Immanuel Kant's Critique of Pure Reason — trans. F. Max Müller
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Transcendental Dialectic 269
(changeable) with the given case, and conclude that bodies therefore are changeable, we see that we have [p. 331] passed through a series of conditions (premisses) before we arrived at knowledge (conclusion). Every series, the exponent of which (whether of a categorical or hypothetical judgment) is given, can be continued, so that this procedure of reason leads to ratiocinatio polysyllogistica, a series of conclusions which, either on the side of the conditions {per prosy llogismos) or of the conditioned {per episyllogismos)^ may be continued indefinitely.
It is soon perceived, however, that the chain or series of prosyllogisms, that is, of knowledge deduced on the side of reasons or conditions of a given knowledge, in other words, the ascending series of syllogisms, must stand in a very different relation to the faculty of reason from that of the descending series, that is, of the progress of reason on the side of the conditioned, by means of episyllogisms. For, as in the former case the knowledge embodied in the conclusion is given as conditioned only, it is impossible to arrive at it by means of reason in any other way except under the supposition at least that all the members of the series on the side of the conditions are given (totality in the series of premisses), because it is under that supposition only that the contemplated judgment ^/r/^n is possible; while on the side of the conditioned, or of the inferences, we can only think [p. 332] of a growing series, not of one presupposed as complete or given, that is, of a potential progression only. Hence, when our knowledge is considered as conditioned, reason is constrained to look upon the series of conditions in the ascending line as complete, and given in their totality. But if the same knowledge is looked upon at the same
270 Transcendental Dialectic time as a condition of other kinds of knowledge, which constitute among themselves a series of inferences in a descending line, it is indifferent to reason how far that progression may go a parte posteriori, or whether a totality of the series is possible at all, because such a series is not required for the conclusion in hand, which is sufficiently determined and secured on grounds a parte priori. Whether the series of premisses on the side of the conditions have a something that stands first as the highest condition, or whether it be without limits a parte priori^ it must at all events contain a totality of conditions, even though we should never succeed in comprehending it ; and the whole series must be unconditionally true, if the conditioned, which is considered as a consequence resulting from it, is to be accepted as true. This is a demand of reason which pronounces its knowledge as determined a priori and as necessary, either in itself, and in that case it requires no reasons, or, if derivative, as a member of a series of reasons, which itself is unconditionally true.
TRANSCENDENTAL DIALECTIC
[p- 333]
BOOK I
Third Section
System of Transcendental Ideas
We are not at present concerned with logical Dialectic, which takes no account of the contents of knowledge, and has only to lay bare the illusions in the form of syllogisms.
Transcendental Dialectic 271
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