Lonergan and Kant 9781442676787

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Lonergan and Kant

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GIOVANNI B. SALA

Lonergan and Kant: Five Essays on Human Knowledge Translated by Joseph Spoerl Edited by Robert M. Doran

U N I V E R S I T Y OF T O R O N T O PRESS Toronto Buffalo London

www.utppublishing.com © University of Toronto Press Incorporated 1994 Toronto Buffalo London Printed in Canada ISBN 0-8020-0429-6 Lonergan Studies

Printed on acid-free paper

Canadian Cataloguing in Publication Data Sala, Giovanni B. Lonergan and Kant: five essays on human knowledge (Lonergan studies) Translated from German. Includes index. ISBN 08020-0429-6 1. Lonergan, Bernard J.F. (Bernard Joseph Francis), 1904-1984 - Contributions in theory of knowledge. 2. Kant, Immanuel, 1724-1804 - Contributions in the theory of knowledge. 3. Knowledge, Theory of. 4. A priori. 5. Philosophy, Comparative. I. Doran, Robert M., 1939- . II. Title. HI. Series. B2799.K7S35 1994

121'.092

C94-930619-3

Contents

Editor's Preface Robert M. Doran / ix Author's Foreword Giovanni B. Sala / xi 1 The A Priori in Human Knowledge: Kant's Critique of Pure Reason and Lonergan's Insight / 3 1 Kant's Reasons for His Quest of the A Priori / 3 2 Does the Mind Impose the A Priori on Reality or Does It Question Reality through the A Priori? / 5 3 The Intuition Principle in the KRV and the Structure Principle in Insight / 8 4 Relation of Cognitional Activity to Reality / 11 5 The A Priori of Sensibility / 14 6 The A Priori of Verstand / 18 7 The A Priori of Vernunft / 22 8 Judgment as Adequate Response to the A Priori of Mind / 27 9 Expansion of the A Priori: From Knowledge of Nature to Constitution of the Human World / 30 2 The Role of the A Priori in Knowledge: On a Fundamental Problem in the Kantian Critique / 33 1 Two Conceptions of the A Priori / 33 2 The A Priori of Sensibility / 34 3 The A Priori of the Understanding / 36 4 The A Priori of Reason / 38 5 The A Priori in the Critique of Judgment / 39

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Kant's Theory of Human Knowledge: A Sensualistic Version of Intuitionism / 41 1 The Introspective Method of Developing a Theory of Knowledge / 41 2 The Essence of Knowledge according to the KRV: Knowing is Looking / 45 3 The Role of Thought in the Constitution of Knowledge / 49 4 The Relation between the Various Cognitional Operations and the Object according to the KRV / 55 5 The Intellectualistic Version of Intuitionism / 60 5.1 The Immediate Realism of E. Gilson / 60 5.2 Mediated Realism (Realismus Mediatus) / 61 5.3 The Diallele of the Intuitionist Theory of Knowledge / 63 5.4 'Cognitio debet esse originarie visio' in j. de Vries / 64 5.5 The Contribution of the Category of Causality to Knowledge of the Object in the Kantian Tradition / 65 6 Critical Realism: Human Knowledge Consists in the Threefold Operation of an Intelligent and Rational Intentionality / 67 6.1 Introspective Method and Critical Realism / 67 6.2 The Two Pillars of Critical Realism / 69 6.3 The Relation of the Cognitional Operations to Reality / 73 6.4 Two Meanings of 'Object' / 76 6.5 Sensibility and Understanding Are Both Necessary for Human Knowledge. But Who Serves Whom? / 77

4

Intentionality versus Intuition / 81 1 Intuitionism: Knowing is Looking / 81 2 Introspection as the Method for Attaining Knowledge of Knowledge / 82 3 Basic Theses of an Introspectively Developed Epistemology / 83 4 Self-knowledge - An Exception? / 86 5 Consciousness Is (Only) Experience of Oneself as Subject / 91 6 The Virtually Unconditioned as the Ground of the Rational Judgment / 93 7 From the Myth of Seeing to the Rationality of the Judgment / 99

5 Kant's Antithetic Problem and Lonergan's Rational Conception

of Reality / 102 1 The Discovery of the Antithetic Problem as the Moment at Which the KRV Was Born / 102 2 The Significance of the Antithetic Problem in the Overall Context of Kant's Transcendental Philosophy / 104

Contents

3 4 5 6

7 8 9 10

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The Content of the Antithetic Problem / 107 Kant's Idealistic Solution to the Antithetic Problem / 109 The Principle of the Transcendental Deduction /111 Lonergan's Correspondence Thesis as the Foundation of a Rational Conception of Reality / 114 6.1 Intentionality and Reality / 114 6.2 The Structure of Intentionality as the Performance of an Intentionality with Several Qualitatively Different Levels / 118 The Ambiguity of the Antithetic Problem in Kant as a Consequence of the Ambiguity of His Conception of the A Priori / 120 The Antithetic Problem with Respect to Intentionality and Its Modes / 123 The Antithetic Problem with Respect to the Structure of Cognition / 126 The Antithetic Problem with Respect to Concepts in the Strict Sense / 129

Notes / 133 Index / 163

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Editor's Preface

It is with great pleasure that I welcome to the Lonergan series of University of Toronto Press one of the foremost Kant scholars in the world, Fr Giovanni B. Sala, SJ. Fr Sala has long been known in English-speaking Lonergan circles because of his famous article published in The Thomist in 1976, on the a priori in Kant and Lonergan; that article is republished here, along with four other papers written originally in German and translated into English by Professor Joseph Spoerl of St Anselm College, Manchester, New Hampshire. Because of the excellence of Professor Spoerl's translation, my editorial work was relatively simple. I have followed all of the editorial conventions that we are employing in the Collected Works of Bernard Lonergan, even where these meant relatively minor changes in the format of Fr Sala's papers. Chapter 1 originally appeared as 'The A Priori in Human Knowledge: Kant's Critique of Pure Reason and Lonergan's Insight,' in The Thomist 40 (1976) 179-221; we have kindly been given permission to reprint it here. Universitatsprofessor Dr Gerhard Funke of Johannes Gutenberg-Universität, Mainz, graciously allowed a translation of 'Das Apriori in der Erkenntnis: Zu einem Grundproblem der Kantischen Kritik,' from Akten des 5. Internationalen Kant. Kongresses, vol. 1 (1981) 772-80 (here chapter 2). And the editors of Gregorianum have granted permission for our translation of 'Kants antithetisches Problem und Lonergans rationale Auffassung von der Wirklichkeit' from vol. 67 (1986) 471-516 (our chapter 5). Chapter 3 originally appeared as 'Kants Lehre von der menschlichen Erkenntnis: eine sensualistische Version des Intuitionismus,' in Theologie und Philosophie 57

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(1982) 202-24, 321-47; and chapter 4 as 'Intentionalität contra Intuition,' in Theologie und Philosophie 59 (1984) 249-64. Robert M. Doran Lonergan Research Institute Regis College University of Toronto

Author's Foreword

The present collection contains several essays that I have written over the last two decades on Kant, specifically addressing the topic of human knowledge; other writings on ethics and the philosophy of religion in Kant have not been included here. In spite of the varied and occasional character of the individual essays, they nonetheless exhibit an inner connection, inasmuch as they all relate to the theme that I examined in the second half of the 1960s in my dissertation at the University of Bonn under the direction of Professor Gottfried Martin, namely, The A Priori in Human Knowledge.' Even then, Insight by Bernard Lonergan, my teacher at the Gregorian University in Rome, had provided me with the Ariadne's thread that led me through the maze of Kant's Critique of Pure Reason. In the intellectual history of the last two hundred years, the a priori has been inseparably linked to the name of the philosopher from Königsberg. But this key concept in Kant, which the bewitching and long-working tradition of German idealism adopted as its own, evokes a response today more than ever: both the response of so-called common sense and the response of professional philosophers of an empiricist bent. Hence I was confronted with the question, What is the significance of the a priori in a cognitive performance that inevitably claims to be concerned with reality, and which therefore scorns purely subjective constructions, even if they are the most brilliant metaphysical inventions? Lonergan's major work helped me approach this problem from an appropriate perspective, namely, the perspective that is at work in his study of human knowledge: what exactly such an a priori might be, before one can pose the question whether the knowledge acquired by means of it has an objective value. In the process, the question about the a priori turned

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out to be the question about the role of the human subject in the acquisition of knowledge. In my concern regarding a thoroughly traditional theme - that of the truth and objectivity of knowledge, which Kant repeatedly and urgently posed - it gradually dawned on me that Lonergan had thoroughly addressed this question, but that he had done so more comprehensively and in his own distinctive way, namely, by means of a clarification of the nature of the human subject. I believe that one can justifiably regard Lonergan as the philosopher of human subjectivity in general or, more specifically, of the human subject in the entire range of his or her conscious and intentional life. Lonergan's unmistakable realism is the fruit of a study of the human being in his or her subjectivity. In my dissertation I treated the theme of the a priori in the form of a synopsis of Kant's major work. Subsequent years devoted to research and teaching offered me the opportunity to study further particular aspects of the Critique of Pure Reason from a historical-philological perspective, without, to be sure, ever abandoning my overarching speculative interest. Thus I was able repeatedly to take up the central question of the a priori and pursue it in greater detail. The first essay was written as a paper for the International Lonergan Congress in Florida in 1970. In it I worked out a few of the key ideas of my previously completed dissertation. The meaning and function of the a priori in the various phases of the cognitive process - the sensible phase, the conceptual phase, and the phase of judgment - are presented here in an overview. In the dissertation I had already become aware of the necessity of distinguishing between two meanings of 'a priori' in the Critique of Pure Reason, a content-constitutive or object-constitutive a priori and a performative or subject-constitutive a priori, only the second of which can be verified in a critical-introspective analysis of our cognitive performance. It was above all Lonergan's discussion of the basic phenomenon of the question that put me on the trail of the actual role of the subject. In the well-known judge analogy in the Preface to the B edition of the Critique of Pure Reason,1 Kant also mentions the questioning of the judge, yet without clearly grasping the task that thereby falls to the subject in order to achieve knowledge of reality, and therefore also without drawing out all of the implications regarding epistemology. The year 1981, in which the scholarly world commemorated the 200th anniversary of the publication of the Critique of Pure Reason, gave me the occasion to approach the theme yet again in two essays. In a short paper for the Fifth International Kant Congress in Mainz I again presented an overview of the problematic of the a priori in Kant's Critique. This time, however, I extended the problematic to the Critique of Judgment, where,

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when he wished to explain those 'special' laws of nature for which the testing, experiment-driven procedure of the natural sciences does not allow itself to be caught in the grip of a thetic a priori, Kant could no longer ignore the chasm that had opened up due to his half-way position between realism and idealism. Kant's remarks on the recently introduced notion of a 'reflective power of judgment' cannot hide the failure of his contentconstitutive or object-constitutive a priori when it is confronted with this experimentum crucis. Again for the jubilee of the Critique, I published one year later a detailed study with the title 'Kant's Theory of Human Knowledge: A Sensualistic Version of Intuitionism.' In this article I first describe the essence of knowledge according to the Critique of Pure Reason in the basic text at the beginning of the Transcendental Aesthetic: to know is to intuit, whereby according to Kant the human subject is capable only of sensible intuition. Then, however, I go into the highly complicated problematic, which follows from this conception of knowledge as intuition, of the role of understanding and reason, which is possible on the basis of the aforementioned principle of intuition. This role is, on the one hand, the noncognitive activity of merely manipulating the raw material of sensible experience, and on the other hand, the addition of a reality stemming from the subject himself or herself, so that the subject is considered to be the 'author of experience' (in the sense of the object of experience). In the second part of this study I contrast sensualistic intuitionism, and also the intellectual intuitionism of other thinkers, especially neoscholastic thinkers, with Lonergan's position, which rests on an introspective analysis of the human subject in his or her conscious and intentional cognitive acts. The result is, on the one hand, the doctrine of human knowledge as a threefold structure in which the subject's unlimited intelligent and rational dynamism performs, and on the other hand, an intelligent and rational conception of reality. The latter overcomes the disparity between the operations of the understanding and reality, from which the doctrine of the in-principle-unknowable 'thing in itself derives, the doctrine of a transcendental idealism that is unable to eliminate its empiricist foundation. The position of my wise and venerable colleague at the Philosophische Hochschule, Josef de Vries, who upholds in his manual (which was at one time well-known beyond German-speaking lands) a theory of knowledge that in my opinion is the purest form of intellectual intuitionism, was the occasion for further scrutiny of the principle of intuition, a principle that Kant and many of his scholastic critics hold in common. My concern in the essay Tntentionality versus Intuition' was the 'perceptio seu visio rei' (perception or vision of the thing) on which the truth of the judgment supposedly is based, assuming that by such an intellectual perception of

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reality one does not mean precisely that threefold cognitive process that can be verified by means of the thematization of our cognitive performance. The last essay, on 'Kant's Antithetic Problem and Lonergan's Rational Conception of Reality,' deals with one of the most decisive moments in the complicated evolution of the Critique of Pure Reason, namely, the question regarding the agreement of the a priori concepts as representations of the subject and things, as posed by Kant in his letter to Herz of 21 February 1772. Kant resolved this question in the Transcendental Deduction of the Pure Concepts of the Understanding by abandoning the realistic premises that he still upheld at the time of the letter. In my essay I examine that basic principle of the Transcendental Deduction, according to which 'the a priori conditions of a possible experience in general are at the same time conditions of the possibility of objects of experience' (A 111), and I attempt to establish precisely what these conditions are and how the problem of agreement correspondingly presents itself; for the question varies depending on whether one is dealing with intentionality and its modes (the transcendental notions, according to Lonergan), or with concepts in the proper sense, or with the structure of knowledge. The essays that are presented here have arisen primarily out of the study of so-called critical philosophy. It was the complexity and obscurity of the Critique of Pure Reason that forced me repeatedly to return not only to that same work but even to that same posing of the question. The reader of this collection will note that I have wrestled, repeatedly and with the aid of similar arguments, with the a priori in Kant and with the transcendental idealism that stems from it. Through the treatment of a question that has remained essentially the same, the various components and aspects of this question in the context of the transcendental philosophy have gradually become clear (or somewhat clearer!) to me. Thus certain distinctions will arise only in a later essay, and nuances are introduced little by little. While my interpretation of Kant remained in essence the same, I strove to discover and do justice to the many aspects of the Kantian question about the a priori. However, the five essays in this collection are at the same time also studies of Lonergan's doctrine of human knowledge, for the background and key to my reading of Kant, above all his Critique of Pure Reason, has been Insight. There is no doubt that the Critique of Pure Reason was in Lonergan's mind as he wrote Insight, though to be sure Lonergan was addressing a much broader question than did Kant in the second half of the eighteenth century. The references to Kant in Insight are nearly as frequent as those to Thomas Aquinas. Lonergan was certainly not a Kant

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scholar, even though he demonstrably possessed a direct knowledge of Kant's major work, at least in its basic parts. It seems to me that one can say about his interpretation of the Critique of Pure Reason what Lonergan himself once said during a discussion of a doctoral dissertation on Aristotle's Analytics at the Gregorian University in Rome in 1961. He said that the dissertation could remain a valid point of reference for further studies on the topic, not because the author had predicted the future course of discussion of Aristotle, but simply because he had precisely understood what this work by Aristotle was all about. Over the years, I have repeatedly had the experience of discovering that what Lonergan has written regarding Kant, often only briefly or even casually, indeed expresses precisely the core of Kant's doctrine. When one studies Kant in detail, many problems become extraordinarily complicated - in part because of the composite and multilayered character of the Critique of Pure Reason, which causes many particular exegetical problems to turn out to be historical rather than speculative questions2 - but this in no way changes the role of the principle of intuition for the sensualistic 'determination of the limits' of our knowledge and the resultant noncognitive character of the acts of understanding and reason. It is precisely these two components of the empiricism or transcendental idealism of Kant that Lonergan perceptively discovered.3 My remarks return again and again to this core of Kant's position, whatever might be the concrete point of departure or the passage in Kant's work that constitutes the immediate subject of my reflections. The attempt to do justice to Kant's penetrating questions also led me, I believe, to understand Lonergan's thought better and to make explicit implications which are easily overlooked without an appropriate question on the part of the reader - these are the virtualities of a thought that has gained a firm grasp on the subject in question. Indeed, Lonergan did not anticipate all of the questions that have arisen in the course of the many years I have spent wrestling with Kant; however, he did understand the author; indeed, to take up a hermeneutical thesis that Kant himself cites (KRV A 314), he understood the author better than the author, in his laborious attempt to reconcile the English empiricism and German rationalism of his time, was able to understand himself. Precisely with his doctrine of human knowledge as a structure in the performance of the unlimited dynamism of our spirit, Lonergan was able to do justice to the sensible and intellectual components of our knowledge. The study of Kant's critical philosophy was an obligatory part of the philosophical curriculum where I studied. For years I was struck by transcendental idealism just as Kant was struck, at the end of his intellectual

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career, by Fichte's Wissenschaftslehre, which, according to its author, was after all the logical extension of Kant's critical philosophy. Fichte's consistent idealism appeared to Kant as 'a sort of ghost such that, when one thinks one has grabbed it, one finds in front of oneself no object, but only oneself or, more precisely, the hand with which one tried to grab it.'4 With this reductio ad absurdum refutation, with which a 'réaffirmation brute du réalisme'5 is clearly associated, Kant's critical philosophy was dead and done for. From this perspective the thought of an a priori of an epistemological sort (that is, not in a merely metaphysical sense, as for example the faculties of the soul) in the subject was already a concession to Kant's subjectivism. The end result of this, the subjectivism, could be avoided only at the cost of an illogical step in the course of further argumentation. The assertion of the obvious thesis that we are capable of knowledge of reality and therefore of cognitive transcendence could thus find an explanation only by means of an analogy with the capacity for transcendence of our sensible intuition - that is, by means of a capacity for transcendence that consists essentially in a spatial extroversion. Whether one wished it or not, no other explanation for the truth of our knowledge remained except this one - that is to say, precisely the basic principle of Kantian phenomenalism, even if sensible intuition was replaced or supplemented by intellectual intuition. It was therefore a cause of amazement and confusion to me when later, as a student at the Gregorian University, I heard Lonergan speaking repeatedly of the 'vim iudicii existentialis quo per verum iudicium cognoscitur existens,' or of 'verum absolute positum quo innotescit ens.'6 My first reading of Insight also could not restore firm ground under my feet after Lonergan had called my realism into question, a realism that rested on nothing other than the principle of intuition! For years I remained stranded in midstream, so to speak, until gradually the indirect approach through the study of theology, a few seminars with Lonergan (above all the seminar 'De methodo theologiae' in 1962), the study of the articles The Concept of Verbum in the Writings of St. Thomas Aquinas' (which gave me an easier access to Lonergan's thought because of my neoscholastic background) ,7 and another round of wrestling with Insight, revealed to me the truth, indeed the extreme simplicity, of the thesis that knowledge of reality occurs through the performance of our intentionality. The surprising thing about this insight, which came to me at the end of a long search and in which the scales of intuitionism fell from my eyes, was that, in spite of all the complex particular forms and instances of human knowledge in all its various branches, the core of this doctrine proved to have a disarming simplicity: we know reality because and to the extent that

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we attentively observe the relevant data of experience, bring the data to an intelligible unity, and take the trouble of weighing the evidence for and against our interpretation of the data with intellectual honesty. Every human being who wants to know how it stands with reality spontaneously does precisely this! This same insight made it possible for me to see the chasm that intuitionism of every sort sets up between the cognitive acts which we de facto perform and the postulated intuition of the fact in itself, whether it be Kant's merely sensible intuition or the neoscholastic intellectual intuition. Intuitionism rests largely on a forgetting of the subject. It may seem paradoxical, but it is a fact that one finds such a forgetting of the subject precisely in the philosopher who, having taken up the main strand of the modern mind-set, is known not unjustly as the one who made explicit and practiced the turn to the subject in his critical writings. Considering the matter precisely, there is no need today for somehow reversing or at least limiting the anthropological turn in light of its more and more threatening impact on human culture and the Christian faith; rather, there is a need to overcome that turn insofar as it stopped short at a 'truncated' and therefore 'immanentist subject,' as Lonergan has remarked.8 If one does justice to the human subject in all of the dimensions of its intentional consciousness, it reveals itself as a being of transcendence. Our task, therefore, is to win back entirely this range of the cognitive and volitional dynamism of our spirit in our culture - a dynamism that theology has not without reason understood as a natural desire to see God (desiderium naturale videndi Deum). Cognitive transcendence, and thus the truth and objectivity of a knowledge that makes reality accessible to us, and moral transcendence, which allows us freely and responsibly to affirm and promote a reality that we recognize as meaningful and good - such transcendence is the fruit of a lived subjectivity that is neither truncated nor distorted. It is by no means a smooth-sounding slogan or a sly trick when Lonergan in his last great work, for which Insight had laid the epistemological foundation, repeatedly reduced the conclusion of his intentionality analysis to the brief formulation: 'Genuine objectivity is the fruit of authentic subjectivity. It is to be attained only by attaining authentic subjectivity.'9 For 'in the world mediated by meaning and motivated by value, objectivity is simply the consequence of authentic subjectivity, of genuine attention, genuine intelligence, genuine reasonableness, genuine responsibility.'10 These passages make it clear that Lonergan's clarification of the human subject, which was undertaken for the purpose of an epistemology and which could appear abstract, brings forth a very concrete and personal challenge: the challenge to every human being to realize the self-transcendence that is implanted within

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oneself as constitutive of one's person. Lonergan adds that 'the fundamental forms of self-transcendence are intellectual, moral and religious conversion,' so that 'to attempt to ensure objectivity apart from self-transcendence only generates illusions.'11 It is a pleasant duty for me to express my gratitude here to those who helped to make this volume a reality. Above all I thank Professor Joseph Spoerl, who executed the translation from the German language of chapters 2 through 5 with interest and competence. Next I thank my confrere, Fr Frederick Crowe of the Lonergan Research Institute of Toronto, who for many years has assisted me by word and deed in my study of Lonergan's writings. He also improved the style and substance of chapter 1 to prepare it for publication in The Thomist in 1976. Finally, I owe special thanks to my confrere Fr Robert Doran, who suggested putting this collection together and has seen it through to its realization. In addition to all the technical work necessary to prepare this volume for publication, he has also accepted the task of completing the final revision of the translation, for which I am grateful. Fr Giovanni B. Sala, SJ Hochschule fur Philosophie, München April 1993

Lonergan and Kant

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1

The A Priori in Human

Knowledge: Kant's Critique of Pure Reason and Lonergan' s Insight1 1

Kant's Reasons for His Quest of the A Priori

Kant's work is indissolubly bound up with two notions: that of the transcendental as a method of analysis and that of the a priori as the result of such an analysis. In the following pages we propose to study that second notion as it appears in the Critique of Pure Reason, though this will often lead us to touch on the first notion as well. Our aim is to set forth as detailed an analysis as the limits of the present paper will allow. Without entering into the history of the composition of the KRV, let us simply say that because of what Norman Kemp Smith calls 'the tentative character of Kant's conclusions'2 it would be an extremely long and difficult task to establish the stages through which Kant's thought evolved and to document the philosophical positions to be found in this Critique. Our purpose is rather to clarify the basic epistemological lines of the KRV in their various aspects, in their tensions, and in what seems to us to be their common direction. The epistemology of Lonergan will not be the direct object of analysis in this paper; rather it will be presupposed and used to supply the key to our reading of the KRV, as will be evident enough to those of our readers who are familiar with Insight.3 Why did Kant set up his study of human knowledge in the form of a quest for an a priori component in that knowledge? He gives his own answer to our question: to ground the synthetic a priori judgments that constitute our scientific knowledge (B 19). We can express Kant's reason in the following syllogism: Scientific knowledge is knowledge of the universal and necessary. But universality and necessity cannot come from experi-

4

Lonergan and Kant

ence; that is, they cannot be based on anything a posteriori. Therefore they are a priori. We will not examine the merit of the first premise. However, we must note that it contains an ambiguity that flows over into the entire enterprise of Kant: Is the KRV the study of human knowledge in general, or is it the study of that particular type of knowledge that science is? The latter does not in fact exhaust the scope of human knowledge. However, leaving this ambiguity aside, we cannot doubt that for Kant scientific knowledge amounts to knowledge of the universal and necessary. It is the classical ideal of science, and Kant not only fully accepts it but also carries it to its final consequences. Today we cannot follow Kant along that road. A modern analysis of knowledge must begin by getting rid of the heavy burden of conceptualism we inherited from our predecessors. They were forever in search of a universality and necessity greater than the science of the last four centuries has aimed at achieving; if we follow them we will be laboring to find an a priori in order to explain a knowledge which we do not in fact possess. The need to change our approach is still more evident when we consider the second premise, namely, that universality and necessity cannot come from experience. What is experience? There are at least two meanings of the term in the KRV, and we must keep them in clear distinction if we would understand adequately this principle which is so fundamental to Kantian epistemology. Both meanings are already found in the first section of Kant's Introduction (B i). Here, at the very beginning, Erfahrung is equivalent to pure sense knowledge; its nature is determined specifically by the fact that sense is a faculty which must be moved by a material object in order to know. Hence Erfahrung denotes that activity which, at the beginning of the Transcendental Aesthetic, is called Empfindung (sensation [A 2O/B 34]). At the end of the same passage, however, Erfahrung no longer designates sense knowledge alone, but human knowledge in the full meaning of the term, including therefore the sensible and the intellectual together. Now if experience is taken in the second sense it is easy to see that, far from excluding universality and necessity, it essentially includes them, insofar as it requires the constitutive intervention of the pure forms of intuition and of the pure concepts of understanding. If, on the contrary, experience is taken in the first sense, then it is true that necessity and universality do not originate in experience. The foregoing may seem obvious enough at first glance. Nevertheless, more attentive scrutiny reveals a flaw in the construction of the syllogism with which we began. Between the second premise (experience can yield neither necessity nor universality) and the conclusion (necessity and universality are a priori) there is another premise which must be made

The A Priori in Human Knowledge

5

explicit before the conclusion is valid. This premise is that the cognitional phases which follow upon Empfindung are incapable of raising the representation of the concrete sense object to the status of the universal and the necessary. Here we touch on one of the fundamental problems of Kantian epistemology. The KRV clearly recognizes that knowledge is a composite, in particular a composite of sensibility and understanding. But his fundamental intuitionist conception of knowledge inclines Kant to say - more or less explicitly according to the degree that the intuitionist principle comes to the fore - that the object of knowledge is given to us through the senses and only through them; the later phases of the cognitional process do not contribute a partial object of their own to the constitution of the full and final object of knowledge. Let me put it more precisely still: to understand the sensed object and to reflect on what has been understood is not, in the Kantian view, to add a further, different content to our knowing; the content of knowledge is simply repeated in shifting from the sense level to the level of understanding, Verstand.4 Now Kant says of Erfahrung that, taken as mere sense experience, it 'tells us, indeed, what is, but not that it must necessarily be so, and not otherwise' (A i). Actually, experience itself is knowledge neither of the 'what' nor of the 'is'; it is simply presentation. To know 'what' is presented and whether this 'what' really 'is' belongs to the intelligent and rational phases which follow the sensible phase. Kant tends to say that knowledge on the first level already attains the 'what is' of reality, though it may be only in its singularity; and the reason is that he is thinking according to the intuitionist principle. If, however, this principle is abandoned, then both the 'what' and the 'is,' as well as necessity and universality, are found to have a different origin. As formal determination is added through understanding to an object which is otherwise a mere datum, and as existence is then added through judgment, so the universality of the formal determination as well as the factual necessity of existence are added to the same sense object. We have to consider the entire structure of knowledge in order to grasp how a process, which clearly has its empirical side too, can also have contents and qualifications which are not empirical - not empirical, at least, if one restricts 'empirical' to the first level of the cognitional structure. 2

Does the Mind Impose the A Priori on Reality or Does It Question Reality through the A Priori?

The Kantian conception of the a priori is open to two opposing dangers. One danger is to empty it of any real meaning. Kant finds himself in this danger whenever he insists on the empirical character of our knowledge.

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If indeed reality is given to us through sense intuition, what are the various a priori representations supposed to do? It might be said: They make us think of the object and thus come to know it with a properly human knowledge. But then we would have to ask: What do we thus come to know that we did not know already through sensation alone? The opposite danger is to attribute too much to the a priori. This danger is especially grave when Kant underlines the constitutive-formative function of the a priori, according to the fundamental statement of the Preface: 'We can know a priori of things only what we ourselves put into them' (B xviii). We believe it is possible to overcome this tension and to define more satisfactorily the nature and function of the a priori by bringing to completion that turn to the subject (Hinwendung zum Subjekf) which is the purpose of transcendental analysis. A metaphor which Kant himself proposes will illustrate our meaning. While for Kant this metaphor helps clarify the function he assigns to the a priori, for us it indicates the way to overcome the insufficiencies of the Kantian conception: Reason, holding in one hand its principles ... and in the other hand the experiment ... must approach nature in order to be taught by it. It must not, however, do so in the character of a pupil who listens to everything that the teacher chooses to say, but of an appointed judge who compels the witnesses to answer questions which he has himself formulated. Even physics, therefore, owes the beneficent revolution in its point of view entirely to the happy thought, that while reason must seek in nature, not fictitiously ascribe to it, whatever as not being knowable through reason's own resources has to be learnt, if learnt at all, only from nature, it must adopt as its guide, in so seeking, that which it has itself put into nature. (B xiii-xiv) Let us set aside the phrase 'put into,' as well as the question of experimental method, and concentrate on the judge.5 By hypothesis the judge knows nothing of what has happened. Yet the judgment of the case is confined to him. Why? Because he possesses juridical science. In virtue of this he puts precise questions to the witnesses. The latter are men of common sense and so know the facts under the headings of violence, tragedy, cruelty, and so forth. But knowledge under those headings does not interest the judge. For him what the witnesses say - aside from the question of their veracity is not yet the reality he seeks to know; their statements are for his purpose only data which through his inquiry must undergo a twofold promotion. First, they must be promoted to the level of understanding, of data that are understood. Then the judge must exercise his juridical science in a critical

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reflection that weighs all the factors pertinent to a legal judgment; by this means the data are promoted to the level of sufficient evidence, and the judge achieves knowledge of the juridically determined fact. It was just this juridical reality which he wished to ascertain. In this case it is easy to see what the a priori of the judge is: juridical science. It does not seem correct to say, according to any acceptable meaning of the expression, that there is something which the judge himself has 'put into' the juridically determined reality. Rather we must say that he has drawn an element from himself and put it into the data. What is that element? It is the questions he asked in virtue of his knowledge. By asking, seeking, reflecting, the judge has come to know the reality. Now let us go behind this specific a priori. Juridical science in the judge, that complex of knowledge in the witnesses termed common sense, those various mentalities that form the preunderstanding (Vorverstandnis) by which one man is an engineer, another a sociologist, a third a poet - all are specifications of a unique, basic preunderstanding, the same for everyone, by which everyone, whether he knows under this aspect or that, always knows being or the real. Thus to say that there is an a priori at the root of knowledge is to say that learning does not start from nothing. But whereas in the case of the judge the starting point is knowledge properly so called, when we go back further, to the point from which all the different specific kinds of knowledge get their start, we no longer find a knowledge of objects - of nature or of the human world - but rather a knowledge purely and simply on the side of the subject. The presence of the subject to himself (consciousness), in its immanent orientation toward the universe to be known, is identical with the notion of that objective toward knowledge of which the subject proceeds intelligently and rationally. This is the a priori in its first and proper sense, and particular objective a prioris are formed within it. The constitution of the particular a prioris is a posteriori; it occurs within the cultural components of the environment in which one is born and raised, and through the personal experiences which constitute the life of the individual in its uniqueness. The first a priori, on the contrary, is the a priori in an absolute sense. Now if, in virtue of his particular preunderstanding, the judge is able to pose his specific questions, what questions are we able to ask and what knowledge can we reach in virtue of that preunderstanding which is our a priori as human beings? The question we can ask is the question about being, and the knowledge we can reach is the knowledge of being. Questioning creates within human spirit that space by which it is able to manifest reality. According to Kant 'we can know a priori of things only what we ourselves put into them' (B xviii); we believe that it is more according

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to common experience to say 'we can know a priori of things only what we ourselves ask about them.' The questions we ask 'invest' the data, and only then do the data mediate reality to us, a reality which is first intended and only subsequently known. Moreover, it is in virtue of questioning, as forming the horizon of our inquiry, that the data actually enter the field of intelligent consciousness. The manifestation of reality is possible because the question, in that anticipatory movement which constitutes it as question, already has the meaning of reality; without this primordial knowledge, which is of the essence of spirit insofar as spirit is being in its luminousness, and hence meaningful to itself, the datum could not be revealed to us as reality. Summing up as clearly as possible what the a priori is according to Insight, we could say that primordially and fundamentally it is the question. Questions constitute the operator which promotes the successive expansions of consciousness in the transition from one level to another of the structure. Questions for intelligence, questions for reflection, and, beyond the strictly cognitional phase of human activity, questions for decision these are the a priori. This conception is paralleled in Insight by the notion of reality as intrinsically intelligible. Is reality what you can look at (whether the 'look' be conceived as an act of ocular or intellectual vision), or is reality what you intend by asking questions? Insight maintains and fully develops the second alternative, which we shall refer to as the rational conception of the real. The clarification of such a conception of reality will, I hope, be one of the more important contributions of this study. Human knowledge, then, is inexplicable if we do not admit a strictly subjective a priori which, without being constitutive of the object as object, nevertheless makes it formally possible for the object to be known. It is an a priori which, while not being itself determined as a category, still grounds the possibility of every determination of whatever is known. To speak of a primordial question implies that human spirit is meaning in quest of meaning. The meaning with which we are naturally endowed is merely heuristic; it is anticipatory of reality. Hence a true search for something really unknown is quite possible, and so is the recognition of reality once we have found it. Human spirit betrays a total poverty at the very same time that it reveals a total capacity for discerning and judging by itself everything in the range of the true. 3 The Intuition Principle in the KRV and the Structure Principle in Insight It is well to preface an examination of the a priori on the various levels of knowledge with a study of what we consider to be the first principle of

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Kantian epistemology. Heidegger has formulated it with extreme exactitude: 'To understand the KRV one must, as it were, hammer into one's head the principle: Knowledge is primarily intuition.'6 The Transcendental Aesthetic opens with the enunciation of this principle: 'In whatever manner and by whatever means a mode of knowledge may relate to objects, intuition is that through which it is in immediate relation to them, and to which all thought as a means is directed' (A 19/B 33). Intuition is thus the unique means by which in the last analysis we are able to establish an immediate cognitional relation with the object. Consequently, given that knowledge consists in this relation of the subject to the object, we must conclude that knowing is intuition. That this is the first principle of the KRV is to be presumed from the very frequency with which Kant refers to it. He often says that intuition alone gives us the object, or that intuition alone refers to the object; for example: A i6/B 30, A 68/B 93, A 224/B 272, A 239/B 298, A 271/6 327, A 320/B 377, A 719/6 747, etc. Elsewhere, mindful of the twofold structure of knowledge, he formulates the principle as follows: through Anschauen the object is given to us, through Denken it is thought; see, for example: A 15/B 29, A 50/B 74, B 146, etc. On the basis of these texts we can establish the following conclusion: There are many activities which contribute to the constitution of our knowledge; but if we ask what constitutes knowledge as knowledge of an object, and hence as knowledge at all,7 we have to answer: It is intuition. No matter how many mediated relations other activities are able to establish with the object, if we wish to avoid the nonsense of a series of mediations, no one of which reaches the reality to be mediated, we must say that there is a type of cognitional activity whose very nature consists in setting up a bridge between knower and known. This is intuition. Knowledge is essentially intuition; therefore intuition is to be found in all knowledge. It would be difficult to exaggerate the importance of the intuition principle in Kant's epistemology. It is present everywhere, and commands the solutions of various problems as they arise in the KRV. This is not to say that it constitutes the whole epistemology of Kant. Transcendental analysis, which is the aim of the KRV, implies a shift from consideration of objects to consideration of cognitional acts and, more generically, to consideration of the subject. Now such analysis leads to a doctrine which is at loggerheads with the intuition principle: we mean the doctrine of knowledge as structure. This doctrine appears in the KRV in a rather complex manner. Various enumerations of acts and faculties are found in various sections, indeed frequently in the very same section, but we cannot find any means of reducing them to unity or of sketching clearly the whole course of the cognitional process. Kant contents himself with studying according to the circumstances this or that aspect of knowledge, under the pressure of

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problems at hand, without becoming concerned as to how the various faculties and acts combine to constitute a single process. Between the intuition principle and the structure principle there is a tension, insofar as the first tends per se to exclude the second. The object is given in intuition; therefore Kant inclines to reduce knowledge to this single act. Hence the obscurity in which the entire Transcendental Analytic is involved: Of what use are the phases of thinking and judging which follow upon intuition? No matter how many functions we ascribe to them, we cannot say that they are cognitional activities if knowing is intuiting an object and these activities are not intuitive but only transport from one level to another - and what does that mean? - the very same object which has already revealed itself to us immediately in the Anschauung. It is possible to eliminate this tension and give due recognition to the cognitional function of the various acts constituting our knowledge, if we choose a different approach. We must set aside the intuition principle, that is, the model of knowing as looking, and consequently of the known as what is looked at, whether it be the sensible singular or the intellectual universal, and in its place we must examine knowledge in itself and study it by introspection8 as it actually occurs. For this reason Lonergan sets up his study of knowledge as a response, not to the question whether we know, or whether our knowledge has objective validity, but rather to the question what knowledge is. More precisely still: What happens when we know? Or what kinds of acts do we perform in the process of knowing? First must come understanding of the activity that in fact occurs and is called knowledge, and only afterwards comes judgment on its validity as knowledge of objective reality. Moreover, once the actual facts are understood the problem of objectivity appears in a different light. One realizes that the investigation into the objective value of knowledge owes its dubious or negative solutions to an erroneous conception of the nature of cognitional activity, a conception which was taken for granted as being too obvious to need examination. Lonergan's method is therefore an introspective one, based on the conscious character of the cognitional process. The decisive reason in favor of such a method is that it can highlight what is proper to the subject: not only the productions of the subject, but what the subject itself is, formally as subject. Introspective analysis becomes transcendental analysis when consciousness manifests itself as normative throughout the entire cognitional process. It is here that the contingent fact of knowledge, that is, our pragmatic engagement in the process of knowing (Insight 332/356), manifests its intrinsic necessity by revealing the norm according to which it must unfold in order to lead to a true knowledge. We can recapitulate the results of this analysis under two titles: (i) the intelligent and rational

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intention which grounds and constitutes the entire cognitional process, (2) knowledge as a formally dynamic structure, that is, as a whole composed of parts, and those parts activities that are self-assembling in a series. We already described the first result when we spoke of wonder, the primordial question, and considered it not only as principle of the cognitional process from which spring forth specific single questions, but also as penetrating the cognitional process, regulating everything, and rendering every single act meaningful. Our radical questioning, then, is a dynamism towards knowledge, an intelligently and rationally conscious dynamism, and one of unlimited scope. Because of these characteristics Lonergan names our pure desire to know the notion of its objective, that is to say, the notion of being. The characteristics found in the object of this intention, when the intention is realized in a manner faithful to its immanent norms, are anticipated by the subject itself, which is not content with data alone, but, confronted by the data, poses questions in order to understand and to reflect. The second result is the doctrine of knowledge as structure. Human knowledge occurs according to a structure of experience, understanding, and judgment. The many acts which introspective analysis brings to light arrange themselves on three essentially different levels, each one adding a new and quite distinct dimension both to knowledge as immanent activity and to the objective content known, until we reach, on the one hand, rational judgment and, on the other hand, the corresponding object. 4

Relation of Cognitional Activity to Reality

According to the intuition principle cognitional activities are objective, that is, cognitive of the object, in the measure in which they resemble ocular vision. Thus it is established in advance, on the basis of this analogy, what these activities must be if they are to be cognitional at all. But if we abandon the intuition principle, and instead consider the acts we in fact continually exercise in the process of knowing, we come to different conclusions (i) on what establishes the immediate relation of our knowledge to reality, and (2) on the way this relation is realized, that is, the way we pass from a relation of intention towards reality to a relation of actual knowledge. We have stated above the conclusions of Insight on this subject. Therefore to the question, What gives our cognitional activities their relation to the object? we answer: Our pure desire to know, which is our intention of being. Hence the importance of the a priori as tendency to the absolute. The unrestricted scope of the objective of our primordial question and the unconditional character we seek in the judgments by which we move toward that objective are interdependent. Being, that which

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has absolute status, is the correlative of an unrestricted intentionality capable of tending towards its object without any qualification or condition. But to recognize that a tendency to the absolute is the basis of our knowledge of being, we must have explicitly worked out a rational conception of the real. Transcendental analysis will avoid ending up in immanentism if and only if it operates on the basis of the intrinsic intelligibility of the real. If by being one means the objective of the pure desire to know, the goal of intelligent inquiry and critical reflection, the object of intelligent grasp and reasonable affirmation, then one must affirm the intrinsic intelligibility of being. For one defines being by its intelligibility ... one denies that being is anything apart from the intelligible or beyond it or different from it. (Insight 499/523) Kant did not get as far as the intrinsic intelligibility of reality, even though he was opposed to empiricism and highlighted with all desirable emphasis the operations superior to sensing. Precisely on account of that failure, when he comes to decide on the objectivity of these operations he can only deny it. Man understands, conceives, and - according to a certain meaning of the word -judges; he performs all these activities in a manner coherent with their immanent norms. But for all that, what does he know of reality? Nothing. The intelligent and rational fulfilment of the cognitional dynamism is not the means of knowing reality. And rightly so, since by hypothesis reality is neither intelligible nor rational. Such is the reality which Kant calls Noumenon: something absolutely beyond our intelligent inquiry and our critical reflection. Then, in order not to leave our knowledge without an object, Kant assigns it another entity as object: the Phenomenon, which is always in danger of vanishing into nothing. Let us try to clarify what we mean when we say that the KRVpresents an irrational conception of the real. In a general way Kant admits that in order to know reality, other acts beyond sensing are necessary; he states therefore that the object is given through sensibility, but not thought without Verstand. But such generic statements do not yet prove a rational conception of reality. Such a conception would require Verstand to have its own proper and real content not given through the senses. It is just here that Insight differs from the KRV. Insight not only states that intellect thinks or brings to the concept the contents of sensible intuition, but it qualifies this doctrine in a way which goes beyond that of Kant; intellect grasps a new content which was not given in intuition: the intelligibility of the sensible grasped in the sensible. Understanding thinks, or brings to the concept, or subsumes under the concept the object of sense by adding to it an

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objective element which is not sensible. If we fail to recognize this, the term 'to think' remains an empty term, so that verbally one seems to refer to knowledge as a structure, but in fact one still understands knowledge as only intuition. In order actually to overcome the intuition principle we must deny it from the beginning, that is, deny that the object of our knowledge is given us in intuition. Instead we must say that sense intuition has its own content, that the understanding of Verstand has its own content, and, going beyond the binary structure, that the judgment of Vernunft has its own content. Hence it is clear that we can no more say that intuition gives us the object of reality than we can say that understanding gives us the object - except for the functional priority of the sense act over that of understanding. Each cognitional act gives us a partial object. It is the task of the entire structure, which is brought to term in rational judgment, to give us the proper object of knowledge, that is, being. If the intuition principle is assumed, we can see readily enough how Kant, in the measure in which he recognizes both the intuition principle and the structure principle, has to relate the various cognitional acts to reality. According to the passage cited from § i of the Aesthetic, intellectual activities, termed generically Denken, refer to reality through sensible intuition. This interpretation of the objectivity of knowledge is confirmed at the beginning of the Analytic a propos of the activity of Verstand: 'Since no representation, save when it is an intuition, is in immediate relation to an object, no concept is ever related to an object immediately, but to some other representation of it ...Judgment is therefore the mediate knowledge of an object, that is, the representation of a representation of it' (A 68/B 93). In the Dialectic Kant treats of our tendency to the unconditioned. In virtue of the same intuition principle the activities of Vernunft, far from realizing the immediate relation of knowledge to its object, are doubly mediated instead, by Verstand and by Anschauung. 'Reason is never in immediate relation to an object, but only to the understanding; and it is only through the understanding that it has its own ... empirical employment' (A 643/B 671; see also A 3O2/B 359, A 306-7/6 363, A 335/B 392, A 567/6 595). This is perfectly comprehensible: if knowledge can have an immediate relation to the object only through a sort of intuition, then Vernunft, as tendency towards the unconditioned, will resemble intuition even less than Verstand, as faculty of the intelligible, resembles it. Analysis of knowledge in its own terms, that is, analysis of the sort adopted in this paper, will overturn the relationship that Kant conceived. Relationship to reality is immediate in the intention of being, which is our dynamism towards the unconditioned. We obviously mean an immediate relationship to reality insofar as the reality is intended. The same relationship to a reality which is no longer only intended but rather attained is

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immediate in judgment, insofar as judgment, as absolute positing, satisfies our intention of the absolute. If we wish to use the image of seeing, we must say that the act by which we see reality, and hence are in immediate contact with it, is the judgment. Relationship to reality is mediate in understanding and conceiving - in Denken, to use Kant's term. In fact, the intelligibility grasped by understanding implies of itself only the possibility of being; it will be promoted to the level of knowledge in the full sense only when there is added to understanding the concrete judgment of fact in which the intelligibility is absolutely affirmed. The same relation to reality is doubly mediated in the data of sense and of consciousness. The datum in its pure givenness, far from constituting the moment of our encounter with the real qua real, must be enriched by some intelligibility through the process of inquiry, and this intelligibility must be shown in critical reflection to be correct, before we are brought to knowledge of that reality with whose datum we began. 5

The A Priori of Sensibility

Kant distinguishes a passive and an active aspect in sense representation. Insofar as the representation is related to the object through sensation (that is, through the object affecting the faculty of representation), it is entitled empirical intuition. But in the same representation there is also a component which arises from the activity of the senses. This component is intuition insofar as it is from the senses, and a priori insofar as it is not caused by the Empfindung. The object known through intuition is thus a composite object: That in the appearance which corresponds to sensation I term its matter; but that which so determines the manifold of appearance that it allows of being ordered in certain relations, I term the form of appearance. That in which alone the sensations can be posited and ordered in a certain form, cannot itself be sensation; and therefore, while the matter of all appearance is given to us a posteriori only, its form must lie ready for the sensations a priori in the mind, and so must allow of being considered apart from all sensation. (A 20/B 34) This general principle is applied when Kant analyzes space and time. Actually Kant does not adduce new elements at that point to demonstrate that space and time are a priori forms and, indeed, the only forms of sensibility. Why is it that the formal component of sensible knowledge cannot originate in the Erfahrung? The KRVdoes not give us the slightest response to

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this question; we find ourselves face to face here with what is a tacit premise for Kant. Nevertheless, it is possible to give at least a psychological explanation of the fact that Kant could consider as obvious a premise which for us obviously needs demonstration. Admittedly Kant attributes an a priori origin to the synthetic, intelligible element of our knowledge. The reason he was drawn to do so was that he overlooked the act by which we grasp an intelligibility in the sensible. So it was natural for him to attribute, by a sort of argument from analogy, an a priori origin even to the unifying forms of sensible knowledge. The a priori of sensibility is thus a pure form of space and time, which provides a form for the known object. But what is the form? In the beginning, and more correctly, we believe, the form is introduced as the relation or the system of relations among the contents of the Empfindung. In this sense it is hard to see what Kant can mean when he declares that the form can be considered in itself, apart from all matter (A 20/B 34), or that we can know space and time prior to all actual perception (A 42/B 60). But the same statement becomes more meaningful when Kant attributes to the form a content of its own, independent of the a posteriori content. In this sense he speaks of space and time as a totality, or as an infinite magnitude given to pure intuition. This conception of the a priori is still clearer where he says that the pure intuition contains a manifold which is likewise a priori (A 77/B 103, A 76/B 102, B 137, etc.). We touch here on the everpresent tendency in Kant towards a conception of the a priori in which it has an objective content of its own. This tendency is even stronger in the Aesthetic, where he examines the intuition which is the very act of knowing an object. But this conception does not represent the entire Kantian doctrine on the a priori of sensibility. Whereas the objective-content conception would lead us to think of the a priori as a manifold which is laid upon or added to the empirical manifold, there is another conception according to which the sensible a priori forms are seen as modes of sense receptivity. Thus, in his reply to Eberhard, Kant explicitly rejects the interpretation that the a priori is a representation of an object; it is only the ground (the subjective constitution) of the space-time representation.9 We may term this latter conception 'operative' insofar as it states that the a priori is the law of the sensitive receptive operational power in respect to the impressions caused by the alteration of the sense organ. On the basis of this conception Kant says that space and time are nothing if we prescind from the operational power the senses exert when confronted with data. It is, therefore, solely from the human standpoint that we can speak of space, of extended things, etc. If we depart from the

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Lonergan and Kant subjective condition under which alone we can have outer intuition, namely, liability to be affected by objects, the representation of space stands for nothing whatsoever ... The constant form of this receptivity, which we term sensibility, is a necessary condition of all the relations in which objects can be intuited as outside us. (A 26-27/6 42-43; for time, see A 34-35/6 51)

It seems to us that what Kant says is exact, but it does not lead to the theory of appearance as the only knowable reality. To say that sense representation conforms to the constitution of the sensing subject is not the same thing as saying that the senses bring us to knowledge of mere appearance. To evaluate correctly the ontological import of the object of our knowledge we must take into account the entire structure of knowledge. Experience is only the presentation of data for the sake of knowledge of reality. Now it is undeniably true that this presentation depends also on the sensing subject. Presentation implies a relation between two parties; here, between the material reality and the receptive organ. Hence it will differ according to the different organs, and also according to the physiological state of the organ. To prescind from the relation to the organ is to prescind from the very presentation. When we say that a body is extended, that is, that it has paries extra paries, or that it has a certain smell, or that it is heavy, we are doing nothing more than asserting our intelligence of this relation and affirming the relationship. But the intelligence we are exercising is descriptive; its terms are experiential conjugates, that is, 'correlatives whose meaning is expressed, at least in the last analysis, by appealing to the content of some human experience' (Insight 79/102). If we remember that descriptive intelligence has this element of relation to our sensibility, it will be meaningless to ask what color is independent of the act of seeing, or what seeing is except the grasping of bodies as colored. Nor will we ask what extension is apart from that complex of sense acts of which it is the content.10 Since descriptive intelligence consists in grasping the connection between content and act of sensation, it is evident that, if we prescind from one of the two terms of the relation, we no longer have the connection, and so there is no longer any understanding and much less any resulting concept. Herein lies the correctness of the statements of the KRVon the relational element in the object of our sense knowledge. Besides descriptive intelligence, in which the human subject is the privileged point of reference in respect to which reality is understood and expressed, there is the explanatory intelligence of scientific knowledge, which consists in grasping the relations of things to one another. The terms in which this intelligence is expressed are pure conjugates, that is,

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'correlatives defined implicitly by established correlations, functions, laws, theories, systems' (Insight 80/103). Whence it is clear that the relational element is no less present in scientific knowledge than in descriptive. In every case understanding, which is indispensable for the constitution of our knowledge, grasps a connection. But no subjectivist interpretation must be given to the affirmation of a relational element as constitutive of human knowledge. For if knowledge is a structure, then the ontological value of its object can be determined only by considering the whole structure. We have spoken of the relation component in every content of understanding. But with understanding we have not yet attained knowledge. What is still lacking is the judgment which pronounces on the correctness of the understanding and so goes further than a mere relation to the knowing subject. If, then, experience verifies the descriptive intelligence of reality as spatial, temporal, colored, etc., we must admit that bodies as extended, temporal, colored, etc., are real. Reality here obviously means the reality as understood; other understandings of the same reality in different contexts may also be verifiable. In § 2 Kant asks, 'What, then, are space and time?' His answer to the question of their reality is, in a certain sense, secondary. More significant is the fact that he does ask this question from the very beginning of the KRV, and from the very beginning he answers it. The study of the sensitive phase of knowledge implies, no doubt, that its object be determined, since act and object are correlative. But to determine the sense object is not yet to determine the ontological status of the object; it is not yet to answer the question of being. For that, we have to analyze what the datum becomes when understanding and judgment are added to sensation. Now examination of the structure enables us to integrate two aspects of knowledge that are otherwise incompatible. This incompatibility is at the root both of the Renaissance theory of the unreality of the secondary qualities and of Kant's theory of the ontological status of appearance, which he attributes to space and time. Now, because in knowledge there are different components and different functions, we can recognize that intelligence is synthetic by its very nature, since it grasps connections and relations in what is presented, and at the same time we can see that this relational element is not opposed to the truth of knowledge. In judgment, which is the absolute positing of a correct insight (correct because it is verified), reality is known. Human knowledge does not involve a passage from phenomena to reality, or from a merely relative reality known by means of empirical intuition to an absolute reality known through an intellectual intuition. The course of the cognitional process extends rather from the given to some understanding of it, according to the indefinitely different configurations which understanding can assume, and from understanding to the

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rational judgment in which reality is known. Consequently, in critical inquiry as to the reality of what we know, the crucial point lies in the passage from understanding to judgment, from the relational component of the former to the absolute character of the latter. Where this distinction is not clear, the relational component of intelligibility is claimed to be a sufficient reason for affirming the relativity of the known reality. 6

The A Priori of Verstand

Parallel to what we have seen concerning the a priori of sense there is in the KRV a twofold conception of the a priori of Verstand. According to the first conception the categories are functions of synthetic unity, that is, functions of a judgment without content (A 349). They express the spontaneity proper to Verstand, by means of which the manifold of pure intuition is 'gone through in a certain way, taken up, and connected' if it is to be known (A 77/B 102). It belongs to the categories to bring sense knowledge up to the level of human knowledge; and this they do by means of a synthetic activity which they exercise on the contents of sensibility. Not by chance does the Transcendental Deduction of the Pure Concepts of Understanding begin with a detailed examination of the combination (Verbindung), as of that which 'can never come to us through the senses, and cannot, therefore, be already contained in the pure form of sensible intuition. For it is an act of spontaneity of the faculty of representation' (B 129-30). Whether Kant speaks of the modes of combining the manifold peculiar to our understanding (B 306), or of the functions of understanding (B 104, A 245), or of the Verstandeshandlung (B 130), or of the pure Handlung des Denkens,11 it is always to point out the operative character of the categories. Under this aspect, they are not objective contents, but rather the ability of Verstand to add an intelligible content to the sense object by operating a synthesis upon it, or the capacity of 'making a concept out of any data that may be presented' (A 239/B 298).12 Characteristic of Verstand, according to the KRV, is its spontaneity, which manifests itself as an original synthetic capacity. Such a spontaneity must be taken in the fulness of the capacity to which our intelligent consciousness witnesses. In this respect Kant's analysis is not carried far enough. He speaks of twelve categories, indicating that our intellect can have neither more nor fewer (B 146). It is the common view of Kantian scholars that Kant erred in considering his table of categories to be complete. But the error is not corrected simply by increasing the number of categories. The real deficiency lies in the too formalistic or too logical conception which Kant has of the spontaneity of Verstand. For him this faculty is endowed with a certain number of pure concepts, a number determined a priori.

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Actually the spontaneity of understanding cannot be pigeonholed into any set of concepts. Every concept, no matter how general, is a posteriori; but the operative intelligibility of understanding, that which makes it an intelligent intelligible, is a priori. The concept, every concept, is the product of this intelligence in operation, never the ultimate norm of its operation. To discover this operative intelligibility is to discover the true a priori of Verstand, which works within a very precise structure, but is always superior to its products. The mind is not just a factory with a set of fixed processes; rather it is a universal machine tool that erects all kinds of factories, keeps adjusting and improving them, and eventually scraps them in favor of radically new designs. In other words, there is not some fixed set of a priori syntheses' (Insight 406/430-31). There is no doubt that Kant tends to conceive of the categories as a system of fixed processes, and for this reason Lonergan charges his a priori with being too rigid (Insight 423/448). This insufficiency stands out even more if we consider the second conception of the categories, which is strictly connected with the rigidity we have mentioned. We mean the objective-content or object-constitutive conception. Just before the table of categories we find this: The same understanding, through the same operations by which in concepts, by means of analytical unity, it produced the logical form of a judgment, also introduces a transcendental content into its representations, by means of the synthetic unity of the manifold in intuition in general. On this account we are entitled to call these representations pure concepts of the understanding, and to regard them as applying a priori to objects. (A 79/B 105) We do not insist on the affirmation of a content which would be peculiar to the categories,13 an affirmation which stands in opposition to other texts stating that the categories do not have a content (A 349, A 77/B 102). The difference between the two series of texts seems at least partly verbal and may be merely verbal. Much more probative of the second conception of the categories is the very way Kant sets up his quest for the a priori. In Introduction B, Kant refers to the traditional theory of the composition of knowledge as the basis of his inquiry into the a priori: Though all our knowledge begins with experience, it does not follow that it all arises out of experience. For it may well be that even our empirical knowledge is made up of what we receive through impressions and of what our own faculty of knowledge

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(sensible impressions serving merely as the occasion) supplies from itself. If our faculty of knowledge makes any such addition (Zusatz), it may be that we are not in a position to distinguish it from the raw material, until with long practice of attention we have become skilled in separating it. (B 1-2) Whatever the a priori may prove to be in the course of Kant's inquiry, it will in any case be an addition made by the cognitional faculty to the raw material of the sense impressions. The context does not allow us to interpret this addition in any other way than as an objective content added to that other objective content which is the raw material coming from the senses. The a priori is, then, an objective content alongside the a posteriori objective content. Certainly the a priori is the formal element in what is known, but this does not make it less an object. In studying the Aesthetic we saw that the sensible a priori is a manifold of intuition which can by itself be the object of knowledge 'apart from all sensation' (A 20/B 34). The same objective-content conception holds as well for the a priori of Verstand; indeed it occurs in the text much more often than the operative conception. On this basis Kant speaks of an a priori knowledge of objects. Such an affirmation is acceptable if it rests on the notion of an a priori which is itself an object, whereas it would be acceptable only with a number of qualifications if it rested on the assumption of a heuristic a priori. Moreover, the entire problematic of the application of the pure concepts of understanding to a corresponding intuition makes sense only because the pure concept of understanding is precisely a content to be applied. Likewise, the description of the a priori as something which lies ready in the mind (Gemut}, or in the Verstand, obviously indicates it to be an object. Finally, the affirmation that the a posteriori of empirical intuition is only the occasion or the opportunity for the mind to draw forth from itself the formal a priori elements which it already possesses points in the same direction, for as regards a heuristic a priori, the given is much more than a mere occasion. It is true that from the beginning Kant says that 'thoughts without content are empty' (A 51/B 75), whereby it is meant that the content is given through Anschauung. Similar statements occur throughout the KRV. But we must note in these texts the prevalence of the intuition principle, which stands in a relation of tension not only with the conception of the categories as contents which are to be added to the a posteriori contents of sensibility, but also more generally with the conception of knowledge as structure, of which the doctrine of the categories is a part. The intuition principle taken in all its rigor excludes not only the conception of the categories as a priori contents but even the conception of them as a

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synthetic activity of Verstand in search of an intelligible objective content. In fact, according to the intuition principle, a content of knowledge is possible only where there is an intuition-like activity. But the very exclusion of a real objective content, one known through the activity of understanding exercised on the data of sense, led Kant to maintain an a priori content: precisely, the pure concepts. Extremely important for determining the notion of the categories is the ample section of the Analytic known as the Transcendental Deduction of the Pure Concepts of Understanding. Why does the problem of justifying the objective reality of the a priori concepts arise at all? Kant begins the deduction by viewing the problem provisionally from the commonsense point of view. To common sense it is evident that the object is given to us through sense intuition; from this it is not difficult to understand why the a priori conditions of sensibility are conditions of the object of sense knowledge, and hence have objective validity; but one cannot see why the same object must conform to synthetic a priori forms of understanding. But, whereas the objection against the objective validity of the pure concepts of understanding is proposed on the basis of the intuition principle, the response is given on the basis of the binary structure of knowledge. Therefore the answer denies the very basis of the objection; that is, it denies that 'appearances [objects] can ... be given in intuition independently of functions of the understanding' (A go/B 122). The appearances that enter our field of consciousness are already fruits of the synthetic activity of understanding, which works on the appearances through the imagination. This is the final word of the Kantian critique. We have thus set forth a course of thought which in this explicit form is not formulated by Kant, but is the one towards which the various inquiries of the KRV tend, no matter how they approach the problem. The unifying moments of the pure concepts of understanding, as well as of the pure intuitions, are the result of the synthetic unity of consciousness, which operates from the very beginning of the cognitional process and finds progressively in the a posteriori datum what it has put there itself, and thus goes ahead creating, on different levels of the structure, the conditions of possibility of objectively valid knowledge. What might seem to be the empirical condition antecedent to an intellectual knowledge is actually a consequence (A 114, 123) of the synthetic activity of imagination, and ultimately of transcendental apperception, which is Verstand itself in its role as the ground of unity of the pure concepts of understanding. 'The order and regularity in the appearances, which we entitle nature, we ourselves introduce. We could never find them in appearances, had not we ourselves, or the nature of our mind, originally set them there' (A 125). It is possible to find in the KRV quite a number of passages in which this

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Lonergan and Kant

position is modified in the direction of a greater realism, that is, of a conception of a really determining a posteriori. But it is not too difficult to realize that in such passages the strictly intellectual features of knowledge retreat to the background, since in fact it is impossible to base them on an a posteriori factor if the premises of the KRV are accepted. One such premise, contained in the principle that universality and necessity cannot be derived from experience, is the inability of understanding to penetrate the sensible; this means that there is no act in the structure of knowledge capable of effecting the passage from the concrete to the abstract, from the singular to the universal, from the approximation to the ideal - in a word, from the datum to the concept. To place the concept, precisely in its character of universality and necessity, at the center of human knowledge, and at the same time to overlook the act of understanding which preceded it, is to take upon oneself a desperate task. The doctrine of the construction of mathematical concepts, as well as the doctrine of the imagination, and in part too of the schematism, are attempts to find a substitute for that act which for Aristotle is at the center of the cognitional process. The problematic of the a priori in Kant, at all levels and above all at those of sensibility and understanding, is indissolubly bound up with his having overlooked the act of understanding that grasps an intelligibility in the sensible. If we interpret correctly the justification of the objective validity of the categories, then we must say that the final direction of Kant's epistemology is towards a totally thetic knowledge. The a priori either posits or is itself constitutive of the reality which it enables us to know. In respect to such an a priori, expressions which would otherwise sound surprising keep their literal meaning: put into (hineinlegen: B xii-xiv), think into (hineindenken: B xii), prescribing laws to nature (B 159), reality must conform to our knowledge (B xvi), etc. On this thetic activity, which extends to the Anschauung, depends the ontological status of known reality. The obscurity, the tortuousness, and even the incoherence of the KRV are due to the aim of recovering empiricist realism within this idealist perspective. What we consider to be the final word of the KRV, whenever it is said and as soon as it is said, is subject to correction and reinterpretation within the empiricist perspective - in a to and fro movement which shows in itself no criterion for settling on any one definitive position. 7

The A Priori of Vernunft

Kant finds in the depth of the human mind a tendency to broaden the field of knowledge beyond the limits of possible experience as they have been ascertained in the Analytic. What is the goal of this tendency? It is

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the unconditioned. 'What necessarily forces us to transcend the limits of experience and of all appearances is the unconditioned (das UnbedingteY (B xx). Not by chance does the term 'das Unbedingte' appear only on two pages of Preface B, and then disappear until, the Aesthetic and Analytic completed, Kant faces the problem of metaphysics as a science. In fact at the beginning of the Dialectic the theme of the unconditioned is taken up again. Parallel to what he did in the Analytic, Kant here institutes a metaphysical deduction of the pure concepts of reason, taking as a clue the formal and logical procedure of reason, namely, the syllogism, which is the typical mode of operation for Vernunft. It is difficult to maintain that this deduction has a truly philosophic value. What is significant, however, is that Kant, having brought to a conclusion his doctrine of knowledge in its objectively valid performance, feels compelled to take into consideration the tendency towards the unconditioned. It is with this other factor that his epistemology must reckon. We read in a Reflexion: The unconditioned is the only theoretical idea of the Vernunft.''14 What is the unconditioned? Here again we bring into relief two aspects which, without being mutually exclusive, and even without being clearly distinguished by Kant, constitute two different modes according to which the a priori representation of reason acts upon human knowledge. According to the first aspect, the unconditioned amounts to the totality of conditions; according to the second it amounts to what we can call the simply absolute. In the first idea of reason the first aspect prevails; in the other two the second aspect prevails. In the course of our study we noted that Kant tends to conceive the a priori as a content on the side of the object. But we added that in Kant there is also present an operative, heuristic conception. Now in the transcendental ideas there is clearly present the conception of a content on the side of the subject, that is, we find a dimension of consciousness as norm of the cognitional process. These concepts of reason are not derived from nature; on the contrary, we interrogate nature in accordance with these ideas' (A 645/6 673). This statement recalls the formulation of Preface B: Reason must constrain nature 'to give answer to questions of reason's own determining' (B xiii), which we used as a basis for disclosing a merely heuristic a priori. According to Kant we have here something less than what the a priori ought to be if it is to be objectively valid; actually we have here the true a priori - not a content which is added and hides another content, but rather that which first makes possible the content of knowledge in its rational character. It is rationality on the obverse side, which requires and hence seeks unconditionality on the reverse side, in the content presented by both the experiential and intelligent levels. How does reason satisfy this exigency? By means of an indefinite regres-

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sive discursus. We saw that the systematic way for discovering the transcendental ideas is to consider the discursive-syllogistic activity of reason. This, according to Kant, requires not only the search for the general condition of a judgment, but even beyond that the beginning of an indefinite regress which is imposed on our mind just as the first deduction of knowledge from a principle was imposed on it. Thus, just as Vernunft, in its role as a faculty of principles, passed from a particular to a universal, so it goes from a universal to a still more universal principle, etc. The syllogism is thus the beginning of an infinite regress of prosyllogisms (A 499/B 527, A 323/B 379). This means that it never constitutes the attainment of any sort of unconditioned, but rather is always merely transitional, a moment of passage (A 331/6 387-88). The unconditioned is found only at the end of the series or is the infinite series itself in its totality. There is no sense in which it can be said to occur also at each link of the chain. Let us see what is said in Insight about our tendency to the unconditioned. From the beginning of our study we have insisted on the intelligent and rational dynamism which lies at the base of our knowledge. Because of an intelligent a priori in the quest of the intelligible, there is an intelligible content, expressed in the concept, which is added to the sensible content of presentation. Now the same consciousness expands, setting up the new a priori, which operates at a higher level than that achieved in the concept. Spontaneously we meet every concept with the question, Is it so? Such a question expresses the dissatisfaction of our mind in respect to any representation whatever which does not bear the mark of the absolute, that is, does not claim the same value as our dynamic orientation itself, which is unrestricted and therefore unconditioned. At this point it becomes necessary to overcome totally Kant's conception of the a priori. The KRV is set up entirely as a search for the formal conditions of the possibility of having objective contents as objects of knowledge. From the beginning of Introduction B the search for the a priori means the search for the formal addition which comes in to constitute that composite which is knowledge. This approach is confirmed in the Aesthetic and the Analytic - the a priori is the formal content of the object of knowledge. In the last section of the Transcendental Deduction of the Pure Concepts of Understanding, in a paragraph which plainly recalls the beginning of Introduction B, the pure intuitions and the pure concepts of understanding are said to be 'elements in knowledge [which] are found in us a priori' (B 166). Such concepts, Kant continues, 'make experience possible' (ibid.). With this the doctrine of the a priori according to the KRV is concluded. But the transcendental analysis is concluded only when, going beyond the formal conditions according to which sensibility receives impressions

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and understanding thinks the contents of intuition, it arrives at the subject which performs all these actions. The question whether or not the subject has fixed a priori forms is really of secondary importance. This other question, however, is decisive: Why and how does the subject fulfil its cognitional activity? The answer is that the subject is a rational consciousness which traces out, in the orientation which constitutes it, the horizon of its search as the horizon of being. In principle it is possible to delimit any formal sphere of consideration whatever: the sphere of mere appearance within which our experience is confined according to the KRV, the sphere of the purely logical within which mathematicians are contained in the elaboration of their hypothetical deductive systems, etc. But it is not possible to limit the sphere delineated by the intelligent and rational concrete subject who marks off these domains. The subject, when he performs all the operations brought to light by the KRV and even others of which the KRV is ignorant, acts according to that a priori which he is. An imaginary computer furnished with the two forms of sensibility, the twelve categories of understanding, the transcendental schemes, etc., would be able to accomplish all the operations described in the KRV: the object of operations performed by means of such formal equipment would be the appearance. In what way would such 'knowledge' differ from that of human beings? In this, that in human beings the structure of knowledge is actualized as a response to the questions which express the dynamism of their consciousness. Sensible conditions and formal elements all are put into the conscious orientation towards that absolute which we call being. Even conscious intelligence in quest of the intelligible is a moment in the realization of the subject which works within the horizon of being. We shall later consider the function of the a priori in respect to judgment. The importance of judgment lies in the fact that it gives the answer, at least by way of successive increments, to our tendency to the unconditioned. Much more important, however, than the fact that it founds the judgment as one phase of the cognitional structure is the decisive fact that the tendency to the unconditioned constitutes the operational power of the subject which enables it to act on every level. Such a power of intelligent and rational operation is really our a priori. It alone brings to light, not just what the subject does or what it has, but the subject itself which acts, and what it is. We said above that there are two modes according to which the Dialectic considers the unconditioned: (i) it is the totality of conditions, and (2) it is the simply absolute. In neither of these cases, according to Kant, is the unconditioned able to acquire objective reference and thus become constitutive of our knowledge. In Insight there are two senses of the unconditioned which have a certain affinity with the two senses of the KRV: (i) the formally unconditioned, and (2) the virtually unconditioned. The first

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Lonergan and Kant

has no conditions whatever; the second has conditions indeed but they are fulfilled (Insight 280/305). Let us try to determine the difference between the virtually unconditioned and the Unbedingtes as the totality of conditions, so as to see why the first according to Lonergan can enter into the constitution of our knowledge, whereas the second according to Kant cannot. According to Kant 'the transcendental concept of reason is directed always solely towards absolute totality in the synthesis of conditions, and never terminates save in what is absolutely, that is, in all respects, unconditioned' (A 326/B 382). The unity towards which reason tends is the unity of a system (A 68o-8i/B 708-9). This conception of the totality of conditions as constituting one system is particularly evident in Kant's conception of nature. There is demanded of the human mind a quest without end, in accordance with the deterministic connections of natural events. This ontological conception of the universe as one system corresponds to the conception of our discursive activity as the beginning of an indefinite regress of prosyllogisms. Now it is possible to acknowledge a constitutive function to the idea of the unconditioned, only if Kant's conceptions both of the material universe and of the discursive capacity of the mind are submitted to a revision. According to Lonergan the whole universe is not such a pattern of internal relations that no part and no aspect of it can be known in isolation from any other part or aspect. The universe is not simply an explanatory system, a system whose single parts are totally determined by the internal relations which hold among themselves, for 'its existents and its occurrences diverge nonsystematically from pure intelligibility; it exhibits an empirical residue of the individual, the incidental, the continuous, the merely juxtaposed, and the merely successive; it is a universe of facts' (Insight 345/369). In harmony with such a universe Lonergan describes the act of judgment as follows: 'A judgment is a limited commitment; so far from resting on knowledge of the universe, it is to the effect that, no matter what the rest of the universe may prove to be, at least this is so' (Insight 344/368). The nature of judgment as limited commitment determines the way we come to pronounce a judgment: 'So far from pronouncing on the universe, it is content to affirm some single conditioned that has a finite number of conditions which in fact are fulfilled' (Insight 345/369). The Kantian Unbedingtes is the comprehensive coherence which embraces the entire universe and towards which we tend by asking questions for intelligence (Insight 345/370). There is no doubt that in this sense the unconditioned has a purely normative function in our knowledge. In fact what we grasp with the understanding is always a partial intelligibility, which therefore is not unconditioned; in itself, as intelligibility of such a nature, it implies merely the possibility of being, not being simply. But our

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cognitional structure brings forward questions of another kind, those for reflection, which turn precisely on those intelligibilities which embrace a limited sphere of the universe. Now the reflexive inquiry subsequent to these questions is capable of attaining an unconditioned which is the result of the combination of a conditioned (expressed by the concept) with the fulfilment of its conditions. It is virtually unconditioned or de facto absolute. To parallel what we have said about the universe as proportioned to our knowledge, namely, that it is not a single interlocked field of internal relations but a universe of facts, we must clarify the nature of the discursive activity of our minds.15 Prior to the reasoning found in the syllogisms dealt with in formal logic, there is an activity, generically termed reasoning, which is a movement towards understanding. In it we must distinguish two levels: the movement towards direct understanding and the movement towards reflective understanding. The first is a movement towards that intelligible synthesis which is expressed in the concept, the second towards that content which we have called the virtually unconditioned. Just as the content both of sensible experience and of direct understanding enters into the constitution of human knowledge, so with no less truth does the content of reflective understanding form a constitutive part of the same knowledge. Upon it is founded the act of judgment. 8

Judgment as Adequate Response to the A Priori of Mind

If it is the absolute character enjoyed by mental synthesis that founds the judgment, then the judgment is not a synthesis of concepts, a compositio et divisio, but rather the absolute positing of the synthesis. The absolute positing is the peculiar contribution of judgment to the cognitional structure. What Kant calls analysis and synthesis are two different kinds of understanding, and hence two kinds of synthesis. Kant was all the more inclined to attach a fundamental importance to the distinction between analytical and synthetic judgments since he was not at all clear on the a posteriori origin of all our concepts. But once this origin is brought to light, the problematic of judgment becomes totally different. We must not overlook the intimate connection between what we have said above on the a priori of reason according to Kant and his doctrine of judgment as that 'in which the relation of a subject to the predicate is thought' (A 6/B 10). If we assign to the a priori as quest for the unconditioned only the function of regulating the development of our objectively valid knowledge, then the judgment, in the measure in which it is nonetheless recognized as an act of the cognitional structure, can only be conceived as a synthesis of subject and predicate. But the notion of absolute positing is not unknown to Kant. It crops up

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especially when he treats the theme of our knowledge of reality. The entire treatment of the categories of modality in The Postulates of Empirical Thought in General elaborates this double theme: (i) only the first three groups of categories have a function constitutive of the concept; (2) the fourth group, while it designates the supreme character of reality qua reality, nevertheless is not on the same plane as the formal determinations which belong to the first three groups. The same doctrine is found in the section on the impossibility of an ontological proof for the existence of God. Everything Kant says about Wirklichkeit or Existenz or Dasein or Sein in opposition to the category of Realitdt (Qualitdt) culminates in the notion of positing. In the tenth paragraph of the section on the ontological proof we have the essential elements of the Kantian doctrine of being as posited. '"Being" is obviously not a real predicate; that is, it is not a concept of something which could be added to the concept of a thing. It is merely the positing of a thing, or of certain determinations, as existing in themselves' (A 598/B 626). Again, 'the object as it actually exists ... is added to my concept ... synthetically' (A 599/B 627). The concept as concept is a determination of my state and hence it is in me; on the other hand, the object as existent is outside my concept. Similarly, the Lectures on Metaphysics tell us: 'Die wahre Erklarung des Daseins ist: existentia estpositio absoluta' (The true explanation of existence is: existence is absolute positing).16 We can establish two conclusions on the basis of the quoted texts: (i) from an ontological viewpoint, Wirklichkeit (actuality) or Dasein means the positing of the thing in itself;17 (2) from a cognitional viewpoint actuality does not involve any conceptual determination beyond that involved in the knowledge of possibility. Lacking in this Kantian analysis is any indication of the cognitional act correlative to actuality. Being means the thing in itself. But by what process do I achieve this absolute positing of the thing in its being and thus attain a knowledge of the thing in itself? The difference between knowledge of possibility and knowledge of actuality is that the first goes only as far as a conceptual content, while the second reaches the thing itself, so that the existential statement (Existenzialsatz) adds the thing itself to the concept.18 But how do we add the thing (!) to the thought of the thing? Faced with this question, after he has set forth the binary structure of knowledge and arrived at the notion of absolute positing, Kant is always in danger of falling back into empiricism: 'while possibility is merely a positing of the thing in relation to the understanding ... actuality is at the same time a connection of it with perception' (A 234/B 287 note). In the same chapter Kant writes: 'perception ... is the sole mark of actuality' (A 225/B 273). It is impossible not to notice a strange leap in Kant's investigation of the process by which we arrive at knowledge of reality. Having reached the

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decisive point he jumps over to the reality without showing clearly how we make this jump or what act it is in which we know the real. If he ever again happens to speak of cognitional operations, he seems to attribute to perception alone the activity of knowing the actual existent. If we turn now to Insight we find that its whole doctrine on knowledge of actuality can be summed up in this way: The act of judgment is the means by which we know reality. A mental synthesis which has the character of the absolute is a true synthesis, and the true is the medium in quo ens cognoscitur (the medium in which being is known). The true meaning mediates reality for us. To speak of an absolute positing of a synthesis is not to speak of perception alone, nor of perception plus concept, but rather of an act which is at once empirical, intelligent, and rational. There is only one way to safeguard the role which the senses as well as the concept play in our knowledge of reality, and that is to recognize that both intuition and concept are included in that absolute grounding by means of which the cognitional process passes from thinking to judging. Let us take another step in our analysis of the process by which judgment brings us to knowledge of reality. To study this process is to study the problem of the transcendence of knowledge. Here again, as we saw in the general problem of knowledge, the real question is not whether our knowledge is transcendent, but what transcendence actually means. For our part we place the transcendence of human knowledge entirely in the fact that it is knowledge of being qua being, being sub rations entis, that is, being as something unconditioned. Neither givenness nor intelligibility enjoys this absolute character. The given is known as what has some relevance to biological-psychic activity; it is 'real' from this 'viewpoint.' The intelligible is the object of spirit in its search for meaning; yet this alone does not imply an absolute character, precisely because intelligible means intelligible for someone. Being is that which is known in answer to the question, An sit? But in the latter case relativity to the subject is identical with transcendence in respect to the same subject and in respect to any restrictive qualification whatever, because in this case, and only in this case, the subject is defined by a tendency to the transcendent. In other words, in this case the viewpoint according to which the object is sought is the transcending of all viewpoints. If the a priori which rules our cognitional acts is a demand for the absolute, then only the unconditioned will constitute an adequate fulfilment, and hence only in virtue of the unconditioned will the intention of the intending subject pass from anticipation of being to knowledge of being. Obviously, the representation as representation is in me, it is mine. But by reason of the unconditioned, its content is not relative to me. As absolute, the representative content is a representation under an aspect which does

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not mean relativity to the subject. In brief, the representation of the unconditioned does not imply relativity to any reality other than that which intrinsically constitutes the unconditioned itself. It is in this sense that we call it an absolute representation. Now we know everything that is represented to us - independently of the question whether the represented content transcends the representation. This principle, which is valid for all phases of knowledge, must hold as well for the representation of the unconditioned. Therefore a faculty which represents to itself a content as absolute, if it knows anything at all - and this is to be granted, once the irrational conception of the real is overcome - knows precisely this absolute. But the absolute is what everyone understands - operatively - by being. To ask whether we know being is the same as to ask whether we are capable of a representation whose character, formally as representation, is unconditionality. Our answer is yes, since we saw that the cognitional process is capable of reaching the virtually unconditioned, by thinking of a conditioned and grasping the fulfilment of its conditions. The delicate point is, How is the content of our representation grasped as absolute? And our answer is: Not by the direct way of formal content, but by the indirect way of the virtually unconditioned. The a priori as quest of the unconditioned determines for us the object of our knowledge, which we call reality or being. Being is the objective of our intelligent and rational dynamism. When the mental content, the representation qua representation, has acquired the character of the absolute, we have a representation which by its very nature brings about that transcendence that belongs to knowledge; arriving at it as a mental representation is the means of reaching the thing directly. The difficulty of recognizing this reflexively, even though it is spontaneous in our performance whenever we make a rational judgment, is the difficulty of intellectual conversion - the shift from the animal extroversion with which our psychic life first develops and which perseveres as a valid function throughout our entire life, to the intellectuality and rationality constitutive of our spirit, recognized and accepted as the immanent norm of our knowledge of the universe of being. 9

Expansion of the A Priori: From Knowledge of Nature to Constitution of the Human World

The Kantian epistemology is highly obscure, fragmentary, and even contradictory. One must disagree with Kant in statement after statement of his analysis of knowledge. The significance of the KRV lies much more in its setting the problem than in its solving the problem. Its special merit consists in its having opened to philosophical reflection the problem of the

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a priori in all its breadth and thus having introduced the study of the role of the subject in human knowledge. One need only think of the importance that modern focus on the subject has for present-day culture to be aware of the epochal significance of Kant's quest of the a priori. We have spoken of the human subject as that being which is intrinsically endowed with meaning. We have seen that this meaning is our a priori: the dynamism, intelligently and rationally conscious, which lies at the source of the cognitional process and penetrates it throughout, setting up principles normative of the different phases of the structure in which it is realized. We have eliminated from our interpretation of the a priori the objective-content elements which are found in the Kantian doctrine, thereby opposing the 'hineinlegen' (putting into) on which Kant relies so heavily. It does not seem to us that an attentive analysis of knowledge, particularly in its character of receptivity and development, confirms the a priori as a knowledge of an object, or of a partial object, which lies ready in the mind. Kant's analysis considers mainly, if not exclusively, that kind of knowledge which is natural science. But once the role of the subject in knowledge of nature is thematized, the way is open to recognize the subject as the principle of intentional activity in every other field as well. As a matter of fact, the intelligently operative intelligible which, as subjects, we all are is not only the capacity for bringing ourselves to knowledge of a reality which already exists independently of our conscious activity; it is also a principle which creates a reality other than that of nature - ourselves and the human world. We have here a reality not only mediated by meaning, but also constituted by meaning; hence this section of the world can be correctly called the world of meaning. That meaning, both receptively searching and creatively expanding, which we saw to be our a priori is that by which we make ourselves and our own world. Here we can restore in all its truth the thetic conception of the a priori of the KRV. As regards the human world, the affirmation that objects must conform to our knowledge, that is, to our intentionality or to our capacity for giving a meaning, or that we know of things only what we ourselves put into them, must be taken literally. Here truly the spirit gives the law to reality, raising nature to the ontological level of human reality. Here knowledge of reality is essentially interpretation, that is, knowledge of the meaning understood and realized by others from the horizon of their own meaning. But there is still another development. The expansion of consciousness to the rational level is ultimate for cognitional activity, but not for the conscious activity of the human subject as a whole. Our a priori is not only a dynamism which demands the truth of knowing in order to attain being, but also requires, beyond that, consistency between knowing and doing, in

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order to constitute authentic human living on the basis of true meaning. This makes still more evident both the importance of transcendental analysis in order to thematize that a priori which constitutes us as intentional beings, and the necessity of determining what path it must follow to lead us to truth in our knowledge. We are capable of a categorical imperative which constitutes our interior Ananke together with our supreme dignity, because we are capable of the truth of being in the interior Ananke of rationality. The merit of Insight lies in its having advanced the transcendental analysis begun in the KRV, bringing to light the conditions for the possibility of objective knowledge. This has resulted in a threefold clarification: (i) of the a priori as the conscious-subjective dimension of knowledge, (2) of knowledge as an empirical, intelligent, and rational structure, and (3) of reality as intrinsically intelligible.

2 The Role of the A Priori

in Knowledge: On a Fundamental Problem in

the Kantian Critique1 i

Two Conceptions of the A Priori

The introduction to the second (B) edition of the Critique of Pure Reason treats first of all the theme 'of certain modes of a priori knowledge' with which our faculty of knowledge is equipped; the upshot of this discussion is then incorporated into the inquiry regarding synthetic judgments a priori. In this way Kant establishes the perspective from which he intends to develop his doctrines of knowledge and being. He accordingly defines his transcendental theory as the theory of the possibility of a priori modes of knowledge (B 25). Thus it appears that an examination of the a priori can provide an illuminating point of entry into the KRVand the transcendental philosophy in general. In fact the problem of the a priori in human knowledge is approached in two different ways in the KRV. The first, drawing on the traditional doctrine of the composite nature of knowledge, advances the hypothesis 'that even our empirical knowledge is made up of what we receive through impressions and of what our own faculty of knowledge (sensible impressions serving merely as the occasion) supplies from itself ... [W]e are not in a position to distinguish [this addition] from the raw material, until ...' (B 1-2). The question of the a priori is here viewed as the question of an a priori element of the object of knowledge, which is added to the (a posteriori) content of sensation, in order to constitute the object of human knowledge in the full sense of the word. The other way of posing the question is formulated most clearly in the context of the 'revolution in thinking' of which the preface to edition B speaks:

34

Lonergan and Kant Reason, holding in one hand its principles ... and in the other hand the experiment which it has devised in conformity with these principles, must approach nature in order to be taught by it. It must not, however, do so in the character of a pupil who listens to everything that the teacher chooses to say, but of an appointed judge who compels the witnesses to answer questions which he has himself formulated. (B xiii)

We have, on the one hand, the data provided by the witnesses, and on the other hand, the questions of the judge, who is seeking the juridically determined facts of the case. Precisely these questions, based on the specific knowledge of the judge, make possible the discovery of the juridical reality. In the case of the judge, of course, it is a matter of an acquired knowledge of the subject matter, and therefore of a merely relative a priori. But the genuine tertium comparationis consists in the fact that the question on the side of the subject anticipates that which is to be sought in the data. Thus the posing of the problem indicates an a priori that is performative, heuristic, and in the final analysis purely subject-constitutive. These two starting points give rise in the course of the KRV to two different conceptions of the a priori.2 The first I would like to call the content-constitutive or object-constitutive (inhaltlich-objekthafte) conception: the a priori is itself a (part of the) object of knowledge; it lies ready in the mind and is added to the content of sensation. The second I would like to call a performative or subject-constitutive (operativ-subjekthafte) conception: the a priori is the performance of the subject, through which it progressively promotes the content of sensation into known reality. In short: in the first case the a priori is that which the subject imposes on the object; in the other case the a priori is that according to which the subject poses questions concerning the object.3 In what follows, this thesis shall be proved in summary fashion with reference to the three main parts of the KRV. 2

The A Priori of Sensibility

Kant distinguishes matter and form in the object of the senses. The latter is the principle 'which so determines the manifold of appearance that it allows of being ordered in certain relations' (B 34); it must 'lie ready ... a priori in the mind, and so must allow of being considered apart from all sensation' (A 20/B 34). Space and time are such formal principles of sensibility. In the description of pure intuition that I have cited there are already hints of both conceptions of the a priori, which correspond to the two different ways that I have indicated of posing the problem.

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The formal a priori is a principle of order. In a Reflexion from about 1772 Kant says that this form can 'be nothing other than an activity.'4 Hence, space and time are not objects that can be looked at or intuited (A 291/6 347). A 'form of outer intuition,' we read in the first antinomy, is 'not a real object which can be outwardly intuited' (A 431/B 459). But soon the form of empirical intuition, which as the ordering principle is also called the 'form of appearance,' becomes 'itself a pure intuition,' which 'exists in the mind ... even without any actual object,' 'lies ready [in the mind] a priori,' and which therefore can be 'considered' (A 2O-21/B 34-35), 'known' (A 42/B 60), 'represented' (A 156/6 195) in itself. The last argument in the metaphysical exposition asserts that space (and time) 'is represented as an infinite given magnitude' (B 39, A 25; see A 32/B 47-48) .5 Reflexion 5298 characterizes intuitions a priori as 'a given object of the senses, [which] can be represented in itself.'6 The 'form of intuition' as 'pure intuition' has thus become an a priori content; the cognitive condition has become an object of knowledge.7 In the footnote to B 160-61 one finds a later clarification of this dual aspect of the a priori of sensibility, but at the same time a fundamental change: the form of intuition is itself a product of the synthetic activity of the understanding, thus a totum syntheticum.8 Referring to the many incoherent texts in the KRV, Vaihinger draws the conclusion that the Kantian doctrine of the a priori in general, and especially his theory of space, suffers from the constant confusion and intermingling of the actual-conscious and the potential-unconscious a priori. The representation of space and time is at one moment a complete representation (a container within us, ready for the reception of sensations) , and at the next a potential mode of functioning.9 Strangely, Kant did not explicitly pose in the KRV the historically and systematically obvious question of the connection between his a priori intuition and the traditional doctrine of innate knowledge. However, this question was explicitly treated in the Dissertation of 1770. At the end of section 3 on the principles of the world of the senses Kant asks 'utrum conceptus uterque sit connatus, an acquisitus' (whether each concept is innate or acquired). Contrary to the basic tendency of the arguments worked out in the same section in favor of time and space as 'intuitus puri' (pure intuitions), Kant searches for a middle way between Descartes and Locke: 'conceptus uterque procul dubio acquisitus est ... ab ipsa mentis actione, secundum perpetuas leges sensa sua coordinante' (undoubtedly, each concept is acquired ... from the very action of the mind coordinating its apprehensions according to perpetual laws). What is innate is only a 'lex animi, secundum quam certa ratione sensa sua e praesentia obiecti coniungit' (law of the mind, according to which it unites in a definite way

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what it apprehends from the presence of the object) (§ 15). The same middle way also applies to the metaphysical concepts (which reappear in the KRVas categories of the understanding): they too are not innate, but 'e legibus mentis insitis (attendendo ad eius actiones occasione experientiae) abstract!, adeoque acquisiti' (abstracted from the inherent laws of the mind [by attending to its actions on the occasion of experience], and so acquired) (§ 8), whereby the operative or performative aspect of these 'principia usus intellectus puri' (principles of the use of the pure intellect) (§ 8) comes out quite explicitly. This mediation, remarks Vaihinger,10 does not go beyond the thesis of the Nouveaux Essais of Leibniz, according to which 'nous apprenons les idees et les verites innees, soil en prenant garde a leur source, soil en les verifiant par 1'experience ... Et je ne saurois admettre cette proposition, tout ce qu'on apprend n'est pas inne' (we learn innate ideas and truths, either by attending to their source or by verifying them by experience ... And I could not admit this proposition, that nothing we learn is innate).11 Concerning the metaphysical concepts, one ought above all to compare Leibniz's comments on his principle 'Nihil est in intellectu, quod non fuerit in sensu, excipe: nisi ipse intellectus' (Nothing is in the intellect that was not in sense, except the intellect itself).12 These passages make clear that 'according to Leibniz, hard work is necessary to discover the grounds of synthesis that lie in the a priori concepts themselves. One must acquire through one's own work the awareness of the a priori modes of knowledge.'13 In Leibniz, a priori concepts become 'structural aspects of human consciousness itself.'14 Twenty years later in the polemic against Eberhard this position is developed further. 'Critical philosophy allows absolutely no innate or inborn representations.' Pure intuitions and concepts arise through an 'original acquisition' (acquisitio originaria). What is innate is only the ground of the 'form of things in space and time,' namely, the 'receptivity of the mind, when it is affected ... by something, to receive a representation according to its subjective constitution,' and the ground of the 'synthetic unity of the manifold in concepts,' namely, the 'subjective conditions of the spontaneity of thought.'15 3

The A Priori of the Understanding

The a priori of the understanding, too, displays a dual nature, which corresponds to the two ways of posing the problem that were mentioned at the outset. Its role is to promote sense knowledge to human knowledge, and it does this by means of a synthetic activity directed towards empirical intuition. It is no accident that the Transcendental Deduction of the Pure

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37

Concepts of the Understanding begins with an explication of the concept of combination; for this 'can never come to us through the senses,' but 'is an act of spontaneity' of the understanding (B 129-30). Hence, Kant characterizes the categories as the modes of combination peculiar to our understanding (B 306), as functions of the understanding (A 78/B 103, A 245), acts of the understanding (B 130), 'subjective forms of the unity of understanding' (A 287/6 343), 'functions of synthetic unity' (A 349), 'pure acts of thought.'16 By virtue of the 'spontaneity of our thought,' the manifold of intuition is 'gone through in a certain way, taken up, and connected,' and thereby transformed into knowledge (A 77/B 102). In this description of the a priori concepts, the relational, intelligible element, which is added by the understanding to the sensible manifold but without being placed there from the outside, is at the very least thrown into relief. Kant calls such a synthetic act of the understanding the 'logical function which is required for making a concept out of any data that may be presented' (A 239/B 298). The categories are 'rules for an understanding whose whole power consists in thought, consists, that is, in the act whereby it brings the synthesis of a manifold ... to the unity of apperception' (B 145). 'A priori concepts are ... the categories, which have in themselves no meaning and no object, but are only forms of thought.'17 But this performative interpretation of the a priori of the understanding is in Kant inextricably connected with a formalistic or logical conception of that same a priori, according to which he conceives of a very precise number of modes of combination with which our understanding is equipped once and for all. No less upheld in the KRV is the theory of the pure concepts of the understanding as additions to the object, which stem from the subject itself. According to the section on the clue to the discovery of pure concepts of the understanding, producing the 'synthetic unity of the manifold in intuition' means 'introducing a transcendental content' into the representation (A 79/B 105). In line with the same content-constitutive or object-constitutive conception, Kant asserts that the pure concepts of the understanding 'lie prepared [in the seeds and dispositions of the human understanding], till at last, on the occasion of experience, they are developed' (A 66/B 91). The very function that is here and elsewhere attributed to experience - that of being an occasion - calls to mind the function that, according to Plato, sense experience exercises with regard to the Ideas. The question which underlies the Transcendental Deduction of the Pure Concepts of the Understanding, as to the 'objective validity' of those concepts (A 93/B 126), is primarily understood as the question regarding the application of a priori contents. For it is only with regard to a content-

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constitutive or object-constitutive a priori that we can sensibly say that we 'introduce' it or 'place' it into nature (A 125).l8 The thetic conception of knowledge, which clearly is bound up with an object-constitutive a priori, is confirmed in a statement in which Kant expresses the final result of his transcendental deduction, and at the same time the core of his theory of constitution: The a priori conditions of the possibility of experience in general are likewise conditions of the possibility of the objects of experience' (A ill; for a parallel passage see A 158/6 197). The reality of that which science is therewith capable of knowing is of course appearance. Kant himself acknowledges this conclusion with perfect clarity: 'if ... we have to deal only with appearances, it is not merely possible, but necessary, that certain a priori concepts should precede empirical knowledge of objects. For ... the objects, as appearances, constitute an object that is merely in us' (A 129). What has been established here with regard to the first version of the Deduction can also be found in the second version: we prescribe laws to nature (B 159, 163), because nature is nothing other than a sum of objects that exist only relative to the subject, who is equipped with pure intuitions and concepts of the understanding (B 164). The content-constitutive or object-constitutive conception of the a priori, the thetic interpretation of knowledge, a priori knowledge of the objects of possible experience, and the mere appearance-status of the known are essentially connected doctrines for Kant. 4

The A Priori of Reason

In the depths of the human mind there is a tendency that 'forces us to transcend the limits of experience and of all appearances' (B xx), which Kant names the 'idea of the unconditioned demanded by reason' (B xxi, footnote). It is in it that the true a priori of reason consists: 'The unconditioned is the only theoretical idea of reason.'19 This a priori, too, displays two aspects (although they are of course not explicitly distinguished), but these aspects differ from those that we have discovered so far in connection with the way in which the issue is posed in the introduction and the preface to the second (B) edition. In many passages (above all in the cosmological idea) the unconditioned is equivalent to the totality of conditions; in other passages (above all in the theological idea) the unconditioned consists in the absolute per se, which lies outside of the web of conditions and conditioned. In any event, in this a priori, what I have called the subject-constitutive or performative aspect predominates. 'These concepts of reason are not derived from nature; on the contrary, we interrogate nature in accordance with these ideas' (A 645/6 673). This statement unmistakably calls to mind the way the question is posed in the

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preface to the B edition: 'Reason ... [must constrain] nature to give answer to questions of reason's own determining' (B xiii). In the same spirit, the ideas are called 'heuristic principles' (A 663/6 691). According to Kant, we have here less than is necessary for the a priori to be objectively valid,20 for reason meets its demand for the unconditioned by means of an infinite and therefore never terminated regressive reasoning (A 323/6 379, A 331/B 387-88, A 499/B 527). Consequently, the transcendental ideas have a merely regulative employment, that is, the unconditioned never becomes a constitutive element in the structure of knowledge. The search for the unconditioned, to which being-in-itself corresponds, remains forever a search. Our faculty of knowledge can never transcend the appearances that have already been reached by means of intuition and concept. In this way, the conclusion of the Transcendental Analytic is definitively confirmed. The a priori that grounds our scientific knowledge, that is, the knowledge of a law-governed totality of objects, at the same time locks scientific knowledge within a realm that exists only relative to the human knower. The understanding, by virtue of its object-constitutive a priori, is itself the creator of experience (see B 127); but the 'truth of experience'21 is the truth of that which 'counts as true before the forum of all men.' 22 The 'relative truth' that transcendental philosophy posits manifests itself as the 'subjective objectivity' of that which is constituted by the a priori itself.23 5

The A Priori in the Critique of Judgment

The third Critique again takes up the problem of the a priori with the intention of moving beyond the merely mechanical theory of nature of the KRV. To be precise, the Critique of (Tekological) Judgment deals with three sets of problems: the special (particular) laws of nature, nature as a unified system, and organic beings. In connection with the KRV, we shall concentrate our attention on the two first problems (see Introduction, sections IV-V) which Kant, in the first (and never published by him) Introduction to the Critique of Judgment called the 'logical use of judgment.'24 To be sure, the KRV has explained the general transcendental laws, that is, nature in general, by means of the law-giving function of the understanding (determinant judgment), but the 'manifold forms of nature,' that is, the specifically different laws of nature, had been left undetermined by those laws.25 This 'gap' is now filled in as follows: [Tjhe particular [but universal!] empirical laws must be regarded

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... according to a unity such as they would have z/an understanding (though it be not ours) had supplied them for the benefit of our cognitive faculties, so as to render possible a system of experience according to particular natural laws.26 Reflective judgment, which is introduced here, is guided in the search for natural laws and their systematic unity by the transcendental principle of formal finality (Jormale Zweckmdssigkeif), which is also relevant for the solution of the other problem. The subjunctive conditional (als ob) in the preceding quotation is then made more precise: reflective judgment 'gives by this means a law to itself alone and not to nature.'27 The 'putting into' or 'prescribing' of the first Critique thereby undergoes a surprising reinterpretation: We attribute to nature 'as it were a regard for our cognitive faculties.'28 Thus Kant has recognized 'the derivation of the particular laws of nature from the transcendental principles ... as an impossibility,' and instead of such a derivation, he has discovered 'the alternative of a ideological view,' which amounts to 'an incomprehensible, "fortunate" fact.'29 It goes without saying that the same insoluble problem also arises with regard to the special spatiotemporal forms. In the question regarding the particular laws of nature, the problem of Kantian philosophy comes to the fore: namely, the problem of the transition from the content-constitutive or object-constitutive a priori to the a posteriori, from the transcendental to the empirical. The two extremely complicated versions of the Transcendental Deduction of the Pure Concepts of the Understanding, the hybrid concept of reflective judgment, and the repeated attempts in his opus postumum to effect a 'transition from the metaphysical foundations of natural science to physics,'30 thereby giving evidence of the 'realization of transcendental philosophy,'31 are just so many different attempts to come to grips with a problem that was given with the Copernican turn.

3

Kant's Theory of Human

Knowledge: A Sensualistic Version of Intuitionism

1

The Introspective Method of Developing a Theory of Knowledge

The third section of the chapter on the antinomies in the Critique of Pure Reason contains one of Kant's repeated attempts to locate his epistemological and metaphysical position vis-a-vis the dominant philosophical schools of his time - rationalism (dogmatism) and empiricism. The passage concludes with a statement that unmistakably recounts an autobiographical experience: 'it is fitting that a reflective and enquiring being should devote a certain amount of time to the examination of his own reason, entirely divesting himself of all partiality and openly submitting his observations to the judgment of others' (A 475).* Such an examination of reason was in Kant's opinion overdue. The preface to the first edition of the KRV describes the condition of reason with regard to the questions that are the object of transcendental dialectic (the questions of special metaphysics) as a battlefield of endless controversies (A viii). Since, however, it is a matter of questions 'the object of which can never be indifferent to our human nature,' there is 'a call to reason to undertake anew the most difficult of all its tasks, namely, that of self-knowledge, and to institute a tribunal which will assure to reason its lawful claims, and dismiss all groundless pretensions ... in accordance with its own eternal and unalterable laws' (A x-xii). Philosophers have always taken offense at this odd tribunal, in which one and the same reason appears simultaneously as defendant ('critique of pure reason' as objective genitive) and as judge (subjective genitive). Whether this feeling of offense is justified depends on how one conceives this critique of reason. The fact is that we have no second reason, which,

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incidentally, could test the ability of the first reason to reach the truth only in such a way that it would introduce an infinite regress of tester and tested. Nevertheless, the 'self-knowledge' demanded by Kant is in my opinion quite possible. After all, in the final analysis all theories of knowledge are such self-knowledge, which is simultaneously self-judgment. How, then, does a theory of knowledge arise, and where does it get the standard by which it judges? Following up on Kant's comments on his own method in passages like A xii, 760-61, and taking up the definition of 'transcendental' at A ii-12/B 25, commentators have called the method of the KRVa transcendental a priori method, and contrasted it with a method that consists in psychological observation. Vaihinger obviously reflects the sententia communis when he writes: 'From start to finish we must hold strictly to this point: Kant excludes in principle psychological observations.'2 As evidence for this interpretation I refer by way of example to a few well-known Kant scholars. For Benno Erdmann 'the determination of the limits of all pure knowledge must itself be a priori.'3 Alois Riehl argues against the 'psychological prejudice' of some of Kant's interpreters, according to whom critical philosophy is grounded in psychology (Herbart) or should be so grounded (Fries).4 According to Hermann Cohen, 'Kant like Leibniz conceives the a priori as an element of knowledge that remains inaccessible to psychological analysis.'5 It is not easy to ascertain what these authors mean by the 'psychologism' that they reject, or, given the extreme ambiguity and vagueness of the term 'transcendental' in Kant,6 what the transcendental method of the KRV, which they contrast with psychologism, consists in. J.F. Fries, who in 1807 published a three-volume 'New or Anthropological Critique of Reason,' is widely regarded as the main defender of the psychologistic interpretation of the KRV and of transcendental philosophy in general. We are not directly interested here in the question of whether the charge of psychologism, that is, of a reduction of epistemology to empirical psychology, is justly laid against Fries or not.7 A statement like the following, made in the preface to the second edition of the work, seems in principle to leave out of consideration the intentional, truthseeking, and truth-finding dimension of the psychological, and therefore fails to do justice to Kant's intention, let alone to the subject it is treating: 'The truth about which human beings argue, with regard to which they can err and doubt, is not this transcendental truth of agreement between representation and object, but the empirical truth of consciousness, which requires only the comparison of mediate with immediate representations.'8 However, when Fries summarizes his program in the following terms in the introduction to his 'anthropological critique' it seems to me that

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this program, quite apart from its execution by Fries, is entirely appropriate: The object may be outside of me or in me, but knowledge is always within me, and thus I must first observe it, and get to know its laws and the laws of the faculties from which it arises, before I can make a correct judgment regarding the status of the object to which it corresponds. Our recommendation to philosophy, therefore, is that we first subject all of our knowledge to such an anthropological examination before we venture to make a judgment regarding its truth and suitability. If in this way we have arrived at a theory of reason, then we will also be in a position to speak with certainty about validity and truth.9 Just as we cannot construct a well-grounded theory of nature without observing nature, so too we cannot develop a theory of knowledge without considering the data of our cognitional activity itself. If one wants to call this introspective examination psychologism, then it is a thoroughly justified psychologism. Kant's thesis that 'all our knowledge begins with experience' (B i) holds without qualification, and applies also to philosophical knowledge. But the introspection does not remain in the realm of the psychological in the sense of the purely empirical. First of all, the transition from the data of consciousness to judgment, and thereby to knowledge of our knowledge, already implies that we have gone beyond mere (inner) experience. Indeed, knowledge of reality is never just a matter of sense experience or experience of the data of consciousness. Secondly, and approaching our problem more directly, introspective analysis sheds light on the laws that are immanent within our intentionality, by virtue of which that intentionality acts as an intelligent dynamism in search of the intelligible in data and as a rational dynamism in search of the true and, through the true, of being. Inquiry into our conscious performance as knowers thus brings to light the normative principles that are operative within that performance and that ground the truth and objectivity of our knowledge. A theory of knowledge arrived at in this way is in principle verifiable, for every statement that it makes is related to data of consciousness; specifically, for every reality of which it speaks it can specify the cognitive act by which that reality is known. Kant himself writes: instead of pretentious metaphysical claims 'I have to deal with nothing save reason itself and its pure thinking; and to obtain complete knowledge of these, there is no need to go far afield, since I come upon them in my own self (A xiv). The pure thinking that Kant refers to here, by which he means the a priori and

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normative elements in our thinking, reveals itself to the subject precisely in the self-presence (consciousness) that arises in and through the various cognitional operations. It is in this sense that I speak of an examination of consciousness, that is, of an introspective method for the purpose of constructing a theory of knowledge. There is, after all, no other way of explaining how we are able to speak of sense experience, inquiry, examination of data, understanding, critical reflection, and judgment, if not through a reflexive reference to the cognitional process as a conscious process. And it is also not difficult to find again and again in the Kant scholars who uphold the thesis that the KRV excludes all psychological observation the very same return to the data of consciousness that is here openly recognized as the appropriate way of developing a theory of knowledge. After Vaihinger has emphatically stressed, in reference to the methodological observations of A xii, that 'that which is unique to Kant's method is thereby made clear, namely, that that method proceeds by way of purely conceptual and logical, not psychological, analysis,'10 he writes with regard to the fundamental question of B 19, How are a priori synthetic judgments possible? that this question is, to be sure, not a matter of empirical psychology, but of a sort of 'transcendental psychology,' which inquires into the 'a priori foundation of the representations in the subject, into their subjective possibility.'11 However one understands the adjective 'transcendental' in the phrase 'transcendental psychology,' it is clear that this qualification cannot be meant to exclude recourse to internal experience. Kant's investigation in the KRV has aptly been called a theory of the object in general or of the constitution of the object. Indeed, the KRVis concerned with the identification of the formal components of the object of scientific knowledge (pure intuitions of sense, pure concepts of the understanding), that is, with the discovery of a content-constitutive or object-constitutive a priori.12 In this investigation the subject in its performance, in what it is and does, comes too little into consideration. It is precisely for this reason that the Kantian theory of the object in general can be an idealistic one without falling into self-contradiction. The phenomenalist thesis, according to which our knowledge is restricted to appearances, is in itself not contradictory. However, as soon as one takes account of the subject that asserts this theory - and one must do this, because there is no truth without a judging subject - it is falsified. For the subject (Kant) means by this statement that human beings really and truly, and not just apparently, know only appearances; that is, he means that his theory reflects exactly the reality that human knowledge itself is. In performance the rationally judging subject means the opposite of what his phenomenalist thesis asserts. It is therefore appropriate that in our investigation into human knowledge we should not concentrate solely on the

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object but should also take into consideration the operations of the subject - all of them, each according to its own character- and thus construct a theory of subjectivity parallel to the theory of the object. Towards the end of the introduction to the KRV, where he defines transcendental knowledge for the first time, Kant writes that in his 'transcendental critique ... what ... constitutes our subject-matter is not the nature of things, which is inexhaustible, but the understanding which passes judgment upon the nature of things' (A 12-13). This turn to the subject calls for an introspective examination of the subject in its performance, that is, in its conscious cognitional activities. This examination can with full justification be called transcendental, because the first thing it brings to light is an intelligent and rational intentionality that is all-embracing (it asks about every aspect of everything that is) and unrestricted (it moves beyond all limits in asking about what is) - that is, a dynamism that is transcendental in the same sense that being is transcendental according to scholastic usage. But this dynamism is also transcendental in the Kantian sense, inasmuch as 'to be sure it precedes all knowledge, but nonetheless has no other function' than to make knowledge possible.13 We can articulate such a transcendental inquiry in three questions: (i) What happens in me when I know? or, What am I doing when I am knowing? This question, which aims at what might be called a phenomenology of knowing, can be answered only by reference to the conscious operations that we perform. (2) What do I know when I perform these operations? The acts by means of which the object of human knowledge is known should be specified - the acts corresponding both to the object of human knowledge in the full sense of the term and to each partial component of that object. This will simultaneously provide the outline of a metaphysics that understands itself as the complementary correlate of epistemology. (3) Because the fundamental characteristic of human knowledge is its ability to reach a reality existing in itself, the third, epistemological question is, Why do the aforementioned activities issue in knowledge of a transcendent object?14 The present study proposes to inquire into Kant's theory of knowledge and being from such a transcendental perspective; that is, the intention of this study is to carry out an analysis and evaluation of the KRV using 'the touchstone that is as accessible to one human being as it is to another, namely, the reason that all human beings share in common.'15 2 The Essence of Knowledge acccording to the KRV: Knowing Is Looking (i) The Transcendental Aesthetic begins with a statement that in my

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opinion expresses the essence of knowledge according to Kant: 'In whatever manner and by whatever means a mode of knowledge may relate to objects, intuition is that through which it is in immediate relation to them, and to which all thought as a means is directed' (A 19). In other words, intuition is in the last analysis the only way and the only means by which knowledge, all knowledge, is related to its object. If we compress the principle articulated here into a concise formula, we can say that for Kant knowing is looking (intuiting). Heidegger says much the same about Kant's basic conception of knowledge, even if in a different context from that of the present study: 'To understand the A2?V"at all, one must, as it were, hammer into one's head the principle: Knowledge is primarily intuition.' Therefore, although the composite nature of human knowledge is also an essential doctrine of the KRV, it must 'be kept firmly in mind that intuition constitutes the true essence of knowledge and, despite all reciprocity in the relation between intuition and thought, the former possesses the real weight.'16 At the very least, one can conjecture from the frequency with which Kant refers to this point in one way or another in all parts of the KRV that it is the first principle of Kant's theory of knowledge. Let us examine a few passages. In the introduction, where Kant speaks of the two stems of human knowledge, namely, sensibility and understanding, these are characterized in the following way: 'Through the former, objects are given to us; through the latter, they are thought' (A 15). In the Analytic of Principles: If knowledge is to have objective reality, that is, to relate to an object, and is to acquire meaning and significance in respect to it, the object must be capable of being in some manner given ... That an object be given (if this expression be taken, not as referring to some merely mediate process, but as signifying immediate presentation in intuition), means simply that the representation through which the object is thought relates to ... experience. (A 155-56) '[W]here ... should we seek for objects corresponding to these concepts if not in experience, through which alone objects are given to M5?' (A 224)1? Experience appears here as the counterpart of the concept; thus experience as pure sense experience is the only thing that can be meant. Shortly after this we come across a similar text: 'Now the object cannot be given to a concept otherwise than in intuition,' and Kant goes on to emphasize that he is talking about 'empirical intuition' (A 239). In the discussion of The Amphiboly of Concepts of Reflection,' Kant speaks of 'intuition (wherein alone the objects can be given)' (A 271). In the first book of the

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Transcendental Dialectic Kant sets up a scale of all the various kinds of representation. There he divides the term 'knowledge' into 'either intuition or concept (intuitus vel conceptus).' Each cognitional act is then described in closer detail: 'The former relates immediately to the object and is single, the latter refers to it mediately by means of a feature which several things may have in common' (A 320). In the chapter on the paralogisms: 'by intuition alone is the object given, which thereupon is thought in accordance with the category' (A 399). In the chapter on the antinomies: 'Knowledge, which as such is speculative, can have no other object than that supplied by experience' (A 471). In the Transcendental Doctrine of Method, Kant's basic sensualistic thesis is expressed once more in an incisive formula: 'All our knowledge relates, finally, to possible intuitions, for it is through them alone that an object is given' (A 719). On the basis of these texts we can draw the following conclusion: the operations that contribute to the constitution of our knowledge in its various aspects are manifold; but when we ask, What brings it about that our knowledge is knowledge of an object and therefore knowledge at all? we must answer, Intuition. However many indirect relations to the object other operations might establish, there must by all means be an activity which by its very nature bridges between knower and known, for otherwise one would fall into the nonsense of a series of mediating relations, none of which reaches the thing itself that is to be mediated. According to Kant this activity is intuition. Two claims are being made here: first, Kant is asserting the primacy of intuition vis-d-vis all other cognitional operations; second, Kant is establishing what knowledge essentially is, such that this must be present in every instance of knowledge: knowledge is intuiting knowledge (see A 471). I would like to name this conception of knowledge the 'principle of intuition': the essence of knowledge consists in intuition or looking. In order to establish a cognitional relation between subject and object - a relation that implies at once both presence and duality - an operation must occur that instantiates what is illustrated most clearly in ocular vision: going beyond oneself and reaching the other, without thereby obliterating the distinction between subject and object. Ocular vision is, indeed, capable of going beyond the subject and reaching the object, without doing away with the duality of looker and looked at. Intuitionism builds its theory of knowledge upon this paradigm. (2) Following directly upon this general principle (quaestio juris) in the same introductory passage of the Aesthetic, Kant specifies the principle and renders it concrete by applying it to human knowledge (quaestio facti): intuition occurs for us human beings, and an object of cognition is thereby given to us, only insofar as the object affects our senses. That is, the only

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intuitions with which human beings are equipped are intuitions of sense. Intuition is understood in a comprehensive sense here, namely, as the mode of cognition of all the senses. In the passage in question Kant uses the term ' "empirical" intuition' to designate the intuition that arises when our sensibility is affected by objects (A 19-20). 'Our nature is so constituted that our intuition can never be other than sensible' (A 51). '[A]ll our intuition is sensible' (B 151). Similar statements occur again and again in the KRV: A 252, B 146, 165, 302 footnote, etc. In the Politz edition of Kant's Lectures on Metaphysics we read: 'Intuition is only sensual; for only the senses intuit; the understanding alone does not intuit, but reflects.'18 Now it was an old and well-established doctrine that the senses do not give us the object as it is in itself, but rather according to the various subjective conditions and dispositions of the senses themselves. From this Kant concludes that our knowledge is limited to appearance. That the object of the senses has a relative ontological status, or is merely appearance, was a common assumption in the philosophical tradition, even if this insight had very different meanings in the various epistemologies.19 The subjectivity of sense knowledge in Kant is thus nothing new; rather, what is novel is that he integrated this piece of conventional wisdom into his idealistic system. Kant's theory differs from the Renaissance doctrine, which distinguished between the objective primary and the subjective secondary sensible qualities, for Kant rightly pointed out also in the case of the former (space and time) a component that is relative to human sensibility, and thereby drove a wedge between the content of sense knowledge and things-in-themselves.20 The sweeping conclusion that Kant draws from the fundamental conceptual clarifications of the introductory passage of the Transcendental Aesthetic is that all our knowledge is restricted to appearances. Thus the phenomenalist thesis is already set down in the first pages of the AjRVas the systematic Leitmotif of the Kantian theory of knowledge and being. In the explanation of his transcendental idealism in the fourth paralogism in edition A, Kant himself gives prominence to an explicit connection between idealism and the conclusions of the Transcendental Aesthetic: 'From the start, we have declared ourselves in favor of this transcendental idealism' (A 370). The thorough investigation into the role of understanding and reason (Transcendental Analytic and Dialectic) that is to follow will simply confirm and make more precise the thesis already expressed at the beginning of the KRV. As we shall see, the reason is that, in spite of the many attempts to do justice to the function of understanding and reason in these sections, the principle of intuition (in its sensualistic version) is never called into question. In fact, the quotations at the beginning of this section are not from the Transcendental Aesthetic alone.

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(3) From what has been said we may conclude that it is no oversimplification to formulate the KRVs fundamental epistemological position in the following syllogism: To know is to intuit (Erkennen ist Anschaueri). Our intuiting is sensible, and as such it mediates only appearances. Therefore, our knowledge is restricted to the realm of appearances. With this restriction, which in Kant's eyes is balanced by the possibility of attaining scientific knowledge, our reason, after its 'dogmatic wanderings' and the 'resting place' of scepticism, finally finds its 'dwelling place for permanent settlement,' that is, the certainty 'of the limits within which all our knowledge of objects is enclosed.' (A 761-62) 3

The Role of Thought in the Constitution of Knowledge

In addition to empirical intuition Kant also recognizes other operations as belonging to human knowledge. It is not easy to ascertain just what these are, what kind of function each of them has, how they are related to one another, and how together they constitute human knowledge in the full sense of the word. The doctrine of the KRVon this point is neither consistent nor easy to survey. Different lists of acts and faculties are found in various parts of the work, sometimes even in the same part. 'Under the influence of the psychology of his day, Kant was by no means parsimonious in the invention of faculties.'21 For the purpose of the present study, however, this indeterminacy and variety in Kant's doctrine regarding the different activities that constitute human knowledge is not of decisive importance. It is sufficient for our purposes that in the central text I have quoted Kant refers globally to the other acts with the term 'thought': 'to which [i.e., to sensible intuition] all thought as a means is directed' (A 19). I shall organize what follows according to the distinction between 'understanding' and 'reason,' which is of special importance since the distinction between the Transcendental Analytic and Dialectic (in addition to the Aesthetic) rests upon it. Kant says of thought in general that it is related only indirectly - via sensible intuitions - to the object: 'But all thought must, directly or indirectly ... relate ultimately to intuitions, and therefore, with us, to sensibility, because in no other way can an object be given to us' (A 19). This means the following: Whatever thought might do in particular, one thing is certain from the start: thought of itself can add no new reality (or better, no metaphysical component of reality) that has not already been reached. What and how much of reality is known is already from the very beginning given by intuition. For it alone can see reality, and therefore know. This is the logical consequence of the principle of intuition, according to which only an act like intuition (looking) can reach the object. In order to know

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something (not merely to work on it afterwards, or conceptualize it, or unify and order it, but in order first of all to know it!), one must see it. Now it is the doctrine of the KRV from beginning to end that our thought is not intuitive, that our understanding is not an intuitive faculty: 'understanding cannot be a faculty of intuition.' Its cognitional operation by means of concepts is 'not intuitive, but discursive' (A 68). Only in God does knowledge occur by means of an intellectual intuition, 'for all his knowledge must be intuition, and not thought' (B 7i).22 God's knowledge is an 'intuitus originarius1 (B 72). This central point, namely, the noncognitional character of thought in Kant, will now be further substantiated and elucidated. (i) Its noncognitional function according to the KRV is quite evident with regard to the activities of reason. The real a priori of reason is the unconditioned: 'the unconditioned [is] the real transcendental idea' (A 417, footnote), or, what amounts to the same thing, the tendency to the unconditioned (B xx-xxi). In Reflexion 6414, dating from the 17905, we read: the unconditioned 'is the only theoretical idea of reason.'23 The a priori of reason has two sides in the KRV (although to be sure these are not explicitly distinguished). In some passages (above all, those concerning the cosmological idea) the unconditioned is the same as the totality of conditions that belong to experience; in other passages (above all, those concerning the theological idea) the unconditioned consists in the absolute tout court (im Absoluten schlechthiri), a single being lying outside the web of conditions and conditioned. According to neither of these two understandings of the unconditioned can reason contribute a content of its own to the constitution of the object of human knowledge. 'No object [corresponding to the transcendental idea] can be given in sense-experience' (A 327; see also 462, 621, 661, etc.), that is, corresponding either to the idea as absolute totality of conditions or to the idea as the unconditioned tout court (dem schlechthin Unbedingteri) 'in individud (see A 568). In fact, the senses can neither provide us with 'the absolute totality of the series of conditions' (A 417 footnote), nor can they intuit anything unconditioned. The whole Transcendental Dialectic unfolds this single theme: the ideas have no 'constitutive employment,' they contribute nothing to the constitution of objectively valid knowledge; they have only a 'regulative employment' in that they lead from one appearance to another towards an all-embracing systematic unity. Summarizing his doctrine concerning the role of reason, Kant writes: I accordingly maintain that transcendental ideas never allow of any constitutive employment. When regarded in that mistaken manner,

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and therefore as supplying concepts of certain objects, they are but pseudo-rational, merely dialectical concepts. On the other hand, they have an excellent, and indeed indispensably necessary, regulative employment, namely, that of directing the understanding towards a certain goal upon which the routes marked out by all its rules converge, as upon their point of intersection. This point is indeed a mere idea, a focus imaginarius, from which, since it lies quite outside the bounds of possible experience, the concepts of the understanding do not in reality proceed; none the less it serves to give to these concepts the greatest [possible] unity combined with the greatest [possible] extension. (A 644) (2) Of a different and more complex nature is the doctrine of the KRV regarding the activities of the understanding and the a priori of the understanding, namely, the categories. Here the noncognitional character of thought that we asserted above is somewhat disguised. The repeatedly asserted doctrine of the Analytic that human knowledge is composed of intuition and concept, that is, that it arises only through the cooperation of sensibility and understanding, seems inconsistent with the interpretation of the KRV that is being advanced in this study. The oft-cited passage in this regard is found in the first two pages of the Transcendental Logic, A 50-52, where human knowledge is presented as a twofold structure composed of intuition and concept. 'Intuition and concepts constitute, therefore, the elements of all our knowledge' (A 50). 'Thoughts without content are empty, intuitions without concepts are blind. It is, therefore, just as necessary to make our concepts sensible, that is, to add the object to them in intuition,24 as to make our intuitions intelligible, that is, to bring them under concepts' (A 51). Experience in the full sense of the Analytic is, as is well known, the 'product of the senses and of the understanding' (Prolegomena, § 20), insofar as 'the matter of knowledge [obtained] from the senses, and a certain form for the ordering of this matter, [obtained] from the inner source of... pure intuition and thought' (A 86) belong to it.25 The statements of a text like A 50-52 are certainly not to be underestimated. They are evidence of Kant's repeated attempts to develop a theory of the object in general that goes beyond his sensualistic intuitionism. However, in the final analysis we can by no means view this attempt as successful. It is no accident that Kant writes, precisely in the passage at the beginning of the Transcendental Logic, that '[t]he understanding can intuit nothing' (A 51). His intention is to remind us even here that the content of experience in the full sense still comes only from the intuitive component, that is, from sensibility.

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The texts that assert die noncognitional character even of the understanding are strewn through the KRV. To the passages already cited at the beginning of section 2 of this study I shall add here yet a few more for the purpose of elucidating the interpretation of 'thought' in Kant that I wish to defend. In his discussion of the third 'Postulate of Empirical Thought,' Kant mentions that the forms of the understanding are only 'the discursive forms of thought' (A 230). By means of them the understanding 'can deal only with the synthesis of that which is given' (A 231). At the beginning of the Transcendental Dialectic, the whole cognitional process is portrayed in the following words: 'All our knowledge starts with the senses, proceeds from thence to understanding, and ends with reason, beyond which there is no higher faculty to be found in us for elaborating the matter of intuition and bringing it under the highest unity of thought' (A 298-99). In edition B's discussion of the Paralogisms, the activity of thought is referred to in the following terms: 'Similarly, the third proposition [the third thesis of rational psychology] establishes nothing in regard to the constitution or subsistence of the subject; none the less in this proposition the absolute unity of apperception, the simple "I" in the representation to which all combination or separation that constitutes thought relates, has its own importance' (B 419). Previously Kant had spoken of the understanding insofar as it acts by means of the categories: 'Modi of self-consciousness in thought are not by themselves concepts of objects (categories), but are mere functions which do not give thought an object to be known, and accordingly do not give even myself as object' (B 406-7). By no means can the activity of the understanding by means of the categories be equated with the Aristotelian activity of noein. Aristotle attributes to noein an object that is proper to it: the eidos, that is, the intelligible component of reality. In contrast, Kant considers it especially important to emphasize here that thought - no doubt in connection with sensibility as in Aristotle - has no proper object. An especially illuminating passage is found in edition B's version of the Transcendental Deduction of the Pure Concepts of the Understanding. It is said there that the categories would have no meaning whatsoever for an understanding 'which is itself intuitive,' for they are merely rules for an understanding whose whole power consists in thought, consists, that is, in the act whereby it brings the synthesis of a manifold, given to it from elsewhere in intuition, to the unity of apperception - a faculty, therefore, which by itself knows nothing whatsoever, but merely combines and arranges the material of knowledge, that is, the intuition, which must be given to it by the object. (B 145)26

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In light of these texts, which make explicit what is presupposed throughout the KRV, the judgment of Emerich Coreth appears to be completely justified: 'For Kant, the thought of the understanding is essentially dependent upon the empirically-sensually intuited object, without being able to provide a new content above and beyond it. But this means that knowledge for Kant is essentially knowledge of an empirical object (empirisch-gegenstdndliche Erkenntnis) .'27 According to Kant the activity of understanding provides no new real content that is not accessible to the senses; rational judgment likewise provides no new reality. (3) One comes across passages in the .KRV in which Kant not only speaks of the activities of the understanding as belonging to knowledge in the full sense, but also seems to attribute to them a cognitional function. This cannot be disputed, but the cognitional function of the understanding that is asserted in these passages has a thetic and therefore idealistic sense: the understanding knows something that the senses cannot know because it 'supplies' this something (the intelligible component of appearance) 'from itself (B i), puts it 'into' the a posteriori of the senses (A 125, B xiv), 'prescribes' it to nature (B 159-60, 163). These are the same passages in which Kant can speak without hesitation of our understanding as a 'lawgiver' (A 126), because 'the objects, as appearances, constitute an object that is merely in us' (A 129). In the same passages the a priori of the understanding, the pure concepts of the understanding, are no longer understood in a performative or subject-constitutive sense, as in the texts discussed in number 2 of this section, above,28 but in a content-constitutive or object-constitutive sense. The a priori of the understanding is presented as an addition to the object (ein gegenstdndlicher Zusatz) (see B i), which derives from the subject, and which is imposed on or added to the other part of the object that comes from the receptivity of the senses. The pure concepts (categories), understood in this way, are object-constituting principles of the phenomenal world. This second conception of the role of the understanding only confirms what we saw above concerning the noncognitional character of the understanding. There is no doubt that according to Kant the understanding exercises its own function; it understands, if one is willing to designate its synthetic activity with this non-Kantian term. One can argue over just what the understanding does with its forms of thought (Reflexion 7316: GS 19:314), that is, with the 'manner and number' of categories (B 145-46) with which it is equipped. At any rate, from the standpoint of the principle of intuition one thing is certain throughout: no object ('Gegen-stand'), namely, no thing 'opposite to the subject' and distinct from it, is known by means of the categories - for the simple reason that the synthesis of the

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understanding as an 'act of spontaneity' (B 130) is not an intuitive activity. To be sure, the 'transcendental' investigation of the KRV complicates terribly the sensualistic intuitionism of A 19-20, but it does not overcome it. What has been said so far in this and the preceding section regarding the roles of intuition and thought in the constitution of human knowledge according to the KRV can also be stated as follows. Both sensualism and rationalism-idealism are present in the KRV as, so to speak, the infrastructure and superstructure of the Kantian theory of knowledge and being. But a closer examination reveals that infrastructure and superstructure are largely independent of one another. The infrastructure, that is, empiricism, represents the component out of which almost all of the characteristic and well-known doctrines of the KRV arise. Along these lines, I would agree with the many Kant scholars who have pointed out a strong sensualistic undercurrent in Kant's critique of knowledge beneath the predominantly rationalistic terminology. Basing himself on this infrastructure, Kant tried repeatedly to win back the rational component in human knowledge but, to be sure, without discerning the precise point at which understanding and reason fit into sensibility. Precisely because of this lack of inner unity, Kant's development of the rational components in human knowledge leads to an idealism that is superimposed on his foundational empiricism and phenomenalism, without, however, overcoming and eliminating it from within. The mediation between German rationalism and English empiricism that Kant wanted to accomplish in his KRV (A 760-61, 865; Prolegomena § 56; GS 4:360; Streitschrift GS 8: 226-28) was in fact a mere joining together of two heterogeneous components. The most striking and momentous consequence of this heterogeneous duality is the well-known aporia between the unambiguously realistic starting point of the KRV, according to which the objects that affect the senses are things-in-themselves, and its idealistic conclusion, according to which the objects of knowledge are all the result of the organizing activity of the subject. This tension, which underlies the entire work, takes on different forms in different passages (forms which are often difficult to penetrate), without ever finding a definitive resolution. But without this tension, the KRV would not be the puzzling book that it is, bewildering all those epigones and interpreters who aspire to give us a final and conclusive account of what it logically should say. The history of philosophy immediately after Kant provides the historical confirmation of this interpretation of the KRV. The two one-sided and therefore opposed doctrines soon separated under new guises in German idealism and in the materialism of the nineteenth century.

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The Relation between the Various Cognitional Operations and the Object according to the KRV

If we consider together the conclusions of the investigation in section 2 (the principle of intuition) and in section 3 (the principle of structure: experience in the full sense consists of intuition and concept), we arrive at the following doctrine of the KRV concerning the relation of the various cognitional operations to reality. (i) The direct relation to reality comes about through sensible intuition and through it alone. The points made in section 2 should suffice to pin down the meaning and importance of this fundamental doctrine of the KRV. Because of this role of sensible intuition, I would like to call Kant's epistemology a sensualistic version of intuitionism. Two points are connected with this fundamental doctrine. (a) What reality is. Reality in general is for the KRV the correlate of intuition. Now because the model that Kant uses is sensible intuition (the only intuition known to us human beings!), one can make this more precise. Reality in general is the focus, the goal, of an extroverted dynamism, namely, of a drive to the 'already out there now,' a drive that we experience in our activity as sentient beings. Now according to whether this intuitive dynamism is intellectual or sensible, the reality that it aims at and reaches is either the true reality, existing in itself, or the reality of appearance. But - and this is the decisive point - even the 'true' reality is revealed in its essence to be the goal of an intuition whose cognitional capacity consists not in its intelligence and rationality, but in its extroverted dynamism, that is, in a dynamism that is conceived according to the image and likeness of sensibility. (b) The cognitional operation or the criterion by which we know reality. This act is in the last analysis sense perception and sense perception alone. For the only intuition that we find in our inner experience is sensible intuition, which, through its drive towards the 'already out there now,' is capable of producing the simultaneous unity and difference that characterize knowledge according to the model of intuition. All other cognitional operations fail to exhibit such an extroverted dynamism. Kant's thorough investigation, with its goal of giving these other cognitional operations their due, does not change the perfectly evident fact that they have nothing to contribute to the extroverted transcendence of knowledge. In our main text, A 19, it is said that 'thought' reaches the object only through intuition, thereby becoming knowledge of reality. This mediacy of thought shall now be explained in detail, following what was said in section 3.

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(2) The concept and the activity of the understanding in general have an indirect relation to reality; it is immediately related to sensible intuitions, and only to the extent that the latter reach reality does the concept also reach reality. The programmatic text in this connection is no doubt the one that has already been quoted from the beginning of the Analytic: 'Since no representation, save when it is an intuition, is in immediate relation to an object, no concept is ever related to an object immediately, but to some other representation of it, be that other representation an intuition, or itself a concept. Judgment is therefore the mediate knowledge of an object, that is, the representation of a representation of it' (A 68). This passage speaks not only of the concept, but also of judgment. Of both, and for the same reason, it is said that they are 'mediate knowledge.' This is not the place to delve into the problem of judgment in Kant, especially the question of whether and how concept and judgment differ according to the KRV. The tendency of the .KRV is to equate concept and judgment. Both are viewed as functions of unity, so that Kant finds the clue to the discovery of all a priori concepts in the forms of judgment (see especially A 76-83). 'Faculty of judging' is the same as 'faculty of thought' (A 80; see also Prolegomena § 22). For Kant, calling the understanding a 'faculty of concepts' amounts, upon closer inspection, to calling it a 'faculty of judgments' (A 126). That this identification has in fact not wholly succeeded, especially in the passages in which Kant discusses the problem of the application or subsumption of concepts, is due to a primordial datum of our intentionality, namely, the absolute positing of the mental synthesis as what is peculiar to the judgment. But in spite of its detailed treatment of the tendency to the unconditioned, the KRV never comes to grips with the constitutive function of this tendency in our cognitional structure, and thereby fails to grasp the distinction between concept and judgment. It is therefore no surprise that Vaihinger complains about a 'blurring of the distinction between concept and judgment.'29 Thus, since concept and judgment, thought and judging, mean essentially the same thing for him, Kant must attribute a merely mediate or indirect knowledge of the object to both concept and judgment. Several texts that I quoted in section 2 in order to give examples of the principle of intuition also speak of the opposition between intuition and concept, and therefore of the mediacy of the relation of the concept to the object, to which the sensible intuition is immediately related. (3) It is said again and again of reason, as the faculty of a dynamism intending the unconditioned, that it has a doubly mediated relation to the only reality we can know. It is in this that the 'regulative employment of the ideas of pure reason' (A 642-68), mentioned above, consists, in con-

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trast to the 'constitutive employment' of these ideas, which in fact is impossible: unlike the understanding, reason has no sensible object corresponding to it.3° The doctrine of a doubly mediated relation of reason to reality is already made explicit in the introduction to the Transcendental Dialectic, where Kant examines syllogistic reasoning as the characteristic activity of reason. [RJeason in the syllogism does not concern itself with intuitions, with a view to bringing them under rules (as the understanding does with its categories), but with concepts and judgments. Accordingly, even if pure reason does concern itself with objects, it has no immediate relation to these and the intuition of them, but only to the understanding and its judgments - which deal at first hand with the senses and their intuition for the purpose of determining their object. The unity of reason is therefore not the unity of a possible experience, but is essentially different from such unity, which is that of understanding. (A 306-7) In a section with the title 'System of the Transcendental Ideas,' in which a third metaphysical deduction of the transcendental ideas is in fact carried out, Kant writes parenthetically: 'For pure reason never relates directly to objects, but to the concepts which understanding frames in regard to objects' (A 335). Chapter 3 of book 2 of the Transcendental Dialectic begins with an illuminating contrast between concepts of the understanding and ideas. Through the former, to be sure, 'no objects can be represented,' but the concepts find in appearances, that is, in the content of sense perception, 'the material' by virtue of which they become 'concepts of experience.'31 Of the latter it is said: But ideas are even further removed from objective reality than are categories, for no appearance can be found in which they can be represented in concrete. They contain a certain completeness to which no possible empirical knowledge ever attains. In them reason aims only at a systematic unity, to which it seeks to approximate the unity that is empirically possible, without ever completely reaching it. (A 567-68) At the beginning of the appendix to the Transcendental Dialectic, which discusses 'The Regulative Employment of the Ideas of Pure Reason,' we read: Reason is never in immediate relation to an object, but only to the understanding; and it is only through the understanding that it has

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its own [specific] empirical employment. It does not, therefore, create concepts (of objects) but only orders them, and gives them that unity which they can have only if they be employed in their widest possible application. (A 643) The final conclusion of the Dialectic is therefore nothing other than the position that Kant had already taken at the beginning of the Dialectic when he first described reason and its function: Understanding may be regarded as a faculty which secures the unity of appearances by means of rules, and reason as being the faculty which secures the unity of the rules of understanding under principles. Accordingly, reason never applies itself directly to experience or to any object, but to understanding, in order to give to the manifold knowledge of the latter an a priori unity by means of concepts, a unity which may be called the unity of reason, and which is quite different in kind from any unity that can be accomplished by the understanding. (A 302) This was only to be expected from the standpoint of the principle of intuition: if knowledge can have an immediate relation to its object only by virtue of some sort of intuition, then reason as a drive towards the unconditioned is even less similar to intuition than is the understanding, inasmuch as the understanding is the faculty of the intelligible. Thus reason, like understanding, is dependent upon the real content that only an intuitive activity can give it. (4) But reason as a tendency to the unconditioned is directed towards the absolute that is being-in-itself. In this sense it intends a completely different object from the appearance of sensible intuition: it intends the 'thing-initself,' that is, the unconditioned, 'which is never itself an object of experience ... [but] in accordance with which it estimates and gauges the degree of its empirical employment' (A 311). In his own way, Kant recognizes that the understanding as the faculty of the synthesis of world diings (der welthaften Synthesis), and thereby of appearances, and reason as the faculty of the unconditioned, do not have the same range.32 But such an unlimited dynamism remains mere seeking, mere questioning. Kant's deep-seated realistic attitude did not allow him simply to dismiss being in its primary and unalterable meaning.33 The existence of things in themselves, of being in contrast to appearance, is an indispensable component of Kant's theory of knowledge, without which the KRV cannot possibly be understood as Kant in fact conceived it. The XRVsays and asserts so much about being, even as it reserves all of our thought forms (including the categories of

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Figure 1

reality, existence, and causality) for the service of appearances. In Kant's opinion the existence of the thing-in-itself need not be denied. But Kant, who has grasped the nonintuitive and therefore noncognitional character of understanding and reason, cleaves to the following seemingly pragmatic rule: 'In all problems which may arise in the field of experience we treat these appearances as objects in themselves, without troubling ourselves about the primary ground of their possibility (as appearances)' (A 393)What I have said so far in the present section can be reduced to the schema shown in Figure i. In this schema one sees the two fundamental doctrines on which the KRVhinges: (i) the primary role of intuition: it is the true principle of the object relatedness of our knowledge; (2) the subsidiary role of understanding and reason, or of the concept and the idea. As we have yet to see in detail, the line separating a sensualistic from a 'nonsensualistic' - a general label that will do for now - theory of knowledge does not, strictly speaking, consist in the fact that the former acknowledges only the activities of the sensibility while the latter acknowledges also the activities of the understanding, but in the fact that the former places any and all activities of understanding and reason in the service of sensibility. Sensibility - in the case of the KRV, empirical intuition - decides what reality is and what the criterion for the knowkdge of reality is.34 Who serves whom? - this is the crucial question. Using this question as a touchstone, even a theory that speaks continually and in detail about the activities of understanding and reason can be shown to be a sensualistic theory. The sensualistic intuitionism of the KRV can be challenged in two different ways. Either one can (merely) challenge the minor premise (the 'quaestio fact?} of the syllogism mentioned at the end of section 2, or one can challenge the major premise (the 'quaestio mm'). I shall discuss these

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two alternatives to Kant's transcendental idealism in the following sections of this essay (5 and 6). 5

The Intellectualistic Version of Intuitionism

Kant himself candidly admits that the doctrine of the KRV, according to which our knowledge is unavoidably limited to appearances, sounds 'so absurd' (A 127) that disagreement with it was only to be expected. To quote a few shocking phrases that are anything but rare in the KRV, according to this doctrine, 'we have to deal only with appearances ... [which] constitute an object that is merely in us [since] a mere modification of our sensibility can never be met with outside us' (A 129), or, as we read in the fourth paralogism, the objects of our representations 'are something only through these representations' (A 370), or, as the second treatment of idealism claims, the objects of our knowledge 'are ... real only in perception' (A 493). If one further considers how natural it is to place the essence of knowledge in a sort of intuition or looking, it is not surprising that the attention and objections of Kant scholars and epistemologists have focused on the minor premise of the Kantian syllogism. It is not so much the case that a knowledge of reality has been attributed to sensual intuition - this would be a much too blatant sensualism - but rather the thesis has more often been embraced that human beings are capable of an intellectual intuition which is, qua intuition, directly related to the object, and, qua intuition of the understanding, reaches the object in its being-in-itself. 5.1 The Immediate Realism ofE. Gilson

E. Gilson is a defender of such a theory of knowledge, which at the same time understands itself to be an alternative to the phenomenalism of the KRV. In fact, however, a similar view of what constitutes the truth, objectivity, and transcendence of human knowledge is quite widespread, especially within neoscholasticism in its opposition to Kant and to the immanentism of German idealism in general.35 According to both Gilson and Kant, only an intuiting activity can erect a bridge between knower and known; that is, only an intuiting activity can ground the ability of our knowledge to achieve transcendence (major premise). In opposition to Kant, however, Gilson takes it to be self-evident that our understanding directly intuits or perceives (percevoir) reality in itself, being, in the data of sense (minor premise). 'On peut done tenir pour certain, des le debut de cette nouvelle enquete, que 1'apprehension de 1'etre par 1'intellect consiste a voir directement le concept de 1'etre dans n'importe quelle donnee sensible.'36 And further on: 'Mais 1'intellect peut voir 1'etre dans le sensible que nous

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percevons.'37 However, this 'seeing' of the understanding is not discovered in itself and examined in terms of its own character, but is postulated on the basis of a general 'osmose qui se produit entre 1'entendement et la sensibilite dans 1'unite du sujet connaissant humain.'38 Gilson constructs his thesis of an immediate intuition or perception of being through the understanding in the immediate intuition of sense on the general experience that the knowing subject is a coniunctum, that is, a composite of body and soul: On peut done dire que 1'existence accompagne toutes nos perceptions, car nous ne pouvons apprehender directement d'autres existences que celle des quiddites sensibles ... Est-il done si difficile de comprendre que le concept d'etre s'offre a la conscience comme une perception intuitive, lorsque 1'etre concu est celui d'un sensible intuitivement percu?39 Or again, 'de quelque maniere et a quelque profondeur de plan que nous lui posions la question: comment savoir qu'une chose existe? le realisme repond: en la percevant.'40 The intuition of the understanding must be there because our knowledge clearly reaches reality. Thus Gilson argues for a 'reaffirmation brute du realisme dogmatique dont la valeur a ete nice par la critique de Kant.'41 But this theory is not held to be dogmatic in a pejorative sense; rather, it is held to rest upon a fundamental, self-evident datum that is repressed only because of philosophical prejudices. Now because our knowledge reaches reality by means of the aforementioned intuition of being, without having to take the detour of discursive argumentation, however this may be conceived, this realism is called in scholastic terminology 'immediate realism' (realismus immediatus).42 5.2 Mediated Realism (Realismus Mediatus) But there is also another sort of realism of an intuitionist nature, which is characterized by the fact that it limits the postulated immediate intuition of being to the realm of inner experience, that is, of consciousness. It was unquestionably the traditional, though to be sure very different, objections or doubts concerning the truth of our knowledge of the external world that suggested this detour via consciousness. As is well known, the beginnings of such a theory are found already in Augustine in his repeated disputes with the 'academics'; but it has occupied its epistemologically central position since Descartes, who overcame his methodological doubt by recourse to a truth that reveals itself directly and indubitably in con-

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sciousness. This Cartesian theory was widely accepted in neoscholasticism, precisely in its dispute with Kant; it is, however, by no means limited to neoscholasticism. Its crucial point lies in an immediate experience of being in consciousness: I doubt, I question, I see this or that (abstracting from whether the object exists as I see it), I perform these and those conscious operations, etc. All of these so-called judgments of consciousness express knowledge whose truth cannot be doubted. In consciousness there occurs an immediate evidence, an immediate revealing of the subject to itself, insofar as it operates consciously; thus there is an intuition of being, in which the being-in-itself of the subject itself is revealed. After the fundamental ability of our knowledge to reach the truth has been secured, this Cartesian theory attempts to transcend the realm of consciousness by proving that we are also capable in principle of true knowledge of the external world. The move from the so-called contents of consciousness to the external world occurs by applying the principle of causality: the coherence and consistency of our total representation of the external world, our 'world picture, woven together out of the givens of perception and memory,'43 can have its sufficient reason only in the existence of a real external world that corresponds to this representation. The realism of this subspecies of intellectual intuitionism is appropriately called 'mediated realism'; it should be noted here that the problem of the objective validity of human knowledge is largely understood as the question of the 'external world.' This corresponds perfectly to the model of knowledge as looking (Anschaueri): being is the 'already out there now,' which stands opposite the extroverted dynamism of sensibility and especially the faculty of sight. There are obvious differences between immediate realism and mediated realism - indeed, mediated realism has not seldom been developed in opposition to immediate realism, which was viewed as uncritical. On the one hand, mediated realism wishes to bring to light a fundamentum inconcussum upon which the objective validity of knowledge can be grounded; on the other hand, it is concerned with taking into account the many difficulties that seem to speak against the truth of our knowledge and that have provided the impetus behind modern immanentism. But, from the standpoint of this study, both may be classified under the rubric of intuitionism. For Gilson, the real is the 'already out there now,' which is seen in all data of sense. For D. Mercier and other representatives of the Louvain school, the real is first of all the 'already in here now,' which is seen in consciousness. Whether the intuited reality is the external world or initially only the internal world, in both cases an appeal is made to the same epistemological principle: intuition is the transcendental condition

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of the possibility of objectivity. This is precisely the principle of intuition that we found in Kant. It is only with regard to the quaestio facti that there is disagreement: according to Kant we have no intellectual intuition; according to both Gilson and Mercier we possess an alleged intellectual intuition that is directly related to inner or outer reality. 5.5 The Diallele of the Intuitionist Theory of Knowledge One component of the intuitionist theory of knowledge, both in its Kantian and its scholastic form, deserves to be mentioned on its own, because it makes especially clear the fundamental epistemological model. I mean the problem of comparing mental representation and reality in order to become certain of the agreement of the first with the second and thereby of the truth. This problem apparently stems from the traditional definition of truth: veritas est adaequatio intellectus et rei (truth is the correspondence of intellect and thing). Kant urgently pointed out the apparently insoluble aporia that lies in the correspondence theory of truth at KRV A 57-58, and in his Handbuch derLogik,44 where he speaks of a 'circularity in explanation' that the ancients called diallele. A handwritten fragment dating from the period after the publication of the KRV sheds light on the role that the demand for a transcendent point of comparison played in Kant's thought. There we read, among other things, the following: If we require more for truth than the thoroughgoing coherence of intuitions according to the laws of the understanding, where then would we locate truth, if this more were not also the representation of a certain object? If we require further an agreement with something else, which does not lie in our representations, how could we compare it with our representations'? All objects ... are equally in us; an object outside of us is transcendent, that is, completely unknown to us and useless as a criterion of truth.45 The view of knowledge as a species of intuition, on the one hand, and the demand for the comparison of the state of affairs with the understanding's representation of it, on the other, are clearly connected. One can safely see in this demand, which is either impossible (if one insists that 'the whole of our self-consciousness ... yields nothing save merely our own determinations' - A 378), or superfluous (if one posits an ad hoc intuition that cognitionally reaches the state of affairs in itself), one of the reasons that led Kant to his idealism and thus to his coherence theory of the truth. The Reflexion quoted above clearly illustrates this.46

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5.4 'Cognitio debet esse originarie visio' inj. de Vries The conception of knowledge as intuition that has been explicated so far, and the problem of comparison that arises out of it, is thoroughly and consistently presented in the manual of epistemology of J. de Vries.47 From the very beginning the author states clearly: 'Cognitio ... debet esse ... originarie "visio" rei, eaque immediata' (Knowledge must be in its origins a 'seeing' of something, indeed an immediate seeing). Consequently, we read a propos of the comparison mentioned above: 'praeter ipsum iudicium, quo esse rei tantum "dicitur" ... alius actus postulari (!) videtur, quo ens reale non tantum dicitur, sed in se ipso attingitur seu "percipitur"' (besides judgment itself, in which the existence of a thing is only attested to ... another act seems to be postulated [!] in which a real being is not only attested to but is attained or 'perceived' in itself) (§ 8). For 'veritas ... immediate innotescere non posse videtur nisi immediata comparatione enuntiabilis cum ipsa re; quae comparatio fieri non potest, nisi ipsa res per seipsam se manifestat, ita ut in se percipitur' (truth ... seems to be incapable of being known immediately unless [it is shown] by an immediate comparison of the enuntiable with the thing itself; this comparison is impossible unless the thing itself by itself makes itself known, so that it is perceived in itself) (§ 17). The same point is made in another fundamental treatment of the essence of knowledge: 'elucet cognitionem nostram ... esse primario ... "visionem" obiecti' (it is obvious that our knowledge ... is primarily ... a 'seeing' of an object) (§ 156). Therefore, in order to make a 'iudicium certum' (sure judgment), 'saltern natura prius ... perceptio seu "visio" rei' (an at least naturally prior ... perception or 'vision1 of a thing) is necessary. Otto Muck has appropriately labeled this postulated fundamental operation, which alone makes possible the comparison of representation and thing, a 'look at the thing.'48 According to de Vries, such a 'casus privilegiatus immediatae perceptionis ipsius rei realis' (privileged case of an immediate perception of a real thing itself) is given in consciousness. A conscious operation has in conscientia duplicem modum essendi: esse reale, quod in conscientia concomitante apparet, et esse intentionale in iudicio conscientiae. Cum utrumque subsit perceptioni conscientiae, immediate etiam percipitur conformitas quaedam inter utrumque' (in consciousness two modes of being: a real being which appears in concomitant consciousness, and an intentional being in the judgment of consciousness. Since each is subjected to the perception of consciousness, a conformity between them is immediately perceived) (§ 25).

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This immediate self-revealing of a being-in-itself in the realm of consciousness is taken by the author as the point of departure for a rationally grounded knowledge of the external world, arrived at by means of a causal argument. With regard to the external world, then, de Vries affirms an 'evidentia mediata' (mediate or indirect evidence) and a 'realismus mediatus' (mediate realism). 5.5 The Contribution of the Category of Causality to Knowledge of the Object in the Kantian Tradition The view that the category of causality plays a role in the origin of our knowledge is not at all alien to the Kantian tradition, in two respects: (a) in the objectification and spatialization of the initially purely subjective and nonspatial impressions of sense, and (b) in our knowledge of the external world. (a) It was above all A. Schopenhauer who attributed to the causal function of the subject an essential role in the process of objectifying sensations.49 Of course Schopenhauer understands this objectification in a completely idealistic fashion, that is, in the sense of the subjective objectivity of which I have already spoken. 'All knowledge of a real object, that is, of a representation that is intuited in space, is only by and for the understanding, hence not before, but only after the application of it [of the law of causality].'50 Only when the understanding ... begins to act, and applies its single and sole form [!], the law of causality, does there occur a powerful transformation, in that objective intuition arises out of subjective perception. Namely, it apprehends, by means of its own form ... the given sensation of the body as an effect (a word that it alone understands), which as such must have a cause.51 Because the contribution of the understanding already belongs to the objective intuition, Schopenhauer speaks of an intellectual intuition in the human being: without the understanding, no cognitional relation to an object arises: 'All intuition is intellectual. For without the understanding there would never be any intuition, or perception, or apprehension of objects; rather, there would be only sensation.'52 In fact, Schopenhauer's thesis, as it is expressed, for example, in the following passage What the eye, the ear, the hand senses, is not intuition, but simply data. Only when the understanding moves from the effect to the cause is the world present, as intuition extended in space ...53

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contains an important component of the theory of knowledge that can be described and confirmed in an introspective analysis. Namely: Our knowledge is a process, and only at the end of this process is its object known. All phases in the process have, to be sure, their own object, including sensation and sensibility in general (the object as datum], but only judgment knows the object as reality, because only judgment answers our question about being. Relying on Schopenhauer's interpretation of Kant, natural scientists (physiologists and experimental psychologists) of the nineteenth century, especially Hermann von Helmholtz, incorporated into their experimental investigation of sense knowledge the theory that the unconscious utilization of the causal function lies behind the intuition of the object, and therefore behind our knowledge of the external world as well, and developed this theory further.54 (b) The problem of an external world whose existence must be argued for, and with it the essential elements of mediated realism were familiar to Kant and were variously judged by him in the course of his philosophical development. A. Kalter has recently pointed to four passages in writings by Kant that predate the KRV, in which Kant has taken into consideration the cognitional model that is upheld by mediated realism.55 In the Nova Dilucidatio of 1755 Kant proves, against the idealists, the 'realem corporum existentiam' (real existence of bodies) by means of the causal inference from the act of knowledge, insofar as this is an alteration of the soul.56 In his Inaugural Dissertation of 1770 idealism is again refuted on the basis of the passivity of our perceptions (§ 11). On the other hand, Kant shows that he is less convinced of the validity of such a proof in two passages that are not contained in his published writings. In the transcript (written by J.G. Herder) of a lecture on metaphysics given circa 1762, Kant holds that it is impossible to distinguish definitively between perception of the external world in the realistic sense and subjective deception.57 In the section of the Politz edition of Kant's Lectures on Metaphysics that corresponds to the years 1775-80, namely, in the special metaphysics, the primacy of inner sense is strongly emphasized; however, there is no compelling inference from inner experience to the independent reality of the external world, due to the plurality of possible causes of our 'external' perceptions.58 It is thus no surprise that in the fourth paralogism of the Transcendental Dialectic not only does the formulation of the paralogism repeat the socalled 'problematic' idealism (the existence of the objects of the external senses is doubtful insofar as it can be inferred only from perceptions), but the first three paragraphs of the Kantian critique of this paralogism in fact explain and confirm it (A 366-69)! Thus Kant was familiar with the model of a world whose existence can be deduced from the content of sense

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experience; he initially held this argument to be valid, but then rejected it as lacking probative force, not, of course, in favor of an immediate realism, but in favor of his transcendental idealism, for which both the inner and outer worlds are equally immediate, because both are equally mere representations of the subject! 6

Critical Realism: Human Knowledge Consists in the Threefold Operation of an Intelligent and Rational Intentionality 6.1 Introspective Method and Critical Realism

The odier alternative to the phenomenalism of the KRV challenges not merely the minor premise of the syllogism in question, but the major premise itself, that is, the theory according to which knowledge consists in some sort of intuition or looking. This challenge is not grounded in the fact that those who speak of human knowledge as a sort of visio or perceptio are speaking metaphorically. This is basically conceded, in a more or less clear fashion, even by the intuitionists themselves. Furthermore, in the investigation of a nonmaterial reality, recourse to one or another sort of picture is unavoidable in all theories of knowledge. Indeed, our understanding needs data, and also imagined pictures - if not formal pictures, then at least virtual or even only symbolic pictures. The model 'knowing is looking' will be set aside here because I do not want to locate the definitive explanation of why our knowledge is evidently capable of reaching things in themselves in a characteristic that is found in sensual intuition, and which therefore (!) must be found in a postulated rather than introspectively verified intellectual intuition, if human knowledge is to have objective validity. I am thinking of course of the characteristic that the intuitionists are also undoubtedly thinking of, and in which they find the essence of knowledge: extroversion, that is, the typical dynamism of sensibility, which is directed at a focal point in space outside of the subject, a focal point that is real insofar as it possesses a sensiblebiological relevance for the subject. When I look at a chair, I see there, a couple of meters away from me, the chair; it is the object. My eye is strangely not in the chair; it is some distance away in my head; it is the subject. The eye really sees the chair; it sees what is there to be seen; it does not see what is not there to be seen. That is objectivity.50 Human knowledge is objective precisely in the sense that my seeing is objective. However, it does not see merely data or material things; it sees reality qua reality; but like sensible intuition, human knowledge also brings about unity, contact, presence of subject and object, without abolishing the difference, the duality, between them.

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The method and conclusion of a theory of knowledge that is based on the analogy of intuition can now be summarized in the following two statements. The first is a positive statement: 'Every cognitional operation that is sufficiently similar to seeing with the eyes must be objective; for if it is sufficiently similar to seeing with the eyes, one can grasp in it the essence of objectivity, no less than in seeing with the eyes; and an operation that possesses the essence of objectivity must be objective.' The second is a negative statement: 'All cognitional operations that are not sufficiently similar to seeing with the eyes cannot be objective, for they lack what is essential to objectivity. In themselves, therefore, such operations are merely immanent; to be sure, they may play a subordinate or peripheral role in human knowing, especially when that knowing is not immediate but mediate; but by the very nature of the matter they can make no contribution of their own to the objectivity of human knowledge, for of themselves they have nothing to contribute.'60 What is inadequate, indeed deceptive, about such picture thinking is that it misleads us into deducing what, human knowledge must be in order to be objectively valid, instead of examining the human cognitional process in itself in order to discern how and by virtue of what it attains knowledge of its object as reality. I remarked already in section i that our cognitional process in all of its phases is conscious. Our task, therefore, is to examine these data in order to know the reality that human knowledge itself is. This is the introspective analysis that I take to be the appropriate method of developing a theory of knowledge, a method which seeks to grasp human knowledge in that which is peculiar to it, and to grasp why it is knowledge of being. Intuitionism in all its variations seems to rest upon the following confusion: What is obvious in knowing is certainly intuition or looking. Compared with looking, understanding is obscure, and grasping the unconditioned, that is, grasping the sufficient reason for the absolute positing of the judgment, is doubly obscure. But the principle of intuition amounts to the assumption that what is obvious in knowing is what knowing obviously is. But this assumption is false. For those who want to learn mathematics or natural science or philosophy, or who seek advice on everyday living, go to those who are intelligent and reasonable, not to those who are stupid and silly.61 In other words, de facto we do not hold to an alleged intuition of reality, but to the quite verifiable characteristics of intelligence and rationality, which human beings possess in varying degrees. In what follows, the theory of knowledge that I call critical realism will be sketched; by 'critical' I mean here simply that for every statement about the object of human knowledge, the operation must be given by which this object is known.621 shall limit myself to the fundamental elements of such

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a critical realism, at the same time, however, taking into account the KRV, in order in this way to understand more clearly both positions: sensualistic intuitionism, on the one hand, and critical realism, on the other, each according to its own character. 63 6.2 The Two Pillars of Critical Realism (a) Our cognitional process reveals itself to be the performance of a dynamism that, on the one hand, is dependent on sensibility and, on the other, is directed towards being. We can designate this drive to know with the traditional term 'intentionality.' The characteristics of this dynamism of the human spirit are intelligence and rationality (and morality), which express themselves in the questions that we spontaneously pose regarding data (the data of sense, to begin with). With the question, What is it? Quid sit? we seek to discover the intelligibility that is immanent within the data, that is constitutive of reality; with the further question, Is it so? An sit? we seek to determine the correctness of our interpretation of the data, which initially is only hypothetical, so that in this way we might reach the absolute positing of the judgment and, through it, knowledge of reality. This dynamism is unrestricted in its range. Every question about how far our intentionality reaches and every doubt about the unrestricted nature of our intentionality only confirms that, as a dynamism, as a seeking, it is in fact unlimited. The phenomenon of the question, and especially of the question of whether our intentionality is unrestricted, already proves that it is indeed unrestricted. Nothing is absolutely beyond the range of our intentionality, which is the ability to inquire:64 outside its questioning about being lies only that which simply 'is not' - that is, nothing! Because we are able to ask questions that transcend all conditions and limitations, we are able to ask about the object under an unconditioned aspect; that is, we are able to ask about the object insofar as it absolutely 'is' and, as such, also insofar as it does not depend for its existence on our knowledge of it. There is, therefore, no inner sphere of subjectivity, for our consciousness, that is, our self-presence as subjects, is characterized by a drive to the transcendent. On the basis of this thematization of intentionality we can define being, in accordance with our critical program, as the correlate of intentionality: 'Being ... is the objective of the pure desire to know,'65 or, taking into consideration the two features of our desire to know, according to which that desire operates, we can articulate the same operative distinction as follows: 'Being is whatever is to be known by intelligent grasp and reasonable affirmation.'66 Thomas Aquinas also concludes, on the basis of the unlimited range of our desire to understand, that being is the object of

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that desire: 'intellectus respicit suum obiectum secundum communem rationem entis, eo quod intellectus possibilis est "quo est omnia fieri."'67 Thus we have transposed the correlativity of ens and mens into a rational conception of reality: Because reality can be conceived only as correlative to our intelligent and rational intentionality, it is intrinsically intelligible. Now if by being one means the objective of the pure desire to know, the goal of intelligent inquiry and critical reflection, the object of intelligent grasp and reasonable affirmation, then one must affirm the intrinsic intelligibility of being. For one defines being by its intelligibility; one claims that being is precisely what is known by understanding correctly; one denies that being is anything apart from the intelligible or beyond it or different from it, for one's definition implies that being is known completely when there are no further questions to be answered.68 It is clear that any objection to the thesis of the essential intelligibility of reality that is raised by means and in the name of intelligence and rationality confirms this very intelligibility. The thesis of the intrinsic intelligibility of being does not assert that being is to be measured in terms of our limited capacity to understand; it does not assert that there is no question that we can pose but not satisfactorily answer. For being is not defined in terms of answers that we give, but by means of questions that we pose. And these questions claim to be intelligent and reasonable and, at the same time, relevant to what we are asking about! Here lies, in my opinion, the fundamental difference between critical realism and sensualistic intuitionism. Kant is, to be sure, no empiricist a la Hume. Above and beyond the operations of sense, he recognizes the perations of understanding and reason as belonging to human knowledge. But when he is faced with the crucial question, What of reality do we know through these 'higher' operations? his answer can only be, Nothing. Why? Because these cognitional operations, however one conceives of them in detail, are not intuitive operations. I have already discussed this noncognitional character of understanding and reason in Kant, in section 3. 'All our intuition is sensible' is the central thesis of the KRV. As intuition it is in itself capable of transcendence; but as sensible intuition it is de facto incapable of reaching reality in its being-in-itself; it can reach reality only as it appears to our sensibility, that is, the reality of appearance. The other species of intuition, intellectual intuition, which would be able to reach reality, is not in our possession. But what precisely is this intellectual intuition of Kant? It cannot be doubted that Kant conceives it according to the model of sensible intuition - which, incidentally, is unavoidable,

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since the latter is the only sort of intuition that is known to us. So-called intellectual intuition is not defined in terms of the attributes of intelligence and reasonableness, which characterize our understanding and our reason, but in terms of extroversion, which is peculiar to the dynamism of sensibility. With the difference, of course, that the extroversion of intellectual intuition reaches being. Thus there is a disparity between the intellectual intuition that is denied us and the operations of understanding and reason that are attributed to us. It is precisely in this disparity between the operations of the understanding, which we perform and which Kant recognizes in his own way, on the one hand, and the alleged intellectual intuition, which alone would be capable of knowledge of reality, on the other, that the negative key to understanding the KRV lies. The disparity between intelligence and reasonableness and the sought-after but not found intellectual intuition in us becomes, then, the disparity between intelligence and reasonableness, on the one hand, and the object of this intellectual intuition, on the other; that is, it becomes an irrationally conceived reality (the thing-in-itself). The analysis carried out so far already suggests what an introspectively verifiable refutation of Kant's phenomenalism would be. It does not, with Gilson, answer the Kantian denial of an intellectual intuition with an affirmation of such an intuition;69 it simply abandons the myth of intuitionism and identifies the operation (the intuition, if you will!) that reaches (or sees) being precisely with that intelligent and rational activity of intentionality that need not be postulated at all, so evident is it to all human beings in their intellectual experience. This activity, in which our unrestricted intentionality unfolds, can safely be called intellectual intuition; but in this case it is no longer a duplication of sensible intuition, but rather it is, as can be thematized in introspective analysis, intelligent and rational. If the intellectual intuition that Kant postulated is abandoned, then the puzzling thing-in-itself disappears, for the thing-in-itself is the correlate of an alleged intellectual intuition that is neither intelligent nor rational; the same thing-in-itself, therefore, as Kant correctly and consistently maintained, lies beyond the range of those operations of understanding and reason that Kant himself investigated in the Analytic and Dialectic. (b) The examination of the dynamism that provides the impetus for the cognitional process (the first pillar of critical realism) has already largely anticipated the threefold structure of human knowledge, which consists of experience, understanding, and judgment (the second pillar). Our intentionality is essentially dependent upon sensibility, so that human knowledge includes a phase that in itself precedes the operation of our intentionality, but that can only be adequately understood in us human

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beings in connection with its orientation towards this intentionality. Without making any claim to completeness, we can divide into the following stages the path that we follow before we attain knowledge of reality: seeing, hearing, smelling, touching, tasting, imagining, wondering, posing questions for intelligence (what is it?), inquiring into the data, understanding, conceiving, posing questions for reflection (is it so?), grasping the virtually unconditioned, judging. All of these operations divide into three distinct phases: the phase of experience; the phase of understanding, which is introduced by the question, What is it? and ends in concept formation; and the phase of judgment, which is introduced by the question, Is it so? and comes to its conclusion in the absolute positing of the judgment. These three levels of the cognitional process can take very different concrete forms, depending on the realm of reality that is under investigation and on the sort of knowledge that is aimed at. However, in order to know reality (that is, in order to make a judgment of fact), one must always have data of sense (or, in introspective cognition, data of consciousness itself), understand these data, and understand them correctly, so that the mental synthesis can be rationally asserted in the judgment. It is only in the rational judgment, and not before, that we know that which we were seeking from the very beginning: being. In the judgment, reality is not simply given, as in sensibility (without yet knowing what it is and whether this 'what' really is), nor is it merely thought, as in the concept, but it is known. Ens iudicio rationali cognoscitur (Being is known in rational judgment). Our 'seeing' or 'experiencing' or 'coming into contact with' reality occurs in the judgment.70 The rationality of the judgment, its truth, and nothing else, mediates reality for us!71 The impalpable act of rational assent is the necessary and sufficient condition for knowledge of reality.'72 It seems true to say that this epistemological thesis, which we spontaneously affirm in our cognitional performance after our rationality has matured and we are able to distinguish between fact and fiction, and which can be verified and grasped as true in one's own intellectual experience, is an extraordinary discovery, which one has not yet made if one has no clear memory of its startling strangeness.73 In fact, it requires an intellectual conversion 'ex umbris et imaginibus' ('out of the shadows and images') of picture thinking 'in veritatem' ('into the truth') of our intelligence and rationality. The doctrine of knowledge as the threefold operation of our intentionality and the doctrine of the intrinsic intelligibility of reality constitute the epistemological and ontological sides, respectively, of critical realism. If human knowledge is a threefold structure, then one must distinguish between the object of knowledge in the full sense and the object of knowledge in a further, partial sense, that is, the objects of the individual components of the structure. Each component has its own

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Figure 2

object: experience knows the object as datum, as merely given; insight knows the object as intelligible, for it grasps the intelligible relations in the data; judgment knows the object as existing, as posited in itself. Knowledge, as composed of these three partial operations, knows an existing thing (ein Seiendes): an individual thing that bears within itself an intelligible specification and that 'is.' Thus we have reached two conclusions. First, we have determined the meaning of the metaphysical components of reality. Corresponding to the threefold structure of our knowledge are the three metaphysical components of the reality that is proportioned to our knowledge (that is, the reality we can experience) ,74 namely, matter, form, and act. Just as reality in general can be defined only by means of the cognitional process, so too in the final analysis the metaphysical elements can be defined only in relation to the phases of that same cognitional process.75 Second, we have overcome the noncognitional character of the operations of understanding and reason, which in Kant's theory leads to an unbridgeable chasm between 'thought' and being. Insight into the sensible does not bring about an external arrangement of the 'true' reality (the content of perception!), but grasps a reality that is inaccessible to the senses: form as a metaphysical component of the being of the world (des welthaften Seins). Further, the est of the judgment is not a rubber-stamp confirmation or expression of a reality already mediated by the senses, but the act in which our intentionality knows being. 6.3 The Relation of the Cognitional Operations to Reality A theory of the relation of the various cognitional operations to the object of human knowledge, that is, to reality, follows from what has been said so far about the intentionality and structure of knowledge. This theory reverses the corresponding Kantian theory, which we have already studied. It can be expressed by means of the schema shown in Figure 2.

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(a) The immediate relation to (the intended) reality is given in intentionality, for intentionality inquires from the outset about being and thereby constructs a bridge between knower and known. That our intelligent and rational dynamism heads for being is a manifest datum that reveals itself in all of our questions, in the cognitional process as a whole, and in the effort to correct false judgments. The unrestricted nature of this intentionality makes us capable of an intentional self-transcendence. Reality is reached cognitionally in the judgment: ens iudicio rationali cognoscitur. Only the judgment, with its absolute est, satisfies our search for the absolute of being, that is, for what 'is.' We 'see' being by judging. The thesis that knowledge of reality occurs in the judgment insofar as the judgment brings the entire cognitional process to its conclusion, that is, the thesis of knowledge as a threefold structure, rules out the interpretation of knowledge as intuition; but it does not rule out 'immediate' knowledge of reality. Our immediate knowledge is a structured knowledge. The aforementioned path of intentionality from the question for intelligence to the judgment is not a causal inference.76 The objectivity and transcendence of human knowledge, therefore, can be understood only in relation to the judgment. Our knowledge is objective insofar as it knows reality. The absolute character of the object, its nonrelativity to the knowing subject, is linked to the est of the judgment, which is not limited by any qualification. This very knowledge is transcendent, that is, it is not imprisoned within an 'inner sphere' of transcendental subjectivity, not because it knows an external world that is located in space outside of the similarly material knowing subject, but because it heads for being, and within the realm of being there are various individual beings (A is, B is, C is ...), and therefore there is also an absolute difference between beings (A is not B ...), to which die difference of subject and object belongs. Because of its intention of being, the human subject is capable of cognitional self-transcendence. The conditions by virtue of which the subject is able to make a judgment are at the same time the conditions by virtue of which it knows what is not conditioned by it. It is crucial for our argument with intuitionism of all stripes that one keep separate the extroversion of sense intuition, on the one hand, and the transcendence of an unconditioned affirmation (est) of an unrestricted intentionality, on the other hand. (b) The relation to reality is given mediately in the concept. That is, that which we have grasped in the act of understanding, the intelligible, implies in and of itself only the possibility of being. Only when understanding gives way to the concrete judgment of fact is this instance of the intelligible recognized as belonging to reality. We think in order to know the real; but so long as we only think, we do not yet know the real. This interpretation

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of the mediate relation of the concept to reality is only apparently identical to the Kantian theory, discussed above, of the mediacy of the relation of the concept - of thought - to reality. For according to Kant, the concept is related mediately to reality because to the concept must be added the corresponding empirical intuition. This fits in well with the doctrine of a priori concepts, which are empty without the 'material' of the empirical intuition. According to critical realism, the concept is related mediately to reality insofar as the corresponding judgment must be added to the concept, for it is through the judgment that it is known whether what initially was only thought is also real. In other words, for Kant the concept is recognized as true via intuition; for critical realism, the concept is recognized as true via judgment. (c) The relation to reality is doubly mediated in (external or internal) experience. Far from constituting the moment of our contact with the real, the datum in its givenness must be enriched with intelligibility through our inquiry, and this intelligibility must prove to be correct in the course of our critical reflection, before it mediates to us the knowledge of the real thing of which it is the datum. Of course, this is not to deny that the object of sensibility is given through the immediate influence of the external world on our similarly material organs of sense. However, critical realism does, to be sure, deny that the world in space and time is known as reality already before, and independently of, the operation of our intention of being. The dichotomy, Is what we know through our sense perceptions appearance or reality? is a false dichotomy. Perception mediates to us neither appearance nor reality, but data, which our intention of being must then inquire into in order to determine the 'what' and the 'being' of this 'something' that is given to us. 'It is just as much a matter of judgment to know that an object is not real but apparent, as it is to know that an object is not apparent but real.'77 I sit in my study and hear a sound. I thereby have a datum of sense. In my 'normal' psychological condition I immediately arrive at the correct interpretation of this datum and thereby at knowledge of the corresponding reality: the doorbell is ringing. But it could also be that I am not in a healthy psychological condition; I think that somebody has rung the doorbell; but in fact the doorbell is not ringing at all; rather, there is some disturbance affecting my nervous system ... What, then, have the senses mediated to me? Mere appearance? No, neither appearance nor reality, but simply a datum. Now whether the correct interpretation of this datum belongs to physics and acoustics or to psychiatry, and therefore the question regarding what state of affairs this datum is a datum of, is not a matter of sensibility, but of judgment.

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6.4 Two Meanings of 'Object' According to the text that has guided our inquiry, it is sensible intuition that produces the relation between knowledge and its object (A 19). I have attempted, first of all, in light of the entire KRV, to work out the meaning and the consequences of this fundamental thesis, and then to present an alternative in which the intentionality of the human spirit exercises the function that Kant attributes to sensual intuition. If we apply the method of operative definition to both theories, we arrive at two fundamentally different meanings of 'object,' which point towards two different theories of being, (a) There is the object that is mediated by the operation of our intelligent and reasonable intentionality. Since this same intentionality is the origin of meaning, the object conceived in this way belongs to the world that is mediated to us by meaning, (b) There is the object of (sensible) immediacy, which is given to us even before we pose and answer questions, namely, the object as the sensible perceivable, which occupies a determinate position in space and time in relation to a viewer. Such an object belongs to the world that we have in common with animals. We lived in this world as infants, before we learned to articulate the wonder of our awakening spirit in language and so gradually came, through questions and answers, to discover the larger world of meaning. In the context of the world to which we are related by intentionality it is possible to reconstruct the object in the world of immediacy. Such an object is an 'already out there now real.' It is already: it is given prior to any questions about it. It is out for it is the object of extraverted consciousness. It is there, as sense organs, so too sensed objects are spatial. It is now. for the time of sensing runs along with the time of what is sensed. It is real: for it is bound up with one's living and acting and so must be just as real as they are.78 Which of these two objects is reality, being? The fact that we pose this question and cannot answer it without exercising our intentionality already indicates how the question is to be answered. However, it is not only in this instance of philosophical 'retortion,' but always and everywhere, that we are dynamically oriented towards the object through our questions and know it to the extent that we have reached true answers, whether in our commonsense, everyday knowledge, or in natural science.79 If the world of being is the world that is mediated by our intentionality, then it is clear that the objectivity of human knowledge cannot get along without the concrete individual subject.

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In the world mediated by meaning and motivated by value, objectivity is simply the consequence of authentic subjectivity, of genuine attention, genuine intelligence, genuine reasonableness, genuine responsibility. Mathematics, science, philosophy, ethics, theology differ in many manners; but they have the common feature that their objectivity is the fruit of attentiveness, intelligence, reasonableness, and responsibility.80 The truth of human knowledge cannot be reached without the personal commitment and personal responsibility of the person who judges. 6.5 Sensibility and Understanding Are Both Necessary for Human Knowledge. But Who Serves Whom?

It is appropriate at the end of this essay to apply the conclusion of our historical-systematic investigation to the interpretation of a passage from the KRV, in order to fix the precise positions of sensualistic intuitionism and critical realism. For this purpose I take a passage from the chapter on the antinomies, but the point made in this passage is made not only in the chapter on the antinomies; virtually identical statements can be found everywhere in the KRV. The text I have chosen is distinguished by an impressively formulated statement: 'Possible experience is that which can alone give reality to our concepts; in its absence a concept is a mere idea, without truth, that is, without relation to any object' (A 489) .8l There is no need to trouble ourselves about the immediate context of this statement, for in passages like this one, the truly relevant context is the entire work, inasmuch as Kant summarizes in them his position on knowledge and being in general. As it stands, there is a fundamental ambiguity about this statement. It says: The concept needs experience82 in order to be recognized as true. But in what way does experience give the concept its object and thereby its reality? Two interpretations are possible of this in itself obvious statement. (a) The activity of sensibility reaches reality (of course, for Kant, the reality of appearance), and because of its connection with the understanding it renders the concept true. What in itself is the mere thinking of a possible object becomes the thinking of a reality that is actually given to the subject through intuition, that is, it becomes knowledge (see B 146). The concept is thereby no longer an empty concept but one that has 'brought' a certain reality 'to the concept' ('aufden Begriff gebrachf hat}. After what I presented in section 2 regarding the principle of intuition, there can be no doubt that this interpretation of A 489 reflects Kant's own theory. Texts like the already quoted A 399, 'by intuition alone is the object

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given, which thereupon is thought in accordance with the category,' point unambiguously to a cognitional function that is reserved for empirical intuition alone, that is, in relation to the only reality that is at all knowable to us. In A 489, 399, and similar texts, Kant does, to be sure, speak of a twofold cognitional structure, but in such a way that his sensualistic intuitionism is by no means overcome. There is a correspondence between the concept and the reality given by intuition, and in this sense the concept brings about a human kind of knowledge. But the relation of knowledge to the object is established by empirical intuition alone; it alone reaches the object. This is precisely the sensualism that characterizes the entire KRV. Because of this sensualistic realism Kant can easily speak about the 'intuition of the real object,' which 'must necessarily be empirical' (A 720), or of matter, which 'contains an existent (ein Daseiri) corresponding to sensation' (A 723). Kant seems, incidentally, to have subscribed to this sensualism early on, since already in the second half of the 17605, when his critical philosophy and the phenomenalism that went along with it were not yet in sight, he was able to write regarding Baumgarten's definition of existentia (Metaphysica, § 55): 'But we therefore know the existence of things through 6 sensation. ,Qo (b) Empirical intuition provides only data, to which the subsequent operations of the understanding, that is, the question, inquiry, etc., are related. But the datum, and thus sensibility as well, plays a double role with regard to intentionality. First, the datum is the material in which the understanding can grasp the intelligible by discovering the intelligibility of a connection, a unity, among the data (intelligere in sensibili). On the basis of the intelligibility that it has grasped, the understanding is able to form a concept.84 Second, this same intuition provides the conditions that fulfil the conditioned that is expressed in the concept, and so, because of the virtually unconditioned that has thereby been reached,85 lead to the affirmation in the judgment of the reality of the concept. This is the meaning that critical realism would give to the passage from A 489 quoted above. This is the only interpretation that does not fall back into sensualistic intuitionism, although it does fully recognize the indispensability of empirical intuition, both to the formation and to the affirmation of the concept. What precisely is the difference between interpretation (a) and interpretation (b, second point)? According to interpretation (a), one must return from the concept to the empirical intuition, because only the intuition reaches the object thought by the concept. According to (b, second point), one must move forward from the concept to the judgment of fact, because only the judgment of fact reaches the object thought by the concept. Of

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course, moving on to the judgment requires that the concept be verified in light of the available data, and in this sense a return to sensibility does occur. But the return to sensible intuition as the sole activity that is able to reach reality is one thing; the return to sensible intuition in order to find the necessary and sufficient reason that makes possible the unconditioned positing of the judgment, in which alone reality is reached, is quite another thing. Far from challenging sensualistic intuitionism, the first interpretation cements it. The second interpretation is that of critical realism, for which the truth of the judgment mediates reality. In other words, according to Kant, 'experience, as empirical synthesis, is... the one species of knowledge which is capable of imparting reality to any nonempirical synthesis (aller anderen Synthesis)' (A 157), while according to the alternative presented in the second part of this study it is rational judgment that does this. From what has been said it is clear that both interpretations can be squared with the Kantian statement, 'Possible experience alone can give reality to our concepts,' but each understands the statement in a completely different sense. The plausibility of the Kantian doctrine that objectively valid knowledge is possible for us human beings only in the realm of experience lies in the obviousness and, at the same time, in the ambiguity of this statement. What has been said also shows that one has not left sensualism or empiricism behind simply because one defends the thesis that knowledge consists of sense experience and the activity of the understanding. Leaving aside the question of how exactly one conceives the activity of the understanding,86 the decisive question still remains: Who serves whom? Is it the understanding that serves sensible intuition, or is it sensible intuition that stands in the service of the understanding? In other words: Which of the two determines what reality is, and therefore what the criterion of knowledge of reality is? The first schema sketched above (Figure i) shows that according to sensualistic intuitionism it is sensible intuition that determines the meaning and range of reality. Thought is placed in the service of intuition;87 but reality is not the correlate of thought, and is therefore not reached by it. The fundamental limitation of our knowledge to the things of sense experience follows unavoidably from the thesis that thought stands in the service of sensible intuition. However, the main thesis of Kant's empiricist critical philosophy does not follow if the opposite relation of 'servant' and 'served' obtains in the structure of cognition. In my opinion, the latter is the case. In the section of the KRVwhere Kant thematically lays out what is to be understood by 'reality' (in the Postulates of Empirical Thought in General), we find what is perhaps the clearest formulation of sensualistic intuitionism together with its consequence, namely, the restricting of our

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knowledge to the world. The criterion of reality: 'The perception which supplies the content to the concept is the sole mark of actuality (Wirklichkeity (A 225). The range of our knowledge: 'Our knowledge of the existence of things reaches, then, only so far as perception and its advance according to empirical laws can extend' (A 226; see also A 601, towards the end of the twelfth paragraph of Section 4). One could hardly wish for a more impressive summary of the naive, i.e., sensualistic, intuitionism towards which so-called common sense inclines whenever it reflects on its cognitional activity (which is something very different from the performance of knowledge itself!). While the idealistic superstructure of the KRV with its characteristic doctrines (transcendental apperception, the thetic character of thought, the transcendental deduction of the pure concepts of the understanding, etc.) was to a large extent relevant only for the internal concerns of professional philosophers who shared Kant's transcendental or idealistic leanings, the sensualistic intuitionism that was discerned in the two quoted statements has had an epoch-making influence in the last two centuries. In the intellectual history of our age, Kant has become the chief representative of modern empiricism and thus of the 'horizon of immanence' that characterizes our culture. In the second schema (Figure 2) it is sensibility that is placed in the service of the understanding, that is, of intentionality. The latter (intentionality) determines the meaning and range of reality, namely, the performance of the same intentionality in the judgment. Two things follow from this schema. First, we also know the world through rational judgment. In other words, the 'world of experience,' the material world, is not at all known solely by experience! Second, absolutely transcendent reality, reality that cannot be sensibly experienced, also lies within the range of our intentionality. Thus when we make a reasonable judgment about it, we know it too.88 A sound refutation of Kant's thesis of the unknowability of God by theoretical reason presupposes that one has already refuted his sensualistic intuitionism with regard to knowledge of the world of experience. This was the purpose of our study of Kant's KRV.

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Intuitionism: Knowing Is Looking

In my study of the Critique of Pure Reason1 I defended the thesis that the epistemology of Kant's major work consists in a sensualistic version of intuitionism. The friendly response of Fr Josef de Vries to my remarks, in Theologie und Philosophic 58 (1983) 566-69, provides me with the opportunity once again to explain what I mean by intuitionism and why I take it to be an incorrect interpretation of human knowledge. Reflection on human knowledge spontaneously begins - and it has been carried out in this way through most of the history of philosophy - with the question, How is it that human beings are able, by means of an admittedly immanent act (the act of knowing), to know something that transcends them, i.e., is independent of them? How can the knowing person, with his or her immanent representation, know something the being of which does not consist in being represented? By what means is the knowing person able to transcend himself or herself? Intuitionism answers this question: Because in the last analysis knowledge is and must be a kind of seeing. For intuitionism, the essence of knowledge in general lies in a kind of looking or intuition (in Latin, intuitio). For it is obvious that seeing, in the primary and genuine sense of the word, is an act that is capable of achieving transcendence. My eyes are in my head, seeing is something I do with my eyes, and yet I reach with my seeing something that lies outside of me: the material objects that stand at various distances from me. Thus intuitionism rests upon the following principle: an intuitive act is the transcendental condition of the possibility of the objectivity (in the sense of transcendence) of knowledge. I have called this the principle of intuition.

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It is by no means the case that this basic thesis necessarily implies a sensualistic or materialistic epistemology. The principal analogate, sensible seeing or looking, is only the starting point - though to be sure the unavoidable starting point for us human beings. From this starting point it is possible to ascend to or postulate an intellectual intuition: as the faculty of sight sees and thereby transcends the subject, so too the understanding sees in its own (and better) way. And while the eye merely grasps the sensible aspects of reality (or even, as Kant claims along with many others, merely grasps appearances in the sense of nonrealities), the understanding sees deeper, i.e., it sees reality, being. I take this analogy, at least initially, to be epistemologically neutral.2 It is an obvious analogy. 'Omnis cognitio incipit a sensu' (All knowledge begins from sense). This is true also of that knowledge that is the theory of knowledge itself. To speak of knowledge as a kind of intuition or looking is to speak figuratively or metaphorically. Quintilian remarks in this regard, 'paene jam, quidquid loquimur, figura est' (Almost all of our language is figurative [a metaphor].) 3 So it is no surprise that this analogy and the corresponding terminology can be found in the writings of so many epistemologists. But in my opinion, this analogy does not tell us very much; what is more, as it is de facto employed, it proves to be misleading in many ways. It misleads one, on the one hand, into conceiving human intellectual knowledge as a (higher) duplicate of sensible intuition or looking, and, on the other hand and more importantly, into overlooking what is proper, peculiar, and exclusive to human knowledge. After all, it is not obvious from the start that human knowledge must be similar to sensible seeing in the act (or acts) through which it knows being. 2

Introspection as the Method for Attaining Knowledge of Knowledge

Knowing is a conscious operation, that is, an operation in which and by which the subject is aware of itself, is present to itself as subject. More precisely, human knowing in the full sense of the word is a conscious process that assembles itself out of several different operations. Now, because these various operations are conscious, they can be taken as data in order to arrive at knowledge of what it is to know. For, just as we raise questions about the data of sense to know what they are data of, so too we can raise questions about the data of consciousness - in our case, cognitive operations - in order to know the reality that human knowledge is. Thus the appropriate method of developing an epistemology is the introspective method. By thematizing each phase of the entire process, each operation shall be grasped in its peculiar character. Now it could be that by thematizing that which an adult does spontaneously, but intelligently and rationally,

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whenever he knows, components and properties will be brought to light which belong essentially to human knowledge, but which remain unnoticed in an epistemology that is based on the model of (sensible) intuition, because these properties do not in any way characterize sensible intuition, and so cannot be grasped even if this intuition is heightened to an intellectual intuition that intuits being. This indeed is the case. When we analyze the entire cognitive process, we find the various operations of sensing, wondering about the data of sense (or consciousness), questioning as the expression of that wonder, the drive to understand (What is it that is given?), the satisfying moment of insight into the data, the formation of the concept as the inner word with which we express a 'something' (the intelligible and the material components belonging to it), and the persistent further question of our intentionality (Is it so?), which is not satisfied by just any clever interpretation of the data but demands the solidity and indisputability of that which absolutely is, until after weighing the pros and cons this rationality must bow before the de facto absolute of an interpretation that finds its counterpart in the data and is not inconsistent with any of the data at hand. In this inner compulsion of our rationality, that is, in rational affirmation or negation (est, non est), we know that about which we were asking from the very beginning: being, reality. 3

Basic Theses of an Introspectively Developed Epistemology

I have indicated in a purely phenomenological fashion the various stages of the human cognitive process, without making any epistemological claim. It is impossible within the confines of this brief reply to relate precisely the moments in this process, how they are connected with one another, how one phase calls forth the next, the immanent operative laws (the so-called first principles) according to which this process unfolds, etc. I can only proceed schematically and select three doctrines that are fundamental for a nonintuitionist theory of knowledge. (i) The cognitive process in human beings is carried forward by an intentionality, i.e., by a dynamism, that from the very beginning intends being, for it poses the questions Quid sit? (What is it?) and An sit? (Is it? Is it so?) until it reaches an answer in the judgment. The process, which begins with the data of sense (or consciousness), reveals itself as an intentional process, for intentionality is nothing other than our spontaneous, intelligent, and rational ability to pose questions that seek an intelligible component in the data (What is it?) and questions that subject these components to a rational test (Is it so?). The epistemological doctrine that arises from this is that the bridge that

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links knower and known, subject and object (in the sense of reality), is intentionality itself, that is, our questions about being. We ask about the transcendent, we are in search of what 'is' where the 'is' is not qualified or restricted. We ask about that which simply 'is' - not about that which is from this or that point of view, or about that which is for me or for some other person. We ask about what is - period. In presenting this fundamental thesis, I have made no use of the analogy of looking or intuiting. Indeed, this analogy helps very little, if at all. We have brought to light something essential about human knowledge, something that, due to the utilization of the metaphor of seeing, is widely overlooked and then replaced by a postulated higher seeing of the understanding, which is said to make possible the epistemological transcendence that in fact characterizes the range of our intentionality, understood as an unlimited dynamism (there is nothing that we cannot ask about). This is so in the epistemology that I have called an intellectual version of intuitionism. (2) A precise analysis of the cognitive process would distinguish within it three essentially distinct and therefore irreducible phases. Thus the alternative to intuitionism, briefly stated, is the position that human knowledge in the full sense of the word, that is, knowledge of being, is a threefold structure.4 (a) The phase of the mere presentation of data, of experience - whether of outer or inner experience (the data of sense or of consciousness) . In this phase we acquire the subject matter of our questions, (b) The phase of insight, which is initiated and guided by the question for intelligence (What is it?) and ends in concept formation, (c) The phase of judgment, which is initiated and guided by the critical question (Is it so?) and ends in the rational judgment. Since it was established above that intentionality seeks reality, it follows that these three phases constitute the three spans of the bridge from the subject to the object. By passing over this bridge, which one oneself erects piece by piece, the subject finds what he or she is seeking: being. Once again we have an essential doctrine that intuitionism, with its metaphor of an intuiting or looking that cannot be explained in terms of anything else, does not grasp. Or, if it does speak of various stages of knowing, intuitionism does not see in them alone the operation that reaches the transcendent, but posits above and beyond these operations an intuition of being that is suggested by the logic of the metaphor but is hardly introspectively verifiable. Intuitionism would say that experience, insight, and judgment (or something similar) serve intellectual intuition, without being able to say exactly what this service consists in or what the various operations still have to do if our understanding has already reached being in the intuition it has postulated.

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(3) The final thesis is that reality is grasped only in judgment, namely, in the absolute affirmation or positing (est) of the mental synthesis. This third doctrine follows from the two preceding doctrines. If being is the correlate of our intentionality, i.e., of our questioning, and if intentionality reaches the answer to its search for being by means of two species of question, then being is known only in judgment. Thus judgment does not merely express or make explicit an already present knowledge of reality; it is not a statement of a reality already seen (by means of what operation?); on the contrary, it is an operation in which, as the conclusion and recapitulation of the entire preceding process, reality is known for the first time. Only in judgment does the transcendence of human knowledge take place, the transcendence of which I spoke in framing the issue at the outset of this essay. This transcendence does not consist in the subject reaching an 'already out there now real,' but in the subject knowing a being: something that 'is.' When the being that is known is material (the proper object of the human being as 'spirit in the world'), then of course this being will exist outside of and opposite to the similarly material subject. It is above all this doctrine of the judgment - ens iudicio rationali cognoscitur (being is known by rational judgment) - that intuitionism fails to appreciate, a failure that is due to its fundamental paradigm. Indeed, I have never found this doctrine in the writings of de Vries. The last part of de Vries's response (in Theologie und Philosophic 4/1983) makes clear that for him it is still the case that 'praeter ipsum iudicium, quo esse rei tantum dicitur, ... alius actus postulari videtur, quo ens reale non tantum dicitur, sed in seipso attingitur seu percipitur' (besidesjudgment itself, in which the existence of a thing is only attested to, ... another act seems to be postulated, in which a real being is not only attested to but is attained or perceived in itself) .5 Of course, it is not impermissible to use the metaphor of seeing: our understanding sees being, reality, as it is. Or other metaphors as well: we experience being, we encounter being, etc. But those who do so must be clear that the seeing, experiencing, or encountering of being is our rational judgment and nothing else! Those who are not content with a mere (!) rational judgment 6 but demand something 'more' are still imprisoned within picture thinking, for which what is obvious in knowing - and this is certainly seeing - is what knowing obviously is. This is the reason for my saying that the metaphor of looking and, with it, intuitionism are in themselves neutral. After developing on an introspective basis the epistemology sketched above, one could return to the same metaphor and advance the thesis that we know being by means of an intellectual intuition. 'Intuition' would mean here the performance of the

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threefold structure of our intentionality, so that the thesis of an (outer or inner) intuition of being would amount to the thesis that we know being in and through judgment. But in my opinion, with regard to the real problems of epistemology, there are no advantages at all to using this metaphor. 4

Self-knowledge - An Exception?

Everything I have said so far in my debate with intellectualistic intuitionism holds true for human knowledge of reality in general. If my analysis is correct, I see no reason for postulating a few exceptional cases, or even a single one,7 in which intuitionism proves after all to be a correct account of knowledge - for example, the case of self-knowledge or, very generally, the so-called judgments of consciousness on which many neoscholastic thinkers place so much value. In his most recent book, too, de Vries argues for the unique status of judgments of consciousness.8 First he requires a comparison between the statement (not in the sense of the act, but in the sense of the content of the judgment) and the reality that the statement refers to, so that we can know the truth of the statement at all. Then he asks whether there is a special cognitive act which, unlike the former, need not be examined, but is an act 'of a different sort,'9 a seeing or perceiving, in which the fact, object, being reveals itself to us. 'If there is no seeing in this sense, then there is no hope that the truth can ever become evident. Thus the question is, Where do we have such a seeing?'10 Examination of judgments of consciousness, i.e., judgments that 'say no more than what we immediately experience'11 - for example, 'I see a table,' whether I am dreaming or awake, whether the table exists or not, etc. - is fortunately able to locate this Archimedean point. The act that is present in consciousness is the desired fact that reveals itself to us and that we see or perceive. Here we have the transcendent point of comparison; as a consequence, the comparison is possible, and certainty and truth are ensured. 'Now in such judgments it is possible to compare immediately that which is thought and stated in the judgment with the actual being of the fact, because both, the judgment and that about which I judge, are present to me in consciousness.'12 Since we have discovered the decisive 'seeing,' the truth of our knowledge is in principle secured. Before the author makes the leap to the external world, he summarizes once again his criterion of truth on pp. 73-74: the self-revealing of the fact, the seeing of the fact, and the comparison of statement and fact. The question poses itself with regard to the allegedly privileged case of judgments of consciousness, how the object as being is known sometimes

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(in one or a few cases) by an immediate intuition or experience, and at other times (in most cases) in a completely different way, for example, by the performance of intentionality. It is clear that this performance can take very different forms (in science, commonsense knowledge, etc.). But the theory that in knowledge of oneself as reality13 the operations of intelligence and reason are 'switched off suggests such a strange division in our faculty of knowledge that a special argument is necessary to establish this. I find no such argument in the writings of the intuitionists. Do we have two different faculties for knowing being: the understanding with its, as Thomas Aquinas says again and again, 'duplex mentis operatic' (twofold operation of the mind), which follows upon the preceding stage of experience, and ...? What would the other faculty be, which attains knowledge of being without understanding and judging? We have only one head, and all of the evidence indicates that our faculty of knowledge always knows reality as such (whether inner or outer) because it operates intelligently and reasonably, because it poses questions pertaining to the data and then answers them as well. From the thesis that knowledge of reality is an achievement of the performance of our intentionality it follows that the more attentive, intelligent, and reasonable we are, the more we know of reality. Experience clearly confirms such a theory of knowledge. It is obvious that there are differences between the direct cognitive process that issues in judgments regarding the external world (The Cathedral of Our Lady in Munich exists') and the introspective cognitive process that issues in judgments about oneself ('I exist,' 'I was angry about that,' 'I see a yellow surface,' etc.).14 One begins from the data of the external senses, the other from the data of consciousness. Likewise, it should be neither disputed nor underestimated that an epistemological reflection that is in itself simple can reveal cases in which certain judgments of consciousness contain performative self-contradictions - thus, for example, the judgment, 'We do not know reality.' Similarly, there is no need to deny the fact that the introspective judgment 'I am' is certain and is important for an epistemology. However, the last judgment alone, as certain as it may be, does not yet achieve anything, whether in epistemology or in metaphysics. For everything depends on what one means by 'am,' that is, by being. The Gottingen reviewer of the KRV accused Kant's transcendental idealism of transforming 'the world and us ourselves into representations,'15 although Kant had by no means questioned the certainty of self-knowledge and the reviewer knew Kant's position on this. One can find as much clear evidence as one wishes of this all-encompassing idealism, which applies also to the self, in the 'critique of the fourth paralogism of transcendental

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psychology' in the first edition of the KRV. Of course Kant's idealism is subject to the restriction that things in themselves lie behind all appearances (of the self and of the external world) as mere representations. But a critical theory of knowledge can do without a transcendent being of which, it is claimed, we know nothing. This historical example is informative, too, I believe, because an epistemology like that of de Vries belongs to the numerous attempts in the history of philosophy to overcome the phenomenalism and, with it, the immanentism of Kant's transcendental philosophy. But if one insists on judgments of consciousness as cases in which any doubt about whether the facts of the matter really are so is out of the question, because there occurs here an immediate self-revealing of the facts themselves in the realm of consciousness, then one has in Kant not an opponent but an ally. Kant goes even further. For him 'external things exist as well as I myself, and both, indeed, upon the immediate witness of my self-consciousness' (A 371). De Vries holds that comparison, which for him is the decisive touchstone of truth, is possible because the fact in question reveals itself in consciousness. Now according to Kant we can know the existence of the external world 'without going outside mere self-consciousness' (A 370). In the 'refutation of idealism' the second edition of the KRV made this doctrine even more radical: it is only on the basis of the immediate consciousness of objects outside of me that consciousness of my own existence as determined in time is possible. It is not the task of this response to argue with Kant's views on this matter. I would like merely to point out that according to Kant, knowledge can be immediate, certain, and true, and nonetheless not be knowledge in the sense of what Kant calls 'transcendental realism.' For it is Kant's view that the reality that discloses itself immediately in consciousness is nothing more than apparent reality, the conditions of the constitution of which lie a priori in the transcendental subject. This confirms what I wrote in my essay,16 namely, that the decisive epistemological question is not whethervie. know reality (to which the answer would be provided by the indisputability of 'inner' facts), but what knowing is. The answer to the latter question consists in the clarification of the process of coming to know and in the definition of reality as the correlate of the intelligent and reasonable cognitive operations that we actually engage in. Intuitionism is thereby refuted. For intuitionism postulates an intuitive operation as the mediator between knower and reality, because it has stripped this function from our introspectively verifiable intellectual operations, that is, because it has established a disparity between understanding and judgment, on the one hand, and reality, on the other. Thus my question for intuitionism is whether or not these so-called

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judgments of consciousness arise because we have the necessary data and understand them (to be sure in a very uncomplicated way), and, indeed, understand them correctly, so that we can rationally judge: I am, I see a yellow surface, etc.17 If the answer is yes, then the contested term 'intuition' is only a shorthand expression for the three-level performance of intentionality. 'We see being directly,' 'we perceive our being immediately' means: We have exercised our intelligence and our rationality and have thereby come to know being (our self). In this way the entire controversy reduces itself to a question of words. Unfortunately, however, I do not believe it is that simple. In my opinion, the difference between the intellectualistic version of intuitionism in neoscholasticism that we are discussing here, which has a long and honorable history, and the view on knowledge as the performance of intentionality, is a real and indeed an essential one. A clear confirmation of the view that the difference between the intuitionism of de Vries and the theory of human knowledge as a threefold structure is an essential difference can be found in de Vries's 'mediate realism.' In his most recent comments, too, de Vries declares his allegiance to the account, which he has developed in detail in all of his works on epistemology, of how we come to know the outer world. At the end of his response he writes that judgments of consciousness are 'the only immediate existential propositions.' They alone among existential propositions 'rest upon immediate seeing.' All other existential propositions, and this means all other knowledge of reality, can be reached (only) by causal inferences, namely, inferences from \hefundamentum inconcussum that our knowledge of the 'inner world' gives us, to knowledge of a real external world as the only adequate explanation of the complex, constant, and coherent representation of a spatial world that we have and share with all other human beings. Though to be sure, according to de Vries, this is not an inference that guarantees absolute certainty - but I shall return to this. This theory means, for example, that when I enter a room in which a fire is burning in a fireplace and immediately see the flames and perceive the typical aroma of burning wood, I know that a fire is there because I infer from these 'appearances,' as de Vries has just labeled them earlier in his text, that there must be a sufficient reason - and this can be nothing other than an actual fire. Mediate realism clearly follows from the principle of intuition, which, for purposes of certainty, is limited to the 'inner realm' of consciousness. If the final and proper justification of the truth of a judgment is the prior self-revealing of the object itself, and if on the other hand this immediate self-revealing does not take place in the case of objects outside of our

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consciousness, then there is no other way of transcending the limits of this inner realm than that of applying the lever of the causal principle to the 'actual operations' of the self with its representations. According to the theory of knowledge as performance of our intentionality, the problem of how we can transcend the inner realm of consciousness does not even arise. For there is no inner realm of consciousness, since the subject is equipped with an unrestricted dynamism towards the intelligible, the true, the real (and the good).18 Being is the correlate of this dynamism insofar as it is intelligent and rational. From this rational conception of reality it follows that being is known through intelligent and reasonable answers. Now whether this intentionality questions the data19 of external experience or of consciousness makes no essential difference in its performance. In both cases, as the cognitive process unfolds it moves from experience to insight, in order, finally, to reach the truth of judgment and, through truth, to know being. In both cases, knowledge of reality in the full sense of the term is a structure. The kind of question for intelligence that is posed with regard to the data varies quite a bit depending on the kind of data at hand and the mode of knowledge to which the questioner aspires. Not all questions are questions about an efficient cause. In the example of the fire, discussed above, this is certainly not the case, and the same can be said normally of our knowledge of the external world. The knowledge that a fire is burning here in this room, or that here before me the Wendelstein20 looms, is not mediate knowledge, not the conclusion of an inference that proceeds from my representations understood as appearances, but the result of the fact that I have the direct data of the reality in question and understand them correctly, too. Immediate knowledge of reality, like all our knowledge of reality, is a structured knowledge. In contrast to brute animals, which perceive roughly the same sense data that we do, we know that the fire 'is,' that the Wendelstein 'is,' because our understanding and our reason raise questions about these data. Of course there is also mediate knowledge of reality. I am outside and I see the chimney smoking. I infer from this immediate knowledge of the reality of the smoke that a fire is burning in the room below, although I neither see nor smell the fire. This is clearly an inference, a cognitio mediata, which of course also exhibits a threefold structure and in which the decisive insight is into the relation of effect and cause. In my opinion it is not a valid objection to the interpretation of human knowledge as the performance of intelligence and reason to note that judgments like 'I am' or 'I see red' arise in a flash, without our noticing any process of questioning, inquiring, weighing the pros and cons. This objection amounts to no more than the observation that, in those spheres

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of reality in which we are completely at home, knowledge of reality takes place in instanti and without effort. For example, when, standing on the street beneath a heavy downpour, I know that it is raining. Just as in the sphere of willing there is not only free decision but also, as a consequence of free decision, a state of free determination into which freedom of choice is sublated, so too in the realm of knowing there is not only the act of knowledge, but also the state that follows upon it of knowledge as habitus. Much time passed before we attained knowledge of ourselves as realities (a small child whose intentionality cannot yet be exercised lacks this self-knowledge); similarly, it takes time for us to become acquainted with our everyday world or with a special area of scholarship. Once we have done so, however, we need only to be awake and to have or recall the relevant data, and the correct understanding of the data and, with it, knowledge of reality is immediately given, without our having to go through the entire process of questioning, inquiring, and answering once more. 5

Consciousness Is (Only) Experience of Oneself as Subject

Because neoscholastic intuitionism takes as its starting point the indicia conscientiae, it assigns an important role to consciousness. In his response to my article, de Vries discusses this topic repeatedly. This problem, too, can be treated here only briefly. From the thesis that human knowledge in the full sense of the word (knowledge of reality as such) is a structure, it follows that consciousness is not knowledge, not even knowledge of self. We know ourselves as beings through the rational judgment 'I am,' which concludes the process of introspective knowing, just as we know the external world through the judgment that concludes the process of direct knowing. Consciousness provides data insofar as it is experience of oneself. But experience is not knowledge of being; it is knowledge of the object as given. To experience must be added an insight into the given and, further, the unconditional positing of the mental synthesis, before the reality of the self (and of its operations) is known; prior to this, the self is known only as self-experiencing. There is no 'percipere se esse,' just as we do not perceive that things exist in space and time - unless one means by percipere the operation of rationality in the judgment. The expression 'accompanying consciousness,' which de Vries too uses, is, precisely speaking, a redundancy21 - and often a misleading one. Consciousness is always and only concomitant. For every psychic act aims in two directions, towards the object as that which is experienced, understood, known (in the full sense of the word), desired, and willed, and towards the

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subject as that which experiences, understands, judges, desires, and wills. Hence, consciousness is experience of the self as subject. When I sit on a grandstand and watch soldiers march by, I see the soldiers: they are the object of the act of watching. But I cannot see the soldiers unless I am present to myself by the same act, and not, indeed, as another object alongside the soldiers, but as the one who is watching the soldiers (the objects) - precisely as the subject. Knowledge of the object without the opposite, complementary self-presence of the subject (that is, without consciousness) is impossible. It would be knowledge without a knower. This example makes clear that consciousness is not a special, additional psychic act, but characterizes the same act of knowing, of sensible conation, of willing, of feeling, directed toward the subject, by which the subject is present to itself or illuminated to itself. The qualitative difference of the various modes of consciousness - sensible, intelligent, rational, and moral - corresponds to the qualitative difference of the various psychic acts through which consciousness arises. Consciousness is not reflection on oneself. Indeed the spectator in our example need not reflect on himself; he simply looks at the soldiers, and for this reason alone he is aware of himself. Besides, on what should he reflect? On himself! But if he is not already aware of himself, then through his reflection he perceives himself as an unconscious subject and does not thereby become a conscious subject. Consciousness is by definition 'accompanying' for it accompanies the object-directed dimension of one and the same act. Certainly, consciousness as experience of oneself can, like all experiences, become an object of our desire to know. Questions regarding consciousness, and the process of introspective knowing that they initiate, can appropriately be called reflection. But the subject thereby goes beyond mere experience of self in order to understand and know self as object, in the same way that he understands and knows other objects. Naturally the operations that constitute the process of introspective knowing are also conscious operations. And their thematization would also take place through further conscious operations, etc. In other words, consciousness is always and only experience. The only knowledge that we have of ourselves as subjects is consciousness, and that is only experience of oneself. The so-called conscientia subsequens or reflexa is no longer consciousness, but knowledge of self under the aspect, first, of the intelligible, and then of the true and the real. The attempt to elevate the self-experience or self-presence in which consciousness consists to the level of the intelligible and the true, and thus of being, reaches only the subject as object. The subject as subject is the one who tries vainly as it were to reach back to one's own subjectivity. To sum up: consciousness must be distinguished from self-knowledge. The difference

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is that knowledge of self, like all knowledge in the full sense of the word, arises out of the combination of experience, understanding, and judgment, while consciousness is only the first component, experience. Now the thesis that de Vries articulates at the end of his essay is that 'consciousness does not supply mere appearances, but actual beings as well.' According to the foregoing analysis of consciousness, my response to this thesis can only be that consciousness supplies neither appearances nor actual beings, but data that the process of introspective knowing questions, in the event that the subject thematizes his or her self-experience. The oftused word 'appearance' is a misleading word. It is rational judgment that distinguishes between the true and the untrue, being and nonbeing. Prior to questions and their answers there are no appearances (understood as the opposite of truth or being), but data, about which it remains to be determined what they are and whether this 'what' is the case. This is true equally of the data of inner experience (consciousness) and outer experience. The example of the doorbell that I used in my essay (above, p. 75) should suffice to clarify the sense in which I am using the term 'datum.' To what was said there I add here that not only the judgments 'Someone rang the bell' and 'I am hallucinating' are a matter of the intellect, but also 'I heard something' is a judgment about an actual operation. Naturally, this is not to deny that there are data that can mislead us into making a false judgment. Take, for example, the well-known examples of optical illusions. But it should be clear to the reader that the false judgment, 'This bent stick immersed in the water is broken,' is the doing of the very intentionality that can also arrive at a correct judgment regarding the laws governing the refraction of light by taking the same data as its starting point. Thus, if the datum can function as the starting point of a true judgment, there is no reason to label it 'appearance' as opposed to reality. 6

The Virtually Unconditioned as the Ground of the Rational Judgment

An intuitionist is basically ready to accept my brief account of the structure of human knowledge. But because random judgment will not suffice to ensure truth and, with it, knowledge of reality, the intuitionist requires before the judgment an immediate perception of the fact in itself,22 so that the judgment can be grounded and consequently true. This is the real source of controversy. Consider the clear statements of de Vries along these lines that I cite in my essay on the KRV. For example, it is demanded that 'ipsa res per se ipsam se manifestat, ita ut in se percipiatur' (the thing itself manifests itself through itself, so that it may be perceived in itself). Even more decisive is the following statement: 'ludicium tamquam ex-

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pressio conceptualis rei numquam sufficit per se solum, ut tamquam verum innotescat, sed (saltern natura) prius ad iudicium certum necessaria est perceptio seu visio rei' (the judgment as conceptual expression of the thing never suffices by itself alone to reveal the truth, but [at least naturally] prior to a certain judgment a perception or vision of the thing is necessary) .23 Towards the end of his more recent remarks, de Vries makes the same demand once again. He speaks of the 'seen fact' that is thought to make possible the immediate comparison of the object in itself and the content of the judgment (as 'enuntiabile'). In my study I quoted Otto Muck's incisive description of this as a 'look at the thing.' Surely a judgment is reasonable only when it is grounded, when it rests upon sufficient evidence, to use the traditional terminology. But the question is, In what precisely does this consist? Must we be content simply with the information provided by the metaphorical expression 'sufficient evidence' or 'perception or vision of the thing,' or is it possible to find something more precise and introspectively verifiable? Following his principle of intuition, de Vries opts for the former alternative. He writes, a propos of the justification of judgments of consciousness (which for him are the only immediate existential judgments), that in them 'the fact in itself and through itself is ... present to the knowing subject... This beingpresent is an original fact that cannot be defined or reduced to anything further.' 24 I personally would opt for the latter of the two aforementioned alternatives. The key term with which Lonergan sums up his doctrine of sufficient evidence is 'the virtually unconditioned.' For a discussion of this topic, see chapter 3, footnote 85. In Insight there is an entire chapter (chapter 10, 'Reflective Understanding') in which Lonergan first of all gives a general sketch and then examines the various ways in which, with regard to the different species of judgment, we arrive at the sufficient reason that makes possible the unconditional positing of the judgment. Both the critical demand of our intentionality for reasons before it allows itself to be 'compelled' to assent, and also the complex and differentiated path it follows before it reaches this point, can be more convincingly discovered and more precisely indicated than the postulated 'self-disclosing' of the fact in itself. The latter makes it unclear just what our intentionality - that is, we as intelligent and rational subjects - is supposed to do or indeed can do at all, if there really is such a self-revealing of the thing. According to the metaphorical descriptions that we find in the writings of de Vries, it seems that the only one who is acting in this process is the thing that is revealing itself. In this way (and in this way alone) is the self-revealing of the thing in itself a reliable and, indeed, infallible point of reference for the comparison that takes place after our fallible intentionality has been 'switched off.'

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The prospective judgment is, to begin with, something conditioned. It consists in our thinking, considering, assuming, or conceptualizing something as a result of a direct insight into the data, without yet knowing the truth of this mental content. Hence we pose the critical question, Is it so? It is because the judgment still requires reasons in order to be made rationally that it is initially something conditioned. It depends on conditions. These reasons are then given when the reflective phase of intentionality grasps the prospective judgment as a 'virtually unconditioned.' The sufficient evidence for a rational judgment thus comprises (i) a link between the conditioned and its conditions, and (2) the fulfilment of these conditions. The way in which we find these two elements varies according to the kind of judgment we are making. Let us take a concrete judgment of fact, for it is through such judgments that we have access to reality - for example, 'Our house porter's car has just arrived.' In a judgment of fact the link between conditioned and conditions is established by the direct insight that brings about the shift from data to concept (that is, to the interpretation of the data). More precisely, by the correct insight, for it is in any case the insight from which the mental synthesis proceeds. Has the insight taken into account all the relevant data (relevant for the limited, particular point of view from which the question about the real has been posed), so that no further datum is given that could call this interpretation, this concept, into question? If so, then the fulfilment of the conditions consists in the actually given data of sense, as in our example, or of consciousness, if the factual judgment is about oneself. But how do we know that the insight is correct? The insight is correct if it is invulnerable, that is, if there remain no further questions that could challenge it. This is possible for two related reasons, (a) On the one hand, the question, and hence the prospective judgment, is limited. We do not ask about every aspect of everything! If I judge, 'This is an electric typewriter,' I have certainly ignored many aspects of this concrete reality, and many questions therefore remain unsettled. But I have set up my search for the real in such a way that I can attain an invulnerable insight and thus a reasonable judgment and, by means of it, knowledge of reality, before I have attained an exhaustive insight into the whole of reality. Far from calling this judgment into question, the further questions presuppose its truth, (b) On the other hand, invulnerable insights are made possible by the process of learning, that is, by the gradual acquisition and accumulation of insights that are relevant for a determinate area. This process of learning is in many ways a self-correcting process, in which the shortcomings of each insight provoke further questions and thus lead to further, complementary insights, until we become familiar with the entire area. This is true of all branches of knowledge, including the elementary

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realm of everyday living. Once we have gone through this process, we are capable of interpreting the relevant data correctly and of knowing whether the conditions of the conditioned are de facto fulfilled. Thus I have pointed out a grounding of the judgment that lies in the cognitive process itself and encompasses all of the preceding stages of that process. This grounding is the achievement of the subject that attends to the data, takes pains to understand them, and, through a kind of intellectual morality, gives to all pros and cons the chance to make themselves heard and be weighed. I consider to be a myth the thesis of the self-revealing of the object, according to which the subject need do nothing else visa-vis the object than to look at it. It will be said that the subject must open its eyes. But surely, that is not enough to see reality itself. The subject must also grasp an intelligibility in the data, if only of the most elementary sort. It must also know that what it perceives fits this intelligibility precisely. The self-revealing of the fact turns out to be nothing other than the achievement of the attentive, intelligent, and reasonable subject. According to this analysis, then, the criterion of truth is die virtually unconditioned, i.e., a conditioned that does indeed have conditions, but conditions that are de facto fulfilled, so that it amounts to an unconditioned.25 And because it is unconditioned, it can ground the est or unconditional positing of the judgment. But because it is no more than a fact that we attain the familiarity that makes it possible for us to have a correct insight into the data, and because it is no more than a fact that the conditions on the level of mere data are fulfilled hie et nunc, it is also no more than a fact that this judgment is true, just as it is a fact that other judgments are false. In other words, if truth arises through the operation of an intentionality that is evidently not infallible, then we have a criterion of truth, but not of infallibility. That is to say, we have no higher court of appeal outside of our own intentionality that could guarantee the correct functioning of our intentionality - and who would take over the supervisory function of that court of appeal, in order to guarantee its correct functioning? I treated this problem in chapter 3, note 70. The self-revealing of the thing itself (so that the subject actually has nothing to do), which according to the intuitionist provides the guarantee of truth, is in fact the attempt to avoid this infinite regress of tester and tested, judge and judged. This is done at the cost of eliminating the first 'court' itself, namely, our fallible intentionality. At the same time, this theory betrays the fact that the intuitionist is not content with our criterion of truth, but demands a criterion of infallibility. The intuitionist requires not merely that the performance of intentionality be de facto correct, but that it be necessarily correct, that it be able to take place only correctly.

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And for this the intuitionist needs a kind of manifestness that is entirely attributable to the object. This is the only way in which I can understand this doctrine of the self-revealing object, as it is presented by de Vries, also in his most recent book on epistemology. There we read among other things: If we call this clear self-revealing of the fact [thing] 'manifestness,' then we shall understand the meaning of the traditional thesis that the manifestness of the fact is the criterion of the truth. Its meaning is that the proposition is known to be true when the fact expressed in it clearly reveals itself to us, so that, comparing proposition and fact, we can ascertain the agreement of the proposition with being, i.e., its truth.26 If then de Vries claims, with regard to the 'external world,' which we know to exist by means of the causal principle applied to the convergence of many details, that we attain in this way a justified certainty, 'even if not an absolute certainty,' as he writes in his response, it seems clear to me that he is indeed demanding something more than a judgment that is true de facto. He is thinking of a judgment that must be true, on the basis of an intellectual 'court' that cannot err. He is therefore demanding a criterion of infallibility. For if I assert that the Wendelstein is located in Upper Bavaria near Bayrischzell, I do not see what is lacking in this judgment with regard to its truth and certainty. Because the judgment is true, it absolutely excludes its contradictory. The objection that I have nonetheless been wrong about many judgments that I thought to be true does not affect the truth and certainty of this judgment - and even less the truth of the judgment, 'I have often been mistaken.' Truth already implies absoluteness. Increasing the absolute is meaningless. Infallibility does not imply a higher truth, an increase in the absoluteness of the true and thus of being, but a different way of knowing that has not been given to us human beings. The correct performance of intentionality is no less a contingent fact than the false performance of intentionality. The consequence of this is not scepticism, but a challenge to each and every human being. Truth is the fruit of a personal engagement that no method, no formalized procedure, and also no higher court of appeal can take from us in the realm of our natural knowledge. How are 'true' and 'infallible' related to knowledge? The predicate 'true' relates to the judgment, first of all, as verbum mentis (performance of intentionality) and then, consequently, as verbum oris or proposition. Truth is a property of the judgment. That a judgment is true means that it hits the fact that it aims at, in the sense of the traditional correspondence theory

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of truth. Precisely because of this agreement with being, the true judgment enjoys the same absoluteness as being itself. Caesar's crossing the Rubicon was, to be sure, a contingent event. But the assertion that this event took place, made by historians on the basis of the relevant documents, enjoys an eternal, immutable, definitive validity. If it is true that Caesar crossed the Rubicon, then no one whatever at any place or time can truly deny that he did. This is what I mean when I say that truth is not susceptible to any inner intensification. It is senseless to say that the same judgment could be truer when made by someone else. On the other hand, infallibility is the property of a subject, by virtue of which it is able to make only true judgments in general or in a certain area. In this case, of course, the judgment would not be truer than the same judgment made by a fallible subject, but the infallible subject would know that its judgment is in principle and thus necessarily true. This implies a very different relation to truth from that of a subject that has at its disposal no better means than its fallible intentionality, a subject for whom a true judgment has no necessity. It is clear that in the latter case there is a tension between the absoluteness of the true judgment, on the one hand, and the mere contingent fact, on the other, that the conditions of the conditioned are fulfilled hie et nunc, so that the judgment does indeed proceed from a virtually unconditioned. The absoluteness of the true judgment (which corresponds to the absolute positing of the rational judgment) is not guaranteed by another, different absoluteness, but is attained in each case as a mere matter of fact. The true judgment depends on the attainment of the virtually unconditioned, for which there is no criterion outside of one's personal engagement in the process of coming to know. Pointing out that we have often deceived ourselves about the truth of our judgments is not a cogent argument for the conclusion that, in the final analysis, we have no criterion of truth at our disposal. This objection stems from the same abstraction as the demand for an external standard that is supposed to supervise our rationality as we concretely live and exercise it. The truth and, with it, the objectivity of human knowledge is always and only the achievement of a concrete subject in the concrete performance of its intentionality. Verification from outside, that is, without entering into the process that moves from data to judgment, is possible only for those who believe that there are truths that exist from eternity without being in any judging subject. One further thing that ought to be mentioned here, in the context of the issue of how the judgment is to be justified, is that the comments de Vries makes in his response regarding so-called a priori judgments or principles have nothing to do directly with the point that separates intuitionism from the doctrine of knowledge as the performance of

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intentionality. Indeed these 'judgments' are neither judgments (the positing of a mental synthesis) nor insights (intelligere in sensibili), but the very performative intelligence and rationality on the basis of which we pose the questions, What is that? Why is it like that? What is it for? Is it so? They are the immanent laws of intentionality with which all (adult) human beings are equipped, and they are a priori, as is intentionality itself. Reflection on these laws, the formulation and comparison of proper terms, the understanding that these terms include or exclude one another, is a matter for philosophy, and philosophy is normally not necessary for intentionality to act intelligently and reasonably. If I ask about reality, I am asking about a being such that, insofar as it is and to the extent that it is, it absolutely excludes nonbeing. This is what I intend when I ask, '/s it so?' I do not need to know about the principle of noncontradiction. Most human beings have not even formulated the terms 'being' and 'nonbeing'; they have not reflected on them, and therefore they also do not know that they exclude one another. The same applies to the principle of excluded middle, the principle of causality, etc. What human beings mean by 'cause' is historically and culturally conditioned. The people of ancient times, who were imprisoned within mythical modes of thought, Aristotle, the father of metaphysics, and we, who live in a rational-technological culture, all equally pose the question, Why? concerning various physical events. But the cause that is sought is quite different in each case. A natural scientist asks the question, Why? constantly, and answers it, too. But he knows hardly anything about the four Aristotelian causes. What he seeks is not the same as the efficient cause of Aristotle. He seeks quantifiable and verifiable relations among data. And he has every right to do so. 7

From the Myth of Seeing to the Rationality of the Judgment

My critique is not directed against 'some claims of allegedly immediately seen facts.' The occurrence of such false claims is so obvious that no special critique is necessary to unmask them. My concern in this debate is with intuitionism, not (directly) with the problem of error. My primary concern is with the problem of truth. More concretely: my concern is to make clear that facts (beings) are known, or 'show themselves,' if one wants to use this metaphor, only in the rational judgment, in the estof our reason, and that our judgments can be justified - whether they are in an individual case is another question - without falling back on the mythical 'look at the thing' and the comparison of the object in itself with the prospective judgment that this 'look' is supposed to make possible. The rational judgment is the concluding act in the performance of an intentionality that is capable of cognitional transcendence because its

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range is unrestricted. By thematizing this intelligent and rational intentionality it is possible to appropriate the core idea of Kant's transcendental philosophy and, in general, of the modern turn to the subject, according to which the object arises for the subject only in cognitive performance, without falling into the heroic insanity of idealism. The conditions of the performance, which lie in the subject, and which mediate the object, are shown by introspective analysis to be precisely the conditions of transcendence. For Kant, on the other hand, the conditions of human knowledge are the receptivity of sensible intuition, which mediates only appearances, and the spontaneity of the understanding, which does not uncover the intelligible structure of being but only covers it with its own. A theory of knowledge that seeks to disclose what is peculiar to human knowledge according to its peculiar nature requires an intellectual conversion that is not easy to carry out, a conversion that consists in our moving 'ex umbris et imaginibus in veritatem,' to use the words that are written on the tombstone of Cardinal John Henry Newman at Birmingham. It requires that we move from the picture thinking that is content to compare knowing with looking and to accept the consequences that flow from that comparison, to the truth of judgment, which is attained only through the personal and responsible performance of our intentionality. Through truth the subject intentionally transcends itself, it reaches that which is independent of the subject and of the subject's time, place, and psychological, social, and historical conditions. But 'the fruit of truth must grow and mature on the tree of the subject, before it can be plucked and placed in its absolute realm.'27 To be sure, truth implies objectivity, but it cannot get along without the mediation of the subject in its personal attentiveness, intelligence, reasonableness, and responsibility. If one has understood this and made it one's own in all its significance, then the consequences of such a conversion for all branches of philosophical thought can hardly be overlooked. For a thorough presentation of the alternative to intuitionism that I have sketched here, I refer the reader to the major work of Bernard Lonergan, Insight: A Study of Human Understanding, and also to his later work Method in Theology, in which the issue of knowledge in the realm of the humanities is examined in greater detail. For the argument that Thomas Aquinas can be called on as the 'crown witness' of this theory, I refer the reader to the analytic-historical study by the same author, Verbum: Word and Idea in Aquinas. (This study, which was first published in the form of articles, goes back to the period 1946-49). In the last of these three works there is also a detailed explication of the ominous 'comparison' of the judgment with the object in itself.28 In his

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rational grounding of the judgment Thomas gets along well without recourse to this comparison, which is either impossible or superfluous,29 and to which the thesis that knowing is looking leads, if consistently developed. The theses of Thomas's nonintuitionist epistemology are well known: (i) omnis cognitio incipit a sensu (all knowledge begins from sense), (2) intellectus habet duas operationes (the intellect has two operations), the grasp of 'quod quid est' (what something is) - intelligere, understanding - and compositio et divisio (composition and division) judgment, (3) veritas proprie loquendo in solo iudicio inest (truth properly speaking resides in judgment alone).

5

Kant's Antithetic Problem

and Lonergan's Rational Conception of Reality l

The Discovery of the Antithetic Problem as the Moment at Which the KRV Was Born

It is well known that Kant's major work had a long period of gestation. According to Kant's own most extensive remarks on the topic, the seed from which the KRV grew was an invitation from the philosopher and mathematician Johann Heinrich Lambert in 1765 'to enter into a close partnership with him for the purpose of reforming metaphysics.'1 The exceedingly tortuous development of Kant's thought during a period of roughly sixteen years has been thoroughly investigated by Kant scholars, on the basis of both Kant's published and unpublished writings. Different researchers have reconstructed in different ways the stages Kant went through before, in the second half of 1780, he decided on the final draft, a draft that he wrote in a remarkably brief period of time. Kant scholars are unanimous on one point, however, namely, in the estimation of a particular date in the history of the origin of the KRV: 21 February 1772 - the birthday of the KRV, as it has been called.2 On this date Kant sent a long letter to his former pupil Marcus Herz, who had worked with him as 'respondent' in the defense of Kant's Inaugural Dissertation of 21 August 1770. In connection with this dissertation, Kant posed the question with which he would wrestle up to the end of 1780: 'On what foundation rests the relation of that in us which we call "representation" to the object?'3 In Kant's opinion, this question constitutes 'the key to the entire mystery of metaphysics, which so far remains hidden.' No particular difficulty arises, Kant says, with regard to the question of the 'conformity' of the representation in the subject to the object in the case

Kant's Antithetic Problem and Lonergan's Conception of Reality 103

of our sensible representations, which are elicited in us by the object itself; nor do any difficulties arise in the case of (pure) mathematics, where we ourselves bring forth the objects. With regard to real things, on the other hand, the still unanswered question arises, 'How my understanding should form for itself, in a completely a priori fashion, concepts of things, with which things should necessarily agree, and how my understanding should draw up real principles concerning the possibility of things, with which experience must truly agree and which are nonetheless independent of experience.' The presupposition of this question is clearly Kant's doctrine - which is the common property of rationalist philosophy - of a priori concepts. In his Inaugural Dissertation Kant had defended the theory of a 'usus realis intellectus,' according to which our basic, reflexive, ontological concepts, which refer to experience, mediate reality to us as it is in itself.4 Kant was for a long time not clear about what exactly these 'conceptus intellectuales' are.5 In the dissertation Kant mentions the following 'conceptus intellectuales': 'possibilitas, existentia, necessitas, substantia, causa, etc., cum suis oppositis aut correlatis.'6 In the letter to Herz Kant reports that he has tried 'to bring all of the concepts of the pure reason into a certain number of categories.' However, in the second section of the dissertation, where Kant deals with this topic, one does not get a clear idea of how the a priori character of the 'conceptus intellectuales' is to be understood. Kant rejects Locke's derivation of the pure concepts of the understanding from experience, but he avoids the theory of 'innate' concepts, in order instead to affirm original laws of the mind, which we become aware of by attending to the acts of the understanding, acts the occasion for which is provided by experience.7 Kant thus chooses a via media, which in fact does not go beyond what Leibniz had already propounded in his Nouveaux Essais. This ambiguity, namely, this swinging back and forth between ready-made, conscious representations, on the one hand, and mere formal functions or active dispositions for forms, on the other, which are made into formal representations only by themadzing the mind's activity, runs through Kant's entire transcendental philosophy. In any case, nine years later the KRV presented the following answer to the question raised in the letter to Herz. According to the KRV, the representations of the intellect aim at reality in itself, in that they relate the merely subjective impressions of the senses to an object in itself. However, they are only able to 'determine [this object] ... through that which is given in sensibility' (A 251). Now, because sensibility mediates only appearances, as the dissertation had already asserted, it follows that these same categories can only 'know appearances empirically under concepts of

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objects' (ibid.). In other words, the transcendent object, which is what is aimed at, is known only as an objectively grounded appearance.9 This is the central thesis of the Transcendental Analytic. It is the 'determination of the limits' (Grenzbestimmung), Kant's main thesis in the battle against the dogmatism of the rationalist school.10 And it is at the same time the thesis of phenomenalism in Kant's version of transcendental idealism. In the letter to Herz, the problem of the transcendental deduction of the pure concepts of the understanding, which Kant was to discuss in the KRV, is formulated with perfect clarity. However, one can hardly defend the view that 'all of the fundamental insights that constitute the KRV are already expressed here,'11 when one considers that the repeated postponement of the publication of the work was primarily due to the fact that Kant was constantly dissatisfied with the answer he had given to the question of 1772.12 In addition, Kant's repeated expressions of dissatisfaction with this most basic component of the KRV, namely, the transcendental deduction,13 which he had finally published, and the various attempts to write a revised version of this section,14 which certainly cannot be reduced to a mere attempt to improve the style of presentation in spite of Kant's assertions to the contrary, prove how long a path there still was to the chapter on the deduction. 2

The Significance of the Antithetic Problem in the Overall Context of Kant's Transcendental Philosophy

The first thing to be said concerning the significance of the so-called problem of the deduction is the following. In the passage cited in the preceding paragraph, and in his interpretation of the KRV in general, Cassirer expresses a perspective on Kant's critical philosophy which certainly corresponds to the tendencies of neo-Kantianism, and which has since become the common way of appraising Kant's epoch-making writings, but which does not correspond to the view of Kant himself, and which does even less justice to the development and the actual content of the KRV. It is well known that the neo-Kantians of the Marburg school approached the legacy of Kant with a strong interest in the philosophy of science. Their concern was to make the critical philosophy, which they interpreted as an extreme idealism, fruitful for the interpretation of natural science. But in doing this they jettisoned many essential components of Kant's transcendental philosophy, and, most importantly, they shifted the general perspective on Kant; this perspective has remained, even after neo-Kantianism was supplanted in the 19205 by the metaphysical interpretation of Kant. The theory of transcendental idealism has no doubt explained an a priori knowledge which, for Kant, was an ontology of the relative reality of

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experience (i.e., immanent metaphysics) and, at the same time, constituted a transcendental grounding of natural science. In Kant's eyes this same idealism provided a definitive reason why the pure knowledge of reason leads to contradictions when it claims an objective validity in the sense of transcendental realism, and why therefore the traditional metaphysica specialis was condemned to failure. But this did not mean for Kant that the core and final goal of his 'reform of metaphysics' was the scientific ontology of the relative reality of experience, so that a metaphysics of absolute reality was excluded - a purely negative task that is carried out in the Transcendental Dialectic. For Kant, even after the Copernican turn, the authentic goal of metaphysics remained unshakably the realization of those concepts of the absolute that transcend the reality of appearance: the socalled 'highest ends of our existence' (B 395, note), namely, God, freedom, and the spirituality or immortality of the human person. In the unpublished prize essay (Preisschrift) on the progress of metaphysics - a kind of 'KRV Revisited' from the 17905 - Kant speaks again and again of the ontology of the world of experience as a positive preparation for authentic metaphysics. Already in the preface, after defining metaphysics as 'the science of proceeding from the knowledge of the sensible to the knowledge of the trans-sensible by means of reason,' Kant says, 'Ontology is the science (as a part of metaphysics) that constitutes a system of all concepts of the understanding and principles, but only insofar as they relate to objects that are given to the senses, and can therefore be proved through experience. Ontology does not pertain to the trans-sensible, which however is the final end of metaphysics; it therefore is related to metaphysics as a propaedeutic, as the entry way or forecourt to authentic metaphysics, and is called transcendental philosophy, because it contains the conditions and basic elements of all our a priori knowledge.'15 This preparatory role of the KRV or, more precisely, of the Transcendental Analytic appears unmistakably in the preface to the B edition of the KRV: the determination of the limits of speculative reason has no other purpose than to make possible 'the practical extension of pure reason,' as the following memorable dictum puts it: 'I have therefore found it necessary to deny knowledge, in order to make room for faith' (B xxx). It is precisely this continuity of the theoretical and practical realms of philosophy that was called into question in the previous century, especially by the neo-Kantians, so that a radical gap appeared between the rationality of natural science (and of immanent metaphysics) and the nonrationality of all other ventures beyond the bounds of positivistically verifiable knowledge of the world. This divorce is still accepted today as self-evident - in spite of the contemporary 'rehabilitation of practical reason'! From this perspective the practical components of the Kantian solution to the prob-

106 Lonergan and Kant

lem of metaphysics appeared to be a culturally conditioned, thoroughly dispensable, and indeed ideological element. The consequence of this distorted perspective was that the problem of the deduction and the theory of objectivity in the Transcendental Analytic were given a certain autonomy and emphasized in a one-sided fashion. This theory was viewed as the hub or focal point of Kant's transcendental philosophy. Of course, the Transcendental Dialectic could not be simply cut out of the KRV, but it appeared as a purely negative undertaking, namely, as the exclusion of metaphysica specialis from the realm of objectively valid knowledge. There was no longer any place for a 'metaphysics of the trans-sensible,' however it might be conceived, that could stand up to the critical scrutiny of reason. From the aforementioned perspective it was inescapable that the problem of the deduction should be held to be the problem for critical philosophy, and that the explanation of scientific experience of the world should be seen as the all-embracing topic of transcendental philosophy. An initial piece of evidence against this appraisal of the idealistic solution to the problem is the way in which Kant himself appraised his own transcendental idealism, which was the result of the deduction. The Gottingen reviewer of the KRVhad classified it as 'a system of transcendental idealism.'16 This judgment elicited a prompt correction from Kant: the purpose of the transcendental idealism is 'merely to make intelligible the possibility of our a priori knowledge of objects of experience.'17 Consequently, 'it by no means constitutes the soul of the system,'18 but is rather 'the sole means of solving the above problem.'19 Thus in the KRV, too, the real goal lies in the (novel) grounding of the metaphysics of the trans-sensible. The developmental-historical intepretation of the KRV has brought to light another fact that compels a relativization of the problem of the deduction, namely, the content of the Transcendental Dialectic. According to the current interpretation, Kant's critique of the three parts of metaphysica specialis is simply the direct consequence of the determination of limits (Grenzbestimmung) that is carried out in the transcendental deduction. In fact, however, the Transcendental Dialectic is by no means - and not in its core, either - merely the implication of the theory of object constitution that develops out of the Analytic. It has been the great achievement of Josef Schmucker, who has devoted many years of study to the origin of Kant's critique of proofs for God's existence in the KRV, to document in a precise fashion the precritical origin of the Transcendental Dialectic as a whole.20 The essential content of the Transcendental Dialectic, understood as the critique of the knowledge of pure reason, was developed already before and independently of the deduction of the pure concepts of the under-

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standing and the ontology of the world of appearance that stemmed from that deduction. The later critical philosophy in the form of transcendental idealism with its doctrine of the 'subjective objectivity' of our experience, as Christian Gottlieb Selle in 1792 appropriately named Kant's understanding of the objective validity of our knowledge,21 was for Kant the final and most simple solution to a dialectic of pure reason that he had already seen through for a long time. Thus when one correctly views the text of the Transcendental Dialectic, and this means almost one-half of the KRV, one can no longer view the problem of 1772 together with the solution to it worked out in the Transcendental Analytic as the master key and the sum total of all the relevant doctrines of the KRV. This is even less the case when one takes into account Kant's positive metaphysical concern in the context of his entire transcendental philosophy. But in spite of all the historical-philological arguments that have been advanced here in order to indicate the true significance of the antithetic problem in the critical philosophy, the extraordinary importance for the KRV of this problem and its solution remains. This importance appears even greater in light of the influence the KRV has had over 200 years, which no doubt has not entirely corresponded to the actual intention of its author. For Kant has indeed been interpreted not as the founder of a new metaphysics, but as the destroyer of metaphysics, and as the analyst of our scientific experience of the world. It is within this framework that I would like to approach the problem of 1772 and afterward discuss Lonergan's alternative solution to that same problem. 3

The Content of the Antithetic Problem22

The problem as it is posed in the letter to Herz is the following fact: there is a priori knowledge (concepts and principles) that has objective validity. Starting from this fact, which is given in mathematics and natural science,23 Kant asks for the explanation: how do 'the axioms of pure reason about these objects' agree with these same objects? In an autobiographical Reflexion from the second half of the 17708, Kant looks back at the time when he still subscribed to the rationalist method of 'extending dogmatic knowledge through pure reason.' For, 'because there is indeed real knowledge a priori, which ... broadens our knowledge,' he lacked at that time 'a critique of pure reason that has been brought under rules,'24 that is, he lacked the explanation of how our knowledge a priori can be related to objects which he at that time assumed to transcend the subject. Vaihinger calls the aforementioned paradoxical fact, which stands in need of an explanation, an 'antithetic' problem, for the problem is 'that

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we are capable of making valid a priori statements about objects that are nonetheless independent of us.' This problem is, in Vaihinger's opinion, 'the original and fundamental problem of the KRV.'2* In a general sense this is a question of the problem of knowledge itself, namely, the problem of the relation of knowledge as an immanent activity to an extramental reality.26 But this general problem, which arises again and again in various forms in the history of philosophy, acquires in Kant's writings a peculiar, culturally and historically conditioned character and an especially difficult nature. The dominant philosophy of Kant's time (the so-called Schulphilosophie) had always assumed rational laws as a priori, objectively valid axioms of the understanding, e.g., the laws of substantiality and causality. That which had been self-evident became for Kant a disturbing question; what had been seen as a fact became a phenomenon in need of an explanation. This same problem has also been accurately called the 'problem of conformity,' because Kant wants to render intelligible the 'conformity' of representations in us to objects. The expression 'problem of deduction' is also used rightly, for the transcendental deduction of the pure concepts (and principles) of the understanding in the KRV has no other purpose than the solution of the problem posed in the letter to Herz. Though he does not raise the issue in the letter, in the course of his long reflection on the antithetic problem, influenced no doubt by the empiricist sceptics, Kant saw himself forced not merely to explain the validity of the a priori, but also first and foremost to demonstrate it. His task was to prove the fact, denied by the empiricists, that we can acquire general and necessary knowledge, which consequently becomes explicable only when reduced to synthetic knowledge a priori. The original problem thereby became a twofold problem: first, a point to be made against rationalists and dogmatists, and second, a point to be made against empiricists and sceptics. This clearly corresponds to Kant's attempt in the KRV to mediate between rationalism and empiricism. However, Kant never became fully conscious of this division into two questions of what originally was only one, so that in the KRVhe constantly shifts without realizing it from the explanation of the fact (the 'how') to the demonstration of it (the 'that'). This about-face occurs throughout the entire Transcendental Deduction of the Pure Concepts of the Understanding and represents an additional difficulty for the precise determination of the course of the argument in this extremely complicated core section of the KRV. The initially posed question about the explanation of what is assumed to be valid a priori knowledge, that is, the antirationalist tendency, still remained the main concern of the KRV, but was supplemented with the proof that there is such objectively valid a priori knowledge, that is, the anti-empiricist tendency.

Kant's Antithetic Problem and Lonergan's Conception of Reality 109 4

Kant's Idealistic Solution to the Antithetic Problem

It is not easy to trace the thread of Kant's argument in the section of the KRVm which he directly takes up the question raised in the letter to Herz. The Transcendental Deduction of the Pure Concepts of the Understanding, as Kant calls it, is found in two very different versions. Kant scholars up to the present have still not succeeded in reconstructing the argument as a consistent train of thought. Most content themselves with establishing the plausibility of a standard interpretation by selecting quotes from Kant's text, as if from a storehouse. This method of isolating that which one takes to be the real core of the argument and then supporting it by means of appropriate passages from the entire chapter is not entirely unjustified, given the nature of the text. In this way, however, the interpreters fail, most of them tacitly, to take the chapter with all of its assertions as a single, coherent, steadily unfolding argument. In this method of reconstructing the chapter by selecting and focusing on discrete passages, not a few statements are simply ignored as being insusceptible to integration with the preferred interpretation.27 However one decides to reconstruct the argument, one can hardly entertain doubts about the real and final solution to the antithetic problem. That solution consists in the rejection of the realistic presupposition that lay behind the question as it was raised in 1772 and, indeed, on which the 1781 edition of the KRVitself still rests. 'Objects known a priori are not objects in themselves, but things as they appear to us; they are precisely not independent of us, but conform to our understanding, which is the "author of experience"' (B 127) ,28 In the KRV Kant still speaks of the reality of objects with which the concepts of our understanding agree; furthermore, he vociferously defends the objective validity of our knowledge; but these basic epistemological and metaphysical terms are given an entirely new meaning. After the Copernican turn, objective validity means necessity and universality for all human beings; it no longer means agreement with a reality that exists in itself. Thus it turns out that the striking antithesis of 1772 no longer exists! At A 114, under the heading 'Preliminary Explanation of the Possibility of the Categories, as Knowledge A Priori,' Kant says that we would have to forego knowledge of nature as an object of possible experience a priori, 'if it were given in itself independently of the first sources of our thought.' And even more explicitly in the concluding 'Summary Representation': 'If we have to deal only with appearances, it is not merely possible, but necessary, that certain a priori concepts should precede empirical knowledge of objects' (A 129). The conclusion of the Transcendental Deduction in edition B is no different. The problem is solved, Kant writes, when we

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take into account the ontological status of reality as it is knowable to us, namely, when we recognize that it is merely the reality of appearance. 'That the laws of appearances in nature must agree with the understanding and its a priori form, that is, with its faculty of combining the manifold in general, is no more surprising than that the appearances themselves must agree with the form of a priori sensible intuition. For just as appearances do not exist in themselves but only relatively to the subject in which, so far as it has senses, they inhere, so the laws do not exist in the appearances but only relatively to this same being, so far as it has understanding.'29 If we now inquire further about the reason why Kant was able to rescue the agreement between (a priori) representations in the subject and the object only at the high price of limiting our knowledge to the realm of appearances, this question is not hard to answer, in spite of the aforementioned obscurity of the argument. The reason lies in the principle of intuition (Anschauung, 'looking'), which is the real and ultimate principle of Kant's doctrine of knowledge and being. In the dissertation of 1770 Kant had already spoken of sensibility as receptiveness by means of which we know things as they appear (§§ 3 and 4). The act of sensibility was named in that work 'intuitus sensualis' (§ 15, C), in which an 'intuitus purus' (ibid.), namely, the pure, a priori intuitions of space and time as formal principles, cooperates. But alongside of sensibility so understood, with its limitation to appearances, Kant at that time also defended an 'usus realis' of the understanding (§ 5), by which we know things as they are (§ 4), even if only in a symbolic and abstract knowledge (§ 10 in initid). But how this knowledge of reality proceeds, when 'omnis nostrae cognitionis materia non datur nisi a sensibus' (the entire matter of our knowledge is given only by the senses) (§ 10), that is, how the 'usus realis' of the pure concepts of the understanding occurs, how it can transcend the appearance status of that which is given through the senses, remained unexplained in the dissertation. The question in the letter to Herz referred to this unclarified point, that is, to the link between the intuitive sensibility and the discursive understanding. In the KRV- more precisely, as early as the first paragraph of the Transcendental Aesthetic - intuition is presented as the only act that can provide a bridge between subject and object. In order to establish the cognitive relation between knower and known, an act must occur that achieves that which takes place most clearly in seeing with the eyes: going beyond oneself and reaching the other, without thereby obliterating the distinction between subject and object. Now Kant argues further in the passage mentioned above that the only intuitive cognitive act that we are capable of performing is that of the senses. But the senses mediate only appearances. 'Thought' (as the general term for all of the acts of our

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understanding and reason) is for us humans dependent on sensibility in the sense that its acts as nonintuitive do not in themselves mediate reality (this is precisely the essence of the principle of intuition!). Thus the 'usus realis intellectus' of which the dissertation still spoke turns out to be impossible, if one holds consistently the principle of intuition. Whatever understanding (and reason) may be capable of in the process of human knowing in the full sense, it is in any case not capable of going beyond the object of sensibility, for the simple reason that it does not intuit and therefore cannot contribute on its own a content or a metaphysical component of the object as reality. If one has affirmed the noncognitive character of the understanding, then one can maintain the objective validity or truth of the concepts of the understanding only in an immanent sense. In brief: For intuitionism, transcendence is a matter of intuition; but our understanding with its concepts does not intuit anything.30 5

The Principle of the Transcendental Deduction

In both parts of the Transcendental Analytic - the Analytic of Concepts and the Analytic of Principles - we find an impressive formulation of the principle on which Kant's proof of the objective validity of our a priori knowledge rests. In the Transcendental Deduction of the Pure Concepts of the Understanding we read: 'The a priori conditions of a possible experience in general are at the same time conditions of the possibility of objects of experience. Now I maintain that the categories, above cited, are nothing but the conditions of thought in a possible experience, just as space and time are the conditions of intuition for that same experience. They are fundamental concepts by which we think objects in general for appearances, and have therefore a priori objective validity' (A ill). In the Analytic of Principles we read: 'The conditions of the possibility of experience in general are at the same time conditions of the possibility of the objects of experience, and for this reason they have objective validity in a synthetic a priori judgment' (A 158). In Kant's unpublished manuscripts we find clear evidence that after 1772 Kant's thought moved toward this principle, even if it did take a long time for him to find a satisfactory explanation of it and draw all the consequences from it. In a note written shortly after the letter to Herz we read: 'If certain concepts in us contain nothing other than that by which, from our side, all experiences become possible, then they can be attributed a priori before experience and yet with full validity to anything we could ever meet with. They therefore apply not, to be sure, to things in general, but nonetheless to everything that can be given to us in experience, because they contain the conditions by which these experiences are pos-

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sible. Such principles will therefore contain the conditions of the possibility not of things, but of experience.'31 A longer note from the years 1775-77 begins with the words: 'The principles of the possibility of experiences (of distributive unity) are at the same time principles of the possibility of the objects of experience.'32 Kant was obviously aware that he had found in this principle the key to explaining the striking fact of agreement between thought and being. Therefore he frequently resorts to similar brief formulations. Thus, for example, at the beginning of the chapter on the paralogisms, the 'surprising' agreement of subjective conditions and object is explained by the assertion that 'we must assign to things, necessarily and a priori, all the properties that constitute the conditions under which alone we think them.'33 In the Prolegomena Kant notes that the search for the lawfulness of nature can be carried out in two different ways: (a) How can we know a priori the lawfulness of things as objects of experience? or (b) How can we know a priori the lawfulness of experience with respect to its objects? But Kant proceeds to say that both questions amount to the same thing. 'For the subjective laws, under which alone an empirical cognition of things is possible, hold good of these things as objects of possible experience (but of course not of things in themselves).'34 In all of these statements Kant is talking about two things, sometimes explicitly, sometimes parenthetically, namely, the explanation of the conformity between knowledge and object, on the one hand, and the phenomenalist thesis, on the other hand, which, as has been said, is the price Kant had to pay to solve the antithetic problem. This negative side of the positive, anti-empiricist solution to the problem is expressed by itself in some passages where it is formulated in a way that is naturally similar to the way the positive side is formulated. In a Reflexion from the period 179O-91 Kant writes: 'Now it becomes interesting to refuse to make the conditions of the knowledge of things that is possible to us into the conditions of the possibility of things; for if we do this, then freedom and immortality are abrogated and we can only have contradictory concepts of God.'35 In Kant's comment on the Morgenstunden of Moses Mendelssohn from the year 1785, communicated by Gottfried Schutz, he says: 'Although the work of the worthy M. is for the most part to be considered a masterpiece of the deception of our reason that occurs when reason takes the subjective conditions of its determination of objects in general for conditions of these objects themselves; to portray this deception in its true essence and thoroughly to free the understanding from it is certainly no easy task.'36 In a widely noted study published in 1924 Nicolai Hartmann calls the principle that Kant articulates at A 158 an 'identity thesis' in the sense that

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according to Kant the principles of knowledge (space, time, the categories) are 'at the same time' principles of objects.37 That which must be identical in both sets of principles so that knowledge can at all come about is, however, beyond both standpoints, namely, idealism and realism, so that it is entirely possible to derive from this principle a realistic epistemology and, with it, a metaphysics of knowledge. Without discussing the merits of Hartmann's attempt to overcome Kant's idealism precisely on the basis of the principle of the Transcendental Deduction, I would like in the following likewise to take as my starting point this same principle, in order, with Lonergan, to develop a rational conception of reality and, in this way, to move beyond the phenomenalism of the KRV. The expression 'at the same time' (zugleich) in Kant's principle has two sides: one side refers to transcendental idealism, the other side refers to the transcendent realism that lies at its foundation. This point can be clarified as follows: (1) Principles of knowledge and principles of being are in the final analysis, that is, in the 'transcendental understanding' (see A 29, 45-46), one and the same. Kant thereby puts forward in his own way a 'rational' conception of reality, in the sense that reality so conceived is related to the principles of human knowledge. But this reality is for Kant merely the reality of appearance. On the one side of the principle we therefore have the following series of terms: identity of the principles of knowledge and being, the knowability of reality, reality as appearance. (2) Principles of knowledge and principles of reality are two different things. Kant thereby puts forward an 'irrational' conception of reality, in the sense that reality so conceived is disparate from the principles of human knowledge. Reality so conceived is by definition unknowable. But for Kant, it is precisely reality conceived in this irrational way that is the true reality, reality existing in itself. On the other side of the principle we therefore have the following series of terms: disparity of the principles of knowledge and being, unknowability of reality, reality existing in itself. Given this state of affairs, the question arises whether there is not a third way between the Scylla of phenomenalism and the Charybdis of the tension-filled doctrine of the thing-in-itself, between which the current of Kant's transcendental philosophy flows, a way that dispenses with these two elements of the critical philosophy. More explicitly: The question is whether it is possible to retain the transcendence of what is truly real (Kant's realistic premise), and at the same time to retain the knowability of that reality. This is possible and quite demonstrable. In my opinion, Bernard Lonergan has accomplished this with all the clarity that one could desire, and in the process he has moreover explained the relation (that is, the opposition) of his position to the doctrine of Kant. It is here that I would locate

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the lasting contribution that Lonergan has made to the solution of a foundational problem with which neoscholasticism and especially neoThomism has long wrestled. Lonergan's position, which goes far beyond the narrow focus and the historically conditioned character of the antithetic problem in Kant, can be laid out in the following three steps: (l) It upholds neither the identity, (2) nor the disparity, but (3) the correspondence of the principles of knowledge and being. This will be presented in the second part of this essay as an alternative not only to the Kantian solution to the antithetic problem in the chapter on the deduction, but also to Kant's doctrines of knowledge and being in general. The rational conception of reality that lies embedded in Lonergan's thesis of the correspondence of the principles of knowledge and being is capable of assimilating the frequently assumed thesis of harmony between our subjectively necessary laws of thought (whereby 'thought' is used here in a comprehensive sense) and transsubjective reality, but without incorporating the arbitrary or purely postulatory flavor that otherwise characterizes this doctrine. This latter point is due to the fact that this conception of reality is grounded in an introspective analysis of our cognitive performance. 6

Lonergan's Correspondence Thesis as the Foundation of a Rational Conception of Reality

Lonergan's theory of a correspondence between the principles of knowledge and the principles of reality can best be explicated in terms of two doctrines around which Lonergan's own critical realism, as he calls it,38 revolves. These are (i) the doctrine of intentionality, and (2) the doctrine of the threefold structure of human knowledge. From the two doctrines taken together the conclusion follows that the conditions of human knowledge in the full sense of the word, which we can express by means of the Kantian term 'experience' (Erfahrung), that is, the conditions of the knowledge of world things (Weltdinge), are at the same time conditions that allow us to know these same things in their ontological status as reality in itself. In this sense and for this reason the conditions of cognitive performance as an immanent activity of the subject are at the same time conditions of the capacity for transcendence of that same knowledge, and they thereby prove themselves to be conditions of the objective validity of knowledge.39 6.1 Intentionality and Reality Our cognitive process consists in the performance of a dynamism that, on the one hand, is dependent on sense, and, on the other hand, is directed

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toward being. We can label this cognitive striving, which manifests itself in an ever-flowing stream of questions, with the traditional term 'intentionality.'40 The characteristics of this dynamism of our mind are intelligence and rationality (and, further, morality), which express themselves in the various kinds of questions we ask. With the question, What is that? (Quid sit?) we search for an intelligibility in the data (of sense, initially), an intelligibility that is inherent in and constitutes reality. With the further question, Is it so? (An sit?) we search for the correctness of what is initially only a hypothetical interpretation of the data, in order in this way to reach the absolute positing of the judgment and thereby knowledge of reality. When I speak of characteristics of the cognitive dynamism in the human person I mean thereby that this dynamism of itself already 'knows' the intelligibility and absoluteness of the being that it aims at; in other words, there is at work in our questions a primordial meaning (Ur-Sinn) in search of the intelligible, the true, the real, a primordial meaning that is a priori because it constitutes the 'stuff of the human spirit itself. This dynamism is unlimited in its reach: it is a dynamism towards infinity. Every question about how far our intentionality reaches, and every doubt about its unlimited character, merely confirms that as a dynamism, as a seeking, it is indeed unlimited. Nothing is utterly beyond the range of our intentionality as the capacity for questioning: outside its questioning about being lies only what 'is not' - namely, nothing! And because we are capable of posing questions about what lies beyond all conditions and limitations, we are capable of asking about any object from an unconditioned point of view: we ask about the object simply insofar as it 'is' and, as such, also insofar as it is unconditioned by our knowledge. Therefore, there is no inner realm of subjectivity, for our consciousness, that is, our self-presence as subject, is characterized by a tendency toward the transcendent. If there is no reality that is disparate from our intelligent and rational intentionality, then reality and intentionality are correlative. The rational conception of reality that I am advancing here is grounded precisely in this correlativity. On the basis of this thematization of intentionality in the first part of Insight, in the second part of the work Lonergan defines being as the correlate of intentionality: 'Being ... is the objective of the pure desire to know.'41 This definition contains Lonergan's correspondence thesis. This operational definition is further articulated with reference to the two features that characterize our desire to know and according to which it operates: 'Being is whatever is to be known by intelligent grasp and reasonable affirmation.'42 Thus Lonergan has transposed the correlativity of mens and ens into a

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rational conception of reality.43 In other words, the thesis that being is intrinsically intelligible and rational expresses the correlativity of intentionality and reality. The old thesis 'ens et verum convertuntur' (being and the true are convertible) says nothing other than this. 'Now if by being one means the objective of the pure desire to know, the goal of intelligent inquiry and critical reflection, the object of intelligent grasp and reasonable affirmation, then one must affirm the intrinsic intelligibility of being. For one defines being by its intelligibility; one claims that being is precisely what is known by understanding correctly; one denies that being is anything apart from the intelligible or beyond it or different from it, for one's definition implies that being is known completely when there are no further questions to be answered.'44 It is clear that any objection to the thesis of the essential intelligibility of reality that is raised by means and in the name of intelligence and rationality in fact confirms this intrinsic intelligibility, since it presupposes it in its very performance of objecting. However, the thesis of the intrinsic intelligibility of being does not mean that being is to be measured in terms of our limited ability to understand; it does not mean that we cannot ask questions to which we know no satisfactory answers. For being is not defined by means of the answers that we give but by means of the questions that we raise. And the questions claim to be intelligent and reasonable and at the same time relevant to that which we are asking about! Here lies the fundamental difference between Lonergan's critical realism and Kant's sensualistic intuitionism. Kant is surely not an empiricist a la Hume. In addition to the activity of sense he acknowledges the acts of understanding and reason as belonging to human knowledge. But confronted with the decisive question, What of reality do we know through these 'higher' acts? his answer can be only 'Nothing.' Why? Because these cognitive acts, however one understands them in detail, are not intuitive acts. In other words, in the last analysis Kant holds that human understanding and reason have a noncognitive function.45 'All our intuition is sensible' (B 151; A 51): so reads a fundamental thesis of the KRV. As intuition it is capable of transcendence because it, and it alone, exemplifies the basic kind of transcendence (extroversion!) that is known to us in seeing with the eyes. But as sensible intuition it is de facto incapable of reaching the object as it is in itself; it can reveal the object only as it appears to us, that is, as the reality of appearance. The other kind of intuition that would reach being-in-itself, intellectual intuition, is a kind that we do not possess. But what exactly is this intellectual intuition of which Kant speaks? It cannot be doubted that Kant conceives it according to the model of sensible intuition - which, incidentally, is unavoidable, since the latter is the only kind of intuition known to us. This so-called

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intellectual intuition is not defined by the features of intelligence and rationality, which characterize our understanding and our reason - if this were the case there would be no reason to deny that human beings are capable of intellectual intuition! - but by extroversion, which is proper to the dynamism of sense.46 There is, of course, a difference, since the intellectual intuition that Kant conceives of but then denies to us reaches the being of beings. We therefore find in Kant a disparity between the intellectual intuition that he denies to us and the acts of understanding and reason that he attributes to us. It is precisely in this disparity between the intellectual acts that we perform and that Kant recognizes in his own way, on the one hand, and the intellectual intuition that alone would be capable of knowing reality, on the other hand, that the negative key to understanding the KRVlies. The disparity between our intelligence and rationality and the intellectual intuition that is sought for but not found in us leads to the disparity between our intelligence and rationality and the object of intellectual intuition, which Kant takes to be reality existing in itself (the thing-initself). In other words, this disparity implies an irrational conception of reality as it exists in itself. What we have said up to now about intentionality indicates the way in which Lonergan successfully overcomes phenomenalism (that is, Kant's solution to the problem of conformity). According to Kant, the transcendental condition of the objectivity of knowledge is (intellectual) intuition, for only it is capable of bridging the gulf between the subject, or the representations in the subject, and the object. Lonergan's alternative to Kant's phenomenalism, which is a direct consequence of the sensually understood principle of intuition, is simply to abandon the myth of intuition and identify the act that reaches being (or the intuition, if you insist!) with the intelligent and reasonable activity of our intentionality, which is so evident in our experience when we earnestly strive to overcome wishful thinking in order to come to know things as they are. One may call this activity of our unlimited intentionality 'intuition,' but in this case it is no longer a duplication of sensible intuition, but an intelligent and reasonable activity, as we recognize when we thematize it by an introspective analysis. If we abandon the intellectual intuition postulated by Kant, then the puzzling thing-in-itself also disappears; for the Kantian thing-in-itself is in fact the correlate of this intuition, which is neither intelligent nor reasonable, and therefore, as Kant himself correctly infers, lies outside the range of the acts of understanding and reason, acts which Kant himself describes in the Analytic and Dialectic.47 At the end of section 5 I gave two series of terms which laid out (i) Kant's transcendental idealism and (2) the transcendent realism that lies

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at the foundation of this idealism. Lonergan's intentionality analysis, which contains his thesis of correspondence between the principles of knowledge and the principles of being, now enables us to formulate the following series of terms, which lays out the position of critical realism: correspondence of the principles of knowledge and being, knowability of reality, transcendent reality. In other words, if reality is nothing other than that about which our intelligent and reasonable intention asks, then reality is intrinsically intelligible and rational. Now, if reality is intrinsically intelligible and rational, then the correspondence thesis holds true. And if the correspondence thesis holds true, then it is in principle possible for a representation, as a performance of this intention, to agree with reality as it exists in itself and to mediate this reality cognitively to the subject. In this way the performance of an intentionality that asks about reality as it exists in itself reaches the object that it aims at - precisely as a transcendent reality. Being-in-itself and knowability do not exclude one another! 6.2 The Structure of Intentionality as the Performance of an Intentionality with Several Qualitatively Different Levels The second doctrine of Lonergan's theory of knowledge that is relevant to his solution of the antithetic problem is the doctrine of the threefold structure of human knowledge. Our earlier examination of the dynamism that propels the cognitive process has already to some extent anticipated this doctrine. In the first phase of the cognitive process our intentionality is dependent on sense as the source of the material for its activity, namely, the data that prompt its questions. The acts of sense itself, and the acts of intentionality that follow, are various, and differ according to the kind of knowledge that is aimed at and the realm of reality that is to be known. But all of these operations divide into three essentially different phases: the phase of (outer or, in the second place, inner) experience; the phase of insight, which is introduced by the question, What is it? and concludes with the formation of concepts; and the phase of judgment, which is introduced by the question, Is it so? and comes to its conclusion in the absolute positing of the judgment. Human knowledge in the full sense of the word is therefore a composite; more precisely, it is a formally dynamic structure, insofar as its parts (the individual, elementary cognitive acts) gradually, by virtue of and according to the laws of our intelligent and rational intentionality, are elicited and assembled until the whole is formed.48 The thesis of the cognitive structure asserts that, in order to know reality (that is, in order to make a concrete judgment of fact), we need data of sense (or, in the introspective cognitive process, data of consciousness itself), and it asserts that we must understand these data and, more precise-

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ly, understand them correctly, so that we can rationally assert the mental synthesis. It is only in the rational judgment that we know what we have been seeking from the very beginning: being. In the judgment, reality is not simply given, as it is in sense experience (without any knowledge of what it is and whether this 'what' really is), nor is it merely thought, as it is in conceptualization, but it is known. 'Ens iudicio rationali cognoscitur' - being is known in rational judgment. Our 'seeing' or 'experiencing' of reality occurs in the judgment. The rationality of the judgment, its truth, and nothing else, mediates reality to us! 'The impalpable act of rational assent is the necessary and sufficient condition for knowledge of reality.'49 An important point pertaining to the problem under discussion here, that is, the problem of the relation of mens and ens, is that all of these activities stand in the service of our intentionality: the senses supply the material that our intentionality needs to pose questions about being; intelligence (the Thomistic 'prima mentis operatic') seeks an intelligible connection or unity in the data, so that our intentionality can pose a categorially determined question about reality; rationality seeks and supplies the sufficient reason that our intentionality needs in order to answer its own question about being. The latter act occurs only when the question about being is already conceptually determined and when all of the data that correspond exactly to the conditions expressed in the concept are given. Every (component) act of the structure, insofar as it is an elementary cognitive act, has its own object corresponding to it. But this in itself is not the correspondence for which Kant wanted an explanation in his letter to Herz. One cannot yet speak of a transcendence, and thus of a conformity of the representation in the subject and the transsubjective object, with regard to the object of the senses and with regard to the object of the insight and the concept, except in an anticipatory sense, that is, with a view to the judgment that is to follow, and thus in virtue of the act of being which is thereby known. In the preceding section I spoke of the unrestricted dynamism of the human spirit. In this dynamism Lonergan sees the principle of the objectivity of knowledge, namely, the principle of its relation to (transcendent) being. It is the same intentionality that drives beyond every individual elementary cognitive act in order to call forth the acts that are still missing, but in such a way that the earlier elementary acts are not simply left behind, but are taken up and included on the way to the judgment and are unified into a complex cognitive act which constitutes human knowledge in the full sense of the word. What holds true of the various partial component acts holds true also for their respective contents: they are sublated, in that they are combined with the content that follows, so that the object of experience becomes an understood object of experience, and

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the understood object of experience becomes an existing, understood object of experience. Only in the judgment, which with its absolute positing satisfies the demand of intentionality, does the self-transcendence of human knowledge, as knowledge of that which is in itself, reach its goal. But this transcendence, and therefore objectivity in the full sense of the word, is a composite: it does not come about without the pure givenness of the data, or the normativity of the requirements of intelligence and rationality that guide the cognitive process from the data to the judgment, or the absoluteness of a virtually unconditioned that is reached by reflecting on experience and insight, namely, when the conditions of the conditioned (that is, of the content of thought) are fulfilled in the content of experience. In the preceding paragraphs we have considered the structure of human knowledge as a series of distinct acts. While the acts often enough are temporally distinct, this is of course not necessarily the case. The preceding account implies even less that the prior phases in concrete occur entirely independently of the subsequent phases. For example, when we try to discover an intelligible structure among the data, that is, when we search for a 'what' in the data, we already have in mind an 'is,' for we are already concerned with the truth of the insight and the existence of the 'what.' Nonetheless, the fact remains that no 'what,' no finite (!) content of our understanding, contains in itself the sufficient reason for its own existence. Consequently the motive for the rational judgment in which existence is known must be sought outside of the intelligible content as such. A similar point holds true for the experiential aspect of the structure. The essential distinction between experience and insight does not mean that in our normal condition the content of sense knowledge is and remains a pure datum. On the contrary, it spontaneously becomes an object of wonder, an occasion for raising questions, the kind of question depending on the kind of our foreknowledge, or our way of thinking, or the stream of our consciousness. The thesis of the structure of human knowledge implies a qualitative differentiation and variety in our cognitive process resulting from the qualitatively distinct levels of our intentionality in itself and in its dependence on sense. 7

The Ambiguity of the Antithetic Problem hi Kant as a Consequence of the Ambiguity of His Conception of the A Priori

In 1772 Kant still thought to be an unsolved riddle the question, 'On what foundation rests the relation of what is called the representation in us to the object?' The representations in question are called in the course of the same letter 'pure concepts of the understanding' which 'have their sources

Kant's Antithetic Problem and Lonergan's Conception of Reality 121 ... in the nature of the soul,' 'intellectual representations,' but also 'axioms of pure reason,' 'concepts of things,' which the understanding forms for itself in a completely a priori fashion, 'real principles' of the understanding, and 'categories.' Behind this varied and, as I believe, shifting terminology lies a fundamental problem of Kant's transcendental philosophy in general, namely, the problem of the a priori in human knowledge. That there is an a priori is for Kant a self-evident presupposition which he shares with the entire rationalist philosophical school of his time. But what precisely this a priori is, and hence what kind of function it has in the genesis of our knowledge, is anything but clear in Kant. As a matter of fact Kant has been interpreted in different ways on this point in the course of two hundred years of Kantian exegesis. Neo-Kantianism found in the KRVa logical as opposed to a psychological a priori. H. Vaihinger points out that Kant moves back and forth between treating the a priori as a genuine, complete kind of knowledge, and as a component of knowledge, without ever explicitly recognizing the difference.50 More recently R. Zocher has discerned two different senses of the a priori in Kant: an a priori of judgment and an a priori of form.51 Although I do not wish to exclude these interpretations of Kant, I would instead draw the reader's attention to the coexistence of two distinct conceptions of the a priori in the KRV. The first I would like to call a content-constitutive or objectconstitutive conception, according to which the a priori itself is a (partial) object of knowledge that lies ready in the mind and is added to the content of sensation. The second conception I call a performative or subjectconstitutive conception. According to this second conception the a priori is the normativeness that is immanent within the subject and through which the subject promotes step by step the content of sensation into known reality. In brief: in the first case the a priori is that which the subject imposes on or prescribes to the object; in the second case, the a priori is that according to which the subject questions the object.52 In the letter to Herz the pressing question, which was still an open question in Kant's mind, referred to the 'pure concepts of the understanding' or, formulated more generally, to the 'intellectual representations.' In the KRV the answer to this question is given in the section on the Transcendental Deduction of the Pure Concepts of the Understanding. If now we take into consideration the doctrine of the concepts of the understanding in the KRV, a further complication arises with regard to the antithetic problem as a result of the ambiguity or indeterminacy of the Kantian a priori. Exactly what, and which, are the pure concepts of the understanding whose objective validity stands in need of explanation? The twelve categories - which Kant was particularly proud to have discovered and given a complete, because systematic, account of- officially

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appear as the pure, a priori concepts of the understanding (see A 80-81). Kant explains (and demonstrates) that these concepts apply to the objects of our experience. But the meaning of individual categories is not as clear as one might wish. Furthermore, in the course of the KRV Kant introduces other fundamental a priori concepts, not all of which can be traced back to the twelve categories. I mean the predicables of A 81-82, the transcendentals of B § 12, and the concepts of reflection in the appendix to the Transcendental Analytic. In the context of different problems, Kant speaks again and again of a priori concepts that seem on further reflection to be other concepts, all the while assuming with the greatest self-confidence that what he is saying is simply self-evident. How do we pose the problem of conformity with regard to all of these a priori concepts? As I have mentioned, Kant develops the doctrine of the transcendental deduction above all with regard to the twelve categories. What about the other fundamental a priori concepts that are not categories? Furthermore, it is striking how often and how liberally Kant speaks of a priori concepts in the KRV. For instance, when he speaks of the method of construction in mathematics he assumes as self-evident that we possess certain a priori concepts (e.g., the concept 'straight,' or 'triangle'), which we must then construct in pure intuitions in order to reach materially new theorems. Kant's recourse to a priori concepts is no different when he speaks of natural science. What form does the problem of objective validity take with regard to these concepts, which again are not categories? But a further observation is important precisely with regard to mathematical and scientific concepts in order to see how manifold and varied the problem of 1772 in fact was, or became, in the KRV. In Kant's critical writings the qualification 'a priori,' which is attributed to an intellectual representation, often stands simply for the universality (and necessity) of that representation. As universal, it does indeed precede every corresponding concrete representation that can be known only in an a posteriori fashion. But this relative apriority does not signify the absolute apriority that Kant had in mind in the antithetic problem as such. It could indeed be the case that the true universality of the content of the concept has an a posteriori origin. But this way of explaining the universal representation in us never occurs to Kant, because he never clarifies by means of an introspectively verifiable investigation the way in which we move from sense experience to the formation of the (universal) concept. From all that has been said so far about the nature and function of the a priori and the extent of the pure representations of the understanding in Kant, there arises a difficulty concerning the interpretation of the antithetic problem, with regard both to the posing of the problem and to its solution. It is easy to see that the question about the agreement of

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intellectual representation and object differs according to whether one understands the a priori in the one way or the other, and according to whether one is dealing with these or those concepts. The obscurity of the transcendental deduction of the pure concepts of the understanding (and also of the pure principles) in Kant depends to a large extent on this unclarified or ambiguous presupposition. An adequate investigation into what Kant calls an a priori representation and into the arguments with which Kant demonstrates or explains the objective validity of this a priori in the KRV is not possible in the context of this study. In any event the conclusion of such an investigation can certainly not go beyond discovering certain different and, in the last analysis, non-cohering doctrines in Kant both in the posing of the problem and in its solution. The current state of Kant scholarship after two hundred years of intensive work on this central topic of the transcendental philosophy permits no other prognosis. It is more illuminating, it seems to me, to develop the antithetic problem as Lonergan poses it on the basis of his intentionality analysis, and then to work out the solution to the problem that his intentionality analysis yields. By taking this approach it will also be possible to some extent to clarify by means of contrast Kant's way of framing and solving the problem. 8

The Antithetic Problem with Respect to Intentionality and Its Modes

When we speak of an a priori in a cognitive sense,53 then according to Lonergan we are speaking of intentionality and its modes. This, and this alone, is the true a priori in human knowledge. It is an a priori that Lonergan characterizes as transcendental The meaning of the term as he uses it is analogous to the use of the term in medieval scholasticism.54 Scholastic philosophy spoke of the 'proprietates transcenden tales' of being, namely, the basic features (unum, verum, bonum) that belong to every existent and to all orders of being. These all-embracing and therefore analogous features stood for scholasticism in opposition to the predicaments or categories, each of which applied only to a specific order of being. The best-known example of categories are the ten categories in the book of that name by Aristotle. But other classifications and conceptual determinations, Lonergan adds, are also categories or categorial determinations. Similar to the transcendental features of being, our intention refers to absolutely everything. For this reason Lonergan was able to define being as the objective of our desire to know. And just as the intention, so too the modes of intention, that is, the qualitatively different ways of intending with their immanent laws, have an unlimited range. But Lonergan's use of the term 'transcendental' has a meaning that is also related to the Kantian sense of transcendental as that which 'precedes

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[knowledge] a priori, but ... is intended simply to make cognition of experience possible.'55 For intentionality and its ways of operating (its modes of intending) are the conditions of the possibility of our knowledge of objects. In virtue of its intelligent, reasonable, unrestricted dynamism, the subject is able to transcend itself cognitively and reach an object that exists in itself. Our ability to pose particular questions and give particular answers is a function of the categories with which the concrete subject is equipped at a particular time, as a member of a particular culture, as the result of a particular education. The categorial element in our knowledge has a limited scope, is culturally conditioned, and varies in the course of time. In this sense one can speak only of a relative a priori, for example, culture, the so-called objective spirit, mentality, language. But the fact that we can pose questions at all and give answers, the fact that we thereby move from what we already know to that which is still unknown, and the fact that we do this in such a way that every piece of knowledge we attain multiplies rather than puts an end to our questions - the ultimate ground of these facts lies in our intentionality, which constitutes our ultimate, strictly a priori, purely anticipatory knowledge of the sum total of what is knowable; that is, it lies in our conscious, intelligent, and rational orientation toward being, as it manifests itself in a never-ending process of raising questions about being.56 The intention of being is constitutive for the questions we raise; these questions are nothing other than the performance of our intention. This intention is a knowing state of not knowing (ein wissendes Nichtwisseri). In every genuine question both elements are present: a state of not knowing, because otherwise we would not need to raise the question at all; a state of knowing, because otherwise we could not pose the question in an intelligent fashion at all. The intention is a mere anticipation, a mere foreknowledge: total ignorance and at the same time total knowledge of being as the knowable. Our intentionality manifests qualitatively different ways of intending. These modes of intending are transcendental, like the intention of being itself - thus they are all-encompassing, a priori, transcultural, metahistorical. Intelligence is the mode of our intentionality because of which we are not satisfied with pure data and their psychological-biological relevance, but ask What? Why? How? What for? With these questions we are searching for a connection or a pattern that organizes the data into an intelligible whole, under a particular viewpoint. Intelligence thereby leads us from the data to an insight into the data and to concept formation. But the same intention is also rational. The transcendental mode of rationality leads us beyond the answer of intelligence and enables us to ask whether the

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interpretation of the data is true, that is, whether the answer in the concept meets the issue. Beyond its cognitive aspect, our intentionality is also moral. Responsibility as a transcendental mode of intention leads us beyond mere facts, possibilities, and wishes, to discover what is really good. Intelligent, rational (and responsible) intentionality is the authentic and only a priori element in our knowledge. The human mind is by its very nature meaning in search of intelligibility, reason in search of the absolute of the true and of being, morality in search of value. Lonergan calls intentionality itself and the modes of intentionality transcendental notions. 'Notion' means a kind of knowledge that is not a categorially determined question, an insight, a concept, a judgment, but the pure anticipatory knowledge of which I spoke above.57 Now that we have determined what it means to speak of an a priori element in human knowledge, if we pose the question about the objective validity of this transcendental element, we need only recall what was said above about the rational conception of reality. Reality as it exists in itself is not something other than or beyond that which our transcendental notions intend. It is only through these notions that the universe of being (and of good) is cognitively accessible to us. In this respect the solution of the antithetic problem is clear. The relation of representations58 in us to the object is given by the fact that the transcendental notions are conditions of the knowledge of transcendent objects in general. In the letter to Herz, the antithetic problem is also understood according to this transcendental sense of a priori. This becomes apparent from the conceptus intellectus puri that Kant lists in § 8 of the dissertation: Tossibilitas, existentia, necessitas, substantia, causa, etc.' and from the table of the categories in the KRV— at least from some of the categories. Consequently, the principle of the transcendental deduction, as it is formulated in A ill and 158, also contains the key to a solution of the problem that is actually very much like the one that I have developed here, following Lonergan. For example, wherever Kant insists on the function of the question, without which nature could not give us any information about itself, he is thinking, albeit in a confused and inchoate fashion, of the pure foreknowledge of being as the horizon of questions like the questions about existence, possibility, necessity, cause. This subjective-constitutive or performative a priori appears in Kant wherever he sees himself confronted with the 'particular' laws of nature, before which even Kant's 'author of experience' (B 127) comes to a halt (see the important passages in the Transcendental Deduction, A 127-28 and B 165). This problem haunted Kant right up to the last sketches of his so-called opus postumum. Here I will cite only the well-known reflections in both introductions to the Critique of Judgment. For the second, published by

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Kant himself, see sections IV and V. According to his comments there, human reason does not approach the data of experience in a commanding, order-giving fashion, but in a questioning, searching fashion. It behaves toward the data not as constitutive, but as regulative reason (so we read in the appendix to the Transcendental Dialectic in the KRV); not as a determining, but as a reflecting judgment (so we read in the introduction to the Critique of Judgment). But Kant never made the breakthrough to a conception of the a priori as question and thus to a rational conception of reality. He gives up even in the passage cited above from the Critique of Judgment, where he goes only as far as a highly ambiguous 'as if of a correlativity between another understanding (the divine?) and reality. But as the preceding discussion of the ambiguity of the Kantian a priori makes clear, in the letter to Herz Kant does not pose the question of the objective validity of our intellectual representations in this sense alone. There are not a few passages in the KRV in which the a priori, or the pure concepts of the understanding, are taken as categorial (in the scholastic sense of the term), ready-made representations in the mind that are added to the a posteriori content of sensation. In his writings Kant often switches imperceptibly from a transcendental conception of the a priori to a categorial a priori. The solution to the antithetic problem developed here, of course, does not hold good for intellectual representations conceived in the latter way. 9

The Antithetic Problem with Respect to the Structure of Cognition

I have presented Lonergan's rational conception of reality as an alternative to Kant's phenomenalism. According to Lonergan, reality is the objective of our pure desire to know. The unlimited range of this desire to know implies that there is nothing outside of being so understood. But if we view our intention of being not only in its scope as a question, as a search for being, but also in its performance, that is, in the way in which it operates in moving from question to answer and thus to knowledge of being, then we must distinguish within the horizon of being, which is the horizon of our dynamism, between proportionate and transcendent being.59 'In its full sweep, being is whatever is to be known by intelligent grasp and reasonable affirmation. But being that is proportionate to human knowing not only is to be understood and affirmed but also is to be experienced. So proportionate being may be defined as whatever is to be known by human experience, intelligent grasp, and reasonable affirmation.'60 Another brief formulation: 'Being is whatever can be grasped intelligently and affirmed reasonably. Being is proportionate or transcendent according as it lies within or without the domain of man's outer and inner experience.'61 We have an unrestricted

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desire to know and a sensibility whose reach is restricted. From this gap arises the distinction between cognitio propria and cognitio analogica, and between proportionate and transcendent being. Cognitio analogica, and thereby knowledge of being that is strictly transcendent, is possible for us only through reliance on cognitio propria, that is, knowledge of the world. If now we consider cognitio propria and its object, it is possible to make more specific the correspondence thesis, and with it the antithetic problem. We must distinguish between elementary knowledge and composite knowledge or knowledge in the full sense of the word; we must draw a corresponding distinction between the elementary and composite objects of knowledge. The former is the content of each cognitive act taken by itself: data, intelligibility, the virtually unconditioned. The latter is the object of composite knowledge or, more specifically, of the three-level cognitive structure that is our main interest here. With regard to human knowledge as a structured knowledge, Lonergan's correspondence thesis (which is based on the intrinsic intelligibility of being) logically becomes the thesis of isomorphism, namely, the thesis of the similarity of the structure of knowing and the structure of the known. The thesis of a structural similarity between knower and known is first of all an analytic proposition: 'If the knowing consists of a related set of acts and the known is the related set of contents of these acts, then the pattern of the relations between the acts is similar in form to the pattern of the relations between the contents of the acts.'62 This means that corresponding to human knowledge as a threefold structure there is an object that likewise has a threefold structure. However, because knowing is one thing and being another, the question arises whether this threefold structure of the object is a structure that is immanent in and constitutive of proportionate being itself, or whether it is only the structure under which the object is known. Closer consideration reveals that the second of these alternatives in fact amounts to a denial of the rational conception of reality and a regression to the thesis of a disparity between intelligence and rationality, on the one hand, and reality, on the other hand. For the meaning of the epistemological thesis of the structure of human knowledge is that the levels of the structure differ essentially from one another; each adds a different kind of cognitive operation that is not contained among the operations of the preceding level and cannot 'logically' arise from those operations. But if the cognitive levels are essentially different, then so too are their contents. For in order to reach a content that is reducible to another, one does not need an essentially different cognitive operation. Consequently, the partial object of one level in the total object is really different from the partial object of another level.

128 Lonergan and Kant The essential point of the argument that the thesis of the structure of the object (reached by means of the isomorphism thesis) reflects the structure of proportionate being itself clearly lies in the intrinsic intelligibility of being. If being is precisely what is known by understanding63 or, in negative terms, if being is neither beyond the intelligible nor apart from it nor different from it,64 then the different forms of the intelligible - the potentially, formally, and actually intelligible - are intrinsic to being itself. Without this intrinsic intelligibility of being our cognitive acts would reach the (potentially, formally, actually) intelligible, but not being. And this is precisely the thesis of a disparity between cognitive acts and reality that negates itself in the performance of knowledge, insofar as the knowledge in question claims to reach the thing. The thesis established here that proportionate being in itself is composed of distinct real principles is equivalent to the traditional doctrine of the metaphysical elements of material being, that is, the thesis that every material existent consists of potency (matter), form, and act. What distinguishes this thesis in Lonergan is that, as with being itself, he also determines the metaphysical components of proportionate being with reference to the cognitive acts by which they are known.65 As with all metaphysical concepts, we have here definitions 'of the second order,'66 that is, definitions that do not refer to reality directly, but indirectly via the corresponding cognitive acts. These are operational definitions and at the same time heuristic definitions insofar as they indicate the way in which concrete matter, concrete form, and concrete act are to be sought and found. Every being in our world is composed of the content of experience, the content of insight, and the content of judgment. Certainly not just any experience, insight, and rational affirmation will suffice to know adequately the matter, form, and act of a being. For the metaphysical elements of reality are that which is to be known in fully explanatory knowledge.67 If this perfect explanation of proportionate being represents an infinitely distant goal of the sciences, the thesis of isomorphism nonetheless enables us to know already the structure that this exhaustive knowledge must have. The central and decisive moment in the knowledge that is intended and anticipated in this way is of course the moment of understanding, which is always partial and susceptible to enlargement until the final goal is reached. Rational affirmation, in contrast, is always the same, but it is always done in relation to a more complete, different explanation. Experience, for its part, pertains to the 'empirical residue' of individuality, the continuum, accidental coincidence and succession, nonsystematic divergence from intelligible norms - that is, to everything that can be known by experience and by experience alone. To speak of matter as a metaphysical component of the world means that

Kant's Antithetic Problem and Lonergan's Conception of Reality

129

there are real aspects of the world to which, even in an exhaustive scientific explanation of the world, there is no corresponding content of a direct insight into the data. There are aspects of the world that are given and remain merely as given; they are experienced but never understood, not because we are not capable of understanding them, but because there is nothing in them to be understood. The determination of the metaphysical elements of proportionate being in consequence of the isomorphism of the structure of knowing and the structure of the known, which has been summarized briefly above, is only a piece (though certainly the fundamental one) of Lonergan's conception of metaphysics. He locates the foundation for a metaphysical analysis of reality in the dynamic structure of our cognitive process68 and consequently defines metaphysics as the integral heuristic structure of proportionate being.69 The traditional metaphysical concepts of substance and accident, final and efficient cause, genera and species, etc., are then correspondingly determined. This conception of metaphysics has the merit of avoiding ambiguity on two distinct issues. First, it frees metaphysics from dependence on so-called 'metaphysical' insights, which have been so often invoked but whose epistemological status is extremely obscure. Second, it indicates precisely where the transition lies from metaphysics to the special sciences (natural, social, and humanistic) (Natur- und Geisteswissenschafteri), which likewise deal with proportionate being. The transition lies in the shift from definitions of the second order to definitions of the first order. But the latter can be reached only by the methods of inquiry that are proper to the relevant special science - natural, social, or humanistic - depending on the subject matter under investigation. 'If one wants to know just what forms are, the proper procedure is to give up metaphysics and turn to the sciences; for forms become known inasmuch as the sciences approximate towards their ideal of complete explanation; and there is no method, apart from scientific method, by which one can reach such explanation.'70 1O

The Antithetic Problem with Respect to Concepts in the Strict Sense

In section 7 I pointed out the different meanings of the antithetic problem in Kant, which result from the different meanings of a priori representations. One of these meanings is certainly that we possess a priori concepts in the strict sense of the term, that is, ready-made intellectual representations, with regard to which the question of their objectively valid application arises. In the KRV there is clearly a tendency to equate universality and apriority, according to the principle: 'Necessity and strict universality are sure criteria of a priori knowledge, and are inseparable from one

130 Lonergan and Kant

another' (B 4), and, Kant adds, each criterion by itself suffices to prove the a priori nature of a representation. In this respect the range of the antithetic problem in Kant is extremely wide. When a priori intellectual representations are understood in this way, the solution to the problem of the objective validity of these representations naturally can be only the idealistic solution, that is, the doctrine of an a priori synthetic creation of nature by the transcendental subject or, what amounts to the same thing, the doctrine that objects conform to our knowledge (see B xvi). To be sure, this doctrine of the creation of nature according to our a priori concepts is not as strikingly present in the text of the KRV as one would expect. There are two reasons for this. The first is Kant's tendency to shift the decidedly thetic aspect of his idealism to the transcendental/wconscious functions of the subject, and, in the process, silently to presuppose this aspect. When Kant then inquires into our cognitive acts, this analysis is restricted for the most part to the conscious-psychological conception of a nature that has already been transcendentally created.71 The second reason is that in the question of the relation of the representations in us to the object, Kant often confuses the transcendental and categorial a priori (as defined above), so that that which is actually true for the former, and which in itself does not imply idealism, also to some extent makes the solution plausible with respect to the latter. In my opinion it is not possible to say more about the Kantian solution to the problem of the validity of our a priori concepts, for the simple reason that Kant has not thought through the problematic of what he calls a priori concepts. In Lonergan, the sharp distinction of the transcendental a priori from the categorial a posteriori belongs to the essence of his intentionality analysis. On the basis of this presupposition he formulates the problem of the realization of our concepts in a completely different way. Lonergan's main concern in Insight is with clarification of the process by which our understanding initially moves from the data of sense (or of consciousness) to the formation of a concept. The key to the clarification of this step on the path to knowledge is for Lonergan the rediscovery of the act in which Aristotle and Thomas Aquinas located the pivotal point of the human cognitional structure: the 'intelligere in sensibili,'72 which grasps in the individual, concrete data an intelligibility that is not limited to these data.73 It was precisely this central act that had been obscured for centuries in a tradition that was essentially influenced by Scotus. Kant's problematic of a priori concepts in the letter to Herz and in the KRV clearly belongs in this conceptualist tradition.74 According to Lonergan, every concept is empirical and intellectual at the same time, because the understanding

Kant's Antithetic Problem and Lonergan's Conception of Reality 131 puts together and expresses in the concept that which it has grasped in the data, namely, the intelligible relation among the data together with that which is relevant in the data for this intelligible unity (synthesis).75 If we have discovered the way in which concepts arise, then the question of the application or realization of the concept is also half answered. In any event, this question is put now in a different way from Kant's question about the objective validity of concepts that are already present in the understanding as ready-made representations. But the question of the objective validity of our concepts, which as representations have an immanent status, does nonetheless arise for Lonergan too, albeit in an essentially different sense; that is, Lonergan too faces the question of the conformity of the representations in us with the object outside of us. Lonergan's answer to this question, which pertains to the second stage of the journey toward knowledge of being, is none other than the doctrine of how our understanding moves from concept to judgment. We see that Kant was not the first to pose the question of conformity! It is always already posed by our intentionality insofar as it is rational. When we have brought about an intelligible synthesis of the data and expressed this synthesis in a concept, then our rationality meets the concept with the critical-reflective demand that can be thematized in a question such as, Is it really so?76 Indeed, intelligibility means possibility, and possibility is possibility to be. But a finite intelligibility - and every content of our insights is finite - is in itself no more than possibly real or true; it alone provides no guarantee that things are really that way, that is, that the formal intelligibility is also actual. The question for reflection (An sit?) which follows concept formation is the question about being, about that which is not merely thought, but simply and without any qualification is, exists in itself, and thus transcends our thought about it. The answer to this question about the transcendent is possible because the concept is not an isolated representation of the understanding, as it is in Kant's letter to Herz, but the performance of an intentionality that is capable of transcendence. According to the KRV the intellectual representation, like all the operations of the understanding and reason, stands in the service of sensibility as the condition of the possibility of the object relatedness of our knowledge. And because sensibility cannot reach beingin-itself, Kant's solution to the antithetic problem leads to phenomenalism, that is, to the denial of the realistic premises because of which the problem arose in the first place. According to Lonergan the intellectual representation, like the operations of sense and understanding in general, stands in the service of an intentionality that, because of its unrestricted scope, is not locked within the inner sphere of subjectivity. Thus, while in Kant the question of the agreement of representation and object is followed by the

132 Lonergan and Kant return to sensibility, which alone is capable of mediating the object (as phenomenon, of course!), according to Lonergan what follows this same question is the forward movement of intentionality to the judgment of fact, which as a rational judgment77 satisfies the question about the object in the transcendent sense. For the answer to the question has the same meaning as the question itself. So if the question is about the transcendent, that is, being-in-itself, then the answer too has a transcendent or realistic meaning. In other words, the conditions that render it possible for the subject to make a rational judgment are at the same time the conditions that render it possible for the subject to know things whose existence does not depend on the subject. There are two such conditions, which have already been presented in this treatise: the unrestricted dynamism of intentionality, and the ability of that dynamism to satisfy its own search for being, which is directed toward a determinate intelligibility, by reaching the virtually unconditioned. It was precisely about the explanation of this transcendent character of our knowledge that Kant was asking in the letter to Herz of 1772. The rational conception of reality allows us to acknowledge both a true a priori in human knowledge, and the initially immanent status of the representations of our understanding, without thereby driving the epistemologist, just awakened from his dogmatic slumber, into the exile of phenomenalism.

Notes

Foreword 1 Kritik der reinen Vernunft is abbreviated in these essays as KRV, and referred to according to the original pagination of the first (A) and second (B) editions. References will be frequent, and so will be given in the text rather than in footnotes. The English translation will be that of Norman Kemp Smith, except for minor changes and the addition of emphases. [Immanuel Kant, Critique of Pure Reason, trans. Norman Kemp Smith (New York: St Martin's Press, 1965)]2 On the question of the evolution of the Critique of Pure Reason, see G. Sala, 'Bausteine zur Entstehungsgeschichte der Kritik der reinen Vernunft Kants,' in Kantstudien 78 (1987) 153-69. For the context in intellectual history out of which Kant's major work arose, see G. Sala, 'Die transzendentale Logik Kants und die Ontologie der deutschen Schulphilosophie,' in Philosophisches Jahrbuchge, (1988) 18-53. 3 In addition to Insight, mention should be made here of two other publications that are no less fundamental for the interpretation of the Critique of Pure Reason that Lonergan outlined and that I adopted and substantiated in detail - the book review 'Metaphysics as Horizon' of 1963 and the essay in the Festschrift for Lonergan of 1964, 'Cognitional Structure.' These two essays reappear in Collection, volume 4 of Collected Works of Bernard Lonergan, ed. Frederick E. Crowe and Robert M. Doran (Toronto: University of Toronto Press, 1988). 4 Kant's letter of 5 April 1798 to Johann Heinrich Tieftrunk. 5 E. Gilson, Realisme thomiste et critique de la connaissance (Paris: Vrin, 1939) 163. 6 'the force of existential judgment by which through true judgment the existent is known' and 'truth absolutely posited by which being is known.'

134

7 8

9 10 11

Notes to pages xvi-3

See the beginning section of the treatise De Verbo incarnate (Rome: Gregorian University Press, 1960). To be sure, these articles revolutionized the traditional interpretation of Thomas to no small degree! See Bernard Lonergan, 'The Subject,' in A Second Collection, ed. William FJ. Ryan and Bernard J. Tyrrell (London: Barton, Longman & Todd, 1974) 69-86. Bernard Lonergan, Method in Theology (London: Darton, Longman & Todd, 1972; latest reprint, Toronto: University of Toronto Press, 1990) 292. Ibid. 265. Ibid. 338. Chapter 1

1 I am very much indebted to the Reverend Frederick E. Crowe, SJ, for going through my manuscript improving the style and clarifying a number of passages. The present essay offers some key insights already treated more thoroughly in a detailed study of Kant's writings in my book Das Apriori in der menschlichen Erkenntnis. Eine Studie uber Kants Kritih der reinen Vernunft und Lonergans Insight (Meisenheim am Glan: A. Hain, 1971). 2 Norman Kemp Smith, A Commentary to Kant's 'Critique of Pure Reason' (New York: The Humanities Press, 1950) 561. 3 Bernard J.F. Lonergan, Insight: A Study of Human Understanding (first published, London: Longmans, Green & Company, 1957; a second, revised edition was published in 1958; now available as volume 3 in Collected Works of Bernard Lonergan, ed. Frederick E. Crowe and Robert M. Doran, Toronto: University of Toronto Press, 1992). References to this volume in the present chapter will also be given in the text rather than in footnotes, with emphases added in some cases. Page numbers will be those, first, of the second, 1958 edition, and then those of the Collected Works edition (e.g., 332/356). Perhaps the relation of Kant and Lonergan in this study should be clarified. Directly, this essay is a study of Kant; it is, however, a critical study, a critique of a critique. Now a critique proceeds from horizons, presuppositions, premises, and positions, which are those of the critic himself. Thus, Kant's own critique of pure reason proceeded from his position on the relation of understanding to the empirical, and from the presuppositions that lay behind that position. Similarly, our critique of Kant proceeds from presuppositions held by the author, and those presuppositions are derived from the cognitional theory of Lonergan's Insight. However, we judged it legitimate to omit a detailed presentation of Lonergan here; surely we are not mistaken in thinking, after nearly twenty years and so many general presentations of Lonergan's thought, that we can take the basic ideas of Insight to be familiar.

Notes to pages 3-10 135 There may indeed be a question about some of its particular ideas, whether or not they have been superseded by Lonergan's later work, but that would have to be proved in each case. In fact Lonergan gives his own recent views on Insight in the paper 'Insight Revisited,' in A Second Collection, ed. William FJ. Ryan and Bernard J. Tyrrell (London: Barton, Longman & Todd, 1974) 263-78, and though he indicates some ideas that have undergone revision in his thinking of the last twenty years, there is not the slightest hint that his basic cognitional theory and epistemology, that which is presupposed in the present essay, has been abandoned. On the contrary, he repeats and underlines his basic purpose and strategy in Insight. The same point might be inferred from his continual references to that work in his recent writings; it is clear that he regards it as expressing his fundamental philosophical position; see, for example, the index of Method in Theology (London: Barton, Longman & Todd, 1972; reprinted by University of Toronto Press, 1990), under: Lonergan ... Insight. 4 We shall see presently that Kant's a priori has its own objective content. It is not true, under this aspect, that the object is simply repeated in passing from one level to another. On the other hand, insofar as Kant recognizes an objective-content or object-constitutive a priori, he feels constrained to qualify the known as reality-for-us. True reality is (or rather ought to be) only the content of the first phase of knowledge. In fact it is not, since our intuition is sensible. This simple hint is enough to show that statements often voiced concerning Kant's epistemology must be recast from complementary, if not contrary, points of view which are also to be found in the KRV. One ought to keep this principle of interpretation in mind throughout this paper, even where it has not been possible to document it. 5 Here we expand Lonergan's analysis as it is found in the mimeographed notes of his course at the Gregorian University, 'Be methodo theologiae' (Rome, 1962) 49. 6 Martin Heidegger, Kant und das Problem der Metaphysik (Frankfurt am Main: Klostermann, 1965) 29. 7 Of course, this takes it for granted that knowing is essentially knowing an object, and hence that knowing essentially implies the duality of the knowing subject and the known object. It is precisely this assumption that is at the base of what we have termed the intuition principle. Kant is forced by this assumption to conceive the a priori as itself an object. Lonergan's analysis, on the contrary, uncovers an a priori strictly on the side of the subject, thereby replacing the Platonic duality of knowledge as confrontation with the Aristotelian theorem of knowledge by identity. 8 Editor's note: It may be important in the English-speaking world to indicate that by 'introspection' Lonergan does not mean taking a look at mental acts, but heightening one's consciousness by objectifying one's conscious operations. 'Inward inspection,' he says, 'is just myth.' But 'just as we move from the data of sense through inquiry, insight, reflection, judgment, to statements about sensible things, so too we move from the data of

136 Notes to pages 10-34 consciousness through inquiry, understanding, reflection, judgment, to statements about conscious subjects and their operations.' Method in Theology 8-Q; see also ibid. 14-15. 9 Kants gesammelte Schnften (Berlin: Preussische Akademie der Wissenschaften, 1910- ), vol. 8, p. 222. [Henceforth referred to in the form GS 8:222.] 10 Representation of extension is correlative to a number of fundamental complementary sensations. Thus we understand how this representation, unlike, for example, that of color, is always necessarily present when there is a minimum of sensitive life. Kant relies on this impossibility of eliminating the experiential conjugates of space and time from representation, when he assigns them a privileged ontological status, intermediate between the mere illusion (blosser Schein) of secondary qualities and the absolute reality of the thing in itself. 11 Metaphysische Anfangsgriinde der Naturwissenschaft, GS 4:472. 12 This is a line of thought that is certainly to be found in the KRV, though not so explicitly as we have expressed it, since in the KRV the operative conception of the categories never goes so far as to eliminate the objectivecontent conception. 13 Kant speaks of a transcendental content. But this qualification is far from unambiguous. 14 Reflexion 6414 (GS 18:709). 15 See Bernard Lonergan, Verbum: Word and Idea in Aquinas, ed. David B. Burrell (Notre Dame: University of Notre Dame Press, 1967) 54-55. 16 Kant, Vorlesungen iiber die Metaphysik (Erfurt: Keyser, 1821, Photomechanischer Nachdruck, Darmstadt: Wissenschaftliche Buchgesellschaft, 1964) 40. (GS28: 554)17 In these texts 'thing in itself means the thing outside the concept. Whether it belongs to reality as appearance or to absolute reality is a further problem which Kant does not raise at this point. 18 Kant, Reflexion 6276 (GS 18:543): 'Durch das Pradikat des Daseins tue ich nichts zum Dinge hinzu, sondern das Ding selbst zum Begriffe.' Chapter 3 1 Translator's note: All quotations from the Critique of Judgment are taken from James Creed Meredith's translation (Oxford: Clarendon, 1952). I have altered Meredith's translations and Smith's of KRV on a few occasions in order to get Professor Sala's meaning across; and at times Sala adds an emphasis not in Kant's text, in order to highlight a point he is making. All other translations of quotations from Kant are mine. 2 H. Vaihinger points out an ambiguity in the way in which Kant poses the question. The question about the a priori is sometimes understood as the question regarding purely a priori modes of knowledge, and sometimes as the question regarding the a priori components [of the known], but this difference is never made explicit. See H. Vaihinger, Kommentar zur Kants

Notes to pages 34-38 137 Kritik der reinen Vernunft, 2nd ed., vol. i (Stuttgart: Union Deutsche Verlagsgesellschaft, 1922) 186-88, 222-23. R. Zocher similarly discerns two possible meanings in the Kantian a priori - an a priori of judgment and an a priori of form - which ground two different but generally confused versions of transcendental theory. See 'Der Doppelsinn des Kantischen Apriori,' Zeitschrift filr philosophische Forschung 17 (1963) 66-74. The logical as opposed to the psychological conception of the a priori should also be mentioned in connection with the interpretation of Kant's doctrine. The former became a key concept for the further development of transcendental philosophy in neo-Kantianism, and especially in the work of H. Cohen. 3 Because Kant was never able definitively to clarify the issue of the a priori, the text of the KRV leaves room for different starting points and divisions. The distinction made here applies above all to the a priori on the level of intellectual knowledge, and at the same time is intended to point out the way in which the answer to a question as old as the aporia of the Meno (8od-e) must be sought. But the answer itself cannot be worked out here. 4 Reflexion 4634 (GS 17:619). 5 It was clearly texts like these, and especially A 25 (whereby, with the thesis that the representation of space is a unity and precedes its parts, the infinity of that representation is implied - see Vaihinger, Kommentar 2:221), in which Jacobi thought he detected a Spinozist (monistic) doctrine in Kant. See Uber die Lehre des Spinoza, in Briefen an Herrn Moses Mendelsohn (Breslau: Gottl. Lowe, 1785) 123. See also Die Hauptschriften zum Pantheismusstreit zwischen Jacobi und Mendelsohn, ed. and with a historical-critical introduction by H. Scholz (Berlin: von Reuther & Reichard, 1916) 146. 6 GS 18:147. 7 Vaihinger, Kommentar 2:103-7. 8 See Reflexion 3789 (GS 17:293 together with A 162/6 203). 9 Vaihinger, Kommentar 2:88. 10 Ibid. 90. 11 Leibniz, Nouveaux Essais, Book l, chapter l, § 23, in Die philosophischen Schriften von Gottfried Wilhelm Leibniz, ed. C.I. Gerhardt, vol. 5 (Berlin: Georg Olms Hildesheim, 1960) 70-71. 12 Ibid., Book 2, chapter i, § 2: Gerhardt, pp. loo-ioi. 13 Lxider Gabe, 'Zur Apriori tatsproblematik bei Leibniz-Locke in ihrem Verbaltnis zu Descartes und Kant,' in Sinnlichkeit und Verstand in der deutschen und franzosischen Philosophic von Descartes bis Hegel, ed. H. Wagner (Bonn: Bouvier, 1976) 95. 14 Ibid. 99. 15 GS 8:221-23. 16 Metaphysische Anfangsgrunde der Naturwissenschaft (GS 4:472). 17 Reflexion 7316 (GS 19:314). 18 Immediately after posing the question in the Preface to the B edition, Kant is already speaking of that 'which [reason] has itself put into nature' (B xiv). But here, as often in Kant, there is an unjustified leap from the performative

138 Notes to pages 38-41

19 20

21 22 23 24 25 26 27 28

29

30 31

or subject-constitutive to the content-constitutive or object-constitutive a priori. For the question qua question puts nothing into the questioned. Reflexion 6414 (GS 18:709). In my opinion precisely this is the genuine a priori: not an a priori content, which is added to and covers up the a posteriori content, but the rationality of intentionality, which uncovers the material and formal content of cognitional structure in its status as being, and therefore in its transcendence. Correspondingly, the a priori of the understanding is the intelligence of that very intentionality, insofar as it seeks the intelligible, that is, connection, synthesis, unity in the data. Kant, Prolegomena (GS4:292). See Vaihinger, Kommentar 2:355. Ibid. 350, 291-92. GS 20:214. See Critique of Judgment 18 (Introduction, section IV [Academy Edition V:i79]). See the same point made as early as KRVA 127-28/6 165. Ibid. 19. Ibid. Ibid. 34. Add to this another statement, the significance of which ought not to be underestimated: 'for reflection on the laws of nature adjusts itself to nature, and not nature to the conditions according to which we strive to obtain a concept of it, - a concept that is quite contingent in respect of these conditions.' Ibid. 19. Thus writes W. Windelband in his introduction to the third Critique in the Academy Edition, V:52O-2i. One could in any case ask whether in the final analysis it is possible to distinguish between determinant and merely reflective judgment. For if nature, which comes about by means of the content-constitutive or object-constitutive a priori, has 'no independent existence outside our thoughts' (KRVA. 491/6 519), does it still make sense to distinguish between this law-giving and a law-giving that holds good only for the subject? G52i:i74GS 22:752Chapter 3

i Translator's note: Quotations from the Prolegomena to Any Future Metaphysics are taken from the Paul Carus translation, revised by James W. Ellington (Indianapolis: Hackett, 1977). In one or two places the translations from the KRV and the Prolegomena have been altered at the author's suggestion. All other translations of quotations from Kant and from secondary literature are mine. All emphasis in quotations from Kant is Sala's, who has both removed Kant's original emphasis and added his own. My thanks to Fr Sala for his detailed comments and criticisms, which made this a much better translation than it would otherwise have been.

Notes to pages 42-44

139

2 H. Vaihinger, Kommentar (see above, chapter 2, note 2) 1:125. 3 Benno Erdmann, Kant's Kriticismus in der ersten und in der zweiten Aujlage der Kritik der reinen Vernunft (Leipzig: J.A. Earth, 1878) 13. 4 Alois Riehl, Der philosophische Kritizismus, vol. i, 3rd ed. (Leipzig: A. Kroner, 1924) 3755 Hermann Cohen, Kants Theorie der Erfahrung, 3rd ed. (Berlin: B. Cassirer, 1918) 104. 6 See, for example, the analytic, textually precise investigation by A. Gideon in his Marburg dissertation under the direction of H. Cohen, Der Begriff Transcendental in Kant's Kritik der reinen Vernunft (Marburg: T.R. Friedrich, 1903), and that of E. Gerresheim in his Mainz dissertation under the direction of G. Martin, 'Die Bedeutung des Terminus transcendental in Immanuel Kants Kritik der reinen Vernunft. Eine Studie zur Kantischen Terminologie und zugleich eine Vorstudie zu einem allgemeinen Kantindex,' Part l (Koln, 1962). 7 See W. Mechler, 'Die Erkenntnislehre bei Fries, aus ihren Grundbegriffen dargestellt und kritisch erortert,' Kantstudien, Erganzungsheft 22 (Berlin: Reuther & Reichard, 1911), who comes to the conclusion: 'Both Fries himself and his disciples are entirely justified when they reject [all those who] confuse them with the psychologists' (86). 8 J.F. Fries, Neue oder anthropologische Kritik der Vernunft, 2nd ed. (Heidelberg: Christian Friedrich Winter, 1828) xxviii. 9 Ibid. 40-41. Wilhelm Dilthey made a similar demand with regard to Kant's critique of reason in the essay 'Ideen uber eine beschreibende und zergliedernde Psychologic' (1894), where he pointed out the necessity of first illuminating the cognitional process as a mental process (Gesammelte Schriften 5 [Leipzig: B.G. Teubner, 1924] 138-249, esp. 148-53.). But why Dilthey failed to arrive at a satisfactory conclusion along these lines does not really need to be determined here. Contrary to the metaphysics of cognition that was almost exclusively accepted among neo-Thomists, the theory of human knowledge of Thomas Aquinas himself is constructed on a relatively broad and quite nuanced foundation of psychological facts, which can be discovered only through introspection. Thus, for example, Thomas establishes the existence of the central act of our cognitive structure, namely, intettigere in sensibili, by recourse to an evident datum of the cognitive process itself, as it is given to us in consciousness: 'hoc quilibet in seipso experiri potest' (Summa theologiae, i, q. 84, a. 7; see also q. 88, a. l: 'secundum Aristotelis sententiam quam magis experimur'). There is no talk here of a metaphysics of cognition, but simply of introspection of the conscious cognitional process. Of course, the overall framework of Thomist epistemology remains a metaphysical one. See the outstanding investigation by Bernard Lonergan, Verbum: Word and Idea in Aquinas (see above, chapter i, note 15). See G. Sala, 'Die Introspektion als Schliissel zur Erkenntnislehre des hi. Thomas von Aquin,' in Theologie und Philosophic 49 (1974) 477-82. 10 Vaihinger, Kommentar 1:125.

140 Notes to pages 44-48 11 12 13 14 15 16

17

18 19

20

Ibid. 324. On this issue see above, chapter 2. See Kant's Prolegomena, GS 4:373, footnote. See Bernard Lonergan, Method in Theology (see above, chapter 1, note 3) 25. Kant writes thus in 1790 in his Streitschrift against the Wolffian Eberhard, 'Regarding a Discovery after Which Any New Critique of Reason Shall Be Made Superfluous by an Older [Critique].' GS8:219, footnote. Heidegger, Kant und das Problem der Metaphysik (see above, chapter i, note 6) 29-30. [Translator's note: the German nouns Anschauung, Anschauen, and the verb anschauen are variously translated as 'intuition,' 'intuiting,' 'looking (at),' and 'to look, intuit.' The English words 'intuit' and 'intuition' are potentially misleading translations here, for anschauen is a common German word meaning simply 'to look at,' while 'intuition' often is used to refer to a vague sort of nonperceptual or supraperceptual insight. Nonetheless, I have chosen to use the term 'intuition' in this translation (i) because it stems from the Latin verb intueri, which means 'to look at or contemplate,' and (2) because Norman Kemp Smith uses it to translate anschauen in his widely used translation of the KRV. However, to remind the reader of the close connection between anschauen and ocular vision, I have occasionally switched to the term 'looking (at).'] The ambiguity of the expression 'to correspond' should be noted. Only when that which corresponds to the concept is given in the sensibility can we make the transition from mere thought to knowledge. But what is it that 'corresponds' to the concept - reality as the true object of human knowledge, or the data of sensibility? Related to this distinction are two radically different conceptions of what reality is and of what the criterion or the cognitional operation is in which reality is known. /. Kant's Varlesungen uber die Metaphysik, ed. K.H.L. Politz (Erfurt: Keyser, 1821) 102 (GS 28:207). See, e.g., Thomas Aquinas, Summa theologiae, i, q. 84, a. 6, ad im. Of course, this traditional doctrine needs to be made more precise. For an epistemology that does not interpret knowledge according to the model of ocular vision, but rather treats it as a process consisting of several activities, the obvious relationality of the sensible object to the faculty of sense is no reason to affirm the relativity of the sensible object in an ontological sense. The ontological status of the object is known only in the judgment. Now insight, which initially grasps the object as the content of, and therefore in relation to, sense experience (descriptive knowledge), mediates between sense experience and judgment. This insight can no doubt be verified in the same experience, and this verification in turn issues in knowledge of reality, not of appearance. Locke's distinction is nonetheless still present in Kant, insofar as a status as appearance is attributed to the spatiotemporal object (of natural science), a status that is identical with neither the ontological status of being-in-itself, nor with that of 'mere appearance' (A 38, B 69). It is the typical 'third state'

Notes to pages 48-51 141 of the new Kantian ontology - the state of 'subjective objectivity,' as it has aptly been called (Vaihinger, Kommentar 2:291-92). Kant himself later stated in the Prolegomena § 19 that the objectivity that the KRV is concerned to establish consists in validity before the forum of all human beings: 'Therefore objective validity and necessary universal validity (for everybody) are equivalent concepts.' He expresses himself even more clearly in the following words from a fragment that, according to E. Adickes, on account of strong echoes of certain parts of the Transcendental Deduction, should be dated shortly before 1781 (Kantstudien i [1897] 246), while H. Vaihinger has confirmed this dating on the basis of his differently conceived analysis of the Transcendental Deduction (see his 'Die transcendentale Deduktion der Kategorien in der ersten Auflage der Kr.d.r.V.,' in Philosophische Abhandlungen: Festschrift for R. Haym [Halle an der Saale: M. Niemeyer, 1902] 95): 'Since the objects of our senses are not things in themselves, but only appearances, that is, representations, whose objective reality consists only [!] in the stability and unity of the synthesis of their manifold ...' (Refl. 5636, GS 18: 268). This doctrine is, to be sure, essential for understanding the KRV, but because it does not directly relate to the theme of my study, I simply presuppose it as well known. 21 H. Vaihinger, 'Die transcendentale Deduktion' 17. 22 We have here a further confirmation of what was said in the preceding section regarding the essence of knowledge according to Kant. Faced with the question, What is the most fundamental act of human knowledge, such that in that act is revealed what knowledge really and therefore in all instances is? Kant decides in favor of (sensible) intuition. The immediate reason for this, given in this passage, namely, that in us thought 'involves limitations,' is clearly unconvincing, for all of our cognitional activities, and especially intuition, betray their finitude. We find a different opinion in Aristotle, who held a different point of departure for our analogous knowledge of God to be more appropriate. Divine knowledge is for Aristotle a noesis noeseos, whereby noesis means neither intuiting nor indeterminate conceptual thought, but the act of understanding that is set forth in unsurpassed fashion in a well-known passage of the De anima, namely, understanding in the sensible: 'to ... tide to noetikon en tois phantasmasi nod' (De anima, HI, 7, 42ib 2). 23 GS 18:709. 24 Thus the object comes after all from intuition alone! 25 On the 'analysis of experience' in this sense, see Kant's letter to Jacob Sigismund Beck of 20 January 1792 (GS 11:313-16). Difficult questions do, in fact, arise here concerning the extent to which the doctrine of the Aesthetic coheres with that of the Analytic, questions which are not entirely resolved by Kant's response to the penetrating criticisms of his former pupil. The developmental-historical interpretation of the KRV sees in this issue - Is the object 'given to us by means of sensibility' (A 19), or only 'by means of certain synthetic a priori principles' (GS 11:315; see also A 258, 494)? - a

142

Notes to pages 51-53

further piece of evidence for its thesis, according to which the KRV to a large extent contains the records of various positions that Kant went through in the course of (at least!) the 17705. On this topic, see Vaihinger, Kommentar 2:16-19. 26 What is inadequate about the Kantian conception of the understanding is not that it conceives the activity of the understanding as synthetic: a connecting, ordering, unifying, etc. See in this connection the fundamental remarks of § 15 of the Transcendental Deduction of the Pure Concepts of the Understanding in edition B. That understanding consists essentially in a synthetic activity with regard to the data of sensibility can be verified introspectively. But there remains the further question, whether or not through this synthetic activity understanding grasps anything real. On this topic Bernard Lonergan writes: 'This is the critical point in philosophy. For a materialist the terms are real, the intelligible unification subjective; for an idealist the terms cannot be reality, and the intelligible unification is not objective; for the Platonist the terms are not reality but the intelligible unifications are objective in another world; for the Aristotelian both are objective in this world; Thomism adds a third category, existence, to Aristotelian matter and form.' Lonergan, Verbum 179, footnote 2OO (see also 144). Hume can be viewed as a representative of the materialistic or sensualistic position: what is real are the materials given in impressions, while the combination of these impressions by thought is subjective. See A Treatise of Human Nature, vol. l, book i, part i, section 4: 'Of the Connection or Association of Ideas;' and also An Inquiry concerning Human Understanding, section 3, 'Of the Association of Ideas.' Thus everything that is mediated by our intelligent and rational intentionality is excluded from the realm of reality, so that the only thing left is the object of sensible immediacy. Kant can be cited as a representative of idealism, as conceived here, for Kant, like Hume, begins with the immediate world of sensibility, but takes this to be the mere appearance of a reality in itself that is unknowable to us, and then proceeds to consider the activities of the understanding, which add an intelligible synthesis of appearances that is not real, but is nonetheless objective (that is, universally and necessarily valid!). See Bernard Lonergan, Method in Theology 264. With direct reference to the synthetic activity of the understanding, one can formulate the decisive question as follows: Is the form only a subjective manipulation of the material reality, or is it a real component of a synolori? If one has grasped the threefold structure of human knowledge, then there arises the further question regarding the judgment: Through the absolute positing of the mental synthesis, do I simply place a rubber stamp upon a reality that was already known, or do I know another real component of the synolon consisting of matter and form that up until now has merely been an object of thought, that is, being, by virtue of which and in relation to which the matter and form are real at all? 27 Emerich Coreth, Metaphysik, 1st ed. (Innsbruck: Tyrolia Verlag, 1961) 73. See also Kant's Reflexion 7316: 'the categories ... have in themselves no meaning at all and no object.' GS 19:314.

Notes to pages 53-60

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28 See also A 78: 'functions of the understanding'; A 287: 'subjective forms of the unity of understanding'; A 349: 'functions of synthetic unity'; GS 4:472: 'pure acts of thought.' 29 H. Vaihinger, Kommentar 1:352. 30 Of course, this does not alter the fact that the understanding, too, has in the final analysis no constitutive employment, in the sense that it has no content of its own to contribute to the object of human knowledge; it brings merely the content of the senses to the concept (er bringt nur den Inhalt der Sinne auf den Begriff). The logic of the principle of intuition leads unavoidably to an essential relativizing of the difference between the activities of understanding and of reason, a difference that Kant otherwise so strongly emphasizes. 31 Thus the understanding does not have its own matter, that is, its own real content! 32 Reflexion 5637: 'Reason reaches further than understanding' (GS 18:274). 33 In response to the first critics of his transcendental idealism, Kant indignantly points out: 'It never came into my head to doubt [the existence of things].' Prolegomena § 13, 'Remark III.' GS4:293. 34 See in this section number i, a and b. 35 For the view that this study takes of the relation of Gilson's realism both to neoscholastic thought and to Kant, see B. Lonergan's instructive discussion of E. Coreth's Metaphysik, 'Metaphysics as Horizon,' Gregorianum 44 (1963) 307-18 [also chapter 13 in Collection, vol. 4 of Collected Works of Bernard Lonergan, ed. Frederick E. Crowe and Robert M. Doran (Toronto: University of Toronto Press, 1988)]. The present study does nothing other than render the central thesis of this book review more precise by interpreting Kant's writings and articulating it within the framework of the Kantian tradition. According to Georges van Riet the essay from the year 1932, 'Realisme et Methode,' marks Gilson's conversion to intuitionism. See L'Epistemologie thomiste. Recherches sur le probleme de la connaissance dans I'ecole thomiste contemporaine (Louvain: Editions de 1'Institut Superieur de Philosophic, 1946) 503. In view of the purpose of this study I shall limit myself to what appears to have been Gilson's basic position in the animated discussion that took place between the two World Wars. In fact, as van Riet's monumental study shows, Gilson's realism went through a process of development (p. 509). Especially relevant for the problem of Gilson's realism are the two works, Le realisme methodique (Paris: Tequi, 1936) and Realisme thomiste et critique de la connaissance (Paris: Vrin, 1939 - especially the last chapter, 'L'apprehension de 1'existence,' 213-39). The exact meaning of the terminology used in scholastic circles, especially in their confrontation with post-Kantian immanentism, can be determined only in view of the individual authors. For example, Gilson himself calls his position 'realisme methodique.' 36 Gilson, Realisme thomiste 215. 'This much is certain, then, from the beginning of this new inquiry: the apprehension of being by the intellect consists of directly seeing the concept of being in some sensible datum.' Gilson, Thomist

144

Notes to pages 60-65

Realism and the Critique of Knowledge, trans. Mark A. Wauck (San Francisco: Ignatius Press, 1986) 197. 37 Gilson, Realisme thomiste 225. 'But the intellect is able to see being in the sensible objects we perceive.' Thomist Realism 205. 38 Gilson, Realisme thomiste 207. 'osmosis which occurs between sense and intellect in the unity of the knowing human subject.' Thomist Realism 189. 39 Gilson, Realisme thomiste 226. Therefore, one could say that existence accompanies all our perceptions, for we are not able directly to apprehend any other existents than those with sensible quiddities ... Is it so difficult, then, to understand that the concept of being is presented to knowledge as an intuitive perception since the being conceived is that of a sensible intuitively perceived?' Thomist Realism 205-6. 40 Gilson, Realisme thomiste 203. 'no matter in what manner and with what profundity we may pose the question as to how we know that something exists, realism will always respond: by perceiving it.' Thomist Realism 186. 41 Gilson, Realisme thomiste 163. 'brute reaffirmation of dogmatic realism, the validity of which had been denied by Kant's critique.' Thomist Realism 154. 42 In section 6, however, we shall see that the rejection of discursive argumentation, e.g., via the principle of causality, as a means of knowing reality in general or even only of knowing the external world, is not necessarily connected with the intuitionist or perceptionist postulate. The operation of our intentionality, which intends being directly, through insight and judgment, that is through a structured process, is not the same as a causal inference. 43 J. de Vries, Denken und Sein. Ein Aufbau der Erkenntnistheorie (Freiburg im Breisgau: Herder, 1937) 181. 44 059:49-51. 45 Reflexion 5642 (GS 18:281). 46 Norman Kemp Smith regards Kant as the true founder of the coherence theory of truth. See his A Commentary to Kant's 'Critique of Pure Reason' (see above, chapter l, note 2) xxxvi-xxxix, 36, 172-73. 47 J. de Vries, Critica, 3rd ed. (Barcinone/Friburgi Brisgoviae: Herder, 1964). 48 Otto Muck, Die transzendentale Methode in der scholastischen Philosophic der Gegenwart (Innsbruck: Verlag Felizian Rauch, 1964) 242. 49 See Uber die vierfache Wurzel des Satzes vom zureichenden Grunde, § 21: 'Aprioritat des Kausalitatsbegriffes. - Intellektualitaat der empirischen Anschauung. Der Verstand,' in A. Schopenhauer, Samtliche Werke, ed. A. Hiibscher (Leipzig: Brockhaus, 1937) 1:51-84. Also Uber das Sehn und die Farben, chapter l, § 1: 'Verstandigkeit der Anschauung ...' Ibid. 7-20. Die Welt als Wille und Vorstellung, vol. l, book l, § 4, in Samtliche Werke 2:14. Vol. 2, chapter l in Samtliche Werke ^:\^. Vol. 2, chapter 2 in Samtliche Werke 3:22-23. Vaihinger, Kommentar 2:162-65. 50 Die Welt als Wille, vol. l, book l, § 6, in Samtliche Werke 2:23-24. 51 Satz vom zureichenden Grunden, in Samtliche Werke 1:52-53. 52 Uber das Sehn und die Farben 7.

Notes to pages 65-71

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53 Die Welt als Wille, in Sdmtliche Werke 2:14. 54 H. von Helmholtz, Handbuch der Physiologischen Optik (Leipzig: Leopold Voss, 1856-66) § 22ff. See F. Ueberweg, Grundriss der Geschichte der Philosophic, 12th ed., vol. 4 (Berlin: E.S. Mittler & Sohn, 1923) 419-20. 55 A. Kalter, Kants vierter Paralogismus. Eine entwicklungsgeschichtliche Untersuchung zum Paralogismen Kapitel der ersten Ausgabe der KrV (Meisenheim am Glan: A. Hain, 1975) 165-71. 56 Sectio III, Propositio XII, Usus l (GS 1:411-12). 57 GS 28:42-4358 /. Kants Vorlesungen iiber die Metaphysik 98-104 (GS 28:205-208). 59 See Bernard Lonergan, 'Cognitional Structure,' in Collection 215. 60 Ibid. 61 See Bernard Lonergan, Insight (see above, chapter l, note 3) 416/441. The same point expressed in different words: It is indeed true that we cannot imagine the transcendence of knowledge except in the analogy of seeing; but it is false that the transcendence of human knowledge consists in what can be so imagined. It is illuminating that a well-regarded Kant scholar like Heinz Heimsoeth could write the following in explaining the term Kenntnis in A 339: 'direct contact, for example, of the sort that empirical intuition gives with the sensible'! Transzendentale Dialektik. Ein Kommentar zu Kants KrV (Berlin: W. de Gruyter, 1966-71) 72. 62 See further, above, section l, at the end: question (2). 63 On the critical realism defended here, see above all the two writings by Lonergan that have already been cited: Insight and 'Cognitional Structure.' The latter is a brief but highly informative summary of the former. G. Sala, Das Apriori in der menschlichen Erkenntnis. Eine Studie iiber Kants KrV und Lonergans Insight (see above, chapter l, note l), esp. chapter 2, § 1O; chapter 8, § 5; chapter 15. 64 'Nichts ist zu unsere Intentionalitat als Vermogen des Fragens schlechthin disparat.' The contrast is with the Kantian 'disparity between the intellectual intuition that is denied us and the operations of understanding and reason that are attributed to us' (see above, p. 71). We found it difficult to translate 'disparat' here in such a way as to highlight this point. (Editor's note.) 65 Lonergan, Insight 348/372. 66 Ibid. 391/416. See also 444/470. 67 Thomas Aquinas, Summa theologiae, l, q. 79, a. 7. The intellect regards its object according to the common concept of being, because the possible intellect is "that by which it is possible to become all things."' 68 Lonergan, Insight 499/523. 69 With what justification does the realist ascribe an intellectual intuition to the human knower? It will be answered: because of the evident fact of the objective validity of our knowledge. But the KRV asserts that precisely this alleged self-evidence constitutes the 'transcendental illusion' (A 295) that afflicts us. Which of these two views should we affirm? If Kant has pulled the

146 Notes to pages 71-72 rug out from under this intellectual intuition (the self-evidence of the objective validity of our knowledge is the 'illusion' that needs to be made plain, A 298), then nothing else remains but to examine the activity of knowing itself. The dispute 'self-evidence or "transcendental illusion"?' (A 696, footnote) should be resolved according to this procedure, a procedure that is in fact well-suited to resolving it and that is accessible to all human beings. In fact, the main question is not whether we know reality (whereby an unexamined and thoroughly questionable conception of human knowledge is presupposed), but what knowing is. It goes without saying that no automatic solution to this problem is to be expected; rather, each person must carry out this examination for himself or herself and personally bear the responsibility for the final judgment. 70 The undeniable occurrence of false judgments, in which the subject posits the mental synthesis absolutely but does not thereby know reality, cannot be brought forward as an objection against the theory that reality is known only in the judgment (see J. de Vries, Critica, § 8). First of all, it should be noted that for the intellectual version of intuitionism, too, for which being 'per se ipsum ... se manifestat seu apparet ... ita ut immediate "percipiatur" seu "videatur"' ('through itself... manifests itself or appears ... so that it is immediately "perceived" or "seen"') in an intuitive operation (ibid.), it is the case that the subject can nonetheless be mistaken. A comprehensive account of error cannot be given here. In order to do this one would have to provide as well a corresponding theory of knowledge. False judgments, that is, cases in which our cognitional process does not reach the reality that is asserted in the judgment, are no less a fact than are true judgments (at least the judgment that we have made false judgments). Therefore, the only thing that a theory of knowledge can and must accomplish is to elaborate the criterion of truth, but not the criterion of infallibility, which human beings do not possess. As our self-correcting process of learning makes clear, false judgments are corrected by other, true judgments, if and when they are corrected! The same intentionality that can be led astray for various reasons can also operate in accordance with its inner norms and thus arrive at true judgments. Both sorts of performance are facts, and we do not possess a second intentionality that controls the first. It seems quite difficult to explain the fact of false knowledge on the basis of an intuitionistic theory of knowledge. There we are told of a 'visio' in which being itself 'per se ipsum se manifestat' (manifests itself through itself}. What does 'per se ipsum' (through itself) mean? Without the mediation of the cognitional activity of the subject?! Furthermore: How can being 'per se ipsum' reveal itself incorrectly? The demand for a 'visio' in which reality allows itself to be known is in fact the despairing attempt to get along without the mediation of the subject in knowing, since this subject, as we know from experience, falls into error again and again (without knowing it!). Thomas Aquinas has no reservations about adopting the Aristotelian doctrine that 'proprie loquendo veritas est in intellectu componente et dividente' (properly speaking, truth

Notes to pages 72-78 147 resides in the intellect joining and dividing) (Summa theologiae, 1, q. 16, a. 2), whereby judgment is a task and a performance that cannot be taken away from the concrete fallible subject. To be sure, truth means intentional transcendence, that is, independence from any limiting qualification, including that of a constitutive relation to the knowing subject. But ontologically, truth is located exclusively in the subject. Without an attentive, intelligent, and rational subject, it does not arise. Human beings are not so designed that they automatically act according to the norms of their intentionality in every concrete situation; rather, acting in this way is the personal task of the responsible subject, and this task is a challenge that must be met again and again. See Bernard Lonergan, 'The Subject,' in A Second Collection (see above, chapter i, note 3) 70-71. 71 'Cognitio est quidam veritatis effectus' ('Knowledge is one of the effects of truth'). Thomas Aquinas, De veritate, q. i, a. i. But truth arises only in the judgment, as Thomas reminds us again and again. 72 Lonergan, Insight 538/561. 73 Ibid, xxviii/22. 74 'In its full sweep, being is whatever is to be known by intelligent grasp and reasonable affirmation. But being that is proportionate to human knowing not only is to be understood and affirmed but also is to be experienced. So proportionate being may be defined as whatever is to be known by human experience, intelligent grasp, and reasonable affirmation.' Lonergan, Insight 391/416. 75 See ibid. 431-34/456-60. Also on this topic, G. Sala, 'La metaphysique comme structure heuristique selon Bernard Lonergan,' Archives de philosophic 33-36 (1970-73). 76 See above, note 42. 77 Lonergan, 'Cognitional Structure,' Collection 218. 78 Lonergan, Method in Theology 263. 79 The oft-repeated view that the human person and, especially, God, are not objects rests upon a failure to recognize this ambiguity of the term 'object.' To be sure, a person qua person is not an 'already out there now real' in the sense of naive realism or of Kant's more complex intuitionism. But in fact the person can be the object of an intentionality that strives for cognitional and moral self-transcendence. See ibid. 341-43. 80 Ibid. 265. 81 A similar point is made, for instance, also at A 156: 'The possibility of experience is, then, what gives objective reality to all our a priori modes of knowledge.' 82 'Experience' here has the elementary meaning of sensation, that is, of empirical intuition, not the full meaning of the Analytic, according to which experience includes the concept. 83 Reflexion 3761 (GS 17:286). 84 The function of empirical intuition with regard to the formation of the concept cannot be examined in detail here. Briefly: The transition from the

148 Notes to page 78 concrete, individual datum to the universal, abstract concept occurs by virtue of an insight into the datum that grasps an intelligibility that is not limited to this datum. Thus according to critical realism the empirical intuition is doubly necessary: it is necessary not only in order to recognize the actuality of the concept, but also in order to form the concept in the first place. Once we have recognized that the universality of the concept is grounded in the insight, then the reason that Kant felt compelled to postulate a priori concepts disappears. See B 4: 'necessity and strict universality are thus sure criteria of a priori knowledge.' This doctrine regarding the origin of all our concepts also indicates how the demonstration of the ontological status of the mental synthesis proceeds. It is no accident that Kant, who failed to recognize the first function of empirical intuition with regard to the formation of the concept, was also unable to understand correctly the second function of empirical intuition, which relates to the judgment and hence to the actuality of the concept. See G. Sala, 'L'origine del concetto. Un problema Kantiano e una risposta Tomista,' Rivista diFilosofia Neo-scolastica 66 (1974) 975-101785 On the 'virtually unconditioned,' see Lonergan, Insight, chapter 10. Lonergan attempts to transpose into the proper terms of the cognitional process, and to render more precise, the metaphorical expression of evidentia sufficient as the basis of the judgment, without ending up in the cul-de-sac of the 'look at the thing' and the comparison of representation and thing. The virtually unconditioned consists in the de facto fulfilment of the conditions of a conditioned, so that, in this respect, the conditioned amounts to an unconditioned, an absolute (ab-solutum). The content of an insight reveals itself as a conditioned: it has the possibility of being, but of itself it does not have the status of that which simply 'is.' But at the same time the intelligible points out the conditions that must be fulfilled so that it can be known as an actually existing thing. The same data of sense that are intelligibly unified by the concept are precisely these conditions for the judgment, which is to be made within the unlimited horizon of being. When the critical reflection that follows upon the question, Is it so? grasps that these data are given on the level of sense perception, and that no datum is present that could call the mental synthesis into question, it grasps the virtually unconditioned and thereby the necessary and sufficient reason for affirming the mental synthesis in the judgment. The reflective insight, then, does not throw a sidewards glance at the thing, but grasps the 'invulnerability' (see Insight 284/309) of the content of the direct insight, that is, it grasps that the interpretation of the data is a correct interpretation. Grasping the invulnerability of the preceding insight into the sensible is thus not the grasping of a being or of an existing state of affairs (Einsicht eines Seins, eines seienden Sachverhalts). Indeed, this would be nothing other than the intellectualistic version of intuitionism with its intellectual rather than sensible glance at the thing. Grasping a virtually unconditioned means grasping the correspondence between data and mental synthesis. Now, since neither knowledge of a datum

Notes to pages 78-79

149

nor knowledge of a mental synthesis is a knowledge of being qua being, the grasping of the virtually uncondidoned is also not a knowledge of being. The virtually unconditioned is the reason - it lies in the subject and bears on the contents of the already performed operations of the first and second phases of the cognitional structure - why the intention of being as the intention of the uncondidoned (that is, of being) can and must (with the 'compulsion' of our rationality) rationally assert: This (content of experience) something (content of insight) is (content of judgment). It is precisely in the affirmation that has such a motive or reason that the 'division' of subject and object occurs, in the sense that the object is now characterized by the independence and transcendence of that which 'is.' The intention of being, which is capable of transcendence, has reached a being (ein Seiendes} in the judgment. In other words: The answer to a question that intends the transcendent has a transcendent meaning. But the reason for the answer (for the est of the judgment) is not yet the answer. The virtually unconditioned that grounds other sorts of judgment, judgments that occur in the various 'spheres of being' in which our intentionality operates, can then be understood in relation to the virtually unconditioned that grounds a concrete judgment of fact (see Lonergan, Method in Theology 75). What has been said here regarding the path from a possibly relevant intelligible unification of the data to the corresponding judgment can also contribute to the interpretation of the verification process in the experimental sciences, without falling back into empiricism. 86 The 'moment of truth' lies not in the synthesis of the understanding, but only in the absolute positing of that synthesis. The traditional description of the judgment as compositio et divisio, that is, as synthesis of subject and predicate, is therefore inadequate and misleading. 87 In the already quoted passage in which Heidegger says that, for the KRV, knowing is looking or intuiting, he continues: 'From this it becomes clear that the reinterpretation [!] of knowledge in terms of judgment (thought) goes against the central intention of the Kantian program. For all thought is merely the servant of intuition.' Heidegger, Kant und das Problem der Metaphysik 29. On the categories as fulfilling the function of 'servants,' see the important section § 22 of the Transcendental Deduction in edition B. This section contains especially clear formulations of most of the elements of Kantian intuitionism. To quote one: 'empirical intuition of that which is immediately represented, through sensation, as actual in space and time' (B 147). The following additional passages provide evidence of Kant's doctrine that human knowledge is a structure consisting of the activities of sense and understanding: 'Accordingly the Transcendental Analytic leads to this important conclusion, that the most the understanding can achieve a priori is to anticipate the form of a possible experience in general. And since that which is not appearance cannot be an object of experience, the understanding can never transcend those limits of sensibility within which alone objects can be given to us. Its principles are merely rules for the

150 Notes to pages 79-85 exposition of appearances' (A 246-47). At the beginning of the Dialectic, in Kant's argument against Plato, the achievement of the understanding is defined as follows: the understanding does nothing other 'than merely to spell out appearances according to a synthetic unity, in order to be able to read them as experience' (A 314). The language of the Transcendental Doctrine of Method is of the same tenor: outside of 'the conditions of all possible experience,' 'the authentication of truth is in no wise possible.' Indeed, the laws of the understanding 'are adapted only for empirical employment' (A 751). The doctrine of the service function of 'thought' in Kant is the counterpart of the principle of intuition in its sensualistic version. When Kant argues against the validity of rational theology by pointing out that the principle of causality and all of the principles of pure understanding 'refer to nothing but possible experience, and therefore solely to objects of the sensible world, and apart from them can have no meaning whatever' (A 621-22), he is clearly presupposing this service function of the understanding. 88 Such a judgment will not depend upon data of the absolutely transcendent reality, but upon the data of the 'world.' The same applies to the intelligibility of this transcendent reality and therefore to the concept that we can form of it. This is the well-known problem of analogous knowledge of God. Chapter 4 1 G.B. Sala, 'Kant's Doctrine of Human Knowledge: A Sensualistic Version of Intuitionism,' chapter 3 above. The problem of intuitionism is discussed above all on pp. 45-49, 60-65, 69-73. 2 I do not find the statement 'cognitio debet esse originarie visio' (knowledge must be originally vision) at all objectionable, as de Vries states in his response. What I do find objectionable is the epistemology that is derived from it. That epistemology is intuitionist insofar as, in the final analysis, it requires for the grounding of the truth of the judgment an immediate intuition or experience of the thing in itself, which is not identical with the entire process of attending to the data, insight into these same data, and testing the insight in light of the data in order to find the sufficient reason (the virtually unconditioned) , which in turn grounds the absolute positing of the interpretation, that is, the judgment. I am concerned here only with the overall structure that is introduced by the relative clause 'which is not identical ...' Metaphors and words are not the issue. 3 Quintilian, Institutio oratorio,, book 9, chapter 3, § l. 4 In a further, derivative sense one can then say that each component of this structure is a kind of knowledge: experience, insight, and judgment in their various forms and aspects are types of knowledge. 5 J. de Vries, Critica (see above, chapter 3, note 47) § 8. 6 Bernard Lonergan speaks explicitly of the 'impalpable act of rational assent'

Notes to pages 85-90

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as the necessary and sufficient condition of knowledge of reality. See Insight (see above, chapter i, note 3) 538/561. 7 de Vries speaks of a 'casus privilegiatus immediatae perceptionis ipsius esse realis' (privileged case of immediate perception of real existence itself). Critica, § 8. 8 J. de Vries, Grundfragen der Erkenntnis (Munich: Johannes Berchmans Verlag, 1980) 21-28. 9 Ibid. 21-22. 10 Ibid. 22. 11 Ibid. 25. 12 Ibid. 26. 13 Not in the case of the consciousness that is knowledge of oneself as merely experienced, as merely given, not as a being. See note 4 above regarding knowledge in the broader sense of the term. 14 In my study 'Seinserfahrung und Seinshorizont nach E. Coreth und B. Lonergan,' Zeitschrift fur katholische TheobgieSq (1967) 294-338, I have attempted to specify the differences between so-called judgments of consciousness and judgments about the external world. See esp. pp. 328-32. 15 The text of this first review of the KRVis reprinted in Kant's Prolegomena, ed. Karl Vorlander (Hamburg: Felix Meiner, 1965) 167-74. 16 See chapter 3, note 68. 17 The paradigmatic example of a judgment of consciousness, T am,' as explicated by philosophers from Augustine to Descartes and by the neoscholastic thinkers under discussion here (but also by many modern thinkers belonging to other traditions), can be taken as an especially appropriate case for illustrating the structure of knowledge. De Vries summarizes this traditional doctrine as follows: 'Thus we have certain knowledge that something appears to us, that we think, that we will, and hence that we live, that we are' (Grundfragen 27). Whatever may appear to me, whether true or false, no matter how thoroughly deceived I might be, no matter how deep in a dream I might be, I nonetheless understand with perfect clarity that none of this is possible unless I exist. This means that I have grasped the data of consciousness - of thinking, doubting, dreaming, etc. - as a basic unity-identity (leaving aside further questions about the self as a perduring subject, as a substance, etc.), which has in these very data its necessary and sufficient conditions, however I may vary these data of selfpresence. Because of this sufficient reason that I have grasped, I judge T am.' 18 On the basis of his analysis of the act of questioning, that is, that our questioning is made possible and is driven by a pure knowledge of being (by intentionality), E. Coreth writes: 'From this it follows that there never is and never can be a closed "inner area" of transcendental subjectivity, for subjectivity in its very performance is already "outside" in the realm of beingin-itself in general which transcends subjectivity. Performance is constituted in its nature and its possibility by its horizon, but the horizon in which

152

Notes to pages 90-96

subjectivity realizes itself is always the horizon of being-in-itself in general.' Metaphysik (see above, chapter 3, note 27) 193; translation from Lonergan, 'Metaphysics as Horizon' (see above, chapter 3, note 35) 191-92. 19 Our spiritual dynamism needs data in order to pose questions and understand at all. This is the meaning of the Thomist doctrine of the conversio intellectus ad phantasma. On this topic, see Lonergan, Verbum (see above, chapter 1, note 15) 159-62. 20 A mountain in the Bavarian Alps. - Trans. 21 Just as the expression '5^-consciousness' is a redundancy. Is there a consciousness that is not 'of itself? One will perhaps ask, 'What about animals?' The thesis under discussion here, according to which consciousness is experience and only experience of oneself, holds true for consciousness in general - thus, in the case of human beings, for empirical, intelligent, rational, and responsible consciousness, according to each respective kind of psychic act. In the text, I speak of a qualitative difference of consciousness which corresponds to the difference of the psychic subject as such. A subject is different when it merely experiences, different when the spirit of inquiry awakens in it, different when its rationality is at work, and different again when it stands under the claim of the moral law. But this qualitatively different consciousness is precisely consciousness, that is, it is always experience of oneself or self-presence. From this it follows that the animal is conscious indeed, but only sensibly or sensually conscious. It does not have a higher consciousness, just as it has no capacity to perform psychic operations that transcend sensibility. But in the case of the animal, too, consciousness is consciousness of oneself or self-presence - otherwise it is not consciousness at all. Precisely in this fact lies the difference between an animal that sees, feels, wants, etc., and the movements of a machine. There is no reason to characterize the difference in consciousness between human beings and animals in terms of the difference between consciousness and self-consciousness. What animals in contrast to human beings are incapable of is the thematization of the self-presence that accompanies one's psychic acts, that is, the thematization of consciousness. Only human beings can do that, and thus only human beings can move from consciousness to knowledge of themselves. Naturally this thematization includes a reditus ad se ipsum; but this reditus is not at all necessary in order to become aware of oneself; rather, it is necessary in order to know oneself under the aspect of the intelligible, the true, and the real. 22 Or, as was established above in our debate with de Vries, a connection - for example, a causal connection - of the prospective judgment with another judgment whose truth is already known due to a prior immediate seeing of the fact. 23 de Vries, Critica, Nr. 156. 24 de Vries, Grundfragen 73-74. 25 A formally unconditioned is, in contrast, an unconditioned that has no conditions whatever. Only God fits this description.

Notes to pages 97-104

153

26 de Vries, Grundfragen 73. 27 Bernard Lonergan, 'The Subject' (see above, chapter 3, note 70) 71. 28 Lonergan, Verbum 59-66. 29 There are also brief references to this in Insight 634-35/657-58, 489/513. I have discused this dead end to which intuitionism leads in my Kant study, 'The Diallele of the Intuitionist Theory of Knowledge,' above, chapter 3, §5-3Chapter 5 1 Kant's letter to Johann Bernoulli of 16 November 1781, GS 10:277. 2 Ernst Cassirer, Rants Leben und Lehre (Berlin: B. Cassirer, 1918) 135. 3 The text of the letter is in GS 10:126-35. See also Reflexion 4473, which Adickes dates from 1772 and which lays out in a similar fashion the problem posed in the letter to Herz: GS 18:564-65. 4 De mundi sensibilis atque intelligibilis forma et printipiis § 4. The text of the Dissertation is in GS 2:385-419. 5 Ibid. § in fine, and § 6. See also J. Schmucker, 'Zur entwicklungsgeschichtlichen Bedeutung der Inauguraldissertation von 1770,' in Akten des 4. Internationalen Kant-Kongresses (Berlin: W. de Gruyter, 1974) part 1, pp. 263-82, esp. 279-80, and by the same author, Kants vorkritische Kritik der Gottesbeweise (Wiesbaden: F. Steiner, 1983) 89-92. 6 Dissertation § 8. 7 Ibid. For a similar doctrine of space and time, see § 4 in fine, and § 15, corollarium in fine. 8 On this point, see H. Vaihinger, Kommentar 1:183 and 2:89-101. 9 See Schmucker, 'Zur entwicklungsgeschichtlichen Bedeutung der Inauguraldissertation von 1770' 280, 281. The basic point is that Kant never disputed that our understanding is in principle directed toward reality as it exists in itself. This corresponded anyway to his realism, which he never gave up, and from which his analysis of human knowledge proceeds, only to reach a conclusion that contradicts the starting point that he never abandoned! Moreover, as Adickes remarks apropos of Reflexion 4916 (GS 18:28), a passage that Schmucker also quotes, Kant concedes even in 1781, and also later frequently, that it is possible to think, and represent indeterminately, the transcendent by means of the categories. Of course, this is all inconsistent, if one takes seriously the determination of the limits of our understanding (Grenzbestimmung) which Kant so emphatically asserts. But the fact is that the KRV is permeated by irresolvable tensions, which are precisely what give it its peculiar character. 10 See Metaphysische Anfangsgriinde der Naturwissenschaft, GS 4:474, note. 11 Cassirer, Kants Leben und Lehre 139. 12 The novelty of the Transcendental Aesthetic vis-a-vis the Dissertation can certainly not have been the reason for Kant's decade-long struggle, nor can the content of the Transcendental Dialectic, which to a great extent has a

154 Notes to pages 104-7

13 14 15 16 17 18 19 20

21

22 23 24

precritical origin. There are even comments from Kant's posthumous manuscripts (the so 151; c- f°r de Vries 91, 93; as drive to transcendent (L) 69; as dynamism (L), see Dynamism; expansions of (L) 8, 24, 31-2 (see also levels of, below in this entry); c. experience of self as subject (L) 91-3, 152 (see also as presence to self, below in this entry); and horizon of being (L) 25; no 'inner realm' of c. (L) 90, 115, 131; intelligent c. (L) 8, 18-19, 123-32; and introspection (L) 10, 41-5, 72, 87, 92, 135-6; judgments of c. and intuitionism 86-91, 94, 151; as knowledge purely on side of subject (L) 7, 91-3; c. not knowledge in full sense (L) 91-3; levels of (L) 8, 11, 24, 31-2, 72, 92, 152; and mediated realism 61-5; c. needed for knowledge 92; c. normative (L) 10, 43-4; as notion of being (L) 7; as orientation to universe to be known (L) 7; as

presence to self (L) 7, 44, 69, 82, 91-3, 115; c. not psychic act (L) 92; qualitative differences of c. (L) 92, 123-32, 152; and questions (L) 8, 24-5; rational c. (L) 24-5, 31, 43', c. not reflection on self (L) 92; c. not self-knowledge (L) 91-3, 152; synthetic unity of (K), see Synthetic; and tendency to transcendent (L) 115; and transcendental analysis (L) 10; and transcendental ideas (K) 23 Consistency: between knowing and doing (L) 31-2 Content: and a priori (K), see A priori: content/object-constitutive; and categories (K) 18-22, 37-8, 53-4; of concept (L) 12-13, 24, 83; and experiential conjugates (L) 16; c. of knowledge and various operations (K) 5, 12-13, 15, 18-22, 24-5, 28, 33-5, 37-8, 48, 50-1, 53-4, 57-8, 80, 143, (L) 5, n-13, 17-18, 24, 27, 29-30, 83, 123-32, 138, 140, 148-9; and pure concepts (K) 18-22; transcendental c. (K) 37, 136; and transcendental ideas (K) 23-7; and unconditioned (K) 50; c. of unconditioned not relative (L) 29-30 Conversion: to phantasm 90; and self-transcendence (L) xviii; see also Intellectual conversion; Moral conversion; Religious conversion Coreth, Emerich: 53, 142-3, 151-2, 158 Correspondence: ambiguity of c. 140; c. of principles of knowing and being (L) 114-20, 127; c- theory of truth (K) 63, (L) 97-8 Cosmological idea (K): 38, 50 Critical problem (L): 155 Critical realism (L): central doctrines 114, 118; epistemological and ontological sides 72; and experience 75; and introspection 67-9; meaning of 'critical' 68; and sensualistic intui-

Index tionism 70, 75, 77-80, 116; two pillars of c.r. 69-73 Crowe, Frederick E.: 160 Data: and cognitional process (including insight) (L) 44, 67, 69, 72-3, 75, 78-9, 83-4, 90, 95, H9-20, 130, 135-6, 148-9, 152 (see also Concept[s]: from data to c.); d. of consciousness, see Consciousness: data of; and experience (L) 16, 73, 75, 78, 84, 91, 118-20, 127; and intentionality (L) 43, 75, 78, 83, 90, 1192O, 152; and perception (L) 75; and questions (L) 6-8, 11, 34, 69, 72, 75, 78, 83-4, 90, 93, 95, n8, 120, 152; and relation to reality (L) 8, 14, 16, 29, 75, 91; and virtually unconditioned (L) 95-6 Definitions: d. of first and second order (L) 128-9 Denken (K): and Anschauung 9-10; and conformity 156; D. noncognitive, see Noncognitive; and real 13; see also Thought Descartes, Rene: 35, 61-2, 151 Description (L): 16-17, 160 Desire: natural d. to see God (L) xvii Desire to know: and notion of being (L) 11-13, 25, 30, 69-70, 115-16, 123, 126; see also Intention; Intentionality; Notion of Being; Question (s); Wonder de Vries, Josef: xiii, 64-5, 81, 85-6, 88-9, 9i, 93-4, 97-8, 144, 146, 150-3 Dilthey, Wilhelm: 139 Discursive: d. activity (K) 24, 26, 50, 52, (L) 27 Disparity: between intellectual acts and being (K) 88, 113-14, 117, 127-8 Duality: view of knowledge as d. 47, 67, 135 Dynamism: consciousness as d. (L) 24-5, 31, 43, 69, 83-4, 90, 114-18,

167

124-6; and critical realism (L) 70-1, 74 Eberhard, Johann August: 15, 36, 140 Empfmdung: 4-5, 14-15; see also Experience Empirical residue: 26, 128-9 Empiricism (K): xv, 12, 22, 28, 54, 70, 79-80, 108, 112, 116 Ens iudicio rationali cognoscitur: 72, 74 Erdmann, Benno: 42, 139, 155 Erfahrung: and knowledge in L's sense 114; two senses in K, 4-5, 55, 147; see also Experience Est: 73-4, 96, 99; see also 'Is' Evidence: and judgment (L) 7, 78-9, 83, 94-9, 148-9 Existence: for de Vries 64; for Gilson 61, 144; and judgment (L), see Judgment; in K 28, 58-9, 66-7, 78, 80, 88, 143; for mediated realism 62; for Thomas Aquinas 142; see also Being; 'Is'; Judgment; Realism Experience: and a priori (K) 3-5, 19-20, 22, 38, 111-12, 147; and appearances (K) 25, 38, 82, 149-50 (see also Appearance [s]); and appearances (de Vries) 93; and being (L) 16, 75, 91; and concept (K) 4, 24, 37, 46-7, 51, 55-6, 75, 77-8o, 147, (L) 78-80 (see also Concepts]: from data to c.); consciousness as e. (L) 91-3, 152; in critical realism (L) 75, 84; and data (L), see Data; and empirical residue (L) 128-9; and experiential conjugates (L) 16; and givenness of object (K) 46, (L) 91, 12O; and knowledge (L) 43-4, 84, 91, 119-20; object of e. (L) 73, 75; as presentation (L) 5, 16, 84; and proportionate being (L) 73, 147, 157; and reason (K) 6, 34, 57-8, 150; relation of e. to reality (K) 79, 147, (L) 16, 75, 91; tendency to broaden knowledge beyond possible e. (K)

168

Index

22-7, 38-9, 51, 57-8, 150; two meanings of e. in KRV4, 51, 55, 147; and unconditioned (K) 50-1, (L) 78-80; and understanding (K) 39, 57-8, (L) 119-20 (see also Insight); and verification (L) 17, 78-80; see also Empfindung; Erfahrung; Experience-understanding^judgment; Intuition Experience-understanding-judgment: 11, 17-18, 27, 69, 71-3. 84, 93, 118-20, 149-50; see also Consciousness: levels of; Knowledge; Structure Experiential conjugates: 16 Explanation, explanatory knowledge (L): 16-17, 128-9, 160-1 Extension: representation of (K) 16, 136 Extraposition: 155, 157 Extroversion: 30, 55, 62, 67, 71, 74, 76, 116-17, 157 Fact(s): knowledge of, judgment of (L) 5, 7, 14, 26-7, 34, 72, 74, 78, 95-9, H9 Faith: and practical extension of pure reason (K) 105-6, 112 Fichte, Johann Gottlieb: xvi Form(s): and insight (L) 73, 128, 142; f. of judgment (K) 56; f. and matter of object of intuition (K) 14-15, 34-6, 51; potency (matter)-f.-act (L) 73, 128; pure f. of intuition, of space and time (K) 4, 14-16 (see also Space; Time); f. and science (L) 129; f. of sensibility and content-objective a priori (K) 15, 34; f. of sensibility and operative-heuristic a priori (K) 15-16, 34; f. of sensibility and pure concepts (K) 18; f. of understanding (K) 21, 37, 52-3, 59; f. universal 161; see also Matter-form; Matter-form-act; Potency (matter)form-act Freedom: and practical reason (K) 105, 112

Fries, J.F.: 42-3, 139 Gabe, Luder: 36, 137 Gerresheim, E.: 139 Gideon, A.: 139 Gilson, Etienne: xvi, 60-2, 71, 133, 143-4 God: analogous knowledge of God 141, 150; and formally unconditioned (L) 25-6, 152; and intellectual intuition (K) 50; and object (L) 147; ontological proof for God 28; and practical reason (K) 105, 112; and range of intentionality (L) 80, 127; see also Transcendent Good: and intentionality (L) 90 Hartmann, Nicolai: 112-13, 156-8 Heidegger, Martin: 9, 46, 135, 140, 149 Heimsoeth, Heinz: 145 Henrichs, D.: 155 Herder, J.G.: 66 Herz, Marcus: xiv, 102-4, 107-11, 119, 125, 130-2, 153, 161 Horizon: of being (L) 25; and interpretation (L) 31; and question (L) 8 Hume, David: 70, 116, 142 Hylomorphism: 160 'I am': 89-91, 151 Idea(s): transcendental i., i. of reason (K) 23-7, 38-9, 50-1, 56-9 Idealism: German i. 54, 60; i. in K xiv-xvi, 22, 43, 44, 48, 53~4, 60, 63, 67, 80, 87, 104-6, 130, 142-3, 161; L's understanding of i. 142; i. refuted by K 66; in Schopenhauer 65 Identity: knowledge as 135 Identity thesis: 112-13 Imagination (K): 21-2 Immediacy (L): 76 Immortality: and practical reason (K) 105, 112 Infallibility: 96-8

Index Innate knowledge: 35-6, 103 Insight (L): and concept, see Concept(s); as conditioned 148-9; and data, wData; and form 73, 128, 142; and intelligible 12-13, 22, 27, 73-4, 78, 124, 127, 130-1, 148-9, 157; and intentionality 90, 124, 135, 144; invulnerable i. 95; and judgment, see Judgment; -K overlooked i. 15, 22, 130; and learning 95-6, 146; i. mediates between experience and judgment 124, 140; object of i. 5, 73, 140, 148-9; and questions 83-4, 90; reflective i., see Judgment: and reflection; and threefold structure 84, 89-91, 118, 124; see also Experienceunderstanding-judgment; Knowledge; Structure; Understanding Intellectual conversion (L): xviii, 30, 72, 100 Intelligence (L): as mode of intentionality 124-6; questions for i., see Question (s) Intelligibility: and cognitional process (L) 96; intrinsic i. of real, being (L), see Intelligible; and Quid sit?, see Quid sit? Intelligible: and a priori (L) 19, 24, 115, 138; and absolute (L) 29; in Aristotle 52; and concept (L) 24-7, 78, 124; and insight (L) 12-13, 22, 27, 73-4, 78, 124, 127, 130-1, 148-9, 157; intelligent i. (L) 19, 31; and intentionality (L) 43, 90, 115, 124, 138; and knowledge of reality (L) 25, 29, 75; and meaning (L) 29, 115; as possibility of being (L) 14, 26, 29, 74-5, 120, 131, 148-9; potentially, formally, actually i. (L) 128, 157; real intrinsically i. (L) 8, 12, 32, 70, 72, 113-20, 127-8; and Verstand (K) 13, 18, 21, 37, 51, 53, 58 Intention (L): i. of being 8, 10-11, 1314, 74-5, 85, 90, 114-18, 124, 126, 156; and wonder 11; see also Being:

169

and intention, intentionality; Intentionality Intentionality (L): and a priori 98-9, 115, 123-5, 138; and antithetic problem 123-6; and being, see Being; and cognitive process, 83-4, 114-18; i. condition of possibility of knowledge of objects 124; and data, see Data; and desire to know 69; i. fallible 96-8; heads to judgment 83, 85, 90 (see also Judgment); and immediate relation to reality 11, 13, 74, 84; as intelligent and rational dynamism 43, 69, 83-4, 90, 114-18, 124-6; and introspection 43, 45, 83-4; and K's intuition 76; and judgment, see Judgment; knowledge as threefold operation of i. xvi, 67-80, 84-7, 89-90, 98-9, 114-20, 126-9 (see also Structure); modes of i. 124-6; and objectivity, see Objectivity; and primordial meaning 115; and questions 83-5, 115, 119; and self-transcendence 74; and sense, sensibility 71-2, 114, 118, 157; and subject 31, 76, 87, 90, 114-18; and transcendence of knowledge 84-5, 114-18; and transcendental 123-4; i. unrestricted 11-12, 45, 69, 74, 84, 90, 99-100, 114-15, 123, 131-2; and virtually unconditioned 148-9; and world constituted by meaning 31-2 Intentionality analysis (L): 118, 157 Introspection: xii, xiii, 10-11 41-5, 67-9, 71-2, 82-7, 92, 114, 135-6, 139, 145-6, 161 Intuition: and a priori (K) 14-18, 2O, 24, 34-6, ill (see also A priori: of sensibility); analogy of i. 68, 82, 84-6, 145; and being (K) 70-1; i. of being for Gilson 60-1, 71; i. of being of self (mediated realism) 61-5; and bridge (K) 9, 47, no, 117; and concept (K), see Concept(s); for de Vries 64-5, 86-91; empirical (sen-

170

Index

sible) i. (K) 14, 17, 36, 46, 48-9, 55, 59, 70-1, 76, 78, 82, 110-11, 116, 141. 149 (see also Sensibility); forms of i. (K), seeForm(s); intellectual i. for K 17, 50, 55, 63, 70-1, 116; intellectual i. for others 60-7, 71, 82, 84, 145-6; i. constitutes knowledge as k. (K) xiii, 9, 13, 15, 21, 46-7, 49, 5L 55, 77-8, 81, 141; i. for L 78-80, 147-8; and looking, see Looking; and mediated realism 61-5; and object (K) 9-11, 13-15, 21, 24, 46-7, 49-53, 56, 58-9, 76-8, 116-17, 141, 157; and reality (K) 6, 13, 49, 55-6, 59, 70, 77-8, 88; and reason (K) 57; in scholasticism xvi, 60, 89, 150; for Schopenhauer 65-6; as shorthand for threefold intentionality 89; and synthetic unity of consciousness (K) 2i; and thought, Verstand (K) 9, 18-21, 37-8, 49-56, 79-80, 149; see also Anschauung; Appearance (s) Intuition principle: xiii, xv, 5, 8-11, 13, 20-1, 47-9, 51, 53, 55, 59, 62-3, 67-8, 70, 81, 143, 150; and antithetic problem 110-11; base of 135; and categories (K) 19-20, 53, 149; and content/object a priori (K) 2O-1, 35; denied by L 10-11, 13, 67, 71, 117; and extraposition 155; in immediate and mediated realism 62-3; and knowledge as duality (K) 135; and knowledge as structure 8-11, 13, 20-1, 51-3, 55-60, 84, 150; and objectivity (K), see Objectivity; and reason (K) 58-9 Intuitionism: and coherence theory of truth (K) 63; and critical realism 67-80; demands infallibility 96-7; diallele of i. 63; duality of i. and idealism (K) 43; intellectual i. xiii, 10, 60-7, 82, 84, 86-7, 89-90, 93, 145-8 (see also Neoscholasticism); and judgment 85, 150; sensualistic i. xiii, xv, 10, 51, 54-5, 59, ?o, 75,

77—8i, 116; see also Intuition; Intuition Principle; Looking 'Is': 84-5, 90, 99, 115, 120, 155; see also Est Is it? Is it so? (An sitT): 24, 27, 29, 69, 72,83-4,95,99, 115, 118, 131 Isomorphism (L): 127-9 Judge: analogy/metaphor of j. (K) xii, 6-8,34 Judgment: a priori j. (de Vries) 98-9; and absolute (L) 14, 17-18, 27, 29-30, 69, 72, 74, 83, 85, 98, 115, 120, 148; analytical and synthetic j. (K) 27; and being, existence, reality (L) xvi, 5, 13, 17-18, 29, 66, 69, 72-5, 78-9, 83, 85-6, 90, 93, 98-9, 115, 119, 132-3, 140, 142, 148-9, 150-1, 157; and categories (K) 18; and cognitional structure (L) 11, 13, 25, 27, 56, 71-4, 83-5, 94-9, H5, 118-9, 132, 142, 144, 157; and concept (L), s^Concept(s); concept andj. in KRV^6;j. of consciousness, see Consciousness; j. a contingent fact (L) 97; j. in Critique of Judgment 39-40, 138; and data (L), see Data; for de Vries 64-5, 85, 93-4, 146, 152; j. at once empirical, intelligent, and rational (L) 29, 96, 119, 157; and evidence (L) 7, 78-9, 83, 94-9, 148-9; facts known only in j. (L) 99 (see also Fact[s]); false j. 74, 93, 98, 146; j. grounded in cognitional process (L) 29, 96, 119, 157; has own content (L) 13, 17-18; and infinite regress (K) 23-4; and insight (L) 10, 17, 69, 74-5, 78, 90, 95, 119-20, 128, 140, 148-9, 157; and intellectual conversion (L) 30; and intentionality (L) 83, 85, 94-1OO, 114-20, 132; includes intuition and concept (L) 29; as knowledge in full sense (L) 14, 17-18, 69, 99-100, 115, 119-20 (see also Knowledge); and

Index knowledge of God (L) 80; j. a limited commitment (L) 26; j. means (medium) by which we know reality (L) 29, 69, 72, 75, 79, 85; as mediate knowledge (K) 13, 56; in mediated realism 61-5; j. noncognitive (K), see Noncognitive; object of j., see Object; and objectivity (L) 10, 74, 98, 119-20; j. a positing of synthesis (L), see Positing; and question about being 17, 66, 85; and reflection, reflective understanding (L) 7, 27, 69, 72, 78-9, 83, 94-9, 148-9, 162; reflective j. (K) 39-40, 138; and relation to reality (K) 13, 56-60, (L) 13-14. 74. 85; as representation of representation (K) 13, 56; and selfknowledge 91-3; and subject (L) 44, 76-7, 96, 147; j. a synthesis of subject and predicate (K) 27; synthetic a priori j. (K) 3, 27, 33, 44, ill; and transcendence of knowledge (L), see Transcendence; and the true, truth (L) 8, 44, 75, 79, 93, 97-8, 101, 147; and unconditioned (L) 11, 25, 56, 68, 72, 74, 78, 94-9, 127, 132, 148-9, 157, 162 Kalter, A.: 66, 145 Kant, Immanuel: Writings referred to: Critique of Judgment xii-xiii, 39-40, 125-6, 138; Critique of Pure Reason xi-xv, 3-28 passim, 30, 32, 33-40 passim, 41-60 passim, 63, 66-7, 69-71, 76-7, 81, 88, 102-13 passim, 116-17, 121-3, 125-6, 130-1, 133, 136-43, 145, 149-50, 153-4, 156-7, 161; Dissertation (1770) 35, 66, 103, no, 153; Handbuch der Logik 63; Lectures on Metaphysics 28, 48, 66, 136, 140, 145; Metaphysische Anfangsgriinde der Naturwissenschaft 18, 37, 104, 136-7, 153-4; Nova Dilucidatio 66; Prolegomena 39, 51, 54, 56, 106, 112, 138, 140-1, 143, 151, 154, 156,

171

158; Welches sind die wirklichen Fortschritte ...? 154; reply to Eberhard 15, 36, 54, 136-7, 140; Letters: to Beck 141; to Bernoulli 153; to Herz xiv, 102-4, 107-10, 119, 121, 125-6, 130-2, 153, 161; to Teiftrunk 133; Reflexionen: 23, 35, 53, 112, 136-7, 142-4, H7, 153-4, 156 Knowledge: analogical k. 127; and appearance (K), see Appearance(s); k. assembles itself 82-3; k. begins from sense 82, 101; and being, real (L), see Being; a composite of sensibility and understanding, intuition and concept (K) 5, 9, 19-22, 24, 33, 46-7, 51-4, 77-8 (see. also Structure); conditions of k. for K and L 100; k. conscious 82; and consciousness (L) 7, 91-2; and content/object a priori (K), see A priori; as duality and confrontation (K) 47, 67, 135; elementary and composite k. (L) 127; explanatory k. (L), see Explanation; as habit 91; and heuristic a priori (K and L), see A priori; k. of human world as interpretation (L) 31; as identity (L) 135; and imagination (K) 21-2; immediate and mediate k. 90; k. in instanti 90-1; innate k., doctrine of 35-6, 103; as intuition (K), see Intuition, Intuition principle, Intuitionism; and isomorphism (L) 127-9; and judgment (L), see Judgment; as looking (K), see Looking; and notion of being (L) 7, n-12, 69-70; object of k., see Object; as performance of intentionality (L) xvi, 67-80, 84-7, 89-90, 98-9, 114-20, 126-9; proper and analogical k. 127; question of k. for philosophy 81; and questions, questioning (L) 7-8, 11, 25, 34, 85; receptivity and development of k. and a priori (L) 31; as relation of subject to object (K) 9, 135; k. relational

172

Index

(L) 16-17; scientific k. (K) 3-4, 38-9, 44, (L) 16-17, 26; sense k. (K) 3-5, 14-18, 34-6, 49-50; as structure (K and L), see Structure; role of subject in k. (L), see Subject; and synthetic a priori judgments (K) 3, 27, 33, 44, in; transcendence of k., see Transcendence; transcendental k. (K and L) 45; and unconditioned (K and L), see Unconditioned; and understanding (L), see Understanding; and Vernunft (K) 22-7, 38-9, 50-1; and Verstand (K) l8-22, 36-8, 51-4; see-also Experience-understanding-judgment; Fact(s); Judgment; Self-knowledge Lambert, Johann Heinrich: 103 Learning: self-correcting process of 1. (L) 95, 146 Leibniz, Gottfried Wilhelm: 36, 42, 103, 137 Locke, John: 35, 103, 140 Lonergan, Bernard: Writings referred to: Collection: 133 ('Metaphysics as Horizon' and 'Cognitional Structure'), 143, 152 ('Metaphysics as Horizon'), 145, 147, 158 ('Cognitional Structure'), 160 ('Isomorphism of Thomist and Scientific Thought' and 'Insight Preface to a Discussion'); DeDeo trino 156, 160; De Verbo incarnato 134, 160; Insight xi, xiv-xvii, 3, 8, 10-12, 16-17, 19, 24-6, 29, 32, 94, 100, 115, 133-5, 145, 147-8, 151, 153, 155-62; Method in Theology xvii, 1OO, 134-6, 140, 142, !47, 149, 15&-8; La notion de verbe ... 158; A Second Collection: xvii, 10O, 134, H7, 153 ('The Subject'), 135 ('Insight Revisited'); Verbum xvi, 10O, 136, 139, 142, 152-3, 155, 159-61 Looking: 'knowledge as 1.' 8, 10-11, 45-9, 60, 62, 67-8, 81-2, 84-6, 96, 99-101, 110-11, 116, 145, 150; see also

Intuition; Intuition principle; Intuitionism Louvain school: 62 Materialism: 54, 142 Matter: and empirical residue (L) 128-9 Matter-form: for Aristotle 160; in object of knowledge (K) 14-15, 34-6, 51 Matter-form-act (L): 73, 128 Meaning (L): as our a priori 31, 115; human spirit as m. 8, 31, 115; and intelligible 29, 115 (see also Intelligible); and interpretation 31; origin of m. 76; primordial m. (L) 115; and range of reality 80; reality, world mediated by m. 31, 76-7, and constituted by m. 31-2; true m. mediates reality, see True: and being Mechler, W.: 139 Mediated: world m. by meaning (L) 31, 76-7; m. realism, see Realism Mendelssohn, Moses: 112 Mercier, D.: 62 Metaphysical components: and cognitional process (L) 73, 128-9 Metaphysics: as goal for K 105-7; rn. of knowledge in neo-Thomism 139; L's conception of m. 129, 161; and special sciences (L) 129; and transcendental inquiry (L) 45; and unconditioned (K) 23 Modality: categories of (K) 28 Moral conversion (L): xviii Muck, Otto: 64, 94, 144 Nature: for K 26, 39-40, 130; world of n. and of meaning (L) 31 Necessity: knowledge of n. (K) 3-5, 22, 129-30 Neo-Kantianism: 105-6, 121, 137 Neoscholasticism: and intellectual intuitionism 60-5, 86, 89, 91, 113, 151

Index Neo-Thomism: and metaphysics of knowledge 139 Newman, John Henry: 100 Noein: for Aristotle 52 Noesis noeseos: for Aristotle 141 Noncognitive: n. character of thought, understanding, judgment, reason in K xiii, xv, 5, 10, 12, 49~55, ?o, 73. ill, 113, 116, 156-7 Norm(s): in cognitional activity (L) 10-11, 30-1, 43-4 Notion of being (L): 7-8, 11-13, 43> 69-70, 125, 158-9 Noumenon: 12, 71; see also Thing-in-itself Object: and a priori (K), see A priori: content/object-constitutive a p.; and antithetic problem (K) 102-4, 107-11, 129-32, 155; and appearance, Phenomenon (K) 12, 25, 38, 53, 57, 59-6o, 103-4, 109, 140-1, 149 (see also Appearance [s]); being and meaning of'object' 12, 17, 69-70, 76-7, 142, 145, 155; being proper o. of knowledge, see Being; and categories (K) 18-22, 36-8, 46-7, 51-4, 142; composite o. of knowledge (K), see Knowledge; and concept (K) 13, 18-22, 36-8, 46-7, 51-4, 56-7, 129-32; for de Vries 64-5; desire to know and relation to o. (L) 11-12; elementary and composite o. of knowledge (L) 127; o. of experience (L) 73, 75; o. in full and partial sense (L) 72-3; for Gilson, 60-1; o. of immediacy 76; o. of insight (L) 5, 73, 140, 148-9 (see also Intelligible); and intuition (K), see Intuition; and isomorphism (L) 127-9; and judgment (K) 13, 56; o. of judgment (L) 5, 66, 73-5, 78-9, 140; o. of knowledge given only by sense (K) 5, 12, 47, 49, 149-5O (see also Intuition); for mediated realism 61-5; and noein

i73

(Aristotle) 52; partial o. of each cognitional act (L) 5, 11-13, 16-17, 66, 72-3, 119-20, 127; person and God as o. (L) 147; and reason (K) 13, 50-1, 56-60; and representation (K) 102-4, 107-11, 155; for Schopenhauer 55-6; self-revealing of o. a myth 96-7; o. of sense (K), see Sensibility; o. and subject (L) 84; and subjective a priori (L) 8, 11, 30; and thought (K) 49-55; threefold structure of o. (L) 127; two meanings of 'object' 76-7; and Verstand, understanding (K) 18-22, 36-8, 46-7, 51-4, 143; o. in world mediated by meaning 76 Objective: of desire to know (L) 7, 11-12, 25, 30, 69-70 Objectivity: and authentic subjectivity (L) xvii, 76-8, 98, 100; and being (L) 155; o. composite (L) 120; not extraposition 155; grounded in norms of intentionality (L) 43, 77-8, 119-20; and intuition principle (K) 11, 62-3, 67-8, 81, 110-11, 117, 157; and judgment (L) 10, 74, 98, 119-20; K denies o. of operations beyond sensing 12-13 (see also Noncognitive); and 'knowing as looking' 67-8; in neoscholasticism 60, 62-3; subjective o. (K) 39, 65, 107, 141; o. as validity before universal human forum (K) 109, 141 Ocular vision: see Looking Ontological proof of existence of God: 28 Operations: cognitional o. as data for theory of knowledge 82-3; intellect has two o. 101; levels of consciousness and o. (L) 127; and objects (L) 127 Operator: question as (L) 8 Perceptio sen visio rei (de Vries): xiii, 64-5, 93-4

174

Index

Perception: of being (Gilson) 61; and data (L) 75; and judgment (L) xiii-xiv, 29; and reality (K) 28-9, 55, 60, 73, 80; of self as existing (intuitionism) 91, 93 Performance: and self-contradiction (L) 44, 87, 116; thematization of p. and theory of knowledge (L) xii, xvi-xvii, 10, 24-5, 45 (see also Introspection) Phantasm: conversion to p. (L) 90 Phenomenalism: in K xvi, 44, 48, 54, 87, 112-13, 117, 126, 131, 156, 158-9; p. overcome (L) 117, 126 Phenomenology of knowing (L): 45 Phenomenon: 12 (see also Appearance [s]) Picture thinking: 68, 72, 85, 100 Plato: 37, 135, 137, 142 Positing: absolute p. (K) 27-8, (L) 14, 17, 27-30, 56, 68-9, 72-4, 79, 85, 91, 96, 98, 115, 118, 120, 142, 149, 157, 160; see also Judgment Potency (matter)-form-act (L): 73, 128 Practical: p. extension of KRV105-6, 112 Presence: and consciousness (L) 7, 44, 69 Presentation: and experience (L) 5, 16, 84 Preunderstanding: and a priori (L) 7-8 Pure conjugates (L): 16-17 'Put into': and knowledge (K) 6-7, 22, 31, 38, 40, 53; and constitutive meaning (L) 31; see also Thetic Question (s): and a priori (L) 7-8, 23-5, 34, 99, H5, 124; q- about being (L) 7-8, 17, 66, 69-70, 85, 99, 119, 124, 131; and categories (L) 124; and consciousness (L) 8, 24-5; for Coreth 151-2, 158; and data (L), see Data; q. forms horizon (L) 8; q. for intelligence (L) 8, 26, 69, 72,

83-4, 90, 99, 115, 124 (see also What is it?); q. for intelligence, reflection, deliberation (L) 8, 115; and intention of being (L) 124; and intentionality (L) 83-5, 115, 119; and judge analogy (K) 6-8, 34; q. has meaning of reality (L) 8, 115; and operative-heuristic a priori (K) 125-6, (L) 23-5, 34, H5; as operator (L) 8; primordial q. (L) 8, 11; and real, reality (L) 7-8, 34, 69, 85, 87, 114-18; and reason in K and L, 23-5; q- for reflection, critical q. (L) 27, 69, 72, 83-4, 99, 115, 131 (see also Is it? Is it so?); and subject (L) xii, 24-5, 87, 115; three q. of transcendental inquiry (L) 45, 115; and unconditioned (L) 69, 115; and understanding, intelligent consciousness (L) 8, 83-4, 90; and wonder (L)83 Quid sit? (What is it?): 69, 72, 83-4, 99, 115, 118 Quintilian: 82, 150 Rational: r. conception of real (L), see Real; r. consciousness and being (L), see Consciousness Rationalism: and K 54, 108 Rationality: as mode of intentionality (L) 124-5 Real, Reality: and a priori (K) 22, (L) 30; and appearance (K) 16, 38, 70, 77, 103, 109, 112, 116, 153 (see also Appearance [s]); and appearance (de Vries) 93; and cognitional activities (L) 5, 11-14, 16, 29-30, 73-5, 85-8, 90-1, 114-18; and data (L) 8, 14, 16, 29, 75, 91; and description (L) 16-17; and experience (K) 79, 147, (L) 16, 75, 91; and extroversion 55, 67; for Gilson 62; heuristic anticipation, intention of r. (L), see Intention; and intentionality (L), see Being: and intention, intentionality;

Index r. intrinsically intelligible (L), see Intelligible; and intuition (K), see Intuition; irrational conception of r. (K) 12-13, 113, 117; and knowledge (K) 5, 55-6, 59, 103-4, 153- (U, see Being: and knowledge; known in judgment (L), see Judgment; for Louvain school 62; human r. mediated and constituted by meaning (L) 31-2; metaphysical components of r. (L) 73; and Noumenon (K) 12, 71; and positing (K) 28, (L), see Positing; and question (L), see Question (s); rational conception of r. (L) xiii, 8, 12, 70, 90, 113-20, 126, 132, 157; relation of cognitional activities to r. (Kand L) 11-14, (K) 55-6o, 70, 103-4, (L) 71-2, 73-5, 85, 90-1, 114-18; and true meaning (L), see True: and being; what r. is for K 55, 59. 79-8o; see also Being Realism: critical r., in general, 67-80 (for details, see Critical realism); immediate r. 61-2; r. and K 22, 54, 58, 109-10, 117-18, 161; mediated r. 61-5, 89 (see also de Vries); mediated r. and K 66 Reason: and a priori (K) 22-7, 38-9, 50-1; and experience (K) 6, 34, 578, 150; ideas of r. (K), see Idea.(s); knows 'is' (L), see 'Is'; r. noncognitive in K, see Noncognitive; pure concepts of r. (K) 23, 26, 38, 50-1; relation of r. to object (K) 13, 50-1, 56-60; and syllogism (K) 23-4, 26, 39, 57; and unconditioned (K) 23-4, 26, 38-9, 50-1, 58-60; and unity of system (K) 26; see also Vernunft Reflection: critical r. and knowledge (L) 6-7, 27, 69, 72, 78-9, 148-9; questions for r., see Question (s); and self-knowledge (L), 92 Regulative: transcendental ideas merely r. (normative) (K) 26, 39, 51, 56-7

175

Religious conversion (L): xviii Representation: and absolute, unconditioned (L) 24, 29-30; and antithetic problem (K) 102-4, 107-11; comparing r. and reality, see Comparison; and concept (K) 47, 56; and correspondence (L) 118; and intuition (K) 13, 47, 56; judgment as r. of r. (K) 13, 56; and object (K) 1023; sense r. has active and passive aspect (K) 14; and Verstand (K) 13, 18 Responsibility: as mode of intentionality (L) 125 Riehl, Alois: 42, 139 Sala, Giovanni: 133-4, 139, 145, 147-8, 150-1, 154, 158, 161-2 Schematism (K): 22 Schmucker, Josef: 106, 153-4 Scholasticism: and intuition principle xiii, xvi, 60; see also Neoscholasticism Schopenhauer, A.: 65-6, 144-5 Schiitz, Gottfried: 112 Scotus, Duns: 130 Seeing: knowing as s., see Looking Self-consciousness: expression redundant 152 Self-contradiction: 44, 87 Self-knowledge: and antithetic problem 155; and consciousness, self-experiencing (L) 91-3, 152; and intellectual intuitionism, de Vries 86-91; occurs in judgment (L) 91-3 Self-revealing: s-r. of object a myth 96-7 Self-transcendence: xvii-xviii, 74, 120; see also Transcendence Selle, Christian Gottlieb: 107, 154 Sensibility: a priori of s. (K) 14-18, 34-6, 110-11; and intentionality (L) 71-2, 114, 118, 157; and object (K) 4-5, 12, 34-6, 46, 48, 51, 103, 110-11; passive and active aspect of s. (K) 14; and understanding (K) 51, 11O-11

176

Index

Smith, Norman Kemp: 3, 134, 144 Space: and a priori (K) 15, 34-5, 110-11; and Renaissance primary qualities 48; and time (K) 14-18, 34-6, 48, 153 Spinoza, Benedict: 137 Spirit (L): as being in luminousness 8; constituted by intelligence and rationality 30; gives law to reality in constitution of human world 31; as meaning 8, 31, 115; poverty and capacity of s. 8 Stallmach, J.: 158 Structure: and antithetic problem 126-9; formally dynamic s. (L) 118; knowledge as binary s. (K) 9-10, 13, 20-1, 28, 51, 116 (see also Intuition Principle); knowledge as threefold s. (L) xiii, xv-xvii, 8, lo-ii, 13, 16-18, 25, 27, 32, 56, 71-4, 78-80, 84, 89-91, 114, 118-20, 126-9, 142, 144, 156 (see also Experience-understanding-judgment) ; s. of known and isomorphism (L) 127-9 Subject: s. as author of object of experience (K) xiii, 38, 109; s. a being of transcendence (L) xvii, 90; and consciousness (L) 7, 82, 91-3; forgetting of s. and intuitionism xvii; s. intelligent intelligible (L) 19, 31; and intentionality (L) 31, 76, 87, 90, 114-18; s. intrinsically endowed with meaning (L) 8, 31; and judgment (L) 44, 76-7, 96, 147; K and problem of s. 31, 44; and object (L) 84; and question (L) xii, 24-5, 87, 115; role of s. in knowledge and question of a priori (L) xii, xvi-xvii, 8, 25, 135; s. as subject and as object (L) 91-3; and tendency to transcendent (L) 29, 115; and tendency to unconditioned as a priori (L) 25, 115; and transcendence (L) 100; truncated and immanentist s. xvii; and truth (L) 97, 100, 147; turn to s. xvii, 6, 9,

45, 10O; and unity of apperception (K) 52; and unrestricted dynamism 90 (see also Unrestricted) Subjectivity: no 'inner realm' of s. (L) 90, 115, 131; and objectivity xvii, 76-8, 98, loo Sublation (L): 119-20 Syllogism: and reason (K) 23-4, 26, 39, 57 Synthetic: s. a priori judgments (K) 3, 27, 33, 44, in; s. and analytic judgments (K) 27; s. unity (K) 18, 21, 36-7, 52, 58 System: for L 26; and reason (K) 26 Teleological: t. view of knowledge in Critique of Judgment 40 Theological idea (K): 38, 50 Thetic: t. a priori and constitutive meaning (L) 31; t. conception of knowledge in K 22, 38, 53, 130, 157, 161; see also 'Put into' Thing-in-itself (K): xiii, 28, 39, 48, 54, 58-9, 71, 87, 113, 117, 136, 142, 158; see also Noumenon Thomas Aquinas: xiv, 69-70, 87, loo-i, 130, 139, 142, 145-7, 152, 160-1 Thought: and conformity 156; t. constituted by combination or separation (K) 52; and intuition (K), see Intuition; and judgment (K) 27-8; t. noncognitive, see Noncognitive; and synthetic unity (K) 36-7; and thing 28; see also Denken; Reason; Understanding; Verstand Tieftrunk, Johann Heinrich: 133 Time: and a priori (K) 15, 34-5, 110-11; and Renaissance primary qualities (K) 48; and space (K) 14-18, 34-6, 48, 153 Transcendence: cognitive t., t. of knowledge (L) xvii, 29-30, 74, 83-5, 90, 1OO, 113-18, 12O, 131-2, 159-6O; cognitive t. for intuitionism 81, 84,

Index 89-90; t. composite (L) 120; extroverted t. (K) 55; moral t. (L) xvii; t. and subject (L) xvii, 114 Transcendent: t. being (L) 126-7, 160-1 (see also God); two meanings of term 159-60 Transcendental: being t. (L) 45; meaning of term (K) 42, 123-4, (L) 45, 123-4 Transcendental analysis: and categorical imperative (L) 32; and consciousness as normative (L) 10; and immanentism 12, 88; and introspection (L) 10-11; key notion in K's work 3, 9; and knowledge as structure (L) 9-11; and turn to subject 6, 9 Transcendental Deduction of the Pure Concepts of the Understanding: problems in interpretation 108-14, 155-6 Transcendental idealism: xiv-xvi, 48, 104-7, H7, 155 Transcendental illusion: 145 Transcendental method: in K 42 Transcendental notions (L): 125, 158-9 Transcendental philosophy: for K and neo-Kantians 105-6 True: and absolute (L) 29, 97-8; and being (L) xvi, 29, 43, 90, 116, 119, 133; and infallible 97-8; and judgment (L) 8, 44, 75, 79, 93, 97-8, 101, 147; see also Truth Truth: and being (L) xvi, 29, 43, 90, H9, 133; as coherence (K) 63, 144; correspondence theory oft. (L), see Correspondence; criterion of t. (L) 96; t. for de Vries 86; t. fruit of personal engagement (L) 97-8, 100; not subject to inner intensification 98; t. property of judgment (L) 97-8, 1OO-1 (see also Judgment); relative t. and subjective certainty (K) 39; t. is transcendence but onto-

177

logically located in subject (L) 97, 100, 147 Ueberweg, F.: 145 Unbedingtes: see Unconditioned

Unconditioned: and a priori (K) 50, (L) 29-30; and being (K) 58-9, (L) 12, 29, 148-9; u. constitutive (L) 26, 56; and experience (K) 50-1, (L) 78-80; formally u. (L) 25-6, 152; u. and ideas of reason (K) 23, 38-9, 50; and intentionality (L) 148-9; and judgment, see Judgment; normative function of u. (K) 26; and questions for intelligence and reflection (L) 26-7, 69, 115; as the simply absolute (K) 23, 25, 38-9, 50; tendency to u. (K) 13, 22-3, 38-9, 50, 56, 58-9, (L) 12-13, 24-5, 69, H5, 149 (see also Absolute: tendency to; Desire to know); only theoretical idea of reason (K) 23, 50; as totality of conditions (K) 23, 25-7, 38-9, 50; and transcendence of knowledge (L) 29, 120; two meanings of u. (K) 23-5, 38-9, 50, (L) 25-6; and Vernunft (K) 22-7, 38-9; virtually u. (L) 25-7, 29-30, 69, 78, 94-9, 120, 127, 132, 148-9, 162; see also Absolute Understanding: arises from inquiry (L) 6, 8; u. author of experience (K) 109 (see also Subject); and categories (K) 52; u. central moment in knowledge (L) 128, 130; and concept (L), .wConcept(s); has own content (L), see Content; u. discursive (K) 52; and experience (K) 39, 57-8, (L) 119-20; grasps intelligibility in sensible (L), see Intelligible; not intuitive (K) 50-1; and judgment (L), see Judgment; K overlooks act of u. 15, 22, 130; not yet knowledge (L) 17-18; knows 'what,' adds formal determination (L) 5; and mediate relation to real (L) 14; u.

178

Index

noncognitive in K, see Noncognitive; always partial (L) 128; and possibility of being (L) 14; cannot penetrate sensible (K) 21; reflective u. (L), see Judgment: and reflection; and sensibility (K) 46, 103; spontaneity of u. and concepts (L) 18-19; and synthesis (K) 51-3, 57, 142, (L) 142; see also Experience-understanding-judgment; Insight; Verstand Universality: knowledge of (K) 3-5, 22, 129-30 Unrestricted: u. objective and range of intentionality 11-12, 45, 69, 74, 84, 90, 99-100, 114-15, 123, 131-2 Vaihinger, H.: 35-6, 42, 56, 107-8, 121, 136-44, 153-5, 158, 161 Van Riet, Georges: 143 Verification: 17, 78-80, 98; see also Unconditioned Vernunft (K): a priori of, see A priori;

and double mediation 13; and unconditioned 22-7; see also Knowledge; Reason Verstand: a priori of, see A priori; and apperception 21; and intuition, see Intuition; noncognitive, see Noncognitive; and object, see Object; spontaneity of 18-19; see also Knowledge; Understanding von Helmholtz, Hermann: 66, 145 What is it?: 69, 72, 83-4, 99, 115, 118 'Who serves whom?': in intellectual intuitionism 84; in K 59, 77-80, 131; in L 77-80, 131 Why?: 99 Windelband, W.: 138 Wishful thinking: 117 Wonder: ll, 83; see also Desire to know Zocher, R.: 121, 136, 158