полная версия

Артур Шопенгауэр
The World as Will and Idea (Vol. 2 of 3)

Aristotle also denies reciprocity in the strict sense; for he remarks that two things may certainly be reciprocal causes of each other, but only if this is understood in a different sense of each of them; for example, that one acts upon the other as the motive, but the latter acts upon the former as the cause of its movement. We find in two passages the same words: Physic., lib. ii. c. 3, and Metaph., lib. v. c. 2. Εστι δε τινα και αλληλων αιτια; οἱον το πονειν αιτιον της ευεξιας, και αὑτη του πονειν; αλλ᾽ ου τον αυτον τροπον, αλλα το μεν ὡς τελος, το δε ὡς αρχη κινησεως. (Sunt præterea quæ sibi sunt mutuo causæ, ut exercitium bonæ habitudinis, et hæc exercitii: at non eodem modo, sed hæc ut finis, aliud ut principium motus.) If, besides this, he had accepted a reciprocity proper, he would have introduced it here, for in both passages he is concerned with enumerating all the possible kinds of causes. In the Analyt. post., lib. ii. c. 11, he speaks of a circle of causes and effects, but not of reciprocity.

4. The categories of Modality have this advantage over all others, that what is expressed through each of them really corresponds to the form of judgment from which it is derived; which with the other categories is scarcely ever the case, because for the most part they are deduced from the forms of judgment with the most capricious violence.

Thus that it is the conceptions of the possible, the actual, and the necessary which occasion the problematic, assertatory, and apodictic forms of judgment, is perfectly true; but that those conceptions are special, original forms of knowledge of the understanding which cannot be further deduced is not true. On the contrary, they spring from the single original form of all knowledge, which is, therefore, known to us a priori, the principle of sufficient reason; and indeed out of this the knowledge of necessity springs directly. On the other hand, it is only because reflection is applied to this that the conceptions of contingency, possibility, impossibility, and actuality arise. Therefore all these do not by any means spring from one faculty of the mind, the understanding, but arise through the conflict of abstract and intuitive knowledge, as will be seen directly.

I hold that to be necessary and to be the consequent of a given reason are absolutely interchangeable notions, and completely identical. We can never know, nor even think, anything as necessary, except so far as we regard it as the consequent of a given reason; and the conception of necessity contains absolutely nothing more than this dependence, this being established through something else, and this inevitable following from it. Thus it arises and exists simply and solely through the application of the principle of sufficient reason. Therefore, there is, according to the different forms of this principle, a physical necessity (the effect from the cause), a logical (through the ground of knowing, in analytical judgments, syllogisms, &c.), a mathematical (according to the ground of being in time and space), and finally a practical necessity, by which we intend to signify not determination through a pretended categorical imperative, but the necessary occurrence of an action according to the motives presented, in the case of a given empirical character. But everything necessary is only so relatively, that is, under the presupposition of the reason from which it follows; therefore absolute necessity is a contradiction. With regard to the rest, I refer to § 49 of the essay on the principle of sufficient reason.

The contradictory opposite, i. e., the denial of necessity, is contingency. The content of this conception is, therefore, negative – nothing more than this: absence of the connection expressed by the principle of sufficient reason. Consequently the contingent is also always merely relative. It is contingent in relation to something which is not its reason. Every object, of whatever kind it may be – for example, every event in the actual world – is always at once necessary and contingent, necessary in relation to the one condition which is its cause: contingent in relation to everything else. For its contact in time and space with everything else is a mere coincidence without necessary connection: hence also the words chance, συμπτωμα, contingens. Therefore an absolute contingency is just as inconceivable as an absolute necessity. For the former would be simply an object which stood to no other in the relation of consequent to its reason. But the inconceivability of such a thing is just the content of the principle of sufficient reason negatively expressed, and therefore this principle must first be upset before we can think an absolute contingency; and even then it itself would have lost all significance, for the conception of contingency has meaning only in relation to that principle, and signifies that two objects do not stand to each other in the relation of reason and consequent.

In nature, which consists of ideas of perception, everything that happens is necessary; for it proceeds from its cause. If, however, we consider this individual with reference to everything else which is not its cause, we know it as contingent; but this is already an abstract reflection. Now, further, let us abstract entirely from a natural object its causal relation to everything else, thus its necessity and its contingency; then this kind of knowledge comprehends the conception of the actual, in which one only considers the effect, without looking for the cause, in relation to which one would otherwise have to call it necessary, and in relation to everything else contingent. All this rests ultimately upon the fact that the modality of the judgment does not indicate so much the objective nature of things as the relation of our knowledge to them. Since, however, in nature everything proceeds from a cause, everything actual is also necessary, yet only so far as it is at this time, in this place; for only so far does determination by the law of causality extend. Let us leave, however, concrete nature and pass over to abstract thinking; then we can present to ourselves in reflection all the natural laws which are known to us partly a priori, partly only a posteriori, and this abstract idea contains all that is in nature at any time, in any place, but with abstraction from every definite time and place; and just in this way, through such reflection, we have entered the wide kingdom of the possible. But what finds no place even here is the impossible. It is clear that possibility and impossibility exist only for reflection, for abstract knowledge of the reason, not for knowledge of perception; although it is the pure forms of perception which supply the reason with the determination of the possible and impossible. According as the laws of nature, from which we start in the thought of the possible and impossible, are known a priori or a posteriori, is the possibility or impossibility metaphysical or physical.

From this exposition, which requires no proof because it rests directly upon the knowledge of the principle of sufficient reason and upon the development of the conceptions of the necessary, the actual, and the possible, it is sufficiently evident how entirely groundless is Kant's assumption of three special functions of the understanding for these three conceptions, and that here again he has allowed himself to be disturbed by no reflection in the carrying out of his architectonic symmetry.

To this, however, we have to add the other great mistake, that, certainly according to the procedure of earlier philosophy, he has confounded the conceptions of necessity and contingency with each other. That earlier philosophy has applied abstraction to the following mistaken use. It was clear that that of which the reason is given inevitably follows, i. e., cannot not be, and thus necessarily is. But that philosophy held to this last determination alone, and said that is necessary which cannot be otherwise, or the opposite of which is impossible. It left, however, the ground and root of such necessity out of account, overlooked the relativity of all necessity which follows from it, and thereby made the quite unthinkable fiction of an absolute necessity, i. e., of something the existence of which would be as inevitable as the consequent of a reason, but which yet was not the consequent of a reason, and therefore depended upon nothing; an addition which is an absurd petitio, for it conflicts with the principle of sufficient reason. Now, starting from this fiction, it explained, in diametrical opposition to the truth, all that is established by a reason as contingent, because it looked at the relative nature of its necessity and compared this with that entirely imaginary absolute necessity, which is self-contradictory in its conception.⁵ Now Kant adheres to this fundamentally perverse definition of the contingent and gives it as explanation. (Critique of Pure Reason, V. p. 289-291, 243. V. 301, 419. V. 447, 486, 488.) He falls indeed into the most evident contradiction with himself upon this point, for on p. 301 he says: “Everything contingent has a cause,” and adds, “That is contingent which might possibly not be.” But whatever has a cause cannot possibly not be: thus it is necessary. For the rest, the source of the whole of this false explanation of the necessary and the contingent is to be found in Aristotle in “De Generatione et Corruptione,” lib. ii. c. 9 et 11, where the necessary is explained as that which cannot possibly not be: there stands in opposition to it that which cannot possibly be, and between these two lies that which can both be and not be, – thus that which comes into being and passes away, and this would then be the contingent. In accordance with what has been said above, it is clear that this explanation, like so many of Aristotle's, has resulted from sticking to abstract conceptions without going back to the concrete and perceptible, in which, however, the source of all abstract conceptions lies, and by which therefore they must always be controlled. “Something which cannot possibly not be” can certainly be thought in the abstract, but if we go with it to the concrete, the real, the perceptible, we find nothing to support the thought, even as possible, – as even merely the asserted consequent of a given reason, whose necessity is yet relative and conditioned.

I take this opportunity of adding a few further remarks on these conceptions of modality. Since all necessity rests upon the principle of sufficient reason, and is on this account relative, all apodictic judgments are originally, and according to their ultimate significance, hypothetical. They become categorical only through the addition of an assertatory minor, thus in the conclusion. If this minor is still undecided, and this indecision is expressed, this gives the problematical judgment.

What in general (as a rule) is apodictic (a law of nature), is in reference to a particular case only problematical, because the condition must actually appear which brings the case under the rule. And conversely, what in the particular as such is necessary (apodictic) (every particular change necessary through the cause), is again in general, and predicated universally, only problematical; because the causes which appear only concern the particular case, and the apodictic, always hypothetical judgment, always expresses merely the general law, not the particular case directly. All this has its ground in the fact that possibility exists only in the province of reflection and for the reason; the actual, in the province of perception and for the understanding; the necessary, for both. Indeed, the distinction between necessary, actual, and possible really exists only in the abstract and according to the conception; in the real world, on the other hand, all three fall into one. For all that happens, happens necessarily, because it happens from causes; but these themselves have again causes, so that the whole of the events of the world, great and small, are a strict concatenation of necessary occurrences. Accordingly everything actual is also necessary, and in the real world there is no difference between actuality and necessity, and in the same way no difference between actuality and possibility; for what has not happened, i. e., has not become actual, was also not possible, because the causes without which it could never appear have not themselves appeared, nor could appear, in the great concatenation of causes; thus it was an impossibility. Every event is therefore either necessary or impossible. All this holds good only of the empirically real world, i. e., the complex of individual things, thus of the whole particular as such. If, on the other hand, we consider things generally, comprehending them in abstracto, necessity, actuality, and possibility are again separated; we then know everything which is in accordance with the a priori laws which belong to our intellect as possible in general; that which corresponds to the empirical laws of nature as possible in this world, even if it has never become actual; thus we distinguish clearly the possible from the actual. The actual is in itself always also necessary, but is only comprehended as such by him who knows its cause; regarded apart from this, it is and is called contingent. This consideration also gives us the key to that contentio περι δυνατων between the Megaric Diodorus and Chrysippus the Stoic which Cicero refers to in his book De Fato. Diodorus says: “Only what becomes actual was possible, and all that is actual is also necessary.” Chrysippus on the other hand says: “Much that is possible never becomes actual; for only the necessary becomes actual.” We may explain this thus: Actuality is the conclusion of a syllogism to which possibility gives the premises. But for this is required not only the major but also the minor; only the two give complete possibility. The major gives a merely theoretical, general possibility in abstracto, but this of itself does not make anything possible, i. e., capable of becoming actual. For this the minor also is needed, which gives the possibility for the particular case, because it brings it under the rule, and thereby it becomes at once actual. For example:

Maj. All houses (consequently also my house) can be destroyed by fire.

Min. My house is on fire.

Concl. My house is being destroyed by fire.

For every general proposition, thus every major, always determines things with reference to actuality only under a presupposition, therefore hypothetically; for example, the capability of being burnt down has as a presupposition the catching fire. This presupposition is produced in the minor. The major always loads the cannon, but only if the minor brings the match does the shot, i. e., the conclusion, follow. This holds good throughout of the relation of possibility to actuality. Since now the conclusion, which is the assertion of actuality, always follows necessarily, it is evident from this that all that is actual is also necessary, which can also be seen from the fact that necessity only means being the consequent of a given reason: this is in the case of the actual a cause: thus everything actual is necessary. Accordingly, we see here the conceptions of the possible, the actual, and the necessary unite, and not merely the last presuppose the first, but also the converse. What keeps them apart is the limitation of our intellect through the form of time; for time is the mediator between possibility and actuality. The necessity of the particular event may be fully seen from the knowledge of all its causes; but the concurrence of the whole of these different and independent causes seems to us contingent; indeed their independence of each other is just the conception of contingency. Since, however, each of them was the necessary effect of its causes, the chain of which has no beginning, it is evident that contingency is merely a subjective phenomenon, arising from the limitation of the horizon of our understanding, and just as subjective as the optical horizon at which the heavens touch the earth.

Since necessity is the same thing as following from given grounds, it must appear in a special way in the case of every form of the principle of sufficient reason, and also have its opposite in the possibility and impossibility which always arises only through the application of the abstract reflection of the reason to the object. Therefore the four kinds of necessity mentioned above stand opposed to as many kinds of impossibility, physical, logical, mathematical and practical. It may further be remarked that if one remains entirely within the province of abstract concepts, possibility is always connected with the more general, and necessity with the more limited concept; for example, “An animal may be a bird, a fish, an amphibious creature, &c.” “A nightingale must be a bird, a bird must be an animal, an animal must be an organism, an organism must be a body.” This is because logical necessity, the expression of which is the syllogism, proceeds from the general to the particular, and never conversely. In the concrete world of nature (ideas of the first class), on the contrary, everything is really necessary through the law of causality; only added reflection can conceive it as also contingent, comparing it with that which is not its cause, and also as merely and purely actual, by disregarding all causal connection. Only in this class of ideas does the conception of the actual properly occur, as is also shown by the derivation of the word from the conception of causality. In the third class of ideas, that of pure mathematical perception or intuition, if we confine ourselves strictly to it, there is only necessity. Possibility occurs here also only through relation to the concepts of reflection: for example, “A triangle may be right-angled, obtuse-angled, or equiangular; its three angles must be equal to two right-angles.” Thus here we only arrive at the possible through the transition from the perceptible to the abstract.

After this exposition, which presupposes the recollection of what was said both in the essay on the principle of sufficient reason and in the first book of the present work, there will, it is hoped, be no further doubt as to the true and very heterogeneous source of those forms which the table of judgments lays before us, nor as to the inadmissibility and utter groundlessness of the assumption of twelve special functions of the understanding for the explanation of them. The latter point is also supported by a number of special circumstances very easily noted. Thus, for example, it requires great love of symmetry and much trust in a clue derived from it, to lead one to assume that an affirmative, a categorical, and an assertatory judgment are three such different things that they justify the assumption of an entirely special function of the understanding for each of them.

Kant himself betrays his consciousness of the untenable nature of his doctrine of the categories by the fact that in the third chapter of the Analytic of Principles (phænomena et noumena) several long passages of the first edition (p. 241, 242, 244-246, 248-253) are omitted in the second – passages which displayed the weakness of that doctrine too openly. So, for example, he says there (p. 241) that he has not defined the individual categories, because he could not define them even if he had wished to do so, inasmuch as they were susceptible of no definition. In saying this he forgot that at p. 82 of the same first edition he had said: “I purposely dispense with the definition of the categories although I may be in possession of it.” This then was, sit venia verbo, wind. But this last passage he has allowed to stand. And so all those passages wisely omitted afterwards betray the fact that nothing distinct can be thought in connection with the categories, and this whole doctrine stands upon a weak foundation.

This table of the categories is now made the guiding clue according to which every metaphysical, and indeed every scientific inquiry is to be conducted (Prolegomena, § 39). And, in fact, it is not only the foundation of the whole Kantian philosophy and the type according to which its symmetry is everywhere carried out, as I have already shown above, but it has also really become the procrustean bed into which Kant forces every possible inquiry, by means of a violence which I shall now consider somewhat more closely. But with such an opportunity what must not the imitatores servum pecus have done! We have seen. That violence then is applied in this way. The meaning of the expressions denoted by the titles, forms of judgment and categories, is entirely set aside and forgotten, and the expressions alone are retained. These have their source partly in Aristotle's Analyt. priora, i. 23 (περι ποιοτητος και ποσοτητος των του συλλογισμου ὁρων: de qualitate et quantitate terminorum syllogismi), but are arbitrarily chosen; for the extent of the concepts might certainly have been otherwise expressed than through the word quantity, though this word is more suited to its object than the rest of the titles of the categories. Even the word quality has obviously been chosen on account of the custom of opposing quality to quantity; for the name quality is certainly taken arbitrarily enough for affirmation and negation. But now in every inquiry instituted by Kant, every quantity in time and space, and every possible quality of things, physical, moral, &c., is brought by him under those category titles, although between these things and those titles of the forms of judgment and of thought there is absolutely nothing in common except the accidental and arbitrary nomenclature. It is needful to keep in mind all the respect which in other regards is due to Kant to enable one to refrain from expressing in hard terms one's repugnance to this procedure. The nearest example is afforded us at once by the pure physiological table of the general principles of natural science. What in all the world has the quantity of judgments to do with the fact that every perception has an extensive magnitude? What has the quality of judgments to do with the fact that every sensation has a degree? The former rests rather on the fact that space is the form of our external perception, and the latter is nothing more than an empirical, and, moreover, entirely subjective feeling, drawn merely from the consideration of the nature of our organs of sense. Further, in the table which gives the basis of rational psychology (Critique of Pure Reason, p. 344; V. 402), the simplicity of the soul is cited under quality; but this is just a quantitative property, and has absolutely no relation to the affirmation or negation in the judgment. But quantity had to be completed by the unity of the soul, which is, however, already included in its simplicity. Then modality is forced in in an absurd way; the soul stands in connection with possible objects; but connection belongs to relation, only this is already taken possession of by substance. Then the four cosmological Ideas, which are the material of the antinomies, are referred to the titles of the categories; but of this we shall speak more fully further on, when we come to the examination of these antinomies. Several, if possible, still more glaring examples are to be found in the table of the Categories of Freedom! in the “Critique of Practical Reason;” also in the first book of the “Critique of Judgment,” which goes through the judgment of taste according to the four titles of the categories; and, finally, in the “Metaphysical First Principles of Natural Science,” which are entirely adapted to the table of the categories, whereby the false that is mingled here and there with what is true and excellent in this important work is for the most part introduced. See, for example, at the end of the first chapter how the unity, the multiplicity, and the totality of the directions of lines are supposed to correspond to the categories, which are so named according to the quantity of judgments.

The principle of the Permanence of Substance is deduced from the category of subsistence and inherence. This, however, we know only from the form of the categorical judgment, i. e., from the connection of two concepts as subject and predicate. With what violence then is that great metaphysical principle made dependent upon this simple, purely logical form! Yet this is only done pro forma, and for the sake of symmetry. The proof of this principle, which is given here, sets entirely aside its supposed origin in the understanding and in the category, and is based upon the pure intuition or perception of time. But this proof also is quite incorrect. It is false that in mere time there is simultaneity and duration; these ideas only arise from the union of space with time, as I have already shown in the essay on the principle of sufficient reason, § 18, and worked out more fully in § 4 of the present work. I must assume a knowledge of both these expositions for the understanding of what follows. It is false that time remains the same through all change; on the contrary, it is just time itself that is fleeting; a permanent time is a contradiction. Kant's proof is untenable, strenuously as he has supported it with sophisms; indeed, he falls into the most palpable contradictions. Thus, after he has falsely set up co-existence as a mode of time (p. 177; V. 219), he says, quite rightly (p. 183; V. 226), “Co-existence is not a mode of time, for in time there are absolutely no parts together, but all in succession.” In truth, space is quite as much implicated in co-existence as time. For if two things are co-existent and yet not one, they are different in respect of space; if two states of one thing are co-existent (e. g., the glow and the heat of iron), then they are two contemporaneous effects of one thing, therefore presuppose matter, and matter presupposes space. Strictly speaking, co-existence is a negative determination, which merely signifies that two things or states are not different in respect of time; thus their difference is to be sought for elsewhere. But in any case, our knowledge of the permanence of substance, i. e., of matter, must be based upon insight a priori; for it is raised above all doubt, and therefore cannot be drawn from experience. I deduce it from the fact that the principle of all becoming and passing away, the law of causality, of which we are conscious a priori, is essentially concerned only with the changes, i. e., the successive states of matter, is thus limited to the form, and leaves the matter untouched, which therefore exists in our consciousness as the foundation of all things, which is not subject to becoming or passing away, which has therefore always been and will always continue to be. A deeper proof of the permanence of substance, drawn from the analysis of our perception of the empirical world in general, is to be found in the first book of this work, § 4, where it is shown that the nature of matter consists in the absolute union of space and time, a union which is only possible by means of the idea of causality, consequently only for the understanding, which is nothing but the subjective correlative of causality. Hence, also, matter is never known otherwise than as producing effects, i. e., as through and through causality; to be and to act are with it one, which is indeed signified by the word actuality. Intimate union of space and time – causality, matter, actuality – are thus one, and the subjective correlative of this one is the understanding. Matter must bear in itself the conflicting properties of both factors from which it proceeds, and it is the idea of causality which abolishes what is contradictory in both, and makes their co-existence conceivable by the understanding, through which and for which alone matter is, and whose whole faculty consists in the knowledge of cause and effect. Thus for the understanding there is united in matter the inconstant flux of time, appearing as change of the accidents, with the rigid immobility of space, which exhibits itself as the permanence of substance. For if the substance passed away like the accidents, the phenomenon would be torn away from space altogether, and would only belong to time; the world of experience would be destroyed by the abolition of matter, annihilation. Thus from the share which space has in matter, i. e., in all phenomena of the actual – in that it is the opposite and counterpart of time, and therefore in itself and apart from the union with the latter knows absolutely no change – the principle of the permanence of substance, which recognises everything as a priori certain, had to be deduced and explained; but not from mere time, to which for this purpose and quite erroneously Kant has attributed permanence.

In the essay on the principle of sufficient reason, § 23, I have fully explained the incorrectness of the following proof of the a priori nature and of the necessity of the law of causality from the mere succession of events in time; I must, therefore, content myself here by referring to that passage.⁶ This is precisely the case with the proof of reciprocity also, the concept of which I was obliged to explain above as invalid. What is necessary has also been said of modality, the working out of the principles of which now follows.

There are still a few points in the further course of the transcendental analytic which I should have to refute were it not that I am afraid of trying the patience of the reader; I therefore leave them to his own reflection. But ever anew in the “Critique of Pure Reason” we meet that principal and fundamental error of Kant's, which I have copiously denounced above, the complete failure to distinguish abstract, discursive knowledge from intuitive. It is this that throws a constant obscurity over Kant's whole theory of the faculty of knowledge, and never allows the reader to know what he is really speaking about at any time, so that instead of understanding, he always merely conjectures, for he alternately tries to understand what is said as referring to thought and to perception, and remains always in suspense. In the chapter “On the Division of all Objects into Phenomena and Noumena,” Kant carries that incredible want of reflection as to the nature of the idea of perception and the abstract idea, as I shall explain more fully immediately, so far as to make the monstrous assertion that without thought, that is, without abstract conceptions, there is no knowledge of an object; and that perception, because it is not thought, is also not knowledge, and, in general, is nothing but a mere affection of sensibility, mere sensation! Nay, more, that perception without conception is absolutely void; but conception without perception is yet always something (p. 253; V. 309). Now this is exactly the opposite of the truth; for concepts obtain all significance, all content, only from their relation to ideas of perception, from which they have been abstracted, derived, that is, constructed through the omission of all that is unessential: therefore if the foundation of perception is taken away from them, they are empty and void. Perceptions, on the contrary, have in themselves immediate and very great significance (in them, indeed, the thing in itself objectifies itself); they represent themselves, express themselves, have no mere borrowed content like concepts. For the principle of sufficient reason governs them only as the law of causality, and determines as such only their position in space and time; it does not, however, condition their content and their significance, as is the case with concepts, in which it appears as the principle of the ground of knowing. For the rest, it looks as if Kant really wished here to set about distinguishing the idea of perception and the abstract idea. He objects to Leibnitz and Locke that the former reduced everything to abstract ideas, and the latter everything to ideas of perception. But yet he arrives at no distinction; and although Locke and Leibnitz really committed these errors, Kant himself is burdened with a third error which includes them both – the error of having so mixed up knowledge of perception and abstract knowledge that a monstrous hybrid of the two resulted, a chimera of which no distinct idea is possible, and which therefore necessarily only confused and stupefied students, and set them at variance.