The Rudolf Steiner Archive

2. Kant's Fundamental Epistemological Question

[ 1 ] The founder of epistemology in the modern sense of the word is usually referred to as Kant. One could justifiably object to this view that the history of philosophy before Kant contains numerous investigations that are to be regarded as more than mere germs of such a science. Thus Volkelt also remarks in his fundamental work on epistemology,^{2Erfahrung und Denken. Critical foundation of the theory of knowledge by Johannes Volkelt. Hamburg and Leipzig 1886. p. 20.} that the critical treatment of this science had already begun with Locke. But even in earlier philosophers, indeed already in the philosophy of the Greeks, one finds discussions that are currently used in epistemology. However, Kant has stirred up the depths of all the problems under consideration here, and, following on from him, numerous thinkers have worked through them so comprehensively that one finds the earlier attempts at solutions either in Kant himself or in his epigones. Thus, if we are dealing with a purely factual and not a historical study of epistemology, we will hardly pass by an important phenomenon if we merely take into account the time since Kant's appearance with the Critique of Pure Reason. What has been achieved before in this field is repeated again in this epoch.

[ 2 ] Kant's basic epistemological question is: How are synthetic judgments a priori possible? Let us look at this question in terms of its lack of presuppositions! Kant raises it because he is of the opinion that we can only attain an unconditionally certain knowledge if we are able to prove the justification of synthetic judgments a priori. He says: "In the resolution of the above task, the possibility of the pure use of reason in the foundation and execution of all sciences that contain a theoretical a priori knowledge of objects is at the same time included." ^{3Critique of Pure Reason p. 61 ff according to Kirchmann's edition, to which edition all other page numbers in quotations from the Critique of Pure Reason and the ˂Prolegomena˃ are also to be referred to.} and "On the resolution of this task now depends the standing and falling of metaphysics, and thus its existence entirely". ^{4Prolegomena § 5}

[ 3 ] Is this question, as Kant poses it, unconditional? Not at all, for it makes the possibility of an absolutely certain system of knowledge dependent on the fact that it is built up only from synthetic judgments and from judgments that are obtained independently of all experience. Kant calls synthetic judgments those in which the predicate concept adds something to the subject concept that lies entirely outside it, "although it is connected with it" ^{5Critique of Pure Reason p. 53 f.}, whereas in analytic judgments the predicate only states something that is (hiddenly) already contained in the subject. This is probably not the place to go into the astute objections of Johannes Rehmkes ^{6Die Welt als Wahrnehmung und Begriff p. 161 ff.} against this division of judgments. For our present purpose it is sufficient to recognize that we can attain true knowledge only by such judgments as add to a concept a second, the content of which, at least for us, was not yet contained in that first. If we want to call this class of judgments with Kant synthetic, then we can at least concede that knowledge can only be gained in judgment form if the connection of the predicate with the subject is such a synthetic one. The second part of the question, however, is a different matter, requiring that these judgments must be obtained a priori, i.e. independently of all experience. It is quite possible,^{7we mean here, of course, the mere thought-possibility} that there are no such judgments at all. For the beginning of epistemology it must be regarded as completely unclear whether we can arrive at judgments other than through experience, or only through experience. Indeed, to an unbiased consideration such independence seems impossible from the outset. For whatever may become the object of our knowledge, it must at some point come to us as a direct, individual experience, that is, it must become experience. We also gain mathematical judgments in no other way than by experiencing them in certain individual cases. Even if, as for example Otto Liebmann, ^{8Zur Analysis der Wirklichkeit. Gedanken und Tatsachen} the same in a certain organization of our consciousness, the matter is no different. One can then say that this or that proposition is necessarily valid, for if its truth were abolished, consciousness would be abolished with it: but we can only gain the content of it as knowledge when it becomes an experience for us, in exactly the same way as a process in external nature. Whether the content of such a proposition always contains elements that guarantee its absolute validity, or whether this validity is assured for other reasons: I cannot get hold of it in any other way than when it once confronts me as experience. This is one thing.

[ 4 ] The second concern is that, at the beginning of epistemological investigations, one must not claim that no absolutely valid knowledge can come from experience. It is undoubtedly quite conceivable that experience itself would exhibit a characteristic by which the certainty of the insights gained from it would be guaranteed.

[ 5 ] There are thus two presuppositions in Kant's question: firstly, that we must have another way of arriving at knowledge besides experience, and secondly, that all experiential knowledge can only have conditional validity. Kant does not even realize that these propositions need to be tested, that they can be doubted. He simply takes them over from dogmatic philosophy as prejudices and bases his critical investigations on them. Dogmatic philosophy presupposes them as valid and simply applies them in order to arrive at a knowledge corresponding to them; Kant presupposes them as valid and only asks himself: under what conditions can they be valid? But what if they are not valid at all? Then Kant's doctrinal structure lacks any foundation.

[ 6 ] All that Kant presents in the five paragraphs that precede the formulation of his fundamental question is an attempt to prove that mathematical judgments are synthetic. ^{9An attempt which, incidentally, is, if not entirely refuted, at least very much called into question by Robert Zimmerman's objections (Über Kants mathematisches Vorurteil und dessen Folgen). Robert Zimmerman, Über Kant's mathematisches Vorurteil und dessen Folgen; Sitzungsberichte der philosophisch-historischen Klasse der Kaiserlichen Akademie der Wissenschaften, vol. 67 , Vienna 1871, pp. 7-48.} But precisely the two premises we have cited remain as scientific prejudices. Introduction II of the Critique of Pure Reason states: "Experience teaches us that something is of one kind or another, but not that it cannot be otherwise" and: "Experience never gives its judgments true or strict, but only assumed and comparative generality (by induction)." In Prolegomena paragraph 1 we find: "First, as to the sources of metaphysical knowledge: it is already in their concept that they cannot be empirical. The principles of it (which include not only its principles, but also its basic concepts) must therefore never be taken from experience, for it is not meant to be physical, but metaphysical knowledge, i.e. knowledge that lies beyond experience." Finally, Kant says in the Critique of Pure Reason (p. 58): "First of all, it must be noted that mathematical propositions proper are always judgments a priori and not empirical, because they entail necessity, which cannot be taken from experience. But if this is not to be conceded, well then, I restrict my proposition to pure mathematics, whose concept already implies that it does not contain empirical, but merely pure knowledge a priori." We may open the Critique of Pure Reason wherever we like, and we shall find that all the investigations within it are conducted on the assumption of these dogmatic propositions. Cohen ^{10Kant's Theory of Experience p. 90 ff.} and Stadler ^{11Die Grundsatze der reinen Erkenntnistheorie in der Kantschen Philosophie p. 76 f.} attempt to prove that Kant has demonstrated the a priori nature of mathematical and purely scientific propositions. But everything that is attempted in the Critique can be summarized in the following: Because mathematics and pure natural science are a priori sciences, therefore the form of all experience must be grounded in the subject. There remains, therefore, only the material of sensations, which is empirically given. This is built up into the system of experience by the forms lying in the mind. The formal truths of the a priori theories have meaning and significance only as organizing principles for the material of sensation; they make experience possible, but do not extend beyond it. These formal truths, however, are the synthetic judgments a priori, which, as conditions of all possible experience, must therefore reach as far as experience itself. The Critique of Pure Reason therefore does not prove the a priori nature of mathematics and pure natural science, but only determines their area of validity under the presupposition that their truths are to be obtained independently of experience. Indeed, Kant is so reluctant to accept a proof of this a priori that he simply excludes that part of mathematics (see above, p. 29, lines 26 f.) in which it could, even in his view, be doubted, and restricts himself only to that part in which he believes he can deduce it from the mere concept. Johannes Volkelt also finds that "Kant proceeds from the explicit presupposition" that "there is indeed a general and necessary knowledge". He goes on to say: "This presupposition, never explicitly examined by Kant, is so at odds with the character of critical epistemology that one must seriously question whether the Critique of Pure Reason may be considered a critical theory of knowledge." Although Volkelt finds that this question can be answered in the affirmative for good reasons, "the critical stance of Kant's theory of knowledge is nevertheless thoroughly disturbed by this dogmatic presupposition". ^{12Experience and Thought p. 21} Enough, Volkelt also finds that the Critique of Pure Reason is not an epistemology without presuppositions.

[ 7 ] The views of O. Liebmann, Hölders, Windelbands, Überweg, Ed. v. Hartmann ^{13Liebmann, Analysis p. 211 ff. are also essentially in agreement with ours, Hölder, Erkenntnistheorie p. 14 ff, Windelband, Phasen p. 239, Überweg, System der Logik p. 380 f., Hartmann, Kritische Grundlegung p.142-172.} and Kuno Fischer's ^{14Geschichte der neueren Philosophie VB. With regard to Kuno Fischer, Volkelt is mistaken when he says (Kant's Epistemology 5.198 f. note) that it is "not clear from K. Fischer's account whether, in his view, Kant presupposes only the psychological factuality of general and necessary judgments or at the same time the objective validity and lawfulness of the same". For in the passage quoted, Fischer says that the main difficulty of the Critique of Pure Reason is to be found in the fact that its "foundations are dependent on certain presuppositions", "which one must have conceded in order to allow the following to be valid". For Fischer, these preconditions are also the fact that "first the fact of knowledge" is established and then, through analysis, the cognitive faculties are found "from which that fact itself is explained".} in relation to the fact that Kant places the a priori validity of pure mathematics and the theory of nature as a presupposition at the head of his discussions.

[ 8 ] That we really have insights that are independent of all experience, and that the latter only provide insights of comparative generality, we could only accept as corollaries of other judgments. These assertions would necessarily have to be preceded by an investigation of the nature of experience and of the nature of our cognition. From the former the first, from the latter the second of the above propositions could follow.

[ 9 ] Now one could reply to our objections to the critique of reason as follows. One could say that every theory of knowledge must first lead the reader to where the unconditional starting point is to be found. For what we possess as knowledge at any point in our lives has moved far away from this starting point, and we must first be artificially led back to it. Indeed, such a purely didactic understanding of the beginning of his science is a necessity for every epistemologist. But this must in any case be limited to showing to what extent the beginning of cognition in question really is such; it would have to proceed in purely self-evident analytical propositions and not make any real substantive assertions that influence the content of the following discussions, as is the case with Kant. It is also incumbent on the epistemologist to show that the beginning he assumes is really unconditional. But all this has nothing to do with the nature of this beginning itself, is quite outside it, says nothing about it. Even at the beginning of mathematics lessons I must endeavor to convince the pupil of the axiomatic character of certain truths. But no one will want to assert that the content of the axioms is made dependent on these preliminary considerations. ^{15In Chapter IV: The Starting Points of Epistemology,} we show to what extent we proceed in exactly the same way with our own epistemological considerations. In his introductory remarks, the epistemologist would have to show in exactly the same way how one can arrive at a beginning without presuppositions; but the actual content of this must be independent of these considerations. But he who, like Kant, makes assertions of a very definite, dogmatic character at the beginning, is in any case far removed from such an introduction to the theory of knowledge.