Kant's Theory of Knowledge Part 7

CHAPTER V

TIME AND INNER SENSE

The arguments by which Kant seeks to show that time is not a determination of things in themselves but only a form of perception are, _mutatis mutandis_, identical with those used in his treatment of s.p.a.ce.[1] They are, therefore, open to the same criticisms, and need no separate consideration.

[1] Cf. B. 46-9, ---- 4, 5 and 6 (a), M. 28-30, ---- 5, 6 and 7 (a) with B. 38-42, -- 2 (1-4), and -- (3) to (a) inclusive, M.

23-6, ---- 2, 3, and 4 (a). The only qualification needed is that, since the parts of time cannot, like those of s.p.a.ce, be said to exist simultaneously, B. -- 4 (5), M. -- 5, 5 is compelled to appeal to a different consideration from that adduced in the parallel pa.s.sage on s.p.a.ce (B. -- 2 (4), M. -- 2, 4). Since, however, B. -- 4 (5), M. -- 5, 5 introduces no new matter, but only appeals to the consideration already urged (B. -- 4, 4, M. -- 5, 4), this difference can be neglected. B.

-- 5, M. -- 6 adds a remark about change which does not affect the main argument.

Time, however, according to Kant, differs from s.p.a.ce in one important respect. It is the form not of outer but of inner sense; in other words, while s.p.a.ce is the form under which we perceive things, time is the form under which we perceive ourselves. It is upon this difference that attention must be concentrated. The existence of the difference at all is upon general grounds surprising. For since the arguments by which Kant establishes the character of time as a form of perception run _pari pa.s.su_ with those used in the case of s.p.a.ce, we should expect time, like s.p.a.ce, to be a form under which we perceive things; and, as a matter of fact, it will be found that the only _argument_ used to show that time is the form of inner, as opposed to outer, sense is not only independent of Kant's general theory of forms of sense, but is actually inconsistent with it.[2] Before, however, we attempt to decide Kant's right to distinguish between inner and outer sense, we must consider the facts which were before Kant's mind in making the distinction.

[2] B. 49 (b), M. 30 (b). See pp. 109-12.

These facts and, to a large extent, the frame of mind in which Kant approached them, find expression in the pa.s.sage in Locke's _Essay_, which explains the distinction between 'ideas of sensation' and 'ideas of reflection'.

"Whence has it [i. e. the mind] all the materials of reason and knowledge? To this I answer, in one word, from experience.... Our observation, employed either about external, sensible objects, or about the internal operations of our minds, perceived and reflected on, by ourselves, is that which supplies our understandings with all the materials of thinking. These two are the fountains of knowledge...."

"First, Our senses, conversant about particular sensible objects, do convey into the mind several distinct perceptions of things, according to those various ways, wherein those objects do affect them: and thus we come by those ideas we have of Yellow, White, Heat, Cold, Soft, Hard, Bitter, Sweet, and all those, which we call sensible qualities; which, when I say the senses convey into the mind, I mean, they, from external objects, convey into the mind what produces there those perceptions. This great source of most of the ideas we have, depending wholly upon our senses, and derived by them to the understanding, I call _sensation_."

"Secondly, The other fountain, from which experience furnisheth the understanding with ideas, is the perception of the operations of our own mind within us, as it is employed about the ideas it has got; which operations, when the soul comes to reflect on, and consider, do furnish the understanding with another set of ideas, which could not be had from things without; and such are Perception, Thinking, Doubting, Believing, Reasoning, Knowing, Willing, and all the different actings of our own minds; which we being conscious of, and observing in ourselves, do, from these, receive into our understandings as distinct ideas, as we do from bodies affecting our senses. This source of ideas every man has wholly in himself; and though it be not sense as having nothing to do with external objects, yet it is very like it, and might properly enough be called internal sense. But, as I call the other sensation, so I call this _reflection_; the ideas it affords being such only as the mind gets, by reflecting on its own operations within itself."[3]

[3] Locke, _Essay_, ii, 1, ---- 2-4.

Here Locke is thinking of the distinction between two att.i.tudes of mind, which, however difficult it may be to state satisfactorily, must in some sense be recognized. The mind, undoubtedly, in virtue of its powers of perceiving and thinking--or whatever they may be--becomes through a temporal process aware of a spatial world in its varied detail. In the first instance, its attention is absorbed in the world of which it thus becomes aware; subsequently, however, it is in some way able to direct its attention away from this world to the activities in virtue of which it has become aware of this world, and in some sense to make itself its own object. From being conscious it becomes self-conscious. This process by which the mind turns its attention back upon itself is said to be a process of 'reflection'.

While we should say that it is by perception that we become aware of things in the physical world, we should say that it is by reflection that we become aware of our activities of perceiving, thinking, willing, &c. Whatever difficulties the thought of self-consciousness may involve, and however inseparable, and perhaps even temporally inseparable, the att.i.tudes of consciousness and self-consciousness may turn out to be, the distinction between these att.i.tudes must be recognized. The object of the former is the world, and the object of the latter is in some sense the mind itself; and the att.i.tudes may be described as that of our ordinary, scientific, or unreflecting consciousness and that of reflection.

The significance of Locke's account of this distinction lies for our purposes in its antic.i.p.ation of Kant. He states the second att.i.tude, as well as the first, in terms of sense. Just as in our apprehension of the world things external to, in the sense of existing independently of, the mind are said to act on our physical organs or 'senses', and thereby to produce 'perceptions' in the mind, so the mind is said to become conscious of its own operations by 'sense'. We should notice, however, that Locke hesitates to use the word 'sense'

in the latter case, on the ground that it involves no operation of external things (presumably upon our physical organs), though he thinks that the difficulty is removed by calling the sense in question 'internal'.

Kant is thinking of the same facts, and also states them in terms of sense, though allowance must be made for the difference of standpoint, since for him 'sense', in the case of the external sense, refers not to the affection of our physical organs by physical bodies, but to the affection of the mind by things in themselves. Things in themselves act on our minds and produce in them appearances, or rather sensations, and outer sense is the mind's capacity for being so affected by outer things, i. e. things independent of the mind. This is, in essentials, Kant's statement of the att.i.tude of consciousness, i. e. of our apprehension of the world which exists independently of the mind, and which, for him, is the world of things in themselves. He also follows Locke in giving a parallel account of the att.i.tude of self-consciousness. He asks, 'How can the subject perceive itself?'

Perception _in man_ is essentially pa.s.sive; the mind must be _affected_ by that which it perceives. Consequently, if the mind is to perceive itself, it must be affected by its own activity; in other words, there must be an inner sense, i. e. a capacity in virtue of which the mind is affected by itself.[4] Hence Kant is compelled to extend his agnosticism to the knowledge of ourselves. Just as we do not know things, but only the appearances which they produce in us,[5] so we do not know ourselves, but only the appearances which we produce in ourselves; and since time is a mode of relation of these appearances, it is a determination not of ourselves, but only of the appearances due to ourselves.

[4] Cf. B. 67 fin., M. 41 init.

[5] It is here a.s.sumed that this is Kant's normal view of the phenomenal character of our knowledge. Cf. p. 75.

The above may be said to represent the train of thought by which Kant arrived at his doctrine of time and the inner sense. It was reached by combining recognition of the fact that we come to be aware not only of the details of the physical world, but also of the successive process on our part by which we have attained this knowledge, with the view that our apprehension of this successive process is based on 'sense', just as is our apprehension of the world. But the question remains whether Kant is, on his own principles, ent.i.tled to speak of an inner sense at all. According to him, knowledge begins with the production in us of sensations, or, as we ought to say in the present context, appearances by the action of things in themselves. These sensations or appearances can reasonably be ascribed to external sense. They may be ascribed to sense, because they arise through our being _affected_ by things in themselves. The sense may be called external, because the object affecting it is external to the mind, i. e. independent of it.

In conformity with this account, internal sense must be the power of being affected by something internal to the mind, i. e. dependent upon the mind itself, and since being affected implies the activity of affecting, it will be the power of being affected by the mind's own activity.[6] The activity will presumably be that of arranging spatially the sensations or appearances due to things in themselves.[7] This activity must be said to produce an affection in us, the affection being an appearance due to ourselves. Lastly, the mind must be said to arrange these appearances temporally. Hence it will be said to follow that we know only the appearances due to ourselves and not ourselves, and that time is only a determination of these appearances.[8]

[6] B. 68 init., M. 41 init.

[7] The precise nature of the activity makes no difference to the argument.

[8] In B. 152 fin., M. 93 fin. Kant expresses his conclusion in the form that we know ourselves only as we appear to ourselves, and not as we are in ourselves (cf. p. 75). The above account, and the criticism which immediately follows, can be adapted, _mutatis mutandis_, to this form of the view.

The weakness of the position just stated lies on the surface. It provides no means of determining whether any affection produced in us is produced by ourselves rather than by the thing in itself; consequently we could never say that a given affection was an appearance due to _ourselves_, and therefore to _inner_ sense. On the contrary, we should ascribe all affections to things in themselves, and should, therefore, be unable to recognize an _inner_ sense at all.

In order to recognize an inner sense we must know that certain affections are due to _our_ activity, and, to do this, we must know what the activity consists in--for we can only be aware that we are active by being aware of an activity of ours of a particular kind--and, therefore, we must know ourselves. Unless, then, we know ourselves, we cannot call any affections internal.

If, however, the doctrine of an internal sense is obviously untenable from Kant's own point of view, why does he hold it? The answer is that, inconsistently with his general view, he continues to think of the facts as they really are, and that he is deceived by an ambiguity into thinking that the facts justify a distinction between internal and external sense.

He brings forward only one argument to show that time is the form of the internal sense. "Time is nothing else than the form of the internal sense, i. e. of the perception of ourselves and our inner state. For time cannot be any determination of external phenomena; it has to do neither with a shape nor a position; on the contrary, it determines the relation of representations in our internal state."[9]

[9] B. 49 (b), M. 30 (b).

To follow this argument it is first necessary to realize a certain looseness and confusion in the expression of it. The term 'external', applied to phenomena, has a double meaning. It must mean (1) that of which the parts are external to one another, i. e. spatial; for the ground on which time is denied to be a determination of external phenomena is that it has nothing to do with a shape or a position. It must also mean (2) external to, in the sense of independent of, the mind; for it is contrasted with our internal state, and if 'internal', applied to 'our state', is not to be wholly otiose, it can only serve to emphasize the contrast between our state and something external to in the sense of independent of us. Again, 'phenomena,' in the phrase 'external phenomena', can only be an unfortunate expression for things independent of the mind, these things being here called phenomena owing to Kant's view that bodies in s.p.a.ce are phenomena.

Otherwise, 'phenomena' offers no contrast to 'our state' and to 'representations'. The pa.s.sage, therefore, presupposes a distinction between states of ourselves and things in s.p.a.ce, the former being internal to, or dependent upon, and the latter external to, or independent of, the mind.

It should now be easy to see that the argument involves a complete _non sequitur_. The conclusion which is justified is that time is a form not of things but of our own states. For the fact to which he appeals is that while things, as being spatial, are not related temporally, our states are temporally related; and if 'a form' be understood as a mode of relation, this fact can be expressed by the formula 'Time is a form not of things but of our own states', the corresponding formula in the case of s.p.a.ce being 's.p.a.ce is a form not of our states but of things'. But the conclusion which Kant desires to draw--and which he, in fact, actually draws--is the quite different conclusion that time is a form of _perception_ of our states, the corresponding conclusion in the case of s.p.a.ce being that s.p.a.ce is a form of perception of things. For time is to be shown to be the form of inner sense, i. e. the form of the perception of what is internal to ourselves, i. e. of our own states.[10] The fact is that the same unconscious transition takes place in Kant's account of time which, as we saw,[11] takes place in his account of s.p.a.ce. In the case of s.p.a.ce, Kant pa.s.ses from the a.s.sertion that s.p.a.ce is a form of things, in the sense that all things are spatially related--an a.s.sertion which he expresses by saying that s.p.a.ce is the form of phenomena--to the quite different a.s.sertion that s.p.a.ce is a form of perception, in the sense of a way in which we perceive things as opposed to a way in which things are. Similarly, in the case of time, Kant pa.s.ses from the a.s.sertion that time is the form of our internal states, in the sense that all our states are temporally related, to the a.s.sertion that time is a way in which we perceive our states as opposed to a way in which our states really are. Further, the two positions, which he thus fails to distinguish, are not only different, but incompatible. For if s.p.a.ce is a form of things, and time is a form of our states, s.p.a.ce and time cannot belong only to our mode of perceiving things and ourselves respectively, and not to the things and ourselves; for _ex hypothesi_ things _are_ spatially related, and our states _are_ temporally related.

[10] Cf. B. 49 (b) line 2, M. 30 (b) line 2

[11] Cf. pp. 38-40.

Kant's procedure, therefore, may be summed up by saying that he formulates a view which is true but at the same time inconsistent with his general position, the view, viz. that while things in s.p.a.ce are not temporally related, the acts by which we come to apprehend them are so related; and further, that he is deceived by the verbally easy transition from a legitimate way of expressing this view, viz. that time is the form of our states, to the desired conclusion that time is the form of inner sense.

The untenable character of Kant's position with regard to time and the knowledge of ourselves can be seen in another way. It is not difficult to show that, in order to prove that we do not know _things_, but only the appearances which they produce, we must allow that we do know _ourselves_, and not appearances produced by ourselves, and, consequently, that time is real and not phenomenal. To show this, it is only necessary to consider the objection which Kant himself quotes against his view of time. The objection is important in itself, and Kant himself remarks that he has heard it so unanimously urged by intelligent men that he concludes that it must naturally present itself to every reader to whom his views are novel. According to Kant, it runs thus: "Changes are real (this is proved by the change of our own representations, even though all external phenomena, together with their changes, be denied). Now changes are only possible in time; therefore time is something real."[12] And he goes on to explain why this objection is so unanimously brought, even by those who can bring no intelligible argument against the ideality of s.p.a.ce. "The reason is that men have no hope of proving apodeictically the absolute reality of s.p.a.ce, because they are confronted by idealism, according to which the reality of external objects is incapable of strict proof, whereas the reality of the object of our internal senses (of myself and my state) is immediately clear through consciousness. External objects might be mere illusion, but the object of our internal senses is to their mind undeniably something real."[13]

[12] B. 53, M. 32.

[13] B. 55, M. 33.

Here, though Kant does not see it, he is faced with a difficulty from which there is no escape. On the one hand, according to him, we do not know things in themselves, i. e. things independent of the mind. In particular, we cannot know that they are spatial; and the objection quoted concedes this. On the other hand, we do know phenomena or the appearances produced by things in themselves. Phenomena or appearances, however, as he always insists, are essentially states or determinations of the mind. To the question, therefore, 'Why are we justified in saying that we do know phenomena, whereas we do not know the things which produce them?' Kant could only answer that it is because phenomena are dependent upon the mind, as being its own states.[14] As the objector is made to say, 'the reality of the object of our internal senses (of myself and my state) is immediately clear through consciousness.' If we do not know things in themselves, because they are independent of the mind, we only know phenomena because they are dependent upon the mind. Hence Kant is only justified in denying that we know things in themselves if he concedes that we really know our own states, and not merely appearances which they produce.

[14] Cf. p. 123.

Again, Kant must allow--as indeed he normally does--that these states of ours are related by way of succession. Hence, since these states are really our states and not appearances produced by our states, these being themselves unknown, time, as a relation of these states, must itself be real, and not a way in which we apprehend what is real.

It must, so to say, be really in what we apprehend about ourselves, and not put into it by us as perceiving ourselves.

The objection, then, comes to this. Kant must at least concede that we undergo a succession of changing states, even if he holds that _things_, being independent of the mind, cannot be shown to undergo such a succession; consequently, he ought to allow that time is not a way in which we apprehend ourselves, but a real feature of our real states. Kant's answer[15] does not meet the point, and, in any case, proceeds on the untenable a.s.sumption that it is possible for the characteristic of a thing to belong to it as perceived, though not in itself.[16]

[15] B. 55, M. 33 med.

[16] Cf. pp. 71-3.

CHAPTER VI

KNOWLEDGE AND REALITY

Kant's theory of s.p.a.ce, and, still more, his theory of time, are bewildering subjects. It is not merely that the facts with which he deals are complex; his treatment of them is also complicated by his special theories of 'sense' and of 'forms of perception'. Light, however, may be thrown upon the problems raised by the _Aesthetic_, and upon Kant's solution of them, in two ways. In the first place, we may attempt to vindicate the implication of the preceding criticism, that the very nature of knowledge presupposes the independent existence of the reality known, and to show that, in consequence, all idealism is of the variety known as subjective. In the second place, we may point out the way in which Kant is misled by failing to realize (1) the directness of the relation between the knower and the reality known, and (2) the impossibility of transferring what belongs to one side of the relation to the other.

The question whether any reality exists independently of the knowledge of it may be approached thus. The standpoint of the preceding criticism of Kant may be described as that of the plain man. It is the view that the mind comes by a temporal process to apprehend or to know a spatial world which exists independently of it or of any other mind, and that the mind knows it as it exists in the independence. 'Now this view,' it may be replied, 'is exposed to at least one fatal objection.

It presupposes the possibility of knowing the thing in itself, i. e.