Canadian Journal of Philosophy

Kant's Criticism of Metaphysics by W. H. Walsh Review by: D. P. Dryer Canadian Journal of Philosophy, Vol. 7, No. 2 (Jun., 1977), pp. 413-423 Published by: Canadian Journal of Philosophy Stable URL: http://www.jstor.org/stable/40230699 . Accessed: 30/09/2013 16:27
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CANADIAN JOURNAL OF PHILOSOPHY Volume VII, Number 2, June 1977

CRITICAL NOTICE

KANT'S CRITICISMOF METAPHYSICS. By W. H. Walsh. Edinburgh, Edinburgh University Press; Rowman and Littlefield, Totowa, New Jersey: 1975. Pp. 265. $14.50. More books have been written on Kant than on any other modern philosopher, and more of these have been on the first Critique than on any of Kant'sother works. It may be wondered what distinctively W. H. Walsh has to add. In Kant's Criticism of Metaphysics Walsh gives an exposition and assessment of almost all sub-sections of the Critique of Pure Reason from beginning right through to the end. In exposition, he aptly throws light on occasion from other of Kant'swritings. In his assessments, he examines alternatives to Kant's approaches to his problems. One of the most remarkable features of Walsh's achievement is that he has done all of this within about one hundred thousand words. Walsh writes in a felicitous style, appealing to the general reader. His book should prove a helpful companion for students embarking on the Critique. His interpretations will also interest those already well acquainted with the Critique. The fault with most works on the Critique, as Walsh himself aptly puts it, is that 'those that are scholarly are not philosophically satisfying, whilst those which are philosophically stimulating tend to take too cavalier an attitude to the difficulties of Kant'stext.' One merit of Walsh's work is the degree to which he avoids both shortcomings. The defects I find in his book are the respects in which he has not avoided these faults. Most of his assessments of Kant have an oldfashioned air. They would have carried greater punch had Walsh examined how other philosophers, especially today, cope with the questions at issue. Yet Walsh could have done little of this without sacrificing his commendable brevity. His work would also have been much more stimulating philosophically had he used far greater care and penetration in setting forth, albeit succinctly, Kant's arguments. Only when this is done can we find what is to be learned from Kant and where we can be assured that Kant has gone astray. Walsh's book is not

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D. P. Dryer

the best that has ever been done on the Critique of Pure Reason. In spite of its shortcomings, it is not easy to think of any work dealing with the Critique in its entirety, in English or any other language, which is better than Walsh's. It is my duty as a reviewer to mention a few of the defects I find in Walsh's handling of Kant. If some of them are put severely Walsh has no cause to complain since they are no more severe than criticisms he makes of Kant. No one disputes that the chief positive achievements of the Critique of Pure Reason lie in the Analytic of Principles. The least a brief treatment of this portion of the Critique can offer is a clarification of what each of the eight principles affirms and a summary of Kant's argument for each. In both respects Walsh's treatment is disappointing. Walsh reports Kant's contention that any determinate space or time can be represented by 'successive addition of part to part'; he does not mention how Kant holds we may be assured of this. He next mentions that objects of empirical intuition have 'spatial and temporal characteristics'; he leaves it in the dark how these considerations establish that they must have extensive magnitude. Walsh finds it obscure why Kant thinks that this principle assures the applicability of arithmetical truths to such objects. For this he might have developed, as an example, that if one room is ranked in magnitude as six, another as three, but their magnitudes were not extensive, the arithmetical truth that six is twice three would not warrant taking the first room to have twice the length of the second. In regard to the second Principle, that any quality of a perceptible object must be present in it to a certain degree, it is odd that Walsh should take over a page and a half expounding 'the argument' for it, only to conclude by asking 'what grounds there are for accepting it'. Kant sees these first two Principles as determining what must hold of things for them to be perceptible objects, the next three, the Analogies, as determining what must hold of them to obtain from perceptions knowledge of how they exist in time. Although Walsh and elsewhere admits a difference between seeing something attaining empirical knowledge of it, he dismisses Kant's characterization of what is distinctive of the Analogies, claiming that it applies to all the Principles of the Analytic. I see no basis for this claim, nor for his further claim that the Analogies are concerned with how we sort out among our empirical judgments which are correct, with 'arriving at how things are, as opposed to how they seem to each of us individually'; that each of the three is concerned in turn with how 'we can distinguish real from apparent duration, real from apparent succession, real from apparent coexistence.' In behalf of the First Analogy Walsh reports Kant's familiar argument that a substance cannot be known to have ceased to exist:

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Critical Notice of Walsh

that anything has ceased to exist can be determined only by ascertaining empirically that something that has continued to exist has lost certain attributes. Walsh rightly attaches importance to Kant's remark that 'if some substances could cease to exist, the empirical unity of time would be lost.' This remark merits further examination. What Walsh does not bring out is why Kant thinks that empirical knowledge has any need for the concept of substance in the first place. In the First Analogy Kant argues that from the various matters presented to observations no knowledge of coexistence or succession can be got unless they are attributed to substances that last. Walsh omits what the Principle requires for knowledge of coexistence and treats it as dealing not with succession but with change. He interprets the First Analogy as affirming that in all changes that which changes is a substance which lasts. He thereby replaces the synthetic principle with which Kant is concerned with an analytic proposition. Kant, however, points out that by that which changes is understood that which differs in some respect at one time from another. Whatever changes therefore lasts; any respects in which it changes are attributes it loses or acquires; and it in turn can be thought as existing only as that to which they pertain, as substance. Kant reminds us that the proposition that in all changes that which changes is a substance which lasts is analytic. It is also an analytic truth that there is no change without succession; but it is not part of what is understood by a succession that it be a change in a substance that lasts. As Kant himself points out (B233), what he claims to establish in the First Analogy is that no succession (Wechsel) in existence can be known without knowing of a change (Veranderung). Thereby he can then establish, in conjunction with analysis of the concept of change, that no succession in existence can be known without knowing of substances that last. Knowledge of the existence of different matters following one upon another cannot be got without being presented empirically with different matters. But the different matters with which one is presented may be but features of different objects existing simultaneously. They enable one to know of a succession only if taken as a difference in something between one time and another; that to which they are attributed m ust then be taken as changing in respect of them. This basic argument of the First Analogy Walsh finds too 'elusive' to mention. Walsh takes it as an 'empty tautology that nothing could be now unless it were also appropriate to described as happening else as having happened in the past.' Kant, describe something is however, reminds us that by an event all that is understood something's coming into existence. Far from it being a tautology that something else must have previously existed, Kant points out (B229) that this is a synthetic proposition, part of what the First Analogy establishes. Walsh says that the Second Analogy is concerned with the

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'objective succession of events'; elsewhere that it is concerned with how an event 'gets a definite date'. This is not how Kant sees it. An event is itself a succession. Since the First Analogy sets forth what is required for knowing both of coexistence and of succession, it needs to be supplemented by the Second Analogy, to set forth what is distinctively required for knowing that something is happening at all. Various interpretations of Kant's argument for the Second Analogy continue to be offered. It is difficult to discover in Walsh any presentation at all of Kant's argument. The last three of the Principles of the Analytic, the Postulates, Walsh construes as stating 'what it means to say' that something possibly, actually, or necessarily exists. The Second Postulate he glosses as 'esse est percipiaut posse perci pi'. If Kant held this he would hold that it is not only unknowable but meaningless to say that God exists. Elsewhere Walsh recognizes that Kant rejects verificationism. He does not recognize that what the Postulates purport to set forth is what must hold of something for it to be known that it possibly, or actually, or necessarily exists. Walsh notices that Kant holds that the actual existence of something can be known if it can be inferred from what is observed. He gives no support for claiming that Kant however' holds that this can be known only if it is observed 'generally, or capable of being observed. Kant's powerful argument for what can be known to exist of necessity Walsh does not mention. In discussing the First Postulate Walsh occupies himself with how it is known empirically that it is possible for something to exist. He does not notice that Kant's main point here is instead that if it cannot be known empirically that it is possible for something to exist, this can be known a priori only if it can be shown that the concept of it is either required for the possibility of empirical knowledge - as set forth by the previous principles of the Aesthetic and the Analytic - or derivative from them.

Let me turn back to Walsh's treatment of the portion of the Critique leading up to the Analytic of Principles. Kant notes that some philosophers have argued that the world must have infinite extent, availing themselves of the principle that whatever exists must have extensive magnitude. Some have argued that there must exist an allperfect being, availing themselves of the principle that there must be some cause for whatever happens to exist. Kant contends that neither conclusions in theology and cosmology northeontological principles used in reaching them can be known to be true. Instead of the latter what can be established are the eight Principles of the Analytic. Kant supports this by examining the character of the propositions by which metaphysical knowledge is sought. Their truth cannot be made out by

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Critical Notice of Walsh

conceptual analysis; nor can it be made out empirically, since they make claims as to what is necessarily so. Walsh raises objections of analytic against Kant's conception propositions and of synthetic a priori propositions. Whatever the effectiveness of other objections, Kant would be unmoved by those Walsh puts. Walsh claims that Kant's 'denial of the possibil ity of finding that only true definitions outside mathematics has the consequence in mathematics ... will it be possible to say unequivocally whether or not a proposition is analytic/ The mistake here is evident. Because a complete analysis has not been reached, this does not mean that no Walsh also repeats the common analysis has been achieved. verificationist objection that because a synthetic a priori proposition is tested in a different way from one that is analytic, its necessity is of a different kind. Parity of reasoning would require within logic a kind of necessity for formulas of general quantification different from that for formulas of the propositional calculus, for which a mechanical test is available. For Kant, synthetic a priori propositions do not differ from analytic in the necessity with which they are thought. The problem they pose is that what is thought with necessity by them cannot be assured of in the manner what is thought by analytic propositions can. Kant's solution is that since they cannot be verified directly, such propositions can be made out to be true of things only by showing that what they ascribe to them must hold of them for it to be possible to attain knowledge of them directly. Accordingly the most that can be achieved by such propositions is a knowledge of things of which empirical knowledge can be had. Walsh commits himself to holding that if a synthetic a priori proposition is certified by recourse to 'the possibility of experience', it will provide only a principle for obtaining empirical knowledge, but of things. He contends that the not also furnish any knowledge in the Analytic 'must not be to establish which Kant claims Principles taken as descriptive of the world. ... Rather they operate ... licensing certain moves in the search for particular knowledge.' Surely 'Every event must have a cause' not only licenses seeking a cause; it is also descriptive of events, even though it does not specify for any event what its cause is. Similarly 'Pierre Trudeau is married' does not fail to tell something about Pierre Trudeau because it does not tell who his wife is. Elsewhere in repeating his contention that these Principles 'are not properly described as truths about the world', Walsh unwittingly abandons it a few lines later, in saying, 'things need not have been constituted along these lines.' Although Walsh gives an extended discussion of transcendental arguments, he never comes to the heart of the matter. He cannot avoid mentioning Kant's contention that no synthetic a priori proposition can be made out to be true without recourse to 'the possibility of

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But nowhere does Walsh present or discuss Kant's experience'. argument for this principle, in spite of its being one of the most central principles of the Critique. Since empirical knowledge is knowledge of things obtained from observations of them, Kant first inquires in the Aesthetic what is necessary for obtaining any empirical intuitions. No one is enabled to be immediately aware of his states of consciousness without being aware of their coming one after another. No one is enabled to be immediately aware of what is other than a state of his consciousness without being aware of what presents itself in space. Kant argues that since the possibility of things presenting themselves as objects to empirical intuition is dependent on their presenting themselves in space or time, and since empirical concepts in turn are dependent on empirical intuitions, the representations of space and time are not empirical concepts; and that the basic representations of them are not conceptual at all, si nee particular spaces and times can be represented only as parts, not as instances, of them. Although Walsh duly gives an exposition of the Aesthetic, he leaves it aside when he comes to the Analytic. Walsh rightly urges that any argument for a synthetic a priori principle is defective if it rests on any premises which are not a priori. He proceeds to contend, 'this requirement is not met in the case of Kant's transcendental proofs. ...In the second Analogy, for example, ... an important aspect of experience is thus alleged to be bound up with the operation of the causal principle. But how do we know that this aspect of experience will persist? May it not be the case that we wake up tomorrow and find that we no longer have the ability in question? ... Unfortunately this is a difficulty which Kant nowhere discusses.' The obvious answer to Walsh's example is that Kant's argument as to what is necessary if men are to know of what is happening does not presuppose that men are in fact able to attain such knowledge. Kant urges that no synthetic a priori proposition can be made out to be true of things except by showing that what it attributes to them must hold of them for it to be possible to attain empirical knowledge of them. Walsh is quite correct that this principle would be of no avail if it were not possible to ascertain a priori what must hold of things for empirical knowledge to be had of them. One serious omission of Walsh's is his giving no account of Kant's argument for this principle. Another equally serious omission is his failure to deal with how Kant holds that it can be ascertained a priori what must hold of things for empirical knowledge to be got of them. While Walsh rightly mentions that an argument for a synthetic a priori proposition is defective if it rests on any premises that are not a priori, he forgets to add that it is equally defective if it rests exclusively on analytic premises. The first of these two difficulties, which Walsh does raise, is indeed one with which he himself is faced. For one of his strangest contentions is that 'the

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Critical Notice of Walsh

arguments of the Transcendental Analytic can be presented independently of those of the Aesthetic/ But it is simply not correct to say that 'this is a difficulty which Kant nowhere discusses/ As far as I can see Walsh nowhere alludes to the chief conclusion Kant draws from the Aesthetic for the Critique as a whole (B73), in which he faces this difficulty - namely, that no synthetic a priori proposition can be made out to be true without some recourse to pure intuition. Walsh also upbraids Kant for not facing up to the question, 'How is critical philosophy possible?', as well as to the question, 'How is metaphysics possible?' Here at least is one occasion on which Kant does face up to this question. He simply puts it that if a judgment is synthetic its truth cannot be made out by conceptual analysis; it cannot be made out without recourse to intuition. If it is also a priori its truth cannot be made out by empirical intuition; it cannot be made out without recourse to pure intuition. If we push Kant further on the grounds for this principle, he himself reminds Eberhard in his reply to him that if we scrutinize the considerations on which it rests we are readily assured that this principle is itself an analytic truth. This basic principle is ever to be borne in mind in assessing Kant arguments for each of the Principles of the Analytic. that 'the arguments of the Transcendental By his contention can be of those of the Aesthetic' Analytic presented independently Walsh not only places himself in the difficulty of how any synthetic a of his were priori principle could be reached. If this contention correct, the first of the eight principles, having to do with extensive magnitude, could be set forth without mention of space or time and the three Analogies of Experience could be set forth without reference to time. Walsh nowhere shows how he proposes to reconstruct the arguments of the Analytic independently of the Aesthetic. Even within the Analytic Walsh has no use for what Kant takes as the 'Clue to the Discovery' of categories. Kant urges that by a cause of something is understood that in consequence of which it exists and that what distinguishes a hypothetical judgment is that by it one matter is thought to be a consequence of another. He urges that thinking what pertains to what is that which is distinctive of a categorical judgment, and that what is understood by a substance is that which exists only as subject, only as that to which other matters pertain. Points such as these Walsh dismisses by saying that Kant's that there is a special connection between forms of 'pretence judgment and categories is entirely hollow.' What appeals to Walsh in the Analytic is Kant's 'playing up the notion of judgment'. Having sheared off both the Aesthetic and the categories, if Walsh were to reconstruct the Analytic to his own liking, it is hard to see how he would be left with anything but the conclusion that any thinking what is so is judging. If I knew the Bradley of Appearance and Reality better,

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I should be tempted to say that Walsh sees Kant through the eyes of Bradley. This is further suggested by the way in which Walsh construes Kant's thesis that no knowledge can be had of how things are in themselves. Kant's thesis that no knowledge can be had of how things but only of things in so far as they present are in themselves, themselves to empirical intuition, Walsh regularly interprets as the twofold thesis that no knowledge can be had of reality and can be had only of appearance. I find Walsh offering no support whatever for either part of his interpretation. Kant does not deny that in regard to an object of the senses, a distinction is to be drawn between how it appears and how it really is and with this a distinction between knowledge of how it appears and of how it really is. Kant argues that were it not for regularities the senses alone can disclose this distinction could not be drawn. Since the senses enable this distinction to be drawn, this rules out that the senses can disclose only how things appear. Moreover, far from holding that no knowledge can be got empirically of what is real, Kant holds that it is only thereby that such knowledge can be directly got. It is because of this that he argues (B196) that a priori knowledge can be achieved of what is real only by reckoning with what must hold of things to achieve knowledge of them by empirical intuition. For this reason metaphysics can attain knowledge of things only is so far as they are possible objects of empirical knowledge. Walsh is not unaware that Kant takes account of the empirical distinction between appearance and reality. He offers no support for his claim that Kant 'distinguishes reality and appearance at both levels/ In specifying the limits of empirical knowledge, Kant does not avail himself of the distinction between appearance and reality that Walsh attributes to him. The distinction he draws is between as objects of empirical intuition things (Erscheinungen) (B34) and things in themselves. Kant remarks that the terminology employed in this distinction some also use in making the empirical distinction between how a thing appears and how it really is (B62); but he denies that the terminology appropriate for drawing the latter distinction is suited for drawing the former (B69). It might seen innocuous for Walsh to adopt the translation of Erscheinung as 'appearance'. It becomes misinterpretation to do so when 'appearance' is taken in that sense it bears in the contrast, 'appearance and reality.' Kant does not for a moment think that the distinction he draws supports his thesis that in getting knowledge of things as objects of empirical intuition men fail to get a knowledge of how they are in themselves. Since Walsh garbles the distinction used by Kant in putting this thesis, it is hard to know whether he understands what he is rejecting when he professes to reject this thesis. I nowhere find him giving an inkling of Kant's

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Critical Notice of Walsh

argument for this thesis. All I find is Walsh making remarks such as 'space and time are the forms of all our intuition, and thus as it were stand as a barrier between us and independent reality/ Although thesis and antithesis m each of the four cosmological antinomies appear to be contradictories, Kant claims to resolve them by showing that both are false, because both share a presupposition that is false. Walsh's discussion of the solution to them deserves special attention. Elsewhere he presents it a greater length.1 The state in which things in the world at present exist depends on the state in which things existed in the immediate past. The state in which things then existed depends in turn on the state in which they were immediately before then. The antithesis of the first antinomy holds that the world cannot have had a beginning in time. The thesis objects that if it had none it would not exist at all. Kant makes it clear that the thesis does not support its objection by holding that there is of an infinite time or the anything wrong with the conception of an infinite series. The series of natural numbers is conception infinite. It is not possible to reach it by adding to any continuous portion of it the next higher number, and to it in turn the next. All that it is possible to reach by adding a further number is a greater finite series of natural numbers. Similarly the thesis argues that had the world no beginning in time an infinite series of past states, each after another, would have to have been coming immediately in the present state. It holds that this would order to reach completed, be impossible, just as it would be impossible for the infinite series of natural numbers to be reached by addition. The thesis is not appealing to the impossibility of an infinite series. Here and in the other antinomies the thesis is appealing to the incompatibility in regarding a series as such that a greater series can be got by adding another member to it and also to regarding it as infinite. Accordingly the thesis concludes that the world must have had a beginning. The antithesis objects that had it a beginning in time, there would have to be something distinguishing that portion of time immediately before it began, in order for it to have begun just when it did rather than at some other time; but there can be nothing to distinguish one empty time from another. So the antithesis concludes that the world could not have had a beginning.

'The Structure Congress

of Kant's Antinomies',

Proceedings

of the 1974 Ottawa

Kant

(forthcoming).

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According to Walsh, Kant holds in the Critique that the common presupposition of both thesis and antithesis in the first and in all four antinomies is transcendental realism: both assume that in getting empirical knowledge of things existing in space and time, men are obtaining a knowledge of how they are in themselves. Walsh does not explain how Kant makes use of this to resolve the antinomies. He thinks he can provide a resolution only by supplementing this with a further presupposition he ferrets out, but which Kant does not explicitly mention. The arguments of the antinomies can be rephrased to make more conspicuous the common presupposition Walsh claims to discover. The antithesis of the second antinomy maintains that no things exist in the world that are not composite. The thesis objects that a thing that is composite would not exist did not the things of which it is composed exist. They in turn would not exist were it not for their parts. If this series of decomposition never reached parts that are not composite, there would never be that which is sufficient for the existence of things that are composite, so no things whatever would exist in the world. The antithesis of the third antinomy affirms that any state in the world originates only through natural causality, only in accord with laws of nature from an antecedent state that has itself come about. The thesis objects that if this were so, any state's coming into being would be not only on that change which preceded it but also on dependent what brought about that change, and on that in turn that brought it about, and so on; if this series did not terminate in some change brought about by a causality not determined by something antecedent to it, it would not be sufficient to bring any state into being. The antithesis objects that if there were that which exercised a causality not determined by anything in its previous state, there would be no cause for its initiating a series of changes at one time rather than another; so that any state supposed to be brought about by a series of changes initiated by such a causality would be a state for which there was no time at which any series of changes would be sufficient to bring it about. Despite the different matters each antinomy is about, the thesis in each objects to the antithesis that the matter in question would not exist unless there exists a series of conditions that is sufficient for it, that it is not sufficient unless it is complete, and that it is not complete if there does not exist a last member to it. In each antinomy the antithesis objects to the thesis that the series is not sufficient unless it is complete, and it is not complete if if has a last member, a member for which there is no condition. This renders plausible Walsh's diagnosis that both thesis and antithesis presuppose what Walsh here calls the 'Principle of Sufficient Reason'. This Principle both 'demands' and 'precludes' that there be a last member of the series of conditions.

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Critical Notice of Walsh

Walsh urges that because of this, this Principle is self-inconsistent, and that it is because it is presupposed by both thesis and antithesis that both are false. I find Walsh's diagnosis suggestive but unsatisfactory. If both principle, then thesis and antithesis are presuppose a self-inconsistent If both are false not merely both false; each is also self-inconsistent. the of the because of self-inconsistency 'Principle of Sufficient simply Walsh fails to make good his Reason' they both presuppose, contention that Kant is right in invoking transcendental realism as a why both are false. No argument against partial explanation transcendental realism can then be drawn from the antinomies. Since Walsh construes what he calls the 'Principle of Sufficient Reason' as it must be regarded as a complex principle, a self-inconsistent, of two incompatible components. In order to account for conjunction what differentiates thesis from antithesis, Walsh holds that the thesis takes the 'Principle of Sufficient Reason' as demanding a last member for the series of conditions, the antithesis as excluding any. In taking one this step Walsh is now holding that the thesis presupposes of the principle, the antithesis the other component. component Walsh hereby brings us back to the situation with which the He fails to discover a false antinomies originally confront us. by both sides by which to resolve the proposition presupposed antinomies. Walsh does not discuss the resolution Kant himself offers for the antinomies. Kant urges that the immediate condition upon which is dependent the matter with which each antinomy is concerned can be found out only empirically. So also for the condition of that condition. A series of conditions upon which a given matter is dependent can be discovered, but Kant argues that the manner in which each condition can become known prevents anything being known of the completion of the series. Each of the four antinomies arises because both thesis and antithesis assume that something can be truly affirmed of the totality of the series (B444, B525, B528, B534). The thesis affirms that there exists a series of conditions having finitely many members, the antithesis that it has infinitely many members. There are finitely many books in my study. There are infinitely many natural numbers. This is not to say that each book is finitely many or that each natural number is infinitely many. 'Finitely many' and infinitely many' are predicated only of a totality. Kant contends that since the series in each antinomy is such that nothing can be truly affirmed of the totality of it, it is false to affirm that it is finite and false to affirm that it is infinite (B533).2 D. P. DRYER, University of Toronto September 1976
2 See further 'Bennett's Account of the Transcendental Dialectic', Dialogue, 15, pp. 125ff.

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