Kant on Things in Themselves
By Susan J. Fleck. March, 1993.
What is a Thing?
Plato told of a time when Thales was looking up and pondering the heavens, he fell into a well. A 'whimsical maid' laughed at him and told him that "while he might passionately want to know all things in the universe, the things in front of his very nose and feet were unseen by him" (4, 3). But that maid did not realize that philosophers also ponder about those common, ordinary 'things' in front of them. For example, what is that thing called a butterfly? Does its 'thingness' include all of its history - when it was a larva; a caterpillar; where it traveled; what flowers it likes; etc.? Or does it only include the properties we obtain from it in an instantaneous slice in time and space? What about an inanimate object? Surely there is no serious philosophical question about a rock's thingness. But what was it say one billion years ago - perhaps molten material under the earth's surface? The question about 'what is a thing?' is as old as the beginning of Western philosophy. Heidegger claims that the determination of the thingness of the thing is Kant's metaphysical center; it is not just a by-product of his philosophy (4, 55). This paper will explore (1) the background leading up to Kant's concept of the 'thing in itself'; (2) different ways of thinking about things; (3) how Kant distinguishes sensible knowledge from intellectual knowledge; (4) Kant's version of idealism; and finally (5) why he needs this doctrine on the thing.
Background
Heidegger gives us a brief summary of the history of this subject. Aristotle's definition of metaphysics says "There is a science which investigates being as being and the attributes which belong to this in virtue of its own nature." Since Descartes, pure reason, the faculty of knowledge, has evolved such that all definitions of what is, i.e. the thing, are to be made in rigorous proof. Then, according to "the science of the general attributes of all things" a 'thing' is a very broad concept which includes God, soul, and the world. The thingness of things coming out of the enlightenment is determined by the principles of pure reason. Three such principles, the I-principle, the principle of contradiction, and the principle of sufficient reason, came out of this period before Kant. So whose 'pure reason' should be represented by metaphysics? According to the traditional concept, a proposition is true insofar as it corresponds to things. And since things were created by God, this truth is measured by the standard of things with their essence, as thought by God. Baumgarten, a student of Wolff, says that metaphysical truth is "an agreement of what is with the first most universal fundamental principles" . So metaphysics is concerned with ontology as its foundation, that is with what belongs to things in general, and with theology as its culmination, with concern for what is the highest thing / being. Through developments of the enlightenment, the claim of pure reason and the mathematical has come to dominate. The most general determinations of being are thereby projected with the most universal principles of pure reason; and the entire knowledge of the world, the soul and of God are to be derived from these concepts in a relational analysis and sequence. Pure reason for the determination of the thingness of all things as such - it is this that Kant places into "critique" (4, 116 -118).
Hume's Influence
Beck points out that originally, "in his Inaugural Dissertation, Kant had said that pure intellectual concepts (now called categories) give us knowledge of things 'as they are' (i.e. things in themselves, as objects of reason = noumena)." But then, being his own best critic, in a letter to Marcus Herz shortly before publishing his Critique, he questioned how an intellectual concept could refer to an object which did not, through the senses, cause that concept to arise in the mind: "This cannot, however, be the case with a rational concept, for then our knowledge of noumena would be as empirical and a posteriori as our knowledge of phenomena" (1, 79). Soon after this he was "awakened from his dogmatic slumber by Hume" (1, 87). However, Kant wanted to save scientific knowledge from Humean skepticism. He came to realize that efforts to extend the categories (of understanding) to work with 'supersensible' things lead to contradictions (antinomies). If, on the other hand, transcendent metaphysical knowledge could be shown to be possible, like scientific knowledge, then that would be a big problem for morality - 'reason operating in moral decision making'. In that case, morality and metaphysics would be an extension of physics and would be deterministic (1, 11). We can see a sense of his struggle with this issue - skepticism vs determinism. Was there another possibility?
Reason's Secondary Function
Kant came to believe that reason has a secondary function which goes
'wholly beyond the senses' and gives knowledge of noumena - of things as they
are in themselves. This is the Platonic
'two-world' theory that there is both a sensible world and an intelligible
world, where the sensible world is just an appearance of the later (1,
51). Critics accused Kant of being a
Berkeleian idealist.
Defining Thing
What is a thing? First, we must examine different ways of looking at this question and try to be clear about our definition of a thing, before discovering its ontology. A thing could be something present at hand such as a rose, a rock, a table, a chair. We usually do not call e.g. the number '5' a thing, but we do with concepts like plans, decisions, reflections, actions, etc. Also, we do say 'things' like - 'there are uncanny things going on', or 'things are just not right', or 'we must clear things up' (4, 4). Our question, 'What is a thing?', traditionally refers mostly to things of the first variety - things at hand. Scientific methods have long been established to define things - mineralogy and chemistry would describe what a rock is, and botany teaches us about roses (a rose is a rose is a rose!). Out of the enlightenment we learned that a 'thing' is something that has such-and-such properties which produced such-and-such qualities; is constituted in such-and-such a way; and it endures through changes of its properties and qualities and constitution. Around these nuclei of things, are space and time as their frame. What is a thing? "A thing is the existing (vorhanden) bearer of many existing (vorhanden) yet changeable properties" (4, 34). Modern science says ". . . the thing is material, a point of mass in motion in the pure space-time order, or an appropriate combination of such points. . . . Even where one permits the animate its own character, it is conceived as an additional structure built upon the inanimate . . ." (4, 51). As to the word 'noumenon', Carus claims that although it should not mean 'thing in itself', but rather man's subjective conception of the thing in itself, Kant, nevertheless, understands by it as also the objective 'thing in itself' (2, 181).
Even though our question mostly refers to material things, it also reaches into other spheres such as history and a works of art. Heidegger points out the importance of our question: "Why, for example, has the treatment and interpretation of the poets for years been so dreary in our higher schools? Answer: Because the teachers do not know the difference between a thing and a poem; because they treat poems as things, which they do because they have never gone through the question of what a thing is" (4, 51). But let us go back to our common use of the word thing and say you are learning about a particular rifle. You could learn about rifles and weapons in general, about ballistics, mechanics, and chemical reactions involved in shooting a rifle. You do not need to learn all of these things, but that does not deny that how it works belongs to the thing. Everything involved in the manufacturing the rifle could also be said to belong to the thing in itself (4, 71). But even if you knew all of this 'physics' about the rifle, according to Kant, you still would not know its essence.
To know that, he would say you were in the realm of metaphysics - "That part of philosophy which contains the first principles of the use of pure intellect is metaphysics". Before you can learn metaphysics, he says you need to distinguish between sensitive and intellectual knowledge. You cannot obtain knowledge of metaphysics with empirical principles and therefore you cannot look for those concepts in the senses. But the pure intellect, although not born with the concepts, abstracts from laws "inborn in the mind", such "acquired" concepts as - possibility, existence, necessity, substance, cause, etc. , along with their opposites. Intellectual concepts have two functions: (1) to keep sensitive concepts from being applied to noumena (a negative, but regulative application); and (2) to develop model principles, such as are dealt with in ontology or rational psychology. The model archetype - the "Perfectio Noumenon" - is perfection in a theoretical sense, such as God, or in a practical sense, i.e. moral perfection (1, 57).
Physics and Metaphysics Dichotomy
So while traditional metaphysics attempted to explain noumena and things in themselves, Kant places a boundary between all physics and metaphysics, and this boundary cannot be broken through. He makes a distinction between sensible things and intelligible things. In realizing that subjects may have conditions of sensory apparatus whereby objects can be perceived differently (e.g. color blindness), he remarked: "It is clear, therefore, that representations of things as they appear are sensitively thought, while intellectual concepts are representations of things as they are." Matter is involved in sensory representations and this causes sensation; but form is also involved which is a general configuration that is obtained by a co-ordination by a "certain natural law of the mind" (1, 54). Empirical sciences deal with matter and sensible objects, while the metaphysical deals with form and intellectual 'things in themselves'.
This twofold dimension of the possible object (Gegenstand) of knowledge can also be shown by the analysis of the German word Gegenstand. What we are to have knowledge of must encounter us from somewhere, i.e. come to meet us: Gegen means against. But it is already an object and not just anything that comes to meet us; it is already 'standing' (Gegenstand). This still does not tell us what an object is in the sense of Kant's concept of knowledge. It is neither what is only sensed nor what is only perceived. If I point to the sun and call it the sun, this does not denote the full essence (being) of the sun in the strict Kantian sense. We can continue to describe various aspects of the sun, but never fully have knowledge of the thing in itself (4, 137).
Tables of Understanding
In explaining his tables of understanding, in regards to the third table as to relation we can see Kant's sense of thinking of things in themselves as transcendent beings:
Consequently,
I do not say that things in themselves
possess a magnitude, that their reality possesses a degree, their existence a
connection of accidents in a substance, etc.
This nobody can prove, because such a synthetical connection from mere
concepts without any reference to sensible intuition on the one side or
connection of it in a possible experience on the other is absolutely
impossible. (1, 192)
Noumenon
If you try to take out (abstract) everything in an object which has reference to the a priori conditions of knowledge, then you arrive at an unknown 'something' - indeterminate. This is what a transcendental object is. Copleston points out that to go from merely a transcendental object, an undetermined idea of something in general, to the idea of noumena, you must assume an intellectual intuition (perception); the noumena is something intelligible (3, 268). Kant clarified his meaning of noumenon in his second edition (of the Critique) and distinguished between two senses of the word: "If by noumenon we understand a thing in so far as it is not the object of our sensuous intuition, thus abstracting from our mode of intuiting it, this is a noumenon in the negative sense of the term." He is not saying there is a way to intuit noumenon; rather, that we understand it as a thing that is a non-sensuous being and we make no assumptions about being able to intuit it through some unknown kind of intuition. In contrast: "If we understand by it an object of non-sensuous intuition, we then assume a particular kind of intuition, namely intellectual intuition, which, however, is not ours and of which we cannot see even the possibility; and this would be a noumenon in the positive sense of the term." He sees this as positive, yet affirms we have no way to enjoy such an intuition. A fully creative human should be able to drop the distinction between phenomena and noumena; but we cannot do this since the subject contributes only the formal elements of experience. (3, 269).
Carus thinks Kant views the noumenal world as nothing but a picture of the objective world as things are independently of sense-perception. In the sensual world everything changes into motion of a definite form; the rainbow of ether waves of a definite angle with definite wavelengths. "Though the noumenon is a subjective construction, it is an analogue of the objects as they are in themselves, describing their suchness" (2, 235). But Kant makes if very clear in the section "How is Pure Science of Nature Possible?" that we cannot have knowledge of things in themselves as we do in experience:
. . .
Knowledge of the nature of things in themselves a posteriori would be ..
impossible. For if experience is to
teach us laws to which the existence of things is subject, these laws, if they
refer to things in themselves, would have to hold of necessity even outside our
experience. Experience teaches us what
exists and how it exists, but never that it must necessarily exist so and not
otherwise. Experience therefore can
never teach us the nature of things in themselves. (1, 181)
It almost seems Kant was paranoid about being misunderstood. Consider these four consecutive sentences in that same section of the Critique, where he explains how we can derive objective truth, and that there is a thing in itself, but we can not know it (emphasis and italics mine):
Therefore
objective validity and necessary universal validity . . . are equivalent terms,
and though we do not know the object in
itself, yet when we consider a judgment as universally valid and hence as
necessary, we thereby understand it to have objective validity. By this judgment we know the object (though it remains unknown as it is in itself)
by the universally valid and necessary connection of the given
perceptions. As this is the case with
all objects of sense, judgments of experience borrow their objective validity
not from immediate knowledge of the object (which
is impossible) but from the condition of universal validity of empirical
judgments, . . . The object always
remains in itself unknown; but when
by the concept of understanding . . . the judgment is objective." (1, 184.)
Synthetic Judgments
In the section "Of the Highest Principle of all Synthetical Judgments" Kant states: "In forming synthetical judgments . . . I have to go beyond the given concept in order to bring something together with it which is totally different from what is thought in it. Here we have neither the relation of identity nor that of contradiction, and nothing in the judgment itself by which we can discover its truth or its falsity" (1, 115). Heidegger sheds some light on how Kant derived the objective truth of objects: "The 'altogether different' is the object. The relation of this 'altogether different' to the concept is the representational putting-along-side (Beistellen) of the object in a thinking intuition: synthesis. Only while we enter into this relation and maintain ourselves in it does an object encounter us. The inner possibility of the object, i.e. its essence, is thus co-determined out of the possibility of this relation to it" (4, 182). Kant says that ". . . the conditions of the possibility of experience in general are likewise conditions of the possibility of the objects of experience. . .". Heidegger claims that whoever understands this principle understands Kant's Critique of Pure Reason and one then ". . . masters a fundamental posture of the history of man, which we can neither avoid, leap over, nor deny in any way" (4, 183).
Transcendental Idealism: Refuting Idealism
It seemed to Kant that very few did
understand this principle and he was upset that critics have confused and
distorted his "well-defined concepts". Critics claimed that by saying that things in
space are only appearances of things in themselves means that it is an illusion
that there are things in space. Kant had given the name of transcendental
idealism to his theory, but rejects vehemently anyone confusing it with
empirical idealism, with Descartes, or with the mystical and visionary idealism
of
There are several passages in his Critique and Prolegomena which express this idea: "For sensible knowledge represents things not at all as they are, but only the mode in which they affect our senses; and consequently by the senses only appearances and not things in themselves are given to the understanding for reflection" (1, 178). It was this "correction" to the "understanding" which he thought gave rise to the misconception that his doctrine turned things into illusion. So he emphasized the objective reality of things. He stated that even though phenomena are merely representations of things and express no internal or absolute quality of the objects, nevertheless knowledge of the objects is genuine because just their appearance indicates an object causing the sensation. And this is opposed to idealism (1, 58).
He reinforces this idea in the section "The Postulates of all Empirical Thinking; Whatsoever, and the Refutation of Idealism":
The
postulates concerning our knowledge of the actuality of things require
perception, therefore sensation and consciousness of it, not indeed direct
perception of the object itself whose existence is to be known, but of a
connection between it and some actual perception according to the Analogies of
Experience, which determine in general all real connection in experience.
In the mere concept of a thing no sign of
its existence can be discovered. . . . A concept preceding experience implies
only its possibility, while perception, which supplies the material of a
concept, is the only indication of its actuality. (1, 121)
Kant says we must start with experience and proceed with empirical
analysis of appearances to gain knowledge of the existence of things else
". . . our guessing or inquiring into the existence of anything will be
only a vain display" (1, 122).
He goes on to refute
Kant's doctrine of the ideality of space and time are crucial to the refutation of idealism. If you claim that space and time are characters inherent in things in themselves, contrary to Kant's doctrine, then you would make errors in 'truth' judgments resulting from illusions based on subjective perceptions of things. Kant thinks his doctrine of the ideality of space and time is the only means of preventing actual objects as being regarded as mere illusion. Otherwise, if the intuition of space and time were not a priori and which we can not obtain from any experience, it would be impossible to tell whether or not our perceptions of space and time were merely delusions of our brain to which objects do not adequately correspond - and thus whether geometry is mere illusion. With Kant's method, geometry is proven valid just because the objects of the sensible world are mere appearances (1, 179 / 180).
Mere Appearances
Even though Kant's principles make appearances out of the representation of the senses, instead of turning the truth of experience into mere illusion, he thinks they are the only means of "preventing the transcendental illusion by which metaphysics has hitherto been deceived and been led to the childish endeavor of catching at bubbles because appearances, which are mere representations, were taken for things in themselves." I.e. ". . . appearance, as long as it is employed in experience, produces truth, but the moment it transgresses the boundary of experience and consequently becomes transcendent, produces nothing but illusion" (1, 180).
Copleston charges that Kant is contradicting himself with his 'common-sense' point of view, where sensation is an effect of the thing-in-itself as the cause. He says that Kant stretches his own principle of causality too far when claiming that, while things may be unknowable in themselves, ". . . we know them through the representations which their influence on our sensibility procures for us" (qtd. in 3, 270). Fichte thought the theory of the thing-in-itself was monstrous; that Kant tried to force things to have them both ways at once (sort of like 'having your cake and eating it too). Fichte asserted that this doctrine must be eliminated in the interests of idealism (3, 431).
Moral Use of Pure Reason
However, Kant needs this doctrine - it is a cornerstone tying much of his philosophy together. Even though this is a limiting concept and we cannot use speculative reason for the supersensible realm, Kant thinks this is positive. He thinks there is an "absolutely necessary practical use of pure reason" - the moral use - which does not require experiential reason. This will ensure that the two uses of reason will not be in conflict. He uses the analogy of the functions of police to serve a positive role by preventing violence so citizens can pursue their lives in peace and security. So the limiting factor of speculative, logical reason paves the way for moral practical reason (1, 102). Since space and time are conditions of the existence of things as appearances only, and we can arrive at a knowledge of things only because the perception corresponds to these concepts, therefore Kant contends:
. . . we
cannot have knowledge of any object as a thing in itself, but only insofar as
it is an object of sensible intuition, that is, as appearance. This proves no doubt that all theoretical
knowledge of reason is limited to objects of experience; but it should be
carefully borne in mind that this leaves it perfectly open to us to think the same objects as things in themselves,
though we cannot know them. For otherwise we should arrive at the absurd
conclusion that there is appearance without something that appears. (1, 102)
Morality Presupposes Freedom
Kant thinks we must think of things in two senses- one of appearance, and one as the thing-in-itself. If this were not true, and there was only one aspect of a thing, then the principle of causality and along with it the mechanism of nature would apply to all things. In that manner, we could not then say that, for example, the human soul has a free will. So while we may not know our souls as things-in-themselves by means of any speculative reason or empirical observation, we are not prevented from thinking freedom, as long as we place a limitation on the concepts of the pure understanding. Otherwise, there would be a contradiction. Morality presupposes freedom as a 'property of our will'. Kant thinks there is no reason why freedom should interfere with the 'natural mechanism' of actions, and that the doctrine of morality can hold its place alongside of the doctrine of nature. This would not be possible if we did not know that things-in-themselves were of a different nature from what we know of them by appearances (1, 103).
We can see from Eugene Gendlin's analysis of Heidegger's discussion about the need for the thing being an underlying "bearer of traits", that this concept goes back to Greek philosophy. A person's "this here now" is constantly changing. However, something must remain (stand) steady - it is the thing, which is the foundation of all of its visible and changing qualities. This view is like Aristotle's where the thing is like the subject of a sentence and the traits are the predicates. Gendlin states: "The Greek term for matter means 'what underlies', and its Latin translation is 'subject'. Thus already for the Greeks, the thing as the underlying matter was viewed in terms of the subject to which predicates are tied in thought" (4, 268). Carus thinks this doctrine is a 'vagary of pre-Kantian metaphysics': "If things in themselves cannot be described with the assistance of formal thoughts, they degenerate into dim chimerical and contradictory notions, such as unextended bodies, or substances without qualities, or unmaterial entities, or causes which remain outside the pale of causation" (2, 236).
Making Room for Faith
Thus we come to the heart of the matter. Kant agrees with Hume's skepticism regarding metaphysical knowledge. "If there is to be any metaphysics of supersensible reality, it cannot consist in knowledge of things in themselves; at most it can be based on rational faith" (1, 88). We can see how if reason can only operate with objects of possible experience only, then we could not even think about God, freedom, immortality, the soul, etc. This is why Kant had to rid speculative reason of its 'pretensions of transcendent insights', and why he ". . . had to deny knowledge in order to make room for faith" (1, 103). In his "General Remark on the Transcendental Ideas" he elaborates on our general hunger for knowledge of things beyond our senses:
We cannot indeed, beyond all
possible experience, form a definite concept of what things in themselves may
be. Yet we are not at liberty to abstain
entirely from inquiring into them; for experience never fully satisfies reason,
but in answering our questions refers us farther and farther back and leaves us
dissatisfied with their incomplete solution. This everyone may gather from the
dialectic of pure reason, which therefore has its good subjective grounds. . .
. who can refrain from asking what the soul really is . . . who can satisfy
himself with mere empirical knowledge in all the cosmological questions of the
duration and magnitude of the world . . . and who does not feel himself compelled
to seek rest and contentment . . . in the concept of a Being . . ." (1,
218 / 219).
Common Sense?
Copleston
gives us a good analysis of the consequences of this problem. Though Kant called rationalist metaphysics
"rotten dogmatism", yet he was followed in
I was remined of Plato's story of Thales when on an airplane recently, my coleague laughed when she glanced over and read the title of the book I was studying : What is a Thing? (I made her take an oath of silence, as my reputation for 'strange' thinking is already in question!) Yes, I dare say that even that whimsical maid who laughed at Thales would also laugh at me, who, while on a trip to solve the business problems at hand, is nevertheless contemplating such things as things!
***
BIBLIOGRAPHY
1.Beck, Lewis White, ed. and trans. KANT
Selections.
2.Carus, Paul, trans.
Afterword. Prolegomena by Immanuel Kant.
3.Copleston, Frederick S.J.
Wolff to Kant. 1963.
4.Heidegger, Martin. What is a Thing? Trans. W.B. Barton, Jr. and Vera
Deutsch.
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