The Gathering of Reason: Second Edition

CHAPTER II. THE TRANSCENDENTAL DIALECTIC

Let me proceed now to the duplex interpretation of the focal text, the Transcendental Dialectic. To the space of such interpretation belongs the horizon explicit in the text itself; I have thematized this horizon as the problem of metaphysics. Furthermore, the space of such interpretation prescribes that the conceptuality and even the style of the interpretation be shaped to the traditional conceptuality with which this horizon, enclosing the entire text, is infused. Indeed, the commentary which such interpretation will generate is eventually to be taken up into the projective interpretation, that is, projected upon the horizon that has been assembled, the horizon constituted by the issue of gathering. But the commentary has first to be prepared, and methodological clarity requires that this preparation be kept distinct from the projective interpretation. 1. TRANSCENDENTAL ILLUSION (A 293/B 349–A 299/B 355) The Transcendental Dialectic belongs to the Transcendental Doctrine of Elements. Specifically, it constitutes that part of the transcendental analysis devoted to distinguishing those elements which seem to supply purely rational knowledge without actually doing so, those semblant elements which thus generate transcendental illusion. It is not, however, from this partition of the Transcendental Doctrine of Elements that Kant begins, but rather from that other major division that cuts across it, the division into Transcendental Aesthetic and Transcendental Logic. The Transcendental Dialectic constitutes the Second Division of the Transcendental Logic. At the beginning of the CHAPTER II The transcendental dialectic 39 Transcendental Logic, where Kant develops the concept of such a logic in contrast to general logic, he characterizes transcendental logic as excluding from its purview, not all content (as does general logic), but merely all empirical content. Transcendental logic thus deals with “the rules of the pure thought of an object” (A 55/B 80). Its first part, the Transcendental Analytic, deals with this matter in a primarily positive way: It exhibits the elements of the pure thought of an object and establishes their character as such by reference to the possibility of experience. The second part, the Transcendental Dialectic, is primarily negative: Kant characterizes it as a critique of dialectical illusion. Also, he indicates that it takes the form of a critique of reason with respect to that kind of employment by which such illusion is generated (cf. A 63/B 88). The Introduction to the Transcendental Dialectic develops these preliminary indications. In the first of the two parts of this Introduction Kant undertakes to delimit the sense of “dialectical illusion” or, as he now calls it, “transcendental illusion.” He indicates first the sense which “illusion” (“Schein”) as such is to be taken to have, a procedure required by the fact that the word “Schein” includes in its range of meaning the sense of “shine,” “look,” “appearance,” “semblance,” as well as that of “illusion”; the sense which Kant indicates for it corresponds closely to that of “illusion,” and so it is necessary for Kant to exclude the other senses. Yet, in doing so, he also determines positively the sense which the word is to have. Kant distinguishes illusion (Schein) from probability (Wahrscheinlichkeit ): Probability is a matter of insufficiently grounded truth, whereas illusion falls on the side of error. In contrast to probability, illusion is a matter of deception, of something which serves to lead us into error or hold us in it. Indeed, illusion has as its generic character: seeming to be true. But the seeming which specifically constitutes it is one which diverges from the truth rather than coinciding in content with it. Kant distinguishes illusion also from appearance (Erscheinung): Appearance is simply what is intuited in intuition, and in mere intuition there can be no truth or error, hence, no illusion.1 Rather, it is only in judgment, not in mere sense, that these are to be found: “Truth and error, therefore, and consequently also illusion as leading to error, are only to be found in judgment [Urteil], i.e., only in the relation of the object to our understanding” (A 293/B 350). This does not mean, however, that the locus of truth, error, and illusion is fully constituted by understanding 40 THE GATHERING OF REASON or thought. Understanding, taken alone, is no more capable of objective truth or error than are the senses: “Thus neither the understanding by itself (uninfluenced by another cause) nor the senses by themselves would fall into error” (A 294/B 350). The relevant locus lies rather in...