The Critique of Pure Reason

paralogism has a transcendental foundation, and concludes falsely, while the form is correct and unexceptionable. In this manner the

conceptions also, and that it is therefore regarded as a transcendental conception, although it can have no peculiar claim to be so ranked, inasmuch as its only use is to indicate that all thought is accompanied by consciousness. At the same time, pure as this conception is from empirical content (impressions of the senses), it enables us to distinguish two different kinds of objects. "I," as thinking, am an object of the internal sense, and am

e. It ought not to be objected that in this proposition, which expresses the perception of one's self, an internal experience is asserted, and that consequently the rational doctrine of the soul which is founded upon it, is not pure, but partly founded upon an empirical principle. For this internal perception is nothing more than the mere apperception, "I think," which in fact renders all transcendental conceptions possible, in which we say, "I think substance, cause, etc." For internal experience in general and its possibility, or per

est that this thought, when applied to an object (myself), can contain nothing but transcendental predicates thereof;

d change the order of the categories as it stands in the table-but begin at the category of substance, by which at the a thing in itself is represented and proceed

BSTANCE As reg

s SI

ds the d

which i

erically

NITY, not

on to possible

who may not so easily pe

ssions, taken here i

t guess why the latter

ry of existence, will

nd justified in the sequ

terms which have been em

ry to the rules of corr

rifice elegance

ubstance, that of Incorruptibility; its identity, as intellectual substance, gives the conception of Personality; all these three together, Spirituality. Its relation to objects in space gives us the conception of connection (commercium) wit

a consciousness which accompanies all conceptions. By this "I," or "He," or "It," who or which thinks, nothing more is represented than a transcendental subject of thought = x, which is cognized only by means of the thoughts that are its predicates, and of which, apart from these, we cannot form the least conception. Hence in a perpetual circle, inasmuch as we m

self-conscious being. The cause of this belief is to be found in the fact that we necessarily attribute to things a priori all the properties which constitute conditions under which alone we can cogitate them. Now I cannot obtain the least representation of a thinking being by means of external experience, but solely through self-consciousness. Such objects are consequently nothing more than the transference of this consciousness of mine to other t

nking self, there would arise an empirical psychology which would be a kind of physiology of the internal sense and might possibly be capable of explaining the phenomena of that sense. But it could never be available for discove

t only by a transcendental employment of the understanding. This use of the understanding excludes all empirical elements; and we cannot, as has been shown above, have any favourable conception beforehand of its proc

through my being conscious of myself as thinking, but only when I am conscious of the intuition of myself as determined in relation to the function of thought. All the modi of self-consciousness in thought are hence not conceptions of objects (conceptions of the understanding-categories); they are mere logical functions, which do not present to thou

predicate to thought, is an apodeictic and identical proposition. But this proposition does not signify that I, as an object, am, for myself, a self-subsistent being or substance. This latter statement-an ambi

Ego is a simple substance-for this would be a synthetical proposition. The conception of substance always relates to intuitions, which with me cannot be other than sensuous, and which consequently lie completely out of the sphere of the understanding and its thought: but to this sphere belongs the affirmation that the Ego is simple in thought. It would indee

which I am conscious in all its representations, does not relate to or concern the intuition of the subject, by which it is given as an object. This proposition cannot therefore enounce the identity of the person, by which is understood the co

ytical proposition, for other things are exactly those which I think as different or distinguished from myself. But whether this consciousness of myself is possibl

e analysis of the consciousness of my Self in thought. The logical exposition o

phere, of establishing ourselves, and, under a favouring star, appropriating to ourselves possessions in it. For the proposition: "Every thinking being, as such, is simple substance," is an a priori synthetical proposition; because in the first place it goes beyond the conception which is the subject of it, and adds to the mere notion of a thinking being the mode of its existence, and in the second place annexes a predicate (that of simplicity) to the latter conception-a predicate which it could not have discovere

al Psychology a paralogism, which is r

han as subject, does not exist otherwise t

erely as such, cannot be cogit

s also as such, th

minor we speak of the same being only in so far as it regards itself as subject, relatively to thought and the unity of consciousness, but not in

s taken in the two pr

major it is considered

consequently to objec

it as relating merely t

gitate an object, but me

e subject, as the form o

ngs which cannot be cog

, we do not speak of th

ed), in which the Ego

conclusion cannot be, "

nly "I can, in cogitati

ect of the judgement."

ows no light on the

g more than a conception, and from it we derive no proper knowledge. If this conception is to indicate by the term substance, an object that can be given, if it is to become a cognition, we must have at the foundation of the cognition a permanent intuition, as the indispensable condition of its objective reality. For through intuition alone can an object be given. But in internal intuition there is nothing permanent, for the Ego is but the consciousness of my thought. If then, we appeal merely to tho

Mendelssohn for the Substantia

ch it is not, no time can be discovered-which is impossible. But this philosopher did not consider that, granting the soul to possess this simple nature, which contains no parts external to each other and consequently no extensive quantity, we cannot refuse to it any less than to any other being, intensive quantity, that is, a degree of reality in regard to all its faculties, nay, to all that constitutes its existence. But this degree of reality can become less and less through an infinite series of smaller degrees. It follows, therefore, that this supposed substance-this thing, the permanence of which is not assured in any other way, may, if not by decomposition, by grad

s not, as logicians mai

r a certain degree of c

ient for recollection,

without any consciousne

y difference in the obs

can do with many con

and those of the music

ising a piece of music.

sciousness is sufficien

his representation fro

s a difference, but ar

t the difference is-the

, consequently, an infin

wn to its entire

are some who think th

lity in the mode of the

ere is no contradiction

those who affirm the po

knowledge than what the

tuitions presented in t

But it is very easy to

-possibilities, which r

example, is the possib

nto several substanc

ral into one simple s

s composition, it does

ances, but only of the

the same substance.

es of the soul-even th

the substance still re

selves without contradi

in the soul, but withou

very thing that is real

entire existence-has b

ut of the soul. For the

xisted, but not as a mul

the quantum of existence

mode of existence, whic

o a plurality of subsist

ces might coalesce int

plurality of subsist

ntain the degree of re

deed, the simple substa

ight (not indeed by a

her, but by an unknown

e phenomenal appearanc

e parent-souls, as inten

former repaired the l

sort. I am far from all

iples of our analytic h

ical use of the catego

le. But if the ration

authority of the facult

bject is given-a self-s

erception in thought can

nstead of declaring, as

possibility of a thinki

with as complete an in

le of the rationalist

g the formal unity req

e come at last to their existence, of which, in this system of rational psychology, substances are held to be conscious, independently of external things; nay, it is asserted that, in relation to the permanence which is a necessary characteristic of substance, they can of themselves determine external things. It follows that idealism-a

iscover whether and how this Ego determines its existence in time and space without the aid of anything external; the propositions of rationalistic psychology would not begin with the conception of a thinking being, bu

th

, as simpl

tical S

state of

ething real, and the simplicity of its nature is given in the very fact of its possibility. Now in space there is nothing real that is at the same time simple; for points, which are the only simple things in space, are merely limits, but not constituent parts of space. From this follows the impossibility of a definition on the basis of materialism of the constitution of my Ego as a merely thinking subject. But, because my existence is considered in the first proposition as given, for it does not mean, "Every thinking being exists" (for this would be predicating of them absolute necessity), but only, "I exist thinking"; the proposition is quite

ensable to the possibility of experience-to pass the bounds of experience (our existence in this life); and to extend our cognition to the nat

o the arms of a soulless materialism, and, on the other, from losing itself in the mazes of a baseless spiritualism. It teaches us to consider this refusal of our reason to give any satisfactory answer to questions which reach beyond the limits of this our human life, as a hint to abandon f

to which therefore the category of substance-which always presupposes a given intuition-cannot be applied. Consequently, the subject cannot be cognized. The subject of the categories cannot, therefore, for the very reason that it cogitates these, frame any conception of itself as an object of the categories; for, to cogitate these, it must lay at the foundation its own pur

k" is, as has been alre

ns the proposition, "I

nks, exists"; for in t

te all beings possessi

nnot be considered as

" as Descartes maintai

rything, which thinks,

are identical. The pr

ed empirical intuition,

tion, which must belong

proposition); but it pr

rmine an object of per

o time; and existence in

not apply to an undeter

have a conception, and

r does not exist, out

ined perception signifi

en, only, however, to

or as a thing in itsel

lly exists, and is de

For it must be remarke

an empirical propositi

position is an empirica

intellectual, because i

me empirical representa

ought, the mental act, "

al is only the conditi

he pure intelle

ty of criticism has rendered to reason a not unimportant service, by the demonstration of the impossibility of making any dogmatical affirmation concerning an object of experience beyond the boundaries of experience. She has thus fortified reason against all affirmations of the contrary. Now, this can be accomplished in only two ways. E

the arrangement of nature; and, as a practical faculty, without limiting itself to the latter, it is justified in extending the former, and with it our own existence, beyond the boundaries of experience and life. If we turn our attention to the analogy of the nature of living beings in this world, in the consideration of which reason is obliged to accept as a principle that no organ, no faculty, no appetite is useless, and that nothing is superfluous, nothing disproportionate to its use, nothing unsuited to its end; but that, on the contrary, everything is perfectly conformed to its destination in life-we shall find that man, who alone is the final end and aim of this order, is still the only animal that seems to be excepted from it. For his natural gifts-not merely as regards the talents and motives that may incite him to employ them, but especially the moral

olution of the Psyc

e making abstraction of all actual experience; and infer therefrom that I can be conscious of myself apart from experience and its empirical conditions. I consequently confound the possible abstraction of my empirically determined existence with the supposed consciousne

estion in our system. The difficulty which lies in the execution of this task consists, as is well known, in the presupposed heterogeneity of the object of the internal sense (the soul) and the objects of the external senses; inasmuch as the formal condition of the intuition of the one is time, and of that of the other space also. But if we consider that both kinds of objects do not differ internally, but only in so far as the one appears externally to the other-c

RAL

from Rational Psyc

d on empirical intuition, and the object cogitated as a phenomenon; and thus our theory appears to maintain that the

y cogitate myself as an object in general, of the mode of intuiting which I make abstraction. When I represent myself as the subject of thought, or as the ground of thought, these modes of representation are not related to the categories of substance or of cause; for these are functions of thought applicable only to our sensuous intuition. The application of these categories to the Ego would, however, be necessary, if I w

ething more to be found than the mere spontaneity of thought; there is also the receptivity of intuition, that is, my thought of myself applied to the empirical intuition of myself. Now, in this intuition the thinking self must seek the conditions of the employment of its logical functions as categories of substance, cause, and so forth; not merely for the purpose of distinguishing itself as an object in itself by means

stence and as determining this existence; we should, on this supposition, find ourselves possessed of a spontaneity, by which our actual existence would be determinable, without the aid of the conditions of empirical intuition. We should also become awar

in order to give significance to my conceptions of substance and cause, by means of which alone I can possess a knowledge of myself: but these intuitions can never raise me above the sphere of experience. I should be justified, however, in applying these conceptions, in regard to their practical use, which is always directed to objects of experience-in conformity with their analogical significance when employed theoretically-to freedom and its subject. At the same time, I should understand by them merely the logical fun