Immanuel Kant's Critique of Pure Reason — trans. F. Max Müller

Of these dialectical syllogisms of reason there are therefore three classes only, that is as many as the ideas to which their conclusions lead. In the syllogism [p. 340] of the Jirst class, I conclude from the transcendental concept of the subject, which contains nothing manifold, the absolute unity of the subject itself, of which however I have no concept in this regard. This dialectical syllogism I shall call the transcendental /^r(^/<?^/>;;/.

The second class of the so-called sophistical syllogisms aims at the transcendental concept of an absolute totality in the series of conditions to any given phenomenon ; and I conclude from the fact that my concept of the unconditioned synthetical unity of the series is always selfcontradictory on one side, the correctness of the opposite unity, of which nevertheless I have no concept either. The state of reason in this class of dialectical syllogisms, I shall call the a7itinomy of pure reason.

Lastly, according to the thii^d class of sophistical syllogisms, I conclude from the totality of conditions, under which objects in general, so far as they can be given to me, must be thought, the absolute synthetical unity of all conditions of the possibility of things in general ; that is to say, I conclude from things which I do not know accordTi^anscendental Dialectic 277 ing to their mere transcendental ^ concept, a Being of all beings, which I know still less through a transcendental concept, and of the unconditioned necessity of which I can form no concept whatever. This dialectical syllogism of reason I shall call the ideal of pure reason.

^ Transcendent is a misprint.

TRANSCENDENTAL DIALECTIC

[p. 341]

BOOK II CHAPTER I

OF THE PARALOGISMS OF PURE REASON

The logical paralogism consists in the formal faultiness of a conclusion, without any reference to its contents. But a transcendental paralogism arises from a transcendental cause, which drives us to a formally false conclusion. Such a paralogism, therefore, depends most likely on the very nature of human reason, and produces an illusion which is inevitable, though not insoluble.

We now come to a concept which was not inserted in our general list of transcendental concepts, and yet must be reckoned with them, without however changing that table in the least, or proving it to be deficient. This is the concept, or, if the term is preferred, the judgment, / think. It is easily seen, however, that this concept, is the vehicle of all concepts in general, therefore of transcendental concepts also, being always comprehended among them, and being itself transcendental also, though without any claim to a special title, inasmuch as it serves only to introduce all thought, as belonging to conscious278

Transcendental Dialectic 279

ness. However free that concept may be from all that is empirical (impressions of the senses), it serves [p. 342] nevertheless to distinguish two objects within the nature of our faculty of representation. */, as thinking, am an object of the internal sense, and am called soul. That which is an object of the external senses is called body. The term /, as a thinking being, signifies the object of psychology, which may be called the rational science of the soul, supposing that we want to know nothing about the soul except what, independent of all experience (which determines the I more especially and iii concreto), can be deduced from the concept of I, so far as it is present in every act of thought.

Now the rational science of the soul is really such an undertaking ; for if the smallest empirical element of my thought or any particular perception of my internal state were mixed up with the sources from which that science derives its materials, it would be an empirical, and no longer a purely rational science of the soul. There is therefore a pretended science, founded on the single proposition of / think, and the soundness or unsoundness of which may well be examined in this place, according to the principles of transcendental philosophy. It should not be objected that even in that proposition, which expresses the perception of oneself, I have an internal experience, and that therefore the rational science of the soul, which is founded on it, can never be quite [p. 343] pure, but rests, to a certain extent, on an empirical principle. For this inner perception is nothing more than the mere apperception, / think, without which even all transcendental concepts would be impossible, in which we really say, I think the substance, I think the cause.

28o Transcendental Dialectic etc. This internal experience in general and its possibility, or perception in general and its relation to other perceptions, there being no special distinction or empirical determination of it, cannot be regarded as empirical knowledge, but must be regarded as knowledge of the empirical in general, and falls therefore under the investigation of the possibility of all experience, which investigation is certainly transcendental. The smallest object of perception (even pleasure and pain), if added to the general representation of self-consciousness, would at once change rational into empirical psychology.