart (cf. Stewart, p. 420). The article is also notable because it was the first English text in which the name of Hegel appeared, describing him as being a close collaborator of Schelling. The author began his exposition with reference to Hume who, he said, had proved that the principle of Locke's philosophy, 'taken in the strictest sense, led to universal scepticism'. The proposition was common to both the Scots and Jacobi: both considered that the philosophy of ideas, in the Lockian sense of the third term between the understanding subject and things to be understood, was the cause of Hume's scepticism. Kant had been induced by Hume's writings to attempt 'a reformation in philosophy', but the author thought that he should have posed the problem in terms of immediate certainty. In this case the author expressed an opinion of Jacobi's which approached the propositions of the Scots: I think he [Kant] ought rather to have suited himself to human imbecility, and to have been contented to follow, with the eye of an observer, that kind of reaction, which the understanding produces on the sensations, to convert them into ideas, instead of soaring beyond it in a manner which appears to me to have led his successors astray (MonthMag, XVIII, p. 204). The author did not go any further in his discussion of Kant's theoretical philosophy; his general judgement repeated that formulated by Jacobi: his works on speculative philosophy are a mixture of scepticism and dogmatism, clouded with great obscurity, and containing many inconsistencies and even contradictions, as has lately been proved by

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Jacobi, one of the most ingenious German writers {MonthMag, XVIII, p. 205). His opinion of Kantian ethics was much more positive: he interpreted them in terms of an ethic founded on the appearance of moral sentiment in the conscience as the only principle of action: it was a sublime spectacle in an age debased by materialism and immorality, to behold a moral system established upon a basis placed by the Creator in every mind, and acknowledged by the most distinguished philosophers of antiquity, on a profound and powerful sentiment which admits of no comparison with any other, of no accommodation with base and material interests. It was worthy of Kant to discover that sentiment in his heart, not as a vague, obscure instinct, but as an absolute and invincible command {MonthMag, XVIII, p. 205). The author believed that Kant recognized in the moral sentiment something that was of like nature to man, a moral consciousness which was validated immediately, without demonstrations, simply through its own existence. He derived this interpretation of Kantian ethics from Jacobi, but the English reader could easily see in it very close analogies with the moral theories of the Scots. Traces of Jacobi's polemic against any rationalistic and formalistic conception of man could be found in the critical observations which concluded the examination of Kantian ethics: unfortunately even this part of Kant's works contains some obscurities, and is embarrassed with too subtle disquisitions, which destroy a portion of the enthusiasm inspired by his principles, and appear capable of being reduced to formulae which men of inferior

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talents have actually substituted in their minds, instead of the sentiments with which this doctrine ought to inflame their hearts {MonthMag, XVIII, p. 205). Kant's ambiguities and contradictions were the reason why German philosophy developed in the direction of Fichte's speculative 'egoism' and Schelling's naturalism; this too was a proposition of Jacobi's. The author set out first the doctrines of Fichte, quoting passages from his Wissenschaftslehre on the dialectic of Ego and non-Ego, and then those of Schelling, whose system was described in terms of a type of Spinozism combined with Fichte's idealism {MonthMag, XVIII, pp. 206-7). The text is important because it presented, for the first time, a succinct exposition of the systems of Fichte and Schelling. Up to that time the English reader had had only fragmentary information, conditioned by the raging political and religious argument, about them. The article concluded with an exposition of the thought of Jacobi, who from the very infancy of Kantism, foresaw the effect it would produce on the minds of its adherents, and sought to give them a better direction by ideas entirely contrary to those of the prevailing sect . . . Jacobi places at the head of his doctrine a personal, intelligent, and remunerating Deity. He thinks that this Deity has not given us the torch of reason and the compass of the hearth for no purpose . . . that we ought to resign ourselves with confidence to the means which are given us of acquiring knowledge, to the sentiments with which we are inspired for developing our moral and intellectual nature, and that we run the risk of destroying every thing by wishing to explain every thing . . . Every demonstration must go back to

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some axiom, to some primitive fact which serves for its basis, and which is itself incapable of demonstration, otherwise we must ascend to infinity without ever being able to flatter ourselves that we should arrive at a point that would remove our doubts. These axioms, these facts are given us, according to Jacobi, for external objects, by our senses and our reason, for moral truths, by our internal sentiments, by our conscience, and our moral nature . . . He maintains that the most important truths, those which establish the moral liberty of man, the reality of an immaterial and immortal principle, the existence of a God . . . are not to be proved, but that they are felt, and are revealed by the heart {MonthMag, XVIII, pp. 297-8). Unfortunately, the author concluded, the cultural climate in Germany was not favourable to Jacobi's thought; in Germany people demanded 'a dogmatic philosophy . . . upon which the professors of philosophy may comment in their lectures'. The text is of interest because, by means of Jacobi's criticism of the ambiguity of Kant's philosophy, from which later idealistic developments derived, it suggested an interpretation of Kant which was not idealistic, but was religious and fideistic, and which was comparable to some doctrines of the Scots, anticipating in some ways the work which Mansel was to accomplish at Oxford half a century later.

8 Conclusion But in England the times were unfavourable, not only to the idealistic development of Kantianism, but even to other possible interpretations of Kant. There was very little mention of Kant after the violent controversy about German philosophy and Jacobinism apart from the articles mentioned above. The German Museum, a

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periodical which came out with the intention of making German culture known to the educated English public, was obliged to cease publication after a year and a half, in June 1801 (cf. Morgan-Hohlfeld, pp. 43, 47-8). However, the journal is worth noting for having reviewed Kant's Anthropologie {GerMus, I, 1800, pp. 57-9, 145-8, 437-9) and for having provided a translation of the Idea {GerMus, II, pp. 584-97) and a summary of Kantian philosophy {GerMus, II, pp. 22430). Because of this it was harshly attacked by the conservative journals (cf. Antijac, V, March 1800, pp. 348-50; VII, December 1800, pp. 507-8). Between August 1802 and April 1803 three Letters on the philosophy of Kant, by Henry Crabb Robinson, were published {MonthReg, I, pp. 411-16; II, pp. 6-12, 4858; cf. Wellek, pp 139-59; Behler, pp. 289-305). Kant was mentioned in the reviews of Degerando's Histoire comparee (CritRev, 3rd Series, August 1804, pp. 55971; MonthRev, XLIV, August 1804, pp. 520-5; AntiJac, XIX, December 1804, pp. 453-7), and later on the occasion of his death. The rapid decline of interest in Kant explains the paucity of texts about Kant in England at that period. The volumes written by Nitsch and Willich, used again by Belsham (p. iv), were very soon forgotten. A few rare copies of Charles Villers' work on Kant of 1801 were in circulation. The book, which was reviewed in Scotland by Thomas Brown (EdinbRev, I, February 1803, pp. 253-80), was hardly noticed by the English journals, where there was only one reference, and that not to the book but to Brown's review {Antijac, XVI, 1803, p. 521) which may have been the source from which William Drummond acquired his knowledge of Kant (Drummond, pp. 351-81; cf. Wellek, pp. 38-40). Degerando's Histoire comparee had a wider circulation.

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Again in 1821 Dugald Stewart, in order to give an exposition of Kant's philosophy in the second part of his Dissertation, depended on Born's Latin translation of Kant's works, on Reinhold's Latin translation of Versuch, on Buhle's history of philosophy translated into French, and above all on Degerando's Histoire (Stewart, pp. 389-417), The climate of aversion towards Kant's philosophy, which in the brief period from 1798 to 1802 assumed, as has been mentioned, a particularly harsh tone, can explain the puzzling fate of the English translation of Kant. This has been clarified for the first time and exhaustively by Wellek, to whose pages we refer (pp. 1618, 269) adding here some additional information. Between 1798 and 1799 as many as nineteen of Kant's writings were published in London in two volumes of Essays and Treatises. Among them were Grundlegung, Religion, all the essays on the philosophy of history and the minor writings on political philosophy. Again, in 1799, the Metaphysik der Sitten was translated into English. The author of the translations, which appeared anonymously, was that John Richardson who has been spoken of above; the translations are still considered to be good today and there is a mention of Richardson's work in Kant's correspondence (Ak., XII, pp. 160-1, 196-8, 245-6; cf. also XIII, pp. 482-3). Although the texts were published in London, they were actually printed in Altenburg in Saxony where Richardson lived, and very few copies could have reached England because of the war. The translation remained almost completely unknown. A mere reference, and that only to the first volume of the Essays, was published in the June 1798 issue of The Monthly Magazine (VII, p. 393), after which there was absolute silence. During the nineteenth century hardly a trace of Richardson's translations can be found. Wirgman

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in 1812 mentioned The Metaphysic of Morals and the first volume of the Essays {EncLond, XI, p. 629); Semple and Meiklejohn, in their translations of Kant of 1836 and 1855 respectively, mentioned the Essays in vague terms, but not the Metaphysic of Morals. Adickes also, while attributing the authorship of the translations to Richardson, was vague in his information (Adickes, No. 2294). In this century both Duncan (pp. 253-7) and Morgan (p. 257) have attributed the translations to Willich. After 1806 the name of Kant was hardly any more to be found in English periodicals, a sign of a lack of interest which was by now general and of the distance of German philosophy from the cultural debate of the time. The period of the first reception of Kant's thought in England was by this time definitively closed. In order to be able to speak of an effective revival of interest in Kant's philosophy one has to wait for more than twenty years. In the interval between the two periods, apart from Coleridge's solitary meditation, there was almost nothing about Kant in England. The small amount of material (the references to Kant in the reviews of Mme de Stael's essay De I'Alemagne or Thomas Wirgman's articles for the Encyclopaedia Londinensis) has been studied most exhaustively by Wellek (pp. 139-242). A renewal of interest in Kant was announced timidly with the translations of the Prolegomena and of the Logik in 1819, and then with de Quincey's articles and his translation in 1824 of Idea (LondMag, X, pp. 38593), a text of Kant's which had already been twice published in English twenty-five years before but which by 1824 had been completely forgotten. In fact, the new season for Kantianism in England was being prepared at Cambridge where William Whewell was starting his career as historian and philosopher of science, while in

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Scotland William Hamilton was putting into place the presuppositions for using elements of Kant's thought for Christian apologetics, which was to be the work of Mansel at Oxford.

Bibliography Abbreviations used within the text are placed at the end of each entry. Primary sources 1. English periodicals The Analytical Review; or, History of Literature . . ., Volumes 1-28, May 1788-December 1798, Thomas Christie, Joseph Johnson (eds), London [AnalytRev]. The Anti-Jacobin, or Weekly Examiner, No. 1-36, November 1797July 1798, W. Gifford (ed.), London [AntiJacW]. The Anti-Jacobin Review and Magazine, Volumes 1-35, July 1798April 1810, John Gifford (=John R. Greene) (ed.), London [Antijac]. The British Critic, Volumes 1-42, May 1793-December 1813, Robert Nares and William Below (eds), London [BritCrit]. The British Magazine, Volumes 1-2, January 1800-January 1802, London [BritMag]. The Critical Review; or, Annals of Literature, Series 2, Volumes 1-39, January 1791-December 1803; Series 3, Volumes 1-24, January 1804-December 1811, eds George Gregory [1791-1799], John M. Good [1799-1803] [CritRev]. The Edinburgh Magazine, or a Literary Miscellany, New Series, Volumes 1-22, January 1793-December 1803, Robert Anderson (ed.), Edinburgh [EdinbMag]. The Edinburgh Review, or Critical Journal, Volumes 1-44, October 1802-October 1826, Francis Jeffrey (ed.), Edinburgh [EdinbRev]. The English Review; or An Abstract of English and Foreign Literature, Volumes 1-28, January 1783-December 1796, London [EnglRev]. The European Magazine and London Review, Volumes 1-87, 17821825, Edward Dubois (ed.), London [EuropMag],

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The Gentleman's Magazine, Volumes 1-103, January 1731December 1833, ed. John Nichols [1792-1826], London [GentMag]. The German Museum, or, Monthly Repository of Literature of Germany, the North, and the Continent in general, Volumes 1-3, January 1800-June 1801, London [GerMus]. The Literary Journal, or review of literature, science, manners, politics, Volumes 1-5, January 1803-December 1805; 2nd Series, Volumes 1-2, January-December 1806, James Mill (ed.), London [Litjourn]. The London Magazine, Series 1, Volumes 1-10, London 1820-4 [LondMag]. The Monthly Magazine and British Register, Volumes 1-60, February 1796-January 1826, publisher Richard Phillips, London [Month Mag]. The Monthly Mirror, Volumes 1-22, November 1795-December 1806, London [MonthMir]. The Monthly Register and Encyclopedian Magazine, Volumes 1-3, 1802-3, London [MonthReg]. The Monthly Review, Series 2, Volumes 1-108, January 1790November 1825, eds Ralph Griffiths [1749-1803], Edward Griffiths [1803-25], London [MonthRev]. The New London Review; or, Monthly report of authors and books, Volumes 1-3, 1799-1800, London [NLondRev]. The Political Magazine, Volumes 1-21, 1780-91, London [PolMag].

The Quarterly Review, Volumes 1-61, February 1809-April 1824, William Gifford (ed.), London [QuartRev]. The Scots Magazine, 2nd and 3rd Series, Volumes 56-79, January 1794-July 1817, Edinburgh [ScotsMag].

2. German periodicals Allgemeine Literatur-Zeitung, 1785-1803, Jena und Leipzig [ALZ]. Intelligenzblatt der Allgemeinen Literatur-Zeitung [ALZ. IntBl]. Neue Allgemeine Deutsche Bibliothek, Bde 1-107, 1793-1806, Berlin und Stettin [NADB]. Intelligenzblatt der Neuen Allgemeinen Deutschen Bibliothek [NADB, IntBl].

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3. Other works [Anonymous], Kantische Philosophie in England [without mention of the publisher], London [but published in Germany] 1797 (on Nitsch). Barruel, Augustine, Abbe, Memoirs, illustrating the History of Jacobinism. A translation from the French of the Abbe Barruel, Part IV-Vol. IV: Antisocial Conspiracy, Historical Part, London, printed for the Author, by T. Burton and sold by E. Booker, 1798 [Barruel, Memoirs]. Barruel, Augustine, Abbe, Lettres d'un voyageur a I'Abbe Barruel, A. Dulan et L. Nardini, London 1800 [Barruel, Lettres]. Beddoes, Thomas, Observations on the Nature of Demonstrative Evidence; with an Explanation of Certain Difficulties occurring in the Elements of Geometry, and Reflections on Language, London, printed for J. Johnson, 1793 (reprinted by Thoemmes Antiquarian Books: Bristol, 1990) [Beddoes, Observations]. Belsham, Thomas, Elements of the Philosophy of the Mind, and of Moral Philosophy. To which is prefixed a Compendium of Logic, London, printed for J. Johnson, 1801 [Belsham]. Drummond, William, Academical Questions, Vol. 1, London, printed by W. Buhmet and Co.; and sold by Cadell and Davis, 1805 [Drummond]. Encyclopaedia Londinensis, or Universal Dictionary of Arts, Sciences, and Literature, compiled, digested, and arranged, by John Wilkes, Vol. XI, 1812, pp. 603-29 (Kant), Vol. XIII, 1815, pp. 1-31 (Logic), Vol. XV, 1817, pp. 198-240 (Metaphysics), pp. 763-83 (Moral Philosophy) [EncLond]. Jacobi, Friedrich Heinrich, Werke, 6 Bde, Fleischer, Leipzig 1812-24 [Jacobi]. Kant, Immanuel, Project for a Perpetual Peace. A philosophical Essay by Emanuel Kant, Professor of Philosophy at Koenigsberg. Translated from the German, London, printed by Stephen Conchman, 1796. Kant, Immanuel, Essays and Treatises on Moral, Political, and various philosophical Subjects, by E. Kant. From the German by the Translator [Richardson, John] of the Principles of Critical Philosophy, 2 vols, William Richardson, London 1798-9. Kant, Immanuel, The Metaphysic of Morals, divided into Metaphysical Elements of Law and of Ethics, by Immanuel Kant, Member of the Royal Academy of Sciences in Berlin, and Professor

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of the Pure Philosophy in the University of Koenigsberg, from the German by the translator [Richardson, John] of Kant's Essays and Treatises. In two volumes, London, printed for the translator and sold by William Richardson, 1799. Kant, Immanuel, Logic. From the German of E. Kant to which is annexed a sketch of his life and writings, by J. Richardson, Simpkin and Marshall, London 1819. Kant, Immanuel, Prolegomena to every future Metaphysic which can appear as a science. From the German by J. Richardson, Simpkin and Marshall, London 1819. Kant, Immanuel, Kant's gesammelte Schriften, Herausgegeben von der Koniglich Preussischen Akademie der Wissenschaften, Walter de Gruyter, Berlin 1900- [Ak.]. Miiller, Johann von, Briefwechsel mit J.G. Herder und Caroline von Herder, Herausgegeben von K.E. Hoffmann, Meier Verlag, Schaffhausen 1952. Nitsch, Friedrich August, A General and Introductory View of Professor Kant's Principles concerning Man, the 'World, and the Deity, submitted to the consideration of the learned, by F.A. Nitsch, late lecturer of the latin language and mathematics in the Royal Fridericianum College at Koenigsberg, and pupil of Professor Kant, London, printed, and sold by J. Downes, 1796 [Nitsch]. O'Keeffe, J.A., An Essay on the Progress of the Human Understanding, London, printed by V. Griffiths, 1795 [O'Keeffe]. Price, Richard, A Discourse on the hove of our Country, Cadell, London 1789. Reinhold, Karl Leonhard, Briefe iiber die Kantische Philosophie, 2 Bande, Leipzig, by Georg Joachim Goschen, 1790-2 [Reinhold, Briefe]. Reinhold, Karl Leonhard, Versuch einer neuen Theorie des menschlichen Vorstellungsvermogens, Prag und Jena, bey C. Widtmann und I.M. Mauke, 1789 [Reinhold, Versuch]. Reinhold, Karl Leonhard, Beytrdge zur Berichtigung bisheriger Missverstdndnisse der Philosophen, 2 Bde, Jena, bey Johann M. Mauke, 1790-1792 [Reinhold, Beytrdge]. [Richardson, John], The Principles of Critical Philosophy, selected from the Works of Emmanuel Kant . . . and expounded by James Sigismund Beck . . . Translated from the German by an Auditor of the latter, Escher, London 1797. Stewart, Dugald, Dissertation exhibiting a General View of the Progress of Metaphysical, Ethical, and Political Philosophy, since the Revival

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of Letters in Europe, in The Collected Works of D.S., edited by W. Hamilton, Vol. 1, Edinburgh/London 1854 (first published in Supplement to the fourth, fifth, and sixth editions of the Encyclopaedia Britannica with preliminary Dissertations of the History of the Sciences, Edinburgh 1824, Vol. 1, pp. 1-166 [1815], Vol. 5, pp. 1-257 [1821]) [Stewart]. Supplement to the third Edition of the Encyclopaedia Britannica, by Georg Gleig, Vol. II, Edinburgh 1801, (Philosophy, Critical) pp. 353-9 [SuppEB]. Verhandelingen, . . . uitgegeeven door Teylers's Godgeleerd Genootschap, X. Deel, 1790, by Joh. Enschede, Haarlem, pp. 3-55 [Hulshoff]. • Verhandelingen, uitgegeeven door de Hollandsche Maatschappye der Weetenschappen te Haarlem, by C. Plaat en J. Allart, Haarlem, XXVIII. Deel, 1792, pp. 1-50 [Schwab]; pp. 52-174 [Behn]; pp. 177-325 [Jacob], XXX. Deel, 1793, pp. 1-174 [Crash Willich, Anthony Florian Madinger, Elements of the Critical Philosophy, containing a concise account of its origin and tendency; a view of all the works published by its founder, professor Immanuel Kant, and a glossary for the explanation of terms and phrases; to which are added: three philological Essays, chiefly translated from the German of John Christopher Adelung . . ., by A.P.M. Willich, M.D., London, printed for T.N. Longman, 1798 [Willich].

Secondary Sources Adickes, Erich, German Kantian Bibliography [1893-1895], (reprinted, Burt Franklin, New York 1970) [Adickes]. Behler, Ernst, 'Henry Crabb Robinson und Kant. Ein Beitrag zur Kantrezeption innerhalb der europaischen Romantik', Kant-Studien, 77 (1986), pp. 289-315 [Behler]. Chinol, Ennio, // pensiero di S.T. Coleridge (Neri Pozza: Venezia, 1953) [Chinol]. Clark, Robert, Herder. His Life and Thought (University of California Press: Berkeley and Los Angeles, 1955) [Clark]. Deschamps, Paul, La formation de la pensee de Coleridge (1772-1804) (Didier: Paris, 1964) [Deschamps]. Duncan, George M., 'English Translation of Kant's Writings', KantStudien, 2 (1899), pp. 253-8 [Duncan]. Gibbs, F.W., Smeaton, W.A., 'Thomas Beddoes at Oxford', Ambix, 9 (1961), pp. 47-9 [Gibbs-Smeaton].

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Groenewegen, Hermanus Y., 'Der erste Kampf um Kant in Holland', Kant-Studien, 24 (1924), pp. 304-15 [Groenewegen]. Kroner, Richard, Von Kant bis Hegel, 2. Aufl., 2 Bde, J.C.B. Mohr (Tubingen, 1961) [Kroner]. Kuehn, Manfred, Scottish Common Sense in Germany, 1768-1800. A Contribution to the History of Critical Philosophy (McGill-Queen's University Press: Kingston and Montreal, 1987) [Kuehn]. Land, Jean Pieter Nicolaas, 'Philosophy in the Dutch Universities', Mind, 3 (1878), pp. 87-104 [Land]. Levere, Trevor H., 'Dr. Thomas Beddoes at Oxford: Radical Politics in 1788-1793 and the Fate of the Regius Chair in Chemistry', Ambix, 28 (1981), pp. 61-9 [Levere]. Micheli, Giuseppe, Kant storico della filosofia (Antenore: Padova, 1980) [Micheli]. Montluzin, Emily Lorraine de, The Anti-Jacobins 1798-1800. The Early Contributors to the Anti-Jacobin Review (Macmillan: Basingstoke, 1988) [de Montluzin]. Morgan, Bayard Quincy, Hohlfeld, Alexander Rudolph (eds), German Literature in British Magazines 1750-1860, by Walter Roloff for 1750-1810 . . ., with a historical foreword by A.R. Hohlfeld (University of Wisconsin Press: Madison (Wisconsin), 1949) [Morgan-Hohlfeld]. Morgan, Bayard Quincy, A Critical Bibliography of German Literature in English Translation, 1481-1927, 2nd edn (Stanford University Press: Stanford, 1938) [Morgan]. Muirhead, John Henry, 'How Hegel came to England', Mind, 36 (1927), pp. 423-47 [Muirhead, Hegel]. Muirhead, John Henry, Coleridge as Philosopher (Allen and Unwin: London, 1930) [Muirhead, Coleridge]. Orsini, Gian Napoleone, Coleridge and German Idealism. A Study in the History of Philosophy (Southern Illinois University Press: Carbondale, 1969) [Orsini]. Pattison, Mark, 'Philosophy at Oxford', Mind, 1 (1876), pp. 82-97 [Pattison]. Roper, Derek, Reviewing before the Edinburgh, 1788-1802 (Methuen & Co. Ltd: London, 1978) [Roper]. Robbins, Peter, The British Hegelians: 1875-1925 (Garland: New York and London, 1982) [Robbins]. Santinello, Giovanni, (ed.), Storia delle storie generali della filosofia, Vol. 3: II secondo Illuminismo e I'eta kantiana (Antenore: Padova, 1988) [Santinello].

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Sidgwick, Henry, 'Philosophy at Cambridge', Mind, 1 (1876), pp. 235-46 [Sidgwick]. Stuckenberg, John Henry W., The Life of lmtnanuel Kant (Macmillan: London, 1882; reprinted by Thoemmes Antiquarian Books: Bristol, 1990) tStuckenberg]. Sullivan, Alvin (ed.), British Literary Magazines, Vol. 1: The Augustan Age and the Age of Johnson, 1698-1788; Vol. 2: The Romantic Age, 1789-1836 (Greenwood Press: Westport and London, 1983) [Sullivan]. Timperley, Charles Henry, A Dictionary of Printers and Printing, with the Progress of Literature, ancient and modern (H. Johnson: London, 1839) [Timperley]. Tyson, Gerald P., Joseph Johnson: a liberal publisher (University of Iowa Press: Iowa City, 1979) [Tyson]. Verra, Valerio, Dopo Kant. II Criticismo nell'eta preromantica (Edizioni di Filosofia: Torino, 1957) [Verra]. Verra, Valerio, F.H. Jacobi. Dall'llluminismo all'Idealismo (Edizioni di Filosofia: Torino, 1963) [Verra, Jacobi]. Veitch, John, 'Philosophy in the Scottish Universities', Mind, 2 (1877), pp. 74-91, 207-34 [Veitch]. Wellek, Rene, Kant in England: 1793-1838 (Princeton University Press: Princeton, 1931) [Wellek]. Wielema, M.R., 'Die erste niederlandische Kant-Rezeption 17861850', Kant-Studien, 79 (1988), pp. 450-66. Winkelmann, Elisabeth, Coleridge und die Kantische Philosophic. Erste Einwirkungen des deutschen Idealismus in England (Meyer und Miiller: Leipzig, 1933).

HAMILTON'S READING OF KANT: A CHAPTER IN THE EARLY SCOTTISH RECEPTION OF KANT'S THOUGHT Manfred Kuehn

Kant came to England via Scotland - or, perhaps better, the first British philosophers of any significance who discussed Kant's philosophy belonged to the Scottish school of common sense philosophy.1 An investigation of Kant's influence on these philosophers is interesting from a historical point of view, not only for our understanding of Kant's influence but also for the discussion of the later development of Scottish philosophy. Furthermore, Reid is often compared and contrasted with Kant. While there exist clear differences between the Reidian and the Kantian approaches to philosophy, there are also tantalizing similarities. Both thinkers were responding to Hume and both emphasized that our mind is constituted by certain a priori principles, and that all knowledge claims depend upon these. But, whereas Kant developed a theory of 'transcendental idealism', Reid was more concerned with giving expression to a form of 1 This is true, even if the 'Muck Manuscript', published as Mr. Boswell Dines with Professor Kant (The Tragara Press: Edinburgh, 1979) turns out to be less than reliable in its claim that it was James Boswell who set to work as Kant's first translator. (For some pertinent observations, see the review of this work by Rudolf Maker in Kant-Studien, pp. 455-7.)

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'empirical realism'. In accordance with Kantian distinctions, there need not be any contradiction between these two enterprises. Yet, many philosophers have held that they are contradictory. Therefore, a discussion of Kant's effects in Scotland is also interesting from a systematic point of view. An investigation of the first reception of Kantian philosophy in Scotland could perhaps also provide us with suggestions and clues for a more systematic discussion of these two approaches to philosophy. It is for both the historical and the systematic reasons that I am interested in this topic. Sir William Hamilton was the first Scot who knew Kant's work well, and many consider him to be deeply influenced by Kant. As Rene Wellek pointed out in his study of Kant in England, Hamilton was the first philosopher of the Scottish school who genuinely assimilated some of Kant's thoughts and appropriated some of his ideas for his own purposes. . . . in Hamilton . . . we feel the heartbeat of a personality to which Kant's problems are, at least in part, his own vital problems.2 Accordingly, I shall concentrate on his philosophy in this paper. More specifically, I would like to determine whether this traditional way of looking at Hamilton does 2 Rene Wellek, Kant in England, 1793-1838 (Princeton University Press: Princeton, 1931) p. 51. See also p. 62: 'whatever we think of the use which sometimes is made of Kant in Hamilton, we cannot deny that Hamilton was the first academic philosopher who not merely understood some of Kant's central positions, but embodied them into the very fibre of his own thought'. Wellek's book is still the best account of the early period of Kant's influence in England. Still of some interest is J.H. Muirhead's 'How Kant Came to England', Mind, 36 (1927), pp. 423-47, especially at pp. 423-33. Gisela Shaw's Das Problem der Dinge an sick in der englischen Kantinterpretation, Kant-Studien Erganzungshefte, 97, (Cologne, 1969) is also of great interest. See also John Hoaglund, 'The Thing in Itself in English Interpretations of Kant', American Philosophical Quarterly, 10 (1973), pp. 1-14, especially at pp. 1-3.

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justice to his reading of Kant. To this end, I shall first offer a brief historical sketch of the developments leading up to Hamilton, and then give a fuller statement of the traditional view concerning the Kant-Hamilton relation. Secondly, I shall discuss Hamilton's doctrine of the relativity of knowledge, and natural realism. Thirdly, I shall argue that his views were far less influenced by Kant than has traditionally been supposed, and then try to show that its fundamental features are better explained as an influence of a prominent contemporary anti-Kantian philosopher in Germany. Though Hamilton did have intimate knowledge of Kant's texts, and though he referred to Kant in most of his works, his doctrine cannot be said to have been significantly influenced by Kant. Hamilton was much more hostile to Kant than some of his actual pronouncements make it appear, and he was not really interested in 'appropriating' Kant for his own purposes.3 His reading of Kant was at least as distorted as was that of his predecessors because it was deeply influenced by the interpretation and critique of Kant and 1 There are, of course, also philosophical scholars who have resisted the traditional view and who have emphasized the differences between Kant and Hamilton, trying to show that Hamilton's philosophy is more independent of Kant than the common view suggests. Thus Richard Olson argued some time ago that in spite of his 'obvious use of terms borrowed from German philosophy and his interest in certain problems raised by Kant, Hamilton's most fundamental epistemological and methodological views are closely tied to those of his common sense predecessors and that where he diverged most from Common Sense notions . . . these divergencies are less radical than most commentators have asserted' (Richard Olson, Scottish Philosophy and British Physics, 1750-1880 (Princeton University Press: Princeton, 1975), p. 131). Going even farther, Edward H. Madden has contended more recently that 'Hamilton carefully orchestrated his philosophy of the conditioned so that it would at once undercut British empiricism, Kant's critical philosophy, and the post-Kantian philosophies of the absolute, while at the same time it would retain a few, but bypass many, of the elements of Reid's philosophy of commonsense' (Edward H. Madden, 'Sir William Hamilton, Critical Philosophy and the Common Sense Tradition', Review of Metaphysics, 38 (1985), pp. 839-66 at p. 863).

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Kantianism put forward by Friedrich Heinrich Jacobi, and the latter's view of what Kant did and did not accomplish must be taken into account not only when Hamilton*s supposed Kantianism is discussed, but it must also be seen to contribute significantly to other aspects of Hamilton's thought. Since Jacobi himself was deeply influenced by Reid, his effect on Hamilton appears to me to pose interesting problems in its own right.4

I While it is true that Kant's philosophy was mentioned as early as 1793 in the Monthly Review, that books on Kant were being reviewed in that journal, that Friedrich August Nitsch, a disciple of Kant, gave private lectures on his philosophy between 1794 and 1796 and published the first book on Kant in 1796, and that Anthony Florian Madinger Willich and John Richardson published brief summaries of Kantian philosophy in 1797, 1798, and 1799, it is also true that none of these developments had a great impact upon British thought.5 It was only when the members of the dominant force in academic philosophy turned their attention to Kantian philosophy that this changed to some extent. However, at first these changes were far from dramatic. Though Thomas Brown, Dugald Stewart, Sir William Drummond and Sir James Mackintosh talked about Kant, they declined to study Kant seriously and, as a consequence, did not give him much of a hearing. It is characteristic that when Brown first took notice of Kant in 1803 he did not deal with any work by Kant, but with a book about Kant written in French. However, it is 4

However, I shall not be able to follow up these problems in the context of this paper. 5 Wellek, Kant in England, pp. 3-24.

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perhaps even more characteristic that his long review of Charles Villers' Philosophie de Kant, ou Principes Fondamentaux de la Philosophie transcendentale in the first volume of the Edinburgh Review 'became the chief source of popular knowledge of Kant in these years'.6 This Kant appears to have looked somewhat like this: The egoism of Berkeley and Hume is largely incorporated in his system, and combined with the opposing tenets of the school of Dr. Reid. If, to the common sense of that school, we add the innate susceptibilities of Leibnitz, and the denial by Hume of necessary connexion in causation, and of the reality of external perception, we bring before us the theory of cognition of Kant. But the force of common sense, and of the distinction of innate ideas, is invalidated by the denial of the reality of our external knowledge: and the denial of the reality of our perception of objects in space, is invalidated by the adoption of the principle of common sense.7 This is an interesting assessment, but it is, to say the least, not entirely correct. Since Brown never himself read Kant, but got his views only from a rather bad book about Kant, his pronouncements are of questionable value. The same also holds for the claims made by other members of the Scottish school. Even Dugald Stewart knew Kant mainly from second- or third-hand accounts. Though he had access to the Latin edition of Kant's works, and though he seems to have made some attempts at reading him in Latin, he clearly did not get far in his reading and his critical remarks concerning Kant are based on information almost as unreliable as that of 6 7

Ibid., p. 32. The Edinburgh Review, Vol. I (1803), pp. 279f.

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Brown.8 Thus it is not clear how seriously we should take his finding that [on] comparing the opposition which Mr. Hume's scepticism encountered from his own countrymen with the account . . . of some German philosophers to refute his Theory of Causation, it is impossible not to be struck with the coincidence between the leading views of his most eminent antagonists. This coincidence one would have been disposed to consider as purely accidental, if Kant, by his petulant sneers at Reid, Beattie and Oswald, had not expressly acknowledged that he was not unacquainted with their writings.9 It would seem to be easy to dismiss the charge that Kant plagiarized Reid. After all, Stewart also claimed that Kant's theory amounted to nothing more than a misappropriation of Cudworth's system. It seems that no significant thinker before Sir William Hamilton really knew Kantian philosophy from a serious study of Kant's own works. Accordingly, the pronouncements of the earlier members of the Scottish school, though interesting from a more general historical point of view, are not to be taken seriously as philosophical criticisms. These Scots were content to get their knowledge of Kant through less than reliable sources, " See Wellek, Kant in England, pp. 38-51. He shows that what holds of Brown and Stewart also holds of Sir William Drummond and Sir James Mackintosh. But Stewart also acknowledged help from Hamilton. In any case, he said in a letter that he owed to Hamilton 'much curious and valuable information about the later philosophers of Germany, whose merits and defects he seems to me to have appreciated with great candour and discrimination' (Dugald Stewart, The Collected Works of Dugald Stewart, Sir William Hamilton (ed.) (Edinburgh, 1854-60), Vol. 1, pp. 584-5). It appears to me that Stewart's view of Kant, being at least in part dependent on Hamilton's, also tells us something of Hamilton's. 'Stewart, Works, Vol. 1, p. 460.

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and their interest in the 'German answer to Hume' cannot have been one of all-consuming interest. Secure in their knowledge that the 'Scottish answer to Hume' was correct, they seem to have discounted Kant as a 'scholastic' and dogmatic philosopher, as somebody who gave up too much to Hume's scepticism, or as somebody who, in so far as he had anything of value to say, repeated the Scottish criticisms of Hume (and sometimes he was pronounced guilty of all these crimes). In any case, Kant's critical philosophy did not interest the Scots very much as a possible alternative or corrective to their own view.

II All this is thought to have changed radically with Sir William Hamilton, who not only knew German but also engaged in what seems to have been a sympathetic and thorough study of all of Kant. He referred to him in many important contexts, and is often credited with having introduced Kant into the philosophical discussion in Great Britain.10 Like the earlier Scots, he also believed that there existed 'a strong analogy between the [philosophies of] Reid and Kant'. However, he does not use this analogy to disparage Kant, but simply points out that the intentions of both philosophers were the same both originate in a recoil against the skepticism of Hume; both are equally opposed to the Sensualism of Locke; both vindicate with equal zeal the moral dignity of man, and both attempt to mete out and to define the legitimate sphere of our intellectual activity.11 10

See Wellek, Kant in England, p. 62 for a number of examples. Sir William Hamilton, Lectures on Metaphysics and Logic, H.L. Mansel and J. Veitch (eds), 4 vols., 2nd edn (Edinburgh, 1858-61), Vol. 1, pp. 393f. 11

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There are some philosophical scholars who think that Hamilton's philosophy as a whole is essentially 'a Kantian restatement of the Scottish philosophy', or that it is a synthesis of Kant's and Reid's theories.12 However, it is much more common to put this negatively, and to say that Hamilton's theory is a problematic and even inconsistent mixture of Reidian and Kantian doctrines. This claim can be traced back to Hamilton's lifetime. Some thinkers of a more traditional persuasion were suspicious of Hamilton precisely because of his supposed 'Kantianism'. Even James McCosh, who, on the whole, appreciated Hamilton's philosophy, also believed that it relied too much on Kantian distinctions and 'sought to add the philosophy of Kant to that of Reid, often without being able to make them cohere'.13 H.L. Mansel, Hamilton's student and follower, already felt it necessary in 1858 to defend Hamilton against charges made by McCosh, arguing that the latter 'has mistaken the character of the theory which he censures'.14 Other critics from within the 'school' went even farther, arguing that Hamilton's Kantian rejection of the possibility of 12 J. David Hoeveler, Jr, James McCosh and the Scottish Intellectual Tradition: From Glasgow to Princeton (Princeton University Press: Princeton, 1981), p. 316. In the same vein, Hoaglund writes: 'The enormous reputation as a metaphysician that Hamilton acquired in the 1830s was based on an interesting combination of Kantian with traditional Scottish-school elements' (The Thing in Itself, p. 3). See also Rudolf Metz, England und die deutsche Philosophie (Kohlhammer Verlag: Stuttgart/Berlin, 1941), p. 61: he calls Hamilton's philosophy 'an attempt at a kind of synthesis of Scottish and German thought, or better as the grafting of a Kantian branch onto the stem of Reid's philosophy of common sense'. 13 James McCosh Realistic Philosophy, 2 vols (New York, 1887), II, p. 184. See also p. 23, and his First and Fundamental Truths (New York, 1889), pp. 73f, 138f, for instance. It is still quite usual to blame Hamilton for the downfall of the Scottish school. 14 Henry Longueville Mansel, The Limits of Religious Thought (Boston, 1859 (first American edn, from the third London edn)), p. 307.

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knowing transcendent reality prepared the way for Bain's, Comte's, and Mill's positivistic thought.15 However, there were not only critics from within, but also philosophers of such different persuasions as Mill, Stirling and Sidgwick for instance, who levelled basically the same charge: Hamilton's supposed synthesis of Kant and Reid amounted to nothing more than an ill-thoughtout and uncritical mixture of their doctrines.16 It was thought to be precisely this uncritical acceptance of Kantian doctrines that led to contradictions in his metaphysical theory and thus, directly or indirectly, to the historical decline of Scottish common sense philosophy. If Hamilton succeeded in anything, then he did succeed in proving - against his will - the incompatibility of the Kantian and the Reidian views. This appears to have become one of the received dogmas of Reid scholarship (or, at the least, a common prejudice in the United States), as can be seen from the 'Introductions' of two recent editions of texts by Reid. Thus Baruch Brody thinks that 'Hamilton . . . cannot really be counted as a total advocate of Reid's point of view, since he was concerned with modifying it so that it could be combined with a Kantian point of view'.17 And Ronald E. Beanblossom sees Hamilton as facing a dilemma, namely the 'dilemma of, on the one hand, holding on to Reid's common sense philosophy, and, on 15

For a short account of this see Hoeveler, McCosh, pp. 316ff. " See J.H. Stirling, Sir W.H. Hamilton: Being the Philosophy of Perception, An Analysis (London, 1865; reprinted by Thoemmes Antiquarian Books: Bristol, 1990); John Stuart Mill, An Examination of Sir William Hamilton's Philosophy (London, 1872); and Henry Sidgwick, Lectures on the Philosophy of Kant, James Ward (ed.) (London, 1905). 17 Thomas Reid, Essays on the Active Powers of the Human Mind, Baruch Brody (ed.), MIT Press: Boston, 1969), p. xxii. See also his 'Reid and Hamilton on Perception', The Monist, 55 (1971), pp. 423-41. Brody believes that Reid was 'done in' by his friends. In this paper, however, he does not refer to Kant.

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the other hand, utilizing the insights of the newly discovered Kantian philosophy'.18 If we ask what were the 'Kantian insights' or 'the Kantian point of view' that Hamilton wanted to accommodate, the answer usually has less to do with implications of the 'strong analogy' between the Kantian and Reidian positions noted by Hamilton himself, but rather with his 'claim that our knowledge is relative. We cannot know things as they are in themselves; we can only know things as they appear to our individual faculties'.19 His Kantian 'phenomenalism' clashes with his more Reidian conception of a 'natural realism', or so it is thought. One of the clearest formulations of this problem is perhaps to be found in Andrew Seth's lectures on Scottish Philosophy: A Comparison of the Scottish and German Answers to Hume of 1885. Starting from the observation that 'Hamiltonianism shows, on the face of it, a mingling of Kantian and Scottish elements', he argued that there is no real fusion in Hamilton of these elements: nor need this astonish us, if we consider the incompatibility of the two doctrines. Any attempt to ingraft the Agnostic relativity of the 'Critique', upon the 18 Thomas Reid, Inquiry and Essays, Ronald E. Beanblossom and Keith Lehrer (eds) (Hackett: Indianapolis, 1983), p. xl. See also Edward H. Madden, 'Did Reid's Metaphilosophy Survive Kant, Hamilton and Mill?', Metaphilosophy, 18 (1987), pp. 31-48, and 'Was Reid a Natural Realist?', Philosophy and Phenomenological Research, 47 (1986), pp. 255-76. Also of interest is Arthur R. Greenberg, 'Sir William Hamilton and the Interpretation of Reid's Realism', The Modern Schoolman, 54 (1976), pp. 15-32. However, Greenberg believes that Hamilton provides 'the correct framework for understanding Reid's view', even if he 'was ultimately mistaken in his account of Reid's theory of perception' (15). " Seth, Scottish Philosophy: A Comparison of the Scottish and German Answers to Hume, 2nd edn (reprinted by Burtt Franklin: New York, 1971), p. 166; see also p. 186.

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Natural Realism of the Scottish philosophy is . . . contrary to the genius of the latter. 20 What he calls the 'Kantio-Hamiltonian doctrine of phenomenal knowledge' is to him 'a condemnation of our knowledge, and of knowledge in general, because it fails to achieve an impossibility'.21 This is the problem 211

Ibid., p. 153. Yet Seth also believed that, otherwise, the two traditions were actually quite compatible. Thus he argued in his Scottish Philosophy that the Scottish theory of common sense and Kant's theory were basically identical. He did this in order to obtain wider acceptance for German philosophy in England. Since he believed that Kant and his followers in Germany and Scotland used such an esoteric philosophical terminology as to be incomprehensible to the wider public, Seth wanted to show, among other things, that German philosophy was not as foreign in Britain as it appeared to people at first blush. There was, he claimed, an indigenous philosophical tradition that was rather close to German thought, namely 'Scottish philosophy'. Reid's thought was, in certain significant respects, an anticipation of Kant's thought, if only because both German philosophy as represented mainly by Kant and Hegel, and Scottish philosophy as represented by Reid and his followers, were fundamentally answers to Hume's scepticism. He hoped to establish 'the mutual relations of the Scottish and the German answers, and be able to discover where the one is defective when judged by the standard of the other. As no one has pretended that Reid is unintelligible, the placing of his simple statement alongside of what people call the crabbed statement of German philosophy, may at least have the effect of elucidating the true bearings of the latter' (ibid., p. 4f.). In giving a critical review of Scottish philosophy he meant to give a defence of German philosophy. He believed he could use Reid to elucidate the meaning of Kant and Hegel. This is perhaps also the very reason why philosophers of a more Reidian bent have historically resisted the compatibility thesis. If a view like Seth's were correct, the Scot's philosophy could no longer be a live option, or a genuine philosophical alternative, but it would rather be completely contained within Kantian philosophy. The Scottish view would be, at best, of historical interest only. Though Seth himself thought that his approach would perhaps allow him to 'find even higher merits than this in Reid's straightforward and plain-spoken attempt', that this would happen was highly unlikely from the start. The comparative approach advocated by Seth was not designed to bring out the special strengths of Scottish philosophy. But, however that may be, Seth and others would not disagree that Hamilton's enterprise was one of attempting a synthesis of Kantian and Reidian elements. For more on this see Manfred Kuehn, 'On the Interdependence of Scottish and German Philosophy: The Intertwined Threads of Two National Traditions' in Nationalism in Literature. Literarischer Nationalismus, Literatur, Language and National Identity (Peter Lang: Frankfurt/Main and Bern, 1989), pp. 257-68. 21 Seth, Scottish Philosophy, p. 166, p. 186.

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considered to be of central importance for any discussion of Hamilton's relation to Kant, and this is the problem I wish to investigate a little further in the remainder of this paper.22 Ill Hamilton became famous with his article, 'On the Philosophy of the Unconditioned; in Reference to Cousin's Infinito-Absolute' that appeared in the first volume of the Edinburgh Review of 1829. In it he argued against the German idealists and their French follower, Victor Cousin, that we cannot know anything absolute or unconditioned, and that our knowledge, whether of mind or matter, can be nothing more than a knowledge of the relative manifestations of an existence, which in itself it is our highest wisdom to recognize as beyond the reach of philosophy.23 Philosophers who believe that they can know anything absolute are fooling themselves. It is to Hamilton 'selfevident' that 'knowledge consists in a certain relation of the object known to the subject knowing', and that therefore 'all qualities of both mind and of matter are . . . only known to us as relations; we know nothing in itself'.24 Because he believes that this is self-evident, he 22 Ibid., p. 178: 'Kant and Hamilton are . . . the fathers of all such, in modern times, as traffic in the Unknowable. The "Critique" denies us all knowledge of reality, whether of the world, of self, or of God; and Hamilton tells us the same thing again and again'. 23 Sir William Hamilton, Discussions on Philosophy and Literature, ed. Robert Turnbull (New York, 1861), p. 22. 24 Thomas Reid, Philosophical Works, 2 vols, with Notes and Supplementary Dissertations by Sir William Hamilton, 8th edn (Edinburgh, 1895), Vol. II, p. 965.

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does not find it necessary to offer any arguments for this position. Rather, he thinks it 'a matter of the profoundest admiration' that this 'could ever be doubted'.25 As human beings, we are finite and endowed with finite faculties. Thus we have only a limited number of senses, and our consciousness is always consciousness of some thing. Furthermore Thought can not transcend consciousness; consciousness is only possible under the antithesis of a subject and object of thought, known only in correlation, and mutually limiting each other; while, independently of this, all that we know either of subject or object, either of mind or matter, is only a knowledge in each of the particular, of the plural, of the different, of the modified, of the phenomenal.26 This is because Hamilton, like Reid and Kant, believes that there is no such thing as 'simple apprehension, and that Judgment, that Comparison is implied in every act of apprehension; and . . . that consciousness cannot be realized without an energy of judgment'.27 But to 'think is to condition', or to submit the object of thought to 'the conditions of our thinking faculty'. Therefore, 'all that we know is . . . phenomenal - phenomenal of the unknown'.28 In this sense, Hamilton was a phenomenalist. Since his talk of 'thing in itself, 'consciousness', 'phenomenal', 'subject of thought', etc., is clearly Kantian in origin, and since he also refers to Kant in formulating his 'phenomenalism', this part of his doctrine has come to be identified as Kantian. On the other hand, Hamilton also wanted to be a 23

Hamilton, Discussions, p. 21. Ibid., p. 21f. 27 Ibid., p. 574. 28 Ibid., p. 597. 24

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realist. Agreeing with Reid, he argued against 'idealism' that we have a direct and immediate consciousness of the external world as really existing. We do not have to have to make inferences from sensations to convince ourselves of its existence, but we immediately know it. We also know immediately quite a number of the qualities which these objects have. To use Hamilton's own words: The developed doctrine of Real Presentationism, the basis of Natural realism asserts that consciousness or immediate perception of certain essential attributes of Matter objectively existing; while it admits that other properties of body are unknown in themselves, and only inferred as causes to account for certain subjective affections of which we are cognizant in ourselves. This discrimination, which to other systems is contingent, superficial, extraneous, but to natural realism necessary, radical, intrinsic, coincides with what since the time of Locke has been generally known as the distinction of the Qualities of Matter or Body, using these terms as convertible, into Primary and Secondary.29 As we have already seen, it is not infrequently argued that Hamilton's realism contradicts his doctrine of relativity. He cannot have it both ways. Either we don't know things as they are in themselves, or we do know them.30 Yet, when talking about the relativity of knowledge, Hamilton seems to affirm the one, while in his talk about perception he seems to affirm the other. " Reid, Works, ed. Hamilton, II, p. 842. 30 Mill remarked: 'There is nothing wonderful in Sir W. Hamilton's entertaining these opinions [about primary and secondary qualities]; they are held by perhaps the majority of metaphysicians. But it is surprising that, entertaining them, he should have believed himself, and been believed by others, to maintain the Relativity of all of our knowledge' (Examination, p. 20).

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The contradiction that Brown believed he noticed in Kant seems to be now present in Hamilton's thought. But is it? In order to decide this, we must take a closer look at Hamilton's theory of perception, and especially at his view that all knowledge presupposes certain basic principles or beliefs. Hamilton thought that we must accept principles of common sense. In this he was very similar to Reid who believed that 'there are certain principles . . . which the constitution of our nature leads us to believe, and which we are under a necessity to take for granted in the common concerns of life'. Reid called such beliefs 'principles of common sense'.31 They consist of such beliefs as those in the existence of the perceived object, when it is perceived, and in the perceiving subject, while we perceive. Principles of common sense had for him the characteristics of natural necessity and indispensability. They are at the root of our ability to reason and can themselves thus not be rationally explained. Further, they cannot be contradicted without falling into contradiction and absurdity. By insisting that we can neither abstract them from sense perception nor establish them by reasoning, Reid also argued for them as a priori presuppositions for sensation and thought. Thus he claimed all reasoning must be from first principles; and for first principles no other reason can be given but this, that, by the constitution of our nature, we are under a necessity of assenting to them. Such principles are parts of our constitution, no less than the power of thinking; reason can neither make nor destroy them; nor can it do any thing without them.32 » Reid, Works, ed. Hamilton, I, p. 108; see also pp. 130, 209f. » Ibid., p. 185.

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Reid may be said to have acknowledged here the necessity of an a priori component in all knowledge claims, and it can be argued that this, together with his closely related analysis of the act of perception as a complex phenomenon, involving certain judgement-like operations of the mind, was one of his most important contributions to the development of philosophy. Whether or not this is true however, one of the consequences of this view is that Reid can differentiate clearly between a sensation and the things that are suggested by this sensation but which, themselves, are not of sensation in the sense that they can be reduced to it. Sensation and thought are different, yet united in the act of perception. For Reid, sensation is neither a sort of confused thinking, as it was for most of the rationalists, nor are our abstract notions of space, etc., rarified sensations as they were to most of the empiricists. The principles of common sense are radically different from particular sensations, yet they are known to us only through perceptions. Hamilton agrees to Reid's account. Though he does not like the terminology, he agrees that in perception, consciousness gives as an ultimate fact, a belief of the knowledge of the existence of something different from self. As ultimate, this belief can not be reduced to a higher principle; neither can it be truly analyzed into a double element. We only believe that this something exists, because we believe that we know (are conscious of) this something as existing; the belief of the existence is necessarily involved in the belief of the knowledge of the existence. Both are original, or neither.33 Though neither Reid nor Hamilton are very clear on the 13

Hamilton, Discussions, p. 93.

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precise number, their lists of 'ultimate facts' or 'ultimate principles' are roughly the same. Most importantly for our purposes, the supposed belief that we know things directly and not by means of certain mediating entities belongs, according to Hamilton, among these basic principles. The same also holds for our beliefs concerning qualities of the things themselves. However, original beliefs do not, according to Hamilton, amount to knowledge claims in the ordinary sense. They are prior to such claims and, though easily confused with them, are of a different order. As he puts it, our knowledge rests ultimately on certain facts of consciousness, which as primitive, and consequently incomprehensible, are given less in the forms of cognitions than of beliefs. But if consciousness in its last analysis - in other words, if our primary experience, be a faith; the reality of knowledge turns on the veracity of our constitutive beliefs. . . . Consciousness is to the philosopher, what the Bible is to the theologian. Both are professedly revelations of divine truth; both exclusively supply the constitutive principles of knowledge, and the regulative principles of its construction. To both we must resort for elements and for laws. Each may be disproved, but disproved only by itself.34 His analogy between the book of Nature and the Bible as the revealed word of God is most significant. Indeed, in other contexts he even calls attention to his belief that perception must be likened to revelation, and that in its structure perceptual awareness is better compared to faith than to knowledge. •MIbid.,p.90.

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While we may well be left to wonder how an affirmation of perceptual faith, or, to use another of his phrases, 'instinctive faiths', can provide an answer to Hume, Hamilton's natural realism does not commit him to the view that we have ordinary knowledge of things as they are in themselves, or that constitutive beliefs are known in the same way as we know that the cat is on the mat. Our primary experience is one of faith. The constituting factors of the human mind are in themselves 'incomprehensible', and they amount to beliefs that ultimately resemble 'revealed truths' which are themselves not reducible or derivable. Though I believe that Hamilton's view of perceptual faith gives rise to many different kinds of difficulties and problems, I do not think it contradicts his theory of the relativity of knowledge. His 'natural realism' does not seem to be incompatible with his doctrine of the relativity of knowledge, if we understand this natural realism as dependent on 'acts of faith'. In fact, I think that Hamilton is correct when he says that the one is a necessary complement of the other.

IV In drawing attention to the factual and incomprehensible character of basic beliefs, and by thus characterizing them as non-cognitive, or perhaps better pre-cognitive, he seems to downplay some of the more rationalistic tendencies in Reid and, in doing so, he resembles such early followers of Reid as James Beattie and James Oswald.35 However, though one might still say that " It should perhaps be pointed out that Hamilton himself would not have liked this characterization of his basic beliefs as 'non-cognitive' or 'precognitive', but I do not know a better word to describe their difference from ordinary beliefs. In any case, Hamilton is confused on this. For a discussion

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Hamilton essentially follows Reid, his language is quite different and clearly coloured by a distinctively German influence. This makes it difficult to say precisely how far Reid's doctrine of natural belief survives intact. So much is sure, however - his emphasis on the pre-cognitive character of the basic principles of knowledge moves him still farther away from Kant than from Reid. Though he seems to be using, on the whole, Kantian language, the position he expresses by means of it is radically different. Something similar can be said about Hamilton's doctrine of the 'relativity of knowledge'. It also is formulated in Kantian terminology, but is ultimately quite different from Kant's view. One of the things Hamilton always seems to have liked was Kant's attempt to restrict knowledge to the merely phenomenal. Thus, in the appendix to his first published paper on the 'Philosophy of the Conditioned', he included among the 'Testimonies to the more special fact that all knowledge, whether of Mind or Matter, is only phenomenal' one passage of 'the philosopher of Koenigsberg', pointing out that 'a hundred testimonies to the same truth might be adduced', and pointed out that this 'is, in fact, the foundation' of the Kantian doctrine:36 the philosophy of Rationalism [was] a mere fabric of delusion. He declared that a science of existence was of some aspects of this problem see Mill, Examination, pp. 74-81 and 118— 224. Seth, Scottish Philosophy, p. 178, draws a parallel between Kant and Hamilton on belief: 'To be,sure, both Kant and Hamilton profess to repair the breaches of their knowledge by the aid of Faith or Belief'. However, this is highly misleading, as Kant's so-called 'rational faith' has no role to play in epistemic contexts, but is restricted to morality. Jacobi, on the other hand, uses 'faith' and 'belief very much as Hamilton does. •" Ibid., p. 600. Kant is said to have held that in 'perception every thing is known in conformity to the constitution of our faculty'.

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beyond the compass of our faculties; that pure reason, as purely subjective, and conscious of nothing but itself, was therefore unable to evince the reality of aught beyond the phenomena of personal modifications. So, there exists, we might say, 'a strong analogy', between Hamilton and Kant. But how deep does it go? In order to decide that question, we must take a closer look at Hamilton's rejection of 'the absolute' as an object of philosophy. He believed that four different positions on absolute knowledge were possible: (1) It is entirely inconceivable and unknowable. It can have only a negative meaning as the negation of the limited. (2) It is not knowable, but it may be given a positive meaning as a regulative principle. (3) It is 'knowable', but incomprehensible. (4) It is both knowable and comprehensible. Hamilton himself claims to accept the first position and assigns to Kant the second one, while reserving (3) and (4) to Schelling and Cousin respectively. Though he says that the 'second opinion, that of Kant, is fundamentally the same as the preceding', he does single out Kant for severe criticism, pointing out that while we regard as conclusive, Kant's analysis of Time and Space into conditions of thought, we cannot help but viewing his deduction of the 'Categories of Understanding', and the 'Ideas of speculative Reason', as the work of a great but perverse ingenuity.37 He especially rejects Kant's distinction between two cognitive faculties of understanding and reason, with one of them supplying the constitutive concepts and laws for knowledge, and the other merely regulative ideas and 17

Hamilton, Discussions, p. 23.

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principles. For Hamilton both do the same work, 'both seek the one in the many'.38 But this is not all. He also believes that the 'imperfection and partiality of Kant's analysis are betrayed by its consequences. His doctrine leads to absolute scepticism. Speculative reason, on Kant's own admission, is an organ of mere delusion'.39 Therefore, it is not surprising to Hamilton that Kant's followers rejected precisely what he took to be the most fundamental tenet of his philosophy and, despising the contracted limits and humble results of a philosophy of observation re-established, as the predominant opinion, a bolder and more uncompromising Rationalism than any that had ever previously obtained for their countrymen.40 This is because Kant had annihilated the older metaphysic, but the germ of a more visionary doctrine of the absolute, than any of those refuted, was contained in the bosom of his own philosophy. He had slain the body, but had not exorcised the spectre of the absolute; and this spectre has continued to haunt the schools of Germany even to the present day.41 Kant, according to Hamilton, aimed at the right goal, but he fell short in his actual achievement. He is to be blamed for absolute idealism. It is a natural consequence of his thinking.42 18 Ibid., p. 24. brief discussion of and the Common "Ibid., p. 25. 40 Ibid., p. 12f. 41 Ibid., p. 25. 42 Reid, Works,

For this reason, he also rejects Kant's antinomies. For a this see Madden, 'Sir William Hamilton, Critical Philosophy Sense Tradition', pp. 846ff.

ed. Hamilton, I, p. 129n.

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Even his assessment of Kant's analysis of space and time in the early essay is misleadingly positive. Hamilton clearly does not accept it as conclusive. Thus in a note published in his Lectures on Metaphysics he specifically chides Kant for having given up the 'external existence of space, as beyond the sphere of consciousness' while at the same time affirming 'the reality of external material existences (things-in-themselves), which are equally beyond the sphere of consciousness'.43 Kant should have explained this apparent inconsistency, and he should thus have shown how his theory avoided 'universal idealism'. Hamilton himself believes that Kant should have allowed himself to be led here by 'an immediate fact of consciousness' which assures us of the external or objective reality of space and time as well as of that of material existences. For all these reasons, Hamilton could not be expected to be concerned with modifying the Scottish doctrine 'so that it could be combined with a Kantian point of view'. Though Hamilton's theory of the relativity of knowledge has a certain superficial similarity to that of Kant, it is ultimately very different from 'transcendental idealism'. First of all, his claim that we cannot know things in themselves, or his 'phenomenalism', is rather questionable as an interpretation of Kant. Even if we were to reject the so called 'dual aspect theory' of the thing in itself and appearances, Hamilton's view would be at best only a rough approximation of Kant's view. He views Kant as accepting the most important part of the 'ideal system', namely the existence of ideas, or representations as mediating entities. For him, it seems, Kant never doubted the philosophical view that we know the world through such things, and that we cannot know anything 4i

Sir William Hamilton, Lectures, Vol. 1, p. 403.

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external to the human mind. Thus it is that Kant's view leads to the 'conviction that we live in a world of unreality and illusion, and that our very faculty of knowledge is only given to mislead'.44 Furthermore, his wholesale identification of things-in-themselves with 'the unconditioned' or 'the absolute' is clearly questionable. While Kant is concerned with working out the positive consequences of the theory that we can only know appearances, saying relatively little about things-inthemselves, Hamilton seems to be mainly interested in the negative consequences of such an account for knowledge of ultimate reality. His talk of 'things in themselves' is first and foremost an expression of agnosticism. Accordingly, it is wrong to identify the Hamiltonian view of the relativity of knowledge as a 'Kantian' doctrine in any but the most vacuous sense. There exists a certain superficial analogy between the two views, but it does not go very far. Nor is it very interesting. At best, we find 'a strong analogy' in some of their conclusions. Hamilton was not unaware of this. As we have already seen, he claimed to have arrived independently at his position and he actually rejected what he took to be Kant's defence of it. Similar things can be said about most other parallels between Hamilton and Kant. They often agree in their conclusions, but the ways in which they have arrived at them are actually very different. Furthermore, there are even times when Hamilton thinks he is representing Kant without criticizing him, but offers only a distorted picture of the theory. What is perhaps most interesting about the so-called Kantian debts of Hamilton is how they came to be accepted as Kantian in the first place. 44

Hamilton, Lectures, Vol. 1, p. 403.

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V However, neither Hamilton's doctrine nor the language in which it is expressed need to remain a mystery. His view represents a fairly straightforward adaptation of Jacobi's theory of faith and its corresponding critique of Kant. Nor need it be a surprise that Hamilton is so dependent on Jacobi, since the latter was not only one of the most important transitional figures in German philosophy during the period between Kant and Hegel, but also someone who was most deeply influenced by Reid's philosophy.45 He was one of a small group of anti-rationalist 'philosophers of faith' who were more or less orthodox Christians and who thus found themselves in opposition to the ideals of the enlightenment philosophers. Jacobi carried on this fight against rationalism by attacking not only the enlightenment philosophers, but also Kant, Fichte, Schelling and Hegel. In doing so he found the philosophy of Reid extremely useful and employed it to formulate a position of 'radical realism' that was very close to that of Hamilton. Thus Jacobi claimed that the principles underlying our beliefs in the veracity of our sensations and in that of revelation were of the same kind. Exploiting the ambiguity of the German 'Glaube', he argued that perceptual belief should be understood in analogy to religious faith and he insinuated that we are 'all born into faith and have to remain in faith'. Especially his book, David Hume uber den Glauben oder Idealismus und Realismus is an attempt to show that the terms 45 See Manfred Kuehn, Scottish Common Sense in Germany, 1768-1800: A Contribution to the History of Critical Philosophy (McGill-Queen's University Press: Montreal/Kingston, 1987), pp. 141-66, and 227-32. See also Giinther Baum, Vernunft und Erkenntnis. Die Philosophie F.H. Jacobis (Bonn, 1969).

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'faith' and 'revelation' are commonly used in epistemic contexts and that this reveals an important analogy between perceptual beliefs and religious faith. Hume and his Scottish critics figure largely in this enterprise since he found them helpful in trying to show this. Thus he calls Hume's Essays 'a book in defence of faith' and he quotes extensively from the Enquiry Concerning Human Understanding to show that Hume's theory proves his point.46 Although he argues that the phrase 'revelation of sensation', which corresponds to 'faith', is common in English, French, German and several other languages, he admits that Hume could never have said that the 'objects reveal themselves through the senses': This idiom cannot occur in Hume with the same emphasis I have placed upon it because he always leaves undecided, among other things, whether we really perceive external objects, or whether we perceive objects merely as though they were external to ourselves. For this reason he also says . . . 'realities, or what is taken for such'. According to his entire way of thinking, he had to be, in speculative thought, more inclined to sceptical idealism than to realism.47 Only the 'decided realist' can employ 'revelation' in this context. And he asked By what other name shall such a decided realist call the means by which the certainty of the independent existence of external objects, apart from representations, come to him? He has nothing upon which he could base his judgment, nothing but the thing itself,

""Jacobi, Werke, Vol. 2, pp. 152ff, 156ff. This is the edition Hamilton used. 47 Ibid., p. 165.

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nothing but the factum that the objects are really in front of him. Can he use a more fitting word for this than revelation? Is not here truly the root of this word, the source of its usage} . . . That this revelation deserves to be called truly wonderful follows automatically . . . for we have no other proof of the existence of such an object than the existence of this object. Therefore we must find it simply incomprehensible that we can become aware of such an existence.48 Our awareness of the existence of external objects is not only 'a truly wonderful revelation' according to Jacobi, but also an immediate revelation and one that is 'immediate with regard to ourselves'. We do not know what really mediates it. But we should not deny it for this reason, as the idealist does.49 Nor should we try to explain this basic fact by an account of its origin in operations of the understanding, as most philosophers have tried to do. Indeed, Jacobi thought that if we attempt to show that our knowledge of the existence of objects is mediated by the understanding, we will 'necessarily fall into the trap of the idealist'.50 Rather, I experience in one and the same indivisible moment that I exist and that objects external to myself exist; and in this moment my soul is as passive with regard to the object as it is passive with regard to itself. No representation, no inference mediates this twofold revelation. Nothing in the soul steps between the reality external to the soul and the reality within the soul. Representations are not yet existing; they «Ibid., p. 165f. 49 Ibid., p. 168. 50 Ibid., p. 173.

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originate only afterwards in reflection, as shadows of things which were present.51 Accordingly, Jacobi thought that 'sensible revelation' or 'inspiration' and 'natural belief or 'faith' are only different sides of one and the same problem. If Jacobi's view is found to be very similar to Reid's theory, this is no accident. Jacobi's doctrine of immediate cognition and natural faith is clearly inspired more by Reid than by Hume.52 And if it is found to sound almost the same as Hamilton's account, this is no accident either. Hamilton knew Jacobi very well, and was highly appreciative of him. Thus he often referred to the 'profound Jacobi' or 'the German Plato'.53 And at a number of occasions pointed out that Jacobi's resistless belief or feeling of reality which in either cognition affords the surrogate of its truth, is equivalent to the common sense of Reid. Reid was an especial favourite with Jacobi, and through Jacobi's powerful polemic we may trace the influence of the Scottish philosophy on the whole subsequent speculation of Germany.54 Indeed, in his dissertation on the philosophy of common sense, Jacobi's 'testimony' takes up more than four times the space than that of Kant, and it is clearly Jacobi's theory of faith that interests him most. It is relatively easy to show that Hamilton's appreciation of Jacobi also had definite consequences for his understanding of Kant, and that he read Kant basically •" Ibid., p. 175. 52 This is argued more fully in Kuehn, Scottish Common Sense in Germany, pp. 158-66. " Reid, Works, ed. Hamilton, II, p. 771b. 54 Ibid., pp. 793a-96b.

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with Jacobian eyes. Thus Jacobi's critique of Kant, just like Hamilton's exposition, concentrated first and foremost on the issue of the reality of external objects. Jacobi believed he was a realist. Indeed, he claimed that he was 'a realist as nobody else had ever been before . . . and there is no reasonable middle system between total idealism and total realism', going so far as to claim that the 'third [thing] between the knowing subject and the object to be known, which has been assumed ever since Locke, was thoroughly removed by myself first, as far as I know'. Accordingly, he begins his metacritique of Kant's critical philosophy by pointing out: what we realists call real objects, or objects independent of our representations, transcendental idealism regards only as internal beings. These internal beings do not represent anything at all of the object that could be external to us, or to which the appearance could be related. They are completely devoid of all real objectivity and are merely subjective determinations of the soul. Furthermore, a Kantian must hold that we even introduce 'the order and regularity in the appearances which we call nature\ and that 'we could not have found it, if we had not, or: if the nature of our mind had not originally introduced it'. This means for Jacobi that the Kantian philosopher leaves the spirit of his system completely behind, when he says that the objects make impressions upon the senses, occasion sensations in this way, and give rise to representations. For according to the Kantian doctrine, the empirical object, which can only be an appearance, cannot be external to ourselves and thus be at the same time something other than a representation. . . . The understanding adds the object to the appearance.

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Yet, though it may be contradictory to the Kantian view to say that objects make impressions upon the senses, it is impossible to understand how the Kantian view could even get started without this presupposition. The very word 'sensibility' is without meaning, if we do not understand a distinct and real medium between two realities, and if the conceptions of externality and connection, of active and passive, of causality and dependency are not already contained as real and objective determinations in it; and contained in it in such a way that the absolute universality and necessity of these conceptions as prior presuppositions is given at the very same time.55 Kant's 'categories of the understanding' presuppose 'suggestions of sensation'. Without such principles we cannot enter the Kantian system, and with them we cannot remain within it. The transcendental idealist cannot legitimately obtain the conception of an object that is 'external to us in a transcendental sense' because any conception of such an object must ultimately be based upon a 'truly wonderful revelation of sensation'. Only a realist can attain the conception of such an object, since for him sensation is the passive state of being acted upon, and since this feeling is conceived only as 'one half of the entire state, a state which cannot be thought merely in accordance with this one half'.56 This doctrine of Jacobi foreshadows not only Hamilton's doctrine of the relativity of knowledge, but also some of the most significant aspects of his critique of Kant. And Hamilton does not attempt to hide this dependence either. Thus he tells us that he does not have 15 56

Jacobi, Werke, Vol. 2, pp. 299-304. Ibid., p. 309.

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to prove that idealism is a natural consequence of Kant's system because 'the doctrine of Kant has been rigorously proved by Jacobi and Fichte to be, in its ultimate issue, a doctrine of absolute idealism'.57 And just like Jacobi, he argues that Kant's philosophy actually serves to affirm what it seeks to deny: Kant is a remarkable confessor of the supreme authority of natural belief; not only by reason of his rare profundity as a thinker, but because we see him, by a singular yet praiseworthy inconsequence, finally reestablish in authority the principle, which he had originally disparaged and renounced.58 This principle is, of course, that of belief or faith. Kant's refutation of idealism, which Hamilton considers to be an attempt at proving the reality of things-in-themselves, does not achieve its goal. In fact, Hamilton thinks that it may have been intended by Kant himself as no more than an exoteric disclaimer of his esoteric idealism. But Hamilton also thinks that Kant's later philosophy vindicates the 'necessary convictions of mankind'.59 He finds that, as Jacobi well expresses it: The Critical philosophy, first out of love to science, theoretically subverts metaphysics, then - when all is about to sink into the

57

Reid, Works, ed. Hamilton, I, p. 129n. Ibid., II, p. 792b. 5 ' For one of the best systematic discussions of what Kant really might have been concerned with, see Moltke S. Gram, 'What Kant Really Did to Idealism', Essays on Kant's Critique of Pure Reason in J.N. Mohanty and Robert W. Sahan (eds) (Oklahoma University Press: Norman, 1982), pp. 127-56; and for an attempt at placing it historically see Manfred Kuehn, 'Kant and the Refutations of Idealism in the Eighteenth Century', Man, God, and Nature in the Enlightenment in D.C. Mell, Jr, T.E.D. Braun and L. Palmer (eds) (College Press: East Lansing, 1988), pp. 25-35. 51

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yawning abyss of an absolute subjectivity - it again, out of love of metaphysics, subverts science.60 This is an interesting view of Kant. It is certainly at least as interesting as that of Brown and Stewart, but it has just as little to do with the real Kant as the views of his predecessors.61 Unlike Wellek, I cannot detect in it 'the heartbeat of a personality to which Kant's problems are, at least in part, his own vital problems'. Though Hamilton could read Kant in the original German and had access to all of Kant's writings as well as to those of his followers and critics, his view is ultimately more determined by a German anti-Kantian in the Reidian tradition than by anything Kant had to say. I believe that this was a more or less conscious decision on Hamilton's part. But be that as it may, it should be clear that whatever it was that 'did in' the Scottish philosophy of common sense, it was not an uncritical acceptance of Kantian doctrines. I would like to think that it was the uncritical rejection of Kantian philosophy that ultimately led to the downfall of this school. Hamilton himself found later that 'an acquaintance with a system so remarkable in itself, and in its influence so decisive of the character of subsequent speculations, is now a matter of necessity to all who would be supposed to have crossed the threshold of philosophy'.62 I am afraid, mere acquaintance may not be enough. In any case, Kant deserved better; and, ultimately, the Scots did better, for they went on to make Scotland one of the 'world centers' for the study of Kant.63 *" Reid, Works, ed. Hamilton, I, p. 792b. " In fact, it is not clear that it is ultimately a different view. To me, Hamilton seems to be very similar to his predecessors on this score. " Hamilton, Discussions, p. 100. " See Lewis White Beck, 'William Henry Walsh', Kant-Studien, 77 (1986), pp. 407-8.

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Bibliography Baum, Giinther, Vernunft und Erkenntnis. Die Philosophie F.H. Jacobis (Bonn, 1969). Beck, Lewis White, 'William Henry Walsh', Kant-Studien, 77 (1986). Brody, Baruch, 'Reid and Hamilton on Perception', The Monist, 55 (1971). Brown, Thomas, Review of Philosophie de Kant, ou Principes Fondamentaux de la Philosophie transcendentale (Charles Villers), Edinburgh Review, Vol. 1 (1803). Gram, Moltke S., 'What Kant Really Did to Idealism' in Essays on Kant's Critique of Pure Reason, J.N. Mohanty and Robert W. Sahan (eds) (Oklahoma University Press: Norman, 1982). Greenburg, Arthur R., 'Sir William Hamilton and the Interpretation of Reid's Realism', The Modern Schoolman, 54 (1976). Hamilton, Sir William, Lectures on Metaphysics and Logic, H.L. Mansel and J. Veitch (eds), 4 vols, 2nd edn (Edinburgh, 1858-61). Hamilton, Sir William, Discussions on Philosophy and Literature, Robert Turnbull (ed.) (New York, 1861). Hoeveler, J. David Jr, James McCosh and the Scottish Intellectual Tradition: From Glasgow to Princeton (Princeton University Press: Princeton, 1981). Jacobi, Friedrich Heinrich, Werke, Vol. 2 (Leipzig, 1815). Kuehn, Manfred, Scottish Common Sense in Germany, 1768-1800: A Contribution to the History of Critical Philosophy (McGillQueen's University Press: Montreal/Kingston, 1987). Kuehn, Manfred, 'Kant and the Refutations of Idealism in the Eighteenth Century' in Man, God, and Nature in the Enlightenment, D.C. Mell, Jr, T.E.D. Braun and L. Palmer (eds) (College Press: East Lansing, 1988). Kuehn, Manfred, 'On the Interdependence of Scottish and German Philosophy: The Intertwined Threads of Two National Traditions' in Nationalism in Literature, Literarischer Nationalisms, Literatur, Language and National Identity (Peter Lang: Frankfurt/Main and Bern, 1989). McCosh, James, Realistic Philosophy, 2 vols (New York, 1887). McCosh, James, First Fundamental Truths (New York, 1889). Madden, Edward H., 'Sir William Hamilton, Critical Philosophy and the Common Sense Tradition', Review of Metaphysics, 38 (1985). Madden, Edward H., 'Was Reid a Natural Realist?', Philosophy and Phenomenological Research, 47 (1986).

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Madden, Edward H., 'Did Reid's Metaphilosophy Survive Kant, Hamilton and Mill?', Metaphilosophy, 18 (1987). Mansel, Henry Longueville, The Limits of Religious Thought (1st American edn from 3rd London edn: Boston, 1859). Mill, John Stuart, An Examination of Sir William Hamilton's Philosophy (London, 1872). Reid, Thomas, Philosophical Works, 2 vols, 8th edn (Edinburgh, 1885). Reid, Thomas, Essays on the Active Powers of the Human Mind, Baruch Brody (ed.) (MIT Press: Boston, 1969). Reid, Thomas, Inquiry and Essays, Ronald E. Beanblossom and Keith Lehrer (eds) (Hackett: Indianapolis, 1983). Seth, Andrew, Scottish Philosophy: A Comparison of the Scottish and German Answers to Hume, 2nd edn (1885) (reprinted by Burtt Franklin: New York, 1971). Sidgwick, Henry, Lectures on the Philosophy of Kant, James Ward (ed.) (London, 1905). Stewart, Dugald, The Collected Works of Dugald Stewart, Sir William Hamilton (ed.) (Edinburgh, 1854-60). Stirling, J.H., Sir W.H. Hamilton: Being the Philosophy of Perception, An Analysis (London, 1865; reprinted by Thoemmes Antiquarian Books: Bristol, 1990).

ASPECTS OF KANT'S INFLUENCE ON BRITISH THEOLOGY Donald MacKinnon

Kant's doctrine of the primacy of the practical reason remains the pivot of his influence on British theology. Because the doctrine is many-sided, this influence was exerted in many distinguishable ways. It is, as we shall see, much more than a recapitulation of Butler's fifteenth sermon, in which the preacher asserts that conscience exerts its authority quite independently of any effective metaphysical construction or cosmological discovery. Thus we must acknowledge that benevolence is the whole of virtue only within the limits set by the claims of justice and veracity, and not await the success of an attempted refutation of materialism. Decision between 'big bang' and 'steady state' models in cosmology is irrelevant to acceptance of the claims upon us of the demand to scrutinize our motives, and expel from our moral judgement the conception of unacknowledged selfdeception. Nathan strips David's behaviour towards Uriah in the matter of Bath-sheba of the concealing mask his royalty had enabled the King to put upon it, and moves his master to a contrition that the monarch has no call to justify beyond recollection of what he has done. (Butler's sermon on self-deception is one of his finest.) Kant certainly agrees with Butler in finding the moral imperative unconditional. But he goes beyond him in a 348

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most painstaking evaluation of the metaphysical impulse. If he will destroy reason to make room for faith, he will first show what it is that he is seeking to destroy by criticism of its unattainable pretensions. The distinction between Reason and Understanding (Vernunft and Verstand) is fundamental not only to Kant's criticism of metaphysics, and indeed to his sense of the metaphysics he was criticizing, but also to the way in which he conceived that unconditioned, with which he supposed that all day and every day we enjoyed unrestricted commerce in the actions and choices of our daily life. If our attempts to reach the ground of our being by extrapolation of that concept of causality which made experience of an objective world possible for us were doomed to frustration, this attempted flirtation with the absolute provoked us to a proper discontent with unfinished comprehension of the order of that world. Further at the same time, it helped to make us aware that all about us in our everyday comings and goings, we were bound to impose on ourselves the form of an unconditional morality. Thus we were bound to treat human nature, whether in ourselves or in others, as ends and never simply as means. If we found it impossible to conceive how that realm of ends integrated with that of nature, then we could invoke the criticism of the metaphysical impulse itself to free us from the insecurity that might follow failure to vindicate ontologically the status of the moral order. This dense and inadequate summary of a part of Kant's argument at least advertises the way in which his critical evaluation of the metaphysical impulse and his ethics play the one upon the other. And this interplay is something that must be remembered, when we turn to the way in which he understood the relation of morality to religion. It is not enough to say that he regarded

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morality as sovereign over religious belief and practice. Inevitably, his criticism of metaphysics as an intellectual ascent to the level of the transcendent told upon the way he conceived religious belief. Thus his critical evaluation of traditional theism (a much more complex enterprise than is suggested by summary reference to his criticism of the arguments for the existence of God) affected his approach, for instance, to the theology of the Incarnation. If the ontology of the Nicene and Chalcedonian fathers passed him by, he responded as to a very powerful myth, to Paul's presentation of Christ's Kenosis in Philippians 2. And this response was taken a great deal further by one of the greatest British theologians of this century, Peter Taylor Forsyth. Because Kant believed he had established the frontiers of the objectively conceivable, while allowing a highly significant role, for instance, to the idea of a total comprehension of the world in which we found ourselves (the so-called regulative use of the Ideas of Reason), he had set himself free to appreciate the suggestive power of the mythological. It could, as in the example taken from Religion Within the Limits of Reason Alone, sustain and deepen our purchase-hold on that unconditioned with which we were all the time in commerce, and whose authority we could only gainsay at the cost of denying our own rational nature. So much then for background. Enough however has perhaps been said to prepare the student for finding a paradox in the claim that is often made for Kant as 'the philosopher of Protestantism'. For the place that is clearly accorded by Kant to the 'moral law within', however significant the role assigned to religious belief in achieving our obedience to its dictates, is a long way removed from the language of 'sola fide\ 'sola gratia'. If our human pride seems humbled by his elaborately

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articulated disdain for our intellectual pretensions, it is humbled to assure our acceptance of ourselves as autonomous agents, constrained unconditionally to obedience to self-imposed law. We needed to be profoundly agnostic, both in respect of the place we occupied as moral agents in the scheme of things entire and of the ultimate direction and outcome of our obedience. If Kant belonged profoundly to the traditions of the Enlightenment, he qualified his attachment not only by his sense of radikal Bose but by his sense that the dignity the Aufklarer claimed for human kind could only be secured by a discipline that acknowledging its strangeness, found room for its acceptance by an intellectually exhausting Kritik of the most familiar efforts to place it ontologically. It is true that Kant's insistence on radical evil did much to make his doctrines assimilable by theologians, especially as his continuing optimism seemed to find its foundation in belief in a God who would in the end, reward the well-doer. If such belief could be criticized as diminishing the unconditional authority of the categorical imperative, that criticism could be met by insisting that Kant's conception of reward was highly sophisticated, transformed indeed in the opuscula of his last years treating of theodicy and eschatology into something very far removed from vulgar conceptions of recompense into a myth of ultimate vindication. But what was to be vindicated was the morally good man or woman. If he or she could scarcely live without hope of such vindication - live, that is, the life whose texture Kant believed he had proved invulnerable to the acids of intellectual scepticism by his massive Kritik - it was still his or her life. The element of sheer receptivity thought pivotal to the life of faith is lacking. We are much nearer the Jesuit theme: Facienti quod in se est non denegat Deus gratiam. The

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sharpest influence of Kant's thought on British theologians of the Reformed tradition lay in the demand it made on them to rethink the crudities of their theology of grace, to find room for human responsibility in their scheme of man's redemption, to seek a place for an authentic autonomy that would yet not altogether forget Luther's words: Non Deus revivificaty nisi per occidendum. Nothing more profoundly alien to Kant than the Anglican article of religion on works done before justification can easily be conceived. It is indeed with the manner in which such works belong to the life of faith that the impact of Kant's conceptions on their thought enabled loyal inheritors of the traditions of the Reformation to engage. Whitehead remarked, with characteristic penetration, that Christianity was a religion perennially in search of a metaphysic but never able to rest in one. No doubt he had in mind the debt, for instance, of the Cappadocian fathers to Platonism or of Thomas Aquinas to Aristotle. The debt owed by Reformed theologians to Kant is somewhat different; it is rather a matter of the way in which his characteristic emphasis on autonomy and on the realm of ends compelled correction of an understanding of the divine sovereignty (so crucial in Calvinism) in terms of impenetrable will, as if the doctrine of grace had to be read off from the apologists of seventeenth-century absolutism rather than from the pages of the New Testament, with Bodin rather than John and Paul the cherished teacher. It was with the mystery of human response that such theologians engaged, certain that it must not be overridden or disregarded supposedly to exalt the inscrutable depths of the divine will. In Britain a classical contribution to this movement of thought was made by John Oman, Principal of Westminster College, Cambridge, and lecturer in the

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philosophy of religion in the University of Cambridge, in his book, Grace and Personality published in 1917. Oman's influence was clearly discernible in a work published in 1941 by his pupil, Professor Herbert Farmer (later to be Norris-Hulse Professor of Divinity in the University of Cambridge), entitled The Servant of the Word, and concerned with the preacher's work. If I treat of Farmer's book rather than of the writing of the one he regarded as his revered master, it is because in his exploration of the preaching-situation (and he was himself one of the finest preachers I have ever heard), he greatly illuminates the transformation I believe attributable to Kant's influence. Thus Farmer disdains and sharply criticizes any religious appeal that may override the subject's conscious and deliberate response, whether it be found in the techniques of mass-evangelism or even in the aesthetic dimension of the liturgy as encountered in King's College Chapel, Cambridge. If he glosses Kant by appeal to the Ich und Du of Martin Buber, the sustained influence of Kant's insistence on the most intimate response of the subject is clearly traceable. It is in the secret places of the heart that the seat not only of morality, but of an authentic religious response, is to be found, and this response must be the subject's own. His autonomy must not be overridden by motives of fear or desire for personal gain. If the call that he is represented as obeying is an unconditional, absolute demand, it is not the fiat of an omnipotent despot but a loyalty to the arcana of his own nature that is invested with the transcendent authority of the divine and which, if it is heard and obeyed, will be met with a correspondingly absolute succour. Farmer admittedly goes beyond Kant, a long way beyond him, in his understanding of grace. For while in

354 Kant and His Influence Religion Within the Limits of Reason Alone, Kant certainly displays an affirmative attitude towards the idea of divine assistance, very different from his rejection of prayer as unworthy of the responsible human individual, the cultivated reticence he frequently shows in exploration of characteristically religious conceptions halts his study, for instance, of the relation of grace to eschatology. And for Kant eschatology is extremely important, issuing his treatment of personal immortality into areas sometimes nearer to Paul's vision of the redemption of the created universe than to the metaphysical traditions associated with Plato on the one hand and Aristotle on the other. Farmer, on the other hand, is able to draw on the resources of an intense personal faith to suggest God as an ever-present source of consolation in the troubles that beset human beings. He exercises his sovereignty in the completion of work that human beings must set in hand but, through circumstances beyond their mastery, frequently leave unachieved, assuring them that though the demands upon their moral energy are unconditional there are no limits set to the omnipotent, omnipresent Lord's ability and readiness to guarantee their labours against an ultimate vanity and, by his love, to overcome their impulse to a final despair. Farmer was an outstandingly effective, always austere, champion of the cause of Christian pacifism, and it is often possible to discern in his apologetic for that stance in the manner in which he transformed a fundamentally Kantian insistence on morality as a categorical imperative by expelling the underlying Stoic individualism that many commentators have claimed to find in Kant's ethical theory. Peter Taylor Forsyth, to whose work we now turn, was born in Aberdeen in 1848 and read classics at King's College in that city. After a period of study under Albrecht Ritschl at Gottingen, he entered the ministry of

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the Congregational Church, serving for a time as pastor at Emmanuel Church, Trumpington Street, Cambridge and later becoming Principal of the Congregational College in Hackney. He was a very different sort of theologian from Herbert Farmer and, indeed, it was not for nothing that Karl Barth insisted that his writings had made it unnecessary for Britain to hear such a theologian as himself! How deeply Forsyth was influenced by Ritschl, whose transcription of Kant's ideas many find uncongenial by their bland indifference to the subtleties of the philosopher's thoughts, I do not know. What is important is the way in which Forsyth drew on Kant's insistence on the unconditional quality of personal morality in his profound exploration of the theology of the Atonement, and indeed in his Christology. In him we encounter a theologian who invoked Kant's sense of moral good and evil as a transcendent mystery in criticism of a debased form of immanentism, owing a debt to Hegel but to a Hegel very far removed from the philosopher, whose many-sided intellectual pilgrimage has in post-war Europe received ever-increasing attention - in France, for instance, from such critics as Jean Hyppolite and Gaston Fessard. Perhaps we come nearest to Forsyth's Hegel in Edward Caird's Gifford Lectures on the Evolution of Religion: but it was with a Hegel crudely vulgarized and distorted in R.J. Campbell's book The New Theology, that Forsyth did battle in his masterpiece, The Person and Place of Jesus Christ, and a Hegel whose political ideas had been invoked to validate German Macht-politik in the years leading up to and into the First World War, that he criticized in his essay on theodicy, The Justification of God. Yet what matters most is not Forsyth's polemics, but his positive theology and, in particular, his grasp of Christ's person and work. Here in language often passionately rhetorical, he fuses

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his sense of human need, of guilt confronted inescapedly by the holiness of God, with a readiness to bend in new directions, the New Testament contrast of Kenosis and plerosis, continually enabled by his debt to Kant's conception of personal morality, to illuminate the cruciality of Christ's work. It was not for nothing that a comparatively early work from his pen was entitled The Cruciality of the Cross. And while he was indebted to Kant for his insistence that the transcendent was to be encountered in and through the personal, moral lives of individual men and women, he was also indebted to him in respect of his criticism of ontological metaphysics. For Forsyth explicitly preferred a theology that could flirt with the mythological in its insistence on the primacy of narrative, to one tainted by what he called 'Chalcedonism', which seemed to subordinate the concrete reality of Christ's agony in Gethsemane and Calvary to a 'bloodless ballet of impalpable categories'. If he is unfair to the fathers of Nicaea and Chalcedon, despising their categories on occasion as if they were anticipations of the Hegelian dialectic, he furnishes his discriminating readers with an unforgettable, at times impressionistic, vision of the heart of the Christian story. Although Kant's opusculum on the last things and his Critique of All Theodicy were hardly known, apart from specialists, when Forsyth wrote in 1915 his own essay on theodicy, The Justification of God, the temper of that work is Kantian in the element of agnosticism which undergirds the way in which Forsyth dares to foresee God's vindication of himself. Theodicy was very important for Kant and his later work on the subject shows how towards the end of his life he was able to state quite explicitly his rejection of Leibniz's arguments which, once he had accepted, before he had measured up to his experience in Konigsberg during the Seven Years' War

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and to the impact on his reflection of the Lisbon earthquake of 1 November 1755, and developed over against them his view of morality as a categorical imperative, fulfilled not by observance of an itemized code of duties (as in a traditional style of deontological ethics) but by painful personal self-discipline at the level of motivation and choice. (His ethic was fundamentally, in Scheler's terms, a Gesinnungsethik, one of motive, and not an Erfolgsethik, one of overt performance.) Dr Ann Loades in her recent valuable book, Kant and Job's Comforters^ has shown the extent to which an understanding of Kant's whole work is enlarged by acknowledgement of this sort of preoccupation across the many years of his active intellectual life. Forsyth is significant in that he made use of Kant's doctrine of the primacy of practical reason in systematic theological construction. His exhausting rhetoric seems at first a long way removed from Kant's disciplined formality; but it is Kant who enables him to say, over against Hegel (as he understood him), that it is in an action and through an action that the world is redeemed by acknowledgement of God's sovereign holiness. He dwells on the particularity of that action, insistent that its concrete detail is significant. Thus, at one point he declares that part of Christ's spiritual passion resides in its being for him a matter of faith that the via crucis was the way he must go. The limitations of his intellectual perception were genuine, the continued appeal to the Father no mere charade. These limitations were accepted as part of the price of Incarnation, and in language characteristic of his rhetoric, he declaimed: There was a Calvary above that was the mother of it all'. While it is often claimed that Kant's use in the Grundlegung of Christ's logion, 'Why call you me good? One only is good - God', shows how lightly he esteemed Christ's

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authority vis-a-vis that of the moral law, Forsyth might well have seen in Kant's use of that saying a veiled appreciation of the extent to which Christ must bow before the Father who alone had the authority to define the detail of his redemptive mission. In other words, Kant's comment indicated a sense of the need of Christian faith always to be theocentric, acknowledging the authority of that order which it is for God alone to uphold. If we leave Coleridge aside (and his debt to Kant requires special treatment, as I have tried in a measure to give it in the volume, Coleridge's Variety edited by Dr John Beer), the use made of Kant's ideas by high Anglicans of the school of Lux Mundi (1889) has interesting parallels with the lessons Forsyth bade men learn from him. For such men as Charles Gore and Henry Scott-Holland, the prophetic traditions of the Old Testament were crucially significant. Their Old Testament scholarship might be judged simpliste: but they found in prophet as distinct from priest the substance of the praeparatio evangelica. Though they were sacramentalists of the following of the Tractarians (one of Gore's best books was on the Eucharist), they bowed before a moral order, denying to men the right to justify in the name of hallowed ecclesiastical institutions the abrogation of its demands. Gore's ecclesiastical practice was contradictory; he showed himself as a Bishop (in Worcester, in Birmingham and in Oxford) capable of a stern doctrinal authoritarianism. But the moral order, the claim of men upon men, as men, was profoundly significant for him, as, for instance, he showed in a magnificent sermon on the limits of Christian patriotism preached before the University of Cambridge in 1915. He would have more than half-understood the motives of the devout Spanish Catholic, mentioned by Albert Camus in

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his L'Homme Revoke, who refused to take the Sacraments in the years following the installation of Franco's dictatorship in protest against the moral infamy of his Church's collusion with the methods of Franco's attainment of power, perpetuated in the style of his rule. But it was not only in their passionate moralism that the indebtedness of Gore and Scott-Holland to Kant showed a kinship with that of Peter Taylor Forsyth; it was rather in the significance for their thought of Kenosis, shaping their Christology and focusing their breach (for Scott-Holland as very painful) with Thomas Hill Green, their master in metaphysics as well as in social philosophy and a man nearer to Caird's Hegel than to the Kant of the Critique of Practical Reason. True, the Incarnation rather than the Atonement (as in Forsyth's case) was the centre of their theological concern; they invoked the idea of Kenosis in the first instance to provide a rationale of the limitations of Christ's human knowledge. But as their work (in its very different forms) makes plain, this idea had much wider ramifications. It encouraged attention to the concrete experience of Jesus, marrying an attempted fidelity to the tradition of conciliar orthodoxy with a deep sensitivity to the actuality of Christ's humanity. If their interest was more metaphysical than Forsyth's, they shared with him appreciation of the manner in which experiential selflimitation was of the essence of the Incarnation. And this was something which in its achievement turned a searching light on the whole way of God with his creation. Because Green was their revered teacher, ScottHolland's and Gore's insistence on the particularity of Jesus shows an undoubted influence on their theology of Kant's implicit criticism of the absolute idealism that tended in the later nineteenth century to dominate the British philosophical schools. That a human career

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should not merely illustrate the order of the world but, by the submission to human limitation that lay at its foundation, constitute that order shows a resolute refusal to allow that career's particularity to merge with the unfolding of a universal pattern. A discontinuity is affirmed which Kant's diremption of theoretical and practical made possible thirty years after the publication of Darwin's Origin of Species evolutionary ideas cast their spell on Christian thinking schooled, for instance, in the Logos theology of the Greek apologists, for example, Clement of Alexandria. But Christology demanded a discontinuity, and it was Kant who, both in the detail of his exploration of the limits of human experience and especially by his insistence on the transcendent quality of moral excellence, suggested the way in which that discontinuity might be defined without indulgence in crudely thaumaturgical styles of representation. More pervasively, it was through Kant's influence that the spirit of the Aufklarung was effectively baptized into Christ. And this was a conversion that the theological tradition that was to receive it urgently needed. It was not only that the crudities of solifidianism and the debasement of Catholic sacramentalism into the idea of a grace-energy impersonally transmitted through appointed channels demands required correction; it was also necessary that the claim of the Churches to override the rich, fragile stuff of our humanity in the wake of a dogmatic orthodoxy, guarded and enforced by an alleged Heilsanstalt, should be effectively resisted. The horrors of the Albigensian Crusade should never have been forgotten (to mention only one instance of the evils whose recollection must make one glad not to live in an 'age of faith'). The architects of the totalitarian states of the twentieth century were able to put their executives to school in the traditions of the Inquisition. It was from the

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first formulation of Kant's categorical imperative (the formula of law universal) that men and women, tempted to start out on the way that leads to cruelty permitted in the name of faith, could come to see that they condemned themselves to estrangement from their fellows by following the illusion that the claims of common humanity might be overridden in the name of a forced conversion to the institutionalized way of salvation. It was from Kant that theologians were enabled to see that the universalism of the Enlightenment was no facile optimism, but an expression of the need for the devout to submit their aspirations to judgement at the bar of a common humanity - lest indeed they failed to see the Son of Man in the least of his brethren and, failing, forfeited the very faith by which they claimed to live. It was indeed from that great Anglican theologian, Oliver Chase Quick, whose premature death in 1944 was a most grievous loss to his subject, that I learnt myself to see the level at which Kant taught just that lesson. It may seem surprising that so little has been said in this paper of the influence of Kant's criticism of the arguments for the existence of God, and in particular of his treatment of the ontological argument. In conclusion, therefore, I wish to turn away from Kant's doctrine of the primacy of the practical reason and its influence and that of Kant's ethical theory to issues raised in the first Critique. And here again the story is not a simple one; for we have to reckon with the effect of Kant's critical evaluation of metaphysics on metaphysical theology, and also with the extent to which his agnosticism affected understanding of traditional credenda. Further, the first influence is not at all a one-way story. There is an element in Kant's criticism of transcendent metaphysics that leads straight to Wittgenstein's Tractatus LogicoPhilosophicus, a strikingly Kantian work, even as its

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author's life brings out again the striking analogies between Immanuel Kant and Blaise Pascal - the eighteenth-century Konigsberg academic and the Jansenist genius and spiritual master of seventeenthcentury France. There is, indeed, also an element more than a little akin to the more nakedly positivistic work of Moritz Schlick. But there are also strands that lead by way of the developed treatment of intuitive over against discursive understanding to what is sometimes called the epistemological argument for the existence of God, a type of thinking illustrated by the remarkable, unfinished work of the French Jesuit, Pierre Rousselot (killed in action in 1914) and discernible again in R.C.S. Walker's recent study, The Coherence Theory of Truth. No question that such thinking would compel modification of Kant's criticism of traditional theistic proof; but, equally, it focuses again the insight he displayed in treating the ontological proof as crucial. This cruciality resides, of course, in its alleged presupposition by causal and physico-theological proofs. By the primacy Kant asserted to belong to it, he sought to bring out the way in which, in this proof, it is insisted that the idea of God must be self-authenticating, that is if it is in any way an adequate conception. But in so far as objectivity for us is constituted by understanding and imagination working upon a sense-given manifold, the very claim of objective existence made for anything whose reality we may debate involves reference to a framework that is humanly relative. We are not able to conceive an objective reality that is absolute in the sense of being free of the constraints of the framework that provides for us the very conditions of objectivity. The self-authenticating is a chimaera, and in so far as the terms of causal and physico-theological proofs must, if it is to be accounted divine, share in the self-authentication demanded of its

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conclusion in the ontological proof, that term must equally be dismissed as an epistemic illusion. Further, of course, Kant anticipates the FregeanRussellian insight that existence is not an attribute, and recognizes that in so far as the ontological argument conceives existence as attributive on all fours with omniscience and omnipotence, it is rendered logically invalid. It is the Anglican philosopher of religion, C.C.J. Webb (drawing on the insights of such seniors and contemporaries as John Cook-Wilson and H.W.B. Joseph, the latter his brother-in-law) who perhaps more than any other British thinker sought to criticize Kant's rejection of the ontological proof by insistence that we could conceive an absolute and that that conception was selfauthenticating. Webb knew Kant's philosophy of religion very well and wrote perceptively about it. But in an earlier work he developed a criticism of what (with his friend Baron Friedrich von Hugel) he rejected as Kant's subjectivism, which in fact borrowed, in his conception of the self-authenticating absolute, from Kant's developed distinction in the third Critique (that of Judgement) between intuitive and discursive understanding. (I refer to his Problems in the Relation of God and Man.) The intuitive or divine understanding posits its own objects, which therefore enjoy a transparency in this regard far removed from the insight won by a discursive understanding into the order of that revealed to it in fragmentary sensuous and imaginative experience. If I understand Webb aright, he claims that if we modify Kant's theory of knowledge in a realist direction, we can find in human cognitive experience the presence in judgement of its inevitable imperfection and, in promise of its ultimate completion, of another totally creative awareness, bringing into being and grounding the order of that which we assimilate piecemeal and in continual self-correction.

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Here is a very bold metaphysical essay, demanding of course that we both allow conception of the absolutely creative awareness to be self-authenticating and that we invoke the resources of the classical doctrine of analogy in representing the relation of our experience to its omniscience. We do well to ask what such a line of reflection may have to offer, and neither Webb (nor Joseph in occasional papers and unpublished work) succeeded in doing more than opening up possibilities (aware in Joseph's case that we might advance further by bringing Berkeley and Kant into closer relation). The obvious interest in such lines of thought shown by R.C.S. Walker in his recent study of the coherence theory of truth is further justification for including this brief reference in a study of Kant's influence on British theology. Finally, we turn again to the way in which out of his profound agnosticism, Kant sought to find a positive role for religious credenda in advancing human moral selfdiscipline. They could not be regarded as informative: thus the doctrine of the Incarnation, presented by Paul in Philippians 2, could not be treated as an account of the way of God with his creation. There is a great gulf between Kant himself and Forsyth in the latter's conversion of Kant to his own use. Had Kant lived to read Forsyth's theological construction, he would have regarded it as an Als ob, justified by the extent to which it promoted the cause of moral excellence by suggesting that the Creator of the world prized such worth so highly that he staked his own being on its most costly affirmation in human history. Something is being said; but we only achieve a purchase-hold on its significance when we respond by direction of our will. We cannot represent: we achieve the sense of what we affirm in action. We can trace the influence of such an evaluation of the orthodox

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Christian creed in the writings, for instance, of the much persecuted and maligned Jesuit, George Tyrrell. If he could not be called in any sense a Kantian, his writings (as his recent biographer Dr Nicholas Sagovsky suggests) show that Kant as well as Maurice Blondel affected his fundamental perceptions. It is again a mark of Kant's mastery that his influence is displayed not in the slavish imitation of supposed disciples, but in the conversion of his insights to uses he can neither have foreseen nor, necessarily, in any way approved.

Bibliography Beer, John (ed.), Coleridge's Variety: Bicentenary Studies (Macmillan: London, 1974). Caird, Edward, Evolution of Religion (Glasgow, 1899). Campbell, R.J., The New Theology (Chapman & Hall: London, 1907). Camus, Albert, L'Homme Revoke, trans A. Bower (Hamish Hamilton: London, 1953). Darwin, Charles, On the Origin of Species (London, 1859). Farmer, Herbert, The Servant of the Word (Nisbet: London, 1941). Forsyth, Peter Taylor, The Person and Place of Jesus Christ (London, 1930). Forsyth, Peter Taylor, The Justification of God: Lectures for war-time on a Christian theodicy (London, 1916). Forsyth, Peter Taylor, The Cruciality of the Cross (London, 1909). Kant, I., Religion Within the Limits of Reason Alone, trans T.M. Greene and H.H. Hudson (Harper & Row: New York/Evanston, 1960). Kant, L, Critique of All Theodicy, available in English translation in Michael Despland, Kant on History and Religion (McGill-Queen's University Press: Montreal, 1973). Kant, I., Critique of Practical Reason (Dr H.W. Cassirer, unpublished translation). Loades, Ann, Kant and Job's Comforters in New Studies in Theology, S.W. Sykes and D. Holmes (eds) (London, 1980).

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Oman, John, Grace and Personality (Cambridge, 1917). Sagovsky, Nicholas, On God's Side: a life of George Tyrrell (Clarendon: Oxford, 1990). Walker, R.C.S., The Coherence Theory of Truth (Routledge & Kegan Paul: London, 1989). Webb, C.C.J., Problems in the Relation of God and Man (Nisbet: London, 1911). Wittgenstein, L., Tractatus Logico-Philosophicus (Routledge & Kegan Paul: London, 1922).

NOTES ON CONTRIBUTORS

FORSTER, Eckart, DPhil, is Associate Professor of Philosophy and German Studies at Standford University, California, USA and is currently preparing an English edition of Kant's Opus postumwn. He has also edited Kant's Transcendental Deductions. The Three 'Critiques' and the 'Opus postumum' (Stanford University Press: Stanford, 1989). KUEHN, Manfred, PhD, is Associate Professor of Philosophy at Purdue University, Indiana, USA. He is author of Scottish Common Sense in Germany, 17681800: A Contribution to the History of Critical Philosophy (McGill-Queen's University Press: Montreal/London, 1987) and is now working on a study of Kant's philosophical development. LEWIS, Peter, BA, is a Lecturer in Philosophy at the University of Edinburgh, UK. LLEWELYN, John, MA, BLitt, was until recently Reader in Philosophy at the University of Edinburgh. He is currently the Arthur J. Schmitt Distinguished Visiting Professor of Philosophy at Loyola University of Chicago. His publications include Beyond Metaphysics? The Hermeneutic Circle in Contemporary Continental Philosophy (Humanities Press: New Jersey/Macmillan: London, 1985), Derrida on the Threshold of Sense (Macmillan: London/St Martin's Press: New York, 367

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1986) and The Middle Voice of Ecological Conscience (A Chiasmic Reading of Responsibility in the Neighbourhood of Levinas, Heidegger and Others) (Macmillan: London, 1991). MACDONALD ROSS, George, MA, is Head of the Department of Philosophy, University of Leeds, UK. He was the founding Honorary Secretary of the British Society for the History of Philosophy, and is a member of its Management Committee, and of the Editorial Board of the British Journal for the History of Philosophy. He is Chairman of the National Committee for Philosophy, and President of the Leibniz Association. His publications include Past Masters: Leibniz (Oxford University Press: Oxford, 1984). Publications/organisations: BSHP; Hegel Society; Aristotelian Society; Mind Association; Analysis; Philosophy (RIP); Society for Eighteenth-Century Studies; Scots Philosophical Club; Philosophical Books; British Journal of Aesthetics. MACKINNON, Donald, MA, DD, FBA, FRSE, is Emeritus Norris-Hulse Professor of Divinity at Cambridge University, UK, and formerly Regius Professor of Moral Philosophy at Aberdeen University, UK. His publications include Themes in Theology: The Three-fold Cord (1987), containing the paper 'Kant's Philosophy of Religion'. MCWALTER, Tony, BSc, MA, BPhil, is Principal Lecturer in Philosophy at Hatfield Polytechnic, UK, where he is also a campus Director of Computing. He is a member of the Management Committee of the British Society for the History of Philosophy; he is currently working on a text on the nature of effective reasoning.

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MICHELI, Giuseppe, is Associate Professor of the History of Philosophy at the University of Padua, Italy and was Visiting Fellow to Wolfson College, Oxford University, UK 1989-90. In addition to many journal articles on topics in Kant and German philosophy he is the author of the volume Kant storico della filosofia (Antenore: Padova, 1980); he has also co-edited Kant a due secoli dalla 'Critica' (La Scuola: Brescia, 1984) and contributed to the work in several volumes and still in progress Storia delle storie generali della filosofia (La Scuola: Brescia, 1979-81/Antenore: Padova, 1988). STOCK, Guy, MA, was formerly Senior Lecturer in Philosophy at the University of Dundee, UK and now lectures there part-time and at the University of Aberdeen, UK. WHITE, Roger M., BA, is a Lecturer in Philosophy at the University of Leeds, UK. WILSON, Catherine, BPhil, PhD, is Associate Professor of Philosophy at the University of Oregon, USA. She is the author of Leibniz's Metaphysics (Manchester University Press: Manchester, 1989).

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INDEX OF NAMES

The index includes names of philosophers, thinkers, and scholars discussed within the text and notes. Where a name is used adjectivally (for example, 'Lockian', 'Fregean'), the reference is included under the entry of that name. Fictional or quasi-fictional characters are grouped under the names of their author where appropriate. Major references are indicated in bold type. Abbott, T.K., 172 Adelung, Johann C , 281, 282 Adickes, E., 158, 217, 232, 280, 307 Aikin, Arthur, 239 Aquinas, Thomas, 116, 352 Aristotle, 60, 87, 192, 352, 354 Augustine, St, 181, 186 Austen, Jane, 144 Bacon, Francis, 258 Barruel, Augustine, 289-90, 292 Barth, Karl, 355 Baeumler, Alfred, 81 Baum, Giinther, 338 Baumgarten, A.G., 88-9, 93, 96-7, 100-1 Beanblossom, Ronald E., 323 Beattie, James, 257, 320, 332 Beck, Jacob Sigismund, x, 146, 147, 157-8, 160, 162-7, 168,231, 280 Beck, Lewis White, 5 Beddoes, Thomas, 235, 249-55, 256, 273, 274-7, 278 Beer, John, 358 Beethoven, Ludwig van, 135 Behler, Ernst, 305 Behn, Friedrich Daniel, 217, 218 Bell, D., 142-3 Belsham, Thomas, 305

Bentham,J.,205, 211 Bergson, Henri Louis, 181 Berkeley, George, 78, 215, 216, 224, 256, 262,319 Bernhard.J.H., 133 Biblical characters Bath-sheba, 348 David, 348 Job,357 Nathan, 348 Uriah, 348 Bid, Gabriel, 16, 44 Blondel, Maurice, 365 Bodin, Jean, 352 Bonnet, Charles, 210 Born, Friedrich, 306 Boswell, James, 315n Bouhours, Dominique, 81 Bradley, F.H., ix, 104, 117-25 Brody, Baruch, 323 Brown, Thomas, 305, 318, 319-20, 329, 345 Brucker, Johann Jakob, 270 Buber, Martin, 353 Buhle, Johann Gottlieb, 159, 160, 306 Butler, Joseph, 348 Caesar, Julius, 348 Caird, Edward, 204, 355, 359 Calvin, John, 352

371

372

Index

Campbell, R.J., 355 Camus, Albert, 358-9 Carroll, Lewis, 130 Cassirer, Ernst, 126 Castlereagh, Robert Stewart, 285 Chinol, Ennio, 202, 208, 295 Christ, Jesus, 43, 54-5, 63, 350, 356-7, 359-60 Clark, R., 296, 297 Clement of Alexandria, 360 Cogan, Thomas, 214-15 Cohen, Edward, 129, 132, 145 Coleridge, ST., xi, 193-4, 202, 208, 253, 293-4, 307, 358 Comte, Auguste, 323 Condillac, Etienne Bonnot de, 210, 258 Constable, John, 143 Cook-Wilson, John, 363 Courtine, Jean-Francis, 193 Cousin, Victor, 326, 334 Cras, Henryk Constantyn, 229-30 Cudworth, Ralph, 320 d'Ailly, Peter, 44 Darwin, Charles, 360 Davie, George E., xi, xv Degerando, J.M., 283, 305-6 Descartes, Rene, 77, 79, 184, 186, 258 Deschamps, Paul, 295 Dionysius, 18 Drummond, William, 305, 318, 320n Duncan, George M., 307 Dutens, Louis, 101 Eberhard, J.A., 97-9, 217, 219, 281 Eliot, T.S., 124, 144 Enfield, William, 269, 270-2 Erasmus, viii, 1, 5-9, 15, 68-70 Ewald, Johann Ludwig, 228, 229 Farmer, Herbert, 353-5 Feder, Johann G.H., 217, 219 Fessard, Gaston, 355 Fevre, Jean Le, 214 Fichte, J.G., x, 146, 147, 157-8, 158-62, 180,184-6, 190-1, 194, 201-2, 233, 287-9, 295-6, 299, 303, 338, 344

Fischer, Kuno, 147 Forsyth, Peter Taylor, 350, 354-8, 364 Franck, Christophorus, 3, 54 Franco, Francisco, 359 Frege, Friedrich Ludwig, 118, 363 Freud, Sigmund, 23, 33 Galileo Galilei, 148 Garve, Christian, 150, 160 Gessner, Johann Anton W., 211 Gifford,J.,289, 291 Gleig, George, 291 Glover, Johannes, 214 Godwin, William, 214 Goethe, J.W. von, 208, 212, 295 Gore, Charles, 358-9 Gould, Timothy, 129-31, 142 Green, Thomas Hill, 204, 359 Greenberg, Arthur R., 324 Greene, John Richard see Gifford, J. Griffiths, Ralph, 206, 207, 253, 269, 273, 278, 282 Grimm, H.J., 44 Groenewegen, Hermanus Y., 214, 219 Hamilton, William (1788-1856), xi-xii, 204, 308, 316-45 Hare, R.M., 26-8, 44 Hartley, William, 210, 262, 263 Hegel, G.W.F., 177, 184, 186-7, 193,204,231, 325n, 338, 355-7, 359 Heidegger, Martin, x, 181, 186, 188n, 200 Hermert, Paulus van, 213, 218, 219 Heraclitus, 188 Herder, Caroline von, 295 Herder, J.G. von, 289, 291, 295-7, 300 Herz, Marcus, 164 Hohlfeld, A.R., 209, 297, 305 Holderlin, Friedrich, 188, 200 Homer, 194 Homeric and mythological characters Achilles, 34 Eros, 194 Psyche, 194 Tantalus, 160 Hoyer, Carl H., 177

Index Hiigel, Friedrich von, 363 Hulshoff, Allard, 214-15, 217 Hume, David, viii, 255-6, 258, 262, 265-6, 283, 301,319,320,321, 332, 338-9, 341 Husserl, E., 181 Hyppolite, Jean, 355 Jacobi, Friedrich Heinrich, 251, 265, 266, 297, 300-2, 303-4, 318, 333n, 338, 340-4 Jakob, Ludwig Heinrich, 217, 227-8, 231 John, St, 352 Johnson, Joseph, 193, 207, 233, 248,267-8,273,280-1,285 Jowett, Benjamin, 204 Joyce, James, 142 Kames, Lord, 257 Kinker, Hans, 214 Klopstock, Friedrich Gottlieb, 211 Kotzebue, August F.F. von, 208 Kroner, Richard, 210 Land, Jean Pieter N., 214 Leavis, F.R., 144-5 Leibniz, Gottfried Wilhelm, viii-ix, 73-102, 104, 105-12, 113, 115-16, 117, 119, 125, 258, 319, 356 Lessing, Gotthold Ephraim, 295 Levere, Trevor H., 253 Lewis, D., 123n Loades, Ann, 357 Locke, John, 74, 86, 89n, 210, 215-16, 250, 253-4, 256, 258, 262, 263, 273, 282, 301, 321, 328,342 Luther, Martin, vii-viii, 1-4, 14-15, 16, 44-5, 50-1, 57, 59, 60-71, 352

373

Meier, C.F., 88, 94n Meiklejohn, John Miller D., 307 Mendelssohn, Moses, 251 Meredith, J.C., 133, 140 Merleau-Ponty, Maurice, 191 Mill, J.S., 323, 328n, 333n Milton, John, 211 Montluzin, Emily Lorraine de, 286, 291 Morgan, Bayard Q., 208, 297, 305, 307 Mounier, Jean Joseph, 292 Muirhead, John Henry, 202, 231 Muller, Johann von, 295 Newton, I., 75, 101,210 Nicolai, Christoph Friedrich, 207 Nitsch, Friedrich August, 213, 231, 232, 240, 242-5, 247, 249,255, 259-73, 280, 283,305,318 O'Keeffe, J.A., 213, 231, 232, 23640, 241, 243, 248, 259, 266, 283 Olson, Richard, 317n Oman, John, 352-3 Oswald, James, 257, 320, 332 Paine, Tom, 241 Paley, William, 205, 210-11 Pascal, Blaise, 362 Pattison, Mark, 203 Paul, St, 57, 66, 350, 352, 354, 364 Phillips, Richard, 248, 268, 300 Pitt, William, (1759-1806), 286 Plato, ix, 99, 352, 354 Plotinus, 282 Pluhar, W.S., 133, 137, 139, 140 Pollock, Jackson, 142 Price, R., 209 Priestley, J., 210-11 Quick, Oliver Chase, 361 Quincey, Thomas de, 307

McCosh, James, 322 Mackintosh, James, 318, 320n Reid, Thomas, 215, 216, 227, Madden, Edward H., 317n, 324n, 257-8, 266, 315,318-24, 325n, 335n 327, 328, 329-33, 338, 341 Maimon, Solomon, 146 Reinhold, Karl Leonhard, 146, 160, Malebranche, Nicolas, 256 233, 238, 243, 251, 252,259-62, Maker, Rudolf, 315 264, 265, 267, 273, 287, 295, Mansel, Henry L., 204, 304, 308, 322 296, 306

374

Index

Reynolds, J., 127n Richardson, John, 213, 231-2, 280, 306,307,318 Richter, Henry J., 255 Rink, Friedrich Theodor, 162 Ritschl, Albrecht, 354, 355 Robbins, Peter, 204 Robespierre, M.F.M.I. de, 291 Robinson, Henry Crabb, 305 Roper, Derek, 206, 239, 240, 269, 278, 282, 285, 286 Rousseau, Jean-Jacques, 257 Rousselot, Pierre, 362 Ruskin, John, 143 Russell, B., 120, 363 Sagovsky, Nicholas, 365 St Pierre, abbot of, 280 Santinello, Giovanni, 261, 270 Saxony, Elector of, 287 Scheler, Max Ferdinand, 357 Schelling, F.W.J. von, x, 146, 147, 157-8, 167-8, 170, 172, 177-200, 202, 298, 299, 301, 303, 334, 338 Schiller, Ferdinand C.S., 295 Schlettwein, Johann August, 160, 161 Schlick, Moritz, 362 Schopenhauer, Arthur, 128 Schulz, Johann, 161, 162, 233, 281 Schwab, J.C., 217, 218, 219, 224, 225-7 Schweighauser, Jean-Geoffroy, 300 Scott-Holland, Henry, 358, 359 Semple, John William,. 307 Seth, Andrew, 324-5 Shakespeare, William, 38, 71, 212 Shakespearean characters Desdemona, 47, 49-50 Falstaff, 38 Othello, 47-50, 71 Romeo and Juliet, 130 Sidgwick, Henry, 203, 323 Sinborne ( pseud.), 255 Smith, N. Kemp, 175 Socrates, 242 Southey, Robert, 293 Sowden, Benjamin, 216-18, 219-31, 270 Spener, Karl, 1, 3, 53, 54, 58 Spinoza, B., 168, 178, 183-4, 303

Stael, Mme de, 307 Stewart, Dugald, 284, 301, 306, 318-20, 345 Stirling, J.H., 323 Stuckenberg, J.H.W., 231 Sullivan, Alvin, 206, 233, 239, 240, 286 Taylor, William, 278, 282-3 Timperley, Charles H., 207, 248, 285 Tooke, Home, 253 Tracy, Destutt de, 214 Tschirnhaus, Ehrenfried Walther von, 89n Turner, J.M.W., 142, 143 Tyrrell, George, 365 Tyson, Gerald P., 233, 285, 286 Van der Linden, Harry, xiii, xv Veitch, John, 203 Verra, Valerio, 261, 266, 296 Villers, Charles, 162, 305, 319 Vleeschauwer, Herman Jean de, 158 Wakefield, Gilbert, 285 Walker, James, 289, 291-2, 293, 294, 296, 300 Walker, R.C.S., 362, 364 Wallace, W., 204 Webb, C.C.J., 363-4 Weishaupt, Adam, 281 Wellek, Rene, 219, 231, 305, 306, 345 Whewell, William, 203-4, 307 Whitehead, A.N., ix, 104, 352 Wieland, Christoph M., 212 Wielema, M.R., 214, 215, 217 Willich, Antony Florian Madinger, 213,231,232,280,281-2, 289-90, 292, 305, 307,318 Winkelmann, E., 295 Wirgman, Thomas, 307 Wittgenstein, Ludwig, ix, 135-8, 141, 361 Wolff, C.F., 88-90, 95-8, 100, 101, 178, 257, 258, 262 Wordsworth, William, 293, 294 Zinzendorf, Nicolaus L. von, 3, 53, 54